Nevertheless, it was not Ralph"s fault that the _Nelly G._ had got into serious trouble. He was not counted by the crew as a Jonah.
It was one of those happenings that even the best seamanship could not have avoided. Not long after nightfall, and while the _Nelly G._ was heading almost into the wind but making good sea-room, a big, gray wave rose up out of the unexpected quarter of due east and smashed down upon the stern of the schooner. Her waist was filled and everything was washed overboard that was not lashed or that did not cling by main force.
The blow carried away the rudder. And though there was a spare one in the _Nelly G."s_ hold, it could not be shipped in such a sea as this that held. The schooner was at once, and thereafter, at the mercy of the gale.
Captain Pritchett got over a drag, or sea-anchor, that kept the Nelly G."s head to the wind for that night and the day that followed. Had the schooner run before the wind she would surely have brought up on the heel of Cape Cod. As it was, tide and gale forced her steadily, if slowly, insh.o.r.e. All her company could hope for was a lull in the wind and for clearing weather.
There was no fruit of this hope, as has been seen. Toward evening another monster wave tore the drag free. The schooner"s fate was then sure. Captain Pritchett could not make the narrow entrance to Lower Trillion Inlet. The mouth of Clinkerport Bay was too far to the north.
The schooner could not claw around the Twin Rocks under such sail as could be spread.
The expected finally happened. It was not now far from one o"clock in the morning when the _Nelly G._ struck broadside upon the reef that lay just under the sea-level, and canted over to port.
The imperiled ship"s company knew well enough that they could expect no help from the Lower Trillion life saving crew, even if all the members were on duty in this unseasonable gale. No oared boat could be pulled up the coast to the scene of the wreck. Between the ill-fated _Nelly G._ and the sands was a wide stretch of rock-strewn sea in which the tide boiled like water in a cauldron. This s.p.a.ce was too wide for a line to be shot over it from the sands to the schooner.
Not all of the fishing craft"s nests of dories had been carried away, but a boat could not live in that turmoil of the sea. The crew climbed the rigging and lashed each other to the stays, waiting for daylight and hoping only for the gale to cease.
A long-enduring storm such as this in winter would have spelled death for many of the company. But if the schooner did not break up at once they might all cling until the sea went down and some means then be found to rescue them.
The next full sea threatened disaster. Even now the surf broke against the hull of the wreck with such force that it ground upon the rocks under the strain of each recurrent blow. At any moment the framework of the _Nelly G._ might be torn asunder.
On sh.o.r.e the watchers had built a huge fire of drift stuff. The wearied fishing crew could see the men and women, who had come to watch if they could not aid, moving about in the radiance of the leaping flames. The sight of fellow beings cheered the wrecked men to a degree. They felt that they were not deserted. If no succor could reach them, human sympathy did.
It was in the false dawn-that lighting of the sky before the sun really illumines the horizon-that a hail reached the dulled ears of the watchers lashed to the rigging of the _Nelly G_. As she was pitched so far to port that their bodies overhung the leaping, foam-streaked waves, they could not see over the starboard rail of the wreck. And to their amazement the hail came from this seaward direction.
Ralph Endicott, as agile as any of the crew and much quicker than the skipper, who was no longer young, slipped out of his lashings and worked his way swiftly down the stays to the rail. Within a biscuit-toss of the wreck lay a big motor lifeboat, her belted crew with their faces lifted to him.
"Ahoy, the schooner!" bawled again a hoa.r.s.e voice. "Don"t you fellers want to be taken off, or do ye cal"late on stayin" till she breaks up into kindling wood?"
For an instant Ralph could not speak. If he had not been panic-stricken, he certainly was anxious. And here was unexpected rescue at hand!
"Cap"n Pritchett! Come down! Here"s visitors!" he finally bawled.
Another of the party had swarmed down to the rail. He raised a stentorian bellow:
"Hey! Here"s the Upper Trillion crew. I would know Cap"n Boggs in a Georges"s snow-squall. Come on, boys! We"d better go to breakfast with them, hey?"
There was sudden and great hilarity. These brave fellows were used to facing danger in many forms, and the unexpected chance for escape from the wreck quickly a.s.suaged their gloom.
