"Howsomever, we're all high and dry on the reefs, gal, and it seems likely you're the only one can get us off. You ain't got to go away from here, if you don't want to. I've made it pretty average plain to that Bostwick gal that no matter what happens, she's got no expectations as far as Prudence and me are concerned. It was money and nothing but money she was after. Her being Prudence's niece in kind of a far-fetched way don't make it our duty--not even our Christian duty, as Elder Minnett calls it--to keep a gal in the house that we don't want, nor yet die at her convenience and leave her our money. And so I'll tell the elder if he undertakes to put his spoon in the dish again."

Sheila was listening to words that she had never expected to hear from the old captain. Could this be true? Were Cap'n Ira and Prudence, in spite of what they knew about her--what she had told them and Ida May had told them--desirous of having her back? Was there a chance, no matter what the real Ida May Bostwick could say, for Sheila to return and take up her peaceful life with the b.a.l.l.s?

Could this be real? Indeed, was it right for her to do this? Tunis--

She arose and walked to the open door, looking out almost blindly at first upon the gale-smitten sea. It was like her heart--so tossed about and fretted by winds of opinion. What should she do? Which way should she turn? Not to save Sheila Macklin from trouble or disgrace. Not even to save Tunis from possible scorn. The question that a.s.sailed her now was only: _Was it right?_

Suddenly, out upon the mountainous waves, she spied a sail. It was reefed, flattened down, almost tri-cornered. The two sticks of the schooner and the jaunty bowsprit pointing skyward heaved again into view. She stood so long gazing at the craft that Cap'n Ira spoke again.

"What d'ye say, gal?" he asked anxiously.

"Look--look here, Cap'n Ira!" she exclaimed. "Can it be the _Seamew_? Is she trying to head in for the channel? Oh! Are they in danger out there?"

The old man rose with his usual difficulty and hobbled to the door, leaning on his cane. He peered out over her shoulder, and his keen and experienced eyes saw and identified the laboring vessel almost at once.

"I swan! That is the _Seamew_, Ida May," he exclaimed. "Tut, tut!

What's Tunis got himself into such a pickle for? 'Tain't reasonable he should--being as good a seaman as he is.

"My, my! Why don't he get some cloth on her? He can't have lost all his upper canvas. Don't he know he needs tops'ls to beat up aslant of this gale and get into the shelter of the Head? I swan! If there's men enough there to man her proper, why don't they do the right thing?"

"Oh, Cap'n Ball," gasped the girl, "perhaps there are not enough men with him. Perhaps his crew has deserted again."

"I swan!" rejoined the old man. "What did he set sail for, then?

Ain't he got a mite of sense? But, I tell ye, Ida May, if he don't get more canvas on her, and get under better way, he'll never make that channel in this world."

"Oh!"

"The schooner's sure to go on the outer reef. She never can claw off the land now. Without help--if that's his trouble--Tunis Latham will never get that schooner into Big Wreck Cove. And G.o.d help him and them that's with him!" added the captain reverently.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A GIRL TO THE RESCUE

On sh.o.r.e the gale seemed a stiff and dangerous blow. At sea, even with a stanch deck under one's feet, the wind proved to have pa.s.sed the hurricane mark long since. The captain of the _Seamew_ felt that the elements had conspired bitterly to a.s.sail his schooner. Before they were a mile beyond the end of the Hollis breakwater, Tunis knew that he had the fight of his seagoing experience on his hands.

When they were fairly out of the semi-shelter of the point behind which Hollis lay, Tunis and his two companions realized very quickly just what they had to contend with. They had spread a handbreadth of mainsail, but the jib was blown out of the boltropes by one big swoop of wind and carried down to leeward, looking like a giant's shirt.

"Still feel that tug to sta'bbo'd," grumbled Horry. "Just like--"

"Belay that!" commanded Tunis. "I begin to believe that's bad luck, anyway. If you hadn't got on to that tack when we first put the schooner into commission, those Portygees wouldn't have even remembered the _Marlin B._ And _that_ schooner thousands of miles away from these seas!"

"I cal'late 'Rion Latham would have found something else to harp on then," said Zebedee. "He was bound to ruin you if he could."

Quickly the gale increased instead of abating, and it was utterly impossible for the trio to get topsails on her. She needed the pull of upper canvas if she was to tack properly for the mouth of the channel into Big Wreck Cove.

They fought for two hours to bring this much-desired object to pa.s.s, hoping for a lull or a shifting of the gale which might aid them.

