an occasional swift peep at the passenger. The young man's demeanor had
become so peculiar that it attracted attention. He looked worried, ill
at ease, smoked his cigarettes nervously, flung over the rail one which
he had just lighted, and started for the captain, his mouth open. Then
he turned away, shielded a match under the hood of the companionway, and
touched off another cigarette. He was plainly wrestling with a problem
that distressed him very much.
At last he hurried below. He came up almost immediately. He had the air
of a man who had made up his mind to have a disagreeable matter over
with.
“Captain Downs,” he blurted, stepping in front of Old Mull and halting
that astonished skipper, “will you please step down into the cabin with
me for a few moments? I've something to tell you.”
“Well, tell it--tell it here!” barked the captain.
“It's very private, sir!”
“I don't know of any privater place than this quarterdeck, fifteen miles
offshore.”
“But the--the man at the wheel!”
“Good Josephus! That ain't a man! That's a nigger sailor steering my
schooner. Tell your tale, Mr. Bradish. Tell it right here. That fellow
don't count any more 'n that rudder-head counts.”
“If you could step down into the cabin, I--”
“My place is on this quarter-deck, sir. If you've got anything to say to
me, say it!” He began to pace again.
Bradish caught step, after a scuff or two.
“I hope you're going to take this thing right, Captain Downs. It may
sound queer to you at first,” he stammered.
“Well, well, well, tell it to me--tell it! Then I will let you know
whether it sounds queer or not.”
“I brought another passenger on board with me. She is locked in a
stateroom.”
Old Mull stopped his patrol with a jerk. “She?” he demanded. “You mean
to tell me you've got a woman aboard here?”
“We're engaged--we want to get married. So she came along--”
“Then why in tophet didn't ye go get married? You don't think this is a
parsonage, do you?”
“There were reasons why we couldn't get married ashore. You have to have
licenses, and questions are asked, and we were afraid it would be found
out before we could arrange it.”
“So this is an elopement, hey?”
“Well, the young lady's father has foolish ideas about a husband for his
daughter, and she doesn't agree with him.”
“Who is her father?”
“I don't intend to tell you, sir. That hasn't anything to do with the
matter.”
Captain Downs looked his passenger up and down with great disfavor. “And
what's your general idea in loading yourselves onto me in this fashion?”
“You have the right, as captain of a ship outside the three-mile limit,
to marry folks in an emergency.”
“I ain't sure that I've got any such right, and I ain't at all certain
about the emergency, Mr. Bradish. I ain't going to stick my head into a
scrape.”
“But there can't be any scrape for you. You simply exercise your right
and marry us and enter it in your log and give us a paper. It will be
enough of a marriage so that we can't be separated.”
“Want to hold a hand you can bluff her father with, hey? I don't approve
of any such tactics in matrimony.”
“I wouldn't be doing this if there were any other safe way for us,”
protested Bradish, earnestly. “I'm no cheap fellow. I hold down a good
job, sir. But the trouble is I work for her father--and you know how it
always is in a case like that. He can't see me!”
“Rich, eh?”
“Yes, sir!” Bradish made the admission rather sullenly.
“It's usually the case when there's eloping done!”
“But this will not seem like eloping when it's reported right in the
newspapers. Marriage at sea--it will seem like a romantic way of getting
rid of the fuss of a church wedding. We'll put out a statement of that
sort. It will give her father a chance to stop all the gossip. He'll be
glad if you perform the ceremony.”
“Say, young fellow, you're not rehearsing the stuff on me that you used
on the girl, are you? Well, it doesn't go!
“Captain Downs, you must understand how bull-headed some rich men are in
matters of this kind. I am active and enterprising. I'll be a handy man
for him. He likes me in a business way--he has said so. He'll be all
right after he gets cooled down.”
“More rehearsal! But I ain't in love with you like that girl is.”
“We're in a terrible position, captain! Perhaps it wasn't a wise thing
to do. But it will come out all right if you marry us.”
“What's her name?”
“I can't tell you.”
“How in the devil can I marry you and her if I don't know her name?”
“But you haven't promised that you will do your part! I don't want to
expose this whole thing and then be turned down.”
“I ain't making any rash promises,” stated Captain Downs, walking to the
rail and taking a squint at the top-hamper. “Besides,” he added, on his
tramp past to the other rail, “he may be an owner into this schooner
property, for all I know. Sixteenths of her are scattered from tophet to
Tar Hollow!”
