IN THE DUNGEON
“Please,” said Ruth, “I—I—” She choked as she looked into the many pairs
of eyes around the table in the _Black Gull’s_ cabin, and stammered, “We
thought you were,—no, we didn’t think. We knew you were not real pirates,
but we thought you—were—were going to stea-steal the _Black Gull_. And
we—we thought we could stop you.”
No laugh followed these stammered remarks. Each man sat at attention as
Captain Munson asked in a kindly tone:
“And why did you wish to save the _Black Gull_?”
“Because she stands for something wonderful!” The girl’s tones were
ringing now. “Because she tells the story of Maine, our grand and
glorious state we all love so well.”
“Boys,”—the pirate chieftain’s dark eyes glistened—“I propose three
cheers for Ruth and her dauntless companion.”
Never did the walls of that cabin ring with lustier shouts than when
those men ended with, “Ra, Ra, Ra! Ruth, Ruth, Ruth! Betty! Betty!
Betty!”
“And now for the feast!” exclaimed the Chief. “Fourteen men on a dead
man’s chest. Buckets of blood! There never was a pirate crew but liked
their victuals. Ho! You scullions, hove to with the viands!”
All this talk made Betty shudder, but Ruth only sat and stared.
They were hungry enough after the long row across the bay and without
asking further questions they accepted the cold chicken, coffee,
doughnuts and huge wedges of pie and did full justice to all.
A half hour later, as the pirate crew joined ringing notes of a pirate
chanty ending with a rousing, “Heave ho, Ladies, Heave ho!” the girls
pushed their punt away from the towering hull of the _Black Gull_ and
went rowing away into the night.
Ruth’s arms had swung in rhythmic motion for a full ten minutes before
she spoke. Then dropping her oars, she said in a deep, low tone,
“Of all the things I ever heard of, that beats ’em.”
“I thought,” said Betty, solemnly, “that I had seen strange things, but
that beats them all.”
“And somehow,” Ruth said, still more soberly, “I have a feeling that this
is the beginning of something very big and mysterious, and perhaps
awfully dangerous.”
“That is just the way I feel about it,” said Betty, with a shudder.
After that they lapsed into silence, and Ruth renewed her silent rowing.
The hour was late. Betty’s head began to nod. Ruth, alone with her
thoughts, was swinging her oars in strong, sweeping strokes when a
curious thing struck her eye. They were passing the ancient abandoned
fort on House Island, a massive pile of solid granite, when through a
narrow space where cannon had frowned in the long ago, a light appeared.
One instant it shone there clear and bright, the next it was gone.
“How strange!” she thought. “No one is ever there.” At once she
registered a resolve to visit the fort to have a look into this new
mystery.
Once more she thought of the ancient wood-carrying schooner, of the bolts
of silk cloth in her hold, and of the dory that had passed them in the
night.
“It’s astonishing,” she told herself, “the way events connect themselves
up, woven together in a pattern like a rug. But you have to trace them
out one by one before the pattern comes out clear and strong.”
The moon was out. The stars were shining when their punt touched the
sandy beach of the island that had always been Ruth’s home.
A half hour later that same moon, looking down upon a brown and
weather-beaten fisherman’s cottage, beamed through narrow panes of glass
upon two girls sleeping side by side. One was large and strong and ruddy.
Her arms, thrown clear of the covers, showed the muscular lines of an
athlete. Endless miles of rowing, clam digging in the early morning,
hauling away at the float line of lobster traps, had done this. There was
about the girl’s whole make-up a suggestion of perfect physical
well-being which is found oftener than anywhere else in a seacoast
village.
The other girl, as you will know, was slim, active and with nerves tight
as fiddle strings. Her life had been lived in the city. A few months
before she had gone with her father to live at a school by the side of
Lake Michigan. Now, for the summer, she was staying with a wealthy young
married woman in her summer cottage on the island. She was with Ruth for
but this one night.
As one looked at Betty lying there in repose, he read in her face and
figure signs of strength. The slender arms and limbs were not without
their suggestion of power. Her strength was the quick, nervous strength
of a squirrel; useful enough for all that. One might be sure that she
would leap into action while others searched their troubled minds for a
way out.
Strangely matched as they might be, these girls were destined to spend
much of their summer together and to come to know in a few brief weeks
how much of mystery, adventure and romance the rugged coast of Maine has
to offer those who come there to seek.
“Betty,” said Ruth as she sprang out of bed next morning, “do you know
what day this is?”
“Wouldn’t need two guesses if I didn’t know,” said Betty. “Listen to the
boom of cannons. It’s the Glorious Fourth of July.”
“To-day,” said Ruth, “we must do something exciting.”
“What shall it be?” Betty’s tone was eager.
“Listen!” said Ruth, seized with a sudden inspiration, “I’ve got a
dollar.”
“So have I.”
“We’ll spend them all for Roman candles.”
“Roman can—”
Ruth held up a hand. “We’ll get Pearl Bracket to go along. We’ll row over
to House Island in the evening and eat a picnic lunch on the grass before
the fort that overlooks the bay. The sunset is wonderful from there.
“Then when it’s getting dark, we’ll go into the old fort and have a sham
battle with Roman candles.”
“Sham battle?”
“Sure! The boys did that last year, Don and Dewey, Chet and Dill and some
others. They said it was no end of fun. They’re all going up the bay for
fireworks this year, so we’ll have the fort all to ourselves. We’ll get
Pearl Bracket to go along.
“It’s something of an adventure, just going into that old fort at night.
Secret passages and dungeons with rusty old handcuffs chained to the
wall, and all that. Quite a place.”
“I should think so. Is it very old?”
“The fort? Almost a hundred years, I guess. Used to be cannons there.
They’re gone now. No one’s been there for years and years. Just big and
empty and sort of lonesome.”
“But how do you play sham battle in there?”
“All scatter out with tallow candles in tin cans, just a little light.
Each one has an armful of Roman candles. When you hear something move you
know it is an enemy who has broken into the fort, and you shoot a candle
at him, shoot low at his feet. Be dangerous if you didn’t.
“But think what fun!” she enthused. “You’re creeping along between stone
walls, all damp and old. Just a little light. Dark all around. All of a
sudden down the long passage a little stir, and like a flash your fuse
sputters. Bang-pop-pop-pop-bang! Red, blue, green, yellow, orange, five
balls of fire leap away at the enemy and he is shot, defeated, routed
into wild retreat.”
“I should think he might be,” said Betty. “But it should be great sport.
I’m for it. Any jolly thing on the Fourth of July.”