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Page 33
"That all?" said Dan, placidly. "He wun't--not by a jugful."
"Master!" said the cook, pointing to Harvey. "Man!" and he
pointed to Dan.
"That's news. Haow soon?" said Dan, with a laugh.
"In some years, and I shall see it. Master and man--man and
master."
"How in thunder d'ye work that out?" said Tom Platt.
"In my head, where I can see."
"Haow?" This from all the others at once.
"I do not know, but so it will be." He dropped his head, and went
on peeling the potatoes, and not another word could they get out of
him.
"Well," said Dan, "a heap o' things'll hev to come abaout 'fore
Harve's any master o' mine; but I'm glad the doctor ain't choosen to
mark him for a Jonah. Now, I mistrust Uncle Salters fer the
Jonerest Jonah in the Fleet regardin' his own special luck. Dunno
ef it's spreadin' same's smallpox. He ought to be on the Carrie
Pitman. That boat's her own Jonah, sure--crews an' gear made no
differ to her driftin'. Jiminy Christmas! She'll etch loose in a flat
ca'am."
"We're well clear o' the Fleet, anyway," said Disko. "Carrie
Pitman an' all." There was a rapping on the deck.
"Uncle Salters has catched his luck," said Dan as his father
departed.
"It's blown clear," Disko cried, and all the foc'sle tumbled up for a
bit of fresh air. The fog had gone, but a sullen sea ran in great
rollers behind it. The 'We're Here' slid, as it were, into long, sunk
avenues and ditches which felt quite sheltered and homelike if they
would only stay still; but they changed without rest or mercy, and
flung up the schooner to crown one peak of a thousand gray hills,
while the wind hooted through her rigging as she zigzagged down
the slopes. Far away a sea would burst into a sheet of foam, and
the others would follow suit as at a signal, till Harvey's eyes swam
with the vision of interlacing whites and grays. Four or five Mother
Carey's chickens stormed round in circles, shrieking as they swept
past the bows. A rain-squall or two strayed aimlessly over the
hopeless waste, ran down 'wind and back again, and melted away.
"Seems to me I saw somethin' flicker jest naow over yonder," said
Uncle Salters, pointing to the northeast.
"Can't be any of the fleet," said Disko, peering under his eyebrows,
a hand on the foc'sle gangway as the solid bows hatcheted into the
troughs. "Sea's oilin' over dretful fast. Danny, don't you want to
skip up a piece an' see how aour trawl-buoy lays?"
Danny, in his big boots, trotted rather than climbed up the main
rigging (this consumed Harvey with envy), hitched himself around
the reeling cross-trees, and let his eye rove till it caught the tiny
black buoy-flag on the shoulder of a mile-away swell.
"She's all right," he hailed. "Sail O! Dead to the no'th'ard, corain'
down like smoke! Schooner she be, too.'"
They waited yet another half-hour, the sky clearing in patches,
with a flicker of sickly sun from time to time that made patches of
olive-green water. Then a stump-foremast lifted, ducked, and
disappeared, to be followed on the next wave by a high stern with
old-fashioned wooden snail's-horn davits. The snails were
red-tanned.
"Frenchmen!" shouted Dan. "No, 'tain't, neither. Daad!"
"That's no French," said Disko. "Salters, your blame luck holds
tighter'n a screw in a keg-head."
"I've eyes. It's Uncle Abishai."
"You can't nowise tell fer sure."
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