O come list awhile and you soon shall hear.
By the rolling sea lived a maiden fair.
Her father followed the sum-muggling trade
Like a warlike he-ro,
Like a warlike he-ro that never was aff-er-aid!
--The Female Smuggler.
Captain Mayo carried only doubts and discouragement back to the wreck on
Razee. His doubts were mostly concerned with the matter of the documents
which Mr. Fogg was seeking so insistently. Mayo himself had done a
little seeking. He inquired at the post-office, but there was no mail
for him. If no papers had been abstracted from the Marston archives,
if this affair were some new attempt at guile on the part of Fogg, the
promoter had certainly done a masterly bit of acting, Mayo told himself.
He determined to keep his own counsel and wait for developments.
Two days later the developments arrived at Razee in the person of
Captain Zoradus Wass, who came a-visiting in a chartered motor-boat. He
climbed the ladder, greeted his protégé with sailor heartiness, and
went on a leisurely tour of inspection.
"Something like a tinker's job on an iron kittle, son," he commented.
"You must have been born with some of the instincts of a plumber. Keep
on the way you're operating and you'll get her off."
"I'll never get her off by operating as I am just now, Captain Wass. We
are standing still. No money, no credit, no grub. I made a raise of
five thousand and have spent it. I don't dare to go to the old skinflint
again."
"Well, why not try the heiress?" inquired the old skipper. "You know I
have always advised you strong about the heiress."
"Look here, Captain Wass, I don't want to hear any more jokes on that
subject," objected the young roan, curtly.
"No joke to this," stated the captain, with serenity. "Let's step into
this stateroom." He led the way and locked the door.
"There's no joke, son," he repeated, "and I don't like to have you show
any tartness in the matter. Seeing what friends we have been, I ain't
taking it very kindly because you have been so mighty close-mouthed.
I'm a man to be trusted. You made a mistake in not telling me. The thing
'most fell down between me and her!"
He frowned reproachfully at the astonished Mayo.
"She came expecting, of course, that I was about your closest friend,
and when I had to own up that you have never mentioned her to me she
thought she had made a mistake in me, and wasn't going to give me the
thing!"