She was standing now, looking down at her staunch little motor boat that gently bumped the rocky shore of a sheltering cove.
A sudden thought struck her all of a heap. She came to earth with a jolt.
“Betty!” she thought. “Betty Bronson! She doesn’t know about the guns. She can’t. She’ll be killed, blown to bits!”
Fort McKinley is ten miles from Green Island. At certain times of the year a target is set on a raft and a schooner detailed to drag it about. When the target is in position near Green Island, a plane circling low over the water warns fishing crafts away. Then the great guns of the fort, firing projectiles weighing a thousand pounds and more, break their long silence. Ten miles from the fort, close to the drifting target, the huge projectile falls. It strikes the water with a loud report. It bounces, rises once more in air and, singing its song of hate and defiance, flies through the air to at last sink to the bottom a hundred fathoms below. Into this target practice Betty had blundered.
“I wish I could warn her,” Ruth told herself now. “The man in the seaplane should do it. But he probably does not see her at all. Little dark boat against a broad expanse of dark sea. How could he? And besides, perhaps there is no danger after all. The firing for today may stop any minute. The target ship may move off in some other direction.”
The firing did not cease. The target ship did not move away.
“Ought to be getting back home.” Ruth’s gaze swept a hazy sky, then fell to her staunch little sloop. “Going to storm. Can’t tell how bad. Hate to spend a night out here.” But without Betty she could not go.
Turning, she made her way down the rocky slope to the spot where her boat was moored.
Her hand was on the painter when again, closer, more terrifying, there came a Zss-Spt-Boom.
Dropping the painter, she turned and walked hurriedly back up the hill.
With strained attention her eyes sought that small white figure. It was nowhere to be seen.
“Gone!” Vast relief was expressed in her tone. “Thought she’d see how unsafe it was.”
Just to make assurance doubly sure, she took up her field glasses and swept the black waters.
One moment of silent attention and she dropped the glasses as if they were hot.
The sight that met her gaze as her eager eyes behind strong field glasses sought out the lone fisherman, set her heart beating madly. A shell, striking some distance back of the little boat, then bouncing in air again, appeared to pass over the city girl’s head.
It was then, for the first time that Betty awoke to her peril. This awakening was like the sudden ending of a dream. The very abruptness of it was her undoing. She had just succeeded in hooking a great fish. Perhaps it was a thirty-pound cod, a ray or a sunfish. She will never know, for, having brought it half way up from the depths, she was shaken to the very core of her being by this terrific boom and nerve wracking scream.
She threw herself backward, tangled with the cod line, set the boat tilting, tried in vain to recover her balance and without knowing how it had all happened, suddenly found herself free of the cod line but submerged in cold salt water and clinging frantically to the bottom of her overturned punt.
Ruth, standing on the hill, saw all this. She saw more; that the girl was still within the danger zone and that the target schooner was moving in a direction that momentarily increased her peril.
“I must go to her,” she told herself with a little gasp of fear. “There is no other way.”
With one short word of prayer for strength, the fishergirl of the Maine coast dashed down the slope, jumped into her sloop, threw over the wheel, then went pop-popping straight away toward the imperiled girl and her overturned punt. Straight on into the path of the raging terror that was intended for enemies in time of war she went, without one thought of turning back.
“One thing,” she thought more calmly, “is in my favor. My boat is white. The seaplane scout may see me. He can signal them to stop firing.”
Boom! Zing! Boom! the terror sounded again.
Her heart skipped a beat. Perspiration stood out on her nose. She felt deathly cold all over. Yet a firm and steady hand steered the motor boat straight on its course.
Of a sudden from over her head there came the thunder of motors. For ten seconds it was deafening. Then, quite as suddenly as it had started, it ceased.
Ruth’s heart stood still. “What now?” she thought. The pop-popping of her own tiny motor seemed but the discharge of a toy pistol.
She was soon enough to know what was next. Glancing up, she dodged and barely escaped leaping into the sea. The great seaplane seemed about to fall upon her.
The plane, of course, was not as close as it had seemed. It was so close that, as the motor suddenly ceased its throbbing, she caught the singing of struts as the plane went zooming on through the air. She did not hear distinctly the words that were shouted down to her, but she did catch the import of their meaning. It was a warning that she was in great danger and must get out of those waters at once. As an answer she could only shout back that a girl in an overturned punt was in far greater danger than she. She pointed in the direction of Betty and the punt. This pointing must have accomplished more than all her screams, for certainly her last words were lost in the sudden thunder of motors.
The plane was up and off again. Had he understood? Would he flash a signal that meant, “Cease firing?” She dared hope so.
