Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
listened eagerly until the cook's indignant eye chanced to take a swing
in his direction.
“Do you see who's standing there butting in on the private talk of two
gents?” he asked the engineer. “Hand me that grate-poker--the hot one.
I'll show that nigger where he belongs.”
But Mayo retreated in a hurry, knowing that he was not permitted to
protest either by word or by look. However, the cook had given him
something else besides an insult--he had retailed gossip which kept the
young man's thoughts busy.
In spite of his rather contemptuous opinion of the wit of a girl who
would hazard such a silly adventure, he found himself pitying her
plight, guessing that she was really sorry. But as to what was going on
in the master's cabin he had no way of ascertaining. He wondered whether
Captain Downs would marry the couple in such equivocal fashion.
At any rate, pondered Mayo, how did it happen to be any affair of his?
He had troubles enough of his own to occupy his sole attention.
Their spanking wind from the sou'west let go just as dusk shut down. A
yellowish scud dimmed the stars. Mayo heard one of the mates say that
the glass had dropped. He smelled nasty weather himself, having the
sailor's keen instinct. The topsails were ordered in, and he climbed
aloft and had a long, lone struggle before he got the heavy canvas
folded and lashed.
When he reached the deck a mate commanded him to fasten the canvas
covers over the skylights of the house. The work brought him within
range of the conversation which Captain Downs and Bradish were carrying
on, pacing the deck together.
“Of course I don't want to throw down anybody, captain,” Bradish was
saying. There was an obsequious note in his voice; it was the tone of a
man who was affecting confidential cordiality in order to get on--to win
a favor. “But I have a lot of sympathy for you and for the rest of the
schooner people. I have been right there in the office, and have had
a finger in the pie, and I've seen what has been done in a good many
cases. Of course, you understand, this is all between us! I'm not giving
away any of the office secrets to be used against the big fellows. But
I'm willing to show that I'm a friend of yours. And I know you'll be a
friend of mine, and keep mum. All is, you can get wise from what I tell
you and can keep your eyes peeled from now on.”
Mayo heard fragmentary explanation of how the combination of steamboat
and barge interests had operated to leave only pickings to the
schooners. The two men were tramping the deck together, and at the turns
were too far away from him to be heard distinctly.
“But they're putting over the biggest job of all just now,” proceeded
Bradish. “Confound it, Captain Downs, I'm not to be blamed for running
away with a man's daughter after watching him operate as long as I have.
His motto is, 'Go after it when you see a thing you want in this world.'
I've been trained to that system. I've got just as much right to go
after a thing as he. I'm treasurer of the Paramount--that's the trust
with which they intend to smash the opposition. My job is to ask no
questions and to sign checks when they tell me to, and Heaven only knows
what kind of a goat it will make of me if they ever have a show-down in
the courts! They worked some kind of a shenanigan to grab off the Vose
line; I wired a pot of money to Fletcher Fogg, who was doing the dirty
work, and it was paid to a clerk to work proxies at the annual meeting.
And then Fogg put up some kind of a job on a greenhorn captain--worked
a flip trick on the fellow and made him shove the _Montana_ onto the
sands. I suppose they'll have the Vose line at their price before I get
back.”
Mayo sat there in the shadow, squatting on legs which trembled.
This babbler--tongue loosened by his new liberty and by the antagonism
his small nature was developing, anticipating his employer's enmity--had
dropped a word of what Mayo knew must be the truth. It had been a
trick--and Fletcher Fogg had worked it! Mayo did not know who Fletcher
Fogg's employer might be. From what office this tattler came he did not
know; but it was evident that Bradish was cognizant of the trick. As
a result of that trick, an honest man had been ruined and blacklisted,
deprived of opportunity to work in his profession, was a fugitive, a
despised sailor, kicked to the Very bottom of the ladder he had climbed
so patiently and honorably.
Furious passion bowled over Mayo's prudence. He leaped down from the top
of the house and presented himself in front of the two men.
“I heard it--I couldn't help hearing it!” he stuttered.
“Here's a nigger gone crazy!” yelped Captain Downs. “Ahoy, there,
for'ard! Tumble aft with a rope!”
“I'm no nigger, and I'm not crazy!” shouted Mayo.
The swinging lantern in the companionway lighted him dimly. But in the
gloom his dusky hue was only the more accentuated. His excitement seemed
that of a man whose wits had been touched.
“I knew it was a trick. But what was the trick?” he demanded, starting
toward Bradish, his clutching hands outspread.
Captain Downs kicked at this obstreperous sailor, and at the same time
fanned a blow at his head with open palm.
Mayo avoided both the foot and the hand. “What does the law say about
striking a sailor, captain? Hold on, there! I'm just as good a man as
you are. Don't you tell those men to lay hands on me.” He backed away
from the sailors who came running aft, with the second mate marshaling
them. He stripped up his sleeve and held his arm across the radiance of
the binnacle light. “That's a white man's skin, isn't it?” he demanded.
“What kind of play-acting is all this?” asked Old Mull, with astonished
indignation.
