Now I must hark back a few hours to the time when the skipper and his lieutenants were on their way to the barrens behind Nolan's Cove to safeguard the interests of the harbor by changing the hiding-place of the common treasure of jewelry. They had not been gone half an hour from Chance Along before Foxey Jack Quinn slipped from his cabin and glided, like a darker shadow in the darkness, to the skipper's house. He was not ignorant of his enemy's departure southward. He knew that both young Cormick and old Mother Nolan were heavy sleepers; and, earlier in the evening, he had seen something through the window of the guest-chamber that had aroused his curiosity and a passion of avarice.
Foxey Jack Quinn was warmly clothed. His rackets and a light pack were on his back and his pockets were stuffed with food and a flask of rum. He was armed with a hatchet. He crouched beside the window of the empty room for several minutes, listening intently and fearfully. At last he wedged the strong blade of his hatchet between the sash of the window and the frame and prised inward, steadily and cautiously. With a shrill protest of frosted spikes the lower part of the sash gave by an inch or two. He devoted another minute to listening, then applied the hatchet to the left side of the window. He worked all round the sash in this way and at last pushed it inward with both hands until it hung below the sill by a couple of bent spikes. He thrust the hatchet in his belt and entered the room. He put up his hand to the rafter that crossed the low ceiling and so felt his way along to the middle of the room. Halting there, he removed the fur mitten from his right hand and felt about until his chilled fingers discovered a thin crack in the whitewash of the rafter. The little square of dry wood came away in his fingers. Next moment he held the leather-bound casket in his hand. He opened it and felt the cold jewels which he could not see. Then he closed it, slipped it into a pocket, replaced the square of wood in the beam and made his cautious way back to the window. He crawled over the sill, turned and tried to liftthe sash upward and outward to its place. The sash came up easily enough but the bent spikes would not hold. After a few minutes of fruitless effort he turned away, leaving the window wide open. The sky was black as the throat of a chimney. A breath of wind came from the northwest. Foxey Jack Quinn was not weatherwise, however. He climbed the path to the edge of the barrens and turned to the north.
"Diamonds white an' red," he muttered. "I seen 'em, and I knowed what they was. Every little stone bes worth more nor all the fore-and-afters on the coast. I bes a rich man now—richer nor the governor, richer nor any marchant in St. John's—richer nor the king o' England, maybe. Holy saints be praised! Never agin will I wet a line at the fishin' nor feel the ache o' hunger in my belly. Denny Nolan will soon be cursin' the day he batted me about like a swile."
His plans for the immediate future were clear in his mind but for the more distant future they were vague, though rosy. He would make the ten miles to Brig Tickle in less than three hours, and from there turn a point or two westward from the coast and strike across country to the head ofWitless Bay. He had a cousin in Witless Bay and could afford to rest in that cousin's house for a few hours. There he would hire a team of dogs and make the next stage in quick time. Dennis Nolan, who would not discover the theft of the diamonds until after sun-up, would be left hopelessly astern by that time. So Quinn figured it out. On reaching St. John's he would go to a shebeen that he knew, in a narrow and secluded back street, and there rent a room. Then he would commence the business of disposing of one of the diamonds. Just how he was to go about this he did not know, but he felt sure that Mother McKay, who kept the shebeen, would be able to give him some valuable advice on the subject. And after that? Well, the prospects were rosy but vague. He would get word to his wife in some way to move herself and the children to Witless Bay. He would send her twenty dollars, and after that, for the rest of his life, ten good dollars every month. As for himself, he would sail away to some big city "up-along"—to Boston, New York or London—dispose of the necklace stone by stone, buy a great house and live in idle luxury. He would dress like a merchant, eat hearty every day, drink deep andsleep warm. He had heard of such things—of men who never set their hands to a stroke of work from year's end to year's end. He would live like a king and drink like a lord and, like the good father and husband that he firmly believed himself to be, he would send ten dollars to his wife every month.
With such exalted dreams as these did Foxey Jack Quinn occupy his mind as he hurried northward along the edge of the snowy barrens. He had travelled about two miles when he suddenly became aware of the increased force and coldness of the wind. Snow as dry as desert-sand and as sharp as splintered ice blew against his face, stinging his eyes (one of which was still half closed), and smarting the battered flesh of brow and cheek. Then, for the first time, he realized that one of those dreaded storms out of the northwest was approaching. But for the treasure in his pocket he would have faced about and returned to Chance Along; but as it was he drew his fur cap lower about his ears, wound a woollen scarf around the lower part of his face and held doggedly on his way. The wind lulled for a little while, quieting his apprehensions. His rackets were on his feetnow and he pushed along briskly over the pallid snow, through the whispering dark. He had covered another mile before the skirmishers of the storm rushed over him again out of the black northwest. That bitter wind soaked through his heavy garments like water and chilled him to the heart. Its breath of dry snow, embittered and intensified by its rushing journey across frozen seas and a thousand miles of frozen wilderness, blinded him, cut him and snatched at his lips as if it would pluck life itself from his lungs. He turned his back to it and crouched low, gasping curses and half-choked prayers to the saints. Then the full fury of the storm reached him, the dark grew pallid with flying snow-dust, and the frozen earth seemed to quake beneath his hands and knees. For a minute he lay flat, fighting for breath with his arms encircling his face. He knew that he must find shelter of some description immediately or else die terribly of suffocation and cold. Surely he could find a thicket of spruce-tuck near at hand? He staggered to his feet, stood hunched for a second to get the points of the compass clear in his mind, then plunged forward, fighting through the storm like a desperate swimmer breasting the surf. He thought he wasmoving straight inland where he would be sure to stumble soon against a sheltering thicket. But the onslaught of the storm had bewildered him. He struggled onward; but not toward the twisted clumps of spruces. His eyes were shut against the lashing of the snow and he held his arms locked before him across his mouth and nostrils. The wind eddied about him, thick as blown spray with its swirling sheets of ice particles. It struck him on all sides, lashing his face and tearing at his back whatever way he turned.... A scream of horror rang out for an instant and was smothered by the roaring of the storm. So the spirit of Jack Quinn was whirled away on the tempest—God knows whither!—and the poor body came to rest on the frozen land-wash far below the edge of the blind, unheeding cliff.
The storm raged all day out of the northwest, and the folk of Chance Along kept to their cabins and clustered around their little stoves. Even Black Dennis Nolan did not venture farther than fifty yards from his own door. He replaced the window of Father McQueen's room, said nothing of his loss to Cormick and the old woman, and after breakfast went out and fought his way along toFoxey Quinn's cabin. He found the woman in tears.
"Where bes Jack?" he asked, drawing the door tight behind him and standing with his hand on the latch.
"He bain't here," said the woman. "He was gone from the bed when first I opened my eyes."
The skipper was a hard man in many ways, even then. Later, as he became established in his power, the hardness grew in him with the passing of every day. But always a tender spot could be found in his heart for women and children.
"He was to my house last night," he said. "He bust in a windy an' tried to rob me—aye, an' maybe he done it."
The woman covered her face with her rough, red hands and moaned like a wounded thing.
