that’s bungled matters, makin’ yo’ skeered to come and tell things straight out. But like’s not we’ll find the boy sleepin’ in the cave. Don’t let’s hang out distress signals till we’re sure we’re goin’ to sink.” As he talked he put on his slicker and cap, as the night wind was cold. Then, taking a lighted lantern, Cap’n Ezra, after bidding Rilla to liven up the fire and put the kettle on, opened the door and led the way to the top of the cliff. Making a trumpet of his hands, he shouted: “Ho, there, down below! Yo’re wanted up on deck.”
Then they waited, listening, but the crashing of the surf was all that they heard. One of the younger men who was used to scaling cliffs, however steep, climbed down to the ledge and held his lantern so that the small cave was illumined. After a moment’s scrutiny he called up to the anxious group: “Empty as an ol’ clam shell. Nothin’ in there but a box an’ a sail cloth that’s spread out flat an’ concealin’ nobody.”
When Muriel heard the men returning, she threw open the door and her eager glance scanned the group, hoping to find among them her new friend, Gene Beavers. “He wa’n’t thar, fust mate,” the old sea captain said gloomily, “an’ I figger it’s all my fault for bein’ so tarnal sot agin city chaps. I reckoned, one bein’ a scoundrel, they all was, like’s not.” Then, turning to Doctor Winslow, he added with spirit: “Lem, we won’t give up yit. We’ll throw out a drag net if need be. I’m goin’ along, wherever yo’ cruise to. Rilly gal can tend to the light for a spell. I couldn’t rest easy if I wa’n’t tryin’ to help locate the lad. The heft of this trouble comes from me being so tarnal sot about things.”
The physician placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Look here, Ez,” he said, “neither you nor Rilla are to blame. The lad has not used good judgment, but older men than he is have failed in that, now and then. You mustn’t come with us. A heavy fog is rolling in and you might be needed any moment right here at the light. Some ship may send in a distress signal and Rilla is only a little girl, after all, only fifteen, and we mustn’t ask her to assume so serious a responsibility.”
While the physician was talking, the girl whom he had called “little” was pouring the tea she had made into four heavy cups and one of these she took to Doctor Winslow, saying, “Uncle Lem, drink this, please do, ’fore you go out agin into the wet fog, an’, too, thar’s a cup for each of you.”
The men seemed glad for the warmth of the beverage and then, when the cups had been drained, they started out, calling back that they would swing the red lanterns in a circle three times from the end of the town wharf if Gene Beavers was found that night.
When they were gone, Rilla removed her grandfather’s slicker and he sank down in his armchair and buried his face in his hands.
Muriel stood at his side, her arm about his neck, not knowing what to say.
Reaching up, the old man clasped the girl’s hand in his big brown one as he said: “Rilly gal, I figger yer ma was right, arter all. ‘Dad,’ says she, many’s the time, ‘it’s hate that brings the sorrow an’ trouble to the world an’ it’s love that brings in the happiness.’ Like’s not my little gal’d be livin’ now if I’d tried seein’ things her way; if I’d welcomed the man she wanted to marry, ’stead of hatin’ him an’ turnin’ him out. He went, when I tol’ him to, an’ he took my gal. I reckon it’s that same sort o’ hate that’s fetched this trouble to my ol’ messmate, Lem Winslow. I’m done wi’ it, Rilly gal, done wi’ hate, though I figger mos’ likely it’s too late.”
Muriel felt a hot tear splash on her hand. Pressing her fresh young cheek against the leathery one, she implored, “Don’ be talkin’ that way! How’s it too late, Grand-dad? We’ll begin all over, shall we, yo’ an’ me; we’ll begin lovin’ and not hate anyone at all, shall we, Grand-dad?”
The old man did not reply, but he held the girl’s hand in a tighter clasp. Then rising and going to the window, he stood for a moment looking out into the darkness, waiting until the circling light would reveal the dory containing the three men.
“That fog is so tarnal thick, they’re like to lose their bearin’s an’ thar’d be no savin’ ’em if they got drug into the surf at the pint.”
Then, after a moment of intense thought, the old man whirled, his face set with a new determination. “Rilly gal, I’m goin’ to do it,” he cried. “I’d oughtn’t to, but I’ll take the chance.” Then, noting the inquiring expression of the girl’s face, the old man explained: “I’m a-goin’ to hold the big lamp so ’twill shine steady toward town till they get into port. The Outer Ledge’ll have to stay dark for a spell. It’s a big chance. I’d ought not to take it, but, by giggers, I’m goin’ to!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE HEART OF CAP’N EZRA
Meanwhile the three men in the dory had pushed away from the small wharf on Windy Island and had started rowing into the thick, almost impenetrable blanket of fog, which, having swept in from the sea, had settled down over the inner harbor.
They could hear the melancholy drawn-out wail of the foghorn which was beyond the Outer Ledge. The two longshoremen who were with the doctor rowed toward the faint glimmer of red light, which could hardly be distinguished. In fact, there were times when the lights on the town wharf could not be seen at all, and once, when the roaring of the surf seemed nearer than it should be, they realized with sinking hearts that they had lost their bearings. Then it was that one of them uttered an exclamation of astonishment and alarm. “The big light!” he cried. “What’d ye s’pose has happened to it? Look ye! ’Tisn’t swingin’ like it should be. It’s hittin’ a course straight toward town.”
Doctor Winslow, at the rudder, turned and looked over his shoulder at the looming black mass that was Windy Island. “Ezra is doing it to guide us,” he said, “but he’s taking a big chance.” Then a sudden cry of warning: “Starboard, hard! We almost ran head-on into that old buoy that hasn’t anchored a fishing smack since Jerry Mullet’s boat went to the bottom.”
“The big light came jest in the nick o’ time, I swan if it didn’t,” Lute, in the bow, declared, as with a powerful stroke, he turned the dory so that it slipped past the buoy, barely scraping it.
“Straight ahead now. Give the fleet a wide berth,” the doctor called. The men were pulling hard when one of them stopped rowing and listened. “Doc Winslow,” he said, “tarnation take it, if I didn’t hear a ghost right then a-moanin’ in that old hulk of Sam Peters’. Like’s not it’s a warning for us of some kind.”
Being superstitious, the longshoreman was about to pull away harder than before, when the doctor commanded: “Belay there! Hold your oars! That’s not a ghost. There’s someone in that boat. More than likely it’s old Sam himself having one of his periodical spells. He won’t need help if it is, but I can’t pass by without finding out what is wrong. Thank heaven the light is steady, if all’s well on the outer shoals.”
It took but a moment, the fog being illumined, for the dory to draw up alongside of the boat that belonged to the frequently intoxicated fisherman Sam Peters. Not a sound did they hear as they made fast.
“I reckon ’twa’n’t nothin’, arter all.” Hank Walley was eager to return to shore. “Like as not ’twa’n’t.”
Doctor Winslow listened intently. He, too, was anxious to reach the home port, knowing that, not until then, would his friend Captain Ezra start the big light swinging on its seaward course; but he lingered one moment. “What ho! Sam there?” he called. But there was no reply. The good doctor was about to give the command “Shove off. Get
