"This gold," went on Carlsen, "is not a commodity made in a factory, obtained through the toil of others, through the expenditure of capital.If it were, it would not alter the principle of the thing. It is of nature's own providing for those of her sons who shall find it and gather it. Sons that, as brothers, must willingly share and share alike."
Lund yawned, showing his strong teeth and the red cavern of his mouth. The hunters gazed at him curiously. The seamen, lacking initiative, lacking imagination, a crude collection of water-front drifters, more or less wrecked specimens of humanity who went to sea because they had no other capacity—were apathetic, listening to Carlsen with a sort of awe, a hypnosis before his argument that street rabble exhibit before the jargon of a soap-box orator.
Carlsen promised them something, therefore they followed him. But the hunters, more independent, more intelligent, seemed expecting an outburst from Lund and, because it was not forthcoming, they were a little uneasy.
"Share and share alike," said Lund. "I've got yore drift, Carlsen. Let's get down tobrass tacks. The idea is to divvy the gold into equal parts, ain't it? How does she split? There's twenty-five souls aboard. Does that mean you split the heap into a hundred parts an' each one gits four?"
"No." It was Deming who answered. "It don't. The Jap don't come in, for one."
"A cook ain't a brother?"
"Not when he's got a yellow skin," answered Deming. "We'll take up a collection for Sandy. Rainey ain't in on the deal. We split it just twenty-two ways. What have you got to say about it?"
His tone was truculent, and Carlsen did not appear disposed to check him. He appeared not quite certain of the temper of the hunters. Deming, like Rainey, evidently chafed under the preliminaries.
"You figger we're all equal aboard," said Lund slowly, "leavin' out Mr. Rainey, Tamada an' Sandy. You an' me, an' Carlsen an' Harris there"—he nodded toward one of the seaman delegates who listened with his slack mouthagape, scratching himself under the armpit—"are all equal?"
Deming cast a glance at Harris and, for just a moment, hesitated.
Harris squirming under the look of Deming, which was aped by the sudden scrutiny of all the hunters, found speech: "How in hell did you know I was here?" he demanded of Lund. "I ain't opened my mouth yit!"
"That ain't the truth, Harris," replied Lund composedly. "It's allus open. But if you want to know, I smelled ye."
There was a guffaw at the sally. Carlsen's voice stopped it.
"I'll answer the question, Lund. Yes, we're all equal. The world is not a democracy. Harris, so far, hasn't had a chance to get the equal share that belongs to him by rights. That's what I meant by saying that theKarlukwas a little world of its own. We're all equal on board."
"Except Rainey, Tamada an' Sandy. Seems to me yore argumint's got holes in it, Carlsen."
"We are waiting to know whether you agree with us?" replied Carlsen. His voice had altered quality. It held the direct challenge. Lund accepted it.
"I don't," he answered dryly. "There ain't enny one of you my equal, an' you've showed it. There ain't enny one of you, from Carlsen to Harris, who'd have the nerve to put it up to me alone. You had to band together in a pack, like a flock of sheep, with Carlsen for sheepherder.I'm talking," he went on in a tone that suddenly leaped to thunder. "None of you have got the brains of Carlsen, becoz he had to put this scheme inter yore noddles. Deming, you think yo're a better man than Harris, you know damn' well you play better poker than the rest, an' you agreed to this becoz you figger you'll win most of the gold afore the v'yage is over. The rest of you suckers listened becoz some one tells you you are goin' to get more than what's rightly comin' to you.
"This gold is mine by right of discovery. I lose my ship through bad luck, an' I make a deal whereby the skipper gets the same as I do, an' the ship, which is the same as his daughter, gets almost as much. You men were offered a share on top of yore wages if you wanted to take the chance—two shares to the hunters. It was damned liberal, an' you grabbed at it. I got left on the ice, blind on a breakin' floe, an' you sailed off an' grabbed a handful or so of gold, enough to set you crazy.
"What in blazes would you know what to do with it, enny of you? Spill it all along the Barb'ry Coast, or gamble it off to Deming. Is there one of you 'ud have got off thet floe an', blind as I was, turned up ag'in? Not one of ye. An' when Ididshow you got sore becoz you'd figgered there 'ud be more with me away.
"A fine lot of skunks. You can take yore damned bit of paper an' light yore pipes with it, for all of me. To hell with it!
"Shut up!" His voice topped the murmurs at the table. Rainey saw Carlsen sitting backwith his tongue-tip showing in a grin, tapping the table with the folded paper in one hand, the other in his lap, leaning back a little. He was like a man waiting for the last bet to be made before he exposed the winning hand.
"As for bein' equal, I've told you Carlsen's got the brains of you all. The skipper's dyin', Carlsen expects to marry his gal. An' he figgers thet way on pullin' down three shares to yore one. You say Rainey ain't in on the deal. He's as much so as Carlsen. Carlsen butts in as a doctor an' a fine job he's made of it. Skipper nigh dead. A hell of a doctor! Smoke up, all of you."
