it was an apple.
Nothing funny in that. Nor another: "Patrolman John Cafferty, 28th Precinct, found dead in alley. No wound except queer burned spot on forehead as though from electrical high voltage contact. . . ."
I drew young Blake aside; told him of the man who had accosted me up on Riverside. He stared numbly; and suddenly we were both shuddering.
"Dead people—" he murmured. "Or—or—"
Or what? Wild thoughts were in my mind. Was this some band of normal criminals, fantastically garbed? What about that Indian's skill with a tomahawk? That weird burned spot on the policeman's forehead? The man on Riverside had said: "We need young men and young—women." More than once, that queer emphasis, young—women. . . .
"Well—" Blake murmured again. "Good Lord, Bob—something supernatural—"
"It was two-thirty A.M.
"He said three o'clock," I told Blake. "Shall we go? Or tell the police?"
It was possible of course, that the man who had met me on Riverside had nothing to do with these attacks upon girls. And his talk to me might have been a hoax. Or, to the contary, there might be a big news story here, which we certainly wanted to get unaided if we could.
WE told no one of our purpose. It was just before three A.M. when on foot we were approaching the region which the man who had called himself Tork had designated. Ragged trees, rocky terrain lay ahead of us, a long and then precipitous slope which ended down at winding Spuyten Duyvil Creek. Clouds were overhead now; the night was darkening. The little creek, far below us, spanned by its several railroad bridges, was a silver thread, darkening as a cloud patch effaced the moon. The yellow-lighted city behind us faded as we entered the woods.
"This ought to be about the place," I whispered.
We melted down, crouching in a thicket. The silence was queerly heavy here, surrounded by the great throbbing city. Its faint blended hum was audible; and the distant grind of trains rounding the curves, crossing the bridges, sometimes with a spluttering glare from the third-rail contacts. . . .
"Bob—look—" Blake's whisper was in my ear, his hand on my arm. We tensed, crouched staring. Ahead of us in the gloom a figure had appeared. Short, thick-set man in an ancient Dutch costume. He had an old fowling piece in his hand. He stood with his back to a tree, peering down the slope. Then suddenly he moved into a deeper shadow and vanished.
"Shall we follow him?" Blake whispered. "Or shall we—"
He got no further. The words died on his lips as he sucked in his breath with a little gasp. Ahead of us in an open space where for two or three hundred feet there was an oblong patch of level ground devoid of trees, something was appearing. The ghost of a ship. For a second or two it looked like that—a shimmering wraith of cylindrical hull a hundred feet long and twenty feet or so high. Fantastic—the skeleton of a ship and white shining ribs. Bars crossing its long line of little windows; a bulging front bow-end, with a round protruding turret.
All in a second or two it materialized, with a faint humming coming from it. Then the humming ceased. Blankly we stared, transfixed. The thing was real, lying there a hundred feet from us.
