“You chaps are pretty good walkers,” he said, laughing quietly and slowing down a little. “Thought I’d see how city life agreed with your wind and legs. You’re sound in both wind and limb, as we farmers say of a good horse. We’ll take the rest of it a little easier.”
There yet lingered in the mind of Henry Burns an indignation born of the act he had seen on the passing vessel.
“Say, Mr. Warren,” he began, as they walked along along—
“Don’t call him ‘Mr. Warren.’ Call him ‘Ed,’” interrupted George Warren.
“Yes, that’s right,” responded Edward Warren, good-naturedly.
“I saw a man knocked down on a vessel as we sailed into the harbour,” continued Henry Burns. “Isn’t it a shame to treat men like that?”
Edward Warren paused, and clenched a big, strong fist. He raised it and gestured like a man striking someone a blow.
“Shame!” he repeated. “It’s downright wicked, the way those dredging captains—or a good many of them—treat the men. Why, we get them on shore here, through the winter, half starved, and half clad, begging their way back to Baltimore. If a man is taken sick out aboard, and isn’t fit to work any more, why, the captain takes him ashore, to gather wood, or something of that sort. Then he cuts and leaves him to starve or freeze, or get back to town the best way he can. And sometimes, they don’t take even that trouble, if they’re safe down the bay—just let a man slump overboard—accidentally, of course,—and that’s the last seen of him.”
“Don’t his friends ever get track of him?” asked Henry Burns.
“Not often,” replied Edward Warren. “They’re almost always poor chaps, without any friends that can do them any good; fellows that are reduced to poverty in the cities, or men who have been dissipating and gone to the bad. And those don’t last long with the life they lead aboard the dredgers.”
“Well, that poor chap that I saw knocked down would have one friend if I could help him,” exclaimed Henry Burns.
“He needs it, I’ve no doubt,” said Edward Warren. “And they make the men do their underhand work for them, too—the captains that go poaching. Why, I took a shot at a craft, just the other night, up above Forrests, myself. I was up to Wilkes’s place, over night, and we caught a fellow poaching in on the beds. Gave him a close call, too. We had him between us and the Folly for a few minutes; but he was smart and got away.”
The lights of the old farm house were gleaming by this time, and in a moment or two they were within its hospitable walls. It was a pleasant, old-style house, with some pillars at the front, and a broad verandah; the main house of two stories in height, and a series of rambling extensions, of a story and a half, extending in the rear; stables and two barns not far away—in all, an air of comfort and prosperity, if not of great means. The land on which the house stood overlooked the river, now gleaming with the harbour lights of many vessels, and some small ponds along shore.
They entered at the big front door, stepping into a wide hall that ran the entire length of the first floor of the main part. The hall ended in a wall in which a huge open fireplace, built of the stones taken from the land, now gave forth a blazing welcome.
But they did not linger long before this inviting blaze, for old Mammy Stevens had them all out in the dining-room before many minutes. This room was equally cheery, with a hearth fire snapping and singing there, also; and there sat young Joe, gloating in anticipation over an array of good things, including the heaped up platter of corn fritters, with a pitcher of syrup squatted agreeably close by.
They fell to and ate till Mammy Stevens’s face lighted up and shone like a piece of polished ebony; and she laughed and chuckled till she was almost white to see young Joe tuck away corn fritters and country sausage. And all the while they were making merry and enjoying comfort and warmth, Jack Harvey, not far away, on the bug-eye, Brandt, was climbing into his bunk, wet from his drenching, and sore from the blow Haley had given him.
A vessel, seen from the old farmhouse, anchored in near shore the following afternoon, but it had no special interest in the eyes of the newcomers, nor had it as it sailed away again when the fog had lifted.
“Cap’n,” queried Jim Adams, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stem of it forward in the direction of the stranger who stood by the foremast, “what’s happened? What have we got him for?”
Haley shrugged his shoulders and squinted one eye, significantly. “Bill’s in trouble again,” he answered. “This fellow and a pardner tried to get away. The pardner got it a bit hard—Bill had to put him ashore below in St. Mary’s. This one goes, too, when we get a good chance to land him where he’ll be a long time walking up to Baltimore. Oh, it’s all right, so long as the two don’t get together. The pardner can’t make any more trouble by himself.”
Jim Adams, rightly construing Haley’s remarks to mean that the “pardner” had been badly hurt, perhaps crippled—or worse—and had been landed in some convenient spot away from any town, resumed his pipe, and asked no more questions. But he added, as he surveyed the muscular frame of the man forward, “He’s a sure enough good man at the winders, I reckon. I’ll make him earn his board and lodgin,’ if he stays.”
