Tobias O' The Light Part 49

It was sound enough for their purpose. Tobias put his st.u.r.dy shoulder to the stern and ran the light craft down to the water's edge.

The waves surged in, almost to ordinary full-sea mark. The surface of the basin was not very rough. What the bay was like beyond, they could only guess.

It was necessary for them to shout to each other to be heard, for the waves broke over the reefs noisily. It was Tobias's gesture that instructed Lorna to seat herself in the skiff, forward. He ran the boat out, wading into the sea half-leg deep, and then scrambled in.

Seizing the oar he fixed it in the stern and began to scull. The waves were choppy and the skiff was knocked about a good deal. Tobias was a st.u.r.dy old man and Lorna was too good a sailor to be fearful. She clung to the gunwale with one hand and held the lantern so that its light was cast over the bow.

In half a minute they picked out the bulk of the motor-boat. It heaved up and down on the turbulent water, but had evidently s.h.i.+pped but little of that element. Ralph had put on the canvas cover and battened it securely before leaving home.

"Stand by to grab that line that's trailing overboard, Lorny!" bawled Tobias from the stern of the skiff. "See it?"

She nodded, for the wind was blowing so strongly in her face that she could not verbally answer him. The skiff swerved in toward the side of the _Fenique_. The girl tossed the lantern over the rail, seized the line, and scrambled inboard. Then she turned and threw the slack of the rope to Tobias.

"Oh, sugar, Lorny!" he exclaimed, as he came aboard. "You are just as good as ary boy. I always said so. And if you can handle this motor--"

"I can, Tobias. I a.s.sure you."

"Wal, like the feller said, I'm willing to try anything once. We'll make some sort of a stab at getting under way. It all depends on you, my girl."

Lorna made no reply. While the lightkeeper tied the painter of the skiff to the mooring buoy, she undertook to get the cover off the machinery. She was shaking with nervousness, but she would not betray this fact to her companion. The whipping of the wind almost tore the canvas from her hands when she had it unlashed. At another time Lorna Nicholet might have let the heavy, wet cloth go overboard. But she was on her mettle now.

Her experiences afloat heretofore had been mostly in sport. On a few occasions (for instance, when she and Degger had come near to death in Tobias's dory and Ralph had rescued them) the girl had experienced the seamy side of boat-sailing. But she quite realized that nothing she had previously faced had equaled the present peril.

"We've got to fill her tank. I know Ralph didn't leave much gas aboard here," the lightkeeper shouted. "Now, lemme do that first. Then you can show me how to spin that wheel. Say, Lorna, you cast off the canvas of the steering gear. My soul and body! but you be a handy gal. That's it, now."

The boat was pitching greatly; but Tobias seemed as secure of his footing as though he were on sh.o.r.e. Once Lorna was flung across the c.o.c.kpit and collided painfully with the bench; but she made no outcry.

This was a moment of desperation. Tobias faced the coming conflict with the elements as though utterly undisturbed by what the venture might bring forth. Fear of events seemed not to enter into his thought. But Lorna could not appear so calm. Just ahead of them, when she and the old lightkeeper steered out into the open bay, death rode on the gale.

The motor hummed rhythmically. Tobias stood at the steering wheel amids.h.i.+ps, holding the spokes with iron hand, while Lorna crouched almost at his feet. They had not attempted to light any running lights.

Collision with any other craft after they got out of the cove was the last thing to be apprehended. Tobias's lantern was beside the girl in the c.o.c.kpit. The old man's vision seemed to penetrate the darkness and driving spindrift as though he were argus-eyed.

In Lorna's stooping position she could see nothing ahead. When she cast her gaze astern all she beheld was the foaming wake left by the propeller. Such an angry welter of sea she had never before been out in.

Suddenly the motor-boat yawed, and a wave slapped against the upheaving hull, bursting over the whole length of the craft. The c.o.c.kpit was half full in a moment; but fortunately the mechanism was built high enough to save it from being flooded. Lorna was saturated above her waist.

Tobias righted the _Fenique_ instantly. He grinned down at the girl after a moment.

"That was some sockdolager, heh?" he bawled. "I vow to man! another one o' them and she'll be down to her gunnels."

