CHAPTER IX
MRS. VANSITTART
The purser, faithful to his trust, had secured the ship's books. He alone, among the survivors of the Chinook, had brought a parcel of any sort from that ill-fated ship. The others possessed the clothes they wore, their money, and in some cases their trinkets.
Mr. Emmett suggested that a list of those saved should be compiled. Then, by ticking off the names, he could classify the inmates of the lighthouse and evolve some degree of order in the community.
It was found that there were thirty-seven officers and men, including stewards, thirty-three saloon passengers, of whom nineteen were women, counting the two little girls, and seven men and one woman from the steerage.
"It isn't usual, on a British ship, for the crew to bulk so large on the list," said Mr. Emmett huskily. "But it couldn't be helped. The passengers had to be battened down. They couldn't live on deck. We never gave in until the last minute."
"I saw that," said Brand, knowing the agony which prompted the broken explanation.
"An' not a mother's soul would have escaped if it wasn't for young Mr. Pyne," went on the sailor.
"Is that the name of the youngster who climbed the fore-mast?"
"That's him. It was a stroke of genius, his catching onto that way out. He was as cool as a cucumber. Just looked up when he reached the deck an' saw the lighthouse so near. Then he asked me for a rope. Planned the whole thing in a second, so to speak."
"He is not one of the ship's company?"
"No, sir, a passenger, nevvy of Cyrus J. Traill, the Philadelphian millionaire. Haven't you heard of Traill? Not much of a newspaper reader, eh? There was a lady on board, a Mrs. Vansittart, who was coming over to marry old Traill, so people said, and the weddin' was fixed to take place in Paris next week. Young Pyne was actin' as escort."
"Is she lost? What a terrible thing!"
The chief officer glanced down the purser's lists and slapped his thigh with much vehemence.
"No, by gosh! Here she is, marked O. K. Well, that beats the band."
"So the lad has discharged his trust to his uncle?"
Mr. Emmett was going to say something, but checked the words on his lips.
"Queer world," he muttered. "Queer world."
With that he devoted himself to planning out the watches. Soon he and the purser betook themselves to the depths with a roll-call. As they crept below gingerly – these sailor-men were not at home on companion ladders which moved not when the shock came – they met Enid, for the first time. She, coming up, held the swinging lantern level with her face. They hung back politely.
"Please come," she cried in her winsome way. "These stairs are too narrow for courtesy."
They stepped heavily onward. She flitted away. Emmett raised his lantern between the purser's face and his own.
"What do you think of that?" he whispered, awe-stricken.
The man of accounts smiled broadly.
"Pretty girl!" he agreed, with crudely emphatic superlatives.
Emmett shook his head. He murmured to himself: "I guess I'm tired. I see things."
Enid handed an armful of dry linen to the damp, steaming women in the lower bedroom. She was hurrying out; someone overtook her at the door. It was Mrs. Vansittart.
"Miss Brand," she said, with her all-sufficing smile, "give me one moment."
They stood in the dark and hollow-sounding stairway. The seas were lashing the column repeatedly, but the night's ordeal was nearly ended. Even a timid child might know now that the howling terror without had done its worst and failed. From the cavernous depths, mingling with the rumble of the storm, came the rhythm of a hymn. Those left in gloom by the withdrawal of Mr. Emmett's lantern were cheering their despondent souls.
Surprised, even whilst Enid awaited the older woman's demand, the listeners heard the words:
"Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice."
The rough tones of the men were softened and harmonized by the distance. It was a chant of praise, of thanksgiving, the offering of those who had been snatched from death and from mortal fear more painful than death.
The singing ceased as suddenly as it began. Mr. Emmett and the purser were warning the first watch.
The interruption did not seem to help Mrs. Vansittart. She spoke awkwardly, checking her thoughts as though fearful she might be misunderstood, or say too much.
"I am better," she explained, "quite recovered. I – gave up my bunk to one who needed it."
"I am sure we are all doing our best to help one another," volunteered Enid.
"But I am restless. The sight – of your sister – aroused vague memories. Do you mind – I find it hard to explain – your name is familiar. I knew – some people – called Brand – a Mr. Stephen Brand – and his wife."
She halted, seemingly at a loss. Enid, striving helplessly to solve the reason for this unexpected confidence, but quite wishful to make the explanation easier, found herself interested.
