Smith Ruel Perley
The Rival Campers: or, The Adventures of Henry Burns
CHAPTER X.
A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE
The inhabitants of the peaceful town of Southport would have viewed the old haunted house with more concern than ever if they had known of the four ghosts that haunted it now, by day and night. They were stalwart, able-bodied looking ghosts, and their habits were strangely like what might have been expected of four live men. Sometimes, as they sat in one of the front garret rooms, by a window that overlooked the town and the whole expanse of the cove lying between it and the bluff, as well as the bay beyond, a well-worn pack of cards was produced by one of the spirits, and the four joined in a game. Or, again, a bag was brought forth, and the spirits ate heartily of the contents thereof.
It might have been noticed, too, that through it all a certain careful vigilance on the part of the ghosts was observed, as though they feared that if surprised by a chance visitor they would have some trouble in vanishing.
Every few minutes throughout the day they made by turns a careful survey of the cove and also of the bay, sweeping it with a powerful field-glass. No more than two of the ghosts ever took their sleep at the same time, and that, too, during the day. When night came they all redoubled their vigilance and remained awake and alert. As darkness shut down they left the house, one of them going out on the bluff and hiding in a cleft of the rock, where he could overlook the cove and the bay, the others hiding in the woods near the house, and keeping watch on all its approaches.
They were very patient and very careful; for two of them, who would have answered to the names of Burton and Mason, knew that the men for whom they watched, and who they knew would surely come within a brief time now, were the men for whom they had hunted for years, and by whose capture they should win other rewards and settle scores of long standing.
Curiously enough, for the next two days and nights a perfect contagion of watching seemed to have spread through the village. Mr. Kemble, as he was known to all, was a most annoyed man, and concealed his annoyance only with difficulty. If, by chance, he hobbled up the road of an afternoon, and wandered off into the woods or fields, he was sure to come upon some one of the boys, who seemed surprised enough to see him, and was sure to remain with him till he returned to the hotel.
If he hired a horse and went up the island for a drive, he was sure to fall in most unexpectedly with Henry Burns, spinning along on his wheel, and could not shake him off. If he felt strong enough to get into a rowboat and start out, weakly, across the cove, groaning at the effort it cost him, he invariably fell in with Tom and Bob, gliding along quietly in their canoe, and they would insist on accompanying him, and pointing out to him the beauties of the scenery along the shores.
He would have considered far more seriously the attention they paid to his movements by night, if he had but known of them. If he could have seen six pairs of eyes, striving to discern him as he appeared on the hotel roof, or have known of the youths who watched lest he cross the cove under cover of night, to say nothing of those who awaited his coming on the bluff itself, he might have worried more than he did, and perhaps have played a shrewder game.
But neither did he nor any one else, other than they who watched, know of it. And so it was that when, a little before sunset on the third day after the arrival of the ghosts in the haunted house, and while Mr. Kemble sat on the front piazza of the hotel, looking through a field-glass off on to the bay, admiring its beauties with Mrs. Carlin, who thought him such an unfortunate man, – and while, as he looked, he saw the very yacht for which he had waited anxiously for days, he surely believed that there was no one in the village who would regard it with other than the usual curiosity that fishermen and yachtsmen have for a strange craft.
In this, unfortunately for him, he was mistaken. There were others besides him who, on seeing the sail emerge from between the islands, regarded it with equal interest and even more excitement. Henry Burns, being deeply interested in it, came and sat down beside Mrs. Carlin long enough to hear Mr. Kemble remark that he believed the yacht was the Eagle, with his friends; in which case he should spend the night aboard with them, and leave the harbour early in the morning, if the wind availed.
Henry Burns then quietly took his departure, sauntering along until some cottages shut him out from the view of the hotel, and then starting off on a run as hard as ever he could toward the Warren cottage. He paused long enough at the cottage to communicate the news to young Joe, who was the first one he met, and then, calling out that he would return as quickly as he could, he ran through the woods down to the shore.
Going up the cove some distance, Henry Burns launched a rowboat and pulled rapidly across, landing some ways above the bluff. Then he struck down through the woods for the haunted house.
When Henry Burns returned a few minutes later, two of the detectives were with him. The three rowed across the cove and proceeded to the Warren cottage. There the plan of operation, as it had been mapped out by Miles Burton, was told by Henry Burns. Burton and Mason were to make the arrest at the haunted house. It was extremely unlikely that more than two of the robbers would come for the box of jewels, – perhaps Craigie alone. At all events, the detectives would take chances against more than two coming, and, if the three came, it would make no difference to them. They would take them all by surprise, and could arrest a dozen if necessary. If two of the boys chose to go over to the bluff, they could do so, but Miles Burton would not advise them to take the risk.
The other two detectives were to wait in boats for the man who should be left in the yacht, and arrest him at the proper time. If any of the boys chose to accompany these men, they could do so at their risk, but Miles Burton had sent warning for them to take no chances. Needless to say, his advice on this score was thrown away. He might as well have advised the boys not to breathe till it was all over. Their blood was up, and they were one and all determined to take part in the capture.
So it was decided that Bob and Henry Burns and George should go over to the bluff; that Tom and one of the detectives should take the canoe and lie in the shadow of the shore, in wait near the tent; while Arthur and Joe, with the other detective, should go around the bluff in a rowboat, on a pretence of fishing, and lie in concealment there behind the rocks.
During all this time the yacht, a white-hulled, sloop-rigged, trim vessel, was rapidly nearing the village. It came in fast, with a southeasterly breeze astern, which blew fresh and which bade fair not to die down with the setting of the sun. The yacht attracted some attention among the people of the town, where fishing-boats were more commonly seen than elegant pleasure-craft. Its topmast was uncommonly tall, and the club topsail, which was still set, was somewhat larger than usual in a craft of its burden. In fact, it was apparent to the experienced eye that, with all its light sails set, the yacht would be enveloped in a perfect cloud of canvas. It carried two jibs, besides the forestaysail, but these were now furled.
“That craft carries sail enough to beat the Flying Dutchman,” said Captain Sam, who had joined the group on the veranda that was watching the graceful yacht coming in, with a tiny froth of foam at its bows. “Looks as though she could stand up under it, though. Seems to be pretty stiff.”
“Yes, she is considered pretty fast,” assented Mr. Kemble. “She has taken a few races around Boston and Marblehead way, against some yachts that carried even more sail. She belongs to a friend of mine, a Mr. Brooks of Boston. He’s a broker there, and can afford to have as fast a craft as there is made.”
“Fast!” returned Captain Sam. “Any one can see that with half an eye. Give her five minutes start, and nothing in this bay could ever come within hailing-distance of her again.”
Captain Sam little knew the relief and satisfaction that his remark afforded Mr. Kemble.
“She won’t want all that sail to-morrow, though,” continued Captain Sam. “The wind is coming around to the eastward for a storm of some kind. Looks more like rain than wind, but there will be wind, too, – enough to do all the sailing any one wants. You say you’ll sail to-morrow, do you, Mr. Kemble, rain or shine? Well, that boat will stand it all right. She looks as though she would just like a good blow, and nothing better.”
If Mr. Kemble knew of any instances where the yacht Eagle, alias The Cloud, alias Fortune, had proved her marvellous speed to the chagrin of certain officers of the law, and had demonstrated her ability to run away from pursuers in both light and heavy weather, he refrained, for reasons best known to himself, from mentioning them. He gave, instead, a quiet assent to the truth of Captain Sam’s praise.
While tea was being served at the hotel, the yacht entered the cove, and, rounding to gracefully with a little shower of spray, dropped anchor about midway between the wharf and the bluff opposite. The sails were furled, with, strangely enough, the exception of the mainsail, which was not even lowered. She would doubtless drop this sail later, unless, by any chance, she should decide to put out again during the night.
The men who had brought the yacht across the bay did not come ashore. A thin column of smoke that presently wreathed out of a funnel in the cabin indicated that the yachtsmen were cooking a meal in the galley aboard.
They were thorough yachtsmen, Mr. Kemble explained, as he paid his bill and said good-bye to Colonel Witham and Mrs. Carlin. They hardly ever left the yacht, he said, except to buy provisions, or some other errand of necessity. Mr. Kemble did not specify what other errands of necessity he had in mind.
