I turned in on a cot which I had had brought in. Hours after I heard him groan. I switched on the light and went to him. He was lying on his side with his head on one arm. His hands were clinched.
After a moment he said: "She is in trouble somewhere." That was another one of the things he believed in—telepathy.
He may or may not have had it right; but it certainly wasn't going to do him any good to let him lie there and be torturing himself. "Sh-h—go to sleep, son. Don't imagine things. You'll find everything will be all right to-morrow," I said.
"No," he said, "everything will never be all right while he's alive and I'm alive."
That didn't sound good to me, so I sat down by the bed and began to talk to him. We talked, I doing the most of it, until past daylight. We talked of her. "She's all right," he said at last, "I tell you she is. Even if she didn't like me and did him, it would be only natural. But she likes me—the best of her likes me better than him, and when she gets to know him all of her will like me. You'll see."
There were people who used to say Drislanewas so innocent as to be a joke; but after that talk into that wintry dawn I had to salute him. He had just a little something on all of us who were so much more worldly-wise. It surely was a great gift he had—to see in every woman only the shining soul.
No man could say where the word came from, no man could say that he had seen her himself; but the word was out that Oliver Sickles had boarded his vessel in the early morning with the red-haired girl of the Tidewater Café in tow.
Nobody on theSiriusever intended to pass the word to Drislane, but no crew of a vessel can be whispering for hours without the one man they don't discuss the mysterious matter with wanting to guess what it is they are trying to keep from him. Drislane guessed.
I had brought him to theSiriusin a carriage just before she sailed. Captain Norman had told him to keep to his bunk until theSiriustied up to the dock in Boston if he wished, but Drislane did not wish. He came on deck, still bandaged and battered, on the first morning out, to stand his watch. A word blown across the deck, when he was thought to be still in his bunk below,halted him in his walk aft. He turned and stared at the man who was speaking, whereupon followed such a sudden and foolish twist to the conversation that he might just as well have been told.
Throughout his trick at the wheel Drislane said nothing, but every moment the compass could spare his eyes saw them roaming across to where theOrion, like ourselves, was plugging through the short green seas for home. When his watch was done he borrowed my glasses, climbed by painful relays to the masthead and trained them on theOrion. After he came down and had gone below, I went aloft and spent the rest of the morning trying to see what it was that Drislane may have seen on the deck of Oliver Sickles's vessel.
Was it a woman's head showing above the cabin companionway? or was it a man passenger Oliver Sickles had taken aboard at the last minute? If a man, he surely was no seagoer; for in the two hours that I watched he never once stepped out on deck. He leaned dejectedly, or it might be patiently, but, either way, motionless as a stanchion against the companion casing, his soft flapping hat and the shoulders of a loose coat showing just above the woodwork. Man or woman, the face was pointed steadily toward theSirius.
Our captain said it was a passenger of some kind.It had to be, he said, because during the morning he had kept an eye on theOrion'sdeck and accounted for every man of her crew, which numbered exactly the same as his own; even for the cook, who had shown himself on deck to heave a bucket of galley refuse over the rail. It could not be an extra hand shipped for the trip, because no hand would be allowed to stand on the cabin stairs.
And did he think it was a man or a woman? The shoulders in the loose coat looked wide enough to be a man's. And I looked at him and he at me. So was Drislane's Rose big enough for a man, but we said no more of that then—Drislane had just come on deck and was making his way aft. Again he borrowed my glasses, went aloft, and trained them on theOrion. From time to time he looked down to the man at the wheel, as if to hint to him to get a little nearer theOrion, but the man at the wheel had already got a quiet word from the captain. We were to leeward. "Keep off—keep off—off—off—!" Captain Norman was saying in a low voice to the helmsman. "Don't let her get any nearer, leastwise while he's aloft with the glasses."
It looked as if we would have to wait to get to Boston to settle the question. Meantime, if Drislane would only try to forget everything ofshore matters, he might be getting great comfort of a run like this. If he were himself, he would by now, being half in the way of a poet and half hoping some day to be an artist, be drawing little water-colors and writing little rhymes of these two big schooners racing home together.
'Twould have been well worth his paint and paper. TheOrionand theSiriuswere two of the best in their class and more trimly modelled than most. What theOrionlooked like we must have looked like, and she was something I used to spend whole watches on deck just looking at. She carried an open rail amidships, and her white-painted stanchions, carved to hour-glass form, with the white-painted flat hand-rail atop, stood clearly, sharply, beautifully out above her black lower sides and the pale-green seas.
Not that either of us had much lower planking to show, for four thousand five hundred tons of coal had brought us pretty well down to our scuppers. Too deep-loaded for our best looks, some would say; but I don't know—with all her jibs and all whole sail to her five lower spars, we must have looked pretty good, the pair of us, plugging along together through the curling rollers. We had set no topsails or staysails, because they would not have stayed on, blowing as it was a good half-gale.
The Orion proved to us that she was fasterThe Orion proved to us that she was faster off the wind than we were by rounding Cape Cod before us.
It could have been blowing twice a gale and nothing happened to either of us. Probably no stiffer class of vessels sails the seas than the big coasters of our side of the North Atlantic. Give them plenty of ballast and there is no capsizing them. We surely had plenty of ballast in us now, and took cheerfully all the hard westerly had to give us, and foamed along. Foamed? We wallowed—like a couple of sailing submarines almost. In that wind and sea, with all that loose water sloshing around her deck, there was no careless standing around of course; but with rubber boots to your hips, a good oil-slicker to your back, and yourself lashed to something solid up to wind'ard, it was a great place for a man to let the wind blow away three months of coal-dust from his eyelids; and what the wind couldn't blow away the sea would surely wash out.
That loose water flopping around her deck—that was no harm. "Tarpaulin her hatches, clamp 'em down, and let her roll!"—that had been Captain Norman's word coming out of Hampton Roads. And "Batten her down and let her plug into it!" had come roaring across to us at almost the same moment from the deck of theOrion. And no more than into the open Atlantic than we were plugging into it. The sea came mounting up over our low lee-rails—up, up our swash-swept decks,clear across us sometimes, when for a moment a doubtful helmsman would let her ship an extra cargo. But, again, no harm in that. Let 'em slosh and let 'em roll—we were standing up, the pair of us, like two brick houses. And the rest didn't matter. And so almost forgetting Drislane's trouble in the strain of the race, we batted our way through the winter seas on which the sun was dancing—batted and slatted, plugged and slugged our way beside theOrionfor the New England coast.
Two vessels may be built alike and rigged alike, but that doesn't mean they will sail alike. TheOrion, in the judgment of seafaring folk, was a shade faster reaching and running than theSirius. At any rate, theOrionproved to us that she was faster off the wind than we were by rounding Cape Cod before us. To there it had been a good passage. No collier loaded to her scuppers is ever going to break any sailing records, but hard driving had brought the pair of us along at a good clip. So far, fine; but it was to be a beat to windward for the rest of the way. West-north-west is the course from Cape Cod to Boston, and west-north-west was where the wind was coming from when it hit us on the nose as we rounded the Cape.
