Nightbirds on Nantucket

by Joan Aiken

  "Yes, I was," Penitence said in a low tone. "I was dreadfully afraid."

  "And did the others not stop thee speaking to this man?"

  "No, because they had left him alone in a little hut and were sitting outside round a fire. So I stole in very quietly, and he was very surprised to see me."

  "Alack!" said Captain Casket. He had halted, leaning heavily on his daughter's shoulder. "Child, I am not so well as I thought. I must sit and rest awhile. Perhaps thee had best go on to Sankaty without me. Yet, what can one frail child do against such evil? I shall be in dread for thee." His legs failed him and he sank into a clump of bayberry.

  "Oh, Papa!" cried Penitence in distress. "Can you really go no farther? Look, it is not much more than a mile now to Sankaty. You can see the white tower."

  "Child, I have outplayed my strength. The fever was a short one but sharp while it lasted."

  "Oh, what shall I do?" Penitence wrung her hands. "I shall have to go on, Papa. I must try to help Dido and Nate. They have been so good to me."

  "Yes, thee must. I shall pray for thy safe return. Ask help of anyone thee may encounter—yet, it is not likely that many will be abroad at this hour," he said doubtfully.

  "There may be some," said Pen with more optimism, "because of the pi—" She checked herself, gave her father a tender kiss, and hurried on towards the foot of the slope at the top of which Sankaty Lighthouse stood on the cliff edge like a pointing finger.

  By great good luck, Penitence had not gone far when she heard the thud of hoofs. Crossing her path ahead lay the road from Polpis to Sankaty; to her left she saw a cart proceeding at a smart pace. By running her fastest and waving a handkerchief she was able to attract the attention of the driver, who slowed to a halt as she reached the road.

  "Well, bless my soul if it isn't little Penitence Casket!" cried a cheerful voice. "What are you doing out so early? Like all the rest of Nantucket, come for a sight of the pink whale? She's a bit farther up the coast, child, towards Squam, but heading this way. How's my patient this morning?"

  It was Doctor Mayhew, driving Mungo.

  "Oh, Doctor Mayhew!" cried Pen thankfully. "I was never so glad to see anybody in all my life, never! Will you help me, please?"

  "Of course I will, child. I was just on my way to visit your father, soon as I've seen a patient in 'Sconset. I spent the night with Mrs. Pardon at Polpis, and then, thought I, I'll just have another look at this famous pink whale and, if she's still there and old Jabez Casket is able, I'll take him to see her; a sight like that might be just the thing to put him on his legs again."

  "Oh, yes!" cried Pen. "It was what I thought, too! But when I told Papa that she had been seen he would not believe me. He thought he had been dreaming."

  "He'll believe the evidence of his own eyes, I suppose. And ears. Listen!"

  He checked Pen, who was dying to be off, and they both stood silent. Above the hushing of the sea beyond the cliff could be heard a strange noise—a most mournful bellow, rising sometimes to a whistle, then sinking again to a kind of discontented mutter.

  "What is it?" Pen asked, momentarily distracted from her anxiety.

  "Why, it's the old pink 'un, grizzling away out there in the ocean. It's my belief," continued the doctor, "that she misses your pa and is a-calling for him. And the sooner he sees her the better, in my opinion."

  "Will you help me fetch him?" Pen said eagerly. "He is not far from here. We started to walk to Sankaty, but Papa's strength failed him."

  "Walk to Sankaty? Child, are you out of your wits? What possessed you to do such a thing?"

  "Oh, sir, there are wicked men on Nantucket who are going to throw Dido and Nate into the sea off Sankaty Cliff. They have shut them up in the lighthouse till this evening. Will you help me let them out?"

  "Eh, bless my soul," the doctor said in astonishment. "What imaginations you young 'uns do have. Only yesterday that friend of yours was telling me all about some gun in the forest. Says I, 'that's no gun, child, but the biggest telescope between here and California.'"

  "But it is a gun! They are in the lighthouse! If you come with me you will see!"

  "Dear, dear," said the doctor. "Ah, well, I always say it does no harm to humor people in their fancies. What shall we do first, then, pick your father up or go to the lighthouse?"

  "Oh, the lighthouse, please!" Pen said, clutching his arm in her anxiety. "Every moment may be important."

