TROUBLED WATERS
Each succeeding wave was likely to slop over the gunwale and add to the
cargo of salt water already shipped by the dory. She was squattering
down like a wounded duck, and seemingly quite as helpless.
Degger was able only to cling to the steering oar, and that was a most
futile thing to do. Lorna seized the bailer and threw the water out as
fast as she could. But one person could not bail as fast as the sea
came inboard.
The _Fenique_, meeting the cross-seas as Ralph Endicott steered her down
upon the wallowing dory, rolled enormously, but her owner knew the
craft's seaworthiness. Her water-tight compartments, bow and stern,
would keep her afloat even if the cockpit filled and she became quite
unmanageable.
The dory was fairly water-logged. That indeed was the salvation for the
moment of her two passengers. The dory would not turn turtle while it
swam so low in the sea.
Lorna was at last thoroughly frightened. It was not that she had never
been in equal peril. Once, when they were half-grown, she and Ralph had
been swept out to sea in a never-to-be-forgotten tempest, and had taken
refuge upon the Quail Shoal lightship. That was an occasion to be
remembered in very truth!
But the girl had not experienced at that time this terrible sinking
feeling of helplessness that she now endured. It was born in her mind
that it had been her perfect trust in Ralph Endicott that had buoyed her
up on those other occasions when they were in peril together. She felt
her own helplessness at the present time, and in Conny Degger's face she
marked nothing but an equal fear. Degger possessed none of Ralph's
initiative nor any degree of his cool courage.
She was face to face with death. She could not swim to the shore in
such a sea as this. Indeed, no swimmer could live in it. If Ralph in
his motor-boat did not overtake them soon, Lorna believed there was
little hope for Degger and herself.
She continued to bail desperately. The water in the boat rose against
her breast and almost choked her. The chill of it made her gasp. Dimly
she saw Degger struggling with the oar. She looked away at the plunging
_Fenique_ with Ralph standing amidships and clinging to the wheel.
"Ralph! Oh, Ralph!" she cried aloud.
The words were driven back into her throat by the gale. Degger's wildly
glaring eyes betrayed his complete panic. His very soul had turned to
water. It was mere muscular reaction--like that of a dead man--that
caused him to cling to the oar. He was positively transfixed with
terror.
The motor-boat plunged awkwardly toward the water-logged dory. Its bow
seemed aimed to ram the smaller craft amidships. The girl stopped
bailing.
If the motor-boat plunged upon them, what could save the two in the
dory? Lorna stretched her arms out to Ralph, Conny Degger released the
oar, ashen-faced and trembling.
Ralph's voice (how full and unshaken it seemed!) came down the wind to
them:
"Stand by to grab the rail! Look out for yourself, Degger!"
He threw the steering wheel over and lashed the spokes to hold it
steady. As the _Fenique's_ bow swerved off from the floundering dory,
Ralph sprang upon the roof of the cabin and flung himself along its
slippery surface to reach Lorna's out-stretched hands.
"Hold hard, Lorna!" he shouted.
The motor-boat slid past the dory. Ralph fairly snatched the girl out
of it.
Astern he heard an awful cry. Hugging Lorna tightly in the embrace of
his right arm, Ralph looked back.
Conny Degger had missed the _Fenique's_ rail, but he had gripped the
bight of a rope trailing overboard. He was being towed in the sea;
dragged through the bursting waves rather than over them. His precarious
situation was not to be derided.
A curling sea toppled over their heads and fell, a smashing weight, upon
the _Fenique_. The motor-boat staggered under the impact of the blow.
The cockpit was awash as Ralph stumbled down into it with Lorna in his
arms.
The girl struggled out of his grasp. She seized the rail, gripping it
with both hands.
"Conny! Save him!" she shrieked.
At this juncture her anxiety for Degger seemed to mark a deeper interest
than Ralph had suspected she felt for the man.
But Ralph had first their ultimate safety to think of. He leaped for
the wheel and relieved the strain under which the _Fenique_ labored. He
payed off carefully until the motor-boat began to ride the billows more
buoyantly.
When he stoppered the wheel again and turned to aid Degger, Lorna was
creeping aft with the evident intent of laying hold of the rope to which
the man clung. But she did not possess the strength to drag him
inboard.
