Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ Helga wore an expression of piteous bewilderment; Dick Colton’s teeth were set hard; and Dolly Ravenden’s dark beauty glowed with suppressed wrath. To the surprise of all, as the minister closed, Professor Ravenden got to his feet hesitantly and nervously.
“My friends,” he said, “before we part I wish to add a slight tribute to what little we may say of the dead. For me to speak to you of his qualifications of mind and character would be an impertinence. But as a follower of what we call science I have one word to speak.
“To see the truth, exact and clear, is given to no human. ”

“ The sun had just risen above the cloudbank. Black, on the shining glory of the beach, a man lay sprawled grotesquely. It was almost at the spot where Serdholm had been found. Though the face was hidden and the posture distorted, Everard knew him instantly for Haynes, and as instantly knew that he was dead. He ran forward and bent over the body.
Haynes had been struck opposite the gully, by a weapon driven with fearful impetus between his ribs from the back, piercing his heart. A dozen staggering prints showed where he had plunged forward before he fell. ”

“ Presently the four people from Third House stood on the cliff overhanging the sledge-hammer surf, and watched the life-saving crews of two stations, Bow Hill to the east, Sand Spit to the west, play their desperate game for a hazard of human lives. Straining their eyes, they could discern, in the whiteness of the whipped seas, a dull, undefined lump, which ever and anon flashed, like a magician’s trick, into the clean, pencilled outlines of a schooner, lying on her beam ends, and swept by every giant comber that rolled in from the wide Atlantic. ”

“ Already he had attained the gully’s edge, when there moved out upon the hard sand a thing so out of all conception, an apparition so monstrous, that the professor’s net fell from his hand, and a loud cry burst from him. Through the enveloping medium of the mist, the figure swayed vaguely, and assumed shapes beyond comprehension. Suddenly it doubled on itself, contracted to a compact blur, underwent a swift inversion, and before the scientist’s straining vision there arose a man, dreadful of aspect indeed, but still a human being, and as such, not beyond human powers to cope with. ”

“ The talons were turned in the direction opposite to the first spoor. From the body of Serdholm to the soft sand stretched the unbroken lines. Nowhere else within a radius of many yards was there any other indication. The sand lay blank as a white sheet of paper; as blank as the observer’s mind, which struggled with one stupefying thought: that between the body of the dead life-saver and the refuge of the cliff no creature had passed except one that stalked on monstrous, taloned feet.
Sitting down upon the beach, Haynes reasoned with himself aloud: “This thing,” he said, “cannot be so. ”

“ THE CRY IN THE DUSK MONTAUK POINT rises and falls like a procession of mighty swells fixed in eternal quietude and grown over with the most luxurious of grasses and field-blooms. One walks from hill to hill, passing between the down-curving slopes to hollows wherein flourish all-but-impenetrable thickets of the stunted scrub-oak, and abruptly walks forth upon a noble cliff-line overlooking the limitless ocean to the far-off southern horizon. Steep and narrow gullies at intervals give rock-studded access to the beach. ”

“ Shouting aloud, he swung up the formidable weapon and brought it down upon the juggler’s head with repeated blows. The man’s grasp relaxed. Back for a fuller swing Professor Ravenden leaped, and crushed him to the ground. The thick glass was shattered, and on the blood-stained sands a little spot of heaven’s blue fluttered in the breeze, instantly to be trampled under foot.
Suddenly the scientist swayed and lurched forward. An influence as potent for death as the most murderous weapons of man was abroad, loosed when the glass shattered. ”

“ A certain feminine exasperation against herself was illogically and perversely turned upon Dick Colton as he strode around the corner of the piazza. The experienced wager of love-tilts might have interpreted the expression she turned to him, and have fled the stricken field. Poor Dick was the merest novice. His attitude toward women had always been much the same as toward men, varying in degree according to the charm or quality of the individual, but all of a kind, until he had encountered Dolly Ravenden. ”

