For several minutes Applebo stood erect, arms folded across his
chest, staring into the fog. Presently he shrugged, smiled cynically
to himself, and, turning on his heel, went below, where he seated
himself on the edge of his bunk.
"An interesting morning," he observed, aloud. "I am richer by one
Ideal, and poorer by the loss of another. On the whole, however, I
am 'way ahead on the break! If my father is a rough old brute of a
pig-headed Scandihoovian sailor, then my sweetheart is the darlingest
and loveliest of women, although she is scarcely more than a child.
Nothing shall keep me from marrying her! I am mad about her! I
would like to write her fathoms on fathoms of verse, but I will not!"
He opened the locker at the head of his bunk, took therefrom a large
pile of manuscript, which he proceeded to tear into small fragments.
"I have sung my swan-song as a bard," Applebo observed. "Poetry can
make a d---- fool of a man. 'Sickening verse,' quoth my paternal. I
shall write no more sickening verse." He stared absently at the
yellow bulkhead, then as absently set about to steep some tea.
"Perhaps, when I get something in my tummy, I will look with a less
saddened retrospect upon my 'family quarrel.' What an old brute! I
wonder why Hermione is so fond of him? There is a jolt coming to him
when he learns that his accusations were all creatures of his
prejudiced and unreasonable imagination. The old beast actually
thought that I had been putting her up to secret rendezvous ... when,
as a matter of fact, upon the only two occasions when we have met, I
have been the one to bring the interview to a close and send her
home! Shucks!"
A quart or two of tea, with some dozen and odd macaroons, had a
decidedly cheering influence upon the spirits of Mr. Applebo. This
breakfast achieved, he wrote a letter to Hermione, telling her of his
unfortunate interview with his father. After this, he took the Finn
and went ashore, in quest of certain things needed for the run to New
York. Most important of these was a fresh supply of macaroons.
At noon the fog had slightly thinned and there was a little air from
the northeast. Nobody but Applebo would have thought of putting to
sea in such weather, but he had an idea that his father, after
interviewing Hermione, might return to express his regret at certain
things which he had said, and Applebo had, for the time being,
completely changed his views in regard to the desirability of a
paternal parent in the scheme of his careless life. Not only had the
romantic anticipations of the poet been dealt a severe blow by this
brutal introduction to his father, but, what was worse, his
hypersensitive mind had almost immediately parodied it, so that, even
while smarting from the interview, he was cynically laughing at it.
Like many poetic natures, Applebo's had its keen appreciation of the
ridiculous, and it was because he was conscious that his
sentimentality often enticed him out upon the thin ice of the absurd
that he had, as a sort of self-protection, acquired the veiled,
mocking pose which left the unsympathetic world in doubt as to
whether he was making a fool of himself or of it!
In his interview with Heldstrom, Applebo had been quick to appreciate
the futility of a pose of any sort. The sturdy Norwegian would have
torn through it like a shark through a gill-net. Applebo had found
himself always quite well-equipped to meet force with force, and so,
when his father had brought to the onslaught sheer weight of
personality, his son had met him with the same backing. The issue
had been a draw, and Applebo felt that, if he had frankly won, he
would be far less content.
Half an hour later he was feeling a secret admiration for his sturdy,
one-ideal old father, and wishing that they had parted friends.
"After all..." said Applebo to his barometer, "the old coot was only
carried into breaking water by his devotion to Hermione. What he
thought, I'm sure I don't know ... nothing very bad, or he would not
have left me alive. It was apparently that I had been enticing her
from the path of conventional behaviour. Dammit! I wish I knew what
he really _did_ think! I'll go to sea and dope it out under way.
The narrow environs of this puddle constrict my intellectual flight."
He raised his voice, and the Finn came squattering aft.
"Get the anchor," said Applebo. "We are going to sea."
Twenty minutes later the _Daffodil_ stole wraith-like through the
entrance and laid a course across Massachusetts Bay for Cape Cod.
The wind was steady, if light, and its direction enabled Applebo to
make a broad reach for the Cape. In the middle of the afternoon the
fog blew off, while the breeze freshened, hauling steadily to east,
then east by south. At dark Applebo sighted the Highlands Light and,
soon afterwards, Race Point, and, as the wind was beginning to haul
ahead and the general aspect of the weather was unpromising, he
decided to run into Provincetown. This he did, dropping anchor in
the midst of a fleet of fishermen who were trailing in, one after the
other, as the night advanced.
At two o'clock in the morning Applebo was awakened by the hum of his
main rigging, the hiss of driving rain, and the short, angry slapping
of little waves against the bow of the yawl.
"Good thing we ran in..." he thought, contentedly, and went to sleep
again. Two hours later he was again awakened, this time by a
clanking and clattering up forward.
"The Finn is giving her the other anchor," he thought. "Must be
blowing up...."
At seven in the morning, when he awoke, Applebo shoved his tawny head
up through the hatch, to find that it was blowing a southeasterly
gale. Crowded close on all sides was the fishing fleet, many other
vessels having run in for shelter during the night. Fine, staunch
schooners they were, with the big spars and sleek lines of yachts.
