"Douse the light!" roared the hoarse voice from the water.
"No one
wants light here!"
"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed the veteran; "back to the house with
you!"
Wolfert and his companions shrunk back is dismay. Still their curiosity
would not allow them entirely to withdraw. A long sheet of lightning
now flickered across the waves, and discovered a boat, filled with men,
just under a rocky point, rising and sinking with the heavy surges, and
swashing the water at every heave. It was with difficulty held to the
rocks by a boat hook, for the current rushed furiously round the point.
The veteran hoisted one end of the lumbering sea-chest on the gunwale
of the boat; he seized the handle at the other end to lift it in, when
the motion propelled the boat from the shore; the chest slipped off
from the gunwale, sunk into the waves, and pulled the veteran headlong
after it. A loud shriek was uttered by all on shore, and a volley of
execrations by those on board; but boat and man were hurried away by
the rushing swiftness of the tide. A pitchy darkness succeeded; Wolfert
Webber indeed fancied that He distinguished a cry for help, and that he
beheld the drowning man beckoning for assistance; but when the
lightning again gleamed along the water all was drear and void. Neither
man nor boat was to be seen; nothing but the dashing and weltering of
the waves as they hurried past.
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