Percy O’Hara was not to be seen. That which met her gaze set her knees trembling afresh. Once again she was looking into what appeared to be a hundred pairs of green and gleaming eyes.
“Here we are!” She started violently.
Percy O’Hara was at her side. “We’ll go this way. Follow the ridge. I’ll lead the way.” Without another word he marched straight ahead, leaving her to follow on.
He walked unerringly as some wild creature of the forest, straight to the small tent beside the big flat rock.
They found Florence quite unharmed, but in a state of great agitation. “Oh, Greta!” she exclaimed. Then, catching sight of Percy O’Hara, broke short off to stare.
“Wha—what happened?” Greta panted. “This is Mr. O’Hara. Tell me what happened!”
“Nothing happened—that is, nothing much. Did you hear that scream?”
“Yes. We—”
“Well, I heard it and came dashing from the tent. My foot struck something and sent it bounding into the fire. Before I could grab it, there came a blinding white flare. I jumped back just in time to save myself. And now—”
“And now,” Greta broke in, “Vincent Stearns will come all the way up the ridge from—from wherever he is. He—he’ll bring others, like as not, to—to save us from some—something terrible. Oh!” she fairly wailed, “that’s what one gets for keeping secrets! He gave me those flares before we started. And I—I never told you!” Greta seemed ready for tears.
“It might be a great deal worse,” Percy O’Hara broke in. His tone was reassuring. He seated himself comfortably on a mossy rock. “I think that scream really meant trouble of some sort. It would seem to be our duty to investigate. And when there’s investigating to be done there’s safety in numbers. I think we’ll do well to await the arrival of your friend. Perhaps someone will come with him.
“By the way,” his tone changed and his bright eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Have I been smelling bacon, coffee and all that these days, or have I not?”
“Pure imagination!” Florence laughed. “We live on nuts and berries.” For all her laughing denial, she set about the task of sending delicious aromas drifting along the slope of Greenstone Ridge.
The “phantom’s” delight in the food set before him could not have been denied. No empty words of praise were his. For all that, fingers that trembled ever so slightly, eyes that smiled in a way one could not forget, told Florence her skill as brewer of coffee and broiler of bacon was appreciated fully.
When the simple meal had ended, with a low fire of bright coals gleaming red on the great flat rock, they settled themselves upon cushions of moss to wait.
“Wait for what?” Greta asked herself. “For the coming of Vincent Stearns. And then?”
Who could find an answer? Before her mind’s eye the seaplane once more soared aloft to at last settle down upon that narrow lake. She looked again upon those black waters, saw the rowboat, the moving figures, the helpless one being carried away.
“What does it mean?” she whispered. Then again she seemed to hear that piercing scream.
All this occupied her alert mind only a few short moments. Then her dark enquiring eyes were upon the face of that man who sat staring dreamily at the fire.
“Percy O’Hara!” she whispered low. “The Phantom Violin! Why is he here?”
As if feeling her eyes upon him, he turned half about, favored her with a matchless smile, opened his lips as if to speak, then seeming to think better of it, turned his face once more toward the fire.
“Oh!” she thought, “he was going to tell me!”
But he did not speak. Instead he continued to stare at the fire. She studied his face. Well worth her study, that face. A rather handsome, strong, sensitive face, an honest, kindly face it was. She looked in vain for traces of deep sorrow. They were not to be found. She tried casting him in the role of a man fleeing from justice. It could not be done.
“And yet—”
Once again his eyes were upon her.
This time he took his violin from its case by his side. Tucking it under his chin, he began to play. The music that came to her ears did not seem human. So fine, so all but silent was it, yet so exquisitely beautiful, it might have been the song of a bird on the wing, or angels in heaven.
“Oh!” she breathed as the last faint note died away, and again “Oh!”
Wrapping the priceless instrument carefully, he returned it to its case.
“Now,” she whispered, “now the Phantom will tell his story.” Still he did not speak.
“Perhaps,” she told herself, “he is wondering what lies in the future for him, the immediate future, when he goes down the hill to that—that place.”
She looked at his fingers. Slim, delicate, they were the fingers of a true artist. “And with these he will defend someone,” she told herself as a little thrill crept up her back. “How—how impossible that seems!
“And yet, great musicians are not cowards.” She was thinking of that celebrated Polish patriot who, having played for the rich and great of all lands, had put aside his music when his country called.
