"O yes! Just wait a minute and let me ask Aunt Stanshy."

He groped his way to his aunt's bedroom.

"Aunt Stanshy, may I go with Will?"

In his eagerness he forgot to mention the object of this midnight expedition. Aunt Stanshy was not thoroughly awake, for the angel of sleep visiting Charlie had touched her eyes also. If awake, she might not have granted the request. The idea went confusedly through her brain that Charlie wanted to sleep with Will.

"Y-e-s," she murmured, drowsily, and then the angel of sleep had her fully again under his control. Charlie stole down into Will's room, his clothes on his arm.

"Now, dress quick as you can. Have you an overcoat?"

"Yes, but it is up in Aunt Stanshy's closet."

"We don't want to disturb her again. Here, you put on the cape of my cloak and fold it about you."

Charlie was proud to be thus enveloped. Will then completed his dressing, and looked like a Cape Codder just arrived from a fishing-smack. He took his young companion by the hand and off they started.

"Who's that?" asked Will, as they turned from Water Street into Beach Street.

"That boy in the door where there's a light? Why, that is Tony! He's up.

Tony, that you?" sang out Charlie.

"Yes! You going down to the beach?" said Tony, standing in the lighted door-way of a low-roofed house.

"Yes."

"I heard the bell and got up, and one of the neighbors came and told us it was a wreck, and Mr. Grimes said I might go if I could go with somebody."

"Come along," said Will. "Tell him I will take care of you."

Tony went eagerly back. He prepared for the trip, and then came out to join Will and Charlie.

"Now, boys, take hold of my hand and let's put," said Will.

They accordingly "put."

"Isn't this good fun, Tony."

"Yes, Charlie, splendid."

It was such good fun that Charlie thought he was willing to be a sailor on board that wreck even. He changed his mind, however, in a short time.

Beach Street led down to a road that was called "Back Road." This took as many turns as it pleased, and after a quarter of a mile struck the low, level marshes. Traversing the marshes, the road led Will and his companions up to the yellow hammocks, at whose base the breakers were discharging their fury in a terrible bombardment of the land. The road wound through the hummocks, and then the party stood upon the beach. It was a cold, ugly atmosphere, pierced by the missiles of the storm, while the surf crashed on the sand in one long, fierce, unearthly roar. People from the town were now gathering on the beach, some of them carrying lanterns that twinkled like stars knocked out of their places by the storm, fallen now to the level of the beach.

But where was the wreck? No sign of it anywhere; only rain, surf, storm, blackness--a wild medley.

"This is a sell!" said a man.

"Wish I was in bed agin," exclaimed another.

"Let's catch the feller that rang that church bell," exclaimed a third, "and duck him in the surf."

A fourth made a sensible suggestion: "Let's go down to the life-saving station, and they can probably tell us there."

A quarter of a mile up the beach was a life-saving station, and a light could be seen winking from one of its windows. Several, including Will and the boys, walked up the beach, past the crashing waves, and reaching the station, pushed open its door on the land-side of the building, and entered. Charlie looked about him with eager curiosity, for it was the first time he had ever been in such a place. The building was of two stories. The larger part of the lower story was taken up by a "boat-room"

for various kinds of apparatus for reaching wrecks. Charlie also saw the inside of a kitchen, and Will told him there was a room up stairs for the beds of the men at the station. Charlie and Tony warmed themselves at the brisk fire in the store. The man on duty there did not seem to know any thing about the disaster reported in town, but he talked with Will and Charlie about shipwrecks and storms and efforts at rescuing the wrecked.

After a while, Charlie said to Will, "Let's go out and take a run along the beach, and see what's going on."

"Yes," added Tony, "let's do it."

"A run up and down the beach to see what is going on, this stormy night?

You are enterprising boys. Well, we will go. b.u.t.ton up your coats snug, though. Fold my cape about you, Charlie. There, you look like a small monk off on a tare. You fixed, Tony? Come, boys," said Will.

