“No! No!” she cried as the music ended. “Don’t stop! Go on, please go on!” It was as if the phantom violin were at her very side.
The music did not go on, at least not at once. Emerging from its spell as one wakes from a dream, she became once more conscious of the goodnight song of birds, the dull put-put-put of a distant motor, the cold black rocks beneath her feet, the dark waters far below where some object, probably Florence and Jeanne in the boat, moved slowly forward.
And then her lips parted, her eyes shone, for the phantom had resumed his song of the strings.
* * * * * * * *
In strange contrast to all this, Florence continued her battle with the big fish. In this struggle she was meeting with uncertain fortune. Now she had him, and now he was gone. She reeled in frantically, only to lose her grip on the reel and to see her catch disappear in a swirl of foam. At last, when her muscles ached from the strain, the fish appeared to give up and come in quite readily.
“There! There he is!” Jeanne all but fell from the boat when she caught one good look at the monster. He was fearsome beyond belief, a great head like that of a wolf, two rows of gleaming teeth, a pair of small, snake-like eyes. And, to complete the picture at that moment over the bottle-green waters a long ripple ran like a long green serpent.
“Florence!” she screamed. “Let go! It’s a snake! A forty-foot long snake!” The slight little girl hid her eyes in her hands.
No need for this appeal. In a wild whirl of foam the thing was gone again. But still fastened to his bone-like jaw was the three-barbed hook. And the line, as Florence had said, was “stout as a cowboy’s lariat.” She had him. Did she want him? Who, at that moment, could tell?
Strangely enough, at that moment one of those thoughts that come to us all uninvited, entered the big girl’s mind. “What did that diver on the black boat want on our wreck?”
No answer to this disturbing question entered her mind. They had left the ship unguarded. They had come to Duncan’s Bay prepared to stay at least for the night. That they would stay she knew well, for the wind was rising again. To face those dark, turbulent waters at night would be perilous. “What may happen to the ship while we are gone?” she asked herself. Again, no answer.