Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
When he turned out he was ordered to take his trick at the wheel. The
schooner had made her offing and was headed for her northward run along
the coast, which showed as a thin thread of white along the flashing
blue of the sea.
Mayo took the course from the gaunt, sooty Jamaican who stepped away
from the wheel; he set his gaze on the compass and had plenty to occupy
his hands and his mind, for a big schooner which is logging off six
or eight knots in a following sea is somewhat of a proposition for a
steersman. Occasionally he was obliged to climb bodily upon the wheel in
order to hold the vessel up to her course.
Captain Downs was pacing steadily from rail to rail between the wheel
and the house. At each turn he glanced up for a squint at the sails. It
was the regular patrol of a schooner captain.
In spite of his absorption in his task, Mayo could not resist taking
an occasional swift peep at the passenger. The young man's demeanor had
become so peculiar that it attracted attention. He looked worried, ill
at ease, smoked his cigarettes nervously, flung over the rail one which
he had just lighted, and started for the captain, his mouth open. Then
he turned away, shielded a match under the hood of the companionway, and
touched off another cigarette. He was plainly wrestling with a problem
that distressed him very much.
At last he hurried below. He came up almost immediately. He had the air
of a man who had made up his mind to have a disagreeable matter over
with.
“Captain Downs,” he blurted, stepping in front of Old Mull and halting
that astonished skipper, “will you please step down into the cabin with
me for a few moments? I've something to tell you.”
“Well, tell it--tell it here!” barked the captain.
“It's very private, sir!”
“I don't know of any privater place than this quarterdeck, fifteen miles
offshore.”
“But the--the man at the wheel!”
“Good Josephus! That ain't a man! That's a nigger sailor steering my
schooner. Tell your tale, Mr. Bradish. Tell it right here. That fellow
don't count any more 'n that rudder-head counts.”
“If you could step down into the cabin, I--”
“My place is on this quarter-deck, sir. If you've got anything to say to
me, say it!” He began to pace again.
Bradish caught step, after a scuff or two.
“I hope you're going to take this thing right, Captain Downs. It may
sound queer to you at first,” he stammered.
“Well, well, well, tell it to me--tell it! Then I will let you know
whether it sounds queer or not.”
“I brought another passenger on board with me. She is locked in a
stateroom.”
Old Mull stopped his patrol with a jerk. “She?” he demanded. “You mean
to tell me you've got a woman aboard here?”
“We're engaged--we want to get married. So she came along--”
“Then why in tophet didn't ye go get married? You don't think this is a
parsonage, do you?”
“There were reasons why we couldn't get married ashore. You have to have
licenses, and questions are asked, and we were afraid it would be found
out before we could arrange it.”
“So this is an elopement, hey?”
“Well, the young lady's father has foolish ideas about a husband for his
daughter, and she doesn't agree with him.”
“Who is her father?”
“I don't intend to tell you, sir. That hasn't anything to do with the
matter.”
Captain Downs looked his passenger up and down with great disfavor. “And
what's your general idea in loading yourselves onto me in this fashion?”
“You have the right, as captain of a ship outside the three-mile limit,
to marry folks in an emergency.”
“I ain't sure that I've got any such right, and I ain't at all certain
about the emergency, Mr. Bradish. I ain't going to stick my head into a
scrape.”
“But there can't be any scrape for you. You simply exercise your right
and marry us and enter it in your log and give us a paper. It will be
enough of a marriage so that we can't be separated.”
“Want to hold a hand you can bluff her father with, hey? I don't approve
of any such tactics in matrimony.”
“I wouldn't be doing this if there were any other safe way for us,”
protested Bradish, earnestly. “I'm no cheap fellow. I hold down a good
job, sir. But the trouble is I work for her father--and you know how it
always is in a case like that. He can't see me!”
“Rich, eh?”
“Yes, sir!” Bradish made the admission rather sullenly.
“It's usually the case when there's eloping done!”
“But this will not seem like eloping when it's reported right in the
newspapers. Marriage at sea--it will seem like a romantic way of getting
rid of the fuss of a church wedding. We'll put out a statement of that
sort. It will give her father a chance to stop all the gossip. He'll be
glad if you perform the ceremony.”
“Say, young fellow, you're not rehearsing the stuff on me that you used
on the girl, are you? Well, it doesn't go!
“Captain Downs, you must understand how bull-headed some rich men are in
matters of this kind. I am active and enterprising. I'll be a handy man
for him. He likes me in a business way--he has said so. He'll be all
right after he gets cooled down.”
“More rehearsal! But I ain't in love with you like that girl is.”
“We're in a terrible position, captain! Perhaps it wasn't a wise thing
to do. But it will come out all right if you marry us.”
“What's her name?”
“I can't tell you.”
“How in the devil can I marry you and her if I don't know her name?”
“But you haven't promised that you will do your part! I don't want to
expose this whole thing and then be turned down.”
“I ain't making any rash promises,” stated Captain Downs, walking to the
rail and taking a squint at the top-hamper. “Besides,” he added, on his
tramp past to the other rail, “he may be an owner into this schooner
property, for all I know. Sixteenths of her are scattered from tophet to
Tar Hollow!”
“You needn't worry about his owning schooner property! He is doing quite
a little job at putting you fellows out of business!”
