The woman told him, “Pheromones can travel great distances. There’s a female moth, for instance, that sends out just one hundred millionth of a gram—and you can’t get much smaller than that. With it she can excite a billion males a mile away. Another species can reach as far as seventeen miles! Who says we humans are ahead of insects?” It was her way of telling Elizabeth that she understood the embrace she had witnessed. Elizabeth was relieved. The last thing she wanted was unnecessary tension in the lighthouse. The common problem was too pressing, the stakes too high. Right now a love triangle, if there was one, seemed of small importance.

A sharp clanging outside interrupted the group. There was a thumping, clattering, and grinding of heavy metal that shook the building. Through the window there came a whooping and shouting. The alarm in the room turned to quick laughter when they saw it was Russell Homer. He was in his yellow machine of triumph, his great bulldozer chariot, standing jauntily on the seat, waving his hat in circles of victory.

The group hurried out, cheering the man. He lowered the bulldozer scoop with the delicacy of a chef handling a soufflé. “There’s a thousand of your specimens in there!” he crowed.

Inside, Peter Hubbard took over. “What I’m going to do,” he instructed Wanda Lindstrom, “is punch one hole in the cover, so the roaches can get out only one at a time. You hold the trap jars over the hole, tightly.”

“Be careful!” Elizabeth couldn’t help blurting. The image of scuttling insects in the can was nightmarish.

There was a sudden lull in the wind beyond the windows, and the rattling of the giant cockroaches against the can could be plainly heard.

“Can I help?” Johnson wanted to know.

“Just stand by,” Hubbard said tensely. “Wanda and I will handle this.”

Before Peter Hubbard could take tools to the project, the roar of a wildly racing automobile stopped him. Brakes shrieked, a car door slammed, the lighthouse door was banged open, and Amos Tarbell pounded into the room. His face was ghostly. His big body was shaking like a boy’s. He didn’t know which of his terrible messages to tell first. “On my radio just now! The Tub is on the rocks! Off Dickens Point. They can’t raise the Coast Guard station in the storm! Call Chatham on the phone!” The man’s heavy voice broke. The news of the Laidlaws must wait.

Reed Brockshaw, coming in just behind the sheriff, turned to stone. His question was an unbelieving whisper, “The Tub?—The rocks off Dickens Point?”

Amos Tarbell nodded in misery, and turned to Elias Johnson. “Can we use your boat to get over there?”

“Sure! Craig has the Bertram, so we can take the Jessica! What are we waiting for?” The old man was limping to the door.