Pocket Island
C >>
Charles Clark Munn >> Pocket Island
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11
"Some day I will bring her here," he thought, and then he fell asleep
and dreamed he heard the ominous sound of some monster bellowing in
anger.
CHAPTER XXIII.
BIG SPOON ISLAND.
The next morning our young friends prepared for a three days' trip on
their little sloop. For a week they had discussed it and had carefully
considered when it was best to go.
"I want to wait till the moon fulls," Frank had said, "for then the
weather will be better, and as our friend Manson is in a romantic frame
of mind, he will enjoy it all the more."
Everything likely to be needed was put on board their boat; provisions,
water, extra clothing, guns, fishing gear, and also, it must be said, a
bottle of good old whiskey, for on such a trip it might be even more
needful than food.
"We will take along the banjo," Obed said, for he was quite an expert
with that cheerful instrument, "and evenings we can have some darkey
songs."
"What is the program?" asked Manson, when everything was stowed, the
sails set, and with Frank at the helm they were gliding out of the
little island harbor. "Where are we going?"
"Well," replied Frank, "I think we will run to Big Spoon Island first
and try for mackerel. There is a nice little harbor there if it comes on
to blow, and two miles out are some good cod grounds. I suppose you
would like to visit Pocket Island?"
"I would like to just call there," said Manson, "for you have excited my
curiosity. I have a weakness for ghost hunting, you told me once, and
now you must gratify it, you see."
There is, perhaps, no pleasanter way for three or four young men to
spend a day or two than to have a tidy little yacht all to themselves,
and sail her away off among the Maine coast islands, with a summer day
breeze and clear skies to cheer them.
To feel themselves just lifted over the broad ground swells, ruffled by
a light wind that smells sweet and crisp; to watch some distant green
island gradually coming nearer, or the seagulls lighting on the water
just ahead, or the white clouds in the blue sky, and with no sense of
danger, but only the care-free buoyancy of youth and good spirits, is to
many the very acme of enjoyment. At least, it was to Manson, to whom
such an experience was entirely new. When they reached Spoon Island he
went into raptures over it, for it was a rarity, even among the many
beautiful ones he had visited. As its name implied, it was shaped like a
spoon, about five hundreds rods long and formed of white sand, with a
growth of green sedge grass all over it. On the broadest part was a
cluster of spruce forming a little thicket and beside this, and entered
by a narrow inlet the tiniest bit of a harbor, just large enough to
shelter a small sloop. The seagulls had also discovered its beauty, for
thousands hovered about it, and the small harbor was alive with them.
The island was a favorite nesting-place for them as well, and their
shrill cries at being disturbed almost obliterated the voice of the
ocean.
"We will anchor under the lee," said Frank, as they drew near, "and try
for mackerel, and then run into the harbor, make everything snug, and
stay here to-night, or"--with a droll look at Manson--"perhaps you would
prefer to go to Pocket Island and have ghosts for company!"
"This is good enough for me," replied Manson, "and I guess the gulls
will be the more cheerful companions!"
When the sloop was at anchor, sails furled, and they were all waiting
for mackerel bites, he said: "What is there so mysterious about this
Pocket Island, and why are people afraid to go there? Tell me all about
it! You have got me so worked up over it, I dreamed I heard a bull
bellowing last night."
"Well," replied Frank, "it's like all ghost stories and spook spots in
the world; all imagination, I guess. I do not take any stock in them,
and dad laughs at the entire batch. The only reality about it is that
the island itself is the most forbidding pile of rock, covered with the
worst tangle of scrub spruce you ever saw, and the shore is full of deep
fissures and cracks. The one mysterious fact is, that strange bellowing
noise that you can't locate anywhere. You may clamber all over the
island and all around the shores and it seems to be just ahead of you,
or just behind; so far as the stories go, well; the queer harbor inside
is said to have been a smuggler's hiding-place years ago, and there are
all kinds of yarns connected with the island, from bloody murders down
to strange sea monsters seen crawling over the rocks. It has a bad name
and is seldom visited; for one reason, I think, because it's impossible
to land there except in a small boat, and then only when the sea is
smooth. The bellowing noise, I believe, is made by the waves entering
some cavern below high-water mark. There is also an odd sort of a story
linked with it about a little Jew who was known to be a smuggler and who
played a sharp trick on a few people ten or twelve years ago. I do not
think he had any connection with the island, however, although some say
he had. I fancy it's because any ghost-haunted spot always attracts all
the mysterious stories told in its neighborhood."