“He will not tell us tonight,” she assured herself, “The Phantom will not speak, perhaps never at all. Secrets are our own. No one has a right to pry into our lives.”
Only once during that long wait did the Phantom speak. Turning to Greta, he said, “Where are you staying on the island?”
Greta nodded at the small tent.
“But before that?”
“We have been living on the wreck of thePilgrim.”
“The wreck!” His eyes shone. “How wonderful! Better than Greenstone Ridge. Only,” he added, “people would come to see you there.”
“Yes. And you will come?” Greta’s tone was eager.
Once again his eyes shone upon her. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I fancy I shall be doing just that sometime.”
It was a promise in answer to a prayer. The girl could ask no more.
Ten minutes later there came the sound of movement in the bushes some distance down the ridge. This was followed by a loud, “Yoo Hoo!”
“Yoo Hoo! What’s up?” came from below.
“It’s Vincent Stearns!” Greta sprang to her feet.
She cast one wistful glance toward Percy O’Hara. He, too, was on the move.
“The spell is broken,” she told herself with a sigh. “His story will not be told, at least, not now. Perhaps never.”
“Nothing of importance has happened,” Greta said aloud to Vincent Stearns as he came toiling up the slope. “At least not to us. It was just an accident. Florence fell over a flare and kicked it into the fire. We—”
“A fortunate accident I should say!” Percy O’Hara’s tone was full of meaning. “Far as we can tell, there’s something going on down there by that little lake that needs looking into. And now we have reinforcements.”
“Sounds like an adventure.” The young newspaper photographer’s face took on a look of unwonted animation. “I’ll turn reporter and get a scoop for my paper.”
“When we have finished you may not be in a mood for writing.” Percy O’Hara did not smile as he said this.
In as few words as possible he told the little they knew of the mysterious ones who came and went in a hydroplane and who uttered unearthly screams in the night. “We might as well get right down there and have the thing over with at once,” he added at the end. “I don’t like interfering any more than I like being interfered with. It has been more than a year since I went into voluntary exile up here.” He paused to look away at the forest and distant waters all aglimmer with the light of the moon.
“Voluntary exile,” Greta thought, “I wonder why? Can it have been anything very terrible that drove him into seclusion? He does not appear to fear being taken back.”
“I’ve been thankful for the solitude,” Percy went on. “But there are times when one has no right to be left alone. Those people down there appear to have forfeited that right.
“I have a light rifle,” he added. “Thought I might use it sometimes to kill rabbits if necessity demanded it. I’ve never used it.”
“I’ve a gun of a sort,” Vincent added his bit. “I have a notion that persuasion is better than firearms, though. What say we get going? Young ladies—”
“We’re coming along,” Florence put in. “I’m strong as a man. I’ll do my part if need be, and Greta can be the nurse, in—in case—” She did not finish.
“But you’re lame!” Percy protested.
“Only a little. Some raven came along with bandages and liniment.” She smiled knowingly. “It’s just about got me fixed up.”
They were away. It was strange, this trooping away down the ridge, single file, in the night.
“W—weird!” Greta whispered to her companion. “What do you think it is?”
“Pr—probably nothing.” Florence was all aquiver.
Working their way silently down the hillside, they at last arrived on the lower plateau. Here they came upon a well worn moose trail that, they thought, must lead to the lake.
They were not mistaken. Before they reached the shore they caught the sound of splashing.
“Moose.” Greta’s lips formed the word she did not speak.
Looking across the lake, they caught a dull glow of light.
“That—that’s the place.” She could not prevent her teeth from chattering.
“Have to follow round the lake.” Percy O’Hara marched on as once more they took up the trail leading to the mysterious unknown.
For a full half hour they moved silently through the evergreen forest that skirted the lake. The low plump-plump of feet on mossy trail, the swish of branches, was all that broke the silence, the deep silence of night.
At last, quite suddenly, they came to a narrow cleared space, and there at its back was the house of mystery.
For a moment they stood there, the four of them, Greta, Florence, Percy O’Hara, and Vincent Stearns, before a low structure that, standing dark and threatening among the black spruce trees and shadows of night, seemed to dare them to move forward. With her own eyes Greta had seen a helpless one carried from a hydroplane to this place. Three times with her own ears she had heard an unearthly scream rise from this spot. And now, now as the hour hand approached midnight they stood there listening, breathing hard, waiting. Waiting for what?
