SAILING.
On the Saturday morning after this Friday evening boat-ride, Charlton was
vigilant as ever, and yet Saturday was not a dangerous day. It was the
busy day at the Emporium, and he had not much to fear from Westcott,
whose good quality was expressed by one trite maxim to which he rigidly
adhered. "Business before pleasure" uttered the utmost self-denial of his
life. He was fond of repeating his motto, with no little exultation in
the triumph he had achieved over his pleasure-loving disposition. To this
fidelity to business he owed his situation as "Agent," or head-clerk, of
the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co. If he could have kept from
spending money as fast as he made it, he might have been a partner in the
firm. However, he rejoiced in the success he had attained, and, to
admiring neophytes who gazed in admiration on his perilous achievement of
rather reckless living and success in gaining the confidence of his
employers, he explained the marvel by uttering his favorite adage in his
own peculiar style: "Business before pleasure! By George! That's the
doctrine! A merchant don't care how fast you go to the devil out of
hours, if you keep his business straight. Business before pleasure!
That's the ticket! He! he! By George!"
When evening came, and Charlton felt that he had but one more day of
standing guard, his hopes rose, he talked to Isabel Marlay with something
of exultation. And he thought it due to Miss Marlay to ask her to make
one of the boating-party. They went to the hotel, where Miss Minorkey
joined them. Albert found it much more convenient walking with three
ladies than with two. Isa and Katy walked on arm-in-arm, and left Albert
to his _tête-à-tête_ with Helen. And as Sunday evening would be the very
last on which he should see her before leaving for the East, he found it
necessary to walk slowly and say much. For lovers who see each other a
great deal, have more to say the more they are together.
At the lake a disappointment met them. The old pine boat was in use. It
was the evening of the launching of the new sail-boat, "The Lady of the
Lake," and there was a party of people on the shore. Two young men, in a
spirit of burlesque and opposition, had seized on the old boat and had
chalked upon her bow, "The Pirate's Bride." With this they were rowing up
and down the lake, and exciting much merriment in the crowd on the shore.
Ben Towle, who was one of the principal stockholders in "The Lady of the
Lake," and who had been suspected of a tender regard for Isabel Marlay,
promptly offered Albert and his party seats in the boat on her first
trip. There were just four vacancies, he said. The three ladies had
stepped aboard, and Albert was following, when the ex-sailor who held the
rudder touched his arm and said, "I don't think it's safe, Mr. Charlton,
fer nobody else to git in. She's got 'leven now, and ef the wind
freshens, twelve would be dangerous."
"Oh! I'll stay out!" said Albert, retreating.
"Come, Albert, take my place," said Towle. "You're welcome to it."
"No, I won't, Ben; you sit still, and I'll stand on the shore and cheer."
Just as the boat was about to leave her moorings, Smith Westcott came up
and insisted on getting in.
"'Twon't do, Mr. Wes'cott. 'Ta'n't safe," said the helmsman. "I jest
begged Mr. Charlton not to go. She's got a full load now."
"Oh! I don't weigh anything. Lighter'n a feather. Only an infant. And
besides, I'm going anyhow, by George!" and with that he started to get
aboard. But Albert had anticipated him by getting in at the other end of
the boat and taking the only vacant seat. The Privileged Infant scowled
fiercely, but Charlton affected not to see him, and began talking in a
loud tone to Ben Towle about the rigging. The line was thrown off and the
boat pushed out, the wind caught the new white sail, and the "Lady of the
Lake" started along in the shallows, gradually swinging round toward the
open water. Soon after her keel had ceased to grind upon the gravel,
Albert jumped out, and, standing over boot-top in water, waved his hat
and wished them a pleasant voyage, and all the ladies in the boat waved
their handkerchiefs at him, appreciating his efforts to keep the boat
from being overloaded, but not thinking of the stronger motive Charlton
had for keeping Smith Westcott ashore. They could not know how much
exultation Albert felt as he sat down on the green grass and poured the
water from his boots.
There was a fine breeze, the boat sailed admirably, the party aboard
laughed and talked and sang; their voices made merry music that reached
the shore. The merry music was irritating discord to the ears of
Westcott, it made him sweur bitterly at Charlton. I am afraid that it
made Charlton happy to think of Westcott swearing at him. There is great
comfort in being the object of an enemy's curses sometimes--When the
enemy is down, and you are above and master. I think the consciousness
that Westcott was swearing at him made even the fine sunset seem more
glorious to Charlton. The red clouds were waving banners of victory.
But in ten minutes the situation had changed. Albert saw Westcott walking
across the beaver-dam at the lower end of the lake, and heard him
hallooing to the young men who were rowing the "Pirate's Bride" up and
down and around the "Lady of the Lake," for the ugly old boat was
swiftest. The Pirate's Bride landed and took Westcott aboard, and all of
Albert's rejoicing was turned to cursing, for there, right before his
eyes, the Pirate's Bride ran her brown hull up alongside the white and
graceful Lady of the Lake, and Smith Westcott stepped from the one to the
other. The beauty of the sunset was put out. The new boat sailed up and
down the little lake more swiftly and gracefully than ever as the breeze
increased, but Albert hated it.
