“And here's another poor Polly,” stated Captain Candage. “I was fool enough to take her out of a good home for a trip to sea.”
The skipper ducked salute. “Make yourself to home, miss. Go below. House is yours!”
Then the schooner lurched away on her shoreward tack, and the insolent yacht marched off down across the shimmering waves.
Mayo shook hands with the solicitous fisherman in rather dreamy and indifferent fashion. He realized that he was faint with hunger, but he refused to eat. Fatigue and grief demanded their toll in more imperious fashion than hunger. He lay down in the sun in the lee alley, put his head on his crossed arms, and blessed sleep blotted out his bitter thoughts.
XI ~ A VOICE FROM HUE AND CRY
But when the money's all gone and spent,
And there's none to be borrowed and none to be lent,
In comes old Grouchy with a frown,
Saying, “Get up, Jack, let John sit down.”
For it's now we're outward bound,
Hur-rah, we're outward bound!
—Song of the Dog and Bell.
Captain Mayo, when he woke, had it promptly conveyed to him that hospitality on board the Reuben and Esther had watchful eyes. While he was rubbing feeling back into his stiffened limbs, sitting there in the lee alley, the cook came lugging a pot of hot coffee and a plate heaped with food.
“Thought you'd rather have it here than in the cuddy. The miss is asleep in the house,” whispered the cook.
Captain Candage came to Mayo while the latter was eating and sat down on the deck. Gloom had settled on the schooner's master. “I don't want to bother you with my troubles, seeing that you've got aplenty of your own, sir. But I'm needing a little advice. I have lost a schooner that has been my home ever since I was big enough to heave a dunnage-bag over the rail, and not a cent of insurance. Insurance would have et up all my profits. What do you think of my chances to make a dollar over and above providing I hire a tugboat and try to salvage?”