l contending against the
feeble folk who had come out to help back to land and home the brave
fellows who had gone to succor the distressed. They made all the more
sure that this was the case, because Jim's new boat, the pride and joy
of his life, was not to be found at the spot where he had only that
day drawn, it high above the reach of even such a storm as this, ready
for building over it on the morrow its winter house of pine-boughs and
turf.

At last a fire was kindled; and leaving the women to watch it, old
Stephen took several weary trips back to the cottage after fuel,
making serious inroads upon a stock at the best not too large to meet
the demands of the coming winter. The flame, fanned by the blast even
more than dashed by the spray and rain, sprang upward, casting its
ruddy lances of light backward over the sandy downs, destitute even
then of tree or shrub to break the force of the gale, and forward over
the frothing white tops and deep, black troughs of waves that seemed
to the excited eyes of the watching women like so many separate fiends
leaping upward and stretching out white hands to clutch helpless
victims and hurry them to the hell beneath. And all the while the
surf thundered at the foot of the trembling cliff. No form could be
discovered through the darkness beyond the near neighborhood of the
shore; and but for the flash of the gun, which was seen continually,
though its sound was but seldom heard above the surf and the wind, the
watchers would have thought there was no ship near.

By and by the rain ceased, but there was no moon, and impenetrable
wind-clouds still hid the stars. Out through the blackness of the
night the flame-light quivered in long, bright streams over the
endless lines of ever-advancing waves, but revealed to the watchers
no ship, no boat, no tokens even of wreck, only the ceaseless reaching
upward of the beckoning white hands; and the wind bore no sound, save
at intervals the dull distant boom of the cannon. But ever the solemn
surf thundered on the beach below, and the sand-cliff trembled and
crumbled beneath its resounding blows.

The old man, who, with a seaman's owl-like eyesight, kneeled intently
gazing out through the darkness in the direction of the flash,
suddenly exclaimed, "I don't un'erstan' it! That air ship hadn't
oughter be in 'stress off where she is. She ain't on no shoal, nor
nothin'. She's jest a-lyin' tew. An' I don't see no signs o' no boats
nuther; an'