“You needn't worry about his owning schooner property! He is doing quite
a little job at putting you fellows out of business!”
Curiosity and something else gleamed in Captain Downs's eyes. “Chance
for me to rasp him, hey, by wishing you onto the family?”
This new idea in the situation appealed instantly to Bradish as a
possibility to be worked. “Promise man to man that you'll perform the
marriage, and I'll tell you his name; then you'll be glad that you have
promised,” he said, eagerly.
“I don't reckon I'd try to get even with Judas I-scarrot himself
by stealing his daughter away from him, sir. There's the girl to be
considered in all such cases!”
“But this isn't stealing! We're in love.”
“Maybe, but you ain't fooling me very much, young fellow. I don't say
but what you like her all right, but you're after something else, too.”
“A man has to make his way in the world as best he can.”
“That plan seems to be pretty fashionable among you financing fellows
nowadays. But I'm a pretty good judge of men and you can't fool me, I
say. Now how did you fool the girl?”
It was blunt and insulting query, but Bradish did not have the courage
to resent it; he had too much need of placating this despot. The lover
hesitated and glanced apprehensively at the man at the wheel.
“Don't mind that nigger!” yelped Captain Downs, “How did you ever get
nigh enough to that girl to horn-swoggle her into this foolishness?”
“We met at dances. We were attracted to each other,” explained Bradish,
meekly.
“Huh! Yes, they tell me that girls are crazy over hoof-shaking these
days, and I suppose it's easy to go on from there into a general state
of plumb lunacy,” commented Old Mull, with disgust. “You show you ain't
really in love with her, young man. You'd never allow her to cut up this
caper if you were!”
He stuck an unlighted cigar in his mouth and continued to patrol his
quarter-deck, muttering.
Bradish lighted a cigarette, tossed it away after two puffs, and leaned
against the house, studying his fingertips, scowling and sullen.
Mayo had heard all the conversation, but his interest in the identity of
these persons was limited; New York was full of rich men, and there were
many silly daughters.
“Look here,” suggested the captain, unamiably, “whatever is done later,
there's something to be done now. It's cruelty to animals to keep that
girl shut up in that stateroom any longer.”
“She didn't want to come out and show herself till I had had a talk
with you, sir. I have spoken to her through the door a few times.” He
straightened himself and assumed dignity. “Captain Downs, I call it
to your attention--I want you to remember that I have observed all the
proprieties since I have been on board.”
Captain Downs snorted. “Proprieties--poosh! You have got her into a
nice scrape! And she's down there locked in like a cat, and probably
starving!”
“She doesn't care to eat. I think she isn't feeling very well.”
“I shouldn't think she would! Go bring her up here, where she can get
some fresh air. I'll talk to her.”
After a moment's hesitation Bradish went below. He returned in a little
while.
In spite of his efforts to pretend obliviousness Mayo stared hard at
the companionway, eager to look on the face of the girl. But she did not
follow her lover.
“She doesn't feel well enough to come on deck,” reported Bradish. “But
she is in the saloon. Captain Downs, won't you go and talk to her and
say something to make her feel easy in her mind? She is very nervous.
She is frightened.”
“I'm not much of a ladies' man,” stated Old Mull. But he pulled off his
cap and smoothed his grizzled hair.
“And if you could only say that you're going to help us!” pleaded the
lover. “We throw ourselves on your mercy, sir.”
“I ain't much good as a life-raft in this love business.” He started for
the companionway.
“But don't tell her that you will not marry us--not just now. Wait till
she is calmer.”
“Oh, I sha'n't tell her! Don't worry!” said Captain Downs, with a grim
set to his mouth. “All she, or you, gets out of me can be put in a
flea's eye.”
He disappeared down the steps, and Bradish followed. A mate had come
aft, obeying the master's hand-flourish, and he took up the watch. In a
little while Mayo was relieved. He went forward, conscious that he was
a bit irritated and disappointed because he had not seen the heroine of
this love adventure, and wondering just a bit at his interest in that
young lady.
An hour later Mayo, coiling down lines in the alley outside the
engine-room, overheard a bulletin delivered by the one-eyed cook to the
engineer.
The cook had trotted forward, his sound eye bulging out and thus mutely
expressing much astonishment. “There's a dame aft. I've been making tea
and toast for her.”
“Well, you act as if it was the first woman you'd ever seen. What's the
special excitement about a skirt going along as passenger?”
“She wa'n't expected to be aboard. I heard the old man talking with her.
