Captain Mayo

“ But Mayo, who knew the souls of mariners, understood. Under their hard shells there is imagination that has been nurtured in long, long thoughts. In the calms under starlit skies, in the black darkness when tossing surges swing beneath the keel, in the glimmering vistas of sun-lighted seas, sailors ponder while their more stolid brothers on land allow their souls to doze.
“You are right, Captain Candage. That's why I almost hate to go out to the Conomo. Those infernal ghouls of junkmen will be tearing her into bits instead of trying to put the breath of life back into her.” ”

“ She rose and put out her hand to him. “I have not thanked you for saving my life—saving us all, Captain Mayo. It is too holy a matter to be profaned by any words. But here is my hand—like a friend—like a sister—no”—she held herself straight and looked him full in the face through the gloom and tightened her hold on his fingers—“like a man!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gigantic equipment embraced her; great pumps gulped the water from her; bolstered and supported, as a stricken man limps with his arms across the shoulders of his friends, the steamer came off Razee Reef with the first spring tide in July, and toiled off across the sea in the wake of puffing tugs, and was shored up and safe at last in a dry dock—the hospital of the crippled giants of the ocean.
No music ever sounded as sweet to Captain Mayo as that clanging chorus the hammers of the iron-workers played on the flanks of the Conomo. ”

“ He would have been all at sea regarding the women and children without her aid, and he told her so gratefully.
“Both my hands and my heart are with you in this thing, Captain Mayo. And I know you'll think of some way out for them—just as you helped us out of the schooner after we had given up all hope.”
“Getting out of the schooner was merely a sailor's trick of the hands, Miss Candage. I don't believe I'll be much of a hand at making over human nature. I have too much of it myself, and the material down in that fish-house would puzzle even a doctor of divinity.” ”

“ Captain Jacobs opened the door lettered “Captain.” “All my truck is out and over the rail. I'll sit in with you, if you don't mind, until Mr. Fogg arrives. You're going to have a thick passage, Captain Mayo.”
“It doesn't seem right to me—putting a new man on here in this fog,” protested Mayo, warmly. “I ought to have her in clear weather till I know her tricks. In a pinch, when you've got to know how a boat behaves, and know it mighty sudden in order to avoid a smash, one false move puts you into the hole.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Captain Mayo strode straight to the men at the wheel. “Give me those spokes!” he commanded. “I'll take her! Get in your washing, boys!”
“Ay, ay, sir!” assented Mr. Speed, giving the resisting Dolph a violent shove.
When Captain Candage began to curse, Captain Mayo showed that he had a voice and vocabulary of his own. He fairly roared down the master of the Polly.
“Now shut up!” he ordered the dumfounded skipper, who faced him, mouth agape. “This is no time for any more foolishness. It's a case of work together to save our lives. Down with 'em, boys!”
“That's right,” declared the mate. ”

“ It's too sacred. I am too miserably ashamed! Again, Captain Mayo, I say that I want to stand with you as man to man! I want to render service for what you have done for me. You have lost everything out of your life that you value. I want you to have it back. Will you listen to me now?”
“Yes, Miss Marston.”
“You go to my father with a letter from me. I do not believe he knows what kind of methods have been practised by his understrappers, but he can find out. You tell him that he must find out—that he must make them confess. ”

“ Half-dressed men, still dizzy with sleep, confused by dreams which blended with the terrible reality, trampled the helpless underfoot, seeking exit from the saloon.
The hideous uproar which announced panic was a loud call to the master of the vessel. He understood what havoc might be wrought by the brutal senselessness of the struggle. He ran from the pilot-house, stepping on the feet of the general manager, who was stumbling about in bewildered fashion.
“Call all the crew to stations and guard the exits,” Captain Mayo commanded the second mate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The master grunted.
“And if the little thing I have done helps to square that break I made by licking your passenger I'll be glad of it,” added Mayo.
“You needn't rub it in,” said Captain Downs, carefully noting that there was nobody within hearing distance. “When a man has been in a nightmare for twenty-four hours, like I've been, you've got to make some allowances, Captain Mayo. This is a terrible mixed-upmess.” He squinted at the mizzen rigging where the lanterns revealed the damage. ”

“ Captain Mayo had been prepared for these trips, although he had not been informed of the reason. It was his first season on the yacht Olenia. The shipping broker who had hired him had been searching in his inquiries as to Mayo's knowledge of the byways of the coast. The young man who had captained fishermen and coasters ever since he was seventeen years old had found it easy to convince the shipping broker, and the shipping broker had sent him on board the yacht without the formality of an interview with the owner. ”

“ There he was not too generously received, and all but despairing of help, as he walked on the quay next morning he spied an American man-of-war coming in—a schooner with fourteen guns and well manned—in short, the Alligator. Captain Mayo aboard, the Alligator put about, and on the morning of the third day, with no time to spare, sighted the pirate rendezvous and four vessels at anchor, the two pirates, the Iris, and the schooner that had been Matanzas-bound, her fellow-prisoner. The pirates were brave fighters of unarmed men, but had no taste for warships. ”

