The Secret of the Reef Part 23

"I think so, but the experience was unpleasant, and I don't feel tempted to recall the thing."

Afterward he talked amusingly about something else, and half an hour had pa.s.sed when he got up.

"I expect it's cooler on the beach," he said. "Will any of you come along?"

They sat still, except Osborne, who rose and followed him, and when they reached a spot where the trees hid them from the house Clay stopped.

"I suppose what you heard was a bit of a shock," he remarked.

"It was a surprise. I don't think you were tactful in making so much of the affair."

"One has to take a risk, and if I'd waited until I had Aynsley alone and then made him tell me what he knew, it might have looked significant. In a general way, the thing you're willing to talk over in public isn't of much account."

"There's truth in that," Osborne a.s.sented.

"I have no wish to set the boy thinking," Clay resumed. "I take it we're both anxious that our children should believe the best of us."

His glance was searching, and Osborne made a sign of agreement.

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Trace the sloop. We don't want mysterious strangers prospecting round that reef. When I've found out all I can, the fellows will have to be bought or beaten off."

"Very well; I leave the thing to you."

"Rather out of your line now?" Clay suggested with an ironical smile.

"However, I will admit you deserve some sympathy."

"For that matter, we both need it. You're no better off than I am."

"I think I am," Clay replied. "My character is pretty well known and has been attacked so often that n.o.body attaches much importance to a fresh disclosure; in fact, people seem to find something humorous in my smartness. You're fixed differently; though you slipped up once, you afterward took a safe and steady course."

Osborne lighted a cigar to hide his feelings; for his companion's jibe had reached its mark. He had when poverty rendered the temptation strong, engaged in an unlawful conspiracy with Clay, and the profit he made by it had launched him on what he took care should be a respectable business career. Now and then, perhaps, and particularly when he acted in concert with Clay, his dealings would hardly have pa.s.sed a high standard of ethics, but on the whole they could be defended, and he enjoyed a good name on the markets. Now a deed he heartily regretted, and would have undone had he been able, threatened to rise from the almost forgotten past and torment him. Worse than all, he might again be forced into a crooked path to cover up his fault.

"We won't gain anything by arguing who might suffer most," he said as coolly as he could.

"No; I guess that's useless," Clay agreed. "Well, I must get on those fellows' trail and see what I can do."

They strolled along the beach for a while, and then went back to the others.

While Clay traced her movements as far as they could be learned, the _Cetacea_ was slowly working north. She met with light, baffling winds, and calms, and then was driven into a lonely inlet by a fresh gale. Here she was detained for some time, and adverse winds still dogged her course when she put to sea again, though they were no longer gentle, but brought with them a piercing rawness from the Polar ice. Her crew grew anxious and moody as they stubbornly thrashed her to windward under shortened sail, for every day at sea increased the strain on their finances and the open-water season was short.

In the sharp cold of a bl.u.s.tering morning Jimmy got up from the locker upon which he had spent a few hours in heavy sleep. His limbs felt stiff, his clothes were damp, and at his first move he b.u.mped his head against a deck-beam. Sitting down with muttered grumbling, he pulled on his soaked knee-boots and looked moodily about. Daylight was creeping through the cracked skylight, and showed that the underside of the deck was dripping. Big drops chased one another along the slanted beams and fell with a splash into the lee bilge. Water oozed in through the seams on her hove-up weather side and washed about the lower part of the inclined floor, several inches deep. The wild plunging and the m.u.f.fled roar outside the planking showed that she was sailing hard and the wind was fresh.

Jimmy grumbled at his comrades for not having pumped her out, and then shivered as he jammed himself against the centerboard trunk and tried to light the rusty stove. It was wet and would not draw and the smoke puffed out. He was choking and nearly blinded when he put the kettle on and went up on deck, somewhat short in temper. Moran was sitting stolidly at the helm, m.u.f.fled in a wet slicker, with the spray blowing about him; Bethune crouched in the shelter of the coaming, while white-topped seas with gray sides tumbled about the boat. An angry red flush was spreading, rather high up, in the eastern sky.

"You made a lot of smoke," Bethune remarked.

"I did," said Jimmy. "If you'll get forward and swing the funnel-cowl, which you might have done earlier, you'll let some of it out. I'm glad it's your turn to cook, but you had better spend ten minutes at the pump before you go."