The colonel saw just how it was, he said. He was sorry, moreover, to lose Mr. Kemble as a guest. In fact, he was the kind of guest that just suited the colonel, as he went early to bed, minded his own business, and was quiet. Good qualities in a summer boarder, in the colonel’s estimation.
There was no one to bid Mr. Kemble good-bye, save the colonel and Mrs. Carlin, as he had made few acquaintances. Henry Burns would have bid him a pleasant voyage if he had been there, but Henry Burns was not to be found.
“He will be sorry not to have been here to say good-bye to you,” Mrs. Carlin explained, politely. “He often expressed the greatest sympathy for your lameness. I cannot imagine where he is, and he has had no supper, either.”
“Bright boy, bright boy, that,” responded Mr. Kemble. “Lives just out of Boston, does he? Must look him and his aunt up this fall, and see if I can’t get my friend, Brooks, the broker, interested in him. Well, good-bye,” and, hobbling away, quite briskly for him, Mr. Kemble followed a boy who carried his satchel down to the wharf, and was rowed out to the yacht. A voice from the cabin bade him welcome, and he disappeared down the companionway.
Early that evening, and shortly after Mr. Kemble had gone aboard the Eagle, for such was the name painted freshly in gilt on the yacht’s stern, Miles Burton and the three boys, Bob, Henry Burns, and George, held a consultation in the shadow of the woods near the haunted house. Mason, in the meantime, was hidden near the head of the rickety old stairs at the landing on the bluff, watching for any movement aboard the Eagle.
Miles Burton’s commands were brief and explicit. “There is an old closet in the cellar,” he said, “just about opposite where the box was buried. Mason and I will hide there. We have oiled the hinges of the door so that it moves noiselessly. You boys better keep close here in the woods till you hear from us. Then you can make as much noise as you want to and come in at the capture. There ought not to be so very much excitement about it, for we shall have them before they know what’s the matter.”
It certainly seemed as though the detective could not be mistaken, but the sequel would show.
Mason remained at his post, and Miles Burton and the boys sat together in the shadow of the woods. It was wearisome waiting, and there was a chilliness in the night air which had crept into it with the east wind. When eleven o’clock had come and the moon should have shone over the cape, a bank of clouds drifted up just ahead of it and half-obscured its light. As the moon arose these clouds drifted higher in the sky, still just preceding it, and the heavens grew but little brighter. Still it was not absolutely dark, for most of the stars were as yet unhidden.
Twelve o’clock came, and then one, and then a half-hour went by. At just half-past one o’clock by the detective’s watch they saw the figure of Mason stealing swiftly up the path.
“It’s time to make ready now,” he said to Burton, as he joined the party. “They’ll be at the landing soon. As near as I can make out, there’s Chambers and French, besides Craigie. It’s the men we want all right. Chambers is rowing, and he will probably stay in the boat while the other two come ashore.”
Then, bidding the boys to preserve the utmost silence, the two detectives left them, and a moment later the boys saw them disappear through the doorway of the haunted house.
There was little need of warning the boys to make no noise. From what the detectives had said, they knew that the men they had to deal with were desperate adventurers, who would not balk at any means to escape capture.
So they lay close in the underbrush and peered through the trees down toward the landing. The night was still, save for the rustling of a light wind through the trees. The breeze had held through, as Captain Sam had prophesied, though it had abated somewhat, ready, however, to increase with the next turn of the tide a few hours later.
They could hear noises across in the village: a solitary cart rattling along the country road, the tinkle of a distant cow-bell in a pasture, and here and there a dog barking. Presently the sound of oars grinding in the rowlocks came to their ears, and a few moments later the sound of a boat gently grating on the edge of the stone landing. There was as yet no sound of voices.
“Whew!” muttered Bob White. “This waiting here for something to happen gives me a creepy feeling. I only wish we knew that they weren’t armed to the teeth and could only pitch in and run the risk of a good fight. I’d like to try a good football tackle, just to keep my nerves from going to pieces.”
“I wouldn’t care much to be waiting for them down in that cellar,” said Henry Burns. “They’re likely to prove ugly customers when they find themselves trapped, – but I’ll risk Miles Burton to keep his head. He’s the kind of man for this sort of thing – ”
“Sh-h-h,” interrupted George Warren, softly. “I hear their voices. There’s two of them, I think, talking. Yes, here they come. Lie low, now.”
