Chapter 20

An hour later, Captain Boyd Mayo, late of the crack liner _Montana_, was a very passable mulatto, his crisply curling hair adding to the disguise. He swapped his neat suit of brown with a deck-hand, and received some particularly unkempt garments.

The next night, when the tug was berthed at the water station, he slipped off into the darkness, as homeless and as disconsolate as an abandoned dog.

XXII ~ SPECIAL BUSINESS OF A PASSENGER

O Ranzo was no sailor, He shipped on board a whaler. O pity Reuben Ran-zo, Ran-zo, boys! O poor old Reuben Ranzo, Ranzo, boys! --Reuben Ranzo.

Captain Mayo kept out of the region of the white lights for some time. He had a pretty wide acquaintance in the Virginia port, and he knew the beaten paths of the steamboating transients, ashore for a bit of a blow.

He lurked in alleys, feeling especially disreputable. He was not at all sure that his make-up was effective. His own self-consciousness convinced him that he was a glaring fraud, whose identity would be revealed promptly to any person who knew him. But while he sneaked in the purlieus of the city several of his 'longshore friends passed him without a second look. One, a second engineer on a Union line freighter, whirled after passing, and came back to him.

“Got a job, boy?”

“No, sir.”

“We need coal-passers on the _Drummond_. She's in the stream. Come aboard in the morning.”

But it was not according to Mayo's calculation, messing with steamboat men. “Ah doan' conclude ah wants no sech job,” he drawled.

“No, of course you don't want to work, you blasted yaller mutt!” snapped the engineer. He marched on, cursing, and Mayo was encouraged, for the man had given him a thorough looking-over.

He went out onto the wider streets. He was looking for a roving schooner captain, reckoning he would know one of that gentry by the cut of his jib.

A ponderous man came stumping down the sidewalk, swinging his shoulders.

“He's one of 'em,” decided Mayo. The round-crowned soft hat, undented, the flapping trouser legs, the gait recognized readily by one who has ever seen a master mariner patrol his quarter-deck--all these marked him as a safe man to tackle. He stopped, dragged a match against the brick side of a building, and relighted his cigar. But before Mayo could reach him a colored man hurried up and accosted the big gentleman, whipping off his hat and bowing with smug humility. Mayo hung up at a little distance. He recognized the colored man; he was one of the numerous Norfolk runners who furnish crews for vessels. He wore pearl-gray trousers, a tailed coat, and had a pink in his buttonhole.

“Ah done have to say that ah doan' get that number seven man up to now, Cap'n Downs, though I have squitulate for him all up and down. But ah done expect--”

Captain Downs scowled over his scooped hands, puffing hard at his cigar. He threw away the match.

“Look-a-here! you've been chasing me two days with new stories about that seventh man. Haven't you known me long enough to know that you can't trim me for another fee?”

“Cap'n Downs, you done know yo'self the present lucidateness of the sailorman supply.”

“I know that if you don't get that man aboard my schooner to-night or the first thing to-morrow morning you'll never put another one aboard for me. You go hustle! And look here! I see you making up your mouth! Not another cent!”

The colored man backed off and went away.

Mayo accosted the captain when that fuming gentleman came lunging along the sidewalk. “Ah done lak to have that job, cap'n,” he pleaded.

“You a sailor?”

“Yas, sir.”

“How is it you ain't hiring through the regular runners?”

“Ah doan' lak to give all my money to a dude nigger to go spotein' on.”

“Well, there's something in that,” acknowledged Captain Downs, softening a bit. “I haven't got much use for that kind myself. You come along. But if you ain't A-1, shipshape, and seamanlike and come aboard my vessel to loaf on your job you'll wish you were in tophet with the torches lighted. Got any dunnage laying around anywhere?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then, I guess you're a regular sailor, all right, the way the breed runs nowadays. That sounds perfectly natural.” The captain led the way down to a public landing, where a power-yawl, with engineer and a mate, was in waiting. “Will she go into the stream to-night, Mr. Dodge?” asked Captain Downs, curtly.

“No, sir! About four hundred tons still to come.”

Schooner captains keep religiously away from their vessels as long as the crafts lie at the coal-docks.

