“Shut up! Joe, and let George go on,” admonished his brother, Arthur. George Warren continued:
“We’ve got plenty of room for you and Arthur, and if Joe should come, why he could sleep out in the stable with the cattle—”
A howl of indignation from Young Joe.
“Let’s see,” he cried, reaching for the letter. “He doesn’t say any such thing, I’ll bet.”
“Well, perhaps not,” admitted George Warren. “Here’s what it is.” He began again:
“There’s plenty of room in the old house for you three, and anybody else you’ve a mind to bring. I’ll be glad to see any friend of yours. We’ll shoot some rabbits and have a high old Christmas. Make Uncle George let you chaps all come for the winter vacation. I’ll look out for you. I’m going back home from the city to-morrow.
“Affectionately your cousin,
“Edward Warren,
“Address, Millstone Landing,
“St. Mary County, Maryland.”
“Whee!” yelled Young Joe. “I’m going to put for home, and ask father. Say, I wonder what kind of syrup they have on those corn fritters.”
“Tobacco syrup,” replied George Warren, solemnly. “That’s what they raise on all the farms down there. It’s awful bitter, too, at first, but you get used to it, so they say.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” said Joe. “It’s corn syrup; that’s what it is. I want to go, don’t you?”
“Well, perhaps so,” replied George Warren. And, turning to his companion, asked, “What do you say, Henry?”
“Why, I’m not invited,” replied Henry Burns.
“Oh, yes, you are, isn’t he, fellows? Ed said bring anybody we wanted. Well, we want you.”
The brothers chimed in, heartily.
“Why, I’d like to go, first rate, if I can,” said Henry Burns.
“Then we’ll do it,” said George Warren—“that is, if the folks will let us. You’ll like Ed. He’s older than we are—about twenty; but he likes fun as much as we do. It’s a big old farm house, with open fire-places and things. We’ll make the place hum. Come on, let’s go home.”
There was little peace in the Warren household that night until the matter had been duly discussed in all its phases, and the coveted permission granted; whereupon, there was a departure in force for the home of Miss Matilda Burns. There, however, the resistance was stronger.
Henry Burns’s aunt did not yield consent without reluctance nor without a struggle. There was Jack Harvey, she said, who went to Baltimore and never came back. Goodness knew where he might be. She didn’t believe in boys going off without someone to look after them.
There was, in reply, positive assurance from all hands that Jack Harvey was all right and having the finest time of his life, travelling about Europe.
It was an unequal contest, and the opposition was finally overcome.
“See that you don’t run off to Europe—or anywhere else, though, except to Mr. Warren’s,” Miss Matilda added, smiling. “And, Henry, you’ve got to write me twice a week.”
Henry Burns groaned, but promised.
“She didn’t say how much to write,” he commented, inwardly, with a vision of a sheet of paper bearing the words, “Dear Aunt, I’m all right,” in his mind.
With which successful turn of affairs, the four let out such a series of shrieks of triumph that poor Miss Matilda Burns nearly fell out of her chair.
Four days later, there arrived in Baltimore four smiling youths, vastly elated at their freedom; vastly puffed up with the importance of being travellers at large, without a guardian.
It was a sharp, crisp winter morning, of the 15th of December, to be precise; the old river boat of the Patuxent line lay in its berth at Light street, making its own hearty breakfast off soft coal, and pouring out clouds of black smoke from its funnel, with vigour and apparent satisfaction. The cabins were warming up, and the last of a huge pile of freight was being stowed away below. The four boys, shortly before half past six—the early hour of departure—made their way aboard.
There was a jingling of bells, the lines were cast off, the gang-planks drawn in, and the steamer was on its way down Chesapeake Bay.
The day passed pleasantly, for it was all new to them, and the bay, with its peculiar craft, presented many attractions. They were hungry as tigers, too, as they seated themselves at the cabin table for dinner.
“You’ve got the wrong side of the cabin, young gentlemen,” said the coloured waiter, politely. “That other side’s the one for white folks.”
They changed places, accordingly.
“Wonder what would happen to us, if we sat over there?” remarked Arthur Warren.
“Perhaps we’d turn black,” said Henry Burns.
“Well, Joe always eats till he’s black in the face when he gets a good dinner,” said George Warren.
Young Joe sniffed, contemptuously.
