The Pillar of Light
By Louis Tracy
_Author of "The Wings of the Morning"_
"_And the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house; and
it fell not; for it was founded
upon a rock._"
_Matthew vii: 25_
New York
EDWARD J. CLODE
156 Fifth Avenue
1904
Copyright 1904, by EDWARD J. CLODE
_All rights reserved_
May, 1904
_Plimpton Press Norwood Mass._
[Illustration: LOW WATER--THE REEF]
[Illustration: THE GULF ROCK LIGHTHOUSE SECTION]
CONTENTS
I _Flotsam_ 1
II _A Christening_ 19
III _The Signal_ 37
IV _The Voice of the Reef_ 57
V _The Hurricane_ 72
VI _The Middle Watch_ 92
VII _The Lottery_ 110
VIII _An Interlude_ 124
IX _Mrs. Vansittart_ 141
X _Pyne's Progress_ 156
XI _Mrs. Vansittart's Fear_ 172
XII _Preparations_ 188
XIII _Before the Dawn_ 206
XIV _The Way They Have in The Navy_ 223
XV _Enid's New Name_ 241
XVI _Stephen Brand Explains_ 258
XVII _Mrs. Vansittart Goes Home_ 281
XVIII _Enid Wears an Old Ornament_ 301
XIX _The House that Stood Upon a Rock_ 319
CHAPTER I
FLOTSAM
All night long the great bell of the lighthouse, slung to a stout beam
projecting seaward beneath the outer platform, had tolled its warning
through the fog. The monotonous ticking of the clockwork attachment that
governed it, the sharp and livelier click of the occulting hood's
machinery, were the only sounds which alternated with its deep boom. The
tremendous clang sent a thrill through the giant column itself and
pealed away into the murky void with a tremolo of profound diminutions.
Overhead, the magnificent lantern, its eight-ringed circle of flame
burning at full pressure, illumined the drifting vapor with an intensity
that seemed to be born of the sturdy granite pillar of which it was the
fitting diadem. Hard and strong externally as the everlasting rock on
which it stood,--replete within with burnished steel and polished brass,
great cylinders and powerful pumps,--the lighthouse thrust its glowing
torch beyond the reach of the most daring wave. Cold, dour, defiant it
looked. Yet its superhuman eye sought to pierce the very heart of the
fog, and the furnace-white glare, concentrated ten thousand-fold by the
encircling hive of the dioptric lens, flung far into the gloom a silvery
cloak of moon-like majesty.
At last an irresistible ally sprang to the assistance of the
unconquerable light. About the close of the middle watch a gentle breeze
from the Atlantic followed the tide and swept the shivering wraith
landward to the northeast, whilst the first beams of a June sun
completed the destruction of the routed specter.
So, once more, as on the dawn of the third day, the waters under the
heaven were gathered into one place, and the dry land appeared, and
behold, it was good.
On the horizon, the turquoise rim of the sea lay with the sheen of
folded silk against the softer canopy of the sky. Towards the west a
group of islands, to which drifting banks of mist clung in melting
despair, were etched in shadows of dreamy purple. Over the nearer
sea-floor the quickly dying vapor spread a hazy pall of opal tints.
Across the face of the waters glistening bands of emerald green and
serene blue quivered in fairy lights. The slanting rays of the sun threw
broadcast a golden mirage and gilded all things with the dumb gladness
of an English summer's day.
A man, pacing the narrow gallery beneath the lantern, halted for a
moment to flood his soul afresh with a beauty made entrancing by the
knowledge that a few brief minutes would resolve it into maturer and
more familiar charms.
He was engaged, it is true, in the unromantic action of filling his
pipe,--a simple thing, beloved alike of poets and navvies,--yet his eyes
drank in the mute glory of the scene, and, captive to the spell of the
hour, he murmured aloud:
"Floating on waves of music and of light,
Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!
Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air;
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light."
The small door beneath the glass fane was open. The worker within,
busily cleaning an eight-inch burner, ceased for an instant and popped
his head out.
