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Ma Tanner did not see the change in Elsa’s expression. The pupils of her magnificent black eyes expanded and the delicate brows drew together over the bridge of her nose. The close mouth, with its ugly set, would not have been recognized by any but lifelong friends.
“And Nat’s about’s good as any boy,” went on ma. “Boys is turr’ble hard to fetch up so they don’t disgrace ye and send ye to the grave with gray head bowed in sorter, as the poet says. Nat ain’t bad. He speaks sharp to his mother once in a while, but la––what boy don’t? I think he’ll treat Nellie right and be a good man to her.”
“Ma,” said Elsa, and her voice was quiet and intense as though she were keeping herself well in hand, “that’s whatevery onethinks about Nat Burns.”
“Wal,” asked the elder woman, slightly resentful, “don’t you think so?”
“What I think has nothing whatever to do with the question. But what Iknowmight have. I don’t want Nellie’s life ruined, that’s all.”
“Look here, Elsa, what’re you drivin’ at?” Ma Turner was becoming wrought up. She knew there must be something behind these hints or Elsa would never venture on such thin ice with her.
“Ye be’n’t by any means jealous o’ Nellie, be ye?” she asked, peering through her spectacles.
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“Heavens, no!” cried Elsa so convincingly that Mrs. Tanner was satisfied once and for all.
“Wal, what’s all the fuss, then?”
“Any girl would ruin her life that threw herself away on Nat Burns. He’s got a fine solid-gold case, but his works are very poor indeed, Ma Tanner.”
“Don’t go talkin’ educated or I can’t follow ye. D’ye mean he’s all show an’ nothin’ in his mind or heart of Christian goodness?”
“Yes, I mean that, and I mean more besides. He doesn’t stop by being merely ‘not good.’ He is actively and busily downright bad.”
“They’s several kinds of ‘bad,’ Elsa Mallaby.”
“Well, I mean the kind that makes a girl break her engagement and keep it broken, and that drives a man out of a decent village.”
There was a long and pregnant pause while Ma Tanner got everything straight in her mind.
“You don’t mean that he has––” she inquired, her little mouth a thin, hard line.
“Yes, I do. Exactly that. I knew the case myself in this very village before Jim died. There are some men who instinctively take the correct course in a matter of that kind; others who don’t care two pins as long as they get out of it with a whole skin. Nat Burns was that kind.”
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“Then you mean he ought already to be married?”
“Yes, or in jail.”
“Why isn’t he?”
“It was entirely up to the girl and she refused to act.”
“Gawd! My poor Nellie!”
The servant knocked, and, upon receiving permission to enter, handed Elsa a telegram, evidently just delivered from the village telegraph office. Unconsciously the girl reached into a glass-covered bookcase and drew forth a paper volume. Then she tore open the message and commenced to read it with the aid of the book.
Mrs. Tanner did not notice her. She sat staring into the future with a leaden heart. Such a thing as Elsa hinted at was unheard of in Freekirk Head, and she was overwhelmed. Suddenly she asked:
“Why do you hate Nat Burns so? You couldn’t have told me that if you hadn’t hated him.”
Elsa looked up from her book impatiently, quite oblivious to the wound she had caused.
“Because I was very fond of that girl!” she said, and went back to the translation of the message. Suddenly she sprang to her feet with a little cry of dismay and rang the bell.
“Annette!” she cried. “Annette!” The maid rushed in, frightened, from the adjoining room.
178
“Tell Charles I am going to St. John’s to-morrow, and to have the carriage at the door at half-past six. Pack my steamer trunk immediately. Great guns! Why isn’t there a night boat?”
The maid flew out of the room, and Elsa, still doubtful, retranslated the message. Mrs. Tanner, taken aback by these sudden activities, rose hurriedly to go. This sudden flurry was inexplicable to her. Since the departure of the fleet Elsa had not as much as hinted leaving Freekirk Head. Now, in a moment, she was beside herself to go.
“I hope it isn’t bad news, Elsa,” she faltered.
“Well, it is, ma, it is, b-but only in a business way. A little trip will straighten it up, I think.” And she was courteous but indefatigable in hastening the departure of her guest.
179CHAPTER XXIA PRISONER
When Code Schofield came to himself his first sensation was one of oppression, such as is felt after sleeping in an unventilated room. It seemed difficult for him to breathe, but his body was quite free and uninjured, as he found by moving himself carefully in all directions before he even opened his eyes.
