“It is called?” I asked carelessly, as I turned to a chart of the North Sea.
“Port No Man’s Port,” replied the baron.
“I like its name,” said I. “Order my ship to await me there!”
The elder baron arose, and bending his body with stately grace, withdrew. I accompanied him to the door and dismissed him with most respectful obeisance.
“Port No Man’s Port,” I answered. “Ah, here is the chart!” The descriptive text reads as follows:
“Abandoned for many years; ingress easy; egress so dangerous as to mean fatal injury, if not destruction, to sailing craft; outer channel blocked by a fearful whirlpool and swinging rock called “Thor’s Hammer;” inner basin extremely dangerous from constantly shifting sands; closed by order of the Royal Ministry of Commerce and Marine.” Upon finishing the reading of these words I sprang up and began to pace the floor, wildly and half unconsciously.
The blood rushed in upon my brain. I was obliged to halt and cling to the back of a tall oak chair, or I should have staggered and fallen to the ground.
Bulger was greatly alarmed and sent up a suppressed howl of grief. I spoke to him as calmly as I could to comfort him.
After a few moments the vertigo passed off and my mind cleared up completely.
“Nay, it is impossible,” I whispered, “the elder baron could not be guilty of bad faith to me! Away with such a thought! He errs through thoughtlessness and lack of experience. He little knows the terribly dangerous character of the task he is setting me. To him, the talks of shipwreck and death within Port No Man’s Port are but the legends of old-time sailor-life. He has not the faintest suspicion that his request, so lightly made, exposes his only child, son and heir to a princely fortune and honored name, either to be engulfed by these shifting sands, sucked down to destruction by this fearful whirlpool, or crushed by a blow from Thor’s Hammer.