Will entreated, with a quavering voice that told of abject terror.
“Oh, what is the matter?” Steve gasped. “What could yell like that?”
At that instant another shriek, more appalling than the first, rang out,
rose and fell in grating discord, and then died away in the distance.
It was sufficient; Charley himself believed that they had made a mistake,
and had been desecrating a human skeleton. Was this the ghost of the
murdered one, or was it the perpetrator of the deed?
Instinctively the demoralized heroes huddled together, and Marmaduke
found comfort in whispering hoarsely, “Now the mystery is going to be
solved. I knew it was mur--”
One more shriek! The ghost was very near them now, and its lungs were
strong. But it labored under the disadvantage of a cracked voice; or
perhaps it was not “in practice.” At all events, the sound was so
wild, so awful, that they shuddered with horror--they felt their flesh
crawl--cold chills ran down their back.
This is not exaggeration; the boys were not easily frightened; but the
ghost--who was at an age at which the voice is subject to changeable and
discordant utterance--was exerting himself to the utmost.
“I won’t budge, no matter what happens!” Steve declared heroically.
“No, we must stick by each other, boys,” Will added.
Once again the ghost found voice This time, however, it spoke--spoke
in tones of fury. “Who dares to say there was not murder here!” was
thundered forth. “Who dares to touch my bones! Let--him--be--ware!”
This was too much. With a yell of horror and dismay, four boys started to
their feet and tore out of the “jungle,” morally certain that a band of
furious demons was hard behind them.
“Its dangerous to stay,” Marmaduke said, “for that is poetry!”
_Four_ boys fled; George lagged behind. “They’ve caught Jim’s disease!”
he chuckled ecstatically. “I’ll teach ’em not to palm off old bones on
me! Perhaps they’ll find that I can play a trick that knocks theirs all
hollow!”
He performed a jig, and then set out in mad pursuit of his comrades.
We assign no reason for this act; but if the reader was ever a boy, he
will understand.
George gave a yell of triumph; but it savoured so strongly of fear that
Will, who had gained an open space, called out cheerily, “Don’t be
afraid, George, if it’s you. Come straight ahead; here we are.”
“What on earth made such a rumpus?” demanded Stephen, already recovered
from his fright.
“It must have been something; but of course we were not frightened;” said
the others, whose fears the bright sunshine and the twittering birds had
dispelled.
“The idea of saying I was afraid!” George roared. “I did that myself.”
“You made that noise?” gasped the four, in one breath.
“Yes, boys; I was the ghost;” George said complacently.
“And the murder--?” Marmaduke began.
“Never was!” George declared. “Boys, last night I was reading about
ventriloquism; and I set to work and practised it. The man that wrote it
said, ‘After five minutes’ practice, the veriest tyro will find himself
able to rout a coward;’ and I guess he was right.”
“Botheration! we are sold!” Charles exclaimed, in surprise and
mortification.
“Yes; you fooled me, and I fooled you all. We’re even now.”
Steve winced when the Sage again made reference to the learned
ventriloquist’s weighty observation, and demanded indignantly, “Why
didn’t you tell us all that before? Why didn’t you ventriloquism as we
came along?”
“I was only waiting; I intended to do it before night,” George said
honestly.
“You read too much, George;” Will commented sorrowfully. “We won’t try to
fool you any more.”
“The worst of it is,” Charles said, with a droll smile, “is that one of
us can’t make fun of another, for we all made fools of ourselves.”
“There’s Jim,” Steve suggested.
“So there is! Well, what about the murder?”
“It certainly is a skeleton,” Marmaduke said grimly.
“Well, to please you, let us call it an ‘open question,’” George, who was
now in jubilant spirits, observed.
“Let us go back and look for the lost trinket; that will solve the
problem;” Stephen proposed.
“Never mind the trinket, boys;” said Charley; “it will keep till another
day. But give me a scrap of paper and a more respectable pencil than my
own ruinous one, and I’ll write something worth while.”
Wonderingly, Marmaduke handed out the articles asked for, and Charley
wrote as follows:--
ONE SLATE PENCIL REWARD.
DEAD OR ALIVE!
This reward will be given to anybody who revives a ghost, dead
or alive, to claim these bones and solve this mystery.
C. GOODFELLOW.
Then, to prove his fearlessness, he retraced his steps to the bones,
looking as brave as the hero of an orthodox love story, and pinned his
notice to a scrubby tree hard by.
Tracking his way back to his schoolfellows, he said, “Boys, I’m hungry.”
