The rockets continued to flare. Closer and closer to the outer shoals of the beach they beamed. The ship was swiftly and surely going to its doom.
Turning his face to the clouded heavens, and raising his voice in a final appeal, Uncle Ichabod prayed:
"God help the boys in such a surf."
At the point where the ship was making the distress signals, the coast offered only a narrow strip of sand, running from the Cape to Ocracoke Inlet—many miles to the northeast.
The old fisherman's face was ashen. There was nothing that he could do except stand and helplessly watch the final disaster. He realized that the craft was doomed. He was powerless to interfere, although in despair over this catastrophe before his very eyes. He turned away, and entered his little house, and tried to sleep. But he was wakeful, and found himself murmuring prayers for those who went down to the sea in ships.
CHAPTER II
Among the Breakers
Ordinarily, Captain Ichabod Jones enjoyed being crooned to sleep by the weird sounds of the winds as they beat about the corners of his cottage. Now, his mind was filled with a memory of last frantic cries uttered by men, women and children as their clinging hold was loosed from the derelict, the sturdy frame of which he had heard strike on the rocks, as she went to her grave in the sea. Now, he heard the clamors of despair, voiced in the shrieking of the gale. He tossed uneasily upon his bed, offering ever and anon a prayer to the God that rules mad waters to have mercy upon those even then fighting a last grim battle with death.
The first gray gleam of dawn showed a tinge of storm red, radiant and calm above the wildly tossing surges of the sea.