“Come up for me in the morning as soon as she is in the stream. Here's a man to fill the crew. If that coon shows up with another man kick the two of 'em up the wharf.”

“Will the passenger come aboard with you, sir?”

“He called me up at the hotel about supper-time and said something about wanting to come aboard at the dock. I tried to tell him it was foolish, but it's safe to reckon that a man who wants to sail as passenger from here to Boston on a coal-schooner is a fool, anyway. If he shows up, let him come aboard.” Captain Downs swung away and the night closed in behind him.

Mayo took his place in the yawl and preserved meek and proper silence during the trip down the harbor.

When they swung under the counter of the schooner which was their destination, the young man noted that she was the _Drusilla M. Alden_, a five-master, of no very enviable record along the coast, so far as the methods and manners of her master went; Mayo had heard of her master, whose nickname was “Old Mull.” He had not recognized him under the name of Captain Downs when the runner had addressed him.

The new member of the crew followed the mate up the ladder--only a few steps, for the huge schooner, with most of her cargo aboard, showed less than ten feet of freeboard amidships.

“Sleepy, George?” asked the mate, when they were on deck.

“No, sir.”

“Then you may as well go on this watch.”

“Yass'r!”

“We'll call it now eight bells, midnight. You'll go off watch eight bells, morning.”

Mayo knew that the hour was not much later than eleven, but he did not protest; he knew something about the procedure aboard coastwise coal-schooners.

Search-lights bent steady glare upon the chutes down which rushed the streams of coal, black dust swirling in the white radiance. The great pockets at Lambert Point are never idle. High above, on the railway, trains of coal-cars racketed. Under his feet the fabric of the vessel trembled as the chutes fed her through the three hatches. Sweating, coal-blackened men toiled in the depths of her, revealed below hatches by the electric lights, pecking at the avalanche with their shovels, trimming cargo.

The young man exchanged a few listless words with the two negroes who were on deck, his mates of the watch.

They were plainly not interested in him, and he avoided them.

The hours dragged. He helped to close and batten the fore-hatch, and later performed similar service on the hatch aft. The main-hatch continued to gulp the black food which the chute fed to it.

Suddenly a tall young man appeared to Mayo. The stranger was smartly dressed, and his spick-and-span garb contrasted strangely with the general riot of dirt aboard the schooner. He trod gingerly over the dust-coated planks and carried two suit-cases.

“Here, George,” he commanded. “Take these to my stateroom.”

Mayo hesitated.

“I'm going as passenger,” said the young man, impatiently, and Mayo remembered what the captain had told the mate.

Passengers on coal-schooners, sailing as friends of the master, were not unknown on the coast, but Mayo judged, from what he had heard, that this person was not a friend, and had wondered a bit.

“I am not allowed to go aft, sir, without orders from the mate.”

“Where is the mate?”

“I think he is below, sir.”

“Asleep?”

“I wouldn't wonder.”

Mayo did not trouble to use his dialect on this stranger, a mere passenger, who spoke as if he were addressing a car-porter. The tone produced instant irritation, resentment in the man who had so recently been master of his ship.

The passenger set down his baggage and pondered a moment. He looked Mayo over in calculating fashion; he stared up the wharf. Then he picked up his bags and hurried along the port alley and disappeared down the companionway.

He returned in a few moments, came into the waist of the vessel, and made careful survey of all about him. There were two sailors far forward, merely dim shadows. For some reason general conditions on the schooner seemed to satisfy the stranger.

“The thing is breaking about right--about as I reckoned it would,” he said aloud. “Look here, George, how much talking do you do about things you see?”

“Talking to who, sir?”

“Why, to your boss--the captain--the mate.”

“A sailor before the mast is pretty careful not to say anything to a captain or the mates unless they speak to him first, sir.”

“George, I'm not going to do anything but what is perfectly all right, you understand. You'll not get into any trouble over it. But what you don't see you can't tell, no matter if questions are asked later on. Here, take this!” He crowded two silver dollars into Mayo's hands and gave him a push. “You trot forward and stay there about five minutes, that's the boy! It's all right. It's a little of my own private business. Go ahead!”

