Part 28

“We are going to die, aren't we?” She leaned close to him, and the question was hardly more than a whisper 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 from her.

“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 the pride in both of them set up mutual barriers. It was an attitude which conspired for relief on both sides. Because there was so much to say there 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 distinctly a new note in her voice that he stared at her. “I am no coward,” she said. She seemed to have mastered herself suddenly and singularly.

Mayo's eyes expressed frank astonishment; he was telling himself again that he did not understand women.

“I don't blame you for thinking that I am a fool, but I am not a coward,” 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 the waves breaking over her!”

“I am going with you,” she insisted. “Perhaps there is something that can 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 hook of his arm while he fought with the torrent that a wave launched upon the deck.

There was no doubt regarding the desperate plight of the schooner. She was noticeably down by the head, and black water was swashing forward of the break of the main-deck. The door of the galley was open, and the one-eyed cook was revealed sitting within beneath a swinging lantern. He held 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-boat over.”

The schooner's spare boat was in chocks between the foremast and the main. Mayo noted that it was heaped full of spare cable and held the usual odds and ends of a clutter-box. He climbed in hastily and gave a hand to the girl to assist her over the rail.

“It will keep you out of the swash,” he advised her. “Sit there in the stern while I toss out this truck.”

But she did not sit down. She began to throw out such articles as her strength could manage.

Again Mayo hailed the cook, cursing him heartily.

“Oh, it ain't any use,” declared the man, with resignation. “We're goners.”

“We aren't gone till we go, you infernal turtle! Come here and pitch in.”

“I hain't got no heart left for anything. I never would have believed it. The Old Man going off and saving a lot of nigger sailors instead of me—after all the vittles I've fixed up for him. If that's the kind of gratitude there is in the world, I'm glad I'm going out of it. Me and the cat will go together. The cat's a friend, anyway.”

Mayo lost his temper then in earnest. All his nature was on edge in that crisis, and this supine surrender of an able-bodied man whose two hands were needed so desperately was peculiarly exasperating. He leaped out of the boat, ran into the galley, and gave the cook an invigorating beating up 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't make 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 a chance! Here's a girl to save!”

“She hain't got no business being here. Was sneaked aboard. It's no use to pound me. I won't lift a finger. My mind is made up. I've been deserted by the Old Man.”

“You old lunatic, Captain Downs got carried away by those cowards. Wake up! 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 to threaten and jaw; nothing makes any difference to me now.”

Mayo saw the uselessness of further appeal, and the fellow dangled as limply as a stuffed dummy when the young man shook him. Therefore Mayo gave over his efforts and hurried back to the long-boat. The spectacle of the girl struggling with the stuff she was jettisoning put new determination into him. Her amazing fortitude at the time when he had looked for hysterics and collapse gave him new light on the enigma of femininity.

“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 to come on deck.”

“I must have help with the tackle,” he told her, and started aft on the run.

He found Bradish sprawled in a morris-chair which was lashed to a radiator. He expected hot words and more insults, but Bradish turned to him a face that was gray with evident terror. His jaw sagged; his eyes appealed.

“This is awful!” he mourned. “What has happened on deck? I heard the fighting. Where is Miss Mar-ston?”

“She is forward. There has been an accident—a bad one. We have lost the captain 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 thought came to him that this man had been pricked to conflict by bitter grudge instead 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. It wouldn't be safe.”

“This schooner is sinking!” shouted Mayo. He fastened a heavy clutch upon Bradish's shoulders. “There's no time to argue this thing. You come along!”

He hauled Bradish to his feet and propelled him to the companionway, and the man went without resistance. It was evident that real danger and fear 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 she delivered 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 the yeasty 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! Wake up!” he clamored, beating his fist on Bradish's back.

“Ralph! Be a man!” There were anger, protest, shocked wonder in her tones.

Suddenly Mayo saw an ominous sight and heard a boding sound. The fore-hatch burst open with a mighty report, forced up by the air compressed by the inflowing water. He wasted no more breath in argument and appeals. He realized that even an able crew would not have time to launch the boat. The schooner was near her doom.

In all haste he pulled his clasp-knife and cut the lashings which held the boat in its chocks. That the craft would be driven free from the entangling wreckage and go afloat when the schooner went under he could hardly hope. But there was only this desperate chance to rely upon in the emergency.

