Kastle Krags: A Story of Mystery

by Absalom Martin

  CHAPTER XXII

  Just before the dinner hour I met Slatterly on the lower floor, and wehad a moment's talk together. "You've been in on most everything that'shappened around here," he said. "You might as well be with us to-night.We're going to watch the lagoon."

  The truth was I had made other plans for this evening--plans thatincluded Edith Nealman--so I made no immediate answer. The officialnoticed my hesitancy, and of course misunderstood.

  "Speak right up, if you don't want to do it," he said, not unkindly. Thesheriff was a man of human sympathies, after all. "I wouldn't hold itagainst any man living if he didn't want to sit out there in the darkwatching--after what's happened the last three nights. I don't know thatI'd do it myself if it wasn't in line of duty."

  "I don't think I'd be afraid," I told him.

  "It isn't a question of being afraid. It's simply a matter of humanmake-up. To tell the truth, I'm afraid myself--and I'm not ashamed ofit. More than once I've had to conquer fear in my work. A man who ain'tafraid, one time or another, hasn't any imagination. Some men are coldas ice, I've had deputies that were--and they wouldn't mind this a bit.I know, Killdare, that you'd come in a pinch. Any man here, I think--anywhite man--would be down there with me to-night if something vital--someone's life or something--depended on it. But I don't want to take anyone that it will be hard for, that--that is any one to whom it would bea real ordeal. I'm picking my bunch with some care."

  "Who is going?"

  "Weldon, Nopp, you and myself--if you want to come. If not, don't mindsaying so."

  "I want to come!" We smiled at each other, in the hall. After all, noother decision could be made. The high plans I had made for an eveningwith Edith would have to be given over. In the first place the nightmight solve the mystery into which I had been drawn. In the second itwas the kind of offer that most men, over the earth, find it impossibleto refuse. Human beings, as a whole, are not particularly brave. Theyare still too close to the caves and the witch-doctors of the youngworld. They are inordinately, incredibly shy, also, and like littlechildren, sometimes, in their dreads and superstitions. Yet through someblessing they have a high-born capacity to conquer the fear thatemburdens them.

  No white man in the manor house would have refused Slatterly's offer.Mostly, when men see that they are up against a certain hard deal, someproposition that stirs the deep-buried, inherent instinct that isnothing more or less than a sense of duty--that deep-lying sense ofobligation that makes the whole world beautiful and justifiable--theysimply stand up and face it. No normal young man likes war. Yet they allgo. And of course this work to-night promised excitement--and the loveof excitement is a siren that has drawn many a good man to his doom.

  "Good," the sheriff told me simply, not in the least surprised. "Whatkind of a gun can you scare up?"

  "I can get a gun, all right. I've got a pistol of my own."

  Nopp came up then, and he and the sheriff exchanged significant glances.And the northern man suddenly turned to me, about to speak.

  Until that instant I hadn't observed the record that the events of thepast three nights had written in his face. Nopp had nerves of steel;but the house and its mystery had got to him, just the same. The sunsetrays slanted in over the veranda, poured through the big windows, andshowed his face in startling detail. The inroads that had been made uponit struck me with a sudden sense of shock.

  The man looked older. The lines of his face seemed more deeply graven,the flesh-sacks were swollen under his eyes, he was some way shaken andhaggard. Yet you didn't get the idea of impotence. The hands at his sidehad a man's grasp in them. Nopp was still able to handle most of theproblems that confronted him.

  Slatterly, too, had not escaped unscathed. The danger and his ownfailure to solve the mystery had killed some of the man's conceit, andhe was more tolerant and sympathetic. There was a peculiar, excitedsparkle in his eyes, too.

  Slatterly turned to Nopp. "He says he's got a pistol."

  The second that ensued had an unmistakable quality of drama. Nopp turnedto me, exhaling heavily. "Killdare, we've beat the devil around thestump all along--and it's time to stop," he said. "I don't like to talklike a crazy man, but we've got to look this infernal matter in theface. When you come out to-night come armed with the biggest gun you canfind--a high-powered rifle."

  No man argued with another, at a time like this. "I don't know where Ican get a rifle," I told him.

  "Every man in the house has got some kind or another. I'm going to befrank and tell you what I'm carrying--a big .405, the biggestquick-shooting arm I could get hold of. Whatever comes to-night--we'vegot to stop."

  We gathered again at the big mahogany table, dined quietly, and the fourof us excused ourselves just before dessert. The twilight was alreadyfalling--like gray shadows of wings over land and sea--and we wanted tobe at our post. We didn't desire that the peril of the lagoon shouldstrike in our absence. And we left a more hopeful spirit among the otheroccupants of the manor house.

  They were all glad that armed men would guard the lagoon shore thatnight. I suppose it gave them some sense of security otherwise notknown. The four of us procured our rifles, and walked, a grim company,down to the shore of the lagoon.

  "We want to guard as much of the shore line as we can, and still keepeach other in sight," Slatterly said. "And there's no getting away fromit that we want to be in easy rifle range of each other."

