THE MYSTERY OF THE SEA-LARK
CHAPTER I
CAP’N CRUMBIE IS SURPRISED
“A lucky thing so few of the boats were out when the storm came up!” said Jack Holden. “I guess they’d have had a pretty hard time of it yesterday.”
“Cap’n” Crumbie nodded in satisfaction. “Only one missing,” he replied. “And why? Why? ’Cause Cap’n Crumbie told ’em what to expect. Not far out, I ain’t, as a rule. There was nigh a dozen o’ ’em wanting to get away to the grounds when I told ’em the gale was coming. And most o’ ’em took my advice and stayed safe an’ snug at home. ’Tain’t that I’m wanting to blow my own trumpet, as the saying is, but facts is facts. Bob Sennet laughed at me and put to sea. Laughed at me, mind you! Obstinate as they make ’em, Bob is—or should say was—just like his father afore him. If he hadn’t been so obstinate he’d ha’ been here to-day, alive an’ well. An’ instead o’ that, see where he is!”
“Where, Cap’n?” asked the boy, gravely.
The Cap’n dropped his voice to a sepulchral rumble. “Fathoms deep, son! Fathoms deep somewheres out there, he and the Ellen E. Hanks together; aye, and all hands as well. Fathoms deep; mark my words!”
Jack, suppressing a disrespectful grin, glanced seaward in the direction of the Cap’n’s pointing hand. The scene there held no suggestion of tragedy. The storm of the last two days was over. Since early morning the leaden skies had turned to blue and the fresh, salty breeze that swept in from the broad Atlantic was but the tag-end of the terrific gale that had lashed the waters of the harbor and raced, shrieking, up the quaint, narrow streets of the town. Now, instead of the storm-wrack, a few white clouds sailed eastward, and, in place of the fury of tormented waters, the harbor and the sea beyond the breakwater reflected the blue of the heavens in their dancing, white-capped waves.
A mile away, Gull Island was fringed with creamy foam, and, farther still, at the tip-end of the Point, the squat stone lighthouse gleamed snowy-white against the clear horizon. Washed and swept by rain and wind, the little Massachusetts fishing-town of Greenport looked bright and clean this May afternoon. The fishing-schooners, some at anchor, some lying snug at the wharves, were drying their sails in the warm sunlight.