TheOrionmight outrun us, theSirius, but towindward there was no difference except in their masters; and there we had the best of it. Norman Sickles could get more out of a vessel than his cousin when the going was bad. Oliver used to claw around deck like a sore-headed bear, and every now and then go below and have a drink for himself when things weren't breaking right. Norman took things more quietly, and so taking them wasn't too busy to grab every little chance that bobbed up.
TheOrionstood off on one tack, we on the other, and by and by we lost her below the horizon; but standing in, after some hours found her again; and finding her, were pleased to see that we had made up something on her. We filled away once more, and by and by stood back to her. We were making distance fast. Had we held on we would have crossed her wake almost under her stern on that tack. On our next tack we would be crossing her bow, and it would then be on past the lightship in the lead, and the race over; for neither of us was going to tack up the channel, deep-loaded, against a tide which would soon be ebbing. Up at the harbor entrance two tugs had already seen that and were racing out to pick us up.
To more quickly get in tow of the tug nearest us, which was coming hooked up for us, our captainput theSiriusabout earlier than he had originally intended. As we tacked, so did theOrion. We stood in toward the harbor. TheOrionstood in toward the harbor. We were surely going to pass close to each other—very close. Altogether too close.
I didn't like the looks of things. Being a passenger, I had a mind free for other things than navigation. "In case of doubt who gives way—theOrionor theSirius?" I asked Captain Norman. "Why, she does," he said, surprised. "It has to be her—not us. Both of us close-hauled, but we being starboard tack have the right of way. He'll have to come about and give us the road."
"But suppose, captain, he will not give way?"
"What! not give way! That'd be foolish. He c'n go bulling his way on shore all he pleases, but out here he'll only get what's due him. He'll have to give way."
So Norman Sickles said, but he wasn't the man to lose his vessel or risk men's lives. TheOrionwas holding on. She was going to force us. When Norman Sickles saw that, he motioned with his arm for the man at our wheel to keep off. But theSiriuswasn't keeping off. Norman Sickles turned and yelled: "Keep her off—off—off, I say!" starting aft, at the same time, to take the wheel himself.
He was too late. They seemed drawn together. We took a shoot. TheOriontook a shoot. "Damned if she didn't get away from him!" I remember hearing one of our fellows jerk out, but I remember also I was left wondering whether he meant our vessel or theOrion.
They rushed together and g-g-h-h! Talk of a smash! Forty-five hundred tons of coal, nine-tenths of it below the water-line, and a breeze of wind! Either one would have sunk a battle-ship. It shook the spars out of theOrion. Her after-mast came down, the next one came down, the others were swaying. "The boat—the boat!" her crew yelled, but taking another look up at those wabbling masts, they waited to launch no boat. With few words but much action, they went over her side, one after the other, and began to claw out for theSirius, on which—she was sinking too—our crew had a big quarter-boat ready to launch.
While the two vessels were still locked in collision I had seen Drislane come running from aft and leap into theOrion. I lost sight of him then, because with our captain I had jumped below into our cabin, he to save his ship's papers and I to save my firm's. We were on deck in time to get into our boat, and help pick up the crew of theOrionin the water.
Looking for Drislane then, I saw him and Captain Oliver Sickles at each other's throats in the stern of theOrion. There wasn't much left of her above water then. And on her deck it was a mess of fallen spars, with her foremast the only stick left, and that—unsupported by backstays and the wind still pressing against the big sail—that was wabbling. Even as we looked it came down—lower and top parts—with a smash which snapped the topmast off and sent it twisting and gyrating to where, after a bound or two, it rolled down and pinned to the deck the two battling men in the stern. With it came a tangled mess of halyards and stays.
We had picked up all of theOrion'screw from the water and were now hurrying to get to the two men on theOrion, which was fast settling, when a red-haired girl came running from the cabin companionway. Almost as if she had been waiting in ambush, she rushed over to the fallen spar, untangled the halyards from the legs of one of the furthest men, and after an effort lifted the end of the spar so that he could scramble free. She needed to be strong to do that; but she was strong. If she had held the spar up only an instant longer, the other man might have wiggled free too. But she let it drop back. The man she had freed she picked up and carried to the quarter-rail,where she waited for us in the boat. He made an effort as if to get back to the man left under the spar, but she would not let him. "Tain't no crime, Honey," I heard her say as we got to them. She went overboard as she said it, and we had to hurry to get her. "I know him a heap better than you-all, Honey—let him rest where he done fall to."
She couldn't swim, but we got them in time. She didn't mind us in the least. "He done tol' me, Honey, you was dyin' abo'd yo' ship 'n' o' coase I goes on down to see. It sure did look like yo' own ship, Honey"—she was saying to him before we had them both fairly in the boat. It was Drislane she had, his head cuddled on her knees till the tug came and got us.
We weren't in time to get to the man she had left behind. The last we saw of him was his head sticking out like a turtle's from under the fallen spar as theOrionwent under.
We were all in Boston by Christmas Eve; that is, all of course but Oliver Sickles—and nobody gibed at his memory for that. He had his good reason.
The tug rushed the two crews up the harbor to our dock, where I left them while I went to get carriages and warm clothes and so on.When I came back Drislane and his Rose were gone and no word behind them. But the day after Christmas he came to the office early to get his semiannual check and cash it. I wasn't there, but he left word for me that he and Rose were married, and he was going to take my advice and go home to his people. The office force said that with him was a girl of glorious Titian hair and super-physique, who smiled wonderfully on him.
Captain Norman married the girl he should have married in the first place. And so all the good people came happy out of it; all except our firm. Nine thousand tons at two dollars per ton—there was eighteen thousand dollars' worth of freights that we never collected.
So there's theOrionandSiriusthing, only, in telling it at the Sailor's Haven the other night, our old stevedore didn't say anything of Rose's part in it. He probably didn't see what that had to do with it. However, he said enough to convince the lecturer, who was a pretty fair-minded kind, that perhaps he would have to reconstruct his views about sailors' superstitions.
And perhaps there is something in it; but it's a poor case won't stand hearing both sides of the evidence. "Hoodoo ships!" It's a fascinating phrase, but—Oliver Sickles it was who held the wheel of theOrion, and it was Drislane to the wheel of theSirius, when they came together.
It was DrislaneIt was Drislane she had, his head cuddled on her knees till the tug came and got us.
It was a gloomy house, set in the shadow of a rocky bluff, and made more gloomy within by the close-drawn curtains. Since the news had come of the loss of John Lowe's son, no man in all Placentia Bay could say he had seen those curtains raised; and, so ran the gossip, John Lowe being what John Lowe was, a long time again before those curtains would be raised.
John Lowe sat reading his black-typed, double-columned page by the table, and over by the stove John Lowe's second wife sat rocking herself.
John Lowe's daughter came in, removed her shawl, and took a chair on the other side of the stove. Her stepmother spoke a word; but no word of greeting did her father offer until his chapter was finished, and then he no more than half turned, while his harsh voice asked: "Has he come into the bay yet?"
