CHAPTER XI

For three days the _Shark_ beat stubbornly back and forth against a hard head-wind and a short, choppy sea, into which she drove her bows like a wedge, completely to check her way. The wind never exceeded the velocity which sailors call "a fresh gale," but it held dead ahead, appearing with devilish persistency to follow the bow around when the schooner tacked, hanging fiendishly on the end of her raking jib-boom.

Nobody aboard particularly cared. The _Shark_, if slow, was the height of comfort, even in a sea-way, with very little angular heel, and no motion to speak of beyond the steady churning of her bows. In the cabin they read, and played bridge, and Bell went into the galley and made certain horrible messes which were, as usual, sent forward to the crew, but unfailingly fell overboard _en route_.

Her two sisters had convinced Paula that she was free to marry the man she loved, whereupon Wood had formally requested her hand of Captain Bell, who most cordially gave his consent. This occasion was made one of general celebration fore and aft. At dinner, Bell grew genially mellow and made an excellent speech, after which the two young people appeared to fade gently from the popular view and find much service for secluded corners of the vessel.

"At any rate," Bell observed, on the third day of the stubborn blow, "if we are not gettin' to wind'ard fast, it's comfortin' to know that the Pilot-fish is doin' even worse. The chances are he hasn't tackled it. A little boat that size couldn't get north a mile a day in this chop!"

Had the worthy naval man known that at that particular moment Mr. Applebo was booming up the Delaware River with a fair wind and tide, bound for the entrance of the Raritan Canal, which would eventually drop him out at South Amboy, in the Lower Bay at New York, Bell's disgust might have led to an explosion dangerous to his health.

For the poet, on arriving at Old Point Comfort and learning that the _Shark_ had sailed for Marblehead, Mass., took a careful survey of the weather, and decided to "go up inside." It was apparent that there was an easterly gale brewing, and the storm signal was already flying from the station at Old Point. Applebo knew that, under these conditions, it would be a waste of time to go to sea, and determined to outflank his "host" by taking the inland route as far as New York, then, if the weather was still contrary, to keep on east through the sounds: Long Island, Block Island, The Vineyard, and Nantucket. This route would ensure still water the whole distance from Hampton Roads to Cape Cod, while the northeastern, then blowing outside, would enable him to make one "long leg" of it, close-hauled, up the Chesapeake.

He was therefore nearly to the Raritan Canal before Bell had even laid Cape May abeam. Propelled by a four-mule breeze through the canal, and the ebbing tide in the Raritan River, the _Daffodil_ was skimming around the end of Staten Island while the _Shark_ was walloping about off Atlantic City, slatting and slamming in the calm which followed the blow.

The _Daffodil_ caught a tow up the East River behind a blue-stone barge, and cast off at Randall's Island to catch the first of the ebb at Whitestone. Here, in company with a hundred or more coasting schooners known as "the ebb-tide fleet," she was favoured by a roaring nor'wester which boomed her the whole length of the Sound, from Execution to Fisher's Island. Holding on eastward through the sounds, she encountered fog and baffling breezes, in spite of which she rounded Cape Cod, crossed Massachusetts Bay, and dropped anchor off the Eastern Yacht Club at Marblehead, some thirty-six hours before the _Shark_ was sighted.

A fresh southeast breeze brought Bell careening around the Cape and across the Bay, thereby doing much to eliminate his disgust with the weather encountered earlier in the run.

"Who wants to bet that we find the Pilot-fish at Marblehead?" he asked, jocosely.

"I do," replied Hermione.

"Huh?"

"I'll bet you that he's beat us out, in spite of the weather. Come now...!"

"You're crazy ... huh ... h'm..."

"Perhaps. But here's a chance for you to get square for that month's allowance that you are going to be stung for."

The others laughed, thinking that Hermione was having a little fun at her father's expense. As a matter of fact, she was having more than they realised. Offshore sailors that they all were, Hermione was the only one who had thought of the "mud-hole" route, but once having thought of it, she was certain that Applebo would avail himself of it. In this case, it needed but a glance at the charts to show Hermione, herself a good practical sailor, how tremendous an advantage it would give him.

