Chapter 28

In that spirit they snugged everything on board the schooner and prepared to defy the storm. It came in the night, with a howl of blast and a fusillade of sleet like bird-shot. It stamped upon the throbbing sea and made tumult in water and air. At midnight they were wallowing with only a forestays'l that was iced to the hardness of boiler plate. But though the vast surges flung their mighty arms in efforts to grasp the schooner, she dodged and danced on her nimble way and frustrated their malignity. Her men did not sleep; they thawed themselves in relays and swarmed on deck again. Each seemed to be animated by personal and vital interest.

“You can't buy crews like this one with wages,” observed Captain Candage, icicled beard close to Mayo's ear. “I reckon it was about as my Polly said--you cast bread on the waters when you took their part on Hue and Cry.”

The young man, clinging to a cleat and watching the struggles of their craft, waved a mittened hand to signify that he agreed. In that riot of tempest and ruck of sea he was straining his eyes, trying to get a glimpse of the hulk on Razee. But the schooner had worked her way too far off to the west, pressed to leeward by the relentless palm of the storm.

Then at last came morning, an opaque dawn that was shrouded with swirling snow, and all was hidden from their eyes except the tumbling mountains of water which swept to them, threatened to engulf them, and then melted under their keel. The captains could only guess at the extent of their drift, but when the wind quieted after midday, and they were able to get sail on the schooner, they were in no doubt as to the direction in which the steamer must lie. They began their sloshing ratch back to east.

Mayo braved nipping wind and iced rigging and took the glass to the main crosstrees. He remained there though he was chilled through and through.

At last, near the horizon's rim, he spied a yeasty tumult of the sea, marking some obstruction at which the waves were tussling. In the midst of this white welter there was a shape that was almost spectral under the gray skies. The little schooner pitched so ferociously that only occasionally could he bring this object into the range of the glass. But he made sure at last. He clutched the glass and tobogganed to deck down the slippery shrouds.

“She's there, Captain Candage!” he shouted. “The teeth of old Razee are still biting.”

They were back to her again before the early night descended. She was iced to the main truck, and the spray had deposited hillocks of ice on her deck, weighting her down upon the ledges which had pinioned her. But in spite of the battering she had received her position had not changed. They circled her--the midget of a schooner seeming pitifully inadequate to cope with this monster craft.

“Well,” sighed Captain Candage, “thank the Lord she's still here. Our work is cut out for us now--whatever it is we can do with her. They say a mouse set a lion loose once by gnawing his ropes. It looks to me as if we're going to have some blasted slow gnawing here.”

They lay by her that night in a quieting sea, and spent wakeful hours in the cabin, struggling rather helplessly with schemes.

“Of course, it's comforting to find her here and to know that the Atlantic Ocean will have to get more muscle to move her,” said Candage. “And then again, it ain't so darnation comforting. Looks to me as if she's stuck there so solid that you couldn't joggle her off if you hove the moon at her. I reckon my hope has been what yours has been, Mayo--salvage her whole instead of junking her.”

“I'm a sailor, not a junkman. I'd almost rather let my money go, Captain Candage, than be a party to smashing up that new steamer into old iron. She has fooled the guessers by sticking where she is. It has been my hope from the first that she can be floated. She is not a rusted old iron rattletrap. Of course, she's got a hole in her, and we can see now that she's planted mighty solid. But she is sound and tight, I'll wager, in all her parts except where that wound is. I suppose most men who came along here now would guess that she can't be got off whole. I'm going into this thing and try to fool _those_ guessers, too.”

“That's the only real gamble,” agreed the skipper. “We'd only make days' wages by carving her into a junk-pile. A scrap-heap ain't worth much except as old iron at half a cent a pound; but a new steamer like that is worth two hundred thousand dollars, by gorry! if she's afloat.”

“Well, we've got to do something besides lay to here and look at her lines. In the first place, I want to know what's the matter with her--about how much of a hole she has got. Our eyes ought to tell us a little something.”

And on that errand Mayo departed the next morning after breakfast.