Without more ado the heroes turned their faces homewards, each one except
Marmaduke satisfied with his own exploits. Marmaduke jogged on ahead in
sullen silence; and while the sage held forth, with schoolboy oratory,
on anatomy, astronomy, geology, navigation, jugglery, osteology,
whale-fishing, and ventriloquism, the other three amused themselves by
carving baskets out of peach-stones, and wounding their index fingers in
the hazardous attempt.
_Chapter IX._
“THREE WISE MEN WENT TO SEA IN A BOWL.”
A few days later the boys gathered together and strolled down to the
beach, hoping something there would turn up to amuse them.
Two or three schooners and a steamboat were moored at the wharf; but
to-day they excited only a languid interest in the boys.
“If we could only go out on the lake,” Will murmured, “it would be fun.”
“Why, where should we go?” inquired one.
“Oh, just out on the lake for a mile or so; or perhaps we might round the
point and have a swim in our swimming-place.”
“Well, then,” said Jim, always with an eye to safety and comfort, “why
not get out your father’s boat? Wouldn’t it float us all? And it’s so
safe!”
“Yes,” said Will, “it’s pretty safe--very safe in the boat-house. And the
key of the boat-house is safer still, at home! That’s the way it goes,
boys; and when I want a boat ride, I generally struggle around the best
I can. It isn’t worth while to trudge home for it; because, most likely,
we should find something else to do when we got there. But I think we can
light on a craft of some sort if we scratch around a little.”
Although Will’s father owned a boat, the key of his boat-house was always
kept at home; and poor Will was about as much benefited as are most boys
whose fathers own boats, and ponies, and carriages.
“I hanker for a boat ride,” Charley said. “Let us take the punt.”
“The punt, of course!” Steve chimed in. “The punt is just what we want.”
“Oh,” groaned Jim, “the punt is dirty and worn out; and it leaks; and it
tips over; and it won’t go; and an awful storm is going to come up!”
“Look here, boys,” the Sage began, “Jim’s half-way right about that punt;
it’s vulgar! And besides, it isn’t so safe as it ought to be. Only the
other day, I read about some boys that went out in a cockle-shell of
a boat,--I suppose it meant a punt; only, as I told you, punt is very
vulgar, too vulgar for this author, at any rate,--and all got drowned!
And another thing; I’ve been reading about the weather lately, and I
understand just how it goes now.”
And the Sage looked so knowing that it was difficult for the boys to
suppress their laughter. He was now casting intelligent glances at the
sky, the birds, the grasshoppers, the lake, and even the ground. Soon he
spoke.
“Boys,” he said, as impressively as he knew how, “I’m saying nothing
rashly, but deliberately and--and--_correctly_. I’ve observed the weather
indicators, and _a dreadful storm is coming up fast_! A storm that will
stun an equinoctial, and tear Germany all to pieces.”
And the meteorologist’s form swelled with science and satisfaction.
“Whereas, on account of these gloomy auguries, resolved: that we go
home and hide in the cellar hatchway till the storm is over,” Charles
commented.
“No, boys; I’m in earnest, and I don’t care to go out in the punt,”
George said firmly.
“I want to inquire into this drowning affair,” Steve said, “Didn’t you
read about it in a little gilt-edged story-book?”
“Well, yes, I did,” George reluctantly acknowledged. “But, what of that?”
“Only this, were they all bad boys?”
“Come to think, they were.”
“That accounts for it then. They always put those solemn tales in books
for little boys that get sick, and can’t get out doors, to make ’em
think that a sound boy is always bad, and that it’s better to be sick.
But somehow the superintendent always make a muddle of it, and give all
those books to little girls. My little sisters have got a big cigar box
chock-full of ’em, endwise up, and I never got one!”
“Yes, I know them; each nine chapters and a preface long,” said Charley.
“They’re the ones,” said Steve.
“What do your sisters do with them?” Will asked.
“Oh, they mostly build houses with ’em on rainy days,” Steve answered.
“Now, we are not bad boys--never were. We are a first-rate crew, so let
us go. But to please you, George, I’ll go and ask that sailor about the
weather. I guess he ought to know, if anybody’s going to.”
Without loss of time, Steve went up to a sailor a little way off, and
inquired, “Bill, what sort of weather are we going to have to-day?”
“Weather,” echoed Bill, grinning good-humoredly. “Well, look out for
a rough gale; pretty rough and pretty long. Yes, there’ll be an awful
blow--a hurricane--a typhoon!” he added, remarking Steve’s dissatisfied
looks, and mistaking their cause. “Why, who knows but that there’ll be a
zephyr that’ll swoop the hold clean out of a vessel and carry a door-knob
clean over a flag staff.”