“ Almost before he knew it he had reached the beach and was approaching Graveyard Point. Coming around a jut in the cliff he was amazed to see Professor Ravenden digging energetically at the sand with an improvised shovel. At once the professor hailed him for help. Now, the normal man, no matter how miserable his mood, will rouse to the solution of a mystery, and when Dick Colton saw the form of a horse partly revealed, he pitched in heartily. ”

“ I’ve a brother a year younger than I. There may be in this universe,” he continued reflectively, “people who don’t like Everard. If there are, they live in Mars. Everybody on this old earth—and he seems to know pretty much all of ’em—takes to him like a duck to water. He’s a wonder, that youth!”
“Everard?” said the girl. There was a quick and subtle change in her tone. “Is Everard Colton your brother? I should never have guessed it. You don’t resemble each other in the least.”
“No; he’s the ornament of the family. I’m the plodder. And we’re the greatest chums ever. ”

“ I know this, that there is the most beautiful affection between them that I have ever known between a man and a girl. With two people less fine than Helga and Harris Haynes it could not be so. You aren’t capable of understanding that sort of thing. And so you would destroy this for the mere whim of a boy!”
“It is not the whim of a boy,” returned Dick sternly. “It has made Everard a man. I think she loves him.” ”

“ Miss Ravenden nodded at him appreciatively. “Yes; you see it too,” she said. “You did something worth while when you saved those two. But what about your Portuguese? Do you really think he had anything to do with killing that poor sailor? Helga told me about it. What an extraordinary case it is!”
“What puzzles Haynes with his trained mind is surely too much for me,” said Colton. “It seems that the man—great Heaven! What was that?” From the direction of the beach came a long-drawn, dreadful scream of agony, unhuman, yet with something of an appeal in it, too. ”

“ The juggler had refused steadfastly to add anything to his statement. Little opportunity had there been of acquiring new information, for storm had followed storm in quick succession, and though Dick and Everard Colton had been out on the knolls at all hours of day and night, and the intrepid professor, eluding his daughter by stealth, had covered many dark miles of exploration, the shrouded foulness of the weather had preserved whatever secret Montauk Point still might hold. ”

“ Colton felt helpless in this maze. Late in the afternoon Dolly Ravenden came to him. Her brilliant beauty was dimmed and softened by traces of tears, and to the man’s longing heart she never had appealed with so irresistible a charm.
“Dr. Colton,” she said, “I don’t know what to do about Helga. She is like a dazed person. Your brother and I have been with her constantly. She has not broken down once. The tears seem frozen within her. I am frightened for her reason. She seems to blame herself for this dreadful thing.”
“There is something I want her to know,” said Dick. “Will you tell her?” ”

“ She opened them upon his stalwart figure and the clean-cut, manly face, still drawn with anxiety, clear in the light of the lantern.
“It was good of you to brave the danger,” she said sweetly. “I have had a premonition of some tragedy overhanging, since we found the sheep.”
“Well, Professor! Hello, Miss Dolly!” called Haynes, as he swung up on a trot. “Are you all right? Better hurry in. There’s a storm coming.”
“It is something besides a storm that brought you gentlemen out on a search for us,” said Professor Ravenden shrewdly. ”

“ Three such relics were bleaching their still vertebrate bones on the rocks where the schooner lay trapped. It was only too evident that a like fate was ordained to her, and that the promptest action of the life-savers alone could avail the ten huddled wretches in her rigging.
What man could do, the crews of the two stations were doing; and now, in a sudden lull of wind, they sent a life-line over her. One of the men came over to the Third House group, and spoke to Helga Johnston, bending so close that she shrank back a little. ”

“ The Professor of Prevarication who keeps the Amagansett livery stable told me that the mare knew the road. If she did know it, she carefully concealed her knowledge, for as soon as the pitch darkness fell (by the way, I don’t remember a blacker night) she began to stroll across the verdant meads like a man chewing a straw and thinking of his troubles. Except for the sound of the surf, I had no way to steer her, so I just said to her: ‘If you lug me back to Amagansett, I’ll break every rib in your umbrella,’ and let her amble. ”