"Did you hail me?" he inquired.
The matter-of-fact words awoke the dreamer. He turned with a pleasant
smile.
"To be exact, Jim, I did hail somebody, but it was Aurora, Spirit of the
Dawn, not a hard-bitten sailor-man like you."
"Oh, that's all right, cap'n. I thought I heard you singin' out for a
light."
The other man bent his head to shield a match from a puff of wind, thus
concealing from his companion the gleam of amusement in his eyes. His
mate sniffed the fragrant odor of the tobacco longingly, but the Elder
Brethren of the Trinity maintain strict discipline, and he vanished to
his task without a thought of broken rules.
He left a piece of good advice behind him.
"If I was you, cap'n," he said, "I'd turn in. Jones is feelin' Al this
mornin'. He comes on at eight. You ought to be dead beat after your
double spell of the last two days. I'll keep breakfast back until three
bells (9.30 A.M.), an' there's fresh eggs an' haddick."
"Just a couple of whiffs, Jim. Then I'll go below."
Both men wore the uniform of assistant-keepers, yet it needed not their
manner of speech to reveal that one was a gentleman, born and bred, and
the other a bluff, good-natured, horny-handed A.B., to whom new-laid
eggs and recently cured fish appealed far more potently than Shelley and
a summer dawn at sea.
He who had involuntarily quoted "Queen Mab" turned his gaze seaward
again. Each moment the scene was becoming more brilliant yet nearer to
earth. The far-off islands sent splashes of gray, brown and green
through the purple. The rose flush on the horizon was assuming a
yellower tinge and the blue of sky and water was deepening. Twenty miles
away to the southwest the smoke of a steamer heralded the advent of an
Atlantic liner, and the last shreds of white mist were curling forlornly
above the waves.
The presence of the steamship, a tiny dull spot on the glowing picture,
peopled the void with life and banished poetry with the thinly sheeted
ghosts of the fog. In a little more than an hour she would be abreast of
the Gulf Rock Light. The watcher believed--was almost certain, in
fact--that she was the _Princess Royal_, homeward bound from New York to
Southampton. From her saloon deck those enthusiasts who had risen early
enough to catch a first glimpse of the English coast were already
scanning the trimly rugged outlines of the Scilly Isles, and searching
with their glasses for the Land's End and the Lizard.
In a few hours they would be in Southampton; that afternoon in
London--London, the Mecca of the world, from which, two years ago, he
fled with a loathing akin to terror. The big ship out there, panting and
straining as if she were beginning, not ending, her ocean race of three
thousand miles, was carrying eager hundreds to the pleasures and follies
of the great city. Yet he, the man smoking and silently staring at the
growing bank of smoke,--a young man, too; handsome, erect, with the
clean, smooth profile of the aristocrat,--had turned his back on it all,
and sought, and found, peace here in the gaunt pillar on a lonely rock.
Strange, how differently men are constituted. And women! Bah! A hard
look came into his eyes. His mouth set in a stern contempt. For a little
while his face bore a steely expression which would have amazed the man
within the lantern, now singing lustily as he worked.
But as the harp of David caused the evil spirit to depart from Saul, so
did the music of the morning chase away the lurking devil of memory
which sprang upon the lighthouse-keeper with the sight of the vessel.
He smiled again, a trifle bitterly perhaps. Behind him the singer roared
genially:
"Soon we'll be in London Town,
Sing, my lads, yeo ho-o,
And see the King in his golden crown,
Sing, my lads, yeo ho."
The man on the platform seemed to be aroused from a painful reverie by
the jingle so curiously _à propos_ to his thoughts. He tapped his pipe
on the iron railing, and was about to enter the lantern--and so to the
region of sleep beneath--when suddenly his glance, trained to an
acuteness not dreamed of by folk ashore, rested on some object seemingly
distant a mile or less, and drifting slowly nearer with the tide.
