The Haunters of the Silences Part 4

It was something comparatively heavy, that was evident. A moment or two later it came sliding down those treacherous hairs, and fell into the water with a great splash which nearly swept the ant from her refuge.

The new arrival was a bee. And now began a tremendous turmoil within the narrow prison. The bee struggled, whirled around on the surface with thras.h.i.+ng wings, and sent the water swas.h.i.+ng in every direction, till the ant was nearly drowned. She hung to her raft, however, and waited philosophically for the hubbub to subside. At length the bee too, after half a dozen vain and exhausting struggles to climb out against the opposing array of hairs, encountered the body of the dead moth.

Instantly she tried to raise herself upon it, so as to escape the chill of the water and dry her wings for flight. But she was too heavy. The moth sank, and rolled over, at the same time being thrust against the wall of the pitcher. The ant, in high indignation clutched a bundle of the hostile hairs in her mandibles, and held herself at anchor against the wall.

Thoroughly used up, and stupid with panic and chill, the bee kept on futilely grappling with the moth's body, which, in its turn, kept on sinking and rolling beneath her. A very few minutes of such disastrous folly sufficed to end the struggle, and soon the bee was floating, drowned and motionless, beside the moth. Then the ant, with satisfaction, returned to her refuge.

When things get started happening, they are quite apt to keep it up for awhile, as if events invited events. A large hunting spider, creeping among the gra.s.s and weeds, discovered the handsome cl.u.s.ter of the sarracenia. She was one of the few creatures who had learned the secret of the pitcher-plant and knew how to turn it to account. More than once had she found easy prey in some trapped insect struggling near the top of a well-filled pitcher.

Selecting the largest pitcher as the one most likely to yield results, the spider climbed its stem. Then she mounted the bright swell of the pitcher itself, whose smooth outer surface offered no obstacle to such visitors. The pitcher swayed and bowed. The water within washed heavily.

And the ant, with new alarm, marked the big, black shadow of the spider creeping up the outside of her prison.

Having reached the lip of the leaf and cautiously crawled over upon it, the spider took no risks with those traitor hairs. She threw two or three stout cables of web across the lip; and then, with this secure anchorage by which to pull herself back, she ventured fearlessly down the steep of that perilous throat. One hooked claw, outstretched behind her, held aloft the cable which exuded from her spinnerets as she moved.

On the extreme of the slope she stopped, and her red, jewelled cl.u.s.ter of eyes glared fiercely down upon the little black ant. The latter shrank and crouched, and tried to hide herself under the side of the dead moth to escape the light of those baleful eyes. This new peril was one which appalled her far more than all the others she had encountered.

At this most critical of all crises in the destiny of the little black ant, the fickle Fortune of the Wild was seized with another whim. An overwhelming cataclysm descended suddenly upon the tiny world of the pitcher-plant. The soft, furry feet of some bounding monster--rabbit, fox, or wildcat--came down amongst the cl.u.s.tered pitchers, crus.h.i.+ng several to bits and scattering wide the contents of all the rest. Among these latter was that which contained the little black ant. Drenched, astonished, but unhurt, she found herself lying in a tuft of splashed gra.s.s, once more free. Above her, on a gra.s.s-top, clung the bewildered spider. As it hung there, conspicuous to all the foraging world, a great black-and-yellow wasp pounced upon it, stung it into helplessness, and carried it off on heavily humming wing.

The Prowlers

Heeling under a stiff breeze, the sloop rose joyously to the long Caribbean rollers. Soon after midnight Mahoney awoke. He went to the tiller at once, and let the stalwart Jamaican n.i.g.g.e.r, who const.i.tuted his crew, take a turn of sleep. The wind was steady, the sea was clear, there was no island, reef, or shoal between himself and Cuba, and Mahoney had little to do but hold the tiller and dream. Presently clouds gathered, obscuring the moon, and thickened till the light which filtered through them was rather a deceit than an illumination. Far-off waves seemed close at hand, and waves so near they were about to break over the bow appeared remote. Strange shapes made and unmade themselves among the s.h.i.+fting surfaces, dark, solid forms which melted into flowing, hissing water. Mahoney's eyes amused themselves with these fantastic wave-shadows and phantoms of the fluent deep. Then, suddenly, one of the dark, submerged shapes broke the rules of the game. It refused to melt and flow. With a gasp Mahoney jammed his helm hard round, and let go his sheet on the run. There was a shuddering shock.

The boat reared, like a frightened horse struggling to climb a bank.

Then, with a kind of sickening deliberation, she turned clean over.

There was a choking yell from the rudely awakened darky; and Mahoney found himself plunged into the smother of the broken waves.

