by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XIV THE PASSING OF BLACK GULL
That night as the hours of slumber approached Ruth lay on her bed lookingout toward the bay. The night was hot and sultry. A lazy warm breeze fromthe land waved the thin curtains in a ghostlike fashion. There was noneed for covers, so she lay there allowing the breeze to fan her toes.Half awake, half asleep, she mused and dreamed of many things.
The night was dark, the sky overcast. Neither moon nor stars shonethrough. The scene before her, save for a wavering light here and there,was black. "Like a beautiful picture suddenly wiped out by the swing of abroad, black brush," she told herself.
Still there were the lights. One might imagine them to be anything. Inher fancy she told herself that the red light, very high above the water,was hung on the mast of the old wood hauling schooner.
"And her hold is packed full of valuable silks," she told herself. It waseasy to dream on such a night. One might imagine anything and believe it.
She stared away toward old Fort Skammel. A light flared over there."They're carrying the silks from that hot little underground room," shetold herself, and at once became quite excited about it.
"Should have gone over there this very day," she mused.
But no, the light vanished. It showed no more. "Couldn't load all that inthe dark. To-morrow," she said. There was an air of finality in her tone.
She tried to see the ancient schooner, _Black Gull_. Too dark for that.She could imagine it all the same. She could see her swinging there atanchor, a dark, brooding giant, whispering of the past, telling ofglorious old State of Maine days, that were gone forever.
"I love you, love you, love you," the girl whispered as if the dark oldship were a person, a gallant knight of her dreams.
At that, leaning back on her pillow, one brown hand beneath her head, shefell asleep.
Just how long she slept she may never know. Enough that she suddenlyfound herself sitting up wide awake and staring out at the bay that wasall aglow with a strange, lurid, unearthly light.
"It's the end of the world," she told herself and wondered at her owncalmness.
"It's Portland Harbor. It's on fire, burning up!" came a little moreexcitedly as she found herself more truly awake.
It was only as she sprang to her feet and stood there in the window withher dream robes blowing about her that she realized the full and terribletruth.
Then she covered her eyes with her hands as she sank to the bed with asharp cry.
"_Black Gull_, you are on fire. You are burning up!"
And there she had at last the solemn truth. At once her mind was in awhirl. How had it happened? She recalled the curious visit she and Bettyhad made there in the night and of the remarkable pirate band that hadcome to join them. Had these men returned? Had a match carelesslydropped, a stove overheated, brought the great catastrophe?
What could be done? Nothing. There was no fireboat. No pipe line couldreach her. _Black Gull_ was doomed.
In a state of suppressed excitement that held her nerves at the burstingpoint, she sat there watching a spectacle such as is the lot of few tosee.
At first the blaze, flaming fiercely, fanned by the off shore breeze,went raging out to sea. But at last, all at once, as if awed by thissublime spectacle, the death of a great ship, the wind dropped and theblaze, like flames of some gigantic candle, rose up--up--up until itseemed to the watching girl that they must reach the sky and set theplanets, the stars, the very universe aflame.
As she sat there, lips apart, pupils dilated, motionless, watching, thespectacle became a thing of many dreams. Now the flames were but theburning of a stupendous campfire, the dark bulk that stood halfconcealed, half revealed, docks, lighthouses, islands, were figures ofreposing and crouching giants.
Then the flames became a ladder of fire. Down this ladder, a thousandangels, whose wings could not be touched by fire, swarmed.
The ship burned with a clear, red flame now. The water about her became apool of red and old rose. At the edge of this pool small bulks moved,motor boats, row boats, launches.
"What can they do?" she murmured. "Nothing. Let them go to bed. They arelike hunting hounds, in at the death."
She wondered vaguely if the person responsible for this catastrophe werecircling there, too. Strangely enough, she fancied she could pick theman, a dark-faced foreigner with a shock of black hair.
"The face-in-the-fire," she thought.
For a moment she thought of dressing, of launching her punt and going ona still hunt for the man. In the end, she sat there watching to the endthe death of much that was dear to her.
The end came with a suddenness that was startling. The masts had fallen,one at a time. Slowly, regularly, like seamen dropping from a ladder intoa dory, they fell to send sparks shooting skyward. Then, with a thunderthat was deafening, there came the shock of a terrific explosion.
For a space of seconds all the fire at the center of the earth seemed tobe shooting skyward. Then darkness and silence, such as the girl hadnever known, settled over all.
Only the sea spoke. With a wild rushing breath it whispered of wind andstorms, of treachery and death. Three times its whisper came loudly fromthe sandy beach. Then softly, it repeated its message until it died tonothing, and a breeze springing up from nowhere caught it up and carriedit out to sea.
Springing to her feet, her arms flung wide, the girl stood there for afull moment. Rigid, silent, she was swearing vengeance on the destroyersof _Black Gull_.
Dropping to her place, again she scanned the sea. One by one, like deathcandles, lights were appearing. Here one, there one, they formed at lastthe flaming outline of a ship's deck. All had been burned or blown awaybut the stout hull that for so many years had done battle with the waves.For an hour these burned brightly. Then, one by one they blinked out. Thetide was rising. The sea had come to the rescue. It was extinguishing thefire. On the morrow the black skeleton of a gallant ship would show thereabove the restless waves.
"Gone!" she all but sobbed as she buried her face in the pillow. "_BlackGull_ is gone forever."
