CHAPTER XXVII
THE LIGHT GOES OUT
JOAN and Garth were alone at the lighthouse on a late afternoon of heavy clouds and dull sea. Jim and Elspeth had gone into Quimpaug for the mail as usual, but also to get what Jim termed "a few flourishes" for Garth's birthday. This errand explained their so heartily agreeing with Garth's wish to stay and keep Joan company. They had suddenly remembered that the small purchases must be made that day in readiness for the celebration on Monday. Caleb was away, as he often had been of late, for his mother was ill; and Joan remained in charge at Silver Shoal. Before Jim left he carefully explained to her the "workings" of the fog-bell and the manner of lighting the lamp.
"It's absurd," he said, "because there's no fog within a hundred miles, and I shall be back long before light-up time. But such is my duty. A competent person must be left in charge, say the Rules, and I suppose you wouldn't be competent, if you didn't know how to start everything."
He and Elspeth waved their hands from the Ailouros, and Joan and Garth stood at the door watching the gray sail grow smaller, slanting across the steely water. Then a cold gust from under the low clouds made them turn back into the living-room.
"You can sit in Fogger's big chair," Garth said. "And it would be very nice if you'd tell me a story," he hinted, in a detached tone.
He pushed up a foot-stool for himself, and, collapsing upon it, leaned against Joan's knee.
"Well," she said presently, "perhaps I will. Not a real story; I'll just tell you about some things."
"Ships?" questioned Garth eagerly, screwing himself around to look up at her.
"No, not ships at all," Joan said. "Something quite different. Something about Town."
"Oh," said Garth. He turned away again and sighed faintly.
"About music," Joan went on. "There are such concerts! Music rather like the Count's, but there are hundreds of men to play it. Some of them have violins, and some have flutes—like the Count—and others have oboes and bassoons. Trumpets and cymbals, harps, viols, and tympani."
The words had all the glamour of ancient shawm and psaltery. Joan dwelt on them expressively.
"The music soars like wind among the stars; it thunders like white water on the Reef. It is very beautiful."
"I should like that," Garth murmured. "I suppose I've never heard any real music."
Joan reflected that, with the exception of his father's songs and the Count's fluting, he had probably never heard any music at all. She did not count the hurdy-gurdy in the City.
"Yes, you would like it," she said. "Sometimes when you come out of the concert-place, lamps are beginning to shine and the streets are wet and blue. They reflect the lights just like still water. Then there's the Park! You walk along beside glassy ponds through twisting paths. Sometimes the paths climb up and down between rocky ledges among the trees; sometimes they lead past wide meadows of smooth, close-clipped grass. Far off, at the edge of the Park, you can see rosy tops of buildings, like enchanted battlements above the trees, The trees are blue and misty, and lights begin to come out among them. There are little lights everywhere, like fairy lamps. The Mall is a great avenue that runs through the middle of the Park; that's where the children play. They roll their hoops and race up and down under the tall elms. After they've gone home, lights appear there, too,—very flat, pale ones, that look like moons tangled in the branches. There's a fountain at the end of the Mall, and a great flight of stone steps, and a pond where there are often wild ducks."
"But I thought you were telling me about Town," Garth said.
"I am," Joan assured him; "we're still coming home from the concert."
"Are we?" said Garth. "I didn't know it was like that. May I sit on your lap?"
He held out his hands to her, and she helped him up and gathered him on to her knees. He slid an arm about her neck.
"The Park's nice," he said. "Go on, please."
"And the Fifth Avenue 'bus!" she said, suddenly. "Did you ever ride in one, Garth?" He shook his head. "Well, they're automobiles with an upstairs, you know. You scramble up the curly little steps and get the front seat, if you can. Then it's something like being in a very low airplane. And Riverside Drive! That's almost lovelier than the Park. The 'bus goes skimming along beside the river. The sky and the water and the opposite shore are all one color, a wonderful, misty, emerald green. In fact, you couldn't see the other shore at all, if there were not a few lights shining on it. In the strip of parkway close at hand, more lamps twinkle between the tall poplar trees. Have you ever seen a poplar tree?"
Garth had not.
"I can't exactly explain them," Joan said. "You'll have to wait until you see them. They're a different-looking sort of tree, very nice. At any rate, there are lots of them on Riverside Drive. Automobiles and other 'busses stream past, something like fiery-eyed dragons, with their white and red lights. The roadway is so smooth that it looks like a river itself, steely-blue and shining, turning and dipping. I remember that one evening when I was staying in New York last winter, I looked out of the bus window and saw a lot of—er—battleships in the river."