Presently the air became familiar. It was a perfect mixture of flavors; oilskins, stale tobacco-smoke, brine, burned grease, tar, and, as a background, fish. His ears almost immediately detected water noises running close by, and he could feel the pull of stout oak timber that formed the inner wall of where he lay.
“Fo’c’stle of a fishing schooner!” he announced, and then opened his eyes to prove that he was correct.
He looked out into a three-cornered room occupied by a three-cornered table, and that ran as far back as the foremast. Above, fastened to a huge square beam, hung a chain-lamp so swiveled that it180kept itself level however much the schooner kicked and wriggled. On the table, swinging his legs, sat a large, unpleasant-looking man.
“Wal, how are ye?” asked this latter, seeing his charge had recovered consciousness. Never having seen the man before, Code did not consider it necessary to answer. So he wriggled to find out if any bones were broken, and, in the end, discovered a tender knob on the right side of his head.
He soon recalled the visit to St. Pierre, the purchase of the bait, Pete Ellinwood’s fight, the general mix-up, and the blow on the head that had finished him. He sat up suddenly.
“Look here! What ship is this?” he demanded.
“You’ll find out soon enough when you go on deck. Hungry? I got orders to feed ye.”
“You bet I’m hungry; didn’t have any dinner last night in St. Pierre.”
“Two nights ago,” said the other, beginning to fry salt pork. “Nigh thirty-six hours you’ve laid here like a log.” Code doubted it, but did not argue. He was trying to puzzle out the situation.
If this was a fishing schooner the men ought to be over the side fishing, and she would be at anchor. Instead, feeling the long, steady heel to leeward and half-recover to windward, he knew she was flying on a course.
181
Breakfast swallowed, he made his way on deck. As he came up the companionway a man stood leaning against the rail. With a feeling of violent revulsion, Code recognized Nat Burns. A glance at a near-by dory showed the letteringNettie B., and Schofield at once recognized his position.
He was Nat Burns’s prisoner.
“Mornin’,” said Burns curtly. “Thought you were goin’ to sleep forever.”
“It’s a hanging offense putting any one to sleep that long,” retorted Code cheerfully. “Luck was with you, and I woke up.”
“You’re hardly in a position to joke about hanging offenses,” remarked Nat venomously.
“Why not?” Code had gone a sickly pallor that looked hideous through his tan.
“Because you’re goin’ home to St. Andrew’s to be tried for one.”
Code glanced over his left shoulder. The sun was there. The schooner was headed almost directly southwest. Nat had spoken the truth. They were headed homeward.
“Where’s your warrant?” Code could feel his teeth getting on edge with rage as he talked to this captor who bore himself with such insolence.
“Don’t need a warrant for murder cases, and I’m a constable at Freekirk Head, so everything is being done according to law. The gunboat didn’t find182you, so I thought, as long as you were right to hand, I’d bring you along.”
“Then you knew I was in St. Pierre?”
“Yes; saw you come in. If it hadn’t been so dark you’d have recognized theNettienot far away.” Code, remembering the time of night they arrived, knew this to be impossible, for it is dark at six in September. He had barely been able to make out the lines of the nearest schooners.
A man was standing like a statue at the wheel, and, as he put the vessel over on the port tack, his face came brightly into the sun. It was ’Arry Duncan. Code had not been wrong, then, in thinking that he had seen the man’s face in St. Pierre.
“Fine traitor you’ve got there at the wheel,” said Schofield. “He’ll do you brown some day.”
“I don’t think so. Just because he did you, doesn’t prove anything. He was in my employ all the time, and getting real money for his work.”
“So it was all a plot, eh?” said Code dejectedly. “I give you credit, Burns, for more brains than I ever supposed you had. What’s become of Pete Ellinwood and theLass?”
“Pete is back on the schooner and she’s gone out to fish. You needn’t worry about them. At the proper time they’ll be told you are safe and unhurt.”
Code said nothing for a while. With hands183rammed into his pockets he stood watching the white and blue sea whirl by. In those few minutes he touched the last depth of failure and despair. For a brief space he was minded to leap overboard.
He shivered as one with an ague and shook off the deadly influence of the idea. Had he no more grit? he asked himself. Had he come this far only to be beaten? Was this insolent young popinjay to win at last?No!Then he listened, for Nat was speaking.
“If you give your word of honor not to try and escape you can have the run of the decks and go anywhere you like on the schooner. If not, you will be locked up and go home a prisoner.”
