The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery
Page 45
CHAPTER XLV.
ON DIGBY SHORE.
Daylight rose, gray and hollow-eyed, on the Atlantic. The sun was merelya moving brightness in the sky. Ocean, the blind Titan, still heaved androared, playing his part in some grander drama than ours of flesh andblood--ingulfing sailor or bark as we crush the poor gnat toward whomneither pagan sage nor Christian doctor enjoins mercy--cruel withoutenmity, indifferent without contempt, divider or uniter of continentsaccording to his chance-born mood.
The storm had scarcely begun to die. But with a clear outlook forward itwas possible once more for the sturdy Yarmouth to resume her course.With Capt Keen himself at the wheel, she steamed into the narrow harborof the little city whose name she bore, situated on the nearest eastwardtip of the Nova Scotia peninsula, half a day late, but with her 300passengers safe and sound.
Several days later, our party of four were peacefully rowing across thecalm waters of Digby bay--that isleless harbor of purest ultramarine,where the Bay of Fundy has cloven its way through peaks still wooded tothe water's edge and lifts and lowers its huge tides as far north asAnnapolis, at the head of the valley of Evangeline. Chance would haveit that this resort was the destination of the Marches as well asEmily and Beulah; and the acquaintance made on shipboard under suchunusual circumstances was already ripening into something likefriendship--perhaps more than friendship--between Tristram and BeulahWare.
She was his opposite, his complementary color, as he said to Rosalie,and so she harmonized with him and perhaps comprehended him, as Rosalieat times did not. In only one thing did she agree with Tristram'ssister. She misunderstood his irony; for her own speech was yea, yea.
"Let us cross over to the camp of the Micmacs," proposed the artist,resting on his oars.
"Are they real Indians?" asked Emily.
"Full-blooded. See their tepees." A cluster of conical tents could beseen rising from the dark foliage on the hillside. For Digby rises fromthe water with a slope like a toboggan slide all the way up to the whitecottages on its crest.
"There is a specimen," said Tristram, as a canoe skimmed by them. "Isn'the noble? The great face, the grim mouth, the high cheek-bones, thestraight hair--it is a bronze mask of Saturn. I may utilize him."
"When?"
"When I carve my life group for the Academy's grand prize."
"Have you chosen your subject?"
"Driftwood Pickers at the Sea Level."
Beulah Ware looked up. She had suggested it the day before, whilestrolling alone with the man of hazy purposes.
The boat was beached without difficulty and the ladies steppedashore--Beulah Ware collectedly, as usual, but Emily and Rosalie aswarily as you may have seen a lame pigeon alighting.
"Let us follow my leader," said Tristram, meaning the brown canoeist,who had shouldered his craft and was climbing the beach.
"What is that?" cried Emily, pointing to an object that was tossing onthe sands.
"A body," said the others, recoiling, but Tristram walked in thedirection indicated. It proved on closer inspection to be the body of awoman, stout and tall. Her long yellow hair floated in the surf, but thefeatures were swollen beyond recognition. It was impossible to tellwhether she was old or young. Only her clothing, which was thick and offoreign style, denoted a woman of the poorer class.
"Is it a body?" asked Rosalie, apparently doubting the evidence of hereyes. The quick assemblage of a crowd rendered an answer unnecessary.There were men and women watching all along the Nova Scotia coast inthose weary days. Schooners and smacks had put out before the storm,perhaps to be blown far out of their course and suffer the hardships ofhunger and shipwreck, perhaps to founder in midocean and never toreturn. So the body rolling in the surf at the water's edge had beenespied by others before the party of four landed, and there was aconverging stream of searchers from bush and cottage, and even from thelonely tepees.
"Search her pockets," said one, and the woman's dress was torn open. Apacket of papers came out, but the ink had run and the paper was as softas jelly.
"She has been in the water a week," cried another.
"Perhaps it is a body from the Osric," suggested a boy.
The party of four shrunk in greater horror. There were rumors oflifeboats that had been launched and swamped from the sunken steamer.Could one of the bodies have been carried up the Bay of Fundy on itsswift-running tide, forced by a current through Digby Gut, and castashore on this unfrequented beach?
"See if her linen is marked?" asked a woman who held a baby. But thesearch proved fruitless. No stenciled initials, not even a brand on theshoes, to identify the unfortunate. A truck was suggested to carry herup to the town.
"One moment," said Tristram, "her ring may be engraved."
The slender gold circlet was deeply imbedded in the flesh, but afisherman ruthlessly cut it loose with his knife. Tristram held it up tothe light and read a name from the inside.
"Bertha Lund," he read.
Emily Barlow turned pale and glanced at Beulah Ware. If she could havelooked across the ocean to the city just then and seen InspectorMcCausland closeted with the district attorney, she would have beenconfirmed in her fears. The detective was scanning a list of thepassengers on the Osric.
"Bertha Lund, Upsala, Sweden. That is her birthplace. She was to returnon the Osric," he said, uneasily.
"Then it must be she," answered the district attorney. "It is mostunfortunate. However, we have her testimony at the hearing. We do notrely solely upon her."
But Emily did rely solely upon Bertha's knowledge, and her heart sunkwithin her. Without Bertha, there was only Robert to describe the roomas she wished it described. And would people believe Robert in so novel,so miraculous, a junction of circumstances as her theory demanded?
"Read that again, please," she cried to Tristram.
"Bertha Lund," Tristram seemed puzzled a moment by the third word,"Bertha Lund, Upsala."