At the Black Rocks Part 15

"I will go down to the door and try to see who or what it is," said Dave, "for there is that cry again."

He descended to the door of the tower and looked down through the hole in the platform. Then he saw a dory tossing in the water that now flowed all about the tower, swashing against its iron walls. There was a boy in the boat. He was not looking up, but clinging to a rope stretched for purposes of mooring from the tower to a sunken rock forty feet away. Steadying his boat by this rope, he was waiting for some response to his repeated calls.

"Hullo, there!" shouted Dave.

The boy looked up, still grasping the rope.

"That you, Dave?"

"Yes. That you, d.i.c.k? Where did you come from?"

"Yes, d.i.c.k Pray, and n.o.body else."

"Won't you come up?"

"Well, yes, I should like to, but the water is uneasy. Can't get out of my boat."

"Hold on; I will come down and help you." He stepped within the tower and reported, "Mr. Tolman, this fog has brought somebody."

"Don't wonder at it. Give him any help he needs."

"I want a short rope."

"There's one hanging on that nail."

Dave took the rope, went to the door of the tower, and descended the ladder.

"Here, d.i.c.k! Take your painter and tie it to that mooring-rope, allowing enough slack to bring your boat almost to the tower and yet not touch it. There! if that length isn't right you can try it again. Now catch this rope and make fast to the stern there. So! That's it! Now I'll pull you in."

Dave drew on his end of the rope, and pulled d.i.c.k's boat so near the ladder that d.i.c.k could spring to it, and yet the boat itself was left to swing in the waves while it could not strike the tower.

"I'll just make fast my end of the rope, d.i.c.k, and we will go up the ladder."

"All right. Glad to get out of that old boat and go up with you."

"Why, where under the sun and moon have you been?"

"Me? Been camping out on the Nub."

"You haven't!"

"But I have."

"That your tent over there?"

"Mine and Sam Whittles's."

"Tolman and I noticed it to-day for the first time. How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to eat you or Toby Tolman--you may draw lots for the honour--if you don't give me some food."

"Oh, we will soon give you that. Among other things I will give you some fish. Got some splendid cunners, and I will divide with you."

"Good! I could eat 'em raw. Hungry as a shark. Sam is hungrier. I don't know as he will wait for me, but throw himself into the water and go after the fish himself."

"O d.i.c.kie, we will make you feel like a new being. Come in and see Tolman. He is a splendid old fellow. Come in this way."

The boys went up into the engine-room.

"An old acquaintance, Mr. Tolman," said Dave.

"I see, I see," replied the light-keeper, recognizing d.i.c.k as one of the schooner party.

"Whiz--bim--fizz--"

"It sounded splendid out at s.h.a.g Rocks," shouted d.i.c.k to the light-keeper.

"You been there?" inquired Mr. Tolman.

"Yes; and this old fog came up and confused me, and I didn't know where I was, and I heard the signal and I put for it," said d.i.c.k.

"Out there fishing?"

"Yes, sir; or--I wanted to fish, but didn't catch a fin."

"s.h.a.g Rocks you went to?"

"Yes, sir; two ledges with a strip of sand between them."

"Oh, those are 'Spectacle Rocks,' as the fishermen say. They look like a pair of spectacles. You wouldn't catch much there. s.h.a.g Rocks are to the nor'ard."

"Well, I'm willing they should stay there."

"Next time, you come here. Splendid chance off this very ledge; Black Rocks, as we call them."

"That would be wise, I think."

"Well, make yourself at home.--Dave, you give him something to eat."

"I thought I would let him have some of those cunners to take with him."

"So do, but give him something now.--And you don't want to go back in this fog?"

"Well, I'd rather have clear weather if I have got to find the Nub,"

said d.i.c.k.

The fog, though, refused to clear up that day, and d.i.c.k remained all night.

"I pity Sam," he told Dave; "but he has got a teapot, and he must live on that till morning. I'll give him a surprise to-morrow, I tell you.