Only a sailor, young, alert, and bold, could have scaled the side of the steamer in that weather. Her ladder was in place, but nothing much except an exaggerated icicle. But it was on the lee side of her, and his dory was fairly well protected from the rush of the seas. With his hatchet he hacked foothold on the ladder, left his men in the dory, and notched his perilous way to the deck. The fore-hatch was open, just as the hastily departing salvagers had left it. He went below, down the frosted iron ladder. He was fronted with a cheerless aspect. Cargo and water hid what damage she had suffered. The fat man had secured most of the cargo that the water had not ruined.

He climbed back on deck and explored amidships and aft. Her engine-room was partially flooded, for her forepeak was propped on the higher part of the reef, and water had settled aft. Her crew's quarters were above the main-deck, as is the case with most cargo-carriers of the newer type. He found plenty of tinned food in the steward's domains, coal in tie galley bunker, and there was bedding in the officers' staterooms.

Mayo scrambled back to his dory and went aboard the schooner. He reported his findings.

“And here's the only sensible plan for the present, Captain Candage: I'll take two men and a dory and go aboard and guard our property. Somebody must stay here--and I don't want you to take the chances on that wreck. You've got a daughter. You probably know more of the shipyard crowd in Limeport than I do. That's the nearest city, and I believe that when you report that the _Conomo_ is holding after this storm you can hire some equipment on credit and borrow some money.”

“I swear I'll do my best. I know a lot of water-front folks, and I've always paid my bills.”

“We need stuff for the whole wrecking game--engine, pumps, and all the rest. You go and scout on shore and capture a few men and bring 'em out here to look our prospect over.”

“Offer 'em a lay?”

“No, sir. We'll make this a close corporation. I don't propose to let a lot of land sharks in here to manipulate us out of what's our own. It's our gamble, and we want what's coming out of it. Go ashore and see what you can do on prices and terms. Don't close anything till you and I have conferred. I'll have a schedule of needs made up by the time you're back.”

Half an hour later he was located on the wreck with the two men he had selected as his companions. They carried tackle with them, with which they hoisted after them their dory--their main bower in case of emergency.

And the sea which Mayo surveyed was more lonely than ever, for the _Ethel and May_ was standing off across the heaving surface toward the main and the hulk was left alone in the expanse of ocean. He felt very much of a pygmy and very helpless as he scrambled about over the icy decks. He remembered that faith can move mountains, but he was as yet unable to determine just what power would be able to move that steamer, into whose vitals the reef of Razee had poked its teeth.

At eight bells, midnight, Mayo turned out of his berth, for he heard something that interested him. It was a soft pattering, a gentle swishing. As a mariner, he knew how sudden can be meteorological changes on the coast in winter. When the north winds have raged and howled and have blown themselves out, spitting sleet and snow, the gentler south winds have their innings and bear balmier moisture from the Gulf Stream. He poked his head out and felt a soft air and warm rain. He had been hoping and half expecting that a change of weather would bring this condition--known as a January thaw. He went back to his bunk, much comforted.

A bright sun awoke him. Clear skies had succeeded the rain, All was dripping and melting. Chunks of ice were dropping from the steamer's stubby masts, and her scuppers were beginning to discharge water from the softening mass on her deck.

He and his little crew ate breakfast with great good cheer, then secured axes from the steamer's tool-house and began to chop watercourses in the ice. A benignant sun in a cloudless sky had enlisted himself as a member of the wrecking crew on Razee Reef. That weather would soon clear the _Conomo_ of her sheathing.

This was a cheerful prospect, because rigging and deck equipment of various kinds would be released. The steamer began to look like a less discouraging proposition. She was no longer the icicle that had put a chill into underwriters and bidders. Mayo lost the somberness that had weighed upon him. The sea did not seem so lonely and so threatening. He felt that he could show something tangible and hopeful to the parties whom Captain Can-dage might be able to solicit.

When he saw a tug approaching in the afternoon his optimism suggested that it brought the skipper and his party; his own hopes were so high now that he felt that men with equipment and money would be eager to loan it to parties who possessed such excellent prospects. In this fashion he translated this apparent haste to get to the reef.

