Читать книгу At the Black Rocks (Musaicum Christmas Specials) - Edward A. Rand - Страница 4

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Dave Fletcher and Dick Pray were boys who had grown up in the same town, but from the same soil had come two very different productions. They were unlike in their personal appearance. Dick Pray would come down the street throwing his head to right and left, scattering sharp, eager glances from his restless black eyes, and swinging his hands.

"Somebody is coming," people would be very likely to say.

Dave Fletcher had a quiet, unobtrusive, straight-forward way of walking. Dick was quite a handsome youth; but the person that Dave Fletcher saw in the glass was ordinary in feature, with pleasant, honest eyes of blue, and hair--was it brown or black?

Dave sometimes wished it were browner or blacker, and not "a go-between," as he had told his mother.

Dave and Dick were not as yet trying to make their own way; but they were between fifteen and sixteen, and knew that they must soon be stirring for themselves.

They had already begun to intimate how they would stir in after life.

Dave had a quiet, resolute way. There was no pretence or bluster in his methods. In a modest but manly fashion he went ahead and did the thing while Dick was talking about it, and perhaps magnifying its difficulty, that inferentially his courage and pluck in attempting it might be magnified. Dick's way of strutting down-street illustrated his methods and manners. There was a great deal of bluster in him. Nobody was more daring than he in his purposes, but for the quiet doing of the thing that Dick dared, Dave was the boy. Somehow Dick had received the idea that the world is to be carried by a display of strength rather than its actual use; that men must be impressed by brag and noise. Thus overpowered by a sensational manifestation they would be plastic to your hands, whatever you might wish to mould them into. Dick did not hesitate to attack any fort, scale any mountain, or cross any sea--with his tongue. When it came to the using of some other kind of motive power--legs for instance--he might be readily outstripped by another. Among the boys at Shipton he had made quite a stir at first. His bluster and brag made a sensation, until the boys began to find out that it was often wind and not substance in Dick's bragging; and they were now estimating him at his true value. Dave Fletcher was little known to any of them save small Bartholomew Trafton; but Dave's modest, efficient style of action they had seen in the saving of Little Mew, and they were destined to witness it in another impending catastrophe.

"Uncle Ferguson, who owns that old schooner off in the river?" asked Dave one day, as he was eating his way through a generous pile of Aunt Nancy's fritters. It was the craft to which had been tied the Great Emperor.

"Why, David?"

"Because some of us boys want to go there and stay a night or two. We take our provisions with us, and each one a couple of blankets, and so on, and we can be as comfortable on the schooner as can be. Would you and Aunt Nancy mind if we went?"

"Mind if you went? No; I don't know as I do.--What do you say, Nancy?"

Uncle Ferguson was a middle-aged man, with ruddy complexion and two blue eyes that almost shut and then twinkled like stars when he looked at you.

Aunt Nancy was a plain, sober woman, with sharp, thin features, and bleached eyes of blue.

"Don't know as I mind," declared Aunt Nancy. "If you don't git into the water and drown, you know."

"Oh, that's all right," said the nephew.

"Only you must see the owner of the schooner," advised the uncle.

"The owner?"

"Yes; Squire Sylvester. He is very particular about anything he owns."

"Oh, I didn't know the thing had an owner," said Dave, laughing. "It seems to lie there in the stream doing nothing. The boys didn't say anything about an owner."

"Squire Sylvester is very particular," asserted Uncle Ferguson. "He got his property hard, and looks after it."

"Yes, he is very pertickerler," added Aunt Nancy.

"Well, we will see him by all means. We boys--"

"Didn't think; that is it, David. Now, when I was a boy we always asked about things," said Uncle Ferguson.

"Well, husband, boys is boys, in them days and these days. I remember your mother used to say her five boys used to cut up and--"

"Well," replied Uncle Ferguson, rising from the table, "this won't feed the cows; and I must be a-goin'. I would see Sylvester, David."

"All right, uncle."

Dave announced his intention to Dick half-an-hour later.

"Well, go, if you want to. We fellows were not going to say anything to anybody. Who would be the wiser? The thing lies in the river, knocking around in the tide, and seems to say, 'Come and use me, anybody that wants to.'"