Ten seconds later she realized how brave the sea scout had been. A glancing shell passed through the air at the very spot where, a few seconds before, his plane had been.
“If there is another shot?” she thought. She dared not think further.
But now, once again her eyes were upon the punt and Betty. Already she was alongside.
“Here! Give me your hand!” she said in words that came short and quick. Betty obeyed. She dropped with a thump in the bottom of the boat. Then, with all speed, they were away.
Not until they were safe on Green Island did they realize that the sea scout had flashed a message and firing had ceased.
“Well,” Ruth sighed as they dropped in the sun among the wild sweet peas, “we—we’re safe.”
“Are we?” Betty’s face still showed signs of terror.
“Yes. They never shoot at the island. But you’ve got to get out of those clothes,” Ruth added quickly.
In silence she helped Betty out of her sodden garments. After rubbing and chafing her limbs until the pink of health came to them, she wrapped her in her own storm coat and told her to lie there in the sun while she wrung her clothes out and spread them on the rocks to dry.
“You—your punt!” Betty said at last with a choke in her voice that came near to a sob.
“They’re firing again now,” said Ruth. “We may be able to get it and tow it in later. Can’t now. But didn’t you hear the guns?” she asked.
“The guns? Why, yes, I guess I did. Must have—as in a dream. They’re always booming away over at the fort. And I was having such wonderful luck! Lots of cod, one ten-pounder. And a polluk long as I am. Just hooked one so big I couldn’t land him when that terrible thing happened! But Ruth—do you truly think we can save your punt?”
“Might. I hope so. Current is strong. That will carry it away. Hope they stop soon.”
“I hope so,” said Betty dreamily. The shock, the bright sunshine, the drug-like scent of wild sweet peas were getting the better of her. Soon, with head pillowed on her arm, she was fast asleep.
As she slept Ruth thought of many things, of the seagulls soaring overhead, of her lost punt, of the booming, bursting shells, of the old ship Black Gull and of the strange secret room in the depths of old Fort Skammel.
The firing ceased without her knowing it. Betty awoke and struggled into her wind-blown, sundried garments. Still she sat staring dreamily at the sea.
Then a sudden burst of sound broke in upon her day dreams.
“The plane,” she said, springing to her feet. “It’s coming c
lose.”
“See!” said Betty. “He’s not flying. He’s scooting along on the surface of the water. He’s towing something. Oh, good!” She leaped into the air to do a wild dance.
“It’s your punt! It’s not lost! He found it! He’s bringing it in!”
This was all quite gloriously true. Very soon the seaplane came to a halt before the island. The aviator unbuckled himself; then walked back along the fuselage to drop into the punt and begin rowing shoreward.
As he came close Ruth saw that he was a young army officer with a clean, frank face.
“You’re lucky,” he said to Betty. “Lucky to have such a brave friend. You might have been killed.”
Betty’s arm stole round Ruth’s waist. Ruth’s face took on an unusual rosy tint.
“I’ve brought back your punt,” he said in apparent embarrassment. “It’s rather a long swim back to my plane.”
“I—I’ll row you out,” said Ruth, springing forward.
“I hoped you might.”
As the young officer sat in the stern and Ruth rowed him out to sea he noted with apparent pleasure the play of the splendid muscles in her brown arms.
“Some seaman,” he complimented her.
Again Ruth flushed.
As they swung in beside the seaplane the girl’s eyes took in every detail of the plane.
“Never saw one so close before,” she said.
“Want to take a ride?”
“Not now.”
“Sometime?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you know,” she said as he stood up in the punt, “a friend of mine, my cousin, saw a plane pass Monhegan in the dead of night. Trans-Atlantic plane, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes. Only none have crossed for a long time. Say!” he said, sitting down again. “What sort of a plane was it?”
“Large, sea-colored plane. No name. No insignia. No mark of any kind.”
“That’s queer. Listen!” He put a hand on her arm. “Keep that dark. You may have made an important discovery. Men are coming to this country that we don’t want here. Things have happened. There’s more than one way to get into America these days.”
“Strange,” he mused, “you can’t make a great discovery, invent some new thing, do a daring deed, but those who are selfish, heartless, who wish to kill, destroy, tear down, take possession of it! But I must go. Hope I see you again soon.”
“Thanks for bringing back the punt,” Ruth said.
“Don’t mention it.”
He sprang upon the fuselage. Ruth rowed away. Motors thundered. The plane glided away, rose, then speedily became a speck in the sky.
Ruth bumped the rocky shore with a crash that nearly overturned the punt. She was thinking of many things.