Stephen appeared more dissatisfied than ever; and the jocose sailor,
who wished to please him, was about to give a startling account of what
the weather _might_ be; but more than satisfied, Steve thanked him, and
returned to the expectant five.
“Well, what does he say?” Will demanded.
Stephen dejectedly repeated what the sailor had told him.
George was not in a humor to say, “I told you so!” On the contrary, he
was furious against the sailor. He allowed his indignation to boil for
a few moments, and then exclaimed, haughtily, “What does that man know
about the weather? Why, he doesn’t know any more about it than a caged
dromedary. Why, he’s nothing but a lubber--a fresh-water sailor--a
stone-boater--a--a--”
“And, besides,” chimed in Marmaduke, “that isn’t the way a genuine sailor
talks. He must be some disguised--”
“Yes, of course it isn’t; of course he is;” George broke in. “He is some
disguised vagabond, trying to humbug us fellows. Come along, boys; I’m
going with you in that punt, through thick and thin, in the teeth of
every lubberly sailor, and wishy-washy weather indicator, and high toned
thunder-storm, that ever astonished anybody!”
This strikes the key-note to the Sage’s character.
But Stephen was angered. “See here, George,” he exclaimed, “that man is
an honest sailor and a decent fellow, and you just let him alone!”
The boys, thinking time enough had been fooled away, then made a rush for
the punt. This punt was an old derelict, heavy, unwieldy, full of chinks,
and boasting of only two crazy poles, called “oars,” or “paddles,” or
“sculls,” according to the humor of the wretch who gallanted them. No
one could step into this craft without getting wet; and why it was kept
there, or what use it was to the community, was unknown; for no one,
except a few freckled and grimy street urchins, ever shoved off in it.
Perhaps it was kept for them!
The six, however, had urged their way round the wharf in it.
“Come along, Jim!” Steve shouted, seeing that Timor lagged behind.
“Such a dirty boat to get into!” Jim objected. “And I’ve got my good
clothes on, too!”
“Come, now, Jim, you and George are altogether too careful of your
clothes. If they are so new and good, or so old and rotten, that you
can’t go with us, then stay at home. Hurry up, you’ve got to go with us,”
and Steve forced him in--an unwilling passenger.
And so the adventurous boys embarked in this dirty and dilapidated craft,
with which Time, so to speak, had worked wonders.
“How are we to make the crazy thing go?” Will asked, when fairly afloat,
looking around in vain for any motive power.
It is always thus with boys. Not till their own imprudence plunges them
into difficulties, do they pause to consider what it all means, and
what they had better do. When a boy is small he clambers upon the roof
of his father’s barn, enjoys the perspective for one brief moment, and
then ruminates as to how he shall get down. His mother sees him, and
with tears in her eyes and dismay at her heart, tears out of the house,
and exclaims, “Oh, Johnnie, why did you get up there?” Then the little
innocent answers stoutly, “Well, ma, I reckoned if I could get up, I
could get down again. Now, you jest watch, and I’ll climb down like a
spider. Don’t be afraid, ma, it’s nice up here; I can see Mr. Morley’s
shed,” (the object which bounds his view.) When older, he “volunteers;”
girds on his uniform with swelling heart; breathes the word _patriotism_
with lover-like tenderness,--and then! Ah! then he fears to confront his
father.
“Botheration!” cried Stephen, “we’ve left those oars on shore! There they
are; behind Reichter’s boat-house. Back her up, boys, and I’ll jump out
and get ’em.”
Poor sea-farers! In their eagerness to be off they had “set sail” without
the “oars.” After a great struggle, they succeeded in urging the punt
back so that Steve could jump ashore. Then the dauntless young voyagers
told off the crew, and struck out gallantly.
“Now, Tim,” said Stephen, “if you’ll take that old oyster-can, and bale
out this vessel, you’ll feel so much at home that you’ll be happy; and
bye-and-bye I’ll help you.”
“It has no business to leak,” Jim grumbled. “But I told you it did!” he
added, triumphantly.
“Of course it does; what’s a boat, if it doesn’t leak?” Steve snorted.
On they went; drifting, paddling, and sculling; laughing and joking. It
seemed so joyous and secure that even Timor lost his uneasiness. Before
they had determined whither they were going, the abutments of the wharf
were passed, and they were fairly out on the lake. The farther they went,
the higher their spirits rose, and the more jocose they became. Not one
of them troubled himself about a storm.
“Well, boys, we can round the point, and have our swim right along. Let
us do it,” said Will.