Mayo went. He reflected that it was none of his affair what a passenger did aboard the vessel. It was precious little interest he took in the craft, anyway, except as a temporary refuge. He turned away and put the money in his pocket, the darkness hiding his smile.

He did not look toward the wharf. He strolled on past the forward house, where the engineer was stoking his boiler, getting up steam for the schooner's windlass engine. When he patrolled aft again, after a conscientious wait, he found the passenger leaning against the coachhouse door, smoking a cigarette. The electric light showed his face, and it wore a look of peculiar satisfaction.

Just then some one fumbled inside the coach-house door at the stranger's back, and when the latter stepped away the first mate appeared, yawning.

“I'm the passenger--Mr. Bradish,” the young man explained, promptly. “I just made myself at home, put my stuff in a stateroom, and locked the door and took the key. Is that all right?”

“May be just as well to lock it while we're at dock and stevedores are aboard,” agreed the mate.

“How soon do we pull out of here?”

The mate yawned again and peered up into the sky, where the first gray of the summer dawn was showing over the cranes of the coal-pockets. “In about a half-hour, I should say. Just as soon as the tug can use daylight to put us into the stream.”

The roar of the coal in the main-hatch chute had ceased. The schooner was loaded.

“Go strike eight bells, Jeff, and turn in!” ordered the mate, speaking to Mayo.

“Well, I'll stay outside, here, and watch the sun rise,” said Bradish. “It will be a new experience.”

“It's an almighty dirty place for loafing till we get into the stream and clean ship, sir. I should think taking an excursion on a coal-lugger would be another new experience!” There was just a hint of grim sarcasm in his tone.

“The doctor ordered me to get out and away where I wouldn't hear of business or see business, and a friend of mine told me there were plenty of room and comfort aboard one of these big schooners. That cabin and the staterooms, they're fine!”

“Oh, they have to give a master a good home these days. That's a Winton carpet in the saloon,” declared the mate, with pride. “And we've got a one-eyed cook who can certainly sling grub together. Yes, for a cheap vacation I dun'no' but a schooner is all right!”

The two were getting on most amicably when Mayo went forward. He was dog-tired and turned in on tie bare boards of his fo'cas'le berth.

No bedding is furnished men before the mast on the coal-carriers.

If a man wants anything between himself and the boards he must bring it with him, and few do so. At the end of each trip a crew is discharged and new men are hired, in order to save paying wages while a vessel is in port loading or discharging. Therefore, a coastwise schooner harbors only transients, for whom the fo'cas'le is merely a shelter between watches.

But Mayo was a sailor, and the bare boards served him better than bedding in which some dusky and dirty son of Ham had nestled. He laid himself down and slept soundly.

The second mate turned out the watch below at four bells--six in the morning. The schooner was in the stream and all hands were needed to work hose and brooms and clear off the coal-dust. Mayo toiled in the wallow of black water till his muscles ached.

There was one happy respite--they knocked off long enough to eat breakfast. It was sent out to them from the cook-house in one huge, metal pan without dishes or knives or forks.

A white cook wash dishes for negroes?

Mayo knew the custom which prevailed on board the schooners between the coal ports and the New England cities, and he fished for food with his fingers and cut meat with his jack-knife with proper meekness.

When he was back at his scrubbing again the cook passed aft, bearing the zinc-lined hamper which contained the breakfast for the cabin table. That this cook had the complete vocabulary of others of his ilk was revealed when the man with the hose narrowly missed drenching the hamper.

“That's right, cook!” roared Captain Downs, climbing ponderously on board from his yawl. “Talk up to the loafing, cock-eyed, pot-colored sons of a coal-scuttle when I ain't here to do it. Turn away that hose, you mule-eared Fiji!” He turned on Mayo, who stood at one side and was poising his scrubbing-broom to allow the master to pass. “Get to work, there, yellow pup! Get to work!”

Ordinarily the skipper addresses one of his sailors only through the mate. But there was no mate handy just then.

“One hand for the owners and one hand for yourself when you're aloft, but on deck it's both hands for the owners,” he stated, as he plodded aft, giving forth the aphorism for the benefit of all within hearing.

