Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 45

The thought sobered Louise. Clinging to I. Tapp's arm she went nearer to the spot where the surfmen had brought their gear and boat.

The sea beyond the line of surf--between the strand and the reef--was foam-streaked and broken, a veritable cauldron of boiling water. The captain of the life-saving crew shrank from launching the boat into that wild waste.

If the line could be shot as far as the reef the moment the schooner struck, a breeches buoy could be rigged with less danger and, perhaps, with a better chance of bringing the ship's company safely ash.o.r.e.

"'Tis a woeful pickle of water," Washy Gallup shrieked in Louise's ear.

"And the wind a-risin'. 'Tis only allowed by law to shoot a sartain charge o' powder in the pottery little gun. Beyond that, is like to burst her. But mebbe they can make it. Cap'n Jim Trainor knows his work; and 'tis cut out for him this day."

Gradually the seriousness of the situation began to affect all the lighter-minded spectators. Louise saw the group of moving picture actors at one side. The men dropped their cigarettes and strained forward as they watched the schooner drive in to certain destruction.

It was like a play. The schooner, rearing on each succeeding wave, drew nearer and nearer. A hawser parted and they saw her bows swing viciously sh.o.r.eward, the jib-boom thrusting itself seemingly into the very sky as she topped a huge breaker.

The crew had to slip the cable of the second anchor. The foremast came crashing down before she struck. Then, with a grinding thud those on the sh.o.r.e could not hear, but could keenly sense, the fated craft rebounded on the reef.

A gasping cry--the intake of a chorused breath--arose from the throng of spectators. The fishermen and sailors recoiled from the cart and left an open s.p.a.ce in which the life-saving crew could handle their gear.

Cap'n Trainor, the grizzled veteran of the crew, had already loaded the gun and now aimed it. The shot to which was attached the line was slipped into the muzzle.

"Back!" the old man ordered, and waved his hand. Then he pulled the lanyard.

The line fled out of the box with a speed that made it smoke. But the shot fell short.

"'Tis too much wind, skipper," squealed Washy Gallup. "You be a-shootin' into the wind's eye. An' she's risin' ev'ry minute."

His only answer was a black look from Cap'n Trainor. The latter loaded the gun again, and yet again. The last time he waited for every one to get well back before he fired the cannon. When she went off she did not burst as they half expected--she turned a double back somersault.

"'Tis no use, boys!" the captain roared at them, smiting his hands together. "We must try the boat. But that's a h.e.l.l's broth out there, and no two ways about it."

The stranded schooner, all but hidden at times in the smother of flying spume and jumping waves, hung halfway across the reef. They could see men, like black specks, lashed to her after rigging. Louise, between bursting waves, counted twenty of these figures.

"It may be the _Curlew_!" she cried to the Taffy King. "Father told me in his letter there were twenty people aboard her afore and abaft. He may be out there!" and the girl shuddered.

"No, no," said I. Tapp. "Not possible. Don't think of such a thing, my girl. But whoever they are, they are to be pitied."

There rose a shout at the edge of the surf. The fringe of fishermen had rushed in to aid in launching the boat. Ans...o...b..and his camera man had taken up a good position with the machine. The director was going to get some "real stuff."

Louise saw that Lawford was foremost among the volunteers. The lifeboat crew, their belts strapped under their arms, had taken their places in the boat. Captain Trainor stood in the stern with his steering oar. On its truck the lifeboat was run into the surf.

"Now!" shrieked the excited moving picture director. "Action! Camera!

Go!"

There was something unreal about it--it was like a play. And yet out there on that schooner her crew faced bitter death, while the men of the Coast Patrol took their lives in their hands as the lifeboat was run through the bursting surf.

The volunteers ran in till those ahead were neck deep in the sea. Then the boat floated clear and, with a mighty shove from behind the surfmen pulled out.

Lawford and his mates staggered back with the gear. The lifeboat lifted to meet the onrolling breakers. The men tugged at the oars.

Somebody screamed. Those ash.o.r.e saw the white gash of a split oar.

The man in the bow went overboard, not being strapped to the seat. His mate reached for him and the banging broken oar handle hit him on the head.

The boat swung broadside and the next instant was rolling over and over in the surf, the crew half smothered.

The spectators ran together in a crowd. But Lawford and some of the men who had helped to launch the boat rushed into the surf and dragged the overturned craft and her crew out upon the beach.

"One of the crew with a broken arm; another knocked out complete with that crack on the head," sputtered Cap'n Jim Trainor. "Two of my very best men. Come on, boys! Who'll take their places?"

Lawford was already putting on the belt he had unbuckled from about one of the injured surfmen. The Taffy King, seeing what his son was about, shouted:

"Ford! Ford! Don't dare do that! I forbid you!"

Lawford turned a grim face upon his father. "I earn eighteen a week, dad. I am my own boss."

A soft palm was placed upon I. Tapp's lips before he could reply.

Louise was weeping frankly, but she urged:

"Don't stop him, Mr. Tapp. Don't say another word to him. My--my heart is breaking; but I am glad--oh, I am so glad!--that he is a real man."

Cap'n Trainor's hard gaze swept the circle of strained faces about him.

After all, the men here were mostly "second raters"--weaklings like Milt Baker and Amiel Perdue, or cripples like Cap'n Joab and Washy Gallup.

Suddenly the captain's gaze descried a figure well back in the crowd--one who had not pushed forward during these exciting moments, but who had been chained to the spot by the fascination of what was happening.

"Ain't that Cap'n Am'zon Silt back there?" demanded the skipper of the lifeboat crew. "You pull a strong oar, I know, Cap'n Am'zon. We need you."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

AN ANCHOR TO THE SOUL

The storekeeper had stretched no point when he told his niece that the thought of setting foot in a boat made him well-nigh swoon. His only ventures aboard any craft were in quiet waters.

He could pull as strong an oar, despite his years, as any man along the Cape, but never had he gripped the ash save in the haven or in similar land-locked water.

His heart was wrung by the sight of those men clinging to the shrouds of the wrecked schooner. And he rejoiced that the members of the Coast Patrol crew displayed their manhood in so n.o.ble an attempt to reach the wreck.

But his very soul was shaken by the spectacle of the storm-fretted sea, and terror gnawed at his vitals when the lifeboat was thrust out into that awful maelstrom of tumbling water.

Relating imaginary events of this character or repeating what mariners had told or written about wreck and storm at sea in the safe harbor of the old store on the Sh.e.l.l Road was different from being an eyewitness of this present catastrophe.

Trembling, the salt tears stinging his eyes more sharply than the salt spray stung his cheeks, the storekeeper had ventured into the crowd of spectators on the sands. So enthralled were his neighbors by what was going forward that they did not notice his appearance.

And well they did not. This character of the bluff and ready master mariner that Cap'n Abe had builded--a new order of Frankenstein--and with which he had deceived the community for these many weeks, came near to being wrecked right here and now.

He all but screamed aloud in fear when the lifeboat was overturned.

Pallid, shaking, panting for every breath he drew, he was slipping out of the unnoticing crowd when Cap'n Jim Trainor of the lifeboat crew called to him.