"We mus' build a fire on the Head ter light 'em," said the old man. "There hed oughter be a light'us here, but 's there ain't none, we mus' dew the bes' we kin,"
So saying, he harnessed the horse—almost as old as himself—and with the aid of the two women loaded the sled with dry wood and started with it to the cliff, while the mother and daughter followed behind as best they might, struggling to keep alive without being set on fire by the coals in the iron pot which they carried between them. It was a weary half mile, wind, spray and rain all contending against the feeble folk who had come out to help back to land and home the brave fellows who had gone to succor the distressed. They made all the more sure that this was the case, because Jim's new boat, the pride and joy of his life, was not to be found at the spot where he had only that day drawn, it high above the reach of even such a storm as this, ready for building over it on the morrow its winter house of pine-boughs and turf.
At last a fire was kindled; and leaving the women to watch it, old Stephen took several weary trips back to the cottage after fuel, making serious inroads upon a stock at the best not too large to meet the demands of the coming winter. The flame, fanned by the blast even more than dashed by the spray and rain, sprang upward, casting its ruddy lances of light backward over the sandy downs, destitute even then of tree or shrub to break the force of the gale, and forward over the frothing white tops and deep, black troughs of waves that seemed to the excited eyes of the watching women like so many separate fiends leaping upward and stretching out white hands to clutch helpless victims and hurry them to the hell beneath. And all the while the surf thundered at the foot of the trembling cliff. No form could be discovered through the darkness beyond the near neighborhood of the shore; and but for the flash of the gun, which was seen continually, though its sound was but seldom heard above the surf and the wind, the watchers would have thought there was no ship near.
By and by the rain ceased, but there was no moon, and impenetrable wind-clouds still hid the stars. Out through the blackness of the night the flame-light quivered in long, bright streams over the endless lines of ever-advancing waves, but revealed to the watchers no ship, no boat, no tokens even of wreck, only the ceaseless reaching upward of the beckoning white hands; and the wind bore no sound, save at intervals the dull distant boom of the cannon. But ever the solemn surf thundered on the beach below, and the sand-cliff trembled and crumbled beneath its resounding blows.
The old man, who, with a seaman's owl-like eyesight, kneeled intently gazing out through the darkness in the direction of the flash, suddenly exclaimed, "I don't un'erstan' it! That air ship hadn't oughter be in 'stress off where she is. She ain't on no shoal, nor nothin'. She's jest a-lyin' tew. An' I don't see no signs o' no boats nuther; an's fur's I kin see, them folks is a firin' off that air gun jest fur the musicalness on't. Blast 'em! Come, gals: we mought as well be walkin' along hum as ter stop a-yawpin' here in the wind an' spray, a-burnin' up the winter's kindlin' fur folks 'at's a-foolin' on us. 'Spesh'ly as I think she's a Britisher. Blast her!"
The old Quaker was not accustomed to use strong language of any sort, but evidently the human nature in him was so powerful in this instance that he could not help indulging in the most emphatic admissible invective.
But the mother and wife were not so easily satisfied. In their eyes the strange ship and all on board her were not of as much consequence as the unworthy missing Jim, whose fate they associated with it. Jim's boat, they said, was gone. No one could have taken her but Jim himself. He would never have put out on such a night as this save to go to the help of the distressed ship; and if he was on the water, the light burning on Sankota Head would guide him safely back. So, in the midst of spray and wind, the three kneeled on the cliff and kept the blaze alight till the rising dawn made it useless, when, to the dismay of the watchers, the ship hoisted sail and bore away. She showed no colors, but the old islander, once a whaler, declared that she was a British man-o'-war.
But where was Jim? The unanswering surf still boomed at the foot of the cliff, though the height of the waves was rapidly diminishing, and the water was gradually assuming the peculiarly bland expression that often comes after a storm, reminding one of the cat that has "eaten the canary," but there was no sign of incoming boat or men.
Chilled to the bone with the wind and cold sea-spray of the November night, and to the heart with sorrow and disappointment, the three returned to the lonely house. Running to meet them came Mary Allen, breathlessly crying, "Where's Eben and Jim?"
Poor Sarah could not answer, but the brave old mother, a veteran in sorrows, replied with trembling lips, "We don't know anythin' o' thy brother, Mary; an' Jim hain't b'en hum sence las' night. His boat's gone, an' we thought he might ha' went out to help the ship that was a-firin' all night. But she's sailed off this mornin' all right; an' father, he says she was a Britisher an' undly a-firin' ter fool us folks. So I don't know nothin' about it," uttering the last words in a drearily hopeless tone that gave them exceeding pathos.