“Anyhow, I’m going to try,” insisted Bayard. A rope ran out through his hands,--shot high into the air,--fell into the wind, and dropped into the breakers. It had carried about ten feet. For the gale had taken the stout cable between its teeth, and tossed it, as a dog does a skein of silk, played with it, shook it to and fro, and hurled it away. The black lips of the clouds closing over the moon, seemed to open and grin as the old captain said:-- “You ken keep on tryin’ long’s you hev the inclination. Mebbe the women-folks will feel better for’t; but you cay--n’t do it.” “Can’t get a rope to a boat two hundred feet away?” demanded Bayard. “Not without apparatus,--no, sir! Not in a blow like this here.” The old seaman raised his voice to a bellow to make himself audible twelve feet away. “Why, it’s reelly quite a breeze o’ wind,” he said. “Then what _can_ we do?” persisted Bayard, facing the beach in great agitation. “What are we here for, anyhow?” “We ken watch for ’em to come ashore,” replied the captain grimly. Turning, in a ferment half of anger, half of horror, to the younger men, Bayard saw that some one was trying to start a bonfire. Driftwood had been collected from dry spots in the rocks--or had a bucket of coal-tar been brought by some thoughtful hand? And in a little cave at the foot of the cliff, a woman, upon her knees in the shallow snow, was sheltering a tiny blaze within her two hands. It was the girl Lena. She wore a woolen cap, of the fashion called a Tam o’ Shanter, and a coarse fur shoulder cape. Her rude face showed suddenly in the flaming light. It was full of anxious kindliness. He heard her say:-- “It’ll hearten ’em anyhow. It’ll show ’em they ain’t deserted of God and men-folks too.” “Where’s my old lady?” added the girl, looking about. “I want to get her up to this fire. She’s freezing somewheres.” “Look alive, Lena! Here she is!” called one of the fishermen. He pointed to the cliff that hung over Ragged Rock. The old woman stood on the summit and on the edge. How she had climbed there, Heaven knew; no one had seen or aided her; she stood, bent and rigid, with her blanket shawl about her head. Her gray hair blew back from her forehead in two lean locks. Black against the darkness, stone carved out from stone, immovable, dumb, a statue of the storm, she stared out straight before her. She seemed a spirit of the wind and wet, a solemn figure-head, an anathema, or a prayer; symbol of a thousand watchers frozen on a thousand shores:--woman as the sea has made her. The girl had clambered up the cliff like a cat, and could be seen putting her arms around the old woman, and pleading with her. Lena did indeed succeed so far as to persuade her down to the fire, where she chafed the poor old creature’s hands, and held to her shrunken lips a bottle of Jamaica ginger that some fisherman’s wife had brought. But the old woman refused.