Sinister island

Chapter I-2

“A coquina house! What’s that?”

“Coquina? It’s a shell deposit they used a lot in the old days for building, Noyer fixed it up in fine style for this Arab girl. She lived there until one night that giant took it into his head without reason that he ought to be jealous of her. He didn’t wait to find out he was wrong. He cut her throat as she lay in bed. That’s the house where this man, Mr. Anderson lives—the man you wanted to send the telegram to.”

Miller started. Yet he could not accept the agent’s story of this ancient crime in Anderson’s house as a credible explanation of his friend’s note. Anderson and Molly were both normal and healthy. He had been in more or less constant touch with them since he had first met Anderson in Paris ten years before when he had been on the threshold of manhood. During that time he had seen no display of abnormality or of any exceptional surrender to nerves. The question that troubled principally now was why Anderson had ever chosen such a spot.

“You knew then,” he asked the agent, “about Mr. Anderson’s living there?”

“Sure. It’s natural everybody should get wind of that. You see his house and the plantation house are the only two on the island, and until this winter they’ve both stood empty since the Civil War. Oh, yes, everybody heard of it right away.”

“Queer they aren’t in ruins, too,” Miller said.

“No,” the agent explained. ” Property’s still in the hands of Noyer’s family, I believe. They’ve let it all go back to the wilderness except those two houses. Kept them in repair, figuring, I reckon, somebody might be foolish some day and rent them. Sure enough, this winter along comes a man named Morgan who takes the plantation house, and this man, Mr. Anderson who takes the other. Of the two give me the big place. It’s more open and less gruesome than the coquina house. Yes, people would know about that naturally. Been saying Captain’s Island would grow civilised again, but I don’t hear of any patties going down, and I expect both the Morgans and the Andersons have friends in Martinsburg.”

Miller smiled.

“The invasion begins. I’m running down in my small boat this afternoon. How far is it?”

“About twenty-five miles altogether, but if you get a strong tide behind you it doesn’t take long.”

“My boat needs a water fall.”

The agent picked up a paper and turned to the marine page.

“Tide’s on the turn now. It runs three to four miles an hour between here and the mouth of the river.”

“Then I could make it by night,” Miller said. “I suppose I need a pilot?”

“Yes. There’s no entrance directly from the river. You have to take a channel across the marshes.”

The agent hesitated.

“They call it the Snake.”

He cleared his throat, adding apologetically:

“That’s because it twists and turns so.”

“What about a pilot?” Miller asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” the agent answered. ” Might get one to take you by the island in the day time, but I doubt if you can persuade any of these ignorant rivermen to guide you into that inlet at night to anchor.”

“That’s silly,” Miller said irritably.

“Lots of silly things there’s no accounting for,” the agent replied. “And you can’t realise the reputation the island’s got around this part of the country. And, see here! Don’t you be putting me down as foolish too. I’ve told you what they say. I don’t know anything about spooks—never saw one. All I do claim is, there’s a kind of a spell on Captain’s Island that reaches out for you and—and sort of scares you. That’s all I say—a sort of spell you want to get away from. Maybe you’re right and it’s just the climate, and that jungle, and the loneliness.”

“And I,” Miller said, “have been picturing it as a popular winter resort.”

“You’ll have to ask the snakes and the spooks about that,” the agent laughed.

He turned to an entering customer.

Miller went back to the Dart, telling himself that the problem of Anderson’s note was as undecipherable as ever. He would have to wait for an explanation until he had seen Anderson that night. Therefore he was all the more anxious to start. He had had enough experience with the natives to accept as final the agent’s prophecy about the pilots. Tony, who knew so much river lore, however, might furnish a means if he were handled properly. As soon as he had stepped aboard he called to the man.

The native’s bearded face appeared in the companionway. He climbed to the deck, wiping his hands on a ball of waste.

“Tony,” Miller said, “do you know the Snake channel?”

Tony started. His hands ceased tearing at the waste.

“It’s near the mouth of the river,” Miller added.

Tony nodded. He moved uneasily. His eyes questioned.

“Think you could get us through without piling us on an oyster bank?”

The native waited a moment before nodding again with a jerky motion.

These signs were not lost on Miller.

“I’ve altered my plans,” he said. ” Instead of abandoning you and the Dart here in a few days as I had intended, I’ve decided to go a little farther north by water.”

Tony’s satisfaction was apparent in a smile.

Miller felt it was important to let that impression, which was more or less true, stand-It would explain his desire to navigate the Snake. Once through the Snake and in the inlet he would find ways to laugh Tony out of his superstitious fears.

“So we’ll cast off,” he said, “and go through the Snake this afternoon.”

Tony’s smile faded. The bearded lips half opened as though he was about to speak. But his eyes caught the high sun and evidently he changed his mind, for he went down the ladder, and after a moment the engine was indignantly thrashing.

Miller sighed.

Tony reappeared, cast off, took his place at the wheel, and backed the Dart into the river.

