From this elevation a long line of keys was visible, while the one they had so recently left seemed quite close at hand. While gazing at it, Worth saw a schooner come down the channel from the direction of Lignum Vitæ, and lower her sails, as if for the night, under its lee.
"Oh, Mr. Spencer!" he cried, "there's a schooner come to anchor close to Indian Key. Perhaps her people are looking for us, and perhaps they have brought news of Sumner. Can't we take the canoes now and sail over there?"
"Bless you, no, lad! I wouldn't for anything have it on my conscience that I'd let you go sailing around these waters at night in those cockle-shells. There's no doubt but what she'll stay there till morning, and if the weather is good, you can make a start as soon after daylight as ever you like; but you'll have to content yourself here till then. I couldn't think of letting you go before."
To this decision Worth was forced to submit, and after the lamp was lighted he followed the keeper to the living-rooms below. Here he found Quorum hard at work at his favorite occupation of cooking. He was preparing a most savory fish chowder, and when they sat down to supper both the keepers declared that in all their experience they had never tasted its equal. The second assistant keeper was then absent on the two-weeks' vacation, to which each of them was entitled after two months of service in the light. They only regretted that Quorum could not remain until his return, that he too might learn the possibilities of a fish chowder.
Worth was so charmed with his novel surroundings, and by the quaint bits of light-house experience related by the keepers, that until bed-time, he almost forgot his anxiety. When he had gone to bed in the scrupulously neat and clean guest-chamber, after charging the keepers to waken him at the earliest dawn, it returned in full force, and for a long time drove sleep from his eyes. As he lay listening to the keeper on watch making his half-hourly trips up to the lantern, and to the lapping of the waves about the iron piling of the foundation, he imagined all sorts of dreadful things as having happened to Sumner, and even after he fell asleep his dreams were of the same character.
From this unhappy dreaming he was awakened while it was still quite dark, though the keeper, who was standing beside his bed, assured him that day was breaking. At this, and remembering his cause for haste, the boy sprang out of bed and quickly dressed himself. In the outer room he found Quorum already up and waiting for him, and he also found a steaming pot of coffee. Fortified by a cup of this and a biscuit, he declared himself ready for the voyage back to Indian Key.
As they stepped outside, the light was sufficiently strong for them to dimly discern the distant line of keys, and preparations were at once made to place the canoes in the water. Worth's was the first swung from the platform davits and lowered, while he, descending a rope-ladder, one end of which touched the water, was ready to cast off the falls and step into her. Then Quorum was invited to do the same thing with the Psyche; but the old negro drew back apprehensively, exclaiming:
"No, sah, gen'l'men. De ole niggah am a big fool, but him no sich fool dat him t'ink hese'f er monkey, an' go climbin' down er rope wha' don' lead nowhar, 'cep' to er tickly egg-shell wha' done copsize de berry instink he tetch foot to um. No, sah, gen'l'men; ole Quor'm too smart fo' dat."
"Well, then, sit in the canoe where she is, and we'll lower you down in her."