As,
with the assistance of the negro, he slowly bore his ponderous sea
chest toward the shore, they eyed it with a superstitious feeling,
half doubting whether he were not really about to embark upon it
and launch forth upon the wild waves. They followed him at a
distance with a lantern.
"Dowse[1] the light!" roared the hoarse voice from the water. "No
one wants light here!"
[1] Extinguish.
"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed the veteran, turning short upon
them; "back to the house with you!"
Wolfert and his companions shrank back in dismay. Still their
curiosity would not allow them entirely to withdraw. A long sheet
of lightning now flickered across the waves, and discovered a boat,
filled with men, just under a rocky point, rising and sinking with
the heaving surges, and swashing the waters at every heave. It was
with difficulty held to the rocks by a boat hook, for the current
rushed furiously round the point. The veteran hoisted one end of
the lumbering sea chest on the gunwale of the boat, and seized the
handle at the other end to lift it in, when the motion propelled
the boat from the shore, the chest slipped off from the gunwale,
and, sinking into the waves, pulled the veteran headlong after it.
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