Ezra was no longer assistant lightkeeper. He and his superior had quarreled two days before. The quarrel was the culmination, on Ezra's part, of a gradually developing "grouch" brought on by the loneliness of his surroundings. After a night of duty he had marched into the house, packed his belongings in a battered canvas extension case, and announced his intention of resigning from the service.
"To the everlastin' brimstone with the job!" he snarled, addressing Mr. Atkins, who, partially dressed, emerged from the bedroom in bewilderment and sleepy astonishment. "To thunder with it, I say!
I've had all the gov'ment jobs I want. Life-savin' service was bad enough, trampin' the condemned beach in a howlin' no'theaster, with the sand cuttin' furrers in your face, and the icicles on your mustache so heavy you got round-shouldered luggin' 'em. But when your tramp was over, you had somebody to talk to. Here, by godfreys! there ain't nothin' nor nobody. I'm goin' fishin' again, where I can be sociable."
"Humph!" commented Seth, "you must be lonesome all to once. Ain't my company good enough for you?"
"Company! A heap of company you are! When I'm awake you're alseep and snorin' and--"
"I never snored in my life," was the indignant interruption "What? YOU'LL snore when you're dead, and wake up the whole graveyard. Lonesome!" he continued, without giving his companion a chance to retort, "lonesome ain't no name for this place. No company but green flies and them moskeeters, and nothin' to look at but salt water and sand and--and--dummed if I can think of anything else. Five miles from town and the only house in sight shut tight.
When I come here you told me that bungalow was opened up every year--"
"So it has been till this season."
"And that picnics come here every once in a while."
"Don't expect picnickers to be such crazy loons as to come here in winter time, do you?"
"I don't know. If they're fools enough to come here ANY time, I
wouldn't be responsible for 'em. There ain't so many moskeeters in winter. But just LOOK at this hole. Just put on your specs and LOOK at it! Not a man--but you--not a woman, not a child, not a girl--"
"Ah ha! ah ha! NOW we're gettin' at it! Not a girl! That's what's the matter with you. You want to be up in the village, where you can go courtin'. You're too fur from Elsie Peters, that's where the shoe pinches. I've heard how you used to set out in her dad's backyard, with your arm round her waist, lookin' at each other, mushy as a couple of sassers of hasty-puddin'. Bah! I'll take care my next assistant ain't girl-struck."
"Girl-struck! I'd enough sight ruther be girl-struck than always ravin' and rippin' against females. And all because some woman way back in Methusalem's time had sense enough to heave you over. At least, that's what everybody cal'lates must be the reason. You pretend to be a woman-hater. All round this part of the Cape you've took pains to get up that kind of reputation; but--"
"There ain't no pretendin' about it. I've got brains enough to keep clear of petticoats. And when you get to be as old as I be and know as much as I do--though that ain't no ways likely, even if you live to be nine hundred and odd, like Noah in Scripture--you'll feel the same way."
"Aw, come off! Woman-hater! You hate women same as the boy at the poorhouse hated ice cream--'cause there ain't none around. Why, I wouldn't trust you as fur as I could see you!"
This was the end of the dialogue, because Mr. Payne was obliged to break off his harangue and dodge the stove-lifter flung at him by the outraged lightkeeper. As the lifter was about to be followed by the teakettle, Ezra took to his heels, bolted from the house and began his long tramp to the village. When he reached the first clumps of bayberry bushes bordering the deeply rutted road, a joyful cloud of mosquitoes rose and settled about him like a fog.
So Seth Atkins was left alone to do double duty at Eastboro Twin-Lights, pending the appointment of another assistant. The two days and nights following Ezra's departure had been strenuous and provoking. Doing all the housework, preparation of meals included, tending both lights, rubbing brass work, sweeping and scouring, sleeping when he could and keeping awake when he must, nobody to talk to, nobody to help--the forty-eight hours of solitude had already convinced Mr. Atkins that the sooner a helper was provided the better. At times he even wished the disrespectful Payne back again, wished that he had soothed instead of irritated the departed one. Then he remembered certain fragments of their last conversation and wished the stove-lifter had been flung with better aim.
Now, standing on the gallery of the south tower, he was conscious of a desire for breakfast. Preparing that meal had been a part of his assistant's duties. Now he must prepare it himself, and he was hungry and sleepy. He mentally vowed that he would no longer delay notifying the authorities of the desertion, and would urge them to hurry in sending some one to fill the vacant place.
Grumbling aloud to himself, he moved around the circle of the gallery toward the door. His hand was on the latch, when, turning, he cast another glance over the rail, this time directly downward toward the beach below. And there he saw something which caused him to forget hunger and grievances of all kinds; something which, after one horrified look to make sure, led him to dart into the light chamber, spring at a reckless gait down the winding stair, out of the tower, rush to the edge of the bluff, and plunge headlong down the zigzag path worn in the clay.
On the sand, at the foot of the bluff below the lights, just beyond reach of the wash of the surf, lay a man, or the dead body of a man, stretched at full length.
