Now, making a bonfire no doubt appears to you, boys, to be only fine fun, and you think Lloyd a very lucky fellow to have the chance. But a bonfire in the street, on a summer night, or down in a vacant lot, is a very different matter from Lloyd's work, alone, on a December night, with the salt water plashing about his legs, and his breath freezing about his mouth. Besides, he knew that the lives of the ship's crew depended on what he did, or left undone. And he was not a man, to be sure he was right, but a boy, only thirteen years old. He heaped up the wood on the light pile of drift, struck a match and put it to it, and in a minute the big flames flashed out all over the dark rocks, and the black, seething plane of the sea, and the wedges of ice that lay along shore. It was very cheery at first. Lloyd gave a grand hurrah! and capered about it. But one does not care to hurrah and caper alone. He thought the schooner would be in, now, in half an hour. "They'll make straight for the fire," he said. But half an hour, an hour passed, and, strain his eyes as he would, he could see nothing but inky darkness, and hear nothing but the dull swash, swash of the tide upon the sand. The fire was dying down. He went groping up and down the beach for wood, and built it up again. Two hours. Three. It was terribly cold. Overhead there was neither moon nor star, only a flat of black fog descending lower and lower. Surely the schooner had gone. Suddenly he heard a cry. It was Jem. "Why, Lloyd! Are you crazy? Do you know this is the coldest night this year on the island? My father says so." "It's not so very cold," said Lloyd, beginning to hop about the fire, and sing. "That schooner's due now, I should say." It heartened him so to hear anybody's voice. "The schooner's gone hours ago, I dare say. You'd have heard from her before now if she meant to run in." "Did the men go out?" "No. It was dark when I reached the village. Too late. I say, Lloyd," clapping his hands to keep warm, "come home. This is nonsense. I am going." Now Jem was older than Lloyd, and though Lloyd was always captain of the two, still he was half frozen, and very willing to be tempted. "_Do_ you think it's nonsense?" pushing the logs with his foot, doubtfully. "Of course I do. I'm going." "Don't go yet, Jem," Lloyd begged. It was horribly lonely here in the cold, and dark, and storm. "I'll wait while I count ten," standing first on one leg and then the other. Lloyd looked out to sea. Nothing there but blackness and the dreadful, incessant moaning. The fire was nearly out. What was the use of working all night for people who were away out on their homeward journey, knowing and caring nothing for him? Up at the cottage his mother had a nice fire for him; a warm bed. He began kicking the embers apart. "It does seem like folly," he said.