friends provided the bail, and three days later, Tibby stood up, bowed to the judge, and
when court was convened, the defendants asked: were brought up for trial, the grand jury
“Judge, your honor. I want to ask you
having filed true bills against them.
for just one favor. Kin I do that?”
The cases were to be tried jointly. The
“Certainly you may ask for it, but as to
court asked the defendants if they had an
whether or not I shall grant it depends
attorney, to which question Tibby replied altogether on its nature.”
negatively. The court explained the graveness
“It’s this, judge, your honor: I’d like to
of the charge and intimated that it would be have one of them demijohns of aguardiente unwise for the defendants to let the cases go brought in here.”
on trial without legal aid.
The request was granted readily, and
“I don’t need no lawyer, judge, your
Wray directed two of his men to go to the
honor. I kin save that money, ’cause I’m going customs storage-room, which was in the same
to win this case as easy as that.” Tihby struck building, and get a demijohn.
his thigh, a blow which sounded throughout
Tibby, when the demijohn was brought
the court-room, and looked at the judge and
into the court-room, pulled out his jack-knife about the room with his piggy eyes half-and cut the fine wire fastened over the cork.
closed, as though he were peering into the
He took out the cork, and gripping the
teeth of a gale. His lips were pressed together demijohn by the wicker handles, held it up
so tightly the upper parts of his full cheeks before the judge.
puffed out on the sides of his little round nose.
“Now, judge, your honor, I want to ask
The judge raised a paper up before his
you something else: Is it against the law of face, the United States district attorney rubbed this free country to draw up salt water out here
All-Story Weekly
6
in the channel and bring it into port without
“Motion granted.” The judge looked at
paying duty?”
his docket. “The United States of America
“Of course not.”
against Lloyd Estermann et al.—”
“Then I ask you to set me free, and set
Wray walked out of the court-room,
my crew free, ’cause this demijohn’s full of too shamefaced to look about him. He heard
salt water, and all the demijohns, which these men chuckling; he knew he was the object of a live inspectors caught us with, are full of salt hundred amused eyes. Out in the corridor an
inspector called out, “Just a minute, chief!”
An examination of the contents in the
but Wray did not even look back. He hurried
demijohn in the court-room and the contents
down the steps to the first floor, through the in the other demijohns corroborated Tibby’s
front door, and out into the street.
assertion.
A spitty rain was falling, but Wray
Bulging eyes and gaping mouths were
apparently was not conscious of it. His blood the expressions characteristic of the inspectors burned his cheeks, his ears; a sickening
and most of the court officials, but the feeling gripped him in the pit of the stomach.
audience tittered and whispered as it had done Yes, he had discovered a mare’s nest., The
before, with the “other fellow,” though, the laugh, the grand ha-ha! was on him. Tibby, a object of its amusement.
coarse sea captain, and his wily Cuban mate
“Judge, your honor, I want to tell you
had “put one over” on him. Yes, he felt like a why me and my crew, ’specially my mate,
corner bully must feel when the smallest boy done this. We all’s law-abiding citizens; we in the crowd thrashes him—he wanted to hide
never tried to smuggle nothing into port, and away from the world.
wouldn’t try for my ship’s hold full of money.
Wray avoided looking at passers-by.
I told the chief that two trips ago; but he kept He felt the whole world knew he had been
up houn’ing us, and I swore I’d get square.
duped and, in knowing, was laughing at him.
One night Senor Rodriguez, my mate, and me
That little boy who brushed up against him
put our heads together, and I says to—”
and blurted out, “ ’Cuse me, mister!” must
“Further explanation is unnecessary, have heard about the outcome of the case, else Captain Tibby. Mr. Inspector” —the judge
why that taunting ring in his voice? Big Ben looked at Wray, who stood up— “to save the
Pitt had heard about it, too, because his
court, and you, too, unnecessary expense and
“Hello, chief!” didn’t sound cheerily, as it had loss of time in the future, I suggest that you, sounded always before then. That was because before you arrest anybody on a charge of
Big Ben was a kindly soul, and had
smuggling, ascertain that the thing he brings considerately injected subdued sympathy into into port, without entering it in the custom-his tone.
house, is dutiable. William F. Tibby, Sylvester Most worried men try to find solace in
Crimsey, John Elwin Haynes, and Moses drink: a few, like Sir Walter Scott, seek it in Tudgers, stand up.”
playing chess, and some try to ease their
When the men were lined up before
minds in fishing and in other ways. Wray
the bar, the judge, having had a whispered
didn’t drink and didn’t know how to play
word or two with the district attorney, chess. He went fishing, though not so much resumed: “Mr. District Attorney, you may because that was his chief pastime as that he make your motion.”
