Thrice Armed Part 20

A deep blast rent the turmoil of the sea, and the _Shasta_, swinging around a trifle, rolled away to the rescue. It was some twenty minutes later when she stopped, and lay plunging head to sea with the little wallowing schooner close to lee of her. The light was going, but Jimmy could see a shapeless figure that clung to her rail gesticulating with flung-up arm. The wreck of a boat, apparently smashed by the falling mast, lay across her hatch, and there was another half-seen man at her wheel. Jimmy stood still for a few moments with his hand on the telegraph, and he was glad to remember that there were several former sealing-schooner hands among his crew, for what they do not know about boat-work is worth no man's learning.

He let the _Shasta_ swing a little to give them a lee on one side of her, and while the sea smote and spouted in green cataracts across her weather-rail they swung a boat over, and two men, one of whom was a Siwash, dropped into her. That was enough to steer her while she blew to windward, and Jimmy dared risk no more. They got her away, apparently undamaged, and he sent the _Shasta_ slowly ahead when she plunged over a seatop veiled in a cloud of spray. It would be beyond the power of flesh and blood to pull that boat back, and the _Shasta_ swung in a wide half-circle to leeward of the schooner. Her crew had evidently tried to heave her to, but without her after-canvas she had fallen off again, and was forging ahead with the _Shasta_'s boat smothered in foam beneath her rail. She was going to leeward bodily, and Jimmy fancied she was about a mile nearer the crag than when he had first seen her. It was evident to everybody that he had no time to lose.

He shouted with arm flung up, and, though it was doubtful whether anybody heard him, the schooner's boom foresail came thrashing down, and two men who leapt upon her rail fell into the boat. Then he thrust down his telegraph, and, as the _Shasta_ forged by, the boat drove down on her. She struck the steamer's hove-up side with a crash that stove several strakes of planking in, and men jumped for the flung-down lines as she filled. They scrambled up them, four in all, and, for one of them had hooked on the davit falls, the _Shasta_'s winch banged and rattled as they hove the boat in with the water streaming out through her shattered side at every roll. The men had, however, brought a rope with them, and the winch next hove the schooner's stoutest hawser off. It was made fast, and rose splashing from the sea when Jimmy touched his telegraph again, while, when at last the schooner fell into line astern, a very wet man clambered to the bridge.

"Are you fit to pull her out?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Jimmy; "I'm going to try. How did you get so far insh.o.r.e, and have you left anybody to steer her?"

The man made a vague gesture. "Mainmast went beneath the hounds. She's been driving to leeward since, and she'd have been ash.o.r.e in another hour if we hadn't fallen in with you. The old man's at her wheel. Built her himself 'most fifteen years ago, and nothing would shift him out of her."

Jimmy glanced astern, and for a few moments saw a gray face of rock loom out of the haze with the sea spouting dimly white at its feet. Then a thicker fold of vapor rolled about it, and the daylight faded suddenly.

He could scarcely see the schooner lurching along behind them with jib still set, though the sail thrashed now and then. Indeed, his eyes were growing very heavy, and he realized that after forty-eight hours'

continuous watching he could not keep himself awake much longer. A simple calculation showed him that it would be daylight again before he could put his helm up and run for shelter, when it would be imperatively necessary for him to be on his bridge; and calling his Scandinavian mate, he left the _Shasta_ in his charge.

"Keep her going as she's heading now," he said. "You'll see I've headed her up a few points to allow for the leeward drag of the tow. You can call me in a couple of hours, or earlier if there's any change in the weather."

He clawed his way down from the bridge to the little room beneath it, and shed only his streaming oilskins before he flung himself into his bunk. He was asleep in two or three minutes, and slept soundly while the water oozed from his wet garments, until he was roused by a shouting.

Then his door was flung open, and a man thrust his head in.

"Mr. Lindstrom figures you'd better get up," he said. "The tow has parted her hawser, and gone adrift."

Jimmy was out of his bunk in a moment, and in a few more had scrambled to his bridge. Lindstrom, the Scandinavian, shouted something he did not hear, but that did not very much matter, for the one question was, where was the schooner, and Jimmy was tolerably certain that n.o.body knew. His light had been burning, and for the first few moments he could see nothing but blackness, out of which there drove continuous showers of stinging spray. Then he made out the filmy cloud it sprang from at the _Shasta_'s bows, and swept his gaze aloft toward the pale silver streak above her mastheads, which showed where the half-moon might come through. As he did so, the Scandinavian gripped his shoulder, and he saw a red twinkle widen into a wind-blown flame low down upon the sea. Now he could, at least, locate the tow.

"Did you get a sight of the beach? How far were we off?" he shouted.

"A low point," said Lindstrom, "which I do not know. One mile, I guess it, and we head her out more off sh.o.r.e."

Jimmy was a trifle startled. Though the water is deep along that coast, a mile leaves very small margin for contingencies, and he fancied that the tow, blowing to leeward, would cover it in half an hour. In that case there was not the slightest doubt as to what would then happen to her. She might, perhaps, last five minutes as a vessel, for the reefs are hard and there is a tremendous striking force in the long Pacific seas. Another point was equally clear. He had some twenty minutes in which to overhaul the schooner and take her skipper off, and no boat to do the latter with. If he failed to accomplish it in the time, it was very probable that the _Shasta_ would go ash.o.r.e, and he did not think that any one would escape by swimming. Still, he meant to do what he could, and once more he set the whistle shrieking as he shouted to the helmsman.

The _Shasta_ came round, and drove away into the darkness, for the light had died out again and there was nothing visible ahead but the dim white tops of frothing seas. Five minutes pa.s.sed, and Jimmy felt the tension, for they were steaming toward destruction, and it was quite possible that they might run past the schooner or straight over her. Then a shaft of moonlight struck the climbing pines high up in front of him, and it seemed to him that he was already almost under them. He set his lips, and clenched the hand he would not raise in warning to the helmsman while the pale watery moonlight crept lower and lower. It rested for a moment on a fringe of creaming foam where the rock met the water, and then a hoa.r.s.e shout went up, for as it swept toward him they saw the schooner.

She was not far ahead of them, with jib thrashed to ribands and the sea streaming from her swung-up side. Jimmy thrust down his telegraph and shouted to Lindstrom, who dropped from the bridge as they drove past her stern. Then, as he raised his hand, the man behind him gasped as he struggled with his wheel, and the _Shasta_, stopping, lay rolling wildly beneath the schooner's lee, while a shadowy figure gesticulated to those on board her from her spray-swept rail. Jimmy glanced sh.o.r.eward over his shoulder toward the tumbling surf, and decided that he had at most five minutes to take that man off. After that it would probably be too late for all of them.

Mercifully the moonlight still streamed down, and he waited with lips set and hands clenched on the telegraph while the schooner, being lighter, drove down upon the _Shasta_. One blow might make an end of both of them, but something must be hazarded, and he spared a glance for the wet men who crouched upon the _Shasta_'s rail with lines in their hands. He had smashed one boat not long ago, and the second and smaller one had been damaged a week earlier, bringing a Siwash to take them up a certain inlet off an unsheltered beach.

The schooner was very near them, and, if he stayed where he was, would come down on top of the steamer in another minute or so. Then Lindstrom sprang out of the galley with a blue light in his hand, and its radiance blazed wind-flung and intense on the narrowing gap of foam between the two wildly rolling hulls. There was a hoa.r.s.e shouting, and, though he might not have heard the words, it was evident that the man on board the schooner realized what he was expected to do. Jimmy set his lips tighter as he pressed down the telegraph to slow ahead.

The _Shasta_'s propeller thudded, and as the schooner reeled toward her she commenced to move, and a black figure plunged with flung-up hands from the latter's shrouds. It struck the seething water, and vanished for a moment or two, while men held their breath and strained their eyes. Then there was a hoa.r.s.e clamor, and lines went whirling down from the _Shasta_'s rail. In the midst of it black darkness succeeded, as Lindstrom's light went out. Jimmy gasped, wondering when the schooner would strike them, while he clenched his hand on the telegraph. There was faint moonlight still, but it did not seem to touch the schooner, for his eyes were dazzled by the blaze of the blue light.

A moment later another shout rang out. "He has hold! Get down! Can't you stop her, sir?"

Jimmy, knowing what the hazard was, pressed his telegraph, and held his breath until a harsh voice rose again.

"I have a grip of him," it said. "Heave! We've got him, sir. Go ahead; she's coming down on the top of us!"

Jimmy moved his hand, and the gong clanged out "Full-speed" this time, while, glancing to windward, he saw the black shape of the schooner hove-up apparently above him. Still, quivering all through, the _Shasta_ forged ahead, and he leaned on the rails, for now that the tension had slackened he felt curiously limp.

"The man's all right?" he asked.

