The Secret of the Reef

“Some men he met on an island in the North,” she said with a laugh. “Aynsley seems to have envied their simple life, and I dare say it would be pleasant in this hot weather. Still, I can’t imagine his seriously practising it; handling wet nets and nasty, slimy fish, for example.”

“It wasn’t the way they lived that impressed me,” Aynsley explained. “It was the men. With one exception, they didn’t match their job; and so far as I could see, they hadn’t many nets. Then something one fellow said suggested that he didn’t care whether they caught much fish or not.”

“After all, they may have been amateur explorers like yourself, though they weren’t fortunate enough to own a big yacht. I don’t suppose you would have been interested if you had known all about them.”

“Where was the island?” Clay broke in.

Aynsley imagined that Ruth was anxious to change the subject, and he was willing to indulge her.

“I remember the latitude,” he said carelessly, “but there are a lot of islands up there, and I can’t think of the longitude west.”

Clay looked sharply at Osborne, and Ruth noticed that her father seemed disturbed.

“I guess you could pick the place out on the chart?” Clay asked Aynsley.

“It’s possible. I don’t, however, carry charts about. They’re bulky things, and not much use except when you are at sea.”

“I have one,” said Osborne and Ruth felt anxious when he rang a bell.

She suspected that she had been injudicious in starting the topic, and she would rather it were dropped, but she hesitated about giving Aynsley a warning glance. His father might surprise it, and she would have to offer Aynsley an explanation afterward. Getting up, she made the best excuse that occurred to her and went into the house. She knew where the chart was kept, and thought that she might hide it. She was too late, however, because as she took it from a bookcase a servant opened the door.

“Mr. Osborne sent me for a large roll of thick paper on the top shelf,” the maid said.

As she had the chart in her hands, Ruth was forced to give it to the girl, and when she returned to the veranda Aynsley pointed out the island. Ruth saw her father’s lips set tight.

“What kind of boat did the fellows have?” Clay asked.

“She was quite a smart sloop, but very small.” Aynsley tried to lead his father away from the subject. “At least, that was the rig she’d been intended for, by the position of the mast, but they’d divided the single headsail for handier working. After all, we’re conservative in the West, for you’ll still find people sticking to the old big jib, though it’s an awkward sail in a breeze. They’ve done away with it on the Atlantic coast, and I sometimes think we’re not so much ahead of the folks down East – ”

“What was her name?” Clay interrupted him.

Aynsley saw no strong reason for refusing a reply, particularly as he knew that if he succeeded in putting off his father now, the information would be demanded later.

“She was called Cetacea.”

Ruth unobtrusively studied the group. Miss Dexter was frankly uninterested; and Aynsley looked as if he did not know whether he had done right or not. Osborne’s face was firmly set and Clay had an ominously intent and resolute expression. Ruth suspected that she had done a dangerous thing in mentioning the matter, and she regretted her incautiousness; though she did not see where the danger lay. For all that, she felt impelled to learn what she could.

“Was it the island where you were wrecked?” she asked Clay.

He looked at her rather hard, and then laughed.

“I think so, but the experience was unpleasant, and I don’t feel tempted to recall the thing.”

Afterward he talked amusingly about something else, and half an hour had passed when he got up.

“I expect it’s cooler on the beach,” he said. “Will any of you come along?”

They sat still, except Osborne, who rose and followed him, and when they reached a spot where the trees hid them from the house Clay stopped.

“I suppose what you heard was a bit of a shock,” he remarked.

“It was a surprise. I don’t think you were tactful in making so much of the affair.”

“One has to take a risk, and if I’d waited until I had Aynsley alone and then made him tell me what he knew, it might have looked significant. In a general way, the thing you’re willing to talk over in public isn’t of much account.”

“There’s truth in that,” Osborne assented.

“I have no wish to set the boy thinking,” Clay resumed. “I take it we’re both anxious that our children should believe the best of us.”

His glance was searching, and Osborne made a sign of agreement.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Trace the sloop. We don’t want mysterious strangers prospecting round that reef. When I’ve found out all I can, the fellows will have to be bought or beaten off.”

“Very well; I leave the thing to you.”

“Rather out of your line now?” Clay suggested with an ironical smile. “However, I will admit you deserve some sympathy.”

“For that matter, we both need it. You’re no better off than I am.”

“I think I am,” Clay replied. “My character is pretty well known and has been attacked so often that nobody attaches much importance to a fresh disclosure; in fact, people seem to find something humorous in my smartness. You’re fixed differently; though you slipped up once, you afterward took a safe and steady course.”

Osborne lighted a cigar to hide his feelings; for his companion’s jibe had reached its mark. He had when poverty rendered the temptation strong, engaged in an unlawful conspiracy with Clay, and the profit he made by it had launched him on what he took care should be a respectable business career. Now and then, perhaps, and particularly when he acted in concert with Clay, his dealings would hardly have passed a high standard of ethics, but on the whole they could be defended, and he enjoyed a good name on the markets. Now a deed he heartily regretted, and would have undone had he been able, threatened to rise from the almost forgotten past and torment him. Worse than all, he might again be forced into a crooked path to cover up his fault.

“We won’t gain anything by arguing who might suffer most,” he said as coolly as he could.

“No; I guess that’s useless,” Clay agreed. “Well, I must get on those fellows’ trail and see what I can do.”

They strolled along the beach for a while, and then went back to the others.

While Clay traced her movements as far as they could be learned, the Cetacea was slowly working north. She met with light, baffling winds, and calms, and then was driven into a lonely inlet by a fresh gale. Here she was detained for some time, and adverse winds still dogged her course when she put to sea again, though they were no longer gentle, but brought with them a piercing rawness from the Polar ice. Her crew grew anxious and moody as they stubbornly thrashed her to windward under shortened sail, for every day at sea increased the strain on their finances and the open-water season was short.

In the sharp cold of a blustering morning Jimmy got up from the locker upon which he had spent a few hours in heavy sleep. His limbs felt stiff, his clothes were damp, and at his first move he bumped his head against a deck-beam. Sitting down with muttered grumbling, he pulled on his soaked knee-boots and looked moodily about. Daylight was creeping through the cracked skylight, and showed that the underside of the deck was dripping. Big drops chased one another along the slanted beams and fell with a splash into the lee bilge. Water oozed in through the seams on her hove-up weather side and washed about the lower part of the inclined floor, several inches deep. The wild plunging and the muffled roar outside the planking showed that she was sailing hard and the wind was fresh.

Jimmy grumbled at his comrades for not having pumped her out, and then shivered as he jammed himself against the centerboard trunk and tried to light the rusty stove. It was wet and would not draw and the smoke puffed out. He was choking and nearly blinded when he put the kettle on and went up on deck, somewhat short in temper. Moran was sitting stolidly at the helm, muffled in a wet slicker, with the spray blowing about him; Bethune crouched in the shelter of the coaming, while white-topped seas with gray sides tumbled about the boat. An angry red flush was spreading, rather high up, in the eastern sky.

“You made a lot of smoke,” Bethune remarked.

“I did,” said Jimmy. “If you’ll get forward and swing the funnel-cowl, which you might have done earlier, you’ll let some of it out. I’m glad it’s your turn to cook, but you had better spend ten minutes at the pump before you go.”

Bethune, rising, stretched himself with an apologetic laugh.

“Oh, well,” he said; “I was so cold I felt I didn’t want to do anything.”

“It’s not an uncommon sensation,” Jimmy replied. “The best way to get rid of it is to work. If you’ll shift that cowl, I’ll prime the pump.”

Bethune shuffled forward, and, coming back, pumped for a few strokes. Then he stopped and leaned on the handle.