Chapter 7

“One Monday evening about the middle of the month I went over to Phoebe Ann's to borrow some matches. Barbara wasn't in--gone out to lock up the hens, or some such fool excuse. But Phoebe was busting full of joy. Cap'n Eben had arrived in New York a good deal sooner'n was expected and would be home on Thursday morning.

“'He's going from Boston to Provincetown on the steamer, Wednesday,' says Phoebe. 'He's got some business over there. Then he's coming home from Provincetown on the early train. Ain't that splendid?'

“I thought 'twas splendid for more reasons than one, and I went out feeling good. But as I come round the corner of the house there was somebody by the back gate, and I heard a girl's voice sayin': 'Oh, no, no! I can't! I can't!'

“If I hadn't trod on a stick maybe I'd have heard more, but the racket broke up the party. Barbara come hurrying past me into the house, and by the light from the back door, I see her face. 'Twas white as a clam-shell, and she looked frightened to death.

“Thinks I: 'That's funny! It's a providence Eben's coming home so soon.'

“And the next day I saw her again, and she was just as white and wouldn't look me in the eye. Wednesday, though, I felt better, for the servants on the Davidson place told me that Allie had gone to Boston on the morning train to be gone for good, and that they was going to shut up the house and haul up the launch in a day or so.

“Early that afternoon, as I was coming from my shanty to the bluff on my way to the shore after dinner, I noticed a steam-yacht at anchor two mile or so off the bar. She must have come there sence I got in, and I wondered whose she was. Then I see a dingey with three men aboard rowing in, and I walked down the beach to meet 'em.

“Sometimes I think there is such things as what old Parson Danvers used to call 'dispensations.' This was one of 'em. There was a feller in a uniform cap steering the dingey, and, b'lieve it or not, I'll be everlastingly keelhauled if he didn't turn out to be Ben Henry, who was second mate with me on the old Seafoam. He was surprised enough to see me, and glad, too, but he looked sort of worried.

“'Well, Ben,' says I, after we had shook hands, 'well, Ben,' I says, 'my shanty ain't exactly the United States Hotel for gilt paint and bill of fare, but I HAVE got eight or ten gallons of home-made cherry rum and some terbacker and an extry pipe. You fall into my wake.'

“'I'd like to, Obed,' he says; 'I'd like to almighty well, but I've got to go up to the store, if there is such a thing in this metropolus, and buy some stuff that I forgot to get in Newport. You see, we got orders to sail in a tearing hurry, and--'

“'Send one of them fo'mast hands to the store,' says I. 'You got to come with me.'

“He hemmed and hawed a while, but he was dry, and I shook the cherry-rum jug at him, figuratively speaking, so finally he give in.

“'You buy so and so,' says he to his men, passing 'em a ten-dollar bill. 'And mind, you don't know nothing. If anybody asks, remember that yacht's the Mermaid--M-U-R-M-A-D-E,' he says, 'and she belongs to Mr. Jones, of Mobile, Georgia.'

“So the men went away, and me and Ben headed for my shanty, where we moored abreast of each other at the table, with a jug between us for a buoy, so's to speak. We talked old times and spun yarns, and the tide went out in the jug consider'ble sight faster than 'twas ebbing on the flats. After a spell I asked him about the man that owned the yacht.

“'Who? Oh--er--Brown?' he says. 'Why, he's--'

“'Brown?' says I. 'Thought you said 'twas Jones?'

“Well, that kind of upset him, and he took some cherry-rum to grease his memory. Then I asked more questions and he tried to answer 'em, and got worse tangled than ever. Finally I had to laugh.

“'Look here, Ben,' says I. 'You can't fetch port on that tack. The truth's ten mile astern of you. Who does own that yacht, anyway?'

“He looked at me mighty solemn--cherry-rum solemn. 'Obed,' he says, 'you're a good feller. Don't you give me away, now, or I'll lose my berth. The man that owns that yacht's named Davidson, and he's got a summer place right in this town.'

“'Davidson!' says I. 'DAVIDSON? Not young Allie Davidson?'

“'That's him,' says he. 'And he's the blankety blankest meanest low-down cub on earth. There! I feel some better. Give me another drink to take the taste of him out of my mouth.'

“'But young Davidson's gone to Boston,' I says. 'Went this morning.'

“'That be hanged!' says Ben. 'All I know is that I got a despatch from him at Newport on Monday afternoon, telling me to have the yacht abreast this town at twelve o'clock to-night, 'cause he was coming off to her then in his launch with a friend. Friend!' And he laughed and winked his starboard eye.

