Part 102

After hesitating a few moments she hurried away. The skipper locked the door and slipped the key into his pocket.

“Do you think I'm going to--” began Bradish, angrily.

“I ain't wasting any thoughts on you, sir. I'm saving 'em all for the Drusilla M. Alden just now.”

The craft's plunging roll gave evidence that the sea was making. At that instant the first mate came down a few steps of the forward companionway, entering through the coach-house door.

“She's breezing up fresh from east'ard, sir!” he reported.

“So I've judged from the way this sheathing is talking up. I'll be on deck at once, Mr. Dodge.”

That report was a summons to a sailor; Mayo came staggering out of the stateroom. He looked neither to right nor left nor at either of the men in the saloon. He stumbled toward the companionway, reaching his hands in front of him after the fashion in which a man gropes in the dark.

“Are you letting a nigger--and a crazy one at that--decide the biggest thing in my life?” raged Bradish.

“I know what I'm doing,” Captain Downs assured him. But the skipper was manifestly amazed by the expression he saw on Mayo's face.

“I won't stand for it! Here, you!” Bradish rushed across the room and intercepted Mayo.

“Come away from that man!” commanded the skipper.

But Bradish was not in a mood to obey authority. “There's something behind this and I propose to be let in on it! Stop, you!” He pushed Mayo back, but the latter's face did not change its expression of dull, blank, utter despair which saw not and heard not. Mayo recovered himself and came on again, looking into vacancy.

“If you have a grudge against me, by the gods, I'll wake you up and make you explain it!” shouted Bradish. He drew back his arm and drove a quick punch squarely against the expressionless face. The blow came with a lurch of the vessel and Mayo fell flat on his back. He went down as stiffly as he had walked, with as little effort to save himself as a store dummy would have made.

But he was another man when he came upon his feet.

Bradish had awakened him!

The master of the Alden hurried around the table, roaring oaths, and tried to get between them, but he was an unwieldy man on his short legs. Before he was in arm's-length they were at each other, dodging here and there.

Bradish was no shrimp of an adversary; he was taller than his antagonist, and handled his fists like a man who had been trained as an amateur boxer.

They fought up and down the cabin, battering each other's face.

The indignant master threatened them with an upraised chair, tried to strike down their hands with it, but they were in no mood to mind a mediator. They fought like maddened cats, banging against the cabin walls, whirling in a crazy rigadoon to find an opening for their fists; Captain Downs was not nimble enough to catch them. Uttering awful profanity, he threatened to shoot both of them and rushed into the main saloon, unlocking the door.

“I'm coming back with a gun!” he promised. But the fight ended suddenly in a wrestling trick.

Mayo closed in, got Bradish's right hand in a grip, and doubled the arm behind his adversary's back. Then he tripped the city man and laid him backward over the table and against its edge with a violence that brought a yell of pain and made Bradish limp and passive. Mayo held him there.

“My grudge, eh? My grudge!” the victor panted. “Because you wouldn't tell me how the sneaks ruined me? No! The girl isn't here now. I'll tell you! It's because you stole her self-respect and her good name, and it makes you too dirty a dog to be her husband!”

He picked up Bradish and threw him on the floor. When he turned he saw the girl's white, agonized, frightened face at the crack of the saloon door.

“Captain Downs!” she shrieked, “that negro is killing him. He's killing Ralph!”

The victor turned his back on her and lurched around the table on his way out. He stroked blood from his face with his palm, and was glad that she had not recognized him; and yet, her failure to do so, even though he was such a pitiable figure of the man she had known, was one more slash of the whip of anguish across his raw soul. For a moment they had stood there, face to face, and only blank unrecognition greeted him; it made this horrible contretemps seem all the more unreal.

Mayo did not pause to listen to the ravings of Captain Downs, who came thrusting past her. Dizzy, bleeding, half blind, he rushed up the forward companionway and went into the black night on deck.

The mate was bawling for all hands to shorten sail, and Mayo took his place with the toilers, who were manning sheets and downhauls.

XXIII ~ THE MONSTER THAT SLIPPED ITS LEASH