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As he talked the memory of the wrongs against him flamed in his breast, and he directed his story at Nat, who sat silent and immovable in the corner.
“If I found this aboard the Nettie it proves that he must have come and got it!” he cried. “He boarded the old May, but it was not for this that he came!”
“What, then?” asked Hardy.
“To damage the schooner so that she would break down under the strain of the next race,” flared Code, facing Nat dramatically. Burns only clenched his jaws tighter on his cigar.
“You don’t believe this, perhaps, squire, but listen and I’ll tell you how the old May sank.” And once again he described the crashing calamity aboard the overloaded boat as she struggled home to Freekirk Head with the last of her strength.
“You, squire, you’ve sailed your boats in your time! You know that never could have happened even to the old May unless something had been done. And something was done! Burns had weakened the topm’st and the mainstay!”
All eyes were fixed on Nat, but he did not move. He was very pale now, but apparently self-possessed. Suddenly, with a hand that appeared firm, he removed the cigar from his mouth and cast it on the floor.
“That,” he said with deadly coolness, “is a blasted fine plot that you have all worked out together. But every word of it is a lie, for the whole thing is without a single foundation in fact. Prove it!”
“I’ll give you a last chance, Burns,” said Elsa in a level voice that contained all the concentrated hatred that Code had detected in her before. “Dismiss these charges against Code.”
“Never!” The word was catapulted from him as though by a muscular convulsion. “He murdered my father, and he shall pay for it!”
Without a word Elsa rose from her chair and walked back into the adjoining room. A moment later she reappeared, leading a beautiful girl who was perhaps twenty years old.
The effect was electric. The people in the little group seemed frozen into the attitudes they had last assumed.
Only in Nat Burns was there a change.
He seemed to have shrunk back into his clothes until he was but a little, wizened man. His face was ghastly and clammy perspiration glittered on his forehead in the lamplight.
“Caroline!” he cried in a hoarse voice that did not rise above a whisper.
“Yes, Caroline,” said Elsa, her black eyes flashing fire. “You had forgotten her, hadn’t you? You had forgotten the girl who loved you, that you drove away from the island! You had forgotten the girl that gave you everything and got nothing! But that has come back upon you now, and these people are here to see it. Even your father, in his log-book, mentioned when my sister left Grande Mignon, apparently to work in the factory at Lubec. As though my sister should ever work in a factory!”
“So this explains why she went that time,” said Squire Hardy gently. “We all wondered at it, Elsa–we all wondered at it.”
“And well you might. But he is the cause! And he wouldn’t marry her! I have waited for this chance of revenge, and now he shall pay.”
Caroline Fuller, who was even more beautiful than her sister, looked at Nat in a kind of daze. Suddenly there was a spasmodic working of her features.
“Oh, that I could ever have loved him!” she said in a faint voice. “Here, Elsa, read it to them all!”
From under her cloak she drew a crumpled envelope which she passed to her sister.
With a snarl like that of a wild animal Nat leaped from his chair toward the girl, but Durkee struck him violently and he reeled back into it.
“You swore you burned them all!” muttered Nat. “You swore it! You swore it!”
“Yes, and she did, the innocent child–all but this one that she had mislaid in a book you once sent her,” cried Elsa. “But I found it, Burns. Where do you think I’ve been all this while? At St. John’s, where she lives with my aunt. And do you think there was no reason for that letter being saved? God takes care of things like this, and now you’ve got to pay, Nat Burns! I knew there would come a time. I knew there would!”
She was still standing, and she drew the letter out of the envelope.
“Look, squire, Code, any of you who know. Is this Nat’s writing?”
“Yes,” they all declared as the letter passed from hand to hand.
“Read it,” said the squire, forcing Caroline Fuller to sit down in his chair.
“I’ll spare him hearing the first of it,” said Elsa. “It is what men write to women they love or feign to love, and it belongs to my sister. But here”–she turned the first sheet inside out–“listen to this.”
Involuntarily they all leaned forward, all except Durkee, who went over and stood beside Nat. The latter gave no sign except a dry rattling sound in his throat as he swallowed involuntarily.