It was the last straw, the final piece of humiliation. Code stiffened as a soldier might to rebuke. A deadly, dull anger surged within him and took possession of his whole being––such an anger as can only come to one who, amiable and upright by nature, is driven to inevitable revolt.
“Look here, Burns,” he said, his voice low, but intense with the emotion that mastered him, “I’ll give no word of honor regarding anything. Between you and me there is a lot to be settled. You have almost ruined me, and, by Heaven, before I get through with you, you’ll rue it!
“I shall make every attempt to escape from this schooner, and if I do escape, look out! If I do not184escape and you press these charges against me, I’ll hunt you down for the rest of my life; or if I go to prison I will have others do it for me.
“Now you know what to expect, and you also know that when I say a thing I mean it. Now do what you like with me.”
Burns looked at Schofield’s tense white face. His eyes encountered those flaming blue ones and dropped sullenly. Whether it was the tremendous force of the threat or whether it was a guilty conscience working, no one but himself knew, but his face grew gradually as pallid as that of his captive. Suddenly he turned away.
“Boys,” he called to the crew who were working near, “put Schofield in the old storeroom. And one of you watch it all the time. He says he will escape if he can, so I hold you responsible.”
Code followed the men to a little shanty seemingly erected against the foremast. It was of stout, heavy boards about long enough to allow a cot being set up in it. It had formerly been used for storing provisions and had never been taken down.
When the padlock snapped behind him Code took in his surroundings. There were two windows in the little cubby, one looking forward and the other to starboard. Neither was large enough to provide a means of escape, he judged. At the foot of the cot was a plain wooden armchair, both pieces of furniture185being screwed to the floor. For exercise there was a strip of bare deck planking about six feet long beside the bed, where he might pace back and forth.
Both the cot and chair appeared to be new. “Had the room all ready for me,” said Code to himself.
The one remaining piece of furniture was a queer kind of book-shelf nailed against the wall. It was fully five feet long and protruded a foot out above his bed. In its thirty-odd pigeonholes was jammed a collection of stuff that was evidently the accumulation of years. There were scores of cheap paper-bound novels concerning either high society or great detectives, old tobacco-boxes, broken pipes, string, wrapping-paper, and all the what-not of a general depository.
With hours on his hands and nothing whatever to occupy him, Code began to sort over the lurid literature with a view to his entertainment. He hauled a great dusty bundle out of one pigeonhole, and found among the novels some dusty exercise books.
He inspected them curiously. On the stiff board cover of one was scrawled, “Log SchoonerM. C. Burns; M. C. Burns, master.”
The novels were forgotten with the appearance of this old relic.The M. C. Burnswas the original186Burns schooner when Nat’s father was still in the fish business at Freekirk Head. It was the direct predecessor of theNettie B., which was entirely Nat’s. On the death of the elder Burns when theMay Schofieldwent down, theM. C. Burnshad been sold to realize immediate cash. And here was her log!
Code looked over pages that were redolent of the events in his boyhood, for Michael was a ready writer and made notes regularly even when theM. C.was not on a voyage. He had spent an hour in this way when he came to this entry on one of the very last pages:
“June 30: This day clear with strong E. S.-E. wind. This day Nat, in theM. C. Burns, raced Code Schofield in theMay Schofieldfrom Quoddy Head to moorings in Freekirk Head harbor. My boy had the worst of it all the way. I never saw such luck as that young Schofield devil has. He won by half an hour. Poor Nat is heartbroken and swore something awful. He says he’ll win next time or know why!”
“Just like old man Burns!” thought Code. “Pities and spoils his rascal of a son. But the boy loved him.”
Code had not thought of that race in years. How well he remembered it now! There had been money up on both sides, and the rules were that no187one in either schooner should be over twenty except the skippers.
What satisfaction it had been to give Nat a good trimming in the fifty-year-oldMay. He could still feel an echo of the old proud thrill. He turned back to the log.
“July 1: Cloudy this day. Hot. Light S.-W. breeze. Nat tells me another race will be sailed in just a week. Swears he will win it. Poor boy, what with losing yesterday and Caroline Fuller’s leaving the Head to work in Lubec, he is hardly himself. I’m afraid the oldM. C.won’t show much speed till she is thoroughly overhauled. Note––Stmr.May Schofield’spolicy runs out July 20th. See about this, sure.”
