Blow The Man Down Part 90

"You don't need to use words! It's your instinct telling me what is right to do. You wouldn't think it was a square deal for me to use these papers, would you?"

"If you love her so much that you're willing to sacrifice yourself and your work and--"

"Say it, Polly! I'm sacrificing your father, too! It's for a notion--not much else!"

"No, it must be because you love her so much. You are afraid she will think less of you if you take advantage of her. I think your stand is n.o.ble, Boyd!"

"I don't! I think it's infernal foolishness, and I wish the Mayo breed didn't have so much of that cursed stiff-necked conscience! Our family wouldn't be where it is to-day." He spoke with so much heat that she turned-wondering eyes on him.

"But it's for her sake, Boyd! It's--"

"Nothing of the sort! That is, it isn't as you think it is."

"I only think you love her."

"I don't want you to say that--or believe it!" he raved. "If you only knew--if I could tell you--you'd see that it's insulting my common sense to say that I'm in love with Alma Marston. I don't love her! I--I don't know just where I stand. I don't know what's the matter with me. I'm in the most d.a.m.nable position a man can be in. And I'm talking like a fool.

Isn't that so?"

"I don't understand you," she faltered.

"Of course you don't. I reckon I'm a lunatic. I'll be rolling over here and biting the gra.s.s next!"

His pa.s.sion puzzled her. His flaming eyes, his rough beard, his rage, and all the uncouth personality of him shocked her.

"Boyd, what--whatever is the matter? I'm afraid."

"I don't blame you. I'm afraid of myself these days!" He shook his swollen fists over his head.

"It ought to encourage you because she is trying to help you!"

"Be still!" he roared. "You don't know what you're talking about. Help me! There are women who can help a man--do help a man, every turn he makes. There are other women who keep kicking him down into d.a.m.nation even when they think they are helping. I'm not going to stay here any longer. I mustn't stay, Polly. I'll be saying things worse than what I have said. What I said about women doesn't refer to you! You are true and good, and I envy that man, whoever he is."

He started down the slope toward the beach.

"Are you going back to the wreck?" she asked, plaintively.

"To the wreck!"

"But wait!" She could not control either her feelings or her voice.

"I can't wait. I don't dare to stay another minute!"

She called again and he halted at a little distance and faced her. He was absolutely savage in demeanor and tone.

"Remember what I said about her! Don't insult my common sense! She is--Oh, no matter!" He shook his fists again and went on his way.

She stood on the hillside and watched him row out to the little schooner. And through her tears she did not know whether he waved salute to her with those poor, work-worn hands, or again shook his fists. He made some sort of a flourish over the rail of the quarter-deck. The grieving and mystified girl was somberly certain that his troubles had touched Mayo's wits.

x.x.xI - THE BIG FELLOW HIMSELF

Will had promised his Sue that this trip, if well ended, Should coil up his ropes and he'd anchor on sh.o.r.e.

When his pockets were lined, why his life should be mended, The laws he had broken he'd never break more.

--Will Watch.

They needed food, lease-money for their hired equipment was due, and the dependents at Maquoit must be looked after.

Pride and hope had inspired the crew at Razee to salvage the _Conomo_ intact. Material removed from her would immediately become junk to be valued at junk prices, instead of being a valuable and active a.s.set on board. But there was no other resource in sight. No word came from Captain Wa.s.s; and Mayo had put little confidence in that possibility, anyway.

There was nothing else to do--they must sell off something on which they could realize quickly.

In the estimation of many practical men this procedure would have been a warrantable makeshift, its sole drawback being a sacrifice of values.

But to the captains on Razee it seemed like the beginning of complete surrender; it was the first step toward the dismantling of the steamship. It was making a junk-pile of her, and they confessed to themselves that they would probably be obliged to keep on in the work of destruction. In the past their bitterest toil had been spiced with the hope of big achievement; the work they now set themselves to do was melancholy drudgery.

They brought the _Ethel and May_ alongside and loaded into her the anchors, chains, spare cables, and several of the life-boats. Mayo took charge of the expedition to the main.

The little schooner, sagging low with her burden, wallowed up the harbor of Limeport just before sunset, one afternoon. Early June was abroad on the seas and the pioneer yachting cruisers had been coaxed to the eastward; Mayo saw several fine craft anch.o.r.ed inside the breakwater and paid little attention to them. He paced the narrow confines of his quarter-deck and felt the same kind of shame a ruined man feels when he is on his way to the p.a.w.nshop for the first time. He had his head down; he hated to look forward at the telltale cargo of the schooner.

"By ginger! here's an old friend of yours, this yacht!" called Mr.

Speed, who was at the wheel.

They were making a reach across the harbor to an anchorage well up toward the wharves, and were pa.s.sing under the stern of a big yacht.

Mayo looked up. It was the _Olenia_.

"But excuse me for calling it a friend, Captain Mayo," bawled the mate, with open-water disregard of the possibilities of revelation in his far-carrying voice.

A man rose from a chair on the yacht's quarter-deck and came to the rail. Though the schooner pa.s.sed hardly a biscuit-toss away, the man leveled marine gla.s.ses, evidently to make sure that what he had guessed, after Mr. Speed's remark, was true.

Mayo felt an impulse to turn his back, to dodge below. But he did not retreat; he walked to his own humble rail and scowled up into the countenance of Julius Mar-ston. The schooner was sluggish and the breeze was light, and the two men had time for a prolonged interchange of visual rancor.

"I didn't mean to holler so loud, Captain Mayo," barked Oak.u.m Otie, in still more resonant manner, to offer apology. "But seeing her, and remembering last time I laid eyes on her--"

"Shut up!" commanded the master. "I'll take the wheel. Go forward and clear cable, and stand by for the word!"

He looked behind, in spite of himself, and saw that a motor-tender had come away from the _Olenia_. It foamed along in the wake of the schooner. It circled her after it had pa.s.sed, and kept up those manouvers until the schooner's anchor was let go. Then the tender came to the side and stopped. The mate and engineer in her were new men; Mayo did not know them. The mate tipped respectful salute and stated that Mr.

Marston had sent them to bring Captain Mayo on board the yacht at once.

"My compliments to Mr. Marston. But I am not able to come."

They went away, but returned in a short time, and the mate handed a note over the rail. It was a curt statement, dictated and typewritten, that Mr. Marston wished to see Captain Mayo on business connected with the _Conomo_, and that if Captain Mayo were not able to transact that business Mr. Marston would be obliged to hunt up some other party who could do business regarding the _Conomo_. Remembering that he had the interests of others to consider, Mayo dropped into the tender, sullen, resentful, wondering what new test of his endurance was to be made, and feeling peculiarly ill-equipped, in his present condition of courage and temper, to meet Julius Marston.

The latter had himself under full restraint when they met on the yacht's quarter-deck, and Mayo was more fully conscious of his own inadequacy.

"Below, if you please, captain." He led the way, even while he uttered the invitation.

No one was visible in the saloon. In the luxury of that interior the unkempt visitor seemed especially strange, particularly out of place.