“I’ve got him, Caroline–I’ve got him!” she read. “He’ll beat me again, will he? Well, not if I know it! Everybody in the Head seems tickled to death that he won, but you know how little that means to me. It is simply another reason why I should beat him the next time.
“Dearest little girl, it’s the easiest thing in the world. I’ve just come back from going over the May (it’s midnight), and the thing looks good. You know Schofield is a great hand to carry sail. Well, when you hear about the race, maybe you’ll hear that his foretopmast came down in a squall. If you don’t, I’ll be much surprised, for I’ve attended to it myself, and I don’t think it will take much of a squall.
“Maybe you’ll hear, too, that his mainstay snapped and his sticks went into the water all because he carried too much sail. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve attended to that, too. So I guess with his foretopmast cracked off and his mainstay snapped the old M. C. ought to romp home an easy victor, if she is an old ice-wagon. I tried to get Schofield to bet, but he’s so tight with his cash he wouldn’t shake down a five-cent piece. Good thing for him, though, he doesn’t know it. Nothing would do me more good than to get his roll, the virtuous old deacon!”
She stopped reading as a rumble of mirth went round the circle. Code in the rôle of a virtuous deacon was a novelty. Even the hard lines of Elsa’s face relaxed and she smiled, albeit a trifle grimly.
“That’s all,” she said, folding up the letter and putting it back into the envelope. “The rest is personal and not ours. Now, Mr. Durkee, if you still care to consider Captain Schofield as the defendant in those two suits I want your arguments.”
“I don’t, Mrs. Mallaby,” said the detective, and called the Freekirk Head jailer. “But I know who is going to take Schofield’s place.”
He glared at Nat Burns, who cowered silent and miserable in his corner. Despite his sailing as Nat’s guest he had never brought himself to like the man, and now he was glad to be well rid of him.
Code stepped out a free man, and his first action was to take both of Elsa’s hands and try to thank her. Her eyes dropped and she blushed. When he had stammered through his speech he turned to Caroline Fuller and repeated it, but the sad smile she gave him tore at his heart.
“I came because Elsa asked me to save a friend,” she said, “not because I wished to revenge myself on Nat. I am glad it was you, for I would do anything on earth for Elsa.”
Code turned mystified eyes upon Mrs. Mallaby.
“I thought you did this to revenge yourself on Nat,” he half whispered.
“I did, partly,” she replied. She lifted her eyes to his and he saw something in them that startled him–something that, in all his association with her, he had never seen before. He stood silent, amazed, overwhelmed while she turned her face away.
CHAPTER XXX
ELSA’S TRIUMPH
Code Schofield’s appearance at his schooner the next morning to help the crew unload was the signal for a veritable native-son demonstration. Not only had the story of Code’s sudden liberation and Nat’s as sudden imprisonment spread like wild-fire clear to Southern Head Light, twenty miles away, but the tale was hailed with joy.
For Nat had come into his own in the hatred of his townsfolk. Among the fleet he was heartily unpopular because he had not fished all season and then had tried to catch the first market with a purchased cargo, merely to revenge himself on Code and the Tanners. Throughout his conduct had been utterly selfish, whereas others had worked for the island and for its salvation.
With the landing of the two schooners from the fleet the women-folk were soon apprised of Nat’s action, and, had it not been for Elsa’s sensational disclosures in the little jail that made him the sudden occupant of a cell, there is no question but what the women of Marblehead would have been equaled by the women of Freekirk Head; and Skipper Ireson would not have ridden down history alone in tarry glory.
But now, since Code was free, the whole town exulted, and there was a steady procession to the jail to look in upon the first real criminal the village had mustered in years.
Code, after checking the scale-tally all morning as his stalwart men swung the baskets of salted fish out of the hold, went along the road to Squire Hardy’s house after dinner and interviewed that worthy man.
“You’ve got him where you want him,” said the squire, “but you can’t get much except damages.”
“I don’t want even damages,” said Code. “I want him to take all his things and go away from here and never come back. Since he didn’t do any real damage to anybody I don’t care what becomes of him so long as he leaves here.”
