Chapter Two THE FOG COMES IN
The Casino at North Haven is a curious little box, known locally—possibly from its situation at the end of a fairly long wharf—as the "Fo'c'sle." It has but one room, paneled with imitation Japanese carvings, and having an attractive divan-like seat in a wide bay-window, where one may lounge and watch the vessels passing through the Thoroughfare. Outwardly the building is very plain, its two prominent features being the bay-window, which looks south, and a flight of outside stairs on the west which lead to a little nest of a balcony half hidden under the gable-end of the roof above this window.
The balcony is so covered by the peak of the roof that its interior is not visible from the wharf, and a person sitting on the settle at the back of it can be seen only from a boat some distance out on the water.
The Casino is little used, and although the caretaker unlocks the door each morning, the place is more generally deserted than not. The subscribers who come down to the wharf to start for rowing or sailing sometimes step in, wait for friends, or use the place as a storage for extra wraps; sometimes a riotous group of children holds brief but noisy possession; but after sunset the solitude is generally unbroken until ten o'clock, when the caretaker comes to lock up for the night. If the weather be bad, it is not unusual for the Casino to remain unvisited for the entire day. It affords a convenient shelter when it is needed, however, and its wharf, with a float on either side, makes a good landing-place; and it is, in a word, one of the numerous class of things which in this world are not constantly in demand, but which, when they are wanted at all, are wanted badly.
Here, on the evening of the fourth of June, Jerrold Taberman, wrapped in a shapeless ulster,—for a thick fog was driving in from the southeast,—sat awaiting his friend. Half an hour earlier Jack had gone to get something to eat, and Jerry had agreed to meet him here. Taberman was somewhat tired to-night, and beginning to feel the strain of three crowded and exciting days in which he had had little time for anything but action and sleep. The young men had completed their arrangements at the Island, had left Gonzague in charge there, had notified the future crew to report to the Provençalese on the evening of the third, and to hold themselves in readiness to sail immediately on the arrival of the Merle. The pair had then taken the big market-boat, a whitehall used for bringing supplies from Isle au Haut, and with a couple of the most able of the Isle au Haut men, selected beforehand, had sailed over to an unfrequented cove in Vinal Haven, on the south side of the Thoroughfare. There they encamped in hiding. They had reached their place of concealment by night, and next afternoon had the satisfaction of seeing the Merle come in from the westward and drop anchor just inside the channel, off the "Fo'c'sle."
"By Jove, isn't she a fine sight!" Castleport exclaimed enthusiastically; and Jerry assented no less warmly.
The Merle ran in under full sail, with a quartering breeze. Her clean white hull, eighty-four feet on the water-line, her shining brasses, her broad spread of snowy canvas, the easy run of her long counter, combined to make a picture which, even personal interest aside, could not fail to stir such enthusiasts as Jack and Tab.
On the evening of the arrival of the Merle two gentlemen and three ladies had gone on board, evidently to dine, as they did not leave until nearly ten o'clock. Castleport and Taberman, lying concealed among the bushes overgrowing a tiny promontory on Vinal Haven, had watched all this through their night-glasses. Jack, whose eyes were as keen as a hawk's, had even thought that he could distinguish who the visitors were. With guests on board there was evidently nothing that the conspirators could do but to watch, and when this was over they smoked a good-night pipe together over their campfire, and for the hundredth time fell to considering their chances of success. Behind them in the shadow lay the two sailors, wrapped in their blankets and sleeping the sleep which only the genuine mariner knows; Jack glanced at them as if he felt that somehow he was personally responsible for carrying through the enterprise for which they had been enlisted.
"What the deuce shall we do if the President takes it into his head to get under weigh for the island to-morrow?" Jerry demanded in a subdued voice.