For full half a minute Billy was quite certain that he was drowned and did not like it at all. The wet ropes and the heavy canvas clung to him, apparently determined that once he went down he should never come up again. For a gasping moment he managed to get his head above water, had a sharp, clear vision of the wide sea, the cloudy sky and Appledore Island with its green slopes and wooded hills: then he went down again. His next attempt was more fortunate, however, for he came up clear of the wreckage and not far from the boat, which was still afloat, bottom upwards. He swam to her in a few strokes and, after one or two efforts, managed to clamber up her slippery hull. What was his joy and relief, on scrambling high enough to peer over the centreboard, to see Captain Saulsby slowly and laboriously crawling up the other side.
“Give us a hand up, boy,” he said a little breathless, but speaking in the calmest and cheeriest of tones. “I’m not so spry as I used to be, but I’ll make it all right—er—ouch, but those barnacles are sharp. I should never have let the boat get such a foul bottom. Now,” as he came up beside Billy, “there we are as fine as you please. We’ll just have to wait a couple of hours, and some one will be sure to pick us up. There’s nothing to worry about in a little spill like this. See, the squall’s gone by and the clouds are clearing away already.”
Billy looked about him and was not so sure. To be perched upon the keel of a capsized boat, rocking precariously with every wave, to have miles of empty ocean on every side is a little disturbing the first time you try it. So at least he concluded as he watched the sun drop slowly toward the horizon.
The war game had drifted away to the north, so that, for the first time in days, there was not a vessel of any kind in sight. Above them the clouds were assuredly blowing away, but over in the west another bank of them, thick and grey and threatening, was rising very slowly to meet the sun. There could also be little doubt that the wind was steadily freshening and the waves splashing higher and higher along the sides of their little boat. All these things Captain Saulsby seemed cheerfully determined to ignore, so Billy decided that it was best for him to say nothing.
“I’ve had a lot of little adventures like this in my day,” the old sailor went on. “It makes me feel quite young again to be in just one more. Why, the first time was when a sampan capsized when we were landing from the Josephine in the harbor of Hongkong. I’ll never forget how I laughed out loud with the queer, warm tickle of the water, when I’d thought for sure it was going to be icy cold. I couldn’t have been much bigger than that.”
He tried to hold up a hand to show Billy the exact height he had been, but so nearly lost his balance in the process that he was obliged to clutch hastily at the slippery support again.
“Did you really go to sea when you were so little?” Billy asked. “I wonder your people let you.”
“They weren’t any too willing,” returned the Captain; “in fact, they weren’t willing at all. My folks were like yours, though you wouldn’t think it; they were people with book-learning, doctors and lawyers and the like. They wanted me to be the same, and when I wouldn’t, but was all for going to sea, they said very well, a sailor I could be, but first I must go to school, for sailors must have learning too. But I couldn’t wait; the wish for the blue water was in my very blood, so I slipped away and shipped for China before they knew it. That was a hard voyage in some ways, but a wonder of a one in others, and when I came home I would listen to nothing they said, but was off and away again before I had been in port much more than a week.”
“And you’ve sailed and sailed and sailed ever since?” Billy asked. A sharp dip of the boat nearly upset him but he managed to speak calmly. He thought it a good plan to keep the old man talking that he might not notice the rising clouds behind him.
“Yes, sometimes on sailing ships and sometimes on steamers, in every trade and bound for every port on earth. I drifted into the Navy at last, and was a bluejacket on just such a battleship as we saw go by today, and it was in that service that I first began to see what a mistake I had made. There were, among the young officers, boys not half my age, but knowing four times more than I ever would. I had to salute when they spoke to me, and I was glad to do it, for it is the like of them and not the like of me that makes the big ships go. I vowed then that I would turn to and learn something, that I would study navigation yet and have a ship of my own some day. But I didn’t stick to it. I drifted here and drifted there, lost or spent my money the day after I got to port, and had to ship again in any berth I could.