Jim Adams grinned, and showed his fine, white teeth.
“You’re the boy to do it,” commented Haley.
It was afternoon, and the bug-eye, Brandt, was coming up to the Patuxent for a night’s harbour. Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards, eyeing the stranger, who remained sullenly by himself, felt a depression of spirits as they noted the appearance of the man. His bruises and the fresh scar, and indeed the very fact of his being there, were evidence to them of the cause that had brought him aboard. They had become familiar enough with the ways of the dredging fleet to know what it meant.
What the stranger thought of them, no one would ever know. But theirs was perhaps not altogether a favourable appearance by this time. There was less of incongruity in the dress of Tom Edwards now than when he had begun work. Daily toil at the dredges, drenching in icy spray, the wear and tear of the life aboard the Brandt, had wholly obliterated whatever of newness and stylishness there had been to his clothing. He had taken on the shabby, rough, wretched characteristics of the ordinary dredger. His one collar had long ago been discarded. He looked the part into which his ill fortune had cast him.
Nor had Harvey fared better. His clothes were torn and worn and discoloured by the salt water. His face, like that of Tom Edwards, was reddened and roughened and weather-beaten. His hands were roughened and scarred from hard work, with the broadening and flattening at the finger tips acquired through handling the heavy iron dredges and through knotting ropes.
The two friends were still depressed with the disappointment of their failure to make their escape, but they were not hopeless. They talked of it whenever they dared, and planned for another attempt when opportunity should offer.
The bug-eye ran up into the mouth of the river, and came to anchor off the northern shore, that being the lee with the wind from the northwest. It lay about half a mile out from the Drum Point shore and about the same distance to the eastward of Solomon’s Island. There was little sign of life or habitation on the land about the light-house, save that Harvey noticed one large house which set up on the hill, overlooking the surrounding country. But the many lights on Solomon’s Island and the many small craft at their moorings close to its shore indicated that there was quite a settlement there. Later in the evening, there came out to him, once or twice, with the wind, the sounds of jigging music, as from banjos and fiddles; and once he thought he heard, faintly, the sound of a piano, played noisily.
These suggestions of freedom and of merriment, though borne to him all indistinctly, filled Harvey’s mind with the old longing to escape. He could seem to see the interior of the town hall, perhaps, whence the sounds came; the lamps about the sides of the room; the fishermen’s daughters waiting for partners for the dance; the fiddler at the end of the hall, calling off the numbers. He had seen the like away up in Samoset bay, and had taken part in the fun.
He looked down at the side of the vessel, where the black water of the bay tossed gently, and away off to shore, indistinct save where a light gleamed here and there. There was the icy sting and nip of winter in the air. The water looked forbidding. It was out of the question to think of swimming—and, besides, there was Tom Edwards whom he could not desert. But, for all that, Harvey turned in for the night with greater reluctance than ever before; and he lay for a long time, uneasy, not able to sleep.
It could not have been very late in the night, though he knew not the time, when he roused up from a light slumber. Something had awakened him. The picture he had fancied of the dance hall ashore leaped into his mind, and something seemed to impel him to turn out and take another look.
Then he thought he heard some slight sound over his head on deck. Grumbling at himself at his seeming folly, he stepped out on to the forecastle floor and went softly up the companion ladder to the deck.
He was dressed, for he had turned in with his clothes on, as usual. But the night air chilled him, and he shivered as he crept out and looked off toward the land. He turned his collar up about his throat, and stepped over to the side of the vessel.
An instant, and he was conscious of someone near. He turned just as a figure leaped out at him from the shadow of the forecastle. Harvey was quick and strong. Realizing a sudden peril—he knew not what—he darted to one side as the figure sprang toward him, and struck out at the same moment with his left arm.
He was not a second too soon. There was disclosed to him the tall, swarthy stranger they had taken aboard that afternoon. The man, his arm uplifted and holding an open knife in that hand, made a lunge at him.
The blow missed Harvey, and his own blow, aimed at random, caught the man’s shoulder and stopped his rush. At the same moment, the man recognized the boy and stood still and silent, peering at him, wondering and surprised.
Harvey, alert to the situation, thought quickly and spoke—in a half whisper.
“Don’t strike me,” he said. “If you want to escape, I’ll help you. I’m not to blame for your being here.”
