Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
of it good-by in case the Atlantic Ocean showed aces,” said the old man,
revealing a sailor's familiarity with a popular game.
“There is such a thing as being desperate enough to stake your whole
bundle,” declared Mayo. “Captain, I'm young, and I suppose I have got
a young man's folly. I can't expect you to feel the way I feel about a
gamble.”
“I may look old, but I haven't gone to seed yet,” grumbled the skipper.
“What are you trying to get through you?”
“That fat man on that lighter has a telegram in his pocket from his
folks in Boston, ordering him to take the first offer that is made for
the _Conomo_ as she stands. I'm fool enough to be willing to put in
every dollar I've got, and take a chance.”
Captain Candage stared at his associate for a time, and then walked to
the rail and took a long look at the steamer. “I never heard of a feller
ever getting specially rich in the fishing game,” he remarked.
Mayo, wild thoughts urging him to desperate ventures, snapped out
corroboration of that dictum..
“And I've known a lot of fellers to go broke in the wrecking game,”
pursued Captain Candage. “How much have you got?” That question came
unexpectedly.
“I've got rising six hundred dollars.” He was carrying his little hoard
in his pocket, for a man operating from the hamlet of Maquoit must needs
be his own banker.
“I've got rising six hundred in my own pocket,” said the skipper. “That
fat man may have orders to take the first offer that's made, but we've
got to make him one that's big enough so that he won't kick us overboard
and then go hunt up a buyer on the main.”
The two Hue and Cry fishermen who had ferried the young man were nesting
their dory on top of other dories, and just forward of the house, and
were within hearing. Neither captain noted with what interest these men
were listening, exchanging glances with the man at the wheel.
“And after we waggle our wad under his nose--and less than a thousand
will be an insult, so I figger--what have we got left to operate with?
It won't do us any good to sail round that steamer for the rest of the
winter and admire her. What was you thinking, Mayo, of trying to work
him for a snap bargain, now that he's here on the spot and anxious to
sell, and then grabbing off a little quick profit by peddling her to
somebody else?”
“No, sir!” cried the young man, with decision. “I've got my own good
reasons for wanting to make this job the whole hog or not a bristle! I
won't go into it on any other plan.”
“Well, we'll be into something, all right, after we invest our
money--the whole lump. We'll most likely be in a scrape, not a dollar
left to hire men or buy wrecking outfit.”
The two men finished lashing the dories and went forward.
“It's a wild scheme, and I'm a fool to be thinking about it, Captain
Candage. But wild schemes appeal to me just now. I can make some more
money by working hard and saving it, a few dollars at a time, but I
never expect to see another chance like this. Oh yes, I see that bank in
the south!” His eyes followed the skipper's gloomy stare. “By to-morrow
at this time she may be forty fathoms under. But here's the way I feel.”
He pulled out his wallet and slapped it down on the roof of the house.
“All on the turn of one card! And there comes the blow that will turn
it!” He pointed south into the slaty clouds.
Captain Candage paused in his patrol of the quarterdeck and gazed down
on the wallet. Then he began to tug at his own. “I'm no dead one, even
if my hair is gray,” he grumbled.
The two captains looked at the two wallets, and then at each other. The
next moment their attention was fully taken up by another matter. Their
crew of fifteen men came marching aft and lined up forward of the house.
A spokesman stepped out.
“Excuse us, captings, for meddling into something that p'raps ain't
none of our business. We ain't meaning to peek nor pry, but some of
us couldn't help overhearing. We've cleaned out our pockets. Here it
is--three hundred and sixty-eight dollars and thirty-seven cents. Will
you let me step onto the quarter-deck and lay it down 'side of them
wallets?” He accepted their amazed silence as consent, and made his
deposit solemnly.
“But this is all a gamble, and a mighty uncertain one,” protested Mayo.
“We 'ain't never had no chance to be sports before in all our lives,”
pleaded the man. “We wouldn't have had that money if you two heroes
hadn't give us the chance you have. We wa'n't more'n half men before.
Now we can hold up our heads. You'll make us feel mighty mean, as if we
wasn't fit to be along with you, if you won't let us in.”
“You bet you can come in, boys!” shouted Captain Candage. “I know how
you feel.”
“And another thing,” went on the spokesman. “We 'ain't had much time to
talk this over; we rushed aft here as soon as we heard and had cleaned
out our pockets. But we've said enough to each other so that we can
tell you that all of us will turn to on that wreck with you and work for
nothing till--till--well, whatever happens. Don't want wages! Don't need
promises! And if she sinks, we'll sing a song and go back to fishing
again.”
The man at the wheel let go the spokes and came forward and deposited
a handful of money beside the rest. “There's mine. I wisht it was a
million; it would go just as free.”
“Boys, I'd make a speech to you--but my throat is too full,” choked
Mayo. “I know better, now, why something called me over to Hue and
Cry last summer. Hard over with that wheel! Jockey her down toward the
wreck!”
When they were within hailing distance of the lighter Mayo raised his
megaphone. “Will you take fifteen hundred dollars--cash--now--for that
wreck, as you leave her when you've loaded those lighters?” he shouted.
There was a long period of silence. Then the man in the fur coat
replied, through his hollowed hands: “Yes--and blast the fools in Boston
who are making me sell!”
