30 Suspense and Thriller Masterpieces. Гилберт Кит Честертон
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morning Anna and Peter John had gone off for the day, with sandwiches in their pockets, to explore in kayaks the voes at the south end of the island. They ate their luncheon on a skerry which the tide had just uncovered, and which was their idiotic notion of comfort. The sea was like a pond, and the mist was slowly coming down, but Anna, after sniffing the air, said that it was only a summer darkening and would clear before evening. Then she proposed an adventure. The Tjaldar had returned to its home at Halder, and over the Channel came the sound of its dropping anchor.
'Let's pay a call on it,' said Anna. 'Perhaps they'll ask us to tea. Marine biologists are nice people. I've been to tea with them before, when the old Moe was here.'
Peter John demurred. No embargo had been laid on their crossing the Channel, but he dimly felt that the trip would be considered out of bounds.
'That doesn't matter,' Anna retorted. 'We haven't been forbidden to go. Besides, in this weather they won't see us from the shore. We'll be back long before dinner. There's not a capful of wind, and it's as safe as crossing a voe. We're not likely to get such a chance again.'
Peter John said something about currents, but Anna laughed him to scorn. 'There's a rip two miles north, but here there's nothing to trouble about. I've been across in the kayak often. You're a landlubber, you know, and I'm a seadog, and you ought to believe me. I believe you when it's about birds.'
Peter John felt this to be true. Children have a great respect for each other's expertise, and Anna had shown an uncanny knowledge of the ways of boats and tides and the whole salt-water world. She bore down his scruples with another argument. 'My father would send us across any time we wanted, but it would be with Gregarsen and the motor-boat, which wouldn't be any fun, or in the long-boat, which is as slow as a cow. In these wieldy little kayaks we'll slip over in no time. If you like, I'll give you five minutes' start and race you.'
No boy can resist a 'dare,' so Peter John acquiesced, and they got into their kayaks and headed for Halder, Morag the falcon sitting dejectedly on her master's knee.
The mist came down closer, but it was only a curtain of silk, through which Halder rose like a wraith. They did not race, but presently fell into an exciting conversation, so that the kayaks often rubbed shoulders. For Anna was telling of the whale-hunts, which she had held forth to Peter John as the chief glory of the Norlands. Only once in her memory had the Grind come to the Island of Sheep, for generally they took the wider channels beyond Halder. But that once was stamped for ever on her mind, though she had only been a little girl at the time. She told how the fiery cross was sent through the islands, by means of beacons on every headland; how every man at the signal tumbled into his boat and steered for the rendezvous; how the rendezvous could not be missed, for all the sea-ways were full of people, and the Grind only came in clear weather. She described how the boats guided the school of whales, as dogs headed sheep, trimming their edges and slowly forcing the leader into one of the voes. Once the leader entered the rest followed, and the voe would be churned white with blind and maddened monsters. Then came the killing, which Anna could only imagine, for her nurse had hurried her away from the scene; but all the same she described it as she had heard of it from others, and she made a barbaric tale of it. Peter John listened with interest, and at the end with disapproval.
'It sounds pretty beastly,' he said.
'Perhaps it is,' said the girl; 'but a lot of good things are beastly, like killing pigs and using live bait. Anyhow, it puts money in the pockets of our poor people, and gives them food and lighting for the long winter.'
'All the same, I'm sorry for the whales.'
'That's silly,' she replied. 'You're not sorry for haddocks and halibut and sea-trout. Fish are cold-blooded things and don't feel.'
'Whales aren't fish,' said the student of natural history, but he was overborne.
Their discussion had brought them across the still water into the shadow of Halder, and they looked up to see the Tjaldar above them. The kayak is a noiseless thing, and the fog had helped them to approach it unperceived. It sat at anchor very trim and comfortable, with a thin spire of smoke rising from the galley funnel, and a pleasant odour of food drifting from it. Some one was emptying ashes from the stokehold.
'Couth little craft,' said Anna appreciatively. 'I smell tea. Let's hail her. Tjaldar ahoy!'
The voice brought a face to the bulwark. It was the face of an elderly man, dark and aquiline and rather puffy. He wore a yachting-cap and a flannel suit, but he did not look any kind of sailor. He seemed puzzled and a little startled.
'That will be one of the Danish scientists,' Anna whispered. Then she raised her voice.
'You're the marine biologists, aren't you? We've come to call on you from the Island of Sheep across the Channel.'
She spoke in Danish, but the face showed no intelligence. Then she repeated her words in English, and the man seemed to understand.
'Wait. I will ask,' he said, and disappeared.
He was back in a minute accompanied by another man, a tall fellow with a sunburnt face, wearing an old Harris tweed jacket, and with a pipe in his teeth.
'Where did you youngsters spring from?' the second man asked.
'I'm Miss Haraldsen from the Island of Sheep—and this is my friend, Peter John. We're visitors. May we come aboard?'
'You certainly may,' said the man with the pipe, and he seemed to wink at his companion. The port ladder was lowered and the children tied up the kayaks to its bottom rung, and carefully transhipped themselves. It takes some skill to get out of a kayak.
When they reached the much-encumbered deck they found that three sailors had joined the party.
'Just wait here a second, my dears,' said the man with the pipe, and he and the others went forward, leaving Anna and Peter John with the three sailors. The boy saw nothing but a rather untidy deck, very different from the shipshape vessels of his fancy. There seemed to be uncommonly little free space, and what looked like a gigantic net was clumsily heaped abaft of a stumpy mast. The deck-hands were busy at the vessel's side. But the girl's experienced eyes darted about, and saw more.
'This is a funny place,' she whispered. 'I don't much like it, Peter John. These men aren't a trawler's crew—they've no sores on their hands. Trawlers' men are always getting stung and poisoned. They aren't Danes either—at least, they don't look like it. What are they doing with our kayaks?'
'They're getting them aboard.'
'Whatever for?' The girl's voice had suddenly a startled note in it. 'Look here, I don't like this… . Just look at the trawl. It's absurd. It has no otter-boards… . There's something wrong with this ship. Let's make them launch the kayaks again and get off.'
'We can't quite do that,' said Peter John. 'I think we must see it through now—wait, anyhow, till these men come back.' But Anna's suspicions had infected him, and he looked uneasily at the little kayaks as they were swung up on deck.
He turned in obedience to a smothered squawk from Anna. A woman was coming towards them—a woman in a white serge frock with a fur cape thrown over her shoulders. She was bare-headed and had wonderful red hair. It was now Peter John's turn to long for the kayaks, for he recognized some one he had seen before, the beautiful Miss Ludlow who, two months ago, had come to tea at Fosse.
The pretty lady advanced smiling. At the sight of her Morag the falcon showed the most lively displeasure. Had Peter John not tightened the lead she would have sought a perch with malevolent purpose on an exquisite red coiffure.
'What a wicked bird!' said the lady. 'You're sure you've got it safe… . How nice of you to come to see us! You must be ravenous for tea. Come along, my dears, but I think you'd better leave the bird here.'
So Morag's lead was fastened to a stanchion, and she was left in a very ill temper ruffling her wings on a spare yard. The children followed the lady to a deck-house, which was half chart-room and half cabin. It was a snug little place, and on an oilskin-covered table tea was set out, an ample meal for