Not a sound save the low splash of a moose feeding from the bottom of the lake reached their ears. From the single window, small and low, a dull light gleamed. The place seemed asleep.
And yet, the instant Vincent tapped lightly on the door a hand was on the latch. “Now—” Greta took a step forward. “Now—”
The door was thrown open. A man, seeming very tall and thin in that dull light, stood before them. His voice when he spoke was low, melodious, friendly, and quite disarming. There was, too, a note of sadness.
“Come in! Have you lost your way? May I help you?”
Greta at this moment recalled those startling screams, and shuddered.
There was about the place an air of comfort. A gasp of surprise escaped Greta’s lips. “Chairs, couches, books, fireplace. Might be the living-room of any home. And up here!”
“We—we’ve made a mistake?” she whispered to Florence.
“Wait!” was the answer.
The silence grew painful. “No,” Percy O’Hara said at last, as if there had been no silence. “We didn’t lose our way. In fact I could not lose myself up here if I tried. I’ve lived on this ridge for more than a year. We came—”
“Wait!” The tall man, whose hair was graying about the temples, held up a hand. “You need not go on. I understand perfectly. I—I’m sorry you came. But since you are here, you have a right to be told certain things. Won’t you be seated?”
He drew chairs to the fire, chairs with deep, soft cushions. As she sank into one of these Greta thought with a shudder how difficult it would be to rise from such a chair in a hurry, should necessity demand it.
“I—” their host began, “I am considered a rich man. In fact a company I control owns more than half this island. This shelter rests on my land. You have been camping, all of you, on my land.” He paused as if to permit the words to sink in.
“It is supposed,” he went on at last, “that rich men are the privileged ones of earth. Truth is they have few privileges. Here I am at the heart of an all but deserted island, living on my own land. I own every foot of land within ten miles of this spot! And yet, when I choose, I cannot be alone!”
“I wish we hadn’t come!” Greta whispered.
“Wait!” Florence replied once more.
At this juncture a very short chubby man with an air of briskness about him entered the room.
“Ah!” He rubbed his small hands together. “We have company, Percy O’Hara, Vincent Stearns, Greta Bronson and Florence Huyler.”
Greta started. How could this little man know their names? She was to wonder still more.
“You have no notion, Mr. Van Zandt,” the little man said, turning to his tall companion, “how famous our company is! A successful newspaper photographer, a very famous violinist, not to speak of the lady violinist and her friend.”
He turned to the astonished group. “Your arrival has saved me the bother of hunting you up—providing now I may count upon your services.”
Never had the two girls found themselves in so strange a position. They had come here with the others to assist—assist in what?
Vincent half rose, then dropped back to his place. Percy O’Hara gripped the arms of his chair. Only Florence appeared at ease, and it was she who at last spoke. “I am sure,” she replied evenly, “that we shall be glad to render any service possible to Doctor Prince.”
Once again Greta stared, this time at Florence. How could Florence know this man?
“Ah!” the little man replied, not denying his identity, “I had hoped so. It is, however, from your musical friends that I expect to secure aid.
“Mr. Van Zandt,” he addressed the other respectfully, “have I your permission to inform them?”
A pained expression passed over the man’s face as he nodded assent.
Next day, just as the shadows were beginning to lengthen on the hillside, Greta found herself joined in an undertaking the like of which she had never before known. Her part seemed as simple as the song of a bird who on a branch far above her head warbled in his own sweet way; yet she threw into it every atom of her being.
Seated on a moss-covered rock a stone’s throw from the mysterious lodge, she tucked her violin under her chin and played as she had never done before. The tunes that crept out from that evergreen forest, like songs from the heart, were old as life itself, yet known and loved by every generation. She played one of those sweet, melodious songs of twilight, written as only an inspired artist can compose, then rested with bow poised, waiting. From away on the hill across the narrow lake the notes came back to her.
Not an echo, but the crystal clear notes of a second violin, played as only one musician could play them, Percy O’Hara.
Once again she played the slow, dreamy refrain. And, as before, it came drifting back to her.
Inside the lodge Florence, listening, caught the rise and fall of that song and thought it must come from another world.
But strange events were passing. Before her in a great cushioned chair sat a boy of fourteen. His attractive face was as white as death.
“Think!” The little doctor, looking into the boy’s face, spoke softly. “Think, think back, back, back. What frightens you? Why do you cry out? Think back.”
He leaned forward. Through the open window floated the entrancing music. Florence, understanding the meaning and the terrible import of it all, scarcely breathed, yet her lips moved in prayer.