Lindstrom, who climbed half-way up the ladder, said that he did not seem to have suffered very much, and Jimmy, looking around, saw nothing of the schooner, for there was sudden darkness as the moon went out.

CHAPTER XV

ELEANOR'S BITTERNESS

It was in a state of quiet contentment that Jimmy stood on his bridge, as the _Shasta_ steamed past the Stanley pines into sight of the cl.u.s.tering roofs of Vancouver. His first voyage had been an unqualified success in every respect, and it was clear that the _Shasta_ had done considerably more than cover her working expenses. This was in several ways a great relief to him, since it promised to obviate any difficulty in providing for his father's comfort, and also opened up the prospect of a career for himself. Jordan had a.s.sured him before he sailed that they would have no great trouble in raising funds to purchase another boat if the results of the venture warranted it. He had also said that since one thing led to another, there was no reason why the _Shasta_ Company should not run several steamers by and by, in which case Jimmy would naturally become commodore-captain or general superintendent of the fleet.

As it happened, Jordan was the first person Jimmy's eyes rested on when he rang off his engines as the _Shasta_ slid in to the wharf, and he climbed on board while they made her fast. It, however, seemed to Jimmy that his movements were less brisk than usual, and he was also dressed in black, which was a color he had once or twice expressed himself in his comrade's hearing as having no use for. He came up the bridge-ladder quietly, in place of scrambling up it in hot haste, which would have been much more characteristic, and Jimmy noticed that there was a difference in his manner when he shook hands with him. The latter's satisfaction commenced to melt away, and a vague disquietude grew upon him in place of it.

"Everything straight here?" he asked, veiling his anxiety.

"Oh, yes," said Jordan; "that is, in most respects. We have an outward freight--Comox mines--for you. You'll take her up the Straits that way when you go back again. You seem to have her full."

"I had to leave a good many odds and ends behind, and the ranchers expect to have more produce for us in a month or two. One or two of them were talking about baling presses and a small thrashing mill. I've an inquiry for the plant, which you can attend to. Another fellow was contemplating putting on some Tenas Siwash to see whether there was anything to be made out of hand-split shingles, and several more were going to plant every cleared acre with potatoes for Victoria. I'm to take up two of your mechanical stump-grubbers as soon as you can get them. If we can keep them pleased, we'll get all their trade."

Jordan nodded, without, however, any sign of the eagerness Jimmy had expected. "Well," he said, "that's quite satisfactory so far as it goes.

Still, there are troubles that even the prospect of piling up money can't lift one over."

"Of course!" said Jimmy, who looked at him with sudden sympathy. "Still, I fancied you told me you had no near relatives. What are you wearing those clothes for?"

His comrade laid a hand on his shoulder. "It's a thing I shouldn't have done on my own account. I did it--steady, Jimmy, you have to face it--to please your sister."

"Ah!" said Jimmy, with a sharp indrawing of his breath, and leaned on the bridge-rails for a moment or two. His lips quivered, and Jordan saw him clench his hard brown hands. Busy wharf and climbing city faded from before his eyes, and he was sensible only of a curious numbing stupor that for the time being banished grief. Then he felt his comrade's grasp grow tighter.

"Brace up!" said Jordan. "It's a thing we have, all of us, to stand up under."

Jimmy straightened himself slowly, while the color paled in his face.

"When did it happen--and how?" he asked.

"Last night. The doctor had been round once or twice since you went away, and I understood from what Prescott said that he was getting along satisfactorily--that is, physically."

Jimmy said nothing, but looked at him with hard, questioning eyes.

"Well, it appears he was worrying himself considerably. Told Prescott it was a pity he couldn't die right away. n.o.body had any use for him, and he didn't want to be a burden. Seems he went over it quite often. The doctor had cut him off from the whisky."

He stopped, with evident embarra.s.sment and pain in his face; but Jimmy's eyes never wavered, though a creeping horror came upon him. In spite of the difficulty he had in thinking, he felt that he had not yet heard all.

"Go on," he said in a low, harsh voice.

"I don't think I could have told you, only it would have fallen on Eleanor if I hadn't, and she has as much as she can bear. You'll keep that in mind, won't you, Jimmy? He got some whisky--we don't know how--one of the wharf-hands who used to look in bought it for him, most probably. Prescott had to go out now and then, you see."

He stopped for a moment, and made a little gesture of sympathy before he went on again. "Somehow he fell over the table, and the kerosene lamp went over with it too. When one of the neighbors who heard him call went in n.o.body could have done anything for him."