X—LIGHTS ON THE ISLAND
The information that Ben obtained that afternoon from Mr. Haskins concerning his sale of the snuff-box gave a new direction to his thoughts. He could not follow up this new clue just yet, however, without telling the others, and this he didn’t want to do. They would be waiting for him aboard the Argo, and so, after a fifteen-minute talk with the shopkeeper, he hurried away to join them at the wharf.
One other thing he did, however, before the sailboat left Barmouth, and that was to get a canoe he owned out from a shed on the waterfront and fasten it behind the Argo. If he had the Red Rover with him—he had laboriously painted that name in orange letters on a scarlet background on the canoe—he would be able to come and go about the harbor as he wished and to leave the island without explaining his plans, as he would have to do if he wanted to take the sailboat.
“What’s the idea?” asked David, who never overlooked a chance to ask a question. “Are you going to teach the Professor how to paddle a canoe?”
Ben nodded. “I thought that ought to be part of his education. The Red Rover’s steady enough for any beginner to paddle.”
Tuckerman looked askance at the little craft bobbing up and down in the wake of the Argo. “Any canoe’s unsteady enough for me to upset in, I guess. However, I like Ben’s idea. It was thoughtful of you, my lad.”
At that they all laughed, for whatever Ben’s reason had been for wanting the canoe at the island it was fairly obvious that he was not taking it there to further John Tuckerman’s seafaring education.
That evening, however, Tuckerman reminded Ben of his suggestion. The water was calm, the breeze was light. “How about a paddle?” he asked. “Just along the shore? I promise not to rock the boat.”
“Righto,” said Ben. “Come on.”
They went to the landing-stage at the pier and put the canoe in the water. Ben got in at the stern and balanced the boat while Tuckerman gingerly stepped in and squatted down at the bow.
“Not much room for long legs,” said Tuckerman. “I’ll have to tie mine up in a bow.”
“You’ll get used to it soon,” encouraged Ben. “I’ll do the steering. All you have to do is to put your paddle in, give a long, slow push, and take it out again.”
“Sounds easy enough.” Tuckerman tried to shift the position of his knees, with the result that the canoe rolled over almost far enough to ship a gallon of water. He threw his weight the other way, and the canoe nearly capsized.
“Plague take it!” he muttered. “It’s worse than walking a tight-rope!”
“Easy there, easy,” laughed Ben. “First rule in a canoe is never to move quickly. When you shift your weight, do it slowly. Pretty soon it’ll come as natural as riding a bicycle.”
“Riding a balky horse, you mean,” said Tuckerman. “All right; I’ll remember.” He dipped the tip of his paddle into the water and gave a tiny shove.
Ben gave a long sweep with his paddle, a dexterous twist at the end of the stroke, and the Red Rover floated smoothly away from the landing-stage.
With Ben’s coaching, Tuckerman soon was able to paddle fairly well. He found it somewhat difficult to keep the bow evenly balanced, but as Ben anticipated his movements and shifted automatically from side to side, Tuckerman gained confidence and soon was sitting steady.
They paddled along shore, past the camp and on to the upper end of the island. Tuckerman, feeling more and more at ease, was delighted with the motion, with the gentle swish of the water, with the still, starlit night, with the panorama of beach and cliffs and woods as they floated by.
“Let’s go on around the island,” he suggested. “This isn’t real work at all.”
Ben smiled to himself. He knew that Tuckerman would discover next morning several muscles in his back and shoulders that he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. But the night was perfect for a paddle. “All right,” he agreed. “No, don’t you try to do any steering. The man in the stern does that.” With a couple of twists he turned the bow to the north. “There,” he said, “there’s the cliff where Sampson hid the chest in the pocket.”
Tuckerman turned to look. The Red Rover wobbled, slanted.
Ben shifted and righted her quickly. “Hi there!” he warned.
“My mistake,” said the penitent Tuckerman. “I see that it won’t do for me to think of two things at once when I’m out on this lily-pad.”
“Paddle—quickly now,” Ben ordered. “But not too quickly. There’s a rip off that ledge.”
They passed the rip and came into smoother water. Presently they were on the ocean side of the island. “There’s the creek where we saw the footprints,” said Ben.
“Don’t point out anything else to me,” said Tuckerman. “If I move my left leg I can’t get it back in place.”
