141
“You did!” cried Ellinwood in amazement. “I didn’t see her, but I heard her, an’ I got a message from her for you. It was night when they come up on us an’ hailed.
“They said they had news of you, an’ would we send a dory over. Would we? They was about six over in as many minutes. But they wouldn’t let us aboard. No, sir; kept us off with poles an’ asked for me.
“When I got in clost they told me theRosanhad found you, and handed me an envelope with a message inside of it. Just as I was goin’ away there came the most awful clickin’ an’ flashin’ amidships I ever saw––”
“Wireless,” said Code.
“Wal, I’ve heard of it, but I never see it before; an’ I come away as quick as I could.”
“And the message?” asked Code curiously.
Pete laboriously unpinned a waistcoat-pocket and produced an envelope which he handed to Code. It was sealed, and the skipper tore away the end. The mystery and interest of the thing played upon his mind until he was in a tremble of nervous excitement.
At last he would know what the schooner was and why.
Eagerly he opened the message. It was typewritten on absolutely plain paper and unsigned, further baffling his curiosity.142After a moment he read:
“Captain Schofield:“Yesterday at St. Andrew’s suit was filed against you for murder in the first degree upon the person of Michael Burns, late of Freekirk Head, Grande Mignon Island. Plaintiff, Nathaniel Burns, son of the deceased. There is an order out for your arrest. This is a friendly warning and no more. You are now fore-armed!”
“Captain Schofield:
“Yesterday at St. Andrew’s suit was filed against you for murder in the first degree upon the person of Michael Burns, late of Freekirk Head, Grande Mignon Island. Plaintiff, Nathaniel Burns, son of the deceased. There is an order out for your arrest. This is a friendly warning and no more. You are now fore-armed!”
143CHAPTER XVIITRAWLERS
Schofield stood as one stupefied, staring blankly at the fateful words.
Murder in the first degree!
Had it not been for his thorough knowledge of Nat Burns’s character he would have laughed at the absurdity of the thing and thrown the message over the side.
But now he remained like one fast in the clutch of some horrible nightmare, unable to reason, unable to think coherently, unable to do anything but attempt to sound the depths of a hatred such as this.
“For Heaven’s sake, what is it, skipper?” asked Ellinwood.
Code passed the message to his mate without a word. His men might as well know the worst at once. Ellinwood read slowly.
“Rot!” he snarled in his great rumbling voice. “Murder? How does he get murder out of it?”
“If I sank the oldMay Schofieldfor her insurance money, which is what every one believes, then I deliberately caused the death of the men with me, didn’t I? Pete, this is a pretty-serious thing. I144didn’t care when they set the insurance company on me, but this is different. If it goes beyond this stage I will carry the disgrace of jail and a trial all my life. That devil has nearly finished me!”
Code’s voice broke, and the tears of helpless rage smarted in his eyes.
“Steady on, now!” counseled Pete, looking with pity at the young skipper he worshiped. “He’s done fer you true this time, but the end of things is a tarnal long ways off yet, an’ don’t you go losin’ yer spunk!”
“But what have I ever done to him that he should start this against me?” cried Schofield.
Pete could not answer.
“What do they do when a man is accused of murder?” asked Code.
“Why, arrest him, I guess.”
Pete scratched his chin reminiscently. “There was that Bulwer case.” He recounted it in detail. “Yes,” he went on, “they can’t do nothin’ until the man accused is arrested.
“After that he gets a preliminary hearin’, and, if things seem plain enough, then the grand jury indicts him. After that he’s tried by a reg’lar jury. So the fust thing they’ve got to do is arrest you.”
“Darn it, they sha’n’t––I’ll sail to Africa first!” snarled Code, his eyes blazing. He strode up and down the deck.
145
“You say the word, skipper,” rumbled Pete loyally, “an’ we crack on every stitch fer the north pole!”
Code smiled.
“Curse me if I don’t like to see a man smile when he’s in trouble,” announced Pete roundly. “Skipper, you’ll do. You’re young, an’ these things come hard, but I cal’late we’ll drop all this talk about sailin’ away to furrin parts.
“Now, there’s jest two courses left fer you to sail. Either we go on fishin’ an’ dodge the gunboat that brings the officer after you, or we go on fishin’ an’ let him get you when he comes. I’ll stand by you either way. You’ve got yer mother to support, God bless her! An’ you’ve got a right to fill yer hold with fish so’s she can live when they’re sold. That’s one way of lookin’ at it; the other’s plain sailin’!”
