THE RACE
It was dawn of a heavy, dark day. There was a mighty sea rolling and a
forty-mile wind off the Cape shore that promised a three-day ruction.
The _Charming Lass_ at her anchor reared and plunged like a nervous
horse.
Weighty with fish, she struggled heroically up the great walls of
water, only to plump her sharp bows into the hollow with a force that
half buried her. Between times she wriggled and capered like a dancing
elephant and jerked at her cable until it seemed as though she would
take her windlass out.
In the midst of all this Code Schofield struggled aft and began
hauling forth the mains'l that at the first edge of the Bank had been
relegated in favor of the triangular riding sail.
Pete Ellinwood saw him, and in a great voice bawled down the hatchway
to the fo'c's'le.
"Salt's wet, boys; the skipper's haulin' out the mains'l!" At which
there broke forth the most extravagant sounds of jubilation and all
hands tumbled up to help bend it on.
The crew of the _Lass_ did not know it, but Bijonah Tanner and the
_Rosan_ had actually been gone twelve hours, having stolen away from
the fleet before dressing down the night before when darkness had
fallen. And so successfully had Jed Martin stolen Bijonah's thunder
that he had left but three hours later--when the fish had been
dressed.
Schofield was honest with himself, and he waited until morning to see
if the great stacks of fish would not settle enough to allow of
another day's work to be crowded in. But when he saw that space above
the fish was very small he waited no longer.
Four men heaved on the windlass brakes, and the others got sail on her
as fast as they could haul halyards. She started under jib, jumbo,
fore and mains'l, with the wind a little on her port quarter and every
fiber of her yearning to go.
When the sails were apparently flat as boards Schofield made Ellinwood
rig pulleys leading to the middle of the halyards so that the men
could sway on them. She was fit as a racing yacht; her load was
perfectly distributed and she trimmed to a hairbreadth.
An hour later they snored down upon the _Night Hawk_, the last vessel
at the edge of the fleet.
"Better hurry!" megaphoned Stetson, tickled with himself. "Burns
cleared six hours ago for Freekirk Head with a thousand quintal. He's
got Boughton sewed up to buy 'em, too."
"Bring her to!" snarled Code, and the _Lass_, groaning and complaining
at the brutality, whirled up into the wind enough to take her sticks
out. "Burns's going home, you say? And with fish? Where'd he get
'em?"
"From me. I sold him my whole load at a better price than I would have
got if I had waited to fill the _Hawk's_ belly and then gone home.
Gave me cash and threw in a lot of bait, so I'll stay right out here
and get another load. Petty good for a Jonah--what? Ha, ha!" The man
roared exasperatingly.
"Damnation!" rapped out Schofield. "Lively now! Tops'ls on her, and
two of you stay aloft to shift tacks if we should need to come
about."
"Hey, you!" bawled Stetson as the _Lass_ began to heel to the great
sweep of the wind. "There's two ahead of him, Bijonah Tanner an' Jed
Martin! Better hurry if you're going to catch the market!"
"Hurry, is it?" growled Code to himself. "I'll hurry so some people
won't know who it is."
It was the first time that Code had had occasion to drive the _Lass_,
for the Mignon fishermen heretofore had confined their labor to the
shoals near home or, at farthest, on the Nova Scotia coast. The
present occasion was different.
Between where he lay and the friendly sight of Swallowtail Light was
more than eight hundred and fifty miles of wallowing, tumbling ocean.
Treacherous shoals underran it, biting rocks pierced up in saw-toothed
reefs, the bitterest gales of all the seas swept in leaden wastes.
It was a cutthroat business, this mighty pull for the market; but upon
it not only depended the practical consideration of the highest market
prices, but the honor and glory of owning the fastest schooner out of
Freekirk Head. The task of the _Charming Lass_ was delightful in its
simplicity, but fearful in its arduousness.
Jimmie Thomas came aft and stood by the wheel on the port side. It
took two men to handle her now, for the vast, dead weight in her hold
flung her forward and sidewise, despite the muscular clutch on the
wheel, and when she rolled down she came up sluggishly.
"Isn't she a dog, though, Code?" exclaimed Jimmie in admiration. "Look
at that now! Rose to it like a duck. See her now jest a-playin' with
them waves! Jest a-playin'! Oh, she's a dog, skipper--a dog, I tell
ye! Drive her! She loves it!"
