_In Which a Signal Retards the Race_
It was at six bells in the morning watch of the next day that the
lookout in the top sang out the wailing cry:
“On deck!”
“Crow’s nest, ahoy!” responded Mr. Hollister, who had the deck.
“Sail-oh!”
“Where away?”
“Two points off the weather bow. Four-sticker! It’s that blessed
Gullwing, by Jiminy Christmas!” responded the sharp-eyed seaman aloft.
There was as much excitement aboard the Seamew now as though this was
the first time her sister ship had been spied in the offing. We ran up
the shrouds to see her better, and the officers were all on deck with
their glasses.
She came snorting up to us on the starboard tack, all her bright canvas
bellying, and so trim and taut that it was a pleasure to gaze upon her.
I felt a thrill of delight as I watched the Gullwing. Aboard of her
was my chum, Thankful Polk, and my other friends, and I wished with all
my heart that I might rejoin them.
But I knew very well that under the present circumstances that would be
impossible. Had the two schooners been becalmed the day before, side by
side, I might have got Cap’n Si to put me aboard the Gullwing.
But one thing I did beg the captain of the Seamew to do, and, after
some little demur, he agreed to it. He ordered Mr. Barney to bring out
the signal flags, kept in the chest amidships, and instructed him to
inform Captain Bowditch that the Seamew had picked up, alive, the lost
member of his crew.
This signaling was not done until the Gullwing was so near that both
ships were about to tack. As soon as the line of flags was run up on
the Seamew, they hustled about on the Gullwing and replied. Nor did
Captain Bowditch shift his helm at once. The sister ships continued to
approach each other.
The Seamew had plainly overtaken the Gullwing, and now, when she
sheered off, she would begin to creep ahead of the craft in which I
was the more interested. With the wind as it was, and nothing untoward
occurring, the Seamew was bound to gain something over her rival in
each leg she made.
“What’s he sayin’?” bawled Cap’n Si to Mr. Barney.
I had already learned something about the signal code, and when the
second mate’s back was turned I got a squint at the codebook. Captain
Bowditch was asking if the Seamew would heave to and send me aboard!
“Cap’n Joe is sure cracked!” cackled the commander of the Seamew. “Tell
him I wouldn’t do it for a hull barrel of greening apples.”
I reckon Mr. Barney put the refusal more briefly. But the Gullwing
continued to hang in the wind while another line of flags was run up
to her fore. The book told me that the signal read: “I’ll send boat
aboard.”
“No he won’t, by jinks!” crowed Cap’n Si. “Nor he wouldn’t wanter do it
if he warn’t so blamed short-handed. Stow your flags, Mr. Barney. Stand
by. Ready! haul sheet!” and he went ahead and gave swift orders to put
the Seamew about on the other tack.
But I was glad that those aboard the Gullwing knew that I was alive. I
could imagine Thank’s relief, and how surprised and--I hoped--glad, the
others would be to know that I had not found my grave in the ocean. I
even thought kindly of Bob Promise, the bully, and believed that he
was likewise thinking kindly of me at that moment.
“And to serve Cap’n Si out for not being willing to meet Cap’n Joe half
way, and let them take me aboard,” I muttered to myself, “I hope the
Gullwing beats the Seamew all to flinders!”
The Seamew, however, gained slowly upon her sister ship. On every tack
that day she made a better showing. Sometimes the Gullwing was below
the horizon; but whenever we sighted her she was dropping back a bit.
The wind remained steady and from a favorable quarter and by and by the
night dropped down and divided the two ships more effectually than the
sea itself.
As the light faded upon sea and sky we sailed under a vast,
black-velvet canopy embroidered upon which were the countless stars
and planets. Constellations that I knew nothing about glowed from the
depths of the firmament; and brighter than all was the Southern Cross.
The moon had dipped below the horizon and therefore the Cross and the
stars were the more brilliant. I paced the deck alone and thought of
my mother, and wondered what she was doing just then, and if Chester
Downes was still trying to circumvent me, and Mr. Hounsditch, and gain
control of the fortune, possession of which he so much begrudged my
mother and myself.
And a thought came to me from out the stillness and immensity of that
night--a thought that forever after seemed to haunt me; was there not
some curse upon my grandfather’s huge property, which had been willed
my mother and I under such wicked conditions? For that Grandfather
Darringford’s will had been inspired by hatred of Dr. Webb, my father,
one could not doubt.
Had my father not been drowned as he was off White Rock, that will
of grandfather’s would have been the source of heartburnings in the
family. Human nature is human nature; the time would have come when the
fact that Dr. Webb was a stumbling-block to his son’s advancement, or
his wife’s ease, would have been advanced. That is, if my father had
remained all these years a poor man. And what else could he have been
with his practice in Bolderhead?