  "Very well, we'll see how fast this canny old mule of yours can go if he's pushed."

  Mungo was cooperative, and it took them only another ten minutes to gallop up the hill to the lighthouse. The place seemed totally deserted. A chill wind blew the grasses and straggling shrubs which covered the sandhills roundabout; beyond the low cliff the ocean growled and whispered. The desolate bellow of the pink whale could still be heard farther north.

  "Oh, quick!" whispered Pen, as the doctor tied Mungo to a railing. "Suppose we are too late!"

  "What about the key, child?"

  "I heard Mr. Slighcarp say that it was kept under a rock."

  "It'll be close by the door, I reckon," grunted the doctor, and soon found it. "Well, now, where's these poor castaway captives of yours?" He thrust the big key into the lock, turned it, and pushed open the heavy door. "Anybody about?" he called, and walked in, with Pen close at his heels.

  The round room was empty.

  "You see," Doctor Mayhew said indulgently. "All imagination, as I was say—"

  But Pen had darted in horror to a pile of flour sacks and bits of rope.

  "Look!" White as a sheet she held up a length of rope. "There's blood on this! Doctor Mayhew! Do you think they've thrown them over already?"

  "Thrown—hey! Let's have a look at that rope. Yes, that's blood, sure enough," he muttered, inspecting it. "And recent, too. It's hardly dry. What in tarnation's name has been going on around here? Can there be some truth in the child's story?" He stared at her in doubt.

  "Hush!" whispered Pen with terrified eyes. "What's that sound?"

  They listened, and both heard it: a step on the winding stair overhead.

  Then all of a sudden a voice burst into song:

  "As I was a-walking down Wauwinet way

  I met a young maiden and this she did say:

  Oh, Pocomo's pretty and Quidnet is quaint,

  But the swimming on Surfside is fit for a saint!

  And Madaket's modish and 'Sconset's sedate

  And Shimmo is sheltered and Great Point is great—"

  "Nate!" cried Pen. "Nate, is that you?"

  "It's never Penitence?" He came clattering down the stair and into sight. "And Doc Mayhew too! Well, of all the luck! Chop me into chowder, however did you get here?"

  "Where's the others? Where's Dido? And Professor Breadno?"

  "Just a-coming down," he said, grinning. "It's a powerful long stair. We'd been up top, trying to work out whether, if we tied all the bits of rope together, they'd be long enough to let one of us down to unlock the door from the outside. Dido thought yes. Professor Breadno thought not. I'm glad we didn't have to try. Hey!" he yelled up the stair. "Pen's here with the doc. Come on down!"

  "Penny!"

  Dido shot down the last round of the spiral stair like a whirlwind, threw herself at Pen, and hugged her. "How did you do it? How did you know we was here? You clever little girl, Pen!"

  Doctor Mayhew was staring at Nate's wrists. "So that's where the blood came from! Hey, boy, who's been gnawing at you?"

  "Well, you see, sir, we was tied up. Dido and I managed to shuffle the sacks off each other—that took a plaguy long time, I can tell you—but we couldn't get our ropes undone, not nohow. So I rubbed through mine on the edge of the bottom stair, but it left my wrists kind of chawed-up."

  "And then he undid me and the professor," Dido explained.

  "I'll put something on those wrists for you right away, my boy. But where are the miscreants now?"

  "They sighted their schooner, the Dark Diamond. I h
eard them talking outside. They were planning to go out to her in a dory, as if they was after fish. Guess that's the dory you can see about a mile to south'ard now. You can get a famous view of the old pink 'un from the top of the tower; she's running down this way like a Saratoga winner—hear her bellow?"

  "Ja—hwalnn!" exclaimed Professor Breadno enthusiastically. "Ismistibiggn hwalln!" He had been more than a little subdued since his recent experience, but the sight of Rosie appeared to have cheered him up.

  "Oh, this is Professor Breadno," Nate told the doctor. "He was going to let off the gun for the Hanoverians, but he told Dido and Pen about it, so his friends fixed to chuck him over the cliff in case he told anyone else. Nice lot, ain't they?"

  "So there really is a gun, my boy? It is not a telescope, not a fairy tale of the young ladies?"

  "Oh, no, it's there right enough, sir. And the professor says it's capable of firing across to London."