The man did not reply, but he seemed to understand. Yet he was not taking all for granted. He stepped to Harvey’s side, holding the knife threateningly. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and peered into his face. Then he put a finger to Harvey’s lips and raised the knife again.
Harvey nodded. “I’ll keep quiet,” he whispered. “What are you going to do, swim?”
The man clearly did not understand what Harvey had said, but he caught at the one word.
“Swim,” he repeated, and nodded. “Swim. I swim.” And he made a sweeping gesture with one arm.
Harvey nodded his head vigorously, as if to indicate his sympathy with the attempt, and further emphasized it with a shake of his fist in the direction of the captain’s cabin. The man seemed assured. His lips parted in a half smile, which changed to an expression of anger and fierceness as he in turn shook the hand that clutched the knife in the direction of Haley’s quarters. Then he thrust the knife back into his belt.
Another thought came swiftly to Harvey then. If he could only get a message ashore by the man—that is, if the stranger should succeed in what seemed an almost hopeless attempt. But how could he make the foreigner understand? He stepped close to him, stretched out his left hand and made the motions of writing upon the palm of it. Then he pointed to himself, to the man and to the shore.
“Take a letter for me,” said Harvey. “A letter,” and he again made the motions of writing.
To his surprise and delight, the man repeated the word “letter” plainly, and himself made the motions of writing with his right fore-finger upon the palm of his left hand.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Harvey. “Take a letter ashore for me?” And he pointed again toward shore.
The man nodded. Harvey pointed to the forecastle, repeated the gesture of writing and looked at the man inquiringly. The man nodded once more. But again he drew forth the knife, put a finger to his lips and made a significant gesture. Harvey understood. He stepped forward, put out his right hand to the man, and the stranger grasped it. It was a compact he understood. Harvey stole softly down into the forecastle.
He roused Tom Edwards, who asked drowsily what was wanted.
“Tom,” said Harvey softly, “be quick. Find that little order-book with the pencil in it that you had when you came aboard. You stuck it up in the bunk somewhere, weeks ago. The man we took aboard this afternoon is going to swim for shore. Hurry, Tom, he may be gone while I’m below here.”
Tom Edwards fumbled about and produced the book—one of the few things that had been left to him in the rifling of his pockets—left to him as a thing of no value to the men who had trapped him. Harvey seized it eagerly and ran up on deck again. The man was still there.
There was no light to write by, but there was no time to be lost. Harvey tore a page from the book, took the little pencil from its leather socket, laid the paper down on top of the forecastle house and held his face close down to it. The white patch was sufficiently discernible against the wood to enable him to scrawl a few words. He wrote:
“I am trapped out aboard the bug-eye Z. B. Brandt by Capt. Haley. Send word to Benton, Maine.
“Jack Harvey.”
He folded the scrap of paper and handed it to the swarthy stranger. The man took it, held it for a moment as though deliberating, then removed the cap he wore, tucked the paper within the lining and replaced the cap on his head. He had taken off his heavy shoes, which he proceeded to tie across his back, with a line passed across one shoulder and under the other arm-pit. He had stripped off his coat and held it now in one hand, doubtfully.
He looked across to shore, shook his head as if to say that the distance was too great to encumber himself with the weight of the garment, even though tied across his shoulders. He threw it on the deck with a gesture of disappointment, and stepped to the side of the vessel.
Harvey followed, and again put out his hand. The man grasped it, and they shook hands warmly. Harvey would have given half his store of hidden money at that moment to have been able to wish him good luck in a tongue that the man could understand. But he slapped him on the shoulder, and the man understood that. He made a sweeping gesture of farewell, swung himself off noiselessly into the icy water and began swimming away, with long, powerful strokes.
Instinctively, Harvey reached down and put his hand into the water. Its coldness fairly stung him, hardened as he had become, with work at the dredges. He stood, shivering, with the cold of the night intensified by his excitement. It seemed as though no human being could live to get to shore in that water. But the man kept on.
“He must be a fish,” muttered Harvey. “I hope he sticks it out, but how can he?”
The stars twinkling coldly overhead gave little light upon the water. But the figure moving slowly away was discernible some distance. Harvey watched it until the tiny black speck where the man’s cap showed faded away and was lost to view. Harvey’s teeth was chattering. His eyes smarted and watered with the strain of peering through the darkness. He longed to call out, to know if the swimmer still lived. But he turned and crept back to his bunk, giving the news to Tom Edwards, who shivered at the very thought of it.
“Poor chap, he’ll never get to shore,” he murmured. “But he’ll die game.”
