_ CHAPTER XXXI. THE BIG FELLOW HIMSELF
Will had promised his Sue that this trip, if well ended,
Should coil up his ropes and he'd anchor on shore.
When his pockets were lined, why his life should be mended,
The laws he had broken he'd never break more.
--Will Watch.
They needed food, lease-money for their hired equipment was due, and the dependents at Maquoit must be looked after.
Pride and hope had inspired the crew at Razee to salvage the
Conomo intact. Material removed from her would immediately become junk to be valued at junk prices, instead of being a valuable and active asset on board. But there was no other resource in sight. No word came from Captain Wass; and Mayo had put little confidence in that possibility, anyway.
There was nothing else to do--they must sell off something on which they could realize quickly.
In the estimation of many practical men this procedure would have been a warrantable makeshift, its sole drawback being a sacrifice of values. But to the captains on Razee it seemed like the beginning of complete surrender; it was the first step toward the dismantling of the steamship. It was making a junk-pile of her, and they confessed to themselves that they would probably be obliged to keep on in the work of destruction. In the past their bitterest toil had been spiced with the hope of big achievement; the work they now set themselves to do was melancholy drudgery.
They brought the
Ethel and May alongside and loaded into her the anchors, chains, spare cables, and several of the life-boats. Mayo took charge of the expedition to the main.
The little schooner, sagging low with her burden, wallowed up the harbor of Limeport just before sunset, one afternoon. Early June was abroad on the seas and the pioneer yachting cruisers had been coaxed to the eastward; Mayo saw several fine craft anchored inside the breakwater and paid little attention to them. He paced the narrow confines of his quarter-deck and felt the same kind of shame a ruined man feels when he is on his way to the pawnshop for the first time. He had his head down; he hated to look forward at the telltale cargo of the schooner.
"By ginger! here's an old friend of yours, this yacht!" called Mr. Speed, who was at the wheel.
They were making a reach across the harbor to an anchorage well up toward the wharves, and were passing under the stern of a big yacht. Mayo looked up. It was the
Olenia.
"But excuse me for calling it a friend, Captain Mayo," bawled the mate, with open-water disregard of the possibilities of revelation in his far-carrying voice.
A man rose from a chair on the yacht's quarter-deck and came to the rail. Though the schooner passed hardly a biscuit-toss away, the man leveled marine glasses, evidently to make sure that what he had guessed, after Mr. Speed's remark, was true.
Mayo felt an impulse to turn his back, to dodge below. But he did not retreat; he walked to his own humble rail and scowled up into the countenance of Julius Mar-ston. The schooner was sluggish and the breeze was light, and the two men had time for a prolonged interchange of visual rancor.
"I didn't mean to holler so loud, Captain Mayo," barked Oakum Otie, in still more resonant manner, to offer apology. "But seeing her, and remembering last time I laid eyes on her--"
"Shut up!" commanded the master. "I'll take the wheel. Go forward and clear cable, and stand by for the word!"
He looked behind, in spite of himself, and saw that a motor-tender had come away from the
Olenia. It foamed along in the wake of the schooner. It circled her after it had passed, and kept up those manouvers until the schooner's anchor was let go. Then the tender came to the side and stopped. The mate and engineer in her were new men; Mayo did not know them. The mate tipped respectful salute and stated that Mr. Marston had sent them to bring Captain Mayo on board the yacht at once.
"My compliments to Mr. Marston. But I am not able to come."
They went away, but returned in a short time, and the mate handed a note over the rail. It was a curt statement, dictated and typewritten, that Mr. Marston wished to see Captain Mayo on business connected with the
Conomo, and that if Captain Mayo were not able to transact that business Mr. Marston would be obliged to hunt up some other party who could do business regarding the
Conomo. Remembering that he had the interests of others to consider, Mayo dropped into the tender, sullen, resentful, wondering what new test of his endurance was to be made, and feeling peculiarly ill-equipped, in his present condition of courage and temper, to meet Julius Marston.
The latter had himself under full restraint when they met on the yacht's quarter-deck, and Mayo was more fully conscious of his own inadequacy.
"Below, if you please, captain." He led the way, even while he uttered the invitation.
No one was visible in the saloon. In the luxury of that interior the unkempt visitor seemed especially strange, particularly out of place.
"You will excuse what has seemed to be my hurry in getting you over here, sir, but I take it that your sailing into this port just now coincides with the arrival of the Vose crowd in this city to-day."
Mr. Fletcher Fogg first, and now Mr. Fogg's employer, had given advance information which anticipated Mayo's knowledge. The young man had been having some special training in dissimulation, and he did not betray any surprise. He bowed.
"It's better for you to talk with me before you allow them to make a fool of you. I am prepared to take that steamer off your hands, as she stands, at a fair appraisal, and I will give bonds to assume all expenses of the suit brought by the underwriters."