“Think!” the doctor repeated. “Think back. Now you are twelve, skating, playing football, wandering through the forest. Do you see anything that terrifies you?”
No answer.
“Now you are ten.” The doctor’s words came in a whisper. “You are on roller skates. You are at home by the fire. You speed in an automobile. Are you terribly afraid?”
Still no answer. Still the music, now faint, now strong, came floating through the open window.
“Now you are six.” The doctor’s eyes shone. “You are by the fireside. You are in your own small room. It is night. Does—”
Of a sudden there came a scream so piercing that Florence leaped to her feet. It was the boy. His face was distorted by an agony of fear.
“What? What is it?” The doctor was bending over the boy. “What frightens you?”
“The dog!” the boy cried. “The big shaggy dog! Don’t let him in! He will bite me!”
“No! No! You are mistaken. That is a kind dog. He will not bite you. He has never harmed any one. You must learn to love the good old shaggy fellow.”
The lines of distortion began to disappear from the boy’s face. There was a question and a gleam of hope in his eyes.
Through the window, borne on the breeze, there floated the notes of a song,
“Silent night, silent night,Lovely and bright—”
“Silent night, silent night,
Lovely and bright—”
“He is kind,” the boy murmured. “He will not bite.” The look on his face was growing peaceful. He leaned back in his chair and was soon lost in quiet slumber.
“You see,” the doctor murmured low as they tiptoed from the room, “God, with our help, is working a cure. Tomorrow we will repeat this. By that time the demon of fear will have left him.”
“And it was his scream we heard,” Florence said softly.
“It was his scream,” the father of the boy, the rich Mr. Van Zandt, replied. “It is a form of hysteria brought on by fright. He has suffered long, and we have suffered with him. We hoped this secluded spot might help. It did no good. When the illusion came he was seized with terror. He screamed. But now, thanks to this good doctor and the mystery of music, we may hope for a complete cure.”
“These cases,” the doctor said, assuming a professional air, “are strange, but not uncommon. At some time in the patient’s past he has been terribly frightened. His outer self may have forgotten; his deep, inner self has not. When conditions arise that suggest this fright, it reoccurs.
“If we can still his mind, then cause him to think back, back, back to that time of great fright, we may be able to reassure his inner self, and the hysteria vanishes.
“We hope to banish this terrifying dog, who in reality could not have been vicious at all, then our work will be done.”
“That,” said Greta some time later as she sat in the boat near to the lodge, “is one of the strangest things I have ever known.”
“Our mindsarestrange,” said Florence as she rowed slowly toward the shore nearest their home on the ridge. “But that,” she murmured after a time, “that which we witnessed today is no less than musical enchantment.”
It was evening of the following day. The fire on that big flat rock burned brightly. Florence and Greta sat sipping hot chocolate from paper cups. For a full half hour, while twilight faded into night, neither spoke.
It was Greta who broke the silence. “Florence,” she said soberly, “life is strange.”
“Yes,” Florence agreed.
“Here we are on Greenstone Ridge,” the dark-eyed girl went on. “We came here to explore and to—to search out the secrets of the phantom. We found the phantom. We solved the mystery. And yet—”
“The phantom is more mysterious than before.” Florence smiled a dreamy smile.
“Yes,” Greta replied quickly, “he is! And perhaps we shall never delve more deeply into this mystery. We have not seen him since that night when, like knights of old, we marched down upon that mysterious cabin by the lake.”
“We have heard his music but have not seen him, your strange Percy O’Hara,” Florence said quietly.
This was exactly true. When the strange little doctor had suggested that they assist him in his marvelous cure of that boy afflicted with mental terror, Percy O’Hara had agreed at once, but had suggested that Greta should furnish the music close at hand and that his should be little more than an echo. This arranged, he had slipped away into the night. Since then they had heard him twice, had seen him not at all.
“Why?” Greta whispered to herself. “Why?” There came no answer.
“Florence,” she said, springing to her feet, “our work here is done. Doctor Prince has told us that our assistance is no longer needed. As for the phan—phantom, Percy O’Hara, we have no right to pry into his affairs. I—I’d like to go down to the camping ground by Duncan’s Bay.” She seemed ready to weep.
“Tonight?” Florence rose slowly to her feet.
“Tonight.”
“All right.” The big girl began stuffing things into her bag. “We’ll be away in a jiffy.”
