I had barely time to jump one side, before the huge wagon, bearing the boat and its men, swept past me, every one of those splendid horses with his head lowered, and his fine muscles set for the race.
It was all done with the celerity and ease with which things are accomplished in dreams. The sudden halting of the big wagon; the swinging of the boat to the ground; the swift donning of the yellow oilskin suits by the crew; the launch, and before one had time to wink, the strong strokes in perfect time, that bore the boat up and down, and up again, on those tumultuous waves.
There were other spectators beside myself, standing with strained sight and hearing, and throbbing hearts, upon the strip of beach. And there were other workers beside the crew. I had thought we were a small community out there in the little suburb, and I gazed with wonder that morning at the crowd which seemed to have dropped from the sky, or come up from below.
The men were chiefly from the middle and laboring classes, for the others go in on early trains, but Randolph Chance was there, his newspaper work giving him his mornings. We spoke to one another, but entered into no conversation. My thought was with the doomed ship, and so was his.
“Will any of you boys join me in taking off some of those people?” he asked the men at hand.
“I know it, but I understand boating; I guess we can manage it.”
“Don’t you think the life-saving crew can do the work?” I asked.
“No,” he answered shortly, “there won’t be time for them to make enough trips. Come, boys, here she goes! Jump in, a half dozen of you that can pull oars.”
There were boats enough, and soon there were men enough, for the human heart is kind and brave, and under a good leader men will walk up to Death himself without flinching.
Randolph Chance was big and strong, alert, and self controlled—a good leader. I realized all this just now, as I had not before, and I thought how strange it was that so much goodness should be bound up with so much folly. It was the old story of the wheat and the tares; and I said: “An enemy hath done this,” and then I thought of Miss Sprig.
I don’t like to dwell on that morning; the experience was new to me, and I can’t forget it; I can’t rid myself of the sound of those shrieks when the ship went down. She struggled like a human creature under a sudden blow—rocked, tottered, quivered, and then collapsed.