CHAPTER XIV THE BELL BUOY

He listened intently and thought that it came from the direction of the light. It rang again and again, each time a little louder. Suddenly, however, he was aware that the light seemed no longer stationary. He had the disheartening experience of realizing that his beacon of hope was a running light on a fishing smack. He felt like crying as he watched the shadowy hull gaining speed for he realized that she must have just started ahead, having waited for the wind to change.

Every wave carried her farther and farther away from the watching boy. If he had only got there just a little sooner, he thought dismally. But he had done the best he could. There was nothing left now but to sit and watch her swallowed up by the darkness and the mountainous seas and that had happened in a few minutes’ time.
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He was glad he had not been foolish enough to hope that he could reach her and overtake her, only to be disappointed and use up what little strength he had left. That at least was some satisfaction and it helped him bear his desperate plight a little more patiently.

The constant booming of the sea had a queer effect on his sensitive ears. He imagined himself to be hearing all sorts of noises, particularly the ringing of the bell. At times he could have sworn he heard it right at hand and at other times it seemed but a mocking echo.

The air was quite clear now, though the rain continued, and Skippy saw to his dismay that the boat was getting a little too full of water for his safety. He put down the oar for a while and bailed her out with his rusty bait can.

The little boat tossed against each rising wave like a feather; but he worked feverishly and trusted to luck that it would not upset. Then after a few minutes he was startled by the sound of the bell ringing right over his head. Before he had time to look up he felt the boat bump hard against something.

He was on his feet in a second and saw to his great surprise that the boat was alongside of a bell buoy.
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It has been truly said that time and tide wait for no man and certainly Skippy was aware of this instantly, for in the next second a giant wave had washed him out of reach of the buoy. This realization made him desperate and he got into action to get back to it, for he well knew now that to drift on through the night would mean certain death.

With a swift movement he pushed his wet hair back from his high forehead. Then he bent over, got the oar and grabbed a rope, holding it tightly in his hand. And for fully five minutes he battled and struggled against the undertow.

His eyes were wide and staring from the strain and little streams of water ran down either cheek. His clothes from head to foot were weighted against him with water but he never stopped until he had brought the boat back against the buoy and in a second he had thrown the painter around it and pulled it taut.

That done he sank down in the bottom of the boat, exhausted.

For some time his mind was an utter blank. He was too tired and weak to think or even to care. But the rain beating steadily down on his unprotected body soon chilled him back into action and he got up and exercised his arms and legs.
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As the buoy swayed upon each succeeding swell, the bell tolled mournfully. Its eerie echoes were faint and quickly lost in the noise of the pounding sea, and Skippy decided that no mariner ten minutes’ sail from the bell was likely to look that way. Also, the quick wash of the sea prevented the bell from tolling its loudest and longest. Nothing but his own two hands could do that.

And so he did it.

For the next hour he bent his frail body over the swaying buoy and swung the cold, wet bell back and forth, back and forth. Peal after peal tolled forth dismally and though his eyes became blurred with weariness he knew that he had missed nothing, for nothing had passed for him to miss.

So it went on through the long, dark hours. He would take an interval of rest and then jump up to his vigil at the bell for fear he would fall asleep and miss some passing ship.

The night seemed interminable. Indeed, he began to believe that he had fallen asleep and that a day had passed and another night had come without his being aware of it, for never had he thought the dark hours were so long.
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Morning came at last and with the first streak of light on the eastern horizon, hope came back anew. The rain gradually ceased and during Skippy’s intervals of rest he watched, with not a little awe, the wonder of dawn at sea. Little by little the night fled before the roseate morn and soon the entire sky was flooded with soft light. And as the sun crept up out of the sea he stretched himself across the wet seats and relaxed.

Two hours later, he woke with the sun shining full in his face. He sat up, startled, and realized that his head was aching and that he felt stiff and chilled. Moreover, he felt sick with despair to think that he had slept away the hours of daylight, hours when a ship might have passed near enough for him to signal.

He stood up and scanned the sunlit water in all directions but there was not a sign of a sail, not a sign of a ship. In the distance, a gull soared high above the water and after a moment another one seemed to leap out of space and join it.

The tide was going out and the whole surface of the blue-green water seemed to roll on toward the horizon in a series of undulating hills. A gentle murmur filled the warm, sunlit air and Skippy could not believe that the booming surf of the past night had been anything but a bad dream.

He rang the bell for a time but had to give it up because of a terrible giddiness in his head. And so for hours, he sat anxiously scanning the illimitable sea and sky, hoping, hoping, hoping....
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Noon came and passed and the sun scorched him cruelly. The boat, too, had become a constant source of anxiety for she developed a leak and had to be continually bailed out, and he was thankful that he had not obeyed a former impulse and tried to row her east in the hope that he would strike the Hook.

Toward mid-afternoon he was conscious of pains in his chest, and his hunger and thirst were becoming unbearable, particularly the thirst, for the heat of the sun was intense. He wished fervently for the cooling rain of the night before.

Sunset came, however, and with it a soft, cool wind. Skippy welcomed it, but hated the gray light of approaching twilight that obliterated the deep blue clouds. It seemed to spell doom to him and he cried out in despair. If daylight had not brought rescue what hope was there left for another long night?
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His hopes sprang up afresh, however, and he conceived the idea of tying to the bell a long length of rope which he found in the bottom of the boat. In this manner, he could ring it constantly just by pulling the rope which required little exertion on his part. By dusk he was feeling too sick to either stand or sit up.

He entered his second night at sea both hopeful and despairing. Every doleful clang from the bell brought him hope but in the following silence it would quickly vanish and he would sink in depths of despair. Then with his fast-ebbing strength he would pull hopefully at the rope again.

EVERY DOLEFUL CLANG FROM THE BELL BROUGHT SKIPPY HOPE.

And so the bell tolled on through the long night hours.