When he came to the surface and shook the water out of his eyes, Mahoney clutched the stern and pulled himself up to see what had happened. He had run upon a huge fragment of a broken-up wreck. From the heavy, steady motion, he concluded that the boat was caught on a sunken portion of the wreck. Some fifteen feet away a s.p.a.ce of deck, with a few feet of bulwarks, rose just clear of the waves. This seemed to offer a less precarious refuge than the keel to which he was clinging. He slipped back into the waves, struck out hurriedly, and dragged himself up to the highest point of the wet deck. Here, holding to the broken bulwarks, he peered about for his a.s.sistant. Taking for granted that the negro, whom he knew to be a magnificent swimmer, was clinging to the other side of the boat, he shouted to him, with angry solicitude, but got no answer.

It was incomprehensible. Starting to his feet he was about to plunge again into the smother and swim around the boat. Then he checked himself. Such a step was obviously futile. If the negro had been there, he would have lost no time in clambering out upon the bottom of the boat. There was a mystery in that sudden and complete disappearance.

With a s.h.i.+ver Mahoney crouched down again and clutched the lurching bulwarks.

He had plenty of time now to think. He cursed himself bitterly for the rash impatience which had driven him to attempt the journey from Kingston to Santiago in a little sloop, instead of waiting for the regular steamer, just because he feared the rebellion might fizzle out before he could get there to make a story of it. His folly had cost the n.i.g.g.e.r's life, at least; and the account was not yet closed! Well, the n.i.g.g.e.r was gone, poor beggar. His black hide had enclosed a man, all right; but there was no use worrying over him. The question was, how soon would a s.h.i.+p come along? This was a frequented sea, more or less.

But the wreck was almost level with the water, and lamentably inconspicuous. Mahoney knew that unless he were picked up right soon the tropic sun would drive him mad with thirst. He knew, too, that if any sort of a wind should blow up, he would promptly have forced upon him that knowledge of the other world which he was not yet ready to acquire.

It was clear that he must find some means of flying a signal. He decided that when daylight came he would dive under the upturned boat, cut away either the gaff or the boom, lash it to the bulwarks, and hoist his s.h.i.+rt upon it as a flag of distress.

Just before dawn the breeze died away. By the time the east had begun to flame, and thin washes of red-orange to mottle the sky fantastically, the long swells were as smooth as gla.s.s. Mahoney was impatient to get up his flagstaff, but he wanted plenty of light. He waited until the sky was blue, the sun clear of the horizon. Then he stood up, set the hilt of his knife between his teeth, and prepared to plunge in. Before doing so, however, he instinctively scanned the water all about him. Then he removed the knife from his mouth and stared.

"That accounts for it!" he muttered, his teeth baring themselves with a snarl of loathing as he thrust the knife back into his belt and sat down again. Just behind him, and not a dozen feet away, a gigantic, triangular black fin was slowly cleaving the swells.

There being nothing else to do, Mahoney occupied himself in watching that great dorsal, as it prowled slowly this way and that. Such a fin, he calculated, must mean a bigger shark than any that had hitherto come within his range of observation. He had a righteous hatred of all sharks, but this one in particular sickened him with vindictive loathing. He knew how lately, and how horridly, it had fed; yet here it was as ravenous as ever. Presently it sank out of sight, and was gone for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Then, on a sudden, there was the devilish black fin again, vigilant and deliberate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LAY MOTIONLESS BUT FOR THE EASY WAVING OF ITS FINS."]

As the sun rose, and the light fell more steeply, the dazzling reflections disappeared and Mahoney could look down into the transparent blue-green depths. He saw that the wreck on which he had taken refuge was an old one, long adrift in the teeming tropic seas. Its under edges carried a dense, waving fringe of barnacles and coloured weed, swarming with sea-creatures. In its shadow life crowded riotously, and death held easy revel. Among the looser fringes of the barnacle growth swam fish of the smaller species, many of them flas.h.i.+ng with the radiance of sapphire and topaz, or shooting like pink flames. Hither and thither darted a small school of blue and gold bonito, insatiable and swift, s.n.a.t.c.hing down their prey from among the tips of the barnacles.

About six feet below the barnacles a cavernous-jawed barracouta, perhaps five feet long, lay motionless but for the easy waving of its fins. It must have been gorged, for Mahoney, in all his seafaring, had never before seen one of these ravenous and ferocious fish thus at rest. It must even have, for once, lapsed into something like sleep,--a perilous lapse in the strenuous life of the sea, for anything less formidable than a sperm whale or an orca, and not without its dangers even for them. Its wide-set, staring eyes seemed to command a view in every direction. Yet they did not see a huge, spectral form rise smoothly from below, turning belly upward with a sudden green-white gleam. Then, the barracouta's powerful tail twisted with a violence that sent the water swirling as from a screw. But it was too late. The shark's triangular jaws snapped upon their prey, biting the big fish in halves. The two pieces were bolted instantly, as a hungry man bolts a "bluepoint." And the shark--the biggest "man-eater" that Mahoney had ever seen--sank slowly out of sight, to reappear at the surface again in five minutes as ravenous as ever.

