I

LOOKING north from that point of land which is known in Scotland as the East Neuk of Fife, one sees a succession of low promontories terminating small bays whose shores are strewn with rugged and massive boulders piled so closely together that in a distance of ten miles there are scarcely five hundred yards of level sand. The ebbing tide reveals a multitude of dangerous reefs lying, at various angles to the shore, in a series which continues to St. Andrews and beyond. Here in former years was a graveyard of ships. Even to-day, with the Carr lightship lying off the Firth of Forth and the powerful lantern of the Bell Rock Lighthouse flashing twelve miles to the northward, the sailing vessel that is driven in this direction by an easterly gale finds herself in desperate straits. There is a lifeboat station on the East Neuk, and one at St. Andrews, ten miles distant, but when the North Sea, under the hammer of the tempest, charges down upon this coast, man’s supremest efforts are of little avail.

Traveling along the winding path which crosses the edge of the moorland skirting the shore, one comes after a distance of three or four miles upon a battered and decayed harbor. The pier of this disconsolate haven runs straight out from the shore on a sunken ledge of rock. The breakwater on the north side, where the heaviest seas strike, runs parallel with the pier for forty yards, then curves round and stops in a line with the end of the pier, leaving a space of twenty feet for the passage of small craft, an entrance which is now used only by two or three fishing boats, the sole marine wealth of the village of Royburn. Running out from the shore in a line with the pier is an open channel thirty feet wide with a sandy bottom clear of rocks, which the boats use in their passage to and from the harbor. The breakwater,composed of massive stones in the outer courses and filled in with smaller pieces, was constructed in the belief that it would be strong enough to resist the weight of the sea in the strongest gales. One winter proved the error of the builders, for the immense stones were lifted bodily and hurled into the harbor during a northeasterly gale that blew for four days in succession.

In a rude shelter on the common land near this harbor three men loafed one rainy day in late March, listening with serious Scots faces to an impossible yarn being spun by an old sea dog curiously named Flipper. In his youth this man, returning from his first deep-sea voyage, had accosted an acquaintance and demanded a ‘shake of his flipper.’ Although most of the villagers had heard the expression before, since many of them had followed the sea, the name of Flipper had clung to him ever since. No doubt he could have made it vastly unpleasant for those who addressed him thus, being at that time a powerful man and an implacable fighter. But he was absent so many months of the year on his voyages, and felt the joy of home-coming so keenly, that he made no serious effort to check the use of the nickname, preferring to suffer it during the few weeks of his infrequent stays in his native village. As time passed he became used to it, and accepted it as naturally as if he had received it at his christening.

As he stood in the middle of the sandy floor of the shelter telling his miraculous tale, his frame gave evidence of a muscular youth. A big man, gaunt and heavy-boned, with eagle nose, thick wiry eyebrows, and steelblue eyes that even through the dimness of old age gleamed fiercely as he lashed his imagination forward. Not that the story he told contained any elements of ferocity. He always spoke thus, standing still a moment, then taking a short jerky step to either side, waving his hands, slapping his knee, and swearing for pure joy when a new lie entered his head. For pure artistry of falsehood, reckless and triumphant, his like had never been seen in all that countryside. Morose and pessimistic in his moments of imaginative leisure, despising women with all the force of his mind, caring little for anything or anybody, he went sourly on his way until the creative faculty possessed him. Then he changed absolutely. He chuckled with delight, his eyes sparkled and gleamed, his old legs capered about the floor, he waved his arms and wagged his bushy eyebrows up and down, until his whole appearance was transformed.

‘Yes,’ he was saying, ‘I made a voyage in an old Norwegian bark in ’75, from Cardiff to San Francisco wi’ coal. She had been built to carry timber, an’ her bows were as square as the side o’ a hoose. The Captain was a Scotsman by the name o’ MacBray, an’ one o’ the best men I ever sailed wi’, except that he was a wee bit short in the temper. He couldna stand contradiction, an’ I dinna blame him for that. A skipper should hev his own way aboard his own ship. She was an old tub, an’ dirty — I never saw sich barnacles as there were on the Ulmena’s bottom, as big as your heid. Well, we got doon off the River Plate an’ lay there becalmed for days. Then the glass went doon clear oot o’ sight, an’ we made ready for a pampero. That was a gorgeous blow. My George, how that wind yelled in the riggin’, like five thousand bagpipes close up against your ear. I was standin’ in the waist on the lee side o’ the main hatch when the squall struck her.’ Here he paused, thrust out his right hand, palm upward, and smote into it with his left, then swore ecstatically and glared at his audience, who smoked soberly but expectantly.