After dinner they strolled about the boat. There were not a great number of passengers aboard, and the four kept their own company. The only exception for the afternoon was in the case of a young man, who accosted the party as they happened to pause for a moment in front of the open door of his state-room. He was a youth of about nineteen years, but with the manner of a man of the world. He sat, with his feet up on the foot of the bed, smoking a cigar and filling the room with clouds of smoke. A derby hat was perched rakishly on the back of his head. His dress was smart in appearance, though not new, and his coat thrown back revealed a waist-coat of brilliant hue and flaring design.
“How’d do,” he said, removing his cigar, and waving a hand rather patronizingly to them. “Step in. Strangers down this way, I see. Have a smoke?”
He motioned to a table on which there was a box of the cigars.
“No, thanks,” replied George Warren. “Don’t smoke.”
They would have passed on, but the young man was not to be wholly denied. He had a free and easy flow of conversation, which would not be stopped for the moment, and which culminated in the offer—indicating his design from the first—of a game of cards with them, which, he assured them, should not cost them but little, if anything, with the alluring alternative that they might be fortunate enough to win his money.
“Say,” interrupted Henry Burns at this point, “why don’t you fix your neck-tie?”
The youth, surprised at the interruption, paused and laid down his cigar on the edge of the table. He put both hands to the tie, a gaudy one tied sailor fashion, and turned to Henry Burns.
“Why, what’s the matter with it?” he asked, in a tone of wonderment. “Isn’t it all right?”
“Why, yes, it looks so,” replied Henry Burns, coolly and without changing countenance; “but I thought perhaps you might like to untie it and tie it over again. Come on, fellows.”
The consciousness that he had been made game of by the youth flashed upon the stranger, as the boys moved on. He half arose from his seat, while a flush of anger spread over his sallow face. A person on the threshold accosted him at this moment. He looked into the face of a tall man, who was smiling in at him.
“Why, hello, Jenkins,” said the man. “What’s up? You look as though your dinner didn’t set right. What are you doing down this way?”
Mr. Jenkins returned the man’s smile with a scowl.
“Nothing’s the matter,” he said, surlily. “Come in and have a smoke. I’m going up the river for a week. I used to live up that way, you know. Business is dull, and I’m going up to the old place for Christmas. Shut that door, and we’ll have a talk.”
The four boys from Benton had had their first meeting, brief and fleeting, with Arthur Jenkins.
It was still daylight when the steamer turned the Drum Point light-house and headed into the Patuxent river. It was a picturesque sight that the four boys looked upon. Scattered here and there over the water, and coming into harbour for the night, was a fleet of dredging vessels. Some of them, rivals in speed, were racing, with all sail set, heeling far over and throwing up little spurts of water at their bows. The sight captivated Henry Burns, and he gazed with interest.
“My! but I’d like to be aboard that fellow,” he cried, as a fleet bug-eye crept up on a rival craft and swept proudly and gracefully past.
“Not much you wouldn’t,” exclaimed a voice beside him.
Henry Burns turned. The genial, kindly face of the steamboat captain met his gaze.
“It looks very pretty and all that, young man,” said the captain; “but it’s a hard life they lead aboard the dredgers. It’s knock-down and drag out all winter long, with bad food and little to show for it in wages when the winter’s done—that is, for the most of them. It’s not much like what you think it is, I reckon. But they do look pretty coming in; that’s a fact.”
The dredger, Z. B. Brandt, coming in from down along shore, may have, with others of its kind, presented a pretty sight as viewed from the deck of the river steamer. Most assuredly, the steamer, viewed from the deck of the dredger, looked good and inviting to the weary crew of the sailing vessel. To them, watching its approach, it represented all that they longed for—comfort, good food, freedom from abuse; and was a thing that would transport them home—if they could only, some day, reach it.
“PRESENTED A PRETTY SIGHT AS VIEWED FROM THE DECK OF THE RIVER STEAMER.”
Hamilton Haley, eying the steamer from a distance, suddenly uttered an exclamation of amazement. A figure that, in dim outline, suggested someone whom he had seen before, stood out against the sky, as the person leaned against the steamer’s rail.
“I’m blest if I wouldn’t swear that ere was young Artie Jenkins!” exclaimed Haley. “It’s him or his ghost. I’ll have a look at the chap. Here you, Harvey, skip down into the locker, starboard, forward, and fetch me up that glass. Lively now. I want it quick.”
