Fire Mountain Part 14

"Way to Fire Mountain! But I don't understand," answered Martin.

"Oh, don't listen to him," interrupted Ruth. "Billy, you shut up! You will have plenty of chance to talk after awhile. Captain, you tell about finding the _Good Luck_."

"Squashed!" sighed Little Billy.

CHAPTER IX

THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SMOKY SEA

"It won't take me long to tell my part of the story," commenced Captain Dabney. "It happened last Summer, up in Bering Sea. I dodged out of the fog-bank, where I had been playing hide-and-seek with the Russian gunboat, and saw the sun for the first time in a week, and at the same time clapped eyes upon Fire Mountain. Ay, I had my eyes then--good eyes, too."

The captain drew his hand across his sightless eyes. He had spoken in the inflectionless voice of the blind, but Martin sensed a note of bitterness, of revolt, in his voice. Ruth patted his shoulder comfortingly, and the old man continued.

"Fire Mountain, lad, is a volcano. It is a volcanic island sticking up out of the water several hundred miles off the Kamchatka coast. But I guess I had better tell you how we came to be in Bering last Summer.

"You know, lad, I am a trader. Fur is a mighty profitable trade, if you can get enough fur, and at reasonable prices, and for the last ten years I have traded every Summer along the Kamchatka and Anadyr coasts.

I have left the seal rookeries alone--they are too well guarded nowadays--and traded with the natives for their furs.

"The Russian Chartered Company has a monopoly of the fur trade in Eastern Siberia, and, like any monopoly, they gouge. They insist upon about five thousand per cent. profit in their dealings with the natives. Naturally, the natives are more than anxious to trade with a free-lance. The Russian Government keeps a little tin-pot gun-boat cruising up and down to prevent poaching, and if you are caught it means the mines for all hands. But, Lord! Any live Yankee can dodge those lubbers. They have chased me every year for ten years, and I have won free every time.

"The last chase they gave me was last August. We sighted the Russian just as we were coming out of a little bay below Cape Ozerni, where I had had business with a tribe of Koriaks. There was a nice little offsh.o.r.e, ten-knot breeze blowing, and we cracked on and made for the fog-bank.

"The fog, you know, lad, is the poachers' salvation in the Bering. In the Summer, the fog lies over the water in banks, either low and thick, or high and thin, caused by the j.a.pan current meeting the Arctic streams. They call those waters the Smoky Seas, sometimes. You don't see the sun for weeks on end.

"This was a low-lying and thick bank we made for, and we slipped into it with the Russian about three mile astern of us. We were safe enough then, though he entered after us. We played a game of 'catch me, Susie,' for three days. It was funny. We had enough wind to drive us at about four knots; the fog was so thick you couldn't see half a cable-length in any direction; and the bank seemed of limitless width.

"We could hear the gunboat's screw miles away, but he couldn't hear us--though we'd give him a blat out of our patent fog-horn every now and then, just to let him know we were still around. Three days he rampaged around, looking for us, and then he gave us up for a bad job.

The second morning after, we slipped out of the western rim of the bank and found ourselves in suns.h.i.+ne, and almost on top of as wicked a looking saw-tooth reef as I ever want to see.

"The reef encircled a mountain that stuck straight up out of the sea for about two thousand feet. It was an old volcano--still smoking. We sailed around it, and on the south side discovered a break in the reef, a little bay bitten narrowly into the mountain, and a beach.

"Well, volcanic islands are common in Bering Sea. But we were interested in this one, both because of its strange appearance, and because it was unmarked on the chart. That last was not so unusual, though. The charts of that section of Bering are mostly guesswork.

"We got a boat over the side, and Little Billy and I were pulled ash.o.r.e, while Ruth kept the brig standing by. I wanted to make a closer inspection of the place, and the landing seemed good.

"The break in the reef was quite wide, and we sounded and found a channel, and good holding ground inside. We landed on a sh.e.l.l and black-sand beach, about forty yards wide at high water, and a couple of hundred long.

"The mountain stuck up sheer in front of us and on either side of the bay. It was full of caves--riddled like a sponge. A strange place!

The mountain sides were overlaid for an unknown depth with black lava, from ancient eruptions; and this lava had hardened and twisted into all manner of shapes, all the way to the still smoking crater. That is what formed the caves--and formed also, tremendous columns, and castles, and animals' heads.

"On the level with the little beach were several cave openings. One was a jutting rock that looked just like an elephant's head carved out of the black lava, and beneath the outflung trunk, was a black opening leading into the mountain. There was the sound of running water from within, and the wind howled like a sabbath of witches. We didn't investigate--no torches. At one end of the beach we found three springs of hot water squirting out of the rock--tasted sulphurous.

