V
They drifted past Pernambuco, and touched at Trinidad, and so worked south and somewhat westward for Cape Horn. And in Joel grew, stronger and ever, the resolve to hunt out Mark, and find him, and fetch him home.... The blood tie was strong on Joel; stronger than any memory of Mark’s derision. And—for the honor of the House of Shore, it were well to prove the matter, if Mark were dead. It is not well for a Shore to abandon his ship in strange seas.
He asked Aaron, two weeks after their first talk, whether they had questioned the white men on the pearling schooner.
“Oh, aye,” said Aaron cheerfully. “I sought ’em out, myself. Three of them, they was;and ill-favored. A slinky small man, and a rat-eyed large man, and a fat man in between; all unshaven, and filthy, and drunken as owls. They’d seen naught of Mark Shore, they said. I’m thinking he’d let them see but little of him. He had no tenderness for dirt.”
Joel told Priss nothing of what he hoped and feared; nor did he question Jim Finch in the matter. Finch was a good man at set tasks, but he was too amiable, and he had no clamp upon his lips.... Joel did not wish the word to go abroad among the men. He was glad that most of the crew were new since last voyage; but the officers were unchanged, save that he stood in his brother’s shoes.
They left Trinidad behind them, and shouldered their way southward, the blunt bow of theNathan Rossbattering the seas. And they came to the Straits, and worked in, and made their westing day by day, while little Priss,wide-eyed on the deck, watched the gaunt cliffs past whose wave-gnawed feet they stole. And so at last the Pacific opened out before them, and they caught the winds, and worked toward Easter Island.
But their progress was slow. To men unschooled in the patience of the whaling trade, it would have been insufferably slow. For they struck fish; and day after day they hung idle on the waves while the trypots boiled; and day after day they loitered on good whaling grounds, when the boats were out thrice and four times between sun’s rise and set. If Joel was impatient, he gave no sign. If his desires would have made him hasten on, his duty held him here, where rich catches waited for the taking; and while there were fish to be taken, he would not leave them behind.
Priscilla hated it. She hated the grime, and the smoke, and the smell of boiling oil; and shehated this dawdling on the open seas, with never a glimpse of land. More than once she made Joel bear the brunt of her own unrest; and because it is not always good for two people to be too much together, and because she had nothing better to do, she began to pick Joel to pieces in her thoughts, and fret at his patience and stolidity. She wished he would grow angry, wished even that he might be angry with her.... She wished for anything to break the long days of deadly calm. And she watched Joel more intently than it is well for wife to watch husband, or for husband to watch wife.
He did so many things that tried her sore. He had a fashion, when he had finished eating, of setting his hands against the table and pushing himself back from the board with slow and solid satisfaction. She came to the point where she longed to scream when he did this. When they were at table in the main cabin, shewatched with such agony of trembling nerves for that movement of his that she forgot to eat, and could not relish what she ate.
Joel was a man, and his life was moving smoothly. His ship’s casks were filling more swiftly than he had any right to hope; his wife was at his side; his skies were clear. He was happy, and comfortable, and well content. Sometimes, when they were preparing for sleep, at night, in the cabin at the stern, he would relax on the couch there. But she did not wish for him to put his feet upon the cushions; she said that his shoes were dirty. He offered to take off his shoes; and she shuddered....
He had a fashion of stretching and yawning comfortably as he bade her good night; and sometimes a yawn caught him in the middle of a word, and he talked while he yawned. She hated this. She was passing through that hard middle ground, that purgatory between maidenhoodand wifehood in the course of which married folk find each other only human, after all. And she had not yet come to accept this condition, and to glory in it. She had always thought of Joel as a hero, a protector, a fine, stalwart, able, noble man. Now she forgot that he was commander of this ship and master of the men aboard her, and saw in him only a man who, when work was done, liked to take his ease—and who talked through his yawns.
She gnawed at this bone of discontent, in the hours when Joel was busy with his work. She was furiously resentful of Joel’s flesh-and-bloodness.... And Joel, because he was too busy to be introspective, continued calmly happy and content.
The whales led them past Easter Island for a space; and then, abruptly, they were gone. Came day on day when the men at the masthead saw no misty spout against the wide blueof the sea, no glistening black body lying awash among the waves. And the Nathan Ross, with all hands scrubbing white the decks again, bent northward, working toward that maze of tiny islands which dots the wide South Seas.