Jack Harvey, who had long ere this learned the necessity of quick obedience aboard the dredger, hastened to obey. He brought the telescope and handed it to Captain Haley.
The latter, adjusting it to suit his eye, gave one long, careful look through the glass, then took it from his eye with another muttered exclamation.
“Well, I swear!” he said. “I knew it was him the minute I clapped my eye on him. I’d know his rakish rig anywhere. I wonder what mischief he’s up to down here.”
And he added, as he looked angrily at the steamer, “Wouldn’t I like to have you aboard here, young feller! Wouldn’t I have it out of you, for some of the counter-jumpers you’ve made me pay high for.”
Jack Harvey, watching Haley with curiosity as the captain surveyed the steamer and as his face wrinkled with anger, wondered what he had seen aboard to excite his wrath. It could not be anybody that Harvey had ever known, but still he had a curiosity, an over-mastering desire, to take a look for himself. As the glass was returned to him by Haley, he paused a moment and asked, “May I have a look, sir?”
Haley nodded.
“Handle that glass easily, though,” he snarled. “Break that, and you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
Harvey raised the glass to his eye, and levelled it at the deck of the steamer. He had never looked through a large telescope before, and it was wonderful how clear it brought out the figures aboard. He seemed to be looking into the very faces of men and women—all strangers to him.
Strangers? Strangers? The telescope, as it was slowly moved in Harvey’s hand, so that his glance took in the row of faces from one end of the boat to the other, rested once on a group of four boys standing close by the rail. For a moment Jack Harvey stood, spell-bound. The next moment he forgot where he was; forgot the presence of the wrathful Haley; forgot all caution. Taking the glass from his eye, he brandished it in the air, and yelled at the top of his voice:
“Henry Burns! George Warren! Hello, it’s—”
The sentence was unfinished. Hamilton Haley, springing from the wheel-box, was upon him in an instant. He snatched the telescope from Harvey’s hand and, stooping, laid it on the deck. The next instant he had dealt Harvey a blow in the face that knocked him off his feet. Harvey fell, rolled over, half slid off the deck into the water; but he clutched at the inch of plank that was raised at the edge, held on, and Haley dragged him aboard again.
“DEALT HARVEY A BLOW IN THE FACE THAT KNOCKED HIM OFF HIS FEET.”
Holding him at the edge of the vessel, Haley shook him like a half drowned dog.
“Another cry out of you, and down you go!” he said. “I’d put you under now, if you hadn’t made good, up the river the other night. You get below, and don’t you let me hear a yip out of you. What’s the matter with you—crazy?”
Jack Harvey, half out of his wits with amazement, dazed from the blow, and chilled with the sting of the icy water that had wet him to the shoulders, stumbled below, without reply.
And aboard the steamer, Henry Burns turned to the captain, in dismay. Neither he nor his companions had distinguished the cry sent forth to them from the deck of the bug-eye, but they had seen a strange thing happen aboard the vessel they were watching.
“Captain,” said Henry Burns, his face flushing with indignation, “I guess what you said about rough treatment aboard those vessels is true. Why, I just saw the man at the wheel strike some one and knock him down.”
“The brute!” exclaimed the steamer’s captain. “I told you so. But it’s nothing new. It happens every day.”
“I’m sorry for the chap that got it,” remarked Henry Burns. “I hope he gets square with the captain, some day.”
And for half that night, Jack Harvey, tossing in his bunk, unable to sleep, wondered if what he had seen could have been true; wondered if his eyes had deceived him; wondered, even, if his brain was going wrong under his hard treatment.
Once he got up and roused Tom Edwards.
“Tom,” he said, “have you noticed anything queer about me lately?”
Tom Edwards sat up and looked at his friend in astonishment.
“Queer!” repeated Tom Edwards. “Of course I haven’t. You’ve been just the same as ever. Why, what’s the matter, Jack? Are you sick?”
“I guess perhaps I am,” replied Harvey, dully. “I’ve heard about sailors seeing mirages and things that didn’t exist. I saw something on a steamer, as we came in, that couldn’t have been true. I thought I saw some friends of mine that live way up in Benton in the state of Maine. They can’t be down here in winter—hold on, though. They might be, after all. Yes, sir, perhaps they’ve come to look for me. I’ll bet that’s it!”
“But,” he added, ruefully, “I don’t see how that can be, either. They’d have come long before this, if they were looking for me. But I saw them. I saw them, Tom Edwards, just as clear as I see you now.”
