Chapter 32

“There are papers in there with which I can club Julius Marston until he squeals. I haven't seen them, but I know well enough what they are. I can scare him into giving back all he has taken away from me. I can make him give back a lot to other folks. And from those other folks I can get money to finish our work on the _Conomo_. Look at the monogram on that seal, Polly!” He pointed grimy finger and held the packet close.

“From--Miss Marston?” she asked, tremulously.

“Yes, Polly.”

“And she is helping you?”

“I suppose she is trying to.”

“Well, it's what a girl should do when she loves a man,” she returned. But she did not look at him and her lips were white.

“And you think I ought to use her help?”

“Yes.” She evidently realized that her tone was a mere quaver of assent, for she repeated the word more firmly.

“But these papers are not hers, Polly. She stole them--or somebody stole them for her--from her own father,” he went on, relentlessly.

“She must love you very much, Boyd.”

They turned away from each other and gazed in opposite directions. He was wondering, as he had through many agonized hours, just what motive was influencing Alma Marston in those later days. With all his soul he wanted to question Polly Candage--to get the light of her woman's instinct on his troubled affairs; but the nature of the secret he was hiding put effective stopper on his tongue.

“Under those circumstances, no matter what kind of a sacrifice she has made for you, you ought to accept it, Boyd.”

“I want to accept it; every impulse in me says to go in and grab. Polly, hell-fire is blazing inside of me. I want to tear them down--the whole of them. I do! You needn't jump! But if I use those papers which that girl has stolen from her father I'll be a dirty whelp. You know it, and I know it! Suppose you should tell me some secret about your own father so I could use it to cheat him out of his share of our partnership? You might mean all right, but after I had used it you would hate me! Now wouldn't you?”

“Perhaps--probably I wouldn't hate you,” she stammered. “But I'd think more of you if you--yes, I'm sure I'd think more of you if you didn't take advantage of my foolishness.”

“That's it, exactly! Any man, if I told him about this situation, would say that I'm a fool not to use every tool I can get hold of. But you understand better! I'm glad I came to talk with you. I have been dreadfully tempted. Your advice is keeping me straight!”

“I have not advised you, Boyd!”

“You don't need to use words! It's your instinct telling me what is right to do. You wouldn't think it was a square deal for me to use these papers, would you?”

“If you love her so much that you're willing to sacrifice yourself and your work and--”

“Say it, Polly! I'm sacrificing your father, too! It's for a notion--not much else!”

“No, it must be because you love her so much. You are afraid she will think less of you if you take advantage of her. I think your stand is noble, Boyd!”

“I don't! I think it's infernal foolishness, and I wish the Mayo breed didn't have so much of that cursed stiff-necked conscience! Our family wouldn't be where it is to-day.” He spoke with so much heat that she turned-wondering eyes on him.

“But it's for her sake, Boyd! It's--”

“Nothing of the sort! That is, it isn't as you think it is.”

“I only think you love her.”

“I don't want you to say that--or believe it!” he raved. “If you only knew--if I could tell you--you'd see that it's insulting my common sense to say that I'm in love with Alma Marston. I don't love her! I--I don't know just where I stand. I don't know what's the matter with me. I'm in the most damnable position a man can be in. And I'm talking like a fool. Isn't that so?”

“I don't understand you,” she faltered.

“Of course you don't. I reckon I'm a lunatic. I'll be rolling over here and biting the grass next!”

His passion puzzled her. His flaming eyes, his rough beard, his rage, and all the uncouth personality of him shocked her.

“Boyd, what--whatever is the matter? I'm afraid.”

“I don't blame you. I'm afraid of myself these days!” He shook his swollen fists over his head.

“It ought to encourage you because she is trying to help you!”

“Be still!” he roared. “You don't know what you're talking about. Help me! There are women who can help a man--do help a man, every turn he makes. There are other women who keep kicking him down into damnation even when they think they are helping. I'm not going to stay here any longer. I mustn't stay, Polly. I'll be saying things worse than what I have said. What I said about women doesn't refer to you! You are true and good, and I envy that man, whoever he is.”

