Caleb West, Master Diver Part 35

Captain Joe and Caleb walked toward the scow. She was moored close to the gra.s.sy slope of the sh.o.r.e. On her deck stood half a dozen men,-one a diver sent by the manager of the road, and who had arrived with his dress and equipment too late to be of service.

The injured man lay in the centre. Beside him, seated on one of Mrs.

Leroy's piazza chairs, was the village doctor; his hand was on the patient's pulse. One of Mrs. Leroy's maids knelt at the wounded man's feet, wringing out cloths that had been dipped in buckets of boiling water brought by the men servants. Mrs. Leroy and Helen and one or two guests sat a short distance away on the lawn. Over by the stables swinging lights could be seen glimmering here and there, as if men were hurrying. There were lights, too, on the dock and on the scow's deck; one hung back of the sufferer's head, where it could not s.h.i.+ne on his eyes.

The wounded man, who had been stripped of his wet clothes, lay on a clean mattress. Over him was thrown a soft white blanket. His head was propped up on a pillow taken from one of Mrs. Leroy's beds. She had begged to have him moved to the house, but the doctor would not consent until the surgeon arrived. So he kept him out in the warm night-air, under the stars.

Dying and dead men were no new sight to Captain Joe and Caleb. The captain had sat by too many wounded men knocked breathless by falling derricks, and seen their life-blood ooze away, and Caleb had dragged too many sailors from sunken cabins. This accident was not serious; only three killed and one wounded out of twenty. In the morning their home people would come and take them away,-in cloth-covered boxes, or in plain pine. That was all.

With these thoughts in his mind, and in obedience to Sanford's request, Captain Joe walked toward the sufferer, nodded to the Medford doctor sitting beside him, picked up the lantern which hung behind the man's head, and turned the light full on the pale face. Caleb stood at one side talking with the captain of the scow.

"He ain't no dago," said Captain Joe, as he turned to the doctor.

"Looks to me like one o' them young fellers what's"-He stopped abruptly. Something about the injured man attracted him.

He dropped on one knee beside the bed, pushed back the matted hair from the man's forehead, and examined the skin carefully.

For some moments he remained silent, scanning every line in the face.

Then he rose to his feet, folded his arms across his chest, his eyes still fastened on the sufferer, and said slowly and thoughtfully to himself,-

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned!"

The doctor bent his head in expectation, eager to hear the captain's next words, but the captain was too absorbed to notice the gesture.

For some minutes he continued looking at the dying man.

"Come here, Caleb!" he called, beckoning to the diver. "Hold the lantern close. Who's that?" His voice sank almost to a whisper. "Look in his face."

"I don't know, cap'n; I never see him afore."

At the sound of the voices the head on the pillow turned, and the man half opened his eyes, and groaned heavily. He was evidently in great pain,-too great for the opiates wholly to deaden.

"Look agin, Caleb; see that scar on his cheek; that's where the Screamer hit 'im. That's Bill Lacey."

Caleb caught up the lantern as Captain Joe had done, and turned the light full on the dying man's face. Slowly and carefully he examined every feature,-the broad forehead, deep-sunk eyes, short, curly hair about the temples, and the mustache and close-trimmed beard, which had been worn as a disguise, no doubt, along with his new name of Williams. In the same searching way his eye pa.s.sed over the broad shoulders and slender, supple body outlined under the clinging blanket, and so on down to the small, well-shaped feet that the kneeling maid was warming.

"It's him," he said quietly, stepping back to the mast, and folding his arms behind his back, while his eyes were fixed on the drawn face.

During this exhaustive search Captain Joe followed every expression that swept over the diver's face. How would the death of this man affect Betty?

With an absorbed air, the captain picked up an empty nail-keg, and crossing the deck sat down beside the mattress, his hands on his knees, watching the sufferer. As he looked at the twitching muscles of the face and the fading color, the bitterness cherished for months against this man faded away. He saw only the punishment that had come, its swiftness and its sureness. Then another face came before him,-a smaller one, with large and pleading eyes.

"Ain't no chance for him, I s'pose?" he said to the doctor in a low tone.

The only answer was an ominous shake of the head and a significant rubbing of the edge of the doctor's hand across the waist-line of the captain's back. Captain Joe nodded his head; he knew,-the spine was broken.

The pa.s.sing of a spirit is a sacred and momentous thing, an impressive spectacle even to rough men who have seen it so often.