“No, Pete; this is too serious. I guess the mother’ll have to suffer this time, too. If they send a man after me I’ll be here and I’ll go back and take my medicine. I’ll make you skipper, and you can select your mate. You’ll get a skipper’s share, and you can pay mother the regular amount for hiring theLass––”
“She’ll get skipper’s share if I have to lick every hand aboard!” growled Ellinwood. “An’ you can rest easy on that.”
146
“That’s fine,” said Code gently; “and I don’t know what I’d do without you, Pete.”
“You ain’t supposed to do without me. What in thunder do you suppose I shipped with you fer if it wasn’t to look after you, hey?”
The men had finished dressing down and were cleaning up the decks. Several of them, noticing that something momentous was being discussed, were edging nearer. Pete observed this.
“Skipper,” he said, “we’ve got four or five shots of trawl-line to pick. Suppose you and I go out an’ do the job? Then we can talk in peace. Feel able?”
“Never better in my life. Get my dory over.”
“That blue one? Never again! That’s bad luck fer you. Take mine.”
“All right. Anything you say.”
Several hands made the dory ready. Into it they put three or four tubs or half casks in which was coiled hundreds of fathoms of stout line furnished with a strong hook every two or three feet. Each hook was baited with a fat salt clam, for the early catch of squid had been exhausted by the dory fishing. There was also a fresh tub of bait, buoys, and a lantern.
A youth aboard clambered up to the cross-trees, gave them the direction of the trawl buoy-light, and they started. It was a clear, starlit night with only147a gentle sea running and no wind to speak of. There was not a hint of fog.
TheCharming Lasslay now in the Atlantic approximately along the forty-sixth parallel, near its intersection with the fifty-fifth of meridian; or eighty to a hundred miles southwest of Cape Race, Newfoundland, and almost an equal distance southeast of the Miquelon Islands, France’s sole remaining territorial possession in the New World.
Code and Ellinwood easily found their trawl buoy by the glimmer of the light across the water. They immediately began to plant the trawl-lines in the tubs aboard the dory. The big buoy for the end of the line they first anchored to the bottom with dory roding.
Then, as Ellinwood rowed slowly, Code paid the baited trawl-line out of the tubs. As there are hooks every few feet, so are there big wooden buoys, so that the whole length of the line––sometimes twenty-five hundred feet––is floated near the surface.
When the last had been paid out, a second anchor and large buoy was fixed, and their trawl was “set.” Next they turned their attention to picking the trawl already in the water.
As the line came over the starboard gunnel Code picked the fish off the hooks, passing the hooks to Pete, who baited them and threw them over the port148gunnel. Thus they would work their way along the whole of the line.
Many of the hooks that came to Code’s hands still had the bait with which they were set.
“Must be in the bait,” he told Ellinwood. “The fish wouldn’t touch it. This is no catch for five shots of trawl.”
But Pete could not cast any light on the subject.
It was certainly true that the catch from the trawl-line was small enough to be remarkable, but the men were helpless to explain the reason.
For two hours they worked along the great line.
“There’s a bare chance that the message from the unknown schooner might be a fake, although I can’t imagine why,” said Code as they were returning. “But if it is not, and the Canadian gunboat comes after me, she’ll find me here, willing to go back to St. Andrew’s and answer all charges. No escape and no dodging this time! And let me tell you something, Pete. If nothing comes out of this except ugly rumor that I have to suffer for, I’m going to quit minding my own business; and I’ll dig up something that will drive Nat Burns out of Freekirk Head forever.
“A man of his character and nature has certainly got something he doesn’t want known, and I shall bring it to light and make it so public that he’ll wish he had never heard the name Schofield.149By Heaven, I’ve reached the end of my patience!”
If there was anything Pete Ellinwood loved it was a fight, and at this declaration of war he roared encouragement.
“You’ll do, skipper––you’ll do! Get after him! Climb his frame! Put him out of business. An’ let me help you. That’s all I want.”
“Everything in good time, Pete,” grinned Code. “First we’ve got to find out how much of this is in the wind and how much is not.”
Arrived at the schooner, they pitched their fish into the pen for the first watch to dress and rolled aft for the night. Code took off his coat and drew forth the packet that Elsa had given him, looked at it for a moment, and threw it upon the table.
