Thrice Armed Part 39

The sudden portentous silence and the roar of blown-off steam that followed it roused every man on board the ship, and Robertson crawled sluggishly out of his berth. He had reasons for knowing exactly what had happened, and he showed no sign of haste, but there was a furtive look in his eyes, and he sat on the ledge of the bunk shivering a little while he thrust his hand beneath the mattress again. He felt that he needed bracing, for he had once spent several anxious hours in a half-swamped lifeboat after the steamer to which it belonged had gone ash.o.r.e, and he was aware that somebody is usually held accountable for mishaps at sea. There was not very much left in the whiskey-bottle when he thrust it out of sight again, and shambled out of his room. The _Adelaide_ was rolling viciously, and when he reached the engine-room he came near falling down the slippery ladder. Indeed, most men would have gone down it headlong if they had braced themselves as he had done, but habitual caution made him feel for a good hold, and he descended safely to where his subordinates were cl.u.s.tered beneath the high-pressure cylinder. Their faces showed tense and anxious in the flickering light of the lamps which swung wildly as the steamer rolled, and the young third engineer hastily related what had brought about the stoppage.

"Rig the lifting tackles while she cools," said Robertson. "Get the stud-nuts loose. We'll have the cover off soon as we can."

Then he turned and saw, as he had partly expected, a quartermaster standing just inside the door above him, and with a word or two to his second he crawled back up the ladder and went with the man to the room beneath the bridge. The young skipper who stood there with a furrowed face regarded him grimly.

"How long are you going to be before you start her again?" he asked.

Robertson blinked at him with furtive, half-open eyes. "I don't quite know--it's a heavy job. We have to heave the piston up," he said.

"Besides that, she has knocked things loose below."

The skipper appeared to have some difficulty in restraining himself.

"Unless you can get steam on her in the next few hours she'll be breaking up by morning. The reefs to lee of us are not the kind of ones I'd like to put a steamer ash.o.r.e on, either."

Then he took a bottle from a drawer with a little grimace of disgust, for he remembered that skippers are comparatively plentiful, and the man he could scarcely keep his hands off was for some reason apparently a favorite with his employer.

"Oh, take a drink, and hump yourself," he said. "I guess that's the only thing to put a move on you."

Robertson hesitated for a moment, for he realized that he had still a part to play. Then it occurred to him that his companion might draw his own conclusions as to his reasons for any unusual abstemiousness, and he helped himself liberally.

"Well," he said when he had drained his gla.s.s, "I'll be getting back again. Do what I can--but it's a heavy job."

He shuffled out, but his potations were commencing to have their effect, and when he reached the top platform in the engine-room he felt carefully for the rail that sloped as a guide to the ladder. It was as usual greasy and Robertson's grip not particularly sure, while the _Adelaide_ rolled wickedly to lee just then. As the result of it, her engineer went down the ladder much as a sack of coal would have done, and fell in a limp heap on the floor-plates with a red gash on his head.

The second stooped down and shook him before he turned to the other men.

"Heave him on to the tool locker, one or two of you," he said. "We can't pack him up to his room with this job in front of us. See if you can fix that cut for him, Varney, and then go up and tell the skipper."

A man went up the ladder, and the skipper, who sent an urgent message back with him, turned to the little cl.u.s.ter of miners who were waiting about his room.

"Something wrong with the engines?" asked one.

"There is," said the skipper, who knew his men and would not have admitted to the ordinary run of pa.s.sengers what he did to them. "It will probably be some hours before they start again, and the sh.o.r.e's not very far away to lee. If you feel inclined to lend a hand at getting sail on her I guess it would be advisable."

The miners were willing, and set about it cheerfully, though it was blowing hard now and the long deck heaved and slanted under them. There is very seldom an unnecessary man on board a steamer, and the _Adelaide_'s mate was glad of a few extra strong arms just then. That they were drenched with bitter spray and occasionally flung against winch and bulwarks did not greatly trouble them. Things of that kind did not count after facing the wild turmoil of northern rivers and living through destroying hazes of blizzard-driven snow. So they got the canvas on her, forestaysail, gaff-headed foresail, mainstaysail, and a blackened three-cornered strip abaft the mainmast, and the skipper felt a trifle easier when he found that he could steer her. She crawled through the water at perhaps two knots an hour, dragging her idle screw, but she also drove to leeward nearer the deadly reefs.

CHAPTER XXIX

UNDER COMPULSION

It was in the gray of the morning when Jimmy saw her, a dim patch of hull and four strips of sail that heaved and dipped between the seas. He also saw the faint loom of land behind her, and turned to Lindstrom, who stood beside him, with a grim smile.

"I think we can make our own terms to-day," he said. "She wouldn't be there with those reefs to lee of her if her engines hadn't broken down.

Will you ask the bos'n to have a board ready and a brushful of white lead?"

