Perhaps there is no point upon the Carolina coast where there is more interest shown in weather conditions than at Beaufort, the present terminus of the great inland water-route from Boston to the Gulf. There are vital reasons for this. First: a fleet of small fishing vessels makes this their home port. Hardly a family in the town that has not one or more of its members going to sea in the little craft. To be caught off shore in one of the West India hurricanes, which, at irregular intervals, touch this point, means almost certain destruction. Again: there is always danger to the low-lying town from a tidal wave. The town is built on flat ground almost level with the surface of the water. There is no sea wall to keep off the angry waves. The dwellers in the town have learned their danger through dear experience in times past when the waves have swept over it, bringing desolation and death.
Luckily, the storm that brought the strangers to Captain Ichabod Jones did not blow long enough from the southeast to cause severe damage to the town. Nor was there loss of life at sea. The masters of the fishing boats had seen the weather flags—angry red, with sullen black centers—flying from the signal mast. They had taken warning and remained in port through the time of tempest.
When Uncle Icky rounded the point of marsh land, and headed his skiff for Beaufort, the eyes of the storm-bound fishermen and the other lounging natives gathered at the market wharf quickly espied the familiar patched rag of sail and were filled with wonder as to what could have tempted the old man from his snug Island out into the teeth of the gale. When he sped into the slip, there were many hands ready to grasp the hawser tossed to them by Captain Ichabod, and make it fast to a "punchin."
If the loungers had expected to hear something startling, they were doomed to disappointment. He had no time then to stop and gossip with friends. He hurried on, with an air of unaccustomed self-importance on account of the serious nature of his mission. He was in quest of Dr. Hudson, a great-hearted man, who had spent the best years of his life in ministering to the ills of these fisherfolk. They, in their turn, looked upon him with a feeling of grateful fondness, tinctured with awe—so miraculous to them seemed many of his cures. And, too, they honored him for the manner in which he did his duty toward them. Never a night too black, never a storm too high, for him to fare forth for the relief of suffering. Latterly, however, he had felt the weight of work over much, had felt perhaps as well the burden of advancing years. He had so contrived that a young medical graduate opened up a practise in the neighborhood. He had adroitly used the influence of suggestion so diplomatically that most of the chronic cases—those that took comfort in telling of their maladies, in detailing their symptoms to unwilling listeners—had gladly availed themselves of the new treatment offered by the young physician. In this way, the old Doctor was spared a tedious and unnecessary routine of labor, yet was left free for such urgent calls as might come to him.
Ichabod found the physician at home, and declared:
"Thar's sick folks at my shack what needs ye an' needs ye bad."
The doctor was aware that Ichabod's sole companion in the shack was the rooster. Knowing also the Captain's fondness for the Dominick, he was inclined to be suspicious that this call for his services was as a veterinary.
"I suppose," he said, "your Shrimp has the pip." Then, of a sudden, he guessed something of the truth. He spoke anxiously. "There hasn't been a wreck, has there?"
"Right ye air, Doctor, there has been a fool shipwreck on my oyster rocks. The captain of the ship an' his mate air at the shack this very minute. He's batty as a toad arter swallerin' shot. An' she's outter her haid—leastways she ain't got sense 'nough left ter talk."
In answer to questions, Ichabod gave a full narrative of what had occurred, telling all the events in his own quaint fashion, to all of which Doctor Hudson listened with the closest attention.
His comment was crisp.
"It sounds like whisky—more likely, morphia. I reckon it's my duty to go." As a matter of fact, the physician's curiosity had been aroused. He was professionally anxious to get at a solution of the mystery. He hurriedly changed his clothes in preparation for the rough voyage to Ichabod's Island, and equipped himself with the old, worn leather bag stocked with medicines, which, for years, had been a familiar sight throughout the whole region in every household where disease came to terrify and destroy.
"Hurry, Ichabod," the Doctor cried. "We'll shake a leg, or the tide'll be running against us."
Ichabod's skiff was tailed to the physician's little launch. The motor power made the voyage to the Island swift, although it was rough, even to the point of danger on account of the storm-driven waters. When they had made fast at the landing, the two hurried to the shack. The door was swinging wide. But to their amazement and dismay not even Shrimp was there to give them welcome. The place was utterly deserted. The visitors so strangely cast up from the sea had vanished as mysteriously as they had come. There was the bed on which the girl had been lying—now it was empty. Not even a vestige of her clothing remained to prove that she was more than the figment of a crazed brain. Ichabod stared about him with distended eyes. He could make no guess as to the meaning of the strange thing that had befallen. Then, abruptly, his dazed mind was aroused to a new calamity.... Shrimp, too, was gone!
Presently, Ichabod looked for the yacht's tender, and found it likewise gone. He was able to understand in some measure what had occurred. The batteries had been dried by the hot stove in the shack, and—the little craft thus restored to running condition—the man had undoubtedly fled with the girl. And with them Shrimp had voyaged. A sudden overwhelming desolation fell on the old man. He had been through much that day. He had been strained to the utmost resources of his energies. And he was an old man. He had small reserves of force with which to meet the unexpected. Now, he felt himself bewildered over all the strange happenings. And there was something more. The one constant companion of his lonely life was Shrimp—and Shrimp, too, had fled from him.
The Doctor, very much puzzled over this absence of an expected patient, started to leave the shack. He halted at the head of the steps, and looked down in a bewilderment touched with pity.
For Ichabod was on his knees before the steps of his own house, and his form was shaken with the sobbings of despair.