“Well, you don’t see me very clear in this dark forecastle, Jack, old chap,” replied Tom Edwards. “Turn in and go to sleep, and see what you can make out of it to-morrow.”
CHAPTER X
FLIGHT AND DISASTER
When Jack Harvey awoke, the next morning, it was in a confused state of mind that he turned out of his bunk. The reason for this was at once apparent. A heavy south-easter was on, and a rough sea was tumbling in between the two projections of land that marked the entrance to the river from the bay—Drum Point and Hog Point. Lines of white breakers were foaming and crashing about the light-house.
The bug-eye, Brandt, lying well out in the river, and exposed to the sea, had been tossing about violently, although Haley had given the anchor-rode good scope, in order to ease the strain. The unconscious sleepers in the forecastle had been thrown about against the hard wooden sides of the bunks in which they lay; and Harvey found himself bruised and lame. He put his head out of the companion-way just as a sea sprayed over the vessel, wetting him. He rubbed the salt water from his eyes and hair, and looked out into the bay beyond.
It was certainly rough, outside. As far as he could see, the broad expanse of water was rioting in high frolic. Seas leaped and tumbled in wild confusion. The sharp flaws of the south-easter whipped the white caps from the curling breakers and sent the scud and spindrift flying.
Far out, a few stray vessels, close reefed and rolling heavily as they ran, were making for the harbour; the ends of their lean booms, with sails tied in, looked like bare poles. Jack Harvey noted one thing, with especial satisfaction. Not a single craft in all the harbour fleet was going out, or making any preparation therefor. Harvey gave a sigh of relief, as he went below again.
“Tom,” he said, as he stepped to his comrade’s bunk and roused him, “Tom, we’re in luck. It’s blowing a gale outside. No dredging to-day. Hooray!”
Tom Edwards sat up, and groaned.
“Oh, but I’m lame,” he said. “What with that tough day’s work, yesterday, and this confounded slatting about, I’m just about done for. Haley’ll kill us yet, if we don’t get away.”
Tom Edwards, erstwhile travelling man and frequenter of good hotels, stepped stiffly out on to the floor and proceeded to rub his arms and joints, to limber them up.
“Jack,” he said, “I’m sorry now that you didn’t take the chance up the river, that night, and swim for it. You’d have got away, and they’d be after us all by this time. Jack, I tell you, we’ve got to get out of here pretty soon, or there’ll be no Tom Edwards left to go anywhere. I can’t stand this much longer.”
Harvey stepped to the side of his friend, and whispered softly.
“Neither can I, Tom,” he answered, “and what’s more, I don’t intend to. We’ll get away. We’ll escape.”
To their surprise, the conversation was interrupted by the sharp call of the mate for them to hustle out and help get the bug-eye under weigh. They looked at each other in astonishment, for one moment. Then Harvey reassured his friend.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We can’t be going out. Haley wants a snugger berth. We’re getting too much of the sweep here.”
Harvey’s conjecture proved correct. They were lying at a bad anchorage for a south-easter, and Haley, to his chagrin, had observed the signs of wind and sky and knew the weather was growing heavier instead of clearing.
The anchor was hove short and brought up to the bow, while a jib and the main-sail, both reefed, were set. The Brandt, with Haley at the wheel, stood in nearer to the southern shore of the river, within a quarter of a mile of the bank. The anchor went down again, and sails were once more made snug.
They lay more comfortably here, in the bight of the southern river bank. But it was a tantalizing sight to the prisoners on the Brandt—the near and friendly looking shore, with an occasional house in the distance, the smoke of hearths blown from the chimney tops, and now and then a traveller going on up a country road.
And to what mad act Jack Harvey might have been wrought, could he have seen, in his mind’s eye, the interior of one of these same houses, and a certain one of these hearths, encircled by a certain group of boys, is beyond all conjecture. But he only gazed longingly in ashore, and wished he were there.
There was more definiteness to his thoughts when, an hour or two later, following the wretched breakfast served—all the meaner and more wretched because there was no work to be gotten out of the crew for the day—he saw Haley and the mate launch the small skiff, bring it alongside and get in and row away.
Not that there was any immediate purpose of escape in his mind. For, just before his departure, Haley had designated where he was going—a small shed just back from shore was his object, where a man kept some trifling supplies that he wanted.
