The Harbor of Doubt Part 26

Life aboard the _Nettie B._ had been a dead monotony. On the foremast above Code's prison hung the bell that rang the watches, so that the pa.s.sage of every half hour was dinged into his ears. Three times a day he was given food, and twice a day he was allowed to pace up and down the deck, a man holding tightly to each arm.

The weather had been propitious, with a moderate sea and a good quartering wind. The _Nettie_ had footed it properly, and Code's experienced eye had, on one occasion, seen her log her twelve knots in an hour. The fact had raised his estimation of her fifty per cent.

It must not be supposed that, as Code sat in his hard wooden chair, he forgot the diary that he had read the first afternoon of his incarceration. Often he thought of it, and often he drew it out from its place and reread those last entries: "Swears he will win second race," "Says he can't lose day after to-morrow," "I wonder what the boy has got up his sleeve that makes him so sure he will win?"

At first Code merely ascribed these recorded sayings of Nat Burns to youthful disappointment and a sportsmanlike determination to do better next time. But not for long. He remembered as though it had been yesterday the look with which Nat had favored him when he finally came ash.o.r.e beaten, and the sullen resentment with which he greeted any remarks concerning the race.

There was no sportsmanlike determination about him! Code quickly changed his point of view. How could Nat be so sure he was going to win?

The thing was ridiculous on the face of it. The fifty-year-old _May_ had limped in half an hour ahead of the thirty-year-old _M. C. Burns_ after a race of fifteen miles. How, then, could Nat swear with any degree of certainty that he would win the second time. It was well known that the _M. C. Burns_ was especially good in heavy weather, but how could Nat ordain that there would be just the wind and sea he wanted?

The thing was absurd on the face of it, and, besides, silly braggadocio, if not actually malicious. And even if it were malicious, Code thanked Heaven that the race had not been sailed, and that he had been spared the exhibition of Nat's malice. He had escaped that much, anyway.

However, from motives of general caution, Code decided to take the book with him. Nat had evidently forgotten it, and he felt sure he would get off the ship with it in his possession. Now, as he drew near to St. Andrews, he put it for the last time inside the lining of his coat, and fastened that lining together with pins, of which he always carried a stock under his coat-lapel.

As Schofield had not forgotten the old log of the _M. C. Burns_, neither had he forgotten the threat he made to Nat that he would try his best to escape, and would defy his authority at every turn.

He had tried to fulfil his promise to the letter. Twice he had removed one of the windows before the alert guard detected him, and once he had nearly succeeded in cutting his way through the two-inch planking of his ceiling before the chips and sawdust were discovered, and he was deprived of his clasp-knife.

Every hour of every day his mind had been constantly on this business of escape. Even during the reading, to which he fled to protect his reason, it was the motive of every chapter, and he would drop off in the middle of a page into a reverie, and grow inwardly excited over some wild plan that mapped itself out completely in his feverish brain.

Now as they approached St. Andrew's his determination was as strong as ever, but his resources were exhausted. Double-guarded and without weapons, he found himself helpless. The fevered excitement of the past four days had subsided into a dull apathy of hurt in which his brain was as delicate and alert as the mainspring of a watch. He was resigned to the worst if it came, but was ready, like a panther in a tree, to spring at the slightest false move of his enemies.

Now for the last time he went over his little eight-by-ten prison. He examined the chair as though it were some instrument of the Inquisition. He pulled the bed to pieces and handled every inch of the frame. He emptied every compartment of the queer hanging cabinet that had been stuffed with books and miscellanies; he examined every article in the room.

He had done this a dozen times before, but some instinct drove him to repeat the process. There was always hope of the undiscovered, and, besides, he needed the physical action and the close application of his mind. So, mechanically and doggedly he went over every inch of his little prison.

But in vain.

The roof and walls were of heavy planking and were old. They were full of nicks as well as wood-knots, and the appearance of some of the former gave Code an idea. He went carefully over the boards, sticking his thumb-nail into them and lifting or pressing down as the shape of the nick warranted. For they resembled very much the depressions cut in sliding covers on starch-boxes whereby such covers can be pushed in their grooves.

At any other time he would have considered this the occupation of a madman, but now it kept him occupied and held forth the faint gleam of hope by which he now lived.