"Huh...!" growled Bell. "I can't take a fool bet like that! It's not within the bounds of nautical possibility that a little tub like that should have overhauled us through that head chop! Then that nor'wester was just our meat! All we could pack under our four lowers. What's the matter with you?"

"All right," said Hermione, coolly; "then take me on at odds."

"I'll give you ten to one ... just to teach you a lesson!" snapped her father.

"Done with you. Ten dollars to a hundred...." And Hermione made a note of the bet, and compelled her father to sign it, he muttering deep-sea blessings.

Wherefore one may picture the scene which followed when, at about four of a lovely August afternoon, the _Shark_ came bowling into the little harbour of Marblehead to find the _Daffodil_ lying serenely at anchor off the Yacht Club.

For an instant Bell was deprived of speech, through sheer astonishment, not unmixed with awe. When they had last sighted the yawl off Cape Charles, she had still sixty miles to do against a strong tide before ever she fetched Old Point. By that time the tide would have begun to flow again, so that by the time that Applebo had learned their next port, and taken the water and stores of which he must have been in need after more than a week at sea, he would have had another thirty miles of head wind and tide, or a six-hour delay. Thereafter was to be considered the easterly blow ... the thing was obviously impossible!

Then, like a flash, came the true solution. Bell slapped his fat thigh and let out a roar like a bull cachalot.

"That's it, by the jumpin' John Rogers! The scoundrel sneaked up inside!"

"Of course he did!" cried Hermione. "Why the dickens wouldn't he? That's the reason I made my bet!"

"Huh ... h'm ... hough...!" Bell went off like a badly-made firework. "And you have the nerve to expect me to pay a bet like that? When he tows behind a jackass for miles! Why not load his brute of a yawl on a flat-car and be done with it! I won't pay!"

[Illustration: "And you have the nerve to expect me to pay a bet like that?"]

"Yes, you will, old boy!" said Hermione. "We bet on his being here; not on how he came!"

The others sided with her. Bell appealed to Wood, counting on support from a son-in-law elect.

"You are stung," said that young man. "All that you have got to do now is to pay up." Which Bell did, lamenting piteously.

"To-morrow," said he, "I must run into Boston to see the lawyers. The day after that we make a run for Bermuda ... or St. Paul, or Tristan d'Acunha ... I don't care where. But I'll lose that yaller-crested gillyflower if I have to lead him through the Northwest Passage!"

* * * * * *

That night Huntington Wood invited his host and hostesses to dine at the Yacht Club. The place was very gay, for although the yachting season was on its wane, the hot weather had held and there were many yachts lying in the harbour. It was a lively room, a trifle more brilliant than select, as yachting contingents are apt to be, but rich in life and colour and gaiety.

The "Sharks" were scarcely more than seated when Hermione, happening to glance toward the door, saw Harold Applebo.

"The Pilot-fish!" she whispered.

Applebo was quite alone. For a moment he stood in the doorway, sleepily surveying the room. From here and there people at different tables caught sight of him, then whispered to their table-companions, so that in that moment, brief as it was, the poet became the focus of every pair of eyes in the room.

One might have travelled far and failed to find so striking a figure. Applebo was in the regulation yachting costume for evening dress, the only eccentric feature being a somewhat voluminous black silk scarf of poetic or artistic pattern. His great mane of reddish-yellow hair fell in a wavy mass, almost hiding his ears. His skin was clear as the water of the Great Dismal Swamp, and tanned to nearly the same tea-colour, with its golden lights. Antique ivory would best describe its tone. The amber eyes, darkly-fringed, blinked sleepily from table to table, as though looking for a vacant place.

A peculiar silence had fallen on the room. Everybody was looking at Applebo, who, for his part, appeared as drowsily indifferent as a lion in the Zoo. He was standing straight as a poplar, yet quite at ease and with no hint of stiffness or self-consciousness. As his slow scrutiny passed the table occupied by Wood and his party, it paused for a moment. He smiled and slightly inclined his head, then crossed the room and took a single table in a far corner.

At Wood's table, which was in the centre of the room, the captain was at one end, Paula at the other, Hermione facing the door, and Cécile and Wood directly confronting Applebo. Bell, as the poet entered, twisted about and gave him a goggle-eyed stare.

