The mysteryStewart Edward White, Samuel Hopkins Adams, Will Crawford, Dan Sayre Groesbeck, McClure, Phillips & Co


The New York Public Library
*
The Merle Johnson
Collection
1935
+





THE MYSTERY





THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
**{OR, LFNox AND
TILDEN *OUNDATIONs
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“And you know a heap too much ‘’
[Page 201]


E MYSTE * * *
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THE MYSTER r
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BY
STEVART EDWARD ruits
AND
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
- * - - -
* * * * * * * * *
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NEW YORK : . . . . . . . . .” -
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
94.2206A
ASTOR, LENOx AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIons
R 1936 L.
Copyright 1907
by McClure, Phillips & Co.
Published January 1907
Copyright 1906 by Colver Publishing House
Copyright 1907 by The Phillips Publishing Co.


vi CONTENTS
CHAPter PAGE
V. THE PHILOSOPHER’s STONE . . . . 94
VI. THE ISLAND . . . . . . . . . IoS
VII. CAPTAIN SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE . . I 13
VIII. WRECKING OF THE “GoLDEN HORN ?” . I24
IX. THE EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE . . . . 133
X. CHANGE OF MASTERS . . . . . . 138
XI. THE CORROSIVE . . . . . . . . I45
XII. “OLD SCRUBS ’’ CoMEs AsHoRE . . . I62
XIII. I. MAKE MY EscAPE . . . . . . . 174
XIV. AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT . . . 178
XV. FIVE HUNDRED YARDs' RANGE . . . 183
XVI. THE MURDER . . . . . . . . . 189
XVII. THE OPEN SEA . . . . . . . . 193
XVIII. THE CATASTROPHE . . . . . . . 201
PART THREE
THE MAROON
I. IN THE WARDROOM . . . . . . . 211
II. THE JOLLY ROGER . . . . . . . 217
III. THE CACHE . . . . . . . . . 224
IV. THE Twin SLABs . . . . . . . 230
V. THE PIN wheel Volcano . . . . . 238
VI. MR. DARRow RECEIVES . . . . . . 245
VII. THE SURVIVORs . . . . . . . . 254
VIII. THE MAKER OF MARVELs . . . . . 260
IX. THE ACHIEVEMENT . . . . . . . 269
X. THE DOOM . . . . . . . . . 278


ILLUSTRATIONS
“And you know a heap too much” . . . . Frontispiece
FACING
PAGE
A schooner comporting herself in a manner uncommon
on the Pacific . . . . . . . . . . 14
A man who was a bit of a mechanic was set to work to
open the chest . . . . . . . . . . 30
“Where we goin’?” “I brefer not to say”. . . . 6o
Slowly the man defined himself as a shape takes form in
a fog . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
“The spirit of the wild beast, cowed but snarling still” . 94
“These sheep had become as wild as deer”. . . . 136
“Drop it, you fool!” • . . . . . . I42
“I jerked out the short-barrelled Colt and turned it loose
in their faces” . . . . . . . . . . 168
“You good fellowsh, ain't you?” . . . I 72
The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid any
attention to any one else . . . . I 86
With a strangled cry the sailor cast the shirt from him . 222
The finding of the two slabs. . . . . . 236
“Sorry not to have met you at the door,” he said courte-
ously . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
“It was my duty to follow on and drag him away when
he fell unconscious” . . . . . . . . 266
He floated the model in the tub . . . . . . . 284
Wii





PART ONE
THE SEA RIDDLE





I
DESERT SEAS
THE late afternoon sky flaunted its splendour of blue
and gold like a banner over the Pacific, across whose
depths the trade wind droned in measured cadence.
On the ocean's wide expanse a hulk wallowed slug-
gishly, the forgotten relict of a once brave and
sightly ship, possibly the Sphinx of some untold ocean
tragedy, she lay black and forbidding in the ordered
procession of waves. Half a mile to the east of the
derelict hovered a ship's cutter, the turn of her crew's
heads speaking expectancy. As far again beyond, the
United States cruiser Wolverine outlined her severe
and trim silhouette against the horizon. In all the
spread of wave and sky no other thing was visible.
For this was one of the desert parts of the Pacific,
three hundred miles north of the steamship route from
Yokohama to Honolulu, five hundred miles from the
nearest land, Gardner Island, and more than seven
hundred northwest of the Hawaiian group.
On the cruiser's quarter-deck the officers lined the
starboard rail. Their interest was focussed on the
derelict.
“Looks like a heavy job,” said Ives, one of the
junior lieutenants. “These floaters that lie with deck
almost awash will stand more hammering than a mud
fort.”


4. THE MYSTERY
“Wish they'd let us put some six-inch shells into
her,” said Billy Edwards, the ensign, a wistful ex-
pression on his big round cheerful face. “I’d like to
see what they would do.”
“Nothing but waste a few hundred dollars of your
Uncle Sam's money,” observed Carter, the officer of
the deck. “It takes placed charges inside and out
for that kind of work.”
“Barnett's the man for her then,” said Ives. “He’s
no economist when it comes to getting results. There
she goes!” -
Without any particular haste, as it seemed to the
watchers, the hulk was shouldered out of the water, as
by some hidden leviathan. Its outlines melted into a
black, outshowering mist, and from that mist leaped
a giant. Up, up, he towered, tossed whirling arms
a hundred feet abranch, shivered, and dissolved into a
widespread cataract. The water below was lashed into
fury, in the midst of which a mighty death agony beat
back the troubled waves of the trade wind. Only then
did the muffled double boom of the explosion reach
the ears of the spectators, presently to be followed by
a whispering, swift-skimming wavelet that swept ir-
resistibly across the bigger surges and lapped the
ship's side, as for a message that the work was done.
Here and there in the sea a glint of silver, a patch
of purple, or dull red, or a glistening apparition of
black showed where the unintended victims of the
explosion, the gay-hued open-sea fish of the warm
waters, had succumbed to the force of the shock. Of
the intended victim there was no sign, save a few
fragments of wood bobbing in a swirl of water.


DESERT SEAS 5
When Barnett, the ordnance officer in charge of the
destruction, returned to the ship, Carter complimented
him.
“Good clean job, Barnett. She was a tough cus-
tomer, too.”
“What was she?” asked Ives.
“The Caroline Lemp, three-masted schooner. Any-
One know about her?”
Ives turned to the ship's surgeon, Trendon, a griz-
zled and brief-spoken veteran, who had at his finger's
tips all the lore of all the waters under the reign of
the moon.
“What does the information bureau of the Seven
Seas know about it?”
“Lost three years ago—spring of 1901—got into
ice field off the tip of the Aleutians. Some of the crew
froze. Others got ashore. Part of survivors accounted
for. Others not. Say they've turned native. Don't
know myself.”
“The Aleutians!” exclaimed Billy Edwards. “Great
Cats! What a drift! How many thousand miles would
that be?”
“Not as far as many another derelict has wan-
dered in her time, son,” said Barnett.
The talk washed back and forth across the hulks of
classic sea mysteries, new and old; of the City of Bos-
ton, which went down with all hands, leaving for
record only a melancholy scrawl on a bit of board to
meet the wondering eyes of a fisherman on the far
Cornish coast; of the Great Queensland, which set out
with five hundred and sixty-nine souls aboard, bound
by a route unknown to a tragic end; of the Naronic,


6 THE MYSTERY
with her silent and empty lifeboats alone left, drifting
about the open sea, to hint at the story of her fate;
of the Huronian, which, ten years later, on the same
day and date, and hailing from the same port as the
Naronic, went out into the void, leaving no trace; of
Newfoundland captains who sailed, roaring with
drink, under the arches of cathedral bergs, only to
be prisoned, buried, and embalmed in the one icy em-
brace; of craft assailed by the terrible one-stroke
lightning clouds of the Indian Ocean, found days
after, stone blind, with their crews madly hauling at
useless sheets, while the officers clawed the compass
and shrieked; of burnings and piracies; of pest ships
and slave ships, and ships mad for want of water; of
whelming earthquake waves, and mysterious suctions,
drawing irresistibly against wind and steam power
upon unknown currents; of stout hulks deserted in
panic although sound and seaworthy; and of others
so swiftly dragged down that there was no time for
any to save himself; and of a hundred other strange,
stirring and pitiful ventures such as make up the in-
evitable peril and incorrigible romance of the ocean.
In a pause Billy Edwards said musingly:
“Well, there was the Laughing Lass.”
“How did you happen to hit on her?” asked Bar-
nett quickly.
“Why not, sir? It naturally came into my head.
She was last seen somewhere about this part of the
world, wasn't she?” After a moment's hesitation he
added: “From something I heard ashore I judge
we've a commission to keep a watch out for her as well
as to destroy derelicts.”


DESERT SEAS 7
“What about the Laughing Lass?” asked Mc-
Guire, the paymaster, a New Englander, who had
been in the service but a short time.
“Good Lord! don't you remember the Laughing
Lass mystery and the disappearance of Doctor Scher-
merhorn?”
“Karl Augustus Schermerhorn, the man whose ex-
periments to identify telepathy with the Marconi wire-
less waves made such a furore in the papers?”
“Oh, that was only a by-product of his mind. He
was an original investigator in every line of physics
and chemistry, besides most of the natural sciences,”
said Barnett. “The government is particularly inter-
ested in him because of his contributions to aerial
photography.”
“And he was lost with the Laughing Lass?”
“Nobody knows,” said Edwards. “He left San
Francisco two years ago on a hundred-foot schooner,
with an assistant, a big brass-bound chest, and a raga-
muffin crew. A newspaper man named Slade, who
dropped out of the world about the same time, is sup-
posed to have gone along, too. Their schooner was
last sighted about 450 miles northeast of Oahu, in
good shape, and bound westward. That's all the rec-
ord of her that there is.”
“Was that Ralph Slade?” asked Barnett.
“Yes. He was a free-lance writer and artist.”
“I knew him well,” said Barnett. “He was in our
mess in the Philippine campaign, on the North Da-
kota. War correspondent then. It's strange that I
never identified him before with the Slade of the
Laughing Lass.”
*


8 THE MYSTERY
“What was the object of the voyage?” asked Ives.
“They were supposed to be after buried treasure,”
said Barnett.
“I’ve always thought it more likely that Doctor
Schermerhorn was on a scientific expedition,” said
Edwards. “I knew the old boy, and he wasn’t the
sort to care a hoot in Sheol for treasure, buried or un-
buried.”
“Every time a ship sets out from San Francisco
without publishing to all the world just what her busi-
ness is, all the world thinks it's one of those wild-goose
hunts,” observed Ives.
“Yes,” agreed Barnett. “Flora and fauna of some
unknown island would be much more in the Scher-
merhorn line of traffic. Not unlikely that some
of the festive natives collected the unfortunate pro-
fessor.”
Various theories were advanced, withdrawn, re-
futed, defended, and the discussion carried them
through the swift twilight into the darkness which
had been hastened by a high-spreading canopy of
storm-clouds. Abruptly from the crow's-nest came
startling news for those desolate seas: “Light—ho!
Two points on the port bow.”
The lookout had given extra voice to it. It was
plainly heard throughout the ship.
The group of officers stared in the direction indi-
cated, but could see nothing. Presently Ives and Ed-
wards, who were the keenest-sighted, made out a
faint, suffused radiance. At the same time came a
second hail from the crow's-nest.
“On deck, sir.”


DESERT SEAS 9
“Hello,” responded Carter, the officer of the deck.
“There's a light here I can't make anything out
of, sir.”
“What’s it like?”
“Sort of a queer general glow.”
“General glow, indeed!” muttered Forsythe,
among the group aft. “That fellow's got an
imagination.”
“Can't you describe it better than that?” called
Carter.
“Don’t make it out at all, sir. 'Tain't any regular
and proper light. Looks like a lamp in a fog.”
Among themselves the officers discussed it inter-
estedly, as it grew plainer.
“Not unlike the electric glow above a city, seen
from a distance,” said Barnett, as it grew plainer.
“Yes: but the nearest electric-lighted city is some
eight hundred miles away,” objected Ives.
“Mirage, maybe,” suggested Edwards.
“Pretty hard-working mirage, to cover that dis-
tance” said Ives. “Though I’ve seen 'em 22
“Great heavens! Look at that!” shouted Ed-
wards.
A great shaft of pale brilliance shot up toward the
zenith. Under it whirled a maelstrom of varied radi-
ance, pale with distance, but marvellously beautiful.
Forsythe passed them with a troubled face, on his
way below to report, as his relief went up.
“The quartermaster reports the compass behaving
queerly,” he said.
Three minutes later the captain was on the bridge.
The great ship had swung, and they were speeding


IO THE MYSTERY
direct for the phenomenon. But within a few minutes
the light had died out.
“Another sea mystery to add to our list,” said Billy
Edwards. “Did anyone ever see a show like that
before? What do you think, Doc?”
“Humph!” grunted the veteran. “New to me.
Volcanic, maybe.”


II
THE LAUGHING LASS
THE falling of dusk on June the 3d found tired
eyes aboard the Wolverine. Every officer in her
complement had kept a private and personal lookout
all day for some explanation of the previous night's
phenomenon. All that rewarded them were a sky
filmed with lofty clouds, and the holiday parade of the
epauletted waves.
Nor did evening bring a repetition of that strange
glow. Midnight found the late stayers still deep in
the discussion.
“One thing is certain,” said Ives. “It wasn't vol-
canic.”
“Why so?” asked the paymaster.
“Because volcanoes are mostly stationary, and we
headed due for that light.”
“Yes; but did we keep headed?” said Barnett, who
was navigating officer as well as ordnance officer, in
a queer voice.
“What do you mean, sir?” asked Edwards
eagerly.
“After the light disappeared the compass kept on
varying. The stars were hidden. There is no telling
just where we were headed for some time.”
“Then we might be fifty miles from the spot we
aimed at.”
II


I2 THE MYSTERY
“Hardly that,” said the navigator. “We could
guide her to some extent by the direction of wind
and waves. If it was volcanic we ought certainly to
have sighted it by now.”
“Always some electricity in volcanic eruptions,”
said Trendon. “Makes compass cut didoes. Seen it
before.”
“Where?” queried Carter.
“Off Martinique. Pelée eruption. Needle chased its
tail like a kitten.”
“Are there many volcanoes hereabouts?” some-
body asked.
“We’re in 162 west, 31 north, about,” said Bar-
nett. “No telling whether there are or not. There
weren't at last accounts, but that's no evidence that
there aren't some since. They come up in the night,
these volcanic islands.”
“Just cast an eye on the charts,” said Billy Ed-
wards. “Full of E. D.'s and P. D.'s all over the shop.
Every one of 'em volcanic.”
“E. D.'s and P. D.'s P” queried the paymaster.
“Existence doubtful, and position doubtful,” ex-
plained the ensign. “Every time the skipper of one
of these wandering trade ships gets a speck in his eye,
he reports an island. If he really does bump into a
rock he cuts in an arithmetic book for his latitude
and longitude and lets it go at that. That's how the
chart makers make a living, getting out new editions
every few months.”
“But it's a fact that these seas are constantly chang-
ing,” said Barnett. “They're so little travelled that
no one happens to be around to see an island born.


THE LAUGHING LASS I3
I don’t suppose there's a part on the earth's sur-
face more liable to seismic disturbances than this
region.”
“Seismic!” cried Billy Edwards, “I should say
it was seismic! Why, when a native of one of these
island groups sets his heart on a particular loaf of
bread up his bread-fruit tree, he doesn't bother to
climb after it. Just waits for some earthquake to hap-
pen along and shake it down to him.”
“Good boy, Billy,” said Dr. Trendon, approvingly.
“Do another.”
“It’s a fact,” said the ensign, heatedly. “Why, a
couple of years back there was a trader here stocked
up with a lot of belly-mixture in bottles. Thought he
was going to make his pile because there'd been a colic
epidemic in the islands the season before. Bottles were
labelled “Do not shake.” That settled his business.
Might as well have marked 'em “Keep frozen’ in this
part of the world. Fellow went broke.”
“In any case,” said Barnett, “such a glow as that
we sighted last night I've never seen from any
volcano.”
“Nor I,” said Trendon. “Don’t prove it mightn't
have been.”
“I’ll just bet the best dinner in San Francisco that
it isn't,” said Edwards.
“You’re on,” said Carter.
“Let me in,” suggested Ives.
“And I’ll take one of it,” said McGuire.
“Come one, come all,” said Edwards cheerily.
“I’ll live high on the collective bad judgment of this
outfit.”


I4 THE MYSTERY
“To-night isn't likely to settle it, anyhow,” said
Ives. “I move we turn in.”
Expectant minds do not lend themselves to sound
slumber. All night the officers of the Wolverine slept
on the verge of waking, but it was not until dawn that
the cry of “Sail-hol” sent them all hurrying to their
clothes. Ordinarily officers of the U. S. Navy do not
scuttle on deck like a crowd of curious schoolgirls,
but all hands had been keyed to a high pitch over the
elusive light, and the bet with Edwards now served
as an excuse for the betrayal of unusual eagerness.
Hence the quarter-deck was soon alive with men who
were wont to be deep in dreams at that hour.
They found Carter, whose watch on deck it was,
reprimanding the lookout.
“No, sir,” the man was insisting, “she didn't show
no light, sir. I'd 'a' sighted her an hour ago, sir, if
she had.”
“We shall see,” said Carter grimly. “Who's your
relief?”
“Sennett.”
“Let him take your place. Go aloft, Sennett.”
As the lookout, crestfallen and surly, went below,
Barnett said in subdued tones:
“Upon my word, I shouldn't be surprised if the
man were right. Certainly there's something queer
about that hooker. Look how she handles herself.”
The vessel was some three miles to windward. She
was a schooner of the common two-masted Pacific
type, but she was comporting herself in a manner un-
common on the Pacific, or any other ocean. Even as
Barnett spoke, she heeled well over, and came rush-


A schooner comporting herself
1n a manner unconnnnon
ific
on the Pac
–-


| THE New York
PUBLIC LIBRARY
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TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
| R --


THE LAUGHING LASS I5
ing up into the wind, where she stood with all sails
shaking. Slowly she paid off again, bearing away
from them. Now she gathered full headway, yet edged
little by little to windward again.
“Mighty queer tactics,” muttered Edwards. “I
think she's steering herself.”
“Good thing she carries a weather helm,” com-
mented Ives, who was an expert on sailing rigs.
“Most of that type do. Otherwise she'd have jibed
her masts out, running loose that way.”
Captain Parkinson appeared on deck and turned his
glasses for a full minute on the strange schooner.
“Aloft there,” he hailed the crow's-nest. “Do you
make out anyone aboard?”
“No, sir,” came the answer.
“Mr. Carter, have the chief quartermaster report
on deck with the signal flags.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Aren't we going to run up to her?” asked Mc-
Guire, turning in surprise to Edwards.
“And take the risk of getting a hole punched in our
pretty paint, with her running amuck that way? Not
much!”
Up came the signal quartermaster to get his orders,
and there ensued a one-sided conversation in the preg-
nant language of the sea.
“What ship is that?”
No answer.
“Are you in trouble?” asked the cruiser, and
waited. The schooner showed a bare and silent main-
peak.
“Heave to.” Now Uncle Sam was giving orders.
-


I6 THE MYSTERY
But the other paid no heed.
“We'll make that a little more emphatic,” said
Captain Parkinson. A moment later there was the
sharp crash of a gun and a shot went across the bows
of the sailing vessel. Hastened by a flaw of wind that
veered from the normal direction of the breeze the
stranger made sharply to windward, as if to obey.
“Ah, there she comes,” ran the comment along the
cruiser's quarter-deck.
But the schooner, after standing for a moment, all
flapping, answered another flaw, and went wide about
on the opposite tack.
“Derelict,” remarked Captain Parkinson. “She
seems to be in good shape, too, Dr. Trendon!”
“Yes, sir.” The surgeon went to the captain, and
the others could hear his deep, abrupt utterance in
reply to some question too low for their ears.
“Might be, sir. Beri-beri, maybe. More likely
smallpox if anything of that kind. But some of 'em
would be on deck.”
“Whew! A plague ship!” said Billy Edwards.
“Just my luck to be ordered to board her.” He shiv-
ered slightly.
“Scared, Billy?” said Ives. Edwards had a rec-
ord for daring which made this joke obvious enough
to be safe.
“I wouldn’t want to have my peculiar style of
beauty spoiled by smallpox marks,” said the ensign,
with a smile on his homely, winning face. “And I’ve
a hunch that that ship is not a lucky find for this
ship.”
“Then I’ve a hunch that your hunch is a wrong


THE LAUGHING LASS 17
one,” said Ives. “How long would you guess that
craft to be?”
They were now within a mile of the schooner. Ed-
wards scrutinised her calculatingly.
“Eighty to ninety feet.”
“Say 150 tons. And she's a two-masted schooner,
isn't she?” continued Ives, insinuatingly.
“She certainly is.”
“Well, I’ve a hunch that that ship is a lucky find
for any ship, but particularly for this ship.”
“Great Caesar!” cried the ensign excitedly. “Do
you think it's her?”
A buzz of electric interest went around the group.
Every glass was raised; every eye strained toward her
stern to read the name as she veered into the wind
again. About she came. A sharp sigh of excited dis-
appointment exhaled from the spectators. The name
had been painted out.
“No go,” breathed Edwards. “But I'll bet another
dinner 93.
“Mr. Edwards,” called the captain. “You will take
the second cutter, board that schooner, and make a full
investigation.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take your time. Don't come alongside until she
is in the wind. Leave enough men aboard to handle
her.”
“Yes, sir.”
The cruiser steamed to within half a mile of the
aimless traveller, and the small boat put out. Not one
of his fellows but envied the young ensign as he left
the ship, steered by Timmins, a veteran bo's'n's mate,


I8 THE MYSTERY
wise in all the ins and outs of sea ways. They saw
him board, neatly running the small boat under the
schooner's counter; they saw the foresheet eased off
and the ship run up into the wind; then the foresail
dropped and the wheel lashed so that she would stand
so. They awaited the reappearance of Edwards and the
bo's'n's mate when they had vanished below decks, and
with an intensity of eagerness they followed the re-
turn of the small boat.
Billy Edwards's face as he came on deck was a
study. It was alight with excitement; yet between the
eyes two deep wrinkles of puzzlement quivered. Such
a face the mathematician bends above his paper when
some obstructive factor arises between him and his
solution. -
“Well, sir?” There was a hint of effort at restraint
in the captain's voice.
“She's the Laughing Lass, sir. Everything ship-
shape, but not a soul aboard.”
“Come below, Mr. Edwards,” said the captain.
And they went, leaving behind them a boiling caul-
dron of theory and conjecture.


2O THE MYSTERY
“Been over her, inside and out. No sign of col-
lision. No leak. No anything, except that the star-
board side is blistered a bit. No evidence of fire
anywhere else. I tell you,” said Billy Edwards pa-
thetically, “it’s given me a headache.”
“Perhaps it's one of those cases of panic that For-
sythe spoke of the other night,” said Ives. “The crew
got frightened at something and ran away, with the
devil after them.”
“But crews don't just step out and run around the
corner and hide, when they're scared,” objected
Barnett.
“That's true, too,” assented Ives. “Well, perhaps
that volcanic eruption jarred them so that they jumped
for it.”
“Pretty wild theory, that,” said Edwards.
“No wilder than the facts, as you give them,” was
the retort. -
“That's so,” admitted the ensign gloomily.
“But how about pestilence?” suggested Barnett.
“Maybe they died fast and the last survivor, after
the bodies of the rest were overboard, got delirious
and jumped after them.”
“Not if the galley fire was hot,” said Dr. Trendon,
briefly. “No; pestilence doesn't work that way.”
“Did you look at the wheel, Billy?” asked Ives.
“Did Il There's another thing. Wheel's all right,
but compass is no good at all. It's regularly be-
witched.”
“What about the log, then?”
“Couldn't find it anywhere. Hunted high, low,
jack, and the game; everywhere except in the big,


THE DEATH SHIP 2I
brass-bound chest I found in the captain's cabin.
Couldn't break into that.”
“Dr. Schermerhorn's chest!” exclaimed Barnett.
“Then he was aboard.”
“Well, he isn't aboard now,” said the ensign
grimly. “Not in the flesh. And that's all,” he added
suddenly.
“No; it isn't all,” said Barnett gently. “There's
something else. Captain's orders?”
“Oh, no. Captain Parkinson doesn't take enough
stock in my report to tell me to withhold anything,”
said Edwards, with a trace of bitterness in his voice.
“It's nothing that I believe myself, anyhow.”
“Give us a chance to believe it,” said Ives.
“Well,” said the ensign hesitantly, “there's a
sort of atmosphere about that schooner that's almost
uncanny.”
“Oh, you had the shudders before you were or-
dered to board,” bantered Ives.
“I know it. I’d have thought it was one of those
fool presentiments if I were the only one to feel it.
But the men were affected, too. They kept together
like frightened sheep. And I heard one say to an-
other: “Hey, Boney, d'you feel like someone was
a-buzzin' your nerves like a fiddle-string?” Now,” de-
manded Edwards plaintively, “what right has a jackie
to have nerves?”
“That's strange enough about the compass,” said
Barnett slowly. “Ours is all right again. The
schooner must have been so near the electric disturb-
ance that her instruments were permanently de-
ranged.”


THE DEATH SHIP 23
“Thanks for nothing,” retorted the ensign.
“Neither human nor other,” pursued Trendon.
“What!”
“Food scattered around the galley. Crumbs on the
mess table. Ever see a wooden ship without cock-
roaches P’’
“Never particularly investigated the matter.”
“Don’t believe such a thing exists,” said Ives.
“Not a cockroach on the Laughing Lass. Ever
know of an old hooker that wasn't overrun with
rats?”
“No; nor anyone else. Not above water.”
“Found a dozen dead rats. No sound or sign of a
live one on the Laughing Lass. No rats, no mice. No
bugs. Gentlemen, the Laughing Lass is a charnel
ship.”
“No wonder Billy's tender nerves went wrong.”
said Ives, with irrepressible flippancy. “She’s prob-
ably haunted by cockroach wraiths.”
“He’ll have a chance to see,” said Trendon. “Cap-
tain's going to put him in charge.”
“By way of apology, then,” said Barnett. “That's
pretty square.”
“Captain Parkinson wishes to see you in his cabin,
Mr. Edwards,” said an orderly, coming in.
“A pleasant voyage, Captain Billy,” said Ives.
“Sing out if the goblins git yer.”
Fifteen minutes later Ensign Edwards, with a
quartermaster, Timmins, the bo’s'n's mate, and a crew,
was heading a straight course toward his first com-
mand, with instructions to “keep company and watch
for signals"; and intention to break into the brass-


24 THE MYSTERY
bound chest and ferret out what clue lay there, if it
took dynamite. As he boarded, Barnett and Trendon,
with both of whom the lad was a favourite, came to a
sinister conclusion.
“It's poison, I suppose,” said the first officer.
“And a mighty subtle sort,” agreed Trendon.
“Don’t like the looks of it.” He shook a solemn head.
“Don’t like it for a damn.”


IV
THE SECOND PRIZE CREW
IN semi-tropic Pacific weather the unexpected so sel-
dom happens as to be a negligible quantity. The
Wolverine met with it on June 5th. From some un-
accountable source in that realm of the heaven-scour-
ing trades came a heavy mist. Possibly volcanic
action, deranging by its electric and gaseous outpour-
ings the normal course of the winds, had given birth
to it. Be that as it may, it swept down upon the
cruiser, thickening as it approached, until presently it
had spread a curtain between the warship and its
charge. The wind died. Until after fall of night the
Wolverine moved slowly, bellowing for the schooner,
but got no reply. Once they thought they heard a dis-
tant shout of response, but there was no repetition.
“Probably doesn't carry any fog horn,” said Car-
ter bitterly, voicing a general uneasiness.
“No log; compass crazy; without fog signal; I
don’t like that craft. Barnett ought to have been or-
dered to blow the damned thing up, as a peril to the
high seas.”
“We'll pick her up in the morning, surely,” said
Forsythe. “This can't last for ever.”
Nor did it last long. An hour before midnight a
pounding shower fell, lashing the sea into phosphor-
escent whiteness. It ceased, and with the growl of a
25


26 THE MYSTERY
leaping animal a squall furiously beset the ship. Soon
the great steel body was plunging and heaving in the
billows. It was a gloomy company about the ward-
room table. Upon each and all hung an oppression of
spirit. Captain Parkinson came from his cabin and
went on deck. Constitutionally he was a nervous and
pessimistic man with a fixed belief in the conspiracy
of events, banded for the undoing of him and his.
Blind or dubious conditions racked his soul, but real
danger found him not only prepared, but even eager.
Now his face was a picture of foreboding.
“Parky looks as if Davy Jones was pulling on his
string,” observed the flippant Ives to his neighbour.
“Worrying about the schooner. Hope Billy Ed-
wards saw or heard or felt that squall coming,” re-
plied Forsythe, giving expression to the anxiety that
all felt.
“He’s a good sailor man,” said Ives, “and that’s a
staunch little schooner, by the way she handled
herself.”
“Oh, it will be all right,” said Carter confidently.
“The wind's moderating now.”
“But there's no telling how far out of the course
this may have blown him.”
Barnett came down, dripping.
“Anything new?” asked Dr. Trendon.
The navigating officer shook his head.
“Nothing. But the captain's in a state of mind,” he
said.
“What's wrong with him?”
“The schooner. Seems possessed with the notion
that there's something wrong with her.”


THE SECOND PRIZE CREW 27
“Aren't you feeling a little that way yourself?”
said Forsythe. “I am. I'll take a look around before
I turn in.”
He left behind him a silent crowd. His return was
prompt and swift.
“Come on deck,” he said.
Every man leaped as to an order. There was that
in Forsythe's voice which stung. The weather had
cleared somewhat, though scudding wrack still blew
across them to the westward. The ship rolled heavily.
Of the sea naught was visible except the arching waves,
but in the sky they beheld again, with a sickening sense
of disaster, that pale and lovely glow which had so
bewildered them two nights before.
“The aurora!” cried McGuire, the paymaster.
“Oh, certainly,” replied Ives, with sarcasm. “Dead
in the west. Common spot for the aurora. Particu-
larly on the edge of the South Seas, where they are
thick | ?”
“Then what is it?”
Nobody had an answer. Carter hastened forward
and returned to report.
“It's electrical anyway,” said Carter. “The com-
pass is queer again.”
“Edwards ought to be close to the solution of it,”
ventured Ives. “This gale should have blown him just
about to the centre of interest.”
“If only he isn't involved in it,” said Carter anx-
iously.
“What could there be to involve him?” asked Mc-
Guire.
“I don't know,” said Carter slowly. “Somehow


28 THE MYSTERY
I feel as if the desertion of the schooner was in some
formidable manner connected with that light.”
For perhaps fifteen minutes the glow continued. It
seemed to be nearer at hand than on the former sight-
ing; but it took no comprehensible form. Then it died
away and all was blackness again. But the officers
of the Wolverine had long been in troubled slumber
before the sensitive compass regained its exact bal-
ance, and with the shifting wind to mislead her, the
cruiser had wandered, by morning, no man might
know how far from her course.
All day long of June 6th the Wolverine, baffled by
patches of mist and moving rain-squalls, patrolled the
empty seas without sighting the lost schooner. The
evening brought an envelope of fog again, and pres-
ently a light breeze came up from the north. An hour
of it had failed to disperse the mist, when there was
borne down to the warship a flapping sound as of
great wings. The flapping grew louder—waned—
ceased—and from the lookout came a hail.
“Ship's lights three points on the starboard
quarter.”
“What do you make it out to be?” came the query
from below.
“Green light's all I can see, sir.” There was a
pause.
“There's her port light, now. Looks to be turning
and bearing down on us, sir. Coming dead for us.”—
the man's voice rose—“close aboard; less’n two ship's
lengths away!”
As for a prearranged scene, the fog-curtain parted.
There loomed silently and swiftly the Laughing Lass.


