"You went through the water like a fish!"
"But the sloop went faster. If that breeze hadn't sprung up, I think I could have made it."
"And what are they doing with Inza?"
"I don't know. But I'm glad of one thing. She isn't dead."
"Deaf!" muttered Bart. "Deaf as posts! Well, that does make the thing a bit clearer."
The reaction from the tremendous exertions which Merriwell had put forth made itself felt now. The excitement having passed, he felt almost exhausted. He climbed up as high as he could on the boards, and Bart, who was terribly benumbed and chilled from long exposure to the cold water, held him thus while he rested.
"It was too much for you, old man!" he said consolingly.
"I had to try it!" was Merriwell's answer.
"The fog is shutting down again," said Bart.
"But it won't stay down. The sea looked red out toward the west. I think it will clear away to-night."
He was in no mood to say more. And the raft drifted on, while the gray fog settled round them, and its chill and gloominess seemed to go to their very hearts.
But as Merriwell had predicted, the fog lifted again, and at the end of another hour of an experience as terrible as either had ever been called to undergo, the gray bank again swung up toward the sky. The sun was sinking redly into the sea, and night was at hand—and what night might mean in their weakened and chilled condition, adrift on the great ocean toward which they seemed to be so resistlessly borne, they dared not think.
"The sloop!" Bart cried, rousing himself.
Merriwell lifted himself and looked. It was the sloop, sure enough. A little to the southward of east, with its dingy sails furled and their bulging shapes turned to great lumps of gold, with the mast standing out in dark tracery against the red skyline, lay the fishing-sloop.
"It's the same!" Merry exclaimed.
"Sure! There can't be any doubt about it."
"And she has cast anchor."
"What does that mean?"
"She is a fishing-sloop, and I've an idea we must be on the fishing-grounds off the Jersey or New York coast. There is no other explanation. She is out here on a fishing-trip."
"And Inza?"
"We'll have to wait for her to clear that mystery away."
"What will we do? If those fellows are deaf, there is no use in shouting."
"We are drifting toward her, you see. We'll be alongside before dark, if this continues."
"Then we'll get on board of her!"
"And we'll find out a few things, if we have to knock those fellows on the head."
The thought was so exhilarating that the warm blood was again driven through their veins, and the numbness seemed in a measure to go out of their chilled bodies. Nothing is so reviving as hope. And hope was theirs again. The raft drifted so slowly and Bart was so eager that he wanted to leap into the sea and swim to the vessel.
"Let us save our strength," was Merriwell's advice. "We are going straight there. We will probably need all the strength we have."
"I see only one man. He is pottering about near the cabin."
"The other is aboard somewhere. And you noticed that dog? If he puts up a fight, too, I've an idea that he will be worse than either of the men."
The progress of the little raft was tantalizingly slow, but it moved steadily, and after the sun had set and while the darkness was gathering on that great expanse of water, it swung close in under the stern of the sloop. Not a sound was heard aboard of her as she lazily lifted and rolled on the heaving swell.
Frank took his shoes in one hand, but thought it not well to burden himself with the extra coat.
"Now!" he whispered. "Let the raft go. We can cut that boat loose if we have to trust to the sea again. Follow me!"
Then he slipped silently into the sea, Hodge imitating his example. Softly swimming round to the bow, Frank got hold of a chain that ran down from the bowsprit.
"Here," he softly whispered. "Lay hold of this, and come right up after me."
"I'll be there!" Hodge whispered back.
Then, hampered by the shoes, Merry climbed slowly aboard, and Bart swung up after him. Together they dropped to the deck, and crouched low, with the water running in rivulets from their clothing.
Frank felt softly about, and his hands fell on a club-like maul which fishermen use for stunning the large fish they catch. There was nothing else near in the shape of a weapon. He passed the maul to Bart, and clutched one of the shoes as a club in his right hand.
"Good luck!" he softly whispered. "How are you?"
Hodge was chilled to the bone, and his teeth were fairly chattering.
"I'm all right. A bit chilly, but I guess things will be warm enough for me in a few minutes. I'm ready. Go on!"
A dark form was standing beside the cuddy. But for his certainty that the men were deaf, or nearly so, Merriwell would not have indulged in even this whispered conversation. He crept now toward this man, with Hodge crawling at his heels, and when near enough, leaped on the man with a sudden and disconcerting pounce.
Though the surprise must have been great, the man, who was large and strong, wheeled round to resist the attack, and the large dog, which had before been seen, sprang up from the deck and flew at Merriwell's throat. The ready club in the hands of Bart Hodge tumbled the dog over with a howl, and Merry and the big fisherman began to struggle in the growing darkness for the mastery.
To and fro on the deck they reeled. The dog leaped up again and tried to come to the assistance of its master, but turned upon Hodge when he struck at it again with the maul. Its eyes seemed balls of green fire in the gloom, and the hoarse growl that came from deep down in its throat was anything but pleasant to hear.
