He left the inventor working as he had not worked in the memory of man, and strode back to the wheel. Mrs. Bascom was clinging to the spokes for dear life.
“I—I ain't dropped it, Seth,” she declared. “Truly I ain't.”
“All right. You can drop it now. I'll take it myself. You set down and rest.”
He took the wheel and she collapsed, breathless, against the rail. After a time she ventured to ask a question.
“Seth!” she said, “how do you know which way to steer?”
“I don't,” was the reply. “All I'm tryin' to do is keep her afore it. If this no'theast wind would hold, we'd be all right, but it's dyin' fast. And the tide must be at flood, if not startin' to go out. With no wind, and no anchor, and the kind of ebb tide there'll be pretty soon—well, if we don't drift out to sea we'll be lucky. . . . Pump! pump! you son of a roustabout. If I hear you stoppin' for a second I'll come for'ard and murder you.”
Bennie D., who had ventured to rest for a moment, bent his aching back to the task. Was this man-slaughtering tyrant his mild-mannered, meek brother-in-law, the creature whom he had brow-beaten so often and managed so effectively? He could not understand—but he pumped.
Perhaps Seth did not understand, either; perhaps he did not try to. Yet the explanation was simple and natural. The sea, the emergency, the danger, his own deck beneath his feet—these were like old times, here was a situation he knew how to handle. He forgot that he was a lightkeeper absent from duty, forgot that one of his passengers was the wife he had run away from, and the other his bugbear, the dreaded and formidable Bennie D. He forgot all this and was again the able seaman, the Tartar skipper who, in former days, made his crews fear, respect, and swear by him.
And he reveled in his authority. Once Mrs. Bascom rose to peer over the rail.
“Emeline,” he snapped, “didn't I tell you to set down and set still? Must I give orders twice? SET DOWN!”