The foaming fore shore/Chapter 4

EHIND Taylor, breaking into the cool night air upon the chaotic deck, came Lance, guiding the stumbling Peter and Anne up the ladder by the arms, while after Lance, with tugging and shouting, Hughie Hay, Irish Kerrigan, Boston Jim, Patterson, Scotty McCaig and Tom Halifax heaved the women to safety.

As Taylor straightened himself up on the Auk's deck he saw through the black snarl of her mainsheets the wings of another schooner all silver in the moonlight.

"Brown," he yelled, taking it at first for the Graywing. "Brown—but hold on, it's not my schooner! It's the Esperance."

"Oui, the Esperance, and quite at your service, Capitaine Taylor," spoke an even voice from the stern of the Auk.

Taylor wheeled and stared through the amazing litter of boats, oars, buoys and fishers' paraphernalia that covered the vessel from bow to stern. A boat full of men was moored to the rail, and three boarding figures cast long inky shadows across the afterdeck.

Instantly Taylor recognized the figures that cast the shadows: Pellier of the Groix, his well-knit body and military shoulders filling his commanding admiral's uniform, his close-clipped brown beard touched silver by the moon and his keen brown eyes,' far-focused from their constant sea-ranging, burning out under the peak of his cap; Jacques Beauport, boyish midshipman of the Groix, likewise in uniform, dark-eyed, swarthy-skinned, with the stealthy reserve of a heart unfathomable stamped on his Breton face; and "Codroy John," Pellier's skipper of the Esperance, a gigantic bearded Newfoundlander dressed in moleskin trousers and canvas jacket, with a rugged, craggy face and deep blue eyes prophetic as the eyes of a seer.

"At your service, Capitaine Taylor!" repeated Pellier. "And what is the trouble this time, I would like to know?"

"None of my making but yours for the 'tending," answered Taylor gruffly. "Though I've done half the job for you. There was a drunken fight below and we got the Lavals and all the women out for fear of their being trampled."

"Dieu—the Lavals!" exclaimed Pellier, leaning forward and staring at old Peter and Anne in the moonlight.

His eyes switched to the face of the girl Taylor held, and the Gloucester captain saw him start and draw up his shoulders more rigidly.

"Then in that case," Pellier went on rapidly in a voice official in its intonation, "I shall put them ashore in my boat while my men restore order in the Auk's hold. Jacques! Codroy John! Tell them I am aboard and let that still their tongues or they will be taken in charge."

Jacques Beauport and Codroy John dived below, and Taylor could hear them yelling above the din, Beauport's shrill staccato cries spacing Codroy John's booming roar.

"Stinking cod-hunters! Voilà, will you revel in the cells at St. John's? Listen, makers of a thousand smells—the admiral himself is on your cluttered deck. Oui, Admiral Pellier of the Groix!"

"Aye," in Codroy's bass, "I'd like to die if he bain't! A stench ye be in the nose o' the Lard, ye fools! A powerful lot o' breakers o' Newfoundland navigation laws, runnin' a vessel wild like this! Back to yer bunks or ye'll lose yer voyage and face the Admiralty Court at St. John's!"

Under the threat and the warning of Pellier's nearness the tumult died down below decks, and Pellier himself waved old Peter and Anne, meek as whipped curs, into the Esperance's waiting boat.

"You, too, Marie—quickly!" he begged, anxious to retrieve as far as possible an awkward situation.

Marie hesitated, her violet-blue eyes meeting Taylor's for a moment in the moon-glow before she slipped out of his protecting grip.

"Au revoir, mon Viking, I will thank you better when I can," she whispered as she glided after her father and mother.

With an odd feeling that somehow he had been robbed of the fruits of his efforts below, Taylor watched the black boat streaking off to the Esperance.

"Marie, Pellier called her," he exclaimed, turning slowly to Lance. "So the admiral knows her as well as the parents—knows her that well?"

Lance nodded confidentially.

"Knows her well," he coincided, "and he would marry her in a moment if she would speak the word. But, there, hers is the heart of a maid with a score of suitors, among whom Jacques Beauport and his commander are chief. The heart of a maid, Taylor, and an impulsive heart at that. You know how they are. She won't pledge herself to the admiral, much less to Beauport, though old Peter and Anne urge and threaten and scheme. Do you think her beautiful, Captain?"

"The most beautiful girl on the fore shore!" admitted Taylor without hesitation. "But is she—is she—well, Lance, I can't bring myself to say it of a girl like her, but you know what some of the women on these cursed freighters are, don't you?"

Again Lance nodded, seriously, regretfully, his face all thoughtful lines in the moonlight.

"That I do," he confessed, "and my protest based on this specific case goes to the Government tonight. But not Marie! I can take an oath under heaven on that. Marie is pure as the heart of an iceberg is pure. A victim of nothing but circumstances, Taylor—that and unsavory parents. Hello—there's another schooner abeam of the Esperance. Is it your Graywing coming about? My eyes fail me in the dazzle of the moon.

Taylor looked up and gave an affirmative shake of his head.

"The Graywing, boys o' mine," he announced to his clustering crew. "Borrow some of the Auk's dories for a minute and we'll row back to the schooner."