“Well, all you must do is to withdraw your charges against him–they were put in your name so that Mrs. Mallaby’s would not have to appear.”
“But even if I do, won’t the State take it up. You know a murder case–”
“Yes, my boy, but this is no murder case now. On the face of it Nat did not set out to murder his father; he did not set out really to sink your schooner–merely to disable it; the proof is indisputable and self-evident by his own confession and letter.
“Well, now, in a private racing agreement between gentlemen, if both vessels are registered and rated seaworthy, nothing that happens to one can be laid to the other unless, as in the present case, one deliberately damages the other. The principal punishment is a moral one administered by the former friends of the dishonest man, but the victim can collect money damages. Naturally the insurance company will change its charge so as to accuse Nat instead of you.
“They have a proven case against him already, and he will have to pay them nearly all they gave you–so that, in the end, he really pays you for the damage he did that day. Then, I understand, he is going to pay an amount to the family of each man who lost his life in the May, on condition that they will never sue him.”
“Whee-ew!” whistled Code. “When he gets through he won’t have much money left, I guess.”
“No, I guess he won’t,” agreed the judge, “and it serves him right. He’ll probably have to sell his schooner and start life over again somewhere else. I hope he starts honestly this time. Then you won’t take any action against him, Code?”
“Me? Oh, no!” said Schofield. “I’ve nothing against him now. Let him go. But I’ll tell you one thing, squire–he had better be smuggled away to-night quietly, because, if the crowd gets hold of him, it might not be good for his health.”
The squire agreed and Code went back to his work. Late that afternoon Pete Ellinwood swung the last basket of the catch to the scales and Code completed his tally.
“Sixteen hundred and seventy quintal,” he announced, “and forty-three pounds. At a hundred pounds a quintal that makes 167,078 pounds, and at three cents a pound totals to $5,012.34. Not bad for a two months’ cruise, but my soul and body, Bill Boughton, how the fish did run!”
“It’s a good catch, Code, and fine fish,” answered Boughton, who had been writing. “How will you have the money–in a lump or individual checks?”
“Separate checks.” Boughton went back to his glass-surrounded desk to write them.
Code, being the sole owner of the Charming Lass, took two thousand dollars as his share, and the rest was divided almost equally among the other nine men, a trifle extra going to Pete Ellinwood for his services as mate.
“It was a toppin’ haul,” declared Pete jovially, slapping his well-filled pocket after a visit to the bank, “an’ the rest of them poor devils won’t get over two and a half a pound–some of ’em only two, when there’s lots of fish. Half a cent a pound is a pretty good bonus!”
Code had dinner with his mother that night, and appeared for it carefully dressed. What was his surprise to see his mother in her one silk dress.
“I’m going up to Mallaby House,” he said in answer to her inquiring look. “But you! What’s all this gaiety, mother?”
“I am going to hear an account of how you behaved yourself on the voyage, Code,” she said, attempting severity.
“By an eye-witness?” Visions of Ellinwood, painfully arrayed, danced in his head.
“Yes.”
“Um-m. Well, I won’t be home until late, then, because it’s a long story.”
“You rascal!” said his mother, and kissed him.
On the way to Mallaby House (it was up the old familiar path that he had raced down so recklessly the night of the great fire), he thought over the thing that his eyes had seen for an instant the night before in the jail.
Elsa loved him, he knew now, and she had always loved him. He cursed himself for a stupid fool in that it had taken him so long to find out, but he was relieved to know at last upon what footing to meet her. She was no longer a baffling and alluring creature of a hundred chameleon moods; she was a lonely girl.
Martin, who had been his body-servant while aboard the mystery schooner, opened the door, and bowed with decided pleasure at seeing his temporary master. He ventured congratulations that Schofield was free of the law’s shadow.
“Mrs. Mallaby is up-stairs, sir,” he said, taking Code’s hat. “Just step into the drawing-room, sir, and I’ll call her.”
