A strange thing had happened. The crowd, pausing breathlessly in the midst of flight, had seen with horror the dog spring at Henry Burns; but the animal"s leap had a most extraordinary termination. All at once the dog was jerked violently backward through the air, and fell heavily on the wharf, yelping with surprise and fright. Then it was dragged rapidly across the wharf, and the crowd yelled with derision as they saw that the rope by which the dog had been tied to the ring had been unfastened or cut from the ring, and had been fastened to the rope which had been thrown from the steamer, and the other end of which was made fast to the steamer"s hawser.
As the boat steamed away it drew the rope after it. There was no possible escape for the dog. Struggling as best it could, barking and yelping, and snapping madly at the rope, it braced itself for one instant on the edge of the wharf, and then was dragged over and fell, still struggling, to the water below. The steamer kept on its way a short distance, and then stopped. The rope was drawn in by a deck-hand and the dog hauled to the railing of the steamer, but it was not taken aboard, for n.o.body on board wanted a dead dog. The deck-hand cut the rope, and the body splashed into the water.
Thus perished the squire"s bulldog, unmourned, save for the squire himself, who raged about the wharf, looking for some boy whom he might accuse of the trick, and vowing untold vengeance upon the perpetrators of it. But, one and all, they had wisely dispersed, the guilty and the innocent alike, and the squire was soon left alone in his wrath.
Who had done the thing? The crowd did not know, for it had been too excited to notice that Jack Harvey and Tim Reardon had emerged from behind the freight-house just at the critical moment when the dog had sprung at Henry Burns.
As for Henry Burns, he was the hero of the hour.
There had been on the whole so much excitement attending the squire"s arrival that few had noticed a stranger who had come ash.o.r.e soon after Squire Brackett. He had not waited on the wharf, but had gone directly to the hotel. There Henry Burns met him later; for the man sat at Colonel Witham"s table, as that was the only one then available.
The new arrival was the sort of guest to please the colonel, for he was extremely quiet. He walked only with the aid of a cane, and then, apparently, with great effort, stopping frequently to rest. He told them he had been very ill; that his health had broken down with overwork, and he had accordingly tried cruising along the coast. His friends had left him up the river some days before, and would call for him.
He was a man a little under middle age, of medium height and thick-set, with black hair and a pale, smooth-shaven face. He was evidently somewhat a man of the world and had travelled abroad, for, seated before the fireplace in the office that evening, he talked for some time of his travels.
But there were other things of more interest to the boarders than this quiet, reserved stranger, who did not play cards and who hobbled about with a cane. There was, above all, a morning paper from town, which bristled with startling head-lines, descriptive of a robbery of the residence of one of the richest men in the town. It told how the thieves, three in number, had entered the house where Mr. Curtis, the owner, was sleeping alone, in the absence of his family; how they had put a pistol to his head and made him get up and open a safe, from which they had taken several hundred dollars in money and a jewel-case containing a diamond necklace and other gems to the value of several thousand dollars.
The jewels, it said, were the property of Mrs. Curtis, and most of them had been bridal presents. A reward of $500 was offered for their return or for information leading to the arrest of any one of the robbers.
The article stated further that Mr. Curtis was positive he could identify the man who subsequently bound and gagged him, his mask having but partially concealed his face. He was, he said, a man of about medium height, with black hair, black moustache, and heavy black beard, broad-shouldered, thick-set, and unusually active and powerful.
All this, as it was read aloud, threw the guests into the greatest possible excitement, as a great part of them were from the very town and knew the Curtis family, by reputation if not personally.
It did not, of course, interest the stranger guest, for he nodded in his chair and nearly dozed off several times during the reading. Still, when the guests had dispersed, he picked up the paper from a chair and took it with him to his room.
It was the very next night following that of his arrival that Henry Burns met with a surprise.
On the night in question there was a full moon about half-past ten o"clock, and, as Henry had agreed with Tom and Bob to meet them at their tent, he opened his window, stepped out on to the ledge and started to climb to the roof.
Mackerel had struck in at the western bay, and the boys had planned to paddle down the island that night, carry their canoe across the short strip of land that saved the island from being cut into almost equal halves by the sea, launch it again in the western bay, and paddle around to where the Warren boys" sloop lay anch.o.r.ed in Fish Hawk"s Cove. Then they were all to try for mackerel early in the morning.
Henry Burns stepped softly out, grasped the lightning-rod, and, with a quickness that would have amazed the worthy Mrs. Carlin, scrambled to the ledge over the top of his window. There he paused a moment for breath, and then climbed up the lightning-rod, hand over hand, and gained the roof.
He had proceeded then across the roof but a little ways, when he heard suddenly, almost directly beneath him, the sound of footsteps. Some one was coming up the stairs that led to the roof.
Henry Burns had barely time to conceal himself behind a chimney when the trap-door in the roof was softly opened, and he saw the head and shoulders of a man emerge through the opening. Henry Burns lay flat on the roof, in the dark shadow cast by the chimney. The moon shone full in the man"s face, and Henry Burns saw, to his amazement, that it was the stranger guest. The sickly, weak expression in the man"s face was gone, and in its stead there was a sinister, bold look, which seemed far more natural to his powerful physique.
Suddenly the man, with the strength and ease of an athlete, sprang lightly out on to the roof. He still carried his cane, but he had no use for it, save to clutch it in one hand more after the manner of a cudgel than a cane.
Henry Burns, for once in his life, was afraid. It was all so strange and incomprehensible.
Once upon the roof, the man straightened himself up, threw out his chest and squared back his broad shoulders. He was erect in stature, without the suggestion of a stoop. He seemed to exult in the freedom of the place, like one who had been kept in some confinement. When he walked across the roof to the edge facing the sea, there was no suggestion of any limp in his gait. It was quick and firm, but noiseless and almost catlike.
What did it mean? Henry Burns thought of the robbery. Could the man have had anything to do with that? Why had he pretended to be weak and ill?
Why had he come to this out-of-the-way place, pretending that he was an invalid? Surely he could have no designs upon any one on the island.
There was no house there that offered inducement to a robber, if the man were one.
It must be that his coming was an attempt to hide himself away-to secrete himself. But why? The description of the robber that had bound Mr.
Curtis-did that tally with the appearance of this man? Broad shoulders, medium height, active, powerful,-all these agreed. But the black moustache and heavy beard. The stranger"s face was smoothly shaven. That transformation, however, could have been quickly effected.
One thing was certain. It would not be well that this man, a pretended invalid, but strong, and armed with a heavy cane, that had suddenly become transformed from a cripple"s staff to a cudgel, who could but have some dark motive in thus disguising and secreting himself, should find himself watched and his secret discovered. Henry Burns crouched closer in the shadow of the chimney, and hardly dared to breathe. The evil that he had so accidentally uncovered in the man, his own helplessness compared with the other"s strength, and the dangerous situation, there upon the house-top, made him afraid. If they had been upon the ground he would have feared less.
The man scanned the moonlit waters of the bay long and earnestly. His survey done, he paced a few times back and forth, swinging the cane, and then, stealing noiselessly to the doorway, disappeared down the stairs, closing the trap-door after him.
Henry Burns lost little time in descending to the ground. On the way to the boys" camp that night he made two resolves: first, that he would keep to himself, for the present, at least, the stranger"s secret; second, that, whatever that secret was, he would find it out if any clue was to be had upon that island. The second resolution, he thought, rather included the first, since, the greater the number of those who knew of the stranger"s secret, the greater the chances of his suspicions being aroused.
Another thing that disturbed Henry Burns not a little was the knowledge that his excursions over the roof were now attended with greater risk than ever. It would not do to encounter the stranger there unexpectedly.
What might not the man, suddenly aroused, and desperate, as Henry Burns believed him to be, do to him, if he found himself discovered? A fall from such a height must mean instant death, and who was there to suspect that he had not fallen, if he should be found next day lying upon the ground?
In the future he must know whether the roof were occupied or not before he ventured upon it, and especially must he be careful when returning late at night.
Henry Burns resolved to keep the man"s secret for a time, for the reason that he was firmly convinced he had not come to the island to commit any wrong there, but to hide away. The island offered every advantage for the latter, and no inducement for the former. The man"s design certainly was to secrete himself. Still, Henry Burns had no intention of letting the man escape from the island. He would watch also for those friends that the man had said were to come for him with their yacht, and he would make sure that they did not sail away again. Though but a boy, the stranger"s secret was in dangerous hands, if he had but known it. And yet luck was to effect more than Henry Burns"s scheming.
Tom and Bob were waiting impatiently when Henry Burns arrived at the tent. They launched the canoe, the three embarked, and soon left the tent and then the village behind. They glided swiftly along the picturesque sh.o.r.e till they came at length to the narrows; here they carried the canoe across and launched it again in the western bay. In an hour from the time they had left the tent, they had come alongside the sloop _Spray_ in Fish Hawk"s Cove, and the Warren boys had sleepily made room for them in the cabin.
It was crowded for them all there, and it may have been for that reason that Henry Burns did not sleep soundly,-either that, or because of the figure of a man that he could not drive from his mind, and that appeared to him, half-dreaming and half-awake, as a figure that hobbled along, stooping and bent, but which suddenly sprang up before him, lithe and threatening, and brandishing in his hand a cudgel that looked like a cane.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HAUNTED HOUSE
At four o"clock next morning, when Arthur Warren tried to rouse the other boys, they were loath to turn out. It was warm inside, under the blankets, and the sea air outside was cool and damp. Out in the c.o.c.kpit Arthur lighted an oil-stove, which they always carried aboard, made the coffee in a big pot, and set it on to boil. Then he called the sleepers in the cabin again.
"Come you, Art, shut up out there! How do you expect any one can sleep, with you bawling out in that fashion?"
This was from George Warren, whose voice denoted that he was only about half-awake.
"Don"t want you to sleep any more," answered Arthur. "Want you to get up and fish."
"Don"t care to fish," said George, still only half-awake.
"Well," persisted Arthur, "may I inquire what you did come over here for?"
"Certainly you may. I came over here to sleep. I like the air over here.
Now, please don"t disturb us any more, Arthur. You can be decent, you know, when you"ve a mind to be." And with this request, drowsily mumbled, George pulled the blanket comfortably about him and settled back for another nap.
At this juncture, however, his brother poked his head in at the companionway and yelled at the top of his lungs:
"Hulloa, there! Hulloa, I say! There"s a school of mackerel breaking off the point. Wake up, every lazy lubber aboard!"
"Say, Art, you"re a mean scoundrel," said George Warren, emerging once more from the blankets. "You know there isn"t a mackerel in sight. I"ll be just fool enough to look out of the window, though, so you can laugh, so get ready." And George looked sleepily out of the little cabin window.
He had no sooner done so, however, than he sprang up, exclaiming, excitedly:
"There they are, sure enough. Boys, get up! Get up! There"s a school of mackerel breaking off the point, as sure as we"re alive."