"I will let you know when daylight comes," answered the master of theKenilworth.
Captain Jim Wetherly stamped his foot and snarled at his puzzled mate:
"They must think I'm seven kinds of a fool. I'll block their game right now. Oh, Dan Frazier, come here, on the jump."
He grasped Dan by the collar, dragged him into the chart-room, and closed the door. With swift, emphatic utterance Captain Wetherly shot these instructions into the boy's ear:
"Dan, I'm going to put you aboard theKenilworth. I can't spare anybody else, and you will be my agent, understand? If Captain Bruce refuses to take my line, this business will be put up to the underwriters from start to finish. And the crooked owners won't be able to collect one dollar of insurance, I'll see to that. And I'll have you as a witness to prove that theResolutewas first on the spot. Come along with me."
Captain Jim pulled Dan by the arm toward the lower deck. A boat was lowered in atwinkling and, while the excited lad waited for a chance to jump, Captain Jim told him:
"It's likely that Pringle has Barton with him on the tug, and they may try the same trick. If they come aboard theKenilworth, you remember that you're working for Jim Wetherly, no matter if it means a scrap."
As the yawl danced away from the side of theResolute, Captain Jim shouted to theKenilworth:
"Put a ladder overside, if you please, Captain Bruce. I'm sending my nephew aboard to talk business with you."
"I will talk no business before daylight," roared Captain Bruce. "Call your boat back."
"Oh, yes, youwilltake him aboard," stormed Captain Wetherly. "If you don't, the underwriters will know the reason why.Shall I tellyouwhy?"
"Hooray! but that was a shot below his water-line," chuckled Bill McKnight from the engine-room door. "But I don't envy Dan his job when Jerry Pringle climbs aboard theKenilworth."
In his cooler moments Captain Wetherly might not have ordered Dan Frazier to board the strandedKenilworthbefore daylight, for a heavy sea was running along the Reef. But he knew there was smoother water in the lee of the stranded steamer and he had reason for confidence in his boat's crew. He had been foolhardy in bringing his tug so close, but he was in no mood to weigh risks; and he was ready to back Dan to play a man's part in this game for high stakes.
Dan had learned to do as he was told without asking why, but as he peered from his plunging yawl at the tall, black hulk of the helplessKenilworth, his hands were shaking and his lips were dry. Although the seas did not break over the Reef because of the depth of water, they threatened to smash the yawl against the steamer's side. Presently a lantern crept down from thedeck above like a huge fire-fly. It was tied to one of the lower rounds of a swaying rope ladder, at the sight of which Dan gathered himself for the ordeal. As the yawl rose he jumped headlong, got a grip on the ladder, and hung on for dear life while a frothing sea washed over him. Gasping for breath, bruised and dazed, he fought his way up the side and fell over the bulwark of the after well-deck.
Dan had not the slightest idea of what he was expected to do on board theKenilworth, but after two seamen had stood him on his feet he limped forward in search of Captain Bruce. Oddly enough, he did not feel in the least afraid of meeting the hostile ship-master whose wicked plans had been spoiled by the coming of theResolute. Dan recalled the big, brown-bearded man with the deep voice and the kindly eyes whom he had met in Pensacola harbor, and said to himself, as he had said then: "He looks like too fine a man." But as Captain Jim's agent, Dan braced himself to be stern and dignified while he clambered to the bridge.
He found Captain Bruce standing in the light that fell from the chart-room door.
"I am to stay aboard until further orders from Captain Wetherly, sir," announced Dan in the heaviest voice he could muster.
"Nobody asked you, so get away from my quarters," was the irritable reply. Dan stepped forward into the light and Captain Bruce stared at him with puzzled interest. Then his frown cleared and he exclaimed heartily:
"Why, it's the lad that fished me out of Pensacola harbor. I ought not to forget you, had I? Pardon my rude manners, but a man with his ship in peril is poor company. Come inside. Well, upon my word, this is a most extraordinary reunion all round."
The stalwart master mariner was trying hard to wear his usual manner, but his words came out with jerky, nervous haste, his gaze shifted uneasily, and he was twisting both hands in his beard. If his conscience had been troubling him before, panic fear had now come to torment him; fear of Captain Wetherly; fear even of this boy, for no mere chance could have brought about this midnight meeting on the Reef. In silence Dan followed him into the chart-room and waited while Captain Bruce seemed toforget himself in gloomy reflection. With an effort the master of theKenilworthlooked at the boy and began to explain:
"I hope Captain Wetherly did not take offence. I am responsible for the safety of this ship, and until I can get in touch with my owners my word is final. If I can get her off without help, it means saving a whacking big salvage bill. She is making no water, and is in little danger."
Dan knew enough of the ways of seafaring men to be surprised that this captain should stoop to explain matters to the deck-hand of a tug. But the captain's word did not ring true. He was trying to play a part, and Dan saw through it and was sorry for him.
"You don't know the Reef," replied the boy. "You struck it in good weather. And Captain Jim Wetherly is no robber. He would not stand by if he thought you were not going to need him and need him bad.Wedon't do any crooked business aboard theResolute, sir."
