Read Ebook: The Dragon's Secret by Seaman Augusta Huiell Relyea C M Charles M Illustrator

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Ebook has 601 lines and 44119 words, and 13 pages

"We always come down here for three weeks in October, Father and Ted and I, for the fishing," Phyllis went on to explain. "Father adores fishing and always takes his vacation late down here, so that he can have the fishing in peace and at its best. And Ted and I come to keep him company and keep house for him, incidentally. That's our bungalow right back there,--'Fisherman's Luck.'"

Leslie agreed joyfully, and together they tugged a heavy basket of wood up to the one other bungalow on the beach beside the one Leslie and her aunt were stopping at--and Curlew's Nest. She found Fisherman's Luck a delightful abode, full of the pleasant, intimate touches that could only be imparted by owners who inhabited it themselves most of the time. A roaring fire blazed invitingly in the big open fireplace in the living-room.

"Come, take off your things and stay awhile!" urged Phyllis, and Leslie removed her mackinaw and cap. The two girls sank down in big easy chairs before the fire and laughingly agreeing to drop formality, proceeded as "Phyllis" and "Leslie," to exchange confidences in true girl fashion.

"I mustn't stay long," remarked Leslie. "Aunt Marcia will be missing me and I must go back to see about lunch. But what a delightful bungalow you have! Are you here much of the time?"

"We're here a good deal in the off seasons--April to June, and September through November. Father, Ted, and I,--but we don't care for it so much in the summer season when the beach is more crowded with vacation folks and that big hotel farther up the beach is full. We have some cousins who usually take the bungalow for July and August."

"I never was at the ocean in October before," sighed Leslie, comfortably, "and it's perfectly heavenly! We have that dear little bungalow, Rest Haven, but the one right next to it is not occupied."

"No," said Phyllis, "and it's queer, too. I never knew either of them to be occupied at this season before. They are both owned by the Danforths, and they usually shut them both up on September 30 and refuse to open them till the beginning of the next season. How did you come to get one of them, may I ask?"

"Oh, I think Aunt Marcia's doctor managed it. He happened to know the Danforths personally, and got them to break their rule, as a great favor to him. We appreciate it very much. But do you know," and here Leslie unconsciously sank her voice, "I saw such a queer thing about that other bungalow late yesterday evening!" And she recounted to her new friend a history of the previous night's experience.

"I'm coming with you!" announced the impetuous Phyllis. "I want to go up there right away and do a little looking about myself. I simply can't wait."

So they set off together, trudging through the sand at the edge of the ocean, where the walking was easiest. All the way, Leslie was wondering what had become of Rags. It was not often that he deserted her even for five minutes, but she had not seen him since her encounter with Phyllis. It was not till their arrival at Curlew's Nest that she discovered his whereabouts.

Directly in front of this bungalow's veranda, and about fifty feet away from it, lay the remains of a huge old tree-trunk, half buried in the sand. Almost under this trunk, only his rear quarters visible, was the form of Rags, digging frantically at a great hole in the wet sand. So deep now was the hole that the dog was more than half buried.

"There's Rags! He's after another hermit-crab!" cried Leslie. "I was wondering where he could be." They both raced up to him and reached him just as he had apparently attained the end of his quest and backed out of the hole.

"Why, what has he got?" exclaimed Phyllis. "That's no hermit-crab!"

And in truth it was not. For out of the hole the dog was dragging a small burlap sack which plainly contained some heavy article in its folds!

THE MYSTERIOUS CASKET

Both girls dashed forward to snatch the dog's treasure-trove from him. But Rags had apparently made up his mind that, after his arduous labors, he was going to have the privilege of examining his find himself. At any rate, he would not be easily robbed. Seizing the burlap bag in his mouth, he raced to the water's edge and stood there, guarding his treasure with mock fierceness. Phyllis, being a stranger, he would not even allow to approach him, but growled ominously if she came within ten feet of his vicinity. And when Rags growled, it behooved the stranger to have a care! Leslie he pretended to welcome, but no sooner had she approached near enough to lay her hand on the bag than he seized it triumphantly and raced up the beach.