But it was not Captain Candage who hailed him when the tug eased herself against the ladder, her screw churning the sea in reverse. A stranger came out of the pilothouse of the _Resolute_, carrying a big leather suit-case. He was plainly the passenger who had chartered her. A deck-hand tossed a cast-line to the steamer's deck, and Mayo promptly threw it back.

“You can't come aboard.”

“Who says so?”

“I say so. I have a bill of sale of her in my pocket.”

“I don't recognize it. The law will have something to say about that later.”

“I don't care what the law may say later. I'm talking right now. We own this steamer. What are you here for?”

“I left quite a lot of little personal belongings on her. I went away in a hurry. I want to come aboard with this valise and get 'em.”

“They must be pretty valuable belongings, seeing that you've chartered a tug to come out here.”

“A fellow's own property means more to him than it does to anybody else. Now that I've gone to all this expense, you ain't mean enough are you, to keep me off? This is between sailors.”

“Who are you?”

The man hesitated. “Well, if I've got to be introduced I'll say my name is Simpson--I have been second officer aboard there.”

“You're not here with any legal papers--you're not trying any trick to get possession, are you?”

“Take all in hearing to witness that I ain't! I'll pick up my stuff and leave in ten minutes.”

“Come aboard, then.”

The man set down his suit-case and hitched a heave-line to the handle. He coiled the line and handed it to a deck-hand. “Throw that to me when I'm on deck,” he ordered. Then he came up the ladder.

“Heave, and I'll hoist up the bag,” suggested Mayo at the rail.

“Wait till I get there,” barked the visitor, still climbing. He caught the line after he had reached the rail and pulled up the case with some effort and great care.

“Look here, that bag isn't empty,” said Mayo.

“Who said it was? I'm carrying around in it all I own in the world. I'm starting for New York as soon as this tug sets me ashore.”

He picked up the case and started for the officers' quarters. Mayo went along, too.

“You afraid I'm going to steal her engine out of her? The few little things of mine I'm after were hidden away, and that's how I forgot 'em. Now don't insult me by following me around as if I was a thief.”

“I don't know just what you are,” muttered the young man. “There's something that looks mighty phony about this, but I haven't got you sized up just yet.”

“I'll go back--go back right now. I supposed I was asking a favor of a gentleman and a brother officer.” He started on his return to the ladder.

“Go get your stuff,” commanded Mayo. “If your business here is all your own, I don't want to spy on you.”

He went back to question the captain of the tug for information in regard to the _Ethel and May_.

“She's in Limeport,” reported the captain, elbows on his window-sill. “Came past her in the inner harbor this morning. You've bit off quite a chunk here, haven't you? We all thought this storm had sluiced her. Made quite a stir up and down the water-front when old Can-dage blew along and reported that she had lived it out.”

“Reckon some of the panic boys are talking in another key about the prospects out here, about now, aren't they?”

“Ain't so sure about that, sir,” stated the towboat man, loafing into an easier attitude.

“Isn't there a feeling on shore that we are likely to make good on this proposition?” There was solicitude in Mayo's voice. He was acutely anxious. On the sentiment ashore depended Captain Candage's success.

“Can't say that I hear of any!”

“But the talk must--”

“There ain't very much talk--not now. It's generally reckoned that this packet is a gone goose and folks are talking about something else.”

“But she is here--she is upright and fast! She is--”

The towboat man was not enough interested to listen to statements concerning the _Conomo's_ condition. “Look-a-here, son,” he broke in, “do you think for a minute that this thing wouldn't have been grabbed up by the real people if there had been any show of a make? I know there isn't a show!”

“How do you know?” demanded Mayo, with indignation.

“Haven't I been talking with the representative of one of the biggest salvaging companies on the Atlantic coast? He's there in Limeport now--was aboard my tug this morning.”

“How does he know?”

“Well, he does know. That's his business. And everybody in Limeport knows what he has said. He hasn't been bashful about expressing his opinion.”

Mayo leaned over the rail, a baleful light in his eyes indicating what his own opinions regarding this unknown detractor were, just then.

