Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/249

 and crept higher. Still Varge's eyes held shoreward. A dark speck showed on the foaming crest of a wave—and disappeared. It showed again—nearer—nearer.

A hoarse cheer went up from a dozen throats. Grotesque figures in oilskins with cork belts tied around their bodies were bobbing up and down, now above, now below him, as the lifeboat rose and fell.

He swung Jonah Sully out to them, poised himself on the rail—and at their shout, dropped into the boat.

"Any more?"—they had passed him along to the stern-sheets, and it was a bearded, grizzled form at the tiller that howled the question in his ear.

Varge shook his head. "There are no more," he said.

Once more only during the passage shorewards did the lifeboat's captain speak to him.

"What's her name, an' your names?" he asked. "How many of the crew gone?"

"Mary K. Jones of Gloucester," Varge answered him. "This is Captain Sully. My name is Peters. Four of the crew were washed overboard a little after midnight."

They lifted Jonah Sully and carried him up the beach. A throng of men and women crowded about the crew, the boat and Varge—the men cheering, the women anxious-faced.

Quietly, Varge drew a little to one side, watching them place the lifeboat on its truck. Some one spoke to him, a woman's voice—and mad, wild fire leaped through his veins.

"I am sure you should not stand here," she said. "You need dry things at once and something hot—to—to—"