laughing at his asininity.
cases against Tibby and the other defendants Though the sun was nearly an hour
be dismissed.
high, darkness was gathering fast when Wray
Hatched in a Mare’s Nest
7
dropped overboard a grapple from a dingy out because, though the tones were low, he made
in the channel. Motionless clouds hung low in out that one person talked in fairly good
the heavens, and a warm drizzle fell. There
Spanish and another in broken English.
wasn’t sufficient breath to flicker the flame of Wray crawled up to the bow of the
a candle, and the current wasn’t strong enough dingy and pulled up the grapple. He had just to make a ripple at the stem of Wray’s dingy.
started to scull in pursuit of the voices, when It became so dark Wray couldn’t see
he heard somebody, a few yards away on his
the bait on the stern-thwart beside him, port (the other voices had come from a point couldn’t see the fish he caught. Several times, on his starboard), say: “Yea, bo! You kin bet while he held them dangling at the end of his yer old corncob I’se gwine ter marry her w’en line, he felt about for them, like a person
I gets ma share.”
trying to find a hanging electric-light button in Wray stopped sculling until the second
a dark room. But the darker it grew the better boat had passed fifty feet or so ahead of him, Wray liked it. At times he looked at the lights, and then started to follow it. He strained his which seemed to be dying for want of oxygen, eyes in attempts to see the boats, but not a on the ships i
n the harbor, and wished they
shadow, not an outline could he distinguish.
would go out. Total darkness suited his mental But it was easy to follow the rear boat,
state; he wished it would stay dark forever.
because somebody in it continued to talk light-He lost all conception of the passing of
heartedly about his intended marriage.
time. Hour after hour passed. The drizzle,
Wray trailed the boats to the end of the
more like a heavy dew, continued. Most of the gasoline wharf, which ran three hundred feet time Wray was engrossed in a brown study;
out into the water, and on the easterly side of fish bit at his line without his trying to hook which (they were going in that direction) is a them. At other times he looped his line round point of beach that juts out into the bay.
the sculling-hole upright and sat with his
Wray sculled fast along the westerly
elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, side of the wharf, and when he neared its land thinking, thinking.
end, fastened his dingy to a concrete pillar and How could he ever face his friends
climbed up on the wharf. He ran about a small again? How long would he be the butt of their sheet-iron building at the easterly side of the jokes? That very instant they were horse-wharf, clambered over piles of cinders and
laughing about him—
clinkers, and reached the point of beach in
Wray raised his head suddenly and time to hear somebody say: “This way, Mose; craned his neck forward, listening. He thought this way.”
he had heard voices. No; there wasn’t any
Hulks of boats lay here and there along
sound, save his tense breathing and the the edge of the beach. Wray walked rippling about his dingy, for the current was cautiously, swinging his arms in front of him, running strongly. Probably he was “hearing
until he discerned figures a few yards ahead of things,” or “going dippy.” He bowed his head, him, standing or moving like silhouettes on a and a moment later thought again he had
screen. Crouched, he shuffled sidewise,
heard voices. And again he listened, with his slowly, noiselessly, feeling about him, trying head raised.
to find a hulk behind which to wait until he Yes, he was right—he heard the voices
was ready for action. He stepped into the
coming nearer and nearer to him.
water and slipped, causing it to splash.
The voices passed by him; how near he
“Wat dat, cap?”
could not determine, for he could not see
Wray squatted on his haunches.
anything. But they must have been close, Silence ensued for a few seconds.
All-Story Weekly
8
“Your ’magination, Mose. You’re salt water, too, captain?”
nervous as a landlubber out on a bowsprit. Get
“Gawd:”
’em ashore, boys. Pab, give ’em a hand.”
A tall, lank figure, headed toward the
Wray raised himself up a few inches
heaps of cinders and clinkers, swept by Wray.
and took a revolver from his hip pocket. He let Wray fired his revolver into the air, and the himself down again and waited.
figure stopped suddenly.
He heard somebody counting until he
“Come back here, you d---y, or I’ll put
reached twenty. “They all here, boys.” And
a bullet in you.”
then the same voice said in Spanish: “Pab, it
“Fer Gawd’s sake, chief, don’t shoot!
ought to be time for Flippey to be here.”
I’se coming, I’se coming.”
“He say, cap, he be here one sure.”
“I asked you, Captain Tibby, if that’s
“It’s mighty close to one now. Go out
salt water, too.”
there and see if you—”
Tibby grumbled and turned his back to
Wray bounded toward Tibby, stopping
Wray. “Damn it, chief, you’re worse’n a
two or three paces away, from him. “Is that
houn’ dawg!”