Read Online The Savage Gentleman by Philip Wylie - Free Book Online

orchestra--each delighting in the fact that his companion also heard and comprehended.

    Then, suddenly, Henry felt McCobb's fingers bite into his arm. He looked with surprise it the Scotchman and found that his face was chalky and his arm extended.

    The boy's eyes followed the arm. Far out at sea, beyond the place where the waves individualized themselves, there was a ship.

    Henry froze.

    McCobb screamed in his ear:

    "Get your father."

    Henry ran back. 'He ran like a madman, ignoring the ripping brush and the irregular ground. In his mind's eye was a picture of the ship--a distant, diminutive hulk with bare spars sticking up against the inhospitable horizon.

    He burst furiously into the house.

    "A ship!"

    His voice clove through the tempest's uproar.

    His father read assurance on his face. "His father rose gropingly. Into his eyes a fever came and he shook like a leaf. He trotted to the kitchen, plucked Jack's arm, and together they followed Henry.

    McCobb was dancing and screaming on the head-land. He whirled his arms.

    Stone looked. Then he regarded his son, whose soul was in his eyes.

    Jack had kne1tand folded his hands. He stared in· to the clouds that scudded overhead and his lips moved in prayer.

    The drama on the rocks was horrible in its intensity. Henry found himself frozen, and he could neither think nor move.

    Stone praised God. Here was a ship at the very hour and year when he had hoped a ship would come. His son was ready for the world. He thought that it would be impossible to light the fires. He reckoned with acid determination upon the chances of the vessel.

    It was still far away, and yet it must have sighted the island. It was making slowly toward it--and it could not have made in any other direction. A schooner. One of its masts had been hacked down by, the gale.

    It wallowed heavily--as if it was partly filled with water.

    It approached.

    McCobb continued to scream and wave his arms. Henry stood still.

    The waves visibly lifted it. They could see water washing over the decks. They could see the laborious rise of the bows and a long rope that had broken loose and stood out horizontally from a mast.

    It was two miles away.

    One.

    They tried to wave it toward the harbor mouth, although all of them knew that direction was impossible.

    Stone bruised his son's arms. They saw how far the ship had settled.

    Their voices ripped into the air, shrilly. When, at length, they could see the forms of men moving on the bridge, they went mad.

    Then a wave came from which the vessel rose only with the utmost difficulty.
    They saw a huge hole that had been staved in the hull. Whether the ship had hit a rock, or the mere power of the sea had broken it in, they did not know.

    On the next wave the decks were awash.

    It was almost near enough so that they could see the expression on the faces of the men.

    On the third wave, only the stern rose and the bows were buried. The masts made an angle with the water. The stern stood high. She sank. McCobb beat his fists upon the rocks until they ran red.

    Jack rent his clothes.

    Henry wept.

    And now, only Stone stood still--as if a judgment had come upon him.

    There was no sign of the ship--save that by and by they observed pieces of wreckage and, for awhile, what they thought was a man swimming.

    Henry ran for his boat. Jack and Stone needed their united efforts to hold him back. Henry's boat would not have been able to--round the harbor mouth in the sea that ran there.

    As if in satirical compensation the wind died that afternoon and the sun appeared.
    With its first rays, the four men who sat on the rocky point were able to salvage the first high-tossed bit of wreckage.

    It was an oar.

    Then came a box in which were four drowned chickens. A coat. After that, a broken boat, a life preserver that floated high in the subsiding surf, and a chair. They struggled with numb endeavor to reap these precious and yet melancholy items from the waves.

    Bits of