"
Gradually the seriousness of the situation began to affect all the
lighter-minded spectators. Louise saw the group of moving picture
actors at one side. The men dropped their cigarettes and strained
forward as they watched the schooner drive in to certain destruction.
It was like a play. The schooner, rearing on each succeeding wave,
drew nearer and nearer. A hawser parted and they saw her bows swing
viciously shoreward, the jib-boom thrusting itself seemingly into the
very sky as she topped a huge breaker.
The crew had to slip the cable of the second anchor. The foremast came
crashing down before she struck. Then, with a grinding thud those on
the shore could not hear, but could keenly sense, the fated craft
rebounded on the reef.
A gasping cry--the intake of a chorused breath--arose from the throng
of spectators. The fishermen and sailors recoiled from the cart and
left an open space in which the life-saving crew could handle their
gear.
Cap'n Trainor, the grizzled veteran of the crew, had already loaded the
gun and now aimed it.
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