The door was flung open again. The little mahogany-faced Portuguese staggered in. It was plain to be seen that something fresh had happened. "What is it?" cried Lorna, rising. Even the detective turned from the stove to look at Rafe Silver. The latter spat out a word in his own tongue. Tobias laid a quick hand on his shoulder. "Hey! What’s happened to you now?" he demanded. "That wrist of yours——?" But Silver writhed away, holding his injured hand well out of contact with Tobias. "Not me! Not me!" he shrilled. "Out there!" He pointed seaward. The girl whipped about and reached the seaward window before any of them, jerking up the shade. At the instant a red streak curved upward from the surface of the sea, far out from the shore. Another followed. "Signal rockets!" murmured the lightkeeper. "Oh, Tobias!" cried Lorna. "From the schooner?" "That’s what it is," muttered the detective. Rafe was chattering to the lightkeeper in broken English. The old man seemed to understand him fully. He turned swiftly toward the stairs. "It’s the _Nelly G._, all right," he flung back over his shoulder. "She’s likely lost the sea-anchor they put out, and there ain’t nothing to keep her from going on these rocks at last." "Oh, Tobias!" gasped the girl. "We’ve got to face it. No use trying to dodge the worst when it does come. If Ralph is aboard the schooner——" "Oh, Endicott is aboard of her, all right," grumbled the detective. "I wish I was as sure of those yeggs that helped him rob the bank." He sat down by the stove and continued to warm his hands. Rafe Silver followed the lightkeeper to the stairs and, in a moment, with a glance of disdain at the detective, Lorna followed the Portuguese. At the door of Miss Heppy’s room she halted and listened. Nasal announcement of the old woman’s sleep could be heard, despite the gale without. Lorna went on to the lamp room. Standing at the edge of the broad window Tobias held the telescope to his eye. Although it was no night glass, the broad ray of lamplight aided the eye to descry objects out there on the tumbling sea. Silver uttered a shout of amazement and pointed with his uninjured hand before the lightkeeper could get the telescope focused. "Oh, sugar!" exclaimed Tobias. "You seen her first, did ye?" Lorna ran into the room and joined the two men. Her sharp eyes, like those of Silver’s, descried the tossing masts of the laboring schooner. She was heaving up and down upon the waves directly in the path of the lamp’s beam. "Is it the _Nelly G._?" she cried. "Really?" Before either of the men could reply another scarlet streamer shot up from the surface of the sea, describing a long curve and winking out at last, far tip toward the hovering gray clouds. "A rocket, by kinky!" gasped the lightkeeper. "Ah! What I tell you, my friend?" croaked Rafe Silver. The girl seized Tobias’s arm. She shook him a little, sturdy as the old man was and firm upon his feet.