The passenger was still on deck, and Mayo heard Captain Downs greet him rather brusquely.

Then the cook's hand-bell announced breakfast, and before the captain and his guest reappeared on deck a tug had the _Alden's_ hawser and was towing her down the dredged channel on the way to Hampton Roads and to sea.

Mayo went at his new tasks so handily that he passed muster as an able seaman. If a sailor aboard a big schooner of these days is quick, willing, and strong he does not need the qualities and the knowledge which made a man an “A. B.” in the old times.

While the schooner was on her way behind the tug they hoisted her sails, a long cable called “the messenger” enabling the steam-winch forward to do all the work. Mayo was assigned to the jigger-mast, and went aloft to shake out the topsail. It was a dizzy height, and the task tried his spirit, for the sail was heavy, and he found it difficult to keep his balance while he was tugging at the folds of the canvas. He was obliged to work alone--there was only one man to a mast, and very tiny insects did his mates appear when Mayo glanced forward along the range of the masts.

The tug dropped them off the Tail of the Horseshoe; a smashing sou'wester was serving them.

With all her washing set, the schooner went plowing out past the capes, and Mayo was given his welcome watch below; he was so sleepy that his head swam.

When he turned out he was ordered to take his trick at the wheel. The schooner had made her offing and was headed for her northward run along the coast, which showed as a thin thread of white along the flashing blue of the sea.

Mayo took the course from the gaunt, sooty Jamaican who stepped away from the wheel; he set his gaze on the compass and had plenty to occupy his hands and his mind, for a big schooner which is logging off six or eight knots in a following sea is somewhat of a proposition for a steersman. Occasionally he was obliged to climb bodily upon the wheel in order to hold the vessel up to her course.

Captain Downs was pacing steadily from rail to rail between the wheel and the house. At each turn he glanced up for a squint at the sails. It was the regular patrol of a schooner captain.

In spite of his absorption in his task, Mayo could not resist taking an occasional swift peep at the passenger. The young man's demeanor had become so peculiar that it attracted attention. He looked worried, ill at ease, smoked his cigarettes nervously, flung over the rail one which he had just lighted, and started for the captain, his mouth open. Then he turned away, shielded a match under the hood of the companionway, and touched off another cigarette. He was plainly wrestling with a problem that distressed him very much.

At last he hurried below. He came up almost immediately. He had the air of a man who had made up his mind to have a disagreeable matter over with.

“Captain Downs,” he blurted, stepping in front of Old Mull and halting that astonished skipper, “will you please step down into the cabin with me for a few moments? I've something to tell you.”

“Well, tell it--tell it here!” barked the captain.

“It's very private, sir!”

“I don't know of any privater place than this quarterdeck, fifteen miles offshore.”

“But the--the man at the wheel!”

“Good Josephus! That ain't a man! That's a nigger sailor steering my schooner. Tell your tale, Mr. Bradish. Tell it right here. That fellow don't count any more 'n that rudder-head counts.”

“If you could step down into the cabin, I--”

“My place is on this quarter-deck, sir. If you've got anything to say to me, say it!” He began to pace again.

Bradish caught step, after a scuff or two.

“I hope you're going to take this thing right, Captain Downs. It may sound queer to you at first,” he stammered.

“Well, well, well, tell it to me--tell it! Then I will let you know whether it sounds queer or not.”

“I brought another passenger on board with me. She is locked in a stateroom.”

Old Mull stopped his patrol with a jerk. “She?” he demanded. “You mean to tell me you've got a woman aboard here?”

“We're engaged--we want to get married. So she came along--”

“Then why in tophet didn't ye go get married? You don't think this is a parsonage, do you?”

“There were reasons why we couldn't get married ashore. You have to have licenses, and questions are asked, and we were afraid it would be found out before we could arrange it.”

“So this is an elopement, hey?”

“Well, the young lady's father has foolish ideas about a husband for his daughter, and she doesn't agree with him.”

“Who is her father?”

“I don't intend to tell you, sir. That hasn't anything to do with the matter.”

Captain Downs looked his passenger up and down with great disfavor. “And what's your general idea in loading yourselves onto me in this fashion?”

