CHAPTER XVI

Christian Heldstrom returned from the interview with his new-found son, shaken to the core of his strong but simple being.

On boarding the _Shark_, he went at once to his room, where he seated himself on a big, iron-bound sea-chest and remained for some minutes staring absently straight in front of him. The lines of his face were haggard; under its tan the weather-beaten skin looked drawn and faded as old leather, and there was a droop to mouth and eyes which told not only of fatigue, but a sense of defeat.

He was still sitting in the same position when there came a familiar little tap on the door. Heldstrom pulled himself together.

"Coom in, Hermione..." he said.

Hermione entered and closed the door behind her. For a moment she stood by Heldstrom's shoulder, regarding him in a half-shy, half-anxious way.

"You have been to see Applebo, Uncle Chris?"

"Yes," answered Heldstrom, heavily. "He is my son. He told you?"

Hermione clasped her hands and leaned toward him.

"Yes ... this morning. Oh, Uncle Chris! Aren't you delighted?"

"Not altogedder. Vat else did he tell you?"

"He told me that his greatest dread was just this; that you might not wish him for a son ... as he wanted you for a father. That was why he has followed the _Shark_ all summer. He wanted to be near his father, but shrank from revealing himself before he could feel more sure that you would be pleased."

Heldstrom gave her a piercing look.

"Und you say it vas for that he has followed us? For that alone?"

The crimson came into Hermione's cheeks, but her eyes never wavered from his.

"Until we met, he and I, on the beach, that morning at Shoal Harbour. Since then it has been partly ... for me..."

"Ho!" growled Heldstrom. "Because of you! Den vy has he been sending sickening werses to Cécile?"

"He got our names mixed and thought _I_ was Cécile. Did he tell you that he had been sending verses to Cécile?"

"No. It vas your fadder."

"And Applebo told you this morning that he was your son?" asked Hermione, a little breathlessly.

"I haf suspected. Since I saw him in der vater I haf been t'inking a great deal. His face vas always before my eyes; den last night I had a dr'ream of der voman who spoiled my life, und her face was der face of dis yoong man. I vill show you her photograph; I haf not looked at it myself since more dan twenty years."

He rose massively from the chest, unlocked it, and rummaged in the many little drawers and lockers within. Presently he handed a small package to Hermione. She unfastened the ribbon which secured the faded yellow paper, and, as the portrait came to light, Hermione's blue eyes opened very wide. The face was that of a very beautiful and unusual-looking woman, but what startled the girl was the extraordinary resemblance to Applebo. There were the same wide forehead, flat cheeks, and straight nose, the mouth slightly pushed out, full-lipped but strong, while the expression was that of Applebo when he assumed his impassive, blinking pose.

"Were her eyes the same amber colour?" Hermione asked, studying the photograph intently.

"Like der eyes of a cat. Dey called her 'der tigress,' und she vas von, too...." His tone changed, brusquely. "How many times haf you spoken to dis yoong man?" he demanded.

"Only twice. At Shoal Harbour and this morning." Hermione handed back the portrait. "That is unmistakable, isn't it? Oh, Uncle Chris! Why are you not happy? Isn't it comforting...?"

"Vat did he say to you dis morning?" Heldstrom interrupted, curtly.

"First I asked him to stop following us, which he promised to do. Then he told me about his being your son, and I offered to tell you myself ... because I thought that it might be easier for you..."

"What did he tell you about yourself, Hermione?" Heldstrom's eyes were watching her steadily.

Hermione raised her head, proudly.

"He told me that he loved me."

Heldstrom, who was standing, thrust his hands into his side pockets and looked at her keenly.

"I t'ought so! Und how many times you haf met? Twice! Und he tells you that he loves you! Der scoundrel!"

"You are not very flattering to me..."

"No! I am not! Und dis fella is! Und you like it!"

"Yes," said Hermione, hotly, "I do like it! Harold Applebo is a splendid, big, strong, true-hearted gentleman, and, if I can love him after seeing him but twice, I don't see why he shouldn't be able to love me!"

"It is not der loving," said Heldstrom, slightly softening, "it is telling it out dere in der fog."

"He wouldn't have told it if I hadn't dragged it out of him. As it was he tried to put me back in my boat...."

"Vat!" Heldstrom wheeled upon her so suddenly that Hermione shrank back, startled. "He _put you in your boat_! Hermione, do you dare to tell me that you haf been aboard dis fella's yawl?"