"Yes," she said. "That is quite possible, of course, though you must have been quite a girl. Mrs. Brand died many years ago."
Mrs. Vansittart flinched from the feeble rays of the lantern.
"That is so – I think I heard of – of Mrs. Brand's death – in London, I fancy. But – they had only one child."
Enid laughed.
"I am a mere nobody," she said. "Dad adopted me. I came here one day in June, nineteen years ago, and I must have looked so forlorn that he took me to his heart – thank God!"
Another solemn chord of the hymn floated up to them:
"Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear."
The rest of the verse evaded them. Probably a door was closed.
Mrs. Vansittart seemed to be greatly perturbed. Enid, intent on the occupation of the moment, believed their little chat was ended. To round it off, so to speak, she went on quickly:
"I imagine I am the most mysterious person living, in my early history, I mean. Mr. Brand saw me floating towards this lighthouse in a deserted boat. I was nearly dead. The people who had been with me were gone, either starved and thrown into the sea or knocked overboard during a collision, as the boat was badly damaged. My linen was marked 'E. T.' That is the only definite fact I can tell you. All the rest is guess-work. Evidently, nobody cared to claim me. And here I am."
Mrs. Vansittart was leaning back in the deep gloom, supporting herself against the door of the bedroom.
"What a romance!" she said, faintly.
"A vague one, and this is no time to gossip about it. Can I get you anything?"
Enid felt that she really must not prolong their conversation, and the other woman's exclamation threatened further talk.
"No, thank you. You'll excuse me, I know. My natural interest – "
But Enid, with a parting smile, was halfway toward the next landing, and Mrs. Vansittart was free to re-enter the crowded apartment where her fellow-sufferers were wondering when they would see daylight again. She did not stir. The darkness was intense, the narrow passage draughty, and the column thrilled and quivered in an unnerving manner. She heard the clang of a door above and knew that Enid had gone into the second apartment given over to the women. Somewhere, higher up, was the glaring light of which she had a faint recollection, though she was almost unconscious when unbound from the rope and carried into the service-room.
And at that moment, not knowing it, she had been near to Stephen Brand, might have spoken to him, looked into his face. What was he like, she wondered. Had he aged greatly with the years? A lighthouse-keeper! Of all professions in this wide world how came he to adopt that? And what ugly trick was fate about to play her that she should be cast ashore on this desolate rock where he was in charge? Could she avoid him? Had she been injudicious in betraying her knowledge of the past? And how marvelous was the likeness between Constance and her father! The chivalrous, high-minded youth she had known came back to her through the mists of time. The calm, proud eyes, the firm mouth, the wide expanse of forehead were his. From her mother – the woman who "died many years ago," when she, Mrs. Vansittart, was "quite a girl" – the girl inherited the clear profile, the wealth of dark-brown hair, and a grace of movement not often seen in Englishwomen.
Though her teeth chattered with the cold, Mrs. Vansittart could not bring herself to leave the vault-like stairway. Once more the hymn-singers cheered their hearts with words of praise. Evidently, there was one among them who not only knew the words but could lead them mightily in the tunes of many old favorites.
The opening of a door – caused by the passing to and fro of some of the ship's officers – brought to her distracted ears the concluding bars of a verse. When the voices swelled forth again she caught the full refrain:
"Raise thine eyes to heaven
When thy spirits quail,
When, by tempests driven,
Heart and courage fail."
Such a message might well carry good cheer to all who heard, yet Mrs. Vansittart listened as one in a trance, to whom the divinest promise was a thing unasked for and unrecognized. After passing through the greater peril of the reef in a state of supine consciousness, she was now moved to extreme activity by a more personal and selfish danger. There was she, a human atom, to be destroyed or saved at the idle whim of circumstance: here, with life and many things worth living for restored to her safe keeping, she saw imminent risk of a collapse with which the nebulous dangers of the wreck were in no way comparable. It would have been well for her could she only realize the promise of the hymn: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."
Not so ran Mrs. Vansittart's jumble of thoughts. The plans, the schemes, the builded edifice of many years, threatened to fall in ruin about her. In such bitter mood there was no consolation. She sought not to find spiritual succor, but bewailed the catastrophe which had befallen her.
