MIKE AND TIGER-TAIL PLAY CHESS. 293 



lulled, and a gentle rain fell like a mist. The trees and light-house 

 loomed large in the obscurity, and the white-reefed breakers on 

 the reefs, spitting their frothy spume into air, could not be dis- 

 tinguished in the drifting scud that settled down on the sea. A 

 tangled path would the ocean be for the ships that night. 



Lou Jackson shivered on the stone flooring of the tower. The 

 meagre diet of biscuit, the drink of rain water lapped up from the 

 hollows of the stone, the excitement and terror, had begun to work 

 on her system. Her hand trembled, her eye was sunken and 

 brilliant, and her mind, excited unduly, ran riot with fancy, and 

 became morbidly sensitive to the slightest indication of passing 

 events. She knew that some one was near and had fired on the 

 Indians. Who, or from where, she had not descried. She could 

 see the bodies of the two Indians lying on the sands, and others 

 walking about, and she knew she was still a hunted animal, and, 

 with the instinct of a quarry, hid as best her reason taught her. 



But another thought came to her with the closing day and the 

 darkening sea. She thought of the happy homes on the open main, 

 and her mind took in the children's laugh, and the lighted cabin 

 with its music and books, and the foretop with its hanging sailors 

 prying about for Cape Florida light. Her own mother went to sea 

 when Lou was yet a child ; whether she went down crushed under 

 toppling seas, whether captured by pirates, or whether she still 

 floated over the waves watching for her native harbour, Lou did 

 not know, only her feverish mind pictured her leaning over the 

 taffrail, and saw her pale face looking for shore. When night came 

 down, trailing her black robes heavy with the sea fog, and shutting 

 out the earth, the vision came stronger still. Her mother's voice 

 calling to her in the wind to save her — the sea-bird, " lone watcher 

 of despair," piped to her in plaintive cries for help. It was the 

 call of the remembered voice. The feeling was so strong she felt 

 her mother was careering past the reefs ; she saw the ship among 

 the spume, and started to save her. She arose from her hard bed, 

 and taking her scissors and oil can, trimmed the great lamps and 

 wiped dry the reflectors. She touched the wick with spirits, and 

 then, striking a match, the fair light flashed out to sea, and the light- 

 keeper again sank to her hiding-place. The darkness had protected 

 her while trimming the lamps, and when the light came she sank 



