CHAPTER XXIII
FIGHTING FOR LIFE
Foot by foot they fought their way through the storm, conscious thatother hurrying forms passed them from time to time. Their minds werefixed upon one thing. They must get to Uncle Tom. He would be able totell them everything and perhaps let them know how they could help.
But they soon found that just getting to the lighthouse was a problem.Time and again they had to stop and turn their backs to the furious windin order to catch enough breath to fight their way on.
"Look!" Connie had shouted once, pointing toward the east. "It must bealmost morning. The sky is getting light."
As they hurried on they became more and more conscious that everybodyseemed to be heading in the same direction--toward the lighthouse.
"The shoal!" gasped Connie in Billie's ear. "The wind must have drivensome ship upon it, and in this gale----"
But she never finished the sentence, for at this minute they came outupon the Point where the lighthouse stood and stopped dead at the scenethat met their eyes.
The Point was black with people all gesticulating and pointing excitedlyout toward a great shape which, looming grayly against the liftingblackness of the sky, staggered and swayed like a drunken thing in thegrip of the gigantic foam-tipped waves.
"Oh," moaned Connie, "it's just as I thought! There's Uncle Tom. Come on,Billie." And she elbowed her way through the crowd to where Uncle Tomstood, his great height making him conspicuous among the other men,bawling out directions to the life-savers who were just making ready tolaunch their staunch little boats.
"Say, do you call this hurrying?" Uncle Tom was crying, his eyestraveling from the life-savers to the wreck and back again. "Don't yousee she's just hanging on by her eyelashes? Another sea like that and youwon't have a chance to save anybody. Good boys--that's the idea. Bendyour backs, my lads. God help you--and them!" he added under his breath,his eyes on the laboring vessel.
"Uncle Tom!" cried Connie, tugging at his arm, "have they got achance--those people out there? Have they?"
He glanced down at her for a moment, then his eyes sought the furioussea. He shook his head and his hands clenched tight at his sides.
"About one chance in a thousand," he muttered, more to himself than toher. "The Evil One's in the sea to-night. I never saw the like of it--butonce."
Then followed a struggle of human might against the will of theoverpowering elements--a struggle that the girls never forgot. On, on,fought the gallant men in the staunch little boats. On, on toward thequivering giant that hung on the edge of destruction--her fate the fateof all the lives on board.
The storm that had beaten her on to the treacherous shoal was now doingits best to loosen her hold upon it. And that hold was the one slenderthread that kept alive the hope of the passengers on board.
If the pounding waves once succeeded in pushing her back into the deeperwater of the channel, nothing could save her. The great hole ripped inher side by the impact with the shoal would fill with water, and in fiveminutes there would be nothing left but the swirling water to mark thespot where she had been.
And the passengers! At the thought Billie cried out aloud and clenchedher fists.
"Oh, oh, it can't be, it can't be! Those boats will never reach her intime. Oh, isn't there something somebody can do?" She turned pleadinglyto Uncle Tom, but the look on his face startled her and she followed hisset gaze out to sea.
"No, there isn't anything anybody can do--now," he said.
The storm had had its way at last. The elements had won. With a rendingof mighty timbers the tortured ship slid backward off the shoal and intothe deep waters of the channel.
"There she goes!"
"That's the last of that vessel!"
"I wonder if any of the folks on board got off safely."
"I couldn't see--the spray almost blinds a fellow."
Such were some of the remarks passed around as the ship on the shoalslipped slowly from view.
The girls clung to each other in an agony of suspense. Never had theydreamed that they would witness such a dreadful catastrophe as was nowunfolding before them.
"Oh, Billie, this is dreadful!" groaned Laura, her face white withterror.
"I can hardly bear to look at it," whimpered Vi. "Just think of thosepoor people! I am sure every one of them will be drowned."
"Some of them must have gotten away in the small boats," answered Billie.
"I didn't see any of the boats," protested Connie. "But, of course, youcan't see much of anything in such a storm as this."