Men get stunted in small towns--especially professional men. Dr. Webb
could never have made much more than a miserably poor living for
mother and I had he lived; and all that time the thought of the great
Darringford Estate would have been the skeleton in our closet!
It was better as it was, I suppose. It had been a dream that my father
was still alive. I believe I would have gladly given up my share of my
grandfather’s money to have found that the mysterious man aboard the
frozen ship was my father! I had been strangely drawn toward that man.
Besides, I felt now as though I were old enough and big enough to make
my own way in the world, and to keep my mother in comfort, if not in
luxury, as well.
Dawn drew near and the stars began to fade. Soon the deck would be
a-bustle with our watch washing down. We had probably crossed and
recrossed the way of the Gullwing during the night, but she had not
been hailed from the lookout.
As the light of day advanced the wind fell. We hardly made steerage-way
in the pearl-colored light of dawn. The coming day is heralded ashore
by hundreds of feathered trumpeters; but here on the open sea it
advances with silence.
Far, far out on the sea, where the gently swelling water seemed
buttoned to the rim of the sky, a sudden flush appeared. The hue lay
upon both sky and sea--indeed, it was hard to distinguish for a bit the
one element from the other. But I knew the sun was about to poke his
head up just there!
And as the glow grew, a ghostly figure drew across the pink patch.
I watched it eagerly. The sun, mist-shrouded and sleepy, was thrust
out of the sea; and across the red face of him sailed a four-stick
ship--the Gullwing! It did not need the man in the crow’s nest to hail
the officer of the deck and announce the fact. I could identify our
sister ship from where I stood.
Long red rays like pointing fingers played across the sea. The Gullwing
and the Seamew were several miles apart. The early rays of the sun
touched an object on the sea--at first merely a black spot--lying about
equi-distant of the two ships.
When I first saw this black thing I sprang into the shrouds. Mr.
Hollister hailed me:
“What do you see, Webb?”
“Something adrift--yonder, sir!”
“Lookout, ahoy!” bawled the mate.
“Aye, aye, sir! I sees it.”
“What d’ye make it out to be?” demanded the mate.
“It’s the black hulk of an open boat,” I cried, as the seaman above
hesitated. I expect the rising sun half blinded him. “There’s a stump
of a mast and she seems decked over forward--no! it’s an awning.”
“A ship’s boat?” cried the mate, eagerly.
“Aye, aye, sir!” came down the voice of the man in the top. “That’s
what she be. And wrecked. Not a sign of life aboard her.”
“How is it, Webb?” Mr. Hollister repeated.
“I see nothing moving,” I admitted, slowly.
Mr. Hollister sent down for his glass, and then joined me in the
shrouds. The deck was all a-bustle by now. Cap’n Si came up, rubbing
his eyes and yawning.
“What’s the matter with all you lubbers?” was his pleasant demand.
“What’s that--the Gullwing? Ain’t you never seen her before?”
“Drop your eyes a bit, Captain,” advised Mr. Hollister, swinging down
after a look through his glass.
“Huh!” exclaimed the skipper. “A boat.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Empty?”
“It looks so,” replied Mr. Hollister, and passed him the glass.
“Ain’t wuth picking up,” decided Cap’n Si, after a long look at the
drifting boat.
He closed the glass. Mr. Hollister waved me down and turned to order
the watch to work, when the man in the tops hailed again. He was in a
better position to see into the drifting boat than anybody else.
“I see something moving in that boat, sir!”
“What do you see?” bawled Cap’n Si.
“It’s something fluttering--a flag, or a rag. There it is!”
There were light airs stirring. Suddenly something upon the broken mast
moved. A flaw of wind fluttered something fastened there. Was it a
signal of distress? Was some poor creature adrift in the half wrecked
boat?
I wondered what Cap’n Si would do. To ignore a flag of distress--to
pass by the opportunity of rescuing a fellow-creature from death--would
be an awful thing. Yet there might be nobody in the boat. I could see
the old man doubted.
And then the lookout hailed again:
“The Gullwing’s dropping a boat, sir!”
“That’s enough!” roared Cap’n Si, all in a bluster at once. “I won’t
let Cap’n Joe do more’n me. Mr. Barney!” The second mate had followed
him on deck. “Call away a boat’s crew.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” was the second mate’s smart response.
“Beat the Gullwing’s boat to that barge. Understand me? You git there
first. I ain’t goin’ to let Joe Bowditch crow over me in Baltimore.
Mebbe the boat’s wuth savin’ after all.”
Before he had ceased speaking Mr. Barney had shouted down the fo’castle
hatchway and his watch tumbled up. I had slid down the stays to the
deck and was right beside the boat Mr. Barney had elected to launch. I
wanted to go in that boat, but I belonged to the mate’s watch and knew
I would not be selected.