still the signal of
distress continued to fly from the lighthouse, and still the people on
shore continued to wonder what was wrong, to long for moderate weather,
and to feel relief when they saw the faithful light beam forth each
evening at sunset.

At last the corpse began to decay, and John felt that it was necessary
to get rid of it, but he dared not venture to throw it into the sea. It
was well known that Dorkin had been a quarrelsome man, and he feared
that if he could not produce the body when the relief came, he might be
deemed a _murderer_. He therefore let it lie until it became so
overpoweringly offensive that the whole building, from foundation to
cupola, was filled with the horrible stench. The feelings of the
solitary man can neither be conceived nor described. Well was it for
John that he had the Word of God in his hand, and the grace of God in
his heart during that awful period.

For nearly a month his agony lasted. At last the weather moderated.
The boat came off; the "relief" was effected; and poor Dorkin's body,
which was in such a condition that it could not be carried on shore, was
thrown into the sea. Then John Potter returned home, and left the
lighthouse service for ever.

From that time forward it has been the custom to station not fewer than
three men at a time on all out-lying lighthouses of the kingdom.

Note. Reader, we have not drawn here on our imagination. This story is
founded on unquestionable fact.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE END OF RUDYERD'S LIGHTHOUSE.

Thirty-Four years passed away, and still Rudyerd's lighthouse stood firm
as the rock on which it was founded. True, during that period it had to
undergo occasional repairs, because the timber uprights at the base,
where exposed to the full violence of the waves, had become
weather-worn, and required renewing in part; but this was only
equivalent to a ship being overhauled and having some of her planks
renewed. The main fabric of the lighthouse remained as sound and
steadfast at the end of that long period as it was at the beginning, and
it would in all probability have remained on the Eddystone Rock till the
present day, had not a foe assailed it, whose nature was very different
indeed from that with which it had been built to contend.

The lighthouse was at this time in charge of Teddy Maroon: not the Teddy
who had bewailed his fate so disconsolately in the French prison in days
gone by, but his youngest son, who was n