Caleb West, Master Diver Part 32

Carleton's downfall was known all over the Ledge and on board every boat that lay at its wharf long before either he or Sanford regained the open air. The means of communication was that same old silent current that requires neither pole nor battery to put it into working order. Within thirty seconds of the time the ominous words fell from the general's lips, the single word "Dennis," the universal sobriquet for a discharged man our working world over, was in every man's mouth.

Whatever medium was used, the meaning was none the less clear and unmistakable. The steward may have winked to the captain in the pilothouse, or the cook shrugged his shoulders, opening his mouth with the gasping motion of a strangling chicken, and so conveyed the news to the forecastle; or one of the crew, with ears wide open, might have found it necessary to uncoil a rope outside the cabin window at the precise moment the general gave his decision, and have instantly pa.s.sed the news along to his nearest mate. Of one thing there was no doubt: Carleton had given his last order on Shark Ledge.

An animated discussion followed among the men.

"Ought to give him six months," blurted out Captain Bob Brandt, whose limited experience of government inspecting boards led him to believe that its officers were clothed with certain judicial powers. "Hadn't 'a' been for old Hamfats" (Nickles's nickname) "an' his pantry door, he'd 'a' swore Cap'n Joe's character away."

"Well, I'm kind'er sorry for him, anyway," said Captain Joe, not noticing the skipper's humorous allusion. "Poor critter, he ain't real responsible. What's he goin' to do fur a livin', now that the gov'ment ain't a-goin' to support him no more?"

"Ain't n.o.body cares; he'll know better 'n to lie nex' time," grunted Lonny Bowles. "Is he comin' ash.o.r.e here agin, Caleb, er has he dug a hole fur himself 'board the tender in the coal bunkers?"

Caleb smiled grimly, but made no reply. He never liked to think of Carleton, much less to talk of him. Since the night when he had waylaid Betty coming home from Keyport, his name had not pa.s.sed the diver's lips. He had always avoided him on the work, keeping out of his way, not so much from fear of Carleton as from fear of himself,-fear that in some uncontrollable moment he might fall upon him and throttle him.

If a certain sigh of relief went up from the working force on the Ledge over Carleton's downfall and Sanford's triumph, a much more joyous feeling permeated the yacht. Not only were Jack and Smearly jubilant, but even Sam, with a grin the width of his face, had a little double shuffle of his own in the close quarters of the galley, while the major began forthwith to concoct a brew in which to drink Sanford's health, and of such mighty power that for once Sam disobeyed his instructions, and emptied a pint of Medford spring water instead of an equal amount of old Holland gin into the seductive mixture.

"'Fo' G.o.d, Mr. Sanford, dey wouldn't one o' dem ladies knowed deir head from a whirlum-gig if dey'd drank dat punch," he said afterwards to his master, in palliation of his sin.

Sanford took the situation with a calmness customary to him when things were going well. His principle in life was to do his best every time, and leave the rest to fate. When he worried it was before a crisis. He had not belittled the consequences of a rejection of the work. He knew how serious it might have been. Had the Board become thoroughly convinced that he had openly and without just cause violated both the written contract and the instructions of the superintendent, they might have been forced to make an example of him, and to require all the upper masonry to be torn down and rebuilt on a true level, a result which would have entailed the loss of thousands of dollars.

His own reply to General Barton and the Board was a grim, reserved, "I thank you, gentlemen," with an added hope that the new superintendent might be instructed to give written orders when any departure from the contract was insisted upon, to which the chief engineer agreed.

His greatest satisfaction, though, was really over his men. The vindication of his course was as much their triumph as his. He knew who had been its master spirits; the credit was not due to him, but to Captain Joe, Caleb, and Captain Brandt, whose pluck, skill, and devotion both to himself and the work had made its success possible.

He had only inspired them to do their best.

Later, when he called them together on the Ledge and gave them the details of the interview,-he never kept anything of this kind from his working force,-he cautioned one and all of them to exercise the greatest patience and good temper toward the new superintendent, whoever he might be, who was promised in a few days, so that nothing might happen which would incur his ill will; reminding them that it would not do for a second superintendent to be disgruntled, no matter whose fault it was, to which Captain Joe sententiously replied:-

"All right; let 'em send who they like; sooner the better. But one thing I kin tell 'em, an' that is that none on 'em can't stop us now from gittin' through, no matter how ornery they be."

But of all the happy souls that breathed the air of this lovely autumn day Mrs. Leroy was the happiest. She felt, somehow, that the decision of the committee was a triumph for both Sanford and herself: for Sanford because of his constant fight against the elements, for her because of her advice and encouragement. As the words fell from Sanford's lips, telling her of the joyful news,-he had found her aboard the yacht and had told her first of all,-her face flushed, and her eyes lighted with genuine pleasure.

"What did I tell you!" she said, holding out her hand in a hearty, generous way, as a man would have done. "I knew you would do it. Oh, I am so proud of you, you great splendid fellow!"

Then a sudden inspiration seized her. She darted back again to the Ledge in search of Captain Joe, her dainty skirts raised about her tiny boots to keep them from the rough platforms.

"Do come and lunch with us, Captain Bell!" she exclaimed in her joyous way. "I really want you, and the ladies would so love to talk to you."

She had not forgotten his tenderness over Betty the morning he came for her; more than that, he had stood by Sanford.

The captain stopped, somewhat surprised, and looked down into her eyes with the kindly expression of a big mastiff diagnosing a kitten.

"Well, that's real nice o' ye, an' I thank ye kindly," he answered, his eyes lighting up at her evident sincerity. "But ye see yer vittles would do me no good. So if ye won't take no offense I'll kind'er grub in with the other men. Cook's jes' give notice to all hands."

As she looked into his eyes her thoughts reverted to that morning in the hospital when the captain's same sense of the fitness of things had saved her from being established as nurse to the wounded men. She was about to press her request again when her glance fell on Caleb standing by himself a little way off. She turned and walked toward him. But it was not to ask him to luncheon.

"I have heard Mr. Sanford speak so often of you that I wanted to know you before I left the work," she said, holding out her little gloved hand. Caleb looked into her face and touched the dainty glove with two of his fingers,-he was afraid to do more, it was so small,-and, with his eyes on hers, listened while she spoke in a tender, sympathetic tone, lowering her voice so that no one could hear but himself,-not even Sanford: "I have heard all about your troubles, Mr. West, and I am so sorry for you both; she stayed with me one night last summer.

She said, poor child, she was very miserable; it's an awful thing to be alone in the world."

Sanford watched her as she flitted over the rough platforms like a bird that sings as it flies. Unaccountable as it was to him even in the happiness of his triumph, a strange feeling of disappointment came over him. He began in an utterly unreasonable way to wonder whether their intimacy would now be as close as before, and whether the daily conferences would end, since he had no longer any anxieties to lay before her.

Something in her delight, and especially in the frank way in which she had held out her hand like a man friend in congratulation, had chilled rather than cheered him. He felt hurt without knowing why. A sense of indefinable personal loss came over him. In the rush of contending emotions suddenly a.s.sailing him, he began to doubt whether she had understood his motives that night on the veranda when he had kissed her hand,-whether in fact he had ever understood her. Had she really conquered her feelings as he had his? Or had there been nothing to conquer? Then another feeling rose in his heart,-a vague jealousy of the very work which had bound them so closely together, and which now seemed to claim all her interest.

CHAPTER XXIII

A BROKEN DRAW

Throughout the luncheon that followed aboard the yacht the major was the life of the party. He had offered no apology either to Sanford or to any member of the committee for his hasty conclusions regarding the "d.a.m.nable oligarchy." He considered that he had wiped away all bitterness, when, rising to his feet and rapping with the handle of his knife for order, he said with great dignity and suavity of manner:-

"On behalf of this queen among women," turning to Mrs. Leroy, "our lovely hostess, as well as these fair young buds"-a graceful wave of his hand-(some of these buds had grandchildren) "who adorn her table, I rise to thank you, suh,"-semi-military salute to General Barton,-"for the opportunity you have given them of doing honor to a gentleman and a soldier,"-a double-barreled compliment that brought a smile to that gentleman's face, and a suppressed ripple of laughter from the other members of the committee.

In the same generous way he filled his own and everybody else's b.u.mper for Sanford out of the bowl that Sam had rendered innocuous, addressing his friend as that "young giant, who has lighted up the pathway of the vasty deep." To which bit of grandiloquence Sanford replied that the major was premature, but that he hoped to accomplish it the following year.

In addition to conducting all these functions, the Pocomokian neglected no minor detail of the feast. He insisted upon making the coffee after an especial formula of his own, and cooled in a new way and with his own hands the several cordials banked up on Sam's silver tray. He opened parasols for the ladies and champagne for the men with equal grace and dexterity; was host, waiter, valet, and host again; and throughout the livelong day one unfailing source of enthusiasm, courtesy, and helpfulness. With all this be it said to his credit, he had never overstepped the limits of his position, as High Rubber-in-Chief,-his main purpose having been to get all the fun possible out of the situation, both for himself and for those about him. These praiseworthy efforts were not appreciated by all of the guests. The general and the committee had several times, in their own minds, put him down for a charlatan and a mountebank, especially when they deliberated upon the fit of his clothes, and his bombastic and sometimes fulsome speeches.