Their water was getting stale, and running somewhat low; and they needed fresh foodstuffs. Joel planned to touch at the first land that offered. Tubuai, that would be. He marked their progress on the chart.
On the evening before they would reach the island, when Joel and Priss were preparing for sleep, Priss burst out furiously, like a teapot that boils over. The storm came without warning, and—so far as Joel could see—without provocation. She was sick, she said, of the endless wastes of blue. She wanted to see land. To step on it. If she were not allowed to do so very soon, she would die.
Joel, at first, was minded to tell her theywould sight land in the morning; then, with one of the blundering impulses to which husbands fall victim at such moments, he decided to wait and surprise her. So, instead of telling her, he chuckled as though at some secret jest, and tried to quiet her by patting her dark head.
She fell silent at his caress; and Joel thought she was appeased. As a matter of fact, she was hating him for having laughed at her; and her calm was ferocious. He discovered this, too late....
He had just kissed her good night. She turned her cheek to his lips; and he was faintly hurt at this. But he only said cheerfully: “There, Priss.... You’ll be all right in the morning....”
He yawned in mid-sentence, so that the last two or three words sounded as though he were trying to swallow a large and hot potato while he uttered them. Priss could stand no more ofthat. Positively. So she slapped his face.
He was amazed; and he stood, looking at her helplessly, while the slapped cheek grew red and red. Priss burst into tears, stamped her foot, called him names she did not mean, and as a climax, darted into her own cabin, and swung the door, and snapped the latch.
Joel did not in the least understand; and he went to his bunk at last, profoundly troubled.
An hour after they anchored, the next day, at Tubuai, a boat came out from shore and ran alongside, and Mark Shore swung across the rail, aboard theNathan Ross.
VI
Joel was below, in the cabin with Priss, when his brother boarded the ship. Varde and Dick Morrell had gone ashore for water and supplies, and Priss was to go that afternoon, with Joel. She was sewing a ribbon rosette upon the hat she would wear, when she and Joel heard the sound of excited voices, and the movement of feet on the deck above their head. He left her, curled up on the cushioned bench, with the gay ribbon in her hands, and went out through the main cabin, and up the companion. He had been trying, clumsily enough, to make friends with Priss; but she was very much on her dignity that morning....
When his head rose above the level of the cabin skylight, he saw a group of men near therail, amidships. Finch, and Hooper, and old Aaron Burnham, and two of the harpooners, all pressing close about another man.... Finch obscured this other man from Joel’s view, until he climbed up on deck. Then he saw that the other man was his brother.
He went forward to join them; and it chanced that at first no one of them looked in his direction. Mark’s back was half-turned; but Joel could see that his brother was lean, and bronzed by the sun. And he wore no hat, and his thick, black hair was rumpled and wild. The white shirt that he wore was open at the throat above his brown neck. His arms were bare to the elbows. His chest was like a barrel. There was a splendor of strength and vigor about the man, in the very look of him, and in his eye, and his voice, and his laughter. He seemed to shine, like the sun....
Joel, as he came near them, heard Marklaugh throatily at something Finch had said; and he heard Finch say unctuously: “Be sure, Captain Shore, every man aboard here is damned glad you’ve come back to us. You were missed, missed sore, sir.”
Mark laughed again, at that; and he clapped Jim’s fat shoulder. The action swung him around so that he saw Joel for the first time. Joel thrust out his hand.
“Mark, man! They said you were dead,” he exclaimed.
Mark Shore’s eyes narrowed for an instant, in a quick, appraising scrutiny of his brother. “Dead?” he laughed, jeeringly. “Do I look dead?” He stared at Joel more closely, glanced at the other men, and chuckled. “By the Lord, kid,” he cried, “I believe old Asa has put you in my shoes.”
Joel nodded. “He gave me command of theNathan Ross. Yes.”
Mark looked sidewise at big Jim Finch, and grinned. “Over your head, eh, Jim? Too damned bad!”
Finch grinned. “I had no wish for the place, sir. You see, I felt very sure you would be coming back to your own.”
Mark tilted back his head and laughed. “You were always a very cautious man, Jim Finch. Never jumped till you were sure where you would land.” He wheeled on Joel. “Well, boy—how does it feel to wear long pants?”
Joel, holding his anger in check, said slowly: “We’ve done well. Close on eight hundred barrel aboard.”
