CHAPTER XXXI
AN ANCHOR TO THE SOUL
The storekeeper had stretched no point when he told his niece that the thought of setting foot in a boat made him well-nigh swoon. His only ventures aboard any craft were in quiet waters.
He could pull as strong an oar, despite his years, as any man along the Cape, but never had he gripped the ash save in the haven or in similar land-locked water.
His heart was wrung by the sight of those men clinging to the shrouds of the wrecked schooner. And he rejoiced that the members of the Coast Patrol crew displayed their manhood in so noble an attempt to reach the wreck.
But his very soul was shaken by the spectacle of the storm-fretted sea, and terror gnawed at his vitals when the lifeboat was thrust out into that awful maelstrom of tumbling water.
Relating imaginary events of this character or repeating what mariners had told or written about wreck and storm at sea in the safe harbor of the old store on the Shell Road was different from being an eyewitness of this present catastrophe.
Trembling, the salt tears stinging his eyes more sharply than the salt spray stung his cheeks, the storekeeper had ventured into the crowd of spectators on the sands. So enthralled were his neighbors by what was going forward that they did not notice his appearance.
And well they did not. This character of the bluff and ready master mariner that Cap'n Abe had builded—a new order of Frankenstein—and with which he had deceived the community for these many weeks, came near to being wrecked right here and now.
He all but screamed aloud in fear when the lifeboat was overturned. Pallid, shaking, panting for every breath he drew, he was slipping out of the unnoticing crowd when Cap'n Jim Trainor of the lifeboat crew called to him.
"You pull a strong oar, I know, Cap'n Am'zon. We need you."
For the space of a breath the storekeeper "hung in the wind." He had been poised for flight and the shock of the lifeboat captain's call almost startled him into running full speed up the beach.
Then the thought smote upon his harassed mind that Cap'n Trainor was not speaking to Cap'n Abe, storekeeper. The call for aid was addressed to Cap'n Amazon Silt.
It was to Cap'n Amazon, the man who had been through all manner of perils by sea and land, who had suffered stress of storm and shipwreck himself, whose reputation for courage the Shell Road storekeeper had builded so long.
Should all this fall in a moment? Should he show the coward's side of the shield after all his effort toward vicarious heroism? Another moment of hesitancy and as Cap'n Amazon Silt he would never be able to hold up his head in the company of Cardhaven folk again.
Cursed by the horror his mother had felt for the cruel sea that had taken her husband before her very eyes, Cap'n Abe had ever shrunk from any actual venture upon deep water. But Cap'n Amazon must be true to his manhood—must uphold by his actions the character the storekeeper had builded for him.
He buttoned his coat tightly across his chest and pushed through the group. Men and women alike made way for him, and in his ringing ears he heard such phrases as:
"He's the man to do it!"
"That's Cap'n Am'zon for ye!"
"There's one Silt ain't afraid of salt water, whatever Cap'n Abe may be!"
"Will you come, Cap'n Am'zon?" called the skipper of the life-saving crew.
"I'm coming," mumbled the storekeeper, and held up his arms that Milt
Baker might fasten the belt about his body.
Afterward Milt was fond of declaring that the look on Cap'n Amazon's face at that moment prophesied the tragedy that was to follow. "He seen death facin' him—an' he warn't afraid," Milt said reverently.
"In with you, boys!" shouted the skipper. "And hook your belts—every man of you! If she overturns again I want to be able to count noses when we come right side up. Now!"
A shuddering cry from the women, in which Louise found herself joining; a "Yo! heave-ho!" from the men who launched the craft. Then the lifeboat was in the surf again, her crew laboring like the sons of Hercules they were to keep her head to the wind and to the breakers.
The storekeeper was no weakling; rowing was an accomplishment he had excelled in from childhood. It was the single activity in any way connected with the sea that he had learned and maintained.
At first he kept his eyes shut—tight shut. A strange thrill went through him, however. All these years he had shrunk from an unknown, an unexperienced, peril. Was it that Cap'n Abe had been frightened by a bogey, after all?
He opened his eyes, pulling rhythmically with the oar—never missing a stroke. His gaze rested on the face of that old sea-dog, Cap'n Jim Trainor. The fierce light of determination dwelt there. The skipper meant to get to the wrecked schooner. He had no doubt of accomplishing this, and Cap'n Abe caught fire of courage from the skipper's transfigured countenance.
As for Lawford Tapp, no member of Cap'n Trainor's crew pulled a better oar than he. With the bow ash he drove on like a young giant. Fear did not enter into his emotions.
There was nobody to notice the pallor of the storekeeper's visage. Every man's attention was centered on his own oar, while the skipper gazed ahead at the wave-beaten schooner grounded hard and fast upon the reef.
There was no lull in the gale. Indeed, it seemed as though the strength of the wind steadily rose. The lifeboat only crept from the shore on its course to Gull Rocks. Each yard must be fought for by the earnest crew.
Occasionally Cap'n Trainor called an encouraging sentence at them. For the most part, however, only the ravening sea roared malice in their ears.
Around them the hungry waves leaped and fought for their lives; but the buoyant boat, held true to her course by the skipper, bore up nobly under the strain. They won on, foot by foot.
The thunder of the breakers over the reef finally deafened them. The rocking schooner, buffeted by waves that could not drive her completely over the reef, towered finally above the heads of the men in the lifeboat.