All these several vagaries, however, of the distinguished Pocomokian only endeared him the more to Sanford and his many friends. They saw a little deeper under the veneer, and knew that if the major did smoke his hostess's cigars and drink her cognac, it was always as her guest and in her presence. They knew, too, that, poor and often thirsty as he was, he would as soon have thought of stuffing his carpet-bag with the sheets that covered his temporary bed as of filling his private flask with the contents of the decanter that Buckles brought nightly to his room. It was just this delicate sense of honor that saved him from pure vagabondage.

When coffee and cigars had been served, the general and his party again crossed the gangplank to the tender, the mooring-lines were thrown off, and the two boats, with many wavings of hands from yacht and Ledge, kept on their respective courses. The tender was to keep on to Keyport, where the committee were to board the train for New York, and the yacht was to idle along until sundown, and so on into Medford harbor. Captain Joe and Caleb were to follow later in the tug that had towed out the Screamer, they being needed in Keyport to load some supplies.

As the tender steamed away the men on the Ledge looked eagerly for Carleton, that they might give him some little leave-taking of their own,-it would have been a characteristic one,-but he was nowhere to be seen.

"Buried up in the coal bunkers, jes' 's I said," laughed Lonny Bowles.

With the final wave to the fast disappearing tender of a red handkerchief, the property of the major, returned by the general standing in the stern of his own boat, Mrs. Leroy's party settled themselves on the forward deck of the yacht to enjoy the afternoon run back to Medford.

The ladies sat under the awnings, where they were made comfortable with cushions from the saloon below, while some of the men threw themselves flat on the deck cushions, or sat Turkish fashion in those several sprawling positions only possible under like conditions, and most difficult for some men to learn to a.s.sume properly. Jack Hardy knew to a nicety how to stow his legs away, and so did Sanford. Theirs were always invisible. Smearly never tried the difficult art. He thought it beneath his dignity; and then again there was too much of him in the wrong place. The major wanted to try it, and no doubt would have done so with decorum and grace but for his clothes. It was a straight and narrow way that the major had been walking all day, and he could run no risks.

Everything aboard the yacht had been going as merry as a marriage or any other happy bell of good cheer,-the major at his best, Smearly equally delightful, Helen and Jack happy as two song-birds, and Mrs.

Leroy with a joyous word for every one between her confidences to Sanford, when just as the gayety was at its height a quick sharp ring was heard in the engine-room below. Almost at the same instant one of the crew touched Sanford on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

Sanford sprang to his feet and looked eagerly toward the sh.o.r.e.

The yacht at the moment was entering the narrow channel of Medford harbor, and the railroad trestle and draw could be plainly seen from its deck. Sanford's quick eye had instantly detected a break in the sky-line. The end of the railroad track placed on the trestle, and crossing within a few hundred feet of Mrs. Leroy's cottage, was evidently twisted out of shape, while across the channel, on its opposite end rested an engine and two cars, the outer one derailed and toppled over. On the water below were crowded every conceivable kind of small boat hurrying to the scene, while the surrounding banks were black with people watching intently a group of men on board a scow, who were apparently trying to keep above water a large object which looked like a floating house.

Something serious had evidently happened.

A panic of apprehension instantly seized the guests on the yacht.

Faces which but a few moments before had been rosy with smiles became suddenly anxious and frightened. Some of the ladies spoke in whispers; could it be possible, every one asked, that the train with General Barton and the committee on board had met with an accident?

Sanford, followed by Mrs. Leroy, hurried into the pilot-house to search the horizon from that elevation and see the better. One moment's survey removed all doubt from his mind. A train had gone through the draw; whether pa.s.senger or freight he could not tell. One thing was certain: some lives must be in danger, or the crowd would not watch so intently the group who were working with such energy aboard the rescuing scow. At Sanford's request three quick, short bells sounded in the engine-room below, and the yacht quivered along her entire length as she doubled her speed. When she came within hailing distance of the sh.o.r.e a lobster fisherman pulled out and crossed the yacht's bow.

"What's happened?" shouted Sanford, waving his hat to attract attention.

The fisherman stopped rowing, and the yacht slowed down.

"Train through the draw," came the answer.