The Child of the Sea

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A terrible storm at sea so badly damages the vessel under the command of Captain Warren that the crew deserts the ship in all the lifeboats available. The captain then binds his little daughter, Nellie, and wife to a spar and sets them adrift. When they are picked up by a lighthouse keeper, it is discovered that the mother has died. The little girl is cared for by the keeper. Fifteen years later Nellie, who has now grown into a beautiful woman, is the adored of Bill Jackson, the stalwart assistant keeper, which fact falls so upon the nerves of Jim Arnold, of the coast patrol, that he writes an anonymous letter to Warren, who had been rescued from the wreck, and who has become a government inspector of lighthouses, telling him that the keeper of Far Point Light is so old that he is incapacitated from doing his work and that the assistant is a drunkard. One night, sometime later, as Jackson is going to attend to the light he is felled by a hard blow on the head by Arnold. This is seen by Nellie, who, while wanting to go to the aid of her lover, sees the greater necessity of attending to the light. She is followed by Arnold after he has deposited the body on the rocks where the rising tide would get him and thereby give the impression that he had been drowned. Nellie has no sooner started the flaring light revolving in its orbit when she notices the trap door being raised and the head of Arnold protruding. She jumps on the trap door and holds the wood-be assassin in that position until she receives aid from the lighthouse keeper and the government inspector, who had decided to investigate the truth of the anonymous letter he had received and who, upon learning the true state of affairs from the keeper, went with him to the assistance of Nellie. There is mutual recognition between father and daughter. Instead of being drowned by the rising tide, Jackson is revived and in his company Nellie finds comfort and happiness.