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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“Pompous and a coward!” Miller repeated thoughtfully. “I guess you’re right. I couldn’t interest him in the wrists, and it made me wonder, but I guess you’re right. He was only afraid and in a hurry to get away. Probably that was all. Anyway, stop trying, Andy, to pin. a physical fact to an unhealthy fancy. The spirits didn’t get Jake.”
Anderson went up stairs, shaking his head. He came down very soon with Molly.
“I can’t thank you for what you did last night,” Anderson said. “Why—why did I have to be away!”
“You couldn’t have done a great deal of good, Andy—except taking care of Molly. There was nothing else any of us could do.”
“Taking care of Jake in that piece of woods!” Anderson whispered. “0h, that was a good deal, Jim—a good deal.”
They went outside. There was no longer any excuse for delay. The limit of time appointed by the coroner was at hand. It would soon be dark.
Molly whispered something to Anderson who shook his head.
“I haven’t the courage,” he said.
She turned to Miller, holding out a pocket prayerbook.
“There’s no clergyman,” she explained simply. “It’s too brutal without something.”
Miller cleared his throat.
“I’m scarcely fit, but if no one else will—”
She sighed. She looked at Morgan. She held the book out to him, tentatively, appealingly.
Morgan stepped forward. He took the book, opened it, and fumbled with the pages until he had found the place.
“If it will make you feel better,” he said in a low voice.
“Oh, thank you,” she whispered.
Morgan walked to the grave over which the gnarled branches of two stunted oak trees drooped. The others gathered near him. The sun was about to set. The coquina house threw a heavy shadow over the little company and across the freshly turned earth and the yawning, expectant pit.
As Morgan commenced to read the sonorous and memorable words the sun disappeared and dusk entered the island greedily.
Miller, who was standing next to Morgan let Ms eyes wander about the gloomy setting for this task which had involved them so unexpectedly. All at once his eyes became stationary. They had shown him something moving on the other side of the clearing, just within the entrance of the path to the shore. It was something white. In this obscure atmosphere it seemed almost immateriaL Yet he saw it move almost wholly hidden by the trees.
For the moment Miller’s mind was swept from the service which Morgan was reading slowly, almost inaudibly now, for it came to him that the half-seen thing in white, flitting among the trees was the elfin girl.
The reading stopped abruptly. Miller glanced at Morgan. The hand with the prayerbook had dropped. An expression of pain had driven the passive sorrow from Morgan’s face as he, too, stared across the murky clearing. At last his eyes went back to the book, and he resumed his reading, but his voice was lower than before and it trembled.
Miller gazed at the forest again. He started. The girl was still there, but she appeared to be off the path and moving through the underbrush which he would have sworn was impenetrable. He told himself that some turn of the path or the failing light created this illusion. In order to convince himself he had to recall the morning on the beach when he had felt the soft flesh of her arms yield beneath his grasp. When he looked again she was gone.
Afterwards they gathered in the living-room of the coquina house for a moment. Morgan, before leaving, urged Molly and Anderson to return to the plantation with him at least for a few days. They were grateful, but they preferred for the present to remain alone where they were.
“We have to get our bearings again,” Anderson explained.
So Morgan left.
“At any rate I’ll stay with you tonight.” Miller suggested.
“It’s better not,” Anderson answered. “Molly and I must fight things out.”
“That’s what Jim said last night,” Molly said. “I thought it would be impossible then. “
“It’s the turning point,” Anderson went on. “If we can’t rise above this thing we’re beaten. I—I think we can fight this better alone, so for a day or two, Jim—There’s no use interfering with your plan of campaign.”
Miller nodded. Anderson followed him to the clearing.
“In a day or two,” he said as he pressed Miller’s hand, “I hope we’ll be normal again—as nearly normal as we can be after this. At least I think you’ll find us livable, and we can talk to some purpose. Good night”
“Hail me if you want me,” Miller said. “I’ll look in for just a minute tomorrow afternoon to make sure you’re all right.”
He hurried to the shore and called for Tony.
It was good to get back to the Bart again and to his lonely meal in her familiar and comfortable cabin. But he found changes on the Dart, too. Tony’s face was paler than ever, and his eyes appeared larger and wider. More than Anderson he had the air of facing an elusive but unavoidable fate. Curiously, this complete surrender of the native to abject fear cheered Miller. He found it possible to laugh.
“Forget the spooks and avoid the snakes, Tony, and you’ll be all right,” he said.
Tony turned away unconvinced. Miller himself, when he had gone to bed and lay listening to the whispers of the tide, recalled those other whispers he had fancied in the forest last night, recalled also the whispered conviction of Jake that death was waiting on the island for them.