Carlsen sat quiet, sometimes licking his lips gently, listening to Lund as he might have listened to the rantings of a melodramatic actor. But Rainey sensed that he was making a mistake. He was letting Lund go too far. The men were listening to Lund, and he knew that the giant was talking for a specific purpose. Just to what end he could not guess.The big booming voice held them, while it lashed them.
"Equal to me? Bah! I'm aman. Yo're a lot of fools. Talk about me bein' blind. It was ice-blink got me. Then ophthalmy matterin' up my eyes. It's gold-blink's got you. Yo're cave-fish, a lot of blind suckers."
He leaned over the table pointing a massive square finger, thatched with red wool, direct at Carlsen, as if he had been leveling a weapon.
"Carlsen's a fake! He's got you hipped. He thinks he's boss, becoz he's the only navigator of yore crowd. I ain't overlooked that card, Carlsen. That ain't the only string he's got on ye. Nor the three shares he expects to pull down. He made you pore suckers fire off all your shells; he found out you ain't got a gun left among you that's enny more use than a club. He's got a gun an' he showed you how he could use it. He's sittin' back larfin' at the bunch of you!"
The men stirred. Rainey saw Carlsen's grindisappear. He dropped the paper. His face paled, the veins showed suddenly like purple veins in dirty marble.
"I've got that gun yet, Lund," he snarled.
Lund laughed, the ring of it so confident that the men glanced from him to Carlsen nervously.
"Yo're a fake, Carlsen," he said. "And I've got yore number! To hell with you an' yore popgun. You ain't even a doctor. I saw real doctors ashore about my eyes. Niphablepsia, they call snow-blindness. I'll bet you never heard of it. Yo're only a woman-conning dope-shooter! Else you'd have known that niphablepsia ain'tpermanent! I've bin' gettin' my sight back ever sence I left Seattle. An' now, damn you for a moldy hearted, slimy souled fakir, stand up an' say yo're my equal!"
He stood up himself, towering above the rest as they rose from their chairs, tearing the black glasses from his eyes and flinging them at Carlsen, who was forced to throw up a hand to ward them off. Rainey got one glimpse ofthe giant's eyes. They were gray-blue, the color of agate-ware, hard as steel, implacable.
Carlsen swept aside the spectacles and they shattered on the floor as he leaped up and the automatic shone in his hand. Lund had folded his arms above his great chest. He laughed again, and his arms opened.
In an instant Rainey caught the object of Lund's speech-making. He had done it to enrage Carlsen beyond endurance, to make him draw his gun. Giant as he was, he moved with the grace of a panther, with a swiftness too fast for the eye to register. Something flashed in his right hand, a gun, that he had drawn from a holster slung over his left breast.
The shots blended. Lund stood there erect, uninjured. A red blotch showed between Carlsen's eyes. He slumped down into his chair, his arms clubbing the table, his gun falling from his nerveless hand, his forehead striking the wood like the sound of an auctioneer's gavel. Lund had beaten him to the draw.
Lund, no longer a blind Samson, with contemptin his agate eyes, surveyed the scattering group of men who stared at the dead man dully, as if gripped by the exhibition of a miracle.
"It's all right, Miss Simms," he said. "Jest killed a skunk. Rainey, git that gun an' attend to the young lady, will you?"
The girl stood in the doorway of her father's cabin, her face frozen to horror, her eyes fixed on Lund with repulsion. As Rainey got the automatic, slipped it into his pocket, and went toward her, she shrank from him. But her voice was for Lund.
"You murderer!" she cried.
Lund grinned at her, but there was no laughter in his eyes.
"We'll thrash that out later, miss," he said. "Now, you men, jump for'ard, all of you. Deming, unlock that door.Jump!Equals, are you? I'll show you who's master on this ship. Wait!"
His voice snapped like the crack of a whip and they all halted, save Deming, who sullenlyfitted the key to the lock of the corridor entrance.
"Take this with you," said Lund, pointing to Carlsen's sagging body. "When you git tired of his company, throw him overboard. Jump to it!"
The nearest men took up the body of the doctor and they all filed forward, silently obedient to the man who ordered them.
"They ain't all whipped yit," said Lund. "Not them hunters. They're still sufferin' from gold-blink, but I'll clean their eyesight for 'em. Look after the lady an' her father, Rainey."
Tamada entered as if nothing had happened. He carried a tray of dishes and cutlery that he laid down on the table.
"Never mind settin' a place for Carlsen, Tamada," said Lund. "He's lost his appetite—permanent." The Oriental's face did not change.
"Yes, sir," he answered.
The girl shuddered. Rainey saw that Lundwas exhilarated by his victory, that the primitive fighting brute was prominent. Carlsen had tried to shoot first, goaded to it; his death was deserved; but it seemed to Rainey that Lund's exhibition of savagery was unnecessary. But he also saw that Lund would not heed any protest that he might make, he was still swept on by his course of action, not yet complete.
"I'll borrow Carlsen's sextant," said Lund. "Nigh noon, an' erbout time I got our reckonin'." He went into the doctor's cabin and came out with the instrument, tucking it under his arm as he went on deck.
