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."