THE SECOND PRIZE CREW 29
Down she bore upon the greater vessel until it seemed
as if she must ram; but all the time she was veering
to windward, and now she ran into the wind with
a castanet rattle of sails. So close aboard was she that
the eager eyes of Uncle Sam's men peered down upon
her empty decks—for she was void of life.
Behind the cruiser's blanketing she paid off very
slowly, but presently caught the breeze full and again
whitened the water at her prow. Forgetting regula-
tions, Ives hailed loudly:
“Ahoy, Laughing Lass! Ahoy, Billy Edwards!”
No sound, no animate motion came from aboard
that apparition, as she fell astern. A shudder of hor-
ror ran across the Wolverine's quarter-deck. A
wraith ship, peopled with skeletons, would have been
less dreadful to their sight than the brisk and active
desolation of the heeling schooner.
“Been deserted since early last night,” said Tren-
don hoarsely.
“How can you tell that?” asked Barnett.
“Both sails reefed down. Ready for that squall.
Been no weather since to call for reefs. Must have
quit her during the squall.”
“Then they jumped,” cried Carter, “for I saw her
boats. It isn’t believable.”
“Neither was the other,” said Trendon grimly.
A hurried succession of orders stopped further dis-
cussion for the time. Ives was sent aboard the
schooner to lower sail and report. He came back with
a staggering dearth of information. The boats were
all there; the ship was intact—as intact as when Billy
Edwards had taken charge—but the cheery, lovable


3O THE MYSTERY
ensign and his men had vanished without trace or clue.
As to the how or the wherefore they might rack their
brains without guessing. There was the beginning of
a log in the ensign's handwriting, which Ives had
found with high excitement and read with bitter dis-
appointment.
“Had squall from northeast,” it ran. “ Double
reefed her and she took it nicely. Seems a seaworthy,
quick ship. Further search for log. No result. Have
ordered one of crew who is a bit of a mechanic to
work at the brass-bound chest till he gets it open. He
reports marks on the lock as if somebody had been try-
ing to pick it before him.”
There was no further entry.
“Dr. Trendon is right,” said Barnett. “Whatever
happened—and God only knows what it could have
been—it happened just after the squall.”
“Just about the time of the strange glow,” cried
Ives.
It was decided that two men and a petty officer
should be sent aboard the Laughing Lass to make her
fast with a cable, and remain on board over night.
But when the order was given the men hung
back. One of them protested brokenly that he was
sick. Trendon, after examination, reported to the
captain.
“Case of blue funk, sir. Might as well be sick.
Good for nothing. Others aren't much better.”
“Who was to be in charge?”
“Congdon,” replied the doctor, naming one of the
petty officers.
“He’s my coxswain,” said Captain Parkinson. “A


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTCR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R L
Ji-


THE SECOND PRIZE CREW 3I
first-class man. I can hardly believe that he is afraid.
We'll see.”
Congdon was sent for.
“You’re ordered aboard the schooner for the night,
Congdon,” said the captain.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there any reason why you do not wish to go?”
The man hesitated, looking miserable. Finally he
blurted out, not without a certain dignity:
“I obey orders, sir.”
“Speak out, my man,” urged the captain kindly.
“Well, sir: it's Mr. Edwards, then. You couldn't
scare him off a ship, sir, unless it was something—
something 92
He stopped, failing of the word.
“You know what Mr. Edwards was, sir, for
pluck,” he concluded.
“Wast" cried the captain sharply. “What do you
mean?
“The schooner got him, sir. You don't make no
doubt of that, do you, sir?” The man spoke in a
hushed voice, with a shrinking glance back of him.
“Will you go aboard under Mr. Ives?”
“Anywhere my officer goes I'll go, and gladly,
Sir.” -
Ives was sent aboard in charge. For that night, in
a light breeze, the two ships lay close together, the
schooner riding jauntily astern. But not until morn-
ing illumined the world of waters did the Wolverine's
people feel confident that the Laughing Lass would not
vanish away from their ken like a shape of the mist.


V
THE DISAPPEARANCE
WHEN Barnett come on deck very early in the morn-
ing of June 7th, he found Dr. Trendon already up and
staring moodily out at the Laughing Lass. As the
night was calm the tow had made fair time toward
their port in the Hawaiian group. The surgeon was
muttering something which seemed to Barnett to be in
a foreign tongue.
“Thought out any clue, doctor?” asked the first
officer. -
“Petit Chel–Pshaw! Jolie Celimenel No,” mut-
tered Trendon. “Marie—Marie—I’ve got it! The
Marie Celeste.”
“Got what? What about her?”
“Parallel case,” said Trendon. “Sailed from New
York back in the seventies. Seven weeks out was
found derelict. Everything in perfect order. Captain's
wife's hem on the machine. Boats all accounted for.
No sign of struggle. Log written to within forty-
eight hours.”
“What became of the crew P”
“Wish I could tell you. Might help to unravel our
tangle.” He shook his head in sudden, unwonted
passion.
“Evidently there's something criminal in her rec-
ord,” said Barnett, frowning at the fusty schooner
astern. “Otherwise the name wouldn’t be painted out.”
32


THE DISAPPEARANCE 33
“Painted out long ago. See how rusty it is. Scher-
merhorn's work maybe,” replied Trendon. “Secret ex-
pedition, remember.”
“In the name of wonders, why should he do it?”
“Secret expedition, wasn't it?”
“Um-ah; that's true,” said the other thoughtfully.
“It’s quite possible.”
“Captain wishes to see both of you gentlemen in
the ward room, if you please,” came a message.
Below they found all the officers gathered. Captain
Parkinson was pacing up and down in ill-controlled
agitation.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we are facing a problem
which, so far as I know, is without parallel. It is my
intention to bring the schooner which we have in tow
to port at Honolulu. In the present unsettled weather
we cannot continue to tow her. I wish two officers
to take charge. Under the circumstances I shall issue
no orders. The duty must be voluntary.”
Instantly every man, from the veteran Trendon to
the youthful paymaster, volunteered.
“That is what I expected,” said Captain Parkinson
quietly. “But I have still a word to say. I make no
doubt in my own mind that the schooner has twice
been beset by the gravest of perils. Nothing less would
have driven Mr. Edwards from his post. All of us
who know him will appreciate that. Nor can I free
myself from the darkest forebodings as to his fate
and that of his companions. But as to the nature
of the peril I am unable to make any conjecture
worthy of consideration. Has anyone a theory to
Offer?”


34 THE MYSTERY
There was a dead silence.
“Mr. Barnett? Dr. Trendon P Mr. Ives?”
“Is there not possibly some connection between the
unexplained light which we have twice seen, and the
double desertion of the ship?” suggested the first
officer, after a pause.
“I have asked myself that over and over. What-
ever the source of the light and however near to it
the schooner may have been, she is evidently un-
harmed.”
“Yes, sir,” said Barnett. “That seems to vitiate
that explanation.”
“I thank you, gentlemen, for the promptitude of
your offers,” continued the captain. “In this respect
you make my duty the more difficult. I shall accept
Mr. Ives because of his familiarity with sailing craft
and with these seas.” His eyes ranged the group.
“I beg your pardon, Captain Parkinson,” eagerly
put in the paymaster, “but I’ve handled a schooner
yacht for several years and I’d appreciate the chance
of-"
“Very well, Mr. McGuire, you shall be the second
in command.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You gentlemen will pick a volunteer crew and
go aboard at once. Spare no effort to find records of
the schooner's cruise. Keep in company and watch for
signals. Report at once any discovery or unusual inci-
dent, however slight.”
Not so easily was a crew obtained. Having in mind
the excusable superstition of the men, Captain Park-
inson was unwilling to compel any of them to the duty.


THE DISAPPEARANCE 35
Awed by the mystery of their mates’ disappearance,
the sailors hung back. Finally by temptation of extra
prize money, a complement was made up.
At ten o'clock of a puffy, mist-laden morning a
new and strong crew of nine men boarded the Laugh-
ing Lass. There were no farewells among the officers.
Forebodings weighed too heavy for such open ex-
pression.
All the fates of weather seemed to combine to part
the schooner from her convoy. As before, the fog
fell, only to be succeeded by squally rain-showers
that cut out the vista into a checkerboard pattern of
visible sea and impenetrable greyness. Before evening
the Laughing Lass, making slow way through the
mists, had become separated by a league of waves
from the cruiser. One glimpse of her between mist
areas the Wolverines caught at sunset. Then wind and
rain descended in furious volume from the southeast.
The cruiser immediately headed about, following the
probable course of her charge, which would be beaten
far down to leeward. It was a gloomy mess on the
warship. In his cabin, Captain Parkinson was frankly
sea-sick: a condition which nothing but the extreme
of nervous depression ever induced in him.
For several hours the rain fell and the gale howled.
Then the sky swiftly cleared, and with the clearing
there rose a great cry of amaze from stem to stern of
the Wolverine. For far toward the western horizon
appeared such a prodigy as the eye of no man aboard
that ship had ever beheld. From a belt of marvellous,
glowing gold, rich and splendid streamers of light
spiralled up into the blackness of the heavens.


36 THE MYSTERY
In all the colours of the spectrum they rose and fell;
blazing orange, silken, wonderful, translucent blues,
and shimmering reds. Below, a broad band of paler
hue, like sheet lightning fixed to rigidity, wavered and
rippled. All the auroras of the northland blended in
one could but have paled away before the splendour of
that terrific celestial apparition.
On board the cruiser all hands stood petrified, bound
in a stricture of speechless wonder. After the first cry,
silence lay leaden over the ship. It was broken by a
scream of terror from forward. The quartermaster
who had been at the wheel came clambering down the
ladder and ran along the deck, his fingers splayed and
stiffened before him in the intensity of his panic.
“The needle! The compass!” he shrieked.
Barnett ran to the wheel house with Trendon at
his heels. The others followed. The needle was sway-
ing like a cobra's head. And as a cobra's head spits
venom, it spat forth a thin, steel-blue stream of lucent
fire. Then so swiftly it whirled that the sparks scat-
tered from it in a tiny shower. It stopped, quivered,
and curved itself upward until it rattled like a fairy
drum upon the glass shield. Barnett looked at
Trendon.
“Volcanic?” he said.
“‘Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of
the Lord,’” muttered the surgeon in his deep bass, as
he looked forth upon the streaming, radiant heavens.
“It’s like nothing else.”
In the west the splendour and the terror shot to the
zenith. Barnett whirled the wheel. The ship re-
sponded perfectly.


THE DISAPPEARANCE 37
“I though she might be bewitched, too,” he mur-
mured.
“You may head her for the light, Mr. Barnett,”
said Captain Parkinson calmly. He had come from his
cabin, all his nervous depression gone in the face of
an imminent and visible danger.
Slowly the great mass of steel swung to the un-
known. For an hour the unknown guided her. Then
fell blackness, sudden, complete. After that radiance
the dazzled eye could make out no stars, but the look-
out's keen vision discerned something else.
“Ship afire,” he shouted hoarsely.
“Where away?”
“Two points to leeward, near where the light was,
Sir.”
They turned their eyes to the direction indicated,
and beheld a majestic rolling volume of purple light.
Suddenly a fiercer red shot it through.
“That's no ship afire,” said Trendon. “Volcano in
eruption.” -
“And the other?” asked the captain.
“No volcano, sir.”
“Poor Billy Edwards wins his bet,” said Forsythe,
in a low voice.
“God grant he's on earth to collect it,” replied Bar-
nett solemnly.
No one turned in that night. When the sun of June
8th rose, it showed an ocean bare of prospect except
that on the far horizon where the chart showed no
land there rose a smudge of dirty rolling smoke. Of
the schooner there was neither sign nor trace.


VI
THE CASTAWAYS
“THIS ship,” growled Carter, the second officer, to
Dr. Trendon, as they stood watching the growing
smoke-column, “is a worse hot-bed of rumours than
a down-east village. That's the third sea-gull we’ve
had officially reported since breakfast.”
As he said, three distinct times the Wolverine had
thrilled to an imminent discovery, which, upon nearer
investigation, had dwindled to nothing more than a
floating fowl. Upon the heels of Carter's complaint
came another hail.
“Boat ahoy. Three points on the starboard bow.”
“If that's another gull,” muttered Carter, “I’ll have
something to say to you, my festive lookout.”
The news ran electrically through the cruiser, and
all eyes were strained for a glimpse of the boat. The
ship swung away to starboard.
“Let me know as soon as you can make her out,”
ordered Carter.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“There's certainly something there,” said For-
sythe, presently. “I can make out a speck rising on the
waves.”
“Bit o' wreckage from Barnett's derelict,” mut-
tered Trendon, Scowling through his glasses.
38


THE CASTAWAYS 39
“Rides too high for a spar or anything of that
sort,” said the junior lieutenant.
“She’s a small boat,” came in the clear tones of
the lookout, “driftin’ down.”
“Anyone in her?” asked Carter.
“Can't make out yet, sir. No one's in charge
though, sir.”
Captain Parkinson appeared and Carter pointed out
the speck to him.
“Yes. Give her full speed,” said the captain, re-
plying to a question from the officer of the deck.
Forward leapt the swift cruiser, all too slow for the
anxious hearts of those aboard. For there was not
one of the Wolverines who did not expect from this
aimless traveller of desert seas at the least a leading
clue to the riddle that oppressed them.
“Aloft there!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Can you make out her build?”
“Rides high, like a dory, sir.”
“Wasn't there a dory on the Laughing Lass?”
cried Forsythe.
“On her stern davits,” answered Trendon.
“It is hardly probable that unattached small boats
should be drifting about these seas,” said Captain
Parkinson, thoughtfully. “If she's a dory, she's the
Laughing Lass's boat.”
“That's what she is,” said Barnett. “You can see
her build plain enough now.”
“Mr. Barnett, will you go aloft and keep me
posted?” said the captain.
The executive officer climbed to join the lookout.


4O THE MYSTERY
As he ascended, those below saw the little craft rise
high and slow on a broad swell.
“Same dory,” said Trendon. “I’d swear to her in
Constantinople.”
“What else could she be?” muttered Forsythe.
“Somethin' that looks like a man in the bottom of
her,” sang out the crow's-nest. “Two of 'em, I think.”
For five minutes there was stillness aboard, broken
only by an occasional low-voiced conjecture. Then
from aloft:
“Two men rolling in the bottom.”
“Are they alive?”
“No, sir; not that I can see.”
The wind, which had been extremely variable since
dawn, now whipped around a couple of points, swing-
ing the boat's stern to them. Barnet, putting aside his
glass for a moment, called down:
“That's the one, sir. I can make out the name.”
“Good,” said the captain quietly. “We should
have news, at least.”
“Ives or McGuire,” suggested Forsythe, in low
tones.
“Or Billy Edwards,” amended Carter.
“Not Edwards,” said Trendon.
“How do you know?” demanded Forsythe.
“Dory was aboard when we found her the second
time, after Edwards had left.”
“Can you make out which of the men are in her?”
hailed the captain.
“Don’t think it's any of our people,” came the
astonishing reply from Barnett.
“Are you sure?”


THE CASTAWAYS | 4I
“I can see only one man's face, sir. It isn't Ives
or McGuire. He's a stranger to me.”
“It must be one of the crew, then.”
“No, sir, beg your parding,” called the lookout.
“Nothin’ like that in our crew, sir.”
The boat came down upon them swiftly. Soon the
quarter-deck was looking into her. She was of a type
common enough on the high seas, except that a step
for a mast showed that she had presumably been used
for skimming about open shores. Of her passengers,
one lay forward, prone and quiet. A length of sail
cloth spread over him made it impossible to see his
garb. At his breast an ugly protuberance, outlined
vaguely, hinted a deformity.
The other sprawled aft, and at a nearer sight of
him some of the men broke out into nervous titters.
There was some excuse, for surely such a scarecrow
had never before been the sport of wind and wave.
A thing of shreds he was, elaborately ragged, a face
overrun with a scrub of beard, and preternaturally
drawn, surmounted by a stiff-dried, dirty, cloth semi-
turban, with a wide, forbidding stain along the side,
worked out the likeness to a make-up.
“My God!” cackled Forsythe with an hysterical
explosion; and again, “My God!”
A long-drawn, irrepressible aspiration of expectancy
rose from the warship's decks as the stranger raised
his haggard face, turned eyes unseeingly upon them,
and fell back. The forward occupant stirred not, save
as the boat rolled.
From between decks someone called out, sharply, an
order. In the grim silence it seemed strangely incon-


42 THE MYSTERY
gruous that the measured business of a ship's life
should be going forward as usual. Something within
the newcomer's consciousness stirred to that voice of
authority. Mechanically, like some huge, hideous toy,
he raised first one arm, then the other, and hitched
himself halfway up on the stern seat. His mouth
opened. His face wrinkled. He seemed groping for
the meaning of a joke at which he knew he ought to
laugh. Suddenly from his lips in surprising volume,
raucous, rasping, yet with a certain rollicking deviltry
fit to set the head a-tilt, burst a chanty:
“Oh, their coffin was their ship, and their grave it was
the sea:
Blow high, blow low, what care wel
And the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in
the sea:
Down on the coast of the high Barbaree-ee.”
Long-drawn, like the mockery of a wail, the minor
cadence wavered through the stillness, and died away.
“The High Barbaree!” cried Trendon.
“You know it?” asked the captain, expectant of
a clue.
“One of those cursed tunes you can't forget,” said
the surgeon. “Heard a scoundrel of a beach-comber
sing it years ago. Down in New Zealand, that was.
When the fever rose on him he'd pipe up. Used to
beat time with a steel hook he wore in place of a hand.
The thing haunted me till I was sorry I hadn't let the
rascal die. This creature might have learned it from
him. Howls it out exactly like.”


44 THE MYSTERY
“What ails him P”
“Enough. Gash in his scalp. Fever. Thirst and ex-
haustion. Nervous shock, too, I think.”
“How came he aboard the Laughing Lass?”
“Does he know anything of Billy?” “Was he a
stow-away?” “Did you ask him about Ives and Mc-
Guire?” “How came he in the Small boat?”
“Where are the rest?”
“Now, now,” said the veteran chidingly. “How
can I tell? Would you have me kill the man with
questions?”
He left them to look at the body of the bo's'n's mate.
Not a word had he to say when he returned. Only the
captain got anything out of him but growling and
unintelligible expressions, which seemed to be objurga-
tory and to express bewildered cogitation.
“How long had poor Timmins been drowned?”
the captain had asked him, and Trendon replied:
“Captain Parkinson, the man wasn't drowned. No
water in his lungs.”
“Not drowned Then how came he by his death?’”
“If I were to diagnose it under any other condi-
tions I should say that he had inhaled flames.”
Then the two men stared at each other in blank
impotency. Meantime the scarecrow was showing
signs of returning consciousness and a message was
dispatched for the physician. On his way he met
Barnett, who asked and received permission to ac-
company him. The stranger was tossing restlessly in
his bunk, opening and shutting his parched mouth in
silent, piteous appeal for the water that must still be
doled to him parsimoniously.


THE CASTAWAYS 45
“I think I'll try him with a little brandy,” said
Trendon, and sent for the liquor.
Barnett raised the patient while the surgeon held
the glass to his lips. The man's hand rose, wavered,
and clasped the glass.
“All right, my friend. Take it yourself, if you
like,” said Trendon.
The fingers closed. Tremulously held, the little glass
tilted and rattled against the teeth. There was one
deep, eager spasm of swallowing. Then the fevered
eyes opened upon the face of the Wolverine's first
officer.
“Prosit, Barnett,” said the man, in a voice like the
rasp of rusty metal.
The navy man straightened up as from a blow un-
der the jaw.
“Be careful what you are about,” warned Trendon,
addressing his superior officer sharply, for Barnett
had all but let his charge drop. His face was a puck-
ered mask of amaze and incredulity.
“Did you hear him speak my name—or am I
dreaming?” he half whispered.
“Heard him plain enough. Who is he?”
The man's eyes closed, but he smiled a little—a sin-
gular, wry-mouthed, winning smile. With that there
sprung from behind the brush of beard, filling out the
deep lines of emaciation, a memory to the recognition
of Barnett; a keen and gay countenance that whisked
him back across seven years time to the days of Dewey
and the Philippines.
“Ralph Slade, by the Lord!” he exclaimed.
“Of the Laughing Lass?” cried Trendon.


46 THE MYSTERY
“Of the Laughing Lass.”
Such a fury of eagerness burned in the face of
Barnett that Trendon cautioned him. “See here, Mr.
Barnett, you're not going to fire a broadside of dis-
turbing questions at my patient yet a while. He's in
no condition.”
But it was from the other that the questions came.
Opening his eyes he whispered, “The sailor?
Where?”
“Dead,” said Trendon bluntly. Then, breaking his
own rule of repression, he asked:
“Did he come off the schooner with you?”
“Picked him up,” was the straining answer.
“Drifting.”
The survivor looked around him, then into Bar-
nett's face, and his mind too, traversed the years.
“North Dakota?” he queried.
“No; I've changed my ship,” said Barnett. “This
is the Wolverine.”
“Where's the Laughing Lass?”
Barnett shook his head.
“Tell me,” begged Slade.
“Wait till you're stronger,” admonished Trendon.
“Can't wait,” said the weak voice. The eyes grew
wild.
“Mr. Barnett, tell him the bare outline and make it
short,” said the surgeon.
“We sighted the Laughing Lass two days ago. She
was in good shape, but deserted. That is, we thought
she was deserted.”
The man nodded eagerly.
“I suppose you were aboard,” said Barnett, and


THE CASTAWAYS 47
Trendon made a quick gesture of impatience and re-
buke.
“No,” said Slade. “Left three—four—don't know
how many nights ago.”
The officers looked at each other. “Go on,” said
Trendon to his companion.
“We put a crew aboard in command of an ensign,”
continued Barnett, “and picked up the schooner the
next night, deserted. You must know about it. Where
is Billy Edwards?”
“Never heard of him,” whispered the other.
“Ives and McGuire, then. They were there
after Great God, man!” he cried, his agitation
breaking out, “Pull yourself together! Give us
something to go on.”
“Mr. Barnett!” said the surgeon peremptorily.
But the suggestion was working in the sick man's
brain. He turned to the officers a face of horror.
“Your man, Edwards—the crew—they left her? In
the night?”
“What does he mean?” cried Barnett.
“The light! You saw it?”
“Yes; we saw a strange light,” answered Trendon
soothingly. Slade half rose. “Lost; all lost!” he
cried, and fell back unconscious. Trendon exploded
into curses. “See what you've done to my patient,”
he fumed. Barnett looked at him with contrite eyes.
“Better get out before he comes to,” growled the
surgeon. “Nice way to treat a man half dead of ex-
haustion.”
It was nearly an hour before Slade came back to
the world again. The doctor forbade him to attempt


48 THE MYSTERY
speech. But of one thing he would not be denied.
There was a struggle for utterance, then:
“The volcano?” he rasped out.
“Dead ahead,” was the reply.
“Stand by!” grasped Slade. He strove to rise, to
say something further, but endurance had reached its
limit. The man was utterly done.
Dr. Trendon went on deck, his head sunk between
his shoulders. For a minute he was in earnest talk
with the captain. Presently the Wolverine's engines
slowed down, and she lay head to the waves, with
just enough turn of the screw to hold her against
the sea-way.


VII
THE FREE LANCE
By the following afternoon Dr. Trendon reported his
patient as quite recovered.
“Starved for water,” proffered the surgeon. “Tis-
sues fairly dried out. Soaked him up. Fed him broth.
Put him to sleep. He's all right. Just wakes up to eat;
then off again like a two-year old. Wonderful con-
stitution.”
“The gentleman wants to know if he can come on
deck, sir,” saluted an orderly.
“Waked up, eh. Come on, Barnett. Help me boost
him on deck.” -
The two officers disappeared to return in a moment
arm-in-arm with Ralph Slade.
Nearly twenty-four hours' rest and skilful treat-
ment had done wonders. He was still a trifle
weak and uncertain, was still a little glad to lean on
the arms of his companions, but his eye was bright
and alert, and his hollow cheeks mounted a slight
colour. This, with the clothes lent him by Barnett,
transformed his appearance, and led Captain Parkin-
son to congratulate himself that he had not obeyed
his first impulse to send the castaway forward with
the men.
The officers pressed forward.
“Mighty glad to see you out.” “Hope you've got
49


50 THE MYSTERY -
your pins under you again.” “Old man, I'm mighty
glad we came along.”
The chorus of greeting was hearty enough, but the
journalist barely paid the courtesy of acknowledgment.
His eye swept the horizon eagerly until it rested on
the cloud of volcanic smoke billowing up across the
setting sun. A sigh of relief escaped him.
“Where are we?” he asked Barnett. “I mean since
you picked me up. How long ago was that, anyway?”
“Yesterday,” replied the navigating officer.
“We’ve stood off and on, looking for some of our
men.”
“Then that's the same volcano—”
Barnett laughed softly. “Well, they aren't quite
holding a caucus of volcanoes down in this country.
One like that is enough.”
But Slade brushed the remark aside.
“Head for it!” he cried excitedly. “We may be
in time! There's a man on that island.”
“A man!” “Another!” “Not Billy Edwards?”
“Not some of our boys?”
Slade stared at them bewildered.
“Hold on,” interposed Dr. Trendon authoritatively.
“What's his name?” he inquired of the journalist.
“Darrow,” replied the latter. “Percy Darrow. Do
you know him?”
“Who in Kamschatka is Percy Darrow?” de-
manded Forsythe.
“Why, he's the assistant. “It’s a long sto
“Of course, it's a long story. There's a lot we want
to know,” interrupted Captain Parkinson. “Quarter-
master, head for the volcano yonder. Mr. Slade, we
99


THE FREE LANCE 5.I
want to know where you came from; and why you
left the schooner, and who Percy Darrow is. And
there's dinner, so we'll just adjourn to the messroom
and hear what you can tell us. But there's one thing
we're all anxious to know; how came you in the dory
which we found and left on the Laughing Lass no
later than two days ago?”
“I haven’t set eyes on the Laughing Lass for—
well, I don't know how long, but it's five days anyway,
perhaps more,” replied Slade.
They stared at him incredulously.
“Oh, I see!” he burst out suddenly; “there were
twin dories on the schooner. The other one's still
there, I suppose. Did you find her on the stern
davits P’’
& 4 Yes.”
“That's it, then. You see when I left 39
Captain Parkinson's raised hand checked him. “If
you will be so good, Mr. Slade, let us have it all at
once, after mess.”
At table the young officers, at a sharp hint from
Dr. Trendon, conversed on indifferent subjects until
the journalist had partaken heartily of what the
physician allowed him. Slade ate with keen appre-
ciation.
“I tell you, that's good,” he sighed, when he had
finished. “Real, live, after-dinner coffee, too. Why,
gentlemen, I haven't eaten a civilised meal, with all the
trimmings, for over two years. Doctor, do you think
a little of the real stuff would hurt me? It's a pretty
dry yarning.”
“One glass,” growled the surgeon, “no more.”


52 THE MYSTERY
“Scotch high-ball, then,” voted Slade, “the higher
the better.”
The steward brought a tall glass with ice, in which
the newcomer mixed his drink. Then for quite a
minute he sat silent, staring at the table, his fingers
aimlessly rubbing into spots of wetness the water
beads as they gathered on the outside of his glass. Sud-
denly he looked up.
“I don't know how to begin,” he confessed. “It’s
too confounded improbable. I hardly believe it my-
self, now that I'm sitting here in human clothes, sur-
rounded by human beings. Old Scrubs, and the Nig-
ger, and Handy Solomon, and the Professor, and the
chest, and the well, they were real enough when I
was caught in the mess. But I warn you, you are
not going to believe me, and hanged if I blame you
a bit.”
“We’ve seen marvels ourselves in the last few
days,” encouraged Captain Parkinson.
“Fire ahead, man,” advised Barnett impatiently.
“Just begin at the beginning and let it go at that.”
Slade sipped at his glass reflectively.
“Well,” said he at length, “the best way to begin
is to show you how I happened to be mixed up in it
at all.”
The officers unconsciously relaxed into attitudes of
greater ease. Overhead the lamps swayed gently to
the swell. The dull throb of the screw pulsated.
Stewards clad in white moved noiselessly, filling the
glasses, deferentially striking lights for the smokers,
clearing away the last dishes of the repast.
“I’m a reporter by choice, and a detective by in-


THE FREE LANCE 53
stinct,” began Slade, with startling abruptness. “Fur-
thermore, I'm pretty well off. I’m what they call a
free lance, for I have no regular desk on any of the
journals. I generally turn my stuff in to the Star be-
cause they treat me well. In return it is pretty well
understood between us that I’m to use my judgment
in regard to “stories’ and that they'll stand back of
me for expenses. You see, I've been with them quite
a while.”
He looked around the circle as though in appeal
to the comprehension of his audience. Some of the
men nodded. Others sipped from their glasses or drew
at their cigars. -
“I loaf around here and there in the world, hav-
ing a good time travelling, visiting, fooling around.
Every once in a while something interests me. The
thing is a sort of instinct. I run it down. If it's a
good story, I send it in. That's all there is to it.” He
laughed slightly. “You see, I'm a sort of magazine
writer in method, but my stuff is newspaper stuff.
Also the game suits me. That's why I play it. That's
why I'm here. I have to tell you about myself this way
so you will understand how I came to be mixed up in
this Laughing Lass matter.”
“I remember,” commented Barnett, “that when you
came aboard the South Dakota, you had a little trouble
making Captain Arnold see it.” He turned to the others
with a laugh. “He had all kinds of papers of ancient
date, but nothing modern—letter from the Star dated
five years back, recommendations to everybody on
earth, except Captain Arnold, certificate of bravery in
Apache campaign, bank identifications, and all the


PART TWO
THE BRASS BOUND CHEST
Being the story told by Ralph Slade, Free Lance, to
the officers of the United States cruiser Wol-
verine.





I
THE BARBARY COAST
A coincidence got me aboard her. I'll tell you how
it was. One evening late I was just coming out of
a dark alley on the Barbary Coast, San Francisco.
You know—the water front, where you can hear more
tongues than at Port Said, see stranger sights, and
meet adventure with the joyous certainty of mediaeval
times. I’d been down there hunting up a man reported,
by a wharf-rat of my acquaintance, to have just re-
turned from a two years’ whaling voyage. He’d been
“shanghaied " aboard, and as a matter of fact, was
worth nearly a million dollars. Landed in the city
without a cent, could get nobody to believe him, nor
trust him to the extent of a telegram East. Wharf-
rat laughed at his yarn; but I believe it was true. Good
copy anyway
Just at the turn of the alley I nearly bumped into
two men. On the Barbary Coast you don't pass men
in narrow places until you have reconnoitered a little.
I pulled up, thanking fortune that they had not seen
me. The first words were uttered in a voice I knew
well.
You've all heard of Dr. Karl Augustus Scher-
merhorn. He did some big things, and had in mind
still bigger. I’d met him some time before in con-
nection with his telepathy and wireless waves theory.
57


58 THE MYSTERY
It was picturesque stuff for my purpose, but wasn't in
it with what the old fellow had really done. He
showed me—well, that doesn't matter. The point is,
that good, staid, self-centred, or rather science-
centred, Dr. Schermerhorn was standing at mid-
night in a dark alley on the Barbary Coast in San
Francisco talking to an individual whose facial outline
at least was not ornamental.
My curiosity, or professional instinct, whichever
you please, was all aroused. I flattened myself against
the wall.
The first remark I lost. The reply came to me in a
shrill falsetto. So grotesque was the effect of this
treble from a bulk so squat and broad and hairy as the
silhouette before me that I almost laughed aloud.
“I guess you've made no mistake on that. I'm her
master, and her owner too.”
“Well, I haf been told you might rent her,” said
the Doctor.
“Rent her!” mimicked the falsetto. “Well, that
—hell, yes, I’ll rent her!” he laughed again.
“Doch recht.” The Doctor was plainly at the end
of his practical resources.
After waiting a moment for something more def-
inite, the falsetto inquired rather drily:
“How long? What to? What for? Who are you,
anyway?”
“I am Dr. Schermerhorn,” the latter answered.
“Seen pieces about you in the papers.”
“How many men haf you in the crew?”
“Me and the mate and the cook and four hands.”
“And you could go—soon?”


THE BARBARY COAST 59
“Soon as you want—if I go.”
“I wish to leaf to-morrow.”
“If I can get the crew together, I might make it.
But say, let's not hang out here in this run of dark-
ness. Come over to the grog shop yonder where we
can sit down.”
To my relief, for my curiosity was fully aroused—
Dr. Schermerhorn's movements are usually productive
—this proposal was vetoed.
“No, no!” cried the Doctor, with some haste, “this
iss well! Somebody might of rhear.”
The huge figure stirred into an attitude of close
attention. After a pause the falsetto asked delib-
erately: -
“Where we goin’?”
“I brefer not to say.”
“H'm How long a cruise?”
“I want to rent your schooner and your crew as-
long-as I-please-to remain.”
“H'm How long's that likely to be?”
“Maybe a few months; maybe seferal years.”
“H’ml Unknown port; unknown cruise. See
here, anything crooked in this?”
“No, no! Not at all! It iss simply business of my
own.”
“Not that I care,” commented the other easily,
“only risks is worth paying for.”
“There shall not be risk.”
“Pearls likely?” hazarded the other, without much
heed to the assurance. “Them Jap gunboats is getting
pretty hard to dodge of late years. However, I’ve
dodged 'em before.”