Tamada went stolidly on with his preparations. He paused at the little puddle of blood where Carlsen's head had struck the table, turned, and disappeared toward his galley, promptly emerging with a wet cloth.
The girl put her hands over her eyes as Tamada methodically mopped up the telltale stains.
"The brute!" she said. Then took away her hands and extended them toward Rainey.
"What will he do with my father?" she said. "He thinks that dad deserted him. And the doctor, who might have saved him, is dead. My God, what shall I do? What shall I do?"
Rainey found himself murmuring some attempts at consolation, a defense of Lund.
"You too?" she said with a contempt that, unmerited as it was, stung Rainey to the quick. "You are on his side. Oh!"
She wheeled into her father's room and shut the door. Rainey heard the click of the bolt on the other side. Tamada was going on with his table-laying. Rainey saw that he had left Carlsen's place vacant. He listened for a moment, but heard nothing within the skipper's cabin. The swift rush of events was still a jumble. Slowly he went up the companionway to the deck.
Lund greeted Rainey with a curt nod. Hansen was still at the helm. The crew on duty were standing about alert, their eyes on Lund. They had found a new master, and they were cowed, eager to do their best.
"It ain't noon yet," said Lund. "I hardly need to shoot the sun with the land that close."
Rainey looked over the starboard bow to where a series of peaks and lower humps of dark blue proclaimed the Aleutian island bridge stretching far to the west.
"I'll show this crew they've got a skipper aboard," said Lund. "How's the cap'en?"
Rainey told him.
"We'll see what we can do for him," said Lund. "He's better off without that fakir,that's a cinch. Called me a murderer," he went on with a good-humored laugh. "Got spunk, she has. And she's a trim bit. A slip of a gal, but she's game. An' good-lookin' eh, Rainey?"
He shot a keen glance at the newspaperman.
"You're in her bad hooks, too, ain't ye? We'll fix that after a bit. She don't know when she's well off. Most wimmin don't. An' she's the sort that needs handlin' right. She's upset now, natural, an' she hates me."
He smiled as if the prospect suited him. A suspicion leaped into Rainey's brain. Lund had said he would not see a decent girl harmed. But the man was changed. He had fought and won, and victory shone in his eyes with a glitter that was immune from sympathy, for all his air of good-nature.
He had said that a man under his skin was just an animal. His appraisal of the girl struck Rainey with apprehension. "To the victor belong the spoils." Somehow the quotation persisted. What if Lund regarded the girl as legitimate loot? He might have talkeddifferently beforehand, to assure himself of Rainey's support.
And Rainey suddenly felt as if his support had been uncalled upon, a frail reed at best. Lund had not needed him, would he need him, save as an aid, not altogether necessary, with Hansen aboard, to run the ship?
He said nothing, but thrust both hands into the side pockets of the pilot coat he had acquired from the ship's stores. The sudden touch of cold steel gave him new courage. He had sworn to protect the girl. If Lund, seeming more like a pirate than ever, with his cold eyes sweeping the horizon, his bulk casting Rainey's into a dwarf's by comparison, attempted to harm Peggy Simms, Rainey resolved to play the part of champion.
He could not shoot like Lund, but he was armed. There were undoubtedly more cartridges in the clip. And he must secure the rest from Carlsen's cabin immediately.
The sun reached its height, and Lund busied himself with his sextant. Rainey determinedto ask him to teach him the use of it. His consent or refusal would tell him where he stood with Lund.
He felt the mastery of the man. And he felt incompetent beside him. Carlsen had been right. A ship at sea was a little world of its own, and Lund was now lord of it. A lord who would demand allegiance and enforce it. He held the power of life and death, not by brute force alone. He was the only navigator aboard, with the skipper seriously ill. As such alone he held them in his hand, once they were out of sight of land.
"Hansen," said Lund, "Mr. Rainey'll relieve you after we've eaten. Come on, Rainey. You ain't lost yore appetite, I hope. Watch me discard that spoon for a knife an' fork. I don't have to play blind man enny longer."
Food did not appeal to Rainey. He could not help thinking of the spot under the cloth where Tamada had wiped up the blood of the man just killed by Lund, sitting opposite him, making play for a double helping of victuals.
It was Lund's apparent callousness that affected him more than his own squeamishness. He could not regret Carlsen's death. With the doctor alive, his own existence would have been a constant menace. But he was not used to seeing a killing, though, in his water-front detail, he had not been unacquainted with grim tragedies of the sea.
It was Lund's demeanor that gripped him. The giant had dismissed Carlsen as unceremoniously as he might have flipped the ash from a cigar, or tossed the stub overside.
"I've got to tackle those hunters," Lund said. "I expect trouble there, sooner or later. But I'm goin' to lay down the law to 'em. If they come clean, well an' good, they git their original two shares. If not, they don't get a plugged nickel. An' Deming's the one who'll stir up the trouble, take it from me. Tell Hansen to turn in his watch-off, I shan't take a deck for a day or two, you'll have to go on handlin' it between you. I've got to make mypeace with the gal, an' do what I can with the skipper."