"There has been no suit brought by the underwriters."
Mr. Marston raised his eyebrows. "Oh! I must remember that you are considerably out of the world. The underwriters make claim that the vessel was not legally surrendered by them. Have you documents showing release? If so, I'll be willing to pay you about double what otherwise I shall feel like offering. Take a disputed title in an admiralty case and it's touchy business."
Mayo remembered the haphazard manner in which the steamer had been transferred, and he did not reply.
Marston's manner was that of calm, collected, cool business; his air carried weight. More than ever did Mayo feel his own pitiful weakness in these big affairs where more than honest hard work counted in the final adjustment.
"How much did you pay your big lawyers to stir up this suit by the underwriters?" he blurted, and Marston's eyelids flicked, in spite of his impassivity. There was instinct of the animal at bay, rather than any knowledge, behind Mayo's question.
"Why should you suggest that I have anything to do with such a suit?"
"You seem almighty ready to assume all liability."
"I'm not here to have childish disputes with you, sir. This is straight business."
"Very well. What do you want?"
"Have you documents, as I have suggested?"
"I have my bill of sale. I take it for granted that the folks who sold to me are backed by papers from the underwriters."
"That's where you are in error, unfortunately. You are all made party to a suit. Time clause, actual abandonment, right of redemption--all those matters are concerned. Of course, it means injunction and long litigation. I suggested assuming liabilities and stepping in, because I am backed by the best admiralty lawyers in New York. I repeat the offer Mr. Fogg made to you."
"You admit that Mr. Fogg made that offer for you or your interests, do you?"
"Well, yes!" admitted Marston. "We allow Mr. Fogg to act for us in a few matters."
"I am glad to know it. There has been so much cross-tag going on that I have been a little doubtful!"
"Kindly avoid sarcasm and temper, if you please! Do you care to accept the offer?"
Mayo glared at the financier, looking him up and down. Furious hatred took away his power of sane consideration. He was in no mood to weigh chances, either for himself or for his associates. He doubted Marston's honesty of purpose. He knew how this man must feel toward the presumptuous fool who had dared to look up at Alma Marston; he was conscious that the magnate must be concealing some especial motive under his cold exterior.
Whether Marston was anticipating blackmail from Mayo's possession of the documents or had hatched up ostensible litigation in order to force the bothersome amateurs out of the
Conomo proposition, the young man could not determine; either view of the situation was equally insulting to those whom he made his antagonists.
"Well!" snapped the magnate, plainly finding it difficult to restrain his own violent hatred much longer in this interview. "Decide whether you will have a little ready cash and a good position or whether you will be kicked out entirely!"
"I don't want your money! You're trying to cheat me with fake law business even while you are offering me money! I don't want your job! I have worked for you once. I'll never be your hired man again."
"If I did not know that you have a better reason for standing out in this fashion, I'd say that you have allowed, your spite to drive you crazy, young man."
"What is that better reason?"
"Blackmail! You propose to trade on a theft."
Mayo struggled for a moment with an impulse that was almost frantic; he wanted to throw the packet in Mar-ston's face and tell him that he lied. Again the young man felt that queer sense of helplessness; he knew that he could not make Marston understand.
"Mayo, I have tried to deal with you as if you were more or less of a man. I was willing to admit that my agents had injured you by their mistakes. I have offered a decent compromise. I have done what I hardly ever do--bother with petty details like this!"
That impulse to deliver the papers to Marston was then not so insistent; even Mayo's rising anger did not prompt him to do that. The wreck of a man's life and hopes dismissed flippantly as petty details!
"Seeing that I am not able to deal with you on a business man's basis, I shall handle you as I would handle any other thief."
Mayo turned to leave, afraid of his own desperate desire to beat that sneering mouth into shapelessness.
At the head of the companionway stood half a dozen sailors, armed with iron grate-bars.
"If those papers are on you, I'm going to have them," stated the financier. "If they are not on you, you'll be glad to tell me where they are before I get done with you."
The captive halted between the master and the vassals.
"I'm going to crucify my feelings a little more, Mayo," stated Marston. "Step forward here where those men can't hear. It's important."
Marston knocked softly on a stateroom door and his daughter came forth. She gasped when she saw this ragged visitor, and in her stare there was real horror.
"I haven't been able to sift this thing to the bottom. By facing you two, as I'm doing, I may be able to get the truth of the case," said Marston, with the air of a magistrate dealing with malefactors. "Now, Alma, I'll allow you a minute or two to use your tongue on this fine specimen before my men use their bars."
"I heard what my father offered you. You must take it."
"I have other men to consider--honest men, who have worked hard with me."