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THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
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TILDEN FOUNDATIONs
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THE BARBARY COAST 6I
schooner, or that of her master. As it was, I hung
around until the two had emerged from the corner
saloon. They paused outside, still talking earnestly.
I ventured a hasty interview with the bar-keeper.
“Did you notice the two men who were sitting at
the middle table?” I asked him.
“Sure!” said he, shoving me my glass of beer.
“Know them?” I inquired.
“Never laid eyes on 'em before. Old chap looked
like a sort of corn doctor or corner spell-binder. Other
was probably one of these longshore abalone men.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, and dodged out again, leav-
ing the beer untouched.
I cursed myself for a blunderer. When I got to
the street the two men had disappeared. I should
have shadowed the captain to his vessel.
The affair interested me greatly. Apparently Dr.
Schermerhorn was about to go on a long voy-
age. I prided myself on being fairly up to date in re-
gard to the plans of those who interested the public;
and the public at that time was vastly interested in
Dr. Schemerhorn. I, in common with the rest of the
world, had imagined him anchored safely in Phila-
delphia, immersed in chemical research. Here he
bobbed up at the other end of the continent, making
shady bargains with obscure shipping captains, and
paying a big premium for absolute secrecy. It looked
good.
Accordingly I was out early the next morning. I
had not much to go by; schooners are as plenty as
tadpoles in San Francisco harbour. However, I was
sure I could easily recognise that falsetto voice; and


62 THE MYSTERY
I knew where the supplies were to be purchased.
Adams & Marsh are a large firm, and cautious. I
knew better than to make direct inquiries, or to ap-
pear in the salesroom. But by hanging around the
door of the shipping room I soon had track of the
large orders to be sent that day. In this manner I
had no great difficulty in following a truck to Pier Io,
nor to identify a consignment to Captain Ezra Selover
as probably that of which I was in search.
The mate was in charge of the stowage, so I could
not be quite sure. Here, however, was a schooner—of
about a hundred and fifty tons burden. I looked her
OVer.
You're all acquainted with the Laughing Lass and
the perfection of her lines. You have not known her
under Captain Ezra Selover. She was the cleanest
ship I ever saw. Don't know how he accomplished it,
with a crew of four and the cook; but he did. The deck
looked as though it had been holystoned every morn-
ing by a crew of jackies; the stays were whipped and
tarred, the mast new-slushed, and every foot of run-
ning gear coiled down shipshape and Bristol fashion.
There was a good deal of brass about her; it shone
like gold, and I don’t believe she owned an inch of
paint that wasn't either fresh or new-scrubbed.
I gazed for some time at this marvel. It's unusual
enough anywhere, but aboard a California hooker it
is little short of miraculous. The crew had all turned
up, apparently, and a swarm of stevedores were hus-
tling every sort of provisions, supplies, stock, spars,
lines and canvas down into the hold. It was a rush
job, and that mate was having his hands full. I didn't


THE BARBARY COAST 63
wonder at his language nor at his looks, both of which
were somewhat mussed up. Then almost at my elbow
I heard that shrill falsetto squeal, and turned just in
time to see the captain ascend the after gangplank.
He was probably the most dishevelled and untidy
man I ever laid my eyes on. His hair and beard were
not only long, but tangled and unkempt, and grew so
far toward each other as barely to expose a strip of
dirty brown skin. His shoulders were bowed and
enormous. His arms hung like a gorilla's, palms
turned slightly outwards. On his head was jammed a
linen boating hat that had once been white; gaping
away from his hairy chest was a faded dingy checked
cotton shirt that had once been brown and white; his
blue trousers were spotted and splashed with dusty
stains; he was chewing tobacco. A figure more in
contrast to the exquisitely neat vessel it would be hard
to imagine.
The captain mounted the gangplank with a stead-
iness that disproved my first suspicion of his having
been on a drunk. He glanced aloft, cast a speculative
eye on the stevedores trooping across the waist of the
ship, and ascended to the quarter-deck where the mate
stood leaning over the rail and uttering directed
curses from between sweat-beaded lips. There the big
man roamed aimlessly on what seemed to be a tour of
casual inspection. Once he stopped to breathe on the
brass binnacle and to rub it bright with the dirtiest
red bandana handkerchief I ever want to see.
His actions amused me. The discrepancy between
his personal habits and his particularity in the matter
of his surroundings was exceedingly interesting. I


64 THE MYSTERY
have often noticed that such discrepancies seem to indi-
cate exceptional characters. As I watched him, his
whole frame stiffened. The long gorilla arms con-
tracted, the hairy head sunk forward in the tenseness
of a serpent ready to strike. He uttered a shrill fal-
setto shriek that brought to a standstill every stevedore
on the job, and sprang forward to seize his mate by
the shoulder.
Evidently the grasp hurt. I can believe it might,
from those huge hands. The man wrenched himself
about with an oath of inquiry and pain. I could hear
one side of what followed. The captain's high-
pitched tones carried clearly; but the grumble and
growl of the mate were indistinguishable at that
distance.
“How far is it to the side of the ship, you hound of
hell?” shrieked the captain.
TMumble—surprised—for an answer.
“Well, I'll tell you, you swab / It's just two fathom
from where you stand. Just two fathoml How long
would it take you to walk there? How long? Just
about six seconds! There and back! You—” I
won't bother with all the epithets, although by now I
know Captain Selover's vocabulary fairly well.
“And you couldn't take six seconds off to spit over
the sidel Couldn’t walk two fathoml Had to spit on
my quarter-deck, did you!”
Rumble from the mate.
“No, by God, you won't call up any of the crew.
You'll get a swab and do it yourself. You'll get a
hand swab and get down on your knees, damn you!
I’ll teach you to be lazy!”


THE BARBARY COAST 65
The mate said something again.
“It don't matter if we ain't under way. That has
nothing to do with it. The quarter-deck is clean, if the
waist ain’t, and nobody but a damn misbegotten son-
of-a-sea-lawyer would spit on deck anyhow !” From
this Captain Selover went on into a good old-fash-
ioned deep-sea “cussing out,” to the great joy of the
stevedores.
The mate stood it pretty well, but there comes a time
when further talk is useless even in regard to a most
heinous offense. And, of course, as you know, the
mate could hardly consider himself very seriously at
fault. Why, the ship was not yet at sea, and in all
the clutter of charging. He began to answer back.
In a moment it was a quarrel. Abruptly it was a fight.
The mate marked Selover beneath the left eye. The
captain with beautiful simplicity crushed his antagonist
in his gorilla-like squeeze, carried him to the side of the
vessel, and dropped him limp and beaten to the pier.
And the mate was a good stout specimen of a sea-farer,
too.
Then the captain rushed below, emerging after
an instant with a chest which he flung after his subor-
dinate. It was followed a moment later by a stream
of small stuff, mingled with language—projected
through an open port-hole. This in turn ceased. The
captain reappeared with a pail and brush, scrubbed
feverishly at the offending spot, mopped it dry with
that same old red bandana handkerchief, glared about
him, and abruptly became as serene and placid as a
noon calm. He took up the direction of the stevedores.
It was all most astounding.


66 THE MYSTERY
Nobody paid any attention to the mate. He looked
toward the ship once or twice, thought better of it,
and began to pick up his effects, muttering savagely.
In a moment or so he threw his chest aboard an out-
going truck and departed.
It was now nearly noon and I was just in the way
of going for something to eat, when I caught sight
of another dray laden with boxes and crated affairs
which I recognised as scientific apparatus. It was fol-
lowed in quick succession by three others. Ignorant as
I was of the requirements of a scientist, my common
sense told me this could be no exploring outfit. I re-
vised my first intention of going to the club, and
bought a sandwich or two at the corner coffee house.
I don't know why, but even then the affair seemed big
with mystery, with the portent of tragedy. Perhaps
the smell of tar was in my nostrils and the sea called.
It has always possessed for me an extraordinary al-
lurement
A little after two o'clock a cab drove to the after
gangplank and stopped. From it alighted a young
man of whom I shall later have occasion to tell you
more, followed by Dr. Schermerhorn. The young
man carried only a light leather “serviette,” such as
students use abroad; while the doctor fairly stag-
gered under the weight of a square, brass-bound
chest without handles. The singularity of this unequal
division of labour struck me at once.
It struck also one of the dock men, who ran for-
ward, eager for a tip.
“Kin I carry th’ box for you, boss?” he asked, at
the same time reaching for it.


THE BARBARY COAST 67
The doctor's thin figure seemed fairly to shrink
at the idea.
“No, no!” he cried. “It iss not for you to carry!”
He hastened up the gangplank, clutching the chest
close. At the top Captain Selover met him.
“Hello, doctor,” he squeaked. “Here in good
time. We're busy, you see. Let me carry your chest
for you.”
“No, no!” Dr. Schermerhorn fairly glared.
“It's almighty heavy,” insisted the captain. “Let
me give you a hand.”
“You must not touch!” emphatically ordered the
scientist. “Where iss the cabin P”
He disappeared down the companionway clasping
his precious load. The young man remained on deck
to superintend the stowing of the scientific goods and
the personal baggage.
All this time I had been thinking busily. I remem-
bered distinctly one other instance when Dr. Scher-
merhorn had disappeared. He came back inscrutably,
but within a week his results on aérial photography
were public property. I told myself that in the present
instance his lavish use of money, the elaborate nature
of his preparations, the evident secrecy of the expedi-
tion as evidenced by the fact that he had negotiated
for the vessel only the day before setting sail, the
importance of personal supervision as proved by the
fact that he-notoriously impractical in practical mat-
ters, and notoriously disliking anything to do with
business—had conducted the affair himself instead of
delegating it, why, gentlemen, don't you see that all
this was more than enough to wake me up, body and


68 THE MYSTERY
soul? Suddenly I came to a definite resolution. Cap-
tain Selover had descended to the pier. I approached
him.
“You need a mate,” said I.
He looked me over.
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Where's your man?”
“Right here,” said I.
His eyes widened a little. Otherwise he showed no
sign of surprise. I cursed my clothes.
Fortunately I had my master's certificate with me—
I'd passed fresh-water on the Great Lakes—I always
carry that sort of document on the chance that it may
come handy. It chanced to have a couple of naval en-
dorsements, results of the late war.
“Look here,” I said before I gave it to him. “You
don’t believe in me. My clothes are too good. That's
all right. They're all I have that are good. I'm broke.
I came down here wondering whether I’d better throw
myself in the drink.”
“You look like a dude,” he squeaked. “Where did
you ever ship?”
I handed him my certificate. The endorsements
from Admiral Keays and Captain Arnold impressed
him. He stared at me again, and a gleam of cunning
crept into his eyes.
“Nothing crooked about this?” he breathed softly.
I had the key to this side of his character. You
remember I had overheard the night before his state-
ment of his moral scruples. I said nothing, but looked
knowing.
“What was it?” he murmured. “Plain desertion,
or something worse?”


THE BARBARY COAST 69
I remained inscrutable.
“Well,” he conceded, “I do need a mate; and a
naval man—even if he is wantin' to get out of
sight—”
“He won't spit on your decks, anyway,” I broke in
boldly.
Captain Selover's hairy face bristled about the
mouth. This I subsequently discovered was symptom
of a grin. -
“You saw that, eh?” he trebled.
“Aren't you afraid he'll bring down the police and
delay your sailing?” I asked.
He grinned again, with a cunning twinkle in his
eye.
“You needn't worry. There ain't goin' to be any
police. He had his advance money, and he won't risk
it by tryin' to come back.”
We came to an agreement. I professed surprise at
the wages. The captain guardedly explained that the
expedition was secret.
“What's our port?” I asked, to test him.
“Our papers are made out for Honolulu,” he re-
plied.
We adjourned to sign articles.
“By the way,” said I, “I wish you wouldn't
make them out in my own name. “Eagen’ will do.”
“All right,” he laughed, “I sabe. Eagen it is.”
“I’ll be aboard at six,” said I. “I’ve got to make
Some arrangements.”
“Wish you could help with the lading,” said
he. “Still, I can get along. Want any advance
money?”


7o THE MYSTERY
“No,” I replied; then I remembered that I was sup-
posed to be broke. “Yes,” I amended.
He gave me ten dollars.
“I guess you'll show up,” he said. “Wouldn't do
this to everybody. But a naval man—even if he is
dodgin' Uncle Sam >>
“I’ll be here,” I assured him.
At that time I wore a pointed beard. This I shaved.
Also I was accustomed to use eye-glasses. The trouble
was merely a slight astigmatism which bothered me
only in reading or close inspection. I could get along
perfectly well without the glasses, so I discarded them.
I had my hair cut rather close. When I had put on
sea boots, blue trousers and shirt, a pea jacket and a
cap I felt quite safe from the recognition of a man like
Dr. Schermerhorn. In fact, as you shall see, I hardly
spoke to him during all the voyage out.
Promptly at six, then, I returned with a sea chest,
bound I knew not whither, to be gone I knew not for
how long, and pledged to act as second officer on a
little hundred-and-fifty-ton schooner.


II
THE GRAVEN IMAGE
I HAD every reason to be satisfied with my disguise,_
if such it could be called. Captain Selover at first failed
to recognise me. Then he burst into his shrill cackle.
“Didn't know you,” he trebled. “But you look
shipshape. Come, I’ll show you your quarters.”
Immediately I discovered what I had suspected be-
fore; that on so small a schooner the mate took rank
with the men rather than the afterguard. Cabin ac-
commodations were of course very limited. My own
lurked in the waist of the ship—a tiny little airless
hole.
“Here's where Johnson stayed,” proffered Selover.
“You can bunk here, or you can go in the foc'sle
with the men. They's more room there. We'll get un-
der way with the turn of the tide.”
He left me. I examined the cabin. It was just a
trifle larger than its single berth, and the berth was just
a trifle larger than myself. My chest would have to be
left outside. I strongly suspected that my lungs would
have to be left outside also; for the life of me I could
not see where the air was to come from. With a men-
tal reservation in favour of investigating the forecastle,
I went on deck.
The Laughing Lass was one of the prettiest little
schooners I ever saw. Were it not for the lines of her
71


72 THE MYSTERY
bilges and the internal arrangement of her hold, it
might be imagined she had been built originally as a
pleasure yacht. Even the rake of her masts, a little
forward of the plumb, bore out this impression, which
a comparatively new suit of canvas, well stopped
down, brass stanchions forward, and two little guns
under tarpaulins, almost confirmed. One thing struck
me as peculiar. Her complement of boats was ample
enough. She had two surf boats, a dingy, and a dory
slung to the davits. In addition another dory, the
one you picked me up in-was lashed to the top of
the deck house.
“They'd mighty near have a boat apiece,” I
thought, and went forward.
Just outside the forecastle hatch I paused. Some-
one below was singing in a voice singularly rich in
quality. The words and the quaintness of the minor
air struck me immensely and have clung to my mem-
ory like a burr ever since.
“‘Are you a man-o’-war or a privateer,’ said he.
Blow high, blow low, what care we?
‘Oh, I am a jolly pirate, and I’m sailing for my fee.’
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e.”
I stepped to the companion. The voice at once
ceased. I descended.
A glimmer of late afternoon struggled through the
deadlights. I found myself in a really commodious
space,—extending far back of where the forward bulk-
heads are usually placed,—accommodating rows and
row of bunks—eighteen of them, in fact. The un-


THE GRAVEN IMAGE 73
lighted lamp cast its shadow on wood stained black
by much use, but polished like ebony from the con-
tinued friction of men's garments. I wish I could con-
vey to you the uncanny effect, this—of dropping from
the decks of a miniature craft to the internal arrange-
ments of a square-rigged ship. It was as though,
entering a cottage door, you were to discover your-
self on the floor of Madison Square Garden. A fresh
sweet breeze of evening sucked down the hatch. I im-
mediately decided on the forecastle. Already it was
being borne in on me that I was little more than a
glorified bo's'n's mate. The situation suited me, how-
ever. It enabled me to watch the course of events more
safely, less exposed to the danger of recognition.
I stood for a moment at the foot of the companion
accustoming my eyes to the gloom. After a moment,
with a shock of surprise, I made out a shining pair of
bead-points gazing at me unblinkingly from the
shadow under the bitts. Slowly the man defined him-
self, as a shape takes form in a fog. He was leaning
forward in an attitude of attention, his elbows rest-
ing on his knees, his forearms depending between
them, his head thrust out. I could detect no faintest
movement of eyelash, no faintest sound of breathing.
The stillness was portentous. The creature was ex-
actly like a wax figure, one of the sort you meet in
corridors of cheap museums and for a moment mis-
take for living beings. Almost I thought to make out
the customary grey dust lying on the wax of his
features.
I am going to tell you more of this man, because, as
you shall see, he was destined to have much to do with


74 THE MYSTERY
my life, the fate of Dr. Karl Augustus Schermerhorn,
and the doom of the Laughing Lass.
He wore on his head a red bandana handkerchief.
I never saw him with other covering. From beneath
it straggled oily and tangled locks of glossy black. His
face was long, narrow, hook-nosed and sinister; his
eyes, as I have described them, a steady and beady
black. I could at first glance ascribe great activity, but
only moderate strength to his slender, wiry figure. In
this I was mistaken. His sheer physical power was
second only to that of Captain Selover. One of his
forearms ended in a steel hook. At the moment I
could not understand this; could not see how a man so
maimed could be useful aboard a ship. Later I wished
we had more as handy. He knew a jam hitch which
he caught over and under his hook quicker than most
men can grasp a line with the naked hand. It would
render one way, but held fast the other. He told me
it was a cinch-hook hitch employed by mule packers
in the mountains, and that he had used it on swamp-
hooks in the lumber woods of Michigan. I shouldn't
wonder. He was a Wandering Jew.—His name was
Anderson, but I never heard him called that. It was
always “Handy Solomon’’ with men and masters.
We stared at each other, I fascinated by something,
Some spell of the ship, which I have never been able
to explain to myself—nor even describe. It was a
mystery, a portent, a premonition such as overtakes a
man sometimes in the dark passageways of life. I
cannot tell you of it, nor make you believe—let it
pass
Then by a slow process of successive perceptions I


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Slowly the man defined himself as a shape takes form in a fog


THE GRAVEN IMAGE 75
became aware that I was watched by other eyes, other
wax figures, other human beings with unwavering
gaze. They seemed to the sense of mystic apprehension
that for the moment held possession of me, to be every-
where—in the bunks, on the floor, back in the shad-
ows, watching, watching, watching from the advan-
tage of another world.
I don't know why I tell you this; why I lay so much
stress on the first weird impression I got of the fore-
castle. It means something to me now—in view of
all that happened subsequently. Almost can I look
back and see, in that moment of occultism, a warning,
an enlightenment But the point is, it meant some-
thing to me then. I stood there fascinated, unable to
move, unable to speak.
Then the grotesque figure in the corner stirred.
“Well, mates,” said the man, “believe or not be-
lieve, it's in the book, and it stands to reason, too. We
have gold mines here in Californy and Nevada and all
them States; and we hear of gold mines in Mexico and
Australia, too, but did you ever hear tell of gold mines
in Europe? Tell me that! And where did the gold
come from then, before they discovered America?
Tell me that! Why they made it, just as the man that
wrote this-here says, and you can kiss the Book on
that.”
“How about that place, Ophir, I read about?”
asked a voice from the bunks.
The man shot a keen glance thither from beneath
his brows.
“Know last year's output from the mines of
Ophir, Thrackles?” he inquired in silky tones.


76 THE MYSTERY
“Why, no,” stammered the man addressed as
Thrackles.
“Well I do,” pursued the man with the steel hook,
“and it's just the whole of nothing, and you can kiss
the Book on that too! There ain't any gold output, be-
cause there ain't any mines, and there never have been.
They made their gold.”
He tossed aside a book he had been holding in his
left hand. I recognised the fat little paper duodecimo
with amusement, and some wonder. The only other
copy I had ever laid my eyes on is in the Astor
Library. It is somewhat of a rarity, called The Secret
of Alchemy, or the Grand Doctrine of Transmutation
Fully Explained, and was written by a Dr. Edward
Duvall,—a most extraordinary volume to have fallen
into the hands of seamen.
I stepped forward, greeting and being greeted. Be-
sides the man I have mentioned they were four. The
cook was a bullet-headed squat negro with a broken
nose. I believe he had a name, Robinson, or some-
thing of that sort. He was to all of us, simply the
Nigger. Unlike most of his race, he was gloomy and
taciturn.
Of the other two, a little white-faced, thin-chested
youth named Pulz, and a villainous-looking Mexican
called Perdosa, I shall have more to say later.
My arrival broke the talk on alchemy. It resumed
its course in the direction of our voyage. Each dis-
covered that the others knew nothing; and each blun-
dered against the astounding fact of double wages.
“All I know is the pay’s good; and that's enough,”
concluded Thrackles, from a bunk.


78 THE MYSTERY
forec’stle they considered as their only liberty when
at Sea, and my presence as a curtailment to the free-
dom of speech. I subsequently did my best to over-
come this feeling, but never quite succeeded.
At my command the Nigger went to his galley. I
ascended to the deck. Dusk was falling, in the swift
Californian fashion. Already the outlines of the wharf
houses were growing indistinct, and the lights of the
city were beginning to twinkle. Captain Selover came
to my side and leaned over the rail, peering critically
at the black water against the piles.
“She's at the flood,” he squeaked. “And here
comes the Lucy Belle.”
The tug took us in charge and puffed with us down
the harbour and through the Golden Gate. We had
sweated the canvas on her, even to the flying jib and
a huge club topsail she sometimes carried at the main,
for the afternoon trades had lost their strength. About
midnight we drew up on the Farallones.
The schooner handled well. Our crew was divided
into three watches—an unusual arrangement, but
comfortable. Two men could sail her handily in most
sorts of weather. Handy Solomon had the wheel.
Otherwise the deck was empty. The man's fantastic
headgear, the fringe of his curling oily locks, the hawk
outline of his face momentarily silhouetted against
the phosphorescence astern as he glanced to windward,
all lent him an appearance of another day. I could
almost imagine I caught the gleam of silver-butted
horse pistols and cutlasses at his waist.
I brooded in wonder at what I had seen and how
little I had explained. The number of boats, sufficient


THE GRAVEN IMAGE 79
for a craft of three times the tonnage; the capacity of
the forec’stle with its eighteen bunks, enough for a
passenger ship, what did it mean? And this wild,
unkempt, villainous crew with its master and his al-
most ridiculous contrast of neatness and filth;-did
Dr. Schermerhorn realise to what he had trusted
himself and his precious expedition, whatever it might
be P
The lights of shore had sunk; the Laughing Lass
staggered and leaped joyously with the glory of the
open sea. She seemed alone on the bosom of the ocean;
and for the life of me I could not but feel that I was
embarked on some desperate adventure. The notion
was utterly illogical; that I knew well. In sober
thought, I, a reporter, was shadowing a respectable
and venerable scientist, who in turn was probably
about to investigate at length some little-known deep-
sea conditions or phenomena of an unexplored island.
But that did not suffice to my imagination. The ship,
its surroundings, its equipment, its crew—all read
fantastic. So much the better story, I thought, shrug-
ging my shoulders at last.


III
THE TWELVE REPEATING RIFLES
AFTER my watch below the next morning I met Percy
Darrow. In many ways he is, or was, the most ex-
traordinary of my many acquaintances. During that
first half hour's chat with him I changed my mind at
least a dozen times. One moment I thought him
clever, the next an utter ass; now I found him frank,
open, a good companion, eager to please, and then
a droop of his blond eyelashes, a lazy, impertinent
drawl of his voice, a hint of half-bored condescension
in his manner, convinced me that he was shy and af-
fected. In a breath I appraised him as intellectual, a
fool, a shallow mind, a deep schemer, an idler, and an
enthusiast. One result of his spasmodic confidences
was to throw a doubt upon their accuracy. This might
be what he desired; or with equal probability it might
be the chance reflection of a childish and aimless ami-
ability.
He was tall and slender and pale, languid of move-
ment, languid of eye, languid of speech. His eyes
drooped, half-closed beneath blond brows; a long
wiry hand lazily twisted a rather affected blond mous-
tache, his voice drawled his speech in a manner either
insufferably condescending and impertinent, or inef-
fably tired, who could tell which?
I found him leaning against the taffrail, his languid
graceful figure supported by his elbows, his chin
8o


THE TWELVE REPEATING RIFLES 81
propped against his hand. As I approached the bin-
nacle, he raised his eyes and motioned me to him. The
insolence of it was so superb that for a moment I was
angry enough to ignore him. Then I reflected that I
was here, not to stand on my personal dignity, but to
get information. I joined him.
“You are the mate?” he drawled.
“Since I am on the quarter-deck,” I snapped back
at him.
He eyed me thoughtfully, while he rolled with one
hand a corn-husk Mexican cigarette.
“Do you know where you are going?” he in-
quired at length.
“Depends on the moral character of my future
actions,” I rejoined tartly.
He allowed a smile to break and fade, then lighted
his cigarette.
“The first mate seems to have a remarkable com-
mand of language,” said he.
I did not reply.
“Well, to tell you the truth I don't know where we
are going,” he continued. “Thought you might be
able to inform me. Where did this ship and its pre-
cious gang of cutthroats come from, anyway?”
“Meaning me?”
“Oh, meaning you too, for all I know,” he
shrugged wearily. Suddenly he turned to me and laid
his hand on my shoulder with one of those sudden
bursts of confidence I came later to recognise and look
for, but in which I could never quite believe—nor
disbelieve.
“I am eaten with curiosity,” he stated in the least


84 THE MYSTERY
Then he looked up and caught my eye. His own
turned quizzical. He shifted his quid and began to
hum:
“The bos’n laid aloft, aloft laid he,
Blow high, blow low! What care we?
“There's a ship upon the wind’ard, a wreck upon the
lee,’
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e.”
We had entered the trades and were making good
time. I was content to stay on deck, even in my watch
below. The wind was strong, the waves dashing, the
sky very blue. From under our forefoot the flying
fish sped, the monsters pursued them. A tingle of
spray was in the air. It was all very pleasant. The
red handkerchief around Solomon's head made a
pretty spot of colour against the blue of the sky and
the darker blue of the sea. Silhouetted over the flaw-
less white of the deck house was the sullen, polished
profile of the Nigger. Beneath me the ship swerved
and leaped, yielded and recovered. I breathed deep,
and saw cutlasses in harmless shadows. It was two
years ago. I was young—then
At the mess hour I stood in doubt. However, I was
informed by the captain's falsetto that I was to eat
in the cabin. As the only other officer, I ate alone,
after the others had finished, helping myself from the
dishes left on the table. It was a handsome cabin, well
kept, with white woodwork spotlessly clean, leather
cushions—much better than one would expect. I
afterwards found that the neatness of this cabin and


THE TWELVE REPEATING RIFLES 85
of the three staterooms was maintained by the Nig-
ger—at peril of his neck. A rack held a dozen rifles,
five revolvers, and,-at last—my cutlasses. I exam-
ined the lot with interest. They were modern weap-
ons,—the new high power 30-40 box-magazine rifle,
shooting government ammunition,-and had been
used. The revolvers were of course the old 45 Colt's.
This was an extraordinary armament for a peaceable
schooner of one hundred and fifty tons burden.
The rest of the cabin's fittings were not remarkable.
By the configuration of the ship I guessed that two
of the staterooms must be rather large. I could make
out voices within.
On deck I talked with Captain Selover.
“She's a snug craft,” I approached him.
He nodded.
“You have armed her well.”
He muttered something of pirates and the China
SCaS.
I laughed.
“You have arms enough to give your crew about
two magazine rifles apiece—unless you filled all your
berths forward l’’
Captain Selover looked me direct in the eye.
“Talk straight, Mr. Eagen,” said he.
“What is this ship, and where is she bound?” I
asked, with equal simplicity.
He considered.
“As for the ship,” he replied at length, “I don't
mind saying. You're my first officer, and on you I
depend if it comes to—well, the small arms below. If
the ship's a little under the shade, why, so are you.


THE TWELVE REPEATING RIFLES 87
harmless little toy to burn black powder, don't she?”
he remarked. He stripped off the tarpaulin and the
false brass muzzle to display as pretty a little Maxim
as you would care to see. “Now you know all about
it,” he said.
“Look here, Captain Selover,” I demanded, “don’t
you know that I could blow your whole shooting-
match higher than Gilderoy's kite. How do you know
I won’t do it when I get back? How do you know I
won't inform the doctor at once what kind of an out-
fit he has tied to?”
He planted far apart his thick legs in their soiled
blue trousers, pushed back his greasy linen boating hat
and stared at me with some amusement.
“How do you know I won’t blow on Lieutenant
or Ensign Ralph Slade, U. S. N., when I get back?”
he demanded. I blessed that illusion, anyway. “Be-
sides, I know my man. You won't do anything of
the sort.” He walked to the rail and spat carefully
over the side.
“As for the doctor,” he went on, “ he knows all
about it. He told me all about myself, and everything
I had ever done from the time I’d licked Buck Jones
until last season's little diversion. Then he told me
that was why he wanted me to ship for this cruise.”
The captain eyed me quizzically.
I threw out my hands in a comic gesture of sur-
render.
“Well, where are we bound, anyway?”
The dirty, unkempt, dishevelled figure stiffened.
“Mr. Eagen,” its falsetto shrilled, “you are mate
of this vessel. Your duty is to see that my orders as


88 THE MYSTERY
to sailing are carried out. Beyond that you do not
go. As to navigation, and latitude and longitude and
where the hell we are, that is outside your line of duty.
As to where we are bound, you are getting double
wages not to get too damn curious. Remember to
earn your wages, Mr. Eagen!”
He turned away to the binnacle. In spite of his
personal filth, in spite of the lawless, almost piratical,
character of the man, in that moment I could not but
admire him. If Percy Darrow was ignorant of the
purposes of this expedition, how much more so Captain
Selover. Yet he accepted his trust blindly, and as far
as I could then see, intended to fulfil it faithfully. I
liked him none the worse for snubbing me. It indi-
cated a streak in his moral nature akin to and quite as
curious as his excessive neatness regarding his im-
mediate surroundings.


IV
THE STEEL CLAW
DURING the next few days the crew discussed our
destination. Discipline, while maintained strictly, was
not conventional. During the dog watches, often,
every man aboard would be below, for at that period
Captain Selover loved to take the wheel in person, a
thick cigar between his lips, the dingy checked shirt
wide open to expose his hairy chest to the breeze. In
the twilight of the forecastle we had some great sea-
lawyer's talks—I say “We,” though I took little part
in them. Generally I lay across my bunk smoking my
pipe while Handy Solomon held forth, his speech
punctuated by surly speculations from the Nigger,
with hesitating deep-sea wisdom from the hairy
Thrackles, or with voluminous bursts of fractured
English from Perdosa. Pulz had nothing to offer, but
watched from his pale green eyes. The light shifted
and wavered from one to the other as the ship swayed:
garments swung; the empty berths yawned cavernous.
I could imagine the forecastle filled with the desperate
men who had beaten off the Oyama. The story is told
that they had swept the gunboat's decks with her own
rapid-fires, turned in.
No one knew where we were going, nor why. The
doctor puzzled them, and the quantity of his belong-
ings.
89


90 THE MYSTERY
“It ain't pearls,” said Handy Solomon. “You can
kiss the Book on that, for we ain't a diver among us.
It ain't Chinks, for we are cruising sou'-sou’-west.
Likely it's trade,-trade down in the Islands.”
We were all below. The captain himself had the
wheel. Discipline, while strict, was not conventional.
“Contrabandista,” muttered the Mexican, “for dat
he geev us double pay.”
“We don't get her for nothing,” agreed Thrackles.
“Double pay and duff on Wednesday generally means
get your head broke.” -
“No trade,” said the Nigger gloomily.
They turned to him with one accord.
“Why not?” demanded Pulz, breaking his silence.
“No trade,” repeated the Nigger.
“Ain’t you got a reason, Doctor?” asked Handy
Solomon.
“No trade,” insisted the Nigger.
An uneasy silence fell. I could not but observe that
the others held the Nigger's statements in a respect
not due them as mere opinions. Subsequently I under-
stood a little more of the reputation he possessed. He
was believed to see things hidden, as their phrase went.
Nobody said anything for some time; nobody
stirred, except that Handy Solomon, his steel claw re-
moved from its socket, whittled and tested, screwed
and turned, trying to fix the hook so that, in accordance
with the advice of Percy Darrow, it would turn either
way.
“What is it, then, Doctor?” he asked softly at last.
“Gold,” said the Nigger shortly. “Gold—treas-
ure.”


THE STEEL CLAW 9I
“That's what I said at first!” cried Handy Sol-
omon triumphantly. It was extraordinary, the un-
questioning and entire faith with which they accepted
as gospel fact the negro's dictum.
There followed much talk of the nature of this
treasure, whether it was to be sought or conveyed,
bought, stolen, or ravished in fair fight. No further
soothsaying could they elicit from the Nigger. They
followed their own ideas, which led them nowhere.
Someone lit the forecastle lamp. They settled them-
selves. Pulz read aloud.
This was the programme every day during the dog
watch. Sometimes the watch on deck was absent, leav-
ing only Handy Solomon, the Nigger and Pulz, but
the order of the day was not on that account varied.
They talked, they lit the lamp, they read. Always the
talk was of the treasure.
As to the reading, it was of the sort usual to seamen,
cowboys, lumbermen, and miners. Thrackles had a
number of volumes of very cheap love stories. Pulz
had brought some extraordinary garish detective
stories. The others contributed sensational literature
with paper covers adorned lithographically. By the
usual incongruity a fragment of The Marble Faun was
included in the collection. The Nigger has his copy
of Duvall on Alchemy. I haven’t the slightest idea
where he could have got it.
While Pulz read, Handy Solomon worked on the
alteration of his claw. He could never get it to hold,
and I remember as an undertone to Pulz's reading, the
rumble of strange, exasperated oaths. Whatever the
evening's lecture, it always ended with the book on


92 THE MYSTERY
alchemy. These men had no perspective by which to
judge such things. They accepted its speculations and
theories at their face value. Extremely laughable were
the discussions that followed. I often wished the
shade of old Duvall could be permitted to see these,
his last disciples, spelling out dimly his teachings, mis-
pronouncing his grave utterances, but believing ut-
terly.
Dr. Schermerhorn appeared on deck seldom. When
he did, often his fingers held a pen which he
had forgotten to lay aside. I imagined him preoccu-
pied by some calculation of his own, but the forecastle,
more picturesquely, saw him as guarding constantly
the heavy casket he had himself carried aboard. He
breathed the air, walked briskly, turned with the
German military precision at the end of his score of
strides, and re-entered his cabin at the lapse of the
half hour. After he had gone, remained Percy Dar-
row leaning indolently against the taffrail, his grace-
ful figure swaying with the ship's motion, smoking
always the corn-husk Mexican cigarettes which he
rolled with one hand. He seemed from that farthest
point aft to hold in review the appliances, the fabric,
the actions, yes, even the very thoughts, of the entire
ship. From them he selected that on which he should
comment or with which he should play, always with
a sardonic, half-serious, quite wearied and indifferent
manner. His inner knowledge, viewed by the light of
this manner or mannerism, was sometimes uncanny,
though perhaps the sources of his information were
commonplace enough, after all. Certainly he always
viewed with amusement his victim's wonder.


