The lightkeeper and his sister fully understood and appreciated each other's virtues. That Tobias was generous to a fault and that Hephzibah's saving disposition had long since warded him from financial wreck, they both were well aware. Tobias publicly scorned, however, to acknowledge this latter fact.
"I certainly shall hate to see you turn the key on every dollar of that money, Heppy," he complained, preparing to mount to the lamp to see that all was right up there. "We ain't never cut a dash in our lives. I certainly should like to make a splurge for once."
"You'd fly right in the face of Providence if I wasn't here to hold you back," declared his sister. "Experience can't teach you nothing."
"Oh, sugar! I know I've always spent my paycheck like ducks and drakes," he chuckled. "Wal, leave it to you, Heppy, and Uncle Jethro's money won't get much exercise, for a fact."
When he came down from the lamp he announced a change in the weather. The wind began to whine around the tall staff and rain squalls drifted across the sullenly heaving sea outside the Twin Rocks. The night dissolved into a windy and tumultuous morning, and the fishing fleet remained inside the capes.
Tobias went aloft after breakfast to clean and fill the lamp before taking his usual morning nap. To the eastward rode a dun-colored object that at first could scarcely be made out, even by his keen eyes.
"It's a craft of some kind—sure is!" he muttered. "But whether it's turned bottom up, or is one o' them there motor-boats, decked over for'ard and without no mast—Hi! There's a mast of a kind, and with a pennant to it, or something. Mebbe 'tis the feller's shirt."
That the motor craft was in some trouble the lightkeeper was confident. The heavy seas buffeted it without mercy. He saw that the master of the craft could not keep steerageway upon it.
"He'll be swamped, first thing he knows," muttered the anxious lightkeeper. "Yep! he's put up some kind of a flag for help. But, sugar! nobody won't see him from inside the harbor—an' there ain't another livin' craft upon the sea."
Tobias hurried down from the lamp gallery. The cove between the light and the Clay Head was empty of all craft so early in the season. In fact, the only boats in sight were his own sloop, still high and dry upon the sands at the base of the lighthouse, and the heavy dory from which he trolled for rock-fish as he chanced to have time on the outer edge of the reefs.