All this was interesting to Manson, and not only added a charm to all
the islands he had visited, but made him especially anxious to explore
this one.
"Do not laugh at me," he said when Frank had finished his recital, "for
expecting to see Indians paddling canoes among your islands when your
people down here believe all the ghost stories they do. My fancy is only
the shadow of what was certainly a reality not so very long ago; while
your stories are spook yarns of the most hobgoblin shape. I want to go
to Pocket Island, however," he added a little later, reflectively, "and
hear that mysterious bellowing anyhow."
That evening when the sloop was riding quietly at anchor in the little
Spoon Island harbor and the full moon just rising, round and red, out of
the sea, Obed brought his banjo on deck and away out there, miles from
any other island, and mingling with the murmur of the ocean's voice
about this one, there came the strains of old, familiar plantation songs
sung by those three young friends, at peace with all the world and happy
in their seclusion. The gulls had gone to rest, the sea almost so, for
the ground swell only washed the island's sandy shore and idly rocked
the sloop as she rode secure at anchor. The moon and the man in it both
smiled, and when Manson and Frank, wearied of singing, lived over once
more the battle scenes they had passed through, feeling that never again
could they or would they be called upon to face such danger, it may be
said that they were as near contentment as often comes in life. And if
the droll look of the man in the moon brought back to one a certain
night years before, when, as a bashful boy, he could hardly find courage
to kiss a blue-eyed girl whom he had walked home with, and who had since
become very dear to him, it is not surprising. Neither was it at all
strange, if, when looking seaward, that night, he could see far away in
the broadening path of silvery sheen, a small, dark island; that he
should feel it held a mystery; and that some occult influence had linked
that uncanny place, in some way not as yet understood, with his own past
and future; that it was some link, some tangible spot, some queer
connection between dreams and hopes that might develop into real facts.
While not what is usually called superstitious, Manson could not
understand why he had from the very first mention of this island, felt
an unaccountable influence attracting him toward it. What it was he
could not tell, and yet every hour seemed to bind this influence all the
closer, and as it were, cast its spell over him. When they all turned in
for the night, he could not go to sleep. His thoughts would go back to
that horrible night on the battlefield when he, in his agonies, fancied
himself wading down a cool, clear brook; then to the strange influence
Liddy had said she felt when, in keeping a foolish promise, she had all
alone paid a visit to Blue Hill, and now this weird spell of enchantment
that was growing upon him. Was there some mysterious plot in his life
that was being unfolded step by step, and one that was far beyond his
comprehension? Was his chance meeting with this friend, Frank, on the
picket line, a part of it? Was the imperative inclination to always take
Liddy away to the top of Blue Hill when he wished to speak to her very
soul, also due to some incomprehensible power that was shaping and
bending their lives together? That they were, and must be as one in the
future--as long as life lasted, he believed as firmly as he believed he
lived, and yet beyond that belief there was--and here he met an
impassable barrier and could go no further, only realizing that he was
being led by an unseen force. Was it a power that was pushing him toward
Pocket Island? He could not tell.
CHAPTER XXIV.
POCKET ISLAND.
When the sun rose red and sullen the next morning, and our three friends
had breakfasted and were hoisting sail on the sloop, Frank said:
"If the wind holds up as it did yesterday, we can run to Pocket Island
and back easily. There is no chance to land"--addressing Manson--"or
even to go within half a mile of it in the sloop; but I can lay her to
while Obed rows ashore in the dory. One hour there will give you all the
ghost hunting you want, I guess. The only thing I don't like is the way
the sun looked this morning. Old Sol appeared mad!"
When they were under way and the sloop was heeling over before the fresh
morning breeze, Manson said: "I do not want you to take any chances on
my account, Frank. We can go there some other day."
"Oh, I'll take no risks," replied his friend. "It's not the wind that
worries me, for we can reef close, and the sloop takes big seas like a
duck. It's these beastly coast fogs that come in without warning and
absolutely bury you. If the wind shifts, then your compass is the only
salvation."
Manson was silent, for he was only a passenger, and as his friend's
guest, he felt it unwise to offer any suggestion.
"We are all right," continued Frank, scanning the horizon, "so long as
the wind holds this way, for we can beat up to the island by noon, and
have a fair run back."
Manson was in no mood for talking, for the strange strain of reflections
that had come to him the night before still oppressed him and he
silently watched the little island ahead growing nearer. When they were
within a mile of it, the wind began to drop away and by the time they
could see the many rocks that surrounded it, rising like black fangs out
of the white froth of the wave wash, it died out entirely.
Frank looked anxious. "You had better," he said, addressing Manson, "eat
a bite while Obed and I furl the jib and lower the tops'l. He can then
row you ashore in the dory. I do not like the way the wind acts."
When Manson started for the island in the small boat he was almost
ready to give his visit up, for the little look of anxiety on his
friend's face, coupled with the ugly-looking reefs between which Obed
was rowing him, and the forbidding shores of the island itself, made a
strange feeling of fear creep over him. Beneath it, however, was that
queer influence that, like a beckoning spirit, seemed to lure him
forward in spite of himself.
"I'll land you on the lee side," said Obed, as he pulled into a narrow
opening between two cliffs, "and wait here for you while you go across
to the harbor on the other side. It will save time, and I can keep an
eye on the sloop."
That Obed felt it necessary to watch the sloop was not reassuring to
Manson, but, bidding him good-bye cheerfully, he leaped ashore. When he
had made his way up over the confusion of rocks that confronted him, and
out of sight of the dory, he stopped and listened. It was a silent and
desolate spot, but, true to his expectations, as he passed there he
caught the sound of a low, moaning bellow that rose and fell, almost
dying away, and seemed to come from the farther side of the island. He
looked and listened, and then, with a parting glance at the sloop half a
mile away, started over the island. He soon found he had been rightly
informed, for its surface was the worst tangle of rocks and scrub spruce
thick between them he ever saw or heard of. He crawled in a little way
and then retraced his steps and followed the shore, but even that was
almost impassable. He worked his way slowly along, until all at once,
when he had climbed a ledge, he found himself looking down into what
seemed like a sunken lake surrounded by a wall, with a narrow opening on
the seaward side, and so still that not a ripple disturbed its surface.
Cautiously he crawled down to the edge and glanced about! The spot
seemed to fascinate him, and as he gazed at the irregular cliff wall
shutting him in, he felt he had descended into a den infested by evil
spirits!
Then he started around the shore of this harbor, avoiding the
weed-covered rocks, for the tide was low, and as he was slowly moving
along, he came suddenly upon a keg caught between two rocks, and just
above high-water mark. Its staves were warped and gaping, and when he
stooped to lift it they fell apart and disclosed another keg inside.
This he found was heavy, and as he stood it on end he discovered it was
filled with some liquid. For a moment he was dazed by the discovery,
and then he turned it around till he came to a piece of metal midway
between the rusted hoops, and this he pried off with his knife and found
it covered a small bung. Trembling with excitement at this mysterious
find, he hunted for a pointed stone, and with it drove the bung in, when
to his intense surprise he was saluted by the well-known odor of rum!
For an instant his heart almost stopped beating, as there flashed
through his mind all the vague tales of this island having been a
smuggler's hiding-place long before, and then he looked quickly about
him. Naught was visible save the frowning rock walls and the still cove.
Then he stooped again and inserted a finger in the keg and smelled and
then tasted! Rum it was, and no mistake, and the best he had ever
sipped! But what a find! And what a place to find it in! He looked about
him again. Crusoe, when he came upon the footprints in the sand, was not
more surprised than Manson at this moment.
Unconscious of the lapse of time, or where he was, or how he came there,
he gazed upon that harmless keg as if it held some ghastly secret
instead of rum! Where did it come from? Who brought it there? Why had
it been concealed in an outer shell? What did it all mean, and was he
about to make some horrible discovery? Once more he looked about, and
then in an instant, he found himself staring at a dark opening beneath
an overhanging shelf of rock not two rods away! Breathless with
excitement now, and feeling himself yielding to some dread spell, he
almost sprang to the spot, and oblivious of weed-covered rocks and mud,
he went down on his hands and knees and peered in. It was a cave
opening, sure enough! Trembling still, and yet lured by a weird
fascination, he crawled in a short distance and then paused. The hole
looked larger inside, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom he
could see it sloped upward. He felt for a match, and lighting it tried
to peer further in. The match burned out and left him unable to see as
far as before. Then reason began to assert itself, and he turned and
crawled out, realizing the folly of trying to explore a cave with
lighted matches as an aid.