"He has. Tim Lacy, that shipped wi' him out o' here, was to Shepperd's to-day—and he'll be to Shepperd's to-night, Tim says."
"Tim Lacy. Another o' his kin. And what would be bringin' him to Shepperd's to-night?"
"It will be a dance to-night."
"Oh, the dancin'! No fear but you'll know o' the dancin'. An' he'll be there, the drinkin', murderin'——"
"It's no' right, father, to be speakin' like that o' a man you never set eyes on."
"An' how come it you know him, girl? Where was it you had truck wi' him? Where?"
"I never had truck wi' him. But I see him. Who could help seein' him—he was in an' out o' Shepperd's his last time in."
"Well, take care you see him no more. An'—" A step outside the door caused John Lowe to pause.
"Ah-h—" John Lowe almost smiled.
His wife glanced at the clock. "It will be the trader," she explained.
"Aye, an' now we'll ha' the news—now we'll ha' the news."
A knock followed the step, and, following the knock, the door opened and in stepped the expected trader. No wild daredevil, no sail carrier this, but a smooth, passionless man of business. And he got right down to business.
"By dawn, John Lowe, there'll be two hundred men of the bay drawn up on Half-Tide Beach.And an hour later theLigonierand all's in her will be lyin' on the bottom of the bay—or so"—he glanced doubtfully at the girl—"or so we planned it. Will you be there, John Lowe?"
"He'll no' be there, Mr. Lackford." Mrs. Lowe half rose from her chair.
John Lowe glared at her. "And since when is it for you to say I'll not be there?"
"I'm your lawful wife, John Lowe. And who is this man would tell you what to do? You read your Bible night and morn, John Lowe, and you tell me and you tell Bess we should read it, too, and all the bay knows it. An' how can you preach to us as you do an' join in this deed? 'Righteous shall be all my days,' say you, an' you think o' joinin' a band that will sink an' destroy—yes, an' mayhap kill in the morning. This American has as much right to what herrin' his men can ketch as anybody else."
John Lowe turned to the trader. "She's right, Mr. Lackford, she's right."
"You'll not be with us?"
"I can't."
"After all you said! Well, there will be enough without you." He was still addressing John Lowe, but it was on the woman his eyes were bent. "Only let me carry back the word you'll not be against us."
"No, no—I'll not be against you."
"That's enough. Good night."
"Good night."
The door closed. They listened to the crunching of the trader's boot-heels on the pebbly beach outside.
"They'll be killing, mayhaps, in the morning, and it's well for you to be clear of it, John Lowe."
"But he lost my son."
"It was a natural death for a fisherman, John Lowe, to be lost that way."
"But what reason to love him for it?"
"What reason ha' ye to hate him till you know more of him?"
Silence reigned again in the kitchen; silence until John Lowe set aside his book and made for the stairs. With his foot on the bottom step he paused and sighed. "Even after three months it's no' easy to bear. But you're right, wife, it's no' right what some of them be up to."
"No, it's no' right. An' he's not the man Lackford an' the others would ha' you believe, John."
He looked long at his wife. "No? No doubt no—but no stop to it now. If there was a way to slip a word and not be known for it; but there's no way. Come to bed, woman. But"—the girl was standing up—"where be you off to?"
The girl looked to her stepmother; and the stepmother answered for her.
"It's o'er-early for bed yet—she's goin' for an hour to Shepperd's, John. Go on, Bess, but don't stay too long."
The girl snatched her shawl and hurried out.
"And is't so you manage her, woman?"
"Let be, man, let be. She's no child to be managed—your way o' managin'. Why shouldn't she have her little pleasure? What's one here for? Prayers an' psalms, prayers an' psalms——"
"An' do you rail against the prayin'?"
"Not me. Prayin's for good, no doubt; but all of us hasn't the sin so black that it needs prayin' night an' day to burn it out."
He glared at her. "An' you're waitin' up for her?"
"I am."
"Some night you'll wait o'er-long, woman."
"No, no. She's young, is Bess, and a bit soft. But no bad—no, no, no bad in Bess. She's all we ha' left now, John—lay a light hand to her."
Up to old man Shepperd's the dance was on, and Bess Lowe was there; and not long before the American captain blew through the door;and no dreary passage of time before he spied Bess.
"Why, Bess, God bless you, how are you? And you ain't forgot? And do I get a dance this evenin' or no? Tell me, do I, now? Ay, that's you—hard-hearted as ever. Eyes to light a vessel to port, but never a soft look in 'em."
"My eyes, Captain Leary?"
"Ay, your eyes, Bess. Eyes, Bess, that the likes of never looked across the bay before—eyes that flash out from the dark like twin shore-lights when a man's been weeks to sea."
"Oh, Captain Leary!" breathed Bess; and presently took to sighing, and from sighing to smiling, and all at once burst out into such laughter that the whole company took notice; whereat a huge, surly man in a corner went into the back room.
"Gi' me one drink and I'll smash him into bits," the big man said to Lackford, the trader, who was standing guard in the back room over the little jug which Shepperd kept handy for his guests.
"What, now? No. Not now, please, not now. There'll be plenty of chances for fighting in the morning. The crowd is only waiting for daylight to make a move. They want you. Come on now, do, and get a good night's sleep so's to be feeling good in the morning. Come on now. Andyou'll have two hundred men at your back in the morning, remember; and remember, too, that after you've put the American out of the way all the girls in the bay'll fall to your hand."
The big man was diverted, and passed out with Lackford, meantime that Leary, with an arm half around the girl's waist, was pleading: "The next dance for me, hah, Bess?"
"Ay, captain—who could deny you?" and they went at it.
'Twas a shuffling across the floor, a whirling of buxom partners by husky men, who never omitted to mark the measure with the thump of boot-heels that jumped the dust from cellar to roof. Shouting, stamping, joking, smiling, with quick breathing—such joy entirely it was, with Tim Lacy, oilskinned and jack-booted, leading the swing across the floor. Yes, and back again, although on him, even as on Leary, old Shepperd looked with disapproving eye.
"A wonder, Tim Lacy, you wouldn't leave your gear on your vessel," he snorted.
"Sure, an' I'm on my way to the vessel now, an' she'll be leavin' the bay for the States in the mornin'."
"You think she will," amended Shepperd, from behind the musician, who was his own strong-lunged daughter Sue.
On a chair atop of a fish-box in one corner wasbalanced Sue, a native genius, who puffed most industriously into a musical instrument made of a sheet of tissue-paper wrapped around a fine-tooth comb.
Tim Lacy, though he never let on, caught the sly remark. Less guileless than he looked was Lacy, a little man, forever lighting his pipe. He struck another match now, and between puffs delivered a belated message. So many years senior was Lacy to his skipper that he used to talk to him like a father.
