CHAPTER XXVI
AT LAST
That hour in the old-fashioned living-room behind Cap'n Abe's store was destined to be marked indelibly upon Louise Grayling's memory. Aunt Euphemia and Betty Gallup had both come armed for the fray. They literally swept Louise off her feet by their vehemence.
The effect of the challenge on Cap'n Amazon was most puzzling. As Mrs. Conroth refused to sit down—she could talk better standing, becoming quite oracular, in fact—the captain could not, in politeness, take his customary chair. And he had discarded his pipe upon going to the door to let the visitor in.
Therefore, it seemed to Louise, the doughty captain seemed rather lost.
It was not that he displayed either surprise or fear because of Aunt
Euphemia's accusation. Merely he did not know what to do with himself
during her exhortation.
The fact that he was taxed with a crime—a double crime, indeed—did not seem to bother him at all. But the clatter of the women's tongues seemed to annoy him.
His silence and his calmness affected Mrs. Conroth and Betty Gallup much as the store idlers had been affected when they tried to bait him—their exasperation increased. Cap'n Amazon's utter disregard of what they said (for Betty did her share of the talking, relieving the Lady from Poughkeepsie when she was breathless) continued unabated. It was a situation that, at another time, would have vastly amused Louise.
But it was really a serious matter. Mrs. Conroth was quite as excited as Betty. Both became vociferous in acclaiming the captain's irresponsibility, and both accused him of having caused Cap'n Abe's disappearance.
"Mark my word," declared Aunt Euphemia, with her most indignant air, "that creature is guilty—guilty of an awful crime!"
"The old pirate! That he is!" reiterated Betty.
"Louise, my child, come away from here at once. This is no place for a young woman—or for any self-respecting person. Come."
For the first time since the opening of this scene Cap'n Amazon displayed trouble. He turned to look at Louise, and she thought his countenance expressed apprehension—as though he feared she might go.
"Come!" commanded Mrs. Conroth again. "This is no fit place for you; it never has been fit!"
"Avast, there, ma'am!" growled the captain, at last stung to retort.
"You are an old villain!" declared Aunt Euphemia.
"He's an old pirate!" concluded Betty Gallup. Here Louise found her voice—and she spoke with decision.
"I shall stay just the same, aunt. I am satisfied that you all misjudge Captain Amazon." His face—the sudden flash of gratitude in it—thanked her.
"Louise!" cried her aunt.
"You better come away, Miss Lou," said Betty. "The constable'll git that old pirate; that's what'll happen to him."
"Stop!" exclaimed Louise. "I'll listen to no more. I do not believe these things you say. And neither of you can prove them. I'm going to bed. Good-night, Aunt Euphemia," and she marched out of the room.
That closed the discussion. Cap'n Amazon bowed Mrs. Conroth politely out of the door and Betty went with her. Louise did not get to sleep in her chamber overhead for hours; nor did she hear the captain come upstairs at all.
In the morning's post there was a letter for Louise from her father—a letter that had been delayed. It had been mailed at the same time the one to Aunt Euphemia was sent. The Curlew would soon turn her bows Bostonward, the voyage having been successful from a scientific point of view. Professor Grayling even mentioned the loss of a small boat in a squall, when it had been cast adrift from the taffrail by accident.
Betty, with face like a thundercloud, had brought the letter up to Louise. When the girl had hastily read it through she ran down to show it to Cap'n Amazon. She found him reading an epistle of his own, while Cap'n Joab, Milt Baker, Washy Gallup, and several other neighbors hovered near.
"Yep. I got one myself," announced Cap'n Amazon.
"Oh, captain!"
"Yep. From Abe. Good reason why your father didn't speak of Abe in his letter to your a'nt. Didn't in yours, did he?"
Louise shook her head.
"No? Listen here," Cap'n Amazon said. "'I haven't spoke to Professor
Grayling. He don't know Abe Silt from the jib-boom. Why should he? I
am a foremast hand and he lives abaft. But he is a fine man.
Everybody says so. We've had some squally weather——'
"Well! that's nothin'. Ahem!"
He went on, reading bits to the interested listeners now and then, and finally handed the letter to Cap'n Joab Beecher. The latter, looking mighty queer indeed, adjusted his spectacles and spread out the sheet.
"Ye-as," he admitted cautiously. "That 'pears to be Cap'n Abe's handwritin', sure 'nough."
"Course 'tis!" squealed Washy Gallup. "As plain, as plain!"
"Read it out," urged Milt while the captain went to wait upon a customer.
Louise listened with something besides curiosity. The letter was a rambling account of the voyage of the Curlew, telling little directly or exactly about the daily occurrences; but nothing in it conflicted with what Professor Grayling had written Louise—save one thing.
The girl realized that the arrival of this letter from Cap'n Abe had finally punctured that bubble of suspicion against the captain that had been blown overnight. It seemed certain and unshakable proof that the substitute storekeeper was just whom he claimed to be, and it once and for all put to death the idea that Cap'n Abe had not gone to sea in the Curlew.
Yet Louise had never been more puzzled since first suspicion had been roused against Cap'n Amazon. A single sentence in her father's letter could not be made to jibe with Cap'n Abe's epistle, and therefore she folded up her own letter and thrust it into her pocket. In speaking of his companions on shipboard, the professor had written:
"I am by far the oldest person aboard the Curlew, skipper included. They are all young fellows, both for'ard and in the afterguard. Yet they treat me like one of themselves and I am having a most enjoyable time."
Cap'n Abe was surely much older than her daddy-prof! It puzzled her. It troubled her. There was not a moment of that day when it was not the uppermost thought in her mind.
People came in from all around to read Cap'n Abe's letter and to congratulate Cap'n Amazon and Louise that the Curlew was safe. The captain took the matter as coolly as he did everything else.
Louise watched him, trying to fathom his manner and the mystery about him. Yet, when the solution of the problem was developed, she was most amazed by the manner in which her eyes were opened.
Supper time was approaching, and the cooler evening breeze blew in through the living-room windows. Relieved for the moment from his store tasks, Cap'n Amazon appeared, rubbing his hands cheerfully, and briskly approached old Jerry's cage as he chirruped to the bird.
"Well! well! And how's old Jerry been to-day?" Louise heard him say.
Then: "Hi-mighty! What's this?"
Louise glanced in from the kitchen. She saw him standing before the cage, his chin sunk on his breast, the tears trickling down his mahogany face.
That hard, stern visage, with its sweeping piratical mustache and the red bandana above it, was a most amazing picture of grief.
"Oh! What is it?" cried the girl, springing to his side.
He pointed with shaking index finger to the bird within the cage.
"Dead!" he said brokenly, "Dead, Niece Louise! Poor old Jerry's dead—and him and me shipmates for so many, many years."
"Oh!" screamed the girl, grasping his arm. "You are Cap'n Abe!"