CHAPTER V
THE GAME BEGINS
For all his loquacity, his gamesomeness of temper, Pratt was not withouta modicum of discretion. Next morning, when they had taken their swimand were preparing breakfast, he did not revive the subject of spooks,or make any allusion to Armstrong's ill-humour. Armstrong, for hispart, always at his best in the freshness of the early hours, had thrownoff the oppression of the night, and appeared his cheerful, vigorous,rather silent self.
"You fellows," said Warrender, as they devoured cold sausages and astale loaf, "after I've overhauled the engine, I think of pulling upstream in the dinghy and getting some new bread at the village----"
"Rolls, if you can," Pratt interpolated.
"And some butter and cheese, etcetera. Now we're on this island, we mayas well explore it. You can do that while I'm away."
"And hand you a neatly written report of our discoveries. All right,Mr. President."
"I shan't be gone more than about a couple of hours."
"Unless you get another tinkering job. By the way, why not call at oldCrawshay's, and ask if she got home safe? I think that would be a veryproper thing to do, and the old buffer would appreciate it. Good forevil, you know; coals of fire; turning the other cheek, and all that."
"You can turn your own cheek, Percy. You've got enough of it."
"Do you allude to my facial rotundity, which is Nature's gift, or to myurbanity of manner, my----"
"Dry up, man. It's too early in the morning for fireworks. So long."
Pratt gave a further proof of his tact when he started with Armstrong ontheir tour of exploration. Instead of striking southward, in thedirection of the ruins, he set off to the north-west. "The island's sosmall," he reflected, "that we are bound to work round to that cottage,and then----"
Daylight showed the undergrowth dense indeed, but not so impenetrable asit had seemed overnight. At the cost of a few scratches from bramblebushes laden with ripening blackberries, they pushed their way throughto the western shore, overlooking the broader channel and the right bankof the river; then they turned south, zigzagging to find the easiestroute.
Hitherto, except for the whirr of a bird, or the scurry of some smallanimal, they had neither seen nor heard anything betokening that theisland had any other visitors than themselves. But not long after theirchange of course they came to a spot where the grass had recently beentrampled.
"Oh, poor Robinson Crusoe!" hummed Pratt.
"Here's a wire snare," exclaimed Armstrong. "Some one's rabbiting."
"Very likely Siren Rush," Pratt returned. "It wasn't original malicethat prompted him to warn us against the island, but a sophisticatedfear of competition. I dare say he made tons of money out of rabbits inthe lean time during the war; skinned them and the shop people too!"
Armstrong let this pass; the face he had seen for a brief momentovernight had not recalled the leering countenance of the poacher.
They went on, skirted the southern shore, and turned northward.Presently Pratt caught a glimpse through the trees of the roof of theruined cottage. He did not mention it, but struck to the right towardsthe narrow channel, and led the way as close as possible to its brink.A minute or two later, in a shallow indentation of the shore, theydiscovered the remains of a small pier or landing-stage. The planks hadrotted or broken away; only a few moss-covered piles andcross-stretchers were left, still, after what must have been many years,defying the destructive energy of the stream that swirled around them.Through the channel, at this spot contracted to half its average width,the swollen river poured with the force of a millrace.
"The old chap kept a boat, evidently," said Pratt. "There ought to be apath from here to the house, but there's no sign of one. Let's strikeinland, and see if we can trace it somewhere."
They pushed through the thicket, here as closely tangled as anywhereelse, and emerging suddenly into the wilderness garden, in whichperennial plants were stifling one another, they saw the ruined cottagebefore them.
"Jolly picturesque," said Pratt, halting. "I dare say distance lendsenchantment to the view; no doubt it's a pretty dismal place inside; butthe sunlight makes a gorgeous effect with those old walls. The creepersrunning over warm red bricks--it's a harmony of colour, old man. I'dlike to make a sketch of it."
"Houses were built to be lived in," grunted Armstrong.