"I'll drive her, Jimmie; don't you worry. Before I get through some
fellers I know'll wish they'd never heard of driving." He motioned
Pete Ellinwood aft with a free hand.
"Tell the boys," said Code, "that what sleepin' they do between here
and home will be on their feet, for I want all hands ready to jump to
orders. They can mug-up day and night, but let nobody get his boots
off."
"Ay, ay, sir!" replied Pete involuntarily. This bright-eyed,
firm-mouthed skipper was a different being from the cheerful, careless
boy he had been familiar with for years. There was the ring of
confidence and command in his voice that inspired respect. "Look out
there! Jump for it!"
The head of the _Lass_ went down with a sickening swoop and the sound
of thunder. A great, gray-and-white wall boiled and raced over her
bows. Ellinwood leaped for the weather-rigging and the other two
clutched the wheel as they stood waist-deep in the surge that roared
over the taffrail and to leeward.
"Pass the life-lines, Pete," ordered Code, and all hands passed stout
ropes from rigging to house to rail, forward and astern, so that there
might be something to leap for when the _Lass_ was boarded by a
Niagara.
Ellinwood got out two stout lines and made one fast around Code's
waist, leading it to the starboard bitt. The other fastened Jimmie to
the port bitt, so that if they were washed overboard they might be
hauled back to safety and life again.
"Looks like she was blowin' up a little!" remarked Pete later in the
day as the _Lass_ rolled down to her sheerpoles in a sudden rain
squall. "Better take in them tops'ls, hadn't ye, skipper?"
"Take in nothing!" snapped Code across the cabin table. "Any canvas
that comes off this vessel between here and Freekirk Head blows off,
unless we have passed all those schooners ahead of us. Haven't raised
any of 'em, have you?"
"Not yet, skipper; but we ought to by night," said Ellinwood as though
he felt he was personally to blame. "But let me tell you somethin',
skipper. It's all right to carry sail, but if you get your sticks
ripped out you won't be able to get anywhere at all."
"If my sticks go, let 'em go, I'll take my medicine; but I'll tell you
this much, Pete, that nobody is going to beat me home while I've got a
stick to carry canvas, unless they have a better packet than the
_Charming Lass_--which I know well they haven't."
"That's the spirit, skipper!" yelled Ellinwood, secretly pleased.
There is no telling exactly what speed certain fishing schooners have
made on their great drives from the Banks. Some men go so far as to
claim that the old China tea clippers have lost their laurels both for
daily runs and for passages up to four thousand miles.
One ambitious man hazards his opinion (and he is one who ought to
know) that a fishing schooner has done her eighteen knots or upward
for numerous individual hours, for fishermen, even on record passages,
fail to haul the log sometimes for half a day at a time.
Schofield, however, took occasion to have the log hauled for one
especially squally mile, and the figures showed that the _Lass_ had
covered fifteen knots in the hour--seventeen and a half land miles.
She was booming along now, seeming to leap from one great crest to the
next like a giant projectile driven by some irresistible force. She
was canted at such an angle that her lee rail was invisible under the
boiling white, and her deck planks seemed a part of the sea.
The course was almost exactly southwest, and that first day the _Lass_
roared down the Atlantic, passing the wide mouth of Cabot Strait that
leads between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia into the Gulf of St.
Lawrence. They passed one of the Quebec and Montreal liners, and took
pleasure shooting the schooner under her flaring bows.
The next morning at seven, twenty-four hours out, found them three
hundred and fifty miles on their course, but what was better than all,
showed three sails ahead. Then did the crew of the _Charming Lass_
rejoice, climbing into the spray-lashed rigging, and yelling wildly
against the tumult of the waters.
Nor did the wind subside. It had gone to forty-five miles an hour over
night, and in landlocked harbors the skippers of big steel passenger
vessels shook their heads and refused to venture out into the gale.
As well as could be judged, the _Nettie B._, _Rosan_, and _Herring
Bone_ were nearly on even terms twenty miles ahead, all with every
stitch set and flying like leaves before a wind.
"Bend on balloon jib!" snapped Schofield when he had considered the
task before him. Pete ran joyfully to execute the order, but some of
the men hesitated.
"Up with her!" roared Pete, and up she went, a great concave hollow of
white like the half of a pear. The _Lass's_ head went down, and now,
instead of attempting to go over the waves, she went through them
without argument.
