But his worriment was as nothing compared to Seth's. The lawyer's reference to the Lights had driven even matrimonial troubles from the Atkins mind. The lights! the Twin-Lights! It was long past the time for them to be lit, and there was no one to light them but Brown, a green hand. Were they lit at all? If not, heaven knew what might happen or had happened already.
He had thought of this before, of course, had vaguely realized that he was betraying his trust, but then he had not cared. The Lights, his position as keeper, everything, were side issues compared with the one thing to be done, the getting to Denboro. He had reached Denboro and found his journey all a mistake; his wife and Bennie D. had not, apparently, visited that village; perhaps had not even started for it. Therefore, in a measure relieved, he thought of other things. He was many miles from his post of duty, and now his sole idea was to get back to it.
At ten o'clock Mrs. Hepsibah Deacon, a widow living in a little house in the woods on the top of the hill on the Denboro side of Eastboro Back Harbor, with no neighbors for a mile in either direction, was awakened by shouts under her bedroom window. Opening that window she thrust forth her head.
"Who is it?" she demanded quaveringly. "What's the matter? Is anything afire?"
From the blackness of the rain and fog emerged a vague shape.
"It's me, Mrs. Deacon; Seth Atkins, down to the Lights, you know.
I've left my horse and carriage in your barn. Josh--he's the horse-- is gone lame and played himself out. He can't walk another step.
I've unharnessed him and left him in the stall. He'll be all right.
I've given him some water and hay. Just let him stay there, if it ain't too much trouble, and I'll send for him to-morrer and pay for his keep. It's all right, ain't it? Much obliged. Good night."
Before the frightened widow could ask a question or utter a word he was gone, ploughing down the hill in the direction of the Back Harbor. When he reached the foot of that hill where the road should have been, he found that it had disappeared. The tide had risen and covered it.
It was pitch-dark, the rain was less heavy, and clouds of fog were drifting in before the wind. Seth waded on for a short distance, but soon realized that wading would be an impossibility. Then, as in despair, he was about ready to give up the attempt, a dark object came into view beside him. It was a dory belonging to one of the lobstermen, which, at the end of its long anchor rope, had swung inshore until it floated almost over the road. Seth seized it in time to prevent collision with his knees. The thole pins were in place, and the oars laid lengthwise on its thwarts. As his hands touched the gunwale a new idea came to him.
He had intended walking the rest of the way to Eastboro, routing out the liveryman and hiring a horse and buggy with which to reach the Lights. Now he believed chance had offered him an easier and more direct method of travel. He could row up the Harbor and Slough, land close to where the Daisy M. lay, and walk the rest of the way in a very short time. He climbed into the dory, pulled up the anchor, and seated himself at the oars.
The bottom of the boat was two inches deep with rain water, and the thwart was dripping and cold. Seth, being already about as wet as he could be, did not mind this, but pulled with long strokes out into the harbor. The vague black shadows of the land disappeared, and in a minute he was, so far as his eyes could tell him, afloat on a shoreless sea. He had no compass, but this did not trouble him.
The wind, he knew, was blowing directly from the direction he wished to go, and he kept the dory's bow in the teeth of it. He rowed on and on. The waves, out here in the deep water, were of good size, and the spray flew as he splashed into them. He knew that he was likely to get off the course, but the Back Harbor was, except for its upper entrance, landlocked, and he could not go far astray, no matter where he might hit the shore.
The fog clouds, driven by the squalls, drifted by and passed. At rare intervals the sky was almost clear. After he had rowed for half an hour and was beginning to think he must be traveling in circles, one of these clear intervals came and, far off to the left and ahead, he saw something which caused him to utter an exclamation of joy. Two fiery eyes shone through the dark. The fog shut them in again almost immediately, but that one glance was sufficient to show that all was well at the post he had deserted. The fiery eyes were the lanterns in the Twin-Lights towers. John Brown had been equal to the emergency, and the lamps were lighted.
Seth's anxiety was relieved, but that one glimpse made him even more eager for home. He rowed on for a short time, and then began edging in toward the invisible left-hand shore. Judging by the length of time he had been rowing, he must be close to the mouth of the Slough, where, winding through the salt marshes, it emerged into the Back Harbor.
He crept in nearer and nearer, but no shore came in sight. The fog was now so thick that he could see not more than ten feet from the boat, but if he was in the mouth of the Slough he should have grounded on the marsh bank long before. The reason that he did not, a reason which did not occur to him at the time, was that the marshes were four feet under water. Owing to the tremendous tide Pounddug Slough was now merely a continuation of the Harbor and almost as wide.
The lightkeeper began to think that he must have miscalculated his distance. He could not have rowed as far as he thought. Therefore, he again turned the dory's nose into the teeth of the wind and pulled steadily on. At intervals he stopped and listened. All he heard was the moan of distant foghorns and the whistling of the gusts in trees somewhere at his left. There were pine groves scattered all along the bluffs on the Eastboro side, so this did not help him much except to prove that the shore was not far away. He pulled harder on the right oar. Then he stopped once more to listen.