Then, with a laugh that was good to hear, Red swung the boat about and they went riding the waves back to shelter and safety.
“That,” he breathed, “is life—life—life!”
Five minutes later they lay upon a bed of moss at the back of a tiny island known as “Sleeping Lion” because of the mane-like crest of bushes that crowns its ridge, watching the blue-black waters turn to the silvery gray of night.
Never had the boy witnessed such a sight. Starting at the rocks nearest them, the spray moved along the island shores. And every separate spray seemed a light that flashed with one white gleam, then faded into darkness.
“Old Father Superior is lighting his lamps,” the girl whispered. Once again there was awe in her tone.
So they lingered on the “Sleeping Lion” until the afterglow had faded and Father Superior’s lamps were lost in the shades of night.
It was the girl who at last broke the silence. “See!” She spoke in a voice that was mellow as the tones of a cello. “See! The light that beckons!”
As Red looked away across the surging sea he caught the gleam of a lamp that, winking and blinking, cast its beams from afar.
“The Passage Island light,” he murmured huskily. “The light that shall guide us safely when the time comes. But to-night—”
“To-night we dare not.”