CHAPTER IX OFF BLACK HEAD
In the meantime, notwithstanding the fact that Ruth and Pearl were on faraway Monhegan, the old Fort Skammel mystery was not entirely neglected,nor was the sleepy old fortress allowed to bask unmolested in the sun.
With her two newly made pals away, Betty Bronson, who had lived for along time on the banks of the romantic Chicago River, and who had butrecently been taken up by a wealthy benefactress, found life hangingheavy on her hands. The ladies in the big summer cottage on the hill,which was her present home, drank quantities of tea, played numberlessgames of bridge, and gossiped as ladies will. All of which interestedBetty not at all.
Fishing off the dock was not exciting. She tried for cunners off therocks at the back of the island and was promptly and efficiently drenchedfrom head to toe by an insolent wave.
After three days of this sort of thing she was prepared for any wild anddesperate adventure. Hiring a punt from Joe Trott, she rowed across thebay to the old fort.
The day was bright and the bay calm. The grass by the old fort was asmotionless and silent as were the massive stones which made up the wallsof the fort.
"Peaceful," she thought. "What could be more so? Like the schoolhouse bythe road, the old fort is a ragged beggar sunning."
No sooner had she gripped a flashlight and crept through a narrow squarewhere once a massive cannon had protruded, than all this was changed. Asif to make reality doubly real, the sun for a moment passed under acloud, and the great silent circular chamber, which had once known thecannons' roar, became dark at midday.
"Boo!" she shuddered and was tempted to turn back. Just in time shethought of tea and bridge. She went on.
"Ruth said it was down these stairs at the right," she told herself,stepping resolutely down the ancient stone stairway. "Down a longpassage, around a curve, through a small square dungeon-like place, thenalong a narrow passageway. Ooo-oo! That seems a long way."
She was thinking of the face Ruth had seen in the fire. Just why sheexpected that face to remain there, like an oil painting on the floor,she probably could not have told. Perhaps she did not expect it. That shedid expect to meet with some adventure, make some discovery, orexperience a thrill was quite certain.
"I wish Ruth were here," she told herself. "It's really her mystery; butI'll save it for her."
At that she disappeared down the narrow passageway that led to the dimunknown.
Had she known just what was happening to Ruth at that moment she wouldhave been surprised and startled. Ruth was experiencing adventure all herown.
On that day, still wondering and brooding over her curious experiencewith the swordfish and trying without much success to get the consent ofher mind to enjoy the swordfish money gotten in such a strange manner,Ruth had gone for a walk to the back of the island.
Once there, fish and money were driven from her mind, for the view fromthe crest of Black Head, a bold headland towering two hundred feet abovethe sea, was glorious beyond compare. The day was clear. There was nostorm, yet great breakers, racing in from the sea, sent out long, lowrushes of sound as they broke against the impregnable black barrier.
As her keenly appreciative eyes took in the long line of fast racinggray-green surf, they suddenly fell upon a sight that made her blood runcold.
"What a terrible chance! How--how foolish!" she exclaimed as, springingfrom her rocky seat, she went racing back over the island.
Having arrived at the head of a rugged trail that led downward, she cameto a sudden pause.
This, in view of the fact that she honestly believed that the boy andgirl on the rocks by the rushing surf were in grave danger, might seemstrange. Strange or not, she walked deliberately now. Dropping here,clinging there to drop again, she had made her way half the distance tothem when she paused again to at last take a seat there in the sun.
The path from there on was steep but straight. She could reach the onesbelow in less than a moment's time. But she would not, at least not yet.
"What's the use?" she told herself a little bitterly. "Wouldn't be so badif one didn't really like them. But I do."
It was a rather strange situation. The boy and girl who were endangeringtheir lives by playing in the high rolling surf were the very ones whohad followed the swordfish the day before.
With her eyes on the shining surf and the two dancing figures before her,she gave herself over to reflection.
