CHAPTER IX
THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SMOKY SEA
"It won't take me long to tell my part of the story," commenced Captain Dabney. "It happened last Summer, up in Bering Sea. I dodged out of the fog-bank, where I had been playing hide-and-seek with the Russian gunboat, and saw the sun for the first time in a week, and at the same time clapped eyes upon Fire Mountain. Ay, I had my eyes then—good eyes, too."
The captain drew his hand across his sightless eyes. He had spoken in the inflectionless voice of the blind, but Martin sensed a note of bitterness, of revolt, in his voice. Ruth patted his shoulder comfortingly, and the old man continued.
"Fire Mountain, lad, is a volcano. It is a volcanic island sticking up out of the water several hundred miles off the Kamchatka coast. But I guess I had better tell you how we came to be in Bering last Summer.
"You know, lad, I am a trader. Fur is a mighty profitable trade, if you can get enough fur, and at reasonable prices, and for the last ten years I have traded every Summer along the Kamchatka and Anadyr coasts. I have left the seal rookeries alone—they are too well guarded nowadays—and traded with the natives for their furs.
"The Russian Chartered Company has a monopoly of the fur trade in Eastern Siberia, and, like any monopoly, they gouge. They insist upon about five thousand per cent. profit in their dealings with the natives. Naturally, the natives are more than anxious to trade with a free-lance. The Russian Government keeps a little tin-pot gun-boat cruising up and down to prevent poaching, and if you are caught it means the mines for all hands. But, Lord! Any live Yankee can dodge those lubbers. They have chased me every year for ten years, and I have won free every time.
"The last chase they gave me was last August. We sighted the Russian just as we were coming out of a little bay below Cape Ozerni, where I had had business with a tribe of Koriaks. There was a nice little offshore, ten-knot breeze blowing, and we cracked on and made for the fog-bank.
"The fog, you know, lad, is the poachers' salvation in the Bering. In the Summer, the fog lies over the water in banks, either low and thick, or high and thin, caused by the Japan current meeting the Arctic streams. They call those waters the Smoky Seas, sometimes. You don't see the sun for weeks on end.
"This was a low-lying and thick bank we made for, and we slipped into it with the Russian about three mile astern of us. We were safe enough then, though he entered after us. We played a game of 'catch me, Susie,' for three days. It was funny. We had enough wind to drive us at about four knots; the fog was so thick you couldn't see half a cable-length in any direction; and the bank seemed of limitless width.
"We could hear the gunboat's screw miles away, but he couldn't hear us—though we'd give him a blat out of our patent fog-horn every now and then, just to let him know we were still around. Three days he rampaged around, looking for us, and then he gave us up for a bad job. The second morning after, we slipped out of the western rim of the bank and found ourselves in sunshine, and almost on top of as wicked a looking saw-tooth reef as I ever want to see.
"The reef encircled a mountain that stuck straight up out of the sea for about two thousand feet. It was an old volcano—still smoking. We sailed around it, and on the south side discovered a break in the reef, a little bay bitten narrowly into the mountain, and a beach.
"Well, volcanic islands are common in Bering Sea. But we were interested in this one, both because of its strange appearance, and because it was unmarked on the chart. That last was not so unusual, though. The charts of that section of Bering are mostly guesswork.
"We got a boat over the side, and Little Billy and I were pulled ashore, while Ruth kept the brig standing by. I wanted to make a closer inspection of the place, and the landing seemed good.
"The break in the reef was quite wide, and we sounded and found a channel, and good holding ground inside. We landed on a shell and black-sand beach, about forty yards wide at high water, and a couple of hundred long.
"The mountain stuck up sheer in front of us and on either side of the bay. It was full of caves—riddled like a sponge. A strange place! The mountain sides were overlaid for an unknown depth with black lava, from ancient eruptions; and this lava had hardened and twisted into all manner of shapes, all the way to the still smoking crater. That is what formed the caves—and formed also, tremendous columns, and castles, and animals' heads.
"On the level with the little beach were several cave openings. One was a jutting rock that looked just like an elephant's head carved out of the black lava, and beneath the outflung trunk, was a black opening leading into the mountain. There was the sound of running water from within, and the wind howled like a sabbath of witches. We didn't investigate—no torches. At one end of the beach we found three springs of hot water squirting out of the rock—tasted sulphurous.
"The beach contained quite a bit of driftage, and some old timbers we knew were from a wreck. Then, 'way up on the beach, and behind some big bowlders, we discovered the ribs of a whaleboat, a rust-eaten sheath-knife, and a board that contained part of a ship's name. The lettering was almost effaced; we made out the letters LUC— and beneath it the word, BEDFORD.
"Well, the discovery of that wreckage told us that we weren't the first to visit the place. The word 'Bedford' was a good clew—it meant that a New Bedford whaleship had been there at some time; and the wreckage meant that she had probably been wrecked upon the reef. There was nothing else to be found, though we searched for evidences of castaways. But the wreck had happened a good many years ago, we could tell from the appearance of the whaleboat's remains, and if there had been any castaways, all signs of them had disappeared.
"We snooped around a little bit longer, felt a baby earthquake, and then went back aboard the ship. I marked the location on the chart, and we squared away for the Kamchatka coast. An hour later, the fog shut the smoking mountain from our view and from my mind until Little Billy made his discovery in Honolulu a few months ago.
"Now, Billy, you commence—it is your yarn from now on!"
The captain heaved a contented sigh, settled himself into a listening attitude, and turned his blind face to the hunchback.