Up in the big house that overlooked the Drum Point lighthouse, in a chamber room, a young man of about thirty sat reading before a fire. A clock ticking in one corner indicated the time of night as half-past eleven. The man paused in his reading, yawned and stretched comfortably, arose and stepped to a window facing the harbour.
“What a glorious night!” he said.
He stepped back and sat down again.
A strange thing, unseen by him, had happened down at the shore toward which he had looked. Something moved, like a great fish, in the water, a rod out from the land. It sank once almost out of sight, then thrashed the water and struggled in desperately. A man, feeling the solid earth under his feet, stepped out upon the shore and staggered as though about to fall; caught himself; then fell; but arose and walked unsteadily in the direction of the light from the window.
The young man who was reading suddenly sprang up from his chair and listened. There was a muffled rapping at the door below. The man threw up the window and put his head out.
“Who’s that? What do you want?” he called.
A reply, unintelligible, came up to him. He closed the window and turned toward the door of the chamber.
“It’s the same old story,” he said, with a touch of indignation in his voice. “Some poor chap from the dredging fleet, I suppose—beaten up, half starved, and trying to get back to Baltimore.”
He descended the stairs, lighted a lamp and went to the door. When the lamp-light fell upon the figure that stood before him, he started back, thunderstruck. A man, drenched to the skin, ghastly pale, shivering, almost speechless, his tangled, dripping hair falling about his eyes, stood there. He stretched forth an arm, appealingly, and almost fell.
The man with the lamp caught him with one arm and assisted him within; half dragged him out into an old-fashioned kitchen, where the man slumped all in a heap before the fire. The man of the house, setting down the lamp on a table, went to the closet and brought out a cup; filled it with coffee from a pot that set back on the stove, knelt by the stranger’s side and, rousing him up, held the cup to his lips and made him drink.
The man shivered, sat up a little and uttered the one word, “Swim.”
The other uttered an exclamation of anger.
“It’s a shame! A cruel shame to treat men so they’d rather die than lead the life they do aboard the dredgers,” he cried. “How far did you swim?”
The man shook his head, indicating he did not understand.
“Well, no matter,” said the other, compassionately. “I’ll fix you up. But you’ve just come through, and that’s all. You’re pretty near being a dead man.”
An hour later, the stranger, wrapped in warm blankets, his ragged garments drying by the fire, dozed, while the man of the house stood, watching him.
“Well, he’s all right now,” he said. “I’ll turn in and let him sleep there for the night.”
But the man suddenly moved, sat up on one elbow and then struggled into a sitting position. He fumbled at his head and said something in a foreign tongue. He gesticulated, and pointed down toward the shore.
The young man laughed.
“Well, I declare if you aren’t worrying about a cap,” he cried. “I know what you mean—lost your cap, eh? Well, you ought to thank your stars you didn’t lose your life. We’ll get the cap to-morrow, if it’s down by the shore. To-morrow, see?”
The man repeated the word “to-morrow,” and shook his head as vigorously as he could. “No to-morrow,” he repeated. And he struggled to his feet. Wrapping the blanket about him, he started doggedly toward the door.
“Well, confound you for an obstinate mule!” exclaimed the young man. “I don’t wonder you got ashore, with all that stubbornness. Go lie down again. Hang it, if you’re so worried as all that about your old cap, I’ll go look for it.”
Half angry, half amused, he took down a lantern from a hook, lighted it, and went out into the darkness. In a few minutes, he reappeared. In his hand he held a bedraggled, shabby fur cap, that bore more resemblance to a drowned cat than any article of wear.
“There’s your cap, you mule!” he exclaimed, and threw the wet object down upon the floor.
To his surprise, the man caught it up eagerly and, turning it inside out, felt within the lining. He uttered a little cry of disappointment as he drew forth a piece of wet, torn paper. He dropped it on the floor and drew out two other pieces. Then he shrugged his shoulders and looked up at his rescuer, helplessly.
The young man stooped and picked up the pieces of paper.
“Aha! I see,” he said. “There was a method in your stubbornness after all. Let’s look.”
He held up the pieces of paper and turned them in his hand. He took them to the table and placed them on an earthen platter, with the torn edges joining. Then he whistled with surprise. The paper, wet and torn, still bore, blurred and barely readable, written words. He made out the message:
“I am trapped aboard the bug-eye Z. B. Brandt by Capt. Haley. Send word to Benton.
“Jack Har—”
The remainder of the last name had been torn away. They searched for it, but it was not to be found.