Mark wagged his head in solemn reproof. “Joey, Joey, you’ve been fiddling away your time. I can see that!”
Over his brother’s shoulder, Joel saw the grinning face of big Jim Finch, and his eyeshardened. He said quietly: “If that’s your tone, Mark, you’ll call back your boat and go ashore.”
A flame surged across Mark’s cheek; and he took one swift, terrible step toward his brother. But Joel did not give ground; and after a moment in which their eyes clashed like swords, Mark relaxed, and laughed and bowed low.
“I was wrong, grievously wrong, Captain Shore,” he said sonorously. “I neglected the respect due your office. Your high office, sir. I thank you for reminding me of the—the proprieties, Captain.” And he added, in a different tone, “Now will you not invite me aft on your ship, sir?”
Joel hesitated for a bare instant, caught by a vague foreboding that he could not explain. But in the end he nodded, as though in answer to the unspoken question in his thoughts. “Will you come down into the cabin, Mark?”he invited quietly. “I’ve much to ask you; and you must have many things to tell.”
Mark nodded. “I will come,” he said; and his eyes lighted suddenly, and he dropped a hand on Joel’s shoulder. “Aye, Joel,” he said softly, into his brother’s ear, as they went aft together. “Aye, I’ve much to tell. Many things and marvelous. Matters you’d scarce credit, Joel.” Joel looked at him quickly, and Mark nodded. “True they are, Joel,” he cried exultantly. “Marvelous—and true as good, red gold.”
At the tone, and the eager light in his brother’s eyes, Joel’s slow pulses quickened, but he said nothing. At the top of the cabin companion, he stepped aside to let Mark descend first; and Mark went down the steep and awkward stair with the easy, sliding gait of a great cat. Joel, behind him, could see the muscles stir and swell upon his shoulders. In the cabin, Markhalted abruptly, and looked about, and exclaimed: “You’ve changed things, Joel. I’d not know the ship.”
The door into Priscilla’s cabin, across the stern, was open. Priss had finished that matter of the ribbon, and was watering her flowers, kneeling on the bench, when she heard Mark’s voice, and knew it. And she cried, in surprise and joy: “Mark! Oh—Mark!” And she ran to the door, and stood there, framed for Mark’s eyes against the light behind her, hands holding to the door frame on either side.
Mark cried delightedly: “Priss Holt!” And he was at her side in an instant, and caught her without ceremony, and kissed her roundly, as he had been accustomed to do when he came home from the sea. But he must have been a blind man not to have seen in that first moment that Priss was no longer child, but woman.And Mark was not blind. He kissed her till she laughingly fought herself free.
“Mark!” she cried again. “You’re not dead. I knew you couldn’t be....”
Joel, behind them, at sight of Priscilla in his brother’s arms, had stirred with a quick rush of anger; but he was ashamed of it in the next moment, and stood still where he was. Mark held Priss by the shoulders, laughing down at her.
“And how did you know I couldn’t be dead?” he demanded. “Miss Wise Lady.”
She moved her head confusedly. “Oh—you were always so—so alive, or something.... You just couldn’t be....”
He chuckled, released her, and stood away and surveyed her. “Priss, Priss,” he said contritely, “you’re not a little kid any longer. Dresses down, and hair up....” He wagged his head. “It’s a wonder you did not slap myface.” And then he looked from her to Joel, and abruptly he tossed his great head back and laughed aloud. “By the Lord,” he roared. “The children are married. Married....”
Priscilla flushed furiously, and stamped her foot at him. “Of course we’re married,” she cried. “Did you think I’d come clear around the world with....” Her words were smothered in her own hot blushes, and Mark laughed again, until she cried: “Stop it. I won’t have you laughing at us. Joel—make him stop!”
Mark sobered instantly, and he backed away from Joel in mock panic, both hands raised, defensively, so that they laughed at him. When they laughed, he cast aside his panic, and sat down on the cushions, stretching his legs luxuriously before him. “Now,” he exclaimed. “Tell me all about it. When, and why, and how?”
Priss dropped on the bench beside him, feettucked under her in the miraculous fashion of small women; and she enumerated her answers on the pink tips of her fingers. “When?” she repeated. “The day before we sailed. Why? Just because. How? In the same old way.” She waved her hand, as though disposing of the matter once and for all, and looked up at him, and laughed. Joel thought she had not seemed so completely happy since the day the cabin was finished. “So,” she said, “that’s all there is to tell you about us. Tell us about you.”
