INZA'S STORY.
The man did not hear Inza, but he felt the touch, and, turning quickly
about, caught something of her meaning in her manner. The deaf are
wonderfully quick in such things. He made a horrible grimace and pointed
at Merriwell. Again she laid a hand restrainingly on his shoulder.
"Let the man up, Frank," she urged. "The fellows are harmless enough,
but they are as deaf as adders!"
"Look out for the dog!" Frank warned.
The dog, which had crawled away in a seemingly dying condition, had
struggled again to its feet and appeared to be meditating another attack
on Hodge.
"I've got an eye on him," Hodge called back. "Look out for your man!"
Merriwell released the fellow he had overthrown, and the man climbed
dazedly and sullenly to his feet. Inza hurried toward him, shrieking and
making motions with her hands. The man did not understand her. It began
to seem that both of them contemplated an attack on Bart and Merry.
"Wait a minute!" she cried. "Don't strike them, Frank, Bart, if you can
help it!"
"I think I'm awake," growled Hodge, as if he wanted to pinch himself to
make sure of it.
The scene was certainly a strange one--as strange as if taken from a
comic opera. The fishing-sloop rocking on the long swell, the dog cowed
and uncertain, one deaf man doubtingly flashing the lantern in the face
of Bart Hodge, and the other swaying unsteadily on his feet, as if he
contemplated making a blind rush at Merriwell. In less than a minute
Inza reappeared from the cuddy. She held in her hand a piece of paper on
which she had hastily written some explanatory sentences. This she
thrust beneath the nose of the man who held the lantern.
The effect was magical. The lantern came down, something that sounded
like an attempt at words gurgled in his throat, and he made a signal to
the other fisherman, whose attitude also changed instantly.
"It's all right now!" Inza laughed, though the laugh sounded a bit
hysterical.
"Well, I'm glad that it is!" said Merriwell. "But an explanation would
be comfortable."
"These men rescued me from the piece of broken boat to which I was
clinging," Inza hastily explained. "I was knocked overboard by the
collision. They are fishermen, and are now anchored on their
fishing-grounds."
"So I see. But what about one of them chasing you, when you ran out of
the cuddy this afternoon? You tried to jump overboard!"
"The men both thought me deranged by what I had passed through, and I
suppose I may have acted strange. I saw you and Bart on the raft, and I
tried to make the men see you. But they thought I was going to jump
overboard, and I was carried bodily into the cuddy and locked in. I
didn't know at the time that they could read writing, or I should have
tried that; though I was kept locked in the cuddy so long that it would
have done no good!"
Then she began to motion to the men; and one of the fellows came toward
Bart in a sheepish way and held out a hand. Bart hesitated about taking
it, fearing a trick; but the man's intentions were honest. Having made
this advance, the way to an understanding was so fully paved that within
less than ten minutes thereafter both Frank and Hodge, having wrung out
their clothing in a contracted place below deck, were warming themselves
and trying to get dry by the cuddy stove, while Inza was rattling on
with the story of her adventures.
"I really don't know yet whether I am awake or dreaming!" said Bart.
"This about knocks everything I have ever seen!"
"Just fishermen," said Inza. "They would have picked you up, no doubt,
if they had seen you--they couldn't hear you; or if I had been able to
make them see you. It must have been an hour or more after that when I
found that they had writing-material in the little desk over there, and
I wrote them a note. But the fog was so thick then that it was no use
for them to make a search."
"Why didn't they run back to New York with you?"
"Simply because they thought they had done their duty by me, and that it
would pay them better to come out to the fishing-grounds and take me in
on their return. I promised them money, but----"
She laughingly held up a little purse.
"I had just ten cents in that, and you see I couldn't convince them of
the fabulous wealth of my father and my friends by exhibiting that. They
said they would take me when they went in, and I could not get anything
else out of them."
"Perhaps a little money--as much or more than they can make out of this
fishing-trip--will induce them to take us right in. That is, as soon as
the wind rises. We're not only anchored, but we're becalmed now."
Frank was thinking of Elsie and of the others who had been on the _Merry
Seas_. His heart was aching with anxiety. Bart and Inza were scarcely
less distressed.