"She'll not make peace easily. But the skipper's in a bad way."
Lund lit his pipe.
"I'd jest as soon it was war. I don't see as we can help the skipper much 'less we try reverse treatment of what Carlsen did. If we knew what that was? If he gits worse she'll let us know, I reckon. Mebbe you can suggest somethin'?"
Rainey shook his head.
"I suppose she can do more than any of us," he said.
Lund nodded, then whistled to Tamada, leaving the cabin.
"Take a bottle of whisky to the hunters' mess, with my compliments. That'll give 'em about three jolts apiece," he said to Rainey. "Long as we've won out we may as well let 'em down easy. But they'll work for their shares, jest the same. A drink or two may help 'emswaller what I'm goin' to give 'em by way of dessert in the talkin' line. See you later."
Rainey took the dismissal and went up to the relief of Hansen. He did not mention what had happened until the Scandinavian referred to it indirectly.
"They put the doc overboard, sir, soon's Mr. Lund an' you bane go below."
It seemed a summary dismissal of the dead, without ceremony. Yet, for the rite to be authentic, Lund must have presided, and the sea-burial service would have been a mockery under the circumstances. It was the best thing to have done, Rainey felt, but he could not avoid a mental shiver at the thought of the man, so lately vital, his brain alive with energy, sliding through the cold water to the ooze to lie there, sodden, swinging with the sub-sea currents until the ocean scavengers claimed him.
"All right, Hansen," he said in answer, and the man hurried off after his extra detail.
Lund came up after a while, and Rainey told him of the fate of Carlsen's body.
"I figgered they'd do about that," commented Lund. "They savvied he'd aimed to make suckers out of 'em, an' they dumped him. But they ain't on our side, by a long sight. Not that I give a damn. If they want to sulk, let 'em sulk. But they'll stand their watches, an', when we git to the beach, they'll do their share of diggin'. If they need drivin', I'll drive 'em.
"That Deming is a better man than I thought. He's the main grouch among 'em. Said if I hadn't had a gun he'd have tackled me in the cabin. Meant it, too, though I'd have smashed him. He's sore becoz I said he warn't my equal. I told him, enny time he wanted to try it out, I'd accommodate him. He didn't take it up, an' they'll kid him about it. He'll pack a grudge. I ain't afraid of their knifin' me, not while the skipper's sick. They need me to navigate."
"This might be a good chance for me to handle a sextant," suggested Rainey casually.
Lund shook his head, smiling, but his eyes hard.
"Not yet, matey," he said. "Not that I don't trust you, but for me to be the only one, jest now, is a sort of life insurance that suits me to carry. They might figger, if you was able to navigate, that they c'ud put the screws on you to carry 'em through, with me out of the way. I don't say they could, but they might make it hard for you, an' you ain't got quite the same stake in this I have."
Here was cold logic, but Rainey saw the force of it. Hansen came up early to split the watch and put their schedule right again, and Lund went below with Rainey. Lund ordered Tamada to bring a bottle and glasses, and they sat down at the table. Rainey needed the kick of a drink, and took one.
As Lund was raising his glass with a toast of "Here's to luck," the skipper's door opened and the girl appeared. She looked like a ghost.Her hair was disheveled and her eyes stared at them without seeming recognition. But she spoke, in a flat toneless voice.
"My father is dead! I—" she faltered, swayed, and seemed to swoon as she sank toward the floor. Rainey darted forward, but Lund was quicker and swooped her up in his arms as if she had been a feather, took her to the table, set her in a chair, dabbled a napkin in some water and applied it to her brows.
"Chafe her wrists," he ordered Rainey. "Undo that top button of her blouse. That's enough; she ain't got on corsets. She'll come through. Plumb worn out. That's all."
He handled her, deftly, as a nurse would a child. Rainey chafed the slender wrists and beat her palms, and soon she opened her eyes and sighed. Then she pulled away from Lund, bending over her, and got to her feet.
"I must go to my father," she said. "He is dead."
They followed her into the cabin, and Lund bent over the bunk.
"Looks like it," he whispered to Rainey. Then he tore open the skipper's vest and shirt and laid his head on his chest. The girl made a faint motion as if to stop him, but did not hinder him. She was at the end of her own strength from weariness and worry. Lund suddenly raised his head.
"There's a flutter," he announced. "He ain't gone yit. Get Tamada an' some brandy."
The Japanese, by some intuition, was already on hand, and produced the brandy. Rainey poured out a measure. The captain's teeth were tightly clenched. Lund spraddled one great hand across his jaws, pressing at their junction, forcing them apart, firmly, but gently enough, while Rainey squeezed in a few drops of brandy from the corner of his soaked handkerchief. Lund stroked the sick man's throat, and he swallowed automatically.
"More brandy," ordered Lund.
With the next dose there came signs of revival, a low moan from the skipper. The girl flew to his side. Tamada, standing by withthe bottle, stepped forward, handed the brandy to Rainey, and rolled up the lid of an eye, looking closely at the pupil.