There was very little pertaining to the next race until the entry for June 6, two days before the event. Then he read:
“Nat is quite happy; says he can’t lose day after to-morrow. I told him he must have fitted theM. C.with wings, but he only grinned. Take the stmr. to St. John to-morrow to look after policies, includingMay Schofield’s. She’s so old her rates will have to go up. Won’t be back till day after the race, but Nat says he’ll telegraph me. Wonder what business that boy’s got up his sleeve that makes him so sure he will win? Oh, he’s a clever one, that boy!”
188
Here the chronicle ended. Little did Michael Burns know he would never write in it again. He went to St. John’s, as he had said, and completed his business in time to return home the day of the race instead of the day after.
The second race was never sailed, for Code Schofield received a telegram from St. John’s, offering him a big price for a quick lighterage trip to Grande Mignon, St. John being accidentally out of schooners and the trip urgent.
Though loath to lose the race by default, the money offered was too good to pass by, and Code had made the trip and loaded up by nightfall. It was then that he had met Michael Burns, and Burns had expressed his desire to go home in theMayso as to watch her actions in a moderate sea and gale.
Neither he nor theMayever saw dry land again. Only Code of the whole ship’s company struggled ashore on the Wolves, bruised and half dead from exposure.
The end of the old log before him was full of poignant tragedy to Code, the tragedy of his own life, for it was the unwritten pages from then on that should have told the story of a fiendishly planned revenge upon him who was totally innocent of any wrong-doing. The easy, weak, indulgence of the father had grown a crop of vicious and cruel deeds in the son.
189CHAPTER XXIIA RECOVERED TREASURE
For five days Code yawned or rushed through the greater part of Nat’s stock of lurid literature. It was the one thing that kept him from falling into the black pit of brooding; sometimes he felt as though he must go insane if he allowed himself to think. He had not the courage to tear aside the veil of dull pain that covered his heart and look at the bleeding reality. He was afraid of his own emotions.
It was impossible for him to go lower in the scale of physical events.
Nat was about to triumph, and Code himself was forced to admit that this triumph was mostly due to Nat’s own wits. First he had stolen Nellie Tanner (Code had thought a lot about that ring missing from Nellie’s hand), then he had attached theCharming Lassin the endeavor to take away from him the very means of his livelihood.
Then something had happened. Schofield did not know what it was, but something evidently very serious, for the next thing he knew Nat had crushed190his pride and manhood under a brutal and technical charge of murder.
But this was not all.
His victim escaping him with the schooner and the means of livelihood, Burns had employed a traitor in the crew to poison the bait and force him to come ashore to replenish his tubs. Once ashore, the shanghaiing was not difficult.
Code had no doubt whatever that the whole plan, commencing with the disappearance of the man in the motor-dory and ending with his abduction from St. Pierre, was part and parcel of the same scheme. In this, his crowning achievement of skill and cunning, Burns had showed himself an admirable plotter, playing upon human nature as he did to effect his ends.
For it was nothing but a realization of Peter Ellinwood’s weakness in the matter of his size and fighting ability that resulted in his (Code’s) easy capture. Schofield had no shadow of a doubt but that the big Frenchman had been hired to play his part, and that, in the howling throng that surrounded the fighters the crew of theNettie B.were waiting to seize the first opportunity to make the duel amêléeand effect their design in the confusion.
Their opportunity came when the Frenchman tried to trip Pete Ellinwood after big Jean had fallen and Code rushed into the fray with the ferocity191of a wildcat. Some one raised the yell “Police,” he was surrounded by his enemies, some one rapped him over the head with a black-jack, and the job was done. It was clever business, and despite the helplessness of his position, Code could not but admire the brilliance of such a scheming brain, while at the same time deploring that it was not employed in some legitimate and profitable cause.
Now he was in the enemy’s hands, and St. Andrew’s was less than a dozen hours away; St. Andrew’s, with its jail, its grand jury, and its pen.
Life aboard theNettie B.had been a dead monotony. On the foremast above Code’s prison hung the bell that rang the watches, so that the passage of every half hour was dinged into his ears. Three times a day he was given food, and twice a day he was allowed to pace up and down the deck, a man holding tightly to each arm.
The weather had been propitious, with a moderate sea and a good quartering wind. TheNettiehad footed it properly, and Code’s experienced eye had, on one occasion, seen her log her twelve knots in an hour. The fact had raised his estimation of her fifty per cent.
It must not be supposed that, as Code sat in his hard wooden chair, he forgot the diary that he had read the first afternoon of his incarceration. Often he thought of it, and often he drew it out from its192place and reread those last entries: “Swears he will win second race,” “Says he can’t lose day after to-morrow,” “I wonder what the boy has got up his sleeve that makes him so sure he will win?”