Tons of divided water crashed down upon her decks and roared off over
the rails, the men at the wheel were never less than knee-deep. The
sheets strained, the timbers creaked, and the sails roared, and back
of all were the wind and the North Atlantic in hot pursuit.
By noon it could be seen that the three vessels ahead were commencing
to come back, but with terrible slowness. Code, lashed in the
weather-rigging, studied them for more than an hour through his
glasses. Then he leaped to the deck.
"Hell's bells! No wonder we can't catch 'em! Burns has got stays'l
set, and I think Tanner has, too. Couldn't see Martin. Set stays'l,
all hands!"
Under the driving of Ellinwood the staysail was set, and from then on
the _Charming Lass_ sailed on her side.
At every roll her sheerpoles were buried, and it seemed an open
question whether she would ever come up or not. It was at this time
that Tip O'Neill, a daring young buck of Freekirk Head, performed the
highly dangerous feat of walking from her main to her forerigging
along the weather run, which fact shows there was foothold on her
uppermost side for a man crazy enough to desire it.
That Ellinwood and the daring Jimmie Thomas were thoroughly in accord
with Schofield's preposterous sail-carrying was a foregone conclusion.
But others of the crew were not of the same mind. An hour more here or
there seemed a small matter to them as compared to the chance of
drowning and leaving a family unprotected and unprovided for.
Schofield sensed this feeling immediately it had manifested itself,
and he called his lieutenants to him. He wished to provide against
interference.
"House the halyards aloft!" he commanded, and at this even those
two daring souls stood aghast, for it meant that whatever the
emergency no sail could be taken off the _Charming Lass_. With the
end of the halyards aloft no man could reach them in time to avert a
catastrophe.
"You're sure drivin' her, skipper!" roared Pete in amazed admiration.
"Up them halyards go. Oh, Lord, but she's a dog, an' she'll stand
it."
So up the halyards went, and with them went a warning that whoever
jumped to loosen them would get a gaff-hook in his breeches and be
hauled down ignominiously.
This time when the log was hauled for the hour from three to four in
the afternoon it showed a total of seventeen knots, or a fraction
under twenty miles for the hour. And best of all, the three flying
schooners had come back five miles. By ten o'clock that night Code
judged they had come back five more, and knew that the next day would
bring the test.
They were not in over-deep water here, for the coast of Nova Scotia is
extended for miles out under the sea in excellent fishing shoals and
banks.
At Artimon Bank they switched their course to westward so as to pass
inside of Sable Island and round Cape Sable in the shoalest water
possible. Down across Western they roared, and almost to Le Have
before midnight came.
Now it is one thing to sail like the Flying Dutchman with the sun up
and one's eyes to use, but it is another to career through the night
without taking in a stitch of canvas, trusting to luck and the
Providence that watches over fishermen that the compass is good and
that no blundering coasters will get in the way.
When dawn broke wild and dirty, the _Charming Lass_ was reeling
through the water less than a quarter of a mile astern of the _Rosan_
and the _Herring Bone_. Through the murk Code could see the _Nettie
B._ three miles ahead.
An hour and she had drawn abreast of her two rivals; another hour and
she had left them astern. Day had fully broken now, and Code, grinning
over his shoulder at the defeated schooners, gave a cry of surprise.
For no longer were there two only. Another, plunging through the mist,
had come into view; far back she was, but carrying a spread of canvas
that gave indications enough of her speed.
But Code spent little time looking back. He gripped the wheel, set his
teeth, and urged the _Lass_ forward after the _Nettie_ with every
faculty of his power. After that terrible night the crew had lost
their fear and worked with enthusiasm.
Some hands were always at the pumps, when they could be worked, for
besides the brine from the fish gathering below, Code feared the
vessel had spewed some oakum and was taking a little water forward.
Now, too, the horrible stench of riled bilge-water floated over
all--compared to which an aged egg is a bouquet of roses.
At eight o'clock that morning they rounded Cape Sable at the tip of
Nova Scotia, and laid a course a trifle west of north for the final
beat home. There was a hundred miles to go, and Burns still held his
three-mile lead.
By herself and loaded only with ballast, the _Nettie_ was a better
sailor in a beating game, for she was older and heavier than the
_Charming Lass_. But now she had but a thousand quintal of fish
compared to the sixteen hundred of her rival. This difference gave the
_Lass_ much needed stability without which she could never have hoped
to win from the Burns schooner.