It assuredly contributed to that "affliction which is but for a moment," that Constance should happen just then to run up the stairs towards the hospital. Each flight was so contrived that it curved across two-thirds of the superficial area allotted to the stairway. Anyone ascending made a complete turn to the right-about to reach the door of the room on any given landing and the foot of the ladder to the next.
Hence, the girl came unexpectedly face to face with Mrs. Vansittart. The meeting startled her. This pale woman, so thinly clad in the demi-toilette of evening wear on ship-board, should not be standing there.
"Is anything wrong?" she cried, raising her lantern just as Enid did when she encountered the sailors.
"No, no," said the other, passing a nervous hand over her face. Constance, with alert intelligence, fancied she dreaded recognition.
"Then why are you standing here? It is so cold. You will surely make yourself ill."
"I was wondering if I might see Mr. Brand," came the desperate answer, the words bubbling forth with unrestrained vehemence.
"See my father?" repeated the girl. She took thought for an instant. The lighthouse-keeper would not be able to leave the lamp for nearly three hours. When dawn came, she knew he would have many things to attend to, signals to the Land's End, the arrangement of supplies, which he had already mentioned to her, and a host of other matters. Four o'clock in the morning was an unconventional hour for an interview, but time itself was topsy-turvy under the conditions prevalent on the Gulf Rock.
"I will ask him," she went on hurriedly, with an uncomfortable feeling that Mrs. Vansittart resented her judicial pause.
"Thank you."
To the girl's ears the courteous acknowledgment conveyed an odd note of menace. If the eyes are the windows of the soul surely the voice is its subtle gauge. The more transparently simple, clean-minded the hearer, the more accurate is the resonant impression. Constance found herself vaguely perplexed by two jostling abstractions. If they took shape it was in mute questioning. Why was Mrs. Vansittart so anxious to revive, or, it might be, probe, long-buried memories, and why did her mobile smile seem to veil a hostile intent?
But the fresh, gracious maidenhood in her cast aside these unwonted studies in mind-reading.
"He has so much to do," she explained. "Although there are many of us on the rock tonight he has never been so utterly alone. Won't you wait inside until I return?"
"Not unless I am in the way," pleaded the other. "I was choking in there. The air here, the space, are so grateful."
So Constance passed her. Mrs. Vansittart noted the dainty manner in which she picked up her skirts to mount the stairs. She caught a glimpse of the tailor-made gown, striped silk underskirt, well-fitting, low-heeled, wide-welted expensive boots. Trust a woman to see all these things at a glance, with even the shifting glimmer of a storm-proof lantern to aid the quick appraisement.
As the girl went out of her sight a reminiscence came to her.
"No wonder I was startled," she communed. "That sailor's coat she wears helps the resemblance. Probably it is her father's."
Then the loud silence of the lighthouse appalled her. The singing had ceased, or was shut off by a closed door. One might be in a tomb as surrounded by this tangible darkness. The tremulous granite, so cold and hard, yet alive in its own grim strength, the murmuring commotion of wind and waves swelling and dying in ghost-like echoes, suggested a grave, a vault close sealed from the outer world, though pulsating with the far-away existence of heedless multitudes. Thus, brooding in the gloom, a tortured soul without form and void, she awaited the return of her messenger.
Constance, after looking in at the hospital, went on to the service-room. Her father was not there. She glanced up to the trimming-stage, expecting to see him attending to the lamp. No. He had gone. Somewhat bewildered, for she was almost certain he was not in any of the lower apartments, she climbed to the little door in the glass frame.
Ah! There he was, on the landward side of the gallery. What was the matter now? Surely there was not another vessel in distress. However, being relieved from any dubiety as to his whereabouts she went back to the service-room and gave herself the luxury of a moment's rest. Oh, how tired she was! Not until she sat down did she realize what it meant to live as she had lived, and to do all that she had done, during the past four hours.
Her respite was of short duration. Brand, his oilskins gleaming with wet, came in.
"Hello, sweetheart, what's up now?" he cried, in such cheerful voice that she knew all was well.
"That was exactly what I was going to ask you," she said.
"The Falcon is out there," he replied, with a side nod towards Mount's Bay.
Constance knew that the Falcon was a sturdy steam-trawler, a bull-dog little ship, built to face anything in the shape of gales.
"They can do nothing, of course," she commented.
"No. I stood between them and the light for a second, and they evidently understood that I was on the lookout, as a lantern dipped seven times, which I interpreted as meaning that they will return at daybreak. Now they are off to Penzance again."
