Blow the Man Down by Holman Day (best books to read for women TXT) 📕

you are!" he blurted. She took down her hand, and the look she gave him did not encourage compliments. "Just as you are, and call it 'The Wreck,'" he added.
"Do I look as badly as all that, Captain Mayo?"
"You look--" he expostulated, and hesitated, for her gaze was distinctly not reassuring.
"Don't tell me, please, how I look. I'm thankful that I have no mirror. Isn't that a piece of lumber?" she inquired, crisply, putting a stop on further personalities. "Wait! It's down in a hollow just now."
The sea lifted it again immediately. Mayo saw that it was a long strip of scantling, undoubtedly from the deckload that the _Polly_ had jettisoned when she was tripped. It lay to windward, and that fact promised its recovery; but how was the tide? Mayo squinted at the sun, did a moment's quick reckoning from the tide time of the day before, and smiled.
"We'll get that, Miss Candage. She's coming this way."
Watching it, seeing it lift and sink, waiting for it, helped to pass the time. Then at last it came alongside, and he crawled cautiously down the curve of the bilge and secured it. After he had braced it in the hole in the schooner's bottom with the help of Mr. Speed, the girl gave him a crumpled wad of cloth when he turned from his task.
"It's the rest of my petticoat. You may as well have it," she explained, a pretty touch of pink confusion in her cheeks.
Mr. Speed boosted Mayo and the young man attached the cloth to the scantling and flung their banner to the breeze. Then there was not much to do except to wait, everlastingly squinting across the bright sea to the horizon's edge.


X ~ HOSPITALITY, PER JULIUS MARSTON
Hoo--oo--rah; and up she rises!
Hoo--oo--rah! and up she rises!
Early in the morning.
What shall we do with a saucy sailor?
Put him in the long boat and make him bail 'erv
Early in the morn--ing!
--Old "Stamp-and-go."
Mayo saw the sail first. It was coming in from the sea, and was very far and minute. He pointed it out with an exclamation.
"What do you make it, sir?" asked Captain Candage. "Your eyes are younger 'n mine are."
"I reckon it's a fisherman bound in from Cashes Banks. He seems to be lying well over, and that shows there's a good breeze outside. He ought to reach near enough to see us, judging from the way he's heading."
That little sail, nicked against the sky, was something else to watch and speculate on and wait for, and they forgot, almost, that they were hungry and thirsty and sun-parched.
However, Captain Mayo kept his own gaze most steadfastly on the landward horizon. He did not reveal any of his thoughts, for he did not want to raise false hopes. Nevertheless, it was firmly in his mind that no matter what might be the sentiments of Julius Marston in regard to his recent skipper, the mate and engineer on board the _Olenia_ were loyal friends who would use all their influence with the owner to urge him to come seeking the man who had been lost.
The fact that a motor-boat had come popping out of Saturday Cove in pursuit of the schooner suggested that Mate McGaw had suspected what had happened, and was not dragging the cove-bottom for a drowned man.
Mayo had plenty of time for pondering on the matter, and he allowed hope to spice his guesses. He knew Mate McGaw's characteristics and decided that the yacht would get under way early, would nose into a few near-by harbors where a gale-ridden schooner might have dodged for safety, and then would chase down the sea, following the probable course of a craft which had been caught in that nor'easter. Mate McGaw was a sailorly man and understood how to fit one fact with another. He had a due portion of mariner's imagination, and was not the sort to desert a chum, even if he were obliged to use stiff speech to convert an owner. Therefore, Mayo peered toward the blue shore-line, coddling hope. He wondered whether Mate McGaw would have courage to slip a word of encouragement to Alma Marston if she asked questions.
Mayo was elated rather than astonished when he spied a smear of drab smoke and was able to determine that the craft which was puffing that smoke was heading out to sea, not crawling alongshore.
"That's a fisherman all right, and he's bound to come clost enough to make us out," stated Captain Candage, his steady gaze to southward.
"But here comes another fellow who is going to beat him to us," announced Captain Mayo, gaily.
"And what do you make it?" asked the skipper, blinking at the distant smoke.
"A yacht, probably."
"Huh? A yacht! If that's what it is they'll most likely smash right past. They'll think we're out here on a fishing picnic, most like. That's about all these yacht fellers know."
The girl gave her father a frown of protest, but Mayo smiled at her.
"I think this one is different, sir. If I am not very much mistaken, that is the yacht _Olenia_ and she is hunting me up. Mate McGaw is one of our best little guessers."
A quarter of an hour later he was able to assure them that the on-coming craft was the _Olenia_.
"Good old Mate McGaw!" he cried, rapturously. In his joy he wished he could make them his confidants, tell them who was waiting for him on board that yacht, make them understand what wonderful good fortune was his.
