Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian | Page 2

that of a Creole; but, judging from his blue eyes, he did
not belong to a people of the South. His face was somewhat downcast
and sad, but honest. At the first glance he pleased Falconbridge. It
remained only to examine him. Therefore the following conversation
began:
"Where are you from?"
"I am a Pole."
"Where have you worked up to this time?"
"In one place and another."
"A light-house keeper should like to stay in one place."
"I need rest."
"Have you served? Have you testimonials of honorable government
service?"
The old man drew from his bosom a piece of faded silk resembling a
strip of an old flag, unwound it, and said:

"Here are the testimonials. I received this cross in 1830. This second
one is Spanish from the Carlist War; the third is the French legion; the
fourth I received in Hungary. Afterward I fought in the States against
the South; there they do not give crosses."
Falconbridge took the paper and began to read.
"H'm! Skavinski? Is that your name? H'm! Two flags captured in a
bayonet attack. You were a gallant soldier."
"I am able to be a conscientious light-house keeper."
"It is necessary to ascend the tower a number of times daily. Have you
sound legs?"
"I crossed the plains on foot." (The immense steppes between the East
and California are called "the plains.")
"Do you know sea service?"
"I served three years on a whaler."
"You have tried various occupations."
"The only one I have not known is quiet."
"Why is that?"
The old man shrugged his shoulders. "Such is my fate."
"Still you seem to me too old for a light-house keeper."
"Sir," exclaimed the candidate suddenly in a voice of emotion, "I am
greatly wearied, knocked about. I have passed through much as you see.
This place is one of those which I have wished for most ardently. I am
old, I need rest. I need to say to myself, 'Here you will remain; this is
your port.' Ah, sir, this depends now on you alone. Another time
perhaps such a place will not offer itself. 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. If you wish to make an old man happy-
-I swear to you that I am honest, but--I have enough of wandering."
The blue eyes of the old man expressed such earnest entreaty that
Falconbridge, who had a good, simple heart, was touched.
"Well," said he, "I take you. You are light-house keeper."
The old man's face gleamed with inexpressible joy.
"I thank you."
"Can you go to the tower to-day?"
"I can."
"Then good-bye. Another word,--for any failure in service you will be
dismissed."
"All right."
That same evening, when the sun had descended on the other side of
the isthmus, and a day of sunshine was followed by a night without
twilight, the new keeper was in his place evidently, for the light-house
was casting its bright rays on the water as usual. The night was
perfectly calm, silent, genuinely tropical, filled with a transparent haze,
forming around the moon a great colored rainbow with soft, unbroken
edges; the sea was moving only because the tide raised it. Skavinski on
the balcony seemed from below like a small black point. He tried to
collect his thoughts and take in his new position; but his mind was too
much under pressure to move with regularity. He felt somewhat as a
hunted beast feels when at last it has found refuge from pursuit on
some inaccessible rock or in a cave. There had come to him, finally, an
hour of quiet; the feeling of safety filled his soul with a certain
unspeakable bliss. Now on that rock he can simply laugh at his
previous wanderings, his misfortunes and failures. He was in truth like
a ship whose masts, ropes, and sails had been broken and rent by a
tempest, and cast from the clouds to the bottom of the sea,--a ship on

which the tempest had hurled waves and spat foam, but which still
wound its way to the harbor. The pictures of that storm passed quickly
through his mind as he compared it with the calm future now beginning.
A part of his wonderful adventures he had related to Falconbridge; he
had not mentioned, however, thousands of other incidents. It had been
his misfortune that as often as he pitched his tent and fixed his fireplace
to settle down permanently, some wind tore out the stakes of his tent,
whirled away the fire, and bore him on toward destruction. Looking
now from the balcony of the tower at the illuminated waves, he
remembered everything through which he had