“I didn't say much, being too busy thinking, but Ben went on telling about other cruises with 'friends.' Oh, a steam-yacht can be a first-class imitation of hell if the right imp owns her. Henry got speaking of one time down along the Maine coast.

“'But,' says I, referring to what he was telling, 'if she was such a nice girl and come from such nice folks, how--'

“'How do I know?' says he. 'Promises to marry and such kind of lies, I s'pose. And the plain fact is that he's really engaged to marry a swell girl in Newport.'

“He told me her name and a lot more about her. I tried to remember the most of it, but my head was whirling--and not from cherry rum, either. All I could think was: 'Obed, it's up to you! You've got to do something.'

“I was mighty glad when the sailors hailed from the shore and Ben had to go. He 'most cried when he said good-by, and went away stepping high and bringing his heels down hard. I watched the dingey row off--the tide was out, so there was barely water for her to get clear--and then I went back home to think. And I thought all the afternoon.

“Two and two made four, anyway I could add it up, but 'twas all suspicion and no real proof, that was the dickens of it. I couldn't speak to Phoebe Ann; she wouldn't b'lieve me if I did. I couldn't telegraph Cap'n Eben at Provincetown to come home that night; I'd have to tell him the whole thing and I knew his temper, so, for Barbara's sake, 'twouldn't do. I couldn't be at the shore to stop the launch leaving. What right had I to stop another man's launch, even--

“No, 'twas up to me, and I thought and thought till after supper-time. And then I had a plan--a risky chance, but a chance, just the same. I went up to the store and bought four feet of medium-size rubber hose and some rubber tape, same as they sell to bicycle fellers in the summer. 'Twas almost dark when I got back in sight of my shanty, and instead of going to it I jumped that board fence that me and Prince had negotiated for, hustled along the path past the notice boards, and went down the bluff on t'other side of Davidson's p'int. And there in the deep hole by the end of the little pier, out of sight of the house on shore, was Allie's launch. By what little light there was left I could see the brass rails shining.

“But I didn't stop to admire 'em. I give one look around. Nobody was in sight. Then I ran down the pier and jumped aboard. Almost the first thing I put my hand on was what I was looking for--the bilge-pump. 'Twas a small affair, that you could lug around in one hand, but mighty handy for keeping a boat of that kind dry.

“I fitted one end of my hose to the lower end of that pump and wrapped rubber tape around the j'int till she sucked when I tried her over the side. Then I turned on the cocks in the gasoline pipes fore and aft, and noticed that the carbureter feed cup was chock full. Then I was ready for business.

“I went for'ard, climbing over the little low cabin that was just big enough for a man to crawl into, till I reached the brass cap in the deck over the gasoline-tank. Then I unscrewed the cap, run my hose down into the tank, and commenced to pump good fourteen-cents-a-gallon gasoline overboard to beat the cars. 'Twas a thirty-gallon tank, and full up. I begun to think I'd never get her empty, but I did, finally. I pumped her dry. Then I screwed the cap on again and went home, taking Allie's bilge-pump with me, for I couldn't stop to unship the hose. The tide was coming in fast.

“At nine o'clock that night I was in my skiff, rowing off to where my power-boat laid in deep water back of the bar. When I reached her I made the skiff fast astern, lit a lantern, which I put in a locker under a thwart, and set still in the pitch-dark, smoking and waiting.

“'Twas a long, wearisome wait. There was a no'thwest wind coming up, and the waves were running pretty choppy on the bar. All I could think of was that gasoline. Was there enough in the pipes and the feed cup on that launch to carry her out to where I was? Or was there too much, and would she make the yacht, after all?

“It got to be eleven o'clock. Tide was full at twelve. I was a pretty good candidate for the crazy house by this time. I'd listened till my ear-drums felt slack, like they needed reefing. And then at last I heard her coming--CHUFF-chuff! CHUFF-chuff! CHUFF-chuff!

“And HOW she did come! She walked up abreast of me, went past me, a hundred yards or so off. Thinks I: 'It's all up. He's going to make it.'

“And then, all at once, the 'chuff-chuff-ing' stopped. Started up and stopped again. I gave a hurrah, in my mind, pulled the skiff up alongside and jumped into her, taking the lantern with me, under my coat. Then I set the light between my feet, picked up the oars and started rowing.