"You know, as you said yourself, we was to hurry, Sammie—and do come now, Sammie"—puff—"and hurry on"—puff—"to Half-Tide Beach"—puff—"and there we'll take the dory for the vessel. Ah-h, there she's goin'. No, drat her, she's out again! Hurry on, boy. We oughtn't be standin' here all night. The crew'll be waitin' for us wi' the vessel at Caplin Cove. A special word they left for you, Sammie. They says if you was here"—here Tim stepped close and whispered—"as how I was to tell you they're feared for trouble."
He peered over the flame of the last-lit match at his skipper.
"'Tell him, Tim,' they says to me, 'that if we're to get the last o' the herrin' aboard that they're afeard it'll have to be an early start.' I misdoubt"—puff—"they have a notion of howthere was goin' to be trouble. So come on; do, boy."
"One more, Tim; one more dance before we break up. A crime to go out on a cold night like this and not have a farewell dance. Come on, Bess; what d'y' say? There's the girl!"
Tim was gone, but back and forth Sam and Bess sidled and stamped, and many another minute passed with Sam still whirling his able-bodied partner, pacing her across and back again, lifting her off her feet, and swinging her—one, two, three full circles off the floor. And Sam was the boy could do it, a hundred and seventy pounds though she weighed, and continued to whirl her after the last dance till they were out of the room and into the shadows of the porch, where he snatched her up and kissed her fair.
The girl's heart leaped out to him. Did ever such a man make landing in the bay before? And surely he must think the world of her? Tenderness for him overwhelmed her; and out under the stars she whispered the words of warning in his ear.
"What's it, Bess? You're not foolin'? The trader to the head of them?"
"Ay, an' they'll be at Half-Tide Beach afore the sun rises——"
"D'y' mean, Bessie, d'y' mean——"
"I mean all that's bad they'll do to you, Sammie. I heard 'em my own self. 'What righthas this American to come here and take the herrin' from our very doors? What right?' That's the way the trader talked to 'em in the back room afore you came in. 'In the old days I've seen men beat to death on the beach for less,' I heard 'em through the bulkhead. 'Ay, an' their vessels run up on the rocks somewhere,' he goes on. An' it's you, Sammie, they has in mind."
"And the crew to Caplin Cove, an' only me and Tim to stand by the vessel. The vessel and her full hold. But who'll get the word to them? If only there was some one, some one we could trust, Bess!"
"There is one that could do that, too, boy."
"Who? What! Yourself, Bess? Could you make where they are—Caplin Cove—alone, and by night—and tell 'em what's in the wind, so they'll be aboard in time, while I go and hurry after Tim Lacy to the vessel at Half-Tide Harbor? Could a woman like a man well enough to do that?"
"Well, women likes men sometimes, Sammie."
"God bless you, Bess, of course. And sometimes, too, a man likes—But, Bess!" She lay swaying in the hollow of his arm. "Bessie!"—and oh, the nearness of him! "I don't want to fool you, girl—wewascarryin' sail the night your brother Simon was lost. A livin' gale, and she buttin' into it with a whole mains'l—you won't hold that agin' me?"
"How could I, Sammie? A man that's a man at all is bound to carry sail at times. And fishermen, sail-carryin' or no sail-carryin', they comes and goes."
"Ay, girl, and sometimes goes quicker than they comes. Oh, Bess, the fine men I've been shipmates with! And now 'twould take a chart of all the banks 'tween Hatteras and Greenland to find out where the bones of the half of 'em lie."
"But do go now, Sammie." She snuggled closer to him. "Have a care now, for I'm lovin' you now, Sammie."
"Ay, you are. And I'm lovin' you, Bess. But your father, Bess; he'll put you out."
"Well, if he do——"
"If he do, Bess, you know who'll be waitin' for you."
"Ay, I do. An' I'll come to you, too, no fear, boy. But no matter about John Lowe now, boy, so you won't forget me, Sammie."
"Never a forget, Bessie."
"Then hold me again, Sammie, afore we part. And don't forget—never a man afore did I like like I likes you, Sammie."
And Bess had gone and delivered her message to Leary's crew at Caplin Cove. "Be all hands aboard afore dawn and have her ready to sail," wasBessie's message, and with that put off for home in her father's little sloop. There had been stars on her run over, bright, cheerful stars that made you overlook the frost in the air, but no stars now. But that was the way of the weather in the bay.
In the lee of Shingle Spit it was calm enough, and so, for all the boom of the sea outside, Bess had time for revery. A gran' figur' of a man, Sammie Leary. Strong he was. Ay, strong. An' not stern. Lord knows, there was enough of that to home. No, no, saft-like same as Sammie—that was the kind for a woman to love.
And Sammie now. Out under the shadow of the porch he had said: "You're the lass for me." Ay, he did. But so many talked like that and meant naught by it, but took your kiss and your heart wi' the kiss and sailed away, and you never again see 'em, mayhap. There was Jessie Mann, and—Oh, no matter them. Sammie was none o' their kind o' men. An' yet—there were those who said that one like Sammie never made a good husband. Sailed wi' too free a sheet, he did. An' yet, did ever a vessel get anywhere without a free sheet at times?
And, thinking of a free sheet, Bess gave the little sloop a foot or two more of main-sheet. And there she was going through the water faster for it. And she would need to go fast through thewater if so be she was to get home this night. And if she didn't get home—but 'twas o'er-early to worry about what her father would say.
But was it all so true about a free sheet? Was it no' true that, holdin' a vessel's nose to the wind, she'd sail her course wi' never a foot o' leeway? 'Twas so her father maintained. Always safest to be on the straight course, her father held. True enough, but wi' the wind ahead, what headway? None at all—while, if you let them run off a bit, when they did come back on the course they was farther on the road, arter all. Ay, so it was. And Sammie? What did the poor boy ever know of a home or a lovin' heart to guide him! Oh, ay, women should make allowances for men like Sammie. 'Twas the good heart in him.
Out beyond the end of the spit the little boat began to feel the pressure of the wind and the thump of the sea. She jumped so because there wasn't much ballast in her. An' there was the matter o' ballast now. A gran' thing in a vessel, a bit o' ballast—like religion in a body. Not all religion, like her father, for then 'twas like a vessel loaded down wi' ballast—took a gale o' wind to stir her, and a vessel o' that kind was no mortal use whatever—except mayhap for a lightship or something o' that kind.
The sea by now was coming inboard regularly,and Bess knew she should be carrying less sail; but it would mean a lot of time to reef the mainsail, and if she was to get on there was small time for reefing, 'specially as the wind was hauling to the east. A beat home now, as Captain Leary warned her, 'twould be. Surely she would never be home by daylight now. And colder now it was. Ay, it was. She drew the tarpaulin over her knees, and that helped to keep off the spray which, as it splashed up from her bows, was carried aft in sheets before every squall.
And those squalls were frequent. And little pellets of hail were thickening the air. And over the tarpaulin that covered her the ice was making. Sailin' by the wind, 'tis terrible cold. She was becoming drowsy—hard work to keep from falling asleep. Good enough for her—ay, good enough, her father would say—dancin' half the night and carryin' messages to strangers the other half.
