Chapter 6

“And I hope you can tuck that little one in second--it won't take up much room!” pleaded Oakum Otie. “It's to help an awful pretty girl--looks are a good deal like yours!”

“I'll attend to it,” promised the young woman, blushing.

Outside in the village street Mr. Speed wiped his rough palm against the leg of his trousers and offered his hand to the captain. “I'll have to say good-by to you here, sir. I've got a little errunting to do--fig o' terbacker and a box of stror'b'ries. I confess to a terrible tooth for stror'b'ries. When the hanker ketches me and I can't get to stror'b'ries my stror'b'ry mark shows up behind my ear. I hope I have done right in sending off that tele-graft for her--but it's too bad that a landlubber beau is going to get such a pretty girl.” Then Oakum Otie sighed and melted away into the foggy gloom.

When Captain Mayo was half-way down the harbor, on his way back to the yacht, he was confronted by a spectacle which startled him. The fog was suddenly painted with a ruddy flare which spread high and flamed steadily. His first fears suggested that a vessel was on fire. The _Olenia_ lay in that direction. He commanded his men to pull hard.

When he burst out of the mists into the zone of the illumination his misgivings were allayed, but his curiosity was roused.

A dozen yacht tenders flocked in a flotilla near the stern of a rusty old schooner. All the tenders were burning Coston lights, and from several boats yachtsmen were sending off rockets which striped the pall of fog with bizarre colorings.

The stern of the schooner was well lighted up by the torches, and Mayo saw her name, though he did not need that name to assure him of her identity; she was the venerable _Polly_.

The light which flamed about her, showing up her rig and lines, was weirdly unreal and more than ever did she seem like a ghost ship. The thick curtain of the mist caught up the flare of the torches and reflected it upon her from the skies, and she was limned in fantastic fashion from truck to water-line. Shadows of men in the tenders were thrown against the fog-screen in grotesque outline, and a spirit crew appeared to be toiling in the top-hamper of the old schooner.

Captain Mayo ordered his men to hold water and the tender drifted close to the flotilla. He spied a yacht skipper whom he had known when both were in the coasting trade.

“What's the idea, Duncan?”

His acquaintance grinned. “Serenade for old Epps Candage's girl--handed to her over his head.” He pointed upward.

Projecting over the schooner's rail was the convulsed countenance of Captain Candage. Choler seemed to be consuming him. The freakish light painted everything with patterns in arabesque; the captain's face looked like the countenance of a gargoyle.

Mayo, observing with the natural prejudice of a “native,” detected mockery in the affair. He had just been present at one exhibition of the convivial humor of larking yachtsmen.

“What's the special excuse for it?” he asked, sourly.

“According to the story, Epps has brought her with him on this trip to break up a courting match.”

“Well, does that have anything to do with this performance?”

“Oh, it's only a little spree,” confessed the other. “It was planned out on our yacht. Old Epps made himself a mucker to-day by sassing some of the gents of the fleet, and the boys are handing him a little something. That's all! It's only fun!”

“According to my notion it's the kind of fun that hurts when a girl is concerned, Duncan.”

“Just as serious as ever, eh? Well, my notion is that a little good-natured fun never hurts a pretty girl--and they say this one is some looker! Oh, hold on a minute, Boyd!” The master of the _Olenia_ had turned away and was about to give an order to his oarsmen. “You ought to stop long enough to hear that new song one of the gents on the _Sunbeam_ has composed for the occasion. It's a corker. I heard 'em rehearsing it on our yacht.”

In spite of his impatient resentment on behalf of the daughter of Epps Candage, Captain Mayo remained. Just then the accredited minstrel of the yachtsmen stood up, balancing himself in a tender. He was clearly revealed by the lights, and was magnified by the aureole of tinted fog which surrounded him. He sang, in waltz time, in a fine tenor:

“Our Polly O, O'er the sea you go; Fairer than sunbeam, lovely as moon-gleam, All of us love thee so! While the breezes blow To waft thee, Polly O, We will be true to thee, Crossing the blue to thee, Polly--Polly! Dear little Polly, Polly--O-O-O!”

He finished the verse and then raised both arms with the gesture of a choral conductor.