“I rowed quiet as I could, but he heard me 'fore I got to him. I heard a scrambling noise off ahead, and then a shaky voice hollers: 'Hello! who's that?'

“'It's me,' says I, rowing harder'n ever. 'Who are you? What's the row?'

“There was more scrambling and a slam, like a door shutting. In another two minutes I was alongside the launch and held up my lantern. Allie was there, fussing with his engine. And he was all alone.

“Alone he was, I say, fur's a body could see, but he was mighty shaky and frightened. Also, 'side of him, on the cushions, was a girl's jacket, and I thought I'd seen that jacket afore.

“'Hello!' says I. 'Is that you, Mr. Davidson? Thought you'd gone to Boston?'

“'Changed my mind,' he says. 'Got any gasoline?'

“'What you doing off here this time of night?' I says.

“'Going out to my--' He stopped. I s'pose the truth choked him. 'I was going to Provincetown,' he went on. 'Got any gasoline?'

“'What in the nation you starting to Provincetown in the middle of the night for?' I asks, innocent as could be.

“'Oh, thunder! I had business there, that's all. GOT ANY GASOLINE?'

“I made my skiff's painter fast to a cleat on the launch and climbed aboard. 'Gasoline?' says I. 'Gasoline? Why, yes; I've got some gasoline over on my power-boat out yonder. Has yours give out? I should think you'd filled your tank 'fore you left home on such a trip as Provincetown. Maybe the pipe's plugged or something. Have you looked?' And I caught hold of the handle of the cabin-door.

“He jumped and grabbed me by the arm. ''Tain't plugged,' he yells, sharp. 'The tank's empty, I tell you.'

“He kept pulling me away from the cabin, but I hung onto the handle.

“'You can't be too sure,' I says. 'This door's locked. Give me the key.'

“'I--I left the key at home,' he says. 'Don't waste time. Go over to your boat and fetch me some gasoline. I'll pay you well for it.'

“Then I was sartin of what I suspicioned. The cabin was locked, but not with the key. THAT was in the keyhole. The door was bolted ON THE INSIDE.

“'All right,' says I. 'I'll sell you the gasoline, but you'll have to go with me in the skiff to get it. Get your anchor over or this craft'll drift to Eastham. Hurry up.'

“He didn't like the idee of leaving the launch, but I wouldn't hear of anything else. While he was heaving the anchor I commenced to talk to him.

“'I didn't know but what you'd started for foreign parts to meet that Newport girl you're going to marry,' I says, and I spoke good and loud.

“He jumped so I thought he'd fall overboard.

“'What's that?' he shouts.

“'Why, that girl you're engaged to,' says I. 'Miss--' and I yelled her name, and how she'd gone abroad with his folks, and all.

“'Shut up!' he whispers, waving his hands, frantic. 'Don't stop to lie. Hurry up!'

“''Tain't a lie. Oh, I know about it!' I hollers, as if he was deef. I meant to be heard--by him and anybody else that might be interested. I give a whole lot more partic'lars, too. He fairly shoved me into the skiff, after a spell.

“'Now,' he says, so mad he could hardly speak, 'stop your lying and row, will you!'

“I was willing to row then. I cal'lated I'd done some missionary work by this time. Allie's guns was spiked, if I knew Barbara Saunders. I p'inted the skiff the way she'd ought to go and laid to the oars.

“My plan had been to get him aboard the skiff and row somewheres--ashore, if I could. But 'twas otherwise laid out for me. The wind was blowing pretty fresh, and the skiff was down by the stern, so's the waves kept knocking her nose round. 'Twas dark'n a pocket, too. I couldn't tell where I WAS going.

“Allie got more fidgety every minute. 'Ain't we 'most there?' he asks. And then he gives a screech. 'What's that ahead?'

“I turned to see, and as I done it the skiff's bow slid up on something. I give an awful yank at the port oar; she slewed and tilted; a wave caught her underneath, and the next thing I knew me and Allie and the skiff was under water, bound for the bottom. We'd run acrost one of the guy-ropes of my fish-weir.

“This wa'n't in the program. I hit sand with a bump and pawed up for air. When I got my head out I see a water-wheel doing business close along-side of me. It was Allie.

“'Help!' he howls. 'Help! I'm drowning!'

“I got him by the collar, took one stroke and bumped against the weir-nets. You know what a fish-weir's like, don't you, Mr. Brown?--a kind of pound, made of nets hung on ropes between poles.

“'Help!' yells Allie, clawing the nets. 'I can't swim in rough water!'