“And I’ll be in sight of this vessel from start to finish,” Haley had added, and winked significantly at Jim Adams.
But the small boat and its possibilities was imprinted on Harvey’s brain as he watched it toss flimsily about, while the captain and mate sculled ashore. He had thought of it before, but no good opportunity had offered.
There had been chances, to be sure, down along the marshy intricacies of the eastern shore. Once, when they had lain in Honga river over night, inside Middle Hooper island, he had thought strongly of rousing Tom Edwards and attempting flight to shore. But the country around had been too forbidding. Wild salt marshes bordered the eastern coast of Hooper’s, and across on the land to the east it was so shelterless, with salt marshes on shore and a great fresh water marsh inland, that he had given over the project for the time.
Occasionally, on a Saturday night, when the bug-eye lay in the Patuxent, it was the habit of Haley and Jim Adams to take the skiff and go ashore. Sometimes they spent the night, and were back again Sunday morning. Sometimes they passed the greater part of Sunday back inland. There lay Harvey’s hope. Yet he hardly knew how to work out a plan of escape. To attempt to make sail on the bug-eye and run her either to shore or up the bay, would, he discovered, be useless. It would involve making a prisoner of the cook and the man, Jeff, and, possibly, Sam Black, also; though Harvey looked for no great interference from him.
The cook and the sailor, Jeff, he found, had a certain dogged loyalty to Haley. The former surely would stand by the vessel under all circumstances; the latter, it was certain, would not compromise himself with the authorities of the state by any attempt to take possession of the craft in Haley’s absence.
But, with the mate and Haley away, there must be some means, surely, of gaining one of the shores of the river. In milder weather, Harvey would have thought nothing of swimming the distance, even of a mile, from the middle of the wide part of the river; but the weather and the icy cold water precluded that way of flight now. At least, Harvey did not care to venture it, especially as, once on land, he would know not where to seek shelter; for he knew that, bound by many mutual ties of interest, the dredgers and the settlers along shore—unless the latter had oyster beds to be robbed—worked for each other’s interests.
“Tom,” said Harvey, quietly, indicating the skiff with a glance, “that’s the way you and I are going ashore one of these nights, and take our chances when we get there. And,” he added, eagerly, “isn’t it lucky you warned me to hide that money? That will help us out, when we do escape.”
Tom Edwards glanced at the bobbing skiff, that looked to his eyes about as substantial as a child’s toy boat, and shrugged his shoulders.
“I’ll try it, if we get the chance,” he said, somewhat dubiously; “but I don’t like the looks of it.”
Harvey laughed. “You’re a landsmen, sure enough,” he said. “Why, that’s an able little boat as a man might want, in a river like this. Look how nicely it rides the waves.”
“Oh, I’d go on a bunch of shingles, if it would only take me out of this,” exclaimed Tom Edwards—“that is, I think I would now. But you’ll have to run the thing. I’ll confess, I don’t know one end of a boat from another, except what that brute, Jim Adams, has ground into me.”
Harvey’s hopes, which had been raised by the shifting of the anchorage of the vessel nearer land, were dashed late that afternoon, with the return of Haley and the mate. Rain mixed with sleet poured down in torrents, and drove laterally across the vessel. It was as much as one could do to keep his footing on the slippery deck, even with one hand clutching a rope. The sleet stung as it struck Harvey’s face, and made it smart as though from a volley of small pebbles. He was only glad to seek shelter below, even in the dreary forecastle. He learned, that night, how all circumstances are relatively good or harsh. From the boisterous night outside, the forecastle of the Brandt was a refuge that seemed almost cheery.
The next morning, it was apparent that the strength of the storm was wearing away. Moreover, there was a sudden peculiar change in the weather. The wind had swung around more to the southward; and, with that, there had come a decided moderation of the temperature. But the change was of no immediate advantage to Haley, for there rolled in a heavy fog, and a dense mist also rose up from the surface of the river.
Again Haley gave the order to make sail and raise the anchor. Once more the bug-eye got under weigh, stood out toward the middle of the river and cast anchor again, just beyond the path of any passing steamer. Captain Haley, ever watchful, ever suspicious, was taking no chances. His rule was invariable, in any kind of smooth water—to lie for the night beyond swimming distance from shore. At least, to offer little chance for that. He had known desperate, venturesome men to attempt it, even then.
