“Shucks!” said the boy. “That’ll be all right. She’ll show up all right. Probably went farther than she intended. But—sure, I’ll take a turn with you through our little village of boats. Be glad to.”
They wandered in and out among the various crafts. Scarcely a word was spoken until they came to the great black bulk of the scow inhabited by the Chinamen.
“I’ll rout ’em out. Might know something,” said Mark.
He knocked several times but received no response. He was about to enter when Lucile whispered:
“Wait a minute. Were—were you in the war?”
“A trifle. Not to amount to much.”
“Know how to use a gas mask?”
“Well, rather. Six seconds is my record. Know that old joke about the ‘quick and the dead,’ don’t you? I was quick.”
Lucile smiled. She was holding out an oblong package fastened to a strap, also a small glass bottle.
“Take—take these,” she whispered nervously. “You can’t tell about those folks. Break the bottle if they go after you, then put on the mask. It’s pretty powerful gas but does no permanent injury.”
Mark smiled as he slipped the strap over his shoulder. “Nonsense, I guess,” he murmured, “but might not be. Just like going over the top, you never can tell.” He drew a small flashlight from his pocket, then pushed the door open.
He was gone for what to the girls seemed an exceedingly long time. When he returned he had little enough to tell.
“Not a soul in the place, far as I could see,” he reported. “But, man, Oh, man! It’s a queer old cellar. Smells like opium and chop-suey. And talk about narrow winding stairs! Why, I bet I went down—” He paused to stare at the scow. “Why that tub isn’t more than ten feet high and I went down a good twenty feet. Rooms and rooms in it. Something queer about that.”
The girls were too anxious for Florence’s safety to give much attention to what he was saying.
“Well, we are greatly obliged to you,” said Lucile, taking her bottle and gas mask. “I guess there’s nothing to do but go back to the yacht and wait.”
With a friendly good-night they turned and made their way back to the O Moo.
CHAPTER V
A CATASTROPHE AVERTED
As Florence crouched in the dark corner of the deserted museum, many and wild were the thoughts that sped through her mind. Could she do it? If worse came to worst, could she strike the blow? She had the power; the muscles of her arm, thanks to her splendid training, were as firm as those of a man. Yes, she had the power, but could she do it? There could be no mincing matters. “Strike first and ask questions after,” that must be her motto in such an extremity. There would be ample opportunity. A beast always hunts with nose close to the ground. The man would be a fair mark. The skate was as perfect a weapon as one might ask. Keen and powerful as a sword, it would do its work well. Yet, after all, did she have the nerve?
While this problem was revolving in her mind, the pit-pat of footsteps grew more and more distinct. Her heart pounded fearfully. “He’s coming—coming—coming!” it seemed to be repeating over and over.
Then, suddenly, there flashed through her mind the consequences of the blow she must strike. The man must be given no chance to fight; one blow must render him unconscious. Whatever was done must be done well. But after that, what? She could not leave him alone in this great, deserted shell of a building. Neither could she await alone his return to consciousness. No, that would never do. She would be obliged to seek aid. From whom? The police, to be sure. But then there would be a court scene and a story—just such a story as cub reporters dote on. She saw it all in print: “Three girls living in a boat. One pursued by villain. An Amazon, this modern girl, she brains him with her skate.”
Yes, that would make a wonderful news story. And after that would come such publicity as would put an end to their happy times aboard the O Moo. That would mean the end of their schooldays, just when they were becoming engrossed in their studies; when they had just begun to realize the vast treasures of knowledge which was locked up in books and the brains of wise men and which would be unlocked to them little by little, if only they were able to remain at the university.
The whole thing was unthinkable. She must escape. She must not strike the blow. There must be another way out. Yet she could think of none. Before her was an iron railing, but to go over this meant a drop of twenty feet. Beyond her at the end of the balcony, towered a brick wall; at her back, an iron door. To her left there sounded ever more plainly the pit-pat of tiptoeing feet.
“I must! I must!” she determined, her teeth set hard. “There is no other way.”
And yet, even as she expected to hear the shift of feet which told of a turn on the balcony, some ten feet from where she cowered, the pit-pat went steadily forward. She could not believe her ears. What had happened?
Then on the heels of this revelation, there followed another: The sound of the footsteps was growing fainter. Of a sudden the truth dawned upon her: The man was not on the balcony. He had not ascended the stairs. He was still on the floor below. Her sense of location had been distorted by the vast silence of the place. She was for the moment safe.
A wave of dizziness swept over her. She sank into a crumpled heap on the floor. Reviving, she was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, but, clenching and unclenching her hands, she maintained an unbroken silence. At length, her nerves in hand once more, she settled down to watchful waiting. With eyes and ears alert, she caught every new move of the prowler.
As the sound of his footsteps died away in the distance, she settled herself to calmer thoughts. This place she was in was a vast cathedral of gloom. When the moon went under a cloud, blotting out the broad circle of light which fell from the vaulted dome, the darkness was so profound that she felt she must scream or flee.
