Part 113

“I'm only a poor chap who has done his best as it came to his hand to do,” said the young man, seeking the girl's eyes with his.

She gazed at him for a moment and then put both hands to her face and began to sob.

“It's a hard thing to face, but we'd better understand the truth and be as brave as we can,” said Mayo, gently.

“For myself I ain't a mite surprised,” averred the cook. “I had my hunch! I was resigned. But my plans was interfered with. I wanted to go down in good, deep, green, clean water like a sailor ought to. And now I'm going to get mauled into the sand and have a painful death.”

“Shut up!” barked Mayo.

The girl was trembling, and he feared collapse.

Bradish began to blubber. “I'm not prepared to die,” he protested.

Mayo studied his passenger for some time, wrinkling his brows. “Bradish, listen to me a moment!”

The New-Yorker gave him as much attention as terror and grief permitted.

“There isn't much we can do just now to fix up our general earthly affairs. But we may as well clean the slate between us two. That will help our consciences a little. I haven't any quarrel with you any more. We won't be mushy about it. But let's cross it off.”

“It's all over,” mourned Bradish. “So what's the use of bearing grudges?”

“I suppose it's true that the court has indicted me for manslaughter. Bradish, tell me, man to man, whether I've got to go into those breakers with that on my conscience!”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do! You know whether those men of the schooner Warren were drowned by any criminal mistake of mine or not!”

Bradish did not speak.

“You wouldn't have said as much to Captain Downs if you hadn't known something,” insisted the victim of the plot.

“It was only what Burkett let drop when he came after some money. I suppose he thought it was safe to talk to me. But what's the good of my giving you guesswork? I don't know anything definite. I don't understand sailor matters.”

“Bradish, what Burkett said--was it something about the compass--about putting a job over on me by monkeying with the compass?”

“It was something like that.” His tone exhibited indifference; it was evident that he was more occupied with his terror than with his confession.

“Didn't Burkett say something about a magnet?”

“He got off some kind of a joke about Fogg in the pilot-house and fog outside--but that the Fogg inside did the business. And he said something about Fogg's iron wishbone.”

“So that was the way it was done--and done by the general manager of the line!” cried Mayo. “The general manager himself! It's no wonder I have smashed that suspicion between the eyes every time it bobbed up! I suspected--but I didn't dare to suspect! Is that some of your high finance, Bradish?”

“No, it isn't,” declared the New-Yorker, with heat. “It's an understrapper like Fogg going ahead and producing results, so he calls it. The big men never bother with the details.”

“The details! Taking away from me all I have worked for--my reputation as a master, my papers, my standing--my liberty. By the gods, I'm going to live! I'm going through those breakers! I'll face that gang like a man who has fought his way back from hell,” raged the victim.

“This--this was none of my father's business! It could not have been,” expostulated Miss Marston.

“Your father never knows anything about the details of Fogg's operations,” declared Bradish.

“He ought to know,” insisted the maddened scapegoat. “He gives off his orders, doesn't he? He sits in the middle of the web. What if he did know how Fogg was operating?”

“Probably wouldn't stand for it! But he doesn't know. And the Angel Gabriel himself wouldn't get a chance to tell him!” declared the clerk.