“Whew!” exclaimed the young man. “Another case of shanghaiing. Well, there’s enough to work on. I’ll have to look into it, though I suppose it’s not much use. When a man gets out there, it’s hard finding him. I’ll save the paper, though, and dry it out.”
And then he added, eying the stranger with a different expression, “You’re a good sort, after all. You’re a true blue comrade to somebody. Hang it! I wish you could talk the United States language.”
CHAPTER XII
ESCAPE AT LAST
The old Warren homestead, alight with many lamps from parlour to kitchen, presented a cheery and genial aspect to whoever might be passing by along the road, on the night of December 24. The shades, half drawn in the front room, revealed the glow of a big hearth fire, reddening the light of the lamps, and adding its cheer and welcome to the general atmosphere of comfort within. From the kitchen there came the sound of banjos tinkling, and the laughter from a merry company of coloured servants, the Christmas eve guests of Jim and Mammy Stevens. The whole house, in fact, was keeping holiday.
But if the appearance, viewed from the exterior, was one of brightness and Christmas warmth, it was doubly so within. The large room, that fronted on the bay and commanded a view from its windows of Drum Point lighthouse and a sweep of the river, was a comfortably furnished, old-fashioned affair; with quaint, polished furniture; mirrors that reflected the dancing fire-light; a polished oak floor that shone almost as bright as the mirrors; and, in one corner, a tall clock, that ticked away in dignified and respectable fashion, as befitting a servant that had belonged to the Warren family for a hundred years, and had descended, as a precious heirloom, from father to son.
From the upper panelling of the walls there hung, in festoons, some trailing vines, ornamented with bright berries, gathered from the woods back on the farm; and sprigs of holly also decorated the mirrors and a few portraits of one-time members of the household.
Edward Warren, stretched comfortably before the fire in a big chair, gazed about the room approvingly, and then at his younger companions.
“Well,” he exclaimed, heartily, “you’ve saved me from spending a dull Christmas, sure enough. What with the folks away, I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Say, can’t you young fellows give us a song? We don’t want to let them make all the noise out in the kitchen.”
“Go ahead on Old Black Joe, Henry,” said George Warren. “We’ll all join in.”
So Henry Burns led off on the plantation melody, and the brothers joined in with a will. Edward Warren came in with a fine bass effect, and altogether they did Old Black Joe in a way that almost made the faces in the oil paintings on the wall smile.
Then, on the second verse, the banjos in the kitchen, and a guitar that had been added to the group, took up the refrain, and all the darkey melody in that part of the house concentrated itself on the same tune. So that the old house fairly rang from one end to the other with the plantation music, and the sounds floated off on the crisp night air far and around.
In the midst of which, it was suddenly discovered by the others that young Joe had disappeared from the front room, and a hurried search was begun for the missing youth. It resulted in his discovery, in a pantry off the dining-room, gloating over the contents of the Christmas box that had been sent from home to the brothers. From this young Joe had abstracted a generous slice of nut cake, which was rapidly disappearing down his throat.
Howls of wrath from George and Arthur Warren were united with yells of dismay from Young Joe, as he was dragged from his hiding place, still holding a piece of the cake in his hand, loth even then to part with the evidence of his guilt.
“Ow, wow!” yelled George Warren. “Pilfering from to-morrow’s feast, are you, Joey? Say, what’ll we do with him, Arthur?”
“Invite him out into the kitchen and make him eat some of those raw oysters that Mammy Stevens has to stuff to-morrow’s turkey,” replied Arthur Warren, who always had some original idea in a matter of this kind.
Young Joe gave another howl of dismay, and made a bolt for a side door that led out into the yard. The mere thought of raw oysters caused him to drop the slice of cake and consider nothing but flight. The brothers and Henry Warren darted after him, but he slipped the catch of the door, opened it—and, with head down, butted all unexpectedly into a thick, short, burly man, who had been about to knock for admittance at the very moment.
The result was, that the stranger lost his balance and fell off the stoop, rolling over and over on the ground. He was unhurt, for he sprang up quickly, shook his fist at the surprised youth, and roared out in a hoarse sea voice.
“Confound you, for a clumsy, butting young lubber!” he cried, rubbing the pit of his stomach, and glaring at Young Joe. “What kind of a way is that to treat folks as comes to your door? Ain’t you got eyes? If you has ’em, why doesn’t you use ’em, and not be a ramming heads into other folks’s stomachs?”
