Kitabı oku: «Doubloons—and the Girl», sayfa 7

CHAPTER XIV
BEGINNING THE VOYAGE

Ruth bent a little lower over her coffee urn to hide the additional flush that had come into her cheeks, and after that she guided the conversation to safer ground and took care to leave no opening for Drew's audacity.

The meal over, all went on deck. The captain took charge and sent Ditty and Rogers, the second officer, below to get breakfast. The crew had already breakfasted.

Tyke had been carefully helped up by Drew and Captain Hamilton and placed in a chair abaft the mizzenmast, where his keen old eyes could delight themselves with the activities of the crew. Ruth had fussed around him prettily with cushions and a rest for his injured leg, until the veteran vowed that he would surely be spoiled before the voyage was over.

They had passed the Battery by this time, and were moving sluggishly with the tide. Behind them stretched the vast metropolis, with its wonderful sky-line sharply outlined by the bright rays of the morning sun. The Goddess of Liberty held her torch aloft as though to guide them in their venture. At the right the hills of Staten Island smiled in their vernal beauty, while at the left, white stretches of gleaming beach indicated the pleasure resorts where the people of the teeming city came to play.

Ditty had come on deck again. Unpleasant though his countenance was, and as suspicious as Drew was of him, it was plain that the mate of the Bertha Hamilton was a good seaman.

He looked now at Captain Hamilton for permission to make sail. The latter signed to him to go ahead. Useless to pay towage with a favoring wind and flowing tide.

Ditty bawled to the crew:

"Break her out, bullies! H'ist away tops'ls!"

The halyards were promptly manned. One man started the chorus that jerked the main topsail aloft.

 
"Oh, come all you little yaller boys
An' roll the cotton down!
Oh, a husky pull, my bully boys,
An' roll the cotton down!"
 

In a trice, it would seem, her three topsails were mastheaded and the foretopsail laid to the mast. The fore-braces came in, hand over hand, the hawsers were tossed overboard and the tug fell astern. The Bertha Hamilton leaned gracefully to the freshening gale, and was shooting for the Narrows.

"It is perfectly beautiful, isn't it?" cried Ruth.

"Magnificent," agreed Drew.

"It's the finest harbor in all the world, to my mind," declared Parmalee.

"I wonder when we'll see it again," mused Ruth, with a touch of apprehension in her voice.

"Oh, it won't be long before we're back," prophesied Parmalee.

"And when we do come back, we'll have enough doubloons with us to buy up the whole city," joked Drew.

"Don't be too sure of that," smiled Ruth. "Those who go out to shear sometimes come back shorn."

"We simply can't fail," asserted Drew. "Especially as we're taking a mascot along with us."

"The mascot may prove to be a hoodoo," laughed Ruth. "I've thought more than once that I shouldn't have teased my father to take me along."

"He'd have robbed the whole trip of brightness if he had refused," affirmed Parmalee.

"It's nice of you to say that," returned Ruth. "But if any serious trouble should come up, fighting or anything of that kind, you might find me terribly in the way."

"We'd only have an additional reason to fight the harder," declared Drew. "No harm should come to you while any of us were left alive. But really, there's nothing to worry about. This trip is going to be a summer excursion."

"Nothing more serious to fear than the ghosts of some of the old pirates who may be keeping guard over their doubloons and may resent our intrusion," said Parmalee.

"I'm not afraid of ghosts," cried Ruth. "It's only creatures of flesh and blood that give me any worry."

"If anything should come up," said Drew, "we're in pretty good shape to give the mischief-makers a tussle. Your father has a good collection of weapons down in the cabin."

"Yes," assented Ruth; "and I know how to load and handle a revolver."

Drew put up his hands in pretended fright.

"Don't shoot!" he pleaded.

Thus with jest and compliment and banter the time passed until they were off Sandy Hook. The breeze, while brisk, was light enough to warrant carrying all sails, and a cloud of canvas soon billowed from aloft. One after another the sails were broken out on all three masts until they creaked with the strain. The Bertha Hamilton heeled over to port, and with every stitch drawing before a following wind gathered way until she boomed along at a gait that swiftly carried her out of sight of land. Before long the Sandy Hook Lightship sank from view astern, and nothing could be seen on any side but the foam-streaked billows of the Atlantic.

When the schooner was fairly under way and the watches had been chosen, the captain gave her into charge of the mate and rejoined Tyke.

