XXIII ~ THE MONSTER THAT SLIPPED ITS LEASH
And there Captain Kirby proved a coward at last, And he played at bo-peep behind the mainmast, And there they did stand, boys, and shiver and shake, For fear that that terror their lives it would take. --Admiral Benbow.
Rain came with the wind, and the weather settled into a sullen, driving,summer easterly.
Late summer regularly furnishes one of those storms to the Atlanticcoast, a recrudescence of the wintry gales, a trial run of the elements,a sort of inter-equinoctial testing out so that Eurus may be sure thathis bellows is in working condition.
Such a storm rarely gives warning ahead that it is to be severe. Itseems to be a meteorological prank in order to catch mariners napping.
At midnight the _Alden_ was plunging into creaming seas, her five maststhrummed by the blast. With five thousand tons of coal weighting her,she wallowed like a water-soaked log.
Mayo, who was roused from his hideous agony of soul at four bells,morning, to go on deck for his watch, ventured as near the engine-roomdoor as he dared, for the rain was soaking his meager garments andthe red glow from within was grateful. The ship's pump was clanking, acircumstance in no way alarming, because the huge schooners of the coaltrade are racked and wrenched in rough water.
The second mate came to the engine-room, lugging the sounding-rod to thelight in order to examine the smear on its freshly chalked length.
He tossed it out on deck with a grunt of satisfaction. "Nothing tohurt!" he said to the engineer. "However, I'd rather be inside the capesin this blow. The old skimmer ain't what she used to be. Johnson, doyou know that this schooner is all of two feet longer when she is loadedthan when she is light?"
"I knew she was hogged, but I didn't know it was as bad as that."
"I put the lead-line on her before she went into the coal-dock thistrip, and I measured her again in the stream yesterday. With a cargoshe just humps right up like a monkey bound for war. That's the way withthese five-masters! They get such a racking they go wrong before theowners realize."
"They'll never build any more, and I don't suppose they want to spendmuch money on the old ones," suggested the engineer.
"Naturally not, when they ain't paying dividends as it is." He steppedto the weather rail and sniffed. "I reckon the old man will be droppingthe killick before long," he said.
Mayo knew something of the methods of schooner masters and was notsurprised by the last remark.
In the gallant old days, when it was the custom to thrash out a blow,the later plan of anchoring a big craft in the high seas off theDelaware coast, with Europe for a lee, would have been viewed with acertain amount of horror by a captain.
But the modern skipper figures that there's less wear and tear if heanchors and rides it out. To be sure, it's no sort of a place for asqueamish person, aboard a loaded schooner whose mudhook clutchesbottom while the sea flings her about, but the masters and crews ofcoal-luggers are not squeamish.
Mayo, glancing aft, saw two men coming forward slowly, stopping atregular intervals. The light of a lantern played upon their drippingoilskins. When they arrived at the break of the main-deck, near theforward house, he recognized Captain Downs and the first mate. Thesecond mate stepped out and replied to the captain's hail.
"Bring a maul and some more wedges!" commanded the master.
"_Drusilla_ is getting her back up some more," commented the secondmate, starting for the storeroom. "I don't blame her much. This is noplace for an old lady, out here to-night." He ordered Mayo to accompanyhim.
In a few moments they reported to the captain, the mate carrying thetwo-headed maul and the young man bearing an armful of wedges.
Captain Downs bestowed on Mayo about the same attention he would haveallowed to a galley cockroach. He pointed to a gap in the rail.
"There--drive one in there," he told the mate. "Let that nigger hold thewedge." There was rancor in his voice--baleful hostility shone in hissnapping eyes; no captain tolerates disobedience at sea, and Mayo haddisregarded all discipline in the cabin.
The young man kneeled and performed the service and followed the partydutifully when they moved on to the next gap.
The pitching schooner groaned and grunted and squalled in all herfabric.
Every angle joint was working--yawing open and closing with dullgrindings as the vessel rolled and plunged.
"By goofer, she's gritting her teeth in good shape!" commented the firstmate.
"She ought to have been stiffened a year ago, when she first began toloosen and work!" declared Captain Downs. His anxiety stirred both histemper and his tongue. "I was willing to have my sixteenth into herassessed for repairs, but a stockholder don't have to go to sea! I wishI had an excursion party of owners aboard here now."
