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

seaman. In the night, tossed by that wild sea, drifting they knew not where, she had apparently disregarded danger. He asked himself if she had not merely exhibited feminine ignorance of what their situation meant. He had often seen cases where apparent bravado was based on such ignorance.
"I must say that you told me at least one truth a while ago--you are not a coward," he said at last.
She was comforting the wretched cat. "But I am miserably frightened," she admitted. "I don't dare to think about the thing. I don't dare to look at the waves. I talked to you so as to take my mind off my troubles. I didn't mean to be prying."
"I'll tell you what has been done to me," he blurted. "Hearing somebody's troubles may take your mind off your own."
While the two men amidships bailed doggedly and weariedly, he told his story as briefly as he could. The gray dawn showed her face to him after a time, and he was peculiarly comforted by the sympathy he saw there. He did not communicate to her any suspicions he may have entertained. With sailor directness he related how he had hoped, and how all had been snatched away from him. But on one topic the mouths of both seemed to be sealed!
After a time Bradish and the cook were enabled to rest from the work of bailing. The planks of the boat swelled and the leak was stopped.
"You'd better crawl aft here and sit beside Miss Marston," advised Mayo. "Be careful how you move."
He passed Bradish and took the latter's place with the cook, and felt a sense of relief; he had feared that the one, the dreaded topic would force itself upon him.
"I don't see no sense in prolonging all this agony," averred his despondent companion. "We ain't ever going to get out of this alive. We're drifting in on the coast, and you know what that means."
"You may jump overboard any time you see fit," said the skipper of the craft. "I don't need you any longer for bailing!"
"If that's the way you feel about it, you won't get rid of me so easy," declared the cook, malevolence in his single eye.
Mayo noticed, with some surprise, that after the two had exchanged a few words there was silence between Bradish and the girl. The New-Yorker was pale and trembling, and his jaw still sagged, and he threw glances to right and left as the surges galloped under them. He was plainly and wholly occupied with his fears.
When day came at last without rain, but with heavy skies, in which masses of vapor dragged, Mayo began eager search of the sea. He had no way of determining their whereabouts; he hoped they were far enough off-shore to be in the track of traffic. However, he could see no sail, no encouraging trail of smoke. But after a time he did behold something which was not encouraging. He stood up and balanced himself and gazed westward, in the direction in which they were drifting; every now and then a lifting wave enabled him to command a wide expanse of the sea.
He saw a white ribbon of foam that stretched its way north and south into the obscurity of the mists. He did not report this finding at once. He looked at his companions and pondered.
"I think you have something to say to me," suggested the girl.
"I suppose I ought to say it. I've been wondering just how it ought to be said. It's not pleasant news."
"I am prepared to hear anything, Captain Mayo. Nothing matters a great deal just now."
"We are being driven on to the coast. I don't know whether it's the Delaware or the New Jersey coast. It doesn't make much difference. The breakers are just as bad in one place as in the other."
"Why don't you anchor this boat? Are you going to let it go ashore and be wrecked?" asked Bradish, with anger that was childish.
"The anchor seems to have been overlooked when we started on this little excursion. As I remember it, there was some hurry and bustle," returned Mayo, dryly.
"Why didn't you remember it? You got us into this scrape. You slammed and bossed everybody around. You didn't give anybody else a chance to think. You call yourself a sailor! You're a devil of a sailor to come off without an anchor."
"I suppose so," admitted Mayo.
"And there wasn't any sense, in coming off in this little boat. We ought to have stayed on the schooner."
"Ralph!" protested the girl. "Have you completely lost your mind? Don't you know that the schooner sank almost the minute we left it?"
"Mr. Bradish's mind was very much occupied at the time," said Captain Mayo.
"I don't believe the schooner sank. What does a girl know about such things? That fellow got scared, that's the trouble. There isn't any sense in leaving a big boat in a storm. We would have been taken off before this. We would have been all right. This is what comes of letting a fool boss you around when he is scared," he raved.
"You are the fool!" she cried, with passion. "Captain Mayo saved us."
"Saved us from what? Here we are going into the breakers--and he says so--and there's no anchor on here. He took everything out of my hands. Now why doesn't he do something?"
"Don't pay any attention to him," she pleaded.
"We are going to be drowned! You can't deny it, can you? We're going to die!" He pulled a trembling hand from between his knees, where he had held both hands pinched in order to steady them. He shook his fist at Mayo. "Own up, now. We're going to die, aren't we?"
