O Johnny's gone to Baltimore
To dance upon that sanded floor.
O Johnny's gone for evermore;
I'll never see my John no more!
O Johnny's gone!
What shall I do?
A-way you. H-e-e l-o-o-o!
O Johnny's gone!
What shall I do?
Johnny's gone to Hilo.
--Old Hauling Song.
The taciturn secretary fumbled his way forward and delivered to Captain Mayo a little packet securely bound with tape.
“Orders from Mr. Marston that you take these ashore, yourself. They are important telegrams and he wants them hurried.”
The master called his men to the dinghy, and they rowed him away through the fog. It was a touchy job, picking his way through that murk. He stood up, leaning forward holding to his taut tiller-ropes, and more by ears than his eyes directed his course. A few of the anchored craft, knowing that they were in the harbor roadway, clanged their bells lazily once in a while. Yacht tenders were making their rounds, carrying parties who were paying and returning calls, and these boats were avoiding each other by loud hails. Small objects loomed largely and little sounds were accentuated.
The far voice of an unseen joker announced that he could find his way through the fog all right, but was afraid he had not strength enough to push his boat through it.
But Mayo knew his waters in that harbor, and found his way to the wharf. His real difficulties confronted him at the village telegraph office. The visiting yachtsmen had flooded the place with messages, and the flustered young woman was in a condition nearly resembling hysteria. She was defiantly declaring that she would not accept any more telegrams. Instead of setting at work upon those already filed she was spending her time explaining her limitations to later arrivals.
Captain Mayo stood at one side and looked on for a few moments. A gentle nudge on his elbow called his attention to an elderly man with stringy whiskers, who thus solicited his notice. The man held a folded paper gingerly by one corner, exhibiting profound respect for his minute burden.
“You ain't one of these yachting dudes--you're a skipper, ain't you?” asked the man.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, I can talk to you, as one officer to another--and glad to meet one of my own breed. I'm first mate of the schooner Polly. Mr. Speed is my name.”
Captain Mayo nodded.
“And I need help and advice. This is the first tele-graft I ever had in my hands. I'd rather be aholt of an iced halyard in a no'easter! I've been sent ashore to telegraft it, and now she says she won't stick it onto the wire, however it is they do the blasted trick.”
Captain Mayo had already noticed that the messengers from the yachts were killing time by teasing the flustered young woman; it was good-humored badinage, but it was effectively blocking progress at that end of the line.
He felt a “native's” instinctive impulse to go to the relief of the young woman who was being baited by the merrymakers; the responsibility of his own errand prompted him to help her clear decks. But he waited, hoping that the yachtsmen would go about their business.
“From the Polly, Mr. Speed?” he inquired, amiably. “Is the Polly in the harbor? I didn't notice her in the fog.”
“Reckon you know her, by the way you speak of her,” replied the gratified Mr. Speed.
“I ought to, sir. She was built at Mayoport by my great-grandfather before the Mayo yards began to turn out ships.”
“Well, I swanny! Be you a Mayo?”
The captain bowed and smiled at the enthusiasm displayed by Mr. Speed.
“By ginger! that sort of puts you right into our fambly, so to speak!” The mate surveyed him with interest and with increasing confidence. “I'm in a mess, Cap'n Mayo, and I need advice and comfort, I reckon. I was headed on a straight tack toward my regular duty, and all of a sudden I found myself jibed and in stays, and I'm there now and drifting. Seeing that your folks built the Polly, I consider that you're in the fambly, and that Proverdunce put you right here to-night in this telegraft office. Do you know Cap'n Epps Candage?”
Mayo shook his head.
“Or his girl, Polly, named for the Polly?”
“No, I must confess.”
“Well, it may be just as well for ye that ye don't,” said Oakum Otie, twisting his straggly beard into a spill and blinking nervously. “There I was, headed straight and keeping true course, and then she looked at me and there was a tremble in her voice and tears in her eyes--and the next thing I knowed I was here in this telegraft place with this!” He held up the folded paper and his hand shook.
Captain Mayo did not understand, and therefore he made no remarks.