Miller seated himself in his deck chair. The city, whose warm, hurried life had just seemed to welcome him, let him go now indifferently to a far greater loneliness than that with which he had thought himself done. He realised this with surprise before three o’clock. The short distance between Captain’s Island and the metropolis had deceived him. He had been unable to conceive the desolate nature of that narrow stretch. He had not dreamed of anything like the precipitate loneliness that crowded the last shanty outpost of the great factories.

A little after three the smoke of these factories was a vague haze on the horizon. The high ground on which they stood had fallen abruptly to flat, wet, uninhabitable marshes. These were relieved only by repellent swamps of palmettos or an occasional pine tree which stretched itself, gaunt and gibbet-like, from the waving grass.

Miller’s half amused reception of the agent’s talk had not been a pose. He had no belief in the supernatural, nor would he admit for an instant that its vapoury rumours would ever have the power to materialise for him into any startling fact Yet this landscape could not fail to impress him as a barren neutral ground between activity and stagnation, between the familiar and the unsounded. It forced him, indeed, to call upon his exceptional will power to fight back a mental inertness, a desire to abandon himself to melancholy. And his will was not altogether victorious. He became ill-at-ease, restless. He glanced at Tony. The native leaned forward, clutching the wheel with both hands as though engaged in a physical attempt to aid the swift tide and the engines. His pipe had, for once, gone out, and remained neglected.

Miller began anxiously to look for signs of the Snake channel. But to either side the dreary marshes swept away apparently unbroken.

At five o’clock, however, Tony turned the Dart towards the left bank of the river. Miller could see a narrow opening in the marsh grass through which glassy water flowed reluctantly. Beyond it, in the direction of the sea, he made out a line of low trees, probably palmettos and cedars. It stretched northward from the river across the marshes for, perhaps, five miles. He pointed at the opening.

“The Snake?” he asked.

Tony nodded. He shifted his feet restlessly. After manipulating his levers until the engine slowed down he faced Miller.

“Anchor?”

Miller arose and walked to the break of the deck.

“Certainly not. I said we were going through the Snake tonight.”

Tony shuffled nearer. He spread his hands towards the sky.

“You mean,” Miller said, “That it will be dark in an hour or so? I know it. What of it?”

Tony opened his lips. He spoke with painful effort.

“Too late to get past. Would have to anchor by Captain’s Island.”

He pointed at the low, dense mass of trees which Miller had noticed.

“Naturally,” Miller answered. “That’s my wish—to anchor in Captain’s Inlet.”

The threatened change in Tony became complete. It startled. He placed his hands tremblingly on the break of the deck at Miller’s feet. His cheeks above the heavy beard had grown white. His eyes showed the first glimmer of revolt Miller had ever detected. But strangest of all, the native, whose habitual silence was broken only by the most imperative demands, burst suddenly into torrential speech.

Miller started back, unwilling to believe, because this man, who on occasion had displayed the most uncalculating physical bravery, was now exposing a shocking cowardice. And why? He scarcely seemed to know himself. The words ran one into the other with the guttural accent of terror. It was something to do with Captain’s Island. It didn’t pay to anchor there at night. He backed this opinion with a flood of testimony—creeping, lying tales. Miller knew it while he tried to shut his ears to them.

He raised his hand to stop this cruel exhibition. He stared into the frightened eyes. For only a moment the wills of. the two men battled, then the stronger, the more intelligent, conquered. Tony’s eyes wavered. His guttural voice ceased.

“Tony,” Miller said quietly, “with you or without you, if she can be coaxed through the channel, the Dart will anchor in Captain’s Inlet tonight. There’s the dingy. Take it if you wish and row to Sandport. You can bring it around tomorrow by daylight. I’ll have your money ready.”

Tony hesitated. After a visible struggle he turned back to the wheel. The engine gathered speed again. The Dart’s nose was pointed for the opening.

“And, Tony,” Miller added,” since you seem inclined to stand by the ship, you must understand that this nonsense cannot be repeated.”

Tony didn’t answer, yet, knowing him, Miller felt satisfied. But he noticed that the broad shoulders shook a little.

The boat was entering the Snake. Miller raised his eyes. Perhaps it was the waning light—for the sun was setting—or some atmospheric trick, but all at once Captain’s Island seemed to have come nearer. The dense mass of its foliage cut into a flaming sky. Stealthy shadows slipped from it across the bent marsh grass. Miller had a fancy that it was reaching out slowly and surely. For what!

The agent’s talk of a spell came back to him. Was it the spell of the place already reaching out for him? He felt suddenly cold. He shivered. If it was the spell of the place it had found him, for his customary cheerfulness was finally throttled by a black, heavy depression. He knew, unless the agent had lied, that monstrous things had happened there. Was it possible that Anderson’s, letter referred to their fancied, incorporal survivals? The fact that the question persisted troubled him. Unthinkingly, he accepted the challenge of the island. Closing his fist, he raised it against the line of forest. The absurdity of his gesture failed to impress him. He descended to the forward deck. He stepped close to Tony. He tried to speak-naturally.

“Better hurry her, Tony. It mightn’t be a bad plan to get settled in Captain’s Inlet before dark.”