One by one the watchers on the scow withdrew. Captain Joe and the doctor remained beside the bed; Caleb stood a few feet away, leaning against the mast, the full glow of the lantern shedding a warm light over his big frame and throwing his face into shadow. What wild, turbulent thoughts surged through his brain no one knew but himself.

Beads of sweat had trickled down his face, and he loosened his collar to breathe the better.

Presently the captain sank on his knee again beside the mattress. His face had the firm, determined expression of one whose mind has been made up on some line of action that has engrossed his thoughts. He put his mouth close to the sufferer's ear.

"It's me, Billy,-Cap'n Joe. Do ye know me?"

The eyes opened slowly and fastened themselves for an instant upon the captain's face. A dull gleam of recognition stirred in their gla.s.sy depths; then the lids closed wearily. The glimpse of Lacey's mind was but momentary, yet to the captain it was unmistakable. The brain was still alert.

He leaned back and beckoned to Caleb.

"Come over 'ere," he said in a low whisper, "an' git down close to 'im. He ain't got long ter live. Don't think o' what he done to you; git that out o' yer head; think o' where he's a-goin'. Don't let him go with that on yer mind; it ain't decent, an' it'll haunt ye. Git down close to 'im, an' tell 'im ye ain't got nothin' agin 'im; do it for me, Caleb. Ye won't never regret it."

The diver knelt in a pa.s.sive, listless way, as one kneels in a church to the sound of an altar bell. The flame of the lantern fell on his face and s.h.a.ggy beard, lighting up the earnest, thoughtful eyes and tightly pressed lips.

"Pull yerself together, Billy, jes' once fur me," said Captain Joe in a half-coaxing voice. "It's Caleb bendin' over ye; he wants to tell ye somethin'."

The sunken, shriveled lids parted quickly, and the eyes rested for a moment on the diver's face. The lips moved, as if the man were about to speak. But no words came.

Over the cheeks and nose there pa.s.sed a convulsive twitching,-the neck stiffened, the head straightened back upon the pillow.

Then the jaw fell.

"He's dead," said the doctor, laying his hand over the man's heart.

Captain Joe drew the blanket over the dead face, rose from his knees, and, with his arm in Caleb's, left the scow and walked slowly toward the yacht. The doctor gathered up his remedies, gave some directions to the watchman, and joined Mrs. Leroy and the ladies on the lawn.

Only the watchman on the scow was left, and the silent stars,-stern, unflinching, pitiless, like the eyes of many judges.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The diver knelt in a pa.s.sive, listless way"]

CHAPTER XXVI

CALEB TRIMS HIS LIGHTS

Caleb and Captain Joe sat on the yacht's deck on their way back to Keyport. The air-pump had been lifted into its case, and the dress and equipment had been made ready to be put ash.o.r.e at the paraphernalia dock.

The moon had risen, flooding the yacht with white light and striping the deck with the clear-cut, black shadows of the stanchions. On the starboard bow burned Keyport Light, and beyond flashed Little Gull, a tiny star on the far-off horizon.

Caleb leaned back on a settee, his eyes fixed on the glistening sea.

He had not spoken a word since his eyes rested on Lacey's face.

"Caleb," said Captain Joe, laying his hand on the diver's knee, "mebbe ye don't feel right to me fur sayin' what I did, but I didn't want ye to let 'im go an' not tell 'im ye hadn't no hatred in yer heart toward 'im. It'd come back to plague ye, and ye've had sufferin' enough already 'long o' him. He won't worry you nor her no more. He's lived a mean, stinkin' life, an' he's died 's I allus knowed he would,-with n.o.body's hand ter help 'im. Caleb,"-he paused for an instant and looked into the diver's face,-"you 'n me 's knowed each other by an'

large a many a year; ye know what I want ye to do; ye know what hurts me an' has ever sence the child come back. He's out o' yer hands now.

G.o.d's punished him. Be good to yerself an' to her, an' forgive her.

Take Betty back."

The old man turned and slipped his hand over Captain Joe's,-a hard, h.o.r.n.y hand, with a heart-throb in every finger-tip.

"Cap'n Joe, I know how ye feel. There ain't nothin' between us; but yer wrong about _him_. As I stood over him to-night I fit it all out with myself. If he'd 'a' lived long 'nough I'd 'a' told him, jes'