“All together, now, boys!”

They sang with soul and vigor and excellent effect.

Ferocity nearly inarticulate, fury almost apoplectic, were expressed by the face above the weather-worn rail.

“They say that music soothes the savage breast, but it don't look like it in this case,” observed Captain Duncan with a chuckle.

“Clear off away from here, you drunken dudes! I'll have the law on ye! I'll have ye arrested for--for breaking the peace.”

That threat, considering the surroundings, provoked great hilarity.

“Give way all! Here comes a cop!” warned a jeering voice.

“He's walking on the water,” explained another.

“The man must be a fool,” declared Captain Mayo. “If he'd go below and shut up, they'd get tired and leave in a few minutes.”

However, Captain Candage seemed to believe that retreat would be greatly to his discredit. He continued to hang over the rail, discharging as complete a line of deep-water oaths as ever passed the quivering lips of a mariner. Therefore the playful yachtsmen were highly entertained and stayed to bait him still further. Every little while they sang the Polly song with fresh gusto, while the enraged skipper fairly danced to it in his mad rage and flung his arms about like a crazy orchestra leader.

Mr. Speed came rowing in his dory, putting out all his strength, splashing his oars. “My Gawd! Cap'n Mayo,” he gasped, “I heard 'em hollering 'Oh, Polly!' and I was 'feard she was afire. What's the trouble?”

“You'd better get on board, sir, and induce Captain Candage to go below and keep still. He is fast making a complete idiot of himself.”

“I hain't got no influence over him. I ask and implore you to step on board and soothe him down, sir. You can do it. He'll listen to a Mayo.”

“I'd better not try. It's no job for a stranger, Mr. Speed.”

“He'll be heaving that whole deckload of shingles at 'em next!”

“Get his daughter to coax him.”

“He won't listen to her when he's that fussed up!”

“I'm sorry! Give way men!”

His rowers dropped their oars into the water and pulled away with evident reluctance.

“Better stay and see it out,” advised Captain Duncan.

“I don't care much for your show,” stated Mayo, curtly.

The cabin curtains were drawn on the _Olenia_, and he felt especially shut away from human companionship. He went forward and paced up and down the deck, turning over his troubled affairs in his mind, but making poor shift in his efforts to set anything in its right place.

There were no indications that the serenading yachtsmen were becoming tired of their method of killing time during a fog-bound evening. They had secured banjos and mandolins, and were singing the Polly song with better effect and greater relish. And continually the hoarse voice of the _Polly's_ master roared forth malediction, twisted into new forms of profanity.

But Captain Mayo, pacing under the damp gleam of the riding-light, paid but little heed to the hullabaloo. He was too thoroughly absorbed in his own troubles to feel special interest in what his neighbors were doing. He did not even note that a fog-sodden breeze had begun to puff spasmodically from the east and that the mists were shredding overhead.

However, all of a sudden, a sound forced itself on his attention; he heard the chuckling of sheaves and knew that a sail was being hoisted. The low-lying stratum of fog was still thick, and he could not perceive the identity of the craft which proposed to take advantage of the sluggish breeze. The “ruckle-ruckle” of the blocks sounded at quick intervals and indicated haste; there was a suggestion of vicious determination on the part of the men who were tugging at the halyards. Then Captain Mayo heard the steady clanking of capstan pawls. He knew the methods of the Apple-treers, their cautiousness, and their leisurely habits, and he could scarcely believe that a coasting skipper was intending to leave the harbor that night. But the capstan pawls began to click in staccato, showing that the anchor had been broken out.

Protesting shouts from all about in the gloom greeted that signal.

There was no mistaking the hoarse voice of Captain Candage when it was raised in reply; his tones had become familiar after that evening of malediction.

“Dingdam ye, I know of a way of getting shet of the bunch of ye!”

“Don't try to shift your anchorage!”

“Anchorage be hossified! I'm going to sea!” bellowed the master of the _Polly_.

“Down with that hook of yours! You'll rake this whole yacht fleet with your old dumpcart!”

“You have driv' me to it! Now you can take your chances!”

The next moment Mayo heard the ripping of tackle and a crash.

“There go two tenders and our boat-boom! Confound it, man, drop your hook!”