Mark’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, now, what’s the use? That will come later. Besides—some chapters are not for gentle ears.” He nodded toward Joel. “So you love the boy, yonder?”
Priss bobbed her head, red lips pursed, eyes dancing.
“Why?” Mark demanded. “What do you discover in him?”
She looked at Joel, and they laughed togetheras though at some delightful secret, mutually shared. Mark wagged his head dolorously. “And I suppose he’s wild about you?” he asked.
She nodded more vigorously than ever.
Mark rubbed his hands together. He looked at Joel, with a faintly malicious twinkle in his eyes. “Well, now!” he exclaimed. “That is certainly the best of news....” Joel saw the mocking and malignant little devil in his eye. “I’ve never had a kid sister,” said Mark gayly. “And it’s been the great sorrow of my life, Priss. So, Joel, you must expect Priss and myself to turn out the very best of friends.”
And Priscilla, on the seat beside him, nodded her lovely head once more. “I should say so,” she exclaimed.
VII
Mark Shore held something like a reception, on theNathan Ross, all that first day. He went forward among the men to greet old friends and meet new ones, and came back and complimented Joel on the quality of his crew. “You’ve made good men of them,” he said. “Those that weren’t good men before.”
He listened, with a smile half contemptuous, to Jim Finch’s somewhat slavish phrases of welcome and admiration; and he talked with Varde, the morose second mate, so gayly that even Varde was cozened at last into a grin. Old Hooper was pathetically glad to see him. Hooper had been mate of the ship on which Mark started out as a boy; and he liked to harkback to those days. Young Dick Morrell, on his trips from the shore, gave Mark frank worship.
Joel saw all this. He could not help seeing it. And he told himself, again and again, that it was only to be expected. Mark had captained this ship, had captained these men, on their last cruise; they had thought him dead. It was only natural that they should welcome him back to life again....
But even while he gave himself this reassurance, he knew that it was untrue. There was more than mere welcome in the attitude of the men; there was more than admiration. There was a quality of awe that was akin to worship; and there was, beneath this awe, a lively curiosity as to what Mark would do.... They knew him for a quick man, dominant, one with the will to lead; and now he found himself supplanted, dependent on the word of hisown younger brother.... Every one knew that Mark and Joel had always been rather enemies than comrades; so, now, they wondered, and waited, and watched with all their eyes. Joel saw them, by twos and threes, whispering together about the ship; and he knew what it was they were asking each other.
Of all those on theNathan Rossthat day, Mark himself seemed least conscious of the dramatic possibilities of the situation. He was glad to be back among friends; but beyond that he did not go. He gave Joel an exaggerated measure of respect, so extreme that it was worse than scorn or mockery. Otherwise, he took no notice of the potentialities created by his return.
Priss had planned to go ashore in the afternoon; but Mark dissuaded her. This was not difficult; he did it so laughingly and so dextrously that Priss changed her mind without knowing just why she did so. Mark took itupon himself to make up for her disappointment; they were together most of the long, hot afternoon. Joel could hear their laughter now and then.
He had expected to go ashore with Priss; but when she came to him and said: “Joel, Mark says it’s just dirty and hot and ugly, ashore, and I’m not going,” he changed his mind. There was no need of his making the trip, after all. Varde and Morrell had brought out water, towing long strings of almost-filled casks behind their boats; and boats from the shore had come off to sell fresh food. So at dusk, the anchor came up, and theNathan Rossspread her dingy sails, and stalked out of the harbor with the utmost dignity in every stiff line of her, and the night behind them swallowed up the island. Mark and Priss were astern to watch it blend in the darkness and lose itself; and Priss, when their last glimpse of it faded, heard the mandraw a deep breath of something like relief. She looked up at him with wide, curious eyes.
“What is it?” she asked softly. “Were you—unhappy there?”
Mark laughed aloud. “My dear Priss,” he said, in the elder-brother manner he affected toward her. “My dear Priss, the South Sea Islands are no place for a white man, especially when he is alone. I’m glad to get back in the smell of oil, with an honest deck underfoot. And I don’t mind saying so.”
Priss shuddered, and wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, how I hate that smell,” she exclaimed. “But, Mark—tell me where you’ve been, and what you did, and—everything. Why won’t you tell?”
