“It’s all right! You’ve got ’em! They see you. There’s a light showing upon a peak of those other dunes that wasn’t there before. Most likely they were out searching an’ watching for a signal from you. Go ahead with the message!”
Then Ken lowered the lantern with its strong reflector almost to his feet, his left arm held the blazing broom at arm’s length—sowing a hissing fire-crop in the sea—to form the letter S.
“Safe. Kenjo.” He spelled it out by the code, fiery letter by letter.
“Isn’t it wonderful—that fire-talk?” breathed little Kitty; Mary-Jane Peg and the orchard seemed very far away; she had not begun to live until now.
“Broom’s not burned out yet, Cap!” shouted down the Scout to Captain Andy. “Here’s for signaling a message that’ll keep ’em guessing all night!”
“What’s that?”
“‘Safe at Camp Morning-Glory’! Sounds as if we were camping on the sun’s trail. Here goes! Watch—me!”
The broom-handle, sprayed with oil, was sacrificed to Glory, the lingering flame of the besom, of the compressed corn fibre, having given out.
But if ever a camp broom perished gloriously, that one did.
Its waterside illumination set the sea aflame, lit up the brown, beaded figures of the girls, caused far distant lighthouses, with other nocturnal eyes gleaming from headland and hill up and down the opposite shore of the river, to pale and wink themselves out for the moment.