"When these old critters once get loose enough to play they rattle topieces mighty fast," said the mate. "But this is nothing specially bad."
"Find out what we've got under us," snapped Captain Downs. The wedgeshad been driven. "Let this nigger carry the lead for'ard!"
It was a difficult task in the night, because the leadline had to bepassed from the quarter-deck to the cathead outside the shrouds; therails and deck were slippery. Plainly, Captain Downs was proposing toshow Mayo "a thing or two."
He let go the lead at command, and heard the man on the quarter-deck,catching the line when it swung into a perpendicular position, reporttwenty-five fathoms.
Again, answering the mate's bawled orders, Mayo carried the lead forwardand dropped it, after a period of waiting, during which the schoonerhad been eased off. He was soaked to the skin, and was miserable in bothbody and mind. He had betrayed himself, he had made an enemy of the manwho knew something which could help him; he felt a queer sense of shameand despair when he remembered the girl and the expression of her face.He tried to convince himself that he did not care what her opinionof him was. What happened to that love she had professed on board the_Olenia?_ What manner of maiden was this? He did not understand!
Five times he made his precarious trip with the lead, fumbling his wayoutside the rigging.
In twenty fathoms Captain Downs decided to anchor, after the mate,"arming" the lead by filling its cup with grease, found that they wereover good holding ground.
When the _Alden_ came into the wind and slowed down, slapping wetsails, the second mate hammered out the holding-pin of the gigantic portanchor, and the hawse-hole belched fathom after fathom of chain.
All hands were on deck letting sails go on the run into the lazy-jacks,and the big schooner swung broadside to the trough of the sea. She madea mighty pendulum, rolling rails under, sawing the black skies with hertowering masts.
There are many things which can happen aboard a schooner in thatposition when men are either slow or stupid. A big negro who was payingout the mizzen-peak halyards allowed his line to foul. Into the triangleof sail the wind volleyed, and the thirty-foot mizzen-boom, the rollof the ship helping, swung as far as its loosened sheets allowed. The"traveler," an iron hoop encircling a long bar of iron fastened at bothends to the deck, struck sparks as a trolley pulley produces fire from asleety wire.
With splintering of wood and clanging of metal, the iron bar waswrenched from its deck-fastenings and began to fly to and fro across thedeck at the end of its tether, like a giant's slung-shot. It circled, itspun, it flung itself afar and returned in unexpected arcs.
Men fled from the area which this terror dominated.
The boom swung until it banged the mizzen shrouds to port, and then cameswooping back across the deck, to slam against the starboard shrouds.The clanging, tethered missile it bore on its end seemed to be searchingfor a victim. When the boom met the starboard shrouds in its headlongrush, the schooner shivered.
"Free that halyard and douse the peak!" roared the first mate.
A sailor started, ducking low, but he ran back when the boom came acrossthe deck with such a vicious swing that the iron bar fairly screa
medthrough the air.
"Gawd-a-mighty! She'll bang the mast out of her!" clamored CaptainDowns. "Get some men to those halyards, Mr. Dodge! Catch that boom!"
The mate ran and kicked at a sailor, shouting profane orders. He seizedthe fellow and thrust him toward the pins where the halyards werebelayed. But at that instant the rushing boom came hurtling overheadwith its slung-shot, and the iron banged the rail almost exactly wherethe fouled line was secured. The mate and the sailor fell flat on theirfaces and crawled back from the zone of danger.
"Get some rope and noose that boom! Lassoo it!" commanded the master,touching up his orders with some lurid sea oaths.
But the men who stepped forward did so timidly and slowly, and dodgedback when the boom threatened. The flying bar was a terrible weapon. Nowit swung in toward the mast--now swept in wider radius. Just where itwould next sweep the deck between the masts depended on the vagary ofwave and wind. It was perfectly apparent that anybody who got in itspath would meet death as instantly as a fly under a housewife's spanker.
Life is sweet, even if a man is black and is toiling for a dollar-a-daywage.
And even if a man is a mate, at a higher wage and with moreresponsibility, he is inclined to think of himself before he figures onsaving a mast and gear for a schooner's owners.
"What kind of a gor-rammed crew have I got aboard here?" shrieked themaster.
"About the kind that all wind-jammers carry these days," said a voice athis elbow.