THE STEEL CLAW 93.
Thus one evening at the close of our day-watch on
deck, he approached Handy Solomon. It was at the
end of ten days, on no one of which had the seaman
failed to tinker away at his steel claw. Darrow bal-
anced in front of him with a thin smile.
“Too bad it doesn't work, my amiable pirate,” said
he. “It would be so handy for fighting See
here,” he suddenly continued, pulling some object
from his pocket, “here's a pipe; present to me; I
don't smoke 'em. Twist her halfway, like that, she
comes out. Twist her halfway, like this, she goes in.
That's your principle. Give her back to me when you
get through.”
He thrust the briar pipe into the man's hand, and
turned away without waiting for a reply. The seaman
looked after him in open amazement. That evening
he worked on the socket of the steel hook, and in two
days he had the job finished. Then he returned the
pipe to Darrow with some growling of thanks.
“That's all right,” said the young man, smiling full
at him. “Now what are you going to fight?”


V
THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
CAPTAIN SELovER received as his due the most abso-
lute and implicit obedience imaginable. When he con-
descended to give an order in his own person, the men
fairly jumped to execute it. The matter had evidently
been threshed out long ago. They did not love him,
not they; but they feared him with a mighty fear,
and did not hesitate to say so, vividly, and often,
when in the privacy of the forecastle. The pre-
vailing spirit was that of the wild beast, cowed
but snarling still. Pulz and Thrackles in especial had a
great deal to say of what they were or were not going
to do, but I noticed that their resolution always be-
gan to run out of them when first foot was set to the
companion ladder.
C me day we were loafing along, everything draw-
ing well, and everybody but the doctor on deck to
enjoy the sun. I was in the crow's-nest for my pleas-
ure. Below me on the deck Captain Selover roamed
here and there, as was his custom, his eye cocked out
like a housewife's for disorder. He found it, again
in the evidence of expectoration, and as Perdosa hap-
pened to be handiest, fell on the unfortunate Mexican.
Perdosa protested that he had had nothing to do
with it, but Captain Selover, enraged as always
when his precious deck was soiled, would not listen.
Finally the Mexican grew sulky and turned away as
–
94


“The spirit of the wild beast, cowed but snarling still”


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LITRARY
ASTOR, Lº " AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R *


THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 95
though refusing to hear more. The captain thereupon
felled him to the deck, and began brutally to kick him
in the face and head.
Perdosa writhed and begged, but without avail.
The other members of the crew gathered near. After
a moment, they began to murmur. Finally Thrackles
ventured, most respectfully, to intervene.
“You’ll kill him, sir,” he interposed. “He’s had
enough.”
“Had enough, has he?” screeched the captain.
“Well, you take what's left.”
He marked Thrackles heavily over the eye. There
was a breathless pause; and then Thrackles, Pulz, the
Nigger, and Perdosa attacked at once.
They caught the master unawares, and bore him to
the deck. I dropped at once to the ratlines, and com-
menced my descent. Before I had reached the deck,
however, Selover was afoot again, the four hanging
to him like dogs. In a moment more he had shaken
them off; and before I could intervene, he had seized
a belaying pin in either hand, and was hazing them
up and down the deck.
“Mutiny, would you?” he shrilled. “You poor
swabs' Forgot who was your captain, did ye? Well,
it's Captain Ezra Selover, and you can lay to that!
It would need about eight fathom of stuff like you
to tie me down.”
He chased them forward, and he chased them aft,
and every time the pins fell, blood followed. Finally
they dived like rabbits into the forecastle hatch. Cap-
tain Selover leaned down after them.
“Now tie yourselves up,” he advised, “and then


96 THE MYSTERY
come on deck and clean up after yourselves!” He
turned to me. “Mr. Eagen, turn out the crew to clean
decks.”
I descended to the forecastle, followed immediately
by Handy Solomon. The latter had taken no part in
the affair. We found the men in horrible shape, what
with the bruises and cuts, and bleeding freely.
“Now you're a nice-looking Sunday school!” ob-
served Handy Soloman, eyeing them sardonically.
“Tackel Old Scrubs, will ye? Well, some needs a bale
of cotton to fall on 'em afore they learns anything.
Enjoyed your little diversions, mates? And w'at do
you expect to gain? I asks you that, now. You poor
little infants! Ain't you never tackled him afore?
Don't remember a little brigatine, name of the Petrell
My eye, but you are a pack of damn fools!”
To this he received no reply. The men sullenly as-
sisted each other. Then they went immediately on
deck and to work.
After this taste of his quality, Captain Selover en-
joyed a quiet ship. We made good time, but for a
long while nothing happened. Finally the monotony
was broken by an incident.
One evening before the night winds I sat in the
shadow of the extra dory on top of the deck house.
The moon was but just beyond the full, so I suppose
I must have been practically invisible. Certainly the
Nigger did not know of my presence, for he came and
stood within three feet of me without giving any sign.
The companion was open. In a moment some door
below was opened also, and a scrap of conversation
came up to us very clearly.


THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 97.
“You haf dem finished?” the doctor's voice in-
quired. “So, that iss well,”—papers rustled for a few
moments. “And the r-result—ah—exactly—it iss that
exactly. Percy, mein son, that maigs the experiment
exact. We haf the process »y
“I don't see, sir, quite,” replied the voice of Percy
Darrow, with a tinge of excitement. “I can follow
the logic of the experiment, of course—so can I fol-
low the logic of a trip to the moon. But when you
come to apply it—how do you get your re-agent?
There's no known method—”
Dr. Schermerhorn broke in: “Ach, it iss that I
haf perfected. Pardon me, my boy, it iss the first I
haf worked from you apart. It iss for a surprise. I
haf made in small quantities the missing ingredient.
It will form a perfect interruption to the current. Now
we go—”
“Do you mean to say,” almost shouted Darrow,
“that you have succeeded in freeing it in the
metal?”
“Yes,” replied the doctor simply.
I could hear a chair overturned.
“Why, with that you can 35
“I can do efferything,” broke in the doctor. “The
possibilities are enormous.”
“And you can really produce it in quantity?”
“I think so; it iss for us to discover.”
A pause ensued.
“Why?" came the voice of Percy Darrow, awe-
stricken. “With fifty centigrammes only you could—
you could transmute any substance—why, you could
make anything you pleased almost! You could make


THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE 99
They gesticulated and exclaimed and breathed hard,
full of the marvel of such a thought. Then abruptly
the clamour died to nothing. I felt six eyes bent on
me, six unwinking eyes moving restless in motionless
figures, suspicious, deadly as cobras
Up to now my standing with the men had been well
enough. Now they drew frankly apart. One of the
most significant indications of this was the increased
respect they paid my office. It was as though by
prompt obedience, instant deference, and the emphasis-
ing of ship's etiquette they intended to draw sharply
the line between themselves and me. There was much
whispering apart, many private talks and consultations
in which I had no part. Ordinarily they talked freely
enough before me. Even the reading during the dog
watch was intermitted—at least it was on such days
as I happened to be in the watch below. But twice I
caught the Nigger and Handy Solomon consulting to-
gether over the volume on alchemy.
I was in two minds whether to report the whole
matter to Captain Selover. The only thing that re-
strained me was the vagueness of the intention, and
the fact that the afterguard was armed, and was four
to the crew's five. An incident, however, decided me.
One evening I was awakened by a sound of violent
voices. Captain Selover occasionally juggled the
watches for variety's sake, and I now had Handy
Solomon and Perdosa. The Nigger, being cook, stood
no watch.
“You drunken Greaser swabl” snarled Handy
Solomon. “You misbegotten son of a Yaquil I'll
learn you to step on a seaman's foot, and you can kiss
94.2206A


IOO THE MYSTERY
the Book on that! I'll cut your heart out and feed it
to the sharks!”
“Pothal" sneered Perdosa. “You cut heem you
finger wid your knife.”
They wrangled. At first I thought the quarrel genu-
ine, but after a moment or so I could not avoid a
sort of reminiscent impression of the cheap melo-
drama. It seemed incredible, but soon I could not
dodge the conclusion that it was a made-up quarrel
designed to impress me.
Why should they desire to do so? I had to give it
up, but the fact itself was obvious enough. I laughed
to see them. The affair did not come to blows, but it
did come to black looks on meeting, muttered oaths,
growls of emnity every time they happened to pass
each other on the deck. Perdosa was not so bad; his
Mexican blood inclined him to the histrionic, and his
Mexican cast lent itself well to evil looks. But Handy
Solomon, for the first time in my acquaintance with
him, was ridiculous.
About this time we crossed into frequent thunders.
One evening just at dark we made out a heavy black
squall. Not knowing exactly what weight lay behind
it, I called up all hands. We ducked the staysail and
foresail, lowered the peak of the mainsail, and waited
to feel of it—a rough and ready seamanship often
used in these little California wind-jammers. I was
pretty busy, but I heard distinctly Handy Solomon's
voice behind me.
“I’ll kill you sure, you Greaser, as soon as my hands
are free!”
And some muttered reply from the Mexican.


THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE IOI
*
The wind hit us hard, held on a few moments, and
moderated to a stiff puff. There followed the rain,
so of course I knew it would amount to nothing. I
was just stooping to throw the stops off the staysail
when I felt myself seized from behind, and forced
rapidly toward the side of the ship.
Of course I struggled. The Japanese have a little
trick to fool a man who catches you around the waist
from behind. It is part of the jiu-jitsu taught the
Samurai—quite a different proposition from the or-
dinary “policeman jiu-jitsu.” I picked it up from a
friend in the nobility. It came in very handy now,
and by good luck a roll of the ship helped me. In a
moment I stood free, and Perdosa was picking him-
self out of the scuppers.
The expression of astonishment was fairly well
done—I will say that for him—but I was prepared for
histrionics.
“Señor!” he gasped. “Eet is you! Sacrosanta
Maria! I thought you was dat Solomon! Pardon me,
señor! Pardon I Have I hurt you?”
He approached me almost wheedling. I could have
laughed at the villain. It was all so transparent. He
no more mistook me for Handy Solomon than he felt
any real enmity for that person. But being angry, and
perhaps a little scared, I beat him to his quarters with
a belaying pin.
On thinking the matter over, however, I failed to
See all the ins and outs of it. I could understand a
desire to get rid of me; there would be one less of the
afterguard, and then, too, I knew too much of the
men's sentiments, if not of their plans. But, why all


IO2 THE MYSTERY
this elaborate farce of the mock quarrel and the al-
leged mistake? Could it be to guard against possible
failure? I could hardly think it worth while. My only
theory was that they had wished to test my strength
and determination. The whole affair, even on that
supposition, was childish enough, but I referred the
exaggerated cunning to Handy Solomon, and consid-
ered it quite adequately explained. It is a minor point,
but subsequently I learned that this surmise was cor-
rect. I was to be saved because none of the conspira-
tors understood navigation.
The next morning I approached Captain Selover.
“Captain,” said I, “I think it my duty to report
that there is trouble brewing among the crew.”
“There always is,” he replied, unmoved.
“But this is serious. Dr. Schermerhorn came
aboard with a chest which the men think holds treasure.
The other evening Robinson overheard him tell his
assistant that he could easily fill the box with dia-
monds. Of course, he was merely illustrating the value
of some scientific experiment, but Robinson thinks,
and has made the others think, that the chest contains
something to make diamonds with. I am sure they
intend to get hold of it. The affair is coming to a
head.”
Captain Selover listened almost indifferently.
“I came back from the islands last year,” he piped,
“with three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of pearls.
There was sixteen in the crew, and every man of them
was blood hungry for them pearls. They had three or
four shindies and killed one man over the proper way
to divide the loot after they had got it. They didn't


THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE IO3,
get it. Why?” He drew his powerful figure to its
height and spread his thick arms out in the luxury of
stretching. “Why?” he repeated, exhaling abruptly.
“Because their captain was Ezra Selover! Well, Mr.
Eagen,” he went on crisply, “Captain Ezra Selover
is their captain, and they know it! They'll talk and
palaver and git into dark corners, and sharpen their
knives, and perhaps fight it out as to which one's going
to work the monkey-doodle business in the doctor's
chest, and which one's going to tie up the sacks of
them diamonds, but they won't git any farther as long
as Captain Ezra is on deck.” -
“Yes,” I objected, “but they mean business. Last
night in the squall one of them tried to throw me
overboard.”
Captain Selover grinned.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Hazed him to his quarters with a belaying pin.”
“Well, that's all settled then, isn't it? What more
do you want?”
stood undecided.
“I can take care of myself,” he went on. “You
ought to take care of yourself. Then there's nothing
more to do.”
He mused a moment.
“You have a gun, of course?” he inquired. “I for-
got to ask.”
“No,” said I.
He whistled.
“Well, no wonder you feel sort of lost and hope-
less! Here, take this, it'll make a man of you.”
He gave me a Colt's 45, the barrel of which had


IO4 THE MYSTERY
been filed down to about two inches of length. It was
a most extraordinary weapon, but effective at short
range.
“Here's a few loose cartridges,” said he. “Now
go easy. This is no warship, and we ain't got men to
experiment on. Lick 'em with your fists or a pin, if
you can; and if you do shoot, for God's sake just wing
'em a little. They're awful good lads, but a little
restless.”
I took the gun and felt better. With it I could easily
handle the members of my own watch, and I did not
doubt that with the assistance of Percy Darrow even
a surprise would hardly overwhelm us. I did not count
on Dr. Schermerhorn. He was quite capable of
losing himself in a problem of trajectory after the first
shot.


IO6 THE MYSTERY
“Now wouldn't that get you?” he squeaked.
“Doctor runs up against a Norwegian bum who
tells him about a volcanic island, and gives its bear-
ings. The island ain't on the map at all. Doctor
believes it, and makes me lay my course for those
bearings. And here's the island! So the bum's story
was true! I'd like to know what the rest of it was!”
His eyes were shining.
“Do we anchor or stand off and on P” I asked.
Captain Selover turned to grip me by the shoulder.
“I have orders from Darrow to get to a good
berth, to land, to build shore quarters, and to Snug
down for a stay of a year at least!”
We stared at each other.
“Joyous prospect,” I muttered. “Hope there's
something to do there.”
The morning wore, and we rapidly approached the
island. It proved to be utterly precipitous. The high
rounded hills sloped easily to within a hundred feet
or so of the water and then fell away abruptly. Where
the earth ended was a fantastic filigree border, like
the fancy paper with which our mothers used to line
the pantry shelves. Below, the white surges flung
themselves against the cliffs with a wild abandon.
Thousands of sea birds wheeled in the eddies of the
wind, thousands of ravens perched on the slopes. With
our glasses we could make out the heads of seals fish-
ing outside the surf, and a ragged belt of kelp.
When within a mile we put the helm up, and ran
for the west end. A bold point we avoided far out,
lest there should be outlying ledges. Then we came
in sight of a broad beach and pounding surf.


THE ISLAND 107
I was ordered to take a surf boat and investigate for
a landing and an anchorage. The swell was running
high. We rowed back and forth, puzzled as to how
to get ashore with all the freight it would be necessary
to land. The ship would lie well enough, for the only
open exposure was broken by a long reef over which
we could make out the seas tumbling. But inshore the
great waves rolled smoothly, swiftly—then suddenly
fell forward as over a ledge, and spread with a roar
across the yellow sands. The fresh winds blew the
spume back to us. We conversed in shouts.
“We can surf the boat,” yelled Thrackles, “but we
can’t land a load.”
That was my opinion. We rowed slowly along,
parallel to the shore, and just outside the line of
breakers.
I don’t know exactly how to tell you the manner in
which we became aware of the cove. It was as nearly
the instantaneous as can be imagined. One minute I
looked ahead on a cliff as unbroken as the side of a
cabin; the very next I peered down the length of a
cove fifty fathoms long by about ten wide, at the end
of which was a gravel beach. I cried out sharply to
the men. They were quite as much astonished as I.
We backed water, watching closely. At a given point
the cove and all trace of its entrance disappeared. We
could only just make out the line where the headlands
dissolved into the background of the cliffs, and that
merely because we knew of its existence. The blend-
ing was perfect.
We rowed in. The water was still. A faint ebb and
flow whispered against the tiny gravel beach at the


IO8 THE MYSTERY
end. I noted a practicable way from it to the top of
the cliff, and from the cliff down again to the sand
beach. Everything was perfect. The water was a
beautiful light green, like semi-opaque glass, and from
the indistinctness of its depths waved and beckoned,
rose and disappeared with indescribable grace and de-
liberation long feathery sea growths. In a moment
the bottom abruptly shallowed. The motion of the
boat toward the beach permitted us to catch a hasty
glimpse of little fish darting, of big fish turning, of
yellow sand and some vivid colour. Then came the
grate of gravel and the scraping of the boat's bottom
on the beach.
We jumped ashore eagerly. I left the men, very re-
luctant, and ascended a natural trail to a high sloping
down over which blew the great Trades. Grass sprung
knee-high. A low hill rose at the back. From below
the fall of the cliff came the pounding of surf.
I walked to the edge. Various ledges, sloping
toward me, ran down to the sea. Against one of them
was a wreck, not so very old, head on, her afterworks
gone. I recognised the name Golden Horn, and was
vastly astonished to find her here against this unknown
island. Far up the coast I could see—with the surges
dashing up like the explosion of shells, and the cliffs,
and the rampart of hills grown with grass and cactus.
A bold promontory terminated the coast view to the
north, and behind it I could glimpse a more fertile and
wooded country. The sky was partly overcast by the
volcanic murk. It fled before the Trades, and the red
sun alternately blazed and clouded through it.
As there was nothing more to be seen here, I turned


THE ISLAND Io9
above the hollow of our cove, skirted the base of the
hill, and so down to the beach.
It occupied a wide semicircle where the hills drew
back. The flat was dry and grown with thick, coarse
grass. A stream emerged from a sort of cañon on
its landward side. I tasted it, found it sulphurous, and
a trifle worse than lukewarm. A little nearer the cliff,
however, was a clear, cold spring from the rock, and
of this I had a satisfying drink. When I arose from
my knees, I made out an animal on the hill crest look-
ing at me, but before I could distinguish its charac-
teristics it had disappeared.
I returned along the tide sands. The surf dashed
and roared, lifting seaweeds of a blood red, so that in
places the water looked pink. Seals innumerable
watched me from just outside the breakers. As the
waves lifted to a semi-transparence, I could make out
others playing, darting back and forth, up and down
like disturbed tadpoles, clinging to the wave until the
very instant of its fall, then disappearing as though
blotted out. The salt smell of seaweed was in my
nostrils: I found the place pleasant
With these few and scattered impressions we re-
turned to the ship. It had been warped to a secure
anchorage, and Snugged down. Dr. Schermerhorn
and Darrow were on deck waiting to go ashore.
I made my report. The two passengers disappeared.
They carried lunch and would not be back until night-
fall. We had orders to pitch a large tent at a suitable
spot and to lighten ship of the doctor's personal
and scientific effects. By the time this was accom-
plished, the two had returned.


I IO THE MYSTERY
“It's all right,” Darrow volunteered to Captain
Selover, as he came over the side. “We’ve found
what we want.”
Their clothes were picked by brush and their boots
muddy. Next morning Captain Selover detailed me to
especial work.
“You’ll take two of the men and go ashore under
Darrow's orders,” said he.
Darrow told us to take clothes for a week, an axe
apiece, and a block and tackle. We made up our ditty
bags, stepped into one of the surf boats, and were
rowed ashore. There Darrow at once took the lead.
Our way proceeded across the grass flat, through
the opening of the narrow cañon, and so on back into
the interior by way of the bed through which flowed
the sulphur stream. The country was badly eroded.
Most of the time we marched between perpendicular
clay banks about forty feet high. These were occa-
sionally broken by smaller tributary arroyos of the
same sort. It would have been impossible to reach the
level of the upper country. The bed of the main arroyo
was flat, and grown with grasses and herbage of an
extraordinary vividness, due, I supposed, to the sul-
phur water. The stream itself meandered aimlessly
through the broader bed. It steadily grew warmer
and the sulphur smell more noticeable. Above us we
could see the sky and the sharp clay edge of the arroyo.
I noticed the tracks of Darrow and Dr. Schermerhorn
made the day before.
After a mile of this, the bottom ran up nearly to the
level of the sides, and we stepped out on the floor of
a little valley almost surrounded by more hills.


THE ISLAND III
It was an extraordinary place, and since much hap-
pened there, I must give you an idea of it.
It was round and nearly encircled by naked painted
hills. From its floor came steam and a roaring sound.
The steam blew here and there among the pines on the
floor; rose to eddy about the naked painted hills. At
one end we saw intermittently a broad ascending
cañon—deep red and blue-black—ending in the cone
of a smoking volcano. The other seemed quite closed
by the sheer hills; in fact the only exit was the route
by which we had come.
For the hills were utterly precipitous. I suppose a
man might have made his way up the various knobs,
ledges, and inequalities, but it would have required
long study and a careful head. I, myself, later worked
my way a short distance, merely to examine the tex-
ture of their marvellous colour.
This was at once varied and of great body—not at
all like the smooth, glossed colour of most rock, but
soft and rich. You've seen painters' palettes—it was
just like that, pasty and fat. There were reds of all
shades, from a veritable scarlet to a red umber; greens,
from sea-green to emerald; several kinds of blue, and
an indeterminate purple-muave. The whole effect was
splendid and barbaric.
| We stopped and gasped as it hit our eyes. Darrow
alone was unmoved. He led the way forward and in
an instant had disappeared behind the veil of steam.
Thrackles and Perdosa hung back murmuring, but at
a sharp word from me gathered their courage in their
two hands and proceeded.
We found that the first veil of steam, and a fearful


II 2 THE MYSTERY
stench of gases, proceeded from a miniature crater
whose edge was heavily encrusted with a white salt.
Beyond, close under the rise of the hill, was another.
Between the two Percy Darrow had stopped and was
waiting.
He eyed us with his lazy, half-quizzical glance as
we approached.
“Think the place is going to blow up?” he inquired,
with a tinge of irony. “Well, it isn't.” He turned to
me. “Here's where we shall stay for a while. You
and the men are to cut a number of these pine trees
for a house. Better pick out the little ones, about three
or four inches through: they're easier handled. I'll be
back by noon.”
We set to work then in the roaring, steaming val-
ley with the vapour swirling about us, sometimes con-
cealing us, sometimes half revealing us gigantic, again
in the utterness of exposure showing us dwindled pig-
mies against the magnitudes about us. The labour was
not difficult. By the time Darrow returned we had
a pile of the saplings ready for his next direction.
He was accompanied by the Nigger, very much ter-
rified, very much burdened with food and cooking
utensils. The assistant was lazily relating tales of voo-
doos, a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.


II.4. THE MYSTERY
I was toward the last engaged in screwing on a
fixture for the generation of acetelyne gas.
“Darrow,” said I, “there's one thing you’ve over-
looked; you forgot to bring a cupola and a gilt
weather-cock for this concern.”
After the laboratory was completed, we put up
sleeping quarters for the two men, with wide porches
well screened, and a square, heavy storeroom. By the
end of the third week we had quite finished.
Dr. Schermerhorn had turned with enthusiasm
to the unpacking of his chemical apparatus. Al-
most immediately at the close of the freight-carrying,
he had appeared, lugging his precious chest, this time
suffering the assistance of Darrow, and had camped
on the spot. We could not induce him to leave, so we
put up a tent for him. Darrow remained with him
by way of safety against the men, whose measure, I
believe, he had taken. Now that all the work was
finished, the doctor put in a sudden appearance.
“Percy,” said he, “now we will have the defence
built.”
He dragged us with him to the narrow part of
the arroyo, just before it rose to the level of the
valley.
“Here we will build the stockade-defence,” he an-
nounced.
Darrow and I stared at each other blankly.
“What for, sir?” inquired the assistant.
“I haf come to be undisturbed,” announced the
doctor, with owl-like, Teutonic gravity, “and I will
not be disturbed.”
Darrow nodded to me and drew his principal aside.


SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE 115
They conversed earnestly for several minutes. Then
the assistant returned to me.
“No use,” he shrugged in complete return to his
indifferent manner. “Stockade it is. Better make it
of fourteen foot logs, slanted out. Dig a trench across,
plant your logs three or four feet, bind them at the
top. That's his specification for it. Go at it.”
“But,” I expostulated, “what's the use of it? Even
if the men were dangerous, that would just make them
think you did have something to guard.”
“I know that. Orders,” replied Percy Darrow.
We built the stockade in a day. When it was fin-
ished we marched to the beach, and never, save in the
three instances of which I shall later tell you, did I
see the valley again. The next day we washed our
clothes, and moved ashore with all our belongings.
“I’m not going to have this crew aboard,” stated
Captain Selover positively, “I’m going to clean her.”
He himself stayed, however.
We rowed in, constructed a hasty fireplace of stones,
spread our blankets, and built an unnecessary fire near
the beach.
“Clean her!” grumbled Thrackles, “my eye!”
“I’d rather round the Cape,” growled Pulz hope-
lessly.
“Come, now, it can't be as bad as all that,” I tried
to cheer them. “It can’t be more than a week or ten
days’ job, even if we careen her.”
“You don't know what you're talking about,” said
Thrackles. “It’s worse than the yellow jack. It's
six weeks at least. Mind when we last “cleaned
her’?” he inquired of Handy Solomon.


I 16 THE MYSTERY
“You can kiss the Book on it,” replied he. “Down
by the line in that little swab of a sand island. My
eye, but don't I remember! I sweated my liver white.”
They smoked in silence.
“That's a main queer contrivance of the Perfessor's
—that stockade-like,” ventured Solomon, after a little.
“He doesn’t want any intrusion,” I said. “These
scientific experiments are very delicate.”
“Quite like,” he commented non-committally.
We slept on the ground that night, and next morn-
ing, under Captain Selover's directions, we com-
menced the task of lightening the ship. He detailed
the Nigger and Perdosa for special duty.
“I’ll just see to your shore quarters,” he squeaked.
“You empty her.”
All day long we rowed back and forth from the
ship to the cove, landing the contents of the hold.
These, by good fortune, we did not have to carry over
the neck of land, for just above the gravel beach was
a wide ledge on which we could pile the stores. We ate
aboard, and so had no opportunity of seeing what
Captain Selover and his men were about, until evening.
Then we discovered that they had collected and low-
ered to the beach a quantity of stateroom doors from
the wreck, and had trundled the galley stove to the
edge where it awaited our assistance. We hitched a
cable to it, and let it down gently. The Nigger was
immensely pleased. After some experiment he got it
to draw, and so cooked us our supper on it. After
supper, Captain Selover rowed himself back to the
ship.
“Eagen,” he had said, drawing me aside, “I’m go-


II8 THE MYSTERY
The silence that followed, and the sullenness with
which Perdosa readdressed himself to his work, was
significant enough of Captain Selover's past relations
with the men.
And how we did clean her! We stripped her of
every stitch and sliver until she floated high, an empty
hull, even her spars and running rigging ashore. I
understood now the crew's grumbling. We literally
went at her with a nail brush.
Captain Selover took charge of us when we had
reached this period. He and the Nigger and Perdosa
had long since finished the installation of the perma-
nent camp. They had built us huts from the wreck,
collecting stateroom doors for the sides, and hatches
for the roofs, huge and solid, with iron rings in them.
The bronze and iron ventilation gratings to the doors
gave us glimpses of the coast through fretwork; the
rich inlaying of woods surrounded us. We set up on
a solid rock the galley stove—with its rails to hold
the cooking pots from upsetting, in a sea way. In it
we burned the débris of the wreck, all sorts of wood,
some sweet and aromatic and spicy as an incensed
cathedral. I have seen the Nigger boiling beans
over a blaze of sandal wood fragrant as an Eastern
shop.
First we scrubbed the Laughing Lass, then we
painted her, and resized and tarred her standing rig-
ging, resized and rove her running gear, slushed her
masts, finally careened her and scraped and painted
her below.
When we had quite finished, we had the anchor
chain dealt out to us in fathoms, and scraped, pounded


SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE 119
and polished that. These were indeed days full of
labour.
Being busy from morning until night we knew but
little of what was about us. We saw the open sea and
the waves tumbling over the reef outside. We saw
the headlands, and the bow of the bay and the surf
with its watching seals and the curve of yellow sands.
We saw the sweep of coast and the downs and the
strange huts we had built out of departed magnificence,
And that was all; that constituted our world.
In the evening sometimes we lit a big bonfire, sailor
fashion, just at the edge of the beach. There we sat
at ease and smoked our pipes in silence, too tired to
talk. Even Handy Solomon's song was still. Outside
the circle of light were mysterious things—strange
wavings of white hands, bendings of figures, callings
of voices, rustling of feet. We knew them for the
surf and the wind in the grasses: but they were not
the less mysterious for that.
Logically Captain Selover and I should have passed
most of our evenings together. As a matter of fact
we so spent very few. Early in the dusk the captain
invariably rowed himself out to his beloved schooner.
What he did there I do not know. We could see his
light now in one part of her, now in the other. The
men claimed he was scrubbing her teeth. “Old
Scrubs” they called him to his back: never Captain
Selover.
“He has to clean up after his own feet, he's so
dirty,” sagely proffered Handy Solomon. And this
WaS true.
The seaman's prophecy held good. Seven weeks


I2O THE MYSTERY
held us at that infernal job—seven weeks of solid,
grinding work. The worst of it was, that we were
kept at it so breathlessly, as though our very exist-
ence were to depend on the headlong rush of our
labour. And then we had fully half the stores to
put away again, and the other half to transport pain-
fully over the neck of land from the cove to the
beach.
So accustomed had I become to the routine in which
we were involved, so habituated to anticipating the
coming day as exactly like the day that had gone, that
the completion of our job caught me quite by surprise.
I had thrown myself down by the fire prepared for the
some old half hour of drowsy nicotine, to be followed
by the accustomed heavy sleep, and the usual early
rising to toil. The evening was warm; I half closed
my eyes.
Handy Solomon was coming in last. Instead of
dropping to his place, he straddled the fire, stretching
his arms over his head. He let them fall with a sharp
exhalation.
“‘Lay aloft, lay aloft, the jolly bos'n cried.
Blow high, blow low, what care wel
‘Look ahead, look astern, look a-windward, look
a-lee.’
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e.”
The effect was electrical. We all sprang to our feet
and fell to talking at once.
“By God, we're through!” cried Pulz. “I’d clean
forgot it!”


SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE I 2 I
The Nigger piled on more wood. We drew closer
about the fire. All the interests in life, so long held
in the background, leaped forward, eager for recog-
nition. We spoke of trivialities almost for the first
time since our landing, fused into a temporary but
complete good fellowship by the relief.
“Wonder how the old doctor is getting on?”
ventured Thrackles, after a while.
“The devil's a preacher! I wonder?” cried Handy
Solomon.
“Let’s make 'em a call,” suggested Pulz.
“Don’t believe they'd appreciate the compliment,”
I laughed. “Better let them make first call: they're
the longer established.” This was lost on them, of
course. But we all felt kindly to one another that
evening.
I carried the glow of it with me over until next
morning, and was therefore somewhat dashed to meet
Captain Selover, with clouded brows and an uncertain
manner. He quite ignored my greeting. -
“By God, Eagen,” he squeaked, “can you think of
anything more to be done?”
I straightened my back and laughed.
“Haven’t you worked us hard enough?” I in-
quired. “Unless you gild the cabins, I don't see what
else there can be to do.”
Captain Selover stared me over.
“And you a naval man!” he marvelled. “Don’t
you see that the only thing that keeps this crew from
gettin' restless is keeping them busy P I've sweat a
damn sight more with my brain than you have with
your back thinking up things to do. I can't see any-


I22 THE MYSTERY
thing ahead, and then we'll have hell to pay. Oh,
they're a sweet lot!”
I whistled and my crest fell. Here was a new point
of view; and also a new Captain Ezra. Where was
the confidence in the might of his two hands?
He seemed to read my thoughts, and went on.
“I don’t feel sure here on this cussed land. It ain’t
like a deck where a man has some show. They can
scatter. They can hide. It ain't right to put a man
ashore alone with such a crew. I’m doing my best,
but it ain't goin’ to be good enough. I wisht we were
safe in 'Frisco harbour 32
He would have maundered on, but I seized his arm
and led him out of possible hearing of the men.
“Here, buck up!” I said to him sternly. “There's
nothing to be scared of. If it comes to a row, there's
three of us and we've got guns. We could even sail
the schooner at a pinch, and leave them here. You've
stood them off before.” -
“Not ashore,” protested Captain Selover weakly.
“Well, they don't know that. For God's sake don't
let them see you've lost your nerve this way.” He did
not even wince at the accusation. “Put up a front.”
He shook his head. The sand had completely run
out of him. Yet I am convinced that if he could have
felt the heave and roll of the deck beneath him, he
would have faced three times the difficulties he now
feared. However, I could see readily enough the wis-
dom of keeping the men at work.
“You can wreck the Golden Horn,” I suggested.
“I don't know whether there's anything left worth
salvage; but it'll be something to do.”


