CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXIVSELF-SACRIFICEThe rapidly increasing northeast storm, that meant so little to Hal Briggs, thoroughly drenched and chilled the old captain long before he reached home.By the time he had navigated back to Snug Haven, he was wet to the bone, and was shivering with the drive of the gale now piling gray lines of breakers along the shore. Dr. Filhiol, his face very hard, met the old captain at the front door; while Ezra—silent, dejected, with acute misery and fear—took the ancient horse away up the puddled lane.“This is outrageous, captain!” the doctor expostulated. “The idea of your exposing yourself this way at your age!”“Where’s Hal?” shivered the captain. “I’ve got to see Hal! G-g-got to tell him all his debts are paid, and he’s a free man again!”“You’re hoarse as a frog, sir; you’ve got a thundering cold!” chided the doctor. “I order you to bed, sir, where I’ll give you a stiff glass of whisky and lemon, and sweat you properly.”“Nonsense!” chattered the captain. “I’ll j-j-just change my clothes, and sit by the fire, and I’ll be all r-r-right. Where’s Hal? I want Hal!”“Hal? How doIknow?” demanded Filhiol. “He’s gone. Where’s he bound for? No good, I’ll warrant, in this storm. It shows how muchhecares, what you do for him, the way he—”“By the Judas priest, sir!” interrupted Briggs.“I’m not going to have anything said against Hal, now he’s free. I know you’re my guest, doctor, but don’t drive me too far!”“Well, I’ll say no more. But now, into your bunk! There’s no argument aboutthat, anyhow. Bathrobe and hot water-bottle now, and a good tot of rum!”The captain had to yield. A quarter-hour later the doctor had him safely tucked into his berth in the cabin, with whisky and lemon aboard him. “There, that’s better,” approved Filhiol. “You’ll do now, unless you get up, and take another chill. I want you to stay right there till to-morrow at the very least. Understand me? Now, I prescribe a nap for you. And a good sweat, and by to-morrow you’ll be fine as silk.”“All right, doctor,” agreed Briggs, though Hal’s absence troubled him sore. “There’s only one thing I want you to do. Put my receipts in the safe.”“What receipts?”“For the cash I paid Squire Bean and for the money-order I sent the college.”“Where are they?”“In my wallet, there, in that inside coat-pocket,” answered Briggs, pointing to the big blue coat hung over a chair by the fire. “The combination of the safe is in that top drawer, on a slip of paper. You can open the safe easy enough.”“All right, anything to please you,” grumbled the old doctor. “Where shall I put the receipts, captain?”“In the cash-drawer. Inner drawer, top, right.”Filhiol located the drawer and dropped the precious receipts into it. His eyes, that could still see quite plainly by the fading, gray light of the stormy late afternoon, descried a few bills in the drawer.“It’s been a terrible expense to you, captain,” saidhe with the license of long years of acquaintanceship. “Down a bit on the cash now, eh?”“Yes, doctor, down a bit. Plims’l-mark’s under water this time. But I’m not foundering just yet. There’s still seven hundred and fifty or so.”“Seven fifty?” asked the doctor, squinting. A sudden suspicion laid hold of him as he eyed the slender pile of bills. With crooked fingers he ran them over. “Why, there’s not—h-m! h-m!” he checked himself.“Eh? What’s that, sir?” asked the captain, drowsy already.“Nothing, sir,” answered Filhiol. “I was just going to say there’s not many as well fixed as you are, captain. Even though your cashislow, you’ve got a pretty comfortable place here.”“Yes, yes, it’s pretty snug,” sleepily assented Briggs. “And now that Hal’s coming back, I’m happy. A few dollars—they don’t matter, eh?”Hastily Filhiol counted the bills. Only a matter of about two hundred and twenty-five dollars remained. As in a flash the old doctor comprehended everything.“Tss! Tss!” clucked the doctor, going a shade paler. But he said no more.He closed the safe and put the combination back into the desk-drawer. For a moment he stood leaning on his cane, peering down at the captain, who was already going to sleep. Then he shook his head, grief and rage on his face.“God!” he was thinking. “Robbery! On top of everything else, downright robbery! This will certainly kill the old man! What black devil is in that boy anyhow? What devil out of hell?”He paused a moment, looking with profound compassion at the tired old captain. Then he limped out of the room, and made his way to the galley, bent on having speech with Ezra.Down the walk from the barn Ezra was at this moment coming, shoulders bent against the storm, hat-brim trickling water. The rain was now slashing viciously, in pelting ribbons of gray water that drummed on the tin roof of the kitchen and danced in spatters on the walk.Filhiol opened the door for Ezra, who peeled off his coat, and shook his wet hands.“Great, creepin’ clams!” he puffed. “But this is some tidy wind, sir! These here Massachusetts storms can’t be beat, the way they pounce. An’ rain! Say! Must be a picnic somewhere nigh. Never rains like this unless thereisone!”The old man tried to smile, but joviality was lacking. He closed the door and came over to the stove. The doctor followed him.“Ezra,” said he, “you don’t like me. No matter. Youdolike Captain Briggs, don’t you?”“That ain’t a question as needs answerin’,” returned Ezra, with suspicious eyes.“I like the captain, too,” continued Filhiol. “We’ve got to join hands to help him. And he’s in very, very serious trouble now.”“Well, what is it?” The old servitor sensed what was in the wind, and braced himself to meet it.“If it came to choosing between Hal and the captain, which would you stand by?”“That’s another question that ain’t needed!” retorted Ezra defiantly.“It’s got to be answered, though. Something critical has happened, Ezra, and we’ve got to take the bull by the horns.”“Better take the bull by the tail, doctor. Then you can let go without hollerin’ fer help.”“This is no time for joking, Ezra! Something has happened that, if the captain finds it out, will haveterrible consequences. If he discovers what’s happened, I can’t answer for the consequences. It might even kill him, the shock might.”“Wha—what d’ you mean, sir?” demanded Ezra, going white. “Whatareyou gammin’ about, anyhow?”“I might as well tell you, directly. Captain Briggs has just been robbed of more than five hundred dollars.”“Robbed! No! Holy haddock! You—don’t—”“Robbed,” asserted Filhiol. “More than five hundred dollars are gone from the safe, and—Hal’s gone, too.”“Dr. Filhiol, sir!” exclaimed the old man passionately, but in a low voice that could not reach the cabin. “That wun’t go here. You’re company, I know, but there’s some things that goes too doggone fur. Ef you mean to let on that Master Hal—”“The money’s gone, I tell you, and so is Hal. I knowthat!”“Yes, an’ I know Master Hal, too!” asseverated Ezra, manfully standing by his guns, not through any fear of Hal’s vengeance, but only for the honor of the house and of the boy he worshipped. “Ef you mean to accuse him of bein’ athief, well then, me an’ you has nothin’ more to say. We’re docked, an’ crew an’ cargo is discharged right now. All done!”“Hold on, Ezra!” commanded Filhiol. “I’m not making any direct accusation. All I’m saying is that the money and Hal are both gone.”“How d’youknow the money’s gone? How comeyouto be at the cap’n’s safe an’ money-drawer?”“I—why—” stammered Filhiol, taken aback. “Why, the captain had me open it, to put in some receipts, and he told me how much he thought was there. I saw he was mistaken, by more than five hundred.”“Oh, you counted the cap’n’s money, did ye?” Ezra demanded boldly. “Well, that’s some nerve! In case it comes to a showdown, where wouldyoufit? Looks likeyourfingers might git burned, don’t it?”“Mine? What do you mean, sir?”“Well, you was there, wa’n’t ye? An’ Master Hal wa’n’t, that’s all!” Swiftly Ezra was thinking. The loss, he knew, could not be kept from Captain Briggs. And Hal must be protected. Sudden inspiration dawned on him.“How much d’ you say is gone?” demanded he.“Five hundred and some odd dollars.”“Yes, that’s right,” said the old man, nodding. “Them’s the correct figgers, all right enough.”“How doyouknow?” exclaimed the doctor, staring.“Why hadn’t I ought to, when I took that there money myself?”“You?”“Me, sir! I’m the one as stole it, an’ what’s more, I got it now, up-stairs in my trunk!”Silence a moment while the doctor peered at him with wrinkled brow.“That’s not true, Ezra,” said he at last, meeting the old man’s defiant look. “You’re lying now to shield that boy!”“Lyin’, am I?” And Ezra reddened dully. “Dr. Filhiol, sir, ef you wa’n’t an old man, an’ hobblin’ on a cane, them ain’t the words you’d use to me, an’ go clear!”“I—I beg your pardon, Ezra,” stammered the doctor. “I’m not saying it in a derogatory sense.”“Rogatory or hogatory, don’t make a damn’s odds! You called me a liar!”“A noble liar. That kind of a lie is noble, Ezra, but very foolish. I understand you, all right. WhenI say you’re trying to shield Hal, I’ve hit the mark.”“You ain’t half the shot you think you be, sir! There’s lots o’ marksmen in this world can’t even make a gun go off, an’ yet they can’t miss fire in the next world. You’re one of ’em. I took the money, I tell ye, an’ I can prove it by showin’ it to you, in two minutes!”The old man, turning, started for the stairs.“Where are you going now?” demanded Filhiol.“To git that there money!”“Your own savings, no doubt? To shield Hal with?”“The money I stole, an’ don’t ye fergit it neither!” retorted Ezra with a look so menacing that the doctor ventured no reply. In silence he watched the old man, wet clothes still clinging to him, plod up the stairs and disappear.“Lord, if this isn’t a tangled web,” thought Filhiol, “what is? I ought never to have come. And yet I’m needed every minute, if a terrible catastrophe is to be turned aside!”His heart contracted at thought of the inevitable shock to Captain Briggs if he should discover the theft. Could Ezra conceal it, even with his savings? And, if he could, would it not be best to let him? Would not anything be preferable to having the captain’s soul wrung out of him? Sudden hate against the cause of all this misery flared up in him.“Great God!” he muttered. “If I only had that Hal for a patient, just one hour!”The footsteps of Ezra, descending again, roused him. In Ezra’s hand was gripped a roll of bills, old and tattered for the most part—a roll that counted up to some five hundred and thirty dollars, or to within about forty dollars of every cent Ezra had in the world. More than fifteen years of hard-earned savings lay inthat roll. This money Ezra had hastily dug from under a lot of old clothes in his trunk. And now he shook it before the eyes of Filhiol, eager to sacrifice it.“Isthatproof enough fer you now, or ain’t it?” Ezra exultantly demanded. “Dollar fer dollar, about, what the cap’n said had oughta be in the safe, an’ ain’t? Well, does that satisfy ye now?”Filhiol had no answer. His brain was whirling. Ezra laughed in his face.“I gotyourgoat all right, old feller!” gibed he.“Ezra,” said the doctor slowly, “I don’t understand this at all. I’m no detective. This is too much for me. Either you’re a monumental fool or a sublime hero. Maybe both. I can’t judge. All I want to do is look out for Captain Briggs. I was his medical officer in the old days. Now I seem to be back on the job again. That’s all.”“Yes, an’ I’m on the job, too, an’ you’d better keep out o’ what don’t consarn ye,” menaced Ezra. “Every man to his job, an’ yours ain’t ratin’ down Master Hal an’ makin’ a thief of him!”“All right, Ezra. Put the money in the safe. Whether it’s yours or not, doesn’t matter now. It will protect the captain’s peace of mind a little longer, and that’s the main thing now.”Ezra nodded. Together they went quietly into the cabin. Watchfully they observed the captain. Face to the wall, he was profoundly sleeping.“It’s all right,” said Filhiol. “You can open the safe and put the money in.”Ezra advanced to it, on tiptoe. But Ezra did not open the safe. Puzzled, he stopped and whispered:“I—doggone it, I’ve fergot the combination now!”“Have, eh?” asked Filhiol with a sharp look. “Well then, all you’ve got to do is look at the paper.”“The—h-m!”“Of course you know he keeps it on a paper?” said the doctor shrewdly.“Oh, sure, sure! But just now I disremember where that paper is!”Filhiol retreated to the dining-room, and beckoned Ezra to him.“See here,” said he in a low tone, “this game of yours is pitifully thin. Why don’t you own up to the truth? Your loyalty to Hal is wonderful. The recording angel is writing it all down in his big book; but you can’t fool anybody. Why, not even a child would believe you, Ezra, and how can I—a hard-shelled old man who’s knocked up and down the seven seas? You know perfectly well Hal Briggs stole that money. Own up now!”The old cook fixed a look of ire on him, and with clenched fist confronted Filhiol.“Doctor,” said he, “there’s two things makes most o’ the trouble in this here world. One is evil tongues, to speak ill o’ folks, an’ the other is evil ears, to listen. There’s jest two things you can’t do here—speak ill o’ the cap’n, an’ talk ag’in’ Master Hal. Ef you do, doc—it don’t signify ef youbeold, I’ll make it damn good an’ hot fer you! Now, then, I’ve warned you proper. That’s all—an’ that’s enough!”“You don’t understand—” the doctor was just going to retort, when a trample of feet on the front porch brought him to silence.“There’s Master Hal now!” exclaimed the old cook, with an expression of dismay. “An’ the money ain’t back in the safe yit—an’ Master Hal’s li’ble to wake the cap’n up!”“Hemustn’twake him up!” said Filhiol. He turned, and, hobbling on his cane, started for the front door to head him off. Too late! Already Hal hadflung off his cap and, stamping wet feet, had entered the cabin. The voice of the captain sounded:“Oh, that you, Hal? God above! but I’m glad to see you! Come here, boy, come here. I’ve got news for you. Great, good news!”CHAPTER XXXVTREACHERYStill in his dripping raincoat, Hal approached the berth.“Whew, but it’s hot and stifling in here, gramp!” said he. He turned and opened a window, letting the damp, chill wind draw through. “There, that’s better now. Well, what’s the big news, eh?”The old captain regarded him a moment, deeply moved. In the dining-room, Ezra had hastily stuffed the bills into his pocket. Now he was retreating to his galley. Filhiol, undecided what to do, did nothing; but remained in the front hall.“What’s the news?” repeated Hal. He looked disheveled, excited. “And what areyouin bed for, this time of day?”His voice betrayed nothing save curiosity. No sympathy softened it.“The doctor made me turn in,” Briggs explained. “I got wet through, going to town. But it was all for you, boy. So why shouldImind?”“For me, eh?” demanded Hal. “More trouble? Enough storm outside, without kicking up any more rows inside. Some weather, gramp! Some sailing weather, once a boat got out past the breakwater, where she could make her manners to the nor’east blow!” His tongue seemed a trifle thick, but the captain perceived nothing. “Well, gramp, what was the idea of going to town an afternoon like this?”“To set you on the right road again, boy.” Thecaptain raised himself on one elbow, and peered at his beloved Hal. “To open up a better career for you thanIhad. No more sea-life, Hal. There’s been far too much salt in our blood for generations. It’s time the Briggs family came ashore. You’ve got better things ahead of you, now, than fighting the sea. Peel your wet coat off, Hal, and sit down. You’ll take cold, I’m afraid.”“Cold, nothing! This is the kind of weather I like!”He pulled up a chair by the berth, and flung himself down into it, hulking, rude, flushed. In the dim light old Captain Briggs did not see that telltale flush of drink. He did not note the sinister exultation in his grandson’s voice. Nor did he understand the look of Hal’s searching eyes that tried to fathom whether the old man as yet had any suspicions of the robbery.The captain reached out from the bedclothes he should have kept well over him, and laid his hand on Hal’s.“Listen,” said he, weak and shaken. His forehead glistened, damp with sweat. “It’s good news. I’ve been down to see Squire Bean. I’ve paid him the money for McLaughlin, and got a receipt for it, and the case against you is all settled. Ended!”“Is, eh?” demanded Hal, with calculating eyes. “Great! And the apology stuff is all off, too?”“Well, no, not that. Of course you’ve still got to apologize to him so all the crew can hear it. But that’s only a little detail. Any time will do. I know that after what I’ve sacrificed for you, boy, you’ll be glad to play the part of a man and go down there and apologize, won’t you?”“Surest little thing you know!” Filhiol heard him answer, with malice and deceit which Captain Briggs could not fathom. “The crew will hear from me, allright. Some of ’em have already. Yes, that’s a fact. I’ve already apologized to three of ’em. I’ll square everything, gramp. So that’s all settled. Anything more?”“You’re true metal, at heart!” murmured Briggs, shivering as the draft from the open window struck him. “Thank God for it! Yes, there’s one more thing. I’ve sent the money to the college. Sent a money-order, and got a receipt for that, too. Both receipts are in the money-drawer, in the safe.”“Theyare?” Hal could not dissemble his sudden anxiety. How much, now, did his grandfather know? Everything? Suspiciously he blinked at the old man. “So you put ’em in the safe, did you?” asked he, determined to force the issue.“The doctor did for me.”“Oh,hedid, did he? H-m! Well, all right. What next?” Hal stiffened for the blow, but the captain only said:“It’s fine to have the whole thing cleaned up, so you can start on another tack!” The old man smiled with pitiful affection. “Everything’s coming out right, after all. You don’t know how wonderfully happy I am to-day. It won’t be long before I have you back in some other college again.”“The devil it won’t!” thought Hal. The doctor, at the rear of the hallway, felt a clutch on his arm. There stood old Ezra.“Doctor,” he whispered in a way that meant business, “you ain’t goin’ to stand here listenin’ to ’em, this way!”“I’m not, eh?” And Filhiol blinked astonishment. “Why not?”“There’s ten reasons. One is, because I ain’t goin’ to let you, an’ the other nine is because I ain’t goin’ to let you! I wouldn’t do it myself, an’youain’t goin’ to, neither. Will you clear out o’ here, peaceful, or be you goin’ to make me matt onta you an’ carry you out?”The doctor hesitated. Ezra added:“Now, doc, don’t you git me harr’d up, or there’ll be stormy times!”Filhiol yielded. He followed Ezra to the galley, where the old man practically interned him. Inwardly he cursed this development. What might not happen, were the captain now to discover the loss of the money while Hal was there? But to argue with Ezra was hopeless. Filhiol settled down by the stove and resigned himself to moody ponderings.“This summer, take things easy,” the captain was saying, with indulgence. “In the fall you’ll enter some other college and win honors as we all expect you to. So you’ll be glad to go, won’t you, Hal?”“I’ll be glad togo, all right!”“That’s fine!” smiled the captain. He got out of bed in his bathrobe, slid his feet into slippers, and stood there a moment, looking at Hal.“Boy,” said he, “on the way back from town I made up my mind to do the right thing by you, to give you something every young fellow along the coast ought to have. You were asking me for a boat, and I refused you. I was wrong. Nothing finer, after all, than a little cruising up and down the shore. I’ve changed my mind, Hal.” He laid an affectionate hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m going to give you the money for Gordon’sKittiwink.”“Huh?” grunted Hal, standing up in vast astonishment and anxiety.“Take the money, Hal, and buy your heart’s dearest wish,” said the old captain. “It’ll maybe pinch me, for a while, but you’re all I’ve got to love and some way I can rub along. If I can give you a happy summerthe few hundred dollars won’t mean much, after all. So, boy, get yourself the boat. Why, what’s the matter? You look kind of flabbergasted, Hal. Aren’t you glad and thankful?”“Surest thing you know, I am!” the boy rallied with a strong effort. “It’s great of you, gramp! But—can you afford it?”“That’s for me to judge, Hal,” smiled the captain, shivering as the draft struck him. He turned towards the safe. Hal detained him with a hand upon his arm.“Don’t give it to me just yet,” said he, anxiously. “Wait a little!”“No, no, that wouldn’t be the same at all,” insisted Briggs. “I want you to have this present now, to-day, to make you always remember your fresh start in life.”“Not to-day, gramp!” exclaimed Hal. “I don’t feel right about it, and—and I can’t accept it. I want to make a really new start. To make my own way—be a man, not a dependent! Please don’t spoil everything the first minute by doing this!”“But, Hal—”“I know how you feel,” said the boy, with feverish energy. “But I’ve got feelings, too, and now you’re hurting them. Please don’t, grandfather! Please let me stand on my own feet, and be a man!”Old Briggs, who had with feeble steps made his way half across the floor, turned and looked at Hal with eyes of profound affection.“God bless you, boy!” said he with deep emotion. “Do you really mean that?”“Of course I do! Come, get back into bed now. You’re taking cold there. Get back before you have another chill!”Anxiously he led the captain back towards the berth. His touch was complete betrayal. Into his voice heforced a tone of caressing sincerity, music to the old man’s ears.“I’ve learned a great deal the last day or two,” said he, as with traitor solicitude he put the captain into his berth, and covered him up. “I’ve been learning some great lessons. What you said to me up there among the graves, has opened my eyes.”“Bless God for that!” And in the captain’s eyes tears glistened. “That’s wonderful for me to hear, in this room where all those relics of the past—that kris and everything—can’t help reminding me of other and worse days. A wonderful, blessèd thing to hear!”“Well, I’m glad it is, gramp,” said Hal, “and it’s every bit true. On my honor as a gentleman, it is! From to-day I’m going to stand on my own feet and be a man. You don’t know what I’ve been doing already to give myself a start in life, but if you did, you’d be wonderfully surprised. What I’m still going to do will certainly surprise you more!”“Lord above, Hal, but you’re the right stuff after all!” exclaimed Captain Briggs, the tears now coursing freely. “Oh, if you could only realize what all this means for me after all the years of sacrifice and hopes and fears. We came pretty nigh shipwreck on the reefs, didn’t we, boy? But it’s all right. It’s all right now at last!”“It surely is. And I’m certainly going to surprise you and Laura and everybody.”“Kneel down beside me, just a minute, boy, and then I’ll go to sleep again.”Hal, making a wry face to himself, knelt by the bedside. Old Briggs, with one arm, drew him close. The other hand stroked back Hal’s thick, wet hair with a touch that love made gentle as a woman’s.“This is a day of days to me,” he whispered. “Awonderful blessèd day! God guide and keep you, forever and ever. Amen!”He sighed deeply and relaxed. His eyes drooped shut. Hal pulled the blankets up and got to his feet, peering down with eyes of malice.A moment he stood there while the wind gusted against the house, the rain sprayed along the porch, and branches whipped the roof.Then, with a smile of infernal triumph, he turned.“Cinch!” he muttered, as he left the cabin and made his way up-stairs. “Why, it’s like taking candy from a baby. He’ll sleep for hours now. But won’t it jar the old geezer when his pipe goes out, to-night? Just won’t it, though?”With silent laughter Hal reached his room, where, without delay, he started on his final preparations for events now swiftly impending.Over all the heavens—a blind, gray face of wrath—seemed peering down. But on that face was now no laughter.Even for Vishnu the Avenger some things must be too terrible.CHAPTER XXXVITHE DOCTOR SPEAKSHal had been at work five minutes when he was startled by a sharp knock. The door was flung open in no gentle manner.Dr. Filhiol, leaning on his cane, confronted him. Hal knew trouble lay dead ahead. Standing there in shirt-sleeves, with litter and confusion of packing all about, and two half-filled suit-cases on a couple of chairs, Hal frowned angrily.“You’ve got a nerve to butt in like this!” he growled. “What d’ you want now?”“I want to talk to you, sir.”“I’ve got no time to waste on nonsense!”“You’ve got time to talk to me, and talk to me you’re going to,” returned the doctor. “This is no nonsense.” He came in and shut the door. The scent of liquor met his nostrils. “A young man who’s been responsible for the things you have, has certainly got time to answer me!”Awed by the physician’s cold determination, and with fear at heart—for might not Filhiol know about the stolen money?