The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women Part 21

Sunk by now, I guess," had yelled one of the crew of a dory making for the s.h.i.+pyard.

As each bulletin was shouted back over the water in answer to the anxious inquiries of Marrows, the wife would clasp her fingers the tighter. She made no moan or outburst. Abram would blame her and say it was her fault,--everything was her fault that went wrong.

When the tug had made fast to a wharf spile Captain Joe cleared the stringpiece, and walked straight to Marrows. He was still soaking wet underneath his clothes, only his outer garments being dry,--a condition which never affected him in the least, "salt water bein' healthy," he would say.

"What did I tell ye, Abram Marrows?" he exploded, in a voice that could be heard to the turnpike. "Didn't I say Baxter warn't fittin', and that he ought ter be grubbin' clams? Go and dig a hole some'er's and cover him up head and ears,--and dig it quick, too, and I'll lend ye a shovel."

"Well, but, Captain Joe,"--protested Marrows.

"Don't you 'well' me. Well, nothin'. You're bad as him. Go and dig a hole and BOTH on ye git in it!"--and he pushed through the crowd on his way to his house, I close at his heels.

The wife, who but that moment had heard the glad news of the rescue from the lips of a deck hand, now hurried after the captain and laid her hand on his arm. Her eyes were red from weeping; strands of gray hair strayed over her forehead and cheeks; her lips were tightly drawn; the anxiety of the last few hours had left its mark.

"Don't go, Captain Joe, till I kin speak to ye," she pleaded, in a trembling voice,--speaking through fingers pressed close to her lips.

"No,--I don't want to hear nothin'. She's all right, I tell ye,--tighter 'n a drum and not a drop of water in her. Got some of my men aboard and we'll unload her to-morrow. You go home, old woman; you needn't worry."

"Yes, but you must listen,--PLEASE listen."

She had followed him up the dock and the two stood apart from the crowd.

"Well, what is it?"

"I want to thank ye,--and I want--"

"No, you don't want to thank nothin'. She's all right, I tell ye."

She had tight hold of his arm now and was looking up into his face, all her grat.i.tude in her eyes.

"But I do,--I must,--please listen. You've helped us so. It's all we have. If we'd lost the sloop I'd 'a' give up."

The captain's rough, hard hand went out and caught the woman's thin fingers. A peculiar cadence came into his voice.

"All ye have? Do you think I don't know it? That's why I was under her bowsprit."

"AGAINST ORDERS"

"Here comes Captain Bogart--we'll ask him," said the talkative man.

His listeners were grouped about one of the small tables in the smoking-room of the Moldavia, five days out. The question was when the master of a vessel should leave his s.h.i.+p. In the incident discussed every man had gone ash.o.r.e--even the life-saving crew had given her up: the master had stuck to his post.

The captain listened gravely.

"Yes--if there's one chance in a thousand of saving her. Regulations are pretty plain; can't forget 'em unless you want to," and he walked on.

That night at dinner I received a message to come to the captain's cabin. He had some coffee that an old Brazilian had sent him. His steward hailed from Rio, and knew how to grind and boil it.

Over the making the talk veered to the inquiry in the smoking-room.

"When ought a commander to abandon his s.h.i.+p, Captain?" I asked.

"When his pa.s.sengers need him. Pa.s.sengers first, s.h.i.+p next, are the orders. They're clear and exact--can't mistake 'em."

"You speak as if you had had some experience." A leaf from out the note-book of a live man doing live things is as refres.h.i.+ng as a bucket of cool water from a deep well.

"Experience! Been forty years at sea."

"Some of them pretty exciting, I suppose."

"Yes. Half a dozen of 'em."

He emptied his cup, rose from his seat, and pus.h.i.+ng back his chair, began pacing the floor, stepping into the connecting chart-room, bending for an instant over the map, and stepping back again, peering through the small window a-grime with the spray of a north-easter.

My question, I could see, had either revived some unpleasant memory or the anxiety due to the sudden s.h.i.+ft of wind--it had been blowing south-west all day--had made him restless.

As my eyes followed his movements I began to realize the enormous size of the man. Walking the deck, head up, body erect, his broad shoulders pulled back, his round, solid girth tightly confined in his simple uniform, he looked the brawny, dominant, forceful commander that he was--big among the biggest pa.s.sengers. Here, pacing the small cabin, his head almost touching the ceiling, his great frame filled the small narrow room as an elephant would fill a boudoir. Everything seemed too small for him--the table, even the chair which he had now regained, the tiny egg-sh.e.l.l cup which he was still grasping.

Looking closer--his head in full profile against the glow of the electric light--I caught the straight line of the ruddy, seamed neck--a bull's neck in strength, a Greek athlete's in refinement of line--sweeping up into the close-cropped, iron-gray hair. Then came the round of the head; the ma.s.sive forehead, strong, straight nose; thin, compressed lips, moulded thin and kept compressed by a life of determined effort; square-cut chin and the iron jaw that held the lips and chin in place.

When he rose to his feet again I had another surprise. To my astonishment he was not a Colossus at all--not in pounds and inches. On the contrary, he was but little above the average size. What had impressed me had not been his bulk, but his reserve force. Tigers stretched out in cages produce this effect; so do powerful machines that dig, crunch, or pound--dormant until their life-steam sets them going.

The gale increased in violence. We got now the lift of the steamer's bow, staggering under tons of water, and the whir of the screw in mid-air. The captain glanced at the barometer, drew his body to its full height, reached for his storm-coat, slipped it on, and was about to swing back the door opening on the deck, when the chirp of a canary rang through the room. At the sound he turned quickly and walked back to where the cage hung.

"Ho, little man!" he cried in the same tone of voice in which he would have addressed a child; "woke you up, did we? Sorry, old fellow; tuck your head down again and take another nap."

The bird stretched out its bill, fluttered its wings, pecked at the captain's outstretched finger, and burst into song.

"Yours, captain?" I had not noticed the bird before.

"Yes; had him for years."

Instantly the absurdity of the companions.h.i.+p broke upon me. What possible comfort, I thought, could a man like the captain take in so tiny a creature? It was the lion and the mouse over again--the eagle and the tom-t.i.t--the bear and the rabbit. He must have noticed my surprise and amus.e.m.e.nt, for he added with a smile:

"Must have something. Gets pretty lonesome sometimes when you have no wife nor children, and there are none anywheres for me." He had withdrawn his fingers now, and was b.u.t.toning his coat close about his broad chest, his eyes still on the bird that was splitting its little throat in a burst of song.

"But he's so small," I laughed. "I should think you'd have a dog--seems nearer your size."

I once saw a man struck by a spent bullet. I remember the sudden pallor, the half gasp, and the expression of pain that followed. Then the man uttered a cry. The same expression crossed the captain's face, but there was no gasp and no cry; only a straightening of the lips and a tightening-up of the iron jaw. Then, without a word of any kind in answer, he caught up his cap, swung back the door, and with the wind full on his chest, breasted his way to the bridge.

When the door swung open a moment later it closed on the first officer--a square, thick-set, round-headed man, with mild blue eyes set in a face framed by a half-circle of reddish-brown whiskers, the face tanned by twenty-five years of sea service, fifteen of them with Captain Bogart.

"Getting soapy," he said; "wind haulin' to the east'ard. Goin' to have a nasty night." As he spoke he stripped off his tarpaulins, hung them to a hook in the chart-room, and wiping the salt grime from his face with his coat cuff, took the captain's empty seat at the table.

I knew by the captain's silent departure that I had made a break of some kind, but I could not locate it. Perhaps the first officer might explain.