He started down the slope toward the beach.

“Are you going back to the wreck?” she asked, plaintively.

“To the wreck!”

“But wait!” She could not control either her feelings or her voice.

“I can't wait. I don't dare to stay another minute!”

She called again and he halted at a little distance and faced her. He was absolutely savage in demeanor and tone.

“Remember what I said about her! Don't insult my common sense! She is--Oh, no matter!” He shook his fists again and went on his way.

She stood on the hillside and watched him row out to the little schooner. And through her tears she did not know whether he waved salute to her with those poor, work-worn hands, or again shook his fists. He made some sort of a flourish over the rail of the quarter-deck. The grieving and mystified girl was somberly certain that his troubles had touched Mayo's wits.

XXXI ~ THE BIG FELLOW HIMSELF

Will had promised his Sue that this trip, if well ended, Should coil up his ropes and he'd anchor on shore. When his pockets were lined, why his life should be mended, The laws he had broken he'd never break more. --Will Watch.

They needed food, lease-money for their hired equipment was due, and the dependents at Maquoit must be looked after.

Pride and hope had inspired the crew at Razee to salvage the _Conomo_ intact. Material removed from her would immediately become junk to be valued at junk prices, instead of being a valuable and active asset on board. But there was no other resource in sight. No word came from Captain Wass; and Mayo had put little confidence in that possibility, anyway.

There was nothing else to do--they must sell off something on which they could realize quickly.

In the estimation of many practical men this procedure would have been a warrantable makeshift, its sole drawback being a sacrifice of values. But to the captains on Razee it seemed like the beginning of complete surrender; it was the first step toward the dismantling of the steamship. It was making a junk-pile of her, and they confessed to themselves that they would probably be obliged to keep on in the work of destruction. In the past their bitterest toil had been spiced with the hope of big achievement; the work they now set themselves to do was melancholy drudgery.

They brought the _Ethel and May_ alongside and loaded into her the anchors, chains, spare cables, and several of the life-boats. Mayo took charge of the expedition to the main.

The little schooner, sagging low with her burden, wallowed up the harbor of Limeport just before sunset, one afternoon. Early June was abroad on the seas and the pioneer yachting cruisers had been coaxed to the eastward; Mayo saw several fine craft anchored inside the breakwater and paid little attention to them. He paced the narrow confines of his quarter-deck and felt the same kind of shame a ruined man feels when he is on his way to the pawnshop for the first time. He had his head down; he hated to look forward at the telltale cargo of the schooner.

“By ginger! here's an old friend of yours, this yacht!” called Mr. Speed, who was at the wheel.

They were making a reach across the harbor to an anchorage well up toward the wharves, and were passing under the stern of a big yacht. Mayo looked up. It was the _Olenia_.

“But excuse me for calling it a friend, Captain Mayo,” bawled the mate, with open-water disregard of the possibilities of revelation in his far-carrying voice.

A man rose from a chair on the yacht's quarter-deck and came to the rail. Though the schooner passed hardly a biscuit-toss away, the man leveled marine glasses, evidently to make sure that what he had guessed, after Mr. Speed's remark, was true.

Mayo felt an impulse to turn his back, to dodge below. But he did not retreat; he walked to his own humble rail and scowled up into the countenance of Julius Mar-ston. The schooner was sluggish and the breeze was light, and the two men had time for a prolonged interchange of visual rancor.

“I didn't mean to holler so loud, Captain Mayo,” barked Oakum Otie, in still more resonant manner, to offer apology. “But seeing her, and remembering last time I laid eyes on her--”

“Shut up!” commanded the master. “I'll take the wheel. Go forward and clear cable, and stand by for the word!”

He looked behind, in spite of himself, and saw that a motor-tender had come away from the _Olenia_. It foamed along in the wake of the schooner. It circled her after it had passed, and kept up those manouvers until the schooner's anchor was let go. Then the tender came to the side and stopped. The mate and engineer in her were new men; Mayo did not know them. The mate tipped respectful salute and stated that Mr. Marston had sent them to bring Captain Mayo on board the yacht at once.