At first Code merely ascribed these recorded sayings of Nat Burns to youthful disappointment and a sportsmanlike determination to do better next time. But not for long. He remembered as though it had been yesterday the look with which Nat had favored him when he finally came ashore beaten, and the sullen resentment with which he greeted any remarks concerning the race.
There was no sportsmanlike determination about him! Code quickly changed his point of view. How could Nat be so sure he was going to win?
The thing was ridiculous on the face of it. The fifty-year-oldMayhad limped in half an hour ahead of the thirty-year-oldM. C. Burnsafter a race of fifteen miles. How, then, could Nat swear with any degree of certainty that he would win the second time. It was well known that theM. C. Burnswas especially good in heavy weather, but how could Nat ordain that there would be just the wind and sea he wanted?
The thing was absurd on the face of it, and, besides, silly braggadocio, if not actually malicious. And even if it were malicious, Code thanked Heaven that the race had not been sailed, and that he had193been spared the exhibition of Nat’s malice. He had escaped that much, anyway.
However, from motives of general caution, Code decided to take the book with him. Nat had evidently forgotten it, and he felt sure he would get off the ship with it in his possession. Now, as he drew near to St. Andrews, he put it for the last time inside the lining of his coat, and fastened that lining together with pins, of which he always carried a stock under his coat-lapel.
As Schofield had not forgotten the old log of theM. C. Burns, neither had he forgotten the threat he made to Nat that he would try his best to escape, and would defy his authority at every turn.
He had tried to fulfil his promise to the letter. Twice he had removed one of the windows before the alert guard detected him, and once he had nearly succeeded in cutting his way through the two-inch planking of his ceiling before the chips and sawdust were discovered, and he was deprived of his clasp-knife.
Every hour of every day his mind had been constantly on this business of escape. Even during the reading, to which he fled to protect his reason, it was the motive of every chapter, and he would drop off in the middle of a page into a reverie, and grow inwardly excited over some wild plan that mapped itself out completely in his feverish brain.
194
Now as they approached St. Andrew’s his determination was as strong as ever, but his resources were exhausted. Double-guarded and without weapons, he found himself helpless. The fevered excitement of the past four days had subsided into a dull apathy of hurt in which his brain was as delicate and alert as the mainspring of a watch. He was resigned to the worst if it came, but was ready, like a panther in a tree, to spring at the slightest false move of his enemies.
Now for the last time he went over his little eight-by-ten prison. He examined the chair as though it were some instrument of the Inquisition. He pulled the bed to pieces and handled every inch of the frame. He emptied every compartment of the queer hanging cabinet that had been stuffed with books and miscellanies; he examined every article in the room.
He had done this a dozen times before, but some instinct drove him to repeat the process. There was always hope of the undiscovered, and, besides, he needed the physical action and the close application of his mind. So, mechanically and doggedly he went over every inch of his little prison.
But in vain.
The roof and walls were of heavy planking and were old. They were full of nicks as well as wood-knots, and the appearance of some of the195former gave Code an idea. He went carefully over the boards, sticking his thumb-nail into them and lifting or pressing down as the shape of the nick warranted. For they resembled very much the depressions cut in sliding covers on starch-boxes whereby such covers can be pushed in their grooves.
At any other time he would have considered this the occupation of a madman, but now it kept him occupied and held forth the faint gleam of hope by which he now lived.
Suddenly something happened. He was lying across his immovable cot fingering the boards low down in the right rear corner when he felt something give beneath his thumb. A flash of hope almost stifled him, and he lay quiet for a moment to regain command of himself. Then he put his thumb again in the niche and lifted up. With all his strength he lifted and, all at once, a panel rushed up and stuck, revealing a little box perhaps a foot square that had been built back from the rear wall of the old storeroom.
That was all, except for the fact that something was in the box––a package done up in paper.
For a while he did not investigate the package, but devoted his attention to sounding the rest of the near-by planks with the hope that they might give into a larger opening and furnish a means of egress. For half an hour he worked and then gave up. He196had covered every inch of wall and every niche, and this was all!
At last he turned to the contents of the box that he had uncovered. Removing the package, he slid the cover down over the opening for fear that his guard, looking in a window, might become aware of what he had discovered. Then, sitting on the bed, he unwrapped the package.
It was a beautiful, clear mirror bound with silver nickel and fitted with screw attachments as though it were intended to be fastened to something.
