Page:Strange Tales Volume 02 Number 03 (1932-10).djvu/18



HE scene all around me was about as repulsive a one as I had ever set eyes upon. On every side the flat, dun marshes, with their heavy growth of sedge, stretched away. In front of me—yes, that must be Pequod Island, for a strip of foul and sluggish water separated it from the mainland. Pequod Island, in the lower reaches of Chesapeake Bay, was barely a hundred feet distant. I could have waded waist-high to it, but for the sucking quick-mud which, I knew, would engulf me if I attempted any such thing.

And there was no need to attempt it, for an ancient ferryman was already poling his antediluvian bark across the narrow channel in my direction. I stopped at the edge of the trail and waited for him.

He hailed me, using indistinguishable words in a local dialect that was unintelligible to me. Then, just out of reach, he held the punt with his pole and peered at me out of his deep-set eyes under their white, thick eyebrows, while he chewed and worked his chin with its stained, shaggy gray beard.

"Well, what are you waiting there for?" I asked impatiently. "Don't you see I want to cross?"

"Aye, ye want to cross, do ye? But what do ye want to cross for? Who d'ye want to see?" I managed to make out.

"I want to see Mr. Neil Farrant, if you've got to know," I answered. "I didn't know this island was private, though."

"Neil Farrant? What, him that's got the mummies down to Tap's Point?" There was a look of fear in the old ferryman's eyes. "He won't see ye. Won't see nobody. There was scores turned away when