He wagged his head at her severely. “Children,” he said, “should be seen and not heard.”
She stamped her foot. “I’m not a child. I’m a woman.”
He bent toward her suddenly, his dark eyes so close to hers that she could see the flickering flame which played in them, and the twist of his smile. “I wonder!” he whispered. “Oh—I wonder if you are....”
She was frightened, deliciously....
Mark had persisted, all day long, in his refusal to tell her of himself. He had dropped a sentence now and then that brought to life in her imagination a strange, wild picture.... But always he set a bar upon his lips, caught back the words, refused to explain what it was he had meant to say. When she persisted, he laughed at her and told her he only did it to be mysterious. “Mystery is always interesting, you understand,” he explained. “And—I wish to be very interesting to you, Priss.”
She looked around the after deck for Joel; but he was below in the cabin, and she decided, abruptly, that she must go down....
They had bought chickens at Tubuai, and they had two of them, boiled, for supper that night in the cabin. It was a feast, after the long months of sober diet; and the presence of Mark made it something more. He was a good talker, and without revealing anything of the months of his disappearance, he nevertheless told them stories that held each one breathless with interest. But after supper, he went on deck with Finch, and Joel and Priss sat in the cabin astern for a while; and Joel wrote up, in the ship’s log, the story of his brother’s return. Priss read it over his shoulder, and afterwards she clung close to Joel. “He’s a terribly—overwhelming man, isn’t he?” she whispered.
Joel looked down at her, and smiled thoughtfully. “Aye, Mark’s a big man,” he agreed. “Big—in many ways. But—you’ll be used to him presently, Priss.”
When she prepared to go to bed, he bade hergood night and left her, and went on deck; and Priss, in her narrow bunk in the cabin at the side of the ship, lay wide-eyed with many thoughts stirring in her small head. She was still awake when she heard them come down into the main cabin together, Joel and Mark. The walls were thin; she could hear their words, and she heard Mark ask: “Sure Priss is asleep? There are parts—not for the pretty ears of a bride, Joel.”
Priss was not asleep, but when Joel came to see, she closed her eyes, and lay as still as still, scarce breathing. Joel bent over her softly; and he touched her head, clumsily, with his hand, and patted it, and went away again, closing her door behind him. She heard him tell Mark: “Aye, she’s fast asleep.”
The brothers sat by Joel’s desk, in the cabin across the stern; and Mark, without preamble, told his story there. Priss, ten feet away, heardevery word; and she lay huddled beneath the blankets, eyes staring upward into the darkness of her cabin; and as she listened, she shuddered and trembled and shrank at the terror and wonder and ugliness of the tale he told. No Desdemona ever listened with such half-caught breath....
VIII
“You’re blaming me,” said Mark, when he and Joel were puffing at their pipes, “for leaving my ship.”
Joel said slowly: “No. But I do not understand it.”
Mark laughed, a soft and throaty laugh. “You would not, Joel. You would not. For you never felt an overwhelming notion that you must dance in the moon upon the sand. You’ve never felt that, Joel; and—I have.”
“I’m not a hand for dancing,” said Joel.
Mark seemed to forget that his brother sat beside him. His eyes became misty and thoughtful, as though he were living over again the days of which he spoke. “Mind, Joel,” he said, “there’s a pagan in every man of us. Andthere’s two pagans in some of us. And I’m minded, Joel, that there are three of them in me. ’Twas so, that night.”
“It was night when you left the ship?”
“Aye, night. Night, and the moon; and it may have been that I had been drinking a drop or two. Also, as you shall see, I was not well. I tell these things, not by way of excuse and palliation; but only so that you may understand. D’ye see? I was three pagans in one body, and that body witched by moon, and twisted by drink, and trembling with fever. And so it was I went ashore, and flung my men behind me, and went off, dancing, along the hard sand.
“That was a night, Joel. A slow-winded, warm, trembling night when there was a song in the very air. The wind tingled on your throat like a woman’s finger tips; and the sea was singing at the one side, and the wind in the palms onthe other. And ahead of me, the wild, discordant chanting of the Islanders about their fires.... That singing it was that got me by the throat, and led me. I twirled around and around, very solemnly, by myself in the moonlight on the sand; and all the time I went onward toward the fires....