Pratt made no reply at once. For the moment the schoolboy was sunk inthe artist. He let his eyes linger on the spectacle--the broken roof;the one gable that here survived; the creepers straggling round it andover the glassless window of the room beneath; the heap of shatteredbrick-work at the base, half-clothed with greenery and gay with flowers.
"Of course, it looked very different by moonlight," he said at last."You'd lose all the colour. Still----"
"I saw it from the other side," said Armstrong. "That won't please youso much--it's not so much ruined."
"Well, let's go and see."
He was leading through the riot of untended flowers, Armstrong closebehind him, when he stopped suddenly, and in a tone of voiceinvoluntarily subdued, asked--
"Did you see that?"
"'DID YOU SEE THAT?'"]
"What?" said Armstrong, starting in spite of himself.
"A figure--something--I don't know; at the back of the room."
The sunlight, slanting from the south-east, shone full upon the cottage,but left the back of one of the rooms on the ground floor shadowed bythe screen of creepers falling over the gaping window.
"Well, suppose there was, why the mysterious whisper?" said Armstrong,his own doubts and remembered tremors disposing him to ridicule Pratt'sexcitement. "Why shouldn't there be some one there? _We_ are here--whynot others?"
"Yes, but--well, I didn't expect it. Perhaps you did."
"It may have been only the shadow of the creeper on the wall."
"It may have been your grandmother! Let's get into the place and have alook round. The window's too high to climb; is the door open?"
"There's no door."
"So much the better. Come on."
They hastened to the front, and through the doorway into the hall. Thehouse was silent as a tomb. On either side opened a doorless room.They entered the one on the right--that in which Pratt had believed hesaw a moving figure. It was pervaded by a subdued greenish sunlight,becoming misty by reason of the dust their footsteps had stirred up. Itheld neither person nor thing. They crossed to the opposite room,which, being out of the sunshine, was in deep gloom. This, too, wasempty. Passing the staircase they arrived at the back premises, astone-flagged kitchen and scullery. Both were bare; even the grate hadbeen removed.
"Now for upstairs," said Pratt. "They've made a clean sweep down here."
They mounted the staircase, at first treading carefully, then withconfident steps as they found that the creaking stairs were sound.There were four rooms on the upper storey, two of them exposed to thesky. Of these the floors were thick with blown leaves, twigs, birds'feathers, fragments of tiles and bricks, broken rafters, and the debrisof the ceiling. The other two, roofed and whole, were as bare as therooms below. Through the empty casement of one they caught sight of thetower in the grounds of Mr. Ambrose Pratt's house, and the upper windowsand roof of the house itself. Pratt's appreciative eye was instantlyseized by the prospect--the foreground of low thicket; the glisteningstream; the noble trees beyond, springing out of a waving sea ofsun-dappled bracken; the gentle slope on whose summit stood thebuildings, and in the far background the rolling expanse of purplemoorland. For the moment he forgot the shadowy figure he had seen, andlingered as if unwilling to miss one detail of the enchanting landscape.
"There's no one here," said Armstrong, matter-of-fact as ever.
"I dare say it was an illusion. Look how the sunlight catches theripples, Jack. And did you see that kingfisher flash between thebanks?"
"I'll go and have another look downstairs
," Armstrong responded. "I'llgive you a call if I find anything."
He felt, as he went down, that perhaps he would have done better to becandid with Pratt. Why make any bones about an incident capable, nodoubt, of a simple explanation? The tramp, if tramp he was, had, ofcourse, the objection of his kind to being found on enclosed premises,even though they were a ruin. Yet it was strange that he had left notracks--had he not? Armstrong was suddenly aware of something that hadhitherto escaped him. There was no dust, no litter on the stairs.Singular phenomenon in a long-deserted house! And surely the floor ofthe room in which Pratt now stood, unlike the other floors, was clear.It, and the staircase, must have been swept. Why? Not for tidiness--notramp would bother about that. For what, then? Secrecy? Dusty floorswould leave tell-tale marks--and with the thought Armstrong hurried downto the room in which the figure had been seen, and examined the floor.Yes! besides the footprints of himself and Pratt between door andwindow, there were others along the wall at the back of the room. Thefellow must have slipped out with the speed of a hare. Armstrongperceived at once the clumsiness of the attempt at secrecy, for the veryfact that some of the floors were swept gave the game away. At the sametime, he was puzzled to account for the man's motive. The island wasdeserted; it was no longer the scene of picnics; the villagers avoidedit; why then should a casual visitor--for there was no evidence ofcontinuous occupation--be at the pains even to try to cover up hismovements? The strange oppression of the previous night returned uponArmstrong's mind, and he roamed about the lower floor in a mood ofcurious expectancy.
