Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
trouble had drawn them there.
“Four of you hustle aloft and stand ready to make fast those stays!”
commanded the first mate.
“Rest of you make ready tackle!” shouted the second mate, following
close on Mayo's heels.
The negroes did not stir. They mumbled among themselves.
“Step lively!” insisted the mate.
“'Scuse us, but dat mast done goin' to tumble down,” ventured a man.
“Aloft with you, I say!”
Just then the schooner slatted herself on a great roller, and
the starboard stays snapped, one after the other, like mammoth
fiddle-strings. The mast reeled and there was an ominous sound below the
deck.
“She done put a hole into herself!” squealed a sailor.
In the gloom their eyes were gleaming with the fires one beholds in the
eyes of frightened cats.
“Dere she comes!” shouted one of them. He pointed trembling finger.
Over the coamings of the fore-hatch black water was bubbling.
Yelping like animals, the sailors stampeded aft in a bunch, bowling over
Mayo and the mates in their rush.
“Stop 'em, captain!” bellowed the first mate, guessing their intent.
He rose and ran after them. But fright gave them wings for their
heels. They scampered over the roof of the after-house, and were on the
quarter-deck before the skipper was out of the alley. They leaped into
the yawl which was swung at the stern davits.
“You renegades!” roared the master. “Come out of that boat!”
With the two mates at his heels he rushed at them. They grabbed three
struggling men by the legs and dragged them back. But the negroes
wriggled loose, driven to frantic efforts by their panic. They threw
themselves into the boat again.
“Be men!” clamored Mayo, joining the forces of discipline. “There's a
woman aboard here!”
But the plea which might have affected an Anglo-Saxon did not prevail.
Their knives were out--not for attack on their superiors, but to slash
away the davit tackle.
“Come on, boys! Throw 'em out!” shouted the master, leading the way into
the yawl over the rail.
His two mates and Mayo followed, and the engineer, freshly arrived from
forward, leaped after them. But as fast as they tossed a man upon the
quarter-deck he was up and in the boat again fighting for a place.
“Throw 'em overboard!” roared the master, venting a terrible oath. He
knocked one of the maddened wretches into the sea. The next moment the
captain was flat on his back, and the sailors were trampling on him.
Most of the surges came riding rail-high; sometimes an especially
violent wave washed the deck aft.
Following it, a chasm regularly opened under the vessel's counter, a
swirling pit in the ocean twenty feet deep.
There was good fortune as well as misfortune in the affair of the yawl.
When at last it dropped it avoided the period of the chasm.
In spite of the efforts of the captain and his helpers the sailors
succeeded in slashing away the davit tackle. A swelling roller came
up to meet the boat as the last strand gave way and swept it, with its
freight, out into the night. But as it went Mayo clutched a davit pulley
and swung in midair.
The dizzy depths of the sea opened under him as he dangled there and
gazed down.
An instant later all his attention was focused on Alma Marston, who
stood in the companionway clutching its sides and shrieking out her
fears. The lantern showed her to him plainly. Its radiance lighted him
also. He called to her several times, angrily at last.
“Where is that man, Bradish?” he demanded, fiercely.
It seemed as if his arms would be pulled out. He could not reach the
davit iron from where he hung; the schooner's rail was too far away,
though he kicked his feet in that direction.
“Don't be a fool! Stop that screaming,” he told her. “Can Bradish!”
“He is sick--he--he--is frightened,” she faltered.
“Come out here! Pull on that rope! Swing me in, I can't hold on here
much longer. Do you want to see me drown?”
She came along the rail, clinging to it.
“No, not that rope! The other one! Pull hard!”
She obeyed, fighting back her fear. The davit swung inward slowly, and
he managed to slide his legs up over the rail and gain the deck.
“Thank you!” he gasped. “You're quite a sailor!”
He had been wondering what his first words to her would be. Even while
he swung over the yawning depths of the sea the problem of his love was
so much more engrossing than his fear of death that his thoughts were
busy with her. He tried to speak to her with careless tone; it had been
in his mind that he would speak and bow and walk away. But he could not
move when she opened her eyes on him. She was as motionless as he--a
silent, staring pallid statue of astounded fright. The rope slipped
slowly from her relaxing fingers.
“Yes! It's just the man you think it is,” he informed her, curtly. “But
there's nothing to be said!”
“I must say something--”
But he checked her savagely. “This is no place to talk over folly! It's
no place to talk anything! There's something else to do besides talk!”
“We are going to die, aren't we?” She leaned close to him, and the
question was hardly more than a whisper framed by her quivering lips.
“I think so,” he answered, brutally.
“Then let me tell you--”
“You can tell me nothing! Keep still!” he shouted, and drew away from
her.
“Why doesn't Captain Downs come back after us?”
“Don't be a fool! The sea has taken them away.”
They exchanged looks and were silent for a little while, and the
pride in both of them set up mutual barriers. It was an attitude which
conspired for relief on both sides. Because there was so much to say
there was nothing to say in that riot of the sea and of their emotions.
“I won't be a fool--not any more,” she told him. There was so distinctly
a new note in her voice that he stared at her. “I am no coward,” she
said. She seemed to have mastered herself suddenly and singularly.
Mayo's eyes expressed frank astonishment; he was telling himself again
that he did not understand women.