They did not go to old Fort Skammel that evening. It was late when they got back to their island and Betty’s nerves were pretty well shaken up by the happenings of the day.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PASSING OF BLACK GULL
That night as the hours of slumber approached Ruth lay on her bed looking out toward the bay. The night was hot and sultry. A lazy warm breeze from the land waved the thin curtains in a ghostlike fashion. There was no need 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 shone through. 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 a broad, black brush,” she told herself.
Still there were the lights. One might imagine them to be anything. In her 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 was easy 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,” she told 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 in the dark. Tomorrow,” 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 at anchor, a dark, brooding giant, whispering of the past, telling of glorious old State of Maine days, that were gone forever.
“I love you, love you, love you,” the girl whispered as if the dark old ship were a person, a gallant knight of her dreams.
At that, leaning back on her pillow, one brown hand beneath her head, she fell asleep.
Just how long she slept she may never know. Enough that she suddenly found herself sitting up wide awake and staring out at the bay that was all aglow with a strange, lurid, unearthly light.
“It’s the end of the world,” she told herself and wondered at her own calmness.
“It’s Portland Harbor. It’s on fire, burning up!” came a little more excitedly as she found herself more truly awake.
It was only as she sprang to her feet and stood there in the window with her dream robes blowing about her that she realized the full and terrible truth.
Then she covered her eyes with her hands as she sank to the bed with a sharp 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 a whirl. How had it happened? She recalled the curious visit she and Betty had made there in the night and of the remarkable pirate band that had come to join them. Had these men returned? Had a match carelessly dropped, a stove overheated, brought the great catastrophe?
What could be done? Nothing. There was no fireboat. No pipe line could reach her. Black Gull was doomed.
In a state of suppressed excitement that held her nerves at the bursting point, she sat there watching a spectacle such as is the lot of few to see.
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 this sublime spectacle, the death of a great ship, the wind dropped and the blaze, like flames of some gigantic candle, rose up—up—up until it seemed to the watching girl that they must reach the sky and set the planets, the stars, the very universe aflame.
As she sat there, lips apart, pupils dilated, motionless, watching, the spectacle became a thing of many dreams. Now the flames were but the burning of a stupendous campfire, the dark bulk that stood half concealed, half revealed, docks, lighthouses, islands, were figures of reposing and crouching giants.
Then the flames became a ladder of fire. Down this ladder, a thousand angels, whose wings could not be touched by fire, swarmed.
The ship burned with a clear, red flame now. The water about her became a pool 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 are like hunting hounds, in at the death.”
She wondered vaguely if the person responsible for this catastrophe were circling there, too. Strangely enough, she fancied she could pick the man, 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 on a still hunt for the man. In the end, she sat there watching to the end the 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 into a dory, they fell to send sparks shooting skyward. Then, with a thunder that 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 to be shooting skyward.
Then darkness and silence, such as the girl had never known, settled over all.
Only the sea spoke. With a wild rushing breath it whispered of wind and storms, of treachery and death. Three times its whisper came loudly from the sandy beach. Then softly, it repeated its message until it died to nothing, and a breeze springing up from nowhere caught it up and carried it out to sea.
Springing to her feet, her arms flung wide, the girl stood there for a full moment. Rigid, silent, she was swearing vengeance on the destroyers of Black Gull.
Dropping to her place, again she scanned the sea. One by one, like death candles, lights were appearing. Here one, there one, they formed at last the flaming outline of a ship’s deck. All had been burned or blown away but 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. The tide was rising. The sea had come to the rescue. It was extinguishing the fire. On the morrow the black skeleton of a gallant ship would show there above the restless waves.
“Gone!” she all but sobbed as she buried her face in the pillow. “Black Gull is gone forever.”
CHAPTER XV
THE SEARCHING PENCIL OF LIGHT
Early next morning Ruth and Pearl sailed the Flyaway to the scene of the night’s conflagration. No more mournful sight can be found than the wreck of a great ship, lifting its shattered form above the sea. They did not linger long. One thing Ruth observed, and that to her advantage in the future. The explosion had blown a hole in the right side of the ship. This left an open space above the water some ten feet wide. Other than this, save at extreme high tide, the ship’s hull rose above the water.
“Makes sort of a harbor,” said Pearl. “Believe you could sail the Flyaway right inside. Make a grand place to weather a squall.”
The three girls, Betty, Ruth and Pearl, fully intended going to old Fort Skammel that day. But life on the islands in Casco Bay is a busy one. Fish must be caught, clams dug, crabs and lobsters trapped and boiled. Summer visitors must be served for it is their money that fills the flour box, and the coal bin, too.
There was to be a great party up at the big hotel. Crabmeat salad was on the menu. The Brackets and Byrans were to supply the meal. So, all day long Ruth and Pearl picked away at boiled crabs, heaping up a little mountain of white meat.
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