THE FLIGHT
Southport, rudely awakened from sleep as it had been, and awake all the
rest of the night by so unusual and stirring an event as a fire, was too
much excited to go back to its slumbers, but stayed awake through the
morning hours to discuss it. A group of villagers hung around the
grocery-store all day long, adjourning only now and then to journey to
the spot where the hotel had been, where they stood solemnly
contemplating the ruins, with all-absorbing interest in the twisted and
distorted fragments that still bore some resemblance to whatever part
they had constituted in the structure of the building.
There were dozens of theories advanced as to how the fire had started.
The oil had exploded from spontaneous combustion; rats had set the blaze
by gnawing at matches, and so on through the list of ordinary causes of
fires; but as for Colonel Witham, with his customary suspicion of all
human nature, he was sure of one theory, because it was his own, and that
was, that the hotel had been set on fire. This he doggedly asserted and
as stubbornly maintained. The hotel could not have set itself afire;
therefore, some one must have done it. This was as plain as daylight to
the colonel.
He fiercely questioned John Carr as to whether any lights had been left
burning, but John Carr was loud and persistent in his assurances that the
hotel had been as dark as Egypt when he had retired for the night.
But throughout all the discussion, that ranged through cottages, along
the streets, and that spread throughout the length and breadth of the
island, there were six boys who were silent, who took no part in it, but
who kept away from wherever a group was gathered.
They were a serious-looking lot of boys as they assembled on the shore in
front of the tent; so much of anxiety and apprehension showing
unconcealed in their faces that one happening upon their council might
have read therein a key to the mystery. It would have been a mistaken
clue, of course, but it would have sufficed for the village and for
Colonel Witham.
For a few moments not one of them spoke, though each boyish brain was
turning the one awful subject over and over, vainly seeking the answer
for a problem that defied all attempts at solution.
Finally Bob broke the awful silence.
“How could it have happened?” he exclaimed. At which there was a
universal whistle and a shaking of heads.
“You see,” continued Bob, “it’s absolutely necessary for us to decide in
our own minds, the first thing, whether it was our fault or not. Because,
if it was, I suppose we’ve got to own up to it sometime or other, and we
may as well do it first as last.”
“Better now, if at all, than later,” said Tom. “They might have some
mercy on us now, being grateful that they didn’t burn up.”
“All but Colonel Witham,” said young Joe. “Catch him being grateful for
anything, with his hotel in ashes.”
“Keep quiet, Joe!” exclaimed George Warren, sharply.
The very mention of Colonel Witham’s name was irritating. It was only too
certain that no mercy could be expected from the colonel.
“But,” said Arthur Warren, “we’re not to blame, so why should we consider
that at all? You remember,” he continued, turning to Henry Burns, “how we
waited after I had blown the last lamp out and the room was absolutely
dark, and we had to stand still a moment till our eyes got accustomed to
the darkness before we could find our way to the window?”
“I remember that,” answered Henry Burns; “and not one of us lighted any
matches all the time we were there, because the lamps were all burning
dimly when we went in; but,” he added, somewhat desperately for him,
“that is not going to save us the moment an investigation begins, if they
have one. The first time they begin to question one of us we’re done for.
The moment they know we were in there last night, that will settle
everything in their minds.”
“And what then?” asked young Joe.
“Well,” said Henry Burns, more calmly, “it means that we’ve got a
twenty-five thousand dollar hotel to pay for.”
The proposition was so absurd that they burst out laughing; but it was a
short-lived and bitter merriment, and they could just as easily have
cried.
“What would our fathers say?” said Arthur Warren. “Ours told us we’d have
to make our pocket-money go a long way this summer, because he rigged the
boat all over for us. There couldn’t any of us pay for the hotel in all
our lives.”
“Perhaps they’d send us to jail,” suggested young Joe.
This happy remark was received with howls of indignation, and the
originator of it was invited to clear out if he couldn’t keep quiet.
“They couldn’t send us to jail,” said Arthur, gravely, “for, at the
worst, we could convince them that it was accidental. We may be
nuisances, but we’re not criminals. Wouldn’t it be better, on the whole,”
he concluded, “to make a clean breast of it to father, and do whatever he
says is best?”
“I’d do it in a minute,” said George Warren, “but when I know we didn’t
set the fire, even accidentally, I hate to put all that trouble and worry
on father; because, you see, we might not be able to convince him
absolutely that we may not, in some way that we don’t know of, have been
responsible. Of course, if it comes to it, we’ll tell him all,—and he’ll
believe it, too. That is, he’ll believe that we are telling what we think
is right, for we’ve always done that way, because he puts confidence in
us.”