But this misfortune did not overtake them. Lorna knew by the increased height of the waves that they were now opposite the unsheltered entrance to Clinkerport Bay. Here the waves rolled in ma.s.sively-great, round-backed combers that ran far up the bay.

Tobias had to twist the bow of the motor-boat to meet these swells; but once over the crest of one, he ran the _Fenique_ slantingly down the slope and in the trough between the two great waves, like a water-bug scampering along the crack of a kitchen table.

Between every wave they made headway. The tall bluff of d.i.c.kson Point loomed out of the murk ahead. Tobias waved his hand when he saw Lorna rise to look.

"There she be!" he bawled. "Please the good Lord we'll make it."

But he read, as her own lips moved, the anxious question:

"I wonder what has happened to the _Nelly G._ by this time?"

"Oh, sugar! Don't you worry none about her now. We'll get the Trillion crew out and then if the worst comes to worst they'll be right there to pick Ralph and them other fellers off the schooner-yessir!"

His a.s.surance that they would be in time to aid the crew of the threatened fis.h.i.+ng schooner buoyed up Lorna's heart. She began to feel more confidence. They had come through so much already, it did seem as though their venture must end successfully.

She knew what the beach was below d.i.c.kson Point, on the bay side. Ralph never beached the motor-boat there, for it was stony. But they could not stop for thought of this. If the _Fenique_ was to be smashed upon her landing, so it must be!

Good fortune accompanied them, however. A breaking wave drenched Tobias and the girl as the motor-boat came into shallow water. In the backwash of the wave the keel grounded slightly. The following billow raised the boat high and cast it speedily up the strand.

"I give it as my opinion, Lorna," said Tobias in a lull of the wind, "that this didn't do Ralph's boat a world of good. Ne'r mind. Let's get ash.o.r.e and see what can be done."

Near the beach was nothing but some fish houses, and they were all abandoned during this hurricane. Back toward Clinkerport, perhaps a couple of miles, was a house in which was a telephone. But, as Tobias pointed out, the wires might be down over here as well as on the other side of the bay.

"I cal'late we've got to go over the hill to the station. Or mebbe you'd better stay here while I go. It'll be a rough pa.s.sage, Lorna."

"I can go quicker than you, Tobias Ba.s.sett," the girl declared through chattering teeth. "And I would rather keep moving than stand here idle.

There is no shelter here."

"I'll bust in the door of Rube Kellock's fish house--"

"I am going with you," interrupted the girl with determination. "Where is the path up the bluff? Can you find it in the dark?"

"I cal'late," replied the lightkeeper. "If you _will_ go, come on."

Their eyes were now accustomed to the darkness. Besides, even on the gloomiest night there is always a faint glow upon the water. And the foaming of the wave-crests cast some radiance all about. When Tobias once found the path, Lorna mounted to the summit of the bluff much more quickly than he.

"Oh, sugar!" the lightkeeper panted, when he finally caught up with her.

"You're just as quick on your feet, Lorny, as a sheep. I never see-- Dad fetch it! what's that?"

As had the girl, he had first turned to look off across the sea to the spot where they had last seen the laboring fis.h.i.+ng schooner. A greenish-white light began to glow low down on the sea, and insh.o.r.e.

"It's the schooner, Tobias!" cried Lorna. "Oh! She is ash.o.r.e!"

"I cal'late you're right," the old man breathed. "Yep. On the outer reef. There!"

The girl shrieked, crouching at his feet and hiding her eyes. Tobias stared. The growing Coston light picked out the broken spars and the slanting deck of the _Nelly G_. The banker had gone broadside on the submerged rocks not half a mile south of the Twin Rocks Light.

CHAPTER XXIX

DAYBREAK

Thirty-six hours previous Ralph Endicott had boarded the schooner bound for the fis.h.i.+ng banks and had been obliged, because of the rising sea, to cast Gyp Pellet's catboat adrift. The _Gullwing_ was scarcely seaworthy, anyway, and Ralph had already agreed on a price to pay the Peehawket boatman if the old tub were lost.

Captain Bob Pritchett of the _Nelly G._ would not have had his craft so far insh.o.r.e with this rising gale, it is true, had he not received Ralph's telegram announcing the young man's delay, and that Ralph would be somewhere off the jaw of Cape Fisher awaiting the schooner's coming.