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Page 35
"Run under, by the Great Hook-Block!" shouted Disko, jumping
aft. "Drunk or sober, we've got to help 'em. Heave short and break
her out! Smart!"
Harvey was thrown on the deck by the shock that followed the
setting of the jib and foresail, for they hove short on the cable, and
to save time, jerked the anchor bodily from the bottom, heaving
in as they moved away. This is a bit of brute force seldom resorted
to except in matters of life and death, and the little 'We're Here'
complained like a human. They ran down to where Abishal's craft
had vanished; found two or three trawl-tubs, a gin-bottle, and a
stove-in dory, but nothing more. "Let 'em go," said Disko, though
no one had hinted at picking them up. "I wouldn't hev a match that
belonged to Abishai aboard. Guess she run clear under. Must ha'
been spewin' her oakum fer a week, an' they never thought to pump
her. That's one more boat gone along o' leavin' port all hands
drunk."
"Glory be!" said Long Jack. "We'd ha' been obliged to help 'em if
they was top o' water."
"'Thinkin' o' that myself," said Tom Platt.
"Fey! Fey!" said the cook, rolling his eyes. "He haas taken his own
luck with him."
"Ver' good thing, I think, to tell the Fleet when we see. Eh,
wha-at?" said Manuel. "If you runna that way before the 'wind, and
she work open her seams--" He threw out his hands with an
indescribable gesture, while Penn sat down on the house and
sobbed at the sheer horror and pity of it all. Harvey could not
realize that he had seen death on the open waters, but he felt very
sick. Then Dan went up the cross-trees, and Disko steered them
back to within sight of their own trawl-buoys just before the fog
blanketed the sea once again.
"We go mighty quick hereabouts when we do go," was all he said
to Harvey. "You think on that fer a spell, young feller. That was
liquor."
"After dinner it was calm enough to fish from the decks,--Penn and
Uncle Salters were very zealous this time,--and the catch was large
and large fish.
"Abishal has shorely took his luck with him," said Salters. "The
wind hain't backed ner riz ner nothin'. How abaout the trawl? I
despise superstition, anyway."
Tom Platt insisted that they had much better haul the thing and
make a new berth. But the cook said: "The luck iss in two pieces.
You will find it so when you look. I know." This so tickled Long
Jack that he overbore Tom Platt and the two went out together.
Underrunning a trawl means pulling it in on one side of the dory,
picking off the fish, rebaiting the hooks, and passing them back to
the sea again--something like pinning and unpinning linen on a
wash-line. It is a lengthy business and rather dangerous, for the
long, sagging line may twitch a boat under in a flash. But when
they heard, "And naow to thee, 0 Capting," booming out of the fog,
the crew of the 'We're Here' took heart. The dory swirled alongside
well loaded, Tom Platt yelling for Manuel to act as relief-boat.
"The luck's cut square in two pieces," said Long Jack, forking in the
fish, while Harvey stood open-mouthed at the skill with which the
plunging dory was saved from destruction. "One half was jest
punkins. Tom Platt wanted to haul her an' ha' done wid ut; but I
said, "I'll back the doctor that has the second sight, an' the other
half come up sagging full o' big uns. Hurry, Man'nle, an' bring's a
tub o' bait. There's luck afloat to-night."
The fish bit at the newly baited hooks from which their brethren
had just been taken, and Tom Platt and Long Jack moved
methodically up and down the length of the trawl, the boat's nose
surging under the wet line of hooks, stripping the sea-cucumbers
that they called pumpkins, slatting off the fresh-caught cod against
the gunwale, rebaiting, and loading Manuel's dory till dusk.
"I'll take no risks," said Disko then--"not with him floatin' around so
near. Abishal won't sink fer a week. Heave in the dories an' we'll
dress daown after supper."
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