CHAPTER XIX
LIFE-SAVERS
"Mother, mother!" called Nellie, "look down at the beach. Thelife-guards are burning the red signal lights! They have found awreck!"
It was almost morning, but the black storm clouds held the daylightback. Mrs. McLaughlin and her little daughter strained their eyes tosee, if possible, what might be going on down at the beach. Whilethere was no noise to give the alarm, it seemed, almost everybody inthat house felt the presence of the wreck, for in a very few minutes,Bert was at his window, Dorothy and Nan were looking out of theirs,while the older members of the household were dressing hastily, to seeif they might be of any help in case of accident at the beach.
"Can I go with you, Uncle?" called Bert, who had heard his unclegetting ready to run down to the water's edge.
"Yes, come along," answered Mr. Minturn, and as day began to peepthrough the heavy clouds, the two hurried down to the spot where thelife-guards were burning their red light to tell the sailors theirsignal had been seen.
"There's the vessel!" exclaimed Bert, as a rocket flew up from thewater.
"Yes, that's the distress signal," replied the uncle. "It is luckythat daylight is almost here."
Numbers of other cottagers were hurrying to the scene now, Mr. Binghamand Hal being among the first to reach the spot.
"It's a schooner," said Mr. Bingham to Mr. Minturn, "and she has avery heavy cargo."
The sea was so wild it was impossible to send out the life-savers'boats, so the guards were making ready the breeches buoy.
"They are going to shoot the line out now," explained Hal to Bert, asthe two-wheel car with the mortar or cannon was dragged down to theocean's edge.
Instantly there shot out to sea a ball of thin cord. To this cord wasfastened a heavy rope or cable.
"They've got it on the schooner." exclaimed a man, for the thin cordwas now pulling the cable line out, over the water.
"What's that board for?" asked Bert, as he saw a board following thecable.
"That's the directions," said Hal.
"They are printed in a number of languages, and they tell the crew tocarry the end of the cable high up the mast and fasten it stronglythere."
"Oh, I see," said Bert, "the line will stretch then, and the breechesbuoy will go out on a pulley."
"That's it," replied Hal. "See, there goes the buoy," and then thequeer-looking life-preserver made of cork, and shaped like breeches,swung out over the waves.
It was clear day now, and much of the wicked storm had passed. Itseffect upon the sea was, however, more furious every hour, for whilethe storm had left the land, it was raging somewhere else, and thesensitive sea felt every throb of the excited elements.
With the daylight came girls and women to the beach.
Mrs. Bobbsey, Mrs. Minturn, Nellie and her mother, besides Dorothy andNan, were all there; Flossie and Freddie being obliged to stay homewith Dinah and Susan.
Of course the girls asked all sorts of questions and Bert and Haltried to answer them as best they could.
It seemed a long time before any movement of the cable showed that thebuoy was returning.
"Here she comes! Here she comes!" called the crowd presently, as theblack speck far out, and the strain on the cord, showed the buoy wascoming back.
Up and down in the waves it bobbed, sometimes seeming to go all theway under. Nearer and nearer it came, until now a man's head could beseen.
"There's a man in it!" exclaimed the boys, all excitement, while thelife-guards pulled the cord steadily, dragging in their human freight.
The girls and women were too frightened to talk, and Nellie clungclose to her mother.
A big roller dashing in finished the work for the life-guards, and aman in the cork belt bounded upon shore.
He was quite breathless when the guards reached him, but insisted onwalking up instead of being carried. Soon he recovered himself andthe rubber protector was pulled off his face.
Everybody gathered around, and Nellie with a strange face, and astranger hope, broke through the crowd to see the rescued man.
"Oh--it is--_my_--_father_!" she screamed, falling right into the armsof the drenched man.
"Be careful," called Mr. Minturn, fearing the child might be mistaken,or Mrs. McLaughlin might receive too severe a shock from the surprise.
But the half-drowned man rubbed his eyes as if he could not believethem, then the next minute he pressed his little daughter to hisheart, unable to speak a word.
What a wonderful scene it was!
The child almost unconscious in her father's arms, he almost dead fromexhaustion, and the wife and mother too overcome to trust herself tobelieve it could be true.
Even the guards, who were busy again at the ropes, having left the manto willing hands on the beach, could not hide their surprise over thefact that it was mother, father, and daughter there united under suchstrange conditions.
"My darling, my darling!" exclaimed the sailor to Nellie, as he raisedhimself and then he saw his wife.
Mrs. Bobbsey had been holding Mrs. McLaughlin back, but now the sailorwas quite recovered, so they allowed her to speak to him.
Mr. Bingham and Hal had been watching it all, anxiously.
"Are you McLaughlin?" suddenly asked Mr. Bingham.
"I am," replied the sailor.
"And is George Bingham out there?" anxiously asked the brother.
"Safe and well," came the welcome answer. "Just waiting for his turnto come in."
"Oh!" screamed Dorothy, "Hal's uncle is saved too. I guess ourprayers were heard last night."
"Here comes another man!" exclaimed the people, as this time a big mandashed on the sands.
"All right!" exclaimed the man, as he landed, for he had had a goodsafe swing in, and was in no way exhausted.
"Hello there!" called Mr. Bingham: "Well, if this isn't luck. GeorgeBingham!"
Sure enough it was Hal's Uncle George, and Hal was hugging the big wetman, while the man was jolly, and laughing as if the whole thing werea good joke instead of the life-and-death matter it had been.
"I only came in to tell you," began George Bingham, "that we are allright, and the boat is lifting off the sand bar we stuck on. But I'mglad I came in to--the reception," he said, laughing. "So you'vefound friends, McLaughlin," he added, seeing the little family united."Why, how do you do, Mrs. McLaughlin?" he went on, offering her hishand. "And little Nellie! Well, I declare, we did land on a friendlyshore."
Just as Mr. Bingham said, the life-saving work turned out to be asocial affair, for there was a great time greeting Nellie's father andHal's uncle.
"Wasn't it perfectly splendid that Nellie and her mother were here!"declared Dorothy.
"And Hal and his father, too," put in Nan. "It is just like a storyin a book."
"But we don't have to look for the pictures," chimed in Bert, who wasgreatly interested in the sailors, as well as in the work of thelife-saving corps.
As Mr. Bingham told the guards it would not be necessary to haul anymore men in, and as the sea was calm enough now to launch a life-boat,both Nellie's father and Hal's uncle insisted on going back to thevessel to the other men.
Nellie was dreadfully afraid to have her father go out on the oceanagain, but he only laughed at her fears, and said he would soon be into port, to go home with her, and never go on the big, wild oceanagain.
Two boats were launched, a strong guard going in each, withMr. McLaughlin in one and Mr. Bingham in the other, and now theypulled out steadily over the waves, back to the vessel that wasfreeing itself from the sand bar.
What a morning that was at Sunset Beach!
The happiness of two families seemed to spread all through the littlecolony, and while the men were thinking of the more serious work ofhelping the sailors with their vessel, the girls and women wereplanning a great welcome for the men who had been saved from thewaves.
"I'm so glad we prayed," said little Flossie to Freddie, when sheheard the good news.
"It was Uncle William prayed the loudest," insisted Freddie,believing, firmly, that to reach heaven a long and loud prayer isalways best.
"But we all helped," declared his twin sister, while surely the angelshad listened to even the sleepy whisper of the little ones, who hadasked help for the poor sailors in their night of peril.