The Secret Mark Part 16

"Pretty far out. I counted five stops after the lights of the city disappeared."

"Listen."

"What is it?"

"Water rus.h.i.+ng along somewhere."

"Might be the river. She said there was one."

"Rivers rush like that in the mountains but not here. Must be the lake sh.o.r.e."

"Hist--"

The child was whispering back at them. "We are coming to the bridge. It's a very long bridge, and spooky. I think we better tiptoe across it, but we mustn't run. The gallopin' goblins'll come after us if we do; besides, there's an old rusty sign on the bridge that says, 'No trotting across the bridge.'"

The next moment they felt a plank surface beneath their feet and knew they were on the bridge. It must have been a very ancient bridge. This road had never been remodelled to fit the need of automobiles. The planks rattled and creaked in an ominous manner in spite of their tiptoeing.

"I wonder how much more there is of it," Florence groaned in a whisper when they had gone on tiptoes for what seemed an endless s.p.a.ce of time.

"If my toes don't break, I'm sure my shoes will."

As for Lucile, she was thinking her own thoughts. She was telling herself that if it were not for the fact that this night's performance gave promise of being a link in the chain of circ.u.mstances which were to be used in dragging the gargoyle's secret from its lair, she would demand that the child turn about and lead them straight back to the city.

Since she had faith that somehow the mystery was to be solved and her many worries and perplexities brought to an end, she tiptoed doggedly on.

And it was well that she did, for the events of this one night were destined to bring about strange and astounding revelations. She was not to see the light of day again before the gargoyle's secret would be fully revealed, but had she known the series of thrilling events which would lead up to that triumphant hour, she would have shrunk back and whispered, "No, no, I can't go all that way."

Often and often we find this true in life; we face seemingly unbearable situations--something is to happen to us, we are to go somewhere, be something different, do some seemingly undoable thing and we say, "We cannot endure it," yet we pa.s.s through it as through a fog to come out smiling on the other side. We are better, happier and stronger for the experience. It was to be so with Lucile.

The bridge was crossed at last. More dark and silent woods came to flank their path. Then out of the distance there loomed great bulks of darker ma.s.ses.

"Mountains, I'd say they were," whispered Lucile, "if it weren't for the fact that I know there are none within five hundred miles."

For a time they trudged along in silence. Then suddenly Florence whispered:

"Oh, I know! Dunes! Sand dunes! Now I know where we are. We are near the lake sh.o.r.e. I was out here somewhere for a week last summer. By day it's wonderful; regular mountains of sand that has been washed up and blown up from the bed of the lake. Some of them are hundreds of feet above the level of the lake. There are trees growing on them and everything."

"But what are we doing out here?"

"I can't guess. There is a wonderful beach everywhere and cottages here and there."

"But it's too late for summer cottages. They must all be closed."

"Yes, of course they must."

Again they trudged on in silence. Now they left the road to strike away across the soft, yielding surface of the sand. They sank in to their ankles. Some of the sand got into their shoes and hurt their feet, but still they trudged on.

The rush of waters on the sh.o.r.e grew louder.

"I love it," Florence whispered. "I like sleeping where I can hear the rush of water. I've slept beside the Arctic Ocean, the Behring Sea and the Pacific. I've slept by the sh.o.r.e of this old lake. Once in the Rocky Mountains I climbed to the timber-line and there slept for five nights in a tent where all night long you could hear the rush of icy water over rocks which were more like a stony stairway than the bed of a stream. It was grand.

"When I am sleeping where I can hear the rush of water I sometimes half awaken at night and imagine I am once more on the sh.o.r.e of the Arctic or in a tent at the timber-line of the Rockies."

While she was whispering this they felt the sand suddenly harden beneath their feet and knew that they had reached the beach.

"You know," the child whispered suddenly and mysteriously back at them, "I don't like beaches at night. I lived by one when I was a very little girl. There was a very, very old woman lived there too. She told me many terrible stories of the sea. And do you know, once she told me something that has made me afraid to be by the sh.o.r.e at night. It makes it spooky."

She suddenly seized Lucile's arm with a grip that hurt while she whispered, "That's why I wanted you to come.

"She told me," she went on, "that old woman told me," Lucile fancied she could see the child's frightened eyes gleaming out of the night, "about the men who were lost at sea; brave seamen who go on s.h.i.+ps and brave soldiers too. Their bodies get washed all about on the bottom of the water; the fishes eat them and by and by they are all gone. But their souls can't be eaten. No sir, no one can eat them. The old woman told me that."

The child paused. Her breath was coming quick. Her grip tightened on Lucile's arm as she whispered:

"And sometimes I'm afraid one of their souls will get washed right up on the sand at night. That's what frightens me so. What do you think it would look like? What do you? Would it be all yellow and fiery like a glowworm or would it be just white, like a sheet?"

"Florence," whispered Lucile, with a s.h.i.+ver, "tell her to be quiet.

She'll drive me mad."

But there was no need. There is much courage to be gained by telling our secret fears to others. The child had apparently relieved her soul of a great burden, for she tramped on once more in silence.

Several moments had pa.s.sed when she suddenly paused before some dark object which stood out above the sand.

"A boat," whispered Lucile.

"If you'll just help me," said the child, "we can push it into the water."

"What for?" Florence asked.

"Why, to go in, of course. It's the only way."

For a moment the two girls stood there undecided. Then Florence whispered:

"Oh, come on. It's not rough. Might as well see it through."

CHAPTER XVI NIGHT VISITORS

A moment later they were listening to the creak of rusty oarlocks and the almost inaudible dip-dip of the oars as the child herself sent the boat out from the beach to bring it half about and skirt the sh.o.r.e.

The boat was some sixteen feet long. A clinker-built craft, it was light and buoyant, but for all that, with three persons aboard, the rowing of it was a tax on the strength of the child's slender arms. To add to her troubles, the water began to rubber up a bit. Small waves came slap-slapping the boat's side. Once a bit of spray broke in Florence's face.

"Here," she whispered, "it's too heavy for you. Let me have the oars, then you tell me which way to go."

"Straight ahead, only not too close in. There's a wall."

"A wall?" Lucile thought to herself. "Sounds like a prison. There's a parole camp out here somewhere. It can't be!" she shuddered. "No, of course not. What would that old man and child have to do with prisons?"