“There,” said the keeper. “Here is your time–detector, and here’s your Coston signal. You know where the key to the detector is kept, I guess I’ve given you directions enough ’bout lettin’ off your Coston signal ef you see a vessel too near shore, or ef you want to signal to a craft in any trouble. Wall, good luck!”
Out into the quiet, cool November night, Walter promptly stepped. He halted one moment at the outside door. There was a moon somewhere in the sky, and somewhere behind the station; and it threw its light on that part of the shore and the sea which Walter fronted.
“How low the tide runs!” thought Walter. Beyond that rocky rim against which the surf daily fretted, turning over and over like a wheel trying to grind out of the way an obstacle, now stretched the uncovered sands. He could easily mark off with his eye the dry sand, and then the wet sand glistening in the moonlight. Then came the surf, a tumble of silver. Beyond were dark, swelling, threatening folds, forever coming up out of the sea as if to drown the earth; and yet forever breaking down into white surf that rolled away in an impotent wrath. Beyond all, was an untroubled surface of light and peace; this in turn ending in a dark, hazy belt that encircled the horizon. There were two lighthouses whose red fires flashed through this belt of haze, and jeweled it. Above, were the stars, soft and peaceful.
“I will walk down on the sands,” thought the young patrol, and his light was soon flashing above the floor of wet, glistening sand. With keen eyes, he searched the surface of the sea for some sign of danger; but the sea was innocent of all disturbance save the tumbling, roaring surf at his feet. He saw a light up the beach that shifted its place—a kind of firebug crawling away; but he knew it was only the lantern of the other patrolman as he slowly walked his beat. What a sense of responsibility came down on Walter’s shoulders! It seemed as if he would be held accountable for any disaster to the world’s shipping on his side of the station; while Slim Tarleton must look out for all harm that threatened navigation on his, the westerly side of the globe. After a while, this sense of responsibility lightened. He was not accountable for all the disasters on this, the easterly side of the globe, but only on the ocean between Walter Plympton, surfman, and Old England. This stretch of jurisdiction gradually narrowed. It became only the ocean that he could see. This, though, was so quiet, lamb–like, lustrous, that it dulled all sense of alarm; and Walter began to think of something else, as he plodded along. There were the stars. How quiet it was up in their sphere!
“There’s Orion!” he exclaimed, tracing the outlines of that celestial hunter, whose acquaintance he had made in the academy.
“Where’s the Great Bear?” he said. And there it was; its fires mild as dove’s eyes, that night. Then he hunted up the North Star, the Pleiades, and other worthies. Having finished his astronomy, and as no vessel out at sea sent up any rockets, and no vessel near the shore needed his warning lantern, since the moon hung out a better one, he began to watch the shadows of rocky bluffs, thrown down on the sands. These were huge masses of blackness projected across the shining sands, into which ran little rivulets of gold, where the water, left in pools, tried to make its way down to the sea again. These golden streams, though, could not wash away the great, ebony shadows.
“There’s the Crescent!” exclaimed Walter. He could make out its dark ledges, and he located also the probable neighborhood of the Chair. He plodded along in his uneventful walk. He reached the houses at the end of his beat, and turned aside to hunt up the particular building where he might expect to find the key of his detector.
“When I patrolled this beat that night with Tom Walker, I had no idea I would ever be coming after that key to–night. Ah, there she is now!” he exclaimed.