But Bart Hodge met its onset with a stout heart, raining his blows with such swiftness and precision that it dropped to the deck. Then he hurried to the assistance of Merriwell. But Frank was already the victor. Though the man had the strength of an ox, he had not Merriwell's science and skill in fighting, and Frank had not only knocked the breath out of him, but had hurled him to the deck.
"That rope, Bart! It is right here. I tripped over it. Tie him!"
A cry followed this—a cry from Inza. She rushed out of the cuddy door, and after her sprang a man with a lighted lantern.
Hodge faced toward this man, intending to fell him with the club.
"Frank! Frank!" Inza cried. "I knew you would come, Frank!"
Then she noticed the uplifted club.
"Don't strike him, Bart!"
She threw herself between Hodge and the man with the lantern. Merriwell was still holding down the man he had conquered.
"What is it?" he questioned, looking up and trying to read Inza's meaning by the light of the lantern.
"The men are deaf!" said Inza. "They rescued me from a piece of boat, to which I clung after the collision!"
The man with the lantern seemed about to spring upon Frank in spite of Hodge's threatening club. Inza touched him on the arm.
"Friends!" she screamed, in an endeavor to make him hear.
The man did not hear Inza, but he felt the touch, and, turning quickly about, caught something of her meaning in her manner. The deaf are wonderfully quick in such things. He made a horrible grimace and pointed at Merriwell. Again she laid a hand restrainingly on his shoulder.
"Let the man up, Frank," she urged. "The fellows are harmless enough, but they are as deaf as adders!"
"Look out for the dog!" Frank warned.
The dog, which had crawled away in a seemingly dying condition, had struggled again to its feet and appeared to be meditating another attack on Hodge.
"I've got an eye on him," Hodge called back. "Look out for your man!"
Merriwell released the fellow he had overthrown, and the man climbed dazedly and sullenly to his feet. Inza hurried toward him, shrieking and making motions with her hands. The man did not understand her. It began to seem that both of them contemplated an attack on Bart and Merry.
"Wait a minute!" she cried. "Don't strike them, Frank, Bart, if you can help it!"
"I think I'm awake," growled Hodge, as if he wanted to pinch himself to make sure of it.
The scene was certainly a strange one—as strange as if taken from a comic opera. The fishing-sloop rocking on the long swell, the dog cowed and uncertain, one deaf man doubtingly flashing the lantern in the face of Bart Hodge, and the other swaying unsteadily on his feet, as if he contemplated making a blind rush at Merriwell. In less than a minute Inza reappeared from the cuddy. She held in her hand a piece of paper on which she had hastily written some explanatory sentences. This she thrust beneath the nose of the man who held the lantern.
The effect was magical. The lantern came down, something that sounded like an attempt at words gurgled in his throat, and he made a signal to the other fisherman, whose attitude also changed instantly.
"It's all right now!" Inza laughed, though the laugh sounded a bit hysterical.
"Well, I'm glad that it is!" said Merriwell. "But an explanation would be comfortable."
"These men rescued me from the piece of broken boat to which I was clinging," Inza hastily explained. "I was knocked overboard by the collision. They are fishermen, and are now anchored on their fishing-grounds."
"So I see. But what about one of them chasing you, when you ran out of the cuddy this afternoon? You tried to jump overboard!"
"The men both thought me deranged by what I had passed through, and I suppose I may have acted strange. I saw you and Bart on the raft, and I tried to make the men see you. But they thought I was going to jump overboard, and I was carried bodily into the cuddy and locked in. I didn't know at the time that they could read writing, or I should have tried that; though I was kept locked in the cuddy so long that it would have done no good!"
Then she began to motion to the men; and one of the fellows came toward Bart in a sheepish way and held out a hand. Bart hesitated about taking it, fearing a trick; but the man's intentions were honest. Having made this advance, the way to an understanding was so fully paved that within less than ten minutes thereafter both Frank and Hodge, having wrung out their clothing in a contracted place below deck, were warming themselves and trying to get dry by the cuddy stove, while Inza was rattling on with the story of her adventures.
"I really don't know yet whether I am awake or dreaming!" said Bart. "This about knocks everything I have ever seen!"
"Just fishermen," said Inza. "They would have picked you up, no doubt, if they had seen you—they couldn't hear you; or if I had been able to make them see you. It must have been an hour or more after that when I found that they had writing-material in the little desk over there, and I wrote them a note. But the fog was so thick then that it was no use for them to make a search."
"Why didn't they run back to New York with you?"
"Simply because they thought they had done their duty by me, and that it would pay them better to come out to the fishing-grounds and take me in on their return. I promised them money, but——"
She laughingly held up a little purse.
"I had just ten cents in that, and you see I couldn't convince them of the fabulous wealth of my father and my friends by exhibiting that. They said they would take me when they went in, and I could not get anything else out of them."
"Perhaps a little money—as much or more than they can make out of this fishing-trip—will induce them to take us right in. That is, as soon as the wind rises. We're not only anchored, but we're becalmed now."
Frank was thinking of Elsie and of the others who had been on theMerry Seas. His heart was aching with anxiety. Bart and Inza were scarcely less distressed.