At this hour a two-knot current swept to the east around and over the
treacherous reef whose sunken fangs were marked by the lighthouse. In
calm weather, such as prevailed just then, it was difficult enough to
effect a landing at the base of the rock, but this same smiling
water-race became an awful, raging, tearing fury when the waves were
lashed into a storm.
He pocketed his pipe and stood with hands clenched on the rail, gazing
intently at a white-painted ship's life-boat, with a broken mast and a
sail trailing over the stern. Its color, with the sun shining on it, no
less than the vaporous eddies fading down to the surface of the sea, had
prevented him from seeing it earlier. Perhaps he would not have noticed
it at all were it not for the flashing wings of several sea-birds which
accompanied the craft in aërial escort.
Even yet a landsman would have stared insolently in that direction and
declared that there was naught else in sight save the steamer, whose
tall masts and two black funnels were now distinctly visible. But the
lighthouse keeper knew he was not mistaken. Here was a boat adrift,
forlorn, deserted. Its contour told him that it was no local craft
straying adventurously from island or mainland. Its unexpected presence,
wafted thus strangely from ocean wilds, the broken spar and tumbled
canvas, betokened an accident, perchance a tragedy.
"Jim!" he cried.
His mate, engaged in shrouding the gleaming lenses from the sun's rays,
came at the call. He was lame--the result of a wound received in the
Egyptian campaign: nevertheless, he was quick on his feet.
"What do you make of that?"
The sailor required no more than a gesture. He shaded his eyes with his
right hand, a mere shipboard trick of concentrating vision and brain,
for the rising sun was almost behind him.
"Ship's boat," he answered, laconically. "Collision, I expect. There's
bin no blow to speak of for days. But they're gone. Knocked overboard
when she was took aback by a squall. Unless them birds--"
He spoke in a species of verbal shorthand, but his meaning was clear
enough, even to the sentence left unfinished. The craft was under no
control. She would drift steadily into the Bay until the tide turned,
wander in an aimless circle for half an hour thereafter, and then, when
the ebb restored direction and force to the current, voyage forth again
to the fabled realm of Lyonnesse.
For a little while they stood together in silence. Jim suddenly quitted
his companion and came back with a glass. He poised it with the
precision of a Bisley marksman, and began to speak again, jerkily:
"Stove in forrard, above the water-line. Wouldn't live two minutes in a
sea. Somethin' lyin' in the bows. Can't make it out. And there's a
couple of cormorants perched on the gunwale. But she'll pass within two
hundred yards on her present course, an' the tide'll hold long enough
for that."
The other man looked around. From that elevated perch, one hundred and
thirty feet above high-water mark, he could survey a vast area of sea.
Excepting the approaching steamer--which would flit past a mile away to
the south--and a few distant brown specks which betokened a shoal of
Penzance fishing-smacks making the best of the tide eastward--there was
not a sail in sight.
"I think we should try and get hold of her," he said.
Jim kept his eye glued to the telescope.
"'Tain't worth it, cap'n. The salvage'll only be a pound or two, not but
what an extry suvrin comes in useful, an' we might tie her up to the
buoy on the off chance until the relief comes or we signal a smack. But
what's the good o' talkin'? We've got no boat, an' nobody'd be such a
fool as to swim to her."
"That is what I had in mind."
Jim lowered the glass.
"That's the fust time I've ever heard you say a d----d silly thing,
Stephen Brand."
There was no wavering judgment in his voice now. He was angry, and
slightly alarmed.
"Why is it so emphatically silly, Jim?" was the smiling query.
"How d'ye know what's aboard of her? What's them fowl after? What's
under that sail? What's that lyin' crumpled up forrard? Dead men, mebbe.
If they are, she's convoyed by sharks."
"Sharks! This is not the Red Sea. I am not afraid of any odd prowler.
Once--Anyhow, I am going to ask Jones."
"Jones won't hear of it."
