“The Polly—­the Polly Walters!”

“My God!  How do ye know?  She ain’t left
Amboy, I tell ye!”

“She has!  That’s her—­see them kerds!  They come off that stuff behind ye.  Tod got one and I got t’other!” he held the bits of cardboard under the rim of the captain’s sou’wester.

Captain Holt snatched the cards from Parks’s hand, read them at a glance, and a dazed, horror-stricken expression crossed his face.  Then his eye fell upon Parks knotting the shot-line about his waist.

“Take that off!  Parks, stay where ye are; don’t ye move, I tell ye.”

As the words dropped from the captain’s lips a horrified shout went up from the bystanders.  The wreck, with a crunching sound, was being lifted from the sand.  She rose steadily, staggered for an instant and dropped out of sight.  She had broken amidships.  With the recoil two ragged bunches showed above the white wash of the water.  On one fragment—­a splintered mast—­crouched the man with the slouch hat; to the other clung the two sailors.  The next instant a great roller, gathering strength as it came, threw itself full length on both fragments and swept on.  Only wreckage was left and one head.

With a cry to the men to stand by and catch the slack, the captain ripped a line from the drum of the cart, dragged off his high boots, knotted the bight around his waist, and started on a run for the surf.

Before his stockinged feet could reach the edge of the foam, Archie seized him around the waist and held him with a grip of steel.

“You sha’n’t do it, captain!” he cried, his eyes blazing.  “Hold him, men—­I’ll get him!” With the bound of a cat he landed in the middle of the floatage, dived under the logs, rose on the boiling surf, worked himself clear of the inshore wreckage, and struck out in the direction of the man clinging to the shattered mast, and who was now nearing the beach, whirled on by the inrushing seas.

Strong men held their breath, tears brimming their eyes.  Captain Holt stood irresolute, dazed for the moment by Archie’s danger.  The beach women—­ Mrs. Fogarty among them—­were wringing their hands.  They knew the risk better than the others.

Jane, at Archie’s plunge, had run down to the edge of the surf and stood with tight-clenched fingers, her gaze fixed on the lad’s head as he breasted the breakers—­her face white as death, the tears streaming down her cheeks.  Fear for the boy she loved, pride in his pluck and courage, agony over the result of the rescue, all swept through her as she strained her eyes seaward.

Lucy, Max, and Mrs. Coates were huddled together under the lee of the dune.  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 now whose life was at stake.  There was no hope left; Archie would win and pull him out alive, and her end would come.