CHAPTER X THE TILTING FLOOR
That evening Ruth sat before a tiny open grate in her room at Field'scabin. She was alone; wanted to be. The summer folks were giving aconcert up at the big hotel. Pearl and Don had gone. She had wanted tosit and think.
She had been angry for hours. "I'll leave Monhegan in the morning," shetold herself, rising to stamp back and forth across the narrow room. "IfDon isn't ready to go, I'll take the tug to Booth Harbor and go down bysteamer. I won't stay here, not another day!"
She slumped down in her chair again to stare moodily at the fire. Whathad angered her? This she herself could not very clearly have told.Perhaps it was because they had tried to make a heroine of her. Shehadn't meant to be a heroine, wouldn't be made one. The whole populationof the island, a hundred and fifty or more, had flocked down to the dockwhen Captain Field brought her and the rescued girl in.
There had been shouts of "What a wonder! A miracle girl!"
An artist had wanted her to pose for a portrait. "So romanticallyrugged," he had said as he gripped her arm with fingers that were soft.
"Romantically rugged." She didn't want her portrait painted; had onlywanted dry clothes.
"They had no right to do it," she told herself savagely. "If that boy andgirl hadn't been tempting God and Providence by playing in the surf, Iwouldn't have been obliged to risk my life to save the girl. And on topof that they have the nerve to want me to pose as a heroine!"
She slumped lower in her chair. Yes, she'd go home to-morrow. She hadbegun by loving Monhegan. The bold, stark beauty of it had fascinatedher. Nowhere else did the surf run so high. Nowhere else were theheadlands so bold. No surf was so green, blue and purple as that whichrose and fell off Black Head, Burnt Head and Skull Rock.
But now the cold brutality of nature as demonstrated here left herterrified and cold.
Perhaps, after all, she was only in a physical slump after a heroiceffort. For all that, she had formed a resolve to leave Monhegan in themorning. Like a spike in a mahogany log, the resolve had struck home. Itwould not be withdrawn.
As for Pearl, she was at that moment listening to such music as it wasseldom her privilege to hear--Tittle's Serenade done on harp, flute,violin and cello. Her eyes were half closed, but for all that she wasseeing things. She was, as in a vision, looking into the night where asingle ray of light fell upon a mysterious dark-winged seaplane speedingaway through the fog above the sea.
* * * * * * * *
It was at noon of that day that Betty found herself moving slowly,cautiously down the narrow passageway at the heart of old Fort Skammel,that was supposed to lead to the spot where Ruth had seen the face in thelight of her Roman candle on the Fourth of July.
The place was spooky enough in daytime. In truth, day and night werealike in those subterranean passageways which had once led from dungeonto dungeon and from a battery room to one at a farther corner of themassive pile of masonry. No ray of light ever entered there. The wallswere damp and clammy as a tomb.
Still, urged on by mystery and who knows what need of change andexcitement, the slender, dark-eyed girl pushed forward down thiscorridor, round a curve, across a small room which echoed in a hollow wayat her every footstep, then round a curve again until with a wildlybeating heart she paused on the very spot where Ruth had fired theeventful Roman candle.
Nor was she to wait long for a thrill. Of a sudden, of all places in thatdark, damp and chill passage, a hot breath of air struck her cheek.
Her face blanched as she sprang backward. It was as if a fiery dragon,inhabiting this forsaken place, had breathed his hot breath upon her.
Be it said to her credit that, after that one step backward, she held herground. Lifting a trembling hand, she shot the light of her electrictorch before her.
That which met her gaze brought an exclamation to her lips. Not ten feetbefore her a square in the floor, some three feet across, tilted upward.Moved by an invisible, silent force, it tilted more and more. A crack hadappeared between the floor and the tilting slab. From this crack came theblast of heat that fanned her cheek.
"The fort is on fire," she told herself in a moment of wild terror.
Then, in spite of her fright, she laughed. How could a structure builtentirely of stone burn? The thing was absurd; yet there was the heat fromthat subterranean cavity.
"There!" She caught her breath again. The heat waves had been cut shortoff. She looked. The slab of stone was dropping silently down.
"It--why it's as if someone lifted it to have a look at me!" she toldherself as a fresh tremor shot up her spine.
She did not doubt for a moment that this conclusion was correct. In spiteof this, and in defiance of her trembling limbs that threatened tocollapse, she moved forward until she stood upon the very slab that hadbeen lifted.
"Don't seem different from the others," she told herself. "Nothing tomark it."
"Well," she told herself as her eager feet carried her farther andfarther from that haunting spot, "I've done a little exploring. I've madea discovery and had a thrill. That's quite enough for one day."
"Ought to tell someone," she mused as she sat before the wood fire in thegreat fireplace of the big summer cottage on the hill that evening. "Butthen, I wonder if I should? It's really Ruth's mystery. She should have ashare in its uncovering. I'll go back to-morrow and see what more I candiscover," she told herself at last.