The boy and girl below were tempting death. There was no question aboutit. They were playing in the surf at an exceedingly dangerous moment.True, there was no wind, no storm upon the sea. But there had been astorm somewhere. That was evident. It might have happened on the farawaycoast of Florida. No matter, the seas that had risen then had journeyednorthward. Now they were reaching higher and higher on the sloping rockwhere the boy and girl played.
"They think the ocean is a plaything!" Ruth said almost bitterly. Havinglived her life in a fisherman's cabin by the sea, she knew the ocean wasno plaything. Twice in her short life she had looked into eyes that sawnothing, on arms that would never move again, lifeless forms given up bythe sea.
As she watched, in spite of her dislike for sports that temptedprovidence, she found herself fascinated by the wild, nymph-like daringof the twelve-year-old girl who in a single cotton garment drenched withsalt spray, hatless and bare of feet, sprang far out after the recedingwaves to turn and rush back as the surf came thundering in.
Now as she watched, the spray hid her. She sprang to her feet.
"There! There! She's gone!"
But, no, the spray cleared and the girl, drenched, chilled buttriumphant, threw up her arms and laughed.
"Who can help but like them, these rich men's children!" she exclaimed."They are frank and fearless. They never quarrel. They are generous to afault. And yet--" she paused for a moment to reflect, "they don't seem tohave any notion of the value of life. They have never been taught to beafraid."
Not taught to be afraid. That was it. Too much fear was destructive; toolittle fear quite as bad.
Receding, the sea appeared to give up its attempt to snatch the daringones to its breast. Ruth's eyes and thoughts drifted away from the boyand girl on the rocks. She joyed in the beauty and power of naturerevealed in that long line of thundering surf. Nowhere in all her lifehad she seen such surf as came beating in at the back of Monhegan.
Great men have felt the charm of it in all ages. Captain John Smith oncetarried to raise a garden there. Governor Bradford of Plymouth Plantationwas once there. And, at this very moment, Ruth caught a glimpse of ashock of white hair which belonged to one of the greatest inventors ofmodern times.
"Suppose he is sitting there watching the surf and trying to estimate theamount of power that is being wasted," she thought with a smile.
But there was the surf again. Booming in louder than before it sent sprayforty feet high on Black Head's impregnable stronghold. There, too, werethe daring ones, the boy and the wildly dancing girl.
"There! There!" she whispered tensely once more. "She is gone. The waveshave her."
Once more she was mistaken. With a scream of triumph the child emergedfrom the spray.
"Wish I had never seen them," she mumbled angrily.
The death of a human being, particularly a child with all the brightglories of life before her, is something to give pause to every otherhuman being in the world.
It did seem an unkind act of Providence that had thrust these two youngpeople who knew so little of fear and of the sea into the presence of onewho had experienced so much of the ocean's wild terrors.
She had seen this boy and girl twice before. There had been the painfulswordfishing episode. Then once, as she had guided her motor boat intothe tiny harbor at Monhegan, a cry had struck her ear. She had taken itfor a cry of distress. Surf had been rushing in masses of gray foam overthe shoals before Monhegan. There had been something of a fog. Havingcaught the outlines of a green punt there in the foa
m, she had exclaimed:
"They have lost their oars. Their boat will be smashed on the rocks!"
With infinite pains, in danger every moment of losing her motor boat, shehad worked her way close, then had shouted to them.
To her great disgust, she had seen the boy turn and laugh. Once againthey were using the ocean as a plaything. Having thrown an anchorattached to a long painter among the rocks, they were riding the surf intheir shallow punt.
A strange providence had saved them.
"But now they are at it again," she told herself. "I'll leave thisisland. I won't be their keeper. I--"
She broke off, to stand for ten seconds, staring. A piercing scream hadstruck her ear. No cry of joy, this. As she looked she saw the boy aloneon the slanting rock. On the crest of a wave she caught a fleck of whitethat was not foam.
