The Woman-Haters Part 41

"I ordered you to pump," said Seth. "Now then, you come and pump!"

"Let go!" screamed his captive. "Take your hands off me, or--"

The back of his head striking the deck put a period in the middle of his sentence. The next moment he was being dragged by the collar to the little hand pump amidships.

"Pump!" roared the lightkeeper. "Pump! or I'll break your everlastin'

neck. Lively now!"

The dazed genius rose to his knees. "What--" he stammered. "Where--"

"Right there in front of you. Lively, you lubber!"

A well-directed kick helped to facilitate liveliness.

"What shall I do?" wailed Bennie D., fumbling the pump brake. "How does it go?"

"Up and down--so." Seth jerked his victim's head up and down, by way of ill.u.s.tration. "Now, then," he continued, "you pump till I say quit, or I'll--I swan to man I'll make a spare tops'l out of your hide!"

He left the inventor working as he had not worked in the memory of man, and strode back to the wheel. Mrs. Bascom was clinging to the spokes for dear life.

"I--I ain't dropped it, Seth," she declared. "Truly I ain't."

"All right. You can drop it now. I'll take it myself. You set down and rest."

He took the wheel and she collapsed, breathless, against the rail. After a time she ventured to ask a question.

"Seth!" she said, "how do you know which way to steer?"

"I don't," was the reply. "All I'm tryin' to do is keep her afore it. If this no'theast wind would hold, we'd be all right, but it's dyin' fast.

And the tide must be at flood, if not startin' to go out. With no wind, and no anchor, and the kind of ebb tide there'll be pretty soon--well, if we don't drift out to sea we'll be lucky. . . . Pump! pump! you son of a roustabout. If I hear you stoppin' for a second I'll come for'ard and murder you."

Bennie D., who had ventured to rest for a moment, bent his aching back to the task. Was this man-slaughtering tyrant his mild-mannered, meek brother-in-law, the creature whom he had brow-beaten so often and managed so effectively? He could not understand--but he pumped.

Perhaps Seth did not understand, either; perhaps he did not try to.

Yet the explanation was simple and natural. The sea, the emergency, the danger, his own deck beneath his feet--these were like old times, here was a situation he knew how to handle. He forgot that he was a lightkeeper absent from duty, forgot that one of his pa.s.sengers was the wife he had run away from, and the other his bugbear, the dreaded and formidable Bennie D. He forgot all this and was again the able seaman, the Tartar skipper who, in former days, made his crews fear, respect, and swear by him.

And he reveled in his authority. Once Mrs. Bascom rose to peer over the rail.

"Emeline," he snapped, "didn't I tell you to set down and set still?

Must I give orders twice? SET DOWN!"

Emeline "set."

The wind died to fitful gusts. The schooner barely moved. The fog was as thick as ever. Still Seth did not lose courage. When the housekeeper ventured to murmur that she was certain they would drown, he rea.s.sured her.

"Keep your pennant mast-high, Emeline," he said cheerfully. "We ain't out at sea, that's sure and sartin. And, until we get in the breakers, we're safe enough. The old gal leaks some; she ain't as dry as a Good-Templar prayer meetin', but she's afloat. And when I'm afloat I ain't afraid, and you needn't be."

Some time after that he asked a question in his turn.

"Emeline," he said, "what in the world are you doin' here, on my schooner?"

"Your schooner, Seth? Yours? Is this dreadful--is this boat yours?"

"Yup. She's mine. I bought her just for fun a long spell ago, and I've been fussin' with her ever since. But I did it FOR fun; I never s'posed she'd take a cruise--like this. And what are you and--him--doin' on her?"

Mrs. Bascom hesitated. "It was all an accident, Seth," she explained.

"This has been an awful night--and day. Bennie and I was out ridin'

together, and we took the wrong road. We got lost, and the rain was awful. We got out of the buggy to stand under some trees where 'twas drier. The horse got scared at some limbs fallin' and run off. Then it was most dark, and we got down to the sh.o.r.e and saw this boat. There wa'n't any water round her then. Bennie, he climbed aboard and said the cabin was dry, so we went into it to wait for the storm to let up. But it kept gettin' worse. When we came out of the cabin it was all fog like this and water everywhere. Bennie was afraid to wade, for we couldn't see the sh.o.r.e, so we went back into the cabin again. And then, all at once, there was a b.u.mp that knocked us both sprawlin'. The lantern went out, and when we come on deck we were afloat. It was terrible. And then--and then you came, Seth, and saved our lives."

"Humph! Maybe they ain't saved yet. . . . Emeline, where was you drivin'

to?"

"Why, we was drivin' home, or thought we was."

"Home?"

"Yes, home--back to the bungalow."

"You was?"

"Yes."

A pause. Then: "Emeline, there's no use your tellin' me what ain't so.

I know more than you think I do, maybe. If you was drivin' home why did you take the Denboro road?"

"The Denboro road? Why, we only went on that a ways. Then we turned off on what we thought was the road to the Lights. But it wa'n't; it must have been the other, the one that goes along by the edge of the Back Harbor and the Slough, the one that's hardly ever used. Seth,"

indignantly, "what do you mean by sayin' that I told you what wa'n't so?

Do you think I lie?"

"No. No more than you thought I lied about that Christy critter."

"Seth, I was always sorry for that. I knew you didn't lie. At least I ought to have known you didn't. I--"

"Wait. What did you take the Denboro road at all for?"

"Why--why--Well, Seth, I'll tell you. Bennie wanted to talk to me.

He had come on purpose to see me, and he wanted me to do somethin'

that--that . . . Anyhow, he'd come to see me. I didn't know he was comin'. I hadn't heard from him for two years. That letter I got this--yesterday mornin' was from him, and it most knocked me over."

"You hadn't HEARD from him? Ain't he been writin' you right along?"

"No. The fact is he left me two years ago without even sayin' good-by, and--and I thought he had gone for good. But he hadn't," with a sigh, "he hadn't. And he wanted to talk with me. That's why he took the other road--so's he'd have more time to talk, I s'pose."

"Humph! Emeline, answer me true: Wa'n't you goin' to Denboro to get--to get a divorce from me?"

"A divorce? A divorce from YOU? Seth Bascom, I never heard such--"

She rose from her seat against the rail.