“My compliments to Mr. Marston. But I am not able to come.”

They went away, but returned in a short time, and the mate handed a note over the rail. It was a curt statement, dictated and typewritten, that Mr. Marston wished to see Captain Mayo on business connected with the _Conomo_, and that if Captain Mayo were not able to transact that business Mr. Marston would be obliged to hunt up some other party who could do business regarding the _Conomo_. Remembering that he had the interests of others to consider, Mayo dropped into the tender, sullen, resentful, wondering what new test of his endurance was to be made, and feeling peculiarly ill-equipped, in his present condition of courage and temper, to meet Julius Marston.

The latter had himself under full restraint when they met on the yacht's quarter-deck, and Mayo was more fully conscious of his own inadequacy.

“Below, if you please, captain.” He led the way, even while he uttered the invitation.

No one was visible in the saloon. In the luxury of that interior the unkempt visitor seemed especially strange, particularly out of place.

“You will excuse what has seemed to be my hurry in getting you over here, sir, but I take it that your sailing into this port just now coincides with the arrival of the Vose crowd in this city to-day.”

Mr. Fletcher Fogg first, and now Mr. Fogg's employer, had given advance information which anticipated Mayo's knowledge. The young man had been having some special training in dissimulation, and he did not betray any surprise. He bowed.

“It's better for you to talk with me before you allow them to make a fool of you. I am prepared to take that steamer off your hands, as she stands, at a fair appraisal, and I will give bonds to assume all expenses of the suit brought by the underwriters.”

“There has been no suit brought by the underwriters.”

Mr. Marston raised his eyebrows. “Oh! I must remember that you are considerably out of the world. The underwriters make claim that the vessel was not legally surrendered by them. Have you documents showing release? If so, I'll be willing to pay you about double what otherwise I shall feel like offering. Take a disputed title in an admiralty case and it's touchy business.”

Mayo remembered the haphazard manner in which the steamer had been transferred, and he did not reply.

Marston's manner was that of calm, collected, cool business; his air carried weight. More than ever did Mayo feel his own pitiful weakness in these big affairs where more than honest hard work counted in the final adjustment.

“How much did you pay your big lawyers to stir up this suit by the underwriters?” he blurted, and Marston's eyelids flicked, in spite of his impassivity. There was instinct of the animal at bay, rather than any knowledge, behind Mayo's question.

“Why should you suggest that I have anything to do with such a suit?”

“You seem almighty ready to assume all liability.”

“I'm not here to have childish disputes with you, sir. This is straight business.”

“Very well. What do you want?”

“Have you documents, as I have suggested?”

“I have my bill of sale. I take it for granted that the folks who sold to me are backed by papers from the underwriters.”

“That's where you are in error, unfortunately. You are all made party to a suit. Time clause, actual abandonment, right of redemption--all those matters are concerned. Of course, it means injunction and long litigation. I suggested assuming liabilities and stepping in, because I am backed by the best admiralty lawyers in New York. I repeat the offer Mr. Fogg made to you.”

“You admit that Mr. Fogg made that offer for you or your interests, do you?”

“Well, yes!” admitted Marston. “We allow Mr. Fogg to act for us in a few matters.”

“I am glad to know it. There has been so much cross-tag going on that I have been a little doubtful!”

“Kindly avoid sarcasm and temper, if you please! Do you care to accept the offer?”

Mayo glared at the financier, looking him up and down. Furious hatred took away his power of sane consideration. He was in no mood to weigh chances, either for himself or for his associates. He doubted Marston's honesty of purpose. He knew how this man must feel toward the presumptuous fool who had dared to look up at Alma Marston; he was conscious that the magnate must be concealing some especial motive under his cold exterior.

Whether Marston was anticipating blackmail from Mayo's possession of the documents or had hatched up ostensible litigation in order to force the bothersome amateurs out of the _Conomo_ proposition, the young man could not determine; either view of the situation was equally insulting to those whom he made his antagonists.

