The Mystery - Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
"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 ordered 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 another: 'Hey,
Boney, d'you feel like someone was a-buzzin' your nerves like a
fiddle-string?' Now," demanded 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
disturbance that her instruments were permanently deranged."
"That would lend weight to the volcanic theory," said Carter.
"So the captain didn't take kindly to your go-look-see?" questioned Ives
of Edwards.
"As good as told me I'd missed the point of the thing," said the ensign,
flushing. "Perhaps he can make more of it himself. At any rate, he's
going to try. Here he is now."
"Dr. Trendon," said the captain, appearing. "You will please to go with
me to the schooner."
"Yes, sir," said the surgeon, rising from his chair with such alacrity as
to draw from Ives the sardonic comment:
"Why, I actually believe old Trendon is excited."
For two hours after the departure of the captain and Trendon there were
dull times on the quarter-deck of the _Wolverine_. Then the surgeon
came back to them.
"Billy was right," he said.
"But he didn't tell us anything," cried Ives. "He didn't clear up the
mystery."
"That's what," said Trendon. "One thing Billy said," he added, waxing
unusually prolix for him, "was truer than maybe he knew."
"Thanks," murmured the ensign. "What was that?"
"You said 'Not a living being aboard.' Exact words, hey?"
"Well, what of it?" exclaimed the ensign excitedly. "You don't mean you
found dead----?"
"Keep your temperature down, my boy. No. You were exactly right. Not a
living being aboard."
"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 cockroaches?"
"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 probably haunted by cockroach wraiths."
"He'll have a chance to see," said Trendon. "Captain'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
command, with instructions to "keep company and watch for signals"; and
intention to break into the brass-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 seldom happens as to be
a negligible quantity. The _Wolverine_ met with it on June 5th. From
some unaccountable source in that realm of the heaven-scouring trades
came a heavy mist. Possibly volcanic action, deranging by its electric
and gaseous outpourings 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 distant shout of response, but
there was no repetition.
"Probably doesn't carry any fog horn," said Carter bitterly, voicing a
general uneasiness.
"No log; compass crazy; without fog signal; I don't like that craft.
Barnett ought to have been ordered 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 phosphorescent whiteness. It ceased, and with the
growl of a 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 wardroom 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 Edwards saw or heard or felt
that squall coming," replied 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."
"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. Particularly 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 compass 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 anxiously.
"What could there be to involve him?" asked McGuire.
"I don't know," said Carter slowly. "Somehow 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 sighting; 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 balance, 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
presently 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_. 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 regulations, 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 horror 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 Trendon 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 discussion 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 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
disappointment.
"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 trying 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 first-class man. I can
hardly believe that he is afraid. We'll see."
[Illustration: A man who was a bit of a mechanic was set to work to open
the chest]
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----"
He stopped, failing of the word.
"You know what Mr. Edwards was, sir, for pluck," he concluded.
"_Was_!" 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 morning 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 morning 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 Celimene!_ No," muttered 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?"
"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 record," said Barnett,
frowning at the fusty schooner astern. "Otherwise the name wouldn't be
painted out."
"Painted out long ago. See how rusty it is. Schermerhorn's work maybe,"
replied Trendon. "Secret expedition, 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?"
There was a dead silence.
"Mr. Barnett? Dr. Trendon? 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. Whatever the source of the light
and however near to it the schooner may have been, she is evidently
unharmed."
"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 incident,
however slight."
Not so easily was a crew obtained. Having in mind the excusable
superstition of the men, Captain Parkinson was unwilling to compel any of
them to the duty. 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 _Laughing Lass_. There were no farewells among
the officers. Forebodings weighed too heavy for such open expression.
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.
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 swaying 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 scattered 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 responded perfectly.
"I though she might be bewitched, too," he murmured.
"You may heal 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 unknown. 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 Barnett 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 Forsythe, presently. "I can
make out a speck rising on the waves."
"Bit o' wreckage from Barnett's derelict," muttered Trendon, scowling
through his glasses.
"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, replying 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. 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, swinging 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.