A head appeared at the top of the ladder, and then a man sprang up on to the brow of the bluff. It was the man whom they had known as Mr. Kemble, but whom they now knew as Craigie. He was followed by another man, somewhat taller than he.
The two came up the path together, talking earnestly. At a certain point in the path they paused, and Craigie stepped aside and found the spade where he had hidden it in the brush. Then they went on toward the haunted house. The boys’ hearts beat fast and hard as the men passed close by where they lay hidden. Surely two men who would lie in wait in the old house for these two must possess good nerve and courage. For the boys’ part, they were glad to be outside.
“Listen,” whispered Henry Burns, softly; “the tall one is downright angry with our friend Kemble. He’s pitching into him for something.”
It was evident that Craigie’s newly arrived friend was in a bad humour. He spoke angrily, and no longer in a low tone, but gruff and loud enough to be heard some distance away.
“What a fool you must have been, Craigie,” they heard him say, “to hide the jewels away in this tumble-down old place, when you could have hidden them well enough on your own person. It’s all well enough to say they’re safer here, but such an act might have attracted attention.”
“It might,” whispered Henry Burns.
“And here we are,” continued the tall man, “fooling away our time in this outlandish hole, climbing ledges and stumbling through woods, when we ought to be out in the middle of the bay by this time, clear of this place. There was the wind, holding on through the night, just opportune for us, and all you needed to do was to step aboard, if you had been ready, and off we should have gone, without dropping a sail.”
“Well, well, French,” answered Craigie, impatiently, but trying to mollify his companion, “we’ve got time enough. Don’t worry about that. You would have blamed me bad enough if the jewels had been found on me. Supposing I had had to tell you they’d been stolen, what would you have done? Would you have believed it, or would you say I had stolen them from you myself?”
“Believe it!” cried the other. “Why, you know I wouldn’t believe it. I know you too well for that. What would I do? What would Ed Chambers do? I tell you what we would do. After that job, – after coming way down here for you, – why, man, we’d hunt you to the end of the earth, if you got away with those jewels, but we’d have you and the jewels, too.”
With this angry utterance, the tall man laid a heavy hand on the other’s shoulder.
“Nonsense, man,” returned the other, impatiently, shaking off his grasp. “What a way to talk about nothing. You’re in a precious bad humour, seems to me. You know right well I wouldn’t go back on you and Ed.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” snarled the other “I know you, I tell you. I know you left us when things got hot, and took the jewels that we risked our necks for. Don’t I know that we shouldn’t have seen or heard of you again till we had hunted for you – which we would have done – if that man Mason hadn’t got so close up on to you that you didn’t dare try to get out of here alone.”
“Well, have it so, have it so, then, since you are bound to quarrel,” said Craigie, sullenly; and the boys heard no more. The two men passed beyond hearing and entered the haunted house.
“I don’t intend to miss this,” whispered Henry Burns, for once thoroughly excited. “There’s going to be the worst kind of trouble when that big black-looking fellow finds the box gone. Burton’s going to let them dig for it – he told me so. Said he was curious to see what they would do.”
“Rather he would have that sort of fun than I,” said Bob. “It’s a good deal like watching a keg of powder blow up. I say we’d better stay right here, as Burton advised, till we hear from them. We might upset the whole thing.”
“I don’t mind saying I’m scared clear down to my boots,” said George, “but I’m going to see the thing through. I’ll go if you will, Henry.”
So the two left Bob in the woods, close by the path to the shore, and crept up on their hands and knees to that same cellar window through which they had before witnessed the hiding of the box.
By the light of a lantern placed on the cellar floor they saw the two men. Craigie had removed his coat, and was digging in the earth where he had hidden the box. He worked vigorously, throwing up spadefuls of the soil with quick, nervous jerks. His tall companion looked on with an expression of mingled anger and contempt on his face.
As the box failed to come to light after some minutes of hard work, the drops of perspiration stood out in great beads on Craigie’s face, and he redoubled his efforts with the spade.
“It’s down deeper than I thought I buried it,” he muttered, with a sort of nervous laugh.
“You’re a fool!” was all the other said.
“Have it so,” said Craigie, and resumed his work.