“Why in time did she send me that?” he asked himself, his voice very near disgust. “It must have looked mighty strange to Nell for me to be getting money from Elsa Mallaby.”
He stopped short in the midst of pulling off one boot. The idea had never struck him forcibly before. Now it seemed evident that Nellie’s reserve might have been due to the letter.
“What a fool I was not to tell her all about it!” he cried. With one boot off he reached across to the packet under the swinging lamp and drew the letter out of it and read:
150
“Dear Partner:“Here is something that Captain Bijonah will hand to you when he catches theLass. There are supposed to be one hundred and fifty dollars in this packet (I never was much of a counter, as you know). Now, dear friend, this isn’t all for you unless you need it. It is simply a small reserve fund for the men of the fleet if they should need anything––a new gaff, for instance, or a jib, or grub.“It isn’t much, but you never can tell when it might come in handy. It was your good scheme that sent the men off fishing, and you left the way open for me to do my little part here at the Head. Now I want to do just this much more for the sailors of the fleet, and I am asking you to be my treasurer. When you hear of a needy case just give him what you think he needs and say it is a loan from me if he won’t take a gift.“If this is a trouble to you I am sorry, but we are all working for the good name and good times of Grande Mignon, and I hope you won’t mind. Good fishing to theCharming Lass, high line and topping full! May you wet your salt early and come home again to those who are longing to see you.“This is all done on the spur of the moment, so I have no time to ask your mother to enclose a line. But I know she sends her love. It has been a little hard for her here since you left, bless151her heart; but she has been as brave as a soldier and helped me very much. We see a great deal of each other and you can rest assured I shall look after her.“Always your old friend,“ELSA.”
“Dear Partner:
“Here is something that Captain Bijonah will hand to you when he catches theLass. There are supposed to be one hundred and fifty dollars in this packet (I never was much of a counter, as you know). Now, dear friend, this isn’t all for you unless you need it. It is simply a small reserve fund for the men of the fleet if they should need anything––a new gaff, for instance, or a jib, or grub.
“It isn’t much, but you never can tell when it might come in handy. It was your good scheme that sent the men off fishing, and you left the way open for me to do my little part here at the Head. Now I want to do just this much more for the sailors of the fleet, and I am asking you to be my treasurer. When you hear of a needy case just give him what you think he needs and say it is a loan from me if he won’t take a gift.
“If this is a trouble to you I am sorry, but we are all working for the good name and good times of Grande Mignon, and I hope you won’t mind. Good fishing to theCharming Lass, high line and topping full! May you wet your salt early and come home again to those who are longing to see you.
“This is all done on the spur of the moment, so I have no time to ask your mother to enclose a line. But I know she sends her love. It has been a little hard for her here since you left, bless151her heart; but she has been as brave as a soldier and helped me very much. We see a great deal of each other and you can rest assured I shall look after her.
“Always your old friend,“ELSA.”
As Code read the last paragraph his eyes softened. It waswhiteof Elsa to look after his mother, particularly now when there would be much for her to face regarding himself. And itwaswhite of her to send the money for the sailors of the fleet. Even she did not know, as Code did, how nearly destitute some of the dorymen were. He would be glad to do what little work there might be in disbursing the sum.
“Sorry Nellie didn’t seem interested when I began to talk about Elsa,” he said to himself. “I suppose I should have told her, anyway, so there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding. Well, I’ll do it next time.” He turned the lamp low and rolled into his bunk.
152CHAPTER XVIIITREACHERY
Next morning at breakfast, about four o’clock, Code told his crew the situation. He knew his men thoroughly and had been friends with most of them all his life.
“There’s likely to be trouble, and I may be taken away, but if that happens Pete will tell you what to do. Don’t sight Swallowtail until your salt is all wet. Bring home a topping load and you’ll share topping.”
Code did not go out that morning. Instead, he tried to shake off his troubles long enough to study the fish––which was his job on theCharming Lass.
While not a Bijonah Tanner, Code bade fair to be his equal at Bijonah’s age. He came of a father with an instinct for fish, and he had inherited that instinct fully. Under Jasper he had learned much, but it was another matter to have some one on hand to read the signs rather than being cast upon his own resources.
The fish, from the trawl-line and Pete’s reports of dory work, had been running rather big. This153pleased him, but he knew it could not last; and he sat with his old chart spread out before him on the deck––a chart edged with his father’s valuable penciled notes.