By this time it was beginning to get hot, there on the shelterless wreck. A small steamer pa.s.sed in the distance. Mahoney tore off his s.h.i.+rt and waved it wildly, on the chance that some one on the steamer might at that moment have a telescope pointed in his direction. The steamer went its way. Mahoney put on his s.h.i.+rt again, and wished he had not lost his hat. He had a handkerchief, however, and this he wound upon the top of his head like a turban. By wetting it frequently he kept his head and neck cool. As the morning wore on, no fewer than five sails appeared on the horizon, but none came near enough even to excite a thrill of hope. Since there was nothing better to do, Mahoney was wise enough to keep as still as possible, watching the strange life that went on beneath his refuge, and splas.h.i.+ng water over himself from time to time that his skin might absorb some of the liquid, and so the dreaded torment of thirst be a little postponed.

The blazing sun dragged slowly past the zenith, indifferent to Mahoney's maledictions. Along in the afternoon a three-masted schooner hove in sight. There was not enough wind, now, to ruffle the tops of the swells; but there was some breeze up aloft, apparently, and the schooner, with all her canvas spread, was catching it, for she moved along at a brisk pace. Her course brought her so near that Mahoney tore off his s.h.i.+rt in trembling anxiety and waved it at arm's length, jumping as high as he could in the struggle to make himself conspicuous. Finding this fruitless, he then tied the s.h.i.+rt to the sleeves of his white duck coat, making a long streamer, which he thought the lookout could not fail to see. Notwithstanding all this frantic effort the schooner sailed on unheeding. From its decks the waving white streamer, if seen at all, would have looked like nothing more than an agitated streak of foam. But to Mahoney it seemed that he was being wantonly and brutally ignored.

With a pang he realized that his excitement and his effort had accomplished but one thing. They had brought on the thirst! His throat was parching. He had an impulse to break out into a volley of hysterical curses against the retreating s.h.i.+p. But his self-respect withheld him. Leaning over the bulwarks, he murmured to the great green prowling shape of his submarine jailer:

"You're no worse than lots of men, you ain't, d.a.m.n you!"

As if in answer to this equivocal compliment the shark sailed in to within a little more than arm's length of the bulwark, and looked up at Mahoney with cold, malignant eyes. Mahoney kicked at him hysterically, then turned away and drenched himself where the little waves ran up shallow over the slope of the deck. The cool of the water on his skin, particularly on his throat and wrists, did actually, though slightly, ease his thirst.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ONLY THAT SHARP BLACK FIN, THAT PROWLED AND PROWLED, KEPT ALWAYS IN SIGHT"]

The night fell windless and clear; and for a time, so black were the s.h.i.+fting reflections on the swells, so confusing the phosph.o.r.escent gleams that shot up through the waters, that Mahoney could no longer see the stealthy prowling of the great black fin. Las.h.i.+ng himself to the bulwark by the sleeves of his s.h.i.+rt, he s.n.a.t.c.hed an hour or two of troubled sleep. Once he woke with a shock of disappointment from a dream that the bottom had fallen out of a jug of water which he was just raising to his lips. Again he started up shouting, and struggling fiercely with the bonds that held him safely to the bulwark. He had dreamed that a glittering white steam-yacht was speeding close past his refuge,--so close that he had to look up at her rail,--yet the people on her deck most unaccountably failing to see him. From this waking he fell back weak and hopeless, and it was some minutes before he could get his nerves under their wonted cool control. He had no longer any desire for sleep, so he devoted himself again to soaking his wrists in the water and letting the lambent phosph.o.r.escence stream through his fingers.

At last the moon rose over the waste of sea. Across the s.h.i.+mmering silver pathway of its light sailed a far-off s.h.i.+p, small and black.

Mahoney gazed at it with longing. An hour or two later another s.h.i.+p crossed the radiant pathway. But none came near the wreck. Only that sharp black fin, that prowled and prowled, kept always in sight, always near, till Mahoney began to wonder if it were really possible that the tireless monster would get him in the end. He registered a vow that if he should find himself growing delirious with thirst he would lash himself so securely to the bulwark that, come what might, the shark should never get his body. Comforted by this resolve, and the torment of his thirst mitigated a trifle by a drenching in the brine, Mahoney fell asleep again, and did not wake till the sun was streaming savagely on his face.

