Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
“There can't be much business mixed up in a lot of blank sheets of
paper,” snapped Captain Wass. “What's the matter?”
“I have lost valuable papers.”
The old skipper bent shrewd squint at the angry man who was standing
over him. “Steamer combination papers, hey?”
“You seem to know pretty well.”
“Ought to know.”
“Why?”
Captain Wass rose slowly, with grunts, and rubbed his stiff knees.
“Because I've got 'em.”
“Stole them from the package, did you?”
“It wasn't stealing--it was business.”
“Hand them over.”
“I insist on that, too, Captain Wass,” said Mayo, with indignation.
“Hand over those papers.”
“Can't be done, for I haven't got 'em with me. And I won't hand 'em over
till I have used them in my business.”
“I shall have you arrested,” announced Marston.
“So do. Sooner the whole thing gets before the court, the better.” His
perfect calmness had its effect on the financier.
“What are you proposing to use those papers for?”
“To make you pirates turn back the Vose line property and pay damages.
As to the rest of your combination, the critters that's in it can skin
their own skunks. I guess the whole thing will take care of itself after
we get the Vose line back.”
“You are asking for an impossibility. The matter cannot be arranged.”
“Then we'll see how far Uncle Sam can go in unscrambling that particular
nestful of eggs. I'll give the papers to the government.”
“Haven't you any influence with this man?” Marston asked the astounded
Mayo.
“No, he hasn't--not a mite in this case,” returned Captain Wass. “He
needs a guardeen in some things, and I'm serving as one just now.”
“You must get them from him--you must, Captain Mayo,” cried the girl. “I
did not understand what I was doing.”
“I will get them.”
“I'd like to see you do it, son!”
He turned on the Wall Street man. “I'm only asking for what is
rightfully due my own people. I'm a man of few words and just now I'm
sticking close to schedule. Until eleven o'clock to-night you'll find
Vose, myself, and our lawyers at the Nicholas Hotel. After eleven
o'clock we shall be in bed because we've got to get an early start for
the wreck out on Razee. We're going to finance that job. And in case we
don't come to terms with you tonight we shall use our club to keep you
out of our business after this. You know what the club is.”
Marston was too busily engaged with Captain Wass to pay heed to his
daughter. She went close to Mayo and whispered.
“You must quit them, Boyd. It's for my sake. You must help my father.
They are wretches. Think of what it will mean to you if you can help us!
You will do it. Promise me!”
He did not reply.
“Do you dare to hesitate for one moment--when I ask you--for my sake?”
“That's my last word,” bawled Captain Wass. “There's no blackmail about
it--we're only taking back what's our own.”
“Are you one of those--creatures?” she asked, indignantly.
If she had shown one spark of sympathy or real understanding in that
crisis of their affairs, if she had not been so much, in that moment,
the daughter of Julius Marston, counseling selfishness, he might have
fatuously continued to coddle his romance, in spite of all that had
preceded. But her eyes were hard. Her voice had the money-chink in it.
He started, like a man awakened. His old cap had fallen on the carpet.
He picked it up.
“Good-by!” he said. “I have found out where I belong in this world.”
And in that unheroic fashion ended something which, so he then realized,
should never have been begun. He followed Captain Wass across the
saloon.
“Better advise your buckos to be careful how they handle them
grate-bars,” shouted Captain Wass. “I'm loaded, and if I'm joggled I'm
liable to explode.”
They were not molested when they left the yacht. The doryman who had
brought Captain Wass rowed them to the wharf.
“Those papers--” Mayo had ventured, soon after they left the yacht's
side.
“Not one word about 'em!” yelped the old skipper. “It's my
business--entire! When the time comes right I'll show you that it's my
private business. I never allow anybody to interfere in that.”
That night, after the conference at the hotel, and after Julius Marston,
growling profanity, had put his name to certain papers, drawn by careful
lawyers, Captain Wass explained why the matter of the sealed packet
was his private business. He took Marston apart from the others for the
purpose of explaining.
“I haven't said one word to Vose or his associates about this business
of the documents. They think you have come because you wanted to
straighten out a low-down trick worked by an understrapper. So this has
put you in mighty well with the Vose crowd, sir.”
Marston grunted.
“It ought to be kind of pleasing to have a few men think you are on the
square,” pursued Captain Wass.
“That's enough of this pillycock conversation. Hand over those papers!”
“Just one moment!” He signaled to Captain Mayo, who came to them. “I'm
going to tell Mr. Marston why those documents were my especial business
to-day, and why you couldn't control me in the matter. I may as well
explain to the two of you at once. It was my own business for this
reason: I don't know anything about any papers. I never saw any. I
never opened that package. I handed it along just as it was given to me.
That's true, on my sacred word, Mr. Marston; and I haven't any reason
for lying to you--not after you have signed those agreements.”
“Come outside,” urged the financier. “I want to tell you what I think of
you.”
“No,” said the old skipper, mildly. “And I'd lower your voice, sir, if I
were you. These men here have a pretty good idea of you just now, and I
don't want you to spoil it.”
“You're a lying renegade!”
