Page:Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point.djvu/71

Rh mand which the helpers understood. The boat started, truck and all, and immediately the men launching her were waist deep in the surging, hissing sea.

The returning billow carried the boat off the truck, and the lifeboatmen plunged in their oars and pulled. Their short sharp strokes were in such unison that the men seemed moved by the same mind. The long boat shot away from the beach and mounted the incoming wave like a cork.

The men ashore drew back the boat-truck out of the way. The lifeboat seemed to hang on that wave as though hesitating to take the plunge. Ruth thought that it would be cast back—a wreck itself—upon the beach.

But suddenly it again sprang forward, and the curling surf hid boat and men for a full minute from the gaze of those on shore. The girls clung together and gazed eagerly out into the shifting shadows that overspread the riotous sea.

"They've sunk!" gasped Helen.

"No, no!" cried Heavy. "There! see them?"

The boat's bow rose to meet the next wave. They saw the men pulling as steadily as though the sea were smooth. Old Cap'n Abinadab still stood upright in the stern, grasping the heavy steering oar.