Cap'n Aaron Sproul had forgotten his troubles for a time. He had been
dozing. The shrewish night wind of autumn whistled over the ledges
of Cod Lead Nubble and scattered upon his gray beard the black ashes
from the bonfire that the shivering men of Smyrna still plied with
fuel. The Cap'n sat upright, his arms clasping his doubled knees,
his head bent forward.
Hiram Look, faithful friend that he was, had curled himself at his
back and was snoring peacefully. He had the appearance of a corsair,
with his head wrapped in the huge handkerchief that had replaced the
plug hat lost in the stress and storm that had destroyed the _Aurilla
P. Dobson_. The elephant, Imogene, was bulked dimly in the first gray
of a soppy dawn.
"If this is goin' to sea," said Jackson Denslow, continuing the sour
mutterings of the night, "I'm glad I never saw salt water before I
got pulled into this trip."
"It ain't goin' to sea," remarked another of the Smyrna amateur
mariners. "It's goin' ashore!" He waved a disconsolate gesture
toward the cove where the remains of the _Dobson_ swashed in the
breakers.
"If any one ever gets me navigatin' again onto anything desp'ritter
than a stone-bo't on Smyrna bog," said Denslow, "I hope my relatives
will have me put into a insane horsepittle."
"Look at that!" shouted Ludelphus Murray. "This is a thunderation
nice kind of a night to have a celebration on!"
This yelp, sounding above the somniferous monotone of grumbling,
stirred Cap'n Sproul from his dozing. He snapped his head up from
his knees. A rocket was streaking across the sky and popped with a
sprinkling of colored fires. Another and another followed with
desperate haste, and a Greek fire shed baleful light across the
waters.
"Yes, sir," repeated Murray, indignantly sarcastic, "it's a nice
night and a nice time of night to be celebratin' when other folks
is cold and sufferin' and hungry."
"What's the matter?" asked Hiram, stirring in his turn.
The Cap'n was prompt with biting reply.
"One of your Smyrna 'cyclopedys of things that ain't so is open at
the page headed 'idjit,' with a chaw of tobacker for a book-mark.
If the United States Government don't scoop in the whole of us for
maintainin' false beacons on a dangerous coast in a storm, then I
miss my cal'lations, that's all!"
"That shows the right spirit out there," vouchsafed Hiram, his eyes
kindling as another rocket slashed the sky. "Fireworks as soon as
they've located us is the right spirit, I say! The least we can do
is to give 'em three cheers."
But at this Cap'n Sproul staggered up, groaning as his old enemy,
rheumatism, dug its claws into his flesh. He made for the shore, his
disgust too deep for words.
"Me--me," he grunted, "in with a gang that can't tell the difference
between a vessel goin' to pieces and a fireworks celebration! I don't
wonder that the Atlantic Ocean tasted of us and spit us ashore. She
couldn't stand it to drown us!"
When the others straggled down and gabbled questions at him he
refused to reply, but stood peering into the lifting dawn. He got
a glimpse of her rig before her masts went over. She was a
hermaphrodite brig, and old-fashioned at that. She was old-fashioned
enough to have a figure-head. It came ashore at Cap'n Sproul's feet
as _avant-coureur_ of the rest of the wreckage. It led the procession
because it was the first to suffer when the brig butted her nose
against the Blue Cow Reef. It came ashore intact, a full-sized woman
carved from pine and painted white. The Cap'n recognized the fatuous
smile as the figure rolled its face up at him from the brine.
"The old _Polyhymnia_!" he muttered.
Far out there was a flutter of sail, and under his palm he descried
a big yawl making off the coast. She rode lightly, and he could see
only two heads above her gunwale.
"That's Cap Hart Tate, all right," mused the Cap'n; "Cap Hart Tate
gallantly engaged in winnin' a medal by savin' his own life. But
knowin' Cap Hart Tate as well as I do, I don't see how he ever so
far forgot himself as to take along any one else. It must be the first
mate, and the first mate must have had a gun as a letter of
recommendation!"
It may be said in passing that this was a distinctly shrewd guess,
and the Cap'n promptly found something on the seas that clinched his
belief. Bobbing toward Cod Lead came an overloaded dingy. There were
six men in it, and they were making what shift they could to guide
it into the cove between the outer rocks. They came riding through
safely on a roller, splattered across the cove with wildly waving
oars, and landed on the sand with a bump that sent them tumbling heels
over head out of the little boat.
"Four Portygee sailors, the cook, and the second mate," elucidated
Cap'n Sproul, oracularly, for his own information.
The second mate, a squat and burly sea-dog, was first up on his feet
in the white water, but stumbled over a struggling sailor who was
kicking his heels in an attempt to rise. When the irate mate was up
for the second time he knocked down this sailor and then strode ashore,
his meek followers coming after on their hands and knees.
"Ahoy, there, Dunk Butts!" called Cap'n Sproul, heartily.
But Dunk Butts did not appear to warm to greetings nor to rejoice
over his salvation from the sea. He squinted sourly at the Cap'n,
then at the men of Smyrna, and then his eyes fell upon the figurehead
and its fatuous smile.
