A BLEACHED SKELETON
When Gibralter saw Nann crossing the wide beach that was shimmering in
the light of the early morning sun, he turned the punt boat and sailed as
close to the point of rocks as he dared go. Then, letting the sail flap,
he took the oars and was soon alongside a large flat boulder which, at
low tide, was uncovered, although an occasional wave did wash over it.
“Quick! Watch whar ye step,” he cautioned. “Thar now. Here’s yer chance.
Heave ho.” Then he added admiringly as the girl stepped into the middle
of the punt without losing her balance, “Bully fer you. That’s as steady
as a boy could have done it. Whar’s the other gal? Was she skeered to
come?”
Nann seated herself on the wide stern seat of the flat-bottomed boat
before she replied. “Dori wanted to come just ever so much, but she
thought that she ought to stay at home this morning and read to her
Great-Aunt Jane.”
“Wall, I don’t envy her none,” the lad said as he stood up to push the
boat away from the rocks. “That ol’ Miss Moore is sure sartin the
crabbiest sort o’ a person seems like to me.” Then as he sat on the
gunnel and pulled on the sheet, he added, beaming at the girl, “Say, Miss
Nann, are ye game to sail over clost to the island yonder? Like’s not
we’d find the skeleton o’ The Phantom Yacht if it got wrecked thar, as Pa
thinks mabbe it did.”
“Oh, Gib,” the girl’s voice expressed real concern, “I do hope that
beautiful snow-white yacht was not wrecked. I don’t believe that it was.
I feel sure that those sailors took it safely back across the sea with
that poor heart-broken mother and the boy who was such a handsome little
chap, and the wee gold and white girl whom your daddy said looked like a
lily. Honestly, Gib, I’d almost rather not sail over to that cruel island
where so many boats have gone down. If the Phantom Yacht is there, I’d
rather not know it. I’d heaps rather believe that it is still sailing,
perhaps on the blue, blue waters of the Mediterranean.”
The boy looked his disappointment. “I say, Miss Nann,” he pleaded, “come
on, say you’ll go, just this onct. I’m powerful curious to see what the
shoals look like. I’ve been savin’ and savin’ for ever so long to buy
this here punt boat jest so’s I could cruise around over thar. Miss Nann,
won’t you go?”
The girl laughed. “Gibralter, you look the picture of distress. I just
can’t be hard-hearted enough to disappoint you. If you’ll promise not to
wreck me, I’ll consent to go at least near enough to see just what the
island looks like.”
With that promise the boy had to be content. A brisk breeze was blowing
from the land and so, before very long, the two and a half miles that lay
between the shore and the outer shoals were covered and the long gaunt
island of jagged gray rocks loomed large before them.
“The shoals’ll come up, sudden-like, clost to the top of the water, most
any time now,” Gib said, “so keep watchin’ ahead. If you see a place whar
the color’s different, sort o’ shallow lookin’, jest sing out an’ I’ll
pull away.”
Nann, thrilling with the excitement of a new adventure, looked over the
side of the punt and into water so deep and dark green that it seemed
bottomless, but all at once they sailed right over a sharp-pointed rock.
Then another appeared, and another.
“Gib!” the girl’s cry was startled, “you’d better stop sailing now and
take the oars, slowly, for if we hit a rock, way out here, and capsize,
pray, who would there be to save us?”
Nann shuddered as she gazed ahead at the gray, grim island. A flock of
long-legged, long-beaked and altogether ungainly looking seabirds arose
from the rocks with shrill, unearthly screams, and, after circling
overhead for a moment they landed a safe distance away. There was no
other sign of life.
Gibralter let the sail flap at the girl’s suggestion and began to row
slowly along on the sheltered side of the island.
“Hark!” Nann said, lifting one hand. “Just hear how the surf is pounding
on the outer coast. Don’t go too far, Gib; see how the water swirls
around the rocks where they jut out into the sea.”
