Chapter XX: Dick Knuckleduster

Wakened by rolling off the sea-chest, on which I had fallen asleep overnight, I found that day had broken--that it was considerably advanced indeed, by the appearance of the light, and for a minute I could scarcely realize my locality or that I was not in a dream.

Alone in the lower story of a lighthouse, against the timbers and below the floor of which I heard the sea gurgling and washing with ceaseless and monotonous sound; the apartment was octagonal: built like the sides of a ship, caulked and pitched, with enormous beams of oak bolted together by cramps and knees of iron. The furniture and appurtenances consisted of two sea-chests, two campstools, seated with old canvas; a few pistols, cutlasses, spy-glasses, and signal-flags, stowed away among salt beef, biscuits, combs, razors, butter, plates, pots, and pans on the dirty shelves, which were bracketed within the sloping timbers. Besides these, were various casks, and odds and ends, the salt-encrusted state of which indicated their having been found in vessels stranded among the adjacent sands.

I ascended a ladder which led to the upper story. It contained two truckle beds, which, being formed of teased oakum and tarry shakings, emitted a frightful odour, and thereon were my worthy hosts in profound slumber. I resolved to turn to account the brief liberty this gave me, and commenced an immediate inspection of the place. A ladder and hatch led me from this place to the roof, where I found the lights extinguished, and, from a slender iron gallery formed round the summit, I had a view of the dreary sea boiling over ridges of sand, that were dry or covered alternately, as the tide ebbed and flowed. The shore was visible, but so flat as to seem far off, though only a mile or so distant. The sky was grey and lowering--the sea a dingy russet green, flecked with foam and full of shifting sands. The blackened ribs of an old wreck, half-buried in sand and covered by sea-weeds, lay near, and thereon was perched a solitary gull with grey and drooping wings.

The only other feature in this cheerless scene was one of those old square church towers peculiar to England. It seemed dim and distant in the haze; but indicated the locality of a township or parish, and in that quarter now all my hopes were centred.

The lighthouse was evidently without a boat, the two occupants being apparently men who could not be trusted with one. Provisions and other necessaries were brought off to them, from time to time, by certain officials on shore.

My spirit writhed and my heart sank at the prospect of residing with such wretches, even for a week; and I had, moreover, the miserable conviction, that neither my life nor liberty were safe with them, after the conversation I had overheard. On that day, and the next, they were alternately sullen and sneering, while, telescope in hand, from their upper gallery they kept a sharp look-out for a king's ship.

So did I, but with very different feelings.

Finding the double necessity of killing the dreary and anxious hours, and perhaps of conciliating--if such were possible--these sullen and brutal spirits, I assisted them in trimming the huge lamps and reflectors, in cooking our repast of salt junk, and brewing a great can of egg-flip; but having been detected, in the evening, waving my handkerchief as a signal to a passing schooner, the master of which, on seeing it, actually altered his course and bore up for the lighthouse, I fell into a serious scrape.

Suddenly I was confronted by my two tyrants. Dick's eyes glared like those of a wild beast, as he gave me a violent blow on the ear with a heavy telescope, while the other, with gratuitous ferocity, struck me down by a stroke from a handspike, exclaiming,--

"Look out! or, split me, if I won't cut your rascally throat from clue to earing! Who the devil is going to keep a loblolly-boy like you in grub and grog for nothing?"

I fell senseless and bleeding on the upper deck, or roof of the lighthouse.

I must have lain long thus; for, on recovery, I found that darkness had set in, that the beacon was lighted, and its three lamps, from the cavity of their vast reflectors, were again shedding their radiated lustre far across the heaving waves of the darkened sea. There was no moon visible, but a few tremulous stars were shimmering through the gauze-like vapour that veiled the gloomy sky.

Stiff, sore, and chilled, with an aching head and eyes full of tears--my cheeks damp and my hair encrusted by the saline nature of the atmosphere--I staggered up and sat in the outer gallery for a time, gazing sadly, and full of bitter thoughts, upon the restless sea, which boiled and seethed some thirty feet below me.