Sinister Island by Charles Wadsworth Camp (desktop ebook reader txt) đź“•
"Lots of silly things there's no accounting for," the agent replied. "And you can't realise the reputation the island's got around this part of the country. And, see here! Don't you be putting me down as foolish too. I've told you what they say. I don't know anything about spooks--never saw one. All I do claim is, there's a kind of a spell on Captain's Island that reaches out for you and--and sort of scares you. That's all I say--a sort of spell you want to get away from. Maybe you're right and it's just the climate, and that jungle, and the loneliness."
"And I," Miller said, "have been picturing it as a popular winter resort."
"You'll have to ask the snakes and the spooks about that," the agent laughed.
He turned to an entering customer.
Miller went back to the Dart, telling himself that the problem of Anderson's note was as undecipherable as ever. He would have to wait for an explanation until he had seen Anderson that night. Therefore he was all th
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He realised now the state of mind into which the island had thrown Anderson and Molly. He held his nerves in leash by a severe effort of the will. He lost all track of time. It seemed to him that midnight must have come and gone before he saw a lantern waving through the jungle.
“Here they are,” he thought. “I’m not sorry this is ended.”
But it was Molly, bravely strangling her terror, coming through the forest alone.
“Molly!” he called. “What’s the matter?”
She started to run. She had almost reached him when he saw her go down. He heard the tinkling of the lantern chimney as it shattered. He put out his hands against the darkness rushing in again. He stumbled towards her. He found her. He got his arms around her and lifted her up. She was half laughing, half crying—laughing hysterically from her accident and her relief at finding him, and crying because of her grief and her fear.
Anderson, she said, must have missed his boat for he had not returned. Morgan’s man had come back from Sandport alone. The coroner had refused to follow until morning. He had made no comprehensible excuse. Evidently he shared the general, ignorant fear of Captain’s Island. Even duty had failed to drag him there after dark.
Miller groaned.
“Where is Morgan’s man?” he asked.
Molly shivered.
“The coroner must have frightened him. Or else he had some experience on the road from the end of the island of which he won’t speak. When he got to the coquina house he refused to leave even to return to the plantation. Instead he was sitting cowed and shaking, over a blazing fire he’s built in our kitchen. Jim, this is dreadful! I can’t realise. Where—?”
But Miller reached out and found her arm. He grasped it.
“No, Molly, that would be foolish. It is dreadful, as you say. But we must face the facts and be sensible. You and Andy must not let this weigh on you. K you can’t rise above it you’ll have to leave Captain’s Island.”
“Feeling as we do! We can’t.”
“Then,” he said determinedly, “you can not brood over Jake.”
He felt her aim tremble.
“When it’s our fault!”
“That’s nonsense. Now listen, Molly. You must go right back to the coquina house. It’s hard luck you broke the lantern, but you can follow the path.”
The muscles of her arm tautened. She drew closer to him.
“And spend the night there alone, except for that frightened man! Jim, anyway, I came with the lantern, but I can’t—I can’t go through that path alone now, without light. Don’t ask it.”
Miller was in a quandary. He shrank from the only way out.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“It was nine o’clock when I left the house.”
Six or seven hours to daylight! He knew there was no chance of relief from Morgan. When his man failed to return to the plantation he would naturally conclude that everything had been attended to, and that the Andersons had acted on his suggestion and kept him for the night. There was no other course. Miller decided, indefensible as it was, that it would be wiser to leave Jake to the things that prowl by night than to keep Molly during those long hours in that piece of forest. iWhen he proposed it, however, Molly refused even to consider the plan.
“Jake’s been faithful to Andy and me for a good many years. If we had let him go back to New York, instead of forcing him to stay here against his will, he would be alive now. No, Jim, we can be faithful to Jake for a few hours no matter what it costs. I’ll stay, Jim. I’ll watch with you. Don’t say anything more.”
Miller knew that argument was useless. So they stayed and suffered through the night. More than once Miller was tempted to fire his gun in the hope that Morgan might hear and come to them. It wasn’t merely that they could see nothing, that Jake’s body lay so near, even that those stealthy noises such as snakes might make caused their flesh to creep. It was something else; something which, Molly said, you felt in that piece of forest more than anywheres else on the island—felt, and loathed, and couldn’t analyse.
They suffered through those hours because they were together, yet when the dawn came they looked at each other as though they had been strangers. Molly, haggard and shaking, went down the path then on her way to the coquina house. Miller watched on alone in the sickly, early light. He pulled himself together with a struggle. It was easier now to find comfort in logic, to assure himself that his agitation had been caused by the night and the loneliness, aided by the state of mind Molly and Anderson had impressed upon him.
“First thing I know,” he said to himself, “they’ll have me as much under the spell as they are themselves.”
He could smile a little at that thought even now.