“I'd like to know who this Lord Guess-so is--barking behind honest men's backs!”

“Mr. Fogg! That's him! Seems to know his business!”

“Fogg?”

“'Exactly!' That's his great word,” explained the other, grinning. “Some chap, too, with cigars and language!”

“By the gods, now I know who chartered this tug!” he shouted. “What kind of a fool am I getting to be?”

He turned and ran toward the officers' quarters. He leaped into the main passageway and explored headlong the staterooms. There was no sign of his visitor.

At that moment, in the tumult of his thoughts, he had only a glimmering of an idea as to what might be the motive of the man's visit. But he was certain, now, that a wretch who had deliberately wrecked a rival steamer--if Candage's suspicions were correct--would do almost anything else for money.

A narrow companionway with brass rails led below to the crew's quarters. Mayo, coming to the head of it, saw the man hurrying to its foot. The captain grasped the rails and slid down with one swoop.

“What in the devil's name are you doing?” he gasped.

The intruder grabbed him and threw him to one side, and started up the companionway. He had dropped the suit-case to seize Mayo, and it bounced in a way to show that it was empty.

Mayo leaped and grasped the other's legs as he was mounting. The man kicked him ferociously in the breast before the attacker managed to pinion the legs in his arms. They went down together, rolling over and over.

The stranger was stocky and strong, his muscles toughened by a sailor's activities. Moreover, he seemed to be animated by something more than a mere grudge or desire to defend himself; he fought with frenzy, beating his fists into Mayo's face and sides as they rolled. Then he began to shout. He fairly screamed, struggling to release himself.

But his assailant was just as tough and just as desperate, and he had a younger man's superior agility. The other had forced the fight. Mayo proposed to hang to him until he discovered the meaning of this peculiar ferocity.

He flipped across his prisoner, clutched him by both ears, and rapped the man's head so smartly on the deck planks that his victim relaxed, half unconscious.

Then he opened staring eyes. “Let me go! Let me go! I quit. Run for it. Let me run. We're goners!” he squalled.

“Run? Why?” demanded the victor.

“Dynamite! I've planted it. The fuse is going.”

“Where is it?”

“Below--somewhere. I've forgot. I, can't remember. My mind is gone. I'm too scared to think. Run!”

Mayo jumped up and yanked the man to his feet. “Take me to it!” he shouted.

“There ain't time. I guessed at the fuse--it may burn quicker than I reckoned.”

The young man drove his fist into the other's face and knocked him down. Then he jerked him upright again.

“Take me where you've planted that dynamite or we'll stay here and go up together. And now you know I mean what I say.”

The last blow had cowed his man; he raised his fist again.

The visitor leaped away from him and ran along the lower deck, Mayo at his heels. He led the way aft. In the gloom of betweendecks there gleamed a red spark. Mayo rushed to it, whipped off his cap, and snuffed the baleful glow. When he was sure that the fuse was dead he heard his man scrambling up the companion ladder. He pursued and caught the quarry as he gained the upper deck, and buffeted the man about the ears and forced him into a stateroom.

“This means state prison for you! You were guilty of barratry before, and you know it! How did you dare to try this last trick?”

“I had my orders.”

“Orders from what man?”

“No matter. You needn't ask. I won't tell.” The stranger was sullen, and had recovered some of his assurance, now that his fear of the dynamite was removed.

“You're a lunatic. You ought to have known you couldn't pull off a thing of this kind.”

“I don't know about that! It was working pretty slick. If she had split and gone off these ledges, you couldn't have proved anything special. I've got good backing. You better let me go.”

Mayo glared at him, deprived of speech by this effrontrery.

“You'd better come over with the big fellows,” advised the man. “I can tell you right now that every hole in Limeport has been plugged against you. You can't hire equipment there, or get a cent's credit. It has all been nicely attended to. You're here fooling with a dead duck. You'd be better off if that dynamite had been let alone to split her.”

The entire uselessness of words in a situation like this, the inadequacy of speech to meet such brazen boldness, checked Mayo's oath-peppered anathema. He pulled the key from the stateroom door and menaced the prisoner with his fist when the man started to follow him out.

