Part 6

Enau saw him instantly and sprang at him. It was the same hated face, the furtive eyes he had reason to hate with all his soul. They clinched, and then began a struggle for life. And while they struggled the old man's mind could no longer hold his pent-up despair. He called out upon the scoundrel who had ruined him:

"You villain! you have pursued me for revenge--I'll give you all you want," he cried. "I know you; don't think I'll let you go." And, snarling like a wild beast, he strove with enormous power to crush the other against the rail, and so over into the sea. But the younger man was powerful. His strong fingers clutched at the old keeper's throat and closed upon it.

"I know you--I know you--I know your look--you pious-faced scoundrel!" gasped the old man. Then they fought on in silence. Suddenly those below heard a heavy fall. There was a moment's pause.

The room seemed to reel about the old keeper. He struggled wildly in that frightful grip. His breath came in bits of gasps and finally stopped under the awful pressure of those fingers. The scenes of his earlier life flitted through his mind. He saw the life-boat again riding the oily sea in the South Atlantic; the starving men, their strained faces pinched and lined, their eager eyes staring about the eternal horizon for a sight of a sail; the last few days and the last survivors, the man with that look he would never forget--stars shot through his brain and fire flared before his vision. Then came blackness--a blank.

Those below, hearing the sounds of struggle dying away, called loudly to be let in. The man released his hold of the keeper's throat and shot back the bolts in the trap-door, letting a crowd of seamen come streaming into the light.

"Get some water, quick!" called Haskins, standing back and panting after the struggle. He was nearly exhausted, but still kept his gaze fixed upon the fallen old man.

"It's a touch of the sun," said the captain of the wrecked vessel, bending over the old keeper. "We must get him cooled off and ice to his head. Quick, John! jump aboard and tell the doctor to get a lump of ice and bring it here--git!"

"It's pretty bad; I've shuah been hanging on to the irons for two days, and you lose your ship, on account of a poor devil giving way under that sun; but it can't be helped. No, suh, it can't be helped," said Bahama Bill.

"If you hadn't shaved, fixed up and changed yourself so, and had come back in your own boat, he might have recognized you in time," said the captain; "but of course you didn't know."

"I think I done all I could sah," said Bill, thinking of his climb over that outer rail.

"Yes, yes; I don't mean to find fault," said the captain; "but I lose my ship by it."

VI

The Sanctified Man

When Mr. Leonard Holbrook bought the fine yawl _Dartmoor_, he did so with the clear understanding that his wife would accompany him on a voyage through the inland waters of the eastern coast of the States to Florida. The vessel was something over sixty feet on the water-line and fitted up with as much magnificence as a small craft of that size could well be. She had many trophies in solid silver, won in many hard-fought races, which adorned her cabin, and when Mrs. Holbrook beheld her interior she capitulated.

Mrs. Holbrook belonged to what was termed an "exclusive set." She went to church more than once a week, and the pastor of the million-dollar edifice in New York had much to thank her for.

"A poor person might be pious, but--ugh," he explained with a shrug to the sexton one evening, and he made it his duty to keep alive the fires of reverence which had been installed at an early age within Mrs. Holbrook's gentle breast.

It was with many misgivings that she finally became willing to trust herself upon the _Dartmoor_, for although she had faith in abundance, it was of the usual feminine variety which is best nurtured under pleasantly artificial conditions. The dangers of the sea, however, were shown to be very small indeed upon a fine craft, especially within the confines of the sounds, and she had sailed as far down the coast as Beaufort. Here it was decided to remain for a few days and enjoy the rural life of the tar-heel, and while Holbrook fished and hunted every minute of the too short days, Mrs. Holbrook passed the time aboard in pious and profound repose. It was delightful to be able to read the texts under the bright blue sky while sitting alone upon the quarter-deck without being interrupted by talk of guns and fishing lines. Then the small but cleanly kirk upon the shell-road could be visited daily, and the good old man who attended to the religious affairs of the fishing village was more than willing to be honoured by so distinguished a visitor. Yachts were like manna, only they did not drop from the sky, but were not the less appreciated for that fact.