In that crisis Mayo controlled his tongue after a mighty effort to
steady himself. He was prompted to obey his mood and announce his
identity with all the fury that was in him. But here stood the man who
had served as one of the tools of his enemies, whoever they were. For
his weapon against this man Mayo had only a few words of gossip which
had been dropped in an unwary moment; he realized his position; he
regretted his passionate haste. He was not ready to put himself into the
power of his enemies by telling this man who he was; he remembered that
he was running away from the law.
Bradish gaped at this intruder without seeming to understand what it all
meant.
“Passengers better get below out of the muss,” advised Captain Downs.
“Here's a crazy nigger, mate. Grab him and tie him up.”
Mayo backed to the rack at the rail and pulled out two belaying-pins,
mighty weapons, one for each hand.
Bradish hurried away into the depths of the house, manifestly glad to
get out from underfoot.
“Don't you allow those niggers to lay their hands on me,” repeated the
man at bay. “Captain Downs, let me have a word to you in private.” He
had desperately decided on making a confidant of one of his kind. He
bitterly needed the help a master mariner could give him.
“Get at him!” roared the skipper. “Go in, you niggers!”
“By the gods! you'll be short-handed, sir. I'll kill 'em!”
That threat was more effective than mere bluster. Captain Downs
instinctively squinted aloft at the scud which was dimming the stars; he
sniffed at the volleying wind.
“One word to you, and you'll understand, sir!” pleaded Mayo. He put the
pins back into the rack and walked straight to the captain.
There was no menace in his action, and the mate did not interfere.
“Just a word or two to you, sir, to show you that I have done more than
throw my hat into the door of the Masters and Mates Association.” He
leaned close and whispered. “Now let me tell you something else--in
private?” he urged in low tones.
Captain Downs glanced again at the bared arm and surveyed this sailor
with more careful scrutiny. “You go around and come into the for'ard
cabin through the coach-house door,” he commanded, after a little
hesitation.
Mayo bowed and hurried away down the lee alley.
That cabin designated as the place of conference was the dining-saloon
of the schooner. He waited there until Captain Downs, moving his bulk
more deliberately, trudged down the main companionway and came into the
apartment through its after-door which no sailor was allowed to profane.
“Can anybody--in there--hear?” asked Mayo, cautiously. He pointed to the
main saloon.
“She's in her stateroom and he's talking through the door,” grunted the
skipper. “Now what's on your mind?”
Mayo reached his hand into an inside pocket of his shirt and drew forth
a document. He laid it in Captain Downs's hand. The skipper sat down at
the table, pulled out his spectacles, and adjusted them on his bulging
nose in leisurely fashion, spread the paper on the red damask cloth, and
studied it. He tipped down his head and stared at Mayo over the edge of
his glasses with true astonishment.
“This your name in these master's papers?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir.”
“You're--you claim to be the Captain Mayo who smashed the _Montana?_”
“I'm the man, sir. I hung on to my papers, even though they have been
canceled.”
“How do I know about these papers? How do I know your name is Mayo? You
might have stolen 'em--though, for that matter, you might just as well
carry a dynamite bomb around in your pocket, for all the good they'll do
you.”
“That's the point, sir. They merely prove my identity. Nobody else would
want them. Captain Downs, I'm running away from the law. I own up to
you. Let me tell you how it happened.”
“Make it short,” snapped the captain, showing no great amiability toward
this plucked and discredited master. “The wind is breezing up.”
He told his story concisely and in manly fashion, standing up while
Captain Downs sat and stared over his spectacles, drumming his stubby
fingers on the red damask.
“There, sir, that's why I am here and how I happened to get here,” Mayo
concluded.
“I ain't prepared to say it isn't so,” admitted Old Mull at last, “no
matter how foolish it sounds. And I'm wondering if next I'll find the
King of Peruvia or the Queen of Sheba aboard this schooner. New folks
are piling in fast! I know Captain Wass pretty well, though I never laid
eye on you to know you. Where's that wart on his face?”
“Starboard side of his nose, sir.”
“What does he do, whittle off his chaw or bite the plug?”
“Neither. Chews fine cut.”
“What's his favorite line of talk?”
“Reciting the pilot rules and jawing because the big fellows slam along
without observing them.”
“Last remark showing that you have been in the pilothouse along with
Captain Wass! Examination is over and you rank one hundred and the board
stands adjourned!” He rose and shook hands with Mayo. “Now what can I do
for you?”
“I don't suppose you can do much of anything, Captain Downs. But I'm
going to ask you this, master to masted. Don't let a soul aboard this
schooner know who I am--especially those two back there!” He pointed to
the door of the main saloon.
“Seems to be more or less of a masked-ball party aboard here!” growled
the skipper.
“That man you call Bradish, whoever he is, knows what kind of a game
they played on me. I want to get it out of him. If he knows who I am he
won't loosen! I was a fool to break in as I did. He was coming across to
you.”
“Seemed to be pretty gossipy,” admitted the captain. “Is trying to be my
special chum so as to work me!”
“Don't you suppose you can get some more out of him?”
“Might be done.”
“I feel that it's sailors against the shore pirates this time, sir.
Won't you call that man out here and ask him some questions and allow me
to listen?”
“Under the circumstances I'll do it. Sailors first is my motto. You step
into the mate's stateroom, there, and put ear to the crack o' the door.”