The wind came with a mighty sweep; the air-ship gave a backward tilt, fluttered for a moment like a bird in a storm—then shot down with sickening swiftness!
"His motor has stopped," the captain shouted, "and he's lost control! If he strikes the rocks he's done for!"
Down—down! They had one glimpse of Justin struggling to free himself; they saw him jump clear, and the big machine crashed on the beach.
It was the little captain who forced his boat to record speed, but it was Anthony who went over the side and through the breakers to where Justin lay prostrate, half in and half out of the water.
Wet and dripping the doctor bent over the boy, put his hand to his heart and felt it beating faintly, then looked at the broken body and said, unsteadily:
"There's only a slim chance of saving him. We must get him to Harbor Light."
The accident had been seen from the harbor, and as the captain's boat shot around the Point with its precious burden, it met other boats coming out to meet it, and orders were shouted back and forth, so that when the rescuers reached the pier, there was a car ready for that which had gone out full of life and strength and which had come back beaten and bruised.
The girls on the porch of the big hotel cried in each other's arms, hysterically, as the car passed, and talked of the way the young aviator had looked in the morning.
But far up in a tall old house, crowned by a cupola, was a girl who did not cry. She had seen the "Gray Gull" come down and had guessed at the catastrophe. She had fainted away quietly, and lay now on the floor by the window with all of her fair hair shaken over her still white face.