The air softened and that was some relief; but in place of the awful cold—and still cold enough—was now the snow. And in that snow-storm, with the wind continually veering, she knew at last she must have run off her course; for the sound of the surf beating against the rocks came to her.
And what would that be? What now? Ay, Shark's Fin Ledge it must be. She must ha'sailed wi' too free a sheet, arter all. Ay, she must ha'. Time to come about now. But not so much sail on! Well, sail or no sail, it was time to come about. About she was comin'—ay—she was—no!—ay——
Over came the boom, and then high it skied, and then the wind took it and slit the sail from boom to gaff and off to leeward went the sloop.
Too much sheet that time, thought poor Bess, and could have cried at herself. And might have cried if she had nothing else to do. But no time now. Her little sloop was rolling and pitching in the seas, and drifting, always drifting; and in that snow there was no seeing how fast she was drifting in to the ledge; but fast enough, no doubt.
No use wailing over it. Bess took to bailing, and the work kept her from thinking overmuch of herself; only she couldn't help picturing her father with his Bible, and her stepmother waiting up for her. And Sammie? Never another dance or kiss from Sammie. And oh, the black disgrace of it if she was lost in the bay, when maybe they found her body ground to pieces on the ledge! There would be those who would say—what wouldn't they say—of her that couldn't hide her likin' for him up to the dance at Shepperd's?
The tail of the night found Leary striding over the hills. "Going to heave her herrin' overboard, are they? And she'll never clear for home, hah? She won't, eh?" And over the hills he ran. In and out, up and down, over the crests, and at last down the tangled slope across moss-grown rocks where lay the tide-tossed kelp, and onto the beach, where in the dawn he came suddenly on them.
A great shout went up when they were certain 'twas he; and down upon him presently they bore.
"Two hundred of 'em, maybe," calculated Leary, and looked wistfully toward where his vessel should have been laying to anchor. "If I weren't such a hand for skylarkin' she'd be lay-in' there now with Tim Lacy standin' by the old six-pounder, and she loaded to the muzzle with nails and one thing and another, ready to sweep the beach of 'em." And somewhat sadly he waited for the mob; and, waiting, wondered how Bess was making out, for the squalls were chasing each other off the hills, and out beyond the little harbor, all whitecapped, lay the open bay.
As a sea sweeps up and buries the lone rock under its surge, so did it seem to Leary that themob must overwhelm him as he stood there alone on the beach. Annihilation! Their gestures and imprecations, as they drew near, implied nothing less. "Well, let it come!" and from his mind flew all but one clear idea. He would deal them all the damage he could before they overbore him; and if under their heels on the sand they strove to crush the life out of him, he would reach up and grasp as many as his arms would circle.
And then he heard the hail from behind him. He flashed a look. Yes, there was the vessel, and it was Tim Lacy calling. She was coming into the wind. Her jibs were down by the run. Ay, and there was the rattling of her chain-anchor.
"Skipper, oh, skipper," came the hail again, and he heard the hoisting of a dory. To one hand was the mob which meant his destruction; to the other hand by the open water to the vessel if he could make it. He had farther to go than they, but they were mostly in oilskins, and he was a rarely active man. That he knew. Away he went over the little bowlders.
Diagonally he had to go. A straight parallel to the beach it was for them. Fast as he was, some of them would intercept his way to the incoming dory. Three, four, perhaps a dozen would be there before him.
A dozen it was, and one huge man and Lackford, with no oilskins to hamper them, were in the front; and because they were in front they felt the force of Leary's arm. It would have been joy to stop and battle with them all, but that wasn't saving the vessel. He caught one with one hand, and one with the other—and it was so easy and so satisfying!
But that wouldn't be making Bess happy by and by. There were two more that he could have reached, but those two he dodged. But two now between him, and he was for stopping to box with them—the battle fever was getting him—but a voice came to him: "Don't stop for them, skipper. Come on. We're here."
Leary turned and saw, and raced for the water's edge. A wide leap and he was in the dory. They tore after him, minding not the fallen bodies in their eagerness. Up to their waists in the water they rushed with yells of rage. Stones came flying after him. A few struck him, but they were too small to do damage.
"Blast 'em, Sammie, don't talk to them. Out oars, Ned, and drive her! Here's the kind of talk for the likes of them!" and between his skipper'sarm and body Tim Lacy from behind thrust an old-fashioned heavy dragoon pistol. "Only one shot in her, but make that one good; here y'are, Sammie."
Leary's fingers curled about the stock of it, and it felt pleasant to the touch. Yet for all that he thrust it back, but as he did so Tim's dory-mate tumbled down beside Leary in the dory. On the bottom of the dory the jagged rock was rolling even as the blood welled from his temple. And then came a report—another, and a third; and with the third a bullet whizzed close.
"Blast you all!" shrieked Leary, and with a leg either side of the fallen man's body he held the pistol waist-high. "Come on now! Come on now, I say!You, andyou, andyou, you white-livered——"
"After him—drag him out of the dory!"
"Ay, drag me out! Come you and drag me out!" And threatening variously with his pistol, Leary pointed directly at what seemed to be a new leader, a man with a revolver. "And let me tell you"—he pointed to the armed man—"whoever you are, you round-shouldered, glue-eyed squid you, whoever goes, you go first. Mind that—whatever happens,yougo first. I've gotyou, you pop-eyed, slit-mouthed dogfish—and now shoot again."
The man with the revolver shrank back; but Leary's pistol was still trained on him, and farther and farther he shrank until he melted into the body of the crowd.
In the rear of the crowd were those who struggled to get nearer. "Why don't you go after him down there?" they yelled. "Or let us do it? One man against you all! Why don't you pull him out of the dory?"
"Ay, pull him out! Send him to hell!" roared another.
"Well, send me to hell," retorted Leary—"maybe I've got friends in hell, too!"
Back onto the beach receded the mob. Leary turned to his mate. "To the vessel, Tim—and drive her!"
By the time they reached the vessel's deck the injured man came to. A cup of coffee and five minutes by the fire and he was ready to turn to, but Leary turned him into a bunk instead. "We've men enough without you—a full crew. Lie down, boy, and go to sleep." Which he did.
"Now, fellows, make sail. Drive her. The trader an' that whole crowd, they'll be after us soon in their jacks. Come on—lively—there's thirty sail of 'em ready to round the point! An', Tim?"
"Ay, Sammie."
"Get out that old salutin' six-pounder and lash it for'ard o' the windlass. Lash her hard so she won't kick overboard when she's fired."
"Ay, Sammie," and Lacy hurried off.
"And now, up with the jibs. And then mains'l—we've lost a lot of time already. With her four lowers and those squalls shootin' off the high hills from the other side of the bay, she'll soon have wind enough. And we've got to be out of here before the snow sets in. A bad place here in thick weather. Drive her, fellows—drive her!"
They were swaying up the mainsail when Leary happened to look over his shoulder. With the wind of the frequently recurring squalls taking hold of the great sail, they had a hard task to get it up; but at last it was set; and then they trimmed in the main-sheet, while Leary ran forward to the howitzer.
