CHAPTER VIII.

THE SHIPWRECK.





Things that happen altogether have to be told one after the other. Turner
and I both rushed at the narrow stair. There was not room for more than one
upon it. I was first, but stumbled on the lowest step and fell. Turner
put his foot on my back, jumped over me, sprang up the stair, and when I
reached the top of it after him, he was meeting me with Connie in his arms,
carrying her back to her room. But the girl kept crying--"Papa, papa, the
ship, the ship!"

My duty woke in me. Turner could attend to Connie far better than I could.
I made one spring to the window. The moon was not to be seen, but the
clouds were thinner, and light enough was soaking through them to show a
wave-tormented mass some little way out in the bay; and in that one moment
in which I stood looking, a shriek pierced the howling of the wind, cutting
through it like a knife. I rushed bare-headed from the house. When or
how the resolve was born in me I do not know, but I flew straight to the
sexton's, snatched the key from the wall, crying only "ship ashore!" and
rushed to the church.