Had she but known it, reinforcements were shortly to be on the way. InDon's room on Monhegan, Ruth, Pearl and Don had just held a consultation.In the end they agreed that they should start for home in the morning.
A short while after this, Ruth, as she was about to fall asleep, reacheda comforting conclusion:
"Since I saved that girl's life," she told herself, "it should squarethat swordfish affair. I can now spend the swordfish money with a goodconscience. I shall have a new punt as soon as I reach Portland Harbor."
Don's boat was a sailing sloop with a "kicker" (a small gasoline motor)to give him a lift when the wind was against him. The day they startedfor home was unusually calm. Sails bagged and flapped in the gentlebreeze. The little motor pop-popped away, doing its best, but they madelittle progress until toward night, when a brisk breeze came up from theeast. Then, setting all sail, and shutting off the motor, they bent tothe wind and went gliding along before it.
There is nothing quite like a seaworthy sail boat, a fair wind and agently rippling sea. At night, with the sea all black about you and thestars glimmering above, you appear to drift through a faultless skytoward worlds unknown.
Ruth and Pearl, after their exciting experiences on Monhegan, enjoyedthis to the full. Not for long, however, for there was something in thesalt sea air and the gently rocking boat which suggested long hours ofsleep. So, after wrapping themselves in blankets, with a spare sail for amattress, they stretched out upon the deck and were soon lost to theworld of reality and at home in the land of dreams.
It was on this same calm day that Betty returned to old Fort Skammel andthe scene of the tilting stone floor.
Just what she expected to see or do, she could not perhaps have told.Driven on by the spirit of adventure, and beckoned forward by the lure ofmystery, she just went, that was all.
As it turned out, she saw that which gave her food for thought duringmany a long hour.
Having made her way, with hesitating steps and backward glances, to thespot where Ruth had seen the face-in-the-fire, she threw her light ahead;then, with a quick little "Oh-oo" took an involuntary step backward.
The square section of stone floor was now tilted to a rakish angle. Itappeared stationary. Beneath it was revealed an open space some threefeet across.
As the girl switched off her light and stood there trembling, sherealized that a faint unearthly yellow light shone from the half darkspace beneath the stone.
For a full moment, with no sound save the wild beating of her heart todisturb the si
lence of the place, she stood there motionless.
Then, seeing that nothing happened, she plucked up courage, and, withoutturning on her torch, dropped on hands and knees, to creep toward theoblong of yellow light.
Three times her heart leaped into her mouth. A small stone rolling frombeneath her hand wakened low echoes in the place. A stone that gave waybeneath her suggested that she might at any moment be plunged into anunknown abyss below. Some sound in the distance, probably made by a rat,all but made her flee. In time she found herself gazing down into thespace beneath the tilted floor.
The sight that met her gaze was worthy of her effort. A small square roomlay beneath her and in that room, revealed by the witch-like yellowlight, piled on every side and in great squares at the center, were boltsand bolts of richly colored silks and boxes beyond number, all filled, ifone were to be guided by the three that had been broken open, with silkdresses, red, blue, orange, green, silver and gold, fit for any princessof old.
"Oh! Ah!" she said under her breath.
Then, just as she was beginning to wonder and to plan, there sounded fardown some dark corridor heavy footsteps.
In wild consternation, without again switching on her torch, she sprangaway down the narrow passageway. Nor did she draw an easy breath untilshe was in her punt and half way across the bay.
Then as she dropped the oars for a second she drank in three long breathsof air to at last release a long drawn "Whew!"
She had not been in the big summer cottage on the hill five minutes, herbrain pulsating from a desire to tell someone of her marvelous discovery,when the rich lady of the house told her of a yachting party to startearly next morning.
"We will be gone three or four days," she was told. "Pack your bag well,and don't forget your bathing suit."
"Three days! Oh--er--" She came very near letting the cat out of the bagright there, but caught herself just in time.
"Why! Don't you want to go?" Her benefactress stared at her inastonishment. "It will be a most marvelous trip, all the way to Booth Bayand perhaps Monhegan, and on Sir Thomas Wright's eighty-foot yacht. Younever saw such a boat, Betty. Never!"
"Yes, yes, I'd love to go." Betty's tone was quite cheerful and sincerenow. She had caught that magic name Monhegan.
"Ruth and Pearl are up there," she told herself. "It's a small island. Iam sure to see them. I'll tell Ruth. It's her secret. Then, when we comeback--" She closed her eyes and saw again those piles and piles ofshimmering silken dresses.
"I'd like to try them on, every one," she told herself with a littlegurgle of delight that set the others in the room staring at her.
But Ruth and Pearl, as you already know, were on their way home.