"That is precisely what he will do, within the next minute. Now, don't
be vexed, Jim. Stand by and sing out directions if needful when I am in
the water. Have no fear. I am more than equal to Leander in a sea like
this."
Jim, who trusted to the head-keeper's veto,--awed, too, by the reference
to Leander, whom he hazily associated with Captain Webb,--made no
rejoinder.
He focused the telescope again, gave a moment's scrutiny to the steamer,
and then re-examined the boat. The stillness of the morning was solemn.
Beyond the lazy splash of the sea against the Gulf Rock itself, and an
occasional heavy surge as the swell revealed and instantly smothered
some dark tooth of the reef, he heard no sound save the ring of Stephen
Brand's boots on the iron stairs as he descended through the oil-room,
the library and office, to the first bedroom, in the lower bunk of which
lay Mr. Jones, keeper and chief, recovering from a sharp attack of
sciatica.
During one fearful night in the March equinox, when the fierce heat of
the lamp within and the icy blast of the gale without had temporarily
deranged the occulting machinery, Jones experienced an anxious watch.
Not for an instant could he forego attendance on the lamp. Owing to the
sleet it was necessary to keep the light at full pressure. The surplus
oil, driven up from the tanks by weights weighing half a ton, must flow
copiously over the brass shaft of the burner, or the metal might yield
to the fervent power of the column of flame.
The occulting hood, too, must be helped when the warning click came, or
it would jam and fail to fall periodically, thus changing the character
of the light, to the bewilderment and grave peril of any unhappy vessel
striving against the exterior turmoil of wind and wave.
So Jones passed four hours with his head and shoulders in the
temperature of a Turkish bath and the lower part of his body chilled to
the bone.
He thought nothing of it at the time. This was duty. But at intervals,
throughout the rest of his life, the sciatic nerve would remind him of
that lonely watch. This morning he was convalescent after a painful
immobility of two days.
Watching the boat, Jim centered her in the telescopic field, and looked
anxiously for a sharp arrow-shaped ripple on the surface of the sea.
The breeze which had vanquished the fog now kissed the smiling water
into dimples, and his keen sight was perplexed by the myriad wavelets.
Each minute the condition of affairs on board became more defined.
Beneath some oars ranged along the starboard side he could see several
tins, such as contain biscuits and compressed beef. The shapeless mass
in the bows puzzled him. It was partly covered with broken planks from
the damaged portion of the upper works, and it might be a jib-sail
fallen there when the mast broke. The birds were busy and excited. He
did not like that.
Nearly half an hour passed. The _Princess Royal_, a fine vessel of
yacht-like proportions, sprinting for the afternoon train, was about
eight miles away, sou'west by west. According to present indications
steamer and derelict would be abreast of the Gulf Rock Light
simultaneously, but the big ship, of course, would give a wide berth to
a rock-strewn shoal.
At last the lighthouse-keeper heard ascending footsteps. This was not
Stephen Brand, but Jones. Jim, whose rare irritated moods found safety
in stolid silence, neither spoke nor looked around when his chief joined
him, binoculars in hand.
Jones, a man of whitewash, polish, and rigid adherence to framed rules,
found the boat instantly, and recapitulated Jim's inventory, eliciting
grunts of agreement as each item was ticked off.
A clang of metal beneath caught their ears--the opening of the stout
doors, forty feet above high-water mark, from which a series of iron
rungs, sunk in the granite wall, led to the rocky base.
"Brand's goin' to swim out. It's hardly worth while signalin' to the
Land's End," commented Jones.
No answer. Jim leaned well over and saw their associate, stripped to his
underclothing, with a leather belt supporting a sheath-knife slung
across his shoulders, climbing down the ladder.
This taciturnity surprised Jones, for Jim was the cheeriest nurse who
ever brought a sufferer a plate of soup.
"It's nothing for a good swimmer, is it?" was the anxious question.
"No. It's no distance to speak of."
"An' the sea's like a mill-pond?"
"Ay, it's smooth enough."
