X
DESPERATE MEASURES
Old Bob seemed something inclined toward optimism, when the boat layalongside a landing-stage at Woolwich, and Kirkwood had clambered ashore.
"Yer'll mebbe myke it," the waterman told him with a weatherwise survey ofthe skies. "Wind's freshenin' from the east'rds, an' that'll 'old 'er backa bit, sir."
"Arsk th' wye to th' Dorkyard Styshun," young William volunteered. "'Tisth' shortest walk, sir. I 'opes yer catches 'er.... Thanky, sir."
He caught dextrously the sovereign which Kirkwood, in ungrudgingliberality, spared them of his store of two. The American noddedacknowledgments and adieux, with a faded smile deprecating his chances ofwinning the race, sorely handicapped as he was. He was very, very tired,and in his heart suspected that he would fail. But, if he did, he would atleast be able to comfort himself that it was not for lack of trying. Heset his teeth on that covenant, in grim determination; either there was astrain of the bulldog latent in the Kirkwood breed or else his infatuationgripped him more strongly than he guessed.
Yet he suspected something of its power; he knew that this was altogetheran insane proceeding, and that the lure that led him on was DorothyCalendar. A strange dull light glowed in his weary eyes, on the thought ofher. He'd go through fire and water in her service. She was costing himdear, perhaps was to cost him dearer still; and perhaps there'd be forhis guerdon no more than a "Thank you, Mr. Kirkwood!" at the end of thepassage. But that would be no less than his deserts; he was not to forgetthat he was interfering unwarrantably; the girl was in her father's hands,surely safe enough there--to the casual mind. If her partnership in herparent's fortunes were distasteful, she endured it passively, withoutcomplaint.
He decided that it was his duty to remind himself, from time to time,that his main interest must be in the game itself, in the solution ofthe riddle; whatever should befall, he must look for no reward for hisgratuitous and self-appointed part. Indeed he was all but successful inpersuading himself that it was the fascination of adventure alone that drewhim on.
Whatever the lure, it was inexorable; instead of doing as a sensible personwould have done--returning to London for a long rest in his hotel room, erestriving to retrieve his shattered fortunes--Philip Kirkwood turned up thevillage street, intent only to find the railway station and catch the firstavailable train for Sheerness, were that an early one or a late.
A hapchance native whom he presently encountered, furnished minutedirections for reaching the Dockyard Station of the Southeastern andChatham Rail-way, adding comfortable information to the effect that thenext east-bound train would pass through in ten minutes; if Kirkwood wouldmend his pace he could make it easily, with time to spare.
Kirkwood mended his pace accordingly, but, contrary to the prediction, hadno time to spare at all. Even as he stormed the ticket-grating, the trainwas thundering in at the platform. Therefore a nervous ticket agent passedhim out a first-class ticket instead of the third-class he had asked for;and there was no time wherein to have the mistake rectified. Kirkwoodplanked down the fare, swore, and sprinted for the carriages.
The first compartment whose door he jerked violently open, proved to beoccupied, and was, moreover, not a smoking-car. He received a fleetingimpression of a woman's startled eyes, staring into his own through a thinmesh of veiling, fell off the running-board, slammed the door, and hurledhimself to-wards the next compartment. Here happier fortune attended uponhis desire; the box-like section was untenanted, and a notice blown uponthe window-glass announced that it was "2nd Class Smoking." Kirkwoodpromptly tumbled in; and when he turned to shut the door the coaches weremoving.
A pipe helped him to bear up while the train was making its two other stopsin the Borough of Woolwich: a circumstance so maddening to a man in ahurry, that it set Kirkwood's teeth on edge with sheer impatience, andmade him long fervently for the land of his birth, where they do thingsdifferently--where the Board of Directors of a railway company doesn'terect three substantial passenger depots in the course of a mile and a halfof overgrown village. It consoled him little that none disputed withhim his lonely possession of the compartment, that he _had_ caught theSheerness train, or that he was really losing no time; a sense of deepdejection had settled down upon his consciousness, with a realization ofhow completely a fool's errand was this of his. He felt foredoomed tofailure; he was never to see Dorothy Calendar again; and his brain seemednumb with disappointment.
Rattling and swaying, the train left the town behind.
Presently he put aside his pipe and stared blankly out at a reelinglandscape, the pleasant, homely, smiling countryside of Kent. A deepermelancholy tinted his mind: Dorothy Calendar was for ever lost to him.