The debarkation from the wreck was not so simple a matter. Already the crew of the schooner had each a lifebelt strapped upon his body. Now a sling was arranged with a whipline attached thereto, and this last flung to willing hands in the lifeboat.
With her propeller holding her steady against the force of the inrolling waves, the lifeboat was backed as near the wreck as was judged safe.
One after another the wrecked crew entered the sling and the life savers drew them over to the motor craft while their mates aboard the wreck payed out the line.
More than one of the pa.s.sengers in this rude contrivance was submerged in the leaping, hungry waves; but there were no serious casualties until the end. Ralph Endicott was one of the last to go, and Captain Pritchett himself aided the young man. The captain insisted upon remaining till the last. There was n.o.body to aid him in leaving the wreck. With a line about his waist Captain Pritchett leaped into a receding wave and was hauled into the lifeboat unconscious and with a broken arm.
Fourteen men, including the skipper and the cook, were thus rescued. It was an event of greater peril than can easily be imagined. Nor was all danger over when the full tally of the schooner"s company was in the motor-boat.
It was still so dark that the crowd ash.o.r.e could not see that the crew of the wrecked vessel had taken their departure. It was lighter out here at sea than it was insh.o.r.e. The lifeboat was speeded for the mouth of Clinkerport Bay.
Chilled and almost water-logged, Ralph Endicott crouched with the other members of the rescued fishing boat"s crew in the surf boat. The dash through the breakers at the entrance to the bay did not excite the party, for they were merely wretched and exhausted. It was one of the crew from the life saving station that hailed another motor-boat sputtering toward the cove between Clay Head and the Twin Rocks Light.
"Cap, there"s that plucky girl and Tobe Ba.s.sett, I do believe. They are just getting back from across the bay."
"Who is she?" asked one of his mates. "One of the summer visitors, did you say? Ba.s.sett was plum" winded, and she ran all the way to the station and told us that the schooner was on the rocks. Some girl, that!"
"She"s Mr. John Nicholet"s daughter," shouted the captain of the life saving station. "Lives in that big house up yonder on the Clay Head."
On hearing this Ralph roused himself. These men spoke of Lorna Nicholet. In the increasing dawn he saw and recognized his own _Fenique_.
The lifeboat swept on past the smaller craft. Tobias, at the helm of the latter, shouted a cheery word. Both boats were beached about the same time on the sands below the light.
Rafe Silver led the crowd of neighbors and members of the Lower Trillion crew to meet the disembarking fishing schooner"s company. The moment Ralph got out of the lifeboat he hurried to where the _Fenique_ had bored her nose into the sandy beach.
"I give it as my opinion, Lorny," Tobias Ba.s.sett was saying loudly and cheerfully, "that we mebbe ain"t doing Ralph"s boat any good, beachin"
her this way. But I cal"late "tis more important-- Hi! Gimme your hand, gal. D"ye feel all in? Sho! I guess--Why! here"s Ralph now."
He had his arm about the swaying figure of the young woman. Lorna started forward, uttering a little cry:
"Ralph! Oh, Ralph Endicott! Are you safe?"
"Tobias Ba.s.sett!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the young man, angrily, "do you mean to say you let her go out with you in such a sea as this? Man, you"re crazy!"
"Now, now, Ralphie! don"t let go all holts. There warn"t no holding of her back when she knowed you was out there in that haddocker. And I didn"t know how to run this dratted engine."
Lorna had shrunk back against the st.u.r.dy figure of the lightkeeper. She suddenly remembered that Ralph Endicott had played no lover"s part toward her, at least during these past months.
"You"re-you"re all right, Lorna?" he asked with hesitation.
"Why, yes, Ralph. Only wet. I--"
Her speech was terminated abruptly by the appearance of the detective.
He put a tentative hand on Ralph"s shoulder.
"So this is the chap I"m looking for, is it?" he said. "Do I understand this is Ralph Endicott?"
"Oh, sugar!" muttered Tobias, with disgust. "I"d forgot all about that feller."
CHAPTER x.x.x
A SILVER-BANDED PIPE
Instinctively Ralph Endicott drew away from the shabby man, but stared at him curiously.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "If you wish to speak with me, come up to the house later. Anybody will tell you where I live."