meantime dan had set his dingy sail to what he felt was a changing wind, and started neb's fishing boat on the straightest line he could make for killykinick. but it had taken a great deal of tacking and beating to keep to his course. he was not yet sailor enough to know that the bank of clouds lying low in the far horizon meant a storm; but the breeze that now filled and now flapped his sail was as full of pranks as a naughty boy. in all his experience as second mate, dan had never before met so trying a breeze; and it was growing fresher and stronger and more trying every minute. to beat back to beach cliff against its vagaries, our young navigator felt would be beyond his skill. the only thing he could do was to take the shorter course of about three miles to killykinick, and send off jim and dud in their rented boat (which had a motor) for a doctor. then he could explain freddy's absence to brother bart, and hurry back to his little chum.

wind and tide, however, were both against these well-laid plans to-day. the wind was bad enough, but now even the waves seemed to have a strange swell, different from the measured rise and fall he knew. it was as if their far-off depths were rising, stirring out of their usual calm. they no longer tossed their snowy crests in the summer sunlight, but surged and swayed in low, broken lines, white-capped with fitful foam. and the voice--the song of the sea--that had been a very lullaby to dan as he swung every night in his hammock beneath the stars, had a hoarse, fierce tone, like a sob of passion or pain. altogether, dan and his boat had a very hard pull over the three miles to killykinick.

"thar they come!" said captain jeb, who, with brother bart, was watching from the beach. "i told you you could count on mate dan, padre. thar the lads come, safe and sound; though they hed a pull against the wind, i bet. but here they come all right."

"god be thanked for that same!" said brother bart, reverently. "my heart has been nearly leaping out of my breast this last half hour. and you weren't over-easy about them yourself, as i could see, jeroboam."

"wall, i'm glad to see the younkers safe back, i must say," agreed captain jeb, in frank relief. "thar was nothing to skeer about when they started this morning, but that bank of cloud wasn't in sight then. my but it come up sudden! it fairly took my breath when neb pointed it out to me. that ar marline spike didn't hurt his weather eye. 'hurricane,' he says to me; 'straight up from the west indies, and them boys is out!' i tell you it did give me a turn--aye, aye matey!" as dan came hurrying up the beach. "ye made it all right again wind an' tide--but where's the other?"

"laddie,--my laddie!" cried brother bart, his ruddy face paling. "speak up, dan dolan! has harm come to him?"

"no, no, no!" answered dan eagerly, "no harm at all, brother bart. he is safe and sound. don't scare, brother bart." and then as briefly as he could dan told the adventure of the morning.

"and you left laddie, that lone innocent, with a dying man?" said brother bart. "sure it will frighten the life out of him!"

"no, it won't," replied dan. "freddy isn't the baby you think, brother bart. he's got lots of sand. he was ready and willing to stay. we couldn't leave the poor man there alone with the dogs."

"sure you couldn't,--you couldn't," said the good brother, his tone softening. "but laddie--little laddie,--that never saw sickness or death! send off the other boys for the doctor, jeroboam, and the priest as well, while dan and i go back for laddie."

but captain jeroboam, who was watching the horizon with a wide-awake weather eye, shook his head.

"you can't, padre,--you can't. not even the 'lady jane' could make it agin what's coming on now. if the boy is on dry land, you'll have to trust him to the lord."

"oh, no, no!" answered the good brother, forgetting what he said, in his solicitude. "i'll go for him myself. give us your boat, man, and dan and i will go for laddie."

"ye can't, i tell ye!" and the old sailor's voice took a sudden tone of command. "i'm captain of this here killykinick, padre; and no boat leaves this shore in the face of such a storm, for it would mean death to every man aboard her,--sure and certain death."

"the lord have mercy,--the lord have mercy!" cried brother bart. "my laddie,--my poor little laddie! the fright of this will kill him entirely. oh, but you're the hard man, jeroboam! you have no heart!"

"back!" shouted captain jeb, heedless of the good old man's reproaches, as a whistling sound came over the white-capped waves. "back, under cover, all of ye. the storm is on us now!"

and, fairly dragging brother bart, while neb and dan hurried behind them, the captain made for shelter in the old ship under the cliffs, where dud and jim had already found refuge.

"down with the hatches! brace everything!" came the trumpet tones of command of the old sailor over the roar of the wind. and doors and portholes shut, the heavy bolts of iron and timber fell into place, and everything was made tight and fast against the storm that now burst in all its fury on killykinick,--a storm that sent brother bart down on his knees in prayer, and held the boys speechless and almost breathless with terror. in the awful blackness that fell upon them they could scarcely see one another. the "lady jane" shook from stem to stern as if she were being torn from her fifty years' mooring. the stout awnings were ripped from the upper deck; their posts snapped like reeds in the gale; the great hollows of the devil's jaw thundered back the roar of the breakers that filled their cavernous depths with mad turmoil. on land, on sea, in sky, all was battle,--such battle as even captain jeb agreed he had never seen on killykinick before.

"i've faced many a hurricane, but never nothing as bad as this. if it wasn't for them cliffs behind us and the stretch of reef before, durned if we wouldn't be washed clean off the face of the earth!"