At first this unusual discovery meant nothing whatever to him. Then, as he turned the object listlessly in his hands, his eyes fell upon three engraved letters, C. A. S., and a date, 1908.
Then he remembered.
When he was twenty years old his father had taught him the science of navigation, so that if anything happened Code might sail the oldMay Schofield.
Because of the fact that a position at sea was found by observing the heavenly bodies, Code had become interested in astronomy, and had learned to chart them on a sky map of his own.
The object in his hand was an artificial horizon, a mirror attached to the sextant which could be fixed at the exact angle of the horizon should the real horizon be obscured. This valuable instrument his197father had given him on his twenty-first birthday because the old man had been vastly pleased with his interest in a science of which he himself knew little or nothing.
Code remembered that, for a year or two, he had pursued this hobby of his with deep interest and considerable success, and that his great object in life had been to some day have a small telescope of his own by which to learn more of the secrets of the heavens. But, after his father died, he had been forced to take up the active support of the family, and had let this passion die.
But how did it happen that the mirror was here?
He recalled that the rest of his paraphernalia had gone to the bottom with theMay Schofield. It was true that he had not overhauled his equipment for some time, and that it had been in a drawer in theMay’scabin, but that drawer had not been opened.
He pursued the train of thought no farther. His brain was tired and his head ached with the strain of the last five days. His last hope of escape had only resulted in his finding a forgotten mirror, and his despair shut out any other consideration. He had not even the fire to resent the fact that it was in Burns’s possession, and concealed.
It was his, he knew, and, without further thought of it, he thrust it into his pocket just as he heard the198men outside his little prison talking together excitedly.
“By George, she looks like a gunboat,” said one. “I wonder what she wants?”
“Yes, there’s her colors. You can see the sun shinin’ on her brass guns forward.”
“There, she’s signalin’. I wonder what she wants?”
Code walked idly to his windows and peered out, but could not see the vessel that the men were talking about.
“She wants us to heave to, boys,” sang out Nat suddenly. “Stand by to bring her up into the wind. Hard down with your wheel, John!”
As the schooner’s head veered Code caught a glimpse of a schooner-rigged vessel half a mile away with uniformed men on her decks and two gleaming brass cannon forward. Then she passed out of vision.
“She’s sending a cutter aboard,” said one man.
199CHAPTER XXIIISURPRISES
Fifteen minutes later a small boat, rowed smartly by six sailors in white canvas, came alongside the ’midships ladder of theNettie B.At a word from the officer the six oars rose as one vertically into the air, and the bowman staved off the cutter so that she brought up without a scratch.
A young man in dark blue sprang out of the stern-sheets upon the deck.
“Nettie B.of Freekirk Head?” he asked. “Captain Burns commanding?”
“Yes,” said Nat, stepping forward, “I am Captain Burns. What do you want?”
“I come from the gunboatAlbatross,” said the officer, “and represent Captain Foraker. You have on board, have you not, a man named Code Schofield, also of Freekirk Head, under arrest for the murder of a man or men on the occasion of the sinking of his schooner?”
Nat scowled.
“Yes,” he said. “I arrested him myself in St.200Pierre, Miquelon. I am a constable in Freekirk Head.”
“Just as we understood,” remarked the officer blandly. “Captain Foraker desires me to thank you for your prompt and efficient work in this matter, though I can tell you on the side, Captain Burns, that the old man is rather put out that he didn’t get the fellow himself. We chased up and down the Banks looking for him, but never got within sight of as much as his main truck sticking over the horizon.
“And thePetrel––that’s our steamer, you know––well, sir, maybe he didn’t make a fool of her. Payson, on thePetrel, is the ugliest man in the service, and when this fellow Schofield led him a chase of a hundred and fifty miles, and then got away among the islands of Placentia Bay, they say Payson nearly had apoplexy. So your getting him ought to be quite a feather in your cap.”
“I consider that I did my duty. But would you mind telling me what you have signaled me for?” Burns resented the gossip of this young whipper-snapper of the service who seemed, despite his frankness, to have something of a patronizing air.
“Certainly. Captain Foraker desires me to tell you that he wished the prisoner transferred to theAlbatross. We know that you are not provided with an absolutely secure place to keep the prisoner,201and, as we are on our way to St. Andrews on another matter, the skipper thinks he might just as well take the fellow in and hand him over to the authorities.”
“Well, I don’t agree with your skipper,” snapped Burns. “I got Schofield, and I’m going to deliver him. He’s safe enough, don’t you worry. When you go back you can tell Captain Foraker that Schofield is in perfectly good hands.”
