CHAPTER III

_The Signal Fire_

Some six hours later, in the early morning, I arrived. Father and Drake had not been to bed. They described the mysterious midnight visitor. I could make little of it, save that Dianne was alive. Had this fellow abducted her? Was he holding her? Had he come to sound out whether father would pay a ransom?

Father waved away my theories. He was visibly shaken. There was one thing upon which he and Drake were agreed. The visitor had been wholly strange. Something about him almost uncanny.

Father said slowly: "We don't know what it means. That fellow last night--he came, we think, just to find out if Dianne were with us. Something he said, or the way he said it, gave us that impression. It seems possible that he knew Dianne is trying to rejoin us. It may be that he is an enemy of Dianne's. I think--wherever Dianne is--she may be trying to get to us. We must help her do that."

"But how?" I demanded.

Drake said: "She might try to get back to our place, up there in Maine. We feel we should be there now, Frank. That fellow last night--damn fool!--thought he could keep us from going there by warning us away!"

"But who was he?" I insisted. My mind was groping with vague ideas--like father's and Drake's perhaps; ideas too fantastic for discussion. "What has your visitor got to do with us? Or Dianne? Or these giants? I don't see the connection, but there is one, that's obvious."

Father said very slowly: "You, Frank, seemed to think that giant you saw last night was changing size--dwindling. Perhaps while he was under the water he grew so small that when he came up you did not see him. Don't ask us what it means! We don't know. But I really think that fellow who called upon Drake and me last night was one of the giants!"

We left New York that same morning in an official plane which dropped us in the afternoon near our home in Maine. What father told the authorities I do not know. He said he told them as little as possible. Whatever our connection with this affair, for Dianne's sake it seemed best not to make it public. But father got me leave of absence from my flying duties, and secured us an official plane, and a permit for us to live in our Maine home, within the threatened area which now was completely under military rule.

It was mid-afternoon when by automobile we reached our house. We had been stopped half a dozen times by State troops patrolling all the roads leading to the coast. One officer chanced to know father.

"It's risky, Dr. Ferrule. You know what you're doing, of course. But down there--your isolated house right on the shore--"

"We know what we're doing," said father.

I put in: "Shucks, there's no danger. Might never have another giant appear."

The town of Elton, two miles from our home, looked as though it were in a state of siege. Half its people had fled. Troops patrolled the streets. Many of the houses were closed and barred--as though that would help against a hundred-foot giant! The shops were nearly all closed; but we located several of the owners and loaded our car with provisions.

On arriving, father went to bed. He was never in robust health, and the nervous excitement of all this and his loss of sleep had about done him up. He was too tired to eat the meal which Drake and I hastily prepared. But he was a fighter, every inch of him. He lay down, fully dressed, with an automatic beside his pillow.

"You lads can stand guard--suit yourselves--only don't both sleep at once. Call me if anything unusual happens."

Drake and I sat on guard. We were neither of us sleepy. It seemed as though there were a thousand things we wanted to talk about, but it was all so intangible. We were in what undoubtedly was the heart of the threatened area. The world believed that; and no one knew it better than ourselves.

We had had the latest official reports. No other giant was seen. There had been several people killed by a sweep of the giant's arm last night, quite near here on the cliff top. Official searching parties had been over every inch of Bird's Nest Island and all the shore in this vicinity. Nothing unusual was found. They had even dragged the water between here and the island, thinking perhaps the giant's body might have sunk.

There were other reports which now had come in. Gruesome things! In the back country near here a farmer had been found dead a few nights ago, and all his clothes stolen. There were several similar incidents.

At sunset a destroyer steamed past, headed north on patrol. There were often airplanes passing overhead. And out at sea there was a smudge which we thought might be a battleship.

With darkness came a sense of loneliness--the feeling of our isolation here in this house set close against the coast. We were in danger here, but not altogether foolhardy. We had rifles and several automatics. And the telephone would at any time bring us help from the troops stationed in the near-by village.

To fight what? It would all be so useless against a hundred-foot giant!

The vigil grew irksome. Would Dianne come? How? When? Tonight? Tomorrow? A week or a month from now--or never? They were such futile questions. And it seemed, as we sat there on guard, that we might be menaced not only by giants. There was father's midnight visitor in New York, just last night. Was he--or others like him--lurking about our place here? We sat, often straining our ears for every sound outside the house.

Father slept soundly. The evening passed. It was a dark night; a few moving lights out at sea. We saw nothing unusual, heard nothing.

Midnight came. "You better go to sleep," Drake said, when we had rustled up another meal. "I'll sit here till dawn, then call you. We'll have to get some regular schedule."

Sleep was a long time coming. Then I slept dreamlessly, to be awakened by Drake pulling at me.

"It will soon be daylight, Frank."

I leaped up. "Nothing happened?"

"No."

"How's father?"

"All right. Still pounding it out. He was awake with me for an hour or two. Then I made him go back. The fire's going in the living room, Frank. There's a pot of coffee on the hearth if you want it. Here, want this automatic?"

"No. I've got mine."

He lay down with his weapon beside him, and I left him. I went out into the living room. Its oil lamp was burning. In the big open fireplace a log fire was going with a pot of coffee on the hearth. I had my automatic in my pocket; beside the hearth three loaded rifles and a shotgun were standing.

Through the windows to the east I could see that the stars were paling.

* * * * *

The dawn came. The room brightened with its flat light. I put out the lamp. The fire burned low.

It was now broad daylight. A clear, crisp morning. Silent and still; not a breath of wind. Drake had been asleep perhaps two hours. I went again to the veranda. There were no planes, no boats in sight, except out at sea where the warship still hovered.

Bird's Nest Island stood clear in the morning sunlight. From the island a wisp of smoke was rising. Some one there--a camp fire. Soldiers, perhaps.

I stood gazing. The smoke rose in a thin, dark wisp, straight up into the still air. Then suddenly the column broke. The smoke was checked. And in a moment it came again. A dark, round puff of it rising. Then another puff. And others. As though a blanket were being held over a smoking fire, to catch the smoke, releasing it in puffs.

A stream of them now. Two large ones. Three, smaller. Two large ones again.

A signal fire? But it was not only that thought which made my heart pound. I recognized the signal! My mind flung back to childhood days. Myself, Dianne and Drake. Fanciful children out on this same island; building a camp fire; making the smoke signals as we thought Robinson Crusoe might have done. Two large puffs; then three smaller. This was our childish signal, out there now!