Tide and wind were taking her toward the beach, and Bowen, everybody, even the unimaginative viking in command, could picture that beach and the surf piling up on it.  High as the light above their heads it would be, and they would live just about ten seconds in it.  Yes, if they were lucky, they might last that long.

Bowen was one of those workmen who like to make a good job of a thing.  He was not ready to send his first wireless message.  Another morning’s work and he had hoped to be ready, and that first message was to be a Christmas greeting to his wife; but now he made shift to get a message away in some fashion.  With limber wrist and fingers he began to snap out his signal number.  A dozen, twenty, surely a hundred times he repeated the letters, holding up every half minute or so to listen.  By and by he caught an answering call.  It was the Navy Yard station.  Feverishly he sent: 

“Light-ship 67.  Tide Rip Shoal.  Have parted moorings.  Drifting toward beach.  Send help.”

He waited for an answer.  None came.  He repeated.  No answer.  Over and over he sent it.  At last he caught:  “OK.  Been getting you.  Go on.”

“Drifting fast.  West by south.  Before morning will be in surf.”

Again Bowen waited, and then the answer came:  “What do you want me to do?”

“Do something to save us.”

“Why don’t you do something to save yourself?”

“Sails blown away.  Life-boat gone.”

“Haven’t you got a chart of Paris?”

“Chart of what?”

“Paris?  With a few M’sieus on it?  Good night.”

Bowen let go the key, leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, took off his receiving gear and stared at the wall.

“What answer?” Nelson and his peering crew were at his shoulder.

“No answer.”

“Dan we moost go up and dowse dose signal light, so no ship t’ink we ban on shoal yet,” and out onto the deck the impassive Nelson led his men.

“Good old squarehead—­you’re all right,” muttered Bowen.  “But as for you,” he gritted, “if I could only—­just one grip of your throat is all I’d ask for, and then, you dog!”

III

Harty closed his wireless office and headed for the water-front.  Near the shore-end of the breakwater he came to a halt.  He could but dimly see the beginning of the outstretching wall of concrete, but plainly enough he could hear the combers thundering over the crest of it.

A proper night for an enemy to be adrift in a powerless hulk.  Sea enough to suit any purpose out there.  And wind!  From where he stood in the lee of the donkey-engine house, to the water’s edge was a full hundred feet, and yet even so, whenever he stepped out into the open, it was only to be drenched with spray.  And out there in the blackness, twenty miles offshore, it would be blowing good; out there on the edge of that bank, in the hollow of the short, high, ugly seas, was a rolling, battered light-ship; as helpless as—­well, there was nothing ashore to compare to her helplessness.  And when she hit in on the beach—­when she hit the sand—­it would be over and over she’d roll, and out of her he would come and be smothered.  For a second he’d be smooth and sleek as a wet rat and then—­Oh, then!