Curiosity and something else gleamed in Captain Downs's eyes. “Chance
for me to rasp him, hey, by wishing you onto the family?”
This new idea in the situation appealed instantly to Bradish as a
possibility to be worked. “Promise man to man that you'll perform the
marriage, and I'll tell you his name; then you'll be glad that you have
promised,” he said, eagerly.
“I don't reckon I'd try to get even with Judas I-scarrot himself
by stealing his daughter away from him, sir. There's the girl to be
considered in all such cases!”
“But this isn't stealing! We're in love.”
“Maybe, but you ain't fooling me very much, young fellow. I don't say
but what you like her all right, but you're after something else, too.”
“A man has to make his way in the world as best he can.”
“That plan seems to be pretty fashionable among you financing fellows
nowadays. But I'm a pretty good judge of men and you can't fool me, I
say. Now how did you fool the girl?”
It was blunt and insulting query, but Bradish did not have the courage
to resent it; he had too much need of placating this despot. The lover
hesitated and glanced apprehensively at the man at the wheel.
“Don't mind that nigger!” yelped Captain Downs, “How did you ever get
nigh enough to that girl to horn-swoggle her into this foolishness?”
“We met at dances. We were attracted to each other,” explained Bradish,
meekly.
“Huh! Yes, they tell me that girls are crazy over hoof-shaking these
days, and I suppose it's easy to go on from there into a general state
of plumb lunacy,” commented Old Mull, with disgust. “You show you ain't
really in love with her, young man. You'd never allow her to cut up this
caper if you were!”
He stuck an unlighted cigar in his mouth and continued to patrol his
quarter-deck, muttering.
Bradish lighted a cigarette, tossed it away after two puffs, and leaned
against the house, studying his fingertips, scowling and sullen.
Mayo had heard all the conversation, but his interest in the identity of
these persons was limited; New York was full of rich men, and there were
many silly daughters.
“Look here,” suggested the captain, unamiably, “whatever is done later,
there's something to be done now. It's cruelty to animals to keep that
girl shut up in that stateroom any longer.”
“She didn't want to come out and show herself till I had had a talk
with you, sir. I have spoken to her through the door a few times.” He
straightened himself and assumed dignity. “Captain Downs, I call it
to your attention--I want you to remember that I have observed all the
proprieties since I have been on board.”
Captain Downs snorted. “Proprieties--poosh! You have got her into a
nice scrape! And she's down there locked in like a cat, and probably
starving!”
“She doesn't care to eat. I think she isn't feeling very well.”
“I shouldn't think she would! Go bring her up here, where she can get
some fresh air. I'll talk to her.”
After a moment's hesitation Bradish went below. He returned in a little
while.
In spite of his efforts to pretend obliviousness Mayo stared hard at
the companionway, eager to look on the face of the girl. But she did not
follow her lover.
“She doesn't feel well enough to come on deck,” reported Bradish. “But
she is in the saloon. Captain Downs, won't you go and talk to her and
say something to make her feel easy in her mind? She is very nervous.
She is frightened.”
“I'm not much of a ladies' man,” stated Old Mull. But he pulled off his
cap and smoothed his grizzled hair.
“And if you could only say that you're going to help us!” pleaded the
lover. “We throw ourselves on your mercy, sir.”
“I ain't much good as a life-raft in this love business.” He started for
the companionway.
“But don't tell her that you will not marry us--not just now. Wait till
she is calmer.”
“Oh, I sha'n't tell her! Don't worry!” said Captain Downs, with a grim
set to his mouth. “All she, or you, gets out of me can be put in a
flea's eye.”
He disappeared down the steps, and Bradish followed. A mate had come
aft, obeying the master's hand-flourish, and he took up the watch. In a
little while Mayo was relieved. He went forward, conscious that he was
a bit irritated and disappointed because he had not seen the heroine of
this love adventure, and wondering just a bit at his interest in that
young lady.
An hour later Mayo, coiling down lines in the alley outside the
engine-room, overheard a bulletin delivered by the one-eyed cook to the
engineer.
The cook had trotted forward, his sound eye bulging out and thus mutely
expressing much astonishment. “There's a dame aft. I've been making tea
and toast for her.”
“Well, you act as if it was the first woman you'd ever seen. What's the
special excitement about a skirt going along as passenger?”
“She wa'n't expected to be aboard. I heard the old man talking with her.
The flash gent that's passenger has rung her in somehow. I didn't get
all the drift be-cause the old man only sort of purred while I was in
hearing distance. But I caught enough to know that it ain't according to
schedule.”
“Good looker?” The engineer was showing a bit of interest.
“She sure is!” declared the cook, demonstrating that one eye is as
handy, sometimes, as two. “Peaches and cream, molasses-candy hair, hands
as white as pastry flour. Looks good enough to eat.”
“Nobody would ever guess you are a cook, hearing you describe a girl,”
sneered the engineer.
“There's a mystery about her. I heard her kind of taking on before the
dude hushed her up. She was saying something about being sorry that she
had come, and that she wished she was back, and that she had always
done things on the impulse, and didn't stop to think, and so forth, and
couldn't the ship be turned around.”
Mayo forgot himself. He stopped coiling ropes and stood there and