Lucy's eyes were staring straight ahead of her; her teeth chattering with fear and cold. She had heard the shouts of Parks and the captain, and knew whose life was at stake. There was no hope left; Archie would win and pull him out alive, and her end would come. The crowd watched the lad until his hand touched the mast, saw him pull himself hand over hand along its slippery surface and reach out his arms. Then a cheer went up from a hundred throats, and as instantly died away in a moan of terror. Behind, towering over them like a huge wall, came a wave of black water, solemn, merciless, uncrested, as if bent on deadly revenge. Under its impact the shattered end of the mast rose clear of the water, tossed about as if in agony, veered suddenly with the movement of a derrick boom, and with its living freight dashed headlong into the boil of cord-wood.

As it ploughed through the outer drift and reached the inner line of wreckage, Tod, whose eyes had never left Archie since his leap into the surf, made a running jump from the sand, landed on a tangle of drift, and sprang straight at the section of the mast to which Archie clung. The next instant the surf rolled over the three, submerging them in the tumble.

Another ringing order now rose above the roar of the waters, and a chain of rescuing surfmen-the last resort-with Captain Nat at the head dashed into the turmoil.

It was a hand-to-hand fight now with death. At the first onslaught of the battery of wreckage Polhemus was knocked breathless by a blow in the stomach and rescued by the bystanders just as a log was curling over him. Green was hit by a surging crate and Mulligan only saved from the crush of the cord-wood by the quickness of a fisherman. Morgan, watching his chance, sprang clear of a tangle of barrels and cord-wood, dashed into the narrow gap of open water, and grappling Tod as he whirled past, twisted his fingers in Archie's waistband. Here the three were pounced upon by a relay of fishermen led by Tod's father and dragged from under the crunch and surge of the smother. Both Tod and Morgan were unhurt and scrambled to their feet as soon as they gained the hard sand, but Archie lay insensible where the men had dropped him, his body limp, his feet crumpled under him.

All this time the man in the slouch hat was being swirled in the hell of wreckage, the captain meanwhile holding to the human chain with one hand and fighting with the other until he reached the half drowned man, whose grip had slipped from the crate to which he clung. As the two were shot in toward the beach, Green, who had recovered his breath, dodged the recoil, sprang straight for them, threw the captain a line, which he caught, dashed back and dragged the two high up on the beach, the captain's arm still tightly locked about the rescued

man.

A dozen hands were held out to relieve the captain of his burden, but he only waved them away.

"I'll take care of him!" he gasped in a voice almost gone from buffeting the waves, as the body slipped from his arms to the wet sand. "Git out of the way, all of you!"

Once on his feet, he stood for an instant to catch his breath, wrung the grime from his ears with his stiff fingers, and then shaking the water from his shoulders as a dog would after a plunge, passed his great arms once more under the bedraggled body of the unconscious man and started up the dune, the water dripping from both their wet bodies. Only once did he pause, and then only to shout:

Green, Mulligan! Go back, some o' ye, and git Archie. He's hurt bad. Quick, now! And one o' ye bust in them doors. And Polhemus,-pull some coats off that crowd and a shawl or two from them women if they can spare 'em, and find Doctor John, some o' ye! D'ye hear! Doctor John!"

A dozen coats were stripped from as many backs, a shawl of Mrs. Fogarty's handed to Polhemus, the doors burst in and Uncle Isaac lunging in, tumbled the garments on the floor. On these the captain, with the assistance of the surfmen, laid the body of the rescued man.

While this was being done another procession was approaching the house. Tod and Parks were carrying Archie's unconscious form, the water dripping from his clothing. Tod had his hands under the boy's armpits and Parks carried his feet. Behind the three walked Jane, half supported by the doctor.

"Dead!" she moaned. no, John; it cannot be! my brave Archie!”

"Oh, no-noNot my Archie!

The captain heard the tramp of the men's feet on the board floor of the runway outside and rose to his feet. He had been kneeling beside the form of the rescued man. His face was knotted with the agony he had passed through, his voice still thick and hoarse from battling with the sea.

"What's that she says?" he cried, straining his ears to catch Jane's words. "What's that? Archie dead! No! T'ain't so, is it, doctor?"

Doctor John, his arm still supporting Jane, shook his head gravely and pointed to his own forehead:

"It's all over, captain," he said in a broken voice. "Skull fractured."

coats.

