THE BLUE FACE IN THE NIGHT
Lucile need not have kept an eye out for trouble. Trouble was destined to
find her and needed no watching. As she expressed it afterward: "It
doesn't seem to matter much where you are nor what you are doing, if you
are destined for adventures you'll have them."
But the thing which happened to her on the following evening, though
doubly mysterious and haunting in its character, appeared to have no
connection whatever to the incident of the note.
The storm which had been rising all night had lulled with the morning
sun, but by mid-afternoon was raging again with redoubled fury. Sending
the spray dashing high above the breakwaters, it now and then cast a huge
cake of ice clear of the water's tallest crest and brought it down upon
the breakwater's rim with the sound of an exploding cannon. Carrying
blinding sheets of snow before it, the wind rose steadily in force and
volume until the most hardy pedestrian made headway against it with the
greatest difficulty.
When Lucile left the university grounds to face east and to begin forcing
her way against the wind to the yacht, night had fallen. "Dark as it
should be at seven--woo! what a gale!" she shivered, as buttoning her
mackinaw tightly about her throat, she bent forward to meet the storm.
For a half hour, her body beaten and torn by the wind, her face cut by
driving sleet, she fought her way onward into the night. She had reached
the shore of the lake and was making her way south, or at least thought
she was. So dense was the darkness that it was with the utmost difficulty
that she kept her directions.
"Wish--wish I had tried getting a place to stay nearer the university,"
she half sobbed.
As if in answer to these words, the storm appeared to redouble its fury.
Seizing her with its whirling grip, it carried her in a semicircle, to
land her at last against a stone wall. So great was the force of her
impact that for the moment she lay there at the foot of the wall, only
partly conscious of what was going on about her.
When at last she was able to rise, she knew that she had completely lost
her way.
"Might as well follow the wall," she thought desperately. "Little more
sheltered here. Bring me to some place after a time."
The fury of wind and snow continued. At times she fancied she felt the
spray from waves dampen her cheeks. She heard distinctly the break of
these waves--"Against the wall," she told herself, shuddering as the
thought came to her that she might suddenly reach the end of this wall
and be blown into the lake.
"Anyway I can't stay here," she muttered. "Too cold. Face is freezing, I
guess."
She paused to remove a glove and touch her cheek. The next instant she
was rubbing it vigorously. "Frozen all right. Have to get in somewhere
soon."
Just at that moment her heart leaped wildly. For a moment the drive of
snow had slackened. In that moment, a great, black bulk loomed up at her
right.
"Some building," she thrilled, and at once doubled her efforts to escape
from the storm and reach this promised shelter.
As, still hugging the wall, she came closer to the looming structure, she
saw that it showed not a single gleaming light. The next moment her lips
parted in an exclamation of dismay:
"The old Spanish Mission! No one there--hasn't been for years."
Once she had forced her mind to sober thought, she realized that she had
no reason to hope for anything better. There were but four structures on
that mile of park-front on the lake all deserted at this time of year: a
broad, low pavilion; a huge, flat bath-house; a towering castle, relic of
a great fair once held on these grounds, and this Spanish Mission, which
never had been a real mission, but merely a reproduction of one dating
back into other centuries, a huge wooden hull of a thing.
Resembling a block-house, with its narrow windows and low doors, it had
always stirred Lucile's curiosity. Now she was about to seek shelter in
it, or at least in the lee of it. It was deserted, empty, fast falling
into decay, a mysterious, haunty place. Yet, so buffeted by the storm was
she, so frightened by the onrush of the elements, that she felt quite
equal to creeping through some opening into its vast emptiness should an
opening appear.
And an opening did offer her opportunity to test her nerve. It was a
window, the glass shattered by the storm. Her heart beating wildly, she
squeezed through into the inky blackness. On tiptoe, she made her way
down the wall to the right. She was obliged to feel for every step. There
was not a ray of light.
"Some big hall," she decided. After she had moved along for a space of
forty feet or more she whispered: "The chapel!" Her heart skipped a beat.
"Imagine being in a deserted chapel on such a night!"
Suddenly overcome with the thought that she might stumble into an altar
or a crucifix, she halted and stood there trembling. She had always felt
a great awe for such things.
She stood there until her legs ached with the strain of holding to one
position. Then she pushed on slowly. Suddenly she brushed against
something. Recoiling in fright, she stood there motionless.
At last she had the courage to bend over and put out a hand. To her
intense relief, she found that she had come upon a bench standing against
the wall. Having tested its strength, she sat down. Leaning back, she
rested.
"That's better," she breathed. "The storm will soon be over. Then I'll
get out of here and go to the yacht."