"I study medicine at Tokio," he said.
"Why didn't ye say so before?" demanded Lund. It did not occur to any of them to doubt Tamada's word. There was an air of professional assurance and an efficiency about him that carried weight. "What can you do for him? There's a medicine chest in Carlsen's room."
"I was hired to cook," said Tamada quietly. "I should not have been permit to interfere. It is not my business if a white man makes a fool of himself. Now we want morphine and hypodermic syringe."
Tamada rolled up the captain's sleeve. The flesh, shrunken, pallid, was closely spotted with dot-like scars that showed livid, as if the captain had been suffering from some strange rash.
Lund whistled softly. Rainey, too, knew what it meant. The skipper had been a veritableslave to the drug. Carlsen had administered it, prescribed it, used it as a means to bring Simms under his subjection. The girl looked strangely at Tamada.
"Would he have taken that for sciatica?" she asked.
"I think, perhaps, yes. Injection over muscle gives relief. Sometimes makes cure. But Captain Simms take too much. Suppose this supply cut off very suddenly, then come too much chills, maybe collapse, maybe—" The girl clutched his arm.
"You meant more than you said. It might mean death?"
"I don't know," replied Tamada gravely. "Perhaps, if now we have morphine, presently we give him smaller dose every time, it will be all right." He lifted up the sick man's hand and examined the nails critically. They were broken, brittle.
Rainey had gone to Carlsen's room in search of the drug and the injecting needle.
"How much d'ye suppose he took at once?" Lund asked the Japanese in a low voice.
"Fifteen grains, I think. Maybe more. Too much! Always too much drug in his veins. Much worse than opium for man."
"Carlsen's work," growled Lund. "Increased the stuff on him till he couldn't do without it. Made him a slave to dope an' Carlsen his boss. He deserved killin' jest for that, the skunk."
Rainey frantically searched through the medicine chest and, finding only five tablets markedMorphine 1 gr.in a bottle, sought elsewhere in vain. And he could find no needle. But he ran across some automatic cartridges and put them in his pockets before he hurried back.
"This is not enough," said Tamada. "And we should have needle. But I dissolve these in galley." And he hurried out. The girl had slipped down on her knees beside the bed, holding her father's hand against her lips, her eyes closed. She seemed to be praying.
Rainey and Lund looked at each other. Rainey was trying to recall something. It came at last, the memory of Carlsen slipping something in his pocket as he had come out of the captain's room. That had been the hypodermic case! As the thought lit up' his eyes he saw a flash in Lund's.
"Carlsen had the morphine on him," said Lund in a whisper, not to disturb the girl.
"And the needle!" said Rainey. "What if?" He raced out of the cabin forward, passing Tamada, coming out of the galley with the dissolved tablets in a glass that steamed with hot water. Swiftly he told his suspicions.
"They may have searched him first," he said, and went on to the hunters' cabin. They were seated about their table, talking. On seeing Rainey they stopped abruptly and viewed him suspiciously. Deming rose.
"What's the idea?" he asked and his tone was not friendly.
Rainey hurriedly explained. Deming shrugged his shoulders.
"They sewed him up in canvas in the fo'k'le," he said indifferently. "None of us went through him. I think they made the kid do the job."
Rainey found Sandy in his bunk, asleep, trying to get one of the catnaps by which he made up his lack of definitely assigned rest. The roustabout woke with a shudder, flinching under Rainey's hand.
"They made me do it," he said in answer. "None of 'em 'ud touch it till I had it sewed in an old staysail, an' a boatkedge tied on for weight. I didn't go inter his pockets. I was scared to touch it more'n I had to."
"Is that the truth, Sandy? I don't care what you took besides this little case and a bottle of tablets. You can keep the rest."
"It's the bloody truth, Mister Rainey, s'elp me," whined Sandy. And the truth was in his shifty eyes.
Rainey went back with his news. He imagined that the five grains would prove temporarily sufficient. And they could put infor Unalaska. There were surgeons there with the revenue fleet. He thought there was probably a hospital.
They would have to explain Carlsen's death. They would be asked about the purpose of the voyage, the crew examined. It might mean detention, the defeat of the expedition, the very thing that Lund had feared, the following of them to the island. He wondered how Lund would take to the plan.
He found that Tamada had administered the morphine. Already the beneficial results were apparent. The dry, frightfully sallow skin had changed and Simms was breathing freely while Tamada, feeling his pulse, nodded affirmatively to the girl's questioning glance.
"Got it?" asked Lund.
Rainey gave the result of his search.
"We'll have to put in to Unalaska," he said. "There are doctors there." The girl turned toward Lund. He smiled at the intensity of her gaze and pose.
"I play fair, Miss Peggy," he said. "Rainey, change the course."
Peggy Simms seized Lund's great paw in both her hands, and, for the first time, the tears overflowed her eyes. TheKarlukcame about as Rainey reached the deck and gave his orders. Then he returned to the cabin. The captain had opened his eyes.