Captain Downs whirled and found Mayo there. "How do you dare to speak tome, you tin-kettle sailor?" demanded the master. In his passion he wenton: "You're aboard here under false pretenses. You can't even do yourwork. You have made this vessel liable by assaulting a passenger. You'reno good! With you aboard here I'm just the same as one man short." Buthe had no time to devote to this person.
He turned away and began to revile his mates and his sailors, his voicerising higher each time the rampaging boom crashed from side to side.One or two of the backstays had parted, and it was plain that beforelong the mast would go by the board.
"If that mast comes out it's apt to smash us clear to the water-line,"lamented the captain.
"If you can make your herd of sheep give me a hand at the right time,I'll show you that a tin-kettle sailor is as good as a wind-jammerswab," said Mayo, retaliating with some of the same sort of rancor thatCaptain Downs had been expending. In that crisis he was bold enough topresume on his identity as a master mariner. "I'd hate to find this kindof a bunch on any steamboat I've ever had experience with."
Then he ran away before the captain had time to retort. He made a slideacross the danger zone on his back, like a runner in a ball game. Thismove brought him into a safe place between the mainmast and the mizzen.There was a coil of extra cable here, and he grabbed the loose end anddeftly made a running bowline knot. He set the noose firmly upon hisshoulders, leaped up, and caught at the hoops on the mizzenmast.
"See to it that the line runs free from that coil, and stand by fororders!" he shouted, and though his dyed skin was dark and he wore thegarb of the common sailor, he spoke with the unmistakable tone of themaster mariner. The second mate ran to the line and took charge.
"This is a bucking bronco, all right!" muttered Mayo. "But it's for thehonor of the steamboat men! I'll show this gang!"
He poised himself for a few moments on the crotch of the boom, clingingto the cringles of the luff--the short ropes with which the sail isreefed.
As he stood there, gathering himself for his desperate undertaking,waiting for opportunity, taking the measure of the lashing and insensatemonster whom he had resolved to subdue, he heard Captain Downs bawl animpatient command:
"Passengers go below!"
Mayo looked aft and saw Alma Marston clinging to the spike-rack of thespanker mast. The coach-house lantern shone upon her white face.
"Go below!" repeated the master.
She shook her head.
"This is no place for a woman."
"The vessel is going to sink!" she quavered.
"The schooner is all right. You go below!"
How bitter her fear was Mayo could not determine. But even at hisdistance he could see stubborn resolution on her countenance.
"If I've got to die, I'll not die down there in a box," she cried. "I'mgoing to stay right here."
Captain Downs swore and turned his back on her. Apparently he did notcare to come to a real clinch with this feminine mutineer.
The great spar crashed out to the extent of its arc, and the sailvolleyed with it, ballooning under the weight of the wind. Thereef-points were no longer within Mayo's reach. He ran along the boom,arms outspread to steady himself, and was half-way to its end before thetelltale surge under him gave warning. Then he fell upon the huge stick,rolled under it, and shoved arms and legs under the foot of the sail.Barely had he clutched the spar in fierce embrace before it began itsreturn journey. It was a dizzy sweep across the deck, a breath-takingplunge.
When the spar collided with the stays he felt as if arms and legs wouldbe wrenched from his body. He did not venture to move or to relax hishold. He clung with all his strength, and nerved himself for the returnjourney. He had watched carefully, and knew something of the vagariesof the giant flail. When it was flung to port the wind helped to holdit there until the resistless surge of the schooner sent it flying wildonce more. He knew that no mere flesh and blood could endure manyof those collisions with the stays. He resolved to act on the nextoscillation to port, in order that his strength might not be gone.
"See that the cable runs free!" he screamed as he felt the stick liftfor its swoop.
He swung himself upward over the spar the moment it struck, and themomentum helped him. He ran again, steadying himself like a tight-wireacrobat. He snatched the noose from his shoulders, slipped it overthe end of the boom, and yelled an order, with all the strength of hislungs:
"Pull her taut!"
At that instant the boom started to swing again.
Standing on the end of the spar, he was outboard; the frothing sea wasunder him. He could not jump then; to leap when the boom was sweepingacross the deck meant a skinful of broken bones; to wait till the boombrought up against the stays, so he realized, would invite certaindisaster; he would either be crushed between the boom and shrouds orsnapped far out into the ocean as a bean 'is filliped by a thumb. On theextreme end of the spar the leverage would be so great that he could nothope to cling there with arms and legs.
