somehow, after that wreck, captain pierpoint never cared for the water again. his nerves were shattered, he said, and he couldn't stand danger as he used to do when he was younger and stronger. so he went on the lake no more, and confined his attention more strictly to the "futures" business. he was a thriving and prosperous person, in spite of his losses; and the underwriters had begun to look a little askance at his insurances even before this late foundering case. some whispered ominously in underwriting circles that they had their doubts about the fortuna.
one summer, a few years later, the water on lake huron sank lower than[pg 161] it had ever been known to sink before. it was a very dry season in the back country, and the rivers brought down very diminished streams into the great basins. foot by foot, the level of the lake fell slowly, till many of the wharves were left high and dry, and the vessels could only come alongside in very few deep places. captain pierpoint had suffered much from sleeplessness, combined with canadian ague, for some years past, but this particular summer his mind was very evidently much troubled. for some unaccountable reason, he watched the falling of the river with the intensest anxiety, and after it had passed a certain point, his interest in the question became painfully keen. though the fever and the ague gained upon him from day to day, and his doctor counselled perfect quiet, he was perpetually consulting charts, and making measurements of the configuration which the coast had now reached, especially at the upper end of lake huron. at last, his mind seemed almost to give way, and weak and feverish as he was, he insisted, the first time for many seasons, that he must take a trip upon the water. remonstrance was quite useless; he would go on the lake again, he said, if it killed him. so he hired one of the little steam pleasure yachts which are always to let in numbers at detroit, and started with his wife and her brother, a young surgeon, for a month's cruise into lake superior.
as the yacht neared manitoulin island, captain pierpoint insisted upon being brought up on deck in a chair—he was too ill to stand—and swept all the coast with his binocular. close to the point, a flat-topped object lay mouldering in the sun, half out of water, on the shoals by the bank. "what is it, ernest?" asked the captain, trembling, of his brother-in-law.
"a wreck, i should say," the brother-in-law answered, carelessly. "by jove, now i look at it with the glass, i can read the name, 'fortuna, sarnia.'"
captain pierpoint seized the glass with a shaking hand, and read the[pg 162] name on the stern, himself, in a dazed fashion. "take me downstairs," he said feebly, "and let me die quietly; and for heaven's sake, ernest, never let her know about it all."
they took him downstairs into the little cabin, and gave him quinine; but he called for brandy. they let him have it, and he drank a glassful. then he lay down, and the shivering seized him; and with his wife's hand in his, he died that night in raving delirium, about eleven. a black squall was blowing down from the sault ste. marie; and they lay at anchor out in the lake, tossing and pitching, opposite the green mouldering hull of the fortuna.
they took him back and buried him at sarnia; and all the world went to attend his funeral, as of a man who died justly respected for his wealth and other socially admired qualities. but the brother-in-law knew there was a mystery somewhere in the wreck of the fortuna; and as soon as the funeral was over, he went back with the yacht, and took its skipper with him to examine the stranded vessel. when they came to look at the bottom, they found eight holes in it. six of them were wide open; one was still plugged, and the remaining one had the plug pulled half out, inward, as if the persons who were pulling it had abandoned the attempt for the fear of the rising water. that was bad enough, and they did not wonder that captain pierpoint had shrunk in horror from the revealing of the secret of the fortuna.
but when they scrambled on the deck, they discovered another fact which gave a more terrible meaning to the dead man's tragedy. the covering of the hatchway by the companion-ladder was battened down, and nailed from the side with five-inch nails. the skipper loosened the rusty iron with his knife, and after a while they lifted the lid off, and descended carefully into the empty hold below. as they suspected, there was no[pg 163] damaged grain in it; but at the foot of the companion-ladder, left behind by the retreating water, two half-cleaned skeletons in sailor clothes lay huddled together loosely on the floor. that was all that remained of pete and hiram. evidently the captain had nailed the hatch down on top of them, and left them there terror-stricken to drown as the water rushed in and rose around them.
for a while the skipper and the brother-in-law kept the dead man's secret; but they did not try to destroy or conceal the proofs of his guilt, and in time others visited the wreck, till, bit by bit, the horrible story leaked out in its entirety. nowadays, as you pass the great manitoulin island, every sailor on the lake route is ready to tell you this strange and ghastly yarn of the foundering of the fortuna.
