An hour later, with the Secret Service man in the lead and an armed guard stationed along the corridors, the little company entered the room of many mysteries.
They were all there, Ruth, Pearl, Betty and even the little city girl who had come over in a row boat. And such a time as they had feasting their eyes on the softness and beauty of the silks laid out before them.
A few moments later the men from the revenue cutter were passing boxes and bales of silk up from the strangely snug underground room, and had begun carrying them down dim corridors to the ancient granite dock that had once served the fort.
“Ingenious chaps, those fellows were,” the little Secret Service man said, touching an electric heater. “Ingenious and resourceful. Heated the place with electricity.”
“But where did they get the current?” Ruth asked.
“There’s an electric power cable passing across the island. They wired this place, then waited for a time when the current was off to tap the line, I suppose.”
“So that’s it,” said Ruth.
“There is a great deal more that remains to be explained,” said the little man. “I fancy I shall find it all recorded here.” He patted a great heap of books and papers which he had collected from one corner of the room. “If you young folks wish to come out to Witches Cove rather late in the afternoon, I am quite sure I shall have a lot to tell. Like to come?”
“Would we!” said Ruth.
“Try us,” said Betty, standing on tiptoes in her excitement.
“That’s settled, then. Come in theFlyawayat dusk. I’m sure the three gray witches will be there to greet you. So will I, and my two black cats.”
“It’s a pity,” he said a little later as he stood by the great heap of silks that lay on the dock ready to be transported to the customs house, “that I can’t permit each one of you to select a wardrobe from among these beautiful creations, but the law wouldn’t permit that.”
As their eyes rested on the broken bundles from which rich garments of rare beauty shone through, they felt that he spoke the truth.
That evening, just as the shadows had turned the dark green waters of Witches Cove to pitchy black, the three girls, Ruth, Pearl and Betty, rode into that little natural harbor of many mysteries. Having dropped anchor, they rowed Ruth’s punt silently to the rocky shore, then mounted the rugged natural stairway to the cabin that crowned the crest.
A curious light, flickering and dancing, now waving, now glowing bright, played hide and seek through the cabin’s two small windows. A driftwood fire was burning in the large room of the place.
Before this fire, on the skin of some great bear whose grinning white teeth seemed ready to devour them, sat the little man. On either side of the hearth the two black cats sat blinking. Before him was a heap of papers and a thick black book.
“Sit down,” he said, moving over to give them room. Lifting a simmering pot from the hearth, he poured them delicious hot chocolate in cups as blue-green as the waters of Witches Cove.
“We drink to the health of all loyal sons and daughters of Maine,” he said, lifting a cup to his lips.
“It’s all written here,” he said after a moment of solemn meditation. “Written down in this book.” He patted the fat black book.
“It’s strange,” he said thoughtfully, “that men cannot resist recording deeds of daring. Whether they be done for lawful or unlawful purposes, makes no difference. Even the Buccaneers had their historians.
“The author of this,” again he touched the book, “was none other than that dark fellow, whom you called the ‘face-in-the-fire’ man.
“It’s a remarkable story,” he went on. “Lindbergh crossed the ocean once alone, and the whole world went mad. This man made seven round trips from Europe to America and there was not one shout. Because,” he paused—“because almost no one knew. Seven men knew. They dared not tell. He brought them to America one at a time in the gray seaplane in which he to-day met so tragic a death. Our nation refused them entrance. He brought them. Very soon now they will be found and sent back. But because these men could not pay him, he engaged in silk smuggling. He used the old fort as a hiding place because no one would expect to find him there.”
“But why?” Ruth leaned forward eagerly. “Why did he do all this?”
“He crossed the ocean seven times bringing each time a man,” the speaker went on impressively. “Each time he recrossed the lonely old ocean alone. Think of it! Seven times! An unbroken record!
“Loyalty,” he stared thoughtfully at the fire, “loyalty is a wonderful thing. But loyalty to a wrong cause can bring only disaster.
“This man and his seven friends believed that the private ownership of property was wrong, that your home, your boat, your horse, your dog, yes and perhaps your very father and mother, should belong to the State. That all men should own everything, and no individual anything.”
“How terrible!” said Ruth.
“You think so,” the little man said. “So do I. So do most Americans. And yet that was the principle for which they stood. For this principle they would smuggle, bomb, cast helpless girls adrift in a dismantled boat, destroy all.”
“That,” said Ruth, “is a terrible way to live.”
“We think so. We believe that you have done your country a great service. You will not go unrewarded.”
“The thing I can’t understand,” said Betty, “is why they remained in the old fort and kept their silks there after they knew that Ruth and I had been in that room.”
“They thought you were at the bottom of the sea where they meant you to be,” the little man smiled. “You would have been, too, had it not been for that chap you call Don and the fearless city boy.”
“Yes, we would,” Ruth said solemnly.
“And that,” said the little man, “is the end of the story. You have all been fortunate. You have helped solve mysteries and have known adventures.
“Your lives from this day may flow as smooth as a river, but the memory of this summer, with its joys and hopes, its perils, despairs, its defeats and victories can never be taken from you.”
“To-morrow night,” he said, as he walked with them to their waiting boat, “Witches Cove will be dark. My black cats and I are leaving to-morrow. Good night, good-bye, and good luck.”
That night Ruth sat looking out once more from her room upon the moonlit bay. Her summer of adventure was over. Betty was returning to Chicago. The cottages were closing. Soon there would be left only the fisher folks and the sea.
“Life,” she told herself, “is quite wonderful, and not a joke at all.” She doubted if anyone really, truly in the depths of their hearts, ever thought it was.
So, sitting there in her chair, dreaming in the moonlight, she allowed her head to fall forward and was soon fast asleep.
THE END.