—Hal moderated his defiance. This old man must be kept quiet for a few hours yet; Hal must have a few hours.“You’re assuming too much authority for a stranger,” said Hal, sullenly. “I never knew before that a gentleman would interfere in this way.”“Probably not, when dealingwitha gentleman,” retorted Filhiol, “but this case is different. My acquaintancewith your grandfather dates back more than half a century, and when my duty requires me to speak, no young bully like you is going to stop me. No, you needn’t double your fist, or look daggers, because I’m not in the least afraid of you, sir. And I’m not going to mince matters with you. What did you do with the captain’s five hundred dollars?”Hal felt himself lost. He had effectually closed Ezra’s mouth, but now here stood the doctor, accusing him. One moment he had the impulse to do murder; but now that all things were in readiness for his flight, he realized violence would be a fatal error. His only hope lay in diplomacy.“What five hundred dollars?”“You know very well what five hundred! Come, what did you do with it?”“Really, Dr. Filhiol, this is a most astonishing accusation!” said Hal. “Idon’t know anything about any five hundred. Is that amount gone?”“You know very well it’s gone!”“I know nothing of the kind! How should I?”“You can’t fool me, young man!” exclaimed the doctor hotly. He raised his cane in menace.“Put that stick down, sir,” said Hal in a wicked voice. “No man living can threaten me with a stick and get way with it. I tell you I don’t know anything about the money! I’ve been out of this house for some time, and you and Ezra have been here. Now you tell me there’s five hundred dollars gone. By God, if you weren’t an old man and a guest, you’d eat your words damned quick!”“I—you—” stammered the doctor, outgeneralled.“I’ve wasted enough time on you now!” Hal flung at him. “It’s time for you to be going.” He gripped Filhiol by the wrist with a vise-pressure that bruised. “And one thing more, you!” he growled. “You’djust better not go stirring up gramp against me, or accusing me to Ezra. It won’t be healthy for you to go accusing me of what you can’t prove, you prying gray ferret!”“Ezra knows all about it already!” retorted the doctor, tempted to smash at that insolent, evil face with his cane.“Knows it, does he?” Hal could not repress a start.“Yes, he does. He’s already sworn to a falsehood to me, to save your worthless hide!”“What d’you mean?”“I mean he’s accused himself of the theft, you scoundrel!”“Let him, then! If the shoe fits him, let him put it on!”“Oh, let him, eh? Yes, and let him beggar himself. Let him try to get his pitiful life-savings back into the safe in time to save you! A man who’ll stand by and let a poor old servant, more faithful than a dog, bankrupt himself to cover up a sneaking crime—a man who’ll pack up and run away—”“I’ve had enough o’ you!” snarled Hal. He pushed the doctor out into the hall. “Ezra’s admitted it, and gramp wouldn’t believe I did it, even if he saw the money in my hand. Get out now, and if you cross my path again, look out!”The doctor met his threat unflinchingly.“Young man,” said he, “I sailed harder seas, in the old times, than any seas to-day. I sailed with your grandfather when he was a bucko of the old school, and though we didn’t usually agree and once I nearly shot him, I never knuckled under. Maybe the bullet that just missed cutting off your grandfather’s life is still waiting for its billet. Maybe that’s part of the curse onyou!”His eyes were cold steel as he peered at the menacing, huge figure of Hal.“Be careful, sir,” he added. “Be very careful how you raise your hand against a man like me!”“If I everdoraise my hand, there’ll be no more threats of shooting left in you!” Hal flung at him. With a sudden flare of rage he pushed old Filhiol through the door and turned the lock. The doctor stumbled, dropped his cane and fetched up against the balustrade of the stairs. Ashen and trembling he clung there a moment. Then he raised his shaking fist to heaven.“Oh, God,” he prayed, “God, give me power to stamp this viper’s head before it poisons the captain—before it poisons Laura and old Ezra—the town, the very air, the world! God, give me strength to stamp it in the dust!”Within the room sounded the tread of Hal, going, coming as he growled to himself, packed up his things for flight.“Aye, go!” thought the doctor. “Go, and devil take you! Go, and if there’s any curse, carry it with you to the end of the world!”The doctor realized that nothing better than this departure could happen. The boy would undoubtedly come to his end before long in some drunken brawl. Sooner or later he would meet his match; would get killed, or would do murder and would finish on the gallows or in the chair. That over-mastering physical strength, backed by the arrogance of conscious power, could not fail to ruin him.“The world will soon settle with you, Hal Briggs,” said he, as he made his way down-stairs. “Soon settle, and for good. It will break the captain’s heart to have you go, but it would break it worse to have you stay. This is best.”Calmer now, he stopped a moment at the cabin door to assure himself Captain Briggs was sleeping.“Lord!” he thought. “I hope Hal gets away before the old man wakes up. It will spare us a terrible scene—a scene that might cost the captain his life!”His eye caught a glint of red. Oddly enough, firelight, reflected from one of the captain’s brass instruments, ticked just a tiny point of crimson on the blade of the old kris.The doctor shuddered and passed on, failing to notice the open window in the room. He felt oppressed and stifling. Air! he must have air! He got into a coat hanging on the rack, put on his hat and limped out upon the porch.Up and down walked Dr. Filhiol a few times, trying to shake off heavy bodings of evil. A curious little figure he made, withered, bent, but with the fires of invincible determination burning in his eyes. The time he had passed at Snug Haven had brought back his fighting spirit. Dr. Filhiol seemed quite other from the meek and inoffensive old man who had so short a time ago driven up to the captain’s gate. Even the grip of his hand on his cane was different. Hal Briggs might well look out for him now, if any turn of chance should put him into Filhiol’s power.The doctor paused at last on the sheltered side of the porch, near the captain’s windows and away from that side of the house where Hal’s room was located. More heavily than ever the rain was sheeting down, and from the shore a long thunder told of sea charges broken against the impenetrable defenses of the rocks.All at once the doctor saw a figure coming along the road, head down to wind and rain—a figure in a mackintosh, with a little white hat drawn down over thick hair—the figure of a woman.Astonished that a woman should be abroad in such weather, he peered more closely. The woman came to the side gate, stopped there, and, holding her hat and flying hair with one hand, looked anxiously over the hedge at Snug Haven.Then Dr. Filhiol recognized her.“Laura! What the devil now?” said he.The doctor seemed to read her thought, that she was afraid of being seen by Hal, but that she greatly desired speech of some one else. With raised hand he beckoned her; and she, perceiving him, came quickly through the gate to the porch.Wild-tossed and disheveled she was with frightened eyes and wistful, pleading face. Filhiol’s heart yearned to her, filled with pity.“You’re Laura, aren’t you?” asked the doctor, taking her hand and steadying her a little. “Laura Maynard? Yes? I’m Dr. Filhiol, a very old and confidential friend of the captain’s. What can I do to help you?”“The captain!” she panted, almost spent with exertion and chill. “I’ve got to—see the captain right away!”“My dear, that’s quite impossible,” said Filhiol, drawing her more into shelter. “He’s asleep, worn out with exertions concerning Hal. You’ve come to see him about Hal. Yes, I thought so. Well, the captain can’t be disturbed now, for any reason whatever. But you can tell me, Laura. Perhaps I may do quite as well.”She pondered a moment, then asked with a strong effort: “Where is Hal now?”“Up-stairs. Do you want to see him?”“No, no, no!” she shuddered. “God forbid! But—oh, doctor, please let me see the captain, if only for a minute!”“He’s ill, I tell you, Laura.”“Not seriously?” she asked with sudden anxiety.“Perhaps not yet, but we can’t take any chances.”The girl took his hand in a trembling clasp.“Don’t let anything happen to the captain!” she exclaimed, her rain-wet face very beautiful in its anxiety. “Oh, doctor, he’s the most wonderful old man in the world, the finest, the noblest! Nothing, nothing must happen tohim!”“Nothing shall, if I can help it. If I can stand between him and—and—”“And Hal?” she queried. “Yes, I understand. What a terrible curse to love a man like that!”“The captain must soon find it so,” said Filhiol. “Every one who loves that boy has got to suffer grievously. You, too, Laura,” he added. “You must steel your heart to many things. The captain will soon need all your strength and consolation.”“You know the bad news, too?”“I know much bad news. But if you’ve got any more, tell me!”“You know about the fight he had this afternoon and about his buying Gordon’s boat, theKittiwink?”“No. Nothing about that. But I know Hal’s packing some things now to make what they call a getaway. And—”“And you’re not going to stop him?” exclaimed the girl, clutching his arm. “You’renot?”“Shhh, my dear!” warned Filhiol. “We mustn’t wake the captain in there! Stop Hal? No, no! Nothing better could happen than to have him go before he does murder in this town.”“He almost did murder this afternoon! He ran into three of McLaughlin’s men down at Hadlock’s Cove, and they twitted him about apologizing to McLaughlin. Then—”“Say no more,” interrupted the doctor, raising his hand. “I understand.”“Yes, doctor, but the news has spread, and the rest of the crew have sworn vengeance on Hal. They’ll surely kill him, doctor!”“God grant they may!” the doctor thought, but what he said was:“The quicker he goes, then, the better.”“But isn’t there any way to bring him to reason, doctor? To make him like other men? To save him?”“I see none,” Filhiol answered. He pondered a moment while the rain-drums rolled their tattoos on the roof of the porch and the sea thundered. “The curse, the real curse on that boy, is his unbridled temper, his gorilla-like strength. His strength has unsettled his judgment and his will. Ordinary men rely on their brains, and have to be decent. Hal, with those battering-ram fists, thinks he can smash down everything, and win, like one of Nietzsche’s supermen. If something could drain him of strength, and weaken and humble him, it might be the salvation of him yet.”“God grant it might!”“You still love him, girl?” asked Filhiol, tenderly as a father. “In spite of everything?”“I love the good in him, and there’s so wonderfully much!”“I understand, my dear. Just now, the bad is all predominant. There’s nothing to do but let him go, Laura. Because—he’s determined to go, at all costs. Where, I don’t know, or how.”“Iknow how!” exclaimed the girl. “He’s bought theKittiwinkand laid in supplies. My father’s in the boat-brokerage business, and he’s got word of it.”“Bought it?” interrupted the doctor. “How? On credit?”“No, cash. He paid four hundred and seventy-five dollars for it, in bills.”“He did? By—h-m!”“What is it, doctor? Where could Hal get all that money? Do you know?”“I know only too well, my dear.”“Tell me!” she exclaimed eagerly, and took him by the hand.So absorbed were they that neither heard a slight sound from the captain’s window, like the quick intake of a breath. How could they know the old man had wakened, had heard their voices; how could they know he had arisen, and, all trembling and weak, was now standing hidden inside the window, listening to words that tore the heart clean out of him?CHAPTER XXXVIITHE CAPTAIN SEESAnguished the captain listened. He heard Laura question:“Where did Hal get that money? Where’s he going, and what does it all mean?” Her trembling voice echoed its woe in the captain’s tortured soul.“Where Hal’s going I don’t know, Laura,” the doctor answered, “except it’s evident he’s planning to escape from here for good. He may be bound for the South Seas with some crazy, wild notion of a free-and-easy buccaneering life. Hal’s going, and it’s evident he doesn’t intend to come back. The best thing we can do is justlethim go. It seems hard, but there’s no other way. As for where he got the money—well—Why not speak plainly to you? It’s the best way now.”“Tell me, then!”Within his cabin, old Captain Briggs clutched his hands together in agony. But still he held himself that he might stand there and hear this revelation to the end.“Iwilltell you, Laura. The money—there’s only one place where it could have come from.”“The captain? He gave it to him?”“It came from the captain, but not as a gift.”“You—don’t mean—”“It’s terribly hard to speak that word, Laura, isn’t it?” pitied the old doctor. “Yet the money’s gone from the captain’s safe. Ezra accuses himself, butthat’s mere nonsense. Every finger of certainty points to Hal Briggs as a thief. And not only an ordinary thief, but one who’s taken advantage of every bond of confidence and affection, most brutally to betray the man who loves him better than life itself!”“Oh, you—you can’t meanthat—”“I’m afraid I can’t mean anything else. Hal’s up-stairs now, unless he’s already gone. He’s trying to escape before the captain wakes up.”“And you’re not going to stop him?”“Never! You mustn’t, either!”“But this will break the old man’s heart—the biggest, most loving heart in the world! This will kill him!”“Even that would be less cruel than to have Hal stay, and have him torture the old captain.”“And there’s nothing you can do? Nothing you’ll letmedo?”“There’s nothing any one can do now, but God. And God holds aloof, these days.”For a minute Laura peered up at him, letting the full import of his words sink into her dazed brain. Then, sensing the tragic inevitability of what must be, she turned, ran down the steps and along the rain-swept path.He dared not call after her, to bid her take no desperate measures, for fear of waking the captain—the captain, at that very moment shivering inside the window, transfixed by spikes of suffering that nailed him to his cross of Calvary. In silence he watched her, storm-driven like a wraith, grow dim through the rain till she vanished from his sight.Alone, Dr. Filhiol sank heavily into a wet chair. There he remained, thinking deep and terrible things that wring the heart of man.And the captain, what of him?Dazed, staggered, he groped toward the desk. From the drawer he took the slip of paper bearing the combination. With an effort that taxed all his strength he opened the safe, opened the money-compartment. His trembling fingers caught up the few remaining bills there.“God above!” he gulped.Then all at once a change, a swift metamorphosis of wrath and outraged love swept over him. He seemed to freeze into a stern, avenging figure, huge of shoulder, hard of fist. The bulk of him loomed vast, in that enfolding bathrobe like a Roman patrician’s toga, as he strode through the door and up the stairs.Silent and grim, he struck Hal’s door with his fist. The door resisted. One lunge of the shoulder, and the lock burst.Hal stood there in corduroy trousers, heavy gray reefer and oilskin hat. Two strapped suit-cases stood by the bureau. Over the floor, the bed, lay a litter of discarded clothes and papers.“What the hell!” cried the thief, clenching angry fists.“You, sir!” exclaimed old Captain Briggs, in a voice the boy had never yet heard. “Stand where you are! I have to speak with you!”Not even the effrontery of Hal’s bold eyes could quite meet that blue, piercing look. Had the old man, he wondered, a revolver? Was he minded now to kill? In that terrible and accusing face, he saw what Alpheus Briggs had been in the old, barbarous days. The brute in him recognized the dormant passions of his grandfather, now rekindling. And, though he tried to mask his soul, the fear in it spied through his glance.“You snake!” the captain flung at him. “You lying Judas!”“Go easy there!” Hal menaced. That he had beendrinking was obvious. The scent of liquor filled the room, abomination in the old man’s nostrils. “Go easy! I’m not taking any such talk from any man, even if he is my grandfather!”“You’ll take all I have to say, and you can lay to that, sir!” retorted the old man. Toward Hal he advanced, fists doubled. The boy cast about him for some weapon. Not for all his strength did he dare stand against this overpowering old man.Below, on the porch, the doctor had heard sounds of war, and had pegged into the hall at his best speed. There he met Ezra, who had just come from the cabin.“Great gulls! The safe’s open—the cap’n—knows! Hell’s loose now!” Ezra gasped.He made for the stairs. The doctor tried to clutch him back.“No use, Ezra! Too late—you can’t stop it now with all that nonsense about your being the thief!”“Let me up them stairs, damn you!”“Never! They’ve got to settle this themselves. You’ll only make things worse!”With an oath, a violent wrench, Ezra tore himself away, and scrambled up the stairs.“Cap’n Briggs! Hal!” he shouted, torn by conflicting loves. “Wait on, both o’ ye.Idone it—nobody but me—”“There now, how doesthatstrike you?” sneered Hal, respited by the shock of this self-accusation that dropped the captain’s fists. “The son-of-a-sea-cook owns up to it, himself!”“Me, me, nobody but me!” vociferated Ezra, who had now reached the room. He clawed at the captain’s arm. “Not him, cap’n!Me!”“If that’s true, Ezra, how the devil does Hal, here, know what you’re talking about, so slick?”“Ezra lent me five hundred, when it comes to that,” put in Hal, “and told me it was his savings. But I see now—he stole it, the damned, black-hearted thief! Didn’t you, Ezra?”“Sure, sure! Cap’n, you listen to me now. Hal, he never—”“Ezra,” said old Briggs, holding his rage in check, “you’re wonderful!” He laid a hand of affection on the shoulder of the trembling old man. “It’s your heart and soul that’s speaking falsehood—falsehood more white and shining than God’s truth. But I can’t take your word, given to shield this serpent we’ve been nursing in our bosom. I know all about everything now. I know why Hal robbed me.”“Like hell you do!” the boy blared out.“Yes, even the name of the very boat he’s bought with my hard-saved money. Money that was meant to help him up and on again. It’s no use your lying to me, Ezra.” He pointed a steady, accusing finger. “There’s the thief, Ezra, standing right before you—standing there for the last time he’ll ever stand under this roof of mine, so help me God!”“Cap’n, cap’n,” implored the old man sinking to his knees, hands clasped, face streaming tears. “Don’t say that! Oh, Lord, don’t, don’t say that!”“I don’t give a damnwhatthe old stiff says now,” sneered Hal, picking up his baggage. His red face was brutalized with rage and drink. “Let him go to it. He said a mouthful when he said I grabbed the coin. Sure I did—and I’m only sorry it wasn’t more. Wish I’d grabbed it all! I’d like to have cleaned the old tightwad for a decent roll, while I was at it!”“Hal! Master Hal!”The doctor, listening from below, quivered with rage, but held himself in check. What, after all, could his weak body accomplish? And as for speech, that was not needed now.“Get out o’ my way, the pair o’ you, and let me blow out o’ this namby-pamby, Sunday-school dump!” snarled Hal, shouldering forward. “I’m quitting. I told you yesterday I was sick of all this grandpa’s-darling stuff. If I can’t get out andlive, I’ll cash in my checks. College—apologies—white flannels—urrgh!”The growl in his deep chest and sinewed throat was that of a wolf. Silent, cold, unmoved now, the old captain studied him.“None o’ that for mine, thanks!” Hal threw at him with insolence supreme. “Wait till I catch McLaughlin!I’llapologize to him! Say! I’ve already apologized to three of his men, and Mac’ll get it, triple-extract. And then I’ll blow. I’ve got a classy boat that can walksome, and let ’em try to stop me, if they want to. I’m not afraid of you, or any man in this town, or in the world!”He dropped one of the suit-cases, raised his right arm and swelled the formidable biceps, glorying in the brute power of his arm, his trip-hammer fist.“Afraid? Not while I’ve got this! Go ahead and try to get me arrested, if you think fit. It’ll take more than Albert Mills to pinch me, or Squire Bean to hold me for trial—it’ll take more than any jail in this town to keepme!“Now I’ve said all I’m going to, except that I took the coin. Yes, I took it. And I’ll take more wherever I find it. Money, booze, women—I’ll take ’em all. They’re mine, if I can get ’em. That’s all. To hell with everything that stands in my way! You two get out of it now before I throw you out!”He brutally struck the kneeling old Ezra down and picked up the suit-cases. The captain quivered with the strain of holding his hand from slaughter, and stood aside. Not one word did he speak.Hal blundered out into the passageway, and, panting with rage, started to descend the stairs.Old Ezra, crawling on hands and knees, tried to follow.“Hal! Master Hal, come back! I got money!I’ll—I’ll pay!”The captain lifted him, held him with an arm of steel.“Silence, Ezra! Remember, we’re not children. We’re old deep-water sailormen, you and I. This is mutiny. The boy has chosen. It’s all over.”Ezra sank into a chair, covered his face and burst into convulsive sobs, rocking himself to and fro in the excess of his grief.Alpheus Briggs walked to the top of the stairs, and silently watched Hal descend. At the bottom, Dr. Filhiol confronted the swearing, murderous fellow. He, too, kept silence. Only he stood back a little, avoiding Hal as if the very breath of him were poison.Hal flung a sneer at him with bared teeth, and paused a moment at the door leading into the cabin. A thought came to his brain, crazed with whisky, rage and the obscure hereditary curse that lay upon him. Something seemed whispering a command to him, irrational enough, yet wholly compelling.To the fireplace Hal strode, snatched down the kris, opened one of the suit-cases, and threw the weapon in. He locked the case again, and slouched out on to the piazza, defiantly and viciously.“Might come handy, that knife, if the fists didn’t get away with the goods,” he muttered. “Take it along, anyhow!”The Airedale, hearing Hal’s step, got up and fawned against him. Hal, with an obscene oath, kicked the animal.“Getout o’ my way, you—” he growled. The dog,yelping, still cringed after him as he descended the steps. Mad with the blind passion that kills, Hal flung down his suit-cases, snatched up the dog and dashed it down on the steps with horrible force.“Damn you, don’t you touch that dog again!” shouted old Dr. Filhiol, hobbling out the door.He brandished his cane. In his pale face flamed holy rage. With a boisterous, horrible laugh, Hal snatched the cane from him, snapped it with one flirt of his huge hands, and threw the pieces into the doctor’s face.The dog, still crying out with the pain of a broken leg, tried to drag himself to Hal. Another oath, a kick, and Ruddy sprawled along the porch.“I’ve fixedyoua while, you fossil quack!” gibed Hal at the doctor. “Maybe you’ll butt in again where you’re not wanted! Lucky for you I’m in a hurry now, or I’d do a better job!”Again Hal picked up his cases, and strode down the walk, against the rain and gale. At the gate he paused, triumphant.“To hell with this place!” he cried. “To hell with the whole business and with all o’ you!”Then he passed through the gate, along the hedge, and vanished in the boisterous storm.Up in Hal’s room, old Ezra was still convulsed with senile grief. The captain, his face white and lined, had sunk down on the bed and with vacant eyes was staring at the books and papers strewn there in confusion.All at once his attention focused on a sheet of paper whereon a few words seemed vividly to stand out. He advanced a shaking hand, picked up the paper and read:The curse must be fulfilled, to the last breath, for by Shiva and the Trimurthi, what is written is written. Butif he through whom the curse descendeth on another is stricken to horror and to death, then the Almighty Vishnu, merciful, closes that page. And he who through another’s sin was accursed, is cleansed. Thus may the curse be fulfilled. But always one of two must die.Tuan Allah poonia krajah!It is the work of the Almighty One! One of two must die!Carefully the old man read the words. Once more he read them. Then, with a smile of strange comprehension and great joy, he nodded.“One of two—one of two must die!” said he. “Thank God, I understand!At last—thank God!”