He was in a bad humour, was Haley, that day. There was nothing to eat, for the crew, but the bread, or dough, fried, and a few scraps of pork mixed with it. It was Saturday, and, about the middle of the afternoon, he and Jim Adams took the skiff again and went ashore. They were out of sight in the fog before they had gone two rods, but the wind sufficed to give them their direction for the distance they had to go.
“Tom,” said Jack Harvey that night, as they turned in, “keep your shoes on, and don’t go to sleep.”
Tom Edwards looked at his young companion, in surprise.
“We’ve got a chance,” explained Harvey, “as good as we’ll ever get, perhaps. We’ve got to break away from here some time. The sooner the better.”
“In this beastly fog?” interrupted Tom Edwards.
“Of course,” replied Harvey. “It’s just what we want. The wind’s southerly and will take us across to the Drum Point shore. We can’t help hitting that, or Solomon’s Island. We’ll have the chance, too. I heard Jim Adams say we’d put out of here early to-morrow morning, if the fog lifts. Haley’s lost so much time, he won’t stay ashore Sunday. They’ll be back with the skiff late to-night, or toward morning. We’ll give them just time to go off to sleep and then make a try for it.”
The crisis thus suddenly facing Tom Edwards, he pulled himself together.
“Good for you!” he said. “I’ll go, if we have to row across the Chesapeake. Anybody with us?”
“Not a soul,” said Harvey. “The skiff will hold only us two. And we can do it better alone. Now you sit up first, will you, and let me get two hours sleep, and then you wake me and I’ll keep watch, because—because—”
Tom Edwards laughed good-naturedly.
“I know,” he said. “You’re afraid that I’d fall asleep later on, and we’d miss the chance.”
“Well,—well,” stammered Harvey, “you are an awful sound sleeper when you get a-going, you know. I didn’t mean anything—”
“You’re all right,” exclaimed Tom Edwards, softly, but with heartiness. “You turn in. Let me have your watch. I’ll wake you, say, at eleven.”
Jack Harvey’s nerves were good, and he was not one to worry over coming events. He turned in, and, in ten minutes, was sound asleep. Tom Edwards, sitting uncomfortably in his bunk, counted the minutes as they dragged away, drearily. It was a lonesome vigil, with only the sleeping crew for company. He started up now and again, as some sound in the night outside seemed to his active fancy a warning of the returning skiff.
Ten o’clock came, and then eleven; he arose and awakened Harvey.
“Too bad, old chap,” he said, “but it’s your turn.”
Harvey roused and turned out, sleepily.
“Tom,” he said, “I had the queerest dream. I dreamed we were chasing that fellow, Jenkins, through miles of swamps, and every time we’d get near him, he’d turn into Henry Burns and laugh at us. Then we’d see him again a little way ahead.”
“You’re thinking of that chap you thought you saw through the telescope, eh,” suggested Tom Edwards.
“He’s on my mind sure enough,” replied Harvey. “I can’t quite make it out, though, whether I saw him or not.”
Tom Edwards rolled into his bunk, and Harvey, stretching and yawning, began his watch. He didn’t dare tell Tom Edwards till long afterward; but he went off soundly to sleep once, some time later, and woke with a fearful start. What if he had been the one, after all, to upset their plans by his carelessness!
He stole cautiously out on deck, and tip-toed aft. He breathed a sigh of relief when there was no sign of the skiff. He hurried back to the forecastle and struck a match, to read the face of his watch. It was half-past twelve o’clock. He dared not trust himself, then, to return to his bunk, but crouched down at the foot of the companion ladder, with the sting of the night air in his face.
Suddenly a steady, creaking sound came to his ears. He started up and crawled to the top of the ladder. It was the sound of an oar. Then his heart gave a bound, as he heard voices through the fog.
“There she lies,” came the words in the voice of the mate. “I tells you, Mister Haley, I’s pretty extra good on findin’ my way ’bout this river. We’re goin’ to get a good day, all right, too. This wind be shiftin’ right; swingin’ round with the sun to the west by mornin’, sure’s you born.”
They came indistinctly into view of the boy, as he crouched in the companion-way, just peering over so he could see across the deck. The skiff scraped alongside. The two men sprang out, shaking the fog and wet from their coats. Harvey, still as though frozen to the spot, noted with joy that they did not fetch the skiff aboard, but made the painter fast near the stern. They hurried below, and a light gleamed in the cabin. It burned a few minutes, only. Then the vessel was in darkness again, save for the lantern in the foremast shroud, to warn any chance craft where they lay.