“You don't dare to keep me aboard here! Take warning by what they have already done to you, Mayo! I'm sure of my backing.”

“You'll have a chance to use it!” retorted the young man. He dodged out and locked the stateroom door.

“Your passenger is not going back with you, sir,” he called down over the rail to the towboat captain.

“I take my orders from him.”

“You are taking them from me now. Cast off!”.

“Look here--”

“I mean what I say, sir. That man you brought out here is going to stay till I can put him into the hands of the police.”

“What has he done?”

“The less you know about the matter the better it will be for yourself and your boat! You tell the man who chartered your tug--”

“You have him aboard, there!”

Mayo looked straight into the towboat man's eyes.

“You tell Mr. Fogg, who chartered your tug, that I have his man under lock and key and that the more riot he starts over the matter the better I will be satisfied. And don't bring any more passengers out here unless they are police officers.” Then he roared in his master-mariner tones: “Cast off your lines, sir. You know what the admiralty law is!”

The captain nodded, closed his pilot-house window, and clanged his bell. Mayo knew by his mystified air that he was not wholly in the confidence of his passenger and his employer.

This bungling, barefaced attempt to destroy the steamer touched Mayo's pride as deeply as it stirred his wrath. Fogg evidently viewed the pretensions of the new ownership with contempt. He must have belief in his own power to ruin and to escape consequences, pondered the young man. He had put Mayo and his humble associates on the plane of the ordinary piratical wreckers of the coast-men who grabbed without law or right, who must be prepared to fight other pirates of the same ilk, and whose affairs could have no standing in a court of law.

Even more disquieting were the statements that the avenues of credit ashore had been closed. Malicious assertions could ruin the project more effectually than could dynamite. But now that the _Conomo_ had withstood the battering of a gale and bulked large on the reef, a visible pledge of value, it did seem that Captain Candage must be able to find somebody who would back them.

For two days Mayo waited with much impatience, he and his men doing such preliminary work as offered itself.

He expected that Fogg would send a relief expedition, but his apprehensions bore no fruit. His prisoner was sourly reticent and by the few words he did drop seemed to console himself with the certainty that retribution awaited Mayo.

On the third day came the schooner. She came listlessly, under a light wind, and her limp sails seemed to express discouragement and disappointment. Mayo, gazing across to her as she approached, received that impression, in spite of his hopes. He got a glimpse of Captain Candage's face as he came to the steamer's side in his dory, and his fears were confirmed.

“'Tain't no use,” was the skipper's laconic report as he swung up the ladder.

“You mean to say you didn't get a rise out of anybody?”

“Nothing doing nowhere. There's a fat man named Fogg in Limeport, and he is spreading talk that we 'ain't got law or prospects. Got a few men to listen to me, but they shooed me off when they found that we wouldn't take 'em in and give 'em all the profits. Went to Maquoit and tried to get Deacon Rowley into the thing--and when I go and beg favors of Deacon Rowley, you can imagine how desperate I am. He's a cash-down fellow--you have found that out.”

“But couldn't you show him that this is the best gamble on the coast?”

“He ain't a gambler; he's a sure-thing operator. And when he knew that we had put in all our cash, he threatened to take the schooner away from us unless we go back to fishing and 'be sensible'--that's the way he put it. So then him and me had that postponed row.”

“But look at her,” pleaded Mayo, waving his hand, “Ice off her, sound in all her rivets after her beating. If we could get the right men out here now--”

“I ain't confident, myself, no more,” stated Captain Candage, running an eye of disfavor over their property. “If ye get out here away from level-headed business men and dream about what might happen, you can fool yourself. I can see how it is with you. But I've been ashore, and I've got it put to me good and plenty. I did think of one way of getting some money, but I come to my senses and give it up.”

“Getting money--how?”

“No matter. I'd cut off both hands before I'd let them hands take that money for a desp'rit thing like this. Let's sell her for scrap to the first man who'll take her--and then mind our own business and go fishing.”

“Will you take your turn aboard here and let me go ashore?”

“There ain't no sense in us wasting more time.”