"Course," Perry Baker drawled, "I sent it to Boston as consigner, myself; so when the chest warn"t called for within a reasonable time they shipped it back to me, knowin" I was agent. Funny Cap"n Abe didn"t show up for to claim it."
Cap"n Amazon, grim as a gargoyle, leaned upon the counter and stared the expressman out of countenance, saying nothing. Perry shifted uneasily in the doorway. The captain"s silence and his stare were becoming irksome to bear.
"Well!" he finally e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "that"s how "tis. I"d ha" waited till--till Cap"n Abe come home--if he ever _does_ come; but my wife, Huldy, got fidgety. She reads the papers, and she"s got it into her head there"s something wrong "bout the old chest. She dreamed "bout it. An" ye know, when a woman gets to dreamin" she"ll drag her anchors, no matter what the bottom is. She says folks have been murdered "fore now and their bodies crammed into a chest----"
"Why, you long-winded sculpin!" exclaimed Cap"n Amazon, at length goaded to speech. "Bring that chest in and take a reef in your jaw-tackle. I knew a man once"t looked nigh enough like you to be your twin; and he was purt nigh a plumb idiot, too."
Louise had never before heard her uncle"s voice so sharp. It was plain he had not seen his niece until after Perry Baker turned and clumped out upon the porch, thus giving the girl free entrance to the store.
She turned, smiling a little whimsically, and said to Bane:
"The moment is not propitious, I fear. Uncle Amazon seems to be put out about something."
"Don"t bother him now, I beg," urged the actor, lifting his hat. "I will call later--if I may."
"Certainly, Mr. Bane," she said with seriousness. "Uncle Amazon and I will both be glad to see you."
The expressman came heavily up the steps with a green chest on his shoulder. It had handles of tarred rope and had plainly seen much service; indeed, it was brother to the box in the storeroom which Louise had found filled with nautical literature.
The girl entered the store ahead of the staggering expressman, but stepped aside for him to precede her, for she wished to beckon to Amiel to come out for the baskets of fish.
"Watch out where you"re putting your foot, Perry!" Cap"n Joab suddenly exclaimed.
His warning was too late. Some youngster, eager to peel his banana, had flung its treacherous skin upon the floor. The expressman set his clumsy boot upon it.
"Whee! "Ware below!" yelled Amiel Perdue.
To recover his footing Perry let go of the chest. It fell to the floor with a mighty crash, landing upon one corner and bursting open. During the long years it had stood in Cap"n Abe"s storeroom the wood had suffered dry rot.
"Land o" Liberty an" all han"s around!" bawled the irrepressible Milt Baker. "There ain"t ho corpse in that dust, for a fac"!"
"What kind of a mess d"ye make that out to be, I want to know?" cackled Washy Gallup.
The hinges had torn away from the rotting wood so that the lid lay wide open. Tumbled out upon the floor were several ancient garments, including a suit of quite unwearable oilskins, and with them at least a wheelbarrow load of bricks!
"Well, I vum!" drawled the expressman, at length recovering speech. "I hope Huldy"ll be satisfied."
But Cap"n Joab Beecher was not. He stood up and pointed his stick at the heap of rubbish on the floor and his voice quavered as he shrilly asked:
"Then, _where"s Cap"n Abe_?"
They all turned to stare again at Cap"n Amazon. That hardy mariner seemed to be quite as self-possessed as usual. His grim lips opened and in caustic tone he said:
"You fellers seem to think that I"m Abe Silt"s keeper. I ain"t. Abe"s old enough--and ought to be seaman enough--to look out for Abe Silt.
What tomfoolery he packed into that chest is none o" my consarn. I l"arnt years ago that Moses an" them old fellers left the chief commandment out o" the Scriptures. That"s "Mind your own business."
Abe"s business ain"t mine. Here, you Amiel! clear up that clutter an"
let"s have no more words about it."
The decisive speech of the master mariner closed the lips of even Cap"n Joab. The latter did not repeat his query about Cap"n Abe but, with a baffled expression on his weather-beaten countenance, departed with Perry Baker.
That a trap had been for Cap"n Amazon, that it had been sprung and failed to catch the master mariner, seemed quite plain to Louise.
Betty Gallup"s oft-expressed suspicions and Washy Gallup"s gossip suddenly impressed the girl. With these vague thoughts was connected in her mind the discovery she had made that one of Cap"n Amazon"s thrilling stories was pasted into the old sc.r.a.pbook. Why she should think of that discovery just now mystified her; but it seemed somehow to dovetail into the enigma.