Ralph set her aside with a fending arm and seized the rope. With a long
haul and a heave, he brought the gasping Degger under the rail of the
motor-boat.
As the craft rolled, Ralph leaned over the rail and seized the half
drowned Degger just as the latter's grip slipped from the rope. While
the rail dipped to the running sea the rescuer heaved him in-board.
Then Ralph leaped back to the wheel and righted the motor-boat again.
When she was once more headed right, flying ahead of the blast, he
glanced over his shoulder. Lorna was on her knees in the bottom of the
boat with Conny Degger's head in her lap. The tableau was somewhat
startling.
Of course, if she really cared for the fellow----
Then what Tobias Bassett had said about its being necessary for Lorna to
marry a wealthy man flashed into Ralph's mind. Degger certainly was not
wealthy. Ralph had reason to know this to be a fact.
If the Nicholets were in financial straits and looked to Lorna to make a
moneyed marriage, the girl had picked the wrong partner in her
match-making.
Ralph did not feel any scorn for Lorna in this supposition. He only
pitied her. Determined as she was not to marry Ralph, Endicott knew she
must be forced by family pressure to accept the next best marriageable
possibility. But he was sure Lorna was misinformed regarding Degger.
Of course, the latter believed the Nicholets to be wealthy. He was,
Ralph was confident, nothing more nor less than a fortune hunter. That
his old friend and this Degger were mutually mistaken in each other's
financial affairs was not a situation from which Ralph could extract any
amusement. Not at all! He hated to see Lorna waste any of her
thought--perhaps a measure of her confidence--upon such a character as
Degger.
"She has gone through the wood and picked up a crooked stick, after
all," Ralph reflected, while maneuvering the motor-boat. "I didn't
think she was such a little fool!"
There was some bitterness in this expression of his thought. Although
he had no wish to marry Lorna (or so he almost hourly told himself)
Ralph Endicott felt a certain proprietorship in the girl because of
their years of intimacy. Had she been his sister he believed he would
have felt the same.
When Degger learned that Lorna would have no dowry, he would leave her
flat. He was not a fellow to really fall in love with any girl. He was
too much in love with himself, was Conny Degger.
Ralph looked around again. The man was recovering, and Lorna had drawn
away from him. She was saturated as well as Degger, and Ralph saw now
that she shook with the cold.
"Come here, Lorna, and hold the wheel. Just as she is. There! I'll
get you something to put on."
Ralph drew out his keys and unlocked the cabin door. He found a heavy
pilot-cloth coat and made the girl put it on.
"If Degger wants anything let him look around for it," Ralph said, not
altogether graciously.
Lorna flashed him an inquiring glance from under her wet curls. Was it
possible that he was showing jealousy of Conny Degger? In spite of
their perilous position, she was amused by this suggestion.
That they were by no means out of danger was evident. The sea was
running high, the wind still blew, and driving rain flattened the tops
of the waves and beat upon the voyagers on the _Fenique_ most viciously.
The motor-boat was still running before the gale. Seaworthy as she was,
Ralph did not dare put back for the harbor's mouth. Lower Trillion was
the nearest port they could hope to make in safety.
It was too stuffy and uncomfortable in the low cabin to attract the
girl. Besides, one felt safer outside with the seas running as they
were.
She looked at Conny Degger's face again. Its expression declared so
plainly his panic that she turned her gaze away quickly. Never again,
Lorna told herself, would she be able to look at that young man without
remembering his cowardice.
Ralph however did not understand this. He had mistaken the natural pity
the girl showed Degger for a much more tender feeling.
Endicott had no suspicion that Lorna had been playing Degger all the
time for the express purpose of making Ralph himself feel slighted. It
wickedly delighted the girl to feel that she was making her old chum
jealous.
This possibility Ralph would not have admitted in any case. Professor
Henry Endicott and the other members of his family were constantly
hinting at a contract between Ralph and Lorna. Of late more than a
little had been said to him regarding the girl's association with this
Degger. Why did Ralph not put a stop to it, they inquired.