“Then,” said Bob, “we’ve got to keep out of the way for awhile till this
thing blows over some. Everybody that sees us now will stop and ask us
how we first saw the fire and all about it.”
“They’ve done that already to us,” said George Warren. “And, luckily, we
could say truthfully that we first saw the fire from our cottage piazza.
And we said we ran down to your camp and roused you boys. Now that is all
right for a touch-and-go conversation, but suppose they see fit to follow
it up, we’ll soon find ourselves either obliged to lie or to confess.”
“Then what are we going to do?” asked Tom.
“Take a fishing-trip,” suggested young Joe.
They looked at young Joe savagely, for each knew in his own heart that it
was running away from danger,—but it was significant that not a boy
objected.
“We’ve been planning one for a week or more,” urged Joe, in extenuation
of his plan. “And we needn’t stay long. We can come back in a day or two
and then start right out again, so as not to attract attention by being
gone too long.”
“I suppose a little trip down among the islands wouldn’t be so bad for
our health,” said Henry Burns, dryly; but it was clear he had no great
liking for the plan.
And so, in a vain endeavour to escape from what seemed to them a most
unfair and cruel predicament, and without realizing that it was the worst
thing they could do, the boys agreed to start early on the following
morning in the _Spray_ for a cruise.
Much surprised was Mrs. Warren when informed of their plan.
“And just as everybody is telling what brave boys you were,” she said.
“They all say that half the guests would have lost their lives if it
hadn’t been for you.”
This was worse than punishment, and the boys groaned inwardly, for Mrs.
Warren had taught her boys to respect her, and they valued her good
opinion more than anything else in the world. They went off to bed soon
after supper, “so as to get an early start in the morning,” they said.
It was early that same evening, while the boys were at tea, that Squire
Brackett stepped ashore from his sailboat in a perfect fever of
excitement.
“I knew it and I said it,” he muttered to himself, slapping one hard fist
into the palm of the other hand. “When I saw that blaze across the water
this morning, and knew that it couldn’t be anything else than the hotel,
I says to myself, ‘Those boys have done it, with some of their
monkey-shines,’ and that’s just the way of it. By Jingo! but won’t
Colonel Witham jump out of his skin when I tell him what I saw through
that window.
“P’r’aps them ’ere boys won’t be’ so much inclined to tying other
people’s dogs to ropes and drowning them when they get caught for setting
fire to a fine hotel!”
And so, nearly bursting with the magnitude of his secret, and bristling
with more than his usual importance, Squire Brackett hurried up from the
landing and lost no time in finding Colonel Witham and escorting him in
great haste to his own home.
There on the veranda of Squire Brackett’s house sat the two worthies,
while the squire poured out his news into the eager colonel’s ear.
“Whew!” exclaimed Colonel Witham, when he had heard it all. “We’ve got
them at last and no mistake. What’s more,” he added, jumping from his
chair and stamping vigorously on the piazza floor, “I’ll prosecute them,
every mother’s son, to the extent of the law. It’s breaking and entering,
too,—forcing their way into my hotel at night,—and the fire was caused by
their criminal act. That’s serious business, as they’ll find before I get
through with them. Blow me if I don’t take the boat for Mayville this
very night, and see Judge Ellis and get the warrants for Captain Sam to
serve first thing in the morning!”
“I’ll go with you, colonel,” cried Squire Brackett. “We’ll be back here
before midnight, and be all ready at daylight to arrest them. Reckon
we’ll surprise folks a little.”
And so, chuckling maliciously together, the squire and the colonel waited
eagerly for the whistle of the little bay steamer, upon hearing which
they walked arm and arm down to the wharf and went aboard, with their
heads together, in great satisfaction.
Their trip must have been greatly to their liking, for some hours later
found them coming ashore again, evidently in a most agreeable state of
mind; and as they bade each other good night on the veranda of the
squire’s cottage, the colonel might have been heard once more to exclaim,
exultantly: “We’ve got ’em this time, squire! They can’t get away.” And
so strode away, caressing in one hand some crisp, official-looking
papers, which boded no good in their contents to six boys whose names the
colonel had given with evil delight to the judge at Mayville.
Very early next morning good-hearted Captain Sam might have been seen at
the door of his home, his fist clenched and his face burning with
indignation. Colonel Witham and Squire Brackett stood by the stoop.
“Now look here, colonel,” exclaimed Captain Sam, hotly, “you surely ain’t
going to ask me to serve these papers on them innocent young lads?
There’s some mistake, somehow, and the way for us to do is to get them up
here and just give them a talking to; ask them all the questions you
want. I’ve watched them boys for a good many summers now, ever since they
was little shavers no bigger’n mackerel, and I tell you they wouldn’t do
no wicked thing like setting fire to a hotel full of people, and there
ain’t nobody on this island mean enough to believe it.”
“We didn’t come here asking you for advice,” sneered the squire. “You’re
a constable of this village, sworn to do your duty, and your duty is to
serve these warrants, the same being legally drawn and signed by the
judge. That’s all your part, and all we ask of you to do. We take all the
consequences.”
“Well, it’s a shame. It ain’t the right thing to do, squire, as you ought
to know, having a boy of your own. But, as you say, it’s my duty if you
insist, and I’ll do it,—but it’s the hardest job I ever done in all my
life.”
“Let’s go down to the tent first,” said Colonel Witham. “There’s always
two of them down there, and sometimes more. If Henry Burns is there, I
just want to get my hands on him. I suspect he’s been fooling me all
along and playing his tricks on me, when I thought him in his room
asleep.”
The dew was still heavy on the grass and the sun had not lifted its face
above the distant cape when the three men walked down to the tent upon
the point. Not a sound broke the early morning quiet, save the cawing of
some crows in a group of pines, and the lazy swash of the sluggish
rollers breaking on the shore.
“They’re fast asleep,” whispered Squire Brackett. “We’ll give them a
little surprise—just a little surprise.” And he gave a hard chuckle.
Captain Sam, at this same instant, casting his eyes offshore and hastily
surveying the bay with the quick, comprehensive glance of an old sailor,
gave a sudden start, and, for a moment, an exclamation of surprise
escaped him.
“What is it?” asked Colonel Witham. “Did you remark anything, Captain
Sam?”
“Nothing,” answered Captain Sam. “I was just a-muttering to myself.”
And at this moment the squire threw open the flap of the tent, saying, as
he did so, “If you boys will—”
But as he and Colonel Witham poked their heads through the opening, the
sentence was abruptly cut short.
“Empty!” gasped the colonel.
“Gone!” cried the squire.
The tent was, indeed, deserted.
“Where can they be?” asked Colonel Witham.
“I know,” answered the squire. “Up at the Warrens, of course. They are
there half the time. It simply means we capture them all at once and save
trouble. Come on, Captain Sam, you don’t seem to be in much of a hurry to
do your duty, as you’re sworn to do.”
Captain Sam was, indeed, in no hurry. He loitered behind, stopped to tie
his shoes, dragged one foot along after the other slower than he had ever
done before, while every now and then, as he followed in the footsteps of
the colonel and the squire, he cast a hasty glance over his shoulder out
on the bay. What he saw must have pleased him, for on each occasion a
broad smile spread over his face and a mischievous twinkle kindled in his
eyes.
The colonel and the squire strode along impatiently, pausing now and then
for Captain Sam to catch up with them; but as they drew near to the
Warren cottage Captain Sam quickened his steps and halted them.
“You two will have to stay here,” he said, with an authority he had not
shown before. “I’m commissioned with the serving of these warrants, and
I’m going to do it; but Mrs. Warren is a nice, motherly little woman, and
I don’t propose to have three of us bursting in on them like a press-gang
and frightening her to death. I’m just going to break the news to her as
best I know how, and I don’t want no interfering.”
So saying, and with face set into a reluctant resolve, the captain walked
on alone, leaving the colonel and the squire much taken aback, and too
much astonished by the sudden declaration of authority to attempt to
dispute it.
What Captain Sam said to Mrs. Warren only she and he knew. There were no
boys called in to listen to what was said. There were no boys there to
see how Mrs. Warren’s face paled and how the tears rolled down her
cheeks, nor to hear Captain Sam’s words of burning indignation as he
tried to comfort her. No boys came to gather about her chair, to assure
her it was all a dreadful mistake. There were no boys to face the colonel
and the squire and declare their own innocence.
But out on the bay, with all her white sails set to catch the morning
breeze, the yacht _Spray_ was beating down toward a distant goal among
the islands. And aboard her were six boys, whose hearts were heavy and
whose faces were drawn with an ever present anxiety. For a time they cast
apprehensive looks back at the disappearing village, but as the morning
wore on and no pursuing sail appeared, they became more cheerful; and to
forget so far as they could the real cause of their flight, they talked
hopefully of the fish they expected to catch and the swimming and other
sport along the white sands of the island beaches.
But although no familiar craft as yet followed where they sailed, there
was, far in the lead of them and some miles down along the island, a
yacht they all knew, and in whose mission, had they but known it, their
deepest interests, their very fate, in fact, lay.
Jack Harvey had lost little time in reaching his camp. While he ran the
fire blazed brighter and brighter, sending an angry glare over the waters
of the bay and lighting up the country around. Looking back now and then,
he could see men and women running about in the light of the fire, and
the frantic, though unavailing, efforts of the village fire department to
stay the flames.
“Seems funny,” he muttered to himself, “to be running away from a fire,
and the greatest fire we ever had on this island at that. I never did
such a thing before, but I guess there’ll be something more exciting
ahead than a fire before we get through.”
Harvey found his camp deserted, as he had expected. Not a sign of life
showed about the place.
“They’re all up to the fire,” said Harvey; “but I’ll bring them soon
enough, though I reckon they’ll be mad at first to have to leave when the
fire is just at its best.”
And he began ransacking the camp, rolling up blankets, tying them into
compact bundles and hurrying down to the shore with them, where he
deposited them in a rowboat.
He made a pile of the rude dishes that the camp afforded, a saucepan, a
fry-pan, tin dippers, and a few tin plates, tying them all together in a
bundle and rattling them all down to the shore in great haste.
Finally he got a boatload of the stuff, and, jumping in, sculled the
little craft out to the _Surprise_. Leaping aboard, he rushed down into
the cabin, threw open a locker, drew forth a big tin horn, which he
raised to his lips, and blew four loud, long blasts in succession.
“The hurry signal will surprise them, I reckon,” he exclaimed; “but
they’ve always answered it before, and I guess they’ll come,—even from a
fire.” And Harvey began stowing the stuff away aboard the yacht. Then he
proceeded to untie the stops in the mainsail, and was thus engaged when a
voice hailed him from the shore.
“Halloo, Jack!” came the call. “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you up to
the fire? What’s up?”
“Wait a minute,” answered Harvey. “I’m coming ashore. Are the others on
the way?”
“Yes,” answered the boy on shore, who proved to be Joe Hinman; “but they
don’t like it a bit. It’s a shame to lose this fire, Jack. Why, you ought
to see Colonel Witham. He’s the craziest man I ever saw, running around
and begging everybody he sees to rush into the blaze and save his old
office furniture.”
“Well, Joe,” said Harvey, as he stepped out of the small boat on to the
beach, beside the other, “we’ve got some work cut out for us that beats
watching a fire all to pieces. I’ll tell you all about it, but there
isn’t one half-minute to lose now. Believe me, you fellows won’t regret
it,—hello, here are the others!”
The three other members of the crew, George Baker, Allan Harding, and Tim
Reardon, burst out of the woods into the clearing, gasping from running,
and amazed beyond expression that Harvey should have called them from the
fire.
“Fellows,” said Harvey, “I’ll tell you the whole story just as soon as we
get aboard and up sail. This is the greatest thing we ever did in all our
lives; but it’s the minutes that count now, and we have got to get under
way the quickest we ever did yet.”
And then, as the boys hesitated, and Joe Hinman ventured the question,
with something of suspicion in his tone that he could not all conceal,
“Why, Jack, there’s no trouble, is there—no trouble—about the fire?” it
suddenly dawned on Harvey that this sudden departure did have a queer
look to it, and that he was, indeed, open to their suspicion.
“Yes,” he cried, “there is trouble, and it’s about this fire; but it
isn’t our trouble. The trouble is for the man that set it,—and we are
going to make it for him. We’re going to catch him. Now will you hurry?”
“Will we?” exclaimed George Baker. “Just watch us!”
And every boy made a dash for the camp to secure anything he might need
on a cruise down the bay.
Harvey and Joe Hinman seized two big jugs and made off for the spring,
whence they returned quickly. Then the entire crew piling into the small
boat, they were soon aboard the _Surprise_.
The anchor was up in a twinkling. The sails were never spread in such
time. Almost as quickly as it takes to tell it, the yacht _Surprise_ was
under way, and with Harvey at the wheel was standing out of the little
harbour.
Then, as they left the glare of the fire upon the waters astern, but
still flaming like a giant beacon against the sky, Harvey, with his crew
about him, narrated his extraordinary adventure with the strange man, and
asserted his conviction that the man was none other than the same
Chambers who had fled from the island not long before.
“That is a fast boat, and we can never catch her in plain sailing,” said
Allan Harding. “She is full half again as big as we, and she would sail
around us a dozen times and then walk away from us without half-trying.”
“I know that,” said Harvey, “and that is just why I am so anxious to
catch up with him before he gets out of the western bay into the open
sea. If we don’t get him in the bay we shall lose him. Now let’s overhaul
everything, and be sure that something doesn’t break just as we come to
the pinch.”
There was little to be done, however, on that score; for, however
carelessly they lived ashore, they had the true yachtsman’s spirit aboard
the _Surprise_, and kept her shipshape. Then they set the club and jib
topsails, for there was not much air stirring, and they drew the tender
up close astern, so it would drag as little as possible.
“We have one advantage,” said Harvey. “We can depend upon it, he knows
enough not to try the open bay and sail down toward the Gull Islands. The
first part of the way is clear sailing enough, but when you get down just
off the islands you come to the shallows, and a man has to follow the
marks to get clear and safely out to sea. And then, too, the alarm is
going to be sent out just as soon as a boat from the village can get over
to the mainland. They won’t lose any time about that,—and Chambers is
sharp enough to know it. He knows the whole bay down below there will be
alive with boats, just as soon as they get the news wired down to them.
“Depend upon it, Chambers will try to fool them. I think he will come
through the Thoroughfare at this eastern end of Grand Island, which he
must have studied out on the charts. He will not dare to try the
Thoroughfare to-night, however, and if we can only beat down to somewhere
below the Thoroughfare to-night we shall be well to windward of him in
the morning, and he will think we are a boat coming in from outside,
while he will still be beating into the wind, if it holds from the
south’ard, the way it is blowing now.”
“That’s right,” said Joe Hinman. “He cannot make the passage out through
the Thoroughfare in the night, unless he knows the way better than I
think he does. It is a bad run in the dark, even for a man that was born
around here. We have done it only once or twice ourselves.”
“You fellows turn in now, all but Tim,” said Harvey, “and get some sleep.
We two can run her for awhile. I’ll call you, Joe, in about an hour or
two, to handle her while I get forty winks, but, mind, everybody will be
called sharp the minute we clear Tom’s Island, for no knowing what we
shall see then at any minute. Chambers will lie up in Seal Cove for an
hour or two, I reckon, if he has got down that far. I only wish I was
sure of it. We’d go ashore and take a run across the island and catch him
napping—
“By the way, George,” exclaimed Harvey, “how do you feel? It’s mighty
lucky you happened to be taken with that colic in the night, just at the
right time, and that I started out to rouse up old Sanborn to get some
ginger for you. All this would never have happened if it hadn’t been for
you.”
“Why, I’m all right,” answered George Baker. “I could hardly walk when we
first saw the fire, but I just made up my mind I wasn’t going to miss it,
and so I started out. When the sparks began to fly I forgot all about the
pain, and I hadn’t thought of it since. It’s all gone now, anyway.”
Two hours later they were nearing the southern end of Grand Island and
coming in sight of a chain, or cluster, of smaller islands, through which
an obscure and little used passage ran from the western bay to the outer
sea. Jack Harvey had sent young Tim into the cabin to snatch a wink of
sleep, and Joe had come up, heavy and dull.
“I’ll go without my sleep this once,” said Harvey. “Here, Joe, hold her a
minute. I’ll get a bit of rest right here on deck, with one eye open.”
It was growing light fast now, and they strained their eyes for a sail.
“I guess we are in time,” said Harvey, as they came abreast of Tom’s
Island. “He is not in sight. We’ll head out to sea a bit more, and cut
into the Thoroughfare farther down, for the tide will be high in an hour,
and we can cross Pine Island Bar. Then, if he has taken the channel on
the other side of Tom’s Island, we can still head him off,—unless he went
through in the night.”
And Harvey, having relinquished the tiller to Joe, stretched himself out
at full length on the seat to rest.
Thus they sailed for a short cut into the Thoroughfare at a point where
they could command the farther of the two channels.
And, as they sailed, so sailed another and a larger sloop, beating its
way out to sea through the farther channel. A man, powerfully built, and
with a hard, desperate look in his eyes, sat at the wheel,—and he was all
alone. The yacht cut a clean path through the smooth waters of the
Thoroughfare, and, as the man looked at the coast-line along which he was
passing rapidly, he muttered: “It’s a clear passage; a safe run to sea.
And, once there, who’s to say I was ever in these waters? I said I’d have
revenge on this town for what I’ve lost, if it took all summer, and I’ve
done it. The blaze did me good as it lit the sky. Twenty minutes more and
I’ll be clear of this, and good-bye to this coast for ever.”
But even as he said it a smaller sloop turned the head of an island half
a mile ahead, and came down the Thoroughfare, running off the wind.