The Pillar of Light

"What's the hurry?" he demanded.

"A woman's whim, if you like, but a fixed resolve, nevertheless."

"Will you travel in that rig-out?" he asked quizzically.

"It is an easy matter to call at a shop if we reach shore by daylight. Then I can purchase a cloak and hat to serve my needs. Otherwise, it is matterless how I am attired. Will you do this?"

"Why, certainly."

She gave a little gasp of relief. In another instant Pyne would have gone, but Enid, who happened to glance through the window which opened towards the northwest, detained him.

"There is no hurry now, for sure," she said. "The Falcon is half way to Carn du by this time. I do not suppose she will return until it is too dark to do more than signal important news very briefly."

"But this is important," cried Mrs. Vansittart shrilly. "It is of the utmost importance to me."

"'Fraid it can't be helped ma'am," said Pyne civilly. "Anyhow we're not ashore yet, and I can't see that any time will be wasted."

The electric bell jangled in the room, causing Mrs. Vansittart to jump visibly.

"Oh, what is it?" she screamed.

"My father is calling one of us up," explained Constance. "It may be a message from Jack. You go, Enid."

Enid hurried away. She had scarcely reached the next floor before Mrs. Vansittart, who seemed to have moods in full compass, said sweetly:

"Convey my deep obligations to Mr. Brand, won't you, Charlie. Indeed, you might go now and write out the text of my message to your uncle. Some early opportunity of despatching it may offer."

"All right," he said in the calm way which so effectually concealed his feelings. "Shall I escort you to your room?"

"By no means. I came here quite unassisted. Miss Brand and I can chat for a little while. It is most wearying to be pent all day and all night in one little room. Even the change to another little room is grateful."

Pyne bowed, and they heard his steady tread as he ascended the stairs.

"Quite a nice boy, Charlie," said Mrs. Vansittart, coming forward into the kitchen, with its medley of queer-looking, hissing, steaming contrivances.

"Yes. We think he is exceedingly nice," said Constance. She wondered why the other woman seemed always to stand in the shadow, by choice. The strongest light in the darkened chamber came from the grate, and Mrs. Vansittart deliberately turned away from it.

"If all goes well he will soon be my nephew by marriage," went on the other. "I quitted New York yesterday week in order to marry his uncle in Paris. Rather a disastrous beginning to a new career, is it not?"

"I hope not, indeed. Perhaps you are surmounting difficulties at the commencement rather than at the end."

"It may be. I am so much older than you that I am less optimistic. But you did not grasp the significance of my words. I said I was to be married in Paris."

"Yes," said Constance, still at a loss to catch the drift of an announcement which Mrs. Vansittart seemed so anxious to thrust upon her.

"Well, the Chinook was wrecked last night, or rather, early this morning. The name of the ship was not made known throughout the world until long after daybreak. It is quite impossible that Mr. Traill should have reached this remote corner of England from Paris in the interval."

For one moment the girl was puzzled. Then a ready solution occurred to her.

"Oh, of course, that is very simple. Mr. Traill was awaiting your arrival in Southampton, thinking to take you by surprise no doubt. That is sure to be the explanation. What a shock the first telegram must have given him!"

"How did he ascertain that his nephew and I were alive?"

"The very first thing father did was to telegraph the names of all the survivors. I know that is so because I saw the message."

"Ah. He is a man of method, I suppose. You are proud of him, I heard you say."

"I think there is no one like him in all the world. We are so happy at home that sometimes I fear it cannot last. Yet, thank God, there is no excuse for such night-mare terrors."

Mrs. Vansittart cooed in her gentle way.

"Indeed, you have my earnest good wishes in that respect," she said. "Do we not owe our lives to you? That is an excellent reason for gratitude, if a selfish one. But, some day soon, you will be getting married and leaving the parental roof."

"I do not wish to die an old maid," laughed Constance, "yet I have not discovered a better name than my own up to the present."

She fancied that Mrs. Vansittart winced a little at this remark. Deeming her visitor to be a bundle of nerves, she jumped to the conclusion that the other woman read into the words some far-fetched disparagement of her own approaching marriage.

"Of course," she continued, affably tactful, "I will hold another view when the right man asks me."

