Part 20

In a few minutes--in so few minutes that all his calculations as to his location were upset--the _Montana_ plowed herself to a shuddering halt on a shoal, her bow lifting slightly. And when the engines were stopped she rested there, sturdily upright, steady as an island. But in her saloon the men and women who fought and screamed and cursed, beating to and fro in windrows of humanity like waves in a cavern, were convinced that the shuddering shock had signaled the doom of the vessel. Half-dressed men, still dizzy with sleep, confused by dreams which blended with the terrible reality, trampled the helpless underfoot, seeking exit from the saloon.

The hideous uproar which announced panic was a loud call to the master of the vessel. He understood what havoc might be wrought by the brutal senselessness of the struggle. He ran from the pilot-house, stepping on the feet of the general manager, who was stumbling about in bewildered fashion.

“Call all the crew to stations and guard the exits,” Captain Mayo commanded the second mate.

On his precipitate way to the saloon the captain passed the room of the wireless operator, and the tense crackle of the spark told him that the SOS signal was winging its beseeching flight through the night.

Three men, half dressed, with life-preservers buckled on in hit-or-miss fashion, met him on the deck, dodged his angry clutch, and leaped over the rail into the sea, yelling with all the power of their lungs.

A quartermaster was at the captain's heels.

“Get over a life-boat on each side and attend to those idiots!” roared Mayo.

He thrust his way into a crowded corridor, beating frantic men back with his fists, adjuring, assuring, appealing, threatening. He mounted upon a chair in the saloon. He fairly outbellowed the rest of them. Men of the sea are trained to shout against the tempest.

“You are safe! Keep quiet! Sit down! This steamer is ashore on a sand-bank. She's as solid as Bunker Hill.” He shouted these assurances over and over.

They began to look at him, to pay heed to him. His uniform marked his identity.

“You lie!” screamed an excited man. “We're out to sea! We're sinking! Where are your life-boats?”

Bedlam began again. Like the fool who shouts “Fire!” in a throng, this brainless individual revived all the fears of the frenzied passengers.

Mayo realized that heroic action was necessary. He leaped down from the chair, seized the man who had shouted, and beat the fellow's face with the flat of his hard hand.

That scene of conflict was startling enough to serve as a real jolt to their attention. They hushed their cries; they looked on, impressed, cowed.

“If there's any other man in this crowd who wants to tell me I'm a liar, let him stand out and say so,” shouted Captain Mayo. “You're making fools of yourselves. There's no danger.”

He released the pallid and trembling man of whom he had made an example and stepped on to a chair. He put up his hand, dominating them until he had secured absolute silence.

“You--you--you!” he said, crisply, darting finger here and there, pointing out individuals. “You seem to have more level heads than the rest, you men! Go forward where the man is casting the lead. Cast the lead yourselves. Come back here and report to these passengers, as their committee. I'm telling you the truth. There's no water under us to speak of.” He remained in the saloon until his committee returned.

The man who reported looked a bit sheepish. “The captain is right, ladies and gentlemen. We could even see the sand where she has plowed it up--they've got lanterns over the rail. There's no danger.”

A steward trotted to Captain Mayo and handed him a slip of paper. The captain read the message and shook the paper in the faces of the throng.

“The revenue cutter _Acushnet_ has our wireless call and is starting, and the _Itasca_ will follow. I advise you to go to bed and go to sleep. You're perfectly, absolutely safe. You will be transferred when it's daylight. Now be men and women!”

He hurried out on deck. His men were hoisting aboard the three dripping, sputtering passengers who had run amuck.

“And those same men would look after a runaway horse and sneer that he didn't have any brains,” remarked Captain Mayo, disgustedly.

For the next half-hour he was a busy man. He investigated the _Montana's_ wound, first of all. He found her flooded forward--her nose anchored into the sand with a rock-of-ages solidity.

His heart sank when he realized what her plight meant from the wrecking and salvage viewpoint. In those shifting sands, winnowed constantly by the rushing currents of the sound, digging her out might be a Gargantuan task, working her free a hopeless undertaking.

His tour of investigation showed him that except for her smashed bow the steamer was intact. Her helplessness there in the sand was the more pitiable on that account.

He had not begun to take account of stock of his own responsibility for this disaster. The whirl of events had been too dizzying. As master of the ship he would be held to account for her mishap. But to what extent had he been negligent? He could not figure it out. He realized that excitement plays strange pranks with a man's consciousness of linked events or of the passage of time. He could not understand why the steamer piled up so quickly after the collision. According to his ample knowledge of the shoals, he had been on his true course and well off the dangerous shallows.

