CHAPTER XVII

Captain Eric’s philosophy about not crossing bridges ahead of time proved to have been well founded in this particular case. Full moon, when it came, not only ushered in a flood tide, but was accompanied with a heavy blow out of the northwest which drove a great volume of water before it through the narrow mouth of Shipwreck Bay—which was the name by which Erica and Lis had christened the harbor where the _Sea Gull_ lay on her reef. This extra pressure of wind and water made that tide a memorable one in the island’s history, and the clipper floated clear, on its crest, to the deep side of the coral bar.

It was an anxious time for all on board, as well as for the little colony in the huts on the ocean shore of the islet. And when the tide had reached its height, and the great clipper, with all her canvas set to utilize the wind’s force as well as that of the sea, finally rose, literally inch by inch, until her keel rode the long swells without scraping or bumping, a rousing cheer burst from dozens of throats. Then, the reef well astern, there sounded the creaking of the capstan as the anchor chain was paid out, and the clipper came to rest again quietly, a hundred or more yards from the scene of her imprisonment.

All preparations had been made for leaving the island on the following day, if the ship should succeed in freeing herself from the reef, and by sunrise of the next morning her sails were once more set, and the capstan busily winding in the anchor.

Early as it was, Erica was up on deck, leaning against the rail on the port side, to watch the green jungle growth of the hillside slip smoothly and silently into their wake.

In the midst of all the jubilation about her, she was conscious of a vague regret. Of course she didn’t want to have to spend the rest of her life on this island, but she had only had ten days of it, and she had enjoyed to the full every moment of every one of those days. In all probability she would never see those steeply-sloping green shores again; never explore strange and beautiful jungle paths such as she had known till then only in the pages of story books; never swim in a brilliantly blue lagoon inside the reef, and watch, down—down—_down_ through its clear depths, the antics of strange fish and other exotically colored little sea creatures for which she had no names, disporting themselves gayly in the routine of their every-day marine existences. It had been a very wonderful experience, that ten days’ stay on the island—Hurricane Island, they had unanimously decided to name it, for obvious reasons.

However, there would be exciting tales to tell her friends at home on Nantucket, which was, in a measure at least, consolatory. There was, also, the tragic story of the lost _Narwhal_, and the finding of those of her crew who had survived. All Nantucket would want to hear that tale over and over in the days to come.

And much good had come to the whole company on board the clipper. Sun Li was unmistakably better; so was Aunt Charity. As for the rest of them, their sunburnt, wind-tanned faces and glowing eyes fairly radiated health. The only cloud that overshadowed their skies in the week of their passage north was the realization of the sad news they carried to the families of the mate and those other sailors of the _Narwhal_ who had not come home.

But they tried not to think of this any more than they could help. At least they had rescued Captain Joy and eight sailors, which would mean happiness in nine island families. That was pleasanter to consider than the other side of the picture.

As if to make up for the storm which had so nearly stolen their ship, the weather all the way from Hurricane Island to Nantucket was as perfect as the most timid of ocean travelers could desire. Blue skies smiled down on a calm blue sea day after day; and a well-behaved sailing wind blew them steadily on their way, without the interference of gales or calms.

The _Sea Gull_ skimmed the waters like a wild thing in flight, graceful as the bird for which she had been named, and as tireless. The white cutwater churning up before her slim, sharp prow was a never-ending delight to Erica perched in the bow, with the up-flung spray wetting her flushed face and leaving the taste of salt on her parted lips. Or, just before twilight fell, when the afterglow still painted the ocean rose and purple and gold, the stern was an equally wonderful place to lean against the rail and stare at the rainbow-tinted wake they left behind them, as they raced gallantly to meet the oncoming, misty dusk and the star-pointed darkness that came after.

The call of the sea was in Erica Folger’s blood; always, in each generation, some of the men in her family had been sea captains. It was her earliest grievance against life that she had not been a boy and free to follow in their footsteps. It had been the one, certain, enraging taunt with which the twins could retaliate in their recurrent differences of opinion as children—their superiority in this respect.

But anyhow, Erica told herself, this was the next best thing. A passenger may be an insignificant person when compared with a captain of one of these stately clippers; but a passenger can at least feel the beauty and the wonder of the sea just as keenly. Never, no matter if she lived to be an old, old lady, would the memory of this voyage in the _Sea Gull_ be dimmed by the passing years. Besides, if fate were kind, there would be other voyages. For instance, there was China, and a vague half-promise she had already wrung from her father on the subject. Erica’s fingers stole to a knotted Chinese cord she wore around her neck, on which hung a small, exquisitely carved jade-and-silver key….

