to see what it looked like over the water. But that, she decided, was not quite what a lighthouse-keeper would do. He might be carried away by an ocean current, and then when the light burnt out there would be no one to put more oil in, and some great ship might run on the reef in the dark.
Before it was too dark to see what she was doing without a torch, Titty took one of the candle lanterns and hooked it up on the nail on the forked tree. It would be easier to open it and light it up there than to light it and feel round for the nail to hang it on. Then she went back to the camp. “They may be capturing the Amazon at this very minute,” she thought, and found it difficult to keep still. Once or twice she went up to the lookout place to see that the lighthouse lantern was burning properly, though she could see its glimmer through the trees without leaving the camp.
At last she made up her mind that there was really nothing to be done except to wait and to listen for the owl call, which would tell her that the Swallows were back and waiting for her to light the leading lights for them so that they could bring Swallow and Amazon into the harbour. “If only they’ve got her,” she said.
She made up the fire well, with all the sticks pointing to the middle and then covered it with the clods of earth that Susan had left ready. That made things very dark, so she uncovered it again. After all, there was plenty of firewood left from the cargo they had brought to the island two days before. She lit the other candle lantern and tried to read by it, but reading was not easy even with the candle lantern, because of the fire leaping up and flashing shadows across the pages. Then she remembered that there was only a very short piece of candle in the lantern, and it would be wanted at the harbour. She blew it out. She was afraid to lie down on her bed for fear of going to sleep and not hearing the signal when the Swallows came back. So she took both her blankets from the