Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
But when Bradish appeared, answering the captain's summons, all his
chattiness had left him. He declared that he knew nothing about the
trouble in the _Montana_ case.
“But you said something about a scheme to fool a green captain?”
“It was only gossip--I probably got it wrong. I have thought it over and
really can't remember where I heard it or much about it. Might have been
just newspaper faking.”
He kept peering about the dimly lighted room.
“You needn't worry, young man. That nigger isn't here.”
“But he said he was a white man. And how does he come to be interested?”
“It's a nigger gone crazy about that case--he has probably been reading
fake stories in the papers, too,” stated Captain Downs, grimly. “I must
remind you again, Bradish, that you were talking to me in pretty lively
style.”
“Oh, a man lets out a lot of guesswork when he is nervous about his own
business.”
“Well, I might fix it so that you'd be a little less nervous, providing
you'll show a more willing disposition when I ask you a few questions,”
probed the skipper. But this insistence alarmed Bradish and his blinking
eyes revealed his fears and suspicions.
“I don't know anything about the _Montana_ case. I don't intend to do
any talking about it.”
Captain Downs tapped harder on the table, scowled, and was silent.
“Anything else, sir?” inquired Bradish, after a pause.
“Guess not, if that's the way you feel about it!” snapped Captain Downs.
Bradish went back into the main saloon, and the eavesdropper ventured
forth.
“I don't know just what the dickens to do about you, now that I know who
you are,” confessed the master, looking Mayo up and down.
“There isn't anything to do except let me go back to my work, sir.”
“I'm in a devil of a position. You're a captain.”
“I shipped on board here before the mast, Captain Downs, and knew
exactly what I was doing. I'll take my medicine.”
“I don't like to have you go for'ard there among those cattle, Mayo.”
“Captain Downs, it was wrong for me to make the break I did on your
quarter-deck. I ought to have kept still; but the thing came to me so
sudden that I went all to pieces. I'd like to step back into the crew
and have you forget that I'm Boyd Mayo. I'll sneak ashore in Boston and
lose myself.”
The captain tipped up his cap and scratched the side of his head. “Seems
as if I remember you being at the wheel, Mayo, when that fellow was
unloading some pretty important information on to me.”
“I couldn't help hearing, sir.”
“So you know he's eloping with a girl?” The old skipper lowered his
voice.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you ever hear of such a cussed, infernal performance? And I have
talked with the girl, and she really doesn't seem to be that sort at
all. She's flighty, you can see that. She has been left to run loose too
much, like a lot of girls in society are running loose nowadays. They
think of a thing that's different, and, biff! they go do it. She is
wishing she hadn't done this. That shows some sense.” He studied the
young man. “Do you know anything about this right a captain has to
perform marriage ceremonies?”
“Nothing special.”
“It will probably be a good thing for that girl to be married and
settled down. She seems to have picked out Bradish. Mayo, you're one
of my kind, and I want to help you. I'll take a chance on my right to
perform the ceremony. What say if we get Bradish back in here and swap a
marriage for what he can tell us about the _Montana_ business?”
“Captain Downs, a fellow who will put up a job of this kind on a girl,
no matter if she has encouraged him, is a cheap pup,” declared Mayo,
promptly and firmly. “I don't want to buy back my papers in any such
fashion.”
“Then you don't approve of my marrying them?”
“I haven't any right to tell you what you shall do, sir. I'm talking
merely for myself.”
Captain Downs pondered. “If he's her father's right-hand man, he's
probably just as good as most of the land pirates who have been courting
her. If she goes home married, even if it is only marriage on the high
seas, contract between willing persons with witnesses and the master of
the vessel officiating, as I believe it's allowed, she'll have her good
name protected, and that means a lot. I don't know as I have any right
to stand out and block their way, seeing how far it has gone. What do
you think, Mayo?”
“I don't believe I want to make any suggestions, sir.”
At that moment the door aft opened. Mayo was near the door of the mate's
stateroom in the shadows, and he dodged back into his retreat. He heard
Bradish's voice.
“Captain Downs, this young lady has something to say to you and I hope
you'll listen!”
Then the girl's voice! It was impetuous outburst. She hurried her words
as if she feared to wait for second and saner reflection.
“Captain Downs, I cannot wait any longer. You must act. I beg of you. I
have made up my mind. I am ready!”
“Ready to get married, you mean?”
“Yes! Now that my mind is made up, please hurry!”
Her tone was high-pitched, tears were close behind her desperation, her
words rushed almost incoherently. But Mayo, staring sightlessly in the
black darkness of the little stateroom, his hearing keen, knew that
voice. He could not restrain himself. He pulled the door wide open.
The girl was Alma Marston.
Her eyes were bright, her cheeks were flushed, and it was plain that her
impulsive nature was flaming with determination. The shadows were deep
in the corners of the saloon, and the man in the stateroom door was not
noticed by the three who stood there in the patch of light cast by the
swinging lamp.
“I ask you--I beg you--I have made up my mind! I must have it over
with.”
“Don't have hysterics! This is no thing to be rushed.”
“You must.”
“You're talking to a captain aboard his own vessel, ma'am!”