That grizzled veteran was enjoying himself more than he had done at any time for the last twenty years. As the old warhorse "sniffs the battle from afar," so he already anticipated with delight the coming battle with wind and waves.

"Well, Tyke, what do you think of her?" the captain asked.

"She's a jim dandy!" ejaculated Tyke enthusiastically. "She rides the waves like a feather. Jest slips along like she was greased."

"She's a sweet sailer," declared the captain proudly. "Just wait till you see how she manages against head winds. Even when she's jammed up right into the wind, she's good for six knots, and with any kind of a fair gale, she's good for ten or twelve."

"With ordinary luck, then, we ought to git to the Caribbean in ten or twelve days," said Tyke.

"Unless we meet up with something that strips our spars," returned the captain confidently. "Of course, a hurricane might knock us out in our calculations. Taking it by and large though, and allowing for the time we may have to cruise around before we find the island we're looking for, I'm figuring that we'll make Sandy Hook again in two months all right."

"Better count on three and be sure," cautioned Grimshaw. "You know it isn't a matter of simply finding the island, staying there mebbe a day or two an' coming away again. This is more'n jest sending a boat's crew ashore for water. We may be a month hunting around and trying to find the pesky thing."

"And even then we may not find it," laughed the captain.

"Well, it'll be some satisfaction if we even find the hole it used to be in," said Tyke. "That'll show that we weren't altogether fools in taking the paper an' map for gospel truth."

"I don't know that there'd be much comfort in that," returned Captain Hamilton. "If you're hungry it doesn't do much good to look at the hole in a doughnut. There isn't much nourishment except in the doughnut itself," and he grinned over his little joke.

The wind held fair for the rest of the day, and the schooner kept on at a spanking gait, reeling off the miles steadily. By night the increasing warmth of the air showed how rapidly the South was drawing near.

Ruth was a good sailor and felt no bad effect from the long ocean swells as the ship ploughed over them. Drew, too, who had no sea-going experience at all and had inwardly dreaded possible sea-sickness, was delighted to find that he was to be exempt.

Parmalee, however, although he had traveled extensively, had never been immune from paying tribute to Neptune. He ate but little at the noon-day meal, and when the rest gathered around the table at night he did not appear at all.

Drew felt that he should be sympathetic, and, to do him justice, he tried to be. He visited Parmalee in his cabin, condoled with him, and offered to be of any possible service. But Parmalee wanted nothing except to be let alone, and, with the consciousness of duty done, Drew left him to his misery and joined the rest at the table.

"I'm awfully sorry for poor Mr. Parmalee," remarked Ruth, as she poured Drew's tea.

"Poor fellow," chimed in the young man perfunctorily.

"You don't say that as though you meant it at all," objected Ruth reprovingly.

"What do you expect me to do?" laughed Drew. "Weep bitter tears? I'll do it if you want me to. In fact, I'll do anything you want me to do – jump through a hoop, roll over, play dead, anything at all."

"I didn't know you had so many accomplishments," remarked Ruth, with a touch of sarcasm.

"Oh, I'm a perfect wonder," replied the young man. "There isn't anything I can't do or wouldn't do – for you," he added, dropping his voice so only she could hear it.

Ruth, however, pretended not to hear, and addressed her next remark to Grimshaw.

"How do you like Wah Lee's cooking?" she asked.

"Fine," replied Tyke. "There's no better cooks anywhere than the Chinks. Want to look out that he don't slip one over on you, though, if the victuals run short. Might serve up cat or rat or something of the kind an' call it pork or veal. An' he'd probably git away with it, too."

Ruth gave a little shudder.

"Cat might not be so bad at that," remarked her father. "Down in Chili, for instance, they haven't any rabbits and they serve up cats instead. 'Gato piquante' they call it, which means savory cat. I've never tasted it, but I know those who have, and they say that it makes the finest kind of stew."

"Why not?" commented Drew, with a grin. "Catfish is good. So is catsup. Why not cat stew?"

"I think you men are just horrid!" exclaimed Ruth. "Taking away poor Wah Lee's character like this behind his back."

"Well, I guess we won't have to worry about his falling from grace on this cruise," laughed her father. "We're too well stocked up for him to be driven to try experiments."

When they went up on deck, the moon had risen. Its golden light tipped the waves with a sheen of glory and turned the spray into so much glittering diamond dust. Under its magic witchery, the ropes and rigging looked like lace work woven by fairy fingers.