She stole a look at Garth, who reproached her.
"Don't make it up," he said.
"I'm not," she said. "They were there,—not destroyers, but real dreadnoughts,—the Atlantic Fleet, in fact. They all were signaling like mad (I know about 'blinkies' now!), and just as the 'bus passed, I could hear the bells strike some hour, I forget what."
"Do you mean that there are things like that, and places like that, in Town?" Garth demanded, sitting up straight. "There's nothing in the City where you and I went like that."
"What Quimpaug calls the City is a very different place from New York," said Joan. "No other city is like New York. Of course, it is not all Park and River; there are ugly things and crowded streets. But in a winter twilight almost all of it is beautiful."
"Is that where Mudder and I are going to live, when Fogger has to go?" Garth asked.
"Yes," said Joan, "I think so. I wish that I were going to live there this winter."
Garth subsided against her shoulder again.
"Perhaps I wouldn't mind that place much," he sighed. "Please tell me some more about it."
Joan did tell him more, so much more that they were both quite far away, in fancy, from the living-room at the lighthouse. But all at once Garth slid from her lap, and cried:
"Look, Joan! The sun has set! Why, it's almost beginning to be dark! The Light isn't lit, and Fogger hasn't come back!"
Joan sprang up, and they went out upon the rock, searching the twilit water for some sign of the Ailouros. But the mouth of the bay was empty.
"What can have delayed them?" Joan wondered. "But we ought to light up, I suppose. I'm glad that your father showed me about it."
"It's perfickly easy," said Garth. "I'd like to go with you, but I can't climb up the tower stairs."
She left him and ran through the passage into the tower. She felt strangely awed, up there in the lantern, alone with the great lens. She pulled back the curtains, and pale dusk filled the little place. She lit the lamp and adjusted it. The Light shone out, clear and steady. Joan left its silent and majestic presence, but, hurrying down the iron stairs, she seemed to feel still that quiet, luminous regard.
Garth was waiting for her in the service-room, and they went together into the kitchen.
"You'd better have your supper," Joan said. "I'll have mine, too, if you like. Then I'll get some ready for the rest of the family when they come in."
"They can't have capsized," said Garth; "but Fogger never, never would stay out at light-up time. What else could happen, Joan?"
"Let's not worry," she said. "It's probably quite a simple delay. We'll make ourselves very miserable, if we begin trying to think of everything that might have happened."
But neither of them could eat much supper. The leaden dusk outside the windows thickened to an opaque darkness. The clouds were low and heavy, smothering every star. The lights of Quimpaug lay hidden behind the point, and no ships were moored in sight; not a glimmer broke the sullen dark.
Joan helped Garth upstairs and to bed.
"Please go and look once more out of the window in Fogger's room," he pleaded, as she was about to say good-night. "There's a lantern in the Ailouros always, and they'd have it lighted."
She left him, and going into the dark, empty room at the front of the house, she leaned over Jim's desk and gazed out into the impenetrable blackness. It was a relief to come back from the dark into Garth's little room. The lamp on the bureau made a cheerful aureole of light and threw a great golden circle upon the ceiling. On a shelf the hilt of the Ferrara broad-sword gleamed fitfully, where it lay in company with a little model of a schooner that Jim had made many years before. Garth's jumper, flung over the back of the splint-bottom rocker, made a cool patch of blue in the middle of the yellow lamplight. Garth, himself,—an anxious little figure in white pajamas—sat on the bed, hugging his knees, which shook a little.
"Did you see anything?" he asked, as she came in.
"No," she said; "but they were probably behind the point. I'll look again presently."
She pulled the blankets over him and bent to kiss him. He held her very tightly and looked straight into her eyes.
"Do you think they're drowned?" he said. "Tell me truly."
"No!" Joan said with decision. "I don't! Your father is too good a sailor to capsize, and besides, there's not enough wind. I thought at first that there was not enough to sail back with, but surely by this time they'd have got a tow, or asked Cap'n 'Bijah to bring them out. No, they've been held up in some unaccountable way. Your father knew that I could light up."
"He wouldn't stay away at light-up time," persisted Garth. "He wouldn't, he couldn't, whatever happened."
"Don't worry so, dear person," Joan said. "I know it will be all right. Try to go to sleep."
She kissed him again and took up the lamp. With her hand on the rope balustrade of the stairs, she paused and turned back, away from the silent blackness below.
"I'll sit in my room and read, if you'd rather," she said. "Then you can see my light through the door."
