CHAPTER XIV
THE OLD SAILOR’S EXCITEMENT
AS the old sailor hurried along the street toward the ship owner’s office he became calmer, and, being a person who had all his life been taking greater or less chances in his business of seagoing, he began to look at the situation more composedly.
The Silver Swan was without doubt in far greater danger of destruction now than she had been while hard and fast on the reef, but no amount of worrying would better the matter, and therefore one might accept the fact coolly. Then, besides, she had floated unmolested for over six weeks already, and there was a big chance for her doing so for six weeks or more to come.
“Blast these navy vessels any way, I say!” the old man muttered, stumping along now at a moderate gait. “They probably won’t be able to find her. And if nothing collides with her, I reckon she’ll keep afloat for one while, for I can swear myself that the old brig warn’t injured none below the water line—she went on that reef jest as easy!
“She’s got the same chance o’ staying above board—the Silver Swan has—as any other craft that’s become a derelict. Look at the schooner W. L. White, abandoned by her crew during the great storm of ’88. She floated about the North Atlantic for the better part of a year, before she went ashore at last on the Hebrides.
“An’ then there was the Weyer G. Sargent, mahogany laden, floated fifty-five hundred mile, or more, ’cording to the pilot chart, a-swingin’ ’round the Atlantic from New Foundland to the Azores for two years. An’ there may be many another good ship that’s got a bigger record ’n that at this very day, down in the Sargasso sea. Oh, it might be worse.”
Nevertheless, despite this cheerful view, the old sailor’s forehead was knotted into a scowl as he opened the door of the ship owner’s dingy office and entered. The red haired clerk was alone at the desk and the door of the private office was shut.
“Well, you jail bird, are you here yet?” demanded the visitor impolitely, eying the clerk with exceeding disfavor.
“Oh, is that you, Mr. Featherbee——”
“Wetherbee, you scoundrel!” roared the sailor, in a voice like a bull.
“Oh, yes! I should say Wetherbee—er—that’s what I meant,” the clerk hastened to say.
It was remarkable to notice the difference between the greeting accorded to Caleb Wetherbee and that given young Brandon Tarr shortly before.
“So you haven’t managed to get at Pepperpod’s till and clear out, yet, eh?” demanded Caleb jocularly.
Mr. Weeks scowled and grinned at the same time, a feat that very few men can perform; but he made no verbal reply to the question.
“Where is he?” queried the sailor, nodding toward the inner office. “In his den?”
“He’s busy—engaged,” Mr. Weeks hastened to say.
“I believe you’re lying to me, Weeks,” returned the sailor, after eying the fellow a moment. “You’d rather lie than eat. Where’s Pepperpod?”
“He—he really is engaged, sir,” declared Weeks, who stood in mortal fear of the brawny sailor. “That is, he told me to say so to anybody that called——”
“I don’t doubt it—that’s what’s taught you to lie,” cried Caleb, in disgust. “Well, I’m going to see him if he’s engaged fifty times. Cut along now and tell him I’m here.”
Mr. Weeks slowly descended from his stool, evidently unwilling to comply with the request.
“Get a move on you,” the sailor commanded. “If you don’t I’ll roast you over a slow fire. I’m just out of the hospital and I’ve got an appetite like an ostrich—or I’d never think of eating you.”
Mr. Weeks unwillingly went to the inner door and rapped on the panel. Then he turned the knob and went in, remaining a few moments, and on making his appearance again, held the portal open for Caleb.
The sailor entered without a word and the clerk closed the door behind him; then, as on the former occasion, he applied his ear to the keyhole with a diligence worthy of a better cause.
Mr. Pepper was sitting before his desk, which was piled high with papers and letters. The day’s mail had just been sent up from the wareroom office by Mr. Marks, the ship owner’s trusted manager, or “steward,” as Adoniram was in the habit of calling him.
Beginning business life more than fifty years before in this very office, Mr. Pepper could not bring himself, as his trade increased, to leave his old quarters, and having found his manager to be a most trustworthy man, he had shifted the burden of the more arduous duties upon his younger shoulders, and himself reposed contentedly amid the dust, the gloom, and the cobwebs of the Water Street office.
Thus it was that few people ever saw “Adoniram Pepper & Co.” to know him; but to his old friends, those of his boyhood and young manhood, Adoniram was always the same.
Naturally his acquaintance was mostly among seafaring people, and it was no uncommon sight to see old hulks of sea captains and ship owners, long past their usefulness, steering a course for the Water Street office on pleasant days, where they were sure to receive a pleasant word from the little old gentleman, if he was in, and not uncommonly a bit of silver to spend for luxuries which “sailors’ homes” do not supply.