"I bain't holdin' it agin' ye," continued the skipper. "I fight wid men, not women an' childern. I fit Jack Quinn fair an' bate him fair. Let it be! If ye wants for food, Polly—whenever ye wants for food an' clothin'—send the word to me. I bes skipper in this harbor—aye, an' more nor skipper."
He turned then and let himself out into the shrieking storm. Polly Quinn stared at the door and the children clustered about her and pulled at her shabby skirts.
"Aye, he tells true," she murmured. "Never a hard word did Mother Nolan ever have from him. He was a good son to his mother an' the old skipper. But them as crosses him—the holy saints presarve 'em! Men-folks must be his dogs or his enemies. He batted me poor Jack nigh to death wid his big hands."
She turned at last and fed the glowing stove. Then she set about getting breakfast for herself and the children. There was enough hard bread in the house to last the day. There was a pinch of tea in the canister. Jack had drunk the wine from the wreck and taken away with him all that had been left of the tinned meats which the skipper had brought over the day before. The woman observed these things and gave some thoughts to them. She glanced up at the blinding white tumult against the drifted window, reflecting that her husband had taken the best food in the house—enough to last him for two days, at least—and had left behind him, for herself and three children,eight cakes of hard bread and a pinch of tea. Her faded eyes glowed and her lips hardened.
Black Dennis Nolan brooded all day by the stove with his big hands clasped idly between his knees. The grandmother sat near him, in a tattered armchair, smoking her pipe and mumbling wise saws and broken stories of the past.
"I bes a storm-child," she mumbled. "Aye, sure, wasn't I born a night in winter wid jist sich a flurry as this one howlin' over Chance Along—aye, an' wid a caul over me face. So I has the power o' seein' the fairies." And then, "me man were bigger nor ye, Denny. Skipper Tim, he were. Built the first fore-an'-after on this coast, he did." And later—"There bain't no luck in diamonds. The divil bes in 'em."
Young Cormick sat on the other side of the stove, busily carving a block of wood with a clasp-knife.
After the storm from the northwest had blown itself out, a spell of soft weather set in along the coast. East and southeast winds brought fog and mild rains, the ice rotted along the land-wash and the snow dwindled from the barrens and left dripping hummocks and patches of black bog exposed. The wreck in Nolan's Cove had gone to pieces during the blizzard, sunk its cargo of pianos, manufactured cotton and hardware in six fathoms of water and flung a liberal proportion of its spars and timbers ashore.
Black Dennis Nolan felt as sure that Jack Quinn had perished in the storm as if he had seen him prone and stiff under the drifting snow. The fool had left the harbor that night, sometime before the onslaught of the blizzard, but after midnight to a certainty. He had gone out—and he had not returned! There could be no doubt about his miserable fate. The skipper pictured him in hisclear mind as lying somewhere out on the barrens with the red-bound casket clutched in a frozen hand. So the skipper devoted a day to searching for him over the thawing, sodden wilderness behind the harbor. He took Bill Brennen and Nick Leary with him. The other men did not grumble at being left behind, perhaps because they were learning the unwisdom of grumbling against the skipper's orders, more likely because they did not care a dang if Foxey Jack Quinn was ever found or not, dead or alive. Quinn had not been popular. The skipper informed his two companions that the missing man had broken into his house and robbed him of an article of great value.
"We bes sure to find him somewheres handy," said Bill Brennen. "Foxey Jack was always a fool about the weather—didn't know east from west when the wind blowed. What was it he robbed from ye, skipper?"
"Whatever it was, ye'll both git yer share if we finds it," replied the skipper. "More nor that I bain't willin' to say."
He fixed Bill Brennen with a glance of his black eyes that made that worthy tremble from his scantily-haired scalp to the soles of his big, shufflingfeet. Bill was one of those people who cannot get along without a master. In the past, for lack of another, he had made an exacting tyrant out of a very mild and loving wife; but since the masterful opening of the new skipper's reign he had snapped his fingers at his wife, who had ruled him for close upon twenty years. He was shrewd, though weak, and his heart was full of the stuff in which personal loyalty is bred and fostered. If the hand that beat him was the hand that fed him—the hand of his master—then the beating seemed an honorable and reasonable thing to him. True, the skipper had not yet lifted a fist to him; but in this case darkling glances served quite as well as blows. Bill had seen the strength of Dennis from the first and from the first had loved it as a thing to serve—as the spirit of mastery. Nick Leary, though a much younger man than Bill Brennen, possessed the same spirit of service.
The three searched the barrens all day, from sun-up to dark, north, south and inland. It was a gray day, sloppy underfoot and raw overhead. At one time the skipper halted and lit his pipe within three yards of the point of the edge of the cliff from which Quinn had pitched to his death;but wind, snow and thaw had obliterated all trace of those blindly staggering feet. The searchers explored the inner, tangled recesses of a dozen thickets of spruce-tuck, snarled coverts of alders, hollows hip-deep in sodden snow, and the pits and rocky shelters of knolls and hummocks.
"He bes hid away somewheres, sure's Saint Peter was a fisherman," said the skipper.
"Axin' yer pardon, skipper, I bes t'inkin' as how maybe he bain't dead," said Nick Leary, humbly. "Maybe he got t'rough to Brig Tickle, sir, an' from the Tickle he'd be headin' for Witless Bay this very minute."
The skipper shook his head.
"There bain't a man on the coast could live t'rough a flurry the like o' that widout he found shelter," he replied. "He bes dead somewheres widin t'ree or four mile o' Chance Along, ye kin lay to that, Nick."
They returned to the harbor after dark and said not a word to the others about the business that had occupied them throughout the day; Brennen and Nick Leary were asked many questions, but they lied valiantly, saying that they had been spying out boat-timber. Had they admitted that theyhad devoted a whole day to searching over the barren for the body of Foxey Jack Quinn a suspicion that the missing man had carried away something of extraordinary value would have fired the harbor and set every able-bodied inhabitant on the quest. That would not have suited the skipper's plans. He did not want a knowledge of the necklace of diamonds and rubies to become general.
Doubtless the search for Jack Quinn would have been continued on the following day but for the unexpected arrival in Chance Along of the good Father McQueen. The missionary's visits were usually unexpected. He came now from the northward, on foot and unattended. In a haversack on his sturdy shoulders he carried food, two books of devotions and one of Irish poetry, and his vestments. Children who were playing a game called "deer-hunting" on the barrens behind the harbor were the first to know of the priest's approach. They shouted the news down to the gray cabins on the slope. A few of the men were working out among the rocks, under the skipper's supervision; others were cobbling skiffs and bullies that lay high and dry beneath the empty stages, and the old fellows were sitting around, giving advice and sucking at rank pipes. The harbor was at peace; and, what was still more unusual, it was free from hunger-fear. By the skipper's first important stroke of business his reign promised to be prosperous, even though tyrannical. At word that Father McQueen was sighted all work was stopped. The dories among the outer rocks were pulled to the land-wash. The men left their tarring and caulking under the drying-stages. Women issued from the cabins with shawls thrown hastily about their heads and shoulders. The skipper led the way up the twisty path to the level wilderness above. There was one man in the world whom he feared—feared without bitterness even as he did the saints on their thrones of gold. That man was Father McQueen.