When once more he stood upright outside a strange thing had happened.
Not only had the tide crept up almost to the cave entrance, but the sun
was no longer visible, and as he looked up to the top of the rock wall
that environed him, a white pall of fog was slowly settling down and
hiding all things. He looked at his watch. He had been on the island
over four hours! With sudden fear he started around the way he had come,
and when he reached the keg of rum an inspiration almost, made him lift
and carry it to a place of safety, well above high-tide mark. Then he
retraced his steps to where he had left Obed, but the dory had gone and
no one was there, and to add to the situation, the fog had so shut the
island in that he could not see two rods over the water. He hallooed
again and again, but received no answer.
He was alone on Pocket Island with not a morsel to eat, not a blanket to
cover him, night coming on, and a fog so thick that he could not see a
rod ahead! Even all this did not for one moment obliterate that
mysterious keg or cave discovery from his mind, but he felt that he must
take steps at once to protect himself from coming night, and darkness,
and possible rain, for he knew that when the fog lifted, his friends
would return. The first thing was to build himself a shelter, and then a
fire. Here his army experience came in well, and he searched until he
found two rocks with a level space between, and laying sticks across
and cutting spruce boughs to pile over them and others to serve as a
bed, he soon made ready a place to at least crawl into when night came.
Hunger began to assert itself, but food was out of the question. That
keg of rum came to his mind as he worked, however, and when the rude
shelter was complete he searched the rocky shores for some large shell,
or anything that would hold a small portion of the liquor. He found a
cocoanut that the sea had kindly cast up among the rocks, and cutting
one end off with his pocket-knife, and digging out the interior, he once
more returned where he had left the mysterious keg.
Twilight was near and the dark cave entrance and frowning walls about
the little harbor seemed more ominous than ever. He made haste to fill
his rude cup with rum and return to his shelter. Then he gathered fuel,
for fire at least would be a little company, and a strange dread of
spending the coming night alone there on that haunted island was
creeping over him. He did not believe in ghosts, but when he thought of
the peculiar sequence of events, mingled with a slowly growing belief
that some mysterious power was leading him--he knew not whither--a
feeling that he was soon to face some ghastly experience, came like an
icy hand grasping his in the dark. He could not shake that feeling off,
and as he gathered driftwood, bits of dead spruce--anything that would
burn, and piled the fuel near his shelter--his dread increased. What
strange spell was it that had kept him four hours beside that
wall-enclosed harbor unconscious of the lapse of time? Why had he not
seen the fog coming until too late? And that keg and cave!--what did all
these mysteries mean? Then, searching further along the shore for
driftwood, he came suddenly upon a tangle of wreckage piled high among
the rocks. It would serve as fuel, and he began to drag large pieces to
his shelter. Three trips he made, and was just lifting the end of a
broken spar, when right at his feet, and half-buried in the sand, he saw
a white object. The night was fast approaching and he was in a hurry,
but some impulse made him stoop, and there in the gathering gloom he
saw--a grinning human skull!
CHAPTER XXV.
THE SMUGGLER'S CAVE.
