Part 15

“Gone--why?”

“No savvy,” said Charlie. “No likee, no likee. China boy tink um heap funny, too much heap funny.”

It was true. During all the next day not a shark was in sight, and though the crew fished assiduously till dark, they were rewarded by not so much as a bite. No one could offer any explanation.

“'Tis strange,” said Moran. “Never heard of shark leaving this feed before. And you can see with half an eye that the hands don't like the looks of it. Superstitious beggars! they need to be clumped in the head.”

That same night Wilbur woke in his hammock on the fo'c'stle head about half-past two. The moon was down, the sky one powder of stars. There was not a breath of wind. It was so still that he could hear some large fish playing and breaking off toward the shore. Then, without the least warning, he felt the schooner begin to lift under him. He rolled out of his hammock and stood on the deck. There could be no doubt of it--the whole forepart was rising beneath him. He could see the bowsprit moving upward from star to star. Still the schooner lifted; objects on deck began to slide aft; the oil in the deck-tubs washed over; then, as there came a wild scrambling of the Chinese crew up the fo'c'stle hatch, she settled again gradually at first, then, with an abrupt lurch that almost threw him from his feet, regained her level. Moran met him in the waist. Charlie came running aft.

“What was that? Are we grounding? Has she struck?”

“No, no; we're still fast to the kelp. Was it a tidal wave?”

“Nonsense. It wouldn't have handled us that way.”

“Well, what was it? Listen! For God's sake keep quiet there forward!”

Wilbur looked over the side into the water. The ripples were still chasing themselves away from the schooner. There was nothing else. The stillness shut down again. There was not a sound.

VI. A SEA MYSTERY

In spite of his best efforts at self-control, Wilbur felt a slow, cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, uncanny lifting of the schooner out of the glassy water, at a time when there was not enough wind to so much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of something very like horror through all his flesh.

Again he peered over the side, down into the kelp-thickened sea. Nothing--not a breath of air was stirring. The gray light that flooded down from the stars showed not a break upon the surface of Magdalena Bay. On shore, nothing moved.

“Quiet there, forward,” called Moran to the shrill-voiced coolies.

The succeeding stillness was profound. All on board listened intently. The water dripped like the ticking of a clock from the “Bertha Millner's” stern, which with the rising of the bow had sunk almost to the rail. There was no other sound.

“Strange,” muttered Moran, her brows contracting.

Charlie broke the silence with a wail: “No likee, no likee!” he cried at top voice.

The man had gone suddenly green; Wilbur could see the shine of his eyes distended like those of a harassed cat. As he, Moran, and Wilbur stood in the schooner's waist, staring at each other, the smell of punk came to their nostrils. Forward, the coolies were already burning joss-sticks on the fo'castle head, kowtowing their foreheads to the deck.

Moran went forward and kicked them to their feet and hurled their joss-sticks into the sea.

“Feng shui! Feng shui!” they exclaimed with bated breaths. “The Feng shui no likee we.”

Low in the east the horizon began to blacken against the sky. It was early morning. A watch was set, the Chinamen sent below, and until daybreak, when Charlie began to make a clattering of tins in the galley as he set about preparing breakfast, Wilbur paced the rounds of the schooner, looking, listening, and waiting again for that slow, horrifying lift. But the rest of the night was without incident.

After breakfast, the strangely assorted trio--Charlie, Moran, and Wilbur--held another conference in the cabin. It was decided to move the schooner to the other side of the bay.

“Feng shui in disa place, no likee we,” announced Charlie.

“Feng shui, who are they?”

Charlie promptly became incoherent on this subject, and Moran and Wilbur could only guess that the Feng shui were the tutelary deities that presided over that portion of Magdalena Bay. At any rate, there were evidently no more shark to be caught in that fishing-ground; so sail was made, and by noon the “Bertha Millner” tied up to the kelp on the opposite side of the inlet, about half a mile from the shore.

The shark were plentiful here and the fishing went forward again as before. Certain of these shark were hauled aboard, stunned by a blow on the nose, and their fins cut off. The Chinamen packed these fins away in separate kegs. Eventually they would be sent to China.

Two or three days passed. The hands kept steadily at their work. Nothing more occurred to disturb the monotony of the scorching days and soundless nights; the schooner sat as easily on the unbroken water as though built to the bottom. Soon the night watch was discontinued. During these days the three officers lived high. Turtle were plentiful, and what with their steaks and soups, the fried abalones, the sea-fish, the really delicious shark-fins, and the quail that Charlie and Wilbur trapped along the shore, the trio had nothing to wish for in the way of table luxuries.

The shore was absolutely deserted, as well as the back country--an unbroken wilderness of sand and sage. Half a dozen times, Wilbur, wearying of his inaction aboard the schooner, made the entire circuit of the bay from point to point. Standing on one of the latter projections and looking out to the west, the Pacific appeared as empty of life as the land. Never a keel cut those waters, never a sail broke the edge of the horizon, never a feather of smoke spotted the sky where it whitened to meet the sea. Everything was empty--vast, unspeakably desolate--palpitating with heat.