"Don't you think he ought to try it? Every fine mornin' he has a dip off
the rock."
"Well, if it's all right for him an' you it's all right for me."
Jim had urged his plea to the man whom it chiefly concerned. He was far
too sporting a character to obtain the interference of authority, and
Jones, whose maritime experiences were confined to the hauling in or
paying out of a lightship's cable, had not the slightest suspicion of
lurking danger in the blue depths.
A light splash came to them, and, a few seconds later, Brand's head and
shoulders swung into view. After a dozen vigorous breast strokes he
rolled over on to his side, and waved his left hand to the two men high
above him.
With a sweeping side stroke he made rapid progress. Jones, unencumbered
by knowledge, blew through his lips.
"He's a wonderful chap, is Brand," he said, contentedly. "It licks me
what a man like him wants messin' about in the service for. He's
eddicated up to the top notch, an' he has money, too. His lodgin's cost
the whole of his pay, the missus says, an' that kid of his has a
hospital nuss, if you please."
Jones was grateful to his mates for their recent attentions. He was
inclined to genial gossip, but Jim was watching the boat curving towards
the lighthouse. The high spring tide was at the full. So he only
growled:
"You can see with half an eye he has taken on this job for a change. I
wish he was in that blessed boat."
Jones was quite certain now that his subordinate harbored some secret
fear of danger.
"What's up?" he cried. "He'll board her in two ticks."
On no account would the sailor mention sharks. He might be mistaken, and
Jones would guffaw at his "deep-sea" fancies. Anyhow, it was Brand's
affair. A friend might advise; he would never tattle.
The head-keeper, vaguely excited, peered through his glass. Both boat
and swimmer were in the annular field. Brand had resumed the breast
stroke. The swing of the tide carried the broken bow towards him. He
was not more than the boat's length distant when he dived suddenly and
the cormorants flapped aloft. A black fin darted into sight, leaving a
sharply divided trail in the smooth patch of water created by the
turning of the derelict.
Jones was genuinely startled now.
"My God!" he cried, "what is it?"
"A shark!" yelled Jim. "I knew it. I warned him. Eh, but he's game is
the cap'n."
"Why didn't you tell me?" roared Jones. Under reversed conditions he
would have behaved exactly as Jim did.
But it was no time for words. The men peered at the sudden tragedy with
an intensity which left them gasping for breath. More than two hundred
yards away in reality, the magnifying glasses brought this horror so
close that they could see--they almost thought they could hear--its
tensely dramatic action. The rapidly moving black signal reached the
small eddy caused by the man's disappearance. Instantly a great sinuous,
shining body rose half out of the water, and a powerful tail struck the
side of the boat a resounding whack.
Jim's first expletive died in his throat.
"He's done it!" Jones heard him say. "He's ripped him. Oh, bully! May
the Lord grant there's only one."
For a single instant they saw the dark hair and face of the man above
the surface. The shark whirled about and rushed. Brand sank, and again
the giant man-eater writhed in agonized contortions and the sea showed
masses of froth and dark blotches. The flutterings of the birds became
irregular and alarmed. Their wheeling flights partly obscured events
below. The gulls, screeching their fright, or it might be interest, kept
close to the water, and the cormorants sailed in circles aloof.
Jones was pallid and streaming with perspiration. "I wouldn't have had
it happen for fifty quid," he groaned.
"I wouldn't ha' missed it for a hundred," yelped Jim. "It's a fight to a
finish, and the cap'n'll win. There ain't another sea-lawyer on the job,
an' Brand knows how to handle this one."
Their mate's head reappeared and Jim relieved the tension by a mighty
shout:
"He'll swim wild now, Brand. Keep out of his track."
Sure enough, the ugly monster began to thrash the water and career
around on the surface in frantic convulsions. The second stab of the
knife had reached a vital part. Brand, who perhaps had seen a Malay
diver handling his life-long enemy, coolly struck out towards the stern
of the boat. The shark, churning the sea into a white foam, whirled away
in blind pursuit of the death which was rending him. The man, unharmed
but somewhat breathless, clambered over the folds of the sail into the
boat.