By the time they reached the southern end of the island the bow-paddler felt as if the muscles of his knees were tied in hard knots. “Do you mind,” he said in a tone of apology, “if I stop paddling for a couple of minutes and unwind myself? I’ll move very slowly.”
“Go ahead,” said Ben. “I’ll balance the canoe.”
Tuckerman pushed himself back, then very carefully unwound his long legs, stretched them out with an exclamation of relief, rubbed the muscles, and then readjusted himself in a new and more comfortable position. “I suppose to be a really proficient canoeist,” he observed, “one ought to be made of rubber. There—how’s that? Didn’t I do it cleverly?”
“Wonderful!” said Ben.
Tuckerman picked up his paddle again, and, proud of his ability to move without rocking the boat, stuck the paddle in the water and gave a mighty sweep. The bow swung around, rocked, tilted; Tuckerman pressed his arm hard on the left-hand gunwale.
“Hold on, Professor!” cried Ben. “We don’t want to head out into the ocean. Keep your paddle out of the water. Steady there!” With alternate strokes to right and left Ben soon had the canoe back on its course parallel to the shore.
“I am a duffer,” muttered Tuckerman contritely.
“Oh no, you’re not,” said Ben. “You’re doing very well. Only you must remember to let the stern man do the steering. A little more practice and you’ll find the Red Rover as easy to manage as falling off a log.”
“Falling off a log is good,” was Tuckerman’s comment. “Falling into the water would be more like it.”
They rounded the lower end of the island and came back on the bay side. They had almost reached the landing-stage when Ben said, “See, there’s a light at Cotterell Hall. It’s in the front door. It looks like a pocket flashlight. I suppose Tom and David went up there to get something.”
Cautiously Tuckerman looked in the direction of the house. There was a small circle of light. It moved away from the door; after a minute it shone through a window.
“I thought I locked the doors,” he said. “However, they may have climbed in through a window.”
The light disappeared. The canoe floated smoothly up to the stage, and Ben held it level while Tuckerman climbed out. Ben jumped up lightly. Then they both pulled the Red Rover out and turned it bottom side up.
They went up the walk to the house. The front door was shut, and when Tuckerman turned the knob he found that the door was locked. He opened it with his own key, and the two went in. The hall and the rooms were dark, there was no sound of voices or footsteps anywhere.
“That’s funny,” said Tuckerman. “We didn’t see Tom and David come down the path. Maybe they went out the back way.”
But the kitchen door was locked, and when the two opened it and looked out there was no sign of the others leaving in that direction.
“I wonder what they’ve been up to?” said Ben. “Playing some joke perhaps.”
They returned to the camp, and there were Tom and David, toasting marshmallows on long sticks over a bed of hot coals.
“We were betting ten to one,” said David, “that you’d come back nice and wet. Want to dry your clothes at the fire?”
“No, thanks,” answered Tuckerman. “We’ve been all round the island, and we didn’t ship a thimbleful of water.”
Tom glanced at Ben. “The Professor hasn’t been fooling us, has he? He didn’t know all about handling a canoe, did he?”
“No,” said Ben with a smile. “He didn’t know all about handling a canoe when we started. But he knows almost everything about it now.” Then, as he sat down cross-legged on the grass, Ben said carelessly, “We saw your light in the house. I suppose you climbed in through a window.”
“Saw our light in the house?” Tom echoed. “What are you giving us?”
His tone was perfectly sincere. Ben saw that he wasn’t joking.
“Well, we certainly saw some light,” Tuckerman stated. “It looked like a pocket flashlight, at the front door and at one of the windows.”
“Not guilty,” said David. “Are you sure it wasn’t a firefly?”
“You two have been right here ever since we left?” asked Ben.
“Yes,” answered the two in chorus.
“And you haven’t seen anyone land, or heard anyone?” Ben continued.
“No,” came the chorus.
Ben looked at Tuckerman. “Well, someone was in the house. How about that, Professor?”
“Somebody was. But I can’t imagine what they could have been doing. I don’t suppose they were thieves.”
“It’s my opinion,” said David sagely, “that they were hunting for the famous Cotterell treasure. And now that you’ve found it, Benjie, I’d suggest that you put up a big placard, stating ‘The treasure has been found. No seekers need apply.’”
“Very good,” said Ben. “Only the real treasure hasn’t been found, you see.”
“What!” exclaimed David.
“No,” said Ben, “that’s my humble opinion.” And then, as if he wanted to change the subject, he added, “I’m going to toast one large, juicy marshmallow, and then I’m going to turn in.”
