Part 21

“You should have made your bigness with my yacht! You sneaked and dodged like a fishing-boat skipper. Was it on a fishing-boat you were trained to those tricks?”

“I have commanded a fishing-steamer, sir.”

“On top of it all you gave him three whistles--regular fishing-boat manners, eh?”

Captain Mayo straightened and his face and eyes expressed the spirit of a Yankee skipper who knew that he was right.

“I say,” insisted Marston, “that you saluted him.”

“And I say, sir, that he cross-signaled, an offense that has lost masters their licenses. When I was pinched I gave him three whistles to say that my engines were going full speed astern. If Mr. Beveridge had looked farther in that book he might have found that rule, too!”

“When I looked up at the bridge, here, you were waving your hand to him--three whistles and a hand-wave! You can't deny that you were saluting!”

“I was shaking my fist at him, sir.”

Within himself Captain Mayo was frankly wondering because the owner of the Olenia was displaying all this heat. He remembered the taunt from the pilot-house of the Conomo and understood vaguely that there were depths in the affair which he had not fathomed. But he was in no mood to atone vicariously for the offenders aboard the Conomo.

“If I could have found a New York captain who knew the short cuts along this coast I could have had some decency and dignity on board my yacht. I'm even forgetting my own sense of what is proper--out here wasting words and time in this fashion. You're all of the same breed, you down-easters!”

“I am quite sure you can find a New York captain--” began Mayo.

“I don't want your opinion in regard to my business, young man. When I need suggestions from you I'll ask for them.” He flung his soggy cigar over the rail and went down the ladder, and the fog closed immediately behind him.

Captain Mayo paced the bridge. He was alone there. A deck-hand had hooded the brass of the binnacle and search-light, listening while the owner had called the master to account. Mayo knew that the full report of that affair would be carried to the forecastle. His position aboard the yacht had become intolerable. He wondered how much Marston would say aft. His cheeks were hot and rancor rasped in his thoughts. In the hearing of the girl he adored his shortcomings would be the subject for a few moments of contemptuous discourse, even as the failings of cooks form a topic for idle chatter at the dinner-table.

Out of the blank silence of the wrapping fog came many sounds. Noises carried far and the voice of an unseen singer, who timed himself to the clank of an Apple-treer pump, brought to Mayo the words of an old shanty:

“Come all you young fellows that follow the sea, Now pray pay attention and lis-ten to me. O blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down! Way-ay, blow the man down. O blow the man down in Liverpool town! Give me some time to blow the man down. 'Twas aboard a Black-Bailer I first served my time, And in that Black-Bailer I wasted my prime. 'Tis larboard and starboard on deck you will sprawl, For blowers and strikers command the Black Ball. So, it's blow the man down, bullies--”

Alma Marston's voice interrupted his somber appreciation of the significance of that ditty. “Are you up there, Boyd?” she asked, in cautious tones.

He hurried to the head of the ladder and saw her at its foot, half hidden in the mists even at that short distance. He reached down his hand and she came up, grasping it.

She was studying his expression with both eagerness and apprehension. “I couldn't stay away from you any longer,” she declared. “The fog is good to us! Father could not see me as I came forward. I must tell you, Boyd. He has ordered me to stay aft.”

He did not speak.

“Has he dared to say to you what he has been saying below about you?”

“I don't think it needed any especial daring on your father's part; I am only his servant,” he said, with bitterness.

“And he--he insulted you like that?”

“I suppose your father did not look on what he said as insult. I repeat, I am a paid servant.”

“But what you did was right! I know it must have been right, for you know everything about what is right to do on the sea.”

“I understand my duties.”

“And he blamed you for something?”

“It was a bit worse than that from my viewpoint.” He smiled down at her, for her eyes were searching his face as if appealing for a bit of consolation.

“Boyd, don't mind him,” she entreated. “Somebody who has been fighting him in business has been very naughty. I don't know just what it's all about. But he has so many matters to worry him. And he snaps at me just the same, every now and then.”