Bark ahoy! There was no answer. Thrice he repeated the call, and thrice the dismal thrashing of the spanker boom and the flapping of the sails was the only answer. Kitchell turned to Wilbur in triumph. I guess shes ours, he whispered. They were now close enough to make out the barks name upon her counter, Lady Letty, and Wilbur was in the act of reading it aloud, when a huge brown dorsal fin, like the triangular sail of a lugger, cut the water between the dory and the bark.
Shark! said Kitchell; and theres another! he exclaimed in the next instant, and another! Strike me, the waters alive with em! Theres a stiff on the bark, you can lay to that; and at that, acting on some strange impulse, he called again, Bark ahoy! There was no response.
The dory was now well up to the derelict, and pretty soon a prolonged and vibratory hissing noise, strident, insistent, smote upon their ears.
Whats that? exclaimed Wilbur, perplexed. The Captain shook his head, and just then, as the bark rolled almost to her scuppers in their direction, a glimpse of the deck was presented to their view. It was only a glimpse, gone on the instant, as the bark rolled back to port, but it was time enough for Wilbur and the Captain to note the parted and open seams and the deck bulging, and in one corner blown up and splintered.
The captain smote a thigh.
Coal! he cried. Anthracite coal. The coal het up and generated gas, of courseno fire, yunderstand, just gasgas blew up the deckno way of stopping combustion. Naturally they had to cut for it. Smell the gas, cant you? No wonder shes hissingno wonder she rolledcargo goes off in gasand whats to weigh her down? I was wondering what could a wrecked her in this weather. Lord, its as plain as Billy-bdamn.
The dory was alongside. Kitchell watched his chance, and as the bark rolled down caught the mainyard-brace hanging in a bight over the rail and swung himself to the deck. Look sharp! he called, as Wilbur followed. It wont do for you to fall among them shark, son. Just look at the hundreds of em. Theres a stiff on board, sure.
Wilbur steadied himself on the swaying broken deck, choking against the reek of coal-gas that hissed upward on every hand. The heat was almost like a furnace. Everything metal was intolerable to the touch.
Shes abandoned, sure, muttered the Captain. Look, and he pointed to the empty chocks on the house and the severed lashings. Oh, its a haul, son; its a haul, an you can lay to that. Now, then, cabin first, and he started aft.
But it was impossible to go into the cabin. The moment the door was opened suffocating billows of gas rushed out and beat them back. On the third trial the Captain staggered out, almost overcome with its volume.
Cant get in there for a while yet, he gasped, but I saw the stiff on the floor by the table; looks like the old man. Hes spit his false teeth out. I knew there was a stiff aboard.
Then theres more than one, said Wilbur. See there! From behind the wheel-box in the stern protruded a hand and forearm in an oilskin sleeve.
Wilbur ran up, peered over the little space between the wheel and the wheel-box, and looked straight into a pair of eyeseyes that were alive. Kitchell came up.
One left, anyhow, he muttered, looking over Wilburs shoulder; sailor man, though; cant interfere with our salvage. The barks derelict, right enough. Shake him out of there, son; cant you see the lads dotty with the gas?
Cramped into the narrow space of the wheel-box like a terrified hare in a blind burrow was the figure of a young boy. So firmly was he wedged into the corner that Kitchell had to kick down the box before he could be reached. The boy spoke no word. Stupefied with the gas, he watched them with vacant eyes.
Wilbur put a hand under the lads arm and got him to his feet. He was a tall, well-made fellow, with ruddy complexion and milk-blue eyes, and was dressed, as if for heavy weather, in oilskins.
Well, sonny, youve had a fine mess aboard here, said Kitchell. The boyhe might have been two and twentystared and frowned.
Clean loco from the gas. Get him into the dory, son. Ill try this bloody cabin again.
Kitchell turned back and descended from the poop, and Wilbur, his arm around the boy, followed. Kitchell was already out of hearing, and Wilbur was bracing himself upon the rolling deck, steadying the young fellow at his side, when the latter heaved a deep breath. His throat and breast swelled. Wilbur stared sharply, with a muttered exclamation:
My God, its a girl! he said.
IV. MORAN
Meanwhile Charlie had brought the Bertha Millner up to within hailing distance of the bark, and had hove her to. Kitchell ordered Wilbur to return to the schooner and bring over a couple of axes.
Well have to knock holes all through the house, and break in the skylights and let the gas escape before we can do anything. Take the kid over and give him whiskey; then come along back and bear a hand.
Wilbur had considerable difficulty in getting into the dory from the deck of the plunging derelict with his dazed and almost helpless charge. Even as he slid down the rope into the little boat and helped the girl to follow, he was aware of two dull, brownish-green shadows moving just beneath the waters surface not ten feet away, and he knew that he was being stealthily watched. The Chinamen at the oars of the dory, with that extraordinary absence of curiosity which is the mark of the race, did not glance a second time at the survivor of the Lady Lettys misadventure. To them it was evident she was but a formast hand. However, Wilbur examined her with extraordinary interest as she sat in the sternsheets, sullen, half-defiant, half-bewildered, and bereft of speech.
She was not prettyshe was too tall for thatquite as tall as Wilbur himself, and her skeleton was too massive. Her face was red, and the glint of blue ice was in her eyes. Her eyelashes and eyebrows, as well as the almost imperceptible down that edged her cheek when she turned against the light, were blond almost to whiteness. What beauty she had was of the fine, hardy Norse type. Her hands were red and hard, and even beneath the coarse sleeve of the oilskin coat one could infer that the biceps and deltoids were large and powerful. She was coarse-fibred, no doubt, mentally as well as physically, but her coarseness, so Wilbur guessed, would prove to be the coarseness of a primitive rather than of a degenerate character.
One thing he saw clearly during the few moments of the dorys trip between bark and schoonerthe fact that his charge was a woman must be kept from Captain Kitchell. Wilbur knew his man by now. It could be done. Kitchell and he would take the Lady Letty into the nearest port as soon as possible. The deception would have to be maintained only for a day or two.