"Yes? That"s good. Fine place, ain"t it? As I was sayin", I forgot myself--"
"They talked about us, too; mother says that"s nearly all they talked about."
"Must"ve been short of conversation. An" I want to say, Nellie, that I"ll try never to speak like that to you again. I--"
"Mother says she learned things about you that she never had imagined before," persisted Nellie, with quiet insistence. But again Nat did not seem to have heard her. With an awkward motion he drew from his pocket the little glazed paper box that contained the engagement-ring.
"Please," he said, "I want you to take this again." He was in earnest.
"It"s strange Elsa Mallaby should be able to tell mother things about you."
Nat lost his patience. He had tried his best to make peace, and the girl was only baiting him for her own amus.e.m.e.nt.
"What the deuce is all this about that Mallaby woman?" he asked. "I should think you"d listen to me, Nellie."
"If you will listen to me first, then I"ll listen to you as long as you like."
"I agree," he said, thrusting the ring-box back into his pocket, "only make it short, will you, little girl?"
"Yes, I will," she promised, without smiling. "I merely said that mother and Mrs. Mallaby had discussed you and me, and our marriage, and that Mrs. Mallaby had said some things about you."
"Well, lots of people do that," he smiled.
"Yes--but they haven"t said just this thing, Nat."
"What was that?"
"I"m going to let you think. Just suppose that Mrs. Mallaby hated you very much and wanted to do you harm. What would she tell my mother?"
The girl, pale and on the verge of an hysterical outburst, watched his face out of her mask of self-control.
The blood beneath his tan receded and was replaced by a sickly greenish hue. That flash had brought its memory--a memory that had lain buried beneath the events of his later life. Did she know? How could she know?
To the girl watching him there was confirmation enough. She was suddenly filled with inexpressible distaste for this man who had in days past smothered her with caresses and dinned into her ears speeches concerning a pa.s.sion that he called love.
"I see it is all true," she said quietly. "This is all I have to say.
Now I will listen to what you were going to tell me a few minutes ago--that is, if you still wish to say it."
Nat read his doom in those few calm words. The things that had been in his mind to say rose and choked his throat; the thought of the ring in his pocket seemed like profanation. He gulped twice and tried to speak, but the words clotted on his tongue.
Still she sat quietly looking at him, politely ready to listen.
With a horrible croaking sound he got to his feet, looked irresolutely at her for a moment, and then went to the side where his dory lay. She next saw him rowing dazedly to the _Nettle B._, and then she turned her face from the sight of him.
And suddenly into her mind, long prepared, came the thought of Code Schofield. Amid the chaos of her shattered ideals his face and figure rose more desirable than all the earth.
"Oh, Heaven, give him to me--some time!" she breathed in a voice of humble prayer.
Nat Burns went back to his schooner, squarely defeated for the first time in his life. Humbled, and cringing like a whipped dog, he made his dory fast to the _Nettie"s_ rail and slunk aft to the solitude of his cabin. He was glad that even the cook was looking the other way.
"She has flouted me, and the whole of Grande Mignon will know it," he said to himself. "Then they will want to know why, but that is easy enough to lie about. Hang that Mallaby woman! Who would ever think she"d squeal? Yes, and Schofield, the smug crook! They"re the two that are doin" the damage to me."
Nat"s lifelong knowledge of Code"s and Nellie"s affection returned to him now with a more poignant pang of memory than he had ever experienced. With the hopeless egotism of a totally selfish nature, he laid his calamity in love to activity on Code"s part. He was pretty well aware of Elsa"s extravagant favoritism of Code, and he immediately figured that Code had enlisted Elsa on his side to the ruin of Nat.
"So I"ve got to beat "em all now, have I?" he asked grimly, his jaw setting with an ugly click. "Schofield and Mallaby, and--yes--while I"m about it, Tanner, too. The old man never liked me, the girl hates me, and I wouldn"t mind giving "em a dig along with the rest. Just to show "em that I"m not so easy an" peaceful as I look! But how?"
For a considerable s.p.a.ce of time he sat there, his head low on his breast, and his eyes half closed as his brain went over scheme after scheme. The detective that Nat had brought from St. Andrew"s stuck his head down the cabin and remarked:
"Look here, captain, I want to arrest my man and get back. Why don"t you hunt up that ship and let me finish?"
"I"ve got something a lot better on hand, Durkee," remarked Nat with a grin, rising from his chair, a plan having leaped full blown into his mind. "Just stick along with me and you"ll get your man, all right."
He went outside and called the men in with a revolver-shot and a trawl tub run to the masthead. It was about noon when they came in, and, after eating, three o"clock pa.s.sed before they had finished dressing down.
"Any of you boys run across a dory from the _Night Hawk?_" asked Nat as the men came inboard with their shower of fish.
"Yes," said a youth, "I f"und one of "em an" he told me the _Hawk"s_ luck was Jonahed this trip."
"Where"s the packet lyin"?"
"About twelve mile sou"east near the edge of the Bank."
Nat went to the wheel himself.
"Up jib an" fores"l," he sung out, "and sway "em flat! Mains"l and tops"ls after that! Raymond, overhaul the balloon, stays"l, and trys"l! Mebbe we"ll drive her a little afore we"re through."
Burns found the _Night Hawk_ in a patch of sea by herself, more or less deserted by the other schooners because of the Jonah report that had gone abroad concerning her. Her dories were just coming in from the day"s work partially loaded with fish.
"h.e.l.lo!" bawled Nat. "Is Billy Stetson aboard?" Billy was the skipper.
"Yas; d"ye want to see him?"
"Yes, send him along over. It"s mighty important, but I ain"t goin"
aboard no Jonah boat. Tell him he"ll be glad he came."
Presently Stetson came and the two retired into the cabin of the _Nettie B._
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE RACE
It was dawn of a heavy, dark day. There was a mighty sea rolling and a forty-mile wind off the Cape sh.o.r.e that promised a three-day ruction.
The _Charming La.s.s_ at her anchor reared and plunged like a nervous horse.
Weighty with fish, she struggled heroically up the great walls of water, only to plump her sharp bows into the hollow with a force that half buried her. Between times she wriggled and capered like a dancing elephant and jerked at her cable until it seemed as though she would take her windla.s.s out.