“Sounds like they was making fun of us,” growled Candage. He scowled into the gray skies and across the lonely sea.
Mayo, too, sensed a derisive note in the whistle-toots. Depression had promptly followed the excitement that had spurred him into this venture. The crackle of the legal paper in his reefer pocket only accentuated his gloom. That paper seemed to represent so little now. It was not merely his own gamble—he had drawn into a desperate undertaking men who could not afford to lose. They had put all their little prosperity in jeopardy. There were women and children ashore to consider. He and his fellows now owned that great steamer which loomed there under the brooding heavens. But it was a precarious possession. The loss of her now would mean not merely the loss of all their little hoards—it would mean the loss of hope, and the sacrifice of expectations, and the regret of men who have failed in a big task. He realized how stinging would be defeat, for he was building the prospects of his future upon winning in this thing.
Hope almost failed to reassure him as he gazed first at the departing lighters and then at the ice-panoplied hulk on Razee.
Surely no pauper ever had a more unwieldy elephant on his hands, without a wisp of hay in sight for food.. He had seen wrecking operations: money, men, and gigantic equipment often failed to win. Technical skill and expert knowledge were required. He did not know what an examination of her hull would reveal. He had bought as boys swap jack-knives—sight denied! He confessed to himself that even the pittance they had gambled on this hazard had been spent with the recklessness of folly, considering that they had spent their all. They had nothing left to operate with. It was like a man tying his hands behind him before he jumped overboard.
Oh, that was a lonely sea! It was gray and surly and ominous.
Black smoke from the distant tugs waved dismal farewell. A chill wind had begun to harp through the cordage of the little schooner; the moan—far flung, mystic, a voice from nowhere—that presages the tempest crooned in his ears.
“I can smell something in this weather that's worse than scorched-on hasty pudding,” stated Captain Can-dage. “I don't know just how you feel, sir, but if a feller should ride up here in a hearse about now and want my option on her for what I paid, I believe I'd dicker with him before we come to blows.”
“I can't blame you,” confessed the young man. “This seems to be another case of 'Now that we've got it, what the devil shall we do with it?'”
“Let's pile ashore on the trail of them lighters and dicker it, and be sensible,” advised his associate. “I feel as if I owned a share in old Poppocatterpettul—or whatever that mountain is—and had been ordered to move it in a shawl-strap.”
Mayo surveyed their newly acquired property through the advancing dusk.