CHAPTER XXXIII
A HAVEN OF REST
Wreckers' Head so shelters the cove from the northeast that the schooner could be brought safely in to Luiz Wharf, instead of dropping her anchor in deep water. Half the port, and all of Portygee Town, crowded nearby wharves and streets to welcome Tunis Latham's schooner; for news of her peril and the way in which help had reached the Seamew had come down from the Head as on the wings of the wind itself.
There was one face on the wharf Tunis Latham sought out with grim persistency as the schooner was made fast. He had purposely placed Sheila in Zebedee Pauling's care. Tunis kept, directly under his hand, the broken oar which had helped to make so much of his recent trouble. When the Seamew was safe, her skipper leaped ashore. And he carried the broken oar with him.
Orion, grinning and sneering by turns, saw his cousin coming. It must have been preternatural sagacity which caused him to see and recognize the broken oar. Having seen it, he jumped for the head of the wharf.
Tunis leaped away on his cousin's trail. The crowd parted to let them through, and then joined in a streaming, excited tail to their kite of progress. Most of the spectators lived in Portygee Town. Some of them had been members of the Seamew's deserting crews. They were afraid of Tunis Latham, but they had little sympathy for Orion.
The skipper caught up with him in the middle of the road and almost opposite the Pareta cottage. Orion had picked up a cobblestone as he reached the street and, finding himself about to be overtaken, he turned and threw the missile at Tunis' head. The latter dodged it and, with a single, savage blow of the oar felled his cousin to the roadway.
"You unmitigated scoundrel!" Tunis roared. "I ought to take your life. Because of you I nearly lost my own to-day—and the lives of two other men and my schooner into the bargain. You villain!"
As Orion tried to scramble up, the skipper of the Seamew made another pass at him with the oar, and the fellow fell again.
"Don't hit me! Don't hit me again, Tunis! Remember I'm your cousin. I—I haven't done a thing—true an' honest, I haven't!"