‘That wind,’ he continued, ‘ lifted me right off the deck an’ up, my George, till I thought I’d hit the main yard. But before I got that length it jist seemed to let go, an’ I went doon like a stone ower the side. Then, thinks I, my sailin”s done, but I struck oot swimmin’ for the surface, an’ what d’ye think happened? My hand rapped against something. A rock, thinks I, but there couldna be a rock in the middle o’ that sea. I jist grabbed hold o’ it an’ pulled my head above the water; then I saw it was a barnacle as big as a bucket. There were dozens o’ them, so I climbed on to the rail an’ dropped to the deck. The mate thought I was a ghost an’ so did the men, but I never heeded them. I went below an’ changed my clothes an’ the skipper gied me a stiff glass o’ grog. That made me feel a’ right, an’ I was none the worse o’ the drookin’.

‘But the queerest thing happened when we got doon off the Horn. One night the man on lookout reported ice on the starboard bow. The skipper wouldna shorten sail because he wanted to take advantage o’ the fair wind, so we jist kept on wi’ all sail set. I turned in aboot two bells in the first watch, an’ was jist droppin’ off to sleep when I heard a most rampageous roar frae the fo’c’sle head. Then I heard the man on lookout jump clear ower the rail to the main deck, an’ the watches turned oot pell-mell an’ came racin’ aft. Jist then I stuck my head oot the door to see what was wrong, an’ my breath stopped in my throat. No more than fifty feet ahead o’ us lay an iceberg as high as Arthur’s Seat. My George, what a sight that was! The Skipper was howlin’ like a maniac, but everybody was owerexcited to pay ony attention to him. Then she struck, head on, wi’ every stitch on her. Thinks I, this is the last, all jokin’ aside. But I was wrong. Something happened then that surprised me so much I didna speak a word for twenty days. All hands thought I was struck dumb.’

The faces of his audience relaxed, and a faint gleam shone for a moment in their eyes.

‘What d’ye think?’ queried Flipper. ‘There must a been a groove or a canyon in that iceberg jist aboot the level o’ the water, for the ship slid right up on to it on an even keel, then doon the other side, an’ plunged into the water like a duck. An’ sich a squeakin’ an’ rumblin’ an’ scratchin’ you never heard in a’ your born days. It’s a wonder that didna take the sticks oot o’ her, but she was a strong-built old barky an’ she didna so much as spring a leak. I went into the waist after a while an’ sounded her, me bein’ the carpenter, but there wasna two inches o’ water in her hold. Well, when we got to San Francisco she was drydocked to have her bottom cleaned, an’ I’m tellin’ ye the God’s truth, she was as clean as a new-minted penny. There wasna one barnacle on her, nothin’ but a wee scratch here an’ there to show that she had traveled ower an iceberg.’

The three fishermen sat silent for a minute; then Davie Macleod took the pipe out of his mouth and spat on the sandy floor.

‘Ye were gey chummy wi’ the skipper that trip, Flipper,’ he commented.

‘I was,’ replied Flipper sourly. His animation was gone, and his interest had come to an end with the story.

‘That time he gied ye the nip, he didna gie ye the whole bottle, did he?’

A sigh of laughter from the other two fishermen made itself barely audible. Flipper scowled. ‘I told ye jist what happened. The iceberg looked as big as Arthur’s Seat, but wi’ a good big drink in me it would a been liker Ben Nevis.’

They all laughed at this, and Flipper joined in after his fashion. He was incapable of hearty laughter, but he opened his mouth in a terrifying grin and gave a few convulsive gasps.