The fourth morning the _Dartmoor_ broke out her blue pennant on the starboard spreader, showing that Holbrook had gone away for a day's sport. John Bunyan came down to the dock and stepped aboard. Jubiter John he was called among the pilots of the Core Bank, for he had lived at the inlet just above the beginning of the Florida Reef. He sidled aft and met the quartermaster, who stopped him, but as he was known as a good pilot and had brought the vessel in behind the "bulkhead" safely, he was allowed certain privileges. The master came forth to meet him.

"Mornin', Cap'n," said John, slouching up and pulling forth a rank mullet roe from his pocket and nibbling the end.

The master acknowledged the salutation with a grunt.

"Youse don't take no passengers on a yacht, hey?" he ventured.

"No," said the skipper, decisively, with the vision of the possible passenger before him.

"Youse ain't allowed to, hey?"

"Exactly," said the Captain.

"It's too bad!" exclaimed John.

"Yes, it is," answered the Captain, heartily, his face expressing nothing of the sorrow he might have felt at the limitations of his license.

There was a moment's silence during which the Captain looked aft at the reclining form of Mrs. Holbrook. She sat reading in the shade of the after awning with a rug over her feet to keep off the chill of the autumn air.

"Did youse ever hear of the sanctified people?" asked Jubiter John, presently.

The Captain had not.

"Well, they live down near the Jubiter Inlet where I used to run. There's one o' the fellers ashore here now an' he wants to go back home. It would be a mighty big accommodation if youse could take him with youse--don't youse think it could be done, hey? He'd pay a little."

"How much?" asked the Captain, slightly interested.

"Well, I can't say in money, but then his services air wuth somethin'. He's an all round able man, an' he'll say the prayers fer yer."

"I see," said the Captain, with a grunt.

"There's nothin' doin'?"

"Nix," said the Captain, shortly.

"Well, naow, that's too bad. But think it over, Cap'n, think it over."

The skipper edged to the rail and sniffed suspiciously.

"If it's just the same to you, Jubiter, I'll thank ye to get to lor'ard with that mullet roe. Whew!" said the Captain.

Jubiter John looked pained. He put the rest of the fish roe into his pocket and turned to go. At that instant the Captain started and looked up the dock. A huge figure of a man hove in sight and came slowly down the shell fill towards the yawl.

The figure was dressed in black cloth of clerical cut, the broad shoulders squared across and the hands folded behind. The stranger's head was not visible owing to the fact that he bowed it over until nothing but the top of a shiny tall hat showed in front of him, and he looked almost like a huge turtle with his head drawn inside the shell. The black tails of his coat flapped about his legs in the sea breeze as he strode slowly down to where the _Dartmoor_ lay.

Mrs. Holbrook noticed the man about the time the Captain started up the gangplank to intercept him coming aboard. Visitors were not always welcome to the skipper of the yacht, and it was his duty to see what they wanted. The Captain had hardly started well up the narrow way, when the stranger, who had reached the inshore end of it and was about to proceed down its length, suddenly raised his head. The motion was not unlike that of a turtle poking forth his nose, for it increased the man's stature a full foot, and he stopped, looking at the Captain out of eyes that seemed to hold both a challenge and a half-hidden fear. His shaved chin had a stubble of black hair, but it failed to cover the great square jaw except in spots. A line of white teeth showed between the partly opened lips, and the Captain hesitated to take in the man's appearance more fully before ordering him off the boat. The vessel gave a tug at her moorings and the gangplank took a sudden slue to one side. The next instant the Captain gave a spring for the string piece of the wharf. He missed it by a fraction of an inch and fell heavily against the timber and overboard, landing in the water with a rousing splash.

The accident caused a cry of alarm from Mrs. Holbrook which brought from the depths of the cabin her son Richard. He came bounding up the companionway as rapidly as a boy of twelve could. Jubiter John stood spellbound, looking over the side while the boy, the cook and a sailor rushed to the rail to lend a hand and get the skipper back aboard.