But from that moment Captain Candage, as far as his mouth was concerned, preserved ominous silence. The splintery speech of havoc was more eloquent.

Mayo could not see, but he understood in detail what damage was wrought upon the delicate fabric of yachts by that unwieldy old tub of a schooner. Here, another boat-boom carried away, as she sluggishly thrust her bulk out through the fleet; there an enameled hull raked by her rusty chain-plate bolts. Now a tender smashed on the outjutting davits, next a wreck of spidery head-rigging, a jib-boom splintered and a foretopmast dragged down. If Captain Mayo had been in any doubt as to the details of the disasters he would have received full information from the illuminating profanity of the victims.

He knew well enough that Captain Candage was not performing with wilful intent to do all that damage. In what little wind there was the schooner was not under control. She was drifting until she got enough headway to be steered. In the mean time she was doing what came in her way to do. The _Polly_ had been anchored near the _Olenia_. As soon as her anchor left bottom the schooner drifted up the harbor. Mayo knew, in a few minutes, that Candage was bringing her about. An especial outbreak of smashing signaled that manouver.

Mayo sniffed at the breeze, judged distance and direction, and then he rushed forward and pounded his fist on the forecastle hatch.

“Rout out all hands!” he shouted. “Rouse up bumpers and tarpaulin!”

With the wind as it was, he realized that the schooner would point up in the _Olenia_'s direction when Candage headed out to sea.

At last Mayo caught a glimpse of her through the fog. His calculation had been correct. Headed his way she was. She was moving so slowly that she was practically unmanageable; her apple-bows hardly stirred a ripple, but with breeze helping the tide-set she was coming irresistibly, paying off gradually and promising to sideswipe the big yacht.

Mayo had a mariner's pride in his craft, and a master's devotion to duty. He did not content himself with merely ordering about the men who came tumbling on deck.

He grabbed a huge bumper away from one of the sailors who seemed uncertain just what to do; he ran forward and thrust it over the rail, leaning far out to see that it was placed properly to take the impact. He was giving more attention to the safety of the _Olenia_ than he was to what the on-coming _Polly_ might do to him.

Under all bowsprits on schooners, to guy the headstays, thrusts downward a short spar, at right angles to the bowsprit; it is called the martingale or dolphin-striker. The amateur riggers who had tinkered with the Polly's gear in makeshift fashion had not troubled to smooth off spikes with which they had repaired the martingale's lower end. Captain Mayo ducked low to dodge a guy, and the spikes hooked themselves neatly into the back of his reefer coat. Mr. Marston had bought excellent and strong cloth for his captain's uniform. The fabric held, the spikes were well set, the _Polly_ did not pause, and, therefore, the master of the _Olenia_ was yanked off his own deck and went along.

All the evening Mayo's collar had been buttoned closely about his neck to keep out the fog-damp, and when he was picked up by the spikes the collar gripped tightly about his throat and against his larynx. His cry for help was only a strangled squawk. His men were scattered along the side of the yacht, trying to protect her, the night was over all, and no one noted the mode of the skipper's departure.

The old schooner scrunched her way past the _Olenia_, roweling the yacht's glossy paint and smearing her with tar and slime. It was as if the rancorous spirit of the unclean had found sudden opportunity to defile the clean.

Then the _Polly_ passed on into the night with clear pathway to the open sea.

VII ~ INTO THE MESS FROM EASTWARD

Farewell to friends, farewell to foes, Farewell to dear relations. We're bound across the ocean blue-- Bound for the foreign nations. Then obey your bo's'n's call, Walk away with that cat-fall! And we'll think on those girls when we can no longer stay. And we'll think on those girls when we're far, far away. --Unmooring.

For the first few moments, after being snatched up in that fashion, Mayo hung from the dolphin-striker without motion, like a man paralyzed. He was astounded by the suddenness of this abduction. He was afraid to struggle. Momentarily he expected that the fabric would let go and that he would be rolled under the forefoot of the schooner. Then he began to grow faint from lack of breath; he was nearly garroted by his collar. Carefully he raised his hands and set them about a stay above his head and lifted himself so that he might ease his throat from the throttling grip of the collar. He dangled there over the water for some time, feeling that he had not strength enough, after his choking, to lift himself into the chains or to swing to the foot-rope.

