Part 33

"No," he said, "everything will never be all right while he's alive and I'm alive."

That didn't sound good to me, so I sat down by the bed and began to talk to him. We talked, I doing the most of it, until past daylight. We talked of her. "She's all right," he said at last, "I tell you she is. Even if she didn't like me and did him, it would be only natural. But she likes me--the best of her likes me better than him, and when she gets to know him all of her will like me. You'll see."

There were people who used to say Drislane was so innocent as to be a joke; but after that talk into that wintry dawn I had to salute him. He had just a little something on all of us who were so much more worldly-wise. It surely was a great gift he had--to see in every woman only the shining soul.

No man could say where the word came from, no man could say that he had seen her himself; but the word was out that Oliver Sickles had boarded his vessel in the early morning with the red-haired girl of the Tidewater Cafe in tow.

Nobody on the Sirius ever intended to pass the word to Drislane, but no crew of a vessel can be whispering for hours without the one man they don't discuss the mysterious matter with wanting to guess what it is they are trying to keep from him. Drislane guessed.

I had brought him to the Sirius in a carriage just before she sailed. Captain Norman had told him to keep to his bunk until the Sirius tied up to the dock in Boston if he wished, but Drislane did not wish. He came on deck, still bandaged and battered, on the first morning out, to stand his watch. A word blown across the deck, when he was thought to be still in his bunk below, halted him in his walk aft. He turned and stared at the man who was speaking, whereupon followed such a sudden and foolish twist to the conversation that he might just as well have been told.

Throughout his trick at the wheel Drislane said nothing, but every moment the compass could spare his eyes saw them roaming across to where the Orion, like ourselves, was plugging through the short green seas for home. When his watch was done he borrowed my glasses, climbed by painful relays to the masthead and trained them on the Orion. After he came down and had gone below, I went aloft and spent the rest of the morning trying to see what it was that Drislane may have seen on the deck of Oliver Sickles's vessel.

Was it a woman's head showing above the cabin companionway? or was it a man passenger Oliver Sickles had taken aboard at the last minute? If a man, he surely was no seagoer; for in the two hours that I watched he never once stepped out on deck. He leaned dejectedly, or it might be patiently, but, either way, motionless as a stanchion against the companion casing, his soft flapping hat and the shoulders of a loose coat showing just above the woodwork. Man or woman, the face was pointed steadily toward the Sirius.

Our captain said it was a passenger of some kind. It had to be, he said, because during the morning he had kept an eye on the Orion's deck and accounted for every man of her crew, which numbered exactly the same as his own; even for the cook, who had shown himself on deck to heave a bucket of galley refuse over the rail. It could not be an extra hand shipped for the trip, because no hand would be allowed to stand on the cabin stairs.

And did he think it was a man or a woman? The shoulders in the loose coat looked wide enough to be a man's. And I looked at him and he at me. So was Drislane's Rose big enough for a man, but we said no more of that then--Drislane had just come on deck and was making his way aft. Again he borrowed my glasses, went aloft, and trained them on the Orion. From time to time he looked down to the man at the wheel, as if to hint to him to get a little nearer the Orion, but the man at the wheel had already got a quiet word from the captain. We were to leeward. "Keep off--keep off--off--off--!" Captain Norman was saying in a low voice to the helmsman. "Don't let her get any nearer, leastwise while he's aloft with the glasses."

It looked as if we would have to wait to get to Boston to settle the question. Meantime, if Drislane would only try to forget everything of shore matters, he might be getting great comfort of a run like this. If he were himself, he would by now, being half in the way of a poet and half hoping some day to be an artist, be drawing little water-colors and writing little rhymes of these two big schooners racing home together.

'Twould have been well worth his paint and paper. The Orion and the Sirius were two of the best in their class and more trimly modelled than most. What the Orion looked like we must have looked like, and she was something I used to spend whole watches on deck just looking at. She carried an open rail amidships, and her white-painted stanchions, carved to hour-glass form, with the white-painted flat hand-rail atop, stood clearly, sharply, beautifully out above her black lower sides and the pale-green seas.

Not that either of us had much lower planking to show, for four thousand five hundred tons of coal had brought us pretty well down to our scuppers. Too deep-loaded for our best looks, some would say; but I don't know--with all her jibs and all whole sail to her five lower spars, we must have looked pretty good, the pair of us, plugging along together through the curling rollers. We had set no topsails or staysails, because they would not have stayed on, blowing as it was a good half-gale.

It could have been blowing twice a gale and nothing happened to either of us. Probably no stiffer class of vessels sails the seas than the big coasters of our side of the North Atlantic. Give them plenty of ballast and there is no capsizing them. We surely had plenty of ballast in us now, and took cheerfully all the hard westerly had to give us, and foamed along. Foamed? We wallowed--like a couple of sailing submarines almost. In that wind and sea, with all that loose water sloshing around her deck, there was no careless standing around of course; but with rubber boots to your hips, a good oil-slicker to your back, and yourself lashed to something solid up to wind'ard, it was a great place for a man to let the wind blow away three months of coal-dust from his eyelids; and what the wind couldn't blow away the sea would surely wash out.