The man, in his wrath and excitement, spoke as though there had been several Young Joes and at least a half dozen of himself, engaged in a most extraordinary encounter—all of which did not tend to abate the mirth of Young Joe and his companions, who also had caught a glimpse of the man rolling over on the lawn.
“He has a habit of doing that,” spoke up Henry Burns, in a quiet, serious tone. “We haven’t been able to break him of it ever since he was a kid. We keep him chained up most of the time, but he just got loose.”
The man, flushing redder, turned an angry eye on Henry Burns.
“Who asked you what was the matter?” he demanded. “You’d get chained up, if I had you out aboard. You wouldn’t be talking so smart to folks as has their stomachs run into by a crazy, June-bug booby of a boy. I reckon the end of a jib halliard would teach you some manners.”
The man’s reply surprised Henry Burns, and interested him. He looked at the squat, chunky figure, the big, round head with its shock of reddish hair, and the dull gray eyes that glinted angrily at him. His retort was, on its part, a surprise to the man.
“Do you knock your crew down?” he asked, in a matter-of-fact way, as though he had been merely inquiring the time of day.
The stranger was too taken aback for a moment to reply. It was a new type of boy to him—one who could put a query of that kind as calmly and dispassionately as though he were a lawyer, trained to keep his temper. Then the man advanced, with hand raised threateningly.
“Get out of my way, you young rascals!” he said. “Where’s the man as lives in this ere house? His name’s Warren, isn’t it—where is he?”
Edward Warren, who had remained in the background, amused at the unusual situation, now stepped to the door and inquired what the man wanted.
“I want to do some trade,” replied the man. “At least, that’s what I came for, when that boy, he comes out at me like a crazy steer. I hear you have some potatoes to sell. My name is Haley, and I’m lying off shore there.”
He pointed with a jerk of his thumb out toward the river, evidently intending to convey the idea—somewhat different from his words—that it was his vessel, and not himself, that was “lying off shore.”
“Well,” answered Edward Warren, “it’s a time I don’t usually do business, on Christmas eve, but since you’ve come up, I guess you can have them. I’ve got two or three barrels in the cellar. Come on out.”
Captain Hamilton Haley, muttering a retort that Christmas eve was as good a time for buying potatoes as any other, so far as he knew, so long as he had a chance to come and get them, followed Edward Warren away. A third man, who had remained in the background, went along with them. It was Jim Adams, the mate.
The bargain was made, Haley saying that he would be back the day after Christmas for the potatoes; whereupon he and the mate went on again up the country road. Edward Warren returned to the house.
“That’s a rough customer, that man Haley,” he remarked, as he resumed his seat by the fire. “He’s a specimen of the dredging captain that gives the fleet a hard name.”
“The kind that knocks his men down,” remarked Henry Burns.
“That seems to have made a great impression on your mind,” said Edward Warren, turning to the boy. Henry Burns’s face was serious, and he spoke with unusual demonstrativeness for him, for he doubled up his fist and struck the arm of his chair with it.
“Ever since I saw that fellow knocked down,” he replied, “I’ve wanted to tell one of those captains what I think of it. I’d have done it to-night, if he hadn’t said he came to trade with you.”
Edward Warren laughed. “You could have told him anything you liked, for all of me,” he said. “But you chaps better turn in pretty soon. We’re going after rabbits, to-morrow forenoon, you know. Mammy Stevens makes a rabbit saddle roast that beats turkey.”
“Great!” murmured Young Joe.
The darkness that enveloped the old Warren homestead, when, one by one, its lights went out and the household sank into stillness, was illumined by brilliant starlight in the heavens. It was a glorious Christmas eve, clear, frosty, cold—just the night a traveller on the road, warmly dressed and well fed, might enjoy to the utmost. The wind had died down and the night was very still. The vessels in the Patuxent swung lazily with the tide. Now and then the sound of an untiring banjo, or guitar or accordion, or a snatch of song, came across the black water to those that lay nearer the Solomon’s island shore. Across on the western shore, all was still, save for the occasional barking of a dog in some farmyard.
The bug-eye Brandt, for the convenience of its owner in going up country after some supplies, lay nearer the latter bank of the river, though with the usual discretion in the matter of distance—greater even than customary, following the escape of the mulatto seaman. There was no other craft near by. All aboard were apparently asleep, and not even a light showed in the fore-rigging, to warn others where she lay.
Down in the dingy forecastle, however, two persons were astir. They moved about quietly, not to disturb the other sleepers, though the latter slumbered heavily and would not be easily aroused.