The trucks drummed it out persistently--he thought, vindictively:"_Lost!... Lost!... For ever lost!..._"
And he had made--was then making--a damned fool of himself. The trucks hadno need to din _that_ into his thick skull by their ceaseless iteration; heknew it, would not deny it....
And it was all his own fault. He'd had his chance, Calendar had offered himit. If only he had closed with the fat adventurer!...
Before his eyes field and coppice, hedge and homestead, stream and flowinghighway, all blurred and ran streakily into one another, like a highlyimpressionistic water-color. He could make neither head nor tail of theflying views, and so far as coherent thought was concerned, he could notput two ideas together. Without understanding distinctly, he presently dida more wise and wholesome thing: which was to topple limply over on thecushions and fall fast asleep.
* * * * *
After a long time he seemed to realize rather hazily that the carriage-doorhad been opened to admit somebody. Its smart closing _bang_ shocked himawake. He sat up, blinking in confusion, hardly conscious of more, to beginwith, than that the train had paused and was again in full flight. Then,his senses clearing, he became aware that his solitary companion, justentered, was a woman. She was seated over across from him, her back to theengine, in an attitude which somehow suggested a highly nonchalant frame ofmind. She laughed, and immediately her speaking voice was high and sweet inhis hearing.
"Really, you know, Mr. Kirkwood, I simply couldn't contain my impatienceanother instant."
Kirkwood gasped and tried to re-collect his wits.
"Beg pardon--I've been asleep," he said stupidly.
"Yes. I'm sorry to have disturbed you, but, you know, you must makeallowances for a woman's nerves."
Beneath his breath the bewildered man said: "The deuce!" and above it, in astupefied tone: "Mrs. Hallam!"
She nodded in a not unfriendly fashion, smiling brightly. "Myself, Mr.Kirkwood! Really, our predestined paths are badly tangled, just now; aren'tthey? Were you surprised to find me in here, with you? Come now, confessyou were!"
He remarked the smooth, girlish freshness of her cheeks, the sense andhumor of her mouth, the veiled gleam of excitement in her eyes of thechanging sea; and saw, as well, that she was dressed for traveling,sensibly but with an air, and had brought a small hand-bag with her.
"Surprised and delighted," he replied, recovering, with mendacity sointentional and obvious that the woman laughed aloud.
"I knew you'd be!... You see, I had the carriage ahead, the one you didn'ttake. I was so disappointed when you flung up to the door and away again!You didn't see me hanging half out the window, to watch where you went, didyou? That's how I discovered that your discourtesy was unintentional, thatyou hadn't recognized me,--by the fact that you took this compartment,right behind my own."
She paused invitingly, but Kirkwood, grown wary, contented himselfwith picking up his pipe and carefully knocking out the dottle on thewindow-ledge.
"I was glad to see _you_," she affirmed; "but only partly because youwere you, Mr. Kirkwood. The other and major part was because sight of youconfirmed my own secret intuition. You see, I'm quite old enough and wiseenough to question even my own intuitions."
"A woman wise enough for that i
s an adult prodigy," he ventured cautiously.
"It's experience and age. I insist upon the age; I the mother of agrown-up boy! So I deliberately ran after you, changing when we stoppedat Newington. You might've escaped me if I had waited until We got toQueensborough."
Again she paused in open expectancy. Kirkwood, perplexed, put the pipe inhis pocket, and assumed a factitious look of resignation, regarding heraskance with that whimsical twist of his eyebrows.
"For you are going to Queensborough, aren't you, Mr. Kirkwood?"
"Queensborough?" he echoed blankly; and, in fact, he was at a loss tofollow her drift. "No, Mrs. Hallam; I'm not bound there."
Her surprise was apparent; she made no effort to conceal it. "But," shefaltered, "if not there--"
"'Give you my word, Mrs. Hallam, I have no intention whatever of going toQueensborough," Kirkwood protested.
"I don't understand." The nervous drumming of a patent-leather coveredtoe, visible beneath the hem of her dress, alone betrayed a rising tide ofimpatience. "Then my intuition _was_ at fault!"
"In this instance, if it was at all concerned with my insignificantaffairs, yes--most decidedly at fault."
She shook her head, regarding him with grave suspicion. "I hardly know:whether to believe you. I think...."
