CHAPTER THREE--THE SEA-WAIF
OF the scores of little capes that jut out from Montauk, there is nonebut is ghostly with the skeleton of some brave ship. Three such relicswere bleaching their still vertebrate bones on the rocks where theschooner lay trapped. It was only too evident that a like fate wasordained to her, and that the promptest action of the life-savers alonecould avail the ten huddled wretches in her rigging.
What man could do, the crews of the two stations were doing; and now,in a sudden lull of wind, they sent a life-line over her. One of the mencame over to the Third House group, and spoke to Helga Johnston, bendingso close that she shrank back a little.
"Can't last--hour," came to Colton's ears in sentences disjointed by thewind. "Old wooden--pound pieces. Get most of 'em--life-buoy--all right."
At a word from Miss Johnston, Haynes shouted in Colton's ear: "Come downto the beach. When she smashes, some of 'em may come in there."
"Not alive surely?" cried Colton, glancing at the surf.
"Yes," the girl's clear voice answered, with an accent of absolutecertainty. "We must watch." Down a sharp declivity they made their wayto the gully, which debouched upon a sand beach. Johnston, the veteran,who had preceded them, was gathering driftwood for a fire, with apractical appreciation of the possibilities.
"Bear a hand, Helga!" he shouted. "And you, Mr. Haynes!"
Almost before he knew it, Colton too was hard at work dragging timberto the centre marked by the lanterns. A clutch on his arm called hisattention to what was going on above him, as Johnston pointed seaward.In the glint of the lightning, he saw clear against the windy voida huddled mass, at which the waves leaped and clutched, as it movedsteadily shoreward. Another glimpse showed it risen above the reach ofthe breakers. It was a breeches-buoy, bearing its first burden.
"Line's working all right!" yelled the old coastguard. "They ought toget 'em all in."
Presently another traveller came in foot by foot over that slender andhopeful thread, then a third and a fourth, until seven of the crew werehuddled on the cliff. Out went the breeches-buoy again, for there werethree lives yet to be saved, when in a broad electric glare a monstersurge could be seen sweeping the schooner up. There was a crash oftimbers, a wild cry, and the line fell slack from the cliff-head. OldJohnston dropped to his knees on the sand and bared his head, but onlyfor a moment; for he was up again and had set the pile of fuel burningwith a cleverly placed twist of paper.
Up leaped the flames. A brilliant glow wavered and spread. Colton,stupid with horror, stood entranced, while Johnston, Helga and Haynesran, as if to established stations, along the surfs edge, the old mannearest the wreck, then Haynes, and finally the girl. Of a sudden,Colton came to himself with a dismal and unaccustomed sensation ofbeing out of it. No one had asked him to help. He was just a guest, anegligible quantity when men's and women's work was to be done.
"What a useless thing the average summer boarder must be!" he thought,as he passed beyond the girl and bent his attention on the boilingcauldron of the ocean.
He had not long to wait. On the foaming crest of a breaker somethingdark appeared, and vanished in the smother of the surge as it whizzed upthe sand. Another instant, and it was rolling within a rod of the youngfellow, showing the set, still face of a man. Colton hardly had to wadeankle-deep to seize the form; but the back drag tore at his feet with apower that amazed and appalled him. To haul the man ashore took all hisunusual strength. As he threw the form over his shoulder and ran towardthe fire, he became aware of a man and a woman approaching from thecliff side. Laying down his burden, he knelt beside it. One look wasenough. The man's skull had been crushed like an egg-shell. Mechanicallyhe felt for the pulse, when Professor Ravenden's precise tones, rendereda little less pedantic by the effort required to overcome the gale,reached his ear:
"Perhaps I can be of some service. I am not entirely unskilled inmedical subjects."
Colton shook his head. "He's beyond all skill," he answered.
"Oh!" cried a voice from the darkness behind the professor, rising to ashriek. "Look! Helga! Help her!"
At the same moment, Helga's own ringing voice sounded in a call for aid,abruptly cut short. Colton jumped to his feet and turned. He saw, witha sickening recollection of the waves' power, which he had justexperienced, the girl up to her knees in water, her strong young framebraced back and her arms clasping a body. A fringed comber, breakingheavily, was driving a vortex of white water in upon her. It boiled upbeyond her, and the two figures were gone. As Colton, with a shout ofhorror, leaped forward, like a sprinter from the mark, he saw Haynes,running with terrific speed, launch himself head foremost into the swirlof waters, at a rolling mass there.
"Lord! What a tackle!" thought Colton as he ran. "Yet they say that afoot-ball education is of no practical use."
