ining ahead--the gun lifted out and set, Polhemus ramming the
charge home, Captain Holt sighting the piece; there came a belching
sound, a flash of dull light, and a solid shot carrying a line rose in
the air, made a curve like a flying rocket, and fell athwart the wreck
between her forestay and jib. A cheer went up from the men about the
gun. When this line was hauled in and the hawser attached to it made
fast high up on the mainmast and above the raging sea, and the car run
off to the wreck, the crew could be landed clear of the surf and the
slam of the cord-wood.

At the fall of the line the man in the slouch hat was seen to edge
himself forward in an attempt to catch it. The two men in the rigging
kept their hold. The men around the cart sprang for the hawser and
tally-blocks to rig the buoy, when a dull cry rose from the wreck. To
their horror they saw the mainmast waver, flutter for a moment, and sag
over the schooner's side. The last hope of using the life-car was gone!
Without the elevation of the mast and with nothing but the smashed hull
to make fast to, the shipwrecked men would be pounded into pulp in the
attempt to drag them through the boil of wreckage.

"Haul in, men!" cried the captain. "No use of another shot; we can't
drag 'em through that surf!"

"I'll take my chances," said Green, stepping forward. "Let me, cap'n. I
can handle 'em if they haul in the slack and make fast."

"No, you can't," said the captain calmly. "You couldn't get twenty feet
from shore. We got to wait till the tide cleans this wood out. It's
workin' right now. They kin stand it for a while. Certain death to
bring 'em through that smother--that stuff'd knock the brains out of
'em fast as they dropped into it. Signal to 'em to hang on, Parks."

An hour went by--an hour of agony to the men clinging to the grounded
schooner, and of impatience to the shore crew, who were powerless. The
only danger was of exhaustion to the shipwrecked men and the breaking
up of the schooner. If this occurred there was nothing left but a
plunge of rescuing men through the surf, the life of every man in his
hand.

The beach began filling up. The news of a shipwreck had spread with the
rapidity of a thunder-shower. One crowd, denser in spots where the
stronger men were breasting the wind, which was now happily on the
wane, were moving from the village along the beach, others were
stumbling on through the marshes. From the back country, along the road