"Were you in my place," murmured her visitor, apparently thinking aloud rather than addressing Constance, "you would not be fearful of misfortune? You would not read an omen of ill luck into this dramatic interruption of all your plans? After many years of widowhood I am about to be married again to a man who is admirable in every way. He is rich, distinguished in manner and appearance, a person of note not only in the States but on the Continent. No woman of my years might desire a better match. Why could not the way be made smooth for me? Why should the poor Chinook, out of the hundreds of mail-steamers which cross the Atlantic yearly, be picked out for utter disaster? It is a warning – a threat from the gods!"

The unconscious bitterness of her tone moved the girl to find words of consolation.

"I would not question the ways of Providence in the least," she said. "Surely you have far more reason for thankfulness than for regret."

"Regret! I am not regretting. But I have gone through such trials that I am unnerved. There, child! Forgive me for troubling you. And – and – kiss me, will you, and say you wish me well!"

She moved nearer, as if driven by uncontrollable impulse. Constance, not prepared for such an outburst, was nevertheless deeply touched by this appeal for sympathy.

"I wish you all the joy and happiness which I am sure you deserve," she said, stooping to kiss the wan, shrinking face held up to her.

Mrs. Vansittart burst into a paroxysm of tears and tottered towards the door.

"No, no," she gasped, as Constance caught her by the arm. "Do not come with me. I am – shaken. It will pass. For God's sake, let me go alone!"

CHAPTER XII

PREPARATIONS

Pyne found Enid rosy-red and inclined to be tearful. The dying light of day was still strong enough in the service-room to permit these things to be seen.

"No bad news, I hope?" he inquired, though the sight of Stephen Brand, seated at his desk and placidly writing, was reassuring.

The question steadied her to an extent.

"It is nothing of any consequence," she said and darted past him.

Brand looked up from his journal. He smiled, though the American thought there was a hint of pain in his eyes.

"I am going to lose one of my girls," he said. "Oh, no, this is not a loss by death but by marriage. If I were a Frenchman, I would describe it as gaining a son. Enid has just received what is tantamount to a proposal."

"By flag-wagging?" Pyne was naturally astounded.

"Yes. You would not expect one of the people from the Chinook to be so enterprising."

"I – don't – know," said Pyne, punctuating each word with a deliberate nod.

"Well, in any case, I would not have forwarded the application after an acquaintance of eighteen hours," observed Brand with equal deliberation.

"They're two powerful fine girls," said Pyne, steering clear of the point. "They have just been telling me how Miss Enid happened along. It reads like a fairy tale."

"She was given to me by the winds and waves, yet she is dear to me as my own child. I shall miss her greatly – if all goes well here."

"I've cottoned on to both of them something wonderful. But, if I am not intruding into private affairs, how comes it that Miss Enid is being telegraphed for? Of course I can understand the gentleman being in a hurry. I would feel that way myself if the conditions were favorable."

Pyne could be as stolid as a red Indian when the occasion demanded it. Brand found no hint in his face of the hidden thought in his words.

"Have they said anything to you of a man named Stanhope?" inquired the lighthouse-keeper, resuming the entry in his diary after a sharp glance upwards.

"Y-yes. They pointed him out to me this morning. In the navy, I think. Fellow with a title, and that sort of thing."

"No. His mother is Lady Margaret Stanhope, being an earl's daughter, but his father was a knight. He has been paying attentions to Enid for a year and more, to my knowledge and to his mother's exceeding indignation, I fancy."

"That is where we on the other side have the pull of you."

"Have you? I wonder. However, Lady Margaret's views have not troubled me. I will deal with her when the time comes. At present it looks fairly certain that Master Jack has settled matters on his own account. I may be mistaken, of course. How do you interpret this?"

He closed the journal and handed to Pyne a memorandum taken down letter by letter by a sailor as Brand read the signal:

"Mother sends her love to Enid."

"Did mother ever convey her love to Enid before?" asked Pyne.

"No."

"Then I call that neat. I take off my hat to Stanhope. He and mamma have had a heart-to-heart talk."

Brand leaned his head on his hands, with clenched fists covering his ears. There was a period of utter silence until the lighthouse-keeper rose to light the lamp.

