"The Doctor lit the candle"
"At last!" he muttered. "Let's hope I'm not too late!"
At the head of the kitchen steps he met the seagull coming into the lighthouse with two companions.
"Doctor," cried the gull, "we held off the ship as long as we could. But the stupid sailors, not knowing we were trying to save them, turned hoses on us and we had to give up. The ship is terribly near now."
Without a word the Doctor sped on up the winding steps of the tower. Round and round he went, upward, till he was ready to drop from dizziness.
At length reaching the great glass lamp chamber at the top, he set down his candle and, striking two matches at once he held one in each hand and lit the big wick in two places.
By this time Dab-Dab had gone outside again and was watching over the sea for the oncoming ship. And when at last the great light from the big lamp at the top of the tower suddenly flared out over the sea there was the bow of the vessel, not more than a hundred yards from the rocky shore of the cape!