"What you got to load it with, Tim?"
"There's black powder enough, Sammie."
"But we want to do something more than salute 'em, Tim."
"M-m—there's the soundin' leads, Sammie."
"Get 'em!" And Tim went and came back with a deep-sea lead which he rammed in after a hatful or so of powder.
When all was ready four inches of the lead stuck out of the muzzle.
"No matter; you'll do," Leary commented, and cast another look toward the open water of the bay where were now twenty-five or thirty small schooners rounding the headland.
Leary now contemplated the anchor chain of his vessel.
"I hate to lose you, 'specially like this, but—" And without further word he reduced the chain to one turn of the windlass. "And now let all hands tuck away under the rail, all but one man to go aloft and look out for a small white sloop." And he took the wheel, where he was needed, for the squalls, in full force, were now whistling battle-hymns from deck to truck.
The fleet of jacks were now to be seen coming on rapidly; but presently, the squall proving too strong for them, they all came fluttering up into the wind and began to shorten sail.
"No heaving-to for this one, eh, Tim?" yelled Leary; and putting his wheel up, and feeling theLigonierbeginning to pay off and the anchor to drag, he gave the word to slip the cable.
Through the hawse-hole the clanking chain tore swiftly, and away came theLigonierlike a wild thing. Leary patted the wheel and began to talk to her:
"Crazy to get away, aren't you? Been laying too long to anchor, yes. No wonder. And I'llnot stint you now—take your fill of it, girl." Which she did, and with Leary giving her plenty of wheel, through the white swash she scooped a long, wet rail.
Tim Lacy now came aft. "There they are waitin' for us—an' the joke of it is, Sammie, we c'n go out the North Passage with a fair wind. They must 'a' forgot that I was born and brought up in this very bay."
"But we're not goin' out the North Passage, Tim."
"No?"
"No."
"But why? An' it's a beat up by them."
"Well, a beat it'll be. Go for'ard now."
"What'll he be at now?" muttered Tim.
But Leary knew. One eye he had for the approaching fleet and one to the ledge of rocks toward which theLigonierwas winging. "Some of 'em, by this time, think we're trying to run away. But they'll know better in a minute. And now do you, Tim, stand by that old cannon."
She was almost into the rocks then, holding in for the last foot of clear water; but not for too long did he allow her to run on. Just in time he tacked, and then it was about and away, for the fleet of native schooners, who, watching her closely and assured now of her course, spread outto intercept her. Expert seamen themselves, nowhere did they leave a space wide enough for a rowboat, let alone a ninety-ton fisherman, to slip through.
And they were armed. A shot rang out. Leary looked to see where the ball struck, but among the endless merging of whitecaps there was no discovering that. "Not that I care where it hit, blast ye—ye'll never stop me now—for—hide under the rail you, Tim, with the rest—I'm after some of you." And he headed theLigonierstraight for the windward jack, which now he could see was that of the trader Lackford, whose round-shouldered figure in the bow betrayed him.
"Out of my way!" roared Leary before he realized that he was too far away to be heard against the whistling squall. "But you'll hear me well enough soon," he muttered. "And, Tim, so long as you won't hide away, stand by that old fog-buster, and be sure to have the lanyard long enough to let you hide behind the forem'st, for there's no telling—the old antiquity might explode. I don't s'pose she's been shot off this ten years. When I give the word, now—but wait, wait yet!" For a flying moment he brought theLigonier'shead into the wind. "Now!"
Boom! It made more noise than a modernsix-inch. They could see the long lead go skipping under the bow of the trader's jack.
"Heave to!" roared Leary, "or the next one goes aboard." No question but they could hear him now. "Heave her to, I say! Ay, that's right. Load the old lady again, Tim. And now"—his voice rose high again—"you'd better all heave to, and stand aside, for this one's bound out, and 'll come blessed handy to cuttin' in two whatever gets in her way."
And they luffed, twenty-odd sail of them, with six to eight men aboard each, and stood to attention while theLigonier, with her crew's inquisitive, grinning faces poked above her rail, came tearing up and by.
"And now let be your batteries, Tim, and run the ensign to the peak." Which was done; and passed on in glory did theLigonier, the old six-pounder adorning one rail, a swish of white foam burying the other, the colors aloft, and Sam Leary singing war-songs to the wheel. And perfectly happy would he have been only the snow was thickening and no Bess in sight. But maybe she had got safely home. Maybe. And just then came from aloft:
"There's a little white sloop—an' some one in it—at Shark's Fin Ledge a'most."
"Break out that gaff tops'l, fellows—and you,Tim, go aloft and point the way—and hurry, afore the snow comes."
"Point the way to what, Sammie?"
"For a little white sloop with a girl in it."
"Ho-oh—that's it, is it?"
Bess had curled herself up and was falling asleep; and her last sleep it would have been but for the boom of a small gun and the hail of a familiar voice. She stood up. Again a hail. And through the curtain of white it came almost atop of her, the grandest schooner ever was! The long lines of her seemed familiar. Then a clearer glimpse. Ay, she'd know her anywhere—by the rust on her jumbo she would—theLigonier. And then it swept on by—ay, sailing as a wild gull.
Out of sight it went in the snow-squall, but leaving a voice in its trail.
"Bessie! Bessie!" it called.
And now no schooner at all. Gone it was. And she remembered that that was the way of it—the beautiful picture afore they went at last. But soon again the sweep of the great white sails and the black body beneath. And the beautiful handling of her! "Seamen, them!" said Bess admiringly,and then alongside it came—beautiful, beautiful.
Then two arms scooped down and swept her over the rail of the lovely big American schooner. A strong arm and a voice. "Oh, Bessie! Bessie! and the big, warm, foolish heart of you!" said the voice, and the arms carried her below and wrapped her in blankets and poured hot coffee, mugs of it, down her throat, and laid her in a bunk, while he sat on the locker and looked—just looked at her.
"Ah-h, Sammie!" murmured Bess blissfully. "An' now you'll bring me home, Sammie?"
"Ay, home, Bess."
"Ah-h! An' my mother'll no ha' to cry for me, arter all. An' father, too, he'll ha' no cause to—Ah-h, God love you, Sammie."
By the light of the kerosene lamp in John Lowe's kitchen sat John Lowe reading his favorite volume, harrowing tales of religious persecution centuries agone. And Mrs. Lowe sat rocking herself by the stove. Every once in a while she would hide her head in her skirt, and, on withdrawing it, wipe her eyes.
Now and again she would sigh wearily. "Too harsh, too harsh we were on the lass. The blood runs warm at her age."
Whereat John Lowe would turn and look fixedlyat her, open his lips as if to say something but, always without speaking, refix his attention on the fine black print before him.
A knock on the door and a tall man in oilskins and sea-boots entered. "I've come to say—" he began: but by then John Lowe was on his feet.
"Captain Leary is it?"
"Captain Leary it is."