Cap in hand, Black Dennis Nolan took the haversack from the priest and slung it on his own shoulder.
"Ye've walked a weary way, father," he said. "Ye bes mud and water to the knees, sir."
"But a step, Denny. Naught but a step, my son," replied the missionary, cheerfully. "I was in Witless Bay for two holy baptisms, a marriage an' a wake, an' I just took the notion to step overan' see ye all in Chance Along.Pax vobiscum, all of ye! My children, ye look grand an' hearty. How is Mother Nolan, the dear old body? Spry as ever, ye say? Praise the saints for that."
The people, men, women, and children, clustered round him with beaming faces, and in return he beamed at one and all, and spoke to a dozen by name. He leaned on the skipper's arm.
"But it bes still early in the forenoon, father," said Dennis. "Where did yer reverence sleep last night then?"
"Snug as a fox in his den, my son," replied the sturdy old man. "When dark came on I found me a dry cave in the side of a knoll, an' dry moss an' sticks for a fire."
"It bain't right for yer reverence to sleep out these rough winter nights," protested the skipper. "Maybe ye'll be gettin' yer death one o' these nights, sir."
"Nay, Denny, don't ye go worryin' about me," said the priest. "I am as tough as a husky."
He descended the path to the clustered cabins, still holding the skipper's arm and with the populace sliding and crowding at his muddy heels. His gray eyes were as keen as they were kindly. Heremarked several of the great iron rings on the rocks to seaward.
"What are ye up to now, Denny?" he asked, halting for a moment, and pointing with a plump but strong and weather-beaten hand.
The skipper's black eyes followed the line indicated.
"That bes a grand idee o' mine, yer reverence," he answered, after a moment's hesitation. "Sure I'll tell ye all about it, sir, after ye get yerself dry alongside the stove."
"Something to do with wrecks, Denny?" queried the priest.
"Aye, yer reverence, it bes a part o' the gear for salvin' wrecks," returned Nolan.
At the skipper's door Father McQueen dismissed his followers with a blessing and a promise to see them all after dinner. Then, after a few kindly words to Mother Nolan, he entered his own room, where Cormick had a fire of driftwood roaring in the chimney. He soon returned to the kitchen, in socks and moccasins of the skipper's, a rusty cassock and a red blanket. The innate dignity and virtue of the old man gave to his grotesque attire the seeming of robes of glory, in spite of the veryhuman twinkle in his gray eyes and the shadow of a grin about the corners of his large mouth. He accepted a chair close to the stove—but not the most comfortable chair, which was Mother Nolan's. They knew his nature too well to offer him that. The skipper gave him a bowl of hot wine, mulled with sugar and spices, which he accepted without demur and sipped with relish. After a few minutes of general conversation, during which Mother Nolan expatiated on her rheumatics, he turned to the skipper, and laid a hand on that young giant's knee.
"So ye are preparing gear for the salving of wrecks, my son?" he queried.
"Aye, yer reverence, we bes fixin' chains an' lines among the rocks so as maybe we kin get a holt on whatever comes ashore," replied Nolan.
"A good idea," returned the other. And then, "Have ye had any wrecks already this winter?"
"Aye, yer reverence, there be'd one in Nolan's Cove."
"So? Did any of the poor souls come ashore alive?"
"Aye, yer reverence, every mother's son o' them. They come ashore in their boats, sir, an' left theship acrost a rock wid a hole in her bows bigger nor this house."
"And where are they now?"
"That I couldn't tell, yer reverence. They set out for Nap Harbor, to the south, that very night, an' got there safe an' sound. An' I heard tell, sir, as how they sailed from Nap Harbor for St. John's in a fore-an'-after."
The priest regarded the skipper keenly.
"Safe and sound, ye say, Denny?"
"Aye, yer reverence, safe an' sound, wid their clothes on their backs an' food an' drink in their pockets an' their bellies."
"I am glad to hear it, Denny. Ye sent them on their way warmly clad and full-fed; but I'm thinking, my son, they must have left something behind them? It's grand wine this, Denny."
"Aye, father, it bes grand wine. It came out o' the wreck, sir, along wid a skiff-load o' fancy grub. There bes wine, spirits an' tinned stuff in every house o' the harbor, yer reverence. But the cargo weren't no manner o' use to us—an' the hull broke up an' went all abroad two days back."
"So ye got nought from the wreck but a skiff-full of drink and food?"
"I bain't sayin' that, father dear, though it were as peaceful an' dacent a wrack as ever yer reverence heard tell of. Maybe yer reverence bes buildin' another church somewheres?—or a mission-house?—or sendin' money up-along to the poor haythens?"
"Aye, Denny, I am doing all these things," replied the priest. "Since first I set foot on Newfoundland I have built nine little churches, twelve mission-houses and one hospital—aye, and sent a mint of money to the poor folk of other lands. My dear parents left me a fortune of three hundreds of English pounds a year, Denny; and every year I give two hundred and fifty pounds of that fortune to the work of the Holy Church and beg and take twice as much more from the rich to give the poor."
The skipper nodded. This information was not new to him.
"I was thinkin', yer reverence, as how some day ye'd maybe be buildin' us a little church here in Chance Along," he said.
"It would take money, my son—money and hard work," returned the priest.
"Aye, father dear, 'twould take money an' work.There bes fifty golden sovereigns I knows of for yer reverence."
"Clean money?"
"Aye, yer reverence."
"From the wreck, Denny?"
"Aye, father dear, from the last wrack."
"Without blood on it, my son?"
"Widout so much as a drop o' blood on it, so help me Saint Peter!"
"And the other lads, Denny? Are ye the only one in the harbor able to pay me something for the building of a church?"
There was the one question on the good priest's tongue and another in his clear eyes.
"I bes skipper, father dear, an' takes skipper's shares and pays skipper's shares," replied Nolan. "But for me there'd not bin one bottle o' wine come to us from the wrack an' the poor folks aboard her would never have got ashore in their boats for want of a light on the land-wash. As I kin spare ye fifty pounds for the holy work, yer reverence, there bes nineteen men o' this harbor kin each be sparin' ye ten."
Father McQueen nodded his gray head.
"Then we'll have the little church, Denny," hesaid. "Aye, lad, we'll have the little church shining out to sea from the cliffs above Chance Along."
