"Doesn't Mike cook for you?"
"He's glad to, when I ask him; but then I have to eat the result. So most of the time I'd rather do it myself. Come along. Mike!" he roared. "Dinner in twenty minutes!"
By mutual unspoken consent, we stayed off Atlantis and its lamp during dinner. Instead, we incited Mike to tell us of the old lumbering days and of some of the odder lumberjacks he had known. There was one who swore he was being trailed, day and night, by a ghostly cougar, or puma, although there hadn't been one of those animals in the Adirondacks since the last century ...
We let Mike wash the dishes while Alfred and I settled down in the living room with the lamp. Alfred said:
"I think our first step is to get this crud off. For that, suppose we try an ordinary washcloth and a little water?"
"It's your gimmick," I said, "but that sounds reasonable."
"We have to be oh-so-careful," he said, wetting his cloth and rubbing gently. "I wish we had a real archaeologist here."
"He'd probably denounce you for buying looted antiquities. Some day, they tell me, governments will clamp down on that sort of thing."
"Maybe so, but that time hasn't come yet. I hear our brave boys looted half the museums in Germany during the occupation. Ah, look here!"
Much of the mud had come off, exposing a white, toothlike projection. Alfred handed me the lamp. "What do you make of it?"
"I need a stronger light. Thanks. You know, Al, what this looks like? A barnacle."
"Let me see! Jeepers Cripus, you're right! that means the lamp must have been under water—"
"That doesn't prove anything about its—its provenience, I think they call it. It could have been a lamp of Greek or Roman times, dropped overboard anywhere in the Mediterranean."
"Oh," said Alfred, dampened. "Well, I wouldn't dare work on it longer this evening. We need full daylight." He put the thing away.
That night I had the same nightmare again. There was this throne, and this dim character—Yuskejek or whatever his name was—sitting on it. And then he stretched out those rubbery arms ...
A knocking awoke me. It was Alfred. "Say, Willy, did you hear something?"
"No," I said. "I've been asleep. What is it?'
"I don't know. Sounds like someone—or something— tramping around on the porch."
"Mike?'
"He's been asleep, too. Better put on your bathrobe; it's cold out."
I knew how cold Adirondack nights could get, even in July. Muffled up, I followed Alfred downstairs. There we found Mike, in a long nightshirt of Victorian style, with a lantern, a flashlight the size of a small baseball bat, and an ax. Alfred disappeared and, after fumbling in one of the chests beneath the window seats, reappeared with a .22 rifle.
"Only gun on the place," he said. "I keep it hidden in case the goddam natives burgle me again."
We waited, breathing lightly and listening. Then came the sound: a bump—bump—bump—pause, and then bump— bump—bump—bump. It sounded as if someone were tramping on the old porch in heavy boots, the kind everyone used to wear in the woods before the summer people started running round in shorts and sneakers. (I still like such boots; at least, the deer flies can't bite through them.)
Perhaps the sound could have been made by a horse or a moose, although we haven't had moose in the region for nearly a century. Anyhow, I could not imagine what either beast would be doing, swimming to Ten Eyck Island.
The sound was not especially menacing in itself; but in that black night, on that lonely spot, it made my short hair rise. The eyes of Alfred and Mike looked twice their normal size in the lantern light. Alfred handed me the flashlight.
"You fling open the door with your free hand, Willy," he said, "and try to catch whatever-it-is in the beam. Then Mike and I will go after it."
We waited and waited, but the sound did not come again. At last we went out and toured the island with our lights. There was no moon, but the stars shone with that rare brilliance that you get only in clear weather in high country. We found nothing except a raccoon, scuttling up a tree and turning to peer at us through its black bandit's mask, with eyes blazing in the flashlight beam.
"That's Robin Hood," said Alfred. "He's our personal garbage-disposal service. It sure wasn't him that made that racket. Well, we've been over every foot of the island without seeing anything, so I guess ..."
There were no more phenomena that night. The next day, we cleaned the lamp some more. It turned out quite a handsome little article, hardly corroded at all. The metal was pale, with a faint ruddy or yellowish tinge, like some grades of white gold.
I also took a swim, more to show that I was not yet middle-aged than for pleasure. I never cared much for swimming in ice water. That is what you get in the Adirondack lakes, even in the hottest weather, when you go down more than a foot or so.
That night, I had another dream. The thing on the throne was in it. This time, however, instead of standing in front of it, I seemed to be off to one side, while Alfred stood in front of it. The two were conversing, but their speech was too muffled for me to make out the words.
At breakfast, while demolishing a huge stack of pancakes that Mike set before me, I asked Alfred about it.
"You're right," he said. "I did dream that I stood before His Tentacular Majesty."
"What happened?"
"Oh, it's Yuskejek, all right—unless we're both crazy. Maybe we are, but I'm assuming the contrary. Yuskejek says he'll make me a winner instead of a loser, only I have to offer him a sacrifice."
"Don't look at me that way!" I said. "I've got to get back to my job Monday—"
"Don't be silly, Willy! I'm not about to cut your throat, or Mike's either. I have few enough friends as it is. I explained to this spook that we have very serious laws against human sacrifice in this country."
"How did he take that?"
"He grumbled but allowed as how we had a right to our own laws and customs. So he'll be satisfied with an animal. It's got to be an animal of real size, though—no mouse or squirrel."
"What have you got on the island? I haven't seen anything bigger than chipmunks, except that 'coon."
"Jeepers, I wouldn't kill Robin Hood! He's a friend. No, I'll take the outboard down to Gahato and buy a pig or something. You'd better come along to help me wrassle the critter."
"Now I know we're nuts," I said. "Did you find out where the real Atlantis was?"
"Nope; didn't think to ask. Maybe we'll come to that later. Let's shove off right after lunch."
"Why not now?"
"I promised to help Mike on some work this morning."
The work was cutting up a dead poplar trunk into firewood lengths. With a powered chain saw, they could have done the job in minutes; but Mike distrusted all newfangled machinery. So they heaved and grunted on an old two-man crosscut saw, one on each end. I spelled Alfred until my blisters from rowing began to hurt.
The weather had other ideas about our afternoon's trip to Gahato. It is a safe rule that, if it rains anywhere in New York State in summer, it also rains in the Adirondacks. I have known it to rain some every day for eight weeks running.
We had had two fine days, and this one started out clear and balmy. By ten, it had clouded over. By eleven, thunder was rumbling. By twelve, it was raining pitchforks with the handles up, interrupting our woodcutting job on the poplar.
Looking out the windows, we could hardly see to the water's edge, save when a particularly lurid flash lit up the scene. The wind roared through the old pines and bent them until you thought that any minute they would be carried away. The thunder drowned half of what we said to one another. The rain sprayed against the windows, almost horizontally, like the blast from a fire hose.