CHAPTER XXXIVSELF-SACRIFICEThe rapidly increasing northeast storm, that meant so little to Hal Briggs, thoroughly drenched and chilled the old captain long before he reached home.By the time he had navigated back to Snug Haven, he was wet to the bone, and was shivering with the drive of the gale now piling gray lines of breakers along the shore. Dr. Filhiol, his face very hard, met the old captain at the front door; while Ezra—silent, dejected, with acute misery and fear—took the ancient horse away up the puddled lane.“This is outrageous, captain!” the doctor expostulated. “The idea of your exposing yourself this way at your age!”“Where’s Hal?” shivered the captain. “I’ve got to see Hal! G-g-got to tell him all his debts are paid, and he’s a free man again!”“You’re hoarse as a frog, sir; you’ve got a thundering cold!” chided the doctor. “I order you to bed, sir, where I’ll give you a stiff glass of whisky and lemon, and sweat you properly.”“Nonsense!” chattered the captain. “I’ll j-j-just change my clothes, and sit by the fire, and I’ll be all r-r-right. Where’s Hal? I want Hal!”“Hal? How doIknow?” demanded Filhiol. “He’s gone. Where’s he bound for? No good, I’ll warrant, in this storm. It shows how muchhecares, what you do for him, the way he—”“By the Judas priest, sir!” interrupted Briggs.“I’m not going to have anything said against Hal, now he’s free. I know you’re my guest, doctor, but don’t drive me too far!”“Well, I’ll say no more. But now, into your bunk! There’s no argument aboutthat, anyhow. Bathrobe and hot water-bottle now, and a good tot of rum!”The captain had to yield. A quarter-hour later the doctor had him safely tucked into his berth in the cabin, with whisky and lemon aboard him. “There, that’s better,” approved Filhiol. “You’ll do now, unless you get up, and take another chill. I want you to stay right there till to-morrow at the very least. Understand me? Now, I prescribe a nap for you. And a good sweat, and by to-morrow you’ll be fine as silk.”“All right, doctor,” agreed Briggs, though Hal’s absence troubled him sore. “There’s only one thing I want you to do. Put my receipts in the safe.”“What receipts?”“For the cash I paid Squire Bean and for the money-order I sent the college.”“Where are they?”“In my wallet, there, in that inside coat-pocket,” answered Briggs, pointing to the big blue coat hung over a chair by the fire. “The combination of the safe is in that top drawer, on a slip of paper. You can open the safe easy enough.”“All right, anything to please you,” grumbled the old doctor. “Where shall I put the receipts, captain?”“In the cash-drawer. Inner drawer, top, right.”Filhiol located the drawer and dropped the precious receipts into it. His eyes, that could still see quite plainly by the fading, gray light of the stormy late afternoon, descried a few bills in the drawer.“It’s been a terrible expense to you, captain,” saidhe with the license of long years of acquaintanceship. “Down a bit on the cash now, eh?”“Yes, doctor, down a bit. Plims’l-mark’s under water this time. But I’m not foundering just yet. There’s still seven hundred and fifty or so.”“Seven fifty?” asked the doctor, squinting. A sudden suspicion laid hold of him as he eyed the slender pile of bills. With crooked fingers he ran them over. “Why, there’s not—h-m! h-m!” he checked himself.“Eh? What’s that, sir?” asked the captain, drowsy already.“Nothing, sir,” answered Filhiol. “I was just going to say there’s not many as well fixed as you are, captain. Even though your cashislow, you’ve got a pretty comfortable place here.”“Yes, yes, it’s pretty snug,” sleepily assented Briggs. “And now that Hal’s coming back, I’m happy. A few dollars—they don’t matter, eh?”Hastily Filhiol counted the bills. Only a matter of about two hundred and twenty-five dollars remained. As in a flash the old doctor comprehended everything.“Tss! Tss!” clucked the doctor, going a shade paler. But he said no more.He closed the safe and put the combination back into the desk-drawer. For a moment he stood leaning on his cane, peering down at the captain, who was already going to sleep. Then he shook his head, grief and rage on his face.“God!” he was thinking. “Robbery! On top of everything else, downright robbery! This will certainly kill the old man! What black devil is in that boy anyhow? What devil out of hell?”He paused a moment, looking with profound compassion at the tired old captain. Then he limped out of the room, and made his way to the galley, bent on having speech with Ezra.Down the walk from the barn Ezra was at this moment coming, shoulders bent against the storm, hat-brim trickling water. The rain was now slashing viciously, in pelting ribbons of gray water that drummed on the tin roof of the kitchen and danced in spatters on the walk.Filhiol opened the door for Ezra, who peeled off his coat, and shook his wet hands.“Great, creepin’ clams!” he puffed. “But this is some tidy wind, sir! These here Massachusetts storms can’t be beat, the way they pounce. An’ rain! Say! Must be a picnic somewhere nigh. Never rains like this unless thereisone!”The old man tried to smile, but joviality was lacking. He closed the door and came over to the stove. The doctor followed him.“Ezra,” said he, “you don’t like me. No matter. Youdolike Captain Briggs, don’t you?”“That ain’t a question as needs answerin’,” returned Ezra, with suspicious eyes.“I like the captain, too,” continued Filhiol. “We’ve got to join hands to help him. And he’s in very, very serious trouble now.”“Well, what is it?” The old servitor sensed what was in the wind, and braced himself to meet it.“If it came to choosing between Hal and the captain, which would you stand by?”“That’s another question that ain’t needed!” retorted Ezra defiantly.“It’s got to be answered, though. Something critical has happened, Ezra, and we’ve got to take the bull by the horns.”“Better take the bull by the tail, doctor. Then you can let go without hollerin’ fer help.”“This is no time for joking, Ezra! Something has happened that, if the captain finds it out, will haveterrible consequences. If he discovers what’s happened, I can’t answer for the consequences. It might even kill him, the shock might.”“Wha—what d’ you mean, sir?” demanded Ezra, going white. “Whatareyou gammin’ about, anyhow?”“I might as well tell you, directly. Captain Briggs has just been robbed of more than five hundred dollars.”“Robbed! No! Holy haddock! You—don’t—”“Robbed,” asserted Filhiol. “More than five hundred dollars are gone from the safe, and—Hal’s gone, too.”“Dr. Filhiol, sir!” exclaimed the old man passionately, but in a low voice that could not reach the cabin. “That wun’t go here. You’re company, I know, but there’s some things that goes too doggone fur. Ef you mean to let on that Master Hal—”“The money’s gone, I tell you, and so is Hal. I knowthat!”“Yes, an’ I know Master Hal, too!” asseverated Ezra, manfully standing by his guns, not through any fear of Hal’s vengeance, but only for the honor of the house and of the boy he worshipped. “Ef you mean to accuse him of bein’ athief, well then, me an’ you has nothin’ more to say. We’re docked, an’ crew an’ cargo is discharged right now. All done!”“Hold on, Ezra!” commanded Filhiol. “I’m not making any direct accusation. All I’m saying is that the money and Hal are both gone.”“How d’youknow the money’s gone? How comeyouto be at the cap’n’s safe an’ money-drawer?”“I—why—” stammered Filhiol, taken aback. “Why, the captain had me open it, to put in some receipts, and he told me how much he thought was there. I saw he was mistaken, by more than five hundred.”“Oh, you counted the cap’n’s money, did ye?” Ezra demanded boldly. “Well, that’s some nerve! In case it comes to a showdown, where wouldyoufit? Looks likeyourfingers might git burned, don’t it?”“Mine? What do you mean, sir?”“Well, you was there, wa’n’t ye? An’ Master Hal wa’n’t, that’s all!” Swiftly Ezra was thinking. The loss, he knew, could not be kept from Captain Briggs. And Hal must be protected. Sudden inspiration dawned on him.“How much d’ you say is gone?” demanded he.“Five hundred and some odd dollars.”“Yes, that’s right,” said the old man, nodding. “Them’s the correct figgers, all right enough.”“How doyouknow?” exclaimed the doctor, staring.“Why hadn’t I ought to, when I took that there money myself?”“You?”“Me, sir! I’m the one as stole it, an’ what’s more, I got it now, up-stairs in my trunk!”Silence a moment while the doctor peered at him with wrinkled brow.“That’s not true, Ezra,” said he at last, meeting the old man’s defiant look. “You’re lying now to shield that boy!”“Lyin’, am I?” And Ezra reddened dully. “Dr. Filhiol, sir, ef you wa’n’t an old man, an’ hobblin’ on a cane, them ain’t the words you’d use to me, an’ go clear!”“I—I beg your pardon, Ezra,” stammered the doctor. “I’m not saying it in a derogatory sense.”“Rogatory or hogatory, don’t make a damn’s odds! You called me a liar!”“A noble liar. That kind of a lie is noble, Ezra, but very foolish. I understand you, all right. WhenI say you’re trying to shield Hal, I’ve hit the mark.”“You ain’t half the shot you think you be, sir! There’s lots o’ marksmen in this world can’t even make a gun go off, an’ yet they can’t miss fire in the next world. You’re one of ’em. I took the money, I tell ye, an’ I can prove it by showin’ it to you, in two minutes!”The old man, turning, started for the stairs.“Where are you going now?” demanded Filhiol.“To git that there money!”“Your own savings, no doubt? To shield Hal with?”“The money I stole, an’ don’t ye fergit it neither!” retorted Ezra with a look so menacing that the doctor ventured no reply. In silence he watched the old man, wet clothes still clinging to him, plod up the stairs and disappear.“Lord, if this isn’t a tangled web,” thought Filhiol, “what is? I ought never to have come. And yet I’m needed every minute, if a terrible catastrophe is to be turned aside!”His heart contracted at thought of the inevitable shock to Captain Briggs if he should discover the theft. Could Ezra conceal it, even with his savings? And, if he could, would it not be best to let him? Would not anything be preferable to having the captain’s soul wrung out of him? Sudden hate against the cause of all this misery flared up in him.“Great God!” he muttered. “If I only had that Hal for a patient, just one hour!”The footsteps of Ezra, descending again, roused him. In Ezra’s hand was gripped a roll of bills, old and tattered for the most part—a roll that counted up to some five hundred and thirty dollars, or to within about forty dollars of every cent Ezra had in the world. More than fifteen years of hard-earned savings lay inthat roll. This money Ezra had hastily dug from under a lot of old clothes in his trunk. And now he shook it before the eyes of Filhiol, eager to sacrifice it.“Isthatproof enough fer you now, or ain’t it?” Ezra exultantly demanded. “Dollar fer dollar, about, what the cap’n said had oughta be in the safe, an’ ain’t? Well, does that satisfy ye now?”Filhiol had no answer. His brain was whirling. Ezra laughed in his face.“I gotyourgoat all right, old feller!” gibed he.“Ezra,” said the doctor slowly, “I don’t understand this at all. I’m no detective. This is too much for me. Either you’re a monumental fool or a sublime hero. Maybe both. I can’t judge. All I want to do is look out for Captain Briggs. I was his medical officer in the old days. Now I seem to be back on the job again. That’s all.”“Yes, an’ I’m on the job, too, an’ you’d better keep out o’ what don’t consarn ye,” menaced Ezra. “Every man to his job, an’ yours ain’t ratin’ down Master Hal an’ makin’ a thief of him!”“All right, Ezra. Put the money in the safe. Whether it’s yours or not, doesn’t matter now. It will protect the captain’s peace of mind a little longer, and that’s the main thing now.”Ezra nodded. Together they went quietly into the cabin. Watchfully they observed the captain. Face to the wall, he was profoundly sleeping.“It’s all right,” said Filhiol. “You can open the safe and put the money in.”Ezra advanced to it, on tiptoe. But Ezra did not open the safe. Puzzled, he stopped and whispered:“I—doggone it, I’ve fergot the combination now!”“Have, eh?” asked Filhiol with a sharp look. “Well then, all you’ve got to do is look at the paper.”“The—h-m!”“Of course you know he keeps it on a paper?” said the doctor shrewdly.“Oh, sure, sure! But just now I disremember where that paper is!”Filhiol retreated to the dining-room, and beckoned Ezra to him.“See here,” said he in a low tone, “this game of yours is pitifully thin. Why don’t you own up to the truth? Your loyalty to Hal is wonderful. The recording angel is writing it all down in his big book; but you can’t fool anybody. Why, not even a child would believe you, Ezra, and how can I—a hard-shelled old man who’s knocked up and down the seven seas? You know perfectly well Hal Briggs stole that money. Own up now!”The old cook fixed a look of ire on him, and with clenched fist confronted Filhiol.“Doctor,” said he, “there’s two things makes most o’ the trouble in this here world. One is evil tongues, to speak ill o’ folks, an’ the other is evil ears, to listen. There’s jest two things you can’t do here—speak ill o’ the cap’n, an’ talk ag’in’ Master Hal. Ef you do, doc—it don’t signify ef youbeold, I’ll make it damn good an’ hot fer you! Now, then, I’ve warned you proper. That’s all—an’ that’s enough!”“You don’t understand—” the doctor was just going to retort, when a trample of feet on the front porch brought him to silence.“There’s Master Hal now!” exclaimed the old cook, with an expression of dismay. “An’ the money ain’t back in the safe yit—an’ Master Hal’s li’ble to wake the cap’n up!”“Hemustn’twake him up!” said Filhiol. He turned, and, hobbling on his cane, started for the front door to head him off. Too late! Already Hal hadflung off his cap and, stamping wet feet, had entered the cabin. The voice of the captain sounded:“Oh, that you, Hal? God above! but I’m glad to see you! Come here, boy, come here. I’ve got news for you. Great, good news!”

