The Harbor of Doubt Part 31

"Well, what can you suggest? How else did he get it?" Elsa was frankly sceptical and clung to her own theory.

"He might have come aboard for something else, mightn't he, and picked up the mirror just incidentally?"

"He might have, yes, but what else would bring him there?"

Code sat rigid for a few minutes. He had such a thought that he scarcely dared consider it himself.

"It's all clear to me now," he said in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice. "Nat came aboard to damage the schooner so that he would be sure to win the second race."

"Code!" The cry was one of involuntary horror as Elsa remembered the tragedy of the _May_. Hate Nate though she might, this was an awful charge to lay at his door.

"Then he killed his own father, if what you say is true!" she added breathlessly. "Oh, the poor wretch! The poor wretch!"

"Yes, that solves it," went on Code, who had hardly heard her. "That solves the entries that Michael Burns made in his ship's log before he went to St. John on his last business trip. Nat swore he could not lose, and the old man, who was honest enough himself, must have wondered what his son was up to.

"This mirror proves that Nat must have been aboard the schooner secretly; what he told his father and his eagerness to bet with me on a proposition that seemed foolhardy on the face of it clinch the thing in my mind. The misguided fool! That, Elsa, is an example of how low a man will go who has been spoiled and brought up without the slightest idea of self-control."

"Why, you're preaching to me, Code," laughed the girl, and he joined her. But she sobered in a moment.

"This is all very fine theory," she said, "and I half believe it myself, but it's worthless; you haven't a grain of proof. Tell me, have you ever thought over the details of the sinking of the _May?_"

"Only once," groaned Schofield, "and I--I hate to do it, Elsa. I'd rather not. Every time I think of that awful day I sweat with sheer horror. Every incident of it is engraved on my brain."

"But listen, Code, you must think about it for once, and think about it with all your mind. Tell me everything that happened. It is vital to our case; it may save the whole thing from being worthless. Even if we get nothing you must make the effort."

Code knew that what Elsa said was true. With an effort he focused his mind back on that awful day and began.

"There was a good sea that day," he said, "and more than half a gale out of the northeast. If it had been any other day I shouldn't have taken the old _May_ out at all, because she was loaded very deep. But the whole trip was a hurry call and they wanted me to get back to Mignon with the salt as soon as I could.

"Old Burns saw me on the wharf and asked if he could go along as pa.s.senger. I said he could, and we started early in the morning. Now that day wasn't anything unusual, Elsa. I've been in a lot worse gales in the _May_, but not with her so deep; but I didn't think anything would happen.

"Everything went all right for three hours, with the wind getting fresher all the time, and the vessel under four lowers, which was a pretty big strain on any schooner. As I say, she should have stood it, but all of a sudden, on a big lurch, the fore topm'st that hadn't a rag on her broke off short and banged down, hanging by the guys. With one swipe it smashed the foregaff to splinters, and half the canvas hung down flapping like a great wing.

"I couldn't understand it. I knew the topm'st was in a weakened condition, but not as rotten as punk, and I supposed my foregaff was as solid a piece of timber as ever went into a vessel.

"But listen!" as Elsa started to speak. "That isn't all. The flapping canvas, with part of the gaff, pounded around like the devil let loose for the ten seconds before we couldn't loosen the halyards and lower away the wreckage, but in that time it had parted the mainstay in two like a woman snipping a thread.

"Mind that, Elsa, a steel mainstay an inch thick. I never heard of one parting in my life before. Things were happening so fast that I couldn't keep track of them, and now, just at the crucial minute, the old _May_ jibed, fell off from the wind, and went into the trough of the sea. A great wave came then, ripped her rudder off (I found this as soon as I tried to use the wheel) and swept the decks, taking one man.

"Meanwhile the mainmast, with one stay gone, was whipping from side to side like a great, loose stick. I put the wheel in the becket and in one jump released the mains'l throat-halyards, while another fellow released the peak. The sail came down on the run in the lazy jacks and the men jumped on it and began to crowd it into some kind of a furl.

"I jumped back to the wheel and tried to bring her up into the wind, but I might as well have tried to steer an ocean liner with a sculling sweep. Not only was her rudder gone, but the tiller ropes were parted on each side. It was damaged beyond repair!

"Once I read in school the funny poem of an American named Holmes. It was called the 'One Hoss Shay,' and it told about an old chaise that, after a hundred years of service, suddenly went to pieces all at the same time and the same place. Even, in that time of danger, the memory of the 'One Hoss Shay' came to me, and I thought that the _May Schofield_ was doing exactly the same thing, although only half as old."