Suddenly something happened. He was lying across his immovable cot fingering the boards low down in the right rear corner when he felt something give beneath his thumb. A flash of hope almost stifled him, and he lay quiet for a moment to regain command of himself. Then he put his thumb again in the niche and lifted up. With all his strength he lifted and, all at once, a panel rushed up and stuck, revealing a little box perhaps a foot square that had been built back from the rear wall of the old storeroom.

That was all, except for the fact that something was in the box--a package done up in paper.

For a while he did not investigate the package, but devoted his attention to sounding the rest of the near-by planks with the hope that they might give into a larger opening and furnish a means of egress. For half an hour he worked and then gave up. He had covered every inch of wall and every niche, and this was all!

At last he turned to the contents of the box that he had uncovered.

Removing the package, he slid the cover down over the opening for fear that his guard, looking in a window, might become aware of what he had discovered. Then, sitting on the bed, he unwrapped the package.

It was a beautiful, clear mirror bound with silver nickel and fitted with screw attachments as though it were intended to be fastened to something.

At first this unusual discovery meant nothing whatever to him. Then, as he turned the object listlessly in his hands, his eyes fell upon three engraved letters, C. A. S., and a date, 1908.

Then he remembered.

When he was twenty years old his father had taught him the science of navigation, so that if anything happened Code might sail the old _May Schofield_.

Because of the fact that a position at sea was found by observing the heavenly bodies, Code had become interested in astronomy, and had learned to chart them on a sky map of his own.

The object in his hand was an artificial horizon, a mirror attached to the s.e.xtant which could be fixed at the exact angle of the horizon should the real horizon be obscured. This valuable instrument his father had given him on his twenty-first birthday because the old man had been vastly pleased with his interest in a science of which he himself knew little or nothing.

Code remembered that, for a year or two, he had pursued this hobby of his with deep interest and considerable success, and that his great object in life had been to some day have a small telescope of his own by which to learn more of the secrets of the heavens. But, after his father died, he had been forced to take up the active support of the family, and had let this pa.s.sion die.

But how did it happen that the mirror was here?

He recalled that the rest of his paraphernalia had gone to the bottom with the _May Schofield_. It was true that he had not overhauled his equipment for some time, and that it had been in a drawer in the _May's_ cabin, but that drawer had not been opened.

He pursued the train of thought no farther. His brain was tired and his head ached with the strain of the last five days. His last hope of escape had only resulted in his finding a forgotten mirror, and his despair shut out any other consideration. He had not even the fire to resent the fact that it was in Burns's possession, and concealed.

It was his, he knew, and, without further thought of it, he thrust it into his pocket just as he heard the men outside his little prison talking together excitedly.

"By George, she looks like a gunboat," said one. "I wonder what she wants?"

"Yes, there's her colors. You can see the sun shinin' on her bra.s.s guns forward."

"There, she's signalin'. I wonder what she wants?"

Code walked idly to his windows and peered out, but could not see the vessel that the men were talking about.

"She wants us to heave to, boys," sang out Nat suddenly. "Stand by to bring her up into the wind. Hard down with your wheel, John!"

As the schooner's head veered Code caught a glimpse of a schooner-rigged vessel half a mile away with uniformed men on her decks and two gleaming bra.s.s cannon forward. Then she pa.s.sed out of vision.

"She's sending a cutter aboard," said one man.

CHAPTER XXIII

SURPRISES

Fifteen minutes later a small boat, rowed smartly by six sailors in white canvas, came alongside the 'midships ladder of the _Nettie B._ At a word from the officer the six oars rose as one vertically into the air, and the bowman staved off the cutter so that she brought up without a scratch.

A young man in dark blue sprang out of the stern-sheets upon the deck.

"_Nettie B._ of Freekirk Head?" he asked. "Captain Burns commanding?"

"Yes," said Nat, stepping forward, "I am Captain Burns. What do you want?"

"I come from the gunboat _Albatross_," said the officer, "and represent Captain Foraker. You have on board, have you not, a man named Code Schofield, also of Freekirk Head, under arrest for the murder of a man or men on the occasion of the sinking of his schooner?"

Nat scowled.