CHAPTER XXVI PASSING OF THE _PILGRIM_
Florence had scarcely concealed the newly discovered treasure before sheknew, from the shape of the oncoming boat, that it was owned by a friend.In truth it was Swen with his stout little fishing boat.
"Hello!" he shouted as the fire, flaring up, revealed her face. "Ithought you were at home on the wreck. I saw a light there. I was sure ofit. Had to come in there for some nets I left on the shore, then I wasgoing over to see how you were getting on and to warn you."
"No," said Florence, "there can't be a light on the wreck. No one isthere."
"Yes." Swen's tone carried conviction. "There _was_ a light."
"Then," said Florence, "Jeanne has returned, or--or someone else isthere.
"Greta!" she called. "Greta! Wake up! Someone is on the wreck. We must gothere.
"We'll leave the tent as it is," she said five minutes later as Greta,hastily dressed and half asleep, stepped out in the air of night.
"I'll take you over," Swen said. "The sea is roughing up a bit."
"Swen," Florence said as they went pop-popping through the narrows, "yousaid you meant to warn us. Warn us of what?"
"Probably nothing." Swen seemed ill at ease. "There'll be a storm--just astorm, that's all. Two waves, like tidal waves, came near swamping myboat. It's a sign, the fishermen say. But then, we are superstitious.That's it, I guess."
For all that, when he had landed the girls at the wreck and had made sureJeanne, not some stranger, was there, he turned his boat about andsteamed away at full speed.
"He came to warn us," Florence whispered to herself. Then a matter ofoverwhelming interest drove all other thoughts from her mind. She turnedto the others.
"Oh, girls!" she exclaimed. "Just think! I found a barrel, a smallbarrel!"
"On the camping ground?" Jeanne leaped to her feet.
"Nowhere else."
"And--and what was in it?" Greta was fairly dancing with excitement.
"There wasn't time to see. It had copper hoops, that's all I know. Swencame and then--then we were away. I--I covered it up. It won't run away,"she laughed as Jeanne's face sobered. "It will keep for another day."
"But let us go now, tonight!" Jeanne was quite beside herself withexcitement.
"No, not tonight," Florence said with an air of decision. "Tomorrow."
As things turned out it was to be tonight; but this she could not know.
Some three hours later Florence stirred uneasily in her sleep. It was avery dark night. The cabin on the wrecked _Pilgrim_ in which she sleptwas a well of darkness. Yet there were times when, for one brief second,every detail of the cabin showed out in bold relief. The over-ornamentedwalls, done in white and gold, the narrow shelf where a small clockticked loudly, the rough table with two short legs and two long ones tomake up for the slanting deck; all these could be seen plainly. So toocould the blond hair of her bunk-mate, Jeanne, sleeping beside her in theberth where for forty years only ship captains had slept.
The large girl stirred once again. One brown arm stole from beneath thecovers. The hand seemed to reach for some object hung in space.
"A barrel of gold." Her lips said the words aloud. The sound of her ownvoice roused her to a state of half-awakeness. "A barrel of gold," sherepeated.
For some little time she lay there half asleep, half awake.
Her sleep had been disturbed by certain sounds, distant rumbles, rushesand swishes of water; also by those vivid flashes of light.
A moment more and she sat bolt upright in bed.
"Going to storm," she mumbled to herself, without being greatlydisturbed. It had stormed before. Three times great, dark clouds had comedriving in across black waters to engulf them. Each time the wrecked_Pilgrim_, with her three last passengers on board, had weathered thestorm in as stalwart a manner as any ship afloat on the sea.
For some time she sat there listening, watching. As the flashes of lightgrew brighter, more frequent, and the rumbles broke into short, sharpcrashes, she crept silently from beneath the covers to draw on a heavymackinaw, then step out upon the deck.
At once a cold chill seized her. A flash of lightning had revealed such acloud as she had not seen in all her life. Inky black, straight up anddown like a gigantic pillar, it appeared to glide across waters thatreflected its ink-blackness and to grow--grow--grow as it advanced.
Stepping quickly back into the cabin, she shook her companions intowakefulness.
"Jeanne! Greta! Wake up! It is going to storm. Something ratherterrible!"
Instantly she went about the business of lighting a flickering candle.Then she drew on knickers and high boots.
Her mind was in a whirl, yet she managed to maintain a certain degree ofinner calm.
What was to be done? Here they were, three girls on board a wreck with astorm that promised unparalleled violence, sweeping down upon them.
There was but one way of leaving the wreck. They must go, if at all, intheir sixteen-foot rowboat--a mere nutshell in such a time as this. Andyet--
"Are--are you dressed?" she asked shakily.
"Yes, all dressed." Both Jeanne and Greta appeared to be quite calm.
"All right. Throw what things you can into your suitcase, then come on."She set the example by tossing garments into a corner, then cramming theminto her bag.