“There was a song old Ephrum Wack used to sing,” went on Mr. Speed, getting more confidential and making sure that the other men in the room were too much occupied to listen. “Chorus went:
“I ain't afeard of the raging sea,
Nor critters that's in it, whatever they be.
But a witch of a woman is what skeers me!
“There I've been, standing by Cap'n Epps in the whole dingdo, and she got me one side and looked at me and says a few things with a quiver in her voice and her eyes all wet and shiny and”--he paused and looked down at the paper with bewilderment that was rather pitiful--“and I walked right over all common sense and shipboard rules and discipline and everything and came here, fetching this to be stuck on to the wire, or whatever they do with telegrafts. But,” he added, a waver in his tones, “she is so lord-awful pretty, I couldn't help it!”
Still did Captain Mayo refrain from comment or question.
“The question now is, had I ought to,” demanded Mr. Speed. “I'm taking you into the fambly on my own responsibility. You're a captain, you're a native, and I need good advice. Had I ought to?”
“I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, sir. The matter seems to be private, and, furthermore, I don't know what you're talking about.”
“She says it's to the milliner so that the milliner will hold the job open. But I'm suspicioning that it's roundabout to the beau that's in love with her. That's the style of women. Cap'n Epps shanghaied her to get her away from that fellow. Now she has got it worked around so that she is going back. But there's a beau in it instead of a milliner. She wouldn't be so anxious to get word to a milliner. That's my idee, and I reckon it's yours, too.”
“I really have no ideas on the subject,” returned Captain Mayo. “But if you have promised a young lady to send a telegram for her I would certainly keep that promise if I were in your place.”
The next moment he regretted his rather impetuous advice, for Mr. Speed slapped the paper against a hard palm and blurted out: “That's all I wanted! Course and bearings from an a-number-one adviser. New, how'll I go to work to send this thing?”
“I have been figuring on that matter for the last few minutes, myself,” acknowledged the captain. “It's about time to have a little action in this place.”
He was obliged to elbow his way through the group of men who surrounded the telegraph operator. Oakum Otie followed on his heels, resolved to study at close range the mystery of telegraphing, realizing what he needed for his own instruction.
“These telegrams are important and they must go at ore, madam,” Mayo informed the flustered young woman.
“I can't send them. I am bothered so much I can't do anything,” she stammered.
“Oh, forget your business, skipper,” advised one of the party.
“It is not my business, sir.” He laid the packet of messages before the operator on her little counter and tapped his finger on them. “They must go,” he repeated.
“In their turn,” warned the yachtsman, showing that he resented this intrusion. “And after the party is over!”
“I intended to confine my conversation to this young lady,” said Mayo. He turned and faced them. “But I have been here long enough to see that you gentlemen are interfering with the business of this office. Perhaps your messages are not important. Mine are.”
The yachtsman was not sober nor was he judicious. “Go back to your job, young fellow,” he advised. “You are horning in among gentlemen.”
“So am I,” squawked Mr. Speed, with weather eye out for clouds of any sort.
Captain Mayo gave his supporter a glance of mingled astonishment and relish. “We'd better not have any words about the matter, gentlemen,'' he suggested, mildly.
“Certainly not,” stated the spokesman. “If you'll pass on there'll be no words--or anything else.”
“Then we'll dispense with words!” The quick anger of youth flared in Mayo. The air of the man rather than his words had offended deeply. “You'd like to have this room to yourself so that you can attend to your business, I presume?” he asked the operator.
“Yes, I would.”
Oakum Otie laid his folded paper upon the packet of Captain Mayo.
“You will leave the room gentlemen,” advised the captain.
Mr. Speed thrust out his bony elbows and cracked his hard fists together. “I have never liked dudes,” he stated. “I have been brought up that way. All my training with Cap'n Epps has been that way.”
“How do you fit into this thing?” demanded one of the yachtsmen.
“About like this,” averred Mr. Speed. He grabbed the young man by both shoulders and ran him out into the night before anybody could interfere. Then Mr. Speed reappeared promptly and inquired, “Which one goes next?”
“I think they will all go,” said the captain.
“Come on,” urged one of the party. “We can't afford to get into a brawl with natives.”