He glanced up and saw the figurehead; it seemed to be simpering at him with an irritating smile. There was something of bland triumph in that grin. In the upset of his feelings there was personal and provoking aggravation in the expression of the figurehead. He swore at it as if it were something human. His anger helped him, gave him strength. He began to swing himself, and at last was able to throw a foot over a stay.

He rested for a time and then gave himself another hoist and was able to get astride the bowsprit. He judged that they must be outside the headland of Saturday Cove, because the breeze was stronger and the sea gurgled and showed white threads of foam against the blunt bows. His struggles had consumed more time than he had realized in the dazed condition produced by his choking collar.

He heard the popping of a motor-boat's engine far astern, and was cheered by the prompt conviction that pursuit was on. Therefore, he made haste to get in touch with the _Polly's_ master. He scrambled inboard along the bowsprit and fumbled his way aft over the piles of lumber, obliged to move slowly for fear of pitfalls, Once or twice he shouted, but he received no answer, He perceived three dim figures on the quarter-deck when he arrived there--three men. Captain Candage was stamping to and fro.

“Who in the devil's name are _you?_” bawled the old skipper. “Get off'm here! This ain't a passenger-bo't.”

“I'll get off mighty sudden and be glad to,” retorted Mayo.

“Well, I'll be hackmetacked!” exploded Mr. Speed shoving his face over the wheel. “It's--”

“Shut up!” roared the master. “How comes it you're aboard here as a stowaway?”

“Don't talk foolishness,” snapped Captain Mayo “Your old martingale spikes hooked me up. Heave to and let me off!”

“Heave to it is!” echoed Oakum Otie, beginning to whirl the tiller.

Captain Candage turned on his mate with the violence of a thunderclap. “Gad swigger your pelt, who's giving off orders aboard here? Hold on your course!”

“But this is--”

“Shut up!” It was a blast of vocal effort. “Hold your course!”

“And _I_ say, heave to and let that motor-boat take me off,” insisted Mayo.

Captain Candage leaned close enough to note the yacht skipper's uniform coat. “Who do you think you're ordering around, you gilt-striped, monkey-doodle dandy?”

“That motor-boat is coming after me.”

“Think you're of all that importance, hey? No, sir! It's a pack of 'em chasing me to make me go back into port and be sued and libeled and attached by cheap lawyers.”

“You ought to be seized and libeled! You had no business ratching out of that harbor in the dark.”

“Ought to have taken a rising vote of dudes, hey, to find out whether I had the right to h'ist my mudhook or not?”

“I'm not here to argue. You can do that in court. I tell you to come into the wind and wait for that boat.”

“You'd better, Cap Candage,” bleated Oakum Otie. “This is--”

“Shut up! I'm running my own schooner, Mr. Speed.”

“But he is one of the--”

“I don't care if he is one of the Apostles. I know my own business. Shut up! Hold her on her course!”

He took two turns along the quarter-deck, squinting up into the night.

“Look here, Candage, you and I are going to have a lot of trouble with each other if you don't show some common sense. I must get back to my yacht.”

“Jump overboard and swim back. I ain't preventing. I didn't ask you on board. You can leave when you get ready. But this schooner is bound for New York, they're in a hurry for this lumber, and I ain't stopping at way stations!” He took another look at the weather, licked his thumb, and held it against the breeze. “Sou'west by sou', and let her run! And shut up!” he commanded his mate.

Mayo grabbed one of the yawl davits and sprang to the rail.

“We're some bigger than a needle, but so long as the haystack stays thick enough I guess we needn't worry!” remarked Captain Candage, cocking his ear to listen to the motor-boat's exhaust.

“Hoi-oi!” shouted Mayo into the night astern. He knew that men hear indistinctly over the noise of a gasoline-engine, but he had resolved to keep shouting.

“This way, men! This way with that boat!”

“'Vast heaving on that howl!” commanded Candage.

But Mayo persisted with all his might. His attention was confined wholly to his efforts, and he was not prepared for the sudden attack from behind. The master of the _Polly_ seized Mayo's legs and yanked him backward to the deck. The young man fell heavily, and his head thumped the planks with violence which flung him into insensibility.

