"'Still increasing, it required but a slight increase in the height of the waves, after having reached the deck, to bring it in contact with the main body of the structure. When this took place it is plain to perceive that such a sea, acting upon the surface of the building at the end of a lever fifty or sixty feet long, must be well nigh irresistible, and I doubt not that the light-house was thus destroyed.' "So you see, Sonny, carelessness had, 'cordin' to the belief of the Government engineer, a good deal to do with the loss of the light," Captain Eph said as he came to an end of the reading. "Was that the only light-house ever destroyed in a storm, Captain Eph?" "Bless you, no, Sonny. There was the Eddystone, off Plymouth, England. It was a fanciful sort of a thing, an' disappeared during a hurricane in the year 1703. The tower was rebuilt, an' in 1755 was burned, because there was a good deal of wood-work inside, which you won't find in light-houses built nowadays. That makes up the list of coast lights that have been destroyed, so you see we needn't bother our heads about anything of the kind happenin' here, for Carys' Ledge Light has stood against many a worse gale than this." "But it shakes as if it was going over," Sidney persisted, and Captain Eph replied with a laugh: "This 'ere tremble ain't anything compared with what I have felt, an' it'll be worse as the sea gets wilder, for--" The old keeper did not finish his remark, for at that moment Mr. Peters' head appeared through the trap door, as he said sharply: "It strikes me that a man of your age, Cap'n Eph, could be in better business than tellin' stories about light-houses that have been carried away, to a lad who's gettin' his first taste of a storm in a place like this! I wouldn't have thanked anybody for spinnin' sich yarns the first year I came on this ledge. We didn't have a heavy sea in all that time but I expected the tower would go, an' when a nor'easter struck us, I allowed there wasn't any show of savin' our lives." "I was only tellin' Sonny of the Eddystone an' Minot's, to prove that a light-house what's been properly built don't go under in any kind of a gale," Captain Eph replied, much as if apologizing for what he had said. "I'd like to know what you're out'er bed for, Sammy Peters. It can't be more'n half an hour since you turned in." "I haven't been asleep anyway," Mr. Peters grumbled, "an' the reason for it is that I can't help thinkin' we might do somethin' to put the motor boat in better shape. It stands to reason there'll be a heavy sea runnin' by sunrise, in which case there won't be much chance of savin' her." "I don't know what we can do, Sammy, unless we should turn out the dory, an' put her inter the boat-house, which couldn't be thought of for a minute because it's clean agin the rules an' regerlations."