“You bet you can't,” retorted Oakum Otie. “I hain't hove bunches of shingles all my life for nothing!”
Mayo said nothing more. But after the yachtsmen had looked him over they went out, making the affair a subject for ridicule.
“Hope I done right and showed to you that I was thankful for good advice,” suggested Mr. Speed, seeking commendation.
“Just a bit hasty, sir.”
“Maybe, but there's nothing like handing folks a sample just to show up the quality of the whole piece.”
“I thank you--both of you,” said the grateful operator.
“You'd better lock your door,” advised Mayo. “Men are thoughtless when they have nothing to do except play.”
“I am so grateful! And I'm going to break an office rule,” volunteered the girl. “I shall send off your telegrams first.”
“And I hope you can tuck that little one in second--it won't take up much room!” pleaded Oakum Otie. “It's to help an awful pretty girl--looks are a good deal like yours!”
“I'll attend to it,” promised the young woman, blushing.
Outside in the village street Mr. Speed wiped his rough palm against the leg of his trousers and offered his hand to the captain. “I'll have to say good-by to you here, sir. I've got a little errunting to do--fig o' terbacker and a box of stror'b'ries. I confess to a terrible tooth for stror'b'ries. When the hanker ketches me and I can't get to stror'b'ries my stror'b'ry mark shows up behind my ear. I hope I have done right in sending off that tele-graft for her--but it's too bad that a landlubber beau is going to get such a pretty girl.” Then Oakum Otie sighed and melted away into the foggy gloom.
When Captain Mayo was half-way down the harbor, on his way back to the yacht, he was confronted by a spectacle which startled him. The fog was suddenly painted with a ruddy flare which spread high and flamed steadily. His first fears suggested that a vessel was on fire. The Olenia lay in that direction. He commanded his men to pull hard.
When he burst out of the mists into the zone of the illumination his misgivings were allayed, but his curiosity was roused.
A dozen yacht tenders flocked in a flotilla near the stern of a rusty old schooner. All the tenders were burning Coston lights, and from several boats yachtsmen were sending off rockets which striped the pall of fog with bizarre colorings.
The stern of the schooner was well lighted up by the torches, and Mayo saw her name, though he did not need that name to assure him of her identity; she was the venerable Polly.
The light which flamed about her, showing up her rig and lines, was weirdly unreal and more than ever did she seem like a ghost ship. The thick curtain of the mist caught up the flare of the torches and reflected it upon her from the skies, and she was limned in fantastic fashion from truck to water-line. Shadows of men in the tenders were thrown against the fog-screen in grotesque outline, and a spirit crew appeared to be toiling in the top-hamper of the old schooner.
Captain Mayo ordered his men to hold water and the tender drifted close to the flotilla. He spied a yacht skipper whom he had known when both were in the coasting trade.
“What's the idea, Duncan?”
His acquaintance grinned. “Serenade for old Epps Candage's girl--handed to her over his head.” He pointed upward.
Projecting over the schooner's rail was the convulsed countenance of Captain Candage. Choler seemed to be consuming him. The freakish light painted everything with patterns in arabesque; the captain's face looked like the countenance of a gargoyle.
Mayo, observing with the natural prejudice of a “native,” detected mockery in the affair. He had just been present at one exhibition of the convivial humor of larking yachtsmen.
“What's the special excuse for it?” he asked, sourly.
“According to the story, Epps has brought her with him on this trip to break up a courting match.”
“Well, does that have anything to do with this performance?”
“Oh, it's only a little spree,” confessed the other. “It was planned out on our yacht. Old Epps made himself a mucker to-day by sassing some of the gents of the fleet, and the boys are handing him a little something. That's all! It's only fun!”
“According to my notion it's the kind of fun that hurts when a girl is concerned, Duncan.”
“Just as serious as ever, eh? Well, my notion is that a little good-natured fun never hurts a pretty girl--and they say this one is some looker! Oh, hold on a minute, Boyd!” The master of the Olenia had turned away and was about to give an order to his oarsmen. “You ought to stop long enough to hear that new song one of the gents on the Sunbeam has composed for the occasion. It's a corker. I heard 'em rehearsing it on our yacht.”
