Part 7 (1/2)

I was not wholly a fool if I _was_ so well satisfied with my own smartness. My success in settling Mr. Chester Downes had of course given me an inflated opinion of myself; but I knew better than to overlook the possibility of my cousin being able to do me some mean trick, especially with the help of the two fellows he was with.

When Crab Bolster and I set off in the skiff for the Wavecrest, I saw Paul and his friends make for the ferry, and while I helped pull the skiff in the drizzle of rain that swept across the harbor, I saw the three board the ferryboat and land at the dock on the Neck near which we lived.

I made Crab hustle the goods aboard and stowed all away in the cuddy before I let the boatman put me ash.o.r.e. Paul and his friends were hanging about the landing.

”Keep your eye on my Wavecrest, will you, Lampton?” I said to the man who owned the landing, and kept boats for hire. ”Remember, n.o.body's to go aboard of the sloop without my special permission,” and I glanced pointedly at my cousin.

”I'll see to that, sir,” said Lampton, who was my friend, I knew. ”And in this weather, and with the wind the way she is, anybody would be crazy to want to take a boat out through the breach.”

I went back to the house in ample time for dinner, and Ham, who had been on the watch, reported that my uncle had not again tried to enter the house. But I was worried about Paul and his henchmen. I couldn't rest in the house after dark. If they couldn't get a boat on the Neck side of the harbor in which to go out to the Wavecrest, they might come across from the town side and do her some damage.

Mother had come down to dinner and we had one of our old-fas.h.i.+oned, homey meals, followed by a pleasant hour in the drawing-room, where she played and sang for me. It was her pleasure that I should dress for dinner just as though company was to be present, and she trained me in the niceties of life, and in bits of etiquette, for which I have often, in later times, been very thankful. For although I found my amus.e.m.e.nt in rough adventure and my companions.h.i.+p for the most part among seamen and fishermen, it hurts no boy or man to be as well grounded in the tenets of polite society as in writing, reading, and arithmetic!

The subject that was uppermost in my mind--that hazy mystery surrounding my father's death--did not come up between us on this evening. Nor did the unpleasant topic of the Downeses come to the fore. I am very, very glad to remember that my mother looked her prettiest, that she gave me the tenderest of kisses when she bade me goodnight early, and that we parted very lovingly.

I went up to my room, but only to put on a warmer suit--a fis.h.i.+ng suit in fact. I shrugged myself into oilskin pants and jacket, too, in the back shed, and exchanged my cap for a sou'wester. Then I sallied forth through a pelting rain, with the gale whistling a sharp tune behind me, and descended the hill toward the point off which the Wavecrest was moored.

I had said nothing to anybody about my intention. I do not think that any of the servants saw me go. I left my home without any particular thought of the future, or any serious cogitation as to what would be the result of my act.

Merely, I had put two and two together in my mind--and I would sleep aboard the Wavecrest.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH AN EXPECTED COMEDY PROVES TO BE A TRAGEDY

I knew well enough that my cousin, Paul Downes, was too thoroughly scared by my threat to have him arrested for a.s.sault, to openly make an attack upon either my boat or myself. But his money could bribe such fellows as I had seen him with that very day, to sink the Wavecrest, or even to a.s.sault me in the dark.

It would be a joke on Paul--so I thought--if he or his friends should sneak out to the sloop where she was moored, intending to do her some harm, and find me there all ready for such a visitation. I chuckled to myself while I wended my way to the sh.o.r.e, carrying a single oar with me, and unlocked the padlock of the chain which fastened my rowboat to the landing.

There was n.o.body about, and I pushed out and sculled over to the Wavecrest without being interfered with. Had I not known so well just where the sloop lay I declare I would have had trouble in finding her.

It was the darkest kind of a night and it _did_ blow great guns! The rain pelted as sharp as hail and before I got half way to the sloop I decided that I wasn't showing very good sense, after all, in coming out here on such a night. I didn't think Paul and his friends would venture forth in such a storm.

However, having once set out to do a thing I have usually run the full course. I am not sure that it is natural perseverance in my case, but fear that I am more often ashamed to be considered fickle. So I sculled on to the Wavecrest and prepared to go aboard.

But just here I bethought me that if my cousin should attempt to board the sloop he would be warned that I was aboard by the presence of the tender. Therefore I snubbed the nose of the rowboat up short to the float, and then, after getting into the bows of the Wavecrest I let go her cable and paid out several yards so that the float and the tender were both out of sight in the darkness.

I chuckled then, as I crept aft to the c.o.c.kpit and unlocked the door of the little cabin. Once inside, out of the rain, I drew curtains before all the lights and then lit the lamp over the cabin table. There were four berths, two on each side, with lockers fore and aft. Altogether the cabin of the Wavecrest was cozy and not a bad place at all in which to spend a night.

It was still early in the evening. The tide had not long since turned and was running out, while the wind out of its present quarter was with the tide. Any craft could sail out of Bolderhead harbor this night with both gale and sea in its favor; but heaven help the vessel striving to beat into the inlet! The reefs and ledges along this coast are as dangerous as any down on the charts.

The Wavecrest pitched a good bit at the end of her cable. I made up my bed and arranged the lamp in its gimbals near the head of the berth, and so took off my outer clothing and lay down to read. I did not think that the lamplight could be seen from without, even if a boat came quite near me. Being so far in-sh.o.r.e I had lit no riding light. It was unnecessary at these moorings.

I did not read for long. Used to the swing of the sea as I had been for years the bucking of the Wavecrest as she tugged at her cable, put me to sleep before I had any idea that I was sleepy. And my lamp was left burning.

I do not know how long I was unconscious--at least, I did not know at the moment of my awakening; but suddenly something b.u.mped against the sloop's counter. I thought when I opened my eyes: