The Pillar of Light Part 26

"Yes. We'se awful hungry," agreed Mamie. "An' please where's mamma?"

Pyne needed no further explanation. The little ones had lost their mother; her disfigured body, broken out of all recognition, was tossing about somewhere in the under-currents of the Channel. None of the women dared to tell the children the truth, and it was a heartrending task to deny them food.

So, they were permitted to leave their refuge, with the kindly belief that they would come to no harm and perchance obtain a further supply from one of those sweet-faced girls who explained so gently that the rations must run short for the common good.

Pyne glanced up at the lantern. Outside he could see Brand hauling down the signal. He sprang to the tray and secured his half biscuit and tea cup.

"Come along, Elsie," he said, crooking his left arm for her. "Follow close, Mamie. Mind you don't fall."

"Your mamma is asleep," he a.s.sured them in a whisper on the next landing. "She just can't be woke up for quite a long time."

Then he navigated them to the door of the second bedroom, where Mrs.

Taylor was. He broke the hard biscuit in two pieces and gave one to each child.

"Here, Mamie, you carry the cup, and go shares in the tea."

"I don't like tea," protested Mamie. "If I can't have coffee I want some milk."

"Well, now, you wait a little bit, and you'll be tickled to death to see what I'll bring you. But drink the tea. It's good an' hot. Skip inside, both of you."

He held the door partly open and they vanished. He heard Mrs. Taylor say:

"Didn't I tell you those two little dears would do their own business best."

He regained the service-room to find Brand steeping the remains of his biscuit in an almost empty cup. The lighthouse-keeper greeted his young friend with a smile.

"I suppose that you, like the rest of us, never had such an appet.i.te in all your days?" he said.

"Oh, I'm pretty well fixed," said Pyne, with responsive grin.

"Then you are fortunate. There is usually a wretched little fiend lurking in a man's inner consciousness which prompts him to desire the unattainable. Now, I am a poor eater as a rule, yet this morning I feel I could tackle the toughest steak ever cut off a superannuated cow."

"I don't deny," admitted Pyne, "that the idea of a steak sounds good.

That is, you know," he went on languidly, "it might sort of appeal to me about one o'clock."

"I should have thought you could do with one now, especially after the hard night we have gone through. Perhaps you are a believer in the French system, and prefer a light breakfast."

Brand finished the last morsel of biscuit and drank the cup dry.

"It's a first-rate proposition--when you are accustomed to it," said Pyne. "But talking about eating when there's little to eat is a poor business, anyway. Don't you find that?"

"I do indeed."

Brand rose and tapped the barometer, adjusting the sliding scale to read the tenths.

"Slightly better," he announced. "If only the wind would go down, or even change to the norrard!"

"What good would a change of wind do?" inquired Pyne, greatly relieved himself by the change of topic.

"It would beat down the sea to some extent and then they might be able to drift a buoy, with a rope attached, close enough to the rock at low tide to enable us to reach it with a cast of a grappling iron."

"Do you mean that we could be ferried to the steamer by that means?"

"That is absolutely out of the question until the weather moderates to a far greater extent than I dare hope at present. But, once we had the line, we could rig up a running tackle and obtain some stores."

"Is it as bad as all that?" said the younger man, after a pause.

They looked at each other. The knowledge that all true men have of their kind leaped from eye to eye.

"Quite that bad," answered Brand.

Pyne moistened his lips. He produced a case containing two cigars. He held it out.

"Let us go shares in consolation," he said.

Brand accepted the gift, and affected a livelier mood.

"By lucky chance I have an ample supply of tobacco. It will keep the men quiet," he said. "By the way," and he lifted a quick glance at Pyne, "do you know anything about chemistry?"

"Well--er--I went through a course at Yale."

"Can colza oil be converted into a food."

"It contains certain fats," admitted Pyne, taking dubious stock of the question.

"But the process of conversion, the chemical reaction, that is the difficulty."

"Bi-sulphide of carbon is a solvent, and the fatty acids of most vegetable oils can be isolated by treatment with steam super-heated to about 600 Fahrenheit."

Brand threw out his hands with a little gesture of helplessness; just then Constance appeared.

"Dad," she cried, "did not Mr. Pyne tell you of my threat?"

"No, dear one. I am not living in terror of you, to my knowledge."

"You must please go to sleep, both of you, at least until ten or eleven o'clock. Mr. Emmett is sending a man to keep watch here. He will not disturb you. He is bringing some rugs and pillows which you can arrange on the floor. I have collected them for your special benefit."

"At this hour! Impossible, Connie."

"But it is not impossible, and this is the best hour available. You know quite well that the _Falcon_ will return at high water. And you must rest, you know."

She bustled about, with the busy air of a house-wife who understood the whole art of looking after her family. But something puzzled her.

"Mr. Pyne," she inquired, "where is your cup?"

"I--er--took it down," he explained.

For some reason, Constance felt instantly that she had turned the tables on him since their last _rencontre_. She did not know why. He looked confused, for one thing: he was not so glib in speech, for another.