  "Königsbang, monstershoot," the professor put in proudly.

  "So we've got to stop them, haven't we?" Dido said.

  "Well, but that ain't so easy my dear," Doctor Mayhew objected. "For one thing, it's none of our affair if the English choose to blow each other up. For another, there's precious few able-bodied men on the island—every man-jack of them is off whaling, and we've nothing but young children and old crocks like myself, and whale widows."

  "But Doctor!" exclaimed Pen. "You haven't heard the worst yet! When those wicked men let off the gun it will blow Nantucket right back against the mainland—right into New York City Harbor!"

  Doctor Mayhew slowly turned purple. It was a fearsome sight.

  "What did you say?" he bellowed. "Just repeat that, will you?"

  "It's true, Doc!"

  There were maps and charts on the wall. Professor Breadno was pleased to demonstrate how, when the shot was fired across Nova Scotia, the backthrust would send the island of Nantucket sliding southwestward around Long Island to bump into New York City Harbor.

  "She ain't so tight on her moorings, I guess," Nate said. "Being mostly sand."

  "Great guns! Why didn't you tell me that before? Push our island over into that crowd of money-grabbing roustabouts and frauds in New York? Why, we'd have a lawsuit from here to doomsday before we ever got it out of their clutches again. What would all the whaling captains say to me when they came back from their voyages and found Nantucket had moved? This puts a different complexion on the whole matter!"

  "What'll we do, then?"

  "We'll have to go into it very thoroughly," Doctor Mayhew said, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

  Here Penitence said in a small voice, "Please, what about Papa?"

  The doctor started.

  "Quite right, my dear, quite right. In the emotion of the moment I had forgotten about him. We must go to his aid at once. Nate, just run up and make sure those scoundrels are well away, so that we can leave the lighthouse in safety."

  Nate soon reported that both the Dark Diamond and the dory had shifted south; the Dark Diamond was almost out of sight round the corner of the island at Tom Never's Head, and the dory was pursuing her.

  "Guess they don't want to get mixed up with the old pink 'un," he said. "She's middling close now; hear her whistle?"

  Indeed, the whale was now letting off regular blasts, like the siren of a lightship, almost as if she were trying to attract somebody's attention. With one accord the whole party moved outside to look for her.

  "Why, there's Papa!" cried Pen joyfully. "He must have felt himself sufficiently rested to follow me. Papa, Papa! Do you feel all right now? Are you sure that you have not overtired yourself?"

  "No, Daughter, no," Captain Casket said absently. He moved towards the group.

  The hillside where they stood sloped up quite steeply past the lighthouse to the cliff edge, so that it was not possible to get a view of the sea until one stood on the very summit.

  "What is that sound?" said Captain Casket.

  "Take care, Papa!" cried Pen anxiously. She darted to him and held his arm, supporting him tenderly. They moved on together and stood at the top of the cliff.

  A great sigh burst from Captain Casket.

  "Oh!" he said brokenly. "I am dreaming again. I must be! But it is a beautiful dream!"

  "No, Papa, it is no dream! We all see her too."

  "And ain't she half carrying on," said Dido. "Goshswoggle, ain't she got no dignity? You'd think a grown whale would be ashamed to act so."

  The pink whale was indeed giving an exuberant display of rapture at meeting her old friend Captain Casket. It was a beautiful and touching sight. She leapt clean out of the water a great many times, as if bent on demonstrating how high she could go; she repeatedly dived and came up, she rolled playfully from side to side waving her flukes and, as Dido said, "ogling the captain like an orange-girl."

  "I am not dreaming?" Captain Casket said.

  "No, old friend, no, she's there, sure enough," Doctor Mayhew assured him. "Looks like she remembers you, all right, too!"

  "Then it is—it is the little whale calf that I put back into the sea all those long years ago! And I have not been dreaming—then or now. I always wondered if I should see her again—hoped I should—and then, one year at Fiji when I heard the islanders speak of a great pink sea dragon—I wondered if it could be she! I have been seeking her ever since. Oh," said the captain brokenly, "I must go down to her!"

  "Pray be very careful, Papa!"

  "Why don't we all go down?" Doctor Mayhew suggested. "Didn't I see you with a basket of food, Pen? How about breakfast on the beach? I need a bite o' food to soothe me—help me to marshal my thoughts. Those ruffians are not likely to come back while she's out there. And it's not a sight to miss."

