CHAPTER XVII

The glass was rising and the dawn coming faintly when the _Daffodil_ stole from the shelter of Provincetown and headed out into the turmoil of Massachusetts Bay. The yawl was under her forestaysail, a storm gaff-trysail, and a scrap of mizzen. Applebo's plan was to reach out to sea, shaping his course around the Cape as the wind hauled, which he felt certain that it would, and not try to beat against the gale with its nasty swell.

For such a boat as the _Daffodil_ there was no great danger. She was solid as a wooden shoe, with an uncommonly high freeboard, a generous beam, and deep enough to stand up against the sling of the foaming crests. Although but thirty feet on the water-line, she was "all boat" and the equivalent of much larger vessels of a different type. Also, she had been constructed for water of this sort, and had a low cabin-trunk and a small, shallow, self-bailing cockpit. Really, the only thing exposed to damage was the man at the wheel, and his first duty was to so handle her as to keep out of danger.

The scud was rapidly breaking away as the _Daffodil_ slipped down past Race Point Light and headed out for the open. The wind was harder, if anything, but as the yawl encountered the first bad water the sun pushed over the horizon and a long, rich beam of golden-yellow flashed out between the sea and the low-flying storm-clouds. It found the little scraps of sail on the _Daffodil_ and bathed them in a golden light.

"An augury...!" said Applebo. "I like that. It cheers me up." And he called to the Finn to take the wheel while he prepared some macaroons and tea.

Well clear of Cape Cod, the yawl got her first taste of what was coming, when Applebo was greatly reassured at her splendid behaviour. Luckily, the tide had turned and was running with the sea, which had lengthened out and, though of dismaying size, appeared to be kindly disposed. A landsman and many deep-sea sailors would have said that every moment was fraught with great peril for the little _Daffodil_, but Applebo and the Finn were of that species of human amphibian which lives in the closest and most intimate association with the sea--the offshore, small-boat sailor. Such know the sea as none other. The big-ship mariner knows it only as a sailor, but he who goes down to the deep in the little shallop knows it as does the gull; knows each flaw of the breeze as it strikes up from the flank of some mammoth surge; knows the cross-slap of a brimming wave and the upward throw as it mounts to comb.

The day lightened. Suddenly the sun blazed out again to reveal the wind-torn waste as a seething cauldron. The spouting billows leaped to flash their jewelled tiaras in the vivid brilliance of the streaming light. Storm gulls wheeled and wove and darted and screamed their greetings to the day. Petrels darted like swallows. The ocean grew joyous in a wild and lawless abandon, leaping with drunken frenzy, the billows playing like titan creatures of the deep, flashing and flinging their silvery scales, and their shoutings arose in a revel of hoarse clamours that might have been song or curse.

Through this wild carouse drove the _Daffodil_, and seemed to enjoy her rough handling by these sea-runners, as some buxom wench might take pleasure in a romp with rough sailormen. The wind roared more westerly and cocked aslant the white bonnets of the staggering seas. Spindrift, glittering like gems strewn with a wanton hand, flew clean to the truck of the little yawl, and a rainbow blazed and faded and blazed again under her plunging bows. Brighter grew the sun and harder blew the wind, while back rolled the grey blanket of the storm and showed a patch of sky blue and purple and amethyst, still fringed about with a ragged veil. The sea suggested snow falling on a field of sapphires.

Now, the yawl wallowed in a maelstrom of mad water, while the day grew more and more glorious. All in an hour's time.

Applebo had taken the wheel again, and the Finn was crouched at the foot of the mainmast. He had taken the end of a halliard and caught a turn around his body and the spar, for several times the little vessel had been swept by the heavy crest of a comber. Applebo was at times sitting in water waist-deep.

Suddenly the Finn burst into a wild, inspiring chant and his beautiful, throaty tenor reached Applebo to send the warm blood coursing through his body. He knew the lay. The Finn sang it often at sea when the wind blew. Rising as it did above the deep diapason, Applebo found it good and lent his bass to the chant, and so, to the accompaniment of wind and sea, these two sang their chantey full-throated against the gale. They sang in the Norwegian tongue, and their pæan translated would be thus:--

"_We have quenched our winter fires, and our faces turned away From the land of dead desires to a new and glorious day; Now the deep unfolds before us; cloud and sun-band score the sea; In our ears a wind-wave chorus, far astern a darkening lea...._"

Seaward plunged the _Daffodil_, exulting as those she bore. Joyous and full-throated sang Applebo and his Finn, while the high west wind drove back the lowering storm-clouds, as Michael and his angels might have sent fleeing the hosts of Satan. Triumphantly sang Applebo, and, as he sang, a scant ten miles away his father lay dying while Hermione looked upon his death and wondered how long it would be before she met him, just beyond, and if her dear Uncle Chris would guide her steps in that Life as he had in this.

And the Finn, with his second-sight? Perhaps the Finn, warlock that he was and dwelling a little in both worlds, knew that things were as they should be. Perhaps he knew nothing, and all was coincidence. At any rate, it happened that a little later Applebo's eye was caught by a flash of colour that had no part in the chromatic scheme of sky and sea. He saw a flash of red, then lost it, then saw it again.

"What is that?" he bawled, and pointed to leeward.

The Finn looked at him, his head turned far to the side. Applebo noted his odd, flashing smile.

