"Easily enough," replied his brother. "I saw an old lantern in one of the rooms this morning. I shall put a candle in it and set it in the tower."
"But is it a red lantern?" Noel asked; "for if it is not, they won't know it means danger."
"Of course it isn't a red lantern; but I can make it look red. I shall ask mother to give me a bit of that red gauze she was wrapping round the mirror in the drawing-room yesterday. If I fasten it round the lantern the light will look red; you see if it does not! We'll go and fix it after tea, and I'll light it as soon as it gets dusk."
[CHAPTER VII.]
DUKE'S BEACON.
THE gale was at its height. The wind beat in thunderous blasts from the sea, but the boys sleeping in their cosy beds heard nothing of the uproar. They had fallen asleep, happy in the belief that they had done something to secure the safety of those "in peril on the sea," for while they slept the thick candle they had coaxed their mother into giving them showed a brave light through the windows of the tower.
Every other light in the house was extinguished when two men made their way up the narrow path through the glen. There was no moon, and the way was hard to find in the darkness. Now and then one or other of them would stumble, uttering a fierce exclamation which was lost in the rush of the wind. But they knew the glen fairly well, and the noisy flow of the swollen stream helped them to avoid its brink.
The foremost was a short, thick-set man, who wore a rough pilot coat with its collar turned up, and a small fur cap. His companion was the fat-faced burly man who had sat beside Noel on the coach.
As they came nearer to Egloshayle House a bend of the glen afforded them some shelter from the wind and made it possible to hear each other speak. It also enabled them to see the bright light that burned in the tower.
"Hullo!" exclaimed the first man, "what on earth is the meaning of that!"