“It’s a howlin’ night,” reported Tom Walker, slamming his lantern on the table.
“Just so at my end of the beach,” said Woodbury Elliott, who immediately followed Tom. “Whew—w—w! An old–fashioned nor’easter!” “You saw nothin?” inquired Capt. Barney. And each patrol said, “Not a thing.”
“I hope it will stay so, for I think it’s goin’ to be the wust of the season. Come, boys, all pile upstairs early. There’s some hard trampin’ to be done ’fore daybreak.”
“Wall, we can say we have resuscitated one man to–day,” said Slim Tarleton.
“Ah, but we may have some real cases to–morrow. God forbid!”
It was Walter’s watch in the morning, from four till sunrise. He slept uneasily till his watch, vexed by dreams of wreck and rescue, of dead men’s faces and living wives’ sorrow. Rising, he dressed himself hurriedly a little before four. How the building shook in the wind, while the sea without was furious in its uproar!
“I’d like to stay in that warm bed. Booh! That cold walk makes me shiver! No help for it,” thought Walter, as he moved reluctantly toward the stairway and then descended it.
In the kitchen, dripping like a fish just pulled out of the water, was Slim Tarleton. He had finished his watch and Walter was his successor.
“I’d like to go for you, Walter, but it’s four now, and morning’s not such a terrible way off.”
“Everything except the sea, and that acts as bad as it can. Oh, I don’t imagine there will be any trouble.”
“Here is your Coston light, time–detector and so on,” said Keeper Barney. “Dress snug, for it blows; and dress thick, for it is cold. If anything happens, let us know.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n!” and out into the dark and the cold and the rain, strode our young knight, looking in his storm gear more like an Eskimo than a representative of any knightly age. The north–east wind blew at him as if it wanted to push this meddler back into the station; but with one arm around his lantern as if it were a baby that he wished to shield, he struggled over the rocks down to the strip of sand not yet covered by the tide. He saw nothing ten feet away, but he heard—no pen can describe the bellowing of this monster plunging and frothing at his feet. The lantern shot little gleams of light on the confused masses of foam along the edge of the shore, and he knew that there was a tumbling wall of ghastly white just beyond.