“Don’t tell me any more,” she said; “I know the rest. Let’s talk about the present.”
“Thanks, Elsa,” he said, gratefully.
“How long have you thought that the schooner was a second ‘one hoss shay’?”
“Until this talk with you. I would never have thought anything else. It’s the logical thing to think, isn’t it? All my neighbors at Freekirk Head, except those who believe the evil they hear, have told me half a dozen times that that is what must have happened to the May. She had lived her life and that last great strain, combined with the race the week before, was too much for her. I simply could not explain those things happening.”
“Yes, but you can now, can’t you?” she asked coolly.
Reluctantly he faced the issue, but he faced it squarely.
“Yes, I can. Nat expected me to sail the May 237 in a race, so he weakened my topm’st and mainstay. Of course, when there is sport in it you set every kite you’ve got in your lockers and, you know, Elsa, I never took my mains’l in yet while there was one standing in the fleet, even ordinary fishing days.”
“I know it; you’ve scared me half to death a dozen times with your sail-carrying.”
“And mind, Elsa, I’d been warned by all the wiseacres in Freekirk Head that my sticks would carry away sometime in a gale o’ wind. Nat banked on that, too, and it shows how clever he was, forever since the May sank I’ve had men tell me I shouldn’t have carried four lowers that day.
“He planned to weaken me where I needed sail most and he succeeded. Why, Elsa, that topm’st must have been sawed a quarter of the way through and that mainstay as much again. I don’t really believe he did anything to the foregaff; it appeared to be the natural result of the topm’st’s falling, but the damage he did resulted in the wreck of the schooner––”