The cabin or "cuddy," which had been surrendered to them by the
fishermen who were now outside, was a diminutive place, smelling
unpleasantly of fish and burnt grease. On two sides were bunks. Near the
center was the rusty stove about which the three friends were gathered.
Its heat caused their wet clothing to emit a cloud of steam. At one side
was the writing-desk, fashioned by clumsy hands, and scattered about was
a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends, consisting of sea-boots and
oilskin coats, nets, and fishing-tackle.
"Not a ladies' parlor," Inza admitted, glancing about "But I tell you I
was glad to get into it."
"And you don't know anything about the people on the _Merry Seas_?"
Frank asked.
A look of pain swept across the dark, handsome face.
"Not a thing! I am worried to death about all of them, especially
father. But I hope for the best. If any others went overboard, the tug
was right there to pick them up, and we can believe, until we know
otherwise, that it did. We have been so very fortunate ourselves!"
"More than fortunate!" Merry observed, with a thankful heart. "Now, if
we can only get to the city without delay! Call in the fishermen and
perhaps an offer of money can do something. If not, we can capture the
sloop and take it in ourselves!"
"But there is no breeze," Bart reminded.
"That is so. But call in the fishermen. We may get some opinions out of
them."
Jabez and Peleg Slocum, the deaf-mute owners of the fishing-sloop _Sarah
Jane_, of Sea Cove, New Jersey, were what one might call "queer ducks";
a thing not so much to be wondered at when the fact that they had been
deaf and dumb from infancy is taken into consideration, with the further
fact that the greater part of their fifty odd years had been spent in
the lonely and precarious calling of Atlantic fishermen. They were rough
and gnarled and cross-grained, like the sloop whose deck they trod; yet,
in spite of all, like that same sloop, they had some good qualities.
To them fishing was the end and aim of existence. Hence, as soon as
Merriwell, with the aid of pencil and paper, began to talk of being
taken straight to New York, the fishermen shook their heads. They had
work to do out there on the fishing-banks. It was probable they reasoned
that it was not their fault that these young people had fallen in their
way. They had dutifully rescued them from watery graves--or, in the case
of Hodge and Merriwell--had permitted them to rescue themselves. And
thus, whatever obligation they may have been under as fellow human
beings had been fully discharged. They did not want Merriwell's
money--and they certainly did not desire to run to New York. It was not
their habit to visit New York. Sea Cove was their home, and, whenever
they pulled up their rusty anchor for a run from the banks, they
returned to Sea Cove invariably, unless blown out of their latitude by a
storm, as sometimes happened.
Finally one of them wrote:
"See in morning."
"And now we'll have something to eat!" Inza declared. "Both of you are
famished. You are getting thawed out and dry, and if your stomachs are
strong enough to stand the odor of things, I'll go ahead and get some
supper for you. I know where everything is in the--what do you call
it?--locker? Peleg, that's the taller one, showed me."
"Peleg must be sweet on you," remarked Frank, laughing.
She picked up a "spider" and shook it at him.
"Don't trouble the cook, Mr. Merriwell, if you expect to get anything to
eat!"
"I was just going to remark that I admired his taste. He is a man of
most excellent judgment!"
"How is your taste, Mr. Hodge?" Inza calmly queried. "Do you think you
can eat fish?"
"I could eat a whale. I'll gobble up this fish-basket pretty soon if you
don't hurry and serve something."
"Very well. Fish-baskets on toast. There are fish in a box back there.
And there are crackers in this box. And over there I found some pretty
nice canned goods."
Merriwell smiled. Inza's manner was like a break of sunshine.
"Your talk makes me simply ravenous."
That they were ravenous they showed when they fell to on the supper
which Inza prepared as best she could from the materials available.
There were many things that might have been improved. They might have
gone out on the deck, for one thing, but the wet fog had come down
again, with a chill that went to the bones--a chill that was simply
horrible to Frank and Bart in the damp condition in which their clothing
still remained.
The fishermen did not seem to mind the fog, however, but walked the deck
and smoked, garbed in oilskins and sou'westers. They talked, too, by
signaling to each other with their hands. Merry, Hodge, and Inza sat up
until a late hour, going over and over again all the points of the day's
experience, with the many conjectures and unanswerable questions which
grew out of it.