"If we owned the schooner we would prefer to have it asked for, if she was going to be turned into a boarding-house for a day or two."

"I suppose it would be safer to ask. If we didn't ask, and the owner should come down the river sailing and see us, wouldn't there be music?"

"We will save the music, Dick. I will just ask him."

As Dave neared Squire Sylvester's office he could see that individual through the window. He was a man about fifty years old, his features expressing much force of character, his sharp brown eyes looking very intently at any one with whom he might be conversing. Dave hesitated at the door a moment, and then summoning courage he lifted the latch of the office door and entered.

"Good-day, sir."

The squire nodded his head abruptly and then sharply eyed the boy before him.

"We boys, sir--"

"Who are you?" asked the squire curtly.

"David Fletcher. I am visiting at my uncle's, Ferguson Berry."

"Humph! Yes, I know him."

"We boys, sir, wanted to know if you would let us--"

"What boys?"

"Oh, Jimmy Davis, John Richards--"

"I know those."

"Dick Pray---"

"Pray?"

"He is visiting his cousin, Samuel Whittles."

"Oh yes; I've seen him in the post-office. Curly-haired boy; struts as if he owned all Shipton."

"Just so."

"Well?"

"John Richards's brother--that is all. We want to know if you will let us stay out in the old schooner for a while. We will try to be particular and not harm the vessel."

"How long shall you want to be gone?"

"Oh, two or three days and nights."

"Humph! Well, you can't have any fire on board. Got a boat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Of course, for you can't wade out to her. Put it out there on purpose so folks couldn't paddle and wade out to her, such as tramps, you know. Well, if you have a boat you can cook on shore."

"Yes, sir."

"You may have a lantern at night. No objection to that."

"We will remember."

"All right, then."

"Oh, thank you! Good-day, sir."

"Good-day."

The squire's sharp brown eyes followed Dave as he went out of the door, and then watched him as he tripped down the street laughing and whistling.

"Like all young chaps--full of fun. Rather like that boy."

Dave announced the result of the conference to several boys anxiously waiting for him round the corner.

"Got it?" asked Dick Pray.

"Yes; tell us what he said," inquired Dab Richards.

The boys pressed eagerly up to Dave, who announced the successful issue of his application. A burden of painful anxiety dropped from each pair of shoulders, and the boys separated to collect their "traps," promising to meet at Long Wharf, where a boat awaited them. Did ever any craft make a happier, more successful voyage, when the boat received its load two hours later and was then pushed off?

"Everything splendid, boys!" said Dick. "Won't we have a time while we are gone, and won't we come back in triumph?"

The return! How little any of the party anticipated the kind of return that would end their adventure!

"There's the schooner!" shouted Dave. "I can read her name on the stern--RELENTLESS. Letters somewhat dim."

"She is anchored good," said Dab Richards. "Got her cable out."

"Anchor at the bottom of it, I suppose," conjectured Jimmy Davis.

"We will find out, boys, won't we? We will just hoist her a bit, as the sailors say, and see what she carries," said Dick, in a low tone.

"Nonsense!" said Dave. "Sylvester has our word for good behaviour."

"Oh, don't you worry!" said Dick, in a jesting tone. "Let's see! Shall we make our boat fast round there? Where shall it be?"

The best mooring was found for the boat, and then a ladder with hooks on one end was attached to the vessel's rail, and up sprang the boys eagerly.

The Relentless was an old fishing-schooner. She had been stripped of her canvas, and portions of her rigging had been removed. There were the masts, though, still to suggest those trips to distant fishing-grounds, when the winds had filled the canvas and sent the Relentless like an arrow shot from one curving billow to another. There was the galley, empty now of its stove, and showing to any investigator only a rusty pan in one corner; but the wind humming round its bit of rusty funnel told a story of many a savoury dish cooked for a hardy, hungry crew. And the little cabin, so still now, save when a hungry rat softly scampered across its floor, had been a good corner of retreat to many when heavy seas wet the deck on stormy nights and sent the spray flying up into the rigging.