A half hour later two dark figures, guided only by a flashlight, made their way over the long moose trail leading along the ridge, thence down to the shores of a dark and silent bay. And all the time Greta was thinking of Percy O’Hara, who had charmed thousands upon thousands with his matchless music, hiding away there on the ridge. Once she whispered, “Green eyes, a hundred pairs of green eyes.”
As they neared the shores of the bay, however, her thoughts returned to her good friend Jeanne and their home, the wreck of the oldPilgrim. Once she whispered low, “A barrel of gold.”
Had you chanced to look down upon that narrow stretch of level land on the shores of Duncan’s Bay later that night, you might have spied, hidden away in a shadowy corner, a small tent. Beneath that tent two girls slept, Florence and Greta. For them Greenstone Ridge had become a memory.
They were up at dawn. Their boat, hidden deep among some scrub spruce trees, awaited them. So did a bright and shimmering lake. And beyond this, dark and silent, was their home, the wreck.
“Perhaps Jeanne has come back,” said Florence. “We will row over at once.”
They had covered half the distance to the wreck and were watching eagerly for some sign of life on its sloping decks, when Greta, whose gaze had strayed away to the left, cried out quite suddenly, “Look, Florence! What is that over there?”
Shading her eyes, Florence followed the younger girl’s gaze, then said with a slow tone of assurance, “It’s a boat, a small black boat adrift. Some ship, or perhaps only a schooner, has lost her lifeboat. We’ll take it in tow, tie it up over at the wreck.”
The small black boat was soon tied behind their own. Florence’s strong arms did double duty as she covered the remaining distance to the wreck.
Greta had climbed on board the wreck, Florence had finished tying up her own boat and was giving her attention to the small black tramp, when she noted something of mild interest. In the bottom of that boat was water two or three inches deep, from a rain, perhaps. Floating on the surface of that water was a small square of paper.
“Might give some clue,” she thought as she put out a hand.
Once she had spread the paper on the boat’s seat, her lips parted in surprise.
“Greta!” she cried, “Greta! Come here. See what I have found!”
When Greta arrived all she saw was a sheet of water-soaked paper. In the center of that paper, done with a purple pencil, badly blurred but still quite easily read, were four words:
“A BARREL OF GOLD.”
“Isn’t that strange!” Florence exclaimed. “Here we’ve been dreaming in a silly sort of way about a barrel of gold. And now, here it is, all written out by a stranger!”
“Perhaps Jeanne wrote it,” Greta suggested.
“She can’t have. It’s not her writing. And look!” Florence studied the paper more closely. “There are two lines drawn under those words as if some other words had been crossed out and these inserted. And that—” she straightened up, “that is exactly what happened. There are faint traces of pencil marks all over the paper. The water has about washed them away. Perhaps when the paper is dry we can read the entire message.”
Placing the paper carefully on her outspread hand, she carried it to the deck, then smoothed it out on a board in the sun.
“Jeanne is not here,” Greta said quietly. “She’s not been here. Everything is just as we left it, except—” she hesitated.
“Except what?” Florence stared.
“I can’t be sure, but I think there are fresh marks of a black schooner that has been tied up alongside this wreck. Come and see.”
“Can’t be any doubt of it,” Florence agreed a few moments later. “The black schooner, it’s been here again, Greta! Greta!” She gripped the slender girl’s arm. “Do you suppose there could have been a barrel of gold hidden on this wreck? And have they carried it away?
“Of course not!” she exploded, answering her own question. “There are three or four barrels of oil in the hold. That was all they left. Swen told us that, and he should know.”
The paper taken from theLittle Black Tramp, as Florence had named the derelict, proved a disappointment. Though there was still some suggestion of writing remaining on its surface after it was dry, not one word could be read. Only those four words, brighter than ever, stood out clear and strong, “A BARREL OF GOLD.”
Without the sprightly Jeanne about, the wreck seemed a lonely place. “What do you say we row back to the camping ground and dig for treasure?” Florence suggested after their midday siesta. “We can stay all night if the wind blows up.”
“Dig for treasure? Florence, you’re still thinking of that barrel of gold!” Greta exclaimed. “You’ll not find it there. It’s on this old ship. You wait and see!”