The tall stranger, however, had anticipated their arrival by a few seconds and, jumping on deck, leaned over the side and reached a long thin arm down to the Captain, who came spluttering to the surface. He seized the collar of the coat as it came clear of the water and without apparent effort raised the Captain to the deck. The motion was one of such ease, the Captain being a short, heavy fellow, that a close observer would have marvelled at the man's strength, but in the excitement little notice was taken of it. The stranger had saved the Captain from the sea, and Mrs. Holbrook, who had now advanced to the rail, thanked him warmly for his services.

The look of challenge died away from the man's eyes and one of fear came in place. He shuffled uneasily under the woman's gaze, but finally controlled himself. Then without a word he lifted his face heavenward and clasped his hands before him.

"The ways o' Providence air unbeknownst," said he, slowly, closing his upturned eyes and standing like some huge statue carved in wood. His voice was so soft and gentle that it brought a smile to the face of the boy who stared at him insolently. But the rest were impressed by the man's manner and stood silently watching him until he brought his head back to its normal position with a jerk. Then the Captain muttered something about inquisitive strangers and went below to change, for the air was cool.

"I am sure I should like to repay you for your bravery, Mr.--Mr.----" began Mrs. Holbrook, "but I hardly know how to thank you, sir."

"Mr. Jones is his name, ma'am," said Jubiter John, "an' youse kin repay him at once."

Mr. Jones looked somewhat abashed at this, and the stranger's look of defiance came into his eyes again.

"He's the sanctified man I ware tellin' the Cap'n of jest before he fell overboard," went on Jubiter, "an' all he wants is a passage down the coast a ways. The settlement is down near where I used to run."

"Ah, a clergyman,--a country clergyman, I see," said Mrs. Holbrook.

"I reckon that's about it," said Jubiter John.

"Mr. Jones," said Mrs. Holbrook, "I should be very glad, indeed, to aid you down the coast. You know the yacht is small and you might have to sleep in the Captain's stateroom. If you would not object to that arrangement, you are more than welcome to the voyage."

"Ah, madam," said the tall man, solemnly, in a small voice hardly above a whisper, "I should be glad to have the opportunities you speak of, and if the bed be rough an' hard an' the grub poor, I know it will be the hand o' Providence what makes it so, an' I kin stand it. The ways o' Providence air unbeknownst."

"Very well, then, we leave to-morrow morning at daylight. My husband will be back before sundown and you may come aboard to-night," said Mrs. Holbrook. "Won't you come aft? I am sure the walk must have tired you. It is a long way to the village."

The tall Mr. Jones glanced at Jubiter John and then followed the lady to the quarter-deck, where he folded up like a huge jack-knife in a deck chair, to listen to the somewhat vague but religious conversation of his new patron. He sat there for a full hour, seldom even answering questions which were put to him and not offering a single sentence of his own volition. When he arose to go, he looked askance at Mrs. Holbrook, then he raised his face heavenward and said, solemnly: "The ways o' Providence air unbeknownst."

He turned in a moment and went rapidly to the rail near the dock, leaving Mrs. Holbrook staring at him.

"Ain't he a long one, say," said young Richard, "an' them legs--Gee whizz!"

But at that instant the tall man sprang to the wharf and hurried off, hearing nothing, and Richard received a severe rebuke.

"My dear," said Mrs. Holbrook to her husband that evening, "I have taken the liberty of inviting a country clergyman to accompany us down the coast. He will be here this evening and I hope you will be civil to him."

"Huh," said Mr. Holbrook, and went on deck to smoke his cigar.

"Is he really comin' to go with us?" asked Richard.

"Yes, my dear, of course he is," answered his mother.

"But ain't he long, say?" and he bounded up the companionway to join his father.

Before eight bells that evening the tall Mr. Jones made his appearance and introduced himself to the Captain. As the latter had been instructed to entertain the new arrival to the extent of giving up his room, he received the tall man with scant ceremony.

"What's the matter wid payin' yer passage on a steamboat?" growled the mariner, as he jerked his belongings out of the berth.

"My friend," observed the sanctified man, "it is not my wish to cause trouble, an' I can't help it. If your bed be hard I make no complaint; I'll try to sleep on it. If my grub is no good, I'll try to forget it. The way o' Providence air unbeknownst."