The boys transferred their cargo of bedding and eatables to the deck, and then scattered to ramble through the cabin or descend into the dark, musty hold. They came together again, and lugged their baggage into the cabin, save the dishes and eatables, which were stowed away on shelves.

"This is just splendid, Dick!" declared Dave, leaning over the vessel's rail. "It is going to sea without having the fuss of it."

"That's so, Dave. You don't have any sea-sickness, any blistering your hands with handling ropes, any taking in sail--"

"Oh, it's huge, Dick. Now you want to divide up the work."

"Not going to have any; all going to have a good time."

"But who's going to cook, and bring water, and--"

"Oh, I see! Forgot that."

A division of work was finally pronounced sensible. Dave became "cook," Jimmy Davis was elected "water-boy," Dick took charge of the sleeping arrangements, and the brothers Richards were constituted table-waiters and dish-washers--"without pay," Dave prudently added. All that day, up to twilight, life in the old fishing-schooner was smooth and happy as the music of a marriage-bell. Dave's cooking was adjudged "splendid," and between meals there were spells of story-telling, of games like hide-and-seek about the ancient hull, and of fishing from the deck, though there sometimes seemed to be more fishermen than fish.

At twilight most of the boys were seated in the stern of the vessel, looking out to sea and watching the light fade out of the heavens and the warm sunset glow steal away from the waters.

"There's the light starting up in the lighthouse near the bar," said Dab Richards.

Yes, Toby Tolman, keeper of the light at the harbour's mouth, and not far from a dangerous bar, ever changing and yet never going, had kindled a star in the tall lantern as the western clouds dropped their gay extinguisher on the sun's dwindling candle. Between the boys and the outside, dusky surface of ocean water stretched a line of whitest foam, where the waves broke on the bar.

"Getting chilly," said Dave. "Hadn't we better go into the cabin and light our lantern?"

"Guess Dick is looking after that," said Jimmy.

No; Dick was looking after--meddling, rather, with something else. He had whispered to John Richards, "Come here, John," and then led him to the bow of the vessel.

"See here, Johnny."

"What is it, Dick?"

"Wouldn't it be nice to see this old ark move?"

"Move! what for?"

"Oh, I've got tired of seeing it in one place."

"Why, what do you mean? How?"

"Why, just have it go on a little voyage, you know."

"Voyage?"

"You booby, can't you understand?"

"Understand? No," replied John good-naturedly. "Don't see how we can have a voyage without sails, and the masts are bare as bean-poles when there ain't any beans on 'em."

"Oh, you're thick-headed. Don't you see this anchor?"

"Don't see any. I suppose there is one somewhere--covered up, you know, down on the bed of the river."

"Only water covers it, and it could be raised, and we could have a sail without any sails."

"Come on!" said John, who was the very boy for any kind of an adventure. "But," he prudently added, "how could we stop?"

"Drop the anchor again. Why, we could stop any time."

"So we could."

"We could sail, say a hundred feet to-night--tide would drift us down--and then we could drop anchor; and to-morrow, when the tide ran up river, we could sail back again and drop anchor, just where we were before."

"We could keep a-going, couldn't we, Dickie?"

"Certainly. I don't know but we could go quarter of a mile and then back again. We should have, of course, to go with the tide; but the anchor would regulate us."

"So we could. Just the thing. Let's try it. Shall I tell the fellers?"

"No; let's surprise 'em."

"But they'll hear us."

"No; they are quarrelling about something, and they won't notice anything we do here."

"But how can you manage the anchor?"

"Raise it."

"But how raise it?"

"Johnny, I believe you have lost your mind since coming here. What is this I have got my hand on?"

"The capstan."

Dick here laid his hand on a battered old capstan, around which how many hardy seamen had tramped singing "Reuben Ranzo" or some other roaring song of the sea.

"Don't you know how this works?"

"Not exactly."

"I will tell you. You see this bar?"

Dick with his foot kicked a battered but stout bar lying at the foot of the capstan.

