The Harbor Master | Page 7

the hawser."
Black Dennis Nolan and his three companions were most obliging. They pulled in the line until the wet hawser on the end of it appeared, and this they made fast to a rock on the beach as big as a house.
A small light appeared between the ship and the shore, blinking and vanishing low down on the pitching sea. The glare from the fires on the land-wash presently discovered this to be an oil-lantern in the bows of a boat. The boat, which contained about a dozen men, was being hand-hauled along the line that ran from the wreck to the shore. Black Dennis Nolan and his companions exchanged glances at sight of drawn cutlasses and several rifles and pistols in the hands of the men from the wreck. As the leading boat came within ten yards of the shore an officer stood up in her bows. By this time the light of a second boat was blinking and vanishing in her wake.
"Bear a hand to ease us off," commanded the person in the bows of the boat.
"Aye, sir, we bes ready to help ye," replied the skipper, humbly.
"How is the landing?"
"It bes clear, sir--shelvin' rock."
"How many are you, there?"
"We bes four poor fishermen, sir."
The boat rowed in and was kept from staving in her keel on the land-wash by Nolan and his men. The officer sprang from the bows to the icy shingle, slipped and recovered himself with an oath. He was a huge fellow. In one hand he carried an iron dispatch box, and in the other a heavy pistol.
"This the lot of you?" he asked, glancing sharply at Black Dennis Nolan.
"Aye, sir, we bes only four poor fishermen," replied Nolan.
"I am glad to hear it. This coast has the name of being a bad place for shipwrecked people to come ashore on."
"You bes talkin' of the coast 'round to the south o' Cape Race, sir. We bes all poor, honest folk hereabouts, sir."
"Oh, aye," returned the other, drily.
By this time all the men were ashore and the boat was high up on the shingle, out of reach of the surf. The men stood close around it. They were well-armed, and kept a sharp look-out on all sides.
"What do you call this place?" asked the officer.
"Why, sir, Frenchman's Cove bes its name," replied the skipper.
Frenchman's Cove lies three miles to the south of Nolan's Cove; but the skipper was cautious.
"Do you live here?"
"No, sir. There bain't no houses here. We bes four poor men from 'way to the nor'ard, sir, a-huntin' deer on the barrens. We was makin' camp 'way back inland, sir, when we heared yer guns a-firin'."
"How far away is the nearest village?"
"Why, sir, this country bes strange to me, but I's t'inkin' Nap Harbor wouldn't be more'n ten mile to the south, fair along the coast. Bes I right, Pete?"
"Aye, skipper, I be t'inkin' the same. Nap Harbor lays to the south, maybe ten mile along, maybe less," replied Peter Nolan, a cousin of the skipper's.
A second boat reached the shore and discharged its freight of humans and small packages and bundles. This boat contained four sailors and ten passengers. There were three women among the passengers. All were clutching bundles of clothing or small bags containing their personal possessions of value. One of the women was weeping hysterically.
"Could we get a passage 'round to St. John's from Nap Harbor?" asked the officer.
"Aye, sir, I bes sayin' ye could. Sure there bes a fore-and-after i' Nap Harbor," said Nolan.
"Will you guide us to Nap Harbor?"
"Aye, sir, that we will, an' glad to be o' sarvice to ye."
"We will pay you well, my good man," said one of the passengers, a tall gentleman with a very white and frightened face, draped in a very wet cloak. "In the meantime," he continued, "let us dry ourselves at these fires and have something hot to drink. Where are those stewards, the lazy dogs!"
Two more boats came from the ship to the shore without accident. In the last to arrive were the captain and the doctor. The company gathered round the fires, keeping their boxes and bags close to them. The stewards and sailors brewed hot punches for all. The lady with the hysterics was soothed to quiet by the doctor and a tiny mug of brandy and boiling water. The officers held a consultation and decided to get the passengers safely to Nap Harbor, and aboard a schooner for St. John's and then to return to Frenchman's Cove themselves and salve what they could of the cargo of the ship, which was evidently of unusual value. (Black Dennis Nolan had expected this.) They would get help in Nap Harbor for the work of salvage, and would leave the four boats on the beach, under a guard of