Cap"n Amazon lifted the flap in the counter for Louise and in his usual kindly tone said:
"Good fishin", Niece Louise? Bring home a mess?"
"Yes, indeed," she told him. "The baskets are outside. Let Amiel bring them around to the back."
"Aye, aye!" returned the captain briskly. "Tautog? We"ll have "em for supper," and let her pa.s.s as though nothing extraordinary had occurred.
But to Louise"s troubled mind the bursting of the old chest was like the explosion of a bomb in Cap"n Abe"s store.
What was the meaning of it all? Why had the chest been filled with bricks and useless garments? And by whom?
If by Cap"n Abe, what was his object in doing such a perfectly incomprehensible thing? He had deliberately, it seemed, shipped a quite useless chest to Boston with no expectation of calling for it at the express office. Then, _where had he gone_?
Cap"n Joab"s query was the one uppermost in Louise Grayling"s thought.
All these incomprehensible things seemed to lead to that most important question. Had Cap"n Abe gone to sea, or had he not? If not, what had become of him?
And how much more regarding his brother"s disappearance did Cap"n Amazon know than the neighbors or herself? In her room Louise sat and faced the problem. She deliberated upon each incident connected with Cap"n Abe"s departure as she knew them.
From almost the first moment of her arrival at the store on the Sh.e.l.l Road, the storekeeper had announced the expected arrival of Cap"n Amazon and his own departure for a sea voyage if his brother would undertake the conduct of the store.
The incidents of the night of Cap"n Amazon"s coming and of Cap"n Abe"s departure seemed reasonable enough. Here had arisen the opportunity long desired by the Sh.e.l.l Road storekeeper. His brother would remain to look out for his business while he could go seafaring. Cap"n Amazon knew just the craft for the storekeeper to sail in, clearing from the port of Boston within a few hours.
There was not much margin of time for Cap"n Abe to make his preparations. Perry Baker was at hand with Louise"s trunks, and the storekeeper had sent off his chest, supposedly filled with an outfit for use at sea. Just what he had intended to do with useless clothing and a hod of bricks it was impossible to understand.
Cap"n Abe had come to her bedroom door to bid Louise good-bye, and she had seen him depart in the fog just at dawn. Yet n.o.body had observed him at the railroad station and he had not called for the chest at the Boston express office.
The chest! That was the apex of the mystery. Never in this world had Cap"n Abe intended to take the chest with him to sea--or wherever else he had it in his mind to go.
Nor was the chest intended to be returned to the store until Cap"n Abe himself came back from his mysterious journey. The fact that Perry Baker had shipped it in his own name instead of that of the owner had brought about this unexpected incident.
Washy Gallup"s gossip--his doubt regarding Cap"n Abe"s shipping on a sea voyage--now came home to Louise with force. Washy suggested that the storekeeper was afraid of the sea; that in all his years at Cardhaven he had never been known to venture out of the quiet waters of the bay.
To the girl"s mind, too, came the remembrance of that talk she had had with Cap"n Abe on the evening of her arrival at the store. Was there something he had said then that explained this mystery?
He had told her of the wreck of the Bravo and the drowning of Captain Joshua Silt, his father, in sight of his mother"s window. She had been powerfully affected by that awful tragedy; this could not be doubted.
And the son, Cap"n Abe, a posthumous child, might indeed have come into the world with that horror of the sea which must have filled his poor mother"s soul.
"It would explain why Uncle Abram never became a sailor--the only Silt for generations who remained ash.o.r.e. Yet, he spoke that night as though he loved the sea--or the romance of it, at least," Louise thought.
"Perhaps, too, his own inability to sail to foreign sh.o.r.es and his terror of the sea made him so worship Cap"n Amazon"s prowess. For they say he was continually relating stories of his brother"s adventures--even more marvelous tales than Cap"n Amazon himself has related.
"Such a misfortune as Cap"n Abe"s fear of the sea may easily explain his brother"s good-natured scorn of him. Uncle Amazon doesn"t say much about him; but I can see he looks upon Cap"n Abe as a weakling.
"But," sighed the girl in conclusion, "even this does not explain the mystery of the chest, or where Cap"n Abe can be hiding. I wonder if Uncle Amazon knows?"