"All we can do is to hope for the best," said Billie soberly.
"It's the worst thing I ever heard of," sighed Vi. "Why must we have suchstorms as this to tear such a big ship apart!"
A groan went up from the watchers, and many of them turned away. Theycould not see the end.
But the girls stared, fascinated, too dazed by the tragedy to turn theireyes away.
The life-savers, who had almost reached the ship, backed off a little,knowing that they could not help the passengers now and fearful of beingdrawn under by the suction themselves.
The great ship hesitated a moment, trembled convulsively through all herframe, then her stern reared heavenward as though protesting against herfate, and slowly, majestically, she sank from view beneath the swirlingwaters.
Then the girls did turn their eyes away, and blindly, sobbingly, theystumbled back through the crowd toward the lighthouse.
"Oh, Billie, Billie, they will all be drowned!" sobbed Laura. The tearswere running down her face unchecked. "Oh, what shall we do?"
"If they could only have held on just a few minutes more," said Vi,white-faced, "the life-savers would then have had a chance to have takenthem off."
"They may save some of them anyway," said Billie, her voice soundingstrange even to herself. "The life-savers will pick up anybody whomanages to get free of the wreck, you know."
"Yes; but Uncle Tom says that when a ship sinks like that it is hard tosave anybody," said Connie, twisting her handkerchief into a damp littleball. "Girls," she said, turning upon them eyes that were wide withhorror, "it makes me crazy to think of it. Out there, those people aredrowning!"
"Oh, don't" cried Billie, pressing her hands to her ears. "I--I can'tstand it. Girls, I've got to walk!" And Billie started off almost at arun along the beach, fighting her way against the wind.
The other girls followed her, and for a while they ran along, not knowingwhither they were going, or caring. All they wanted was to forget thehorror of the thing they had seen.
"What's that?"
Billie stepped back so quickly that she almost lost her footing in theslippery sand.
"What do you mean, Billie?"
"That!"
"Why, it--it looks like----"
"Come on. Let's find out." And Billie ran to the thing that looked like alarge piece of driftwood washed up on the sand by the heavy sea.
And as she reached it she drew in her breath sharply and brushed a handacross her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming. On the thing that wasnot a piece of driftwood at all, but looked like a sort of crudely andhastily constructed raft, were lashed three small, unconscious littleforms.
"Girls, look!" she almost screamed above the shrill wind. "Do you seethem, too?"
"Why--why, they are children!" cried Laura. "Oh, Billie, do you supposethey're alive?"
"I don't know," said Billie, dropping to her knees beside the threepitiful little figures. Two of them were girls, twins evidently, and thethird was a smaller child, a boy. Something in their baby attitudes,perhaps their very helplessness, stung Billie to sudden action.
"Help me get them loose!" she cried to the other girls, who were stillstaring stupidly. "I don't know whether they're dead or not yet. But theywill be if we don't hurry. Oh, girls, stop staring and help me!"
Then how they worked! The slippery wet rope that bound the little formswas knotted several times
, and the girls thought they must scream withthe nightmare of it before they got the last knot undone.
"There! At last!" cried Billie, flinging the rope aside and trying tolift one of the little girls. She found it surprisingly easy, for thechild was pitifully thin. She staggered to her feet, holding the littleform tight to her.
Laura and Vi each took one of the children and Connie offered to helpwhoever gave out first. Then they started back to the lighthouse. Luckilyfor them, the wind was at their backs, or they never could have made thetrip back.
When they reached the Point they found that most of the crowd haddispersed. Only a few stragglers remained to talk over the tragedy inawed and quiet whispers.
These stared as the girls with their strange burdens fought their waytoward the door of the lighthouse. Some even started forward as though tooffer assistance, but the girls did not notice them.
Through the window Billie could see Uncle Tom standing before hismantelpiece, head dropped wearily on his arm. Then Connie opened the doorand they burst in upon him.
"Oh, Uncle Tom!" she gasped. "Please come here, quick!"