II

That evening there was to be a sort of Spring Festival in a large empty barn which had been swept and arranged for the occasion. All the villagers were going — the mothers and daughters for an hour or two, as long as the men behaved themselves. A generous quantity of whiskey and beer had been bought, and the two Murrays, ably seconded by Howky Wallace, the village sot, and other choice spirits, soon made it evident that they intended to have a ‘ripsnorting’ time.

Davie Macleod and Flipper entered the barn together, and were hailed by the men gathered round a large keg supported on a kind of trestle. Another keg lay handy, and a number of bottles reposed in baskets round about. Dancing was to be enjoyed till eleven or thereabouts, then supper would be served till midnight. There might be dancing after that, provided the bravest girls could find partners sober enough.

The evening started with vigor and enthusiasm. Tam Macgregor, a young blacksmith, struck up a lively tune on his concertina, and couples formed immediately for a schottische. They were good dancers, those open-air young men and women, enthusiastic and indefatigable. Into their scanty lives came few pleasures of any sort, and a dance was to them the highest enjoyment and the principal social ceremony. Flipper, standing among the men, but drinking warily according to his custom, watched the highspirited motion on the floor. The barn shook rhythmically, He noticed with sour amusement the pistonlike popping up and down of the performers’ heads, due to their style of dancing. A young woman who has worked in the fields all day might be expected to feel tired at night, yet these seemed to have risen fully restored from the lap of rest, so vigorous was their motion, so insatiable their hunger for dancing. Red-cheeked, robust, full-breasted, and straight-backed, they whirled and hopped about with a totally unconscious freedom of limb that was healthy if not always graceful. Flipper gazed upon them with sardonic contempt, then turned away and took another glass of whiskey, entering into a conversation with Howky Wallace, whose masterly libations had not had much effect on him so far. He expressed the opinion that they were going to have one of the heaviest gales within the memory of living men. ‘Listen till it aboon the noise o’ the dancin’,’ he exclaimed. ‘There’ll be a monstrous sea runnin’ the noo, an’ it ’ll be something horrific before mornin’. But it’ll no bother us. Oor boats are a’ high an’ dry, an’ the lave can look efter theirsels. Here’s luck, Flipper.’

Flipper took another small drink and listened while Howky rambled on about a ship that had once been driven on the rocks and smashed to atoms. He was interested at first, but soon wandered off on his own reflections. As the door opened to permit the departure of a woman, he heard the deep roar of the gathering storm.

The dancers now sat down at the table a dozen or so at a time, and ate the supper which was served by quickmoving girls. Flipper noticed that all the quieter sort of women had departed; only the young, hard-working girls remained, most of whom were drinking beer. It was hot, dancing. He sat down among the last and ate a fair quantity. The young blacksmith, who had done himself well in both solid and liquid refreshments, returned to his corner and started to play a reel. Twelve o’clock was struck by Sandy Murray, who used for this purpose an empty bottle against an empty keg. Everybody shouted and had another drink, the concertina began its snorting melody, and couples stood up for the reel. Flipper drank a little whiskey neat.

‘That’s the way to take it, Flipper,’ cried Sandy, trying to be witty. ‘ They say that whiskey kills everything in water, but I’m tellin’ ye that water kills everything in whiskey. The elixir o’ life!’ he shouted, holding up a halffilled tumbler and waving it about. The men drank, and the girls were served with beer. Sandy started to vent his foolish shout again, but the sound died in his throat and he stiffened to attention as Flipper’s powerful voice struck the hubbub of the room into silence.

‘My George!’ he cried. ‘Talk aboot the Elixir o’ Life! I made a voyage in ’79 to the Kuanza River on the west coast of Africa. There was nothin’ at the mouth o’ the river but a trader’s station wi’ a cluster o’ huts roond it, an’ the district was rotten wi’ fever. The captain took it, the mate took it, an’ in a few days all hands had it more or less. That was a bad time. The niggers worked the cargo, o’ course, but they knew nothin’ about the steam winches — an’ there we were, a’ half-dead wi’ the fever an’ no cargo goin’ oot or comin’ in. One day the trader came aboard. He had jist got back to the station from a trip upriver, an’ even wi’ my head full o’ fever I could see he was fair loaded up wi’ something he wanted to tell. So I got him into my room, jist aboot dead as I was, an’ says I, “What’s goin’ on upcountry?”