It was a sample of Elsa’s taste that she illuminated all her rooms with the soft flame of candles or the mellow light of lamps. The mahogany furniture, much of it very old and historic among the island families, gleamed in the warm lights. There were built-in shelves of books against one wall, splendid engravings, etchings, and a few colored prints of the daughters of Louis XV.
Presently Elsa came down the broad staircase. Her hair was parted simply in the middle and done into two wheels, one over each pink ear. Her dress was a plain one of China silk with a square Dutch neck. It fitted her splendid figure beautifully.
Never had she appeared to Code so fresh and simple. The great lady was gone, the keen advocate had disappeared, the austere arbiter of Freekirk Head’s destinies was no more. She seemed a girl. He arose and took her hand awkwardly.
“I am glad you came so soon,” she said; “but aren’t you neglecting other people? I’m sure there must be friends who would like to see you.”
“Perhaps so, but this time they must wait until I have paid my respects to you. As far as actions go, you are the only friend I have.”
“You are getting quite adept at turning a phrase,” she said, smiling.
“Not as adept as you in turning heaven and earth to liberate an innocent man.”
“I have no answer to that,” she replied. “But seriously, Code, I hope you didn’t come up to thank me again to-night. Please don’t. It embarrasses me. We know each other well enough, I think, to do little things without the endless social prating that should accompany them.”
“You’ve been a dear!” he cried, and took one of her hands in his. She did not move. “Elsa, I want you for my wife!”
“What can I say?” she began in a low voice. “You are noble and good, Code, and I know what has actuated you to say this to me. Some women would be resentful at your offer, but I am not. A week ago, even yesterday, I should have accepted it gladly and humbly, but to-day–no.
“Since last night I have thought, and somehow things have come clearer to me. I have tried to do too much. I have always loved you, Code, but I can see now that you were not meant for me. I tried to win you because of that love, not considering you or others–only myself. And I defeated my own end. I overshot the mark.”
“I don’t understand,” said Code.
“Perhaps not, but I will tell you. In the first place, I deliberately managed so that Nat Burns and Nellie could never be married. I know now that they have separated for good. I hated Burns for his part in my sister’s life, and I resolved to wreck his happiness if his engagement to Nellie was happiness. So now she is free and you can have her, I think, for the asking.”
“But,” cried Schofield in protest, “I have never said–”
“You did not need to say that you loved some one,” she told him, with a faint smile. “That night at dinner on the schooner with me proved it. I have talked to your mother since I came home, and she told me what Nat’s engagement meant to you, so that I know Nellie is the girl you have always loved. Isn’t it so?”
“Yes,” he replied gently.
“Now is it plain to you how I have undone my own plans? Two things I desired more than anything else on earth, you, and Burns’s ruin. I ruined Burns and paved the way for the loss of you, for, unscrupulous as I am in some things, I could never marry you when Nellie was free and you loved her. I have wanted happiness so hard, Code, that when I see others who have it within their grasp, I cannot stand in their way.
“But I don’t mind now–I really don’t. That was all in the past, and it’s over now. If you want to make me happy, be happy yourself. I see there are forces that guide our lives that must have their will whatever our own private plans may be, and, having learned that lesson, I feel that perhaps now I shall be happier, somehow, than I ever would have been if my own selfishness had triumphed.”
Code lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“What a splendid woman you are! I know that happiness and joy will come to you. One who has done what you have done cannot fail to realize it. This hour will always be a very sweet one in my memory, and I shall never forget it.”
“Nor I,” she said softly, “for, through you, I have begun to find myself.”
CHAPTER XXXI
PEACE AND PROSPERITY
The village of Freekirk Head prospered once Code Schofield, Bijonah Tanner, and Jed Martin had started the ball rolling. Inside a week another large consignment of fish arrived. Boughton was ready for it, and for all that could come, he said, in the next two months.
This was music to the ears of Code Schofield and the crack crew of the Charming Lass, and nine days after they had picked up their mooring in the little crescent harbor they were off again, salt and bait-laden, for the Banks, expecting to do a little haddocking if they failed to load down with cod before they disappeared in October.
