For the next two hours the lad continued his extra duty tour, this time, however, keeping a sharp lookout for approaching officers. No officers showed themselves in his vicinity. Now and then a group of apprentices would pass with the invariable greeting, “Hullo, red-head!”
To this Sam made no response. He was determined to take his medicine and show himself to be a man, even if he was being punished.
At last the sky became overcast. Dark clouds began sweeping in from the sea, swirling and tumbling riotously.
“It looks like rain,” decided the red-headed boy, halting long enough to gaze anxiously seaward. “I wonder whether they are going to keep me here all the rest of the day?”
The storm broke with a suddenness that he had never before observed, for Hickey never had had any experience with coast storms. The lightning seemed to be everywhere, followed by peals of thunder and deafening crashes, as if the coast artillery were at work the whole length of the Atlantic seaboard.
“It looks like rain,” reiterated the apprentice, shifting his rifle to the other shoulder. “I shouldn’t be surprised if that bolt struck somewhere. I should feel badly if it were to hit Blinkers, for I want to get a crack at him myself. I guess——”
Sam Hickey did not finish what he was about to say. A blinding flash reflected the buildings of the station in the dark waters of the bay. When the thunder had died away in a rumbling echo Sam was not in sight. He lay in a little depression of ground, half immersed in a puddle of water.
How long he lay there he did not know, but gradually he began to realize that he was very wet. He tried to open his eyes, but the rain dashing into them almost blinded him.
“I must be drowned,” he decided; then he resolutely pulled himself together, struggled to his feet and began hunting about for his rifle. That weapon, when finally he found it, was a sorry-looking object.
“Well, well, I wonder what happened,” muttered Sam. “I know—the thing has been struck by lightning.”