"Now I reckon we'll go inter the lantern," Uncle Zenas said when it was no longer possible to distinguish the faces of those in the boat, owing to the dim light. "Cap'n Eph will keep his eyes on the light, an' if it shouldn't happen to die away at the very minute when the sun ought'er rise 'cordin' to his watch, the chances are he'd make all hands come back to straighten us out."
Nothing so serious as that took place, however, for the light was extinguished at the proper moment, and then the work of making it ready for another night was begun.
"I declare for it, Sonny, you're as handy with this job as if you'd been at it all your life!" Uncle Zenas exclaimed while Sidney was working. "You're doin' it a heap better'n Sammy ever can, even if he sticks on this ledge to the day of his death."
"That is because I've been trying hard to find out just how it should be done," Sidney said laughingly, but decidedly pleased by the words of praise. "You've all been so good to me, that I'd be a pretty poor kind of a boy if I didn't do my best at the little jobs that come my way."
"It may seem as if you was gettin' the best end of the trade, Sonny; but you're way off mistaken. We old shell-backs are the ones who's havin' all the fat, 'cause it brightens us up wonderfully to have you 'round."
Sidney was at a loss for a reply to this remark, and changed the subject of the conversation by asking Uncle Zenas of what service a certain cylinder of thin brass, which entirely encircled the chimney of the lamp, could be in the general arrangement of the light.
"I reckon you've noticed that this 'ere light seems to die away once in every forty seconds, eh?" the old man asked as he raised and lowered the cylinder. "Well, this cover of brass is what does it, an' the clock keeps it movin'. You see the clock is made fast to the brass cylinder, an' as the wheels go 'round it is raised till the whole of the flame is uncovered, an' then lowered till it's nearly shut out. The whole thing is simple enough, but it took a mighty clear-headed man to think it up. When a vessel comes off this coast, an' the cap'n sees Carys' Ledge light growin' dim an' then brightenin' up, he counts the number of seconds that go by from one bright flash to another, an' says to himself, says he: 'That 'ere is a forty-second flash, an' she's about so an' so off the coast.' Then he dives inter the cabin, hunts up his list of lights, sees which one answers to the description he's got in mind, an' says to himself, says he: 'That's Carys' Ledge, an' I'll make the course a leetle more southerly.' If that 'ere clock should happen to break down on account of not bein' properly cared for, we'd have to take turns grindin' a crank to keep the brass cylinder movin' up an' down 'cordin' to the rules an' regerlations, else there'd soon be another ship piled up on the rocks alongside the Nautilus."
By the time Uncle Zenas had come to an end of his explanation, the necessary work had been performed, and he said with a sigh of satisfaction as he began to descend the stairs:
"Now I reckon we can be gettin' at the serious part of the business! It allers makes me feel lonesome to know that the kitchen hasn't been set to rights, for that's the first place a visitor gets into when he comes to the light, an' he's liable to judge everything by what he sees there."
"There isn't any great need to bother your head about visitors," Sidney said with a laugh. "People don't come out to this ledge every day."