Dan had not meant to deal this last home-thrust. He was one lone-handed boy in the enemy's camp. Captain Bruce flushed and looked hard at Dan, not so much with anger aswith unhappy doubt and anxiety. He did not reply and appeared to be struggling with his thoughts. Dan was so worn out with excitement and loss of sleep that he had to blink hard at the swinging lamp to keep his eyes open, and after several minutes of silence, Captain Bruce's face seemed to waver in a kind of haze. Dan aroused himself with a start when the master of theKenilworthspoke the question that was uppermost in his thoughts:
"How did your tow-boat happen to find me to-night? What were you doing out here, boy?"
Dan's drowsiness fled as if a gun had been fired in the room. What could he say? If he told the truth he might be knocked on the head and dropped overboard before daylight. Deeds as bad as this had been done on the Reef, and he was the only witness to back up Captain Jim's story of a plot to wreck the steamer. He could only stammer:
"We were running to the north'ard and saw your signals. Captain Wetherly commands theResolute. You must ask him."
"He threatened and bulldozed me to-night," exclaimed Captain Bruce. "I let you comeon board because he treated me kindly at Pensacola. I will give him my answer at daylight."
Dan leaned forward with his elbows on the table and looked up into the captain's face. Mustering all his courage, he began to say what was in his heart, as if he were talking to one of his own friends who had done something to be sorry for:
"Captain Wetherly is working for your interests, sir. He knows the Reef better than any pilot out of Key West. If he says he can get your steamer off, he'll do it. And—and—he wants to save you—your ship—no matter what it costs him. It—it—isn't only to get ahead of Jerry Pringle on a wrecking job, Captain. He likes you, and Barton Pringle is my chum, and Mrs. Pringle is my mother's dearest friend, and Captain Jim wants to get you clear and on your voyage again without—without being forced to—to fight it out to a finish with you and Jerry Pringle. It's for Bart and his mother, and for you, too, Captain Bruce."
The ship-master walked to the doorway and stood gazing out into the night. Then he replied gruffly with a hard laugh:
"You are almost asleep, my boy. I can't make head or tail of what you are driving at. I make my own bargains with tugs when I need them. Lie down on the transom and take forty winks. I am going to start my engines again and work my vessel off on this tide."
Dan nodded and promptly curled up on the leather cushions. Daylight showed through the port-holes when he awoke and stepped out on deck. A few cable-lengths to seaward rolled theResolute. Astern of her was theHenry Foster. Beating up the Hawk Channel inside the Reef came two schooners under clouds of canvas. Other sails flecked the sea to the southward, all hastening toward theKenilworth. From among the low islets to the westward the smaller craft of the "Conchs," or scattered dwellers on the Keys, were speeding toward the scene. TheKenilworthlay with a list to port, her bow shoved high on the invisible Reef, her stern still afloat. It would have been hard to convince a landlubber that this great steamer was in danger of going to pieces. No seas were breaking around her. She looked as if she had come to a standstill in mid ocean.
Dan Frazier had the love of the sea in him. The sight of this helpless ship as he saw her by daylight appealed to him as tremendously sad and tragic. He picked up a sounding lead and let it fall over the side to find the depth of water amidships, for a glance at the chart-room clock had told him that the tide was almost at the flood. The sound of voices made him look aft. Captain Bruce was coming forward with Jeremiah Pringle, and behind them was Barton. A moment later, Captain Jim Wetherly threw a leg over the steamer's rail and shouted to his men in the yawl to wait for him. He ran forward to Dan without speaking to the others as he passed them, and shoving his nephew toward Captain Bruce he exclaimed:
"Here's my man, aboard your ship hours ahead of Pringle. You'll have to talk business with me first. And all I ask is a square deal."
Barton hung back and acted as if he had caught the spirit of the hostile rivalry that threatened an explosion of some kind. He was more highly strung and impulsive than Dan, less used to knocking about among men, and he felt that Dan was somehow taking sides againsthim. Before Captain Bruce could speak, Jerry Pringle strode up with an ugly scowl on his lean, dark face and said:
"Let Wetherly talk terms. When he gets through, I will be ready to sign a paper to take charge of the job for half the figure he names, I don't care how low he goes."
"That ought to settle it. You can't do as well as that, Captain Wetherly," put in the master of theKenilworth. "If you are so sure my ship can be pulled off, I see no reason why Captain Pringle isn't the man to do it."
Captain Jim was trying to keep his temper under, but the fact that these two men were trying to carry out their vile agreement right under his nose was more than he could stand. He shook his heavy fist in Jerry Pringle's face and declared:
"TheResolutewill make fast to this ship this morning. And if you want theHenry Fosterto get action, it will be under my orders, and at my terms. By Judas, this play-acting ends right here. I mean you, too, Captain Bruce. I have been hoping that I could keep my mouth shut. I'd rather cut off my right hand thandrag certain other people into it. I know why you brought your boy along with you, Jerry Pringle. To put a stopper on my tongue, wasn't it? Hide behind women and children, eh? Well, I'm in charge of wrecking this steamer, understand? Get back to your tug. I've a good mind to——"
He felt a pull at his arm, and turned to look into Dan's imploring face as the boy whispered:
"Don't say any more, Uncle Jim. Wait till Bart is out of the way, please, oh please do."
Captain Jim rammed his hands in his breeches pockets and addressed Captain Bruce:
"I've said my last word. My hawser will come aboard at once."
The master of theKenilworthwavered and looked at Jerry Pringle as if appealing to the stronger will which had tempted and entrapped him. The hapless ship-master had gone too far with the plot to let it go by the board. Pringle muttered with a sneer:
"Who is master of this steamer, anyhow?"