Untying himself from the bulwark, Mahoney stared about him wildly. A tall-masted brig, with royal and topgallant sails drawing full, was retreating in the distance. Apparently, it had pa.s.sed not far from the wreck. Mahoney cursed himself wildly for having allowed himself to fall asleep. This had been perhaps, his one chance. No other sail was in sight. There was nothing but a wisp of smoke on the horizon, betraying the pa.s.sage of an unseen steamer. Mahoney found that he was babbling to himself about it, and the realization shocked him. He shook himself, pulled his courage and his nerve together sharply, then took off his clothes and splashed himself with water from head to foot. It was certain that his thirsty skin must absorb a good share of the liquid so generously applied to it; and thus a.s.suring himself, his thirst became, or seemed to become less intolerable. When he had dressed again,--leaving off his s.h.i.+rt, which he kept tied to the bulwark ready for instant use,--he leaned over and peered down into the smooth water to look for the shark.

Grim and spectral, the great shape was just in sight, rising with strange indolence toward the surface. Evidently, some good-sized victim had just been devoured. The shark came to rest within a few inches of the surface, where the sun could warm its rough back through the thin barrier of the water. There it lay, apparently basking, with the content of one that has well dined. The complacent malignity of its eyes, which seemed to meet the man's eyes with a peculiarly confident menace, filled Mahoney with rage. He tore savagely at the bulwarks, in a foolish attempt to provide himself with a missile.

In the midst of this futile effort, Mahoney chanced to drop his glance into the depths. There he caught sight of something that arrested him, making him forget for the moment even the tortures of his thirst. In the deepest green, at the very confines of his vision, a gigantic shape came faintly into view. It stirred, and grew more distinct. Motionless he peered down upon it, striving to make out what it was. His sea lore, more abundant than exact, did not inform him as to whether or not the shark had any enemies to fear; but his imagination, always finding free play in the mysteries of the deep sea, was hospitably ready for any marvel. With fantastic expectancy he watched the sinister form of the strange creature, as it slowly, and stealthily floated upward.

Presently he recognized it, having caught glimpse of its like once before in a deep lagoon of the Ladrones. It was not altogether dissimilar to the great shark basking above it, but slenderer in build, and with a pair of curious lateral fins outspread like broad, blunt wings. The most conspicuous difference was in its head, which was broad and blunt like the fins, and armed with a kind of two-edged saw, perhaps eight inches in width, projecting from its snout to a length of about four feet. The tip of the saw looked as if it had been chopped off square. Down both edges ran a series of keen, raking teeth. It was the mysterious and dreadful sawfish, perpetrator of fabulous horrors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DIRECTLY BENEATH THE SHARK THE STRANGER CAME."]

Mahoney was afraid to move a muscle, lest he should arouse the shark and put it on its guard. The eyes of the stranger stared up with a dead coldness at the bulk of the sleeping monster on the surface. More rapidly now, but still almost without movement of fin or tail, the ominous form rose through the transparent flood, till Mahoney could fairly count the teeth on its awkward-looking but hideous weapon.

Directly beneath the shark the stranger came, till at last there was no more than the s.p.a.ce of a few feet between the two giant shapes. And still the shark slumbered. Mahoney held his breath. Then the sawfish rolled over on its side, turning one edge of the saw toward the surface.

For an instant it hung so, poised and still. Then the fins and flukes heaved together, the long bulk shot forward and upward, and the living saw cut straight across the belly of the shark, deeply and cleanly, under the urge of that tremendous thrust.

Mahoney cried out, shuddering at the horrible and unexpected sight. The shark was completely disembowelled. With a gigantic convulsion it sprang almost clear of the water, which was instantly dyed with blood. Mahoney now looked for a battle of t.i.tans to follow. But in truth the battle was already over. The victim made no attempt at retaliation. It did not even seem to see its foe, or to know what had stricken it. For a few seconds it lashed the surface convulsively. Then it dived, plunging straight downward to die unseen in some rayless cavern of the deeps.

With a leisurely zest which turned Mahoney sick, the monster guzzled its meal, then swam up and nosed inquiringly along the fringe of barnacles.

Nothing there seeming to interest him, he turned with a disdainful sweep of his huge flukes and bored his way slowly downwards toward the unknown deep whence he had so mysteriously come. Unstirring, held fast as if in a hideous dream, Mahoney watched the dull gray-black form grow green, and spectral, and faint till at last it vanished. For a brief s.p.a.ce he continued to stare after it, picturing it in his fevered imagination when it had sunk far beyond any reach of sight. At last, as if tearing himself free from a horrid spell, he drew a long breath and lifted his eyes to the horizon.