"Glory be!" quavered Jones, who was a Baptist.
Jim was about to chant his thanks in other terms when his attention was
caught by Brand's curious actions.
In stepping across the after thwart he stopped as though something had
stung him. His hesitation was momentary. Pressing his left hand to mouth
and nose he passed rapidly forward, stooped, caught a limp body by the
belt which every sailor wears, and, with a mighty effort, slung it into
the sea, where it sank instantly. So the shark, like many a human
congener of higher intellect, had only missed his opportunity by being
too precipitate, whilst the cormorants and gulls, eyeing him ominously,
did not know what they had lost.
Then the man returned to the sail and peered beneath. Neither of the
onlookers could distinguish anything of special interest under the heavy
canvas sheet. Whatever it was, Brand apparently resolved to leave it
alone for the moment.
He shipped a pair of oars, and, with two vigorous sweeps, impelled the
derelict away from the charnel-house atmosphere which evidently clung to
it.
Then the shark engaged his attention. It was floating, belly upwards,
its white under-skin glistening in the sunlight. Two long gashes were
revealed, one transverse, the other lengthwise, proving how coolly and
scientifically Brand had done his work. An occasional spasm revealed
that life was not yet extinct, but the furtive attack of a dogfish,
attracted by the scent of blood, which stirs alike the denizens of air,
land and ocean, was unresisted.
The rower stood up again, drove a boat-hook into the cruel jaws, and
lashed the stock to a thorl-pin with a piece of cordage. This
accomplished to his satisfaction, he looked towards the Gulf Rock for
the first time since he drew the knife from its sheath, gave a cheery
hand-wave to the shouting pair on the balcony, and settled down to pull
the recovered craft close to the rock.
Jim closed the telescope with a snap.
"He heaved the dead man overboard," he announced, "so there's a live one
under the sail."
"Why do you think that?" said Jones, whose nerves were badly shaken.
"Well, you saw what happened to the other pore devil. Either him or the
cap'n had to go. It 'ud be the same if there was a funeral wanted aft.
Them there birds--But come along, boss. Let's give him a hand."
They hurried down to the iron-barred entrance. Jones shot outward a
small crane fitted with a winch, in case it might be needed, whilst the
sailor climbed to the narrow platform of rock into which the base-blocks
of the lighthouse were sunk and bolted.
Affording but little superficial space at low water, there was now not
an inch to spare. Here, at sea-level, the Atlantic swell, even in calm
weather, rendered landing or boarding a boat a matter of activity. At
this stage of the tide each wave lapped some portion of the granite
stones and receded quickly down the slope of the weed-covered rock.
The gulls and cormorants, filling the air with raucous cries, were
rustling in rapid flight in the wake of the boat, darting ever and anon
at the water or making daring pecks at the floating carcass.
Soon Brand glanced over his shoulder to measure his distance. With the
ease of a practised oarsman he turned his craft to bring her stern on to
the landing-place.
"Lower a basket!" he cried to Jones, and, whilst the others wondered
what the urgency in his voice betokened, there reached them the deep
strong blast of a steam-whistle, blown four times in quick succession.
Each and all, they had forgotten the _Princess Royal_. She was close in,
much nearer than mail steamers usually ventured.
At first they gazed at her with surprise, Brand even suspending his
maneuvers for a moment. Then Jim, knowing that a steamship trumpets the
same note to express all sorts of emotion, understood that the officers
had witnessed a good deal, if not all, that had taken place, and were
offering their congratulations.
"Blow away, my hearties!" crowed Jim, vainly apostrophizing the vessel.
"You'll have somethin' to crack about when you go ashore tonight or I'm
very much mistaken. Now, cap'n," he went on, "take the cover off. It's
alive, I suppose. Is it a man, or a woman?"