Captain Bruce echoed the remark:
"I command this ship, Captain Wetherly, and the sooner you leave her the better."
Wasting no more words, Captain Jim called to his boat's crew to stand by to take him off, and said to Dan:
"Pringle is going back to his tug. You stay here. They won't dare to do you any harm. Keep your eyes and ears open."
Presently Bart followed his father on board theHenry Foster. Dan had found no chance to talk with him and he was not sorry. He was afraid Bart would ask him what Captain Jim's angry speech had meant. Already the stranding of theKenilworthhad dragged the two lads into its tangle of motives and events.
Dan was too absorbed in wondering what Captain Jim could do next to dwell long with his own troubles and perplexities. He watched theResolutesteam nearer theKenilworth, while Captain Wetherly's deck-crew gathered around the huge coils of steel hawser on the overhang. Soon theHenry Fosterwallowed closer and her men were also busy making ready to pay out a towing hawser. Dan could not understand how Captain Jim was going to get his line aboard theKenilworth, and he breathlessly awaited the next move.
On board theResolute, Captain Wetherly was standing at the wheel and watching theHenry Fosterwith the light of battle in his gray eyes. Jerry Pringle's tug had forged ahead until she lay square in the path of theResolutewhich was thus prevented from getting into position for taking hold of the steamer on the Reef.
Captain Jim pulled the whistle cord and theResoluteclamored to the other tug to move out of the way. But Mr. Pringle seemed determined to remain exactly where he was. Again and again theResolute'swhistle was sounded, but theHenry Fosterrefused to make room. Captain Wetherly finally growled to the mate:
"He doesn't seem to have very good manners, does he? Maybe he ought to be taught a lesson. Take the wheel while I go below and have a few words with Mr. McKnight."
The chief engineer was leaning against a stanchion and muttering insults at the balkyHenry Foster, with special emphasis on the shortcomings of Mr. J. Pringle.
"Are you going to sit here all day and let thoseHenry Fosterslaugh at you, Captain?" asked McKnight.
"Not if you have steam enough to do as I tell you, Bill. All I want you to do is to jump her ahead for all she's worth when I ring the jingle bell. Then hold on tight and say your prayers."
"Going to push Pringle out of the way?" asked the engineer with a smile of happy anticipation. "Well, there's steam enough to make theHenry Fosterknow she's been bumped. It's about time something happened."
The captain returned to the wheel-house and gave the signal to back her. TheResoluteslipped very slowly astern until she was in a position for a "running start." As a final warning her whistle was blown, without reply from theHenry Foster. Then, with one long blast like a war-whoop, theResolutemoved straight ahead, gathering headway until her rearing bow was flinging cascades of spray. The mate gasped:
"Keep her off, Captain, or you'll be in collision."
Captain Wetherly grinned and nodded as he held his tug straight at the after part of theHenry Fosteron board of which there was much shouting and running to and fro.
Her crew had taken it for granted that theResolutewould pass astern of them until her tall cut-water loomed within a hundred feet of their overhang. Then her engine-room bells ding-donged one frantic signal after another, but she began to move too late.Crash!and she heeled far over from the shock of the collision. Like a keen-edged axe through a soft timber, the bow of theResolute, with her weight and momentum behind it, sheared through the overhang and sliced a dozen feet off the stern of the lucklessHenry Foster. It was done and over within a twinkling. TheResoluteploughed on with headway almost unchecked, and as her horrified mate rushed forward to see what damage had been done to her own hull, Captain Jim Wetherly looked back and remarked to himself:
"As neat a job as I ever saw. Her after bulkhead will keep her afloat, but theHenry Fosteris surely shy her tail-feathers. I guess that winds up her career as a tow-boat for some time. Jerry Pringle looks kind of upset and agitated."
Mr. Pringle had picked himself up from the deck, where he had been hurled headlong, and was wildly shaking his fist at theResolute. The crippled tug was drifting off broadside and wasevidently helpless. Presently a small boat put off from her and headed for theResolute. As soon as he was within shouting distance, Jerry Pringle rose in the stern-sheets and yelled in a voice broken with rage:
"You'll pay for my vessel, Jim Wetherly. You run her down on purpose. She'll founder or drift on the Reef if you don't tow me to Key West."
"You violated all the rules of the road," sung back Captain Jim. "And you're so fond of wrecking other people's vessels, supposing you see what kind of a job you can make of theHenry Foster. Tow you to Key West? You're joking. I'm going to put my line aboard theKenilworthand I'll settle with you later."
Dan was dancing up and down on theKenilworth'sdeck as he stared at this amazing collision. It might be a reckless and lawless thing to do, but Dan saw that Jerry Pringle had brought the disaster upon himself, and that it had given Captain Jim a clear field. Throwing his cap in the air, Dan let out a series of shrill and joyous war-whoops. He had forgotten all about Barton, but in the midst of his noisyjubilation he caught sight of his chum standing aft on theHenry Fosterand peering down at the havoc made by the collision. Dan's voice must have carried across the water, for Bart turned to look at theKenilworthand shook his fist with every sign of rage and resentment. Dan subsided, but the mischief had been done. He had made an enemy of Barton, and he muttered with a sorrowful face:
"I can't blame him for getting mad as a hornet at me. I ought to have kept still. I don't know how we can ever patch up this misunderstanding either. He ought to hold his daddy responsible for thinking he could monkey with Uncle Jim Wetherly and theResolute."