The cabin or "cuddy," which had been surrendered to them by the fishermen who were now outside, was a diminutive place, smelling unpleasantly of fish and burnt grease. On two sides were bunks. Near the center was the rusty stove about which the three friends were gathered. Its heat caused their wet clothing to emit a cloud of steam. At one side was the writing-desk, fashioned by clumsy hands, and scattered about was a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends, consisting of sea-boots and oilskin coats, nets, and fishing-tackle.
"Not a ladies' parlor," Inza admitted, glancing about "But I tell you I was glad to get into it."
"And you don't know anything about the people on theMerry Seas?" Frank asked.
A look of pain swept across the dark, handsome face.
"Not a thing! I am worried to death about all of them, especially father. But I hope for the best. If any others went overboard, the tug was right there to pick them up, and we can believe, until we know otherwise, that it did. We have been so very fortunate ourselves!"
"More than fortunate!" Merry observed, with a thankful heart. "Now, if we can only get to the city without delay! Call in the fishermen and perhaps an offer of money can do something. If not, we can capture the sloop and take it in ourselves!"
"But there is no breeze," Bart reminded.
"That is so. But call in the fishermen. We may get some opinions out of them."
Jabez and Peleg Slocum, the deaf-mute owners of the fishing-sloopSarah Jane, of Sea Cove, New Jersey, were what one might call "queer ducks"; a thing not so much to be wondered at when the fact that they had been deaf and dumb from infancy is taken into consideration, with the further fact that the greater part of their fifty odd years had been spent in the lonely and precarious calling of Atlantic fishermen. They were rough and gnarled and cross-grained, like the sloop whose deck they trod; yet, in spite of all, like that same sloop, they had some good qualities.
To them fishing was the end and aim of existence. Hence, as soon as Merriwell, with the aid of pencil and paper, began to talk of being taken straight to New York, the fishermen shook their heads. They had work to do out there on the fishing-banks. It was probable they reasoned that it was not their fault that these young people had fallen in their way. They had dutifully rescued them from watery graves—or, in the case of Hodge and Merriwell—had permitted them to rescue themselves. And thus, whatever obligation they may have been under as fellow human beings had been fully discharged. They did not want Merriwell's money—and they certainly did not desire to run to New York. It was not their habit to visit New York. Sea Cove was their home, and, whenever they pulled up their rusty anchor for a run from the banks, they returned to Sea Cove invariably, unless blown out of their latitude by a storm, as sometimes happened.
Finally one of them wrote:
"See in morning."
"And now we'll have something to eat!" Inza declared. "Both of you are famished. You are getting thawed out and dry, and if your stomachs are strong enough to stand the odor of things, I'll go ahead and get some supper for you. I know where everything is in the—what do you call it?—locker? Peleg, that's the taller one, showed me."
"Peleg must be sweet on you," remarked Frank, laughing.
She picked up a "spider" and shook it at him.
"Don't trouble the cook, Mr. Merriwell, if you expect to get anything to eat!"
"I was just going to remark that I admired his taste. He is a man of most excellent judgment!"
"How is your taste, Mr. Hodge?" Inza calmly queried. "Do you think you can eat fish?"
"I could eat a whale. I'll gobble up this fish-basket pretty soon if you don't hurry and serve something."
"Very well. Fish-baskets on toast. There are fish in a box back there. And there are crackers in this box. And over there I found some pretty nice canned goods."
Merriwell smiled. Inza's manner was like a break of sunshine.
"Your talk makes me simply ravenous."
That they were ravenous they showed when they fell to on the supper which Inza prepared as best she could from the materials available. There were many things that might have been improved. They might have gone out on the deck, for one thing, but the wet fog had come down again, with a chill that went to the bones—a chill that was simply horrible to Frank and Bart in the damp condition in which their clothing still remained.
The fishermen did not seem to mind the fog, however, but walked the deck and smoked, garbed in oilskins and sou'westers. They talked, too, by signaling to each other with their hands. Merry, Hodge, and Inza sat up until a late hour, going over and over again all the points of the day's experience, with the many conjectures and unanswerable questions which grew out of it.
The fact that the sloop belonged in Sea Cove, the village near which, according to the newspaper report, Barney Mulloy was killed, was a matter of intense interest, even though the fishermen could in no wise enlighten them on the subject of Barney's murder. Frank continued to hope that a breeze would spring up, and that he could induce the Slocums, by a liberal money offer, to set him and his friends ashore at the nearest point without delay. In the event of a refusal, the temptation to take the vessel in himself would have been strong, but he knew that such a course would hardly do in these modern days. It smacked too much of piracy. Money was the lever he hoped to use, and when the breeze came he intended to make the lever sufficiently strong to move even these placid souls.
But the breeze did not come. The fog seemed to grow thicker and damper. At length weariness overcame the whole party. Then Inza was left in full possession of the cuddy, while Hodge and Frank crept into a narrow sleeping-place forward which Jabez Slocum pointed out to them. As for the fishermen themselves, they seemed content to stretch out under a tarpaulin on deck; and theSarah Jane, with lights set to show her position, though they could not have been seen a dozen feet distant, rocked sleepily in the fog at the end of her cable.
