“You will, you will,” said Captain Daniels. “But right now I’ve got to check my light. Darker’n a ship’s hold with a cargo of tar paper tonight, it is. Won’t be much to see—until things start poppin’. Might be a good idea to sit there in front of my cottage and watch down the coast. Just don’t light any matches, or make undue noise. If you spot any strange lights, things may start happening. I probably won’t see you for a while. Can’t stop the light unless I’m up top.” He turned and started up the spiraling stairs.
“Stop the light?” Eddie said. “I wonder what Cap meant by that?”
“I don’t know,” his father said. “I suppose you can stop those lights from turning in a circle if you want to. Don’t know why anyone would want to, though. After all, the beam is aimed rather high so it can be seen by ships far off the coast.”
They waited over an hour. Except for the gentle sound of waves lapping the shore below, and a throbbing Coast Guard plane passing by on its patrol, an eerie silence filled the night. Looking seaward, there was nothing to see but solid blackness. Three times each minute the beacon from the lighthouse swept a path of white through the sky. Since it was aimed high, the beam didn’t touch the water in the bay.
“If anything is happening out there,” Eddie said, “how are we going to know about it?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” his father replied.
“You’d think they would spot some search-lights along the beach or something,” Mr. Ross said.
“They couldn’t very well do that, Tom,” Mr. Taylor said. “They would risk tipping off the whole trap. That Evans fellow impressed me as knowing what to do. His is a big responsibility, and there certainly wasn’t much time to weigh and measure things, but—”
“Look!” Teena said suddenly. “Isn’t that a light down there?”
Eddie’s eyes followed the direction of her outstretched arm.