Blow The Man Down Part 80

"You'll have a chance to use it!" retorted the young man. He dodged out and locked the stateroom door.

"Your pa.s.senger is not going back with you, sir," he called down over the rail to the towboat captain.

"I take my orders from him."

"You are taking them from me now. Cast off!".

"Look here--"

"I mean what I say, sir. That man you brought out here is going to stay till I can put him into the hands of the police."

"What has he done?"

"The less you know about the matter the better it will be for yourself and your boat! You tell the man who chartered your tug--"

"You have him aboard, there!"

Mayo looked straight into the towboat man's eyes.

"You tell Mr. Fogg, who chartered your tug, that I have his man under lock and key and that the more riot he starts over the matter the better I will be satisfied. And don't bring any more pa.s.sengers out here unless they are police officers." Then he roared in his master-mariner tones: "Cast off your lines, sir. You know what the admiralty law is!"

The captain nodded, closed his pilot-house window, and clanged his bell.

Mayo knew by his mystified air that he was not wholly in the confidence of his pa.s.senger and his employer.

This bungling, barefaced attempt to destroy the steamer touched Mayo's pride as deeply as it stirred his wrath. Fogg evidently viewed the pretensions of the new owners.h.i.+p with contempt. He must have belief in his own power to ruin and to escape consequences, pondered the young man. He had put Mayo and his humble a.s.sociates on the plane of the ordinary piratical wreckers of the coast-men who grabbed without law or right, who must be prepared to fight other pirates of the same ilk, and whose affairs could have no standing in a court of law.

Even more disquieting were the statements that the avenues of credit ash.o.r.e had been closed. Malicious a.s.sertions could ruin the project more effectually than could dynamite. But now that the _Conomo_ had withstood the battering of a gale and bulked large on the reef, a visible pledge of value, it did seem that Captain Candage must be able to find somebody who would back them.

For two days Mayo waited with much impatience, he and his men doing such preliminary work as offered itself.

He expected that Fogg would send a relief expedition, but his apprehensions bore no fruit. His prisoner was sourly reticent and by the few words he did drop seemed to console himself with the certainty that retribution awaited Mayo.

On the third day came the schooner. She came listlessly, under a light wind, and her limp sails seemed to express discouragement and disappointment. Mayo, gazing across to her as she approached, received that impression, in spite of his hopes. He got a glimpse of Captain Candage's face as he came to the steamer's side in his dory, and his fears were confirmed.

"'Tain't no use," was the skipper's laconic report as he swung up the ladder.

"You mean to say you didn't get a rise out of anybody?"

"Nothing doing nowhere. There's a fat man named Fogg in Limeport, and he is spreading talk that we 'ain't got law or prospects. Got a few men to listen to me, but they shooed me off when they found that we wouldn't take 'em in and give 'em all the profits. Went to Maquoit and tried to get Deacon Rowley into the thing--and when I go and beg favors of Deacon Rowley, you can imagine how desperate I am. He's a cash-down fellow--you have found that out."

"But couldn't you show him that this is the best gamble on the coast?"

"He ain't a gambler; he's a sure-thing operator. And when he knew that we had put in all our cash, he threatened to take the schooner away from us unless we go back to fis.h.i.+ng and 'be sensible'--that's the way he put it. So then him and me had that postponed row."

"But look at her," pleaded Mayo, waving his hand, "Ice off her, sound in all her rivets after her beating. If we could get the right men out here now--"

"I ain't confident, myself, no more," stated Captain Candage, running an eye of disfavor over their property. "If ye get out here away from level-headed business men and dream about what might happen, you can fool yourself. I can see how it is with you. But I've been ash.o.r.e, and I've got it put to me good and plenty. I did think of one way of getting some money, but I come to my senses and give it up."

"Getting money--how?"

"No matter. I'd cut off both hands before I'd let them hands take that money for a desp'rit thing like this. Let's sell her for sc.r.a.p to the first man who'll take her--and then mind our own business and go fis.h.i.+ng."

"Will you take your turn aboard here and let me go ash.o.r.e?"

"There ain't no sense in us wasting more time."

"I've done my trick here, Captain Candage, and it has been a good one.

I only ask you to take your trick, as a s.h.i.+pmate should. Keep a dozen of the men here with you. There's plenty of grub. Stand off all comers till I get back."

"What are you going to do?"

"Make a man's try, sir, before I let 'em dump us. We can always go fis.h.i.+ng. But there's only one_ Conomo_."

"I'll stay. It's only fair to you to have your chance ash.o.r.e. And I've got an almighty good rifle aboard that schooner," stated the skipper.

"Send it to me by one of the men."

"You may need it," stated Captain Mayo, with grim set to his jaw. "You come with me. I want to show you a bird that flew aboard here the other day."

Outside the stateroom door he halted Captain Candage, who was following on his heels, taking Mayo's statement literally, and showing only mild interest.

"Captain Candage, your man, Art Simpson, is in this stateroom. He came out here on a tug with a bag of dynamite, and intended to blow up this wreck."

"Gawd-a-mighty, ain't they going to stop at anything?" croaked the old skipper.

"It's about time for us to find out how much of this is reckless devilishness on the part of hired men and how much the big men really know of what is being done on this coast, sir. And that's why I'm holding this man Simpson."

"Let me at him!" pleaded Candage. "I'll crack his sh.e.l.l for him! I'll get at his meat!"

Mayo unlocked the door and walked in.

"Simpson, you--" bawled the old skipper, and then halted in confusion, his mouth wide open.

"This ain't Art Simpson!" he declared, after amazed survey of the glowering stranger. "Who be ye?"

"None of your infernal business! When you do know who I am you'll discover that you have a tough proposition on your hands."

"We realize that already, without knowing your name," retorted Mayo.

"I'm not worrying; it's for you to do the worrying! I have given you your warning! Now take what's coming to you from the men who are behind me."

"What's your name--that's what I've asked you?" demanded Candage.

"None of your business--that's what I have told you."

"We'll get some light on that subject after I have you on sh.o.r.e," said Mayo. "Come on! You're going!"

"Sooner the better!" agreed the stranger. "I'll relish seeing you get yours!"

Mayo wasted no time. He sent his prisoner down the ladder to the dory ahead of him, and put out his hand to the old skipper.