Father McQueen was a good man and a good priest, and would as readily have given his last breath as his last crust of bread in the service of his Master; but for the past thirty years he had lived and worked in a land of rocks, fogs and want, among people who snatched a livelihood from the sea with benumbed fingers and wrists pitted deep with scars of salt-water boils. He had seen them risk their lives for food on the black rocks, the grinding ice and the treacherous tide; and now his heart felt with their hearts, his eyes saw with their eyes. Their bitter birthright was the harvest of the coastwise seas; and he now realized their real and ethical right to all that they might gather from the tide, be it cod, caplin, herrings or the timbers and freights of wrecked ships. He saw that a wreck, like a good run of fish, was a thing to profit by thankfully and give praise to the saints for; but he held that no gift of God was to be gathered in violence. In the early years of his work he had heard rumors and seen indications of things that had fired him with a righteous fury and pity—rumors and hints of mariners strugglinglandward only to be killed like so many seals as they reached the hands to which they had looked for succor. The poor savages who had committed such crimes as this had at first failed to understand his fury and disgust; but with his tongue and his strong arms he had driven into their hearts the fear of Holy Church and of the Reverend Patrick McQueen. Even the wildest and dullest members of his far-scattered flock learned in time that life was sacred—even the life of a half-dead stranger awash in the surf. They even learned to refrain from stripping and breaking up a wrecked or grounded vessel that was still manned by a protesting crew; and with the fear of the good priest in their hearts (even though he was a hundred miles away), they would do their best to bring the unfortunate mariners safely ashore and then share the vessel with the hungry sea.
That even a deserted or unpeopled wreck should be common property may not seem right to some people; but it seemed right to Father McQueen—and surely he should know what was right and what was wrong! It was sometime about the date of this story that a missionary of another and perhaps less broad and human creed than Father McQueen'swrote to his bishop in the spring, "Thanks to God and two wrecks we got through the winter without starving."
Father McQueen did not hurry away from Chance Along. Six months had passed since his last visit and so he felt that this section of his flock demanded both time and attention. His way of knowing his people was by learning their outward as well as their inner lives, their physical and also their spiritual being. He was not slow to see and understand the skipper's ambitions and something of his methods. He read Black Dennis Nolan for a strong, active, masterful and relentless nature. He heard of Foxey Jack Quinn's departure and of the fight at the edge of the cliff that had preceded it. He heard also that Quinn had robbed the skipper before departing; but exactly what he had robbed him of he could not learn. He questioned Dennis himself and had a lesson in the art of evasion. He found it no great task to comfort the woman and children of the fugitive Jack. They were well fed and had the skipper's word that they should never lack food and clothing. He was not surprised to learn from the deserted wife that the man had been a bully at home as well as abroad.For his own part, he had never thought very highly of Foxey Jack Quinn. He visited every cabin in the harbor, and those that sheltered old and sick he visited many times. He was keenly interested in the work that the skipper was doing among the rocks in front of the harbor, and did not fail to point out persistently and authoritatively that chains and ropes designed to facilitate the saving of freights would also facilitate the saving of human lives. The skipper agreed with him respectfully.
On the morning of Father McQueen's arrival in Chance Along, the skipper dispatched Nick Leary to Witless Bay to learn whether or no Jack Quinn had reached that place. Leary returned on the evening of the following day with the expected information that nothing had been seen of the missing man in Witless Bay. In his pocket he brought a recent issue of St. John's newspaper, for which he had paid two shillings and two drams of rum. This he brought as an offering to the skipper—for the skipper could read print almost as well as a merchant and had a thirst for information of the outside world.
The first item of news which the skipper managed to spell out was the notice of a reward offive hundred pounds awaiting the person who should recover Lady Harwood's necklace of twelve diamonds and fourteen rubies and deliver it to Mr. Peter Wren, solicitor, Water Street, St. John's. The notice went on to say that this necklace, together with other smaller and less valuable articles of jewelry, had been taken by force from the shipwrecked company of the barkDurham Castle, which had gone ashore and to pieces in a desolate place called Frenchman's Cove, on the east coast. It also gave the date of the wreck and stated that if the necklace should be returned undamaged, no questions would be asked. The skipper saw in a moment that the reward was offered for the stones which he had found in the deserted berth and which Quinn had robbed him of. Five hundred pounds? He shook his head over that. He had read somewhere, at some time, about the value of diamonds, and he felt sure that the necklace was worth many times the money offered for its recovery. So the loss of it was known to the world? He had a great idea of the circulation of the St. John'sHerald. He had retired to a secluded spot above the harbor to read the paper, and now he glanced furtively over his shoulder. No limb of the law was in sight.He gazed abroad over the sodden, gloomy barrens and reflected bitterly that the treasure lay there in some pit or hollow, in a dead man's pocket, perhaps within shouting-distance of where he stood. He swore that he would recover it yet—but not for the reward offered by Mr. Peter Wren in behalf of Lady Harwood. He re-read the notice slowly, following letter and word with muttering lips and tracing finger. Then, at a sudden thought of Father McQueen, he tore away that portion of the outer sheet which contained the notice.
The skipper returned to his house and found the missionary seated beside the stove chatting with Mother Nolan.
"Here bes a paper, yer reverence, Nick Leary fetched over from Witless Bay," he said. "It bes tored, sir; but maybe ye'll find some good readin' left in it."
The good father was charmed. He had not seen a newspaper for six weeks. He dragged a pair of spectacles from a pocket of his rusty cassock, set them upon his nose and hooked them over his ears, and read aloud every word save those which the skipper had torn away.
On the fourth night after his arrival FatherMcQueen drew a plan of the little church which he intended to build above the harbor.
"It will be the pride of the coast and a glory to Chance Along," he said. "Denny, I am proud of ye for the suggestion. Ye said ye'd give me a hundred pounds toward it, I think?"
"Fifty pound, yer reverence! Fifty pound bes what I offered ye, sir," returned the skipper, with dismay in his voice.
Father McQueen sighed and shook his head. A cold thrill of anxiety passed through Dennis Nolan. With the good father displeased there would be an end of his luck. He glanced at the priest and saw that he was still shaking his head.
The skipper loved his new store of gold because it meant the beginning of a fortune and therefore the extension of his power; but on the other hand he feared that to displease the missionary now in the matter of a part of that store might turn the saints themselves against him. And without the good-will of the saints how could he expect his share of luck?—his share of wrecks?
"I has seventy-five pound for yer reverence," he said. "It bes a powerful sight of money, father dear, but ye bes welcome to it."
"It is well, my son," returned the missionary.
The skipper felt a glow of relief. He had avoided the risk of displeasing the saints and at the same time had saved twenty-five pounds. Even when you earn your money after the skipper's method, twenty-five pounds looks like quite a considerable lump of money. He took up a candle and fetched the sum in yellow English sovereigns from his hiding-place.
Father McQueen devoted the following morning to collecting what he could from the other men of the harbor. The skipper had furnished him with a list of all who had shared in the golden harvest. It began to look as if the church would be a fine one. Not satisfied with this, he issued orders that the timber was to be cut and sawn without delay so that the building of the church should be commenced when he returned to Chance Along in June. He even drew up specifications of the lumber that would be required and the stone for the foundation. Then, leaving in the skipper's care all the gold which he had collected for the sacred edifice, he marched sturdily away toward the north. The skipper accompanied him and carried his knapsack, for ten miles of the way.
Two days after the missionary's departure a gale blew in from the southeast; and at the first gray of a roaring dawn the look-out from Squid Beach came hammering at the skipper's door with news of a ship on the rocks under the cliffs a few miles along the coast. Every man and boy who could swing a leg turned out. The gear was shouldered and the skipper led the way northward at a run, lantern in hand. They found the wreck about a mile north of Squid Beach, close against the face of the cliff. She had struck with her port-bow and was listed sharply landward. The seas beat so furiously upon her that every seventh comer washed her clean and sent the spray smoking over her splintered spars. She showed no sign of life. She lay in so desperate a place that even Black Dennis Nolan, with all his gear and wits, could do nothing but wait until the full fury of the gale should diminish.