Harvey waited. The minutes seemed like hours. Fifteen minutes were ticked off by his silver time-piece; then fifteen more. It was a quarter past one o’clock when he stole back, shivering, and awoke Tom Edwards.
“Sh-h-h!” he warned. “Don’t speak. They’re here; turned in half an hour ago. Come on.”
They had no belongings to gather up; only their coats to button about them. They crept out on deck and stood for a moment, waiting and listening. There was no sound aboard the bug-eye. They darted quickly aft. Tom Edwards stepped nervously into the little skiff, Harvey following. Harvey cast off, took his seat astern, pushed away and began sculling.
Two rods off from the bug-eye, they could discern the thin lines of its masts and a dull blur that was its hull. Harvey gave a little murmur of exultation, and paused in his sculling. But the next moment he uttered a cry of surprise and alarm. He rose from his seat, and peered anxiously through the fog.
“What’s the matter? What is it, Jack?” asked Tom Edwards, almost breathless.
“Something’s coming!” exclaimed Harvey. “Don’t you hear that rushing sound? Oh, hang this fog! If it would only lift a little.”
Suddenly Harvey dropped to his seat and began plying the single oar in the scull-hole, with desperation. Then he sprang up again and gave a warning call as loud as he dared.
It was too late. Out of the fog and mist there rushed a craft—so swiftly that it was upon them before they had half seen it. It was a long, narrow canoe, with full sail set, the wind on its quarter, flying for the mouth of the river. Harvey had one fleeting glimpse of a man in the stern of the craft, springing up and uttering an exclamation of rage and fright. Then Harvey jumped from his own seat, literally tumbling over Tom Edwards.
The man at the stern of the fleeing canoe had jammed the helm hard down, at his first sight of the little skiff. But he could not clear it wholly. There was a crash and a splintering of wood; the skiff half upset, and took in nearly half a barrel of water. The main boom of the canoe swept across the skiff, knocking both its occupants into a heap.
The next thing they knew, the man at the stern of the canoe and another by the foremast were standing up, uttering maledictions upon the unfortunate victims of the collision.
“Help us! Don’t leave us! We’re sinking!” called Harvey, in desperation, as the canoe kept on its course. The only answer was a wrathful shake of his fist from the skipper of the canoe. Another moment, and it was gone.
Harvey and his companion, ankle-deep in water, scrambled up, and Harvey turned anxiously to the stern of the skiff. There was a hole there, and the boat seemed to be sinking under them. They stripped off their outer jackets, prepared to swim for their lives. But Harvey quickly reassured his comrade.
“It isn’t coming in very fast,” he said. “We can get back to the bug-eye, if we work lively. You take your hat and bail. I’ll jump her all I can.”
He gave a cry of dismay as he seized the oar, which was floating in the bottom of the skiff. The blow from the canoe had broken half the blade away. It was still of some use, but he could not make fast time with it.
Heartbroken and fearful of what awaited them, they turned the skiff in the direction whence the wind was blowing, and toiled with desperate energy. The water leaked steadily into the little craft, but Tom Edwards dashed it out by hat-fulls, as he had never worked in all his life—not even at the dredges under the eye of Jim Adams.
The bug-eye came more plainly into view. They neared it with quaking hearts. Already they could seem to hear the torrent of imprecation that awaited them from Haley and the mate, and could feel the hurt and pain of “dredging fleet law.”
To their amazement, silence reigned aboard the vessel. That silence was unbroken as they struggled up alongside. With not a sound aboard, they grasped the foot of a shroud and Harvey sprang noiselessly to the deck. Tom Edwards followed. Harvey took a quick turn with the painter. The half submerged skiff was made fast, where it had been before.
They fled along the deck, and down into the forecastle, on the wings of fear. Wet and exhausted, they tumbled into their bunks. It was some moments before either of them could find breath to speak.
“Oh, the brutes!” murmured Tom Edwards, after a time. “How could any human being do a thing like that? They left us to drown, Jack, and didn’t care.”