In his agony of despair and his fury of resentment he was tempted to climb into the boat and leave the two cowards to their fate. But he stooped, caught Bradish by the legs and boosted him over the gunwale into the yawl. A sailor's impulse is to save life even at the risk of his own. Mayo ran to the galley and kicked the cook off the stool and then drove him headlong to the longboat. The man went along, hugging his cat.

“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 for us just now—and the penny is just hopping off his thumb nail!”

His tone was reckless. The excitement of the past few hours was having its effect on him at last. He was no longer normal. Something that was almost 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,” cried Mayo. Then he quickly passed a rope about the girl's waist and made the ends of the line fast to the cleats. “I don't know what will happen when the old tub dives,” he told her. “Those five thousand tons of coal will take her with a rush when she starts. All I can say is, hold tight and pray hard!”

“Thank you,” she said, quietly.

“By gad, she's got grit!” muttered the young man, scrambling forward over the prostrate forms of the other passengers. “I wonder if all the women in the world are this way?” He was remembering the bravery of Polly Candage.

There was a huge coil of rope in the bow, spare cable stored there. Mayo made fast the free end, working as rapidly as he was able, and bundled about half the coil into a compact mass—a knob at the end of some ten fathoms of line. And to this knob he lashed oars and the mast he found stowed in the boat. He knew that if they did get free from the schooner only 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 the girl.

“We're about ready to start on our journey,” he called to her. “If I don't see you again, good-by!”

“I shall not say good-by to you, Captain Mayo—not yet!”

XXIV ~ DOWN A GALLOPING SEA

I saddled me an Arab steed and saddled her another, And off we rode together just like sister and like brother, Singing, “Blow ye winds in the morning! Blow ye winds, hi ho! Brush away the morning dew, Blow ye winds, hi ho!” —Blew Ye Winds.

With anxiety that was almost despairing Mayo looked up at the shrouds, stays, and halyards, which were set like nets to right and left and overhead.

A big roller tumbled inboard and filled the space forward of the break of the main-deck. The swirling water touched the sides of the long-boat and then receded when the stricken schooner struggled up from the welter. A scuttle-butt was torn from its lashings and went by the board, and other flotsam followed it.

Mayo found that spectacle encouraging. But the longboat sat high in its chocks; when it did float it might be too late.

Another wave roared past, and the long-boat quivered. Then Mayo took a chance without reckoning on consequences. He made a double turn of the cable around his forearm and leaped out of the boat and stood on deck, his shoulder against the stem. The next wave washed him to his waist, tore at him, beat him against the long-boat's shoe, but he clung fast and lifted and pushed with all his strength.

That push did it!

The boat needed just that impetus to free her from the chocks. She lifted and rushed stern foremost to lee, and the young man dragged after her.

When the boat dipped and halted in a hollow of the sea he clutched the bow and clambered in. Tugging mightily, he managed to dump the sea-anchor over.

The next wave caught her on the quarter and slopped a barrel of water into her. But she kept right side up, and in a few moments the cable straightened and she rode head into the tumult of the ocean; the sea-anchor was dragging and performing its service.

Mayo was obliged to kick the two men with considerable heartiness before he could stir them to bailing with the buckets. The bedraggled cat fled to the shelter of the girl's arms. Mayo struggled aft, in order to take his weight from the bow of the boat, and when he sat down beside the girl she was “mothering” the animal.

“It's coming in faster than I can throw it out!” wailed Bradish.

“Bail faster, then! Bail or drown!”

“She's leaking,” announced the cook. “She has been on deck so long she has got all dried out.”

“Bail or drown!” repeated Mayo. To the girl he said: “This seems to be the only way of getting work out of cowards. They'll have to do it. I'm about done for.”

The waves were lifting and dropping them in dizzying fashion. There was suddenly a more violent tossing of the water.

“That's the old packet! She went under then!” Mayo explained. “Thank the Lord we are out of her clutches! I was afraid we were stuck there.”

“Is there any hope for us now?” she inquired.

“I don't know. If the boat stays afloat and the wind doesn't haul and knock this sea crossways, if somebody sees us in the morning, if we don't get rolled onto the coast in the breakers and—” He did not finish.

“It seems that a lot of things can happen at sea,” she suggested.

“That fact has been proved to me in the past few weeks.”

“You mean in the past few hours, don't you?”

“Miss Marston, what has happened on that schooner is a part of the business, and a sailor must take it as it comes along. I wish nothing worse had happened to me than what's happening now.”

She made no reply.

“But no matter about it,” he said, curtly.