“When I was here in New England I was always longing for a sight of palm trees, and the hot sandy beaches, and the brown people and their queer-built houses round the harbours at Singapore or Bangkok or Bombay. But when I was there I was somehow always thinking of how our great, cool, grey rocks looked along this coast with the surf tumbling below and the pine covered hills behind them. I would remember the smell of bayberry and sweetbriar and mayflowers and think it would be the breath of life to me. So it was always, drifting first in one direction and then in another, until I came to port at last with less than I had when I put to sea. When I started out in life I was bound I would be a sea-captain before I was twenty: now that I am nearly four times that it hurts me still to think that the chance is gone forever. It’s a nice end for a man who once thought the sea was all his very own!”
“Was it hard to make up your mind to stay ashore?” asked Billy. He was watching the bank of clouds that had spread across the western sky and praying the Captain would keep on talking. The sun had begun to dip into the mass of heavy grey, and was sending up long shafts of red-gold light.
“It wasn’t so bad the day the doctor told me that I could never go out of port again,” Captain Saulsby said; “the hard life had done for me and the sharp sea winds had bitten so deep into my bones that I knew, long before he said so, that my usefulness was done. No, the end really came a year before when I found, all of a sudden, that the sailor I thought I was, the Ned Saulsby who could face any hardship, do any duty without faltering and without tiring, that he was gone as completely as though he had died.
“It was on the schooner Mary Jameson, bound out of Portland with lumber and coal. We had had fearful weather for three days out, blowing so hard that there was no peace or rest for any one. We were all dog-tired and could have slept where we stood, but the wind was still up and it wasn’t easy going yet. It was my watch and I was dropping with sleepiness and weariness, but so I had been many times before and it was part of being a good sailor to be able to keep awake. I stood peering and peering into the dark, my eyes trying to go shut, but my whole will set to keep them open. All of a sudden, as I stood there looking, I saw a full-rigged ship dead ahead of us, every sail spread out to the wind, her bow-wave slanting sharp out on each side from her cut-water, her wake showing clear in a white line of foam. She was so near I could see the men moving on her decks, could see her open hatchways and the flag flying from her main truck. We were right in line to ram her amidships; it seemed we couldn’t miss her except by a miracle. I roared to the man at the wheel, ‘Port your helm, port your helm, put her hard over,’ and the schooner came about with a rush that almost capsized her. The captain ran up on deck, the men turned out of their bunks and came swarming up from below, all wanting to know what the matter was. I told them about the ship and turned to point her out—but she wasn’t there! The clouds parted just then and the moon came out, just to show that the sea was empty for miles on every side, and that old Ned Saulsby had been sleeping on watch. Of course if I had thought two seconds I would have known that never a ship on earth would have all sail set in such a wind as that, but I had not stopped to think.”
“Why,” gasped Billy, “it must have been the Flying Dutchman.”
“Why,” gasped Billy, “it must have been the Flying Dutchman.”
“Some of the men whispered around that it might have been just that ship, but the captain knew better and so did I. It was only a dream and I had been asleep when I had no business to be, and if I had done it once I would do it again. If I had been young it would have been different, when lads aren’t used to standing watch such a thing may happen and we know they’ll learn better, but when an old sailor does it he can be sure of just one thing: his days at sea are near their end. I left the Mary Jameson at the next port, before the captain could turn me off. I knocked about for nearly a year, trying one berth and then another, falling lower and lower, and knowing I was failing in my duty whatever I tried to do. So at last I came limping into the harbour of Appledore Island and I knew, when I stepped ashore, that I would never set sail again.”
Captain Saulsby finished his story and shifted warily in his place. He glanced over his shoulder at the rising bank of clouds, but betrayed no surprise.
“I knew by the feel of the wind that some such thing was coming,” he said calmly. “If somebody’s going to pick us up in time they’ll have to hurry a bit.”
He made one or two efforts to talk further, but the pauses between his sentences became longer and longer. Billy suddenly realized that each had been trying to keep the other interested so that the ominous bank of clouds might go as long as possible unnoticed. He observed that the old sailor seemed very weary, that more than once his hands slipped from their hold and had to take a fresh grip. He tried to whistle to keep up the spirits of both of them, but the tune sounded high and queer and cracked, and he gave it up. At last Captain Saulsby broke silence suddenly.
