Blow The Man Down Part 63

"You needn't rub it in," said Captain Downs, carefully noting that there was n.o.body within hearing distance. "When a man has been in a nightmare for twenty-four hours, like I've been, you've got to make some allowances, Captain Mayo. This is a terrible mixed-upmess." He squinted at the mizzen rigging where the lanterns revealed the damage. "And by the way those backstays are ripped out, and seeing how that mast is wabbling, this schooner is liable to be about as badly mixed up as the people are on board of her."

Mayo turned away and went back to his work. They were rigging extra stays for the mizzenmast. And he noted that the girl near the coach-house door was staring at him with a great deal of interest. But in that gloom he was only a moving figure among toiling men.

An hour later the mate ordered the oil-bags to be tied to the catheads.

The bags were huge gunny sacks stuffed with cotton waste which was saturated with oil.

In spite of the fact that her spanker, double-reefed, was set in order to hold her up to the wind, weather-vane fas.h.i.+on, the schooner seemed determined to keep her broadside to the tumbling seas. The oil slick helped only a little; every few moments a wave with spoondrift flying from it would smash across the deck, volleying tons of water between rails, with a sound like thunder. At these times the swirling torrent in the waist would reach to a man's knees.

Mayo did not take his watch below. The excitement of his recent experience had driven away all desire for sleep, and the sheathing in the fo'c'sle was squawking with such infernal din that only a deaf man could have remained there in comfort.

However, he was not uneasy in regard to the safety of the schooner. In a winter gale, with ice caking on her, he would have viewed their situation in different light. But he had frequently seen the seas breaking over the wallowing coal-luggers when he had pa.s.sed them at anchor on the coast.

He made a trip of his own along the main-deck, scrambling upon the spars to avoid the occasional deluge which swept her amids.h.i.+p. The battened hatches were apparently withstanding the onslaughts of the waves. He could feel less weight in the wind. It was apparent that the crisis of the blow had pa.s.sed. The waves were not so savage; their crests were not breaking. But just then the second mate rushed past, and Mayo overheard the report he gave the captain, who was pacing the lee alley:

"The mizzenmast is getting more play, sir. I'm afraid it's raising the devil with the step and ke'lson."

"Rig extra stays and try her again for water," ordered the master.

Mayo, returning to the mizzen, found the entire crew grouped there.

The mast was writhing and groaning in its deck collar, twisting its coat--the canvas covering at its foot where it entered the deck.

The dusky faces were exhibiting much concern. They had flocked where the s.h.i.+p was dealing herself a wound; the sailor sixth sense of impending 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 slas.h.i.+ng 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 Bradis.h.!.+"

"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.