“Well, Jack,” said the taller of the two, buttoning his coat and proceeding to thrust his legs into a pair of oil-skin trousers, “this is the night we celebrate, eh?”
Jack Harvey turned a face, set with determination, toward his companion, and answered, huskily, “Tom, old man, I’m going ashore to-night, if I have to swim for it. Celebrate! You bet I’m going to celebrate—and so are you. We can do it, too. I’ve watched and watched, and it’s our chance. Haley and Jim Adams both gone, and no one here to stop us.”
“Except the cook,” interrupted Tom Edwards.
“Let him try it!” exclaimed Jack Harvey, his face flushing angrily at the mere suggestion. “Just let him try it! I tell you I’m going ashore to-night, Tom Edwards, and there isn’t any George Haley in Maryland that can stop me.”
Tom Edwards slapped the boy on the shoulder.
“That’s the way to look at it, when we once start,” he said. “My muscles aren’t so soft, either, as when I came aboard. I guess I could do something on a pinch. But he’s got a revolver, probably.”
Harvey shrugged his shoulders.
“He can’t stop us this time,” he said. “I tell you it’s Christmas eve, and we’re in luck. Haley’s left us a Christmas present of that old float and junks of fire-wood and odds and ends of stuff, in the hold; and we’ll sail ashore on it like sliding down hill. Come on.”
They went cautiously out on deck.
“My! but it’s chilly,” muttered Tom Edwards, turning the collar of his slicker up about his neck. “If we didn’t have these oil-skins we’d pretty nearly freeze to death.”
“We’ll warm up when we get to work,” replied Harvey.
The two proceeded to the main hatch, through which the most of the oysters were put into the hold, and lifted it a little. It was a huge affair, and so heavy it took their united strength to stir it and drag it away, so they could have access to the hold.
“We’ve got to have that lantern,” said Harvey, and he went and got the one from the forecastle. Then he sprang down into the hold.
“I’ll pass the stuff up to you,” he said, “and you set it down on the deck. But look out and don’t drop any.”
Hanging the lantern so he could see to work, Harvey presently passed a piece of timber out to Tom Edwards. This was followed by several pieces of planking, exceedingly heavy, bits of board and even some long sticks of firewood—branches of oak that had been picked up by the crew down along shore. It was all more or less soggy with the dampness of the hold; some of it seemed to be completely soaked through. It nearly proved their undoing.
Tom Edwards, disregarding Harvey’s admonition to wait till he could assist in carrying the wood to the side of the vessel, started with a stick of the timber. Of a sudden, a rotted edge of it crumbled and broke away in his hands. The heavy stick slipped from his grasp and slammed down upon the deck. The next moment Harvey leaped out on deck, in alarm.
“Tom, that made an awful racket!” he said, anxiously. “Listen. By Jove! we’re in for it now. There’s somebody stirring—it’s in the cabin. Tom, you get down into that hold quicker’n scat; and if Haley comes, you talk to him, but don’t let him see you. I’ll take care of him.”
It was an odd situation, that the positions of man and boy should be reversed at the crisis. But Tom Edwards was not the equal of Jack Harvey in strength, and he knew it. Years of activity, at baseball, swimming, yachting and the like, had developed Harvey into an athlete of no mean proportions, as the muscles that played beneath his sweater denoted; Tom Edwards had been flabby and easily winded when he came aboard the dredger, and he had had little chance to gain strength with the bad food that Haley provided. Now he obeyed Harvey, without a question. He sprang into the hold, and Harvey darted back and hid behind the shadow of the forecastle.
They were not much too soon, nor had Harvey been deceived in the sounds he had heard. The cook, awakened by the noise, and mindful of the parting injunction of Hamilton Haley that the vessel and crew were in his keeping, stepped out of the companion and looked forward. In his right hand he held Haley’s revolver.
He started, as his eye fell upon the mass of wood heaped at the edge of the hatchway. He advanced quickly, holding his weapon ready. At the edge of the hatchway, he stopped and listened. Then he aimed the revolver into the lantern light and called out, “Here you, who’s down there? You’re caught. I’ll shoot the first man that tries to escape.”
The answering voice of Tom Edwards came from the hold.
“I’m down here—Tom Edwards. I’ll come out, all right. Don’t shoot. I’m wedged in here, though. I can’t be quick.”
“Well, the lubber!” exclaimed Haley, in surprise. “You’re the last one I’d have expected—” He broke off and stooped, to peer into the hold.