“I don't blame you for thinking that I am a fool, but I am not a
coward,” she repeated.
“I'm sorry,” stammered the young man. “I forgot myself.”
“There is danger, isn't there?”
“I'm afraid the mast has pounded a bad hole in her. I must run forward.
I must see if something can't be done.”
“I am going with you.” She followed him when he started away.
“You must stay aft. You can't get forward along that deck. Look at the
waves breaking over her!”
“I am going with you,” she insisted. “Perhaps there is something that
can be done. Perhaps I can help.”
The girl was stubborn, and he knew there was no time for argument.
Three times on their way forward he was obliged to hold her in the hook
of his arm while he fought with the torrent that a wave launched upon
the deck.
There was no doubt regarding the desperate plight of the schooner. She
was noticeably down by the head, and black water was swashing forward
of the break of the main-deck. The door of the galley was open, and the
one-eyed cook was revealed sitting within beneath a swinging lantern. He
held a cat under his arm.
“Bear a hand here, cook!” called Mayo.
But the man did not get off his stool.
“Bear a hand, I say! We've got to rig tackle and get this long-boat
over.”
The schooner's spare boat was in chocks between the foremast and the
main. Mayo noted that it was heaped full of spare cable and held the
usual odds and ends of a clutter-box. He climbed in hastily and gave a
hand to the girl to assist her over the rail.
“It will keep you out of the swash,” he advised her. “Sit there in the
stern while I toss out this truck.”
But she did not sit down. She began to throw out such articles as her
strength could manage.
Again Mayo hailed the cook, cursing him heartily.
“Oh, it ain't any use,” declared the man, with resignation. “We're
goners.”
“We aren't gone till we go, you infernal turtle! Come here and pitch
in.”
“I hain't got no heart left for anything. I never would have believed
it. The Old Man going off and saving a lot of nigger sailors instead of
me--after all the vittles I've fixed up for him. If that's the kind of
gratitude there is in the world, I'm glad I'm going out of it. Me and
the cat will go together. The cat's a friend, anyway.”
Mayo lost his temper then in earnest. All his nature was on edge in that
crisis, and this supine surrender of an able-bodied man whose two hands
were needed so desperately was peculiarly exasperating. He leaped out of
the boat, ran into the galley, and gave the cook an invigorating beating
up with the flat of his hands. The cook clutched his cat more firmly,
braced himself on the stool, and took his punishment.
“Kill me if you want to,” he invited. “I've got to die, and it don't
make a mite of difference how. Murder me if you're so inclined.”
“Man--man--man, what's the matter with you?” gasped Mayo. “We've got a
chance! Here's a girl to save!”
“She hain't got no business being here. Was sneaked aboard. It's no
use to pound me. I won't lift a finger. My mind is made up. I've been
deserted by the Old Man.”
“You old lunatic, Captain Downs got carried away by those cowards. Wake
up! Help me! For the love of the Lord, help me!”
“Rushing around will only take my mind off'n thoughts of the hereafter,
and I need to do some right thinking before my end. It ain't any use to
threaten and jaw; nothing makes any difference to me now.”
Mayo saw the uselessness of further appeal, and the fellow dangled as
limply as a stuffed dummy when the young man shook him. Therefore Mayo
gave over his efforts and hurried back to the long-boat. The spectacle
of the girl struggling with the stuff she was jettisoning put new
determination into him. Her amazing fortitude at the time when he had
looked for hysterics and collapse gave him new light on the enigma of
femininity.
“Did you tell me that Bradish is ill?” he asked, hurriedly.
“He is in the cabin. He would not talk to me. I could not induce him to
come on deck.”
“I must have help with the tackle,” he told her, and started aft on the
run.
He found Bradish sprawled in a morris-chair which was lashed to a
radiator. He expected hot words and more insults, but Bradish turned to
him a face that was gray with evident terror. His jaw sagged; his eyes
appealed.
“This is awful!” he mourned. “What has happened on deck? I heard the
fighting. Where is Miss Mar-ston?”
“She is forward. There has been an accident--a bad one. We have lost the
captain and crew. Come on. I need help.”
“I can't help. I'm all in!” groaned Bradish.
“I say you must. It's the only way to save our lives.”
Bradish rolled his head on the back of the chair, refusing. His manner,
his sudden change from the fighting mood, astonished Mayo. The thought
came to him that this man had been pricked to conflict by bitter grudge
instead of by his courage.
“Look here, Bradish, aren't you going to help me save that girl?”
“I'm not a sailor. There's nothing I can do.”
“But you've got two hands, man. I want to get a boat overboard. Hurry!”
“No, no! I wouldn't get into a small boat with these waves so high. It
wouldn't be safe.”
“This schooner is sinking!” shouted Mayo. He fastened a heavy clutch
upon Bradish's shoulders. “There's no time to argue this thing. You come
along!”
He hauled Bradish to his feet and propelled him to the companionway,
and the man went without resistance. It was evident that real danger and
fear of death had nearly paralyzed him.
“There's nothing I can do!” he kept bleating.
But Mayo hurried him forward.
“Ralph!” cried the girl, fairly lashing him with the tone in which she
delivered the word. “What is the matter with you?”
“There's nothing I can do. It isn't safe out here.”
“You must do what this man tells you to do. He knows.”