When he opened his eyes he looked up and saw a hanging-lamp that creaked on its gimbals as it swayed to the roll of the schooner. He was in the _Polly's_ cabin. Next he was conscious that he was unable to move. He was seated on the floor, his back against a stanchion, his hands lashed behind him by bonds which confined him to the upright support. But the most uncomfortable feature of his predicament was a marlinespike which was stuck into his mouth like a bit provided for a fractious horse, and was secured by lashings behind his head. He was effectually gagged. Furthermore, the back of his head ached in most acute fashion. He rolled his eyes about and discovered that he had a companion in misery. A very pretty young woman was seated on a camp-chair across the cabin. Her face expressed much sympathy.

He gurgled a wordless appeal for help, and then perceived that she was lashed into her chair.

“I wish I could take that awful thing out of your mouth, sir.”

He gave her a look which assured her that he shared in her desire.

“My father has tied me into this chair. I tried to make him stop his dreadful talk when the boats came and burned the lights. He put me down here and made a prisoner of me. It is terrible, all that has been happening. I can't understand! I hope you will not think too hard of my father, sir. Honestly, he seems to be out of his right mind.”

He wanted to return some comforting reply to this wistful appeal, but he could only roll his head against the stanchion and make inarticulate sounds.

“He seemed to be very bitter when he brought you below. I could not make him listen to reason. I have been thinking--and perhaps you're the gentleman who led the singing which made him so angry?”

Mayo shook his head violently in protest at this suspicion.

“I didn't mind,” she assured him. “I knew it was only in fun.” She pondered for a few minutes. “Perhaps they wouldn't have teased one of their city girl friends in that way--but I suppose men must have a good time when they are away from home. Only--it has made it hard for me!” There were tears in her eyes.

Mayo's face grew purple as he tried to speak past the restraining spike and make her understand his sentiments on the subject of that serenade.

“Don't try to talk, sir. I'm so sorry. It is shameful!”

There was silence in the cabin after that for a long time. He looked up at the swinging lamp, his gaze wandered about the homely cabin. But his eyes kept returning to her face. He could not use his tongue, and he tried to tell her by his glances, apologetic little starings, that he was sorry for her in her grief. She met those glances with manifest embarrassment.

After an absence which was prolonged to suit his own sour will in the matter, Captain Candage came stamping stormily down the companionway. He stood between his captives and glowered, first at one and then at the other.

“Both of ye blaming me, I reckon, for what couldn't be helped.”

“Father, listen to me now, if you have any sense left in you,” cried the girl, with passion. “Take that horrible thing out of that gentleman's mouth.”

“It has come to a pretty pass in this world when an honest man can't carry on his own private business without having to tie up meddlers so as to have a little peace.” He walked close to Mayo and shook a monitory finger under the young man's nose. “Now, what did ye come on board here for, messing into my affairs?”

The indignant captain put forth his best efforts to make suitable retort, but could only emit a series of “guggles.”

“And now on top of it all I am told by my mate, who never gets around to do anything that ought to be done till it's two days too late, that you are one of the Mayos! Why wasn't I informed? I might have made arrangements to show you some favors. I might have hove to and taken a chance, considering who you was. And now it's too late. Everybody seems to be ready to impose on me!”

Again Mayo tried to speak.

“Why don't you shut up that gobbling and talk sense?” shouted the irate skipper, with maddening disregard of the captive's predicament.

“Father, are you completely crazy? You haven't taken that spike out of his mouth.”

“Expect a man to remember everything when he is all wrapped in his own business and everybody trying to meddle with it?” grumbled Candage. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a knife. He slashed away the rope yarn which lashed the marlinespike. “If you can talk sense I'll help you do it! I reckon you can holler all you want to now. Them dudes can't find their own mouths in a fog, much less this schooner. Now talk up!”

Mayo worked his aching jaws and found his voice. “You know how I happened to get aboard, Captain Candage. I am skipper of the _Olenia_. Put back with me if you want to save trouble.”

“Not by a tin hoopus, sir! I ain't going about and tackle them reefs in this fog. I've got open sea ahead, and I shall keep going!”