Blow The Man Down Part 5

"What do you mean, father?"

"That--exactly. I was explicit, was I not?"

"But you do not intimate that--that I have--"

"Well?" Mr. Marston believed in allowing others to expose their sentiments before he uncovered his own.

"You don't suggest that there is anything wrong in my being on the bridge where I enjoy myself so much. I am trying to learn something about navigation."

"I am paying that fellow up there to attend to all that."

"And it gets tiresome back here."

"You selected your own company for the cruise--and there is Mr.

Beveridge ready to amuse you at any time."

"Mr. Beveridge amuses me--distinctly amuses me," she retorted. "But there is such a thing as becoming wearied even of such a joke as Mr.

Beveridge."

"You will please employ a more respectful tone when you refer to that gentleman," said her father, with severity. But he promptly fell back into his usual mood when she came into his affairs. He was patronizingly tolerant. "Your friend, Miss Burgess, has been joking about your sudden devotion to navigation, Alma."

"Nan Burgess cannot keep her tongue still, even about herself."

"I know, but I do not intend to have you give occasion even for jokes. Of course, I understand. I know your whims. You are interested, personally, in that gold-braided chap about as much as you would be interested in that bra.s.s thing where the compa.s.s is--whatever they call it."

"But he's a gentleman!" she cried, her interest making her unwary. "His grandfather was--"

"Alma!" snapped Julius Marston. His eyes opened wide. He looked her up and down. "I have heard before that an ocean trip makes women silly, I am inclined to believe it. I don't care a curse who that fellow's grandfather was. _You_ are my daughter--and you keep off that bridge!"

The men of business were coming up the companion-way, and she rose and hurried to her stateroom.

"I don't dare to meet Nan Burgess just now," she told herself.

"Friendships can be broken by saying certain things--and I feel perfectly capable of saying just those things to her at this moment."

In the late afternoon the _Olenia_, the sh.o.r.e-line looming to starboard, shaped her course to meet and pa.s.s a big steamer which came rolling down the sea with a banner of black smoke flaunting behind her.

The fog which Captain Mayo had predicted was coming. Wisps of it trailed over the waves--skirmishers sent ahead of the main body which marched in ma.s.s more slowly behind.

A whistling buoy, with its grim grunt, told all mariners to 'ware Razee Reef, which was lifting its jagged, black bulk against the sky-line.

With that fog coming, Captain Mayo needed to take exact bearings from Razee, for he had decided to run for harbor that night. That coastline, to whose inside course Marston's orders had sent the yacht, was too dangerous to be negotiated in a night which was fog-wrapped. Therefore, the captain took the whistler nearly dead on, leaving to the larger steamer plenty of room in the open sea.

With considerable amazement Mayo noticed that the other fellow was edging toward the whistler at a sharper angle than any one needed. That course, if persisted in, would pinch the yacht in dangerous waters. Mayo gave the on-coming steamer one whistle, indicating his intention to pa.s.s to starboard. After a delay he was answered by two hoa.r.s.e hoots--a most flagrant breach of the rules of the road.

"That must be a mistake," Captain Mayo informed Mate McGaw.

"That's a polite name for it, sir," averred Mr. McGaw, after he had shifted the lump in his cheek.

"Of course he doesn't mean it, Mr. McGaw."

"Then why isn't he giving us elbow-room on the outside of that buoy, sir?"

"I can't swing and cross his bows now. If he should hit us we'd be the ones held for the accident."

Again Mayo gave the obstinate steamer a single whistle-blast.

"If he cross-signals me again I'll report him," he informed the mate.

"Pay close attention, Mr. McGaw, and you, too, Billy. We may have to go before the inspectors."

But the big chap ahead of them did not deign to reply. He kept on straight at the whistler.

"Compliments of Mr. Marston!" called the secretary from the bridge ladder. "What steamer is that?"

"_Conorno_ of the Bee line, sir," stated Captain Mayo over his shoulder.

Then he ripped out a good, hearty, deep-water oath. According to appearances, incredible as the situation seemed, the _Conorno_ proposed to drive the yacht inside the whistler.

Mayo ran to the wheel and yanked the bell-pull furiously. There were four quick clangs in the engine-room, and in a moment the _Olenia_ began to quiver in all her fabric. Going full speed ahead, Mayo had called for full speed astern. Then he sounded three whistles, signaling as the rules of the road provide. The yacht's twin screws churned a yeasty riot under her counter, and while she was laboring thus in her own wallow, trembling like some living thing in the extremity of terror, the big steamer swept past. Froth from the creamy surges at her bows flicked spray contemptuously upon Julius Marston and his guests on the _Olenia_'s quarter-deck. Men grinned down upon them from the high windows of the steamer's pilot-house.

A jeering voice boomed through a megaphone: "Keep out of the way of the Bee line! Take the hint!"

An officer pointed his finger at Marston's house flag, snapping from the yacht's main truck. The blue fish-tail with its letter "M" had revealed the yacht's ident.i.ty to searching gla.s.ses.

"Better make it black! Skull and cross-bones!" volunteered the megaphone operator.

On she went down the sea and the _Olenia_ tossed in the turbulent wake of the kicking screws.

Then, for the first time, Captain Mayo heard the sound of Julius Marston's voice. The magnate stood up, shook his fist at his staring captain, and yelled, "What in d.a.m.nation do you think you are doing?"

It was amazing, insulting, and, under the circ.u.mstances as Mayo knew them, an unjust query. The master of the _Olenia_ did not reply. He was not prepared to deliver any long-distance explanation. Furthermore, the yacht demanded all his attention just then. He gave his orders and she forged ahead to round the whistler.

"Nor'west by west, half west, Billy. And cut it fine!"

The fog had fairly leaped upon them from the sea. The land-breeze had been holding back the wall of vapor, damming it in a dun bank to southward. The breeze had let go. The fog had seized its opportunity.

"Sat.u.r.day Cove for us to-night, Mr. McGaw," said the master. "Keep your eye over Billy's shoulder."

Then the secretary appeared again on the ladder. This time he did not bring any "compliments."

"Mr. Marston wants you to report aft at once," he announced, brusquely.

Mayo hesitated a moment. They were driving into blankness which had shut down with that smothering density which mariners call "a dungeon fog."

Sat.u.r.day Cove's entrance was a distant and a small target. In spite of steersman and mate, his was the sole responsibility.

"Will you please explain to Mr. Marston that I cannot leave the bridge?"

"You have straight orders from him, captain! You'd better stop the boat and report."

The skipper of the _Olenia_ was having his first taste of the unreasoning whim of the autocrat who was ent.i.tled to break into shipboard discipline, even in a critical moment. Mayo felt exasperation surging in him, but he was willing to explain.