"The girl! She's out there! She's swimming. She--"
Like a flash she shot down the rocky path. At the same instant an oldman, his gray hairs flying, sprang down the other bank of the rocky run.
The old man reached the spot before her.
"No! No! Not you!" she panted. She knew that no white-haired patriarchcould brave that angry swirl of foam and live.
The aged inventor knew this quite well. He knew something more. He hadmeasured the boy's strength and prowess and found it wanting.
"Not you either," he panted as the suddenly panic-stricken andheart-broken city boy prepared to leap to the rescue.
"Not you!" The old man seized him and pinned him to the rock. "If someoneis to undo the harm done by your recklessness it must be another." Theaged inventor paused, out of breath.
That other was Ruth. No one knew that better than she. The time had comewhen she must battle with death for the life of another.
"Go! Go for a boat!" she shouted to the boy and the man. Her voicecarried above the roar of the surf. With that she leaped square into thearms of a gigantic wave to be carried away by it toward the spot wherethe white speck, which had a moment before been a joyous twelve-year-oldgirl, struggled more feebly and ever more feebly against the forces thatstrove to drag her down.
The battle that followed will always remain a part of Monhegan's colorfulhistory.
Two thoughts stuck in Ruth's mind as, throwing the foam from her face,she struck for the place where the white spot had last been. She must geta firm grip on the girl; then she must go out, out, OUT. Nothing elsecould save them. By a great good fortune this was a moment of comparativecalm. But such calms are deceiving. Ruth was not to be deceived. Theocean was a cat playing with a mouse. At any moment it might be ragingagain. To attempt a landing on the rocks, to allow one's self to be casthigh against Black Head's pitiless wall was to meet death at a singleblow.
"I must go out, out, OUT. There is life," she told herself over and over.
But first the girl. A low wave lifted her. Riding its crest, she caught aglimpse of that slight figure. But now she was gone, perhaps forever.
But no; there she was closer now, still battling feebly against the blindforces dragging her down.
With almost superhuman strength the fisher girl leaped against the waves.Now she had covered half the distance, now two-thirds, and now shereached the child. As if to torment her, a wave snatched her away. Shedisappeared.
"Gone!" she murmured.
But no, there she was, closer now. Her hand shot out. She grasped a shredof white. It gave way. A second stroke, and she had her.
Gripping her firmly with one hand, she swam with the other. Swimming nowwith all her might, she made her way out until the sea grew wild again.
Nothing could be done now but keep heads above the foam and spray. One,two, three waves, each one higher than the last, carried them toward theterrible wall of stone. Now they were five yards back, now eight, nowten. With an agonizing cry, the girl saw the rocks loom above them.
But now, just in the nick of time, as if a hand had been laid upon thewater and a mighty voice had whispered, "Peace! Be still!" the wavesreceded.
Ruth, looking into the younger girl's eyes, read understanding there.
"Can you cling to my blouse? I can swim better."
The girl's answer was a grip at the collar that could not be broken.
The next moment a fearful onrush found them farther out, safer. ButRuth's strength was waning. There was no haven here. A boat was theironly hope.
Hardly had she thought this than a dark prow cut a wave a hundred yardsbeyond them. Above the prow was a sea-tanned face.
"Captain Field!" She shouted aloud with joy. Captain Field is theyoungest, bravest of all the Atlantic seaboard.
"Now we will be saved," she said, huskily. The girl's grip on her jackettightened.
The rescue of two girls by a small fishing schooner tossed by such a seawas no easy task. More than once it seemed the boat would be swamped andall lost. Three times the waves snatched them away as they were upon thepoint of being drawn aboard. But in the end, steady nerves, strongmuscles and brave hearts won. Dripping, exhausted, but triumphant, Ruthand the one she had saved were lifted over the gunwale. At once thestaunch little motor boat began its journey to a safe harbor, and all thecomforts of home.