Bang! How the wind slammed the door after them! And how the sea thundered and roared; then roared and thundered again! It seemed as if every throw of surf was heavier than that before, and yet none of this violence and wrath could be seen unless some one chanced to pa.s.s carrying a lantern.

Then this thing that raged along the sands, this creature, this dragon from the deep, would show an angry whiteness, as if it were the opening of his jaws.

Will and the boys may have tramped a quarter of a mile along the beach, when Will exclaimed, "Hullo, there's a light!"

It was a lively twinkle upon the sands that came nearer and nearer, and then stopped before the party.

"Who's this?" asked a voice, pleasantly.

Charlie lifted up his face toward the shining of this friendly light.

"Bub, is this you down here at this time of night? Don't you know the man who goes fishin' from your Aunt Stanshy's barn?"

"O yes, I know you."

It was the junior member of the new firm, "Tyler & Fisher."

"Are you a patrolman, Mr. Fisher?" asked Will.

"I am at spells, when a man at the station may be sick. You see I can't go fishin' in this storm, and it comes handy to be employed as a subst.i.tute at the station. But what are you here for?"

"We came down to find a wreck. Up in town St. John's bell was rung and we were told there was a wreck at Gull Point. At the station, though, where we have been, a man said that he did not know of any."

"I guess I know how that story got up to town. A little fool was down here with a squeaky voice and sharp little eyes, and he wanted to know if there were any wrecks. The fact is we had been looking for sich all day and through the evening and night. There were one or two vessels off the mouth of the harbor as night came on, trying to get in, and, pizen! they could no more get in than my old tarpaulin, and they wouldn't stand a hundredth part of the chance she would. You see, a nor'easter rakes right across the mouth of our harbor and drives off any sail tryin' to get in, and one of two things will happen--either a ship will be swept out to sea or swept on to Gull P'int. Well, that feller said to Joe Danforth--Joe and me were together--'Has there been a wreck?' 'No,' said Joe, 'I think not,' meaning to answer him. But I had said to Joe at that time, or just before that feller asked his question, 'Hadn't we better go to the station and get a bite?' 'Yes,' said Joe, meaning to answer _me_, and that person--whoever it was, grabbed up the answer to me and thought it was for him, and went off accordingly. That is how that bell came to ring. It would be an awful night for a wreck, wouldn't it? Hullo!" exclaimed John Fisher, stopping in his explanation, "What's that? If that aint the crittur hisself!"

As the patrolman turned his face to the sea, the boys looked off in that direction, and they were quick enough to see a rocket exploding in the air, scattering down a shower of tinted stars. This bright constellation faded away into the night, when suddenly up, up into the darkness, shot two vivid lines of fire, parting as they swept higher and higher, exploding in stars till the whole seemed like immense forks of gold with spreading, jeweled p.r.o.ngs.

"They let go a couple then," said Will.

"O look, Tony!" cried Charlie.

While the boys were watching the rockets, John Fisher was eagerly handling his Coston light. The design of this is to signal to any wreck, or to warn vessels away from an unsafe sh.o.r.e. John now ignited his light and, holding it up, ran along the beach. His big, burly form wrapped in a coa.r.s.e, heavy suit, threw an immense shadow on the sands, while the light of his torch so colored the beach that he seemed to be trampling on red snow. The foam of the waves, broken into patches, changed till it became clots of blood.

Beyond all, was that wrathful, howling, restless ocean. Away ran John Fisher, swinging his light, flinging out his big boots till he looked like a sea-monster, with unwieldy limbs, plunging through an atmosphere blood-tinged. At the station they had evidently become aware of the real situation of things, for there was a moving of lamps at the windows, then the opening of a door letting out a bright light. As Will and the boys reached the station, they saw the big door in one end of the building swinging back, and out rushed two men pulling a cart. John Fisher here came running up.

"Wreck is down at Gull's P'int," he said, "so some one told me, and that agrees with the place where the signals were seen. I guess she is on the nub of the P'int, and our wreck-gun will reach her."

"What is a wreck-gun?" Charlie wanted to ask, but every body seemed too busy to answer questions.