Kirkwood's countenance displayed an added shade of red. After a moment, "Imean no discourtesy," he began stiffly, "but--"
"But you don't care a farthing whether I believe you or not?"
He caught her laughing eye, and smiled, the flush subsiding.
"Very well, then! Now let us see: Where _are_ you bound?"
Kirkwood looked out of the window.
"I'm convinced it's a rendezvous...?"
Kirkwood smiled patiently at the landscape.
"Is Dorothy Calendar so very, very beautiful, Mr. Kirkwood?"--with a traceof malice.
Ostentatiously Kirkwood read the South Eastern and Chatham's framed cardof warning, posted just above Mrs. Hallam's head, to all such incurablelunatics as are possessed of a desire to travel on the running-boards ofrailway carriages.
"You are going to meet her, aren't you?"
He gracefully concealed a yawn.
The woman's plan of attack took another form. "Last night, when you told meyour story, I believed you."
He devoted himself to suppressing the temptingly obvious retort, andsucceeded; but though he left it unspoken, the humor of it twitched thecorners of his mouth; and Mrs. Hallam was observant. So that her nextattempt to draw him out was edged with temper.
"I believed you an American but a gentleman; it appears that, if you everwere the latter, you've fallen so low that you willingly cast your lot withthieves."
Having exhausted his repertoire of rudenesses, Kirkwood took to twiddlinghis thumbs.
"I want to ask you if you think it fair to me or my son, to leave us inignorance of the place where you are to meet the thieves who stole our--myson's jewels?"
"Mrs. Hallam," he said soberly, "if I am going to meet Mr. Calendar or Mr.Mulready, I have no assurance of that fact."
There was only the briefest of pauses, during which she analyzed this;then, quickly, "But you hope to?" she snapped.
He felt that the only adequate retort to this would be a shrug of hisshoulders; doubted his ability to carry one off; and again took refuge insilence.
The woman abandoned a second plan of siege, with a readiness that didcredit to her knowledge of mankind. She thought out the next verycarefully, before opening with a masked battery.
"Mr. Kirkwood, can't we be friends--this aside?"
"Nothing could please me more, Mrs. Hallam!"
"I'm sorry if I've annoyed you--"
"And I, too, have been rude."
"Last night, when you cut away so suddenly, you prevented my making you aproposal, a sort of a business proposition...."
"Yes--?"
"To come over to our side--"
"I thought so. That was why I went."
"Yes; I understood. But this morning, when you've had time to think itover--?"
"I have no choice in the matter, Mrs. Hallam." The green eyes darkenedominously. "You mean--I am to understand, then, that you're against us,that you prefer to side with swindlers and scoundrels, all because of a--"
She discovered him eying her with a smile of such inscrutable and sardonicintelligence, that the words died on her lips, and she crimsoned,treasonably to herself. For he saw it; and the belief he had conceivedwhile attending to her tissue of fabrication, earlier that morning, wasstrengthened to the point of conviction that, if anything had been stolenby anybody, Mrs. Hallam and her son owned it as little as Calendar.
As for the woman, she felt she had steadily lost, rather than gained,ground; and the flash of anger that had colored her cheeks, lit twinbeacons in her eyes, which she resolutely fought down until they faded tomere gleams of resentment and determination. But she forgot to controlher lips; and they are the truest indices to a woman's character andtemperament; and Kirkwood did not overlook the circumstance that theirspecious sweetness had vanished, leaving them straight, set and hard, quitethe reverse of attractive.
"So," she said slowly, after a silent time, "you are not for Queensborough!The corollary of that _admission_, Mr. Kirkwood, is that you are forSheerness."
"I believe," he replied wearily, "that there are no other stations on thisline, after Newington."
"It follows, then, that--that I follow." And in answer to his perturbedglance, she added: "Oh, I'll grant that intuition is sometimes a poorguide. But if you meet George Calendar, so shall I. Nothing can preventthat. You can't hinder me."
Considerably amused, he chuckled. "Let us talk of other things, Mrs.Hallam," he suggested pleasantly. "How is your son?"
At this juncture the brakes began to shriek and grind upon the wheels.The train slowed; it stopped; and the voice of a guard could be heardadmonishing passengers for Queensborough Pier to alight and take the branchline. In the noise the woman's response was drowned, and Kirkwood washardly enough concerned for poor Freddie to repeat his question.
