"With their hearts in their mouths, the men hauled in, and the limp and apparently lifeless body of the foreman came to the surface. How he had ever managed to fasten the rope around him was a mystery. His hands, with the flesh rubbed from them to the bone, showed that when he had lost hold on the ladder he had still retained presence of mind enough to grasp the sides and had slid to the foot. There he had found the end of the rope hanging and in a last flicker of understanding had tied it around himself."
"Did he get all right again?" asked Eric eagerly.
"He was blind for six weeks, but finally recovered. Two of the men were seven months in hospital, and one became permanently insane. Four got 'bends,' that fearful disease that strikes caisson-workers, but happily, none died from the terrible experience."
"And the three quarters of an inch still lacking?"
"The cylinder settled just that much and no one ever had to go down the shaft again. The caisson was filled with concrete and the air-shaft sealed."
"And that was the final effort of the sea?"
"Not quite. A month later a storm came up and drove the steamer against the cylinder with such force that eight of the plates—though an inch thick and braced with rigid solidity—were crushed in. Father had taken precautions against such an accident by having had a number of extra plates made, and the lighthouse was finished and turned over to the government three days before the expiration of the time required by the contract. It was a case of man's struggle with the elements, and man won."
"But the honors are with the caisson-men," suggested Eric.
"Yes," agreed the other, "the hero of Smith's Point lighthouse is Griffin, the caisson-man."