The crew were grouped up in the bow, and one of them was playing a concertina. Mr. Rogers paced the deck, casting a look aloft from time to time to see that the sails were drawing well. The wind had a slight musical sound as it swept through the rigging, and this blended with the regular slapping of the water against her sides as the Bertha Hamilton sailed steadily on her course.

The air was the least bit chilly, and this gave Drew an excuse for tucking Ruth cozily into the chair he had placed in a sheltered position behind the deckhouse. His fingers trembled as he drew the rugs and shawls around her. She snuggled down, wholly content to be waited on so devotedly, and perhaps – who knows? – sharing to some degree the emotion that made the man's pulse race so madly.

CHAPTER XV
THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER

Drew placed his own chair close beside Ruth's – as close as he dared. And they talked.

There was something in the witchery of that moonlit night that seemed to remove certain restraints and reserves imposed by the cold light of day, and they spoke more freely of their lives and hopes and ambitions than would have been possible a few hours earlier.

The girl told of the main events that had filled her nineteen years of life. Her voice was tender when she spoke of her mother, whose memory remained with her as a benediction. After she had been deprived by death of this gentle presence, she, Ruth, had stayed with relatives in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles during her vacations and had passed the rest of her time at boarding school. She had neither sister nor brother, and she spoke feelingly of this lack, which had become more poignant since her mother's death. She had felt lonely and restless, and the bright spots in her life had been those which were made for her by the return of her father from his voyages.

Of her father she spoke with enthusiasm. Nobody could have been more thoughtful of her comfort and happiness than he had been. The fact that they were all that were left of their family, had made them the more dependent for their happiness on each other, and the affection between them was very strong.

It had been her dearest wish that he should be able to retire from the sea entirely, so that she could make a home for him ashore. As far as means went, she supposed he was able to give up his vocation now if he chose. But he was still in the prime of health and vigor, and she had little doubt that the sea – that jealous mistress – would beckon to him for years to come.

This time she could not bear being left behind, and as the voyage promised to be a short one, he had yielded to her persuasions to be taken along.

Drew listened with the deepest sympathy and interest, watching the play of emotion that accompanied her words and made her mobile features even more charming than usual.

Encouraged by her confidences, he in turn told her of his experiences and ambitions. He could scarcely remember his parents, and to this degree his life had been even more lonely than her own. He had come to the city from an inland town in New York State when he was but little over seventeen, and had secured a position in the chandlery shop. He had worked hard and had gained the confidence and good will of his employer, of whose goodness of heart he spoke in the warmest terms. His own feeling for Tyke, he explained, was what he imagined he would have felt for his father if the latter had lived. He had felt that he was progressing, and had been fairly content until lately.

But now – and his voice took on a tone that stirred Ruth as she listened – he had been shaken entirely out of that contentment. He had suddenly realized that life held more than he had ever dreamed. There was something new and rich and vital in it, something full of promise and enchantment, something that he must have, something that he would give his soul to get.

He had grown so earnest as he talked, so compelling, his eyes so glowed with fire and feeling, that Ruth, though thrilled, felt almost frightened at his intensity. She knew perfectly well what he meant, knew that he was wooing her with all his heart and soul. And the knowledge was sweet to her.

But he had come too far and fast in his wooing, and she was not yet at the height of her own emotion. To be sure, he had attracted her strongly from the very first. From the day when she had met him on the pier, she had thought often of the gallant young knight who had aided her in her emergency, and his delight when he had found her on her father's ship had been only a shade greater than her own.

But, although her heart was in a tumult and she secretly welcomed his advances, she did not want to be carried off her feet by the sheer ardor of his passion. She wanted to study him, to know him better, and to know her own feelings. She was not to be won too easily and quickly. An obscure virginal instinct rather resented the excessive sureness of this impetuous suitor.

So she roused herself from the soft languor into which the moonlight and his burning words had plunged her, and rallied, jested and parried, until, despite his efforts, the conversation took a lighter tone.

"You've made quite an impression on daddy," she laughed. "He thinks it was wonderfully clever of you to get at the meaning of that map and the confession as quickly as you did."

"I'm glad if he likes me," Drew answered. "I may have to ask him something important before long, and it will be a good thing to stand well with him."

"He'll be on your side," she replied lightly. "I wouldn't dare tell you all the nice things he has said about you. It might make you conceited, and goodness knows – "

"Am I conceited?" he asked quickly.

"All men are," she answered evasively.

"I don't think I am," he protested. "As a matter of fact, I'm very humble. I find myself wondering all the time if I am worthy."

