There are different kinds of dark. There is just common, everyday dark,
like in a house before you light the lights; there’s the kind of dark
there is in a cellar; there’s the spooky kind there is in corners and
under beds; and there’s the kind of dark we ran into that night after we
left Nantucket town and started for the barbed wire entanglement. That
was a special, sticky, _solid_ dark. It felt exactly like we were
pushing our way through something that pushed against us and tried to
hold us back. There wasn’t a sign of moon or stars, and there _was_ a
fog. It was a dripping kind of a fog that almost was a drizzle. You
could hold your hand up at arm’s length before your nose, and you
couldn’t see a thing.
“Say,” says I, “what did you stop at the drug store for?”
“Soothing syrup,” says Catty. “I thought maybe you’d get nervous, so I
got something to quiet you down.”
“Huh,” says I, but I knew there wasn’t any use to ask him questions when
he was in a tight-mouthed humor. Mostly he was willing to talk things
over; but sometimes he got stubborn and in-growing, and then you
couldn’t pry anything out of him with a crowbar. “What you should ’a’
got,” says I, “is some sweet oil to rub on your jaw.”
He didn’t answer right back, but pretty soon he says, “The next board
you fall over—pick it up.”
“Sure,” says I. “I’ll wander around looking for a board to trip over.
Like one with a nail in it, wouldn’t you? I’d just as soon step on a
nail if it’ll help you out.”
“What I want,” says he, “is a broad board about as tall as a man.”
“Anyhow,” says I, “I’m glad you’re not looking for a darning needle. I
don’t know as I could manage to stumble on a darning needle tonight.”
“Wonder where we are?” says he.
“In a place I don’t like,” says I.
“You’ll be in one you like less pretty soon,” he says.
Well, we found out where we were in a couple of minutes and this is the
way we did it: It was as easy as falling off a log. Of course you have
to know how, and it isn’t everybody who knows how. I guess there aren’t
many people beside me who could have managed to do it, but that doesn’t
swell my head any. No. The thing it swelled was my nose. This nose I’m
wearing now. I don’t believe it looks like the nose I used to
have—exactly—but it works pretty good, and only a few people have
complained of it. I can still sneeze with it, and that’s a good deal. We
were going along as fast as we could, with our shoes full of sand, and
wondering where we were at. As I say, I was the one who found out. If
you’re going to a place straight ahead but have kind of lost track of
yourself, somebody will tell you to follow your nose, and you’ll get
there. I followed mine, and it led me _ker-slam_ against a wall! My nose
was a couple of inches ahead of the rest of me, so it found the wall
first. It found it so hard that it closed up like an accordion against
the rest of my face and then bounced me back. For a minute it wasn’t
dark any more. No. It was a regular Fourth of July. I said something out
loud.
“What’s the matter,” says Catty.
“I’ve poked a hole in a plank with my nose,” says I, grabbing hold of it
and trying to straighten it out. It wasn’t bleeding, thank goodness.
“I’ve found your board,” says I, “but maybe it won’t be any good. Maybe
I’ve busted it,” says I.
“Where?” says he.
“Just stick your nose out in front of you and walk toward my voice,”
says I, which he did, and then he found it.
“It’s the fish shanty—where we hid our treasure,” says he.
“No,” says I, “this is too hard. This is an awful hard building. Must be
built of ironwood.”
“Feel around for the door,” says he, “and we’ll go in and light a
candle, or a flash, and see what’s up.”
“Have you got a candle?” says I.
“No,” says he.
“Well,” says I, “I quit the practice of carrying candles around quite a
while ago.”
“Oh, dry up,” says he, “I borrowed Naboth’s flashlight. We can pretend
it’s a candle. Back in pirate days they didn’t have flashlights.”
“So these are pirate days?” says I. “There you go shifting time on me
again. I thought this was a trench raid in the war.”
“It was,” says he, “but now it’s a scouting party after a pirate lair—so
the flash has got to be a candle.”
“Candle it is, then,” says I, “but if you want me to do my best work,
you’ll have to keep me better posted. You’ll be having me jump out of a
cellar in a parachute some day, shifting like this without giving
notice.”
Anyhow, we fumbled around the shack and found the door, and went inside.
Then we shut the door again and Catty lighted the flashlight. It did
seem good to be able to see again. I’d missed it like everything.
“What we want now,” says Catty, “is a wide board, about as high as a
man.”
We looked all around inside, and finally located a board about the size
he wanted, and then we pried it out of the wall. He looked it over as
careful as if he was planning to eat it, and then he stood it against
the wall.
“You hold the flash,” says he, “while I work.”
“I’m busy holding my nose,” says I, “and I haven’t a hand to spare. It’s
swelled so it takes both hands to cover it.”
He pulled a little paint brush out of his pocket. “That’s what I stopped
at the drug store to get,” says he.
“Fine,” says I, “and now that you’ve got it, what?”
“Watch and see,” says he.
So I held the flash and he took a tube out of another pocket and stood
with his head cocked on one side studying the board, and then he began
to paint.
“Say,” says I, “that’s funny paint.”
“You bet,” says he.
“What’s the idea?” says I.
“Don’t you remember that paint we saw advertised in that boy’s magazine?
We were talking about what fun we could have with it. Well, I didn’t say
anything, but I sent off and got a tube, and I’ve kept it till the right
time came to use it. This is the time,” says he.
“You mean that night-shining paint?”
“Luminous paint, they call it. Got radium in it.”
“Bet it hasn’t,” says I. “Radium’s too expensive to put in paint. A
piece of radium as big as a pea, would be worth a hundred million
dollars.”