"They turned safely then?"
"Shipped a sea or two, no doubt. The wind is dropping, but the sea is running mountains high."
He had taken off his oilskins. Constance suddenly felt a strong disinclination to rise. Being a strong-willed young person, she sprang up instantly.
"I came to ask you if you can see Mrs. Vansittart," she said.
"Mrs. Vansittart!" he cried, with a genuine surprise that thrilled her with a pleasure she assuredly could not account for.
"Yes. She asked if she might have a word with you."
He threw his hands up in comic despair.
"Tell the good lady I am up to my eyes in work. The oil is running low. I must hie me to the pump at once. I have my journal to fill. If there is no sun I cannot heliograph and I have a host of signals to look up and get ready. And, a word in your ear, Connie dear. We will be 'at home' on the rock for the next forty-eight hours. Give the lady my very deep regrets and ask her to allow me to send for her when I have a minute to spare, some hours hence."
She kissed him.
"You dear old thing," she cried. "You will tire yourself to death, I am sure."
He caught her by the chin.
"Mark my words," he laughed. "You will feel this night in your bones longer than I. By the way, no matter who goes hungry, don't prepare any breakfast until I come to you. I suppose the kitchen is your headquarters?"
"Yes, though Enid has had far more of Mr. Pyne's company. She is cook, you know."
"Is Pyne there too?"
"He is laundry-maid, drying clothes."
"I think I shall like him," mused Brand. "He seems to be a helpful sort of youngster. That reminds me. Tell him to report himself to Mr. Emmett as my assistant, – if he cares for the post, that is."
He did not see the ready spirit of mischief that danced in her eyes. She pictured Mr. Pyne "fixing things" with Mr. Emmett "mighty quick."
When she reached the first bedroom floor Mrs. Vansittart had gone.
"I thought it would be strange if she stood long in this draught," mused Constance. She opened the door. The lady she sought was leaning disconsolate against a wall.
"My father – " she began.
"I fear I was thoughtless," interrupted Mrs. Vansittart. "He must be greatly occupied. Of course, I can see him in the morning before the vessel comes. They will send a ship soon to take us off?"
"At the earliest possible moment," was the glad answer. "Indeed, dad has just been signalling to a tug which will return at daybreak."
There was a joyous chorus from the other inmates. Constance had not the requisite hardihood to tell them how they misconstrued her words.
As she quitted them she admitted to herself that Mrs. Vansittart, though disturbing in some of her moods, was really very considerate. It never occurred to her that her new acquaintance might have suddenly discovered the exceeding wisdom of a proverb concerning second thoughts.
Indeed, Mrs. Vansittart now bitterly regretted the impulse which led her to betray any knowledge of Stephen Brand or his daughter. Of all the follies of a wayward life, that was immeasurably the greatest, in Mrs. Vansittart's critical scale.
But what would you? It is not often given to a woman of nerves, a woman of volatile nature, a shallow worldling, yet versed in the deepest wiles of intrigue, to be shipwrecked, to be plucked from a living hell, to be swung through a hurricane to the secure insecurity of a dark and hollow pillar standing on a Calvary of storm-tossed waves, and then, whilst her senses swam in utmost bewilderment, to be confronted with a living ghost.
Yet that was precisely what had happened to her.
Fate is grievous at times. This haven of refuge was a place of torture. Mrs. Vansittart broke down and wept in her distress.
CHAPTER X
PYNE'S PROGRESS
A primrose light in the east heralded a chilly dawn. The little world of the Gulf Rock bestirred itself in its damp misery at the news. The fresh watch, delighted by the prospect of activity, clattered up and down the iron stairs, opened all available windows, unclamped the door when Brand gave the order, and busied itself exceedingly with the desultory jobs which offered to so many willing hands.
It was now, by the nautical almanac, dead low water on the reef, but the strong southwesterly wind, hurling a heavy sea completely over the rocks, showed that the standards of war and peace differ as greatly in the matter of tides as in most other respects.
As the light increased it lost its first warm tinge. Steel gray were sky and water, sombre the iron-bound land, whilst the whereabouts of the sun became a scientific abstraction. Therefore, the heliograph was useless, and Brand, helped by some of the sailors, commenced to flaunt his flag-signals to the watching telescopes on the far-off promontory of the Land's End. The Falcon, strong-hearted trawler, was plunging towards the rock when the first line of gay bunting swung clear into the breeze. And what a message it was – in its jerky phrases – its profound uncertainties – for communication by flag code is slow work, and Brand left much to an easier system of talk with the approaching steamer.