With a snarl he leaped on it, smashed his knuckles against its face,
swore horribly while he danced with pain, kicked it with his heavy
sea-boots, was more horribly profane as he hopped about with an
aching toe in the clutch of both hands, and at last picked up a
good-sized hunk of ledge and went at the smiling face with Berserker
rage.
Cap'n Sproul had begun to frown at Butts's scornful slighting of his
amiable greeting. Now he ran forward, placed his broad boot against
the second mate, and vigorously pushed him away from the prostrate
figure. When Butts came up at him with the fragment of rock in his
grasp, Cap'n Sproul faced him with alacrity, also with a piece of
rock.
"You've knowed me thutty years and sailed with me five, Dunk Butts,
and ye're shinnin' into the wrong riggin' when ye come at me with
a rock. I ain't in no very gentle spirits to-day, neither."
"I wasn't doin' northin' to you," squealed Butts, his anger becoming
mere querulous reproach, for the Cap'n's eye was fiery and Butts's
memory was good.
"You was strikin' a female," said Cap'n Sproul, with severity, and
when the astonished Butts blazed indignant remonstrance, he insisted
on his point with a stubbornness that allowed no compromise. "It
don't make any difference even if it is only a painted figger. It's
showin' disrespect to the sex, and sence I've settled on shore, Butts,
and am married to the best woman that ever lived, I'm standin' up
for the sex to the extent that I ain't seein' no insults handed to
a woman--even if it ain't anything but an Injun maiden in front of
a cigar-store."
Butts dropped his rock.
"I never hurt a woman, and I would never hurt one," he protested,
"and you that's sailed with me knows it. But that blasted, grinnin'
effijiggy there stands for that rotten old punk-heap that's jest gone
to pieces out yender, and it's the only thing I've got to get back
on. Three months from Turk's Island, Cap'n Sproul, with a salt cargo
and grub that would gag a dogfish! Lay down half a biskit and it would
walk off. All I've et for six weeks has been doughboys lolloped in
Porty Reek. He kicked me when I complained." Butts shook wavering
finger at the shred of sail in the distance. "He kept us off with
the gun to-day and sailed away in the yawl, and he never cared whuther
we ever got ashore or not. And the grin he give me when he done it
was jest like the grin on that thing there." Again the perturbed Butts
showed signs of a desire to assault the wooden incarnation of the
spirit of the _Polyhymnia_.
"A man who has been abused as much as you have been abused at sea
has good reason to stand up for your rights when you are abused the
moment you reach shore," barked a harsh voice. Colonel Gideon Ward,
backed by the faithful Eleazar Bodge, stood safely aloof on a huge
bowlder, his gaunt frame outlined against the morning sky. "Are you
the commander of those men?" he inquired.
"I'm second mate," answered Mr. Butts.
"You and your men are down there associatin' with the most pestilent
set of robbers and land-pirates that ever disgraced a civilized
country," announced the Colonel. "They robbed me of fifteen thousand
dollars and left me marooned here on this desert island, but the wind
of Providence blew 'em back, and the devil wouldn't have 'em in Tophet,
and here they are. They'll have your wallets and your gizzards if
you don't get away from 'em. I invite you over there to my fire,
gentlemen. Mr.--"
"Butts," said the second mate, staring with some concern at the group
about him and at the Cap'n, who still held his fragment of rock.
"Mr. Butts, you and your men come with me and I'll tell you a story
that will--"
Hiram Look thrust forward at this moment. The ex-showman was not a
reassuring personality to meet shipwrecked mariners. His big
handkerchief was knotted about his head in true buccaneer style. The
horns of his huge mustache stuck out fiercely. Mr. Butts and his timid
Portuguese shrank.
"He's a whack-fired, jog-jiggered old sanup of a liar," bellowed this
startling apparition, who might have been Blackbeard himself. "We
only have got back the fifteen thousand that he stole from us."
These amazing figures dizzied Mr. Butts, and his face revealed his
feelings. He blinked from one party to the other with swiftly
calculating gaze. Looking at the angry Hiram, he backed away two
steps. After staring at the unkempt members of the Smyrna fire
department, ranged behind their foreman, he backed three steps more.
And then reflecting that the man of the piratical countenance had
unblushingly confessed to the present possession of the disputed
fortune, he clasped his hands to his own money-belt and hurried over
to Colonel Ward's rock, his men scuttling behind him.
"Don't you believe their lies," bellowed the Colonel, breaking in
on Hiram's eager explanations of the timber-land deal and the quest
of the treasure they had come to Cod Lead to unearth. "I'll take you
right to the hole they sold to me, I'll show you the plank cover they
made believe was the lid of a treasure-chest, I'll prove to you they
are pirates. We've got to stand together." He hastened to Mr. Butts
and linked his arm in the seaman's, drawing him away. "There's only
two of us. We can't hurt you. We don't want to hurt you. But if you
stay among that bunch they'll have your liver, lights, and your
heart's blood."