He looked at me for a full minute before he said a word, then he leaned ower an’ whispered in my ear, “I’ve jist come from a town where the people are a thousand years old.”

‘ “All o’ them?” says I. “No,” says he. “Jist some o’ them. They’ve got a rulin’ class there that know how to make a real, genuwine Elixir o’ Life.”

‘“Are they niggers?” says I.

'"No,” says he. “They’re the color o’ yellow ivory. You’ve seen plenty o’ it on this coast. They take a drop o’ this elixir once a week, an’ they never grow any older. Jist imagine what that secret would be worth in London an’ Paris an’ New lork. I’m goin’ after a bottle o’ it the first chance I get.”

'"I ’ll go wi’ ye,” says I. “Right,” says he.

‘As soon as the unloadin’ was finished, I got leave from the skipper an’ we started up the river, the trader an me. Hot! I never felt sich heat before or since. The sweat poured oot o’ us so fast we had to keep a nigger balin’ the boat oot a’ the time. But we got to the town at last, — Slatongo, I think it was called, — an’ sure enough I found oot that some o’ the people, the bosses o’ the place, had learned the secret o’ everlastin’ life. They spoke every language under the sun, knew them all hundreds o’ years ago, an’ kept track o’ the changes by readin’ books from the ootside. I tried to coax one old chap that took a fancy to me to give me a bottle o’ the Elixir, but he refused even to let me see it. My George! That put me in a fine state, t ravelin’ a’ the way up that stinkin’ river an’ not gettin’ even a sight o’ the stuff I’d come for.’ He paused, leaning slightly forward, thrust his right hand out, palm up, and smote into it with his left. The girls, seated on the benches along the walls, listened without much interest. The men, standing about with glasses and beer mugs in their hands, were all tipsy and jovial and ready for any story or any joke. Howky Wallace, at last dead to the world, sat on an overturned basket, his arms lying heavily across an upright keg, his head resting upon them.

’I made up my mind,’ continued Flipper slowly and impressively, ‘to see that stuff an’ get a bottle o’ it or a jar, or whatever they kept it in, if I had to risk my life to do it. I got up one night when everybody was asleep, an’ went barefoot into the room where the old chap slept. A candle was burnin’ on a little table, an’ beside it was a golden jar all carved an’ wrought wi’ beautiful figgers. “My George.” thinks I, “this is the real stuff noo!” I tiptoed ower to the table, holdin’ my breath, an’ grabbed the jar. Then I made to turn away an’ get back to my own room, but when I saw the glitter an’ color o’ the Elixir I couldna move a step — jist stood there lookin’ at it. Talk about beautiful colors!’ He ceased talking, and into his eyes flashed the gleam of imaginative fury. His shaggy eyebrows went up and down, he glanced with sudden ferocity from face to face and hopped from side to side, now on one leg, now on the other.

‘What do you think that stuff was like?’ He seemed to await an answer, his eyes gleaming, his imagination gripped and thrilled by some gigantic lie that shrieked for utterance. Howky Wallace stirred in his sleep, raised his head for a moment, turned it, and laid it down on the other side.

‘What do you think that stuff was like?’ repeated Flipper. The men were waiting, almost sobered, trying to imagine something Gargantuan. Howky, unnoticed, jerked up his head and opened bloodshot eyes, and in the awed silence that followed Flipper’s question his husky tenor voice raked the room with the single word: —

‘Beer!’

It was a mere cry of thirst, but it smote upon the assembly with uncontrollable effect. Davie Macleod, gripping his jaws together to prevent laughter, succeeded only in venting a succession of groaning grunts. Sandy Murray exploded after a moment of repression into a loud and vacant ‘Haw! Haw! Haw!’ The girls, with their hands before their faces, were shaking in quieter mirth. The merriment, at first uncertain and repressed, gradually swelled into full chorus as the crowd, encouraged by increasing example, broke into inextinguishable laughter. The expression on Howky’s face was excruciating. He had awakened from deep sleep and, goaded by frantic thirst, had asked for beer, and his request had been met by such a storm of laughter as he had never heard in all his life before. He blinked about him in a mixed state of thirst and bewilderment, and only after some moments encountered the burning gaze of Flipper. His thirst died away. He had never seen such insane fury in the eyes and face of any man as he saw then.