By some change or other in seats Westcott at last got alongside Katy.
Albert distinctly saw the change made, and his anger was mingled with
despair. For Isabel and Helen were in the other end of the boat, and
there were none to help. And so on, on, in the gray dusk of the evening,
the boat kept sailing from one end of the lake to the other, and as it
passed now and then near him, he could see that Smith was in conversation
with little Katy.
"You needn't worry, Mr. Charlton, I'll fix him." It was the voice of the
Guardian Angel. "I'll fix him, shore as shootin'." And there he stood
looking at Albert. For the first time now it struck Albert that George
Gray was a little insane. There was a strange look in his eyes. If he
should kill Westcott, the law would not hold him accountable. Nobody
would be accountable, and Katy would be saved.
But in a moment Albert's better feeling was uppermost. The horribleness
of murder came distinctly before him. He shuddered that he should have
entertained the thought of suffering it.
"You see, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, with eyes having that strange
mysterious look that only belongs to the eyes of people who are at
least on the borders of insanity, "you see this 'ere pistol's got five
bar'ls, all loadened. I tuck out the ole loads las' night and filled
her up weth powder what's shore to go off. Now you leave that air
matter to me, will you?"
"Let me see your revolver," said Albert.
Gray handed it to him, and Charlton examined it a minute, and then, with
a sudden resolution, he got to his feet, ran forward a few paces, and
hurled the pistol with all his might into the lake.
"Don't let us commit murder," he said, turning round and meeting the
excited eyes of the half-insane poet.
"Well, maybe you're right, but I'll be hanged ef I think it's hardly far
and squar and gentlemanly to wet a feller's catridges that-a-way."
"I had to," said Albert, trembling. "If I hadn't, you or I would have
been a murderer before morning."
"Maybe so, but they ain't nothin else to be done. Ef you don't let me
kill the devil, why, then the devil will pack your sister off, and that's
the end on't."
The moon shone out, and still the boat went sailing up and down the lake,
and still the party in the boat laughed and talked and sang merry songs,
and still Charlton walked up and down the shore, though almost all the
rest of the spectators had gone, and the Poet sat down in helpless
dejection. And still Smith Westcott sat and talked to Katy. What he said
need not be told: how, while all the rest laughed and sang, the
Privileged Infant was serious; and how he appealed to Katy's sympathies
by threatening to jump off into the lake; and how he told her that they
must be married, and have it all over at once. Then, when it was all
over, Albert wouldn't feel bad about it any more. Brothers never did.
When he and Albert should get to be brothers-in-law, they'd get on
splendidly. By George! Some such talk as this he had as they sailed up
and down the lake. Just what it was will never be known, whether he
planned an elopement that very night, or on Sunday night, or on the night
which they must pass in Red Owl Landing, nobody knows. Isabel Marlay, who
saw all, was sure that Smith had carried all his points. He had convinced
the sweet and trusting Katy that an immediate marriage would be best for
Brother Albert as well as for themselves.
And as the boat sailed on, tacking to and fro, even the pilot got over
his anxiety at the overloading which had taken place when Westcott got
in. The old tar said to Towle that she carried herself beautifully.
Five minutes after he made the remark, while Westcott was talking to
Katy, and playfully holding his fingers in the water as he leaned over
the gunwale that almost dipped, there came a flaw in the wind, and the
little boat, having too much canvas and too much loading, careened
suddenly and capsized.
There was a long, broken, mingled, discordant shriek as of a dozen voices
on different keys uttering cries of terror and despair. There was the
confusion of one person falling over another; there was the wild grasping
for support, the seizing of each other's garments and arms, the undefined
and undefinable struggle of the first desperate minute after a boat has
capsized, the scream that dies to a gurgle in the water and then breaks
out afresh, louder and sharper than before, and then is suddenly
smothered into a gurgle again. There were all these things, there was an
alarm on the shore, a rush of people, and then there came stillness, and
those minutes of desperate waiting, in which the drowning people cling to
rigging and boat, and test the problem of human endurance. It is a race
between the endurance of frightened, chilled, drowning people, and the
stupid lack of presence of mind of those on shore. All the inmates of the
boat got hold of something, and for a minute all their heads were out of
water. Their eyes were so near to the water, that not even the most
self-possessed of them could see what exertions were being made by people
on shore to help them. Thus they clung a minute, no one saying anything,
when Jane Downing, who held to the rigging at some distance from the
boat, paralyzed by fear, let go, and slowly sank out of sight, saying
never a word as she went down, but looking with beseeching eyes at the
rest, who turned away as the water closed over her, and held on more
tenaciously than ever, and wondered whether help ever would reach them.
And this was only at the close of the first minute. There were
twenty-nine other minutes before help came.