the vessel—much more than she could safely carry—and she tore through the water at a great rate, in a desperate endeavor to drive past the outlying rocks and shoals off Scituate and Cohasset. The attempt might have succeeded had it not been for the fearful leeway the craft was making, but it seemed as though every cable’s length she advanced brought her perceptibly nearer to the beach.

Night soon hid the brig from view, but the keeper’s experience told him that her fate was sealed, and he burned red rockets p. 11to warn the adjacent station to be on the lookout for the wreck which must soon take place. Thus it was that Captain Litchfield and his crew had been for several hours in momentary expectation of a summons to save human life. Half way between the two stations a rocky point jutted out into the water, and here it was that both keepers expected the brig to strike; but by an extraordinary exhibition of pluck and good seamanship, she cleared this danger.

p. 11

As the minutes passed, the crowd of half-frozen villagers on the beach concluded that the vessel had managed to escape to the open sea, and began to realize that their limbs were cold and numb. The greater part betook themselves to their cottages; mayhap to listen to some harrowing tale of shipwreck and death from the lips of an octogenarian smoking his pipe in the chimney corner, while drift-wood snapped and blazed upon the fire, and the housewife heated over the remnants of a chowder with which to cheer the stomachs of the returned watchers, ere p. 12they sought the doubtful warmth of their bed rooms.

p. 12

But the station crew redoubled their vigilance. They well knew the brig could not tack in that furious gale, and there was not room to wear, without taking ground;—

The signal!

A patrolman on the northern beat had suddenly ignited his Coston light—the red emblem which both tells the watchful keeper that a wreck has been sighted, and assures the crew of the unfortunate vessel that succor is at hand.

The surfmen and patrolmen passed the signal along the beats and hurried to the station, each to perform his allotted part in the work of rescue. The keeper burned a rocket to inform the Fourth Cliff crew. It was answered almost simultaneously by a distant patrolman with his handlight, and by a white rocket sent up from Fourth Cliff; the crew and apparatus from that point would soon be hurrying to the scene of the wreck.

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