Cap'n Trainor's straining eyes deciphered her name painted on the bow. He threw a hand upward in a surprised gesture, still clinging to the steering oar with his other hand, and shrieked aloud:
"The Curlew! By mighty! who'd ha' thought it? 'Tis the Curlew."
He, too, knew of Cap'n Abe's supposed voyage on the seaweed ship.
The oarsmen read the word upon the skipper's lips rather than heard his voice. Two, at least, were shocked by the announcement—Lawford and the storekeeper. There was no opportunity for comment upon this wonder.
Skillfully the lifeboat was brought around under the lee of the wreck. Already most of her crew had crept down to the rail and were waiting, half submerged, to drop into the lifeboat. But one figure was still visible high up in the shrouds.
When the waves sucked out from under her the keel of the lifeboat almost scratched the reef. Then it rose on a swell to the very rail of the wreck, wedged so tightly on the rock.
The castaways came inboard rapidly, bringing their injured skipper with them. The lifeboat was quickly overburdened with human freight.
"No more! No more!" shouted Cap'n Trainor. "We'll have to make another trip."
"Where's the professor? Bring down the professor! There he is!" yelled the mate of the Curlew, who had given his attention to the injured master of the wrecked craft. "Who lashed him fast up there?"
There was a movement forward. The storekeeper had got up and pulled a stout-armed member of the Curlew's crew into his place.
"Take my oar!" commanded Cap'n Abe. "I got a niece—he's her father.
Hi-mighty! I just got to get him aboard!"
With an agility that belied his years he leaped for the schooner's rail as the next surge rose. He swarmed inboard and started up the shrouds. Those below remained silent while he climbed.
He reached the helpless man, whipped out his knife, cut the lashings. Slight as the storekeeper seemed, his muscles were of steel. As though the half-conscious professor were a child, he lowered him to the slanting deck.
"Only room for one o' you!" roared Cap'n Trainor. "Only one! We're overloaded as 'tis. Better wait."
"You'll take him!" shouted Cap'n Abe, and dropped his burden at
Lawford Tapp's feet.
The next moment the lifeboat shot away from the side of the wreck, leaving the Man Who Was Afraid marooned upon her deck.
That was a perilous journey for the overladen boat. Only the good management of Cap'n Trainor could have brought her safely to shore. And when she banged upon the beach it was almost a miracle that she did not start all her bottom boards.
Many willing hands hauled the heavy boat up upon the sands. The rescued crew of the schooner tumbled out and lifted their injured captain ashore. But it was Lawford who brought in Professor Grayling. Louise had watched with the Taffy King all through the battle of the lifeboat with the sea, suffering pangs of terror for Lawford's safety, yet feeling, too, unbounded pride in his achievement.
Now she pressed down to meet him at the edge of the sea and found that the drenched, dazed man Lawford bore up in his arms was her own father!
The meeting served to rouse the professor. He stared searchingly over the group of rescued men.
"Where's the man who cut my lashings and helped me down to the deck? I don't see him," he said. "Louise, my dear, this is a very, very strange homecoming. And all my summer's work gone for nothing! But that man——"
"Cap'n Amazon Silt," said Lawford. "He stayed behind. There wasn't room in the boat."
"Cap'n Am'zon!" exclaimed several excited voices. But only one—and that Louise Grayling's—uttered another name:
"Cap'n Abe! Isn't he with you? Didn't you bring him ashore?"
"By heaven! that's so, Louise!" groaned Lawford. "They must both be out there. The two brothers are marooned on that rotten wreck!"
Already the kindly neighbors were hurrying the castaways in groups of twos and threes to the nearer dwellings. Anscomb was getting foot after foot of "the real stuff." The moving picture actors and the cottagers hung on the outskirts of the throng of natives, wide-eyed and marveling. They had all, on this day, gained a taste of the stern realities of life as it is along the shore.
Louise was desirous of getting her father to the store, for he was exhausted. Lawford turned back toward the group of life-saving men standing about the beached boat.
"If they can get her launched again they'll need me," he shouted back over his shoulder. "Poor Cap'n Abe and Cap'n Amazon———"
"You've done enough, boy," his father declared, clinging to the sleeve of Lawford's guernsey. "Don't risk your life again."
"Don't worry, dad. A fellow has to do his bit, you know."
Betty Gallup came to the assistance of Louise and helped support the professor. The woman's countenance was all wrinkled with trouble.
"He must be out there, too," she murmured to Louise. "Ain't none o' these chaps off the Curlew jest right yet—scar't blue, or suthin'. They don't seem to rightly sense that Cap'n Abe was with 'em all the time aboard that schooner."
"Poor Cap'n Abe!" groaned Louise again.
"And that old pirate's with him," said Betty. But her tone lacked its usual venom in speaking of Cap'n Amazon. "Who'd ha' thought it? I reckoned he was nothing but a bag o' wind, with all his yarns of bloody murder an' the like. But he is a Silt; no gettin' around that. And Cap'n Abe allus did say the Silts were proper seamen."
"Poor, poor Cap'n Abe!" sobbed Louise.
"Now, now!" soothed Betty. "Don't take on so, deary. They'll get 'em both. Never fear."
But the rising gale forbade another launching of the lifeboat for hours. The night shut down over the wind-ridden sea and shore, and by the pallid light fitfully playing over the tumbling waters the watchers along the sands saw the stricken Curlew being slowly wrenched to pieces by the waves that wolfed about and over her.