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Updated: May 26, 2025
And the way the old man spoke lifted the hair on my head. Then all of us were quiet, for there stood Captain Hammar himself. "Why, Mark, I thought you'd gone down the Cape!" said Conboy. "I lost the train," he answered. "Well, what about that vessel you was going to buy in Gloucester?" "I got to sail over," said Captain Hammar. Conboy glanced out of the window.
In all directions the ground was covered with the skeletons of those who had perished in attempting to cross the wilderness. At first only one or two were seen, but afterwards as many as fifty or sixty were passed in a day. At one place a hundred were found together, and near the wells of El Hammar they were lying too thickly to be counted.
I wanted to fling myself at "Nick" Hammar and beat him with my fists and say, "He sha'n't go he sha'n't, he sha'n't!" But I sat there unable to move or speak. Then suddenly into the frozen silence came the voice of "Nick" Hammar. This is what he said in his easy and tranquil way: "Well, I'm goin' along. Are you coming, Conboy?" He spoke as though nothing had happened.
Suddenly I noticed we were wallowing in the trough of the sea, and went on deck to see what was wrong. I groped my way to the wheel. It swung empty. Captain Hammar was gone, washed overboard in the storm. How I made port myself I don't know " Here his reading was interrupted by an awful noise Deolda laughing, Deolda laughing and sobbing, her hands above her head, a wild thing, terrible.
"I'm saying to Deolda here," said Captain Hammar, coming up to my aunt, "that I'll make a better runnin' mate than Conboy." He drew her up to him. There was something alike about them; the same devil flamed out of the eyes of both of them. Their glances met like forked lightning. "I've got a lot more money than him, too," said Hammar, jerking his thumb toward Conboy. He roused the devil in Deolda.
She'd sit mocking Conboy, but he'd only smile. She'd go off with her other love and my aunt powerless to stop her. As for Johnny Deutra, he was so in love that all he saw was Deolda. I don't believe he ever thought that she was in earnest about old Conboy. So things stood when one day Capt. Mark Hammar came driving up with Conboy to take Deolda out.
Old Conboy, tall as Mark Hammar, wide-shouldered, shambling like a bear, but a fine figure of an old fellow for all that; Mark Hammar, heavy and splendid in his sinister fashion; and between them Deolda with her big, red mouth and her sallow skin and her eyes burning as they did when she was excited.
"Don't you listen to 'em, Deolda. I'll make money for you; I'll make more than any of 'em. It's right you should want it. Tell 'em that you're going to marry me, Deolda. Clear 'em out." That was where he made his mistake. He should have cleared them out. Now Captain Hammar spoke: "You're quite a little man, ain't you, Johnny? Here's where you got a chance to prove it.
He sat smiling at Johnny. "We-ll," he drawled. "How about it, Johnny? Goin'?" Johnny had been studying, his eyes on the floor. "I'll go with you," he said. Then again for a half minute nobody spoke. Captain Hammar glared, letting us see what was in his dark mind. Old Conboy shrunk into himself and Deolda sat with her wild eyes going from one to the other, but not moving.
Now, when I wanted anything done, the first person that passed my library door was stopped, no matter what her work might be at the time, sent for a clothes brush, needle or hammar, and the thing was done at once. It acted like a charm, and all went on well.
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