Moran of the Lady Letty

“Those beach-combers are right on to the game, I’m afraid,” said Wilbur. “Look, they’re watching us. This stuff would smell across the ocean.”

“Rot the beach-combers! There’s a bit of wind, thank God, and we can do four knots to their one, just let us get clear once.”

Moran dragged the hammock back into the cabin, and, returning upon deck, helped Wilbur to cut away the last tricing tackle. The schooner righted slowly to an even keel. Meanwhile the junk had set its one lug-sail and its crew had run out the sweeps. Hoang took the steering sweep and worked the junk to a position right across the “Bertha’s” bows, some fifty feet ahead.

“They’re watching us, right enough,” said Wilbur.

“Up your mains’l,” ordered Moran. The pair set the fore and main sails with great difficulty. Moran took the wheel and Wilbur went forward to cast off the line by which the schooner had been tied up to one of the whale’s flukes.

“Cut it!” cried the girl. “Don’t stop to cast off.”

There was a hail from the beach-combers; the port sweeps dipped and the junk bore up nearer.

“Hurry!” shouted Moran, “don’t mind them. Are we clear for’ard—what’s the trouble? Something’s holding her.” The schooner listed slowly to starboard and settled by the head.

“All clear!” cried Wilbur.

“There’s something wrong!” exclaimed Moran; “she’s settling for’ard.” Hoang hailed the schooner a second time.

“We’re still settling,” called Wilbur from the bows, “what’s the matter?”

“Matter that she’s taking water,” answered Moran wrathfully. “She’s started something below, what with all that lifting and dancing and tricing up.”

Wilbur ran back to the quarterdeck.

“This is a bad fix,” he said to Moran. “Those chaps are coming aboard again. They’re on to something, and, of course, at just this moment she begins to leak.”

“They are after that ambergris,” said Moran between her teeth. “Smelled it, of course—the swine!”

“Ambergris?”

“The stuff we found in the whale. That’s ambergris.”

“Well?”

“Well!” shouted Moran, exasperated. “Do you know that we have found a lump that will weigh close to 250 pounds, and do you know that ambergris is selling in San Francisco at $40 an ounce? Do you know that we have picked up nearly $150,000 right out here in the ocean and are in a fair way to lose it all?”

“Can’t we run for it?”

“Run for it in a boat that’s taking water like a sack! Our dory’s gone. Suppose we get clear of the junk, and the ‘Bertha’ sank? Then what? If we only had our crew aboard; if we were only ten to their dozen—if we were only six—by Jupiter! I’d fight them for it.”

The two enormous red eyes of the junk loomed alongside and stared over into the “Bertha’s” waist. Hoang and seven of the coolies swarmed aboard.

“What now?” shouted Moran, coming forward to meet them, her scowl knotting her flashing eyes together. “Is this ship yours or mine? We’ve done your dirty work for you. I want you clear of my deck.” Wilbur stood at her side, uncertain what to do, but ready for anything she should attempt.

“I tink you catchum someting, smellum pretty big,” said Hoang, his ferret glance twinkling about the schooner.

“I catchum nothing—nothing but plenty bad stink,” said Moran. “No, you don’t!” she exclaimed, putting herself in Hoang’s way as he made for the cabin. The other beach-combers came crowding up; Wilbur even thought he saw one of them loosening his hatchet in his belt.

“This ship’s mine,” cried Moran, backing to the cabin door. Wilbur followed her, and the Chinamen closed down upon the pair.

“It’s not much use, Moran,” he muttered. “They’ll rush us in a minute.”

“But the ambergris is mine—is mine,” she answered, never taking her eyes from the confronting coolies.

“We findum w’ale,” said Hoang; “you no find w’ale; him b’long to we—eve’yt’ing in um w’ale b’long to we, savvy?”

“No, you promised us a third of everything you found.”

Even in the confusion of the moment it occurred to Wilbur that it was quite possible that at least two-thirds of the ambergris did belong to the beach-combers by right of discovery. After all, it was the beach-combers who had found the whale. He could never remember afterward whether or no he said as much to Moran at the time. If he did, she had been deaf to it. A fury of wrath and desperation suddenly blazed in her blue eyes. Standing at her side, Wilbur could hear her teeth grinding upon each other. She was blind to all danger, animated only by a sense of injustice and imposition.

Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies jumped forward, and Moran’s fist met him in the face and brought him to his knees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catch a sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little hatchet glinted over his head. He struck out savagely into the thick of the group—and then opened his eyes to find Moran washing the blood from his hair as he lay on the deck with his head in the hollow of her arm. Everything was quiet. The beach-combers were gone.

“Hello, what—what—what is it?” he asked, springing to his feet, his head swimming and smarting. “We had a row, didn’t we? Did they hurt you? Oh, I remember; I got a cut over the head—one of their hatchet men. Did they hurt you?”

“They got the loot,” she growled. “Filthy vermin! And just to make everything pleasant, the schooner’s sinking.”

VIII. A RUN FOR LAND

“SINKING!” exclaimed Wilbur.

Moran was already on her feet. “We’ll have to beach her,” she cried, “and we’re six miles out. Up y’r jib, mate!” The two set the jib, flying-jib, and staysails.

The fore and main sails were already drawing, and under all the spread of her canvas the “Bertha” raced back toward the shore.

But by the time she was within the head of the bay her stern had settled to such an extent that the forefoot was clear of the water, the bowsprit pointing high into the heavens. Moran was at the wheel, her scowl thicker than ever, her eyes measuring the stretch of water that lay between the schooner and the shore.

“She’ll never make it in God’s world,” she muttered as she listened to the wash of the water in the cabin under her feet. In the hold, empty barrels were afloat, knocking hollowly against each other. “We’re in a bad way, mate.”

“If it comes to that,” returned Wilbur, surprised to see her thus easily downcast, who was usually so indomitable—“if it comes to that, we can swim for it—a couple of planks—”

“Swim?” she echoed; “I’m not thinking of that; of course we could swim.”

“What then?”

“The sharks!”

Wilbur’s teeth clicked sharply together. He could think of nothing to say.

As the water gained between decks the schooner’s speed dwindled, and at the same time as she approached the shore the wind, shut off by the land, fell away. By this time the ocean was not four inches below the stern-rail. Two miles away was the nearest sand-spit. Wilbur broke out a distress signal on the foremast, in the hope that Charlie and the deserters might send off the dory to their assistance. But the deserters were nowhere in sight.

“What became of the junk?” he demanded suddenly of Moran. She motioned to the westward with her head. “Still lying out-side.”

Twenty minutes passed. Once only Moran spoke.

“When she begins to go,” she said, “she’ll go with a rush. Jump pretty wide, or you’ll get caught in the suction.”

The two had given up all hope. Moran held grimly to the wheel as a mere matter of form. Wilbur stood at her side, his clinched fists thrust into his pockets. The eyes of both were fixed on the yellow line of the distant beach. By and by Moran turned to him with an odd smile.