"I think it's right to tell the truth at this stage," said Mayo, in steady tones. "We're not children. Yonder is a beach with sand-reefs and breakers, and when we strike the sand this boat will go over and over and we shall be tossed out. The waves will throw us up and haul us back like a cat playing with mice. And we stand about the same chance as mice."
"And that's the best you can do for us--and you call yourself a sailor!" whined Bradish.
"I'm only a poor chap who has done his best as it came to his hand to do," said the young man, seeking the girl's eyes with his.
She gazed at him for a moment and then put both hands to her face and began to sob.
"It's a hard thing to face, but we'd better understand the truth and be as brave as we can," said Mayo, gently.
"For myself I ain't a mite surprised," averred the cook. "I had my hunch! I was resigned. But my plans was interfered with. I wanted to go down in good, deep, green, clean water like a sailor ought to. And now I'm going to get mauled into the sand and have a painful death."
"Shut up!" barked Mayo.
The girl was trembling, and he feared collapse.
Bradish began to blubber. "I'm not prepared to die," he protested.
Mayo studied his passenger for some time, wrinkling his brows. "Bradish, listen to me a moment!"
The New-Yorker gave him as much attention as terror and grief permitted.
"There isn't much we can do just now to fix up our general earthly affairs. But we may as well clean the slate between us two. That will help our consciences a little. I haven't any quarrel with you any more. We won't be mushy about it. But let's cross it off."
"It's all over," mourned Bradish. "So what's the use of bearing grudges?"
"I suppose it's true that the court has indicted me for manslaughter. Bradish, tell me, man to man, whether I've got to go into those breakers with that on my conscience!"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do! You know whether those men of the schooner _Warren_ were drowned by any criminal mistake of mine or not!"
Bradish did not speak.
"You wouldn't have said as much to Captain Downs if you hadn't known something," insisted the victim of the plot.
"It was only what Burkett let drop when he came after some money. I suppose he thought it was safe to talk to me. But what's the good of my giving you guesswork? I don't know anything definite. I don't understand sailor matters."
"Bradish, what Burkett said--was it something about the compass--about putting a job over on me by monkeying with the compass?"
"It was something like that." His tone exhibited indifference; it was evident that he was more occupied with his terror than with his confession.
"Didn't Burkett say something about a magnet?"
"He got off some kind of a joke about Fogg in the pilot-house and fog outside--but that the Fogg inside did the business. And he said something about Fogg's iron wishbone."
"So that was the way it was done--and done by the general manager of the line!" cried Mayo. "The general manager himself! It's no wonder I have smashed that suspicion between the eyes every time it bobbed up! I suspected--but I didn't dare to suspect! Is that some of your high finance, Bradish?"
"No, it isn't," declared the New-Yorker, with heat. "It's an understrapper like Fogg going ahead and producing results, so he calls it. The big men never bother with the details."
"The details! Taking away from me all I have worked for--my reputation as a master, my papers, my standing--my liberty. By the gods, I'm going to live! I'm going through those breakers! I'll face that gang like a man who has fought his way back from hell," raged the victim.
"This--this was none of my father's business! It could not have been," expostulated Miss Marston.
"Your father never knows anything about the details of Fogg's operations," declared Bradish.
"He ought to know," insisted the maddened scapegoat. "He gives off his orders, doesn't he? He sits in the middle of the web. What if he did know how Fogg was operating?"
"Probably wouldn't stand for it! But he doesn't know. And the Angel Gabriel himself wouldn't get a chance to tell him!" declared the clerk.
"A put-up job, then, is it--and all called high finance!" jeered Mayo.
"High finance isn't to blame for tricks the field-workers put out so that they can earn their money quick and easy. What's the good of pestering me with questions at this awful time? I'm going to die! I'm going to die!" he wailed.
Miss Marston slid from the seat to her knees, in order that she might be able to reach her hand to Mayo. "Will you let this handclasp tell you all I feel about it--all your trouble, all your brave work in this terrible time? I am so frightened, Captain Mayo! But I'm going to keep my eyes on you--and I'll be ashamed to show you how frightened I am."
He returned the fervent clasp of her fingers with gentle pressure and reassuring smile. "Honestly, I feel too ugly to die just now. Let's keep on hoping."
But when he stood up and beheld the white mountains of water between their little boat and the shore, and realized what would happen when they were in that savage tumult, with the undertow dragging and the surges lashing, he felt no hope within himself.
From the appearance of the coast he could not determine their probable location. The land was barren and sandy. There seemed to be no inlet. As far as he could see the line of frothing white was unbroken. The sea foamed across broad shallows, where no boat could possibly remain upright and no human being could hope to live.
Nevertheless, he remained standing and peered under his hand, resolved to be alert