“Oh no! I have only showed you that all the good bluffers are not
confined to Wall Street. There's one still loose there. Your man Bradish
probably had reasons for wanting to bluff your daughter--and save his
own skin. He'll probably hand your papers to you!”
Marston swore and departed.
“I laid out that course whilst I was down on my knees in his cabin,
sort of praying for a good lie in a time of desp'rit need,” Captain
Wass confided to Mayo. “It wasn't bad, considering the way it has worked
out.”
XXXII ~ A GIRL'S DEAR “BECAUSE!”
Cheer up, Jack, bright smiles await you
From the fairest of the fair,
And her loving eyes will greet you
With kind welcomes everywhere.
Rolling home, rolling home,
Rolling home across the sea.
Rolling home to dear old England,
Rolling home, dear land, to thee!
--Rolling Home.
There was no niggardliness in the trade the Vose folks made with Captain
Mayo. They contracted to co-operate with him and his men in floating the
steamship, repairing her in dry dock, and refitting her for her
route. She would be appraised as she stood after refitting, as a
going proposition, and Mayo was to receive stock to the amount of her
value--stock in the newly organized Vose line.
“Furthermore,” stated old man Vose, “we shall need a chap of just about
your gauge as manager. You have shown that you are able to do things.”
He was up on the _Conomo's_ deck after a long inspection of the work
which had been done under difficulties.
“You would have had this steamer off with your own efforts if your money
had lasted. Your next job is the _Montana_; but you'll simply manage
that, Captain Mayo--use your head and save your muscle.”
“I'll get her off, seeing that I put her on.”
“We all know just how she was put on--and Marston will pay for it in his
hard coin.”
Under these circumstances Razee Reef was no longer a mourners' bench!
The dreary days of makeshift were at an end.
The lighters of one of the biggest wrecking companies of the coast
hurried to Razee and flocked around the maimed steamer--Samaritans of
the sea. Gigantic equipment embraced her; great pumps gulped the water
from her; bolstered and supported, as a stricken man limps with his arms
across the shoulders of his friends, the steamer came off Razee Reef
with the first spring tide in July, and toiled off across the sea in
the wake of puffing tugs, and was shored up and safe at last in a dry
dock--the hospital of the crippled giants of the ocean.
No music ever sounded as sweet to Captain Mayo as that clanging chorus
the hammers of the iron-workers played on the flanks of the _Conomo_.
But he tore himself away from that music, and went down to Maquoit along
with a vastly contented Captain Candage, who remembered now that he had
a daughter waiting for him.
She had been apprised by letter of their success and of their coming.
Maquoit made a celebration of that arrival of the _Ethel and May_, and
Dolph and Otie, cook and mate of the schooner, led the parade when the
men were on shore.
They came back to their own with the full purses that the generosity of
their employers had provided, and there was no longer any doubt as to
the future of the men who once starved on Hue and Cry.
Captain Mayo had declared that he knew where to find faithful workers
when it came time to distribute jobs.
Polly Candage had come to him when he stepped foot on shore, hands
outstretched to him, and eyes alight. And when she put her hands in his
he knew, in his soul, that this was the greeting he had been waiting
for; her words of congratulation were the dearest of all, her smile was
the best reward, and for her dear self he had been hungry.
But he would not admit to himself that he had come to woo.
When the soft dusk had softened the harsh outlines of the little hamlet,
and the others were busy with their own affairs and had left Mayo
and Polly to themselves, he sat with her on the porch of the widow's
cottage, where they spent that first evening after they had been saved
from the sea.
There had been a long silence between them. “We have had no
opportunity--I have not dared yet to tell you my best hopes for the
dearest thing of all,” she ventured.
“The one up inland. I know. I am glad for you.”
“What one up inland?”
“That young man--the only young man in all the world.”
“Oh yes! I had forgotten.”
He stared at her. “Forgotten?”
“Why--why--I don't exactly mean forgotten. But I was not thinking about
him when I spoke. I mean that now--with your new prospects--you can go
to--to--There may come a time when you can speak to Mr. Marston.”
“I have spoken to Mr. Marston, quite lately. He has spoken to me,” he
said, his face hard. “We shall never speak to each other again, if I can
have my way.”
He met her astonished gaze. “Polly, I hate to trouble you with my poor
affairs of this kind. I can talk of business to Mr. Vose, and of the
sea to your father. But there's another matter that I can't mention
to anybody--except you will listen. I will tell you where I saw Mr.
Marston--and his daughter.”
She listened, her lips apart.
“So, you see,” he said at the end, “it was worse than a dream; it was
a mistake. It couldn't have been real love, for it was not built on the
right foundation. I have never had much experience with girls. I have
been swashing about at sea 'most all my life. Perhaps I don't know what
real love is. But it seems to me it can't amount to much unless it is
built up on mutual understanding, willingness to sacrifice for each
other.”
“I think so,” returned Polly, softly.
“I want to see that young man of yours, up inland. I want to tell him
that he is mighty lucky because he met you first.”
“Why?”
“I can't tell you just why. It isn't right for me to do so.”
“But a girl likes to hear such things. Please!”
“Will you forgive me for saying what I shouldn't say?”
“I will forgive you.”
“He's lucky, because if I didn't know you were promised and in love,