The pleasant, amiable manner of the subaltern underwent a quick change. He at once became the stern, businesslike representative of the government.
“I am sorry, Captain Burns, but I shall deliver no such message, and when I go back I shall have the criminal with me. Those are my orders, and I intend to carry them out.” He turned to the six sailors sitting quietly in the boat, their oars still in the air.
“Unship oars!” he commanded. The sweeps fell away, three on each side. “Squad on deck!” The men scrambled up the short ladder and lined up in two rows of three. At his belt each man carried a revolver and cutlasses swung at their sides.
“Now,” requested the officer amiably, “will you please lead me to the prisoner?”
Nat’s face darkened into a scowl of black rage, and he cursed under his breath. It was just his luck,202he told himself, that when he was about to triumph, some of these government loafers should come along and take the credit out of his hands.
For a moment he thought of resistance. All his crew were on deck, drawn by curiosity. But he saw they were vastly impressed by the discipline of the visitors and by their decidedly warlike appearance. If he resisted there would be blood spilt, and he did not like the thought of that. He finally admitted to himself that the young officer was only carrying out orders, and orders that were absolutely just.
“Well, come along!” he snarled ungraciously, and started forward. The officer spoke a word of command, and the squad marched after him as he, in turn, followed Nat.
Of all this Code had been ignorant, for the conversation had taken place too far aft for him to hear. His first warning was when the sailors marched past the window and Nat reluctantly opened the door of the old storeroom.
“Officers are here to get you, Schofield,” said the skipper of theNettie B.“Come out.”
Wonderingly, Code stepped into the sunlight and open air and saw the officer with his escort. With the resignation that he had summoned during his five days of imprisonment he accepted his fate.
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“I am ready,” he said. “Let’s go as soon as possible.”
“Captain Schofield,” said the subaltern, “you are to be transferred, and I trust you will deem it advisable to go peaceably.”
Catching sight of the six armed sailors, Code could not help grinning.
“There’s no question about it,” he said; “I will.”
“Form cordon!” ordered the officer, and the sailors surrounded him––two before, two beside, and two behind. In this order they marched to the cutter.
Code was told to get in first and take a seat looking aft. He did so, and the officer dropped into the stern-sheets so as to face his prisoner. The sailors took their position, shipped their oars smartly, and the cutter was soon under way to the gunboat.
Arrived at the accommodation ladder, and on deck, Code found a vessel with white decks, glistening brass work, and discipline that shamed naval authority. The subaltern, saluting, reported to the deck-officer that his mission had been completed, and the latter, after questioning Code, ordered that he be taken to confinement quarters.
These quarters, unlike the pen on theNettie B., were below the deck, but were lighted by a porthole.204The room was larger, had a comfortable bunk, a small table loaded with magazines, a chair, and a sanitary porcelain washstand. The luxury of the appointments was a revelation.
There was no question of his escaping from this room he very soon discovered.
The door was of heavy oak and locked on the outside. The walls were of solid, smooth timber, and the porthole was too small to admit the possibility of his escaping through it. The roof was formed of the deck planks.
He had hardly examined his surroundings when he heard a voice in sharp command on deck, and the running of feet, creaking of blocks, and straining of sheets as sail was got on the vessel. His room presently took an acute angle to starboard, and he realized that, with the fair gale on the quarter, they must be crowding her with canvas.
He could tell by the look of the water as it flew past his port that the remainder of the trip to St. Andrews would not take long. He knew the course there from his present position must be north, a little west, across the Bay of Fundy.
TheNettie B., when compelled to surrender her prisoner, had rounded Nova Scotia and was on the home-stretch toward Quoddy Roads. She was, in fact, less than thirty miles away from Grande Mignon Island, and Code had thought with a great and205bitter homesickness of the joy just a sight of her would be.
He longed for the white Swallowtail lighthouse with its tin swallow above; for the tumbled green-clothed granite of the harbor approaches; for the black, sharp-toothed reefs that showed on the half-water near the can-buoy, and for the procession of stately headlands to north and south, fading from sight in a mantle of purple and gray.
But most of all for the crescent of stony beach, the nestle of white cottages along the King’s Road, and the green background of the mountain beyond, with Mallaby House in the very heart of it.
This had been his train of thought when Burns had opened the door to deliver him up to the gunboat, and now it returned to him as the stanch vessel under him winged her way across the blue afternoon sea.
