Tony Marvin, the keeper of Keyport Light, was in his little room next the fog-horn when Sanford and the skipper, wet and glistening as two seals, knocked at the outer door of his quarters.

“Well, I want to know!” broke out Tony in his bluff, hearty way, as he opened the door. “Come in,—come in! Nice weather for ducks, ain’t it? Sunthin’ ’s up, or you fellers wouldn’t be out to-day,” leading the way to his room. “Anybody drownded?” he asked facetiously, stopping for a moment on the threshold.

“Not yet, Tony,” said Sanford in a serious tone. He had known the keeper for years,—had, in fact, helped him get his appointment at the Light. “But I’m worried about Captain Joe and Caleb.” He opened his coat, and walked across the room to a bench set against the whitewashed wall, little streams of water following him as he moved. “Did you see them go by? They’re in Captain Potts’s Dolly Varden.”

“Gosh hang, no! Ye ain’t never tellin’ me, be ye, that the cap’n ’s gone to the Ledge in all this smother? And that fool Caleb with him, too?”

“Yes, and Lonny Bowles,” interrupted the skipper. As he spoke he pulled off one of his water-logged boots and poured the contents into a fire-bucket standing against the wall.

“How long since they started?” asked the keeper anxiously, taking down his spyglass from a rack above the buckets.

“Half an hour ago.”

“Then they’re this side of Crotch Island yit, if they’re anywheres. Let’s go up to the lantern. Mebbe we can see ’em,” he said, unlatching the door of the tower. “Better leave them boots behind, Mr. Sanford, and shed yer coat. A feller’s knees git purty tired climbin’ these steps, when he ain’t used to’t; there’s a hundred and ten of ’em. Here, try these slippin’s of mine,” and he kicked a pair of slippers from under a chair. “Guess they’ll fit ye. Seems to me Caleb’s been doin’ his best to git drownded since that high-flyer of a gal left him. He come by here daylight, one mornin’ awhile ago, in a sharpie that you wouldn’t cross a creek in, and it blowin’ half a gale. I ain’t surprised o’ nothin’ in Caleb, but Cap’n Joe ought’er have more sense. What’s he goin’ for, anyhow, to-day?” he grumbled, as Sanford drew on the slippers and placed his foot on the first iron step of the spiral staircase.

“He’s taken the new pump with him,” said Sanford, as he followed the keeper up the winding steps, the skipper close behind. “They broke the old pump on Saturday, and everything is stopped on the Ledge. Captain knows we’re behind, and he doesn’t want to lose an hour. But it was a foolish venture. He had no business to risk his life in a blow like this, Tony.” There was a serious tone in Sanford’s voice which quickened the keeper’s step.

“What good is the pump to him, if he does get it there? Men can’t work to-day,” Tony answered. He was now a dozen steps ahead, his voice sounding hollow in the reverberations of the round tower.

“Oh, that ain’t a-goin’ to stop us!” shouted the skipper from below, resting a moment to get his breath as he spoke. “We’ve got the masonry clean out o’ water; we’re all right if Cap’n Joe can git steam on the hoister.”

The keeper, whose legs had become as supple as a squirrel’s in the five years he had climbed up and down these stairs, reached the lantern deck some minutes ahead of the others. He was wiping the sweat from the lantern glass with a clean white cloth, and drawing back the day curtains so that they might see better, when Sanford’s head appeared above the lens deck.

Once upon the iron floor of the deck, the roar of the wind and the dash of the rain, which had been deadened by the thick walls of the structure surrounding the staircase below, burst upon them seemingly with increased fury. A tremulous, swaying motion was plainly felt. A novice would have momentarily expected the structure to measure its length on the rocks below. Above the roar of the storm could be heard, at intervals, the thunder of the surf breaking on Crotch Island beach.

“Gosh A’mighty!” exclaimed the keeper, adjusting the glass, which he had carried up in his hand. “It’s a-humpin’ things, and no mistake. See them rollers break on Crotch Island,” and he swept his glass around. “I see ’em. There they are,—three o’ them. There’s Cap’n Joe,—ain’t no mistakin’ him. He’s got his cap on, same’s he allers wears. And there’s Caleb; his beard’s a-flyin’ straight out. Who’s that in the red flannen shirt?”

“Lonny Bowles,” said the skipper.

