SCULLING IN THE NIGHT
The thing Ruth saw on the water was startling, mysterious. Nothing quite
like it had ever come into her life before. She could not believe her
eyes. Yet she dared not doubt them. A moment before she had dreamed of
pirates with pistols in their belts. Now out there on the sea they were,
or at least seemed to be, in real life. There could be no denying the
existence of a boat on those black waters of night; a long narrow boat
propelled by six pairs of sweeping oars swinging in perfect rhythm. This
much the flare of light had shown her.
More, too; there was no use trying to deny it. She had seen the men only
too clearly. Dressed in long, black coats, with red scarfs about their
necks and broad-brimmed hats on their heads, with their white teeth
gleaming, they looked fierce enough.
Strangest of all, there were pistols of the ancient sort and long knives
in their belts.
What made her shudder was the sign of skull and cross-bones on the black
flag they carried.
“Pirates! What nonsense!” she thought. “Not been one off the Maine coast
in a hundred years.” Pausing to listen, she caught again the creak of
oarlocks.
“Betty! Betty!” she whispered frantically. “Hurry! We’ll be trapped!”
Poor Betty! She certainly was having her troubles. Frightened half out of
her wits; expecting at any moment to be arrested for trespassing, or who
knows what, she struggled madly with her half dry and much wrinkled
garments.
“It’s all my fault,” she half sobbed. “I insisted on coming up here. Now
we shall be caught. I—I hope they don’t hang us at the yardarm.”
This last, she knew, was nonsense; but in the excitement she was growing
a trifle hysterical.
At last, with shoes and stockings in her hands, she emerged from the
door.
Gripping her arm tight and whispering, “Don’t speak! Not a sound!” Ruth
led her rapidly to the end of the rope ladder.
“Follow me. Drop in the boat. Sit perfectly still.”
Tremblingly, Betty obeyed. Presently they were in the punt. The sound of
rowing came much more clearly now. They could even hear the labored
breathing of the oarsmen.
Thankful for the darkness, Ruth thrust an oar into a socket at the back
of the boat and began wabbling it about in the water. She was sculling,
the most silent way to move a boat through the water.
“We-we’ll go round the bow,” she thought, as a sudden sound set her heart
racing.
“If only they don’t light another flare!”
With a prayer on her lips which was half supplication for forgiveness and
half petition for safety, she threw all her superb strength into the task
before her.
Many times she had rowed around the _Black Gull_. Never before had it
seemed half so far.
Now they had covered half the distance, now three-quarters. And now there
came a panic-inspiring gleam of light on the sea. It lasted a second,
then blinked out.
“Only a match.” Her heart gave a bound of joy. “But if they strike
another, if they are attempting to light a flare!” She redoubled her
energy at the oar. Great beads of perspiration stood out on her brow as
they rounded the stern of the ship.
Even then catastrophe threatened, for the ship’s anchor chain, touched by
the punt, sent out a rattling sound.
“What was that?” came a bass voice from the sea.
An instant later the sea was all aglow with a second flare. But luck was
with them. They had rounded the ship’s hull and were out of sight.
“If they row around her, we are caught,” whispered Betty.
Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty, forty, a minute. Then came the sounds
of a boat bumping the ship and of men ascending the rope ladder.
“Not coming!” Ruth breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’ll just move back under the stern by the rudder,” she whispered a
moment later. “Even if they look over the side they won’t be able to see
us there.”
“Who-who are they?” Betty’s question carried a thrill.
“I don’t know.”
“What do they look like?”
Ruth told her.
“Oh, oh!” Betty barely suppressed a gasp.
“But they can’t be!” she said the next moment.
“They are,” said Ruth. “And they are going to man the _Black Gull_ and
sail her away. The wind is rising. There’s plenty of sail. A sail boat
makes no noise. What’s to hinder?”
“What could they want with her?”
“Don’t know; for exhibition, sea pageant, moving pictures, or something.
Captain Munson, the owner, has been offered ten thousand dollars for her.
Moving picture company wants her. She’s the last six-master in the
world.”
“Betty,” she whispered, impressively, after there had been time for
thought, “we’ve got to do something. We can’t let the _Black Gull_ go
like this. The _Black Gull_ doesn’t belong just to Captain Munson. She
belongs to all us Maine folks. That’s why he won’t sell her. She stands
for something, for a grand and glorious past, the past of our coast and
of the most wonderful state in the Union.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” she whispered. “They’re all on board now.
We’ll scull around and get their boat. We’ll tow it ashore so they can’t
escape, then spread the alarm. Even if they get out to sea, the fast
cutter will catch them and bring them back.”
“I h-hope,” chattered Betty, half beside herself with fear, “that they
don’t catch us. I wouldn’t like to walk the plank.”
“They won’t,” said Ruth. There was an air of conviction in her tone. Alas
for conviction.
Once more their punt, creeping forward in the dark, rounded the ship’s
hull and came at last to a point but a boat’s length from a long, dark
bulk just ahead.
“Their boat,” thought Ruth. “We’ll be away in a moment.” But they were
not.
That they were taking grave chances, Ruth knew right well. Her heart was
in her throat as she sent her punt gliding through the dark. Only
thoughts of her beloved Maine and the ancient six-master that stood for
so much that was grand and glorious in the past could have induced her to
run the risk. Run the risk she did. Trouble came sooner than she dreamed.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the dim light told her that there was
no one in the long boat that had brought the black-robed crew to the
ship.
Her relief was short lived. She had succeeded in untying the painter of
that other boat and swinging it half about, when there came a harsh
jangling of chains. A rusty chain dangling from the side of the ship had
caught in the stern of the long boat and, slipping free, had gone
thudding against the hull. Ten seconds of suspense ended with a gruff:
“Who’s there?” and the sudden flash of a brilliant electric torch which
brought the two girls out in bold relief.
At once there followed exclamations of astonishment as dark figures
crowded the deck above them.
“Trying to steal our boat,” said one.
“Ought to walk the plank,” came from another.
“Up with ’em!” said another, placing a foot on the top rung of the
ladder.
Ruth sat there, red-faced, defiant. Betty was beginning to cry softly,
when a fourth person spoke up suddenly:
“Lay off it, boys! Can’t you see they’re just girls? I don’t know what
they are about, but I’m bound to say it can’t be anything wrong. One of
’em is Tom Bracket’s girl. I know her well.”
Ruth’s heart gave a great leap of joy. She had recognized her champion’s
voice. He was Patrick O’Connor, the skipper of a sea-going tug, one of
her father’s good friends.
At once her head was in a whirl. What could it all mean? Captain O’Connor
dressed as a pirate and aiding in a night raid of the harbor? The thing
seemed impossible.
Her thoughts were broken short off by the voice of the man on the ladder.
“I’m still in favor of havin’ ’em tell their story. An’ mebby girls don’t
care for pie and hot coffee an’ the like.”
“We’ll leave it to them,” said Captain O’Connor. “If they want to come up
we’ll be glad to have them. If they don’t, then they have their punt. Let
them go. What do you say, girls?”
“Come on,” said Ruth. There was a large lump in her throat. “We’ve got to
go up. ’Twon’t do to let them misunderstand.”
Truth was, there were things she did not understand and that she wanted
dreadfully to know about.
So, once more, hand over hand, they went up the rope ladder and tumbled
in upon the deck.
Ten minutes later the two girls found themselves seated one on either
side of Captain O’Connor before the massive mahogany table in the cabin
of the _Black Gull_.
The table was piled high with good things to eat. A great copper kettle
filled with doughnuts, a basket of sandwiches, two hams roasted whole, a
steaming tank of coffee, and pies without end, graced the board. A merry
band of pirates, surely. Most surprising of all was the fact that the
pirate at the head of the table, blackest and fiercest of them all, was
none other than Captain Munson, owner of the _Black Gull_.
“Now,” said Captain Munson, and there was a friendly smile on his
formidable face, “I am sure you will enjoy the meal more fully if you
tell us first why you were about to take our boat.”
“Rest assured,” he said, as he saw the crimson flush on Ruth’s cheek,
“you stand absolved. You shall not walk the plank.”