When morning dawned, the fog rolled away under the influence of a brilliant sun, showing an attractive sight. Other fishing-boats, big and little, were rising and falling on the swell. To the northward a steamer, outward bound, trailed from her triple funnels banners of black smoke. From the southward a "fruiter," as the vessels bringing fruit from the West Indies are called, came bravely up the coast. There were other vessels—schooners, barks, sloops, and the coast itself was visible as a blue line. Finally, one of the Slocum brothers came to Merriwell and held out a scrap of paper. Frank glanced at it, and read, in an almost illegible scrawl: "Sea Cove."
"They will take us to Sea Cove!" Inza explained.
"New York City," Merry wrote.
The deaf-mate shook his head and again pointed to the name "Sea Cove."
"What's the odds?" said Bart. "There is a railway there, and no doubt boats running to New York. And then it will give us an opportunity to investigate the murder of poor Barney a little. By to-night we can be in New York, if all goes well!"
"Put us aboard the fruiter or some steamer," Frank again wrote.
But the man shook his head.
"It is Sea Cove or nothing," said Inza. "And he would be glad, I think, to have it nothing."
"Sea Cove it is, then," Frank agreed.
But the promise was productive of no immediate good. There was no breeze, and, as theSarah Janewas on the shallow banks, far out of the route of the steamers, there was nothing to do but to cultivate patience and wait. At Frank's urging, Peleg set a signal from the masthead, but it drew no vessel near them.
The Slocums seemed glad that they were not to be called on to sail at once for land, and they proceeded to get out long hand-lines and fish over the sides of the sloop. Wherever they went they were followed by their dog, that limped from the blows Bart had given it. The dog would not make friends with the newcomers, but showed its teeth in a threatening way whenever Bart or Frank came near. Finally Merriwell and his friends also engaged in the fishing to kill time, and with considerable success. Thus the day wore wearily along until well into the afternoon.
"A breeze!" Frank gleefully exclaimed at last, holding up a hand. "The wind is coming! I feel that if this old boat doesn't get a move on soon, I shall have to jump overboard and swim ashore."
"Well, I should hope you would take me on your back!" Inza observed, her voice thrilled with the thought that the long-expected breeze was actually coming. "I'm as frantic as any one can be to put foot on land and learn what has happened to our friends and to father!"
The Slocums were ready to go home now, and as the breeze rapidly increased in strength and gave evidence of having come to stay, they speedily got theSarah Janeunder way, with the help of Frank and Bart, and stood off for the Jersey shore. Frank was now perfectly willing that they should run to Sea Cove direct, for a little thought and some questions put to the Slocums had shown him that he could reach New York from there by wire, and by rail from a point near-by, and he could take a little time to investigate the Barney Mulloy affair.
"Another calm!" Bart growled, in disgust. Night was approaching, and theSarah Janelay becalmed a mile from shore and nearly ten miles from Sea Cove. The shore, high and sandy, was plainly visible, with pretty cottages among some trees a short distance back from the edge of the water. The Slocums had a good glass, which brought all this out with much distinctness.
"If we could just draw the land near enough with that glass to jump ashore!" Inza sighed.
"I've a plan almost as good," said Frank.
This plan was to have the Slocums set them ashore in the dory. By a little questioning in writing, they learned from the fishermen that the group of cottages was Glen Springs, and that there was a telegraph-office there and a daily visit by a small steamer from New York, but no railway. This increased their anxiety to be set ashore at Glen Springs, for by putting themselves in telegraphic communication with New York they could ascertain without delay of the fate of theMerry Seasand of her passengers.
For a small financial consideration the Slocums were willing to put Merriwell and his friends ashore in the dory; which was done by Peleg, who pulled a good, strong stroke, and sent the clumsy boat through the water at a surprising rate of speed.
"Attack the telegraph-office first," Inza suggested. A telegram to New York brought this answer:
"Merry Seastowed in considerably injured. Missing are Frank Merriwell, Bart Hodge, Inza Burrage. Other passengers landed safely. Bernard Burrage at Hotel Imperial."
"Merry Seastowed in considerably injured. Missing are Frank Merriwell, Bart Hodge, Inza Burrage. Other passengers landed safely. Bernard Burrage at Hotel Imperial."
Bart threw up his cap. Merriwell was writing another message, directed to Bernard Burrage, assuring him of the safety of Inza and asking that this fact and the fact that he and Bart were also safe be communicated at once to their friends at the hotel and elsewhere.
"That will fix things up all right," he remarked, as the operator began to click off the message. "Of course, we can't know all the particulars until later; but it is enough to know that none of our friends are lost, and to be able to let them know that we are all right."
"You bet!" Bart cried. "This is great! I was mighty anxious, I tell you."
"And I was simply crazy!" Inza exclaimed.
The relief to their feelings was so great that the hardships of their recent experience seemed to be at once forgotten, and they became almost happy. They could not be quite happy, for the news of the murder of Barney Mulloy still cast its shadow.
"When does the next boat leave for New York?" Frank asked of the operator.
