The Big Fellow Himself

They brought the Ethel and May alongside and loaded into her the
anchors, chains, spare cables, and several of the life-boats. Mayo took
charge of the expedition to the main.

The little schooner, sagging low with her burden, wallowed up the harbor
of Limeport just before sunset, one afternoon. Early June was abroad
on the seas and the pioneer yachting cruisers had been coaxed to the
eastward; Mayo saw several fine craft anchored inside the breakwater
and paid little attention to them. He paced the narrow confines of his
quarter-deck and felt the same kind of shame a ruined man feels when he
is on his way to the pawnshop for the first time. He had his head down;
he hated to look forward at the telltale cargo of the schooner.

"By ginger! here's an old friend of yours, this yacht!" called Mr.
Speed, who was at the wheel.

They were making a reach across the harbor to an anchorage well up
toward the wharves, and were passing under the stern of a big yacht.
Mayo looked up. It was the Olenia.

"But excuse me for calling it a friend, Captain Mayo," bawled the mate,
with open-water disregard of the possibilities of revelation in his
far-carrying voice.

A man rose from a chair on the yacht's quarter-deck and came to the
rail. Though the schooner passed hardly a biscuit-toss away, the man
leveled marine glasses, evidently to make sure that what he had guessed,
after Mr. Speed's remark, was true.