His own was to come swiftly into play. For though Haynes had caughtHelga about the knees, he had no purchase for resistance, and the deadlyundertow was dragging them out.
Colton had the athlete's virtue of thinking swiftly in the stress ofaction. His was the cool courage that appreciates peril and reasons outthe most advantageous encounter. The human flotsam was far beyond hisgrasp now; but he figured that an approaching surge, sweeping them inshoreward again, would give him his chance,--the only chance,--for therecession in all probability would carry them beyond help. He must meetthem feet forward, as a trained player meets and falls upon a foot-ballrolling toward him; thus he might get his heels into the sand, and soanchor them all against the back-drift. If he could not--well, therewere no _materia medica_ bottles out there beyond the surf anyhow, andan ocean lullaby would be the sure cure for all sleeplessness.
Fortunately the coming wave was a broad-backed one, on which the tangledfigures rode in plain view, and Colton saw, with that thrill of pride inhis fellow-being which courage wakes in the courageous, that the girl'sarms still clasped her trove, clinging below the life-preserver whichwas fastened around the man's body. Calculating the drift down thebeach, Colton moved forward. In they came--nearer--nearer--and to hisamazement Colton heard a strangled shout from the waves:
"Get Helga! Never mind me. Get Helga in!"
"I'll get you too, or break something," muttered the young man, as witha rush and a leap he plunged feet forward to meet the onset.
It was Haynes that he caught, just above the knees. His heels sunkin the sand. The surge spread, stood, receded. "Here's tug-of-war inearnest," thought Colton, as he set the muscles which had helped to winmany a victory for his college. The next instant it seemed as if thosemuscles must rend apart; as if all the might of the unbounded ocean wasstraining to drag away his prize of lives. He set his face grimly towardthe savage waves. His chest was bursting. One heartbeat more he wouldhold out. Human endeavour could go no further. That heart-throb sledgedagainst his ribs, passed and found the bulldog grip unrelaxed. One more,then! surely the last; after that--abruptly the strain slacked.
A sob of compressed breath burst from Colton. Oh, how good was the full,deep inhalation that followed! How it filled the muscles and inspiredthe will to the final effort! With a mighty heave he rolled the threeclear over his own body up the beach. Then he lay still, for he wastired and sleepy and didn't care what became of him. He had made atouch-down--anyway. Why didn't--somebody--pull--them off--him?
"I've got 'em!" twittered a voice in his ear, a dim and ridiculousvoice, that nevertheless was like old Johnston's. "You saved the lot,God bless you!"
"Let me get my arm under his shoulder," said the calm and preciseaccents of Professor Ravenden, also in that strange faraway tone.
Oh, thought Dick in sudden but dim enlightenment, they were telephoning.Of course. That's the way voices sounded over a 'phone when the wire wasworking badly. But why should they be telephoning? And how, at the otherend of a wire, could they be hauling him, Dick Colton, to his feet?
When consciousness came in on the full flood, Colton found himselfstaggering toward the fire, with someone's support. From out thefli
ckering circle of light an angel came to meet him. She seemed a thingborn of the wedding of radiance and shadows. The whiteness of her face,rich-hued where the blood flushed the cheek, was enhanced by the duskymasses of her hair. Her lips were parted, and her rounded chest rose andfell palpably with her swift breathing. Her eyes, deep, velvety withthe soft glamour of questing womanhood in their liquid depths, lookedstraight into his. It was his Vision of the hallway.
"Ah, it was splendid!" she said, and there was a thrill in the softdrawl of the voice that went straight to his heart.
She moved forward toward him into the fuller glow of the fire, andColton, his hungry eyes fixed on hers, thought of the moon emerging frombehind a filmy cloud.
"How did you dare?" she pursued. "You saved them all! I--I--want you totake this."
Mechanically he stretched forth his hand to meet hers, and she pressedinto it something light and soft.
"It was nothing," he said dazedly, wondering. "Thank you. I--my headfeels queer--but I--think--I--could--go to sleep--now."
He lay gently down on the soft sand, which seemed to rise to meet him.Half swooning and wholly engulfed in sleep, he stretched his great bulkand lay gratefully down, and the _materia medica_ bottles trooped outinto the troubled night and were lost in its depths.
Dolly Eavenden stood and looked down, musing upon the strong-limbedfigure, and at the hand whose fingers, alone of all the frame, wereunrelaxed.
"I wonder if I've made a mistake," she said with misgivings which werestrange to her positive and rather self-willed character. "Pshaw! No; itis all right."