The flash gent that's passenger has rung her in somehow. I didn't get
all the drift be-cause the old man only sort of purred while I was in
hearing distance. But I caught enough to know that it ain't according to
schedule.”
“Good looker?” The engineer was showing a bit of interest.
“She sure is!” declared the cook, demonstrating that one eye is as
handy, sometimes, as two. “Peaches and cream, molasses-candy hair, hands
as white as pastry flour. Looks good enough to eat.”
“Nobody would ever guess you are a cook, hearing you describe a girl,”
sneered the engineer.
“There's a mystery about her. I heard her kind of taking on before the
dude hushed her up. She was saying something about being sorry that she
had come, and that she wished she was back, and that she had always
done things on the impulse, and didn't stop to think, and so forth, and
couldn't the ship be turned around.”
Mayo forgot himself. He stopped coiling ropes and stood there and
listened eagerly until the cook's indignant eye chanced to take a swing
in his direction.
“Do you see who's standing there butting in on the private talk of two
gents?” he asked the engineer. “Hand me that grate-poker--the hot one.
I'll show that nigger where he belongs.”
But Mayo retreated in a hurry, knowing that he was not permitted to
protest either by word or by look. However, the cook had given him
something else besides an insult--he had retailed gossip which kept the
young man's thoughts busy.
In spite of his rather contemptuous opinion of the wit of a girl who
would hazard such a silly adventure, he found himself pitying her
plight, guessing that she was really sorry. But as to what was going on
in the master's cabin he had no way of ascertaining. He wondered whether
Captain Downs would marry the couple in such equivocal fashion.
At any rate, pondered Mayo, how did it happen to be any affair of his?
He had troubles enough of his own to occupy his sole attention.
Their spanking wind from the sou'west let go just as dusk shut down. A
yellowish scud dimmed the stars. Mayo heard one of the mates say that
the glass had dropped. He smelled nasty weather himself, having the
sailor's keen instinct. The topsails were ordered in, and he climbed
aloft and had a long, lone struggle before he got the heavy canvas
folded and lashed.
When he reached the deck a mate commanded him to fasten the canvas
covers over the skylights of the house. The work brought him within
range of the conversation which Captain Downs and Bradish were carrying
on, pacing the deck together.
“Of course I don't want to throw down anybody, captain,” Bradish was
saying. There was an obsequious note in his voice; it was the tone of a
man who was affecting confidential cordiality in order to get on--to win
a favor. “But I have a lot of sympathy for you and for the rest of the
schooner people. I have been right there in the office, and have had
a finger in the pie, and I've seen what has been done in a good many
cases. Of course, you understand, this is all between us! I'm not giving
away any of the office secrets to be used against the big fellows. But
I'm willing to show that I'm a friend of yours. And I know you'll be a
friend of mine, and keep mum. All is, you can get wise from what I tell
you and can keep your eyes peeled from now on.”
Mayo heard fragmentary explanation of how the combination of steamboat
and barge interests had operated to leave only pickings to the
schooners. The two men were tramping the deck together, and at the turns
were too far away from him to be heard distinctly.
“But they're putting over the biggest job of all just now,” proceeded
Bradish. “Confound it, Captain Downs, I'm not to be blamed for running
away with a man's daughter after watching him operate as long as I have.
His motto is, 'Go after it when you see a thing you want in this world.'
I've been trained to that system. I've got just as much right to go
after a thing as he. I'm treasurer of the Paramount--that's the trust
with which they intend to smash the opposition. My job is to ask no
questions and to sign checks when they tell me to, and Heaven only knows
what kind of a goat it will make of me if they ever have a show-down in
the courts! They worked some kind of a shenanigan to grab off the Vose
line; I wired a pot of money to Fletcher Fogg, who was doing the dirty
work, and it was paid to a clerk to work proxies at the annual meeting.
And then Fogg put up some kind of a job on a greenhorn captain--worked
a flip trick on the fellow and made him shove the _Montana_ onto the
sands. I suppose they'll have the Vose line at their price before I get
back.”
Mayo sat there in the shadow, squatting on legs which trembled.
This babbler--tongue loosened by his new liberty and by the antagonism
his small nature was developing, anticipating his employer's enmity--had
dropped a word of what Mayo knew must be the truth. It had been a
trick--and Fletcher Fogg had worked it! Mayo did not know who Fletcher
Fogg's employer might be. From what office this tattler came he did not
know; but it was evident that Bradish was cognizant of the trick. As
a result of that trick, an honest man had been ruined and blacklisted,
deprived of opportunity to work in his profession, was a fugitive, a
despised sailor, kicked to the Very bottom of the ladder he had climbed
so patiently and honorably.
