d it
was no longer possible to make out through the rain and spray the broad
crepe-like bands of black and white painted upon the great, towering
lighthouse, at the extreme point of Cape Lookout, a few miles to the
eastward. The shack was fairly shaking in the West India hurricane--for
such it proved to be.... And great was the devastation wrought that
night by both wind and wave.

About midnight, Captain Ichabod, feeling that it was not quite safe to
retire, stood in the open doorway. He little minded the pelting of the
rain as it drove against his weathered cheek. He had donned his
oilskins, hat and slicker, and was peering intently seaward. He had been
to his skiff and had dragged it a couple of rods further up on the sand
as a measure of safety. A yellow flash showed dimly on the black storm
clouds that banked the horizon to the north of the Cape--wherein nestled
a tiny harbor of refuge. Those who knew took advantage of this retreat
in times of tempest.... Woe unto the hapless seafarer, unknowing the
way.

It did not take a second flash for the practised eye of the lone man in
oilskins to recognize that this was the thing he had expected--even
while praying God that it might not be. It was the rocket signal of a
boat in distress. Within sound of the breakers, that could not be seen
in the pitch black, was somewhere a mass of timber and iron, burdened
with cargo and human freight. And that mass, which was a ship, dragged
its anchor, as if that anchor were a toy--foot by foot to sure
destruction on a beach that has known a hundred wrecks.

The rockets continued to flare. Closer and closer to the outer shoals of
the beach they beamed. The ship was swiftly and surely going to its
doom.

Turning his face to the clouded heavens, and raising his voice in a
final appeal, Uncle Ichabod prayed:

"God help the boys in such a surf."

At the point where the ship was making the distress signals, the coast
offered only a narrow strip of sand, running from the Cape to Ocracoke
Inlet--many miles to the northeast.

The old fisherman's face was ashen. There was nothing that he could do
except stand and helplessly watch the final disaster. He realized that
the craft was doomed. He was powerless to interfere, although in despair
over this catastrophe before his very eyes. He turned away, and entered
his little house, and tried to sleep. But he was wakeful, and found
himself murmuring prayers for those who went down to the sea i