Bethune, rising, stretched himself with an apologetic laugh.

"Oh, well," he said; "I was so cold I felt I didn't want to do anything."

"It's not an uncommon sensation," Jimmy replied. "The best way to get rid of it is to work. If you'll shift that cowl, I'll prime the pump."

Bethune shuffled forward, and, coming back, pumped for a few strokes.

Then he stopped and leaned on the handle.

"You really think we'll raise the island to-day?" he asked.

"Yes. But it isn't easy to shoot the sun when you can hardly see it and have a remarkably unsteady horizon. Then, though she has laid her course for the last two days, I haven't much confidence in the log we're towing."

He indicated the wet line that ran over the stern and stretched back to where a gleam of bra.s.s was visible in the hollow of a sea.

"What could you expect?" Bethune asked. "We got the thing for half its proper price, and, to do it justice, it goes pretty well after a bath in oil, and when it stops it does so altogether. You know how to deal with a distance recorder that sticks and stays so, but one that sticks and goes on again plays the devil."

"Talking's easier than pumping," Jimmy said suggestively.

"It is, but I feel like working off a few more remarks. They occurred to me while I sat behind the coaming, numbed right through, last night. I suppose you have noticed how the poor but enterprising man is generally handicapped. He gets no encouragement in taking the hard and virtuous path. It needs some nerve to make a start, and afterward, instead of things getting easier, you fall in with all kinds of obstacles you couldn't reasonably expect. Even the elements conspire against you; it's always windward work."

"I suppose this means you're sorry you came?"

"Not exactly; but I've begun to wonder what's the good of it all. I haven't slept in dry clothes for a fortnight. It's a week since any of us had a decent meal; and my slicker has rubbed a nasty sore on my wrist. All the time I could have had three square meals a day, and spent my leisure reading a dirty newspaper and watching them sweep up the dead flies in the hotel lounge. What I want to know is-whether any ambition's worth the price you have to pay for gratifying it?"

"I should say that depends on your temperament."

"Bethune does some fool-talking now and then," Moran commented from his post at the helm. "When you go to sea for your living, you must expect to get up against all a man can stand for; and if you don't put up a good fight, she'll beat you. That's one reason you'd better get your pumping done before she ships a comber."

With a gesture of acquiescence Bethune resumed his task, and presently went below while Jimmy took the helm. The breeze freshened during the morning, and the sea got heavier, but it dropped in the afternoon, when they ran into a fog belt, which Jimmy thought indicated land. As the days were getting shorter, they set the topsail, and looked out eagerly until a faint gray blur appeared amid the haze, perhaps a mile away.

Closing with it, they made out the beach, which Jimmy searched with the gla.s.ses after consulting his notebook.

"Luff!" he called to Bethune. "Now steady at that; I've got my first two marks." Then he motioned to Moran. "Clear your anchor!"

A few minutes afterward he completed his four-point bearing, and the _Cetacea_ stopped, head to wind, with a rattle of running chain. The sea was comparatively smooth in the lee of the land, and ran in a long swell that broke into a curl of foam here and there. Bethune took up the gla.s.ses and turned them on the beach.

"It is some time since high-water, and we ought to see her soon," he said. "I'm trying to find the big boulder on the point." He paused and put down the gla.s.ses. "Do you see anything?"

"No," said Moran gruffly; "she should be showing."

"That's true," Bethune agreed. "The tallest timber used to be above water when the top of the boulder was just awash, and now its bottom's a foot from the tide."

Jimmy said nothing, but seizing the dory savagely, he threw her over the rail and jumped into her with a coil of rope. Moran followed and lowered a bight of the rope while Jimmy rowed. Some minutes pa.s.sed, but they felt nothing, and Bethune watched them from the sloop with an intent face. It looked as if the wreck had broken up and disappeared. Then as the dory turned, taking a different track, the rope tightened and Moran looked up.

"Got her now! She's moved, and there may not be much of her holding together."

Jimmy stopped rowing, and there was silence for a moment or two. It would take time to unpack and fit the diving pumps, and sunset was near, but neither of them felt equal to bearing the strain of suspense until daybreak.

"It may blow in the morning," Jimmy said.