"To-morrow noon."
"We can drive through to Sea Cove?"
"Yes."
"And when does a train leave Sea Cove?"
"To-morrow at six-forty-five and ten-thirty."
As they were very tired, it was decided, therefore, that they would remain in Glen Springs until early the next morning, when they would drive to Sea Cove, make inquiries there about Barney, and take the ten-thirty train. The hotel at Glen Springs was small, but it looked clean and inviting.
"What do you know about the murder of a young Irishman named Barney Mulloy, by tramps near Sea Cove, day before yesterday?" Merry inquired.
"Only what the papers said," was the operator's answer.
"And no one else in the village can tell us?"
"I think not."
The hotel was in the suburbs, having a view of the sea, and was really a summer hotel more than anything else. It had very few guests as yet. From it a number of messages were sent to New York and received from there by our friends that evening—messages from Elsie and Mr. Burrage, and from other members of the party that had been on theMerry Seas.
Though fairly tired out by his exhausting experiences, from which the long hours on the fishing-sloop had not enabled him to recuperate, Frank Merriwell was not able to sleep until a late hour. His thoughts were of Barney Mulloy. In memory he traveled the round of the Fardale days. The death of Mulloy in that terrible manner had upset him more than he had realized. He had not felt it so much during his exciting experiences and while weighted down with anxiety concerning the fate of theMerry Seas.
"I just can't sleep!" he muttered, seating himself at last by a window and looking out toward the sea, along a greensward on which the moonlight fell lovingly. "Poor Barney! Perhaps I ought to have gone on to Sea Cove and begun my investigations at once. But Inza was so tired. She has held up bravely, dear girl, through it all, but this evening she looked ready to drop. I felt that we ought not to go on until she was rested. She will sleep well now, since she knows that her father is safe."
Something dark moved among the shadows, and a familiar form approached. Merriwell started up with a low cry:
"Barney Mulloy!"
He saw the young Irishman as plainly as he had ever seen him. The face, though, was white and bloodless. The ghostly figure moved with a heavy step, coming straight up the walk toward the building. Frank sat rooted to his chair. In the shadow of the piazza the figure seemed to turn, and was then lost to view. Merriwell threw up the window.
"Barney!" he softly called. "Barney—Barney Mulloy!"
The only answer that came back was a slow and heavy tread, that seemed to come from a corridor opening out upon the walk along which Barney had come.
Tramp, tramp, tramp!
The footsteps sounded with great distinctness. Merriwell threw open the door of his room leading out into this corridor. The light of the lamp flooded the corridor, and he was able to view it from end to end. He could have sworn that the footsteps were just beyond his door. But the corridor was absolutely empty. And the footsteps had ceased.
Frank whistled softly to himself. He was not superstitious, but this was rather shaking to the nerves. He hurried back to the window and looked out upon the walk and down the moon-lighted sward. No sound came, save the dashing of the surf. He leaped through the open window and proceeded to inspect the grounds in that vicinity. The ghostly form had vanished.
"Hodge!" he called. "Hodge! Come out here."
Hodge, who occupied an adjacent room, and who had been asleep, threw up a window and looked out.
"Yes," he said. "As soon as I can slip into my clothes. What is it, Merry?"
"I don't know," Frank confessed. "I wish I did know."
"Of course, there are no such things as ghosts," he declared, when Bart joined him. "But if ever a man saw one, I did just now—the ghost of Barney Mulloy!"
Hodge stared at his friend as if wondering if Frank's mind was not affected.
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I have said to you. I saw an apparition that resembled Barney Mulloy. And I not only saw it, but I heard it. It came right along here, and turned in there, and then I heard it in the corridor. I threw open the corridor door before any one could have got out of there, and the corridor was empty!"
"You must have been dreaming!"
"Not a bit of it, Bart. I hadn't gone to bed. I haven't been even a bit sleepy. I was sitting at my window, and I saw it as plainly as I see you."
"You certainly must have been dreaming, Merry!" Bart insisted. "Have you looked all about?"
"Everywhere."
Bart walked over to the door which opened from the corridor on the lawn. It was not locked.
"It couldn't have been Barney, of course; but whoever it was went through here into the corridor."
"And how did he get out of the corridor?"
"Walked on through into the office."
"The office is closed. The landlord and all the servants retired long ago."
"Well, it couldn't have been a ghost!"
"I am wondering if it could have been Barney himself?"
"He was—attacked near Sea Cove, not here!"
"I am going to rout out the landlord," Merriwell declared. "Perhaps he can throw some light on the subject."
"He told you, when you inquired, that he had heard nothing except what was in the papers."
"But he may be able to help us to clear away this mystery."
When summoned, the landlord came down into the little office looking very sleepy, very stupid, and somewhat angry. Merriwell told what he had seen and heard, and repeated the newspaper story about the murder of Barney.
"Well, that was at Sea Cove," was the answer. "Ghosts always come back to the place where the person was killed. Why should it come here? I don't like this. If you tell it, it will give my house a bad name. No one wants to board in a haunted house, and it will ruin my summer's business."
