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+Project Gutenberg's The Harbor Master, by Theodore Goodridge Roberts
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Harbor Master
+
+Author: Theodore Goodridge Roberts
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2006 [EBook #17658]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HARBOR MASTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Cori Samuel and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HARBOR MASTER
+
+
+BY
+
+THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS
+
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery," "A Captain of Raleigh's,"
+"A Cavalier of Virginia," "Captain Love," "Brothers of Peril"
+and "Hemming, the Adventurer."
+
+
+MADE IN U.S.A.
+
+
+M.A. DONOHUE & COMPANY
+CHICAGO  NEW YORK
+
+_Copyright, 1911_
+
+BY STREET & SMITH
+
+
+_Copyright, 1913_
+
+By L.C. Page & Company
+
+(INCORPORATED)
+
+
+_All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+First Impression, January, 1913
+Second Impression, February, 1913
+
+    The English edition of this book is entitled "The Toll of the
+    Tides," but the American publishers have preferred to retain
+    the author's original title, "The Harbor Master."
+
+CONTENTS                                        PAGE
+
+
+I.     BLACK DENNIS NOLAN                            1
+
+II.    NOLAN SHOWS HIS APTITUDE FOR COMMAND         19
+
+III.   FOXEY JACK QUINN SLIPS AWAY                  36
+
+IV.    DEAD MAN'S DIAMONDS                          54
+
+V.     FATHER MCQUEEN VISITS HIS FLOCK              64
+
+VI.    THE GIRL FROM THE CROSS-TREES                86
+
+VII.   THE GOLD OF THE "ROYAL WILLIAM"             101
+
+VIII.  THE SKIPPER STRUGGLES AGAINST SUPERSTITION  115
+
+IX.    SOME EARLY VISITS                           135
+
+X.     MARY KAVANAGH                               147
+
+XI.    THE SKIPPER CARRIES A LETTER                164
+
+XII.   DICK LYNCH GOES ON THE WAR-PATH             181
+
+XIII.  BILL BRENNEN PREACHES LOYALTY               194
+
+XIV.   DICK LYNCH MEETS MR. DARLING                210
+
+XV.    MR. DARLING SETS OUT ON A JOURNEY           225
+
+XVI.   MR. DARLING ARRIVES IN CHANCE ALONG         235
+
+XVII.  MARY KAVANAGH USES HER WITS                 250
+
+XVIII. MOTHER NOLAN DOES SOME SPYING               265
+
+XIX.   MARY AT WORK AGAIN                          279
+
+XX.    FATHER MCQUEEN'S RETURN                     292
+
+
+
+
+THE HARBOR MASTER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BLACK DENNIS NOLAN
+
+
+At the back of a deep cleft in the formidable cliffs, somewhere between
+Cape Race to the southward and St. John's to the northward, hides the
+little hamlet of Chance Along. As to its geographical position, this is
+sufficient. In the green sea in front of the cleft, and almost closing
+the mouth of it, lie a number of great boulders, as if the breech in the
+solid cliff had been made by some giant force that had broken and
+dragged forth the primeval rock, only to leave the refuse of its toil to
+lie forever in the edge of the tide, to fret the gnawing currents. At
+low tide a narrow strip of black shingle shows between the nearer of
+these titanic fragments and the face of the cliff. The force has been
+at work at other points of the coast as well. A mile or so to the north
+it has broken down and scattered seaward a great section of the cliff,
+scarring the water with a hundred jagged menaces to navigation, and
+leaving behind it a torn sea front and a wide, uneven beach. About three
+miles to the south of the little, hidden village it has wrought similar
+havoc, long forgotten ages ago.
+
+Along this coast, for many miles, treacherous currents race and shift
+continually, swinging in from the open sea, creeping along from the
+north, slanting in from the southeast and snarling up (but their
+snarling is hidden far below the surface) from the tide-vexed,
+storm-worn prow of old Cape Race. The pull and drift of many of these
+currents are felt far out from land, and they cannot be charted because
+of their shiftings, and their shiftings cannot be calculated with any
+degree of accuracy, because they seem to be without system or law. These
+are dangerous waters even now; and before the safeguard of a strong
+light on the cape, in the days when ships were helplessly dragged by the
+sea when there was no wind to drive them--in the days before a
+"lee-shore" had ceased to be an actual peril to become a picturesque
+phrase in nautical parlance--they constituted one of the most notorious
+disaster-zones of the North Atlantic.
+
+We are told, as were our fathers before us, that one man's poison may be
+another man's meat, and that it is an ill wind indeed that does not blow
+an advantage to somebody. The fundamental truths of these ancient saws
+were fully realized by the people of Chance Along. Ships went down in
+battered fragments to their clashing sea-graves, which was bad, Heaven
+knows, for the crews and the owners--but ashore, stalwart and gratified
+folk who had noted the storms and the tides ate well and drank deep and
+went warmly clad, who might otherwise have felt the gnawing of hunger
+and the nip of the wind.
+
+The people of Chance Along, with but a few exceptions, were Nolans,
+Lynches, Learys and Brennens. Their forebears had settled at the back of
+the cleft in the cliff a hundred years or more before the time of this
+history. They had been at the beginning, and still were, ignorant and
+primitive folk. Fishing in the treacherous sea beyond their sheltered
+retreat had been their occupation for several generations, brightened
+and diversified occasionally by a gathering of the fruits of storm. It
+was not until Black Dennis Nolan's time, however, that the community
+discovered that the offerings of the sea were sufficient--aye, more than
+sufficient--for their needs. This discovery might easily have been made
+by others than Black Dennis Nolan; but it required this man's daring
+ingenuity and powers of command to make it possible to profit by the
+discovery.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan was but little more than a lad when he commenced the
+formidable task of converting a poverty-stricken community of
+cod-fishers into a band of daring, cunning, unscrupulous _wreckers_. He
+possessed a dominating character, even in those days, and his father had
+left him a small fore-and-aft schooner, a store well-stocked with
+hand-lines, provisions and gear, and a record chalked up on the inside
+of the door which showed, by signs and formulae unintelligible to the
+stranger, every man in the harbor to be in his debt for flour, tea,
+molasses, tobacco and several other necessities of life. So Black Dennis
+Nolan was in a position, from the very first, to force the other men of
+the place to conform to his plans and obey his orders--more or less.
+
+For a time there were doubters and grumblers, old men who wagged their
+heads, and young men who sneered covertly or jeered openly; and later,
+as the rule of Dennis became absolute and somewhat tyrannical and the
+hand of Dennis heavy upon men of independent ways of thought, there were
+insurrections and mutinies. But Black Dennis Nolan was equal to every
+difficulty, even from the beginning. Doubters were convinced that he saw
+clearer than they, grumblers were satisfied, young men who jeered openly
+were beaten into submission with whatever weapon came most conveniently
+to hand. Dennis was big, agile, and absolutely fearless, and when he
+dealt a blow with an oar, a skiff's thwart, or a pole from a
+drying-stage, a second effort was seldom required against the same
+jeerer. Once or twice, of course, he had to hit many times and was
+compelled to accept some painful strokes in return. One or two of these
+encounters are worthy of treatment in detail, if only to show something
+of the natures of Black Dennis Nolan and his companions.
+
+Immediately after his father's untimely death (the poor man was carried
+out to sea on a small pan of ice, while engaged in killing seals off the
+mouth of the harbor, in the spring of the year), Black Dennis was
+addressed by the title of "Skipper." The title and position became his,
+without question, along with his unfortunate father's schooner, store,
+and list of bad debts. The new skipper's first move towards realizing
+his dreams of affluence and power was to build a small hut of stones,
+poles, and sods both at the place of the broken cliff a mile to the
+north of Chance Along, and at the place of similar physical character
+three miles to the southward. It was winter at the time--a fine season
+for wrecks, but an uncomfortable season for spending one's nights in an
+ill-made hut, and one's days on the brink of a cliff, without
+companionship, gazing seaward through a heavy telescope for some vessel
+in distress. But the skipper had made his plans and did not care a snap
+of his finger for discomforts for himself or his friends. He knew that
+out of every ten wrecks that took place on the coast within twenty miles
+of Chance Along, not more than one profited the people of his harbor.
+They never went afield in search of the gifts of the treacherous sea.
+They took what they could clutch of what was thrown at their very doors,
+even then letting much escape them, owing to lack of science and
+organization. The new skipper meant to alter this condition of
+things--and he knew that the waters in the immediate vicinity of Chance
+Along were neither the most dangerous on the coast, nor the most
+convenient for the salving of wreckage and fast-drowning cargoes. So he
+established stations at Squid Beach to the northward, and at Nolan's
+Cove to the southward, and ordered Nick Leary and Foxey Jack Quinn to
+take up their abode in the new huts; Nick at Squid Beach, and Foxey Jack
+at the Cove, had to keep a sharp look-out for ships during bad weather
+and at night. Should either of them remark any signs of a vessel in
+distress he was to return to Chance Along at top speed, and report the
+same. Nick Leary and Foxey Jack Quinn were older men than the skipper by
+a few years, and the fathers of families--of half-starved families. Nick
+was a mild lad; but Foxey Jack had a temper as hot as his hair.
+
+"What bes yer idee, skipper?" asked Nick.
+
+Dennis explained it briefly, having outlined his plans several times
+before.
+
+"An' how long does we have to stop away?" asked Nick.
+
+"Five days. Yer watch'll be five days, an' then I'll be sendin' out two
+more lads," replied the skipper.
+
+Foxey Jack Quinn stood, without a word, his vicious face twisted with a
+scowling sneer. Both men departed, one for the beach to the north and
+the other for the Cove to the south, each carrying a kettle and bag of
+provisions, a blanket and tarnished spy-glass. Black Dennis Nolan turned
+to other work connected with the great scheme of transferring the
+activities of Chance Along from the catching of fish to the catching of
+maimed and broken ships. He set some of the old men and women to
+splicing ropes, stronger and more active folk to drilling a hole in the
+face of the cliff, near to the top of it and just to the right of the
+entrance to the narrow harbor. Others, led by the skipper himself, set
+to work at drilling holes in several of the great rocks that lay in the
+green tide beyond the mouth of the harbor, their heavy crowns lifting
+only a yard or two above the surface of the twisting currents. All this
+was but the beginning of a task that would require weeks, perhaps
+months, of labor to complete. It was Black Dennis Nolan's intention to
+construct, by means of great iron rings, bolts and staples,
+chain-cables, hawsers and life-lines, a solid net by the help of which
+his people could extend their efforts at salving the valuables from a
+fast-breaking vessel to the outermost rock of that dangerous
+archipelago, even at the height of a storm--with luck. In the past, even
+in his own time, several ships bound from Northern Europe for Quebec had
+been driven and dragged from their course, shattered upon those rocks,
+sucked off into deep water, and lost forever, without having contributed
+so much as a bale of sail-cloth to the people of Chance Along. He was
+determined that cases of this kind should not happen in the future. The
+net was to be so arranged that the greater part of it could be removed,
+and the balance submerged, with but slight effort, and later all
+returned to its working condition as easily; for it would not be well to
+draw the attention of outsiders to the contrivance. Wrecking, in those
+days, meant more than the salvage of cargoes, perhaps. The skipper
+hoped, in time (should the experiment prove successful at the mouth of
+the harbor), to rig the dangerous and productive archipelago off Squid
+Beach and Nolan's Cove with similar contrivances. There was not another
+man in Chance Along capable of conceiving such ideas; but Dennis was
+ambitious (in his crude way), imaginative, daring, unscrupulous and
+full of resources and energy.
+
+All day the skipper and his men worked strenuously, and at break of dawn
+on the morrow they returned to their toils. By noon a gigantic iron
+hook, forged by the skipper himself, with a shank as thick as a strong
+man's arm and fully four feet long, had been set firmly in the face of
+the cliff. The skipper and five or six of his men stood at the edge of
+the barren, above the cliff and the harbor, wiping the sweat from their
+faces. Snow lay in patches over the bleak and sodden barren, a raw wind
+beat in from the east, and a gray and white sea snarled below.
+
+"Boys," said the young skipper, "I's able to see ahead to the day whin
+there'll be no want in Chance Along, but the want we pretends to fool
+the world wid. Aye, ye may take Dennis Nolan's word for it! We'll eat
+an' drink full, lads, an' sleep warm as any marchant i' St. John's."
+
+"What damn foolery has ye all bin at now?" inquired a sneering voice.
+
+All turned and beheld Foxey Jack Quinn standing near at hand, a leer on
+his wide mouth and in his pale eyes, and his nunney-bag on his
+shoulder. His skinnywoppers (high-legged moccasins of sealskin,
+hair-side inward) were glistening with moisture of melted snow, and his
+face was red from the rasp of raw wind. He looked as if he had slept in
+his clothes--which was, undoubtedly, the case. He glared straight at the
+skipper with a dancing flame of devilment in his eyes.
+
+"What ye bin all a-doin' now for to make extry work for yerselves?" he
+asked.
+
+There followed a brief silence, and then Black Dennis Nolan spoke
+quietly.
+
+"Why bain't ye over to Squid Beach, standin' yer trick at look-out?" he
+inquired.
+
+Foxey Jack's answer was a harsh, jeering laugh, and words to the effect
+that life was too short to spend five days of it lonely and starving
+with cold, in a hut not fit for a pig.
+
+"Ye kin do what ye likes, yerself--ye an' them as be fools like yerself;
+but Jack Quinn bain't a-goin' to lend a hand a yer foolishness, Denny
+Nolan," he concluded.
+
+"Turn round an' git back to yer post wid ye," said the skipper.
+
+"Who be ye, an' what be ye, to give that word to me?"
+
+"Ye knows who I be. Turn round an' git!"
+
+"To hell wid ye! I turns round for no man!"
+
+"Then ye'd best drop yer nunney-bag, ye foxey-headed fool, for I bes
+a-comin' at ye to larn ye who bes skipper here."
+
+Quinn let his nunney-bag fall to the snow behind him--and in the same
+instant of time the skipper's right fist landed on his nose, knocking
+him backward over the bag, clear off his feet, and staining his red
+whiskers to a deeper and brighter red. But the big fellow came up to his
+feet again as nimbly as a cat. For a moment the two clinched and swayed
+in each other's straining arms, like drunken men. The awed spectators
+formed a line between the two and the edge of the cliff. Foxey Jack
+broke the hold, leaped back and struck a furious, but ill-judged blow
+which glanced off the other's jaw. Next instant he was down on the snow
+again, with one eye shut, but up again as quickly.
+
+Again they clinched and swayed, breast to breast, knee to knee. Both
+were large men; but Foxey Jack was heavier, having come to his full
+weight. This time it was the skipper who tried to break the hold,
+realizing that his advantage lay in his fists, and Quinn's in the
+greater weight of body and greater strength of back and leg. So the
+skipper twisted and pulled; but Quinn held tight, and slowly but surely
+forced the younger man towards the edge of the cliff. Suddenly the
+skipper drew his head back and brought it forward and downward again,
+with all the force of his neck and shoulders, fair upon the bridge of
+his antagonist's nose. Quinn staggered and for a second his muscles
+relaxed; and in that second the skipper wrenched away from his grasp and
+knocked him senseless to the ground.
+
+"Lay there, ye scum!" cried Black Dennis Nolan, breathing heavily, and
+wiping blood from his chin with the back of his hand. "Lay there an' be
+damned to ye, if ye t'ink ye kin say 'nay' when Dennis Nolan says 'aye.'
+If it didn't be for the childern ye bes father of, an' yer poor, dacent
+woman, I'd t'row ye over the cliff."
+
+Foxey Jack Quinn was in no condition to reply to the skipper's address.
+In fact, he did not hear a word of it. Two of the men picked him up and
+carried him down a steep and twisting path to his cabin at the back of
+the harbor, above the green water and the gray drying-stages, and
+beneath the edge of the vast and empty barren. He opened one eye as
+they laid him on the bed in the one room of the cabin. He glared up at
+the two men and then around at his horrified wife and children.
+
+"Folks," said he, "I'll be sure the death o' Black Dennis Nolan. Aye, so
+help me Saint Peter. I'll send 'im to hell, all suddent un' unready, for
+the black deed he done this day!"
+
+That was the first time the skipper showed the weight of his fist. His
+followers were impressed by the exhibition. The work went steadily on
+among the rocks in front of Chance Along for ten days, and then came
+twenty-four hours of furious wind and driving snow out of the northwest.
+This was followed by a brief lull, a biting nip of frost that registered
+thirty degrees below zero, and then fog and wind out of the east. After
+the snowy gale, during the day of still, bitter cold, relief parties
+went to Squid Beach and Nolan's Cove and brought in the half-frozen
+watchers. For a day the look-out stations were deserted, the people
+finding it all they could do to keep from freezing in their sheltered
+cabins in Chance Along; but with the coming of the east wind and the
+fog, the huts of sods were again occupied.
+
+The fog rolled in about an hour before noon; and shortly after midnight
+the man from Nolan's Cove groped his way along the edge of the cliff,
+down the twisty path to the cluster of cabins, and to Black Dennis
+Nolan's door. He pounded and kicked the door until the whole building
+trembled.
+
+"What bes ye a-wantin' now?" bawled the skipper, from within.
+
+"I seed a blue flare an' heared a gun a-firing to the sou'east o' the
+cove," bawled the visitor, in reply.
+
+The skipper opened the door.
+
+"Come in, lad! Come in!" he cried.
+
+He lit a candle and set to work swiftly pulling on his outer clothes and
+sea-boots.
+
+"There bes rum an' a mug, Pat. Help yerself an' then rouse the men," he
+said. "Tell Nick Terry an' Bill Brennen to get the gear together. Step
+lively! Rouse 'em out!"
+
+Pat Lynch slopped rum into a tin mug, gulped it greedily, and stumbled
+from the candle-light out again to the choking fog. He would have liked
+to remain inside long enough to swallow another drain and fill and light
+his pipe; but with Black Dennis Nolan roaring at him like a walrus, he
+had not ventured to delay. He groped his way from cabin to cabin,
+kicking on doors and bellowing the skipper's orders.
+
+An hour and a half later, twenty men of Chance Along were clustered at
+the edge of the broken cliff overlooking the beach of Nolan's Cove and
+the rock-scarred sea beyond. But they could see nothing of beach or
+tide. The fog clung around them like black and sodden curtains. Here and
+there a lantern made an orange blur against the black. Some of the men
+held coils of rope with light grappling-irons spliced to the free ends.
+Others had home-made boat-hooks, the poles of which were fully ten feet
+long.
+
+They heard the dull boom of a gun to seaward.
+
+"She bes closer in!" exclaimed Pat Lynch. "Aye, closer in nor when I
+first heared her. She bain't so far to the south'ard, neither."
+
+"Sure, then, the tide bes a-pullin' on her an' will drag her in, lads,"
+remarked an old man, with a white beard that reached half-way down his
+breast.
+
+"What d'ye make o' her, Barney Keen?" asked the skipper of the old man.
+
+"Well, skipper, I'll tell 'e what I makes o' her. 'Twas afore yer day,
+lad--aye, as much as t'irty year ago--arter just sich weather as this,
+an' this time o' year, a grand big ship altogether went all abroad on
+these here rocks. Aye, skipper, a grand ship. Nought come ashore but a
+junk o' her hull an' a cask o' brandy, an' one o' her boats wid the name
+on all complete. The _Manchester City_ she was, from Liverpool. We
+figgered as how she was heading for the gulf--for Quebec, like as not.
+So I makes it, skipper, as how this here vessel may be bound for Quebec,
+too."
+
+Black Dennis Nolan took a lantern from another man, and led the way down
+the broken slope to the beach. The gear was passed down and piled at the
+edge of the tide. Dry wood--the fragments of ships long since broken on
+the outer rocks--was gathered from where it had been stranded high by
+many spring tides, and heaped on a wide, flat rock half-way up the
+slope. Another heap of splintered planks and wave-worn timbers was
+constructed on the level of the beach, close to the water--all this by
+the skipper's orders. The sea hammered and sobbed among the rocks, and
+splintered the new ice along the land-wash.
+
+"If she comes ashore we'll be needin' more nor candle-light to work
+wid," remarked the skipper.
+
+Again the dull boom of a gun drifted in through the fog.
+
+"Aye, lads, she bes a-drawin' in to us," said old Barney Keen, with a
+note of intense satisfaction in his rusty voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+NOLAN SHOWS HIS APTITUDE FOR COMMAND
+
+
+The big ship was hopelessly astray in the fog and in the grip of a
+black, unseen current that dragged at her keel and bulging beam, pulling
+her inexorably landward towards the hidden rocks. Her commander felt
+danger lurking in the fog, but was at a loss to know on which side to
+look for it, at what point to guard against it. He was a brave man and a
+master of seamanship in all the minute knacks and tricks of seamanship
+of that day; but this was only his third voyage between London and the
+St. Lawrence, and the previous trips had been made in clear weather. The
+gale had blown him many miles out of his course, and lost him his
+main-top-ga'ntsail yards and half of his mizzen-mast; the cold snap had
+weighted ship and rigging with ice, and now the fog and the uncharted
+deep-sea river had confused his reckoning utterly. But even so, he
+might have been able to work his vessel out of the danger-zone had any
+signal been made from the coast in reply to his guns and flares. Even if
+after the arrival of the men from Chance Along on the beach at Nolan's
+Cove, the heaps of driftwood had been fired, he might have had time to
+pull his ship around to the north, drag out of the current that was
+speeding towards the hidden rocks, and so win away to safety. There was
+wind enough for handling the ship, he knew all the tricks of cheating a
+lee-shore of its anticipated spoils, and the seas were not running
+dangerously high. But his guns and flares went unanswered. All around
+hung the black, blind curtains of the fog, cruelly silent, cruelly
+unbroken by any blink of flame.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan and his men stood by the frozen land-wash, along
+which the currents snarled, and rolling seas, freighted with splinters
+of black sea-ice, clattered and sloshed, waiting patiently for their
+harvest from the vast and treacherous fields beyond. A grim harvest!
+Grim fields to garner from, wherein he who sows peradventure shall not
+reap, and wherein Death is the farmer! Aye, and grim gleaners those who
+stand under the broken cliff of Nolan's Cove, waiting and listening in
+the dark!
+
+A dull, crashing, grinding sound set the black fog vibrating. Then a
+brief clamor of panic-stricken voices rang in to the shore. Silence
+followed that--a silence that was suddenly broken by the thumping report
+of a cannon. The light flared dimly in the fog.
+
+"Quiet, lads!" commanded the skipper. "Let the wood be till I gives ye
+the word. She bes fast on the rocks, but she bain't busted yet."
+
+"An' she'll not bust inside a week, i' this sea," said one of the men.
+"Sure, skipper, the crew'll be comin' ashore i' their boats afore long.
+An' they have their muskets an' cutlasses wid them, ye kin lay to that.
+None but fools would come ashore on this coast, from a wreck, widout
+their weepons."
+
+"Aye, an' they'll be carryin' their gold an' sich, too," said the
+skipper. "Lads, we'll do our best--an' that bain't fightin' an' killin',
+i' this case, but the usin' o' our wits. Bill Brennen, tell off ten men
+an' take 'em along the path to the south'ard wid ye. Lay down i' the
+spruce-tuck alongside the path, about t'ree miles along, an' wait till
+these folks from the ship comes up to ye, wid four or five o' our own
+lads a-leadin' the way wid lanterns. They'll be totin' a power o'
+val'able gear along wid them, ye kin lay to that! Lep out onto 'em,
+widout a word, snatch the gear an' run fair south along the track,
+yellin' like hell. Then stow the noise all of a suddent, get clear o'
+the track an' work back to this Chance Along wid the gear. Don't bat any
+o' the ship's crew over the head if ye bain't forced to it. The gear bes
+the t'ing we wants, lads."
+
+"Aye, skipper, aye--but will the sailormen be a-totin' their gear that
+a-way?" returned Bill.
+
+"Sure, b'y, for I'll tell 'em as we bes from Nap Harbor, an' I'll send
+four lads to show 'em the way. After ye take their gear--as much as ye
+kin get quick and easy--they'll follow ye along the path to try to catch
+ye," replied Black Dennis Nolan.
+
+Bill Brennen went up the twisty path to the barren, and along the edge
+of the cliff to the southward, followed by ten sturdy fellows armed with
+long clubs of birch-wood. Of the nine men remaining with the skipper,
+six were sent, along with the gear, to hide behind the boulders and
+clumps of bush on the steep slope. The skipper cautioned them to lie
+low and keep quiet.
+
+"Ahoy, there!" bellowed the skipper.
+
+"Ahoy! Can't you show a light?" came the reply, from the fog.
+
+"Aye, aye, sir. Bes ye on the rocks?"
+
+"Lord, yes! Show a light, man, for Heaven's sake, so we can get the boat
+away. Her back's broken and her bows stove in. She's breaking up quick."
+
+The skipper and his three companions speedily made a small heap from the
+big pile of driftwood on the shingle, and lit it from the candle of a
+lantern. They poured a tin of seal-oil over the dry wreckage, and the
+red and yellow flames shot up. It was evident to the men on the
+land-wash that the unfortunate ship had escaped the outer menaces and
+won within a hundred yards of the shore before striking. She was burning
+oil now, in vast quantities, to judge by the red glare that cut and
+stained the fog to seaward.
+
+"What sort of channel?" came the question.
+
+"Full o' rocks, sir; but it bes safe enough wid caution," cried the
+skipper.
+
+"Can't you show more light?"
+
+"Aye, sir, there bes more wood."
+
+A second fire was built still closer to the edge of the tide than the
+first.
+
+"Stand by to receive a line," warned the masterful voice from the ship.
+
+A rocket banged and a light line fell writhing across the beach.
+
+"Haul her in and make fast the hawser."
+
+Black Dennis Nolan and his three companions were most obliging. They
+pulled in the line until the wet hawser on the end of it appeared, and
+this they made fast to a rock on the beach as big as a house.
+
+A small light appeared between the ship and the shore, blinking and
+vanishing low down on the pitching sea. The glare from the fires on the
+land-wash presently discovered this to be an oil-lantern in the bows of
+a boat. The boat, which contained about a dozen men, was being
+hand-hauled along the line that ran from the wreck to the shore. Black
+Dennis Nolan and his companions exchanged glances at sight of drawn
+cutlasses and several rifles and pistols in the hands of the men from
+the wreck. As the leading boat came within ten yards of the shore an
+officer stood up in her bows. By this time the light of a second boat
+was blinking and vanishing in her wake.
+
+"Bear a hand to ease us off," commanded the person in the bows of the
+boat.
+
+"Aye, sir, we bes ready to help ye," replied the skipper, humbly.
+
+"How is the landing?"
+
+"It bes clear, sir--shelvin' rock."
+
+"How many are you, there?"
+
+"We bes four poor fishermen, sir."
+
+The boat rowed in and was kept from staving in her keel on the land-wash
+by Nolan and his men. The officer sprang from the bows to the icy
+shingle, slipped and recovered himself with an oath. He was a huge
+fellow. In one hand he carried an iron dispatch box, and in the other a
+heavy pistol.
+
+"This the lot of you?" he asked, glancing sharply at Black Dennis Nolan.
+
+"Aye, sir, we bes only four poor fishermen," replied Nolan.
+
+"I am glad to hear it. This coast has the name of being a bad place for
+shipwrecked people to come ashore on."
+
+"You bes talkin' of the coast 'round to the south o' Cape Race, sir. We
+bes all poor, honest folk hereabouts, sir."
+
+"Oh, aye," returned the other, drily.
+
+By this time all the men were ashore and the boat was high up on the
+shingle, out of reach of the surf. The men stood close around it. They
+were well-armed, and kept a sharp look-out on all sides.
+
+"What do you call this place?" asked the officer.
+
+"Why, sir, Frenchman's Cove bes its name," replied the skipper.
+
+Frenchman's Cove lies three miles to the south of Nolan's Cove; but the
+skipper was cautious.
+
+"Do you live here?"
+
+"No, sir. There bain't no houses here. We bes four poor men from 'way to
+the nor'ard, sir, a-huntin' deer on the barrens. We was makin' camp 'way
+back inland, sir, when we heared yer guns a-firin'."
+
+"How far away is the nearest village?"
+
+"Why, sir, this country bes strange to me, but I's t'inkin' Nap Harbor
+wouldn't be more'n ten mile to the south, fair along the coast. Bes I
+right, Pete?"
+
+"Aye, skipper, I be t'inkin' the same. Nap Harbor lays to the south,
+maybe ten mile along, maybe less," replied Peter Nolan, a cousin of the
+skipper's.
+
+A second boat reached the shore and discharged its freight of humans and
+small packages and bundles. This boat contained four sailors and ten
+passengers. There were three women among the passengers. All were
+clutching bundles of clothing or small bags containing their personal
+possessions of value. One of the women was weeping hysterically.
+
+"Could we get a passage 'round to St. John's from Nap Harbor?" asked the
+officer.
+
+"Aye, sir, I bes sayin' ye could. Sure there bes a fore-and-after i' Nap
+Harbor," said Nolan.
+
+"Will you guide us to Nap Harbor?"
+
+"Aye, sir, that we will, an' glad to be o' sarvice to ye."
+
+"We will pay you well, my good man," said one of the passengers, a tall
+gentleman with a very white and frightened face, draped in a very wet
+cloak. "In the meantime," he continued, "let us dry ourselves at these
+fires and have something hot to drink. Where are those stewards, the
+lazy dogs!"
+
+Two more boats came from the ship to the shore without accident. In the
+last to arrive were the captain and the doctor. The company gathered
+round the fires, keeping their boxes and bags close to them. The
+stewards and sailors brewed hot punches for all. The lady with the
+hysterics was soothed to quiet by the doctor and a tiny mug of brandy
+and boiling water. The officers held a consultation and decided to get
+the passengers safely to Nap Harbor, and aboard a schooner for St.
+John's and then to return to Frenchman's Cove themselves and salve what
+they could of the cargo of the ship, which was evidently of unusual
+value. (Black Dennis Nolan had expected this.) They would get help in
+Nap Harbor for the work of salvage, and would leave the four boats on
+the beach, under a guard of five seamen and the third officer. They had
+brought food from the ship, and so they ate a substantial meal while
+they warmed themselves and discussed their plans. But Captain McTavish
+neither ate nor drank, so bitterly did he feel the loss of his ship. He
+feared that even the moderate sea now running would break her up within
+forty-eight hours.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan vanished in the darkness many times in the
+furtherance of his task of gathering wood for the fires. At last, after
+he had covertly inspected all the bags, bundles and dispatch boxes, he
+disappeared in the surrounding gloom and did not reappear at all. Dick
+Lynch, a man of about his own size, shape and coloring,--one of the six
+who had taken cover on the hillside--the firelight in his stead,
+carrying a fragment of broken spar. The change was not noticed by the
+men from the wreck.
+
+Dry, warmly clothed, and inwardly fortified with food and drink, the
+ship's company set off for Nap Harbor, carrying as much as they could of
+their portable possessions, and led by four of the honest fishermen of
+Chance Along. They left behind them the third mate, a sturdy youth armed
+with two pistols and a fowling-piece, and five sailors armed with
+cutlasses and pistols--and enough dry and liquid provisions to last the
+guard for several days. They climbed the steep and twisty path that
+connected the beach with the edge of the barren, and soon their lanterns
+were lost in the fog. The third mate and his men brewed another generous
+supply of rum punch, heaped more wood on the fire and lit their pipes.
+By the time each had emptied his tin mug for the third time all felt
+inexpressibly sleepy. Mr. Darling, the commander of the guard, counted
+his men with a waving forefinger, and an expression of owlish gravity on
+his round face. Then, "Daniel Berry, you'll stand the first trick," said
+he. "Keep a sharp look-out and report anything unusual. Silas Nixon will
+relieve you at eight bells of the middle watch."
+
+So Daniel Berry got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled away from the
+fire; but five minutes after his companions began to snore he returned
+to his blankets by the fire and fell fast asleep. He would never have
+been guilty of such a crime at sea; but ashore it was quite a different
+matter. What was the use of a look-out ashore? The island of
+Newfoundland was not likely to strike a reef or an iceberg. So he sank
+deep into the slumber of the just and the intoxicated.
+
+A dawn wind, blowing gently out of the west, began to thin and lift the
+dripping fog. Out from the dark that hedged in the fire crawled six
+vague shapes which, as they came into the illuminated zone, proved to be
+Black Dennis Nolan and five of his men of Chance Along with ropes in
+their hands. They stooped over the blanket-swathed sleepers, working
+quickly and cunningly with the ropes. They also bandaged the eyes and
+mouths of the unconscious mariners with strips of blanket. By this time
+the light on the stranded ship was burning low. The skipper and his
+companions examined the four boats, dragged one of them down to the edge
+of the tide and launched it. The fog was thinning swiftly, and a gray
+pallor was spreading in the east and south. They manned the boat and
+pulled out for the wreck, following the dripping hawser.
+
+The wreck lay across a sunken rock, listed heavily to port. Her spars
+were all over the side, a tangled mass washing and beating about in the
+seas. A snag of rock had been driven clean through the timbers of the
+port-bow. Black Dennis Nolan and his companions managed to get aboard at
+last. A fire of rags and oil still burned in an iron tub on the main
+deck. They went forward to the galley for a lamp, and with this entered
+the cabins aft. Dennis Nolan led the way. The captain's room was empty.
+They found and examined the quarters of the passengers. Clothing and
+bedding were tossed about in disorder, and it seemed that everything of
+value had been collected and carried away. They gathered up a couple of
+silk gowns and a fur-lined cloak, however. The skipper was shaking out
+the sheets from a berth when he felt something strike the toe of his
+boot. He stooped quickly, recovered a small box bound in red leather,
+and slipped it in his pocket. The others had observed nothing of this.
+In another cabin, they found the passengers' heavy baggage packed in
+about a dozen big leather boxes. They carried these to the main deck
+without waiting to open them. By this time the dawn was an actual,
+dreary-gray fact, and the fog was no more than a thin mist.
+
+"Now for the cargo, lads," said the skipper.
+
+They removed the tarpaulins from the main hatch, and broke it open. With
+the lamp in his left hand, the skipper descended into the hold by way of
+the stationary iron ladder.
+
+"Pianeys," he shouted.
+
+"Hell!" exclaimed the men on deck, in voices of disgust.
+
+The skipper returned to the deck, after about ten minutes in the hold.
+
+"The cargo bain't o' no use to us, lads," he said. "Pianeys, engines,
+an' fancy-goods."
+
+They broke open the lazarette and found several cases of wines and
+brandy, and a quantity of provisions of superior quality. They lowered
+the passengers' baggage into the boat and pulled ashore through the
+spouting, slobbering rocks and reefs. In a second trip they salvaged the
+spirits and provisions. They carried boxes, cases and crates up to the
+barren, and hid them in a thicket of dense spruce-tuck, and concealed
+their gear of lines and boat-hooks in the same place.
+
+"She'll last a good few days yet, if it don't blow up a gale," said the
+skipper, waving his hand towards the wreck, "and maybe we'll come back
+an' get some pickin's. But we bain't wantin' to raise any suspicions."
+
+He loosened the bindings at Mr. Darling's wrists, so that they could be
+worked off in time, and then set out briskly for Chance Along with his
+three companions at his heels.
+
+Of the future of the ship's company little need be said. On their way to
+Nap Harbor they were set upon and robbed by a large force of big men.
+Their valuables vanished into the fog and darkness, as if they had never
+been--and their guides vanished also. They went on, following the edge
+of the cliff, and reached Nap Harbor about two hours after dawn. From
+Nap Harbor they sailed northward to St. John's, and there reported the
+robbery to the police. The police calmed them with promises, and in time
+sent officers to Nap Harbor armed with search-warrants. Needless to say,
+the jewels and money were not found. Captain McTavish did not return to
+Nolan's Cove to salve the cargo of his ship, for the agent in St. John's
+explained to him that the task would be a profitless one. A few days
+later he was joined by Mr. Darling and the five men of the guard, and
+eventually they all sailed away. But the tall gentleman with the white
+face and the long cloak left a sting behind him. He was Sir Arthur
+Harwood, Baronet, and the lady who had wept hysterically, and been
+quieted by the ship's surgeon, was Lady Harwood. By the wreck these two
+had lost much of value in clothing, jewelry and money; but their
+greatest loss was that of a necklace of twelve flawless diamonds and
+fourteen rubies. Sir Arthur offered a reward of five hundred pounds for
+the recovery of this necklace. In this reward lay the sting.
+
+In the little retiring harbor of Chance Along, Black Dennis Nolan was a
+great man. His plans had worked without a hitch--and still the carcass
+of the ship lay in Nolan's Cove, only waiting to be picked. A rich
+harvest had been gathered without the loss of a life, and without
+attracting a shadow of suspicion upon Chance Along. The skipper called
+together the twenty men who had shared with him the exertions and risks
+of that night. This was in his store, with the windows obscured by
+blankets, the door bolted and the lamp lit.
+
+"Lads," said he, "here bes twelve hundred golden sovereigns. I makes 'em
+into twenty-four shares o' fifty each. Now, lads, step up an' each take
+a share."
+
+The men obeyed, their eyes glowing and their hands trembling.
+
+"Now there bes four shares still on the table," said the skipper.
+
+"Aye, skipper, aye," stammered Bill Brennen, huskily. The others
+breathed heavily, shuffled their feet, gripped the money in their
+pockets and glared at the yellow pieces still glowing in the lamplight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+FOXEY JACK QUINN SLIPS AWAY
+
+
+"Four shares still on the table," repeated the skipper. "Well, lads, one
+bes for Black Dennis Nolan."
+
+He glared around at the circle of eager, watchful, shaggy faces set
+against the wall of gloom that hemmed in the table and the ill-trimmed
+lamp.
+
+"Aye, skipper, that bes right," muttered Nick Leary.
+
+"And another bes for the skipper who feeds ye all from his store."
+
+Again he glared around, letting his dark, dauntless eyes dwell for a
+second on each face. "And t'other two bes for the lad who larned you
+how."
+
+With that, he swept the four piles of coins into a pocket of his coat.
+One of the men grunted. The skipper turned his black but glowing regard
+upon him. Another cursed harshly and withdrew a step from the table. The
+skipper jumped to his feet.