Then he turned to the man in oilskins who held the steering wheel. "Hard over. Run her right down on them."

The _Shasta_'s bows came round, and the light was growing clearer when she lay with engines stopped as close to windward of the _Adelaide_ as Jimmy dared venture. The latter crawled ahead sluggishly, heaving her bows up streaming out of the long seas that fell away beneath a high wall of slanted iron hull until the blackened strips of sailcloth swung wildly back again. Then her tall side sank down until the line of rail was level with the brine. A couple of shapeless, oilskinned figures clung to her slanted bridge with the spray whirling about them, and ragged wisps of cloud drove fast across the low and dingy sky overhead.

Jimmy watched her with eyes half-closed to keep the spray out, which had a portentous glint in them. This was a moment for which he had waited long months, and now his turn had come. If Jordan were right--and the fact that the _Adelaide_ was there to leeward of him with engines useless certainly suggested it--he had only to play his cards well and deal the man who had ruined his father a crushing blow. He set his lips tight as he remembered that when it fell the man's daughter must bear it too, for he was bound by every honorable tie to do what he could for the men who had entrusted him with the _Shasta_. That fact, he felt, must stand first with him; but he was also a seaman, and could not stand by while a costly vessel drove ash.o.r.e as the result of an infamous conspiracy. While he waited, grim-faced, with his wet hand clenched on the telegraph, a string of flags fluttered up between the other steamer's masts, and he laughed harshly as he turned to Lindstrom, who had come up again with a brush and a strip of board.

"That's quite plain without the code," he said. "Engines given out, and he's open for a tow. Well, he shall have it, on conditions. Closer, quartermaster. Lindstrom, hold the board for me."

He painted his answer neatly in big bold letters, and when he had pressed down his telegraph flung up an arm for a sign to the cl.u.s.ter of very wet men below.

"Look at this thing, and remember it," he shouted. "Hold it up before you hang it out, Lindstrom."

The mate did as he was bidden, and one or two of the men made a sign of comprehension, for, as all on board share in salvage, they were keenly interested too. Then the quartermaster pulled over his wheel, and the _Shasta_ crept ahead a little with a message hung outside her bridge rails.

"Half your appraised value, or the court's award."

There was no answer for several minutes, though the flags came fluttering down, and then a thing happened that apparently strengthened Jimmy's hand, which was, as he alone knew, a particularly strong one already. A white streak appeared to leeward, perhaps two miles away beneath the gray loom of land, and it was evident that the _Adelaide_'s skipper knew it was the filmy spray flung up by crumbling breakers. Two or three colored strips ran up between her masts again, and the hard smile crept back into Jimmy's eyes.

"Seems to fancy he'll get off easier through the court," he said to Lindstrom. "Well, he's wrong; but the first thing is to get their rope on board. Strip your lifeboat, and get her clear."

Lindstrom bustled down the ladder, and a handful of drenched men set about getting the boat out. It was not an easy task, for there were times when the _Shasta_ rolled her rail in, and the boat swung in upon her deck as often as over the sea. Then she drove against the streaming plates with a crash, and a big gray comber that swept round the _Shasta_'s stern half-filled her as they lowered her with a run, but the men dropped into her, and she reeled clear with the oars splashing any way on the back of the next one. Jimmy set his lips as he watched her, and pressing down his telegraph sent the _Shasta_ half-speed ahead in a big sweep, until she came up steaming dead slow once more under the _Adelaide_'s lee. He waited there ten anxious minutes until the boat drove down on him bringing a line with her.

Somehow they hove her in not greatly damaged, and the rattling winch afterward hauled a big steel hawser across; but the land was clearly visible, a dark streak of rock that rose above a haze of flying spray, when Jimmy rang for full-speed again. He knew by the chart that it was an island of some extent with a wide sound between it and the next one where he might find shelter, provided he could hold the _Adelaide_ off the rocks that long. This, however, appeared very doubtful in the meanwhile, for it was evident that the larger vessel was rapidly dragging him to leeward. It was simply a question whether she would drive ash.o.r.e before he towed her around the point he could dimly see on the contracted horizon, but it was a somewhat momentous one. If he failed, the sea that spouted on the shoals would make short work of her.

It became evident that there was a capable helmsman at the _Adelaide_'s wheel, for she crawled along well in line astern, with but little of the wild sheering from the course which in such cases is apt to part the stoutest hawser; but Jimmy grew tensely anxious as the next hour slipped by. The beach was rapidly growing plainer, but the head beyond which there was shelter was still apparently a long way off, and it was not an inviting prospect that unrolled itself to lee. The gray rock, smeared by the whiteness of flung-up spray, dropped sharply to the wide line of tumbling foam, and above it low-flying shreds of cloud blurred the wisps of climbing trees. Still, the head was rising all the time, and the _Shasta_'s engines pounding steadily, except when her screw shot clear, as it frequently did. Another hour went by, and the tension grew worse to bear when a jagged and fissured slope of rock rose under their lee-bow scarcely half a mile away. Beyond it stretched a dim vista of more rock and reedy pines that shut in the sound.

