Blair shook his head. Then he came closer and put his hand on Kenneth Gregory"s arm.
"All of the Lang boats are out now, Captain. Everything is being done, I can a.s.sure you. It would be no use."
"Are there no other boats here than Lang"s?"
"Only the alien fleet."
The man in uniform whirled about decisively.
"Then I"ll get one of them. Will you show me where they are?"
"It would be no use. They wouldn"t go. You see----"
"Let"s try."
With some reluctance Blair consented.
"We haven"t been getting along any too well with Mascola"s outfit lately," he explained as they walked along. "I"ll stop at Lang"s wharf first. Maybe some of the boats are back."
Turning on to a small wharf they walked in silence over the loose boards down the lane of ill-smelling fish-boxes. At the end of the dock a narrow gangway led downward to a small float which rocked lazily in the capping swells thrown up by a pa.s.sing fishing-boat. Close by, another wharf jutted out into the bay. Upon it were a number of swarthy fishermen, piling nets. Blair stopped abruptly at the head of the gangway, his eyes searching the water. The fishing-boat was swinging up into the tide and edging closer.
"Is that one of the Lang boats?" he heard Gregory ask.
A paroxysm of coughing prevented Blair"s immediate reply. The young officer looked eagerly at the approaching craft, upon the bow of which a dark-skinned man leaned carelessly against the wire-stays. He noticed that the man was tall and straight. Upon his head a gaudy red cap rested with a rakish air. His eyes were upon the Lang dock as he stood with folded arms and waited for the boat to nose up to the near-by wharf.
Gregory admitted to himself that there was something masterful about the red-capped stranger, at the same time, repellent. The crowd of aliens moreover, he noticed, fell away respectfully. The newcomer was evidently a personage in the community.
Gregory, watching him as he stepped from the launch, instinctively disliked him.
"That"s Mascola."
Blair bit the words savagely.
Gregory surveyed the newcomer with interest.
"He has a boat," he said. "Let"s go over and get it."
Blair put out a restraining hand.
"There would be no use," he said. "Mascola wouldn"t let us have that boat to save our lives."
Gregory was already on his way to the Italian dock. Blair started to overtake him. Then he glanced down the bay and his face brightened.
"Wait," he called. "Here comes one of Lang"s boats now. Perhaps they will know something."
With the approach of the second fishing-boat came a crowd of curious fishing folk of all nationalities. Men, women and children cl.u.s.tered about the dock, imbued with a l.u.s.t for excitement and a morbid desire to learn the worst from the latest mystery of the sea. All eyes were held by the fishing-boat as it swung about and drew near the float.
Blair shoved his way through the crowd and led Gregory down the gangway.
Upon the covered hatch of the launch Blair"s eye caught sight of two rolls of canvas, fashioned bundle-like. Nets most likely. He looked eagerly at the fishermen aboard the incoming craft. Their faces caused him to look again at the canvas bundles. Then he turned quickly to the man by his side.
"Why not wait on the wharf until they come up?" he asked in a low voice in which he strove to conceal his agitation.
Kenneth Gregory shook his head. He too had noticed the bundles on the hatch.
In silence the launch tied up to the fleet. In silence two bare-footed fishermen lifted one of the bundles and carrying it carefully between them, stepped out upon the gently rocking float. The salt-stiffened canvas unrolled as the men laid their burden down, exposing the body of a huge fisherman. His face was battered and bruised and Gregory noticed that his hair was red.
Blair"s hand on Gregory"s arm tightened.
"Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed. "It"s Lang."
Kenneth Gregory looked down into the face of the big fisherman. Then he remembered the other bundle. Blair sought to deter him. But he was too late to check the onward rush of the young man across the float. Already he was boarding the boat. Blair watched him raise the flap of canvas.
Saw his eyes searching the folds beneath. At length came voices. A man was speaking.
"Found them off Diablo. Went on the rocks at h.e.l.l-Hole in the fog. Boat was smashed. Bu"sted clean in two."
Gregory scarcely heard them as he knelt on the hatch looking down into the face of the one he had traveled seven thousand miles to see.
Blair led him away. As the little procession moved silently down the dock the crowd parted respectfully. Eyes that were hard, softened.
Fishermen took off their hats, holding them awkwardly in their red hands. Fisherwomen looked down at the rough boards and crossed themselves devoutly.
The cortege pa.s.sed on. Turning from the dock they threaded their way down the narrow street leading to the town. As they neared the alien docks, the dusky fishermen uncovered and drew together, awed by the presence of the great shadow.
Gregory"s arm brushed against a man leaning carelessly against the wharf-rail. Raising his eyes from the ground, he beheld the one man of all the villagers who had remained unmoved, unsoftened by the spectacle.
With his red cap shoved back upon his shining black hair the insolent stranger stood looking on with folded arms. Gregory noticed that Mascola had not even taken the trouble to remove the cigarette which hung damply from his lips.
For an instant the two men looked deep into each other"s eyes. Then the procession pa.s.sed on.
CHAPTER III
TANGLED THREADS
The death of his father hurled Kenneth Gregory into a new world--a world of unfamiliar faces, of strange standards of value, of vastly different problems--the world of business.
Kenneth Gregory had taken this world as he found it. There had been no time to moralize upon the situation into which the spinning of the wheel had plunged him. There was work to do.
Securing his discharge from the army he had turned to the task of settling up his father"s estate. The fact that he was the sole heir and legal executor simplified matters. But there were complications. These he had unraveled with the aid of Farnsworth, the attorney for the estate. Then he had come to Legonia and found plenty to do.
Blair, the former manager of the Legonia Fish Cannery, had suffered an attack of pneumonia and was ill at a neighboring sanitarium. From him he could therefore learn nothing. The books of the company told him but little more. Now he was going over the private papers in his father"s office.
"Are you the boss?"
Kenneth Gregory turned from his perusal of a file of letters and faced a young man standing in the doorway. Gregory nodded.
"I"m the owner," he replied pleasantly, noting the well-worn, much-patched service uniform of the stranger. "And for the time being, boss. My manager is sick. Is there anything I can do for you?"