His first mate met him amidship. “I sent off one of our life-boats, sir. Told 'em to go back and hunt for the men we saw in the water. They found two. Others seem to be gone.”

“I'm glad you thought of it, Mr. Bangs. I ought to have attended to it, myself.”

“You had enough on your hands, sir, as it was. She was the _Lucretia M. Warren_, with granite from Vinal-haven. That's what gave us such an awful tunk.”

“Who are the men?”

“Mate and a sailor. They've had some hot drinks, and are coming along all right.”

“We'll have a word with them, Mr. Bangs.”

The survivors of the _Warren_ were forward in the crew's quarters, and they were still dazed. They had not recovered from their fright; they were sullen.

“I'm sorry, men! Sailor to sailor, you know what I mean if I don't say any more. It's bad business on both sides. But what were you doing in the fairway?”

“We wa'n't in the fairway,” protested a grizzled man, evidently the mate. He was uneasy in his borrowed clothes--he had surrendered his own garments to a pantryman who had volunteered to dry them.

“You must have been,” insisted Captain Mayo.

“I know we was all of two miles north of the regular course. I 'ain't sailed across these shoals for thirty years not to know soundings when I make 'em myself. Furthermore, she'll speak for herself, where she's sunk.”

The captain could not gainsay that dictum.

The mate scowled at the young man.

“I've got a question of my own. What ye doing, yourself, all of two miles out of your course, whanging along, tooting your old whistle as if you owned the sea and had rollers under you to go across dry ground with, too?”

“I was not two miles out of my course,” protested the captain, and yet the sickening feeling came to him that there had been some dreadful error, somewhere, somehow.

“When they put these steamers into the hands of real men instead of having dudes and kids run 'em, then shipping will stand a fair show on this coast,” declared the mate, casting a disparaging glance at Mayo's new uniform. “It was my watch on deck, and I know what I'm talking about. You came belting along straight at us, two points out of your course, and I thought the fog was playing tricks, and I didn't believe my own ears. You have drowned my captain and four honest men. When I stand up in court they'll get the straight facts from me, I can tell you that. And they tell me it's your first trip. I might have knowed it was some greenhorn, when I heard you coming two points off your course. You'd better take off them clothes. I reckon you've made your _last_ trip, too!”

It was the querulous railing of a man who had been near death; it was the everlasting grouch of the sailing-man against the lordly steamboater. Mayo had no heart for rebuke or retort. What had happened to him, anyway? This old schooner man seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.

“If you don't believe what I'm telling you, go out on deck and see if you can't hear the Hedge Fence whistle,” advised the mate, sourly. “If she don't bear south of east I'll eat that suit they're drying out for me. And that will show you that you're two miles to the norrard of where you ought to be.”

On his way to the pilot-house Captain Mayo did hear the hollow voice of the distant whistle, with its double blast and its long interval of silence. The sound came from abaft his beam and his disquietude increased.

Then the acute realization was forced in upon him that he had the general manager of the line to face. The captain had not caught sight of his superior during the excitement; he wondered now why Mr. Fogg had effaced himself so carefully.

The red coal of a cigar glowed in a corner of the pilothouse. From that corner came curt inquiry: “Well, Captain Mayo, what have you got to say about this?”

“I think I'll do my talking after I have had daylight on the proposition, sir.”

“Don't you have any idea how you happened to be off your course so far?” asked Fogg, his anxiety noticeable in his tones.

“How do you know I was off my course?”

“Well--er--why, well, you wouldn't be aground, would you, if you hadn't lost your way?”

“I didn't lose my way, Mr. Fogg.”

“What did happen, then?”

“That's for me to find out.”

“I'm not going to say anything to you yet, Captain Mayo. It's too sudden--too big a blow. It's going to paralyze the Vose line.” Mr. Fogg said this briskly, as if he were passing small talk on the weather.

“I'm thankful that you're taking the thing so calmly, sir. I've been dreading to meet you.”

“Oh--a business man in these days can't allow himself to fly to pieces over setbacks. Optimism is half the battle.”

But Mayo, sitting there in that dark pilot-house for the rest of the night, staring out into the blank wall of the fog and surveying the wreck of his hopes, was decidedly not optimistic.

XXI ~ BITTER PROOF BY MORNING LIGHT

Bad news, bad news to our captain came That grieved him very sore; But when he knew that all of it was true, It grieved him ten time more, Brave boys! It grieved him ten times more! --Cold Greenland.

Morning brought to him neither cheer nor counsel. The winds swept the fog off the seas, and the brightness of the sunshine only mocked the gloom of Captain Mayo's thoughts.

