is called?” I asked carelessly, as I turned to a chart of the North Sea.
“Port No Man’s Port,” replied the baron.
“I like its name,” said I. “Order my ship to await me there!”
The elder baron arose, and bending his body with stately grace, withdrew. I accompanied him to the door and dismissed him with most respectful obeisance.
“Port No Man’s Port,” I answered. “Ah, here is the chart!” The descriptive text reads as follows:
“Abandoned for many years; ingress easy; egress so dangerous as to mean fatal injury, if not destruction, to sailing craft; outer channel blocked by a fearful whirlpool and swinging rock called “Thor’s Hammer;” inner basin extremely dangerous from constantly shifting sands; closed by order of the Royal Ministry of Commerce and Marine.” Upon finishing the reading of these words I sprang up and began to pace the floor, wildly and half unconsciously.
The blood rushed in upon my brain. I was obliged to halt and cling to the back of a tall oak chair, or I should have staggered and fallen to the ground.
Bulger was greatly alarmed and sent up a suppressed howl of grief. I spoke to him as calmly as I could to comfort him.
After a few moments the vertigo passed off and my mind cleared up completely.
“Nay, it is impossible,” I whispered, “the elder baron could not be guilty of bad faith to me! Away with such a thought! He errs through thoughtlessness and lack of experience. He little knows the terribly dangerous character of the task he is setting me. To him, the talks of shipwreck and death within Port No Man’s Port are but the legends of old-time sailor-life. He has not the faintest suspicion that his request, so lightly made, exposes his only child, son and heir to a princely fortune and honored name, either to be engulfed by these shifting sands, sucked down to destruction by this fearful whirlpool, or crushed by a blow from Thor’s Hammer.
“And yet why murmur?
“It is too late to protest. Already the elder baron has proclaimed to the world the, to him proud piece of news, that his son was about to renew the old-time glories of his family! I must do one of two things: Face these dangers like a man of cool, calm courage, or condemn myself to a life of dull and listless activity, the magnate of a province and not the hero of two worlds!
“No! the die is cast!
“I have said it and it is as good as done!
“My ship sails from Port No Man’s Port, or this little body feeds its fish that day!”
Doubtless my eyes brightened, and my cheeks took on a glow of crimson hue, for Bulger, who had been listening to my soliloquy with a most pained expression on his face, as he vainly tried to get at the meaning of my words, now broke out into a very lively succession of barks, bounding and springing about the room in the wildest merriment. He knew only too well that some terrible struggle had been going on in my mind.
Now he realized that all was well. Faithful creature, if he could only tell his love, how he would put all human lovers to blush!
As the hour drew near for me to bid adieu to the baronial hall, that good lady, the gracious baroness, my mother, suddenly thought of a thousand and one things which she deemed of the very greatest importance to me. She warned me that I was not to sleep in a draught; not to partake of freshly-baked bread; not to drink cold water while overheated; not to cut my finger nails too short; not to sleep with my mouth open; not to wear my underclothing longer than one week; not to neglect to brush my teeth; not to fail to have my hair cut with the new moon; not to strain my eyes reading by a poor light not to swallow my food without thoroughly chewing it; not to laugh while I had food in my mouth; not to attempt to stop a sneeze; not to neglect to pare my corns; not to pick my teeth with a metal point; not to examine the end of my nose without a looking-glass; not to eat meat without pepper, or vegetables without salt; not to exert myself after a hearty meal; not to stand upon my leg while it was asleep; not to walk so fast as to get a pain in my side; not to go to sleep until I had first rested on my right side; not to fail to take a pill if I saw flashes in the dark; not to neglect to tie a stocking around my neck in case my throat felt sore, etc., etc., etc. When the moment came to take leave of the gracious baroness, my good mother, I was deeply moved. All the servants and retainers, from indoors and out, filed in front of me, kissed my hand and showered blessings on me.
I may safely say that the only being present not moved to tears was Bulger. He was so anxious to get under way that he passed an hour or so racing from the manor house to the carriage and back again in a piteous endeavor to get the procession started.
Start we did, at last.
A hundred hands waved us a fond farewell.
The stately trees that shut in the baronial hall swayed solemnly. I was glad when we rolled out of the court yard for I needed rest and quiet.
My nerves had been on such a stretch for the past month that a change of scene brought me balm and relaxation.
My journey to the North Sea was quiet and uneventful.
I found my ship safely anchored in Port No Man’s Port, and the elder baron there in charge of her. He introduced me to the sailing-master, pressed me in his own loving arms, and with a gracious smile and stately wave of the hand, seated himself in the family coach. His only adieu was:
“My son, thy wisdom comes to thee by inheritance. Thou couldst not have acquired it. Therefore, make a noble use of so noble a gift. Farewell!”
I bent my head in silence. The carriage rolled away. I stood alone. Nay, a true and loving friend was there. He looked up with his large, lustrous eyes, as if to say:
“Don’t be sad, little master. No matter who goes, I’ll stay by thee forever!”
Turning to my sailing-master, I ordered the ship’s launch to be manned, and began at once a survey of the mysterious port in which my ship lay anchored.
I found it to be a roomy basin, shut in by a rock-bound shore. In places the waters slept beneath black and glassy surfaces; in others, all was movement and commotion. Its waves came boiling and bubbling against the launch with swirling masses of white sand, shifting hither and thither, as if condemned to perpetual unrest.
The fact that my men, while fishing in different parts of the bay, often caught deep-sea fish, proved to me that Port No Man’s Port was traversed by a channel from four to six fathoms in depth.
The only difficulty would be to fix the boundaries of this constantly shifting path long enough to sail across the basin.
I next turned my attention to the whirlpool. It marked the junction of the outer channel with the basin of Port No Man’s Port.
Having purchased a number of condemned hulks for the purpose of testing the strength and fury of the whirlpool, I caused a strong hawser to be rigged to a capstan on shore, and was in this way enabled to let the launch approach within a ship’s length of the whirlpool with perfect safety. In truth, it was, when roused to the full measure of its fury by the intrusion of any large floating body, a sight to strike terror to the stoutest heart!
With a deep booming and rumble, its waters rose in tumultuous commotion, boiling, bubbling, seething, till snow-white foam covered the pool like a mantle of bleached linen, then lifting the intruder, which in this case was one of the hulks that I had ordered to be launched upon them, these angered waters whirled it completely around. In an instant, as if exhausted by this tremendous effort, a mysterious calm sank upon the pool. The foam-sheet, broken in shreds, danced gently on the rippling bosom of the waters. All was peace, save that the hulk still lay trembling like an affrighted being in the lap of this resting monster!
For, look! It is aroused again. Faster and faster it whirls its prey. Deeper and deeper its now wide-opened jaws draw down the ill-fated hulk!
A terrible roar tells that the end is near!
’Tis gone!
Ay, but wait! It will give up its prey again!