He came once more to the kitchen, and noticed that between it and thescullery was a closed door--the only door that remained in the house.Instinctively bracing himself, he turned the handle; the door opened,disclosing a dark hole and a downward flight of stone steps. He wentdown into the darkness, at the foot of the steps struck a match, andfound himself in a low, spacious cellar, empty except for a strewing ofcoal dust. As the match flickered out he caught sight of somethingwhite in a corner. Striking another, he crossed the floor and picked upa jagged scrap of paper, slightly brown along one edge. At the samemoment he observed a little heap of paper ashes.
Throwing down the match he trod upon it, and turned, intending toexamine the paper in the daylight above. Pratt's voice shouting, and asound of some one leaping down the staircase to the hall, caused him tospring up the steps two at a time.
"What's up?" he shouted back, unable to distinguish Pratt's words.
He reached the hall just in time to see Pratt dash through the doorwayand sprint at headlong pace towards the river. Stuffing the paper intohis pocket, Armstrong doubled after him. Pratt was already plunging intothe thicket, and, when Armstrong came within sight of the channel, theother had flung off his cap and blazer, and was diving into the stream.
"THE OTHER WAS DIVING INTO THE STREAM."]
"What mad trick----"
He cut short his exclamation, for his long strides had brought him tothe pier, and he saw the cause of Pratt's desperate haste. Themotor-boat, broadside to the stream, was drifting down the channel.Already it was some thirty yards beyond the spot where Pratt had takenthe water, and Pratt was swimming after it with the ease of a water-rat.
Feeling that there was no reason why himself should get soaked too,Armstrong forged his way through the vegetation at the brink of thechannel, but made slow progress compared with the swimmer. Pratt wasrapidly overhauling the boat. Watching him, instead of his own steps,Armstrong tripped over a creeper, and fell headlong. By the time he hadpicked himself up, Pratt had disappeared. Armstrong's momentary anxietywas banished by the sight of the boat moving slowly in towards the shoreof the island.
"Good man," he shouted. "You headed it off splendidly."
Pushing and swimming, Pratt was evidently making strenuous efforts todrive the boat into the bank before the current swept it past theisland. If he failed, Armstrong saw that he would have to change histactics and run it ashore on the left bank--his uncle's property. Itwould then be necessary for Armstrong to swim across, for Pratt hadnever taken the trouble to learn the working of the engine.
"Stick it, old man," he called.
In a few moments more Pratt contrived to edge the boat among the lowbranches of an overhanging tree. Its downward progress thus partlychecked, he was able to exert more force in the shoreward direction.When Armstrong, after a rough scramble, arrived at the spot, he had justrammed the boat's nose securely into a tangled network of branches, andwas clambering, a dripping, bedraggled object, up the bank.
A prolonged "Coo-ee!" sounded from far up the river.
"There's old Warrender, shrieking like a bereaved hen," said Pratt,shaking himself. "And it's all through his not tying the thing upproperly! Armstrong, water is very wet."
"I say, did you ever know Warrender not tie it up properly?"
"How else would it break away?"
"You didn't see it break away?"
"No, you can't see our camping-place from the ruins. It was a good waydown before I caught sight of it."
"Well, they've kicked off; the game's begun!"
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Wring yourself dry, and we'll talk."