'Don't believe it; it's nothing but one great sponge for miles.—Steady up there; steady!'
'Very well,' said Raymond, 'so be it. If there is only the lighthouse, at the lighthouse we'll get off, and take our chances.'
'You're surveyors, I suppose?' said the captain.
Surveyors are the pioneers of the lake-country, understood by the people to be a set of harmless monomaniacs, given to building little observatories along-shore, where there is nothing to observe; mild madmen, whose vagaries and instruments are equally singular. As surveyors, therefore, the captain saw nothing surprising in our determination to get off at the lighthouse; if we had proposed going ashore on a plank in the middle of Lake Huron, he would have made no objection.
At length the lighthouse came into view, a little fortress perched on spiles, with a ladder for entrance; as usual in small houses, much time seemed devoted to washing, for a large crane, swung to and fro by a rope, extended out over the water, covered with fluttering garments hung out to dry. The steamer lay to, our row-boat was launched, our traps handed out, Captain Kidd took his place in the bow, and we pushed off into the shallows; then the great paddle-wheels revolved again, and the steamer sailed away, leaving us astern, rocking on her waves, and watched listlessly by the passengers until a turn hid us from their view. In the mean time numerous flaxen-haired children had appeared at the little windows of the lighthouse,—too many of them, indeed, for our hopes of comfort.
'Ten,' said Raymond, counting heads.
The ten, moved by curiosity as we approached, hung out of the windows so far that they held on merely by their ankles.
'We cannot possibly save them all,' I remarked, looking up at the dangling gazers.
'O, they're amphibious,' said Raymond; 'web-footed, I presume.'
We rowed up under the fortress, and demanded parley with the keeper in the following language:—