Keziah cut in here. “Cat's foot!” she sniffed. “Let your sermon go for this once, do. If it ain't long enough as it is, you can begin again when you've got to the end and preach it over again. Didama Rogers said, last circle day, that she could set still and hear you preach right over n' over. I'd give her a chance, 'specially if it did keep her still. Keepin' Didama still is good Christian work, ain't it, Zeb?”
Captain Mayo slapped his knee. “He, he, he!” he chuckled. “Cal'late you're right, Keziah.”
“Indeed, I am. I believe it would be Christianity and I KNOW 'twould be work. There! there! run in and get your coat and hat, Mr. Ellery. I'll step across and ease Hettie's mind and—and lungs.”
She went across the road to impart the news of the vessel in distress to the curious Mrs. Peters. A moment later the minister, having donned his hat and coat, ran down the walk and climbed into the chaise beside Captain Zeb. The white horse, stimulated into a creaky jog trot by repeated slappings of the reins and roars to “Get under way!” and “Cast off!” moved along the sandy lane.
During the drive the captain and his passenger discussed various topics of local interest, among them Captain Nat Hammond and the manner in which he might have lost his ship and his life. It was now taken for granted, in Trumet and elsewhere, that Nat was dead and would never be heard from again. The owners had given up, so Captain Zeb said, and went on to enumerate the various accidents which might have happened—typhoons, waterspouts, fires, and even attacks by Malay pirates—though, added the captain, “Gen'rally speakin', I'd ruther not bet on any pirate gettin' away with Nat Hammond's ship, if the skipper was alive and healthy. Then there's mutiny and fevers and collisions, and land knows what all. And, speakin' of trouble, what do you cal'late ails that craft we're goin' to look at now?”
They found a group on the beach discussing that very question. A few fishermen, one or two lobstermen and wreckers, and the lightkeeper were gathered on the knoll by the lighthouse. They had a spyglass, and a good-sized dory was ready for launching.
“Where is she, Noah?” asked Captain Zeb of the lightkeeper. “That her off back of the spar buoy? Let me have a squint through that glass; my eyes ain't what they used to be, when I could see a whale spout two miles t'other side of the sky line and tell how many barrels of ile he'd try out, fust look. Takes practice to keep your eyesight so's you can see round a curve like that,” he added, winking at Ellery.
“She's a brigantine, Zeb,” observed the keeper, handing up the spyglass. “And flyin' the British colors. Look's if she might be one of them salt boats from Turk's Islands. But what she's doin' out there, anchored, with canvas lowered and showin' distress signals in fair weather like this, is more'n any of us can make out. She wa'n't there last evenin', though, and she is there now.”
“She ain't the only funny thing along shore this mornin', nuther,” announced Theophilus Black, one of the fishermen. “Charlie Burgess just come down along and he says there's a ship's longboat hauled up on the beach, 'bout a mile 'n a half t'other side the mouth of the herrin' crick yonder. Oars in her and all. And she ain't no boat that b'longs round here, is she, Charlie?”
“No, Thoph, she ain't,” was the reply. “Make anything out of her, cap'n?”