SELOVER LOSES HIS NERVE 123,
He clapped me on the shoulder.
“Good!” he cried, “I never thought of it.”
“Another thing,” said I, “you better give them.
a day off a week. That can't hurt them and it'll waste.
just that much more time.”
“All right,” agreed Captain Selover.
“Another thing yet. You know I’m not lazy, so
it ain't that I’m trying to dodge work. But you'd bet-
ter lay me off. It'll be so much more for the others.”
“That's true,” said he.
I could not recognise the man for what I knew him.
to be. He groped, as one in the dark, or as a sea animal.
taken out of its element and placed on the sands.
Courage had given place to fear; decision to wavering;.
and singleness of purpose to a divided counsel. He
who had so thoroughly dominated the entire ship,
eagerly accepted advice of me—a man without ex-
perience.
That evening I sat apart considerably disturbed. I
felt that the ground had dropped away beneath my
feet. To be sure, everything was tranquil at present;.
but now I understood the source of that tranquillity
and how soon it must fail. With opportunity would.
come more scheming, more speculation, more cupidity.
How was I to meet it, with none to back me but a
scared man, an absorbed man, and an indifferent man?”


WRECKING OF GOLDEN HORN 125
“What do you think, sir?” Thrackles inquired of
the assistant.
“Devil's fire,” replied Percy Darrow briefly. “The
island's a little queer. I’ve noticed it before.”
“Debbil fire,” repeated the Nigger.
Darrow turned directly to him.
“Yes, devil's fire; and devils, too, for all I know;
and certainly vampires. Did you ever hear of vam-
pires, Doctor?”
“No,” growled the Nigger.
“Well, they are women, wonderful, beautiful
women. A man on a long voyage would just Smack
his lips to see them. They have shiny grey eyes, and
lips red as raspberries. When you meet them they
will talk with you and go home with you. And then
when you're asleep they tear a little hole in your neck
with their sharp claws, and they suck the blood with
their red lips. When they aren't women, they take the
shape of big bats like birds.” He turned to me with
so beautifully casual an air that I wanted to clap him
on the back with the joy of it.
“By the way, Eagen, have you noticed those big
bats the last few evenings, over by the cliff? I can't
make out in the dusk whether they are vampires or
just plain bats.” He directed his remarks again to
the Nigger. “Next time you see any of those big
bats, Doctor, just you notice close. If they have just
plain, black eyes, they're all right; but if they have
grey eyes, with red rims around 'em, they’re vam-
pires. I wish you'd let me know, if you do find out.
It's interesting.”
“Don’ get me near no bats,” growled the Nigger.


I26 THE MYSTERY
“Where's Selover?” inquired Darrow.
“He stays aboard,” I hastened to say. “Wants
to keep an eye on the ship.”
“That's laudable. What have you been doing?”
“We’ve been cleaning ship. Just finished yesterday
evening.”
“What next?”
“We were thinking of wrecking the Golden Horn.”
“Quite right. Well, if you want any help with your
engines or anything of the sort, call on me.”
He arose and began to light his lantern.
“I hope as how you're getting on well there above,
sir?” ventured Handy Solomon insinuatingly.
“Very well, I thank you, my man,” replied Percy
Darrow drily. “Remember those vampires, Doctor.”
He swung the lantern and departed without further
speech. We followed the spark of it until it disap-
peared in the arroyo.
Behind us bellowed the sea; over against us in the
sky was the dull threatening glow of the volcano;
about us were mysterious noises of crying birds, bark-
ing seals, rustling or rushing winds. I felt the throng-
ing ghosts of all the old world's superstition swirling
madly behind us in the eddies that twisted the smoke
of our fire.
We wrecked the Golden Horn. Forward was a
rusted-out donkey engine, which we took to pieces and
put together again. It was no mean job, for all the
running parts had to be cleaned smooth, and with the
exception of a rudimentary knowledge on the part of
Pulz and Perdosa, we were ignorant. In fact we
should not have succeeded at all had it not been


WRECKING OF GOLDEN HORN 127
for Percy Darrow and his lantern. The first even-
ing we took him over to the cliff's edge he laughed
aloud.
“Jove, boys, how could you guess it all wrong,”
he wondered.
With a few brief words he set us right, Pulz, Per-
dosa, and I listening intently; the others indifferent in
the hopelessness of being able to comprehend. Of
course, we went wrong again in our next day's ex-
periments; but Darrow was down two or three times
a week, and gradually we edged toward a practical
result.
His explanations consumed but a few moments.
After they were finished, we adjourned to the fire.
Thus we came gradually to a better acquaintance
with the doctor's assistant. In many respects he re-
mained always a puzzle to me. Certainly the men
never knew how to take him. He was evidently not
only unafraid of them, but genuinely indifferent to
them.
Yet he displayed a certain interest in their needs
and affairs. His practical knowledge was enormous. I
think I have told you of the completeness of his ar-
rangements—everything had been foreseen from
grindstones to gas nippers. The same quality of con-
crete speculation showed him what we lacked in our
own lives.
There was, as you remember, the matter of
Handy Solomon's steel claw. He showed Thrackles
a kind of lanyard knot that deep-sea person had
never used. He taught Captain Selover how to make
Soft Soap out of one species of seaweed. Me, he ini-


I28 THE MYSTERY
tiated in the art of fishing with a white bone lure.
Our camp itself he reconstructed on scientific lines so
that we enjoyed less aromatic smoke and more pala-
table dinner. And all of it he did amusedly, as though
his ideas were almost too obvious to need communica-
tion.
We became in a manner intimate with him. He
guyed the men in his indolent fashion, playing on their
credulity, their good nature, even their forbearance.
They alternately grinned and scowled. He left always
a confused impression, so that no one really knew
whether he cherished rancour against Percy Darrow
or kindly feeling.
The Nigger was Darrow's especial prey. The as-
sistant had early discovered that the cook was given
to signs, omens, and superstitions.
From a curious scholar's lore he drew fantastics
with which to torment his victim. We heard of all
the witches, warlocks, incubi, succibi, harpies, devils,
imps, and haunters of Avitchi, from all the teachings
of history, sacred and profane, Hindu, Egyptian, Greek,
mediaeval, Swedenborg, Rosicrucian, theosophy, the-
ology, with every last ounce of horror, mystery, shiv-
ers, and creeps squeezed out of them. They were gor-
geous ghost stories, for they were told by a man fully
informed as to all the legendary and gruesome de-
tails. At first I used to think he might have communi-
cated it more effectively. Then I saw that the cool,
drawling manner, the level voice, were in reality the
highest art.
He told his stories in a half-amused, detached man-
ner which imposed confidence more readily than any


WRECKING OF GOLDEN HORN 129
amount of earnest asseveration. The mere fact of his
own belief in what he said came to matter little. He
was the vehicle by which was brought accurate knowl-
edge. He had read all these things, and now reported
them as he had read: each man could decide for him-
self as to their credibility.
At last the donkey engine was cleared and rein-
stalled, atop the cliff. The Nigger built under her a
fire of black walnut; Captain Selover handed out grog
all around; and we started her up with a cheer, just
to see the wheels revolve.
Next we half buried some long hatches, end up, to
serve as bitts for the lines, hitched our cables to them,
and joyfully commenced the task of pulling the Golden
Horn piece by piece up the side of the cliff.
The stores were badly damaged by the wet, and
there was no liquor, for which I was sincerely grate-
ful. We broke into the boxes, and arrayed ourselves
in various garments—which speedily fell to pieces—
and appropriated gim-cracks of all sorts. There were
some arms, but the ammunition had gone bad. Per-
dosa, out of forty or fifty mis-fires, got one feeble
sputter, and a tremendous bang which blew up his
piece, leaving only the stock in his hand. A few tinned
goods were edible; but all the rest was destroyed. A
lot of hard woods, a thousand feet of chain cable, and
a fairly good anchor might be considered as prizes.
As for the rest, it was foolishness, but we hauled
it up just the same until nothing at all remained.
Then we shut off the donkey engine, and put on dry
clothes. We had been quite happy for the eight
months.


130 THE MYSTERY
It was now well along toward spring. The winter
had been like summer, and with the exception of a
few rains of a week or so, we had enjoyed beautiful
skies. The seals had thinned out considerably, but
were now returning in vast numbers ready for their
annual domestic arrangements.
Our Sundays we had mostly spent in resting, or in
fishing. There were many deep sea fish to be had, of
great palatability, but small gameness; they came
like so many leaden weights. A few of us had climbed
some of the hills in a half-hearted curiosity, but from
their summits saw nothing to tempt weariness. Prac-
tically we knew nothing beyond the mile or so of
beach on which we lived.
Captain Selover had made a habit of coming ashore
at least once during the day. He had contented him-
self with standing aloof, but I took pains to seem to
confer with him, so that the men might suppose that
I, as mate, was engaged in carrying out his directions.
The dread of him was my most potent influence over
them.
During the last few days of our wrecking, Captain
Selover had omitted his daily visit. The fact made me
uneasy, so that at my first opportunity I sculled
myself out to the schooner. I found him, moist-
eyed as usual, leaning against the mainmast doing
nothing.
“We’ve finished, sir,” said I.
He looked at me.
“Will you come ashore and have a look, sir?” I
inquired.
“I ain't going ashore again,” he muttered thickly.


WRECKING OF GOLDEN HORN 131
“What!” I cried.
“I ain't going ashore again,” he repeated obsti-
nately, “and that's all there is to it. It's too much of
a strain on any man. Suit yourself. You run them. I
shipped as captain of a vessel. I’m no dock walloper.
I won’t do it—for no man!”
I gasped with dismay at the man's complete moral
collapse. It seemed incredible. I caught myself won-
dering whether he would recover tone were he again
to put to sea.
“My God, man, but you must 1” I cried at last.
“I won’t, and that's flat,” said he, and turned
deliberately on his heel and disappeared in the
cabin.
I went ashore thoughtful and a little scared. But on
reflection I regained a great part of my ease of mind.
You see, I had been with these men now eight months,
during which they had been as orderly as so many
primary schoolboys. They had worked hard, without
grumbling, and had even approached a sort of friend-
liness about the camp fire. My first impression was
overlaid. As I looked back on the voyage, with what
I took to be a clearer vision, I could not but admit
that the incidents were in themselves trivial enough—
a natural excitement by a superstitious negro, a little
tall talk that meant nothing. It must have been the
glamour of the adventure that had deceived me; that,
and the unusual stage setting and costuming. Cer-
tainly few men would work hard for eight months
without a murmur, without a chance to look about
them.
In that, of course, I was deceived by my inexperi-


I32 THE MYSTERY
ence. I realised later the wonderful effect Captain
Selover threw away with his empty brandy bottles.
The crew might grumble and plot during the watch
below; but when Captain Ezra Selover said work,
they worked. He had been saying work, for eight
months. They had, from force of experience, obeyed
him. It was all very simple.


IX
THE EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE
So there I was at once deprived of my chief support.
Although no danger seemed imminent, nevertheless
the necessity of acting on my own initiative and re-
sponsibility oppressed me somewhat.
Truth to tell, after the first, I was more relieved than
dismayed at the captain's resolution to stay aboard.
His drinking habit was growing on him, and afloat or
ashore he was now little more than a figurehead, so
that my chief asset as far as he was concerned, was
rather his reputation than his direct influence. In con-
tact with the men, I dreaded lest sooner or later he do
something to lessen or destroy the awe in which they
held him.
Of course Dr. Schermerhorn had been mistaken in
his man: A real captain of men would have risen to
circumstances wherever he found them. But who could
have foretold? Captain Selover had been a rascal
always, but a successful and courageous rascal. He
had run desperate chances, dominated desperate crews.
Who could know that a crumble of island beach and
six months ashore would turn him into what he had
become? Yet I believe such cases are not uncommon
in other walks of life. A man and his work combine to
mean something; yet both may be absolutely useless
when separated. It was the weak link
I put in some time praying earnestly that the eyes
I33


I34 THE MYSTERY
of the crew might be blinded, and that the doctor
would finish his experiments before the cauldron could
boil up again.
My first act as real commander was to announce holi-
day. My idea was that the island would keep the men
busy for a while. Then I would assign them more work
to do. They proposed at once a tour into the interior.
We started up the west coast. After three or four
miles along a mesa formation where often we had to
circle long detours to avoid the gullies, we came upon
another short beach, and beyond it a series of ledges
on which basked several hundred seals. They did not
seem alarmed. In fact one old bull, scarred by many
battles, made toward us.
We left him, scaled the cliff, and turned up a broad,
pleasant valley toward the interior.
There the later lava flow had been deflected. All
that showed of the original eruption were occasional
red outcropping rocks. Soil and grass had overlaid
the mineral. Scattered trees were planted throughout
the flat. Cacti and semi-tropical bushes mingled with
brush on the rounded side hills. A number of brilliant
birds fluttered at our approach.
Suddenly Handy Solomon, who was in advance,
stopped and pointed to the crest of the hill. A file of
animals moved along the sky line.
“Mutton l’” said he, “ or the devil's a preacher!”
“Sheep!” cried Thrackles. “Where did they come
from ?”
“Golden Horn,” I suggested. “Remember that
wide, empty deck forward? They carried sheep there.”
The men separated, intending fresh meat. The af-


THE EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE 135
fair was ridiculous. These sheep had become as wild
as deer. Our surrounding party with its silly bared
knives could only look after them open-mouthed, as
they skipped nimbly between its members.
“Get a gun of the Old Man, Mr. Eagen,” suggested
Pulz, “and we'll have something besides salt horse
and fish.”
I nodded.
We continued. The island was like this as far as we
went. When we climbed a ridge, we found ourselves
looking down on a spider-web of other valleys and
cañons of the same nature, all diverging to broad
downs and a jump into the sea, all converging to the
outworks that guarded the volcano with its canopy of
vapour.
On our way home we cut across the higher country
and the heads of the cañons until we found ourselves
looking down on the valley and Dr. Schermer-
horn's camp. The steam from the volcanic blowholes
swayed below us. Through its rifts we saw the tops
of the buildings. Presently we made out Percy Dar-
row, dressed in overalls, his sleeves rolled back, and
carrying a retort. He walked, very preoccupied, to one
of the miniature craters, where he knelt and went
through some operation indistinguishable at the dis-
tance. I looked around to see my companions staring
at him fascinated, their necks craned out, their bodies
drawn back into hiding. In a moment he had finished,
and carried the retort carefully into the laboratory.
The men sighed and stood erect, once more themselves.
As we turned away Perdosa voiced what must have
been in the minds of all.


136 THE MYSTERY
“A man could climb down there,” said he.
“Why should he want to?” I demanded sharply.
“Quien sabe?” shrugged he.
We turned in silence toward the beach. Each
brooded his thoughts. The sight of that man dressed
in overalls, carrying on some mysterious business,
brought home to each of us the fact that our expedi-
tion had an object, as yet unknown to us. The thought
had of late dropped into the background. For my part
I had been so immersed in the adventure and the la-
bour and the insistent need of the hour that I had
forgotten why I had come. Dr. Schermerhorn's
purpose was as inscrutable to me as at first. What had
I accomplished?
The men, too, seemed struck with some such idea.
There were no yarns about the camp fire that night.
Percy Darrow did not appear, for which I was sin-
cerely sorry. His presence might have created a diver-
sion. For some unknown reason all my old apprehen-
sions, my sense of impending disaster, had returned to
me strengthened. In the firelight the Nigger's sullen
face looked sinister, Pulz's nervous white countenance
looked vicious. Thrackles' heavy, bulldog expression
was threatening, Perdosa's Mexican cast fit for knife
work in the back. And Handy Solomon, stretched out,
leaning on his elbow, with his red headgear, his snaky
hair, his hook nose, his restless eye and his glittering
steel claw—the glow wrote across his aura the names
of Kid, Morgan, Blackbeard.
They sat smoking, staring into the fire with mes-
merised eyes. The silence got on my nerves. I arose
impatiently and walked down the pale beach, where


“These sheep had become as wild as deer”


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LEN … AND
TILDEN FOUN DATIONS
R I-


THE EMPTY BRANDY BOTTLE 137
the stars glimmered in splashes along the wettest
sands. The black silhouette of the hills against the
dark blue of the night sky; the white of breakers
athwart the indistinct heave of the ocean, a faint light
marking the position of the Laughing Lass—that was
everything in the world. I made out some object rolled
about in the edge of the wash. At the cost of wet feet
I rescued it. It was an empty brandy bottle.


X
CHANGE OF MASTERS
THE next day we continued our explorations by land,
and so for a week after that. I thought it best not to
relinquish all authority, so I organised regular expedi-
tions, and ordered their direction. The men did not
object. It was all good enough fun to them.
The net results were that we found a nesting place
of sea birds—too late in the season for eggs; a hot
spring near enough camp to be useful; and that was
about all. The sheep were the only animals on the
island, although there were several sorts of birds.
In general, the country was as I have described it—
either volcanic or overlaid with fertile earth. In any
case it was cañon and hill. We soon grew tired of
climbing and turned our attention to the sea.
With the surf boat we skirted the coast. It was
impregnable except in three places: our own beach,
that near the seal rookery, and on the south side of
the island. We landed at each one of these places.
But returning close to the coast we happened upon a
cave mouth more or less guarded by an outlying rock.
The day was calm, so we ventured in. At first I
thought it merely a gorge in the rock, but even while
peering for the end wall we slipped under the arch-
way and found ourselves in a vast room.
Our eyes were dazzled so we could make out little
138


CHANGE OF MASTERS I39
at first. But through the still, clear water the light
filtered freely from below, showing the bottom as
through a sea glass. We saw the fish near the en-
trance, and coral and sea growths of marvellous vivid-
ness. They waved slowly as in a draught of air. The
medium in which they floated was absolutely invis-
ible, for, of course, there were no reflections from its
surface. We seemed to be suspended in mid-air, and
only when the dipping oars made rings could we realise
that anything sustained us. -
Suddenly the place let loose in pandemonium. The
most fiendish cries, groans, shrieks, broke out, confus-
ing themselves so thoroughly with their own echoes
that the volume of sound was continuous. Heavy
splashes shook the water. The boat rocked. The in-
visible surface was broken into facets.
We shrank, terrified. From all about us glowed
hundreds of eyes like coals of fire—on a level with us,
above us, almost over our heads. Two by two the
coals were extinguished.
Below us the bottom was clouded with black figures,
darting rapidly like a school of minnows beneath a
boat. They darkened the coral and the sands and the
glistening sea growths just as a cloud temporarily
darkens the landscape—only the occultations and
brightenings succeeded each other much more swiftly.
We stared stupefied, our thinking power blurred by
the incessent whirl of motion and noise.
Suddenly Thrackles laughed aloud.
“Seals' " he shouted through his trumpeted hands.
Our eyes were expanding to the twilight. We could
make out the arch of the room, its shelves, and hol-


I4O THE MYSTERY
lows, and niches. Lying on them we could discern the
seals, hundreds and hundreds of them, all staring at
us, all barking and bellowing. As we approached, they
scrambled from their elevations, and, diving to the
bottom, scurried to the entrance of the cave.
We lay on our oars for ten minutes. Then silence
fell. There persisted a tiny drip, drip, drip from some
point in the darkness. It merely accentuated the hush.
Suddenly from far in the interior of the hill there
came a long, hollow boo-o-o-m! It reverberated, roar-
ing. The surge that had lifted our boat some minutes
before thus reached its journey's end.
The chamber was very lofty. As we rowed cau-
tiously in, it lost nothing of its height, but something
in width. It was marvellously coloured, like all the
volcanic rocks of this island. In addition some chemi-
cal drip had thrown across its vividness long gauzy
streamers of white. We rowed in as far as the faintest
daylight lasted us. The occasional reverberating boom
of the surges seemed as distant as ever.
This was beyond the seal rookery on the beach. Be-
low it we entered an open cleft of some size to another
squarer cave. It was now high tide; the water ex-
tended a scant ten fathoms to end on an interior shale
beach. The cave was a perfectly straight passage fol-
lowing the line of the cleft. How far in it reached we
could not determine, for it, too, was full of seals, and
after we had driven them back a hundred feet or so
their fiery eyes scared us out. We did not care to
put them at bay.
The next day I rowed out to the Laughing Lass and
got a rifle. I found the captain asleep in his bunk, and


142 THE MYSTERY
so you can see to what tensity the baffling mystery
had strung me.
Perdosa hesitated a fraction of an instant. I really
think he might have chanced it, but Handy Solo-
mon, who had been watching me closely, growled at
him.
“Drop it, you fool!” he said.
Perdosa let fall the knife.
“Now, get at that cable,” I commanded, still at
white heat. I stood over him until he was well at
work, then turned back to set tasks for the other men.
Handy Solomon met me halfway.
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen,” said he, “I
want a word with you.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” I snapped, still ex-
cited.
“It ain't reasonable not to hear a man's say,” he
advised in his most conciliatory manner, “I’m talking
for all of us.”
He paused a moment, took my silence for consent,
and went ahead.
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen,” said he, “we
ain't going to do any more useless work. There ain’t
no laziness about us, but we ain't going to be busy at
nothing. All the camp work and the haulin’ and cut-
tin’ and cleanin’ and the rest of it, we'll do gladly. But
we ain't goin’ to pound any more cable, and you can
kiss the Book on that.”
“You mean to mutiny?” I asked.
He made a deprecatory gesture.
“Put us aboard ship, sir, and let us hear the Old
Man give his orders, and you'll find no mutiny in us.


----------
---
---------
| , ,
“Drop it, you fool


P
†† NEwyas.
UBLIC LIBRARY
Asſos, Lºs AND
TILDEN FOUN PATIONs
R
L


CHANGE OF MASTERS I43
But here ashore it's different. Did the Old Man give
orders to pound the cable?”
“I represent the captain,” I stammered.
He caught the evasion. “I thought so. Well, if you
got any kick on us, please, sir, go get the Old Man.
If he says to our face, pound cable, why pound cable
it is. Ain't that right, boys?”
They murmured something. Perdosa deliberately
dropped his hammer and joined the group. My hand
strayed again toward the sawed-off Colt's 45.
“I wouldn't do that,” said Handy Solomon, almost
kindly. “You couldn't kill us all. And w'at good
would it do? I asks you that. I can cut down a chicken
with my knife at twenty feet. You must surely see, sir,
that I could have killed you too easy while you were
covering Pancho there. This ain’t got to be a war,
Mr. Eagen, just because we don't want to work with-
out any sense to it.”
There was more of the same sort. I had plenty of
time to see my dilemma. Either I would have to aban-
don my attempt to keep the men busy, or I would have
to invoke the authority of Captain Selover. To do the
latter would be to destroy it. The master had become
a stuffed figure, a bogie with which to frighten, an
empty bladder that a prick would collapse. With what
grace I could muster, I had to give in.
“You’ll have to have it your own way, I suppose,”
I snapped.
Thrackles grinned, and Pulz started to say some-
thing, but Handy Solomon, with a peremptory ges-
ture, and a black scowl, stopped him short.
“Now that's what I calls right proper and hand-


I44 THE MYSTERY
some!” he cried admiringly. “We reely had no right
to expect that, boys, as seamen, from our first officer!
You can kiss the Book on it, that very few crews have
such kind masters. Mr. Eagen has the right, and we
signed to it all straight, to work us as he pleases;
and w'at does he do? Why, he up and gives us a
week shore leave, and then he gives us light watches,
and all the time our pay goes on just the same. Now
that's w'at I calls right proper and handsome conduct,
or the devil's a preacher, and I ventures with all re-
spect to propose three cheers for Mr. Eagen.”
They gave them, grinning broadly. The villain
stood looking at me, a sardonic gleam in the back of
his eye. Then he gave a little hitch to his red head
covering, and sauntered away humming between his
teeth. I stood watching him, choked with rage and
indecision. The humming broke into words.
“‘Oh, quarter, oh, quarter!’ the jolly pirates cried.
Blow high, blow low! What care we?
But the quarter that we gave them was to sink them
in the sea,
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e.”
“Here, you swab,” he cried to Thrackles, “and
you, Pancho I get some wood, lively And Pulz, bring
us a pail of water. Doctor, let's have duff to cele-
brate on.”
The men fell to work with alacrity.


IX
THE CORROSIVE
THAT evening I smoked in a splendid isolation while
the men whispered apart. I had nothing to do but
smoke, and to chew my cud, which was bitter. There
could be no doubt, however I may have saved my
face, that command had been taken from me by that
rascal, Handy Solomon. I was in two minds as to
whether or not I should attempt to warn Darrow or
the doctor. Yet what could I say? and against
whom should I warn them? The men had grumbled,
as men always do grumble in idleness, and had per-
haps talked a little wildly; but that was nothing.
The only indisputable fact I could adduce was that
I had allowed my authority to slip through my fin-
gers. And adequately to excuse that, I should have
to confess that I was a writer and no handler of men.
I abandoned the unpleasant train of thought with a
snort of disgust, but it had led me to another. In the
joy and uncertainty of living I had practically lost
sight of the reason for my coming. With me it had
always been more the adventure than the story; my
writing was a by-product, a utilisation of what life
offered me. I had set sail possessed by the sole idea
of ferreting out Dr. Schermerhorn's investigations,
but the gradual development of affairs had ended
by absorbing my every faculty. Now, cast into an
eddy by my change of fortunes, the original idea
I45


146 THE MYSTERY
regained its force. I was out of the active government
of affairs, with leisure on my hands, and my thoughts
naturally turned with curiosity again to the laboratory
in the valley.
Darrow’s “devil fires” were again painting the sky.
I had noticed them from time to time, always with in-
creasing wonder. The men accepted them easily as
only one of the unexplained phenomena of a sailor's
experience, but I had not as yet hit on a hypothesis
that suited me. They were not allied to the aurora;
they differed radically from the ordinary volcanic
emanations; and scarcely resembled any electrical dis-
plays I had ever seen. The night was cool; the stars
bright: I resolved to investigate.
Without further delay I arose to my feet and set
off into the darkness. Immediately one of the group
detached himself from the fire and joined me.
“Going for a little walk, sir?” asked Handy Solo-
mon sweetly. “That's quite right and proper. Nothin'
like a little walk to get you fit and right for your
bunk.”
He held close to my elbow. We got just as far as
the stockade in the bed of the arroyo. The lights we
could make out now across the zenith; but owing to
the precipitance of the cliffs, and the rise of the arroyo
bed, it was impossible to see more. Handy Solomon
felt the defences carefully. -
“A man would think, sir, it was a cannibal island,”
he observed. “All so tight and tidy-like here. It
would take a ship's guns to batter her down. A man
might dig under these here two gate logs, if no one
was against him. Like to try it, sir?”


THE CORROSIVE I47
“No,” I answered gruffly.
From that time on I was virtually a prisoner; yet
so carefully was my surveillance accomplished that I
could place my finger on nothing definite. Someone
always accompanied me on my walks; and in the even-
ing I was herded as closely as any cattle.
Handy Solomon took the direction of affairs off
my hands. You may be sure he set no very heavy
tasks. The men cut a little wood, carried up a few
pails of water—that was all.
Lacking incentive to stir about, they came to spend
most of their time lying on their backs watching the
sky. This in turn bred a languor which is the sickest,
most soul- and temper-destroying affair invented by
the devil. They could not muster up energy enough to
walk down the beach and back, and yet they were
wearied to death of the inaction. After a little they
became irritable toward one another. Each suspected
the other of doing less than he should. You who know
men will realise what this meant.
The atmosphere of our camp became surly. I recog-
nised the precursor of its becoming dangerous. One
day on a walk in the hills I came on Thrackles and
Pulz lying on their stomachs gazing down fixedly at
Dr. Schermerhorn's camp. This was nothing extraor-
dinary, but they started guiltily to their feet when
they saw me, and made off, growling under their
breaths.
All this that I have told you so briefly, took time.
It was the eating through of men's spirits by that
worst of corrosives, idleness. I conceive it unnecessary
to weary you with the details


I48 THE MYSTERY
The situation was as yet uneasy but not alarming.
Cºne evening I overheard the beginning of an absurd
plot to gain entrance to the Valley—that was as far
as detail went. I became convinced at last that I should
in some way warn Percy Darrow.
That seems a simple enough proposition, does it
not? But if you will stop to think one moment of the
difficulties of my position, you will see that it was not
as easy as at first it appears. Darrow still visited us
in the evening. The men never allowed me even the
chance of private communication while he was with
us. One or two took pains to stretch out between us.
Twice I arose when the assistant did, resolved to ac-
company him part way back. Both times men reso-
lutely escorted us, and as resolutely separated us
from the opportunity of a single word apart. The
crew never threatened me by word or look. But we
understood each other.
I was not permitted to row out to the Laughing
Lass without escort. Therefore I never attempted to
visit her again. The men were not anxious to do so;
their awe of the captain made them only too glad to
escape his notice. That empty shell of a past reputa-
tion was my only hope. It shielded the arms and
ammunition. -
As I look back on it now, the period seems to me
to be one of merely potential trouble. The men had
not taken the pains to crystallise their ideas. I really
think their compelling emotion was that of curiosity.
They wanted to see. It needed a definite impulse to
change that desire to one of greed.
The impulse came from Percy Darrow and his idle


THE CORROSIVE I49
talk of voodoos. As usual he was directing his re-
marks to the sullen Nigger.
“Voodoos ?” he said. “Of course there are. Don’t
fool yourself for a minute on that. There are good
ones and bad ones. You can tame them if you know
how, and they will do anything you want them to.”
Pulz chuckled in his throat. “You don’t believe it?”
drawled the assistant turning to him. “Well, it's so.
You know that heavy box we are so careful off Well,
that's got a tame voodoo in it.”
The others laughed.
“What he like?” asked the Nigger gravely.
“He’s a fine voodoo, with wavery arms and green
eyes, and red glows.” Watching narrowly its effect
he swung off into one of the genuine old crooning
voodoo songs, once so common down South, now so
rarely heard. No one knows what the words mean—
they are generally held to be charm-words only—a
magic gibberish. But the Nigger sprang across the
fire like lightning, his face altered by terror, to seize
Darrow by the shoulders.
“Doan you! Doan you!” he gasped, shaking
the assistant violently back and forth. “Dat he King
Voodoo song! Dat call him all de voodoo--
a111 ?”
He stared wildly about in the darkness as though
expecting to see the night thronged. There was a
moment of confusion. Eager for any chance I hissed
under my breath; “Danger! Look out!”
I could not tell whether or not Darrow heard me.
He left soon after. The mention of the chest had
focussed the men's interest.


I52 THE MYSTERY
looks like that, then you want to listen close. He sees
things then. Lots of times he's seen things. Even last
year—the Oyama—he told about her three days
ahead. That's why we were so ready for her,” he
chuckled.
Nothing more developed for a long time except a
savage fight between Pulz and Perdosa. I hunted
sheep, fished, wandered about—always with an escort
tired to death before he started. The thought came to
me to kill this man and so to escape and make cause
with the scientists. My common sense forbade me. I
begin to think that common sense is a very foolish
faculty indeed.
It taught me the obvious—that all this idle, vapour-
ing talk was common enough among men of this class,
so common that it would hardly justify a murder,
would hardly explain an unwarranted intrusion on
those who employed me. How would it look for me
to go to them with these words in my mouth:
“The captain has taken to drinking to dull the
monotony. The crew think you are an alchemist and
are making diamonds. Their interest in this fact
seemed to me excessive, so I killed one of them, and
here I am.”
“And who are you?” they could ask.
“I am a reporter,” would be my only truthful reply.
You can see the false difficulties of my position. I
do not defend my attitude. Undoubtedly a born leader
of men, like Captain Selover at his best, would have
known how to act with the proper decision both now
and in the inception of the first mutiny. At heart I
never doubted the reality of the crisis.


THE CORROSIVE I53
Even Percy Darrow saw the surliness of the men's
attitudes, and with his usual good sense divined the
CauSe.
“You chaps are getting lazy,” said he, “why don't
you do something? Where's the captain?”
They growled something about there being nothing
to do, and explained that the captain preferred to live
aboard.
“Don’t blame him,” said Darrow, “but he might
give us a little of his squeaky company occasionally.
Boys, I’ll tell you something about seals. The old bull
seals have long, stiff whiskers—a foot long. Do you
know there's a market for those whiskers? Well, there
is. The Chinese mount them in gold and use them for
cleaners for their long pipes. Each whisker is worth
from six bits to a dollar and a quarter. Why don't you
kill a few bull seal for the “trimmings’?”
“Nothin' to do with a voodoo?” grunted Handy
Solomon.
Darrow laughed amusedly. “No, this is the truth,”
he assured. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you boys
six bits apiece for the whisker hairs, and four bits for
the galls. I expect to sell them at a profit.”
Next morning they shook off their lethargy and
went seal-hunting.
I was practically commanded to attend. This atti-
tude had been growing of late: now it began to take
a definite form.
“Mr. Eagan, don't you want to go hunting?” or
“Mr. Eagen, I guess I'll just go along with you to
stretch my legs,” had given way to, “We’re going
fishing: you’d better come along.”


