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قراءة كتاب The Pillar of Light
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The Pillar of Light
By Louis Tracy
Author of "The Wings of the Morning"
floods came, and the winds blew,
and beat upon that house; and
it fell not; for it was founded
upon a rock."
Matthew vii: 25
New York
EDWARD J. CLODE
156 Fifth Avenue
1904
Copyright 1904, by Edward J. Clode
All rights reserved
May, 1904
Plimpton Press Norwood Mass.
LOW WATER—THE REEF
THE GULF ROCK LIGHTHOUSE SECTION
CONTENTS
| I | Flotsam | 1 |
| II | A Christening | 19 |
| III | The Signal | 37 |
| IV | The Voice of the Reef | 57 |
| V | The Hurricane | 72 |
| VI | The Middle Watch | 92 |
| VII | The Lottery | 110 |
| VIII | An Interlude | 124 |
| IX | Mrs. Vansittart | 141 |
| X | Pyne's Progress | 156 |
| XI | Mrs. Vansittart's Fear | 172 |
| XII | Preparations | 188 |
| XIII | Before the Dawn | 206 |
| XIV | The Way They Have in The Navy | 223 |
| XV | Enid's New Name | 241 |
| XVI | Stephen Brand Explains | 258 |
| XVII | Mrs. Vansittart Goes Home | 281 |
| XVIII | Enid Wears an Old Ornament | 301 |
| XIX | The House that Stood Upon a Rock | 319 |
CHAPTER I
FLOTSAM
All night long the great bell of the lighthouse, slung to a stout beam projecting seaward beneath the outer platform, had tolled its warning through the fog. The monotonous ticking of the clockwork attachment that governed it, the sharp and livelier click of the occulting hood's machinery, were the only sounds which alternated with its deep boom. The tremendous clang sent a thrill through the giant column itself and pealed away into the murky void with a tremolo of profound diminutions.
Overhead, the magnificent lantern, its eight-ringed circle of flame burning at full pressure, illumined the drifting vapor with an intensity that seemed to be born of the sturdy granite pillar of which it was the fitting diadem. Hard and strong externally as the everlasting rock on which it stood,—replete within with burnished steel and polished brass, great cylinders and powerful pumps,—the lighthouse thrust its glowing torch beyond the reach of the most daring wave. Cold, dour, defiant it looked. Yet its superhuman eye sought to pierce the very heart of the fog, and the furnace-white glare, concentrated ten thousand-fold by the encircling hive of the dioptric lens, flung far into the gloom a silvery cloak of moon-like majesty.
At last an irresistible ally sprang to the assistance of the unconquerable light. About the close of the middle watch a gentle breeze from the Atlantic followed the tide and swept the shivering wraith landward to the northeast, whilst the first beams of a June sun completed the destruction of the routed specter.
So, once more, as on the dawn of the third day, the waters under the heaven were gathered into one place, and the dry land appeared, and behold, it was good.
On the horizon, the turquoise rim of the sea lay with the sheen of folded silk against the softer canopy of the sky. Towards the west a group of islands, to which drifting banks of mist clung in melting despair, were etched in shadows of dreamy purple. Over the nearer sea-floor the quickly dying vapor spread a hazy