"There! one end of the cable to which the anchor is hitched goes round this capstan, you see. Now, if I stick this bar into that hole in the capstan and shove her round--I mean the bar--the capstan will go round too, and that will wind up that cable and draw on the anchor. Don't you see?"

"Yes, I see."

"Well, now we are ready. I will sing something like real sailors."

"The boys will hear us."

"No: they are fighting away; they won't notice."

It was a tongue-fight, but that may be as absorbing as a fist-fight.

"You know 'Reuben Ranzo'?"

"Yes."

"Well, sing in a whisper and pull."

The bar was inserted into the capstan, and the boys, as they shoved on the bar, sang softly,--

"O poor Reuben Ranzo!

Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!"

"That's the chorus, Johnny. Sing the other part. Shove hard but sing easy."

"Oh, Reuben was no sailor.

Chorus--O poor Reuben Ranzo! Ranzo, boys, Ranzo! O poor Reuben Ranzo! Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!"

"Sing another verse, Johnny. That shove just took up the slack-line, and the next will pull on the anchor. Hun-now, Johnny! You're a real good sailor. Sing easy, but shove."

"He shipped on board of a whaler.

Chorus--O poor Reuben Ranzo! Ranzo, boys, Ranzo! O poor Reuben Ranzo! Ranzo, boys, Ranzo!"

The last tug at the bar came hard, but the boys took it as an encouraging sign that the anchor too was coming. They were not mistaken. Another minute, and Johnny eagerly exclaimed,--

"Dick, I do believe she's going!"

"Good! That's so. I knew 'Reuben Ranzo' would bring her."

Yes, the Relentless had relented before the fascinating persuasion of "Reuben Ranzo," and without a murmur of resistance was softly slipping through the dark sea water.

"Can you stop her any time, Dick?" asked Johnny in tones a bit alarmed.

"Easy. Just let the anchor slip back again, you know."

"Shan't we tell the boys?"

"Wait a moment. We want to surprise 'em. They'll find it out pretty soon."

The boys at the stern had been discussing a subject so eagerly that every one had lost his temper, and when that is lost it may not be found again in a moment. It was like starting the Relentless--a thing quite easily done; but as for stopping her--however, I will not anticipate. The boys were quarrelling about a light on shore, and wondering why that illumination was started so early, when it did not seem dark enough for a home light. In the course of the discussion a second light, not far from the first, came into view. Over this the controversy waxed hotter than ever, and led to much being said of which all felt heartily ashamed.

No one heard the creak of the capstan-bar at the bow or the devoted wooing of the Relentless by the fascinating "Reuben Ranzo."

"That's funny," said Dave, after a while. "One of those lights has gone. They have been approaching one another, I have noticed. Look here, fellers: I believe this old elephant is moving!"

"She is," exclaimed Jimmy Davis.

They all turned and looked toward the bow. The figures there were growing dim in the thickening twilight, but they could see Dick and Johnny waving their hats, and of course they could plainly hear them shout, "Hurrah! hurrah!"

"What's the matter?" cried Dave, rushing across the deck.

"Having a sail," said Dick.

"And without a sail too," cried Johnny triumphantly.

"What do you mean?" asked Dab.

"Why, we just hoisted the anchor, and the tide is taking us along," replied Dick. The party at the stern did not know how to take this announcement.

"But," said Dave, advancing toward the capstan, and remembering his promise to Squire Sylvester that he would be "particular," "we are adrift, man!"

"Oh, we can stop any time--just drop the anchor--and the next tide will drift us back where we were before."

"Y-e-s," said Dave, but reluctantly, "if we don't get in water too deep for our anchor. I like fun, Dick, but--"

"Oh, well," replied Dick angrily, "we will stop her now if you think we need to be so fussy.--Just let her go, Johnny."

Johnny, however, did not understand how to "let her go." It seemed to him and the others as if "she" were already going.

"Oh, well, I can show you, if you all are ignorant," said Dick confidently. "Just shove on this bar--help, won't you?--and then knock up that ratchet that keeps the capstan from slipping back--there!"

The weight of the anchor now drew on the capstan, and round it spun, creaking and groaning, liberating all the cable that had been wound upon it; but when every inch of cable had been paid out, what then?

"There! The anchor must be on bottom, and she holds!" shouted Dick in triumph.

"No--she--don't," replied Dab. "We are in deep water, and adrift."

"Can't be," asserted Dick. "All that cable paid out!"

Dick leaned over the vessel's rail and tried to pierce the shadows on the water and see if he could detect any movement. "Don't--see--anything that looks like moving, boys. Surely the anchor holds her," he said, in a very subdued way.

"Dick, see that rock on the shore?" asked Dave.

A ledge, big, shadowy, could be made out.

"Now, boys, keep your eyes on that two or three minutes and see if we stay abreast of it," was Dave's proposed test.

Five pairs of eyes were strained, watching the ledge; but if there had been five hundred, they would not have seen any proof that the vessel was stationary.

The ledge was stationary, but the Relentless--

"Well," said Dick, scratching his head, "I don't think we need worry. We--we--"

"Can drift," said Dab scornfully.

"It is of no use to cry over spilled milk," said Dave, in a tone meant to assure others. "Let's make the best of it, now it's done, and get some fun out of it if we can. All aboard for--Patagonia!"

"Good for you," whispered Dick. "The others are chicken-hearted. We shall come out of it all right; though I wish the schooner's rudder worked, and we might steer her."

The rudder was damaged and would not work.

"Say, boys, we might tow her into shallow water!" suggested Dave. "Come on, come on! Let's have some fun. And see--there's the moon!"

Yes, there was a moon rising above the eastern waters, shooting a long, tremulous arrow of light across the sea. The boys' spirits rose with the moon, and as the light strengthened, their surroundings--the harbour, the lighthouse near the bar, the shores on either hand--were not so indistinct.

"Not so bad," said Dick in a low tone to Dab. "There's our boat, you know. We can get into that and let this old wreck go. We can get ashore. We will have a lot of fun out of this."

The situation was delightful, as Dick continued to paint its attractions. They could have a "lot of fun" out of the schooner, and at the same time abandon the source of it when that failed them. Dave talked differently.

"Come, boys, we must try to get the old hulk ashore," he said. "I believe in staying by this piece of property long as we got permission to use it; but we will make the best of our situation. All hands into the boat to tow the schooner into shallow water!"

The boys responded with a happy shout, and climbed over the vessel's side, descending by the ladder that still clung to the rail.

"What have we got to tow with?" asked Jimmy Davis.

"That is a conundrum!" replied Dave. "Didn't think of that!"

"May find something on the deck," suggested Dick.

A hunt was made, but no rope could be found.

"Boys, we have got to tow with the boat's painter; it's all we have got," said Dave, in a disgusted tone. This rope was about ten feet long. It was attached to the schooner's bow, and how those small arms did strain on the oars and strive to coax the Relentless into shoal water!

"Give us a sailor's song, Dick," said Jimmy Davis.

"I will, boys, when I get my breath," replied Dick, puffing after his late efforts and wiping the sweat from his brow. "I'll start 'Reuben Ranzo.'"

The boys sang with a will, and their voices made a fine chorus.

"Reuben" had been able to coax the schooner away from her moorings, but he could not win her back.

True to her name, she obstinately drifted on.

"Don't you know anything else?" inquired Dave.

"I know 'Haul the Bow-line.'"

"Give us that, Dick."

"I'll start you on the words, boys,--

'Haul the bow-line, Kitty is my darling;

Haul the bow-line, the bow-line haul.'

Sing and pull, boys."

The boys sang and the boys pulled, and there was a fierce straining on that bow-line; but no soft words about "Kitty" had any effect on the Relentless. It seemed as if this obdurate creature were moved by an ugly jealousy of "Kitty," and drifted on and on.

"It's of no use!" declared Dick. "I move we untie our rope and go ashore and let the old thing go. We have done what we could to get ashore."

He did not say that he had done what he could to get the Relentless adrift, and had fully succeeded. Dave did not twit him with the fact, but he was not ready to abandon the schooner.

Some of the boys murmured regrets about their "things." They did not want to forsake these.