“You have the right, as captain of a ship outside the three-mile limit, to marry folks in an emergency.”

“I ain't sure that I've got any such right, and I ain't at all certain about the emergency, Mr. Bradish. I ain't going to stick my head into a scrape.”

“But there can't be any scrape for you. You simply exercise your right and marry us and enter it in your log and give us a paper. It will be enough of a marriage so that we can't be separated.”

“Want to hold a hand you can bluff her father with, hey? I don't approve of any such tactics in matrimony.”

“I wouldn't be doing this if there were any other safe way for us,” protested Bradish, earnestly. “I'm no cheap fellow. I hold down a good job, sir. But the trouble is I work for her father--and you know how it always is in a case like that. He can't see me!”

“Rich, eh?”

“Yes, sir!” Bradish made the admission rather sullenly.

“It's usually the case when there's eloping done!”

“But this will not seem like eloping when it's reported right in the newspapers. Marriage at sea--it will seem like a romantic way of getting rid of the fuss of a church wedding. We'll put out a statement of that sort. It will give her father a chance to stop all the gossip. He'll be glad if you perform the ceremony.”

“Say, young fellow, you're not rehearsing the stuff on me that you used on the girl, are you? Well, it doesn't go!

“Captain Downs, you must understand how bull-headed some rich men are in matters of this kind. I am active and enterprising. I'll be a handy man for him. He likes me in a business way--he has said so. He'll be all right after he gets cooled down.”

“More rehearsal! But I ain't in love with you like that girl is.”

“We're in a terrible position, captain! Perhaps it wasn't a wise thing to do. But it will come out all right if you marry us.”

“What's her name?”

“I can't tell you.”

“How in the devil can I marry you and her if I don't know her name?”

“But you haven't promised that you will do your part! I don't want to expose this whole thing and then be turned down.”

“I ain't making any rash promises,” stated Captain Downs, walking to the rail and taking a squint at the top-hamper. “Besides,” he added, on his tramp past to the other rail, “he may be an owner into this schooner property, for all I know. Sixteenths of her are scattered from tophet to Tar Hollow!”

“You needn't worry about his owning schooner property! He is doing quite a little job at putting you fellows out of business!”

Curiosity and something else gleamed in Captain Downs's eyes. “Chance for me to rasp him, hey, by wishing you onto the family?”

This new idea in the situation appealed instantly to Bradish as a possibility to be worked. “Promise man to man that you'll perform the marriage, and I'll tell you his name; then you'll be glad that you have promised,” he said, eagerly.

“I don't reckon I'd try to get even with Judas I-scarrot himself by stealing his daughter away from him, sir. There's the girl to be considered in all such cases!”

“But this isn't stealing! We're in love.”

“Maybe, but you ain't fooling me very much, young fellow. I don't say but what you like her all right, but you're after something else, too.”

“A man has to make his way in the world as best he can.”

“That plan seems to be pretty fashionable among you financing fellows nowadays. But I'm a pretty good judge of men and you can't fool me, I say. Now how did you fool the girl?”

It was blunt and insulting query, but Bradish did not have the courage to resent it; he had too much need of placating this despot. The lover hesitated and glanced apprehensively at the man at the wheel.

“Don't mind that nigger!” yelped Captain Downs, “How did you ever get nigh enough to that girl to horn-swoggle her into this foolishness?”

“We met at dances. We were attracted to each other,” explained Bradish, meekly.

“Huh! Yes, they tell me that girls are crazy over hoof-shaking these days, and I suppose it's easy to go on from there into a general state of plumb lunacy,” commented Old Mull, with disgust. “You show you ain't really in love with her, young man. You'd never allow her to cut up this caper if you were!”

He stuck an unlighted cigar in his mouth and continued to patrol his quarter-deck, muttering.

Bradish lighted a cigarette, tossed it away after two puffs, and leaned against the house, studying his fingertips, scowling and sullen.

Mayo had heard all the conversation, but his interest in the identity of these persons was limited; New York was full of rich men, and there were many silly daughters.

“Look here,” suggested the captain, unamiably, “whatever is done later, there's something to be done now. It's cruelty to animals to keep that girl shut up in that stateroom any longer.”