He gurgled a wordless appeal for help, and then perceived that she was lashed into her chair.
“I wish I could take that awful thing out of your mouth, sir.”
He gave her a look which assured her that he shared in her desire.
“My father has tied me into this chair. I tried to make him stop his dreadful talk when the boats came and burned the lights. He put me down here and made a prisoner of me. It is terrible, all that has been happening. I can't understand! I hope you will not think too hard of my father, sir. Honestly, he seems to be out of his right mind.”
He wanted to return some comforting reply to this wistful appeal, but he could only roll his head against the stanchion and make inarticulate sounds.
“He seemed to be very bitter when he brought you below. I could not make him listen to reason. I have been thinking--and perhaps you're the gentleman who led the singing which made him so angry?”
Mayo shook his head violently in protest at this suspicion.
“I didn't mind,” she assured him. “I knew it was only in fun.” She pondered for a few minutes. “Perhaps they wouldn't have teased one of their city girl friends in that way--but I suppose men must have a good time when they are away from home. Only--it has made it hard for me!” There were tears in her eyes.
Mayo's face grew purple as he tried to speak past the restraining spike and make her understand his sentiments on the subject of that serenade.
“Don't try to talk, sir. I'm so sorry. It is shameful!”
There was silence in the cabin after that for a long time. He looked up at the swinging lamp, his gaze wandered about the homely cabin. But his eyes kept returning to her face. He could not use his tongue, and he tried to tell her by his glances, apologetic little starings, that he was sorry for her in her grief. She met those glances with manifest embarrassment.
After an absence which was prolonged to suit his own sour will in the matter, Captain Candage came stamping stormily down the companionway. He stood between his captives and glowered, first at one and then at the other.
“Both of ye blaming me, I reckon, for what couldn't be helped.”
“Father, listen to me now, if you have any sense left in you,” cried the girl, with passion. “Take that horrible thing out of that gentleman's mouth.”
“It has come to a pretty pass in this world when an honest man can't carry on his own private business without having to tie up meddlers so as to have a little peace.” He walked close to Mayo and shook a monitory finger under the young man's nose. “Now, what did ye come on board here for, messing into my affairs?”
The indignant captain put forth his best efforts to make suitable retort, but could only emit a series of “guggles.”
“And now on top of it all I am told by my mate, who never gets around to do anything that ought to be done till it's two days too late, that you are one of the Mayos! Why wasn't I informed? I might have made arrangements to show you some favors. I might have hove to and taken a chance, considering who you was. And now it's too late. Everybody seems to be ready to impose on me!”
Again Mayo tried to speak.
“Why don't you shut up that gobbling and talk sense?” shouted the irate skipper, with maddening disregard of the captive's predicament.
“Father, are you completely crazy? You haven't taken that spike out of his mouth.”
“Expect a man to remember everything when he is all wrapped in his own business and everybody trying to meddle with it?” grumbled Candage. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a knife. He slashed away the rope yarn which lashed the marlinespike. “If you can talk sense I'll help you do it! 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.
“I ain't responsible for your getting aboard here. I'll land you as soon as I can--and that covers the law, sir.”
During a prolonged silence the two men stared at each other.
“At any rate, Captain Candage, I trust you will not consider that you have a right to keep me tied up here any longer.”
“Now that there's a better understanding about who is boss aboard here, I don't know as I'm afraid to have you at large,” admitted the skipper. “I only warn you to remember your manners and don't forget that I'm captain.”
He flourished his clasp-knife and bent and cut the lashings. Then he strode across the cabin and performed like service for his daughter.
“I reckon I can afford to have _you_ loose, too, now that you can't tell me my business in front of a lot of skylarkers throwing kisses right and left!”
“Father! Oh, oh!” She put her hands to her face.
Captain Candage seemed to be having some trouble in keeping up his rôle of a bucko shipmaster; he shifted his eyes from Mayo's scowl and surveyed his daughter with uncertainty while he scratched his ear.
“When a man ain't boss on his own schooner he might as well stop going to sea,” he muttered. “Some folks knows it's the truth, being in a position to know, and others has to be showed!” He went stamping up the companionway into the night.
Captain Mayo waited, for some minutes. The girl did not lift her head.
“About that--What he said about--You understand! I know better!” he faltered.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, gratefully, still hiding her face from him.
“Men sometimes do very foolish things.”
“I didn't know my father could be like this.”
“I was thinking about the men who came and annoyed him. I can understand how he felt, because I am 'a 'native' myself.”
“I thought you were from outside.”
“My name is Boyd Mayo. I'm from Mayoport.”
She looked up at him with frank interest.
“My folks built this schooner,” he stated, with modest pride.
“I'm Polly Candage--I'm named for it.”
“It's too bad!” he blurted. “I don't mean to say but what the name is all right,” he explained, awkwardly, “but I don't think that either of us is particularly proud of this old hooker right at the present moment.” He went across the cabin and sat down on a transom and, tested the bump on the back of his head with cautious palm.
She did not reply, and he set his elbows on his knees and proceeded to nurse his private grouch in silence, quite excluding his companion from his thoughts. Now that he had been snatched so summarily from his hateful position on board the _Olenia_, his desire to leave her was not so keen. After Mayo's declaration to the owner, Marston might readily conclude that his skipper had deserted. His reputation and his license as a shipmaster were in jeopardy, and he had already had a bitter taste of Marston's intolerance of shortcomings. If Marston cared to bother about breaking such a humble citizen, malice had a handy weapon. But most of all was Mayo concerned with the view Alma Marston would take of the situation. She would either believe that he had fallen overboard in the skirmish with the attacking Polly or had deserted without warning--and in the case of a lover both suppositions were agonizing. His distress was so apparent that the girl, from her seat on the opposite transom, extended sympathy in the glances she dared to give him.
“How did you tear your coat so badly in the back?” she ventured at last.
“Spikes your excellent father left sticking out of his martingale,” he said, a sort of boyish resentment in his tones.
“Then it is only right that I should offer to mend it for you.”
She hurried to a locker, as if glad of an excuse to occupy herself. She produced her little sewing-basket and then came to him and held out her hand.
“Take it off, please.”
“You needn't trouble,” he expostulated, still gruff.
“I insist. Please let me do a little something to make up for the _Polly's_ naughtiness.”
“It will be all right until I can get ashore--and perhaps I'll never have need to wear the coat again, anyway.”
“Won't you allow me to be doing something that will take my mind off my troubles, sir?” Then she snapped her finger into her palm and there was a spirit of matronly command in her voice, in spite of her youth. “I insist, I say! Take off your coat.”
He obeyed, a little grin crinkling at the corners of his mouth--a flicker of light in his general gloom. After he had placed the coat in her hands he sat down on the transom and watched her busy fingers. She worked deftly. She closed in the rents and then darned the raveled places with bits of the thread pulled from the coat itself.
“You are making it look almost as good as new.”
“A country girl must know how to patch and darn. The folks in the country haven't as many things to throw away as the city folks have.”
“But that--what you are doing--that's real art.”
“My aunt does dressmaking and I have helped her. And lately I have been working in a millinery-shop. Any girl ought to know how to use her needle.”