III
It was night, and a northeast gale and falling snow was making the thick night thicker. The Lucy Foster had come across the Gulf like a runaway horse, and now they were expecting to strike in somewhere.
Wesley was standing aft, when a long, low, warning moan came to them over the water. “There’s the whistle—we ought to see Cranberry Light soon—watch out.”
The forward watch, hanging on to her fore-rigging and peering sharply ahead, soon called out: “There it is—no—it’s a vessel’s port light.”
Wesley looked. “’Tis a vessel, sure enough, and hove-to, ain’t she? Maybe we’d better speak her”—this last to the man at the wheel. The helmsman brought her up, and “Hi-i!” roared Wesley.
“Hi-i!” came back—“who’re you?”
Wesley swore softly. “Harry Glover, by the Lord! Here, Charlie, you answer him. There ain’t many knows you. Ask him what’s wrong—and don’t get too near him, you to the wheel.”
“What’s wrong?” called Charlie Green.
“Nothin’—just waitin’ for a chance to go into Canso.”
“Well, why don’t you go in—what’s holdin’ you back?”
“Why? Too thick to make the harbor to-night.”
“Ask him, Charlie,” said Wesley, “what kind of a man he holds himself that he’s afraid to make a harbor to-night?” Which Charlie did, in a tone that Wesley could never have achieved.
“Who in the devil are you that’s so all-fired smart?” queried Glover. “Who’re you, anyway?”
“Give him your own name, Charlie,” said Wesley, and Charlie did. “Lord, but you do put up a pert twist with your voice, Charlie. If a man was to talk to me like that, I’d run him down.”
“Charlie Green? I never heard of you afore—nor nobody else aboard here. What vessel is that?” came from Glover.
“Never mind what vessel. Whatever vessel’s here I’m not too frightened to put her into Canso to-night.”
“That so? You’re the devil and all, ain’t you? And when are you goin’ in?”
“Right away.”
“That so? And maybe you’ll show me the way?”
“Yes, if you ain’t too scared to follow. And I’ll have a good story to tell when we get to Gloucester—not alone being scared to go in, but too scared even to follow behind when another man shows you the way.”
“That so? Well, I don’t see you goin’ in, nor I don’t see no ridin’ light hangin’ from your stern.”
“No? Well, s’pose you follow on and stop talkin’.”
A lantern was dropped over the stern of the Lucy Foster, Wesley put her wheel up, and the Lucy was off. Another moment, and they made out the green light of the Calumet coming after.
Wesley, chuckling to himself, sailed scandalous courses with the Lucy. “If I don’t scare him ’bout half to death, and if him and me don’t have a heart-to-heart talk after we come to anchor inside—if ever he comes to anchor inside! Let’s see now, Charlie. There’s Kirby Rock under our lee. I hope the Calumet carries a weather helm—for the crew’s sake, I mean. And now west half no’the— I’ll give him a scare. There’s Black Rocks ahead—he’s got to keep on now. And now for the Bootes—a nice little lot of ledges, the Bootes—but not to make a landin’ on—six feet in spots and the surf breakin’ fine over ’em. Hear it roar? Lord, yes, and see it. We’ll hold up a bit, Charlie, or it’s the Lucy’ll be gettin’ into trouble. And now for Man-o’-war, another fine little spot—six or eight feet of water there—no’the three-quarters west. Oh, man, hear it roar! How’s he makin’ out behind? There he is, and scared blue, I’ll bet, for fear she’ll swing a foot out of the way. Let’s see, now, where we ought to be! Let’s see—man, but it’s thick here!—let her go—off, now, Charlie, west no’west and a hair west, just a hair now, ought to take us inside Mackerel Rock. If Glover knows his business now, it won’t matter; if he don’t, then Lord help his name for master of a vessel. Enough on that course—shoot her up now by the Rock no’the, quarter west. Go ahead, the Lucy’ll make it, don’t fear. Man, she’ll sail in the wind’s eye, the Lucy. Don’t fear for the Lucy—a weather helm she carries. She’ll shy off herself if we get too close. That’s the girl—there she is—a good place to be by, that! And now for the reg’lar channel—no’west by west—and let her go! But how are they makin’ out on the Calumet, I wonder?”
They were not making out on the Calumet at all. Evidently she did not carry a weather helm. From the Lucy they could make out her port light—for a while they thought she was past the ledge and all safe. Then the red light swung off to leeward. They soon heard a hail. Then a series of hails.
“Lord,” said Wesley, “d’y’ s’pose she struck?” and himself jumped to the wheel again. His first thought was to put the Lucy right back to the Rock; his second, and the one he acted on, was to get her lights out of sight and then to turn back, sail wide, and come up to the Calumet as though he had just come in the harbor himself. “They’re safe for a while there, and there was no reason in the world why he couldn’t have got by there if we did,” said Wesley, and began to nose her way back. It was his seaman’s extra sense that brought him safely to the Calumet again.
He found her on the edge of the ledge, with the sea washing over her. She was pounding, and from her deck they heard the sounds that meant that a dory was to be launched. There was much talking, some free comment, and not a little profanity.
“Hi-i!” hailed Wesley, in his own person. “What vessel’s that?”
“What? That you, Wesley?” came Captain Glover’s voice.
“Why, is that you, Harry?” answered Wesley.
“When’d you come in?”
“Just shot in.”
“Shot in! A night like this!”
“Why, yes. But what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? Everything’s wrong. Some bloody pirate piloted us ashore and then went up the harbor and left us. What bloody ledge is this we’re on?”
“I’m not sure, not having a chart handy; but it’s a bad place, whatever it is.”
“A bad place? I should say. We’ve just smashed our dory, and I’m afraid some of us will be washed over if the sea makes a little more. What’ll we do?”
“Well, that’s for you to say. You’re master of your own vessel, and, of course, you know your own business. But I’ll drop over a dory, if you say so. I’d rather handle live men now than corpses in the morning, myself.”
“Well then, for the Lord’s sake, hurry up, won’t you?”
Wesley took off the crew of the Calumet. On his own deck he met Glover and spoke a little of his mind. “’Twas my intention, Harry Glover, to take it out of your hide, for stealin’ them herrin’ at Folly Cove, but as you’re shipwrecked now it makes a difference. I’ll take you up the harbor and leave you there.” Which he did, and, further, let them have a dory to take them to the dock.
To Glover, at parting, he said, “You and me, Harry, better have no words over this—you know why. The consul here’ll send your crew home at the expense of the Gover’ment, so they’ll be all right.”
“But the Calumet— I s’pose she’ll break up where she is?”
“She may, and then she mayn’t.”
“Then I’d better go down when it moderates and see what I can do.”
“That,” answered Wesley, “is your business. As it is now, she’s abandoned, and anybody’s property that wants to board her.”
“Oh, nobody’ll board her in this weather—they’d be smashed on the ledges. Just as soon as it moderates—some time to-morrow, maybe— I’ll be down with a tug and lighten her up.”
But Wesley did not wait until it moderated. That same night, at high water, the Calumet floated off. Five hundred barrels of frozen herring transferred to the Lucy Foster helped materially in the floating of the Calumet.
“Only eight hundred barrels of salt herring in her now—we oughter be able to get her home. She’s squattin’ pretty low in the water, but we oughter get her home. And do you, Charlie, take Dan and George and Tommie and follow on behind the Lucy,” said Wesley, and in the morning light he led the way out of Canso Harbor.