"Then, I've this to say to you, Captain Leary——"
"Hush, John. Captain"—beside her husband Mrs. Lowe stood trembling—"Captain Leary, we've a little girl—an' the story's around the bay——"
Leary raised a hand. "I know, ma'am; I know. Your daughter, Mrs. Lowe, she's safe. Yes, John Lowe, safe—in every way safe. No thanks to me, but to herself. And she and me, we're going to be married. Yes, ma'am, married. Don't look so hard, man. You're thinkin' now, I know—you're thinkin' it's a poor pilot I'll be for her on life's course?"
"Ay, I'm thinkin' so, captain, and not afeard to say it—I fear no man. Ay, a poor compass."
"Compass? There—a fine word, compass. But the compass itself that 'most every one thinks is so true, John Lowe, we have to make allowancesfor it, don't we? And after we've made the allowances, it's as though it never pointed anywhere but true north, isn't it? There's only one circle on the ocean, John Lowe, where a compass don't veer, but every ship can't be always on that line. And even when you're sailin' that one circle, John Lowe, there's sometimes deviations. And me—no doubt I have my little variations and deviations."
"Ay, no doubt o' that," muttered John Lowe.
"Ay, like everything and everybody else, John Lowe. But at last I've got to where I think I know what little allowances to make. I think so. And after we've made our little allowances, and we c'n make 'em in advance same's if we took it from a chart, why—there's Sammie Leary as true as the next one."
Mrs. Lowe laid her hand on the American's arm. "And Bess, captain; where is she?"
"Outside, Mrs. Lowe, with Tim. And she's waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"To be asked inside. Will I call her?"
"Call her, captain—call her."
"Yes, Mrs. Lowe, but—" Leary faced the man at the table.
"Oh, well"—John Lowe sighed. "No doubt you ha' the right o' it, captain. You're one who ha' sailed many courses, an' your navigation, 'tispossible, is better than mine. Call her, captain, call her."
Next morning, for all the bay to see, the curtains in John Lowe's house were raised high.
On the word being passed that Alec Corning was back from the West Coast, a few reminiscent friends went to hunt him up, and found him in the Anchorage, in a back room overlooking Duncan's wharf; and Alec was agreeable, over a social glass and a good cigar, to explain how it came he was back in Gloucester.
"If they'd only let us alone I'd 'a' got—and Archie Gillis too—good and rich."
"Rich, Alec? You rich?"
"Well, maybe not quite rich, for that, o' course, would call for saving, but certainly I'd had a roll to spend before I was done—if only they'd let us alone. But would they? Man, the meddlers they were!—the brass-buttoned, steam-winched buttinskis!"
"But if that is their business, Alec?"
"M-m—maybe. But Russians, English, Japs—yes, an' American cutters and gunboats before they were done—you ought to seen them!"
Alec paused, but only for a quick breath. "We had the finest little scheme of sealing till they took to hunting us. Up and down the length and breadth of the sealing-grounds they'd up and chase us whenever they'd get word of us—from the Japan coast back by way of the Aleutians—clear down, one time, a pair of 'em, till we had to put in behind Vancouver Island and hide theHattiebehind a lot o' screen boughs."
Alec paused; this time for a longer, an almost reflective, breath. "That being their business, p'r'aps they were all right; but ain't it a fine thing when a gang wants to go seal-hunting that a lot o' gover'ment people must specify where they can kill 'em, and when?—and they swimmin' the wide ocean as the Lord intended! And our little vessel—theHattie Rennishwhen she used to go fresh halibutin' out o' here—remember her?"
There were several who heartily remembered the fast and ableHattie.
Presently, letting the elevated front legs of his chair drop to the floor, Alec rested one forearm on the table and went on to tell of how at last they got theHattie Rennish.
"'Twas a Californian man named Trumbull bought theHattiewhen she was fresh halibutin' out o' Gloucester. A good sort of a man, and'twas him got me, with Archie Gillis for mate, to bring her 'round to Frisco.
"But the time I'm going to speak of, theHattie—painted green she was, and called thePioneer—was layin' into Seattle, when a chap comes aboard with a letter from Trumbull to me explaining that certain aspects of the sealing business 'd been taking on a serious look to him lately and he'd sold theHattie, and the party who'd bought her, letter herewith, might want to do business with me.
"The looks of the new owner didn't warm me toward him in the start-off. Looks, of course, ain't everything, but when you don't know much about a man you got to go a lot by his looks. Yes, you sure have. And I'd seen him before, joy cruisin' on the Barbary Coast one night with a lot of drunken sailors—only he wasn't drunk. And I knew what he was—some Chinese blood in him, and the name o' being a slick one. But I didn't say anything about that. Gratu'tously telling a man you don't like him don't lay you up to wind'ard any. No. And we sat down and he explains what he wanted. There was a consignment of a few bales of hemp waiting up on the British Columbia coast, and would I run theHattieover and slip back with 'em? And we'd have to leave right away.
"Well, I would—after a talk. And with Archie Gillis and a few hoboes that called themselves sailors, which I'd picked up in Jack Downing's place in Seattle, we put out. Archie was mate and to get two hundred dollars and me five hundred.
"It was a fine night, that night, and we put out into the sound and worked our way up through the islands, and the second morning later slips into a little cove behind some high hills with trees along the banks—in Georgia Strait. Twenty-four hours we lay there, and then we hears a steamer's wheel, but we don't see her; only a couple of hours later the owner comes for me in a big ship's quarter-boat, and we work theHattieover to a little island where we find a lot of bales wrapped in burlap and hid in a cook's shack.
"'That all?' I asks my new owner—Durks his name.
"'Oh, yes—there's a couple o' Chinamen here. But let's see—where are they?' He looks around. 'They're not here—strolling in the woods somewhere. We'll take them along, too,' he says. 'You won't mind that, will you?'
"Now there was nothing in the contract about Chinamen, and I didn't like the notion of him working 'em aboard in that way, but I said allright and soon as dark came we'd roll 'em aboard and put out.
"Well, the boss and I sits down to lunch in the cook-house, and by and by, with nothing to do but wait for dark, we stroll around the island. Now I'm no wizard in anything, but I always did have a good ear. And no harm at all, a good ear, when you got to do most of your own watching out. Before we'd gone far I knew somebody was trailing me and the new owner. I could hear steps behind us an' dead twigs snapping and somebody shoving aside branches, and once, when we stopped for a talk on the edge of a clearing, I knew I heard somebody breathing just behind the bushes which was hanging over the logs we were sitting on.
"Now I knew that this Durks wasn't very popular in the quarters where he did business, and 's I wasn't aching to have any Chinese tong man hit me over the head with any hatchet by mistake in a shaded wood, I just naturally fell out of step and lost him, and being some trailer myself, I took to trailing whoever it was 'd been trailing me and Durks, and by and by I come up behind him, and when I do I grip him where he won't make too much noise nor do me too much harm till I let him. He wasn't a very big chap, nor any too strong, and I sets him down on the nearest old tree trunk and—'What is it?' I asks.