Yet there was something magnetic about the place. She might have been held there even though she were not pursued. It was a place to dream of. Some twenty-eight years before a hundred thousand people in a single day had passed in and out along the aisles of this vast structure. That had been in the days of its glory. All—the rich, the poor, the cultured, the illiterate, the laborer, the street gamin—had peered at the marvels displayed between its walls. And now—now two beings haunted its vast corridors, the one pursuing the other. How strange life was!
A whiff of wind sweeping over the main floor sent a whirl of waste paper flying in circles halfway to the ceiling. Two tiny red eyes peered at her at a safe distance—then another and another.
“Rats,” she whispered. “Three of them.”
The pit-pat of feet became distinct again. Putting out her hand to grip the skate, she discovered that her fingers were too stiff for service. She had grown cold without sensing it. Rubbing her hands together, she warmed them. Her limbs too had grown stiff. Rising silently, she went through a series of exercises which sent the blood coursing through her veins.
“Must get out of here some way,” she told herself, “but how?”
Then suddenly she thought of the girls. They would be anxious about her, might come out to seek her, only to fall into a trap.
A trap? She thought of Lucile, slim, nervous. Lucile hovering as she had in the corner of that old Mission on that other night; thought too of the things Lucile had seen there; admired the nerve she had displayed.
But what did it all mean? She could but feel that it all was connected in some way; the note of warning tacked to the schooner; Lucile’s experience in the Mission and her present one, all fitted together in one.
What was it all about? Were they innocently checkmating, or appearing to checkmate, some men in their attempt to perform some unlawful deed? Were these persons moonshiners, gamblers, smugglers, or robbers living in the dry dock? If so, who were they?
Again the sound of footsteps grew indistinct in the distance.
“Ought to be getting out of here,” she told herself. “Getting late—horribly late and—an
d cold. The girls will be searching for me. There’s an open window over there to my right. Terribly high up, but I might make the ground though.”
She listened intently, but caught no sound. Then stealthily, step by step, she made her way toward the window.
Now she was fifty feet away from it, now thirty, now ten. And now—now she dropped silently to the floor and crept to the opening. There was no glass; she was glad of that. Flattening herself out, she peered over the sill to the void below.
“Terribly far down. Easily thirty feet!” she breathed. “Two gratings; rotten too, perhaps. Ground frozen too.”
She reached far down and, gripping the top of the nearest window grating, threw all her strength into an effort to wrench it free.
“That one’s strong enough,” she concluded; “but how about the other?”
Again she lay quite still, listening. In the distance she fancied she caught the pit-pat again.
“Better try it while I’ve got a chance,” she decided.
With the care and skill of a trained athlete she swung herself over the window sill, clung to the grating with her toes; dropped down; gripped the grating with her hands; slid her feet to the grating below; tested that as best she could; trusted her weight to it; swung low; touched the ground; then in her stocking-feet sped away toward the nearest street.
Arrived at a clump of bushes which skirted the street, she sat down and drew on her shoes. Then with a loud “Whew!” she crossed the street and made her way toward the O Moo over a roundabout but safe route, which led her by the doors of closed shops and beneath huge apartments where some of Chicago’s thousands were sleeping.
Her mind, as she hurried on, was deep in the mystery and full of possible plans as to the uncertain future.
“I suppose,” she mumbled once, “we should give up the O Moo. Most people would say it was a wild notion, this living on a ship, but what’s one to do? No rooms you can pay for, and who would give up a university education without a fight? What have we done? What are these people bothering us for anyway? What right have they? Who are they anyway?”
This cast her into deeper reflections. The face she had seen was not that of Mark Pence. Whether it was one of the Orientals living on the scow, or one of the fishermen living in their fishing smack, she could not tell. She had never seen the fishermen. Even Marian had seen but two of them.
“Might not be any of these,” she concluded with a shrug. “Might have been some night prowler who will never come back.”
* * * *
The two girls in the cabin of the O Moo had waited an hour. Lucile had fallen half-asleep. Marian had lifted a trap door and had started the small gasoline-driven generator which furnished them light and heat. The engine was racing away with a faint pop-pop-pop, when Lucile sat up suddenly.
“Marian,” she exclaimed, “what did that boy say about the scow those Chinese people live in?”
“Why,” said Marian, wrinkling her brow, “he said something about going down twenty feet.”
“That seems strange, doesn’t it?” Lucile considered for a moment.
“Yes, but then it was a winding stairway. Probably he isn’t used to that kind. Perhaps he just thought it was farther down than it really was. I—”
“What was that?” exclaimed Lucile, starting up. There had come a muffled sound from below, barely heard above the pop-pop of the engine.
In a second Marian had stopped the generator. Each girl strained her ears to listen. It came again, this time more distinct; tap-tap-tap, a pause, then a fourth tap.
“Florence!” exclaimed Lucile springing for the door.
Three taps, a halt, then a tap was the signal for lowering the rope-ladder.
A moment later Florence was being dragged into the cabin and ordered to give an account of herself.
“Sit down,” she said. “It’s rather a long story. When I’m through you’ll very likely be for leaving the O Moo in the morning, and I’m not so sure but that is the right thing to do. The cruise of the O Moo,” she laughed a bit uncertainly, “gives some indication of turning out to be an ill-fated voyage.”