When, after a little, the train pulled out of the junction, neither foundreason to resume the conversation. During the brief balance of the journeyMrs. Hallam presumably had food for thought; she frowned, pursed her lips,and with one daintily gloved forefinger followed a seam of her tailoredskirt; while Kirkwood sat watching and wondering how to rid himself of her,if she proved really as troublesome as she threatened to be.
Also, he wondered continually what it was all about. Why did Mrs. Hallamsuspect him of designing to meet Calendar at Queensborough? Had sheany tangible ground for believing that Calendar could be found inQueensborough? Presumably she had, since she was avowedly in pursuit ofthat gentleman, and, Kirkwood inferred, had booked for Queensborough.Was he, then, running away from Calendar and his daughter to chase awill-o'-the-wisp of his credulous fancy, off Sheerness shore?
Disturbing reflection. He scowled over it, then considered the other sideof the face. Presuming Mrs. Hallam to have had reasonably dependableassurance that Calendar would stop in Queensborough, would she so readilyhave abandoned her design to catch him there, on the mere supposition thatKirkwood might be looking for him in Sheerness? That did not seem likelyto one who esteemed Mrs. Hallam's acumen as highly as Kirkwood did. Hebrightened up, forgot that his was a fool's errand, and began again toproject strategic plans into a problematic future.
A sudden jolt interrupted this pastime, and the warning screech of thebrakes informed that he had no time to scheme, but had best continue on theplan of action that had brought him thus far--that is, trust to his starand accept what should befall without repining.
He rose, opened the door, and holding it so, turned.
"I regret, Mrs. Hallam," he announced, smiling his crooked smile, "thata pressing engagement is about to prohibit my 'squiring you through theticket-gates. You understand, I'm sure."
His irrepressible humor proved infectious; and Mrs. Hallam's spirit ran ashig
h as his own. She was smiling cheerfully when she, too, rose.
"I also am in some haste," she averred demurely, gathering up her hand-bagand umbrella.
A raised platform shot in beside the carriage, and the speed was sosensibly moderated that the train seemed to be creeping rather thanrunning. Kirkwood flung the door wide open and lowered himself to therunning-board. The end of the track was in sight and--a man who has beentrained to board San Francisco cable-cars fears to alight from no movingvehicle. He swung off, got his balance, and ran swiftly down the platform.
A cry from a bystander caused him to glance over his shoulder; Mrs. Hallamwas then in the act of alighting. As he looked the flurry of skirtssubsided and she fell into stride, pursuing.
Sleepy Sheerness must have been scandalized, that day, and its gossips haveacquired ground for many, an uncharitable surmise.
Kirkwood, however, was so fortunate as to gain the wicket before theemployee there awoke to the situation. Otherwise, such is the temper ofBritish petty officialdom, he might have detained the fugitive. As it was,Kirkwood surrendered his ticket and ran out into the street with his luckstill a dominant factor in the race. For, looking back, he saw that Mrs.Hallam had been held up at the gate, another victim of British red-tape;her ticket read for Queensborough, she was attempting to alight one stationfarther down the line, and while undoubtedly she was anxious to pay theexcess fare, Heaven alone knew when she would succeed in allaying thesuspicions and resentment of the ticket-taker.
"That's good for ten minutes' start!" Kirkwood crowed. "And it neveroccurred to me--!"
Before the station he found two hacks in waiting, with little to choosebetween them; neither was of a type that did not seem to advertise itspre-Victorian fashioning, and to neither was harnessed an animal thatdeserved anything but the epithet of screw. Kirkwood took the nearest forno other reason than because it was the nearest, and all but startled thedriver off his box by offering double-fare for a brisk pace and a simpleservice at the end of the ride. Succinctly he set forth his wants, jumpedinto the antiquated four-wheeler, and threw himself down upon musty, dustycushions to hug himself over the joke and bless whatever English board ofrailway, directors it was that first ordained that tickets should be takenup at the end instead of the outset of a journey.
It was promptly made manifest that he had further cause for gratulation.The cabby, recovering from his amazement, was plying an indefatigable whipand thereby eliciting a degree of speed from his superannuated nag, thathis fare had by no means hoped for, much less anticipated. The cab rockedand racketed through Sheerness' streets at a pace which is believed to beunprecedented and unrivaled; its passenger, dashed from side to side, hadall he could do to keep from battering the vehicle to pieces with his head;while it was entirely out of the question to attempt to determine whetheror not he was being pursued. He enjoyed it all hugely.
