The Lighthouse, Part VIII (FINAL)

"Lake Michigan" by Joseph Henry Gest (1859-1935), pastel on board, 1930. Private collection.

As my exhaustion mounted, their voices became sweeter in tone to my ear—and I would fain have listened to them, had I not been bound to Candice’s fate as well as to my own. I looked ahead, not with fervent hope, but in the idleness of despair, and blinked against a spot which appeared just then on my vision. The more I blinked, however, the greater the spot grew, til it seemed a bright and shining star of blindness in the dark turmoil of sight. It looked like the light I had often seen on the water, stripped of its veil.

As it grew stronger, the voices cried out in dismay, harsh and repulsive, and I was shocked by terror from my idle dream.

“It’s the light!” Candice cried out, “The light is on in the lighthouse!”