"It is a vessel dismasted and sinking, master. Her people are clinging to her decks, and the sea is washing over them."

* * * * * *

There are a number of nautical problems more simple than that of transferring passengers from a waterlogged hulk to a little yawl in a heavy sea. But Applebo and the Finn belonged, as has been said, to the gull breed, and they went about their task quite naturally.

On sighting the capsized ensign and the wreck beneath it, Applebo dropped down and hove to the yawl as close under the lee of the schooner as he dared. Olesen then drifted astern to the yawl a buoy with a line attached. This line was fast to a snatch-block, riding the hawser and holding in its sister-hooks a bowline in a bight. When Applebo presently got the signal to haul in, there arrived a Swede in a life-preserver, slung in the bowline. The sailor had been sent first to test the apparatus, and from him Applebo quickly learned the details of the disaster.

"You say that Captain Heldstrom is badly hurt?" asked Applebo.

"He iss dying, zir," answered the man.

Paula arrived next, and then Cécile, both badly spent from strain and exposure, Cécile semi-unconscious from her ducking _en route_, so that, after she had been got clear of her lashings, two of the men had to carry her below. Hermione came next, her blue eyes blazing like sapphires from her colourless face and her high spirit undaunted.

"They tied me in this thing by force!" she cried to Applebo. "I wanted to stay with Uncle Chris. He is conscious now and refuses to be moved."

When only Bell, Olesen, and Heldstrom were left aboard the hulk, Applebo swung himself into the bowline and signalled to Olesen to haul in. The hawser led over the cat-heads, which were a-wash as the sea welled up under them. Applebo swung himself aboard.

Heldstrom was lying on a grating rigged up so that it was clear of the swash across the deck. As Applebo looked over him he opened his eyes. They were bright and intent as ever, but it needed but a glance at the waxy face to see that the end was very near.

"My son..." he said, and closed his eyes again.

Bell, who thought that his mind was wandering, looked at Applebo.

"How are we to move him?" he asked. "Every bone in his body must be broken!"

Heldstrom's eyes opened again.

"You moost not move me," he said. "I vill go down wit' der schooner. It does not matter. Efery bone in my body iss broken, but I do not care, because my hear'rt vas broken long ago. Now leave me, for der wessel iss wery deep."

The three men stared at each other, perplexed. To lash a man in Heldstrom's condition into a life-preserver, sling him into the bowline, and drag him through the sea to the yawl seemed a useless cruelty. Yet, how could they leave him?

"Are you floating or sinking?" asked Applebo.

"We've been like this since daylight. Olesen says she's still settling a little...."

For several minutes they stood there, irresolute, unable to decide what they should do. As long as Heldstrom lived there was no thought of leaving him. To try to move him, on the contrary, would be merely to kill him outright. No doubt it occurred to all three that the wreck might suddenly refuse to rise from one of her slow, heavy plunges and that in that case there would be no time for them to gain the yawl! Applebo had thought of this when he went aboard her, and had instructed the Finn to stand by to slip the hawser if he saw the hulk about to sink.

"You two go aboard the yawl!" said Applebo. "I will stay until the end ... or till she sinks."

Bell turned to Olesen.

"Get in the bowline...!" said he.

Olesen hesitated.

"Obey orders, my man!" snapped Bell. Olesen, trained to discipline, climbed sulkily into the apparatus and, scorning the life-preserver, was hauled aboard the _Daffodil_. Once aboard, Applebo hauled back the sling.

"You go, sir," said he.

"Go yourself!" snapped Bell. "Think I'm goin' to leave an old friend like that? Go yourself."

"He is my father," said Applebo.

Leaning on the windlass, with the fresh nor'wester roaring out of a sky like crystal, the spray flying over them, and the water swashing about their feet, Applebo told his story to Bell while the two waited for Heldstrom to die. And, as he finished and Bell was staring at him with round goggle eyes, his fat face haggard and colourless, there came from somewhere in the water-soaked hull an odd, jarring explosion and a mass of froth welled up into the waist.

"There goes one o' the water-tanks," said Bell. "I had 'em emptied and plugged, to buoy us. She may sink now."

The concussion seemed to have aroused Heldstrom. He opened his eyes.

"Go...!" said he. "I t'ink she vas settling."

Neither man moved. And then it seemed as though Heldstrom for the first time understood.

"Ho!" he cried, and the strength came into his voice again and the brightness into his eyes.

"So it vas because of me that you wait? Ha ... that it is fine! But you must not!" He looked at Bell. "You have dose little ger'rls..." The blue eyes softened. "Go, my old friend. Gif me your hand und go...!"

Bell, the tears gushing from his eyes, took the bloodless hand in his, squeezed, then dropped it. Heldstrom looked at Applebo.

"Kiss me ... my son," said he.

Applebo knelt and kissed him.

A sea broke in the waist and the wash boiled thigh-deep over the quarter-deck. It splashed over Heldstrom as he lay on the staging. The cold water seemed to rouse him. He hove himself upright and flung both arms aloft.

"To God....!" he cried, and fell back, dead.

Bell looked at Applebo.

"We've no time to lose..." said he. "She's going."

"I'll take his body with me to the yawl," said Applebo. "I suppose you want to be the last to leave your ship."

"Of course," said Bell, quietly.