The Secret of the Reef Part 45

Jimmy colored. Clay's manner was significant, but not hostile. Ill as the man was, Jimmy imagined that he was cleverly playing a game, and, with some object, was trying to turn his recent opponent into an ally.

For all that, Jimmy thought his motive was good.

"I mustn't keep you talking too long," Jimmy said. He did not wish to discuss Miss...o...b..rne.

"I soon get tired; but there's something I must mention. You'll clean the wreck out in a few hours, and then you may as well blow her up. My diver will help you, and we have some high-grade powder and a firing outfit."

"It might be wise. If she washed up nearer the bight she would be dangerous. The island's charted, and I dare say vessels now and then run in."

Clay looked at him with a faint twinkle.

"Yes; I think we can take it that she's a danger. I'll tell my man to give you the truck you want and you had better get finished while the weather's fine."

Moving feebly, he held out his hand in sign of dismissal, and Jimmy took it. He had no repugnance to doing so, but he felt that he was making his helpless enemy a promise.

Aynsley was waiting on deck and insisted on Jimmy's staying to dinner.

Although well served, it was a melancholy meal, and Jimmy had a sense of loneliness as he sat at the long table. Aynsley was attentive to his comfort and tried to make conversation, but he was obviously depressed.

"What are your plans?" he asked.

"We start to get out the last of the gold at daybreak," Jimmy answered.

"If we're fortunate, it should take only three or four hours."

"And then?"

"I agreed with your father that we had better blow up the wreck."

"You should get that done before dark to-morrow."

"I think so, if the water keeps smooth. In fact, I dare say we'll have finished in the afternoon."

"That's a relief," declared Aynsley. "Perhaps I'm not tactful in reminding you that I don't know-and don't want to know-what your business with my father is, but he's seriously ill, and we ought to get away at once in order to put him in a good doctor's hands as soon as possible. The trouble is that he won't hear of our leaving until you have completed the job."

"We'll lose no time," Jimmy a.s.sured him. "The gla.s.s is dropping, but I don't expect much wind just yet."

"Thanks!" Aynsley responded with deep feeling. "There's another thing-if the wind's light or unfavorable, we'll start under steam and could tow you south as long as it keeps fine. It may save you a few days. And you could stay with us if your friends can spare you. To tell the truth, it would be a kindness to me. I'm worried, and want somebody to talk to."

Jimmy agreed, and was shortly afterward rowed back to the sloop.

By noon the next day they had brought up the last of the gold. After a hasty luncheon, they went down again, but their next task took some time, because the diver insisted on clamping the charges of dynamite firmly to the princ.i.p.al timbers and boring holes in some. Then a series of wires had to be taken below and coupled, and it was nearly supper time when Jimmy came up from his last descent.

A faint breeze flecked the leaden water with ripples too languid to break on the sloop's bows; the island was wrapped in fog, and the swell was gentle. Only a dull murmur rose from the hidden beach. To seaward it was clearer and the yacht rode, a long white shape, lifting her bows with a slow and rhythmic swing, while a gray cloud that spread in a hazy smear rose nearly straight up from her funnel. The sloop's cable was hove short and everything was ready for departure. Her crew sat in the c.o.c.kpit watching the diver fit the wires to the contact-plug of the firing battery.

The men on the sloop were filled with keen impatience. They had borne many hardships and perils in those lonely waters, and, now that their work was finished, they wanted to get away. There was a mystery connected with the wreck, but they thought they would never unravel it, and, on the whole, they had no wish to try. They were anxious to see the end of her and to leave the fog-wrapped island.

"I guess we're all ready," the diver said at last. "See that you have left nothing loose to fall overboard: she'll shift some water."

He inserted the firing-plug; and a moment afterward the sea opened some distance ahead and rolled back from a gap in the bottom of which shattered timber churned about. Then a foaming wave rose suddenly from the chasm, tossing up black ma.s.ses of planking and ponderous beams. A few, rearing on end, shot out of the water and fell with a heavy splash among fountains of spray, while a white ridge swept furiously toward the sloop. It broke before it reached her, but she flung her bows high as she plunged over the troubled swell, and the yacht rolled heavily with a yeasty wash along her side.

