They came indistinctly into view of the boy, as he crouched in the companion-way, just peering over so he could see across the deck. The skiff sc.r.a.ped alongside. The two men sprang out, shaking the fog and wet from their coats. Harvey, still as though frozen to the spot, noted with joy that they did not fetch the skiff aboard, but made the painter fast near the stern. They hurried below, and a light gleamed in the cabin. It burned a few minutes, only. Then the vessel was in darkness again, save for the lantern in the foremast shroud, to warn any chance craft where they lay.
Harvey waited. The minutes seemed like hours. Fifteen minutes were ticked off by his silver time-piece; then fifteen more. It was a quarter past one o"clock when he stole back, shivering, and awoke Tom Edwards.
"Sh-h-h!" he warned. "Don"t speak. They"re here; turned in half an hour ago. Come on."
They had no belongings to gather up; only their coats to b.u.t.ton about them. They crept out on deck and stood for a moment, waiting and listening. There was no sound aboard the bug-eye. They darted quickly aft. Tom Edwards stepped nervously into the little skiff, Harvey following. Harvey cast off, took his seat astern, pushed away and began sculling.
Two rods off from the bug-eye, they could discern the thin lines of its masts and a dull blur that was its hull. Harvey gave a little murmur of exultation, and paused in his sculling. But the next moment he uttered a cry of surprise and alarm. He rose from his seat, and peered anxiously through the fog.
"What"s the matter? What is it, Jack?" asked Tom Edwards, almost breathless.
"Something"s coming!" exclaimed Harvey. "Don"t you hear that rushing sound? Oh, hang this fog! If it would only lift a little."
Suddenly Harvey dropped to his seat and began plying the single oar in the scull-hole, with desperation. Then he sprang up again and gave a warning call as loud as he dared.
It was too late. Out of the fog and mist there rushed a craft-so swiftly that it was upon them before they had half seen it. It was a long, narrow canoe, with full sail set, the wind on its quarter, flying for the mouth of the river. Harvey had one fleeting glimpse of a man in the stern of the craft, springing up and uttering an exclamation of rage and fright.
Then Harvey jumped from his own seat, literally tumbling over Tom Edwards.
The man at the stern of the fleeing canoe had jammed the helm hard down, at his first sight of the little skiff. But he could not clear it wholly.
There was a crash and a splintering of wood; the skiff half upset, and took in nearly half a barrel of water. The main boom of the canoe swept across the skiff, knocking both its occupants into a heap.
The next thing they knew, the man at the stern of the canoe and another by the foremast were standing up, uttering maledictions upon the unfortunate victims of the collision.
"Help us! Don"t leave us! We"re sinking!" called Harvey, in desperation, as the canoe kept on its course. The only answer was a wrathful shake of his fist from the skipper of the canoe. Another moment, and it was gone.
Harvey and his companion, ankle-deep in water, scrambled up, and Harvey turned anxiously to the stern of the skiff. There was a hole there, and the boat seemed to be sinking under them. They stripped off their outer jackets, prepared to swim for their lives. But Harvey quickly rea.s.sured his comrade.
"It isn"t coming in very fast," he said. "We can get back to the bug-eye, if we work lively. You take your hat and bail. I"ll jump her all I can."
He gave a cry of dismay as he seized the oar, which was floating in the bottom of the skiff. The blow from the canoe had broken half the blade away. It was still of some use, but he could not make fast time with it.
Heartbroken and fearful of what awaited them, they turned the skiff in the direction whence the wind was blowing, and toiled with desperate energy. The water leaked steadily into the little craft, but Tom Edwards dashed it out by hat-fulls, as he had never worked in all his life-not even at the dredges under the eye of Jim Adams.
The bug-eye came more plainly into view. They neared it with quaking hearts. Already they could seem to hear the torrent of imprecation that awaited them from Haley and the mate, and could feel the hurt and pain of "dredging fleet law."
To their amazement, silence reigned aboard the vessel. That silence was unbroken as they struggled up alongside. With not a sound aboard, they grasped the foot of a shroud and Harvey sprang noiselessly to the deck.
Tom Edwards followed. Harvey took a quick turn with the painter. The half submerged skiff was made fast, where it had been before.
They fled along the deck, and down into the forecastle, on the wings of fear. Wet and exhausted, they tumbled into their bunks. It was some moments before either of them could find breath to speak.
"Oh, the brutes!" murmured Tom Edwards, after a time. "How could any human being do a thing like that? They left us to drown, Jack, and didn"t care."
"Of course they did," answered Harvey, "and good reason. I know why.
Don"t you? Did you see the load they had aboard? They"d been lifting an oyster dump. Some fellow"ll find his week"s tonging of oysters gone, when he looks for them. They were poachers. They"d have killed us in a minute if we"d stood between them and getting away. Cheer up, old Tom. We"re in the greatest luck we"ve ever been in all our lives. Is your back cold?
Well, how would it feel, think, if Haley had caught us? Did you ever hear Sam Black tell how he"s seen men rope"s-ended for trying to run away?
Wait till Haley sees that skiff in the morning. You"ll be glad you"re alive. Never mind. We"ll escape yet. I"m going to sleep when I get these boots off."
Captain Hamilton Haley, standing by the wheel, some hours later, when the sun had risen and the fog was lifting over the river, was not a pleasing object to behold. What he had to say about poachers and their ways and habits and carelessness would have warmed the water under the bug-eye, if it hadn"t been in the dead of winter. To have heard his outburst of indignation, over the evils of poaching and night sailing, would almost have convinced a listener that he was the most averse to that habit of any man in Chesapeake Bay. Also he berated Jim Adams, as much as he thought that gentleman would stand, for not bringing the skiff aboard.
Haley bargained for a new skiff that day, and gave Jim Adams another dressing down,-and Jim Adams took it out of the crew, for which Harvey and Tom Edwards were sorry-although they got their share. And so their night adventure pa.s.sed into the history of the cruise; and there even came a time, long afterward, when the two laughed at it-that is, when they thought of Haley. The remembrance of their own fright remained, to dream of, for many a night.
Two days afterward, there happened one of those sudden, mysterious changes that told of the comradeship of a certain clique of the dredging captains, and of their facility for dodging trouble.
Down along the western sh.o.r.e a strange craft sailed up, and Haley took a man aboard from it; though not without some warm words with the strange captain. He seemed not to welcome the recruit. But he took him, and exchanged one of his own crew, the sailor, Sam Black, for the man. This latter recruit was a swarthy man, tall and muscular. His face was discoloured, as though by blows; and a long scar, freshly made, showed on the back of one hand and wrist. He obeyed Haley"s and the mate"s orders sullenly. Why he was aboard, none knew except the mate and captain. But it was plain enough, the captain of the other craft had wanted him out of the way.
CHAPTER XI HARVEY SENDS A MESSAGE TO Sh.o.r.e
Henry Burns and the Warren brothers, arriving at Millstone Landing on the evening when Jack Harvey had seen a strange vision through Haley"s telescope, found a young man on the wharf awaiting them. He hailed them with a hearty shout of welcome the moment the steamer came to its landing. He was a tall, somewhat spare man, but with broad, muscular shoulders, and a general build that told of unusual strength. He had a mop of short, almost curly hair, under a soft felt hat, a dark, clear complexion, brown eyes that twinkled with fun, and an expression of geniality that won the heart of Henry Burns at first glance.
The young man nodded smilingly to the river captain, and swung himself aboard before the steamer had its gang-plank out; and he was up the stairs and in the cabin in a twinkling, where he grasped George Warren and the brothers, one after another, and welcomed them heartily.
"And this is our friend, Henry Burns," said George Warren, introducing his comrade.
"I"m right glad to meet him, too," responded Edward Warren. "He"s just as welcome as you are-and that"s saying all anybody could. Well, I"d know you youngsters anywhere. You haven"t changed much since I was up north, four years ago-except you"ve grown some. There"s Joe-my, but he"s growing like a corn-stalk! Don"t it almost make your bones ache, to grow so fast, Joey?"
Edward Warren was, all the while, a.s.sisting them with their bags and bundles of coats and luggage, and steering them across the gang-plank to the wharf, like a drove of frisky young cattle.
"Joe wants to know if you"ve brought any of those corn fritters down with you, Cousin Ed?" said George Warren.
"No," laughed Edward Warren, "but there"s a stack of them up in the oven, keeping hot, as high as your head, almost. Here, sling your stuff into this wagon, and Jim will take it up. Anybody that wants to ride, too, can jump aboard. But I"m going to walk. It"s only about a mile, and I"d rather walk a night like this, anyway."
"Well, I"ll ride up and be making the acquaintance of Mammy Stevens,"
said Joe, grinning broadly, and springing up on the seat beside the coloured driver. The others elected to walk, with Edward Warren.
He set off at a brisk pace along the road that skirted the sh.o.r.e, bordered much of its way by ponds extending some distance inland. He had spoken of a mile walk as though it were the merest trifle, and the pace he set for his younger companions indicated that he so regarded it. But they were good for it, too, although he had them breathing hard by the time they had gone half a mile; and the four made quick time of it up from the landing.
"You chaps are pretty good walkers," he said, laughing quietly and slowing down a little. "Thought I"d see how city life agreed with your wind and legs. You"re sound in both wind and limb, as we farmers say of a good horse. We"ll take the rest of it a little easier."
There yet lingered in the mind of Henry Burns an indignation born of the act he had seen on the pa.s.sing vessel.
"Say, Mr. Warren," he began, as they walked along along-
"Don"t call him "Mr. Warren." Call him "Ed,"" interrupted George Warren.
"Yes, that"s right," responded Edward Warren, good-naturedly.
"I saw a man knocked down on a vessel as we sailed into the harbour,"
continued Henry Burns. "Isn"t it a shame to treat men like that?"
Edward Warren paused, and clenched a big, strong fist. He raised it and gestured like a man striking someone a blow.
"Shame!" he repeated. "It"s downright wicked, the way those dredging captains-or a good many of them-treat the men. Why, we get them on sh.o.r.e here, through the winter, half starved, and half clad, begging their way back to Baltimore. If a man is taken sick out aboard, and isn"t fit to work any more, why, the captain takes him ash.o.r.e, to gather wood, or something of that sort. Then he cuts and leaves him to starve or freeze, or get back to town the best way he can. And sometimes, they don"t take even that trouble, if they"re safe down the bay-just let a man slump overboard-accidentally, of course,-and that"s the last seen of him."
"Don"t his friends ever get track of him?" asked Henry Burns.