It was close upon noon when the first line was made fast between the cliff and the broken foremast of the wreck. The wind had slackened and the seas fallen in a marked degree by this time. Looking down from the cliff the men of Chance Along could see the slanted deck, cleared of allsuperstructures and bulwarks, the stumps of spars with only the foremast intact to the cross-trees and a tangle of rigging, yards, canvas and tackle awash against the face of the cliff. Something—a swathed human figure, perhaps—was lashed in the fore-top.
The skipper was the first to venture a passage from the edge of the cliff to the foremast. He made it with several life-lines around his waist. He reached the bundle lashed to the cross-trees and, clinging with hands and feet, looked into the face of an unconscious but living woman. So he hung for a long half-minute, staring. Then, hoisting himself up to a more secure position, he pulled a flask of brandy from his pocket.
So Black Dennis Nolan brought back to consciousness the person who was to be the undoing of his great plans!
Clinging to the cross-trees, with the winter seas smoking over the slanted deck beneath him and the whole wrenched fabric of the ship quaking at every sloshing blow, Black Dennis Nolan pressed the mouth of the flask to the girl's colorless lips. A lurch of the hull sent the brandy streaming over her face; but in a second and better-timed attempt he succeeded in forcing a little of it between her teeth. He pulled the glove from her left hand—a glove of brown leather lined with gray fur and sodden with water—and rubbed the icy palm and wrist with the liquor. There were several rings on the fingers; but he scarcely noticed them. He thought of nothing but the girl herself. Never before had he seen or dreamed of such a face as hers, and a breathless desire possessed him to see her eyes unveiled. He worked feverishly, heedless of the yeasting seas beneath, of the wind that worried at him as if it would tear him from his leapingperch, of the wealth of cargo under the reeking deck and the men of Chance Along on the edge of the cliff. He returned the glove to the left hand with fumbling fingers, stripped the other hand and rubbed it with brandy. After finishing with this and regloving it he glanced again at the girl's face. The wet lashes stirred, the pale lids fluttered and blinked wide and two wonderful eyes gazed up at him. The eyes were clear yet with cross-lights at their depths, like the water of a still pool floored with sand and touched with the first level gleams of sunrise. They were sea-eyes—sea-gray, sea-blue, with a hint even of sea-green. Never before had the master of Chance Along seen or dreamed of such eyes.
The skipper was strangely and deeply stirred by the clear, inquiring regard of those eyes; but, despite his dreams and ambitions, he was an eminently practical young man. He extended the flask and held it to her lips with a trembling hand.
"Ye must swallow some more o' this," he said, "'Twill take the chill out o' ye."
The girl opened her lips obediently and swallowed a little of the spirits; but her crystal gaze did not waver from his face.
"Am I saved?" she asked, quietly.
"Aye, ye bes saved," answered the skipper, more than ever confused by the astonishing clearness and music of her voice and the fearless simplicity of her question. He scrambled to his feet, holding to the stump of the topmast with his right arm (for the spar whipped and sprang to the impact of every sea upon the hull), and looked at his men on the edge of the cliff. He saw that they were shouting to him, but the wind was in their teeth and so not a word of their bellowing reached him. By signals and roarings down the wind he got the order to them to bend a heavy line on to the shore end of one of the light lines attached to his waist. He dragged the hawser in with some difficulty, made it fast to the cross-trees, and then rigged a kind of running boatswain's chair from a section of the loose rigging. He made the end of one line fast just below the loop of the chair on the hawser. The second line was around his chest and the ends of both were in the hands of the men ashore. Without a word he cut the girl's lashings, lifted her in his arms and took his seat. He waved his left arm and the lads on the cliff put their backs into the pull.
The passage was a terrific experience though thedistance between the cross-trees and the top of the cliff was not great. Neither the girl nor the skipper spoke a word. He held her tight and she hid her face against his shoulder. Fifteen of the men, under the orders of Bill Brennen, held the shore-end of the hawser. When the mast swung toward the cliff they took up the slack, thus saving the two from being dashed against the face of the rock, by rushing backward. When the mast whipped to seaward they advanced to the edge of the cliff. Five others hauled on each of the lines whenever the hawser was nearly taut, and paid out and pulled in with the slackening and tightening of the larger rope. But even so, the sling in which the skipper and the girl hung was tossed about desperately, now dropped toward the boiling rocks, now twirled like a leaf in the gale, and next moment jerked aloft and flung almost over the straining hawser. But the skipper had the courage of ten and the strength and endurance of two. He steadied and fended with his left hand and held the girl firmly against him with his right. She clung to him and did not whimper or struggle. A group of men, unhampered by any duty with the ropes, crouched and waited on the very edge of the cliff. At last theyreached out and down, clutched the skipper and his burden, and with a mighty roar dragged them to safety.
Black Dennis Nolan staggered to his feet, still clasping the girl in his arms. He reeled away to where a clump of stunted spruces made a shelter against the gale and lowered her to the ground, still swathed in blankets.
"Start a fire, some o' ye," he commanded.
The men looked curiously at the young woman in the drenched blankets, then hastened to do the skipper's bidding. They found dry wood in the heart of the thicket and soon had a fire burning strongly.
"What of the others? Am I the—the only one?" asked the girl.
"Aye, ye bes the only one—so far as we kin see," replied the skipper. "There bain't no more lashed to the spars anyhow."
She stared at him for a moment, then crouched close to the fire, covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly. The skipper groaned. The tears of Lady Harwood had not moved him in the least; but this girl's sobs brought a strangling pinch to his own throat. He told two lads to keep the fireburning, and then turned and walked away with lagging feet. Joining the men who were still tending the line that was attached to the wreck, he gazed down at the scene of tumult and pounding destruction without a word.
"The gale bes blowin' herself out, skipper," remarked Bill Brennen.
Nolan stared blankly for a moment, then aroused himself furiously from the strange spell that had enthralled his mind since first he had looked at the face of the girl lashed to the cross-trees. He swore violently, then flung himself full-length at the very edge of the cliff, and studied the position of the stranded vessel. He saw that she was firm on the rocks for almost half her length. She was badly ripped and stove, but her back was not broken. She seemed to be in no danger of slipping off into deep water, and as the wind and seas were moderating, she promised to hold together for several hours at least. He got to his feet and gave his opinion of the situation to the men as if it were a law.
"She bes hard an' fast," he said. "Wid the weather liftin', she'll not fall abroad yet awhile, nor she don't be in any risk o' slidin' astarn an'founderin'. We has plenty o' time to break out the cargo, men, after the sea quiets a bit. Aye, plenty o' time to sculp her. Now, I wants four o' ye to rig up a hammock o' some sort, wid lines an' a tarpaulin, an' help me tote the lady back-along to the harbor. Step lively, men!"
