The Harbor of Doubt Part 18

Code looked at his old sweetheart in amazement. He had never seen her so disagreeable. His eye fell upon her left hand.

For a moment his mind did not register an impression. Then all of a sudden it flashed upon him that her ring was gone.

"Oh, _that_ explains everything!" he said to himself. "She has either lost it or quarreled with Nat, and it's no wonder she is unhappy."

Nellie was saying to herself: "The letter must have been very personal or he would have told me about it. He never acted like this before.

There _is_ something between them."

Suddenly astern of them sounded the flap of sails, rattle of blocks, and shouted orders. They turned in time to see a schooner come up into the wind all standing.

She was clothed in canvas from head to foot, with a balloon-jib and staysail added, and made her position less than a hundred yards away.

Schofield gazed at the schooner curiously. Then he leaned forward, his eyes alight. There were certain points about her that were familiar.

With a fisherman's skill he had catalogued her every point. He looked at the trail-board along her bows, and where the name should have been there was a blank, painted-out s.p.a.ce.

It was the mystery schooner!

Once more all the fears that had a.s.sailed Code's mind at her first appearance returned. He was certain that there was mischief in this.

But he sat quiet as the vessel drifted down upon the anch.o.r.ed _Rosan_.

As he looked her over his eyes were drawn aloft to a series of wires strung between her topmasts. Other wires ran down the foremast to a little cubby just aft of it.

"By the great squid, they've got wireless!" he said. "This beats me!"

At fifty yards the familiar man with the enormous megaphone made his appearance.

"Ahoy there!" he roared. "Any one aboard the _Rosan_ seen or heard anything of Captain Code Schofield, of the Grande Mignon schooner _Charming La.s.s?_"

Code rose out of his chair, took off his hat ironically, and swung it before him as he made a low bow.

"At your service!" he shouted. "I was picked up three days ago, adrift in my dory. What do you want with me?"

This sudden avowal created a half panic aboard the mysterious schooner, and the man astern exchanged his megaphone for field-gla.s.ses.

After a long scrutiny he went back to the megaphone.

"Congratulations, captain!" came the bellow. "When are you going to rejoin the _La.s.s?_"

"As soon the _Rosan_ catches her," replied Code, and then, exasperated by the unexpected maneuvers of this remarkable vessel, he cried: "Who are you and what do you want that you chase me all over the sea?"

Instantly the man put down the megaphone and gave orders to the crew, and in five minutes she was on her way north into the very heart of the fleet.

"I don't know who she is or why she is or who is aboard her," he told Nellie, after recounting to her the previous visitation of the schooner. "She reminds me of a nervous old hen keeping track of a stray chick. Pretty soon I won't be able to curse the weather without being afraid my guardian will hear me. I say guardian, and yet I don't know whether she is friendly or merely fixing up some calamity to break all at once. You know I have enemies. She may be working for them."

The girl could offer no solution, nor could Bijonah Tanner, who had witnessed the incident from the forecastle head where he was smoking and antic.i.p.ating the wishes of the cod beneath him. He had walked aft, and the three discussed the mystery.

"Ever see her before, captain?" asked Code.

If there was any man who knew schooners that had fished the Banks or the Bay of Fundy, it was Bijonah Tanner.

"Don't cal'late I ever did. I've never saw _jest_ that set to a foregaff nor _jest_ that cut of a jumbo-jib afore."

Tanner watched the schooner as she scudded away.

"Mighty big hurry, I allow," he remarked. "But, Jiminy, doesn't she sail! There ain't hardly an air o' wind stirrin' and yet look at her go! She's a mighty-able vessel."

It was about four o'clock the next afternoon that the _Rosan_ crept up in the middle of the fis.h.i.+ng fleet. She had made a long berth overnight, dressed an excellent morning's catch, and knocked off half a day because Bijonah did not feel it right to keep Code longer away from his vessel.

And Tanner managed the thing with a good eye to the dramatic. When he reached the rear guard of the fleet he began to work his vessel gracefully in and out among the sloops and schooners.

Code, seated in his chair on the cabin roof, did not realize what was going on until the triumphal procession was well under way.

Through the fleet they went--a fleet that was wearing c.r.a.pe for him--and from every vessel received a volley of cheers.

The _Charming La.s.s_ greeted him with open arms. Pete Ellinwood swung him up from the transferring dory with a great bellow of delight, and he was pa.s.sed along the line until, battered, joyous, and radiant, he arrived exhausted by the wheel, where he sat down.

When they all had drunk to the reunion from a rare old bottle, heavily cobwebbed, Code told his story. Then, while the men dressed down, he walked about, looking things over and counting the crew on his fingers.

"Pete!" he called suddenly, and the mate left the fish-pen.

"Where's Arry Duncan?"

"Wal, skipper, I didn't want to tell you fer fear you had enough on yer mind already, but Arry never come back the same day you was lost."

"My G.o.d! Another one! I wondered how many would get caught that day!"

"An' that ain't all. He had your motor-dory with him--the one you caught us with out of Castalia."

"How did he have that? I gave orders the motor-dories weren't to be used."

"Wal, cookee an' the boy--they was the only ones aboard--tell it this way: Arry he struck a heavy school fust time he lets his dory rodin'

go, an' most of his fish topped forty pound. In an hour his dory was full, and it was a three-mile pull back.

"When he got in he argued them others into givin' him the motor-dory, 'cause it holds so much more. They helped him swing it over, an'

that's the last they see of him."

"But, if he had an engine, you'd think he could've made it back here or run foul of somebody or somethin'."

"Yas, you would think so; but he didn't, the more peace to him," was Ellinwood's reply.

"The poor feller!" said Code. "I'm sorry for his wife. Anything else happen while I was gone, Pete?"

"Now, let me think!" The mate scratched his head. "Oh, yes! Curse me, I nearly forgot it! You know that quair schooner that chased us down one day an' asked the fool questions about you?"

"Yes. I saw that same schooner again yesterday. She asked more fool questions."

"You did!" cried Ellinwood in amazement. "I didn't see her, but I heard her, an' I got a message from her for you. It was night when they come up on us an' hailed.

"They said they had news of you, an' would we send a dory over. Would we? They was about six over in as many minutes. But they wouldn't let us aboard. No, sir; kept us off with poles an' asked for me.