"But I thought you might help us to an explanation," Frank insisted.
The sleepy and stupid look had passed away. The landlord had once been a seafaring man, and he was a bit superstitious. Still, he was not willing to acknowledge that Frank had beheld something supernatural. He would not deny its possibility, but repeated over and over his belief that ghosts always return to the place of the murder and to no other place, and that the repetition of the story would drive away his summer boarders.
"I tell him he was just dreaming," said Bart.
"Sure!" with a look of relief. "Of course, he was dreaming. There's been nobody in Glen Springs looking like the chap you describe, and I'm sure that nobody has been walking in that corridor, 'less it was burglars."
So Frank went back to his room, accompanied by Bart. He knew that he had not been asleep, though, and he felt sure that he had really seen and heard something, and was not the victim of a hallucination. Merriwell sat down again by the open window, and Bart dropped into a chair by his side.
"If the thing comes again, we'll capture it!" said Hodge. "Somebody may be playing ghost, just to scare us. I have heard——"
He did not complete the sentence, for he really heard something at the moment that stilled the words on his lips and drove the blood out of his face.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp!
The sounds came unmistakably from the corridor.
"There it is again!" Frank exclaimed.
Bart leaped toward the door and quickly threw it open. The lamplight again streamed out into the corridor. But the sounds had ceased, and the corridor was empty. Hodge stared down the corridor in stupid bewilderment.
"Of all the strange things!" he gasped.
"That is the strangest!" Merriwell added. "You heard it for yourself then!"
Bart walked out into the corridor, peered out of doors through the glass set in the side door, and opened the door leading into the deserted office. There was nothing to be seen. When he came back, his face was beaded with moisture.
"Merry, I wish you'd tell me the meaning of that!"
"I wish you would tell me, Bart! You thought I was dreaming, or fancied that I saw and heard something. You see now that you were mistaken."
"Unless I am dreaming myself!"
"You are perfectly wide-awake, Hodge, and so am I! There is a mystery here."
"Never knew anything like it," mopping his face. "Whew! It brings the cold sweat out on me!"
He dropped down into the chair by the window, leaving the corridor door open. Nothing further was heard.
"Ghosts don't like a bright light!" Merry reminded, smiling grimly. Bart got up, closed the door, and sat down again.
Then his hair seemed to stand upright on his head. Out of the shadow of the building, near one of the angles, walked the ghostly form which Merriwell had beheld. Hodge was unable to speak at first. Merry noticed his manner and the look in his staring eyes, and sprang to the window. As he did so, the ghostly form vanished into the shadow, and again those steps were heard in the corridor.
"If Barney is dead, that was his spirit, sure enough!" Hodge whispered, in an awed way.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp!
The steps echoed in the corridor. Even Merriwell's stout heart was assailed by a feeling that was like superstitious dread.
"It looked just like him!"
"The very picture of him, only white-faced, as if he had just come out of the grave!"
Tramp, tramp, tramp! sounded the steps in the corridor.
"Open the door, Merry, for God's sake!" Hodge gasped, as if the words choked him. "See if there isn't something in the corridor! There must be!"
Merriwell stepped to the door and flung it open. Instantly the sounds ceased.
"Somebody is playing a joke on us, I believe!" Bart declared, and anger came to drive out the superstitious feeling that had shaken him. "I'm going to take a look round the house myself, and if I find anybody——"
"I'll go with you!" Merry exclaimed, and both leaped through the open window.
They circled round the house, looked down the paths and out over the sward on which the moonlight fell, but not a form could they see.
"Give it up!" Hodge admitted. "I don't know what to think."
They came back to the window, and again they heard the footsteps in the corridor. Hodge went through the window at a flying leap and hurled open the corridor door, only to again find silence and blankness.
"The place is haunted!" he exclaimed.
"But there are no such things as ghosts!"
"I know it. Of course, there can't be—that's what I have always believed. I have always fancied that stories of ghosts were lies and foolishness, and I'm not ready to back water on that belief. But I can't understand this business."
"Nor I."
"Shall we call the landlord again?"
"What good will it do?"
"Shall we wake Inza?"
"And rob her of her rest and fill her with anxiety? No, let her sleep. She needs it."
"Well, I shall not be able to sleep any more to-night."
"And it looked just like Barney!" Frank declared.
"His very image!"
Both Merriwell and Hodge were so sure they had seen something that they again let themselves out through the window and made a search of the grounds. The result was the same. Not a moving form was to be seen. But as they returned toward the room, they once more heard those mysterious footsteps.
"Stop!"
Frank laid a hand on Bart's arm, and both stood still and listened.
"Where does that seem to be?"
"Merry, that's coming from your room! The thing is in your room!"
Hodge's voice shook, in spite of himself.
Frank dashed toward the open window. But before he could reach it, the sounds ceased. When he looked in, the room was empty. The light was shining, and the door leading to the corridor was closed.
"No one could have got out of that room without our knowing it!" Merriwell whispered. Hodge had reached his side, and both were staring into the room.
"Of course not. The thing is impossible."
"And yet those footsteps sounded right here."