Furious passion bowled over Mayo's prudence. He leaped down from the top
of the house and presented himself in front of the two men.
“I heard it--I couldn't help hearing it!” he stuttered.
“Here's a nigger gone crazy!” yelped Captain Downs. “Ahoy, there,
for'ard! Tumble aft with a rope!”
“I'm no nigger, and I'm not crazy!” shouted Mayo.
The swinging lantern in the companionway lighted him dimly. But in the
gloom his dusky hue was only the more accentuated. His excitement seemed
that of a man whose wits had been touched.
“I knew it was a trick. But what was the trick?” he demanded, starting
toward Bradish, his clutching hands outspread.
Captain Downs kicked at this obstreperous sailor, and at the same time
fanned a blow at his head with open palm.
Mayo avoided both the foot and the hand. “What does the law say about
striking a sailor, captain? Hold on, there! I'm just as good a man as
you are. Don't you tell those men to lay hands on me.” He backed away
from the sailors who came running aft, with the second mate marshaling
them. He stripped up his sleeve and held his arm across the radiance of
the binnacle light. “That's a white man's skin, isn't it?” he demanded.
“What kind of play-acting is all this?” asked Old Mull, with astonished
indignation.
In that crisis Mayo controlled his tongue after a mighty effort to
steady himself. He was prompted to obey his mood and announce his
identity with all the fury that was in him. But here stood the man who
had served as one of the tools of his enemies, whoever they were. For
his weapon against this man Mayo had only a few words of gossip which
had been dropped in an unwary moment; he realized his position; he
regretted his passionate haste. He was not ready to put himself into the
power of his enemies by telling this man who he was; he remembered that
he was running away from the law.
Bradish gaped at this intruder without seeming to understand what it all
meant.
“Passengers better get below out of the muss,” advised Captain Downs.
“Here's a crazy nigger, mate. Grab him and tie him up.”
Mayo backed to the rack at the rail and pulled out two belaying-pins,
mighty weapons, one for each hand.
Bradish hurried away into the depths of the house, manifestly glad to
get out from underfoot.
“Don't you allow those niggers to lay their hands on me,” repeated the
man at bay. “Captain Downs, let me have a word to you in private.” He
had desperately decided on making a confidant of one of his kind. He
bitterly needed the help a master mariner could give him.
“Get at him!” roared the skipper. “Go in, you niggers!”
“By the gods! you'll be short-handed, sir. I'll kill 'em!”
That threat was more effective than mere bluster. Captain Downs
instinctively squinted aloft at the scud which was dimming the stars; he
sniffed at the volleying wind.
“One word to you, and you'll understand, sir!” pleaded Mayo. He put the
pins back into the rack and walked straight to the captain.
There was no menace in his action, and the mate did not interfere.
“Just a word or two to you, sir, to show you that I have done more than
throw my hat into the door of the Masters and Mates Association.” He
leaned close and whispered. “Now let me tell you something else--in
private?” he urged in low tones.
Captain Downs glanced again at the bared arm and surveyed this sailor
with more careful scrutiny. “You go around and come into the for'ard
cabin through the coach-house door,” he commanded, after a little
hesitation.
Mayo bowed and hurried away down the lee alley.
That cabin designated as the place of conference was the dining-saloon
of the schooner. He waited there until Captain Downs, moving his bulk
more deliberately, trudged down the main companionway and came into the
apartment through its after-door which no sailor was allowed to profane.
“Can anybody--in there--hear?” asked Mayo, cautiously. He pointed to the
main saloon.
“She's in her stateroom and he's talking through the door,” grunted the
skipper. “Now what's on your mind?”
Mayo reached his hand into an inside pocket of his shirt and drew forth
a document. He laid it in Captain Downs's hand. The skipper sat down at
the table, pulled out his spectacles, and adjusted them on his bulging
nose in leisurely fashion, spread the paper on the red damask cloth, and
studied it. He tipped down his head and stared at Mayo over the edge of
his glasses with true astonishment.
“This your name in these master's papers?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir.”
“You're--you claim to be the Captain Mayo who smashed the _Montana?_”
“I'm the man, sir. I hung on to my papers, even though they have been
canceled.”