“Yes, that’s Bowles. He’s a-bailin’ for all he’s worth. Cap’n Joe’s got the tiller and Caleb’s a-hangin’ on the sheet. Here, Mr. Sanford,” and he held out the glass, “ye kin see ’em plain ’s day.”

Sanford waved the glass away. The keeper’s eyes, he said, were better accustomed to scanning a scene like this. He himself could see the Dolly, a mile or more this side of Crotch Island Point, and nearly two miles away from where the three watchers stood. She was hugging the inside shore-line, her sail close-reefed. He could even make out the three figures, which were but so many black dots beaded along her gunwale. All about the staggering boat seethed the gray sea, mottled in wavy lines of foam. Over this circled white gulls, shrieking as they flew.

“He’s gittin’ ready to go about,” continued the keeper, his eye still to the glass. “I see Caleb shiftin’ his seat. They know they can’t make the P’int on that leg. Jiminy-whiz, but it’s soapy out there! See ’er take that roller! Gosh!”

The boat careened, the dots crowded together, and the Dolly bore away from the shore. It was evidently Captain Joe’s intention to give Crotch Island Point a wide berth and then lay a straight course for the Ledge, now barely visible through the haze, the derricks and masonry alone showing clear above the fringe of breaking surf tossed white against the dull gray sky.

All eyes were now fixed on the Dolly. Three times she laid a course toward the Ledge, and three times she was forced back behind the island.

“They’ve got to give it up,” said the keeper, laying down his glass. “That tide cuts round that ’ere P’int like a mill-tail, to say nothin’ o’ them smashers that’s rollin’ in. How she keeps afloat out there is what beats me.”

“She wouldn’t if Cap’n Joe wasn’t at the tiller,” said the skipper, with a laugh. “Ye can’t drown him no more ’n a water-rat.” He had an abiding faith in Captain Joe almost as great as that of Aunty Bell.

Sanford’s face brightened. An overwhelming anxiety for the safety of the endangered men had strangely, almost unaccountably unnerved him. It was some comfort to feel Captain Brandt’s confidence in Captain Joe’s ability to meet the situation; for that little cockle-shell battling before him as if for its very life—one moment on top of a mountain of water, and the next buried out of sight—held between its frail sides not only two of the best men whom he knew, but really two of the master spirits of their class. One of them, Captain Joe, Sanford admired more than any other man, loving him, too, as he had loved but few.

With a smile to the skipper, he looked off again toward the sea. He saw the struggling boat make a fourth attempt to clear the Point, and in the movement lurch wildly; he saw, too, that her long boom was swaying from side to side. Through the driving spray he made out that two of the dots were trying to steady it. The third dot was standing in the stern.

Here some new movement caught his eye. He strained his neck forward; then taking the glass from the skipper watched the little craft intently.

“There’s something the matter,” he said nervously, after a moment’s pause. “That’s Captain Joe waving to one of those two smacks out there scudding in under close reefs. Look yourself; am I right, Tony?” and he passed the glass to the keeper again.

“Looks like it, sir,” replied Tony in a low tone, the end of the glass fixed on the tossing boat. “The smack sees ’em now, sir. She’s goin’ about.”

The fishing-smack careened, fluttered in the wind like a baffled pigeon, and bore across to the plunging boat.

“The spray’s a-flyin’ so ye can’t see clear, sir,” said the keeper, his eye still at the glass. “She ain’t actin’ right, somehow; that boom seems to bother ’em. Cap’n Joe’s runnin’ for’ard. Gosh! that one went clean over ’er. Look out! Look out!” in quick crescendo, as if the endangered crew could have heard him. “See ’er take ’em! There’s another went clean across. My God, Mr. Sanford! she’s over,—capsized!”

Sanford made a rush for the staircase, a rash, unreasonable impulse to help taking possession of him. The keeper caught him firmly by the arm.

“Come back, sir! You’re only wastin’ yer breath. That smack’ll get ’em.”

Captain Brandt picked up the glass that the keeper had dropped. His hands shook so he could hardly adjust the lens.

“The boom’s broke,” he said in a trembling voice; “that’s what ails ’em. She’s bottom side up. Lord, if she ain’t a-wallowin’! I never ’spected to see Cap’n Joe in a hole like that. They’re all three in th’ water; ain’t a man livin’ can swim ashore in that sea! Why don’t that blamed smack go about? They’ll sink ’fore she can get to ’em. Where’s the cap’n? He ain’t come up yet. There’s Lonny and Caleb, but I don’t see Cap’n Joe nowhere.”

