Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/110

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92
SILVER SHOAL LIGHT

Head, but that would be too late to help her crew; they could never launch a boat into that seething water.

"But as Roger stood watching, there came struggling a man close by the rock where he stood, and he flung himself down and pulled the man up beside him. He was of an outlandish race, for his face was as yellow as saffron and his hair as black as ink. He was a poor creature, with abject terror in his eyes (but not all a terror of the dangers through which he had just gone), and he clung, shivering and chattering, to Roger.

"'Come, man,' said the lad, though he knew not at all whether the fellow understood his speech. 'Get upon your feet and take my shoulder.' And he dragged him up. So, half carrying, half pulling the man, he tramped back down the shore, for as far as he could see there were no other survivors of the wreck.

"When he reached the village, the Widow Dargeon shrieked at sight of the Yellow Man and cowered back behind the door. Roger did not stop, but got the man to his room beside the kitchen and gave him enough brandy to warm him; then rolled him, dried but still shivering, into the good feather-bed.