Blow the Man Down, Holman Day [e ink epub reader TXT] 📗

In a winter gale, with ice caking on her, he would have viewed their situation in different light. But he had frequently seen the seas breaking over the wallowing coal-luggers when he had passed them at anchor on the coast.
He made a trip of his own along the main-deck, scrambling upon the spars to avoid the occasional deluge which swept her amidship. The battened hatches were apparently withstanding the onslaughts of the waves. He could feel less weight in the wind. It was apparent that the crisis of the blow had passed. The waves were not so savage; their crests were not breaking. But just then the second mate rushed past, and Mayo overheard the report he gave the captain, who was pacing the lee alley:
"The mizzenmast is getting more play, sir. I'm afraid it's raising the devil with the step and ke'lson."
"Rig extra stays and try her again for water," ordered the master.
Mayo, returning to the mizzen, found the entire crew grouped there. The mast was writhing and groaning in its deck collar, twisting its coat--the canvas covering at its foot where it entered the deck.
The dusky faces were exhibiting much concern. They had flocked where the ship was dealing herself a wound; the sailor sixth sense of impending trouble had drawn them there.
"Four of you hustle aloft and stand ready to make fast those stays!" commanded the first mate.
"Rest of you make ready tackle!" shouted the second mate, following close on Mayo's heels.
The negroes did not stir. They mumbled among themselves.
"Step lively!" insisted the mate.
"'Scuse us, but dat mast done goin' to tumble down," ventured a man.
"Aloft with you, I say!"
Just then the schooner slatted herself on a great roller, and the starboard stays snapped, one after the other, like mammoth fiddle-strings. The mast reeled and there was an ominous sound below the deck.
"She done put a hole into herself!" squealed a sailor.
In the gloom their eyes were gleaming with the fires one beholds in the eyes of frightened cats.
"Dere she comes!" shouted one of them. He pointed trembling finger.
Over the coamings of the fore-hatch black water was bubbling.
Yelping like animals, the sailors stampeded aft in a bunch, bowling over Mayo and the mates in their rush.
"Stop 'em, captain!" bellowed the first mate, guessing their intent. He rose and ran after them. But fright gave them wings for their heels. They scampered over the roof of the after-house, and were on the quarter-deck before the skipper was out of the alley. They leaped into the yawl which was swung at the stern davits.
"You renegades!" roared the master. "Come out of that boat!"
With the two mates at his heels he rushed at them. They grabbed three struggling men by the legs and dragged them back. But the negroes wriggled loose, driven to frantic efforts by their panic. They threw themselves into the boat again.
"Be men!" clamored Mayo, joining the forces of discipline. "There's a woman aboard here!"
But the plea which might have affected an Anglo-Saxon did not prevail. Their knives were out--not for attack on their superiors, but to slash away the davit tackle.
"Come on, boys! Throw 'em out!" shouted the master, leading the way into the yawl over the rail.
His two mates and Mayo followed, and the engineer, freshly arrived from forward, leaped after them. But as fast as they tossed a man upon the quarter-deck he was up and in the boat again fighting for a place.
"Throw 'em overboard!" roared the master, venting a terrible oath. He knocked one of the maddened wretches into the sea. The next moment the captain was flat on his back, and the sailors were trampling on him.
Most of the surges came riding rail-high; sometimes an especially violent wave washed the deck aft.
Following it, a chasm regularly opened under the vessel's counter, a swirling pit in the ocean twenty feet deep.
There was good fortune as well as misfortune in the affair of the yawl. When at last it dropped it avoided the period of the chasm.
In spite of the efforts of the captain and his helpers the sailors succeeded in slashing away the davit tackle. A swelling roller came up to meet the boat as the last strand gave way and swept it, with its freight, out into the night. But as it went Mayo clutched a davit pulley and swung in midair.
The dizzy depths of the sea opened under him as he dangled there and gazed down.
An instant later all his attention was focused on Alma Marston, who stood in the companionway clutching its sides and shrieking out her fears. The lantern showed her to him plainly. Its radiance lighted him also. He called to her several times, angrily at last.
"Where is that man, Bradish?" he demanded, fiercely.
It seemed as if his arms would be pulled out. He could not reach the davit iron from where he hung; the schooner's rail was too far away, though he kicked his feet in that direction.
"Don't be a fool! Stop that screaming," he told her. "Can Bradish!"
"He is sick--he--he--is frightened," she faltered.
"Come out here! Pull on that rope! Swing me in, I can't hold on here much longer. Do you want to see me drown?"
She came along the rail, clinging to it.
"No, not that rope! The other one! Pull hard!"
She obeyed, fighting back her fear. The davit swung inward slowly, and he managed to slide his legs up over the rail and gain the deck.
"Thank you!" he gasped. "You're quite a sailor!"
