At the Black Rocks Part 14

Pretty, isn't it?"

Dave nodded a yes.

"Mr. Tolman, could you tell the man if you should see him again?" asked Dave.

"Could I? yes, indeed."

"How did he look? What was the colour of his hair, his eyes; and how was he dressed?"

"Now--you will think it strange--I can't tell any of his features or what clothes he wore, and yet if I should see him I don't believe I should miss him. I could tell him by the look of his eyes--a look that somehow appealed to me--a look without hope. Often when at night I see the froth on the bar in the moonlight, I seem to hear that man calling to me, and I take it as a sign that he is still in a worse fix than if on the bar. It is an awful curse, rum, and I am a sworn foe to it."

Here the light-keeper placed the sandal-wood box again on its shelf, and Dave turned to look out of the window near the kitchen table.

"See here, Mr. Tolman; what's that?"

"Where?"

"Floating and curling over that point!"

"Can't you guess?"

"Looks like fog! Yes, I can see now plainly. Oh, can we start up the fog-signal?"

"Wait a while. When the fog is so thick that you can't see Breakers P'int, then we start the fog-signal. That is the sign in that direction.

On the other side of the lighthouse it is Jones's Neck that must be hidden. I guess both the P'int and the Neck will be covered this time.

I must start the fire in the engine and have everything ready, at any rate. Let us go into the fog-signal tower."

Dave was delighted.

"I suppose, Mr. Tolman, people like to hear the signal?"

"Yes, if in a fog. They want to know which way to go. Even fishermen about here, who are supposed to know the way about the harbour, may be bothered by the fog; but people just off for pleasure may be bothered a good deal."

"See here! Isn't the fog lifting round Jones's Neck, Mr. Tolman?"

Dave was looking out of a window in the tower, and Mr. Tolman joined him.

"You are right; and Breakers P'int is clear too. We will hold on then, have everything ready, you know, for the fog may shut down suddenly."

Dave continued to look out of the window.

"Coming again!" he cried to the light-keeper, who had kept up his fires in the engine-room, but had gone for a few minutes to the kitchen. "Fog is round Breakers Point and Jones's Neck!"

Yes: like an immense gray sponge the mist had once more advanced, wiping out the vessels slowly sailing into harbour, the far outlying points of land, and now erased an islet called the Nub, mingling all in one confusing cloud.

"All right," said the light-keeper; "we will start the signal."

There was the driving of a stout piston; there was the stirring of a big wheel; there was the movement of other machinery; and there was finally--"What a noise overhead!" thought the listening Dave. It seemed as if five thousand bees all buzzing at once, twenty-five thousand crickets all shrilly piping at once, and fifty thousand wood-sawyers all sawing at once, had combined their noises and were forcing all through the flaming fog-trumpet above. For ten seconds Dave held his fingers in his ears. Then there was a blessed stillness, save as the play of the machinery interrupted it.

"What do you think of that?" asked Mr. Tolman, grinning broadly. "Some lung power left in it yet."

"Lung power! They can hear that down to the Cape of Good Hope. One is enough for both sides of the ocean."

"Want another? Time is 'most up. Here she goes!"

She went.

"Toot--buzz--boom--whiz--fizz-z-z--bim-m-m-m!"

Among the breakers tumbling on the sandy sh.o.r.es, along the face of weather-beaten island-edges, down amid the waves and up in the clouds echoed the sharp, strong, fog-piercing, ear-cutting blast. And wherever it went it said, "Of fog I warn-n-n-n-n!" for ten seconds.

In one of the intervals of rest Dave remarked, "Now that must be kept up as long as the fog lasts?"

"Of course."

"Doesn't it get tiresome?"

"Well, that's how you take it. I was told of a lighthouse where the signal was going twenty-one days."

"Day after day! Just think of it!"

"Well, there is this side of it: off on the water there is somebody bewildered by the mist, perplexed day after day, it may be, and they catch the sound of the signal. Oh, ain't that good news? That's what makes me contented at it. I have sometimes wished I was a musician, and could please others by my playing; but I tell you I have stood by this old engine dark, rainy, foggy nights, and oh, I have been so happy starting up and sending out this old whistle. There it is!"

"Toot--buzz--boom--whiz--bim-m-m-m!"

"Somebody heard that, you may believe, and somebody, too, more pleased than if I had been a whole band of music, and had sent out just the sweetest tune."

The light-keeper stood by the tugging engine and wiped the perspiration from his brow, and his big, rosy face was as happy as that of a school-boy going off on a long vacation.

"Hark! what is that? Sounds like a bell," said Dave.

"It is the bell-buoy at Sunk Rock. We only hear that when the wind is blowing off the sea."

"Didn't hear it before."

"Wind hasn't been just right to hear it loud. I have caught it since you came; but then I am used to its sound, and can tell it easily."

"I must see it."

"Oh, we shall have a chance, I guess."

The fog-signal had been shrieking away an hour, and Dave heard another sound.

"That isn't a bell I hear now," he said.

"Well, no; that's a hollering."

Was it a cry from the lighthouse tower or a cry outside of it? a cry from what quarter? Dave looked out of a window near him. He could see only fog above and waves below.