“No.” the boy confessed, “I never did. Sort o’ got to thinkin’ ‘Phantom Yacht’ was its name, but like’s not ’twasn’t.”
The bleached skeleton of the boat was soon reached and the lad, leaving Nann standing on a broad flat rock, scrambled down nearer and began searching for something that might identify it as the craft which, many years before, had sailed, white and graceful, to and fro in the sheltered waters of the bay, and which had been called “The Phantom Yacht.”
Half an hour passed, but search as he might, the disappointed boy found nothing that could identify the boat. The storms of many winters had stripped it, leaving but a whitened skeleton and, before long, even that would be broken up and washed on the shore where the cottages were, to be gathered and burned as driftwood.
It was with real regret that Gibralter at last left the wrecked boat and returned to the side of the girl. He found her gazing into the swirling green waters beyond the rocks as though she were fascinated.
“What ye lookin’ at, Miss Nann?” he inquired.
She turned toward him, wide-eyed. “Gib,” she said, “I thought I saw that octopus you were telling about. Look, there it is again! See it stretching out a long brown arm.”
The boy laughed heartily. “That thar’s sea weeds, Miss Nann,” he chuckled, “one o’ the long streamer kind.” Then he added, more seriously, “We’d better scud ’long. ’Pears like the tide is turnin’.” Then his optimistic self once again, “All the better if it has turned. It’ll take us to Siquaw Point a scootin’.”
When they reached the ridge of the island, the boy looked regretfully back at the grim skeleton. “D’ye know, Miss Nann,” he remarked, “I’m sure sartin that we’re leavin’ without findin’ a clue that’s hidin’ thar waitin’ to be found. I’m sure sartin we are.”
It was a habit with the boy to repeat, perhaps for the sake of emphasis.
“Wall,” Nann declared, “to be real honest, Gib, I’d heaps rather be standing on that sandy stretch of beach over there where the cottages are than I would to find any clue that the old skeleton may be concealing.” Then she laughed, as she accepted his proffered assistance to descend the rocks. “I don’t know why, but I feel as though something skeery is about to happen. Maybe I’m more imaginative on water than I am on land.”