Rosalind at Red Gate Part 44

"The storm blew her out," I suggested, but the sight of the boat, listing badly as though water-logged, struck me ominously.

"We'd better pick her up," he said; and he was already dropping one of the canoes into the water. We paddled swiftly toward the sloop. The lake was still fretful from the storm's las.h.i.+ng, but the sky was without fleck or flaw. The earliest of the little steamers was crossing from the village, her whistle echoing and re-echoing round the lake.

"The sloop's about done for," said Gillespie over his shoulder; and we drove our blades deeper. The _Stiletto_ was floating stern-on and rolling loggily, but retaining still, I thought, something of the sinister air that she had worn on her strange business through those summer days.

"She vent to bed all right; see, her sails are furled snug and everything's in shape. The storm drove her over here," said Gillespie.

"She's struck something, or somebody's smashed her."

It seemed impossible that the storm una.s.sisted had blown her from Battle Orchard across Lake Annandale; but we were now close upon her and seeking for means of getting aboard.

"She's a bit sloppy," observed Gillespie as we swung round and caught hold. The water gurgled drunkenly in the cuddy, and a broken lantern rattled on the deck. I held fast as he climbed over, sending me off a little as he jumped aboard, and I was working back again with the paddle when he cried out in alarm.

As I came alongside he came back to help me, and when he bent over to catch the painter, I saw that his face was white.

"We might have known it," he said. "It's the last and worst that could happen."

Face down across the cuddy lay the body of Henry Holbrook. His water-soaked clothing was torn as though in a fierce struggle. A knife thrust in the side told the story; he had crawled to the cuddy roof to get away from the water and had died there.

"It was the Italian," said Gillespie. "They must have had a row last night after we left them, and if came to this. He chopped a hole in the _Stiletto_ and set her adrift to sink."

I looked about for the steamer, which was backing away from the pier at Port Annandale, and signaled her with my handkerchief. And when I faced Gillespie again he pointed silently toward the lower lake, where a canoe rode the bright water.

Rosalind and her father were on their way from Red Gate to Glenarm.

Two blades flashed in the sun as the canoe came toward us. Gillespie's lips quivered and he tried to speak as he pointed to them; and then we both turned silently toward St. Agatha's, where the chapel tower rose above the green wood.

"Stay and do what is to be done," I said. "I will find Helen and tell her."

THE END