“No one seems to be finding us,” he said, “and we can’t hold on forever. There’s something I must tell you, in case you should be able to last longer than I. That land of mine, you know, that Jarreth and the other fellow are trying to buy, well, they are not to have it. You will see to that, won’t you?”
“You don’t want to part with it?” asked Billy, not quite understanding.
“I don’t want him to have it,” the Captain repeated, “whether I—I get back to it or not. He doesn’t want it for a good purpose. I’ve suspected that always, though I have never been sure enough to make an open report. I was a coward, I suppose, and was afraid of being laughed at. People won’t believe there is a war within a thousand years of us, but I’m not taking any chances. There are no Germans going to settle down here, getting ready to help the Kaiser, the way they did for years across the water. They’ll find their time wasted on the Island of Appledore. It’s foggy a lot off this coast, the island is far out, there’s a sheltered, hidden harbour, there where the mill stream comes out; they couldn’t find a better place, they think, and so they’re trying to buy it. Smugglers and even pirates, they say, used to make it their landing place, but it’s worse rascals than either that want to use it now. Ned Saulsby has stood them off so far, but he may have to leave the work to some one else.”
His voice shook with a sudden earnestness that was startling.
“Promise me, Billy Wentworth,” he said, “promise me that if you’re the only one that comes to shore after this cruise, you’ll see that land is safe whatever happens.”
“I promise,” Billy assured him, trembling with excitement at the rush of new, strange ideas that suddenly came tumbling into his mind; “but, Captain Saulsby, of course we’re—we’re going to come ashore together.”
“You can’t always tell, boy,” the other answered, his very voice showing the weakness that was gradually overcoming his iron determination. “I’m not so young as sailormen sometimes are, and—even—the—young—ones—don’t—always—hold—on—forever.”
He collapsed sideways even as he spoke and would have pitched into the water had not Billy caught him. The wrench almost destroyed his own balance, but he managed somehow to cling to the centreboard and keep them both still upon the overturned boat.
It grew darker and darker, and the wide stretch of sea turned from blue to shadowy grey as the twilight fell. Billy and the Captain talked no more, for every last ounce of strength was being put into the effort of clinging to the boat. The seas rose higher and snatched at them as they hung against the side, more than once it seemed that their hold must be torn loose. It became plain to the boy, as he clung determinedly, with one arm around the old man and one flung over the ridge of the keel, that the boat was growing heavier and more water-logged with every wave to which she rose, that their one support was slowly settling beneath them.
Captain Saulsby muttered something in his ear, but it was a moment before he could quite understand the half-whispered words.
“She’s an old craft, and I’m her captain,” he said, “it’s the right way for a boat and her old skipper to go down. But you’re young; it’s a shame for you, Billy. You would have made a good sailor; that’s the best I can say for any man.”
He did not speak again, nor even try to move, he seemed to have lapsed practically into unconsciousness. Billy still clung to him and to the boat while his arms ached, then pricked and burned and finally became numb.
He felt so utterly exhausted that he thought he must give up, must drift off into quiet sleep and put an end to such hopeless effort. To rouse himself he began counting the stars overhead, the navigation stars whose names Captain Saulsby had taught him. There was Polaris, and there was Vega nearly overhead, and Altair, and there was Arcturus dipping toward the western horizon. While he watched, the orange gold of Arcturus was obscured by the rising clouds, then Altair was blotted out, now Vega, now the North Star and the shining Dipper. The boat began to plunge and roll, she could not last much longer now. He was too weary to care much whether she did or not.
He, too, must have fallen into unconsciousness for there was certainly an interval of which he knew nothing. Then a cold dash of water slapped in his face and roused him. He saw, almost above him, a black silhouette against the grey sky, the outline of a torpedo-boat making directly for them.
He felt only a lukewarm interest in the sudden vision, and wondered vaguely,
“Do they see us, or are they going to run us down?”