Applebo slipped on his bathing-suit and took a dive overboard, to the
unconcealed amusement of the crew of an adjacent smack. Finding
himself the target for many witticisms, Applebo decided to shorten
the range and swam alongside, when, finding a sea-ladder down, he
climbed sleepily aboard and blinked at the jovial crew.
"How's fishing?" asked Applebo, hauling his long, wet body over the
rail.
The men regarded him with that swift yet searching scrutiny peculiar
to their kind. Finding him a "college feller" and locating him at
once aboard the _Daffodil_, there seemed to be nothing strange in his
wandering half-naked through the wind and rain.
"Fishin's all right," replied an elderly man, who appeared to be the
captain of the vessel, "but the weathure ain't. You off'n the ketch
yander?"
"Yes. She may not look it, but she is my yacht."
The captain gave her a keen, assaying glance.
"Say," he observed, "that thing looks like the critter we see last
week at Hampton Roads. We was in there ketchin' crabs...."
"I was there, too," said Applebo. "I sneaked back up here inside in
that easter."
The men looked at him with interest. The captain--a lean, lanky
citizen of the State of Maine--shifted his tobacco. He was politely
dressed in a nautical costume befitting his rank and consisting of a
derby hat with a dint in the left side, a rather tired-looking "biled
shirt," a black vest ... for he wore no coat despite the drizzle ...
a heavy gold-plated watch-chain, black trousers, and patent-leather
shoes, whereof the "patent" was putting up a losing fight against the
salt water. This costume would have identified him anywhere along
the coast as the captain of something; at first guess, a coasting
schooner. The men called him "Dave," despite the fact that he was
captain and old enough to have fathered any of them.
"That boat o' yourn looks like a sword-fisher," said he.
"She was built for that," said Applebo.
"She won't never drowned ye. Might starve ye, though."
"She won't do that either," said Applebo. "You will find a lot of
yachts that are duller than that yawl of mine."
"I know one that's duller," said the skipper, "'n that's the old
_Shark_. We come in abaout daylight this mornin'. It was blowin'
toll'ble fresh. M'yeah ... not so peart as what it is now, but there
was wind a-plenty. Jibin' raound the Stellwagen Bank we nigh pitched
onto that 'ere old wagon...."
"The _Shark_?" cried Applebo.
"It was her. They wa'ant much light, but I seen that behind o' hern
wallowin' off into the muck. There ain't no mistakin' that critter!
She's been bangin' 'round this coast most as long as what I hev ...
'n' that's consid'able time."
One of the crew, an Irishman, spoke up.
"'Twas the _Shark_," said he. "She was waddlin' out around the Cape
like an ould duck. Phwat she was doin' in shwill like this I dunno!"
"We wa'ant lookin' fer nothin' goin' that way," said the captain.
"Mercy o' hell we didn't spile her paint! Tearin' chunks off'n the
sea, we was!"
"Funny that the _Shark_ should have been out there," said Applebo.
"I left her in Marblehead yesterday noon."
"'Twas her," said the Irishman. "There's no mistakin' the nose-pole
av her. 'Tis like a pug-nosed girl wid a slate-pencil in her mout'.
She was flounderin' to sea like a cow in a bog ... just as graceful,
sor. There was a big man wid whuskers a-shtandin' be the wheel. I
knaw him. 'Tis ould Heldstrom."
"Who's the owner o' the _Shark_?" asked one of the men.
"'Tis a navy man ... wan Bell...."
"Wa'al..." said the captain, "likely he knowed what he was a-doin'
on. Chances air he put into Chatham when he see what was goin' on.
Ye kain't tell nothin' 'baout the weathure this time o' year. The
day starts in ca'am 'n' peaceful, 'n' the glass nailed tha'ar, 'n'
afore sundaown it's blowin' the paint off'n her. Got a heap o'
respec' fer saou'easters this time o' year, I hev."
Applebo chatted for awhile with the old man, the crew regarding with
much curiosity the nearly nude, beautifully muscled figure standing
by the rail apparently indifferent to the gusty wind and the drizzle
driving against his gleaming limbs. It was about the end of August
and not cold, but a gale off Cape Cod is never really tropical in
temperature, and the fishermen were in heavy oilskins over their
working-clothes.
Applebo finally wished them good-day, then made a clean dive off the
rail, and swam back to the yawl. He found the Finn squatting on the
forward deck, staring straight into the wind's eye. A gale always
excited this peculiar individual. The dangers of fog, tide, and reef
had no apparent effect on the Finn, but as soon as it began to blow
he underwent a notable change. It made no difference whether the
yawl was hove to in a squall, riding to a sea-anchor, or safely
moored in a snug, land-locked harbour; the result upon the Finn was
the same. During a storm he had always the intent, expectant air of
one awaiting some momentous event. Often he would pause in what he
was doing, as though to peer and listen, always watching the
direction from which the wind came, sometimes talking to himself,
nodding his head, and at times bursting into strange, wild little
snatches of song, chanted in a beautiful tenor voice. Applebo once
asked him what he heard in the wind, and he answered--"The voices of
the newly dead." This, and the peculiar and uncanny way the man had
of cocking his head and peering suddenly with one of his divergent
eyes at some object either in the sea or sky, might have affected
some people most disagreeably. Applebo was merely amused and found
his behaviour rather entertaining.
