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 shore."

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 glass. Let me
see."

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

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

She snatched 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, God
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 God! 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