p of the cliff,
and then made a bed of dry sand at the bottom of it; and he piled up
dry seaweed and wood within, thinking that if he lit his beacon there,
it might be sheltered from the wind, and would burn fiercely enough to
throw up the flame above the top of the pit. He saw that heavy rain
would extinguish his fire; but the nights were most dangerous when it
blew too strongly for rain to fall. So one night, when the wind blew
strongly from the sea, he laid wood in order, which he had gathered on
the land, and conveyed with many toilsome journeys over to the island.
Then he lighted the pile, but it was as he feared; the wind blew
fiercely over the top, and drove the flames downward, so that the pit
glowed with a fierce heat; and sometimes a lighted brand was caught up
and whirled over the cliffs; but he saw plainly enough that the light
would not show out at sea. He was very sad at this, and at last went
heavily down to his cave, not knowing what he should do; and pondering
long before he slept, he could see no way out.

In the morning he went up to the cliff-top again, and turned his
steps to the pit. The fire had burned itself out, but the sides were
still warm to the touch; all the ashes had been blown by the force of
the wind out of the hole; but he saw some bright things lie in the
sand, which he could not wholly understand, till he pulled them out
and examined them carefully. They were like smooth tubes and lumps of
a clear stuff, like molten crystal or frozen honey, full of bubbles
and stains, but still strangely transparent; and then, though he saw
that these must in some way have proceeded from the burning of the
fire, he felt as though they must have been sent to him for some wise
reason. He turned them over and over, and held them up to the light.
It came suddenly into his mind how he would use these heavenly
crystals; he would make, he thought, a frame of wood, and set these
jewels in the frame. Then he would set this in the hole of his cave,
and burn a light behind; and the light would thus show over the sea,
and not be extinguished.

So this after much labour he did; he fitted all the clear pieces into
the frame, and he fixed the frame very firm in the hole with wooden
wedges. Then he pushed clay into the cracks between the edges of the
frame and the stone. Then he told some of those who came to him that
he had need of oil for a purpose, and they brought it him in
abundance, and wicks for a lamp; and