The Pillar of Light Part 30

"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 trespa.s.sing 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 gra.s.s.' 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 amus.e.m.e.nt."

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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g-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 G.o.d-fearing, ever p.r.o.nounced the doom of seventy-eight people s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 un.o.bserved. 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.