Suddenly, while in the almost subconscious state that he achieved when very “fishy,” the persistent voice of the cook broke through the wall of unconsciousness.
“Smoke on the port quarter, skipper! Smoke on the port quarter, skipper!”
The phrase came with persistent repetition until Code was fully alive to its meaning and glanced over his left shoulder.
Above the line of dark blue that was the ocean, and in the light blue that was the sky, was etched a tree-shaped brown smudge.
Steamer smudges were not an unusual sight, for not fifty miles east was the northern track of the great ocean steamers––a track which they were gradually approaching as they made their berths. But a steamer smudge over the port quarter, with theLass’sbow headed due north, was an entirely different thing.
Code went below and brought up an ancient firearm. This he discharged while the cook ran a trawl-tub to the truck. It was the prearranged signal for Pete Ellinwood to come in.
As Code waited he had no doubt that smoke was154from a revenue cutter or cruiser from Halifax with his arrest warrant.
There was a stiff westerly breeze, and Code, glancing up at the cloud formations, saw that there would be a beautiful racing half-gale on by noon.
“What a chance to run for it!” he thought, but resolutely put the idea from his mind.
Pete came in with a scowl on his face, cursing everything under the sun, and especially a fisherman’s life. When told of the smoke smudge he evinced comparatively little interest.
“We’ll find out what she is when she gets here. What I’d like to know is, what’s the matter with our bait?”
“Bait gone wrong again?” asked Code anxiously, his brows knitting. “That stuff on the trawl wasn’t the only bad bait, then.”
“No. Everybody’s complainin’ this mornin’.
“Not only can’t catch fish, but ye can’t hardly string the stuff on the hooks. An’ that ain’t all. It has a funny smell that I never found in any other clam bait I ever used.”
“Why, what’s the matter with your hands, Pete?” cried Code, pointing. Ellinwood had removed his nippers, and the skin of his fingers and palms was a queer white and beginning to shred off as if immersed long in hot water.
155
“By the Great Seine!” rumbled the mate, looking at his hands in consternation.
Code made a trumpet of his hands. “Here, cookee, roll up a tub of that bait lively. I want to look at it. And fetch the hammer!”
A suspicion based upon a long-forgotten fact had suddenly leaped into his mind.
When the cook hove the tub of bait on deck Code knocked off the top boards with the hammer and dipped up a handful of the clams. Instead of the firm, fat shellfish that should have been in the clean brine, he found them loose and rotten. This time he himself detected a faint acrid odor quite different from the usual clean, salty smell. Again he dipped to make sure the whole tub was ruined. Then he looked at Ellinwood in despair.
“It’s acid, Pete,” he said. “My father told me about this sort of thing being done sometimes in a close race among bankers for the last load of fish. If they’re all like this we’re done for until we can get more.”
Ellinwood looked at him in amazement, his jaw sagging.
“Well, who in thunder would do this?”
Code laughed bitterly.
“There’s only one man I can think of, and that is the fellow who got my motor-dory under false156pretenses. You remember how he made the cook and the boy help him get it over the side? Well, her gasoline-tank was full and her batteries new. She was ready to go two hundred miles on a minute’s notice.”
“But why should he do that––”
“Oh, think, Pete,think!Don’t you remember? He’s one of the men I went up to Castalia to get, the time that lawyer came to Freekirk Head. And he’s the only man in the whole crew I don’t know well. I see it all now. He sent me a note the night before asking to ship on theLass, and I went to get him before any of the other skippers got wind of it. You don’t suppose he did this thing on his own account, do you?”
“Easy, skipper, easy! What’s he got against you?”
“He’sgot nothing against me!” cried Code passionately. “But he is working for the man who has. Do you think that stupid ox would have sense enough to work a scheme like this? Never! Nat Burns is behind this, and I’ll bet my schooner on it!”
Schofield dumped the bait-tub over the deck and rolled it around, examining it. Suddenly he stopped and peered closely.
“Look here!” he cried. “Here’s proof!”
With a splitting knife that he snatched out of a cleat he pried loose a tiny plug in one of the bottom157boards that had been replaced so carefully that it almost defied detection.
“The whole thing is simple enough. He turned the tub upside down, cut out this plug, and inserted the acid. Then he refitted the plug and set it right side up again. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
“By thunder, I believe you’re right, skipper!” said Ellinwood solemnly. “The dirty dog! Cookee, run that tub up to the truck again. We’ll have to call the men in on this.”