"Oh, do grab him, somehow!" cried Phyllis, in despair. "He'll drop the thing in the water and the next breaker will wash it away, and we'll never know what it was!"

Leslie herself was no less anxious to filch his treasure, but Rags had by now acquired a decidedly frolicsome spirit, and the chase he led them was long and weary. Three times he dropped the bag directly in the path of a breaker, and once it was actually washed out, and the girls groaned in chorus as they saw it flung into the boiling surf. But another wave washed it ashore, only to land it again in the custody of Rags before Leslie could seize it.

Finally, however, he wearied of the sport, and sensing the sad fact that his prize was in no wise edible, he dropped it suddenly to pursue an unsuspecting hermit-crab. The girls fell joyfully upon the long-sought treasure and bore it to the veranda of Curlew's Nest for further examination.

"What under the sun can it be?" marveled the curious Phyllis. "Something heavy, and all sewed up in a coarse bag like that! It's as good as a ghost story. Let's get at it right away."

They sat down on the wet steps while Leslie unrolled the bag,--not much larger than a big salt-bag,--and tried to tear an opening at the top. But her slender fingers were not equal to the task, so Phyllis undertook it.

"Let me try!" she urged. "I play the piano a great deal and my fingers are very strong."

And sure enough, it did not take her more than a moment to make an opening and thrust her hand into it. What she found there she drew out and laid in Leslie's lap, while the two girls gasped simultaneously at the singular object they had discovered.

To begin with, it was encrusted with sand and corroded by the contact of salt air and seawater. But when they had brushed off the sand and polished it as well as they could with the burlap bag, it stood forth in something of its original appearance--a small box or casket of some heavy metal, either bronze or copper, completely covered with elaborate carving. It was about six inches long, three wide, and two in height. It stood on four legs, and, upon examination, the carving proved to be the body of a winged serpent of some kind, completely encircling the box, the head projecting over the front edge where the lock or fastening of the cover would be. The legs of the receptacle were the creature's claws. The carving was remarkably fine and delicate in workmanship.

"My gracious!" breathed Phyllis. "Did you ever see anything so strange! What can it be?"

"And isn't it beautiful!" added Leslie. "What can that queer creature be that's carved on it? Looks to me like the pictures of dragons that we used to have in fairy-story books."

"That's just what it is! You've hit it! I couldn't think what it was at first--it's so wound around the box!" cried Phyllis. "But this thing is certainly a box of some kind, and there must be some opening to it and probably something in it. Let's try now to get it open."

But that was easier said than done. Try as they would, they could find no way of opening the casket. The dragon's head came down over the lock or clasp, and there was no vestige of keyhole or catch or spring. And so intricate was the carving, that there was not even any crack or crevice where the lid fitted down over the body of the box into which they could insert Phyllis's penknife blade to pry it open by force. The casket and its contents was a baffling mystery, and the wicked looking little dragon seemed to guard the secret with positive glee, so malicious was its expression!

Phyllis at last threw down her knife in disgust and rattled the box impatiently. "Something bumps around in there!" she declared. "I can hear it distinctly, but I don't believe we'll ever be able to get at it. I never saw such a queer affair! Let's try to break it with an ax. Have you one?"

They both sat for several moments regarding their find with resentful curiosity. Suddenly Leslie's thoughts took a new tack, "How in the world did it ever come there--buried in the sand like that?"

"Thrown up on the beach by the waves, of course," declared Phyllis, positively; "no doubt from some wreck, and buried in the sand after a while, just naturally, as lots of things are."

The explanation was a very probable one. "But it's rather far from the water's edge," objected Leslie.

"Oh, no, indeed! Why in winter the surf often comes up right under the bungalows!" remarked Phyllis, in quite an offhanded way.

