The Dragon's Secret.

by Augusta Huiell Seaman.

CHAPTER I

THE NIGHT OF THE STORM

It had been a magnificent afternoon, so wonderful that Leslie hated to break the spell. Reluctantly she unrolled herself from the Indian blanket, from which she emerged like a b.u.t.terfly from a coc.o.o.n, draped it over her arm, picked up the book she had not once opened, and turned for a last, lingering look at the ocean. A lavender haze lay lightly along the horizon. Nearer insh.o.r.e the blue of sea and sky was intense. A line of breakers raced sh.o.r.eward, their white manes streaming back in the wind. Best of all, Leslie loved the flawless green of their curve at the instant before they crashed on the beach.

"Oh, but the ocean's wonderful in October!" she murmured aloud. "I never had any idea _how_ wonderful. I never saw it in this month before. Come, Rags!"

A black-and-white English sheep-dog, his name corresponding closely to his appearance, came racing up the beach at her call.

"Did you find it hard to tear yourself away from the hermit-crabs, Ragsie?" she laughed. "You must have gobbled down more than a hundred.

It's high time you left off!"

She started to race along the deserted beach, the dog leaping ahead of her and yapping ecstatically. Twice she stopped to pick up some driftwood.

"We'll need it to get supper, Rags," she informed the dog. "Our stock is getting low."

He c.o.c.ked one ear at her intelligently.

They came presently to a couple of summer bungalows set side by side about two hundred feet from the ocean edge. They were long and low, each with a wide veranda stretching across the front. There were no other houses near, the next bungalow beyond being about half a mile away.

With a sigh of relief, Leslie deposited the driftwood in one corner of the veranda of the nearest bungalow. Then she dropped into one of the willow rockers to rest, the dog panting at her feet. Presently the screen door opened and a lady stepped out.

"Oh! are you here, Leslie? I thought I heard a sound, and then it was so quiet that I came out to see what it meant. Every little noise seems to startle me this afternoon."

"I'm so sorry, Aunt Marcia! I should have called to you," said Leslie, starting up contritely to help her aunt to a seat. "I hope you had a good nap and feel rested, but sometimes I think it would do you more good if you'd come out with me and sit by the ocean than try to lie down in your room. It was simply glorious to-day."

Miss Marcia Crane shook her head. "I know what is best for me, Leslie dear. You don't always understand. But I believe this place _is_ doing me a great deal of good. I confess, I thought Dr. Crawford insane when he suggested it, and I came here with the greatest reluctance. For a nervous invalid like myself to go and hide away in such a forsaken spot as this is in October, just you and I, seemed to me the wildest piece of folly.

But I must say it appears to be working out all right, and I am certainly feeling better already."

"But why _shouldn't_ it have been all right?" argued Leslie. "I was always sure it would be. The doctor said this beach was noted for its wonderfully restful effect, especially after the summer crowds had left it, and that it was far better than a sanatorium. And as for your being alone with me--why I'm sixteen and a quite competent housekeeper, as Mother says. And you don't need a trained nurse, so I can do most everything for you."

"But your school--" objected Miss Crane. "It was lovely of your mother to allow you to come with me, for I don't know another person who would have been so congenial or helpful. But I worry constantly over the time you are losing from high school."

"Well, don't you worry another bit!" laughed Leslie. "I told you that my chum Elsie is sending me down all our notes, and I study an hour or two every morning, and I'll probably go right on with my cla.s.ses when I go back. Besides, it's the greatest lark in the world for me to be here at the ocean at this unusual time of the year. I never in all my life had an experience like it."

"And then, I didn't think at first that it could possibly be _safe_!"

went on her aunt. "We seem quite unprotected here--we're miles from a railroad station, and not another inhabited house around. What would happen if--"

Again Leslie laughed. "We've a telephone in the bungalow and can call up the village doctor or the constable, in case of need. The doctor said there weren't any tramps or unwelcome characters about, and I've certainly never seen any in the two weeks we've been here. And, last but not least, there's always Rags!--You know how extremely unpleasant he'd make it for any one who tried to harm us. No, Aunt Marcia, you haven't a ghost of an excuse for not feeling perfectly safe. But now I'm going in to start supper. You stay here and enjoy the view."