“I remember, when I came in sight of the fires, I threw away my coat and ran in among them. And they scattered, and yelled their harsh, meaningless, throaty yells. And they hid in the bush to stare at me by the fire.... They hid in the rank, thick grasses. All except one, Joel.”
Joel, listening, watched his brother and saw through his brother’s eyes; for he knew, for all his slow blood, the witchery of those warm, southern nights.
“The moon was on her,” said Mark. “The moon was on her, and there was a red blossomin her hair, and some strings of things that clothed her. A little brown girl, with eyes like the eyes of a deer. And—not afraid of me. That was the thing that got me, Joel. She stood in my path, met me, watched me; and her eyes were not afraid....
“She was very little. She was only a child. I suppose we would call her sixteen or seventeen years old. But they ripen quickly, Joel—these Island children. Her little shoulders were as smooth and soft.... You could not even mark the ridge of her collar bones, she was fleshed so sweetly. She stood, and watched me; and the others crept out of the grasses, at last, and stood about us. And then this little brown girl held up her hand to me, and pointed me out to the others, and said something. I did not know what it was that she said; but I know now. She said that I was sick.
“I did not know then that I was sick. Whenshe lifted her hand to me, I caught it; and I began to lead her in a wild dance, in the moonlight, about their dying fires. I could see them, in the shadows, their eyeballs shining as they watched us.... And they seemed, after a little, to move about in a misty, inhuman fashion; and they twisted into strange, cloud-like shapes. And I stopped to laugh at them, and my head dropped down before I could catch it and struck against the earth, and the earth forsook me, Joel, and left me swimming in nothing at all....
“My memory was a long time in coming back to me, Joel. It would peep out at me like a timid child, hiding among the trees. I would see it for an instant; then ’twould be gone. But I know it must have been many days that I was on the island there. And I knew, after a time, that I was most extremely sick; and the little brown girl put cool leaves on my head,and gave me strange brews to drink, and rubbed and patted my chest and my body with her hands in a fashion that was immensely comfortable and strengthening. And I twisted on a bed of coarse grass.... And I remember singing, at times....”
He looked toward Joel, eyes suddenly flaming. “Eh, Joel, I tell you I was not three pagans, but six, in those days. The thing’s clear beyond your guessing, Joel. But it was big. An immense thing. I was back at the beginning of the world, with food, and drink, and my woman.... It was big, I tell you. Big!”
His eyes clouded—he fell silent, and so at last went on again. “I was asleep one night, tossing in my sleep. And something woke me. And I laid my hand on the spot beside me where the little brown girl used to lie, and she was gone. So I got up, unsteadily. There were rifles snapping in the night; and there werescreams. And I heard a white man’s black curse; and the slap of a blow of flesh on flesh. And the screams.
“So I went that way; and the sounds retreated before me, until I came out, unsteadily, upon the open beach. There was no moon, that night; and the water of the lagoon was shot with fire. And there was a boat, pulling away from the beach, with screaming in it.
“I swam after the boat for a long time, for I thought I had heard the voice of the little brown girl. The water was full of fire. When I lifted my arms, the fire ran down them in streams and drops. And sometimes I forgot what I was about, and stopped to laugh at these drops of fire. But in the end, I always swam on. I remember once I thought the little brown girl swam beside me, and I tried to throw my arm about her, and she wrenched away, and she burned me like a brand. I found, afterwards,what that was. My breast and sides were rasped and raw where a shark’s rough skin had scraped them. I’ve wondered, Joel, why the beast did not take me....
“But he did not; for I bumped at last into the boat, and climbed into it, and it was empty. But I saw a rope at the end of it, and I pulled the rope, and came to the schooner’s stern, and climbed aboard her.”
His voice was ringing, exultantly and proudly. “I swung aboard,” he said. “And I stumbled over fighting bodies on the deck, astern there. And some one cried out, in the waist of her; and I knew it was the little brown girl. So I left those struggling bodies at the stern, for they were not my concern; and I went forward to the waist. And I found her there.
“A fat man had her. She was fighting him; and he did not see me. And I put my fingers quietly into his neck, from behind; and when heno longer kicked back at me, and no longer tore at my fingers with his, I dropped him over the side. I saw a fiery streak in the water where I dropped him. That shark was not so squeamish as the one I had—embraced. It may have been the other was embarrassed at my ways, Joel. D’ye think that might have been the way of it?”