"Chinook– New York to Southampton – struck reef during hurricane – propeller shaft broken – 78 survivors in lighthouse – captain, 201 passengers, officers and crew – lost with ship."
The awful significance of the words sank into the hearts of the signallers. For the first time, the disaster from which, by God's Providence, they had emerged safely became crystallized into set speech. Seventy-eight living out of two hundred and eighty who might have lived! This was the curt intelligence which leaped the waves to fly over the length and breadth of the land, which sped back to the States to replace the expected news of a safe voyage, which thrilled the civilized world as it had not been thrilled for many a day.
Not a soul in the lighthouse gave thought to this side of the affair. All were anxious to reassure their loved ones, but, in their present moribund condition, they could not realize the electric effect of the incident on the wider world which read and had hearts to feel.
Even whilst Stephen Brand was signalling to the Falcon, with little white flags quickly extemporized as soon as she neared the Trinity buoy, newspaper correspondents ashore were busy at the telegraph-office, and their associates on the trawler were eagerly transcribing the lighthouse-keeper's words wherewith to feed to fever heat the sensation which the night had provided for the day.
Brand, foreseeing the importance of clearness and brevity, had already written out a full draft of his detailed message.
Faithful to his promise, Stapleton was acting as signaller-in-chief on board the Falcon, so Brand might manipulate his flags as quickly as lay in his power, with chief officer Emmett reading the words at his elbow: there was no fear that any mistake would be made by the receiver.
The story, if condensed, was complete. Beginning with an explanation of the liner's disablement, it dealt with her desperate but unavailing struggle to weather the reef, described Pyne's gallant and successful effort to get in touch with the lighthouse, the rescue of a fourth of those on board, the names of the survivors, and, finally, their predicament in the matter of food and water.
All this took long to tell.
Within the lantern, Mr. Charles A. Pyne, appointed supernumerary assistant-keeper, was burnishing brasswork as per instructions received. He little knew the use which was being made of his name by the tiny bits of linen tossing about on the exterior gallery. In such wise, helped by a compositor and dignified by headlines, does a man become a hero in these days of knighthood conferred by the Press.
Constance was scrutinizing the Falcon from the trimming-stage. Hearing Enid's cheery "Good-morning" to Pyne when that young lady raced upwards from the kitchen to catch a glimpse of the reported vessel, she dropped her glasses for a moment.
"Jack is on board," she announced. "Of course he would be there. And there is such a lot of other men – half Penzance, I think."
Enid joined her; Pyne, too, thought he could polish a burner up there as well as on the floor of the service-room.
Stanhope's stalwart figure, clad in oilskins, was clearly defined as he stood alone on the port side of the Falcon's small bridge, reading off the signals and sending back spasmodic twitterings of the flags which he, also, had procured, to indicate that each word was understood.
"Who is the skipper of the tug?" inquired Pyne quietly.
Both girls laughed.
"You mean Jack," cried Enid. "He is not the captain. He is an officer of the Royal Navy, our greatest friend."
"Jack is his front name, I suppose," went on Pyne, breathing on the copper disc in his hands to test its clearness.
"We will introduce you, even at this distance," said Constance airily. "Mr. Pyne – this is Lieutenant John Percival Stanhope, only son of the late Sir Charles and Lady Margaret Stanhope, of Tregarthen Lodge, Penzance, one of the best and dearest fellows who ever lived."
"It must be nice to be a friend of yours, Miss Brand, if you always talk about the favored person in that way," said Pyne, rubbing industriously.
Enid, to whom the mere sight of the steamer had restored all her vitality, giggled joyously.
"You know, Mr. Pyne, we all love Jack, as the song says. It was a mere accident that he did not accompany us to the rock yesterday. Connie would not let him come."
"Ah," said Pyne.
"I forbade him," explained Constance, "because he has only three days' leave from his ship, and I thought he should give the first afternoon to his mother instead of playing poodle for Enid."
"How dare you call Jack a poodle?" was the indignant exclamation.
"Allow me," drawled Pyne. "I'm very glad your sister classified him."
