Smugglers' Island and the devil fires of San Moros

by Clarissa A. Kneeland

THE PRETTY SEÑORITAS WAVED THEIR HANDKERCHIEFS

They passed the Rosalie Group before long. On dark and cloudy nights people on boats passing there can hear children crying, and if the night is actually stormy, you are likely to see Marian Hadley walk across the white-capped waves wrapped in a long cloak. This is a solemn fact. The captain told it himself. He said he did not tell the tale at night. No one connected the name of Hadley with the white-haired Mr. Hadley who had left them in the launch.

Pearson was running the launch. Mr. Hadley had Clarence’s map spread out on his knee. There was silence between them. Pearson’s face looked drawn and old. Mr. Hadley was tired and patient; he was looking at the map, but he was not thinking of it.

Pearson leaned forward to look at the little map.

“I don’t remember just what the shore-line looked like along here,” he said, “but I guess I shan’t miss San Moros.”

He did not, either. About noon he turned into the place, remembering Delbert’s instructions which tallied with the map correctly. The tide was high just then, anyway, and there was no danger of sandbars or sunken rocks. In a little more he could point out to Mr. Hadley the outline of Smugglers’ Island as he remembered it.

Afterwards, as they got pretty close to it, he said in a low voice, “Maybe we’d better go in back of it. That’s where they said the harbor and the pier were, and it will be a better place to moor the launch than this pile of rocks ahead.”

Mr. Hadley assented; so they turned her nose and ran out by the sandy point and round it in back into the harbor.

It seemed shadowy in there. It was dark and uncanny, Pearson thought. He shuddered. Not a sign of life had they seen other than the seabirds, for the old canoe was too far up the beach to catch the eye, and the wickiup was so covered with vines that it blended perfectly with its background, especially as the doors and window were shut.

Had they landed, they would have seen the path. Had Marian’s watermelons been a little higher, they would have attracted attention by reason of their regular rows, but they were scarcely above the holes yet. At the pier, too, there was nothing to tell them anything. The raft was farther along, back of some mango bushes.