Manson had faced death on the battlefield when comrades were falling
beside him; he had paced for hours on the picket-line in the darkness of
night, feeling that at any moment an enemy might fire at him from some
thicket or from behind some tree or rock; but amid all these dangers he
had not felt the nameless horror that came to him as he saw that hideous
skull grinning at him there in the tangle of wreckage just at dusk on
Pocket Island. It was like a hand reaching out from a grave, or a voice
calling to him from a tomb. Alone on that little, sea-grit isle,
trembling beneath the waves that beat upon it, and in the fast-gathering
darkness he stood for a moment spellbound. All the ghostly tales he had
been told of this spot came to him in an instant and with the force of
truth, and had he at that moment beheld some spectral figure rise from
among the black rocks he would not have been surprised. Then feeling
his strength leaving him, he turned and ran as fast as he could back to
where he had built the shelter. With trembling hands he managed to start
a fire and sat down beside it. It was a little comfort, but not enough
to drive away the dread that seemed to increase as the night grew
blacker. He dared not use his small stock of fuel except sparingly,
fearing it would not last till morning, and he should be left in total
darkness. Back of him was the impassable thicket, and in front the
rock-bound shore, and as he listened to the booming of the surges he
could see, just in the edge of the zone of light, those eyeless sockets
and that mocking grin ever hovering near. Then as the night wore on and
the wind increased, slowly rising and falling and rising again, each
time a little louder, came that ominous, bellowing sound. It was not
like that of any creature he had ever heard or dreamed of, but rather
the menace of some horrible monster unknown to earth or air. All the
stories of hideous shapes that dwelt beneath the ocean waves, and all
the old legends of the sea and its unknown denizens, came to him, and
ever mingling with these phantasms that seemed to be crawling all about
was that grinning skull.
Solitude and night on a lonely shore, far removed from human kind,
inevitably produces in the mind strange effects. All ordinary reasoning
is set at naught and common sense goes astray. The nearness of the
unknown and unapproachable ocean; the ever varying and menacing sounds
that issue from it; the leaping and curling billows that, like white and
black demons, seem trying to engulf the earth and make even the rocks
tremble--all have a weird and uncanny influence. In their presence the
imagination runs riot and the ghostly and supernatural usurp reason.
Spectral shapes crawl out of dark fissures and leap from rock to rock
and hideous sea monsters creep in the verge of shadows. To be alone on a
small island of evil repute and many miles out in the ocean, as Manson
was, was to have this weird influence more than doubled. At times, when
reason seemed trembling in the balance, he fancied himself hovering over
the battlefield where he had lain for hours suffering indescribable
agony; and looking at the ghastly faces of dead men in the moonlight! He
could see their white teeth showing in mocking grin and their glazed
eyes staring at him! Here and there were parts of bodies: a head in one
place, an arm and hand in another! Then he could see himself sitting
upon the ground amid thick bushes, and resting in his lap was a boy's
face, the eyes looking up into his in piteous appeal! How well he could
recall every moment of that half-hour of dumb anguish and the last fight
for life that dying boy had made! He could see the blood gush from his
lips at every breath drawn in desperate effort, and feel the tight clasp
of his hands and oh! the awful dread of coming death in his eyes! Then
the last earthly effort when the poor boy had, in gratitude at sight of
a pitying face, kissed the hand that killed him!
To Manson's keen imagination it seemed as if Fate had led him to this
horrible spot to go mad and die alone, tortured by remorse and despair.
As he sat by his one companion, the little fire, all that long night,
trying to fight back the imaginary horrors that menaced him, one
constant thought weighed heaviest upon his feelings, and that was that
some uncomprehended motive force was shaping his every action and
asserting itself more and more. What evil was in store for him, or what
fate was to come, was a greater burden than all the rest. How long that
night was no pen can describe, and when the first faint tinge of morning
light came, he felt that nothing in life was quite so blessed as
daylight. The fog was still thick, but the hideous darkness, with all
its terrors, was passed, and with the light came a bit of returning
courage. He had sipped from the cup of rum at times through the night,
but had felt no effect, and now he was faint from need of food. He
hunted the shore, where clams could be found, and securing a few roasted
and ate them. Then once more came the uncanny fascination of that cave!
He dreaded to go near it, and yet could not keep away. It was like a
voice calling to him that must be answered. But how to enter without a
light! Once more he thought of that keg, and going to the pile of
wreckage, found pieces of rope, and moistening one end of a bit in the
rum that was left in his cup, set it on fire. It burned slowly but
steadily, and now he felt he had means to enter the cave. With a few
pieces of this rope he made his way down to where the keg was, and
soaked them well in the rum. Then he paused and looked around. The
frowning walls seemed more menacing than ever, and that black hole just
beyond, which he had tried to enter the day before, glared at his like
a huge eye of sinister import. He thought of the ghastly skull he had
found the night before, and wondered if it had any connection with this
cave. Cautiously, step by step, he crept toward it. Was it the
hiding-place of some sea monster, and was death there in that dark
cavern awaiting him? Once again he felt his courage leaving and a
strange weakness stealing his strength. He turned back and sat down by
the keg.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11