"Peggy!" he murmured. "Carlsen, where is he? Lund! Good God, Lund, you can see?"
"Keep quiet as you can," said Tamada. Something in his voice made the skipper shift his look to the Japanese.
"Where's Carlsen?" he asked again.
"He can't come now," said Tamada.
Under the urge of the drug the skipper's brain seemed abnormally clear, his intuition heightened.
"Carlsen's dead?" he asked. Then, shifting to Lund. "You killed him, Jim?"
Lund nodded.
"How much morphine did you give me?"
"Five grains."
"It's not enough. It won't last.There isn't any more?" he flashed out, with sudden energy, trying to raise himself.
"We're puttin' in for Unalaska, Simms," said Lund.
"How far?"
"'Bout seventy miles."
"Then it's too late. Too late. The pain's shifted of late—to my heart. It'll get me presently."
The girl darted a look of hate at Lund, an accusation that he met composedly, swift as the change had come from the almost reverence with which she had clasped his hand.
"I'll be gone in an hour or two," said the skipper. "Got to talk while this lasts. Jim—about leavin' you that time. I could have come back. I had words about it—with Hansen. He knows. But the gale was bad, an' the ice. It wasn't the gold, Jim. I swear it. I had the ship an' crew to look out for. An' Peggy, at home.
"I might have gone back sooner, Jim, I'll own up to that. But it wasn't the gold that did it. An'—I didn't hear what you shouted, Jim. The storm came up. We were frozen by the time we found the ship. Numb.
"Then, then; oh, God, my heart!" He sat upright, clutching at his chest, his face convulsed with spasms of pain. Tamada got some brandy between the chattering teeth. Sweat poured out on the skipper's forehead, and he sank back, exhausted but temporarily relieved. The girl wiped his brows.
"It'll get me next attack," he said presently in a weak voice. "Jim, this trouble hit me the day after we left the floe. Not sciatica, at first, but in the head. I couldn't think right. I was just numb in the brain. An' when it cleared off, it was too late. The ice had closed. We couldn't go back. I read up in my medical book, Jim, later, when the sciatica took me.
"Had to take to my bunk. Couldn't stand. I had morphine, an' it relieved me. Took too much after a while. Had to have it. Got betterin San Francisco for a bit. Then Carlsen prescribed it. Morphine was my boss, an' then Carlsen, he was boss of the morphine. Seemed like—seemed like—More brandy, Tamada."
His voice was weaker when he spoke again. They came closer to catch his whispers.
"Carlsen—mind wasn't my own. Peggy—I wasn't in my right mind, honey. Not when—Carlsen—he was angel when he gave me what I wanted—devil—when he wouldn't. Made me—do things. But he's dead. And I'm going. Never reach Unalaska. Peggy—forgive. Meant for best—but—not in right mind. Jim—it wasn't the gold. Not Peggy's fault—anyway."
"She'll get hers, Simms," said Lund. "Yours too."
The skipper's eyes closed and his frame settled under the clothes. The girl flung herself on the bed in uncontrollable weeping. Lund raised his eyebrows at Tamada, who shrugged his shoulders.
"Better get out o' here," whispered Lund.He and Rainey went out together. In a few minutes Tamada joined them, his face sphinxlike as ever.
"He is dead," he said.
Rainey and Lund went on deck. The schooner thrashed toward the volcano, the bearing-mark for Unalaska, hidden behind it. They paced up and down in silence.
"I guess he was 'Honest Simms,' after all," said Lund at last. "The gal blames me for the morphine, but Carlsen never meant him to live. She'll see that after a bit, mebbe."
Rainey glanced at him curiously. He was getting fresh lights on Lund.
Then the girl appeared, pale, composed, coming straight up to Lund, who halted his stride at sight of her.
"Will you change the course, Mr. Lund?" she said.
He looked at her in surprise.
"Father spoke once more. After you left. He does not want you to go on to Unalaska. He said it would mean a rush for the gold;perhaps you would have to stay there. He does not want you to lose the gold. He wants me to have my share. He made me promise. And he wants—he wants"—she bit her lip fiercely in repression of her feelings—"to be buried at sea. That was his last request."
She turned and looked over the rail, struggling to wink back her tears. Rainey saw the giant's glance sweep over her, full of admiration.
"As you wish, Miss Peggy," he said. "Hansen, 'bout ship. Hold on a minnit. How about you, Miss Peggy? If you want to go home, we can find ways at Unalaska. I play fair. I'll bring back yore share—in full."
"I am not thinking about the gold," the girl said scornfully. "But I want to carry out my father's last wishes, if you will permit me. I shall stay with the ship. Now I am going back to him. You—you"—she quelled the tremble of her mouth, and her chin showed firm and determined—"you can arrange for the funeralto-morrow at dawn, if you will. I want him to-night."
Her face quivered piteously, but she conquered even that and walked to the companionway.
"Game, by God, game as they make 'em!" said Lund.
