Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: Tongues of flame reached hungrily for them, licking
above Dan's red-gold hair, but never touching the girl.]
Dan Merrithew
By Lawrence Perry
Author of "From the Depths of Things," "Two Tramps," "The Bounder,"
"The Sacrifice," etc.
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLORS
BY J. V. McFALL
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT
By A. C. McClurg & Co.
A.D. 1910
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England
Published, March 12, 1910
Second edition, March 19, 1910
_Thanks are due Mr. Arthur W. Little, president of the Pearson
Publishing Company, for permission to use in this novel several
incidents in the life of Dan Merrithew which originally appeared in
"Pearson's Magazine."_
TO
LARRY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
TOC
I. THE GIRL ON THE "VEILED LADYE"
II. DAN'S SEARCH FOR THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT
III. A FIGHT IN THE DARK
IV. DAN STAKES HIS LIFE, AND WINS
V. THE LOSS OF THE "FLEDGLING"
VI. THE BRAVE AND THE FAIR
VII. DAN IS COMMANDED TO A PARTY
VIII. WITS VERSUS MACHINE GUNS
IX. AN ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION
X. THE WRAITH IN THE MOONLIGHT
XI. THE BURNING OF THE "TAMPICO"
XII. ALONE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
XIII. NIGHT ON THE DERELICT
XIV. DAN AND VIRGINIA
XV. CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
Tongues of flame reached hungrily for them, licking above Dan's
red-gold hair, but never touching the girl . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"Oh, father," broke in the girl, "tell him it was noble!"
In the flash of an eye, Dan was making for the assassin
Opposite, smiling at him as though they had breakfasted together for
years, was the radiant girl
DAN MERRITHEW
CHAPTER I
THE GIRL ON THE "VEILED LADYE"
The big coastwise tug _Hydrographer_ slid stern-ward into a slip
cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving
distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared
"royal s'ls" to the wayward winds of the seven seas.
Near-by lay Horace Howland's ocean-going steam yacht, _Veiled Ladye_,
which had put into Norfolk from Caribbean ports, to replenish her
bunkers. There were a number of guests aboard, and most of them arose
from their wicker chairs on the after-deck and went to the rail, as the
great tug pounded alongside.
Grateful for any kind of a break in the monotony of the long morning,
they observed with interest the movements of a tall young man, in a
blue shirt open at the throat and green corduroy trousers, who caught
the heaving line hurtling from the bow of the nearest barge, and hauled
the attached towing-cable dripping and wriggling from the heavy waters.
He did it gracefully. There was a fine play of broad shoulders, a
resilient disposition of the long, straight limbs, an impression of
tiger-like strength and suppleness, not lost upon his observers, upon
Virginia Howland least of all. She was not a girl to suppress a
thought or emotion uppermost in her mind; and now she turned to her
father with an exclamation of pleasure.
"Father," she cried, "look! Isn't he simply stunning! The Greek
ideal--and on a tugboat!" Her dark eyes lightened with mischief. "Do
you suppose he'd mind if I spoke to him?"
"He'd probably swear at you," said young Ralph Oddington, with a grin.
Then, seized by a sudden impulse for which he afterwards kicked
himself, being a decent sort of chap, he drew his cigarette case from
his pocket and, as the tug came to a standstill, tossed a cigarette
across the intervening space. It struck the man in the back, and as he
turned, Oddington called,
"Have a cigarette, Bill?"
The tugman's lips parted, giving a flashing glimpse of big, straight,
white teeth. Then they closed, and for an instant he regarded the
speaker with a hard, curious expression in his quiet gray eyes, and the
proffered cigarette, as though by accident, was shapeless under his
heel.
It was distinctly embarrassing for the yachting party; and partly to
relieve Oddington, partly out of curiosity, Virginia Howland leaned
over the rail with a smile. "Please pardon us, Mr. Tugboatman. We
didn't mean to offend you; we--"
The young man again swept the party with his eyes, and then meeting the
girl's gaze full, he waited for her to complete the sentence.
"We," she continued, "of course meant no harm."
He did not reply for a moment, did not reply till her eyes fell.
"All right--thanks," he said simply and then hurried forward.
At sunset the _Veiled Ladye_ was well on her way to New York, and the
_Hydrographer_ was plugging past Hog Island light with her cumbersome
tows plunging astern.
It came to be a wild night. The tumbling blue-black clouds of late
afternoon fulfilled their promise of evil things for the dark. There
were fierce pounding hours when the wrath of the sea seemed centred
upon the _Hydrographer_ and her lumbering barges, when the towing-lines
hummed like the harp strings of Aeolus.
It was man's work the crew of the _Hydrographer_ performed that night;
when the dawn came and the wind departed with a farewell shriek, and
the seas began to fall, Dan Merrithew sat quiet for a while, gazing
vacantly out over the gray waters, wrestling with the realization that
through all the viewless turmoil the face of a girl he did not
know--never would know, probably--had not been absent from his mind;
that the sound of her voice had lingered in his ears rising out of the
elemental confusion, as the notes of a violin, freeing themselves from
orchestral harmony, suddenly rise clear, dominating the _motif_ in
piercing obligato.
When he arose it was with the conviction that this meant something
which eventually would prove of interest to him. One evening some
three months before, he had visited the little sailors' church which
floats in the East River at the foot of Pike Street in New York, and
listened to a preacher who was speaking in terms as simple as he could
make them, with Fate as his text.
Fate, he said, works, in mysterious ways and does queer things with its
instruments. It may sear a soul, or alter the course of a life in
seeming jest; but the end proves no jest at all, and if we live long
enough and grow wise with our years, we learn that at the bottom, ever
and always, in everything, was a guiding hand, a sure intent, and a
serious purpose.
It was a good, plain, simple talk such as longshoremen, dock-rats,
tugmen, and seamen often hear in this place, but it impressed young
Merrithew; for, although he had never accepted his misfortunes, nor
reasoned away the things that tried his soul in this philosophical
manner, yet he had always had a vague conviction that everything that
happened was for his good and would work out in the end.
The words of the preacher seemed to give him clearer understanding in
this regard, taught him to weigh carefully things which, as they
appeared to him, were on the face insignificant. This had led him into
strange trends of thought, had encouraged, in a way, superstitious
fancies not altogether good for him. He knew that, and he had cursed
his folly, and yet on this morning after the storm, on the after-deck
of a throbbing tugboat he nodded his head sharply, outward acquiescence
to an inward conviction that somehow, somewhere, he was going to see
that face again and hear that voice. That was as certain as that he
lived. And when this took place he would not be a tugboat mate. That
was all.
Whatever he did thereafter he had this additional incentive, the future
meeting with a tall, lithe girl with dark-brown hair and gray
eyes--brave, deep eyes, and slightly swarthy cheeks, which were crimson
as she spoke to him.