It was Libby at the helm, as she could dimly see, but what it was in his
management that moved Barlow's praise she could not divine. The boat
seemed to be aimed for the shore, and to be rushing, head on, upon the
beach; her broad sail was blown straight out over her bow, and flapped
there like a banner, while the heavy boom hammered the water as she rose
and fell. A jagged line of red seamed the breast of the dark wall behind;
a rending crash came, and as if fired upon, the boat flung up her sail,
as a wild fowl flings up its wing when shot, and lay tossing keel up, on
the top of the waves. It all looked scarcely a stone's cast away, though
it was vastly farther. A figure was seen to drag itself up out of the
sea, and fall over into the boat, hovering and pitching in the
surrounding welter, and struggling to get at two other figures clinging
to the wreck. Suddenly the men in the boat pulled away, and Grace uttered
a cry of despair and reproach: "Why, they're leaving it, they're leaving
it!"

"Don't expect 'em to tow the wreck ashore in this weather, do ye?"
shouted Barlow. "They've got the folks all safe enough. I tell ye I see
'em!" he cried, at a wild look of doubt in her eyes. "Run to the house,
there, and get everything in apple-pie order. There's goin' to be a
chance for some of your doctor'n' now, if ye know how to fetch folks to."

It was the little house on the beach, which the children were always
prying and peering into, trying the lock, and wondering what the boat was
like, which Grace had seen launched. Now the door yielded to her, and
within she found a fire kindled in the stove, blankets laid in order, and
flasks of brandy in readiness in the cupboard. She put the blankets to
heat for instant use, and prepared for the work of resuscitation. When
she could turn from them to the door, she met there a procession that