The Flying Death - Samuel Hopkins Adams (story reading .txt) 📗

unhappy dreamer in such a pang of protest that he came broad awake at once. The wizard fled.

From below, the magic of Helga’s voice rang out, sounding once more, as he had not heard it since Haynes’ death, the vital ring of unconquerable youth, but with a new and deeper undertone.

“Oh-ho! Yo-ho-ho, Everard! Come down! There’s a wreck ashore!”

And the quick answer: “All right! Be with you in a minute.”

Once more Dick’s mind swung back. All was so exactly parallel to the first night he had spent there. But the next instant he was plunging into what garments came readiest to hand. Out into the hall he bolted and came upon Dolly Ravenden and her father so sharply that for a moment his conscience was in abeyance; then, stricken with the recollection of his moment’s madness, he turned away to Everard’s door and caught that impulsive youth’s charge full in the chest.

“You up, Dicky?” cried the younger brother. “And Dolly, too! We’ll have a wreck party?”

“I wouldn’t take it too much as an entertainment, Ev,” said his brother quietly.

“Of course! What a brute I am!” cried Everard contritely. “Not having been here for the other wreck, I forgot all that it brought about. You going with Dolly?”

“I think I’ll go with you and Helga,” said Dick.

“You needn’t,” returned the other so promptly that Dick laughed aloud. “Oh, of course, we’ll be glad to have you,” he continued hastily, “only thought you mean—”

“Never mind, old man. We’ll probably all be together.”

The Ravendens, Helga, her father, and the two Coltons went out together into a night of moonlit glory. A flying cloud-fleet, sailing homeward to port in the eastern heavens, dappled the far-stretched landscape with shadows. The air was keen and clear, with an electrifying quality that made the blood bound faster. Dick felt a wild, inexplicable elation, as if some climax of life were promised by this marvel of the night’s beauty.

His eager glance quested for Dolly. Her eyes met his, and she turned away to her father. Yet there was no anger in her mien: rather a soft confusion and a certain pathetic timidity as she put her hand on Professor Ravenden’s arm, that made Dick’s heart jump. But when he would have gone to her she shrank; and the lover, divining something of her unexpressed plea, turned away to lead the little procession. Once he dropped back to speak to Helga, fearing for the effect of the excitement and the fresh pang of recollection upon her. Like two trustful children, she and Everard were swinging along, hand in hand. The girl’s eyes were wet with tears, but there was an exaltation in her face as she looked at her companion that brought a lump into Dick’s throat.

“Ev,” he said in his brother’s ear, “if you aren’t all that a man could be to her to your last breath, you’ll have me to reckon with!”

The younger man looked at him with shining eyes: “Loyal old Dick!” he said, and laughed unsteadily. “May the gods be as good to you!”

Having reached the cliff summit, the little party had full view of the wreck. In reality it was not a wreck at all: the steamer lay easily on the sand to the west of Graveyard Point, solidly wedged and in no apparent danger. After one long contemplation of the ship and a brief glance at the bright sky, the veteran Johnston delivered himself of his opinion:

“Captain drunk. Mate drunk. Lookout blind drunk. Crew rum-soaked. Cook boiled, and ship’s cat paralysed. It’s the only way they could ‘a’ got her ashore a night like this. And they’re as safe with this wind as if they were in dry-dock.”

He went down to the beach to join the coastguards, whose surf-boat was just returning from the ship, and presently brought the report back to his party in the triumph of corroboration.

“Guess I was about right, except as to the cat,” he said. “They ain’t got any cat aboard; it’s a parrot. We might as well go along home.”

Before the little party had covered one-third of the distance, Dick Colton, profiting by Johnston’s momentary engagement of Professor Ravenden’s attention, moved over to Dolly.

“I don’t know what you will think of me,” he began in a low tone. “I never meant to. It was a moment’s overwhelming folly. Will you forgive me?”

Seemingly the girl paid no attention. Her gaze was fixed on a knoll which rose in front of them.

“Dolly,” implored the young man, “don’t think too harshly of me for a moment’s rashness.”

“Look!” said the girl. “Did you see that?”

“Where? What was it?”

“On that hill almost in front of us. What is a man doing there at this time?”

“The juggler!” exclaimed Dick.

“Yes, I think it was. There! See him moving just under the brow?”

A dark figure travelling low and swift, as of a man doubled over, could be discerned faintly against the waving grasses to the north. A moment more and it disappeared.

The landscape which they overlooked was one of the most broken stretches on all Montauk. It was like an Indian-mound burial-place hugely magnified, with thick patches of vegetation scattered between the mounds. Despite the difficulties of the situation, Dick’s mind was made up at once. They must capture the juggler.

“Ev! Professor! Mr. Johnston!” he called.

The others hurried to him; there was no mistaking the anxiety in his voice.

“Miss Ravenden has just seen a man coming toward us over the downs,” he explained rapidly. “I think it is the juggler. We must get him. Which of you have pistols?”

“Just my luck! I left mine home,” groaned Everard.

“Although I have no firearms, the loaded butt of my capturing net is not a despicable weapon,” said Professor Ravenden, brandishing it scientifically.

