The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile "Sapper". Sapper
in the file—the usual routine paper with regard to an exchange—dated five years ago. He'd refused, or rather had requested to be allowed to stay on. And since I gather there is no vast rush for Corn Reef, I suppose Bill Lambert was only too glad to let him."
Jim shook his head.
"Five years is a long time, Jock," he said gravely. "A very long time. It's far too long for a man to spend in a place like that."
"You think I may find Temple a bit queer?" said MacGregor slowly.
Jim shrugged his shoulders.
"Jock," he said, "I've got a proposal to make to you. Temple doesn't know you, and he doesn't know me. You go as his assistant as you have already decided. I'll go as your new boss who has just taken Lambert's place. Dick can come as a pal of mine. If everything seems all right, well, we shall all have had a very pleasant little trip, and Temple will be none the worse. If, on the other hand, things are not all right—three heads are better than one, Jock."
"Do you mean it, Jim?" said MacGregor. "Will you both come?"
"I do," answered Jim. "And as for Dick—"
"Count me in," I said at once.
"Then I accept your suggestion with the greatest pleasure," said MacGregor. "And to tell you the strict truth, I might add with the greatest relief."
* * * * *
At dawn next morning we started in the supply boat, and of the run to Taba Island I shall say nothing. The first part of it was uninteresting, and the last few miles was so inconceivably beautiful as to defy description. In front of us stretched the belt of islands, with the lighthouse standing up slim and clear-cut straight ahead. On our left lay Taba Island, a riot of tropical vegetation and glorious flowers which reached right down to the water's edge, broken here and there by stretches of golden sand almost dazzling in its brightness.
Between the lighthouse and the island was a line of surf marking Corn Reef; while to the right of the lighthouse lay the deep-water channel of unbroken blue. And as we got nearer we could see the strange structure which marked the position of the bell. It was built out from the side, and it reminded one of those mediaeval galleries which jut out from the walls of old castles into which the defenders used to go to pour burning oil on the gentlemen below. And this bell jutted out in just such a manner on the deep- water channel side of the lighthouse.
"Great Scott!" said Jim, who had been examining it through his field- glasses; "even allowing for pictorial effect, if that fellow passed close enough to see that bell in a fog, I don't wonder he wanted somebody's blood."
And now we were near enough to see the details with the naked eye. On a rough landing-stage at the foot of the lighthouse a man was standing gazing at us fixedly through a telescope, and as we came close he shut it up and awaited us with folded arms. He was dressed in white, and as the boat made fast he might have been carved out of stone: so motionless did he stand. Then he took a step forward, and spoke in a curiously harsh voice.
"Which is my new assistant?"
He was tall and gaunt, with a coarse, straggling beard, and as I looked at him I could conceive no more awful fate than being condemned to spend month after month alone with him.
It was Jim who answered as we had arranged.
"Here is your new assistant—MacGregor," he said, stepping ashore. "And I am your new inspector in place of Mr. Lambert."
"You will find everything in good order, sir," he said quietly, but it was at Jock MacGregor he was staring.
"How comes it that two men have been drowned within such a short time, Temple?" demanded Jim sternly. "There must have been gross carelessness somewhere."
"It is the bell, sir," answered the man, still in the same quiet voice. "When the mist comes down and presses round one's head with soft, clammy fingers it is sometimes difficult to see."
Jim grunted, and eyed the man narrowly.
"Then the bell must be removed," he said, and Temple started violently.
"It is only carelessness, sir, on their parts," he cried. "The bell has never hurt me."
"Well, I will inspect everything," said Jim curtly. "I shall stay here until the supply boat returns the day after tomorrow."
I saw Temple shoot a quick, suspicious glance at him, but he merely nodded and said, "Very good, sir."
Then he glanced towards Taba Island and nodded as if satisfied.
"There will be fog tonight, sir," he remarked. "When the Queen of the Island is crowned in mist at this time of day there is always fog. So you will hear the bell."
He went off to superintend the disposal of his stores, and Jim turned to MacGregor.
"What the devil is he talking about, Jock?" he muttered.
"The Queen of the Island is that hill, old man," answered MacGregor. "I remember seeing it marked on the map."
"He seems a strange sort of bird," said Jim thoughtfully, and MacGregor nodded.
"You're right, Jim," he said. "Though I'm bound to admit that at present he doesn't strike me as anything out of the way. You meet some queer morose customers on this game, you know."
And certainly during the next hour or so there seemed nothing peculiar about Temple. Jim, carefully primed by MacGregor, asked a few leading questions, but for the most part he said nothing and let the other man talk. We examined the mirrors and reflectors; we examined the lamps; but most of all we examined Temple himself. And then we came to the bell.
If it had looked big as we came towards the lighthouse it looked enormous from close to. Built out from the side, it was carried on a steel cantilever arm, while underneath it, about eight feet below, a narrow wooden platform jutted out over the water—a platform some eighteen inches wide. It was but little more than a single plank ten feet long, and as one walked out on it, though the railing on each side made it perfectly safe, it gave one almost a feeling of dizziness.
Above one's head the bell with its motionless clapper; below one's feet the water; and poised between the two the narrow platform—all too narrow for my liking.
"Now was it from here that the two men fell?" demanded Jim, still in his role of inspector.
"Yes, sir," said Temple quietly. "Though I did not see it happen myself. I was inside attending to the mechanism that works the bell."
"And did you make no effort to save them?"
For answer Temple peered over the side for a moment or two— then he pointed downwards without a word. And while I looked I counted three evil shapes glide by in the clear blue depths.
"And when did the last man fall over?" went on Jim. "On what date?"
"On February 24th, sir," said Temple, and MacGregor caught his breath. "In the early morning when the fog was thick. It is entered in my log book."
"Was the bell ringing at the time?" demanded Jim sharply.
"The bell always rings when there is a fog, sir," answered Temple, and Jim glanced at MacGregor, who shook his head imperceptibly. "Would you care to hear it now, and see how it works?"
"Yes," said Jim, "I should."
"There is a heavy weight inside, sir," said Temple, "inside the lighthouse I mean, which works the bell by means of cogged wheels. On the principle, sir, of the weights in a grandfather's clock." His tone was that of a man who is patiently explaining something to a child. "If you will come inside, I will start it."
We followed him in, and he pressed down a lever. Almost', at once the bell began to oscillate, slightly at first, but gradually and steadily increasing in swing, until at length the first deep note rang out as it struck the clapper. The notes came deeper and more resonant, though irregularly for a time, till' at last both clapper and bell settled down to a rhythmic swing. Like a huge pendulum the clapper passed backwards and forwards over the platform outside, while the bell swung down