A queer flick of thought brought to Mayo the phrase, "Between the deviland the deep sea." That flying boom was certainly the devil, and thefoaming sea looked mighty deep.
Her weather roll was more sluggish and Mayo had a moment to look aboutfor some mode of escape.
He saw the sail of "number four" mast sprawling loose in its lazy-jacks,unfurled and showing a tumbled expanse of canvas. When he was inside therail, and while the boom was gathering momentum, he took his life in hishands and his grit between his teeth and leaped toward the sail. He madethe jump just at the moment when the boom would give him the most help.
He heard Captain Downs's astonished oath when he dove over that worthymariner's head, a human comet in a twenty-foot parabola.
He landed in the sail on his hands and knees, yelling, even as healighted: "Catch her, boys!"
They did it when the spar banged against the stays. They surged on therope, tightened the noose, and before the vessel rolled again had madehalf a dozen turns of the free end of the cable around the nearestcleats.
Mayo scrambled down from the sail and helped them complete the work ofsecuring the spar. He passed near Captain Downs when the job had beenfinished.
"Well," growled the master of the _Alden_, "what do you expect me to sayto that?"
"I simply ask you to keep from saying something."
"What?"
"That a steamboat man can't earn his pay aboard a wind-jammer, sir. Idon't like to feel that I am under obligations in any way."
The maste
r grunted.
"And if the little thing I have done helps to square that break I madeby licking your passenger I'll be glad of it," added Mayo.
"You needn't rub it in," said Captain Downs, carefully noting that therewas nobody within hearing distance. "When a man has been in a nightmarefor twenty-four hours, like I've been, you've got to make someallowances, Captain Mayo. This is a terrible mixed-upmess." He squintedat the mizzen rigging where the lanterns revealed the damage. "And bythe way those backstays are ripped out, and seeing how that mast iswabbling, this schooner is liable to be about as badly mixed up as thepeople are on board of her."
Mayo turned away and went back to his work. They were riggingextra stays for the mizzenmast. And he noted that the girl near thecoach-house door was staring at him with a great deal of interest. Butin that gloom he was only a moving figure among toiling men.
An hour later the mate ordered the oil-bags to be tied to the catheads.The bags were huge gunny sacks stuffed with cotton waste which wassaturated with oil.
In spite of the fact that her spanker, double-reefed, was set in orderto hold her up to the wind, weather-vane fashion, the schooner seemeddetermined to keep her broadside to the tumbling seas. The oil slickhelped only a little; every few moments a wave with spoondrift flyingfrom it would smash across the deck, volleying tons of water betweenrails, with a sound like thunder. At these times the swirling torrent inthe waist would reach to a man's knees.
Mayo did not take his watch below. The excitement of his recentexperience had driven away all desire for sleep, and the sheathing inthe fo'c'sle was squawking with such infernal din that only a deaf mancould have remained there in comfort.
However, he was not uneasy in regard to the safety of the schooner. Ina winter gale, with ice caking on her, he would have viewed theirsituation in different light. But he had frequently seen the seasbreaking over the wallowing coal-luggers when he had passed them atanchor on the coast.
He made a trip of his own along the main-deck, scrambling upon the sparsto avoid the occasional deluge which swept her amidship. The battenedhatches were apparently withstanding the onslaughts of the waves. Hecould feel less weight in the wind. It was apparent that the crisis ofthe blow had passed. The waves were not so savage; their crests were notbreaking. But just then the second mate rushed past, and Mayo overheardthe report he gave the captain, who was pacing the lee alley:
"The mizzenmast is getting more play, sir. I'm afraid it's raising thedevil with the step and ke'lson."
"Rig extra stays and try her again for water," ordered the master.
Mayo, returning to the mizzen, found the entire crew grouped there.The mast was writhing and groaning in its deck collar, twisting itscoat--the canvas covering at its foot where it entered the deck.
The dusky faces were exhibiting much concern. They had flocked where theship was dealing herself a wound; the sailor sixth sense of impendingtrouble had drawn them there.
"Four of you hustle aloft and stand ready to make fast those stays!"commanded the first mate.
"Rest of you make ready tackle!" shouted the second mate, followingclose on Mayo's heels.
The negroes did not stir. They mumbled among themselves.
"Step lively!" insisted the mate.
"'Scuse us, but dat mast done goin' to tumble down," ventured a man.