“Anyhow, they call it radium,” says he, “and it’s just as good for what
we want it for.”
“Go ahead and paint,” says I.
So he went ahead. Catty had quite a knack for drawing and now he did
better than usual. I guess he got inspiration out of the mess we were
in. He started at the top of the board, and I couldn’t make out what he
was up to for a while, but then I saw. He was painting a skull. It
didn’t shine much, but he said it was because we had a light. When he
finished the skull, he kept right on and drew a whole skeleton. Maybe
the skeleton wasn’t just right in spots, with every bone where it
belonged, and the right number of teeth and everything, but it looked to
me like a mighty fine skeleton. I never cared much for skeletons anyhow.
As I look at it, skeletons are a kind of a nuisance, and nobody wants
one around, especially at night.
In half an hour he was done, and he said to turn off the flash, which I
did, and then I turned it right back on again. That skeleton seemed to
jump right out at you as soon as the shack was dark. It didn’t look as
if it was painted on a board. The board just up and disappeared, and the
skeleton looked as if it was standing in the air and _glowing_. It gave
me the jumps.
“If that thing’s going along,” says I, “you can count me out. Two’s
company—three’s a crowd.”
“Fiddlesticks,” says he. “I’ll carry it. Guess we’re ready now. Come
on.”
“Hold the dog-gone thing with its back this way, then,” says I, “I don’t
want it staring at _me_.”
So we went out of the shack and headed for the pirates’ lair, or barbed
wire entanglement, or whatever it was Catty had decided it was now.
Looked to me like he’s made up his mind to have it be a graveyard.
“Go careful now,” says Catty, “and keep listening. We don’t want to run
into a trap.”
“You bet we don’t,” says I. “Won’t they have any lights?”
“Maybe lanterns,” says he.
It turned out there wasn’t much light. Pretty soon we got close to the
wire. Everything was quiet, but we could see a light in a tent, and
after a while we could hear somebody walking up and down.
“The sentinel,” says Catty.
“Is he inside the wire, I wonder,” says I.
“Why?”
“If he was outside we could sic the skeleton on him, and let it bite his
leg.”
“We’ll sic it on him, all right,” says he, “but first we’ve got to lead
up to it.”
“How?” says I.
“Hollow groans,” says he.
“I can do that,” says I. “My nose hurts so I can groan real natural.”
“All right,” he says, “you can be the official groaner of this
expedition, but don’t let go with one till I say so.”
“Hurry up, then,” I says, “because I feel a groan coming on.”
We started in then and crawled closer until we weren’t more than a dozen
feet from where the man was walking back and forth. We could barely see
a black shape where he was. We kept quiet, and before long another
sentinel came along and the two stopped to talk.
“Nasty night,” says one.
“Rotten,” says the other.
“I feel like I was back in the navy,” says the first one, “mounting
guard like this.”
“What’s it all about?”
“How should I know? The Old Man didn’t take me into his confidence.”
“Guess Jonas P. Dunn never told nobody nothin’,” says the other.
“Tight-mouthed old coot.”
“He knows what he’s up to, you can bet on that.”
“There’s diggin’ in it. Don’t s’pose he’s rim onto Captain Kidd’s
treasure or somethin.”
“Like’s not.”
“Hope ’tain’t so. Them old pirates allus buried dead men along with
their treasure, to guard it. The captain always killed them men that
helped bury it, so they couldn’t tell where it was hid.... And men like
that don’t rest easy in their graves.”
“Shut up,” says the other. “Hain’t it bad enough and lonesome enough
here in the dark without havin’ you harp on ghosts?”
“Well, facts is facts. If it’s pirate treasure we’re after, you can
calc’late on ghosts.”
“The’ hain’t no sich thing as a ghost.”
“Mebby not—mebby _so_.... As fur’s I’m concerned, I hain’t makin’ no
mock of ghosts. I’ve _seen_ ’em.”
“G’wan.”
“With starin’ eyes of fire, a-lettin’ out awful groans,” says the man.
“I hope I never see the like agin.”
“Honest Injun?”
“As sure’s I’m standin’ here. And that there ghost chased me nigh onto a
mile, with me runnin’ so’s I most left my hair behind.... Ghosts is
turrible things.”
“I wisht you’d shut up.”
“With starin’ eyes of fire,” says the man, “and them groans. I dunno but
what the groans was the wust part.”
Catty nudged me. “Groan,” says he.
I drew in a breath and commenced on the first end of a groan. It started
slow and low and kind of trembly, and then lifted up a little and got
louder, and sank back and turned itself over once or twice, and then
finished up with a rush. It was a fine groan. Of all the groans I ever
heard, and I’ve heard some first class ones in my time, that was the
best. It was a groan with _trimmings_. Not many fellows could turn out a
groan like that, and I couldn’t have, but for luck. Once Dad had the
siatiac rheumatiz, and I used to set around and study how he groaned. He
did as good as you could expect without practice; but I’d studied the
thing, and listened to the different kinds, and, if I do say it, I was
an expert groaner. And the pain in my nose helped.
When I let up there wasn’t a sound. Both those men were as quiet as a
doorknob. They just stood and listened.
“W-what was t-that?” says one of them after a minute.
“Wind,” says the other.
“It w-was a g-groan,” says the first one.
Catty nudged me. “Give ’em another,” says he, and I did. It was a better
one than the first, with more fancy fixin’s to it.
“Guess they won’t say _that’s_ the wind,” I says to Catty.
“Now watch,” says he, and I settled back to watch.