United States or Cayman Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I had rather trust Sailor Jack Jepson," murmured Ruth in a low voice. Meanwhile work on refitting the schooner had gone on apace. The moving picture girls, and their friends, had paid several visits to her, and found Captain Brisco, Jack Jepson and the others hard at work making the vessel a semblance of her former self.
Captain Brisco, after a moment of hesitation, went up on deck again, and, had anyone observed him, they would have seen him in close conversation with Hen Lacomb. The two men spoke in low tones. Jack Jepson was soon himself again, and on duty as though nothing had happened. But he had created a very queer state of mind in Alice DeVere.
"But we must wait for him!" Ruth cried, getting excited. "We can't go off and leave them in that motorboat, on the ocean, in a storm! We must wait!" She started toward Captain Brisco, with her hands held out appealingly. Alice was wildly looking around for a sight of the smaller craft.
"Hello, Captain Brisco!" called Mr. Pertell. "That is, if that's the proper nautical greeting." "Oh, Mr. Pertell. I didn't recognize you," said the commander of the Mary Ellen. "I beg your pardon! Won't you walk this way?" "We are on a little tour of inspection," the manager went on. "These are some of my principle moving picture actors, and I want them to get familiar with the ship.
But now we've got to do something. The water's comin' in fast, and if we can't stop it, we'll have to take to the boats." "Look here!" stormed Captain Brisco, and his voice was almost in keeping with the howl of the gale all about them, and almost as raucous as the salty spray that flew over everything. "Look here! Who is captain of this ship?" "You are," replied Jack quietly enough.
It did seem so, for there were no signs yet, of one being lowered over the side, though Captain Brisco, after the command to lay to, had ordered his accommodation ladder lowered to receive the visitors. Then came another hail from the steamer. "Mary Ellen ahoy!" "Aye, aye!" "We won't send a boat right away.
Jack Jepson had overheard this plot, and, as he had said, found the incriminating document signed by Lacomb. This was hidden in a secret compartment in what had formerly been his bunk, when the schooner was the Halcyon. When Brisco and Lacomb discovered that Jepson knew their secret, they tried to get rid of him, by a seeming accident.
As she descended the sloping stairs, holding to the rope rail to prevent stumbling, she saw Captain Brisco spring forward. Whatever else he was, the commander did not shrink from any emergency. "Cut away that mast!" he cried. "She'll have us stove in if we don't cut her loose!" "Aye, aye, sir!" answered Jack.
He leaned up against a bulkhead, while Alice glanced back at her friends in some surprise. What meant the words they had overheard? The old sailor seemed strangely excited, and he was passing his hand over the paneling of the cabin as though in search of something long forgotten, or dimly remembered. A moment later another step was heard in the apartment, and Captain Brisco entered.
There was a tangle of ropes, a banging and slamming of canvas, which, stretched taut and to its utmost, was as stiff as a board. There was a rattling of blocks and the creaking of the boom-crotches against the masts. The squeak of the gaffs higher up added to the din. The shouting of Captain Brisco, and the answering calls of his men did not lessen the confusion. "Lower away!
Word Of The Day