Seven schooners sailed with him that day, and, at the end of nine weeks, the Lass weighed anchor and charged home with the first halibut that had come into Freekirk Head in years. On this trip, when he was left in peace, Code displayed all the remarkable “nose” for fish that his father had had before him.
And when he had weighed out the last of his halibut Bill Boughton led him into the little office of the fishstand and offered him a quarter interest in the business.
Thereafter Code was to make only such trips as he could spare time for, and Pete was to have charge of the Lass on other occasions.
He had proved himself worth his salt in the eyes of the whole village, and Boughton needed some one to do the heavy work, while he collected most of the profits. This business future, and three thousand dollars in the bank, led Code one day to send to St. John’s for an architect, and to haggle with Al Green concerning the cost of a piece of land overlooking the blue bay.
The very night that Code and Elsa had their last talk Nat Burns was smuggled aboard a motor sloop lying in Whale Cove and taken over to Eastport, where he was turned loose in the United States.
Half of the value of the Nettie was eaten up by his debts and damage settlements, and so, the better to clear the whole matter up, he sold her at auction inside a week and departed with the remnants of his cash to parts unknown.
Since that time not a word or trace of him had been heard in Freekirk Head except once. That was when the St. John’s paper printed a photograph of an automobile that made a trip across the Hudson Bay country.
Beside the machine stood a man in furs who was claimed by all who saw the picture to be Nat Burns. Was he running a trap line in the wilds with the Indians, or was he a passenger in the car under an assumed name?
Elsa Mallaby did not even wait for the departure of the Charming Lass on her second voyage before she acted on a determination that had come to her. She shut up Mallaby House entirely, and, with Caroline as her companion, started on a trip around the world, promising to be back in three years.
But she did not go on the mystery schooner, nor did anybody ever see or hear of it again.
It soon developed that the government officials were hard after the boat that had impersonated a gunboat, and would make it very hot both for owners and crew. Elsa knew this the day she made her final triumphant dash into Freekirk Head, and that was the reason that the ship only stayed ten minutes.
So quietly and skilfully was the whole thing managed that, in the excitement of Code’s arrest, every one thought Elsa and her sister had come on the evening boat from St. John’s.
Not three men in the island would have connected her with this strange craft, and two of those weren’t sure enough of anything to speak above a whisper. The third was Code Schofield.
Captain Foraker took the mystery schooner outside the harbor, pointed her nose straight south by the compass, and held her there for a matter of ten days. At the end of that time he was in danger of pushing Haiti off the map, so he went to Port-au-Prince and sold the schooner at a bargain to the government, which, at that time, happened to need a first-class battle-ship. Then Captain Foraker and the crew divided the money (by Elsa’s orders), and returned to the States.
It was only after the return from his second cruise that Code paid attention to Nellie Tanner. Something in him that respected her trouble and Elsa’s confession at the same time had kept his lips sealed during that short stay at home. But one Sunday after the second trip they climbed to the crest of the mountain back of the closed Mallaby House, and Code told her what had been in his heart all these years.
For a while she said nothing. The sun was setting over the distant Maine coast and the clouds all round the horizon were wonderful masses of short-lived rainbow texture. The sea was the pink and greenish blue of floating oil.
“You get me a trifle shop-worn,” she said at last, laughing uncertainly.
“Then I get you?” He had turned toward her with a flash of boyish eagerness. One look at her radiant face and shining eyes found the answer.
“Shop-worn?” he said after a while. “Well, so am I, a trifle, but not in the way you mean. If having the down knocked off one and seeing things truer and better for it is being shop-worn, then thank God for the wearing.
“It has been a roundabout way for us, little girl, but at last our paths have met, and from now on, God willing, they shall go together. Come, I want to show you something.”
They walked through the woods until they found the place where the surveyors had laid out the foundation plan for the little house. There they found an interested couple gravely discussing a near-by excavation with the aid of a blue-print.
Presently the couple turned around, and the lovers clutched each other in amazement.
“Bless me,” gasped Code, “if it isn’t ma and Pete Ellinwood!”