Nobody was more dumfounded by the ramming of the tugHenry Fosterthan Captain Bruce of the steamer aground on the Reef. In a twinkling his wicked partnership with Jeremiah Pringle had been smashed beyond mending. He could no longer refuse to accept help from the victoriousResolute. This meant that Captain Jim Wetherly would take charge of the wrecking of the steamer and try to save her and her cargo by every means in his power. Jerry Pringle had been driven from the scene. He was on board his shattered tug which was drifting to the southward, in no great danger of going ashore, while several schooners were clustering around to give her aid.
Dan Frazier paid no attention to Captain Bruce, but ran to the stern of theKenilworthto watch theResolute'screw send its towing hawser aboard. Captain Jim was at his best in suchan undertaking as this, and his men were obeying his shouted orders with disciplined skill and haste. The hawser writhed after the yawl like a sea-serpent and was dragged up the side of the stranded vessel by her own crew, who were jubilant at seeing active operations under way. When the line was made fast, Captain Jim bellowed through his megaphone:
"We have wasted time and lost the best of the tide, Captain Bruce, but I'm going to pull for an hour anyhow. Set your engines going full speed astern and throw your helm to port."
Captain Bruce obeyed with eager energy. He seemed to be coming to himself and honestly anxious to get his ship afloat. His broad shoulders were thrown back, and he held his head erect, while his deep voice had a tone of masterful decision. If he had made a compact with the Evil One, he acted like a man who regretted the bargain and wanted to repair the damage already done. Fate had suddenly snatched him out of the clutches of Jeremiah Pringle and perhaps he was glad of it. At least, Dan Frazier was ready to look at it in this way, and as Captain Bruce came aft to examine the hawser thelad said to himself with a wisdom born of his own experience:
"Last night he kind of behaved like a boy that had done something he was awful ashamed of, but was scared to own up to it. Now he looks as if he felt the way I do when I've decided to tell mother all about it and promise her I'll do the best I can to make things all square again."
Dan found time to take an anxious look at the weather, and a sweeping survey of sea and sky told him why Captain Jim did not want to wait for the next flood tide before beginning work. The ocean had turned from green and blue to a dull gray. The clouds were low and far-spread and the wind was seesawing in fretful gusts, now from the north-east, again from the north-west. The barometer had sought a lower level overnight, and all these signs declared that a gale was brewing. If it came out of the north-west, the charging seas would drive theKenilworthfarther on the Reef and perhaps lift her clear across the coral barrier to sink, with a broken back, in the deep water of the Hawk Channel.
TheResolute'swhistle signalled that she was ready to match her power against the Reef. As she forged ahead, the sagging hawser tautened and twanged like a huge banjo string, while the sea was churned to froth in her wake. At the same time theKenilworth'sengines lent their mighty strength to the task. Her hull vibrated as if the rivets were being pulled from their steel plates, but the keel did not move an inch. Dan's faith in Captain Jim's word was so implicit that he expected to feel the steamer start seaward in the first ten minutes. At the end of the hour, however, theResolutewas still tugging away without result, like a man trying to lift himself by his boot-straps. Then she slackened up on the hawser as if to get her breath for the next tussle.
The wind was blowing with more and more violence. It picked up the white-topped seas and hurled them high against theKenilworth, while the tug rolled and plunged amid driving foam and spray. Gulls were flying in from seaward to seek the shelter of the distant keys. But it was not yet rough enough to daunt Captain Jim Wetherly and he was evidently waitingto make a second attempt on the afternoon tide. Dan had seen these northerly gales blow themselves out in a few hours and he felt no uneasiness at being left in theKenilworth, although he muttered to himself as he felt the helpless steamer tremble to the shock of the seas:
"I don't see why Uncle Jim left me here now that Pringle is out of the way. I guess he hasn't time to remember that he is shy one deck-hand."
There was some truth in this surmise, for Captain Wetherly was having all he could do to keep theResoluteat her station and her propeller clear of the hawser which he refused to let go because he feared the weather might make it impossible to lower the yawl for another trip to theKenilworth. He knew what Captain Bruce was not aware of, that the steamer had been shoved on a shelving slope of the Reef where she could withstand a terrific pounding without having the bottom torn out of her, and that if she once started to move astern she would quickly slide off into deep water. Therefore Captain Jim was ready to take long chances with his tug before he would run to Key West for refuge from wind and sea.
In the afternoon, when theResolutewhistled that she was about to go ahead again on the hawser, the green billows were breaking over her bow and flooding aft in booming torrents. Her funnel was white with sea-salt from the spindrift as she plunged and reared like a bucking bronco. Dan was watching the laboringResolutefrom the stranded steamer's bridge when Captain Bruce put a hand on his shoulder and said with hearty frankness:
"That skipper of yours is plucky, and he is a first-class seaman. But he will lose his vessel if he stays out here much longer."
"He may have to give you a wider berth by dark," said Dan. "In ordinary weather he could take theResoluteover the Reef along here, but now the seas would pick her up and drop her on the ledges. I guess he will have to leave me aboard here overnight, Captain. There's no getting a boat over to me now. And he can't take theResoluteto leeward of you, on the inside of the Reef, for there isn't a deep water passage through, for miles and miles."
"You are welcome to stay aboard with me, lad," replied Captain Bruce. "We may havea tough time of it ourselves before morning, and I fancy your uncle is sorry he did not take you off with him. But that can't be helped."
