The Black Buccaneer, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  The shelter that Amos Swan had built stood on a small bare knoll, at anelevation of fifty or sixty feet above the sea. Behind it and shelteringit from easterly and southerly winds rose the island in sharp and ruggedridges to a high hilltop perhaps a mile away. Between lay ascendingstretches of dark fir woods, rough outcroppings of stone and patches ofhardy grass and bushes. The crown of the hill was a bare granite ledge,as round and nearly as smooth as an inverted bowl.

  Jeremy, scrambling through the last bit of clinging undergrowth in thelate afternoon, came up against the steep side of this rocky summit andpaused for breath. He had left Jock with the sheep, which comfortablychewed the cud in their pen, and, slipping a sort pistol, heavy andbrass-mounted, into his belt, had started to explore a bit.

  He must have worked halfway round the granite hillock before he found aplace that offered foothold for a climb. A crevice in the side of therock in which small stones had become wedged gave him the chance hewanted, and it took him only a minute to reach the rounded surface nearthe top. The ledge on which he found himself was reasonably flat, nearlycircular, and perhaps twenty yards across.

  Its height above the sea must have been several hundred feet, for in theclear light Jeremy could see not only the whole outline of the islandbut most of the bay as well, and far to the west the blue masses of theCamden Mountains. He was surprised at the size of the new domain spreadout at his feet. The island seemed to be about seven miles in length byfive at its widest part. Two deep bays cut into its otherwise roundedoutline. It was near the shore of the northern one that the hut andsheep-pen were built. Southwesterly from the hill and farther away,Jeremy could see the head of the second and larger inlet. Between thebays the distance could hardly have been more than two miles, but a highridge, the backbone of the island, which ran westward from the hilltop,divided them by its rugged barrier.

  Jeremy looked away up the bay where he could still see the speck ofwhite sail that showed his father hurrying landward on a long tack withthe west wind abeam. The boy's loneliness was gone. He felt himself thelord of a great maritime province, which, from his high watchtower, heseemed to hold in undisputed sovereignty.

  Beneath him and off to the southward lay a little island or two, andthen the cold blue of the Atlantic stretching away and away to theworld's rim.

  Even as he glowed with this feeling of dominion, he suddenly becameaware of a gray spot to the southwest, a tiny spot that neverthelessinterrupted his musing. It was a ship, apparently of good size, bound upthe coast, and bowling smartly nearer before the breeze. The boy's dreamof empire was shattered. He was no longer alone in his universe.

  The sun was setting, and he turned with a yawn to descend. Ships wereinteresting, but just now he was hungry. At the edge of the crevice helooked back once more, and was surprised to see a second sail behind thefirst--a smaller vessel, it seemed, but shortening the distance betweenthem rapidly. He was surprised and somewhat disgusted that so muchtraffic should pass the doors of this kingdom which he had thought to beat the world's end. So he clambered down the cliff and made his wayhomeward, this time following the summit of the ridge till he cameopposite the northern inlet.