The two captains looked at the two wallets, and then at each other. The next moment their attention was fully taken up by another matter. Their crew of fifteen men came marching aft and lined up forward of the house.
A spokesman stepped out.
"Excuse us, captings, for meddling into something that p"raps ain"t none of our business. We ain"t meaning to peek nor pry, but some of us couldn"t help overhearing. We"ve cleaned out our pockets. Here it is--three hundred and sixty-eight dollars and thirty-seven cents. Will you let me step onto the quarter-deck and lay it down "side of them wallets?" He accepted their amazed silence as consent, and made his deposit solemnly.
"But this is all a gamble, and a mighty uncertain one," protested Mayo.
"We "ain"t never had no chance to be sports before in all our lives,"
pleaded the man. "We wouldn"t have had that money if you two heroes hadn"t give us the chance you have. We wa"n"t more"n half men before.
Now we can hold up our heads. You"ll make us feel mighty mean, as if we wasn"t fit to be along with you, if you won"t let us in."
"You bet you can come in, boys!" shouted Captain Candage. "I know how you feel."
"And another thing," went on the spokesman. "We "ain"t had much time to talk this over; we rushed aft here as soon as we heard and had cleaned out our pockets. But we"ve said enough to each other so that we can tell you that all of us will turn to on that wreck with you and work for nothing till--till--well, whatever happens. Don"t want wages! Don"t need promises! And if she sinks, we"ll sing a song and go back to fishing again."
The man at the wheel let go the spokes and came forward and deposited a handful of money beside the rest. "There"s mine. I wisht it was a million; it would go just as free."
"Boys, I"d make a speech to you--but my throat is too full," choked Mayo. "I know better, now, why something called me over to Hue and Cry last summer. Hard over with that wheel! Jockey her down toward the wreck!"
When they were within hailing distance of the lighter Mayo raised his megaphone. "Will you take fifteen hundred dollars--cash--now--for that wreck, as you leave her when you"ve loaded those lighters?" he shouted.
There was a long period of silence. Then the man in the fur coat replied, through his hollowed hands: "Yes--and blast the fools in Boston who are making me sell!"
XXVII - THE TEMPEST TURNS ITS CARD
And one thing which we have to crave, Is that he may have a watery grave.
So well heave him down into some dark hole, Where the sharks "ll have his body and the devil have his soul.
With a big bow wow!
Tow row row!
Pal de, rai de, ri do day!
--Boston.
After the man in the fur coat had placed a hastily executed bill of sale in Mayo"s hands, he frankly declared that his interest in the fortune of the wrecked steamer had ceased.
"The Resolute reports that storm signals are displayed. I"ll simply make sure of what I"ve got. I"ll play the game as those quitters in Boston seem to want me to play it."
The tugs, departing with their tows, squalled salutes to the little schooner hove to under the counter of the _Conomo_.
"Sounds like they was making fun of us," growled Candage. He scowled into the gray skies and across the lonely sea.
Mayo, too, sensed a derisive note in the whistle-toots. Depression had promptly followed the excitement that had spurred him into this venture.
The crackle of the legal paper in his reefer pocket only accentuated his gloom. That paper seemed to represent so little now. It was not merely his own gamble--he had drawn into a desperate undertaking men who could not afford to lose. They had put all their little prosperity in jeopardy. There were women and children ash.o.r.e to consider. He and his fellows now owned that great steamer which loomed there under the brooding heavens. But it was a precarious possession. The loss of her now would mean not merely the loss of all their little h.o.a.rds--it would mean the loss of hope, and the sacrifice of expectations, and the regret of men who have failed in a big task. He realized how stinging would be defeat, for he was building the prospects of his future upon winning in this thing.
Hope almost failed to rea.s.sure him as he gazed first at the departing lighters and then at the ice-panoplied hulk on Razee.
Surely no pauper ever had a more unwieldy elephant on his hands, without a wisp of hay in sight for food.. He had seen wrecking operations: money, men, and gigantic equipment often failed to win. Technical skill and expert knowledge were required. He did not know what an examination of her hull would reveal. He had bought as boys swap jack-knives--sight denied! He confessed to himself that even the pittance they had gambled on this hazard had been spent with the recklessness of folly, considering that they had spent their all. They had nothing left to operate with. It was like a man tying his hands behind him before he jumped overboard.
Oh, that was a lonely sea! It was gray and surly and ominous.
Black smoke from the distant tugs waved dismal farewell. A chill wind had begun to harp through the cordage of the little schooner; the moan--far flung, mystic, a voice from nowhere--that presages the tempest crooned in his ears.
"I can smell something in this weather that"s worse than scorched-on hasty pudding," stated Captain Can-dage. "I don"t know just how you feel, sir, but if a feller should ride up here in a hea.r.s.e about now and want my option on her for what I paid, I believe I"d d.i.c.ker with him before we come to blows."
"I can"t blame you," confessed the young man. "This seems to be another case of "Now that we"ve got it, what the devil shall we do with it?""
"Let"s pile ash.o.r.e on the trail of them lighters and d.i.c.ker it, and be sensible," advised his a.s.sociate. "I feel as if I owned a share in old Poppocatterpettul--or whatever that mountain is--and had been ordered to move it in a shawl-strap."
Mayo surveyed their newly acquired property through the advancing dusk.
"I believe I know a feller we can unload onto," persisted Candage. "He has done some wrecking, and is a reckless cuss."
"Look here," snapped his a.s.sociate, "we"ll settle one point right now, sir. I"m not hurrahing over this prospect--not at all. But I"m in it, and I"m going to stick on my original plan. I don"t want anybody in with me who is going to keep looking back and whining. If everything goes by the board, you won"t hear a whicker out of me. If you want to quit now, Captain Candage, go ahead, and I"ll mortgage my future to pay back what you have risked. Now what do you say?"
"Why, I say you"re talking just the way I like to hear a man talk,"
declared the skipper, stoutly. "I"ll be cursed if I like to go into a thing with any half-hearted feller. You"re _my_ kind, and after this you"ll find me _your_ kind." He turned and shouted commands. "Get in mains"l, close reef fores"l, and let her ride with that and jumbo."
"That"s the idea!" commended Mayo. "The Atlantic Ocean is getting ready to deal a hand in this game. We have got to stick close if we"re going to see what cards we draw."
A fishing-schooner, if well handled, is a veritable stormy petrel in riding out a blow. Even the ominous signs of tempest did not daunt the two captains. They were there to guard their property and to have their hopes or their fears realized.
"If the _Conomo_ has got her grit with her and lives through it," said Captain Candage, "we"ll be here to give her three cheers when it"s over.
And if she goes down we"ll be on deck to flap her a fare-ye-well."
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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s. But he made sure at last. He clutched the gla.s.s 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.