Hermione, having come expressly to give sympathy, rebelled against this utter lack of it. The hot blood rushed suddenly to her head.

"Yes," said she, "I _did_ go aboard the yawl and I went below. I was curious to see what it was like. A woman can tell when she is dealing with a gentleman, and Harold Applebo is all of that! No doubt he inherits it from his mother! You ought to be proud to have such a son ... and proud to have me love him, too! You may have had a bad time of it, Captain Heldstrom, but so has he! As for me, I came here to try to help you, and you have all but insulted me! I am not a little girl any more; I am a woman, and I have a woman's feelings ... and ... if you think you can trample over them with your big sea-boots, you can ... can..."

"Hermione!" Heldstrom's compelling voice silenced the outburst on the part of the girl. "I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, my dear little ger'rl," said he, very gently. "Dis circoomstance has given me a bad list to poort. But you are a very yoong girl und dis fella should know better dan to make love to you. Yoost der same, perhaps I haf not been so fair as I might be. I am sorry. I moost t'ink it over by myself. For der present, please do not say anyt'ing to anybody, my dear."

"Of course not, Uncle Chris." Hermione saw that he evidently wished to be alone, so she turned and stole quietly out, leaving Heldstrom sitting upon the big sea-chest, his eyes fixed upon the bulkhead.

In the saloon Hermione found her father, somewhat the worse for the wear and tear of his poker party, but ferociously devouring ham and eggs.

"Been thinkin' it over," said he, crossly, "and I've come to the conclusion that we've had about enough o' this fool Applebo. Folks are beginning to talk. The boys were joshing me last night about my pilot-fish. I'm goin' to tell him to chuck it."

"You needn't bother," Hermione answered; "I have already told him to."

"Huh..." growled Bell, staring at her over his plate. "When did you do that?"

"An hour or so ago. I ran into him out there in the fog."

Bell frowned, hesitated a minute as though undecided whether to be relieved at having the duty taken off his hands or resentful of Hermione's forwardness. Not feeling quite up to a row, intellectually, he said nothing, but attacked his eggs with increased savagery.

"Well, then," said he, presently, "there ain't any use in making the run to Bermuda. Let's go around to Newport; I'm sick of this hole. I've got to run into town this morning, but I'll be out early, and, if the muck has blown off, we'll start right out."

Hermione agreed. Cécile was indifferent, and all places looked alike to Paula and Huntington Wood. And so it was that midnight found the _Shark_ beating out across Massachusetts Bay against a fresh gale from the southeast. Slow she might be, but it had to blow very hard to keep the old schooner from getting to windward, while her great beam and high sides made her comfortable under any weather condition.

Rather to Bell's surprise, for he had expected opposition, Heldstrom made no demur about going to sea in what looked like the start of a hard storm. In fact, the old Norwegian seemed impatient to get under way.

"Yoost a little vind und r'rain..." said he. "Double r'reef der mainsail."

Daylight found the schooner snoring along well off the Cape. It was blowing hard, very hard, and many big fishermen had passed them, flying for the shelter of Provincetown, but so far the only shortening of canvas aboard the _Shark_ was the two reefs in her mainsail.

"It does not look very goot," Heldstrom observed to Bell, who relieved him to take the morning watch. "Der fishermen are all getting in out of it."

"It's blowin' too hard to fish," said Bell, "but it's a fine breeze for a sail. This is just our meat. I'll keep on standin' out on this leg so's to make a reach of it into The Vineyard. It's clear enough."

Heldstrom went below, and Bell, toward the end of his watch, deciding that he was far enough to windward to make a good slant of it into Nantucket Sound, gave the order, "Ready about," and a minute later, when the scant crew had scrambled aft to trim the mainsheet and one hand was standing by to hold the forestaysail aback, Bell turned and made a circular motion with his hand to the quartermaster at the wheel.

"Hard-a-lee...!" he bawled, in his fat, husky voice.

The schooner was by this time in a very nasty, choppy sea-way, the tide setting her strongly against the hard southeaster and the water all about combing and frothing almost like a tide-rip. The old yacht was plunging heavily, and altogether the conditions for bringing her smartly about were far from favourable. To begin with, every pitch of her bluff bows checked her headway; again, the three reefs in her mainsail gave her a bit of a lee helm, while the watch was not strong enough to trim her mainsheet smartly, but merely gathered in the slack of it as she swung up to meet the wind. But, worst of all, the hand who was holding the forestaysail aback let it get away from him just as the sail was about to fill and swing the schooner's head. And so it befell that the schooner missed her stays.

