Blow The Man Down Part 65

"But you've got two hands, man. I want to get a boat overboard. Hurry!"

"No, no! I wouldn't get into a small boat with these waves so high. It wouldn't be safe."

"This schooner is sinking!" shouted Mayo. He fastened a heavy clutch upon Bradish's shoulders. "There's no time to argue this thing. You come along!"

He hauled Bradish to his feet and propelled him to the companionway, and the man went without resistance. It was evident that real danger and fear of death had nearly paralyzed him.

"There's nothing I can do!" he kept bleating.

But Mayo hurried him forward.

"Ralph!" cried the girl, fairly lashing him with the tone in which she delivered the word. "What is the matter with you?"

"There's nothing I can do. It isn't safe out here."

"You must do what this man tells you to do. He knows."

But Bradish clung to the gunwale of the long-boat and stared out at the yeasty waves, blinking his eyes.

"If I only had a couple of men instead of these two infernal tapeworms,"

raged Mayo, "I could reeve tackle and get this boat over. Wake up! Wake up!" he clamored, beating his fist on Bradish's back.

"Ralph! Be a man!" There were anger, protest, shocked wonder in her tones.

Suddenly Mayo saw an ominous sight and heard a boding sound. The fore-hatch burst open with a mighty report, forced up by the air compressed by the inflowing water. He wasted no more breath in argument and appeals. He realized that even an able crew would not have time to launch the boat. The schooner was near her doom.

In all haste he pulled his clasp-knife and cut the lashings which held the boat in its chocks. That the craft would be driven free from the entangling wreckage and go afloat when the schooner went under he could hardly hope. But there was only this desperate chance to rely upon in the emergency.

In his agony of despair and his fury of resentment he was tempted to climb into the boat and leave the two cowards to their fate. But he stooped, caught Bradish by the legs and boosted him over the gunwale into the yawl. A sailor's impulse is to save life even at the risk of his own. Mayo ran to the galley and kicked the cook off the stool and then drove him headlong to the longboat. The man went along, hugging his cat.

"What will happen to us?" asked the girl when Mayo climbed in.

"I don't know," he panted. "I reckon the devil is pitching coppers for us just now--and the penny is just hopping off his thumb nail!"

His tone was reckless. The excitement of the past few hours was having its effect on him at last. He was no longer normal. Something that was almost delirium affected him.

"Aren't you frightened?" she asked.

"Yes," he admitted. "But I'm going to keep hustling just the same."

Bradish and the cook were squatting amidships in the yawl.

"You lie down under those thwarts, the two of you, and hang on," cried Mayo. Then he quickly pa.s.sed a rope about the girl's waist and made the ends of the line fast to the cleats. "I don't know what will happen when the old tub dives," he told her. "Those five thousand tons of coal will take her with a rush when she starts. All I can say is, hold tight and pray hard!"

"Thank you," she said, quietly.

"By gad, she's got grit!" muttered the young man, scrambling forward over the prostrate forms of the other pa.s.sengers. "I wonder if all the women in the world are this way?" He was remembering the bravery of Polly Candage.

There was a huge coil of rope in the bow, spare cable stored there. Mayo made fast the free end, working as rapidly as he was able, and bundled about half the coil into a compact ma.s.s--a k.n.o.b at the end of some ten fathoms of line. And to this k.n.o.b he lashed oars and the mast he found stowed in the boat. He knew that if they did get free from the schooner only an efficient sea-anchor or drag would keep the yawl right side up.

When this task was finished he crouched low in the bow and looked at the girl.

"We're about ready to start on our journey," he called to her. "If I don't see you again, good-by!"

"I shall not say good-by to you, Captain Mayo--not yet!"

XXIV - DOWN A GALLOPING SEA

I saddled me an Arab steed and saddled her another, And off we rode together just like sister and like brother, Singing, "Blow ye winds in the morning!

Blow ye winds, hi ho! Brush away the morning dew, Blow ye winds, hi ho!"

--Blew Ye Winds.

With anxiety that was almost despairing Mayo looked up at the shrouds, stays, and halyards, which were set like nets to right and left and overhead.

A big roller tumbled inboard and filled the s.p.a.ce forward of the break of the main-deck. The swirling water touched the sides of the long-boat and then receded when the stricken schooner struggled up from the welter. A scuttle-b.u.t.t was torn from its lashings and went by the board, and other flotsam followed it.

Mayo found that spectacle encouraging. But the longboat sat high in its chocks; when it did float it might be too late.

Another wave roared past, and the long-boat quivered. Then Mayo took a chance without reckoning on consequences. He made a double turn of the cable around his forearm and leaped out of the boat and stood on deck, his shoulder against the stem. The next wave washed him to his waist, tore at him, beat him against the long-boat's shoe, but he clung fast and lifted and pushed with all his strength.

That push did it!

The boat needed just that impetus to free her from the chocks. She lifted and rushed stern foremost to lee, and the young man dragged after her.

When the boat dipped and halted in a hollow of the sea he clutched the bow and clambered in. Tugging mightily, he managed to dump the sea-anchor over.

The next wave caught her on the quarter and slopped a barrel of water into her. But she kept right side up, and in a few moments the cable straightened and she rode head into the tumult of the ocean; the sea-anchor was dragging and performing its service.

Mayo was obliged to kick the two men with considerable heartiness before he could stir them to bailing with the buckets. The bedraggled cat fled to the shelter of the girl's arms. Mayo struggled aft, in order to take his weight from the bow of the boat, and when he sat down beside the girl she was "mothering" the animal.

"It's coming in faster than I can throw it out!" wailed Bradish.

"Bail faster, then! Bail or drown!"

"She's leaking," announced the cook. "She has been on deck so long she has got all dried out."

"Bail or drown!" repeated Mayo. To the girl he said: "This seems to be the only way of getting work out of cowards. They'll have to do it. I'm about done for."

The waves were lifting and dropping them in dizzying fashion. There was suddenly a more violent tossing of the water.

"That's the old packet! She went under then!" Mayo explained. "Thank the Lord we are out of her clutches! I was afraid we were stuck there."

"Is there any hope for us now?" she inquired.

"I don't know. If the boat stays afloat and the wind doesn't haul and knock this sea crossways, if somebody sees us in the morning, if we don't get rolled onto the coast in the breakers and--" He did not finish.