Sweetapple Cove Part 31

It really seemed as if a bit of luck might be coming my way, at last.

Indeed I wanted badly to see your dear face again, and that silver hair I think so beautiful, but here was a prospect of sailing away on that stunning little ship and of earning some badly needed money, so that I felt like whooping with joy. I leaped through the open door and saw a very gold-laced man who was talking very fast to the head of the firm.

"Here's just the man you want," said the latter. "He's a first-rate young chap who will go anywhere and do anything. His skipper of the _Chandernagore_ swears by him. I can send for him, if you like."

"No time for that," interrupted the yacht's captain. "There is diphtheria at Sweetapple Cove, and a doctor there who is nearly dead with it, I believe. I've sent our mate for all the ant.i.toxine he can buy, and he's driving around to all the druggists in the place. We also want a nurse, several nurses, all you can get. I'm keeping steam up and will start the minute you're ready."

"And the remuneration," suggested Mr. Simpson.

"Anything he wants to ask," said the captain, hurriedly, turning again to me; "just get a move on you, young man. Run off and get some nurses; promise any money they want to charge, and I won't wait over an hour."

He saw a cab pa.s.sing in the street and ran out to hail it.

"Here," he said, "get into this thing and hunt for nurses."

In his excitement he actually pushed me out of the shop and I jumped in the cab, without the slightest idea of where I might find the desired nurses. At the nearest pharmacy, however, I obtained a couple of addresses. I 'phoned to the hospital but there was none there who could be spared. On following up my clues I found both nurses away on cases.

More telephoning brought the information that several might be had in a day or two, and finally I called up Simpson & Co., who informed me that the skipper was tearing his hair at the delay.

"He says you're to return at once. You can kill the cab-horse if you want to. He'll pay for it."

These were the last words I heard. I dashed off to the little hotel where I stayed, for my trunk, and soon we were galloping along the peaceful streets, here and there enc.u.mbered by pony-carts laden with vast piles of codfish, and finally reached the chandlery.

"Well?" asked the captain, rushing out.

"Not a nurse to be had to-day," I announced. "To-morrow or next day several may be disengaged."

There was an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n excusable under the circ.u.mstance and the skipper grabbed my arm.

"I won't wait a minute," he said. "I've got a doctor, that's the main thing, and all the ant.i.toxine in the place. Come along."

We jumped in the cab, which drove off rapidly, and in a minute we reached the dock, where the yawl was waiting. Two of the men grabbed my trunk and put it on board and the skipper tossed a banknote to the driver, without waiting for change, and we were off.

The men pulled towards the yacht, and they must have been watching for us on board for I heard the clanking of the small donkey engine and the anchor-chain stiffened and began to draw in, fast. We scrambled on board, the trunk was tumbled in, and before the yawl was half way up to the davits we were steaming away.

"Come up on the bridge if you want to, Doctor," the captain called down to me, civilly.

I accepted his invitation and ran up the steps. At his side stood a grizzled old man with a seamed, kindly face and the wrinkled eyes of the men who spend their lives searching through fog and darkness.

"Good day, sor," he said to me. "You're a man as is real sore needed at Sweetapple Cove."

"I hope I may be of service," I answered.

"Ye will be, G.o.d willin'," he a.s.sured me.

By this time we had gathered full speed and were steaming fast between the narrow headlands. The pilot was dropped a little later, without slackening our way much. We had pa.s.sed swiftly by the crowded flakes which clung to the steep, rocky sh.o.r.e, inextricably mixed with battered-looking fish-houses. As soon as we struck the swelling seas outside we saw many little smacks engaged in fishing. We bore no canvas, for the wind was against us on the return journey. Then I noticed that the skipper was looking anxiously ahead, where, at a distance, a low fog-pall was gathering.

"Yes, sor," said the old man, guessing at his thoughts, "it's a-comin' on real thick, but we's goin' ter pull her through."

I ran below and got my oilskins out of my trunk, which I discovered in a beautiful little state-room, prettily furnished and dainty-looking indeed to a surgeon of tramp steamers. I did not waste much time in inspecting it, however, as I was interested in our progress towards that ominous bank of fog. When I reached the bridge again I was conscious of the moist chill of northern mists, and saw that the vapor was closing down upon us fast. The land astern was disappearing in a grey haze, while ahead the thickness was becoming more and more impenetrable. The skipper kept walking from end to end of the bridge, restlessly, and I could sympathize with him. He was in a hurry, a deadly hurry, which he had shown plainly enough from the first moment my eyes had rested upon him, and now this mist was rendering all his haste futile, as far as I could see. Every moment now I expected to see him ring down to the engine room for reduced speed, but we kept on going, doggedly, blindly, until at last we were pitching over long, smooth swells that were covered by a blanket of murk.