The short, stout skipper stood looking at him a moment, but the sanctified man beamed down upon him until he turned with an exclamation of a somewhat unconventional sort and left the room. Then the tall man closed the door.

In the early morning the _Dartmoor_ was cast loose from the dock and her mainsail hoisted. Jubiter John stood near the wheel and piloted her safely over the bar and out into the green waters of the Atlantic. Then he left her and took to his dory to row back.

The air was crisp with the tingle of a nor'wester and the sun rose with a ruddy glow. The sea was smooth under the land, but the little lumpy clouds which were running away from the northward, told of wind behind. Before the sun was well above the horizon, Mr. Jones appeared on deck. He was dressed in his black trousers with suspenders tied about his waist in place of a belt. His once white shirt was open at the neck displaying a deep and brawny chest. Two long white feet poked themselves from beneath his trouser legs in most unpoetical fashion, but showed he was ready for the washing down of the vessel's decks. He tailed on to the gaff-topsail halliards and sweated up that piece of canvas until the block nearly parted from the masthead with the strain. Even the Captain, who had spent the night sleeping upon the galley floor, felt that he had, indeed, an able seaman in the sanctified man who hurled buckets of water along the snow-white planks or hustled the squeegee along the deck until the wood and seams fairly oozed water like a sponge. The three foremast hands hurried along in his wake.

The _Dartmoor_ was fast making an offing. With all sail she was running before the breeze which now began to get a heart in it, and the long heave of the heavy sea coming around Cape Lookout told of something behind it. There was a live kick and quick run to this swell that made the skipper look anxiously to his lighter canvas, but it was his object to get as far down the beach as possible while the wind lasted. A few miserable hours of heavy weather and all might be well, but thrashing down a nor'wester would cost him his job if he judged Mrs. Holbrook correctly.

The motion brought young Richard on deck, where he stood looking at the tall man in amazement.

"I thought you was a minister, say?" he ventured, as the sanctified man came near with the squeegee, "an' ministers don't work."

"Well, some kinds do, sonny. I ain't just what you might call a priest."

"Naw, you look like you might be some good," said the boy. "But ain't you a long one, say? When you get through I'll come forward and talk to you. Ma won't care; she says she hates to have to sit around an' try to talk to people she don't know nothin' about."

"Did she say that?"

"Sure, she don't know nothin' about you."

The look of fear came into the tall man's eyes and he squeegeed the deck vigorously. Then he went slowly forward and put the tool away.

One of the sailors struck off six bells and the cook announced that breakfast was ready for the Captain and the guest. As the saloon was for the owner and his party, the meal was served in the galley, the Captain and sanctified man sitting at the small table used to manipulate the several ingredients which went to make a yacht's meal.

"Do you think we'll have good weather, Captain?" asked the tall man, starting in at a plate of prepared oats.

"Naw," snapped the skipper, who still held vision of his night's rest upon the galley floor.

"D'ye mind me sayin' a thank ye fer the vittles, hey?"

"Do yer prayin' to yerself," snapped the Captain.

The long man raised his eyes and muttered something in his soft voice.

"No matter if the vittles is bad--an' poor, I'm thankful. The ways o' Providence air unbeknownst," he said as he finished.

"What's the matter with the whack?" snarled the Captain. "Ain't it good enough fer yer? I'll lay it's a sight better'n you been used to gettin', an' that's a fact."

"I didn't say it wasn't good," said the tall man, hastily, in a gentle tone. "I only said I was thankful even if it wasn't any good."

"Huh," snarled the Captain, "tryin' to sneak out of it, hey?"

"A sanctified man never fights," said the big fellow in a small voice, "for if he did I would break you up in little pieces."

"Well, a sailor fights an' don't you fergit it," snarled the Captain. "You want to try the breakin' game a bit aboard here, you long-legged sky-pilot. What the thunder d'ye call a sanctified man anyways, hey?"

"Don't ye know?" asked the tall man, mildly, his eyes taking again that peculiar look of fear they often held.

"Naw," answered the skipper.