The next moment, the cook felt himself thrown violently backwards on the deck. The revolver was wrenched from his hand, and Jack Harvey stood over him.
“Don’t you make any cry,” muttered Harvey, “or you’ll get hurt. Come on out, Tom, I’ve got Mr. Haley.”
The cook, lifting himself to a sitting posture and gazing at the two in astonishment, still sought to intimidate them.
“Don’t you go trying to escape,” he said. “You’ll get the worst of it. Haley’ll make trouble, and you’ll be back here again inside of a week, and you’ll get it worse than ever. Besides, you can’t get ashore on that stuff.”
He changed his tone to a wheedling, mollifying one.
“Just you go back now, like good fellows,” he said, “and I’ll promise Haley I won’t say a word about it. And I’ll promise you the best grub you ever tasted, all the rest of the season. There won’t be anything too good for you two.”
Harvey laughed softly.
“It’s no use,” he replied. “You’ll have to settle with Haley when he finds us gone. I hope he takes it out of you, too, for the stuff you’ve made us eat. Get up, now, and march aft.”
Haley, whimpering, threatening and begging by turns, obeyed orders. They escorted him back to the cabin. In five minutes, Harvey had him tied up as ship-shape and as securely as ever a captive was bound. They laid him down on a bunk and left him.
With the revolver in their possession, there was no longer need of caution or quietness. Boldly they worked away, with the stuff from the hold, hitching it with bits of rope and making a raft of it alongside the vessel. They laid a flooring of the stuff and Harvey stepped on to it. To his chagrin, the raft sank under his weight.
“It’s water-soaked!” he exclaimed to Tom Edwards, as he scrambled aboard again. “Well, we’ll lay a cross-flooring and see what that will do.”
They threw over the rest of the planks and wood, cross-wise, on the raft they had made. Harvey again stepped on to it.
It was, alas, little better than before. The wood, rotten and water soaked, had scarce sufficient buoyancy to float itself, let alone support two of them. Of its own weight, it sank so that the upper tier of wood floated clear of the lower.
Jack Harvey and Tom Edwards looked at each other, silently. Harvey’s face was drawn with disappointment.
“Tom,” he cried, desperately, “I’ll take an axe and chop the old cabin of the Brandt apart before I’ll give up. Come on, we mustn’t lost time.”
Tom Edwards, whose wits had been trained in years of successful business, proved more resourceful.
“What’s the matter with using that hatch cover?” he said, pointing to it.
Harvey stopped short and gave a roar of delight. “Tom Edwards,” he cried, “you’re a daisy. I’m a simple-minded, brainless, wooden-headed, thick-skulled land-lubber. I never thought of that hatch, and there it was all ready to use. Here we’ve been working like dogs, and that old hatch will float us ashore like a ship. Come on. In with it.”
It cost them some effort, for the hatch was a big one. But it floated buoyantly when they had dragged it overboard; and it scarcely sank at all under Harvey’s weight; and it held him and Tom Edwards when the latter had stepped cautiously off on to it. They made it fast alongside, with a piece of rope cut from dredging gear. Then they ran joyously for the cabin.
The cook met them with a flood of protestations, but they shut him up in short order. With the lantern light, they helped themselves to the meagre stores of the Brandt, and stuffed their pockets with biscuit and corn bread, baked for Haley and the mate. They also took matches, and they exchanged their ragged oil-skins for better ones. They had earned them ten times over, and they were leaving without a penny of wages for all the hard labour they had done.
“Say good-bye to Haley for me,” said Tom Edwards, pausing a moment before the helpless captive. “And tell him I hope to meet him again some day. And if I do, he’ll be sorry.”
They carried the cook into his galley, and shut him in. Then they found an extra pair of oars, stepped aboard the inverted hatch, the finest craft in all the world to them, and pushed for shore.
It was not easy, sculling the clumsy hatch, but Harvey made fair work of it, after he had cut a scull-hole in the combing, with his knife; and Tom Edwards aided by paddling on either side, making up with energy what he lacked in skill. The work warmed them, and they threw off their oil-skin coats.
The tide was running up the river and carried them some distance out of the course they had tried to make; but they came in to land finally and sprang out on shore. Harvey stooped and picked up a handful of the coarse dirt and gravel, and handed it gravely to Tom Edwards.
“Merry Christmas, Tom Edwards,” he said. “It’s the real thing—the shore—the dry land once more. Isn’t it bully?”
Tom Edwards threw his arms about his stalwart companion and fairly hugged him.