As he rowed slowly along, the boy kept a keen-eyed watch along the shore.
“Thar’d ought to be a place whar a body could land safely,” he said at
last. Then added excitedly as he pointed: “Look’et; thar’s a big flat
shoal that goes way up to the island, an’ I’m sure as anything this here
punt could slide right up over it an’ never touch bottom. Are ye game to
try it, Miss Nann? Say, are ye?”
The girl looked at the wide, flat shoal that was about two feet under
water and which was evidently connected with the island. Then she looked
at the eager face of the boy. “I dare, if you dare,” she said with a
bright smile.
Gibralter managed to row the punt boat within a length of the island over
the submerged shoal, and then it stuck.
“Well,” Nann remarked, “I suppose we will have to stay here until the
rising tide lifts us off.”
“Nary a bit of it,” the boy replied as he stripped off his shoes and
stockings. This done he stepped over the side of the boat, which,
lightened of his weight, again floated.
Taking the rope at the bow, the lad pulled and tugged until the punt was
high and dry, then Nann leaped out. Standing on a rock, she shaded her
eyes and gazed back across the three miles of sparkling blue waters. She
could see the eight cottages in a row on the sandy shore. How strange it
seemed to be looking at them from the island.
“We mustn’t stay long, Gib,” she said to the lad who was examining the
rocks with interest. “When the tide rises the waves will be higher and
that punt boat of yours may not be very seaworthy.”
“Thar’s nothin’ onusual on this here side,” the boy soon reported.
“’Twon’t take long to climb up top and see what’s on the other side.” As
he spoke, he began to climb over the rocks, holding out his hand to
assist the sure-footed girl in the ascent.
“There doesn’t seem to be a green thing growing anywhere,” Nann remarked
as she looked about curiously, “even in the crevices there is nothing but
a silvery gray moss.” Then she inquired, “Are there any serpents on this
island, Gib?”
The boy shook his head. “Never heard tell of anything hereabouts, ’cept
just an octopus. Pa says onct a fisherman’s boat was pulled under by one
of them critters with a lot of arms sort o’ like snakes.”
Nann stood still and stared at the boy. “Gibralter Strait,” she cried,
“if I thought there was one of those terrible sea-serpents about here,
I’d go right home this very instant. Why, I’d rather meet a dozen ghosts
than one octopus.”
“I guess ’twant nothin’ but a story,” the boy said, sorry that he had
happened to mention it. “Guess likely that was all.” Then, as they had
reached the top of the rocks that were piled high, they stood for a
moment side by side gazing down to the rugged shore far below.
The boy suddenly caught the girl’s arm. “Look! Look!” he cried. “That’s
what I was wantin’ to find.” He pointed toward a whitening skeleton of a
boat that was high on the rocks well out of reach of the surf and about
two hundred feet to the left of where they were standing. “Like as not
that wreck’s been thar nigh unto ten year, shouldn’t you say? An’ if so,
why mightn’t it be ‘The Phantom Yacht’ as well as any other? I should
think it might, shouldn’t you, Miss Nann?”
“I suppose so,” the girl faltered. “But oh, how I do hope that it isn’t.
I want to believe that the mother with her boy and girl are safe,
somewhere.” Then pleadingly, “Don’t you think we’d better start for home
now, Gib? I do want to get away before the tide turns, and even if that
old skeleton should be ‘The Phantom Yacht,’ there would be no way for us
to prove it. You never did know the real name of the boat, did you?”
“No.” the boy confessed, “I never did. Sort o’ got to thinkin’ ‘Phantom
Yacht’ was its name, but like’s not ’twasn’t.”
The bleached skeleton of the boat was soon reached and the lad, leaving
Nann standing on a broad flat rock, scrambled down nearer and began
searching for something that might identify it as the craft which, many
years before, had sailed, white and graceful, to and fro in the sheltered
waters of the bay, and which had been called “The Phantom Yacht.”