He wondered if theAlbatrosswould pass close enough inshore for him to get a glimpse of Mignon’s tall and forbidding fog-wreathed headlands. Just a moment of this familiar sight would be balm to his bruised spirit. He felt that he could gather strength from the sight of home. He had been among aliens so long!
But no nearer than just a glimpse. He made a firm resolution never to push the prow of theLassinto Flagg Cove until he stood clear of the charges206against him. He admitted that it might take years, but his resolution was none the less strong.
His place of confinement was on the starboard side of theAlbatross, and he was gratified after a few minutes to see the sun pouring through his porthole.
Despair had left him now, and he was quietly cheerful. With something akin to pleasure that the struggle was over, and that events were out of his hands for the time being, he settled down in his chair and picked up a magazine.
He had hardly opened it when a thought occurred to him. If the course was north a little west, how did it happen that the sun streamed into his room, which was on the east side of the ship on that course?
He sprang to the port and looked out.
The sun smote him full in the face. He strained his eyes against the horizon that was unusually clear for this foggy sea, and would have sworn that along its edge was a dark line of land. The conclusion was inevitable.
TheAlbatrosswas flying directly south as fast as her whole spread of canvas could take her.
Schofield could not explain this phenomenon to himself, nor did he try. The orders that a man-of-war sailed under were none of his affair, and if the captain chose to institute a hunt for the north pole207before delivering a prisoner in port, naturally he had a perfect right to do so. It was possible, Code told himself, that another miserable wretch was to be picked up before they were both landed together.
Whatever course Captain Foraker intended to lay in the future his present one was taking him as far as possible away from Grande Mignon, St. Andrew’s, and St. John’s. And for this meager comfort Code Schofield was thankful.
The sun remained above the horizon until six o’clock, and then suddenly plumped into the sea. The early September darkness rushed down and, as it did so, a big Tungsten light in the ceiling of Code’s room sprang into a brilliant glow, the iron cover to the porthole being shut at the same instant.
A few moments later the door of his cell was unceremoniously opened and a man entered bearing an armful of fresh clothing.
“Captain Schofield,” he said, with the deference of a servant, “the captain wishes your presence at dinner. The ship’s barber will be here presently. Etiquette provides that you wear these clothes. I will fix them and lay them out for you. If you care for a bath, sir, I will draw it––”
“Say, look here,” exclaimed our hero with a sudden and unexpected touch of asperity, “if you’re208trying to kid me, old side-whiskers, you’re due for the licking of your life.”
He got deliberately upon his feet and removed the fishing-coat which he had worn uninterruptedly since the night at St. Pierre.
“I thought I’d read about you in that magazine or something, and had fallen asleep, but here you are still in the room. I’m going to see whether you’re alive or not. No one can mention a bath to me with impunity.”
He made a sudden grab for the servant, who stood with mouth open, uncertain as to whether or not he was dealing with a lunatic.
Before he could move, Code’s hard, strong hands closed upon his arms in a grip that brought a bellow of pain. In deadly fear of his life, he babbled protests, apologies, and pleadings in an incoherent medley that would have satisfied the most toughened skeptic. Code released him, laughing.
“Well, I guess you’re real, all right,” he said. “Now if you’re in earnest about all this, draw that bathquick. Then I’ll believe you.”
Half an hour later Code, bathed, shaved, and feeling like a different man, was luxuriating in fresh linen and a comfortable suit.
“Look here, Martin,” he said to the valet, “of course I know that this is no more the gunboatAlbatrossthan I am. The Canadian government209isn’t in the habit of treating prisoners in exactly this manner. What boat is this?”
Martin coughed a little before answering. In all his experience he had never before been asked to dress the skipper of a fishing vessel.
“I was told to say, sir, in case you asked, that you are aboard the mystery schooner, sir.”
“What! The mystery schooner that led the steamer that chase?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, by the great trawl hook! And I didn’t know it!”
“No, sir. Remember we came up behind theNettie B., and when you were transferred you were made to sit facing away from this ship so you would not recognize her.”
“Then all the guns were fakes, and the whole business of a man-of-war as well?” cried Code, astonished almost out of his wits by this latest development in his fortunes.
“Yes, sir. The appearances were false, but as for seamanship, sir, this vessel could not do what she does were it not for the strict training aboard her, sir. I’ll wager our lads can out-maneuver and outsail any schooner of her tonnage on the seas, Gloucestermen included. The navy is easy compared to our discipline.”
“But what holds the men to it if it’s so hard?”