II
As we waited in the cold brilliance of New York harbor, a few mornings later, and looked with considerable satisfaction at the German steamers that were huddled like gigantic red and black cattle in the docks of the Hamburg-Amerika and North German-Lloyd, a telegram was brought aboard which settled our plans.
Duncan was to go down to Washington that night, while I was to go up to Rockport, a little fishing village on the coast of Maine. At this place I was to take a motor-car and drive some fifteen miles to a certain lonely strip of pine-clad coast. There we were to camp out in a tiny cottage, which we could rent from an old sea-captain whom I knew before the war. Two artists, in quest of a quiet place for work, could hardly find a happier hunting-ground. I was particularly glad to find that we could hire a trim little motor-launch, in which we could go exploring among the islands that dotted the blue sea for scores of miles. It was a beautiful coast, and their dark peaks of pine were printed like tiny black feathers against a sky of unimaginable sapphire. Nothing could seem more remote from the devilries of modern war.
Duncan joined me, a week later, in Captain Humphrey's cottage—it was a small white-painted wooden house among the pine trees on the main land, built on the rocks which overhung a deep blue inlet of the Atlantic. We discussed our plans on the little veranda, from which we could see half a dozen of those pine-crowned islands, which were the objects of suspicion. There were scores of others we could not see, to north and south of us, and we checked them off on the map as we sat there under the dried sunfish and the other queer marine trophies, which the old skipper had brought back with him from the South Seas.
The nights were quite cold enough for a fire, though it was only mid-July; and we finished all our plans that evening round the big stove, the kind of thing you see in the foc'sle of a steam trawler, which stood in the center of Captain Humphrey's parlor. We were more than a little glad indeed to let our pipes and the good-smelling pine logs waft their incense abroad; for—like all the dwellers in those parts—the old skipper subsisted through the winter on the codfish which he had salted and stored during the summer in his attic; and though his abode was clean and neat as himself, it had the healthy reek of a trawler, as well as its heating apparatus. A large oil lamp, which hung from the ceiling, was none the worse, moreover, for the moderating influence of a little wood-smoke.
"To-morrow, then," said Duncan, "we take the motor-launch and have a look at all the islands between this place and Rockport. They've been awfully decent down in Washington about it. The only trouble is that they don't and can't believe it. Exactly the state of mind we were in, before the war. Everybody laughing at exactly the same things, from spy-stories to signals on the coast. I met a man in the Government who had been taken to a window at midnight to see a light doing the Morse code, off this very coast, and he laughed at it. Didn't believe it. Thought it was the evening-star. We were like that ourselves. No decent man can believe certain things, till they are beyond question.
"It's our own fault. We told them all was well before the war; and I don't see how we can blame them for thinking their own intervention unnecessary now. We keep on telling America that it's all over except the shouting. We paint the rosiest kind of picture to-day about the prospects of the allies; and then we grumble amongst ourselves because Americans don't turn the whole of their continent upside down to come and help us. We deliberately lulled America to sleep, and then we kicked because we heard that she had only one eye open.
"Well,—they've given us a blessing on our wild-goose chase. We may do all the investigating we like, as I understand the position, so long as we leave any resultant action to the United States. This means, I suppose,—in old Captain Humphrey's language—that we may be 'rubber-necks,' but we mustn't shoot. All the same, I brought the guns with me." He laid two automatic pistols on the table. "It's more than likely, from what I've been able to gather, that we may have to defend our own skins; and I suppose that's permissible. Oh, damn that mosquito!" He slapped his ankle, and complained bitterly that the old sea-captain's faith in his own tough exterior had prevented him from providing his doors and windows with mosquito netting.
It was on the fourth morning of our search that things began to happen. For my own part, I had already begun to be so absorbed in the peace of the world about us, that the whole business of the war seemed unreal and our own quest futile. I could no longer wonder at those inhabitants of the new world who were said to look upon our European Armageddon as a bad dream, or a morbid tale in a book, which it was better not to open. As we chug-chugged along the coast, close under the thick pine woods, which grew almost to the edge of the foam, I thought I had never breathed an air so fragrant, or seen color so brilliant in earth and sky and sea. Once or twice, as we shut off the motor and lay idle, we heard a hermit-thrush in the woods, breaking the silence with a peculiarly plaintive liquid call, quite unlike the song of our thrushes at home, but very beautiful. Here and there we passed the little red, blue and green buoys of lobster-pots, shining like jewels as the clear water lapped about them in that amazing sunlight.
We were making for a certain island about which we had obtained some interesting details from Captain Humphrey himself. He told us that it had been purchased two or three years ago by a New Yorker who was building himself quite a fine place on it. He seemed to be a somewhat mysterious character, for he was never seen on the mainland, and all his supplies were brought up to him on his own large private yacht.
"There's a wharf on the island," said Captain Humphrey, "with deep water running up to it, so that a yacht can sail right up to his porch, as you might say, and you wouldn't know it was there. The cove runs in on the slant, and the pines grow between it and the sea. You wouldn't notice it, unless you ran right in at the mouth. It makes a fine private harbor for a yacht, and I believe it has held two at a time. There's a good beach for clams on the west shore, but of course, it's private."
We certainly saw no sign of yacht or harbor as we approached the island from the landward side; but we made no departure from our course to look for either. We were bound for clam-beach, where we intended to do a little clam-poaching.
"It doesn't look promising," said Duncan, as we approached the shore. "There doesn't seem to be anybody to warn trespassers off. But perhaps clam-beach is not regarded as dangerous, and the trespassing begins further on."
In a few moments we had moored the launch in four feet of water, and were ashore with a couple of clam-rakes. We had dug a hundred, as we walked towards the pine-wood, when Duncan straightened up and said:
"This makes my back ache, and it's blazing hot. I'm going to have a pipe in the shade, up there."
I shouldered my rake, and followed him into the wood. As soon as we were well among the trees, we began to walk quickly up the thin winding path, which we supposed would lead us to the neighborhood of the house.
"Not at all promising," said Duncan. "They would never let us ramble about like this if they had anything to conceal. Just for the fun of it, we'll go up to the house, and ask if Mr. Chutney Bilge, the novelist, doesn't live there. You want his autograph, don't you?"
In five minutes, we had emerged from the pines, and saw before us a very pleasant looking wooden house with a wide veranda, screened all round with mosquito-netting, and backed by glimpses of blue sea between dark pine-trunks. There was not a soul to be seen, and no sign of its occupants anywhere. We walked up to the porch, pulled open the netted door in the outer screen, and knocked on the door of the house, which stood wide open. We waited and listened; but there was no sound except the ticking of a clock. There was another open door on the right side of the hall. Duncan felt a sudden impulse to look through it, and tip-toed quietly forward. He had no sooner looked than he stood as if turned to stone, with so queer an expression on his face that I instantly came to his side to see what Medusa had caused it. It seemed a very harmless Medusa; but I doubt if anything could have startled me more at the moment. We stood there, staring at a table, laid for lunch. There were twelve champagne glasses, of a somewhat unusual pattern; and each of these glasses contained a peach.