TheResolutehad begun to pull. It was a thrilling battle to watch. The seas were so heavy that her power was applied in a series of tremendous lunges which threatened to snap the hawser every time her stern rose skyward. Dan held his breath and gripped the rail with both hands as the tug surged ahead again and again. Her mate and two deck-hands were crouched far aft, ready to cast loose the hawser whenever the captain dared to hold on no longer. After a while Dan saw the chief engineer waddle back to the overhang to take a look at the situation. There was something cheering in the sight of this bulky, stout-hearted veteran of many a desperate venture at sea. Bill McKnight plucked off his cap and waved it in greeting to Dan, as if signalling him that all was well.
"I guess he's clamped down his safety-valve long before this," said Dan aloud as he flourished an arm at Bill McKnight.
"My word but you are a desperate lot,"observed Captain Bruce, and a smile lightened his anxious face and weary eyes. "I think we are safer aboard theKenilworth."
He turned away to talk to his own chief engineer and his first officer. They had come up from below to report that the crew were beginning to talk of quitting the ship, and that it was hard to keep them at their stations. The news aroused Captain Bruce like a bugle-call to action. If he had been weak in an hour of temptation he was now once more the able, resolute ship-master, trained by long years at sea to face such a crisis as this.
"Do the cowards want to abandon ship while we are trying to work her off?" he thundered. "Look at that tug-boat out yonder. She isn't afraid to stay by us in a bit of a breeze. Come along with me. I'll handle them."
He hurried after the first officer, and Dan was left alone to gaze at the brave struggle of theResolute. It seemed impossible that she could hold on much longer. Her hull was buried by one sea after another, but she shook herself free and plunged ahead with dogged, unflinching power. The afternoon was nearly spent. Astormy dusk was beginning to steal over the tossing sea.
Dan perceived that Captain Jim was trying to stand to his task until high water might help to lift theKenilworth. But for once that square-jawed uncle of his had dared too much. TheResolutehad endured more than steel and timber could be expected to endure. Dan yelled with dismay as he saw the massive timber framework of the towing-bitts fairly jump out of the deck, splintered and broken, and vanish in the sea astern while the hawser slackened and buried itself in the waves. The mate and deck-hands were hurled this way and that. An instant later the wind bore a terrific crashing noise to Dan's ears. A gaping hole showed in her after deck as theResolutedove ahead, suddenly released from her grip on theKenilworth.
that square-jawed uncle of his
But for once that square-jawed uncle of his had dared too much
"Great Scott, she jerked the towing-bitts clean out of her," cried Dan. "It was just like pulling the stem out of an apple. Now wearedone for. Is anybody killed?"
His eyes filled with hot tears as he saw Bill McKnight rush aft and help pick up the mate and deck-hands who lay sprawled in thescuppers. The mate was huddled in a heap where he had been flung, and the rescuers dragged him clear and carried him forward between them, his legs and arms swaying limp.
"He looks dead," moaned Dan. "And it leaves Uncle Jim single-handed. He can't run home before this sea with a hole in his after deck like that. She'd swamp in no time. He'll have to buck into it and try to fetch Miami. And we can't get any help to him."
TheResolutesteamed very slowly away from the Reef, fighting for her life. Three long blasts from her whistle came down the wind as she spoke her farewell. Before long her reeling shape was lost to view on the shadowy sea; then her mast-head light gleamed for a little longer before she wholly vanished from Dan Frazier's yearning gaze.
Captain Bruce had rushed on deck at the sound of her whistle and Dan pointed to the dim outline of the beaten and crippledResolutewhile in a voice broken with grief and excitement he explained what had happened to the tug.
"Uncle Jim will have other tugs on the way as soon as he can wire for them," added Dan."I think he ordered a schooner to run to Miami this morning with orders for more help to be sent you."
"They can't get out to us until this blow is over," said the captain. "We are in for a bad night, my boy. I wish you were out of it. But Captain Wetherly couldn't have taken you off to save his soul."
"I wouldn't have been here if you had been square—" Dan began to say with a sudden rush of anger. But it seemed as though Captain Bruce had not heard him, for he went on to say:
"If my boy had lived he would have been about your age now, Dan. He was just your kind of a youngster, too. Go below and get some supper, and some sleep if you can."
There was to be little sleep aboard theKenilworththrough this night. The gale had no more than begun to blow when theResolutewas forced to retreat. Long before midnight it was lashing the shoal water of the Reef into huge breakers which assailed theKenilworthwith thundering fury. Her keel began to pound as she was lifted and driven a little farther on the Reef by one shock after another. The deckssloped more and more until it was not easy to keep a foothold. The noise of the water breaking over her hull, the booming cry of the wind, the groaning and grating and shrieking of her steel plates as the Reef strove to pull them asunder, made it seem as if the steamer could not hold together until daylight.
The grimy men from the engine-room and stoke-hole had fled to the shelter of the steel deck-houses where they huddled with the seamen, shouting to each other in English, Norwegian, and Spanish. Captain Bruce and his officers finally gathered in the chart-room and discussed the chances of launching the boats if matters should grow much worse. Dan Frazier was doubled up in a corner chair, half-dead for sleep, but fighting hard to keep his wits about him and tell the others what he knew of the Reef and the water that stretched to leeward of the ship.