The man was troubled, although he scarcely dared admit it, even to himself. He had already dug far deeper than he had before, and yet no signs of the box. The spade trembled slightly in his hands. He widened the hole and dug furiously.
“Going to dig over the whole cellar, I suppose,” sneered the other, and clenched his fists nervously.
Craigie did not reply. Perhaps the truth was beginning to dawn on his mind, for he half-paused and cast a quick, anxious glance at his companion. His face was ghastly white in the dim lantern light. He continued his digging.
All at once he uttered a cry. The boys, staring in with faces close to the window-pane, saw the tall man leap forward and deal him a heavy blow.
“Do you think I am tricked by you?” he cried. “You know it isn’t there. You knew it all the time. But you don’t fool me. You don’t escape to enjoy it.”
Craigie reeled under the blow and staggered back against the wall. If the other had followed up his advantage instantly, the fight must have been his; but one moment was enough for his companion. Still grasping the spade, he struck out with it as the man French rushed upon him again, and the other, receiving the full force of the blow, fell to the floor.
The next instant, without waiting to see whether his companion were dead or alive, Craigie shattered the lantern with a single blow and darted for the cellar stairs. At the same moment the detectives threw open the door and rushed out into the cellar. They were just too late. One man, indeed, lay unconscious at their feet, but the other had already reached the cellar stairs, and was at the outer door in a moment more.
Down in the woods, by the path to the landing, Bob saw a sight that sent the hot blood to his cheeks. He had heard shots from the cellar, fired by the detectives after the fleeing Craigie, and wondered what they meant. Now, to his dismay, he saw Craigie at full speed flying along the path toward him.
He scrambled to his feet, though his heart beat furiously, and he trembled so that for a moment he clung to a tree for support. Then he thought of Tom, and it gave him courage. Standing as he had stood often before on the football field at home, when, as right tackle, he had saved many a goal, he waited breathlessly. Then as Craigie dashed up, he sprang out, tackled him about the legs, and the two fell heavily to the ground.
He was half-stunned by the fall, but he had breath enough to cry for help, and clung like a drowning man to his antagonist. Well for him then that, in his flight, Craigie had dropped the weapon he carried. They rolled over and over for a moment, and then the man had Bob in his grasp.
“Let me go!” he cried, fiercely. “Let me go, I say!” Bob felt his strength going, as the powerful arms tightened about him.
All at once, however, the other’s grasp loosened. Craigie felt himself borne backward, as two boyish figures rushed out of the darkness and threw themselves upon him. Then a weapon gleamed at his head, and Miles Burton stood over him.
“Hold on,” cried Craigie. “You’ve got me this time, though you had to get a boy to do it for you.”
“It’s all the same to me,” replied Miles Burton, coolly. “We’ve got you, that’s the main thing. Here, Mason, here’s our man.”
Mason, running up, stooped over the prostrate form for a moment, there was the sharp snap of steel, and Craigie lay helpless with a pair of handcuffs fastened to his wrists.
“Where’s French?” he asked, sullenly.
“Where you left him,” said Mason. “It was a bad cut you gave him. He won’t run away. That’s certain.”
“Serve him right,” said the other.
“Hark! What’s that?” cried Miles Burton, as the sound of two pistol-shots came up from the water. “They seem to be having trouble down there, too. You wait here, Mason, and I’ll get down to the shore.”
He ran to the steps, followed by the three boys. Down the rickety stairs they scrambled, and quickly stood on the ledge of the little landing, looking off on to the water.
What they saw was the yacht Eagle, not far from the bluff, under full mainsail, standing out of the cove. At some distance astern was the rowboat, in which were Arthur and Joe at the oars. The detective stood at the bow with a smoking revolver in his hand. Not far distant, across the cove, was the canoe containing the other detective and Tom. The detective also had just fired. Miles Burton and the boys could see no one aboard the sloop, but still it sailed steadily on its course. The canoe vainly tried to head it off, but the yacht, obedient to an unseen hand at the wheel, quickly came about and went off on the other tack, soon putting a hopeless distance between it and its pursuers.
They could not see the man aboard, for the reason that he lay flat in the cockpit, and, with one arm upraised, directed the course of the yacht.
“What a pity! What a pity!” said Miles Burton, talking softly to himself. “How could it have happened? I would rather have lost the other two than that man Chambers. He’s the most dangerous man of the three, and the man I wanted most.”