The yellow sands of Wreckers' Head were plainly in view all that time. To give up the attempt and run before the gale was a folly of which Tunis Latham had no intention of being guilty if it could possibly be avoided. Manned as she was, the schooner might never be worked back to a landfall if they did so.

The keen old eyes of Horace Newbegin first spied the thing which promised hope. From his station at the wheel he shouted something which the younger men did not catch, but his pointing arm drew their gaze sh.o.r.eward.

Coming out from the Head was an open boat. Four figures pulled at the oars while another held the steering sweep. The daring crew was heading the boat straight on for the pitching schooner!

"The coast guard!" the old man was now heard to shout. "G.o.d bless them fellers!"

But Tunis knew it was not the lifeboat from the distant station. He knew the boat, if he could not at first identify those who manned it. It was an old lifeboat that had been stored in a shed below John-Ed Williams' place, and these men attempting their rescue were some of the neighbors from Wreckers' Head.

They came on steadily, the steersman standing at his post and handling the long oar as though it was a feather's weight. His huge figure soon identified him. It was Captain John Dunn, who, like Ira Ball, had left the sea, and he had left his right forearm, too, because of some accident somewhere on the other side of the globe.

But with the steel hook screwed to its stump and the good hand remaining to him, Captain Dunn handled that steering oar with more skill than most other men with two good hands could have done.

How the four at the oars pulled the heavy boat! Tunis sought to identify them as well. He saw John-Ed Williams--in a place at last where he was forced to keep up his end, though he was notably a lazy man. Ben Brewster had the oar directly behind John-Ed.

The third figure Tunis could not identify--not at once. The man at the bow oar was Marvin Pike, who pulled a splendid stroke. So did that unknown oarsman. They were all bravely tugging at the heavy oars. Tunis had faith in them.

Zebedee suddenly plunged across the pitching deck and reached the rail where Tunis stood. Discipline--at least seagoing etiquette--had been somewhat in abeyance aboard the _Seamew_ during the last few hours. Zeb caught the skipper by the arm.

"See her?" he bawled into the ear of the surprised Tunis.

"What's that?"

"See her hair? It's a girl! As I'm a living sinner, it's a girl!

Pulling number three oar, Captain Latham! Did you ever?"

Clinging to a stay, the captain of the _Seamew_ flung himself far over the rail as the schooner chanced to roll. He could look down into the approaching lifeboat. He saw the loosened, dark locks of the girl who was pulling at number three oar. On the very heels of Zeb's words the captain was confident of the girl's ident.i.ty.

"Sheila!"

His voice could not have reached her ear because of the rush and roar of the wind and sea, but, as though in answer to his shout, the girl glanced back and up, over her shoulder. For a moment Tunis got a flash of the face he so dearly loved.

What a woman she was! She lacked no more in courage than she did in beauty and sweetness of disposition. What other girl along all this coast--even one born of the Cape strain--would have dared take an oar in that lifeboat in face of such dire peril as this?

"Good Lord, Cap'n Latham!" shrieked Zeb. "That's Miss Bostwick!"

Tunis straightened up, squared his shoulders, and looked at Zebedee proudly. He wanted Zeb to know--he wanted the whole world to know, if he could spread the news abroad--that the girl pulling number three oar was the girl he loved, and was going to marry!

An hour later the _Seamew_, her topsails drawing full and her lower canvas properly handled, drove on like the bird she was through the channel into the cove, trailing the old lifeboat behind her. The skipper had taken the wheel himself, but that "tug to sta'bbo'd" did not disturb his equanimity as it sometimes did Horry's.

Sheila, m.u.f.fled in oilskins and sea boots, but with her wet hair flowing over her shoulders, stood beside the skipper. No matter how satisfied and confident Tunis might appear, the girl was still in an uncertain state of mind.

"And so," she said to him anxiously, "I do not know what to tell them. Cap'n Ira seemed so poorly and so unhappy. And he says Aunt Prue is almost ill.

"But it was Cap'n Ira who told me what to do when we saw the _Seamew_ in danger; how to get the men together and how to launch the boat! Oh, it was wonderful! He was not too overcome to be practical and realize your need, Tunis."

"Trust Cap'n Ira," agreed the young man. "And what other girl could have done what you did, Sheila? Hear what Cap'n John Dunn says? You ought to be a sailor's daughter. _I_ can tell him you are going to be a sailor's wife."