n ships.

CHAPTER II

AMONG THE BREAKERS

Ordinarily, Captain Ichabod Jones enjoyed being crooned to sleep by the
weird sounds of the winds as they beat about the corners of his cottage.
Now, his mind was filled with a memory of last frantic cries uttered by
men, women and children as their clinging hold was loosed from the
derelict, the sturdy frame of which he had heard strike on the rocks, as
she went to her grave in the sea. Now, he heard the clamors of despair,
voiced in the shrieking of the gale. He tossed uneasily upon his bed,
offering ever and anon a prayer to the God that rules mad waters to have
mercy upon those even then fighting a last grim battle with death.

The first gray gleam of dawn showed a tinge of storm red, radiant and
calm above the wildly tossing surges of the sea.

Uncle Icky got out of his bunk, built a fire in the stove and set his
coffee to boil. Then, of a sudden, he forgot his preparations for
breakfast. His sharp ears had caught the far-away chug-chug of a
naphtha-driven craft. He listened, and knew that the boat was making its
way toward the Island.

"Well, I'll be blowed," said the Captain to himself--and the rooster.
"What fool skipper would come down this shore, even on the inside, in
such a kick-up as is goin' on? He shore must be plumb daffy, or arter an
M.D. for a mighty sick human. I'll try an' hail him as he passes; but
the Lord knows he can't pass to the wind'ard o' this-here Island till
she ca'ms a heap, an' if he tries to go to lee'ard he'll shore as
shootin' take up on the oyster rocks, an' stove her through to her
vitals."

Captain Ichabod was right. No land lubber, unacquainted with the
dangerous currents and powerful surf breaking over the bar at the Inlet,
could pilot a craft safely past the little Island in good weather--let
alone the doing of it in this tail-end of a gale. Uncle Icky rushed from
the cottage, lantern in hand. He tried to wave a warning to the
foolhardy adventurer who was thus darting down at breakneck speed on the
mill-race of the ebb tide to certain destruction.

Captain Ichabod ran with his lantern to the far point of land, and waved
it frantically in warning. The wind-driven spray of the surf soaked and
chilled him to the bone. But he swung his light in desperate
earnestness, though his efforts seemed of no avail, for the launch swept
on toward its doom. Ichabod now could see that it was a palatial yacht,
of trim build, with a prow t