Half-an-hour later the moon, riding up in the sky, looked down through the branches and saw that the four campers were sound asleep. There was the lap-lap of waves, the gentle purring noise as the water washed over pebbles, and in the tops of the pines a soft lullaby of the breeze.
Tom stirred, turned, opened his eyes. It seemed to him that something had waked him. He looked about; there was only the familiar scene. He gave a satisfied grunt and curled his head in the hollow of his arm. Then he looked around again to make sure that they had put out all the embers of the fire. And at some distance through the woods, in the direction of the pier, he saw a light that moved.
Immediately he remembered what Ben and Tuckerman had said about seeing a light in the house. Noiselessly he got up, pulled on his shoes and stuck his arms in his jacket. Through the woods he stole, stealthy as an Indian. The light had disappeared, but he thought he heard the sound of feet on the planks of the pier.
He came to the trees nearest to the clearing about Cotterell Hall. The house was dark; there was no sound or light in the neighborhood. But he was convinced that there had been someone there, and presently he darted forward and crossed the open space to the shelter of the porch.
After a few minutes he stole to the corner of the house, and now his search was rewarded. Someone was leaving by the kitchen door. In the moonlight he counted three figures. They were heading away from the shore, toward the grove at the back; he guessed that they intended to take the path that led down to the creek.
Tom followed them at a distance. They went through the woods, and now he saw the moonlight on the water. They had reached the head of the creek, but they didn’t stop there. They went on along the bank to the higher shore where the creek flowed into the ocean. Then for the first time Tom noticed the silver tip of a sail. Lying flat behind a bush, he watched the three men go to the rim of the shore, and, one after another, slide over the edge where the boat waited.
He wanted to see that boat, to get a closer view of the men; but there were no bushes between him and the shore. Now the tip of the sail was bobbing, now it was filling out; presently it was moving to the southward, a white wing, still as a floating gull.
He crept forward and watched. The boat was stealing away, soon she was only a dancing speck of white in the glittering moonpath. He had no way of identifying her or of making out her crew. He noted that she did not turn or tack when she came to the lower end of the island, but held on to a course that would bring her south along the main shore.
Tom stood up and eased his feelings by a long whistle. “What were they doing here? It must be something mighty important,” he said aloud.
No answer occurred to him, and after watching the sail until it disappeared in the distance he turned and walked back to the house.
He tried both the doors; they were locked. He looked at the lower windows; they were all closed. He went down to the pier; the Argo was there and the Red Rover; there was nothing to tell him what these night-time prowlers had been doing.
He went back by the beach to the camp. As he stepped up on to the bank Ben opened his eyes and sat up. “Hello,” he said sleepily. “Why, Tom, what are you doing?”
“Sh-ssh,” murmured Tom.
Ben rubbed his eyes, crawled out of his bed, caught Tom’s arm, and pulled him down to the beach. “What were you doing?” he demanded in an insistent whisper.
“Well, I saw a light, and I went to find out what it was.”
“Yes? And you saw them, did you?”
“Saw whom, Benjie?”
“Saw the pirates, did you?”
“The pirates! You’re half-asleep. What are you talking about?”
Ben nodded his head. “Oh, I know something about them.”
“Well, I saw three men. They went away in a sailboat.”
“Who were they? What did they look like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get very close.”
“I wish you’d taken me along with you. I’ll bet I’d have found out something.”
That nettled Tom, and he answered more loudly, “Oh, you would, would you? I thought you knew all about them.”
“Sh-ssh,” muttered Ben. But David had wakened now, and his voice boomed out, “What are you two lobsters quarreling over?”
“Nothing,” said Tom. “Keep quiet, or you’ll wake the Professor.”
Tuckerman sat up. “You don’t mean to say it’s morning!” he exclaimed.
“No, it’s not,” Tom answered. “Can’t a fellow take a stroll in the moonlight without rousing the whole town?”
“Stroll in the moonlight!” chuckled David.
“Go on with your beauty sleep, Professor. That’s what I’m going to do. Let the two lobsters fight it out.”
“All right,” said the sleepy Tuckerman, nestling down again.
Tom turned to Ben. “So you know something about these pirates, do you?” he asked. “What were they doing here?”
“That,” said Ben, “is going to take some thinking. You see what you can find out, and I’ll see what I can. They won’t be back here to-night. And I’m too doggone sleepy to argue anyhow.”