XXVII ~ THE TEMPEST TURNS ITS CARD
And one thing which we have to crave,
Is that he may have a watery grave.
So well heave him down into some dark hole,
Where the sharks 'll have his body and the devil have his soul.
With a big bow wow!
Tow row row!
Pal de, rai de, ri do day!
--Boston.
After the man in the fur coat had placed a hastily executed bill of sale
in Mayo's hands, he frankly declared that his interest in the fortune of
the wrecked steamer had ceased.
“The Resolute reports that storm signals are displayed. I'll simply make
sure of what I've got. I'll play the game as those quitters in Boston
seem to want me to play it.”
The tugs, departing with their tows, squalled salutes to the little
schooner hove to under the counter of the _Conomo_.
“Sounds like they was making fun of us,” growled Candage. He scowled
into the gray skies and across the lonely sea.
Mayo, too, sensed a derisive note in the whistle-toots. Depression had
promptly followed the excitement that had spurred him into this venture.
The crackle of the legal paper in his reefer pocket only accentuated his
gloom. That paper seemed to represent so little now. It was not merely
his own gamble--he had drawn into a desperate undertaking men who
could not afford to lose. They had put all their little prosperity in
jeopardy. There were women and children ashore to consider. He and
his fellows now owned that great steamer which loomed there under the
brooding heavens. But it was a precarious possession. The loss of her
now would mean not merely the loss of all their little hoards--it would
mean the loss of hope, and the sacrifice of expectations, and the regret
of men who have failed in a big task. He realized how stinging would be
defeat, for he was building the prospects of his future upon winning in
this thing.
Hope almost failed to reassure him as he gazed first at the departing
lighters and then at the ice-panoplied hulk on Razee.
Surely no pauper ever had a more unwieldy elephant on his hands, without
a wisp of hay in sight for food.. He had seen wrecking operations:
money, men, and gigantic equipment often failed to win. Technical skill
and expert knowledge were required. He did not know what an examination
of her hull would reveal. He had bought as boys swap jack-knives--sight
denied! He confessed to himself that even the pittance they had
gambled on this hazard had been spent with the recklessness of folly,
considering that they had spent their all. They had nothing left to
operate with. It was like a man tying his hands behind him before he
jumped overboard.
Oh, that was a lonely sea! It was gray and surly and ominous.
Black smoke from the distant tugs waved dismal farewell. A chill wind
had begun to harp through the cordage of the little schooner; the
moan--far flung, mystic, a voice from nowhere--that presages the tempest
crooned in his ears.
“I can smell something in this weather that's worse than scorched-on
hasty pudding,” stated Captain Can-dage. “I don't know just how you
feel, sir, but if a feller should ride up here in a hearse about now
and want my option on her for what I paid, I believe I'd dicker with him
before we come to blows.”
“I can't blame you,” confessed the young man. “This seems to be another
case of 'Now that we've got it, what the devil shall we do with it?'”
“Let's pile ashore on the trail of them lighters and dicker it, and be
sensible,” advised his associate. “I feel as if I owned a share in old
Poppocatterpettul--or whatever that mountain is--and had been ordered to
move it in a shawl-strap.”
Mayo surveyed their newly acquired property through the advancing dusk.
“I believe I know a feller we can unload onto,” persisted Candage. “He
has done some wrecking, and is a reckless cuss.”
“Look here,” snapped his associate, “we'll settle one point right now,
sir. I'm not hurrahing over this prospect--not at all. But I'm in it,
and I'm going to stick on my original plan. I don't want anybody in with
me who is going to keep looking back and whining. If everything goes by
the board, you won't hear a whicker out of me. If you want to quit now,
Captain Candage, go ahead, and I'll mortgage my future to pay back what
you have risked. Now what do you say?”
“Why, I say you're talking just the way I like to hear a man talk,”
declared the skipper, stoutly. “I'll be cursed if I like to go into a
thing with any half-hearted feller. You're _my_ kind, and after this
you'll find me _your_ kind.” He turned and shouted commands. “Get in
mains'l, close reef fores'l, and let her ride with that and jumbo.”
“That's the idea!” commended Mayo. “The Atlantic Ocean is getting ready
to deal a hand in this game. We have got to stick close if we're going
to see what cards we draw.”
A fishing-schooner, if well handled, is a veritable stormy petrel in
riding out a blow. Even the ominous signs of tempest did not daunt the
two captains. They were there to guard their property and to have their
hopes or their fears realized.
“If the _Conomo_ has got her grit with her and lives through it,” said
Captain Candage, “we'll be here to give her three cheers when it's over.
And if she goes down we'll be on deck to flap her a fare-ye-well.”
In that spirit they snugged everything on board the schooner and
prepared to defy the storm. It came in the night, with a howl of blast
and a fusillade of sleet like bird-shot. It stamped upon the throbbing
sea and made tumult in water and air. At midnight they were wallowing
with only a forestays'l that was iced to the hardness of boiler plate.
But though the vast surges flung their mighty arms in efforts to grasp
the schooner, she dodged and danced on her nimble way and frustrated
their malignity. Her men did not sleep; they thawed themselves in relays