He had been wondering what his first words to her would be. Even while he swung over the yawning depths of the sea the problem of his love was so much more engrossing than his fear of death that his thoughts were busy with her. He tried to speak to her with careless tone; it had been in his mind that he would speak and bow and walk away. But he could not move when she opened her eyes on him. She was as motionless as he--a silent, staring pallid statue of astounded fright. The rope slipped slowly from her relaxing fingers.
"Yes! It's just the man you think it is," he informed her, curtly. "But there's nothing to be said!"
"I must say something--"
But he checked her savagely. "This is no place to talk over folly! It's no place to talk anything! There's something else to do besides talk!"
"We are going to die, aren't we?" She leaned close to him, and the question was hardly more than a whisper framed by her quivering lips.
"I think so," he answered, brutally.
"Then let me tell you--"
"You can tell me nothing! Keep still!" he shouted, and drew away from her.
"Why doesn't Captain Downs come back after us?"
"Don't be a fool! The sea has taken them away."
They exchanged looks and were silent for a little while, and the pride in both of them set up mutual barriers. It was an attitude which conspired for relief on both sides. Because there was so much to say there was nothing to say in that riot of the sea and of their emotions.
"I won't be a fool--not any more," she told him. There was so distinctly a new note in her voice that he stared at her. "I am no coward," she said. She seemed to have mastered herself suddenly and singularly.
Mayo's eyes expressed frank astonishment; he was telling himself again that he did not understand women.
"I don't blame you for thinking that I am a fool, but I am not a coward," she repeated.
"I'm sorry," stammered the young man. "I forgot myself."
"There is danger, isn't there?"
"I'm afraid the mast has pounded a bad hole in her. I must run forward. I must see if something can't be done."
"I am going with you." She followed him when he started away.
"You must stay aft. You can't get forward along that deck. Look at the waves breaking over her!"
"I am going with you," she insisted. "Perhaps there is something that can be done. Perhaps I can help."
The girl was stubborn, and he knew there was no time for argument.
Three times on their way forward he was obliged to hold her in the hook of his arm while he fought with the torrent that a wave launched upon the deck.
There was no doubt regarding the desperate plight of the schooner. She was noticeably down by the head, and black water was swashing forward of the break of the main-deck. The door of the galley was open, and the one-eyed cook was revealed sitting within beneath a swinging lantern. He held a cat under his arm.
"Bear a hand here, cook!" called Mayo.
But the man did not get off his stool.
"Bear a hand, I say! We've got to rig tackle and get this long-boat over."
The schooner's spare boat was in chocks between the foremast and the main. Mayo noted that it was heaped full of spare cable and held the usual odds and ends of a clutter-box. He climbed in hastily and gave a hand to the girl to assist her over the rail.
"It will keep you out of the swash," he advised her. "Sit there in the stern while I toss out this truck."
But she did not sit down. She began to throw out such articles as her strength could manage.
Again Mayo hailed the cook, cursing him heartily.
"Oh, it ain't any use," declared the man, with resignation. "We're goners."
"We aren't gone till we go, you infernal turtle! Come here and pitch in."
"I hain't got no heart left for anything. I never would have believed it. The Old Man going off and saving a lot of nigger sailors instead of me--after all the vittles I've fixed up for him. If that's the kind of gratitude there is in the world, I'm glad I'm going out of it. Me and the cat will go together. The cat's a friend, anyway."
Mayo lost his temper then in earnest. All his nature was on edge in that crisis, and this supine surrender of an able-bodied man whose two hands were needed so desperately was peculiarly exasperating. He leaped out of the boat, ran into the galley, and gave the cook an invigorating beating up with the flat of his hands. The cook clutched his cat more firmly, braced himself on the stool, and took his punishment.
"Kill me if you want to," he invited. "I've got to die, and it don't make a mite of difference how. Murder me if you're so inclined."
"Man--man--man, what's the matter with you?" gasped Mayo. "We've got a chance! Here's a girl to save!"
"She hain't got no business being here. Was sneaked aboard. It's no use to pound me. I won't lift a finger. My mind is made up. I've been deserted by the Old Man."
"You old lunatic, Captain Downs got carried away by those cowards. Wake up! Help me! For the love of the Lord, help me!"
"Rushing around will only take my mind off'n thoughts of the hereafter, and I need to do some right thinking before my end. It ain't any use to threaten and jaw; nothing makes any difference to me now."
Mayo saw the uselessness of further appeal, and the fellow dangled as limply as a stuffed dummy when the young man shook him. Therefore Mayo gave over his efforts and hurried back to the long-boat. The spectacle of the girl struggling with the stuff she was jettisoning put new determination into him. Her amazing fortitude at the time when he had looked for hysterics and collapse gave him new light on the enigma of femininity.
"Did you tell me that Bradish is ill?"