"Mercy! Don't ever tell Aunt Marcia that, or she'd go straight home!" exclaimed Leslie. "But isn't it queer that it just happened to be right in front of Curlew's Nest! Everything queer seems to happen right around that place."

"Oh, that's simple! He's always chasing hermit-crabs--it's a great sport of his. And I suppose it just happened that one dug itself down in the sand right here, and he dug after it and then came across this."

Phyllis had a sudden brilliant idea. "Let's go and examine the hole! Perhaps there's something else in it."

They both raced over to the stump and Leslie thrust her hand into the hole. "There's nothing else in there," she averred, "but perhaps it might be worth while to dig around here and see if there might be some other article buried near it. I'll get a shovel."

She disappeared behind her own bungalow for a moment and returned with a shovel. They dug furiously for ten minutes and turned up the sand all about the original hole. Nothing of the slightest interest came to light, however, and they presently abandoned the attempt and filled in the hole again.

"This is all there was--that's plain," declared Phyllis, "and all we can think is that it was cast up from some wreck and got buried here."

"Well, has there been a wreck, then, very lately?" demanded Leslie.

"Then, as far as I can see, this box must have been buried here--deliberately--and very recently, too!" declared Leslie, solemnly. "Can you think of any other explanation?"

"Leslie, could it have been done last night?" demanded Phyllis, in an awed whisper.

"Oh--I never thought of that. Perhaps it was. Perhaps that was the meaning of the light and all. Phyllis, there's some queer mystery here! I wonder if we ought to tell folks about it?"

"Indeed, I'll keep it gladly and hide it safely, too. This is one secret I won't have Ted meddling in!" declared Phyllis. "Let's call the box 'The Dragon's Secret.' He seems to be guarding very successfully! I'll come back this afternoon and call, and we can talk this over some more. Good-by!"

And she turned away toward the direction of her own bungalow, with "The Dragon's Secret" carefully concealed beneath her rainproof coat.

IN THE SAND

The northeaster lasted three days. Then it blew itself out, the wind shifted to the northwest, and there was beautiful sparkling weather for the rest of the week.

During this time, the two new friends came to know each other very well indeed. It was not only their little shared mystery that united them--they found they had congenial tastes and interests in very many directions, although they were so different in temperament. Leslie was slight and dark in appearance, rather timid in disposition, and inclined to be shy and hesitant in manner. Phyllis was quite the opposite--large and plump and rosy, courageous and independent, jolly, and often headlong and thoughtless in action. Her mother had died when she was very little, and she had grown up mainly in the care of nurses and servants, from whom she had imbibed some very queer notions, as Leslie was not long in discovering. One of these was her firm belief in ghosts and haunted houses, which not even the robust and wholesome contempt of her father and older brother Ted had succeeded in changing.

But Phyllis had a special gift which drew the two girls together with a strong attraction: she was a devoted lover of music and so accomplished a pianist as to be almost a genius--for one of her age. The whole family seemed to be musical. Her father played the 'cello and Ted the violin, but Phyllis's work at the piano far surpassed theirs. And Leslie, too, loved music devotedly, though she neither sang nor played any instrument. It was a revelation to her when, on the next rainy afternoon, she accompanied Phyllis to the living-room of Fisherman's Luck and listened to a recital such as she had never expected to hear outside of a concert-hall.

"Oh, Phyllis, it's wonderful--simply wonderful!" she sighed blissfully when the last liquid ripples of a Chopin waltz had died away. "I don't see how you ever learned to play like that! But what in the world are you going to do now?" For Phyllis had jumped up with an impatient exclamation, laid back the cover of the grand piano, and was hunting frantically in the music cabinet for something.

"Phyllis, you're amazing!" murmured Leslie, at length. "But, tell me--what do you intend to do with this wonderful gift you have? Surely you'll make it your career--or something like that!"

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