Half an hour passed, but search as he might, the disappointed boy found
nothing that could identify the boat. The storms of many winters had
stripped it, leaving but a whitened skeleton and, before long, even that
would be broken up and washed on the shore where the cottages were, to be
gathered and burned as driftwood.
It was with real regret that Gibralter at last left the wrecked boat and
returned to the side of the girl. He found her gazing into the swirling
green waters beyond the rocks as though she were fascinated.
“What ye lookin’ at, Miss Nann?” he inquired.
She turned toward him, wide-eyed. “Gib,” she said, “I thought I saw that
octopus you were telling about. Look, there it is again! See it
stretching out a long brown arm.”
The boy laughed heartily. “That thar’s sea weeds, Miss Nann,” he
chuckled, “one o’ the long streamer kind.” Then he added, more seriously,
“We’d better scud ’long. ’Pears like the tide is turnin’.” Then his
optimistic self once again, “All the better if it has turned. It’ll take
us to Siquaw Point a scootin’.”
When they reached the ridge of the island, the boy looked regretfully
back at the grim skeleton. “D’ye know, Miss Nann,” he remarked, “I’m sure
sartin that we’re leavin’ without findin’ a clue that’s hidin’ thar
waitin’ to be found. I’m sure sartin we are.”
It was a habit with the boy to repeat, perhaps for the sake of emphasis.
“Wall,” Nann declared, “to be real honest, Gib, I’d heaps rather be
standing on that sandy stretch of beach over there where the cottages are
than I would to find any clue that the old skeleton may be concealing.”
Then she laughed, as she accepted his proffered assistance to descend the
rocks. “I don’t know why, but I feel as though something skeery is about
to happen. Maybe I’m more imaginative on water than I am on land.”
They slid and scrambled down the rocks and were nearing the bottom when
an ejaculation of mingled astonishment and dismay escaped from the boy.
“What is it, Gib?” the girl asked anxiously. “Has the skeery something
happened already?”
“The punt. ’Taint thar. The tide rose sooner’n I was countin’ on and
like’s not that boat o’ mine is sailin’ out to sea.”
For one panicky moment the girl stood very still, her hand pressed on her
heart. Then she recalled something that her father once had said: “When
danger threatens, keep a clear head. That will do more than anything else
to avert trouble.”
The boy, shading his eyes, was searching for the escaped punt far out on
the shining waters, but Nann, looking about her, made a discovery. Then
she laughed gleefully. The boy turned toward her in astonishment. Then,
being very quick witted, he too understood. “You don’ need to tell me,”
he said, “I’m on! We changed our location, so to speak, when we went to
look at the wreck, and that fetched us down at a different place on this
here side.”
Nann nodded. “I do believe that we’ll find the punt beyond the rocks
yonder,” she hazarded. And they did. Ten minutes later the boy had pushed
the boat safely over the submerged shoal. The rising tide carried them
swiftly out of danger of the hidden rocks. Although Nann said nothing,
she kept intently gazing into the dark green water. She would far rather
meet any number of ghosts on land, she assured herself, than even catch a
glimpse of one of those dreadful sea monsters.
It was nearly one o’clock when Dories, who was standing on the porch of
the cabin, saw the flat-bottomed boat returning, and she ran down to the
shore to meet her friend.
“Did you find a clue?” she called as Nan leaped ashore.
“I don’t believe so,” was the merry response. “We found an old whitening
skeleton of some ill-fated boat, but I’m not going to believe it is the
Phantom Yacht. Not yet, anyway.” Then Nann turned to call to the boy who
was pushing his punt away from the rocks, “See you tomorrow, Gib, if you
come this way. Thank you for taking me sailing.”
As soon as the girls had turned back toward the cottage, Dories
exclaimed, “Nann, I believe that I have thought of a splendid way to trap
the ghost tonight, but I’m not going to tell you until just before we go
to bed.”