In answer to a question from Captain Bruce he said:
"This is the narrowest part of the Reef, Captain Wetherly told me, and if you can get your boats away in the lee of the ship and keep themafloat through the breaking water you will be in the Hawk Channel, only three miles from a string of keys. The channels between the islands are deep enough for a ship's boat. You don't need any chart to find smooth water in those lagoons, sir."
"Her bottom plates are opening up," growled the chief engineer who had just come up to report. "The sea is coming in fast. It has begun to flood the fire-room, and I can't make steam to keep the pumps going much longer."
"The bulkheads forward are twisting like so much paper," added the first officer. "They can't stand up if she racks herself any worse. Then she will be flooded fore and aft."
Captain Bruce jumped to his feet and gruffly broke into this dismal kind of talk:
"Get all the men you can and come below with me. Her after part is still afloat and tight, and if we can brace the midship bulkheads with enough timbers and cargo, they may hold for a while yet."
It was a forlorn hope, but even the seamen and stokers were glad to be doing something to save the ship, and most of them rallied to thecall of the captain and mate and followed them down into the gloomy hold. Dan went along to try to do what he could, and also because he remembered that Captain Jim had told him to "keep his eyes and ears open."
"If we abandon theKenilworth," thought Dan, "and I see Uncle Jim again, the first thing he will ask me is what shape we left the steamer in—had she begun to break in two, and how badly was she flooded, and so on. I guess it's part of my job to find out all I can."
He picked up a lantern which had been overlooked and crept after the men, down one slippery iron ladder after another. It was a terrifying trip below decks where the angry ocean sounded as if it were about to tear its way through the vessel's side, amid an awful hubbub of shifting cargo, and breaking beams and plates. Dan hesitated more than once and tried to choke down his fear. He was in strange quarters and the men ahead of him, used to finding their way all over the vessel, moved much faster than he. They had reached the engine-room and were moving forward while he was still clinging to the last ladder. Thena lurch of the ship dashed his lantern against the hand-rail. The glass globe was smashed and the light went out.
The electric lighting plant had been disabled and the cavern of an engine-room was in black darkness as Dan vainly searched his pockets for matches. He heard faint shouts from somewhere forward and thought he saw the gleam of lanterns. He tried to grope his way toward them, but stumbled and fell against a steel column. With aching head he staggered to his feet just as the whole hull of the ship seemed to be raised bodily and let fall on the Reef with a deafening crash. Dan was more frightened and confused than ever. A moment later his feet began to splash in water. He thought the sea had broken into the engine-room, and he tried, with frantic haste, to find his way back to the ladder and regain the deck above. By this time he had completely lost his bearings. He did not know whether he was going toward the bow or stern. At length his trembling fingers clutched the rail of a ladder which ran upward from a narrow passageway. It led him to another deck still far down in the vessel's hold,where he could find no more ladders to climb. After what seemed to him hours of feeling his way this way and that, he bumped against a solid steel wall. Dan knew it was a bulkhead of some kind, but it must be far from the toiling crew of the ship, for he had long since ceased to hear or see them. He had never been in such utter darkness nor so hopelessly lost and bewildered.
The frightened lad shouted for help, but his voice could not have been heard a dozen feet away, so great was the din around him. He tried to think, to get back his sense of direction, to feel his way along the bulkhead in the hope of getting his hands on some object with whose outline he was familiar, which might tell him into what part of the ship he had wandered.
He was leaning against the steel wall of the bulkhead when it buckled, sprang back, and then quivered as if it had been a sheet of tin. There was a tremendous noise of crackling, rending timber and steel above Dan's head. He whirled about and tried to flee as he heard the collapsing bulkhead give way.
The boy could hear the cargo toppling towardhim with the roar of a landslide. He threw up his arms to shield his head, then something struck him in the back and hurled him to one side. He fell across a bulky box of some kind while other heavy boxes, a deluge of them, thundered from above and crashed all round him. Dan cowered in a frightened heap, expecting every instant to have his life crushed out. But gradually the descent of the cargo ceased, and he was still alive.
He tried to move his legs and found they had not been smashed. Struggling to turn over on his back he put up his arms and discovered that a huge packing case had so fallen as to make a bridge over him and keep clear the little space in which he crouched. But he was walled in by packing cases on all sides and he struggled in vain to move them. Until his fingers were torn and bleeding and his strength worn out, Dan tried to make an opening large enough to wriggle through and escape from this appalling prison.
When at length he lay still and panted aloud the prayers his mother had taught him, there came the echo of hoarse shouts above the clamor of the ship and the sea. Through a crevicebetween the boxes of freight that penned him fast he glimpsed the gleam of moving lanterns. The captain and crew were deserting the hold of the ship. Dan tried to call to them but his cries were unheard.
The shouts ceased, the gleams of light vanished one by one, and Dan was left alone in the flooded and shattered hold of theKenilworth. Far above him Captain Bruce and his crew were making ready their life-boats, preferring to trust themselves to the storm-swept sea than to the steamer which they believed doomed to be torn to fragments within the next few hours.
"They must have given up the fight", moaned Dan between his sobs. "I guess it means all hands abandon ship at daylight. And they will think I've been washed overboard in the dark."
Imprisoned as he was in the hold of theKenilworth, and feeling sure that the steamer was to be abandoned by her crew as a hopeless wreck, Dan Frazier became almost stupefied with terror and exhaustion. As long as there was any strength in his athletic young body he had pushed and tugged at the mass of freight which penned him in, shouting in his frenzy until his voice failed him and died away in hoarse, broken weeping.