154 THE MYSTERY
I had known for a long time that I had lost any
real control of them; and that perhaps humiliated me
a little. However, my inexperience at handling such
men, and the anomalous character of my position to
some extent consoled me. In the filaments brushed
across the face of my understanding I could discover
none so strong as to support an overt act on my part.
I cannot doubt, that had the affair come to a focus, I
should have warned the scientists even at the risk of
my life. In fact, as I shall have occasion to show you,
I did my best. But at the moment, in all policy I could
see my way to little besides acquiescence.
We killed seals by sequestrating the bulls, surround-
ing them, and clubbing them at a certain point of the
forehead. It was surprising to see how hard they
fought, and how quickly they succumbed to a blow
properly directed. Then we stripped the mask with
its bristle of long whiskers, took the gall, and dragged
the carcass into the surf where it was devoured by fish.
At first the men, pleased by the novelty, stripped the
skins. The blubber, often two or three inches in thick-
ness, had then to be cut away from the pelt, cube by
cube. It was a long, an oily, and odoriferous job. We
stunk mightily of seal oil; our garments were shiny
with it, the very pores of our skins seemed to ooze it.
And even after the pelt was fairly well cleared, it had
still to be tanned. Percy Darrow suggested the
method, but the process was long, and generally un-
satisfactory. With the acquisition of the fifth greasy,
heavy, and ill-smelling piece of fur the men's interest
in peltries waned. They confined themselves in all
strictness to the “trimmings.”


156 THE MYSTERY
“You’re afraid of us!” he accused.
I was silent, not knowing just how to meet so direct
an attack.
“No need to be,” he continued.
I said nothing.
He looked at me shrewdly; then stood off on an-
other tack.
“Well, sir, I didn't mean just that. I didn't mean
you was really scared of us. But we’re gettin' to know
each other, livin' here on this old island, brothers-like.
There ain't no officers and men ashore—is there, now,
sir? When we gets back to the old Laughing Lass,
then we drops back into our dooty again all right and
proper. You can kiss the Book on that. Old Scrubs,
he knows that. He don’t want no shore in his. He
knows enough to stay aboard, where we'd all
rather be.”
He stopped abruptly, spat, and looked at me. I won-
dered whither this devious diplomacy led us.
“Still, in one way, an officer's an officer, and a
seaman's a seaman, thinks you, and discipline must
be held up among mates ashore or afloat, thinks you.
Quite proper, sir. And I can see you think that the
arms is for the afterguard except in case of trouble.
Quite proper. You can do the shooting, and you can
keep the cartridges always by you. Just for disci-
pline, sir.”
The man's boldness in so fully arming me was aston-
ishing, and his carelessness in allowing me aboard
with Captain Selover astonished me still more. Never-
theless I promised to go for the desired cartridges,
fully resolved to make an appeal.


158 THE MYSTERY
“Don’t you believe none in luck?” asked Handy
Solomon.
-- Aye.”
“Well, so do I, with w'at that law-crimp used to
call joodicious assistance.”
I rowed out to the Laughing Lass very thought-
ful, and a little shaken by the plausible argument.
Captain Selover was lying dead drunk across the cabin
table. I did my best to waken him, but failed, took a
score of cartridges—no more—and departed sadly.
Nothing could be gained by staying aboard; every
chance might be lost. Besides, an opening to escape in
the direction of the laboratory might offer—I, as well
as they, believed in luck judiciously assisted.
In the ensuing days I learned much of the habits of
seals. We sneaked along the cliff tops until over the
rookeries; then lay flat on our stomachs and peered
cautiously down on our quarry. The seals had become
very wary. A slight jar, the fall of a pebble, some-
times even sounds unnoticed by ourselves, were enough
to send them into the water. There they lined up just
outside the surf, their sleek heads glossy with the wet,
their calm, soft eyes fixed unblinkingly on us.
It was useless to shoot them in the water: they sank
at Once.
When, however, we succeeded in gaining an advan-
tageous position, it was necessary to shoot with ex-
treme accuracy. A bullet directly through the back
of the head would kill cleanly. A hit anywhere else
was practically useless, for even in death the animals
seemed to retain enough blind instinctive vitality to
flop them into the water. There they were lost.


I6o THE MYSTERY
The men often discussed among themselves the nar-
row, dry cave. There the animals were practically
penned in. They agreed that a great killing could be
made there, but the impossibility of distinguishing be-
tween the bulls and the cows deterred them. The cave
was quite dark.
Immerced in our own affairs thus, the days, weeks,
and months went by. Events had slipped beyond my
control. I had embarked on a journalistic enterprise,
and now that purpose was entirely out of my reach.
Up the valley Dr. Schermerhorn and his assistant
were engaged in some experiment of whose very
nature I was still ignorant. Also I was likely to remain
so. The precautions taken against interference by the
men were equally effective against me. As if that were
not enough, any move of investigation on my part
would be radically misinterpreted, and to my own
danger, by the men. I might as well have been in
London.
However, as to my first purpose in this adventure
I had evolved another plan, and therefore was content.
I made up my mind that on the voyage home, if
nothing prevented, I would tell my story to Percy
Darrow, and throw myself on his mercy. The results
of the experiment would probably by then be ready for
the public, and there was no reason, as far as I could
see, why I should not get the “scoop” at first hand.
Certainly my sincerity would be without question;
and I hoped that two years or more of service such
as I had rendered would tickle Dr. Schermerhorn's
sense of his own importance. So adequate did this
plan seem, that I gave up thought on the subject.


THE CORROSIVE I6I
My whole life now lay on the shores. I was not
again permitted to board the Laughing Lass. Captain
Selover I saw twice at a distance. Both times he
seemed to be rather uncertain. The men did not re-
mark it. The days went by. I relapsed into that state
so well known to you all, when one seems caught in
the meshes of a dream existence which has had no
beginning and which is destined never to have an end.
We were to hunt seals, and fish, and pry bivalves
from the rocks at low tide, and build fires, and talk,
and alternate between suspicion and security, between
the danger of sedition and the insanity of men without
defined purpose, world without end forever.


XII
“OLD SCRUBS ’’ COMES ASHORE
THE inevitable happened. One noon Pulz looked up
from his labour of pulling the whiskers from the evil-
smelling masks.
“How many of these damn things we got?” he
inquired.
“About three hunder’ and fifty,” Thrackles replied.
“Well, we've got enough for me. I'm sick of this
job. It stinks.”
They looked at each other. I could see the disgust
rising in their eyes, the reek of rotten blubber expand-
ing their nostrils. With one accord they cast aside
the masks.
“It ain't such a hell of a fortune,” growled Pulz,
his evil little white face thrust forward. “There's
other things worth all the seal trimmin's of the
islands.”
“Diamon's,” gloomed the Nigger.
“You’ve hit it, Doctor,” cut in Solomon.
There we were again, back to the old difficulty, only
worse. Idleness descended on us again. We grew
touchy on little things, as a misplaced plate, a shortage
of firewood, too deep a draught at the nearly empty
bucket. The noise of bickering became as constant as
the noise of the surf. If we valued peace, we kept our
mouths shut. The way a man spat, or ate, or slept,
or even breathed became a cause of irritation to every
I62


“OLD SCRUBS" COMES ASHORE 163
other member of the company. We stood the outrage
as long as we could; then we objected in a wild and
ridiculous explosion which communicated its heat to
the object of our wrath. Then there was a fight. It
needed only liquor to complete the deplorable state of
affairs.
Gradually the smaller things came to worry us more
and more. A certain harmless singer of the cricket
or perhaps of the tree-toad variety used to chirp his
innocent note a short distance from our cabin. For
all I know he had done so from the moment of our
installation, but I had never noticed him before. Now
I caught myself listening for his irregular recurrence
with every nerve on the quiver. If he delayed by ever
so little, it was an agony; yet when he did pipe up, his
feeble strain struck to my heart cold and paralysing
like a dagger. And with every advancing minute of
the night I became broader awake, more tense, fairly
sweating with nervousness. One night—good God,
was it only last week? . . . it seems ages ago,
another existence . . . a state cut off from this
by the wonder of a transmigration, at least.
Last week!
I did not sleep at all. The moon had risen, had
mounted the heavens, and now was sailing overhead.
By the fretwork of its radiance through the chinks of
our rudely-built cabin I had marked off the hours. A
thunderstorm rumbled and flashed, hull down over the
horizon. It was many miles distant, and yet I do not
doubt that its electrical influence had dried the mois-
ture of our equanimity, leaving us rattling husks for
the winds of destiny to play upon. Certainly I can


164 THE MYSTERY
remember no other time, in a rather wide experience,
when I have felt myself more on edge, more choked
with the restless, purposeless nervous energy that
leaves a man's tongue parched and his eyes staring.
And still that infernal cricket, or whatever it was,
chirped.
I had thought myself alone in my vigil, but when
finally I could stand it no longer, and kicked aside my
covering with an oath of protest, I was surprised to
hear it echoed from all about me.
“Damn that cricket!” I cried.
And the dead shadows stirred from the bunks, and
the hollow-eyed victims of insomnia crept out to curse
their tormentor. We organised an expedition to hunt
him down. It was ridiculous enough, six strong men
prowling for the life of one poor little insect. We did
not find him, however, though we succeeded in silenc-
ing him. But no sooner were we back in our bunks
than he began it again, and such was the turmoil of
our nerves that day found us sitting wan about a fire,
hugging our knees.
We were so genuinely emptied, not so much by the
cricket as by the two years of fermentation, that not
one of us stirred toward breakfast, in fact not one of
us moved from the listless attitude in which day found
him, until after nine o'clock. Then we pulled ourselves
together and cooked coffee and salt horse. As a sig-
nificant fact, the Nigger left the dishes unwashed, and
no one cared.
Handy Solomon finally shook himself and arose.
“I’m sick of this,” said he, “I’m goin' seal-hunt-
- »
ing
º


166 THE MYSTERY
darkness in front of us was alive with fiery eyeballs.
The seals had reached the end of the cave and had
turned toward us. We, too, stopped, a little uncertain
as to how to proceed.
The first plan had been to get behind the band and
to drive it slowly toward the entrance to the cave.
This was now seen to be impossible. The cavern was
too narrow; its sides at this point too steep, and the
animals too thickly congested. Our eyes, becoming
accustomed to the twilight, now began to make out
dimly the individual bodies of the seals and the gen-
eral configuration of the rocks. One big boulder lay
directly in our path, like an island in the shale of the
cave's floor. Perdosa stepped to the top of it for a
better look. The men attempted to communicate their
ideas of what was to be done, but could not make them-
selves heard above the uproar. I could see their faces
contorting with the fury of being baffled. A big bull
made a dash to get by; all the herd flippered after
him. If he had won past they would have followed as
obstinately as sheep, and nothing could have stopped
them, but the big bull went down beneath the clubs.
Thrackles hit the animal two vindictive blows after
it had succumbed. -
This settled the revolt, and we stood as before.
Pulz and Handy Solomon tried to converse by signs,
but evidently failed, for their faces showed angry in
the twilight. Perdosa, on his rock, rolled and lit a
cigarette. Thrackles paced to and fro, and the Nigger
leaned on his club, farther down the cave. They had
been left at the entrance, but now in lack of results
had joined their companions.


“OLD SCRUBS” COMES ASHORE 167
Now Thrackles approached and screamed himself
black trying to impart some plan. He failed; but
stooped and picked up a stone and threw it into the
mass of seals. The others understood. A shower of
stones followed. The animals milled like cattle, bel-
lowed the louder, but would not face their tormentors.
Finally an old cow flopped by in a panic. I thought
they would have let her go, but she died a little be-
yond the bull. No more followed, although the men
threw stones as fast and hard as they were able. Their
faces were livid with anger, like that of an evil-tem-
pered man with an obstinate horse.
Suddenly Handy Solomon put his head down, and
with a roar distinctly audible even above the din that
filled the cave, charged directly into the herd. I saw
the beasts cringe before him; I saw his club rising
and falling indiscriminately; and then the whole back
of the cave seemed to rise and come at us.
This was no chance of sport now, but a struggle for
very life. We realised that once down there would be
no hope, for while the seals were more anxious to
escape than to fight, we knew that their jaws were
powerful. There was no time to pick and choose. We
hit out with all the strength and quickness we pos-
sessed. It was like a bad dream, like struggling with
an elusive hydra-headed monster, knee high, invul-
nerable. We hit, but without apparent effect. New
heads rose, the press behind increased. We gave
ground. We staggered, struggling desperately to keep
our feet.
How long this lasted I cannot tell. It seemed hours.
I know my arms became leaden from swinging my


168 THE MYSTERY
club; my eyes were full of sweat; my breath gasped.
A sharp pain in my knee nearly doubled me to the
ground and yet I remember clamping to the thought
that I must keep my feet, keep my feet at any cost.
Then all at once I recalled the fact that I was armed. I
jerked out the short-barrelled Colt's 45 and turned it
loose in their faces.
Whether the flash and detonation frightened them;
whether Perdosa, still clinging to his rock, managed
to turn their attention by his flanking efforts, or
whether, quite simply, the wall of dead finally turned
them back, I do not know, but with one accord they
gave over the attempt.
I looked at once for Handy Solomon, and was sur-
prised to see him still alive, standing upright on a
ledge the other side of the herd. His clothing was
literally torn to shreds, and he was covered with blood.
But in this plight he was not alone, for when I turned
toward my companions they, too, were tattered, torn,
and gory. We were a dreadful crew, standing there
in the half-light, our chests heaving, our rags drip-
ping red.
For perhaps ten seconds no one moved. Then with
a yell of demoniac rage my companions clambered
over the rampart of dead seals and attacked the herd.
The seals were now cowed and defenceless. It was
a slaughter, and the most debauching and brutal I have
ever known. I had hit out with the rest when it had
been a question of defence, but from this I turned
aside in a sick loathing. The men seemed possessed of
devils, and of their unnatural energy. Perdosa cast
aside the club and took to his natural weapon, the knife.


“I jerked out the short-barrelled Colt and turned it loose
in their faces ''


THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LITARY
ASTC's, L. N. '- A N ()
TILDEN FOUNDATIONs
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--~~


“OLD SCRUBS" COMES ASHORE 169
I can see him yet rolling over and over embracing a big
cow, his head jammed in an ecstasy of ferocity be-
tween the animal’s front flippers, his legs clasped to
hold her body, only his right arm rising and falling
as he plunged his knife again and again. She struggled,
turning him over and under, wept great tears, and
fairly whined with terror and pain. Finally she was
still, and Perdosa staggered to his feet, only to stare
about him drunkenly for a moment before throwing
himself with a screech on another victim.
The Nigger alone did not jump into the turmoil.
He stood just down the cave, his club ready. Occa-
sionally a disorganised rush to escape would be made.
The Nigger's lips snarled, and with a truly mad en-
joyment he beat the poor animals back.
I pressed against the wall horrified, fascinated, un-
able either to interfere or to leave. A close, sticky
smell took possession of the air. After a little a tiny
stream, growing each moment, began to flow past my
feet. It sought its channel daintily, as streamlets do,
feeling among the stones in eddies, quiet pools, minia-
ture falls, and rapids. For the moment I did not realise
what it could be. Then the light caught it down where
the Nigger waited, and I saw it was red.
At first the racket of the seals was overpowering.
Now, gradually, it was losing volume. I began to hear
the blasphemies, ferocious cries, screams of anger
hurled against the cave walls by the men. The thick,
sticky smell grew stronger; the light seemed to grow
dimmer, as though it could not burn in that fetid air.
A seal came and looked up at me, big tears rolling from
her eyes; then she flippered aimlessly away, out of her


17o THE MYSTERY
poor wits with terror. The sight finished me. I stag-
gered down the length of the black tunnel to the boat.
After a long interval a little three months' pup wad-
dled down to the water's edge, caught sight of me,
and with a squeal of fright dived far. Poor little devil!
I would not have hurt him for worlds. As far as I
know this was the only survivor of all that herd.
The men soon appeared, one by one, tired, sleepy-
eyed, glutted, walking in a cat-like trance of satiety.
They were blood and tatters from head to foot, and
from drying red masks peered their bloodshot eyes.
Not a word said they, but tumbled into the boat,
pushed off, and in a moment we were floating in the
full sunshine again.
We rowed home in an abstraction. For the moment
Berserker rage had burned itself out. Handy Solomon
continually wetted his lips, like an animal licking its
chops. Thrackles stared into space through eyes
drugged with killing. No one spoke.
We landed in the cove, and were surprised to find it
in shadow. The afternoon was far advanced. Over
the hill we dragged ourselves, and down to the spring.
There the men threw themselves flat and drank in
great gulps until they could drink no more. We built
a fire, but the Nigger refused to cook.
“Someone else turn,” he growled, “I cook aboard
ship.”
Perdosa, who had hewed the fuel, at once became
angry.
“I cut heem de wood l’” he said, “I do my share;
eef I cut heem de wood you mus' cook heem de grub l’’
But the Nigger shook his head, and Perdosa went


“OLD SCRUBS " COMES ASHORE 171
into an ecstasy of rage. He kicked the fire to pieces;
he scattered the unburned wood up and down the
beach; he even threw some of it into the sea.
“Eef you no cook heem de grub, you no hab my
wood!” he shrieked, with enough oaths to sink his
soul.
Finally Pulz interfered.
“Here you damn foreigners,” said he, “quit it!
Let up, I say! We got to eat. You let that wood
alone, or you'll pick it up again!”
Perdosa sprang at him with a screech. Pulz was
small but nimble, and understood rough and tumble
fighting. He met Perdosa's rush with two swift blows
—a short arm jab and an upper-cut. Then they
clinched, and in a moment were rolling over and over
just beyond the wash of the surf.
The row waked the Nigger from his sullen ab-
straction. He seemed to come to himself with a start;
his eye fell surprisedly on the combatants, then lit up
with an unholy joy. He drew his knife and crept down
on the fighters. It was too good an opportunity to pay
off the Mexican.
But Thrackles interfered sharply.
“Come off!” he commanded. “None o’ that!”
“Go to hell!” growled the Nigger.
A great rage fell on them all, blind and terrible, like
that leading to the slaughter of the seals. They fought
indiscriminately, hitting at each other with fists and
knives. It was difficult to tell who was against whom.
The sound of heavy breathing, dull blows, the tear of
cloth, and grunts of punishment received; the swirl of
the sand, the heave of struggling bodies, all riveted my


172 THE MYSTERY
attention, so that I did not see Captain Ezra Selover
until he stood almost at my elbow.
“Stop!” he shrieked in his high, falsetto voice.
And would you believe it, even through the blood
haze of their combat the men heard him, and heeded.
They drew reluctantly apart, got to their feet, stood
looking at him through reeking brows half submissive
and half defiant. The bull-headed Thrackles even took
a half step forward, but froze in his tracks when Old
Scrubs looked at him.
“I hire you men to fight when I tell you to, and
only then,” said the captain sternly. “What does this
mean?”
He menaced them one after another with his eyes,
and one after another they quailed. All their plottings,
their threats, their dangerousness dissipated like mist
before the command of this one resolute man. These
pirates who had seemed so dreadful to me, now were
nothing more than cringing schoolboys before their
master.
And then suddenly to my horror I, watching closely,
saw the captain's eye turn blank. I am sure the men
must have felt the change, though certainly they were
too far away to see it, for they shifted by ever so little
from their first frozen attitude. The captain's hand
sought his pocket, and they froze again, but instead
of the expected revolver, he produced a half-full
brandy bottle. -
The change in his eyes had crept into his features.
They had turned foolishly amiable, vacant, confiding.
“’llo boys,” said he appealingly, “you good fel-
lowsh, ain't you? Have a drink. 'S good stuff. Good


THE NEW YORK
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PUBLIC LI
LºNOX AND
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As it
TILDF


“OLD SCRUBS” COMES ASHORE 173
ol' bottl’,” he lurched, caught himself, and advanced
toward them, still with the empty smile. -
They stared at him for ten seconds, quite at a loss.
Then:
“By God, he's drunk!” Handy Solomon breathed,
scarcely louder than a whisper.
There was no other signal given. They sprang as
with a single impulse. One instant I saw clear against
the waning daylight the bulky, foolish-swaying form
of Captain Selover: the next it had disappeared, car-
ried down and obliterated by the rush of attacking
bodies. Knives gleamed ruddy in the sunset. There
was no struggle. I heard a deep groan. Then the mur-
derers rose slowly to their feet.
.


XIII
I MAKE MY ESCAPE
I HAD plenty of time to run away. I do not know why
I did not do so; but the fact stands that I remained
where I was until they had finished Captain Selover.
Then I took to my heels, but was soon cornered. I
drew my revolver, remembered that I had emptied it
in the seal cave—and had time for no more coherent
mental processes. A smothering weight flung itself on
me, against which I struggled as hard as I could,
shrinking in anticipation from the thirsty plunge of
the knives. However, though the weight increased
until further struggle was impossible, I was not
harmed, and in a few moments found myself, wrists
and ankles tied, beside a roaring fire. While I col-
lected myself I heard the grate of a boat being shoved
off from the cove, and a few moments later made out
lights aboard the Laughing Lass.
The looting party returned very shortly. Their
plundering had gone only as far as liquor and arms.
Thrackles let down from the cliff top a keg at the end
of a line. Perdosa and the Nigger each carried an
armful of the 30-40 rifles. The keg was rolled to the
fire and broached.
The men got drunk, wildly drunk, but not helplessly
so. A flame communicated itself to them through the
liquor. The ordinary characteristics of their compo-
I74


I MAKE MY ESCAPE I75
sition sprung into sharper relief. The Nigger became
more sullen; Perdosa more snake-like; Pulz more vi-
ciously evil; Thrackles more brutal; while Handy Sol-
omon staggering from his seat to the open keg and
back again, roaring fragments of a chanty, his red
headgear contrasting with his smoky black hair and
his swarthy hook-nosed countenance—he needed no
further touch.
Their evil passions were all awake, and the plan, so
long indefinite, developed like a photographer's plate.
“That's one,” said Thrackles. “One gone to hell.”
“And now the diamonds,” muttered Pulz.
“There's a ship upon the windward, a wreck upon the
lee,
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e,”
roared Handy Solomon. “Damn it all, boys, it's the
best night's work we ever did. The stuff's ours. Then
it's me for a big stone house in Frisco Ol”
“Frisco, hell,” sneered Pulz, “that's all you know.
You ought to travel. Paris for me and a little gal to
learn the language from.”
“I get heem a fine caballo, an’ fine saddle, an’ fine
clo's,” breathed Perdosa sentimentally. “I ride, and
the silver jingle, and the señorita look >>
Thrackles was for a ship and the China trade.
“What you want, Doctor?” they demanded of the
silent Nigger.
But the Nigger only rolled his eyes and shook his
head. By and by he arose and disappeared in the
dusk and was no more seen.


176 THE MYSTERY
“Dam' fool,” muttered Handy Solomon. “Well,
here's to crime!”
He drank a deep cup of the raw rum, and staggered
back to his seat on the sands.
“‘I am not a man-o’-war, nor a privateer,’ said he.
Blow high, blow low! What care wel
“But I am a jolly pirate and I'm sailing for my fee,’
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e.”
he sang. “We'll land in Valparaiso and we'll go every
man his way; and we'll sink the old Laughing Lass so
deep the mermaids can’t find her.”
Thrackles piled on more wood and the fire leaped
high.
“Let’s get after 'em,” said he.
“To-morrow's jes' 's good,” muttered Pulz. “Les'
hav' 'nother drink.”
“We'll stay here 'n see if our ol' frien' Percy don’
show up,” said Handy Solomon. He threw back his
head and roared forth a volume of sound toward the
dim stars.
“Broadside to broadside the gallant ships did lay,
Blow high, blow low! What care we?
'Til the jolly man-o’-war shot the pirate's mast away,
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e.”
I saw near me a live coal dislodged from the fire
when Thrackles had thrown on the armful of wood.
An idea came to me. I hitched myself to the spark,
and laid across it the rope with which my wrists were
tied. This, behind my back, was not easy to accom-
plish, and twice I burned my wrists before I succeeded.


I MAKE MY ESCAPE 177
Fortunately I was at the edge of illumination, and be-
hind the group. I turned over on my side so that my
back was toward the fire. Then rapidly I cast loose
my ankle lashings. Thus I was free, and selecting a
moment when universal attention was turned toward
the rum barrel, I rolled over a sand dune, got to my
hands and knees, and crept away.
Through the coarse grass I crept thus, to the very
entrance of the arroyo, then rose to my feet. In the
middle distance the fire leaped red. Its glow fell in-
termittently on the surges rolling in. The men stag-
gered or lay prone, either as gigantic silhouettes or as
tatterdemalions painted by the light. The keg stood
solid and substantial, the hub about which reeled the
orgy. At the edge of the wash I could make out some-
thing prone, dim, limp, thrown constantly in new
positions of weariness as the water ebbed and flowed
beneath it, now an arm thrown out, now cast back,
as though Old Scrubs slept feverishly. The drunkards
were getting noisy. Handy Solomon still reeled off
the verses of his song. The others joined in, fright-
fully off the key; or punctuated the performance by
wild staccato yells.
“Their coffin was their ship and their grave it was the
Sea,
Blow high, blow low! What care we?
And the quarter that we gave them was to sink them
in the sea,
Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e,”
bellowed Handy Solomon.
I turned and plunged into the cool darkness of the
Cañon.


XIV
AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT
TEN seconds after entering the arroyo I was stum-
bling along in an absolute blackness. It almost seemed
to me that I could reach out my hands and touch it,
as one would touch a wall. Or perhaps not exactly
that, for a wall is hard, and this darkness was soft and
yielding, in the manner of enveloping hangings. Di-
rectly above me was a narrow, jagged, and irregular
strip of sky with stars. I splashed in the brook, finding
its waters strangely warm, rustled through the grasses,
my head back, chin out, hands extended as one makes
his way through a house at night. There were no
sounds except the tinkle of the sulphurous stream:
successive bends in the cañon wall had shut off even
the faintest echoes of the bacchanalia on the beach.
The way seemed much longer than by daylight. Al-
ready in my calculation I had traversed many times
the distance, when, with a jump at the heart, I made
out a glow ahead, and in front of it the upright logs
of the stockade.
To my surprise the gate was open. I ascended the
gentle slope to the valley's level—and stumbled over a
man lying prostrate, shivering violently, and moaning.
I bent over to discover whom it might be. As I
did so a brilliant light seemed to fill the valley, throw-
ing an illumination on the man at my feet. I
178


AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 179
saw it was the Nigger, and perceived at the same
instant that he was almost beside himself with terror.
His eyes rolled, his teeth chattered, his frame con-
tracted in a strong convulsion, and the black of his
complexion had faded to a washed-out dirty grey, re-
volting to contemplate. He felt my touch and sprang
to his feet, clutching me by the shoulder as a man
clutching rescue.
“My Gawd!” he shivered. “Look! Dar it is
again!”
He fell to pattering in a tongue unknown to me—
charms, spells, undoubtedly, to exorcise the devils that
had hold of him. I followed the direction of his gaze,
and myself cried out.
The doctor's laboratory stood in plain sight be-
tween the two columns of steam blown straight up-
ward through the stillness of the evening. It seemed
bursting with light. Every little crack leaked it in
generous streams, while the main illumination ap-
peared fairly to bulge the walls outward. This was in
itself nothing extraordinary, and indicated only the
activity of those within, but while I looked an irreg-
ular patch of incandescence suddenly splashed the
cliff opposite. For a single instant the very substance
of the rock glowed white hot; then from the spot a
shower of spiteful flakes shot as from a pryotechnic,
and the light was blotted out as suddenly as it came.
At the same moment it appeared at another point, ex-
hibited the same phenomena, died, flashed out at still
a third place, and so was repeated here and there with
bewildering rapidity until the walls of the valley
crackled and spat sparks. Abruptly the darkness fell.


18O THE MYSTERY
As abruptly it was broken again by a similar exhibi-
tion; only this time the fire was blue. Blue was fol-
lowed by purple, purple by red. Then ensued the brief-
est possible pause, in which a figure moved across
the bars of light escaping through the chinks of the
laboratory, and then the whole valley blazed with
patches of vari-coloured fire. It was not a reflection:
it was actual physical conflagration of the solid rock,
in irregular areas. Some of the fire shapes were most
fantastic. And with the unexpectedness of a bursting .
shell the surface of the ground before our feet crackled
into a ghastly blue flame.
The Nigger uttered a cry in his throat and disap-
peared. I felt a sharp breath on my neck, an ejacula-
tion of surprise at my very ear. It was startling
enough to scare the soul out of a man, but I held fast
and was just about to step forward, when my collar
was twisted tight from behind. I raised both hands,
felt steel, and knew that I was in the grasp of Handy
Solomon's claw.
The sailor had me foul. I did my best to twist
around, to unbutton the collar, but in vain. I felt my
wind leaving me, the ghastly blue light was shot with
red. Distinctly I heard the man's sharp intaken breath
as some new phenomenon met his eye, and his great
oath as he swore.
“By the mother of God!” he cried, “it’s the devil.”
Then I was jerked off my feet, and the next I knew
I was lying on my back, very wet, on the beach; the
day was breaking, and the men, quite Sober, were
talking vehemently.
It was impossible to make out what they said, but


AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT 181
as Handy Solomon and the Nigger were the centre of
discussion, I could imagine the subject. I felt very
stiff and sore and hazy in my mind. My neck was lame
from the dragging and my tongue dry from the chok-
ing. For some time I lay in a half-torpor watching
the lilac of dawn change to the rose of sunrise, utterly
indifferent to everything. They had thrown me down
across the first rise of the little sand dunes back of the
tide sands, and from it I could at once look out over
the sea full of the restless shadows of dawn, and the
land narrowing to the mouth of the arroyo. I remem-
ber wondering whether Captain Selover were up yet.
Then with a sharp stab at the heart I remembered.
The thought was like a dash of cold water in clear-
ing my faculties. I raised my head. Seaward a white
gull had caught the first rays of the sun beyond the
cliffs. Landward—I saw with a choke in my throat—
a figure emerging from the arroyo.
At the sight I made a desperate attempt to move,
but with the effort discovered that I was again bound.
My stirring thus called Pulz's attention. Before I
could look away he had followed the direction of my
gaze. The discussion instantly ceased. They waited
in grim silence.
I did not know what to do. Percy Darrow, carry-
ing some sort of large book, was walking rapidly
toward us. Perdosa had disappeared. Thrackles after
an instant came and sat beside me and clapped his big
hand over my mouth. It was horrible.
When within a hundred paces or so, I could see that
Darrow laboured under some great excitement. His
usual indifferent saunter had, as I have indicated,


I82 THE MYSTERY
given way to a firm and decided step; his ironical eye
glistened; his sallow cheek glowed.
“Boys,” he shouted cheerfully. “The time's up.
We've succeeded. We'll sail just as soon as the Lord’ll
let us get ready. Rustle the stuff aboard. The doctor’ll
be down in a short time, and we ought to be loaded by
night.”
Handy Solomon and Pulz laid hand on two of the
rifles near by and began surreptitiously to fill their
magazines. The Nigger shook his knife free of the
scabbard and sat with it in his left hand, concealed by
his body. I could feel Thrackles's muscles stiffen. An-
other fifty paces and it would be no longer necessary
to stop my mouth.
The thought made me desperate. I had failed as a
leader of these men, and I had been forced to stand by
at debauching, cruel, and murderous affairs, but now
it is over I thank Heaven the reproach cannot be made
against me that at any time I counted the consequences
to myself. Thrackles's hand lay heavy across my
mouth. I bit it to the bone, and as he involuntarily
snatched it away, I rolled over toward the sea.
Thus for an instant I had my mouth free.
“Run! Run!” I shouted. “For God's sake—”
Thrackles leaped upon me and struck me heavily
upon the mouth, then sprang for a rifle. I managed to
struggle back to the dune, whence I could see.