SELF-SACRIFICE

The rapidly increasing northeast storm, that meant so little to Hal Briggs, thoroughly drenched and chilled the old captain long before he reached home.

By the time he had navigated back to Snug Haven, he was wet to the bone, and was shivering with the drive of the gale now piling gray lines of breakers along the shore. Dr. Filhiol, his face very hard, met the old captain at the front door; while Ezra—silent, dejected, with acute misery and fear—took the ancient horse away up the puddled lane.

“This is outrageous, captain!” the doctor expostulated. “The idea of your exposing yourself this way at your age!”

“Where’s Hal?” shivered the captain. “I’ve got to see Hal! G-g-got to tell him all his debts are paid, and he’s a free man again!”

“You’re hoarse as a frog, sir; you’ve got a thundering cold!” chided the doctor. “I order you to bed, sir, where I’ll give you a stiff glass of whisky and lemon, and sweat you properly.”

“Nonsense!” chattered the captain. “I’ll j-j-just change my clothes, and sit by the fire, and I’ll be all r-r-right. Where’s Hal? I want Hal!”

“Hal? How doIknow?” demanded Filhiol. “He’s gone. Where’s he bound for? No good, I’ll warrant, in this storm. It shows how muchhecares, what you do for him, the way he—”

“By the Judas priest, sir!” interrupted Briggs.“I’m not going to have anything said against Hal, now he’s free. I know you’re my guest, doctor, but don’t drive me too far!”

“Well, I’ll say no more. But now, into your bunk! There’s no argument aboutthat, anyhow. Bathrobe and hot water-bottle now, and a good tot of rum!”

The captain had to yield. A quarter-hour later the doctor had him safely tucked into his berth in the cabin, with whisky and lemon aboard him. “There, that’s better,” approved Filhiol. “You’ll do now, unless you get up, and take another chill. I want you to stay right there till to-morrow at the very least. Understand me? Now, I prescribe a nap for you. And a good sweat, and by to-morrow you’ll be fine as silk.”

“All right, doctor,” agreed Briggs, though Hal’s absence troubled him sore. “There’s only one thing I want you to do. Put my receipts in the safe.”

“What receipts?”

“For the cash I paid Squire Bean and for the money-order I sent the college.”

“Where are they?”

“In my wallet, there, in that inside coat-pocket,” answered Briggs, pointing to the big blue coat hung over a chair by the fire. “The combination of the safe is in that top drawer, on a slip of paper. You can open the safe easy enough.”

“All right, anything to please you,” grumbled the old doctor. “Where shall I put the receipts, captain?”

“In the cash-drawer. Inner drawer, top, right.”

Filhiol located the drawer and dropped the precious receipts into it. His eyes, that could still see quite plainly by the fading, gray light of the stormy late afternoon, descried a few bills in the drawer.

“It’s been a terrible expense to you, captain,” saidhe with the license of long years of acquaintanceship. “Down a bit on the cash now, eh?”

“Yes, doctor, down a bit. Plims’l-mark’s under water this time. But I’m not foundering just yet. There’s still seven hundred and fifty or so.”

“Seven fifty?” asked the doctor, squinting. A sudden suspicion laid hold of him as he eyed the slender pile of bills. With crooked fingers he ran them over. “Why, there’s not—h-m! h-m!” he checked himself.

“Eh? What’s that, sir?” asked the captain, drowsy already.

“Nothing, sir,” answered Filhiol. “I was just going to say there’s not many as well fixed as you are, captain. Even though your cashislow, you’ve got a pretty comfortable place here.”

“Yes, yes, it’s pretty snug,” sleepily assented Briggs. “And now that Hal’s coming back, I’m happy. A few dollars—they don’t matter, eh?”

Hastily Filhiol counted the bills. Only a matter of about two hundred and twenty-five dollars remained. As in a flash the old doctor comprehended everything.

“Tss! Tss!” clucked the doctor, going a shade paler. But he said no more.

He closed the safe and put the combination back into the desk-drawer. For a moment he stood leaning on his cane, peering down at the captain, who was already going to sleep. Then he shook his head, grief and rage on his face.

“God!” he was thinking. “Robbery! On top of everything else, downright robbery! This will certainly kill the old man! What black devil is in that boy anyhow? What devil out of hell?”

He paused a moment, looking with profound compassion at the tired old captain. Then he limped out of the room, and made his way to the galley, bent on having speech with Ezra.

Down the walk from the barn Ezra was at this moment coming, shoulders bent against the storm, hat-brim trickling water. The rain was now slashing viciously, in pelting ribbons of gray water that drummed on the tin roof of the kitchen and danced in spatters on the walk.

Filhiol opened the door for Ezra, who peeled off his coat, and shook his wet hands.

“Great, creepin’ clams!” he puffed. “But this is some tidy wind, sir! These here Massachusetts storms can’t be beat, the way they pounce. An’ rain! Say! Must be a picnic somewhere nigh. Never rains like this unless thereisone!”

The old man tried to smile, but joviality was lacking. He closed the door and came over to the stove. The doctor followed him.

“Ezra,” said he, “you don’t like me. No matter. Youdolike Captain Briggs, don’t you?”

“That ain’t a question as needs answerin’,” returned Ezra, with suspicious eyes.

“I like the captain, too,” continued Filhiol. “We’ve got to join hands to help him. And he’s in very, very serious trouble now.”

“Well, what is it?” The old servitor sensed what was in the wind, and braced himself to meet it.

“If it came to choosing between Hal and the captain, which would you stand by?”

“That’s another question that ain’t needed!” retorted Ezra defiantly.

“It’s got to be answered, though. Something critical has happened, Ezra, and we’ve got to take the bull by the horns.”

“Better take the bull by the tail, doctor. Then you can let go without hollerin’ fer help.”

“This is no time for joking, Ezra! Something has happened that, if the captain finds it out, will haveterrible consequences. If he discovers what’s happened, I can’t answer for the consequences. It might even kill him, the shock might.”

“Wha—what d’ you mean, sir?” demanded Ezra, going white. “Whatareyou gammin’ about, anyhow?”

“I might as well tell you, directly. Captain Briggs has just been robbed of more than five hundred dollars.”

“Robbed! No! Holy haddock! You—don’t—”

“Robbed,” asserted Filhiol. “More than five hundred dollars are gone from the safe, and—Hal’s gone, too.”

“Dr. Filhiol, sir!” exclaimed the old man passionately, but in a low voice that could not reach the cabin. “That wun’t go here. You’re company, I know, but there’s some things that goes too doggone fur. Ef you mean to let on that Master Hal—”

“The money’s gone, I tell you, and so is Hal. I knowthat!”

“Yes, an’ I know Master Hal, too!” asseverated Ezra, manfully standing by his guns, not through any fear of Hal’s vengeance, but only for the honor of the house and of the boy he worshipped. “Ef you mean to accuse him of bein’ athief, well then, me an’ you has nothin’ more to say. We’re docked, an’ crew an’ cargo is discharged right now. All done!”

“Hold on, Ezra!” commanded Filhiol. “I’m not making any direct accusation. All I’m saying is that the money and Hal are both gone.”

“How d’youknow the money’s gone? How comeyouto be at the cap’n’s safe an’ money-drawer?”

“I—why—” stammered Filhiol, taken aback. “Why, the captain had me open it, to put in some receipts, and he told me how much he thought was there. I saw he was mistaken, by more than five hundred.”

“Oh, you counted the cap’n’s money, did ye?” Ezra demanded boldly. “Well, that’s some nerve! In case it comes to a showdown, where wouldyoufit? Looks likeyourfingers might git burned, don’t it?”

“Mine? What do you mean, sir?”

“Well, you was there, wa’n’t ye? An’ Master Hal wa’n’t, that’s all!” Swiftly Ezra was thinking. The loss, he knew, could not be kept from Captain Briggs. And Hal must be protected. Sudden inspiration dawned on him.

“How much d’ you say is gone?” demanded he.

“Five hundred and some odd dollars.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said the old man, nodding. “Them’s the correct figgers, all right enough.”

“How doyouknow?” exclaimed the doctor, staring.

“Why hadn’t I ought to, when I took that there money myself?”

“You?”

“Me, sir! I’m the one as stole it, an’ what’s more, I got it now, up-stairs in my trunk!”

Silence a moment while the doctor peered at him with wrinkled brow.

“That’s not true, Ezra,” said he at last, meeting the old man’s defiant look. “You’re lying now to shield that boy!”

“Lyin’, am I?” And Ezra reddened dully. “Dr. Filhiol, sir, ef you wa’n’t an old man, an’ hobblin’ on a cane, them ain’t the words you’d use to me, an’ go clear!”

“I—I beg your pardon, Ezra,” stammered the doctor. “I’m not saying it in a derogatory sense.”

“Rogatory or hogatory, don’t make a damn’s odds! You called me a liar!”

“A noble liar. That kind of a lie is noble, Ezra, but very foolish. I understand you, all right. WhenI say you’re trying to shield Hal, I’ve hit the mark.”

“You ain’t half the shot you think you be, sir! There’s lots o’ marksmen in this world can’t even make a gun go off, an’ yet they can’t miss fire in the next world. You’re one of ’em. I took the money, I tell ye, an’ I can prove it by showin’ it to you, in two minutes!”

The old man, turning, started for the stairs.

“Where are you going now?” demanded Filhiol.

“To git that there money!”

“Your own savings, no doubt? To shield Hal with?”

“The money I stole, an’ don’t ye fergit it neither!” retorted Ezra with a look so menacing that the doctor ventured no reply. In silence he watched the old man, wet clothes still clinging to him, plod up the stairs and disappear.

“Lord, if this isn’t a tangled web,” thought Filhiol, “what is? I ought never to have come. And yet I’m needed every minute, if a terrible catastrophe is to be turned aside!”

His heart contracted at thought of the inevitable shock to Captain Briggs if he should discover the theft. Could Ezra conceal it, even with his savings? And, if he could, would it not be best to let him? Would not anything be preferable to having the captain’s soul wrung out of him? Sudden hate against the cause of all this misery flared up in him.

