“I think I am,” Clay replied. “My character is pretty well known and has been attacked so often that nobody attaches much importance to a fresh disclosure; in fact, people seem to find something humorous in my smartness. You’re fixed differently; though you slipped up once, you afterward took a safe and steady course.”
Osborne lighted a cigar to hide his feelings; for his companion’s jibe had reached its mark. He had when poverty rendered the temptation strong, engaged in an unlawful conspiracy with Clay, and the profit he made by it had launched him on what he took care should be a respectable business career. Now and then, perhaps, and particularly when he acted in concert with Clay, his dealings would hardly have passed a high standard of ethics, but on the whole they could be defended, and he enjoyed a good name on the markets. Now a deed he heartily regretted, and would have undone had he been able, threatened to rise from the almost forgotten past and torment him. Worse than all, he might again be forced into a crooked path to cover up his fault.
“We won’t gain anything by arguing who might suffer most,” he said as coolly as he could.
“No; I guess that’s useless,” Clay agreed. “Well, I must get on those fellows’ trail and see what I can do.”
They strolled along the beach for a while, and then went back to the others.
While Clay traced her movements as far as they could be learned, the Cetacea was slowly working north. She met with light, baffling winds, and calms, and then was driven into a lonely inlet by a fresh gale. Here she was detained for some time, and adverse winds still dogged her course when she put to sea again, though they were no longer gentle, but brought with them a piercing rawness from the Polar ice. Her crew grew anxious and moody as they stubbornly thrashed her to windward under shortened sail, for every day at sea increased the strain on their finances and the open-water season was short.
In the sharp cold of a blustering morning Jimmy got up from the locker upon which he had spent a few hours in heavy sleep. His limbs felt stiff, his clothes were damp, and at his first move he bumped his head against a deck-beam. Sitting down with muttered grumbling, he pulled on his soaked knee-boots and looked moodily about. Daylight was creeping through the cracked skylight, and showed that the underside of the deck was dripping. Big drops chased one another along the slanted beams and fell with a splash into the lee bilge. Water oozed in through the seams on her hove-up weather side and washed about the lower part of the inclined floor, several inches deep. The wild plunging and the muffled roar outside the planking showed that she was sailing hard and the wind was fresh.
Jimmy grumbled at his comrades for not having pumped her out, and then shivered as he jammed himself against the centerboard trunk and tried to light the rusty stove. It was wet and would not draw and the smoke puffed out. He was choking and nearly blinded when he put the kettle on and went up on deck, somewhat short in temper. Moran was sitting stolidly at the helm, muffled in a wet slicker, with the spray blowing about him; Bethune crouched in the shelter of the coaming, while white-topped seas with gray sides tumbled about the boat. An angry red flush was spreading, rather high up, in the eastern sky.
“You made a lot of smoke,” Bethune remarked.
“I did,” said Jimmy. “If you’ll get forward and swing the funnel-cowl, which you might have done earlier, you’ll let some of it out. I’m glad it’s your turn to cook, but you had better spend ten minutes at the pump before you go.”