She begrudged each shining day as it went by, and yet as the time arrived when any minute the low, gray outline of her native island would loom over the horizon line where sky and water met, she found herself watching for it as eagerly as Miss Charity, or the shipwrecked sailors from the lost _Narwhal_. After all, home was home; and no matter how beautiful and romantic desert islands might be to explore, Nantucket was the nicest place in the world to come back to.

She was up in the bow with Lis when they first caught sight of the dim, far-off speck—a mere gray smudge on the low sky line—for which they were waiting. It was Lis who spied it first and touched her arm, pointing.

”_Nantucket!_” he said.

They sent word below to Sun Li, who had asked to be notified as soon as the island was in sight, and he came up on deck, carried as usual in his sedan chair by the stolid coolie bearers. Erica ran to him at once, and directed his eyes to the little gray smudge which as yet required super-eyesight to discern against the equally gray water.

It was not one of those brilliant days of blue skies and sunshine which are never more beautiful than on Nantucket, but overcast and sunless. Mists drove in ahead of them from the sea, occasionally blotting out even that tiny speck Lis’s quick eyes had been the first to see.

The wind had died to a faint breeze that was scarcely strong enough to fill the clipper’s big sails. She moved through the gray water lazily, as if she, like Erica, regretted the end of the voyage.

Later the mists parted, and with a change in the wind’s direction, eddied off to the south of the island. The ship was near enough now for the watchers on deck to make out a hint of slender church steeples, a vague outline of roofs, and the higher ground behind them.

They rounded Great Point and stood in toward the harbor. Miss Charity and Mrs. Folger came on deck, bringing Milly and little Barbee with them, and they all grouped against the rail, straining eager eyes to catch sight of familiar landmarks.

Yet, queerly enough, there seemed to be nothing familiar in the long gray shore line; only the steeples and the higher ground behind the town. Something was strange and different here which they could not quite make out. They might have been approaching a totally unknown port for all they were able to recognize. They turned and eyed each other with a questioning, half-formed apprehension, but no one spoke until Lis broke out in a shaken voice:

“Ricky, look! There—_isn’t_—any—town—”

And then the others saw too. Down by the water’s edge, and as far inland as they could see, there were no houses standing; only a blackened and twisted tangle of charred wood, fantastically leaning chimneys, and sagging roof-beams….

Miss Charity, unlike her usually calm self, cried out in a frightened whisper, a soft little protesting ghost of a cry, “No—_no_——” and fell silent again, one thin hand clutching at her heart. Captain Eric, who had come up unnoticed behind them, slipped his arm about her shoulders, and held her up, strongly, offering neither comfort nor attempted explanations. As a matter of fact, he was as stunned and bewildered as she. _What terrible catastrophe had overtaken the old gray town during their absence?_ It was incredible, like something seen in a nightmare from which one confidently expects to wake. Only—there it was before their eyes. Blackened wood, torn and twisted roofs, fallen chimneys—— Not the aftermath of a fire, but of a holocaust.

The nearer they came, the more plainly did the desolation show. In the few weeks they had been gone, the whole town had been swept out of existence by fire; that much they were aware of. But how, when, and why this thing had happened they had of course no possible means as yet of knowing.

The _Sea Gull_ anchored in the harbor entrance, for once again, as on her former visit, the tide was wrong for a ship of her size to clear the bar. The largest of her boats was lowered and manned, and Captain Eric, Miss Charity, Mrs. Folger, Milly, Baby Barbee, Erica, and Lis crowded into it. No matter if they overloaded it a bit; the harbor was calm, and the need to learn the extent of the catastrophe at once made them all reckless.

The approach of the clipper had drawn a little crowd to the burnt and blackened wreck of the wharf. The sailors had to beach the boat, and help the two ladies and Milly ashore, lifting them over the wet sand. Erica tumbled over the side in Lister’s wake, heedless of wet feet and bedraggled dress hem.

The thrilling tale of their sea adventures which she had looked forward to relating was forgotten. It was she who fell eagerly into the rôle of listener now, as, grouped together on the sand, the passengers from the _Sea Gull_ heard the story of the tragedy as related by old friends and neighbors who had come down to welcome them home.

Bad as the news was, however, it was not quite so hopeless as a first glimpse of the wreckage alongshore had led them to believe. More than half the town had been saved, owing to a blessed veering of the wind, and the heroic work of the fire-fighters who had not stopped even at dynamiting untouched buildings in the fire’s path, and checking its progress. Trinity Church had gone in the flames, as had the Atheneum, the fine library of which the townspeople were so justly proud. The museum had been destroyed, too, and _every store in the town but one_. In all, about four hundred houses had been demolished, so ran the appalling summing-up.

