As they always say in these things, it was a dark and stormy night. The man worked diligently trying to keep the beam of the lighthouse as bright as possible. As he was heading downstairs after making adjustments to the lens, he heard a banging sound coming from one of the shutters. He simply assumed that it had come open from the wind, a thing which happened from time to time.

He ambled toward the noise, thinking of tools he might employ to keep this from happening again. He stopped by the little niche in the stairway where he kept his tools and put a hammer , some nails, and a chisel in a small canvas bag. As he reached the ground floor near the shutter, he noticed a rank, fetid odor and heard a half stifled bellow as one of the pirates hit him with a club right on the side of his head near his right eye. He fell with a sickening thud.

Much later in the night, in the dark , dark hours when all was still, he awoke. More precisely the cold drops of sluggish rain water coming through the open window brought him to his senses. He was in terrible pain. His right eye was shut with blood and the thin bones on the side of his face were crushed. He was naked, having been stripped by the convicts the canvas bag with the hammer had rolled into a corner when it fell from his stunned grip.

He could hear them cursing and arguing in the kitchen down the hall. They were angry at the sad condition of the provisions. Finally, the leader said "We'll have that dead bugger by the stairs". There awoke in the man a primal force, an anger so profound and strong that all the sunday school lessonss and nursery rhymes about forgiveness and kindness could not hold it back. He burst into the room, with his hammer in one hand and his chisel in the other. He let out a horrible scream as he crushed in the skull of the nearest intruder with his hammer. He stabbed the second one as the pirate tried to lift himself out of a chair. Blood spattered in huge stripes and the chisel broke off its handle lodging itself in the mans chest. One pirate had managed to pull a knife out of his belt, but it did him no good. He was felled by the thrown hammer. The last pirate fled into the night where he clawed his way into the small lighthouse boat and blindly rowed out into the dark sea as far away from the light as he could.

The man heard a shuffling noise as the wounded pirate was getting up with his knife. He turned and jumped on him. The pirate's will to live was strong and his feet drummed hard on the floor as he was held down and strangled. The pirates knife hand was firmly pressed against the floor with one grimy knee. Blood from the lighthouse keeper's red, raw eye socket spattered on the pirates face as was slowly choked to death.