+
+"Who says nay?" he roared. "Who gives the lie to my word? I bes skipper
+here--aye, an' more nor skipper! Would ye have one gold guinea amongst
+the whole crew o' ye, but for me? Would ye have a bite o' food in yer
+bellies, but for me? An' now yer bellies bes full an' yer pockets bes
+full, an' ye stand there an' say nay to my aye!"
+
+He pulled two pistols from beneath his coat, cocked them deliberately
+and stared insolently and inquiringly around.
+
+"What d'ye say to it, Bill Brennen?" he asked.
+
+Bill Brennen shuffled his big feet uneasily, and eyed the pistols
+askance.
+
+"Thank ye kindly, skipper. Ye speaks the truth," said he.
+
+"An' ye, Nick Leary?"
+
+"Ye bes skipper here, sure--aye, and more nor skipper. But for ye we'd
+all be starved to death wid hunger an' cold," said Nick.
+
+"An' what says the rest o' ye? Who denies me the right to four shares o'
+the money?"
+
+"Me, Dennis Nolan!" said Dick Lynch. "I denies ye the right."
+
+"Step up an' say it to my face," cried the skipper.
+
+"Aye, step up an' give it to him straight," said one of the men. "Step
+up, Dick, I bes wid ye."
+
+"Who said that?" roared the skipper.
+
+"Sure, 'twas me said it," growled one, Dan Keen.
+
+"Be there four o' ye denies me the right to the money in me pocket?"
+asked the skipper.
+
+"Aye, there bes four o' us."
+
+"Then step out, the four o' ye."
+
+Dick Lynch, Dan Keen and two others shuffled to the front of the group.
+Black Dennis Nolan looked them over with fury in his eyes and a sneer on
+his lips. He called up Bill Brennen and Nick Leary, and gave a pistol to
+each of them, and exchanged a few guarded words with them.
+
+"Dick Lynch, Dan Keen, Corny Quinn an' Pat Lynch, stand where ye be," he
+said. "Ease back along the wall, the rest o' ye. I'll larn ye who bes
+skipper an' master o' this harbor! I'll larn ye if I bes as good as the
+four o' ye or not."
+
+He slipped off his coat, with the weight of coined gold in the pockets
+of it, stepped swiftly around the end of the table and sprang furiously
+upon the four men who had denied his right to four shares of the loot.
+
+"I'll larn ye!" he roared.
+
+Three of them, all husky fellows, stood their ground; but the fourth
+turned and dashed clear of the field of instruction. He was a small man,
+was Corny Quinn, and lacked the courage of his convictions.
+
+The skipper struck the group of three with both feet off the ground.
+They staggered, clutched at him, aimed blows and curses at him. A
+terrible kick delivered by Dan Keen missed its intended object and
+brought Pat Lynch writhing to the floor, and before Dan fully realized
+his mistake something as hard as the side of a house struck him on the
+jaw and laid him across the victim of his error. Dick Lynch was more
+fortunate than his fellow-mutineers--for half a minute. He closed with
+the furious skipper and clung tightly to him, thus avoiding punishment
+for the moment. The two were well matched in height and weight; but the
+skipper was the stronger in both body and heart. Also, he seemed now to
+be possessed of the nerve-strength of a madman. He lifted his clinging
+antagonist clear of the floor, shook him and wrenched at him, and at
+last broke his hold and flung him against the wall. Dick landed on his
+feet, steadied himself for a moment and then dashed back to the
+encounter; but he was met by the skipper's fist--and that was the end
+of the fight.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan returned to the table and sat down behind the smoky
+lamp. There was a red spot on his forehead from a chance blow, and the
+knuckles of both big hands were raw. He breathed heavily for a full
+minute, and glared around him in silence.
+
+"Pick 'em up," he said, at last. "The lesson I larned 'em seems to lay
+cold on their bellies. Give 'em rum, Burky Nolan--ye'll find a case of
+bottles behind the stove. Drink up, all o' ye. T'row some water in their
+faces, too."
+
+His orders were promptly obeyed. He took the pistols from Bill Brennen
+and Nick Leary, and laid them on the table, and then picked up his coat
+and put it on.
+
+"Now, men, maybe ye know who bes master of this harbor," he said. "If
+any one o' ye, or any four o' ye, bain't sure, say the word an' I'll
+pull off me coat again an' show ye. Well now, we'll git back to
+business. The jewels bes still hid in the swamp. They bain't no manner
+o' use to us till we sells 'em. I'll do that, men, bit by bit, in St.
+John's. The grub an' liquor we took bes all in the pit under this
+floor. Ye kin come every day an' tote away what ye wants of it. The
+wines and brandy bes for them who has sick folks an' old folks to feed.
+Lift the trap, Bill, an' let them help theirselves."
+
+Bill Brennen stooped and hoisted a trap-door in the middle of the floor.
+The skipper left the table, lamp in hand.
+
+"Help yourselves, men," he invited. "Take whatever ye fancies."
+
+They came up meekly. Even the three who had so lately been disabled
+obeyed the invitation, leaning upon their companions. The water and rum
+had revived them physically, but their spirits were thoroughly cowed.
+The skipper held the lamp over the square hole in the floor.
+
+"Two at a time, men," he cautioned. "Bill, light a candle an' pass it
+down to 'em."
+
+Half an hour later the store was empty, save for the skipper and the
+inanimate gear. The blankets had been removed from the windows, and the
+lamp extinguished. The skipper sat beside the deal table from which he
+had distributed the gold, staring thoughtfully at his raw knuckles. The
+pistols still lay on the table. He pushed them to one side, scooped the
+gold from his pockets, spread it out and counted it slowly and
+awkwardly. Then he produced a canvas bag, stowed the gold away in it and
+tied the mouth of it securely.
+
+"A rough crew," he muttered. "They needs rough handlin', most o' the
+time, an' then a mite o' humorin' like ye t'row fish to a team o' dogs
+after ye lash the hair off 'em. Aye, a rough crew, an' no mistake--but
+Black Dennis Nolan bes their master!"
+
+He left his chair, stepped across the floor, and lifted the trap that
+led to the cellar. He descended, returning in a minute with a bottle of
+wine and two tins of potted meat.
+
+"I'm t'inkin' it bes about time to t'row some fish to that dog Jack
+Quinn," he murmured.
+
+He went out, leaving the bag of gold on the table, and locked the door
+behind him. Though he left the gold he did not leave the pistols. Under
+his arm he carried the wine and the tinned meat. He went straight to
+Foxey Jack Quinn's cabin, and entered without knocking on the door.
+Quinn was sitting by the little stove with his head untidily bandaged.
+One pale, undamaged eye glared fiercely from the bandages. The woman was
+seated close to the only window, sewing, and the children were playing
+on the floor. All movement was arrested on the instant of the skipper's
+entrance. The children crouched motionless and the woman's needle stuck
+idle in the cloth. Quinn sat like an image of wood, showing life only in
+that one glaring, pale eye.
+
+"How bes ye feelin' now, Jack?" asked the visitor.
+
+The hulking fellow by the stove did not speak, but the hand that held
+his pipe twitched ever so slightly.
+
+"Orders be orders," continued the skipper. "The lads who obeys me fills
+their pockets wid gold--an' them who don't get hurt. But I bain't a hard
+man, Jack Quinn. Ye did yer best to heave me over the edge o' the
+cliff--an' most would have killed ye for that. Here bes wine an' meat
+for ye an' the wife an' children."
+
+He laid the bottle and tins on a stool near the woman. Quinn's glance
+did not waver, and not a word passed his swollen lips; but his wife
+snatched up one of the tins of meat.
+
+"The saints be praised!" she cried. "We bes nigh starvin' to deat' wid
+hunger!"
+
+"'Twas me give it to ye, not the saints," said Black Dennis Nolan, "an'
+there bes more for ye where it come from."
+
+He turned and went out of the cabin.
+
+"I'll fix him yet," mumbled Foxey Jack Quinn.
+
+The woman gave no heed to the remark, for she had already opened one of
+the tins of choice meat and was feeding the children from her fingers.
+
+The skipper returned to the store, took up his bag of gold and went
+home. He lived with his grandmother, old Kate Nolan (commonly known in
+the harbor as Mother Nolan) and with his young brother Cormick. The
+cottage was the largest in the harbor--a grand house altogether. It
+contained three rooms, a loft, and a lean-to extension occupied by a pig
+and a dozen fowls. The skipper found the old woman squatted in a low
+chair beside the stove in the main room. This room served as kitchen,
+dining-room, general reception, and the skipper's bed-room. A ladder led
+up to the loft from one corner. Of the remaining rooms on the ground
+floor one was where the grandmother slept, and the other one was kept
+spotless, musty and airless for the occasional occupation of good
+Father McQueen, the missionary priest, who visited Chance Along three
+times a year. Cormick slept in the loft.
+
+Mother Nolan glanced up from the red draft of the stove at her
+grandson's entrance. She held a short clay pipe in one wrinkled hand.
+She regarded the youth inscrutably with black, undimmed eyes, but did
+not speak. He closed the door, faced her and extended the heavy bag of
+coins.
+
+"Granny, we bes rich this minute; but we'll be richer yet afore we
+finishes," he said. "This bag bes full o' gold, Granny--full o' coined
+English gold."
+
+"Out o' the wrack?" she queried.
+
+"Aye, it was in the ship, Granny."
+
+The old woman puffed on her pipe for a few seconds.
+
+"An' what else come out o' the wrack, Denny?"
+
+"Diamonds an' rubies an' pearls, the wine ye drank last night an' the
+fancy grub ye et to-day. 'Twas a grand wrack altogether, Granny."
+
+Mother Nolan wagged her gray head and returned her gaze to the red draft
+of the stove. "'Twas grand wine," she muttered. "Wracker's wine! Dead
+man's wine!"
+
+"Nay, Granny, there ye bes wrong. Not a lad aboard her was killed nor
+drownded."
+
+"Then how come ye by the gold an' diamonds, Denny?"
+
+The skipper laughed.
+
+"Sure, Granny, I tricked 'em!" he exclaimed. "I made use o' my wits--an'
+the harbor bes rich."
+
+"Saints pity ye, Denny! Rich? The folk o' this harbor bain't intended
+for riches. Take a care, Denny, for the devil bes in it. Saints presarve
+us! No good never did come to this harbor out o' wracks, Denny. Me own
+father was drunk wid rum out o' a wrack when he fell over the edge o'
+the cliff, an' broke his neck on the land-wash. It was for a case o'
+brandy out o' a wrack Pat Walen an' Micky Nolan fit wid skulpin'-knives
+till Pat was killed dead."
+
+The skipper laughed again and expanded his chest.
+
+"There bain't no fightin' over wracks now," he said. "I bes skipper now,
+Granny. Do this, do that, says I--an' it's done! An' I gives out the
+shares to the men like I was master o' a sealin'-ship after a trip to
+the ice--one share to every man o' the crew an' four to meself. There
+bain't no shares for ship an' owners in this business, Granny."
+
+"An' where be the diamonds?" asked the old woman.
+
+"Hid in the marsh, safe an' sound till I takes 'em to St. John's,"
+replied the skipper.
+
+"There bain't no luck in diamonds," mumbled the old woman, "an' there
+bain't no luck in wracks. The devil bes in the both o' them, Denny."
+
+The skipper passed through his grandmother's bed-room and entered the
+cold and un-aired chamber that was reserved for the use of Father
+McQueen. He closed the door behind him, bolted it stealthily and then
+tiptoed across the floor to the bulging chimney and empty fire-place. He
+knelt on the drafty hearth, placed the bag of gold beside his knee, and
+thrust both arms into the black maw of the chimney. After a minute of
+prying and pulling he withdrew them, holding a square, smoke-smudged
+stone in his hands. Laying this on the hearth, he took up the canvas bag
+and thrust it into a cavity at the back of the chimney that had been
+ready for the reception of just such a treasure for some time. Then he
+replaced the stone and scrambled to his feet. He glanced furtively at
+the one small window which lighted the room, then moved noiselessly to
+the centre of the floor and put up his right hand to the whitewashed
+beam that crossed the low ceiling. His fingers searched delicately for a
+full minute; and then he lowered his hand, holding a small square of dry
+wood. The beam had been skilfully hollowed at this point. From the
+cavity he took a small box bound in red leather--the same small box that
+he had found among the sheets and blankets of a berth in the wreck. He
+opened it and gloated over a necklace of twelve diamonds and fourteen
+rubies glinting, flashing and glowing on a bed of white satin. He
+fondled the wonderful stones with his blunt finger-ends. So he stood for
+a long time, breathing heavily, his black eyes glowing like the rubies
+and glinting like the diamonds.
+
+"A fortune," he murmured. "Aye, houses an' ships, liquor, food an'
+sarvants. Holy saint! I bes richer nor any marchant in St. John's!"
+
+At last he closed the box, put it back in the cavity overhead, and
+returned the small square of wood to its place. He looked around the
+room. The fading light of the winter day was gray at the window. The
+curtained bed was a mass of gloom; a white Christ on a cross of ebony
+gleamed above the narrow chimney-shelf, between two candlesticks of dull
+brass; the floor, with its few rough mats, was as cold as the frozen
+snow outside. The skipper felt the chill of the place in his sturdy
+bones. He shot a glance at the crucifix. It, too, was an offering from
+the sea. His father had told him how it had come ashore in the hand of a
+dead woman, thirty years ago. Now the carven image of the Saviour seemed
+to gleam out from the black of the cross and the shadowy wall as if with
+an inner illumination. Black Dennis Nolan made the sign with an awkward
+and unaccustomed finger, and then went swiftly from the room.
+
+The skipper, Bill Brennen and Nick Leary left their cabins stealthily
+about midnight, met on the snowy barren above the harbor, and tramped
+southward to the vicinity of Nolan's Cove. They worked for a little
+while in a clump of spruce-tuck, then moved off to another thicket about
+half a mile away, and there worked again.
+
+"There bes some men in this harbor I wouldn't trust as far as I could
+t'row 'em over my back," said the skipper.
+
+Bill and Nick agreed with him. The skipper glanced up at the starless
+sky.
+
+"There'll be snow by sun-up," he said.
+
+"Aye, skipper, a desperate flurry out o' the nor'-west," replied
+Brennen.
+
+"D'ye mean wind, too?"
+
+"Aye, skipper, mark that!"
+
+All three felt a breath on their faces like the very essence of cold.
+They turned northward and set out on the homeward way. All were snug in
+their beds long before the first pale hint of dawn. The icy draft from
+the northwest was a little stronger by that time, and it puffed a haze
+of dry and powdery snow before it. The night was full of faint,
+insistent voices. The roofs of the cabins snapped and creaked as if icy
+fingers were prying them apart. A sharp crackling sound came up from the
+harbor, where the tide fumbled at the edges of black ice. A dull, vast
+moaning that was scarcely a sound at all--something as vague, yet mighty
+as silence itself--drifted over the barrens and over the sheltered
+habitations out of the northwest.
+
+When the skipper awoke in the morning the "flurry" was rolling over the
+brink of the barren, and down upon Chance Along in full force. The
+skipper piled dry wood--birch and splinters of wreckage--into the round
+stove, until it roared a miniature challenge to the ice-freighted wind
+outside. The bucket of water on the bench in the corner was frozen to
+half its depth. He cut at it with a knife used for skinning seals, and
+filled the tea-kettle with fragments of ice. His young brother Cormick
+came stiffly down the ladder from the loft, and stood close to the stove
+shivering.
+
+"It bes desperate weather, Denny," said the lad. "Sure, I near froze in
+my blankets."
+
+"Aye, Cormy, but we bes snug enough, wid no call to go outside the
+door," replied the skipper. "We has plenty o' wood an' plenty o' grub;
+an' we'll never lack the one or t'other so long as I bes skipper o' this
+harbor."
+
+"Aye, Denny, we never et so well afore ye was skipper," returned
+Cormick, looking at his brother in frank admiration. "Grub--aye, an'
+gold too! I hears ye took a barrel o' money off that wrack, Denny."
+
+"An' there'll be more wracks, Cormy, an' we'll take our pickin's from
+every one," said the skipper. "Times bes changed, lad. The day was when
+we took what the sea t'rowed up for us; but now we takes what we wants
+an' leaves what we don't want to the sea."
+
+At that moment the voice of old Mother Nolan sounded fretfully from the
+next room.
+
+"Denny! Cormy!" she called. "I bes fair perishin' to death in my bed.
+The wind bes blowin' an' yowlin' t'rough this room like the whole end o'
+the house was knocked out."
+
+The skipper, who was as gentle with his old grandmother and as kind to
+his young brother as the best man in the world could have been, crossed
+the kitchen immediately and opened the door of the old woman's chamber.
+Mother Nolan was sitting up in her bed with a blanket on her thin, bent
+shoulders, and a red flannel night-cap on her gray head.
+
+Her small face was pinched by cold and age, but her black eyes were
+alive and erect.
+
+"The mats be squirmin' and flappin' on the floor like live fish," she
+exclaimed. "Saints presarve all poor creatures abroad this day on sea or
+land! They'll be starved to death wid the cold, Denny, for bain't I most
+blowed out o' my bed right in this grand house?"
+
+The skipper realized that the room was colder than the middle apartment
+of the cabin had any right to be. He went to the window and examined
+it. The small frame was as tight in the wall as a dozen spikes and a
+liberal daubing of tar could make it. It had never been opened since the
+building of the house.
+
+"The wind blows under Father McQueen's door like spray from the
+land-wash," said the old woman.
+
+"'Twill be comin' down the chimbly," said Dennis, aware of the tide of
+icy wind low about his feet. He crossed the room and opened the door of
+the dismal chamber reserved for the use of the missionary. The sash of
+the window hung inward, the woodwork splintered and the spikes twisted,
+admitting a roaring current of wind and powdery snow. With a cry of
+consternation and rage the skipper sprang in, banged and bolted the door
+behind him, and went straight to the rafter across the middle of the
+ceiling. He removed the square of wood--and the hollow behind it was
+empty! For a moment he stood with his empty hand in the empty
+hiding-place, unable to move or think because of the terrific emotions
+which surged through him. At last he went over to the chimney and
+examined it. The bag of gold was in its place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DEAD MAN'S DIAMONDS
+
+
+Now I must hark back a few hours to the time when the skipper and his
+lieutenants were on their way to the barrens behind Nolan's Cove to
+safeguard the interests of the harbor by changing the hiding-place of
+the common treasure of jewelry. They had not been gone half an hour from
+Chance Along before Foxey Jack Quinn slipped from his cabin and glided,
+like a darker shadow in the darkness, to the skipper's house. He was not
+ignorant of his enemy's departure southward. He knew that both young
+Cormick and old Mother Nolan were heavy sleepers; and, earlier in the
+evening, he had seen something through the window of the guest-chamber
+that had aroused his curiosity and a passion of avarice.
+
+Foxey Jack Quinn was warmly clothed. His rackets and a light pack were
+on his back and his pockets were stuffed with food and a flask of rum.
+He was armed with a hatchet. He crouched beside the window of the empty
+room for several minutes, listening intently and fearfully. At last he
+wedged the strong blade of his hatchet between the sash of the window
+and the frame and prised inward, steadily and cautiously. With a shrill
+protest of frosted spikes the lower part of the sash gave by an inch or
+two. He devoted another minute to listening, then applied the hatchet to
+the left side of the window. He worked all round the sash in this way
+and at last pushed it inward with both hands until it hung below the
+sill by a couple of bent spikes. He thrust the hatchet in his belt and
+entered the room. He put up his hand to the rafter that crossed the low
+ceiling and so felt his way along to the middle of the room. Halting
+there, he removed the fur mitten from his right hand and felt about
+until his chilled fingers discovered a thin crack in the whitewash of
+the rafter. The little square of dry wood came away in his fingers. Next
+moment he held the leather-bound casket in his hand. He opened it and
+felt the cold jewels which he could not see. Then he closed it, slipped
+it into a pocket, replaced the square of wood in the beam and made his
+cautious way back to the window. He crawled over the sill, turned and
+tried to lift the sash upward and outward to its place. The sash came
+up easily enough but the bent spikes would not hold. After a few minutes
+of fruitless effort he turned away, leaving the window wide open. The
+sky was black as the throat of a chimney. A breath of wind came from the
+northwest. Foxey Jack Quinn was not weatherwise, however. He climbed the
+path to the edge of the barrens and turned to the north.
+
+"Diamonds white an' red," he muttered. "I seen 'em, and I knowed what
+they was. Every little stone bes worth more nor all the fore-and-afters
+on the coast. I bes a rich man now--richer nor the governor, richer nor
+any marchant in St. John's--richer nor the king o' England, maybe. Holy
+saints be praised! Never agin will I wet a line at the fishin' nor feel
+the ache o' hunger in my belly. Denny Nolan will soon be cursin' the day
+he batted me about like a swile."
+
+His plans for the immediate future were clear in his mind but for the
+more distant future they were vague, though rosy. He would make the ten
+miles to Brig Tickle in less than three hours, and from there turn a
+point or two westward from the coast and strike across country to the
+head of Witless Bay. He had a cousin in Witless Bay and could afford to
+rest in that cousin's house for a few hours. There he would hire a team
+of dogs and make the next stage in quick time. Dennis Nolan, who would
+not discover the theft of the diamonds until after sun-up, would be left
+hopelessly astern by that time. So Quinn figured it out. On reaching St.
+John's he would go to a shebeen that he knew, in a narrow and secluded
+back street, and there rent a room. Then he would commence the business
+of disposing of one of the diamonds. Just how he was to go about this he
+did not know, but he felt sure that Mother McKay, who kept the shebeen,
+would be able to give him some valuable advice on the subject. And after
+that? Well, the prospects were rosy but vague. He would get word to his
+wife in some way to move herself and the children to Witless Bay. He
+would send her twenty dollars, and after that, for the rest of his life,
+ten good dollars every month. As for himself, he would sail away to some
+big city "up-along"--to Boston, New York or London--dispose of the
+necklace stone by stone, buy a great house and live in idle luxury. He
+would dress like a merchant, eat hearty every day, drink deep and sleep
+warm. He had heard of such things--of men who never set their hands to a
+stroke of work from year's end to year's end. He would live like a king
+and drink like a lord and, like the good father and husband that he
+firmly believed himself to be, he would send ten dollars to his wife
+every month.
+
+With such exalted dreams as these did Foxey Jack Quinn occupy his mind
+as he hurried northward along the edge of the snowy barrens. He had
+travelled about two miles when he suddenly became aware of the increased
+force and coldness of the wind. Snow as dry as desert-sand and as sharp
+as splintered ice blew against his face, stinging his eyes (one of which
+was still half closed), and smarting the battered flesh of brow and
+cheek. Then, for the first time, he realized that one of those dreaded
+storms out of the northwest was approaching. But for the treasure in his
+pocket he would have faced about and returned to Chance Along; but as it
+was he drew his fur cap lower about his ears, wound a woollen scarf
+around the lower part of his face and held doggedly on his way. The wind
+lulled for a little while, quieting his apprehensions. His rackets were
+on his feet now and he pushed along briskly over the pallid snow,
+through the whispering dark. He had covered another mile before the
+skirmishers of the storm rushed over him again out of the black
+northwest. That bitter wind soaked through his heavy garments like water
+and chilled him to the heart. Its breath of dry snow, embittered and
+intensified by its rushing journey across frozen seas and a thousand
+miles of frozen wilderness, blinded him, cut him and snatched at his
+lips as if it would pluck life itself from his lungs. He turned his back
+to it and crouched low, gasping curses and half-choked prayers to the
+saints. Then the full fury of the storm reached him, the dark grew
+pallid with flying snow-dust, and the frozen earth seemed to quake
+beneath his hands and knees. For a minute he lay flat, fighting for
+breath with his arms encircling his face. He knew that he must find
+shelter of some description immediately or else die terribly of
+suffocation and cold. Surely he could find a thicket of spruce-tuck near
+at hand? He staggered to his feet, stood hunched for a second to get the
+points of the compass clear in his mind, then plunged forward, fighting
+through the storm like a desperate swimmer breasting the surf. He
+thought he was moving straight inland where he would be sure to stumble
+soon against a sheltering thicket. But the onslaught of the storm had
+bewildered him. He struggled onward; but not toward the twisted clumps
+of spruces. His eyes were shut against the lashing of the snow and he
+held his arms locked before him across his mouth and nostrils. The wind
+eddied about him, thick as blown spray with its swirling sheets of ice
+particles. It struck him on all sides, lashing his face and tearing at
+his back whatever way he turned.... A scream of horror rang out for an
+instant and was smothered by the roaring of the storm. So the spirit of
+Jack Quinn was whirled away on the tempest--God knows whither!--and the
+poor body came to rest on the frozen land-wash far below the edge of the
+blind, unheeding cliff.
+
+The storm raged all day out of the northwest, and the folk of Chance
+Along kept to their cabins and clustered around their little stoves.
+Even Black Dennis Nolan did not venture farther than fifty yards from
+his own door. He replaced the window of Father McQueen's room, said
+nothing of his loss to Cormick and the old woman, and after breakfast
+went out and fought his way along to Foxey Quinn's cabin. He found the
+woman in tears.
+
+"Where bes Jack?" he asked, drawing the door tight behind him and
+standing with his hand on the latch.
+
+"He bain't here," said the woman. "He was gone from the bed when first I
+opened my eyes."
+
+The skipper was a hard man in many ways, even then. Later, as he became
+established in his power, the hardness grew in him with the passing of
+every day. But always a tender spot could be found in his heart for
+women and children.
+
+"He was to my house last night," he said. "He bust in a windy an' tried
+to rob me--aye, an' maybe he done it."
+
+The woman covered her face with her rough, red hands and moaned like a
+wounded thing.
+
+"I bain't holdin' it agin' ye," continued the skipper. "I fight wid men,
+not women an' childern. I fit Jack Quinn fair an' bate him fair. Let it
+be! If ye wants for food, Polly--whenever ye wants for food an'
+clothin'--send the word to me. I bes skipper in this harbor--aye, an'
+more nor skipper."
+
+He turned then and let himself out into the shrieking storm. Polly Quinn
+stared at the door and the children clustered about her and pulled at
+her shabby skirts.
+
+"Aye, he tells true," she murmured. "Never a hard word did Mother Nolan
+ever have from him. He was a good son to his mother an' the old skipper.
+But them as crosses him--the holy saints presarve 'em! Men-folks must be
+his dogs or his enemies. He batted me poor Jack nigh to death wid his
+big hands."
+
+She turned at last and fed the glowing stove. Then she set about getting
+breakfast for herself and the children. There was enough hard bread in
+the house to last the day. There was a pinch of tea in the canister.
+Jack had drunk the wine from the wreck and taken away with him all that
+had been left of the tinned meats which the skipper had brought over the
+day before. The woman observed these things and gave some thoughts to
+them. She glanced up at the blinding white tumult against the drifted
+window, reflecting that her husband had taken the best food in the
+house--enough to last him for two days, at least--and had left behind
+him, for herself and three children, eight cakes of hard bread and a
+pinch of tea. Her faded eyes glowed and her lips hardened.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan brooded all day by the stove with his big hands
+clasped idly between his knees. The grandmother sat near him, in a
+tattered armchair, smoking her pipe and mumbling wise saws and broken
+stories of the past.
+
+"I bes a storm-child," she mumbled. "Aye, sure, wasn't I born a night in
+winter wid jist sich a flurry as this one howlin' over Chance
+Along--aye, an' wid a caul over me face. So I has the power o' seein'
+the fairies." And then, "me man were bigger nor ye, Denny. Skipper Tim,
+he were. Built the first fore-an'-after on this coast, he did." And
+later--"There bain't no luck in diamonds. The divil bes in 'em."
+
+Young Cormick sat on the other side of the stove, busily carving a block
+of wood with a clasp-knife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FATHER MCQUEEN VISITS HIS FLOCK
+
+
+After the storm from the northwest had blown itself out, a spell of soft
+weather set in along the coast. East and southeast winds brought fog and
+mild rains, the ice rotted along the land-wash and the snow dwindled
+from the barrens and left dripping hummocks and patches of black bog
+exposed. The wreck in Nolan's Cove had gone to pieces during the
+blizzard, sunk its cargo of pianos, manufactured cotton and hardware in
+six fathoms of water and flung a liberal proportion of its spars and
+timbers ashore.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan felt as sure that Jack Quinn had perished in the
+storm as if he had seen him prone and stiff under the drifting snow. The
+fool had left the harbor that night, sometime before the onslaught of
+the blizzard, but after midnight to a certainty. He had gone out--and he
+had not returned! There could be no doubt about his miserable fate. The
+skipper pictured him in his clear mind as lying somewhere out on the
+barrens with the red-bound casket clutched in a frozen hand. So the
+skipper devoted a day to searching for him over the thawing, sodden
+wilderness behind the harbor. He took Bill Brennen and Nick Leary with
+him. The other men did not grumble at being left behind, perhaps because
+they were learning the unwisdom of grumbling against the skipper's
+orders, more likely because they did not care a dang if Foxey Jack Quinn
+was ever found or not, dead or alive. Quinn had not been popular. The
+skipper informed his two companions that the missing man had broken into
+his house and robbed him of an article of great value.
+
+"We bes sure to find him somewheres handy," said Bill Brennen. "Foxey
+Jack was always a fool about the weather--didn't know east from west
+when the wind blowed. What was it he robbed from ye, skipper?"
+
+"Whatever it was, ye'll both git yer share if we finds it," replied the
+skipper. "More nor that I bain't willin' to say."
+
+He fixed Bill Brennen with a glance of his black eyes that made that
+worthy tremble from his scantily-haired scalp to the soles of his big,
+shuffling feet. Bill was one of those people who cannot get along
+without a master. In the past, for lack of another, he had made an
+exacting tyrant out of a very mild and loving wife; but since the
+masterful opening of the new skipper's reign he had snapped his fingers
+at his wife, who had ruled him for close upon twenty years. He was
+shrewd, though weak, and his heart was full of the stuff in which
+personal loyalty is bred and fostered. If the hand that beat him was the
+hand that fed him--the hand of his master--then the beating seemed an
+honorable and reasonable thing to him. True, the skipper had not yet
+lifted a fist to him; but in this case darkling glances served quite as
+well as blows. Bill had seen the strength of Dennis from the first and
+from the first had loved it as a thing to serve--as the spirit of
+mastery. Nick Leary, though a much younger man than Bill Brennen,
+possessed the same spirit of service.
+
+The three searched the barrens all day, from sun-up to dark, north,
+south and inland. It was a gray day, sloppy underfoot and raw overhead.
+At one time the skipper halted and lit his pipe within three yards of
+the point of the edge of the cliff from which Quinn had pitched to his
+death; but wind, snow and thaw had obliterated all trace of those
+blindly staggering feet. The searchers explored the inner, tangled
+recesses of a dozen thickets of spruce-tuck, snarled coverts of alders,
+hollows hip-deep in sodden snow, and the pits and rocky shelters of
+knolls and hummocks.
+
+"He bes hid away somewheres, sure's Saint Peter was a fisherman," said
+the skipper.
+
+"Axin' yer pardon, skipper, I bes t'inkin' as how maybe he bain't dead,"
+said Nick Leary, humbly. "Maybe he got t'rough to Brig Tickle, sir, an'
+from the Tickle he'd be headin' for Witless Bay this very minute."
+
+The skipper shook his head.
+
+"There bain't a man on the coast could live t'rough a flurry the like o'
+that widout he found shelter," he replied. "He bes dead somewheres widin
+t'ree or four mile o' Chance Along, ye kin lay to that, Nick."
+
+They returned to the harbor after dark and said not a word to the others
+about the business that had occupied them throughout the day; Brennen
+and Nick Leary were asked many questions, but they lied valiantly,
+saying that they had been spying out boat-timber. Had they admitted that
+they had devoted a whole day to searching over the barren for the body
+of Foxey Jack Quinn a suspicion that the missing man had carried away
+something of extraordinary value would have fired the harbor and set
+every able-bodied inhabitant on the quest. That would not have suited
+the skipper's plans. He did not want a knowledge of the necklace of
+diamonds and rubies to become general.
+
+Doubtless the search for Jack Quinn would have been continued on the
+following day but for the unexpected arrival in Chance Along of the good
+Father McQueen. The missionary's visits were usually unexpected. He came
+now from the northward, on foot and unattended. In a haversack on his
+sturdy shoulders he carried food, two books of devotions and one of
+Irish poetry, and his vestments. Children who were playing a game called
+"deer-hunting" on the barrens behind the harbor were the first to know
+of the priest's approach. They shouted the news down to the gray cabins
+on the slope. A few of the men were working out among the rocks, under
+the skipper's supervision; others were cobbling skiffs and bullies that
+lay high and dry beneath the empty stages, and the old fellows were
+sitting around, giving advice and sucking at rank pipes. The harbor was
+at peace; and, what was still more unusual, it was free from
+hunger-fear. By the skipper's first important stroke of business his
+reign promised to be prosperous, even though tyrannical. At word that
+Father McQueen was sighted all work was stopped. The dories among the
+outer rocks were pulled to the land-wash. The men left their tarring and
+caulking under the drying-stages. Women issued from the cabins with
+shawls thrown hastily about their heads and shoulders. The skipper led
+the way up the twisty path to the level wilderness above. There was one
+man in the world whom he feared--feared without bitterness even as he
+did the saints on their thrones of gold. That man was Father McQueen.
+
+Cap in hand, Black Dennis Nolan took the haversack from the priest and
+slung it on his own shoulder.
+
+"Ye've walked a weary way, father," he said. "Ye bes mud and water to
+the knees, sir."
+
+"But a step, Denny. Naught but a step, my son," replied the missionary,
+cheerfully. "I was in Witless Bay for two holy baptisms, a marriage an'
+a wake, an' I just took the notion to step over an' see ye all in
+Chance Along. _Pax vobiscum_, all of ye! My children, ye look grand an'
+hearty. How is Mother Nolan, the dear old body? Spry as ever, ye say?
+Praise the saints for that."
+
+The people, men, women, and children, clustered round him with beaming
+faces, and in return he beamed at one and all, and spoke to a dozen by
+name. He leaned on the skipper's arm.
+
+"But it bes still early in the forenoon, father," said Dennis. "Where
+did yer reverence sleep last night then?"
+
+"Snug as a fox in his den, my son," replied the sturdy old man. "When
+dark came on I found me a dry cave in the side of a knoll, an' dry moss
+an' sticks for a fire."
+
+"It bain't right for yer reverence to sleep out these rough winter
+nights," protested the skipper. "Maybe ye'll be gettin' yer death one o'
+these nights, sir."
+
+"Nay, Denny, don't ye go worryin' about me," said the priest. "I am as
+tough as a husky."
+
+He descended the path to the clustered cabins, still holding the
+skipper's arm and with the populace sliding and crowding at his muddy
+heels. His gray eyes were as keen as they were kindly. He remarked
+several of the great iron rings on the rocks to seaward.
+
+"What are ye up to now, Denny?" he asked, halting for a moment, and
+pointing with a plump but strong and weather-beaten hand.
+
+The skipper's black eyes followed the line indicated.
+
+"That bes a grand idee o' mine, yer reverence," he answered, after a
+moment's hesitation. "Sure I'll tell ye all about it, sir, after ye get
+yerself dry alongside the stove."
+
+"Something to do with wrecks, Denny?" queried the priest.
+
+"Aye, yer reverence, it bes a part o' the gear for salvin' wrecks,"
+returned Nolan.
+
+At the skipper's door Father McQueen dismissed his followers with a
+blessing and a promise to see them all after dinner. Then, after a few
+kindly words to Mother Nolan, he entered his own room, where Cormick had
+a fire of driftwood roaring in the chimney. He soon returned to the
+kitchen, in socks and moccasins of the skipper's, a rusty cassock and a
+red blanket. The innate dignity and virtue of the old man gave to his
+grotesque attire the seeming of robes of glory, in spite of the very
+human twinkle in his gray eyes and the shadow of a grin about the
+corners of his large mouth. He accepted a chair close to the stove--but
+not the most comfortable chair, which was Mother Nolan's. They knew his
+nature too well to offer him that. The skipper gave him a bowl of hot
+wine, mulled with sugar and spices, which he accepted without demur and
+sipped with relish. After a few minutes of general conversation, during
+which Mother Nolan expatiated on her rheumatics, he turned to the
+skipper, and laid a hand on that young giant's knee.
+
+"So ye are preparing gear for the salving of wrecks, my son?" he
+queried.
+
+"Aye, yer reverence, we bes fixin' chains an' lines among the rocks so
+as maybe we kin get a holt on whatever comes ashore," replied Nolan.
+
+"A good idea," returned the other. And then, "Have ye had any wrecks
+already this winter?"
+
+"Aye, yer reverence, there be'd one in Nolan's Cove."
+
+"So? Did any of the poor souls come ashore alive?"
+
+"Aye, yer reverence, every mother's son o' them. They come ashore in
+their boats, sir, an' left the ship acrost a rock wid a hole in her
+bows bigger nor this house."
+
+"And where are they now?"
+
+"That I couldn't tell, yer reverence. They set out for Nap Harbor, to
+the south, that very night, an' got there safe an' sound. An' I heard
+tell, sir, as how they sailed from Nap Harbor for St. John's in a
+fore-an'-after."
+
+The priest regarded the skipper keenly.
+
+"Safe and sound, ye say, Denny?"
+
+"Aye, yer reverence, safe an' sound, wid their clothes on their backs
+an' food an' drink in their pockets an' their bellies."
+
+"I am glad to hear it, Denny. Ye sent them on their way warmly clad and
+full-fed; but I'm thinking, my son, they must have left something behind
+them? It's grand wine this, Denny."
+
+"Aye, father, it bes grand wine. It came out o' the wreck, sir, along
+wid a skiff-load o' fancy grub. There bes wine, spirits an' tinned stuff
+in every house o' the harbor, yer reverence. But the cargo weren't no
+manner o' use to us--an' the hull broke up an' went all abroad two days
+back."
+
+"So ye got nought from the wreck but a skiff-full of drink and food?"
+
+"I bain't sayin' that, father dear, though it were as peaceful an'
+dacent a wrack as ever yer reverence heard tell of. Maybe yer reverence
+bes buildin' another church somewheres?--or a mission-house?--or sendin'
+money up-along to the poor haythens?"
+
+"Aye, Denny, I am doing all these things," replied the priest. "Since
+first I set foot on Newfoundland I have built nine little churches,
+twelve mission-houses and one hospital--aye, and sent a mint of money to
+the poor folk of other lands. My dear parents left me a fortune of three
+hundreds of English pounds a year, Denny; and every year I give two
+hundred and fifty pounds of that fortune to the work of the Holy Church
+and beg and take twice as much more from the rich to give the poor."