Rainey, dozing in his bunk, going over the sudden happenings of the day, had placed Carlsen's automatic under his pillow after loading it. He found that it lacked four shells of full capacity, the two that Lund had fired at his bottle target, the one fired by Carlsen at Rainey, and the last ineffective shot at Lund, a shot that went astray, Rainey decided, largely through Lund'scoup-de-theatreof tearing off his glasses and flinging them at the doctor.
The dynamo that he had idly fancied he could hear purring away inside of Lund was apparent with vengeance now, driving with full force. That was what Lund would be from now on, a driver, imperative, relentless, overcoming all obstacles; as he had himself said, selfish at heart, keen for his own ends.
Rainey was neither a weakling nor a coward, but he shrank from open encounter with Lund, and knew himself, without fear, the weaker man. The challenge of Lund, splendidly daring any one of them to come out against him alone, and challenging themen masse, had found in Rainey an acknowledgment of inferiority that was not merely physical.
Lund knew far more than he did about the class of men that made up the inhabitants of theKarluk. Rainey had once fondly hugged the delusion that he knew something of the nature of those who "went down to the sea in ships."
Now he knew that his ignorance was colossal. Such men were not complex, they moved by instinct rather than reason, they were not guided by conscience, the values of right and wrong were not intuitive with them, muscle rather than mind ruled their universe.
Yet Rainey could not solve them, and Lund knew them as one may know a favorite book.
Lund had brains, cunning, brute force thatcommanded a respect not all bred of being weaker. In a way he was magnificent. And Rainey vaguely heralded trouble when Captain Simms was at last given to the deep. He felt certain that the hunters under Deming were hatching something but, in the main, his mental prophecy of trouble coming was connected with the girl.
Lund had shown no disrespect to her, rather the opposite. But the girl showed hatred of Lund and, in minor measure, of Rainey. Some of this would die out, naturally. Rainey intended to attempt an adjustment in his own behalf. But he held the feeling that Lund would not tolerate this hatred against him on the part of the girl. Such scorn would arouse something in the giant's nature, something that would either strike under the lash, or laugh at it.
Dimly, Rainey saw these things as the giant gropings of sex, not as he had known it, surrounded by conventionalities, by courtesies of twentieth-century veneering, but a law, primitive,irresistible, sweeping away barriers and opposition, a thing bigger even than the lust of gold; the lure of woman for man, and man for woman.
Both Lund and the girl, he felt, would have this thing in greater measure than he would. He shared his life with too many things, with books, with amusements, with the social ping-pong of the level in which he ordinarily moved.
There had been once a girl, perhaps there still was a girl, whom Rainey had known on a visit to the camp-palace of a lumber king, high in the Sierras, a girl who rode and hunted and lived out-of-doors, and yet danced gloriously, sang, sewed and was both feminine and masculine, a maddening latter-day Diana, who had swept Rainey off his feet for the time.
But he had known that he was not up to her standards, that he was but a paper-worm, aside from his lack of means. That latter detail would, he knew, have bothered him far more than her. But she announced openly that she would only mate with a man who had lived.He rather fancied that it had been a challenge—one he had not taken up. The matrix of his own life just then was too snug a bed. Well, he was living now, he told himself.
On the border of dreams he was brought back by a strange noise on deck, a rush of feet, many voices, and topping them all, the bellow of Lund, roaring, not for help, but in challenge.
Rainey, half asleep, jumped from his bunk and rushed out of the room. He had no doubt as to what had happened; the hunters had attacked Lund! And, unused to the possession of firearms, still drowsy, he forgot the automatic, intent upon rallying to the cry of the giant. As he made for the companionway, the girl came out of her father's room.
"What is it?" she cried.
"Lund—hunters!" Rainey called back as he sped up the stairs. He thought he heard a "wait" from her, but the stamping and yelling were loud in his ears, and he plunged out on deck. As he emerged he saw the stolid face ofHansen at the wheel, his pale blue eyes glancing at the set of his canvas and then taking on a glint as they turned amidships.
Lund looked like a bear surrounded by the dog-pack. He stood upright while the six hunters tore and smashed at him. Two had caught him by the middle, one from the front and one from the rear, and, as the fight raged back and forth, they were swung off their feet, bludgeoned and kicked by Lund to stop them getting at the gun in its holster slung under his coat close to his armpit.
Lund's arms swung like clubs, his great hands plucked at their holds, while he roared volleys of deep-sea, defiant oaths, shaking or striking off a man now and then, who charged back snarlingly to the attack.
Brief though the fight had been when Rainey arrived, there was ample evidence of it. Clothes were torn and faces bloody, and already the men were panting as Lund dragged them here and there, flailing, striking, half-smothered,but always coming up from under, like a rock that emerges from the bursting of a heavy wave.
And the voice of the combat, grunts and snarls, gasping shouts and broken curses, was the sound of ravening beasts. So far as Rainey could vision in one swift moment before he ran forward, no knives were being used.
A hunter lunged out heavily and confidently to meet him as the others got Lund to his knees for a fateful moment, piling on top of him, bludgeoning blows with guttural cries of fancied victory.