But her aunt shivered and rose when Leslie did. "No, I prefer to sit by the open fire. I started it a while ago. And I'm glad you brought some more wood. It was getting low."

As they went in together, the girl glanced up at the faded and weather-beaten sign over the door. "Isn't it the most appropriate name for this place!--'Rest Haven.' It is surely a haven of rest to us. But I think I like the name of that closed cottage next door even better."

"What is it?" asked her aunt, idly. "I've never even had the curiosity to look."

"Then you must come and see for yourself!" laughed Leslie, turning her aunt about and gently forcing her across the veranda. They ploughed their way across a twenty-foot stretch of sand and stepped on the veranda of the cottage next door. It was a bungalow somewhat similar to their own, but plainly closed up for the winter. The windows had their board shutters adjusted, the door was padlocked, and a small heap of sand had drifted in on the veranda.

Leslie pointed to the sign-board over the door. "There it is,--_'Curlew's Nest.'_ There's something about the name that fascinates me. Don't you feel so too, Aunt Marcia? I can imagine all sorts of curious and wonderful things about a closed-up house called 'Curlew's Nest'! It just fairly bristles with possibilities!"

"What a romantic child you are, Leslie!" smiled her aunt. "When you are as old as I am, you'll find you won't be thinking of interesting possibilities in a perfectly ordinary shut-up summer bungalow. It's a pretty enough name, of course, but I must confess it doesn't suggest a single thing to me except that I'm cold and want to get back to the fire.

Come along, dearie!"

Leslie sighed and turned back, without another word, to lead her aunt to their own abode. One phase of their stay she had been very, very careful to conceal from Miss Marcia. She loved this aunt devotedly, all the more perhaps because she was ill and weak and nervous and very dependent on her niece's care; but down in the depths of her soul, Leslie had to confess to herself that she was lonely, horribly lonely for the companionship of her parents and sisters and school chums. The loneliness did not always bother her, but it came over her at times like an overwhelming wave, usually when Miss Marcia failed to respond to some whim or project or bubbling enthusiasm. Between them gaped the abyss of forty years difference in age, and more than a score of times Leslie had yearned for some one of her own years to share the joy she felt in her unusual surroundings.

As they stepped on their own veranda, Leslie glanced out to sea with a start of surprise. "Why, look how it's clouding up!" she exclaimed. "It was as clear as a bell a few minutes ago, and now the blue sky is disappearing rapidly."

"I knew to-day was a weather-breeder," averred Miss Marcia. "I felt in my bones that a storm was coming. We'll probably get it to-night. I do hope the roof won't leak. We haven't had a real bad storm since we came, and I dread the experience."

At eight o'clock that evening it became apparent that they were in for a wild night. The wind had whipped around to the northeast and was blowing a gale. There was a persistent crash of breakers on the beach. To open a door or window was to admit a small cyclone of wind and sand and rain.

Miss Marcia sat for a while over the open fire, bemoaning the fact that the roof _did_ leak in spots, though fortunately not over the beds. She was depressed and nervous, and finally declared she would go to bed.

But Leslie, far from being nervous, was wildly excited and exhilarated by the conflict of the elements. When her aunt had finally retired, she hurried on a big mackinaw and cap and slipped out to the veranda to enjoy it better. Rags, whimpering, followed her. There was not much to see, for the night was pitch black, but she enjoyed the feel of the wind and rain in her face and the little occasional dashes of sand. Wet through at last, but happy, she crept noiselessly indoors and went to her own room on the opposite side of the big living-room from her aunt's.