+
+The skipper nodded. This information was not new to him.
+
+"I was thinkin', yer reverence, as how some day ye'd maybe be buildin'
+us a little church here in Chance Along," he said.
+
+"It would take money, my son--money and hard work," returned the priest.
+
+"Aye, father dear, 'twould take money an' work. There bes fifty golden
+sovereigns I knows of for yer reverence."
+
+"Clean money?"
+
+"Aye, yer reverence."
+
+"From the wreck, Denny?"
+
+"Aye, father dear, from the last wrack."
+
+"Without blood on it, my son?"
+
+"Widout so much as a drop o' blood on it, so help me Saint Peter!"
+
+"And the other lads, Denny? Are ye the only one in the harbor able to
+pay me something for the building of a church?"
+
+There was the one question on the good priest's tongue and another in
+his clear eyes.
+
+"I bes skipper, father dear, an' takes skipper's shares and pays
+skipper's shares," replied Nolan. "But for me there'd not bin one bottle
+o' wine come to us from the wrack an' the poor folks aboard her would
+never have got ashore in their boats for want of a light on the
+land-wash. As I kin spare ye fifty pounds for the holy work, yer
+reverence, there bes nineteen men o' this harbor kin each be sparin' ye
+ten."
+
+Father McQueen nodded his gray head.
+
+"Then we'll have the little church, Denny," he said. "Aye, lad, we'll
+have the little church shining out to sea from the cliffs above Chance
+Along."
+
+Father McQueen was a good man and a good priest, and would as readily
+have given his last breath as his last crust of bread in the service of
+his Master; but for the past thirty years he had lived and worked in a
+land of rocks, fogs and want, among people who snatched a livelihood
+from the sea with benumbed fingers and wrists pitted deep with scars of
+salt-water boils. He had seen them risk their lives for food on the
+black rocks, the grinding ice and the treacherous tide; and now his
+heart felt with their hearts, his eyes saw with their eyes. Their bitter
+birthright was the harvest of the coastwise seas; and he now realized
+their real and ethical right to all that they might gather from the
+tide, be it cod, caplin, herrings or the timbers and freights of wrecked
+ships. He saw that a wreck, like a good run of fish, was a thing to
+profit by thankfully and give praise to the saints for; but he held that
+no gift of God was to be gathered in violence. In the early years of his
+work he had heard rumors and seen indications of things that had fired
+him with a righteous fury and pity--rumors and hints of mariners
+struggling landward only to be killed like so many seals as they
+reached the hands to which they had looked for succor. The poor savages
+who had committed such crimes as this had at first failed to understand
+his fury and disgust; but with his tongue and his strong arms he had
+driven into their hearts the fear of Holy Church and of the Reverend
+Patrick McQueen. Even the wildest and dullest members of his
+far-scattered flock learned in time that life was sacred--even the life
+of a half-dead stranger awash in the surf. They even learned to refrain
+from stripping and breaking up a wrecked or grounded vessel that was
+still manned by a protesting crew; and with the fear of the good priest
+in their hearts (even though he was a hundred miles away), they would do
+their best to bring the unfortunate mariners safely ashore and then
+share the vessel with the hungry sea.
+
+That even a deserted or unpeopled wreck should be common property may
+not seem right to some people; but it seemed right to Father
+McQueen--and surely he should know what was right and what was wrong! It
+was sometime about the date of this story that a missionary of another
+and perhaps less broad and human creed than Father McQueen's wrote to
+his bishop in the spring, "Thanks to God and two wrecks we got through
+the winter without starving."
+
+Father McQueen did not hurry away from Chance Along. Six months had
+passed since his last visit and so he felt that this section of his
+flock demanded both time and attention. His way of knowing his people
+was by learning their outward as well as their inner lives, their
+physical and also their spiritual being. He was not slow to see and
+understand the skipper's ambitions and something of his methods. He read
+Black Dennis Nolan for a strong, active, masterful and relentless
+nature. He heard of Foxey Jack Quinn's departure and of the fight at the
+edge of the cliff that had preceded it. He heard also that Quinn had
+robbed the skipper before departing; but exactly what he had robbed him
+of he could not learn. He questioned Dennis himself and had a lesson in
+the art of evasion. He found it no great task to comfort the woman and
+children of the fugitive Jack. They were well fed and had the skipper's
+word that they should never lack food and clothing. He was not surprised
+to learn from the deserted wife that the man had been a bully at home as
+well as abroad. For his own part, he had never thought very highly of
+Foxey Jack Quinn. He visited every cabin in the harbor, and those that
+sheltered old and sick he visited many times. He was keenly interested
+in the work that the skipper was doing among the rocks in front of the
+harbor, and did not fail to point out persistently and authoritatively
+that chains and ropes designed to facilitate the saving of freights
+would also facilitate the saving of human lives. The skipper agreed with
+him respectfully.
+
+On the morning of Father McQueen's arrival in Chance Along, the skipper
+dispatched Nick Leary to Witless Bay to learn whether or no Jack Quinn
+had reached that place. Leary returned on the evening of the following
+day with the expected information that nothing had been seen of the
+missing man in Witless Bay. In his pocket he brought a recent issue of
+St. John's newspaper, for which he had paid two shillings and two drams
+of rum. This he brought as an offering to the skipper--for the skipper
+could read print almost as well as a merchant and had a thirst for
+information of the outside world.
+
+The first item of news which the skipper managed to spell out was the
+notice of a reward of five hundred pounds awaiting the person who
+should recover Lady Harwood's necklace of twelve diamonds and fourteen
+rubies and deliver it to Mr. Peter Wren, solicitor, Water Street, St.
+John's. The notice went on to say that this necklace, together with
+other smaller and less valuable articles of jewelry, had been taken by
+force from the shipwrecked company of the bark _Durham Castle_, which
+had gone ashore and to pieces in a desolate place called Frenchman's
+Cove, on the east coast. It also gave the date of the wreck and stated
+that if the necklace should be returned undamaged, no questions would be
+asked. The skipper saw in a moment that the reward was offered for the
+stones which he had found in the deserted berth and which Quinn had
+robbed him of. Five hundred pounds? He shook his head over that. He had
+read somewhere, at some time, about the value of diamonds, and he felt
+sure that the necklace was worth many times the money offered for its
+recovery. So the loss of it was known to the world? He had a great idea
+of the circulation of the St. John's _Herald_. He had retired to a
+secluded spot above the harbor to read the paper, and now he glanced
+furtively over his shoulder. No limb of the law was in sight. He gazed
+abroad over the sodden, gloomy barrens and reflected bitterly that the
+treasure lay there in some pit or hollow, in a dead man's pocket,
+perhaps within shouting-distance of where he stood. He swore that he
+would recover it yet--but not for the reward offered by Mr. Peter Wren
+in behalf of Lady Harwood. He re-read the notice slowly, following
+letter and word with muttering lips and tracing finger. Then, at a
+sudden thought of Father McQueen, he tore away that portion of the outer
+sheet which contained the notice.
+
+The skipper returned to his house and found the missionary seated beside
+the stove chatting with Mother Nolan.
+
+"Here bes a paper, yer reverence, Nick Leary fetched over from Witless
+Bay," he said. "It bes tored, sir; but maybe ye'll find some good
+readin' left in it."
+
+The good father was charmed. He had not seen a newspaper for six weeks.
+He dragged a pair of spectacles from a pocket of his rusty cassock, set
+them upon his nose and hooked them over his ears, and read aloud every
+word save those which the skipper had torn away.
+
+On the fourth night after his arrival Father McQueen drew a plan of the
+little church which he intended to build above the harbor.
+
+"It will be the pride of the coast and a glory to Chance Along," he
+said. "Denny, I am proud of ye for the suggestion. Ye said ye'd give me
+a hundred pounds toward it, I think?"
+
+"Fifty pound, yer reverence! Fifty pound bes what I offered ye, sir,"
+returned the skipper, with dismay in his voice.
+
+Father McQueen sighed and shook his head. A cold thrill of anxiety
+passed through Dennis Nolan. With the good father displeased there would
+be an end of his luck. He glanced at the priest and saw that he was
+still shaking his head.
+
+The skipper loved his new store of gold because it meant the beginning
+of a fortune and therefore the extension of his power; but on the other
+hand he feared that to displease the missionary now in the matter of a
+part of that store might turn the saints themselves against him. And
+without the good-will of the saints how could he expect his share of
+luck?--his share of wrecks?
+
+"I has seventy-five pound for yer reverence," he said. "It bes a
+powerful sight of money, father dear, but ye bes welcome to it."
+
+"It is well, my son," returned the missionary.
+
+The skipper felt a glow of relief. He had avoided the risk of
+displeasing the saints and at the same time had saved twenty-five
+pounds. Even when you earn your money after the skipper's method,
+twenty-five pounds looks like quite a considerable lump of money. He
+took up a candle and fetched the sum in yellow English sovereigns from
+his hiding-place.
+
+Father McQueen devoted the following morning to collecting what he could
+from the other men of the harbor. The skipper had furnished him with a
+list of all who had shared in the golden harvest. It began to look as if
+the church would be a fine one. Not satisfied with this, he issued
+orders that the timber was to be cut and sawn without delay so that the
+building of the church should be commenced when he returned to Chance
+Along in June. He even drew up specifications of the lumber that would
+be required and the stone for the foundation. Then, leaving in the
+skipper's care all the gold which he had collected for the sacred
+edifice, he marched sturdily away toward the north. The skipper
+accompanied him and carried his knapsack, for ten miles of the way.
+
+Two days after the missionary's departure a gale blew in from the
+southeast; and at the first gray of a roaring dawn the look-out from
+Squid Beach came hammering at the skipper's door with news of a ship on
+the rocks under the cliffs a few miles along the coast. Every man and
+boy who could swing a leg turned out. The gear was shouldered and the
+skipper led the way northward at a run, lantern in hand. They found the
+wreck about a mile north of Squid Beach, close against the face of the
+cliff. She had struck with her port-bow and was listed sharply landward.
+The seas beat so furiously upon her that every seventh comer washed her
+clean and sent the spray smoking over her splintered spars. She showed
+no sign of life. She lay in so desperate a place that even Black Dennis
+Nolan, with all his gear and wits, could do nothing but wait until the
+full fury of the gale should diminish.
+
+It was close upon noon when the first line was made fast between the
+cliff and the broken foremast of the wreck. The wind had slackened and
+the seas fallen in a marked degree by this time. Looking down from the
+cliff the men of Chance Along could see the slanted deck, cleared of all
+superstructures and bulwarks, the stumps of spars with only the
+foremast intact to the cross-trees and a tangle of rigging, yards,
+canvas and tackle awash against the face of the cliff. Something--a
+swathed human figure, perhaps--was lashed in the fore-top.
+
+The skipper was the first to venture a passage from the edge of the
+cliff to the foremast. He made it with several life-lines around his
+waist. He reached the bundle lashed to the cross-trees and, clinging
+with hands and feet, looked into the face of an unconscious but living
+woman. So he hung for a long half-minute, staring. Then, hoisting
+himself up to a more secure position, he pulled a flask of brandy from
+his pocket.
+
+So Black Dennis Nolan brought back to consciousness the person who was
+to be the undoing of his great plans!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE GIRL FROM THE CROSS-TREES
+
+
+Clinging to the cross-trees, with the winter seas smoking over the
+slanted deck beneath him and the whole wrenched fabric of the ship
+quaking at every sloshing blow, Black Dennis Nolan pressed the mouth of
+the flask to the girl's colorless lips. A lurch of the hull sent the
+brandy streaming over her face; but in a second and better-timed attempt
+he succeeded in forcing a little of it between her teeth. He pulled the
+glove from her left hand--a glove of brown leather lined with gray fur
+and sodden with water--and rubbed the icy palm and wrist with the
+liquor. There were several rings on the fingers; but he scarcely noticed
+them. He thought of nothing but the girl herself. Never before had he
+seen or dreamed of such a face as hers, and a breathless desire
+possessed him to see her eyes unveiled. He worked feverishly, heedless
+of the yeasting seas beneath, of the wind that worried at him as if it
+would tear him from his leaping perch, of the wealth of cargo under the
+reeking deck and the men of Chance Along on the edge of the cliff. He
+returned the glove to the left hand with fumbling fingers, stripped the
+other hand and rubbed it with brandy. After finishing with this and
+regloving it he glanced again at the girl's face. The wet lashes
+stirred, the pale lids fluttered and blinked wide and two wonderful eyes
+gazed up at him. The eyes were clear yet with cross-lights at their
+depths, like the water of a still pool floored with sand and touched
+with the first level gleams of sunrise. They were sea-eyes--sea-gray,
+sea-blue, with a hint even of sea-green. Never before had the master of
+Chance Along seen or dreamed of such eyes.
+
+The skipper was strangely and deeply stirred by the clear, inquiring
+regard of those eyes; but, despite his dreams and ambitions, he was an
+eminently practical young man. He extended the flask and held it to her
+lips with a trembling hand.
+
+"Ye must swallow some more o' this," he said, "'Twill take the chill out
+o' ye."
+
+The girl opened her lips obediently and swallowed a little of the
+spirits; but her crystal gaze did not waver from his face.
+
+"Am I saved?" she asked, quietly.
+
+"Aye, ye bes saved," answered the skipper, more than ever confused by
+the astonishing clearness and music of her voice and the fearless
+simplicity of her question. He scrambled to his feet, holding to the
+stump of the topmast with his right arm (for the spar whipped and sprang
+to the impact of every sea upon the hull), and looked at his men on the
+edge of the cliff. He saw that they were shouting to him, but the wind
+was in their teeth and so not a word of their bellowing reached him. By
+signals and roarings down the wind he got the order to them to bend a
+heavy line on to the shore end of one of the light lines attached to his
+waist. He dragged the hawser in with some difficulty, made it fast to
+the cross-trees, and then rigged a kind of running boatswain's chair
+from a section of the loose rigging. He made the end of one line fast
+just below the loop of the chair on the hawser. The second line was
+around his chest and the ends of both were in the hands of the men
+ashore. Without a word he cut the girl's lashings, lifted her in his
+arms and took his seat. He waved his left arm and the lads on the cliff
+put their backs into the pull.
+
+The passage was a terrific experience though the distance between the
+cross-trees and the top of the cliff was not great. Neither the girl nor
+the skipper spoke a word. He held her tight and she hid her face against
+his shoulder. Fifteen of the men, under the orders of Bill Brennen, held
+the shore-end of the hawser. When the mast swung toward the cliff they
+took up the slack, thus saving the two from being dashed against the
+face of the rock, by rushing backward. When the mast whipped to seaward
+they advanced to the edge of the cliff. Five others hauled on each of
+the lines whenever the hawser was nearly taut, and paid out and pulled
+in with the slackening and tightening of the larger rope. But even so,
+the sling in which the skipper and the girl hung was tossed about
+desperately, now dropped toward the boiling rocks, now twirled like a
+leaf in the gale, and next moment jerked aloft and flung almost over the
+straining hawser. But the skipper had the courage of ten and the
+strength and endurance of two. He steadied and fended with his left hand
+and held the girl firmly against him with his right. She clung to him
+and did not whimper or struggle. A group of men, unhampered by any duty
+with the ropes, crouched and waited on the very edge of the cliff. At
+last they reached out and down, clutched the skipper and his burden,
+and with a mighty roar dragged them to safety.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan staggered to his feet, still clasping the girl in his
+arms. He reeled away to where a clump of stunted spruces made a shelter
+against the gale and lowered her to the ground, still swathed in
+blankets.
+
+"Start a fire, some o' ye," he commanded.
+
+The men looked curiously at the young woman in the drenched blankets,
+then hastened to do the skipper's bidding. They found dry wood in the
+heart of the thicket and soon had a fire burning strongly.
+
+"What of the others? Am I the--the only one?" asked the girl.
+
+"Aye, ye bes the only one--so far as we kin see," replied the skipper.
+"There bain't no more lashed to the spars anyhow."
+
+She stared at him for a moment, then crouched close to the fire, covered
+her face with her hands, and wept bitterly. The skipper groaned. The
+tears of Lady Harwood had not moved him in the least; but this girl's
+sobs brought a strangling pinch to his own throat. He told two lads to
+keep the fire burning, and then turned and walked away with lagging
+feet. Joining the men who were still tending the line that was attached
+to the wreck, he gazed down at the scene of tumult and pounding
+destruction without a word.
+
+"The gale bes blowin' herself out, skipper," remarked Bill Brennen.
+
+Nolan stared blankly for a moment, then aroused himself furiously from
+the strange spell that had enthralled his mind since first he had looked
+at the face of the girl lashed to the cross-trees. He swore violently,
+then flung himself full-length at the very edge of the cliff, and
+studied the position of the stranded vessel. He saw that she was firm on
+the rocks for almost half her length. She was badly ripped and stove,
+but her back was not broken. She seemed to be in no danger of slipping
+off into deep water, and as the wind and seas were moderating, she
+promised to hold together for several hours at least. He got to his feet
+and gave his opinion of the situation to the men as if it were a law.
+
+"She bes hard an' fast," he said. "Wid the weather liftin', she'll not
+fall abroad yet awhile, nor she don't be in any risk o' slidin' astarn
+an' founderin'. We has plenty o' time to break out the cargo, men,
+after the sea quiets a bit. Aye, plenty o' time to sculp her. Now, I
+wants four o' ye to rig up a hammock o' some sort, wid lines an' a
+tarpaulin, an' help me tote the lady back-along to the harbor. Step
+lively, men!"
+
+A few of the men ventured to show something of the amazement which they
+all felt by staring at him, round-eyed and open-mouthed; but he glared
+them down in short order. So four of them set about the construction of
+a hammock and the others crowded along the cliff and gazed down at the
+unfortunate ship. For awhile they gazed in silence; for wonder, and the
+fear of the skipper, were heavy upon them. What madness was this that
+had so suddenly come upon him? Had prosperity and power already turned
+his head? Or could it be that the young woman he had found on the wreck
+was a fairy of some kind, and had bewitched him with the glance of her
+sea-eyes? Or perhaps she was a mermaid? Or perhaps she was nothing but a
+human who had been born on an Easter Sunday--an Easter child. Strange
+and potent gifts of entrancing, and of looking into the future, are
+bestowed upon Easter children of the female sex by the fairies. Every
+one knows that! Whatever the girl might be, it was an astounding thing
+for Black Dennis Nolan to turn his back on a stranded and unlooted
+vessel to escort a stranger--aye, or even a friend--to shelter. They
+knew that, for all his overbearing and hard-fisted ways toward men, he
+was kind to women; but this matter seemed to them a thing of madness
+rather than of kindness; and never before had they known him to show any
+sign of infatuation. They glanced over their shoulders, and, seeing the
+skipper some distance off, supervising the construction of the hammock,
+they began to whisper and surmise.
+
+"Did ye mark the glint in the eyes o' her, Pat?" inquired one of
+another. "Sure, lad, 'twas like what I once see before--an' may the holy
+saints presarve me from seein' it agin! 'Twas the day, ten year back
+come July, when I see the mermaid in Pike's Arm, down nort' on the
+_Labrador_, when I was hook-an'-linin' for Skipper McDoul o' Harbor
+Grace. She popped the beautiful head o' her out o' the sea widin reach
+o' a paddle o' me skiff an' shot a glimp at me out o' her two eyes that
+turned me heart to fire an' me soul to ice, an' come pretty nigh
+t'rowin' me into the bay."
+
+"Aye," returned the other in a husky whisper. "Aye, ye bes talkin' now,
+Tim Leary. Sure, bain't that power o' the glimp o' the eye a mark o' the
+mermaid? They bewitches a man's heart, does mermaids, an' kills the
+eternal soul of him! Sure, b'y! Didn't me own great-gran'father, who
+sailed foreign viyages out o' Witless Bay, clap his own two eyes on to
+one o' they desperate sea-critters one night he was standin' his trick
+at the wheel, one day nort' o' Barbados? Sure, b'y! He heared a whisper
+behind him, like a whisper o' music, and when he turned his head 'round
+there she was, nat'ral as any girl o' the harbor, a-gleamin' her
+beautiful, grand eyes at him in the moonshine. An' when he come ashore
+didn't he feel so desperate lonesome that he died o' too much rum inside
+the year, down on the land-wash wid his two feet in the sea?"
+
+"Aye, Pat," returned Tim, "but I bain't sayin' as this one bes a
+mermaid. She was lashed to the cross-trees like any human."
+
+"An' that would be a mermaid's trick," retorted the other. "Where be the
+other poor humans, then?"
+
+At that moment the skipper approached.
+
+"Mind the wrack, men," said he. "Make fast some more lines to her, if ye
+kin. I'll be back wid ye afore long."
+
+The hammock was swung on a pole. Four men and the skipper accompanied
+the girl from the wreck, two carrying the hammock for the first half of
+the journey and the relay shouldering it for the second spell. The
+skipper walked alongside. The girl lay back among the blankets, which
+had been dried at the fire, silent and with her eyes closed for the most
+part. It was evident that her terrible experience had sapped both her
+physical and mental vitality. She had been lashed to the cross-trees of
+the foremast soon after the ship had struck the rocks, and fully eight
+hours before Black Dennis Nolan had released her. The second mate, who
+had carried her up and lashed her there, had been flung to his death by
+the whipping of the mast a moment after he had made the last loop fast
+about her blanketed form. She had been drenched and chilled by the
+flying spume and the spray that burst upward and outward from the foot
+of the cliff. The wind had snatched the breath from her lips, deafened
+her, blinded her, and driven the cold to her very bones. The swaying and
+leaping of the spar had at last jarred and wrenched her to a state of
+insensibility.
+
+She spoke only three times during the journey.
+
+"I would have died if I had been left there a little longer. You were
+brave to save me as you did. What is your name?"
+
+"Aye, 'twas a terrible place for ye," replied the skipper. "I bes Dennis
+Nolan, skipper o' Chance Along; an' now I bes takin' ye to my granny,
+Mother Nolan, an' a grand, warm house. Ye'll have Father McQueen's own
+bed, for he bes away till June, an' a fire in the chimley all day."
+
+Her only answer was to gaze at him with a look of calm, faint interest
+for a moment and then close her eyes. Ten minutes later she spoke again.
+
+"The _Royal William_ was bound for New York," she said. "There were ten
+passengers aboard her. My maid was with me--a Frenchwoman."
+
+This was Greek to the skipper, and he mumbled an unintelligible answer.
+What could she mean by her maid? Her daughter? No, for she was scarcely
+more than a girl herself--and in any case, her daughter would not be a
+Frenchwoman. As they reached the broken edge of the barrens above
+Chance Along she spoke for the third time.
+
+"In London I sang before the Queen," she said, this time without raising
+her pallid lids. Her lips scarcely moved. Her voice was low and faint,
+but clear as the chiming of a silver bell. "And now I go to my own
+city--to New York--to sing. They will listen now, for I am famous. You
+will be well paid for what you have done for me."
+
+The skipper could make little enough of this talk of singing before the
+Queen; but he understood the mention of making payment for his services,
+and his bitter pride flared up. He gripped the edge of the hammock
+roughly.
+
+"Would ye be payin' me for this?" he questioned. "Would ye, I say? Nay,
+not ye nor the Queen herself! I have money enough! I bes master o' this
+harbor!"
+
+She opened her wonderful, clear, sea-eyes at that, full upon his flushed
+face, and he saw the clear cross-lights in their depths. She regarded
+him calmly, with a suggestion of mocking interest, until his own glance
+wavered and turned aside. He felt again the surging of his heart's
+blood--but now, across and through the surging, a chill as of fear. The
+flush of offended pride faded from his cheeks.
+
+"Of course I shall pay you for saving my life," she said, coolly and
+conclusively.
+
+The skipper was not accustomed to such treatment, even from a woman; but
+without a word by way of retort he steadied the hammock in its descent
+of the twisting path as if his very life depended upon the stranger's
+comfort. The women, children and very old men of the harbor--all who had
+not gone to the scene of the wreck save the bedridden--came out of the
+cabins, asked questions and stared in wonder at the lady in the hammock.
+The skipper answered a few of their questions and waved them out of the
+way. They fell back in staring groups. The skipper ran ahead of the
+litter to his own house and met Mother Nolan on the threshold.
+
+"Here bes a poor young woman from a wrack, granny," he explained. "She
+bes nigh perished wid the cold an' wet. Ye'll give her yer bed, granny,
+till the fire bes started in Father McQueen's room."
+
+"Saints save us, Denny!" exclaimed Mother Nolan. "First it bes diamonds
+wid ye, an' now it bes a young woman. Wracks will sure be the ruin o'
+ye yet, Denny Nolan! This way, b'ys, an' give me a sight o' the poor
+lamb. Lay her here an' take yer tarpaulin away wid ye. Holy saints fend
+us all, but she bes dead--an' a great lady at that!"
+
+The stranger opened her eyes and looked at the old woman. Her wonderful
+eyes seemed to bewitch Mother Nolan, even as they had bewitched the
+skipper. The old dame stared, trembled and babbled. Turning to the
+gaping men, including Denny, she cried to them to get out where they
+belonged and shut the door after them. They obeyed, treading on each
+other's heels. Even the skipper departed, though reluctantly.
+
+"May every hair o' yer head turn into a wax candle to light ye to
+glory," babbled the old woman, as she unwound the coarse blankets from
+about the girl's unresisting body. The other smiled faintly.
+
+"I don't want to be lighted to glory--just now," she said. "I must sing
+in New York--to my own people--just as I sang before the Queen in
+London. But now I am so cold--and so tired."
+
+Mother Nolan gaped at her.
+
+"Glory be!" she whispered. "Eyes like fairies' eyes an' a voice like a
+mermaid's! An' the little white hands of her, soft as cream! An' the
+beautiful rings! Glory be!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE GOLD OF THE "ROYAL WILLIAM"
+
+
+The skipper and his four companions returned to the cliff above the
+wreck, the skipper striding ahead, silent, deep in a mental and
+spiritual unrest that was thought without reflection. The others
+followed, whispering among themselves but afraid to question their
+leader. The wind had fallen to a breeze by the time they reached the
+point of the cliff overlooking the slanted deck of the stranded ship.
+Also, the seas had lost much of their height and violence, and the tide
+was ebbing. The group on the cliff's edge eyed the skipper inquiringly,
+furtively, as he joined them. He strode through them and looked down at
+the wreck. His face lightened in a flash and his dark eyes gleamed.
+
+"What did I tell ye!" he cried. "Now she lays steady as a house, all
+ready to be gutted like a fish. Pass a couple o' lines this way, men.
+Take in the slack o' the hawser an' make her fast to yonder nub o'
+rock. Nick Leary, follow after me wid that block an' pulley. Bill, rig
+yer winch a couple o' yards this way an' stake her down. Keep ten men
+wid ye--an' the rest o' ye can follow me. But not too close, mind ye!
+Fetch yer axes along, an' every man o' ye a line."
+
+Three minutes later, the skipper was sliding down the foremast, with
+Nick Leary close above him, another man already on the cross-trees and
+yet another in mid-air on the hawser. The skipper reached the slanted
+deck and slewed down into the starboard scuppers, snatched hold of a
+splintered fragment of the bulwarks in time to save himself from
+pitching overboard, steadied himself for a moment and then crawled aft.
+Leary, profiting by the skipper's experience in the scuppers, made a
+line fast to the butt of the foremast, clawed his way up the slant of
+the deck to port, scrambled aft until he was fairly in line with the
+stump of the mainmast, and then let himself slide until checked in his
+course by that battered section of spar. Taking a turn around it with
+his line, he again clawed to port, and scrambled aft again. His second
+slide to starboard brought him to the splintered companionway of the
+main cabin. Here he removed the end of the rope from his waist and made
+it fast, thus rigging a life-line from the butt of the foremast aft to
+the cabin for the use of those to follow. It had been a swift and
+considerate piece of work. The men on the cliff cheered. Nick waved his
+hand to the cliff, shouted a caution to the man at that moment
+descending the foremast, and then swung himself down into four feet of
+water and the outer cabin.
+
+"Where be ye, skipper?" he bawled.
+
+"This way, Nick. Fair aft," replied the skipper. "Keep to port or ye'll
+have to swim. I bes in the captain's berth; an' here bes his dispatch
+box, high an' dry in his bunk."
+
+Nick made his way aft, through the length of the outer cabin as quickly
+as he could, with the water to his chin as he stooped forward in his
+efforts toward speed, entered an inner and smaller cabin by a narrow
+door and finally swam into the captain's own state-room. He grasped the
+edge of the berth in which the skipper crouched.
+
+"Hell! I bes nigh perished entirely wid the cold, skipper!" he cried.
+
+"Then swallow this," said the skipper, leaning down and tilting a bottle
+of brandy to the other's lips. "I found it right here in the bunk,
+half-empty; aye, an' two more like it, but wid nary a drop in 'em.
+There, Nick, that bes enough for ye."
+
+Leary dragged himself up beside the skipper. As the deadlight had been
+closed over the port, the state-room was illumined only by a gray
+half-gloom from the cabin.
+
+"This bunk bes nigh full o' junk," said Nolan. "The skipper o' this ship
+must ha' slept in the lower bunk an' kept his stores here. Here bes
+t'ree boxes wid the ship's gold an' papers, I take it; an' a
+medicine-chest, by the smell o' it; an' an entire case o' brandy, by
+Garge! Sure, Nick, it bes no wonder he got off his course! Take another
+suck at the bottle, Nick, an' then get overside wid ye an' pass out
+these boxes."
+
+Nick was still deriving warmth from the bottle when a third man entered
+the state-room, with just his head and neck above water.
+
+"She bes down by the starn desperate, skipper," he said. "Saints
+presarve me, I bes ice to the bones!"
+
+At a word from the skipper, the last arrival took the bottle from Leary.
+Others reached the scene of action and the three iron boxes and the case
+of brandy were soon safe on deck. From there they were winched up to
+the top of the cliff.
+
+"We'll break into the lazaret when the tide bes out," said the skipper.
+"She'll drain out, ye can lay to that, wid a hole in her as big as the
+roof o' a house."
+
+They salvaged a few cases of tinned provisions from the steward's
+pantry. Five state-rooms were situated on either side of the main or
+outer cabins. They looted those to port first, where the water was only
+a few feet deep, finding little but clothing and bedding and one leather
+purse containing thirty pounds in gold. The skipper put the purse into a
+submerged pocket, and sent the other stuff to the deck, to be winched
+aloft. The cabins on the starboard side contained but little of value. A
+few leather boxes and bags were sent up unopened. The water was still
+shoulder-deep to starboard. The door of the fifth room on the starboard
+side was fastened. The skipper pulled and jerked at it, then lowered his
+head beneath the water, and saw that it was locked on the inside. But
+the lock was a light one, and the wood of the door was not heavy. He
+called for a capstan-bar; and in spite of the fact that he had to strike
+blindly under several feet of water, the lock was soon shattered. By
+this time, a dozen men were clustered around, their curiosity and greed
+uncooled by the cold water to their shoulders.
+
+"There bes somethin' wort' salvin' in there, ye kin lay to that!" said
+one.
+
+"The passengers' store-room, I bes a-t'inkin'," said another.
+
+"Naught but the sail-locker," said a third. "D'ye look to find gold an'
+dimins in every blessed corner o' every blessed ship?"
+
+At that moment the skipper pulled the narrow door open to its full
+extent. The water inside swirled out to fill the eddy made by the
+opening of the door; and then, slow, terrible, wide-eyed, floating
+breast-high in the flood, a woman drifted out of the narrow room into
+the midst of the expectant men. Death had not been able to hide the
+agony in her staring eyes, or dull the lines of horror in her waxen,
+contorted face. She floated out to them, swaying and bowing, one hand
+clutched and fixed in the torn bosom of her dress, a pendant of gold and
+pearl swinging from each ear.
+
+A groan of wordless horror went up from the wreckers. For a moment they
+stared at the thing rocking and sidling in their midst, with grotesque
+motions of life and the face and hands of a terrific death; and then, as
+one man, they started to splash, beat and plunge their way to the
+companion-steps. The water was set swirling by their frantic efforts, in
+eddies and cross-currents which caught the dead woman and drew her,
+pitching and turning heavily, in the wakes of the leaders and elbow to
+elbow with some of the panic-stricken fellows in the second line of
+retreat. They knew the thing was not a ghost; they knew the thing was
+not alive, and could not harm them with its pitiful, stiff fingers; they
+knew it for the body of a woman who had been drowned in her cabin--and
+yet the horror of it chilled them, maddened them, melted their courage
+and deadened their powers of reasoning. Even the skipper felt the blind
+terror of the encounter in every tingling nerve. The water was deep, the
+deck sloped beneath their feet, and the way to the flooded steps of the
+companionway seemed a mile long. The fellows who suffered the touch of
+those dead elbows that seemed to reach out to them beneath the churning
+water yelled wildly, lost their footing and power to advance at one and
+the same moment, and soused under, clutching blindly at their comrades.
+This brought others down and under who believed that the fingers
+gripping them were those of the poor corpse. Screams and yells filled
+the cabin and drifted up to the astounded men on the cliff. Heads
+vanished; legs and arms beat the imprisoned water to spume; fists and
+feet struck living flesh; and one poor, frantic fool clutched the
+unconscious cause of all this madness in his arms. Then the skipper,
+steadied from his first insanity of fear by the signs of disaster,
+lowered his head deliberately, plunged forward and downward, and swam
+under water for the companion. In his passage he wrenched floundering
+bodies aside and kicked and struck at floundering legs and arms. Coming
+to the surface and sinking his feet to the deck at the same moment, he
+grasped a step of the companionway and hauled himself out of the water,
+as if the devil were nipping at his heels. Turning on an upper step, he
+reached down, clutched two of the struggling fellows by the collars and
+dragged them up from the battling smother. One of them sprang on up the
+companion without so much as a glance at his rescuer, reached the deck
+with a yell, and started forward on the run without pausing to lay a
+hand on the life-line. His course was brief. The list of the deck
+carried him to the starboard. His foot caught in a splinter of shattered
+bulwark and he pitched overboard, head first and with terrific force, to
+the black rocks and surging seas. That was the last time Dan Cormick was
+seen alive--and the sight of him springing from the companion and
+plunging to his death struck horror and amazement to the souls of the
+men on the cliff.
+
+Below, the skipper was doing his utmost to still the tumult and drag the
+men to safety. They were the men of his harbor--a part of his equipment
+in life--and therefore he worked like a hero to save them from
+themselves and one another. His young brother was safe on the cliff; so
+his fine efforts were not inspired by any grander emotion than that felt
+by the shopkeeper who fights fire in the protection of his uninsured
+stock-in-trade. There were men below whom he needed, but none whom he
+loved even with the ordinary affection of man for humanity. The skipper
+yanked the men to the steps as fast as he could get hold of them,
+dragged them up to the level of the deck, and left them sprawled. All
+were breathless; some were cut and bruised; Nick Leary's left cheek had
+been laid open from eye to jaw in some way. The shouting and yelling
+were now over, and several husky fellows, ashamed of the recent panic,
+helped the skipper at his work. When the task of rescue was at last
+finished, the flooded cabin had given up three corpses besides that of
+the woman--four corpses and a dozen wounded men.
+
+The bodies of the wreckers were hauled up to the top of the cliff, amid
+prayers, curses and groans of distress. The fellows on shore demanded to
+know who had killed them--and why? Knives were drawn. The brother of one
+of the dead men swore that he was ready and eager to cut the heart out
+of the murderer. The lads on the wreck caught something of all this; but
+it did not cool their desire to get ashore. Those who had the use of
+their limbs swarmed up the foremast and crossed over to the cliff. The
+first to step ashore was in grave danger for a half-minute; but he
+managed to throw some light on the thing that had taken place in the
+flooded cabin. Others landed, the whole story was told and knives were
+returned to their sheaths. The skipper, the seriously injured and the
+dead woman remained on the deck. The skipper was in a black mood. He
+knew his people well enough to see that this unfortunate affair would
+weaken his power among them. They would say that the saints were
+against his enterprises and ambitions; that his luck was gone; that he
+was a bungler and so not fit to give orders to full-grown men. He
+understood all this as if he could hear their grumbled words--nay, as
+well as if he could read the very hearts of them. He turned to Nick
+Leary. Nick had already bandaged his face with a piece of sail-cloth.
+
+"Where bes the medicine-chest? Was it sent aloft?" asked the skipper.
+
+"Nay, skipper, 'twas left below--in the captain's berth," replied Nick;
+his voice shook from pain and loss of blood.
+
+"Ye bes cut desperate bad," said the skipper. "I'll go fetch the
+medicine-chest an' fix ye up wid plaster an' dacent bandages. Who says
+his leg bes broke? Ye, Bill Lynch? I'll fix yer leg, b'y, when I git the
+chest."
+
+He looked up at the crowd on the cliff and roared to them to lower away
+some brandy for the wounded men.
+
+"An' step lively, damn ye, or I'll be comin' up to ye wid a bat in me
+hand," he concluded, knowing that it was not the time to display any
+sign of weakness. Then he went down the companion, entered the water,
+which had drained out with the ebbing tide until it reached no higher
+than to his waist, and waded aft to the lost captain's berth. He felt
+decidedly uneasy, shot glances to right and left at the narrow doors of
+the state-rooms and experienced a sensation of creeping cold at the
+roots of his hair; but he forced himself onward. He soon regained the
+deck with the big medicine-chest in his arms. He was received by a growl
+of admiration from the little group of wounded. The men on the cliff
+looked down in silence, those who had taken part in the recent panic
+deeply impressed by the skipper's action. The brandy had already been
+lowered to the deck, and the bottles were uncorked. The skipper placed
+the chest on the upper side of the hatch, and saw to the fair
+distribution of the liquor. He passed it around with a generous hand;
+but the doses administered to Nick Leary and the man with the broken leg
+were the most liberal. He attended to Nick's cheek first, drawing the
+lips of the wound together with strips of adhesive plaster from the
+medicine-chest, and then padding and bandaging it securely with gauze
+and linen.
+
+"That bes fine, skipper. Sure, it feels better now nor it did afore it
+was cut," mumbled Nick, gazing at the other with dog-homage in his eyes.