A few of the men ventured to show something of the amazement which they all felt by staring at him, round-eyed and open-mouthed; but he glared them down in short order. So four of them set about the construction of a hammock and the others crowded along the cliff and gazed down at the unfortunate ship. For awhile they gazed in silence; for wonder, and the fear of the skipper, were heavy upon them. What madness was this that had so suddenly come upon him? Had prosperity and power already turned his head? Or could it be that the young woman he had found on the wreck was a fairy of some kind, and had bewitched him with the glance of her sea-eyes? Or perhaps she was a mermaid? Or perhaps she was nothing but a human who had been born on an Easter Sunday—an Easter child. Strange and potent gifts of entrancing, and of looking into the future, are bestowed upon Easter children of thefemale sex by the fairies. Every one knows that! Whatever the girl might be, it was an astounding thing for Black Dennis Nolan to turn his back on a stranded and unlooted vessel to escort a stranger—aye, or even a friend—to shelter. They knew that, for all his overbearing and hard-fisted ways toward men, he was kind to women; but this matter seemed to them a thing of madness rather than of kindness; and never before had they known him to show any sign of infatuation. They glanced over their shoulders, and, seeing the skipper some distance off, supervising the construction of the hammock, they began to whisper and surmise.
"Did ye mark the glint in the eyes o' her, Pat?" inquired one of another. "Sure, lad, 'twas like what I once see before—an' may the holy saints presarve me from seein' it agin! 'Twas the day, ten year back come July, when I see the mermaid in Pike's Arm, down nort' on theLabrador, when I was hook-an'-linin' for Skipper McDoul o' Harbor Grace. She popped the beautiful head o' her out o' the sea widin reach o' a paddle o' me skiff an' shot a glimp at me out o' her two eyes that turned me heart to fire an' me soul to ice, an' come pretty nigh t'rowin' me into the bay."
"Aye," returned the other in a husky whisper. "Aye, ye bes talkin' now, Tim Leary. Sure, bain't that power o' the glimp o' the eye a mark o' the mermaid? They bewitches a man's heart, does mermaids, an' kills the eternal soul of him! Sure, b'y! Didn't me own great-gran'father, who sailed foreign viyages out o' Witless Bay, clap his own two eyes on to one o' they desperate sea-critters one night he was standin' his trick at the wheel, one day nort' o' Barbados? Sure, b'y! He heared a whisper behind him, like a whisper o' music, and when he turned his head 'round there she was, nat'ral as any girl o' the harbor, a-gleamin' her beautiful, grand eyes at him in the moonshine. An' when he come ashore didn't he feel so desperate lonesome that he died o' too much rum inside the year, down on the land-wash wid his two feet in the sea?"
"Aye, Pat," returned Tim, "but I bain't sayin' as this one bes a mermaid. She was lashed to the cross-trees like any human."
"An' that would be a mermaid's trick," retorted the other. "Where be the other poor humans, then?"
At that moment the skipper approached.
"Mind the wrack, men," said he. "Make fast some more lines to her, if ye kin. I'll be back wid ye afore long."
The hammock was swung on a pole. Four men and the skipper accompanied the girl from the wreck, two carrying the hammock for the first half of the journey and the relay shouldering it for the second spell. The skipper walked alongside. The girl lay back among the blankets, which had been dried at the fire, silent and with her eyes closed for the most part. It was evident that her terrible experience had sapped both her physical and mental vitality. She had been lashed to the cross-trees of the foremast soon after the ship had struck the rocks, and fully eight hours before Black Dennis Nolan had released her. The second mate, who had carried her up and lashed her there, had been flung to his death by the whipping of the mast a moment after he had made the last loop fast about her blanketed form. She had been drenched and chilled by the flying spume and the spray that burst upward and outward from the foot of the cliff. The wind had snatched the breath from her lips, deafened her, blinded her, and driven the cold to her very bones. The swaying and leaping of thespar had at last jarred and wrenched her to a state of insensibility.
She spoke only three times during the journey.
"I would have died if I had been left there a little longer. You were brave to save me as you did. What is your name?"
"Aye, 'twas a terrible place for ye," replied the skipper. "I bes Dennis Nolan, skipper o' Chance Along; an' now I bes takin' ye to my granny, Mother Nolan, an' a grand, warm house. Ye'll have Father McQueen's own bed, for he bes away till June, an' a fire in the chimley all day."
Her only answer was to gaze at him with a look of calm, faint interest for a moment and then close her eyes. Ten minutes later she spoke again.
"TheRoyal Williamwas bound for New York," she said. "There were ten passengers aboard her. My maid was with me—a Frenchwoman."
This was Greek to the skipper, and he mumbled an unintelligible answer. What could she mean by her maid? Her daughter? No, for she was scarcely more than a girl herself—and in any case, her daughter would not be a Frenchwoman. Asthey reached the broken edge of the barrens above Chance Along she spoke for the third time.
"In London I sang before the Queen," she said, this time without raising her pallid lids. Her lips scarcely moved. Her voice was low and faint, but clear as the chiming of a silver bell. "And now I go to my own city—to New York—to sing. They will listen now, for I am famous. You will be well paid for what you have done for me."
The skipper could make little enough of this talk of singing before the Queen; but he understood the mention of making payment for his services, and his bitter pride flared up. He gripped the edge of the hammock roughly.
"Would ye be payin' me for this?" he questioned. "Would ye, I say? Nay, not ye nor the Queen herself! I have money enough! I bes master o' this harbor!"
She opened her wonderful, clear, sea-eyes at that, full upon his flushed face, and he saw the clear cross-lights in their depths. She regarded him calmly, with a suggestion of mocking interest, until his own glance wavered and turned aside. He felt again the surging of his heart's blood—but now, across and through the surging, a chillas of fear. The flush of offended pride faded from his cheeks.
"Of course I shall pay you for saving my life," she said, coolly and conclusively.
The skipper was not accustomed to such treatment, even from a woman; but without a word by way of retort he steadied the hammock in its descent of the twisting path as if his very life depended upon the stranger's comfort. The women, children and very old men of the harbor—all who had not gone to the scene of the wreck save the bedridden—came out of the cabins, asked questions and stared in wonder at the lady in the hammock. The skipper answered a few of their questions and waved them out of the way. They fell back in staring groups. The skipper ran ahead of the litter to his own house and met Mother Nolan on the threshold.
"Here bes a poor young woman from a wrack, granny," he explained. "She bes nigh perished wid the cold an' wet. Ye'll give her yer bed, granny, till the fire bes started in Father McQueen's room."
"Saints save us, Denny!" exclaimed Mother Nolan. "First it bes diamonds wid ye, an' nowit bes a young woman. Wracks will sure be the ruin o' ye yet, Denny Nolan! This way, b'ys, an' give me a sight o' the poor lamb. Lay her here an' take yer tarpaulin away wid ye. Holy saints fend us all, but she bes dead—an' a great lady at that!"
The stranger opened her eyes and looked at the old woman. Her wonderful eyes seemed to bewitch Mother Nolan, even as they had bewitched the skipper. The old dame stared, trembled and babbled. Turning to the gaping men, including Denny, she cried to them to get out where they belonged and shut the door after them. They obeyed, treading on each other's heels. Even the skipper departed, though reluctantly.
