Cursed

“It’s a great day for me,” Briggs answered. “A rare fine day. Hal, my boy, is coming home. He’s on the Sylvia Fletcher, just coming in from Boston. Can’t you let me past, some way?”

“Why, sure! Back up!” the driver commanded, savagely jerking at the bit. “You can make it, now, I reckon.”

Then, as Briggs squeezed by, he stood looking after the old, blue-clad figure. He turned a lump in his cheek, and spat.

“Gosh, ain’t it a shame?” he murmured. “Ain’t it a rotten, gorrammed shame?”

By the time Captain Briggs, followed by the faithful Ruddy, reached the stringpiece of the wharf, the schooner was already close. The captain, breathing a little fast, leaned against a tin-topped mooring-pile, and with eager eyes scrutinized the on-coming vessel. All along the wharf, the usual contingent of sailors, longshoremen, fishers and boys had already gathered. To none the captain addressed a word. All his heart and soul were now fast riveted to the schooner, from whose deck plainly drifted words of command, and down from whose sticks the canvas was fast collapsing.

With skilful handling and hardly a rag aloft, she eased alongside. Ropes came sprangling to the wharf. These, dragged in by volunteer hands, brought hawsers. And with a straining of hemp, the Sylvia hauled to a dead stop, groaning and chafing against the splintered timbers.

Jests, greetings, laughter volleyed between craft and wharf. The captain, alone, kept silent. His eager eyes were searching the deck; searching, and finding not.

“Hello, cap’n! Hey, there, Cap’n Briggs!” voices shouted. The mate waved a hand at him, and so did two or three others; but there seemed restraint in their greetings. Usually the presence of the captain loosened tongues and set the sailormen glad. But now —

With a certain tightening round the heart, the captain remained there, not knowing what to do. He had expected to see Hal on deck, waving a cap at him, shouting to him. But Hal remained invisible. What could have happened? The captain’s eyes scrutinized the deck, in vain. Neither fore nor aft was Hal.

Briggs stepped on the low rail of the schooner and went aboard. He walked aft, to the man at the wheel. Ruddy followed close at heel.

“Hello, cap’n,” greeted the steersman. “Nice day, ain’t it?” His voice betrayed embarrassment.

“Is my boy, Hal, aboard o’ you?” demanded Briggs.

“Yup.”

“Well, where is he?”

“Below.”

“Getting his dunnage?”

“Guess so.” The steersman sucked at his cob pipe, very ill at ease. Briggs stared at him a moment, then turned toward the companion.

A man’s head and shoulders appeared up the companionway. Out on deck clambered the man – a young man, black-haired and blue-eyed, with mighty shoulders and a splendidly corded neck visible in the low roll of his opened shirt. His sleeves, rolled up, showed arms and fists of Hercules.

“Hal!” cried the captain, a world of gladness in his voice. Silence fell, all about; every one stopped talking, ceased from all activities; all eyes centered on Hal and the captain.

“Hal! My boy!” exclaimed Briggs once more, but in an altered tone. He took a step or two forward. His hand, that had gone out to Hal, dropped at his side again.

He peered at his grandson with troubled, wondering eyes. Under the weathered tan of his face, quick pallor became visible.

“Why, Hal,” he stammered. “What – what’s happened? What’s the meaning of – of all this?”

Hal stared at him with an expression the old man had never seen upon his face. The boy’s eyes were reddened, bloodshot, savage with unreasoning passion. The right eye showed a bruise that had already begun to discolor. The jaw had gone forward, become prognathous like an ape’s, menacing, with a glint of strong, white teeth. The crisp black hair, rumpled and awry, the black growth of beard – two days old, strong on that square-jawed face – and something in the full-throated poise of the head, brought back to the old captain, in a flash, vivid and horrible memories.

Up from that hatchway he saw himself arising, once again, tangibly and in the living flesh. In the swing of Hal’s huge fists, the squaring of his shoulders, his brute expression of blood-lust and battle-lust, old Captain Briggs beheld, line for line, his other and barbaric self of fifty years ago.

“Good God, Hal! What’s this mean?” he gulped, while along the wharf and on deck a staring silence held. But his question was lost in a hoarse shout from the cabin:

“Here, you young devil! Come below, an’ apologize fer that!”

Hal swung about, gripped both sides of the companion, and leaned down. The veins in his powerful neck, taut-swollen, seemed to start through the bronzed skin.

“Apologize?” he roared down the companion. “To a lantern-jawed P. I. like you? Like hell I will!”

Then he stood back, lifted his head and laughed with deep-lunged scorn.