"Hit with them logs! Archie! Oh, my God! And this man ain't much better offhe ain't hardly breathin'. See for yerself, doctor. Here, Tod, lay Archie on these Move back that boat, men, to give 'em room, and push them stools out of the way. Oh Miss Jane, maybe it ain't true, maybe he'll come round! I've seen 'em this way more'n a dozen times. Here, let's get these wet clo'es off 'em." He dropped between the two limp, soggy bodies and began tearing open the shirt from the man's chest. Jane, who had thrown herself in a passion of grief on the water-soaked floor beside Archie, commenced wiping the dead boy's face with her handkerchief, smoothing the short wet curls from his forehead as she wept. The man's shirt and collar loosened, Captain Holt pulled the slouch hat from his head, wrenched the wet shoes loose, wrapped the cold feet in the dry shawl, and began tucking the pile of coats closer about the man's shoulders that he might rest the easier. For a moment he looked intently at the pallid face smeared with ooze and grime, and then stepped to where Archie lay stretched on the floor, Tod now crouched beside him. The young surfman's strong body was shaking with the sobs he could no longer restrain.

"It's rough, Tod," said the captain, in a choking voice, which grew clearer as he talked on. "Almighty rough on ye and on all of us. You did what you couldye risked yer life for him, and there ain't nobody kin do more. I wouldn't send ye out again, but there's work to do. Them two men of Cap'n Ambrose's is drownded, and they'll come ashore some'er's near the inlet, and you and Parks better hunt 'em up. They live up to Barnegat, ye know,

It was His sense of

and their folks'll be wantin' 'em."
strange how calm he was.
duty was now controlling him.

Tod had raised himself to his feet when the captain had begun to speak and stood with his wet sou'-wester in his hand.

"Been like a brother to me," was all he said, as he brushed the tears from his eyes and went to join Parks.

The captain watched Tod's retreating figure for a moment, and bending again over Archie's corpse, stood gazing at the dead face, his hands folded across his girth— as one does when watching a body being slowly lowered into a grave.

"I loved ye, boy," Jane heard him say between her sobs, "I loved ye! You knowed it, boy. I hoped to tell ye so out loud so everybody could hear. Now they'll never know."

Straightening himself up, he walked firmly to the open door about which the people pressed, held back by the line of surfmen headed by Polhemus, and calmly surveyed the crowd. Close to the opening, trying to press her way in to Jane, was Lucy. Behind her stood Max Feilding and Mrs. Wharton Boggs.

"Friends," said the captain, in a low, restrained voice, every trace of his grief and excitement gone, "I've got to ask ye to git considerable way back and keep still. We got Doctor John here and Miss Jane, and there ain't nothin' ye kin do. When there is I'll call ye. Polhemus, you and Green see this order is obeyed."

Again he hesitated, then raising his eye over the group nearest the door, he beckoned to Lucy, pushed her in ahead of him, caught the swinging doors in his hands, and shut them tight. This done, he again dropped on his knees beside the now breathing man.

Jane's head was close to the boy's chest, her sobs coming from between her hands, held before her face. The shock of Archie's death had robbed her of all her strength. Lucy knelt beside her, her shoulder resting against a pile of cordage. Every now and then she would steal a furtive glance around the room at the boat, at the rafters overhead, at the stove with its pile of kindlingand a slight shudder would pass through her. She had forgotten nothing of the past, nor of the room in which she crouched. Every scar and stain stood out as clear and naked as those on some long-buried wreck dug from shifting sands by a change of tide. A few feet away the doctor was stripping the wet clothes from the rescued man and piling the dry coats over him to warm him back to life. His emergency bag, handed in by Polhemus through the crack of the closed doors, had been opened, a bottle selected, and some spoonfuls of brandy forced down the sufferer's throat. He saw that the sea-water had not harmed him; it was the cord-wood and wreckage that had crushed the breath out of him. In confirmation he pointed to a thin streak of blood oozing from one ear. The captain nodded, and continued chafing the man's hands-working with the skill of a surfman over the water-soaked body. Once he remarked in a half-whisper-so low that Jane could not hear him:

"I ain't sure yet, doctor. I thought it was Bart when I grabbed him fust, but he looks kind o' different from what I expected to see him. If it's him he'll know me when he comes to. I ain't changed so much maybe. I'll rub his feet now," and he kept on with his work of resuscitation.

Lucy's straining ears had caught the captain's words of doubt, but they gave her no hope. She had recognized at the first glance the man of all others in the world she feared most. His small ears, the way the hair grew on the temples, the bend of the neck and slope from the chin to the throat. No-she had no misgivings. These features had been part of her life—had been constantly before her since the hour Jane had told her of Bart's expected return. Her time had come; nothing could save her. He would regain consciousness, just as the captain had said, and would open those awful hollow eyes and would look at her, and then that dreadful mouth, with its thin, ashen

lips, would speak to her, and she could deny nothing. She had not told Max-not even that the captain's son was expected home; it would all come as a shock to him, and when he asked her if it was true she could only bow her head.

She dared not look at Archie-she could not. All her injustice to him and to Jane: her abandonment of him when a baby; her neglect of him since, her selfish life of pleasure; her triumph over Max-all came into review, one picture after another, like the unrolling of a chart. Even while her hand was on Jane's shoulder, and while comforting words fell from her lips, her mind and eyes were fixed on the face of the man whom the doctor was slowly bringing back to life.

