The Harbor of Doubt Part 17

Immediately there was a slight b.u.mp against the side of the schooner, and the slapping and counting would begin again.

"Eighty-seven, and high line at that!" said the next man. "I'll bet that's the only halibut on the Banks, and he's two hundred if he's an ounce."

The great, flat fish was raised to the deck by means of the topping haul that swung in the dories.

Bijonah Tanner, who stood by the pen watching the silver stream as it flowed over the side into the pen, mussed his beard and shook his head. The fish were fair, but not what should be expected at this time of year. He would sail along to another favorable anchorage. This was his first day on the Banks and two days after Nellie's discovery of Elsa's packet.

It was only noon, but Bijonah was speculating, and when he saw the fog bank coming he refused to run any risk with his men, and recalled them to the schooner by firing his shotgun until they all replied to the signal by raising one oar upright.

It must not be thought that it was the fog that induced Bijonah to do this. Dorymen almost always fish when a fog comes down, and trust to their good fortune in finding the schooner. Bijonah wanted to look over the morning's catch and get in tune with the millions under his keel.

By the time the last dory was in, the pile of fish in the pen looked like a heap of molten silver.

The men stretched themselves after their cramped quarters, and greeted the cook's announcement with delight.

"You fellers fix tables fer dressin' down while the fust half mugs up," said Tanner. "Everybody lively now. I cal'late to move just a little bit. The bottom here don't suit me yet."

He went down from the p.o.o.p and walked the deck, listening between clangings of the bell for any sound of an approaching vessel. The crew worked swiftly at dressing and salting the catch.

"Haul up anchor," he ordered when the work was done.

The watch laid hold the windla.s.s poles and hauled the vessel forward directly above her hook. Then there was a concerted heave and the ground tackle broke loose and came up with a rush.

Under headsails and riding sail the _Rosan_ swung into the light air that stirred the fog and began to crawl forward while the men were still cat-heading the anchor. The youth who had been ringing the bell now subst.i.tuted the patent fog-horn, as marine law requires when vessels are under way.

With his eyes on the compa.s.s, Turner guided the s.h.i.+p himself. They seemed to move through an endless gray world.

For an hour they sailed, the only sounds being the flap of the canvas, the creaking of the tiller ropes, and the drip of the fog. Tanner was about to give the word to let go the anchor when, without warning, they suddenly burst clear of the fog and came out into the vast gray welter of the open sea.

Tanner suddenly straightened up, and slipping the wheel swiftly into the becket, he ran to the taffrail and looked over the side.

"Good G.o.d!" he cried. "What's this?"

Not fifty feet away lay a blue dory, heavy and loggy with water, and in the bottom the unconscious figure of a man.

A second look at the face of the man and Tanner cried:

"Wheelan and Markle, overside with the starboard dory. Here's Code Schofield adrift! Lively now!"

There was a rush aft, but Tanner met the crew and drove them to the nested boats amids.h.i.+ps.

"Over, I say!" he roared.

The men obeyed him, and Wheelan and Markle were soon pulling madly to the blue dory astern.

When they reached it one man clambered to the bow and cut the drag rope that Code, in his extremity, had thrown over nearly two days before. Then, fastening the short painter to a thwart in their own craft, they hauled the blue dory and its contents alongside the _Rosan_.

Code Schofield lay with his eyes closed, pale as wax, and seemingly dead. In his right hand he still gripped convulsively the bailing-can he had used until consciousness left him.

Man, boat, and all, the dory was hauled up and let gently down on the deck. Then the eager hands lifted Schofield from the water and laid him on the oiled boards.

"Take him into my cabin," ordered Tanner. "Johnson, bring hot water and rags. Cookee, make some strong soup. If there's any life in him we'll bring it back. On the jump, there!"

"Wal," said one man, when Code had been carried below, "I thought my halibut was high line to-day, but the skipper beat me out in the end."

CHAPTER XVI

A STAGGERING BLOW

"Here is something my father just asked me to give you."

Nellie held out to Code the packet that she had discovered in the skipper's drawer several days before. Code, seated on the roof of the cabin in the only loose chair aboard the _Rosan_, and wrapped in blankets, took the sealed bundle curiously.

He looked at the round, feminine handwriting across the envelope, and failed to evince any flash of guilt or intelligence.

It was three days after Code's rescue by the _Rosan_ and the first that he had felt any of his old strength coming back to him.

For the first twenty-four hours after being revived he did nothing but sleep, and awoke to find Nellie Tanner beside his bunk nursing him.

Since then it had been merely a matter of patience until his exhausted body had recuperated from the shock.

For once Nellie had command of the _Rosan_, and everything stood aside for her patient. The delicacies that issued from the galley after she had occupied it an hour, and that went directly to Code, almost had the result of inciting a mutiny among all hands; terms of settlement being the retirement of the old cook and installation of this new find.

Code ripped open the packet. He stared in amazement at the yellow bills. Then he discovered the letter and began to read it. Despite the healthy red of his weather-beaten face, a tide of color surged up over it.

Nellie turned her head away and looked over the oily gray sea to where the men of the _Rosan_ were toiling in their dories. In the distance there was a sail here and there, for the _Rosan_ was slowly overhauling the fleet from Freekirk Head.

Code stole a swift glance at her, and forgot to read his letter as he studied the fresh roundness and beauty of her face. He vaguely felt that there was a reserved manner between them.

"The letter is from Mrs. Mallaby," he said.

"Yes? That is interesting."

The girl's cool, level eyes met his, and he blushed again.

"She has a good heart," he stumbled on, "and always thinks of others."

"Yes, she has," agreed the girl without enthusiasm, and Code dropped the subject.

"How did your father happen to have this for me?" he asked, after a pause.

"Well, you know, you surprised everybody by leaving the Head before the rest of the fleet. Elsa had it in mind to give you this packet, she _says_, before you left. But when you went so suddenly she asked father to give it to you. She said she expected the _Rosan_ would catch the _La.s.s_ on the Banks. At least, this is the yarn dad told me."

"She seems to know considerable about the Banks and the ways of fishermen," he said, with an unconscious ring of enthusiasm in his tone.

"Yes; you'd think she pulled her own dory instead of being the richest woman in New Brunswick."