"Let's go in and take another look into the corridor."
For answer Merry drew Bart back into the shadows by the window.
"Keep still right here a little while. Perhaps the—the thing will return. If some one is playing us a trick, we may capture him."
"I should like to lay my hands on the villain!" Bart hissed. Though they stood there in utter silence for five minutes, the sounds did not come again.
"Of course, there is some rational explanation of this," Merriwell declared, as they again approached the window. "There must be! It is the wildest nonsense to think otherwise."
"Well, I wish that rational explanation would hurry this way. I'm ready for it, old man! This thing is shaking my nerves all to pieces."
"I didn't know you were troubled with nerves! Nerves are for hysterical girls and old women!"
"Well, I've got 'em now! as the drunken man said when he began to see snakes. I haven't any doubt about it."
Hodge so seldom indulged in a joke, that Merry looked surprised. They had reentered the room, and he glanced at his friend in wonder.
"Likely that—thing will begin to walk again pretty soon," said Frank, after they had remained another minute or so in a listening attitude. "You sit here and watch by this window, while I slip into the corridor."
Hodge obediently dropped into the chair, and Merriwell let himself into the corridor. He closed the door after him, so that if any one approached or entered the corridor that person could not see him, and began his vigil.
The silence was so great that he could hear his watch ticking away in his pocket. It seemed strange that it should run after its salt-water ducking, but he reasoned that probably the works were not touched by the salt water. His clothing had dried long ago, but he felt the need of a change. However, he had taken a bath since reaching the hotel, and so was in a measure comfortable.
There was a great deal to think of as he stood there in the gloom, but the minutes dragged along like weeks. This sort of vigil was rather nerve-trying. He was sure, now that he had time to think about it, that some very little thing might account for the mystery. He began to think that the footsteps had probably been made by some servant or by a somnambulist. Sounds are very deceptive as to direction, as he more than once had discovered. The footsteps might have been at some distance from the corridor.
"But that doesn't explain what I saw and what Bart saw!" he muttered. "I might have thought my eyes deceived me, but Bart saw it, too. That was either Barney Mulloy, or some one who looks marvelously like him. If it was really Barney, then the poor fellow is not dead! I sincerely hope we shall find out that he was not killed. Perhaps the entire newspaper report was based on a mistake. The papers are full of errors."
The sounds did not come again, and when it seemed almost useless to wait longer for them, he returned to the room, where he found Bart watching silently by the window.
"Seen anything?" he asked.
"No. Heard anything?"
"Not a thing."
"I didn't suppose you had, or I should have heard it, too."
"It will probably not reappear to-night."
"Well, I'm not in love with ghosts, but I have been wild to have the thing pass along that walk again. It wouldn't get away from me this time! I've planned just what to do."
"What?"
"I can reach that walk in three jumps from this window, and it would take a lively ghost to get away from me. I was going right out there the first glimpse I got of it."
"Then you're not afraid of ghosts?" laughed Frank, for there was something amusing in his companion's manner.
"I might be, Merry, if there were any. But I've been thinking as I sat here. I know I saw something, and that something was a man. He didn't look so strong but that I could tumble him over easy enough. That was my plan, and then we could see who it is. It couldn't have been Barney, for all it looked so much like him."
As he spoke, he saw the ghostly figure again, but much farther away. Its face was turned toward the window, and the moonlight revealed it plainly. Beyond all question, it was the face of Barney Mulloy!
Bart went through the open window at a bound.
"Barney!" he called. "Barney Mulloy!"
The mysterious figure drew quickly back into the shrubbery and disappeared. Merriwell sprang through the open window after Hodge, and together they raced to the point where the figure had been seen. When they got there they could discover nothing.
"That was Barney Mulloy!" Merriwell asserted.
"Sure!"
"And he isn't dead!"
"Barney or his spirit!"
"It was Barney."
"Why didn't he stop when I called to him?"
"I don't know. There is a mystery here."
"Biggest one I ever struck, Merry! It knocks me silly."
The time was well on toward morning before Merriwell and Hodge turned in to try to get some sleep. No more mysterious sounds or ghostly appearances had been heard or seen. The sun was scarcely up when they were aroused by a trampling of feet and the sounds of well-known voices in the corridor. A rap fell on Merry's door.
"Arise, ye sleepers, and wake—I mean, awake, ye sleepers, and rise!" shouted Harry Rattleton.
"Come out here and let me pull you out of bed!" grunted Bruce Browning.
"He is sleeping like the sleeper in the sleeper which runs over the sleeper and does not awaken the sleeper in the sleeper which——"
"You give us that sleepy feeling yourself, Danny!" Bink Stubbs grumbled.
Merry tumbled out of bed, unlocked the door, and thrust his head into the corridor. Before him were Bruce and Diamond, Rattleton and Dismal Jones, Bink and Danny, and through the half-open door leading into the office he also caught a glimpse of Elsie Bellwood and Bernard Burrage.
"Glad to see you!" he cried. "Where did you tumble from?"
Bart had his door open now, and began to ask questions.