“Oh, he was foxy, that one!” said Code bitterly. “Going out in the fog that way so all hands would think he was lost! I never remembered until this minute that the motor-dory could be run. I guess she went, all right, and that scoundrel is ashore by this time.”
“Had a bad name in Castalia, didn’t he?”
“Oh, a little more or less that I heard of, but what’s that in a fisherman? When the men come in have them go through all the bait.”
Pete fired the old rifle, and the crew at work began to pull in through the choppy sea.
“Hello!” cried the mate, looking behind him. “There’s something going to be doin’ here in a minute. It’s the cutter from Halifax, all right.”
Code, his former danger forgotten for the time, glanced up. The smudge of smoke had quickly resolved158itself into a stubby, gray steam-vessel with a few bright brass guns forward and a black cloud belching from her funnel. She was still some five miles away, but apparently coming at top speed.
Three miles before her, with all sails set, including staysail and balloon-job, raced a fishing schooner. There was a fresh ten-knot wind blowing a little south of west––a wind that favored the schooner, and she was putting her best foot forward, taking the green water over her bows in a smother of foam.
“Heavens! look at her go!”
The exclamation was one of pure delight in the speed.
“Maybe she’s an American that’s been caught inside the three-mile limit, and is pullin’ away from the gunboat,” remarked Pete.
That she was pulling away there was little doubt. In the fifteen minutes that elapsed after her discovery she had widened the gap between herself and her pursuer. She was now within a mile of theLass.
“Why doesn’t she shoot?”
As Code spoke a puff of white smoke thrust out from the blunt bows of the cutter, and the ball ricochetted from wave-top to wave-top to fall half a mile astern of the schooner.
“Out of range now, an’ if the wind holds she’ll be out of sight by nightfall,” said Pete, who was159moved to great excitement and enthusiasm by the contest. “Wonder who she is?”
He plunged down the companionway to the cabin and emerged a moment later with Code’s powerful glasses.
But Code did not need any glasses to tell him who she was. His eye had picked out her points before this, and the only thing that interested him was the fact that her wireless was down.
It was the mysterious schooner.
He had never seen her equal for traveling, and he knew that she must be making a good fourteen knots, for the cutter was capable of twelve.
She had reached her closest point of contact with Code’s vessel and had begun to bear away when Pete leveled his glasses. It was on Schofield’s tongue to reveal the identity of the pursued when Ellinwood yelled:
“Good Heavens! Skipper! She hasCharming Lassprinted in new gold letters under her counter!”
“What?”
“As I live, Code.Charming Lass, as plain as day! What’s happening here to-day? What is this?” Code snatched the glasses from Pete’s hand and then leveled them, trembling, at the flying schooner.
For a time the foam and whirl of her wake obscured160matters, but all at once, as she plunged down into a great hollow between waves, her stern came clear and pointed to heaven. There, in bright letters that glinted in the sun and were easily visible at a much greater distance, was printed the name:
CHARMING LASSOFFREEKIRK HEAD
“No wonder she’s goin’!” yelled Pete, almost beside himself with excitement. “No wonder she’s goin’! But let her go! More power to her! Yah!”
Code stood with the glasses to his eyes and watched the mysterious schooner and the pursuing vessel disappear.
161CHAPTER XIXELLINWOOD TAKES A HAND
There were two things for Code to do. One was to sail north into Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, set seines, and catch the herring that were then schooling. The other was to run sixty miles or so northeast to St. Pierre, Miquelon, and buy bait.
Under ordinary circumstances he would not have hesitated. It would have been Placentia Bay without question. But his situation was now decidedly out of the ordinary. He was in a hurry to fill his hold with cod before the other men out of Freekirk Head; first, for the larger prices he would get; and secondly, because he yearned to come to grapples with Nat Burns.
To seine for herring would lose him upward of a week; to buy it would take less than three days, including the round trip to St. Pierre.
But the money?
Code knew that in the French island herring seldom went below three dollars a barrel, and that the smallest amount he ought to buy would be twenty-five162barrels. Later on, if the fishing was good, he might send out a party to set the seines, but not now. He must buy. But the money!
Then he thought of the packet of money Elsa Mallaby had sent him. The cash was meant for any sailor who came to need it.
And the men with him were willing to fight to the last ditch and to take their lot ungrumblingly as fishermen early learn to do.
