Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1906-07-13

fast back until three bells 19:5U a. m.),
an there's fresh eggs an haddick."
"Just couple of whiffs, Jim. Then
I'll go below"
Both men wore the uniform of assist
ant keepers, yet it needed not their
manner of speech to reveal that one
was a gentleman born and bred and
the other a bluff, good natured, horny
handed A. B., to whom new laid eggs
and recently cured fish appealed far
more potently than Shelley and a sum-
mer dawn at sea.
He who had involuntarily quoted
"Queen Nab turned his gaze seaward
again. Each moment the scene was be-
coming more brilliant, yet nearer to
earth. The farof islands sent splashes
of gray. brown and green through the
purple. The rose flush ON the horizon
was assuming yellower tinge, and the
blue of sky and water was deepening.
Twenty miles away to the southwest
the smoke of a steamer heralded the
advent of an Atlantic liner. and the last
shreds of white mist We're curling for
lornly above the waves.
The presence of the steamship, tiny
dull spot on the glowing picture, peo-
pied the void with life and banished
poetry with the thinly sheeted ghosts
of the fog. In a little more than an
hour she would be abreast of the Gulf
Rock light. The watcher believed-was
almost certain, in fact-that she was
the Princess Royal, homeward bound
from New York to Southampton. From
her saloon deck those enthusiasts who
had risen early enough to catch a first
glimpse of the English coast were al
ready scanning the trinity rugged out
lines of the Scilly isles and searching
with their glasses for the Lands End
and the Lizard.
In a few hours they would be in
Southampton; that afternoon in Lon
don-London, the Mecca of the world,
from which two years ago he fled with
a Ioathing akin to terror. The big ship
out there, painting and strainins as if
she were beginning, not ending, her
ocean race Of 5000 miles, was carrying
eager hundreds to the pleasures and
folHes Of. the great city. Yet he, the
man smoking and silently staring at
the growing bank of smoke-a young
man, too; handsome, erect, with the
clean, smooth profile of the aristocrat-
had turned his back on it all and
sought and found peace here in the
gaunt pillar on lonely rock.
Strange how differently men are con-
stituted. And women! Bah! A hard
look came into his eyes. His mouth set
in a stern contempt. For a little while
his face bore steely expression which
would have amazed the man within the
lantern, now singing Justify as he
worked.
But, as the harp of David caused the
evil spirit to depart from Saul, SO did
the music Of the morning chase away
the lurking devil of memory which
sprang upon the lighthouse keeper with
the sight of the vessel.
He smiled again, trifie bitterly per-
haps. Behind him the singer roared
genially:
''Soon We'll be in London Town.
Sing, my lads, yeo hoo!
And see the king in his golden crown,
Sing, my lads, yeo ho!'
The man on the platform seemed to
be aroused from a painful reyerie by
the jingle 50 curiously apropos to his
thoughts. He tapped his pipe on the
iron railing and was about to enter the
lantern-and SO to the region of sleep
beneath-when suddenly his glance,
trained to an acuteness not dreamed of
by folk ashore, rested on some object
seemingly distant mile or less and
drifting slowly nearer with the tide.
At this hour a two knot current
swept to the east around and over the
treacherous reef whose sunken fangs
were marked by the lighthouse. In
calm weather, such as prevailed just
then, it was difficult enough to effect
landing at the base of the rock, but
this same smiling water race became
an awful, raging. tearing fury when
the waves We're lashed into a storm.
He pocketed his pipe and stood with
hands clinched on the rail, gazing in
tently at a white painted ships life
boat, with a broken mast and a sail
trailing over the stern. It's color, with
the sun shining on it, no less than the
vaporous eddies fading down to the
surface of the sea, had prevented him
from seeing it earlier. Perhaps he
would not have noticed it at all were
it not for the flashing wings Of several
sea birds which accompanied the craft