At length his benumbed senses lost themselves in heavy slumber. He dreamed of being at home with his mother in the palm-shaded cottage and she was holding him in her lap and stroking his forehead with her cool hands. But nightmares came to drive away this sweet dream, and he awoke with a choking cry for help.
Dan thought he must have been asleep forhours and hours. More torturing than the realization of his dreadful plight was his burning thirst. But his brain was clearer and he listened to the medley of noises around him with a glimmer of hope. The water had not reached the deck on which he had been trapped, although he could hear it washing to and fro in the bottom of the hold below. The hull of the ship had ceased to pound on the Reef. The breakers beat against her steel sides and fell solid on her upper decks with a sound like distant thunder, but Dan began to feel confident that the gale was blowing itself out and the steamer was going to live through it.
He thanked God that he had not been drowned, at any rate, even though he seemed likely to perish where he was for lack of food and drink. Youth grasps at slender hopes and finds strength in dubious consolations. Dan had expected to be overwhelmed by the sea without a ghost of a chance to fight for his life. Now that this peril seemed to be passing, his wits began to return, and he fished his strong bladed sailor's clasp-knife from his trousers pocket. To hack away at his prison walls was betterthan doing nothing. He twisted painfully about until he had located the widest crevices between the sides of the packing-cases and began to chip away at the stout planking. It was a task tedious and wearisome beyond words. There was no light, his nerves were unstrung, and he worked with unsteady, groping hand. Rats scampered over him, or squealed in the darkness close by, and he slashed at them savagely. They startled him so that more than once he gave up the task and wept like a little child.
At length Dan cut through the planking of a box which was wedged fast between two larger ones and his knife clinked against tin. He managed to break off a splintered end of board and pulled out a round can of some kind of provisions. This was unexpected good fortune, and he carefully cut into the lid with a muttered prayer of thanksgiving, hoping to find enough liquid to wet his parched tongue. The can proved to be full of French peas, packed in enough water to supply a long drink of cool, refreshing soup. Dan scooped up the tiny peas with his fingers, emptied the tin, and eagerly drove his knife into another of them. Thenourishment made him feel like a giant. He returned to his task with genuine hope of being able to whittle a way out of his trap.
But as the weary hours dragged by, and the strokes of the knife became more and more feeble, the prisoner gave himself up to despair. His strength had ebbed so fast that he slumped down and slept with his face in his arms.
A great noise awoke him. The cargo was shifting and tumbling with fearful uproar. From below came the rumble of coal sliding across the bunkers. The deck rolled violently and pitched Dan to the other end of his pen. He expected to be crushed by the cargo, and thought the ship must be turning over. But the commotion gradually ceased and, to his great astonishment, he was alive and unhurt. The deck seemed to have much less slant than before. He raised his arms and they touched nothing over his head. Unable to realize the truth, he scrambled to his feet and stood upright. The great package of freight which had roofed him over had slid clear, carrying along the boxes piled above it. Frantic with new hope of release, Dan clambered upward, tearing his clothesto tatters, plunging headlong from one obstacle to another, bruising his face, hands, and knees against sharp edges and corners. Scrambling over the disordered cargo until he had to halt to get his breath, Dan gasped to himself:
"I can't get on deck through a freight compartment. The hatches will be fastened down above. I must find out how I blundered in here as far as the broken bulkhead."
A moment later he fetched up against solid tiers of cargo which had not been dislodged and knew he must be headed wrong. This gave him a clue, however, and with fast-failing strength he stumbled back over the way he had come. At last he saw a streak of daylight filter down from a skylight far above. Yes, there was a road to the upper deck. Dan glimpsed the shadowy outline of a ladder. It was all he could do to muster courage to attempt the long and dizzy climb. But he set his teeth and clung like a barnacle to one round after another until he fell against the iron door of a deck-house, fumbled with the fastening, and tottered out into daylight.
Half-blinded and blinking like an owl, DanFrazier covered his face with his hands until his eyes could bear the dazzling reflection of sea and sky which were flooded with glorious sunshine. The wind sang through the shrouds and funnel-stays and the blue ocean upheaved in swollen billows, but the gale had passed. Dan's bewildered gaze fell upon the empty chocks, the dangling falls and the davits swung outboard, where the steamer's life-boats had been. These signs were enough to tell him that the ship had been abandoned. He was left alone in her, and he went forward with a feeling of uncanny isolation. Water to drink was what he wanted more than anything else, and before making a survey of the ship he sought the tank in the chart-room and fairly guzzled his fill. Then he made a ferocious onslaught on the cabin pantry and carried on deck a kettle full of cold boiled potatoes, beef and hard bread, and climbed to the battered bridge.
Looking down at the steamer from this lofty perch, Dan understood what had caused the violent roll and lunge that set him free from his prison below decks. The storm had driven her, head-on, far up the outer slope of the Reef,where she had lain as if about to break in pieces, with the seas washing clean over her. But while her forward compartments had filled with water, her stern was still buoyant. When the gale had subsided the ship was hanging over the deep water on the inner side of the Reef, and the next high tide had lifted her stern so that she slid bow-first, for half her length, down the opposite side of the shelf which had held her keel fast. It looked like a miracle to Dan, but here was the ship still solid under his feet. Gazing down from one end of the bridge, he could see the inner edge of the Reef shimmering far down through the clear water and the hull of theKenilworth, hanging only by the after part.