"Well, he's one what's been tried. A man that's been off the path an' come back again. He's taken the oath to do no more harm--nothin' but good. He's sanctified."

"No more harm! What harm hev ye done, hey?" asked the Captain, sharply.

"Well, I served my time out--all but three years," said the tall man, fearfully.

"What?" gasped the skipper.

"I served my time out, nearly out. It was only fifteen years I got. I'm all right and have papers to prove it. One of the men they thought I killed got well again. The money was divided among my pals. I didn't get a cent of it; no, not a cent. But the past is past. Let it die!"

"An' you calls yourself a sanctified man, you bloomin' convict, hey? Steward, set these things somewhere else. I may not be particular as to friends aboard ship, but I draw the line at eatin' with jailbirds."

"I never was in jail--only for a month. It was the penitentiary," corrected the tall man, his small voice almost dying away. There was something very sad in his tone; something so touching that even the steward hesitated at obeying the skipper's orders.

"An' to think," said the Captain, "that Jubiter John should play it so badly on us."

He ate his meal in silence on the other side of the little room, while the vessel plunged and ran down the slopes of following seas, creaking and straining so that he soon left for the deck.

The sanctified man sat eating slowly, in spite of the motion and cries from above, as the men shortened sail to ease the racing craft in the sea. He was lost in thought. The memories of his sufferings were upon him, and as the sad years rolled back, he seemed to stand again upon a ship's deck giving orders to a crew who obeyed as only deep-water men know how. His had been a long, hard road, indeed. The surly Captain was forgotten and his insults were as though they had never been uttered.

While he sat there eating slowly and thinking over the past, he became aware that the door leading to the main saloon was open. Through it he caught a glimpse of shining silver as the _Dartmoor_ rolled heavily to starboard, letting in a flood of sunlight through her side ports. A huge urn or cup weighing many pounds, and of solid silver, was firmly planted upon a shelf near the end of the saloon. Upon it was an engraving of a yacht under full sail with the legend "Dartmoor" with "1898" beneath. Evidently the trophy of that season and probably the greatest she had ever won. It was a superb piece of ware, and the man looked at it for a long time, while his face gradually took on a hard expression and the strange look of defiance and challenge came again into his eyes. He had suffered much, but there was something within him that was stirred by the glint of that silver. Twelve long years among a certain class of men had implanted new weaknesses and developed those he had already possessed. He was forgetting himself under the flashing of that reflected sunlight.

Suddenly he was aware of a small hand stealing within his own and he turned with a cry of alarm. A look of despair came across his face and his wide jaws set firm.

"I didn't mean to scare you," said Richard, glancing backward at the steward who was busy with the morning meal. "You don't look like you scare easily. I heard what old square-head said to you. Don't you mind him. He'll eat with you--an' afterwards you can tell me what you done."

"Good God," murmured the man, and seized the boy in his arms.

"Don't hug me; I ain't no girl" cried Richard, and the tall man sat him on his knee and smilingly patted his head.

"I reckon we'll go on deck," said the sanctified man, in a few minutes. "They'll want some help reefin' the mainsail--pretty big sea to run her under all lower canvas." And he took the lad's hand and went forward through the forecastle to the scuttle and so on up to the sunlight above.

The morning was now well advanced. Eight bells struck off, and the head of Mr. Holbrook appeared emerging from the cabin companionway. The sea was sparkling in the sunshine and the quick combers running before the freshening breeze were covering the surface with patches of white. The topsail had been taken in and all hands were lowering down the mainsail to close reef it.

The sanctified man tailed on to the main sheet and soon had the boom nearly amidships. Then the sail was lowered slowly, the men handing in the canvas to ease it on the lazyjacks and toppinglift while the _Dartmoor_ ran along under jigger and jib before a sea that was rapidly shifting to the eastward. Mr. Holbrook came on deck and watched his flying fabric, taking a hand and passing reef-points under the jackstay along the boom, which were all carefully pulled out again and passed under the foot-roping of the mainsail by the careful skipper.

Mrs. Holbrook decided that as the motion was very great she would remain where it affected her the least. It would be time enough to go on deck after dinner, when the beauties of an afternoon at sea might be appreciated.