Pyne watched him narrowly.

"I may be trespassing on delicate ground," he said at last. "If I am, you are not the sort of man to stand on ceremony. In the States, you know, when the authorities want to preserve a park section they don't say: 'Please do not walk on the grass.' They put up a board which reads: 'Keep off.' We never kick. We're used to it."

"My notice-board, if required, will be less curt, at any rate," replied Brand, and they faced each other. Though their words were light, no pleasant conceit lurked in their minds. There was a question to be asked and answered, and it held the issues of life and death.

"What did you mean just now by saying, 'if all goes well here?' Is there any special reason why things should not go well?"

The young Philadelphian might have been hazarding an inquiry about a matter of trivial interest, so calm was he, so smooth his utterance. But Brand had made no mistake in estimating this youngster's force of character, nor did he seek to temporize.

He extended an arm towards the reef.

"You hear that?" he said.

"Yes."

"It may boil that way for weeks."

"So I have been told."

"By whom?"

"Mr. Emmett told me."

"Ah! He and I have discussed the matter already. Yet I imagine that neither he, nor any other man in the place save myself, grasps the true meaning of the fact."

"I've been theorizing," said Pyne. "It occurred to me that this light isn't here for amusement."

He looked up at the lamp and smiled. The pillar, in those days, must have been a haunt of illusions, for Brand, like Constance and Pyne himself in the case of Mrs. Vansittart, thought he caught an expression familiar to his eyes long before he had seen that clear-cut, splendidly intelligent face.

But there was no time for idle speculation. He glanced into the well of the stairs to make sure that no one was ascending.

Then he approached nearer to Pyne and said in an intense whisper:

"It is folly to waste words with you. I have reasoned this thing out and now I will tell you what I have decided. I will take the watch from eight until twelve. At twelve you will relieve me, and I will go below to secure provisions and water sufficient to maintain the lives of my daughters, you and myself for a few hours longer than the others. By right, if I followed the rules I have promised to obey, I alone should live. That is impossible. A Spartan might do it, but I cannot abandon my girls and yet retain my senses. I trust you because I must have a confederate. If the weather does not break before tomorrow night we must barricade the stairs – and fight – if necessary."

His face was drawn and haggard, his eyes blazing. He shook as one in the first throes of fever. He seemed to await his companion's verdict with an overpowering dread lest any attempt should be made to question the justice of his decree.

"Yes. I figured it out that way, too," said Pyne. "It's queer, isn't it, to be in such a fix when there's all sorts of help within call, so to speak. We might as well be in a mine closed up by an explosion. And, I'll tell you what – I'm real sorry for you."

Brand, collapsing under the strain, sank into a chair.

"It is an awful thing," he moaned, "to condemn so many men, women, and children, to such a death."

A spasm of pain made Pyne's lips tremulous for an instant. He had forgotten Elsie and Mamie.

But his voice was fully under control when he spoke again.

"You can count on me in the deal in all but one thing," he said.

The older man looked up fiercely. What condition could be imposed in the fulfilment of a duty so terrible?

"I am here by chance," went on Pyne. "One of your daughters may have told you that Mrs. Vansittart came from New York to marry my uncle. Anyhow you would know she was dear to him by his message today. She is sort of in my charge, and I can't desert her. It's hard luck, as I don't care a cent for her. She's the kind of woman old men adore – fascinating, bird-like creatures – when the cage is gilded."

Brand sprang to his feet and raced up to the trimming-stage. When his hands were on the lamp he felt surer of himself. It gave him strength during the hurricane and it would strengthen him now.

"There can be no exceptions," he said harshly. Pyne waited until the lighthouse-keeper rejoined him.

"I ought to have put my proposition before you first and made a speech afterwards," he said. "Constance and Enid will join you here when you say the word, but I will be on the other side of the barricade."

"Nonsense!" cried Brand. "You have no right to thrust away the chance that is given you. You saved all these people once. Why should you die uselessly?"

"What! Suppose it pans out that way. Suppose we live a couple of weeks and escape. Am I to face the old man and tell him – the truth? No, sir. You don't mean it. You wouldn't do it yourself. What about that shark the girls told me of. I can guess just what happened. He wanted the light refreshment in the boat. Did you scoot back when you saw his fin? I'm a heap younger than you, Mr. Brand, but that bluff doesn't go."

