The Man Who Ended War. Godfrey Hollis
ten miles back, I reckon,” came the answer.
He knew no more than that, and the interchange over, I turned to Dorothy.
“Shall we run that clue down?” I asked.
She nodded decisively. “By all means,” she said. “It’s the only one we have. Send the Arrow inshore, will you, Tom, on a long slant?”
Once more the engine took up its racing speed, as the boat bore down on the shore. As we went in, we changed the questions, and asked the few boats we met if they had picked up a man. At last we saw a catboat just sailing out of a little bay, and bore down on it. A man and a boy sat in the stern. As I shouted my question once more, the man jumped up.
“Yes, we picked one up.”
“Where is he?” I shouted.
“At my house, but he’s crazy,” replied the man.
“Can we get in there with the yacht?”
“No, but I can take you in,” he answered, and it was but a moment’s work to lower a boat from the davits. As I stepped to the side, Tom and Dorothy hurried up.
“We’re going, too,” Tom cried.
The launch bore us rapidly across to the catboat, and as we approached, I studied the faces of the man and the boy. They were simple folk, of evidently limited intelligence. Hardly had we come alongside, when I began my questions, and a strange story came in reply. Stripped of its vernacular and repetitions, this was the tale finally dragged from the man and boy, as we sailed towards the shore.
They had started out in the early morning and had fished with some success. In the afternoon, they had seen a knockabout running free before the wind, with all sorts of strange action. The sail widespread, she turned and reared, started and checked, swung and circled. There was no sign of life on board that they could ascertain, and they made up their minds that the boat had either lost its occupants or had been driven offshore with its sail hoisted. On boarding, much to their surprise, they found a man, apparently a solitary fisherman, lying unconscious in the stern sheets. Throwing water over him roused him. He sat up and looked around, but with unseeing eyes. His lips quivered, and in a low whisper he began to speak. “Disappeared, disappeared, disappeared. Nothing real, nothing real.” Rising, he started to walk straight ahead, but struck the side and fell. His murmur now changed to a loud moan. “Disappeared, disappeared, disappeared. Nothing real, nothing real.” Again he tried to walk, but this time they caught him, bound him, and carried him to shore, to their house, where he went quietly enough to bed, with the unceasing moan. “Disappeared, disappeared, disappeared. Nothing real, nothing real,” rising and falling like the waves on the shore.
The story had taken all the way in, and as we rowed towards shore, leaving the catboat and launch at the mooring where the knockabout lay, the night was swiftly shutting in. A light glimmered in a low house on the bluff.
“That’s my house,” said the man, as we hastened towards it. A woman with a kindly face met us at the door.
“Wife, these are some folks that are looking for the crazy man,” said our friend.
“He’s fast asleep,” was the answer, “but you can go in and see him, if you want to.”
My heart rose. The second step of my quest was in sight.
“Tom,” I said quietly, “come along with me. Miss Haldane, will you remain here?”
Dorothy nodded. Tom and I followed the woman as she passed down a narrow passage. Opening a rude door, she entered. In front of the bed, she stopped short and threw up her hands. “For the land’s sake,” she cried. “He’s gone!”
Gone! The word echoed dismally in my brain.
“Wait till I get a lamp,” said the woman, and she pattered nervously out.
By the fading light, we could see the disordered bed, the open window, and an overturned chair. A glimmer of light came down the passage, and the woman hurried back, followed by Dorothy. No more information could be gleaned. Evidently the lost man had risen, dressed completely, and left by the low open window. The woman of the house was in great distress, weeping and rocking. “The poor crazy man, lost in these woods. He was as harmless as anything. I thought he was all right.”
Dorothy sat down beside her, and, soothing her, began a series of quiet questions. “How long did you leave him?”
“An hour or more.” She had been doing the supper dishes. Dorothy turned to the husband.
“What roads are there from here?”
“Only one for a mile. That goes from the front of the house.”
The woman broke in. “If he’d taken that, I’d have seen him. He’d have gone by my window. He must have gone to the shore or the woods.”
“There’s no use waiting. He’s only getting farther away from us,” cried Tom. “Let’s look around the house.”
Our fisher friend had two lanterns and a kerosene light. With these, we began the search. The sand and rock around the house gave no sign of footprints, and we passed out in widening circles, meeting and calling without avail. A half hour’s exploration left us just where we started. We had found nothing. Turning back, we met Dorothy at the door.
“I was afraid you would find nothing,” she said. “I’ve just found out that he said one thing beside the sentence which he continually repeated. Once he said, ‘The sea, the sea, the awful sea.’ I believe he has gone to the shore.”
Together, we went in that direction. Tom and the fisherman took one way, Dorothy and I the other. As we hastened on, the light of the lantern threw circles of hazy light on the black water and on the shore. Dorothy, in the depths of thought, walked on a little in advance, and, despite myself, my thoughts turned from the man I sought and the errand for which I sought him, and I gazed wholly at the round cheek shaded by a flying tress that escaped from the close veil, and at the erect figure, now stooping to look ahead, now rising and passing on in deep thought. The same thrill which had held me the first night came again, that binding call, that tightening chain. I lost myself in a dreamy exhilaration.
Suddenly, Dorothy stopped. “It’s no use to go farther.”
Obediently I turned, and we retraced our steps. Just below the house, we met Tom and the fisherman, returned from an equally unavailing search. We all four stood gazing out to sea where the Black Arrow lay, her lights the sole gemmed relief of the dark waters, save where her search-light blazed a widening path of changing silver before her. All at once I saw Dorothy raise her head with a quick breath.
“If he’s on the shore, I know how we can find him, no matter what start he has.”
CHAPTER III
We waited anxiously for her next words.
“The search-light of the Arrow will do it. We can run the launch along the coast twice as fast as a man can walk or run, and play the search-light of the yacht on the shore as we go.”
Though simplicity itself, it was the only plan that promised success, and it took but little time to put it into operation. The fisherman volunteered as pilot, and while Tom went back in the launch to give instructions to the captain, we waited in the darkness of the little bay, holding our lights as beacons. The night, without a single star, but darkly showed the lapping waves and sighing pines which made the background of our tiny, rocky amphitheatre. Tom had not covered half the distance to the yacht, when we heard his hail, and the search-light swung at right angles, limning the launch speeding from the shore in a lane of light. We watched them till they reached the shadow of the side. There was a brief interval before we saw the launch returning down the silvery way, but, as she neared us, to our surprise we saw Tom was not there. In his stead came the first officer, who touched his cap, and said, “Mr. Haldane will stay on the yacht and run the search-light, and has asked me to run the launch.”
It was but the work of a moment to embark, and the boat headed out of the cove towards the north, the side agreed upon with Tom. Up in the prow