Part 15 (1/2)
Howsomever, buying a schooner is like buying a race horse. You want to know _his_ pedigree. They said the _Seamew_ had been brought up from the Gulf to sell. And maybe she was. But she is Yankee built, every timber and rope of her. She warn't built down South none.”
”Shouldn't that make the bargain all the more satisfactory?”
queried the girl, smiling.
”Ordinarily, yes, ma'am. But it looks like they was hidin'
something. It looks like, too, she was built for sailing and fis.h.i.+ng, not to be a cargo boat.”
”I think she is beautiful.”
”She is sightly, I grant ye,” said Horace. ”But there's something to be considered 'sides looks when a man is putting his money into a craft. As I say, her pedigree oughter be looked up. What was the schooner before they changed the slant of them masts, painted her over, and put a new name under her stern?”
”I don't understand you at all, Mr. Newbegin,” said the girl, staring at him with a strange look dawning in her own countenance.
He bent toward her, after casting a knowing glance aloft. His weather-bitten face was preternaturally solemn.
”Ye can't help havin' your suspicions 'bout s.h.i.+ps or folks that are sailin' under cover. There's got to be some reason for a man changing his name and trying to get by on one that ain't his'n. Same with a schooner like this.”
”Oh!”
”There is such things as hoodooed s.h.i.+ps, Miss Bostwick, just like there is hoodooed folks,” he said hoa.r.s.ely, without seeming to notice her shrinking from him and her changed countenance.
”Oh! Is there?” she inquired faintly.
”Surest thing you know,” acclaimed the old seaman with his most impressive manner. ”There was a hoodooed schooner sailed out o'
Salem some years back, the _Marlin B._ She had the same tug to sta'bo'd that I feel when I'm steerin' of this here schooner.”
The girl was recovering from her momentary excitement. She saw that Newbegin had no ulterior meaning in his speech. He shook his head and cast a wary glance toward the companionway to see that the skipper was not appearing from below.
”Listen here, Miss Bostwick,” he said hoa.r.s.ely. ”It's a mighty curious thing. I had just come back from a v'y'ge to New Guinea, and I thinks I'd like a trip to the Banks, not having been fis.h.i.+n' since I was a boy. I went to Sutro Brothers in Salem and got me a berth on the _Marlin B._ I marked that every man aboard her, skipper and all, warn't Salem men, nor yet from Gloucester nor Marblehead. But I didn't suspicion nothing.
”Tell you, Miss Bostwick, them that goes down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps runs against more than natur's wonders. There's mysteries that ain't to be explained, scurce to be spoke of. I dunno why we shouldn't believe in spirits and ghosts and dead men come alive. The Bible's full of such, ain't it?
”Well, then! And what I tell you is as sure, as sure. I took the _Marlin B._ out of that harbor, being at the wheel. It was February, and a nasty snow squall come up and smothered us complete and proper. That schooner was a hummer; she sailed just so pretty as this one. She did for a fact. But I felt that tug to sta'bo'd. Do you know, Miss Bostwick, as I was tellin' Cap'n Tunis, there ain't never two craft just alike, no more than there is two men.”
”Is that so?” she said.
”s.h.i.+ps is almost human. I never did see two so much alike as this _Seamew_ and the _Marlin B._ Well, to continue, as the feller said, we was smothered in that snow squall for 'bout ten minutes. At the wheel there I heard off to windward the rus.h.i.+ng sound of another craft. She was a tall s.h.i.+p, too, and she had as much canvas spread as we had. She came down on us like a shot.
”I shouted to the mate, but he had heard it too. He yelled for all hands on deck. We both knowed the _Marlin B._ was due to be run under unless a miracle intervened. It was a moment I ain't likely to forget, for we stood there, the whole s.h.i.+p's company, hanging on by backstay and rail, peering out into the smother of the snow, while the amazing rush of that unknown craft deafened us.
”Then out of her upper works--I swear I could see the tangle of ropes and slatting canvas--came a voice that rang in my ears for many a day, no matter how the others heard it. It shouted:
”We're the spirits of them ye run under! We're the spirits of them ye run under!”
”My soul and body, Miss Bostwick, but I was scairt!” confessed the old salt. ”That rus.h.i.+ng sound and the voices crashed on through our rigging and went down wind in a most amazing style. It was a ghost warning like nothing I'd ever heard before or since. And it struck the whole crew the same way. We begun to question what the _Marlin B._ was. She was a new schooner and had made but one trip to the Banks previous to this one we was on. We began to ask why her original crew had not stayed with her.
”You can't fool sailormen, Miss Bostwick,” continued the old man, shaking his head with great solemnity. ”They sees too much and they knows too much. Sutro Brothers had got rid of the _Marlin B.'s_ first crew and picked up strangers, but murder will out. The story come to us through the night and in the snow squall. We couldn't stand for no murder s.h.i.+p. We made the skipper put back.”
”Why, wasn't that mutiny?” gasped the girl.