"Well, boys," said Dick, with a boastful air, "I'll get you out of the scrape somehow. We might go on deck again, and hold a council of war and talk the situation over."

Any change was welcomed, and the boys scrambled on deck again. Dick was the last of the climbing column.

"Hand that painter up here and I'll make it fast," said Dave. "Then come up and we will talk matters over."

"Oh!" said Dick, who was half-way up the ladder, "I forgot to bring that rope up."

He descended the ladder and reached out his foot to touch the boat, but he could not find it! When he had left the boat, a minute ago, he gave it unintentionally a parting kick, and--and--alas! The boat was now too far from the schooner's side to be reached by Dick's foot.

"Get something!" he gasped. "Bring a--pole--and--get that boat!"

The boys scattered in every direction to find a--they did not know what, that in some way they might reach after and capture that escaping boat. Their excitement was intense but fruitless. There were now two vessels adrift--a schooner and a dory--serenely floating in the still but strong current, steadily moving seaward, and the moonlight that had been welcomed only revealed to them more plainly the mortifying situation of the party.

"Ridiculous!" exclaimed Dick.

Most of the boys looked very sober. Dave put his hands in his pockets and whistled.

"Well, boys, don't you worry! I'll get you out of this in good fashion yet," cried Dick. "We can't go far to sea, and then the tide will bring us back again in the morning."

"Far to sea!" said Dab mockingly. "There's the lighthouse on the left, and it looks to me as if we should hit the bar!"

The bar! The boys started. At the mouth of the river the sand brought down from the yielding shores would accumulate, and it formed a bar whose size and shape would annually change, but the obstacle itself never disappeared. There it stretched in the navigator's way, seriously narrowing the channel; and of how many catastrophes that "bar" had been the occasion! The breakers above were soft and white, and the sand below was yielding and crumbling; and yet just there how many vessels had been tripped up by that foot of sand thrust out into the harbour! The boys laughed and tried to be jolly, but no one liked the situation. It was a very picturesque scene,--the moonlight silvering the sea, the calmly-moving schooner and boat, that lighthouse like a tall, stately candlestick lifting its quiet light; but, for all that, there was the bar! Either the night-wind was growing very chilly, or the boys shivered for another reason.

"Don't worry, fellows," said Dick, putting as much courage as possible into his voice. "When this old thing hits, you see, we shan't drift right on to the bar, but our anchor will catch somewhere on this side. That will hold us. I can swim, and I'll just drop into the sea and make for the light and get Toby Tolman's boat, and come and bring you off."

He then proceeded to hum "Reuben Ranzo;" but nobody liked to sing it, and Dick executed a solo for this unappreciative audience.

"How--how deep is the water inside the bar?" said chattering Jimmy Davis. He felt the cold night-air, and he shook as if he had an ague fit.

"Pretty deep," solemnly remarked Dab Richards.

The musical hum by the famous soloist, Dick Pray, ceased; only the breakers on the bar made their music.

Dick began to doubt seriously the advisability of dropping into that deep gulf reputed to be inside the bar. It was now not very far to the lighthouse, and the surf on the bar whitened in the moonlight and fell in a hushed, drowsy monotone. People by the shore may be hushed by this lullaby of the ocean, but to those boys there was nothing drowsy in its sound; it was very startling.

"I--I--I--" said Jimmy.

"What is it, Jimmy?" asked Dave.

Jimmy did feel like wishing aloud that he could be at home, but he concluded to say nothing about it. Steadily did the Relentless drift toward that snow-line in the dark sea.

"Almost there!" cried Dave.

"May strike any moment!" shouted Dab.

Yes, nearer, nearer, nearer, came the Relentless to that foaming bar. The boat had already arrived there, and Dave saw it resting quietly on its sandy bed. Did he notice a glistening strip of sand beyond the surf? He had heard some one in Shipton say that at very low tide there was no water on portions of the bar. This fact set him to thinking about his possible action. It now seemed to him as if the distance between the stern of the vessel and the bar could not be more than a hundred feet. The bow of the vessel pointed up river. She was going "stern on." How would it strike--forcibly, easily?

"Ninety feet now!" thought Dave. "Will the shock upset her, pitch us out, or what?"