"He looks at me and shakes his head and says, 'No sabby,' and I looks at him and I shakes my head and says: 'Oh, yes, you do, Johnnie Sing. I wasn't wearing any whiskers when I used to meet you in Wall-Eye Bunsen's place. I've cultivated them for protective purposes only, to hide my face but not my intelligence—so you just overlook them and try and recollect Alec Corning. Now what d' y' say?'
"'Halloo, Captain Corning!' he says; and, no pretending, he was glad to see me.
"'Whitely,' I says—'Bill Whitely when you say it out loud. What's your trouble, Johnnie?' And so you c'n all get it right, I ought to say first that Johnnie Sing was a sort of Americanized Chinaman, who the last time I'd seen him was inquiring if he couldn't become a real American some way. He'd been born in Lima on the West Coast, where there's a big colony o' Chinamen, and he was part Chinese, the rest of him Peruvian Indian. A Christian, too, he was; which I'm not putting up as being for or against him, except so you'll see he had as much right to be a Christian as anything else. His mother was Christian, and so it wasn't like as if he had turned against his own to get on in the world.
"Johnnie was a good sort, and he'd made a few dollars in the tea business, and so maybe ought to 'a' been happy. But he wasn't. Therewas an old Chinaman, and not too old either, who'd married a Finn woman came off a wrecked Norwegian bark. They ran a laundry together, and by'n'by they came on to Frisco and ran a laundry there. And Johnnie followed them. A good woman, and she died leaving a well-grown little girl, and by'n'by the old fellow he figures he's made enough and goes back to have a look at China. But no sooner there than he learns he won't live very long, and he writes Johnnie of it, or maybe it was the girl did, her and Johnnie having been always about three-quarters in love with each other. And Johnnie he cruises over to China, and the old fellow, savvying how things are, says all right, marry, and they get married, and he gives 'em his blessing and lays down and dies. A good old scout, Johnnie said, and I guess he was.
"Well, everything's fine, only Johnnie wants to come back and live in the United States, and the girl too. She was sixteen years old when she left California, and a woman's life in the United States looked a lot better to her than in this land of one-half her ancestors. So she and Johnnie takes a steamer to Vancouver, and they get there all right; but not till they got there did either of them happen to think that they were foreigners and barred as Chinese from coming into the United States.Which was a pity, they being pretty white and so strong for everything American. Anyway, Johnnie writes to Trumbull, my old boss, to see what he could do, and after ten days or so Durks happens along and bumps into Johnnie and is surprised as you please to see him, and Johnnie tells him his story, and Durks tells him not to worry about that—that he'd smuggle him and his wife across in a schooner he'd just bought. They would take a little coast steamer and meet her a few hours up the coast, and then across the sound to Seattle—'twould be the easiest thing ever you see.
"And there they were, Johnnie and his wife, and when he got that far in his story Johnnie stops and looks up at the sky most mournful-like. Springtime it was, mind you, and fine weather, with the sun shining and the waters of the inlet rolling up on the rocks gentle-like, and the first of the birds were up from the south and singing and chirping, and, I s'pose, nesting overhead—a bran'-new spring day in a piny grove on a pretty little island off the coast of British Columbia, when anybody should 'a' been happy, 'specially with a new young wife.
"'Well, what's wrong—what you so blue about?' I asks Johnnie when he'd got through squinting up the tree branches to the sky.
"And he tells me how after his wife was aboard the steamer which 'd brought 'em to this place she sees Durks and tells Johnnie how Durks came near kidnapping her one time—before she went back to China with her father. Her father and Durks had a terrible row over it. Her father near killed Durks with a hatchet. And now here was Durks turning up in this accidental way; too accidental altogether—for Durks. He would steal her or something, and once he got her into San Francisco they could be swallowed up with her. Huh—a Chinese row, the police would say, and not bother too much. Not like stealing an American girl. 'And if he gives me over to the police, I am not an American citizen—out of the country I must go,' winds up Johnnie.
"Terrible downcast is Johnnie Sing, but I stands him on his feet and tells him to cheer up. Durks was head of the expedition, yes, and paying the bills, yes; but me, Alec Corning, was skipper of theHattie. 'Go down and tell your little wife that everything'll be all right,' says I—'that Alec Corning'll be on the job. Where is she?'
"'She is here,' he says, and whistles, and out from the brush steps a cute little girl dressed like a man, and with a hard hat to make her look all the more like a man. Johnnie lifted the little hat, and under it she has a lot of yellow-ash haircoiled up where a reg'lar Chinaman 'd have only a black pigtail.
"'Don't let on to Durks either of you ever saw me in your life,' I advises 'em, 'and when it's time to go aboard the vessel you go.'
"And they went aboard with what Durks says was bales of hemp; and we put out that night in open water, and next day threading inside passages so far as we could. Another night and another morning found us in Puget Sound, and there on a little neck of land on the American shore we hoisted our load of hemp onto a little, rough-made wooden pier. A narrow-gauge track ran up from the pier, and standing on the track was a hand flat car.
"'Now,' says Durks, 'I will pay off" these men, so they won't be hanging around and possibly talking too much before we get clear.' And he did—- ten dollars to the hands and fifteen to the cook, and a silver dollar all around for car-fare. And they went ashore, he telling them where they would find a little branch station about a mile up the road to take them to Seattle. And so we got through with them.
"He himself goes ashore after they're out the way, and stays an hour or so, and when he's back, 'How about paying off me and my mate now?' I asks.
"'You take the schooner to a little place west of here and then I'll pay you both off,' he answers.
"'And how about landing those two passengers?' I asks.
"'No, no, don't land them here,' he says. 'Somebody might see them and pounce on us for landing them. Keep them aboard for a while—to the next anchorage.'
"And we put out late in the morning then, and, there being no wind, 'twas in the middle of the afternoon before we came to anchor in a little harbor about five miles from where we landed the cargo. And we'd hardly been there when an American gunboat comes to anchor just off our hiding-place, and Archie and me we looks at each other, but don't say anything.
"And Durks? He's terribly surprised at the sight of the gunboat—terribly. By and by he stops walking the deck and says to me: 'I have a plan, captain. I will go aboard that gunboat and find out what they want here. If they think there is anything wrong about us, I will invite them to come aboard and look us over. What do you say to that?'
"I didn't say anything to it, but 'What will become of me and my wife—I paid you five hundred dollars for us?' pipes up Johnnie Sing.
"'Why'—and Durks smiles—'that is easy. You can hide—oh, where now? Why, of course, in the lazaretto. And your wife in a locker somewhere that Captain Corning will pick out for her. They will not look far, even if they shall suspect us—they will think we would have fifty or a hundred aboard or none at all. So they will not look into every corner. If you both hide away somewhere everything will be all right.'
"Johnnie is uneasy, but I nods my head to him on the sly, and he says all right and goes below with his wife. And making sure they are below, Durks turns to me and hands over five hundred to me, and to Archie two hundred dollars. And he shows us another five hundred and says: 'And this will be for you two to divide as you please when I get Johnnie Sing away from the ship and the girl is left behind. What do you say?'