"And then what happened?" asked Elsa, who had sat breathless through Code's narrative.

"There's not much more to tell," he said, with an involuntary shudder.

"It was too much for the old girl with that load in her. She began to wallow and drive toward the Wolves that I had caught a glimpse of through the scud. She hadn't got halfway there when the mainmast came down (bringing nearly everything with it) and hung over the starboard quarter, dragging the vessel down like a stoat hanging to a duck's leg.

"After that it was easy to see she was doomed. We chopped away at the tangle of wreckage whenever we got a chance, but that wasn't often, because, in her present position, the waves raked her every second and we had to hang on for dear life.

"And then she began to go to pieces--which was the beginning of the end. All hands knew it was to be every man for himself. We had no life preservers, and our one big dory had been smashed when the wreckage came down."

Code's face was working with suppressed emotion, and Elsa reached out her hand and touched his.

"Don't tell me any more," she said; "I know the rest. Let's talk about the present."

"Thanks, Elsa," he said, gratefully.

"How long have you thought that the schooner was a second 'one hoss shay'?"

"Until this talk with you. I would never have thought anything else.

It's the logical thing to think, isn't it? All my neighbors at Freekirk Head, except those who believe the evil they hear, have told me half a dozen times that that is what must have happened to the _May_. She had lived her life and that last great strain, combined with the race the week before, was too much for her. I simply could not explain those things happening."

"Yes, but you can now, can't you?" she asked coolly.

Reluctantly he faced the issue, but he faced it squarely.

"Yes, I can. Nat expected me to sail the _May_ in a race, so he weakened my topm'st and mainstay. Of course, when there is sport in it you set every kite you've got in your lockers and, you know, Elsa, I never took my mains'l in yet while there was one standing in the fleet, even ordinary fishing days."

"I know it; you've scared me half to death a dozen times with your sail-carrying."

"And mind, Elsa, I'd been warned by all the wiseacres in Freekirk Head that my sticks would carry away sometime in a gale o' wind. Nat banked on that, too, and it shows how clever he was, forever since the _May_ sank I've had men tell me I shouldn't have carried four lowers that day.

"He planned to weaken me where I needed sail most and he succeeded.

Why, Elsa, that topm'st must have been sawed a quarter of the way through and that mainstay as much again. I don't really believe he did anything to the foregaff; it appeared to be the natural result of the topm'st's falling, but the damage he did resulted in the wreck of the schooner--"

"And the death of his own father. Yes, Code, we've got him where he is probably the wretchedest man in the world. Fury and hurt pride made him injure the _May_ so he would be sure to win the second time, and instead of that fate intervened, sent you on the cargo voyage, and killed his father. Now it is perfectly plain to me why he is charging you with all these crimes."

"Why?"

"Nat is a weak nature, because uncontrolled, and when weak natures do wrong they suffer agonies of fear that they will be found out. Nat committed this double crime in a momentary pa.s.sion. Then as the weeks pa.s.sed by and the village talked of nothing else, he finally began to fear that he would be found out.

"There was no one who _could_ have found him out, but there was that haunting terror of the weak nature.

"Somebody spoke a word, perhaps in jest, that you must have wanted a new schooner since the _May's_ policy was to run out so soon, and he seized the thought in a frenzy of joy and began to spread rumors. This grip on you gave him courage. He remembered that his revenge against you was still unsatisfied and it became clear to him that perhaps, after all, he could get one much more complete.

"Code, the picture of that man's mind is a terrible one to me. He may have hated you before, but just think how he must have hated you after knowing how he had wronged and was going to ruin you. It is only the one of two people who _does_ the injury whose hatred grows. An injured person who is sensible in regard to such matters, as you have been with Nat all your life, throws them off and thinks nothing more about them.

"So Nat's hatred of you and the fear of discovery, preying on his mind, finally urged him into the course he has taken."

"And he went into it with open eyes," rejoined Code, "for his plans were perfect. He pays his crew double wages and they ask no questions.

Had it not been for you on two occasions I should have been in jail long before this."

"Yes, but now that is past--"

"No," interrupted Code, "it isn't, Elsa. He has just as much power over me as he ever had. I am still a criminal at large to be arrested, and you can wager your last dollar that if he can bring it about I will be picked up by the first gunboat that finds me."