His throat was filled with a great gulping lump which prevented him from drawing his breath; while his eyes were suffused with tears that no unmanly feelings had called forth.
Eric was starting off again down to the beach, to see whether any one had escaped from the wreck and been swept into the bay, in which case he might have been of use in trying to drag them from the clutch of the cruel waves, when Fritz called him back.
"Don't leave me behind, brother," he cried out passionately.

"Wheel me down, in the barrow, so that I may help, too!" The lad stopped in a instant, comprehending his brother's request; and, flying back, in and out of the hut as if he had been galvanised, he quickly placed the old door on top of the wheelbarrow as a sort of platform, with a mattress on top.

He then lifted Fritz on the superstructure as if he were a child, the excitement having given him tenfold strength; and, wheeling the barrow down at a run, the two arrived on the beach almost sooner than a boat could have pulled ashore from the point where the catastrophe to the vessel had occurred.
But, although it was now light enough to scan the surface of the restless sea for some distance out, no struggling form could be seen battling with the waves; nor was there a single fragment of the wreck noticeable, tossing about on the billows that still rolled in thunderingly on the beach, marking out the contour of the bay with a line of white surf, which shone out in contrast to the glittering black sand that was ever and anon displayed as the back-wash of the waves swept out again in a downward curve preparatory to the billows hurling themselves in shore once more with renewed force.
"Poor chaps, they must all have gone down!" said Eric, half crying.

He had made sure that some one would have escaped, if only for him to rescue at the last moment--perhaps just when the sinking swimmer might require a helping hand to drag him from the clutches of the grasping billows that sought to overwhelm him as he was getting beyond their reach! "There's no doubt of that," echoed Fritz, who had got off his platform on the wheelbarrow with much more agility than he had been capable of a short time before.

"The sea has swallowed up those who were not dashed to pieces on the headland! I hardly know which fate was the least preferable of the two ?" "I do hope that the bonfire did not lead to their misfortune," said Eric presently.