“You might have known he couldn't. It looked sort of dubious for a jiffy. Then I had an idee. I dragged him to the nighest weir-pole. 'Climb!' I hollers in his ear. 'Climb that pole.'

“He done it, somehow, digging his toes into the net and going up like a cat up a tree. When he got to the top he hung acrost the rope and shook.

“'Hang on there!' says I. 'I'm going after the boat.' And I struck out. He yelled to me not to leave him, but the weir had give me my bearings, and I was bound for my power-boat. 'Twas a tough swim, but I made it, and climbed aboard, not feeling any too happy. Losing a good skiff was more'n I'd figgered on.

“Soon's I got some breath I hauled anchor, started up my engine and headed back for the weir. I run along-side of it, keeping a good lookout for guy-ropes, and when I got abreast of that particular pole I looked for Allie. He was setting on the rope, a-straddle of the pole, and hanging onto the top of it like it owed him money. He looked a good deal more comfortable than I was when he and Prince had treed me. And the remembrance of that time come back to me, and one of them things they call inspiration come with it. He was four feet above water, 'twas full tide then, and if he set still he was safe as a church.

“So instead of running in after him, I slowed 'way down and backed off.

“'Come here!' he yells. 'Come here, you fool, and take me aboard.'

“'Oh, I don't know,' says I. 'You're safe there, and, even if the yacht folks don't come hunting for you by and by--which I cal'late they will--the tide'll be low enough in five hours or so, so's you can walk ashore.'

“'What--what do you mean?' he says. 'Ain't you goin' to take me off?'

“'I was,' says I, 'but I've changed my plans. And, Mr. Allie Vander-what's-your-name Davidson, there's other things--low-down, mean things--planned for this night that ain't going to come off, either. Understand that, do you?'

“He understood, I guess. He didn't answer at all. Only gurgled, like he'd swallered something the wrong way.

“Then the beautiful tit for tat of the whole business come to me, and I couldn't help rubbing it in a little. 'As a sartin acquaintance of mine once said to me,' I says, 'you look a good deal handsomer up there than you do in a boat.'

“'You--you--etcetery and so forth, continued in our next!' says he, or words to that effect.

“'That's all right,' says I, putting on the power. 'You've got no kick coming. I allow you to--er--ornament my weir-pole, and 'tain't every dude I'd let do that.'

“And I went away and, as the Fifth Reader used to say, 'let him alone in his glory.'

“I went back to the launch, pulled up her anchor and took her in tow. I towed her in to her pier, made her fast and then left her for a while. When I come back the little cabin-door was open and the girl's jacket was gone.

“Then I walked up the path to the Saunders house and it done me good to see a light in Barbara's window. I set on the steps of that house until morning keeping watch. And in the morning the yacht was gone and the weir-pole was vacant, and Cap'n Eben Saunders come on the first train.

“So's that's all there is of it. Allie hasn't come back to Bayport sence, and the last I heard he'd married that Newport girl; she has my sympathy, if that's any comfort to her.

“And Barbara? Well, for a long time she'd turn white every time I met her. But, of course, I kept my mouth shut, and she went to sea next v'yage with her dad. And now I hear she's engaged to a nice feller up to Boston.

“Oh, yes--one thing more. When I got back to my shanty that morning I wiped the chalkmark off the door. I kind of figgered that I'd paid that debt, with back interest added.”

THE LOVE OF LOBELIA 'ANKINS

Obed's yarn being done, and friend Davidson done too, and brown at that, Peter T. passed around another relay of cigars and we lit up. 'Twas Cap'n Eri that spoke first.

“Love's a queer disease, anyway,” says he. “Ain't it, now? 'Twould puzzle you and me to figger out what that Saunders girl see to like in the Davidson critter. It must be a dreadful responsible thing to be so fascinating. I never felt that responsibleness but once--except when I got married, of course--and that was a good many years ago, when I was going to sea on long v'yages, and was cruising around the East Indies, in the latitude of our new troubles, the Philippines.

“I put in about three months on one of them little coral islands off that way once. Hottest corner in the Lord's creation, I cal'late, and the laziest and sleepiest hole ever I struck. All a feller feels like doing in them islands is just to lay on his back under a palm tree all day and eat custard-apples, and such truck.