After a time--the long time that even a fast yacht seems to consume in covering distance to effect the rescue of those who are anxious--the Olenita's whistle hooted hoarsely to assure them that they had been seen.
"The same to you, Mate McGaw!" choked Captain Mayo, swinging his cap in wide circles.
"Seeing that things have come round as they have, I'm mighty glad for you, Captain Mayo," declared Candage. "I ain't no kind of a hand to plaster a man all over with thanks--"
"I don't want thanks, sir. We worked together to save our lives."
"Then I'm hoping that there won't be any hard feelings one way or the other. I have lost my schooner by my blasted foolishness. So I'll say good-by and--"
"Good-by?" demanded Mayo, showing his astonishment. "Why are you saying good-by to me now?"
"Because you are going aboard your yacht."
"The rest of you are going there, too."
"It ain't for poor critters like us to go mussing--"
"Look here, Captain Candage, I am the captain of that yacht, and I say that you are coming on board and stay until I can set you ashore at the handiest port."
"I'd just as lieve wait for that fisherman, sir. I'll feel more at home aboard him."
"You ought to think of your daughter's condition first, Captain Candage. She needs a few comforts right away, and you won't find them on board a fisherman."
He turned to the girt who sat on the keel, silent, looking away to sea. She seemed to show a strange lack of interest in the yacht. Her pretty face exhibited no emotion, but somehow she was a wistfully pathetic figure as she sat there. Mayo's countenance showed much more concern than she expressed when she faced about at the sound of his voice and looked at him. Color came into his cheeks; there was embarrassment in his eyes, a queer hesitancy in his tones.
"There is a young lady--there are several young ladies--but there is Mr. Marston's daughter!" he faltered. "She is on the yacht. I--I know she will do all she can for you. She will be good to you!" His eyes fell under her frank and rather quizzical gaze.
"She might not care to be bothered with such a ragamuffin."
"I can speak for her!" he cried, eagerly. He was now even more disturbed by the glance she gave him. He had read that women have intuition in affairs of the heart.
"I am quite certain you can, Captain Mayo," she assured him, demurely. "And I am grateful. But perhaps we'd be better off on board that other vessel--father and the rest of us."
"I insist," he said, but he did not dare to meet her searching eyes. "I insist!" he repeated, resuming the decisive manner which he had shown before on board the _Polly_.
The _Olenia_, slowing down, had come close aboard, and her churning screws pulled her to a standstill. Her crew sent a tender rattling down from her port davits. As she rolled on the surge her brass rails caught the sunlight in long flashes which fairly blinded the hollow eyes of the castaways. The white canvas of bridge and awnings gleamed in snowy purity. She was so near that Dolph smelled the savory scents from her galley and began to "suffle" moisture in the corners of his mouth.
They who waited on the barnacled hulk of the Polly, faint with hunger, bedraggled with brine, unkempt and wholly miserable after a night of toils and vigil, felt like beggars at a palace gate as they surveyed her immaculateness.
A sort of insolent opulence seemed to exude from her. Mayo, her captain though he was, felt that suggestion of insolence more keenly than his companions, for he had had bitter and recent experience with the moods of Julius Marston.
He did not find Marston a comforting object for his gaze; the transportation magnate was pacing the port alley with a stride that was plainly impatient. Close beside the gangway stood Alma Marston, spotless in white duck. Each time her father turned his back on her she put out her clasped hands toward her lover with a furtive gesture.
Polly Candage watched this demonstration with frank interest, and occasionally stole side-glances at the face of the man who stood beside her on the schooner's bottom; he was wholly absorbed in his scrutiny of the other girl.
Mate McGaw himself was at the tiller of the tender. His honest face was working with emotion, and he began to talk before the oarsmen had eased the boat against the overturned hulk.
"I haven't closed my eyes, Captain Mayo. Stayed up all night, trying to figure it out. Almost gave up all notion that you were aboard the schooner. You didn't hail the boat we sent out."
"I tried to do it; perhaps you couldn't hear me."
Captain Candage's countenance showed gratitude and relief.
"This morning I tried Lumbo and two other shelters, and then chased along the trail of the blow."
Mayo trod carefully down the bilge and clasped the mate's hand. "I was looking for you, Mr. McGaw. I know what kind of a chap you are."
McGaw, still holding to the captain's hand, spoke in lower tones. "Had a devil of a time with the owner, sir. He was bound to have it that you had deserted."
"I was afraid he would think something of the sort."
The mate showed frank astonishment. "You was afraid of _what?_ Why, sir, I wanted to tell him that he was a crazy man to have any such ideas about you! Yes, sir, I came nigh telling him that! I would have done it if I hadn't wanted to keep mild and meek whilst I was arguing with him and trying to make him give me leave to search!"