The two men, kneeling amidships, clutching a thwart and bailing with their free hands, toiled away; even Bradish had wakened to the fact that he was working for his own salvation.

In the obscurity the waves which rose ahead seemed like mountains topped with snow. Hollows and hills of water swept past on their right and left. But the crests of the waves were not breaking, and this fact meant respite from immediate danger.

“I'm sorry it was all left to you to do,” ventured the girl, breaking a long silence. “I thought Ralph had more man in him,” she added, bitterly. “I feel that he ought to apologize to you for—for several things.”

He, on his part, did not reply to that. He was afraid that she intended to draw him into argument or explanation. Just what he would be able to say to her on that topic was not clear to him.

“It seems as if years had gone by instead of hours. It seems as if I had lived half a life since I left home. It seems as if I had changed my nature and had grown up to see things in a different light. It is all very strange to me.”

He did not know whether she were talking to herself or to him. He did not offer comment.

There was a long period of silence. The sound of rushing waters filled, that silence and made their conversation audible only to themselves when they talked.

“I don't understand how you happened to be on that schooner—as—as you were,” she said, hesitating.

“I didn't rig myself out this way to play any practical jokes, Miss Marston,” he returned, bitterly.

“I would like to know how it all happened—your side of it.”

“I have talked too much already.”

There was no more conversation for a long time. He wondered how she had mustered courage to talk at all. They were in a predicament to try the courage of even a seasoned seaman. In the night, tossed by that wild sea, drifting they knew not where, she had apparently disregarded danger. He asked himself if she had not merely exhibited feminine ignorance of what their situation meant. He had often seen cases where apparent bravado was based on such ignorance.

“I must say that you told me at least one truth a while ago—you are not a coward,” he said at last.

She was comforting the wretched cat. “But I am miserably frightened,” she admitted. “I don't dare to think about the thing. I don't dare to look at the waves. I talked to you so as to take my mind off my troubles. I didn't mean to be prying.”

“I'll tell you what has been done to me,” he blurted. “Hearing somebody's troubles may take your mind off your own.”

While the two men amidships bailed doggedly and weariedly, he told his story as briefly as he could. The gray dawn showed her face to him after a time, and he was peculiarly comforted by the sympathy he saw there. He did not communicate to her any suspicions he may have entertained. With sailor directness he related how he had hoped, and how all had been snatched away from him. But on one topic the mouths of both seemed to be sealed!

After a time Bradish and the cook were enabled to rest from the work of bailing. The planks of the boat swelled and the leak was stopped.

“You'd better crawl aft here and sit beside Miss Marston,” advised Mayo. “Be careful how you move.”

He passed Bradish and took the latter's place with the cook, and felt a sense of relief; he had feared that the one, the dreaded topic would force itself upon him.

“I don't see no sense in prolonging all this agony,” averred his despondent companion. “We ain't ever going to get out of this alive. We're drifting in on the coast, and you know what that means.”

“You may jump overboard any time you see fit,” said the skipper of the craft. “I don't need you any longer for bailing!”

“If that's the way you feel about it, you won't get rid of me so easy,” declared the cook, malevolence in his single eye.

Mayo noticed, with some surprise, that after the two had exchanged a few words there was silence between Bradish and the girl. The New-Yorker was pale and trembling, and his jaw still sagged, and he threw glances to right and left as the surges galloped under them. He was plainly and wholly occupied with his fears.

When day came at last without rain, but with heavy skies, in which masses of vapor dragged, Mayo began eager search of the sea. He had no way of determining their whereabouts; he hoped they were far enough off-shore to be in the track of traffic. However, he could see no sail, no encouraging trail of smoke. But after a time he did behold something which was not encouraging. He stood up and balanced himself and gazed westward, in the direction in which they were drifting; every now and then a lifting wave enabled him to command a wide expanse of the sea.

He saw a white ribbon of foam that stretched its way north and south into the obscurity of the mists. He did not report this finding at once. He looked at his companions and pondered.

“I think you have something to say to me,” suggested the girl.

“I suppose I ought to say it. I've been wondering just how it ought to be said. It's not pleasant news.”

“I am prepared to hear anything, Captain Mayo. Nothing matters a great deal just now.”

“We are being driven on to the coast. I don't know whether it's the Delaware or the New Jersey coast. It doesn't make much difference. The breakers are just as bad in one place as in the other.”

“Why don't you anchor this boat? Are you going to let it go ashore and be wrecked?” asked Bradish, with anger that was childish.