From Mayo's choking throat came some sort of sound and the girl glanced
in his direction, but it was a hasty and indifferent gaze. Her own
affairs were engrossing her. He reeled back into the little room, and
the swing of the schooner shut the door.
“You are captain! You have the power! That's why I am talking to you,
sir!”
“But when you talked with me a little while ago you were crawfishing!”
was Captain Downs's blunt objection.
“I am sorry I have been so imprudent. I ought not to be here. I have
said so. I do too many things on impulse. Now I want to be married!”
“More impulse, eh?”
“I must be able to face my father.”
There was silence in the saloon.
Mayo shoved trembling fingers into his mouth and bit upon them to keep
back what his horrified reason warned him would be a scream of protest.
In spite of what his eyes and ears told him, it all seemed to be some
sort of hideous unreality.
“It's a big responsibility,” proceeded Captain Downs, mumbling his words
and talking half to himself in his uncertainty. “I've been trying to get
some light on it from another--from a man who ought to understand more
about it than what I do. It's too much of a problem for a man to wrassle
with all alone.”
He turned his back on them, gazed at the stateroom door, tipped his cap
awry, and scratched his head more vigorously than he had in his past
ponderings.
“Say, you in there! Mate!” he called, clumsily preserving Mayo's
incognito. “I'm in a pinch. Say what you really think!”
There was no word from the stateroom.
“You're an unprejudiced party,” insisted the skipper. “You have good
judgment. Now what?”
“Who is that, in there?” demanded Bradish.
“Why should this person, whoever he is, have any-thing to say about my
affairs?” asked the girl.
“Because I'm asking him to say!” yelped the skipper, showing anger. “I'm
running this! Don't try to tell me my own business!” He walked toward
the door. “Speak up, mate!”
“It's an insult to me--asking strangers about my private affairs!” The
protest of the girl was a furious outburst.
“I resent it, captain! Most bitterly resent it,” stated Bradish.
The old skipper walked back toward them. “Resent it as much as you
condemned like, sir! You're here asking favors of me. I want to do what
is right for all concerned. You ought to be married--I admit that. But
what sort of a position does it leave me in? Are you going to tell me
this girl's name?”
“I'm Alma Marston!” She volleyed the name at him with hysterical
violence, but he did not seem to be impressed. “I am Julius Marston's
daughter!”
The skipper looked her up and down.
“Now you will be so good as to proceed about your duty!” she commanded,
haughtily.
“Well, you can't expect me to show any special neighborly kindness to
the Wall Street gouger who kept me tied up without a charter two months
last spring with his steamboat combinations and his dicker deals!”
“How are we to take that, sir?” asked Bradish.
The girl was staring with frank wonder at this hard-shelled mariner whom
she had not been able to impress by her name or her manner.
“Just as you want to.”
“I demand an explanation.”
“Well, I'll give it to you, seeing that I'm perfectly willing to. Take
it one way, and I'm willing to wallop Julius Marston by handing him
the kind of a son-in-law you'd make; take it the other way, and I ain't
particular about doing anything to accommodate anybody in the Marston
family.” He eyed them sardonically.
“So, you see, I'm betwixt and between in the matter! It's like settling
a question by flipping a cent. And I'll tell you what I'm going to do!”
He smacked his palm on the table. He strode back toward the stateroom
door. “Mate, ahoy, there! Sailor to sailor, now, and remember that you
have asked something of _me!_ If you were captain of this schooner would
you marry off these two?”
They waited in silence, in which they heard the whummle and screech
of the wind outside and the angry squalling of the sheathing of the
plunging schooner's cabin walls.
The voice which replied to Captain Downs's query did not sound human. It
was a sort of muffled wail, but there was no mistaking its positiveness.
“No!” said the man behind the door.
Back to the table lurched Captain Downs. He pounded down his fist. “That
settles it with me!” Then he poised his big hand on the edge of the
table-cover. “I was ready to tip one way or the other and it needed
only a little push. I have tipped.” Down came the palm flat on the
table-cloth with final and decisive firmness. “Young man,” he informed
Bradish, “there's an extra stateroom, there, off this dining-saloon. You
take it!”
“What can I tell my father?” wailed the girl, the fire of her
determination suddenly quenched by sobbing helplessness.
“You can tell him that I temporarily adopted you as my daughter at three
bells on this particular evening, and I'll go to him and back you up if
it becomes necessary.” He opened the door leading aft and bowed. “Now,
you trot along to your stateroom, sissy!”
After hesitating a few moments she hurried away. The skipper locked the
door and slipped the key into his pocket.
“Do you think I'm going to--” began Bradish, angrily.
“I ain't wasting any thoughts on you, sir. I'm saving 'em all for the
_Drusilla M. Alden_ just now.”
The craft's plunging roll gave evidence that the sea was making. At
that instant the first mate came down a few steps of the forward
companionway, entering through the coach-house door.
“She's breezing up fresh from east'ard, sir!” he reported.
“So I've judged from the way this sheathing is talking up. I'll be on
deck at once, Mr. Dodge.”
That report was a summons to a sailor; Mayo came staggering out of the
stateroom. He looked neither to right nor left nor at either of the men
in the saloon. He stumbled toward the companionway, reaching his hands
in front of him after the fashion in which a man gropes in the dark.