“Way I come to be there was like this: I was fo'mast hand on a Boston hooker bound to Singapore after rice. The skipper's name was Perkins, Malachi C. Perkins, and he was the meanest man that ever wore a sou'-wester. I've had the pleasure of telling him so sence--'twas in Surinam 'long in '72. Well, anyhow, Perkins fed us on spiled salt junk and wormy hard-tack all the way out, and if a feller dast to hint that the same wa'n't precisely what you'd call Parker House fare, why the skipper would knock him down with a marline-spike and the first mate would kick him up and down the deck. 'Twan't a pretty performance to look at, but it beat the world for taking the craving for fancy cooking out of a man.

“Well, when I got to Singapore I was nothing but skin and bone, and considerable of the skin had been knocked off by the marline-spike and the mate's boots. I'd shipped for the v'yage out and back, but the first night in port I slipped over the side, swum ashore, and never set eyes on old Perkins again till that time in Surinam, years afterward.

“I knocked round them Singapore docks for much as a month, hoping to get a berth on some other ship, but 'twan't no go. I fell in with a Britisher named Hammond, 'Ammond, he called it, and as he was on the same hunt that I was, we kept each other comp'ny. We done odd jobs now 'n' again, and slept in sailors' lodging houses when we had the price, and under bridges or on hemp bales when we hadn't. I was too proud to write home for money, and Hammond didn't have no home to write to, I cal'late.

“But luck 'll turn if you give it time enough. One night Hammond come hurrying round to my sleeping-room--that is to say, my hemp bale--and gives me a shake, and says he:

“'Turn out, you mud 'ead, I've got you a berth.'

“'Aw, go west!' says I, and turned over to go to sleep again. But he pulled me off the bale by the leg, and that woke me up so I sensed what he was saying. Seems he'd found a feller that wanted to ship a couple of fo'mast hands on a little trading schooner for a trip over to the Java Sea.

“Well, to make a long story short, we shipped with this feller, whose name was Lazarus. I cal'late if the Lazarus in Scriptur' had been up to as many tricks and had come as nigh being a thief as our Lazarus was, he wouldn't have been so poor. Ourn was a shrewd rascal and nothing more nor less than a pearl poacher. He didn't tell us that till after we sot sail, but we was so desperate I don't know as 'twould have made much diff'rence if he had.

“We cruised round for a spell, sort of prospecting, and then we landed at a little one-horse coral island, where there wa'n't no inhabitants, but where we was pretty dead sartin there was pearl oyster banks in the lagoon. There was five of us on the schooner, a Dutchman named Rhinelander, a Coolie cook and Lazarus and Hammond and me. We put up a slab shanty on shore and went to work pearl fishing, keeping one eye out for Dutch gunboats, and always having a sago palm ready to split open so's, if we got caught, we could say we was after sago.

“Well, we done fairly good at the pearl fishing; got together quite a likely mess of pearls, and, as 'twas part of the agreement that the crew had a certain share in the stake, why, Hammond and me was figgering that we was going to make enough to more'n pay us for our long spell of starving at Singapore. Lazarus was feeling purty middling chipper, the cook was feeding us high, and everything looked lovely.

“Rhinelander and the Coolie and the skipper used to sleep aboard the boat, but Hammond and me liked to sleep ashore in the shanty. For one thing, the bunks on the schooner wa'n't none too clean, and the Coolie snored so that he'd shake the whole cabin, and start me dreaming about cyclones, and cannons firing, and lions roaring, and all kind of foolishness. I always did hate a snorer.

“One morning me and Hammond come out of the shanty, and, lo and behold you! there wa'n't no schooner to be seen. That everlasting Lazarus had put up a job on us, and had sneaked off in the night with the cook and the Dutchman, and took our share of the pearls with him. I s'pose he'd cal'lated to do it from the very first. Anyway, there we was, marooned on that little two-for-a-cent island.

“The first day we didn't do much but cuss Lazarus up hill and down dale. Hammond was the best at that kind of business ever I see. He invented more'n four hundred new kind of names for the gang on the schooner, and every one of 'em was brimstone-blue. We had fish lines in the shanty, and there was plenty of water on the island, so we knew we wouldn't starve to death nor die of thirst, anyhow.

“I've mentioned that 'twas hot in them parts? Well, that island was the hottest of 'em all. Whew! Don't talk! And, more'n that, the weather was the kind that makes you feel it's a barrel of work to live. First day we fished and slept. Next day we fished less and slept more. Third day 'twas too everlasting hot even to sleep, so we set round in the shade and fought flies and jawed each other. Main trouble was who was goin' to git the meals. Land, how we did miss that Coolie cook!