“ After breakfast the party separated, Haynes riding over to see some of the fishermen, Helga busying herself with household affairs, Miss Ravenden joining her father in a butterfly expedition to the Hither Wood, and Colton going off alone in ill-humour after a signal discomfiture.
He had endeavoured to convince Miss Ravenden that he cherished a passionate fondness for entomology, hoping thereby to gain an invitation to join the party. Unfortunately he undertook the role of a semi-expert, and being by nature the most honest and open of men had fallen into the pit she dug. ”

“ That is the task to which the scientist sets his long and patient efforts.
“And this is achieved how? By an instinct which asserts itself potently in a certain type of humanity, in the highest type which we know. For want of a better term, I may call it the truth-vocation. The truth-seeker may concern himself with the smallest scale of a moth’s wing; he may devote himself to the study of the human soul in its most profound recesses; or he may strive with the immediate facts of life. Lie his field of endeavour where it may, his is the one great calling. ”

“ All day long the pasturing sheep of the interior might rove without the alarm of a single human. Short of the prairies, a lonelier stretch of land would be difficult of discovery.
To Dick Colton, rising late with a thankful heart after a sleep unvexed of labelled bottles, this loneliness was a balm, provided only it proved to be loneliness for two. ”

“ THE PROFESSOR ACTS PROMPTITUDE was one of Professor Ravenden’s many virtues. Only one thing could make him forget the obligation of an engagement; that was his dominant ardour for the hunt. In time this had become an instinct. So it is not strange that, on leaving Third House to keep his rendezvous with Dick Colton, he should have absentmindedly hung his heavy poison-jar for specimens around his neck, and taken up his butterfly net, while entirely forgetting his revolver. ”

“ Brace yourself up, man.”
“Dick,” said his brother, “I’ve given up. I see now I was a fool to think I ever could win Helga. I’m going to stick by her until this thing is over, and then I’ll go back.”
“Don’t be too sure,” began Dick; but checked himself, remembering his promise to the girl.
“That is what Dolly said,” replied the other hopelessly. “But I’ve had my eyes opened. I know now what sort of fellow Haynes really was. How could a man such as I win out against that kind of man?”
“Anyway,” said Dick, “Helga needs you at this time; you and Miss Ravenden. You won’t leave now, Ev.” ”

“ THE LOST CLUE IN his own way, Professor Ravenden possessed as keen a detective instinct as Haynes himself. The variation of a shade of a moth’s wing, the obscurest trait in the life-habit of some unconsidered larva form, was sufficient to set him to the trail, and sometimes with results that, to his compeers, seemed little short of marvellous. Science had been enriched by his acumen, in several notable instances, and thousands of farmers who had never heard his name owed to him the immunity of certain crops from the ravages of their most destructive insect enemy. ”

“ As I regained my feet, a strange sound which appeared to come from above and a trifle to the northwest of me attracted my attention. It suggested the presence of some winged creature, although it resembled rather a crackling than a beating or flapping of pinions. It seemed to differ from the strange creaking which I had before noted when abroad at night, and which I at once recalled. Somewhat alarmed, I drew my revolver and cocked it. At this moment the wind, which had been dead from the north, veered in a sharp gust to the northwest. ”

“ There are some women who carry the impress of fineness and of character in their faces and their smallest actions. Even if I had learned nothing else about her, after seeing Helga Johnston I would think it an honour for any family to welcome her.”
Haynes’ face softened, but it still was with some harshness that he said: “There are other Coltons who think otherwise.”
“That is because they don’t know,” was the quick reply. “I want Everard to have his chance, and I’ve put this case before you because I know and respect your relation to Miss Johnston, and because I believe it is your right.” ”