My Brave and Gallant Gentleman Part 57

"Guess you'll ha'e to stop wi' us the night, George."

"--And welcome," put in his good lady. "There's always a spare bed for George Bremner in this house. Eh! Andrew."

"Ay,--ay!" remarked the old man, reflectively. "We're no' havin' ye drooned goin' away frae this place,--that I'm tellin' ye."

Like me, Rita was a child of stress and storm. She loved to feel the strong wind in her face and hair. She gloried in the taste of the salt spray. She thrived in the open and sported in the free play of her agile limbs. Unafraid, and daring to recklessness, nothing seemed to daunt her; nothing, unless, maybe, it were the great, cruel, sharks'

teeth of The Ghoul over which the sea was now breaking, away out there at the entrance to the Bay: that rock upon which she had been wrecked in her childhood; that relentless, devilish thing that had robbed her of her mother and of her birthright.

Even then, as she and I scampered and scrambled along the sh.o.r.e line, over the rocks and headlands,--whenever she gazed out there I fancied I detected a shudder pa.s.sing over her.

For an hour, with nothing to do but pa.s.s the time, we kept on and on, along the sh.o.r.e, until we reached Neil Andrews' little house on the far horn of the Crescent, standing out on the cliffs.

We stood on the highest rock, in front of the old fisherman's dwelling, watching the huge waves rolling in and breaking on the headlands with deafening thundering, showering us with rainbow sprays and swallowing up the sounds of our voices.

Rita kept her eyes away from the horrible rock, which seemed so much nearer to us now than when we were in the far back shelter of the Bay.

And, indeed, it was nearer, for barely a quarter of a mile divided it from Neil's foresh.o.r.e. But such a quarter of a mile of fury, I had never before seen.

Different from Rita, I could hardly take my eyes away from that rock.

To me, it seemed alive in its awful ferocity. It was the point of meeting of three different currents and it gave the impression to the onlooker that it was drawing and sucking everything to its own rapacious maw.

Old Man Andrews saw us from his window and came out to us, clad in oilskins and waders.

"Guess it's making for a hum-dinger, George," he roared into my ears.

"Ain't seen its like for a long time. G.o.d help anything in the shape of craft that gets caught in this. She's sprung up mighty quick, too.

"Got a nice cup of tea ready, Rita. Come on inside, both of you. It ain't often I see you up here. Come on in!"

But Rita was standing apart, straining her eyes away far out into the Gulf.

"What is it, la.s.s?" shouted the old fellow. "See something out there?"

"It is a boat," she cried back anxiously. "Yes!--it is a boat."

Old Neil scanned the sea. "Can't see nothing, la.s.s. Can you, George?"

I followed the direction of Rita's pointing.

"I'm not quite sure," I answered at last, "but it looks to me as if there was something rising and falling away there to the right."

Neil ran into the house for his telescope.

"By G.o.d!" he cried, "it's a tug. She's floundering like a duck on ice.

Steering gear gone, or something! Hope they can keep heading out for the open, or it's all up with them," he said.

We watched the boat for a while, then we turned into the house and partook of the old fellow's tea and hot rolls.

In half an hour, we went out again.

"George, George!" cried Rita, with a voice of terror, looking back to us from her position on the high rock. "Quick!--they are driving straight in sh.o.r.e."

We ran up beside her and looked out.

The tug,--for such it was,--was coming in at a great rate on the crest of the storm, beam on. Water was breaking over her continuously as she drove, and drove,--a battered, beaten object,--straight for The Ghoul.

We could see three men clinging to the rails.

Rita was standing, transfixed with horror at the coming calamity which nothing on earth could avert.

Old man Andrews closed his telescope with a snap.

"Guess you'd better go inside, Rita," he spoke tenderly.

"No, no!" she cried furiously, her lips white and her eyes dilated.

"You can't fool me. That's Joe's tug. Give me that gla.s.s. Let me see."

"Better not, Rita. 'Tain't for gals."

"Give it to me," she cried savagely. "Give it to me."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the instrument from him and fixed it on the vessel. Then, with that awful pent-up emotion, which neither speaks nor weeps, she handed back the telescope to the fisherman.

We stood there against the wind, as doomed and helpless Joe Clark's tug crashed on to the fatal Ghoul. It clung there, as if trying to live.

Five,--ten,--fifteen minutes it clung, being beaten and ripped against the teeth of the rock; then suddenly it split and dissolved from view.

Neil had the telescope at his eye again. He handed it to me quickly.

"George!--look and tell me. D'ye see anybody clinging there to the far tooth of The Ghoul? My eyes ain't too good. But, if yon's a man, G.o.d rest his soul."

I riveted my gaze on the point.

There I could see as clearly as if it were only a few yards off. Even the features of the man who clung there so tenaciously I could make out.

"My G.o.d! It is Joe Clark," I exclaimed in excitement.

With the cry of a mother robbed of her young, Rita dashed down the rocks to the cove where Neil Andrews' boat lay. She pushed it into the water and sprang into it, pulling against the tide-rip like one possessed. I darted after her, but she was already ten yards out when the boat swamped and was thrown back on the beach.

Just as the undertow was sucking Rita away, I grabbed at her and dragged her to safety.

"Let me go! Let me go!" she screamed, battering my chest. "It's Joe.

It's my Joe. He's drowning."

I held her fast.

She looked up at me suddenly with a strange quietness, as if she did not understand me and what I did. As she spoke, she forgot her King's English.

"Ain't you goin' to help him? It's Joe. You ain't scared o' the sea.

You can do it. Get him to me, George. Oh!--get me Joe. I want him.

I want him. He's mine."

I grasped her by the arm and shook her, as I shouted in her ear: