PART II

CURSED BE THE TREASURE

BY H. B. DRAKE

NEW YORK

MACY-MASIUS: PUBLISHERS

1928

COPYRIGHT IN 1928 AND MANUFACTURED

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY MACY-MASIUS, INC. AT THE PRESS

OF J. J. LITTLE AND IVES CO.

_To

My Son, Terence Theodore_

CONTENTS

PART I

MY FATHER

I. THE TAPPING AT THE WINDOW

II. BITE-IN-THE-DARK

III. THE DOLPHIN INN

IV. EBB-TIDE CAVE

V. THE CLOSED GATE

VI. THE KING'S MAN

VII. THE MANUSCRIPT

VIII. PICARDINO

IX. SUNSET TOWERS

X. MY FATHER TELLS A STORY

XI. THE GHOST

PART II

CAPTAIN FIELD

XII. THE WAY OF A FRIEND

XIII. TRAPPED

XIV. THE NEW TENANT

XV. JENNY

XVI. ABOU

XVII. THE SIGN

XVIII. OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN

XIX. INTO THE FIRE

XX. AT THE DAWN OF A SUMMER'S DAY

XXI. ALL ON THE FIRST OF MAY

XXII. WORTHING ASKS QUESTIONS

PART III

DIRK STORMAWAY

XXIII. DIRK TAKES ME IN HAND

XXIV. THOMAS GARTH PLAYDEN

XXV. JENNY SENDS A MESSAGE

XXVI. A STORY UNDER THE STARS

XXVII. A NIGHT AND A DAY

XXVIII. A REVELATION

XXIX. ALONE

XXX. DRIFT-WOOD CAVERN

XXXI. EXPIATION

XXXII. INTO THE MORNING

CURSED BE THE TREASURE

PART I

MY FATHER

CHAPTER I

THE TAPPING AT THE WINDOW

Looking right back to the days of my childhood, the first beginnings of

things are blurred and confused, but I must disentangle them as well

as I may if I am to tell my story clearly and coherently. I know now

that the story began long before I was born, but I must pick up the

thread of it where it first crossed my path. And even that is difficult

enough. For before I was conscious to the point of memory I was already

enmeshed in a net of mystery woven long since of dark and incredible

things. But to me they didn't seem dark and incredible, for they were

with me before I could reason and distinguish, nor had my experience

any touchstone by which to test or measure them.

I think perhaps I first began to take conscious stock of my

surroundings on a certain night of wind and rain. For earlier events

were with me but as shapeless shadows of memory, but from this night my

life began to unfold before me like a clearly written book. I had been

nursed in the atmosphere of mystery, though at this time, of course,

such a term would have had no meaning for me, for nothing is strange

to the inexperienced. But vaguely I was becoming accustomed to a life

of sudden change and hiding and swift flight. My eyes were opening

with growing consciousness to a world of passing lights and shadows,

with nothing definite or stationary, but all in wavering motion. The

one binding and constant element, the thread as it were which gave

single consistency to the whole, was the presence of my father, whose

laughter and gaiety, whose thrilling stories of pirates and smugglers

and treasure-trove, acted rather than narrated with a dramatic realism

that left them scored in burning pictures on my imagination, and whose

strong and tender companionship to a child of five or six, set him

central like the sun in my little world now growing out of chaos to

some semblance of form and individuality.

Why this night above all nights should live in my memory as the first

clear picture there, is perhaps due to the keener suffering I was

called upon to endure, or perhaps to the fact that the shadowy pursuer

who kept ever on the road became this night not merely a name and a

fear but a creature of flesh and blood.

The flight in the morning I don't remember distinctly, for that

was much as others had been. My father had been playing with me at

hide-and-seek, our favourite pastime, and one always full of thrill

and strange romance, when he had crept up to me where I lay hidden,

and putting his finger to his lips muttered, "Whist!"--glancing slowly

round with infinite caution. All this I surmise, for it had happened

so before, and I knew the procedure well. It meant that the mysterious

enemy was on our trail again, and we must be away on the path without

delay.

"Is it Shadow-of-Fear?" I said, creeping close to my father so as to

whisper in his ear.

He nodded slowly, and looking very serious took me by the hand, and

together we crawled away. It didn't seem in the least fantastic to me,

for it had happened often before. It was indeed part of our game, for

our hide-and-seek was no garden affair; we needed the whole of England

for our playground. So once more we set out on our travels; and I

didn't question how it was that everything was ready and in order, our

cloaks being hidden in a bush near by, and my father's knapsack packed

for the journey.

But on this occasion there was a difference, and it was probably

this difference that stamped the affair on my mind. For usually we

managed to cover our tracks after a day or two, but this time our

pursuer seemed unusually tenacious of the scent, and for days we fled,

doubling upon our path, plunging into woods, emerging at high roads

where we obtained a lift on a passing cart or waggon, hiding for a

day in a remote hamlet, burrowing through the twisting streets of a

city, till at last it seemed to me that my whole life had been one

long wandering, and I began to grow tired. It needed all my father's

fun and exhaustless imagination to keep my heart tuned to the wearying

adventure.

On the night I speak of I remember I was crying with fatigue and cold

and hunger, dragging at my father's hand as he plodded me remorselessly

onward down a drenched and dripping woodland path. His buoyant laugh,

usually so exhilarating, failed to shake my drooping spirits into

cheerfulness, for indeed I was bitterly miserable. My feet were numbed

to solid lumps of aching cold, and the wet twigs that wisped across

my face hurt cruelly. Even the hand that my father held was bitter

with a throbbing half-consciousness of animation, and the other hung

nerveless at my side. So I whimpered and toddled on. But I remember

feeling no unkindness towards my father. Not for a moment did my heart

cry blame on him; for babe as I was he had successfully impressed me

with the sense of strange pursuit that ever hung upon our flight. It

was something entirely beyond his power, something big like fate or

death. Tired and miserable, I knew I must on, for behind us there were

creatures of the dark scenting stealthily upon our track. I heard their

sniffing through the pauses of the wind, and more terrible still their

laughter, cackling brutally in our wake. This made me quicken my pace,

though it was pain to do so, and clutch my father's hand more tightly

in both my own.

"Shadow-of-Fear?" I would say.

"Yes, Tommy, yes," he would answer. "But he's lost the trail this time."

Shadow-of-Fear was the name my father had given to our secret and

inexorable enemy.

I stumbled on as well as I could through the black wood and the

drenching rain, and then I must have slipped, for I found myself

swinging from my father's supporting arm. He tried to set me on my

feet again, but I felt faint, and the little strength had quite ebbed

from my limbs; and my father with boisterous tenderness stooped and

lifted me on to his back, and with a "Courage, Tommy!" strode on with

redoubled speed. I hung my dripping arms down his shoulders, taking

care not to press them against his throat and hinder his breathing, for

I had had experience in this kind of travel. And I laid my streaming

cheek upon his head, and felt the jogging motion of his walk lull me

to a disturbed kind of half sleep, full of waking visions and drowsy

dreams, where great blazing fires and the smell of sizzling and

delicious foods mingled with alarms and pattering feet and gripping

hands thrust suddenly out of the dark.

At last I must have yielded to my fatigue and slept soundly, while the

rain beat unheeded upon my face, for I woke to a real fire that fumed

up smokily with sputtering crackles and fitful flames, bright enough

to show that all around was dark. I couldn't see my father, but I heard

him moving behind me, and a sudden light told me that he had lit our

travelling lantern, for yellow swinging beams played round our shelter

as he hung the lantern from the roof.

I looked about me sleepily. Evidently we were in some sort of hut,

though where in the whole of England I hadn't the faintest notion.

Outside the wind and rain were still at their old struggle, slashing

and crying through the trees in great rushing gusts that grew out of

nowhere and raced away again. My father seeing me move threw himself

down beside me, and stripping off my sodden clothes began to arrange

them round the fire. From his knapsack he pulled out a rug which he

had managed to keep reasonably dry through the drenching tempest, and

wrapped my naked body in its comforting folds, and the touch of its

dry softness was bliss unspeakable after the soaking discomfort of

the rain. I smiled up into his face with all my love, and for reward

felt his arms about me, and his wet cheek pressed to mine, while he

murmured, "That's my brave little boy!" So wonderful was my father that

words like these were magical, and my ebbing courage flowed again.

Then he took my hands between his own and chafed them vigorously back

to life, and I don't think I cried at the exquisite pain as the blood

flushed slowly back to my white finger-tips. And all the time he was

talking in his rapid and thrilling way, making a story of the adventure

we had passed through, and telling how we had baffled our pursuer at

last.

I was too weary to pay much heed to his rattling talk. I know that

the fire as it blazed up more strongly and brightly, triumphing over

the soaked twigs and branches which my father had scrambled together,

thawed my limbs deliciously. And soon I was in a glow of steamy

warmth, and nodded sleepily, while my father, still chatting in his

restless way, prepared some soup. The hot savoury stuff was the last

touch necessary to complete comfort, and forgetting with the ease

of childhood the dreary tramp through the storm I gave myself up

unresistingly to the luxury of sleep. But my sleep wasn't completely

unbroken. It seemed to surge over me like great waves, and whenever I

floated up to the surface I became aware of my father's voice still

droning out the story of our flight. He must have been talking to

prevent himself from sleeping, for once I seem to remember hearing him

muttering, "I must keep awake, I must keep awake," and sometimes when I

awoke from my doze he was pacing the hut, or turning the clothes before

the fire.

I had one longer spell of wakefulness while it was still dark. The wind

had dropped, and my father had ceased to prattle. The complete silence,

together with the cutting pressure of cold air against my cheek, had

probably aroused me more alertly than usual, for of a sudden I felt

wide-awake. I looked round for my father, but he wasn't in the hut. The

lantern was no longer alight, and the fire was smouldering low. The

door stood open, and the utter blackness of the woodland seemed banked

up against it like a barricade. For a moment the fear of loneliness was

upon me, and I would have cried out, but just then my father returned

with a bundle of faggots, which he tossed on to the failing fire. There

was a smother of smoke and steam and a loud hissing, before the red

flames broke through again.

"What! Awake, Tommy?" said my father, seeing me rub my eyes, which were

smarting from the fumes.

"Awake, daddy," I said, blinking up at him with a smile.

He shut the door, and carefully secured it with a stout piece of

timber. I noticed too that he had hung his cloak, now dry, over the

little solitary pane of glass which was all the hut possessed in the

way of a window.

"Time to dress, Tommy," he said, helping me pull on my stockings,

which were almost toasted by the fire and felt comfortingly warm. I

reached for my shirt and breeches, and slowly drew them on, my eyes

half shut, for I would willingly have lain down again for a further

spell of sleep. I pushed my arms into my jacket, and looking round for

my cloak saw it hanging on the wall opposite the door. I was rising

to get it when my father said, "Ah, not that just yet. We won't start

till morning, but best be ready." He added, "There's a big hole there,

Tommy. Keeping out the wind; the cold wind, Tommy, with the sharp white

teeth. It's there behind your cloak, all ready to bite."

He snapped his teeth and shuddered, while I threw my head on his arm as

he sat beside me, and chuckled delightedly. For it was always in this

way that he spoke of the simplest things; never to frighten, but to

give just that touch of dramatic and imaginative charm which childhood

thirsts for. And it was this magic spell which he cast over our life of

hard wanderings and sudden flights that changed a bitter reality into a

wonderful game.

He was off again with some story or other, and though I tried to keep

awake so as not to miss the precious recital, yet sleep was still

heavy in my eyes, and my head nodded. I must have been tired indeed,

for my father could tell a story with such thrill and vigour, his

expression changing with every phase and mood, that the thing became

a living picture. At least it was so to me, and bed had no attraction

while I was away with my father seeking treasure on far-away seas. But

this night I missed the better part of the story. I only heard a word

here and there. I remember there was a cave, and a conspiracy, and

a terrible crime, but how the story went I couldn't follow. And then

in a more wakeful moment I heard my father saying, "This is how he

looked at me." I blinked a sleepy eye up at him, and suddenly started

into complete consciousness, for used as I was to his extraordinary

facial contortions when dramatizing his incidents, I had never seen

him wear such a look of frightfulness as he wore now. His hair was

standing up stupidly, with one lank lock pulled slantwise across his

forehead, almost hiding one eye. His lips, usually so full of laughter,

had slipped to a loose and slobbering imbecility. His cheeks were

drawn in haggard lines, pulling down the flesh beneath his eyes, which

contrasted raw and red with the staring whites. The whole expression

was one of blank idiocy, except for a tell-tale glitter of devilish

cunning which lurked in the corners of his upturned eyes.

I stared at him in horror. In all his many disguises I had seen him in

nothing that had suggested that his face could be distorted to such a

hideous caricature of itself. And yet it was hardly a caricature, for

it was all but unrecognizable. I believe that no other eyes but mine

could have penetrated that mask. It was only his even voice repeating,

"This is how he looked at me," that reassured me somewhat.

"But who?" I asked, clutching him.

"Who? The Mad Captain. I was telling you, Tommy."

"Yes, yes," I said eagerly, hoping to pick up the thread of the story

as he continued.

My father's face gradually righted itself as he proceeded:

"You see, Tommy, he had left them alone there to die; and that was

a terrible thing." His voice was hushed and tense in a way I can't

describe, but which held me in a spell of expectation. "And he knew

they could never get away. And they had no food, and they would starve.

And that's a horrible slow death, Tommy. And if they cried out, no one

would hear them. Their voices would be like whispers from the stars."

"Ah," I said, "the treasure," trying to link on to the lost fragment

without my father's needing to repeat it, for I knew he hated to

return upon his narrative when once well under way. I can see now how

necessary it was for him to live in his incident, and repetition spoilt

his dramatic flow.

So there we sat together, gazing into the red flames, with the night

outside very hushed and secret, far away from the world, with somewhere

behind us our baffled pursuer scenting along a false track, and my

father in his tense and vivid voice telling an old story of crime and

madness and remorse.

"Yes, treasure, Tommy," he answered me. "They were there with the gold

and the rubies and the diamonds, trapped in the cave, with twenty tons

of rock at its mouth, and with nothing to eat, and hunger gnawing like

wolves inside them, and no one to hear them crying day after day; and

their voices growing weaker and dryer, just like croaking birds, Tommy,

till one by one they dropped down to die. It must have been terrible

all alone there, Tommy. Can't you see them, with bruised torn hands,

beating at the rock, tugging and beating? And the gold lying quiet

there, how it must have said to them, 'Fools! Fools! Fools!' And the

last man, Tommy, when the rest were all dead! I think he must have gone

mad. Can you see him, groping from body to body, and crying pitifully

because they wouldn't move or speak to him; all lying so sad and still

and saying not a word? And how he must have sprung away from them and

hammered at that rock, and fallen down faint and beaten, and wrung his

battered hands, laughing like a madman, pulling at his hair. The last

man, all alone, with the treasure and the secret and the dead men; till

he grew thin and faint and tired, and lay down with the rest."

"And the Mad Captain?" I asked, thirsting for details.

"Ah, he!"--and my father's face, which had softened, became rightful

again, till for very face I crept closer to him, and gripped him

convulsively. He went on in his hushed, tense voice: "It was like this

he looked at me when he told me the story. For you see, Tommy, he could

hear the voices calling to him; and if he shut his ears against them,

there were terrible curses screaming inside his head, for he knew he

had left them there to die. And in the night he saw them there, growing

thinner and whiter and all wasted with hunger. And he counted the days,

and said, 'Now they must be dead!' But still he heard them crying to

him; most terrible and piteous it was. And he knew they were dead

and were following him, and he couldn't hide from them anywhere. And

sometimes they screamed at him, and sometimes they laughed; a hollow

wicked laughter, he told me, and wondered I couldn't hear it. And then

he knew he could never rest again, but must up and away day after day

and night after night, with the dead men chasing him and crying to him

and mocking his madness. And so he was whipped on from place to place,

never resting. For the terrible voices broke into his sleep like a cry

of hounds, and the dead faces peered horribly at him through the dark,

and the room was always full of moaning and knocking and a shuffling of

feet."

If I felt frightened at this strange recital in the gloom of our

wayside hut, lit fitfully as it was by the red leaping flames of

the fire, which threw distorted shadows on the walls which a boy's

imagination might work into terrible fantasies--if I felt frightened

it was with a pleasing fear; for I delighted to feel the stirring of

unseen things about me, when safe in the comforting security of my

father's presence. I remember glancing cautiously around me into the

shadowy corners, half hoping to see some white and horrible face

gazing out at me; and I strained my ears to catch some echo of the

cryings and moanings which my father had been speaking of. The wind

had quite dropped, and the night was perfectly still, with a sort of

waiting uneasy stillness; and I thought I could hear a movement in the

darkness outside. But my father was continuing: "And when he lit his

lamp the blackness through the window was full of beckoning hands,

and when he blew the lamp out for very fear the room was alive with

creeping feet. And sometimes he felt cold fingers on his neck, and

sometimes breath in his hair, and sometimes...."

At this moment there was a tapping at the window.

My father looked round sharply, and the words died on his lips.

He clutched my arm with a hard grip, and I knew my part was to be

perfectly still. And then suddenly he let out a bitter cry, and under

cover of it had pushed me behind my cloak and through the hole in the

wall. The cloak followed, and he hung his own coat in its place; and a

moment later the knapsack was bundled after me. I crouched motionless

in the cold, with my cloak pulled about my shoulders; and still my

father was crooning in a kind of unearthly sob, broken now and again

by short little dry chucklings. I summoned courage to widen with my

fingers a slit in his coat through which I could peep into the hut. I

caught one glimpse of my father's face in the firelight; again it was

drawn with haggard madness, but I thought the cunning in the eye was

sharper than before. He was sitting in front of the fire with his knees

huddled up to his chin, peering slantwise behind him towards the door.

I looked towards the door; the barrier was down.

Again there was a tapping at the window. The sound came to me from

the outside. And then I heard a low wail, "For the mercy of heaven,

let me in, let me in." My father moaned in reply, hugging himself

convulsively, and finishing on a shriek that broke into a hideous

laughter.

All this was a new game on me, and curiosity rather than fear was the

uppermost feeling in my mind. Indeed, the most frightening thing was

the stillness of the woodland behind me. It seemed as though a great

hand had the world in its grip, and a loosening of the fingers would

set the air into sudden and startling motion.

I heard a shuffling at the other side of the hut, and the wall shook as

though a body had fallen against it. I looked through the slit in the

coat; the door was slowly opening.

CHAPTER II

BITE-IN-THE-DARK

What I expected to see I hardly know. I think probably I expected

nothing visible, but merely that the hut would suddenly fill with

wailings and demoniac cries, for the Mad Captain with his unseen

tormentors was still beating in my mind. And something like a doubt

crossed my thoughts that perhaps my father too was fleeing from some

such spirits of remorse and retribution. But certainly I wasn't

expecting the miserable and decrepit hag who crawled out of the

blackness in through the open doorway, delaying on the threshold to

push the crazy door flat against the wall before venturing through, as

though suspecting some hidden snare.

It seemed an anticlimax to my strung imagination, and I could have

laughed aloud, but something in my father's attitude of stealthy

watchfulness held my lips dumb, though I was on the point of pushing

back through the wall to say, "How stupid, daddy!" as though a splendid

game had been spoilt. For the woman was just an ordinary beggar, very

dirty, very ragged, very weary and miserable, and so weak that she

must have fallen, and now could only crawl to the comforting welcome

of the fire; it was her body I had felt shake the hut as she had

collapsed. And yet my father's face didn't change, but his fingers

played foolishly together about his throat. He was usually so kind to

the friendless and helpless that I expected to see him rise and help

her in; and I began to think that I too should like his permission to

return to my warm place out of the biting night air that chilled my

hands and feet. But his face still wore its imbecile expression, and as

the woman crept up to him he shrank away from her towards my side of

the fire, chattering incomprehensibly, and watching her slyly out of

the corner of his eyes.

His strange manner must have startled her, for she made a circuit to

avoid him, but with eyes fixed steadily upon him still moved slowly

towards the fire, till soon they were both crouched one on either side

of it, crossing glances through the flames. My father was seated with

his back to me, but with his face half averted from the woman so that

I could see it in profile; but the woman I had in full view. She was

moaning weakly like a dumb creature in pain, and her hands were spread

out tremblingly to the fire, as though greedy for its warmth. Her

fingers were yellow and thin and withered. She was wearing a kind of

bonnet from under which stray wisps of ragged hair straggled down over

her face. The bones in her cheeks showed sharply, throwing deep shadows

into the hollows behind, and her eyes beneath her great brows were like

pits of blackness, occasionally gleaming with points of red as the

firelight caught her pupils. And all the time as she warmed herself,

trembling and complaining in broken whimpers, she watched my father,

who for his part was edging farther and farther from her, jabbering

stupidly and gurgling with low, throaty laughter. And so there they sat

like animals in a cage, and although I had never seen anything quite

so harmless and commonplace as the forlorn waif who had just crawled

into our shelter, yet it seemed to me that the two as they fronted each

other were like beasts preparing for a spring, and the woman's whine

and my father's idiot cacklings were like the growls of coming battle.

I became spellbound watching them, wondering what would happen. I

forgot the cold; and the immensity of blackness all around me held no

hidden fears, for all my mind was on that strange pair in the hut,

shining red with the leaping flames, and looming black as the fire

slackened. This was the best game I had seen, and I was an enthralled

spectator eagerly watching for the moves. And, though I knew it not,

blacker than the night about me was the shadow of an old crime that had

caught me in its darkness and would bring on my head also a measure of

doom.

It is impossible for me to say just what were my feelings at the time,

for the incident has been so often rehearsed by my father with such

dramatic distinctness that I hardly remember what I saw through the

slit in the coat, and what I learnt afterwards; also I have come to

regard it so much from my father's standpoint rather than from my own

that it is difficult to disentangle my own feelings from his, and in

telling what happened I may seem to be reading more into the affair

than I could possibly have comprehended at the time.

But this I know, that as the woman spread her hands to the blaze,

whimpering curses against the cold and the night and the ill folk that

grudged a starving body a bit o' warmth, and drove you from their doors

without a bite or a sip, I could see her furtively scanning the hut,

searching out, as it seemed to me, possible hiding-places. Why I cannot

say, but the fear grew in my heart that it was me she was looking for,

and as the black hollows where her eyes were hidden rested on the coat

behind which I crouched a shudder passed through me, for I remember how

suddenly the fire lit up her eyes in their dark caverns, and the fierce

red balls seemed menacingly fixed on me. I shrank back into the night,

but not so far that I couldn't still with difficulty see into the hut.

And while the woman whined and droned her endless tale of wrong my

father was muttering and chuckling insanely in his corner, puffing

out his cheeks, blowing in his hands, sometimes leaning forward and

grinning amiably at the old hag, and sometimes snarling malignantly at

her, or beating and clutching at imaginary tormentors. But I thought he

watched her all the while, and took due note of her peering and prying.

There was a bundle of straw and leaves and branches and other lumber

in the corner behind the woman, and her eyes were often turned to

it, wondering, I thought, what it might conceal. I felt a thrill of

delight to know that if she thought I was hidden there she would have

a fine disappointment when she looked for me; for look for me I knew

she would, so convinced had I become that she was wondering where I

was hidden. For if she was hunting for my father she must know that I

should be with him. And sometimes she gazed at the cloak hung over the

window; perhaps I was there. And sometimes at the coat that concealed

my hiding-place; but it hung flat against the wall, and she couldn't

know of the hole behind it. I triumphed in my security with all the

joy that I had learnt from the exciting games of hide-and-seek which I

had played with my father. I nearly laughed aloud when the old crone,

unable to restrain her curiosity, so it seemed to me, rose shivering,

and diving her hands into the pile of lumber seized an armful of wood

and threw it on the fire. She returned to her place, still whimpering,

but more angrily than before and with greater vigour. My father only

chuckled softly, and subsided into snarlings as though the affair

hadn't disturbed him. But I knew he had noted it.

How it was that with nothing happening the atmosphere grew more

strained with each moment I can't explain. I felt that something was

bound to happen, and it would come quickly. I became more and more

convinced that the old woman was searching for me; but the knowledge

was exhilarating, not frightening. I was used to being hunted, and knew

the thrill of hiding. And then my father was there to protect me if the

game became too serious.

And so the droning and the mummery continued; and then the hag, still

shivering with cold, rose and twitched down my father's cloak from the

window and threw it over her shoulders. Foiled again, I thought, as she

crouched back into her place; and my father hissed between his teeth,

and made a sudden grab at something in the fire. Then his attention

became fixed on the roof, though I could see nothing there, and with

complete indifference he left his hand singeing in the flames. I could

see the hag watching him, and behind her inscrutable eyes she must have

been wondering whether this was a supreme bluff or a genuine piece of

idiocy. But my father never winced. Slowly it seemed his attention

became drawn to his roasting flesh, while I shuddered at the pain of

it. But he looked down on his hand, and then calmly drew it up to

his eyes as though dumbly questioning what had been hurting him. And

suddenly he looked across at the woman, and with a frightful cry hurled

himself at her through the fire. But she was too quick for him, and

nimbly avoiding him slipped round to my side of the fire, still ready

to spring away if he attacked her again; and while my father blundered

stupidly across the hut, and collapsed against the wall, grumbling and

shaking, I saw the hag slip a knife back into the folds of her dress.

It was real war, I knew then; and my blood sang through my ears.

If my father had thought to take her by surprise he had failed. But

still there was no motive for the attack except the rage of a lunatic.

If she was questioning his identity the secret wasn't betrayed. But

I began to fear for myself, for I knew she would find some pretext to

whip away the coat that was hiding me, and the tell-tale hole would be

revealed. And now she was on my side of the fire. She wouldn't even

have to pass my father to get at me. My father must have realized

this too, for he seemed to me to be gathering for another spring.

And I think the woman knew it, and was determined to peep behind the

coat before the tables were again reversed. Her hand crept behind her

towards me. Instinctively I clutched at the coat, and felt something

hard in the pocket. It was my father's pistol, I knew well; a

prohibited toy, but one eagerly desired. I had some idea, as a child

will, of playing the hero; and I slipped the pistol from the pocket.

It was easily done, for the woman's eyes were on my father, though

her hand was creeping ever nearer to the coat. I tugged at the hammer

of the great thing, and with difficulty cocked it, and held it with a

shaky hand. And then what happened I couldn't see. My attention was

on the pistol, when all at once the hut was in an uproar. I think the

woman must have clutched at the coat and my father sprung at the same

moment. At any rate there was the thud of a body against me, and my

hand seemed to be wrenched from my arm, while a splitting roar seemed

to burst my head in pieces. I fell back dazed, but rather interested

and frightened, and felt my father, stumbling through the dark, trip

and almost fall cross me, crying, "Tommy! Tommy!"

He took me back into the hut, and hugged me convulsively when he found

me unhurt. The woman lay writhing on the ground, with a dreadful dark

stain upon her breast. My father's hand was gashed across; and on the

floor lay a blood-stained knife.

And now my father from pretence seemed to become a madman in reality.

He laughed and shouted and stamped the floor where the wretched victim

lay feebly cursing and spitting blood. His evil joy was terrible,

and frightened me even more than the blood-drenched figure at his

feet. And then he began heaping the fire into a tremendous blaze, and

scattering flaming brands against the walls, till at last the crazy

structure began to smoulder, and then a sudden sharp flame or two shot

up. And all the while he shouted and laughed, cheering on the growing

conflagration, till the place was full of choking smoke, and our eyes

ran streaming, and the heat scorched our cheeks. And at last he seized

me and swung me to his shoulders, and raced away with me through the

darkness, now beginning to be touched with grey between the trees; and

soon behind us the glare of the burning hut was like a cruel red eye

blinking at us out of the blackness.

As we pushed free of the woodland into the grey and open morning my

father set me down, and looking back heaved a great sigh and wiped

his brow. Then he seized me by the hand and danced me round repeating

excitedly, "We're free, Tommy, we're free!"

"Was it Shadow-of-Fear?" I asked.

My father's face darkened. "Shadow-of-Fear never dies," he answered.

"But we shall escape him now." And he smiled again.

"But that," I said, "who is that?"

"Ah, that," he laughed, "was the old witch, Bite-in-the-Dark."

CHAPTER III

THE DOLPHIN INN

I suppose it's natural enough that the events of that night should

stand out in my memory with vivid distinctness, while the six or seven

years that followed have only left a general impression of their

progress. I can't possibly say where our wanderings led us, for my

father still seemed ill at ease if he lingered too long at one place.

But now they became less harassing. We didn't steal away at the dead

of night, and hide for days in the woods. We journeyed in comfort with

horses or by coach, and sheltered by the welcome of great inn fires.

I remember that this was a time of intensive education for me; not

so much in book-learning--though my father taught me my letters, and

was even anxious that I should master Latin--but rather in the arts

of hiding, tracking, and every kind of physical prowess. It seems to

me now that I had the training of a Redskin rather than of an English

boy; but I know I entered into it with relish, and pleased my father

by my precocious skill in climbing, in fighting with the knife, and

especially in swimming and diving.

We still kept up our tremendous games of hide-and-seek, stalking each

other across great stretches of country, and even taking refuge on

the sea. My father had a power of disguise which was baffling in its

completeness, and in hunting him I would frequently ask news of him

from some wayside beggar or passing carter to find afterwards that

I had been speaking to my father himself. But I soon found a way of

penetrating his disguises, because the scar of the burn and the knife

across his left hand betrayed him to me, and I learnt to suspect anyone

who hid his left hand or wore gloves. And this betraying mark was

disconcerting to him; not so much, I think, because it discovered him

to me, as because he was afraid that it might be a witness against him

when he needed concealment. He tried every means to cover the traces

of the tell-tale burn. The gash of the knife wasn't so serious as it

lay across the palm, and could be hidden by holding the hand half-shut.

But the scar of the burn spread over the back of his hand and up three

fingers. He devised stains and dyes and paints, and at last did manage

to cover the blemish from all but very curious eyes, but naturally

the treatment wasn't permanent, nor could it be applied in a hurry.

Generally he wore gloves.

I don't know to this day the route of our wanderings. My sense of

direction was usually good enough to tell me whether we were travelling

north or south, but actually where we were at any particular time I

seldom knew. Except when we returned to the Dolphin Inn. I knew that

through much acquaintance; for however far afield we strayed we were

sure to return to it sooner or later.

It was a tumble-down, neglected hostelry that seemed to have known

better days. I think its prosperity waned with the suppression of the

smugglers. For it lay so remote and in so wild a country that I can't

conceive how the patronage of the road alone could have ever maintained

it. Indeed, you had to be lost before you could find it. A straggling

path led up to it from a rocky shore through a dense patch of woodland,

and the only dwellings for miles were a few miserable fishermen's huts

and a forest shack or two.

But I was always glad to be back there, for the country was an ideal

playground for a boy trained as I had been. There was the wonderful

flitting life of the woods, secret and passionate, which stirred

something deep within me to a yearning sympathy. And then there was the

sea with its rocky wall where the great waves raced and burst, sucking

back down the green and clinging weeds to gather strength for a fresh

spring. I haunted the wild coast till I thought I knew every bay and

reach and pool, and where one could venture at low water, and where the

cliffs could be scaled. And my father was pleased beyond measure and

encouraged me in my explorations, greeting me as I scrambled back for a

late supper with, "Well, Tommy, what have you found to-day?"

But I never seemed to find what he was sending me in search of; for

that there was something hidden on that coast for which he was hunting

I soon began to realize.

The night was almost as wonderful as the day. For first came my lesson

in fighting with the knife, a time of glorious excitement. In our

combats we used folded lengths of paper so that we could fight with

vigour but without danger of accidents. What added zest to the game

was that my father had promised me a shiny new knife of my own when I

had succeeded in hitting him three times over the heart. I remember

my dancing exultancy when I scored my first success, but after that

he became more cautious, and the second blow was more difficult of

attainment. And then when we had finished our combat came the hour of

the evening story.

The days at the Dolphin Inn were never long enough for me, and the only

time, I think, when I really felt resentment against my father was when

he announced that we must be away again. I could see no reason for it.

I had begun to understand that once--and long enough ago it seemed

to me now--my father had been pursued by some strange and relentless

enemy; but, I reasoned, wasn't that enemy safely dead? The only answer

that I received from my father when I put the question to him was the

somewhat enigmatic, "Ghosts, Tommy."

"Ghosts?" I said inquiringly.

"Sometimes the dead will rise," he announced in his hushed, mysterious

voice, "and sometimes," he added, "the dead will leave the living

behind them."

All I could gather was that he was vaguely uneasy that the pursuer was

still on his track, though there had been no whisper of it for several

years. For once after a long reverie he suddenly roused himself, and

looking keenly at me said, "Tommy, was he lying still?"

I didn't understand; and repeated, "Still, daddy?"

He laughed a little, realizing the incomprehensibility of his question;

and taking me by the shoulders he said slowly, "Now think, Tommy. When

we left him in the hut, was he lying still?"

"He?" I said. "You mean she, daddy?"

"Ah, she," he laughed, "the old witch, Bite-in-the-Dark."

Now the picture was very clear in my mind that the old crone was

not lying still as we broke away from the blaze; and as my father

asked me the question I could see her, with infinite pain, slowly

dragging herself along the floor. My imagination, alarmed probably

by the intensity of my father's eagerness, must have exaggerated the

impression, for I could almost picture her crawling from the door. But

all I said was, "No, daddy; I saw her move."

"Ha!" he exclaimed, turning away; and then swinging round added

impressively, "Tommy, always make sure."

"But, daddy," I cried, "is she still alive? Will she find us?"

"No, no, Tommy," he answered easily, patting my head, "she can't be

alive. But," he added, "I haven't seen her ghost."

I took him to mean that he couldn't be certain of her death till he had

seen her disembodied spirit; a theory that seemed by no means fantastic

to me; for it was part of my conception of ghosts that they would haunt

their murderers.

And that closed the subject. Except that I was puzzled and disturbed;

firstly because I didn't quite understand my father's reference to

ghosts, and secondly because he had spoken of the old witch as he.

Was he thinking of Shadow-of-Fear, or was it indeed a man that we had

killed?

However, we set off again on our wanderings, and I eagerly looked out

for signs of the return to the Dolphin Inn, for I loved the place above

all others that I knew, and I wanted to find what the secret was which

my father was trying to unravel.

Now the signs of the return to the _Dolphin_ were two. One was the

approach of summer, and the other was that my father would begin to

grow a beard. For elsewhere he went clean-shaven, but to the _Dolphin_

he always masked his face in a thick black barbous growth which I

suppose was his particular disguise for that corner of the world. So

when I saw the razor had been laid aside, and my father's face changed

from white to blue, and gradually sank concealed beneath a stubbly

brush of beard and whisker, I knew we should soon be tramping back

to the beloved _Dolphin_. And I was more excited than usual at the

prospect. Perhaps my spirit could scent the coming adventures from

afar; or perhaps merely I was beginning to delight in my precocious

strength of body; for though barely turned thirteen I had the girth of

a boy of fifteen. And with the summer we were there again, and I took

up the thread of my life where I had laid it down, initiating what was

to be a memorable season by scoring the second stroke of the three that

were to win me my knife.

We had one room at the _Dolphin_, up a flight of stairs and below us

was the great kitchen which served as bar for the few odd fishermen who

formed almost the only patrons of the inn. Occasionally rougher men

from over-sea would break the sleepy quiet of the place. Where they

hailed from I didn't know, and didn't seek to enquire. They seemed

fierce folk, but kindly enough, tossing huge jests at each other which

I didn't understand, but which were always greeted by immense bursts

of throaty laughter. We could hear them through the floor of our room

if we lay with our ears to the boards; and I remember that whenever

they came my father used to vanish during the day, leaving me to my own

devices.

Not that I ever saw much of these swarthy strangers, for they came

with the morning and vanished with the night; and my father, in that

impressive way he knew so well how to employ, warned me to keep well

to the windward of them. But once in my ramblings I came face to face

with old Dirk Stormaway, whom I had always taken to be the chief of the

mysterious band. My first thought was that I had blundered inexcusably,

for it was part of my training to scent instinctively the presence of a

stranger, and here I had tumbled almost into his arms, not in the least

aware of his nearness to me. He thrust out a huge hand and seized me by

the shoulder, gazing deep into my eyes with a savage intentness which I

returned with interest.

"Wull," he drawled slowly, "an' who be ye?"

Now among the few precepts my father had drilled into me was one never

to be disconcerted in an unexpected crisis, and another was to meet

danger with a smile. So I answered with a child's impertinence, "Maybe

I'm my father's son."

He was chewing something mechanically in his mouth, and at my answer

he turned his head and spat, and I thought I saw the least of wrinkles

pucker the furrows round his eyes.

At length, "Yus," he said, "an' wull you may be." And after a pause he

added, "An' who's your father?"

"Maybe," I began; but the light in his eyes hardened, and his grip

tightened, as though to warn me there was danger in carrying a joke too

far. Instinct told me that the answer direct was the safest course now;

and I said, "He's the gentleman at the inn."

"Heh!" was the reply; but the hand still held me, and the chewing

didn't stop.

"An' what's he doing hereabouts, anyway?" was the next question.

Now this was disconcerting, for to tell the truth I didn't know, and

my father hadn't enlightened me. Also I began to suspect that under

the circumstances the truth might be dangerous knowledge. For that my

father was hunting diligently on the trace of some secret I had assumed

as a fact by now. And might it not be that the secret was somehow

connected with these men? Didn't he always vanish when they appeared?

I felt myself shaken, and the eyes were fiercely fixed on me from under

the man's savage brows. "Come now; what's he doing hereabouts?" he

repeated; adding, "An' see here, kiddy, if ye don't tell me the truth

on't an' no humbug, I'll crack your back like a stick." His other arm

came out, and I felt myself slowly bending in his tremendous hands.

"Why," I cried, again summoning what impudence I could, though I was

terribly alarmed by now, "he's a poet, he is."

"A what?" cried Dirk.

He was evidently taken aback, and I felt my body free again.

"He's a poet," I repeated. "He tells stories--writes," I corrected

hurriedly.

Somehow my own lie seemed suddenly very like the truth to me. For that

my father could tell stories as no one else could, I well knew; and

that he carried pen and paper with him, and a slender selection of

books, I also knew. I wondered for half a moment whether I had unawares

pitched on the truth.

Dirk wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said with bitter

scorn, "Ah, I know the likes of him. Gets the yarns out of chaps like

us, and dishes them up fer the swell blokes. _Kah!_" he ejaculated

with unction, "they don't mind the reading of 'em, but we what has the

doing...." He drew his hand across his throat, and his meaning was

unmistakable.

At this I felt a surging indignation on my father's account. The man

seemed to me to have insulted him, and I said, "You'd better not say

that to my father."

"Oho," he laughed, "I'd better not, hadn't I? An' what for no?"

Then I realized I had said more than I should have done, and as though

I had forgotten my remark I cried to cover my mistake, "You can't catch

me." I ducked under his grabbing hand, and was away.

Looking back I saw him spring up to watch me, and then he started on

my track, whether in fun or earnest I didn't know. I gave him a good

run, that much I remember, making for the rocks where I thought my

nimbleness would be to my advantage; but he was up with me too soon,

and I was forced to scramble up a tree into the high top branches where

I knew he couldn't follow. But he didn't attempt to pursue. He stood

below and shouted at me good-humouredly to come down and he wouldn't

hurt me. I was suspicious at first, but what was I to do? Down I must

come at the last. So I put a good face on the matter, and slid down at

his feet.

As it happened my confidence was well rewarded. He didn't grab at me as

I had half expected, but with hands on hips stood grinning down at me,

and after a long survey said, "Wull, an' what else can you do, since

you're such a nippy 'un?"

"Oh," I cried, "I can swim, and dive and--and I can fight."

"Pity if you couldn't," he put in, "seeing as what a world you live in."

"I fight with the knife," I said.

"The devil you do!" he replied.

In my belt I carried a wooden knife which I had whittled myself, and

this I drew and rushed in on Dirk to show that my boast was no idle

one. But he was too quick for me, and seized my wrist in true fashion.

At the same moment he drew a cutlass and flourished it glitteringly

over my head. I think he was surprised when I sprang and seized his

wrist as my father had taught me, though of course he wrenched himself

free with a single twist, at the same time releasing my imprisoned arm.

Slowly he pushed his weapon back into his belt, and said, "Wull, you're

a smart 'un," nodding his head appraisingly, and gazing at me as though

pondering some problem. Then he muttered, "Yus, the kid's worth it,"

and this time drawing a dagger from his great sea-boot said, "See here,

kiddy, I'll show you a trick worth learning."

Now all this while my conceit had been steadily flattered into

arrogance, for a child knows well enough when he is being admired,

and it was evident to me that for some reason or other Dirk was

pleased and surprised at my prowess. And I was all attention as he

explained the manœuvre. It was simple enough in theory, but difficult

in execution. The idea was to lunge with the right hand, and, as your

opponent seized your wrist, to slip your knife into your left hand

and drive home. The danger was that it left your enemy's knife hand

unguarded, and success was dependent upon swiftness, accuracy, and

complete surprise. Dirk demonstrated the trick to me, and for a long

while we combated there in the woodland till he thought I had learnt my

lesson well enough; and at length thrusting back his weapon he gave a

glance at the sun, and with a gruff farewell left me. He turned after

a few yards and threw back at me, "An' if you try to follow me, I'll

break your back like a stick."

I shouted after him, "I'd knife you first," at which he laughed; but

again he turned and said, "An if you tell a soul you've seen me, even

that precious father of yours, I'll...." but he didn't finish his

threat; for I think he only had one, and he had already used it. He

growled and tramped away. But I didn't follow, for the fellow had a way

of making you see when he was in earnest and when it was safe to play

with him.

For my part I ran back towards the inn eager to put my new skill into

practice and win the knife which I knew my father kept ready for me,

for he had shown it to me once to urge on my endeavour, and the vision

of the clean blue steel was one which I loved to dwell upon.

CHAPTER IV

EBB-TIDE CAVE

If I hadn't been so eager I should have paused long before I did to

reflect that I should be most unlikely to find my father at the inn if

Dirk and his fellows were in the neighbourhood. For, as I have told

you, my father always vanished on these occasions. As it was, the

thought came to me like the sudden arrest of a lasso, drawing me up

short almost with a wrench. I stopped, and with the consideration that

possibly my father didn't know of their presence, as Dirk's apparition

had been a complete surprise to me, I trotted on again a few yards. But

I soon came to another halt, this time because it seemed to me somewhat

ill-judged to rush home and demand an immediate combat. The unusualness

of the thing would make my father suspect some trick, and might put

him on his guard. So I turned about, deciding to possess my soul in

patience till the evening, when our battle would take place as usual,

and then I would have the chance of displaying my newly learnt skill,

and perhaps win the wished-for reward.

Now I think at this time I had three ambitions. The winning of the

knife was one, perhaps the chief one. Next to that I wanted to find

some quite new hiding-place where even my father wouldn't be able to

find me. That he had hiding-places out of my knowledge I was only

too sadly aware, but so far, as well as I knew the coast and the

countryside, I hadn't succeeded in baffling his pursuit. My third great

ambition was to find some underground communication between the shore

and the woodland. I assumed that such a communication existed, and I

explored all the caves and inlets for miles along the coast, but so far

without success. There were long caverns eating far into the cliffs,

some slippery with sea-weed, some above the line of the high tides

where the going was fairly easy; but none gave me the passage I was

seeking.

There were several caves that I particularly suspected of concealing

the desired secret. There was one which I named the Dragon's Mouth;

for, following my father's lead, I gave my own names to all the

landmarks of the place, not being satisfied as a rule with the rather

unimaginative names which custom had christened them with. This cave I

named the Dragon's Mouth because blocking the opening was one huge rock

like the tongue of some colossal monster thrust out through its jaws.

I believed that if only the creature would draw in its tongue I should

find the passage of my desires. Then there was Ebb-Tide Cave opening

into Ebb-Tide Pool. I believe this name was of my father's giving. At

high tide the pool, which was well hidden with a wall of rock, and

invisible from the top of the cliff, which dropped steeply to a level

platform and swelled out into a huge overbrowing arch of granite, was

open to the sea through a twisting channel where a fair-sized boat

might pass, I thought; and many were the dreams I fancied to myself

of the coming and going of secret ships. But at low water the channel

was closed, and so in stormy weather Ebb-Tide Pool was an ideal

bathing-place. At high tide the cave was also in deep water, but dry,

or nearly so, at low tide. But the baffling puzzle of the cave was

that it stopped abruptly after some twenty yards, blankly walled with

two great flattish rocks which looked for all the world like the two

halves of a huge gate. And many a day I spent searching for the secret

of their opening, but never with any hint of success.

There were other inlets too that I tested and examined. Particularly

the few short tunnels that gave on to a sandy bay to the east of

Ebb-Tide Pool. It was here that the fishermen launched their smacks,

and a hut or two clung crazily to nooks in the sloping cliffs. At the

farther horn of the bay was a dilapidated jetty, built originally

of stone, but roughly repaired where the seas had breached it with

makeshift piles and planking, themselves unsteady and decayed. It was

only seldom that the fishermen used it; but I delighted in picturing

to myself wild scenes of its desperate history when the smugglers were

still a power on that coast. However, I discovered nothing in the bay.

I searched east and west; and though at times I thought I had come upon

a further clue, yet it never led to anything. And again and again I

returned to the Dragon's Mouth and Ebb-Tide Cave, which seemed to me

the most dumbly obstinate in refusing to yield their secrets.

This day, having nothing better to do, I set off for Ebb-Tide Pool for

a clamber and a bathe till it should be time to return to the inn. I

didn't go by the directest route, for, true to my father's training, I

made a business of my play just as he made a game of all my education.

Indeed work and play were one thing to me. For if we decided to climb

Dead-Man's Drop or cross the Suck-Foot Marshes the expedition was

always undertaken with some imaginary purpose in view. There was a

message to be delivered, or a sentry to be surprised; and usually we

were ranged against each other, one being set to hinder the other, and

the fun of the game wasn't merely in the climbing, or whatever it might

be, but in evading the hidden enemy. So when left to myself I always

devised some fanciful story to give a colour to my play. The result was

that I scarcely ever made a direct journey, but always skirted this

and rounded that to make believe I was outwitting my foes.

On this day I didn't wander very far from the path, but my route

was somewhat roundabout. And on a sudden I came to an abrupt halt,

listening intently; for once already I had been taken unawares, and I

wasn't intending to be caught again. I had heard a crackling in the

woods. I was distinctly alarmed to see Dirk Stormaway stepping at right

angles across my path, for I knew if he should see me he would believe

I had been tracking him. Accordingly I squeezed up against a tree and

waited for him to go by. He passed behind a thick clump of thorn, but

didn't reappear. I listened for his step, and watched for him; but

there was no sign of him anywhere. I was just going to move on, when

again there was the sound of steps, and once more I grew on to my

protecting tree. I was amazed to see my father following stealthily on

the trail of Dirk. And he too vanished.

Then it occurred to me that it was round here that my father always

managed to baffle my search whenever he hid from me. I had tracked his

lair to within a hundred yards or so, but never to its exact goal.

However, I thought this was no time for further investigation. The air

was tense with alarm for me, and I felt a pang of doubt on my father's

account. If Dirk should catch him following ... I thought he would

either break his back like a stick, or put that famous knife trick of

his into practice. But I was used to strangeness and mystery, and the

idea of hunting and being hunted was familiar to me from as far back as

I could remember; so I easily shook off the impression of alarm that

had crept over me, and skirting away from the point of danger I was

soon stripping for a dive in the pool.

The afternoon was beautiful, with a blazing sun, and I was in and out

of the water, practising all my strokes and tricks, for some hours,

for evening was drawing on before I dried myself for the last time by

jumping up and down in the sun, and pulled on my clothes. The tide had

been coming in, and was now almost full. With one last look at the

tempting depths, wondering whether I should strip again for a final

plunge, I turned and set off up the cliff. Some day, I vowed, I would

negotiate that huge frowning brow of rock that overhung the pool, for

at present if I wanted to reach the level platform above it--an ideal

spot for a boy to sprawl on and send his dreams out over the sea--I had

to scramble down from the top of the cliff; and in climbing up from

below I had to be content with a longer trail to the left.

I had taken only a few steps when I heard a gruff voice beneath me

chanting an old sea-song, and with instinctive caution I ducked behind

a boulder as I saw the nose of a boat pushing out from Ebb-Tide Cave.

I rubbed my eyes twice to clear my sight, when I saw that in the boat

was none other than Dirk himself. But there was no mistaking him.

And he knew his way too, for he steered straight for the outlet of

the pool, and I watched him pass easily through the choppy waves,

guiding himself with his oars, and out through the twisting channel,

where rounding a headland of rock he disappeared. I now knew that my

suspicion of those closed gates in the cave was justly founded, yet

until this moment I didn't realize how little I had credited my own

childish theories, for the revelation came to me not as a thing long

expected, but with a shock of surprise.

My thought now was to descend again and investigate, but I think I must

have been getting frightened and unnerved by the adventures of the day,

for somehow the idea of returning to the cave and finding the gates

closed against me, though knowing full well that Dirk had just passed

through them, jarred unpleasantly on my imagination. And suppose they

were not closed? Suppose they were open? I should be confronted by the

dead blackness of the unknown beyond. I shuddered, and turned away,

wondering at my ebbing courage, for it wasn't usual for me to turn

heart-sick at the prospect of adventure. But I was still a child, and I

was probably tired, and had certainly had my fill of surprises for one

day.

Not till I was nearly at the top of the cliff did I remember my father,

who must have been following Dirk. Perhaps if I had descended again

I should have met him, and learnt the secret from him. Again I hung

irresolute, but I reasoned that by now he would no longer be there.

Also I was feeling weary, and told myself that I must be fresh for

the combat in the evening if I were to bring off my little manœuvre

successfully and win the knife.

My father was already in, doctoring up his scarred hand, when I

arrived. As usual he greeted me with, "Found anything to-day, Tommy?"

I could have answered volumes to that question, but reserve was part

of my training, and I wanted to use my new knowledge before I divulged

it; so I only answered, "Had a lovely day," and reaching up put my arms

around his neck and kissed him. But in his eyes as I searched them I

saw no trace of excitement to show that he had been spending his time

otherwise than usual.

Supper was brought to us, and after supper we cleared the room for

battle. But I didn't win the knife. To tell the truth I felt rather

stupid and asleep, and for the life of me couldn't bring myself to try

Dirk's trick. I realized too that it might be easy enough in practice,

but in a real fight it would be another matter. A slip would put you at

the complete mercy of your antagonist. It was a reserve manœuvre to be

kept as a last resort when the choice lay between a desperate risk and

a certain defeat.

My father saw that I was tired, and soon cried enough; and then

settling down in the waning twilight he put the final touches to his

hand, and commencing to yarn bore me away with him on the magical

stream of his story over wonderful seas.

The hour of the evening story was always a golden time for me. For my

father didn't merely stuff me with thrill. Looking back I can realize

now how artistic in conception and narration were those extraordinary

yarns of his gleaned from every imaginable type of old sea-dog with

whom he had rubbed shoulders, and vivified with all the charm of his

abundant imagination. Sometimes he would set me to tell the story,

but in his presence I was tongue-tied and stumbling in my speech; but

I know that I learnt from him, and not from any pedagogue, whatever

understanding and appreciation I have of the splendour of language.

And so with the last of the light to bed; while my father drew a heavy

screen around his little reading-table, and lighting his lamp applied

himself to the mystery, whatever it might be, which engaged him night

by night. All I ever heard was the scratching of his quill, or more

usually the turning of pages.

He was still behind the screen when I awoke with the question on my

lips, "Are you a poet, daddy?"

I think he was surprised, for he exclaimed quickly, "A poet, Tommy?"

and I heard a faint sigh. Then he laughed and said, "You've been

dreaming, Tommy. Better go to sleep again."

CHAPTER V

THE CLOSED GATE

My father always tried to meet a surprise with calm acceptance as

though it was a thing which he had been anticipating. This was part

of his "technique of philosophy", as he termed it, though the phrase

was sufficiently incomprehensible to me as a boy. So when, the next

morning, I tracked him right into his hiding-place, pushing under the

bushes and finding the hole which led down into the secret passage,

he didn't exclaim his astonishment, but hearing me stumbling my way

through the unexplored blackness he opened the shutter of the dark

lantern he was carrying, and said in a matter-of-fact voice, "Come

along, Tommy; I'll show you."

It was I who was taken aback, for he had been hidden from me and the

sudden light surprised me. I uttered a feeble "Oh!" and took his hand.

The passage was wide enough for two, and high enough for a short man

like my father to walk upright in. The lantern lit up at intervals the

stays and beams which supported the tunnel, showing it to be a man-made

affair. Presently we came to a flight of roughly levelled steps built

up with stakes into the earth, and at the end there was a steep drop

into darkness, with a rope ladder disappearing into the gulf. My father

began to descend, and I followed. It was a longish shaft, and I was

glad to reach the bottom. I knew at once that we were in a different

sort of place now, for the sound of our feet echoed resonantly, and the

walls were running with moisture, and there were no supports along the

sides.

As we proceeded, the tunnel gradually widened, twisting its way

downward at a gentle slope, and after a while the floor became slippery

with sea-weed, showing that the tide flowed in at full. In fact, before

we had reached the end of the journey we were wading in water up to our

knees, for it was still fairly early, about nine or ten, and the tide

was only at half ebb. And then my father set his lantern in a niche

high up in the wall, and said, "Well, what do you make of it, Tommy?"

I looked about me in the dim light, and before me stood a flat wall

of rock, split in two, which I recognized at once as the back of the

gateway that opened into Ebb-Tide Cave, though whether I should have

recognized it so quickly if it hadn't been for my observations of

the day before I don't know. I said with something of my father's

nonchalance, "This opens into Ebb-Tide Pool."

Even my father couldn't quite screen his surprise, for he wasn't to

know how I had arrived at my knowledge.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "you're very cute, Tommy."

"But look!" I said, and pointed to the twin doors of rock.

"But how do you know it opens?" he asked.

"I know," I said.

"But how?"

"It must do," I said doggedly; for I couldn't tell him how I knew.

"Yes, it does," he said at length, "but I haven't found out how it's

done."

We didn't find out that morning either, though we probed every nook and

cranny, questing for the secret bolt or spring or whatever it might be

which would set that great gate swinging. My father had been over the

whole ground before, and I found nothing new to solve the mystery. I

thought I had made a discovery when, scrambling up to the niche where

my father had set the lantern, I found I could thrust my arm deep into

a cranny full of rotting refuse. I cleared it away, but couldn't reach

to the end of the little crevice. I pointed it out to my father; but

he had explored it before without result. We came away at last, and

emerging into the bracken blinked at the blinding daylight.

"That's that," said my father, and warned me not to prowl there too

often. But I knew what I meant to do.

For the rest of the day I reserved my strength, knowing I had been

too tired the evening before to do myself justice with the knife; so

I lay out on the cliff and bathed in the glorious sun that still beat

splendidly from the blue, and before returning I tumbled into the sea

for a single plunge, and reached the inn with a magnificent appetite

and feeling fit for the evening's encounter.

To describe the combat in all its details would take too much space,

for it was long and eventful. I tried every artifice my father had

taught me, hoping to make my drive without betraying my secret, but he

held me in play too surely, and though I managed to parry his attacks I

scored no hits myself. As we drew apart for a rest, both panting from

the exertion, he asked, "Had enough, Tommy?" And I answered carelessly,

"No, I'm fit for another turn," and we closed again.

I ran in quickly this time, intending to put the trick into immediate

play. As I expected, he shot out his left hand and caught my wrist, and

I saw the word "Rash!" forming on his lips, but before it was uttered

I slipped the knife into my left hand, and with a sideways jab crushed

the paper weapon against his breast, feeling my hand go thump against

his ribs as though I had struck him.

"Well!" he exclaimed, and dropped his own weapon to the floor. "Well!"

He sat down. "I _have_ seen it done, Tommy; but where did you learn it?"

I evaded the answer by dancing about him and exclaiming, "The knife,

the knife, I've won the knife!"

"And you shall have it," he said.

And so at last the shining prize lay in my hand, and with fond fingers

I felt along its delicious edge. When should I need to use it in

earnest, I wondered.

I turned a radiant face to my father, and throwing an arm round him

I kissed him vigorously, and drawing away said, "If I ever meet

Shadow-of-Fear, or the old witch, Bite-in-the Dark...." I didn't need

to finish the sentence, but slipping the knife from my upraised right

hand into my left I practised the feint in mid air. My father smiled

and said, "Don't be satisfied yet, Tommy. You're not a man till you can

use a pistol too."

In honour of the occasion he told me a wonderful tale that night; and

I sat at his feet long after the sun had gone down, and the window had

become a black square, and the strange voices of the night were ominous

of dark and secret things, listening to my father as he told a story of

desperate smuggling and battles and arrests and rescues. The story, I

remember, was particularly vivid, because it was set locally, and all

the caves and creeks I knew and the old tumble-down jetty became alive

with savage men; and especially I remember how the gate at Ebb-Tide

Cave gave up its secret, swinging away from the wall, and leaving

revealed a passage into the cliff. And one cruel incident dwelt in my

memory for many a day because of my father's vivid description. It was

an old smuggler's vengeance on a traitor, the wretched victim being

torn asunder between earth and sea, with a rope around him from a cave

roof, and a heavy log tied to his feet and floating on the water,

weighing him down to a lingering death as the tide slowly ebbed.

When at last I crept into bed it was a real comfort to me to slip the

knife under my pillow, for the tale had been unusually stirring, and my

mind was in a strange confusion. More than once I awoke startled, and

felt swiftly under the pillow for the reassuring touch of my newly-won

friend; for it may have been the effect of my father's story, or it

may have been an uneasy premonition of coming things, but I seemed to

hear a sort of stifled shuffling through the house, and knockings and

smothered voices; and the trees outside shook unsettled branches, and a

swaying bough kept brushing furtively across the pane.

Once I awoke with a greater start than ever, and sat bolt upright

listening intently, every nerve strained and alert. It was

unmistakable; there was something creeping in the room. For a moment

I thought a hand touched my neck, but it was only my hair stiffening.

I took control of myself, though my heart thumped deafeningly, and

quietly reached a hand out for my father. He wasn't there. At this I

think I broke down, and cried terribly, "Dad, dad, where are you?"

"Heigh, Tommy, what?" he answered quickly, and was at my side.

"Oh, daddy," I said, trying to hold back my tears, "I was frightened."

"Why, you have your knife," he tried to pacify me.

"But where were you?" I asked.

"Why," he answered easily, "I must have fallen asleep in my chair."

It wasn't till morning that I remembered I had already felt him in bed

beside me. Waking with that thought in the grey dawn I told myself he

had been listening through the floor.

CHAPTER VI

THE KING'S MAN

I sprang out of bed feeling very much ashamed of myself for my stupid

terror of the night. Daylight makes our fears seem so foolish that

we wonder how we could ever have been afraid. My head was still a

little dizzy and uncertain, so I scrambled into my clothes and ran

downstairs and into the yard for a cooling drench under the pump. I was

longer than usual, for as a rule I wasn't too attentive to this part

of my toilet; but this morning there was a clinging vapoury hotness

about my brow which wouldn't be readily washed away. When at length,

refreshened, and doubtless with rosy cheeks and dishevelled hair, I

broke back into the kitchen, I stopped short in sudden consternation

to find it full of men. I at once recognized them as Dirk's fellows,

but a quick glance round showed me that Dirk himself wasn't there. Now

I had always thought of these rough strangers as pirates, not in the

least doing them disparagement in my thoughts on that account, rather

in my imagination framing them romantically in adventures on far seas;

but something, I suppose, of last night's story was still beating in

my head, and forgetting utterly my father's warning to steer clear of

these men, I was seized by a stupid madness, and unwittingly blurted

out, "The smugglers!"

I was dumbfounded as soon as the words were out of my mouth, for there

was a sudden stillness in the room. Talk stopped, cannikins were

arrested half-way to the lips and every eye was ferociously bent on me

in a sort of savage questioning.

Then one fierce fellow strode up to me, and taking me by the shoulders

said, "Do'st mind repeating that theer?"

But I had no word to say, and only looked up at him blankly, and shook

my head.

He dug his fingers into my flesh and spoke more harshly, "Come now,

who's been telling ee they tales?"

I had it in my head to explain how I had merely fitted the fellows into

my father's stories, and I began fatally as though in answer to his

question, "My father..."

But he broke in with, "Thy father, eh?"

"No, no, no," I cried in dismay, but a general burst of oaths drowned

my protest. A discussion was raging fiercely, but I could make little

of its drift; I only caught such expressions as "I told thee now,"

and some one answering, "That's ee; that's the cove." More ominously

sounded the grating whisper of one harsh voice, "The King's Man, freeze

un!" and again I heard the same voice muttering, "Spy!"

How all this applied to my father I couldn't guess, but I had sense

enough to realize that he was in danger, and my part was to warn

him. A jerk away from my captor only set me in firmer imprisonment,

with a kick on my shin to put me on my best behaviour. I began to be

frightened.

Soon they had me in the midst of them, and their menacing bloodshot

eyes terrified me more than the fists they held to my face. I was cowed

by their brutality, and gave no thought even to the precious knife

in my belt. I must have whimpered, for some one caught me a buffet

across the face and said, "Here, stop they waterworks, and speak to

what th'art bid." And then came a question to which probably only my

blubbering saved me from betraying the true answer. For a voice was

saying in a husky attempt at a whisper, "Thy father, him be the cove

with the burn accrosst his hand, eh?"

The question startled me, and I heaved out a further burst of tears to

cover my confusion.

"Here, hearken," I was bidden again in the same grating tones, "an'

Gawd help ee if thee don't speak up true. Be thy father the cove with

the burn accrosst his hand?"

"Left hand," somebody added.

I raised my face, biting at my lips to check my tears, and shook my

head as foolishly as I could to express my utter failure to comprehend.

In my mind, bewildered as I was, I was busily wondering how to warn my

father. I felt thankful when I remembered it was only a few days ago

that he had last treated his scar, and it would still be invisible to

these men even if they caught him and examined him. I had no thought to

spare for the mystery which had set them on his track by this tell-tale

sign. So when the question was repeated to me, instead of shaking my

head I stamped my foot in childish petulance, and shouted so that my

father if he were listening above us might hear, "Burn? Haven't I said

there's no burn? Fools!"

I was caught a sounding cuff for my pains and sent reeling, and as a

hand gripped me I cowered, expecting the blow to be repeated; but my

heart gave a strange jump of relief as I heard Dirk's voice above me.

He had entered the kitchen and was cursing volubly. When his oaths were

exhausted he thundered, "What the blazes 're you doing with the kid,

anyway?"

Explanations broke out confusedly, but he cut them short with, "Stow

yer gab, the lot o' you," and when the room was silent he turned to the

ruffian who had first seized me and demanded, "Speak up, Davie; what's

it about?"

Davie explained, and Dirk glowered at me darkly and said, "So that's

it, eh? Told you we were smugglers, eh?"

"No," I cried, "no. Yarns; that's all. I told you...."

But his great hand came slapping over my mouth, and I felt my shoulder

severely wrenched. I had nearly betrayed our earlier meeting.

"Ah," Dirk took me up sarcastically, "he tells yarns, does he? One of

these poetical chaps, I reckon. Heard of poetical license, come to

think of it. Seems like a case of it. Wull," he ended unexpectedly, "we

_are_ smugglers. Now how d'you like it?"

"Really?" I cried with such genuine admiration that there was a general

guffaw, and all at once the strained atmosphere was wonderfully

relieved.

"Yus, really," said Dirk. "Have a good look at us. Handsome lot, aren't

we? An' if you ever write one o' them yarns like what your dad does,

wull, put us all in, an' we'll take it kindly of you; and hang us all

at the end for warnings like, same as they done to Jem an' Roger last

year. Poor devils!"

The grins changed to oaths at the mention of Jem and Roger, and Dirk's

face became hard. But just then my father was heard running down

the stairs singing gaily to himself, and every form froze in rigid

expectation. He was singing a song I delighted in, but I was appalled

to hear it now:

"Dance to your daddy,

My little laddy,

Dance to your daddy,

My little man...."

He had got so far when he swung open the door, and stopped short with

well-feigned surprise to see the kitchen crowded with silent men, all

with eyes fixed intently upon him. His hands were in his pockets, and

I knew how those eyes were waiting for them to be withdrawn.

"Company! Splendid!" cried my father, and called for the mugs to be

filled; and then catching sight of me still struggling against my

tears, "Why, what's this, Tommy?" he said, and laid his hands upon my

shoulders, holding me out at arm's length.

"Nothing, daddy, nothing," I answered, smiling back as well as I might.

But I knew that both his thought and mine was that his hands were free

to the view of all. For a half moment the silence seemed to freeze in

the air; then there was a low muttering, and voices broke out again.

They had looked their fill, and had seen nothing.

My father gave me a little push to hint to me my course, and I slipped

from the room, while the business of drinking was resumed; and before I

left the inn I heard bursts of laughter, and my father's voice raised

above the rest. I understood well enough that he had made all easy

there, and was regaling the company with his racy chaff.

I made for Ebb-Tide Pool, intending to hide before the smugglers should

be back there. I meant to learn the secret of the gate this day.

* * * * *

It was still early morning, and the tide was coming in. There might

just be keel-way for a boat, I thought, to steer in through the

channel. If I were quick I might be in time to see a boat enter or row

away; so I made no circuits in my route this day but took the shortest

path I knew. But I did throw one sop to make-believe, carrying my knife

in my mouth. And the result was, clambering down the cliff with too

little regard to safe footing I slipped on a rock just above the pool,

and being child enough to exclaim at the slight twist it gave to my

ankle, the knife fell from my mouth, and I watched it strike on a ledge

and splash into the water.

I knew it was deep where the knife had fallen, and quickly slipping

off my clothes I dived in to recover it. I thought it would be an easy

matter, but three times I rose unsuccessfully to the surface. I crawled

out to regain my breath, and noticed that the current had carried me

away from the spot close in to the very edge of the cliff. I reasoned

that that explained my failure, and when my breath was sufficiently

restored I plunged in again, but this time farther out to allow for

drift. Even so I had to grope along the bottom of the pool till my

breath was nearly exhausted before my hand touched the knife, buried

in the sand almost up to the hilt. I tugged it free, and made for the

surface, but the water grew strangely dark around me, and my head

came crack against a rock. I struggled desperately, for my lungs were

bursting, but I seemed to be imprisoned beneath an immovable roof. I

tried to reason out my position, how I had come there, and which was

the right way to turn. I remembered how the current had carried me

towards the cliff, and in a dim, distracted sort of way knew quite well

that all I had to do was to push out and up. But though I knew quite

well what to do, an unreasonable panic had control of my limbs, and I

kicked and beat frenziedly against my prison, while a voice seemed to

be saying to me from far away, "Keep cool, Tommy; always keep cool." I

was in an agony, knowing myself in the grip of a stupid terror, when

deliverance lay in calmness; but I couldn't shake off the terror, and

my temples were hammering and my ears throbbing. And suddenly there

seemed to be only water about me again, and lashing out with arms

and legs I found myself at the surface gulping in the air with great

choking sobs.

Mechanically I trod water till I could regain my breath, and only

gradually it dawned upon me that it was strange that all about me

should be pitch dark. I rubbed the water out of my eyes, I tried to

remember whether I had been bathing at night-time, for I was still

confused. Then growing a little clearer in mind I told myself it was

the blood that had rushed to my head, and I should soon be able to see

again. But still everything was dark around me, and the realization

that it actually was so came like a shock. Where was I?

As I grew calmer a certain interest mingled with my fear; I peered

around, and dimly became aware of a faint green glow along the water.

I began to swim about to find into what strange place I had stumbled,

but the water seemed half choked with drift and refuse, and going

wasn't easy. Weeds clung about my legs, sucking hatefully to my flesh,

creeping like fingers furtively feeling along my naked body. The water

seemed to be alive with slimy things reaching their tendrils hungrily

out of the dark. If I moved slowly they slid about my throat, and if I

splashed my way through they gripped viciously about my arms and feet.

And all the while the green glow intensified along the water, and the

floating things showed up vaguely luminous through the dark. It was

with a gush of relief that at last I felt the bottom, and with a spasm

of fear scrambled out of the infested pool, shuddering at the thought

of what horrors lay concealed there; for my mind was full of stories

I had heard of the devil-fish and other slow and evil monsters of the

caves.

For a while I could do nothing but hug myself into as small a space as

possible, trembling and chattering with fright, my eyes intent upon the

green and glowing water, expecting momently some clutching tentacle to

rise and seize me.

How long I should have remained so I don't know, for I was completely

unstrung and had no power to move a finger to help myself; and the

startled scurrying of creatures about my back and feet added to my

horror. But my fear was lifted from me by a sound that might have

added to it: I heard voices. And voices in that dark underworld, which

seemed to have shut me right away from the light and air, were like a

reassurance that I wasn't hopelessly entombed. I began to listen, but

could only make out a low, indistinguishable droning which I couldn't

locate. But the effort to locate it nerved me again, and I took control

of myself and began to grope through the darkness towards the sound.

I slipped often enough, but the voices became louder; and presently I

noticed a wavering patch of yellow light against the green iridescence

of the cavern. I made towards it, and I think it wasn't till this

moment that I became aware by a cramp in my hand that all the while

I had been tenaciously clinging to my knife. I was cheered to think

that in the struggle under water and the scramble in the cave I hadn't

dropped it.

Soon the light was over my head and after a trial or two I succeeded

in climbing to a secure perch where I could examine it. But putting up

my face I was dazzled by the full glare of a lantern in my eyes, which

had by now grown so used to the darkness that the phosphorescent glow

of the rotting drift about me was bright enough to show me the rough

outline of the rocks.

I hastily withdrew my face from the light of the lantern, which was

shining through a crevice in the wall of the cave; and then like

a blurred picture focusing to clearness everything took shape and

coherence in my mind, and I knew exactly where I was.

The lantern was standing where my father had placed it the day before

when he had taken me down the secret passage and together we had

examined the great closed doors. The crevice was the one through which

I had thrust my hand, clearing it of its rubbish, so that now the

lantern could shine right through. But now I was on the other side.

Somehow I had dived under the submarine mouth of this cavern, never

suspecting its existence. Quickly the thought flashed through my head

that now I had found the hiding-place I wanted; but the thought melted

as quickly as it came, for I had other matter on hand. For through the

cranny I could hear the voices speaking distinctly enough to make out

what they were saying, though of course I couldn't see anything as

the lantern glared full into my face if I attempted to look into the

passage beyond.

And what I heard soon began to have an interest for me.

There were two men, it seemed, and I assumed they were in their boat,

probably on guard, for the tide was rising to the full now, and the

cave must have been deep in water. I couldn't catch all they were

saying; but when I heard the words, "Cut accrosst his hand," I strained

my ears to the uttermost.

"Yus," was the reply, "an' a burn too, warn't it?"

"Aye; an' a brat with 'un, they do say."

"Wull, I s'pose they'll nab 'un all right."

"Hope so. Must have been ee what let Jem an' Roger into the trap last

year."

"Ah! Wull, Dirk'll see to 'un."

"If he bean't too cute."

"He'll need be if ee can hide they tracks."

There was a short pause, and the last speaker began again:

"But how did Dirk get wind of it?"

"Wind of what?"

"Why, the burn, and the brat, an' that."

"Dunno quite. Some one let on, I spose. Some one what was nabbed, I

dessay, an' found 'un out when it was too late. Got word through, I

expect. Dirk's sharp."

What happened next it was impossible for me to know at the time. The

voices had stopped, and I was worrying the problem how my father could

have become mixed up in all this business. It was clear to me that he

was suspected of being a King's Man and spying on the smugglers to

betray them. I don't believe I gave a thought to whether he were guilty

of the charge or no; the thing that puzzled me was how the burn and the

scar and even my presence came into the affair, for these seemed part

of another episode altogether. But at any rate my meditations were cut

short by a tremendous uproar from the smugglers' cave. There were cries

and curses and commands, and the sound of scuffling and splashing, and

the lantern was dashed from its place, and through the crevice I saw

the light of day. I guessed the gates had been opened. And then there

was tumult inconceivable, the volleying of pistols, screams and curses,

all echoing in a resounding roar up the rocky corridor. And, after a

little, peace.

I was dazed and stupefied. I strained my eyes to see through the

cranny, but could distinguish nothing to tell me what had happened. And

then again from the distance, very far away as it seemed to me buried

there, came the faint echo of a further fight. But beyond the fact that

there had been a fight of some kind I could guess nothing.

I waited a long time listening, but all was still again, and the

stillness began to press upon me like the dread of some unknown danger.

I remembered my strange position, and something of my first fear

returned upon me. I was alone, cut off as it seemed in the quietness

of the cave from the world I knew. It was dark about me with only a

greenish glow to show me the shadowy forms of things. And everything

I touched was damp and slippery, and the water smooth and secret and

laid over with a luminous green slime. And the thought came to me with

a sickening shudder that to escape I must dive again into that putrid

pool, through the clinging weeds and the thousand horrible things which

I felt were lurking for me there. And then I knew I was cold, and

shivered.

I couldn't face it. I stumbled along the slippery edge of the water,

searching desperately for some other outlet, but I only seemed to be

plunging into deeper darkness, and wherever I trod the crabs scurried

away beneath my feet. Then looking back I could no longer see the

one gleam of light that bound me to the outside world. At that I was

thoroughly terrified, and turning on my tracks I hurried, slipping back

along the water's edge, till once more I saw the faint gleam above me,

and felt cheered.

So I sat down for a minute or two to get a grip of my courage, and

told myself over and over that I was a coward. The lesson of the night

before came into my mind, and I knew that it was merely a baseless fear

of the dark that possessed me; but the knowledge didn't strengthen

me. I sat shaking, my teeth chattering in my head. To dive into that

greenness seemed beyond my power; I saw myself struggling in the dark,

choked beneath the water, entombed. And all at once, I don't know why,

I rose and plunged, and in my eyes the water grew radiant again, and I

was puffing safely in Ebb-Tide Pool.

I swam for the shore, and warmed myself in the sun, blinking at the

unaccustomed light, and telling myself, as I had done in the morning,

that I was a fool to be afraid of nothing. And then I realized that

the only way to prove my courage and recover my lost self-esteem was

to dive back to the cave and out again till I knew the way by heart

and had familiarized it from all terrors. But the thought of returning

there wasn't pleasant, and it was only a sudden resolution like the

one that had brought me safely to the light again that sent me diving

back into the darkness. Yet once there something of my fear revived,

and hardly waiting to draw breath I was under and out again.

I told myself that was enough, and so climbed up to my clothes

intending to dress and investigate the meaning of the recent battle.

I had just slipped my shirt over my head, when there was a shout above

me, and stones and earth came tumbling down the cliff. Looking up I saw

three men struggling, and one of them breaking free tottered and came

sprawling over the edge. The other two followed with more caution. They

were in red uniform, and the man they were chasing was Dirk.

He recovered his footing and came bounding down towards me. I was quick

enough to take in the situation. The smugglers had been surprised by

the runners, and here was Dirk making his last dash for freedom. So

swift a thing is thought that I had time to remember the talk in the

cave about the King's Man. Had some one betrayed them? Had my father....

"Dirk!" I cried to him, though taking care to screen myself from the

runners who were still far above. "Dirk, come."

"Off, kid," he shouted.

"I'll show you," I said.

But I could never have stopped him if he hadn't slipped and fallen. He

lay grasping his ankle and rocking himself in an agony.

"I'm done," he moaned, "done."

"There's a cave," I said.

"I know, kid," he growled, "and they know."

"You don't know," I insisted, "and they don't know. I was there all the

time."

The runners, sure of their prize, were taking their time in the

descent, not being used to such scrambling, and unwilling, I dare say,

to soil their grand uniforms.

"Dirk," I pressed, "see here. It's under the water. You dive and come

up. It's all dark."

But he only grinned bitterly at me, still holding his ankle.

"Then see," I cried in desperation, and running dived into the pool,

and rising in the cave waited a full two minutes before returning.

I climbed back to Dirk and said, "See, am I puffed? I tell you...."

But now he had grasped my meaning.

"Come," he said excitedly, "show me."

I pointed to the spot, and limping to the edge he dived. He didn't

reappear. And hiding my clothes, for I didn't want the runners to have

them, I plunged after Dirk, and rose almost beside him in the weedy

water.

"This way," I said, and swam for the side; and soon we were both

clinging there, blowing vigorously.

Between gasps he told me of his adventures, and I heard how the

smugglers had been surprised. Their sentry had been seized and gagged,

and so they hadn't been warned of the King's frigate which had appeared

off the coast. Some one had betrayed them.

"Not my dad," I said.

"No, not him, laddie," said Dirk. "He gave us the first warning, but it

was too late."

"Where is he?" I asked.

"Oh, he's vanished."

"Yes," I said, trusting my father's resources at evasion.

It was some while later when we heard voices in the cave, and I showed

Dirk the cranny where he might peep through. Suddenly he uttered a

great oath.

"What?" I whispered.

"Shhh!"

Then came a tremendous echoing crash, and the sound of cheering.

When all was quiet again he told me. He had seen the King's Man, the

fellow who had betrayed them. "An' it was right what I was told," he

said. "He had a burn across his hand, sonny. But it wasn't your dad,"

he added as I gave a little cry. "I saw his face, an' he's showed them

the gates an' how they worked, blast him!"

"How do they work?" I asked.

"They'll never work no more," was all he answered.

* * * * *

It was some days before the coast was clear. And all the while I

carried food surreptitiously to Dirk, stuffing it into the cranny from

Ebb-Tide Cave. My father had quite established himself with the runners

when I first arrived back at the inn. I told him my secret, and he

patted me affectionately on the head.

"Always make friends, Tommy," he said.

But he only ventured once down to Ebb-Tide Cave, and that was with a

party of runners who went to superintend the destruction of the old

haunt. I went too, and saw the great gates wide. The two rocks had

been perfectly balanced against each other, and as one sank down into

the earth it drew the other up into the roof by a stout steel cable.

It was while I was with Dirk that the runners had hacked the cable

through, and the huge half of rock that should have been poised above

had crashed down, and now lay along the passage. But the tunnel which

my father had expected to find, opening into the side of the cave wall,

wasn't there. And somehow I think he had lost interest in the place,

for he questioned me little enough of the cave I had discovered; and he

seemed uneasy too, barring our door strongly at night, and waking at

the least scratch.

When the runners at length gave up the search, Dirk came from his

hiding-place. In the distance the frigate was fading from sight. I

shall never forget that gaunt, dripping figure, slowly dragging himself

up the cliff because of the pain at his damaged foot, his clothes

clinging to his limbs and oozing with green weed, his long hair with

the pig-tail all undone drooping flat down his neck and over his sunken

cheeks. The picture still haunts me in my dreams; and I see him as he

climbed to a ledge of rock, and slowly turned his face towards the sea,

his eyes, still heavy from the long darkness, peering with evil hate at

the vanishing ship that was carrying away his mates to their doom. His

teeth gnashed with impotent rage, and he tottered to his feet and shook

one terrible fist at the frigate, and cried a bitter curse on the spy

who had betrayed his comrades. Then laughing brokenly he turned to me,

and clambered on up the cliff, saying, "But I saw him, kiddy; I know

him; an' I'll follow him to the end of the world, but I'll have his

heart's blood."

I was silent, and the giant continued his painful ascent. And breaking

from a snarling mutter he said to me, stopping on his path, "See here,

kiddy, you don't know what hate means, I dessay. But it means just

this: I've made my pile; I can rest an' be comfortable, an' have my

seat by the fire an' the drink at my hand; but I'll give every piece

I've gathered to hunt that devil to earth. I'll get him. I'll get him."

At the top of the cliff he hurled forth his last threat, as the white

square sails faded into the misty air, then slowly stumbled back

with me to the inn. And as I walked at his side I thought I began to

understand why one man should hunt another over the world. I knew

something of the life of the hunted; now for the first time I saw the

hunter giving cry. And my father.... But I couldn't imagine my father

as a spy and a betrayer. And then the old story of the Mad Captain came

back to me. But neither could I see my father as one who had left his

men to perish all alone. What was the secret of his flight?

At the inn my father was ready for the road again.

"Come Tommy," he said, "we must tramp."

I held out my hand to Dirk. "Good-bye," I said.

He took my little hand in both his. "Good-bye, kiddy," he said kindly

enough. "You're a good brat. You've saved my life; an' maybe I'll do

the same for you one day."

He nodded curtly to my father, and rolled into the inn.

But we two plunged into the woodland and travelled far that night, and

with the morning struck the highway, and begging a lift of a carter

bound for market were soon jolting along the road, fast asleep.

CHAPTER VII

THE MANUSCRIPT

We must have been wandering for a week or more, bearing northwards all

the while, before we halted for a few days at a village inn: the _Snow

Man_ I believe it was called. It seemed to me as though our life of

hardships had begun afresh, for as far as possible we kept to woods

and byways where there was shelter and hiding. And yet it was on this

journey that my father gave me my first lessons with the pistol; and

I think he found me an eager pupil. As with the knife, he promised

me a pistol of my own when I became expert enough to merit one, and

with this bait to lure on my endeavour I practised sedulously with the

weapon every morning, for our travelling was done mostly at night.

My father soon regained all his buoyancy and cheerfulness, and

questioned me eagerly about my discovery of the cave. "What are we to

call it?" he cut me short almost at the beginning of my narrative. I

had my answer ready, for this matter of naming places had become almost

a second nature with me; and I said, "Drift-Wood Cavern," and added,

"and the passage you showed me is the Smugglers' Tunnel."

"Very well," he agreed. "And now tell me your story, Tommy."

I told him with as much coherence as his constant questionings would

permit, for he was so eager to learn all about my find that he

continually interrupted me with questions of his own, running on ahead

of me as it were, and was rather disappointed when my recital came to

an abrupt finish.

"But surely, Tommy," he said, "you found where it went?"

"I don't know any more," I declared.

"Why, it might lead anywhere," he insisted with fervour. "It might go

for miles. It must be full of secrets, Tommy, and hidden treasures,

and.... Why didn't you...."

"Well, the runners...." I began in my defence, meaning to say that the

less time I spent there the better while the runners were still hunting

for Dirk; but he cut in, saying:

"Ah, the runners; yes. If it hadn't been for the runners, Tommy, I

should have had the secret out of it by now."

This surprised me, for as soon as the soldiers had gone my father had

packed up his kit and vanished too. So I asked, "Why didn't you stay

then, daddy?"

He looked at me more sharply than usual, for it wasn't my custom to

question him like this; and at the moment his answer seemed a strange

one, for after a pause he suddenly exclaimed, "By gad, Tommy, you're

quite a little man! Soon be calling me father."

"No, daddy, no," I protested, for somehow the colder title didn't seem

to suit our relationship. I put up my arms and kissed him to show I

wasn't beyond that yet, though I was growing rapidly in these days; and

I think the sentimental little scene pleased him.

"Well, well!" he said affectionately, patting my cheek.

I was quiet, for he hadn't answered my question. He seemed to be

meditating something, and twice he was about to speak; but eyeing me

askance he held his peace. And it wasn't until we were installed at the

_Snow Man_ some days later that the answer came, and then in a strange

manner.

As at the _Dolphin_ we shared an upstairs room, and I noticed that my

father's uneasiness hadn't lessened with our flight, though he was

cheerful enough. Indeed I have scarcely ever known him otherwise than

cheerful, though now I can realize something of the harrowing anxiety

that must have been his almost daily portion. We hadn't been alone

in our room for half a minute before he began examining the locks

and bolts of the door and window, sounding the walls, peering into

cupboards and behind pictures, and feeling up the chimney. Later he

tested the possibility of climbing down the wall outside the window,

which was well hidden from the road. He managed it, but with great

difficulty, and that seemed to set him more at ease. But chiefly I

noticed how late he sat up at nights by his reading-lamp; and as there

was no screen in the room I was able to see something of what he was

doing, though he always sat with his back to me, shielding me from

the light as well as he could. But I could see him turning pages, and

tracing lines with his pencil, sometimes leaning back with the pencil

between his teeth, thinking.

As a rule, however, I was tired enough not to be over curious, soon

dropping off to sleep, and only occasionally waking to see him still at

his task, or to feel him creeping carefully into bed beside me so as

not to wake me up.

But about the third night, if I remember rightly, I awoke to find him

kneeling at my side, gazing so intently at me that it seemed as though

his very gaze had awakened me. I opened my eyes full upon him and

didn't move, and for his part he remained looking not so much at me as

at something deep within me which he was dumbly questioning. Then his

widened pupils contracted, and with a flitting smile as though he were

awakening to reality he said, "You see, Tommy, it's like this. Who put

the smugglers on my track, scenting round me as though I was harming

them? And who was it betrayed those two last year? And why?" His voice

had a strange ring in it which I hadn't heard before. "Why, Tommy why?"

he added more excitedly, and seemed to be waiting for an answer.

Waking like that in the dead of night it all seemed very queer to me;

for to see my father's eyes bent upon me so, and to hear his "Why,

Tommy, why?" was somehow vaguely troubling. The clothes across my chest

felt very heavy all at once, and my limbs seemed bound to the bed; for

there was something that held me there and wouldn't let me move. A kind

of spell was upon me, and I felt I wanted to scream. And then my father

rose and began pacing the room, and the horrid charm snapped. I gave a

great gulp, and realized I had been holding my breath all the while;

and the numbness fell from my limbs, and they were mine once more to

move as I would.

My father came to a halt and sat on the bed beside me. I was quite

awake now and understood something of his drift. He began to speak

again, but his tone was calmer:

"One way of ridding yourself of an enemy, Tommy, is to set another

on his track. When you can't fight your own battles, perhaps if you

are clever enough, you may get another to fight them for you. Now

suppose...."

"Oh, daddy, I see, I see," I cried, for I loved to display my sagacity

before my father.

"Well," he smiled at me.

"Why," I went on breathlessly, "it's Shadow-of-Fear." I paused for a

moment at the awful name and looked furtively about me, repeating in a

lower tone, "Shadow-of-Fear." I took courage again and continued: "He

couldn't catch you, so he made the smugglers think you were a spy."

"Quite right, Tommy; full marks," said my father. "But ..."--and now he

leant over me and said very slowly and solemnly--"how does he know the

sign of the burn? How does he know, Tommy? How does he know?" And again

something of the tone that had frightened me rang in his voice.

"Daddy, he's wonderful," I said; for that was my simple creed.

I think the childish words relieved the tension of his mind, for he

laughed brightly, and tucking in the bed-clothes about my shoulders he

told me to get back to my dreams. When I woke later all was dark, and

he was sleeping peacefully at my side.

But that wasn't the last of my strange awakenings. It must have been

two nights later when I found myself lying on my back gazing at

the ceiling in that state of strange awareness which precedes full

consciousness. Dimly the utter quietness of the room made itself felt

like a pressure at my heart, and my ears seemed to be straining out to

an infinite distance to catch some faintest echo of sound. And the room

was full of light.

In sudden alarm I sprang up, but was immediately reassured, for my

father was sitting with his arms across the table, his head thrown

forward, asleep. I could see the slow heaving of his shoulders as he

breathed.

My first thought was to lie down again, but the sight of a large

parchment across which his arms were sprawled piqued my curiosity, and

I didn't debate long with myself before I was out of bed and scanning

a sheet of beautiful black script, but written in a language I didn't

understand. And then a word or two told me it was Latin, but the

meaning was quite dark to me, as my father hadn't so far succeeded in

making much of a scholar of me.

There were a few odd papers too with tracings on them like plans, some

scored through, and some mere fragmentary sketches; but they conveyed

little to me, half hidden as they were by my father's arms. I could see

they were his own work, and by occasional underlined passages in the

manuscript, and by odd notes jotted in the margin, I guessed he had

been drawing up plans according to some mysterious instructions in the

parchment.

The manuscript looked to me exceedingly old and frail. The edges were

frayed and tattered, and here and there decayed pieces had fallen from

the text itself. But it was obvious that great pains had been taken

to preserve and restore it, and where the old ink was faint the words

had been written over afresh. But it seemed to me that the task of

deciphering it must be no easy one. A glimmering of an idea flittered

through my mind, that it was somehow on account of this manuscript that

my father wanted me to learn Latin.

All these considerations were merely momentary, for a glance or two

showed me the whole picture there, and something of its meaning; and I

began to understand what the mystery was which kept my father from his

bed, though of course I couldn't guess at the contents of the ancient

script.

I was for creeping back to bed again unheeded, but stopped short at my

father's open eyes fixed upon me. He had awakened without a sound or a

stir, and was watching me. I half wondered whether he would be angry,

but with something of the matter-of-factness with which he had accepted

my discovery of the Smugglers' Tunnel he said, almost in the same

words, "Very well, Tommy, I'll show you."

Very carefully he turned a page or two of the manuscript, and the dry

old stuff crackled beneath his fingers.

"It's an old, old story," he began, "and I'll tell it to you some day.

But this is what is troubling me."

He folded a page back, and here instead of writing was an elaborate

diagram; but the edges of this page were particularly worn, as though

by frequent use, and part of the diagram was missing.

"Now, Tommy," said my father, drawing the lamp up close, "you've got

good eyes. What do you make of this?"

He pointed with his pencil to the very spot where the diagram faded

from the frayed edge.

I stooped over the table and strained my eyes to the sheet. What I saw

looked to me like a long passage, but just at the crucial point where

something important seemed to be indicated the impression was faded and

blurred.

"Looks like a hole here," I said at last.

"Yes, yes," said my father eagerly.

"And something stopping it."

"Yes...."

I looked more intently. The passage was sloping down to what I guessed

must be the opening, though this was off the page. Beneath the passage

was a short stairway leading to a tunnel which followed parallel

beneath the passage above; and after this the rest was comparatively

clear. But the puzzling part was how the stairway joined the passage.

Was it from beneath or from the side? The precious fragment which held

the secret was missing, and only a roughly rounded line, which might

have been a hole or a boulder, faded off the sheet.

I turned away blinking and rubbed my eyes, dazzled with the strain.

"Sorry, daddy," I said, "I can't see. But I think...."

"Yes, Tommy?"

"I think there's a hole in the earth, and a big stone on top."

"Ah," he said, "on top."

There was a long pause, while he sat toying with his pencil. Then he

turned to me again and said rather sadly, "You see, I thought it might

have been Ebb-Tide Gate. But if the hole is in the floor...."

"But," I said, "there is a hole in the floor where the gate drops down.

It might be...."

"No, Tommy," he smiled at me, "if there were it would be full of water.

And see here." He pointed to the diagram which marked the low-water

line, and the steps were clear. My father continued, "If the hole were

in the wall, you see, and fairly high, the steps would still be dry.

But," he added with a strange little smile, "there ain't no hole,

Tommy."

He began folding up the document, very carefully, pressing it down page

by page, and smoothing out the creases. And as he turned the last page

I saw in great black letters, at the very end, the words:

MALEDICTUS SIT THESAURUS

Now whether by chance I had met the words somewhere in my random

studies, or whether the haunting memory of some old story of my

father's lingered in my mind, I can't say; but the meaning was

instantaneously flashed across my brain, and involuntarily I exclaimed,

"Accursed be the treasure!"

My father started, but smiling humorously said, "A little learning,

Tommy ..." but left the quotation unfinished.

"Tell me the story," I said eagerly.

"Sometime, Tommy, sometime," he put me off.

"Now," I pleaded.

"But it's midnight, Tommy. And listen how the wind says 'Hush!' And

see how black it is through the window. You'd dream."

"I like to dream," I said.

"Yes, Tommy, yes," he answered. "I'd like to dream your dreams. Golden

sands, and a wide blue sea; and palms and reefs, and caverns, and long,

white, racing waves. Eh, Tommy? But there are dreams that spring at you

out of the dark and clutch at your throat and tangle you in a net, and

your limbs are heavy and dead, and your lungs are bursting, but you

can't utter a sound; and something laughs 'Ah!' and a hand goes over

your face...."

"Yes, yes," I said, as he paused.

But all he answered was "Not to-night, Tommy; not to-night."

So I went back to bed again quietly, and dipping my head into my pillow

saw in glittering great letters that deepened into red like blood,

MALEDICTUS SIT THESAURUS. And the night was full of dreams,

for all that I hadn't heard the story; for the strange curse rang like

a cry through my imagination, wailing menacingly like an echo from

another world; and ever it seemed that a coffined corpse struggling

frenziedly in its prison shook a fleshless fist at me, and glared at

me from hollow eyeless sockets, repeating and repeating a terrible

threat which I couldn't understand though I strained my ears to listen.

And though the earth was between us I could see the writhing figure

tearing at the stifling tangles of its shroud, chattering insanely.

Then suddenly I was the corpse myself; and I knew I was dead, but the

grave-clothes were choking me; and with an agonized effort I heaved

at the suffocating obstruction, and woke panting and puffing with the

blankets about my face.

I threw them off; and the room was white with morning.

CHAPTER VIII

PICARDINO

Running downstairs I was aware of an unaccustomed music in the house.

A high, vibrating voice was trilling and quavering to some twanging

instrument; and breaking into the kitchen I saw a merry brown little

fellow, with a ring of black stubbly beard about his lips, fingering

what I afterwards learnt was a guitar, and singing with the abandonment

of a bird. Without stopping his song he rolled a vivacious dark eye on

me, winking with such a knowing merriment that I beamed my broadest at

him, watching him with absorbed interest.

He finished his song and started speaking in a breath, chattering in

a pretty musical broken English, calling for wine, and pledging the

ladees of Italee, generally giving us to understand that Italy was the

land for a roving eye and a merry heart, where the gerrls knew the

meaning of love.

As he spoke he sipped at his wine, smacking his lips, and touching his

guitar with nervous fingers; and before any one had time to take up the

dialogue he was off on another song, throwing himself into it with a

humorous passion that set my blood tingling in my veins. Before he had

finished, my father came in, and as the song closed applauded heartily

with, "Brava! Brava!"

The Italian seemed gratified, and swept him an elaborate bow; but

my father held out his hand to the guitar, saying "Ah, the lovely

strings; my fingers have itched for them for years."

The Italian hastily unslung the gaudy instrument from his shoulders,

and handed it to my father eagerly, saying, "Ah, an arteest! He ees my

brotherr. He shall say he have play on the gueetar of Picardino. He

will remember me, yes? Picardino." And before my father could prevent

him he had embraced him with fervour, greatly to the amusement of the

host and the few early guests.

But my father wasn't in the least disconcerted, returning the embrace

with unction; and freeing himself he fingered at the guitar, at first

with some diffidence, but soon growing more confident, striking the

chords boldly or rippling out the arpeggios.

He hesitated a moment before launching into a song, and then began on

an old sea chantey:

"In Plymouth Town there lived a maid,

Bless you young women;

In Plymouth Town there lived a maid,

Now mind what I do say;

In Plymouth Town there lived a maid,

And she was mistress of her trade;

I'll go no more a ro--o--ving

With you--fair--maid."

We must have been a good day's journey from the sea, but the company

seemed to know the song and caught up the chorus:

"A ro--ving, a ro--ving,

Since roving's been my ru--i--in,

I'll go no more a ro--o--ving

With you--fair--maid."

And this was the beginning of a merry contest, the guitar passing from

the Italian to my father and back again, my father usually singing

some gay sailor ditty, and Picardino some wavering high-pitched song of

love. I listened delighted. Also Picardino, in his quaint English, was

a wonderful chatterbox, full of stories of the road; and I found myself

at times half wishing I might join him in his wanderings, and share

some of his adventures of frolic and danger over the ways of France and

Italy and Spain. I remember when I awoke from such dreams to reality I

glanced toward my father feeling guilty of a kind of treason, and he

seemed to be eyeing me darkly as though half divining my thought; till

in penitence lest I had wounded him I stole up to him, and clasping his

hand said, "I wouldn't, daddy; I really wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?" he asked uncomprehendingly.

"I wouldn't go with him; I wouldn't really."

My father gazed at me rather dreamily for a minute, and suddenly

seeming to awake laughed and said, "Oh, that, Tommy. No, of course not;

of course not." But I thought he didn't know either what he was saying

or what I meant. I felt relieved.

Meanwhile Picardino was telling of a strange adventure in the north

from where he had just come, as he said, followed by "terreeble voices,

ach! so cru-ell, so chill, that my hair it stand upon its end, and my

hearrt it knock like so"; at which he beat a rat-tat upon the table. It

seemed that upon a lonely space of moor he had arrived one evening at

a huge grey house, but on knocking for admittance no one had answered

him. He was tired and hungry, and could see no village near where he

could rest, so he had continued to knock, till slowly growing out of

the hollow house he had become aware of a low and sorrowful moaning,

"like one lost soul, for everr and for everr bound to a beeg wheel of

pain." As he told his story his eyes started from his head, and his

hair seemed to stiffen about his neck.

My father was clearly struck with the picture of the lonely house,

especially when the host corroborated the story, saying he had heard

rumours from travellers of a haunted mansion on the moors, some twenty

or thirty miles maybe to the northward. Others, too, had heard of it,

and the report wasn't encouraging to investigation, as the place seemed

veiled in mystery and gloom, and no one could be found to inhabit it.

The last tenant, it was said, had fled shrieking from it in the dead of

night, and had died raving.

To all this Picardino chimed in with "Yess, yess," like a bird's

cheep, repeating, "So, as I tell you; yess," as though the accumulated

testimony pleased him, and finishing with, "Ach, there! Eet ees a place

of speereets. I not go near eet; neverr!" He shuddered till it seemed

that his bones were being shaken together; then again striking on his

guitar he soared into another song, and at the close he passed round

his hat with a flourish, and emptying the few coppers into his hand

spat upon them for luck, and invoking on us the blessing of the Virgin

Mary and all the saints, danced out into the street, where we soon

heard his voice thinly quavering on a high note of romantic passion.

My father and I settled to our breakfast, and that over I was told to

amuse myself as well as I could for the rest of the day, but to be back

before dark as we were to be off once more on our wanderings. I gave my

pistol practice a miss that morning, for my first thought was to follow

Picardino, and I scampered out of the _Snow Man_ in pursuit of him; but

he had vanished. I enquired of him from every one I met, and was sent

southward in chase of him, but coming to a forked road I was at a loss

which way to follow, and there was no one in sight. Turning to the

left at a venture I ran a long way before I met any one, an old tramp

as it happened sitting by the wayside; but to my eager questioning

he slowly doffed his cap and rubbed his head, and declared that he

couldn't rightly say, not but what he might have passed, but he had

been winking his forty. His head nodded even as he spoke, and I ran on.

But I didn't find Picardino. I turned back eventually to search along

the other road, but was equally unsuccessful. However, I soon forgot my

disappointment, and went coursing my own shadow over the heathery moor.

The sun was getting low when I turned my face homewards; and sighting

the village from a rise, at first, I stopped short, and then started

running with all my might, for leaping up red into the evening was a

burst of angry flame. Something vaguely foreboding tightened at my

breast, but I kept a desperate pace, and arrived panting to find a

crowd gathered about the _Snow Man_ which was wrapped in dense folds

of smoke, with streaks of fire licking up from it like tongues from a

black mouth.

My thought was uttered in my involuntary cry, "My father!" Some one in

the crowd turned, and I heard him exclaim in surprise, "Why, here ee

be," and another, "Ah, poor bairn!" in tones of pity.

I clutched the nearest villager, and again cried, "My father, where's

my father?" looking wildly up into his face; but I didn't stay for his

answer, for he turned his head uneasily away. I pushed past him, and

squeezing through the crowd broke to the front, crying in an agony,

"Daddy, dad-_dee_!"

I think I would have run headlong into the flames, for something told

me without the need of words what had happened; but I was arrested by

a strong arm, whose I don't know to this day, for I only struggled and

bit and kicked at him, shouting through my tears, "Let me go to my

daddy; let me go!"

"Steady, lad, steady," was all I heard in reply; but through my frenzy

I could hear a low voice droning evenly and monotonously, "However ee

coom out o' 't fust time was a miracle. An' then t' go back again!

Good sort too. 'Host,' sez 'ee, 'that cooms o' me carelessness,' sez

ee, 'an' here's what'll pay for 't,' ee sez; an' out comes a purse

o' gold as ee might be t' lord o' t' county." I heard more of this

through my shouting and struggling, though it wasn't till afterwards

that I realized the meaning of what I heard. But my struggling stopped

when the voice changed to, "An' all of a sudden ee sez, 'Hark!' ee

sez; 'Hark there!' an' takes a grip o' me arm, so. 'Ee's calling me,'

ee sez; but I couldn't hear nowt. 'Ee's there,' ee cries something

dreadful, 'ee's calling me; I can hear him.' An' before I knows what's

what ee's into t' fire again, here's t' bairn back again; an' ee

weren't calling at all; an' him rushing in t' save him. Ah 't's sad, 't

is. An' ee were a good sort...."

The first words of the story had frozen me to attention. It was all

so like my father that I could see it happening before my eyes. In my

confused mind one picture stood out vividly and terribly clear: my

father watching the blaze, and suddenly starting at my voice from the

flames calling for help; and then the dash into the fire which closed

like a curtain behind him.

I threw my arms up to my face and sobbed aloud; and everything went

dark....

I came to consciousness again with a dim chattering in my ears which

slowly strengthened and caught at my memory. And suddenly sitting up I

cried, "Picardino!"

The little fellow was at my side in a moment, soothing me with hand and

voice like a hundred mothers. But something began to grow cold about

my heart, and the full recollection of my state burst upon me, and I

whimpered like a baby, "Daddy! I want my daddy!"

"I'll be your daddee," said Picardino. "Ach, we'll soon be merree

again." He prattled of the delights of the road, trying to comfort

me, but I felt miserably desolate, and lay down and sobbed. He left

me after a while, and presently returned with some hot soup. At first

I waved it away, but the savoury smell was too much for me, and I was

soon greedily devouring the appetizing stuff. And then I think I must

have cried myself to sleep.

It was dark when I awoke, and I was strangely alert. I didn't know

where I was, but in a room below there was an indistinct murmur of

voices. But what caught my ear was a low, clear whistling from the

darkness outside, and I sprang to the window and strained my eyes into

the night; for the tune was my old favorite:

"Dance to your daddy,

My little laddy;

Dance to your daddy,

My little man."

There was a pause, and I took up the melody:

"You shall have a fish,

You shall have a fin;

You shall have a haddock,

When the ship comes in."

I paused in my turn, and closer on the air came the ending of the tune:

"You shall have a feather,

You shall have a fan.

Dance to your daddy,

My little man."

My heart was thumping wildly, and forgetting all my training in caution

I rushed out of the room, clothed as I was in my shirt only, and down

the stairs, and broke into a lighted room full of people, crying,

"Daddy, dad-_dee_!"

I made for the door, but Picardino caught me by the arm. "How? What?"

he said sharply.

Then my caution returned to me. I looked foolishly round and rubbed my

eyes as though I had been dreaming, and beginning to whimper I said, "I

want my daddy."

Picardino was at once all mother to me, and was leading me from the

room when the street door opened and a man entered. I just glanced at

him, but he wasn't my father; so I crept out of the room and up the

stairs. But I wasn't half-way up before I heard a terrible scream, and

the sounds of a scuffle. I stopped to listen, but the whistling was

still in my ears, and that claimed my first attention. I ran up to my

room and tugged on my clothes--Picardino must have undressed me--and

then peering out of the window I gave a low whistle. There was a faint

answer; and I looked down the wall to see if I could escape, my heart

beating with I know not what wild expectation. I could see the ground

beneath me, not a very deep drop, and the earth was soft, being dug up

into a flower-bed under the window. I was soon hanging to the sill; and

swinging myself away from the wall was on the ground on all fours. I

sprang up and looked about me. Again I whistled, and the answer came,

but not from where I expected it. I turned and crept forward, and heard

a low whisper, "Heest! Heer, heer." But it was the voice of Picardino,

and his hand just touched me.

I shrank back, at a loss to understand, but my amazement was cut short

by a great figure springing out of the dark, and I heard a faint cry,

and footsteps crashing away through the night. At last all was silent

again, and I was alone.

I stood still wondering what it could all mean. Then the door of the

house opened; or the inn, I should say, for it must have been an inn;

and dark figures appeared against the sudden light talking excitedly.

I slunk into the shadow, thinking it best to make my escape from such

a place, not knowing what dangers might be lurking for me there. And

then I felt a warm hand in my own, and my father's voice was whispering

"Shhh!"

For a moment I stood fixed to earth, my blood in a whirl; then turning

I flung my arms about my father, and buried my face against him to

stifle the sound of my glad sobbing; for I was unstrung by the agony

and excitement of the past few hours, and the revulsion of feeling was

too much for my self-control.

But I soon mastered myself sufficiently to creep quietly away, holding

my father tight by the hand, fearing lest somehow he might escape me

again.

The night was warm, for the summer weather wasn't over, though the year

was advancing; and we lay beneath the heather. And there my father told

me something of the story, while the burning inn still reddened under

the sky.

"You see, I'm dead now," he said. "I died in the fire."

"Daddy!" I exclaimed in terror, clutching him; for I was a

superstitious child, and it would have seemed no very strange thing for

me to be talking to my father's ghost.

He laughed: "Not dead to you, Tommy."

And then I understood.

"But to Shadow-of-Fear?" I said.

"You've got it," he answered; and explained how rushing back through

the fire to our room he had climbed out of the window which opened on

a back-yard, no one seeing him, and had hidden himself in the heather.

His plan was to have found me, and together we would have fled away,

every one supposing we had perished in the flames. But somehow he had

missed me, and later seeing me with Picardino he had stalked us, hoping

somehow to steal me back, but fearing that his ruse had failed.

But one question worried me. "Did you really burn it on purpose?" I

asked.

"Ah!" was all he replied.

And I fell asleep, too tired and confused to solve the hundred

mysteries which were beating in my mind. Who fired the inn? And why?

And how was it Picardino had returned and carried me away? And why had

he vanished so suddenly?

CHAPTER IX

SUNSET TOWERS

We must have lain low for a long while, or the summer must have broken

very suddenly, for when one late afternoon we set out for our new home,

my father telling me we should be able to rest quietly now, there was

more than a breath of winter in the keen clear air. I remember as we

strode forward, silent for a time, how I watched my breath making a

cloud about my face, which I conjured into airy visions of Fairyland;

though my Fairyland wasn't a place of beautiful enchantment, but

rather one of subtle spells and secret workings which mingled with

our human destinies, thwarting them and twisting them awry like the

under-currents in a river, or like the oozy bed-weeds that cling about

a swimmer's legs entangling him and dragging him downward into the

mud. The curling vapour of my breath, tinged to a faint blue, was

like some evil emanation, formless yet with a thousand forms melting

and merging into one another, like a menacing spirit hesitating to

strike, still hovering about its victim, soon to assume its final

shape of doom. I think perhaps my mind was dimly aware of the story

of the genii imprisoned for a thousand years in a shard beneath the

sea, and when at length drawn to earth and set free by some miserable

fishermen, steaming out in a towering cloud above the terrified wretch,

and threatening him with ruin. For there seemed to be a presence and a

shadow beside us and above us as we stepped together across the lonely

swelling rises of the moor, and I was vaguely troubled, half wondering

whether like the fisherman in the story we should be able to lure the

menacing thing back into its prison, or whether we should be enfolded

in its snares.

All this time we had been making northward; and as we topped a rise we

saw on a hill before us, lying away to our left, a great straggling

mass of grey stone which my father told me was our new home. I stopped

to gaze at it, and felt a throb of delighted awe at the prospect of its

huge loneliness standing up into the evening, grave and like a creature

on guard, with eyes fixed steadily on the empty distance. Instinctively

I looked away to the right, where all was a desolate stretch of

abandoned moorland, so lonely that it seemed like the sea, and sniffing

I thought I caught a scent of salt and weed.

"How will it be, Tommy?" asked my father, and for answer I tightened my

grip of his hand and gave a glad sigh.

We stepped down into the valley, and lost the setting sun; but rising

again as we approached our new home we saw its red rim dipping below

the line of hill before us, washing the western sky in a scarlet glow,

against which the walls and towers of the great building stood out

black and secret, as though now the eyes of the creature were turned

in upon itself, brooding on some dark and terrible mystery in its own

breast.

"Daddy," I said, "we will call it Sunset Towers."

As we drew nearer, its immense form seemed to grow above us like a dark

cloud rising out of the earth, and it was as though we were walking

into the heart of a shadow; but though with each step we took the

feeling of awe and wonder increased upon me, and though a low murmur as

of sad voices strengthened as we approached, it wasn't till our feet

set the echoes ringing under the archway that I realized we were in the

haunted house of which Picardino had told us.

We found some cold food laid for us, but there was no other sign of

any inhabitant besides ourselves. And yet the fire was ready for

lighting, and the lamp was full of oil, and when I went to bed I found

everything laid ready as at an inn. But I was too tired to puzzle out

what all this meant. We had had a long tramp, and I was soon asleep.

But once in the night I awoke to hear that same strange moaning in the

air. It seemed to come from nowhere, yet filled the whole house like

a presence, as though indeed the house was a living creature that was

hurt and was sobbing dumbly to itself.

With the morning of course the vapours of the night were dispelled

before the disillusioning white clearness of the day, which lays bare

our mysteries with a mocking shrug, as it were, revealing the secret

workings, and laughing at our childish credulity.

For the preparations of the evening before were easily explained by the

arrival of an old dame from the nearest village, some three miles yet

to the northward, and hidden down by a river valley. She was busy about

the house before I was stirring, and had prepared a savoury breakfast

by the time we were dressed. She was an ill-favoured old creature,

battered as it looked by the storms and weather of that wild region

rather than shrivelled with age; but beneath her crust of wretchedness

she had a kindly enough heart.

During the morning I heard my father expostulating with her. As far as

I could tell he was trying to persuade her to come and lodge in the

house, but though she was perfectly willing to work there during the

day rather than let the poor bairn die of neglect, yet she would rather

cross through a blizzard morning and evening than spend a single night

in the evil place. And then it was her turn to expostulate with my

father, wondering, as she said, to find us alive in the morning, and

telling him it was wicked to bring a child to such a house. At this he

laughed, and dismissed the subject.

So the old dame continued to come with the morning and vanish with

the night, at each parting fervently praying that we might be spared

through the darkness. I think she was surprised to find us day by day

not only spared but flourishing on the haunted atmosphere.

We had only one other visitor, the landlord. How my father had rented

the house, I don't know; but the landlord, a ferrety little man, must

have been glad to find a tenant, and called to see how we were faring.

He found us very gay, and by no means wishing to quit.

And then my father conceived the idea of sending me to school. At

first I was excited at the prospect, and tramped willingly enough the

few miles to Rancey Bridge, where there was a fair-sized school for

boarders and day scholars, standing on a hill that sloped down to the

Rancey River. But as my school-days have nothing to do with my story,

except that it was at Rancey Bridge where I met Worthing Bright, I

needn't dwell on them. Indeed the only thing I learnt there was how

abnormal my life had been, and what a wonderful father I had; but

judging by what I heard I had no desire to change either the one or the

other, for the normal and the ordinary smacked of tameness to one of my

experiences.

Not that life was entirely uneventful. For I soon found that

scholarship wasn't the best fun in the world, and after a period of

grumpiness I set to work to enliven the dull hours of study, and with

such success that there was a sort of revolution in the affairs of

Rancey Bridge, initiated by my drawing my knife on Staggers, the usher,

who was threatening to birch me, and driving him from the room.

Naturally this created an uproar, and for a moment I was heralded as

the hero of a new age; but the excitement was short-lived, for the time

at any rate, for Worthing Bright appeared at the door, and the tumult

died down.

Now Worthing Bright was smaller than myself, though some three years

older; but there was something in his presence and personality, and

in his straight, neat, commanding little figure, that cowed the most

rebellious. I had frequently tried to make a stand against this

domination, which my reason told me was absurd, but I had never come

off victor. A cutting word and a cold stare seemed to melt all the

strength from my nerves and muscles, and my fists would fall open

foolishly, and bowing my head I would slink away.

It was much the same on this occasion. He stood at the door and looked

at me. I summoned up all my bravado, but there was no moral support to

be had from my fellows, already subdued. I was flushed and excited, and

raising my knife I made it quiver above my head. But he gave me a look

of pitying scorn, and said, "Let's play at being pirates," in a tone of

such sneering emphasis that I felt convicted of conduct fit only for a

girl of three.

A minute later Staggers returned reassured, and I took my thrashing

without a struggle.

When it was over I turned away and would have left the school, not

intending to stay any longer at such a place. But at the door I found

Worthing still on guard. "That was well done," he said. "Now, don't

spoil it."

I faced him for a minute, but he pointed me back to the room; and I

obeyed.

I spent many troubled nights puzzling out my conduct, trying to whip

myself into a fury against Worthing, for I knew well that if I were to

be revenged on him it would only be in a moment of frenzy. But all was

of no avail. I was struggling against something which had mastered

me; and that wasn't the greater strength of my antagonist, but the

strange knowledge that somehow I loved and admired him, and would give

my life if he were in danger. It may have been his spiritual power

which dominated me, or it may have been the admiration in his voice,

usually so scornful, when he had said, "That was well done," which set

vibrating some chord of affection in me; but however it was, I knew for

a certainty that I had found not an enemy but a friend.

And the friendship deepened, though it was a strange one; for Worthing

was my opposite in every way. He had an intellect like a sharpened

knife, making my brain in comparison like a cushion or a cloud, a dull

soft sort of thing. Naturally he was high up in the school, which

added to the strangeness of our friendship, and his whole outlook and

morality were as yet things unknown to me. For he was intending to

study law, and already he had a large share of the lawyer's coldness

and aloofness, looking clean through the human elements of a question

to the legal considerations beyond. And this was one of the things

which marked him out unique among his fellows, for though respected

and even feared by everybody he hadn't a single friend; and naturally

so; for being deeply impressed by the dignity of law and order, living

as it were in the shadow of his future career, he had constituted

himself a sort of self-elected champion of the authorities, lending

them the support of his extraordinary influence, lecturing us even on

the necessity of obedience, and somehow impressing us with the absurd

childishness of rebellion against established rule, though needless to

say the impression melted with the closing of the door behind him.

But though his intellect was so keen and his personality so electric,

he had nothing of the bulk and muscle which about this time I was

beginning to develop at a prodigious pace. I could have crushed him

with a finger, yet he subdued me with a glance.

I don't intend to describe the full course of our growing friendship.

At first indeed I struggled against the feeling of affection which

in my heart I knew I felt for him. I think it must have been the

sort of affection a dog feels for the master who is gradually taming

and training it and breaking it to his will. Perhaps in my feelings

towards him there was even an element of pity which helped to cement

our comradeship, for he was so utterly lonely that in my heart, though

inveighing against him, I yearned towards him. And certainly his

courage, though not of the hardy physical type which I was best fitted

to understand, appealed to my sense of the heroic.

I think the clinching incident which at length united us was the result

of one of my yarns to my fellows. For living as I did in the famous

haunted house, and having been the companion of smugglers, not to

mention the stories I had drunk in from my father's lips, I must have

seemed to my mates a very treasure-house of yarns, and my vanity didn't

urge me to hide my light under a bushel. It was during one of these

yarns that I looked up to find Worthing listening to me. I stopped,

feeling guilty somehow of babyish superstition, for my story was one of

ghosts, and the scene of it I had laid quite unwarrantably at Sunset

Towers.

I waited for Worthing to speak, and at last he said, "Of course you

know that's all rubbish."

I felt wounded in my pride, especially as the story was one of my

father's, and the insult seemed to glance off me and strike him; so I

answered hotly, "You may sneer, but you wouldn't spend a night alone in

our haunted room."

"I'll do it to-night," he answered without hesitation.

I was taken aback, for first of all our house had no special haunted

room that I was aware of, though I knew several rooms where a night

alone would be distinctly unpleasant. But chiefly I was alarmed because

I knew I had committed myself. Worthing would insist on the ordeal; I

knew him well enough for that; and I was frightened at the possible

consequences.

Whether I believed the old place was haunted or not, I can't rightly

say, but the mysterious wailing voices still clung about the air more

like a pervading feeling than an articulate sound, though on some

nights when the wind was high there seemed to mingle with it a shaken

sobbing unspeakably desolate that caught at one's very heart and set it

throbbing with an ominous presentiment of impending evil. And lately

the crying had taken on such a note of human pain that I had often

started awake at night shaken to the soul with pity, and feeling an

urgency upon me to rise and search out the suffering thing wherever

it might be hid, and soothe it with what consolation the living might

bring the dead. And looking at Worthing with the memory of these things

in mind I felt a reluctant compunction at submitting him to such a

trial. For I knew something of that creeping terror that comes with a

strange sighing on the night, and I didn't think he fully realized what

he was undertaking. And at this moment it came to me with a shock how

dearly I held him, and if possible I would have drawn back.

"Not to-night," I said, feeling about for some way of evasion,

"To-morrow, if you like."

"So that you can prepare a ghost for me?" he said coldly.

"No," I cried, "no, on my honour. But--but I must tell my father, and

get a bed ready for you, and so on."

"To-morrow then," he agreed.

Now the next day was Saturday and a holiday, so I said, "Come in the

morning and we'll spend the day together. Have a look round the place,

and that."

"Right," and he turned away.

I didn't tell my father till the next morning, when I was already

expecting Worthing to arrive. I didn't at all know how my father would

take the information, but as it happened it seemed to amuse him, and he

raised no objection. It seemed to me as though he saw no danger, and I

said questioningly, "But suppose there is a ghost, daddy?"

"Ghosts," he answered with a laugh, "are like miracles. They only

happen to people who believe in them."

Worthing arrived early, and we spent a splendid day clambering about

the old mansion. Half of it was in ruins, and the habitable part had

been partially bricked and partially boarded up. My father and I shared

a room at the top of the first flight of the great oaken stairs. It

was a huge room, and its mere spaciousness made it an eerie place at

night, for the little circle of the candlelight intensified the shadows

in the corners. And there was a great wardrobe by the fireplace which

suggested secret things, and facing it across the room a tall mirror

by my bed which played unholy tricks with my reflection in the dark.

This was bad enough; but at least the room was in the main body of

the house. But before we could reach the room which Worthing was to

occupy, an archway on the landing, which had been closed before we

took possession, had to be opened again. The room lay out among the

ruins, and was fairly easily approachable, though not always under

cover, by a long and tortuous passage and one flight of stairs; but

though in the ruined part of the house the room itself was still

sound and weatherproof. I had frequently been in it, having chosen it

indeed as my own private sanctum; but my method of approach had been

by an unorthodox route up a broken wall or two and along a perilous

causeway, not to be attempted in the night.

Especially on such a night. For during the day the wind began to rise,

and before sunset half a gale was sweeping across from the north-east,

howling dismally among the turrets and corridors of our ruinous home,

and wailing down the great chimney of our dining-room, puffing the

smoke out in great blue clouds.

It was a night for strange stories, but there were no stories as it

happened. In spite of the increasing wind, which tore at the great

lonely house, shaking it to its foundations as though envying it its

place there on the hill, and grappling with it like a foe to root it

up and send it flying headlong, Worthing remained calmly by the fire

talking to my father in the most matter-of-fact voice as though nothing

unusual were to take place that night. As for me I was straining out to

catch the first echo of that bitter cry which I knew would soon come

wailing in the heart of some great burst of wind, thinner but more

piercing than the gale itself. And when at last I thought I heard it I

looked quickly across at Worthing, but he seemed to have heard nothing;

and my father was evidently lost in the conversation, for he showed no

sign of having heard anything other than the wind.

I felt left out in the cold, as though all the responsibility of what

might happen this night were thrown upon my shoulders. Or rather upon

my heart, for it beat heavily, and with the deepening darkness throbbed

with uneasier forebodings. And then there came a crash at which I

sprang to my feet, so unstrung was I with anxiety. But my father

listening for a moment said, "Some old chimney, I suppose," and resumed

the conversation. I sat down again, and tried to listen to what the

two were talking about, but I remember nothing, for all my attention

was strained out for that coming cry. And suddenly it came, sharp, as

though at a swift sting, shrill, and breaking into sobs of self-pitying

abandonment to anguish, to die away in a forlorn moan.

Again I sprang to my feet, and cried, "Listen!"

"You mustn't be afraid," said my father to Worthing, "the wind does

that kind of thing."

"Oh, daddy, it isn't the wind," I cried.

"Yes, Tommy, just the wind," he answered, looking at me, and throwing

a half glance towards Worthing. I took his hint to mean that my friend

mustn't be alarmed before the ordeal. So I tried to possess myself in

calmness. But when it was time to go to bed I was shaking with fear, so

much so that Worthing noticed it and said, "It looks as though you're

to sleep in the haunted room instead of me."

"Oh, Worthing, don't go," I said.

He looked at me coldly and answered, "Oh, so that's what all this

little farce is about, is it? You want to frighten me from the attempt?

Come."

That stung me, and without a word I handed him his candle and took my

own, and together we went up the echoing stairs, out under the archway,

and wound our way along through the twisting corridor, shielding our

candles as well as we could when we came to some half exposed space,

sometimes standing crouched against the wall till a gust had spent its

fury and swept by, and then on again, till puffing with the journey we

arrived at the haunted room. Once more I would have begged him to turn

back, and I did say, "Let me stay with you," but he froze me away from

him, and I turned and left him there alone, beating my way back through

the night and wind to my chamber. But once I heard a moan so near me

that I stopped as though petrified, and held my breath to listen. But

just as I breathed again, a deep draught, I thought I heard the sound

repeated, but it was drowned in my breathing. But what I did hear

sounded strangely like a little chuckle of some mocking and evil thing,

so that I stepped on hastily, heedless of my footing, and arrived at my

room in a fine state of terror. And there I sat on my bed, hearkening

to the sounds of the night, and bitterly reproaching myself, but unable

to still the absurd thumping of my heart and quivering of my limbs.

At length I controlled myself sufficiently to pull off my clothes and

scramble into bed. But there was no sleep for me. Long after my father

had crept in beside me I lay listening, listening for I knew not what;

for I felt the growing conviction that soon there would come a clear

call for me, and I should have to arise and go to meet what fate should

send.

And all the while the wind came rushing from the moors, to whirl

about the ruins as in a witches' dance, shrieking and clamouring and

tugging at the walls, and raced away in scampering gusts far into the

distance. And through it I caught faint echoes of that ghostly moan,

a kind of _Ughh! Ughh!_ of unutterable pain. I couldn't help thinking

of Worthing, alone there among the crazy ruins, and wondering how the

night was passing for him. Likely enough, I thought bitterly, he was

serenely sleeping while I was tossing in a fever on his account; for I

knew that if it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have suffered all this

terror, for this night was no worse than others had been; and to me

ghosts weren't alarming things, but creatures that gave to the night

a delicious shuddering thrill. And so tossing and listening I fell at

length into a troubled sleep, to be awakened by a shattering cry that

rang in my ears like an echo. I sat bolt upright, my heart hammering;

but my father didn't move. How was it possible? I asked myself. How

could he sleep through it? I felt out towards him and whispered,

"Daddy!" I didn't notice till then that I was gasping as though I had

run a race. I touched him, and felt his chest rising and falling calmly

and evenly. I lay down again, but I was wide-awake, and I was telling

myself that Worthing was in danger, and I ought to go to him. But I

dared not. So I lay awhile listening to the wind as it howled through

the night, till I grew calmer, strangely calm, and a new courage came

to me. "This is all nonsense," I said. "I'll go and see."

I crept noiselessly out of bed and pulled on a few clothes; lit my

candle and left the room, turning at the door to see that my father

hadn't awakened. On the landing it was very gusty, and a racing puff

caught at my flame, nearly extinguishing it. I guarded it with my hand,

and made for the archway. Going was very slow, for with each step my

candle nearly blew out, and in the darkness I should have been lost.

So I crept on slowly, my attention fixed to the flame. It was an eerie

journey, for I could give no heed to what lay ahead of me, only sparing

a glance now and again into the darkness around, and feeling that if

anything lay in wait for me I should be an easy prey. This feeling of

helplessness increased upon me as I pushed further and further into the

night, and felt the first bite of the cold air that warned me I was

coming to the more open parts. How I expected to keep my candle alight

I don't know; but I managed it through the first exposed space, waiting

for a pause in the wind before I crossed, and reaching shelter as a

huge gust raced out of the north and screamed overhead with a hundred

mingled cries of pain and wrath and laughter. I rested a moment, for

somehow my slow passage left me strangely breathless and exhausted,

and I was all a-quiver with nervous apprehension, feeling that I was

stepping deeper and deeper into some unknown snare. In spite of the

crying gale, the air seemed to be tightening around me, the darkness

closing in. Again and again I stopped, peering about me and ahead, and

always it seemed that a luring shadow sank into the blackness as though

dragging me on and still on. But I kept my attention on the flame of

my candle, guarding it as though it were the last spark of my life,

till I came to the stairway. I felt for it with my foot, but couldn't

find it. I took a step forward and felt again, but it wasn't there. I

held out the candle and gazed into the dark. There was no stairway at

all, only a black length of corridor as far as the little light could

pierce, and I began to wonder where I was. I traced over in my mind

the way I had come, with the growing fear at my heart that I was lost

somewhere in that wild ruin in the dead of a tempestuous night. But I

wouldn't give in. Again I felt for the stairs as though they might have

miraculously grown there while I was thinking; and again I retraced in

imagination the way I had come. And then faintly behind me I heard a

low clang as of a closing gate, and the blood ran cold under my feet.

I turned quickly; too quickly; for a breath caught at my candle, and

with a leap and a flutter the flame went out. But with the last of

the light I saw a pale face at my shoulder, very thin and filmy, with

black hollows at the eyes; and as I gazed horror-stricken it faded into

the darkness, and I heard a low sigh breathed so close to me that the

thin breath seemed to fan my hair. For a moment I was too terrified to

move. Then I think a frenzy must have possessed me, for with a courage

not my own I stepped boldly forward and clutched at the empty air. It

yielded to my outstretched hands, and I stumbled and struck against a

wall, but steadying myself I felt my way forward till my fingers closed

on something cold and hard; and again I heard a sad moaning. And then

a sudden horror struck like a knife at my heart, for I was gripping

the fleshless fingers of a skeleton. I shrieked, and fell to the floor

unconscious.

It was in Worthing's room that I came to myself, and Worthing was

throwing water on my brow. The horror was still upon me, for waking to

see his face above me it was as though I were again in that dreadful

corridor with the face of the spectre fading from my eyes. I tried to

scream, but Worthing clapped his hand to my mouth, and bade me be quiet

in a voice of such command that at once I felt in possession of my wits.

I sat up and looked about me.

"That's better," said Worthing; and added, "So you've had enough of

playing the ghost, have you?"

At first I didn't understand, and then I cried indignantly, "Worthing!"

and with my anger my courage came back to me.

"So?" he questioned.

"Do you think...." I began.

"Think?" he retorted.

"I tell you; I swear to you," I blurted out; "I thought I heard you

scream, and I came to you. But I lost my way in the dark, and a door

closed behind me, and my candle went out, and I saw a face, and I felt

a skeleton, and I tell you...."

But he laughed cuttingly into my speech:

"Well, you've had a bad time of it; you'd better lie down and go to

sleep."

It was only after long protestation that I succeeded in persuading him

to believe my story; and then he seemed strangely uneasy.

"There's something I can't understand," he muttered.

"Why, it's the ghost," I said easily.

"Bah!" he scoffed me down.

So we lay down together till the morning, and the wind died away, and

the winter sun shone bleakly over a frozen earth.

But though we spent the day searching the ruins, for it was Sunday and

of course there was no school, we couldn't solve the mystery of the

night. We retraced my path as well as I could judge it, but there was

no skeleton anywhere; and where Worthing had found me--for hearing my

shriek he had come to my aid--there was only a solid wall.

"You must have gone clean through there," he said seriously, "otherwise

you couldn't have lost your way without tumbling head first from the

ruins." But though we shook at it, and examined it for possible springs

and locks, the wall refused to give up its secret. The only thing that

marked it as different from the adjacent masonry was a patch of little

punctures as though a shot-gun had been emptied into it at close range.

So we searched and probed and questioned, but discovered nothing;

nor did we even find my candle which to Worthing was the greatest

confirmation of my story.

We didn't tell my father of the adventure of the night, but somehow

from that hour we felt sworn friends, and I never received again from

Worthing the cold chaff which made him so feared and hated at Rancey

Bridge.

He visited several times at Sunset Towers, and my father was loud

in his praises. He considered him a sane, level-headed fellow, just

the kind of friend to have behind one. But it didn't seem to me that

Worthing felt the same esteem for my father, and this was perhaps the

one shadow on our friendship. And even I, watching the two, realized

how my father needed such a friend himself.

Then the Christmas holidays came, and all except a few of the boarders

went home for the vacation.

CHAPTER X

MY FATHER TELLS A STORY

Christmas was soon upon us; and waking in the morning I felt eagerly

in my stocking, and was delighted beyond measure to find a bright new

pistol, a long-coveted treasure. I was up and dressed in no time, and

out into the frozen air. I soon had a target set up, and regardless of

numbed fingers put to proof the steadiness of my hand and eye; till my

father came out and dragged me unwillingly to breakfast, extracting

from me the promise to put away the deadly weapon till next day, for

there were a few boys left at Rancey Bridge over the holidays, and they

were to come and spend Christmas with me. My father didn't want any

accidents.

It was a cold clear day, and the ground lay a few inches deep in snow.

We had an uproarious time, and ate a magnificent dinner; and in the

evening we gathered round the dining-room fire to hear my father tell a

story before it was time for my friends to tramp back to the school.

Now I was considered something of a story-teller at Rancey Bridge, but

I had always insisted that I was a mere stuttering dummy to my father;

so the excitement was intense as we gathered before the leaping flames,

the only light in the room, and waited for my father to begin. He was

sitting back half in shadow, with the red glow of the fire lighting his

cheeks in swarthy leaps of colour, till his face seemed alternately to

spring at us out of the darkness and sink back into the dusk beyond.

I can't give all his story, for he kept us there two hours or more; and

his words without his accent, always so hushed and tense, as though he

were in the very presence of the things he was describing, would convey

little of the impression he made upon us. For he took us right away

from the life we knew, and we were afloat with a band of adventurers on

the Spanish Main, with our schooner nosing out to El Dorado far across

the sea.

We were all there on board that ship. The dark crafty little captain

with eyes like hard black beads which glowed with an underflush of red

when he was angry, terrified us when we felt his gaze upon us; for he

seemed an evil man, and one without conscience or remorse, and in his

company we couldn't know to what wickedness we might be driven; for

there was no question of disobedience though he should bid us pawn our

souls to the devil. Then there was the burly savage of a mate, a sort

of furious club in the hands of the wicked little captain; a creature

ready and willing for all abominations, but lacking a cunning mind to

plan the atrocities he gloried in committing. His huge wide smile of

evil delight as he listened to some tale of cruel villainy from the

captain, rubbing his great hairy hand relishingly across his mouth, was

a thing to frighten the boldest. And so one by one the crew came before

our eyes, for the most part decent enough fellows, but snared by some

malignant fate into the clutches of that abominable pair. And lastly

there was the priest; a lukewarm superstitious round little fellow, on

the one hand in terror of the captain and his mighty shadow, and on the

other hand in dread of hell-fire; and between the two fears living a

life of haunted terror, torn between cowardice and conscience.

I remember there was a mutiny on board that ship before the golden

coasts were reached. At least, the captain and the mate discovered a

mutiny, probably for their own amusement to relieve the monotony of

the voyage; and then there followed floggings and hangings, while the

captain twitched his cruel and wicked lips, and the mate stripped his

huge arms in brutal anticipation, and Jack Priest knelt and mumbled

prayers, and ventured a timid word of protest, and was sent packing to

his job of saying a Mass for the murdered and seeing them safely tossed

to the sharks.

But the bloodshed was to bear a terrible harvest; and I remember how

my father played upon our expectations, till we were in a fever of

excitement, wondering what was to come of it; for gradually through

the story the note of coming doom was emphasized so subtly, yet so

insistently, that the ship seemed to be moving forward into the closing

shadow of some terrible fate. There were warnings in the wind and in

the sea, and the priest was whimpering with superstitious terror;

and beneath the fear and submission of the daunted crew there were

mutterings and low-hissed threats which were ominous of evil things.