Although he denied to himself that he felt any jealousy, he had begun to
believe that it was his duty to separate Conny and Lorna. He was not so
lacking in humane instincts as to wish that Conny had lost his grip on
the rope when he was overboard so that the difficulty would have been
quite satisfactorily settled; and yet the thought flashed into his mind.
As Ralph conned the course of the plunging _Fenique_ he likewise conned
the problem of how to get rid of Conway Degger without inspiring in
Lorna's breast a greater liking for the fellow than he believed she
already sustained.
They raised the Lower Trillion life-saving station and drove on for the
mouth of the harbor. A can buoy marked the channel and a deep-mouthed
bell in a bracket on the end of the stone pier tolled intermittently.
Ralph skilfully steered into the calm pool behind this breakwater.
"Some traveling," he observed, when he had shut off the engine and
looked at his watch. "Forty-five minutes from the light. The old tub
never made better time, even in a flat calm."
"Are we safe at last?" gasped Degger, sitting up.
"Just as safe as though you were at home and in bed," rejoined Ralph
rather bruskly.
"What shall I do?" Lorna asked. "I look a fright."
"Why, Miss Lorna," Conny said, quickly regaining his spirits, "you'll
have time enough to dry your things in the cabin. We'll be here for
hours, I suppose."
"_We_ may," Ralph said quickly. "But Lorna can go home by land. I'll
find somebody with a flivver to take her up to Clay Head."
"Oh!" exclaimed Degger. "Then I guess I'll go with her."
"Guess again," Ralph rejoined. "I need you."
"What's that?" ejaculated the other.
"We'll start back in the _Fenique_ just as soon as the wind hauls off a
little. She's fluttering now."
"Do you think for one moment that I would risk my life outside in this
dinky little craft again unless it is calm? I guess all these
motor-boats are alike--as unsafe as they can be!"
"Oh, I'll not start back for the light until all danger is over," Ralph
told him quietly. "The clouds are breaking. In a couple of hours it
may be all right. And we must pick up Tobias's dory and tow it in."
"Of course!" Lorna said cheerfully. "I had forgotten that."
"Say!" exclaimed Degger loudly, "the skipper's dory can drift to the
Bahamas and back again, as far as I am concerned. I wouldn't trust
myself outside again to-day----"
"Then who will pay Tobias for his boat?" demanded Ralph sharply.
Lorna had been about to suggest this very point--although more
diplomatically--when Ralph blurted out his question. The scorn
expressed on his face and the fire in his eyes stirred her to some
defense of Degger's selfishness.
"Of course _I_ will pay Mr. Bassett," she said decisively. "It is my
fault that we lost the dory. I asked Conny to take me out in it. I
will pay Mr. Bassett if it is lost."
"It isn't going to be lost if I can help it," growled Ralph. "You can't
sink one of those dories very easily. I believe I can find it, if we go
back before night. Tobias is fond of that boat, too."
"Well, find it, if you are so set on doing so," snarled Degger. "I
refuse to risk my life."
"You are a lot keener on saving your life than anybody else, I imagine,"
Ralph rejoined scornfully. "I shall need somebody to help when I catch
the dory, and you're elected."
"You can't bully me, Endicott!" cried the other. "I don't like your
manner, anyway."
"That makes me sad," drawled Ralph. "I'm going to weep over that--when
I find time. But we'll have a try for Tobias's dory first."
"I won't go with you. You can't make me. I will accompany Miss Lorna."
"We'll see about that," was Ralph's rejoinder. He turned to the girl.
"I'll signal the station. Perhaps Zeke Bassett can get off, and he will
take you up in his car. He can find a boat to take you ashore. I don't
want to beach the _Fenique_."
"That's all right, Endicott. You need not bother about Miss Lorna," put
in Degger. "I'll attend to her transportation to Twin Rocks."
Lorna had hesitated to speak while the young men quarreled. Slowly
however her expression of countenance had hardened. She turned from
Degger and asked Ralph abruptly:
"Do you really think you can find the dory? Will it be afloat so long?"
"Oh, yes. Hard work to sink one of those boats. With somebody to help
me I'm almost sure to recover it."
"You needn't look to me to help you," sneered Degger.