“Yes, I haven’t had a swim in the lake for three weeks!” Jim solemnly
declared, as he rested a few minutes from baling out the punt.
The others were duly astonished at this (we say it boldly) neglect of
duty.
Steve, who was tugging lustily at his oar, called out to George, the
helmsman: “Fetch her around, there, old fellow; brace about for the
shore, will you? Don’t be so lubberly, now, or you’ll keel her over. Hug
her up for the shore, I tell you!”
“Look here, Stephen Goodfellow, I can navigate this dingy without so many
orders; so, let me alone!” the helmsman retorted, indignantly.
“Now, boys,” said Will, “if we are mariners, let us behave ourselves. A
captain and his crew always act in harmony, like a drummer’s drum and a
tooter’s horn.”
“Of course,” chimed in Charley. “They don’t wrangle like a couple of
bumpkins of boys in their collarless shirt sleeves.”
“What’s a dingey?” asked Jim.
“I--I believe it isn’t in my dictionary; but it’s a good-for-nothing
craft, that is always an eyesore to the noodle that harbors it,” said
George.
The punt was headed for the beach; but a decided swell, which had
hitherto been in their favor, was now against them, and progress was
slow. By dint of exertion however, in the course of time, they grounded
their craft at the water’s edge, and sprang out to enjoy their bath. The
gloomy speculations about the weather were forgotten, and not one noticed
the threatening clouds looming up in the west.
The old sailor had not trifled with them; a storm was brewing.
Although their swimming-place was somewhat difficult of approach, it
was retired and delightful, the great resort of all the swimmers in the
neighborhood. That was the only drawback; it was too much resorted to by
swimmers. But to-day the boys had it all to themselves.
“Well,” said Marmaduke, as he plunged into the water, “we boys and the
rest of the folks are acquainted with a good place to swim in, as the
Frenchman would say.”
“Never mind the Frenchman now, Marmaduke;” replied Will; “English will
float you through the world.”
Jim had hardly stepped into the water when he cried out, “Oh, boys, the
water is too cold and nasty; I’m shi-i-ivering!”
“Well, then,” sang out Steve, whose head was bobbing up and down some
thirty yards from the shore, “bundle on your clothes, and play the anchor
to that punt. It’ll drift across the lake, if somebody doesn’t take
charge of it.”
But it _was_ cold and disagreeable, and their swimming was of short
duration. They waded ashore with chattering teeth, and huddled on their
clothes as quickly as their shivering limbs would permit.
“Boys, suppose that we go home by land?” Steve proposed. “It wouldn’t be
so very far, and then it would be a change.”
“That’s a capital idea, Steve; but what would become of the dingey? We
mus’n’t leave it here,” said Will.
“Then let us make off.”
Without delay the six took their places in the punt, and shoved off.
There was now not only a perceivable swell, but also a perceivable
breeze. In a word, the scullers found that it was unnecessary to handle
their sculls, for the punt drifted merrily seaward without a stroke from
them.
“Look here, boys,” cried the Sage, prefacing his remarks, as usual, with
his darling expression, “we could hardly make the shore a while ago; and
now just see how fast we are drifting out! I don’t believe we could get
back to our swimming place; let us try it.”
“Let us be glad that we are getting a boat-ride without work,” was
Steve’s foolish comment.
But his fellow-voyagers considered the matter in a different light, and
tried to back the oars. They could still do so, but only by putting forth
all their strength. Their situation was now so critical that they turned
pale with dread.
“O dear!” gasped Timor, too frightened to say more.
“Why didn’t we go home by land!” Steve ejaculated.
“Pity we didn’t do that,” Will said. “Before we could row ashore, the
swell would be too much for us, wouldn’t it?”
“Of course it would,” George answered.
“And we’re almost too far from shore to swim to it,” Charles asked,
rather than said.
“Couldn’t swim there without getting the cramps, Charley,” Will replied,
in a hoarse whisper.
“Look to the west!” Jim cried in terror. “Oh, boys! I’ve got ’em! got the
chills! dreadful chills! awful chills! O boys! we shall all be drowned!
We’ll perish! We’ll be drownded! drownded to death! Oh! what a dreadful
storm!”
All looked towards the west, and saw that a storm was almost upon them.
The black clouds piling up were certainly ominous; the breeze was getting
stiffer every minute; the lake was getting rougher.
“Well boys we’re caught!” Stephen said gravely. Poor boy! all his mirth
had forsaken him.