As he swam alongside and hove himself aboard, the Finn did not appear
to see him. The man was squatting like a frog against the windlass.
He had on an old oilskin overcoat, but his head was bare, the long
black hair tossing in the wind and the fine drizzle beating into a
face which was of the pale drab of the belly of a fish. The lips
were muttering a steady patter.
"What are you doing there?" Applebo demanded.
The beautiful, lustrous eyes turned to him slowly.
"Praying, master," came the soft-voiced answer.
"For whom are you praying?"
"For those about to die."
Applebo dressed, and was refreshing himself with tea and macaroons
when he heard a roaring sound close aboard, and poked his head up
through the hatch to see a fisherman foaming in, her foresail in
rags. Behind her came another, and a little later still another.
He wrote a letter to Hermione, and went ashore to mail it. The gale
was harder than ever, and he wondered how the _Shark_ was getting
along. But he felt no anxiety, and decided that she had undoubtedly
put into Chatham.
He went to bed early that night, in a mood of deep depression. About
midnight he was awakened by a pressure on his chest and, as his eyes
flashed open, for he was a light sleeper, he saw a dark figure
leaning over him and felt the sudden disagreeable trickle of water on
his face and neck. Springing up, he thrust at the dark shape, and
that so violently as to send the Finn, for it was he, staggering back
against the table.
"What do you mean by dripping water over me like that, you fool!"
cried Applebo, thinking that the Finn had roused him to say that they
were dragging, or something of the sort. A little standing-light was
burning, and Applebo saw by its feeble flame that the face of his
Finn was working spasmodically and his manner was wild.
"Master," he cried, "I have had a vision!"
"What sort of vision?"
"I saw a white vessel, dismasted and sinking. Her people were
clinging about the decks and the sea was washing over them."
Applebo leaned forward, gripping the edge of his bunk.
"What was this vessel?" he cried.
The Finn shook his wet, shaggy head, and again the drops sprinkled
Applebo's face and neck.
"I cannot say, master. She was buried in the smother and the vision
was not a clear one. It was not like when I saw my father clinging
to the bottom of his fishing boat in the Finskii Zalif."
"What happened then?"
"He was never heard of again."
Applebo moved uneasily. He had his full belief in much of the
phenomena not to be explained by known physical laws and, therefore,
dubbed "superstition." That night he had gone to sleep in a most
unusual state of depression, and once or twice he had awakened to
listen to the gale humming through the rigging. His first thought
had been of the _Shark_, and he had been inquiet, even while his
reason told him that to be so was absurd. Wherefore, awakened by the
Finn with this lugubrious tale of a vision of shipwreck, his first
thought was naturally of the _Shark_.
"What do you think this vessel was, and where?" he demanded,
impatiently.
"I could not say, master."
"Then why do you come here and waken me and spatter me with cold
water to tell me about it?" Applebo demanded, angrily.
"I thought that I ought to do so."
"But why?"
"God does not give us these visions for nothing, master."
"Then what do you want me to do? Go to sea and wait for an angel to
take the wheel?"
The Finn did not answer. He knew quite well that, were the
_Daffodil_ at sea, she would be hove to under a storm trysail or
riding to a sea-anchor.
"Well...?" snapped Applebo. "What do you advise?"
The man pushed back his dank hair and shook his head. Applebo lost
his patience.
"Any fool might dream of shipwreck on a night like this," he said.
"Now clear out and let me sleep."
The Finn muttered some excuse and hove himself up through the
companionway. Applebo turned over and tried to sleep, but it was a
vain effort. The Finn had quite banished all drowsiness for the
time, and his little ship's clock had struck two bells, then three,
then four and five before he lost consciousness again.
At eight bells ... four of the morning, he awoke with a start.
Turning up his lamp, he reached for his barometer and found that it
had risen two-tenths. He slid out of his bunk and shoved his head up
through the hatch, to discover that the wind had hauled southerly.
"Wind's going around..." he said to himself. "It'll be westerly in
the morning and clear, with a hard nor'wester. If it's any way
possible, we'll go out about eight."
For several minutes he hung through the hatch, staring into the murk.
Some hard puffs struck the yawl, swinging her a trifle on her hawsers.
"Wind's getting westerly now..." said Applebo. "It's not such an
awful blow, anyway. We've been out in worse...."
The rain had stopped and the air was comparatively clear. Applebo
breathed it deeply. He cocked his head and stood for a moment
listening to the roar of the surf on the beach across the neck.
"Some sea out there ... this wind is hauling right around...."
All at once he sprang up through the hatch and started forward along
the deck. The fore-hatch was open and he saw the shoulders of the
Finn, halfway through it. Then, the man's pallid face was turned up
to him in the vague light.
"Heave in your chain," said Applebo. "We are going out."