"May every hair o' yer head turn into a wax candle to light ye to glory," babbled the old woman, as she unwound the coarse blankets from about the girl's unresisting body. The other smiled faintly.
"I don't want to be lighted to glory—just now," she said. "I must sing in New York—to my own people—just as I sang before the Queen in London. But now I am so cold—and so tired."
Mother Nolan gaped at her.
"Glory be!" she whispered. "Eyes like fairies' eyes an' a voice like a mermaid's! An' the little white hands of her, soft as cream! An' the beautiful rings! Glory be!"
The skipper and his four companions returned to the cliff above the wreck, the skipper striding ahead, silent, deep in a mental and spiritual unrest that was thought without reflection. The others followed, whispering among themselves but afraid to question their leader. The wind had fallen to a breeze by the time they reached the point of the cliff overlooking the slanted deck of the stranded ship. Also, the seas had lost much of their height and violence, and the tide was ebbing. The group on the cliff's edge eyed the skipper inquiringly, furtively, as he joined them. He strode through them and looked down at the wreck. His face lightened in a flash and his dark eyes gleamed.
"What did I tell ye!" he cried. "Now she lays steady as a house, all ready to be gutted like a fish. Pass a couple o' lines this way, men. Take in the slack o' the hawser an' make her fast toyonder nub o' rock. Nick Leary, follow after me wid that block an' pulley. Bill, rig yer winch a couple o' yards this way an' stake her down. Keep ten men wid ye—an' the rest o' ye can follow me. But not too close, mind ye! Fetch yer axes along, an' every man o' ye a line."
Three minutes later, the skipper was sliding down the foremast, with Nick Leary close above him, another man already on the cross-trees and yet another in mid-air on the hawser. The skipper reached the slanted deck and slewed down into the starboard scuppers, snatched hold of a splintered fragment of the bulwarks in time to save himself from pitching overboard, steadied himself for a moment and then crawled aft. Leary, profiting by the skipper's experience in the scuppers, made a line fast to the butt of the foremast, clawed his way up the slant of the deck to port, scrambled aft until he was fairly in line with the stump of the mainmast, and then let himself slide until checked in his course by that battered section of spar. Taking a turn around it with his line, he again clawed to port, and scrambled aft again. His second slide to starboard brought him to the splintered companionway of the main cabin. Here he removed the end of the rope from his waist and made it fast, thus rigging a life-line from the butt of the foremast aft to the cabin for the use of those to follow. It had been a swift and considerate piece of work. The men on the cliff cheered. Nick waved his hand to the cliff, shouted a caution to the man at that moment descending the foremast, and then swung himself down into four feet of water and the outer cabin.
"Where be ye, skipper?" he bawled.
"This way, Nick. Fair aft," replied the skipper. "Keep to port or ye'll have to swim. I bes in the captain's berth; an' here bes his dispatch box, high an' dry in his bunk."
Nick made his way aft, through the length of the outer cabin as quickly as he could, with the water to his chin as he stooped forward in his efforts toward speed, entered an inner and smaller cabin by a narrow door and finally swam into the captain's own state-room. He grasped the edge of the berth in which the skipper crouched.
"Hell! I bes nigh perished entirely wid the cold, skipper!" he cried.
"Then swallow this," said the skipper, leaning down and tilting a bottle of brandy to the other'slips. "I found it right here in the bunk, half-empty; aye, an' two more like it, but wid nary a drop in 'em. There, Nick, that bes enough for ye."
Leary dragged himself up beside the skipper. As the deadlight had been closed over the port, the state-room was illumined only by a gray half-gloom from the cabin.
"This bunk bes nigh full o' junk," said Nolan. "The skipper o' this ship must ha' slept in the lower bunk an' kept his stores here. Here bes t'ree boxes wid the ship's gold an' papers, I take it; an' a medicine-chest, by the smell o' it; an' an entire case o' brandy, by Garge! Sure, Nick, it bes no wonder he got off his course! Take another suck at the bottle, Nick, an' then get overside wid ye an' pass out these boxes."
Nick was still deriving warmth from the bottle when a third man entered the state-room, with just his head and neck above water.
"She bes down by the starn desperate, skipper," he said. "Saints presarve me, I bes ice to the bones!"
At a word from the skipper, the last arrival took the bottle from Leary. Others reached the scene of action and the three iron boxes and the case ofbrandy were soon safe on deck. From there they were winched up to the top of the cliff.
"We'll break into the lazaret when the tide bes out," said the skipper. "She'll drain out, ye can lay to that, wid a hole in her as big as the roof o' a house."
They salvaged a few cases of tinned provisions from the steward's pantry. Five state-rooms were situated on either side of the main or outer cabins. They looted those to port first, where the water was only a few feet deep, finding little but clothing and bedding and one leather purse containing thirty pounds in gold. The skipper put the purse into a submerged pocket, and sent the other stuff to the deck, to be winched aloft. The cabins on the starboard side contained but little of value. A few leather boxes and bags were sent up unopened. The water was still shoulder-deep to starboard. The door of the fifth room on the starboard side was fastened. The skipper pulled and jerked at it, then lowered his head beneath the water, and saw that it was locked on the inside. But the lock was a light one, and the wood of the door was not heavy. He called for a capstan-bar; and in spite of the fact that he had to strike blindly under several feet of water, the lock was soon shattered. By this time, a dozen men were clustered around, their curiosity and greed uncooled by the cold water to their shoulders.
"There bes somethin' wort' salvin' in there, ye kin lay to that!" said one.
"The passengers' store-room, I bes a-t'inkin'," said another.
"Naught but the sail-locker," said a third. "D'ye look to find gold an' dimins in every blessed corner o' every blessed ship?"
At that moment the skipper pulled the narrow door open to its full extent. The water inside swirled out to fill the eddy made by the opening of the door; and then, slow, terrible, wide-eyed, floating breast-high in the flood, a woman drifted out of the narrow room into the midst of the expectant men. Death had not been able to hide the agony in her staring eyes, or dull the lines of horror in her waxen, contorted face. She floated out to them, swaying and bowing, one hand clutched and fixed in the torn bosom of her dress, a pendant of gold and pearl swinging from each ear.
