The Harbor of Doubt Part 16

"The insurance company is after him because he sunk the _May Schofield_ on purpose. But that ain't the worst of the things he did--"

"What do you mean?" she flashed at him.

"You'll find out quick enough, and so will he," he snarled. "I'm not saying what is goin' to happen to him, but when I'm through we'll see if your hero is such a fine specimen."

From fear to anger her spirit had gone, and now under the lash it turned to cold disdain. With a swift motion of her right hand over her left she drew off the diamond ring he had given her and held it out to him.

"Take this, Nat," she said, so coldly that for once his rage was checked. He looked stupidly at the glittering emblem of her love, and suddenly became aware of the extent to which he had driven her. The reaction was as swift as the rage.

"Please, Nellie dear," he begged, "don't do that! Take it back.

Forgive me. Everything has piled up so to-day that I lost my temper.

Please don't do that!"

But he had gone too far. He had shown her a new side to his character.

"No, Nat," she said calmly, but still with that icy inflection of disdain; "this has gone too far. Take this ring. Some time, when you have made amends for this afternoon, I may see you again."

"I won't take it," he replied doggedly. "Please, Nellie, forgive--"

"Take it," she flashed, "or I will throw it into the ocean!"

She had unconsciously submitted him to a final test. He was about to let her carry out her threat if she saw fit when his cupidity overcame him. He reached out his hand, and she dropped the ring into it. She stood silent, pale, and cold, waiting for him to go.

He moved away. He had reached the foot of the companionway when he turned back.

"He has brought me to this," he said so slowly and evilly that each word seemed a drop of venom. "But I'll make him pay. I'm goin' to St.

John's, and when I get back it will be the sorriest day in his life and yours, too. His life won't be worth the thread it hangs on!"

With that he went up the companionway and, not noticing the greeting of Captain Tanner, dropped into his yellow dory that swung and b.u.mped against the _Rosan's_ side. Swiftly he rowed to the _Nettie B._ and clambered aboard, bellowing orders to get up sail. In fifteen minutes the schooner was on the back track under every st.i.tch of canvas she carried.

Bijonah Tanner stared blankly after the retreating _Nettie_. Then, knowing that his daughter had been with Nat, dropped down into the little cabin.

He found Nellie seated in the chair by the little table, and weeping.

CHAPTER XIV

A DISCOVERY

Taken aback as he had been by the strange doings of Nat's schooner, his dismay then was a feeble imitation of the panic that smote him now. It had long been a favorite formula of Bijonah's that "A schooner's a gal you can understand. She goes where ye send her, an'

ye know she'll come back when ye tell her to. She's a snug, trustin'

kind of critter, an' she's man's best friend because she hain't got a grain o' sense. But woman!"

Here Bijonah always ended, his hands, his voice, and his sentence suspended in mid air.

Now he was baffled completely. Here was a girl who was deeply in love, crying. He tiptoed cautiously to the deck again and stole forward to the galley as though he had been detected in a suspicious action.

After a while the storm pa.s.sed, and Nellie sat up, red-eyed and red-nosed, but with a measure of her usual tranquillity restored.

"Idiot!" she told herself. "To howl like that over _him_!"

Nellie finally regained her poise of mind and remembered that she had been at the point of writing a letter to her mother (to be mailed by the first vessel bound to a port) when Nat had interrupted her.

The table at which she sat was a rough, square one of oak, with one drawer that extended its whole width. She opened the drawer and found it stuffed with an untidy ma.s.s of paper, envelopes, newspapers, clippings, books, ink, and a mucilage-pot that had foundered in the last gale and spread its contents over everything.

Such was her struggle to find two clean sheets of paper and a pen that she finally dumped the contents of the drawer on top of the table and went to the task seriously. The very first thing that came under her hand was a heavy packet.

Turning it face up, she read, with surprise, a large feminine handwriting which said:

Mr. Code Schofield, kindness of Captain B. Tanner

Letter enclosed.

At the right-hand side of the envelope was this:

5----10s 10----5s 50----1s -------- $150

Nellie Tanner stared at the envelope. It was the handwriting that held her. She had seen it before. She had once been honorary a.s.sistant treasurer of the Church of England chapel, and it suddenly came to her that this was the handwriting that had adorned Elsa Mallaby's checks and subscriptions.

She knew she had solved the problem the instant the answer came. Elsa had been to Boston to school, and the fact was very evident. She sat and stared at the black letters, flexing the packet filled with bills.

"Why should Elsa Mallaby be sending money to Code Schofield?"

Everybody in Freekirk Head knew that Code Schofield went up to Elsa Mallaby's to dinner occasionally. So did other people in the village, but not so often as he. There had been a little gossip concerning the two of them, but, while Code was an excellent enough fellow, it was hardly probable that a rich widow like Elsa would throw herself away on a poor _fisherman_. They _forgot_ that she had done so the first time she married, and that she had the sea in her blood.

These shreds of gossip returned to Nellie now with accrued interest, and she began to believe in the theory of fire being behind smoke.

She also remembered the night of the ma.s.s-meeting in Odd Fellows Hall when Code had made his suggestion of going to the Banks. There had flashed between Elsa's velvet-dark eyes and Code's blue ones a message of intimacy of which the town knew nothing. Every one saw the look, and nearly every one talked about it, but they did not know that only a couple of nights before Elsa had been the one to put Code on guard against his enemies, and that he was more than grateful.

"I'd just like to know what's in that letter so as to tease him the next time we meet," she said gaily to herself. She was now out of all mood for writing her letter home, and, stuffing the contents of the drawer back into place, she returned the latter to the table and went on deck.

The sea was running higher. The new topmast was up, and within half an hour the _Rosan_ heeled to the wind and plowed her way northward after the remainder of the fleet.

CHAPTER XV

THE CATCH OF THE ROSAN

At the forecastle head of the _Rosan_ stood a youth tolling the ship's bell. The windla.s.s grunted and whined as the schooner came up on her hawser with a thump, and overhead a useless jib slatted and rattled.

The youth could scarcely see aft of the foremast because of the thickness of the weather, but he could hear what was going on. There was a thump, a slimy slapping of wet fish, and a voice counting monotonously as its owner forked his forenoon's catch into the pen amidships.

"Forty-nine," said the voice. "All right, boys, swing her in." And a moment later the dory, hauled high, dropped down into her nest.