  The captain jumped to his feet with a startled exclamation and looked in the direction of the lighthouse. Sure enough, a red light was burning high up in a window near the top. “Well, I’ll be darned!” the captain exclaimed. “It’s the light, sure enough. Let’s get over there and find out what is wrong.” Leaving everything just as it was on the sand the boys and the captain ran down the beach until they came to the shack and there they piled in the dory. The captain started the engine and headed out to sea toward the south shore and the lighthouse. “This Timothy is a pretty queer sort of a fellow,” Captain Blow explained, as the dory cut her way into the bobbing waves. “I think so much solitude in that lighthouse has been too much for him. Like as not we’ll find that it is nothing at all. I told him more than once that he ought to get over being so sort of nervous, but he just keeps on his merry way. ’Taint very merry, though. Timothy is just the opposite of merry, but he is a good lighthouse keeper.” It took them more than a half hour to arrive at the black spur of rock which ran abruptly out into the water and which was named Needle Point. When they got there the captain ran his boat alongside the dock and tied it up securely. The beacon itself stood about a hundred yards away from the dock. “Come on,” said the captain. “We’ll find out what’s wrong here.” Led by their friend the boys approached the tall structure of stone and brick that rose high into the air above their heads. It was the first time that they had ever been close to a lighthouse. The base of the light was a regular house, they discovered, with several rooms in it, while the column tapered and became much smaller as it became higher. Just now Captain Blow was at the main front door, hammering with all his might. “Open up, Timmy Tompkins!” he bellowed. “What in time’s the matter?” There was no reply to his knock or his question, and after waiting for a moment the captain opened the door and looked in. After hesitating for a brief second he walked in and the boys followed him. They found themselves in a large room, the central room of the lighthouse. In the center of the room stood a table, faced with a few chairs and an old sofa. The walls of the room, plainly whitewashed, were covered with one or two old prints, some framed official documents, and a large map. The room was in perfect order and the place empty of life. Off this room the party could see the other rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom, and what appeared to be a storeroom. Led by the captain they visited each room and looked around, without finding anything. “He isn’t down here,” said the captain. “More than likely he’s up in the tower. You boys ever see a real lighthouse? Well, then come on. You’re going to see one now.” On the other side of the room an iron ladder led to a trap door in the ceiling, and that door had been pushed open. The captain mounted the ladder and disappeared through the trap, closely followed by the boys. When they stepped through the trap door they found themselves in the shaft of the lighthouse. It extended straight upward for many feet, a spiral staircase leading up to the room which housed the light itself. The whole shaft was brilliantly illuminated by electric lights spaced along the wall, giving a steady light to the spiral stairs. At intervals along the shaft narrow slits served for windows, through which, in the daytime, sunlight poured into the column. Taking in all these details briefly the boys followed their friend up and around the shaft, step by step, until they came to another trap door, through which they made their way, and so entered a small room. It appeared to be the keeper’s chief room while on duty. Through it a heavy beam ran straight up to the lamp itself, which was in the room directly above. A metal shaft with a handle came into this room through the floor overhead, and the captain told them what it was. “This is the room where Timmy stays when the light ain’t working any too well,” he said. “Sometimes the automatic machinery gets out of order and don’t turn the light, and then Timmy has got to sit up all night and work the thing by hand. Not the kind of a job to go looking for, unless you have to.” “Here is where he placed the light, Captain Blow,” called out Don. A narrow slit which served as a window had been cut in the east side of the tower and on that small window sill the keeper had placed the red lantern. They crowded around it and examined it with interest and curiosity. It was quite hot and there was no means of knowing how long it had been lighted. “Got any idea of how long that lamp was there before you sang out?” the captain asked Don. “Not a bit,” confessed the boy. “But I am sure it wasn’t long. I had glanced at the lighthouse several times during the beach party, in fact, I guess you all did, and it wasn’t there. It was while you were telling your South Sea Island story that I looked over this way and happened to see it burning here.” “Mighty funny,” muttered the old seaman. “If Timmy isn’t up in the light, I can’t figure what could have happened to him.” The lamp itself was in the small room above the one in