"Worthy of what?" she asked.

"Worthy of getting what I want," he answered.

"The doubloons?" she asked mischievously. "Dear me! I can hardly imagine you in a humble role. To see the confident Mr. Drew in such a mood would certainly be refreshing."

"Don't call me Mr. Drew," he protested. "It sounds so formal. We're going to be so like one big family on this ship for the next few weeks that it seems to me we might cut out some of the formality without hurting anything."

"What shall I call you then?" she asked demurely.

"There are lots of things that I should like to have you call me if I dared suggest them," he replied. "But for the present, suppose you call me Allen."

"Very well, then – Allen," she conceded.

His pulses leaped.

"I don't suppose I'd dare go further and beg permission to call you Ruth?" he hazarded.

"Make it Miss Ruth," she teased.

"No, Ruth," he persisted.

"Oh, well," she yielded, "I suppose you'll have to have it your own way. It's frightful to have to deal with such an obstinate man as you are, Mr. – Allen."

"It's delightful to have to deal with such a charming girl as you are, Miss – Ruth."

They laughed happily.

"It's getting late," she said, drawing herself up out of the warm nest that Drew had made for her, "and I think I really ought to go below."

"Don't go yet," he begged. "It isn't a bit late."

"How late is it?" she asked.

He drew out his watch and looked at it in the moonlight.

"I told you it wasn't late," he declared, putting the watch back in his pocket.

"You don't dare let me look at it," she laughed.

"It must be fast," he affirmed.

"You're a deceiver," she retorted. "Really I must go. You wouldn't rob me of my beauty sleep, would you?"

"Leave that to other girls," he suggested. "You don't need it."

"You're a base flatterer," she chided.

Drew reluctantly gathered up her wraps, and, with a last lingering look at the glory of the sea and sky, they went below.

It was not really necessary for him to take her hand as they parted for the night, but he did so.

"Good night, Ruth," he said softly.

"Good night – Allen," she answered in a low voice.

His eyes held hers for a moment, and then she vanished.

It was the happiest night that Drew had ever known. He had opened his heart to her – not so far as he would have liked and dared, but as far as she had permitted him. And in the soft beauty of her eyes he thought that he had detected the beginnings of what he wanted to find there. And she had permitted him to call her "Ruth." And she had called him "Allen." How musical the name sounded, coming from her lips!

It was fortunate that he had the memory of that night to comfort him in the days that followed.

Ruth was more distracting than ever the next morning when she appeared, fresh and radiant, at the breakfast table. But in some impalpable way she seemed to have withdrawn within herself. Perhaps she felt that she had let herself go too far in the glamour of the moonlight.

She was, if anything, gayer than before, full of bright quips and sayings that kept them laughing, but she distributed her favors impartially to all. And she was blandly unresponsive to Drew's efforts to monopolize her attentions.

It was so all through that day and the next. There was nothing about her that was stiff or repellant, but, nevertheless, Drew felt that she was keeping him at arm's length. It was as though she had served notice that she would be a jolly comrade, but nothing more.

Poor Drew, unused to the ways of women, could not understand her. He tried again and again to get her by herself, in the hope that he might regain the ground that seemed to be slipping away from under him. But she seemed to have developed a sudden fondness for the society of her father and Grimshaw, and she managed in some way to include one or both of them in the walks and chats that Drew sought to make exclusive.

Then, too, there was Parmalee.

That young man fully recovered from his seasickness after the third day out and resumed his place in the life of the ship.

Ruth had been full of solicitude and attentions during his illness, and when he again took his place at table, she expressed her pleasure with a warmth that Drew felt was unnecessary. His own congratulations were much more formal.

Parmalee seemed to feel that he had appeared somewhat at a disadvantage in succumbing to the illness which the others had escaped, and the feeling put him on his mettle. He made special efforts to be genial and companionable, and his conversation sparkled with jests and epigrams. He could talk well; and even Drew had to admit to himself grudgingly that the other young man was brilliant.

Ruth, always fond of reading, had turned to books in her loneliness after her mother's death and had read widely for a girl of nineteen, and their familiarity with literature made a common ground on which she and Parmalee could meet with interest. He had brought along quite a number of volumes which he offered to lend to Ruth and to Drew.

Ruth thanked him prettily and accepted. Drew thanked him cooly and declined.

All three were sitting on deck one afternoon, while Tyke and the captain talked earnestly apart. Ruth's dainty fingers were busy with some bit of embroidery. Her eyes were bent on her work, but the eyes of the young men rested on her. And both were thinking that the object of their gaze was well worth looking at.