"We could swing her in if there were no tide," said Jimmy harshly. "As it is, the stream is setting us down on the point together, but I'll hold on until she strikes. There's no use worrying Fleming. He can't do any more."

Lindstrom, who glanced at the streak of flame in the dingy cloud that blew down from the slanted funnel, made a sign of concurrence, and Jimmy gripped the bridge rails hard as he gazed ahead. He could see the white smear of tideway that streamed around the head, and the gray wall of rock seemed forging back toward him through the midst of it. The sea hurled itself against its feet and crumbled into a white spouting and streaky wisps of foam that the stream swept away. Then he signed to the quartermaster, and gripping the whistle-lanyard flung out a sonorous blast of warning.

The _Shasta_'s bows swung seaward a little further, and both vessels swept up the tideway toward the deadly slope of stone. It crept a trifle aft from the lee-bow while a narrow strip of water opened up ahead, and then Jimmy held his breath as the _Adelaide_ took a sheer. She swung off at a tangent, rolling until a great slanted slope of rusty iron was clear on that side of her, while the _Shasta_'s p.o.o.p was held down by the strain on the hawser. A sea smote her on the weather side and veiled her in a cloud of flying spray, but Jimmy could dimly see a man flounder aft up to his knees in water with an axe on his shoulder. It was not the instrument an engineer would have chosen for cutting hard steel wire, but the axe is wonderfully effective in the hands of a Canadian, and the strain would part the rope if one strand were nicked.

This was also in accordance with Lindstrom's instructions, but Jimmy flung up a restraining hand.

"Hold on!" He hurled his voice through hollowed hands. "Drop the--thing!

If we can't swing her clear we're going ash.o.r.e with her."

He forgot what he owed the _Shasta_ Company and what Anthea Merril had said to him, for the primitive man had come uppermost under the stress of conflict. Twining his hands in the whistle-lanyard, he hurled out a great blast that the rocks flung back through the turmoil of the tide, and then once more gripped the bridge rails hard, standing rigidly still, with grim wet face and a light in his eyes. For two more minutes the issue hung in the balance, and then, while a wider gap of water opened up ahead, the _Adelaide_ swung back astern. In a few moments there was a hoa.r.s.e, exultant clamor from both vessels, and the froth-swept rock slid away behind her. In front lay a stretch of less troubled water. Half an hour later the _Shasta_ came around again in a big sweep, and when the anchors went down the two vessels lay rolling uneasily in comparative shelter.

Another hour had pa.s.sed when Jimmy went off in the lifeboat, and was greeted by a cl.u.s.ter of bronzed men who stood about the _Adelaide_'s gangway and insisted on shaking hands with him. Some of them also pounded his shoulders with hard fists, and though none of them expressed themselves very artistically, Jimmy understood what was implied by the offers of whisky that were thrust upon him. The genuine prospector, the man who, as they say in that country, gets there when he takes the gold-trail, is as a matter of fact usually a somewhat abstemious person and particular as to whom he drinks with; but these miners had made the _Shasta_'s commander one of them and presented him with the freedom of the guild. It was in some respects as great a cause for gratification as if he had been made companion of an ancient order, for no man is admitted to that one who cannot prove that he possesses, among other qualifications, high courage and stubborn endurance. Their codes are not nicely formulated in the frozen wastes and the silent woods of the north, but it is as a rule the great primitive essentials that advance a man in his comrades' estimation there. Jimmy, however, waved the miners back.

"It ought to be quite clear, boys, that I can't drink with you all, especially as I've business with the skipper," he said. "Anyway, I'm pleased to feel I have your good-will."

They still hovered about him until the _Adelaide_'s skipper drew him into his room, and gravely shook hands with him.

"It's not often boys of their kind make a fuss over any one, but in this case the thing's quite natural," he said. "I want to say first of all that we're much obliged."

Then he emptied the contents of a locker on the table, and they included a cigar-case and a couple of gla.s.ses, which he filled. "Well, in one way, you made a hard bargain with us, but I'm not going to complain of that. It was made, and, though I felt tolerably sure we were both going up on the head yonder, you carried it out. We owe you a little for hanging on to us."

Jimmy, who sat down and took a cigar, regarded him thoughtfully. The man was, he fancied, opinionated and somewhat a.s.sertive; but there was something in his manner which suggested that he was honest, and therefore likely to resent having been unwittingly made Merril's accomplice. Jimmy was far from being a genius, but like a good many other quiet men whose conversation contains no hint of brilliancy, he was at least as far from being a fool.