"Thank Heaven, we have twenty-four hours yet!" murmured Brand.

"It will be all the same when we have only twenty-four seconds. Let us fix it that way right now. Don't you see, it will be easier to deceive the girls? And there's another reason. Barricade and shoot as you like, it will be a hard thing to keep three-score desperate men boxed up down below. When they begin to diet on colza there will be trouble. A few of us, ready to take chances, will be helpful. Some of them may have to die quick, you know."

Brand closed his eyes in sheer affright. In that way he tried to shut out a vision.

"Be it so," he gasped. "May the Lord help us."

It was the responsibility that mastered him. Judges on the bench often break down when they sentence a criminal to death, but what judge, humane, tenderhearted and God-fearing, ever pronounced the doom of seventy-eight people snatched from a merciful death to be steeped in horrors.

At last his iron will predominated. The knowledge that the path of duty lay straight before him cheered his tortured soul. No man could say he erred in trying to save his children. That was a trust as solemn as any conferred by the Elder Brethren of the Trinity.

He placed a hand on Pyne's shoulder, for this youngster had become dear to him.

"Had I a son," he said, "I should wish him to be like you. Let us strive to forget the evils that threaten us. Brooding is useless. If need be, you will take charge of the lower deck. There is starvation allowance for three more days at the worst. But I hate the thought of starting the new scale tomorrow."

"It may not be necessary."

"Candidly, I fear it will. I know the Cornish coast too well. When bad weather sets in from the southwest at this season it holds for a week at the lowest computation."

"Is there no other way? Can nothing be done out there?"

"Able men, the best of sailors, the most experienced of engineers, have striven for half a century to devise some means of storm communication with a rock lighthouse placed as this is. They have failed. There is none."

"That's good," cried Pyne quite pleasantly. "Where is your pouch? I feel like a smoke. If I hadn't fired that question at you I should have wasted a lot of time in hard thinking."

Brand had to scheme that night to reach the store-room unobserved. The Falcon, steaming valiantly to her observation post near the buoy, aided him considerably. He permitted the night watch to gather in the service-room whilst he supplied the men with tobacco, and stationed the officer on the gallery to observe the trawler in case she showed any signal lights.

Since the attempt on the lock Constance gave the key to her father after each visit. For the rest, the inmates of the pillar were sunk in the lethargy of unsatisfied hunger. Constance and Enid, utterly worn out with fatigue, were sound asleep in the kitchen, and the tears coursed down the man's face as he acted the part of a thief in securing the measured allowance of flour and bacon for one meal. The diet of one hungry meal for eighty-one people gave twenty-seven hungry meals for three. He ought to have taken more, but he set his teeth and refused the ungrateful task.

It is oft-times easy for a man to decide upon a set course, but hard to follow it.

"A week!" he murmured. "Perhaps ten days! That is all. Pray Heaven I may not go mad before they die!"

Pyne, watching the light, knew that Brand had succeeded. The Falcon went; gradually the watch dispersed.

"Where is the hoard?" asked Pyne, making believe that they were playing some comedy.

"Hidden in the kitchen lockers. I could obtain only distilled water. You must persuade the girls in the morning that something went wrong with the apparatus."

As opportunity offered, Brand transferred the tins to the lockers of the service-room. Pyne, who missed nothing, shook his head when it became evident that the last consignment was safely stored away.

"Not much there," he commented.

"I will take no more!" was the fierce cry.

"You ought to."

"I refuse, I tell you! Don't torture me further."

"Any chance of a row in the morning? The purser and Mr. Emmett mount guard when the store-room is opened."

"I acted my role well. I built up the vacancies with empty tins."

"My sakes!" cried Pyne pityingly, "you deserve to win through."

"I think my heart will break," muttered Brand. "But look! The lamp! It needs adjusting."

Indeed, a fresh gale seemed to be springing up. The wind-vane having gone, the index was useless. It was not until a burst of spray drenched the lantern that Brand knew of a change taking place. The wind was backing round towards the north.