For some few minutes Flipper had been at the zenith of his glory. With a well-constructed yarn on the tip of his tongue and a conceived climax which even he felt to be a masterpiece, he had suddenly been balked of his triumph by the senseless interruption of a sot. Not only had his story been nipped at its most dramatic point, but he had been made the butt of the drunken laughter of fishermen, farm hands, and field women. He had been the centre of a ring of roaring mouths opened wide in scorn of himself. His fierce piratical heart raced convulsively in response to his first impulse to leap among them, smashing and battering those besotted, contorted visages, and hurl the blinking Howky out of the window. But he stood quite still, his only action a look malevolent and nakedly murderous directed against the slave of thirst .

Turning amid the expiring laughter, he strode sombrely to the door and swung it open. The hard shrill wail of the wind came to the ears of the inmates as he turned for a moment and glanced at their gleeful faces, then the storm and the night and himself were erased by the closing door.

III

The barn was one of a quadrangle of farm buildings with doors and windows on the inside, and only the roar of the storm came to this sheltered spot. The wind passed overhead, leaving the enclosure calm. In the sudden change from the lighted room to the pitch-blackness of a moonless, cloudy night, Flipper was conscious of a strange sensation of loneliness. He could feel it encompassing him on all sides like the actual presence of the darkness, and stood still a few paces from the closed door, contemplating this novel emotion, but he soon recovered his normal scorn of everything and stepped out toward the gate of the quadrangle. Before he reached it there came to his ears from seaward, dominating yet subdued by the crashing roar of the wind, a single mournful note of sound, the boom of a minute gun fired by a ship in distress. He stopped with a jerk, his sympathy aroused by one of the few things that could touch him, threw off the weight of his recent humiliation, and strode back to the barn, where the entertainment went merrily on. Flinging open the door, he stood framed against the darkness, a gaunt, compelling figure with hard face and burning eyes. Music and motion stopped at the sight of him. He half turned, incorrigibly dramatic, and pointed through the open door in the direction of the shore.

‘The minute gun!’ he cried. ‘There’s a ship drivin’ on the rocks.’

On the heel of his words came the single detonation from the sea, faint and imploring. A moment of tense immobility followed, when partly sobered men and startled women looked with consternation into one another’s eyes. For the second time that night Howky Wallace changed the scene with monosyllabic utterance. ‘Christ!’ he cried.

The springs of action seemed to have been loosed by the calling of that name. They charged through the door and rushed toward the sea.

Flipper strode forth into the tempest ahead of the crowd, with no definite thought in his mind except to get down to the shore. The northeast wind, roaring up from the sea, buffeted him with almost personal vindictiveness. He lowered his head, buttoned his coat to the chin, and advanced steadily against it. The struggle pleased his mood of bitterness and eased the memory of his supreme humiliation. His blood warmed as his muscles moved in vigorous action, and a dull rage glowed within him, no longer directed against Howky Wallace, but impersonal and elemental. His habits of sarcasm and irony, of caustic contempt and disbelief, united to feed this slow flame of anger. He splashed along the muddy road recklessly, the solid wind hammering against him, battering the loose ends of his coat against his legs, and at times making it difficult to breathe, so great was its pressure.

He had come dowm to this, to be the butt of village clods and their females. He, who had once been able to put the fear of God into all but the very best of fighting men, was now a joke in the eyes of peasants. His vast experience, gained in forty years of wandering over all the seas in every manner of ship, was as nothing in the minds of these untraveled villagers. He had been mocked by boorish laughter.