"I'm glad Aunt Marcia is on the other side," she thought. "It's quieter there on the south and west. I get the full force of things here. It would only worry her, but I like it. How lonesome Curlew's Nest seems on a wild night like this!" She switched off her electric light, raised her shade, and looked over at the empty bungalow. Rags, who always slept in her room, jumped up on the window-seat beside her. The mingled sand and rain on the window prevented her from seeing anything clearly, so she slipped the sash quietly open, and, heedless for a moment of the drenching inrush, stood gazing out.

Only the wall of the house twenty feet away was visible, with two or three windows, all tightly shuttered--a deserted and lonely sight. She was just about to close her window when a curious thing happened. The dog beside her uttered a rumbling, half-suppressed growl and moved restlessly.

"What is it, Rags?" she whispered. "Do you see or hear anything? I'm sure there's no one around." The dog grumbled again, half audibly, and the hair along his spine lifted a little.

"Hush, Rags! For gracious sake don't let Aunt Marcia hear you, whatever happens! It would upset her terribly," breathed Leslie, distractedly. The dog obediently lay quiet, but he continued to tremble with some obscure excitement, and Leslie remained stock still, gazing at the empty house.

At length, neither seeing nor hearing anything unusual, she was about to close the window and turn away, when something caused her to lean out, regardless of the rain, and stare fixedly at a window in the opposite wall. Was she mistaken? Did her eyes deceive her? Was it possibly some freak of the darkness or the storm? It had been only for an instant, and it did not happen again. But in that instant she was almost certain that she had seen a faint streak of light from a crack at the side of one of the heavily shuttered windows!

CHAPTER II

FOUND ON THE BEACH

The next morning dawned windy and wet. A heavy northeast gale had whipped the sea into gray, mountainous waves. A fine drizzle beat in one's face through the slightest opening of door or window. Leslie loved the soft, salt tang of the air, and in spite of her aunt's rather horrified protests, prepared for a long excursion out of doors.

"Don't worry about me, Auntie dear!" she laughed gaily. "One can't possibly catch cold in this mild, beautiful air; and if I get wet, I can always get dry again before any damage is done. Besides, we need some more wood for the fires very, very badly and they say you can simply find heaps of it on the beach after a storm like this. I want some nice fat logs for our open fire, and I see at least a half dozen right down in front of this house. And last but not least, Rags needs some exercise!"

She found a wealth of driftwood at the water's edge that surpa.s.sed her wildest dreams. Again and again she filled her basket and hauled it up to the bungalow, and three times she carried up a large, water-soaked log balanced on her shoulder. But when the supply at last appeared ample, she returned to the beach on another quest. Rather to her surprise, she found that the stormy ocean had cast up many things beside driftwood--articles that in size and variety suggested that there must have been a wreck in the night.

Yet she knew that there had been no wreck, else the coast-guard station, less than a mile away, would have been very busy, and she herself must surely have heard some of the disturbance. No, there had been no wreck, yet all about her lay the wave-sodden flotsam and jetsam of many past disasters. A broken mast stump was imbedded upright in the sand at one spot. In another, a ladder-like pair of stairs, suggesting a ship's companionway, lay half out of the water. Sundry casks and barrels dotted the beach, some empty, some still untouched. Rusty tins of canned goods, oil, and paint, often intact, intermingled with the debris. Bottles, either empty or full of every conceivable liquid, added to the list; and sprinkled through and around all the rest were broken dishes, shoe-brushes, combs, and other household and personal articles in surprising quant.i.ties.

Leslie roamed about among this varied collection, the salt spray in her face, the surging breakers sometimes unexpectedly curling around her rubber boots. There was a new and wonderful fascination to her in examining this ancient wreckage, speculating on the contents of unopened tins, and searching ever farther and farther along the sh.o.r.e for possible treasure-trove of even greater interest or value.

"Why _shouldn't_ I find a chest of jewels or a barrel full of golden coins or a pocket-book crammed with bills, Rags?" she demanded whimsically of the jubilant dog. "I'm sure something of that kind must go down with every ship, as well as all the rest of this stuff, and why shouldn't we be lucky enough to find it?"