CHAPTER XXVII

WHAT THE NIGHT BROUGHT

Hour after hour the billows rolled in over the barrier of the Twin Rocks reefs and guttered the sands and the highway beyond until the sea finally breached through the shell road and spread, waist high, upon the lowlands. No such unseasonable tide had ever before been marked by the natives of the Cape. Even the "great tide of ninety-eight" had not reached this high mark.

Tobias remained with Lorna in the kitchen. It was useless for her to attempt to go home, even when the water receded. Tobias could not leave the light to attend her, and there was nobody else to accompany her to Clay Head.

So she set about getting their supper. They spoke of the tide and the wonder of it. It was now too dark to see anything at all in the direction of the sea, save where that ray of light streamed forth from the top of the tower. It was quite impossible even to observe the water boiling over the reefs.

"I give it as my opinion," said Tobias, "that them that's got small craft in the Cove yonder will find 'em either smashed along the inner side of the rocks or sunk. I know my dory's sunk long ago."

"Oh, not your _Marybird_ or Ralph's _Fenique_, I hope!" cried Lorna.

"I put a spring on the motor boat's hawser," rejoined the lightkeeper. "And the _Marybird_ is hauled up on the sand with a kedge out, bow and stern. I don't reckon she'll drag 'em, no matter how high the tide is. I would not want anything to happen to Ralph's craft--nossir!"

But their minds--neither Tobias's nor the girl's--were not fixed upon these things. Secretly both were concerned with the distressed fishing schooner, the _Nelly G_. What would this night that had now shut down bring to that imperiled craft?

Immediately after supper Tobias went up to the lamp again. But he came down quickly. He feared that Lorna might follow him.

When she asked him if he had seen the schooner's topmasts again, he shook his head. It was true. As far as he knew she might have gone down already. Yet he hoped. If she was beached, or being driven inshore, surely the crew of the _Nelly G._ would burn Coston lights or send up signal rockets.

Tobias, of course, could not think of bed on such a night as this. And Lorna was far too seriously wrought upon to join Miss Heppy upstairs. The lightkeeper suggested it, but she shook her head in positive refusal. She would keep watch with him. Every hour the old man climbed the stairs and searched the turbulent sea as well as he could by the light of the steady ray of the lamp. He owned no night glasses, and unless the endangered schooner came within range of the light's beam there would be small chance of spying her.

He saw no signal rockets. He could report nothing at all when he returned to the kitchen where Lorna continued to sit. If there was any hope at all, it lay in that fact. The _Nelly G_. must still be under control. She might, even, have wore off and made a greater offing. Yet he scarcely believed that possible with wind and tide as they were.

It was ten o'clock when the first startling incident of this never-to-be-forgotten night occurred. Full sea was long since past and the tide had run out again over the sands. But the road was impassable for any vehicle. Tobias, lighting his pipe at the stove, suddenly desisted to cock his ear.

There was a sound outside other than that made by the gale and sea. Lorna heard it, too. She sprang up, but Tobias was first at the door. He opened it with care, for fear the wind would suck in and put out the lamp.

"Ahoy!" bawled a voice from the road.

"There's somebody in trouble out there, sure's you're a foot high, Lorny," the lightkeeper observed. "Fetch me my slicker. Got to see what they want."

He was out in half a minute, answering the hail in stentorian tones. The girl held the door open a crack to peer forth. She made out the bulk of some object in the roadway before the lighthouse door; but the wind whipped the flying sand into her face and she was forced to withdraw.

By and by there was a fumbling at the door. It was flung open and there appeared the wind-blown figure of the detective, his long rain-coat flapping about his legs. From outside Tobias bawled:

"You'll have to back around and run down to Ez Condon's, Rafe. His shed's the only shelter, I cal'late, that there is for a car. That's where Zeke keeps his when he's up here to the light."

Tobias clumped into the house. His face was quite as grim as that of the visitor.

"You've heard of the bad penny, Lorna," the lightkeeper said with sarcasm. "Here it is. Road's all torn up and they can't get that car of Arad's through to Clinkerport to-night."

"I am sorry to have to take advantage of your hospitality, Mr. Bassett," sneered the visitor.

"I cal'late you be," returned Tobias dryly. "But that's your own fault. You've made yourself sort o' disliked around here, and I'm frank to tell you so. But I wouldn't leave a dog stay out such weather as this. And Rafe----

"Why, do you know, Lorna," he added, turning to the girl. "Rafe Silver's got his hand in a sling. Broke his wrist, or something, trying to crank that big car down there to the station. The self-starter wouldn't work. Lucky old Cap Edgar is no slouch of a bone-setter."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" cried the girl. "But what about the _Nelly G._?" she added, her hands clasped, and looking pleadingly from the lightkeeper to the detective.

The latter appreciated her emotion now. He answered in a much more sympathetic tone than he had used when he was previously at the lighthouse.

"She is still out there, and is not, they tell me, in immediate danger. If the gale drops she will be all right."

"But what's happened to her?" demanded Tobias. "Don't they know at the life-saving station?"

"They made out her signals during the day. She lost her rudder, and they can't ship another in these seas."

"Oh, sugar! I should say they couldn't," agreed Tobias.

"She may pull through all right. They think her skipper is hoping to get into Clinkerport."

"I cal'late," observed Tobias nodding. "Well, Lorny, I reckon we can take hope of grace. If Bob Pritchett can beat off these sands till he claws around the p'int of the Twin Rocks, he'll make Clinkerport Bay, of course."

The door was flung open again. The little mahogany-faced Portuguese staggered in. It was plain to be seen that something fresh had happened.

"What is it?" cried Lorna, rising.

Even the detective turned from the stove to look at Rafe Silver. The latter spat out a word in his own tongue. Tobias laid a quick hand on his shoulder.