which they were standing and they climbed the short length of iron ladder and entered the room. A terrific burst of heat smote them in the face, and their eyes smarted from the blinding light which beat upon them as the lamp automatically swung toward them. The lamp was a huge affair, of shining brass, polished to the last degree, inside of which a powerful light burned. The light turned away from and then toward a thick plate glass window, and each time it turned toward the window a long arm of brilliant light stabbed out across the tumbling sea. “He isn’t up here,” the captain said. “Let’s get down and look for him below.” The boys were glad to leave the heat and the unbearable light and in silence they walked down the spiral steps to the room below. Once there they halted in the main room and looked blankly at each other. “He seems to be gone completely,” remarked Jim. “Yes, and that’s bad,” nodded the captain. “Something out of the ordinary must have popped up, or he would never have left the light. That’s against the law, and Timmy knows it. But the funny part is this: he must have known that he was going, because he left a warning light. I don’t know what to make of it.” “I’ve got an idea,” said Terry, slowly. “Don’t know whether there is anything in it, though.” “What is it?” asked the captain. “I was just wondering if the marine bandits had anything to do with it all. You see, they ran away during the storm, and we thought that they ran down the coast, but we don’t really know just where they did go. Maybe we’re just getting in the habit of blaming everything on those fellows, but I was just wondering.” “Could be,” agreed the captain. “What is that?” An urgent buzzing reached their ears, and they looked in perplexity around the room. The buzzes came in regular order, and after looking in a distant corner Jim gave a shout. “It’s the lighthouse telephone,” he said. “The receiver is hanging off the hook.” The captain went to the telephone which was a wall affair, and which was in a corner. Just as Jim had said, the receiver was hanging off the hook, dangling at the end of its cord. The captain picked it up and shouted into the mouthpiece. “Hello! Who is this?” An impatient voice reached him over the wire. “This is the night telephone operator, over in Maplebrook. What in the world is the matter with you people. Your receiver has been hanging off the hook for at least an hour, and I’ve been buzzing my head off. Don’t you know that makes a button on my board light up and a bell ring?” “Sorry,” explained the captain. “This is Captain Blow, from Mystery Island, speaking. I came over here to answer a distress signal and I find the keeper has disappeared. The receiver’s been off the hook an hour, you say?” “Yes, about that. I’ve got a special line here from the lighthouse, and earlier in the evening the button lighted up and the bell began to ring. I answered it, but didn’t get anything or hear anything. I thought somebody must have just knocked it off and forgot about it, so I’ve been buzzing every once in a while. You say Timothy is missing, eh?” “Yup. Guess you’ll have to get the police on the wire and hustle ’em out here. Is there a lighthouse keeper anywhere around that can be sent out here?” The voice on the other end of the wire hesitated for a second and then replied: “Yes, the retired keeper lives here, and I can get ahold of him. Guess I better get him on the job until Timothy is located, eh?” “Sure thing,” the captain concluded. “And get the police out here on the jump, will you, bub?” The night operator agreed to do so at once, and the captain hung up the receiver. He explained the situation to the boys and then proposed that they look further. “I don’t think he is anywhere around,” he said. “But we’ll look all over the place. No use in missing anything. All I hope is that he hasn’t met with any foul play. I’m going to look through these rooms again. Suppose you fellows look around the grounds, only don’t go too far away.” The boys went out of the door as the captain once more looked through the rooms of the station. Jim and Don walked out to a shed in the back of the lighthouse grounds and Terry walked away alone, toward the end of the rock upon which the lighthouse stood. He was soon lost in the darkness and Don and Jim forgot him in their interest. A single shed, in which they found a rowboat and some canvas and rope, was at the back of the lighthouse and the boys made a thorough search of the place, but found no clue. They followed the spur of rock back toward the mainland until they came to low and marshy ground. Then, remembering the captain’s warning, they walked back toward the lighthouse, skirted it and walked out on the point of rock where it ended abruptly in the ocean. Several minutes later the captain, standing in the middle of the floor of the bedroom, heard them enter. Don poked an anxious head in the doorway. “Say, Captain Blow,” he said. “Isn’t Terry in here?” “No,” answered the captain. “He’s outside somewhere.” But Don shook his head. “He isn’t. We just went over the whole point, and he isn’t around. I’m afraid Terry has disappeared, too!” |
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