The two were, therefore, about equally matched, and it was evident
that the contest would resolve itself into one of sail-carrying,
seamanship, and nerve.
"That other feller's comin' up fast!" said Pete Ellinwood, and Code
looked back to see the strange schooner looming larger and larger in
his wake. He knew that no vessel in the Grande Mignon fleet could ever
have caught the _Lass_ the way he had been driving her, and yet she
was not near enough for him to get a good view of her.
"If she's a fisherman," said Code, "I'll pull the _Lass_ out of water
before she beats us in."
It was killing work, the last beat home.
"Hard a-lee!" would come the command, and some men would go down into
the smother of the lee rail and haul in or slack away sheets, while
others at the mastheads would shift top- and staysail tacks.
Her head would swing, there would be a minute of thrashing and roaring
of gear, and the gale would leap into her sails and bend her down on
her side again. Then away she would go.
The station of those on deck was a good two-handed grip on the
ringbolts under the weather-rail, where, so great was the slope of the
deck, they clung desperately for fear of sliding down and into the
swirling torrent.
Hour after hour the _Nettie_ and the _Lass_ fought it out, and hour
after hour the gale increased. Hurricane warnings had been issued all
along the coast, and not a vessel ventured out, but these stanch
fishing vessels cared not a whit.
It was evident, however, that something must give. Human ingenuity had
not constructed a vessel that could stand such driving. Even Pete
Ellinwood began to lose his heartiness as the _Lass_ went down and
stayed down longer with each vicious squall.
"Shut up, Pete!" said Code, when the mate started to speak. "No sail
comes off but what blows off, and while there's all sail on the
_Nettie_ I carry all sail if I heave her down for it. Watch him,
he'll break. Burns is yellow."
The words were a prophecy. He had hardly uttered them when down came
the great balloon jib of the _Nettie B._ At once the _Lass_ began to
gain in great leaps and bounds. They were fifty miles from home and
two miles only separated them.
But fortune had not finished with Code. Half an hour later there came
a great sound of tearing like the volley of small arms, and the
_Lass's_ balloon jib ripped loose and soared to heaven like some
gigantic wounded bird.
"Let it go, curse it," growled Code. "Anyway, I didn't take it down."
The loss of her big jib was the only thing that saved the _Lass_ from
being hove down completely, for two hours later the gale had reached
its height, and she was laboring like a drunken man under her
staysail, topsail, and four lowers.
Twenty miles from home and the two schooners were abreast, tacking
together on the long leeward reaches and the short windward ones, as
they made across the Bay of Fundy.
"Look at her comin' like a racehorse!" cried Ellinwood again, and this
time Code recognized the vessel that was pursuing them. It was the
mystery schooner, and in all his life at sea Code had never seen a
ship fly as that one was flying then.
"Wonder what she's up to now?" he asked vaguely. But he gave no
further thought to the matter, for the _Nettie B._ claimed all his
attention. Suddenly from between the masts of the Burns schooner a
great flutter of white appeared as though some one had hung a huge
sheet from her stay.
"Ha, I told you he was yellow!" shouted Code in glee. "Somebody's cut
away one edge of the stays'l. Now we've got 'em!"
And they had; for within a quarter of an hour they left the _Nettie
B._ astern, finally defeated, Nat Burns's last act of treachery gone
for nothing.
But the mystery schooner would not be denied. Though the _Lass_ made
her seventeen knots, the wonderful Mallaby schooner did her twenty,
with everything spread in that gale; and when the white lighthouse of
Swallowtail Point was in plain sight through the murk, she swept by
like a magnificent racer and beat the _Charming Lass_ to moorings by
twenty minutes.
Half an hour behind Schofield came the Burns boat, but in that time
Code Schofield had already hurried ashore in his dory and clinched his
sale price with Bill Boughton, who also assured him of the bonus
offered for the first vessel in.
Like Code, the first thing Nat did, when his schooner had come up into
the wind with jib and foresail on the run, was to take a dory ashore.
In it, besides himself, was a man. These two encountered Code just as
he came out of Boughton's store.
The second, who was tall and broad-shouldered, threw back his coat and
displayed a government shield. Then he laid his hand on Code's arm.
"Captain Schofield," he said, "you are under arrest!"