He trembled in their presence. Her appearance put sane thoughts out of his head and choked the words in his throat. He saw himself in a mirror and wondered if this were not a dream--if it had not been a dream that she had ever loved him.
He wanted to put out to her his mutilated hands which he was hiding behind him. He yearned to explain to her the man's side of the case. He wanted her to understand what he owed to the men who had risked their lives to serve him, to make her realize the bond which exists between men who have toiled and starved together.
"You have yourself to consider, first of all. Much depends. In your silly notions about a lot of paupers you are throwing my father's kindness in his face!"
He stammered, unable to frame coherent reply.
"Be sensible. You have no right to put a heap of scrap-iron and a lot of low creatures ahead of your personal interests."
There was malice in Marston's eyes. He saw an opportunity to make Mayo's position even more false in the opinion of the girl.
"I'll be entirely frank, Mayo. In spite of our personal differences, I want your services--I need them. I have found out that you're a young man of determination and plenty of ability. I'll put you ahead fast if you'll come over with me. But you must come clean. No strings on you with that other crowd."
"I can't sell 'em out. I won't do it," protested Mayo. He did not exactly understand all the reasons for his obstinacy. But his instinct told him that Julius Marston was not descending in this manner except for powerful reasons, and that he was attempting to buy a traitor for his uses.
"How do you dare to turn against my father?"
"I--I don't know! Something seems to be the matter with me." He wrenched at his throat with his hand.
"And after what I did--my wicked foolishness--those papers--"
"Go on! I propose to get to the bottom of this thing," declared Marston.
The young man drove his hand into his pocket, pulled out the sealed packet, and forced it into the girl's hands. Marston promptly seized it.
"You have not opened it?"
"No, sir."
"I did not open it, either," cried the girl. "I sealed it, just as it was tied up."
Marston ripped off the strings and the wax.
Outside a loud voice was hailing the yacht. "Compliments of Captain Wass to Captain Mayo, and will he please say when he is coming back aboard his schooner?"
The financier paid no attention; he was busy with the papers. His face was white with rage. He threw them about him on the floor.
"Every sheet is blank--it is waste-paper!" he shouted. "What confounded trick is this?"
"You'd better ask the man who gave that packet to your daughter," suggested Mayo. He seemed to be less astonished than Marston and the girl. "I might have known that your man, Bradish, would be that kind of a sneak."
"What do you know about Bradish being concerned in this?"
"I'm guessing it. Probably your daughter can say."
"I'll have no more of your evasions, Alma. I'm going to the bottom of this matter now. Did Bradish give you this packet?"
"Yes, father."
"How did it get to this man here?"
"I gave it to a man named Captain Wass."
Again they heard the voice outside. "I don't care if he is busy! I tell you to take word to Captain Mayo that he is wanted right away on his schooner. Tell him it's Captain Wass."
"The devil has sent that man along at about the right time," declared Marston. He strode to the companion-way. "Inform Captain Wass that he is wanted on board here! Hide those bars till he is below!"
He came back, raging, and stood between Mayo and the girl, who had seemed to find words inadequate during the short time they had been left together.
"I don't believe anything you tell me! There's an infernal trick, here. The papers are missing. Somebody has them."
His fury blinded his prudence.
He strode toward Captain Wass when the old mariner came stumping down the companionway.
"Is your name Wass?"
"Captain Wass, sir."
"You took papers from my daughter and brought them to this man!"
"Correct."
Marston stepped back and kicked at the blank sheets on the floor.
"Perhaps you can tell me if these are what you brought.".
Captain Wass stared long at Mayo, at the girl, and at the incensed magnate. Then he looked down at the scattered papers and scratched his head with much deliberation.
"Why don't you say something?" demanded Marston.
"I'm naturally slow and cautious," stated Captain Wass. He put on his spectacles, kneeled on the soft carpet, and examined the blank papers and the broken seals. He laid them back on the carpet and meditated for some time, still on his knees. When he looked up, peering over the edge of his spectacles, he paid no attention to Mar-ston, to the latter's indignant astonishment.
"Vose and others are waiting for us at the hotel," he informed Captain Mayo, "and it's important business, and we'd better be tending to it instead of fooling around here."
"No matter about any other business except this, sir," cried Marston.
"There can't be much business mixed up in a lot of blank sheets of paper," snapped Captain Wass. "What's the matter?"
"I have lost valuable papers."
The old skipper bent shrewd squint at the angry man who was standing over him. "Steamer combination papers, hey?"
"You seem to know pretty well."
"Ought to know."
"Why?"
Captain Wass rose slowly, with grunts, and rubbed his stiff knees. "Because I've got 'em."
"Stole them from the package, did you?"
"It wasn't stealing--it was business."
"Hand them over."