"I'll be out in a minute," Frank promised, and began to dress with the speed of a lightning-change artist. A little later Merriwell's entire party gathered in the hotel office, for Inza had been awakened and joined them.
Mutual explanations flew thick and fast. Merriwell's friends, after being taken to New York, had shortly fallen in with a party of Yale students, mostly seniors, who had come down from New Haven on the steamerRichard Peck, and were on their way to view the new government fortifications at Sandy Hook, by special permission of General Merritt, commander of the Department of the East. This permission had been obtained by Lieutenant Andrew Bell, of the First United States Artillery, who had recently been detailed by the secretary of war as professor of military science in Yale College.
Merriwell's friends had been invited to join this company of students, that they might the more quickly reach their friends, and had been brought to Sandy Hook by the government steamerGeneral Meigs. From Sandy Hook the steamer's large steam-launch had hurried them on to Glen Springs.
"And now you are going right back with us to Sandy Hook!" Elsie enthusiastically exclaimed.
Suddenly a silence fell on the jolly party, occasioned by the shadow that came over the face of Frank Merriwell.
"I can't go until we have settled the mystery of Barney Mulloy," he declared; and then gave a hurried account of what he and Bart had seen and heard.
"I hoped you wouldn't say nothin' about that!" grumbled the landlord, who had been until then an interested listener.
Up to that moment he had seemed pleased, though nervous, for it gratified him to have guests who were of sufficient importance to be brought to Glen Springs by the launch of a government steamer.
"This must be all nonsense, you know!" he declared. "And I can't have any such reports go out about my house. If it gits the reputation of being ha'nted, then good-by business. I won't have a guest set foot in the doorway all summer. I know these people who claim not to be superstitious. They ain't superstitious so long as other people sees things, but they git confoundedly so soon's they begin to see things themselves."
"You have seen things at sea that puzzled you?" Merry asked, knowing that he was making a center shot.
"Who said that I'd ever been to sea? And s'pose I have? I ain't worried people to death about it and broke up another man's business. There ain't a thing in this. This ain't out at sea, ye know!"
The landlord seemed to have the peculiar feeling that only ghosts that sailed or walked the briny deep were worthy of consideration.
"Explain it, then!" Merriwell demanded. "You can make us feel that nothing strange happened last night if you will explain the thing."
"You was just dopey!" the captain argued. "Your nerves was shook up from bein' in the water so long, and the skeer of the collision."
Though there seemed no use to make an investigation, Merriwell began one immediately. He felt sure that Barney Mulloy was somewhere in Glen Springs.
"I know that I saw him!" was his persistent declaration.
"And heard him walk!" added Hodge. "I can swear to it."
"Yes. And though the thing is so strange, it makes me feel better, for I am sure now that Barney is not dead."
"But he looked like a ghost!" Bart admitted. "I'm with you, though, to the end in this thing. We'll go to the bottom of it."
Questioning the people of the village yielded no better results. Everybody agreed that no person answering to the description of Barney Mulloy had been in Glen Springs. Some of them were even more nervous and indignant than the landlord, for almost the sole remunerative business of these people was the keeping of summer boarders, and they feared that gruesome reports about the place would drive guests away.
"Mr. Hodge and I are coming back here to-night," Merriwell said to the landlord. "Perhaps we shall bring some of these friends with us. It seems useless to continue the investigation now, and I want, besides, to ask some questions at Sea Cove. The launch is all ready to return to Sandy Hook, and the officer in command says that his orders require him to return there without further delay. But we will come back to-night."
The landlord's face did not give the proposition an eager welcome, though one of his business tenets was never to turn a guest away.
So the launch steamed away to Sandy Hook, leaving Glen Springs and its strange and unsolved puzzle behind.
Frank only partly enjoyed the trip.
But for that seemingly impenetrable mystery, the trip to Sandy Hook, with the visit of inspection which followed, would have been jolly. However, there was so much to be happy and thankful for, anyway, that the spirits of the party partook largely of the brightness of the day.
The run of the speedy launch up the coast was pleasant, and at Sandy Hook they found their fellow students awaiting them, and were given a right royal welcome by Captain Isaac Heath, the officer in charge of the proving-grounds.
"Say, fellows, this is great!" Danny warbled, as Captain Heath escorted them to where the big guns were. "I always did like big guns!"
"You're such a big gun yourself!" sneered Bink, under his breath.
"Binky, if my brain caliber required no more than a number five hat, as yours does, I'd sing low about big guns!"
"Number five hat? Why——"
"This ten-inch breech-loading rifle takes a charge of one hundred and ten pounds of Dupont smokeless powder and a projectile weighing five hundred and seventy-five pounds," Captain Heath was explaining, as they stopped in front of the big seacoast defender.
"Say, they're going to fire it!" Bink gasped.
"Of course, you idiot! Did you think it was going to fire them?"
"Better stand on your tiptoes and stick cotton into your ears," Browning warned, as the big gun was quickly made ready for hurling its terrible projectile.
"Wh-what if the dinged old thing should bub-bub-burst?" Gamp anxiously asked.
"We should have to