  So Pen fetched the food from the cart while Dido and Nate prospected for a path down the cliff, and then the whole party descended to the beach. Captain Casket made straight for the edge of the ocean, and Pen had much ado to prevent his wading in, so eager was he to approach as close as possible to the pink whale—who, luckily, saw his intention and swam in near to the land; and so these two friends gazed at one another with the utmost delight and mutual satisfaction.

  "Could you give her a hint not to come too close, sir?" Nate said anxiously. "It'd be the devil to pay dragging her off if she got beached; I daresay she'll weigh all of a hundred and fifty tons."

  "She is a fine figure of a whale," murmured Captain Casket blissfully. But he roused himself to make some warning gestures, and the pink whale evidently understood these, for she swam to and fro parallel with the shore, letting out a series of loving bellows, without coming too near.

  "Well, it's most uncommon, I'm bound to say," Dido remarked. "But if I don't get summat to eat soon you might just as well bury me on this beach, for I shan't be able to climb up the cliff again. What've you got in your basket, Penny?"

  Pen had large numbers of hard-boiled eggs and buttered biscuits, molasses tarts, and for the captain a stone jug of broth, which Dido and Nate heated up over a driftwood fire. The broth was all he would take; after that he stood at the edge of the surf throwing hard-boiled eggs to Rosie, who caught them with the grace of a porpoise. Doctor Mayhew opened his black bag and brought out a large leather bottle of ginger-jub, which be passed round for the party's refreshment.

  "Never go on my rounds without it," he said. "If medicine won't help a man, this will. Many's the fellow digging clams today who'd ha' been buried long ago but for a dram of ginger-jub." It was, indeed, powerful stuff.

  While they were eating, Dido said, "Now, Penny, I wants to hear all about how you came to be traipsing over the moors at sunup with your pa, a-rarin' to rescue us, instead of snoring in your bed like a good girl. How the mischief did you know where we was?"

  Pen explained how she had overheard the scene in the dairy.

  "And you mean to say you bamboozled old Misery so she never guessed you knew? Why, Pen, I never thought you had it in you," exclaimed Dido handsomely. "You're a walk
ing wonder, girl! And slipped another dose of holus-bolus in her skilly? She'll surely think she's got sleeping sickness! Oh, dear, I haven't laughed so much since Mr. Slighcarp fell over the cutting spade!"

  "Order!" said Doctor Mayhew severely. "Now, has everybody finished eating? Nate! Stop throwing eggs to the whale. This is a serious occasion. We have got to think how to prevent those rapscallions from heaving our island into the middle of New York Harbor!"

  10

  Ways and means. Penitence eavesdrops.

  Aunt Tribulation is suspicious. The rocket.

  The gun's last ride.

  "Now," said Doctor Mayhew, absently tipping the last of the ginger-jub down his gullet, "how are we going to stop them firing this gun?"

  "Is not firing kungscannon?" exclaimed Professor Breadno woefully. "Is not having bigbang?"

  "Your big bang, my dear Professor, would leave this island in a devilish undesirable location."

  "Could firing otherwards round world mayhaps?" the professor said hopefully. "I fixing nordwestbang."

  "No, no, Professor, that would push us out into the middle of the Atlantic, right over to Spain probably. Can't you see, we don't want the gun fired at all."

  The professor's face fell.

  "Besides," Dido pointed out kindly, "you really can't shoot poor old King James, you know!"

  "Na, na, na, snat Kung Jimsbangen, 'sKung Georgebangen. Kung George the Fourth!"

  "King George the Fourth?" said Dido, bewildered. "But we haven't got a King George! It's King James the Third, bless his wig!"

  The professor shook his head and burst into a flood of refutal, mostly in his own incomprehensible language, which it took some time to disentangle.

  "I see what it is," Dido said at length. "Those peevy culls have been leading him up the garden path, making him believe there was a Hanoverian king on the throne because he's really against the Hanoverians and they wanted him to make the gun for them. Talk about pitching the double! What a lot of swindlers! Can you explain to him, Doc?"

  It took some time to get across to the professor that there was already the sort of king he preferred on the English throne and therefore no need to shoot anyone off it; in the end he was convinced but greatly disappointed.