His face showed the keenest disappointment, but he had learned self-control in his business, and refrained from speaking above his ordinary tone of voice.
“How did it happen, Watkins?” he asked, as the rowboat came in to the landing for them.
“It’s all our fault, Burton,” said the other, bitterly. “Stapleton and I should have closed in the moment we heard the first shots; and we should have got aboard the yacht and waited. But I was not sure but what Chambers would land and go up the bluff to the rescue of his comrades, and so I waited to see what he would do. I might have known him better. These fellows are always looking out for number one, and that’s a safe rule to go by.
“All at once we saw him come out from the shadow of the bluff, rowing as hard as ever he could for the yacht. We were after him then, both Stapleton and I. And I’m certain of one thing. No one could have got us out to that yacht faster than these boys. They rowed like men. But, you see, he had but a few strokes of the oars to pull, compared with us. And he got to the yacht when we were still some rods away.
“I never dreamed but what we had him then, for his anchor was down. But what did he do but spring aboard, not stopping to see what became of his rowboat, rush forward as quick as a cat, whisk out a knife, and cut his hawser before you could say ‘Scat.’ Then he jumped aft mighty quick, grabbed the wheel as cool as anything you ever saw, and had her under headway in no time.
“He took long chances, standing up when he went about, and dodging down again, at first. Then when we came close he got down in the bottom of the boat, just as you saw him, and the best we could do was to fire where we thought he ought to be. He dodged back and forth between our boats, tacking right and left as quick as anything I ever saw, and just slipped by us. He couldn’t have done it in any ordinary boat, but that yacht just spun around like a weather-vane, and seemed to gain headway as she went about, instead of losing anything.
“I never saw anything so beautiful, if I do say it. Look at her now, just eating away there to windward and leaving this harbour out of sight.”
The yacht was, indeed, flying along like the wind. Chambers had got more sail on her now, and they could see him, coolly sitting at the wheel and waving a hand in derision back at them.
“Confound it!” said Burton. “Here we are on an island, with no way of getting a telegram started till the morning boat lands over at Mayville. That will be many hours yet, and I fear he’ll give us the slip for good and all. What luck, that it should have been he, the only seaman of the three, who was left with the boat. Neither of the others could have done what he did. He’s probably studied these waters some, enough to find his way down here, and it will be a hard task ever picking him up again.”
“Yes, but a man can’t conceal a yacht,” said George Warren. “I’d know her anywhere. You can telegraph a description, and the whole coast will be on the watch. You can describe exactly how she looks.”
“Can I?” laughed Miles Burton. “Yes, I can, but that’s all the good it’s likely to do. He’ll have her so changed over, if he gets a day to himself down among those islands, that the man who built her wouldn’t recognize her. It won’t be the first time he has done it. He carries a full equipment aboard, a different set of sails, different fitting spars, different gear of all kinds, and paint to change her colour. Once let him get in near a sheer bluff, where he can lay alongside, with some trees growing close to the water’s edge, so he can rig a tackle and heel her way over, and he will have a yacht of a different colour before she’s many hours older. He did the thing up in Long Island Sound for several years, and changed her name a half a dozen times into the bargain. He’s done some smuggling up along the Canadian border, too, I’m told, and there isn’t a better nor a more daring seaman anywhere in this world. However, we’ll do the best we can. Lend a hand, now, all of you; we’ve got to get that wounded man down over the bluff, or down through the woods, and row him across the cove, where we can get a doctor to dress that wound of his. He’s not dangerously hurt, I believe, but he’s faint and sick, and we must work spry.”
A half-hour later, at the wharf across the cove, before the eyes of an excited crowd, composed of villagers, cottagers, and hotel guests, who had gathered hurriedly at the sound of the firing, there was landed a strange boat-load, – the strangest that had ever come ashore at the harbour. Imagine the amazement of Colonel Witham upon beholding his favourite guest, Mr. Kemble, bundled unceremoniously out of the rowboat, with manacles upon his wrists. Imagine the concern of the villagers when the man French, his wound clumsily swathed in bandages and his face pale and distressed, was lifted ashore and carried bodily up the slip to the nearest shelter. Nothing like it had ever happened before, not in all the island’s history.