Greta was glad enough to go. She hoped, for one thing, that she might catch again the tuneful notes of that phantom violin. “Shall I ever know?” she asked herself. “Why does he hide away there on Greenstone Ridge? Percy O’Hara,” she whispered. She closed her eyes to see again that tangled mass of gray hair, those frank, smiling young eyes. “Percy O’Hara. How much good he could be doing! How he can charm the world’s cares away! And how this poor old world needs that these days!
“And he could help those who are struggling up. He could teach—” she dared not continue, dared not hope that sometime, somewhere, this matchless musician might take her bow gently from her hand as he said with that marvelous smile, “No, my child. Not that way. See! Listen!”
“If only it might be!” she sighed. Yes, she wanted to go ashore, longed to climb all the way up Greenstone Ridge. But this last she was resolved never to do. “He said he would come,” she whispered. “He will not fail.”
At ten that night Greta slept soundly beneath the tent on the camping grounds. Having listened in vain for the faintest tremor of music on the air, she had surrendered at last to the call of dreamland.
Florence, too, was beneath the blankets, but she did not sleep. The strange discovery of that day was still on her mind. “Barrel of gold,” she repeated more than once.
Her treasure hunt that afternoon had been singularly unsuccessful. She had not found so much as a flint arrowhead or a copper penny.
“Big piece of nonsense!” she told herself. “And yet—”
A half hour later, having dragged on shoes, knickers, and sweater, she was digging once more on the camping ground, digging for gold. Such are the strange, unfathomable ways of youth.
She had stirred up their campfire and was digging with the aid of its light. As she labored her sturdy figure cast odd, fantastic shadows on the dark forest at her back.
* * * * * * * *
At the same hour Jeanne returned to the wreck. She came with her gypsy friends on theShip of Joy. For once in his life Bihari was in a great rush. His journey round the island had been completed. There was in the air some deep prophecy of storm. Being one of those who live their lives beneath the blue dome of heaven, he felt rather than saw this.
“They are here!” Jeanne cried in great joy as they neared the wreck of the oldPilgrim. “Florence and Greta are here!”
“But there is no light,” someone protested.
“They are dreaming in some corner of the ship, or perhaps they are asleep,” Jeanne insisted. “Theymustbe here, for—see! There is their boat. We have but one boat. They could not well be away.”
Climbing to the deck, the little French girl bade her gypsy friends a fond farewell, then from her favorite spot on the deck watched the lights of Bihari’s boat grow dim in the distance. Then she set about the task of finding her friends. This, as you know well enough, was to be a hard task. They were not there.
The explanation is simple enough. Having tried out theLittle Black Trampand found it easy to row, Florence had chosen to go ashore in it and to leave her own boat tied up to the wreck. So here it was and here was the little French girl alone on thePilgrim. It was night, and she had not forgotten Bihari’s warning: “There comes a great storm.”
* * * * * * * *
On the camping ground, lighted by the campfire’s flickering glow, Florence dug steadily on. “Not that I expect to find anything,” she told herself. “I’m just wearing down my mental resistance to sleep. Pretty soon I’ll drop this old spade and creep beneath the blankets. I’ll—”
She broke short off. Strange sounds were reaching her ears; at least they were strange for this place. Music, the tones of a violin, came to her. Clear and distinct they were.
“Can’t be far,” she told herself. She thought of Percy O’Hara, the “Phantom.”
“Air’s strange tonight,” she told herself.
“Perhaps he’s still away up there. Sound carries a long way at times.”
Once again her spade cut deep in the sand. But now her heart skipped a beat. She had struck some solid object.
“Only a rock or a log buried by a storm centuries ago,” she told herself. “And yet—” she was digging fiercely now. Like a dog close to a ground squirrel’s nest, she made the dirt fly.
The thing she had found was not a rock. “Not hard enough for that,” she told herself. “A log? Well, perhaps. But it—it’s—”
She ceased digging. Seizing a firebrand, she fanned it into flame, then held it low in the hole she had dug. Next instant she was all but bowled over with astonishment.
“Itisa barrel!” she breathed. “Or, at least a keg. And it has heavy copper hoops. It—”
But at this instant a light shone full upon her face. It was there for only an instant, but long enough to give her warning. Seizing her spade, she had half filled the hole when a small boat came around the point.
* * * * * * * *
At that hour too there were strange doings on the wreck. The mysterious black schooner had returned. Only chance had prevented the men on the schooner from seeing the light that shone from Jeanne’s cabin, to which she had retired in uneasy solitude. They approached the wreck from the other side.
The first suggestion of their presence came to Jeanne as a slight bump ran through the stout old hull.