In a period of time surprisingly short, he saw, from fleeting glimpses ofthe scenery to be obtained through the reeling windows, that they werethreading the outskirts of the town; synchronously, whether by design orthrough actual inability to maintain it, the speed was moderated. And inthe course of a few more minutes the cab stopped definitely.
Kirkwood clambered painfully out, shook himself together and the bruisesout of his bones, and looked fearfully back.
Aside from a slowly settling cloud of dust, the road ran clear as far as hecould see--to the point, in fact, where the town closed in about it.
He had won; at all events in so much as to win meant eluding thepersevering Mrs. Hallam. But to what end?
Abstractedly he tendered his lonely sovereign to the driver, and withouteven looking at it, crammed the heavy weight of change into his pocket; anoversight which not only won him the awe-struck admiration of the cabby,but entailed consequences (it may be) he little apprehended. It was with anabsentminded nod that he acquiesced in the man's announcement that he mightarrange about the boat for him. Accordingly the cabby disappeared; andKirkwood continued to stare about him, eagerly, hopefully.
He stood on the brink of the Thames estuary, there a possible five milesfrom shore to shore; from his feet, almost, a broad shingle beach slopedgently to the water.
On one hand a dilapidated picket-fence enclosed the door-yard of afisherman's cottage, or, better, hovel,--if it need be accuratelydescribed--at the door of which the cabby was knocking.
The morning was now well-advanced. The sun rode high, a sphere of tarnishedflame in a void of silver-gray, its thin cold radiance striking pallidsparks from the leaping crests of wind-whipped waves. In the east a wallof vapor, dull and lusterless, had taken body since the dawn, masking theskies and shutting down upon the sea like some vast curtain; and out of theheart of this a bitter and vicious wind played like a sword.
To the north, Shoeburyness loomed vaguely, like a low-drifted bank ofcloud. Off to the right the Nore Lightship danced, a tiny fleck of warmcrimson in a wilderness of slatey-blue waters, plumed with a myriad ofvanishing white-caps.
Up the shelving shore, small, puny wavelets dashed in impotent fury, andthe shingle sang unceasingly its dreary, syncopated monotone. High and dry,a few dingy boats lay canted wearily upon their broad, swelling sides,--acouple of dories, apparently in daily use; a small sloop yacht, dismantledand plainly beyond repair; and an oyster-smack also out of commission.About them the beach was strewn with a litter of miscellany,--nets, oars,cork buoys, bits of wreckage and driftwood, a few fish too long forgottenand (one assumed) responsible in part for the foreign wealth of theatmosphere.
Some little distance offshore a fishing-boat, catrigged and not more thantwenty-feet over all, swung bobbing at her mooring, keen nose searchinginto the wind; at sight of which Kirkwood gave thanks, for his adventitiousguide had served him well, if that boat were to be hired by any manner ofpersuasion.
But it was to the farther reaches of the estuary that he gave moreprolonged and most anxious heed, scanning narrowly what shipping was thereto be seen. Far beyond the lightship a liner was riding the waves withserene contempt, making for the river's mouth and Tilbury Dock. Nearerin, a cargo boat was standing out upon the long trail, the white of rivenwaters showing clearly against her unclean freeboard. Out to east a littlecovey of fishing-smacks, red sails well reefed, were scudding beforethe wind like strange affrighted water-fowl, and bearing down past aheavy-laden river barge. The latter, with tarpaulin battened snugly downover the cockpit and the seas dashing over her wash-board until she seemedunder water half the time, was forging stodgily Londonwards, her bargee atthe tiller smoking a placid pipe.
But a single sailing vessel of any notable tonnage was in sight; and whenhe saw her Kirkwood's heart became buoyant with hope, and he began totremble with nervous eagerness. For he believed her to be the _Alethea_.
There's no mistaking a ship brigantine-rigged for any other style of craftthat sails the seas.
