Chapter XII: The Owner’s Orders

I awoke to Saki’s knock next morning, shaved in the warm water he had had the good sense to bring, and was first to reach the table.

I was quickly joined by Stevens, and I saw that his mood had bettered little since the evening. He acknowledged my presence with a dry nod; but, as we were finishing the simple meal, he assured himself that we were alone in the saloon by a hasty glance around, then asked low, but sharply:

“I suppose you know what will be your best course?”

“I believe you gave me that countersign even as far back as the dock end at College Point when you left me: ‘A closed mouth spills no mush.’”

“Exactly!” And he quitted the room for the deck immediately, while I whirled at the opening of a door and rose as Miss Stella entered.

“Why, are you all finished?” she cried. “I certainly must be a sleepyhead!”

She was as fresh and clear as the summer morning sifting through the open ports.

“Well, scarcely a sleepyhead,” I replied. “Your father hasn’t shown up yet, so you’re not the last.”

“Oh, yes, I guess I am the last, for all that,” she returned, digging away in dainty defiance at an iced grapefruit.

“Because, you see,” she added, “there goes Saki now with daddy’s toast and coffee.” She nodded toward the Jap, who was just entering the owner’s stateroom. “You see”--and she laughed lightly--“yesterday was picturetaking day. Now it’s dark room, and Heaven knows when we’ll see him next--that is, if he’s like he used to be, dear old dad!”

“Used to be?” I couldn’t check the question in spite of me.

“Why, yes. Didn’t you know? I haven’t even been aboard this _Ruby Light_ in over three years. I suppose, even when daddy made the bet then, he didn’t explain that I’d been in a convent in France ‘most three years, and needed some excitement? No?”

“Made the bet?” I echoed, mystified beyond measure.

Then she laughed heartily.

“Oh, come, come now, Mr. Grey! Just because you lost the wager, you mustn’t play possum about it all. You know as well as I do that even before dad came to France to get me, he made this bet with Captain Pawlinson that, for all he’d made such a hit as a detective at Washington, he couldn’t catch us before we sailed for Savannah. Just for a lark, of course. And wasn’t it fun, though? Daddy always was a wonderful hand when it came to anything in the adventure line, and I come honestly enough by it.”

Thank the Lord, she was bubbling away, and taking little notice of how her words were affecting me; and I got all out of the interval I could in controlling my amazement. So this absurd yarn was what had been cooked up for her benefit! I wondered that, even convent bred as she was, she was unsophisticated enough to believe it.

But her next words came as almost reply:

“You see, Mr. Grey, my father is a man of--well, shall I say eccentricities? And he certainly does do some of the oddest things! It’s just possible,” she added naïvely, “that it’s because we Stroths have always had plenty of money. Don’t you think so?”

“Ye-es, yes. Of course, that must be it.” I was groping for an avenue of temporary escape, so seized upon the commonplace: “And now, Miss Stroth, how about a walk on deck?”

She laid down her napkin, and rose buoyantly. “Splendid! Oh, this is better than France, I tell you, Mr. Grey! I’ll be with you in just a minute, for unless I wear a hat on deck for the first day or two I burn like the dickens in the sun.”

There was something rather delicious in the way she said this that made us both laugh, and I was still chuckling when I mounted the steps to the deck.

Once more the sun shone clear, but I noted an unsettled haziness to westward that might bring a change before night.

Once more the smart schooner was undergoing its daily grooming. Old Steve was distributing polishing kits to four of the men, though he stopped long enough to take a tug at his forelock in salute. Evidently my reception aft had made a great impression upon him, as well it might.

But I returned the greeting as democratically as I could, and turned to a question that came sharply from behind me.

It was Stevens.

“Did Mr. Stroth come to breakfast?” said he, without preliminary.

“No,” I replied, as directly. “The Jap took it in to him.”

Not another word passed, but he looked his chagrin, which bordered upon anger. Then he paced back to his position on the quarter-deck.

The few minutes that were left me alone I gave to thinking over the revelations just made me by this girl.

I watched the waters swirling past the beam, though they let in no light upon the mystery. But I did glow with delight at the thought that, whatever shady guilt hung over that low-lying vessel, it was not shared by her.

