She lost sight of the other leading light. Then she saw it again, and then a lantern flickered through the trees, the Amazons coming back to the harbour.
She rested on her oars and drifted, listening, but could hear nothing. Presently she saw another light, much higher up. That was the lighthouse, the lantern still burning high on the tree by the lookout place. She knew that the wind was driving her up the lake, past the island. She pulled hard with her left and brought Amazon ’s head nearer to the wind. Then she rowed steadily.
It was very hard work. She could not keep on rowing like that all night. The best thing she could do would be to anchor in as safe a place as possible. She stopped rowing, pulled her oars in, turned on her torch, and scrambled forward. Yes, there was an anchor in the bows and a lot of rope. She remembered hearing John tell Susan never to let go the anchor without making sure that the end of the anchor rope was made fast. She burrowed down with the torch into the coils of rope. That was all right. The rope was made fast to a ring bolt. She put the anchor where she could easily get at it, and then settled down again to the oars, rowing as hard as she could across and a little into the wind towards the western shore of the lake. She could see nothing now except the light of the lighthouse tree. She did not want to be anchored anywhere near the island when dawn came, because who knew how well these pirates could swim. The other side of the lake would be safe.
Suddenly she heard the splash of water on rocks, quite close to her. It would never do to run Amazon ashore in the dark. She stopped rowing, scrambled forward again, and lowered the anchor over the bows, letting out the rope hand over hand. Down it went, yard after yard. Deep water after all. Then it stopped being heavy. The anchor was on the ground. She let the rest of the rope go. The Amazon drifted back and brought up with a light jerk.