At last he slept, and the next morning was so brilliant it was impossible not to respond to it. He scanned the dunes anxiously for the return of the girl who had become for him the real and peremptory mystery of the island. There was no sign. So in the middle of the afternoon he yielded to his overpowering curiosity and directed Tony to row him ashore.
They landed at the same point, a little below the fisherman’s anchorage.
“I probably shan’t be very long,” he said. “It’s scarcely worth while for you to row back.”
Tony’s face clouded. He pushed away and lay on his oars off shore.
Miller went to the coquina house as he had agreed with Anderson. He had intended to remain for only a few moments, but continually they urged him to stay a little longer. The night and the morning had been more difficult than they had anticipated, so he remained with them until, glancing at his watch, he was surprised to find it past five o’clock.
“I’m going over to Morgan,” he said, “and tomorrow I’m coming here to spend the night if you will have me. I don’t see any use in waiting longer. That broad view I was going to get from the Dart has failed to develop. Everything that has happened has been at close range.”
“It’s at close range here, Jim,” Anderson said. “At close range, yet impossibly far. Come ahead.”
Miller found Tony still resting on his oars off shore. He beckoned. Tony, evidently relieved at seeing him again, rowed quickly in.
“I’m going to walk to the plantation, Tony. It may be nearly dark before I get back. Perhaps your temperament would suffer less if you came with me.”
Tony shook his head.
“Not in that woods again!”
“Nonsense, Tony. I must. Will you come with me? Or maybe you’d rather rout out that fisherman for company.”
He glanced at the filthy tub. During the moment he had had his l)ack turned the fisherman had come on deck. Miller saw him for the first time. He stood by the rail, outlined against the sky and the yellow dunes. Boots, soiled jeans, and a blue shirt, open at the throat, clothed his great figure. Miller received an impression of steadfast, unreasoning power. For a moment forgetful of Anderson’s experience, he put his hand to his mouth and shouted.
“Hal-loo over there!”
The figure remained motionless. The eyes, fixed on the shore line, did not waver.
“Hal-loo!” Miller called again. And again he shouted. He turned angrily to Tony.
“I’ve half a mind to row out and open his ears. What do you make of him?”
Tony gave it up.
“It’s Captain’s Island,” he said.
“Tomorrow,” Miller decided, “we’ll try to find out what it is. Now are you coming with me, or do you prefer the neighbourhood of that sphinx?”
Tony glanced longingly at the remote Dart.
“No,” Miller said. “I won’t be gone long enough to make it worth while. If you went back to the boat it would be a nuisance to get you. Better come with me.”
He turned inland. Tony, after a moment’s troubled hesitation, followed quickly.
Before entering the forest Miller looked back. The grim figure had not moved. The eyes were still fixed. Miller almost doubted if the man had seen them.
MILLER followed the narrow path among the shadows—that tunnel-like path whose first invasion had led to the discovery of Jake’s body. He walked rapidly, because in spite of himself he was anxious to get through. Tony followed at his heels, breathing gaspingly.
It was all familiar enough until they came to the disturbed undergrowth where Jake had been found. Miller glanced at the trampled palmettos with a sense of discomfort and increased his pace a little. He began to look anxiously for the first sign of the plantation.
The character of the path did not alter until they saw that first outpost—the jagged, grey wall of a collapsed building. After a few steps there were more of these cheerless ruins, then the outlines of one or two other structures in better preservation. Miller guessed that they were the remains of the old slave quarters.
The path turned between two of the walls into a long avenue, lined with live oaks, which led to the rear of the plantation house.
Miller stepped through, and, breathing more freely, looked around him. The crumbling quarters curved to either side in -a wide semicircle whose ends had been swallowed by the hungry forest. Only two or three of the buildings, which had probably been repaired, possessed roofs.
Miller felt the romantic call of eighty years. He wanted to stop and examine these significant survivals of a unique community—these prisons—these torture chambers, if half that had been handed down about Noyer was true. But he resisted. It would soon be dark. As it was his visit must be hurried. So he told Tony to wait for him in the avenue.
“Perhaps you’ll find one of the servants to chat with,” he said.
But, as he hurried down the avenue and around the house to the pillared verandah, he saw no servants himself. Morgan opened the door, greeting him warmly. He led him into a comfortable library which occupied the entire left hand wing. High cases with ancient, black-bound volumes circled the room.
Miller glanced at them interestedly.
“Look as though they might have been the original library collected by Noyer,” he said.
“I dare say they are,” Morgan answered. “It’s all old before the war stuff—mostly government reports, dry and valueless. One of my brothers, who is something of a book worm, has run through them. He advised selling the lot by the bale for kindling. By the way I hope you’ll stay long enough to meet my brothers. They’ve immolated themselves once or twice by leaving real winter resorts
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