The Seiners Part 26

"Money? Why, he never had any money."

"Well, that's bad. Not even enough to open a bottle of wine to drink a lady's health?"

"Bottle of wine? No, nor a thimbleful of tuppenny ale."

"That was bad, Miss Luce. Dave ought've come better heeled----

'And so his money gone he puts out to sea-- It may happen to you or happen to me.'

And which way did he say he was going?"

"He didn't say and I didn't ask, though one of the men with him said something about going to the Grand Banks."

"Grand Banks, eh? That's comforting--it isn't more than a couple of days' sail from here to the nearest edge of it, and twenty-odd thousand or more square miles of shoal water to hunt over after you get there. Had they taken their bait aboard, did you hear, Miss Luce?"

"Yes, they had. That was yesterday afternoon late. His vessel was leaking then, I heard him say to that nice-looking man--Maurice Blake his name, did you say? A nice name Maurice, isn't it? Well, he said to Maurice going out the door, 'Well, we'll put out and I callate--I don't know how she'll get out but out we'll go to-night.' 'The sooner you go the better it will suit me,' Blake said, and they went off together."

"And how was Mr. Blake?"

"How do you mean? How did he act? My, I never saw such a man. Wouldn't open his head all night--wouldn't drink, but just sat and smoked like your friend there. Anything the matter with him?"

"With Maurice? Oh, in the way of aneurisms? Not that I know of. Oh, yes, he has heart-trouble too, come to think. But I must be getting back to the vessel."

"So soon?"

"Yes, we've got to go to sea. I'm like Dave Warner in that I'm going to sea too."

"But n.o.body's driving you away." She had her eyes on Clancy's face then.

He didn't look up--only stared into his gla.s.s.

She was silent for a full minute. Clancy said nothing. "n.o.body's driving you away," she said again.

At that Clancy looked at her. "There's no telling," he said at first, and then hastily, "Oh, no--of course n.o.body's driving me to sea."

"Then what's your hurry?"

I got up and went to the door then. I heard the sound of a sc.r.a.ping chair and then of Clancy standing up. A moment's quiet and then it was: "No, dear, I can't stay--n.o.body's driving me away, I know that.

I'm sure you wouldn't--not with your heart. And you've a good heart if you'd only give it a chance. But I can't stay."

"And why not? You won't, you mean. Well, I never thought you were _that_ kind of a man."

"No? Well, don't go to giving me any moral rating. Don't go to over-rating me--or maybe you'd call it under-rating. But you see, it's my friend that's calling."

"And you're going out in this gale?"

"Gale. I'd go if it was a hundred gales. Good-by--and take care of yourself, dear."

"And will you come back if you don't find him?"

"Lord, Lord, how can I say? Can anybody say who's coming back and who isn't?"

He went by me and out the door. She looked after him, but he never turned--only plunged out of the house and into the street and I right after him.

x.x.xVIII

THE DUNCAN GOES TO THE WEST'ARD

Getting back to the vessel Clancy was pretty gloomy. "That's settled. We can't chase them as far to the east'ard as the big banks--a three hundred mile run to the nearest edge of it and tens of thousands of square miles to hunt over after we'd got there. And it would be child's work anyway to ask Maurice to leave her on the bank.

Who'd take his place even if Dave would stand for it? 'Twould mean laying up a dory or taking his dory-mate too. Maurice wouldn't leave her anyway, even if he believed he'd never get home--no real fisherman would. And yet there it is--Dave in a devil of a mood, and a vessel according to all reports that won't live out one good easterly.

And there's a crazy crew aboard her that won't make for the most careful handling of a vessel. Oh, Lord, I don't see anything for it, but, thank the Lord, Maurice has been behaving himself--and that in spite of how blue he must have been feeling. By this time he's cert'nly made up his mind he's with a pretty bad crowd, but maybe he's glad of a little excitement. What I don't understand is how Dave ever left old man Luce's place without breaking up the furniture before going away. Gen'rally that's his style. Maybe Maurice being along had something to do with it--a pretty able man in close quarters is Maurice. Yes, he must be glad of the excitement, but Lord, that won't save him from being lost. Oh, oh, and now what'll we do? Let's see, the Flamingo's on the way to the Banks, and that's the end of that chase. We've got to wait now and see that she comes home--or don't come home--one or the other. I told that girl that I was going to put out--put out if it blew a hundred gales.

