CHAPTER XX.
A WRECK AND SOME WRECKERS.
Dismally barren and lonesome was that desolate bar between the bay andthe ocean. Here and there it swelled up into great drifts and mounds ofsand, which were almost large enough to be called hills; but nowhere didit show a tree, or a bush, or even a patch of grass. Annie Foster foundherself getting melancholy, as she gazed upon it, and thought of how thewinds must sometimes sweep across it, laden with sea-spray and rain andhail, or with the bitter sleet and blinding snow of winter.
"Dabney," she said, "was the storm very severe here last night andyesterday?"
"Worse than it was over on our side of the bay, ten times."
"Were there any vessels wrecked?"
"Most likely, but it's too soon to know just where."
At that moment "The Swallow" was running around a sandy point, juttingout into the bay from the foot of the highest mound on the bar, not halfa mile from the light-house, and only twice as far from the low woodenroof of the "wrecking-station," where, as Dab had explained to hisguests, the lifeboats and other apparatus of all sorts were kept safelyhoused. The piles of drifted sand had for some time prevented thebrightest eyes on board "The Swallow" from seeing any thing to seaward;but now, as they came around the point and a broad level lay beforethem, Ham Morris sprang to his feet in sudden excitement, as heexclaimed,--
"In the breakers! Why, she must have been a three-master! It's all upwith her now."
"Look along the shore!" shouted Dab. "Some of 'em saved, anyhow. Thecoast-men are there, too, life-boats and all."
So they were; and Ham was right about the vessel, though not a mast wasleft standing in her now. If there had been, indeed, she might have beenkept off the breakers, as they afterwards learned. She had beendismasted in the storm, but had not struck until after daylight thatmorning, and help had been close at hand and promptly given. There wasno such thing as saving that unfortunate hull. She would beat to piecesjust where she lay, sooner or later, according to the kind of weatherthat might take the job in hand, and the size and force of the waves itshould bring with it.
The work done already by the life-boat men had been a good one; and ithad not been very easy, either, for they had brought the crew andpassengers safely through the boiling surf, and landed them all upon thesandy beach. They had even saved for them some items of baggage. In afew hours the coast "wrecking-tugs" would be on hand to look out for thecargo. There was therefore no chance for the 'long-shore men to turn anhonest penny without working hard for it. Work and wages enough therewould be, to be sure, helping to unload, whenever the sea, now so heavy,should go down a little; but "work" and "wages" were not the precisethings some of them were most hungry for.
Two of them, at all events,--one a tall, grizzled, weather-beaten,stoop-shouldered old man, in tattered raiment, and the other morebattered still, but with no "look of the sea" about him,--stood on asand-drift, gloomily gazing at the group of shipwrecked people on theshore, and the helpless mass of timber and spars out there among thebeatings of the surf.
"Not more'n three hunder' yards out She'd break up soon, 'f there was noone to hender. Wot a show we'd hev!"
"I reckon," growled the shorter man. "'S your name Peter?"
"Ay. I belong yer. Allers lived 'bout high-water mark. Whar'd ye comefrom?"
The only answer was a sharp and excited exclamation. Neither of them hadbeen paying any attention to the bay side of the bar; and, while theywere gazing at the wreck, a very pretty little yacht had cast anchor,close in shore; and then, with the help of a rowboat, quite a party ofladies and gentlemen--the latter somewhat young-looking for the greaterpart--had made their way to the land, and were now hurrying forward.They did not pay the slightest attention to Peter and his companion, butin a few minutes more they were trying to talk to those poor people onthe seaward beach. Trying, but not succeeding very well; for the wreckhad been a Bremen bark, with an assorted cargo and some fiftypassengers, all emigrants. German seemed to be their only tongue, andnone of Mrs. Kinzer's pleasure-party spoke German.
"Too bad," Ford Foster was saying about it, when there came a sort ofwail from a group at a little distance, and it seemed to close with,--
"_Pauvre enfant!_"
"French!" exclaimed Ford. "Why, they look as Dutch as any of the rest.Come on, Annie, let's try and speak to them."
The rest followed, a good deal like a flock of sheep; and it was a sadenough scene that lay before them. No lives had been lost in the wreck;but there had been a good deal of suffering among the poor passengers,cooped up between decks, with the hatches closed, while the stormlasted. Nobody drowned, indeed; but all had been dreadfully soaked inthe surf in getting ashore, and among the rest had been the fair-hairedchild, now lying there on his mother's lap, so pinched and blue, andseemingly so nearly lifeless.
French, were they?
Yes and no; for the father, a tall, stout young man, who looked like afarmer, told Ford they were from Alsace, and spoke both languages.