+
+By this time, Bill Lynch, of the broken leg, was oblivious to the world,
+thanks to the depth and strength of his potations. The skipper cut away
+a section of the leg of his heavy woollen trousers, prodded and pried at
+the injured limb with his strong fingers until the fracture was found,
+put a couple of strong splints in place, and bandaged them so that they
+were not likely to drop off, to say the least. He then made a sling of a
+blanket and sent his drunken patient swaying and twirling aloft in it to
+the top of the cliff. The other injured persons went ashore in the same
+way, one by one, like bales of sail-cloth. At last only the skipper and
+the dead woman were left on the wreck. The skipper stood with a scowl on
+his dark face and considered her. He drew the blanket sling toward him,
+and stood toward the poor clay.
+
+"I'll send her up to ye for dacent burial," he shouted.
+
+This suggestion was answered by a yell of protest from the men on the
+cliff.
+
+"If ye be afeard o' her, ye white-livered swile, what d'ye want me to do
+wid her?"
+
+"T'row her overboard! Heave her into the sea!" "Aye, t'row her
+overboard. She bes the devil hisself! T'ree good lads bes kilt dead by
+her already. T'row her overboard!"
+
+"There bain't a man amongst ye wid the heart o' a white-coat," returned
+the skipper. "Afeared o' a poor drownded wench, be ye?"
+
+This taunt was received in sullen silence. The skipper stood firm on the
+listed deck, his feet set well apart and his shoulders squared, and
+leered up at them. Then, stooping forward quickly, he plucked the
+pendants from those bloodless ears, and set the body rolling into the
+starboard scuppers and overboard to the frothing surf and slobbering
+rocks. From the cliff a cry as of mingled relief and dismay rang down to
+him. He moved forward and swarmed the foremast to the cross-trees. There
+he paused for a few moments to glance across. He saw that Bill Brennen,
+Nick Leary, his brother Cormick and several of the men whom he had
+rescued from the flooded cabin had clustered around the shore-end of the
+hawser. He saw that they feared treachery. He made his way across, cool,
+fearless, with a dangerous smile on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE SKIPPER STRUGGLES AGAINST SUPERSTITION
+
+
+"She lays snug enough. We'll break out the freight, to-morrow," said the
+skipper.
+
+"Aye, skipper, aye," returned Bill Brennen, with an unsuccessful attempt
+to put some heartiness into his tones; but the others did not say a
+word. They made litters for the dead and wounded, gathered up the spoils
+of the cabins, and set off sullenly for Chance Along. The skipper stood
+to one side and watched them from under lowering brows. At the first
+stroke of misfortune they were sulking and snarling at him like a pack
+of wolf-dogs. They evidently expected a boat-load of gold from every
+wreck, and no casualties. He despised and hated them. He hurried after
+them and called a halt. He ordered them to break open the ship's boxes.
+They obeyed him in sullen wonder.
+
+"If ye find any gold," he said, "count it an' divide it amongst ye. An'
+the same wid the rest o' the gear. An' here bes somethin' more for ye!"
+He tossed the purse and the earrings to them. "Take 'em. Keep 'em. I
+take no shares wid a crew like ye--not this time, anyhow, ye cowardly,
+unthankful, treacherous swabs! Aye, count the gold, damn ye! an' stow it
+away in yer pockets. I bes makin' rich men o' ye--an' at a turn o' bad
+luck ye all be ready to knife me. D'ye think I kilt them t'ree dead
+fools? Nay, they kilt themselves wid fear of a poor drownded woman!
+T'ree more would ha' bin stunned and drownded but for me. Holy saints
+above! I bes minded to leave ye to fish an' starve--all o' ye save them
+as has stood to me like men an' them o' me own blood--an' go to another
+harbor. Ye white-livered pack o' wolf-breed huskies! Ye cowardly,
+snarlin', treacherous divils. Take yer money. I gives it to ye. Go home
+an' feed on the good grub I gives to ye an' drink the liquor ye'd never
+have the wits nor the courage to salve but for me! Go home wid ye, out
+o' my sight, or maybe I'll forgit the flabby-hearted swabs ye be an'
+give ye a taste o' me bat!"
+
+The skipper's fury increased with the utterance of every bellowed word.
+His dark face burned crimson, and his black eyes glowed like coals in
+the open draught of a stove. His teeth flashed between his snarling
+lips like a timber-wolf's fangs. He shook his fist at them, picked up a
+birch billet, which was a part of the wrecking-gear, and swung it
+threateningly. About eight of the men and boys, including young Cormick
+Nolan, Nick Leary and Bill Brennen, stood away from the others, out of
+line of the skipper's frantic gestures and bruising words. Some of them
+were loyal, some simply more afraid of Black Dennis Nolan than of
+anything else in the world. But fear, after all, is an important element
+in a certain quality of devotion.
+
+The main party were somewhat shaken. A few of them growled back at the
+skipper; but not quite loud enough to claim his attention to them in
+particular. Some eyed him apprehensively, while others broke open the
+ship's and passengers' boxes. They found minted money only in one of the
+captain's dispatch-boxes--two small but weighty bags of gold containing
+about two hundred sovereigns in all. This was the money which the dead
+captain had been armed with by his owners against harbor-dues, etc. The
+funds which the passengers must have possessed had doubtless been flung
+overboard and under along with the unfortunate beings who had clung to
+them. The sullen, greedy fellows began to count and divide the gold.
+They were slow, suspicious, grasping. The skipper, having fallen to a
+glowing silence at last, watched them for a minute or two with a bitter
+sneer on his face. Then he turned and set out briskly for Chance Along.
+The loyal and fearful party followed him, most of them with evident
+reluctance. A few turned their faces continually to gaze at the
+distributing of the gold and gear. The skipper noted this with a
+sidelong, covert glance.
+
+"Don't ye be worryin', men. Ye'll have yer fill afore long, so help me
+Saint Peter!" he exclaimed. "No man who stands by me, an' knows me for
+master, goes empty!"
+
+He did not speak another word on the way or so much as look at his
+followers. He strode along swiftly, thinking hard. He could not blink
+the fact that the needless deaths of the three men in the cabin of the
+_Royal William_ had weakened his position seriously. He could not blink
+the ugly fact that the day's activities had bred a mutiny--and that the
+mutiny had not yet been faced and broken. It was still breeding. The
+poison was still working. In a fit of blind anger and unreasoning
+disgust he had fed the spirit of rebellion with gold. He had shattered
+with his foot what he had built with his hands. The work of mastery was
+all to do over again. He had taught them that his rights were four
+shares to one--and now he had given them all, thereby destroying a
+precedent in the establishing of which he had risked his life and
+robbing himself and his loyal followers at the same time. The situation
+was desperate; but he could not find it in his heart to regret the day's
+work; for there was the girl with the sea-eyes, lying safe in his own
+house this very minute! A thrill, sweet yet bitter, went through his
+blood at the thought. No other woman had ever caused him a choking pang
+like this. The remembrance of those clear eyes shook him to the very
+soul and quenched his burning anger with a wave of strangely mingled
+adoration and desire. He was little more than a fine animal, after all.
+The man in him lay passive and undeveloped under the tides of passion,
+craving, brute-pride and crude ambitions. But the manhood was there, as
+his flawless courage and unconsidered kindness to women and children
+indicated. But he was self-centred, violent, brutally masterful. Women
+and children had always seemed to him (until now) helpless, harmless
+things, that had a right to the protection of men even as they had a
+right to remain ashore from the danger of wind and sea. The stag caribou
+and the dog-wolf have the same attitude toward the females of their
+races. It is a characteristic which is natural to animals and boasted of
+by civilized men. Dogs and gentlemen do not bite and beat their females;
+and if Black Dennis Nolan resembled a stag, a he-wolf, and a dog in many
+points, in this particular he also resembled a gentleman. Like some
+hammering old feudal baron of the Norman time and the finer type, his
+battles were all with men. Those who did not ride behind him he rode
+against. He feared the saints and a priest, even as did the barons of
+old; but all others must acknowledge his lordship or know themselves for
+his enemies. To Black Dennis Nolan the law of the land was a vague thing
+not greatly respected. To Walter, Lord of Waltham, William the Red was a
+vague personage, not greatly respected. Walter, Lord of Waltham, son of
+Walter and grandson of Fitz Oof of Normandy; Skipper of Chance Along,
+son of Skipper Pat and grandson of Skipper Tim--the two barons differed
+only in period and location. In short, Black Dennis Nolan possessed
+many of the qualities of strong animals, of a feudal baron, and one at
+least of a modern gentleman.
+
+The skipper was overtaken and joined by his young brother at the edge of
+the barrens above Chance Along. They scrambled swiftly down the path to
+the clustered cabins. At their own door Cormick plucked the skipper's
+sleeve.
+
+"They was talkin' o' witches," he whispered. "Dick Lynch an' some more
+o' the lads. They says as how the comather was put on to ye this very
+mornin', Denny."
+
+The skipper paused with his hand on the latch and eyed the other
+sharply.
+
+"Witches, ye say? An' Dick Lynch was talkin', was he? Who did they
+figger as put the spell on to me?"
+
+"The lass ye saved from the fore-top. Sure, that's what they all bes
+sayin', Denny. Mermaid, they calls her--an' some a fairy. A witch,
+anyhow. They says as how yer luck bes turned now--aye, the luck o' the
+entire harbor. 'Twas herself--the spell o' her--kilt the t'ree lads in
+the cabin, they be sayin'. Their talk was desperate black, Denny."
+
+"'Twas the poor dead, drownded woman, an' their own cowardly souls, kilt
+'em!"
+
+"Aye, Denny, so it was, nary a doubt; but they shot ye some desperate
+black looks, Denny."
+
+"Well, Cormy, don't ye be worryin'. Fifty t'ousand squid like Dick Lynch
+couldn't frighten me. The comather, ye say? Saints o' God! but I'll be
+puttin' it on themselves wid a club! Bewitched? What the divil do they
+know o' witches? Fishes bes all they understands! Black looks they give
+me, did they? I'll be batin' 'em so black they'll all look like rotted
+herrings, by the Holy Peter hisself! Aye, Cormy, don't ye worry, now."
+
+At that he opened the door quietly and stepped inside with a strange air
+of reverence and eagerness. The boy followed softly and closed the door
+behind him. The fire roared and crackled in the round stove, but the
+room was empty of human life. Wet garments of fine linen hung on a line
+behind the stove. The inner door opened and old Mother Nolan hobbled
+into the kitchen with a wrinkled finger to her lips.
+
+"Whist wid ye!" she cautioned. "She be sleepin' like a babe, the poor
+darlint, in Father McQueen's own bed, wid everything snug an' warm as
+ye'd find in any marchant's grand house in St. John's."
+
+She took her accustomed seat beside the stove and lit her pipe.
+
+"Saints alive! but can't ye set down!" she exclaimed. "I wants to talk
+wid ye, b'ys. Tell me this--where bes t'e rest o' the poor folk from the
+wrack?"
+
+"She bes the only livin' soul we found, Granny," replied the skipper.
+"She was lashed in the foremast--an' t'other spars was all over the
+side. We found a poor dead body in one o' the cabins--drownded to
+death--an' not so much as another corpse. Aye, Granny, 'twas a desperate
+cruel wrack altogether."
+
+The old woman shot a keen glance at him; but he returned it without a
+blink.
+
+"Didn't ye find no more gold an' diamonds, then?" she asked.
+
+"We found some gold. I give it all to the men."
+
+"An' what was the cargo?"
+
+"Sure, Granny, we didn't break into her cargo yet. There was a
+rumpus--aye, ye may well call it a rumpus! Did ye say as she bes
+sleepin', Granny?"
+
+The old woman nodded her head, her black eyes fixed on the red draught
+of the stove with a far-away, fateful, veiled glint in them which her
+grandsons knew well. She had ceased to puff at her pipe for the moment,
+and in the failing light from the window they could see a thin reek of
+smoke trailing straight up from the bowl.
+
+"Aye, sleepin'," she mumbled, at last. "Saints presarve us, Denny! There
+bes fairy blood in her--aye, fairy blood. Sure, can't ye see it in her
+eyes? I's afeard there bain't no luck in it, Denny. Worse nor wracked
+diamonds, worse nor wracked gold they be--these humans wid fairy blood
+in 'em! And don't I know? Sure, wasn't me own grandmother own cousin to
+the darter o' a fairy-woman? Sure she was, back in old Tyoon. An' there
+was no luck in the house wid her; an' she was a beauty, too, like the
+darlint body yonder."
+
+The skipper smiled and lit his pipe. The winter twilight had deepened to
+gloom. The front of the stove glowed like a long, half-closed red eye,
+and young Cormick peered fearfully at the black corners of the room.
+The skipper left his chair, fetched a candle from the dresser and lit it
+at the door of the stove.
+
+"We bes a long way off from old Tyoon, Granny," he said; "an' maybe
+there bain't no fairies now, even in Tyoon. I never seen no fairy in
+Chance Along, anyhow; nor witch, mermaid, pixie, bogey, ghost,
+sprite--no, nor even a corpus-light. Herself in yonder bes no
+fairy-child, Granny, but a fine young lady, more beautiful nor an angel
+in heaven--maybe a marchant's darter an' maybe a king's darter, but nary
+the child o' any vanishin' sprite. Sure, didn't I hold her in me two
+arms all the way from the fore-top o' the wrack to the cliff?--an'
+didn't she weigh agin' me arms till they was nigh broke wid it?"
+
+"Denny, ye poor fool," returned Mother Nolan, "ye bes simple as a squid
+t'rowed up on the land-wash. What do ye know o' fairies an' the like?
+Wasn't I born on a Easter Sunday, wid the power to see the good people,
+an' the little people, an' all the tricksy tribes? The body o' a
+fairy-child bes human, lad. 'Tis but the heart o' her bes unhuman--an'
+the beauty o' her--an' there bain't no soul in her. Did ye hear the
+voice o' her, Denny? Holy saints! But was there ever a human woman wid
+a voice the like o' that?"
+
+"Aye, Granny, but did she eat? Did she drink? Did she shed tears?" asked
+the skipper.
+
+The old woman nodded her head.
+
+"Fairies don't shed tears," said Dennis, grinning. "Sure, ye've told me
+that yerself many a time."
+
+"But half-fairies, like herself, sheds 'em as well as any human, ye mad
+fool," returned Mother Nolan.
+
+At that moment the outer door opened, and Nick Leary entered the
+kitchen, closing the door behind him, and shooting the bolt into its
+place. His face was so generously bandaged that only his eyes and nose
+were visible. He glanced fearfully around the room.
+
+"Where bes the mermaid? Has she flew away?" he whispered.
+
+The skipper sprang to his feet with an oath.
+
+"Mermaid?" he cried. "Ye dodderin' fool ye! She bes no more a mermaid
+nor any fat wench in Chance Along! Has she flew, ye say! How to hell kin
+a mermaid fly? Wid her tail? Ye bes a true man, Nick, or I'd bat ye over
+the nob for yer trouble. She bes a poor young woman saved from a wrack,
+as well ye know. What d'ye want wid me?"
+
+Leary trembled, big as he was, and pulled off his fur cap with both
+hands.
+
+"Aye, skipper, aye! but where bes she now?" he whispered.
+
+"She bes sleepin' like any poor babe in his reverence's own bed,"
+replied the skipper.
+
+"Saints presarve us!" exclaimed the other. "In the blessed father's bed!
+I bain't sayin' naught, skipper, sir, but--but sure 'twill be desperate
+bad luck for his reverence!"
+
+Black Dennis Nolan lost his temper then. He gripped Nick by the
+shoulder, swore at him, shook him about, and threatened to knock his
+head off. Had Nick been one of the mutineers, the chances are ten to one
+that he would have been floored and beaten half to death. But even in
+the full fury of his rage the skipper did not lose sight of the fact
+that this fellow was a loyal slave. He did not love Nick, but he loved
+his dog-like devotion. So he kept his right hand down at his side, and
+it cost him a mighty effort of restraint, and contented himself with
+cursing and shaking. The boy stared at the two wide-eyed, and the old
+woman smoked and nodded without so much as a glance at them. At last the
+skipper unhooked his fingers from Nick's shoulder, laughed harshly and
+returned to his seat.
+
+"Luck?" he said, derisively. "The luck o' Father McQueen bes the
+protection o' the holy saints above. An' my luck bes the strength o' my
+heart an' my wits, Nick Leary. I saves a woman from a wrack an' brings
+her into my own house--an' ye names her for a mermaid an' a she-divil!
+Maybe ye holds wid Dick Lynch 'twas herself kilt the t'ree lads in the
+cabin--an' her in this house all the time, innocent as a babe."
+
+Leary made the sign of the cross quickly and furtively.
+
+"Nay, skipper; but the divil was in that wrack," he said. "The lads got
+to fightin' over the gold, skipper, an' Dick Lynch slipped his knife
+into Pat Brennen. Sure, the divil come ashore from that wrack. Never
+afore did them two pull their knives on each other; an' now Pat Brennen
+lays bleedin' his life out. The divil bes got into the lads o' Chance
+Along, nary a doubt, an' the black luck has come to the harbor."
+
+"The divil an' the black luck bes in their own stinkin' hearts!"
+exclaimed Nolan, violently.
+
+"Aye, skipper; but they says it bes her ye brought ashore put the curse
+on to us--an' now they bes comin' this way, skipper, to tell ye to run
+her out o' yer house."
+
+"What d'ye say?" cried the skipper, springing from his chair. "Run her
+out, ye say?"
+
+He trembled with fury, burned the air with oaths, and called down all
+the curses known to tradition upon the heads of the men of Chance Along.
+He snatched up a stout billet of birch, green and heavy, wrenched open
+the door, and sprang into the outer gloom.
+
+Nick Leary's story was true. The mutineers had consumed the brandy, come
+to hot words over the sharing of the gold, dropped their dead and
+wounded, and commenced to curse, kick and hit at one another with clubs.
+Then Dick Lynch had put his knife into a young man named Pat Brennen, a
+nephew of the loyal Bill. Panic had brought the fight to a drunken,
+slobbering finish.
+
+"There bes four strong lads kilt in one day!" some one had cried. "The
+black curse bes on us! The divil bes in it!"
+
+Full of liquor, fear and general madness, they had come to the opinion
+that the strange young female whom the skipper had saved from the
+fore-top and carried to his house was such an imp of darkness as had
+never before blighted the life and luck of Chance Along. She had
+bewitched the skipper. Her evil eyes had cast a curse on the wreck and
+that curse had been the death of their three comrades. She had put a
+curse on the gold, so that they had all gone mad the moment they felt
+the touch of it in their hands. The skipper, under her spell, had
+betrayed them--had given them gold so that they should fight over it and
+destroy one another. It was all very simple--too simple to require
+reasoning! In truth, the curse was upon them--the curse of dead men's
+liquor, dead men's gold--the curse of greed, blood-lust and fear! So
+they had picked up their dead, their wounded and their loot and
+continued their journey at top speed, intent on casting out the witch,
+and bringing the skipper to a knowledge of his desperate state even if
+the operation should cost him his life. What cared they for his life now
+that he had lost his luck?
+
+They reached Chance Along, scattered for a few minutes to dispose of
+the dead and wounded, gathered again and crowded toward the skipper's
+house. They were quiet now, for the superstitious fear had not entirely
+driven from their hearts the human fear of the skipper's big hands and
+terrible eyes. They stumbled and reeled against one another, their heads
+and feet muddled by brandy and excitement. Some were armed with sticks,
+a few had drawn their knives, others had forgotten to arm themselves
+with anything. They trod upon each other's feet in the dark, narrow,
+uneven ways between the cabins. Bill Brennen joined them in the dark. He
+carried a broken oar of seasoned ash in his hands. He had sent Nick
+Leary to warn the skipper of the approach of the mutineers; and his
+faith in the skipper's prowess was such that he felt but little anxiety.
+He was sober and he knew that Black Dennis Nolan was sober. He kept to
+the rear of the mob, just far enough behind it to allow for a full swing
+of his broken oar, and waited for his master to make the first move
+against this disorderly demonstration of superstition, bottle-valor and
+ingratitude. He removed his mittens, stowed them in his belt and spat
+upon the palms of his hands while he waited. Being sober, he reasoned.
+Bad luck had struck the harbor this day, beyond a doubt, and brought
+death and mutiny. But death had not come to the skipper. Not so much as
+a scratch had come to the skipper. If a witch was in the harbor he
+trusted to Black Dennis Nolan to deal with her without bringing harm
+upon himself or his friends. If the devil himself visited Chance Along
+he would look to the skipper to outwit, outcurse and out-devil him. This
+is how he felt about the man he had attached himself to. He gripped his
+broken oar with his moistened palm and fingers and waited hopefully. He
+had not long to wait.
+
+Suddenly the door of the skipper's house flew open and out of the glow
+of candle-light leaped a figure that might easily (under the
+circumstances and condition of the mob) have been the devil
+himself--himself, the father of all the little devils in hell. The
+wrathful bellow of him was like the roar of a wounded walrus. He touched
+ground in the centre of the front rank of the mob, and as his feet
+touched the ground his billet of green birch cracked down upon a skull.
+And still he continued to roar; and still the club cracked and cracked;
+and then Bill Brennen got heartily to work on the rear rank with his
+broken oar.
+
+The mob of mutineers had arrived intoxicated, and with no very clear
+idea of what they intended to do to the witch and the skipper. They had
+intended to make the first move, however; of that they were certain.
+They had intended to open the door themselves--and now some divil had
+opened it before they were ready! They were so unsteady on their feet
+that no man of them stood up for a second blow. A few got to work on
+their own account; but it was so dark that they did little damage even
+to their friends. After five or six had fallen the next in order for
+treatment faced about to retire. In their indignation and bewilderment
+they discovered that another club was at work in their rear. This
+unnerved them so that they--the survivors of the demonstration--raised
+their voices to heaven in expostulation and stampeded. They went over
+Bill Brennen like a wave over a bar, knocking the breath out of him, and
+sending the oar flying from his grasp; but the skipper kept right after
+them, still roaring, still plying the billet of green birch. They
+scattered, each dashing for his own cabin, bursting open the door,
+sprawling inside, and shutting the door with his feet.
+
+After the last door had been slammed in his face, the skipper went home.
+He found Bill Brennen seated by the stove, trying a pipeful of Mother
+Nolan's tobacco. He had regained his broken oar and held it tenderly
+across his knees.
+
+"We sure put the witchery into them squid, skipper, sir," he said. "We
+sure larned 'em the black magic, by Peter!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SOME EARLY VISITS
+
+
+The skipper kept his two unswerving henchmen to supper and brewed a
+mighty bowl in their honor. He even condescended to thank Nick for his
+warning, roundabout and prolonged though it had been, and to throw a
+word of praise to Bill Brennen. He felt that the unqualified success of
+his unexpected attack upon the mob had rewon for him much of his mastery
+of the harbor. The others agreed with him. Bill Brennen, with a mug full
+of punch in his hand, and his eyes on the broken oar which had stood in
+a corner, humbly advised him to bestir himself at an early hour in the
+morning, and put the finishing touches on the lesson. He advised a
+house-to-house visitation before the heroes had recovered from the
+brandy and the birch billet--not to mention the oar.
+
+"Bat 'em agin whilst their heads bes still sore," said Bill--which is
+only another and more original way of saying, "Strike while the iron is
+hot."
+
+"When ye give 'em all the money, skipper, they sure t'ought ye was
+bewitched," said Nick Leary. "They t'ought ye was under a spell--an'
+next they was t'inkin' as how the gold sure had a curse on to it or ye
+wouldn't give it to 'em."
+
+The skipper nodded. "I was too easy wid 'em!" he said. "Sure, b'ys, I'll
+be mendin' it."
+
+Bill and Nick departed at last; Cormick ascending the ladder to his bed
+in the loft; Mother Nolan brewed a dose of herbs of great virtue--she
+was wise in such things--and still the skipper sat by the stove and
+smoked his pipe. Never before had his life known another such day as
+this. Now he could have sworn that a whole month had passed since he had
+been awakened by news of the wreck under the cliff, and again it seemed
+as swift and dazzling as the flash of the powder in the pan of his old
+sealing-gun when the spark flies from the flint. It had certainly been
+an astonishing day! He had saved a life. He had seen those wonderful,
+pale lids blink open and the soul sweep back into those wonderful eyes.
+He had been elbow to elbow with violent death. He had struggled
+submerged in water tinged with blood. He had known exultation, anger
+and something which a less courageous man would have accepted for
+defeat. He had suffered a mutiny--and later, in a few violent, reckless
+minutes of action he had broken it--or cowed it at least. Now he felt
+himself master of the harbor again, but not the master of his own
+destiny. He did not sum up his case in these terms; but this is what it
+came to. Destiny was a conviction with him, and not a word at all--a
+nameless conviction. He did not consider the future anew; but he felt,
+without analyzing it, a breathless, new curiosity of what the morrow
+might hold for him. This sensation was in connection with the girl.
+Apart from her, his old plans and ambitions stood. He felt no
+uncertainty and no curiosity concerning the morrow's dealings with the
+men. He considered it a commonplace subject. He would act upon Bill
+Brennen's advice and visit the mutineers at an early hour; and as to the
+wreck?--well, if conditions proved favorable he would break out the
+cargo and see what could be made of it.
+
+Mother Nolan entered with an empty cup in her hand.
+
+"She took her draught like a babe, an' bes sleepin' agin peaceful as an
+angel," she whispered. "Mind ye makes no noise, Denny. No more o' yer
+fightin' an' cursin' this night!"
+
+Black Dennis Nolan put in a night of disturbed dreaming and crawled from
+his bed before the first streak of dawn. He pulled on his heavy garments
+and seal-hide "skinnywoppers," built up the fire in the stove, brewed
+and gulped a mug of tea, and then unbolted the door noiselessly and went
+out. The dawn was lifting by now, clear, glass-gray and narrow at the
+rim of the sea to the eastward and southward. The air was still. The
+lapping of the tide along the icy land-wash and the dull whispering of
+it among the seaward rocks were the only sounds. The skipper stood
+motionless beside his own door for a few minutes. Small windows blinked
+alight here and there; faint, muffled sounds of awakening life came to
+him from the cabins; pale streamers of smoke arose into the breathless
+air from the little chimneys.
+
+"Now I'll pay me calls on 'em, like good Father McQueen himself,"
+murmured the skipper.
+
+He moved across the frosty rock to the nearest door. It was opened to
+him by a wide-eyed woman with a ragged shawl thrown over her head.
+
+"Mornin' to ye, Kate. How bes yer man Tim this mornin'?" inquired the
+skipper.
+
+He stepped inside without waiting for an answer or an invitation. He
+found Tim in the bed beside the stove, snoring heavily. He grabbed his
+shoulder and shook it roughly until the fellow closed his mouth and
+opened his eyes.
+
+"Tim Leary, ye squid, shut off yer fog-horn an' hark to me!" he
+exclaimed. "By sun-up ye goes back to the woods and commences cuttin'
+out poles for Father McQueen's church. Ye'll take yer brother Corny an'
+Peter Walen along wid ye an' ye'll chop poles all day. Mark that, Tim. I
+let ye take a fling yesterday, jist to see what kind o' dogs ye be; but
+if ever I catches ye takin' another widout the word from me I'll be
+killin' ye!"
+
+The man groaned.
+
+"Holy saints, skipper, ye'd not be sendin' me to choppin' poles wid a
+head on me like a lobster-pot?" he whispered. "Sure, skipper, me poor
+head feels that desperate bad, what wid the liquor an' the clout ye give
+me, I couldn't heave it up from the pillow if Saint Peter himself give
+the word."
+
+"I bain't troublin' about Saint Peter," returned the skipper. "If ever
+he wants ye to chop poles he'll see as how ye does it, I bes t'inkin'!
+It bes me a-tellin' ye now; an' if ye can't carry yer head to the woods
+wid ye to-day, ye treacherous dog, I'll knock it off for ye to-night so
+ye'll be able to carry it 'round in yer two hands. Mark that!"
+
+So the skipper paid his round of morning calls. At some cabins he paused
+only long enough to shout a word through the door, at others he remained
+for several minutes, re-inspiring treacherous but simple hearts with the
+fear of Dennis Nolan, master of Chance Along. At one bed he stayed for
+fifteen minutes, examining and rebandaging the wound given by the knife
+of Dick Lynch. As for that drunken, sullen, treacherous savage, Dick
+Lynch himself, he dragged him from his blankets, knocked him about the
+floor, and then flung him back on to his bed. Then, turning to the dazed
+man's horrified wife, he said, "See that he don't turn on me agin,
+Biddy, or by the crowns o' the Holy Saints I'll be the everlastin' death
+o' him!"
+
+At some of the cabins his orders were for the woods, and at some they
+were for work on the stranded ship. He did not disturb Bill Brennen or
+Nick Leary. He knew that they would be around at his house for orders by
+sun-up. The last cabin he visited was that of Pat Kavanagh. Kavanagh was
+a man of parts, and had been a close friend of the old skipper. He was a
+man of the world, having sailed deep-sea voyages in his youth. He was a
+grand fiddler, a grand singer, and had made more "Come-all-ye's" than
+you could count on your fingers and toes. He had a wooden leg; and his
+daughter was the finest girl in Chance Along. His best known
+Come-all-ye, which is sung to this day from Caplin Arm to Bay Bulls,
+starts like this:--
+
+    "Come, all ye hardy fishermen
+      An' hearken to me lay
+    O' how the good brig 'Peggy Bell'
+      Went down in Trin'ty Bay.
+
+    "The skipper he was from St. John's,
+      The mate from Harbor Grace;
+    The bosun was a noble lad
+      Wid whiskers 'round his face."
+
+Pat Kavanagh was the author of the ballad that commences this way, and
+of many more.
+
+He was proud of his daughter and his wooden leg; he was happy with his
+fiddle and his verses; he did not hold with physical or emotional
+violence, and asked the world for nothing more than to be left alone
+beside his stove with a knowledge that there was something in the pot
+and a few cakes of hard bread in the bin. He could not understand the
+new skipper, his terrible activity, his hard-fisted ways and his
+ambitions, and he took no stock in wrecks except as subjects for songs;
+but he had been delighted with a gift of four fine blankets and two
+quarts of rum which the skipper had made him recently.
+
+Mary Kavanagh opened the door to the skipper, and let a fine light slip
+into her blue eyes at the sight of him. Her cheeks, which had been
+unusually pale when she opened the door, flushed bright and deep. The
+young man greeted her pleasantly and easily, and stepped across the
+threshold. Pat was already out of bed and seated in his chair close to
+the stove. He was long and thin, with a straggling beard and moustaches,
+a long face, a long nose, and kindly, twinkling eyes. Though he looked
+happy enough he also looked like a widower--why, I can't say. It may
+have been owing to his general unstowed, unfurled, unswabbed
+appearance. He had not yet fastened on his wooden leg. He never did,
+nowadays, until he had eaten his breakfast and played a tune or two on
+his fiddle. His eyes were paler than his daughter's, and not nearly so
+bright, and he had a way of staring at a thing for minutes at a time as
+if he did not see it--and usually he didn't. Altogether, he was a very
+impractical person. He must have made a feeble sailor--a regular fool as
+a look-out--and the wonder is that he lost only one leg during his
+deep-sea career. He looked at the skipper with that calm, far-away
+shimmer in his eyes, combing his thin whiskers with his fingers. He did
+not speak. His wooden leg was leaning up against his chair.
+
+"Good morning to ye, Pat Kavanagh," said the skipper.
+
+The poet blinked his eyes, thereby altering their expression from a
+shimmer to a gray, wise gleam.
+
+"So it bes yerself, Skipper Denny," he said. "Set down. Set down. Sure,
+b'y, I didn't expect to see ye so spry to-day, an' was just studyin' out
+a few verses concernin' death an' pride an' ructions that would keep yer
+memory green."
+
+"Whist, father!" exclaimed the girl.
+
+"I bain't dead, Pat, so ye kin set to on some new varses," said the
+skipper. "If ye t'ought them poor fools ye heard yowlin' last night was
+to be the death o' me, then ye was on the wrong tack. But I bes here now
+to ax yer opinion concernin' them same fools, Pat. Yesterday they raised
+a mutiny agin me, all along o' a poor girl as I saved from the wrack,
+an' last night an' this mornin' I larned 'em the error o' their ways.
+Now ye was once a deep-sea sailorman, Pat, a-sailin' foreign v'yages,
+an' so I wants ye to tell me what I'd better be doin' wid some o' them
+squid? There was Foxey Jack Quinn; but he run away an' done for himself
+in the flurry. Here bes Dick Lynch, nigh as treacherous an' full o'
+divilment as ever Jack was, growlin' an' snarlin' at me heels like a
+starvin' husky an' showin' his teeth every now an' agin. So I wants to
+know, Pat, will I kill him dead or run him out o' the harbor? I bes
+skipper here--aye, an' more nor skipper--an' all a man has to do to live
+safe an' happy an' rich in this harbor bes to do what I tells him to
+do--but this here Dick Lynch bain't knowledgeable enough to see it. I's
+had to bat him twice. Next time I bats him maybe I'd best finish the
+job? I puts it to ye, Pat Kavanagh, because ye knows the world an' how
+sich things bes done aboard foreign-going ships."
+
+"This harbor bain't no foreign-going ship, Denny," replied the poet.
+
+"True, Pat; but if I calls it a ship it bes the same as one!" retorted
+the skipper.
+
+"If ye takes it that way, Denny, then ye'd best be handin' the lad over
+to the jedges to be tried for mutiny," suggested the other, quietly.
+"But if ye wants my opinion, ye'll leave him be."
+
+"Leave him be?"
+
+"Aye. He bain't worth troublin' about. Bat him now an' agin, if he tries
+to knife ye, an' maybe he'll follow Jack Quinn. But this harbor bain't a
+ship, lad. The skipper o' a ship has the law to his back in cases o'
+mutiny an' the like--but the law bain't behind ye, Dennis Nolan!"
+
+"The divil fly away wid the law!" cried the skipper. "I bes skipper
+here! I makes the law for this harbor--an' them as don't like the laws I
+makes kin go somewheres else."
+
+"Leave him be, skipper. That bes what I tells ye, for yer own good.
+Don't kill him. Ye kin break up desarted wracks; ye kin fill yer pockets
+wid gold; ye kin bat yer mates over the nob if ye wants to; but once ye
+gets to killin' men, Denny Nolan, then ye'll find the law to yer back
+sure enough, a-fixin' a noose around yer neck! Aye, lad, that bes the
+truth! I warns ye because I likes ye--an' I bes glad to see ye so
+prosperous."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MARY KAVANAGH
+
+
+A number of men with sore heads and dry mouths made their way to the top
+of the cliff, across the barrens and into a thin belt of spruces. There
+they worked as well as they could at cutting timber for Father McQueen's
+church. They were a dolorous company. The daring spirit of mutiny had
+passed away, leaving behind it the fear of the skipper. The courage,
+uplift and inspiring glow of the brandy had ebbed and evaporated,
+leaving the quaking stomach, the swimming brain, the misty eye. They
+groaned as they hacked at the trees, for the desire to lie down on the
+cold snow was heavy upon them; but still they hacked away, for the fear
+of Black Dennis Nolan, the unconquerable, was like a hot breath upon
+their necks. They said some bitter things about Dick Lynch.
+
+The skipper visited the wreck, accompanied by Bill Brennen and a few of
+the men and boys who had not taken part in yesterday's mutiny. The sea
+was almost flat and there was no wind. The hatches were broken open; and
+what they could see of the _Royal William's_ cargo looked entirely
+satisfactory to them--sail-cloth, blankets, all manner of woollen and
+cotton goods, boots and shoes, hams, cheeses and tinned meats. Though
+some of these things were damaged by the salt water, few of them were
+ruined by it. They worked all day at winching out the cargo. Next day,
+the men who had cooled their sore heads in the woods were also put to
+work on the stranded ship. With timbers and tarpaulins from the ship
+they built a storehouse on the barren, in the midst of a thicket of
+spruces. In the two days they managed to save about a quarter of the
+cargo. The skipper drove them hard, an iron belaying pin in his hand and
+slashing words always on his lips. But even the dullest of them saw that
+he neither drove, cursed nor threatened Bill Brennen, Nick Leary or any
+of the men who had kept out of the mutiny. Most of the stuff that was
+salvaged was put in the new store, but a few hundreds of pounds of it
+were carried to the harbor.
+
+During these two days the skipper did not once set eyes on the girl he
+had saved from the fore-top. Mother Nolan would not let him approach
+within two yards of the door of the room in which she lay. It seemed,
+from Mother Nolan's talk, that the beautiful stranger was always
+sleeping. But, through the old woman, he learned her name. It was Flora
+Lockhart.
+
+When the skipper and Cormick reached home after the second day's work on
+the cargo, Mother Nolan told them that Flora was in the grip of a
+desperate fever, upon which none of her brews of roots and herbs seemed
+to have any effect. She was hot as fire and babbled continually of
+things strange and mad to the ears of the old woman. The skipper was
+dismayed at the news; but his vigorous mind immediately began to search
+for a means of dealing with the fever. He knew nothing of any remedies
+save the local ones, in the manufacture and administering of which his
+grandmother was a mistress. But here was the _Royal William's_
+medicine-chest, and here was Pat Kavanagh who had sailed foreign voyages
+in vessels carrying similar chests. He rushed from the house straight to
+the poet-fiddler's cabin. He pushed open the door and entered without
+knocking, as the custom is in Chance Along. Mary was attending to a
+stew-pan on the stove, and Pat was seated in his chair with his wooden
+leg strapped in place. The skipper told of the stranger's fever.
+
+"An' ye has the ship's medicine-chest?" queried Pat. "Then we'll give
+her the bitter white powder--quinine--aye, quinine. Every ship carries
+it, lad. When I was took wid the fever in Port-o'-Spain didn't the mate
+shake it on to me tongue till me ears crackled like hail on the roof,
+an' when I got past stickin' out me tongue didn't he mix it wid whiskey
+an' pour it into me? Sure, Denny! An' it knocked the fever galley west
+in t'ree days an' left me limp as cook's dish-clout hangin' to dry under
+the starboard life-boat. But it bes better nor dyin' entirely wid the
+fever. I'll step round wid ye, skipper, and p'int out this here quinine
+to ye."
