had shut the shutters.

Rex was the first to find that he positively could eat no more, and leaving Nick still seated at the table, he pushed back his chair and went out to the piazza to look at the weather. An instant later the cry rang through the house:

"Nick! Nick!"

It was such a cry of alarm that Nick immediately sprang up and ran out to see. Everything outside was pitch dark, and Rex, in all the wind and rain, was holding to one of the piazza pillars.

"I must be blind, Nick!" Rex shouted. "Look! Where's the light-house?"

"The light-house?" Nick answered, wonderingly, and looked out seaward. But he saw no light. "Why—why, there is no light! No light in all this darkness! What can it mean?"

Instead of answering, Rex dashed into the house and returned in a few seconds with Cudjoe.

"Look at that, Cudjoe!" he shouted; "there is no light!"

At first Cudjoe would not believe it. He ran to one end of the piazza and then to the other, looking in all directions for a light.

"Well I 'clar' to goodness!" he exclaimed, and his face was as ashy as such a black face could become. "I 'ain't never seed dat light out afore, gemmen. Dey'll be wracks along dis coas' to-night, sho!"

"Something has happened out there, Nick!" Rex exclaimed. "They are in trouble, or they would never leave that lamp unlighted."

"The light-house may have been struck by lightning," Nick suggested; "you know it is made of iron."

"Yes, I've thought of that," Rex replied; "or lightning may have killed the men. There's no telling what it is, but it's sure to be serious. All we know is that there is no light, and our fathers are both out on the water depending on that light. It may cost both their lives, and hundreds of other lives, too. I feel as if we ought to do something, Nick."

"So do I," said Nick, "but I don't see what we can do. It's terrible to think of our fathers out there looking for the light, and of all those steamers that may be lost."

"And besides that," Rex broke in, "the light-house people may be in trouble. Perhaps the thing has been blown over. They may be clinging to the wreck, waiting for somebody to help them. Oh! I can't stand it, Nick. I'm going out there in the sharpie, to see whether I can be of any assistance."

"What! out to the light-house!" Nick exclaimed. "In that little sharpie, in this storm! Why, you'd never even find the light-house in the darkness."

"Oh yes, I will," Rex answered, confidently. "I'm enough of a sailor to handle a boat on a worse night than this. The wind has gone down a good deal, and the rain won't hurt anybody. Besides. Nick," he added, laying his hand tenderly on his friend's arm, "suppose you and I were out there in the schooner, and our fathers were here on shore, and the light failed like this, what would they do?"

"Right you are, old man!" and Nick seized Rex's hand and gave it a hearty squeeze. "They'd go out and have that light burning if there was as much as a wick left! And that's what we'll do, for, of course, I shall go along."

"We must leave Cudjoe here, in case the schooner gets in," Rex said, "and to keep a lantern burning to guide us back. And the fewer clothes we wear the better, Nick, for we may have to swim."

Cudjoe protested with all his might against the boys risking their lives in the storm and darkness, but it did no good. They sent him for the lantern and tied it to a corner post of the piazza, explaining to him the importance of keeping it burning at all hazards.

"After all, it's not going to be as bad out on the water as it looks," Nick suggested, while they were making ready. "The wind has gone down a great deal since the first blast, and these heavy rains keep the sea down. Darkness always makes things seem worse than they are, too."

Rex was very thoughtful and quiet, now that the surprise was past, and had little to say. He knew the danger of trying to make a landing against the exposed light-house in the midst of a storm. But just before they set out for the beach he said to Cudjoe:

"Cudjoe, if my father gets safely back while we are gone, I want you to tell him that we went out to the light-house because we thought it our duty to go. We are not going to make such a trip for sport."

It was work for men, and good sailormen too, going out in a sharpie to find a dark light-house on such a night. The wind was dead against them, and they had to beat out, and the rain was still falling in torrents. Rex took the tiller and handled the sheets, and it was as much as Nick could do to keep the boat clear of water.

The little Dolphin seemed to feel that many lives might depend upon her performance that night. Rex declared than she never rode the seas so well before, nor answered her helm so quickly. She was soon out far enough to be near the light-house, and the boys almost held their breaths; for the iron columns of the light-house rise directly out of the water, and in the darkness they might strike one of them at any moment. Keeping a lookout was useless, for they could not see two feet before the bow.

"If only a good flash of lightning would come!" Rex exclaimed; "then we could see something. But there hasn't been a flash since the storm first broke."

As if in answer to his wish there came a flash at that moment that illuminated the whole heavens.