Even as he remembered this he felt the impact of a thought that had never troubled him before. Was it not his own fault? Did he not know perfectly well that he was an impossible liar, buried beyond excavation beneath the ruined structures of his own imagination? Strange that he had never looked in this particular corner of his mind until to-night. If he would make a damn fool of himself, how could he expect people to respect him or avoid laughing at him? Was this really the first time they had felt contempt for him?

He halted and turned at right angles, made his way gropingly to the wall. felt his way along it for some distance until he reached a projection that sheltered him from the wind, and stood close against it, at peace from the storm without, but wrecked within. An old man without honor. His own flesh and blood had despised and deserted him, and now he lived alone, with none to care for his comfort at home and men withholding respect abroad.

This mood of despondency, unparalleled in his experience, endured for no more than a minute or two. The need for bracing himself was imperative, and he dismissed all regrets, setting his mind on finding a means of regaining the respect and esteem of his fellow men. He pondered desperately on this problem. What could he do?

Perhaps it was the answer to his question flashing in a red tongue of flame from the white cauldron of the sea. A dull shock of sound beat through the storm, a voice of fear and hope. Flipper raised his head and stared at the frenzied expanse of foam inshore. His powerful, misguided brain and his hard, strong heart could have recognized most forms of woe without the slightest impulse to help. But he was a tried seaman of great experience, and throughout his life he had possessed one instinct which could move him to unselfish and heroic effort. That instinct had leaped to life at the sound of the minute gun. Like all sailors he hated and feared the cruelty of the sea and its treachery, and the knowledge that some poor devil was in its clutches aroused in him a genuine desire to save. Gripping the wall, he raised his eyes above the level of the top and waited for the next flash. It came straight in the teeth of the wind, not more than a mile away, and its dull reverberation followed mournfully.

‘My George!’ said Flipper into the night. ‘She’s lost. She’ll be on the rocks before daylight.’

It was then three o’clock, less than two hours from daylight. His mind worked swiftly. If the St. Andrews or the Crail lifeboat could reach her before she struck, there was hope for the crew. If not — he tried to reach something that had been working in his subconscious mind but had not yet appeared on the surface, a shadow or a radiance due to some thought that was still below the threshold of his consciousness. If not — would it be possible to wipe away the scorn that clung to his name? He did not see what he could do, but he felt unreasonably hopeful. That shadow, or radiance, must come from a plan that had formed somewhere in his mind; he felt vaguely that here was his opportunity, what he had asked for. A sudden spurt of energy sent him up the road at speed. The wind behind him drove him along, and to prevent himself from stumbling he leaned heavily backward. Halfway between the shore and Field Lane he heard a dim murmur of voices, and a moment later ran into a crowd of men and girls struggling seaward.

‘Hullo!’ someone called. The voice sounded like Davie Macleod’s.

‘Hullo!’ answered Flipper. ‘She’s nearly on the rocks. She’ll be ashore before daylight.’

‘Tam Macgregor’s away to rouse up the postmaster and telegraph to Crail and St. Andrews for the lifeboats.’ The words came queerly to Flipper through the roar of the storm, He could see a score or more of dim dark figures with pale patches for faces. They moved restlessly, swayed about, appearing and disappearing in dreamlike disorder. Some of them passed on toward the beach. Two remained with Flipper — Davie Macleod and Sandy Murray.

‘There’s another flash,’ said one of the voices.

The report this time came a little sooner after the spurt of flame, and was a trifle more distinct. She was rapidly drifting nearer to the rocks.

‘ We may as weel wait for Macgregor,’ shouted Davie. ’He’ll be along soon.'

The others agreed in silence, and the three men stood in a dark, featureless group in the middle of the road, facing the storm, fascinated by the lurid flashes of the minute gun on the desperate ship. They did not hear the approach of Macgregor, and were unaware of his nearness until he ran into them.

‘Hullo!’ he cried. ‘Whae’s this?’ Without waiting an answer he informed them that the Crail lifeboat was rescuing the crew of a brig driving ashore at the East Neuk. They hoped to take off the crew before she reached the rocks, otherwise their trip would be useless and they would have to depend on the rocket apparatus. They would send aid to the vessel off Royburn as soon as possible. The St. Andrews lifeboat was busy with a steamer that appeared to have broken her shaft in the heavy seas, and could not get away before daybreak at the very soonest.