"I'll go back with you," Lorna said quickly. "I can manage the
_Fenique_ while you fish for the dory."
"Miss Lorna! You won't think of such a thing!" Degger cried.
She ignored him.
"I'll go below and light a fire, Ralph. My things will be dry in an
hour. You put on this coat, or you'll catch cold," and she slipped out
of the pilot-coat.
"Not me," said Ralph easily. "Let Degger put it on. He'll be cold
riding up to the light in that open car of Zeke's."
Lorna dropped the coat on the bench and without looking again at Degger
opened the cabin door and slipped below. Degger's face displayed his
chagrin. Ralph chuckled audibly, turned his back on the fellow, too, and
shouted shoreward.
The coming of the _Fenique_ had been marked by the lookout in the cupola
of the life-saving station, and the very member of the crew of whom
Ralph had spoken, Zeke Bassett, now appeared upon the sands.
"Got your car handy, Mr. Bassett?" called Ralph. "Got a passenger for
you to take to the Twin Rocks Light--and beyond."
"Sure, I'll take him," was Bassett's reply, seeing that Ralph indicated
Degger. "Got enough of the briny, has he? I'll come right out in Sam's
skiff for him. You had some weather comin' down, didn't you, Mr.
Endicott?"
"'Some weather' is right," agreed Ralph. "But she's clearing now, don't
you think?"
"Sure," said the surfman. "Them black squalls don't really amount to
nothin'--after they are over."
Ralph turned to Degger again. The fellow was recovering a measure of
his usual confidence. He put on a somewhat uncertain smile.
"If you all think the trouble is over, I don't know but I might go back
with you after all."
"I _do_ know that you won't!" Ralph retorted. "You get into that skiff,
Degger, when Bassett comes out for you."
"Say! who are you bullying, I'd like to know?"
"I'm telling you. I did pick you out of the sea, but I don't have to
keep you aboard here any longer than I wish to. You'll go ashore now."
"Oh, yes! That is the kind of fellow you are," snarled Degger. "You've
had it in for me ever since I borrowed some of your loose change back
there at Cambridge. I haven't forgotten it--don't think!"
"I thought you had," was Ralph's mild sarcasm.
That did not even cause Conway Degger to blush. He still spoke heatedly.
"I presume you expect me to fall down and worship you for saving my
life."
"Not _you_," sighed Ralph. "Gratitude I am sure is not your besetting
sin."
"Oh, you're only jealous," sneered the other. "Anybody can see that.
And you think you'll have a better time alone with Lorva aboard than you
would if I went back to the light with you."
Ralph started for him. Then he halted, holding himself in. If there
was a fight here on board the motor-boat Lorna must surely be aware of
it. He bent on Conway Degger a look that warned him that he had gone
far enough.
"I know just the sort of scamp you are, Degger," he said in a low voice.
"I should not have let you hang around as you have. Your rep at college
was enough."
"How about your own?" sneered Degger. "There was that Cora Devine--how
about _her_?"
"Well, how about her?" rejoined Ralph, with unmoved countenance.
"You try to interfere in my affairs," Degger said furiously, "and
somebody will hear all about that Devine girl--believe me!"
"I don't just get you, Degger," Ralph returned calmly. "But if for no
other reason, that threat would make me promise to interfere--and to
some purpose."
"You----"
"Listen!" commanded Ralph, with a gesture that silenced the oath on
Degger's lips. "When Zeke Bassett takes you as far as the Twin Rocks
Light, you pack your grip and go on with him to Clinkerport. I don't
care how far you travel beyond Clinkerport. But if you are still at the
Light when I get back there, I'll thrash you out of your skin! Believe
me, Degger, I mean it. I hope you will be unwise enough to wait for me
at the Light. You'll be glad enough to go after I give you what you are
suffering for."
He turned to catch the loop of the painter Bassett tossed him, and drew
the skiff alongside the motorboat. Degger did not even hesitate. He
stepped down into the small boat, shaking with the cold, if not with
fear. He scorned Ralph's pilot-coat. The surfman grinned up at Ralph,
nodded, and pulled back to the strand.
Ralph Endicott had taken the bit in his teeth. He was determined to run
certain matters his way from this time on!