Blow The Man Down Part 66

"It seems that a lot of things can happen at sea," she suggested.

"That fact has been proved to me in the past few weeks."

"You mean in the past few hours, don't you?"

"Miss Marston, what has happened on that schooner is a part of the business, and a sailor must take it as it comes along. I wish nothing worse had happened to me than what's happening now."

She made no reply.

"But no matter about it," he said, curtly.

The two men, kneeling amids.h.i.+ps, clutching a thwart and bailing with their free hands, toiled away; even Bradish had wakened to the fact that he was working for his own salvation.

In the obscurity the waves which rose ahead seemed like mountains topped with snow. Hollows and hills of water swept past on their right and left. But the crests of the waves were not breaking, and this fact meant respite from immediate danger.

"I'm sorry it was all left to you to do," ventured the girl, breaking a long silence. "I thought Ralph had more man in him," she added, bitterly. "I feel that he ought to apologize to you for--for several things."

He, on his part, did not reply to that. He was afraid that she intended to draw him into argument or explanation. Just what he would be able to say to her on that topic was not clear to him.

"It seems as if years had gone by instead of hours. It seems as if I had lived half a life since I left home. It seems as if I had changed my nature and had grown up to see things in a different light. It is all very strange to me."

He did not know whether she were talking to herself or to him. He did not offer comment.

There was a long period of silence. The sound of rus.h.i.+ng waters filled, that silence and made their conversation audible only to themselves when they talked.

"I don't understand how you happened to be on that schooner--as--as you were," she said, hesitating.

"I didn't rig myself out this way to play any practical jokes, Miss Marston," he returned, bitterly.

"I would like to know how it all happened--your side of it."

"I have talked too much already."

There was no more conversation for a long time. He wondered how she had mustered courage to talk at all. They were in a predicament to try the courage of even a seasoned seaman. In the night, tossed by that wild sea, drifting they knew not where, she had apparently disregarded danger. He asked himself if she had not merely exhibited feminine ignorance of what their situation meant. He had often seen cases where apparent bravado was based on such ignorance.

"I must say that you told me at least one truth a while ago--you are not a coward," he said at last.

She was comforting the wretched cat. "But I am miserably frightened,"

she admitted. "I don't dare to think about the thing. I don't dare to look at the waves. I talked to you so as to take my mind off my troubles. I didn't mean to be prying."

"I'll tell you what has been done to me," he blurted. "Hearing somebody's troubles may take your mind off your own."

While the two men amids.h.i.+ps bailed doggedly and weariedly, he told his story as briefly as he could. The gray dawn showed her face to him after a time, and he was peculiarly comforted by the sympathy he saw there. He did not communicate to her any suspicions he may have entertained. With sailor directness he related how he had hoped, and how all had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him. But on one topic the mouths of both seemed to be sealed!

After a time Bradish and the cook were enabled to rest from the work of bailing. The planks of the boat swelled and the leak was stopped.

"You'd better crawl aft here and sit beside Miss Marston," advised Mayo.

"Be careful how you move."

He pa.s.sed Bradish and took the latter's place with the cook, and felt a sense of relief; he had feared that the one, the dreaded topic would force itself upon him.

"I don't see no sense in prolonging all this agony," averred his despondent companion. "We ain't ever going to get out of this alive.

We're drifting in on the coast, and you know what that means."

"You may jump overboard any time you see fit," said the skipper of the craft. "I don't need you any longer for bailing!"

"If that's the way you feel about it, you won't get rid of me so easy,"

declared the cook, malevolence in his single eye.

Mayo noticed, with some surprise, that after the two had exchanged a few words there was silence between Bradish and the girl. The New-Yorker was pale and trembling, and his jaw still sagged, and he threw glances to right and left as the surges galloped under them. He was plainly and wholly occupied with his fears.

When day came at last without rain, but with heavy skies, in which ma.s.ses of vapor dragged, Mayo began eager search of the sea. He had no way of determining their whereabouts; he hoped they were far enough off-sh.o.r.e to be in the track of traffic. However, he could see no sail, no encouraging trail of smoke. But after a time he did behold something which was not encouraging. He stood up and balanced himself and gazed westward, in the direction in which they were drifting; every now and then a lifting wave enabled him to command a wide expanse of the sea.

He saw a white ribbon of foam that stretched its way north and south into the obscurity of the mists. He did not report this finding at once.

He looked at his companions and pondered.

"I think you have something to say to me," suggested the girl.

"I suppose I ought to say it. I've been wondering just how it ought to be said. It's not pleasant news."

"I am prepared to hear anything, Captain Mayo. Nothing matters a great deal just now."

"We are being driven on to the coast. I don't know whether it's the Delaware or the New Jersey coast. It doesn't make much difference. The breakers are just as bad in one place as in the other."

"Why don't you anchor this boat? Are you going to let it go ash.o.r.e and be wrecked?" asked Bradish, with anger that was childish.

"The anchor seems to have been overlooked when we started on this little excursion. As I remember it, there was some hurry and bustle," returned Mayo, dryly.

"Why didn't you remember it? You got us into this sc.r.a.pe. You slammed and bossed everybody around. You didn't give anybody else a chance to think. You call yourself a sailor! You're a devil of a sailor to come off without an anchor."

"I suppose so," admitted Mayo.

"And there wasn't any sense, in coming off in this little boat. We ought to have stayed on the schooner."

"Ralph!" protested the girl. "Have you completely lost your mind? Don't you know that the schooner sank almost the minute we left it?"

"Mr. Bradish's mind was very much occupied at the time," said Captain Mayo.

"I don't believe the schooner sank. What does a girl know about such things? That fellow got scared, that's the trouble. There isn't any sense in leaving a big boat in a storm. We would have been taken off before this. We would have been all right. This is what comes of letting a fool boss you around when he is scared," he raved.

"You are the fool!" she cried, with pa.s.sion. "Captain Mayo saved us."

"Saved us from what? Here we are going into the breakers--and he says so--and there's no anchor on here. He took everything out of my hands.

Now why doesn't he do something?"

"Don't pay any attention to him," she pleaded.

"We are going to be drowned! You can't deny it, can you? We're going to die!" He pulled a trembling hand from between his knees, where he had held both hands pinched in order to steady them. He shook his fist at Mayo. "Own up, now. We're going to die, aren't we?"