"The child, was it sick?"
Not so much "sick" as dying of starvation and exposure. Oh, such a sad,pleading look as the poor mother lifted to the moist eyes of Mrs.Kinzer, when the portly widow pushed forward and bent over the silentboy! Such a pretty child he must have been, and not over two years old;but the salt water was in his tangled curls now, and his poor lips wereparted in a weak, sick way, that told of utter exhaustion.
"Can any thing be done, mother?"
"Yes, Dabney, there can. You and Ham and Ford and Frank go to the yacht,quick as you can, and bring the spirit-heater, lamp and all, and breadand milk, and every dry napkin and towel you can find. Bring Keziah'sshawl."
Such quick time they made across that sand-bar!
They were none too soon, either; for, as they came running down to theirboat a mean-looking, slouching sort of fellow walked rapidly away fromit.
"He was going to steal it!"
"Can't go for him now, Dab; but you'll have to mount guard here, whilewe go back with the things."
There was a good deal of the "guard mounted" look in Dab's face, whenthey left him, a few minutes later, standing there by the boat, and hehad one of the oars in his hand. An oar is almost as good a club as thelower joint of a fishing-rod, and that was exactly the thought in Dab'smind.
Ham and Frank and Ford hurried back to the other beach, to find thatMrs. Kinzer had taken complete possession of that baby. Every rag of hisdamp things was already stripped off; and now, while Miranda lighted the"heater," and made some milk hot in a minute, the good lady began to rubthe little sufferer as only an experienced mother knows how.
Then there was a warm wrapping-up in cloths and shawls, and bettersuccess than anybody had dreamed of in making the seemingly half-deadchild eat something.
"That was about all the matter with him," said Mrs. Kinzer. "Now, if wecan get him and his mother over to the house, we can save both of them.Ford, how long did you say it was since they'd eaten any thing?"
"About three days, they say."
"Mercy on me! And that cabin of ours holds so little! Glad it's full,anyhow. Let's get every thing out and over here, right away."
"The cabin?"
"No, Hamilton, the provisions."
Not a soul among them all thought of their own lunch, any more than Mrs.Kinzer herself did; but Joe and Fuz were not among them just then. Onthe contrary, they were over there by the shore, where the "Jenny" hadbeen pulled up, trying to get Dab Kinzer to put them on board "TheSwallow."
"Somebody ought to be on board of her," said Fuz, in as anxious a toneas he could assume, "with so many strange people around."
"It isn't safe," added Joe.
"Fact," replied Dab; "but then, I kind o' like to feel a little unsafe."
The Hart boys had a feeling, at that moment, that somehow or other Dabknew why they were so anxious to go on board; and they were rightenough, for he was saying to himself, "They can wait. They do lookhungry, but they'll live through it. There ain't any cuf
fs or collars inHam's locker."
All there was then in the locker was soon out of it, after Mrs. Kinzerand the rest came, for they brought with them the officers of thewrecked bark; and neither Joe nor Fuz had an opportunity to so much as"help distribute" that supply of provisions. Ham went over to see thatthe distribution should be properly made; while Mrs. Kinzer saw herlittle patient, with his father and mother, safely stowed on board "TheSwallow."
"I'll save that baby, anyhow," she said to Miranda; "and Ford says hisfather's a farmer. We can find plenty for 'em to do. They'll never see athing of their baggage, and I guess they hadn't a great deal."
She was just the woman to guess correctly about such a matter.
At that moment Dabney was saying to Annie Foster,--
"Whom do you guess I've seen to-day?"
"I can't guess. Who was it?"
"The tramp!"
"The same one?"
"The very same. There he goes, over the sandhill yonder, with old Peterthe wrecker. We've got to hurry home now, but I'm going to set HamMorris on his track before we get through."
"You'll never find him again."
"Do you s'pose old Peter'd befriend a man that did what he did? Right onthe shore of the bay? No, indeed! There isn't a fisherman from here toMontauk, that wouldn't join to hunt him out. He's safe to be foundwhenever Ham wants him, if we don't scare him away now."
"Don't scare him, then," almost whispered Annie.
The wind was fair; and the home sail of "The Swallow" was really a swiftand short one, but it did seem dreadfully long to her passengers.
Mrs. Kinzer was anxious to see that poor baby and his mother safely inbed. Ham wanted to send a whole load of refreshments back to theshipwrecked people. Dab Kinzer could not keep his thoughts fromfollowing that "tramp." And then, if the truth must come out, every soulon board the beautiful little yacht was getting more and more painfullyaware with every minute that passed, that they had had a good deal ofsea-air and excitement, and a splendid sail across the bay, but nodinner,--not so much as a red herring and a cracker.