If he starved, they starved. So he decided he would not hesitate to use Elsa’s money when a dozen men and their families were dependent upon him and the success of the cruise.
Thus the matter was settled and the order roared down the decks:
“Set every stitch for St. Pierre; we’re going to bait up there. Lively, now!”
St. Pierre, Miquelon, is one of the quaintest towns in all of picturesque French Canada. It is on the island of the same name (there are three Miquelon islands), which is in itself a bold chunk of granite sticking up out of the ocean at a distance of some ten miles southwest of May Point, Newfoundland.
Rough and craggy, with few trees, sparse vegetation, and a very thin coating of soil, there is no agriculture, and the whole glory of the island is centered in the roaring city on its southeast side.
It is a strange city, lost in the midst of busy up-to-date163Canada, with French roofs, narrow tilting streets, and ever the smell of fish. There is a good harbor, and there are wharfs where blackfaced men with blue stockings, caps, and gold earrings chatter the patois and smoke their pipes. In the busy time of year there are ten thousand men in the town and it is a scene of constant revelry and wildness.
TheCharming Lasstouched the port at the height of its season––early September––and, because of the shallowness of the harbor close in, anchored in the bay amid a crowd of old high-pooped schooners, filled with noisy, happy Frenchmen. There were other nationalities, too, in the cosmopolitan bay––Americans setting a new spar or Nova Scotians in on a good time.
TheCharming Lasscast her anchor shortly before six o’clock, having made the run in five and a half hours with a good breeze behind. Code and Ellinwood immediately went over the side in the brown dory of the mate and pulled for the customhouse wharf. The rest of the crew were forbidden off the decks except to sleep under them, for it was intended, as soon as the bait was lightered aboard, to make sail to the Banks again.
The bait industry in St. Pierre is one more or less open to examination. It is the delight of certain French dealers to go inside the English three-mile limit, load their vessels with barrels of herring, and164return to St. Pierre. Here they sell them at magnificent profit to Frenchmen, Englishmen, and Americans. And, as the British coat of arms is not stamped on herring at birth, no one can prove that they were not legally procured.
But let a Canadian revenue cutter catch a Frenchman (or American either, for that matter), dipping herring in any out-of-the-way inlet, and the owner not only pays a heavy fine, but he often loses his schooner and his men go to jail for trying to hoist sail and escape at the last minute.
Code had not reached shore before he had been accosted by fully half a dozen of these bait pirates. But he passed them, and tying his dory at the wharf, went on up the street to a legitimate firm.
Immediately the business was finished, Code and Pete Ellinwood started back to the wharf.
The main street was ablaze with lights. Cafés, saloons, music halls, catch-penny places––in fact, every device known to separate sailors from their wages was in operation. The sidewalks were crowded with men, jabbering madly in the different dialects of their home provinces (for many come here from France yearly).
“Queer lot, these frog-eaters,” said Pete, going into the street so as to avoid a thick, pushing crowd.
“Yes, they would come to a knifing over a count of fish and yet give their schooners to a friend in165trouble. Too bad they ain’t better fishermen.”
“Yeah, ain’t it.”
Among Canadians and Americans the Frenchmen are held in contempt on account of their hooks, which are of soft metal and can be rebent and used again. The fish often get away with them, however, and these hidden hooks slit many a finger in dressing down.
The two comrades loitered along, watching the changing crowds, gay with their colored caps and scarfs. Some men were already in liquor, and all seemed to be headed in that general direction. Suddenly, as Code was about to urge Pete along, he gave an exclamation and stopped short.
“What’s the matter, skipper?”
“I wonder where he is now?” Code’s eyes were searching the crowd. “I saw him right over there.”
He pointed to a certain spot.
“Who? What? Are you crazy, Code?”
“’Arry Duncan, the traitor that ruined our bait. I’d have sworn I saw him. It came all of a sudden and went away again. But I guess it couldn’t have been anything but a close resemblance.” He laughed nervously. “Gave me the creeps for a minute, though.”
“Lor-rd!” shivered Pete, who had all the superstitions of the sea at his fingers’ ends. “Mebbe166he’s chasin’ us around fer wrongly accusin’ him. They do that sometimes, you know. He’s probably dead an’ that’s his sperrit, ha’ntin’ us.”
“Oh, rot, Pete!” growled Code in his most forcible manner. “Come along now or you’ll be sidling into one of these doors and theLasswon’t get out of port for a week.”