Johnston produced a revolver. His own weapon Dick handed to Professor Ravenden, saying:

“I’ll trade for your loaded club. You’re the best shot of us, Professor. Please stay here and guard the girls. Ev, you go to the west along that ridge and keep a sharp lookout. Don’t let him get near enough to throw his knife, but draw him that way if you can. Mr. Johnston, take the east. Don’t shoot unless he attacks you or I call for help. I’ll go down the ravine and stop him.”

Dolly Ravenden started forward.

“Oh, please!” she said tremulously. “Not without a pistol. Oh, Dick!”

“I will be careful,” he said gently, and leaning toward her for the briefest moment: “My darling, oh, my darling!”

Then he was gone. With a business-like air Professor Ravenden examined the weapon Dick had given him, and placed himself in front of the girls. To the east they could see Johnston’s sturdy form, and westward Helga’s brooding eyes now and again glimpsed the buoyant figure of her lover.

“Don’t be afraid, dearest,” he had called back to her. “When it comes to running I can do just as well as the next fellow, and generally better.”

Shadows and patches of oak covered Dick’s course. Five minutes passed, and then came a shout from Johnston. Professor Ravenden walked coolly forward a few paces, raising and lowering his pistol arm as if to make sure that it was well oiled at the joints. At rest it pointed in the direction of Whalley. The juggler was running toward them from the side of the ravine down which Dick had moved. Taking advantage of the land’s broken contour, he had eluded and passed Dick; now he was making straight for them.

“Stand!” called the professor.

It was as if he had not spoken. The juggler approached with no lessening of pace, no swerve from his course.

“Don’t come any farther. Do you want to be shot?”

This time it was Helga’s voice. Whalley checked his rush. His hands clutched at his breast; he strove for utterance against an agonised exhaustion. His arms beating out into the air expressed with shocking vividness a warning of extremest terror. Obviously there was nothing to fear from the man in this mood. Nevertheless, Professor Ravenden held his pistol ready as he went forward.

“Take her—away!” he backed out like a man fighting for utterance in the last stage of strangulation. “Eet—comes. I—haf—seen—eet!”

“Compose yourself, my man,” soothed the professor. “Be calm and explain what has so alarmed you.”

But the juggler only flung up his arms in a wild gesture toward the sky, and dropped.

“We must call in the others,” said Professor Ravenden.

Helga lifted her head and sent her clear and beautiful call rolling across the hills. At the sound the juggler crawled to her feet and brokenly begged her to keep silence. Before they could win an explanation from him Everard’s tall figure came speeding down the hillside, and only half a minute later Dick’s great bulk toiled up through the ravine. Johnston came in last. No sooner had Dick set eyes on the juggler than he advanced upon him.

“You are our prisoner,” he said. “Professor, is he armed?”

“I have not ascertained. He is suffering from an access of unmanning terror, and I believe is not formidable.”

“Anyway,” said Dick, “we had best—”

He broke off as the juggler drew from his belt one of his huge, broad-bladed knives, which he doubtless had cached on the point before his capture.

“Cover him, professor,” cried Dick.

“Do not tak eet away,” begged the man. “We will need eet. I bring eet, for her.” He turned the dog-like adoration of his eyes upon Helga. “She safe my life; I die for her.”

“What the deuce is he talking about?” growled Everard.

“When I hear ze gun of ze sheepwreck, somesing tell me she weel come out. I run here an’,” a strong shudder racked him, “I see eet.”

“That’s all very well,” said Dick sternly. “But you must come with us.”

“Afterward! afterward!” cried the man in an agony of supplication. “Now we hide, teel eet go. Zen I gif you ze knife. Anysing after we make her safe before ze death strike her.”

“This is not all lunacy,” said Dolly Ravenden quickly. “There is some danger he is trying to warn us from.”

Whirling upon her, the wretched juggler threw out his arms in an eloquent gesture.

“You will believe! I am murderer, zey say. So! Yet I come an’ give up to safe her. Is zere not somesing?”

“Anyway, you’ve got to give up that knife,” said Dick.

Tigerish lines came out on the man’s face. “Fools!” he snarled and leaped back, a dangerous animal once more. Again the professor’s gun came up.

“Shoot him!” cried Dick.

“I can’t shoot him in cold blood!” protested the professor

Slowly Everard moved up from the other side. In a moment the test must have come, when a sound between a gasp and a moan turned every face toward Johnston.

“Great God of Wonders!” whispered the old man, and pointed in the face of the glowing moon. One after another the little group turned, caught the vision, and were stricken motionless.

Far in the radiant void, at a distance immeasurable to the estimate, soared terrifically an unknown creature. Its wings, spreading over a huge expanse, bore up with unimaginable lightness a bloated and misshapen body. From a neck that writhed hideously, as a serpent in pain, wavered a knobbed head, terminating in a great bladed beak. With slow sweep it described majestic circles. Always the waving head gave the impression of hopeless search. It was like a foul and monstrous gnat buzzing in futile endeavour at the pale-lit window of the infinite. Suddenly it fell, plunging headlong, then over and over, like a tumbler pigeon, miles and miles, so it seemed, through the empty air, only to bring up with a turn that carried it just above the sea, in a ghastly and