“It’s no use, Orrington, there’s nothing in it,” said the managing
editor decisively. “We can’t publish a fairy story like that. We’ve got
to stick to probabilities, at least. What did the Secretary of War say
when you told him?”
“Oh, he said it was simply the insane freak of a crazy man,” I answered
glumly enough, for I had set my whole heart on this scoop, and felt
more and more convinced that it was true, the more I was rebuffed. I
went on with a gleam of hope. “I’d like to have you see radium bring
out the second letter, that was underneath the first.”
“My dear chap,” said the chief, a little impatiently, “I’ll take your
word for that, and you could use that story very well in another way,
but it isn’t news. Whole fleets can’t be sunk by a single man. It’s
nonsense.” He placed his glasses on his nose with a vigorous gesture,
and picked up a fresh bunch of copy.
Without a word, I passed out into the big office where, sitting down
at an empty desk by the window, I lighted my pipe and lost myself in
thought. Not very pleasant thoughts they were, for I had been rebuffed
for my enthusiasm on every side, since I took up the quixotic task of
persuading the United States that one of her battleships was in danger.
My own chief, the Washington correspondent, the War Department, the
President, and now the managing editor of the New York office whither
I had been suddenly called--all laughed at my tale. Dorothy Haldane
alone had believed. Together we had seen the message grow from the
darkness. We were convinced of its truth. From that one meeting had
come the feeling that, when Dorothy agreed, the opinion of the rest of
the world faded to minor account. Over and over again her name threaded
the shuttle of my thoughts. Dorothy was my last thought as I lay down
at night. Dorothy was my first thought with the dawn.
I had an hour to wait before I could reach a man whom I had been told
to interview, and I sat back waiting and dreaming. It was Tuesday
of the fatal week, the first week in July. Suddenly the door of the
chief’s office opened, and I heard my name. “Orrington! Orrington!”
I jumped to my feet and hurried in. The chief was sitting with the
receiver to his ear. “Close that door!” he ordered. “Here’s Orrington
now. Tell him what you told me.”
I took the ’phone at his gesture and listened.
“Orrington?”
“Yes.” (The man on the other end was the head of our Washington office.)
“There may be something in that story of yours. The War Department
has just called me up. The Alaska has disappeared somewhere between
Newport News and Bar Harbor. They talked with her by wireless yesterday
morning, and have been unable to get into communication with her since.
She has two sets of wireless on board, and has not been out of close
communication for three years. They have sent four revenue cutters out
searching the coast, but nothing has been seen. Finally the secretary
thought of you and the message from the man who intended to stop all
war. Have you found out anything?”
“No.”
“Well, take your orders from New York now. They’ve asked for you for
this. I don’t think the other papers have it yet.”
I straightened up with a throb of joy and turned to the chief. He
looked at me keenly. “Better not write anything till you have something
more. The assignment is yours. Go out and find the Alaska or what
happened to her. I give you carte blanche.”
Hardly were the last words out of his mouth before I had jumped for my
hat and was hurrying down the stairs with a generous order for expense
money in my hand. A moment’s stop at the cashier’s, and I was out on
the street. Up and down I looked for cab or automobile. I was bound
for the water front. For once, there was not even a street car going
my way. I started hurriedly on, half running in my speed. As I rushed
along, I heard my name, “Mr. Orrington!” The voice would have called
me miles. It was Dorothy Haldane, seated in a big blue motor. Her
chauffeur drew up beside me, and she threw open the door.
“Let me take you wherever you are going, and tell me if you have heard
more from that letter.”
I needed no second invitation, gave the wharf address to the chauffeur,
and turned to answer Dorothy. As I told her the news, she leaned
forward to the chauffeur.
“Go back to where we left Mr. Haldane’s launch,” she said, and turned
to me. “I’ve just left Tom at his launch, which was to take him out to
the Black Arrow. They were waiting for some provisions at the wharf,
and may be there yet. He’ll be delighted to take you, and the Black
Arrow is one of the swiftest motor yachts in the bay. Will you make
your search on her? If you will, I’ll go with you. I only stayed ashore
to-day to do some shopping that can wait.”
When the gods befriend a man, who is he to say nay? Through the hot and
dirty markets we sped and reached the wharf, just as the Black Arrow’s
launch was leaving the shore. A clear call and a wave of Dorothy’s
parasol brought it back, while a bewildered smile passed over Tom
Haldane’s face as he saw us awaiting him. “Why, Jim!” he began.