“My soul an’ body! Look at that Frenchy. Biggest I ever saw, Code.”
They had returned to the sidewalk, and Pete forgot that he himself rose fully as high above the crowds as this stranger. In fact, nearly every one turned to take a look at the huge islander, who, in reality, stood six feet four, barefoot.
They were pushing down-street against the tide and making rather heavy going of it. Code maneuvered so as to pass well to leeward of the big man who, he could see plainly, was just tipsy. But somehow the eyes of the two giants met, and the Frenchman seemed to crush his way through the crowd in Ellinwood’s direction.
“Come on, Pete; get out of here before there’s any trouble,” commanded Code. He knew the mate’s weakness for fighting.
The big Frenchman, who wore tremendous earrings, a bright scarlet cap with a blue tuft, and a gay sash, lurched through the crowd and against Pete167Ellinwood with a malice only too plain. But his effort was attended with failure. Not only did Pete stand like a rock, but he thrust the other violently back with his shoulder, so that he recoiled upon those behind him, earning their loud-voiced curses.
“Mille tonnerres!” bellowed the Frenchman. “You insult me,cochon Canadien, Canadian pig! The half of sidewalk is mine, eh? You push me off, eh? You fight, eh?”
Code urged Ellinwood along and interceded personally, knowing that the big man would not touch him.
But the Frenchman would not be appeased. He was just drunk enough to become obsessed with the ugly idea that Pete had laid a trap to insult him, and, regardless of Code, kept after the mate.
By this time, of course, a huge crowd had gathered and was following Pete’s retreat, yelling to both men to fight it out. Many of the mob knew a few English words, and their taunts reached Ellinwood’s ears.
He and Code had not retreated a block before the mate suddenly swung around on his tormentors.
“I won’t stand for that, Code. Did you hear what that big devil called me?” he demanded.
“What do you care what he called you? Get along to the ship. What chance have we got with168these men?” Code grabbed Pete’s arm and kept him moving away. Beneath his hand he could feel the muscles as hard as iron.
But every foot the Canadians retreated brought the big Frenchman nearer, bawling with triumph. At an opportune moment, so close was the press, he slipped his foot between Ellinwood’s legs and gave him a push. Pete stumbled, almost fell, and recovered himself, raging.
“Get back you!” he bawled, sending half a dozen men spinning with sweeps of his great arms. “I’ll fight this Frenchy. Just let me at him!”
Code saw the rage in Pete’s eyes and recognized that he could do nothing more to avert the trouble. His part would have to be confined to seeing that his man got a fair deal. He and Pete were unarmed except for their huge clasp-knives––much better kept out of sight under the circumstances.
The crowd fell back, and the two giants stripped off their coats and shirts. The Frenchman danced up and down, beating his great fists together in a fine frenzy, but Pete, half-crouched, stepped forward on his toes, his hands hanging loose and ready at his sides.
“Allez, donc!” It was the starting word, and Jean leaped in. Pete met him with a crashing right to the ribs and dodged out of reach of the clutching hands that reached for his throat. They circled169around a moment and again the Frenchman came, this time in one great leap.
On the instant Ellinwood jumped in to meet him. There was a swift flying of arms, a pounding of the great fists, and Pete suddenly shot back from the mêlée and landed on his back in the dirt. One of the Frenchman’s great swings had landed. But he was up in an instant and went after his opponent again.
Jean saw now that he had another man to deal with––unlike a Frenchman, an Anglo-Saxon cannot fight without sufficient provocation. Now all the battle was aroused in Ellinwood, for aside from the shame of his downfall, the crowd was yelling at the top of its voice. Jean began to run away, circling round and round the ring of spectators, Pete after him.
Suddenly he made a stand, but the mate was ready for him. Dodging the straight left, Pete hurled himself forward and seized the burly Frenchman in his arms. Then, with a tug and a wrench, as though he were uprooting a tree, he lifted his opponent and crashed him down to the earth.
Jean, stunned, and with a broken arm, sought to get up. He gained his feet and, game to the last, staggered toward Ellinwood. Pete started to run in again, but some one on the edge of the crowd thrust a foot out and the big islander stumbled.
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Code saw the man who interfered, and, his blood boiling, leaped for him. At the same instant there came a cry of “Police! Police!” But Code did not hesitate. He plunged into the crowd after his man and, in an instant, found himself surrounded and fighting the whole mob.
