The Mystery

IN THE WARDROOM

Over the wardroom of the Wolverine had fallen a silence.  It held after Slade had finished.  Captain Parkinson, stiff and erect in his chair, staring fixedly at a spot two feet above the reporter’s head, seemed to weigh, as a judge weighs, the facts so picturesquely, set forth.  Dr. Trendon, his sturdy frame half in shadow, had slouched far down into himself.  Only the regard of his keen eyes fixed upon Slade’s face, unwaveringly and a bit anxiously, showed that he was thinking of the narrator as well as of the narrative.  The others had fallen completely under the spell of the tale.  They sat, as children in a theatre, absorbed, forgetful of the world around them, wrapped in a more vivid element.  At the close, they stirred and blinked, half dazed by the abrupt fall of the curtain.

Slade had told his story with fire, with something of passion, even.  Now he felt the sharp reflex.  He muttered uncertainly beneath his breath and glanced from one to another of the circled faces.

“That’s all,” he said unsteadily.

There passed through the group a stir and a murmur.  Someone broke into sharp coughing.  Chairs, shoved back, grated on the floor.

“Well, of all the extraordinary—­” began a voice, ruminatingly, and broke short off, as if abashed at its own infraction of the silence.

“That’s all,” repeated Slade, a note of insistence in his voice.  “Why don’t you say something?  Confound you, why don’t you say something?” His speech rose husky and cracked.  “Don’t you believe it?”

“Hold on,” said the surgeon quietly.  “No need to get excited.”

“Oh, well,” muttered the reporter, with a sudden lapse.  “Possibly you think I’m romancing.  It doesn’t matter.  I don’t suppose I’d believe it myself, in your place.”

“But we’re heading for the island,” suggested Forsythe.

“That’s so,” cried Slade.  “Well, that’s all right.  Believe or disbelieve as much as you like.  Only get Percy Darrow off that island.  Then we’ll have his version.  There are a few things I want to find out about, myself.”

“There are several that promise to be fairly interesting,” said Forsythe, under his breath.

Slade turned to the captain.  “Have you any questions to put to me, sir?” he asked formally.

“Just one moment,” interrupted Trendon.  “Boy, a pony of brandy for Mr. Slade.”

The reporter drank the liquor and again turned to Captain Parkinson.

“Only about our men,” said the commanding officer, after a little thought.

Slade shook his head.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you there, sir.”

“Dr. Trendon said that you knew nothing about Edwards.”

“Edwards?” repeated Slade inquiringly.  His mind, still absorbed in the events which he had been relating, groped backward.

Trendon came to his aid.  “Barnett asked you about him, you remember.  It was when you recovered consciousness.  Our ensign.  Took over charge of the Laughing Lass.”

“Oh, of course.  I was a little dazed, I fancy.”

“We put Mr. Edwards aboard when we first picked up the deserted schooner,” explained the captain.

“Pardon me,” said the other.  “My head doesn’t seem to work quite right yet.  Just a moment, please.”  He sat silent, with closed eyes.  “You say you picked up the Laughing Lass.  When?” he asked presently.

“Four—­five—­six days ago, the first time.”

“Then you put out the fire.”

The circle closed in on Slade, with an unconscious hitching forward of chairs.  He had fixed his eyes on the captain.  His mouth worked.  Obviously he was under a tensity of endeavour in keeping his faculties set to the problem.  The surgeon watched him, frowning.

“There was no fire,” said the captain.

Slade leaped in his chair.  “No fire!  But I saw her, I tell you.  When I went overboard she was one living flame!”

“You landed in the small boat.  Knocked you senseless,” said Trendon.  “Concussion of the brain.  Idea of flame might have been a retroactive hallucination.”

“Retroactive rot,” cried the other.  “I beg your pardon, Dr. Trendon.  But if you’d seen her as I saw her—­Barnett!”

He turned in appeal to his old acquaintance.

“There was no fire, Slade,” replied the executive officer gently.  “No sign of fire that we could find, except that the starboard rail was blistered.”

“Oh, that was from the volcano,” said Slade.  “That was nothing.”

“It was all there was,” returned Barnett.

“Just let me run this thing over,” said the free lance slowly.  “You found the schooner.  She wasn’t afire.  She didn’t even seem to have been afire.  You put a crew aboard under your ensign, Edwards.  Storm separated you from her.  You picked her up again deserted.  Is that right?”

“Day before yesterday morning.”

“Then,” cried the other excitedly, “the fire was smouldering all the time.  It broke out and your men took to the water.”

“Impossible,” said Barnett.

“Fiddlesticks!” said the more downright surgeon.

“I hardly think Mr. Edwards would be driven overboard by a fire which did not even scorch his ship,” suggested the captain mildly.

“It drove our lot overboard,” insisted Slade.  “Do you think we were a pack of cowards?  I tell you, when that hellish thing broke loose, you had to go.  It wasn’t fear.  It wasn’t pain.  It was—­What’s the use.  You can’t explain a thing like that.”

“We certainly saw the glow the night Billy Edwards was—­disappeared,” mused Forsythe.

“And again, night before last,” said the captain.

“What’s that!” cried Slade.  “Where is the Laughing Lass?”

“I’d give something pretty to know,” said Barnett.

“Isn’t she in tow?”

“In tow?” said Forsythe.  “No, indeed.  We hadn’t adequate facilities for towing her.  Didn’t you tell him, Mr. Barnett?”

“Where is she, then?” Slade fired the question at them like a cross-examiner.

“Why, we shipped another crew under Ives and McGuire that noon.  We were parted again, and haven’t seen them since.”

“God forgive you!” said the reporter.  “After the warnings you’d had, too.  It was—­it was—­”

“My orders, Mr. Slade,” said Captain Parkinson, with quiet dignity.

“Of course, sir.  I beg your pardon,” returned the other.  “But—­you say you saw the light again?”

“The first night they were out,” said Barnett, in a low voice.

“Then your second crew is with your first crew,” said Slade, shakily.  “And they’re with Thrackles, and Pulz and Solomon, and many another black-hearted scoundrel and brave seaman.  Down there!”

He pointed under foot.  Captain Parkinson rose and went to his cabin.  Slade rose, too, but his knees were unsteady.  He tottered, and but for the swift aid of Barnett’s arm, would have fallen.

“Overdone,” said Dr. Trendon, with some irritation.  “Cost you something in strength.  Foolish performance.  Turn in now.”

Slade tried to protest, but the surgeon would not hear of it, and marched him incontinently to his berth.  Returning, Trendon reported, with growls of discontent, that his patient was in a fever.

“Couldn’t expect anything else,” he fumed.  “Pack of human interrogation points hounding him all over the place.”

“What do you think of his story?” asked Forsythe.

The grizzled surgeon drew out a cigar, lighted it, took three deliberate puffs, turned it about, examined the ash end with concentration, and replied: 

“Man’s telling a straight story.”

“You think it’s all true?” cried Forsythe.

“Humph!” grunted the other. “He thinks it’s all true.”

An orderly appeared and knocked at the captain’s cabin.

“Beg pardon, sir,” they heard him say.  “Mr. Carter would like to know how close in to run.  Volcano’s acting up pretty bad, sir.”

Captain Parkinson went on deck, followed by the rest.