The old gentleman sprang up at once at Caleb’s appearance, the unfortunate eye glasses jumping off the chubby little nose as though they were endowed with life. Mr. Pepper gave both his hands to the huge sailor, who indeed looked gigantic beside the little man, and begged him to sit down.
“Well, Pepperpod, how are ye?” cried the sailor, in a hearty roar that shook the light pieces of furniture in the room, just as his bulk shook the chair he had seated himself in.
“First rate, old Timbertoes!” declared the old gentleman, laughing merrily. “So you’re out of the hospital, at last?”
“I be, Adoniram, I be!” cried Caleb with satisfaction. “Never was so glad o’ anythin’ in my life. Them sawbones would have killed me if they’d kep’ me there much longer.”
“Well, well, Caleb, you was a mighty sick man—a mighty sick man.”
“I reckon I was,” responded the sailor reflectively.
“The doctor wouldn’t let me come in to see you,” said the merchant, smiling jovially; “so I had to content myself with sending up things.”
“Yes, you did,” said Caleb, turning on him sternly. “I did think, Adoniram, that you wouldn’t waste your money on such truck as that—a-sendin’ me white grapes, an’ jellies, an’ bunches o’ posies.”
He snorted in veriest scorn.
“Well, er—er—you see, Caleb, I told Frances about you and she took over the things herself,” said Adoniram hesitatingly.
“Hem!”
The old sea dog flushed up like a girl and mopped his suddenly heated face with a great bandanna, finally saying gruffly:
“You tell your sister, Miss Frances, that I am mightily obleeged for ’em, Adoniram. They—er—jest went to the right spot, you tell her; jest what I needed to tone me up!”
“You’d better come up and tell her yourself, Caleb,” said the merchant, with a sly smile.
“Well—er—mebbe I will. Thankee, Adoniram.”
He was silent a moment, and then, suddenly bethinking himself of the errand which had brought him there, he turned upon the little merchant with a slap of his knee which sounded throughout the office like a gun shot.
“But this ’ere ain’t what brought me here—not by a long chalk. Ye know the Silver Swan, Adoniram? Cap’n Horace Tarr’s brig ’t I was with when she grounded on Reef Eight, two months and more ago?”
Mr. Pepper nodded.
“Well, sir, she’s afloat.”
“Afloat!”
“That’s what I said; afloat! A-f-l-o-t-e,” responded the sailor, spelling the word very carefully, if a trifle erratically.
“How—how can that be?”
“Well, ye see she went aground jest like she was goin’ inter stocks for repairs, and if we’d stuck by her, it’s my opinion Cap’n Tarr’d ha’ been alive now.” He stopped and blew his nose hastily. “Well, what is, can’t be bettered, so we’ll say no more o’ that.
“But what I’m gettin’ at is this: she went aground all standin’, an’ the storm wot come up right arterwards, blew her off ag’in. She’s been floating, according to this morning’s paper, ever since.”
“Well, well!” exclaimed Adoniram. “It’s too bad her hull can’t be secured for the boy. If it’s still sound——”
“Sound as a dollar!”
“Where is it floating?”
“’Cordin’ to the report of a cap’n wot sighted her, she’s somewheres about latitude 22, longitude 70.”
“A pretty valuable derelict, eh, Caleb?” said the merchant, reflectively.
“Valible? Well, I should say!” The old sailor looked at his friend curiously a moment, and then leaned forward and rested his huge hand on Adoniram’s knee. “Besides a valible cargo wot we took on at the Cape and Rio, there’s enough diamonds hid aboard that brig to make the boy a second Vanderbilt!”
“Mercy me!” exclaimed the merchant, and this time the eye glasses leaped off their insecure resting place and fell with a crash to the floor, the splintered crystal flying in all directions.
“Now you’ve done it, Adoniram!” ejaculated Caleb in disgust. “What under the canopy a man like you—with no nose to speak of—wants to try to wear such tackle as them for, is beyond me.”
“Well—er—Frances thinks they look better on me than other kinds of glasses,” remarked the merchant meekly.
“Well—hem!—I s’pose they do look some better on ye,” declared Caleb loyally, and then a slight noise from the other side of the door caused him to jump up and spring hastily to it.
When he flung the door open, however, the red haired clerk was astride his high stool with a look of perfect innocence on his face; but Caleb was not reassured. He shook his huge fist at the fellow, and then shut the door again, turning the key in the lock and hanging his hat upon the door knob for further precaution.