"Where, oh where, is Uncle Jim?" he thought. "He might patch up her bulkheads, lift the water out with his wrecking pumps, and pull her off yet. And I'll bet he'd keep her afloat somehow."
Then a stupendous thought flashed into Dan's mind. It was such a dazzling, gorgeous idea that it made him dizzy with delight. Yes, it was all true. TheKenilworthhad been abandoned by her captain and crew as a wreck.She was like a derelict at sea. Whoever should find and board her would have the right to claim heavy salvage on the vessel and her cargo if they were saved and brought into port. It was the unwritten law of the Reef that the first man to set foot on an abandoned wreck was the wrecking master, to be obeyed as such, with first claim on salvage.
Dan tried to arrange his thoughts in some kind of order, and at length he said to himself with an air of decision:
"The wrecking master on this job is Daniel P. Frazier. I earned it all right, and Key West will back me up whether Jerry Pringle likes it or not. And I'm going to hold her down till Uncle Jim comes back. There can't be any more question about who has the wrecking of her. General cargo, too!—I'll bet it's worth several hundred thousand dollars!—and a four thousand ton steel steamer. If we can save her, the owners will have to give up fifty or a hundred thousand dollars in clean salvage money."
The weight of his responsibility soon tamed Dan's high spirits. He could make no resistance if a crew of hostile wreckers should happenalong to dispute his title in the absence of Captain Jim Wetherly. The morning sun was no more than three hours high. He must watch and wait through a long, long day, any hour of which might bring in sight the sails of a fleet of wrecking schooners. Dan reckoned that he had been penned below for about thirty hours and that this was the morning of the second day after the wreck. Captain Jim must have a tug on the way by this time. But, on the other hand, if Captain Bruce and his men had been picked up and carried to Key West, their tidings would send Jerry Pringle and his horde of wreckers flying seaward by steam and sail.
Every boy who plays foot-ball has dreamed of breaking through the line, blocking a kick, scooping up the ball, and running down the field like a whirlwind to score the winning touchdown with the other eleven vainly pounding along in his wake. So most of us have dreamed of playing the hero by stopping a runaway horse, saving the life of the prettiest girl that ever was, and being splendidly rewarded by her millionaire father. Dan Frazier's pet dream had a salt-water background. It was of being thefirst to find an abandoned ship with a rich cargo, triumphantly bringing her into port, and winning a fortune in salvage. At last he had found his ship, but the lone hero had an elephant on his hands.
Dan was too weary in body and mind to roam about the steamer. He rigged a bit of awning on the bridge, dragged a mattress up from below, and lay gazing through the rents in the canvas weather screen until noon. A mail steamer northward-bound passed close to the Reef, slowed down to make sure the crew had left the wreck, and ploughed on her way. Dan grew tired of looking to the southward for schooners beating up from Key West and concluded that the head wind and heavy sea were holding them in harbor. There was no black smudge of smoke to the northward to show that Captain Jim was coming out from Miami in a tow-boat. Over to seaward, however, in the east-north-east, three sails glinted like flecks of cloud. They were close together, and Dan gazed at them idly, thinking they might be coastwise merchant vessels hauling southward before the piping wind. But as they liftedhigher, he noticed that they were shaping a straight course for the Reef instead of swinging off to follow the track through the Florida Straits. They were schooners coming with great speed and showing a reckless spread of canvas.
Soon the low hulls gleamed beneath the towering piles of sail and Dan jumped to his feet as he scanned the beautiful sea picture they made.
"Bahama schooners; I know their cut!" he exclaimed. "They've smelled a wreck on the Reef as sure as guns. The news must have reached Nassau by cable yesterday. And those pirates have got a clear field for once. WhatcanI do? They won't listen to my story, not for a minute. They'll swarm aboard like rats and be ripping the cargo out of this vessel in a jiffy."
The youthful wrecking master was at his wits' end and his head began to throb as if it would split, for he had little endurance left. He remained in hiding on the bridge and tried to think out a plan of action as the Bahama schooners swooped across the frothing sea, laying their courses in a bee line for theKenilworth. Dan's only hope was that he might be able to stayaboard until Captain Jim should return to enforce the law of the Reef with his crew of hard-fisted tow-boat men to back him up. He thought of telling the wreckers that he was a stowaway, left behind when the steamer's men deserted her, but, although Dan Frazier was far from perfect, he hated the notion of lying his way out of this tight corner. He was truthful by habit, for one thing, and there was another reason which he muttered to himself:
"There's been lying enough on this job. The poor old ship has been rotten with lies ever since her skipper first ran afoul of Jerry Pringle. Even her grounding on the Reef was a lie. And I don't believe Uncle Jim would lie to save the ship, or his own skin either. No, this poor old vessel has been good to me so far. I got out of her hold by good luck and I'll trust to luck to pull me out of this scrape."
Dan picked up a pair of glasses and looked at the nearest schooner which had boldly crossed the Reef and was rounding to in the smoother water of the Hawk Channel while a group of black-skinned, ragged wreckers were shoving a boat over the side. Dan felt a new thrill ofsurprise and alarm as he scrutinized a burly figure poised at the schooner's rail. It was "Black Sam" Hurley, a Bahama wrecker of such evil repute that he had been pointed out to Dan in Nassau harbor as one of the notorious characters of the islands.