CHAPTER XXIX

THE RIGHT LIGHTS

“What has happened!” cried the keeper. “The light is flashing wrong! There is a steamer outside the bar! It will be wrecked! Who did it? Where is my assistant? There’s been foul work here! I was waylaid on my way back when I found my sister was not ill. I just managed to get away from the men. Speak, some of you! Quick!”

The keeper was panting from his exertions and from the excitement. His face was drawn and pale, and his eyes were wild, while his hair, matted by the rain, for he had lost his hat, straggled about his forehead.

“The scoundrels are in possession of the tower!” cried Jerry. “We must attack them and set the right light!”

“Come on!” cried the keeper, seizing the poker Jess had used to burn the door. “Come on! I’ll give ’em battle!”

His eyes glared, in the fierceness of his righteous anger, at those who would do so dastardly a deed.

“Come on!” cried Ned, seizing a heavy billet of wood.

“I’ll call the police on the telephone!” exclaimed Bob, springing for the instrument. “We’ll need help!”

“I’ll not wait for the police!” fairly shouted the keeper. “I’ll tackle ’em single handed if need be!”

Bob rang up central, and, not waiting to be connected with the distant police station, told the operator what the trouble was, imploring that aid be sent promptly. Then he ran to join his companions. Jess was crying in one corner of the room.

Mr. Hardack led the way to the stairs which extended up inside the tower to the lantern. He fairly ran up the stone steps, followed by the boys. He was shouting challenges to the men as he ran.

“Let me get at you!” he yelled. “I’ll show you how an old man can fight!”

Suddenly from above them a door slammed shut. There was the clicking of a lock. Then, as they came to the heavy portal, which gave access to the room where the lantern was, a voice cried:

“You’re too late this time, old man!”

Too late! The men had shut themselves up in the top of the tower, and could control the working of the light to suit their evil purposes. The keeper could not get in.

Mr. Hardack beat upon the door with the poker. Ned hammered it with the block of wood.

“Let me in!” cried the aged man. “Let me in! Do you want to send the ship to the bottom?”

“That’s just what we do!” was the mocking response.

“Get an axe and chop the door down!” cried Jerry.

“It would take too long,” replied the keeper, in a strangely calm voice. “It is bound with iron, and is double thick. There is no help for it. The steamer will be lost!”

Footsteps were heard coming up the stairs.

“Maybe help is at hand,” said the keeper hopefully.

Then Jess came into view. In her hand she held something which she extended to Mr. Hardack.

“Here is your old horse pistol, uncle!” she exclaimed. “It is loaded with a heavy charge. Fire it through the lock and shatter it! I heard you pounding on the door and knew they had locked it!”

“Hurrah for you, Jess!” called Ned, and the girl blushed through her tears.

Mr. Hardack placed the muzzle of the ancient weapon against the big keyhole. He hesitated a moment, listening to the roar of the storm without, and the steady whirr of the machinery in the tower, as it revolved the false lenses.

_Bang!_

It sounded as though a cannon had been fired, so loudly did the report of the pistol echo in the narrow tower. There was a splitting and rending of wood, a snap as of broken springs and a clatter as pieces of the lock fell on the stone steps.

“Come on, boys!” cried the old man, as he threw all his weight against the door. The shattered lock gave, and they rushed through the smoke on up the steps.

“Go back! Go back!” cried two men standing on the top landing. Behind them glowed the big light. It almost blinded the boys. They hesitated a second or two.

“Scoundrels!” cried the keeper.

He raised the poker threateningly and leaped forward.

“Come on! All together!” yelled Ned. “We can handle ’em! Come on, Jerry and Bob!”

Forward they went, the boys and the aged keeper, straight at the two men. The fellows held big wrenches in their hands. Jerry saw one aim a blow at Mr. Hardack. It struck the old man on the side of the head, but, though he staggered, he did not fall. Then he raised his poker and brought it down on the arm of the man who had hit him. The wrecker gave a cry and the wrench fell from his nerveless fingers.

Ned sprang at the assailant of the keeper. The fellow stepped back. He had lost the use of one arm from the blow of the poker. Ned grabbed his other hand and bore him to the stone floor. There was a hard struggle, but Ned held on. Mr. Hardack, recovering from the blow on his head, came to the boy’s aid.

In the meanwhile Jerry and Bob had attacked the other man. He kept them at bay for a little while by waving the big wrench back and forth in front of him. The boys tried to dodge in but could not. Then Jerry suddenly fell to the floor. Before the man knew what was up the boy had reached forward, under the swinging tool, and grabbed the man by the legs. He gave a strong yank, and the wrecker went down in a heap. Bob threw himself on top of him.

For several seconds there was a hard struggle. Both scoundrels tried to break away, but the boys and the keeper were too much for them. At last they were quiet.

“The light! The light!” cried Mr. Hardack. “We must set the right light!”

“I’ll do it, uncle!” exclaimed Jess, running into the room. She had been hiding on the stairs, waiting the outcome of the struggle. “I’ll set the right light!”

She leaped over the prostrate body of the man her uncle and Ned were holding down. Into the lantern room she went.

It was the work of but an instant to rip from the big white lens, the black piece of paper the men had pasted over it to conceal the flashes. She threw it on the floor.

Then out through the storm, over the tempestuous sea, there flashed the right signal,--a white glow, followed by two red ones.

“Oh, that it may be in time to save the ship!” the girl prayed.

Out on the deep the big steamer pitched and tossed in the grip of the waves. The lookout was scanning the blackness for the sight of the next lighthouse. Suddenly there flashed across his eyes a white shaft of illumination, followed by two red ones. The pilot saw them at the same time.

“Something’s wrong!” the steersman exclaimed. “There is the South light now! We have been standing in! We are almost on the rocks! Some one changed the lights!”

There were frantic signals to the engine room. The pilot spun the steam steering gear around so fast he almost broke the rudder chains. Slowly the great steamer changed her course and stood out to sea.

Yet so near had she been to the rocks and sand bars that five minutes more and she would have been lost. The passengers asleep in their staterooms never knew how close they were to death.

Back in the lighthouse there were anxious hearts, hearts that beat high lest soon might be heard the booming guns of a ship in distress, or soon might be seen the flaring rockets that told a steamer had gone on the rocks.

Suddenly from below, at the foot of the tower, above the roar of the storm, a voice called:

“What’s wrong here? Where are you, Hardack? What’s the matter with the light?”

“It’s Salt Water Sam!” shouted Jerry. “Help Sam! Come up and bring ropes with you!”

There was the welcome sound of feet ascending the stone stairway. Into the room came the old sailor and Captain Jenkinson. They took in the situation at a glance. In a few minutes the two scoundrels had been securely tied.

“Is the light all right?” was Sam’s first question, for he knew what that meant on such a night.

“Thanks to Jess, it is,” replied Ned, and the girl ran away to escape the admiring eyes.

“How did you get here?” asked Jerry of Sam.

“Why some of us happened to be out fishing just before the storm broke, and we noticed the light wasn’t flashing right. I hurried ashore and met Captain Jenkinson. He had noticed the same thing, so we decided to investigate. We came over in his boat, the _Three Bells_. What has happened here?”