FIVE HUNDRED YARDS RANGE 185
ond time my teeth saved his life. The trigger guard
slipped against Thrackles's lacerated hand almost at
the instant of discharge. He missed; and the bullet
went wide.
Darrow had climbed a matter of twenty feet.
Now the seamen distributed themselves for more
leisurely and accurate marksmanship. Handy Solo-
mon lay flat on his stomach, resting the rifle muzzle
across the top of a sand dune. Pulz sat down, an
elbow on either knee for the greater steadiness. The
Nigger knelt; but Thrackles remained on his feet. No
rest could be steadier than the stone-like rigidity of
his thick arms.
The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid
any attention to anyone else. Each discovered what I
could have told them, that even the human figure at
five hundred yards is a small mark for a strange rifle.
The constant correction of elevation, however, brought
the puffs of dust always closer, and I could not but
realise that the doctrine of chances must bring home
some of the bullets. I soon discovered by way of com-
fort that only Thrackles and Handy Solomon really
understood firearms; and of those two Thrackles alone
had had much experience at long range. He told me
afterward he had hunted otter.
About halfway up the cliff Thrackles fired his fifth
shot. No dust followed the discharge; and I saw
Percy Darrow stagger and almost lose his hold. The
men yelled savagely, but the assistant pulled himself
together and continued his crawling.
The sun had been shining in our faces. I could
imagine its blurring effect on the sights. Now ab-


I86 THE MYSTERY
ruptly it was blotted out, and a semi-twilight fell. We
all looked up, in spite of ourselves. An opaque veil
had been drawn quite across the heavens, through
which we could not make out even the shape of the
sun. It was like a thunder cloud except that its under
surface instead of being the usual grey-black was a
deep earth-brown. As we looked up, a deep bellow
stirred the air, which had fallen quite still, long forks
of lightning shot horizontally from the direction of the
island's interior, and flashes of dull red were reflected
from the canopy of cloud.
The men stared with their mouths open. Undoubt-
edly the change had been some time in preparation,
but all had been so absorbed in the affair of the doc-
tor's assistant that no one had noticed. It came to our
consciousness with the suddenness of a theatrical
change. A dull roaring commenced, grew in volume,
and then a great explosion shook the very ground
under our feet. -
We stared at each other, our faces whitening.
“What kind of hell has broke loose?” muttered
Pulz.
The Nigger fell flat on his face, uttering deep la-
mentations.
“Voodoo! Voodoo!” he groaned.
A gentle shower of white flakes began, powdering
the surface of everything. Far out to sea we could
make out the sun on the water. Gradually the roaring
died down; the lightning ceased. Comparative peace
ensued. We looked again toward the cliff. Percy Dar-
row had not for one instant ceased to climb. He was
just topping the edge of the bluff. Handy Solomon,


The firing now became miscellaneous. No one paid any
attention to any one else


TIVE HUNDRED YARDS RANGE 1.87
with a cry of rage, seized another rifle and emptied
the magazine at him as fast as the lever could be
worked. The dust flew wild in a half dozen places.
Darrow drew himself up to the sky line, raised his
hat ironically, and disappeared.
“Damn his soul!” cried Handy Solomon, his face
livid. He threw his rifle to the beach and danced on it
in an ecstasy of rage.
“What do we care,” growled Thrackles, “he's no
good to us. W’at I want to know is, wat's up here,
anyhow !”
“Didn't you never see a volcano go off, you swab?”
snapped Handy Solomon.
“Easy with your names, mate. No, I never did.
We better get out.”
“Without the chest?”
“S'pose we go up the gulch and get it, then,” sug-
gested Thrackles.
But at this Handy Solomon drew back in evident
terror.
“Up that hole of hell?” he objected. “Not I. You
an' Pulz go.”
They wrangled over it, Pulz joining. Perdosa,
shaken to the soul, crept in, and made a bee-line for
the rum barrel. He and the Nigger were frankly
scared. They had the nervous jumps at every little
noise or unexpected movement; and even the natural
explanation of these phenomena gave them very little
reassurance. I knew that Darrow would hurry as fast
as he could back to the valley by way of the upper
hills; I knew that he had there several sporting rifles;
and I hoped greatly that he and Dr. Schermerhorn


XVI
THE MURDER
I took no chances, but began at once to shout, as soon
as I saw the men had noticed his coming. It was im-
possible for me to tell whether or not Dr. Schermer-
horn heard me. If he did, he misunderstood my inten-
tion, for he continued painfully to advance. The only
result I gained was to get myself well gagged with my
own pocket handkerchief, and thrown in a hollow be-
tween the dunes. Thence I could hear Handy Solo-
mon speaking fiercely and rapidly.
“Now you let me run this,” he commanded; “we
got to find out somethin'. It ain't no good to us with-
out we knows—and we want to find out how he's
got the rest hid.”
They assented.
“I’m goin’ out to help him carry her in,” announced
the seaman.
A long pause ensued, in which I watched the deep
canopy of red-black thicken overhead. A strange and
unearthly light had fallen on the world, and the air
was quite still. After a while I heard Handy Solomon
and Dr. Schermerhorn join the group.
“There you are, Perfessor,” cried Handy Solomon,
in tones of the greatest heartiness, “I’ll put her right
there, and she'll be as safe as a babby at home. She's
heavy, though.”
189


I90 THE MYSTERY
Dr. Schermerhorn laughed a pleased and excited
laugh. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he
was strung high, and guessed that his triumph needed
an audience.
“You may say so well!” he said. “It iss heafy;
and it iss heafy with the world-desire, the great sub-
stance than can do efferything. Where iss Percy?”
“He’s gone aboard.”
“We must embark. The time is joost right. A day
sooner and the egsperiment would haſ been spoilt;
but now ’’—he laughed—“let the island sink, we do
not care. We must embark hastily.”
“It’ll take a man long time to carry down all your
things, Perfessor.”
“Oh, led them go! The eruption has alretty swal-
lowed them oop. The lava iss by now a foot deep in
the valley. Before long it flows here, so we must
embark.”
“But you've lost all them vallyable things, Perfes-
sor,” said Handy Solomon. “Now, I call that hard
luck.”
Dr. Schermerhorn snapped his fingers.
“They do not amoundt to that!” he cried. “Here,
here, in this leetle box iss all the treasure! Here iss
the labour of ten years! Here iss the Laughing Lass,
and the crew, and all the equipmendt comprised. Here
iss the world!”
“I’m a plain seaman, Perfessor, and I suppose I
got to believe you; but she's a main small box for all
that.”
“With that small box you can haf all your wishes,”
asserted the Professor, still in the German lyric strain


THE MURDER I91
over his triumph. “It iss the box of enchantments.
You haf but to will the change you would haf taig
place—it iss done. The substance of the rocks, the
molecule—all !” -
“Could a man make diamonds?” asked Pulz ab-
ruptly. I could hear the sharp intake of the men's
breathing as they hung on the reply.
“Much more wonderful changes than that it can
accomplish,” replied the doctor, with an indulgent
laugh. “That change iss simple. Carbon iss coal; car-
bon iss diamond. You see? One has but to change the
form, not the substance.”
“Then it'll change coal to diamonds?” asked
Handy Solomon.
“Yes, you gather my meanings 5
I heard a sharp squeak like a terrified mouse. Then
a long, dreadful silence; then two dull, heavy blows,
spaced with deliberation. A moment later I caught a
glimpse of Handy Solomon bent forward to the labour
of dragging a body toward the sea, his steel claw
hooked under the angle of the jaw as a man handles
a fish. Pulz came and threw off my bonds and gag.
“Come along !” said he.
All kept looking fearfully toward the arroyo. A
dense white steam marked its course. The air was
now heavy with portent. Successive explosions, some
light, some severe, shook the foundations of the is-
land. Great rocks and boulders bounded down the
hills. The flashes of lightning had become more fre-
quent. We moved, exaggerated to each other's vision
by the strange light, uncouth and gigantic.
“Let’s get out of this!” cried Thrackles.
>


I94 THE MYSTERY
Now don't you be a fool, for I ain't goin' to stand
between you and them another time. Besides, he won't
last long if that volcano keeps at it.”
He left me. Whatever truth lay in his assumption
of friendship, and I doubted there existed much of
either truth or friendship in him, I saw the common
sense of his advice. I was in no position to dictate
a course of action.
After the sails were on her we gathered at the star-
board rail to watch the shore. There the hills ran into
inky blackness, as the horizon sometimes merges into
a thunder squall. A dense white steam came from the
creek bed within the arroyo. The surges beat on the
shore louder than the ordinary, and the foam, even
in these day hours, seemed to throw up a faint phos-
phorescence. Frequent earthquakes oscillated the land-
scape. We watched, I do not know for what, our
eyes straining into the murk of the island. No-
body thought of the chest, which lay on the cabin
table aft. I contributed maliciously my bit to their
fear.
“These volcanic islands sometimes sink entirely,”
I suggested, “and in that case we'd be carried down
by the suction.”
It was intended merely to increase their uneasiness,
but, strangely enough, after a few moments it ended
by imposing itsélf on my own fears. I began to be
afraid the island would sink, began to watch for it,
began to share the fascinated terror of these men.
The suspense after a time became unbearable, for
while the portent—whether physical or moral we were
too far under its influence to distinguish—grew mo-


196 THE MYSTERY
surges were racing in from seaward, growing larger
with each successive billow.
Handy Solomon raised his head, listened intently,
and struck his forehead.
“Wind,” he screamed at the top of his voice, and
jumped for the halliards.
Thrackles followed him, but no one else moved. In
an instant the two were back, striking and kicking sav-
agely, rousing their companions to the danger. We all
laid into the canvas like mad, and in no time had
snugged down to a staysail and the peak of our main-
sail. Thrackles drew his knife and jumped for the
cable, while Handy Solomon, his eyes snapping, seized
the wheel.
We finished just in time. I was turning away after
tying the last gasket on the foresail, when the deck
up-ended and tipped me headforemost into the star-
board scupper. At the same time a smother of salt
water blew over the port rail, now far above me, to
drench me as thoroughly as though I had fallen over-
board. I brushed out my eyes to find the ship smack
on her beam ends, and the wind howling by from the
Sea.
I had company enough in the scuppers. Only
Handy Solomon clung desperately to the wheel, jam-
ming his weight to port in the hope she might pay
up: Thrackles, too, his eye squinted along some bear-
ing of his own, was waiting for her to drag. Pres-
ently it became evident that she was doing so,
whereupon he drew his knife across our hawser.
“My God,” chattered Pulz at my ear. “If we go
ashore—”


THE OPEN SEA I97
He did not need to finish. Unless the Laughing
Lass could recover before the squall had driven her
to leeward a scant half mile, we should be cooked alive
in the boiling cauldron at the shore's edge.
For an interminable time, as it seemed to me, we
lay absolutely motionless. The scene is stamped in-
delibly on my memory—the bulwarks high above me,
the steep, sleek deck, the piratical figure tense at the
wheel, the snarling water racing from beneath us, the
lurid glow to landward crawling up on us inch by inch
like a hungry wild beast. Then almost imperceptibly
the brave schooner righted. The strained lines on
Handy Solomon's carven features relaxed little by lit-
tle. Thrackles, staring over the side, let out a mighty
TOar.
“Steerage way,” he shouted, and executed an awk-
ward clog dance on the reeling deck.
She moved forward, there was no doubt of that, for
gradually we were eating toward the wind—but we
made considerable leeway as well. Handy Solomon,
taut as the weather rigging, took his little advantages
one by one like precious gifts. Light there was none;
the land was blotted out by the steam and murk which
had crept to sea and now was hurled back by the wind.
All we could do was to hang there, tasting the copper
of excitement, waiting for these different forces to
adjust themselves. Inch by inch we crept forward:
foot by foot we made leeway. The intensest of the lava
glow worked its way from directly abeam to the quar-
ter. By this we knew we must be nearly opposite the
cove. At once a new doubt sprang up in our minds.
A moment ago all the energy of our desires had


198 THE MYSTERY
gone up in the ambition to avoid being cast on the
beach. Now we saw that that was not enough. It was
necessary to squeeze around the point where lay the
Golden Horn, in order to avoid the fate that had
overtaken her. Handy Solomon yelled something at
us. We could not hear, but our own knowledge told
us what it must be, and with one accord we turned to
on the foresail. With the peak of it hoisted we moved
a trifle faster, though the schooner lay over at a peril-
ous angle. A moment later the fogs parted to show
us the cliffs looming startlingly near. There were the
donkey engine and the works we had constructed for
wrecking—and there beside them, watching us re-
flectively, stood Percy Darrow.
For ten minutes we stared at him fascinated, during
which time the ship laboured against the staggering
winds, gained and lost in its buffeting with the great
surges. The breakers hurling themselves in wild aban-
don against the rocks sent their back-wash of tumbling
peaks to our very bilges. The few remains of the
Golden Horn, alternately drenched and draining,
seemed to picture to us our inevitable end.
* I think we had all selected the same two points for
our “bearings,” a rock and a drop of the cliff bolder
than the ordinary. If the rock opened from the cliff
to eastward, we were lost; if it remained stationary,
we were at least holding our own; if it opened out to
westward, we were saved. We watched with a strained
eagerness impossible to describe. At each momentary
gain or rebuff we uttered ejaculations. The Nigger
mumbled charms. Every once in a while one of us
would snatch a glance to leeward at the cruel, white


THE OPEN SEA I99
waters, the whirl of eddies where the sea was beaten,
only to hurry back to the rock and the point of the
cliff whence our message of safety or destruction was
to be flung. Once I looked up. Percy Darrow was
leaning gracefully against a stanchion, watching. His
soft hat was pulled over his eyes; he stroked softly
his little moustache; I caught the white puff of his
cigarette. During the moment of my inattention some-
thing happened. A wild shout burst from the men. I
whirled, and saw to my great joy a strip of sky west-
ward between the cliff and the rock. And at that very
instant a billow larger than the ordinary rolled be-
neath us, and in the back suction of its passage I could
dimly make out cruel, dangerous rocks lying almost
under our keel.
Slowly we crept away. Our progress seemed in-
finitesimal, and yet it was real. In a while we had
gained sea room; in a while more we were fairly
under sailing way, and the cliffs had begun to drop
from our quarter. With one accord we looked back.
Percy Darrow waved his hand in an indescribably
graceful and ironic gesture; then turned square on
his heel and sauntered away to the north valley, out
of the course of the lava. That was the last I ever
saw of him.
As we made our way from beneath the island, the
weight of the wind seemed to lessen. We got the fore-
sail on her, then a standing jib ; finally little by little
all her ordinary working canvas. Before we knew it,
we were bowling along under a stiff breeze, and the
island was dropping astern.
From a distance it presented a truly imposing sight.


2OO THE MYSTERY
The centre shot intermittent blasts of ruddy light; ex-
plosions, deadened by distance, still reverberated
strongly; the broad canopy of brown-red, split with
lightnings, spread out like a huge umbrella. The lurid
gloom that had enveloped us in the atmosphere ap-
parently of a nether world had given place to a twi-
light. Abruptly we passed from it to a sun-kissed,
sparkling sea. The breeze blew sweet and strong; the
waves ran untortured in their natural long courses.
At once the men seemed to throw off the supersti-
tious terror that had cowed them. Pulz and Thrackles
went to bail the extra dory, alongside, which by
a miracle had escaped swamping. The Nigger disap-
peared in the galley. Perdosa relieved Handy Solo-
mon at the wheel; and Handy Solomon came directly
OVer to me.


XVIII
THE CATASTROPHE
HE approached me with a confidence that proclaimed
the new leader. A brace of Colt's revolvers swung
from his belt, the tatters of his blood-stained garments
hung about him.
“Well, here we are,” he remarked.
I nodded, waiting for what he had to disclose.
“And lucky for you that you’re here at all, say I,”
he continued. “And now that you’re here, w'at are
you going to do? That's the question—w’at are you
going to do?” He cocked his head sidewise and
looked at me speculatively as a cat might look at a
rather large mouse. “We been a little rough,” he went
on after a moment, “and some folks is strait-laced.
There might be trouble. And you know a heap too
much.”
“What do you want of me?” I demanded.
“It’s just this,” he returned briskly. “If you'll lay
us our course to San Salvador, we'll let you go as one
of us and no questions asked.”
“If not?” I inquired.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I leave it to you.”
“There's always the sea,” I suggested.
“And it's deep,” he agreed.
We looked out to the horizon in a diplomatic
silence. I did not know whether to be angry, amused,
2Or


2O2 THE MYSTERY
or alarmed that the man estimated my cleverness so
slightly. Why, the hook was barely concealed, and the
bait of the coarsest. That I would go safe to a sight
of San Salvador I did not doubt: that I would never
enter the harbour I was absolutely certain. The choice
offered me was practically whether I preferred being
thrown overboard now or several hundred miles to
southeastward.
I thought rapidly. It might be possible to announce
a daily false reckoning to the crew, to sail the ship
within rowing distance of some coast; and then to
escape while the men believed themselves many hun-
dred miles at sea. It would take nice calculation to
prevent suspicion, but as it was the only chance I
resolved upon it immediately.
“That's all very well,” I said firmly, “but you
can’t get anywhere without me, and I’m not going to
put in two years and then keep my mouth shut for
nothing. I want a share in the swag—an even share
with the rest of you.”
“Oh, that'll be all right,” he cried; “you can
have it.”
If anything was needed to convince me of the man's
sinister intentions, this too ready acquiescence would
have been enough. I knew him too well. If he had
had the slightest intention of permitting me to go free,
he would have bargained.
The Nigger called us to mess. We ate in the after
cabin. The chest was locked and the men had as yet
been unable to break into it. Pulz professed some
skill in locksmithing and promised to experiment later. .
After mess we went on deck again. The island had


THE CATASTROPHE 2O3
dropped down to the horizon and showed as a bril-
liant glow under a dark canopy. I leaned over the rail
looking at it. Below me the extra dory bumped along.
The idea came to me that if I could escape that night,
I could row back to Percy Darrow. The two of us
could make shift to live on fish and shellfish and mut-
ton. The plan rapidly defined itself in my brain. From
the remains of the Golden Horn we could construct
some kind of a craft in which to run free to the sum-
mer trades. Thus we might in time reach some one
or another of the Sandwich Islands, whence a passing
trader could take us back to civilisation. There were
many elements of uncertainty in the scheme, but it
seemed to me less desperate than trusting to the ca-
prices of these men, especially since they now had free
access to the liquor stores.
While I leaned over the rail engrossed in these
thoughts, one of the black thunder clouds that had
been gathering and dissipating over the island dur-
ing the entire afternoon suddenly glowed overhead
with a strange white incandescence startlingly akin
to Darrow's so-called “devil fires.” Strangely enough,
this illumination, unlike the volcanic glows, appeared
to be cast on the clouds from without rather than shot
through them from within, as were the other volcanic
emanations. At the same instant I experienced a
sharp interior revulsion of some sort, most briefly
momentary, but of a character that shook me from
head to toe.
I had no time to analyse these various impressions,
however, for my attention was almost instantly dis-
tracted. From the cabin came the sound of a sharp


2O6 THE MYSTERY
Without further delay I jerked loose the painter and
drew the extra dory alongside.
I had proceeded just so far in my movements, when
the most extraordinary thing happened. I shall try
to tell you of it as accurately as possible, and in the
exact order of its occurrence. First a long, straight
shaft of white light shot straight up through the cabin
roof to a great height. It shone through the wooden
planks as an ordinary light shines through glass. By
contrast the surrounding blackness was thrown into a
deeper shade, and yet the shaft itself was so brilliant
as almost to scotch the sight. Curiously enough, it was
defined accurately, being exactly in shape like one of
the rectangular tin air-shafts you see so often in city
hotels. At the instant of its appearance, the wind fell
quite calm.
Almost immediately the rectangle on the roof
through which the light made its passage began to
splay out, like lighted oil, although the column re-
tained still the integrity of its outline. The fire, if such
it could be called, ran with incredible rapidity along
the seams between the planks, forward and aft, until
the entire deck was sketched like a pyrotechnic display
in thin, vivid lines of incandescence. From each of
these lines then the fire began again to spread, as
though soaking through the planks.
All took place practically in an instant of time. I
had no opportunity to move nor to cry out; indeed,
my perceptions were inadequate to the task of mere
observation. Up to now there had been no sound. The
wind had fallen; the waters passed unnoticed. A still-
ness of death seemed to have descended on the ship. It


THE CATASTROPHE 2O7
was broken by a sharp double report, one as of the fall
of a metallic substance, the other caused by the body of
Pulz, which, shaken loose from the truck by a heavy
roll, smashed against the rail of the ship and splashed
overboard. Someone cried out sharply. An instant
later the entire crew struggled out from the com-
panionway, rushed in grim silence to the side of the
vessel, and threw themselves into the sea.
My own ideas were somewhat confused. The fire
had practically enveloped the ship. I thought to feel
it; and yet my skin was cool to the touch. The ship's
outlines became blurred. A dizziness overtook me;
and then all at once a great desire seized and shook
my very soul. I cannot tell you the vehemence of this
desire. It was a madness; nothing could stand in the
way of its gratification. Whatever happened, I must
have water. It was not thirst, nor yet a purpose to
allay the very real physical burning of which I was
now dimly conscious; but a craving for the liquid it-
self as something apart from and unconnected with
anything else. Without hesitation, and as though it
were the most natural thing in the world, I vaulted
the rail to cast myself into the ocean. I dimly remem-
ber a last flying impression of a furnace of light, then
a great shock thudded through me, and I lost con-
sciousness.








I
IN THE WARDROOM
Over the wardroom of the Wolverine had fallen a
silence. It held after Slade had finished. Captain
Parkinson, stiff and erect in his chair, staring fixedly
at a spot two feet above the reporter's head, seemed
to weigh, as a judge weighs, the facts so picturesquely
set forth. Dr. Trendon, his sturdy frame half in
shadow, had slouched far down into himself. Only
the regard of his keen eyes fixed upon Slade's face,
unwaveringly and a bit anxiously, showed that he was
thinking of the narrator as well as of the narrative.
The others had fallen completely under the spell of the
tale. They sat, as children in a theatre, absorbed, for-
getful of the world around them, wrapped in a more
vivid element. At the close, they stirred and blinked,
half dazed by the abrupt fall of the curtain.
Slade had told his story with fire, with something
of passion, even. Now he felt the sharp reflex. He
muttered uncertainly beneath his breath and glanced
from one to another of the circled faces.
“That's all,” he said unsteadily.
There passed through the group a stir and a
murmur. Someone broke into sharp coughing. Chairs,
shoved back, grated on the floor.
“Well, of all the extraordinary ” began a voice,
ruminatingly, and broke short off, as if abashed at its
own infraction of the silence.
2II


212 THE MYSTERY
“That's all,” repeated Slade, a note of insistence
in his voice. “Why don't you say something? Con-
found you, why don't you say something?” His
speech rose husky and cracked. “Don’t you believe
it?”
“Hold on,” said the surgeon quietly. “No need to
get excited.”
“Oh, well,” muttered the reporter, with a sudden
lapse. “Possibly you think I’m romancing. It doesn't
matter. I don't suppose I’d believe it myself, in your
place.”
“But we're heading for the island,” suggested For-
sythe.
“That's so,” cried Slade. “Well, that's all right.
Believe or disbelieve as much as you like. Only get
Percy Darrow off that island. Then we'll have his
version. There are a few things I want to find out
about, myself.”
“There are several that promise to be fairly inter-
esting,” said Forsythe, under his breath.
Slade turned to the captain. “Have you any ques-
tions to put to me, sir?” he asked formally.
“Just one moment,” interrupted Trendon. “Boy,
a pony of brandy for Mr. Slade.”
The reporter drank the liquor and again turned to
Captain Parkinson.
“Only about our men,” said the commanding of-
ficer, after a little thought.
Slade shook his head.
“I’m sorry I can't help you there, sir.”
“Dr. Trendon said that you knew nothing about
Edwards.”


2I4 THE MYSTERY
He turned in appeal to his old acquaintance.
“There was no fire, Slade,” replied the executive
officer gently. “No sign of fire that we could find,
except that the starboard rail was blistered.”
“Oh, that was from the volcano,” said Slade.
“That was nothing.”
“It was all there was,” returned Barnett.
“Just let me run this thing over,” said the free
lance slowly. “You found the schooner. She wasn't
afire. She didn't even seem to have been afire. You
put a crew aboard under your ensign, Edwards.
Storm separated you from her. You picked her up
again deserted. Is that right?”
“Day before yesterday morning.”
“Then,” cried the other excitedly, “the fire was
smouldering all the time. It broke out and your men
took to the water.”
“Impossible,” said Barnett.
“Fiddlesticks!” said the more downright surgeon.
“I hardly think Mr. Edwards would be driven
overboard by a fire which did not even scorch his
ship,” suggested the captain mildly.
“It drove our lot overboard,” insisted Slade. “Do
you think we were a pack of cowards? I tell you, when
that hellish thing broke loose, you had to go. It wasn’t
fear. It wasn't pain. It was What's the use. You
can’t explain a thing like that.”
“We certainly saw the glow the night Billy Ed-
wards was—disappeared,” mused Forsythe.
“And again, night before last,” said the captain.
“What’s that!” cried Slade. “Where is the
Laughing Lass?”


IN THE WARDROOM 2I5
“I’d give something pretty to know,” said Bar-
nett.
“Isn’t she in tow?”
“In tow?” said Forsythe. “No, indeed. We
hadn't adequate facilities for towing her. Didn't you
tell him, Mr. Barnett?”
“Where is she, then?” Slade fired the question at
them like a cross-examiner.
“Why, we shipped another crew under Ives and
McGuire that noon. We were parted again, and
haven’t seen them since.”
“God forgive you!” said the reporter. “After the
warnings you'd had, too. It was—it was—”
“My orders, Mr. Slade,” said Captain Parkinson,
with quiet dignity.
“Of course, sir. I beg your pardon,” returned the
other. “But—you say you saw the light again?”
“The first night they were out,” said Barnett, in a
low voice.
“Then your second crew is with your first crew,”
said Slade, shakily. “And they're with Thrackles, and
Pulz and Solomon, and many another black-hearted
scoundrel and brave seaman. Down there!”
He pointed under foot. Captain Parkinson rose and
went to his cabin. Slade rose, too, but his knees were
unsteady. He tottered, and but for the swift aid of
Barnett's arm, would have fallen.
“Overdone,” said Dr. Trendon, with some irrita-
tion. “Cost you something in strength. Foolish per-
formance. Turn in now.”
Slade tried to protest, but the surgeon would not
hear of it, and marched him incontinently to his


216 * THE MYSTERY
berth. Returning, Trendon reported, with growls of
discontent, that his patient was in a fever.
“Couldn't expect anything else,” he fumed. “Pack
of human interrogation points hounding him all over
the place.”
“What do you think of his story?” asked For-
sythe.
The grizzled surgeon drew out a cigar, lighted it,
took three deliberate puffs, turned it about, examined
the ash end with concentration, and replied:
“Man’s telling a straight story.”
“You think it's all true?” cried Forsythe.
“Humph!” grunted the other. “He thinks it's all
true.”
An orderly appeared and knocked at the captain's
cabin.
“Beg pardon, sir,” they heard him say. “Mr. Car-
ter would like to know how close in to run. Vol-
cano's acting up pretty bad, sir.”
Captain Parkinson went on deck, followed by the
reSt.


II
THE JOLLY ROGER
FEELING the way forward, the cruiser was soon caught
in a maze of cross currents. Hither and thither she
was borne, a creature bereft of volition. Order fol-
lowed order like the rattle of quick-fire, and was
obeyed with something more than the Wolverine's
customary smartness. From the bridge Captain Park-
inson himself directed his ship. His face was placid:
his bearing steady and confident. This in itself was
sufficient earnest that the cruiser was in ticklish case.
For it was an axiom of the men who sailed under
Parkinson that the calmer that nervous man grew, the
more cause was there for nervousness on the part of
others.
The approach was from the south, but suspicious
aspects of the water had fended the cruiser out and
around, until now she stood prow-on to a bold head-
land at the northwest corner of the island. Above
this headland lay a dark pall of vapour. In the shift-
ing breeze it swayed sluggishly, heavily, as if riding
at anchor like a logy ship of the air. Only once did
it show any marked movement.
“It’s spreading out toward us,” said Barnett to
his fellow officers, gathered aft.
“Time to move, then,” grunted Trendon.
217


22O THE MYSTERY
“Yes, sir.”
“Should we be overtaken by the vapour while on
the highland and be unable to get back to the beach,
you are to send no rescuing party up there until the
air has cleared.”
“But, sir, may we not >
“Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In case of an attack you will at once send in an-
other boat with a howitzer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dr. Trendon, will you see Mr. Slade and inquire
of him the best point for landing?”
Trendon hesitated.
“I suppose it would hardly do to take him with
us?” pursued the commanding officer.
“If he is roused now, even for a moment, I won't
answer for the consequences, sir,” said the surgeon
bluntly.
“Surely you can have him point out a landing
place,” said the captain.
“On your responsibility,” returned the other, ob-
stinately. “He’s under opiate now.”
“Be it so,” said Captain Parkinson, after a time.
Going in, they saw no sign of life along the shore.
Even the birds had deserted it. For the time the vol-
cano seemed to have pretermitted its activity. Now and
again there was a spurtle of smoke from the come, fol-
lowed by subterranean growlings, but, on the whole,
the conditions were reassuring.
“Penny-pop-pinwheel of a volcano, anyhow,” re-
marked Trendon, disparagingly. “Real man-size erup-


THE JOLLY ROGER 22I
tion would have wiped the whole thing off the map,
first whack.”
As they drew in, it became apparent that they must
scale the cliff from the boat. Farther to the south
opened out a wide cove that suggested easy beaching,
but over it hung a cloud of steam.
“Lava pouring down,” said Trendon.
Fortunately at the point where the cliff looked easi-
est the seas ran low. Ropes had been brought. After
some dainty manoeuvring two of the sailors gained
foothold and slung the ropes so that the remainder of
the disembarcation was simple. Nor was the ascent
of the cliff a harsh task. Half an hour after the land-
ing the exploring party stood on the summit of the
hill, where the black flag waved over a scene of utter
desolation. The vegetation was withered to pallid
rags: even the tiniest weedling in the rock crevices
had been poisoned by the devastating blast.
In the midst of that deathly scene, the flag seemed
instinct with a sinister liveliness. Whoever had set it
there had accurately chosen the highest available point
on that side of the island, the spot of all others where it
would make good its signal to the eye of any chance
farer upon those shipless seas. For the staff a ten-foot
sapling, finely polished, served. A mound of rock-slabs
supported it firmly. Upon the cloth itself was no de-
sign. It was of a dull black, the hue of soot. Captain
Parkinson, standing a few yards off, viewed it with
disfavour.
“Furl that flag,” he ordered.
Congdon, the coxswain of the gig, stepped forward
and began to work at the fastenings. Presently he


222 THE MYSTERY
turned a grinning face to the captain, who was scan-
ning the landscape through his glass.
“Beggin' your pardon, sir,” he said.
“Well, what is it?” demanded Captain Parkinson.
“Beggin' your pardon, sir, that ain't rightly no
flag. That's what you might rightly call a garment,
sir. It’s an undershirt, beggin' your pardon.”
“Black undershirt's a new one to me,” muttered
Trendon.
“No, sir. It ain't rightly black, look.”
Wrenching the object from its fastenings, he flapped
it violently. A cloud of sooty dust, beaten out, spread
about his face. With a strangled cry the sailor cast
the shirt from him and rolled in agony upon the
ground.
“You fool!” cried Trendon. “Stand back, all of
you.”
Opening his medicine case, he bent over the racked
sufferer. Presently the man sat up, pale and abashed.
“That's how poisonous volcanic gas is,” said the
surgeon to his commanding officer. “Only inhaled
remnants of the dust, too.”
“An ill outlook for the man we're seeking,” the
captain mused.
“Dead if he's anywhere on this highland,” declared
Trendon. “Let’s look at his flag-pole.”
He examined the staff. “Came from the beach,”
he pronounced. “Waterworn. H'm! Maybe he ain't
so dead, either.”
“I don't quite follow you, Dr. Trendon.”
“Why, I guess our man has figured this thing all
out. Brought this pole up from the beach to plant it


-
With a strangled cry the sailor cast the shirt from him


THE JOLLY ROGER 223
here. Why? Because this was the best observation
point. No good as a permanent residence, though.
Planted his flag and went back.”
“Why didn't we see him on the beach, then?”
“Did you notice a cave around to the north? Good
refuge in case of fumes.”
“It’s worth trying,” said the captain, putting up
his glass.
“Hold on, sir. What's this? Here's something.
Look here.” -
Trendon pointed to a small bit of wood rather
neatly carved to the shape of an indicatory finger,
and lashed to the staff, at the height of a man's face.
The others clustered around.
“Oh, the devil!” cried Trendon. “It must have
got twisted. It's pointing straight down.”
“Strange performance,” said the captain. “How-
ever, since it points that way—heave aside those rocks,
men.”
The first slab lifted brought to light a corner of
cardboard. This, on closer examination, proved to be
the cover of a book. The rocks rolled right and left,
and as the flag-staff, deprived of its support, tottered
and fell, the trove was dragged forth and handed to
the captain. While the ground jarred with occasional
tremors and the mountain puffed forth its vaporous
threats, he and the surgeon, seated on a rock, gave
themselves with complete absorption to the reading.


III
THE CACHE
OUTwARDLY the book accorded ill with its surround-
ings. In that place of desolation and death, it typified
the petty neatness of office processes. Properly placed,
it should have been found on a desk, with pens, rulers,
and other paraphernalia forming exact angles or par-
allels to it. It was a quarto, bound in marbled paper,
with black leather over the hinges. No external label
suggested its ownership or uses, but through one cor-
ner, blackened and formidable in its contrast to the
peaceful purposes of the volume, a hole had been bored.
The agency of perforation was obvious. A bullet had
made it.
“Seen something of life, I reckon,” said Trendon,
as the captain turned the volume about slowly in his
hands.
“And of death,” returned Captain Parkinson sol-
emnly. “Do you know, Trendon, I almost dread to
open this.”
“Pshaw!” returned the other. “What is it to us?”
He threw the cover back. Neatly lettered on the in-
side, in the fine and slightly angular writing char-
acteristic of the Teutonic scholar, was the legend:
Karl Augustus Schermerhorn,
I4094 Spruce Street,
Philadelphia, Pa.
224


THE CACHE 225
The opposite page was blank. Captain Parkinson
turned half a dozen leaves.
“German l’” he cried, in a note of disappointment,
“Can you read German script?”
“After a fashion,” replied the other. “Let's see.
Es wonnte sechs—und—dreissig unterjacke,” he read.
“Why, blast it, was the man running a haberdashery?
What have three dozen undershirts to do with this?”
“A memorandum for outfitting, probably,” sug-
gested the captain. “Try here.”
“Chemical formulae,” said Trendon. “Pages of
'em. The devil! Can't make a thing of it.”
“Well, here's something in English.”
“Good,” said the other. “By combining the hyper-
sulphate of iridium with the fumes arising from oxide
of copper heated to IOOO C. and combining with picric
acid in the proportions described in formula x 18, a
reaction, the nature of which I have not fully deter-
mined, follows. This must be performed with extreme
care owing to the unstable nature of the benzene com-
pounds.”
“Picric acid? Benzene compounds? Those are high
explosives,” said Captain Parkinson. “We should
have Barnett go over this.”
“Here's a name under the formula. Dr. A. Mar-
denter, Ann Arbor, Mich. That explains its being in
English. Probably copied from a letter.”
“This must have been one of the experiments in
the valley that Slade told us of,” said the captain,
thoughtfully. “Why, see here,” he cried, with some-
thing like exultation. “That's what Dr. Schermer-
horn was doing here. He has the clue to some ex-


232 THE MYSTERY
“ Unless he had a boat,” said the captain. “But
why doesn't he answer?”
“Better try again. No telling how much more there
is of this.”
The surgeon raised his ponderous bellow, and the
cave roared again with the summons. Silence, for-
midable and unbroken, succeeded.
“House to house search is now in order,” he said.
“Must be in here somewhere—unless the seals got
him.”
Cautiously the boat moved forward. Once she
grazed on a half submerged rock. Again a tiny islet
loomed before her. Scattered bones glistened on the
rocky shore, but they were not human relics. Occa-
sional beaches tempted a landing, but all of these led
back to percipitous cliffs except one, from the side of
which opened two small caves. Into the first the
lantern cast its glare, revealing emptiness, for the
arch was wide and the cave shallow. The entrance
to the other was so narrow as to send a visitor to his
knees. But inside it seemed to open out. Moreover,
there were fish bones at the entrance. The captain,
the surgeon, and Congdon, the coxswain, landed.
Captain Parkinson reached the spot first. Stooping,
he thrust his head in at the orifice. A sharp exclama-
tion broke from him. He rose to his feet, turning a
contorted face to the others.
“Poisonous,” he cried.
“More volcano,” said Trendon. He bent to the
black hole and sniffed cautiously.
“I’ll go in, sir,” volunteered Congdon. “I’ve had
fire-practice.”


