"Sovereign Light," the man told him.
Ernie leapt to the name familiar to him from childhood.
How often had he not climbed the hill behind his home of winter evenings, and waited in the chalk-pit above the larch spinney for that far-off spark to leap out of the darkness and warm his expectant heart.
He swung about and stared keenly through the gloom at a light winking at them from the land.
"Then that's the light-house under Beau-nez!" he said, pointing.
"That's it," the man answered. "And Beachbourne underneath. All them lights strung out like a necklace along the coast,—Bexhill, Hastings, Beachbourne. It's growing into a great place. D'you know it?"
Ernie's heart and eyes were full.
"My home's there," he said. "And my old dad."
He stayed on deck peering through the darkness, till the last light had disappeared and they had swung round Beau-nez into the Channel and he could see the Seven Sisters, the gap that marks the mouth of the Ruther, and the cliffs between Newhaven and Rotting-dean. Then he went below and turned in.
Thereafter, his home behind him, he began to taste the new life, the life of adventure.