The drive of the wind, the chill of the storm had made her drowsy. The
night before her sleep had been disturbed. As she sat there her head
drooped more and more. It began nodding, then suddenly came up with a
jerk.
Again she was awake! She would not fall asleep, she told herself. Would
not. Would not!
Yet, in three minutes she was nodding again. This time her chin sank
lower and lower, until at last it rested on her breast, which moved
slowly up and down in the rhythmic breathing of one who sleeps.
How long she slept would be hard to tell. So natural was her awaking that
she did not realize that she had been asleep at all.
Yet she sensed that something about the place was different. A vague
uneasiness stole over her.
Once she had opened her eyes, she knew what it was. There was light--a
strange light, somewhere in the room; a dim, almost imperceptible
illumination pervaded all.
As she turned her head, without moving in her seat, she with difficulty
suppressed a scream.
At the far end of the room was an apparition, or so at least it seemed.
"A blue face! A face of blue fire. It can't be." She rubbed her eyes.
"And yet it is." Her mind did all the talking. Her lips were numb. It is
doubtful if she could have spoken had she dared to. But this was no time
to speak.
She did not believe in ghosts, yet there was a face, an illumined face;
an ugly face, more fiendish than any she had ever seen. Appearing alive,
it rose from the center of a decaying table standing before an altar.
Beside the altar, revealed by the pale, bluish light which the face
appeared to shed about it, were two tarnished candlesticks and back of
it, against the wall, hung a crucifix.
Completely paralyzed by the sight of this blue face in the night and by
its awesome surroundings, she sat there quite motionless.
The light of the blue face appeared to wax and wane, to come and go like
the faint smiles that often pass over a child's face.
Lucile was suddenly seized with the notion that the face was looking at
her. At the same time there came the question: "Is there light enough to
reveal my face?" She glanced down to the floor, then breathed a sigh of
relief; she could not see her own feet. Silently drawing her scarf over
her face, covering all but her eyes and hiding her hands beneath her
coat, she sat there hardly daring to breathe.
She did not have long to wait for, out of the darkness into the pale blue
light, there stole three figures. Whether these were men or women, monks,
nuns or devils, she could not tell, so closely were they enshrouded in
robes or coats of black cloth.
They knelt before the blue face and remained there motionless.
To quiet her nerves, Lucile began to count. She had reached one hundred,
when, for fear she would lose all control of herself and scream or run,
she closed her eyes. She had counted to one thousand before she dared
open them again.
When she did so she found another surprise awaiting her. The kneeling
figures were gone. Gone, too, was the face; or at least, it was no longer
illumined. The place was dark as a dungeon. Strangely enough, too, the
wail of the storm had subsided to a whisper. Only the distant boom of
breakers told her that a terrific blizzard had passed over the lake.
Rising without a sound, she tiptoed her way along the wall. Reaching the
window, she leaped out upon the ground and was away like a flash. With
knees that trembled so they would scarcely support her, she ran for a
full half mile before she dared slow down and look back. The snowstorm
was over, the moon half out. She could see for some distance behind her,
but all she saw was a glistening stretch of snowy landscape. Then she
made her way thoughtfully to the dry dock.
Once on board the O Moo she told the other girls nothing of her
adventures; merely said she had been delayed by the storm. But that
evening as she attempted to study, she would now and then give a sudden
start. Once she sprang up so violently that she upset her chair.
"What in the world is the matter?" Marian demanded.
"Nothing, just nerves," she said, forcing a smile, but she did not
attempt to study after that. She went and curled up in a huge,
upholstered rocker. Even here she did not fall asleep, but sat staring
wide-eyed before her until it was bedtime.
They had all been in their berths for fifteen minutes. Florence had dozed
off when she was suddenly wakened by a hand on her arm. It was Lucile.
"Please--please!" she whispered. "I can't sleep alone to-night."
Florence put out a strong hand and drew her up into the berth, then
pulled the covers down over them both and clasped her gently in her arms.
Lucile did not move for some time. She had apparently fallen asleep when
she suddenly started violently and whispered hoarsely:
"No! No! It can't be; I--I don't believe in ghosts."
At the same time a great shudder shot through her frame.
"Tell me about it," whispered Florence, holding her tight.
Then, in halting, whispered sentences, Lucile told of the night's
adventure.
"That's strange!" whispered Florence. "Reminds me of something an aged
sailor told me once, something that happened on the Asiatic side of the
Pacific. Too long to tell now. Tell you sometime though. Doesn't seem as
if there could be any connection. Surely couldn't be. But you never can
tell. Better turn over and go to sleep."
Relieved of half her fear by the telling of the story, Lucile fell asleep
and slept soundly until morning.