“Don’t stop to talk now,” said Dorothy. “Take us to the Black Arrow as
fast as you can.”
In a moment we had cleared the wharves and were passing from the dirt
and smells of the city on to the clear waters of the bay. As we went,
Dorothy explained the situation to Tom, who fell in with the plan
joyously. Once on the slim rakish yacht, he spoke.
“Now, Jim, you’re in command. Where are we going?”
“Right down the coast,” I said, “and we’ll megaphone every fisherman
and yacht. It’s the men on the coasters who will know, if any one does.”
Swift as her name, the Black Arrow ploughed her way through the summer
sea. Pleasantest of all assignments to sit on her deck and watch
Dorothy Haldane as she talked and speculated on the problem before
us. Could one man have sunk so mighty a battleship? Was there any
possibility that a single man could make war on the world? Tom came up
to us in the midst of the discussion, and stood listening.
“Queer this should come up now,” he said. “It was only last winter that
some one was talking about something like this up at our house, one
Sunday night. Who was it, Dorothy?”
A sudden look of alarm flashed across her face. She started to speak
and then broke off. “Oh! I hardly remember.”
Tom persisted. “Let’s see, there was a crowd of the fellows there, and,
queer thing too, John King and Dick Regnier. The same pair that were
with you the other night.”
“Regnier!” That name shot across me like a bullet. The short, quick,
troubled breathing of some one behind me on the night we read the
letter! “Can it be!” I burst forth.
Dorothy made no pretence of misunderstanding me. “No,” she said firmly.
“Dick was up to see me last night. It couldn’t have been he.”
The coast had been rushing by us rapidly as we talked, and now the
summer cottages and bathing beaches were giving way to longer stretches
of bare sand and wooded inlets. I rose and looked forward.
“We may as well commence here,” I said, and we began systematic
inquiry. Catboat and sloop tacking out on pleasure bent, tramp steamer
ploughing heavily up the coast,--one after another, we came alongside
and asked the same questions. “Have you seen a battleship to-day or
yesterday? Have you seen or heard anything unusual?”
The answers came back in every vein. Brusque denials--ironical
inquiries--would-be humorous sallies--courteous rejoinders--one and all
had the same word. No battleship seen. Nothing unusual seen or heard.
The morning had become noon, ere we were fairly on our quest. The
afternoon wore on towards night, as it progressed. As the hours passed,
I protested against my hosts giving up their yacht to my service, but
quite in vain. They were as firmly resolved to pursue the quest to the
end as I was myself.
About five o’clock, when we were some six or seven miles off the coast,
came the first success. We hailed a schooner whose lookout replied
negatively to our questions. As we passed slowly, we heard a sudden
hail, as a gaunt man, the skipper, rushed to the side.
“Lookin’ for anything unusual, be ye?” he shouted. “I’ve seen one
thing,--a catboat takin’ on a crazy man out of a knockabout.”
“Whereabouts?” I shouted.
“’Bout ten miles back, I reckon,” came the answer.
He knew no more than that, and the interchange over, I turned to
Dorothy.
“Shall we run that clue down?” I asked.
She nodded decisively. “By all means,” she said. “It’s the only one we
have. Send the Arrow inshore, will you, Tom, on a long slant?”
Once more the engine took up its racing speed, as the boat bore down on
the shore. As we went in, we changed the questions, and asked the few
boats we met if they had picked up a man. At last we saw a catboat just
sailing out of a little bay, and bore down on it. A man and a boy sat
in the stern. As I shouted my question once more, the man jumped up.
“Yes, we picked one up.”
“Where is he?” I shouted.
“At my house, but he’s crazy,” replied the man.
“Can we get in there with the yacht?”
“No, but I can take you in,” he answered, and it was but a moment’s
work to lower a boat from the davits. As I stepped to the side, Tom and
Dorothy hurried up.
“We’re going, too,” Tom cried.
The launch bore us rapidly across to the catboat, and as we approached,
I studied the faces of the man and the boy. They were simple folk, of
evidently limited intelligence. Hardly had we come alongside, when I
began my questions, and a strange story came in reply. Stripped of its
vernacular and repetitions, this was the tale finally dragged from the
man and boy, as we sailed towards the shore.
They had started out in the early morning and had fished with some
success. In the afternoon, they had seen a knockabout running
free before the wind, with all sorts of strange action. The sail
widespread, she turned and reared, started and checked, swung and
circled. There was no sign of life on board that they could ascertain,
and they made up their minds that the boat had either lost its
occupants or had been driven offshore with its sail hoisted. On
boarding, much to their surprise, they found a man, apparently a
solitary fisherman, lying unconscious in the stern sheets. Throwing
water over him roused him. He sat up and looked around, but with
unseeing eyes. His lips quivered, and in a low whisper he began to
speak. “Disappeared, disappeared, disappeared. Nothing real, nothing
real.” Rising, he started to walk straight ahead, but struck the
side and fell. His murmur now changed to a loud moan. “Disappeared,
disappeared, disappeared. Nothing real, nothing real.” Again he tried
to walk, but this time they caught him, bound him, and carried him to
shore, to their house, where he went quietly enough to bed, with the
unceasing moan. “Disappeared, disappeared, disappeared. Nothing real,
nothing real,” rising and falling like the waves on the shore.
The story had taken all the way in, and as we rowed towards shore,
leaving the catboat and launch at the mooring where the knockabout lay,
the night was swiftly shutting in. A light glimmered in a low house on
the bluff.
“That’s my house,” said the man, as we hastened towards it. A woman
with a kindly face met us at the door.
“Wife, these are some folks that are looking for the crazy man,” said
our friend.
“He’s fast asleep,” was the answer, “but you can go in and see him, if
you want to.”
My heart rose. The second step of my quest was in sight.
“Tom,” I said quietly, “come along with me. Miss Haldane, will you
remain here?”
Dorothy nodded. Tom and I followed the woman as she passed down a
narrow passage. Opening a rude door, she entered. In front of the bed,
she stopped short and threw up her hands. “For the land’s sake,” she
cried. “He’s gone!”
Gone! The word echoed dismally in my brain.
“Wait till I get a lamp,” said the woman, and she pattered nervously
out.
By the fading light, we could see the disordered bed, the open window,
and an overturned chair. A glimmer of light came down the passage,
and the woman hurried back, followed by Dorothy. No more information
could be gleaned. Evidently the lost man had risen, dressed completely,
and left by the low open window. The woman of the house was in great
distress, weeping and rocking. “The poor crazy man, lost in these
woods. He was as harmless as anything. I thought he was all right.”
Dorothy sat down beside her, and, soothing her, began a series of quiet
questions. “How long did you leave him?”
“An hour or more.” She had been doing the supper dishes. Dorothy turned
to the husband.
“What roads are there from here?”
“Only one for a mile. That goes from the front of the house.”
The woman broke in. “If he’d taken that, I’d have seen him. He’d have
gone by my window. He must have gone to the shore or the woods.”
“There’s no use waiting. He’s only getting farther away from us,” cried
Tom. “Let’s look around the house.”
Our fisher friend had two lanterns and a kerosene light. With these, we
began the search. The sand and rock around the house gave no sign of
footprints, and we passed out in widening circles, meeting and calling
without avail. A half hour’s exploration left us just where we started.
We had found nothing. Turning back, we met Dorothy at the door.
“I was afraid you would find nothing,” she said. “I’ve just found
out that he said one thing beside the sentence which he continually
repeated. Once he said, ‘The sea, the sea, the awful sea.’ I believe he
has gone to the shore.”
Together, we went in that direction. Tom and the fisherman took one
way, Dorothy and I the other. As we hastened on, the light of the
lantern threw circles of hazy light on the black water and on the
shore. Dorothy, in the depths of thought, walked on a little in
advance, and, despite myself, my thoughts turned from the man I sought
and the errand for which I sought him, and I gazed wholly at the round
cheek shaded by a flying tress that escaped from the close veil, and at
the erect figure, now stooping to look ahead, now rising and passing
on in deep thought. The same thrill which had held me the first night
came again, that binding call, that tightening chain. I lost myself in
a dreamy exhilaration.
Suddenly, Dorothy stopped. “It’s no use to go farther.”
Obediently I turned, and we retraced our steps. Just below the house,
we met Tom and the fisherman, returned from an equally unavailing
search. We all four stood gazing out to sea where the Black Arrow lay,
her lights the sole gemmed relief of the dark waters, save where her
search-light blazed a widening path of changing silver before her. All
at once I saw Dorothy raise her head with a quick breath.
“If he’s on the shore, I know how we can find him, no matter what start
he has.”