From below sounded a wordless roar. Up the ladder scrambled, simian in agility, a tall and wiry man of middle age. Briggs saw in a daze that this man was white with passion; he had that peculiar, pinched look about the nostrils which denotes the killing rage. Captain Fergus McLaughlin, of Prince Edward’s Island, had come on deck.

“You – !” McLaughlin hurled at him, while the old man stood quivering, paralyzed. “If you was a member o’ my crew, damn y’r lip – ”

“Yes, but I’m not, you see,” sneered Hal, fists on hips. “I’m a passenger aboard your rotten old tub, which is almost as bad as your grammar and your reputation.” Contemptuously he eyed the Prince Edward’s Islander, from rough woolen cap to sea-boots, and back again, every look a blistering insult. His huge chest, rising, falling, betrayed the cumulating fires within. The hush among the onlookers grew ominous. “There’s not money enough in circulation to hire me to sign articles with a low-browed, sockless, bean-eating – ”

McLaughlin’s leap cut short the sentence. With a raw howl, the P. I. flung himself at Hal. Deft and strong with his stony-hard fists was McLaughlin, and the fighting heart in him was a lion’s. A hundred men had he felled to his decks, ere now, and not one had ever risen quite whole, or unassisted. In the extremity of his rage he laughed as he sprang.

Lithely, easily, with the joy and love of battle in his reddened eyes, Hal ducked. Up flashed his right fist, a sledge of muscle, bone, sinew. The left swung free.

The impact of Hal’s smash thudded sickeningly, with a suggestion of crushed flesh and shattered bone.

Sprawling headlong, hands clutching air, McLaughlin fell. And, as he plunged with a crash to the planking, Hal’s laugh snarled through the tense air. From him he flung old Briggs, now in vain striving to clutch and hold his arm.

“Got enough apology, you slab-sided herring-choker?” he roared, exultant. “Enough, or want some more? Apologize? You bet – with these! Come on, you or any of your crew, or all together, you greasy fishbacks! I’ll apologize you!”

Snarling into a laugh he stood there, teeth set, neck swollen and eyes engorged with blood, his terrible fists eager with the lust of war.

CHAPTER XIX

HAL SHOWS HIS TEETH

Fergus McLaughlin, though down, had not yet taken the count. True, Hal had felled him to his own deck, half-stunned; but the wiry Scot, toughened by many seas, had never yet learned to spell “defeat.” For him, the battle was just beginning. He managed to rise on hands and knees. Mouthing curses, he swayed there. Hal lurched forward to finish him with never a chance of getting up; but now old Captain Briggs had Hal by the arm again.

“Hal, Hal!” he entreated. “For God’s sake – ”

Once more Hal threw the old man off. The second’s delay rescued McLaughlin from annihilation. Dazed, bleeding at mouth and nose, he staggered to his feet and with good science plunged into a clinch.

This unexpected move upset Hal’s tactics of smashing violence. The Scot’s long, wiry arms wrapped round him, hampering his fist-work. Hal could do no more than drive in harmless blows at the other’s back. They swayed, tripped over a hawser, almost went down. From the crew and from the wharf ragged shouts arose, of fear, anger, purely malicious delight, for here was battle-royal of the finest. The sound of feet, running down the wharf, told of other contingents hastily arriving.

“By gum!” approved the helmsman, forgetting to chew. He had more than once felt the full weight of McLaughlin’s fist. “By gum, now, but Mac’s in f’r a good takin’-down. If that lad don’t fist him proper, I miss my ’tarnal guess. Sick ’im, boy!”

Blaspheming, Hal tore McLaughlin loose, flung him back, lowered his head and charged. But now the Scot had recovered a little of his wit. On deck he spat blood and a broken snag of tooth. His eye gleamed murderously. The excess of Hal’s rage betrayed the boy. His guard opened. In drove a stinging lefthander. McLaughlin handed him the other fist, packed full of dynamite. The boy reeled, gulping.

“Come on, ye college bratlin’!” challenged the fighting Scot, and smeared the blood from his mouth. “This here ain’t your ship – not yet!”

“My ship’s any ship I happen to be on!” snarled Hal, circling for advantage. Mac had already taught him to be cautious. Old Captain Brigg’s imploring cries fell from him, unheeded. “If this was my ship, I’d wring your neck, so help me God! But as it is, I’ll only mash you to a jelly!”

“Pretty bairn!” gibed McLaughlin, hunched into battle-pose, bony fists up. “Grandad’s pretty pet! Arrrh! Ye would, eh?” as Hal bored in at him.

He met the rush with cool skill. True, Hal’s right went to one eye, closing it; but Hal felt the bite of knuckles catapulted from his neck.