"Aloft with you, I say!"
Just then the schooner slatted herself on a great roller, andthe starboard stays snapped, one after the other, like mammothfiddle-strings. The mast reeled and there was an ominous sound below thedeck.
"She done put a hole into herself!" squealed a sailor.
In the gloom their eyes were gleaming with the fires one beholds in theeyes of frightened cats.
"Dere she comes!" shouted one of them. He pointed trembling finger.
Over the coamings of the fore-hatch black water was bubbling.
Yelping like animals, the sailors stampeded aft in a bunch, bowling overMayo and the mates in their rush.
"Stop 'em, captain!" bellowed the first mate, guessing their intent.He rose and ran after them. But fright gave them wings for theirheels. They scampered over the roof of the after-house, and were on thequarter-deck before the skipper was out of the alley. They leaped intothe yawl which was swung at the stern davits.
"You renegades!" roared the master. "Come out of that boat!"
With the two mates at his heels he rushed at them. They grabbed threestruggling men by the legs and dragged them back. But the negroeswriggled loose, driven to frantic efforts by their panic. They threwthemselves into the boat again.
"Be men!" clamored Mayo, joining the forces of discipline. "There's awoman aboard here!"
But the plea which might have affected an Anglo-Saxon did not prevail.Their knives were out--not for attack on their superiors, but to slashaway the davit tackle.
"Come on, boys! Throw 'em out!" shouted the master, leading the way intothe yawl over the rail.
His two mates and Mayo followed, and the engineer, freshly arrived fromforward, leaped after them. But as fast as they tossed a man upon thequarter-deck he was up and in the boat again fighting for a place.
"Throw 'em overboard!" roared the master, venting a terrible oath. Heknocked one of the maddened wretches into the sea. The next moment thecaptain was flat on his back, and the sailors were trampling on him.
Most of the surges came riding rail-high; sometimes an especiallyviolent wave washed the deck aft.
Following it, a chasm regularly opened under the vessel's counter, aswirling pit in the ocean twenty feet deep.
There was good fortune as well as misfortune in the affair of the yawl.When at last it dropped it avoided the period of the chasm.
In spite of the efforts of the captain and his helpers the sailorssucceeded in slashing away the davit tackle. A swelling roller cameup to meet the boat as the last strand gave way and swept it, with itsfreight, out into the night. But as it went Mayo clutched a davit pulleyand swung in midair.
The dizzy depths of the sea opened under him as he dangled there andgazed down.
An instant later all his attention was focused on Alma Marston, whostood in the companionway clutching its sides and shrieking out herfears. The lantern showed her to him plainly. Its radiance lighted himalso. He called to her several times, angrily at last.
"Where is that man, Bradish?" he demanded, fiercely.
It seemed as if his arms would be pulled out. He could not reach thedavit iron from where he hung; the schooner's rail was too far away,though he kicked his feet in that direction.
"Don't be a fool! Stop that screaming," he told her. "Can Bradish!"
"He is sick--he--he--is frightened," she faltered.
"Come out here! Pull on that rope! Swing me in, I can't hold on heremuch longer. Do you want to see me drown?"
She came along the rail, clinging to it.
"No, not that rope! The other one! Pull hard!"
She obeyed, fighting back her fear. The davit swung inward slowly, andhe managed to slide his legs up over the rail and gain the deck.
"Thank you!" he gasped. "You're quite a sailor!"
He had been wondering what his first words to her would be. Even whilehe swung over the yawning depths of the sea the problem of his love wasso much more engrossing than his fear of death that his thoughts werebusy with her. He tried to speak to her with careless tone; it had beenin his mind that he would speak and bow and walk away. But he could notmove when she opened her eyes on him. She was as motionless as he--asilent, staring pallid statue of astounded fright. The rope slippedslowly from her relaxing fingers.
"Yes! It's just the man you think it is," he informed her, curtly. "Butthere's nothing to be said!"
"I must say something--"
But he checked her savagely. "This is no place to talk over folly! It'sno place to talk anything! There's something else to do besides talk!"
"We are going to die, aren't we?" She leaned close to him, and thequestion was hardly more than a whi
sper framed by her quivering lips.
"I think so," he answered, brutally.
"Then let me tell you--"
"You can tell me nothing! Keep still!" he shouted, and drew away fromher.