Rainey's man struck, and the strength of his arm, backed by his hurling weight, broke down Rainey's guard and left the arm numb. The next instant they were at close quarters, swinging madly, rife with the one desire to down the other, to maim, to kill. A blow crashed home on Rainey's cheek, sending him back dazed, striking madly, clinching to stop the piston-like smashes of the hunter clutchinghim, trying to trip him, hammering at the fierce face above him as they both went down and rolled into the scuppers, tearing at each other.
He felt the man's hands at his throat, gradually squeezing out sense and breath and strength, and threw up his knee with all his force. It struck the hunter fairly in the groin, and he heard the man groan with the sudden agony. But he himself was nearly out. The man seemed to fade away for the second, the choking fingers relaxed, and Rainey gulped for air. His eyes seemed strained from bulging from their sockets in that fierce grip, and there was a fog before them through which he could hear the roar of Lund, sounding like a siren blast that told he was still fighting, still confident.
Then he saw the hunter's face close to his again, felt the whole weight of the man crushing him, felt the bite of teeth through cloth and flesh, nipping down on his shoulder as the man lay on him, striving to hold him down untilhe regained the strength that the blow in the groin had temporarily broken down.
For just a moment Rainey's spirit sagged, his own strength was spent, his will sapped, his lungs flattened. For a moment he wanted to lie there—to quit.
Then the hunter's body tautened for action, and, at the feel, Rainey's ebbing pride came surging back, and he heaved and twisted, clubbing the other over his kidneys until the roll of the schooner sent them twisting, tumbling over to the lee once more.
He felt as if he had been fighting for an hour, yet it had all taken place during the leap of theKarlukbetween two long swells that she had negotiated with a sidelong lurch to the cross seas and wind.
Rainey came up uppermost. The hunter's head struck the rail heavily. His shoulder was free, but he could see ravelings of his coat in the other's teeth. The pain in his shoulder was evident enough, and the sight of the woolly fragments maddened him. The tactics of boyishfights came back to him, and he broke loose from the arms that hugged him, hitched forward until he sat on the hunter's chest, set a knee on either bicep and battered at the other's face as it twisted from side to side helplessly, making a pulp of it, keen to efface all semblance of humanity, a brute like the rest of them, intent upon bruising, on blood-letting, on beating all resistance down to a quivering, spirit-broken mass.
The hunter lay still beneath him at last, his nerve centers shattered by some blow that had short-circuited them, and Rainey got wearily to his feet. The hunter's thumbs had pressed deep on each side of his neck, and his head felt like wood for heaviness, but shot with pain. The vigor was out of him. He knew he could not endure another hand-to-hand battle with one of the crowd still raging about Lund, who was on his feet again.
Rainey saw his face, one red mask of blood and hair, with his agate eyes flaring up with the glory of the fight. He roared no longer,saving his breath. Hands clutched for him and fists fell, a man was tugging at each knee of his legs, set far apart, sturdy as the masts themselves.
Lund's arm came up, lifting a hunter clean from the deck, shook him off somehow, and crashed down. One of the men tackling his legs dropped senseless from the buffet he got on the side of his skull, and Lund's kick sent him scudding across the deck, limp, out of the fight that could not last much longer.
All this came as Rainey, still dazed, helped himself by the skylight toward the companion, going as fast as he could to get his gun. If he did not hurry he was certain they would kill Lund. No man could withstand those odds much longer.
And, Lund killed, hell would break loose. It would be his turn next, and the girl would be left at their mercy. The thought spurred him, cleared his throbbing head, jarred by the smashes of his still senseless opponent who would be coming to before long.
Then he saw the girl, standing by the rail, not crouching, as he had somehow expected her to be, shutting out the sight of the fight with trembling hands, but with her face aglow, her eyes shining, watching, as a Roman maid might have watched a gladiatorial combat; thrilled with the spectacle, hands gripping the rail, leaning a little forward.
She did not notice Rainey as he crept by Hansen, still guiding the schooner, holding her to her course, imperturbable, apparently careless of the issue. As he staggered down the stairs the line of thought he had pursued in his bunk, broken by the noise of the fight and his participation, flashed up in his brain.
This was sex, primitive, predominant! The girl must sense what might happen to her if Lund went down. She had no eyes for Rainey, her soul was up in arms, backing Lund. The shine in her eyes was for the strength of his prime manhood, matched against the rest, not as a person, an individual, but as an embodiment of the conquering male.
He got the gun, and he snatched a drink of brandy that ran through his veins like quick fire, revivifying him so that he ran up the ladder and came on deck ready to take a decisive hand.
But he found it no easy matter to risk a shot in that swirling mass. They all seemed to be arm weary. Blows no longer rose and fell. Lund was slowly dragging the dead weight of them all toward the mast. The two men on the deck still lay there. Rainey's opponent was trying to get up, wiping clumsily at the blood on his face, blinded.
The girl still stood by the rail. Back of the wrestling mass stood the seamen, offering to take no part, their arms aswing like apes, their dull faces working. Tamada stood by the forward companion, his arms folded, indifferent, neutral.