+
+And he did. He found a large bottle of quinine in the box, in powder
+form. He measured out a quantity of it in doses of from three to five
+grains, for his memory of the sizes of the doses administered to him by
+the mate was somewhat dim, and advised Mother Nolan not to give the
+powders too often nor yet not often enough. Mother Nolan asked for more
+exact directions. She felt that she had a right to them. Pat Kavanagh
+combed his long whiskers reflectively with his long fingers, gazing at
+the medicine-chest with a far-away look in his pale eyes.
+
+"I don't rightly recollect the ins an' outs o' me own case," he said, at
+last, "but I has a dim picter in me mind o' how Mister Swim, the mate,
+shook the powder on to me tongue every blessed time I opened me mouth to
+holler. An' the b'ys let me drink all the cold water I could hold--aye,
+an' never once did they wake me up when I was sleepin' quiet, not even
+to give the quinine to me. An' they stowed me in blankets an' made me
+sweat, though the fo'castle was hotter nor the hatches o' hell. An' when
+I wouldn't stick out me tongue for the powder then they'd melt it in
+whiskey an' pour it down me neck."
+
+With this Mother Nolan had to be content. She retired to her own room,
+mixed a powder in a cup of root-tea and gave it to the girl, who was
+quiet now, though wide-awake and bright-eyed. Kavanagh went home,
+invented a ballad about his fever in Port-o'-Spain, and wrote it upon
+his memory, verse by verse--for he did not possess the art of writing
+upon paper. After supper Cormick retired to the loft and his bed; but
+the skipper did not touch a blanket that night. He spent most of the
+time in his chair by the stove; but once in every hour he tiptoed into
+his grandmother's room and listened. If he heard any sound from the
+inner room when the old woman happened to be asleep he awakened her and
+sent her in to Flora Lockhart. At dawn he fell asleep in his chair and
+dreamed that he was the mate of a foreign-going ship, and that all he
+had to do was to shake white powders on to the tongue of the girl he had
+saved from the fore-top of the _Royal William_. Cormick shook him awake
+when breakfast was ready. After hearing from Mother Nolan that the girl
+seemed much cooler and better than she had since the early afternoon of
+the previous day, he ate his breakfast and went out and sent all the
+able-bodied men to get timber for Father McQueen's church, some from the
+woods and others from the wreck. They would haul the timber after the
+next fall of snow. But he did not go abroad himself. He hung about the
+harbor all day, sometimes in his own kitchen, sometimes down on the
+land-wash, and sometimes in other men's cabins. He put a new dressing on
+the wound of the lad who had received the knife and paid another visit
+to Dick Lynch. Lynch was still in bed; but this time he did not drag him
+out on the floor.
+
+Mother Nolan was full of common sense and wise instincts, in spite of
+the fact that she believed in fairies, mermaids and the personal
+attentions of the devil. She was doctor and nurse by nature as well as
+by practice--by everything, in short, but education. So it happened that
+she did not follow Pat Kavanagh's instructions to the letter. She argued
+to herself that Pat's fever had been a hot-climate one, while Flora
+Lockhart's was undoubtedly a cold-climate one. She saw that the girl's
+trouble was a sickness, accompanied by high fever, brought on by cold
+and exposure. So she did not give the quinine quite as generously as the
+fiddler had recommended, and kept right on with her hot brews of herbs
+and roots in addition. Instinct told her that if she could drive out the
+cold the fever would follow it out of its own accord.
+
+In the afternoon the girl became restless and highly feverish again, and
+by sunset she was slightly delirious. She talked constantly in her
+wonderful voice of fame, of great cities and of many more things which
+sounded meaningless and alarming to Mother Nolan. For a little while
+she thought she was on the _Royal William_, talking to the captain about
+the great reception that awaited her in New York, her own city, which
+she had left four years ago, humble and unknown, and was now returning
+to, garlanded with European recognition. It was all double-Dutch to
+Mother Nolan. She put an end to it with her potent dose of quinine and
+whiskey. She spent this night in her patient's room, keeping the fire
+roaring and catching catnaps in a chair by the hearth; and the skipper
+haunted the other side of the door. Toward morning the girl asked for a
+drink, as sanely as anybody could, took it eagerly, and then sank into a
+quiet sleep. The old woman nodded in her chair. The skipper tiptoed back
+to the kitchen and flung himself across his bed.
+
+After the fourth day of the fight against the fever Mother Nolan saw
+that the struggle was likely to prove too much for her, if prolonged at
+the present pitch, whatever it might prove for Flora Lockhart; so she
+sent the skipper over to bring Mary Kavanagh to her. Now Mary was as
+kind-hearted and honest as she was big and beautiful. Her mind was
+strong and sane, and spiced with a quick wit. Her kindness and honesty
+were spiced with a warm temper. She was human all through. As she could
+flame to love so could she flame to anger. As she could melt to pity so
+could she chill to pride. In short, though she was a fine and good young
+woman, she wasn't an angel. Angels have their place in heaven; and the
+place and duty of Mary Kavanagh was on this poor earth, where men's
+souls are still held in shells of clay and wrenched this way and that
+way by the sorrows and joys of their red hearts. Like most good human
+women, Mary had all the makings of a saint in her; but heaven itself
+could never make a sexless, infallible angel of her.
+
+Mary told her father not to forget to keep the fire burning, threw a
+blue cloak over her head and shoulders, and accompanied the skipper back
+to Mother Nolan. Short as the distance was between the two dwellings she
+glanced twice at her companion, with kindliness, inquiry and something
+of anxiety in her dark gray eyes. But he stared ahead of him so
+intently, with eyes somewhat haggard from lack of sleep, that he did not
+notice the glances. Mother Nolan welcomed her joyfully.
+
+"Help me tend on this poor lamb from the wrack," said the old woman,
+"an' ye'll be the savin' of me life. Me poor old eyes feels heavy as
+stove-lids, Mary dear."
+
+"Sure, I'll help ye, Mother Nolan, an' why not?" returned Mary, throwing
+aside her cloak from her smooth brown head and strong, shapely
+shoulders. "Father kin mind himself, if he bes put to it, for a little
+while. Now tell me what ye does for the lady, Mother Nolan, dear, an'
+give me a look at her, an' then pop into bed wid ye, an' I'll lay a
+bottle o' hot water to yer feet."
+
+"Saints bless ye, me dear. May every hair o' yer darlint head turn into
+a wax candle to light ye to glory amongst the holy saints," returned the
+old woman.
+
+So it came about that Mary Kavanagh joined in the fight for the life of
+the girl from the wreck. She stood her trick at Flora's bed-side turn
+and turn about with the old woman, quiet as a fairy on her feet, though
+she was surely as big as a dozen fairies, quiet as a whisper with her
+voice, her hands as gentle as snow that falls in windless weather. She
+did not worry about her father. There was bread in the bin and fish in
+the shed for him, and he had his fiddle and his ballads. Every evening,
+sometimes before and sometimes after supper, he came over and sat with
+the skipper, combing his long beard with his restless fingers, and
+telling improbable tales of his deep-sea voyages.
+
+The skipper's faith in his grandmother and Mary was great. He soon
+schooled himself to stay away from the house for hours at a time, and
+give at least half his attention to the work of impressing the men with
+his mastery, and getting out lumber for the little church which Father
+McQueen was to build in June, on the barrens behind and above Chance
+Along. The men felt and knew his touch of mastery. They felt that this
+work at church-building was sure to lift any curse and devilment from
+the harbor, if such things had really been, and establish the skipper's
+good luck for all time. Dick Lynch, who still walked feebly, with a
+bandage about his head, was in bad repute with all of them, and more
+especially with the blood-kin of the young man whom he had knifed in the
+drunken fight over the gold. But the youth who had been knifed, Pat
+Brennen by name, was in a fair way to recover from the wound, thanks to
+the skipper's care and the surgical dressings from the _Royal
+William's_ medicine-chest. So they worked well, ate well, clothed
+themselves in warm garments made by their womenfolk from the goods saved
+from the last wreck, and said with their undependable tongues, from the
+shallows of their undependable hearts, that Black Dennis Nolan was a
+great man and a terrible. The spirit of distrust and revolt was dead--or
+sound asleep, at least.
+
+The hot poison of the fever in Flora Lockhart's blood was drawn after
+days of ceaseless care and innumerable doses of quinine and brews of
+herbs and roots; but it left behind it a weakness of spirit and body,
+and a dangerous condition of chest and throat. Mother Nolan and Mary
+Kavanagh saw that the fight was only half won, and neither of them laid
+aside their arms for a moment, though they changed their tactics. Now
+the fire in the chimney was kept roaring more fiercely than ever,
+bottles of hot water were kept always in the bed, the blankets were
+heated freely, and hot broth and steaming spirits were given in place of
+the brews of roots and leaves. The skipper and Cormick went far afield
+and succeeded in shooting several willow-grouse, and these Mother Nolan
+made into broth for Flora. The best of everything that could be
+procured was hers. She began to recover strength at last, and then each
+day brought improvement. By this time she and Mary Kavanagh had warmed
+toward each other until a friendship was established. Flora had thanked
+Mary beautifully, many times over, for her care, and had talked a great
+deal of herself and her ambitions. She had told Mary and Mother Nolan
+the hardships and glories of her past and her great dreams for the
+future. On the day that Mary was to go back to her father, Flora drew
+her down and kissed her fondly.
+
+"You and Mother Nolan have saved my life," she said, "and I am your
+friend--yours especially, Mary--forever and ever. I shall prove my love
+and gratitude, you may be sure. Out in the big world, Mary, I am
+_somebody_--I have the power to do kindnesses and repay debts. New York
+is full of fame and money, and a great deal of it is waiting for me."
+
+Mary thanked her, kissed her in return, and said gently that she did not
+want to be rewarded for her nursing, except by love. She added that it
+was Black Dennis Nolan, the skipper, who had saved Flora's life.
+
+"I remember him vaguely," said the other. "He took me away from that
+terrible place where I was swaying and tossing between the waves and the
+sky. The queer things I saw in my fever dreams have dimmed the memory of
+the wreck, thank God--and now they themselves are growing dim. He is a
+big man, is he not, and young and very strong? And his eyes are almost
+black, I think. I will pay him for what he has done, you may be sure,
+Mary. I suppose he is a fisherman, or something of that kind?"
+
+"He bain't the kind to want money for what he has done," said Mary,
+slowly. "He be skipper o' Chance Along, like his father was afore
+him--but there never was another skipper like him, for all that. He
+saved ye from the wrack, an' now ye lay in his house--but I warns ye not
+to offer money to him for the sarvice he has done ye. Sure, he wouldn't
+be needin' the money, an' wouldn't take it if he was. He lives by the
+sea--aye, in his own way!--an' when the sea feeds full at all she fills
+her men with the divil's own pride."
+
+Flora was puzzled and slightly amused. She patted the other's hand and
+smiled up at her.
+
+"Is he so rich then?" she asked. "And what is a skipper?--if he is not
+the captain of a ship? How can a man be the skipper of a village like
+this?"
+
+"His father was skipper," replied Mary. "The fore-an'-aft schooner bes
+his, an' the store wid flour an' tea in it for whoever needs them. It
+bes the way o' the coast--more or less."
+
+"Have any letters come for me? Have people from New York arranged yet to
+take me away?" asked Flora, suddenly forgetting about the skipper and
+remembering her own career so terribly interrupted and so strangely
+retarded. "I shall be able to travel in a few days, I think. What have
+the newspapers said about my misfortunes?"
+
+The pink faded a little from Mary's cheeks and her gray eyes seemed to
+dim.
+
+"Saints love ye!" she said. "There bes no letters for ye, my dear--an'
+how would there be? Up-along they'll be still waitin' for the ship--or
+maybe they have give up waitin' by this time. How would they know she
+was wracked on this coast?"
+
+The beautiful singer gazed at her in consternation and amazement. Her
+wonderful sea-eyes flashed to their clear sea-depths where the
+cross-lights lay.
+
+"But--but has no word been sent to New York?--to anywhere?" she cried.
+"Surely you cannot mean that people do not know of the wreck, and that I
+am here? What of the owners of the ship? Oh, God, what a place!"
+
+Mary was startled for a moment, then thoughtful. She had never before
+wondered what the great world of "Up-along"--which is everywhere south
+and east and west of Newfoundland, London, New York, Pernambuco,
+Halifax, Montreal, Africa, China and the lands and seas around and
+between--must think of the ships that sail away and never return. Wrecks
+had always seemed to her as natural as tides and storms. When the tide
+comes in who thinks of reporting it to the great world? Spars and
+shattered timbers come in on the tides; and sometimes hulls more or less
+unbroken; and sometimes living humans. Mary had seen something of these
+things herself and had heard much. She had never known of the spars or
+hulls being claimed by any person but the folk who found them and fought
+with the sea for them. She had seen shipwrecked sailors tarry awhile,
+take their food thankfully, and presently set out for St. John's and the
+world beyond, by way of Witless Bay. None of them had ever come back to
+Chance Along.
+
+"I bes sorry for ye wid my whole heart," she said. "Yer folks will be
+mournin' for ye, I fear--for how would they know ye was safe in Chance
+Along? But the saints have presarved your life, dear, an' when
+spring-time comes then ye can sail 'round to St. John's an' away to New
+York. But sure, we might have writ a letter about ye an' carried it out
+to Witless Bay. The skipper can write."
+
+"I have been buried alive!" cried Flora, covering her face with her
+hands and weeping unrestrainedly.
+
+Mary tried to comfort her, then left the room to find Mother Nolan. The
+old woman was in the kitchen, and Dennis was with her.
+
+"She bes desperate wrought-up because--because her folks up-along will
+think she bes dead," explained Mary. "She says she bes buried alive in
+Chance Along. Skipper, ye had best write a letter about herself an' the
+wrack, an' send it out. She bes a great person up-along."
+
+The skipper sprang to his feet, staring at her with a blank face and
+with defiance in his eyes.
+
+"A letter!" he exclaimed, huskily. "No, by hell! Let 'em t'ink what they
+wants to! Bain't Chance Along good enough for her?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SKIPPER CARRIES A LETTER
+
+
+Mary Kavanagh paled, flushed again, and lowered her eyes. Old Mother
+Nolan turned a searching glance upon her grandson--a glance with
+derision and something of pity in it.
+
+"An' how would Chance Along be good enough for the likes o' her?" said
+she. "Denny Nolan, bes ye a fool entirely? Good enough for her, says
+ye--an' her singin' like a lark afore the young Queen herself, saints
+presarve her, wid the Prince an' the dukes a-settin' round in their
+grand gold crowns, a-t'rowin' roses an' jewels at her little feet! What
+bes Chance Along to her--aye, an' any poor soul in it? We've give her
+life back to her, Denny, me lad, an' now we'll give herself back to the
+grand world o' up-along, where great singers bes nigh the same as great
+ladies, as I have heard me own grandfather tell, who was once in Dublin
+a-holdin' the gentry's horses at the play-house door."
+
+The skipper glared straight before him, then sank into his chair.
+
+"I'll pen no letter," he said, "I swears it by the knuckle-bones o' the
+holy saints!"
+
+Mother Nolan turned to Mary, wagging her head.
+
+"There bes ink an' a pen on the shelf there, an' a scrap o' clean paper
+in Denny's great book yonder," she said. "Take 'em to her an' let her
+pen the word wid her own hand." She turned to Denny. "And ye, Denny
+Nolan, will send it out to Witless Bay, an' from Witless Bay to St.
+John's, an' so to New York."
+
+"I hears ye," returned the skipper.
+
+"Aye, that ye do," said the spirited old woman, "an' a good t'ing for ye
+I bes here to tell ye! Why for wouldn't ye be sendin' out the letter?
+What for d'ye be wantin' Miss Flora Lockhart to stop here in Chance
+Along?--and her who never put a hand to a stroke o' honest work since
+her mother bore her!--her who sang to the Queen o' England! Ye'd be
+better, Denny, wid a real true mermaid, tail an' all, in Chance Along.
+Wrack ye kin break abroad; cargoes ye kin lift an' devour; gold an'
+jewels ye kin hide away; but when live women be t'rowed up to ye by the
+sea ye kin do naught but let 'em go. The divil bes in the women,
+lad--the women from up-along. An' the law would be on yer heels--aye,
+an' on to yer neck--afore ye knowed how the wind was blowin'! An' what
+would his riverence be sayin' to ye?"
+
+Mary Kavanagh had left the kitchen by this time, carrying pen, ink and
+paper to the girl in Father McQueen's room. Denny raised his head, and
+met the regard of his grandmother's bright old eyes proudly.
+
+"I wants to marry her," he said. "An' why not? Bain't I skipper
+here--aye, skipper o' every man an' boat in the harbor? She'd have no
+call to touch her hand to honest work if she was my wife. Bain't I
+rich?--and like to be richer? I'll build her a grand house. She'll have
+wine every day, an' jewels on her fingers, an' naught to do all day, by
+Saint Peter, but put the gowns o' silk on to her back. Bain't that
+better nor singin' an' cavortin' afore the Queen?"
+
+"Denny, ye bes a fool, sure, for all yer great oaths an' masterful ways
+wid the men," said Mother Nolan. "Ye bes a fool over a woman--an' that
+be the weakest kind o' fool! What would a lady like her be wantin' wid
+ye for a husband?--wid a ignorant great fisherman the like o' ye,
+skipper o' no skipper? What bes a skipper to the like o' her? No more
+nor a dog, Denny Nolan! She'd break yer heart an' send yer soul to
+damnation!"
+
+The skipper left his chair without a word, and strode from the kitchen
+to Mother Nolan's own room, stooping as he passed through the low
+doorway. He advanced until he reached Flora's room. It was shut. He
+halted for a moment, breathing quickly, then rapped with his knuckles,
+and opened the door. Flora was sitting upright in the bed, backed by
+pillows and with a shawl over her shoulders. She had been writing; and
+Mary stood beside the bed and held the bottle of time-faded ink for her.
+Both girls looked up with startled faces at the skipper's entrance. The
+young man halted in the middle of the room, and stared at the singer. It
+was the first time he had seen her since the day he had saved her from
+the _Royal William's_ fore-top and brought her to this house. He saw
+that her face was thinner now than on that day, but no paler. The
+wonderful eyes were as clear, as bright as crystal, and yet as limpid,
+as when they had first opened to him, there on the swaying cross-trees,
+and worked their spell on him. But the lips were red now--as red and
+bewitching as a mermaid's lips are supposed to be. She was the first to
+speak.
+
+"What is it? What do you want?" she asked somewhat fretfully, in that
+silver voice that had delighted the ears of the young Queen on the other
+side of the ocean. The question, or perhaps the way it was asked, sent a
+chill through Black Dennis Nolan. His glance wavered and he crumpled his
+fur cap in his hands. His sudden confusion showed in his dark face.
+
+"It bes the skipper," said Mary Kavanagh, "him that fetched ye from the
+wrack."
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Flora. "Of course I should have remembered
+your face, and now I do. I am very, very grateful to you for saving my
+life, and I shall never forget it. I shall do everything in my power to
+repay you for your courage and kindness, you may be sure; but why did
+you not send out word that I was here? You knew that I could not do it
+myself, lying here ill with fever. Perhaps they have grown tired of
+waiting for me by now, in New York. Perhaps they think I am dead.
+Perhaps they have forgotten me--and that would be worse than death!"
+
+The skipper felt like a fool, then like a whipped dog. It was this last
+sensation that sent a wave of choking anger through him. He was not
+accustomed to it. Had any other woman taken him to task so he would have
+laughed and forgotten the incident in a minute. Had any man shown such
+ingratitude he would have smashed his head; but now his dark face
+flushed and he muttered a few words thickly which passed unheard and
+unheeded even by himself.
+
+"I am writing now," continued Flora, "and must ask you to send it out to
+some place from which it can reach civilization, and be mailed to New
+York. It is very important--almost a matter of life and death to me--for
+it may yet be in time to save my career, even my engagement in New
+York."
+
+The skipper maintained his silence, crushing his cap in his big hands
+and glowering at the rag-mat under his feet. Two kinds of love, several
+kinds of devils, pride, anger and despair were battling in his heart.
+
+"Ye'll take out the letter, skipper, sure ye will," said Mary, smiling
+at him across the bed. Her fair face was pink and her eyes perturbed.
+The man did not notice the pink of her cheeks or the anxiety in her
+eyes.
+
+"Why, of course you will take it--or send it," said Miss Lockhart. "It
+is a very small thing to do for a person for whom you have already done
+so much. You are the kindest people in the world--you three. You have
+saved my life twice, among you. I shall never, never forget your
+kindness, and as soon as I reach New York I shall repay you all. I shall
+soon be rich."
+
+Black Dennis Nolan looked at her, straight into her sea-eyes, and felt
+the bitter-sweet spell of them again to the very depths of his being.
+Her glance was the first to waver. A veil of color slipped up softly
+across her pale cheeks. Young as she was, she had seen other men gaze at
+her with that same light in their eyes. They had all been young men, she
+reflected. Others, in Paris and London, had looked with less of pure
+bewitchment and more of desire in their eyes. She was not ignorant of
+her charms, her power, her equipment to pluck the pearl from the oyster
+of the world. She could marry wealth; she could win wealth and more fame
+with her voice and beauty on the concert-stage; she could do both. But
+in spite of her knowledge of the great world, her heart was neither
+blinded to the true things of worth nor entirely hardened. If she ever
+married, it would be for wealth and position, as the world counted such
+things, but never a man--lord or commoner--who did not come to her with
+the light of pure witchery in his eyes. She remembered, smiling down at
+the half-written letter to her New York agent, how that light had shone
+in the honest eyes of a young officer of the ship in which she had
+sailed from America to Europe. Her reflections, which had passed through
+her brain with a swiftness beyond that of any spoken or written words,
+were interrupted by the skipper.
+
+"I bes rich now," he said thickly.
+
+Mary Kavanagh lost color at that and turned her face away from them
+both, toward the fire in the wide chimney. Flora Lockhart looked up at
+the speaker, puzzled, but still smiling faintly. Her face was very
+beautiful and kind--but with an elfin kindness that seemed not all
+womanly, scarcely all human. Her beauty was almost too delicate,
+striking and unusual to bear the impress of a common-day kindness. She
+laughed gently but clearly.
+
+"I am glad you are rich," she said. "You are rich in virtues, I
+know--all three of you."
+
+"I bes rich in gold an' gear," said the skipper. "Rich as any marchant."
+
+"I am glad," returned the girl. "It will be pleasant for me, in the
+future, to always picture my preservers in comfort. I hope you may
+continue to prosper, skipper--you and all your people. But here is the
+letter. How will you get it to New York, do you think?"
+
+The skipper advanced to the bed, and took the letter. His fingers
+touched hers.
+
+"I'll be takin' it to Witless Bay meself," he stammered. "Sure, that
+would be safest. It bes a longish trip; but I'll do it." He paused and
+stared down at the letter in his hand. "But 'twould take me t'ree days
+an' more, there an' back--an' what would the men be doing wid me away?
+The divil himself only knows! Maybe they'd get to t'inkin' agin as ye
+bes a witch. I'll be sendin' Bill Brennen wid it, afore sun-up
+to-morrow."
+
+"And who will take it from Witless Bay to St. John's?" asked Flora.
+
+"Foxey Garge Hudson, the Queen's own mail-carrier. There bes a
+post-office in Witless Bay," returned the skipper. "He makes the trip
+to St. John's once every week in winter-time, bar flurries an' fog, an'
+maybe twice every week in the summer-time. If it be'd summer-time now
+I'd sail the letter right round to St. John's in me fore-an'-aft
+schooner."
+
+"What a terrible place! It seems to be thousands of miles out of the
+world," murmured the singer. "Don't any ships ever come to this
+harbor--except wrecks?"
+
+The skipper shook his head. "Me own fore-an'-aft, the _Polly_, bes the
+only vessel trades wid this harbor," he said. He stowed the letter away
+in his pocket, turned and strode from the room and out of the house. He
+looked calm enough now, but the battle was still raging within him.
+
+The skipper was out of bed next morning at the first peep of dawn. He
+dressed for a long journey, stuffed his pockets with food, and then
+wakened his grandmother.
+
+"I bes goin' meself wid this letter," he said. "The men won't be tryin'
+any o' their tricks, I bes t'inkin'. Dick Lynch bain't fit for any
+divilment yet awhile an' 'tothers be busy gettin' timber for the
+church. Send Cormy to tell Bill Brennen an' Nick Leary to keep 'em to
+it."
+
+"Why bes ye goin' yerself, Denny?" inquired the old woman.
+
+"Sure, it bes safest for me to carry the letter, Granny," returned the
+skipper.
+
+He ate his breakfast, drank three mugs of strong tea, and set out. A
+little dry snow had fallen during the night. The air was bitterly cold
+and motionless, and the only sound was the sharp crackling of the tide
+fingering the ice along the frozen land-wash. The sky was clear. With
+the rising of the sun above the rim of the sea a faint breath of icy
+wind came out of the west. By this time the skipper was up on the edge
+of the barrens, a mile and more away from the little harbor. He was
+walking at a good pace, smoking his pipe and thinking hard. A thing was
+in his mind that he could not bring himself to face fairly, as yet. It
+had been with him several hours of yesterday, and all night, and had
+caused him to change his plan of sending Bill Brennen with the
+letter--and still it lurked like a shadow in the back of his mind,
+unilluminated and unproven. But he knew, deep in his heart, that he
+would presently consider and act upon this lurking, sinister
+half-thought. Otherwise, he was a fool to be heading for Witless Bay.
+Bill Brennen, or any other man in the harbor, could have carried the
+letter as well--except for the idea that had been blindly at work all
+night in the back of his brain.
+
+He had made four miles of his journey when he halted, turned and looked
+back along the desolate barrens and the irregular edge of the cliffs.
+Misgivings assailed him. Was Flora safe? What if something should
+happen--had already happened, perhaps--to stir his treacherous fellows
+to mutiny again? Any little accident might do it if they knew that he
+was on his way to Witless Bay. If one of them should cut his foot with
+an axe, or drop a tree on one of his comrades, it would be enough (with
+the skipper out of the way) to raise the suspicion of witchcraft and
+curses in their silly, mad souls again. And then what would happen? What
+would happen to Flora, the helpless, wonderful, most beautiful creature
+in the world. He stared back along his path, but the many curves and
+breaks in the cliff hid from him every sign of Chance Along. Not a roof,
+chimney, or streamer of smoke broke the desolation. In all the frozen
+scene he could find no mark of man or man's handiwork. South and north,
+east and west, lay the frosted barrens, the gray sea, the edge of the
+cliff twisting away to nothingness around innumerable lifeless bays and
+coves, and the far horizons fencing all in a desolate circle. But what
+mattered to the skipper, what weighed on his heart like despair was the
+fact that he was out of sight of Chance Along--of the roof that
+sheltered the girl he had saved from the wreck. He felt the loneliness
+of that dreary season and coast--for the first time in his life, I
+think. Anxiety was his teacher.
+
+And now he knew that he must go on to Witless Bay, and so prove himself
+a fool for not having sent one of the men, or else face and act upon the
+thought lurking in the back of his mind. He drew the letter from his
+pocket and looked at it for a long time, turning it over and over
+between his fur-clad hands.
+
+"She'll soon be forgettin'," he said. "Come summer-time, she'll be
+forgettin'. I bes rich--an' when she sees the grand house I kin build
+for her she'll marry me, sure, an' be happy as a queen. An' why not?
+Bain't I rich as any marchant? She'll be wearin' gold an' silk every
+day, an' eatin' like any queen--an' bain't that better for a grand lady
+nor singin' songs for a livin'?--nor singin' songs for her bread an'
+baccy like old Pat Kavanagh wid the wooden leg?"
+
+He tore the letter to fragments and scattered it upon the snow. He had
+faced the lurking thought at last and acted upon it.
+
+"Praise be to the saints!" exclaimed the skipper with intense relief.
+"That bes done--an' a good job, too. That letter'll never be gettin' to
+up-along, anyhow, an' when she larns how rich I be, an' begins to love
+me, she'll be praisin' the saints the same as me. Why for would she want
+to be goin' up-along to New York, anyhow? Now I'll jist shape me course
+'round beyant the harbor an' see if they squid be up to any divilment or
+no."
+
+He made his way inland for about half a mile and then headed southward.
+As he drew near the line of Chance Along he edged farther away from the
+coast, deeper into the wilderness of hummocks, frozen bogs and narrow
+belts of spruce and fir. When at last he heard the axes thumping between
+himself and the harbor he sat down in a sheltered place and filled and
+lit his pipe. The men were at work. The letter that would have torn
+Flora Lockhart from him was not on its way to New York. All was well
+with the skipper and the world! He remained there for an hour, smoking,
+listening, congratulating himself. By the thumping of the axes and the
+slow crashings of falling trees he knew that Bill Brennen had put a big
+crew at the chopping. This knowledge stilled his anxiety for the girl's
+safety. He knocked out his pipe and stowed it away and moved farther
+westward until he found a suitable camping-place behind a wooded hill.
+Here he made a fire, built a little shelter of poles and spruce
+branches, and rested at his ease. He thought of Flora Lockhart. Her
+sea-eyes and red lips were as clear and bright as a picture in his
+brain. Her wonderful, bell-like voice rang in his ears like fairy music.
+The spell of her was like a ravishing fire in his heart.
+
+Suddenly the skipper sprang to his feet and slapped a hand on his thigh.
+He had remembered the necklace for the first time for many days, and
+with the memory had flashed the thought that with it to offer he would
+have no difficulty in proving his wealth to the lady and winning her
+heart. Those white diamonds and red rubies were surely just the things a
+great lady from up-along would appreciate. Could a king on his throne
+make her a finer gift? He doubted it. The sight of that necklace would
+open her eyes and melt her heart to the real worth and greatness of the
+skipper of Chance Along. Poor Skipper Nolan! But after all, he was
+little more than a savage. Of the hearts of women--even of the women of
+Chance Along--he was as ignorant as a spotted harbor-seal. He knew no
+more of Mary Kavanagh's heart than of Flora Lockhart's, but even a
+savage may win a heart in ignorance, and even a savage may learn!
+
+With a great oath the skipper vowed that he would find that necklace;
+but not to sell for gold, as his old intention had been, but to sell for
+the possession of the girl from up-along. It seemed an easy thing to do.
+Foxey Jack Quinn could not have gone very far away from the harbor in
+that "flurry." Perhaps he had turned back and inland, searching blindly
+for shelter, and lay even now somewhere near this fire? It struck the
+skipper as a great idea. He would have three clear days to give to the
+quest of the body of Jack Quinn without arousing the curiosity of the
+harbor. Three days, as nearly as he could reckon, was the shortest time
+in which a man could make the journey to Witless Bay and back. As he
+could not show himself in Chance Along within that time without raising
+doubts as to the safe delivery of the letter, he was free to devote the
+time to the recovery of the necklace. It was a grand arrangement
+altogether. Of course he would keep covertly in touch with the harbor,
+in case of another panic of superstition; and of course he would find
+the corpse of Jack Quinn with the precious necklace in its pocket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+DICK LYNCH GOES ON THE WAR-PATH
+
+
+Black Dennis Nolan's explorations in the wilderness in search of the
+corpse of Foxey Jack Quinn served no purpose save that of occupying his
+three days of exile from Chance Along. Of course he acquired a deal of
+exact information of the country lying beyond the little harbor and
+north and south of it for several miles; but this knowledge of the
+minute details of the landscape did not seem of much value to him, at
+the time. He searched high and low, far and wide, returning at intervals
+of from three to five hours to within sound of the axes of his men. He
+dug the dry snow from clefts between granite boulders and ransacked the
+tangled hearts of thickets of spruce-tuck and alder. He investigated
+frozen swamps, wooded slopes, rocky knolls and hummocks, and gazed down
+through black ice at the brown waters of frozen ponds. He carried on his
+search scientifically, taking his camp as a point of departure and
+moving away from it in ever widening and lengthening curves. He found
+the shed antlers of a stag, the barrel of an old, long-lost sealing gun,
+the skeleton of a caribou, and the bones of a fox with one shank still
+gripped in the jaws of a rusty trap. He found a large dry cave in the
+side of a knoll. He found the charred butts of an old camp-fire and near
+it that which had once been a plug of tobacco--a brown, rotten mass,
+smelling of dead leaves and wet rags. He found a rusted fish-hook, so
+thorough was his search--aye, and a horn button. In such signs he read
+the fleeting history of the passing of generations of men that way--of
+men from Chance Along who had sought in this wilderness for flesh for
+their pots and timber for their huts, boats and stages. He found
+everything but what he was looking for--the frozen body of Foxey Jack
+Quinn with the necklace of diamonds and rubies in its pocket. Then a
+haunting fear came to him that the thief had escaped--had won out to the
+big world in spite of the storm and by some other course than Witless
+Bay.
+
+With this fear in him, he carried on terribly for a few minutes, raging
+around his fire, cursing the name and the soul of Foxey Jack Quinn,
+calling upon the saints for justice, confounding his luck and his
+enemies. He stopped it suddenly, for he had a way of regaining command
+of his threshing passions all at once. He did not have to let them
+thresh themselves out, as is the case with weaker men; but he gripped
+them, full-blooded, to quiet, by sheer will power and a turn of thought.
+The force of mastery was strong in Black Dennis Nolan's wild nature.
+When he wished it he could master himself as well as others. Now he sat
+down quietly beside his fire and lit his pipe. The evening was near at
+hand--the evening of the third and last day of his exile. The sun, like
+a small round window of red glass, hung low above the black hills to the
+north and west. He got to his feet, threw snow on the breaking fire and
+scattered the steaming coals with his foot. Then he pulled down his
+shelter and threw the poles and spruce branches into a thicket, so that
+no marks of his encampment were left except the wet coals and smudged
+ashes of the fire.
+
+The crimson sun slid down out of sight behind the black hills to the
+west and north, and the gray twilight thickened over the wilderness. The
+last red tint had faded from the west and the windows of the cabins
+were glowing when the skipper reached the top of the path leading down
+to Chance Along. A dog barked--Pat Kavanagh's black crackie--and the
+whisper of the tide fumbling at edges of ice came up from the land-wash
+below the fish-house and drying-stages. He saw the spars of his little
+schooner etched black against the slate-gray of the eastern sky. He
+stood at the edge of the broken slope, looking and listening. Presently
+he heard a mutter of voices and saw two dark figures ascending the path.
+
+"Good evenin', men," he said.
+
+The two halted. "Glory be!" exclaimed the voice of Bill Brennen. "The
+skipper himself, sure, praise the saints! Bes it yerself, skipper, an'
+no mistake?"
+
+"Aye, Bill, an' why for not?" returned Nolan. "Didn't ye t'ink as I
+could make the trip to Witless Bay an' back in t'ree days? Bes that
+yerself, Nick Leary?"
+
+"Aye, skipper, aye," replied Nick. The two were now at the top of the
+path, staring anxiously at the skipper through the gloom. Leary's head
+was still in a bandage.
+
+"We was jist a-settin' out to look for ye, skipper," said Bill.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan laughed at that. "Was ye t'inkin' I couldn't find me
+way back to me own harbor, in fair weather?" he asked.
+
+"Aye, skipper, sure ye could," said Bill Brennen; "but it bes like this
+wid us. Dick Lynch give us the slip this very day, wid a bottle o' rum
+in his belly an' the smoke of it in his head, an' a gun in his hand.
+Aye, skipper, an' we didn't larn it till only a minute ago from little
+Patsy Burke."
+
+"Aye, that bes the right o' it," broke in Nick Leary. "We heard tell o'
+Dick Lynch a-slippin' away to the south'ard jist this minute from little
+Patsy Burke. Drunk as a bo's'un he was, wid his old swilin'-gun on his
+shoulder an' the divil's own flare in the eyes o' him. So we hauled out
+too, skipper, intendin' to catch him afore he come up wid yerself if the
+saints would give us the luck."
+
+"Sure, then, I didn't catch a sight o' the treacherous squid," said the
+skipper. "Ye see, b'ys, I took a swing off to the westward to-day to spy
+out some timber. But what would Dick Lynch be huntin' me wid his
+swilin'-gun for? Why for d'ye say he was huntin' me? Didn't I put the
+comather on to him last time? The divil's own courage must be in him if
+he bes out huntin' for me."
+
+"He was tryin' all he knowed how to raise trouble yesterday," said Bill;
+"but the b'ys wasn't wid him. This very mornin', when I called in to see
+how he was feelin' for work, there he laid in his bed wid the covers
+drug up over his ugly face, a-moanin' an' groanin' as how he wasn't fit
+to hit a clip. Then we all o' us goes off to the choppin', to cut timber
+for his riverence's blessed little church, an' mugs-up in the woods
+widout comin' home, an' when we gets back to the harbor, maybe a few
+minutes afore sun-down, little Patsy Burke gives us the word as how Dick
+Lynch went off wid a gun, swearin' by the whole assembly of heaven as
+how he'd be blowin' yer heart out o' ye the minute he clapped eye on ye.
+An' then, skipper dear, Pat Kavanagh's girl Mary comes a-runnin' wid
+word as how Dick Lynch t'iefed a bottle o' rum from Pat himself and was
+brow-sprit under wid the glory of it an' fit to take a shot--except for
+the aim of him--at Saint Peter himself. She telled as how he'd shaped
+his course to the south'ard, with his gun on his shoulder, swearin' he'd
+blow the head off ye or never come home to Chance Along no more. So
+Nick an' me puts two an' two forninst each other an' figgered as how
+Dick would have ye if somethin' didn't happen to t'row out his plans."
+
+"Ye bain't got the right o' it there, Bill," said Nick. "'Twas Mary
+telled us to follow after Dick Lynch. She'd gone herself, she said, but
+she'd heard o' it no more'n a minute ago from Pat, her bein' over to the
+skipper's house an' tryin' to cheer up the lady what come off the wrack!
+'Save the skipper,' says Mary, the eyes o' her like lumps o' ice on the
+coast in June. 'Save him from the drunk dog wid the gun, even if it bes
+the death o' yerselves.' Aye, that bes what Mary Kavanagh said to
+us--an' here we bes, skipper."
+
+"Mary bes a good girl," said the skipper. Then he laughed harshly and
+slapped Bill Brennen on the back.
+
+"Me brains bes still in me head an' me hands on the ends o' me two
+arms," he exclaimed; "but what bes happenin' to Dick Lynch, I wonder? If
+ever he comes back--but he'll not dare! Aye, ye kin lay to that. He'd as
+soon jump into hell wid the divil as come back now to Chance Along.
