Edith Ballinger Price

“ But though she searched rapidly, she found no cut or wound on her person which could account for it. With a little cry, "Oh, Garth!" she groped, stumbling, down the tower-stairs and back through the passage.
Feverishly, with clumsy fingers, Joan lit a lamp and ran up the house stairway, holding the light high and shading her dazzled eyes from its flame. Before she had gone halfway, Garth spoke.
"I saw her, Joan! I saw her go by! Oh, you were almost not in time, but you saved her!"
"Oh, I didn't," cried Joan, as she entered the room; "you saved her. Garth! You are hurt!" ”

“ Garth said. "Oh, Joan! Think of that ship coming down now! Trusting the Light, and it isn't there."
"I know," said Joan dully.
The realization of it all began to dawn on Garth.
"All full of soldiers!" he said. "Oh, it would be awful enough, if it were just a poor schooner that trusted us. We'll have to do something."
"I know," Joan said again; "but we can't."
"What do you suppose they've done to Fogger and Mudder? Have they killed them, Joan?" His voice went up unsteadily at the end.
"No, no!" Joan cried. "They're just holding them somewhere, perhaps in a boat. I don't know. ”

“ Garth asked, "or scissors?"
"No," she said.
"There's none in Fogger and Mudder's room, either," he mused. "Only little sewing-scissors, in Mudder's work-basket; they wouldn't do. Is it a thick rope, Joan?"
"Quite thick. About as big as the stern-fast of the Ailouros."
"I know where there is a knife," he said; "the only one I'm sure about. The big boat jack-knife on the little shelf over the chest downstairs. It's always there beside the telescope."
"It doesn't do us very much good, though," she said, with a groan; "thinking of it won't help us."
"I'm going to get it," Garth said. ”