He was most unmistakably far off his course. He took his bearings carefully, and he groped through his memory and his experience for reasons which would explain how he came to be away up there on Hedge Fence. Two of the masts of the sunken stone-schooner showed above the sea, two depressing monuments of disaster. He took further bearings and tested his compass with minute care. So far as he could determine it was correct to the dot.

It was a busy forenoon for all on board the steamer. The revenue cutters took off the passengers. Representatives of the underwriters came out from Wood's Hole on a tug. The huge _Montana_, set solidly into its bed of sand, loomed against the sky, mute witness of somebody's inefficiency or mistake.

Late in the day Captain Mayo and General-Manager Fogg locked themselves in the captain's cabin to have it out.

When the master had finished his statement Mr. Fogg flicked the ash from his cigar, studied the glowing end for a time, and narrowed his eyes.

“So, summing it all up, it happened, and you don't know just how it happened. You were off your course and don't know how you happened to be off your course. You don't expect us to defend you before the steamboat inspectors, with that for an explanation, Mayo?”

“All I can do is to tell the truth at the hearing, sir.”

“They'll break you, sure as a mule wags ears. There are five dead men inside that wreck yonder. Don't you reckon you'll be indicted for manslaughter?”

“I shall claim that the collision was unavoidable.”

“But you were off your course--were in a place you had no business to be in. That knocks your defense all to the devil. You are in almighty bad, Mayo. You must wake up to it.”

The young man was pale and rigid and silent.

“The Vose line is in bad enough as it is, without trying to defend you. I suppose I'll be blamed for putting on a young captain. Mayo, I am older than you are and wiser about the law and such matters. Why don't you duck out from under, eh?”

“You mean run away?”

“I wouldn't put it quite as bluntly as that. I mean, go away and keep out of sight till it quiets down. If you stay they'll put you on the rack and get you all tangled up by firing questions at you. And what will you gain by going through the muss? You've got to agree with me that the inspectors will suspend you--revoke your license. Here's this steamer here, talking for herself. If you stay around underfoot, and all the evidence is brought out at the hearing, then the Federal grand jury will take the thing up, probably. They'll have a manslaughter case against you.”

Still Captain Mayo did not speak.

“If you simply drop out of sight I don't believe they'll chase you. Personally, having watched you last night, I don't believe you are guilty of any very bad break. It simply happened wrong. We don't want all the notoriety a court trial would bring to the line. And here's what I'll do, Mayo. I'll slip you a few hundred for expenses so that you can go away and grab into the shipping game somewhere else. A fellow like you can land on his feet.”

“Mr. Fogg, a renegade steamboat man stands a mighty poor show. I may be suspended, and worse may happen to me, but I'm not going to ruin myself and my good name by running away. That's confession! It's wrecking all my prospects forever--and I have worked too hard for what I've got. I'm going to stay here and face the music--tell my story like a man.”

“It will make a fine story--and you have told me yourself that they are just waiting to make a smashing example of somebody,” sneered Fogg. “You, a cub captain, broke the navigation rules last night by running at least fifteen knots in the fog. Your log and the testimony of your mates will show that. I'm not blaming you, son. I'm showing you how it looks! You got off your course and rammed a schooner at anchor, and you didn't even stop to pick up her men. I saw that much. Mayo, the only sensible thing for you to do is to duck out from under. It will save the line from a lot of scandal and bad advertising. By gad! if you don't do that much for us, after the offer I've just made you, I'll go onto the stand and testify against you.”

“You seem to be mighty ready and anxious to make me the goat in this thing,” blazed the young man, his temper getting away from him. He had been without sleep for many hours, his soul had been crucified by the bitter experiences he had been through.

“Are you looking for a fight?”

“No, Mr. Fogg, I'm looking for a square deal. I haven't done anything intentionally to make me a fugitive from justice. I won't run away.”

“You won't be the first witness who has helped big interests by keeping out of sight and out of reach of the lawyers. It's business, Mayo.”

“It may be, Mr. Fogg. I don't know the inside of the big deals. I'm only a sailor. I associate with sailors. And I've got a little pride in my good name.”

Mr. Fogg looked at this recalcitrant with scorn. He wanted to tell this stubborn individual that he was merely a two-spot in the big game which was being played. But the expression on Mayo's face encouraged neither levity nor sneers.

“I'll give you a thousand dollars expense money for your trip and will talk job with you next year after you get your license back,” proffered the general manager.

Captain Mayo fixed flaming eyes on the tempter. “What special, private reason have you got for wanting to bribe me?” demanded the young man, with such heat that Fogg flinched. “You are making something very mysterious out of what should be open and aboveboard. That may be Wall Street tactics, Mr. Fogg, but it doesn't go with a sailor who has earned a master's papers and is proud of it.”