The fact that the sloop belonged in Sea Cove, the village near which,
according to the newspaper report, Barney Mulloy was killed, was a
matter of intense interest, even though the fishermen could in no wise
enlighten them on the subject of Barney's murder. Frank continued to
hope that a breeze would spring up, and that he could induce the
Slocums, by a liberal money offer, to set him and his friends ashore at
the nearest point without delay. In the event of a refusal, the
temptation to take the vessel in himself would have been strong, but he
knew that such a course would hardly do in these modern days. It smacked
too much of piracy. Money was the lever he hoped to use, and when the
breeze came he intended to make the lever sufficiently strong to move
even these placid souls.
But the breeze did not come. The fog seemed to grow thicker and damper.
At length weariness overcame the whole party. Then Inza was left in full
possession of the cuddy, while Hodge and Frank crept into a narrow
sleeping-place forward which Jabez Slocum pointed out to them. As for
the fishermen themselves, they seemed content to stretch out under a
tarpaulin on deck; and the _Sarah Jane_, with lights set to show her
position, though they could not have been seen a dozen feet distant,
rocked sleepily in the fog at the end of her cable.
When morning dawned, the fog rolled away under the influence of a
brilliant sun, showing an attractive sight. Other fishing-boats, big and
little, were rising and falling on the swell. To the northward a
steamer, outward bound, trailed from her triple funnels banners of black
smoke. From the southward a "fruiter," as the vessels bringing fruit
from the West Indies are called, came bravely up the coast. There were
other vessels--schooners, barks, sloops, and the coast itself was
visible as a blue line. Finally, one of the Slocum brothers came to
Merriwell and held out a scrap of paper. Frank glanced at it, and read,
in an almost illegible scrawl: "Sea Cove."
"They will take us to Sea Cove!" Inza explained.
"New York City," Merry wrote.
The deaf-mate shook his head and again pointed to the name "Sea Cove."
"What's the odds?" said Bart. "There is a railway there, and no doubt
boats running to New York. And then it will give us an opportunity to
investigate the murder of poor Barney a little. By to-night we can be in
New York, if all goes well!"
"Put us aboard the fruiter or some steamer," Frank again wrote.
But the man shook his head.
"It is Sea Cove or nothing," said Inza. "And he would be glad, I think,
to have it nothing."
"Sea Cove it is, then," Frank agreed.
But the promise was productive of no immediate good. There was no
breeze, and, as the _Sarah Jane_ was on the shallow banks, far out of
the route of the steamers, there was nothing to do but to cultivate
patience and wait. At Frank's urging, Peleg set a signal from the
masthead, but it drew no vessel near them.
The Slocums seemed glad that they were not to be called on to sail at
once for land, and they proceeded to get out long hand-lines and fish
over the sides of the sloop. Wherever they went they were followed by
their dog, that limped from the blows Bart had given it. The dog would
not make friends with the newcomers, but showed its teeth in a
threatening way whenever Bart or Frank came near. Finally Merriwell and
his friends also engaged in the fishing to kill time, and with
considerable success. Thus the day wore wearily along until well into
the afternoon.
"A breeze!" Frank gleefully exclaimed at last, holding up a hand. "The
wind is coming! I feel that if this old boat doesn't get a move on soon,
I shall have to jump overboard and swim ashore."
"Well, I should hope you would take me on your back!" Inza observed, her
voice thrilled with the thought that the long-expected breeze was
actually coming. "I'm as frantic as any one can be to put foot on land
and learn what has happened to our friends and to father!"
The Slocums were ready to go home now, and as the breeze rapidly
increased in strength and gave evidence of having come to stay, they
speedily got the _Sarah Jane_ under way, with the help of Frank and
Bart, and stood off for the Jersey shore. Frank was now perfectly
willing that they should run to Sea Cove direct, for a little thought
and some questions put to the Slocums had shown him that he could reach
New York from there by wire, and by rail from a point near-by, and he
could take a little time to investigate the Barney Mulloy affair.