But it was now convenient for George to remember that he had
prognosticated a storm; and, forgetting the incident of the “disguised”
sailor, he exclaimed, “Yes Steve, we’re in a tight place. But I was right
about the storm, boys.”
Steve was too much flurried to remind the boy that he had arrived at a
different conclusion, scouted the idea of a storm, and determined to
accompany them.
“Well, boys,” said Marmaduke, “this is a storm at sea: let us enjoy it
while it lasts.”
“No, Marmaduke, let us be thankful that it is _not_ a storm at sea,” Will
replied. “As for enjoying it, that would be pretty hard work. Don’t you
know that we are in danger?”
“O dear! what will become of us!” Jim groaned.
The shock was wearing off now; and Charley found courage to ask,
jocularly, “Is that all you have to say, Marmaduke? I expected something
better from you.”
Steve put in promptly, though he was still very much discomposed: “Oh,
Marmaduke’s mouth is full of words; he’s only puzzling which to say
first.”
“Look here, boys,” said the Sage, “how far astray was I about the
weather?”
“Very far, George; nearly as far as that miserable stone-boater,” Steve
answered maliciously.
This nettled George, and he asked testily in a grum voice, “What about
the little books now, Steve? Don’t you think they were right enough?”
“Well, George, it seems like it, surely enough,” Steve acknowledged.
“Don’t say spiteful things when we are in such danger,” Charles here
interposed. “And besides,” he added, “we are all in the same scrape, and
no one is to blame for it. So, let us lay our wise heads together, and
try to save ourselves.”
_Chapter X._
THE “BOWL” COMES TO GRIEF.
The first shock had now passed away, and the foolhardy scullers were
beginning to recover their spirits. Although each one was still almost
quaking with dread, yet each one believed that they would be rescued;
and each one--except, perhaps, Jim--had a theory of his own as to how
it would be effected. They viewed the matter logically. To them, it did
not seem possible that six clever boys, determined, true, and good, (the
writer and the reader may not agree to this) could perish so near home.
They searched their minds diligently, conscience helping them, and many
little things that made them uneasy were remembered; still: _they would
be rescued, they knew it_.
The punt was now a long way out on the lake; the point was passed;
looking longingly towards home they could discern the vessels at anchor,
the wharf, and several buildings in the village.
In the confusion of the moment, they had left off bailing out the
ramshackle punt, in which there were, consequently, three or four inches
of water. A dead fish and half a dozen emaciated fish-worms--abandoned, a
few days before, by an amateur angler of ten years--were carried hither
and thither over the bottom of the punt, adding to the ghastliness of the
scene.
Jim was the first to discover the water washing over his boots. Here was
a new source of distress. Forgetting the storm, which was still more
or less in the distance, his attention was centred upon that water. To
him, in his “good clothes,” it was more to be dreaded than the bellowing
waves, or the approaching storm. Thus, gentle reader, we get an insight
into the boy’s character.
“O dear!” he said piteously, “my feet are soaking wet in the bottom of
this nasty boat; and I’m cold; and I’m catching cold; and I’ve got the
chills.”
“Well, then, set on to your feet and bale her out,” Steve growled. “I
guess we don’t want to drown in this old coal-slide of a punt.”
Heaving an agonizing sigh, Jim snatched up the floating oyster-can, and
fell to work. Poor boy! his toil was monotonous and painful.
“Is it worth while to row?” Charley asked, not hopelessly, but
speculatively.
“Perhaps not, but it will keep up our spirits, anyway,” Will said. “Steer
it, George,” he added. “It would seem like giving up all hope, if we
don’t do something to help ourselves.”
Foolish fellow! he could not realize that it was out of their power to
help themselves.
“This is a sorry ending for our little trip, and things look pretty black
for us,” George observed, “Charley, how do you suppose we can be rescued?”
Thus appealed to, Charles assumed an air of importance, and said
knowingly, “If this wind should get much worse, we shall be driven away
out into the lake, and perhaps lost; unless--” here he hesitated.
“Unless what?” Jim demanded, with much emotion.
“Well, a passing schooner might pick us up, but there is none in sight.”
This was _his_ theory. Nothing would have pleased the young Argonaut more
than to be picked up by a passing sailing-vessel; and for this reason, he
was morally certain that, sooner or later, such would be the case. Why he
chose to speak so doubtfully about it, is best known to himself. Probably
the sharp young reader can guess.
“Or, they might send for us from home; but I can’t see anybody coming
along in a life-boat,” Will said, giving his particular theory.
“Haven’t any life-boat to send; and I guess they won’t telegraph for
one!” Steve exclaimed rudely.