The Magic Curtain Part 13

"Yeah? And then?"

"We'll see."

At that instant, all unseen, a dripping figure emerged from the water close to the submerged fishing net. It was the figure that, but a short half hour before had rested motionless upon the rocks; a slender girl whose figure was for a second fully outlined by a distant flash of lightning. She carried some dark object beneath her right arm.

CHAPTER XIV THE DISAPPEARING PARCEL

In the meantime Florence and Jeanne were making the best of their opportunity to leave the "made land." They hoped to cross the bridge and reach the car line before the threatened storm broke. Pet.i.te Jeanne was terribly afraid of lightning. Every time it streaked across the sky she gripped her strong companion's arm and shuddered.

It was impossible to make rapid progress. From this point the beaten path disappeared. There were only scattered tracks where other pedestrians had picked their way through the litter of debris.

Here Florence caught her foot in a tangled ma.s.s of wire and all but fell to the ground; there Jeanne stepped into a deep hole; and here they found their way blocked by a heap of fragments from a broken sidewalk.

"Why did we come this way?" Pet.i.te Jeanne cried in consternation.

"The other was longer, more dangerous. Cheer up! We'll make it." Florence took her arm and together they felt their way forward through the darkness that grew deeper and blacker at every step.

Rolling up as they did at the back of a city's skysc.r.a.pers, the mounting clouds were terrible to see.

"The throng!" Pet.i.te Jeanne's heart fairly stopped beating. "What must a terrific thunderstorm mean to that teaming ma.s.s of humanity?"

Even at her own moment of distress, this unselfish child found time for a compa.s.sionate thought for those hundreds of thousands who still thronged the city streets.

As for the crowds, not one person of them all was conscious that a catastrophe impended. Walled in on every side by skysc.r.a.pers, no slightest glance to the least of those black clouds was granted them.

Their ears filled by the honk of horns, the blare of bands and the shouts of thousands, they heard not one rumble of distant thunder. So they laughed and shouted, crowded into this corner and that, to come out shaken and frightened; but never did one of them say, "It will storm."

Yet out of this merry-mad throng two beings were silent. A boy of sixteen and a hunchback of uncertain age, hovering in a doorway, looked, marveled a little, and appeared to wait.

"When will it break up?" the boy asked out of the corner of his mouth.

"Early," was the reply. "There's too many of 'em. They can't have much fun. See! They're flooding the grandstands. The bands can't play. They'll be going soon. And then--" The hunchback gave vent to a low chuckle.

After s.n.a.t.c.hing a pair of boy's strap-overalls from the rocks the girl, who had emerged from the water beside the submerged net, with the dark package under her arm hurried away over a narrow path and lost herself at once in the tangled ma.s.s of willows and cottonwood.

She had not gone far before a light appeared at the end of that trail.

Seen from the blackness of night, the structure she approached took on a grotesque aspect. With two small round windows set well above the door, it seemed the face of some ma.s.sive monster with a prodigious mouth and great gleaming eyes. The girl, it would seem, was not in the least frightened by the monster, for she walked right up to its mouth and, after wrapping her overalls about the black package which still dripped lake water, opened the door, which let out a flood of yellow light, and disappeared within.

Had Florence witnessed all this, her mystification regarding this child of the island might have increased fourfold.

As you already know, Florence was not there. She was still with Pet.i.te Jeanne on the strip of "made land" that skirted the sh.o.r.e. They were more than a mile from the island.

They had come at last to a strange place. Having completely lost their way in the darkness, they found themselves of a sudden facing a blank wall.

A strange wall it was, too. It could not be a house for, though made of wood, this wall was composed not of boards but of round posts set so close together that a hand might not be thrust between them.

"Wh--where are we?" Jeanne cried in despair.

"I don't know." Florence had fortified her mind against any emergency. "I do know this wall must have an end. We must find it."

She was right. The curious wall of newly hewn posts did have an end. They were not long in finding it. Coming to a corner they turned it and again followed on.

"This is some enclosure," Florence philosophized. "It may enclose some form of shelter. And, from the looks of the sky, shelter is what we will need very soon."

"Yes! Yes!" cried her companion, as a flare of lightning gave her an instant's view of their surroundings. "There is a building looming just over there. The strangest sort of building, but a shelter all the same."

Ten minutes of creeping along that wall in the dark, and they came to a ma.s.sive gate. This, too, was built of logs.

"There's a chain," Florence breathed as she felt about. "It's fastened, but not locked. Shall we try to go in?"

"Yes! Yes! Let us go in!" A sharp flash of lightning had set the little French girl's nerves all a-quiver.

"Come on then." There was a suggestion of mystery in Florence's tone. "We will feel our way back to that place you saw."

The gate swung open a crack. They crept inside. The door swung to. The chain rattled. Then once more they moved forward in the dark.

After a time, by the aid of a vivid flash, they made out a tall, narrow structure just before them. A sudden dash, and they were inside.

"We--we're here," Florence panted, "but where are we?"

"Oo--o! How dark!" Pet.i.te Jeanne pressed close to her companion's side.

"I am sure there are no windows."

"The windows are above," whispered Florence. A flash of lightning had revealed an opening far above her head.

At the same instant she stumbled against a hard object.

"It's a stairway," she announced after a brief inspection. "A curious sort of stairway, too. The steps are shaped like triangles."

"That means it is a spiral stairway."

"And each step is thick and rough as if it were hand-hewn with an axe.

But who would hew planks by hand in this day of steam and great sawmills?"

"Let's go up. We may be able to see something from the windows."

Cautiously, on hands and knees, they made their way up the narrow stairway. The platform they reached and the window they looked through a moment later were quite as mysterious as the stairway. Everywhere was the mark of an axe. The window was narrow, a mere slit not over nine inches wide and quite devoid of gla.s.s.

Yet from this window they were to witness one of G.o.d's greatest wonders, a storm at night upon the water.

The dark clouds had swung northward. They were now above the surface of the lake. Blackness vied with blackness as clouds loomed above the water.

Like a great electric needle sewing together two curtains of purple velvet for a giant's wardrobe, lightning darted from sky to sea and from sea to sky again.