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

do, Miss Marston."
"Perhaps. But you did it, that's the point. There are other men--" She hesitated. "I have had a talk with Mr. Bradish," she told him. "It was a mistake. You saved me from that mistake. You did it in the cabin of the schooner. He has told me. It was better for me than saving my life."
"But because a man isn't a sailor--isn't used to danger--" he expostulated.
"That is not it. I say I have just had a talk with Mr. Bradish! I have found out exactly what he is. I did not find it out when I danced with him. But now that I have come near to dying with him I have found him out." The red banners in her cheeks signaled both shame and indignation. "A coward will show all his nature before he gets himself in hand again, and Mr. Bradish has shown me that he is willing to ruin and disgrace me in order to make profit for himself. And there is no more to be said about him!" She paused.
"Captain Mayo, I know what idea you must have of me--of a girl who would do what I have done! But you don't have half the scorn for me I have for myself--for the girl I was. But I have my self-respect now! I respect the woman that I am at this moment after that experience! Perhaps you don't understand. I do! I'm glad I have that self-respect. I shall face what is ahead of me. I shall do right from now on." She spoke quickly and passionately, and he wanted to say something, but his sailor tongue halted. "I am not going to bring up a certain matter--not now! It's too sacred. I am too miserably ashamed! Again, Captain Mayo, I say that I want to stand with you as man to man! I want to render service for what you have done for me. You have lost everything out of your life that you value. I want you to have it back. Will you listen to me now?"
"Yes, Miss Marston."
"You go to my father with a letter from me. I do not believe he knows what kind of methods have been practised by his understrappers, but he can find out. You tell him that he must find out--that he must make them confess. You tell him that this is a man's fight, and that you are fighting back with all the strength that you can command. You tell him that you have me hidden, and that I cannot get away--as my own letter will tell him. You tell him that he must make a fair exchange with you--give you back what is yours before he can have what is his."
Mayo walked backward limply, feeling for the wall with his hands behind him, and leaned against it.
"You are single-handed--it's a big game they play up in the city when they are after money--and you must take what cards are offered," she insisted, displaying the shrewdness of the Marston nature.
"You mean to say that I'm going to your father as if I were holding you for ransom?" he gasped.
"Something like that," she returned, eagerly. "The only way you'll get what you want--and get it quickly--is by a good bluff. I have had some good samples of your courage, Captain Mayo. You can do it beautifully."
"But I'm not going to do it!"
"I say you are!"
"Not by a--" His feelings were carrying him away. He was forgetting that these dealings were with an impulsive girl. His anger was mounting. She was putting him on the plane of a blackleg.
"Go ahead and talk as strongly as you like, Captain Mayo. It will make it seem like man's business between us."
"Those tricks may be all right in Wall Street, but they don't do for me. And you've got a pretty poor opinion of me if you think I'll do it."
"Don't be quixotic," she protested, impatiently. "We are living in up-to-date times, Captain Mayo. Some of those underlings have played a nasty trick on you. They must be exposed."
"This is a girl's crazy notion!"
"Captain Mayo, is this the way you help me pay my debt?"
"You don't owe me anything."
"And now you pay me an insult! Are my honor as a girl and my life worth nothing? You have saved both."
"I don't know how to talk to you. I haven't had any experience in talking with women. I simply say that I'm not going to your father in any such manner. Certainly not!"
"Don't you realize what I have offered you?" she pleaded. "You are throwing my sacrifice in my face. As the case stands now, I can hurry off to the home of some girl friend and make up a little story of a foolish lark, and my father will never know what has been happening. He expects me to do a lot of silly things."
"That's your business--and his," he returned, dryly.
"Captain Mayo, I have been trying to show you that I am fit to be considered something besides a silly girl. I wanted you to know that I have a sense of obligation. The plan may seem like a girl's romantic notion. But it isn't. It's bold, and your case heeds boldness. I was trying to show you that I'm not a coward. I was going to confess to my father what I have done and start on the level with him. You throw it all in my face--you insult my plan by calling it crazy."
"It is," he insisted, doggedly. "And I'm in bad enough as it is!"
"Oh, you're afraid, then?"
He frowned. Her sneer seemed gratuitous injury.
He did not understand that variety of feminine guile which seeks to goad to action one who refuses to be led.
"I admire boldness in a man when his case is desperate and he is trying to save himself. I have lived among men who are bold in going after what they want."
"I have had a little experience with that kind of land pirates, and I don't like the system."
