to pump," said Seth. "Now then, you come and pump!"

"Let go!" screamed his captive. "Take your hands off me, or--"

The back of his head striking the deck put a period in the middle of
his sentence. The next moment he was being dragged by the collar to the
little hand pump amidships.

"Pump!" roared the lightkeeper. "Pump! or I'll break your everlastin'
neck. Lively now!"

The dazed genius rose to his knees. "What--" he stammered. "Where--"

"Right there in front of you. Lively, you lubber!"

A well-directed kick helped to facilitate liveliness.

"What shall I do?" wailed Bennie D., fumbling the pump brake. "How does
it go?"

"Up and down--so." Seth jerked his victim's head up and down, by way of
illustration. "Now, then," he continued, "you pump till I say quit, or
I'll--I swan to man I'll make a spare tops'l out of your hide!"

He left the inventor working as he had not worked in the memory of man,
and strode back to the wheel. Mrs. Bascom was clinging to the spokes for
dear life.

"I--I ain't dropped it, Seth," she declared. "Truly I ain't."

"All right. You can drop it now. I'll take it myself. You set down and
rest."

He took the wheel and she collapsed, breathless, against the rail. After
a time she ventured to ask a question.

"Seth!" she said, "how do you know which way to steer?"

"I don't," was the reply. "All I'm tryin' to do is keep her afore it. If
this no'theast wind would hold, we'd be all right, but it's dyin' fast.
And the tide must be at flood, if not startin' to go out. With no wind,
and no anchor, and the kind of ebb tide there'll be pretty soon--well,
if we don't drift out to sea we'll be lucky. . . . Pump! pump! you son
of a roustabout. If I hear you stoppin' for a second I'll come for'ard
and murder you."

Bennie D., who had ventured to rest for a moment, bent his aching back
to the task. Was this man-slaughtering tyrant his mild-mannered, meek
brother-in-law, the creature whom he had brow-beaten so often and
managed so effectively? He could not understand--but he pumped.

Perhaps Seth did not understand, either; perhaps he did not try to.
Yet the explanation was simple and natural. The sea, the emergency, the
danger, his own deck beneath his feet--these were like old times,
here was a situation he knew how to handle. He forgot that he was a
lightkeeper absent from duty, forgot that one of his passengers was the
wife he had run away from, and the other his bugbear, the dreaded