tumbling waves, changed color, becoming a light gray, then a faint blue,
and, as the red sun rolled up over the edge of the eastern horizon, a
brilliant sapphire, trimmed with a silver white on the shoals and along
the beach at the foot of the bluff.

Seth Atkins, keeper of the Eastboro Twin-Lights, yawned, stretched,
and glanced through the seaward windows of the octagon-shaped,
glass-enclosed room at the top of the north tower, where he had spent
the night just passed. Then he rose from his chair and extinguished the
blaze in the great lantern beside him. Morning had come, the mists had
rolled away, and the dots scattered along the horizon--schooners,
tugs, and coal barges, for the most part--no longer needed the glare
of Eastboro Twin-Lights to warn them against close proximity to
the dangerous, shoal-bordered coast. Incidentally, it was no longer
necessary for Mr. Atkins to remain on watch. He drew the curtains over
the polished glass and brass of the lantern, yawned again, and descended
the winding iron stairs to the door at the foot of the tower, opened it
and emerged into the sandy yard.

Crossing this yard, before the small white house which the government
provided as a dwelling place for its lightkeepers, he opened the door of
the south tower, mounted the stairs there and repeated the extinguishing
process with the other lantern. Before again descending to earth,
however, he stepped out on the iron balcony surrounding the light
chamber and looked about him.

The view, such as it was, was extensive. To the east the open sea,
the wide Atlantic, rolling lazily in the morning light, a faint breeze
rippling the surfaces of the ground-swell. A few sails in sight, far
out. Not a sound except the hiss and splash of the surf, which, because