“Great God!” he muttered. “If I only had that Hal for a patient, just one hour!”

The footsteps of Ezra, descending again, roused him. In Ezra’s hand was gripped a roll of bills, old and tattered for the most part—a roll that counted up to some five hundred and thirty dollars, or to within about forty dollars of every cent Ezra had in the world. More than fifteen years of hard-earned savings lay inthat roll. This money Ezra had hastily dug from under a lot of old clothes in his trunk. And now he shook it before the eyes of Filhiol, eager to sacrifice it.

“Isthatproof enough fer you now, or ain’t it?” Ezra exultantly demanded. “Dollar fer dollar, about, what the cap’n said had oughta be in the safe, an’ ain’t? Well, does that satisfy ye now?”

Filhiol had no answer. His brain was whirling. Ezra laughed in his face.

“I gotyourgoat all right, old feller!” gibed he.

“Ezra,” said the doctor slowly, “I don’t understand this at all. I’m no detective. This is too much for me. Either you’re a monumental fool or a sublime hero. Maybe both. I can’t judge. All I want to do is look out for Captain Briggs. I was his medical officer in the old days. Now I seem to be back on the job again. That’s all.”

“Yes, an’ I’m on the job, too, an’ you’d better keep out o’ what don’t consarn ye,” menaced Ezra. “Every man to his job, an’ yours ain’t ratin’ down Master Hal an’ makin’ a thief of him!”

“All right, Ezra. Put the money in the safe. Whether it’s yours or not, doesn’t matter now. It will protect the captain’s peace of mind a little longer, and that’s the main thing now.”

Ezra nodded. Together they went quietly into the cabin. Watchfully they observed the captain. Face to the wall, he was profoundly sleeping.

“It’s all right,” said Filhiol. “You can open the safe and put the money in.”

Ezra advanced to it, on tiptoe. But Ezra did not open the safe. Puzzled, he stopped and whispered:

“I—doggone it, I’ve fergot the combination now!”

“Have, eh?” asked Filhiol with a sharp look. “Well then, all you’ve got to do is look at the paper.”

“The—h-m!”

“Of course you know he keeps it on a paper?” said the doctor shrewdly.

“Oh, sure, sure! But just now I disremember where that paper is!”

Filhiol retreated to the dining-room, and beckoned Ezra to him.

“See here,” said he in a low tone, “this game of yours is pitifully thin. Why don’t you own up to the truth? Your loyalty to Hal is wonderful. The recording angel is writing it all down in his big book; but you can’t fool anybody. Why, not even a child would believe you, Ezra, and how can I—a hard-shelled old man who’s knocked up and down the seven seas? You know perfectly well Hal Briggs stole that money. Own up now!”

The old cook fixed a look of ire on him, and with clenched fist confronted Filhiol.

“Doctor,” said he, “there’s two things makes most o’ the trouble in this here world. One is evil tongues, to speak ill o’ folks, an’ the other is evil ears, to listen. There’s jest two things you can’t do here—speak ill o’ the cap’n, an’ talk ag’in’ Master Hal. Ef you do, doc—it don’t signify ef youbeold, I’ll make it damn good an’ hot fer you! Now, then, I’ve warned you proper. That’s all—an’ that’s enough!”

“You don’t understand—” the doctor was just going to retort, when a trample of feet on the front porch brought him to silence.

“There’s Master Hal now!” exclaimed the old cook, with an expression of dismay. “An’ the money ain’t back in the safe yit—an’ Master Hal’s li’ble to wake the cap’n up!”

“Hemustn’twake him up!” said Filhiol. He turned, and, hobbling on his cane, started for the front door to head him off. Too late! Already Hal hadflung off his cap and, stamping wet feet, had entered the cabin. The voice of the captain sounded:

“Oh, that you, Hal? God above! but I’m glad to see you! Come here, boy, come here. I’ve got news for you. Great, good news!”

CHAPTER XXXVTREACHERYStill in his dripping raincoat, Hal approached the berth.“Whew, but it’s hot and stifling in here, gramp!” said he. He turned and opened a window, letting the damp, chill wind draw through. “There, that’s better now. Well, what’s the big news, eh?”The old captain regarded him a moment, deeply moved. In the dining-room, Ezra had hastily stuffed the bills into his pocket. Now he was retreating to his galley. Filhiol, undecided what to do, did nothing; but remained in the front hall.“What’s the news?” repeated Hal. He looked disheveled, excited. “And what areyouin bed for, this time of day?”His voice betrayed nothing save curiosity. No sympathy softened it.“The doctor made me turn in,” Briggs explained. “I got wet through, going to town. But it was all for you, boy. So why shouldImind?”“For me, eh?” demanded Hal. “More trouble? Enough storm outside, without kicking up any more rows inside. Some weather, gramp! Some sailing weather, once a boat got out past the breakwater, where she could make her manners to the nor’east blow!” His tongue seemed a trifle thick, but the captain perceived nothing. “Well, gramp, what was the idea of going to town an afternoon like this?”“To set you on the right road again, boy.” Thecaptain raised himself on one elbow, and peered at his beloved Hal. “To open up a better career for you thanIhad. No more sea-life, Hal. There’s been far too much salt in our blood for generations. It’s time the Briggs family came ashore. You’ve got better things ahead of you, now, than fighting the sea. Peel your wet coat off, Hal, and sit down. You’ll take cold, I’m afraid.”“Cold, nothing! This is the kind of weather I like!”He pulled up a chair by the berth, and flung himself down into it, hulking, rude, flushed. In the dim light old Captain Briggs did not see that telltale flush of drink. He did not note the sinister exultation in his grandson’s voice. Nor did he understand the look of Hal’s searching eyes that tried to fathom whether the old man as yet had any suspicions of the robbery.The captain reached out from the bedclothes he should have kept well over him, and laid his hand on Hal’s.“Listen,” said he, weak and shaken. His forehead glistened, damp with sweat. “It’s good news. I’ve been down to see Squire Bean. I’ve paid him the money for McLaughlin, and got a receipt for it, and the case against you is all settled. Ended!”“Is, eh?” demanded Hal, with calculating eyes. “Great! And the apology stuff is all off, too?”“Well, no, not that. Of course you’ve still got to apologize to him so all the crew can hear it. But that’s only a little detail. Any time will do. I know that after what I’ve sacrificed for you, boy, you’ll be glad to play the part of a man and go down there and apologize, won’t you?”“Surest little thing you know!” Filhiol heard him answer, with malice and deceit which Captain Briggs could not fathom. “The crew will hear from me, allright. Some of ’em have already. Yes, that’s a fact. I’ve already apologized to three of ’em. I’ll square everything, gramp. So that’s all settled. Anything more?”“You’re true metal, at heart!” murmured Briggs, shivering as the draft from the open window struck him. “Thank God for it! Yes, there’s one more thing. I’ve sent the money to the college. Sent a money-order, and got a receipt for that, too. Both receipts are in the money-drawer, in the safe.”“Theyare?” Hal could not dissemble his sudden anxiety. How much, now, did his grandfather know? Everything? Suspiciously he blinked at the old man. “So you put ’em in the safe, did you?” asked he, determined to force the issue.“The doctor did for me.”“Oh,hedid, did he? H-m! Well, all right. What next?” Hal stiffened for the blow, but the captain only said:“It’s fine to have the whole thing cleaned up, so you can start on another tack!” The old man smiled with pitiful affection. “Everything’s coming out right, after all. You don’t know how wonderfully happy I am to-day. It won’t be long before I have you back in some other college again.”“The devil it won’t!” thought Hal. The doctor, at the rear of the hallway, felt a clutch on his arm. There stood old Ezra.“Doctor,” he whispered in a way that meant business, “you ain’t goin’ to stand here listenin’ to ’em, this way!”“I’m not, eh?” And Filhiol blinked astonishment. “Why not?”“There’s ten reasons. One is, because I ain’t goin’ to let you, an’ the other nine is because I ain’t goin’ to let you! I wouldn’t do it myself, an’youain’t goin’ to, neither. Will you clear out o’ here, peaceful, or be you goin’ to make me matt onta you an’ carry you out?”The doctor hesitated. Ezra added:“Now, doc, don’t you git me harr’d up, or there’ll be stormy times!”Filhiol yielded. He followed Ezra to the galley, where the old man practically interned him. Inwardly he cursed this development. What might not happen, were the captain now to discover the loss of the money while Hal was there? But to argue with Ezra was hopeless. Filhiol settled down by the stove and resigned himself to moody ponderings.“This summer, take things easy,” the captain was saying, with indulgence. “In the fall you’ll enter some other college and win honors as we all expect you to. So you’ll be glad to go, won’t you, Hal?”“I’ll be glad togo, all right!”“That’s fine!” smiled the captain. He got out of bed in his bathrobe, slid his feet into slippers, and stood there a moment, looking at Hal.“Boy,” said he, “on the way back from town I made up my mind to do the right thing by you, to give you something every young fellow along the coast ought to have. You were asking me for a boat, and I refused you. I was wrong. Nothing finer, after all, than a little cruising up and down the shore. I’ve changed my mind, Hal.” He laid an affectionate hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m going to give you the money for Gordon’sKittiwink.”“Huh?” grunted Hal, standing up in vast astonishment and anxiety.“Take the money, Hal, and buy your heart’s dearest wish,” said the old captain. “It’ll maybe pinch me, for a while, but you’re all I’ve got to love and some way I can rub along. If I can give you a happy summerthe few hundred dollars won’t mean much, after all. So, boy, get yourself the boat. Why, what’s the matter? You look kind of flabbergasted, Hal. Aren’t you glad and thankful?”“Surest thing you know, I am!” the boy rallied with a strong effort. “It’s great of you, gramp! But—can you afford it?”“That’s for me to judge, Hal,” smiled the captain, shivering as the draft struck him. He turned towards the safe. Hal detained him with a hand upon his arm.“Don’t give it to me just yet,” said he, anxiously. “Wait a little!”“No, no, that wouldn’t be the same at all,” insisted Briggs. “I want you to have this present now, to-day, to make you always remember your fresh start in life.”“Not to-day, gramp!” exclaimed Hal. “I don’t feel right about it, and—and I can’t accept it. I want to make a really new start. To make my own way—be a man, not a dependent! Please don’t spoil everything the first minute by doing this!”“But, Hal—”“I know how you feel,” said the boy, with feverish energy. “But I’ve got feelings, too, and now you’re hurting them. Please don’t, grandfather! Please let me stand on my own feet, and be a man!”Old Briggs, who had with feeble steps made his way half across the floor, turned and looked at Hal with eyes of profound affection.“God bless you, boy!” said he with deep emotion. “Do you really mean that?”“Of course I do! Come, get back into bed now. You’re taking cold there. Get back before you have another chill!”Anxiously he led the captain back towards the berth. His touch was complete betrayal. Into his voice heforced a tone of caressing sincerity, music to the old man’s ears.“I’ve learned a great deal the last day or two,” said he, as with traitor solicitude he put the captain into his berth, and covered him up. “I’ve been learning some great lessons. What you said to me up there among the graves, has opened my eyes.”“Bless God for that!” And in the captain’s eyes tears glistened. “That’s wonderful for me to hear, in this room where all those relics of the past—that kris and everything—can’t help reminding me of other and worse days. A wonderful, blessèd thing to hear!”“Well, I’m glad it is, gramp,” said Hal, “and it’s every bit true. On my honor as a gentleman, it is! From to-day I’m going to stand on my own feet and be a man. You don’t know what I’ve been doing already to give myself a start in life, but if you did, you’d be wonderfully surprised. What I’m still going to do will certainly surprise you more!”“Lord above, Hal, but you’re the right stuff after all!” exclaimed Captain Briggs, the tears now coursing freely. “Oh, if you could only realize what all this means for me after all the years of sacrifice and hopes and fears. We came pretty nigh shipwreck on the reefs, didn’t we, boy? But it’s all right. It’s all right now at last!”“It surely is. And I’m certainly going to surprise you and Laura and everybody.”“Kneel down beside me, just a minute, boy, and then I’ll go to sleep again.”Hal, making a wry face to himself, knelt by the bedside. Old Briggs, with one arm, drew him close. The other hand stroked back Hal’s thick, wet hair with a touch that love made gentle as a woman’s.“This is a day of days to me,” he whispered. “Awonderful blessèd day! God guide and keep you, forever and ever. Amen!”He sighed deeply and relaxed. His eyes drooped shut. Hal pulled the blankets up and got to his feet, peering down with eyes of malice.A moment he stood there while the wind gusted against the house, the rain sprayed along the porch, and branches whipped the roof.Then, with a smile of infernal triumph, he turned.“Cinch!” he muttered, as he left the cabin and made his way up-stairs. “Why, it’s like taking candy from a baby. He’ll sleep for hours now. But won’t it jar the old geezer when his pipe goes out, to-night? Just won’t it, though?”With silent laughter Hal reached his room, where, without delay, he started on his final preparations for events now swiftly impending.Over all the heavens—a blind, gray face of wrath—seemed peering down. But on that face was now no laughter.Even for Vishnu the Avenger some things must be too terrible.

TREACHERY

Still in his dripping raincoat, Hal approached the berth.

“Whew, but it’s hot and stifling in here, gramp!” said he. He turned and opened a window, letting the damp, chill wind draw through. “There, that’s better now. Well, what’s the big news, eh?”

The old captain regarded him a moment, deeply moved. In the dining-room, Ezra had hastily stuffed the bills into his pocket. Now he was retreating to his galley. Filhiol, undecided what to do, did nothing; but remained in the front hall.

“What’s the news?” repeated Hal. He looked disheveled, excited. “And what areyouin bed for, this time of day?”

His voice betrayed nothing save curiosity. No sympathy softened it.

“The doctor made me turn in,” Briggs explained. “I got wet through, going to town. But it was all for you, boy. So why shouldImind?”

“For me, eh?” demanded Hal. “More trouble? Enough storm outside, without kicking up any more rows inside. Some weather, gramp! Some sailing weather, once a boat got out past the breakwater, where she could make her manners to the nor’east blow!” His tongue seemed a trifle thick, but the captain perceived nothing. “Well, gramp, what was the idea of going to town an afternoon like this?”

“To set you on the right road again, boy.” Thecaptain raised himself on one elbow, and peered at his beloved Hal. “To open up a better career for you thanIhad. No more sea-life, Hal. There’s been far too much salt in our blood for generations. It’s time the Briggs family came ashore. You’ve got better things ahead of you, now, than fighting the sea. Peel your wet coat off, Hal, and sit down. You’ll take cold, I’m afraid.”

“Cold, nothing! This is the kind of weather I like!”

He pulled up a chair by the berth, and flung himself down into it, hulking, rude, flushed. In the dim light old Captain Briggs did not see that telltale flush of drink. He did not note the sinister exultation in his grandson’s voice. Nor did he understand the look of Hal’s searching eyes that tried to fathom whether the old man as yet had any suspicions of the robbery.

The captain reached out from the bedclothes he should have kept well over him, and laid his hand on Hal’s.

“Listen,” said he, weak and shaken. His forehead glistened, damp with sweat. “It’s good news. I’ve been down to see Squire Bean. I’ve paid him the money for McLaughlin, and got a receipt for it, and the case against you is all settled. Ended!”

“Is, eh?” demanded Hal, with calculating eyes. “Great! And the apology stuff is all off, too?”

“Well, no, not that. Of course you’ve still got to apologize to him so all the crew can hear it. But that’s only a little detail. Any time will do. I know that after what I’ve sacrificed for you, boy, you’ll be glad to play the part of a man and go down there and apologize, won’t you?”

“Surest little thing you know!” Filhiol heard him answer, with malice and deceit which Captain Briggs could not fathom. “The crew will hear from me, allright. Some of ’em have already. Yes, that’s a fact. I’ve already apologized to three of ’em. I’ll square everything, gramp. So that’s all settled. Anything more?”

“You’re true metal, at heart!” murmured Briggs, shivering as the draft from the open window struck him. “Thank God for it! Yes, there’s one more thing. I’ve sent the money to the college. Sent a money-order, and got a receipt for that, too. Both receipts are in the money-drawer, in the safe.”

“Theyare?” Hal could not dissemble his sudden anxiety. How much, now, did his grandfather know? Everything? Suspiciously he blinked at the old man. “So you put ’em in the safe, did you?” asked he, determined to force the issue.

“The doctor did for me.”

“Oh,hedid, did he? H-m! Well, all right. What next?” Hal stiffened for the blow, but the captain only said:

“It’s fine to have the whole thing cleaned up, so you can start on another tack!” The old man smiled with pitiful affection. “Everything’s coming out right, after all. You don’t know how wonderfully happy I am to-day. It won’t be long before I have you back in some other college again.”

“The devil it won’t!” thought Hal. The doctor, at the rear of the hallway, felt a clutch on his arm. There stood old Ezra.

“Doctor,” he whispered in a way that meant business, “you ain’t goin’ to stand here listenin’ to ’em, this way!”

“I’m not, eh?” And Filhiol blinked astonishment. “Why not?”

“There’s ten reasons. One is, because I ain’t goin’ to let you, an’ the other nine is because I ain’t goin’ to let you! I wouldn’t do it myself, an’youain’t goin’ to, neither. Will you clear out o’ here, peaceful, or be you goin’ to make me matt onta you an’ carry you out?”

