“Be it so, Georgy, my boy,” he said. “That is, if you are not already too tired. But I don’t feel as bad now as last night, and may yet crawl up and relieve you.”
“Take it easy, Barry,” I said. “It is not much trouble for me. I could stand it this fashion for a week.”
With that I left him alone in his snuggery, and climbed the stairs to the top. As upon the previous evening, I lighted the lamps, set the machine in motion, and then curled myself down in a corner of the floor to rest till midnight. I did not at once fall asleep, however. The gale, which had been preparing for the last thirty hours, now began to come in force, disturbing me with the sound of the wind—whistling shrilly through every crack and crevice—while the lighthouse itself constantly trembled with the blast. Even at that height, I could hear the sullen dash of the breakers against the shore; and once I could see, by the tremulous movement of lights far out to the eastward, that a large steamer was passing, and was laboring toilsomely with a more than usually heavy sea. She was in no danger, however, and gradually passed away from my line of vision. Then, at last, I fell asleep, though not into the soft, quiet slumber which I usually enjoyed. Even in my dreams the tempest followed me, filling my mind with distorted imaginings. The old stories, which I had so often heard and of late had forgotten, about pirates, and wrecks, and wreckers, and cruelties perpetrated upon the beach, now seemed to take actual life and reality. I could see the dismasted vessels struggling among the breakers, and the rows of hard, fierce, expectant faces lining the shore, and awaiting the turning up of the dead bodies. I was a dead body myself, even, and was being washed up on the beach, already drowned beyond hope of resuscitation, and yet strangely conscious of all that went on around me. A hand was placed roughly upon me, as I lay motionless upon the sand. Then, gaining new life, I cried aloud, and, waking, found old Barry leaning over me, and shaking me into consciousness.
“Look over yonder, Georgy, my boy, at the Beacon Point,” he said. “See how strangely the lights are acting. What do you make of it all?”
I looked, and saw that the reflectors were pointing, motionless, toward me—resting there for a full minute; then they swept around slowly in their accustomed course, and again paused for a minute. Thereby I deciphered the letter M, and started into full and instant animation. I had, of course, overslept myself, and thereby, probably, lost a portion of Jessie’s dear message. How much of it, indeed?
“What is the hour, Barry?”
“Half-past twelve,” he said. “But what do you make of yonder business? Is it some accident to the works, do you think?—or has old Barkstead gone on a spree again, as they say he once did, and is now playing fast and loose with the lights?”
While he had been speaking, new revolutions, broken, by longer or shorter pauses, had succeeded; and I deciphered the additional letters A and S.
“Whatever it may be, Barry,” I then answered—forcing myself to attend to him, and feeling a little guilty for being obliged to keep the mysterious secret from him—“don’t you see that nothing can be done about it, now? Go, therefore, to bed again. This cold lantern is no place for you to remain in. And to-morrow, bright and early, I will go out myself, and ascertain what may be the matter.”
With that, I gently pushed Barry down the first two or three steps, and heard him go grumbling and puffing the rest of the way to his own nook. Meanwhile, the bright signalling from Beacon Point went on—letter after letter—until, at last, I read out the whole sentence: