Blow The Man Down Part 10

The skipper lingered on deck, his hand at his ear.

The fog was settling over the inner harbor. In the dim vastness seaward a steamer was hooting. Each prolonged blast, at half-minute intervals, sounded nearer. The sound was deep, full-toned, a mighty diapason.

"What big fellow can it be that's coming in here?" the captain grunted.

"Most likely only another tin skimmer of a yacht," suggested the mate, tossing the eye-splice and the marline-spike into the open hatch of the lazaret. "You know what they like to do, them play-critters! They stick on a whistle that's big enough for Seguin fog-horn." He squinted under the edge of his palm and waited. "There she looms. What did I tell ye?

Nothing but a yacht."

"But she's a bouncer," remarked the skipper. "What do you make her?"

"O--L," spelled Otie--"O--L--_Olenia_. Must be a local pilot aboard.

None of them New York spiffer captains could find Sat.u.r.day Cove through the feather-tide that's outside just now."

"Well, whether they can or whether they can't isn't of any interest to me," stated the skipper, with fine indifference. "I'd hate to be in a tight place and have to depend on one of them gilded dudes! I smell supper. Come on!"

He was a little uncertain as to what demeanor he ought to a.s.sume below, but he clumped down the companion-way with considerable show of confidence, and Otie followed.

The captain cast a sharp glance at his daughter. He had been afraid that he would find her crying, and he did not know how to handle such cases with any certainty.

But she had dried her eyes and she gave him no very amiable look--rather, she hinted defiance. He felt more at ease. In his opinion, any person who had spirit enough left for fight was in a mood to keep on enjoying life.

"Perhaps I went a mite too far, Polly," he admitted. He was mild, but he preserved a little touch of surliness in order that she might not conclude that her victory was won. "But seeing that I brought you off to sea to get you away from flirting--"

"Don't you dare to say that about me!" She beat her round little fist on the table. "Don't you dare!"

"I don't mean that you ever done it! The dudes done it! I want to do right by you, Polly. I've been to sea so long that I don't know much about ways and manners, I reckon. I can't get a good line on things as I ought to. I'm an old fool, I reckon." His voice trembled. "But it made me mad to have you stram up there on deck and call me names before 'em."

She did not reply.

"I have always worked hard for you--sailing the seas and going without things myself, so that you could have 'em--doing the best I could ever after your poor mother pa.s.sed on."

"I am grateful to you, father. But you don't understand a girl--oh, you don't understand! But let's not talk about it any more--not now."

"I ain't saying to-night--I ain't making promises! But maybe--we'll see how things shape up--maybe I'll send you back home. Maybe it 'll be to-morrow. We'll see how the stage runs to the train, and so forth!"

"I am going to leave it all to you, father. I'm sure you mean to do right." She served the food as mistress at the board.

"It seems homelike with you here," said Captain Can-dage, meekly and wistfully.

"I will stay with you, father, if it will make you happier."

"I sha'n't listen to anything of the sort. It ain't no place aboard here for a girl."

Through the open port they heard the frequent clanging of the steam-yacht's engine-room bell and the riot of her swishing screws as she eased herself into an anchorage. She was very near them--so near that they could hear the chatter of the voices of gay folk.

"What boat is that, father?"

"Another frosted-caker! I can't remember the name."

"It's the _Oilyena_ or something like that. I forget fancy names pretty quick," Otie informed her.

"Well, it ain't much use to load your mind down with that kind of sculch," stated Captain Candage, poising a potato on his fork-tines and peeling it, his elbows on the table. "That yacht and the kind of folks that's aboard that yacht ain't of any account to folks like us."

The memory of some remarks which are uttered with peculiar fervor remains with the utterer. Some time later--long after--Captain Candage remembered that remark and informed himself that, outside of weather predictions, he was a mighty poor prophet.

V - ON THE BRIDGE OF YACHT "_OLENIA_"

O the times are hard and the wages low, Leave her, bullies, leave her!

I guess it's time for us to go, It's time for us to leave her.

--Across the Western Ocean.

Captain Mayo was not finding responsibility his chief worry while the _Olenia_ was making port.

It was a real mariner's job to drive her through the fog, stab the harbor entrance, and hunt out elbow-room for her in a crowded anchorage.

But all that was in the line of the day's work. While he watched the compa.s.s, estimated tide drift, allowed for reduced speed, and listened for the echoes which would tell him his distance from the rocky sh.o.r.e, he was engaged in the more absorbing occupation of canva.s.sing his personal affairs.

As the hired master of a private yacht he might have overlooked that affront from the owner, even though it was delivered to a captain on the bridge.

But love has a pride of its own. He had been abused like a lackey in the hearing of Alma Marston. It was evident that the owner had not finished the job. Mayo knew that he had merely postponed his evil moment by sending back a reply which would undoubtedly seem like insubordination in the judgment of a man who did not understand ship discipline and etiquette of the sea.

It was evident that Marston intended to call him "upon the carpet" on the quarter-deck as soon as the yacht was anch.o.r.ed, and proposed to continue that insulting arraignment.

In his new pride, in the love which now made all other matters of life so insignificant, Mayo was afraid of himself; he knew his limitations in the matter of submission; even then he felt a hankering to walk aft and jounce Julius Marston up and down in his hammock chair. He did not believe he could stand calmly in the presence of Alma Marston and listen to any unjust berating, even from her father.

He tried to put his flaming resentment out of his thoughts, but he could not. In the end, he told himself that perhaps it was just as well! Alma Marston must have pride of her own. She could not continue to love a man who remained in the position of her father's hireling; she would surely be ashamed of a lover who was willing to hump his back and take a lashing in public. His desire to be with her, even at the cost of his pride, was making him less a man and he knew it. He decided to face Marston, man fashion, and then go away. He felt that she would understand in spite of her grief.

Then, turning from a look at the compa.s.s, he saw that the yacht's owner was on the bridge. Half of an un-lighted cigar, which was soggy with the dampness of the fog, plugged Marston's-mouth.

He scowled when the captain saluted.

"You needn't bother to talk now," the millionaire broke in when Mayo began an explanation of his delay in obeying the call to the quarter-deck. "When I have anything to say to a man I want his undivided attention. Is this fog going to hold on?"

"Yes, sir, until the wind hauls more to the norrard."

"Then anchor."

"I am heading into Sat.u.r.day Cove now, sir."

"Anchor here."

"I'm looking for considerably more than a capful of wind when it comes, sir. It isn't prudent to anchor offsh.o.r.e."

Marston grunted and turned away. He stood at the end of the bridge, chewing on the cigar, until the _Olenia_ was in the harbor with mudhook set. Mayo twitched the jingle bell, signaling release to the engineer.

"I am at your service, sir," he reported, walking to the owner.