“Of course they did,” answered Harvey, “and good reason. I know why. Don’t you? Did you see the load they had aboard? They’d been lifting an oyster dump. Some fellow’ll find his week’s tonging of oysters gone, when he looks for them. They were poachers. They’d have killed us in a minute if we’d stood between them and getting away. Cheer up, old Tom. We’re in the greatest luck we’ve ever been in all our lives. Is your back cold? Well, how would it feel, think, if Haley had caught us? Did you ever hear Sam Black tell how he’s seen men rope’s-ended for trying to run away? Wait till Haley sees that skiff in the morning. You’ll be glad you’re alive. Never mind. We’ll escape yet. I’m going to sleep when I get these boots off.”
Captain Hamilton Haley, standing by the wheel, some hours later, when the sun had risen and the fog was lifting over the river, was not a pleasing object to behold. What he had to say about poachers and their ways and habits and carelessness would have warmed the water under the bug-eye, if it hadn’t been in the dead of winter. To have heard his outburst of indignation, over the evils of poaching and night sailing, would almost have convinced a listener that he was the most averse to that habit of any man in Chesapeake Bay. Also he berated Jim Adams, as much as he thought that gentleman would stand, for not bringing the skiff aboard.
Haley bargained for a new skiff that day, and gave Jim Adams another dressing down,—and Jim Adams took it out of the crew, for which Harvey and Tom Edwards were sorry—although they got their share. And so their night adventure passed into the history of the cruise; and there even came a time, long afterward, when the two laughed at it—that is, when they thought of Haley. The remembrance of their own fright remained, to dream of, for many a night.
Two days afterward, there happened one of those sudden, mysterious changes that told of the comradeship of a certain clique of the dredging captains, and of their facility for dodging trouble.
Down along the western shore a strange craft sailed up, and Haley took a man aboard from it; though not without some warm words with the strange captain. He seemed not to welcome the recruit. But he took him, and exchanged one of his own crew, the sailor, Sam Black, for the man. This latter recruit was a swarthy man, tall and muscular. His face was discoloured, as though by blows; and a long scar, freshly made, showed on the back of one hand and wrist. He obeyed Haley’s and the mate’s orders sullenly. Why he was aboard, none knew except the mate and captain. But it was plain enough, the captain of the other craft had wanted him out of the way.
CHAPTER XI
HARVEY SENDS A MESSAGE TO SHORE
Henry Burns and the Warren brothers, arriving at Millstone Landing on the evening when Jack Harvey had seen a strange vision through Haley’s telescope, found a young man on the wharf awaiting them. He hailed them with a hearty shout of welcome the moment the steamer came to its landing. He was a tall, somewhat spare man, but with broad, muscular shoulders, and a general build that told of unusual strength. He had a mop of short, almost curly hair, under a soft felt hat, a dark, clear complexion, brown eyes that twinkled with fun, and an expression of geniality that won the heart of Henry Burns at first glance.
The young man nodded smilingly to the river captain, and swung himself aboard before the steamer had its gang-plank out; and he was up the stairs and in the cabin in a twinkling, where he grasped George Warren and the brothers, one after another, and welcomed them heartily.
“And this is our friend, Henry Burns,” said George Warren, introducing his comrade.
“I’m right glad to meet him, too,” responded Edward Warren. “He’s just as welcome as you are—and that’s saying all anybody could. Well, I’d know you youngsters anywhere. You haven’t changed much since I was up north, four years ago—except you’ve grown some. There’s Joe—my, but he’s growing like a corn-stalk! Don’t it almost make your bones ache, to grow so fast, Joey?”
Edward Warren was, all the while, assisting them with their bags and bundles of coats and luggage, and steering them across the gang-plank to the wharf, like a drove of frisky young cattle.
“Joe wants to know if you’ve brought any of those corn fritters down with you, Cousin Ed?” said George Warren.
“No,” laughed Edward Warren, “but there’s a stack of them up in the oven, keeping hot, as high as your head, almost. Here, sling your stuff into this wagon, and Jim will take it up. Anybody that wants to ride, too, can jump aboard. But I’m going to walk. It’s only about a mile, and I’d rather walk a night like this, anyway.”
“Well, I’ll ride up and be making the acquaintance of Mammy Stevens,” said Joe, grinning broadly, and springing up on the seat beside the coloured driver. The others elected to walk, with Edward Warren.
He set off at a brisk pace along the road that skirted the shore, bordered much of its way by ponds extending some distance inland. He had spoken of a mile walk as though it were the merest trifle, and the pace he set for his younger companions indicated that he so regarded it. But they were good for it, too, although he had them breathing hard by the time they had gone half a mile; and the four made quick time of it up from the landing.