s.
At nightfall, feeling worse, he determined to transfer the care of the
light to Jim, but was amazed to find that he had disappeared, and what
was more ominous, a bottle of spirits which Pomfrey had taken from his
locker the night before had disappeared too. Like all Indians, Jim's
rudimentary knowledge of civilization included "fire-water;" he
evidently had been tempted, had fallen, and was too ashamed or too drunk
to face his master. Pomfrey, however, managed to get the light in order
and working, and then, he scarcely knew how, betook himself to bed in
a state of high fever. He turned from side to side racked by pain, with
burning lips and pulses. Strange fancies beset him; he had noticed when
he lit his light that a strange sail was looming off the estuary--a
place where no sail had ever been seen or should be--and was relieved
that the lighting of the tower might show the reckless or ignorant
mariner his real bearings for the "Gate." At times he had heard voices
above the familiar song of the surf, and tried to rise from his bed, but
could not. Sometimes these voices were strange, outlandish, dissonant,
in his own language, yet only partly intelligible; but through them
always rang a single voice, musical, familiar, yet of a tongue not his
own--hers! And then, out of his delirium--for such it proved afterwards
to be--came a strange vision. He thought that he had just lit the light
when, from some strange and unaccountable reason, it suddenly became dim
and defied all his efforts to revive it. To add to his discomfiture,
he could see quite plainly through the lantern a strange-looking vessel
standing in from the sea. She was so clearly out of her course for the
Gate that he knew she had not seen the light, and his limbs trembled
with shame and terror as he tried in vain to rekindle the dying light.
Yet to his surprise the strange ship kept steadily on, passing the
dangerous reef of rocks, until she was actually in the waters of the
bay. But stranger than all, swimming beneath her bows was the golden
head and laughing face of the Indian girl, even as he had seen it the
day before. A strange revulsion of feeling overtook him. Believing that
she was luring the ship to its destruction, he ran out on the beach
and strove to hail the vessel and warn it of its impending doom. But he
could not speak--no sound came from his lips. And now his attention was
absorbed by the ship itself. High-bowed and pooped, and curved like th