“Pull for the shore, sailor, Pull for the shore!” As he felt his feet touch bottom, Bayard’s strength gave way. Men ran out as far as they could stand in the undertow, and seized and held and dragged--some the rescuer, some the rescued; and so they all came dripping up the beach. The rope dropped upon the pebbles--cut to a single strand. Bayard was with difficulty persuaded to release his rigid clutch from the shoulder of the fisherman, who fell in a shapeless mass at his preserver’s feet. The light of the tar fire flared on the man’s bloated face. It was Job Slip. “Where’s the other?” asked Bayard faintly. “There were two.” He dimly saw through streams of water, that something else had happened; that men were running over the rocks and collecting in a cleft, and stooping down to look, and that most of them turned away as soon as they had looked. The old woman’s was the only quiet figure of them all. She had not left her place upon the cliff, but stood bent and stiff, staring straight ahead. He thought he heard a girl’s voice say:-- “Hush! Don’t talk so loud. She doesn’t know--it’s Johnny; and he’s been battered to jelly on the rocks.” * * * * * “Mr. Bayard, sir,” said Job, who had crawled up and got as far as his knees, “I wasn’t wuth it.” “That’s so,” said a candid bystander with an oath. “Then _be_ worth it!” said Bayard in a loud voice. He seemed to have thrown all that remained to him of soul and body into those four words; as he spoke them, he lifted his dripping arms high above his head, as if he appealed from the drunkard to the sky; then he sank. The gentlest hands in the crowd caught him, and the kindest hearts on the coast throbbed when the old captain called:-- “Boys! Stand back! Stir up the fire! Where’s the dry blankets? There’s plenty to ’tend to Johnny. Dead folks can bury their dead folks. Hurry up them dry clo’es an’ that there Jamaiky ginger! This here’s a livin’ man. Just a drop, sir--here. I’ll hold ye kinder easy. Can’t? _What?_--Sho!... Boys, the parson’s hurt.” At that moment a sound solemn and sinister reverberated from the tower of the lighthouse. The iron lips of the fog bell opened and spoke. IX. Captain Hap had reached the years when a trip to the Grand Banks is hard work, dory fishing off the coast a doubtful pleasure, and even yachting in an industrial capacity is a burden. He had a quick eye, a kind heart, a soft foot, and the gentle touch strangely enough sometimes to be found in hands that have hauled in the cod-line and the main-sheet for fifty years. In short, Captain Hap made an excellent nurse, and sometimes served his day and generation in that capacity.