Tobias O' The Light Part 47

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 sh.o.r.e. 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 gla.s.s, 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, st.u.r.dy as the old man was and firm upon his feet.

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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.