It was pitch-dark, the rain was less heavy, and clouds of fog were drifting in before the wind.  Seth waded on for a short distance, but soon realized that wading would be an impossibility.  Then, as in despair, he was about ready to give up the attempt, a dark object came into view beside him.  It was a dory belonging to one of the lobstermen, which, at the end of its long anchor rope, had swung inshore until it floated almost over the road.  Seth seized it in time to prevent collision with his knees.  The thole pins were in place, and the oars laid lengthwise on its thwarts.  As his hands touched the gunwale a new idea came to him.

He had intended walking the rest of the way to Eastboro, routing out the liveryman and hiring a horse and buggy with which to reach the Lights.  Now he believed chance had offered him an easier and more direct method of travel.  He could row up the Harbor and Slough, land close to where the Daisy M. lay, and walk the rest of the way in a very short time.  He climbed into the dory, pulled up the anchor, and seated himself at the oars.

The bottom of the boat was two inches deep with rain water, and the thwart was dripping and cold.  Seth, being already about as wet as he could be, did not mind this, but pulled with long strokes out into the harbor.  The vague black shadows of the land disappeared, and in a minute he was, so far as his eyes could tell him, afloat on a shoreless sea.  He had no compass, but this did not trouble him.  The wind, he knew, was blowing directly from the direction he wished to go, and he kept the dory’s bow in the teeth of it.  He rowed on and on.  The waves, out here in the deep water, were of good size, and the spray flew as he splashed into them.  He knew that he was likely to get off the course, but the Back Harbor was, except for its upper entrance, landlocked, and he could not go far astray, no matter where he might hit the shore.

The fog clouds, driven by the squalls, drifted by and passed.  At rare intervals the sky was almost clear.  After he had rowed for half an hour and was beginning to think he must be traveling in circles, one of these clear intervals came and, far off to the left and ahead, he saw something which caused him to utter an exclamation of joy.  Two fiery eyes shone through the dark.  The fog shut them in again almost immediately, but that one glance was sufficient to show that all was well at the post he had deserted.  The fiery eyes were the lanterns in the Twin-Lights towers.  John Brown had been equal to the emergency, and the lamps were lighted.

Seth’s anxiety was relieved, but that one glimpse made him even more eager for home.  He rowed on for a short time, and then began edging in toward the invisible left-hand shore.  Judging by the length of time he had been rowing, he must be close to the mouth of the Slough, where, winding through the salt marshes, it emerged into the Back Harbor.