Not that her sympathy was withheld from Archie and Jane. It was her terror that dominated her-a terror that froze her blood and clogged her veins and dulled every sensibility and emotion. She was like one lowered into a grave beside a corpse upon which every moment the earth would fall, entombing the living with the dead.

The man groaned and turned his head, as if in pain. A convulsive movement of the lips and face followed, and then the eyes partly opened.

Lucy clutched at the coil of rope, staggered to her feet, and braced herself for the shock. He would rise now, and begin staring about, and then he would recognize her. The captain knew what was coming; he was even now planning in his mind the details of the horrible plot of which Jane had told her!

Captain Holt stooped closer and peered under the half-closed lids.

"Brown eyes," she heard him mutter to himself, "just 's the Swede told me." She knew their color; they had looked into her own too often.

Doctor John felt about with his hand and drew a small package of letters from inside the man's shirt. They were tied with a string and soaked with salt water. This he handed to the captain.

The captain pulled them apart and examined them carefully.

"It's him," he said with a start, "it's Bart! It's all plain now. Here's my letter," and he held it up. "See the printing at the top-'Life Saving Service'? And here's some more-they're all stuck together.

Wait! here's one-fine writing." Then his voice dropped so that only the doctor could hear: "Ain't that signed 'Lucy'? Yes'Lucy' and it's an old one."

The doctor waved the letters away and again laid his hand on the sufferer's chest, keeping it close to his heart. The captain bent nearer. Jane, who, crazed with grief, had been caressing Archie's cold cheeks, lifted her head as if aware of the approach of some crisis, and turned to where the doctor knelt beside the rescued man. Lucy leaned forward with straining eyes and ears. The stillness of death fell upon the small room. Outside could be heard the pound and thrash of the surf and the moan of the gale; no human voice-men and women were talking in whispers. One soul had gone to God and another life hung by a thread. The doctor raised his finger.

The man's face twitched convulsively, the lids opened wider, there came a short, inward gasp, and the jaw dropped.

"He's dead," said the doctor, and rose to his feet. Then he took his handkerchief from his pocket and laid it over the dead man's face.

As the words fell from his lips Lucy caught at the wall and with an almost hysterical cry of joy, threw herself into Jane's

arms.

The captain leaned back against the lifeboat and for some moments his eyes were fixed on the body of his dead son.

"I ain't never loved nothin' all my life, doctor," he said, his voice choking, "that it didn't go that way."

Doctor John made no reply except with his eyes. Silence is ofttimes more sympathetic than the spoken word. He was putting his remedies back into his bag so that he might join Jane again. The captain continued:

"All I've got is gone now-the wife, Archie, and now Bart. I counted on these two. Bad day's work, doctor-bad day's work." Then in a firm tone, “I'll open the doors now and call in the men; we got to git these two bodies up to the station, and then we'll get 'em home somehow."

Instantly all Lucy's terror returned. An unaccountable, unreasoning panic took possession of her. All her past again rose before her. She feared the captain now more than she had Bart. Crazed over the loss of his son he would blurt out everything. Max

would hear and know-know about Archie and Bart and all her life!

Springing to her feet, maddened with an undefinable terror, she caught the captain's hand as he reached out for the fastenings of the door.

“Don't-don't tell them who he is! Promise me you won't tell them anything! Say it's a stranger! You are not sure it's he-I heard you say so!"

"Not say it's my own son! Why?" He was entirely unconscious of what was in her mind.

Jane had risen to her feet at the note of agony in Lucy's voice and had stepped to her side as if to protect her. The doctor stood listening in amazement to Lucy's outbreak. He knew her reasons, and was appalled at her rashness.

"No! Don't-don't!" Lucy was looking up into the captain's face now, all her terror in her eyes.

"Why, I can't see what good that'll do!" For the moment he thought that the excitement had turned her head. "Isaac Polhemus 'll know him," he continued, "soon's he sets his eyes on him. And even if I was mean enough to do it, which I ain't, these letters would tell. They've got to go to the Superintendent 'long with everything else found on bodies. Your name's on some o' 'em and mine's on some others. We'll git 'em ag'in, but not till Gov'ment sees 'em." These were the letters which had haunted her!

"They're mine! Give them to me!" she cried, seizing the captain's fingers and trying to twist the letters from his grasp.

A frown gathered on the captain's brow and his voice had an ugly ring in it:

"But I tell ye the Superintendent's got to have 'em for a while. That's regulations, and that's what we carry out. They ain't goin' to be lost-you'll git 'em ag'in."

"He sha'n't have them, I tell you!" Her voice rang with something of her old imperious tone. "Nobody shall have them. They're mine-not yours-nor his. Give them—”

"And break my oath!" interrupted the captain. For the first time he realized what her outburst meant and what inspired it.