So at length land was sighted; but the wonderful palms that waved

overhead, and the splendid sun setting serenely beyond the tall dark

stems, were but as an ironic smile of the brooding destiny which lay in

wait for that ill-starred crew.

After this there was the search for the treasure, which the rumour that

had led them there said was hidden in some secret tomb of kings in a

lonely valley far away across the hills. But first there were natives

to reckon with; and so followed exciting battles, but with the one

inevitable result: the natives were defeated and enslaved, and driven

in chained gangs before the conquerors for beasts of burden when the

treasure should be found and captured. And then there was a weary

march, with wild beasts to do battle with, and tormenting insects, and

heat by day and cold by night, and fever, till it was a shattered

company which arrived at length at the lonely valley beyond the hills;

and the earth was bare and desolate, and there was no shelter, and for

water only a trickling stream that feebly threaded its way along a

shrunken channel.

But the love of gold was triumphant above the wretched weariness

of the land; and the captain at least was undaunted, giving his

orders like the sting of a snake; and the mate rose enormously and

thrashed the slaves into obedience. But for a long while the search

was unsuccessful, the valley guarding well its secret; till one day

sounding along the hillside a rock rang hollow, and the entrance was

found.

Then there was feverish labour, and the slaves were driven till they

fell; and through tunnel after tunnel a way was cleared, and every one

knew that the treasure was at hand. Then breaking through a low sealed

door there was the sound of chanting, and before them a grotesque

company of priests were at their worship in a strange shrine beneath

the earth; and the walls were glittering with precious stones and gold.

There was silence for a moment as the robbers shrank back surprised;

but the captain cried "On!" and the mate bounded forward and the crew

followed, and without mercy or quarter the priests were slaughtered as

they kneeled; save for one old fellow, who, standing before the altar,

shrieked a terrible curse at the invaders, and laid his magic on the

treasure, bidding it be ruin and madness and death on all who touched

it. But before the words of his enemies could reach him he had drawn a

knife and sheathed it in his breast.

Then the pillage started. By now the meaning of the mutterings on

shipboard began to be understood. For there was a conspiracy on foot.

The crew were divided into two parties, one abiding by the captain, the

other having elected a captain of their own intending to mutiny when

the hour was ripe and follow their own leader. Moreover they allied

themselves with the wretched slaves, promising them their freedom if

they obeyed. And so when half the treasure was carried from the shrine,

there was a sudden slashing of bonds and crying of orders and shouts

and curses and the noise of stampeding men; for the mutineers had so

contrived it that they should free the slaves who had sworn obedience

to them, and at a given signal fly from the shrine, and rolling a

tremendous boulder down the narrowing tunnel block up the entrance and

so entomb their enemies alive. The plan was well arranged, and the

signal was given. There was a rush for the door, for a party outside

had loosened the great boulder till it needed but a push to send it

crashing down the passage. So the last of the conspirators came flying

for safety, and behind him, not quite understanding the business,

but knowing something terrible was on foot, came the immense form of

the mate, rolling out oaths and curses. But the boulder was already

loosened, and lurching forward it gathered speed, and grinding the

shrieking mate to the wall crashed into place, sealing up the door for

ever and entombing the wretches beyond in a living death.

Then there began a terrible journey back to the coast; for it seemed to

the rebels that the curse of the old priest clung about their spoil.

Their leader, whom they now called captain, would wake at night to

hear cryings out of the earth, and whenever he lay down to sleep the

voices of his enemies seemed to echo through the ground, muffled but

pitiful. And sometimes he awoke to think he was lying in a pool of

blood, and sprang up shouting that the smell of murder was making him

mad. And others too said they were being followed by an underground

rumbling like the hollow presage of earthquake, and they declared the

earth heaved beneath them as though something were struggling to break

through. Even the natives felt the terror in their hearts, and by ones

and twos they dropped their burdens and slunk away into the night, for

they said they were touching accursed stuff and the gods were angry. So

the watch became more strict; and as the number of bearers diminished

the remnant were again chained and driven, and the new masters were

little better than the old. But it wasn't now the lust of gold that

was making them cruel, but the secret dread that gnawed at their souls

maddening them and making them like frenzied beasts rather than like

men.

Then the fever struck them; and first one and then another stumbled

from the file, and dropped behind crying piteously to his comrades

to stay for him. But fear was upon that company, and they pressed on

the faster thinking to escape the claws of disease which snatched at

them from behind. And one night a storm arose from nowhere and smote

at them with jagged barbs of lightning, and in the morning three were

found horribly twisted, and scorched out of recognition. So they called

the roll to see who were missing; and Jack Priest mumbled a prayer

and scattered a handful of dust upon them, and they were left by the

wayside for the beasts and the birds. And then they lost their way, and

suddenly were plunging through a morass; and there two were trapped in

the oozy soil, and sinking slowly cried with frantic appeal for help;

but no one would venture to go near them. And before they had well

disappeared, while yet their hands waved feebly above the rank mud,

and their faces still gazed living at the sky, reaching upward for the

last breath of air, the priest had crossed himself and gabbled a prayer

for the welfare of their souls; and again they pressed onward. And

another a snake bit, and he died raving; and another gathered poisonous

berries, and perished writhing in pain. And ever it seemed the curse

was upon them, dogging them at heel, snatching a victim here and a

victim there, till the shadow was over all, and none knew when his own

turn would come. For it might be a prowling beast in the night, or a

slip from a rock by day, or some hateful creature of the river when one

went down to drink: fate pursued them in a thousand forms, and snares

were laid for them everywhere.

And yet through the whole of that terrible journey not a native

perished, of those at least who stayed with them.

So at last they sighted the sea, and a cry of thanksgiving arose; but

it sounded like a wail of despair. Broken and tired and shaken to the

soul they reached their ship, half fearing to find it burnt or sunk;

and carrying the treasure aboard they set sail with all speed and

steered away from the ill-fated land.

But their doom wasn't averted; only delayed. For storm and calm alike

took toll of their number, hurling them into the sea, or bringing

black plague from the heat-laden air to settle upon the vessel like a

brooding bird. They were wasted with illness and labour, and their home

seemed at the other end of the world.

Then the captain conceived of a plan: he called upon the priest to

bless the treasure and remove the curse which had been laid upon it.

At first the priest was terrified, and refused; but, as usual, present

danger was more insistent with him than future peril, and when he

saw the men were desperate and would murder him if he held back, he

consented. But during the exorcism a wind arose and blew out the sacred

candles. And when he would have poured holy water upon the treasure,

the ship lurched and the water was spilt. So the captain wearily bade

him desist, for it seemed like struggling against all the powers of

heaven and hell.

Yet not even the priest said, "Let us throw the accursed thing into the

sea."

So they clung to their gold and abided their doom. One by one the hand

reached for them and they perished, and their comrades cast them into

the hungry water, dry-eyed and unheeding as though they knew the thing

must be, and only wishing that for them too the hour had struck. There

were none left to man the ropes; but the sails remained spread or

furled as might be, and the captain stood at the wheel like one in a

daze, while the ship moved on to whatever wind might blow. Till at last

before them rose the cliffs of England; but there were only the captain

and the priest and one other left alive to see them. The captain and

the priest didn't speak a word; they didn't even smile, but stood

staring stupidly as though it mattered not at all whether this were

England or the other side of the ocean. But the third man threw up his

hands and let out a great cheer; but a vessel burst in his lungs, and

he bent down in sudden pain choking blood, and fell to the deck dead.

The captain looked at the priest, and the priest crossed himself, and

going to the man muttered swiftly, and with his foot spurned him over

the side....

So the story proceeded. I remember how the captain went mad, and

wandering from place to place would tell his tale in penance, and so

pass on and away. And none of us there but pitied him, for we knew he

had been snared into his sin, and the judgment was over heavy. But

the priest took the treasure and would have devoted it to the work

of Holy Church. So at first he built a chapel; but the foundation

was ill-laid, and in a storm the holy house lurched and fell. And he

built a hospital, but a fire broke out, and the place was burnt to its

foundations. And he chartered a ship to take a band of missionaries

to the heathen; but the ship struck an unknown rock at the harbour

mouth, and sank. And at last he knew that the thing was accursed beyond

redemption; so he sought out a tunnel in the earth, and winding through

many passages and caverns he laid the treasure in a secret place, and

with the aid of a company of men set a mighty stone upon the entrance,

and went his way.

But before he died he felt the need of confessing himself to Heaven;

for he knew that the guilt of all those deaths was partly weighing

on his soul; so he wrote the story out fair and truly for the eye

of Heaven alone, as he intended it, telling of the burial place of

all that evil gold, and laying upon it the curse of Holy Church to

reinforce the curse it already bore. But as he wrote the last word, and

leant back to rest after his labour, a spasm caught at his heart, and

he sank down dead....

I was expecting the story to end here; but there was more of it. But

before my father continued he lit the lamp and passed round the wine.

We looked at each other, very quiet for a moment; then breathed deeply,

and lifted our glasses.

But I needn't repeat all the second part of the story, though it

would show the wonderful fertility of my father's imagination. For

the manuscript was found and passed on from one to another. And first

this man and then that would seek for that hidden treasure. But the

old curse and the new bore terrible fruit, for all who succeeded in

touching the gold were smitten with plague or madness, or were beguiled

unwittingly into some frightful crime which poisoned all their life

with clinging bitterness and remorse. None escaped. And there beneath

the earth, a temptation and a terror, that treasure still waited for

any bold or holy enough to dare its menace or exorcise its spell.

CHAPTER XI

THE GHOST

When my father lit the lamp for the second time there was more than one

white face; for the story had been told with such a creepy emphasis

that we had been lifted away from familiar things to an atmosphere of

stealthy influences and subtle spells. For a couple of hours or more we

had lived in the grip of a fatal and powerful curse. Something which

wasn't of the earth we knew had caught us in its toils. We had moved in

the company of men whose lives weren't their own, whose very shadows

seemed like avenging spirits stalking in their wake.

To look round once more upon the lighted room, to hear my father say

cheerily, "Well, fill up again before you go," was to come back with an

almost dizzying rush to common earth. But in a moment the room was once

again full of clamour. Exclamations of delight and appeals for more

rose spontaneously to the lips of most of us. But my father wouldn't

indulge us further; and the glasses were raised and emptied, and my

visitors were turned out into the cold night to make the best of their

way back to the school.

As for me, I went off to bed. But my mind was in a confused whirl.

For to me the story was more than a story. The thing had taken on a

colour of reality. I knew it was no mere tale, but a truth; and a truth

which was somehow of the utmost moment to my father and myself. For

throughout the narrative many pictures had woven themselves into my

thoughts. I could see the Mad Captain as my father had envisaged him

to me that night in the woods; and I saw the curse not as an abstract

thing, but as a concrete reality, embodied in that dreadful hag who had

pursued us to the hut. I could see her slipping back the knife into

the folds of her dress, waiting to spring. I could see her feeling for

me in the straw and behind the cloak. And again the red flames lit up

those terrible eye-balls of hers in their black hollow sockets. She

became for me not a creature of flesh and blood, but a curse embodied;

a thing that couldn't be killed by powder or by fire. And then old

words of my father's came back to me: "Shadow-of-Fear can never die."

I seemed to understand as I had never understood before the meaning of

the destiny which had enmeshed us. For there was no doubt of it now.

I knew my father was seeking for that unhallowed gold; perhaps he had

even found it, for I remembered of a sudden the words of the host of

the _Snow Man_ saying my father had given him a purse in compensation

for his loss as though he had been a lord. The curse was certainly upon

us; it was that, and no mere earthly enemy, that was hounding us from

place to place. And as though in confirmation of my fears, throughout

the course of the story, in letters that glowed ever brighter and

more menacing, shuddered the words as though written in blood:

MALEDICTUS SIT THESAURUS.

White as were the faces of some of my companions, my face must have

been whiter still; for I remember how shaken I felt as I crept upstairs

to the great dark bedroom, walking slowly so that my candle might throw

its light the farther into the blackness ahead; and how entering the

room, and passing round to my side of the bed, I came with a shock

of horror face to face with my spectral self in the great mirror. I

remember how my nerves seemed to freeze into sudden numbness, for my

eyes were staring fearfully and my face was drawn and white, so that at

first I didn't know myself. And then the blood gushed back to my heart,

enough almost to choke me; and setting down the candle I sat on the bed

and gazed at myself in the glass, shaking as though in a fever.

But at this moment I remembered the pistol my father had given me in

the morning. I had been true to my word, and hadn't taken it out during

the day; but now, so unreasoning was I, it brought me extraordinary

relief as I drew it from its hiding-place, and carefully loading it

slipped it under my pillow; though what protection it could be against

the impalpable destiny that overshadowed me I didn't stay to consider.

I only know I was very much eased at heart, and was soon out of my

clothes and in bed.

My father had at last told me the tale of the mysterious manuscript,

as he had promised me he would some day do; and also, as he had said

it would, it made me dream. Indeed it would have been strange if such

a story with such associations to give it body and shape and presence

hadn't made me dream, for my mind was full of vivid pictures, not

merely half-formed filmy mists of imagination. There were eyes looking

at me, there were hands feeling for me; and the eyes and the hands were

those of the old witch, Bite-in-the-Dark. They were very real, for I

had seen them. And all the strange terror of the circumstances under

which I had seen them stirred my soul to a foreboding uneasiness of

imminent things. And even the pistol which I fingered under my pillow

recalled that awful moment when my father's pistol had roared out in

my hand, and the hut had filled with screams and clamour. What wonder

then, that with everything focusing back upon that night, I returned in

dreams to the child I had been, and was once again wrapped in the rug

before the fire, while my father's voice waned and strengthened through

my dozing, and the face of the Mad Captain, horrified by the haunting

voices of the murdered men, glared at me insanely from the darkness,

distorted by the leaping firelight into a frantic picture of fear and

madness and remorse. But I can't say what my dreams were, for they

were inextricably entangled; but I know that I awoke more than once

in a sweat of terror, trying to shake off some nameless thing which

had fastened about my throat. And now I was away with the doomed party

seeking for the treasure in the valley of the kings, and now I was on

that fever-stricken ship waiting dumbly for my hour to strike, and now

I was the priest himself hiding that cursed gold deep under the earth;

and turning to flee I came face to face with that hateful hag with the

black hollow sockets and the flaming eyes, and the knife cunningly

hidden in the folds of her dress. For always my dreams came back to

that. Her evil presence haunted me in all my mazed wanderings, either

visibly at some unexpected turn, or shadowingly so that I knew she was

beside me or behind me though I couldn't see her. And that was the

worse evil of the two; for at such times the agony was lingering, and

the enemy seemed too powerful for me, fighting with unearthly weapons

against which my knife and pistol were useless as thistledown; but when

she appeared before me, it might be from behind some black and awful

crag, or rising like an emanation from the very earth at my feet, or

just suddenly there in front of me coming as it were from nowhere--when

she appeared, terrified as I might be, the impalpable horror which had

wrapped me about fell away, and with a cry of hate I was at her with

my knife, or, drawing my pistol, blazed full into her evil face. And

at such moments I awoke, and took comfort in the knowledge that it

was merely a dream, and soon the night would pass, though it seemed

interminable, for each dream seemed the passage of a lifetime.

But once I awoke from one of these struggles with the image of the old

witch so clearly before me that I thought I must still be sleeping. I

lay perfectly motionless, gazing into the darkness, and with clearing

consciousness came slowly to the realization that I was awake, and yet

the creature of my dreams was there before me. I closed my eyes, then

looked again. Still there; not to my hand, but clear and unmistakable,

the very creature as I had seen her with the firelight on her face,

except that now it was the moon that lit up that ghastly countenance

white instead of red, and with a steady glow instead of lurchingly like

the leaping flames. The night was very quiet; but outside a faint wind

was crooning gently, and breathing thin clouds across the sky. And with

the waning of the moon the face sank slowly back into the blackness,

and with its brightening it grew again, white and luminous against the

dark. I couldn't see it move; but once it faded into the night, and

when it appeared again it was nearer.

How long I lay and watched I don't know. It seemed an age, but I think

it must have been but a moment, though my head swarmed with a confusion

of ideas. My father saying, "I haven't seen her ghost," caught at my

memory; and I thought how glad he would be when I told him in the

morning that her ghost had appeared to me; for somehow it seemed to

me that the revelation would bring him ease. I remember wondering too

why a ghost should fade and grow with the moonlight; for I had always

thought of ghosts as glowing with a radiance of their own. What it

was that stirred me to action I can't say. It might have been the

realization that the thing was drawing nearer; or, as I believe, the

many visionary contests of the night, mingled perhaps with a stirring

memory deep in my mind, had unconsciously led my hand beneath the

pillow where I suddenly realized that my fingers had closed upon my

pistol. Then indeed I knew what I would do. Slowly I drew the weapon

out, and with infinite caution levelled it at the creature's face. And

now I could see it visibly drawing nearer with a gliding stealth. Its

arm was raised, and I caught the glitter of steel. But just then I

pulled the trigger.

There was a splintering crash and a cry and the clang as of a door

heavily closing; and my father was awake and shouting, "Why, what,

Tommy?" I was out of bed and had the candle lit; and there before me

was the great mirror with a wide jagged hole smashed in the middle of

it, and with cracks like the threads of a spider's web running out in

every direction across its face.

I stood looking at it stupidly, and said, "I don't quite know, daddy. I

thought it was her ghost."

"Ghost?" he cried.

"Bite-in-the-Dark," I answered. "I saw her ghost."

"Ha!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," I said growing bolder. "She was there. She was coming towards

me. She had her hand raised. She came very slowly. I could see her

face. I know it was her."

But my father was looking away from the mirror towards his end of the

room, where the large old oaken wardrobe filled the recess between the

fireplace and the door. His attention seemed absorbed. And then he

leapt out of bed and flung the wardrobe open, springing back quickly as

though expecting something to jump out at him. But there was nothing

unusual there.

"What is it, daddy?" I asked.

But he took no notice of me, still investigating the wardrobe,

rummaging among the coats that were hung there, and tapping at

the sides. Then he stepped away from it and looked all about it,

scrutinizing it as though it held a secret, while I watched him at a

loss to understand. And presently he went up to it again, and putting

out his full strength tried to shift it; but it wouldn't stir.

"Come and help me, Tommy," he said; and I lent him what strength I had,

but to no purpose.

"You see, it's fixed," he said, as though that solved the mystery.

"But ..." I began.

"What, Tommy, can't you see?" he asked with a smile.

And then I saw what I had done. I had fired at a reflection, while the

substance had escaped. And evidently my father thought he knew which

way; yet there was no clue to the trail.

We didn't go to bed again that night, but went downstairs to the

dining-room and rekindled the embers of the fire, and roasted ourselves

before it till the morning. And then my father, breaking a long

silence, said, "Tommy, I must leave you. The time has come. The game's

against me."

"Is it the curse?" I asked.

He nodded.

So before evening I found myself an inmate of Rancey Bridge, feeling

inexpressibly disconsolate with my father gone out of my life. And I

know I cried bitterly to myself that night; for I pictured him fleeing

alone into the darkness, and behind him the shadow of a closing doom.

PART II

CAPTAIN FIELD