“Well!” snapped the magnate, plainly finding it difficult to restrain his own violent hatred much longer in this interview. “Decide whether you will have a little ready cash and a good position or whether you will be kicked out entirely!”

“I don't want your money! You're trying to cheat me with fake law business even while you are offering me money! I don't want your job! I have worked for you once. I'll never be your hired man again.”

“If I did not know that you have a better reason for standing out in this fashion, I'd say that you have allowed, your spite to drive you crazy, young man.”

“What is that better reason?”

“Blackmail! You propose to trade on a theft.”

Mayo struggled for a moment with an impulse that was almost frantic; he wanted to throw the packet in Mar-ston's face and tell him that he lied. Again the young man felt that queer sense of helplessness; he knew that he could not make Marston understand.

“Mayo, I have tried to deal with you as if you were more or less of a man. I was willing to admit that my agents had injured you by their mistakes. I have offered a decent compromise. I have done what I hardly ever do--bother with petty details like this!”

That impulse to deliver the papers to Marston was then not so insistent; even Mayo's rising anger did not prompt him to do that. The wreck of a man's life and hopes dismissed flippantly as petty details!

“Seeing that I am not able to deal with you on a business man's basis, I shall handle you as I would handle any other thief.”

Mayo turned to leave, afraid of his own desperate desire to beat that sneering mouth into shapelessness.

At the head of the companionway stood half a dozen sailors, armed with iron grate-bars.

“If those papers are on you, I'm going to have them,” stated the financier. “If they are not on you, you'll be glad to tell me where they are before I get done with you.”

The captive halted between the master and the vassals.

“I'm going to crucify my feelings a little more, Mayo,” stated Marston. “Step forward here where those men can't hear. It's important.”

Marston knocked softly on a stateroom door and his daughter came forth. She gasped when she saw this ragged visitor, and in her stare there was real horror.

“I haven't been able to sift this thing to the bottom. By facing you two, as I'm doing, I may be able to get the truth of the case,” said Marston, with the air of a magistrate dealing with malefactors. “Now, Alma, I'll allow you a minute or two to use your tongue on this fine specimen before my men use their bars.”

“I heard what my father offered you. You must take it.”

“I have other men to consider--honest men, who have worked hard with me.”

He trembled in their presence. Her appearance put sane thoughts out of his head and choked the words in his throat. He saw himself in a mirror and wondered if this were not a dream--if it had not been a dream that she had ever loved him.

He wanted to put out to her his mutilated hands which he was hiding behind him. He yearned to explain to her the man's side of the case. He wanted her to understand what he owed to the men who had risked their lives to serve him, to make her realize the bond which exists between men who have toiled and starved together.

“You have yourself to consider, first of all. Much depends. In your silly notions about a lot of paupers you are throwing my father's kindness in his face!”

He stammered, unable to frame coherent reply.

“Be sensible. You have no right to put a heap of scrap-iron and a lot of low creatures ahead of your personal interests.”

There was malice in Marston's eyes. He saw an opportunity to make Mayo's position even more false in the opinion of the girl.

“I'll be entirely frank, Mayo. In spite of our personal differences, I want your services--I need them. I have found out that you're a young man of determination and plenty of ability. I'll put you ahead fast if you'll come over with me. But you must come clean. No strings on you with that other crowd.”

“I can't sell 'em out. I won't do it,” protested Mayo. He did not exactly understand all the reasons for his obstinacy. But his instinct told him that Julius Marston was not descending in this manner except for powerful reasons, and that he was attempting to buy a traitor for his uses.

“How do you dare to turn against my father?”

“I--I don't know! Something seems to be the matter with me.” He wrenched at his throat with his hand.

“And after what I did--my wicked foolishness--those papers--”

“Go on! I propose to get to the bottom of this thing,” declared Marston.

The young man drove his hand into his pocket, pulled out the sealed packet, and forced it into the girl's hands. Marston promptly seized it.

“You have not opened it?”

“No, sir.”

“I did not open it, either,” cried the girl. “I sealed it, just as it was tied up.”

Marston ripped off the strings and the wax.

