The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories Part 13

"Skidoo, John, skidoo," said the Captain, skeptically.

"'Deed an' double-deed, it is, Cap. Jim. You jes' look behind it ober dar at Kent Island."

The Captain peered as directed, while the negro eyed him doubtfully.

"Great Jehoshaphat!" the white man cried. "You're right, John, you're right. That there island is a-movin' up the bay."

"Ain't yer skeered, Cap. Jim?" asked the crew, with a shudder. "'Pears to me it's mighty like de debbil."

Captain Cromwell was doubtful himself. He laid his hand on the tiller and was about to change his course when he made a fresh discovery.

"There's a man on that island, as I'm a-livin'," he exclaimed.

"Whar is he, Cap. Jim?" cried the negro.

"Right by that grove of trees, John. He's waving his arms at us. He's standing by some kind of a hut and there's a tall pole with the stars and stripes turned upside down."

"Maybe dey's pirates, Cap. Jim." Visions of the dreaded skull and cross-bones and of a horrible death at the yardarm, whatever that was, made John Washington's teeth and knees knock together violently.

"Pirates, the deuce! They're Americans that want help."

"And is you gwine close, Cap. Jim? Lawdy."

The crew started forward and the Captain held the bugeye to its course to the strange island. The man by the grove of palms waved his arms and ran toward the sh.o.r.e nearest to them. He shouted several times, but Captain Cromwell could not hear him. Finally, the man picked up a huge leaf, and, twisting it into a cornucopia shape, made a megaphone of it.

With this aid his voice came floating over the bay.

"Keep off!" he called. "There is a sunken reef on this side. Head for the cove." He pointed to the north end of the floating ma.s.s, and Captain Cromwell put about. The island, now that he was close, appeared to be making good headway--at least four or five miles an hour. There was a swish and a swirl of water on the sides that showed it would have been folly to have run in sh.o.r.e there. But after he had rounded a hummock of glistening sand he saw the cove, and in a few minutes more had entered it and discovered a roughly constructed wharf. John Washington reluctantly obeyed a sharp order to take in sail, and, with the aid of the stranger ash.o.r.e, the Tuckahoe was presently moored.

Captain Cromwell's first impulse was to laugh at a near view of the man on the island. "Powerful funny lookin'," was John Washington's comment.

His hair and whiskers were of the red hue that could never by courtesy be called auburn. Both whiskers and hair were long and ragged and would have provoked despair in any aseptic barber shop in Baltimore. For coat the islander had on a baggy affair, roughly fashioned out of jute, and his trousers were of sailcloth, cut in a style that would not have met the approval of a Maryland Club member. He was thick-set, with a slight stoop. His wrists were tattooed, his hands h.o.r.n.y. His eyes were a placid blue pair. Above the left one was a scar.

"Where in blazes am I?" he yelled to Captain Cromwell as the Tuckahoe was nearing the wharf. "Blazes" is a mild translation of the expletive actually employed.

"Chesapeake bay, mate."

"Chesapeake bay! Jiminy crickets! Blown all the way from the Bahamas!

Well, I'm danged!"

"How did it happen?" asked the master of the Tuckahoe. The newest Robinson Crusoe didn't hear him.

"How in blazes did I pa.s.s in the Capes and not know it?" Again "blazes"

is putting it mildly. "Durned thick, nasty weather yesterday. Couldn't see a half mile. Must a pa.s.sed in then. How far up am I?"

"Mouth of the Patapsco."

"By jinks, so it is. I might a knowed it. There's the Knoll. And there's North P'int. Many's the time I sighted them when I used to run here in a five-master from Bath."

"How did you come--this time?" again asked Captain Cromwell.

Again his curiosity had to wait. "Got a quid of 'baccy, mate?" asked the red-bearded man as he stood on the wharf beside the bugeye. "Ain't had a chaw in four years." He seized eagerly the plug that was handed to him, broke off a generous "chaw" and thrust it into his mouth. Then, and not until then, did he make reply.

"How did I come? Caught in a sou'easter, that's all. Nastiest storm you ever want to see. Hit us suddenly five nights ago. Them palms was bent double with the wind. Lord only knows why my mansion yonder didn't go.

After while sort a felt we were driftin'. When mornin' broke there was my kingdom afloat in the ocean cut in two, me alone on this bit and the biggest half gone off with my subjects on it."

"Subjects?"

"Yes, my people."

The Captain looked at John and John edged off from the stranger and made a sign suggestive of deficient mentality.

"Your people?" asked Captain Cromwell.

"Yes, man. Why, I am the King of Tortilla Key."

John renewed the aforesaid sign and edged still farther away. Captain Cromwell laughed. The stranger chimed in.

"Does sound funny, don't it. Fact is I made myself King. I've got a crown up at the palace there. Rusty tin saucepan afore I knocked the bottom out."

The Captain laughed again.

"You're an odd fish," he remarked. "What was your name before you were King?"

"Me? Oh! I'm a 'down Easter.' Peleg Timrod of Squan, Ma.s.s., U. S. A. Of course, I knowed Peleg was no royal name, so I just dubbed myself Victor Fust when I annexed this here island."

"It ain't much of a kingdom."

"About four times as large as you see afore the rest broke away. Anyway, I thought it a mighty big place when I got tossed up here goin' on four year ago. I'd been afloat on the roof of a deckhouse for three days arter the fruiter Bainbridge were cast away, and I tell you, mate, I was powerful glad to hit any old kind of terra firma then. The bunch of natives who fed me and sheltered me was a kind lot. They didn't seem to belong to no country in partikler, and though I knowed Britain claimed the Bahamas, I jes' kind a thought Teddy might want the place for a coaling station some time. So I let 'em know I was their King, and I reckon I ain't had any more trouble with them than Peter Leary had in Guam. Of course, I couldn't make it plain to 'em how the Const.i.tution follows the flag, 'cos I didn't know myself."

"Where did you get your American flag?"

"American flag, mate?" Victor I. was offended. "Why, bless you, that ain't no stars and stripes. That there's the flag of Tortilla. There's no stars there. The red's my old undershirt, the blue I found thrown up in the surf one day and the white is a bit of sail I had with me when I dropped in to take my throne. That flag means business. I"----

His Majesty was interrupted by a shout from John Washington:

"Golly, Cap. Jim, the island's stopped!"

"Stopped, you lunkhead?"

"Yes, Cap. Jim. It ain't movin' no more. I'se been watchin' Poole's Island yonder, and we done ceased."

"Maybe it's aground," suggested the King.

"Maybe it is," replied the Rock Hall captain, "but it's more likely to have run into a current down the bay from the Susquehanna. It's just as well for you, I guess, or you'd a b.u.mped into Cecil county so hard you wouldn't a voted next 'lection."

For some minutes the trio studied the island and its surroundings with intentness. The King was the first to notice when his kingdom got to moving again.

"It's headin' down the bay this time," he cheerily declared. "Reckon you were right about getting into a current. S'pose I'm off on another cruise."

"Sail away with me, and let it go," urged Captain Cromwell.