Constance suddenly felt her neck and face aflame. Pyne was standing on her left, Enid on her right. The quiet jubilation of Pyne's voice was so unmistakable that Enid, for one instant, withdrew her eyes from the distant ship. A retort was quick on her lips, until she bethought her that the American's statement might have two meanings.
Being tactful withal, she chose her words whilst she bubbled forth:
"He promised to take us for a drive today. That is the dot and dash alphabet father and he are using. If dad requires all the dots I'm sure Jack is monopolizing the dashes. He must be furious about this gale."
Constance, who wanted to pinch Enid severely, had reverted to her normal healthy hue by this time. She dropped her glasses.
"We are shamefully wasting precious minutes here," she said. "Enid, you and I ought to be in the kitchen."
Then she glanced with cold self-possession at Pyne, who was whistling softly between his teeth as he plied the duster.
"As for you," she said, "I never saw anyone work so hard with less need."
He critically examined the shining burner.
"We Americans are taught to be strenuous," he said smilingly. "That is the only way you can cut in ahead of the other fellow nowadays, Miss Brand."
She almost resigned the contest. That unhappy explanation had delivered her bound into his hands. Yet she strove desperately to keep up the pretence that their spoken words had no ulterior significance.
"Such energy must be very wearing," she said.
"It is – for the other man."
"But in your case it is unnecessary. My father believes we will be here at least forty-eight hours." Then she became conscious that again she had not said exactly what she meant to say. "So you, at any rate, need not wear your fingers to the bone," she added hurriedly.
"Guess it must be a national vice," he said with irritating complacency. "Just now I feel I have a regular hustle on."
"Your example equals your precepts. Enid, tear yourself from the attractive spectacle. There are eighty-one ravenous people to be fed."
"Sorry you haven't hit upon the real reason of my abounding industry," said Pyne, who skipped down the ladder first to give the girls a helping hand as they descended.
"Please tell us. It may be inspiring," said Constance.
"I'm going to ask the boss if I can't take a turn as scullery-maid when I'm through here."
"Then I veto the idea now," she answered. "Enid and I have had a most comfortable nap, and I am certain you have not closed your eyes all night. I will make it my personal business to see that both my father and you lie down for a couple of hours immediately after breakfast."
"Or else there will be a mutiny in the kitchen," chimed in Enid.
"Connie," she whispered, when they were safely out of hearing from the service-room, "I never saw a worse case. Talk about the young men suddenly smitten you read of in novels – "
Her sister whirled round.
"How can you be so silly?" she blazed forth.
"Why did you libel Jack so readily?" tittered Enid.
The other, utterly routed, went on in dignified silence. She did not speak again until they surveyed the store apportioned for the coming feast.
"Eighty-one!" she murmured. "What a monstrous deal of people for a half-penny worth of bread!"
"What is the use of repining?" sang Enid, with a fortissimo accent on the penultimate syllable. "For where there's a will there's a way. Tomorrow the sun will be shining, although it is cloudy today."
But Constance was not to be drawn a second time. Her clear brain was troubled by a formless shadow. It banished from her mind all thought of a harmless flirtation with the good-looking youngster who had brought a blush of momentary embarrassment to her fair face.
How dreadful it would be to meet hunger with refusals – perhaps there were worse things in the world than the midnight ordeal of an angry sea.
Indeed, when Pyne did join them in accord with his intention, he soon perceived the extent of the new danger. The stress of the night had only enhanced the need of an ample supply of food. Everybody – even the inmates of the hospital – was outrageously hungry, and the common allotment was half a cup of tea and half a ship's biscuit.
For the midday meal there would be two ounces of meat or bacon, one potato, and another half biscuit with about a wine-glassful of water. For supper the allowance was half a cup of cocoa and two ounces of bread, which must be baked during the day. Not quite starvation, this menu, but far from satisfying to strong men and worn-out women.
The Falcon, knowing the uselessness of attempting to creep nearer to the Gulf Rock, had gone off with her budget to startle two continents. Stanhope's last message was one of assurance. He would do all that lay in man's power. The lighthouse soon quieted down to a state of passive reaction. Pyne, refusing to be served earlier, carried his own and Brand's scanty meal on a tray to the service-room.
The unwearied lighthouse-keeper was on the balcony, answering a kindly signal from the Land's End, where the coast-guards were not yet in possession of the news from Penzance.