The afternoon sun beat down on the dump-dock where the derrick swung like
a stumpy gallows against the sky. A dozen hard-faced, silent quarrymen
sat around in groups on the string-pieces; Farrely raked out the fire in
the rusty little engine; Finn and Dyce whispered together, glowering at
Lefty Sawyer, who stood dripping in his diving suit while Lee unscrewed
the helmet and disentangled the lines.
Behind Lee, Helen Pine sat on a pile of condemned sleepers, nervously
twisting and untwisting the strings of her sun-bonnet.
When Sawyer was able to hear and be heard, Lee listened, tight-lipped and
hard eyed, to a report that brought a malicious sneer to Finn’s face and
a twinkle of triumph into Dyce’s dissipated eyes.
“The safe is smashed an’ the door open. Them there eight cash-boxes is
all that I see.” He pointed to the pile of steel boxes, still glistening
with salt water, and already streaked and blotched with orange colored
rust.
“There are ten boxes,” said Lee coldly; “go down again.”
Unwillingly, sullenly, Lefty Sawyer suffered himself to be invested with
the heavy helmet; the lines and tubes were adjusted, Dyce superintended
the descent and Finn seized the signal cord. After a minute it twitched;
Lee grew white with anger; Dyce turned away to conceal a grin.
When again Sawyer stood on the dock and reported that the two cash-boxes
were hopelessly engulfed in the mud, Lee sternly bade him divest himself
of the diving suit.
“What you goin’ to do?” said Finn, coming up.
“Is it your place to ask questions?” said Lee sharply. “Obey orders or
you’ll regret it!”
“He’s going down himself,” whispered Dyce to Sawyer. The diver cast a
savage glance at Lee and hesitated.
“Take off that suit,” repeated Lee.
Finn, scowling with anger, attempted to speak, but Lee turned on him and
bade him be silent.
Slowly Sawyer divested himself of the clumsy diving suit; one after the
other he pushed the leaden soled shoes from him.
Lee watched him with mixed emotions. He had gone too far to go back
now—he understood that. Flinching at such a moment meant chaos in the
quarry, and he knew that the last shred of his authority and control
would go if he hesitated. Yet, with all his heart and soul he shrank
from going down into the sea. What might not such men do? Dyce held the
life-line. A moment or two suffocation—would such men hesitate? Accidents
are so easy to prove and signals may be easily misunderstood. He laid a
brace of heavy revolvers on the dock.
As Dyce lifted the helmet upon his shoulders, he caught a last glimpse
of sunlight and blue sky and green leaves—a brief vision of dark, brutal
faces—of Helen Pine’s frightened eyes. Then he felt himself on the dock
ladder, then a thousand tons seemed to fall from his feet and the dusky
ocean enveloped him.
On the dump-dock silence reigned. After a moment or two Finn whispered to
Sawyer; Dyce joined the group; Farrely whitened a bit under his brick-red
sunburn and pretended to fuss at his engine.
Helen Pine, heart beating furiously, watched them. She did not know what
they were going to do—what they were doing now with the air tubes. She
did not understand such things, but she saw a line suddenly twitch in
Dyce’s fingers, and she saw murder in Finn’s eyes.
Before she knew what she was doing she found herself clutching both of
Lee’s revolvers.
Finn saw her and stood petrified; Dyce gaped at the level muzzles. Nobody
moved.
After a little while Dyce’s right hand twitched violently. Finn started
and swore; Sawyer said distinctly; “Cut that line!”
The next instant she fired at him point-blank, and he dropped to the
bleached boards with a howl of dismay. The crack of the revolver echoed
and echoed among the rocks. Presently, behind his engine, Farrely began
to laugh; two quarrymen near him got up and shambled hastily away.
“Draw him up!” gasped the girl with a desperate glance at the water.
Finn, the foreman, cursed and flung down his lines and walked away,
cursing.
“Take the lines, Noonan,” she cried breathlessly; “Dyce, pull him up!”
The great blank-eyed helmet appeared; she watched it as though
hypnotised. When, dragging his leaden feet, Lee stumbled to the dock and
flung one of the two missing cash-boxes at Dyce’s feet, she grew dizzy
and her little hands ached with their grip on the heavy weapons.
Sawyer, stupid, clutching his shattered fore-arm, never removed his eyes
from her face; Dyce unscrewed the helmet, shaking with fright.
“There, you lying blackguard!” panted Lee, pointing to the recovered
cash-box, “take them all to my office where I’ll settle with you once and
for all!”
Nobody replied. Lee, flushed with excitement and triumph, stripped off
his diving-dress before he became aware that something beside his own
episode had occurred. Then he saw Lefty Sawyer, bedabbled with blood,
staring with sick, surprised eyes at somebody—a woman,—who sat huddled
on a heap of sun-dried sleepers, sun-bonnet fallen back, cocked revolver
in either hand, and, in her dark eyes, tears that flowed silently over
colourless cheeks.
Lee glared at Dyce.
“Ask _her_,” muttered Dyce doggedly.
He turned toward Helen, but Farrely, behind his engine, shouted: “Faith,
she stood off th’ gang or the breathin’ below wud ha’ choked ye! Thank
the lass, lad, an’ mind she’s a gun whin ye go worritin’ the fishes for
the coompany’s cash-box!”
* * * * *
That night Lee made a speech at the quarry. The men listened placidly.
Dyce, amazed that he was not discharged, went back to nurse Sawyer, a
thoroughly cowed man. Noonan, Farrely, and Phelan, retired to their
shanty and got fighting drunk to the health of the “colleen wid the gun;”
the rest of the men went away with wholesome convictions concerning their
superintendent that promised better things.
“Didn’t shanghai Dyce,—no he didn’t,” was the whispered comment.
Lee’s policy had done its work.
As for the murderous mover of the plot, the plausible foreman, Finn, he
had shown the white feather under fire and he knew the men might kill him
on sight. It’s an Irish characteristic under such circumstances.
Lee walked back from the quarry, realising his triumph, recognising that
he owed it neither to his foolhardy impulse, nor yet to his mercy to Dyce
and Sawyer. He went to the house and knocked at Helen’s door. She was not
there. He sat alone in his office, absently playing with pen and ruler
until the June moon rose over the ocean and yellow sparkles flashed among
the waves. An hour later he went to the dock and found her sitting there
alone in the moonlight.
She did not repulse him. Her hour had come and she knew it, for she had
read such things in romances. It came. But she was too much in love, too
sincere to use a setting so dramatic. She told him she loved him; she
told him why she had come to the Port-of-Waves, why she had remembered
the kiss and the promise. She rested her head on his shoulder and looked
out at the moon, smaller and more silvery now. She was contented.
Under the dock the dark waves lapped musically. Under the dock Finn,
stripped to the skin, plunged silently downward for the one missing
cash-box, trusting to his sense of touch to find the safe.
But what he found was too horrible for words.
“Hark,” whispered Helen; “did you hear something splash?”
Lee looked out into the moonlight; a shadow, a black triangular point
cut the silvery surface, steered hither and thither,—circled, sheered
seaward, and was lost. Then came another splash, far out among the waves.
“The Collector of the Port,” said Lee; “is making merry in the moonlight.”