Blow The Man Down Part 67

"I think it's right to tell the truth at this stage," said Mayo, in steady tones. "We're not children. Yonder is a beach with sand-reefs and breakers, and when we strike the sand this boat will go over and over and we shall be tossed out. The waves will throw us up and haul us back like a cat playing with mice. And we stand about the same chance as mice."

"And that's the best you can do for us--and you call yourself a sailor!"

whined Bradish.

"I'm only a poor chap who has done his best as it came to his hand to do," said the young man, seeking the girl's eyes with his.

She gazed at him for a moment and then put both hands to her face and began to sob.

"It's a hard thing to face, but we'd better understand the truth and be as brave as we can," said Mayo, gently.

"For myself I ain't a mite surprised," averred the cook. "I had my hunch! I was resigned. But my plans was interfered with. I wanted to go down in good, deep, green, clean water like a sailor ought to. And now I'm going to get mauled into the sand and have a painful death."

"Shut up!" barked Mayo.

The girl was trembling, and he feared collapse.

Bradish began to blubber. "I'm not prepared to die," he protested.

Mayo studied his pa.s.senger for some time, wrinkling his brows. "Bradish, listen to me a moment!"

The New-Yorker gave him as much attention as terror and grief permitted.

"There isn't much we can do just now to fix up our general earthly affairs. But we may as well clean the slate between us two. That will help our consciences a little. I haven't any quarrel with you any more.

We won't be mushy about it. But let's cross it off."

"It's all over," mourned Bradish. "So what's the use of bearing grudges?"

"I suppose it's true that the court has indicted me for manslaughter.

Bradish, tell me, man to man, whether I've got to go into those breakers with that on my conscience!"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do! You know whether those men of the schooner _Warren_ were drowned by any criminal mistake of mine or not!"

Bradish did not speak.

"You wouldn't have said as much to Captain Downs if you hadn't known something," insisted the victim of the plot.

"It was only what Burkett let drop when he came after some money. I suppose he thought it was safe to talk to me. But what's the good of my giving you guesswork? I don't know anything definite. I don't understand sailor matters."

"Bradish, what Burkett said--was it something about the compa.s.s--about putting a job over on me by monkeying with the compa.s.s?"

"It was something like that." His tone exhibited indifference; it was evident that he was more occupied with his terror than with his confession.

"Didn't Burkett say something about a magnet?"

"He got off some kind of a joke about Fogg in the pilot-house and fog outside--but that the Fogg inside did the business. And he said something about Fogg's iron wishbone."

"So that was the way it was done--and done by the general manager of the line!" cried Mayo. "The general manager himself! It's no wonder I have smashed that suspicion between the eyes every time it bobbed up! I suspected--but I didn't dare to suspect! Is that some of your high finance, Bradish?"

"No, it isn't," declared the New-Yorker, with heat. "It's an understrapper like Fogg going ahead and producing results, so he calls it. The big men never bother with the details."

"The details! Taking away from me all I have worked for--my reputation as a master, my papers, my standing--my liberty. By the G.o.ds, I'm going to live! I'm going through those breakers! I'll face that gang like a man who has fought his way back from h.e.l.l," raged the victim.

"This--this was none of my father's business! It could not have been,"

expostulated Miss Marston.

"Your father never knows anything about the details of Fogg's operations," declared Bradish.

"He ought to know," insisted the maddened scapegoat. "He gives off his orders, doesn't he? He sits in the middle of the web. What if he did know how Fogg was operating?"

"Probably wouldn't stand for it! But he doesn't know. And the Angel Gabriel himself wouldn't get a chance to tell him!" declared the clerk.

"A put-up job, then, is it--and all called high finance!" jeered Mayo.

"High finance isn't to blame for tricks the field-workers put out so that they can earn their money quick and easy. What's the good of pestering me with questions at this awful time? I'm going to die! I'm going to die!" he wailed.

Miss Marston slid from the seat to her knees, in order that she might be able to reach her hand to Mayo. "Will you let this handclasp tell you all I feel about it--all your trouble, all your brave work in this terrible time? I am so frightened, Captain Mayo! But I'm going to keep my eyes on you--and I'll be ashamed to show you how frightened I am."

He returned the fervent clasp of her fingers with gentle pressure and rea.s.suring smile. "Honestly, I feel too ugly to die just now. Let's keep on hoping."

But when he stood up and beheld the white mountains of water between their little boat and the sh.o.r.e, and realized what would happen when they were in that savage tumult, with the undertow dragging and the surges lashing, he felt no hope within himself.

From the appearance of the coast he could not determine their probable location. The land was barren and sandy. There seemed to be no inlet.

As far as he could see the line of frothing white was unbroken. The sea foamed across broad shallows, where no boat could possibly remain upright and no human being could hope to live.

Nevertheless, he remained standing and peered under his hand, resolved to be alert till the last, determined to grasp any opportunity.

All at once he beheld certain black lines in perpendicular silhouette against the foam. At first he was not certain just what they could be, and he observed them narrowly as the boat tossed on its way.

At last their ident.i.ty was revealed. They were weir-stakes. The weir itself was evidently dismantled. Such stakes as remained were set some distance from one another, like fence-posts located irregularly.

He made hasty observation of bearings as the boat drifted, and was certain that the sea would carry them down past the stakes. How near they would pa.s.s depended on the vagary of the waves and the tide. He realized that three men, even if they were able seamen, could do little in the way of rowing or guiding the longboat in the welter of that sea, now surging madly over the shoals. He knew that there was not much water under the keel, for the ocean was turbid with swirling sand, and the waves were more mountainous, heaped high by the friction of the water on the bottom. Every now and then the crest of a roller flaunted a banner of bursting spray, showing breakers near at hand.

Mayo hurried to the bow of the boat and pulled free a long stretch of cable. He made a bowline slip-knot, opened a noose as large as he could handle, coiled the rest of the cable carefully, and poised himself on a thwart.

"What now?" asked the cook.

"No matter," returned Mayo. His project was such a gamble that he did not care to canva.s.s it in advance.

The nearer they drove to the stakes the more unattainable those objects seemed. They projected high above the water.

The cook perceived them and got up on his knees and squinted. "Huh!" he sniffed. "You'll never make it. It can't be done!"

In his fierce anxiety Mayo heaved his noose too soon, and it fell short.

He dragged in the cable with all his quickness and strength and threw the noose again. The rope hit the stake three-quarters of the way up and fell into the sea.

"It needs a cowboy for that work," muttered the cook.