Part 106

“What?”

“That a steamboat man can't earn his pay aboard a wind-jammer, sir. I don't like to feel that I am under obligations in any way.”

The master grunted.

“And if the little thing I have done helps to square that break I made by licking your passenger I'll be glad of it,” added Mayo.

“You needn't rub it in,” said Captain Downs, carefully noting that there was nobody within hearing distance. “When a man has been in a nightmare for twenty-four hours, like I've been, you've got to make some allowances, Captain Mayo. This is a terrible mixed-upmess.” He squinted at the mizzen rigging where the lanterns revealed the damage. “And by the way those backstays are ripped out, and seeing how that mast is wabbling, this schooner is liable to be about as badly mixed up as the people are on board of her.”

Mayo turned away and went back to his work. They were rigging extra stays for the mizzenmast. And he noted that the girl near the coach-house door was staring at him with a great deal of interest. But in that gloom he was only a moving figure among toiling men.

An hour later the mate ordered the oil-bags to be tied to the catheads. The bags were huge gunny sacks stuffed with cotton waste which was saturated with oil.

In spite of the fact that her spanker, double-reefed, was set in order to hold her up to the wind, weather-vane fashion, the schooner seemed determined to keep her broadside to the tumbling seas. The oil slick helped only a little; every few moments a wave with spoondrift flying from it would smash across the deck, volleying tons of water between rails, with a sound like thunder. At these times the swirling torrent in the waist would reach to a man's knees.

Mayo did not take his watch below. The excitement of his recent experience had driven away all desire for sleep, and the sheathing in the fo'c'sle was squawking with such infernal din that only a deaf man could have remained there in comfort.

However, he was not uneasy in regard to the safety of the schooner. In a winter gale, with ice caking on her, he would have viewed their situation in different light. But he had frequently seen the seas breaking over the wallowing coal-luggers when he had passed them at anchor on the coast.

He made a trip of his own along the main-deck, scrambling upon the spars to avoid the occasional deluge which swept her amidship. The battened hatches were apparently withstanding the onslaughts of the waves. He could feel less weight in the wind. It was apparent that the crisis of the blow had passed. The waves were not so savage; their crests were not breaking. But just then the second mate rushed past, and Mayo overheard the report he gave the captain, who was pacing the lee alley:

“The mizzenmast is getting more play, sir. I'm afraid it's raising the devil with the step and ke'lson.”

“Rig extra stays and try her again for water,” ordered the master.

Mayo, returning to the mizzen, found the entire crew grouped there. The mast was writhing and groaning in its deck collar, twisting its coat--the canvas covering at its foot where it entered the deck.

The dusky faces were exhibiting much concern. They had flocked where the ship was dealing herself a wound; the sailor sixth sense of impending trouble had drawn them there.

“Four of you hustle aloft and stand ready to make fast those stays!” commanded the first mate.

“Rest of you make ready tackle!” shouted the second mate, following close on Mayo's heels.

The negroes did not stir. They mumbled among themselves.

“Step lively!” insisted the mate.

“'Scuse us, but dat mast done goin' to tumble down,” ventured a man.

“Aloft with you, I say!”

Just then the schooner slatted herself on a great roller, and the starboard stays snapped, one after the other, like mammoth fiddle-strings. The mast reeled and there was an ominous sound below the deck.

“She done put a hole into herself!” squealed a sailor.

In the gloom their eyes were gleaming with the fires one beholds in the eyes of frightened cats.

“Dere she comes!” shouted one of them. He pointed trembling finger.

Over the coamings of the fore-hatch black water was bubbling.

Yelping like animals, the sailors stampeded aft in a bunch, bowling over Mayo and the mates in their rush.

“Stop 'em, captain!” bellowed the first mate, guessing their intent. He rose and ran after them. But fright gave them wings for their heels. They scampered over the roof of the after-house, and were on the quarter-deck before the skipper was out of the alley. They leaped into the yawl which was swung at the stern davits.