“You all here?” asked Keeper Barney.
“All that started,” replied the captain. “Two men—they were passengers—left on a life–savin’ mattress. We told ’em to wait any way till daylight, but they said the tide was right and would drift ’em ashore and they’d risk it. They was fearful skittish lest the vessel might break up. Massy! The sea gobbled ’em up less than no time, is my ’pinion. They left some time ago.”
“Well, boys, I’ll have the beach patrolled, of course, and something may be seen of the men. Those whose watch it is are off already, and the rest of you pack up what things are here, and go back to the station, and Cook Charlie will have a hot breakfast ready for the men from the wreck, and for the rest too, soon as possible.”
While hot coffee and dry clothes were making every one comfortable at the station, it was Tom Walker, one of the surfmen out patrolling, that hurried into the living–room, startling the station crew with the announcement, “There’s a man in the Chair!”
If a rocket from some wreck at sea had come up through the floor of the station and made its hideous, fiery racket in the very midst of the station crew, a greater excitement could not have followed. Clinging to the jagged rocks at the Crescent, was some poor soul thrown up by the sea, piteously looking in helpless appeal to the houses not so very far away and yet separated from him by a channel of foaming wrath! Every surfman could seem to make out in his thoughts a pale face frantically appealing to him through the wild storm, and they began to dress again for their perilous work.
“Cap’n Barney,” said Tom Walker to the keeper, “if I may suggest it, I think we might get somewhere near him with our surf–boat. We couldn’t have touched the wreck, and can’t now, out there on Split Ledge, but we might get our boat up to the village and then launch her in the river, and so work her down toward the Chair. The tide has turned, and every moment, there is less water ’tween the Crescent and the shore, and that will help us.”
“Good idea, Tom,” replied the keeper. “And instead of getting horses, as it will take so much time, there are so many of us here and all will take hold, we can make better time to haul the boat–carriage ourselves. What say? It is a man’s life at stake.”
“Aye, aye!” was the deep, hearty chorus in response from all.
As the boat made its appearance in the village volunteers appeared also, who dragged heartily on the ropes of the carriage. It was a strange sight in the little village, that stormy morning, the lengthening file of rough, strong–handed men pulling on the rope of the carriage while the boys shouted away and thrust in their small hands wherever any chance for grasping the rope showed itself, and some of the women that came out hurriedly from their homes, their shawls pinned over their heads, also joined the procession. The water was reached and the boat launched.
When, manned by a stalwart crew,—volunteers from The Harbor taking the place of the absent patrols,—the boat moved off into the river, cheers arose from those on shore. But what about the man all this time in the Chair? Did he see the boat coming, and did he cheer also?