"I shall not make any unnecessary sacrifices," she de-clared, tartly, but there were tears in her eyes. "I did what I could to help you when you were trying to save me. Why are you so ungenerous as to refuse to help me now?"
"It's taking advantage of you--of your position."
"But I offer it--I beg of you to do it."
"I will not do it."
"You absolutely refuse?"
"Yes, Miss Marston."
"Then I shall leave you to your own fate, Captain Mayo. You don't expect me to go to my father with the story, do you?"
"Certainly not'."
"I shall go ahead now and protect myself the best I can. I am sure that Captain Downs will keep my secret. I shall forget that I ever sailed on that schooner. I suppose you will black yourself up and run away again!"
"I am going to New York."
"To be put in jail?"
"Probably."
"You make me very angry. After you have shown that you can fight, just when you ought to fight the hardest you slink bade to be whipped."
"Yes, Miss Marston, if you care to put it that way."
"Then, good-by!"
"Good-by!"
Perhaps each expected that the other would break the wall of reserve at this moment of parting. He hesitated a moment--an awkward instant--then he bowed and left the room.
Captain Downs walked with Mayo for a distance across the sand-dunes when the latter started to make his way to the nearest railroad station. The captain intended to remain at the inlet tmtil a representative of the _Alden's_ owners arrived.
They left Bradish still huddled behind the stove in the kitchen.
"Unless my eyes have gone back on me, Captain Mayo, my notion is that the dude is wasting his time hanging around that girl any more," suggested Captain Downs. "She has had him out on the marine railway of love, has made proper survey, and has decided that she would hate to sail the sea of matrimony with him. Don't you think that's so?"
"I think you're a good judge of what you see, Captain Downs."
"I reckon that you and I as gents and master mariners are going to keep mum about her being aboard the _Alden?_"
"Certainly, sir."
"The coast-guard crew don't know who she is, and they can't find out. So she can go home and mind her business from this time out. 'Most every woman does one infernal fool thing in her life--and then is all right ever after. But now a word on some subject that's sensible! What are you going to do?"
"Stick my head into the noose. It's about the only thing I can do."
"But you'll talk up to 'em, of course?"
"I'll play what few cards I hold as best I know, sir. The most I can hope for is to make 'em drop that manslaughter case. Perhaps I can say enough so that they'll be afraid to bring me to trial. As to getting my papers back, I'm afraid that's out of the question. I'll have to start life over in something else."
"Mayo, why don't you go to the captain's office?" He promptly answered the young man's glance of inquiry. "Julius Marston himself is the supreme boss of that steamship-consolidation business. Bradish gave all that part away, telling about those checks; though, of course, we all knew about Marston before. It is probably likely that Marston gives true courses to his understrappers. If they take fisherman's cuts between buoys in order to get there quick, I'll bet he doesn't know about it. Go to him and tell him, man to man, what has happened to you."
"There are two reasons why I shall probably never see Mr. Marston," returned Mayo, grimly. "First, I'll be arrested before I can get across New York to his office; second, I'll never get farther than the outer office. He's guarded like the Czar of Russia, so they tell me."
"Does his girl know anything about your case?"
"I blabbed it to her--like a fool--when we were in the boat. Why is it that when a man is drunk or excited or in trouble, he'll blow the whole story of his life to a woman?" growled Mayo.
"I've thought that over some, myself," admitted Captain Downs. "Especially on occasions when I've come to and realized what I've let out. I suppose it's this--more or less: A man don't tell his troubles to another man, for he knows that the other man is usually in'ardly glad of it because any friend is in trouble. But a woman's sympathy is like a flaxseed poultice--it soothes the ache and draws at the same time."
Mayo trudged on in silence, kicking the sand.
"Seems to me the smallest thing that girl could have done was to offer to get you a hearing with her old man. It was some chore you did for her, mate!"
"I had to save myself. A few more in the party didn't matter."
"These society girls think of themselves first, of course! I don't suppose you give a hoot for my advice, Captain Mayo, but I'm talking to you in the best spirit in the world."
"I know you are, Captain Downs," declared the young man, his sullenness departing. "I didn't mean to show bristles to you! I'll try to see Marston. It 'll be a hard stunt. But I'm in the mood to try anything. By gad! if they lug me to jail, I'll go kicking!"
"That's the spirit, boy. And if you can get in a few kicks where Julius Marston can see 'em they may count. He's the boss! I don't think I'll go any farther with you. This is too hard footing for an old waddler like