Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/33

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FROM THE PERILS OF THE SEA
15

Westward the bay wound inland, toward Tewksville, and Town, and the disturbing Mr. Sinclair, Joan reflected unwillingly. In the opposite direction the space of water widened until the southern shore looked blue and undefined across its expanse, and right before there was nothing but the great and misty reaches of the sea.

The Cap'n jerked a brown thumb toward the point.

"Thar's the Reef," he told Joan; "them's all rocks, jest awash at high tide. Then thar's a piece o' shoal water—sand and such—makin' out aways. It's a bad place fer ships comin' out. The Light ain't so much needed coast-wise as 't is fer the Bay. An' thar 't is now," he added, pointing again.

Joan, who had been gazing resignedly at the slipping shore—a somber mass of rough rock and dark, wind-blown bay-bushes—looked outward as the Cap'n spoke. Just at the end of the point, where the coastline turned to sweep northward, there was a tumble of white water on hidden ledges, and beyond, across a calmer reach, Silver Shoal Light.

The stout whitewashed walls were set upon bare rock, and from the seaward corner of the house a light-tower rose above a steep gray