"Daddy, let me see," pleaded Pat, and Jim adjusted the telescope so that the child could see the great disabled vessel lying rolling helplessly in the trough of the angry water, driven along almost at the mercy of the winds and waves, yet gallantly striving to keep such a course as should give her her only chance of safety. Pat was not seaman enough to estimate her chances of escape, and cried out every moment that she must sink. Jim was afraid rather she would be driven in and dashed upon the rocks; but that she was under able management both men saw; and when Nat carried the child down to his mother, and saw Eileen's white face and straining eyes, he was able to kiss her, and place the boy in her arms, saying, "Please God, they will weather it yet; but 'tis a fearful thing to see. They have escaped being driven on this reef; and if they can get round the next point, they may find shelter from the gale. Pray for them, my lass, for it is all we may do. We will watch while you pray, and may be they will be safe yet!" [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI _JIM'S EXPLOIT_ "It's a little boy! It's a little boy! Daddy! Oh, mother, look! look! I see him quite plain! It's a little boy. Oh, save him! save him!" Pat's shrill little voice, sharpened by fear and pity, rang high through the noise of wind and waves. The cold dawn was breaking over the Lone Rock, and its four inmates were standing together at the base of the lighthouse with their eyes eagerly fixed upon the vast sheet of heaving and tossing water. The wind had abated its fury somewhat during the past hours, but the sea was still raging like a wild thing round the sunken reef. The tide, however, had fallen, and there was safe foothold for the little group anxiously gathered together. For some minutes they had all been gazing in the same direction--had been looking towards an object floating in the water, drifting nearer and nearer to them; and now the child's shrill cry broke the silence, and spoke the words the men had not dared to do, though for some moments they, too, had known what it was, lashed to a floating spar, that was being drifted down upon the Lone Rock. "It's a little boy! It's a little boy!" cried Pat, in an agony of sorrow and fear. "Oh, father! Oh, Jim! Will he be killed? Will he be killed? Oh, don't let him be killed! Don't let the waves dash him on the rocks! Oh, what can we do? What can we do?" Eileen covered her eyes with her hand as though to shut out the sight of the thing that seemed as though it must happen. It would be too frightful to see that little frame dashed in pieces before their eyes, even though life might be already extinct. Pat was clinging to her dress in an agony. Nat's voice shook as he made reply to his child-- "I'm afraid he's dead already, Pat. He may have been hours in the water with the waves dashing over him. The life is soon beaten out of a strong man like that. A little child could scarce live half-an-hour."