+Maybe he'll be losin' himself like Foxey Jack Quinn went an' done wid
+himself. Aye, lads, fools kin tell as how me luck bes gone--but the
+saints themselves bes wid me, drivin' me enemies out o' Chance Along
+widout me so much as havin' to kill one o' them!"
+
+"Sure, skipper, it looks that way, an' no mistake," said Bill Brennen.
+"The saints be wid ye for the kind heart ye has for helpless women an'
+childer, an' for yer love o' Father McQueen, an' for the work ye bes at
+to build the little church; but most of all, skipper, for the kind heart
+o' ye to every helpless woman an' child."
+
+A scowl, or was it a shadow, crossed Black Dennis Nolan's face at that.
+
+"Sure, a kind heart bes a grand t'ing," he said,--"and so bes sharp wits
+an' hard hands!"
+
+They turned and went down the path. Mother Nolan met the skipper just
+inside the door, with the big wooden spoon from the stew-pot dripping in
+her hand. Her black eyes looked blacker and keener than usual as they
+met those of her grandson.
+
+"So here ye be, safe back from Witless Bay," she said. "Ye didn't waste
+a minute, Denny."
+
+"Sure I didn't," returned the skipper, quickly. "It beed fair weather
+an' fair goin' all the way an' one little letter bain't much o' a pack
+to tote. How be ye all, Granny? How bes the lass from the wrack?"
+
+"Grand altogether," said the old woman, returning to the stove and the
+pot of stew.
+
+"Aye," said young Cormick, "she was singin' to-day fit to drag the heart
+o' ye out t'rough yer ears. Sure, Denny, if ye heard a fairy singin'
+'twould sound no grander!"
+
+"Aye, like a fairy," agreed the old woman, wagging her head. "I bain't
+wonderin' a mite at how she brought the salt tears a-hoppin' out o' the
+eyes o' the blessed Queen herself! An' she was that happy, Denny,
+a-t'inkin' o' how her letter to up-along was safe an' sure on its way,
+that didn't she have Pat Kavanagh down wid his fiddle, an' atween the
+two o' 'em they made the finest music was ever heard on this coast. Her
+heart bes fair set on up-along, Denny, an' on what she calls her career,
+meanin' songs an' glory an' money an' her name on the lips o' men."
+
+The skipper was silent for a moment after that, staring at the floor. He
+raised his eyes to the old woman and found that she was gazing at him
+fixedly.
+
+"Sure, an' why for not?" he said. "An' what bes she doin' now?"
+
+"Sleepin'," replied Mother Nolan. "Sleepin' an' dreamin' o' up-along an'
+all her grand friends."
+
+A scowl darkened the skipper's eyes and brow, but he had no remark to
+make on the matter of the lady's dreams. He threw aside his outer coat,
+ate his supper, smoked his pipe, and at last retired to his bed. In the
+meantime, Nick Leary had taken word to Pat and Mary Kavanagh that the
+skipper was home in Chance Along, safe and sound, having missed Dick
+Lynch by shaping his course westward to spy out timber. Mary's face
+brightened at the news. Pat glanced at her, then nodded his tangled head
+toward Leary.
+
+"The skipper bes still alive an' the letter bes gone on its way," he
+said. "So, come spring, they be takin' that singin' lady wid the eyes o'
+magic away from Chance Along. Maybe they'll be comin' for her widout
+waitin' for spring? She bes a wonder at the singin', an' no mistake--the
+best I ever hear in all me v'yages into foreign ports. An' the looks o'
+her! Holy saints, they bain't scarce human!"
+
+Nick Leary grinned through his bandage.
+
+"Aye, Pat, ye've got the discarnin' eye in yer head--ye an' the
+skipper," he said. "However the skipper kep' himself away from Chance
+Along for t'ree entire days, wid herself a-singin' an' a-flashin' her
+eyes right in his own house, bes a puzzle to me. Aye, sure it do, for
+didn't I see her put the spell o' women on to him the very first minute
+she opened her eyes at him on the fore-top o' the wrack."
+
+"Leave the skipper be, Nick Leary," said Mary. "Never half a word would
+ye be sayin' if he could hear ye. Leave him an' his business be. He bes
+a good friend to ye--aye, an' to every soul in the harbor who don't
+cross him."
+
+"Sure, Mary, I bain't meanin' naught," returned Nick. "Sure he bes a
+good friend to me!"
+
+Pat Kavanagh smiled and took up his fiddle and his bow. His hands were
+still for a minute, and then the instrument began to sigh and trill. The
+sounds gathered in strength, soared high, then thinned and sank to no
+more than the whisper of a tune--and then Pat began to sing. This is
+part of what he sang:--
+
+    "Come all ye hardy fishermen
+      An' harken to me song,
+    O' how the mermaid from the wrack
+      Come ashore in Chance Along.
+
+    "Her eyes was like the sea in June,
+      Her lips was like a rose,
+    Her voice was like a fairy bell
+      A-ringin' crost the snows.
+
+    "The Skipper he forgot the wrack,
+      Forgot the waves a-rollin',
+    For she had put the witchy spell
+      On Skipper Dennis Nolan.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "Come all ye hardy fishermen
+      An' larn from this me song,
+    To turn yer eyes the other way
+      To the girls from up-along."
+
+"Yer songs get more foolish every day, father dear," said Mary.
+
+"Sure, Pat, Mary bes right," said Leary. "Ye sings as if the girls in
+Chance Along hadn't so much as one eye in the heads o' the entire crew
+o' them. Now I bes t'inkin' as how there bes a girl in this harbor wid
+eyes an' lips----"
+
+"Sure, Nick, yer thoughts bes no better nor father's songs," interrupted
+Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BILL BRENNEN PREACHES LOYALTY
+
+
+Black Dennis Nolan was permitted an interview with Miss Flora Lockhart
+in the afternoon following his return to Chance Along. The singer was
+sitting up in a chair by the fire, wrapped about in her own silk
+dressing-gown, which had been brought ashore from the wreck, and in an
+eiderdown quilt. Her plentiful, soft, brown hair was arranged in a
+manner new to Chance Along, and stuck through with a wonderful comb of
+amber shell and gold, and a pin with a jewelled hilt. The ornaments for
+the hair had been supplied by Mother Nolan, who had possessed them for
+the past thirty years, hidden away in the bottom of a nunney-bag. Her
+own son, the late skipper, had salvaged them from a wreck. Flora had her
+own rings on her tapering fingers. There was color in her flawless
+cheeks, her wonderful eyes were bright and clear, and her lips were red.
+She smiled at the skipper when Mother Nolan ushered him into the room.
+
+"It was very, very kind of you to take my letter all the way to the
+post-office with your own hand," she said. Her bell-like voice was
+generous and sincere. "I wish I could reward you for all you have done
+for me, Mr. Nolan. But how can I--except in my heart? You are so rich
+and proud, I am afraid to offer you money." Here there was a playful
+note in her voice which the skipper detected. So she was making fun of
+his wealth and his pride. His dark face flushed with several disturbing
+emotions. To be addressed by the title of "mister" added to his
+discomfort. There were no misters in Chance Along--or anywhere on the
+coast, except the Methodist preacher in Bay Bulls, away to the north. He
+was skipper--or just Denny Nolan. He was skipper of Chance Along--not a
+preacher and not the mate of a foreign-going ship.
+
+"Sure, it bain't no great trip to Witless Bay an' back agin," he
+mumbled, staring at the girl in the big chair. The light that entered
+the room from the gray afternoon, by way of the small window, was more
+of a shadow than an illumination. The red fire in the wide chimney
+warmed a little of it, painted the low ceiling and touched the girl's
+eyes with a sunset tint. The skipper shuffled his feet on a rag mat and
+crumpled his cap between his big hands. He felt like a slave--aye, and
+something of a rogue--here in his own house. But he tried to brace
+himself with the thought that he was master of the situation.
+
+"Please sit down and talk to me, Mr. Nolan," said Flora.
+
+The skipper glanced around the room. Mother Nolan had gone, leaving the
+door ajar behind her. A small wooden stool stood near the fire, directly
+across it from Flora. The skipper advanced to the stool and sat down,
+the thumping of his heart sounding in his ears like the strokes of a
+sledgehammer on wood. For a moment the sight of his strong eyes was
+veiled by a mist--by an inner mist smoking up from the heat and
+commotion of his blood. When his sight cleared he saw the beautiful
+young woman regarding him with a slight smile on her red lips and in her
+wonderful eyes. There was inquiry in the smile--yes, and pity and
+amusement were in it, too. The young man felt short of breath and at the
+same time a choking sensation as of uncomfortable fulness of the lungs.
+He stared across at her like one spellbound. The girl's glance wavered,
+but her smile deepened. A brief note of laughter, like a chime of glass
+bells, parted her lips.
+
+"Dear me, you look very tragic," she said. "You look as if you saw a
+ghost."
+
+The skipper started violently and turned his face to the fire. He
+laughed huskily, then got to his feet and looked down at her with the
+firelight red as blood in his black eyes. Suddenly he groaned, stooped
+and snatched up one of her white, bejewelled hands. He pressed it
+passionately to his lips, crushing the delicate fingers with his. For a
+second or two the singer was far too amazed and horrified to speak or
+act; then, recovering suddenly, she wrenched her hand free and struck
+him on the cheek. He flung his head back and stood straight. A short,
+thin, red line showed beneath his right eye where a diamond in one of
+her rings had scratched the skin.
+
+"How dare you?" she cried, her voice trembling and her face colorless.
+"Go away! You forget--who I am! You are a coward!"
+
+The skipper did not flinch, his eyes did not waver. She was but a woman,
+after all, for all her talk of queens and fame. He had kissed her
+hand--and she had struck him. Well? He was rich. He would marry
+her--and she would soon learn to love him. He looked down at her with a
+smile on his lips and the light of mastery in his black eyes.
+
+"Go away--you coward!" she cried. Then she hid her face in her hands and
+began to sob. Tears glinted between her fingers, beside the diamonds. At
+that moment Mother Nolan entered and clutched her grandson by the elbow.
+
+"Get out wid ye, ye great hulkin' fool!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I seed ye
+a-clawin' at her little hand. An' now ye've set her to weepin', ye great
+lump! Bain't there a drop o' wits in yer head? Don't ye know yer place,
+Denny Nolan, ye ignorant fisherman, a-pawin' at the likes o' her?"
+
+The skipper felt shame at sight of Flora's tears and anger at his
+grandmother's humiliating words. There was a bitter edge to her voice
+that was new to him, and her lean old fingers pinched into his flesh
+like fingers of iron.
+
+"Sure, I bes mad," he said. "'Twas only a trick, anyhow--an' I did no
+harm. There bain't naught for ye to be cryin' about."
+
+He strode from the room, with old Mother Nolan still clinging to his
+elbow. When they reached the kitchen she loosed her clutch on his elbow.
+
+"Denny Nolan, ye bes a fool!" she exclaimed. "Saints presarve us, Denny,
+what would ye be doin' wid a sprite the like o' her, wid a heart all
+full entirely o' gold an' diamonds an' queens an' kings?--an' girls in
+this very harbor, ye great ninney, wid red woman hearts in their
+breasts!"
+
+The skipper stared at her for a second, muttered an oath, crushed his
+fur cap on his head and went out into the gray twilight, slamming the
+door behind him. He blundered his way up the path at the back of the
+harbor and held on, blindly, to the westward.
+
+"Sure, now she'll be frighted o' me all the time," he muttered. "I was a
+fool to fright her so! Maybe now she'll never be marryin' wid me at all.
+The divil was into me! Aye, the divil himself!"
+
+He came presently to a group of his men working in a belt of timber, and
+this encounter brought him back to affairs of the common day. Grabbing
+an axe from young Peter Leary, he set to with a fury of effort and
+unheeding skill that brought the slim spruces flapping to earth. Men had
+to jump to save themselves from being crushed. The white chips flew in
+the gray twilight; and Bill Brennen wondered what imp's claw had marked
+the skipper under the eyes and crisscrossed his temper.
+
+The weather continued cold, cloudless and windless throughout the next
+three days. During that time the skipper made no effort to see Flora,
+but was abroad from sun-up to sun-down with the men, cutting out timber
+for the little church as if his life depended on it. No sight or sound
+of Dick Lynch came back to the harbor. This gave Bill Brennen an
+argument in favor of loyalty to the skipper. He preached it to the men,
+and it made a great impression on their simple though dangerous natures.
+
+"There was Foxey Jack Quinn," he said. "Jack hated the skipper like we
+hates sea-water in our rum. Didn't he try to kill him--t'row him over
+the cliff--an' didn't the skipper put the comather on to him? An' then
+he tips and busts into the skipper's house, wid the intention o'
+t'iefing the money--an' where bes Foxey Jack Quinn this minute? The
+saints only knows!--or maybe the divil could tell ye! An' there was Dick
+Lynch. Dick ups an' crosses the skipper in the store, an' gets his head
+broke. Nex', he raises a mutiny agin the skipper an' slips his knife
+into a mate. Nex', he fills himself up wid rum an' sets out wid his
+swilin'-gun to blow the skipper's head away! An' where bes Dick Lynch
+this minute? Aye, where bes he! Tell me that, if ye kin--I don't know,
+an' ye don't know, an' the skipper himself don't know. But the saints
+knows!--or maybe it bes the divil himself could tell ye! Anyhow, all the
+luck o' this harbor bes wid the skipper an' wid them as stands true wid
+him. Aye, ye kin lay to that! His enemies blink out like a spark
+floatin' up in the air. B'ys, stick wid the skipper! He feeds ye like
+marchants. Already every man o' ye has more gold stored away nor ye ever
+see afore in all yer life, an' come spring the skipper'll be freightin'
+yer jewels, an' the cargo out o' the last wrack, north to St. John's,
+an' sellin' 'em for ye. Would ye have salved 'em widout the skipper? No.
+Would ye be able for to freight 'em to St. John's widout himself an' his
+fore-an'-after? No. An' neither would ye be able to sell 'em even if ye
+could freight 'em! Stand true to Black Dennis Nolan, b'ys, an' ye'll all
+be fat an' rich as marchants, wid never the need to wet a line at the
+fishin'."
+
+Dick Lynch had gone away drunk; but not so drunk as to have forgotten
+to take food and a blanket with him, and to stow away on his person his
+share of the gold from the _Durham Castle_. His inflamed mind must have
+held a doubt as to the certainty of meeting and disposing of the
+skipper.
+
+After the long spell of fine weather another "flurry" swirled out of the
+west, and sent the men of Chance Along into their cabins, to eat and
+drink and spin yarns and keep the fires roaring in the little, round
+stoves and blackened chimneys. Throughout the first day of storm the
+skipper sat by the stove in his kitchen, talking pleasantly enough to
+Mother Nolan and Cormick, figuring on the plans for the church which
+Father McQueen had left with him, but with never a question about Flora
+Lockhart. He was something of a dissembler, was the skipper--when his
+blood was cool. Mother Nolan spoke once of the girl, saying that the
+loneliness of Chance Along was eating her poor heart; but the skipper
+gave no heed to it. On the morning of the second day of the storm, after
+Mother Nolan had carried tea, bacon and toast to the singer and was
+eating her own breakfast with her grandsons, the inner door opened and
+Flora herself entered the kitchen. The three looked up at her in
+amazement. The skipper was the first to lower his eyes.
+
+"Good mornin' to ye," he said, and went on with his breakfast.
+
+"Oh, I am so dull and lonely," exclaimed the girl. "This terrible storm
+frightens me. Why must I stay in that dreary room all by myself?"
+
+"Ye be welcome to the entire house, ye poor dear," said Mother Nolan.
+"But has ye et yer breakfast?"
+
+"Not yet. The storm howled so in the chimney that I was too frightened
+to eat. Mayn't I bring it out here and eat it with you--and listen to
+you talking?" begged Flora.
+
+"Sure ye kin. Set right down an' I'll fetch yer tray," said Mother
+Nolan.
+
+"Aye, that ye kin--an' welcome ye be as June," said the skipper quietly.
+
+The singer glanced at him shyly, uncertainly, with a question in her
+beautiful eyes.
+
+"You are very kind--you are all very kind," she said. "I fear that I was
+very--rude to you, Mr. Nolan. I--I struck you--but you were rough. And
+I--called you names--which I did not mean."
+
+"Let it pass," said the skipper, gazing at the bacon on his plate. "I
+bes rough, as ye say. It bes the way I was born an' bred. But I was
+meanin' no disrespect to ye, as the holy saints be me jedges. Sure I--I
+couldn't help meself!"
+
+So it happened that Miss Flora Lockhart ate her breakfast beside the
+kitchen stove with Mother Nolan, the skipper and young Cormick. The way
+she ate was a wonder to watch, all so easy and quiet and polite. Mother
+Nolan wagged her head over it, as much as to say that such table manners
+would bring no good to such a place as Chance Along, and young Cormick
+could do nothing but stare at the beautiful stranger. She talked
+brightly, with the evident intention to please. It was her nature to
+want to impress people favorably toward her--and after all, she owed a
+great deal to these people and, for a few weeks longer at least, was
+entirely in their power. She saw that the skipper was a strong man--a
+man to be feared--and that her charms had ensnared his wild heart.
+Therefore she must play the game artfully with him instead of continuing
+the crude and honest method of slaps in the face. She believed that he
+would prove harmless and docile if skilfully handled, but as dangerous
+as a wounded animal if insulted and rebuffed.
+
+After breakfast she asked for Pat Kavanagh. She did not remember his
+name, but spoke of him as the funny old fellow with the violin and the
+wooden leg.
+
+"If he were here we could have a fine concert," she said, "and forget
+all about the terrible wind and snow whirling around the house." Her
+laughing face was turned to the skipper.
+
+"Sure then, Pat bes the lad we wants," said the skipper, grinning like
+one entranced by a glimpse of heaven itself. There was a golden vision
+in his head, poor fool, of this beautiful creature sitting beneath his
+roof for all time, her red lips and wonderful eyes always laughing at
+him, her silvery voice forever telling him to forget the storm outside.
+The future looked to him like a state of bliss such as one sometimes
+half-sees, half-feels, in dreams.
+
+"I'll go fetch him an' his fiddle," he said, pulling on his heavy
+jumper.
+
+"Now don't ye be losin' yerself in the flurry," continued Mother Nolan.
+
+"It bes nought, Granny," returned the skipper. "Sure I kin feel me way
+on me hands an' knees."
+
+It took him fifteen minutes to find Pat Kavanagh's shanty and locate the
+door of it, so blinding and choking was the storm. He pushed the door
+open, stumbled into the warmth, and slammed the timbers shut behind him.
+Mary was sewing beside the stove, and Pat was mumbling over the first
+verse of a new "come-all-ye." They looked up at the skipper in
+astonishment.
+
+"What the divil bes troublin' ye, Denny Nolan, to fetch ye out o' yer
+own house sich a day as this?" demanded the ex-sailorman. "Bes there
+anything the matter wid that grand young lady from up-along?"
+
+The skipper removed his cap and with it beat the snow from his limbs and
+body. He breathed heavily from his struggle with the storm. Mary eyed
+him anxiously, her hands idle in her lap.
+
+"I's come to fetch yer over to me own house--ye an' yer fiddle," said
+Nolan.
+
+"The divil ye has!" retorted Pat Kavanagh. "Saints presarve ye, lad,
+what kind o' rum has ye bin a-drinkin' of this mornin' already?"
+
+"Herself bes wantin' ye, Pat--ye an' yer fiddle, for to have a concert
+wid," said the skipper, with childlike trust and delight in his voice.
+
+"Skipper, dear, would ye be haulin' me an' me wooden leg out into sich a
+desperate flurry as this here?" inquired Pat, aghast. "Saints be good to
+ye, skipper, but I'd die in me tracks!"
+
+Some of the foolish delight went out of Nolan's face. His lips closed
+and his black eyes began to glint like moonshine on new ice.
+
+"It bain't no more nor a step or two," he said. "If ye can't walk it
+yerself, Pat,--ye an' yer wooden leg,--then I kin tote ye on me back."
+
+"Sure ye kin go, father; an' I'll be goin' along wid the two o' ye,"
+said Mary. "The poor lass bes wantin' amusement, an' it be but right for
+us all to give it her. Music an' a concert she bes wantin' to keep up
+her poor little heart agin the storm. Sure, an' why not? Did ye think
+for her--a slip o' a grand concert-singer from up-along--to have a heart
+for the wind an' snows o' Chance Along?"
+
+Pat grumbled. The skipper looked at Mary.
+
+"There bain't nothin' wrong wid her heart," he said.
+
+"Sure there bain't," agreed Mary. "Her poor little heart bes jist sick
+to death o' Chance Along--an' what else would ye look for? Sprees an'
+company she must be havin', day after day, an' night after night, like
+what she has always had. It bes our duty to amuse her, father, an' feed
+her an' nurse her, till her grand folks up-along takes her away."
+
+The skipper was not altogether satisfied with Mary's words. They did not
+seem to voice his own ideas on the subject at all, though they were
+evidently intended to agree with his attitude toward the singer. They
+had a back-snap to them that he mistrusted.
+
+Half an hour later all three were safe in the skipper's kitchen,
+breathless and coated with snow. Flora welcomed Mary with a kiss.
+
+"What a beauty you are," she exclaimed.
+
+Mary's rosy cheeks deepened in color at the praise, and a shadow came
+out from the depths of her gray eyes. Mother Nolan saw all this, though
+she seemed to be very busy with getting poor Pat and his wooden leg into
+a chair.
+
+Well, a punch was brewed, and Pat played on his fiddle, and Flora
+Lockhart sang as no one but herself ever sang before on that coast--yes,
+or anywhere else in the whole island of Newfoundland. The wonder of her
+singing even set young Cormick's heart to aching with nameless and
+undreamed of aches. As for the skipper, he looked as if the fairies had
+caught him for sure!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+DICK LYNCH MEETS MR. DARLING
+
+
+In Chance Along the wintry days and weeks crawled by, with cold and
+thaw, wind, snow and fog. Flora Lockhart waited in vain for a reply to
+her letter. At last her suspicions were awakened by a word from Mother
+Nolan; so she wrote another letter and gave it to the old woman. The old
+woman gave it to Mary Kavanagh, and Mary in turn put it into the hands
+of one of the young men of the harbor, with instructions to take it to
+Witless Bay and from there send it out by mail. The young man promised
+to do all this, of course.
+
+"An' mind ye," cautioned Mary, "don't ye go an' let the skipper know
+what ye bes up to."
+
+Now this young man was one of the dozen who wanted Mary Kavanagh for a
+wife. He was not brave, he was not honest; but he was as cunning as a
+fox. So he thought the matter over, and soon came to the conclusion that
+the game was not worth the candle. He was afraid of the skipper; and he
+was content that the girl from up-along should remain in the harbor and
+continue to blind the skipper's heart to the charms of Mary Kavanagh. So
+he went quietly to the master, put the letter in his hands and told him
+what he knew of it. Dennis Nolan destroyed the letter, and told the
+young man to keep himself out of sight for the next three days. The
+infatuated skipper had not yet given up hope of winning the heart of the
+wonderful creature from up-along.
+
+Late in March a French brig, bound for St. Pierre, went ashore on the
+Squid Rocks to the north of Chance Along. Only two of her crew reached
+the land-wash alive. They were powerful fellows, swarthy as Arabs, with
+gold rings in their ears, the devil in their hearts, and a smattering of
+many languages on their tongues. The gale that had driven the brig on
+the Squid Rocks had interrupted them in the hatching of a mutiny against
+their captain, mate and boatswain; for the brig's cargo consisted of
+silks and wines for the smugglers of St. Pierre, and two chests of gold
+containing the half-year's pay of the Governor, officials, and soldiers
+of the little island.
+
+Black Dennis Nolan and his men found them on the land-wash, more dead
+than alive, dragged them back out of reach of the spray, and laid them
+on blankets beside a fire. The brig was well in among the rocks, going
+to pieces fast. After two hours of daring effort the skipper and four of
+his men reached her, and found the chests of French gold in the lazaret
+beneath the captain's cabin. They remained aboard the wreck for nearly
+an hour before venturing shoreward with the treasure. They salvaged the
+chests at last, however, placed a guard over them, and made one more
+trip to the brig and back, bringing a bale or two of silk and a cask of
+red wine the second time. Then the brig melted and fell to pieces before
+their eyes. It was not until then that any one noticed that the two
+swarthy sailors had recovered and departed, taking with them the
+blankets and bottle of rum which had been employed in reviving them. The
+skipper swore mightily at this discovery, knocked a few of his men
+about, then had the chests of gold stowed on two hand-sleds and set out
+for home in full force and at top speed. On reaching Chance Along he
+learned that the two swarthy strangers had already been there, and
+departed with two sealing-guns and a bag of food. The skipper sent Bill
+Brennen and six men on their tracks, for he did not want the strangers
+to carry out to the world the news of the wreck of the brig and the
+salving of the treasure-chests. He did not follow them himself because
+the chests had to be opened, and their contents divided and hidden away
+immediately, and the chests themselves destroyed.
+
+The gold was divided into forty equal parts. One part was given, or laid
+aside, for every man who had been to the Squid Rocks; two parts went to
+each of the men who had accompanied the skipper to the brig itself, and
+four were kept by the skipper. There was no grumbling this time. The
+harvest was rich beyond the wildest dream and had been fairly shared.
+The money belonging to the men who had gone after the two strangers was
+placed in the hands of sons, wives or fathers.
+
+"Hide it away, men," said the skipper, "for if them two pirates gets
+clear away, they'll sure be back some day wid a crew o' blackguards like
+themselves, to try to t'ief all our property away from us."
+
+Bill Brennen and his party returned before sun-down, carrying a wounded
+comrade and a dead Frenchman along with them. There had been an ambush
+and a fight, and one of the sailors had escaped clean away. The skipper
+was in a rage; but, as the faithful Bill Brennen had commanded the party
+and Nick Leary had been a member of it, he kept his hands and feet still
+and let nothing fly but curses.
+
+Now we must look around for Dick Lynch, who did not go out of this
+history when he departed so boldly from Chance Along with his
+sealing-gun on his shoulder. Far from it. Dick was intended for greater
+things than he knew.
+
+A week after the wreck of the French brig on the Squid Rocks, Dick Lynch
+entered a public-house situated near the eastern end of Water Street,
+St. John's, sat down at a table near the fire and called for rum. Though
+Dick consumed much rum, he did not often buy it at this establishment;
+for he roomed in Mother McKay's cottage on the hill, back of the city,
+and Mother McKay kept a shebeen. To-day, however, Dick had felt that he
+could stand no more of Mother McKay's liquor nor of the honest dame's
+society, either. The rum was weak and harsh and the society was
+distracting to his thoughts. What he wanted was matured liquor and
+quiet, so that he might nail down his somewhat vague plans of returning
+to Chance Along and overthrowing the skipper thereof. The hour was that
+of the evening dusk. He was alone in this particular room of the _Ship
+Ahoy Hotel_, but he could hear the voices of other imbibers barking and
+rolling from an adjoining apartment. He gulped down half of his rum and
+lit his pipe. The proprietor entered then, threw a lump of coal on the
+fire and lit a ship's lantern that hung from the middle rafter. Next
+moment, the outer door opened, and a man entered from the muddy street,
+his sou'easter, oilskin coat and ruddy young face all agleam with
+moisture.
+
+"Good evenin' to ye, Mister Darlin'," said the proprietor. "Foul
+weather, bain't it, sir?"
+
+"Aye, Jake, foul weather it is," returned the young man, throwing aside
+his dripping hat. "Bring me whiskey,--hot, with a slice of lemon in it
+and a lump of sugar."
+
+Jake departed, and Mr. Darling sat down beside the fire and pulled a
+short wooden pipe from an inner pocket. In repose, his young,
+clean-shaven face wore an expression of gravity that verged upon the
+dismal. He filled his pipe with cut tobacco from a leather bag, lit it
+and then glanced at Dick Lynch through a puff of twisting blue smoke.
+He caught Dick's eyes full upon him, for that worthy had been staring at
+him ever since he had removed his dripping sou'easter. He removed his
+pipe from his mouth and leaned forward.
+
+"Hullo!" he said. "I'll swear this isn't the first time I've seen that
+black mug of yours, my man! But it wasn't in St. John's--an' it wasn't
+aboard any ship."
+
+Dick Lynch was of the same way of thinking, for he recognized this young
+man as the officer from the _Durham Castle_, who had commanded the party
+that had been left behind by Captain McTavish to guard the wreck of that
+good ship. He took another swig at his glass and shifted his eyes to the
+fire.
+
+"Sure, sir, ye may be right," he said. "Was it in Harbor Grace ye seed
+me?"
+
+"No. I have never set foot in Harbor Grace," returned Mr. Darling.
+
+"That bes my home, sir--Harbor Grace," lied Dick, cheerfully.
+
+Just then Jake entered with Mr. Darling's toddy. He set it at the young
+sailor's elbow, hoped it was entirely to his taste, and retired. Darling
+sipped the toddy, puffed twice at his pipe, then fixed his keen glance
+upon Lynch's face.
+
+"Don't lie to me," he said. "Your mug is too ugly to forget easy! You
+are the big, cussing pirate the savages gave the name of skipper to,
+along on that devilish coast to the south where we lost the _Durham
+Castle_. You are a sly fellow, and a daring one; but it will not help
+you a mite to sit there and talk about your happy home in Harbor Grace
+to me."
+
+"The skipper!" exclaimed Dick Lynch, in genuine anger and dismay.
+"Saints presarve ye, I'd as soon be took for the divil himself as for
+Black Dennis Nolan o' Chance Along. No, sir, I bain't that tyrant,
+though some folks do say as how I bes about his size and color."
+
+"Is that so?" enquired Mr. Darling, quietly. "You are not the skipper of
+Chance Along, but you look like him. Is that the way of it?"
+
+"Aye, that bes the way of it, sir."
+
+"You know this skipper fellow, then?"
+
+"Aye, sir, to me cost--may the divil fly away wid him! Hasn't he bullied
+me an' cheated me all me life long, the divil-possessed tyrant! Bain't
+he the livin' curse o' Chance Along?"
+
+"Chance Along, is it?" murmured Mr. Darling. "Now where the devil is
+Chance Along?"
+
+Then, raising his voice, "You don't seem to love this skipper
+fellow--this Black Dennis Nolan. What is the trouble between the pair of
+you?"
+
+Dick finished his rum, eyed the other suspiciously, then stared sullenly
+at the fire.
+
+Mr. Darling smiled grimly and shouted for Jake.
+
+"My friend will have more of the same," he said, pointing to Lynch's
+empty glass. "But make it hot, Jake. This is no kind of weather for cold
+liquor. Better bring the bottle right along, and the kettle and sugar
+too."
+
+Twenty minutes later Dick Lynch began to talk again, his belated caution
+entirely vaporized and blown out of his somewhat inferior brain by the
+fumes of hot rum, lemon and sugar.
+
+"I knows ye, sir," he said. "Sure, didn't I know ye the minute I clapped
+me two eyes on ye. Cap'n o' that big ship that come ashore in Nolan's
+Cove, t'ree miles to the south o' Chance Along, ye be. An' a smart
+landin' ye made, too, boat by boat, wid every mother's son o' ye wid a
+gun an' a sword in his two hands. Sure, sir, ye wasn't lookin' for to
+meet wid no man-killin' wrakers on _that_ coast, was ye? Saints forgive
+ye, sir, the babe unborn would be safe to come ashore in Chance Along!"
+
+John Darling smiled. "You are a sharp lad," he said. "I saw it in your
+eyes that you knew me the moment I entered the room. I don't see how I
+ever came to mistake a smart, well-spoken lad like you for that fellow
+you call the skipper. Well, I am sorry for it. But you have made one
+mistake, my lad. I wasn't the captain of that ship. I was only one of
+the mates."
+
+"Well, sir," returned Lynch, cordially, "I bain't sharp enough for to
+see much difference atween a cap'n an' a mate. Ye looks like a cap'n to
+me, anyhow."
+
+He paused, poured more rum and hot water, sampled the brew and
+continued.
+
+"Now I feels it a shame, sir, the way Black Dennis Nolan made a fool o'
+the lot o' ye, wid his lies about Frenchman's Cove an' Nap Harbor. Sure,
+I felt desperate bad about it at the time--an' now I feels worse. Aye,
+sir, worse, seein' as how ye be sich a fine, grand ginerous young
+gintleman as ye be. An' then the way he ups an' takes all yer gold an'
+fine jewels away from ye, an' ye t'inkin' all the time 'twas the folk o'
+Nap Harbor done it!"
+
+"Yes, it was certainly an unmannerly trick," said Darling, quietly. "I
+suppose he took it all to Chance Along--gold, jewels and everything--and
+kept it for himself?"
+
+"He kep' more nor his share o' the sovereigns, ye kin lay to that, sir;
+an' as for the rings an' sich fancy trinkets--well, sir, he says as how
+we'll all be gettin' our share come June an' he gets 'round to St.
+John's here to sell 'em. But there bain't no share for me, sir. I fit
+for me rights, I did--an' here I be!"
+
+The interview continued for another hour, and during the glowing,
+rum-inspired course of it, Dick Lynch told all that he knew of Chance
+Along, its manners, its skipper and its exact location. He confessed
+that he had never seen a great diamond and ruby necklace, but that he
+had seen a whole casket full of jewels and was willing to swear by all
+the saints aloft that the casket was still in Chance Along. He did not
+notice that Mr. Darling was spending all his time over one small glass
+of whiskey toddy. Finding the young officer a good listener and an
+agreeable companion, he went on to tell of the wreck of the _Royal
+William_, of the panic in the flooded cabin, and at last of the
+beautiful young woman with the voice like fairy bells and eyes like a
+mermaid's eyes.
+
+Mr. Darling sat up at that and laid his pipe on the table.
+
+"A full-rigged ship, you say? What was her name?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+"The name o' the ship? Well, sir, far's I kin remember it was the _Rile
+Willyum_. Aye, sir, that was it."
+
+Mr. Darling got excited. His face went dead white, then flaming red, and
+he leaned forward and gripped the fingers of his right hand in Lynch's
+shoulder. But Dick was too mellow and happy to object or to feel
+surprise.
+
+"And what was the lady's name?" cried Mr. Darling. "Out with it, man!
+Out with it! What was _her_ name?"
+
+"Name o' the lady? Lady's name? Her name? Sure, sir, it bes Nora."
+
+"Nora! Don't you mean Flora?"
+
+"Aye, Flora. Sure, sir, Flora bes what I said."
+
+"God!" exclaimed Mr. Darling, leaning back in his chair. Dick Lynch
+smiled across at him. He recovered himself in a minute.
+
+"With a beautiful voice, you say?" he queried faintly.
+
+"Aye, sir. Sure, didn't she sing a song afore the Queen herself,"
+returned Dick.
+
+"It is Flora!" cried the other. "My God, it is Flora!" Then gripping
+Lynch again, "Did you say--did you say she--she is--well?" he whispered.
+
+"Sure, I telled ye she bes well," replied the befuddled fisherman.
+"Well, d'ye say? Aye, she bes plump as a pa'tridge, a-livin' on the fat
+o' the land--the fat o' all the wracks that comes up from the sea. An' a
+beauty she bes, altogether. Saints presarve ye, sir, she bes the
+beautifulest female woman ever come ashore on that coast. She was
+desperate bad wid the fever, was Nora, when first the skipper took her
+home wid him; but now she bes plump as a young swile, sir, an' too
+beautiful entirely for the likes o' meself to look at."
+
+Mr. Darling's face went white again.
+
+"The skipper?" he asked, huskily. "For God's sake, man, what are you
+saying? Why does she stay in Chance Along? What has she to do with that
+damned big black beast you call the skipper?"
+
+"Now you bes a-gettin' excited, sir, all along o' that Nora girl,"
+protested Dick Lynch. "She bes a-livin' wid Mother Nolan, in the
+skipper's own house. The skipper bes figgerin' on coaxin' of her 'round
+to marry wid him; but I hears, sir, as how she telled him as how she'd
+marry no poor, ignorant, dacent fisherman at all, but a king wid a
+golden crown on his head. Aye, sir, that bes the trut'. The likes o' she
+be well able to keep Black Denny Nolan in his place."
+
+"Thank God!" exclaimed Mr. Darling, sitting back in his chair again.
+
+Dick Lynch eyed him with drunken cunning.
+
+"Ye knows that grand young woman, sir?" he queried.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Darling. "She crossed to London aboard my ship three
+years ago. We--we were good friends."
+
+"Aye, ye would be," returned Dick with a drunken leer. And then,
+lurching forward, "Ye'll be makin' a trip 'round to Chance Along I bes
+t'inkin', sir, to put the comather on to this Dennis Nolan? Sure, an'
+why not? The dirty squid bes as full o' gold an' riches as any marchant.
+I'll be goin' along wid ye, sir--if ye gives me two pistols an' takes
+two yerself. I'll show ye where the harbor bes, an' his own house wid
+Nora in it--an' all. If we gets to the harbor quiet, about the middle o'
+the night, we'll shoot the skipper in his bed, the black divil, afore he
+kin so much as lay a curse on to us. I bes wid ye, sir. Ye kin trust
+Dick Lynch as ye would yer own mother."
+
+Mr. Darling said that he had a great deal of business to attend to in
+the city, but that he would meet Dick Lynch in this very room, at nine
+o'clock in the morning, five days later. He did not mean a word of it,
+for he would not have trusted that worthy any farther than he could have
+thrown him over his shoulder. But he arranged the meeting and promised
+to supply plenty of pistols for the expedition. Then he said good night
+and went out of the warm room and fumes of rum to the mud and driving
+sleet of the night, leaving Dick Lynch smiling to himself at thought of
+what his enemy, the skipper, would say when he woke up in bed some fine
+morning and found himself dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MR. DARLING SETS OUT ON A JOURNEY
+
+
+This John Darling was no ordinary shell-back. His father was an English
+parson, his uncle a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and his eldest
+brother a commander in the Royal Navy. John was poor in worldly gear,
+however, and had recently been third officer of the _Durham Castle_. Now
+he was without a berth, and was making a bid for fortune of an unusual
+and adventurous kind. In London, Sir Ralph Harwood had made him a
+private offer of one thousand pounds for the recovery of the necklace of
+diamonds and rubies. Darling had landed in St. John's, on his quest,
+about six days before his meeting with Dick Lynch. Upon landing he had
+learned at the Merchants' Club that the _Royal William_, bound for New
+York from London, was reported lost. She had foundered in mid-ocean or
+had been shattered upon some desolate coast. The underwriters had paid
+up like men--and both the American and English press had lamented the
+tragic fate of Miss Flora Lockhart, the young New York singer, who had
+so lately won fame in London.