Sixty feet now!

"The bar looks sort of ugly!" remarked Johnny Richards.

Thirty feet now!

"Wish I was in bed!" thought Jimmy Davis.

Twenty feet now!

Had the schooner halted? The boys clustered in the bow and looked anxiously over to the bar.

"Boys, she holds, I do believe," said Dave.

"All right!" shouted Dick--"all right! The anchor holds!"

It did seem an innocent, all-right situation: just the quiet sea, the musically-rolling surf along the bar, the stately lighthouse at the left, and that schooner quietly halting in the harbour.

"Now, boys," exclaimed Dick, "we can--"

"I thought you were going to swim to the lighthouse?" observed Dab.

"Oh, that won't be necessary now," replied Dick. "We are just masters of the situation. The moment the tide turns we can weigh anchor and drift back again just as easy! Be in our old quarters by morning, and nobody know the difference. Old Sylvester himself might come down the river, and he would find everything all right. Ha! ha!"

Dick's confidence was contagious, and when he proposed "Haul the Bow-line," his companions sang with him, and sang with a will. How the notes echoed over the sea! Such a queer place to be singing in!

"Mr. Toby Tolman," said Dick, facing the lighthouse, "we propose to wake you up! Let him have a rouser. Give him 'Reuben Ranzo!'"

While they were administering a "rouser" to Mr. Toby Tolman, somebody at the stern was dropping into the sea. He had stripped himself for his swim, and now struck out boldly for the bar. Reaching its uncovered sands he ran along to the boat, lying on the channel side of the bar and not that of the lighthouse, leaped into the boat, and, shoving off, rowed round to the bow of the schooner. There was a pause in the singing, and Dick Pray was saying, "This place makes you think of mermen," when Dab Richards, looking over the vessel's side, said, "Ugh! if there isn't one now!"

"Where--where?" asked Johnny.

"Ship ahoy!" shouted Dave from the boat. "How many days out? Where you bound? Short of provisions?"

"Three cheers for this shipwrecked mariner just arrived!" cried Dab. And the hurrahs went up triumphantly in the moonlight. Dave threw up to the boys the much-desired painter, and the runaway boat was securely fastened.

"There, Dave!" said Dick, as he welcomed on deck the merman: "I was just going after that thing myself, just thinking of jumping into the water, but you got ahead of me. Somehow, I hate to leave this old craft."

"I expect," said Dab Richards, a boy with short, stubby black hair and blue eyes, and lips that easily twisted in scorn, "we shall have such hard work to get Dick away from this concern that we shall have to bring a police-officer, arrest, and lug him off that way."

"Shouldn't wonder," replied Dick. "Couldn't be persuaded to abandon this dear old tub."

"Well, boys, I'm going to the lighthouse as soon as I'm dressed," said Dave.

There was a hubbub of inquiries and comments.

"What for?" asked Dick. "Ain't we all right?"

"I hope so; but I want to keep all right. I want to ask the light-keeper--"

"But all we have got to do is to pull up anchor when the tide comes, and drift back."

"Oh yes; we can drift back, but where? We can't steer the schooner. We don't know what currents may lay hold of her and take her where we don't want to go. There are some rocks with an ugly name."

"'Sharks' Fins!'" said Jimmy. "Booh!"

"What if we ran on to them?" said Dave. "We had better go and ask Toby Tolman's opinion. He may suggest something--tell us of some good way to get out of this scrape. He knows the harbour, the currents, the tides, and so on. Any way, it won't do any harm to speak to him. I won't bother anybody to go with me. Stay here and make yourselves comfortable; I will dress and shove off."

When Dave had dressed and returned, he found every boy in the boat. Dick Pray was the first that had entered.

"Hullo!" shouted Dave. "All here, are you? That's good. The more the merrier."

"Dave, we loved you so much we couldn't leave you," asserted Dick.

"We will have a good time," said Dave. "All ready! Shove off! Bound for the lighthouse!"

The old schooner was left to its own reflections in the sober moonlight, and the boat slowly crept over the quiet waters to the tall lighthouse tower.