"I insist on that, too, Captain Wass," said Mayo, with indignation. "Hand over those papers."
"Can't be done, for I haven't got 'em with me. And I won't hand 'em over till I have used them in my business."
"I shall have you arrested," announced Marston.
"So do. Sooner the whole thing gets before the court, the better." His perfect calmness had its effect on the financier.
"What are you proposing to use those papers for?"
"To make you pirates turn back the Vose line property and pay damages. As to the rest of your combination, the critters that's in it can skin their own skunks. I guess the whole thing will take care of itself after we get the Vose line back."
"You are asking for an impossibility. The matter cannot be arranged."
"Then we'll see how far Uncle Sam can go in unscrambling that particular nestful of eggs. I'll give the papers to the government."
"Haven't you any influence with this man?" Marston asked the astounded Mayo.
"No, he hasn't--not a mite in this case," returned Captain Wass. "He needs a guardeen in some things, and I'm serving as one just now."
"You must get them from him--you must, Captain Mayo," cried the girl. "I did not understand what I was doing."
"I will get them."
"I'd like to see you do it, son!"
He turned on the Wall Street man. "I'm only asking for what is rightfully due my own people. I'm a man of few words and just now I'm sticking close to schedule. Until eleven o'clock to-night you'll find Vose, myself, and our lawyers at the Nicholas Hotel. After eleven o'clock we shall be in bed because we've got to get an early start for the wreck out on Razee. We're going to finance that job. And in case we don't come to terms with you tonight we shall use our club to keep you out of our business after this. You know what the club is."
Marston was too busily engaged with Captain Wass to pay heed to his daughter. She went close to Mayo and whispered.
"You must quit them, Boyd. It's for my sake. You must help my father. They are wretches. Think of what it will mean to you if you can help us! You will do it. Promise me!"
He did not reply.
"Do you dare to hesitate for one moment--when I ask you--for my sake?"
"That's my last word," bawled Captain Wass. "There's no blackmail about it--we're only taking back what's our own."
"Are you one of those--creatures?" she asked, indignantly.
If she had shown one spark of sympathy or real understanding in that crisis of their affairs, if she had not been so much, in that moment, the daughter of Julius Marston, counseling selfishness, he might have fatuously continued to coddle his romance, in spite of all that had preceded. But her eyes were hard. Her voice had the money-chink in it. He started, like a man awakened. His old cap had fallen on the carpet. He picked it up.
"Good-by!" he said. "I have found out where I belong in this world."
And in that unheroic fashion ended something which, so he then realized, should never have been begun. He followed Captain Wass across the saloon.
"Better advise your buckos to be careful how they handle them grate-bars," shouted Captain Wass. "I'm loaded, and if I'm joggled I'm liable to explode."
They were not molested when they left the yacht. The doryman who had brought Captain Wass rowed them to the wharf.
"Those papers--" Mayo had ventured, soon after they left the yacht's side.
"Not one word about 'em!" yelped the old skipper. "It's my business--entire! When the time comes right I'll show you that it's my private business. I never allow anybody to interfere in that."
That night, after the conference at the hotel, and after Julius Marston, growling profanity, had put his name to certain papers, drawn by careful lawyers, Captain Wass explained why the matter of the sealed packet was his private business. He took Marston apart from the others for the purpose of explaining.
"I haven't said one word to Vose or his associates about this business of the documents. They think you have come because you wanted to straighten out a low-down trick worked by an understrapper. So this has put you in mighty well with the Vose crowd, sir."
Marston grunted.
"It ought to be kind of pleasing to have a few men think you are on the square," pursued Captain Wass.
"That's enough of this pillycock conversation. Hand over those papers!"
"Just one moment!" He signaled to Captain Mayo, who came to them. "I'm going to tell Mr. Marston why those documents were my especial business to-day, and why you couldn't control me in the matter. I may as well explain to the two of you at once. It was my own business for this reason: I don't know anything about any papers. I never saw any. I never opened that package. I handed it along just as it was given to me. That's true, on my sacred word, Mr. Marston; and I haven't any reason for lying to you--not after you have signed those agreements."
"Come outside," urged the financier. "I want to tell you what I think of you."
"No," said the old skipper, mildly. "And I'd lower your voice, sir, if I were you. These men here have a pretty good idea of you just now, and I don't want you to spoil it."
"You're a lying renegade!"
"Oh no! I have only showed you that all the good bluffers are not confined to Wall Street. There's one still loose there. Your man Bradish probably had reasons for wanting to bluff your daughter--and save his own skin. He'll probably hand your papers to you!"
Marston swore and departed.
"I laid out that course whilst I was down on my knees in his cabin, sort of praying for a good lie in a time of desp'rit need," Captain Wass confided to Mayo. "It wasn't bad, considering the way it has worked out." _