"He's thinner!" announced Bell, with satisfaction; "a thundering sight thinner! Good-looking fool, ain't he ... huh?" He nodded at the others with the air of one discovering a new and surprising fact. "If you were to cut his thatch and poke him up a little with a sharp stick, he might be even handsome ... huh ... h'm..." He began to gurgle.

Cécile found it quite impossible to keep her eyes from Applebo. Try as she did, they kept straying back. For his part, the poet was looking dreamily into space, and when his dinner arrived it appeared to consist of a succession of melons, which he devoured, one after the other, with infinite relish. Cécile estimated that he must have eaten at least six.

Occasionally he looked her way without appearing to see her. The melons were followed by snipe on toast. A considerable flock flew down the throat of the poet, in strange contradiction to his views on the killing of game.

From snipe, Cécile observed that his taste backed around the compass to fish. Bluefish were at their prime, and Mr. Applebo took advantage of the fact to quietly devour the best part of the amidships section of a big one. This accomplished he licked his lips, looked at Cécile, and blinked.

All of this took considerable time, during which Cécile's eyes were so constantly seeking Applebo that her companions began to notice it. Nobody said anything, however, until presently Hermione observed:--

"Don't try to hypnotise him 'til he's finished eating, Cécile. Think how long the poor fellow must have been on tinned rations."

The others laughed. Bell glanced at the poet.

"Help!" cried he. "The chump is eatin' his dinner backward! He's on _hors-d'œuvres_ now."

Which was quite true, Mr. Applebo having caught sight of some anchovies at an adjoining table and conceived a relish for them.

In spite of Hermione's remark, Cécile found herself physically unable to keep her eye away from him. He fascinated her. Looking about the room she saw that others shared in this peculiar desire to stare at Applebo, who for his part was as utterly oblivious of those about as if he had been in the cabin of his yawl. The man was so strikingly singular. Cécile observed that he did not even sit at the table as did other folk. His back was arched like a bow, big shoulders hunched forward, chin thrust up so that the fringe of his long, shaggy mane swept below his coat collar, while his legs were bent under his chair, the toes hooked around the chair legs from inside out. Though one could certainly find no fault with his appetite, he picked at his food in a curiously dainty way. This mannerism also suggested a cat, which animal, while never appearing to eat, can get away with a prodigious amount of food. Occasionally he looked up and blinked about the room.

There were several attractive men, all yachtsmen, straight-backed, squarely set, good-looking young chaps, but Cécile scarcely saw one of them. As the minutes passed and she continued to watch the poet, there began to develop within her the same peculiar obsession of which she had been the prey after her visit to the _Daffodil_. This time it was stronger and tinged with a warmer personal interest. At Halifax, Old Point Comfort, and again that afternoon, when the mail had come aboard, she had received an offering of verse. The Halifax poem, which had been mailed from Shoal Harbour, had impressed her deeply, less in its execution than in the thought conveyed, which was of an intensity that thrilled her. The realisation of the long sea-miles which the little yawl had covered, the long sea-watches which the man opposite must have spent, the fog, wind, rain, and calms ... all of the details of an offshore voyage in a little shallop like the _Daffodil_ ... merely to be near the object of his adoration, herself. There was a mediæval romanticism about this steadfast devotion which took powerful hold of the sentimental side of Cécile's nature.

Before the dinner was half over Applebo's attraction for her had reached a point where it appeared to monopolise her whole consciousness. She lost interest in her food; her conversation diminished, and what she said was abstracted. She was trying to get sufficient possession of herself to request Wood, in a casual way, to bring the poet over to their table, but was almost afraid of betraying the state of her emotions. These were such as most girls experience during their first season. She longed to hear the deep, resonant, purring voice, but felt that if he spoke to her she would make herself ridiculous.

Hermione, facing her, observed enough of this suppressed agitation to arouse her to an ironic amusement.

"Look at Cécile!" said she. "I warned her not to try to hypnotise the Pilot-fish. Now he has hypnotised her!"