“Well, pass on then,” directed Fogg. “There's a tug alongside to take the underwriters back to Wood's Hole. Go along--to jail, or wherever it is you'll fetch up.”

“I shall stay aboard this ship as her captain until I am relieved according to the formalities of the admiralty law,” declared Captain Mayo, with dignity. “I don't propose to run away from duty or punishment, Mr. Fogg.”

The general manager pursed a contemptuous mouth and departed from the cabin. He went away on the tug without further word to Mayo.

During the next two days small craft buzzed about the stricken giant like flies around a carcass. There were insurance men, wreckers with plans and projects, sightseers, stockholders--and one visitor was Captain Zoradus Wass.

“Nothing else to do just now, boy, except to come and sympathize with you.” He clucked his tongue against his teeth as he looked the steamer over. It was condolence without words. “Now tell me the story of it--with all the fine details,” he demanded, after they were closeted in the captain's cabin. He sat with elbows on his knees and gazed at the floor during the recital, and he continued to gaze at the floor for some time after Mayo had ceased speaking.

“I admit that the quartermaster let her off for just a minute--less than a minute,” repeated the young man. “I had only just looked away for an instant. I helped him put her over. We couldn't have done more than cut a letter S for a few lengths. But the more I think of it, the queerer it seems. Two points off, almost in a finger-snap!”

“Tell that part of it over and over again, while I shut my eyes and get it fixed in my mind as if I had seen it,” requested Captain Wass. “Who was there, where did they stand, and so forth and et cetry. When a thing happens and you can't figger it out, it's usually because you haven't pawed over the details carefully enough. Go ahead! I'm a good listener.”

But after he had listened he had no comments to make. He went out of the cabin after a few minutes' wait which was devoted to deep meditation, and strolled about the ship, hands behind his back, scuffing his feet. A half-hour later, meeting Captain Mayo on his rounds, the veteran inquired:

“How do you happen to have Oliver Burkett aboard here?” “I don't know him.”

“You ought to know him. He is the captain the Vose line fired off the _Nirvana_ three years ago. He gave the go-ahead and a jingle when he was making dock, and chewed up four fishing-boats and part of the pier. He had to choose between admitting that he was drunk, crazy, or bribed by the opposition. And I guess they figured that he was all three. Was he aboard here the night it happened?”

“I don't know, sir.”

“According to my notion it's worth finding out,” growled Captain Wass. “I'm not seeing very far into this thing as yet, son, and I'll admit it. But if dirty work was done to you, Burkett would have been a handier tool for Fogg than a Stillson wrench in a plumbing job. No, don't ask me questions now. I haven't got any consolation for you or confidence in myself. I'm only thinking.”

The next day the wounded _Montana_ was formally surrendered to the underwriters.

Captain Boyd Mayo was ordered to appear before the United States inspectors, and he went and told his story as best he could. But his best was an unconvincing tale, after all. He left the hearing after his testimony and walked down to the little hotel by the water-front to wait for news.

Captain Wass came bustling down to the little hotel, plumping along at an extra rate of speed, setting his heels down hard, a moving monument of gloom.

His protégé, removing disconsolate gaze from the dusty chromos on the office walls, did not require verbal report; Captain Wass's demeanor told all.

“And you couldn't expect much of anything else,” declared the old man. “I made the best talk I could for you after you had finished your testimony and had gone out. But it was no use, son! The department has been laying for a victim. Both of us have known that right along. They have soaked it to you good and proper.”

“How long am I suspended for?” faltered Mayo.

“That's the point! Indefinitely. You were meat. Everybody watching the case. They trimmed you.”

Mayo set his hands into his thick hair, propped his head, and stared at the floor.

“Indefinitely doesn't mean forever, but there ain't much comfort in that. I'll tell you what it does mean, boy. It means that if there has been crooked work we've got to show it up in order to reinstate you. And now get a good brace on yourself. I've taken a peek in at the United States court.”

The young man, without lifting his head, gave the veteran a piteous side-glance.

“Fletcher Fogg is buzzing around the outside of that hive. He has Burkett along for an understrapper. They are marshaling in witnesses before the grand jury--those men from the _Warren_, and you know what they'll say, of course! Your mates and quartermasters, too! Mayo, they're going to railroad you to Atlanta penitentiary. They have put something over on you because you are young and they figured that you'd be a little green. It seemed queer to me when Fogg was so mighty nice to you all of a sudden. But they don't lay off a man like Jacobs and put in a new man just to be nice. They either felt they couldn't work Jacobs, or else they felt a green man would give 'em a good excuse for what happened.”

“But they couldn't arrange to have a schooner--”