I retired early, but sleep was out of the question, for the wind raged and howled around the house like wild wolves. About twelve o'clock the sound of a gun fell on my ears. I could not be mistaken, for the window rattled in sharp response.
I sprang from my couch and began to dress, and immediately after my aged relative entered the room. He looked younger and taller than I had seen him, but very serious.
"The yacht is on the Ba,"[2] he said, solemnly.
[2] Ba means a sunken rock.
They were words to me of fearful significance. The yacht, I knew, must soon break up, and nothing could save the crew.
I quickly followed my relative into the back drawing-room, where Maggie was with her mother. We gazed out into the night, out and across the sea. At the same moment, out there on the terrible Ba, a blue light sprang up, revealing the yacht and even its people on board. She was leaning well over to one side, her masts gone, and the spray dashing over her.
"Come!" cried Maggie, "there is no time to lose. We can guide their boat to the cave. Come, cousin!"
I felt dazed, thunderstruck. Was I to take active part in a forlorn hope? Was Maggie—how beautiful and daring she looked now!—to assume the rôle of a modern Grace Darling? So it appeared.
The events of that night come back to my memory now as if they had happened but yesterday. It is a page in my past life that can never be obliterated.
We pulled out of the fiord, Maggie and I, and up under lee of the island; then, on rounding the point, we encountered the whole force of the sea and wind. There was a glimmering light on the wrecked yacht, and for that we rowed, or rather were borne along on the gale. No boat, save a Shetland skiff, could have been trusted in such a sea.