At last the lighthouse-keeper heard ascending footsteps. This was not Stephen Brand, but Jones. Jim, whose rare irritated moods found safety in stolid silence, neither spoke nor looked around when his chief joined him, binoculars in hand.
Jones, a man of whitewash, polish, and rigid adherence to framed rules, found the boat instantly, and recapitulated Jim's inventory, eliciting grunts of agreement as each item was ticked off.
A clang of metal beneath caught their ears—the opening of the stout doors, forty feet above high-water mark, from which a series of iron rungs, sunk in the granite wall, led to the rocky base.
"Brand's goin' to swim out. It's hardly worth while signalin' to the Land's End," commented Jones.
No answer. Jim leaned well over and saw their associate, stripped to his underclothing, with a leather belt supporting a sheath-knife slung across his shoulders, climbing down the ladder.
This taciturnity surprised Jones, for Jim was the cheeriest nurse who ever brought a sufferer a plate of soup.
"It's nothing for a good swimmer, is it?" was the anxious question.
"No. It's no distance to speak of."
"An' the sea's like a mill-pond?"
"Ay, it's smooth enough."