Jimmy ran forward with a sense of keen satisfaction to break out the anchor. The powerful charge had done its work; the wreck had gone.

While the _Cetacea_ drifted slowly with the stream the yacht's windla.s.s began to clank, and a few minutes later she steamed toward the smaller craft. Her gig brought off a hawser, and a message inviting Jimmy to come on board. As soon as he reached her deck the gig was run up to the davits and the throb of engines quickened. The sloop, swinging into line astern, followed along the screw-cut wake, and in half an hour the fog-bank about the island faded out of sight.

Jimmy felt more cheerful when he dined with Aynsley in the saloon. The depression that had rested on them all seemed to have been lifted with the disappearance of the wreck. Even Clay appeared to be brighter. He sent a request for Jimmy to come to him as soon as he finished dinner.

When Jimmy entered the cabin, Clay lay in his berth, comfortably raised on pillows. He gave Jimmy a friendly nod.

"She's gone? You made a good job?"

"Yes," Jimmy answered cheerfully. "We didn't spare the dynamite."

Clay beckoned him forward, and, reaching out awkwardly to a small table by his berth, took up a gla.s.s of champagne. Another stood near it, ready filled.

"I make a bad host and soon get tired, but Aynsley will do his best for you," he said cordially. He smiled and raised his gla.s.s. "Good luck to you; you're a white man!"

Jimmy drained his gla.s.s, and took Clay's from his shaking hand. When the elder man thanked him with a gesture, Jimmy saw that he was too ill to talk, and he went out quietly and joined Aynsley on deck.

He spent three days on board the yacht, which steamed steadily south, but late on the fourth night a steward awakened him.

"It's blowing fresh, sir," he said. "The captain thought you'd like to know your boat's towing very wild and he can't hold on to her long."

Jimmy had been prepared for such an emergency, and he was on deck in five minutes, fully dressed with his sea-boots and slickers on; and Aynsley joined him in the lee of the deckhouse with a pilot coat over his pajamas. The engines were turning slowly, and the rolling of the yacht and the showers of spray showed that the sea was getting up.

"They're launching the gig," Aynsley said. "I wish we could keep you, but I suppose your friends need you?"

"Thanks! They couldn't navigate her home."

Jimmy ran toward the bulwarks and shouted to a group of seamen:

"Don't bother with that ladder, boys!"

Somebody lighted a blue flare on the deckhouse top, and the strong light showed the gig lurching on the broken heave on the yacht's lee side.

Near by, the _Cetacea_ lay plunging with her staysail up, while a dark figure on her deck flashed a lantern. Jimmy shook hands with Aynsley and sprang up on the rail; then, leaning out, seized a davit-fall and slid swiftly down. A man released the tackle-hook and pushed off the gig; the oars splashed and a sea swept her away from the yacht. In a few minutes Jimmy jumped on board the sloop and helped Moran to cast off the hawser while the gig struggled back. Another flare was burning, and he saw the boat hoisted in. Then the blaze sank down and, with a farewell blast of her whistle, the steamer vanished into the dark.

Spray leaped about the rolling sloop, her low deck was swept by the hurling sea, and a tangle of hard, wet ropes swung about the mast.

"We've double-reefed the mainsail and bent on the storm-jib," Moran said, above the noise of the sea. "She'll carry that lot with the wind on her quarter."

"She ought to," replied Jimmy. "Up with the throat!"

Fumbling in the dark, they hoisted the thrashing sail, and when the _Cetacea_ listed down until her rail was in the foam Jimmy went aft to relieve Bethune at the helm.

"She'll make a short pa.s.sage if this breeze holds," he said cheerfully.

"As I've had three nights' good sleep, I'll take the first watch."

While the sloop was driving wildly south before the following seas, or beating slowly in long tacks when the breeze fell light and drew ahead, the yacht skimmed over the water at her best speed; and one gray morning she steamed up Puget Sound, and a low blast of her whistle rang dolefully as she pa.s.sed Osborne's house. Clay had made his last voyage; she brought his lifeless body home.