Sanford leaned against the brass rail of the great lens, his eyes on the fishing-smack swooping down to the rescue. The helplessness of his position, his absolute inability to help the drowning men, overwhelmed him: Captain Joe and Caleb perishing before his eyes, and he powerless to lift a hand.

“Do you see the captain anywhere?” he asked, with an effort at self-control. The words seemed to clog his throat.

“Not yet, sir, but there’s Lonny, and there’s Caleb. You look, Mr. Marvin,” he said, turning to the keeper. He could not trust himself any longer. For the first time his faith in Captain Joe had failed him.

Marvin held the glass to his eye and covered the boat. He hardly dared breathe.

“Can’t see but two, sir.” His voice was broken and husky. “Can’t make out the cap’n nowheres. Something must ’a’ struck him an’ stunned him. My—my—ain’t it a shame for him to cut up a caper like this! I allers told Cap’n Joe he’d get hurted in some foolish kick-up. Why in hell don’t them other fellers do something? If they don’t look out, the Dolly’ll drift so far they’ll lose him,—standin’ there like two dummies an’ lettin’ a man drown! Lord! Lord! ain’t it too bad!” The keeper’s eyes filled. Everything was dim before him.

The skipper sank on the oil-chest and bowed his head. Sanford’s hands were over his face. If the end had come, he did not want to see it.

The small, close lantern became as silent as a death-chamber. The keeper, his back against the lens rail, folded his arms across his chest and stared out to sea. His face bore the look of one watching a dying man. Sanford did not move. His thoughts were on Aunty Bell. What should he say to her? Was there not something he could have done? Should he not, after all, have hailed the first tug in the harbor and gone in search of them before it was too late?

The seconds dragged. The silence in its intensity became unbearable. With a deep indrawn sigh, Captain Brandt turned toward Sanford and touched him. “Come away,” he said, with the tenderness of one strong man who suffers and is stirred with greater sorrow by another’s grief. “This ain’t no place for you, Mr. Sanford. Come away.”

Sanford raised his eyes and was about to speak, when the keeper threw up his arms with a joyous shout and seized the glass. “There he is! I see his cap! That’s Cap’n Joe! He’s holdin’ up his hands. Caleb’s crawlin’ along the bottom; he’s reachin’ down an’ haulin’ Cap’n Joe up. Now he’s on ’er keel.”

Sanford and Captain Brandt sprang to their feet, crowding close to the lantern glass, their eyes fastened on the Dolly. Sanford’s hands were trembling. Hot, quick tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped from his chin. The joyful news had unnerved him more than the horror of the previous moments. There was no doubt of its truth; he could see, even with the naked eye, the captain lying flat on the boat’s keel. He thought he could follow every line of his body,—never so precious as now.

“He’s all right,” he said in a dazed way—“all right—all right,” repeating it mechanically over and over to himself, as a child would do. Then he turned and laid his hand on the keeper’s shoulder.

“Thank God, Tony! Thank God!”

The keeper’s hand closed tight in Sanford’s. For a moment he did not speak.

“Almighty close shave, sir,” he said slowly in a broken whisper, looking into Sanford’s eyes.

Captain Brandt’s face was radiant. “Might ’a’ knowed he’d come up some’ers, sir. Didn’t I tell ye, ye couldn’t drown him? But where in thunder has he been under water all this time?” he asked, with a laugh that had the unshed tears of a strong man in it, and the exultation of one just recovered from a fright that had almost unnerved him. The laugh not only expressed his joy at the great relief, but carried with it a reminder that he had never seriously doubted the captain’s ability to save himself.

All eyes were now fastened on the rescuing smack. As she swept past the capsized boat, her crew leaned far over the side, reached down and caught two of the shipwrecked men, leaving one man still clinging to the keel, the sea breaking over him every moment. Sanford took the glass, and saw that this man was Lonny Bowles, and that Captain Joe, now safe aboard the smack, was waving his cap to the second smack, which hove to in answer. Presently the hailed smack rounded in, lowered her mainsail, and hauled Lonny aboard. She then took the overturned Dolly in tow, and made at once for the harbor. When this was done, the first smack, with Captain Joe and Caleb on board, shook a reef from its mainsail, turned about, and despite the storm laid a straight course back to the Ledge.

“Thank God, Tony! Thank God!”