However, after five minutes of anxious waiting, kneeling in the bow, his
eyes on the cable, he found his courage rising and his hopes glowing.
"Does it mean--" gasped the girl, when he turned and looked at her.
"I don't know just what it will mean in the end, Miss Marston," he
said, with emotion. "But it's a reprieve while that rope holds."
Bradish sat clutching the gunwale with both hands, staring over his
shoulder at the waters frothing and roaring on the shore. The girl
glanced at him occasionally with a certain wonderment in her expression.
It seemed to Mayo that she was trying to assure herself that Bradish was
some person whom she knew. But she did not appear to have much success
in making him seem real. She spoke to him once or twice in an undertone,
but he did not answer. Then she turned her back on him.
Suddenly Mayo leaped up and shouted.
A man was running along the sandy crest of a low hill near the beach. He
disappeared in a little structure that was no larger than a sentry-box.
"There's a coast-guard patrol from the life-saving station. There must
be one somewhere along here!"
The man rushed out and flourished his arms.
"He has telephoned," explained Mayo. "Those are the boys! There's hope
for us!"
There was more than hope--there was rescue after some hours of dreary
and anxious waiting.
The life-boat came frothing down the sea from the distant inlet, and
they were lifted on board by strong arms.
And then Alma Marston gave Mayo the strangest look he had ever received
from a woman's eyes. But her lips grew white and her eyes closed, and
she lapsed into unconsciousness while he folded a blanket about her.
"You must have had quite a job of it, managing a woman through this
scrape," suggested the captain of the crew.
"It's just the other way," declared Mayo. "I'm giving her credit for
saving the whole of us."
"How's that?"
"I might find it a little hard to make you understand, captain. Let it
stand as I have said it."