d fiery in the dim
light. I went to bed again, sleeping until my host woke me in the late
morning.

After breakfasting I went to the chalet. The postman had been there but
he had brought no letter from Hope. I waited about home, expecting
to hear from her, all that day, only to see it end in bitter
disappointment.

Chapter 33

That very night, I looked in at the little shop beneath us and met
Riggs. It was no small blessing, just as I was entering upon dark
and unknown ways of life, to meet this hoary headed man with all his
lanterns. He would sell you anchors and fathoms of chain and rope enough
to hang you to the moon but his 'lights'were the great attraction of
Riggs s. He had every kind of lantern that had ever swung on land or
sea. After dark, when light was streaming out of its open door and broad
window Riggs's looked like the side of an old lantern itself. It was
a door, low and wide, for a time when men had big round bellies and
nothing to do but fill them and heads not too far above their business.
It was a window gone blind with dust and cobwebs so it resembled the dim
eye of age. If the door were closed its big brass knocker and massive
iron latch invited the passer. An old ship's anchor and a coil of
chain lay beside it. Blocks and heavy bolts, steering wheels, old brass
compasses, coils of rope and rusty chain lay on the floor and benches,
inside the shop. There were rows of lanterns, hanging on the bare beams.
And there was Riggs. He sat by a dusty desk and gave orders in a sleepy,
drawling tone to the lad who served him. An old Dutch lantern, its light
softened with green glass, sent a silver bean across the gloomy upper
air of the shop that evening. Riggs held an old un lantern with little
streams of light bursting through its perforated walls. He was blind,
one would know it at a glance. Blindness is so easy to be seen. Riggs
was showing it to a stranger.

'Turn down the lights,' he said and the boy got his step-ladder and
obeyed him.

Then he held it aloft in the dusk and the little lantern was like a
castle tower with many windows lighted, and, when he set it down, there
was a golden sprinkle on the floor as if something had plashed into a
magic pool of light there in the darkness.

Riggs lifted the lantern, presently, and stood swinging it in his hand.
Then its rays were sown upon the darkness falling silently into every
nook and corner of the gloomy shop and breaking into flowing dapple