The doctor hesitated. Ezra added:

“Now, doc, don’t you git me harr’d up, or there’ll be stormy times!”

Filhiol yielded. He followed Ezra to the galley, where the old man practically interned him. Inwardly he cursed this development. What might not happen, were the captain now to discover the loss of the money while Hal was there? But to argue with Ezra was hopeless. Filhiol settled down by the stove and resigned himself to moody ponderings.

“This summer, take things easy,” the captain was saying, with indulgence. “In the fall you’ll enter some other college and win honors as we all expect you to. So you’ll be glad to go, won’t you, Hal?”

“I’ll be glad togo, all right!”

“That’s fine!” smiled the captain. He got out of bed in his bathrobe, slid his feet into slippers, and stood there a moment, looking at Hal.

“Boy,” said he, “on the way back from town I made up my mind to do the right thing by you, to give you something every young fellow along the coast ought to have. You were asking me for a boat, and I refused you. I was wrong. Nothing finer, after all, than a little cruising up and down the shore. I’ve changed my mind, Hal.” He laid an affectionate hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m going to give you the money for Gordon’sKittiwink.”

“Huh?” grunted Hal, standing up in vast astonishment and anxiety.

“Take the money, Hal, and buy your heart’s dearest wish,” said the old captain. “It’ll maybe pinch me, for a while, but you’re all I’ve got to love and some way I can rub along. If I can give you a happy summerthe few hundred dollars won’t mean much, after all. So, boy, get yourself the boat. Why, what’s the matter? You look kind of flabbergasted, Hal. Aren’t you glad and thankful?”

“Surest thing you know, I am!” the boy rallied with a strong effort. “It’s great of you, gramp! But—can you afford it?”

“That’s for me to judge, Hal,” smiled the captain, shivering as the draft struck him. He turned towards the safe. Hal detained him with a hand upon his arm.

“Don’t give it to me just yet,” said he, anxiously. “Wait a little!”

“No, no, that wouldn’t be the same at all,” insisted Briggs. “I want you to have this present now, to-day, to make you always remember your fresh start in life.”

“Not to-day, gramp!” exclaimed Hal. “I don’t feel right about it, and—and I can’t accept it. I want to make a really new start. To make my own way—be a man, not a dependent! Please don’t spoil everything the first minute by doing this!”

“But, Hal—”

“I know how you feel,” said the boy, with feverish energy. “But I’ve got feelings, too, and now you’re hurting them. Please don’t, grandfather! Please let me stand on my own feet, and be a man!”

Old Briggs, who had with feeble steps made his way half across the floor, turned and looked at Hal with eyes of profound affection.

“God bless you, boy!” said he with deep emotion. “Do you really mean that?”

“Of course I do! Come, get back into bed now. You’re taking cold there. Get back before you have another chill!”

Anxiously he led the captain back towards the berth. His touch was complete betrayal. Into his voice heforced a tone of caressing sincerity, music to the old man’s ears.

“I’ve learned a great deal the last day or two,” said he, as with traitor solicitude he put the captain into his berth, and covered him up. “I’ve been learning some great lessons. What you said to me up there among the graves, has opened my eyes.”

“Bless God for that!” And in the captain’s eyes tears glistened. “That’s wonderful for me to hear, in this room where all those relics of the past—that kris and everything—can’t help reminding me of other and worse days. A wonderful, blessèd thing to hear!”

“Well, I’m glad it is, gramp,” said Hal, “and it’s every bit true. On my honor as a gentleman, it is! From to-day I’m going to stand on my own feet and be a man. You don’t know what I’ve been doing already to give myself a start in life, but if you did, you’d be wonderfully surprised. What I’m still going to do will certainly surprise you more!”

“Lord above, Hal, but you’re the right stuff after all!” exclaimed Captain Briggs, the tears now coursing freely. “Oh, if you could only realize what all this means for me after all the years of sacrifice and hopes and fears. We came pretty nigh shipwreck on the reefs, didn’t we, boy? But it’s all right. It’s all right now at last!”

“It surely is. And I’m certainly going to surprise you and Laura and everybody.”

“Kneel down beside me, just a minute, boy, and then I’ll go to sleep again.”

Hal, making a wry face to himself, knelt by the bedside. Old Briggs, with one arm, drew him close. The other hand stroked back Hal’s thick, wet hair with a touch that love made gentle as a woman’s.

“This is a day of days to me,” he whispered. “Awonderful blessèd day! God guide and keep you, forever and ever. Amen!”

He sighed deeply and relaxed. His eyes drooped shut. Hal pulled the blankets up and got to his feet, peering down with eyes of malice.

A moment he stood there while the wind gusted against the house, the rain sprayed along the porch, and branches whipped the roof.

Then, with a smile of infernal triumph, he turned.

“Cinch!” he muttered, as he left the cabin and made his way up-stairs. “Why, it’s like taking candy from a baby. He’ll sleep for hours now. But won’t it jar the old geezer when his pipe goes out, to-night? Just won’t it, though?”

With silent laughter Hal reached his room, where, without delay, he started on his final preparations for events now swiftly impending.

Over all the heavens—a blind, gray face of wrath—seemed peering down. But on that face was now no laughter.

Even for Vishnu the Avenger some things must be too terrible.

CHAPTER XXXVITHE DOCTOR SPEAKSHal had been at work five minutes when he was startled by a sharp knock. The door was flung open in no gentle manner.Dr. Filhiol, leaning on his cane, confronted him. Hal knew trouble lay dead ahead. Standing there in shirt-sleeves, with litter and confusion of packing all about, and two half-filled suit-cases on a couple of chairs, Hal frowned angrily.“You’ve got a nerve to butt in like this!” he growled. “What d’ you want now?”“I want to talk to you, sir.”“I’ve got no time to waste on nonsense!”“You’ve got time to talk to me, and talk to me you’re going to,” returned the doctor. “This is no nonsense.” He came in and shut the door. The scent of liquor met his nostrils. “A young man who’s been responsible for the things you have, has certainly got time to answer me!”Awed by the physician’s cold determination, and with fear at heart—for might not Filhiol know about the stolen money?—Hal moderated his defiance. This old man must be kept quiet for a few hours yet; Hal must have a few hours.“You’re assuming too much authority for a stranger,” said Hal, sullenly. “I never knew before that a gentleman would interfere in this way.”“Probably not, when dealingwitha gentleman,” retorted Filhiol, “but this case is different. My acquaintancewith your grandfather dates back more than half a century, and when my duty requires me to speak, no young bully like you is going to stop me. No, you needn’t double your fist, or look daggers, because I’m not in the least afraid of you, sir. And I’m not going to mince matters with you. What did you do with the captain’s five hundred dollars?”Hal felt himself lost. He had effectually closed Ezra’s mouth, but now here stood the doctor, accusing him. One moment he had the impulse to do murder; but now that all things were in readiness for his flight, he realized violence would be a fatal error. His only hope lay in diplomacy.“What five hundred dollars?”“You know very well what five hundred! Come, what did you do with it?”“Really, Dr. Filhiol, this is a most astonishing accusation!” said Hal. “Idon’t know anything about any five hundred. Is that amount gone?”“You know very well it’s gone!”“I know nothing of the kind! How should I?”“You can’t fool me, young man!” exclaimed the doctor hotly. He raised his cane in menace.“Put that stick down, sir,” said Hal in a wicked voice. “No man living can threaten me with a stick and get way with it. I tell you I don’t know anything about the money! I’ve been out of this house for some time, and you and Ezra have been here. Now you tell me there’s five hundred dollars gone. By God, if you weren’t an old man and a guest, you’d eat your words damned quick!”“I—you—” stammered the doctor, outgeneralled.“I’ve wasted enough time on you now!” Hal flung at him. “It’s time for you to be going.” He gripped Filhiol by the wrist with a vise-pressure that bruised. “And one thing more, you!” he growled. “You’djust better not go stirring up gramp against me, or accusing me to Ezra. It won’t be healthy for you to go accusing me of what you can’t prove, you prying gray ferret!”“Ezra knows all about it already!” retorted the doctor, tempted to smash at that insolent, evil face with his cane.“Knows it, does he?” Hal could not repress a start.“Yes, he does. He’s already sworn to a falsehood to me, to save your worthless hide!”“What d’you mean?”“I mean he’s accused himself of the theft, you scoundrel!”“Let him, then! If the shoe fits him, let him put it on!”“Oh, let him, eh? Yes, and let him beggar himself. Let him try to get his pitiful life-savings back into the safe in time to save you! A man who’ll stand by and let a poor old servant, more faithful than a dog, bankrupt himself to cover up a sneaking crime—a man who’ll pack up and run away—”“I’ve had enough o’ you!” snarled Hal. He pushed the doctor out into the hall. “Ezra’s admitted it, and gramp wouldn’t believe I did it, even if he saw the money in my hand. Get out now, and if you cross my path again, look out!”The doctor met his threat unflinchingly.“Young man,” said he, “I sailed harder seas, in the old times, than any seas to-day. I sailed with your grandfather when he was a bucko of the old school, and though we didn’t usually agree and once I nearly shot him, I never knuckled under. Maybe the bullet that just missed cutting off your grandfather’s life is still waiting for its billet. Maybe that’s part of the curse onyou!”His eyes were cold steel as he peered at the menacing, huge figure of Hal.“Be careful, sir,” he added. “Be very careful how you raise your hand against a man like me!”“If I everdoraise my hand, there’ll be no more threats of shooting left in you!” Hal flung at him. With a sudden flare of rage he pushed old Filhiol through the door and turned the lock. The doctor stumbled, dropped his cane and fetched up against the balustrade of the stairs. Ashen and trembling he clung there a moment. Then he raised his shaking fist to heaven.“Oh, God,” he prayed, “God, give me power to stamp this viper’s head before it poisons the captain—before it poisons Laura and old Ezra—the town, the very air, the world! God, give me strength to stamp it in the dust!”Within the room sounded the tread of Hal, going, coming as he growled to himself, packed up his things for flight.“Aye, go!” thought the doctor. “Go, and devil take you! Go, and if there’s any curse, carry it with you to the end of the world!”The doctor realized that nothing better than this departure could happen. The boy would undoubtedly come to his end before long in some drunken brawl. Sooner or later he would meet his match; would get killed, or would do murder and would finish on the gallows or in the chair. That over-mastering physical strength, backed by the arrogance of conscious power, could not fail to ruin him.“The world will soon settle with you, Hal Briggs,” said he, as he made his way down-stairs. “Soon settle, and for good. It will break the captain’s heart to have you go, but it would break it worse to have you stay. This is best.”Calmer now, he stopped a moment at the cabin door to assure himself Captain Briggs was sleeping.“Lord!” he thought. “I hope Hal gets away before the old man wakes up. It will spare us a terrible scene—a scene that might cost the captain his life!”His eye caught a glint of red. Oddly enough, firelight, reflected from one of the captain’s brass instruments, ticked just a tiny point of crimson on the blade of the old kris.The doctor shuddered and passed on, failing to notice the open window in the room. He felt oppressed and stifling. Air! he must have air! He got into a coat hanging on the rack, put on his hat and limped out upon the porch.Up and down walked Dr. Filhiol a few times, trying to shake off heavy bodings of evil. A curious little figure he made, withered, bent, but with the fires of invincible determination burning in his eyes. The time he had passed at Snug Haven had brought back his fighting spirit. Dr. Filhiol seemed quite other from the meek and inoffensive old man who had so short a time ago driven up to the captain’s gate. Even the grip of his hand on his cane was different. Hal Briggs might well look out for him now, if any turn of chance should put him into Filhiol’s power.The doctor paused at last on the sheltered side of the porch, near the captain’s windows and away from that side of the house where Hal’s room was located. More heavily than ever the rain was sheeting down, and from the shore a long thunder told of sea charges broken against the impenetrable defenses of the rocks.All at once the doctor saw a figure coming along the road, head down to wind and rain—a figure in a mackintosh, with a little white hat drawn down over thick hair—the figure of a woman.Astonished that a woman should be abroad in such weather, he peered more closely. The woman came to the side gate, stopped there, and, holding her hat and flying hair with one hand, looked anxiously over the hedge at Snug Haven.Then Dr. Filhiol recognized her.“Laura! What the devil now?” said he.The doctor seemed to read her thought, that she was afraid of being seen by Hal, but that she greatly desired speech of some one else. With raised hand he beckoned her; and she, perceiving him, came quickly through the gate to the porch.Wild-tossed and disheveled she was with frightened eyes and wistful, pleading face. Filhiol’s heart yearned to her, filled with pity.“You’re Laura, aren’t you?” asked the doctor, taking her hand and steadying her a little. “Laura Maynard? Yes? I’m Dr. Filhiol, a very old and confidential friend of the captain’s. What can I do to help you?”“The captain!” she panted, almost spent with exertion and chill. “I’ve got to—see the captain right away!”“My dear, that’s quite impossible,” said Filhiol, drawing her more into shelter. “He’s asleep, worn out with exertions concerning Hal. You’ve come to see him about Hal. Yes, I thought so. Well, the captain can’t be disturbed now, for any reason whatever. But you can tell me, Laura. Perhaps I may do quite as well.”She pondered a moment, then asked with a strong effort: “Where is Hal now?”“Up-stairs. Do you want to see him?”“No, no, no!” she shuddered. “God forbid! But—oh, doctor, please let me see the captain, if only for a minute!”“He’s ill, I tell you, Laura.”“Not seriously?” she asked with sudden anxiety.“Perhaps not yet, but we can’t take any chances.”The girl took his hand in a trembling clasp.“Don’t let anything happen to the captain!” she exclaimed, her rain-wet face very beautiful in its anxiety. “Oh, doctor, he’s the most wonderful old man in the world, the finest, the noblest! Nothing, nothing must happen tohim!”“Nothing shall, if I can help it. If I can stand between him and—and—”“And Hal?” she queried. “Yes, I understand. What a terrible curse to love a man like that!”“The captain must soon find it so,” said Filhiol. “Every one who loves that boy has got to suffer grievously. You, too, Laura,” he added. “You must steel your heart to many things. The captain will soon need all your strength and consolation.”“You know the bad news, too?”“I know much bad news. But if you’ve got any more, tell me!”“You know about the fight he had this afternoon and about his buying Gordon’s boat, theKittiwink?”“No. Nothing about that. But I know Hal’s packing some things now to make what they call a getaway. And—”“And you’re not going to stop him?” exclaimed the girl, clutching his arm. “You’renot?”“Shhh, my dear!” warned Filhiol. “We mustn’t wake the captain in there! Stop Hal? No, no! Nothing better could happen than to have him go before he does murder in this town.”“He almost did murder this afternoon! He ran into three of McLaughlin’s men down at Hadlock’s Cove, and they twitted him about apologizing to McLaughlin. Then—”“Say no more,” interrupted the doctor, raising his hand. “I understand.”“Yes, doctor, but the news has spread, and the rest of the crew have sworn vengeance on Hal. They’ll surely kill him, doctor!”“God grant they may!” the doctor thought, but what he said was:“The quicker he goes, then, the better.”“But isn’t there any way to bring him to reason, doctor? To make him like other men? To save him?”“I see none,” Filhiol answered. He pondered a moment while the rain-drums rolled their tattoos on the roof of the porch and the sea thundered. “The curse, the real curse on that boy, is his unbridled temper, his gorilla-like strength. His strength has unsettled his judgment and his will. Ordinary men rely on their brains, and have to be decent. Hal, with those battering-ram fists, thinks he can smash down everything, and win, like one of Nietzsche’s supermen. If something could drain him of strength, and weaken and humble him, it might be the salvation of him yet.”“God grant it might!”“You still love him, girl?” asked Filhiol, tenderly as a father. “In spite of everything?”“I love the good in him, and there’s so wonderfully much!”“I understand, my dear. Just now, the bad is all predominant. There’s nothing to do but let him go, Laura. Because—he’s determined to go, at all costs. Where, I don’t know, or how.”“Iknow how!” exclaimed the girl. “He’s bought theKittiwinkand laid in supplies. My father’s in the boat-brokerage business, and he’s got word of it.”“Bought it?” interrupted the doctor. “How? On credit?”“No, cash. He paid four hundred and seventy-five dollars for it, in bills.”“He did? By—h-m!”“What is it, doctor? Where could Hal get all that money? Do you know?”“I know only too well, my dear.”“Tell me!” she exclaimed eagerly, and took him by the hand.So absorbed were they that neither heard a slight sound from the captain’s window, like the quick intake of a breath. How could they know the old man had wakened, had heard their voices; how could they know he had arisen, and, all trembling and weak, was now standing hidden inside the window, listening to words that tore the heart clean out of him?

THE DOCTOR SPEAKS

Hal had been at work five minutes when he was startled by a sharp knock. The door was flung open in no gentle manner.

Dr. Filhiol, leaning on his cane, confronted him. Hal knew trouble lay dead ahead. Standing there in shirt-sleeves, with litter and confusion of packing all about, and two half-filled suit-cases on a couple of chairs, Hal frowned angrily.

“You’ve got a nerve to butt in like this!” he growled. “What d’ you want now?”

“I want to talk to you, sir.”

“I’ve got no time to waste on nonsense!”

“You’ve got time to talk to me, and talk to me you’re going to,” returned the doctor. “This is no nonsense.” He came in and shut the door. The scent of liquor met his nostrils. “A young man who’s been responsible for the things you have, has certainly got time to answer me!”

