THE CAPTAIN OF THE SEAMEW
Tunis Latham's _Seamew_, tacking for the channel into Big Wreck
Cove, wings full-spread, skimming the heaving blue of the summer
sea, looked like a huge member of the tern family. From Wreckers'
Head and the other sand bluffs guarding this roadstead from the
heave of the Atlantic rollers, the schooner with her yachtlike lines
was truly a picture to please the most exacting mariner.
On her deck paced the young captain whose personal affairs had been
a subject of comment between Cap'n Ira Ball and his wife. He was a
heavy-set, upstanding, blue-jerseyed figure, lithe and as spry on
his feet as a cat. Tunis Latham was thirty, handsome in the bold way
of longshore men, and ruddy-faced. He had crisp, short, sandy hair;
his cheeks, chin, and lip were scraped as clean as his palm; his
eyes were like blue-steel points, but with humorous wrinkles at the
outer corners of them, matched by a faint smile that almost always
wreathed his lips. Altogether he was a man that a woman would be
sure to look at twice.
The revelation of the lighter traits of his character counteracted
the otherwise sober look of Tunis Latham. His sternness and fitness
to command were revealed at first glance; his softer attributes
dawned upon one later.
As he swayed back and forth across the deck of the flying _Seamew_,
rolling easily in sailor gait to the pitching of the schooner, his
sharp glance cast alow and then aloft betrayed the keen perception
and attentive mind of the master mariner, while his surface
appearance merely suggested a young man pridefully enjoying the
novelty of pacing the deck of his first command. For this was the
maiden trip of the _Seamew_ under this name and commanded by this
master.
She was not a new vessel, but neither was she old. At least, her
decks were not marred, her rails were ungashed with the wear of
lines, and even her fenders were almost shop-new. Of course, any
craft may have a fresh suit of sails; and new paint and gilding on
the figurehead or a new name board under the stern do not bespeak a
craft just off the builder's ways. Yet there was an appearance about
the schooner-yacht which would assure any able seaman at first
glance that she was still to be sea-tried. She was like a maiden at
her first dance, just venturing out upon the floor.
An old salt hung to the _Seamew's_ wheel as the bonny craft sped
channelward. Horace Newbegin was a veritable sea dog. He had sailed
every navigable sea in all this watery world, and sailed in almost
every conceivable sort of craft. And he had sailed many voyages
under Tunis Latham's father, who had owned and commanded the
four-master _Ada May_, which, ill-freighted and ill-fated at last,
had struck and sunk on the outer Hebrides, carrying to the bottom
most of the hands as well as the commander of the partially insured
ship.
This misfortune had kept Tunis Latham out of a command of his own
until he was thirty; for Cape Cod boys that come of masters'
families and are born navigators usually tread their own decks years
before the age at which Tunis was pacing that of the _Seamew_ on
this summer day.
"How does she handle now, Horry?" asked the skipper, wheeling
suddenly to face the old steersman.
"Thar's still that tug to sta'bo'd, Captain Tunis," growled the old
man.
"But you keep her full on her course."
"Spite o' that? In course. But I can feel her tuggin' like a big
bluefish trying to bolt with hook and sinker. Never did feel that
same tug to sta'bo'd but once before on any craft. I told you that."
Tunis Latham nodded. The old man's keen eyes tried to read the
skipper's face. He could scan the signs in sea and sky at a glance,
but he confessed that the captain of the _Seamew_ revealed no more
of his inner thoughts than had the mahogany countenance of the older
Captain Latham with whom Horry Newbegin had so long sailed.
"Well," the steersman said finally, "I've told ye all I can tell ye.
That other schooner that had a tug to sta'bo'd like this, the
_Marlin B._, got a bad name from the Georges to Monomoy P'int. You
know that."
"Cat's foot!" ejaculated Tunis cheerfully. "The _Marlin B._ was sold
for a pleasure yacht and taken half around the world. A Chilean
guano millionaire bought her the year after the Sutro Brothers took
her off the Banks."
"Ye-as. That's what Sutro Brothers says," and the old man wagged his
head doubtfully. "But there's just as much difference in ships, as
there is in men. Ain't never been two men just per_zact_-ly alike.
No two craft ever sailed or steered same as same, Captain Tunis. I
steered the _Martin B._ out o' Salem on her second trip, without
knowing what she'd been through, you can believe, on her first."
"Well, well!" Tunis broke in sharply. "Just keep your mind on what
you are doing now, Horry. You're supposed to be steering the
_Seamew_ into Big Wreck Cove. Don't undertake to shave a piece off
the Lighthouse Point reef."
The steersman did not answer. From long experience with these
Lathams, Horace Newbegin knew just how much interference or advice
they would stand.
"And, by gum, that ain't much!" he growled to himself.
He took the beautifully sailing schooner in through the channel in a
masterly manner. He knew that more ancient skippers than Cap'n Ira
Ball, up there on Wreckers' Head, would be watching the _Seamew_
make the cove, and old Horry Newbegin wanted them to say it was well
done.
Half an hour later the anchor was dropped fifty yards off Portygee
Town. Captain Tunis ordered the gig lowered to take him ashore and,
after giving the mate some instructions regarding stowage and the
men's shore leave, he was rowed over to Luiz Wharf. 'Rion Latham, a
red-headed, pimply faced young man, sidled up to Horace Newbegin.
"Well, what do you think of the hoodoo ship, Horrors?" he hoarsely
whispered.