Joel’s knuckles were white, where his hand rested on his knee. Mark saw, and laughed softly. “There’s blood in you, after all, boy,” he applauded. “I’ve hopes for you.”
Joel said slowly: “What then? What then, Mark?”
Mark laughed. “Well, that was a very funny thing,” he said. “You see, the other two men, they were busy, astern, with their own concerns. And when I had comforted the little brown girl, and sat down on the deck to laugh at the folly of it all, she slipped away from me,and went aft, and got all their rifles. She brought them to me. She seemed to expect things of me. So I, still laughing, for the fever was on me; I took the rifles and threw them, all but one, over the side. And I went down into the cabin, with the little brown girl, and went to bed; and she sat beside me, with the rifle, and a lamp hanging above the door....
“And that was all that happened, until I woke one morning and saw her there, and wondered where I was. And my head was clear again. She made me understand that the men had sought to come at me, but had feared the rifle in her hands....
“And we were in the open sea, as I could feel by the labor of the schooner underfoot. So I took the rifle in the crook of my arm, and with the little brown girl at my heel, I went up on deck. And we made a treaty.”
He fell silent for a moment, and Joelwatched him, and waited. And at last, Mark went on.
“I had been more than a month on the island,” he said. “TheNathan Rosshad gone. This schooner was a pearler, and they had the location of a bed of shell. They had been waiting till another schooner should leave the place, to leave their own way clear. And when that time came, they went ashore to get the brown women for companions on that cruise. And they made the mistake of picking up my little brown girl, when she ran out of the hut. And so brought me down upon them.
“There were two of them left; two whites, and three black men forward, who were of no account. And the other two women. These other two were chattering together, on the deck astern, when I appeared. They seemed content enough....
“The men were not happy. There was alarge man with slanting eyes. There was Oriental blood in him. You could see that. He called himself Quint. But his eyes were Jap, or Chinese; and he had their calm, blank screen across his countenance, to hide what may have been his thoughts. Quint, he called himself. And he was a big man, and very much of a man in his own way, Joel.
“The other was little, and he walked with a slink and a grin. His name was Fetcher. And he was oily in his speech.
“When they saw me, they studied me for a considerable time without speech. And I stood there, with the rifle in my arm, and laughed at them. And at last, Quint said calmly:
“‘You took Farrell.’
“‘The fat man?’ I asked him. He nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He took my girl, and so I dropped him into the water, and a friend met him there and hurried him away.’
“‘Your girl?’ he echoed, in a nasty way. ‘You’re that, then?’
“‘Am I?’ I asked, and shifted the rifle a thought to the fore. And his eyes held mine for a space, and then he shook his head.
“‘I see that I was mistaken,’ he said.
“‘Your sight is good,’ I told him. ‘Now—what is this? Tell me.’
“He told me, evenly and without malice. They had a line on the pearls; there were enough for three. I was welcome. And at the end, I nodded my consent. TheNathan Rosswas gone. Furthermore, there were nine pagans in me now; and the prospect of looting some still lagoon, in company with these two rats, had a wild flavor about it that caught me. My blood was burning; and the sun was hot. Also, they had liquor aboard her. Liquor, and loot, and the three women. Pagan, Joel. Pagan! But wild and red and raw. There’s aglory about such things.... Songs are made of them.... There was no handshaking; but we made alliance, and crowded on sail, and went on our way.”
He stopped short, laughed, filled his pipe again, watched Joel. “You’re shocked with me, boy. I can see it,” he taunted mockingly. Joel shook his head. “Will you hear the rest?” Mark asked; and Joel nodded. Mark lighted his pipe, laughed.... His fingers thrummed on the desk beside him.
“We were a week on the way,” he said. “And all pagan, every minute of the week. Days when we fought a storm—as bad as I’ve ever seen, Joel. We fought it, holding to the ropes with our teeth, bare to the waist, with the wind scourging us. It tore at us, and lashed at us.... And we drove the three black men with knives to their work. And the three women stayed below, except my little browngirl. She came up, now and then, with dry clothes for me.... And I had to drive her to shelter....
“And when there was not the storm, there was liquor; and they had cards. We staked our shares in the catch that was to come.... Hour on hour, dealing, and playing with few words; and our eyes burned hollow in their sockets, and Quint’s thin mouth twisted and writhed all the time like a worm on a pin. He was a nervous man, for all his calm. A very nervous man....
