t almost made
me dizzy to see the gray-and-white breakers marching past. The land was
gone; the sky shut down heavy overhead; there was a piece of wreckage on
the back of a swell, and the Jacob's-ladder was carried clean away. How
that sea had picked up so quick I can't think. I looked at my watch and
it wasn't four in the afternoon yet.

When I closed the door, sir, it was almost dark in the store-room. I'd
never been in the Light before in a gale of wind. I wondered why I was
shivering so, till I found it was the floor below me shivering, and the
walls and stair. Horrible crunchings and grindings ran away up the
tower, and now and then there was a great thud somewhere, like a
cannon-shot in a cave. I tell you, sir, I was alone, and I was in a
mortal fright for a minute or so. And yet I had to get myself together.
There was the light up there not tended to, and an early dark coming on
and a heavy night and all, and I had to go. And I had to pass that door.

You'll say it's foolish, sir, and maybe it _was_ foolish. Maybe it was
because I hadn't eaten. But I began thinking of that door up there the
minute I set foot on the stair, and all the way up through that howling
dark well I dreaded to pass it. I told myself I wouldn't stop. I didn't
stop. I felt the landing underfoot and I went on, four steps, five--and
then I couldn't. I turned and went back. I put out my hand and it went
on into nothing. That door, sir, was open again.

I left it be; I went on up to the light-room and set to work. It was
Bedlam there, sir, screeching Bedlam, but I took no notice. I kept my
eyes down. I trimmed those seven wicks, sir, as neat as ever they were
trimmed; I polished the brass till it shone, and I dusted the lens. It
wasn't till that was done that I let myself look back to see who it was
standing there, half out of sight in the well. It was her, sir.

"Where'd you come from?" I asked. I remember my voice was sharp.

"Up Jacob's-ladder," said she, and hers was like the syrup of flowers.

I shook my head. I was savage, sir. "The ladder's carried away."

"I cast it off," said she, with a smile.

"Then," said I, "you must have come while I was asleep." Another thought
came on me heavy as a ton of lead. "And where's _he_?" said I. "Where's
the boat?"

"He's drowned," said she, as easy as that. "And I let the boat go
adrift. You wouldn't hear me when I called."

"But look here," said I. "If you came through the store-room, why di