+
+Darling had taken the news of Flora's terrible fate keenly to heart. He
+had crossed the ocean with her three years before; and she had haunted
+his dreams, waking and sleeping, ever since. Though he had always felt
+that his devotion was hopeless, it was no less real for that. And now,
+from a drunken fisherman, he had learned that she was alive, in good
+health, and a captive!
+
+Mr. Darling went straight to his own hotel from the _Ship Ahoy_. He
+cleaned his pistols, made a rough map of the east coast, south of
+Witless Bay, from the information obtained from Dick Lynch, packed a
+couple of saddle-bags, rolled up a pair of blankets and sent for the
+landlord. From the landlord he obtained change for two five-pound Bank
+of England notes, information concerning the road from St. John's to the
+head of Witless Bay, and hired a horse.
+
+Mr. Darling set out on his adventurous journey after an early breakfast
+eaten by candle-light. He felt courageous, invincible. He would rescue
+the lady of his long sea-dreams from that black-faced, black-hearted
+pirate who was called the skipper of Chance Along. In the flush of this
+determination the necklace was forgotten. So confident was he of
+success, and so intent upon picturing the rescue of that beautiful
+creature who had bewitched him three long, varied sailor-years ago, that
+he had covered several miles of his journey before noticing the
+stumblings and gruntings of the ill-conditioned beast between his knees.
+He departed from the city by way of a road leading westward from the
+head of the harbor. This he followed for three miles, through slush and
+half-frozen mud, then turned to the left. He forced his horse into a
+trot. It pecked badly, and he shot over its bowed head and landed in a
+mud-hole. Scrambling to his feet he noticed for the first time the gaunt
+ribs, heaving flanks and swollen legs of his steed. He swore heartily,
+seized the bridle and dragged the horse forward. The road was
+indescribable. Mud, slush and icy water took him to the knee at every
+step; but he plugged manfully forward, dragging the protesting horse
+after him. So for an hour, across the barren rise of land to the
+southward, after which he remounted and rode at the best speed he could
+command until the horse stumbled again and again unseated him.
+Undaunted, Mr. Darling took his turn on foot again, dragging the puffing
+beast along at his muddy heels. The way was nothing but a muddy track
+across a desolate barren. It curved steadily to the left and at last
+brought him in sight of the irregular coast and the gray sea. By noon he
+had reached a miserable, dirty shebeen; and here he dried himself,
+sheltered and fed his horse and ate from his own provisions. He rested
+there for two hours (for his horse's sake rather than his own), and then
+mounted, threw a couple of shillings to the keeper of the house and
+continued on his way. He studied the coast-line intently as he
+floundered along. He saw that most of the shore ice had melted or broken
+away from the land-wash. Plans for the rescue of Flora Lockhart were
+taking shape in his mind. Beyond a doubt the rescue would have to be
+made by water; and so he studied every sheltered haven and surf-footed
+cape as he worked his heroic way southward, now plunging in his
+precarious saddle, now plunging with his own legs in the mire.
+
+The figure of another wayfarer came in sight early in the afternoon. The
+stranger was on foot. He wore a red blanket round his shoulders and
+carried a long gun of ancient pattern. He was a big fellow with a
+swarthy face and bad eyes, and his ears were adorned with gold rings.
+Mr. Darling did not relish the fellow's looks, and so passed him without
+halting, alert, with his right hand on the butt of a pistol in his
+pocket. This picturesque ruffian was heading northward. After passing
+Mr. Darling he turned and glanced back several times, his interest
+doubtless attracted by the respectability of the other's appearance and
+the bulging saddle-bags. But he did not stop. Neither did he return. The
+young man with the old horse looked to him like a fighter--and even if
+the saddle-bags were stuffed with gold they would prove but a flea bite
+to the stake which he had in mind.
+
+Mr. Darling and his encumbering steed reached Raggedy Cove about an hour
+after sunset. Mr. Darling was in good heart and, thanks to fine lungs
+and muscles, and a flawless constitution, was as fit in body as spirit.
+He found a bed for himself and a stable for the horse, and an old man
+full of information concerning the quickest and easiest way to get to
+Witless Bay. This was by water, said the old man. His own son George was
+going south along the coast next morning, in a bully. So Darling
+boarded the bully next morning, leaving his horse with the old man.
+George, the navigator of the bully, was an inquisitive young man; but
+his eyes were steady and his face honest. In spite of his prying
+questions, he won Mr. Darling's good-will by the way he handled his
+boat. Of all branches of human skill, that of seamanship appealed most
+strongly to John Darling's heart and head. He respected a smart sailor
+just as intensely as he despised a bungling one. He was an unusually
+fine sailor himself, and could handle any vessel, large or small, as
+easily as he could navigate it. So he answered a few of the fisherman's
+questions good-naturedly, and asked a great many in return. George Wick
+had heard of Chance Along, but had never been there. And why should he
+have been there? Nobody ever went to Chance Along. Yes, he had once seen
+Black Dennis Nolan.
+
+"'Twas back in September, sir," he said. "Sure, didn't he put into
+Raggedy Cove one night--him an' his fore-an'-after--bound from St.
+John's, wid a freight o' grub an' gear. But what business would ye be
+havin' wid the likes o' him, sir?"
+
+Darling ignored the question and asked another. No, George Wick was not
+familiar with the coast south of Witless Bay; but he had always heard
+that it was a desperate bad coast.
+
+"What is your business in Witless Bay?" asked Darling.
+
+The young fisherman pointed to four boxes of plug tobacco in the bottom
+of the bully.
+
+"They bes for Skipper Walsh," he said. "I trades 'em for fish, an' then
+I heads back for Raggedy Cove."
+
+"If you will sail me right around to Chance Along I will pay you well
+for it," said Darling. "My business in Chance Along is important--yes,
+very important. It would be worth five sovereigns to you, my man--that
+little trip."
+
+George Wick looked interested, but shook his head.
+
+"It bes a bad coast, sir," he said, "an' clean unbeknownst to me. An'
+now it would be desperate, sir, what wid the ice a-chokin' all the
+little coves so ye couldn't run in from a squall o' wind, sir."
+
+"The shore-ice is gone, as you can see for yourself, and the drift-ice
+will not be down this way until near June," replied Darling. "But don't
+make any more excuses, George. You are not the man I want, anyway, for
+I see that you are no good for anything but asking questions. I'll be
+able to find some lad in Witless Bay, with a boat of some sort, who
+isn't afraid of the coast to the southward."
+
+George Wick sulked for a few minutes, then asked, "What bes yer business
+wid Black Dennis Nolan, anyhow, sir? Bes ye a constable, sir, or
+anything like that?"
+
+"My business is of a private nature," replied Mr. Darling. "I am a
+sailor, not a constable--an officer of the Merchant Marine."
+
+"Aye, sir, I knowed ye for a sailor," said the other; "but there was a
+crew of constables along this way back in November, rigged out like
+fishermen an' swearin' as how they _was_ fishermen. They went south; an'
+they soon come back wid empty hands. We was all t'inkin' in Raggedy Cove
+as how some vessel had maybe bin broke up afore it was deserted by the
+crew, as is the custom wid some folks in some harbors. An' when I see ye
+wid business in Chance Along, sir--well, Black Dennis Nolan do surely
+look to me like a man who'd be breakin' into a ship widout waitin' for
+her crew to desart her."
+
+Mr. Darling smiled. "You are a smart man, George Wick," he said.
+
+The bully rounded into Witless Bay and worked up to the settlement at
+the head of it without accident. Wick handed over his tobacco to Skipper
+Walsh; and then, with an eye on Mr. Darling, said he would call in a few
+days later for his trade of fish. Darling nodded, and purchased tea,
+hard-bread and bacon from the skipper. Later, he and George filled a
+small keg with water and put it aboard, and bought two sealing-guns and
+a supply of powder and slugs. They headed down the bay at the first gray
+wash of dawn. After three hours of hauling across the wind they rounded
+the southern headland of the bay. They made an easting of more than a
+mile before heading due south. Mr. Darling took the tiller now, and
+George manned the sheet. Darling produced a pair of marine glasses and
+the chart which he had made from information received from Dick Lynch.
+They skirted a lee-shore and had to beat up to windward again and again
+to clear themselves. Before sunset they ran into a tiny, sheltered cove
+and made camp.
+
+It was shortly after noon of the next day that Mr. Darling, diligently
+scrutinizing the shore through his glasses, saw something that caught
+his attention. He edged the bully in and looked again.
+
+"By heaven, it is a man's leg!" he exclaimed. He passed the glasses
+forward to Wick and pointed the direction.
+
+"Sure," said Wick. "Sure, sir, it bes some poor divil wid a skinnywopper
+on his leg--so it bain't nobody from a wrack, ye kin lay to that."
+
+They ran the bully shoreward and lowered the sail. Darling sprang to the
+land-wash and found the battered body of a man wedged tight between two
+icy rocks at the foot of the cliff. It was frozen stiff; but it was
+evident that it had not always been frozen. The crabs had found it, and
+even the heavy clothing was torn to strips. Mr. Darling stooped and took
+a little, red-bound casket from the torn breast. With his back to George
+Wick he opened it with trembling fingers. The diamonds and rubies of
+Lady Harwood's necklace flashed up at him!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+MR. DARLING ARRIVES IN CHANCE ALONG
+
+
+Mr. John Darling stood spellbound for a full half-minute, gazing down at
+the flaming, flashing gems coiled in their silken bed. He was aroused
+from his wonder and wild conjecture by the voice of George Wick.
+
+"What bes the trouble, sir?" called the fisherman, who was busy fending
+the bully off the rocks. "Who bes it, anyhow? It bain't no friend o'
+yerself, sir, surely?"
+
+Darling shut the casket and slipped it into an inner breast-pocket of
+his reefer. He turned slowly toward the sea and the boat, with a studied
+expression of puzzled pity on his face.
+
+"Some poor fellow who has stepped off the cliff," he said. "I never saw
+him before--but the sight of him shook me a bit. He has been here quite
+awhile, I should say--yes, through thaw and frost, frost and thaw. Aye,
+and the crabs have been at him, poor devil! I suppose we should bury
+him; but there is no place here to dig a grave."
+
+"Come aboard, sir! Come aboard wid ye!" exclaimed Wick, in a trembling
+voice. "It bain't no affair of our'n, sir--an' there bes the divil's own
+luck in finding a dead man unexpected."
+
+Mr. Darling crossed the land-wash without another word, waded knee-deep
+into the tide, and climbed aboard the boat. George Wick poled the bully
+clear of the surf with one of the oars, then jumped forward and hoisted
+the red sail. Darling drew his chart from his pocket, examined it, then
+raised his glasses and studied the coast-line to the southward. The wind
+was light, but dead on shore. The bully hauled across it cleverly. A
+whitish gray haze stood along the sky-line to the east.
+
+"We'll be havin' thick weather afore sun-down, sir, wid this wind
+holdin'," said Wick.
+
+Darling nodded. "We must be getting pretty close to Chance Along," he
+said. "Yes, there is smoke. Can you see it?"
+
+George could not make it out with his unassisted eyes, but through the
+glasses he saw the blue reek of wood-smoke above a distant point of the
+coast easily enough. An hour later the bully threaded the rocks off
+Squid Beach. Dick Lynch had spoken of these rocks when the rum was warm
+in his head, in the tap-room of the _Ship Ahoy_, and Darling had marked
+them on his chart.
+
+"We are within two miles of it," said Darling, his voice husky with
+emotion at thought of Flora Lockhart.
+
+George Wick turned his face toward the east and the white wall of fog
+that now rolled upon the gray water within a mile of the coast.
+
+"Aye, sir; but we'll not be makin' it afore the fog catches us," he
+replied.
+
+"That will not bother my plans," said Darling. "I don't intend to sail
+right into Chance Along, anyway. I want to pay a surprise visit. We'll
+find a bit of a cove along here somewhere, I think."
+
+He was right. About a mile and a half beyond the Squid Rocks they found
+a little sheltered cove that was no more than a pocket in the cliff. The
+beach was narrow, and a glance disclosed the fact that at every full
+tide it was entirely submerged; but a "drook" or a narrow cleft, thickly
+grown with hardy bushes, led up from the land-wash to the barrens above.
+They lowered the sail and nosed their way into the cove. The streaming
+skirmishers of the fog were over them by this time. They beached the
+bully at the foot of the drook and made her fast.
+
+"Keep everything aboard, and make yourself snug," said Mr. Darling.
+"Watch the tide. Haul in and back off with it; and, whatever you do, lie
+low and keep quiet. I am going to take a look at Chance Along--on the
+sly, you understand. You'll know all about it later. Don't worry if I
+don't get back within the next two or three hours."
+
+"Ye bes after Black Dennis Nolan, sir," said Wick.
+
+Mr. Darling nodded, placed two loaded pistols in his pocket and vanished
+up the tangled slope of the drook. Wick listened to the upward
+scrambling until it suddenly died away and fog and silence covered him
+deep like a flood. Then he filled and lit his pipe and sat down in the
+shelter of a tarpaulin to think it over. He sensed danger in the blind
+choking air. He felt anxiety for his companion and fear for himself; but
+curiosity and a natural courage fortified him to a certain degree.
+
+Upon reaching the level of the barrens, Mr. Darling stood motionless for
+a little while and listened intently to the vague, fog-muffled
+breathing of the sea below him. He could hear nothing else. Turning to
+the south he moved silently forward along a well-worn path that traced
+the edge of the cliff. The fog was dense, and there was just enough wind
+to keep it drifting in from the sea. Darling held a boat-hook in his
+right hand and kept his eyes and ears alert. He heard a dog bark
+somewhere in front of him in the whitish-gray obscurity. Presently he
+came to where the path kinked and sloped down among a jumble of rocks,
+and at the same moment he caught the pungent, comforting smell of
+wood-smoke on the fog. Then he knew that Chance Along--the roof which
+sheltered Flora Lockhart--lay hidden and dripping beneath him. He was
+about to commence a cautious descent of the path, when a clamor of
+voices drifted up to him. He halted; and as the voices approached,
+together with the shuffle of climbing feet and the creak and clatter of
+shouldered boat-gear, he stepped aside. He saw the yellow blur of a
+lantern and immediately took up a position behind a great boulder. Bulky
+forms loomed into view at the top of the slope, broke from the
+blanketing fog for a moment, one by one, and plunged into it again,
+heading southward along the path. The big fellow in the lead carried
+the lantern, and the man at his elbow was talking excitedly as they
+passed within an oar's length of Darling.
+
+"I's bin watchin' her these five hours back, skipper, a-tryin' to beat
+out o' the drift o' wind an' tide widout one entire mast a-standin'," he
+said. "She wasn't a half-mile off the rocks when I left the cove, an'
+a-firin' of her gun desperate. If she bain't stuck tight now, skipper,
+then me name bain't Tim Leary."
+
+Mr. Darling stared and listened, as motionless as the boulder against
+which he leaned. They issued from the fog and were engulfed again in its
+clinging folds--twenty-five or thirty men and lads in all. Some carried
+coils of rope, others oars and boat-hooks. Several of them hauled empty
+sledges at their heels. The back of the last man vanished in the fog;
+but Mr. Darling remained in the shelter of the rock until the faintest
+whisper of their voices had died away before moving hand or foot.
+
+"Organized wreckers," he muttered. "And that big pirate with the lantern
+was the skipper--the brute who is keeping Flora in this place! By God--I
+wonder just how much of a man, and how much of a beast he is! But now is
+my time, while they're all off waiting for another wreck to come ashore
+to them--damn them! The harbor must be about empty of able-bodied men
+just now."
+
+He descended the twisting path cautiously. The small cabins of the
+fishermen presently loomed around him, here a gray gable, there a dull
+window, there an unpainted door--and below him a roof or two pushing up
+through the fog from a lower terrace of the village. He groped his way
+about, pausing frequently to peer and hearken. From one cabin came the
+sound of a child crying angrily, from another the harsh coughing of some
+very old person, and from still another the whining of a dog. He moved
+to the left, feeling his way gingerly between the humble dwellings. A
+lighted window caught his attention, and then a man's voice, with a
+whimsical drawl and twang to it, raised in song.
+
+    "Her eyes were like the sea in June,
+    Her lips was like a rose,
+    Her voice was like a fairy bell
+    A-ringin' crost the snows.
+    Then Denny, he forgot the wrack,
+    Forgot the waves a-rollin',
+    For she had put the witchy spell
+    On Skipper Dennis Nolan,"
+
+sang the voice behind the blurred yellow square of the window.
+
+Darling approached the window on tip-toe and peered through the dripping
+glass. He saw that the vocalist was a long, thin fellow, with long, thin
+whiskers and a wooden leg, seated in a chair by a glowing stove. Two
+candles in tarnished brass sticks, a fiddle and bow, and a glass half
+full of red liquor that steamed, were on the corner of the deal table at
+his elbow. Beside him stood a young woman, long limbed, deep breasted,
+with a comely face that suggested cheeriness, but was now drawn and
+shadowed a little round the mouth and eyes with an expression of care.
+But it was a good face, trustworthy, kind and wise; and the man at the
+window trusted it the moment he saw it.
+
+"I'll risk it," he muttered. "The old man looks harmless enough--and I
+might stumble around here until the fog lifts or the skipper gets back,
+without so much as a word with Flora, at this rate."
+
+He withdrew from the window and slid quietly along the wall of the cabin
+until he found the door. He pulled the glove from his right hand and
+rapped on the wet planks with his bare knuckles. The voice of the man
+with the wooden leg stopped dead in the middle of a line and shouted,
+"Come in." Darling lifted the latch, pushed the door half open, and
+stepped swiftly into the lighted room, closing the door smartly behind
+him. The man and the girl stared at him in astonishment. He removed his
+dripping cap from his head.
+
+"Can you tell me where I can find Miss Flora Lockhart?" he asked.
+
+The man gasped at that, and the girl's gray eyes brightened. The girl
+stepped forward, placed a strong, eager hand on his arm and gazed into
+his face without apology or embarrassment. Darling returned the scrutiny
+unabashed.
+
+"Ye be from up-along?" she queried. "Ye be a friend o' Flora's?"
+
+"Yes," replied Darling. "I have heard that she is in this harbor--and
+that no word of her being here, or even of her being alive, has been
+sent out. Her friends believe her to be dead. And I heard that the man
+you call skipper is--is keeping her against her will. Of course, against
+her will! I have come to take her away--back to the world in which she
+belongs."
+
+"Be ye alone, sir?" asked Pat Kavanagh, combing his beard with his long,
+lean fingers.
+
+Darling frowned. "That's as may be," he said. "Alone or not, I'm no such
+fool as to tell it until I know how I stand with you; but I am armed,
+you may be sure!"
+
+"Lad," said Pat, "I sees as how ye bes young, an' a sailor--aye, an'
+bewitched, too. Sure, I was a sailor meself, in the old days. I likes
+the cut o' yer fore-sils, lad, an' the lines o' yer hull, so I tells ye,
+man to man like, watch out for the skipper. Aye, armed or empty-handed,
+alone or wid a crew at yer back, watch out for Black Dennis Nolan. He
+bes a grand lad in his own way, an' ginerous an' fair wid his
+friends--but Saint Peter help the man who hauls acrost his bows! If
+ye've come to Chance Along to take the girl away wid ye, then get hold
+o' her quick an' clear out wid her quick."
+
+"I'll take ye to her, sir," said Mary, eagerly. "Come, sir! Come along
+wid ye. She bes at the skipper's own house."
+
+"At his own house? So I heard," said Darling, thickly.
+
+"Aye," said Pat, "an' safe as if she was in church, wid Mother Nolan to
+mind her. Sure, an' Denny Nolan bain't such a pirate as ye t'inks, sir.
+Lie an' curse an' fight an' wrack he will, like the divil himself; but
+he bes a decent man wid the helpless, accordin' to his lights, for all
+that. Aye, cap'n, till she bes Denny Nolan's wife she kin be any man's
+wife--if he bes smart enough to get her out o' Chance Along."
+
+"Come along wid me, sir!" urged Mary, pulling at Darling's sleeve. "He
+bes out o' the harbor now, wid all the crew. Now bes yer chance, sir!"
+
+She had thrown a shawl over her head and shoulders while her father was
+talking; and now she opened the door and led the sailor into the choking
+fog outside.
+
+"Give me yer hand, sir, an' mind yer feet," she whispered. And then, as
+she pressed quickly forward, leading Darling by the hand, "It must be
+the saints themselves sent ye an' the fog to Chance Along together,
+sir--ye an' the fog an' the wrack they all bes a-lookin' out for!"
+
+"Then I trust the saints may continue their good offices," said Darling,
+seriously.
+
+"Aye, sir, an' why not?" she returned. "But here we be, sir. Mother
+Nolan an' yer lass bes alone in the house together this minute; an'
+Mother Nolan will not be sayin' nay to yer plans o' runnin' away."
+
+She opened the door and drew Mr. Darling after her into the lighted
+kitchen. "Here bes yer help, Flora darlin'," she said. "An' 'twas no
+letter fetched him, ye kin lay to that, but the drag in his own heart
+for ye."
+
+Old Mother Nolan looked up at them with her snapping black eyes.
+
+"Shut the door!" said she. "D'ye want to fill all me poor old bones wid
+misery?"
+
+Mary laughed uncertainly and slammed the door; and it was not until then
+that Flora Lockhart moved or uttered a sound. She sprang to her feet,
+her clear eyes shining like stars.
+
+"Jack! Mr. Darling!" she cried. "You here? Have you come for me?"
+
+The sailor's heart fairly flooded his arteries with joy and tenderness.
+She had remembered him at a glance after the three long years! She had
+called him by name! Work, ambition, fame and disaster had not driven out
+the memory of him.
+
+"Yes, I have come for you," he said, huskily. "I would have come long
+ago if I had known--but I heard of it only by chance--a few days ago.
+Are you ready to come away with me now? We must hurry--for I fear that I
+am not strong enough to risk facing your jailer--just now."
+
+Mother Nolan threw a fur coat about the girl's shoulders.
+
+"Aye, she bes ready," said the old woman. "Mary, snatch her things
+together, an' carry 'em along. Step lively, for the love o' heaven! Have
+ye a boat, lad? Then get her to it as quick as ye kin, an' into it, an'
+away out o' Chance Along wid the two o' ye jist as quick as the holy
+saints will let ye!"
+
+John Darling fastened the great coat around Flora with trembling
+fingers.
+
+"To find you here!" he whispered. "And yet you seem nearer to me here
+than when I read of you--of your glory--out there in the great world."
+
+Their hands touched. Her eyes kindled to his, flame for flame, throb for
+throb.
+
+"I am glad--_you_ have found me," she said. "You--you did not forget
+me."
+
+At that moment the door was flung open and Black Dennis Nolan sprang
+into the room, followed closely by Bill Brennen and Nick Leary. The
+skipper had returned to the harbor because the ship in distress had
+drifted clear of the coast after all, and was even now firing her gun
+and burning her flares in clear water directly off Chance Along. Before
+flinging open the door the wreckers had seen through the window what was
+taking place in the kitchen.
+
+Flora Lockhart screamed and flung her arms around John Darling, clinging
+to him as to her only hope of deliverance; and before he could pull
+himself clear of her and draw a pistol from his pocket the infuriated
+skipper was upon him. Nolan gripped with his left hand, and struck with
+his right fist and his whole body; but, quick as thought, the sailor
+twisted, ducked and gripped the other low about the hips. They hurtled
+across the room, collided against a chair and crashed to the floor with
+Darling on top. Bill Brennen plunged forward to help his master, but was
+met half-way by old Mother Nolan, who twined her claws in his whiskers
+and hung to him like a cat to a curtain. Nick Leary was about to settle
+things when Mary Kavanagh fell upon him with a leg of the broken chair.
+Flora alone did not join the fray. She fell back against the wall and
+covered her eyes with her hands.
+
+Things were at a deadlock, with the chances good for Darling to break
+away from the dazed skipper and make his escape. Bill Brennen was of no
+use, for he could not strike the terrible old woman who hung to his
+whiskers until he yelled with the pain of it. Nick lay on the floor with
+music and stars in his head and conviction that Mary Kavanagh (who even
+now knelt on his chest) was a grand young woman entirely. Then young
+Cormick entered, took in the vital points of the situation at a glance,
+snatched up a stick of firewood, and jumped for the corner where his
+brother and the stranger lay clinched. Flora saw it from between her
+trembling fingers. She screamed and sprang forward with out-flung arms;
+but she was too late. The boy struck once with the billet--and the fight
+was ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MARY KAVANAGH USES HER WITS
+
+
+For half a minute the skipper was mad enough to kill the unconscious
+sailor with his hands and feet; but Mother Nolan and Mary Kavanagh
+together were equal to the task of holding him and bringing him to a
+glimmering of reason. Mother Nolan's tongue did not spare him, even as
+her fingers had not spared poor, loyal Bill Brennen's whiskers.
+
+"Would ye be murderin' him?" she cried. "An' him helpless--aye, an' a
+better man nor ye be yerself, Denny Nolan. Then ye be no blood an' kin
+to me, ye great murderer! Didn't he land ye on the flat o' yer great
+back, ye limb, though ye took him all suddant an' unawares? Sure, he
+did! Kill him, then; an' 'twill be your own father's mother goes to St.
+John's to bring the police to hang ye up by yer cowardly neck. Aye, ye
+kin lay to that! What old Kate Nolan says she says, an' the divil
+himself couldn't make a liar of her!"
+
+"I thought ye was a man, Denny, an' fought like a man," said Mary
+Kavanagh, in a low voice that shook with unuttered sobs; "but if ye
+strikes him now, a-layin' there as harmless as a swile, then I'll know
+ye for a coward an' a murderer."
+
+The skipper looked down at Flora Lockhart, who knelt above Darling,
+weeping bitterly. His black eyes glowed and his face twisted and paled.
+
+"If it had bin meself hit the blow that downed him, then I'd be
+finishin' him," he said, "but I don't kill where I don't down! I bain't
+no coward, Mary Kavanagh, as well ye knows! Bes there any more o' the
+likes of him a-sneakin' 'round me own harbor?"
+
+"He come alone," said Mary. "He come alone, to find the girl ye've bin
+hidin' an' holdin' in Chance Along till all her folks thinks she bes
+dead."
+
+"Sure, then, he found her," snarled the skipper, "an' little good 'twill
+be doin' him!"
+
+"Shame upon ye, Denny Nolan!" exclaimed the old woman. "Shame upon ye
+an' yer lies an' yer wicked, silly heart that t'ought to keep the likes
+o' her forever in Chance Along. Ye bain't able to fool old Kate Nolan
+wid yer lies! Sure, wasn't I on to ye from the minute ye come home that
+ye'd not bin to Witless Bay wid the letter? I seed the lie writ across
+yer face, Denny Nolan. Shame upon ye to be tryin' to bury the poor
+helpless girl alive!"
+
+"Pick him up," said the skipper, sullenly. "There bes grub enough an' to
+spare to feed him an' a hundred like him. Heave him up atween ye, men,
+an' we'll be lockin' of him up in a safe place. Fetch along the lantern,
+Cormy, lad."
+
+John Darling opened his eyes at this moment, stared dizzily around him
+and struggled up to one elbow.
+
+"Flora!" he cried. "Flora, where are you?"
+
+The girl tried to go to him, but the skipper held her. Bill Brennen
+pressed the sailor back, and tied his wrists and ankles.
+
+"Who carried the letter out to him?" demanded the skipper, gripping the
+girl's shoulders with his great hands, and glaring down into her
+colorless face. For answer, she wrenched herself away, and struck him a
+stinging blow across the mouth with her right hand.
+
+"How dare you?" she cried. "How dare you lay hands on me? I despise you,
+you brute!"
+
+He stepped back, his face crimson, his mouth twitching, all the fire
+and mastery gone from his eyes. He had thought, poor fool, that she was
+learning to care for him; for of late, in her game of self-defence, she
+had treated him with evident consideration and many little attentions of
+the voice and eyes. And now he understood. He saw the truth in every
+flash of her eyes, in every line of brow, mouth and chin. He turned,
+took the lantern from Cormick and strode from the house, with Bill and
+Nick and their prisoner at his heels.
+
+"Go down to the land-wash an' spy 'round for his boat," he said to
+Cormick. "Turn out a couple o' men to help ye hunt for it--an' maybe
+ye'll find some more o' these sneakin' robbers hangin' 'round the
+harbor."
+
+They carried Darling to the store, the skipper leading the way, and his
+trusties swinging and hoisting their helpless burden by heels and
+shoulders. They dropped him on the cold floor as if he had no more
+feelings than a sack of hard bread.
+
+"That bes all, lads," said the skipper. "Go help hunt for the boat now
+an' shut the door behind ye. I'll jist be sayin' a few words to this
+dirty spy afore I leaves him to his dreams."
+
+Brennen and Leary turned and left the store without a word. They felt
+vaguely uneasy, as if the great world of up-along had at last found them
+out, and reached a menacing hand into their snug harbor. Would the
+skipper be able to deal with so vast an enemy? If he killed this
+stranger it would mean hanging by the neck, sooner or later--perhaps for
+every man in the harbor? If he let him live, and held him a prisoner, it
+would bring the law prying into their affairs, some time or other. Doubt
+chilled them. They stumbled heavily away in the darkness.
+
+The skipper held the lantern to his captive's face and regarded him with
+wolfish, sneering attention. Soon the sneer faded a little.
+
+"I's seed ye afore," he said. "Aye, sure as hell, I's seed ye afore!"
+
+"And this is not the first time I've seen _your_ ugly mug, either,"
+returned Darling. "I saw you the night the _Durham Castle_ came ashore
+on this coast--the night you robbed the captain and the passengers.
+Well, what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Ye'll larn that soon enough," returned the other. "Did ye get a letter
+from--from her?"
+
+"No," replied Darling, unable to see any danger in telling the truth of
+that matter. "No, I didn't get any letter. I met a friend of yours in
+St. John's, and he told me a great deal about you, and the game you are
+playing in this harbor--and also about her. Your friend's name is Dick
+Lynch."
+
+"Dick Lynch," repeated the skipper, quietly. "I'll be cuttin' the heart
+out o' that dog yet!"
+
+"And a good job, no doubt," said Darling. "But I warn you, my man, that
+if you injure Miss Lockhart in any way you'll curse the day you first
+saw daylight. You'll be burned out of here like the dirty, murdering
+pirate that you are--you and your whole crew. The law will have you, my
+man--it will have you by the neck. Do you think I risked coming to this
+place without leaving word behind me of where I was bound for and what I
+was after?"
+
+"Now ye be lyin'," said the skipper, coolly. "Ye telled the truth about
+Dick Lynch; but now ye lie. Don't ye try to fool wid me, damn ye! Ye
+come to Chance Along widout leavin' a word behind ye. I sees the lie in
+yer face."
+
+"I left Dick Lynch behind me," said the sailor.
+
+That shook the skipper's assurance; but he was in no mood to feel fear
+for more than a moment. He laughed sneeringly and began to unload his
+captive's pockets. He took out the pistols, admired them and laid them
+aside. Next, he unearthed a few cakes of hard bread, a small flask of
+brandy, and a pipe and half a plug of tobacco.
+
+"How'd ye come to Chance Along, anyhow? Where bes yer boat?" he asked,
+suddenly, pausing in his work.
+
+"I walked across from Witless Bay," said Darling.
+
+"Where bes yer boat?" asked the other.
+
+"In Witless Bay, you fool! Do you think I carried it across my back?"
+
+The skipper swung the lantern back and glanced at the soles of the
+other's boots.
+
+"Ye bes a liar--and a desperate poor one at that," he said. "Where bes
+yer boat?"
+
+John Darling lost his temper. He disliked being forced into telling a
+lie--and, being human, he disliked still more to have the lie discovered
+and the effort wasted.
+
+"Go to hell and find it, you black-faced pirate!" he roared.
+
+The skipper stopped, glared down at him, and swung his right hand back
+for a blow.
+
+"Hit away, I'm tied," said the other, without flinching.
+
+The skipper let his hand sink to his side.
+
+"I don't hit a tied man. That bain't my way," he said, flushing darkly.
+
+"Untie me, then, and you can hit all you want to. Cut these ropes and
+let me at you. Come now, for I see that you have some sense of manliness
+in you, after all."
+
+"Not jist now. To-morrow, maybe--or maybe next day--I'll fight ye. And,
+by hell, when I do I'll kill ye wid me two hands!"
+
+"I'll take the chance. Unless you starve me or cripple me in the
+meantime, I'll knock the everlasting life out of you."
+
+The skipper growled and took up his interrupted work of investigating
+the other's pockets. He unbuttoned the heavy reefer and thrust a hand
+into an inner pocket. In a second he withdrew it, holding the little
+casket bound in red leather. A cry of astonishment escaped him. He
+pressed the catch with his thumb and the diamonds and rubies flashed and
+glowed beneath his dazzled eyes.
+
+"Me own diamonds!" he cried. "Holy saints alive, me own diamonds!
+Where'd ye find 'em? Tell me that, now--where'd ye find 'em?"
+
+Darling did not reply for a moment. Then, speaking quietly and somewhat
+bitterly, he said, "If you really want to know, I found them on a dead
+man, under the cliff a few miles to the north of here."
+
+"That would be Foxey Jack Quinn," said the skipper. He closed the box
+and put it in his pocket, then took up the lantern and went out, locking
+the door behind him.
+
+In the meantime, Mary Kavanagh had not been idle. She felt sure that the
+stranger was safe from bodily harm for the night at least, now that
+Dennis had shaken off the first blind deviltry of his rage. She knew
+Dennis almost as well as old Mother Nolan did; and to-night she felt
+sorry for him as well as angry with him. Leaving Flora in Mother Nolan's
+care, she left the house, and followed Cormick and the others down to
+the land-wash. The fog was thinning swiftly; but night had fallen, and
+the sky, sea and land were all black as tar. She soon learned that no
+sign of the stranger's boat could be found in the harbor. Returning from
+the land-wash, she met Nick Leary.
+
+"How bes ye a-feelin' now?" she asked, not unkindly. "But it served ye
+right, Nick. A great man like ye has no call to be fightin' wid women."
+
+"Me poor head buzzes like a nest o' wasps whin ye pokes it wid a club,"
+said Nick. "Sure, Mary, 'twas a sweet tap ye give me! Marry me, girl,
+an' ye'll be free to bat me every day o' yer born life."
+
+"Sure, an' 'twould do ye no harm," said Mary. And then, "So ye've shut
+the poor lad in the store, have ye?"
+
+"Aye, but how'd ye know it, Mary?"
+
+"I didn't know it, Nick, till ye telled me. Now go on wid yer business
+o' huntin' for the boat an' I'll be goin' on wid mine. An' thanks for
+yer offer, lad; but sure I'll never marry a man I kin knock down wid the
+leg o' a chair."
+
+Nick seemed to be in no mood to accept this statement as final; but the
+girl soon cleared her tracks of him in the inky darkness, among the
+little houses. She climbed the path to the edge of the barren and turned
+northward. From what she had seen of John Darling she felt sure that he
+was no fool; and therefore she had not expected to find his boat in the
+harbor. He had told Mother Nolan that he had a boat, but had not
+mentioned its whereabouts. Mary decided that it was hidden somewhere
+handy to the harbor; and she was inclined to think that it was manned.
+He had come from the north, of course; therefore the chances were good
+that he had left his boat somewhere to the north of the harbor. She knew
+every hollow, break and out-thrust of that coast for miles as well as
+she knew the walls and floors of her father's cabin. A thought of the
+little drook came to her mind and she quickened her steps along the
+path. The light wind was shifting and the fog was trailing coastwise to
+the south before it. Mary noted this, sniffed at the air, which was
+slowly but surely changing in quality, and looked up at the black sky.
+
+"There'll be snow afore mornin'," she said.
+
+When she reached the head of the drook she halted and gave ear. The
+sloshing and lapping of the tide came up to her; and that was all for a
+minute or two. She parted the alders and young birches with her hands,
+very cautiously, and moved downward into the thicket for a distance of
+three or four yards, then halted again and again listened. At last,
+above the noises of the tide and almost smothered by them, she heard a
+sound unmistakably human--a violent sneeze. For a little while she
+remained quiet, daunted by the darkness and trying to consider the
+risks she was about to take. But the risks could not be considered, for
+they were absolutely unknown. She was playing for peace and justice,
+however--yes, and for Denny Nolan's happiness. Mastering her fear, she
+whistled softly. After a minute's silence a guarded voice replied to the
+whistle.
+
+"Be that yerself, sir?" inquired the voice from the blackness below.
+
+She descended lower, parting the tangled growth before her with her
+hands.
+
+"I bes a friend--an' a woman," she said. "I comes wid a word for ye,
+from him."
+
+"Stand where ye bes!" commanded George Wicks, his voice anxious and
+suspicious. "What the divil bes the trouble now? Stand where ye bes an'
+tell me the word."
+
+"I bes all alone, so help me Peter!" replied the girl, "an' it bain't
+safe the way we bes talkin' now, up an' down the drook. The lads o' the
+harbor may be comin' this way an' a-hearin' us--an' then ye'll bes in as
+bad a way as the captain himself. Let me come down to ye. Bes ye afeared
+o' one lone woman?"
+
+"Come down wid ye, then," said George, his voice none too steady, "but I
+warns ye as how I hes a lantern here an' a pistol, an' if ye bain't all
+alone by yerself I'll shoot ye like a swile an' ax ye yer business
+afterwards. I's heard queer t'ings o' Chance Along!"
+
+"I bes alone," returned Mary, "an' if ye fires yer pistol at me then ye
+bes a dirty coward."
+
+As she spoke she continued her difficult way down the channel of the
+drook. She saw the yellow gleam of the lantern between the snarled stems
+of the bushes. Strong, clear-headed and brave as she was, she began now
+to sob quietly with fright; yet she continued to push her way down the
+drook.
+
+"They--they has caught the captain," she said, brokenly, "an' now they
+bes huntin' all 'round the harbor for his boat. I has--come to tell
+ye--an' to help ye."
