Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island Part 25

Laura rushed out into the storm while the other girls followed, pulling the door shut behind them.

CHAPTER XXIII

FIGHTING FOR LIFE

Foot by foot they fought their way through the storm, conscious that other hurrying forms pa.s.sed them from time to time. Their minds were fixed upon one thing. They must get to Uncle Tom. He would be able to tell them everything and perhaps let them know how they could help.

But they soon found that just getting to the lighthouse was a problem.

Time and again they had to stop and turn their backs to the furious wind in order to catch enough breath to fight their way on.

"Look!" Connie had shouted once, pointing toward the east. "It must be almost morning. The sky is getting light."

As they hurried on they became more and more conscious that everybody seemed to be heading in the same direction--toward the lighthouse.

"The shoal!" gasped Connie in Billie's ear. "The wind must have driven some ship upon it, and in this gale----"

But she never finished the sentence, for at this minute they came out upon the Point where the lighthouse stood and stopped dead at the scene that met their eyes.

The Point was black with people all gesticulating and pointing excitedly out toward a great shape which, looming grayly against the lifting blackness of the sky, staggered and swayed like a drunken thing in the grip of the gigantic foam-tipped waves.

"Oh," moaned Connie, "it's just as I thought! There's Uncle Tom. Come on, Billie." And she elbowed her way through the crowd to where Uncle Tom stood, his great height making him conspicuous among the other men, bawling out directions to the life-savers who were just making ready to launch their staunch little boats.

"Say, do you call this hurrying?" Uncle Tom was crying, his eyes traveling from the life-savers to the wreck and back again. "Don't you see she's just hanging on by her eyelashes? Another sea like that and you won't have a chance to save anybody. Good boys--that's the idea. Bend your backs, my lads. G.o.d help you--and them!" he added under his breath, his eyes on the laboring vessel.

"Uncle Tom!" cried Connie, tugging at his arm, "have they got a chance--those people out there? Have they?"

He glanced down at her for a moment, then his eyes sought the furious sea. He shook his head and his hands clenched tight at his sides.

"About one chance in a thousand," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "The Evil One's in the sea to-night. I never saw the like of it--but once."

Then followed a struggle of human might against the will of the overpowering elements--a struggle that the girls never forgot. On, on, fought the gallant men in the staunch little boats. On, on toward the quivering giant that hung on the edge of destruction--her fate the fate of all the lives on board.

The storm that had beaten her on to the treacherous shoal was now doing its best to loosen her hold upon it. And that hold was the one slender thread that kept alive the hope of the pa.s.sengers on board.

If the pounding waves once succeeded in pushing her back into the deeper water of the channel, nothing could save her. The great hole ripped in her side by the impact with the shoal would fill with water, and in five minutes there would be nothing left but the swirling water to mark the spot where she had been.

And the pa.s.sengers! At the thought Billie cried out aloud and clenched her fists.

"Oh, oh, it can't be, it can't be! Those boats will never reach her in time. Oh, isn't there something somebody can do?" She turned pleadingly to Uncle Tom, but the look on his face startled her and she followed his set gaze out to sea.

"No, there isn't anything anybody can do--now," he said.

The storm had had its way at last. The elements had won. With a rending of mighty timbers the tortured ship slid backward off the shoal and into the deep waters of the channel.

"There she goes!"

"That's the last of that vessel!"

"I wonder if any of the folks on board got off safely."

"I couldn't see--the spray almost blinds a fellow."

Such were some of the remarks pa.s.sed around as the ship on the shoal slipped slowly from view.

The girls clung to each other in an agony of suspense. Never had they dreamed that they would witness such a dreadful catastrophe as was now unfolding before them.

"Oh, Billie, this is dreadful!" groaned Laura, her face white with terror.

"I can hardly bear to look at it," whimpered Vi. "Just think of those poor people! I am sure every one of them will be drowned."

"Some of them must have gotten away in the small boats," answered Billie.

"I didn't see any of the boats," protested Connie. "But, of course, you can't see much of anything in such a storm as this."

"All we can do is to hope for the best," said Billie soberly.

"It's the worst thing I ever heard of," sighed Vi. "Why must we have such storms as this to tear such a big ship apart!"

A groan went up from the watchers, and many of them turned away. They could not see the end.

But the girls stared, fascinated, too dazed by the tragedy to turn their eyes away.

The life-savers, who had almost reached the ship, backed off a little, knowing that they could not help the pa.s.sengers now and fearful of being drawn under by the suction themselves.

The great ship hesitated a moment, trembled convulsively through all her frame, then her stern reared heavenward as though protesting against her fate, and slowly, majestically, she sank from view beneath the swirling waters.

Then the girls did turn their eyes away, and blindly, sobbingly, they stumbled back through the crowd toward the lighthouse.

"Oh, Billie, Billie, they will all be drowned!" sobbed Laura. The tears were running down her face unchecked. "Oh, what shall we do?"

"If they could only have held on just a few minutes more," said Vi, white-faced, "the life-savers would then have had a chance to have taken them off."

"They may save some of them anyway," said Billie, her voice sounding strange even to herself. "The life-savers will pick up anybody who manages to get free of the wreck, you know."

"Yes; but Uncle Tom says that when a ship sinks like that it is hard to save anybody," said Connie, twisting her handkerchief into a damp little ball. "Girls," she said, turning upon them eyes that were wide with horror, "it makes me crazy to think of it. Out there, those people are drowning!"

"Oh, don't" cried Billie, pressing her hands to her ears. "I--I can't stand it. Girls, I've got to walk!" And Billie started off almost at a run along the beach, fighting her way against the wind.

The other girls followed her, and for a while they ran along, not knowing whither they were going, or caring. All they wanted was to forget the horror of the thing they had seen.

"What's that?"

Billie stepped back so quickly that she almost lost her footing in the slippery sand.

"What do you mean, Billie?"