"Why doesn't Captain Downs come back after us?"
"Don't be a fool! The sea has taken them away."
They exchanged looks and were silent for a little while, and thepride in both of them set up mutual barriers. It was an attitude whichconspired for relief on both sides. Because there was so much to saythere was nothing to say in that riot of the sea and of their emotions.
"I won't be a fool--not any more," she told him. There was so distinctlya new note in her voice that he stared at her. "I am no coward," shesaid. She seemed to have mastered herself suddenly and singularly.
Mayo's eyes expressed frank astonishment; he was telling himself againthat he did not understand women.
"I don't blame you for thinking that I am a fool, but I am not acoward," she repeated.
"I'm sorry," stammered the young man. "I forgot myself."
"There is danger, isn't there?"
"I'm afraid the mast has pounded a bad hole in her. I must run forward.I must see if something can't be done."
"I am going with you." She followed him when he started away.
"You must stay aft. You can't get forward along that deck. Look at thewaves breaking over her!"
"I am going with you," she insisted. "Perhaps there is something thatcan be done. Perhaps I can help."
The girl was stubborn, and he knew there was no time for argument.
Three times on their way forward he was obliged to hold her in the hookof his arm while he fought with the torrent that a wave launched uponthe deck.
There was no doubt regarding the desperate plight of the schooner. Shewas noticeably down by the head, and black water was swashing forwardof the break of the main-deck. The door of the galley was open, and theone-eyed cook was revealed sitting within beneath a swinging lantern. Heheld a cat under his arm.
"Bear a hand here, cook!" called Mayo.
But the man did not get off his stool.
"Bear a hand, I say! We've got to rig tackle and get this long-boatover."
The schooner's spare boat was in chocks between the foremast and themain. Mayo noted that it was heaped full of spare cable and held theusual odds and ends of a clutter-box. He climbed in hastily and gave ahand to the girl to assist her over the rail.
"It will keep you out of the swash," he advised her. "Sit there in thestern while I toss out this truck."
But she did not sit down. She began to throw out such articles as herstrength could manage.
Again Mayo hailed the cook, cursing him heartily.
"Oh, it ain't any use," declared the man, with resignation. "We'regoners."
"We aren't gone till we go, you infernal turtle! Come here and pitchin."
"I hain't got no heart left for anything. I never would have believedit. The Old Man going off and saving a lot of nigger sailors instead ofme--after all the vittles I've fixed up for him. If that's the kind ofgratitude there is in the world, I'm glad I'm going out of it. Me andthe cat will go together. The cat's a friend, anyway."
Mayo lost his temper then in earnest. All his nature was on edge in thatcrisis, and this supine surrender of an able-bodied man whose two handswere needed so desperately was peculiarly exasperating. He leaped out ofthe boat, ran into the galley, and gave the cook an invigorating beatingup with the flat of his hands. The cook clutched his cat more firmly,braced himself on the stool, and took his punishment.
"Kill me if you want to," he invited. "I've got to die, and it don'tmake a mite of difference how. Murder me if you're so inclined."
"Man--man--man, what's the matter with you?" gasped Mayo. "We've got achance! Here's a girl to save!"
"She hain't got no business being here. Was sneaked aboard. It's nouse to pound me. I won't lift a finger. My mind is made up. I've beendeserted by the Old Man."
"You old lunatic, Captain Downs got carried away by those cowards. Wakeup! Help me! For the love of the Lord, help me!"
"Rushing around will only take my mind off'n thoughts of the hereafter,and I need to do some right thinking before my end. It ain't any use tothreaten and jaw; nothing makes any difference to me now."
Mayo saw the uselessness of further appeal, and the fellow dangled aslimply as a stuffed dummy when the young man shook him. Therefore Mayogave over his efforts and hurried back to the long-boat. The spectacleof the girl struggling with the stuff she was jettisoning put newdetermination into him. Her amazing fortitude at the time when he hadlooked for hysterics and collapse gave him new light on the enigma offemininity.
"Did you tell me that Bradish is ill?" he asked, hurriedly.
"He is in the cabin. He would not talk to me. I could not induce him tocome on deck."
"I must have help with the tackle," he told her, and started aft on therun.
He found Bradish sprawled in a morris-chair which was lashed to aradiator. He expected hot words and more insults, but Bradish turned tohim a face that was gray with evident terror. His jaw sagged; his eyesappealed.