From her position when first he saw her, Kirkwood could have fancied shewas tacking out of the mouth of the Medway; but he judged that, leaving theThames' mouth, she had tacked to starboard until well-nigh within hail ofSheerness. Now, having presumably, gone about, she was standing out towardthe Nore, boring doggedly into the wind. He would have given a deal forglasses wherewith to read the name upon her bows, but was sensible of nohampering doubts; nor, had he harbored any, would they have deterred him.He had set his heart upon the winning of his venture, had come too far,risked far too much, to suffer anything now to stay his hand and standbetween him and Dorothy Calendar. Whatever the further risks and hazards,though he should take his life in his hands to win to her side, he wouldstruggle on. He recked nothing of personal danger; a less selfish passionran molten in his veins, moving him to madness.
Fascinated, he fixed his gaze upon the reeling brigantine, and for a spaceit was as if by longing he had projected his spirit to her slanting deck,and were there, pleading his case with the mistress of his heart....
Voices approaching brought him back to shore. He turned, resuming his masko
f sanity, the better to confer with the owner of the cottage and boats--aheavy, keen-eyed fellow, ungracious and truculent of habit, and chary ofhis words; as he promptly demonstrated.
"I'll hire your boat," Kirkwood told him, "to put me aboard thatbrigantine, off to leeward. We ought to start at once."
The fisherman shifted his quid of tobacco from cheek to cheek, gruntedinarticulately, and swung deliberately on his heel, displaying a bull neckabove a pair of heavy shoulders.
"Dirty weather," he croaked, facing back from his survey of the easternskies before the American found out whether or not he should resent hisinsolence.
"How much?" Kirkwood demanded curtly, annoyed.
The man hesitated, scowling blackly at the heeling vessel, momentarilyincreasing her distance from shore. Then with a crafty smile, "Two pound',"he declared.
The American nodded. "Very well," he agreed simply. "Get out your boat."
The fisherman turned away to shamble noisily over the shingle, huge bootedheels crunching, toward one of the dories. To this he set his shoulder,shoving it steadily down the beach until only the stern was dry.
Kirkwood looked back, for the last time, up the road to Sheerness. Nothingmoved upon it. He was rid of Mrs. Hallam, if face to face with a sternerproblem. He had a few pence over ten shillings in his pocket, and hadpromised to pay the man four times as much. He would have agreed to tentimes the sum demanded; for the boat he must and would have. But he hadneglected to conclude his bargain, to come to an understanding as tothe method of payment; and he felt more than a little dubious as to thereception the fisherman would give his proposition, sound as he, Kirkwood,knew it to be.
In the background the cabby loitered, gnawed by insatiable curiosity.
The fisherman turned, calling over his shoulder: "If ye'd catch yon vessel,come!"
With one final twinge of doubt--the task of placating this surly dog wasanything but inviting--the American strode to the boat and climbed in,taking the stern seat. The fisherman shoved off, wading out thigh-deep inthe spiteful waves, then threw himself in over the gunwales and shipped theoars. Bows swinging offshore, rocking and dancing, the dory began to forgeslowly toward the anchored boat. In their faces the wind beat gustily, andsmall, slapping waves, breaking against the sides, showered them with finespray....
In time the dory lay alongside the cat-boat, the fisherman with a gnarledhand grasping the latter's gunwale to hold the two together. With somedifficulty Kirkwood transhipped himself, landing asprawl in the cockpit,amid a tangle of cordage slippery with scales. The skipper followed, withclumsy expertness bringing the dory's painter with him and hitching it to aring-bolt abaft the rudder-head. Then, pausing an instant to stare into theEast with somber eyes, he shipped the tiller and bent to the halyards. Asthe sail rattled up, flapping wildly, Kirkwood marked with relief--for itmeant so much time saved--that it was already close reefed.
But when at least the boom was thrashing overhead and the halyards hadbeen made fast to their cleats, the fisherman again stood erect, peeringdistrustfully at the distant wall of cloud.
Then, in two breaths: "Can't do it," he decided; "not at the price."
"Why?" Kirkwood stared despairingly after the brigantine, that was alreadydrawn far ahead.
"Danger," growled the fellow, "--wind."
At a loss completely, Kirkwood found no words. He dropped his head,considering.
"Not at the price," the sullen voice iterated; and he looked up to find thecunning gaze upon him.
"How much, then?"
"Five poun' I'll have--no less, for riskin' my life this day."
"Impossible. I haven't got it."
In silence the man unshipped the tiller and moved toward the cleats.
"Hold on a minute."