The barometer fell slightly. It portended either more wind and dry weather, or less wind accompanied by rain. Who could tell what would happen? Fair or foul, hurricane or calm, all things seemed to be the ungovernable blundering of blind chance.

When the rock was left in peace after the fall of the tide, Pyne promised to keep the light in order if Brand would endeavor to sleep until day-break. Rest was essential to him. He would assuredly break down under the strain if the tension were too long maintained, and a time was coming when he would need all his strength, mental and physical.

"Here have I been snoozing in odd corners ever since I came aboard," urged the American, "and I have nothing to do but starve quietly. It's ridiculous. My funeral is dated: yours isn't. You can't be on deck all the time, you know. Now, just curl up and count sheep jumping over a wall or any old game of the sort until your eyes close of their own accord."

Brand yielded. He lay on the hard boards, with a chair cushion for pillow; all the rugs rescued by Constance were now needed in the hospital. In less than a minute he was sound asleep.

"That was a close call," mused Pyne. "In another hour he would have cracked up. He's a wonder, anyhow."

The lighthouse-keeper slept until long after daybreak. Pyne refused to allow anyone to disturb him.

Soon after seven o'clock the watch reported that two vessels were approaching from the Bay. One was the Falcon, and the sailors soon made out that the other was the Trinity tender from Plymouth.

When they were both nearing the buoy, Brand was aroused.

It was evident that the brief rest had cleared his brain and restored his self-confidence. Instantly he took up the thread of events, and his first words showed how pleased he was that someone of authority in the lighthouse service should be in active communication with him.

Through his glasses he distinguished Stanhope on board the Trinity steamer, standing by the side of the inspecting-officer of the South-Coast lights. Other officials were there, but near Stanhope was a tall elderly man, unknown, and certainly a stranger in Penzance.

The Falcon was now chartered by press-men, so the civilian on the official boat was evidently a person of consequence. Indeed, Brand imagined, long before Pyne was able to verify the impression, that the newcomer was Mr. Cyrus J. Traill, whom he had failed to notice in the poor light of the previous evening.

He knew quite well that the experienced chief of the lighthouse service would appreciate fully the disabilities under which he labored, with eighty-one mouths to feed from a stock already far below the three months' maximum.

The first telegraphed question betrayed the prevalent anxiety.

"Hope all is well?"

What was he to say? Was it not best to speak boldly and let men know the truth, not alone as to their present desperate plight but revealing the measures he had devised for the protection of the light? He could not make up his mind to launch out into a full explanation that instant.

So he signaled:

"Everyone alive, but many cases of grave collapse."

Stanhope was again the signaler – evidently he had arranged matters with the Admiral at Portsmouth – so Brand expected the prompt reply:

"How are Constance and Enid?"

"Quite well and cheerful."

The tall man near Stanhope bent closer.

"Are Mrs. Vansittart and Pyne all right?"

Brand assumed that the lady was in no worse condition than others. Constance, telling him the state of the sick during a hasty visit, had not mentioned her name.

So he sent the needed assurance, and went on forlornly:

"Suppose no effort can be made to open communication?"

To his great surprise, the answer came:

"We are constructing a raft. When the tide falls this afternoon we will try what can be done."

Ah, how glad he was that he had not obeyed his earlier impulse, and horrified the anxious rescuers by a prophecy of lingering death for many, with the prelude, perchance, of murderous excesses committed by men on the verge of madness. If that story had to be told he would not flinch, but it was a grateful thing that the hour of its telling might at least be deferred.

A long message followed, a string of loving words from relatives ashore to those known to be imprisoned on the rock. During the merely perfunctory reading off of the signals his active mind was canvassing the probabilities of success or failure for the venture of the afternoon. It was high-water about three o'clock, and, in his judgment, with the wind in its present quarter, about northwest by west, the cross seas which would sweep the reef and engulf the lighthouse at half-tide would render it wildly impossible for any raft ever built by man's hands to live in the immediate vicinity of the rock.

However, the issue lay with others now. He knew that they would do all that brave men would dare. He was tempted to make known the inspiring news to all hands, but refrained, because he feared ultimate failure. Beneath his feet was a human volcano. Stirred too deeply, it might become active and dangerous.