Pocket Island | Page 2

outer ocean, and through
this the tides flowed fiercely; but so protected was the inner harbor that
never a ripple disturbed its surface. It was this harbor that gave the
island its name.
Occasionally a shipwreck occurred here. In 1842 the British barque
Lancaster was driven on to this island in a winter night snowstorm, and
all hands perished. Five of the crew were washed ashore alive, only to
freeze among the snow-covered rocks. The vessel went entirely to
pieces in one night and the wreck was not discovered until two years
after by a stray fisherman, who suddenly came upon the bleaching
bones and grinning skulls of those unfortunate sailors. The island was a
menace to coasters and bore an uncanny reputation. It was said to be
haunted. During a night storm a tall man had been seen, by a flash of
lightning, standing on a cliff. Strange sounds like the cries of dying
men had been heard. When the waves were high, a noise like that made
by a bellowing bull was noticed. The ocean and its storms play queer
pranks at times, especially at night. White bursts of foam leaping over
black rocks assume ghostly shape. Dark and grotesque figures appear
crawling into or out of fissures, or hiding behind rocks. Hideous and
devilish, snarling and snapping, sounds issue from caverns. In darkness
an uninhabited coast becomes peopled with demons who sport and
scream and leap in hellish glee.
Such a spot was Pocket Island.
Nature also played another prank here, and as if to furnish a lair for
some sea monster she hollowed a cavern in the island, with an entrance
below tidewater and at the head of this harbor. Inside and above
tide-level it broadened into a small room. As if to still further isolate
the island all about it were countless rocks and ledges bare only at low
tide and, like a serried cordon of black fangs, ready to bite and destroy
any vessel that approached. It is probable that the Indians who formerly
inhabited the Maine coast had explored this island and discovered the

cave. An Indian is always looking for such things. It is his nature. It
may be this wandering and half-civilized remnant of a nearly extinct
tribe whom the Jew had compacted with, knew of this sea cavern and
piloted his sloop into the safe shelter of "the pocket." And it was a
secure shelter. No one came here; no one was likely to. Its uncanny
reputation, added to the almost impassable barricade of rocks and
ledges all about, made it what Captain Wolf needed--a veritable burrow
for a sea fox. Here he brought his cargo of contraband spirits and stored
them in the cave. Here he repacked kegs of rum inside of empty
mackerel kits, storing them aboard the sloop with genuine ones. By this
ruse he almost obliterated the chance of detection. Like a sly fox, he
was always on guard. Even when the sloop was safe at anchor, he
worked only in the cave. When all was ready, he and his swarthy
partner would wait till low tide, then load the dozen or more
rum-charged kits and set sail for the coast. In these ventures Wolf
realized what his race have always wanted--the Jew's one per cent.
In this island cave nature had placed a curiosity, known as a rocking
stone. In was a boulder of many tons' weight near the wall of the room,
and so poised that a push of the hand at one particular point would
move it easily. When so moved a little niche in the rock-wall back of it
was exposed. Wolf had discovered this one day while alone in the cave
and utilized it as a hiding place for his money.
Here he would come alone and, taking out the increasing bags of coin,
empty them on a flat stone and, by the light of a lamp, count their
contents again and again. Those shining coins were his god and all his
religion; and in this damp and dark sea cavern and by the dim light of a
lamp he came to worship.
The Indian could neither read nor write, add nor subtract, and while he
knew the value of coins, he was unable to compute them. Wolf knew
this and, unprincipled as he was, he not only defied all law in
smuggling, but he had from the first defied all justice, and cheated his
partner in the division of profit. As the Indian was never present when
either buying or selling took place, and had no knowledge of arithmetic,
this was an easy matter. Wolf gave him a little money, of course. He

needed him and his vessel; also his help in sailing her. Not only was the
Indian a faithful helper,