"Hey! What's happened to you now?" he demanded. "That wrist of yours----?"

But Silver writhed away, holding his injured hand well out of contact with Tobias. "Not me! Not me!" he shrilled. "Out there!"

He pointed seaward. The girl whipped about and reached the seaward window before any of them, jerking up the shade.

At the instant a red streak curved upward from the surface of the sea, far out from the shore. Another followed.

"Signal rockets!" murmured the lightkeeper.

"Oh, Tobias!" cried Lorna. "From the schooner?"

"That's what it is," muttered the detective.

Rafe was chattering to the lightkeeper in broken English. The old man seemed to understand him fully. He turned swiftly toward the stairs.

"It's the _Nelly G._, all right," he flung back over his shoulder. "She's likely lost the sea-anchor they put out, and there ain't nothing to keep her from going on these rocks at last."

"Oh, Tobias!" gasped the girl.

"We've got to face it. No use trying to dodge the worst when it does come. If Ralph is aboard the schooner----"

"Oh, Endicott is aboard of her, all right," grumbled the detective. "I wish I was as sure of those yeggs that helped him rob the bank."

He sat down by the stove and continued to warm his hands. Rafe Silver followed the lightkeeper to the stairs and, in a moment, with a glance of disdain at the detective, Lorna followed the Portuguese.

At the door of Miss Heppy's room she halted and listened. Nasal announcement of the old woman's sleep could be heard, despite the gale without. Lorna went on to the lamp room.

Standing at the edge of the broad window Tobias held the telescope to his eye. Although it was no night glass, the broad ray of lamplight aided the eye to descry objects out there on the tumbling sea.

Silver uttered a shout of amazement and pointed with his uninjured hand before the lightkeeper could get the telescope focused.

"Oh, sugar!" exclaimed Tobias. "You seen her first, did ye?"

Lorna ran into the room and joined the two men. Her sharp eyes, like those of Silver's, descried the tossing masts of the laboring schooner. She was heaving up and down upon the waves directly in the path of the lamp's beam.

"Is it the _Nelly G._?" she cried. "Really?"

Before either of the men could reply another scarlet streamer shot up from the surface of the sea, describing a long curve and winking out at last, far tip toward the hovering gray clouds.

"A rocket, by kinky!" gasped the lightkeeper.

"Ah! What I tell you, my friend?" croaked Rafe Silver.

The girl seized Tobias's arm. She shook him a little, sturdy as the old man was and firm upon his feet.

"We must do something!" she cried. "Tobias! We _must_!"

"Oh, sugar! What can we do," muttered the lightkeeper, "if them life-savers can't get out to the schooner?--and of course, they can't. What did Cap Edgar say, Rafe?"

The Portuguese shook his head till the rings in his ears twinkled in the lamplight, and raised his shoulders in a truly Latin shrug.

"What can heem do?" Silver sighed. "He has only ol' boat down theer. The men, heem weeling. But no can row against thees wind."

"That's just it," groaned Tobias.

"Then why don't they get the gear out and shoot a line to the schooner?" demanded Lorna. "Can't they use the breeches-buoy?"

"Why, my dear," said the lightkeeper gravely, "if you just stop and think you'll see that if the wind is too strong for the boat, it's too strong to shoot a line. Couldn't noways reach out there, with even a double charge of powder in the gun--nossir!"

The girl clapped her hands together in despair. "There must be something that can be done," she said. "Are we all helpless?"

"Wal--I dunno----"

"_Think_, Tobias! There must be some way to reach them. Think of Ralph out there."

"Oh, sugar, gal! don't you s'pose I be thinking of him? I ain't doin' much of anything else."

"If they only have motor lifeboat down theer to Lower Trillion," said Rafe Silver, "they go out for heem."

"Tobias, they've got one at Upper Trillion!" the girl exclaimed suddenly.

"Oh, sugar! So they have," the lightkeeper agreed.

Silver shrugged his shoulders again. "They no see her out theer from Upper Trillion station. Amposseeble!"

"But haven't the Lower Trillion crew sent word, do you suppose, to the Upper Trillion station?" demanded Lorna.

The lightkeeper shook his head. "You forget the wires air down, Lorny. That is why this here detective and Rafe went over to Lower Trillion in the car. And now they can't get back to Clinkerport, even if the telephone is working from there to Upper Trillion."

"Oh, Tobias! are you sure they will not see those rockets? Ah! There goes another."

"They ain't likely to. The headland's between. My soul and body! this is sartain sure an awful thing."

The three were silent for a time. Their vision was fastened upon the plunging fishing craft. Her fore-topmast had been torn away. There was still some of her lower canvas set. Doubtless Captain Bob Pritchett and his crew were doing all they could to keep the _Nelly G._ from broaching to.

But to make a better offing was impossible unless the wind changed. A sea-anchor would help keep her head to the wind, but continually the gale was forcing the schooner broadside on the coast.

"Mebbe they'd better have beached her down there by Lower Trillion," Tobias finally said, but shaking his head doubtfully. "Anyway, that chance is past and gone. And ye can't really blame a skipper for trying to save his ship--nossir!

"She's off the rocks now. No two ways about it. What do you say, Rafe?"

"_Santa Maria!_" exploded the mahogany-faced man with a final shrug. "She is loss! No help--no!"

Tobias looked quickly at Lorna. The girl could have become no whiter in any case. But her eyes flamed. The lightkeeper was not astonished to hear her say with conviction:

"I do not believe it! There must be something we can do to aid them. Think, Tobias Bassett! Think!"

"I give it as my opinion, Lorna," he drawled, "that this here so-called absent treatment ain't going to do that schooner or them that's aboard of her much good. We've got to do something more'n thinking."