Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 47

"Cap'n Am'zon!" exclaimed several excited voices. But only one--and that Louise Grayling's--uttered another name:

"Cap'n Abe! Isn't _he_ with you? Didn't you bring him ash.o.r.e?"

"By heaven! that's so, Louise!" groaned Lawford. "They must both be out there. The two brothers are marooned on that rotten wreck!"

Already the kindly neighbors were hurrying the castaways in groups of twos and threes to the nearer dwellings. Ans...o...b..was getting foot after foot of "the real stuff." The moving picture actors and the cottagers hung on the outskirts of the throng of natives, wide-eyed and marveling. They had all, on this day, gained a taste of the stern realities of life as it is along the sh.o.r.e.

Louise was desirous of getting her father to the store, for he was exhausted. Lawford turned back toward the group of life-saving men standing about the beached boat.

"If they can get her launched again they'll need me," he shouted back over his shoulder. "Poor Cap'n Abe and Cap'n Amazon------"

"You've done enough, boy," his father declared, clinging to the sleeve of Lawford's guernsey. "Don't risk your life again."

"Don't worry, dad. A fellow has to do his bit, you know."

Betty Gallup came to the a.s.sistance of Louise and helped support the professor. The woman's countenance was all wrinkled with trouble.

"He must be out there, too," she murmured to Louise. "Ain't none o'

these chaps off the _Curlew_ jest right yet--scar't blue, or suthin'.

They don't seem to rightly sense that Cap'n Abe was with 'em all the time aboard that schooner."

"Poor Cap'n Abe!" groaned Louise again.

"And that old pirate's with him," said Betty. But her tone lacked its usual venom in speaking of Cap'n Amazon. "Who'd ha' thought it? I reckoned he was nothing but a bag o' wind, with all his yarns of b.l.o.o.d.y murder an' the like. But he is a Silt; no gettin' around that. And Cap'n Abe allus did say the Silts were proper seamen."

"Poor, poor Cap'n Abe!" sobbed Louise.

"Now, now!" soothed Betty. "Don't take on so, deary. They'll get 'em both. Never fear."

But the rising gale forbade another launching of the lifeboat for hours. The night shut down over the wind-ridden sea and sh.o.r.e, and by the pallid light fitfully playing over the tumbling waters the watchers along the sands saw the stricken _Curlew_ being slowly wrenched to pieces by the waves that wolfed about and over her.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

ON THE ROLL OF HONOR

Stretched upon the couch in the living-room behind the store, with Diddimus purring beside him, Professor Grayling heard that evening the story of Cap'n Abe's masquerade. Betty Gallup had gone back to the beach and Louise could talk freely to her father.

"And he saved me, for your sake!" murmured the professor. "He gave me his place in the lifeboat! Ah, my dear Lou! there is something besides physical courage in this world. And I don't see but that your uncle has plenty of both kinds of bravery. Really, he is a wonderful man."

"He _was_ a wonderful man," said Louise brokenly.

"I do not give up hope of his ultimate safety, my dear. The gale will blow itself out by morning. Captain Ripley is so badly hurt that he is being taken to Boston to-night, and the crew go with him. But if there is interest to be roused in the fate of the last man left upon the wreck----"

"Oh, I am sure the neighbors will do everything in their power. And Lawford, too!" she cried.

"The schooner is not likely to break up before morning. The departure of her crew to-night will make it all the easier for Mr. Abram Silt's secret to be kept," the professor reminded her.

"Yes. We will keep his secret," sighed Louise. "Poor Uncle Abram!

After all, he can gain a reputation for courage only vicariously. It will be Cap'n Amazon Silt who will go down in the annals of Cardhaven as the brave man who risked his life for another, daddy-prof."

Aunt Euphemia did not leave The Beaches on this evening, as she had intended. Even she was shaken out of her usual marble demeanor by the wreck and the incidents connected with it. She came to the store after dinner and welcomed her brother with a most subdued and chastened spirit.

"You have been mercifully preserved, Ernest," she said, wiping her eyes. "I saw young Lawford Tapp bring you ash.o.r.e. A really remarkable young man, and so I told Mrs. Perriton just now. So brave of him to venture out in the lifeboat as a volunteer.

"I have just been talking to his father. Quite a remarkable man--I.

Tapp. One of these rough diamonds, you know, Ernest. And he is so enthusiastic about Louise. He has just pointed out to me the spot on the bluff where he intends to build a cottage for Lawford and Louise."

"What's this?" demanded Professor Grayling, sitting up so suddenly on the couch that Diddimus spat and jumped off in haste and anger.

"I--I was just going to tell you about Lawford," Louise said in a small voice.

"Oh, yes! A little thing like your having a lover slipped your mind, I suppose?" demanded her father.

"And a young man of most excellent character," put in the surprising Mrs. Conroth. "Perhaps his family is not all that might be desired; but I. Tapp is e-_nor_-mously wealthy and I understand he will settle a good income upon Ford. Besides, the young man has some sort of interest in the manufacturing of candies."

Trust the Lady from Poughkeepsie to put the best foot forward when it became necessary to do so. The professor was gazing quizzically at the flushed face of his daughter.

"So that is what you have been doing this summer, is it?" he said.

"That--and looking after Cap'n Abe," confessed Louise.

"I'll have to look into this further."

"Isn't it terrible?" interrupted Mrs. Conroth. "They say the two brothers are out on that wreck and they cannot be reached until the gale subsides. And then it will be too late to save them. Well, Louise, that old sailor was certainly a brave man. I am really sorry I spoke so harshly about him. They tell me it was he who put your father in the boat. I hope there is some way you can fittingly show your appreciation, Ernest."

"I hope so," said Professor Grayling grimly.

Lawford came to the store before bedtime--very white and serious-looking. He had tried with the patrol crew to launch the boat again and go to the rescue of the two old men supposed to be upon the wreck. But the effort had been fruitless. Until the gale fell and the tide turned they could not possibly get out to Gull Rocks.

"A brave man is Cap'n Amazon," Lawford Tapp said. "And if Cap'n Abe was in the schooner's crew----Why, Professor Grayling! surely you must remember him? Not a big man, but with heavy gray beard and mustache--and very bald. Mild blue eyes and very gentle-spoken. Don't you remember him in the crew of the _Curlew_?"

"It would seem quite probable that he was aboard," Professor Grayling returned, "minding his p's and q's," as Louise had warned him. "But you see, Mr. Tapp, being only a pa.s.senger, I had really little a.s.sociation with the men forward. You know how it is aboard s.h.i.+p--strict discipline, and all that."

"Yes, sir; I see. And, after all, Cap'n Abe was a man that could easily be overlooked. Not a.s.sertive at all. Not like Cap'n Amazon.

Quite timid and retiring by nature. Don't you say so, Louise?"

"Oh, absolutely!" agreed the girl. "And yet, when you come to think of it, Uncle Abram is a wonderful man."

"I don't see how you can say so," the young man said. "It's Cap'n Amazon who is wonderful. There were other men down on the beach better able to handle an oar than he. But he took the empty seat in the lifeboat when he was called without saying 'yes or no'! And he pulled with the best of us."

"He is no coward, of that I am sure," said Professor Grayling. "He gave me his place in the boat. We can but pray that the lifeboat will get to him in the morning."

That hope was universal. All night driftwood fires burned on the sands and the people watched and waited for the dawn and another sight of the schooner on the reef.

The tide brought in much wreckage; but it was mostly smashed top gear and deck lumber. Therefore they had reason to hope that the hull of the wreck held together.