With Lucile and Marian listening intently Florence told her story.
“Florence,” said Lucile, when she had finished, “do—do you suppose that has anything to do with the old Mission affair I told you about?”
“Or the warning tacked on our hull?” suggested Marian.
“I don’t know,” said Florence thoughtfully, “It might. The point really is, though, are we leaving in the morning?”
She was answered by an emphatic:
“No! No!”
“Do you know,” said Lucile a few moments later as she sipped a cup of hot chocolate and nibbled at a wafer, “I peeped into that room in the old Mission yesterday. The shutter had been replaced but I could see through the cracks. There really wasn’t anything on the table. The candles and crucifix were there, but nothing on the old table—not anything at all. I—I must just have imagined that face.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Florence mysteriously.
“Oh!” exclaimed Lucile suddenly, “You were going to tell me the story that face reminded you of—the story told by an old seaman.”
“I will,” said Florence, “but not tonight. Just look,” she sprang to her feet, “it’s after three o’clock and today is already tomorrow.”
CHAPTER VI
THE BLUE GOD
As Florence returned from her lectures the following afternoon she passed across the end of the lagoon.
Once she had found her skate, lost on the previous night, and thrust it into the bag with her books, she glanced up at the ragged giant of a building which lay sleeping there on its blanket of snow. She felt an almost irresistible desire again to enter and roam about its deserted corridors.
Walking to the corner beneath the broken windows, she glanced to the right and left of her, allowed her gaze to sweep the horizon, then, seeing no one who might observe her actions, she sprang upon the edge of the wall, scaled the grating with the agility of a squirrel, tumbled over the upper window sill and found herself once more inside.
In spite of the fact that it was now broad daylight and would be for an hour, she found her heart fluttering painfully. The experiences of the previous night were all too freshly burned on the tissues of her brain.
As she tiptoed down the balcony, then dropped from step to step to the main floor below, the unpleasant sensations left her. She found herself walking, as she had some years before as a child, in the midst of a throng, exclaiming at every newly discovered monster or thing of delicate beauty. The treasures had long since been removed to newer and more magnificent quarters, but the memory of them lingered.
She was wandering along thus absorbed when her foot touched something. Thinking it but a stray brick or crumbling bit of plaster, she was about to bestow upon it only a passing glance when, with a sudden exclamation, she stooped and picked it up.
The thing at first sight appeared to be but a bundle of soiled silk cloth of a peculiar blue tint. Florence knew, however, that it was more than that, for when her toe had struck it, she had thought it some solid object.
With trembling fingers she tore away the silk threads which bound it, to uncover a curious object of blue stone shaped like a short, squat candlestick. Indeed, there were traces of tallow to be seen in the cuplike hollow at the top of it.
“Looks like it might be blue jade,” she told herself. “If it is, it’s worth something—”
The whisper died on her lips. A thought had come to her, one which made her afraid of the gathering darkness, and caused her to hastily thrust the thing into the pocket of her coat and hurry from the building.
That night, after the dinner dishes were washed, Florence, who had been fumbling with something in the corner, suddenly turned out the lights. Scratching a match, she lighted the half of a candle which she had thrust into the candlestick she had found in the museum.
“Gather round, children,” she sai
d solemnly.
Placing the candle on the floor, she sat down tailor-fashion before it.
“Gather round,” she repeated, “and you shall hear the tale of the strange blue god. It is told best while seated in the floor as the Negontisks sit, with legs crossed. It is told best by the dim and flaring light of a candle.”
“Oh! Good!” exclaimed Lucile, dropping down beside her.
“But where did you get the odd candlestick?” asked Marian as she followed Lucile. “What a strange thing it is; made of some almost transparent blue stone. And see! little faces peer out at you from every angle. It is as if a hundred wicked fairies had been bottled up in it.”
All that Marian had said was true, and even Florence stared at it a long time before she answered:
“Found it in the old museum. Probably left behind when the displays were moved out. I ought to take it down to the new museum and ask them, I guess.”
There was something in Florence’s tone which told Lucile that she herself did not believe half she was saying but she did not give voice to those thoughts. Instead she whispered:
“Come now, let us have the story of the blue god.”
“As the old seaman told it to me,” said Florence, “it was like this: He had been shanghaied by a whaler captain whose ship was to cruise the coast of Arctic Siberia. So cruel and unjust was this captain that the sailor resolved to escape at the first opportunity. That opportunity came one day when he, with others, had been sent ashore on the Asiatic continent somewhere between Korea and Behring Straits.
“Slipping away when no one was looking, he hid on the edge of a rocky cliff until he saw the whaler heave anchor and sail away.
“At first it seemed to him that he had gone from bad to worse; the place appeared to be uninhabited. It was summer, however, and there were solman berries on the tundra and blueberries in the hills. There were an abundance of wild birds’ eggs to be gathered on the ledges. The meat of young birds was tender and good; so he fared well enough.
“But, not forgetting that summer would soon pass and his food supply be gone, he made his way southward until at last he came within sight of the camp fires of a village.
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