Other Freekirk Head men shrugged their shoulders at this. Nat had the money, and could act that way if it pleased him, they said. But, nevertheless, he lost favor with a great many of his former friends, for the reason that the whole fishing expedition had been a concerted movement to save the people and credit of the island, and not an exploitation of individual desires.
Burns had, with his customary indifference to others, made it just exactly such an exploitation, and the 247 sentiment that had been strong for him at the outset of the cruise was now turning decidedly the other way; although he little guessed this or would have been influenced had he done so.
In reality, then, the race for fish was keenest between the Charming Lass, the Rosan, and the Herring Bone, with three other schooners very close on their heels.
At the end of the nine days there was little space beneath the deck planks of the Charming Lass, but every night Pete would come up, slapping his hands free of salt, and say, “Wal, boys, I guess we can crowd another day’s work into her,” and the exhausted men would gather themselves for another great effort as they rolled forward into their bunks.
Every twenty-four hours they did crowd another day’s work into her, so that she carried nearly a hundred and fifty tons and the dripping brine had to be pumped out of the hold.
It was the night of the day that opened this chapter.
The lanterns by which the men had dressed down had been lifted from their supports, the cod livers dumped into the gurry-butt, and the tables removed from the rails. The two men on the first watch were sharpening the splitting knives on a tiny grindstone and walking forward occasionally to see that the anchor and trawl buoy lights were burning.
The still air resounded with the snores of the exhausted men forward in the forecastle.
Silently out of the darkness a dory came toward the schooner, pulled by the brawny arms of two men. In the stern of the oncoming boat sat a solitary figure, who strained his eyes toward his destination.