Chapter II: A Bit of Acting

For the next ten minutes I was too busy tuning the launch up to her best performance to pay much attention to the others, or even to realize the oddity of my position.

I refilled the grease cups, which I found had run pretty low, screwed them down to a good tension, and gave a look at the sight tubes of the automatic oiler.

Of course, the engine, new to me, was a bit of a problem. Twice she choked--not to a stop, but enough to make Stevens cast an apprehensive eye back at me. A quarter turn of the needle valve did the trick, though; and, as though she were chortling at a mischievous prank, she settled down to a steady, mile-eating gurgle.

Finally--it was just about as we were quitting the harbor for the open Sound--I found time to flop myself down upon the engineer’s transom and size up the situation.

Stevens, the skipper, was no problem at all. I had him right on my thumb nail. His like are to be encountered the yacht world over. A punctilious, efficient commander of any kind of a pleasure vessel from two hundred feet to twenty overall length. No great head on him, but a perfect wonder at taking orders and obeying them. And dumb as a bivalve.

The owner bothered me far more; partly, as was natural, from the fact that I didn’t get one really fair-and-square look at him. He stood squarely beside Stevens at the wheel, his watch in his palm, and his eyes never off the water ahead. This I did notice, though: his head, in the intensity of his gaze, had a trick of settling forward and down. Not a crouch, but buzzardlike and scouring.

Somehow I caught myself fancying that I’d recognize that attitude when I saw it again. Events, however, will prove that I wasn’t quite as smart as I thought I was.

But it was as though I had been saving up for the verdict that hit me fairly between the eyes when I finally settled covert attention upon the girl. Sudden is no name for it.

Once clear of the harbor, and with the freshing, southerly breeze whipping smartly, she flung aside the disgusting veil with a pleasure as apparent as my own at having her do it. And, eyes dancing to the delight of it all, for a bit of spray was flying, she fairly made me a comrade with the smile of a gleeful child.

Now I’m not going to waste any words as to whether such things ever really do happen or not. I’m not even going to slack up my yarn, describing the how, when, or where.

The fact remains; and it was real fact. I dug it then and there from somewhere ’way down in some inner chink of me where I’m only half awake. But I never yet was fooled from that quarter.

That little girl there on that plush-covered transom was born to be my wife.

And the funniest thing about it all was that it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world. There was an “of-courseness” to it that was fairly delicious; and the fact that she herself hadn’t waked to it quite yet was immaterial.

The bell brought me back to machinery, and suddenly. I checked her to half speed, and peered ahead for the cause of it. We were just abreast Stepping Stones Light, just to north’ard of it, and with plenty of clear water ahead. I saw nothing to justify any change in speed, especially since up to this time both men had seemed most keen to get every revolution possible out of her.

I noticed, however, that they were scanning closely a column of black smoke that was slowly moving along the farther side of Throgg’s Neck. Finally a long puff of white steam showed against the darker smoke, and, some seconds thereafter, the hoarse toot of a whistle told me that a steamer, whose hull was invisible beyond the land, was approaching the turn at Fort Schuyler.

Stevens and the owner whispered a moment, then the little skipper jangled the bell once more for full speed. But even then I didn’t tumble to the thing. I don’t believe yet that I am much to be blamed for stupidity on this score, however; for the next few minutes certainly were crowded with the unusual.

I have often since marveled at the nicety with which Stevens had calculated the relative distances. He certainly knew his book when it came to helmsmanship.

For, at the moment that the bluff bows of the steamer, rounding the point and keeping to the channel, straightened out to lay a course to Execution Rocks, then it was that Stevens edged our course sharply to port.

This, in turn, he followed by a frantic pawing of the wheel’s spoke to starboard. It was some of the finest acting I had ever seen; and no one in the world would have suspected him of being other than a distinctly panic-stricken helmsman whose steering gear had suddenly gone all to pot.

And it really was dangerous. I can still see that black wall of steel plates towering above us; for he had actually had the nerve to whirl the launch within ten feet of the steamer.

In the glance I shot up to the vessel’s rail, I could see the frightened eyes of several passengers; and, above them, in the farther distance of the bridge, an officer was fingering a bell pull hesitatingly.

Whether the owner saw his indecision, I don’t know, but his action seemed to point to that effect; for he suddenly grabbed our whistle cord, and sent shriek after shriek in a perfect panic of nervousness. And all this time Stevens was clawing the wheel. Then suddenly he gave me “full speed astern.” It was enough to wrench the gears’ bearings apart; but I swung her to it. And we groaned and churned astern.

Then it was that the officer on the bridge did signal his engine room, and he sang out in clear bass:

“What’s the trouble? Can’t you work clear of me?”

I could well understand the disgust that was only slightly veiled; for yachtsmen certainly are a nuisance to the professional seaman, especially the new-fledged power boatmen.

But it was an imperative tone that met him.

“The steering gear’s clean gone!” bellowed Stevens, in a volume I could never have credited to his diminutive frame. “Drop us a ladder.”

And, without so much as a hint of hesitancy, the little fellow shoved a boat hook back at me with the word to keep by the steamer, which had not yet quite lost her way.

I believe it was really because he caught sight of the girl, who was naturally terrified. Anyway, the officer shot out a sharp order, and next instant the coils and rungs of a rope boarding ladder came swaying down to us.

“Come on, Stella,” chuckled the owner, taking her arm and trying hard to repress his gleeful satisfaction at the way things were going. “Keep a stiff upper lip, girl, and hold tight. There’s really no danger, and you are as spry as a monkey. Up you go!”

And up she did go with an agility and grace that only a man who knows a rope ladder could appreciate.

The owner followed her immediately; and, the instant he was fairly on his way to the deck of the steamer above us, I got my next surprise.

“Shove off!” snapped Stevens, in a sharp whisper to me.

Almost mechanically I did so; for I was in that particular daze of unreality we are all familiar with.

“Full speed ahead!” came the next quick command; and I threw the gear from the “neutral.” The cogs caught nicely, and we gathered instant motion.

And in less than a minute thereafter we were speeding away, the steering gear working like new.

In my day I have known more conventional ways of taking passage to Portland, Maine.

For I read the steamer’s name on the stern. I had sailed on her once myself.