Had Hermione known the actual state of her sister's feelings she would never, of course, have thus cruelly directed the general attention upon her. Instead, however, she ascribed Cécile's schoolgirl manner to curiosity and the mistaken idea that she was the object of the Pilot-fish's assiduity. Consequently she was a little startled at the sudden flame in her sister's cheeks and the resentment in her eyes when the others began to laugh.

Cécile, for the moment, lost her poise.

"It's all very well to laugh," said she, vexedly, "but if you had been bombarded by verse as _I_ have by our friend yonder, you might exhibit a certain amount of curiosity also!"

Hermione's eyes opened very wide. She instantly understood the situation. Applebo, then, had been sending verses addressed to "Miss Cécile Bell," intended for herself, Hermione, and most naturally appropriated by her sister. She was filled by a sudden gust of anger.

Captain Bell, however, was staring at Cécile.

"What's that?" he demanded. "Been sending you verses...? Why, confound his impudence, how long has he been doing that? I never heard of such cheek ... and I'll go aboard his boat and tell him so...."

"Oh, hush...!" As usual, the good captain had raised his voice to its quarter-deck pitch. "There was no harm in his doing so. The verses are quite innocent, and some are rather pretty. It's merely his pose...."

Bell began to eat and grumble. Wood laughed and glanced at Paula. Hermione, hot with irritation, lost her interest in the entrée. She wanted the verses which she knew had been meant for her, and in her mind she anathematised the Pilot-fish for his fatuous blunder, Cécile for her self-complacency, and herself for being so silly as to let the man persist in his error as to her identity.

"You might let the rest of us see 'em," grumbled Bell. "Hereafter, tack 'em up on the mainmast. Don't know, however, that I approve of my daughter receivin' verses from a long-haired yellow tom-cat...."

"Nonsense!" said Cécile, sharply, and wishing that she had not spoken.

Bell subsided, glared, and savagely crunched the leg of a sorarail. His eyes passed to Hermione.

"Bless my soul!" he cried. "I believe Hermione's jealous! Look at the jade!"

Hermione was jealous, and her vivid cheeks and sapphire eyes showed it. But more than being jealous was she irritated and disgusted as well at the whole absurd situation. She determined to abolish the poet as a pilot-fish, and that before she was twelve hours older.

Matters were in this nervous state when Applebo, having made his dessert of a plate of soup, arose suddenly and made his graceful and light-footed way toward the door. For a man of his size and weight he moved like a dancer. As he passed Wood's party he bowed, with a quick, flashing smile. Bell, who was gobbling a _filet au cœur d'artichaut_, looked after him with a sort of resentful admiration. Being short and fat and red, and formerly black-haired, he found much to admire in the physical appearance of Applebo.

"Not a bad-looking chap," said he, grudgingly. "Looks rather as I should think Heldstrom might have looked when he was a youngster."

Hermione looked startled. She had never thought of it before, but what her father's keen eyes had discovered was quite true. There was a great deal about Applebo that suggested Heldstrom, and the voices of the two men were identical, barring the huskiness which many years of full-throated commands had put into the tones of Heldstrom.

"Have you decided on your next jump?" asked Wood, of Bell.

Bell glanced around the table. "What do you all say to Bermuda?" he asked. "It ain't the season, of course, but it would be rather good fun to see if he tackles it."

"Bad time of year," said Hermione. "There's always a West Indian hurricane in August or September."

"Can't feaze us," said Bell.

"It might feaze the Pilot-fish," said Paula. "Suppose anything were to happen him."

"There won't. He knows his business. There's a lot more danger on the coast than offshore, anyway. If he follows us there I'll own myself outclassed. What d'ye say?"

"Bermuda!" answered Cécile, leaning forward on the table, her eyes very bright. Bell looked at Hermione.

"Bermuda!" said she, with a peculiar little smile.

"Paula ... oh, Paula doesn't count. She's too much in love. Bermuda, Buenos Ayres, Hoboken ... they all look alike to her. Wood?"

"Bermuda. I know of lots of things more to worry about than Harold."

"Bermuda it is, then!" Bell raised his glass of champagne.

"Here she goes south! The _Shark_ and the _Daffodil_. Bottoms..."

"Down!" cried the laughing chorus.