Pitching and bucking and jerking her big, heavy spars, the _Shark_ hung in irons, while the gale thundered through her slack sails and the breaking water all about roared and lashed and flung its wind-driven spray high into the volleying canvas. The big main-boom was lashing up and down in a terrifying manner, and the slackened sheet-ropes rattled and banged their big blocks as though to snatch the heavy iron travellers out by the roots.

Bell was furious. "Missed stays, by the eternal!" he roared. "Who's the scrub that let that headsail go?"

The uproar had brought Heldstrom on deck. There was no particular danger, beyond the straining to the gear one may always expect when a big, heavy sailing-vessel gets in irons and thrashes around in a sea-way. But this has always to be considered.

"Oop here, you lubbers!" thundered the old Norwegian to the watch below. The hands were tumbling up when from forward there came a most appalling crash, and the next instant Bell's horrified eyes saw the bowsprit jerked suddenly upward. The jib-boom was springing like a whip, then snapping its martingale-stays it followed the bowsprit. A sickening, grinding, splintering roar followed.

Heldstrom's great voice rose above the crash and clamour.

"R'run forvards ... all hands...!" he roared. "Here's come der spars!"

Hardly had he spoken when the foremast swayed for an instant, drunkenly, and then came roaring down, the foresail ballooning under it. Heldstrom's warning had not been needed. What was happening was plain to every man on deck. The vicious plunges of the old yacht had carried away the bob-stay, from the terrific strain of the jerking spars. The masts, left thus with no forward stay and no lateral strain from the sails to be shared by the shrouds, were doomed to destruction.

Heldstrom blared out afresh.

"Forvards! All hands r'run forvards...! Forvards, zir!"

His voice was lost in the uproar. The foremast had fallen at a slight angle, which took it across the port rail, a little abaft the beam. Bell, as he watched its descent, had sprung to the starboard side. Olesen, the quartermaster at the wheel, stood fast. He was holding his helm hard up, nautical instinct telling him that, if he could only get the wind over the starboard bow, the wreckage would be carried clear of the hull.

"Leave der v'veel!" bawled Heldstrom, for the mainmast was swaying with every plunge.

Olesen, seeing his efforts of no avail, sprang clear. Even as he did so down came the mainmast, straight aft, its fall at first checked by the forward spread of the shrouds. It demolished everything on the quarter-deck, its upper fragment smashing from the lower across the stern.

A sudden hush followed. That is to say, the hush was a comparative one, for the fallen masts were rolling and grinding back and forth across the decks as the hulk wallowed in the sea. But, while the wind was shrieking and the big combers crashing on all sides, there was no longer the thundering of slack sails nor the slamming and wrenching of heavy gears. And then, as the schooner began to broach to, a new menace arose.

The foremast had broken itself across the vessel's side and the upper fragment, held by a mass of wreckage and the attached sail, floated on the sea and with each successive roll began to batter at the schooner's side. Heldstrom saw that planking and frames could not long withstand such mauling. He rushed aft and secured an axe.

"Catch some turns on that spar!" he thundered.

The foremast, inboard, was quickly secured. The hull had swung slowly, the wreckage abeam acting as a drag. Heavy seas began to break over the port bow, while at each instant the battering of the floating fragment of the foremast became more appalling.

Heldstrom, axe in hand, swarmed out upon the spar. Heavy, crumbling seas threatened to carry him off bodily, and at times, when the schooner rolled into a combing wave, he would quite disappear from sight. In spite of this he continued to work himself out by inches until at the end of the broken spar, where, watching his chance, he hacked through the tangle of ropes, when the floating wreckage drifted astern. His work was barely done when a brimming sea hurtled up abeam, tore the spar from its lashings, and, lifting it bodily, flung it across the schooner's deck.

Bell was the first to reach Heldstrom as he lay crushed beneath the spar. With the aid of Olesen and another man he carried him below, where, at the foot of the companion, he found the three girls with Wood, who was trying to reassure them.

"Dismasted!" panted Bell. "Heldstrom's badly hurt. Look after him."