My feeling toward her hadn’t changed a whit; I loved her even more intensely, but certainly it was a strange situation. There was a quietness about it all, an inevitableness that bore the irrevocable stamp of fate itself. Predetermined it was--my love for her--and, as such, to be greeted quietly, mildly. It was decided, and I was happy.

I know how absurd this sounds as I thus word it, but it’s as near as I can come to the actual fact.

She joined me within ten minutes, and began chatting happily about everything around us.

I noticed that the course had been shifted westward during the night, which brought us closer by the wind, and our leeward rail was gurgling to a smart angle of heel. It was fine sailing.

“Oh, look!” cried the girl. “The mist is lifting.” She pointed to starboard, a bit forward of our beam. “Captain Stevens,” and she trotted over to him, “what lighthouse is that?”

“You’ve a quick eye, Miss Stella,” replied Stevens. “It’s Montauk Point.”

She clapped her hands delightedly.

“And haven’t they wireless there?”

“To be sure they have. If the fog lifts a little more you’ll be able to see the apparatus.”

“Then let’s communicate with them! Won’t that be fun? You’re the operator yourself, aren’t you, captain?”

“Yes,” the little man answered slowly, “but I’m afraid we can’t do much talking with our own instrument, Miss Stella. You see, we broke it on the way to Portland.”

“Oh, well, then we can’t, of course,” she said, in disappointment.

It was a lie on Stevens’ part, but it was a lie that I rather rejoiced in, for it certainly would not do to have the shore wireless suspect who we were. I knew Pawlinson well enough by now not to want that.

And so, with the whimsicality of her temperament, she offered to compromise for her disappointment if she could have a “trick” at the wheel.

“Oh, that’ll be easy enough,” agreed Stevens, glad to shift the topic as he motioned the fellow at the helm to one side.

And the next two minutes proved that she knew that game well. I can see her now, braced to the roll--her little hands clutching the spokes sturdily--her eyes with the upward minding of the mainsail’s quivering luff, for we were sailing a taut full-and-by.

There was a girl for you!

I have never witnessed a more violent shift of weather in such latitude, or a more sudden.

Perhaps it was because the fog bank had kept it from us longer than we supposed, and only lifted just in time to give us our slight warning.

For that fog did suddenly clear, though it cleared but for another and greater blackness.

As lowering and menacing a thunderhead as ever whipped out of the northwest was all but upon us.

Now, all this rot in books about even the very seconds being precious makes me tired, for you usually have plenty of time to snug down for a blow.

But this time it really was a question of minutes before that squall would strike us.

And Stevens saw it as soon or sooner than I did, though he certainly went about his preparation in a way that was decidedly not of the usual practice.

I could see that he was distinctly excited, but I could swear it was not nervousness at the approaching blow, however it might be connected with it.

Without a single word, he nodded to the fellow to resume the helm, while he simply smiled the girl into relinquishing it. Then he stepped quietly forward, and up to old Steve, who had never taken his eyes from his chief since the second the storm had been sighted.

The command was given in an actual whisper, and the men virtually tiptoed at the nimble work of shortening sail.

The main tops’l had been clewed, the flying jib doused, and five fellows were about to man the main halyards to lower--all in a dead silence, broken only by the grumble of the thunder which would soon be upon us--when a sudden yell fairly froze us by its virulence.

And up through the companionway bounded Carl Stroth!

I’ll not soon forget the light in those eyes of his as he bellowed:

“Here, you lily-livered hounds! What? Douse sail for a puny summer shower? What d’ye think we are? Children? Come now, you lame duck!” and he swung Stevens around. “I’ll give an order or two myself--somethin’ worthy of the _Ruby Light_! Up with that mainsail again! Now the jib! Topsail! All of ’em, I say!”

As well try to cork Vesuvius.

The sails reset, he elbowed the fellow from the wheel, and took it himself just as the first fury descended upon us.

She was a noble vessel in a blow, as I could see, but she had lost some way, and had no time to recover. Expert at the wheel as he was, it was too much to expect of timber.

She quivered an instant to the first flaw, then followed the deadlier, heavier wind.

There was a minute of sharp list as cordage groaned. Then we shot back suddenly to an absolutely even keel, while a thumping started against the leeward planking.

Both masts had been carried away clean and true to the deck line!