"We'll have to slow down, Sammy!" he suddenly cried, impatiently, to the old man. "That fog's too much for us, and getting worse every minute."

"Keep on a bit yet," advised the latter. "'Tis all clear goin' fer a whiles, and we's too close insh.o.r.e ter run into any big craft. They'll all be standin' out to sea."

I could see that the captain was torn between his keen desire to keep on speeding and his fear for the safety of his beautiful ship. He was utterly unable to keep still more than a minute at a time, but the old fisherman looked as cool and collected as if he had been puffing at his rank old pipe within the four walls of a house.

And those minutes seemed very long, then, as they always do when men are laden with the weight of constant suspense. Presently even the grey and blue waters our sharp bow was cleaving lost their color and the whole world was dismal, and grey, and dripping.

This went on for long hours, as it seemed to me, and finally the captain could stand it no longer.

"I'm going to ring for half speed," he shouted. "We can't keep this up, Sammy!"

"Let be, let be fer a whiles," the old man counselled again. "I knows jist where I be. I'll not be runnin' ye ash.o.r.e, lad."

And the yacht kept on for a long, long time, cleaving the grey water and the fog, between which there was no difference now. It was really a spooky thing, even if a sporting one, to be dashing at fifteen knots through that wall of vapor. Our steam whistle was sounding constantly, and old Sammy listened with his grey head c.o.c.ked to one side, in a tense att.i.tude of constant attention.

"We's gettin' nigh," he said, quietly. "I knows the sound o' he."

Then, after a long, wailing blast, he suddenly lifted up his hand.

"Port a bit till I tells yer," he called. "That'll do. Keep her so."

The next sobbing cry of the siren brought a dull prolonged echo that reverberated in the air.

"I knowed we must be gettin' close to un," he said; "now we'll be havin'

all open water again fer a whiles."

The captain was tremulous with the excitement he bravely sought to suppress, and my own heart was certainly in my throat. We were all straining our eyes at this moment, and all at once we dimly had revealed to us something like the shadow of a great ghost-like ma.s.s that slipped by us, very fast, with a roar of the great swells bursting loudly at its foot.

"Thunder! you Sammy!" shrieked the skipper. "I won't have you taking such chances. I'm just as crazy to get there as you are but I'll be hanged if I'm going to smash my ship."

"We's all right now, Cap'en," answered the old man, quietly; "I sure knows all right what we is doin'."

The captain had taken the wheel, and he glared at his binnacle like a wild man. Now and then he gave a swift look around him, nervously, but the old man's a.s.surance had some effect upon him. Yet once I heard him snarling:

"Any man who ever catches me cruising around this country again can have me locked up in an asylum. After I get shut of this job they can get some one else if they ever want to come back."

And still the fog seemed to deepen, and the moisture dripped from everything, and the very air seemed hard to breathe. The darkness began to come and all our lights were burning, while the siren continued to moan. Several times, in answer to it, we faintly heard mournful sounds of fishermen's horns, and once we blindly swerved just in time to avoid running down a tiny schooner.

"Beggin' yer pardon, sor," the old man said to me, "seem' as how ye ain't busy it might be yer wouldn't mind startin' a bit of prayer as how we don't smash up one o' them poor fellows. We jist got ter take some chances, fer I mistrust th' Lord he be wantin' ter save that doctor o'

ours an' only needs be asked the right way."

We were now shooting through that fog like lost wild things, like the ducks and geese bewildered of a stormy night, which mangle themselves against the wire nettings of light houses. Now and then the land abeam would give forth response to the booming of our whistle. The old man Sammy had taken the wheel and his grim face was frozen into an expression of desperate energy, as his keen little grey eyes peered through the murk. By this time there was a heavy roll and our tall spars were slashing at the mist as if seeking to cut down an unseen enemy. Every man on board was under a nervous tension, conscious that a big thing was being done. For a time there had been something akin to fear in all our hearts, but after a while it left us, to make room for the delirium of blind, reckless speed.

And then, suddenly, like a flash, the captain grasped the old fellow's shoulder.

"Slow down, man," he shrieked. "I bet all I've got you don't know where you are, and I can hear waves breaking ash.o.r.e."

But Sammy lifted up his hand, with an authority that seemed inspired, and gave another pull at the whistle cord. It brought forth a sound that was repeated, again and again, confusedly. For a frightfully long half minute we kept up our speed; then the bell jingled in the engine-room and we slowed down a little. Under the old fisherman's hands the wheel began to spin around while we breathlessly watched him aim the ship at the furious breakers insh.o.r.e, at the foot of dark cliffs.