+
+George Wick parted the bushes, raised his lantern and peered up at her.
+
+"There bain't no call for ye to be cryin'," he said, in a changed voice.
+"If ye means no treachery, lass, then I'll not be hurtin' ye."
+
+She stood beside him; and as he stared at her by the yellow light of the
+lantern all thought of treachery from that quarter faded away. His
+heart warmed and got a trifle out of hand. He could scarcely believe his
+senses, and for a moment forgot John Darling and the queer stories he
+had heard of Chance Along. All he realized was that his eyes and the
+lantern told him that the finest looking girl he had ever seen had come
+down the drook, all of her own free will, to pay him a visit.
+
+"The skipper caught him an' tied him up in the store," whispered Mary,
+"an' now all the men in the harbor bes searchin' for the boat." Then she
+told the story of Flora Lockhart, and disclosed a plan for outwitting
+the skipper that had just come to her mind.
+
+"Sure, ye bes a wonder," said George, who was as clay in her hands.
+"Aye, we'll be putting the comather on to Black Denny Nolan, ye kin lay
+to that! Sure, it be a grand idee altogether!"
+
+So they unloaded the bully and hid everything among the bushes.
+
+"Now you must lay low," cautioned Mary, "an' I'll bring yer bully back
+to ye as soon as I kin--or maybe one o' the skipper's bullies in its
+place. Anyhow, I'll get to see ye agin to-morrow night. Lay low, now,
+an' don't be lightin' a fire."
+
+As she stepped aboard the bully George's mind cleared a little.
+
+"Ye bain't playin' any tricks on me, I do hope," he whispered. "Ye
+wouldn't be leavin' me here all alone by meself forever, widout me bully
+even, would ye now?"
+
+"Ye kin trust me," said Mary. Then she shoved off into the darkness.
+
+Half an hour later the keel of the bully touched the land-wash in the
+sheltered harbor of Chance Along. Mary Kavanagh stepped ashore, laid the
+oar noiselessly inboard and set the bully adrift, and then made her
+cautious way up and into her father's cabin. Snow began to fall thickly
+and silently as she closed the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+MOTHER NOLAN DOES SOME SPYING
+
+
+John Darling was sore, hungry and cold; but his heart was joyful and
+strong. He had been knocked over the head, and he had been robbed of the
+newly-recovered necklace and the reward of a thousand pounds; but he had
+found Flora, alive, evidently not ill-treated and not in any real danger
+save of oblivion, and with the memory of him clear in her heart. He had
+failed to get her away from the harbor; but he felt convinced that a way
+of escape for both of them would soon occur. He did not fear Black
+Dennis Nolan. The fellow was a man, after all. He knew that if he should
+come to any serious physical injury at the skipper's hands it would be
+in a fair fight. Also, he knew that Mother Nolan and Mary Kavanagh were
+on his side--were as anxious to get Flora out of the harbor as he was to
+take her out. But the planks upon which he lay were as cold and hard as
+ice; and at last he began to wonder if even his splendid constitution
+would stand a night of this exposure, bound hand and foot, without
+serious results. He lay awake for hours, suffering in body but rejoicing
+in heart. At last, numb with cold, he sank into a half-doze. He was
+aroused by sounds at the door--the cry of a key turning an unoiled lock
+and the creak of rusty hinges. Then the welcome gleam of a lantern
+flooded to him along the frosty floor. The visitor was Bill Brennen. He
+stooped above the sailor and squinted at him curiously. Under his left
+arm he carried a caribou skin and several blankets.
+
+"Lad," said he, "ye must be full o' the divil's own ginger to cross the
+skipper as ye done. Sure an' the wonder bes why he didn't kill ye dead!
+But now that ye still be alive, him not killin' ye in the first flush,
+ye bes safe as Mother Nolan herself. A divil o' a woman that, entirely.
+Saints in glory, me whiskers still aches desperate! Here bes a grand rug
+for ye to lay on, an' blankets to cover yerself wid. The skipper sent
+'em. Kill a man he will, in fair fight; but it bain't in his nature to
+let any man go cold nor hungry in Chance Along."
+
+He spread the caribou skin and one of the blankets on the floor and
+rolled John Darling on to them. Then he threw two more blankets over him
+and tucked them in. Next, he produced a flask from his pocket and
+uncocked it.
+
+"Skipper's orders," he said, and held the flask to the helpless one's
+lips.
+
+"Now ye bes as snug as any marchant, what wid yer grand bed an' yer drop
+o' fine liquor in yer belly," he remarked. He turned at the door and
+said, "Some one will be bringin' ye grub in the mornin'. Good night to
+ye."
+
+From that until morning, the prisoner on the floor, bound at wrist and
+ankle, rested more peacefully than Black Dennis Nolan in his father's
+bed; for the sailor was only sore in his muscles and bones, but the
+skipper ached in heart and soul. The skipper tossed through the black
+hours, reasoning against reason, hoping against hopelessness. The girl
+hated him and despised him! Twist and turn as he might, he could not
+escape from this conviction. Now he even doubted the power of the
+diamonds and rubies to win her, having seen that in her eyes which had
+brought all his dreams crumbling to choking dust. Pain had laid the
+devil of fury in him and aroused the imp of stubbornness. He would wait
+and watch. He was safe to keep them both in the harbor until the arrival
+of Father McQueen, in June; and perhaps, by that time, he would see some
+way of winning the girl. Should the necklace of diamonds and rubies fail
+to impress the girl, then he might bribe John Darling with it to leave
+the harbor. You see, the workings of the skipper's mind were as
+primitive as his methods of coping with mutineers.
+
+The skipper left his bed and the house at the first gray of dawn,
+determined to search the coast high and low for a solution of the
+mystery of the stranger's arrival. He went down between the silent
+cabins, all roofed with new snow, and the empty snow-trimmed stages, and
+looked out upon the little harbor. What was that, just at the edge of
+the shadow of the rock to the right of the narrow passage?--a boat, lump
+of wreckage or a shadow? Stare as he would, he could not determine the
+nature of the thing in that faint and elfin twilight; but it drew his
+eye and aroused his curiosity as no natural shadow of any familiar rock
+could have done. He dragged a skiff from under one of the stages and
+launched it into the quiet harbor and with a single oar over the stern
+sculled out toward the black object on the steel-gray tide. It proved
+to be a fine bully, empty and with the frozen painter hanging over the
+bow and trailing alongside.
+
+"So this bes how he come to Chance Along--an' not man enough to moor his
+boat safe!" exclaimed the skipper.
+
+The bully was as empty as on the day it had been built, save for one oar
+lying across the thwarts. Not even a spar and sail were aboard her. The
+man must be an absolute fool to set out along a dangerous coast, in a
+bad time of year, single-handed and without grub or gear, reflected the
+skipper. The thought that such a bungler as this stranger should be
+preferred to himself, intensified his pangs of humiliation. No girl who
+understood such things--no girl of that coast--would treat him so, he
+reflected, bitterly. He pulled the dripping painter aboard the skiff,
+made it fast around a thwart and towed the bully ashore.
+
+Mary Kavanagh had been astir as early as the skipper himself. She had
+gone first to the store. Peering through a window, she had made out the
+stranger's form on the floor, bulkily blanketed. From the store, she
+hastened to the skipper's house, saw his footprints pointing toward the
+land-wash, and stood with her hand on the latch until a skiff slid out
+into her line of vision from behind the drying-stages. She knew that the
+skipper was on his way to investigate the derelict bully. She opened the
+door then, entered quietly and went to Mother Nolan's room. The old
+woman was sitting up in bed with her night-cap a-tilt over one ear.
+
+"Saints alive, Mary, what mischief bes afoot now?" asked Mother Nolan.
+
+Mary drew close to the bed-side and leaned over to her confederate.
+
+"The captain bes safe in the store, all rolled up in blankets," she
+whispered, "an'--an' I larned something last night that means as how we
+kin get 'em both away before long, wid luck. An' I played a trick on the
+skipper--so don't ye bes worryin' when he tells ye as how he's found the
+captain's boat. Give the word to the lass to keep her heart up. Sure,
+we'll be gettin' the two o' them safe out o' the harbor yet."
+
+"An' where bes Denny now? How'd ye get into the house?" asked the old
+woman.
+
+"He bes out in a skiff this very minute, a-lookin' at the captain's boat
+where it bes driftin' 'round the harbor. Sure, an' that bes just where
+I wants him. An' now I'll be goin', Mother Nolan dear, for I bain't
+wishin' Denny to catch me here a-whisperin' t'ye so early in the mornin'
+or maybe he'd get the idea into his head as how us two women bain't such
+harmless fools as what he's always bin takin' us for."
+
+"Ye bes a fine girl, Mary Kavanagh," returned Mother Nolan, "an' I
+trusts ye to clear this harbor o' trouble. I'll be tellin' the good word
+to the poor lass inside this very minute. Her heart bain't all diamonds
+an' pride, after all, as she let us know last night, poor dear."
+
+Mary left them, and a minute later met the skipper on his way up from
+the land-wash.
+
+"I's found the boat the stranger come in," said the skipper.
+
+"Sure, an' so ye would, Denny, if it was to be found," replied Mary.
+
+The young man eyed her gloomily and inquiringly until she blushed and
+turned her face away from him.
+
+"Ye talks fair, Mary," he said. "Ye talks as if ye was a friend o' mine;
+but ye bain't always actin' that same way, these days. Last night, now,
+ye an' granny was sure fightin' agin me! I seed ye bat Nick Leary wid
+the leg o' the chair--an' I seed that dacent old woman a-hangin' to Bill
+Brennen's whiskers like a wildcat to the moss on a tree."
+
+"An' why not, Denny Nolan?" retorted the girl. "Ye t'ree men was after
+murderin' that poor lad! D'ye think Mother Nolan was wantin' to see ye
+carried off to St. John's an' hung by yer neck? Sure, we was fightin'
+agin ye. What hurt had that poor lad ever done to ye? He come to Chance
+Along for his lass--an' sure, she was ready enough to be goin' away wid
+him!"
+
+The skipper's face darkened. "Who saved her life from the wrack?" he
+cried. "Tell me that, will ye! Who salvaged her from the fore-top o' the
+wrack?"
+
+Without waiting for an answer, he brushed past Mary and strode up to his
+house. The girl stood motionless for a little while, gazing after him
+with a flushed face, twitching lips and a flicker of amusement in her
+gray eyes.
+
+"Poor Denny," she murmured. "His pride bes hurt more nor the heart of
+him!"
+
+John Darling was not honored by a visit from the skipper that day; but
+Bill Brennen carried food to him, made up a fire in the stove, and even
+loosed his bonds for a few minutes upon receiving his word of honor that
+he would not take advantage of the kindness by trying to escape.
+
+"What does Nolan intend to do with me?" asked Darling.
+
+"Well, sir, it looks to me as how he bes figgerin' to keep ye in Chance
+Along till June. He bes t'inkin' as how the young lady may blow 'round
+to his own idee," replied Bill.
+
+"And what is his idea?"
+
+"As how he bes a better man nor ye be."
+
+"But why does he figure to keep me until June? Why not until July, or
+August--or next Christmas?"
+
+"Well, sir, ye see it bes this way wid him. Father McQueen, the dear,
+riverent gentleman--an' may he never die till I kills him, an' may every
+blessed hair on his head turn into a wax candle to light him to
+glory!--bes comin' back to Chance Along in June. The skipper bain't
+afeared o' any man in the world but his riverence."
+
+John Darling smiled. "I should like to see Father McQueen," he said;
+"but I am afraid I must be going away from here considerably before the
+first of June."
+
+Bill wagged his head. "Now don't ye be too sure, sir," he whispered. "Ye
+bain't dealin' wid any ignorant fisherman when ye bes dealin' wid Black
+Dennis Nolan. Sure, didn't he find yer bully this very mornin'!"
+
+"My bully!" exclaimed the other, losing color. "Where did he find it?"
+
+"Driftin' in the harbor," returned Bill. "It bes a grand bully entirely,
+sir."
+
+Darling was silent for a moment. Then, trying to look as if the finding
+of the bully drifting in the harbor was rather a joke, he laughed.
+
+"And did he capture my crew of five strong men?" he asked.
+
+Bill Brennen grinned. "Now ye needn't be tryin' any o' yer divilment on
+me," he said. "The bully was as empty as Tim Sullivan's
+brain-locker--an' the holy saints knows as that bes empty enough! Sure,
+there wasn't even a sail aboard her, nor a bite o' grub nor a drop o'
+liquor."
+
+"My five men must have fallen overboard," said Darling, smiling. Poor
+John! Now, should he manage to escape and get Flora out of the skipper's
+house, how was he to get out of the harbor? What had happened to George
+Wick? The tide must have carried the bully out of the drook, while
+George was asleep, and drifted it around to the harbor. He promised
+himself the pleasure of teaching Master George the art of mooring a boat
+if he ever met him again.
+
+John Darling spent an anxious day. Shortly after midnight he was
+startled by a faint tapping on one of the windows. The night was pitch
+black, and so he could see nothing. The tapping was repeated. He rolled
+out of his blanket and across the floor toward the sound. His progress
+was arrested by a rank of boxes and flour-bags. Pressing his shoulder
+against these, he hitched himself to his feet, turned and leaned across
+them until his face was within a foot of the faint square of the window.
+Against the half-darkness he could now see something indistinct in
+shape, and all of a dense blackness save for a pale patch that he knew
+to be a human face. It was Mary Kavanagh. She told him briefly of the
+way she had turned the skipper from searching the coast for his boat and
+his companion; of Flora's safety, and of how she hoped to accomplish
+their escape before long--perhaps on the following night. Wick was
+still hidden in the drook, she said. She would try to get a boat of some
+kind around to him on the next night; and if she succeeded in that, she
+would return and try to get Darling out of the store and Flora out of
+the skipper's house.
+
+The sailor was at a loss for words in which to express his gratitude.
+
+"But ye must promise me one thing," whispered the girl. "Ye must swear,
+by all the holy saints, to do naught agin Denny Nolan when once ye git
+safe away--swear that neither Flora nor yerself puts the law on to
+Denny, nor on to any o' the folks o' this harbor, for whatever has been
+done."
+
+"I swear it, by all the saints," replied Darling. "For myself--but I
+cannot promise it for Flora. You must arrange that with her."
+
+Several hours after Mary's interview with John Darling, old Mother Nolan
+awoke in her bed, suddenly, with all her nerves on the jump. The room
+was dark, but she felt convinced that a light had been held close to her
+face but a moment before. She felt no fear for herself, but a chilling
+anxiety as to what deviltry Denny might be up to now. Could it be that
+she was mistaken in him after all? Could it be that he was less of a
+man than she had thought? She crawled noiselessly from her bed and stole
+over to the door of Flora Lockhart's room. The door was fastened. With
+the key, which she had brought from under her pillow, she made sure that
+it was locked. She unlocked it noiselessly, opened the door a crack and
+peered in. The room was lighted by the glow from the fire and by a
+guttering candle on a chair beside the bed. She saw that the room was
+empty, save for the sleeping girl. Closing the door softly and locking
+it again, she turned and groped her way across to the kitchen door,
+beneath which a narrow line of light was visible. Scarcely breathing,
+she raised the latch, drew the door inward a distance of half an inch
+and set one of her bright old eyes to the crack. She saw the skipper
+kneeling in a corner of the kitchen, with his back to her and a candle
+on the floor beside him. He seemed to be working busily and heavily, but
+not a sound of his toil reached her eager ears.
+
+"He bes hidin' something'," she reflected. "Shiftin' some o' his wracked
+gold, maybe? But why bes he so sly about it to-night, a-spyin' in on his
+old grandmother to see if she bes sound asleep or no?"
+
+Presently, she closed the door and crept back to her bed. Next morning,
+as soon as the skipper and young Cormick had left the house, she
+examined the corner of the floor where the skipper had been at work. She
+had to pull aside a wood-box to get at the spot. One of the narrow,
+dusty planks showed that it had been tampered with. She pried it up with
+a chisel, dug into the loose earth beneath and at last found a small box
+covered with red leather. She opened it and gazed at the diamonds and
+rubies in frightened fascination. Ignorant as she was of such things,
+she knew that the value of these stones must be immense. At last she
+closed the casket, returned it to the bottom of the hole and replaced
+the earth, the plank and the wood-box. Where, when and how had the
+skipper come by that treasure? she wondered. She hobbled over to Pat
+Kavanagh's house and told Mary all about it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MARY AT WORK AGAIN
+
+
+Pierre Benoist, the survivor of the French brig, arrived at Mother
+McKay's shebeen in good order, with the borrowed blanket draped over his
+broad shoulders and the borrowed sealing-gun under his arm. All birds of
+Pierre's variety of feather seemed to arrive naturally at Mother
+McKay's, sooner or later. The French sailor found Dick Lynch; a Canadian
+trapper with Micmac blood in his veins, who had come out of the woods
+too soon for his own good; three men from Conception Bay and half a
+dozen natives of the city, all talking and swearing and drinking Mother
+McKay's questionable rum and still more questionable whiskey. Pierre
+laid aside his blanket and musket, shouted for liquor and then studied
+the assembled company. It did not take him long to decide that they were
+exactly the material he required. He took a seat at Dick Lynch's elbow
+and in such English as he was master of, remarked that any man who
+worked for his living was no better than a fool.
+
+"Sure," said Lynch, "by the looks o' yerself ye should know."
+
+Monsieur Benoist pulled his sinister mouth into as pleasant a grin as he
+could manage, and veiled the dangerous light in his eyes. Then he
+replied, in a loud voice that caught the attention of all the men in the
+room, that he was certainly in a position to know, having come straight
+from a little harbor to the southward where a handful of fishermen had
+just salvaged two chests of good French gold from a wreck. He told the
+whole story of the wreck and of the subsequent fight in which his
+companion had been killed. To add reality to his tale he described
+several of the fishermen minutely.
+
+"That bes the skipper himself!" cried Dick Lynch. "That bes Black Dennis
+Nolan, ye kin lay to that--aye, an' Bill Brennen an' Nick Leary! Sure,
+then, ye've come from Chance Along, b'y--the very place I comes from
+meself. Two chests o' gold, d'ye say? Then I tells ye, b'ys, there bes
+as much more there besides. Chance Along bes fair stinkin' wid gold an'
+wracked stuff."
+
+He went on excitedly and gave a brief and startling outline of the
+recent history of Black Dennis Nolan and Chance Along, not forgetting
+his own heroic stand against the tyrant.
+
+"B'ys, all we has to be doin' bes to go an' take it--an' then to
+scatter. This here captain wid the rings in his ears has the right idee,
+sure! Wid all the gold an' jewels in Chance Along shared amongst us sure
+we'd never be needin' to hit another clip o' work so long as we live.
+Aye, 'twould be easy wid guns in our hands; but we must be quick about
+it, lads, or the law'll be gittin' there ahead o' us," he concluded.
+
+The others clustered about Lynch and the French sailor, a few of them
+reeling, but all intent upon coming to some arrangement for laying hands
+upon the treasure of Chance Along. Big fists pounded the sloppy table,
+husky voices bellowed questions, and stools and benches were overturned.
+
+"There bes twelve o' us here," said Tom Brent, of Harbor Grace, "twelve
+able lads, every mother's son o' us ready for to make the trip. Now the
+first thing bes for every man to tell his name an' swear as how he'll do
+his best at gettin' the stuff an' never say naught about it to any
+livin' soul after he's got safe away wid his share."
+
+All agreed to these suggestions, and oaths were taken and hopes of
+everlasting salvation pledged that were not worth the breath that
+sounded them. It was next ascertained by Monsieur Benoist, who naturally
+took a leading part in the organization, that every man of the twelve
+possessed a fire-arm of one kind or another. Then Bill McKay, Mother
+McKay's son, and two others departed in quest of horses and sleds. The
+roads were fairly good now, though unpacked. Mother McKay set to work at
+the packing of provisions for the expedition. She was heart and soul in
+the enterprise, and would have her interests represented by her son
+Bill, the worst rascal, hardest fighter and most devoted son in St.
+John's. She had a hold on some of the small farmers around--in fact, she
+owned several of the farms--so it was not long before Bill and his
+companions returned, each in possession of a horse and sled. The
+expedition set out at two o'clock of a windless, frosty, star-lit
+morning. They travelled the roads which John Darling had followed,
+several days before; but now the mud-holes and quaking bogs were frozen
+and covered with snow. Bill McKay drove the sled that led the way at a
+pace that gave the following teamsters all they could do to keep in
+touch; but willing hands manned the whips and hammering sled-stakes.
+Now and again one or another of the raiders would fall off a sled and
+necessitate a halt; and so the poor horses were given a chance, now and
+again, to recover something of their lost wind.
+
+Back in Chance Along things were going briskly. Mary Kavanagh learned
+from John Darling something of the history of the diamond and ruby
+necklace and made up her mind to return it to the sailor. She wanted to
+clean the harbor of everything of the kind--of everything that came up
+from the sea in shattered ships, except food. She saw the hands of the
+saints in salvaged provisions, but the hand of the devil himself in
+wrecked gold and jewels--and wrecked women. She decided to arrange the
+recovery of the necklace and the bully, and the escape of the strangers
+for that very night; and her decision was sealed, a few hours later, by
+the skipper's behavior. It was this way with the skipper. He felt shame
+for having kept the girl in the harbor against her prayers, and for the
+lies he had told her and the destruction of the letters; but he was
+neither humble nor contrite. Shame was a bitter and maddening emotion
+for one of his nature. He brooded over this shame, and over that
+aroused by the girl's scorn, until his finer feelings toward her were
+burned out and blown abroad like ashes. His infatuation lost its fine,
+ennobling element of worship, and fell to a red glow of desire of
+possession. He forced his way to Flora's room, despite the protests of
+Mother Nolan.
+
+"To-morrow ye'll be mine or ye'll be his," he said, staring fixedly at
+the frightened girl. "To-morrow mornin' him an' me bes a-goin' to fight
+for ye--an' the man what lives will have ye! Ye put the name o' coward
+on to me--but I bain't no coward! I fights fair--an' the best man wins.
+I could kill him now, if I was a coward."
+
+Flora's face was as white as the pallid figure on the cross above the
+chimney.
+
+"You _are_ a coward!--and a beast!" she cried from dry lips. "If you
+kill him my curse shall be with you until your dying day--and
+afterwards--forever."
+
+"Then ye can tell him to go away, an' I won't be killin' him," said the
+man.
+
+"Tell him--to go--away?"
+
+"Aye--that ye've no need o' him. Send him away. Tell him ye means to
+marry wid me."
+
+"No," whispered the girl. And then, "Do you mean to--give him a
+chance?--to fight him fair?"
+
+"Aye, man to man--an' as sure as the divil fetched him to Chance Along
+I'll kill him wid these hands! An' then--an' then ye'll be mine--an'
+when Father McQueen comes in June 'twill be time for the weddin'--for
+that part o' it. Ye've put the names o' coward an' beast on to me--an'
+by Saint Peter, ye'll live to change them names or to know them!"
+
+Some color came back to Flora's cheeks and her clear eyes shone to their
+depths.
+
+"If you fight fair," she said, faintly but steadily, "he will give you
+what you deserve. I am not afraid. God will be with him--and he is the
+better man!"
+
+The skipper laughed, then stooped suddenly, caught her in his arms and
+kissed her on the lips. Next moment he flung her aside and dashed from
+the room, almost overturning Mother Nolan in his flight. At the door of
+the kitchen he came face to face with Mary Kavanagh. He tried to pass
+her without pausing, but she stood firm on the threshold and held him
+for a moment or two with her strong arms. Her gray eyes were blazing.
+
+"I sees the Black One a-ridin' on yer back!" she cried, in a voice of
+horror and disgust. "I sees his face over yer shoulder--aye, an' his arm
+around yer neck like a rope!"
+
+He looked at her for a moment, and then quickly away as he forced her
+violently aside.
+
+"An' the hell-fire in yer eyes!" she cried.
+
+The skipper was free of her by then and out of the house; but he turned
+and stared at her with a haggard face and swiftly dulling eyes.
+
+"The curse bes on me!" he whispered. "It bes in me vitals now--like I
+had kilt him already."
+
+The expression of the girl's face changed in a flash and she sprang out
+and caught one of his hands in both of hers.
+
+"Kill him? Ye bain't meanin' to kill him, Denny Nolan?" she whispered.
+
+"Aye, but I bes, curse or no curse," he said, dully. "To-morrow mornin'
+I bes a-goin' to kill him--man to man, in fair fight."
+
+"But for why, Denny?"
+
+"For the girl."
+
+"Bes ye lovin' her so desperate, Denny?"
+
+"Nay, nay, lass, not now. But I wants her! An' she puts the name o'
+beast on to me an' the nature o' beast into me, like a curse!"
+
+"To-morrow? An' ye'll fight him fair, Denny?"
+
+"Aye, to-morrow--man to man--wid empty hands!"
+
+The girl turned and entered the house, and the skipper went up the path
+at the back of the harbor and wandered over the snowy barrens for hours.
+It was dusk when Bill Brennen found him.
+
+"Skipper," said Bill, "the lads bes at it again. They wants to know when
+ye'll make a trip to St. John's wid the jewels?--an' where the jewels
+bes gone to, anyhow?"
+
+"Jewels!" cried the skipper--"an' the entire crew o' 'em fair rotten wid
+gold! I'll dig up the jewels from where we hid 'em an' t'row 'em into
+their dirty faces--an' they kin carry 'em to St. John's an' sell 'em to
+suit themselves, the squid!"
+
+So he and Bill Brennen tramped off to the northward; and Mary Kavanagh
+was aware of their going.
+
+Mary was busy during their absence. She unearthed the necklace, and with
+it and the key from behind the skipper's clock, made her way to the
+store. It was dark by now, with stars in the sky and a breath of wind
+from the south and south-by-west. The folks were all in their cabins,
+save the skipper and Bill Brennen, who were digging the harbor's _cache_
+of jewelry from the head of a thicket of spruce-tuck. She let herself
+into the store and freed John Darling without striking a light. She
+placed the casket in his hand.
+
+"The skipper has yer pistols in his own pocket, so I couldn't git 'em
+for ye," she whispered. "Now sneak up to the back, quick. Ye'll find yer
+lass there, a-waitin' for ye wid old Mother Nolan. Git north to the
+drook where yer man bes, an' lay down there, the three o' ye, till I
+fetches yer bully. Then git out, an' keep out, for the love o' mercy!
+Step lively, captain! The skipper bes out o' the harbor this minute, but
+he bes a-comin' home soon. Get along wid ye quick, to the top o' the
+cliff."
+
+She left him before he had an opportunity to even try to thank her. He
+followed her to the door, walking stiffly, paused outside for long
+enough to get his bearings, then closed the door noiselessly, turned the
+key in the lock, withdrew it and dropped it in the snow. Then he made
+his way cautiously to the back of the harbor and up the twisting path
+as fast as he could scramble. At the top, crouched behind a boulder,
+beside old Mother Nolan, he found Flora.
+
+Neither the girl nor the man heard the old woman's words of farewell.
+They moved northward along the snowy path, hand in hand, running with no
+more sound than slipping star-shadows. So for a hundred yards; and then
+the speed began to slacken, and at last they walked. They reached the
+black crest where the brushwood of the drook showed above the level of
+the barrens. Here they halted, and Darling whistled guardedly. An
+answering note came up to them from the blackness below and to seaward.
+Darling stepped down, parted the young birches and twisted alders with
+one arm and drew Flora into the cover. She stumbled, saved herself from
+falling by encountering his broad chest--and then she put up both arms
+and slipped them about his neck.
+
+"My God! Do you mean it, Flora?" he whispered.
+
+For answer, her arms tightened about his neck. He lowered his head
+slowly, staring at the pale oval of her face--and so their lips met.
+
+Another cautious whistle from below brought them to a realization of
+their surroundings. They continued their downward journey and presently
+found George Wick. George was in a bad humor. He was cold, and he
+grumbled in cautious growls.
+
+"So ye come for a girl, did ye? Well, there bes another girl in this
+harbor I'd like to be fetchin' away wid me! Aye, here she bes now, wid
+the bully."
+
+Mary sprang ashore.
+
+"Here ye be. Git yer gear aboard quick, an' away wid ye," she whispered,
+"an' don't forget yer promise."
+
+"I'll be comin' back for ye, one o' these days," said George Wick.
+
+"Then ye needn't, for ye bain't wanted," replied Mary.
+
+John and Flora scarcely heard her; but George gave ear until the last
+swish and rustle of her ascent through the brush died away. Then he fell
+to loading the bully. Five minutes later they took their places aboard,
+pushed out of the little cove, stepped the mast and spread the red sail.
+
+Flora sat in the stern-sheets. John managed the tiller with his left
+hand. The light breeze wafted them northward. At last George Wick broke
+the silence.
+
+"Hark! What bes that?" he exclaimed.
+
+"It sounded like gun-shots," said John, indifferently.
+
+"I suppose that mad skipper is fighting with his men," said Flora--and
+the breath of her words touched the sailor's cheek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+FATHER MCQUEEN'S RETURN
+
+
+Black Dennis Nolan and Bill Brennen brought the loose jewels from their
+hiding-place to the harbor. The skipper carried the dispatch-box, and in
+his pockets he had John Darling's neat little pistols, each good for two
+shots--the latest thing in pistols at that time. They went straight to
+Cornelius Lynch's cabin, where the leading grumblers were assembled. The
+skipper was about to kick open the door and stuff the jewels into their
+insatiable maws when a guarded, anxious voice at his elbow arrested him
+with one foot drawn back. The voice was that of Mary Kavanagh.
+
+"Whist!" said Mary. "Bes that yerself, Denny Nolan?"
+
+"Aye, sure it be," returned the skipper.
+
+"I heard a sound on the cliff, to the north," said Mary. "The sound o' a
+horse nickerin' an' men cursin' it for the same."
+
+"A horse?" queried the skipper. And then, "On the cliff to the north?
+Where the divil has ye been to, Mary Kavanagh?"
+
+"Whist! Hark to that!" exclaimed the girl.
+
+"Sure, skipper, 'twas somethin' up back yonder," whispered Bill Brennen.
+"It sounded to meself like a gun slammin' agin a rock."
+
+"Would it be that stranger lad?" queried Dennis, anxiously.
+
+"Nay, he bes safe enough," said Mary. "But hark to that, now! There bes
+a whole crew up yonder."
+
+The skipper opened Cornelius Lynch's door, but not with his foot as he
+had formerly intended.
+
+"Turn out an' git yer guns, men. There bes trouble a-foot," he said,
+quietly. Then, laying a hand on Mary's shoulder, he whispered, "Git Pat
+an' yerself to my house an' fasten up the doors. It bes a strong house,
+lass, an' if there bes any gunnin' ye'll be safe there."
+
+"Ye needn't be worryin' for Flora Lockhart," said Mary. "She bes safe
+enough--herself an' the captain--a-sailing away in the bully this
+half-hour back."
+
+The skipper's hand tightened on her shoulder; but she did not flinch. In
+the light from the open door he stared at her--and she stared back at
+him, glance for glance. There was astonishment in his eyes rather than
+anger, and a question rather than condemnation. He was about to speak
+when the smashing report of a musket rang out from the slope and a slug
+splintered the edge of the open door. The skipper pushed Mary away from
+him.
+
+"Run! Run to the house!" he cried.
+
+Mary vanished into the darkness. Men clustered around the skipper,
+sealing-guns, pistols, cutlasses and clubs in their hands, their
+grumblings forgotten in the prospect of a fight. The open door was shut
+with a bang.
+
+"Follow me!" shouted the skipper, dropping the dispatch-box of loose
+jewels to the trampled snow and pulling his pistols from his pocket.
+
+The men of Chance Along and Pierre Benoist's ruffians met at the foot of
+the steep slope, among the upper rank of cabins. All doubts as to the
+intentions of the visitors were dispelled from the skipper's mind by a
+voice shouting, "Git inside the houses, lads, an' pull up the floors.
+There bes where ye'll find the stuff. Git into the big house. _It_ be
+fair full o' gold an' jewels."
+
+The voice was that of Dick Lynch. The skipper knew it, and his pistols
+flashed and banged in his hands.
+
+The light of the stars, dimmed by a high, thin veil of mist, was not
+good enough to fight scientifically by. After the first clash it was
+almost impossible to know friend from foe at the length of an arm.
+Single combats, and cursing knots of threes and fours, staggered and
+swatted among the little dwellings. The work was entirely too close for
+gun-work, and so the weapons were clubbed and the affair hammered out
+like hot irons on an anvil.
+
+After ten minutes of it the skipper found himself in front of his own
+door, with a four-foot stick of green birch in his hands, and something
+wet and warm trickling from his forehead into his left eye. Three men
+were at him. Bill McKay was one of them and Pierre Benoist another.
+McKay fought with a clubbed musket, and the French sailor held a dirk in
+one hand and an empty pistol in the other. The third prodded about in
+the background with a cutlass. He seemed to be of a retiring
+disposition.
+
+The skipper defended his position heroically; but after two minutes of
+it the musket proved heavier than the club of birch, and he received a
+crack on his left shoulder that put one arm out of action. The
+Frenchman ducked and slipped in; but the skipper's boot on his
+collar-bone set him back for a moment and sent the knife tinkling to the
+ground. But the same movement, thanks to the little wad of snow on the
+heel of his boot, brought the skipper to the flat of his back with a
+bone-shaking slam. The clubbed musket swung up--and then the door flew
+open above his upturned face, candle-light flooded over him and a
+sealing-gun flashed and bellowed. Then the threatening musket fell of
+its own weight, from dead hands--and the skipper went to sleep with more
+stars twirling white and green fire across his inner vision than he had
+ever seen in the sky.
+
+It was daylight when Black Dennis Nolan next opened his eyes. He was in
+his own bed. He felt very sick in the stomach, very light in the head,
+very dry in the mouth. Old Mother Nolan sat beside the bed, smoking her
+pipe.
+
+"Was it ye let off the old gun out the door?" he asked.
+
+"Nay, 'twas Mary done it," replied Mother Nolan, blinking her black eyes
+at him.
+
+"An' where bes Mary now?" he asked.
+
+"In me own bed. Sure, when she was draggin' ye into the house, didn't
+some divil jab her in the neck wid a great knife."
+
+The skipper sat up, though the effort spun a purple haze across his
+eyes, and set a lump of red-hot iron knocking about inside his skull.
+
+"Bes she--dead?" he whispered.
+
+"Nay, lad, nay, she bain't what ye'd call dead," replied the old woman.
+
+The skipper rolled to the floor, scrambled to his feet, reeled across
+the kitchen and into the next room, and sank at the side of Mary's bed.
+He was done. He could not lift himself an inch higher; but a hand came
+down to him, over the side of the bed, and touched his battered brow.
+
+A week later, Mary Kavanagh was able to sit up in Mother Nolan's bed;
+and the skipper was himself again, at least as far as the cut over his
+eye and the bump on top of his head were concerned.
+
+The skipper and Mother Nolan sat by Mary's bed. The skipper looked
+older, wiser and less sure of himself than in the brisk days before the
+raid.
+
+"I bes a poor man now," he said. "Sure, them robbers broke t'rough this
+harbor somethin' desperate! Didn't the back o' the chimley look like
+the divil had been a-clawin' it out?"
+
+"Quick come and quick go! Ye bes lucky, lad, they didn't sail away wid
+yer fore-an'-after," said Mother Nolan.
+
+"Aye, Granny; but it do beat me how ever they come to dig up the
+kitchen-floor."
+
+"Sure, an' they didn't," said Mary. "'Twas meself done that--an' sent
+the red an' white diamonds away wid Flora's man. 'Twas himself ye took
+'em from, Denny Nolan."
+
+"An' a good thing, too," said Mother Nolan. "Sure, ye sent all the
+curses o' Chance Along away together, Mary dear! There bain't no luck in
+wracked gold, nor wracked diamonds--nor wracked women! Grub an' gear bes
+our right; but not gold an' humans."
+
+The skipper gazed at the girl until her eyes met his.
+
+"Was ye workin' agin me all the time?" he asked, quietly.
+
+"Nay, Denny, but I was workin' _for_ ye--all the time," she whispered.
+
+"Sure she was," said Mother Nolan, puffing at her pipe. "Aye--an' many's
+the time 'twas on me tongue to call her a fool for her trouble, ye was
+that bewitched an' bemazed, lad."
+
+The skipper stared at the floor for a long time, in silence. At last he
+said, "Wid the way ye was workin', Mary, the wonder bes to me what for
+ye risked the knife in yer neck to save me life from the Frenchman."
+
+"Denny, ye bes still a fool!" exclaimed Mother Nolan. "When you bain't
+one manner o' fool ye bes another! What for? d'ye ask! Well, what for?"
+
+"Sure, I was only wonderin'," said the man, glancing shyly and hopefully
+at the girl in the bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Father McQueen reached Chance Along early in June. He found plenty of
+work awaiting him, including six masses for the newly-dead, and the
+building of the church. The general tone of the harbor impressed him as
+being strangely subdued. Even Black Dennis Nolan seemed less vivid and
+dominant in his bearing; but in spite of this change in him, he refused
+to put off his wedding even for the glory of being married in the new
+church.
+
+In spite of a scar on her round, white neck, Mary Nolan was the
+grandest-looking, sweetest bride that had ever been seen in Chance
+Along. Denny thought so, and old Barney Keen said it, and Mother Nolan
+proved it by admitting that even she herself had not cut such a figure,
+under similar circumstances, fifty years ago. And on the morning after
+the wedding, the skipper and Mary set out on their honeymoon to St.
+John's, aboard the fore-and-after, with a freight of salvaged cargo
+under the hatch instead of thiefed jewels and gold. Back in the harbor
+the men unmoored their skiffs for the fishing, even as their fathers had
+done since the first Nolan and the first Leary spied that coast. They
+grumbled a little, as was their nature; but there was no talk of mutiny
+or treason. The red tide of greed had ebbed away with the passing of the
+sense of possession, and the fear of bewitchment had faded away with the
+departure of the innocent witch.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
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+End of the Game, The................... Arthur Hornblow
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+Garrison's Finish...................... W.B.M. Ferguson
+Harbor Master, The.................... Theodore Roberts
+King of the Camorra........................... E. Serav
+Land of the Frozen Suns........... Bertrand W. Sinclair
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+End of Project Gutenberg's The Harbor Master, by Theodore Goodridge Roberts
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