Kirkwood unbuttoned his coat and, freeing the chain from his waistcoatbuttonholes, removed his watch.... As well abandon them altogether; he haddesigned to leave them as security for the two pounds, and had delayedstating the terms only for fear lest they be refused. Now, too late asever, he recognized his error. But surely, he thought, it should beapparent even to that low intelligence that the timepiece alone was worthmore than the boat itself.
"Will you take these?" he offered. "Take and keep them--only set me aboardthat ship!"
Deliberately the fisherman weighed the watch and chain in his broad, hardpalm, eyes narrowing to mere slits in his bronzed mask.
"How much?" he asked slowly.
"Eighty pounds, together; the chain alone cost me twenty."
The shifty, covetous eyes ranged from the treasure in his hand to thethreatening east. A puff of wind caught the sail and sent the boomathwartships, like a mighty flail. Both men ducked instinctively, to escapea braining.
"How do I know?" objected the skipper.
"I'm telling you. If you've got eyes, you can see," retorted Kirkwoodsavagely, seeing that he had erred in telling the truth; the amount he hadnamed was too great to be grasped at once by this crude, cupidous brain.
"How do I know?" the man repeated. Nevertheless he dropped watch and chaininto his pocket, then with a meaning grimace extended again his horny,greedy palm.
"What...?"
"Hand over th' two pound' and we'll go."
"I'll see you damned first!"
A flush of rage blinded the young man. The knowledge that the _Alethea_was minute by minute slipping beyond his reach seemed to madden him.White-lipped and ominously quiet he rose from his seat on the combing, as,without answer, the fisherman, crawling out on the overhand, began to haulin the dory.
"Ashore ye go," he pronounced his ultimatum, motioning Kirkwood to enterthe boat.
The American turned, looking for the _Alethea_, or for the vessel that hebelieved bore that name. She was nearing the light-ship when he foundher, and as he looked a squall blurred the air between them, blottingthe brigantine out with a smudge of rain. The effect was as if she hadvanished, as if she were for ever snatched from his grasp; and with Dorothyaboard her--Heaven alone knew in what need of him!
Mute and blind with despair and wrath, he turned upon the man and caughthim by the collar, forcing him out over the lip of the overhang. They wereunevenly matched, Kirkwood far the slighter, but strength came to him inthe crisis, physical strength and address such as he had not dreamed was athis command. And the surprise of his onslaught proved an ally of unguessedpotency. Before he himself knew it he was standing on the overhang and hadshifted his hold to seize the fellow about the waist; then, lifting himclear of the deck, and aided by a lurch of the cat-boat, he cast himbodily into the dory. The man, falling, struck his head against one of thethwarts, a glancing blow that stunned him temporarily. Kirkwood himselfdropped as if shot, a trailing reef-point slapping his cheek until it stungas the boom thrashed overhead. It was as close a call as he had known; theknowledge sickened him a little.
Without rising he worked the painter loose and cast the dory adrift; thencrawled back into the cockpit. No pang of compassion disturbed him as heabandoned the fisherman to the mercy of the sea; though the fellow laystill, uncouthly distorted, in the bottom of the dory, he was in no danger;the wind and waves together would carry the boat ashore.... For thatmatter, the man was even then recovering, struggling to sit up.
Crouching to avoid the boom, Kirkwood went forward to the bows, and,grasping the mooring cable, drew it in, slipping back into the cockpit toget a stronger purchase with his feet. It was a struggle; the boat pulledsluggishly against the wind, the cable inching in jealously. And behindhim he could hear a voice bellowing inarticulate menaces, and knew that inanother moment the fisherman would be at his oars.
Frantically he tugged and tore at the slimy rope, hauling with a will and aprayer. It gave more readily, towards the end, but he seemed to have foughtwith it for ages when at last the anchor tripped and he got it in.
Immediately he leaped back to the stern, fitted in the tiller, and seizingthe mainsheet, drew the boom in till the wind should catch in the canvas.In the dory the skipper, bendi
ng at his oars, was not two yards astern.
He was hard aboard when, the sail filling with a bang, Kirkwood pulled thetiller up; and the cat-boat slid away, a dozen feet separating them in abreath.
A yell of rage boomed down the wind, but he paid no heed. Careless alike ofthe dangers he had passed and those that yawned before him, he trimmedthe sheet and stood away on the port tack, heading directly for the NoreLightship.