For a moment it lasted. There was a rain of heavy blows that blinded him, and then something that was hard and dull struck him on the head. Everything began to whirl, and he found he could not lift his arms. Dimly he heard a voice near him shout: “This way!” in English and felt himself gathered up by men and borne swiftly away.
Then consciousness left him.
171CHAPTER XXAMONG THE HOME FOLKS
The village of Freekirk Head was a changed place.
No longer of early mornings did the resoundingpop! pop!of motor-dories ring back from the rocks and headland as the trawlers and hand-liners put to sea. No longer did the groups of weary fishermen gather on the store steps for an evening pipe and chat or the young bloods chuck horseshoes at the foot of the chapel hill.
It was a village of women. True, Squire Hardy, being too old to fish, had remained at home, and Bill Boughton, who was completing details for the immediate and profitable sale of the season’s catch, was behind the counter of his general store.
He dealt out supplies to the women and children, and wrote down against their fathers’ shares the amount of credit extended. But others, day after day, found nothing set against them, and this was due to the promise of help that Elsa Mallaby kept.
“It’s useless to charge supplies to those who have nothing now with the idea of getting it back from172their fishing profits,” she said. “What they earn will just about pay for it, and then there they are back where they started––with nothing. Better let me pay for everything until the men get back. Then they will have something definite ahead to go on.”
No one but Adelbert Bysshe, the rector, Bill Boughton, and Elsa Mallaby herself knew exactly how much she paid out weekly toward the maintenance of the village. But all knew it to be an enormous sum (as reckoned on the island), and daily the worship of Hard Luck Jim’s widow grew, until she occupied a place in Freekirk Head parallel to a patron saint of the Middle Ages.
But Elsa Mallaby was intensely human, and no one knew it better than herself, as, one late afternoon, she sat at her mahogany table, looking absently over the stubs in her check-book. She saw that she had disbursed a great deal of money––more, perhaps, than she would have under any other circumstances––but she frankly acknowledged that she did not mind that, if only she achieved the end toward which she was working.
For Elsa, more than any one on Grande Mignon, was a person of ways and means.
She was one of those women who seem to find nothing in self-communion. Hers was a nature destined for light and gaiety and happiness. To sit in173a splendid palace and mope over what had happened was among the last things she cared to contemplate.
Being of the pure Grande Mignon stock, she looked no farther for a husband than among the men of Freekirk Head, good, honest, able men, all of them. And her eye fell with favor upon Captain Code Schofield of the schoonerCharming Lass, old schoolfellow, playmate, and lifelong friend.
The money she had mailed to him had only been an excuse to write a letter; the favors to Ma Schofield were, in great part, to help further her plan; the whole business of helping support Freekirk Head was a flash of dramatic display, calculated to bring her ineradicably before Code’s eyes––and every one else’s.
As she sat near the window and saw the sunset glow die over the mountain ridge she asked herself what she had achieved. Apparently very little. She felt the futility of human endeavor and desire. To her knowledge Code was in love with nobody, although rumor had for years linked his name with Nellie Tanner’s. That was exploded now, for Nellie was engaged to Nat Burns.
Whydid he not respond?
Slowly her smile returned. He would respond when he had heard certain other things. Then he would forget any one else but her––if there was any one else. Her heart leaped at the thought.
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As it became dark she rang the bell.
“Light the candles in the drawing-room,” she said to the servant who entered. “You remember that Mrs. Tanner is coming for dinner?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Very well. That is all.” The servant withdrew.
There was nothing unusual in the fact of Mrs. Tanner coming for dinner in the evening to the big house. Elsa simply could not eat all her meals alone, and her old friends at the village were constantly receiving invitations.
Mrs. Tanner arrived at half-past six. It was her first visit since the departure of the fleet several weeks before, and there was plenty to talk about. But Ma Tanner wisely reserved her conversation until after the meal, for the “vittles” of Mallaby House were famous the whole length of the New Brunswick coast.
Afterward when they had retired to Elsa’s pink and gray boudoir, the eternal envy of Grande Mignon womanhood, the talk flowed freely.
“It’s this way, Elsa,” declared ma confidentially. “I think Nellie is pretty well took care of. Now young Nat Burns, as you know, is pretty well off, as the sayin’ goes on the island. He really wouldn’t have to fish if he didn’t want to. His father didn’t neglecthimwhen his time come.”