Awed by the physician’s cold determination, and with fear at heart—for might not Filhiol know about the stolen money?—Hal moderated his defiance. This old man must be kept quiet for a few hours yet; Hal must have a few hours.

“You’re assuming too much authority for a stranger,” said Hal, sullenly. “I never knew before that a gentleman would interfere in this way.”

“Probably not, when dealingwitha gentleman,” retorted Filhiol, “but this case is different. My acquaintancewith your grandfather dates back more than half a century, and when my duty requires me to speak, no young bully like you is going to stop me. No, you needn’t double your fist, or look daggers, because I’m not in the least afraid of you, sir. And I’m not going to mince matters with you. What did you do with the captain’s five hundred dollars?”

Hal felt himself lost. He had effectually closed Ezra’s mouth, but now here stood the doctor, accusing him. One moment he had the impulse to do murder; but now that all things were in readiness for his flight, he realized violence would be a fatal error. His only hope lay in diplomacy.

“What five hundred dollars?”

“You know very well what five hundred! Come, what did you do with it?”

“Really, Dr. Filhiol, this is a most astonishing accusation!” said Hal. “Idon’t know anything about any five hundred. Is that amount gone?”

“You know very well it’s gone!”

“I know nothing of the kind! How should I?”

“You can’t fool me, young man!” exclaimed the doctor hotly. He raised his cane in menace.

“Put that stick down, sir,” said Hal in a wicked voice. “No man living can threaten me with a stick and get way with it. I tell you I don’t know anything about the money! I’ve been out of this house for some time, and you and Ezra have been here. Now you tell me there’s five hundred dollars gone. By God, if you weren’t an old man and a guest, you’d eat your words damned quick!”

“I—you—” stammered the doctor, outgeneralled.

“I’ve wasted enough time on you now!” Hal flung at him. “It’s time for you to be going.” He gripped Filhiol by the wrist with a vise-pressure that bruised. “And one thing more, you!” he growled. “You’djust better not go stirring up gramp against me, or accusing me to Ezra. It won’t be healthy for you to go accusing me of what you can’t prove, you prying gray ferret!”

“Ezra knows all about it already!” retorted the doctor, tempted to smash at that insolent, evil face with his cane.

“Knows it, does he?” Hal could not repress a start.

“Yes, he does. He’s already sworn to a falsehood to me, to save your worthless hide!”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean he’s accused himself of the theft, you scoundrel!”

“Let him, then! If the shoe fits him, let him put it on!”

“Oh, let him, eh? Yes, and let him beggar himself. Let him try to get his pitiful life-savings back into the safe in time to save you! A man who’ll stand by and let a poor old servant, more faithful than a dog, bankrupt himself to cover up a sneaking crime—a man who’ll pack up and run away—”

“I’ve had enough o’ you!” snarled Hal. He pushed the doctor out into the hall. “Ezra’s admitted it, and gramp wouldn’t believe I did it, even if he saw the money in my hand. Get out now, and if you cross my path again, look out!”

The doctor met his threat unflinchingly.

“Young man,” said he, “I sailed harder seas, in the old times, than any seas to-day. I sailed with your grandfather when he was a bucko of the old school, and though we didn’t usually agree and once I nearly shot him, I never knuckled under. Maybe the bullet that just missed cutting off your grandfather’s life is still waiting for its billet. Maybe that’s part of the curse onyou!”

His eyes were cold steel as he peered at the menacing, huge figure of Hal.

“Be careful, sir,” he added. “Be very careful how you raise your hand against a man like me!”

“If I everdoraise my hand, there’ll be no more threats of shooting left in you!” Hal flung at him. With a sudden flare of rage he pushed old Filhiol through the door and turned the lock. The doctor stumbled, dropped his cane and fetched up against the balustrade of the stairs. Ashen and trembling he clung there a moment. Then he raised his shaking fist to heaven.

“Oh, God,” he prayed, “God, give me power to stamp this viper’s head before it poisons the captain—before it poisons Laura and old Ezra—the town, the very air, the world! God, give me strength to stamp it in the dust!”

Within the room sounded the tread of Hal, going, coming as he growled to himself, packed up his things for flight.

“Aye, go!” thought the doctor. “Go, and devil take you! Go, and if there’s any curse, carry it with you to the end of the world!”

The doctor realized that nothing better than this departure could happen. The boy would undoubtedly come to his end before long in some drunken brawl. Sooner or later he would meet his match; would get killed, or would do murder and would finish on the gallows or in the chair. That over-mastering physical strength, backed by the arrogance of conscious power, could not fail to ruin him.

“The world will soon settle with you, Hal Briggs,” said he, as he made his way down-stairs. “Soon settle, and for good. It will break the captain’s heart to have you go, but it would break it worse to have you stay. This is best.”

Calmer now, he stopped a moment at the cabin door to assure himself Captain Briggs was sleeping.

“Lord!” he thought. “I hope Hal gets away before the old man wakes up. It will spare us a terrible scene—a scene that might cost the captain his life!”

His eye caught a glint of red. Oddly enough, firelight, reflected from one of the captain’s brass instruments, ticked just a tiny point of crimson on the blade of the old kris.

The doctor shuddered and passed on, failing to notice the open window in the room. He felt oppressed and stifling. Air! he must have air! He got into a coat hanging on the rack, put on his hat and limped out upon the porch.

Up and down walked Dr. Filhiol a few times, trying to shake off heavy bodings of evil. A curious little figure he made, withered, bent, but with the fires of invincible determination burning in his eyes. The time he had passed at Snug Haven had brought back his fighting spirit. Dr. Filhiol seemed quite other from the meek and inoffensive old man who had so short a time ago driven up to the captain’s gate. Even the grip of his hand on his cane was different. Hal Briggs might well look out for him now, if any turn of chance should put him into Filhiol’s power.

The doctor paused at last on the sheltered side of the porch, near the captain’s windows and away from that side of the house where Hal’s room was located. More heavily than ever the rain was sheeting down, and from the shore a long thunder told of sea charges broken against the impenetrable defenses of the rocks.

All at once the doctor saw a figure coming along the road, head down to wind and rain—a figure in a mackintosh, with a little white hat drawn down over thick hair—the figure of a woman.

Astonished that a woman should be abroad in such weather, he peered more closely. The woman came to the side gate, stopped there, and, holding her hat and flying hair with one hand, looked anxiously over the hedge at Snug Haven.

Then Dr. Filhiol recognized her.

“Laura! What the devil now?” said he.

The doctor seemed to read her thought, that she was afraid of being seen by Hal, but that she greatly desired speech of some one else. With raised hand he beckoned her; and she, perceiving him, came quickly through the gate to the porch.

Wild-tossed and disheveled she was with frightened eyes and wistful, pleading face. Filhiol’s heart yearned to her, filled with pity.

“You’re Laura, aren’t you?” asked the doctor, taking her hand and steadying her a little. “Laura Maynard? Yes? I’m Dr. Filhiol, a very old and confidential friend of the captain’s. What can I do to help you?”

“The captain!” she panted, almost spent with exertion and chill. “I’ve got to—see the captain right away!”

“My dear, that’s quite impossible,” said Filhiol, drawing her more into shelter. “He’s asleep, worn out with exertions concerning Hal. You’ve come to see him about Hal. Yes, I thought so. Well, the captain can’t be disturbed now, for any reason whatever. But you can tell me, Laura. Perhaps I may do quite as well.”

She pondered a moment, then asked with a strong effort: “Where is Hal now?”

“Up-stairs. Do you want to see him?”

“No, no, no!” she shuddered. “God forbid! But—oh, doctor, please let me see the captain, if only for a minute!”

“He’s ill, I tell you, Laura.”

“Not seriously?” she asked with sudden anxiety.

“Perhaps not yet, but we can’t take any chances.”

The girl took his hand in a trembling clasp.

“Don’t let anything happen to the captain!” she exclaimed, her rain-wet face very beautiful in its anxiety. “Oh, doctor, he’s the most wonderful old man in the world, the finest, the noblest! Nothing, nothing must happen tohim!”

“Nothing shall, if I can help it. If I can stand between him and—and—”

“And Hal?” she queried. “Yes, I understand. What a terrible curse to love a man like that!”

“The captain must soon find it so,” said Filhiol. “Every one who loves that boy has got to suffer grievously. You, too, Laura,” he added. “You must steel your heart to many things. The captain will soon need all your strength and consolation.”

“You know the bad news, too?”

“I know much bad news. But if you’ve got any more, tell me!”

“You know about the fight he had this afternoon and about his buying Gordon’s boat, theKittiwink?”

“No. Nothing about that. But I know Hal’s packing some things now to make what they call a getaway. And—”

“And you’re not going to stop him?” exclaimed the girl, clutching his arm. “You’renot?”

“Shhh, my dear!” warned Filhiol. “We mustn’t wake the captain in there! Stop Hal? No, no! Nothing better could happen than to have him go before he does murder in this town.”

“He almost did murder this afternoon! He ran into three of McLaughlin’s men down at Hadlock’s Cove, and they twitted him about apologizing to McLaughlin. Then—”

“Say no more,” interrupted the doctor, raising his hand. “I understand.”

“Yes, doctor, but the news has spread, and the rest of the crew have sworn vengeance on Hal. They’ll surely kill him, doctor!”

“God grant they may!” the doctor thought, but what he said was:

“The quicker he goes, then, the better.”

“But isn’t there any way to bring him to reason, doctor? To make him like other men? To save him?”

“I see none,” Filhiol answered. He pondered a moment while the rain-drums rolled their tattoos on the roof of the porch and the sea thundered. “The curse, the real curse on that boy, is his unbridled temper, his gorilla-like strength. His strength has unsettled his judgment and his will. Ordinary men rely on their brains, and have to be decent. Hal, with those battering-ram fists, thinks he can smash down everything, and win, like one of Nietzsche’s supermen. If something could drain him of strength, and weaken and humble him, it might be the salvation of him yet.”

“God grant it might!”

“You still love him, girl?” asked Filhiol, tenderly as a father. “In spite of everything?”

“I love the good in him, and there’s so wonderfully much!”

“I understand, my dear. Just now, the bad is all predominant. There’s nothing to do but let him go, Laura. Because—he’s determined to go, at all costs. Where, I don’t know, or how.”

“Iknow how!” exclaimed the girl. “He’s bought theKittiwinkand laid in supplies. My father’s in the boat-brokerage business, and he’s got word of it.”

“Bought it?” interrupted the doctor. “How? On credit?”

“No, cash. He paid four hundred and seventy-five dollars for it, in bills.”

“He did? By—h-m!”

“What is it, doctor? Where could Hal get all that money? Do you know?”

“I know only too well, my dear.”

“Tell me!” she exclaimed eagerly, and took him by the hand.

So absorbed were they that neither heard a slight sound from the captain’s window, like the quick intake of a breath. How could they know the old man had wakened, had heard their voices; how could they know he had arisen, and, all trembling and weak, was now standing hidden inside the window, listening to words that tore the heart clean out of him?

CHAPTER XXXVIITHE CAPTAIN SEESAnguished the captain listened. He heard Laura question:“Where did Hal get that money? Where’s he going, and what does it all mean?” Her trembling voice echoed its woe in the captain’s tortured soul.“Where Hal’s going I don’t know, Laura,” the doctor answered, “except it’s evident he’s planning to escape from here for good. He may be bound for the South Seas with some crazy, wild notion of a free-and-easy buccaneering life. Hal’s going, and it’s evident he doesn’t intend to come back. The best thing we can do is justlethim go. It seems hard, but there’s no other way. As for where he got the money—well—Why not speak plainly to you? It’s the best way now.”“Tell me, then!”Within his cabin, old Captain Briggs clutched his hands together in agony. But still he held himself that he might stand there and hear this revelation to the end.“Iwilltell you, Laura. The money—there’s only one place where it could have come from.”“The captain? He gave it to him?”“It came from the captain, but not as a gift.”“You—don’t mean—”“It’s terribly hard to speak that word, Laura, isn’t it?” pitied the old doctor. “Yet the money’s gone from the captain’s safe. Ezra accuses himself, butthat’s mere nonsense. Every finger of certainty points to Hal Briggs as a thief. And not only an ordinary thief, but one who’s taken advantage of every bond of confidence and affection, most brutally to betray the man who loves him better than life itself!”“Oh, you—you can’t meanthat—”“I’m afraid I can’t mean anything else. Hal’s up-stairs now, unless he’s already gone. He’s trying to escape before the captain wakes up.”“And you’re not going to stop him?”“Never! You mustn’t, either!”“But this will break the old man’s heart—the biggest, most loving heart in the world! This will kill him!”“Even that would be less cruel than to have Hal stay, and have him torture the old captain.”“And there’s nothing you can do? Nothing you’ll letmedo?”“There’s nothing any one can do now, but God. And God holds aloof, these days.”For a minute Laura peered up at him, letting the full import of his words sink into her dazed brain. Then, sensing the tragic inevitability of what must be, she turned, ran down the steps and along the rain-swept path.He dared not call after her, to bid her take no desperate measures, for fear of waking the captain—the captain, at that very moment shivering inside the window, transfixed by spikes of suffering that nailed him to his cross of Calvary. In silence he watched her, storm-driven like a wraith, grow dim through the rain till she vanished from his sight.Alone, Dr. Filhiol sank heavily into a wet chair. There he remained, thinking deep and terrible things that wring the heart of man.And the captain, what of him?Dazed, staggered, he groped toward the desk. From the drawer he took the slip of paper bearing the combination. With an effort that taxed all his strength he opened the safe, opened the money-compartment. His trembling fingers caught up the few remaining bills there.“God above!” he gulped.Then all at once a change, a swift metamorphosis of wrath and outraged love swept over him. He seemed to freeze into a stern, avenging figure, huge of shoulder, hard of fist. The bulk of him loomed vast, in that enfolding bathrobe like a Roman patrician’s toga, as he strode through the door and up the stairs.Silent and grim, he struck Hal’s door with his fist. The door resisted. One lunge of the shoulder, and the lock burst.Hal stood there in corduroy trousers, heavy gray reefer and oilskin hat. Two strapped suit-cases stood by the bureau. Over the floor, the bed, lay a litter of discarded clothes and papers.“What the hell!” cried the thief, clenching angry fists.“You, sir!” exclaimed old Captain Briggs, in a voice the boy had never yet heard. “Stand where you are! I have to speak with you!”Not even the effrontery of Hal’s bold eyes could quite meet that blue, piercing look. Had the old man, he wondered, a revolver? Was he minded now to kill? In that terrible and accusing face, he saw what Alpheus Briggs had been in the old, barbarous days. The brute in him recognized the dormant passions of his grandfather, now rekindling. And, though he tried to mask his soul, the fear in it spied through his glance.“You snake!” the captain flung at him. “You lying Judas!”“Go easy there!” Hal menaced. That he had beendrinking was obvious. The scent of liquor filled the room, abomination in the old man’s nostrils. “Go easy! I’m not taking any such talk from any man, even if he is my grandfather!”“You’ll take all I have to say, and you can lay to that, sir!” retorted the old man. Toward Hal he advanced, fists doubled. The boy cast about him for some weapon. Not for all his strength did he dare stand against this overpowering old man.Below, on the porch, the doctor had heard sounds of war, and had pegged into the hall at his best speed. There he met Ezra, who had just come from the cabin.“Great gulls! The safe’s open—the cap’n—knows! Hell’s loose now!” Ezra gasped.He made for the stairs. The doctor tried to clutch him back.“No use, Ezra! Too late—you can’t stop it now with all that nonsense about your being the thief!”“Let me up them stairs, damn you!”“Never! They’ve got to settle this themselves. You’ll only make things worse!”With an oath, a violent wrench, Ezra tore himself away, and scrambled up the stairs.“Cap’n Briggs! Hal!” he shouted, torn by conflicting loves. “Wait on, both o’ ye.Idone it—nobody but me—”“There now, how doesthatstrike you?” sneered Hal, respited by the shock of this self-accusation that dropped the captain’s fists. “The son-of-a-sea-cook owns up to it, himself!”“Me, me, nobody but me!” vociferated Ezra, who had now reached the room. He clawed at the captain’s arm. “Not him, cap’n!Me!”“If that’s true, Ezra, how the devil does Hal, here, know what you’re talking about, so slick?”“Ezra lent me five hundred, when it comes to that,” put in Hal, “and told me it was his savings. But I see now—he stole it, the damned, black-hearted thief! Didn’t you, Ezra?”“Sure, sure! Cap’n, you listen to me now. Hal, he never—”“Ezra,” said old Briggs, holding his rage in check, “you’re wonderful!” He laid a hand of affection on the shoulder of the trembling old man. “It’s your heart and soul that’s speaking falsehood—falsehood more white and shining than God’s truth. But I can’t take your word, given to shield this serpent we’ve been nursing in our bosom. I know all about everything now. I know why Hal robbed me.”“Like hell you do!” the boy blared out.“Yes, even the name of the very boat he’s bought with my hard-saved money. Money that was meant to help him up and on again. It’s no use your lying to me, Ezra.” He pointed a steady, accusing finger. “There’s the thief, Ezra, standing right before you—standing there for the last time he’ll ever stand under this roof of mine, so help me God!”“Cap’n, cap’n,” implored the old man sinking to his knees, hands clasped, face streaming tears. “Don’t say that! Oh, Lord, don’t, don’t say that!”“I don’t give a damnwhatthe old stiff says now,” sneered Hal, picking up his baggage. His red face was brutalized with rage and drink. “Let him go to it. He said a mouthful when he said I grabbed the coin. Sure I did—and I’m only sorry it wasn’t more. Wish I’d grabbed it all! I’d like to have cleaned the old tightwad for a decent roll, while I was at it!”“Hal! Master Hal!”The doctor, listening from below, quivered with rage, but held himself in check. What, after all, could his weak body accomplish? And as for speech, that was not needed now.“Get out o’ my way, the pair o’ you, and let me blow out o’ this namby-pamby, Sunday-school dump!” snarled Hal, shouldering forward. “I’m quitting. I told you yesterday I was sick of all this grandpa’s-darling stuff. If I can’t get out andlive, I’ll cash in my checks. College—apologies—white flannels—urrgh!”The growl in his deep chest and sinewed throat was that of a wolf. Silent, cold, unmoved now, the old captain studied him.“None o’ that for mine, thanks!” Hal threw at him with insolence supreme. “Wait till I catch McLaughlin!I’llapologize to him! Say! I’ve already apologized to three of his men, and Mac’ll get it, triple-extract. And then I’ll blow. I’ve got a classy boat that can walksome, and let ’em try to stop me, if they want to. I’m not afraid of you, or any man in this town, or in the world!”He dropped one of the suit-cases, raised his right arm and swelled the formidable biceps, glorying in the brute power of his arm, his trip-hammer fist.“Afraid? Not while I’ve got this! Go ahead and try to get me arrested, if you think fit. It’ll take more than Albert Mills to pinch me, or Squire Bean to hold me for trial—it’ll take more than any jail in this town to keepme!“Now I’ve said all I’m going to, except that I took the coin. Yes, I took it. And I’ll take more wherever I find it. Money, booze, women—I’ll take ’em all. They’re mine, if I can get ’em. That’s all. To hell with everything that stands in my way! You two get out of it now before I throw you out!”He brutally struck the kneeling old Ezra down and picked up the suit-cases. The captain quivered with the strain of holding his hand from slaughter, and stood aside. Not one word did he speak.Hal blundered out into the passageway, and, panting with rage, started to descend the stairs.Old Ezra, crawling on hands and knees, tried to follow.“Hal! Master Hal, come back! I got money!I’ll—I’ll pay!”The captain lifted him, held him with an arm of steel.“Silence, Ezra! Remember, we’re not children. We’re old deep-water sailormen, you and I. This is mutiny. The boy has chosen. It’s all over.”Ezra sank into a chair, covered his face and burst into convulsive sobs, rocking himself to and fro in the excess of his grief.Alpheus Briggs walked to the top of the stairs, and silently watched Hal descend. At the bottom, Dr. Filhiol confronted the swearing, murderous fellow. He, too, kept silence. Only he stood back a little, avoiding Hal as if the very breath of him were poison.Hal flung a sneer at him with bared teeth, and paused a moment at the door leading into the cabin. A thought came to his brain, crazed with whisky, rage and the obscure hereditary curse that lay upon him. Something seemed whispering a command to him, irrational enough, yet wholly compelling.To the fireplace Hal strode, snatched down the kris, opened one of the suit-cases, and threw the weapon in. He locked the case again, and slouched out on to the piazza, defiantly and viciously.“Might come handy, that knife, if the fists didn’t get away with the goods,” he muttered. “Take it along, anyhow!”The Airedale, hearing Hal’s step, got up and fawned against him. Hal, with an obscene oath, kicked the animal.“Getout o’ my way, you—” he growled. The dog,yelping, still cringed after him as he descended the steps. Mad with the blind passion that kills, Hal flung down his suit-cases, snatched up the dog and dashed it down on the steps with horrible force.“Damn you, don’t you touch that dog again!” shouted old Dr. Filhiol, hobbling out the door.He brandished his cane. In his pale face flamed holy rage. With a boisterous, horrible laugh, Hal snatched the cane from him, snapped it with one flirt of his huge hands, and threw the pieces into the doctor’s face.The dog, still crying out with the pain of a broken leg, tried to drag himself to Hal. Another oath, a kick, and Ruddy sprawled along the porch.“I’ve fixedyoua while, you fossil quack!” gibed Hal at the doctor. “Maybe you’ll butt in again where you’re not wanted! Lucky for you I’m in a hurry now, or I’d do a better job!”Again Hal picked up his cases, and strode down the walk, against the rain and gale. At the gate he paused, triumphant.“To hell with this place!” he cried. “To hell with the whole business and with all o’ you!”Then he passed through the gate, along the hedge, and vanished in the boisterous storm.Up in Hal’s room, old Ezra was still convulsed with senile grief. The captain, his face white and lined, had sunk down on the bed and with vacant eyes was staring at the books and papers strewn there in confusion.All at once his attention focused on a sheet of paper whereon a few words seemed vividly to stand out. He advanced a shaking hand, picked up the paper and read:The curse must be fulfilled, to the last breath, for by Shiva and the Trimurthi, what is written is written. Butif he through whom the curse descendeth on another is stricken to horror and to death, then the Almighty Vishnu, merciful, closes that page. And he who through another’s sin was accursed, is cleansed. Thus may the curse be fulfilled. But always one of two must die.Tuan Allah poonia krajah!It is the work of the Almighty One! One of two must die!Carefully the old man read the words. Once more he read them. Then, with a smile of strange comprehension and great joy, he nodded.“One of two—one of two must die!” said he. “Thank God, I understand!At last—thank God!”