Newbegin stared at him unwaveringly, and the red-haired one repeated
the question. The old salt finally batted one eye, slowly and
impressively.
"D'you know what answer the little boy got that asked the quahog the
time o' day?" he drawled. "Not a word. Not a derned word, 'Rion."
Landing at the fish wharf, Tunis Latham walked up the straggling
street of the district inhabited for the most part by smiling brown
men and women. Fayal and Cape Cod are strangely analogous,
especially upon a summer's day. The houses he passed had one room;
they were little more than shacks. But there were gay colors
everywhere in the dress of both men and women. It was believed that
these Portygee fishermen would have their seines dyed red and yellow
if the fish would swim into them.
A young woman sitting upon a doorstep, nursing a little, bald,
brown-headed baby, dropped a gay handkerchief over her bared bosom
but nodded and smiled at the captain of the _Seamew_ with right good
fellowship. He knew all these people, and most of them, the young
women at least, admired Tunis; but he was too self-centered and
busied with his own thoughts and affairs to comprehend this.
At the corner of one of the houses a girl stood--a tall,
lean-flanked, but deep-bosomed creature, as graceful as a well-grown
sapling. Her calico frock clung to the lines of her matured figure
as though she had just stepped up out of the sea itself. Around her
head she had banded a crimson bandanna, but it allowed the escape of
glossy black hair that waved prettily. Her lips were as red as
poppies, full, voluptuous; her eyes were sloe-black and as soft as a
cow's. Fortunately for the languishing girl's peace of mind--she had
placed herself there at the corner of the house to wait for Tunis
since the moment the _Seamew_ had dropped anchor--she did not know
that the young captain had noticed her only as "that cow" as he
swung by on his way to the road that wound up the slope of Wreckers'
Head.
Neither Eunez Pareta--nor any other girl of the port, Portygee or
Yankee--had ever made Tunis Latham's heart flutter. He was not
impervious to the blandishments of all feminine beauty. As Cap'n Ira
Ball would have said, Tunis was "a general admirer of the sect." And
as the young man passed the languishing Eunez with a cheerful nod
and smile there flashed into his memory an entirely different
picture, but one of a girl nevertheless. Somehow the memory of that
girl in Scollay Square kept coming back to his mind.
He had gone up by train for the _Seamew_ and her crew, and naturally
he had spent one night in Boston. Coming up out of the North End
after a late supper, he had stopped upon one side of the square to
watch the passing throng, some hurrying home from work, some
hurrying to theaters and other places of amusement, but all
hurrying. Nowhere did he see the slow, but carrying, stride of a man
used to open spaces. And the narrow-skirted girls could scarcely
hobble.
A narrow skirt, however, had not led Tunis Latham to give particular
note to one certain girl in the throng. She had stepped through the
door of a cheap but garish restaurant. Somebody had thrown a peeling
on the sidewalk, and she had slipped on it. Tunis had leaped and
caught her before she measured her length. She looked up into his
face with startled, violet eyes that seemed, in that one moment, to
hold in them a fascination and power that the Cape man had never
dreamed a woman's eyes could possess.
"You're all right, ma'am," he said, confused, setting her firmly on
her feet.
"My skirt!" She almost whispered it. There seemed to be not a
shyness, but a terrified timidity in her voice and manner. Tunis saw
that the shabby skirt was torn widely at the hem.
"Let's go somewhere and get that fixed," he suggested awkwardly.
"Thank you, sir. I will go back into the restaurant. I work there. I
can get a pin or two."
He had to let her go, of course. Nor could he follow her. He lacked
the boldness that might have led another man to enter the restaurant
and order something to eat for the sake of seeing what became of the
girl with the violet eyes and colorless velvet cheeks. There had
been an appeal in her countenance that called Tunis more and more as
he dreamed about her.
And standing there on Scollay Square dreaming about her had done the
young captain of the _Seamew_ positively no good! She did not come
out again, although he stood there for fully an hour. At the end of
that time he strolled up an alley and discovered that there was a
side door to the restaurant for the use of employees, and he judged
that the girl, seeing him lingering in front, had gone out by this
way. It made him flush to his ears when he thought of it. Of course,
he had been rude.
Marching up the winding road by the Ball homestead, Tunis Latham
revisioned this adventure--and the violet-eyed girl. Well, he
probably would never see her again. And in any case she was not the
sort of girl that he would ever take home to Aunt Lucretia. He was
headed toward home now, to the old brown house in the saucer-like
valley some distance beyond Cap'n Ira's.
As he came within hail of the old homestead in which the Balls had
been born and had died--if they were not lost at sea--for many
generations, the captain of the _Seamew_ became suddenly aware that
something was particularly wrong there. He heard somebody shouting.
Was it for help? He hastened his stride.
Quite unexpectedly the hobbling figure of Cap'n Ira appeared in the
open barn door. He saw Tunis. He waved his cane in one hand and
beckoned wildly with the other. Then he disappeared.
The young captain vaulted the fence and ran across the ill-tended
garden adjoining the Balls' side yard. Again he heard Cap'n Ira's
hail.
"Come on in here, Tunis!"
"What's the matter, Cap'n Ira?"
"That dratted Queen of Sheby! I knowed she'd be the death of one of
us some day. I swan! Tunis Latham, come here! I can't get her out,
and you know derned well Prudence can't stand on her head that a way
without strangling. Lend us a hand, boy. This is something awful!
Something awful!"
Tunis Latham, much disturbed by the old man's words and excited
manner, pushed into the dimly lit interior of the barn.