That loose water flopping around her deck--that was no harm. "Tarpaulin her hatches, clamp 'em down, and let her roll!"--that had been Captain Norman's word coming out of Hampton Roads. And "Batten her down and let her plug into it!" had come roaring across to us at almost the same moment from the deck of the Orion. And no more than into the open Atlantic than we were plugging into it. The sea came mounting up over our low lee-rails--up, up our swash-swept decks, clear across us sometimes, when for a moment a doubtful helmsman would let her ship an extra cargo. But, again, no harm in that. Let 'em slosh and let 'em roll--we were standing up, the pair of us, like two brick houses. And the rest didn't matter. And so almost forgetting Drislane's trouble in the strain of the race, we batted our way through the winter seas on which the sun was dancing--batted and slatted, plugged and slugged our way beside the Orion for the New England coast.

Two vessels may be built alike and rigged alike, but that doesn't mean they will sail alike. The Orion, in the judgment of seafaring folk, was a shade faster reaching and running than the Sirius. At any rate, the Orion proved to us that she was faster off the wind than we were by rounding Cape Cod before us. To there it had been a good passage. No collier loaded to her scuppers is ever going to break any sailing records, but hard driving had brought the pair of us along at a good clip. So far, fine; but it was to be a beat to windward for the rest of the way. West-north-west is the course from Cape Cod to Boston, and west-north-west was where the wind was coming from when it hit us on the nose as we rounded the Cape.

The Orion might outrun us, the Sirius, but to windward there was no difference except in their masters; and there we had the best of it. Norman Sickles could get more out of a vessel than his cousin when the going was bad. Oliver used to claw around deck like a sore-headed bear, and every now and then go below and have a drink for himself when things weren't breaking right. Norman took things more quietly, and so taking them wasn't too busy to grab every little chance that bobbed up.

The Orion stood off on one tack, we on the other, and by and by we lost her below the horizon; but standing in, after some hours found her again; and finding her, were pleased to see that we had made up something on her. We filled away once more, and by and by stood back to her. We were making distance fast. Had we held on we would have crossed her wake almost under her stern on that tack. On our next tack we would be crossing her bow, and it would then be on past the lightship in the lead, and the race over; for neither of us was going to tack up the channel, deep-loaded, against a tide which would soon be ebbing. Up at the harbor entrance two tugs had already seen that and were racing out to pick us up.

To more quickly get in tow of the tug nearest us, which was coming hooked up for us, our captain put the Sirius about earlier than he had originally intended. As we tacked, so did the Orion. We stood in toward the harbor. The Orion stood in toward the harbor. We were surely going to pass close to each other--very close. Altogether too close.

I didn't like the looks of things. Being a passenger, I had a mind free for other things than navigation. "In case of doubt who gives way--the Orion or the Sirius?" I asked Captain Norman. "Why, she does," he said, surprised. "It has to be her--not us. Both of us close-hauled, but we being starboard tack have the right of way. He'll have to come about and give us the road."

"But suppose, captain, he will not give way?"

"What! not give way! That'd be foolish. He c'n go bulling his way on shore all he pleases, but out here he'll only get what's due him. He'll have to give way."

So Norman Sickles said, but he wasn't the man to lose his vessel or risk men's lives. The Orion was holding on. She was going to force us. When Norman Sickles saw that, he motioned with his arm for the man at our wheel to keep off. But the Sirius wasn't keeping off. Norman Sickles turned and yelled: "Keep her off--off--off, I say!" starting aft, at the same time, to take the wheel himself.

He was too late. They seemed drawn together. We took a shoot. The Orion took a shoot. "Damned if she didn't get away from him!" I remember hearing one of our fellows jerk out, but I remember also I was left wondering whether he meant our vessel or the Orion.

They rushed together and g-g-h-h! Talk of a smash! Forty-five hundred tons of coal, nine-tenths of it below the water-line, and a breeze of wind! Either one would have sunk a battle-ship. It shook the spars out of the Orion. Her after-mast came down, the next one came down, the others were swaying. "The boat--the boat!" her crew yelled, but taking another look up at those wabbling masts, they waited to launch no boat. With few words but much action, they went over her side, one after the other, and began to claw out for the Sirius, on which--she was sinking too--our crew had a big quarter-boat ready to launch.

While the two vessels were still locked in collision I had seen Drislane come running from aft and leap into the Orion. I lost sight of him then, because with our captain I had jumped below into our cabin, he to save his ship's papers and I to save my firm's. We were on deck in time to get into our boat, and help pick up the crew of the Orion in the water.

Looking for Drislane then, I saw him and Captain Oliver Sickles at each other's throats in the stern of the Orion. There wasn't much left of her above water then. And on her deck it was a mess of fallen spars, with her foremast the only stick left, and that--unsupported by backstays and the wind still pressing against the big sail--that was wabbling. Even as we looked it came down--lower and top parts--with a smash which snapped the topmast off and sent it twisting and gyrating to where, after a bound or two, it rolled down and pinned to the deck the two battling men in the stern. With it came a tangled mess of halyards and stays.

We had picked up all of the Orion's crew from the water and were now hurrying to get to the two men on the Orion, which was fast settling, when a red-haired girl came running from the cabin companionway. Almost as if she had been waiting in ambush, she rushed over to the fallen spar, untangled the halyards from the legs of one of the furthest men, and after an effort lifted the end of the spar so that he could scramble free. She needed to be strong to do that; but she was strong. If she had held the spar up only an instant longer, the other man might have wiggled free too. But she let it drop back. The man she had freed she picked up and carried to the quarter-rail, where she waited for us in the boat. He made an effort as if to get back to the man left under the spar, but she would not let him. "Tain't no crime, Honey," I heard her say as we got to them. She went overboard as she said it, and we had to hurry to get her. "I know him a heap better than you-all, Honey--let him rest where he done fall to."