A groan of wordless horror went up from the wreckers. For a moment they stared at the thingrocking and sidling in their midst, with grotesque motions of life and the face and hands of a terrific death; and then, as one man, they started to splash, beat and plunge their way to the companion-steps. The water was set swirling by their frantic efforts, in eddies and cross-currents which caught the dead woman and drew her, pitching and turning heavily, in the wakes of the leaders and elbow to elbow with some of the panic-stricken fellows in the second line of retreat. They knew the thing was not a ghost; they knew the thing was not alive, and could not harm them with its pitiful, stiff fingers; they knew it for the body of a woman who had been drowned in her cabin—and yet the horror of it chilled them, maddened them, melted their courage and deadened their powers of reasoning. Even the skipper felt the blind terror of the encounter in every tingling nerve. The water was deep, the deck sloped beneath their feet, and the way to the flooded steps of the companionway seemed a mile long. The fellows who suffered the touch of those dead elbows that seemed to reach out to them beneath the churning water yelled wildly, lost their footing and power to advance at one and the same moment, and soused under, clutching blindly at their comrades. Thisbrought others down and under who believed that the fingers gripping them were those of the poor corpse. Screams and yells filled the cabin and drifted up to the astounded men on the cliff. Heads vanished; legs and arms beat the imprisoned water to spume; fists and feet struck living flesh; and one poor, frantic fool clutched the unconscious cause of all this madness in his arms. Then the skipper, steadied from his first insanity of fear by the signs of disaster, lowered his head deliberately, plunged forward and downward, and swam under water for the companion. In his passage he wrenched floundering bodies aside and kicked and struck at floundering legs and arms. Coming to the surface and sinking his feet to the deck at the same moment, he grasped a step of the companionway and hauled himself out of the water, as if the devil were nipping at his heels. Turning on an upper step, he reached down, clutched two of the struggling fellows by the collars and dragged them up from the battling smother. One of them sprang on up the companion without so much as a glance at his rescuer, reached the deck with a yell, and started forward on the run without pausing to lay a hand on the life-line. His course was brief. Thelist of the deck carried him to the starboard. His foot caught in a splinter of shattered bulwark and he pitched overboard, head first and with terrific force, to the black rocks and surging seas. That was the last time Dan Cormick was seen alive—and the sight of him springing from the companion and plunging to his death struck horror and amazement to the souls of the men on the cliff.
Below, the skipper was doing his utmost to still the tumult and drag the men to safety. They were the men of his harbor—a part of his equipment in life—and therefore he worked like a hero to save them from themselves and one another. His young brother was safe on the cliff; so his fine efforts were not inspired by any grander emotion than that felt by the shopkeeper who fights fire in the protection of his uninsured stock-in-trade. There were men below whom he needed, but none whom he loved even with the ordinary affection of man for humanity. The skipper yanked the men to the steps as fast as he could get hold of them, dragged them up to the level of the deck, and left them sprawled. All were breathless; some were cut and bruised; Nick Leary's left cheek had been laid open from eye to jaw in some way. The shouting and yelling were now over, and several husky fellows, ashamed of the recent panic, helped the skipper at his work. When the task of rescue was at last finished, the flooded cabin had given up three corpses besides that of the woman—four corpses and a dozen wounded men.
The bodies of the wreckers were hauled up to the top of the cliff, amid prayers, curses and groans of distress. The fellows on shore demanded to know who had killed them—and why? Knives were drawn. The brother of one of the dead men swore that he was ready and eager to cut the heart out of the murderer. The lads on the wreck caught something of all this; but it did not cool their desire to get ashore. Those who had the use of their limbs swarmed up the foremast and crossed over to the cliff. The first to step ashore was in grave danger for a half-minute; but he managed to throw some light on the thing that had taken place in the flooded cabin. Others landed, the whole story was told and knives were returned to their sheaths. The skipper, the seriously injured and the dead woman remained on the deck. The skipper was in a black mood. He knew his people well enough to see that this unfortunate affair would weakenhis power among them. They would say that the saints were against his enterprises and ambitions; that his luck was gone; that he was a bungler and so not fit to give orders to full-grown men. He understood all this as if he could hear their grumbled words—nay, as well as if he could read the very hearts of them. He turned to Nick Leary. Nick had already bandaged his face with a piece of sail-cloth.
"Where bes the medicine-chest? Was it sent aloft?" asked the skipper.
"Nay, skipper, 'twas left below—in the captain's berth," replied Nick; his voice shook from pain and loss of blood.
"Ye bes cut desperate bad," said the skipper. "I'll go fetch the medicine-chest an' fix ye up wid plaster an' dacent bandages. Who says his leg bes broke? Ye, Bill Lynch? I'll fix yer leg, b'y, when I git the chest."
He looked up at the crowd on the cliff and roared to them to lower away some brandy for the wounded men.
"An' step lively, damn ye, or I'll be comin' up to ye wid a bat in me hand," he concluded, knowing that it was not the time to display any sign of weakness. Then he went down the companion, entered the water, which had drained out with the ebbing tide until it reached no higher than to his waist, and waded aft to the lost captain's berth. He felt decidedly uneasy, shot glances to right and left at the narrow doors of the state-rooms and experienced a sensation of creeping cold at the roots of his hair; but he forced himself onward. He soon regained the deck with the big medicine-chest in his arms. He was received by a growl of admiration from the little group of wounded. The men on the cliff looked down in silence, those who had taken part in the recent panic deeply impressed by the skipper's action. The brandy had already been lowered to the deck, and the bottles were uncorked. The skipper placed the chest on the upper side of the hatch, and saw to the fair distribution of the liquor. He passed it around with a generous hand; but the doses administered to Nick Leary and the man with the broken leg were the most liberal. He attended to Nick's cheek first, drawing the lips of the wound together with strips of adhesive plaster from the medicine-chest, and then padding and bandaging it securely with gauze and linen.
"That bes fine, skipper. Sure, it feels betternow nor it did afore it was cut," mumbled Nick, gazing at the other with dog-homage in his eyes.
By this time, Bill Lynch, of the broken leg, was oblivious to the world, thanks to the depth and strength of his potations. The skipper cut away a section of the leg of his heavy woollen trousers, prodded and pried at the injured limb with his strong fingers until the fracture was found, put a couple of strong splints in place, and bandaged them so that they were not likely to drop off, to say the least. He then made a sling of a blanket and sent his drunken patient swaying and twirling aloft in it to the top of the cliff. The other injured persons went ashore in the same way, one by one, like bales of sail-cloth. At last only the skipper and the dead woman were left on the wreck. The skipper stood with a scowl on his dark face and considered her. He drew the blanket sling toward him, and stood toward the poor clay.
"I'll send her up to ye for dacent burial," he shouted.
This suggestion was answered by a yell of protest from the men on the cliff.
"If ye be afeard o' her, ye white-livered swile, what d'ye want me to do wid her?"
"T'row her overboard! Heave her into the sea!" "Aye, t'row her overboard. She bes the devil hisself! T'ree good lads bes kilt dead by her already. T'row her overboard!"
"There bain't a man amongst ye wid the heart o' a white-coat," returned the skipper. "Afeared o' a poor drownded wench, be ye?"
This taunt was received in sullen silence. The skipper stood firm on the listed deck, his feet set well apart and his shoulders squared, and leered up at them. Then, stooping forward quickly, he plucked the pendants from those bloodless ears, and set the body rolling into the starboard scuppers and overboard to the frothing surf and slobbering rocks. From the cliff a cry as of mingled relief and dismay rang down to him. He moved forward and swarmed the foremast to the cross-trees. There he paused for a few moments to glance across. He saw that Bill Brennen, Nick Leary, his brother Cormick and several of the men whom he had rescued from the flooded cabin had clustered around the shore-end of the hawser. He saw that they feared treachery. He made his way across, cool, fearless, with a dangerous smile on his lips.