And so I would if any good would come of it, but putting out to sea a day like this because you bragged you would--risking your vessel and crew, or making hard work for them if nothing else--that ain't good sense, is it? Besides, I had to tell her something to get away without setting up to be a model of virtue. What else could I do?

Women are the devil--sometimes--aren't they, Joe? There's some are. I suppose it wouldn't do any great harm to head her for home. I don't believe there's going to be much more fish going to be seined this fall--and wouldn't she make a pa.s.sage of it in this easterly? Oh, Lord, it would be the race all over again, only ten times as long a drag."

While he sat there in the cabin, smoking and meditating, letting us into his thoughts every now and then, the voices of some of our crew were heard on deck.

We all went up and got the word that was being pa.s.sed around. A coast steamer had just come to anchor in the harbor with the report that just outside--about ten miles to the west'ard--was a vessel, dismasted and clean-swept, and dragging toward the rocks. They could not help her themselves--too rough--a hurricane outside--to launch a boat was out of the question. They didn't mind taking a chance, they said, but to attempt her rescue would be suicide.

It looked like a pretty hard chance going out in that gale, but Clancy didn't wait. "n.o.body else seems to be hurrying to get out, and we being the able-est looking craft in the harbor, I callate it's up to us to go." He got the exact location of the distressed vessel from the coaster, and then it was up anchor, make sail, and out we went.

There were people who called Clancy a fool for ordering out his vessel and risking his crew that day--men in that very harbor--and maybe he was. But for myself, I want that kind of a fool for my skipper. The man that will take a chance for a stranger will take a bigger chance for his own by and by.

We saw her while we were yet miles away, down to the west'ard--near Whitehead and with the cruel stretch of rocks under her lee quarter.

Even with plenty of sea-room she could not have lasted long, and here with these ledges to catch her she looked to be in for a short shrift.

We had a good chance to get a look at her as we bore down. Everything was gone from her deck, even the house and rail. There was not as much loose wood on deck as would make a tooth-pick. Afterwards we learned that two seas hove her down so that they had to cut the spars away to right her, and then just as she was coming up another monster had caught her and swept her clean--not only swept clean, but stove in her planks and started some of her beams so that she began to leak in a fas.h.i.+on that four men to the pumps could just manage to keep up with.

We could just see them--the men to the pumps working desperately--with the others lashed to the stumps of the masts and the stanchions which were left when the rail went. Her big hawser had parted and her chain was only serving to slightly check her way toward the rocks.

With spars and deck gear gone and her hull deep in the water, a vessel is not so easily distinguished. But there was something familiar in this one. We had seen her before. All at once it flashed on half a dozen of us--"the Flamingo!" we said. "G.o.d! that's luck!" said Clancy.

She lay in a sort of inlet that was wide open to the gale, rocks on the better part of three sides of her, north, south and west. She was then within all but striking distance of the rocks, and the seas, high and wicked, were sweeping over her. It looked like a bad place to work out of if we should get close in, but Clancy held on.

"Not much lee-room, but plenty of water under her keel anyway," and himself to the wheel, sailed the Johnnie around the Flamingo. He hailed Maurice as he went by, waved his hand to the others, and hove a line aboard. They took the line, hauled in the hawser at the end of it, made that fast to the windla.s.s, and then we started off with her in tow.

We were doing pretty well, what with plenty of wind and the Johnnie buckling down to her work like she was a steamer, till the hawser parted and back toward the rocks went the Flamingo again.

"No use," said Clancy, "sea's too much for any line we got. We'll try it with the seine-boat. Who'll go in the seine-boat and try to take them off? Think quick, but mind what it means."

Every man of the crew of the Johnnie Duncan said, "Here!" The cook even came out of the forec's'le and put in his "And me, too, skipper."

"You're good men," said Clancy,--"d.a.m.n good men," and looked us up and down. We felt proud, he said it in such a way. "But you're taking your lives in your hands and some of you got wives and children--mothers or something. Who hasn't anybody depending on him? Which of you hasn't any woman somewhere, or little brothers or sisters?"

About twelve of the sixteen men standing on the deck of the Johnnie Duncan said "Me!"