Having thrust a flashlight into her pocket, she led the way out into thenight.
She was met by a gust of wind that all but blew her off the deck.
"Look--look out!" she warned. "Hang on tight! Over here! The boat's overhere."
To leave the ship at such a time as this seemed madness. Yet there hadcome to her a sense of guidance. In times of great crises she had morethan once experienced just this. Now she moved like one directed by amaster hand.
The water appeared blacker now. The flashes of light were vivid beyondbelief. The swells were coming in. Great sweeping swells, they lifted thelittle rowboat, tied on the lee side of the wreck, to a prodigiousheight, then dropped it into a well of darkness.
"Drop--drop your bag into the boat when it comes--comes up." Wind seemedto fill the girl's ears. It caught her words and cast them away.
Down went the bags, and with them the boat.
One, two, three, up surged the boat again.
"Now! Over you go!" Seizing Greta, she fairly threw her into the boat.
Her heart sank with the boat. It rose with it as well. Jeanne was next. Amoment more and she was over the side, clinging to the seat, cutting therope, seizing the oars, then shoving off, all in one wild breath.
"We--we'll keep--keep our stern to the storm!" she screamed. "Head intoward Duncan's Bay. Some sandy beaches there. Mi--might land. Mi--" Thewind blew the words from her throat.
The cove that forms an approach to Duncan's Bay is shaped like the top ofan hourglass. At the seaward side it is a mile wide. At the land side itis tapered to a narrow channel. By great good fortune the wind wasshoreward and slightly toward the entrance of Duncan's Bay. The biggirl's hope was to work her boat back into this cove where, more and moreprotected by the reef, she might find calmer water.
To ride a great storm in a rowboat is always thrilling, but not certainlytoo dangerous. If the waves are long and high, you may ride to theircrest, glide down the other side, then rise again.
Pulling with all her might, the stout young oarsman held her boat's sternto the gale. They rose. They fell. They rose again, this time in themidst of hissing foam.
"This--this is going to be worth telling," she shrieked. "If we live totell it.
"But I don't think we will," she whispered to herself.
Now and again sharp flashes of lightning revealed their position. Theywere working back into the cove. But each moment the storm grew wilder.The wind fairly shrieked in their ears. Their hair flew out wildly. Somesea bird, seeking shelter, shot past them at a wild speed.
Clinging to one another, Jeanne and Greta sat in the stern. As Gretaw
atched that onrushing pillar of cloud, she was all but overcome by theconviction that never again would they romp upon the deck of theill-fated ship.
"And we have known such joy there!" she told herself with a low sob. "Ourswimming pool, long, lazy hours in the sun, songs at sunset. When shallwe know such joys again?"
Then a strange question crept into her mind. What was it the men on theblack schooner had sought on the wreck?
"Whatever it was," she whispered, "they will never find it now."
And yet, could she be sure of this? Moments, not hours, would tell.
Then the storm broke. A vivid flash revealed the dark column. It appearedto hover over the _Pilgrim_.
"Oh!" Greta covered her eyes.
Florence still stared straight away and continued to row. This was notime for flinching. She saw the battered wreck rise high in air. Afterthat came moments of intense darkness, such darkness as seems solid, likea black wall at the dead of night.
When at last the blackness lifted, a flash of light showed the pillar ofcloud far away and on the reef--not a sign of the ill-fated ship, the_Pilgrim_.
"Look!" Jeanne cried, pointing away in the other direction. "Look overthere! A light!"
There could be no mistaking it. Off toward the entrance to Duncan'sHarbor was a swaying light.
"It's a boat. Some sort of a boat. We--we'll try to head that way.
"The ship," Florence said soberly a moment later, "is gone! It was likean arm, that cloud, a great black arm reaching down and picking it up. Isaw it. A waterspout, I suppose they'd call it. We--we were saved byGod's guidance."
A short time later they found themselves approaching a small power boatthat, tossing about over the waves, moved cautiously nearer.
To their great joy they found this to be Swen, and with him was VincentStearns.
"I didn't want to leave you," Swen said a trifle shamefacedly, once hehad them on board and well within the narrows. "I was afraid. But when Isaw that cloud, when I knew what was sure to happen, I got Vincent tocome with me. Now here we are, and, thank God, you are safe!"
"Listen!" It was Greta who held up a hand for silence as they passed outof the narrows. Music had reached her ears, wild, delirious music, suchas one may produce only at the end of a terrific storm.
The storm was over--there could be no questioning that. The moon was outin all its glory. And there, his gray hair glistening in that light,standing before their tent on the camping ground, was the Phantom, PercyO'Hara. He was playing as perhaps he had never played before.
"Now," Greta whispered, "I have found him. I shall never lose him again."
Florence, you might say, was strange. At this dramatic moment she wasthinking to herself, "A barrel, a copper-bound barrel. A barrel of gold."