‘That’ll be too late,’ declared Flipper. ‘This ship will be on the rocks before then. The rocket apparatus is the only hope noo. Could they no send that along?’

‘They canna. They may want it at baith places,’ replied Macgregor.

‘Aye,’ said Flipper. Without another word he turned from the group and set out for home, walking with assured step and resolute mien. The flashes of the minute gun had at last lighted up the shadow in his mind, had shown him that the ship would strike somewhere near the mouth of the channel, and he saw with perfect clearness what he had to do.

On reaching his cottage, he lighted a lamp and sat down, not because he felt tired, but for the purpose of arranging certain details in his mind. Glancing at the clock, he saw it was five after four. The dawn would be here in less than an hour. When he had formed his plan clearly he rose and began rummaging in a room which he used as a store, and brought forth a coil of fine Manila rope, a large ball of fine hempen cord, very strong, and a coil of heavy rope, all these the spoils of various voyages. The heavy rope he slung across his shoulders and carried to the beach, a laborious task against the wind. Just above the beach was a stone tower twelve feet high, which once upon a time had been used as a beacon. The end of the heavy rope he secured to a thick iron bar that rose from the centre of the tower. Returning to the cottage, he stripped naked and drew on a pair of strong, tight swimming trunks, then resumed his trousers, coat, and overcoat and set off toward the shore again with the ball of cord and the coil of fine rope. As he shut the door after putting out the lamp, he stood for a moment in grim contemplation of the task he had set himself and the effect it would probably have on the villagers.

‘I’ll show them, damn their souls!’ he cursed into the thinning darkness. A fierce joy surged within him, and he strode vigorously down the road.

IV

When he reached the shore it was near five o’clock, and the sky was covered with flying scud, low down and dark gray. The doomed vessel almost as he arrived smashed down on the outmost reef with a crash of rending wood and iron. The next heavy sea lifted her and carried her inshore fifty feet, dropping her fair across the mouth of the channel. She was a brig of about five hundred tons; her mainmast was snapped off just above the deck, but her foremast still stood. Her crew were clustered in the rigging, and Flipper thought he saw a woman crouching in the top, a man leaning over her in an attitude of protection — probably the skipper and his wife. Flipper ran off a hundred and fifty yards of the fine line as Davie Macleod, Sandy Murray, and others approached to see what he was doing.

’What are ye efter, Flipper?' shouted Davie.

Flipper made no answer, but put a clove hitch in the middle of the fine rope and made it fast to the free end of the heavy rope. He then secured the end of the cord to one end of the fine rope, and in the other end of the cord made a large loop, after which he threw off his clothes and stood revealed, a massive, powerful figure in spite of his age, with heavy muscles and tremendous bones. All the people on the shore gathered about him, wondering what act of derring-do he was about to attempt. Glancing toward the shattered brig, Flipper thought he observed a movement in the top. The skipper was looking through a pair of glasses and talking to the woman.

Flipper stepped through the loop in the twine, brought it over his head, and drew it taut round body and neck. His purpose was then apparent.

‘My God, Flipper! There’s nae possibility o’ swimmin’ oot yonder. The surf’ll throw ye back on the beach like a chip.’

Flipper walked over to Davie. ‘ We ’ll see aboot that!’ he roared. ‘There’s a heavy undertow, and there’s no rocks between her and the pier.’ He turned and walked briskly toward the pier, which was swept by heavy sprays and occasional solid water. Reaching the landward end, he went cautiously along it to the middle and paused, waiting for a quiet spell. The light was now broad, and his every movement could be seen both from the shore and from the brig. Davie stood motionless, aware of an immense admiration and pity for Flipper. The thing was hardly possible, he believed, but he had looked into Flipper’s heart and read there what nobody else but Howky Wallace had seen — the shock of humiliation and the resolve to wipe it from the memory of Royburn.

