Part 27 (1/2)
But he did not say this where Captain Latham could hear. It was Horry Newbegin who heard him.
”It strikes me, young feller, that if I quarreled with my victuals and drink the way you do, I'd get me another berth and get shet of all this.” And the old salt wagged his head. ”I don't get you at all, 'Rion.”
”You wait,” growled the younger man. ”I'll leave at the right time.
And if things go as I expect, everybody else will leave him flat, too.”
”You're taking a chance talking that way,” admonished the old man.
”It's just as much mutiny as though you turned and hit the skipper or the mate.”
”It is, is it? I'll show him!”
”Show who?” asked Horry, in some wonder at the other's spitefulness.
”That dratted cousin of mine. Thinks he owns the earth and sea, as well as this hoodooed tub of a schooner. Gets the best of everything. But he won't always. He never ought to have got the money to buy this old tub.”
”You said you wouldn't have her for a gift,” chuckled the old man.
”But that don't make it any the more right that he should have her.
And she is hoodooed. You know she is, Horry.”
The old mariner was silent. 'Rion craftily went on:
”Look what a number of things have happened since he put this derned schooner into commission. We broke an anchor chain in Paulmouth Harbor, didn't we? And the old mud hook lies there to this day. Did you ever see so many halyards snap in your life, and in just a capful of wind? Didn't we have a tops'l carried away--clean--in that squall off Swampscott? And now the hands are leaving her.”
”Guess you know something about that,” growled Horry.
'Rion grinned.
”Maybe I do. I don't say 'no' and I don't say 'yes.' However, we've all got to work like dogs to make up for being short-handed.”
”n.o.body is kicking much but you,” said the older man.
”That's all right. I've got pluck enough not to stand being imposed upon. Them Portygees--well, there's no figuring on what they will do.”
”I can see you are bent on making them do something that will raise trouble,” Newbegin said, shaking his head once more.
”What do you expect? You know the _Seamew_ is hoodooed. Huh!
_Seamew_! That ain't no more her rightful name than it is mine.”
”I wouldn't say that.”
”I would!” snapped 'Rion. ”She's the _Marlin B._, out o' Salem. No matter what he says, or anybody else. She's the murder s.h.i.+p. If he sailed her over that place outside o' Salem Harbor where those poor fellows was drowned, they'd rise again and curse the schooner and all aboard her.”
The old man shuddered. He turned his face away and spat reflectively over the rail. The tug of the steering chains to starboard was even then thrilling the cords of his hands and arms with an almost electric shock. 'Rion watched him slyly. He knew the impression he was making on the old man's superst.i.tious mind. He played upon it as he did upon the childish minds of some of the Portygee seamen.
So Captain Tunis Latham did not arrive in Boston in a very calm frame of mind. Although he had no words with 'Rion, and really no trouble with the crew in general, he felt that trouble was brewing.
And the worst of it was, it was trouble which he did not know how to avert.
It was not so easy to fill the empty berth in the forecastle, even from the offscourings of the docks. It was a time when dock labor was at a premium. And short voyages never did interest good sailormen. In addition, knowing that the _Seamew_ sailed from her home port, decent seafarers wanted to know what was the matter with her that the captain could not fill his forecastle at that end.