The night had chilled him. He paced up and down vigorously while the light strengthened. Here and there a sunbeam broke through and flashed across the foliage. He grew ashamed of his uncomfortable emotions of the dark hours.
It was still early when he saw Morgan walking down the path from the plantation. Morgan stopped, surprised and anxious.
“Why are you still here? The coroner didn’t come. And Anderson?”
Miller explained the situation.
“And I stayed at the house and slept peacefully,” Morgan said with regret. “Why didn’t you run up and get me to help out? I thought when my man didn’t return—”
“What was the use of disturbing you?” Miller asked.
“Only,” Morgan answered,” because two might be better than one for an all night watch here—particularly under the circumstances. Some action ought to be taken against that coroner. It was his business to answer the call.”
Miller laughed a little.
“After spending the night alone in this piece of woods I’m not so sure there isn’t something to be said in his defence. It’s odd how a little loneliness, a little darkness, and the thought of death will make the poise of the strongest of us topple.”
“It’s this rotten patch of woods,” Morgan muttered. “I’m proud of my poise, but I wonder if I would have pulled through such a night as fresh as you.”
“Surely,” Miller said. “One suffers temporarily, then the reaction comes, and you almost want to try it again to prove what a fool you’ve been.”
But as he spoke Miller knew he did not want to try it again.
“I was on my way to the coquina house,” Morgan said. “But you’d better let me relieve you until the others come.”
“Thanks,” Miller answered. “I suppose I ought to report to my man. He was expecting me on the boat for dinner last night. I’ve no doubt he thinks the spooks have carried me off and turned me into a spook myself.”
He handed Morgan the gun, and went down the path, keeping his eyes open for signs of snakes. That was one element of danger on the island whose existence he was willing to admit
As he stepped from the woods the sight of the Dart filled him with a sense of unreality. It was, however, the very real nature of the picture which gave birth to this not altogether comfortable impression.
He paused on the shore and stared, a little bewildered, while his eyes accustomed themselves to the glamour of an unclouded sun above reflecting water that was glass-like. After the heavy shadows of the forest path it seemed a miracle such light should exist at all.
The Dart appeared to be suspended in the midst of this dazzling spectacle’ Beyond her the dunes had the effect of a mirage. The usually mournful and insistent pounding of the breakers had fallen to an indifferent drone.
Miller closed his eyes. What he had seen struck him with a sense of shame after his experience in the forest. For a moment he felt physically ill. He bent his mind to the conquest of his weakness. He recalled Tony. He could fancy the native’s frame of mind. After all, he owed Tony the release of that fear. So he opened his eyes again. But there was no one on the deck of the Dart, yet, under the circumstances, he could not imagine Tony waiting below.
He glanced along the beach and saw the dingy. Then Tony, since he had not passed through the forest, must be at the coquina house, unless, indeed, he had yielded to his panic and left the island altogether.
He turned and looked at the fisherman’s craft. It floated, filthy and uncared-for. No one was to be seen, nor did its deck disclose any record of recent activity. It lay in the still water like an abandoned hulk. It conveyed the air of tragedy that invariably clings to a wreck when the destroying storm has fled before calm and sunshine. Why, Miller asked himself, should this be so? Why did the fisherman fail persistently to show himself?
As he walked slowly towards the coquina house he completed the conquest of his disagreeable sensations. There would be work to-day requiring a clear head and strength. With Morgan he would have to divide the responsibility of Molly and the dead until Anderson returned.
If only there was some way to communicate with Anderson! Unquestionably he would not return until evening when the little boat would come down to Sandport from Martinsburg. It was another reminder of their isolation, of their helplessness.
When he stepped into the clearing Miller saw Tony and Morgan’s man standing in front of the coquina house. The sight of Tony was a tonic for Miller. It helped rout the last of his uneasy thoughts. For Tony’s face was white. As Morgan’s man talked to him he glanced repeatedly over his shoulder. He raised his hands once or twice. They shook.
Miller accepted it as a matter for pride that the man should have remained on the island in this state of fear without his master’s restraining influence.
The other, Miller saw, was in no better case.
His eyes, too, had evidently been strangers to sleep last night. Miller did not need to hear any words. The subject of their conversation was confessed by their faces.
“Well, Tony!” Miller called.
Like a flash Tony turned and ran to him, and Morgan’s man sidled forward as if, even by daylight, he craved company in this place.
“You spent the night on the Dart?” Miller asked.
Tony nodded. The gesture in which he spread his arms was eloquent of the torture of those hours when he had been doubtful of Miller’s fate.
“Then you know everything,” Miller said. “This fellow’s told you.”
Again Tony nodded.
“I couldn’t wait. I came here. I didn’t know where else—”
“Your solicitude is pleasing, Tony. You see I’m quite myself still—altogether material.”
He glanced at Morgan’s man.
“And you passed your entire night here?”
The man looked away.
“Yes,” he muttered.
“May I ask why?”
Shame
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