Before starting for the pier, Flipper had formed his plan of action. He would dive from the end and trust to his own strength and the powerful undertow to get him to the brig. A cluster of anxious faces was turned toward him from the foretop and rigging of the brig. Would he ever reach them? Would he get to them before the mast snapped out of her under the hammering of the sea and flung them to death among the jagged reefs? They held on, and hoped that he would.

There came a few moments of comparative quiet on the pier, and Flipper went along it with a rush and dived off the end into the backwash of a receding breaker. This carried him past the end of the breakwater into the channel, with its sandy bottom. He dug into it with hooked fingers and swiftly moving arms, drawing himself seaward until he was unable to hold his breath any longer. He was just about to spring to the surface for air when the trough of a wave exposed his head and he drew breath. The following sea buried him twenty feet under, and he crawled forward another dozen yards before the need for breath again became imperative. Drawing his feet under him, he sprang upward from the sand, his head appearing for an instant above the swirling foam to the eager eyes of the brig’s crew. Striking out with all his force to prevent himself from being carried to the rocks on the crest of a wave, he dived again as soon as he got a breath, going from crest to trough and down under with almost the swiftness of a seal. Again he dragged himself across the surface of the sand, and again rose and dived. He did not heed the aching of his splendid muscles or the hammering of his mighty heart. He was then simply an instrument for moving through stormy water in a certain direction. His humiliation was gone, and would never trouble him again. The cry of dismay from the villagers as he started for the pier had wiped it out of existence. Consciousness left him for seconds at a time. He felt a blow here and a scratch there from stones and shells in the sand, and was desperately short of breath. He was once dashed against a reef at the edge of the channel, but without breaking any bones; and he was always aware that he must keep on the sandy bottom. He rose again to the surface for breath, in deeper water now, and saw the brig almost within reach. She was in sight for only a moment, but he carried the picture of her down to the sand with him — the captain supporting his wife in the top, the men hanging desperately in the rigging with terrible faces and staring eyes.

He began to feel immensely tired, with a drowsy weariness that was not wholly unpleasant. He began to wonder what he was doing, but he did not cease to drag himself over the sand, and the strong undertow helped him incalculably. Struggling at last to the surface, tortured for breath, he came up on the crest of a wave that simply laid him along the rail of the brig and withdrew. Rising to his feet with his last remaining strength, he locked both arms around the rigging and held on, breathing convulsively.

Every sea broke clear over the brig, and there was no safety near her rail. One of the men came down the rigging, followed at intervals by two others. The lowest man put his hand under Flipper’s shoulder and tried to help him up the ratlines, but Flipper took the cord off his neck and handed it to the seaman with a tired wave of his hand toward the top. The man took the cord and handed it to the one above him, who passed it up. In the eyes of all the men was a look of immense respect and gratitude, but the woman kneeling in the top grasped the stays of the topmast rigging and gazed at him with tears running down her face.

His glance traveled back along the way he had come, and he wondered dully how he had done it. The people on the shore were waving their arms and hats and cheering him from their hearts, a cheer that might have done him good had he heard it. His last feeling was a vast pleasure that he had done what he set out to do, and this joy of accomplishment brought a rare smile to his face. Looking to windward as a minute rift appeared in the eastern sky, he was blinded by a beam of the newly risen sun. ‘Hell!’ he exclaimed, turning his head away. Two of the crew were now making their way down to help him up the rigging. A feeling of utter exhaustion bent his massive shoulders forward, and his head sank against a ratline. As the two men stooped down to put one hand each under his shoulders a monstrous sea, striking the weather side, leaped clear across the deck and carried Flipper away. The two men above him barely saved themselves. The woman in the top buried her face against her husband and moaned.

The crew hauled in the cord and got the fine rope, then the heavy rope, the end of which they rove through a bosun’s chair before making it fast to the mast. The light line was hitched to the bosun’s chair as a drag rope, the captain’s wife was placed in the chair, and the pressure of the wind drove her ashore while the men on the beach hauled in the slack of the dragline. Within half an hour every man had been taken off in safety.

The captain came last, according to the etiquette of the sea. He took Davie Macleod’s hand, the weariness of his face lighted by a glow of admiration. ‘That was the greatest thing I ever saw,’ he declared. ‘There, God made a man.’