In spite of his impatient resentment on behalf of the daughter of Epps Candage, Captain Mayo remained. Just then the accredited minstrel of the yachtsmen stood up, balancing himself in a tender. He was clearly revealed by the lights, and was magnified by the aureole of tinted fog which surrounded him. He sang, in waltz time, in a fine tenor:
“Our Polly O,
O'er the sea you go;
Fairer than sunbeam, lovely as moon-gleam,
All of us love thee so!
While the breezes blow
To waft thee, Polly O,
We will be true to thee,
Crossing the blue to thee,
Polly--Polly!
Dear little Polly,
Polly--O-O-O!”
He finished the verse and then raised both arms with the gesture of a choral conductor.
“All together, now, boys!”
They sang with soul and vigor and excellent effect.
Ferocity nearly inarticulate, fury almost apoplectic, were expressed by the face above the weather-worn rail.
“They say that music soothes the savage breast, but it don't look like it in this case,” observed Captain Duncan with a chuckle.
“Clear off away from here, you drunken dudes! I'll have the law on ye! I'll have ye arrested for--for breaking the peace.”
That threat, considering the surroundings, provoked great hilarity.
“Give way all! Here comes a cop!” warned a jeering voice.
“He's walking on the water,” explained another.
“The man must be a fool,” declared Captain Mayo. “If he'd go below and shut up, they'd get tired and leave in a few minutes.”
However, Captain Candage seemed to believe that retreat would be greatly to his discredit. He continued to hang over the rail, discharging as complete a line of deep-water oaths as ever passed the quivering lips of a mariner. Therefore the playful yachtsmen were highly entertained and stayed to bait him still further. Every little while they sang the Polly song with fresh gusto, while the enraged skipper fairly danced to it in his mad rage and flung his arms about like a crazy orchestra leader.
Mr. Speed came rowing in his dory, putting out all his strength, splashing his oars. “My Gawd! Cap'n Mayo,” he gasped, “I heard 'em hollering 'Oh, Polly!' and I was 'feard she was afire. What's the trouble?”
“You'd better get on board, sir, and induce Captain Candage to go below and keep still. He is fast making a complete idiot of himself.”
“I hain't got no influence over him. I ask and implore you to step on board and soothe him down, sir. You can do it. He'll listen to a Mayo.”
“I'd better not try. It's no job for a stranger, Mr. Speed.”
“He'll be heaving that whole deckload of shingles at 'em next!”
“Get his daughter to coax him.”
“He won't listen to her when he's that fussed up!”
“I'm sorry! Give way men!”
His rowers dropped their oars into the water and pulled away with evident reluctance.
“Better stay and see it out,” advised Captain Duncan.
“I don't care much for your show,” stated Mayo, curtly.
The cabin curtains were drawn on the Olenia, and he felt especially shut away from human companionship. He went forward and paced up and down the deck, turning over his troubled affairs in his mind, but making poor shift in his efforts to set anything in its right place.
There were no indications that the serenading yachtsmen were becoming tired of their method of killing time during a fog-bound evening. They had secured banjos and mandolins, and were singing the Polly song with better effect and greater relish. And continually the hoarse voice of the Polly's master roared forth malediction, twisted into new forms of profanity.
But Captain Mayo, pacing under the damp gleam of the riding-light, paid but little heed to the hullabaloo. He was too thoroughly absorbed in his own troubles to feel special interest in what his neighbors were doing. He did not even note that a fog-sodden breeze had begun to puff spasmodically from the east and that the mists were shredding overhead.
However, all of a sudden, a sound forced itself on his attention; he heard the chuckling of sheaves and knew that a sail was being hoisted. The low-lying stratum of fog was still thick, and he could not perceive the identity of the craft which proposed to take advantage of the sluggish breeze. The “ruckle-ruckle” of the blocks sounded at quick intervals and indicated haste; there was a suggestion of vicious determination on the part of the men who were tugging at the halyards. Then Captain Mayo heard the steady clanking of capstan pawls. He knew the methods of the Apple-treers, their cautiousness, and their leisurely habits, and he could scarcely believe that a coasting skipper was intending to leave the harbor that night. But the capstan pawls began to click in staccato, showing that the anchor had been broken out.