Ruth herself knew perfectly well the attraction she exerted. And she would have been less than human if she had not been pleased with it. What girl of nineteen would not enjoy the homage of a Viking and a troubadour?

She was not a coquette, but there was a certain satisfaction that she could not wholly deny herself in playing one off against the other. It would do Drew no harm to make him a little less sure of himself and of her. In her heart she liked his Lochinvar methods, while, at the same time, she rather resented them. She was no cave woman, to be dragged off at will by a determined lover.

She had a real liking for Parmalee. He was suave, polished and deferential. His attentions gallant without being obtrusive, and his geniality and culture made him a very pleasant companion.

"We're like the Argonauts going out after the Golden Fleece," Parmalee was remarking.

"Yes," Ruth smiled, looking up from her work, "it doesn't seem as though this were the twentieth century at all. Here we are, as much adventurers as they were in the old times of Jason and his companions."

"Let's hope we'll be as lucky as they were," said Drew. "If I remember rightly, they got what they went after."

"And yet when they started out they weren't a bit more sure than we are," rejoined Parmalee.

"And we won't find any old dragon waiting to swallow us, as they did," laughed Ruth.

"Well, whether we find the treasure or not, we'll have plenty of fun in hunting for it," prophesied Parmalee. "Somehow, I feel that we are on the brink of a great adventure. I think I know something of the feeling of the old explorers when they first came down to these parts. Do you remember the way Keats describes it, Miss Ruth?"

"I don't recall," answered Ruth.

"I'll go and get the book. I have it in my cabin. Or wait. Perhaps I can remember the way it goes." He paused a moment, and then began:

 
"Then feel I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific – and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien."
 

"What noble verse!" exclaimed Ruth.

Drew remained silent.

"The very air of these southern seas is full of romance," went on Parmalee. "And of tradition too. Have you ever heard the story of Drake's drum?"

"What is it?" asked Ruth.

"The old drum of Sir Francis Drake that called his men to battle is still preserved in the family castle in England," explained Parmalee. "It went with him on all his voyages. It beat the men to quarters in the fight with the Spanish Armada and in all his battles on the Spanish Main, when, to use his own words, he was 'singeing the whiskers of the King of Spain.' He was buried at sea in the West Indies, and the drum beat taps when his body was lowered into the waves.

"The story goes that when Drake was dying he ordered that the drum should be sent back to England. Whenever the country should be in mortal danger, his countrymen were to beat that drum, and Drake's spirit would come back and lead them to victory."

"And have they ever done it?" asked Ruth, intensely interested.

"Twice," replied Parmalee. "Once when the Dutch fleet entered the Thames with a broom at the masthead to show that they were going to sweep the British from the seas. They beat it again when Nelson broke the sea power of Napoleon at Trafalgar.

"Here's what an English writer supposes Drake to have said when he was dying:

 
'Take my drum to England, hang it by the shore,
Strike it when your powder's running low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port of heaven
And drum them up the Channel, as we drummed them long ago.'"
 

"How stirring that is!" cried Ruth, clapping her hands.

"Yes," admitted Drew, a little dryly. "They must have forgotten to beat it though at the time of the American Revolution."

It was a discordant note and all felt it.

"Oh, how horrid of you!" exclaimed Ruth. "You take all the romance out of the story."

"I'm sorry," said Drew, instantly penitent.

"I don't believe you are a bit," declared Ruth. "And Mr. Parmalee told that story so beautifully," she added, with a wicked little desire to punish Drew.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," protested Drew, to appease his divinity. "Put any penance on me you like. I'll sit in sackcloth and put ashes on my head if you say so, and you'll never hear a whimper."

"He seems to be suffering horribly," said Parmalee, a bit sarcastically, "and you know, Miss Ruth, that cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden by the Constitution. I think you'd better forgive him."

Ruth laughed and the tension was broken. But there was still a little feeling of restraint, and after a few minutes Parmalee excused himself and strolled away.

Ruth kept on stitching busily, her face bent studiously over her work.

Drew looked at her miserably, bitterly regretting the momentary impulse to which he had yielded. He knew in his heart that he had been jealous of the impression that Parmalee, by his easy and graceful narration, had seemed to be making on Ruth, and he hated himself for it.

"Ruth," he said softly.

She seemed not to have heard him.

"Ruth," he repeated.

"Yes?" she answered, but without looking up.