that ingenious pirate and empire-maker had once landed his vessels and
scraped the barnacles from his adventurous keels. But of this Edgar
Pomfrey--or "Captain Pomfrey," as he was called by virtue of his
half-nautical office--had thought little.
For the first six months he had thoroughly enjoyed his seclusion. In
the company of his books, of which he had brought such a fair store
that their shelves lined his snug corners to the exclusion of more
comfortable furniture, he found his principal recreation. Even his
unwonted manual labor, the trimming of his lamp and cleaning of his
reflectors, and his personal housekeeping, in which his Indian help at
times assisted, he found a novel and interesting occupation. For outdoor
exercise, a ramble on the sands, a climb to the rocky upland, or a pull
in the lighthouse boat, amply sufficed him. "Crank" as he was supposed
to be, he was sane enough to guard against any of those early lapses
into barbarism which marked the lives of some solitary gold-miners.
His own taste, as well as the duty of his office, kept his person and
habitation sweet and clean, and his habits regular. Even the little
cultivated patch of ground on the lee side of the tower was symmetrical
and well ordered. Thus the outward light of Captain Pomfrey shone forth
over the wilderness of shore and wave, even like his beacon, whatever
his inward illumination may have been.
It was a bright summer morning, remarkable even in the monotonous
excellence of the season, with a slight touch of warmth which the
invincible Northwest Trades had not yet chilled. There was still a faint
haze off the coast, as if last night's fog had been caught in the quick
sunshine, and the shining sands were hot, but without the usual dazzling
glare. A faint perfume from a quaint lilac-colored beach-flower, whose
clustering heads dotted the sand like bits of blown spume, took the
place of that smell of the sea which the odorless Pacific lacked. A few
rocks, half a mile away, lifted themselves above the ebb tide at varying
heights as they lay on the trough of the swell, were crested with foam
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