Protesting shouts from all about in the gloom greeted that signal.
There was no mistaking the hoarse voice of Captain Candage when it was raised in reply; his tones had become familiar after that evening of malediction.
“Dingdam ye, I know of a way of getting shet of the bunch of ye!”
“Don't try to shift your anchorage!”
“Anchorage be hossified! I'm going to sea!” bellowed the master of the Polly.
“Down with that hook of yours! You'll rake this whole yacht fleet with your old dumpcart!”
“You have driv' me to it! Now you can take your chances!”
The next moment Mayo heard the ripping of tackle and a crash.
“There go two tenders and our boat-boom! Confound it, man, drop your hook!”
But from that moment Captain Candage, as far as his mouth was concerned, preserved ominous silence. The splintery speech of havoc was more eloquent.
Mayo could not see, but he understood in detail what damage was wrought upon the delicate fabric of yachts by that unwieldy old tub of a schooner. Here, another boat-boom carried away, as she sluggishly thrust her bulk out through the fleet; there an enameled hull raked by her rusty chain-plate bolts. Now a tender smashed on the outjutting davits, next a wreck of spidery head-rigging, a jib-boom splintered and a foretopmast dragged down. If Captain Mayo had been in any doubt as to the details of the disasters he would have received full information from the illuminating profanity of the victims.
He knew well enough that Captain Candage was not performing with wilful intent to do all that damage. In what little wind there was the schooner was not under control. She was drifting until she got enough headway to be steered. In the mean time she was doing what came in her way to do. The Polly had been anchored near the Olenia. As soon as her anchor left bottom the schooner drifted up the harbor. Mayo knew, in a few minutes, that Candage was bringing her about. An especial outbreak of smashing signaled that manouver.
Mayo sniffed at the breeze, judged distance and direction, and then he rushed forward and pounded his fist on the forecastle hatch.
“Rout out all hands!” he shouted. “Rouse up bumpers and tarpaulin!”
With the wind as it was, he realized that the schooner would point up in the Olenia's direction when Candage headed out to sea.
At last Mayo caught a glimpse of her through the fog. His calculation had been correct. Headed his way she was. She was moving so slowly that she was practically unmanageable; her apple-bows hardly stirred a ripple, but with breeze helping the tide-set she was coming irresistibly, paying off gradually and promising to sideswipe the big yacht.
Mayo had a mariner's pride in his craft, and a master's devotion to duty. He did not content himself with merely ordering about the men who came tumbling on deck.
He grabbed a huge bumper away from one of the sailors who seemed uncertain just what to do; he ran forward and thrust it over the rail, leaning far out to see that it was placed properly to take the impact. He was giving more attention to the safety of the Olenia than he was to what the on-coming Polly might do to him.
Under all bowsprits on schooners, to guy the headstays, thrusts downward a short spar, at right angles to the bowsprit; it is called the martingale or dolphin-striker. The amateur riggers who had tinkered with the Polly's gear in makeshift fashion had not troubled to smooth off spikes with which they had repaired the martingale's lower end. Captain Mayo ducked low to dodge a guy, and the spikes hooked themselves neatly into the back of his reefer coat. Mr. Marston had bought excellent and strong cloth for his captain's uniform. The fabric held, the spikes were well set, the Polly did not pause, and, therefore, the master of the Olenia was yanked off his own deck and went along.
All the evening Mayo's collar had been buttoned closely about his neck to keep out the fog-damp, and when he was picked up by the spikes the collar gripped tightly about his throat and against his larynx. His cry for help was only a strangled squawk. His men were scattered along the side of the yacht, trying to protect her, the night was over all, and no one noted the mode of the skipper's departure.
The old schooner scrunched her way past the Olenia, roweling the yacht's glossy paint and smearing her with tar and slime. It was as if the rancorous spirit of the unclean had found sudden opportunity to defile the clean.
Then the Polly passed on into the night with clear pathway to the open sea.
