Billy Topsail & Company Part 36

"Billy's a good boy," said the skipper.

Little Donald North--who had all along been a thoroughly serviceable but inconspicuous member of the crew--began to shed unwilling tears.

"Wisht she'd 'urry up," Bagg whimpered.

"_There she is!_" Skipper Bill roared.

It was true. There she was. Far off at sea--away beyond Grief Head at the entrance to Hook-and-Line--the smoke of a steamer surely appeared, a black cloud in the misty, glowering day. It was the _Grand Lake_.

There was no other steamer on the coast. Cap'n Hand--Archie's friend, Cap'n Hand, with whom he had sailed on the sealing voyage of the stout old _Dictator_--was in command. She would soon make harbour.

Archie's load vanished; from despair he was lifted suddenly into a wild hilarity which nothing would satisfy but a roaring wrestle with Skipper Bill. The _Grand Lake_ would presently be in; she would proceed full steam to Jolly Harbour, she would pa.s.s a line to the _Spot Cash_, she would jerk the little schooner from her rocky berth on Blow-Me-Down, and presently that selfsame wilful little craft would be legging it for St. John's.

But was it the _Grand Lake_?

"Lads," the skipper declared, when the steamer was in view, "it sure is the _Grand Lake_."

They watched her.

"Queer!" Skipper Bill muttered, at last.

"What's queer?" asked Archie.

"She should be turnin' in," the skipper replied. "What's Cap'n Hand thinkin' about?"

"Wisht she'd 'urry up," said Bagg.

The boys were bewildered. The steamer should by this time have had her nose turned towards Hook-and-Line. To round Grief Head she was keeping amazingly far out to sea.

"Wonderful queer!" said the anxious skipper.

The _Grand Lake_ steamed past Hook-and-Line and disappeared in the mist. Evidently she was in haste. Presently there was not so much as a trail of smoke to be descried at sea.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

_In Which Billy Topsail, Besieged by Wreckers, Sleeps on Duty and Thereafter Finds Exercise For His Wits. In Which, also, a Lighted Candle is Suspended Over a Keg of Powder and Precipitates a Critical Moment While Billy Topsail Turns Pale With Anxiety_

At Jolly Harbour, meantime, where Billy Topsail kept watch, except for the flutter of an ap.r.o.n or skirt when the women went to the well for water, there was no sign of life at the cottages the livelong day.

No boats ran out to the fishing-grounds; no men were on the flakes; the salmon nets and lobster-traps were not hauled. Billy prepared a spirited defense with the guns, which he charged heavily with powder, omitting the bullets. This done, he awaited the attack, meaning to let his wits or his arms deal with the situation, according to developments.

The responsibility was heavy, the duty anxious; and Billy could not forget what Archie had said about the firm of Topsail, Armstrong, Grimm & Company.

"I 'low there was nothing for it but t' leave me in charge," he thought, as he paced the deck that night. "But 'twill be a job now to save her if they come."

Billy fancied, from time to time, that he heard the splash of oars; but the night was dark, and although he peered long and listened intently, he could discover no boat in the shadows. And when the day came, with the comparative security of light, he was inclined to think that his fancy had been tricking him.

"But it might have been the punts slippin' in from the harbours above and below," he thought, suddenly. "I wonder if 'twas."

He spent most of that day lying on a coil of rope on the deck of the cabin--dozing and delighting himself with long day-dreams. When the night fell, it fell dark and foggy. An easterly wind overcast the sky and blew a thick mist from the open sea. Lights twinkled in the cottages ash.o.r.e, somewhat blurred by the mist; but elsewhere it was dark; the nearer rocks were outlined by their deeper black.

"'Twill be now," Billy thought, "or 'twill be never. Skipper Bill will sure be back with the _Grand Lake_ to-morrow."

Some time after midnight, while Billy was pacing the deck to keep himself warm and awake, he was hailed from the sh.o.r.e.

"'Tis from the point at the narrows," he thought. "Sure, 'tis Skipper Bill come back."

Again he heard the hail--his own name, coming from that point at the narrows.

"Billy, b'y! Billy!"

"Aye, sir! Who are you?"

"Skipper Bill, b'y!" came the answer. "Fetch the quarter-boat. We're aground and leakin'."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"Quick, lad! I wants t' get aboard."

Billy leaped from the rail to the quarter-boat. He was ready to cast off when he heard a splash in the darkness behind him. That splash gave him pause. Were the wreckers trying to decoy him from the ship?

They had a legal right to salve an abandoned vessel. He clambered aboard, determined, until he had better a.s.surance of the safety of his charge, to let Skipper Bill and his crew, if it were indeed they, make a shift for comfort on the rocks until morning. "Skipper Bill, sir!"

he called. "Can you swim?"

"Aye, b'y! But make haste."

"I'll show a light for you, sir, if you want t' swim out, but I'll not leave the schooner."

At that there was a laugh--an unmistakable chuckle--sounding whence the boy had heard the splash of an oar. It was echoed to right and left. Then a splash or two, a creak or two and a whisper. After that all was still again.

"'Tis lucky, now, I didn't go," Billy thought. "'Twas a trick, for sure. But how did they know my name?"

That was simple enough, when he came to think about it. When the skipper had warned the first fisherman off, he had ordered Billy forward by name. Wreckers they were, then--simple, good-hearted folk, believing in their right to what the sea cast up--and now bent on "salving" what they could, but evidently seeking to avoid a violent seizure of the cargo.

Billy appreciated this feeling. He had himself no wish to meet an a.s.sault in force, whether in the persons of such good-natured fellows as the man who had grinned at him on the morning of the wreck, or in those of a more villainous cast. He hoped it was to be a game of wits; and now the lad smiled.

"'Tis likely," he thought, "that I'll keep it safe."

For an hour or more there was no return of the alarm. The harbour water rippled under the winds; the rigging softly rattled and sang aloft; the swish of breakers drifted in from the narrows.

Billy sat full in the light of the deck lamps, with a gun in his hands, that all the eyes, which he felt sure were peering at him from the darkness roundabout, might see that he was alive to duty.

As his weariness increased, he began to think that the wreckers had drawn off, discouraged. Once he nodded; again he nodded, and awoke with a start; but he was all alone on the deck, as he had been.

Then, to occupy himself, he went below to light the cabin candle. For a moment, before making ready to go on deck again, he sat on the counter, lost in thought. He did not hear the prow of a punt strike the _Spot Cash_ amidships, did not hear the whispers and soft laughter of men coming over the side by stealth, did not hear the tramp of feet coming aft. What startled him was a rough voice and a burst of laughter.

"Come aboard, skipper, sir!"

The companionway framed six weather-beaten, bearded faces. There was a grin on each, from the first, which was clear to its smallest wrinkle in the candle-light, to those which were vanishing and reappearing in the shadows behind. Billy seemed to be incapable of word or action.