“ He told his story concisely and in manly fashion, standing up while Captain Downs sat and stared over his spectacles, drumming his stubby fingers on the red damask.
“There, sir, that's why I am here and how I happened to get here,” Mayo concluded.
“I ain't prepared to say it isn't so,” admitted Old Mull at last, “no matter how foolish it sounds. And I'm wondering if next I'll find the King of Peruvia or the Queen of Sheba aboard this schooner. New folks are piling in fast! I know Captain Wass pretty well, though I never laid eye on you to know you. Where's that wart on his face?” ”

“ A steamer's whistle in the fog conveys little information except to announce that a steam-propelled craft is somewhere yonder in the white blank, unseen, under way. No craft is allowed to sound passing signals unless the vessel she is signaling is in plain sight.
Captain Mayo could see nothing—even the surface of the water was almost indistinguishable. ”

“ The expression on Captain Mayo's face did not indicate unalloyed delight when he heard this “good news.” Unaccustomed as he was to the ship, he could not hope to make a smooth showing.
“And still you refuse to cheer up!” remonstrated the manager.
“I am glad you are going along, sir. Don't misunderstand me. But a sailor is a pretty serious chap when he feels responsibility. I'm undertaking a big stunt.”
“It's the best way to find out whether you're the man for the job—whether you're the man I think you are. It's a test that beats sailing ships on a puddle.” ”

“ Then he roared in his master-mariner tones: “Cast off your lines, sir. You know what the admiralty law is!”
The captain nodded, closed his pilot-house window, and clanged his bell. Mayo knew by his mystified air that he was not wholly in the confidence of his passenger and his employer.
This bungling, barefaced attempt to destroy the steamer touched Mayo's pride as deeply as it stirred his wrath. Fogg evidently viewed the pretensions of the new ownership with contempt. He must have belief in his own power to ruin and to escape consequences, pondered the young man. ”

“ The passenger was still on deck, and Mayo heard Captain Downs greet him rather brusquely.
Then the cook's hand-bell announced breakfast, and before the captain and his guest reappeared on deck a tug had the Alden's hawser and was towing her down the dredged channel on the way to Hampton Roads and to sea.
Mayo went at his new tasks so handily that he passed muster as an able seaman. If a sailor aboard a big schooner of these days is quick, willing, and strong he does not need the qualities and the knowledge which made a man an “A. B.” in the old times. ”

“ I only ask you to take your trick, as a shipmate should. Keep a dozen of the men here with you. There's plenty of grub. Stand off all comers till I get back.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Make a man's try, sir, before I let 'em dump us. We can always go fishing. But there's only one Conomo.”
“I'll stay. It's only fair to you to have your chance ashore. And I've got an almighty good rifle aboard that schooner,” stated the skipper. “Send it to me by one of the men.”
“You may need it,” stated Captain Mayo, with grim set to his jaw. ”

“ I reckon you can holler all you want to now. Them dudes can't find their own mouths in a fog, much less this schooner. Now talk up!”
Mayo worked his aching jaws and found his voice. “You know how I happened to get aboard, Captain Candage. I am skipper of the Olenia. Put back with me if you want to save trouble.”
“Not by a tin hoopus, sir! I ain't going about and tackle them reefs in this fog. I've got open sea ahead, and I shall keep going!”
Mayo was a sailor who knew that coast, and he admitted to himself that Candage's stubbornness was justified. ”

“ But I have an idea that she will be reported as a menace to navigation, and that a coastguard cutter will blow her up before you can get around to make your salvage arrangements.”
“When a man is down they all jump on him.”
“I can agree with you there,” affirmed Captain Mayo, mournfully.
“She showed grit—that girl,” ventured Candage, giving the other man keen survey from under his grizzled brows.
“I must ask you to furl sail on that subject, sir,” snapped Mayo, with sailor bluntness.
“I only said it complimentary. Lots of times girls have more grit than they are given credit for. ”

“ As the hired master of a private yacht he might have overlooked that affront from the owner, even though it was delivered to a captain on the bridge.
But love has a pride of its own. He had been abused like a lackey in the hearing of Alma Marston. It was evident that the owner had not finished the job. Mayo knew that he had merely postponed his evil moment by sending back a reply which would undoubtedly seem like insubordination in the judgment of a man who did not understand ship discipline and etiquette of the sea. ”

“ For he, Boyd Mayo, captain of her father's yacht, a hireling, had just paid the same insulting courtship to Alma Marston that a sailor would proffer to an ogling girl on the street.
“I'll jump overboard,” he stammered at last. “I'll take myself out of your sight forever.”
The ominous silence persisted.
“I don't ask you to forgive me. It is not a thing which can be forgiven. Tell them I was insane—and jumped overboard. That will be the truth. I am a lunatic.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ He grunted when Mayo gave the go-ahead bells and the throb of the engines began.
“Now ram her along, boy. People in these days don't want to waste time on the road. They're even speeding up the automobile hearses.”
Captain Mayo did not reply. ”