The old fisherman's face was ashen. There was nothing that he could do except stand and helplessly watch the final disaster. He realized that the craft was doomed. He was powerless to interfere, although in despair over this catastrophe before his very eyes. He turned away, and entered his little house, and tried to sleep. But he was wakeful, and found himself murmuring prayers for those who went down to the sea in ships. CHAPTER II AMONG THE BREAKERS Ordinarily, Captain Ichabod Jones enjoyed being crooned to sleep by the weird sounds of the winds as they beat about the corners of his cottage. Now, his mind was filled with a memory of last frantic cries uttered by men, women and children as their clinging hold was loosed from the derelict, the sturdy frame of which he had heard strike on the rocks, as she went to her grave in the sea. Now, he heard the clamors of despair, voiced in the shrieking of the gale. He tossed uneasily upon his bed, offering ever and anon a prayer to the God that rules mad waters to have mercy upon those even then fighting a last grim battle with death. The first gray gleam of dawn showed a tinge of storm red, radiant and calm above the wildly tossing surges of the sea. Uncle Icky got out of his bunk, built a fire in the stove and set his coffee to boil. Then, of a sudden, he forgot his preparations for breakfast. His sharp ears had caught the far-away chug-chug of a naphtha-driven craft. He listened, and knew that the boat was making its way toward the Island. "Well, I'll be blowed," said the Captain to himself--and the rooster. "What fool skipper would come down this shore, even on the inside, in such a kick-up as is goin' on? He shore must be plumb daffy, or arter an M.D. for a mighty sick human. I'll try an' hail him as he passes; but the Lord knows he can't pass to the wind'ard o' this-here Island till she ca'ms a heap, an' if he tries to go to lee'ard he'll shore as shootin' take up on the oyster rocks, an' stove her through to her vitals." Captain Ichabod was right. No land lubber, unacquainted with the dangerous currents and powerful surf breaking over the bar at the Inlet, could pilot a craft safely past the little Island in good weather--let alone the doing of it in this tail-end of a gale. Uncle Icky rushed from the cottage, lantern in hand. He tried to wave a warning to the foolhardy adventurer who was thus darting down at breakneck speed on the mill-race of the ebb tide to certain destruction.