The Cruise of the Dry Dock | Page 6

by his absence. Within twenty or thirty minutes, however, he was back, but in perceptibly better spirits. He worked briskly for a few minutes, then dropped brush in pail and turned to Leonard as if no shadow had crossed their acquaintance.
"Well, Madden, we can hardly blame the old Phoenicians for guarding the secret of the Cassiterides, can we?"
The American almost fell off the platform in surprise.
"Why--er--no, I don't blame 'em," he blurted, not having a ghost of a notion what the Englishman was talking about. "No, I--I never blamed 'em a bit--never did."
"Those were poetic days, Madden."
The American stared, his mind as much at sea as his body.
"Think of that Phoenician sailing his galley for the Isles of Tin. The Romans follow him, day after day, week after week. But does he betray the secret of Tyre's wealth?" Caradoc made a gesture. Madden was about to answer that he didn't know, when the orator went on.
"He does not. Rather than expose the rich mines of Cornwall, he dashes his galley upon a reef and risks his life among the early English barbarians."
"Was it here where that happened?" asked Madden interestedly, fishing some such tale from the bottom of his recollection.
Caradoc stood upright on the swinging platform, hands thrust in jacket pockets, thumbs out, Oxford fashion. His tall form swayed slowly with the steady rise and fall of the dock.
"Certainly, the Cassiterides is Cornwall, and that point of land just ahead is the spot where the Tyrian wrecked his ship, so the legend goes."
Madden's eyes followed Caradoc's gesture. "I've read that story, but I never thought of seeing the place."
"Cornwall is entrancing if you care for antiquities," went on Smith in the polished style of a collegiate. "Four or five miles up that cape are the Boskednan Circles and the Dawns-un, old Druidic stone temples. Just across the peninsula is St. Ives, where the virgin Hya appeared miraculously. It is really regrettable, Madden, that you are leaving England before you tour Cornwall. A wonderful little island, England. A land to live for--or to die for, God willing."
Caradoc stared toward the coast, frowning, with the old familiar look of pain coming into his eyes. His hearer and his extemporaneous lecture plainly slipped out of his mind.
"You've been along here before," suggested Madden with a hope of diverting Smith's mind.
"Oh, yes," replied the Englishman gloomily.
"Sailor, perhaps?"
"Yes."
"Not another dry dock, I trust," laughed Madden, turning to work.
"No."
"Windjammer?"
"Yes."
Leonard nodded at his painting. "Fishing smack, I'll bet."
The cross-questioning was interrupted by a raucous voice overhead, and both boys looked up to see the mate's thick torso hanging over the rail. He was shaking his fist at the tall Englishman.
"W'ot you think we brought you along for?" he bawled savagely. "To give lectures? If you don't paint and quit blowin', you win' bag, I'll ship you at Penzance!"
Caradoc's face went white, leaving threadlike purple veins showing on nose and cheeks. "I'm willing to do my duty," he said with a quiver in his tone. He glanced at his empty paint bucket. "If I'm to work, bring me paint--I'm out!"
Caradoc seemed to be able to make the mate madder and do it quicker than anyone else.
"Paint! Bring you paint!" roared Malone, apoplectic. "Git out an' git your paint, or I'll put a longer, uglier head than that on your shoulders."
Caradoc gave a shrug, stooped for the bucket, then began composedly climbing the ladder straight at the sputtering officer.
"Be careful there, Smith," warned Madden in an undertone; "he'd as soon as not slug you without giving you a dog's chance."
Caradoc said nothing but continued his climbing. The men on the platform fore and aft ceased work, watching the mate and the climbing man intently. The silence following the usual drone of conversation was noticeable.
Caradoc was just reaching up to climb into Malone, when at that moment something happened that drew and held everybody's attention.
The whole face of the sea around the dock broke into a sort of sputtering. The ocean seemed to boil. To his astonishment, Madden saw the commotion was caused by millions of small fishes leaping and running along the surface.
Cries came from all over the dock at once: "Pilchards! Pilchards are shoaling! Pilchards are shoaling!"
The few gulls in the sky now seemed to multiply and settled in a fluttering cloud to strike such easily captured food. Among the press of little fish leaped cod, hake, dog fish, all feasting on the annual migration of the pilchards. The crew on the dock scrambled up and over the sides, flung down boxes, buckets, anything and scooped the fish from the sea.
The diversion saved the Englishman from any bellicose intention of the mate, who hurried off to take a hand in the sport. Madden sat on his platform watching the fun, for it was a remarkable sight. Caradoc swung