Another word: for any failure in service you will be dismissed.' The old man's face gleamed with inexpressible joy. The blue eyes of the old man expressed such earnest entreaty that Falconbridge, who had a good, simple heart, was touched. If you wish to make an old man happy - I swear to you that I am honest, but - I have enough of wandering.' What luck that I was in Panama! I entreat you - as God is dear to me, I am like a ship which if it misses the harbor will be lost.

Another time perhaps such a place will not offer itself. I need to say to myself, 'Here you will remain this is your port.' Ah, sir, this depends now on you alone. This place is one of those which I have wished for most ardently.

'Sir,' exclaimed the candidate suddenly in a voice of emotion, 'I am greatly wearied, knocked about. 'Still you seem to me too old for a lighthouse keeper.' 'The only one I have not known is quiet.' 'I crossed the plains on foot.' (The immense steppes between the East and California are called 'the plains.') 'It is necessary to ascend the tower a number of times daily. 'I am able to be a conscientious lighthouse keeper.' 'H'm! Skavinski? Is that your name? H'm! Two flags captured in a bayonet attack. Afterward I fought in the States against the South there they do not give crosses.'įalconbridge took the paper and began to read. This second one is Spanish from the Carlist War the third is the French legion the fourth I received in Hungary. The old man drew from his bosom a piece of faded silk resembling a strip of an old flag, unwound it, and said: 'Have you served? Have you testimonials of honorable government service?' 'A lighthouse keeper should like to stay in one place.' Therefore the following conversation began: At the first glance he pleased Falconbridge. His face was somewhat downcast and sad, but honest. His hair was perfectly white, his face as dark as that of a Creole but, judging from his blue eyes, he did not belong to a people of the South. He was a man already old, seventy years or more, but fresh, erect, with the movements and bearing of a soldier. Isaac Falconbridge was in no small anxiety as to where he should find a permanent successor to the recent keeper and it is easy to understand his joy when a successor announced himself most unexpectedly on that very day. It was not wonderful, therefore, that Mr. In general, it is the life of a monk, and indeed more than that - the life of a hermit. This would be no great labor were it not that to reach the lantern at the summit of the tower he must pass over more than four hundred steep and very high steps sometimes he must make this journey repeatedly during the day. During the day he gives signals by displaying flags of various colors to indicate changes of the barometer in the evening he lights the lantern. The keeper lives in the lighthouse he keeps it in order.

A boat from Aspinwall brings him provisions and water once a day, and returns immediately on the whole island, one acre in area, there is no inhabitant. He cannot leave his rocky island except on Sundays. That lighthouse keeper is almost a prisoner. Life on a tower is uncommonly difficult, and by no means enticing to people of the South, who love idleness and the freedom of a vagrant life. The task of finding a new keeper fell to the United States consul living in Panama, and this task was no small one: first, because it was absolutely necessary to find the man within twelve hours second, the man must be unusually conscientious - it was not possible, of course, to take the first comer at random finally, there was an utter lack of candidates. The only guide at that time for the numerous vessels is the lighthouse. Among these navigation, even in the daytime, is difficult but at night, especially with the fogs which are so frequent on those waters warmed by the sun of the tropics, it is nearly impossible. Mosquito Bay abounds in sandbars and banks. It was necessary to fill this place at the earliest moment possible, since the lighthouse had no small significance for the local movement as well as for vessels going from New York to Panama. The place of lighthouse keeper had become vacant. This supposition seemed the more likely as his boat was not found next day in its rocky niche. Since he disappeared during a storm, it was supposed that the ill-fated man went to the very edge of the small, rocky island on which the lighthouse stood, and was swept out by a wave. On a time it happened that the lighthouse keeper in Aspinwall, not far from Panama, disappeared without a trace. The Lighthouse Keeper, by Henryk Sienkiewicz The Lighthouse Keeper by Henryk Sienkiewicz (1882) Translated by Jeremiah Curtin I

Lighthouse keeper wave photo