There, in full view, but too far away to notice such a speck among the waves as Mahoney on his bit of wreck, was a small freight-boat, steaming past at a leisurely pace. Mahoney was himself in an instant. He realized that the sawfish had freed him from his dreadful jailer. With his knife between his teeth he dived beneath the upturned sloop and fell to cutting ropes and las.h.i.+ngs with a cool but savage haste. In half a minute he reappeared, gasping, but not discouraged. After two or three deep breaths he dived again, and this time when he came up, he brought the long slender pole of the gaff with him. With frantic eagerness he hoisted the white pennon of his s.h.i.+rt and coat, thanking Heaven that the gaff was so long. He was about to lash the pole to the bulwarks with his belt, when he remembered that there was not wind enough to run out the signal. Lifting it in both hands as high as he could, he waved the flag wildly over his head in great arcs and sudden violent dips. Would the lookout on the steamer see? Or seeing, would he understand? Mahoney felt his strength suddenly failing, as a wave of despair sucked up at his heart. It was all he could do to keep the signal moving. Then, at last, he saw that the long line of the steamer's broadside was shortening.

Yes,--she was coming, she was coming. Tremblingly, with fingers that fumbled, he lashed the staff to the bulwark, and sank panting upon the deck.

A Stranger to the Wild

As the vessel, a big three-masted schooner, struck again and lurched forward, grinding heavily, she cleared the reef by somewhat more than half her length. Then her back broke. The ma.s.sive swells, pounding upon her from the rear, overwhelmed her stern and crushed it down inescapably upon the rock; and her forward half, hanging in ten fathoms, began to settle sickeningly into the loud hiss and chaos. Around the reef, around the doomed schooner, the lead-coloured fog hung thick, impenetrable at half a s.h.i.+p's length. Her crew, cool, swift, ready,--they were Gaspe and New Brunswick fishermen, for the most part,--kept grim silence, and took the sharp orders that came to them like gunshots through the din. The boats were cleared away forward, where the settling of the bow gave some poor shelter.

At this moment the fog lifted, vanis.h.i.+ng swiftly like a breath from the face of a mirror. Straight ahead, not two miles away, loomed a high, black, menacing sh.o.r.e--black, scarred rock, with black woods along its crest and a sharp, white line of surf shuddering along its base. Between that sh.o.r.e and the shattered schooner lay many other reefs, whereon the swells boiled white and broke in dull thunder; but off to the southward was clear water, and safety for the boats. At a glance the captain recognized the land as a cape on the south coast of the Gaspe peninsula, so far from her course had the doomed schooner been driven. Five minutes more, and the loaded boats, hurled up from the seething caldron behind the reef, swung out triumphantly on a long, oil-dark swell, and gained the comparative safety of the open. Hardly had they done so when the broken bow of the schooner, with a final rending of timbers, settled in what seemed like a sudden hurry, pitched nose downward into the smother, and sank with a huge, startling sigh. The rear half of the hull was left lodged upon the reef, a kind of gaping cavern, with the surf plunging over it in cataracts, and a mad mob of boxes, bales, and wine-casks tumbling out from its black depths.

Presently the torrent ceased. Then, in the yawning gloom, appeared the head and fore-quarters of a white horse, mane streaming, eyes starting with frantic terror at the terrific scene that met them. The vision sank back instantly into the darkness. A moment later a vast surge, mightier than any which had gone before, engulfed the reef. Its gigantic front lifted the remnant of the wreck half-way across the barrier, tipping it forward, and letting it down with a final shattering crash; and the white horse, hurled violently forth, sank deep into the tumult behind the reef.

The schooner which had fallen on such sudden doom among the St. Lawrence reefs had sailed from Oporto with a cargo, chiefly wine, for Quebec.

Driven far south of her course by a terrific northeaster roaring down from Labrador, she had run into a fog as the wind fell, and been swept to her fate in the grip of an unknown tide-drift. On board, as it chanced, travelling as an honoured pa.s.senger, was a finely bred, white Spanish stallion of Barb descent, who had been s.h.i.+pped to Canada by one of the heads of the great house of Robin, those fis.h.i.+ng-princes of Gaspe. When the vessel struck, and it was seen that her fate was imminent and inevitable, the captain had loosed the beautiful stallion from his stall, that at the last he might at least have a chance to fight his own fight for life. And so it came about that, partly through his own agile alertness, partly by the singular favour of fortune, he had avoided getting his slim legs broken in the hideous upheaval and confusion of the wreck.