Outside a loud voice was hailing the yacht. “Compliments of Captain Wass to Captain Mayo, and will he please say when he is coming back aboard his schooner?”

The financier paid no attention; he was busy with the papers. His face was white with rage. He threw them about him on the floor.

“Every sheet is blank--it is waste-paper!” he shouted. “What confounded trick is this?”

“You'd better ask the man who gave that packet to your daughter,” suggested Mayo. He seemed to be less astonished than Marston and the girl. “I might have known that your man, Bradish, would be that kind of a sneak.”

“What do you know about Bradish being concerned in this?”

“I'm guessing it. Probably your daughter can say.”

“I'll have no more of your evasions, Alma. I'm going to the bottom of this matter now. Did Bradish give you this packet?”

“Yes, father.”

“How did it get to this man here?”

“I gave it to a man named Captain Wass.”

Again they heard the voice outside. “I don't care if he is busy! I tell you to take word to Captain Mayo that he is wanted right away on his schooner. Tell him it's Captain Wass.”

“The devil has sent that man along at about the right time,” declared Marston. He strode to the companion-way. “Inform Captain Wass that he is wanted on board here! Hide those bars till he is below!”

He came back, raging, and stood between Mayo and the girl, who had seemed to find words inadequate during the short time they had been left together.

“I don't believe anything you tell me! There's an infernal trick, here. The papers are missing. Somebody has them.”

His fury blinded his prudence.

He strode toward Captain Wass when the old mariner came stumping down the companionway.

“Is your name Wass?”

“Captain Wass, sir.”

“You took papers from my daughter and brought them to this man!”

“Correct.”

Marston stepped back and kicked at the blank sheets on the floor.

“Perhaps you can tell me if these are what you brought.”.

Captain Wass stared long at Mayo, at the girl, and at the incensed magnate. Then he looked down at the scattered papers and scratched his head with much deliberation.

“Why don't you say something?” demanded Marston.

“I'm naturally slow and cautious,” stated Captain Wass. He put on his spectacles, kneeled on the soft carpet, and examined the blank papers and the broken seals. He laid them back on the carpet and meditated for some time, still on his knees. When he looked up, peering over the edge of his spectacles, he paid no attention to Mar-ston, to the latter's indignant astonishment.

“Vose and others are waiting for us at the hotel,” he informed Captain Mayo, “and it's important business, and we'd better be tending to it instead of fooling around here.”

“No matter about any other business except this, sir,” cried Marston.

“There can't be much business mixed up in a lot of blank sheets of paper,” snapped Captain Wass. “What's the matter?”

“I have lost valuable papers.”

The old skipper bent shrewd squint at the angry man who was standing over him. “Steamer combination papers, hey?”

“You seem to know pretty well.”

“Ought to know.”

“Why?”

Captain Wass rose slowly, with grunts, and rubbed his stiff knees. “Because I've got 'em.”

“Stole them from the package, did you?”

“It wasn't stealing--it was business.”

“Hand them over.”

“I insist on that, too, Captain Wass,” said Mayo, with indignation. “Hand over those papers.”

“Can't be done, for I haven't got 'em with me. And I won't hand 'em over till I have used them in my business.”

“I shall have you arrested,” announced Marston.

“So do. Sooner the whole thing gets before the court, the better.” His perfect calmness had its effect on the financier.

“What are you proposing to use those papers for?”

“To make you pirates turn back the Vose line property and pay damages. As to the rest of your combination, the critters that's in it can skin their own skunks. I guess the whole thing will take care of itself after we get the Vose line back.”

“You are asking for an impossibility. The matter cannot be arranged.”

“Then we'll see how far Uncle Sam can go in unscrambling that particular nestful of eggs. I'll give the papers to the government.”

“Haven't you any influence with this man?” Marston asked the astounded Mayo.

“No, he hasn't--not a mite in this case,” returned Captain Wass. “He needs a guardeen in some things, and I'm serving as one just now.”

“You must get them from him--you must, Captain Mayo,” cried the girl. “I did not understand what I was doing.”

“I will get them.”

“I'd like to see you do it, son!”