  He posted us at fifty-yard intervals along the craggy margin. I wasplaced near the approach of the rock wall, overlooking a wide stretch ofthe shore, Weldon's post was fifty yards above mine, the sheriff's next,and Nopp's most distant of all. Then we were left to watch the tides andthe night and the stars probing through the darkening mantle of the sky.

  We had no definite orders. We were simply to watch, to fire at will incase of an emergency, to guard the occupants of the manor house againstany danger that might emerge from the depths of the lagoon. The tide, atthe lowest ebb at the hour of our arrival, began soon to flow again. Theglassy surface was fretted by the beat and crash of oncoming wavesagainst the rocky barrier. We saw the little rivulets splash through;the water's edge crept slowly up the craggy shore. The dusk deepened,and soon it was deep night.

  We were none too close together. I could barely make out the tall figureof Weldon, standing statuesque on a great, gray crag beside the lagoon.His figure was so dim that it was hard to believe in its reality, thegun at his shoulder was but a fine penciled line, and with the growingdarkness, it was hard to make him out at all. Soon it took a certainmeasure of imagination to conceive of that darker spot in the mist ofdarkness as the form of a fellow man.

  The sense of isolation increased. We heard no sound from each other, butthe night itself was full of little, hushed noises. From my camp firebeside Manatee Marsh I had often heard the same sounds, but they weremore compelling now, they held the attention with unswerving constancy,and they seemed to penetrate further into the spirit. Also I found itharder to identify them--at least to believe steadfastly theidentifications that I made.

  We hadn't heard a beginning of the sounds when we had listened from theverandas. They had been muffled there, dim and hushed, but here theyseemed to speak just in your ear. Sea-birds called and shrieked, owlsuttered their mournful complaints, brush cracked and rustled as little,eager-eyed furry things crept through. Once I started and the gun leapedupward in my arms as some great sea-fish, likely a tarpon, leaped andsplashed just beyond the rock wall.

  "What is it, Killdare?" Weldon called. His voice was sharp and urgent.

  "Some fish jumped, that was all," I answered. And again the silencedropped down.

  The tide-waves burst with ever-increasing fury. The stars were everbrighter, and their companies ever larger, in the deep, violet spaces ofthe sky. The hours passed. The lights in the great colonial house behindus winked out, one by one.

  There was no consolation in glancing at my watch. It served to make thetime pass more slowly. The hour drew to midnight, after a hundred
yearsor so of waiting; the night had passed its apex and had begun its swiftdescent to dawn. And all at once the thickets rustled and stirred behindme.

  No man can be blamed for whipping about, startled in the last, littlenerve, in such a moment as this. Some one was hastening down to theshore of the lagoon--some one that walked lightly, yet with eagerness. Icould even hear the long, wet grass lashing against her ankles.

  "Who is it?" I asked quietly.

  "Edith," some one answered from the gloom.

  Many important things in life are forgotten, and small ones kept; and mymemory will harbor always the sound of that girlish voice, so clear andfull in the darkness. Though she spoke softly her whole self wasreflected in the tone. It was sweet, tender, perhaps even a littlestartled and fearful. In a moment she was at my side.

  "What do you mean by coming here alone?" I demanded.

  "The phone rang--in the upper corridor," she told me almostbreathlessly. "The negroes were afraid to answer it. I went--and it wasa telegram for you. I thought I'd better bring it--it was only twohundred yards, and four men here. You're not angry, are you?"

  No man could be angry at such a time; and she handed me a written copyof the message she had received over the wire. I scratched a match, sawher pretty, sober face in its light and read:

  Am sending picture of George Florey, brother of murdered man. Watch him closely. Am writing.

  It wasn't an urgent message. The picture would have reached me, just thesame, and I had every intention of watching closely the man I believedwas the dead butler's brother. Yet I was glad enough she had seen fitto bring it to me. We would have our moment together, after all.

  What was said beside that craggy, mysterious margin, what words were allbut obscured by the sound of the tide-waves breaking against the naturalwall of rock, what oaths were given, and what breathless, incrediblehappiness came upon us as if from the far stars, has little part in theworking out of the mystery of Kastle Krags. Certain moments passed,indescribably fleet, and certain age-old miracles were reenacted. Lifedoesn't yield many such moments. But then--not many are needed to payfor life.

  After a while we told each other good-night, and I scratched a match tolook again into her face. Some way, I had expected the miraculoussoftening of every tender line and the unspeakable luster in her blueeyes that the flaring light revealed. They were merely part of the nightand its magic, and the joy I had in the sight was incomparable with anyother earthly thing. But what surprised me was a curious look ofintentness and determination, almost a zealot's enthusiasm in her face,that the match-light showed and the darkness concealed again.

  She went away, as quietly as she had come. Whether Weldon had seen her Idid not know. There was something else I didn't know, either, and thethought of it was a delight through all the long hours of my watch.Edith Nealman had worlds of common sense. I wondered how she had beenable to convince herself that the message was of such importance thatshe needs must carry it through the darkness of the gardens to me atonce.