She sat in her room, but she found it very hard to read. She saw the printed words and pronounced them to herself, without the least idea of their meaning, while her mind for the thousandth time went over all the things which might, by any chance, have happened to Jim and Elspeth. Ten o'clock—eleven—twelve! Joan tip-toed to the door of Garth's room and stood there, listening.
"Joan!" said a small voice.
"Darling! You've not been awake all this time!"
"Not all the time. Have they come yet?"
"No, not yet."
"I'd like you to be beside me for a little while."
Joan blew out the lamp in her room and felt her way back to him. She sat down on the floor beside the bed and took his hand. He wriggled himself to the edge of the bed and lay very close to her, with his cheek against her arm. It was so dark that they could not see one another. The Light shot its steady silver finger straight out toward the horizon, but it seemed only to make the blackness of the room more intense. The little waves wrangled together, snarling and hissing at the foot of the wall.
Joan thought presently that Garth was asleep, and began quietly to withdraw her hand, when a sound at the landing made her stop.
"What was it?" whispered Garth, wide awake.
The noise came again, this time clearly recognizable as the last muffled snort of a power-boat's engine.
"There they are!" laughed Joan, springing up. "Cap'n 'Bijah has brought them out, just as I said. Lie still, belovéd." She ran to the head of the stairs, "Hello! Hello!" she called.
There was utter silence. No—a creak, a faint sound, in the living-room.
"Is that you, Jim and Elspeth?" she cried sharply.
Silence still, and then there was suddenly turned upon her, from the foot of the stairs, the dazzling glare of an electric search-light.
"What is it?" called Garth. "Why don't they come up?"
There was a rush of heavy feet on the stairs. Joan dashed into Garth's room and flung herself against the door. But before she could lock it, it was steadily pushed open; she was forced back, back. She could see nothing except that blinding search-light, but out of the darkness behind it spoke the soft voice of Count Stysalski.
"We are not the friends you were expecting, hein? No, they are taking a little pleasure sail, quite safe, quite safe, I assure you. Himmel! What a wild beast for struggle it is! Hold the lady, Schmidt."
Two iron arms pinned Joan fast. The heartless white eye of the search-light swept the room, gave Joan one flash of Garth, sitting wide-eyed on the edge of his bed, and rested on the opposite wall. Here were two great eye-bolts imbedded in the masonry, unexplained relics of some former keeper. The light moved from one to the other of these rings as though considering. Then the Count spoke again.
"The rope, Schmidt, schnell!"
A heavy voice growled something in German, and Joan was dragged toward the wall. Then she found her own voice.
"What—what does it mean?" she cried. "You are a German, you, Count Stysalski? Oh, I don't understand anything!"
The Count laughed shortly. His quick fingers were tying innumerable knots, making turn after turn of rope about Joan's arms.
"The wonderful musician!" he scoffed. "The delightful artis'! What do I care about art?" He snapped his fingers. "Do you think I understood the keepair's pompous t'eories? I love my music, yes! What German do not? But more than all, I love my Fatherland!"
"Oh, what good can you do your fiendish country by this?" Joan gasped.
"You evidently do not know as much about the proceedings of your great Government as we," sneered the Count. "You evidently are not aware that a transport comes down the bay to-night under the darkness cover. It will turn here to go up the coast. It is very dark, but no fog; therefore it expects the Light, hein? There is no Light. What happens, hein?"
He gave a last savage jerk to the rope and laughed.
"It is my idea, all mine! For the Fatherland!" He broke off his fanatical whisper with a sort of snarl. "Schmidt, why do you stand there? Dumkopf! The child, quick!"
Joan made a wild effort and found that she could not move.
"No!" she cried, "no! I implore you, if you have one human feeling, don't touch him! Oh, you know, he can do nothing; he is quite helpless. You know it! Oh, you couldn't!"
"Dot's true," muttered Schmidt, the butcher. "I seen him blenty often."
"Be still," said the Count. "We're losing time. Be quick, erbärmliche Blindschleiche!"
Both the men stood between Joan and Garth, hiding him from her. Against the light she saw Schmidt's short, square form, the Count's lithe, sinuous figure, saw them bending down. There was absolutely no sound; then she heard Garth draw in his breath with a little gasp, but that was all. The searchlight wheeled back to her for a moment, shifted to the door, then vanished. Joan waited until the tramp of Schmidt's heavy boots had died from the door before she dared even whisper.
"What have they done? Garth! Are you hurt?"
"No," he said.
They were silent again, for they both knew that they were waiting for something. For what? Then it came. The calm, faithful beam of the Light that touched the horizon was suddenly extinguished, with a little struggling flicker. Silence. Then the protesting sputter of a muffled engine, as a motor-boat left the landing.