THE TWIN SLABS 233
“My business,” said Trendon, briefly. “Decompo-
sition; unpleasant, but not dangerous.”
Pushing the lantern before him, he wormed his
way until the light was blotted out. Presently it shone
forth from the funnel, showing that the explorer had
reached the inner open space. Captain Parkinson
dropped down and peered in, but the evil odour was
too much for him. He retired, gagging and coughing.
Trendon was gone for what seemed an interminable
time. His superior officer fidgetted uneasily. At last
he could stand it no longer.
“Dr. Trendon, are you all right?” he shouted.
“Yup,” answered a choked voice. “Cubbing oud
dow.”
Again the funnel was darkened. A pair of feet ap-
peared; then the surgeon's chunky trunk, his head, and
the lantern. Once, twice, and thrice he inhaled deeply.
“Phew!” he gasped. “Thought I was tough, but
—Phee-ee-ee-ew !”
“Did you find 25
“No, sir. Not Darrow. Only a poor devil of a seal
that crawled in there to die.”
The exploration continued. Half a mile, as they
estimated, from the open, they reached a narrow beach,
shut off by a perpendicular wall of rock. Skirting this,
they returned on the other side, minutely examining
every possible crevice. When they again reached the
light of day, they had arrived at the certain conclusion
that no living man was within those walls.
“Would a corpse rise to the surface soon in waters
such as these, Dr. Trendon?” asked the captain.
“Might, sir. Might not. No telling that.”


234 THE MYSTERY
The captain ruminated. Then he beat his fist on
his knee.
“The other cave!”
“What other cave?” asked the surgeon.
“The cave where they killed the seals.”
“Surely!” exclaimed Trendon. “Wait, though.
Didn't Slade say it was between here and the point?”
“Yes. Beyond the small beach.”
“No cave there,” declared the surgeon positively.
“There must be. Congdon, did you see an opening
anywhere in the cliff as we came along?”
“No, sir. This is the only one, sir.”
“We'll see about that,” said the captain, grimly.
“Head her about. Skirt the shore as near the break-
ers as you safely can.”
The gig retraced its journey.
“There's the beach, as Slade described it,” said
Captain Parkinson, as they came abreast of the little
reach of sand.
“And what are those two bird-roosts on it?” asked
Trendon. “See 'em P Dead against that patch of shore-
weed.”
“Bits of wreckage fixed in the sand.”
“Don’t think so, sir. Too well matched.”
“We have no time to settle the matter now,” said
the captain impatiently. “We must find that cave, if
it is to be found.”
Hovering just outside the final drag of the surf,
under the skilful guidance of Congdon, the boat
moved slowly along the line of beach to the line of
cliff. All was open as the day. The blazing sun
picked out each detail of jut and hollow. Evidently the
y


THE TWIN SLABS 235
poisonous vapours from the volcano had not spread
their blight here, for the face of the precipice was
bright with many flowers. So close in moved the boat
that its occupants could even see butterflies fluttering
above the bloom. But that which their eager eyes
sought was still denied them. No opening offered in
that smiling cliff-side. Not by so much as would admit
a terrier did the mass of rock and rubble gape.
“And Slade described the cave as big enough to
ram the Wolverine into,” muttered Trendon.
Up to the point of the headland, and back, passed
the boat. Blank disappointment was the result.
“What is your opinion now, Dr. Trendon?” asked
the captain of the older man.
“Don’t know, sir,” answered the surgeon hopelessly.
“Looks as if the cave might have been a hallucina-
tion.”
“I shall have something to say to Mr. Slade on
our return,” said the captain crisply. “If the cave was
an hallucination, as you suggest, the seal-murder was
fiction.”
“Looks so,” agreed the other.
“And the murder of the captain. How about
that?”
“And the mutiny of the men,” added the surgeon.
“And the killing of the doctor. Your patient seems
to be a romantic genius.”
“And the escape of Darrow. Hold hard,” quoth
Trendon. “Darrow's no romance. Nothing fictional
about the flag and ledger.”
“True enough,” said the captain, and fell to con-
sideration.


236 THE MYSTERY
“Anyway,” said Trendon vigorously, “I’d like to
have a look at those bird-roosts. Mighty like sign-
posts, to my mind.”
“Very well,” said the captain. “It'll cost us only
a wetting. Run her in, Congdon.”
With all the coxswain's skill, and the oarsmen's
technique, the passage of the surf was a lively one,
and little driblets of water marked the trail of the
officers as they shuffled up the beach.
The two slabs stood less than fifty yards beyond
high water tide. Nearing them, the visitors saw that
each marked a mound, but not until they were close
up could they read the neat carving on the first. It ran
as follows:
Here lies
SOLOMON ANDERSON
alias
HANDY SOLOMON
who murdered his employer,
his captain, and his ship-
mates, and was found, dead
of his deserts, on these shores,
June 5, 1904.
This slab is erected as a
memento of admiring esteem
by
the last of his victims.
“And you can kiss the
Book on that.”
“Percy Darrow fecit,” said the surgeon. “You can
kiss the Book on that, too.”
“Then Slade was telling the truth!”


The finding of the two slabs


THE New Yor.
PUBLIC LTRARY
* * * **, Lº
LDEN
R
NOX. A ND
FOUN DATION S
L


V
THE PINWHEEL VOLCANO
THE surgeon spoke first.
“Another point,” said he. “Darrow was alive
within a few days.”
Captain Parkinson turned slowly away from the
grave. “You are right,” he said, with an effort. “Our
business is with the living now. The dead must wait.”
“Hide and seek,” growled Trendon. “If he's here
why don’t he show himself?”
The other shook his head.
“Place is all trampled up with his footprints,” said
Trendon. “He’s plodded back and forth like a pris-
oner in a cell.”
“The ledger,” said the captain. “I’d forgotten it.
That grave drove everything else out of my mind.”
“Bring the book here,” called Trendon.
Congdon unwrapped it from his jacket and handed
it to him. The sailors cast curious glances at the two
headstones.
“Mount guard over Mr. Edwards's grave,” com-
manded the captain.
The coxswain saluted and gave an order. One of
the sailors stepped forward to the first mound.
“Not that one,” rasped the officer. “The other.”
The man saluted and moved on.
“With your permission, sir,” said Trendon.
238


24O THE MYSTERY
away by the sea-puss. Others, I regret to say, floated.
Found trickle of fresh water in depth of cave, and little
sand-ledge to sleep on. So far, so good: we may be
'appy yet. If only I had my cigarette supply. Once
heard a botanist say that leaves of the white shore-willow
made fair substitute for tobacco. Fair substitute for nur
vomical Would like to interview said botanist.
“The fellow is a tobacco maniac,” growled Tren-
don, feeling in his breast pocket. “The devil,” he
cried, bringing forth an empty hand.
Silently the captain handed him a cigar. “Thank
you, sir,” he said, lighted it, and continued reading.
“June 5. Had a caller to-day. Climbed the headland
this morning. Found volcano taking a day off. Looking
for sign of Laughing Lass, noticed something heliograph-
ing to me from the waves beyond the reef. Seemed to
be metal. I guessed a tin can. Caught in the swirl, it
rounded the cape, and I came down to the shore to meet
it. Halfway down the cliff I had a better view. I saw
it was not a tin can. There was a dark body under it,
which the waves were tossing about, and as the metal
moved with the body, it glinted in the sun. Suddenly it
was borne in upon me that an arm was doing the sig-
nalling, waving to me with a sprightly, even a jocular
friendliness. Then I saw what it really was. It was
Handy Solomon and his steel hook. He was riding quite
high. Every now and again he would bow and wave.
He grounded gently on the sand beach. I planted him
promptly. First, however, I removed a bag of tobacco
from his pocket. Poor stuff, and water soaked, but still
tobacco. Spent a quiet afternoon carving a headstone
for the dear departed. Pity it were that virtues so shin-


THE PINWHEEL VOLCANO 24I
ing should be uncommemorated. Idle as the speculation
is, I wonder who my neart visitor will be. Thrackles, I
hope. Evidently some of them have been playing the
part of Pandora. Spent last night in the cave. Air
quite fresh.
“June 6. Saw the glow again last night.
The surgeon paused in his reading. “That would
be the night of the 5th : the night before we picked
her up empty.”
“Yes,” agreed Captain Parkinson. “That was the
night Billy Edwards Go on.”
“Saw the glow again last night. Don't understand it.
Once should have been enough for them. This matter
of hoarding tobacco may be a sad error. If Old Spitfire
keeps on the way she has to-day I shan't need much more.
It would be a raw jest to be burned or swallowed up with
a month's supply of unsmoked cigarettes on one. Cave
getting shaky. Still, I think I’ll stick there. As between
being burned alive and buried alive, I’m for the respecta-
ble and time honoured fashion of interment. Bombard-
ment was mostly to the east to-day, but no telling when
it may shift.
“June 7. This morning I found a body rolling in the
surf. It was the body of a young man, large and strongly
built, dressed in the uniform of an ensign of our navy.
Surely a strange visitor to these shores! There was no
mark of identification upon him except a cigarette case
graven with an undecipherable monogram in Tiffany's
most illegible style of arrow-headed inscription. This I
buried with him, and staked the grave with a headboard.
An officer and a gentleman, a youth of friendly ways and


244 THE MYSTERY
shaken up lately. Entrance may have been closed by
a landslide down the cliff. Noticed signs myself, but
didn't think of it in connection with the cave.”
“That's work for Barnett, then,” said the captain,
brightening. “We'll blow up the whole face of the
cliff, if necessary, but we'll get at that cave.”
He hurried out. Order followed order, and soon
the gig, with the captain, Trendon, and the torpedo
expert, was driving for the point marked “Seal Cave”
on the map over which they were bent.


246 THE MYSTERY
He let out his bellow, roaring Darrow's name.
“I doubt if you could project your voice far into
a cave thus blocked,” said Captain Parkinson. “We’ll
try this.”
He drew his revolver and fired. The men listened
at the crevices of the rock. No sound came from
within.
“Your enterprise, Mr. Barnett,” said the com-
mander, with a gesture which turned over the conduct
of the affair to the torpedo expert.
Barnett examined the rocks with enthusiasm.
“Looks like moderately easy stuff,” he observed.
“See how the veins run. You could almost blow a
design to order in that.”
“Yes; but how about bringing down the whole
cave?”
“Oh, of course there's always an element of un-
certainty when you're dealing with high explosives,”
admitted the expert. “But unless I'm mistaken, we
can chop this out as neat as with an axe.”
Dropping his load of cartridges carelessly upon a
flat rock which projected from the water, he busied
himself in a search along the face of the cliff. Pres-
ently, with an “Ah,” of satisfaction, he climbed
toward a hand's breadth of platform where grew a
patch of purple flowers.
“Throw me up a knife, somebody,” he called.
“Take notice,” said Trendon, good-naturedly, “that
I'm the botanist of this expedition.”
“Oh, you can have the flowers. All I want is what
they grow in.”
Loosening a handful of the dry soil, he brought it


MR. DARROW RECEIVES 247
down and laid it with the explosives. Next he called
one of the sailors to “boost’ him, and was soon
perched on the flat slant of a huge rock which formed,
as it were, the keystone to the blockade.
“Let’s see,” he ruminated. “We want a slow
charge for this. One that will exert a widespread
pressure without much shattering force. The No. 3,
I think.”
“How is that, Mr. Barnett?” asked the captain,
with lively interest.
“You see, sir,” returned the demonstrator, perched
high, like a sculptor at work on some heroic master-
piece, “what we want is to split off this rock.” He
patted the flank of the huge slab. “There's a lovely
vein running at an angle inward from where I sit.
Split that through, and the rock should roll, of its
own weight, away from the entrance. It's held only
by the upper projection that runs under the arch here.”
“Neat programme,” commented Trendon, with a
tinge of sardonic scepticism.
“Wait and see,” retorted Barnett blithely, for he
was in his element now. “I’ll appoint you my assist-
ant. Just toss me up that cartridge: the third one on
the left.”
The surgeon recoiled.
“Supposing you don't catch it?”
“Well, supposing I don't.”
“It’s dynamite, isn't it?”
“Something of the same nature. Joveite, it's
called.”
Still the surgeon stared at him. Barnett laughed.
“Oh, you've got the high explosives superstition,”


248 THE MYSTERY
he said lightly. “Dynamite don't go off as easy as
people think. You could drop that stuff from the cliff-
head without danger. Have I got to come down for
it?”
With a wry face Trendon tossed up the package.
It was deftly caught.
“Now wet that dirt well. Put it in the canvas bag
yonder, and send one of the men up with it. I’m going
to make a mud pie.”
Breaking the package open, he spread the yellow
powder in a slightly curving line along the rock. With
the mud he capped this over, forming a little arched
roof.
“To keep it from blowing away,” surmised
Trendon.
“No; to make it blow down instead of blowing up.”
“Oh, rot!” returned the downright surgeon.
“That pound of dirt won't make the shadow of a
feather's difference.”
“Won't it!” retorted the other. “Curious thing
about high explosives. A mud-cap will hold down the
force as well as a ton of rock. Wait and see what hap-
pens to the rock beneath.”
He slid off his perch into the ankle-deep water and
waded out to the boat. Here he burrowed for a mo-
ment, presently emerging with a box. This he carried
gingerly to a convenient rock and opened. First he
lifted out some soft padding. A small tin box honey-
combed inside came to light. With infinite precaution
Barnett picked out an object that looked like a 22-
calibre short cartridge, wadded some cotton batten in
his hand, set the thing in the wadding, laid it on the


250 THE MYSTERY
He touched a match to the fuse. It caught. For a
moment he watched it.
“Going all right,” he reported, as he struck the
water. “Plenty of time.”
Some seventy yards out they rested on their oars.
They waited. And waited. And waited.
“It's out,” grunted Trendon.
From the face of the cliff puffed a cloud of dust.
A thudding report boomed over the water. Just a
wisp of whitish-grey smoke arose, and beneath it the
great rock, with a gapping seam across its top, rolled
majestically outward, sending a shower of spray on
all sides, and opening to their eager view a black
chasm into the heart of the headland. The experiment
had worked out with the accuracy of a geometric
problem.
“That's all, sir,” Barnett reported officially.
“Magic! Modern magic!” said the captain. He
stared at the open door. For the moment the object
of the undertaking was forgotten in the wonder of
its exact accomplishment.
“Darrow'll think an earthquake's come after him,”
remarked Trendon.
“Give way,” ordered the captain.
The boat grated on the sand. Captain Parkinson
would have entered, but Barnett restrained him.
“It’s best to wait a minute or two,” he advised.
“Occasionally slides follow an explosion tardily, and
the gases don't always dissipate quickly.”
Where they stood they could see but a short way
into the cave. Trendon squatted and funnelled his
hands to one eye.


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252 THE MYSTERY
“Won't you step in, gentlemen?” said Darrow,
“May I offer you the makings of a cigarette?”
“Wouldn't you be robbing yourself?” inquired the
captain, with a twinkle.
“Oh, you found the diary, then,” said Darrow eas-
ily. “Rather silly of me to complain so. But really, in
conditions like these, tobacco becomes a serious prob-
lem.”
“So one might imagine,” said Trendon drily. He
looked closely at Darrow. The man's eyes were light
and dancing. From the nostrils two livid lines ran
diagonally. Such lines one might make with a hard
blue pencil pressed strongly into the flesh. The sur-
geon moved a little nearer.
“Can you give me any news of my friend
Thrackles?” asked Darrow lightly. “Or the esteemed
Pulz? Or the scholarly and urbane Robinson of Ethi-
opian extraction?”
“Dead,” said the captain.
“Ah, a pity,” said the other. He put his hand to
his forehead. “I had thought it probable.” His face
twitched. “Dead? Very good. In fact—really—er—
amusing.” -
He began to laugh, quite to himself. It was not a
pleasant laugh to hear. Trendon caught and shook
him by the shoulder.
“Drop it,” he said.
Darrow seemed not to hear him. “Dead, all dead!”
he repeated. “And I’ve outlasted 'em! God damn
'em, I’ve outlasted 'em!” And his mirth broke forth
in a strangely shocking spasm.
Trendon lifted a hand and struck him so powerfully


256 THE MYSTERY
Darrow looked up sharply. “Why, yes,” he ad-
mitted. “So he did. I had hoped ” He checked
himself. “I had thought that all of the crew went the
same way. You didn't find any of the others?”
“None.”
Darrow got to his feet. “I think I'd like to see
Eagen—Slade—whatever he calls himself.”
“I don't know,” began the captain. “It might not
be—” He hesitated and stopped.
Darrow drew back a little, misinterpreting the
other's attitude. “Do I understand that I am under
restraint?” he asked stiffly.
“Certainly not. Why should you be?”
“Well,” returned the other contemplatively, “it
really might be regarded as a subject for investiga-
tion. Of course I know only a small part of it. But
there have certainly been suspicious circumstances.
Piracy there has been: no doubt of that. Murder, too,
if my intuitions are not at fault. Or at least, a dis-
appearance to be accounted for. Robbery can’t be de-
nied. And there's a dead body or two to be properly
accredited.” He looked the captain in the eye.
“Well?”
“You’ll find my story highly unsatisfactory in de-
tail, I fancy. I merely want to know whether I'm to
present it as a defence, or only an explanation.”
“We shall be glad to hear your story when you are
ready to tell it—after you have seen Mr. Slade.”
“Thank you,” said Darrow simply. “You have
heard his?”
“Yes. It needs filling in.”
“When may I see him?”


262 THE MYSTERY
Slade has told you how they lived on the beach.
With us in the valley it was different. Almost from
the first I was alone. The doctor ceased to be a
companion. He ceased to be human, almost. A ma-
chine, that's what he was. His one human instinct
was well, distrust. His whole force of being was cen-
tred on his discovery. It was to make him the fore-
most scientist of the world; the foremost individual
entity of his time—of all time, possibly. Even to out-
line it to you would take too much time. Light, heat,
motive power in incredible degrees and under such
control as has never been known: these were to be the
agencies at his call. The push of a button, the turn of
a screw—oh, he was to be master of such power as
no monarch ever wielded ! Riches—pshaw! Riches
were the least of it. He could create them, practically.
But they would be superfluous. Power: unlimited, ab-
solute power was his goal. With his end achieved he
could establish an autocracy, a dynasty of science:
whatever he chose. Oh, it was a rich-hued, golden,
glowing dream; a dream such as men's souls don't
formulate in these stale days—not our kind of men.
The Teutonic mysticism—you understand. And it
was all true. Oh, quite.”
“Do you mean us to understand that he had this
power you describe?” asked Captain Parkinson.
“In his grasp. Then comes a practical gentleman
with a steel hook. A follower of dreams, too, in his
way. Conflicting interests—you know how it is. One
well-aimed blow from the more practical dreamer, and
the greater vision passes. . . . I’m getting ahead
of myself. Just a moment.”


THE MAKER OF MARVELS 263
His cigarette glowed fiercely in the dimness before
he took up his tale again.
“You all know who Dr. Schermerhorn was. None
of you know—I don't know myself, though I’ve
been his factotum for ten years—along how many
varied lines of activity that mind played. One of them
was the secret of energy: concentrated, resistless
energy. Man's contrivances were too puny for him.
The most powerful engines he regarded as toys. For
a time high explosives claimed his attention. He
wanted to harness them. Once he got to the point of
practical experiment. You can see the ruins yet: a
hole in southern New Jersey. Nobody ever understood
how he escaped. But there he was on his feet across a
ten-foot fence in a ploughed field—yes, he flew the
fence—and running, running furiously in the opposite
direction, when the dust cleared away. Someone
stopped him finally. Told him the danger was over.
‘Yet, I will not return,” he said firmly, and fainted
away. That disgusted him with high explosives. What
secrets he discovered he gave to the government. They
were not without value, I believe.”
“They were not, indeed,” corroborated Barnett.
“Next his interest turned to the natural phenomena
of high energy. He studied lightning in an open steel
network laboratory, with few results save a succession
of rheumatic attacks, and an improved electric inter-
rupter, since adopted by one of the great telegraph
companies. The former obliged him to stop these ex-
periments, and the invention he considered trivial.
Probably the great problem of getting at the secret
of energy led him into his attempts to study the mys-


THE MAKER OF MARVELS 265
pin-point quantities: he wanted bulk results. Yet I
believe that, after all, what he sought was a sort of
higher power of radium. The phenomena were re-
lated. And he had some of that concentrated essence
of pitchblende in the chest when we started. Oh, not
much: say about twenty thousand dollars’ worth.
Maybe thirty. For use? No; rather for comparison,
I judge.
“Yes, we chased volcanoes. I became used to camp-
ing between sample hells of all known varieties. I got
so that the fumes of a sulphur match seemed like a
draught of pure, fresh air. Wherever any of the
earth's pimples showed signs of coming to a head,
there were we, taking part in the trouble. By and by
the doctor got so thoroughly poisoned that he had
to lay off. Back to Philadelphia we came. There an
aged seafaring person, temporarily stranded, mulcted
the Professor of a dollar—an undertaking that re-
quired no art—and in the course of his recital touched
upon yonder little cesspool of infernal iniquities. An
uncharted volcanic island: one that he could have all
for his own; you may guess whether Dr. Schermer-
horn was interested.
“‘That iss for which we haf so-long-in-vain
sought, Percy,” he said to me in his quaint, link-chain
style of speech. “A leedle prifate volcano-laboratory
to ourselves to have. Totally unknown: undescribed,
not-on-the-chart-to-be-found. To-morrow we start. I
make a list of the things-to-get.’
“He began his list, as I remember, with three dozen
undershirts, a gallon of pennyroyal for insect bites, a
box of assorted fish hooks, thirty pounds of tea, and a


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he fell unconscious ”


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268 THE MYSTERY
Meantime, the volcano also became—well, what you
might call temperamental.
“It got to be a year and a quarter—a year and a
half. I wondered whether we should ever get away.
My tobacco was running short. And the bearing of
the men was becoming fidgetty. My visits to the beach
became quite interesting—to me. One day the doctor
came running out of his laboratory with so bright a
face that I ventured to ask him about departure.
“‘Not so long, now, Percy,” he said, in his old,
kind manner. “Not so long. The first real success. It
iss made. We have yet under-entire-control to bring
it, but it iss made.”
“‘And about time, sir,’ said I. “If we don't do
something soon we may have trouble with the men.’
“‘So?” said he in surprise. “But they could do
nothing. Nothing.” He wagged his great head confi-
dently. “We are armed.’
“‘Oh, yes, armed. So are they.’
“‘We are armed, he repeated obstinately. “Such
as no man was ever armed, are we armed.”
“He checked himself abruptly and walked away.
Well, I've since wondered what would have happened
had the men attacked us. It would have been worth
seeing, and—and surprising. Yes: I'm quite certain
it would have been surprising. Perhaps, too, I might
have learned more of the Great Secret . . . and
yet, I don't know. It's all dark . . . a hint
here . . . theory . . . mere glints of light.
Where did I put . . . Ah, thank you.”


IX
THE ACHIEVEMENT
For some moments Darrow sat gazing fixedly at the
table before him. His cigarette tip glowed and failed.
Someone suggested drinks. The captain asked Dar-
row what he would have, but the question went un-
noted.
“How I passed the next six months I could hardly
tell you,” he began again, quite abruptly. “At times
I was bored—fearfully bored. Yet the element of mys-
tery, of uncertainty, of underlying peril, gave a certain
zest to the affair. In the periods of dulness I found
some amusement in visiting the lower camp and bait-
ing the Nigger. Slade will have told you about him;
he possessed quite a fund of bastard Voodooism: he
possessed more before I got through with him. Yes;
if he had lived to return to his country, I fancy he
would have added considerably to Afro-American
witch-lore. You remember the vampire bats, Slade?
And the devil-fires? Naturally I didn’t mention to you
that the devil-fire business wasn't altogether as clear
to me as I pretended. It wasn't, though. But at the
time it served very well as an amusement. All the
while I realised that my self-entertainment was
not without its element of danger, too: I remember
glances not altogether friendly but always a little
doubtful, a little awed. Even Handy Solomon, prac-
269


27o THE MYSTERY
tical as he was, had a scruple or two of superstition
in his make-up, on which one might work. Only
Eagen—Slade, I mean—was beyond me there. You
puzzled me not a little in those days, Slade.
Well
“Did I say that I was sometimes annoyed by the
doctor's attitude? Yes: it seemed that he might
have given me a little more of his confidence; but one
can't judge such a man as he was. Among the ordi-
nary affairs of life he had relied on me for every de-
tail. Now he was independent of me. Independent! I
doubt if he remembered my existence at times. Even
in his blackest moods of depression he was sufficient
unto himself. It was strange. . . . How he did
rage the day the chemicals from Washington went
wrong! I was washing my shirt in the hot water
spring when he came bolting out of the laboratory
and keeled me over. I came out pretty indignant.
Apologise? Not at all. He just sputtered. His near-
est approach to coherence seemed to indicate a desire
that I should go back to Washington at once and de-
stroy a perfectly reputable firm of chemists. Finally
he calmed down and took it out in entering it in his
daily record. He was quite proud of that daily record
and remembered to write in it on an average of once a
week.
“Then the chest went wrong. Whether it had
rusted a bit, or whether the chemicals had got in their
work on the hinges, I don't know; but one day the
Professor, of his own initiative, recognised my exist-
ence by lugging his box out in the open and asking
me to fix it. Previously he had emptied it. It was


276 THE MYSTERY
posed to divide into departments of activity. One
manifestation should be light, a light that would il-
luminate the world. Another was to make motive
power so cheap that the work of the world could be
done in an hour out of the day. Some idea he had of
healing properties. Yes; he was to cure mankind. Or
kill, kill as no man had ever killed, did he choose. The
armies and navies of the powers would be at his mercy.
Magnetism was to be his slave. Aérial navigation,
transmutation of metals, the screening of gravity—
does this sound like delirium? Sometimes I think it
Was.
“That night he turned over to me the key of the
large chest and his ledger. The latter he bade me read.
It was a complete jumble. You have seen it. . . .
We were up a good part of the night with our pet
volcano. It was suffering from internal disturbances.
“So, the doctor would say indulgently, when a
particularly active rock came bounding down our way.
‘Little play-antics-to-exhibit now that the work iss
finished.”
“In the morning he insisted on my leaving him
alone and going down to give the orders. I took the
ledger, intending to send it aboard. It saved my life
possibly: Solomon's bullet deflected slightly, I think,
in passing through the heavy paper. Slade has told
you about my flight. I ought to have gone straight
up the arroyo. . . . Yet I could hardly have
made it. . . . I did not see him again, the doctor.
My last glimpse . . . the old man—I remember
now how the grey had spread through his beard—
he was growing old—it had been ageing labour. He


X
THE DOOM
“Nothing remained but to search for his body. I was
sure they had killed him and taken the chest. I had
little expectation of finding him, dead or alive. None
after I saw the stream of lava pouring into the sea.
One saves his own life by instinct, I suppose. There
I was. I had to live. It did not matter much, but I
continued to do it by various shifts. That last day on
the headland the fumes nearly got me. You may
have noted the rather excited scrawl in the back of
the ledger? Yes, I thought I was gone that time. But
I got to the cave. It was low tide. Then the earth-
quake, and I was walled in. . . . Mr. Barnett's
very accurate explosives—Slade's insistence—your
risking your lives as you did, mites on the crust
of a red-hot cheese—I hope you know how I feel
about it all. One can’t thank a man properly for the
life
“Oh, the pirates. Necessarily it must be a matter
of theory, but I think we have it right. Slade and I
built it up. For what it's worth, here it is. Let me
see: you sighted the glow on the night of the 2d.
Next day came the deserted ship. It must have puz-
zled you outrageously.”
“It did,” said Captain Parkinson, drily.
278


THE DOOM 279
“Not an easy problem, even with all the data at
hand. You, of course, had none. On Slade's showing,
Handy Solomon and his worthy associates thought
they had a chest full of riches when they got the
doctor's treasure; believed they owned the machinery
for making diamonds or gold or what-not of ready-to-
hand wealth. It's fair to assume a certain eagerness
on their part. Disturbed weather keeps them busy un-
til they're well out from the island. Then to the chest.
Opening it isn't so easy: I had the key, you know.”
He brought a curious and delicately wrought skeleton
from his pocket. “Tipped with platinum,” he ob-
served. “Rather a gem of a key, I think. You see,
there must have been some action, even through the
keyhole, or he wouldn't have used a metal of this kind.
But the crew was rich in certain qualities, it seems,
which I failed, stupidly, to recognise in my acquain-
tance with them. Both Pulz and Perdosa appear to
have been handy men where locks were concerned.
First Pulz sneaks down and has his turn at the chest.
He gets it open. Small profit for him in that: the next
we know of him he is scandalising Handy Solomon by
having a fit on the deck.”
“That is what I couldn't figure out to save my
life,” said Slade eagerly.
“If you recollect, I told you of the Professor's
plunge in the cold spring, in a sort of paroxysm, one
day,” said Darrow. “That was the physiological ac-
tion of the celestium. At other times, I have seen him
come out and deliberately roll in the creek, head un-
der. Once he explained that the medium he worked in
caused a kind of uncontrollable longing for water;


28O THE MYSTERY
something having none of the qualities of burning
or thirst, but an irresistible temporary mania. It wor-
ried him a good deal; he didn't understand it. That,
then, was what ailed Pulz. When he opened the chest
there was, as I surmise, a trifling quantity of this stuff
lying in the inner lid. It wasn't the celestium itself,
as I imagine, but a sort of by-product with the
physiological and radiant effects of the real thing, and
it had been set there on guard, a discouragement to
the spirit of investigation, as it were. So, when the
top was lifted, our little guardian gets in its work,
producing the light phenomenon that so puzzled
Slade, and inspiring Pulz with a passion for the roll-
ing wave, which is only interrupted by Handy Solo-
mon's tackling him. As he fled he must have pulled
down the cover.”
“He did,” said Slade. “I heard the clang. But I
saw the radiance on the clouds. And the whole thick-
ness of a solid oak deck was in between the sky and
the chest.”
“Oh, a little thing like an oak deck wouldn't in-
terrupt the kind of rays the doctor used. He had
his own method of screening, you understand. How-
ever, this inconsiderable guardian affair must have
used itself up, which true celestium wouldn't have
done. So when Perdosa sets his genius for lock-pick-
ing to the task, the inner box, full of the genuine ar-
ticle, has no warning sign-post, so to speak. Every-
thing's peaceful until they raise the compound-filled
hollow layer of the inner cover, which serves to inter-
rupt the action. Then comes the general exit and the
superior fireworks.”


282 THE MYSTERY
only one who had time even to grab a life preserver
before the impulse toward water became irresistible.
There was no element of fright, you understand: no
desertion of their post. They were dragged as by the
sweep of a tornado.” Darrow spoke direct to Captain
Parkinson. “If there is any feeling among you other
than sorrow for their death, it is unjust and un-
worthy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Darrow,” returned the captain.
quietly.
“We found the chest closed again when the empty
ship came back,” observed Barnett.
“Being masterless, the schooner began to yaw,”
continued Darrow. “The first time she came about
would have heeled her enough to shut the chest. Now
came the turn of your other men.”
“Ives and McGuire,” said the Captain, as Darrow
paused.
“The glow came again that night, and the next
day we picked up Slade,” said Barnett.
“You know what the glow meant for your com-
panions,” said Darrow.
“But the ship. The Laughing Lass, man. She's
vanished. No one has seen her since.”
“You are wrong there,” said Darrow. “I have
seen her.”
In a common impulse the little circle leaned to
him. -
“Yes, I have seen her. I wish I had not. Let me
bring my story back to the cave on the island. After
the volcanic gases had driven me to the refuge, I sat
near the mouth of the cave looking out into the dark-


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