Something overcame him and he laughed.
“Thunderation,” roared the tall man. He seized the captain, who began to have wriggling contortions. The tall man kneaded him as if he were biscuits. “You infernal scoundrel,” he bellowed, “this whole affair is some wretched plot, and you are in it. I am about to kill you.”
The solitary whisker of the captain did acrobatic feats like a strange demon upon his chin. His eyes stood perilously from his head. The suspender wheezed and tugged like the tackle of a sail.
Suddenly the tall man released his hold. Great expectancy sat upon his features. “It’s going to break!” he cried, rubbing his hands.
But the captain howled and vanished in the sky.
The freckled man then came forward. He appeared filled with sarcasm.
“So!” said he. “So, you’ve settled the matter. The captain is the only man in the world who can help us, and I daresay he’ll do anything he can now.”
“That’s all right,” said the tall man. “If you don’t like the way I run things you shouldn’t have come on this trip at all.”
They had another quarrel.
At the end of it they went on deck. The captain stood at the stern addressing the bow with opprobrious language. When he perceived the voyagers he began to fling his fists about in the air.
“I’m goin’ to put yeh off!” he yelled. The wanderers stared at each other.
“Hum,” said the tall man.
The freckled man looked at his companion. “He’s going to put us off, you see,” he said, complacently.
The tall man began to walk about and move his shoulders. “I’d like to see you do it,” he said, defiantly.
The captain tugged at a rope. A boat came at his bidding.
“I’d like to see you do it,” the tall man repeated, continually. An imperturbable man in rubber boots climbed down in the boat and seized the oars. The captain motioned downward. His whisker had a triumphant appearance.
The two wanderers looked at the boat. “I guess we’ll have to get in,” murmured the freckled man.
The tall man was standing like a granite column. “I won’t,” said he. “I won’t! I don’t care what you do, but I won’t!”
“Well, but—” expostulated the other. They held a furious debate.
In the meantime the captain was darting about making sinister gestures, but the back of the tall man held him at bay. The crew, much depleted by the departure of the imperturbable man into the boat, looked on from the bow.
“You’re a fool,” the freckled man concluded his argument.
“So?” inquired the tall man, highly exasperated.
“So! Well, if you think you’re so bright, we’ll go in the boat, and then you’ll see.”
He climbed down into the craft and seated himself in an ominous manner at the stern.
“You’ll see,” he said to his companion, as the latter floundered heavily down. “You’ll see!”
The man in rubber boots calmly rowed the boat toward the shore. As they went, the captain leaned over the railing and laughed. The freckled man was seated very victoriously.
“Well, wasn’t this the right thing after all?” he inquired in a pleasant voice. The tall man made no reply.
CHAPTER VI
As they neared the dock something seemed suddenly to occur to the freckled man.
“Great heavens!” he murmured. He stared at the approaching shore.
“My, what a plight, Tommy!” he quavered.
“Do you think so?” spoke up the tall man. “Why, I really thought you liked it.” He laughed in a hard voice. “Lord, what a figure you’ll cut.”
This laugh jarred the freckled man’s soul. He became mad.
“Thunderation, turn the boat around!” he roared. “Turn ’er round, quick! Man alive, we can’t—turn ’er round, d’ye hear!”
The tall man in the stern gazed at his companion with glowing eyes.
“Certainly not,” he said. “We’re going on. You insisted Upon it.” He began to prod his companion with words.
The freckled man stood up and waved his arms.
“Sit down,” said the tall man. “You’ll tip the boat over.”
The other man began to shout.
“Sit down!” said the tall man again.
Words bubbled from the freckled man’s mouth. There was a little torrent of sentences that almost choked him. And he protested passionately with his hands.
But the boat went on to the shadow of the docks. The tall man was intent upon balancing it as it rocked dangerously during his comrade’s oration.
“Sit down,” he continually repeated.
“I won’t,” raged the freckled man. “I won’t do anything.” The boat wobbled with these words.
“Say,” he continued, addressing the oarsman, “just turn this boat round, will you? Where in the thunder are you taking us to, anyhow?”
The oarsman looked at the sky and thought. Finally he spoke. “I’m doin’ what the cap’n sed.”
“Well, what in th’ blazes do I care what the cap’n sed?” demanded the freckled man. He took a violent step. “You just turn this round or—”
The small craft reeled. Over one side water came flashing in. The freckled man cried out in fear, and gave a jump to the other side. The tall man roared orders, and the oarsman made efforts. The boat acted for a moment like an animal on a slackened wire. Then it upset.
“Sit down!” said the tall man, in a final roar as he was plunged into the water. The oarsman dropped his oars to grapple with the gunwale. He went down saying unknown words. The freckled man’s explanation or apology was strangled by the water.
Two or three tugs let off whistles of astonishment, and continued on their paths. A man dozing on a dock aroused and began to caper.
The passengers on a ferry-boat all ran to the near railing. A miraculous person in a small boat was bobbing on the waves near the piers. He sculled hastily toward the scene. It was a swirl of waters in the midst of which the dark bottom of the boat appeared, whale-like.
Two heads suddenly came up.
“839,” said the freckled man, chokingly. “That’s it! 839!”
“What