Five minutes later the Ward camp was posted on a distant pinnacle
of the island. Cap'n Sproul had watched their retreat without a word,
his brows knitted, his fists clutched at his side, and his whole
attitude representing earnest consideration of a problem. He shook
his head at Hiram's advice to pursue Mr. Butts and drag him and his
men away from the enemy. It occurred to him that the friendliest chase
would look like an attack. He reflected that he had not adopted
exactly the tactics that were likely to warm over the buried embers
of friendship in Mr. Butts's bosom. He remembered through the mists
of the years that something like a kick or a belaying-pin had been
connected with Mr. Butts's retirement from the _Benn_.
And until he could straighten out in his mind just what that parting
difficulty had been, and how much his temper had triumphed over his
justice to Butts, and until he had figured out a little something
in the line of diplomatic conciliation, he decided to squat for a
time beside his own fire and ruminate.
For an hour he sat, his brow gloomy, and looked across to where
Colonel Ward was talking to Butts, his arms revolving like the fans
of a crazy windmill.
"Lord! Cap'n Aaron," blurted Hiram at last, "he's pumpin' lies into
that shipmate of yourn till even from this distance I can see him
swellin' like a hop-toad under a mullein leaf. I tell you, you've
got to do something. What if it should come calm and you ain't got
him talked over and they should take the boat and row over to the
mainland? Where'd you and your check be if he gets to the bank first?
You listen to my advice and grab in there or we might just as well
never have got up that complicated plot to get even with the old son
of a seco."
"Hiram," said the Cap'n, after a moment's deliberation, the last
hours of the _Aurilla P. Dobson_ rankling still, "sence you and your
gang mutinied on me and made me let a chartered schooner go to smash
I ain't had no especial confidence in your advice in crisises. I've
seen you hold your head level in crisises on shore--away from salt
water, but you don't fit in 'board ship. And this, here, comes near
enough to bein' 'board ship to cut you out. I don't take any more
chances with you and the Smyrna fire department till I get inland
at least fifty miles from tide-water."
Hiram bent injured gaze on him.
"You're turnin' down a friend in a tight place," he complained. "I've
talked it over with the boys and they stand ready to lick those dagos
and take the boat, there, and row you ashore."
But his wistful gaze quailed under the stare the Cap'n bent on him.
The mariner flapped discrediting hand at the pathetic half-dozen
castaways poking among the rocks for mussels with which to stay their
hunger.
"Me get in a boat again with that outfit? Why, I wouldn't ride acrost
a duck pond in an ocean liner with 'em unless they were crated and
battened below hatches." He smacked his hard fist into his palm.
"There they straddle, like crows on new-ploughed land, huntin' for
something to eat, and no thought above it, and there ain't one of
'em come to a reelizin' sense yet that they committed a State Prison
offence last night when they mutinied and locked me into my own cabin
like a cat in a coop. Now I don't want to have any more trouble over
it with you, Hiram, for we've been too good friends, and will try
to continner so after this thing is over and done with, but if you
or that gang of up-country sparrer-hawks stick your fingers or your
noses into this business that I'm in now, I'll give the lobsters and
cunners round this island just six good hearty meals. Now, that's
the business end, and it's whittled pickid, and you want to let alone
of it!"
He struggled up and strode away across the little valley between the
stronghold of Colonel Ward and his own hillock.
Colonel Ward stood up when he saw him approaching, and Butts, after
getting busy with something on the ground, stood up, also. When the
Cap'n got nearer he noted that Butts had his arms full of rocks.
"Dunk," called Cap'n Sproul, placatingly, pausing at a hostile
movement, "you've had quite a long yarn with that critter there,
who's been fillin' you up with lies about me, and now it's only fair
that as an old shipmate you should listen to my side. I--"
"You bear off!" blustered Mr. Butts. "You hold your own course,
'cause the minute you get under my bows I'll give you a broadside
that will put your colors down. You've kicked me the last time you're
ever goin' to."
"I was thinkin' it was a belayin'-pin that time aboard the _Benn_,"
muttered the Cap'n. "I guess I must have forgot and kicked him." Then
once again he raised his voice in appeal. "You're the first seafarin'
man I know of that left your own kind to take sides with a land-pirut."
"You ain't seafarin' no more," retorted Mr. Butts, insolently. "Talk
to me of bein' seafarin' with that crowd of jays you've got round
you! You ain't northin' but moss-backs and bunko-men." Cap'n Sproul
glanced over his shoulder at the men of Smyrna and groaned under his
breath. "I never knowed a seafarin' man to grow to any good after
he settled ashore. Havin' it in ye all the time, you've turned out
a little worse than the others, that's all."
Mr. Butts continued on in this strain of insult, having the advantage
of position and ammunition and the mind to square old scores. And
after a time Cap'n Sproul turned and trudged back across the valley.
There was such ferocity on his face when he sat down by his fire that
Hiram Look gulped back the questions that were in his throat. He
recognized that it was a crisis, realized that Cap'n Sproul was
autocrat, and refrained from irritating speech.