“A—a boat!” she breathed. Instantly her light was out. A moment had not elapsed before, wrapped in a long dark coat, she crept out on the deck.
Once outside, she stood there, silent, intent, ready to flee, listening.
“Chains,” she whispered at last, “I hear them. That’s what they had on that black schooner that other night. They mean to lift something with chains. I’ll creep along the deck to that box where life preservers were kept. Have a look at these men from there. They won’t see me. I’ll be in the shadows.”
She crept along in the deep shadows.
“Here—here’s the place.” She drew up behind a large box painted white.
After a brief rest to quiet the wild beating of her heart, she crept forward.
“There!” she whispered. “I can see them plainly from here. There’s the man in the diving rig again. He is just going over the side. Taking a chain with him. I can hear it rattle. Chain’s fast to a light cable. They’re going to try lifting something from below, that’s certain.”
The diver disappeared beneath black waters. Two other men stood at attention. The girl held her breath and waited. She tried to picture to herself the inside of the ship beneath the water.
“Cabins where people have slept. Fishes swimming there and big old crawfish crawling over the berths. Deck slippery with slime, and the hold where all the freight was stored dark as a dungeon. You’d think—”
She did not finish. From the distance had come a strange sound. A rushing as of a mighty wind. “But there’s no wind!”
The sound increased in volume until it was like the roar of a storm. Then, of a sudden, a great swell struck the ship. It set the old wreck shuddering from stem to stern. It picked up the black schooner and, tossing it high, landed it half upon the dry deck of the ship and half upon the water. It keeled over on one side, reeled like a drunken man, seemed about to turn square over, then sliding off the deck, went gliding away.
“But the diver?” Once again the girl held her breath.
After what seemed a very long time, a dark spot appeared off to the right. The power boat glided over. The dark spot was taken on board.
Next moment a second swell shook the ship. When this wave had subsided the power boat was nowhere to be seen.
“Good old Father Superior,” the little French girl exclaimed. “He took a hand!
“Will they return?” she asked herself. She found no answer. A glance away to the left caused her to shudder. Like an army of black demons, clouds were massed low against the sky. A faint flash of light painted them a lurid hue. This was repeated three times. Then all was darker than before.
Florence had scarcely concealed the newly discovered treasure before she knew, from the shape of the oncoming boat, that it was owned by a friend. In truth it was Swen with his stout little fishing boat.
“Hello!” he shouted as the fire, flaring up, revealed her face. “I thought you were at home on the wreck. I saw a light there. I was sure of it. Had to come in there for some nets I left on the shore, then I was going over to see how you were getting on and to warn you.”
“No,” said Florence, “there can’t be a light on the wreck. No one is there.”
“Yes.” Swen’s tone carried conviction. “Therewasa light.”
“Then,” said Florence, “Jeanne has returned, or—or someone else is there.
“Greta!” she called. “Greta! Wake up! Someone is on the wreck. We must go there.
“We’ll leave the tent as it is,” she said five minutes later as Greta, hastily dressed and half asleep, stepped out in the air of night.
“I’ll take you over,” Swen said. “The sea is roughing up a bit.”
“Swen,” Florence said as they went pop-popping through the narrows, “you said you meant to warn us. Warn us of what?”
“Probably nothing.” Swen seemed ill at ease. “There’ll be a storm—just a storm, that’s all. Two waves, like tidal waves, came near swamping my boat. It’s a sign, the fishermen say. But then, we are superstitious. That’s it, I guess.”
For all that, when he had landed the girls at the wreck and had made sure Jeanne, not some stranger, was there, he turned his boat about and steamed away at full speed.
“He came to warn us,” Florence whispered to herself. Then a matter of overwhelming interest drove all other thoughts from her mind. She turned to the others.
“Oh, girls!” she exclaimed. “Just think! I found a barrel, a small barrel!”
“On the camping ground?” Jeanne leaped to her feet.
“Nowhere else.”
“And—and what was in it?” Greta was fairly dancing with excitement.
“There wasn’t time to see. It had copper hoops, that’s all I know. Swen came and then—then we were away. I—I covered it up. It won’t run away,” she laughed as Jeanne’s face sobered. “It will keep for another day.”
“But let us go now, tonight!” Jeanne was quite beside herself with excitement.
“No, not tonight,” Florence said with an air of decision. “Tomorrow.”
As things turned out it was to be tonight; but this she could not know.