"laddie, laddie!" was the cry that blended with brother bart's prayers for mercy. "god in heaven, take care of my poor laddie through this! i ought not to have let him out of my sight."

"but he's safe, brother bart," said dan, striving to comfort himself with the thought. "he is on land, you know, just as we are; and the old lighthouse is as strong as the 'lady jane'; and god can take care of him anywhere."

"sure he can, lad,--he can. i'm the weak old sinner to doubt and fear," was the broken answer. "but he's only a bit of a boy, my own little laddie,--only a wee bit of a boy, that never saw trouble or danger in his life. to be facing this beside a dying man,--ah, god have mercy on him, poor laddie!"

so, amid fears and doubts and prayers, the wild hours of the storm and darkness passed; the fierce hurricane, somewhat shorn of its first tropic strength, swept on its northward way; the shriek of the wind sank into moan and murmur; the sea fell back, like a passion-weary giant; the clouds broke and scattered, and a glorious rainbow arched the clearing sky.

the bolts and bars that had done such good duty were lifted, and the crew of the "lady jane" went out to reconnoitre a very damaged domain. cow-house and chicken-house were roofless. brown betty lay crouching fearful in the ruins while her feathered neighbors fluttered homeless in the hollows of the rocks. the beans and peas and corn,--all things that had lifted their green growth too proudly, were crushed to the earth. but far worse than this was the havoc wrought on the beach. one half of the wharf was down. the small boats, torn from their moorings, had disappeared entirely. the motor boat jim and dud had hired for the season was stove in upon the rocks. the "sary ann," stranded upon the shoals of numskull nob, to which she had been swept by the gale, lay without mast or rudder, leaking at every joint.

the two old salts surveyed the scene for a moment in stoic silence, realizing all it meant to them. but brother bart, with the sunlight dancing on the waves, the rainbow arching the sky, broke into eager, hopeful speech.

"god be thanked it's over and we're all alive to tell it; for noah's deluge itself couldn't have been worse. and now, jeroboam, we'll be going over after laddie; and the lord grant that we may find him safe as the rest!"

"we'll be going after him!" repeated captain jeb, grimly. "how and whar!"

"sure--can't we right one of the boats?" asked the old man, anxiously.

"which boat," was the gruff question. "that thar play toy" (surveying the motor boat) "is smashed in like an eggshell. whar the other has been swept to nobody knows. and the 'sary ann' has done her best, as we all can see; but no boat could hold her own agin that storm. do you think she will stand till morning, neb?"

neb rolled his dull eyes over reef and shoal.

"she moight," he replied briefly. "struck pretty bad thar in the bow; but the wind is down now and the tide is low."

"and she is oak-keeled and copper-braced from stem to stern," continued captain jeb. "she may stick it out until we can get thar and tow her in. as for the boy, padre, we can't reach him no more'n we can reach the 'sary ann' without a boat; and thar's nothing left that will float around this killykinick."

"ah, the lord have mercy! and are we to leave laddie in that wild place beyond all night?" cried brother bart. "scatter, boys,--scatter all over the place, and maybe you can find a boat caught in the rocks and sands; for we must get to the laddie afore the night comes on, cost what it may. scatter and strive to find a boat!"

while the boys scattered eagerly enough captain jeb, making a spyglass of his hands, was scanning the horizon with a sailor's practised eye.

"what is it you see?" asked brother bart, anxiously. "don't tell me it's another storm!"

"no," answered captain jeb, slowly, "it ain't another storm. neb" (his tone grew suddenly sharper and quicker), "step up to the ship and get the old man's glass,--the glass we keep shut up in the case."

neb, who never shirked an order, obeyed. in a moment he returned with one of the greatest treasures of the "lady jane"--great-uncle joe's ship-glass that was always kept safe from profaning touch; its clear lenses, that had looked out on sea and sky through many a long voyage, polished to a shine. captain jeb adjusted them to his own failing eyes, and gazed seaward for a few moments in silence. then he said:

"'pears as if i couldn't see clarly after that tarnation blow. you look out, neb. and, padre, you'd better step back thar and keep a weather eye on them younkers. it doesn't do to turn them out too free, with things all broke up."

"you're right, man,--you're right, jeroboam," said the good brother tremulously. "i'll keep an eye on them, as you say."

"thar,--i've got him out of the way!" said captain neb, as brother bart hurried back to watch over his scattered flock. "now look, neb,--look steady and straight! three points to the south of numskull nob,--what d'ye see?"

"nothing at all," answered neb.

"look again!" his brother adjusted the old shipmaster's glass with a hand that trembled strangely. "another point to the south. look steady as ye can, neb. yer weather eye was always clarer than mine. what d'ye see now?"

"nothing," came the answer again; and then the dull tone quickened: "aye i do,--i do! thar's suthing sticking out of the waves like a broken mast."

"the old light," said captain jeb, hoarsely,--"all that's left of it. last island has gone under, as you said it would, neb,--clean swallowed up. and the boy--" (the speaker gulped down something like a sob). "looks as if the padre will never see his little lad agin."