Miss Charity, white-faced, her eyes full of tears, touched the arm of one of the men in the crowd, a retired sea captain who had been a friend of her father’s.

“Captain Jem, no one has said—our houses—Callie’s and mine——” she managed to ask between dry lips.

The old man put a fatherly hand on her arm.

“Untouched, thank the good Lord, Miss Charity,” he said, quickly. “The fire didn’t get to Orange Street—turned off and went north just a few hundred feet from there. But I’m afraid you’ll find uninvited guests crowding both houses, my dear. We had to find shelter for so many, we took the liberty of putting two families in your closed house,” he spoke to Mrs. Folger, across her sister-in-law. “Mrs. Joy, next door, said you’d left the key with her, and it didn’t seem any time to hesitate——”

“Of course not, of course not!” Both Miss Charity and Mrs. Folger cried, together. Tears were streaming down their cheeks, and Milly was frankly sobbing, her face buried on Mrs. Callie Folger’s shoulder.

“When did it happen—and how?” Captain Eric demanded, as soon as he could trust his voice.

Several of those about him shook their heads. “No one knows exactly. It broke out in the night—two weeks ago. They had to fight it for three days, a’most.” The confused chorus of answers blurred together in a many-keyed humming. “But we’re already clearing away the wreckage. We’ll be rebuilding soon——”

Not beaten, not even faint-hearted in the face of the tragedy that had overtaken them! Erica felt a sudden surge of pride in her island and its people that was like nothing she had ever known before. _This_—not desert islands or strange jungles or Chinese palaces—was romance, the high adventure of life. Meeting defeat, heads up and courage steady, and turning it into victory! She felt very humble and young; a little ashamed, too, of her own childish ambitions.

They picked their way up Main Street, and turned south into Orange, leaving here the wreckage and débris behind them. Orange Street was the first familiar thing they had found on the island. Erica would have liked to fall down and kiss the gray-painted shabby front steps of Aunt Charity’s house. Even the blue and adventurous sea she loved was not so beautiful as home.

The homeless neighbors who were crowded into the two houses crowded themselves still more closely and made room for the rightful owners. Miss Charity and Erica went back to their own home—there was more room there than in Mrs. Folger’s, when Lis, Milly, Barbee, and Mrs. Folger herself had all to find corners in which to stow themselves and their belongings.

Still, crowding seemed a small price to pay for having one’s own roof, untouched by the general calamity, over one’s head again.

Captain Eric returned to the _Sea Gull_, and promised to keep Sun Li and his retinue aboard, where they would be comfortable. But the following day the Governor, in his sedan chair, accompanied by Dr. Wu, made a pilgrimage through the ruined town to Orange Street, and spent an hour with Mrs. Folger and Miss Charity in the former’s sitting room. When he departed, he left behind, in the joint custody of these two stunned and feebly protesting ladies, a sum of money that frightened them both rather badly, to be used as they saw fit toward relieving the suffering of those rendered so suddenly homeless. His was among the first, and certainly one of the largest, contributions toward this cause that soon flowed in from all parts of the country and abroad.

On the second day after their arrival in the harbor, the _Sea Gull_ sailed again, carrying Sun Li, Dr. Wu, His Excellency’s gorgeous lacquer sedan chair, and the coolie bearers back to their native China. Erica, who had cherished up to the last minute a faint spark of hope that she might be included in the party, was partially consoled by a definite promise from her father that two years hence, when she should have finished her schooling, he would take her with him on one of his voyages. With that she had to be content.

She went down to the shore, at the hour the clipper was to sail, and—as she had done on that long-ago occasion of Lister’s departure for his first cruise—she walked up the beach beyond the farthest edge of the town, and stood there, very silent, waving her handkerchief as long as the _Sea Gull’s_ white wings could be seen.

Then, her eyes rather blurred, it must be confessed, by the tears she was gallantly winking back, but her lips quite steady, she turned back toward home.

As she tramped sturdily along the beach she glanced over her shoulder just once, at the now empty ocean.

“Still, two years aren’t such a _very_ long time to wait,” Erica told herself in a determinedly-cheerful tone, and her fingers went up to touch a small, silver-and-jade key that hung on a knotted Chinese cord about her neck. She even managed a determinedly-cheerful smile to match the tone.

After all—at sixteen—two years really _aren’t_.

THE END