"The beach contained quite a bit of driftage, and some old timbers we knew were from a wreck. Then, 'way up on the beach, and behind some big bowlders, we discovered the ribs of a whaleboat, a rust-eaten sheath-knife, and a board that contained part of a s.h.i.+p's name. The lettering was almost effaced; we made out the letters LUC-- and beneath it the word, BEDFORD.

"Well, the discovery of that wreckage told us that we weren't the first to visit the place. The word 'Bedford' was a good clew--it meant that a New Bedford whales.h.i.+p had been there at some time; and the wreckage meant that she had probably been wrecked upon the reef. There was nothing else to be found, though we searched for evidences of castaways. But the wreck had happened a good many years ago, we could tell from the appearance of the whaleboat's remains, and if there had been any castaways, all signs of them had disappeared.

"We snooped around a little bit longer, felt a baby earthquake, and then went back aboard the s.h.i.+p. I marked the location on the chart, and we squared away for the Kamchatka coast. An hour later, the fog shut the smoking mountain from our view and from my mind until Little Billy made his discovery in Honolulu a few months ago.

"Now, Billy, you commence--it is your yarn from now on!"

The captain heaved a contented sigh, settled himself into a listening att.i.tude, and turned his blind face to the hunchback.

CHAPTER X

THE WHALEMAN'S LOG

"My turn to talk?" exclaimed the lively hunchback. "Fine! Talking is my favorite sport. But before I commence, I will show friend Blake, here, Exhibit B."

He reached into the cash-box and drew out a little book. Martin observed that it was apparently a pocket notebook, a cheap, dog-eared thing with cracked cardboard covers. Little Billy held it up before Martin's eyes.

"This is Exhibit B," he continued. "Read this, on the fly-leaf!"

Martin leaned closer and saw written in faded ink on the fly-leaf the inscription,

John Winters, His Log.

Bark _Good Luck_ of New Bedford.

1889.

No. 2.

"Ah, I see your mind is leaping to conclusions!" went on Little Billy, as surmise and understanding flitted across Martin's face. "And correct conclusions, I have no doubt. But before I confirm your suspicions, by reading excerpts from John Winters's Log, I had better tell you how this little book came into our possession.

"So then, let us jump from Bering Sea to Honolulu, and from August to January. My narrative commences with the night I spent in Kim Chee's Chamber of Horrors, while recovering from my semi-annual drunk.

"Oh, don't try to s.h.i.+eld me--" as Ruth attempted to interpose--"Blake may as well be made acquainted with my failing. He would find out anyway."

Martin was taken aback by the violent interjection. A grim cloud rested for a moment on the hunchback's sunny face, and the man looked suddenly aged. Martin saw that Ruth's face was soft with sympathy.

But Little Billy's next words were enlightening.

"Perhaps I could justly pa.s.s the buck to my begettors," he said. "I came into the world handicapped--a crooked back, and a camel's desire and capacity for liquids--alcoholic liquids. I am a periodical drunkard. Every six months, or so, I am constrained by the imp within me to saturate myself with spirits and wallow in the gutter, like a pig in a sty."

"Oh, don't believe him---it is not so bad as that!" cried Ruth.

"It is indeed," a.s.serted Little Billy. "As witness this time, when I fought the 'w.i.l.l.i.e.s' in Kim Chee's rubbish room. It must be admitted, though, that this particular spree had a fruitful ending, for it was in Kim Chee's that I discovered the secret of Fire Mountain. It was this way:

"When we came down from the Bering in September, we sold our furs to a j.a.p syndicate in Hakodate. The captain has dealt regularly with that j.a.p firm--they pay good prices, and ask few questions. Then we left Hakodate on our Winter trip--captain had the idea that he might run across something worth while in the neighborhood of Torres Straits.

But, let me mention in pa.s.sing, before we sailed we s.h.i.+pped a cook. He was a j.a.p named Ichi, an affable little man who couldn't speak very good English, who seemed rather dull-witted for his race. More of him, later on.

"Down South we had the accident, and the captain's eyes were injured.

We made a record pa.s.sage to Honolulu, arrived there the first week in January, and the captain went ash.o.r.e to the hospital. The bosun and I snugged down everything on board, and then I succ.u.mbed to my habit. I went ash.o.r.e and tried to place Honolulu in the dry column by swallowing all the whisky in town. I suppose I had a glorious time--I don't remember much about it. But about a week later I came to one evening in Kim Chee's place, with a dollar and five cents in my pocket, a blazing stomach, and a troupe of goblins affixed to my person as a retinue.