The heat was intense inside the gallery, and Enau mopped his forehead again and again. The whole lighthouse seemed to stagger, and the room went round and round. He was dizzy and failed to see the fingers which grasped the edge of the outside platform, or the form that swung out over the gulf below. A man drew himself up until his head was level with the floor. Then he put one foot up on the landing. He could not get back. It was a sheer hundred feet and over to the sea below, and the water was only three or four feet deep over the coral. He must gain the platform or go down to his death. Gradually he drew his weight upon the landing, clutching the rail with powerful fingers. Then he quickly stood upright and sprang over. He was in the light.
Enau saw him instantly and sprang at him. It was the same hated face, the furtive eyes he had reason to hate with all his soul. They clinched, and then began a struggle for life. And while they struggled the old man's mind could no longer hold his pent-up despair. He called out upon the scoundrel who had ruined him:
"You villain! you have pursued me for revenge—I'll give you all you want," he cried. "I know you; don't think I'll let you go." And, snarling like a wild beast, he strove with enormous power to crush the other against the rail, and so over into the sea. But the younger man was powerful. His strong fingers clutched at the old keeper's throat and closed upon it.
"I know you—I know you—I know your look—you pious-faced scoundrel!" gasped the old man. Then they fought on in silence. Suddenly those below heard a heavy fall. There was a moment's pause.
The room seemed to reel about the old keeper. He struggled wildly in that frightful grip. His breath came in bits of gasps and finally stopped under the awful pressure of those fingers. The scenes of his earlier life flitted through his mind. He saw the life-boat again riding the oily sea in the South Atlantic; the starving men, their strained faces pinched and lined, their eager eyes staring about the eternal horizon for a sight of a sail; the last few days and the last survivors, the man with that look he would never forget—stars shot through his brain and fire flared before his vision. Then came blackness—a blank.
Those below, hearing the sounds of struggle dying away, called loudly to be let in. The man released his hold of the keeper's throat and shot back the bolts in the trap-door, letting a crowd of seamen come streaming into the light.
"Get some water, quick!" called Haskins, standing back and panting after the struggle. He was nearly exhausted, but still kept his gaze fixed upon the fallen old man.
"It's a touch of the sun," said the captain of the wrecked vessel, bending over the old keeper. "We must get him cooled off and ice to his head. Quick, John! jump aboard and tell the doctor to get a lump of ice and bring it here—git!"
"It's pretty bad; I've shuah been hanging on to the irons for two days, and you lose your ship, on account of a poor devil giving way under that sun; but it can't be helped. No, suh, it can't be helped," said Bahama Bill.
"If you hadn't shaved, fixed up and changed yourself so, and had come back in your own boat, he might have recognized you in time," said the captain; "but of course you didn't know."