He went on deck and told the carpenter to sound the well. The hulk, held by the wreckage which had drifted astern, was swinging slowly. All hands on deck were driven forward by the wash of the sea, finally taking refuge on the t'gallant forecastle, for, as has been said, the _Shark_ was of old-fashioned design. Her stern foul of the wreckage and the high bows offering a purchase to the wind, she finally lay stern to the sea, which came in a little on the starboard quarter.

For the moment there seemed no immediate danger, so Bell went below again through the galley hatch. He found Heldstrom unconscious, lying on a transome, his head pillowed on the lap of Hermione, who, very pale but quite composed, was wiping away the blood as it trickled from his lips. Wood was talking in a soothing voice to Cécile. Paula was crouched on the transome, her hand in that of her lover. As Bell was telling them what had happened, the carpenter came in.

"She is leaking badly, zir," said he. "Und der boats vas all smashed to splinders."

"Man the pumps," said Bell, briefly. "There's no danger," he added, in a quiet voice. "There's timber enough in her to float us if she fills flush-up."

All had occurred so quickly as to be almost impossible of realisation. Ten minutes before the ancient yacht had been ploughing staunchly to windward in the teeth of what had become a hard blow. The tearing out of a cubic foot or so of dry-rotted stem and she was become a dismasted, sinking hulk. Even her boats were gone, those not crushed by the falling spars having been torn to splinters by the writhing shrouds.

Of all her people it was hardest, perhaps, for Huntington Wood to appreciate this violent change of condition, the others having lived most of their lives afloat. Cécile, after her first frightened outburst, had got herself in hand and was huddled among the cushions of the transome, white but silent.

"You say she will float?" Wood asked of Bell.

"Yes ... but she's goin' to be deuced uncomfortable, once she's a-wash. She must have spewed out her caulking from the wrenchin' on the maststeps, and like as not she's opened up along the garboard-strake. But we don't need to worry. Somebody'll sight us through the day. This place is like the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. Cheer up, girls ... and Heldstrom is goin' to pull around all right, you see. I'll take a peep below. Steward, push your eyes back into your head and get me a lantern!"

But nothing did sight the _Shark_ throughout the day, and nightfall found her very deep. She was drifting sluggishly in a northwesterly direction, but, waterlogged as she was, this drift was very slight.

All hands had slaved unceasingly at the pumps. Bell, the grouty valetudinarian, was the pillar of strength upon whom all had come to lean. He had got a wipe across the forehead from a wire shroud and this had plentifully bled him and done him a world of good. Certain ones of the crew had wished to knock together a life-raft, but Bell answered:

"This hulk is the best raft. She'll float you till this place freezes, and then you can skate ashore. Carpenter, empty all the fresh-water tanks. The scuttle butt will last until we leave her and the tanks will float a lot of weight."

After dark Heldstrom regained consciousness. He was still lying in the saloon, and Hermione was crouching at his head. Heldstrom's first words were:

"Are ve filling?"

"Yes," answered Hermione, gently, "but there is no danger. Papa says that she will float."

Heldstrom fought for a minute to get his breath.

"She vill or she vill not. Your fadder figured it out, und he is a navy expert und dey are generally wr'rong. T'eoretically she might float; practically, she might not. Your fadder figures on der floating power of vood, not of punk. Tell him to fire some rockets...."

And he lost consciousness again.

A little after midnight the water drove them from below. A shelter was rigged on the t'gallant forecastle and all hands took refuge there. The wreck was lying stern to sea and the combers were breaking across the waist. The gale had not abated, but the wind was hauling, and now and again there would come a lightening of the sky and a breaking in the scud, through which an old moon shone pallidly.

"Beginnin' to clear," said Bell, cheerfully. "Bet you what you like we will be sighted before first-drink time. Any takers?"

There was no answer. Captain Bell took a few turns on the slippery deck, then paused by the windlass to stare out into the storm-driven murk.

"Too bad the _Daffodil_ went out ahead of us," said he, turning to Hermione. "If ever a shark stood in need of her pilot-fish, then this one does."

At the word "pilot-fish" there came a stir from the tarpaulin-covered figure of Heldstrom. Then the low but resonant tones of the dying Norseman reached the ears of Bell, who was still leaning against the windlass.

"What's that?" asked Bell. "What does he say?"

Hermione raised her pallid face and looked steadfastly into the gloom to leeward.

"What was that he told you, my dear?" asked her father.

"Uncle Chris told me something which I already knew," she answered, in a steady voice. "We have only to wait a little longer. Our Pilot-fish is coming."