"This is awful!" he mourned. "What has happened on deck? I heard thefighting. Where is Miss Mar-ston?"
"She is forward. There has been an accident--a bad one. We have lost thecaptain and crew. Come on. I need help."
"I can't help. I'm all in!" groaned Bradish.
"I say you must. It's the only way to save our lives."
Bradish rolled his head on the back of the chair, refusing. His manner,his sudden change from the fighting mood, astonished Mayo. The thoughtcame to him that this man had been pricked to conflict by bitter grudgeinstead of by his courage.
"Look here, Bradish, aren't you going to help me save that girl?"
"I'm not a sailor. There's nothing I can do."
"But you've got two hands, man. I want to get a boat overboard. Hurry!"
"No, no! I wouldn't get into a small boat with these waves so high. Itwouldn't be safe."
"This schooner is sinking!" shouted Mayo. He fastened a heavy clutchupon Bradish's shoulders. "There's no time to argue this thing. You comealong!"
He hauled Bradish to his feet and propelled him to the companionway,and the man went without resistance. It was evident that real danger andfear of death had nearly paralyzed him.
"There's nothing I can do!" he kept bleating.
But Mayo hurried him forward.
"Ralph!" cried the girl, fairly lashing him with the tone in which shedelivered the word. "What is the matter with you?"
"There's nothing I can do. It isn't safe out here."
"You must do what this man tells you to do. He knows."
But Bradish clung to the gunwale of the long-boat and stared out at theyeasty waves, blinking his eyes.
"If I only had a couple of men instead of these two infernal tapeworms,"raged Mayo, "I could reeve tackle and get this boat over. Wake up! Wakeup!" he clamored, beating his fist on Bradish's back.
"Ralph! Be a man!" There were anger, protest, shocked wonder in hertones.
Suddenly Mayo saw an ominous sight and heard a boding sound. Thefore-hatch burst open with a mighty report, forced up by the aircompressed by the inflowing water. He wasted no more breath in argumentand appeals. He realized that even an able crew would not have time tolaunch the boat. The schooner was near her doom.
In all haste he pulled his clasp-knife and cut the lashings which heldthe boat in its chocks. That the craft would be driven free from theentangling wreckage and go afloat when the schooner went under he couldhardly hope. But there was only this desperate chance to rely upon inthe emergency.
In his agony of despair and his fury of resentment he was tempted toclimb into the boat and leave the two cowards to their fate. But hestooped, caught Bradish by the legs and boosted him over the gunwaleinto the yawl. A sailor's impulse is to save life even at the risk ofhis own. Mayo ran to the galley and kicked the cook off the stool andthen
drove him headlong to the longboat. The man went along, hugging hiscat.
"What will happen to us?" asked the girl when Mayo climbed in.
"I don't know," he panted. "I reckon the devil is pitching coppers forus just now--and the penny is just hopping off his thumb nail!"
His tone was reckless. The excitement of the past few hours was havingits effect on him at last. He was no longer normal. Something that wasalmost delirium affected him.
"Aren't you frightened?" she asked.
"Yes," he admitted. "But I'm going to keep hustling just the same."
Bradish and the cook were squatting amidships in the yawl.
"You lie down under those thwarts, the two of you, and hang on," criedMayo. Then he quickly passed a rope about the girl's waist and made theends of the line fast to the cleats. "I don't know what will happen whenthe old tub dives," he told her. "Those five thousand tons of coal willtake her with a rush when she starts. All I can say is, hold tight andpray hard!"
"Thank you," she said, quietly.
"By gad, she's got grit!" muttered the young man, scrambling forwardover the prostrate forms of the other passengers. "I wonder if all thewomen in the world are this way?" He was remembering the bravery ofPolly Candage.
There was a huge coil of rope in the bow, spare cable stored there. Mayomade fast the free end, working as rapidly as he was able, and bundledabout half the coil into a compact mass--a knob at the end of some tenfathoms of line. And to this knob he lashed oars and the mast he foundstowed in the boat. He knew that if they did get free from the schooneronly an efficient sea-anchor or drag would keep the yawl right side up.When this task was finished he crouched low in the bow and looked at thegirl.
"We're about ready to start on our journey," he called to her. "If Idon't see you again, good-by!"
"I shall not say good-by to you, Captain Mayo--not yet!"