Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/183

 lights began to flash aloft on the Capitol City’s yardarm. That vessel was resting easily on the sands, came the answer, and was taking in water no faster than her pumps could pump it out again. The tide was rising rapidly. It was already six feet deep. This news the assistant operator carried to the commander.

“We'll save her yet,” said the captain. “This tide is going to be a very high one, if I am any judge. The wind’s been blowing the water shoreward now a full twenty-four hours.”

Rapidly the water rose. As the captain had said, the wind had been blowing it shoreward for a full day. The ebb tide had shown what the wind could do, for the water was far higher than usual when the tide turned to flood. Wind and wave both pressed the flood landward, and now the tide, running in with the wind, mounted and mounted until it was evident that the captain’s hope was to be realized. As the tide rose and the water about the cutter deepened, Captain Hardwick put a leadsman to sounding.

“We must work in with the tide, Lieutenant,” he said to his assistant on the bridge, “and be ready for action the instant the tide is at flood. It won’t wait a second for us, though, if this wind holds, it will delay the ebb. We must not lose a moment.”

Long before the tide was full, Captain Hard