“How do I know about these papers? How do I know your name is Mayo? You
might have stolen 'em--though, for that matter, you might just as well
carry a dynamite bomb around in your pocket, for all the good they'll do
you.”
“That's the point, sir. They merely prove my identity. Nobody else would
want them. Captain Downs, I'm running away from the law. I own up to
you. Let me tell you how it happened.”
“Make it short,” snapped the captain, showing no great amiability toward
this plucked and discredited master. “The wind is breezing up.”
He told his story concisely and in manly fashion, standing up while
Captain Downs sat and stared over his spectacles, drumming his stubby
fingers on the red damask.
“There, sir, that's why I am here and how I happened to get here,” Mayo
concluded.
“I ain't prepared to say it isn't so,” admitted Old Mull at last, “no
matter how foolish it sounds. And I'm wondering if next I'll find the
King of Peruvia or the Queen of Sheba aboard this schooner. New folks
are piling in fast! I know Captain Wass pretty well, though I never laid
eye on you to know you. Where's that wart on his face?”
“Starboard side of his nose, sir.”
“What does he do, whittle off his chaw or bite the plug?”
“Neither. Chews fine cut.”
“What's his favorite line of talk?”
“Reciting the pilot rules and jawing because the big fellows slam along
without observing them.”
“Last remark showing that you have been in the pilothouse along with
Captain Wass! Examination is over and you rank one hundred and the board
stands adjourned!” He rose and shook hands with Mayo. “Now what can I do
for you?”
“I don't suppose you can do much of anything, Captain Downs. But I'm
going to ask you this, master to masted. Don't let a soul aboard this
schooner know who I am--especially those two back there!” He pointed to
the door of the main saloon.
“Seems to be more or less of a masked-ball party aboard here!” growled
the skipper.
“That man you call Bradish, whoever he is, knows what kind of a game
they played on me. I want to get it out of him. If he knows who I am he
won't loosen! I was a fool to break in as I did. He was coming across to
you.”
“Seemed to be pretty gossipy,” admitted the captain. “Is trying to be my
special chum so as to work me!”
“Don't you suppose you can get some more out of him?”
“Might be done.”
“I feel that it's sailors against the shore pirates this time, sir.
Won't you call that man out here and ask him some questions and allow me
to listen?”
“Under the circumstances I'll do it. Sailors first is my motto. You step
into the mate's stateroom, there, and put ear to the crack o' the door.”
But when Bradish appeared, answering the captain's summons, all his
chattiness had left him. He declared that he knew nothing about the
trouble in the _Montana_ case.
“But you said something about a scheme to fool a green captain?”
“It was only gossip--I probably got it wrong. I have thought it over and
really can't remember where I heard it or much about it. Might have been
just newspaper faking.”
He kept peering about the dimly lighted room.
“You needn't worry, young man. That nigger isn't here.”
“But he said he was a white man. And how does he come to be interested?”
“It's a nigger gone crazy about that case--he has probably been reading
fake stories in the papers, too,” stated Captain Downs, grimly. “I must
remind you again, Bradish, that you were talking to me in pretty lively
style.”
“Oh, a man lets out a lot of guesswork when he is nervous about his own
business.”
“Well, I might fix it so that you'd be a little less nervous, providing
you'll show a more willing disposition when I ask you a few questions,”
probed the skipper. But this insistence alarmed Bradish and his blinking
eyes revealed his fears and suspicions.
“I don't know anything about the _Montana_ case. I don't intend to do
any talking about it.”
Captain Downs tapped harder on the table, scowled, and was silent.
“Anything else, sir?” inquired Bradish, after a pause.
“Guess not, if that's the way you feel about it!” snapped Captain Downs.
Bradish went back into the main saloon, and the eavesdropper ventured
forth.
“I don't know just what the dickens to do about you, now that I know who
you are,” confessed the master, looking Mayo up and down.
“There isn't anything to do except let me go back to my work, sir.”
“I'm in a devil of a position. You're a captain.”
“I shipped on board here before the mast, Captain Downs, and knew
exactly what I was doing. I'll take my medicine.”
“I don't like to have you go for'ard there among those cattle, Mayo.”
“Captain Downs, it was wrong for me to make the break I did on your
quarter-deck. I ought to have kept still; but the thing came to me so
sudden that I went all to pieces. I'd like to step back into the crew
and have you forget that I'm Boyd Mayo. I'll sneak ashore in Boston and
lose myself.”