Cudjoe protested with all his might against the boys risking their lives in the storm and darkness, but it did no good. They sent him for the lantern and tied it to a corner post of the piazza, explaining to him the importance of keeping it burning at all hazards. "After all, it's not going to be as bad out on the water as it looks," Nick suggested, while they were making ready. "The wind has gone down a great deal since the first blast, and these heavy rains keep the sea down. Darkness always makes things seem worse than they are, too." Rex was very thoughtful and quiet, now that the surprise was past, and had little to say. He knew the danger of trying to make a landing against the exposed light-house in the midst of a storm. But just before they set out for the beach he said to Cudjoe: "Cudjoe, if my father gets safely back while we are gone, I want you to tell him that we went out to the light-house because we thought it our duty to go. We are not going to make such a trip for sport." It was work for men, and good sailormen too, going out in a sharpie to find a dark light-house on such a night. The wind was dead against them, and they had to beat out, and the rain was still falling in torrents. Rex took the tiller and handled the sheets, and it was as much as Nick could do to keep the boat clear of water. The little _Dolphin_ seemed to feel that many lives might depend upon her performance that night. Rex declared than she never rode the seas so well before, nor answered her helm so quickly. She was soon out far enough to be near the light-house, and the boys almost held their breaths; for the iron columns of the light-house rise directly out of the water, and in the darkness they might strike one of them at any moment. Keeping a lookout was useless, for they could not see two feet before the bow. "If only a good flash of lightning would come!" Rex exclaimed; "then we could see something. But there hasn't been a flash since the storm first broke." As if in answer to his wish there came a flash at that moment that illuminated the whole heavens. [Illustration: "THERE SHE IS," BOTH BOYS CRIED.] "There she is!" both boys cried. In that second of glare they both saw the great light-house looming up hardly a quarter of a mile in front of them. "That's one point settled!" Nick declared, with a sigh of relief. "The light-house is all right, anyhow. So the trouble must be either with the keepers or the lantern." From that moment the skies seemed to favor their work. Every few seconds the lightning flashed, and before many minutes they ran up safely to the lee side of the light-house and made the sharpie fast to a round of the perpendicular iron ladder that runs down into the water. They had been there before, and knew just what to look for: first four or five rounds of the iron ladder leading to a little iron platform, and from there a steep iron stairway leading to the deck, twenty feet above, on which the keeper's house stands.