THE CAPTAIN SEES

Anguished the captain listened. He heard Laura question:

“Where did Hal get that money? Where’s he going, and what does it all mean?” Her trembling voice echoed its woe in the captain’s tortured soul.

“Where Hal’s going I don’t know, Laura,” the doctor answered, “except it’s evident he’s planning to escape from here for good. He may be bound for the South Seas with some crazy, wild notion of a free-and-easy buccaneering life. Hal’s going, and it’s evident he doesn’t intend to come back. The best thing we can do is justlethim go. It seems hard, but there’s no other way. As for where he got the money—well—Why not speak plainly to you? It’s the best way now.”

“Tell me, then!”

Within his cabin, old Captain Briggs clutched his hands together in agony. But still he held himself that he might stand there and hear this revelation to the end.

“Iwilltell you, Laura. The money—there’s only one place where it could have come from.”

“The captain? He gave it to him?”

“It came from the captain, but not as a gift.”

“You—don’t mean—”

“It’s terribly hard to speak that word, Laura, isn’t it?” pitied the old doctor. “Yet the money’s gone from the captain’s safe. Ezra accuses himself, butthat’s mere nonsense. Every finger of certainty points to Hal Briggs as a thief. And not only an ordinary thief, but one who’s taken advantage of every bond of confidence and affection, most brutally to betray the man who loves him better than life itself!”

“Oh, you—you can’t meanthat—”

“I’m afraid I can’t mean anything else. Hal’s up-stairs now, unless he’s already gone. He’s trying to escape before the captain wakes up.”

“And you’re not going to stop him?”

“Never! You mustn’t, either!”

“But this will break the old man’s heart—the biggest, most loving heart in the world! This will kill him!”

“Even that would be less cruel than to have Hal stay, and have him torture the old captain.”

“And there’s nothing you can do? Nothing you’ll letmedo?”

“There’s nothing any one can do now, but God. And God holds aloof, these days.”

For a minute Laura peered up at him, letting the full import of his words sink into her dazed brain. Then, sensing the tragic inevitability of what must be, she turned, ran down the steps and along the rain-swept path.

He dared not call after her, to bid her take no desperate measures, for fear of waking the captain—the captain, at that very moment shivering inside the window, transfixed by spikes of suffering that nailed him to his cross of Calvary. In silence he watched her, storm-driven like a wraith, grow dim through the rain till she vanished from his sight.

Alone, Dr. Filhiol sank heavily into a wet chair. There he remained, thinking deep and terrible things that wring the heart of man.

And the captain, what of him?

Dazed, staggered, he groped toward the desk. From the drawer he took the slip of paper bearing the combination. With an effort that taxed all his strength he opened the safe, opened the money-compartment. His trembling fingers caught up the few remaining bills there.

“God above!” he gulped.

Then all at once a change, a swift metamorphosis of wrath and outraged love swept over him. He seemed to freeze into a stern, avenging figure, huge of shoulder, hard of fist. The bulk of him loomed vast, in that enfolding bathrobe like a Roman patrician’s toga, as he strode through the door and up the stairs.

Silent and grim, he struck Hal’s door with his fist. The door resisted. One lunge of the shoulder, and the lock burst.

Hal stood there in corduroy trousers, heavy gray reefer and oilskin hat. Two strapped suit-cases stood by the bureau. Over the floor, the bed, lay a litter of discarded clothes and papers.

“What the hell!” cried the thief, clenching angry fists.

“You, sir!” exclaimed old Captain Briggs, in a voice the boy had never yet heard. “Stand where you are! I have to speak with you!”

Not even the effrontery of Hal’s bold eyes could quite meet that blue, piercing look. Had the old man, he wondered, a revolver? Was he minded now to kill? In that terrible and accusing face, he saw what Alpheus Briggs had been in the old, barbarous days. The brute in him recognized the dormant passions of his grandfather, now rekindling. And, though he tried to mask his soul, the fear in it spied through his glance.

“You snake!” the captain flung at him. “You lying Judas!”

“Go easy there!” Hal menaced. That he had beendrinking was obvious. The scent of liquor filled the room, abomination in the old man’s nostrils. “Go easy! I’m not taking any such talk from any man, even if he is my grandfather!”

“You’ll take all I have to say, and you can lay to that, sir!” retorted the old man. Toward Hal he advanced, fists doubled. The boy cast about him for some weapon. Not for all his strength did he dare stand against this overpowering old man.

Below, on the porch, the doctor had heard sounds of war, and had pegged into the hall at his best speed. There he met Ezra, who had just come from the cabin.

“Great gulls! The safe’s open—the cap’n—knows! Hell’s loose now!” Ezra gasped.

He made for the stairs. The doctor tried to clutch him back.

“No use, Ezra! Too late—you can’t stop it now with all that nonsense about your being the thief!”

“Let me up them stairs, damn you!”

“Never! They’ve got to settle this themselves. You’ll only make things worse!”

With an oath, a violent wrench, Ezra tore himself away, and scrambled up the stairs.

“Cap’n Briggs! Hal!” he shouted, torn by conflicting loves. “Wait on, both o’ ye.Idone it—nobody but me—”

“There now, how doesthatstrike you?” sneered Hal, respited by the shock of this self-accusation that dropped the captain’s fists. “The son-of-a-sea-cook owns up to it, himself!”

“Me, me, nobody but me!” vociferated Ezra, who had now reached the room. He clawed at the captain’s arm. “Not him, cap’n!Me!”

“If that’s true, Ezra, how the devil does Hal, here, know what you’re talking about, so slick?”

“Ezra lent me five hundred, when it comes to that,” put in Hal, “and told me it was his savings. But I see now—he stole it, the damned, black-hearted thief! Didn’t you, Ezra?”

“Sure, sure! Cap’n, you listen to me now. Hal, he never—”

“Ezra,” said old Briggs, holding his rage in check, “you’re wonderful!” He laid a hand of affection on the shoulder of the trembling old man. “It’s your heart and soul that’s speaking falsehood—falsehood more white and shining than God’s truth. But I can’t take your word, given to shield this serpent we’ve been nursing in our bosom. I know all about everything now. I know why Hal robbed me.”

“Like hell you do!” the boy blared out.

“Yes, even the name of the very boat he’s bought with my hard-saved money. Money that was meant to help him up and on again. It’s no use your lying to me, Ezra.” He pointed a steady, accusing finger. “There’s the thief, Ezra, standing right before you—standing there for the last time he’ll ever stand under this roof of mine, so help me God!”

“Cap’n, cap’n,” implored the old man sinking to his knees, hands clasped, face streaming tears. “Don’t say that! Oh, Lord, don’t, don’t say that!”

“I don’t give a damnwhatthe old stiff says now,” sneered Hal, picking up his baggage. His red face was brutalized with rage and drink. “Let him go to it. He said a mouthful when he said I grabbed the coin. Sure I did—and I’m only sorry it wasn’t more. Wish I’d grabbed it all! I’d like to have cleaned the old tightwad for a decent roll, while I was at it!”

“Hal! Master Hal!”

The doctor, listening from below, quivered with rage, but held himself in check. What, after all, could his weak body accomplish? And as for speech, that was not needed now.

“Get out o’ my way, the pair o’ you, and let me blow out o’ this namby-pamby, Sunday-school dump!” snarled Hal, shouldering forward. “I’m quitting. I told you yesterday I was sick of all this grandpa’s-darling stuff. If I can’t get out andlive, I’ll cash in my checks. College—apologies—white flannels—urrgh!”

The growl in his deep chest and sinewed throat was that of a wolf. Silent, cold, unmoved now, the old captain studied him.

“None o’ that for mine, thanks!” Hal threw at him with insolence supreme. “Wait till I catch McLaughlin!I’llapologize to him! Say! I’ve already apologized to three of his men, and Mac’ll get it, triple-extract. And then I’ll blow. I’ve got a classy boat that can walksome, and let ’em try to stop me, if they want to. I’m not afraid of you, or any man in this town, or in the world!”

He dropped one of the suit-cases, raised his right arm and swelled the formidable biceps, glorying in the brute power of his arm, his trip-hammer fist.

“Afraid? Not while I’ve got this! Go ahead and try to get me arrested, if you think fit. It’ll take more than Albert Mills to pinch me, or Squire Bean to hold me for trial—it’ll take more than any jail in this town to keepme!

“Now I’ve said all I’m going to, except that I took the coin. Yes, I took it. And I’ll take more wherever I find it. Money, booze, women—I’ll take ’em all. They’re mine, if I can get ’em. That’s all. To hell with everything that stands in my way! You two get out of it now before I throw you out!”

He brutally struck the kneeling old Ezra down and picked up the suit-cases. The captain quivered with the strain of holding his hand from slaughter, and stood aside. Not one word did he speak.

Hal blundered out into the passageway, and, panting with rage, started to descend the stairs.

Old Ezra, crawling on hands and knees, tried to follow.

“Hal! Master Hal, come back! I got money!I’ll—I’ll pay!”

The captain lifted him, held him with an arm of steel.

“Silence, Ezra! Remember, we’re not children. We’re old deep-water sailormen, you and I. This is mutiny. The boy has chosen. It’s all over.”

Ezra sank into a chair, covered his face and burst into convulsive sobs, rocking himself to and fro in the excess of his grief.

Alpheus Briggs walked to the top of the stairs, and silently watched Hal descend. At the bottom, Dr. Filhiol confronted the swearing, murderous fellow. He, too, kept silence. Only he stood back a little, avoiding Hal as if the very breath of him were poison.

Hal flung a sneer at him with bared teeth, and paused a moment at the door leading into the cabin. A thought came to his brain, crazed with whisky, rage and the obscure hereditary curse that lay upon him. Something seemed whispering a command to him, irrational enough, yet wholly compelling.

To the fireplace Hal strode, snatched down the kris, opened one of the suit-cases, and threw the weapon in. He locked the case again, and slouched out on to the piazza, defiantly and viciously.

“Might come handy, that knife, if the fists didn’t get away with the goods,” he muttered. “Take it along, anyhow!”

The Airedale, hearing Hal’s step, got up and fawned against him. Hal, with an obscene oath, kicked the animal.

“Getout o’ my way, you—” he growled. The dog,yelping, still cringed after him as he descended the steps. Mad with the blind passion that kills, Hal flung down his suit-cases, snatched up the dog and dashed it down on the steps with horrible force.

“Damn you, don’t you touch that dog again!” shouted old Dr. Filhiol, hobbling out the door.

He brandished his cane. In his pale face flamed holy rage. With a boisterous, horrible laugh, Hal snatched the cane from him, snapped it with one flirt of his huge hands, and threw the pieces into the doctor’s face.

The dog, still crying out with the pain of a broken leg, tried to drag himself to Hal. Another oath, a kick, and Ruddy sprawled along the porch.

“I’ve fixedyoua while, you fossil quack!” gibed Hal at the doctor. “Maybe you’ll butt in again where you’re not wanted! Lucky for you I’m in a hurry now, or I’d do a better job!”

Again Hal picked up his cases, and strode down the walk, against the rain and gale. At the gate he paused, triumphant.

“To hell with this place!” he cried. “To hell with the whole business and with all o’ you!”

Then he passed through the gate, along the hedge, and vanished in the boisterous storm.

Up in Hal’s room, old Ezra was still convulsed with senile grief. The captain, his face white and lined, had sunk down on the bed and with vacant eyes was staring at the books and papers strewn there in confusion.

All at once his attention focused on a sheet of paper whereon a few words seemed vividly to stand out. He advanced a shaking hand, picked up the paper and read:

The curse must be fulfilled, to the last breath, for by Shiva and the Trimurthi, what is written is written. Butif he through whom the curse descendeth on another is stricken to horror and to death, then the Almighty Vishnu, merciful, closes that page. And he who through another’s sin was accursed, is cleansed. Thus may the curse be fulfilled. But always one of two must die.Tuan Allah poonia krajah!It is the work of the Almighty One! One of two must die!

Carefully the old man read the words. Once more he read them. Then, with a smile of strange comprehension and great joy, he nodded.

“One of two—one of two must die!” said he. “Thank God, I understand!At last—thank God!”

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