“The fifth day, one of the blacks stumbled in Quint’s path, on deck. Quint had been losing, at the cards. He slid a knife from his sleeve into the man’s ribs, and tipped the black over the rail without a word. I was twenty feet away, and it was done before I could catch breath. I shouted; and Quint turned and looked at me, and he smiled.
“‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Have you objections to present?’ And the smeared blade in his hand, and the bubbles still rising, overside. I was afraid of the man, Joel. I tell you I was afraid. The only time. Fear’s a pagan joy, boy. It was like a new drink to me. I nursed it, eating it. And I shook my head, humble.
“‘No objections,’ I said, to Quint. ‘’Tis your affair.’
“‘That was my thought,’ he agreed, and passed me, and went astern. I stood aside to let him pass, and trembled, and laughed for the joy of my fear.
“And then we came to the lagoon, and the blacks began to dive. Only the two we had; and there was no sign of Islanders, ashore. But the water was shallow, and we worked the men with knives, and they got pearls. Sometimes one or two in a day; sometimes a dozen. Do you know pearls, Joel? They’re sweet as awoman’s skin. I had never seen them, before. And we all went a little mad over them....
“They made Fetcher hysterical. He laughed too much. They made Quint morose. They made me tremble....”
He wiped his hand across his eyes, as though the memory wearied him; and he moved his great shoulders, and looked at Joel, and laughed. “But it could not last, in that fashion,” he said. “It might have been anything. It turned out to be the women. I said they seemed content. They did. But that may be the way of the blacks. They have a happy habit of life; they laugh easily....
“At any rate, we found one morning that Quint’s girl was gone. She was not on the schooner; and ashore, we found her tracks in the sand. She had gone into the trees. And we beat the island, and we did not find her. And Quint sweated. All that day.
“That night, he looked at my little brown girl, and touched her shoulder. I was across the deck, the girl coming to me with food. I said to him: ‘No. She’s mine, Quint.’ And he looked at me, and I beat him with my eyes. And as his turned from mine, Fetcher and his woman came on deck, and Quint tapped Fetcher, and said to him: ‘What will you take for her?’
“Fetcher laughed at him; and Quint scowled. And I—for I was minded to see sport, came across to them and said: ‘Play for her. Play for her!’
“Fetcher was willing; because he had the blood that gambles anything. Quint was willing, because he was the better player. They sat down to the game, in the cabin, after supper. Poker. Cold hands. Nine of them. Winner of five to win....
“Fetcher got two, lost four, got two more. Iwas dealing. Card by card, face upward. I remember those hands. And my little brown girl, and the other, watching from the corner.
“The hands on the table grew, card by card. Fetcher got an ace, Quint a deuce. Fetcher a queen, Quint a seven. Fetcher a jack, Quint a six. Fetcher a ten, Quint a ten. Only the last card to come to each. If Fetcher paired any card, he would win. His card came first. It was a seven. He was ace, queen high. Quint had deuce, six, seven, ten. He had to get a pair to win....
“I saw Quint’s hand stir, beneath the table; and I glimpsed a knife in it. But before I could speak, or stir, Fetcher dropped his own hand to his trouser leg, and I knew he kept a blade there.... So I laughed, and dealt Quint’s last card....
“A deuce. He had a pair, enough to win....
“He leaned back, laughing grimly; and Fetcher’s knife went in beneath the left side of his jaw, where the jugular lies. Quint looked surprised, and got up out of his chair and lay down quietly across the table. I heard the bubbling of his last breath.... Then Fetcher laughed, and called his woman, and they took Quint on deck and tipped him overside. The knife had been well thrown. Fetcher had barely moved his wrist.... I was much impressed with the little man, and told my brown girl so. But she was frightened, and I comforted her.”
He was silent again for a time, pressing the hot ashes in his pipe with his thumb. The water slapped the broad stern of the ship beneath them, and Joel’s pipe was gurgling. There was no other sound. Little Priss, nails biting her palms, thought she would stream if the silence held an instant more....
But Mark laughed softly, and went on.
“Fetcher and I worked smoothly together,” he said. “The little man was very pleasant and affable; and I met him half way. The blacks brought up the shells, and we idled through the days, and played cards at night. We divided the take, each day; so our stakes ran fairly high. But luck has a way of balancing. On the day when we saw the end in sight, we were fairly even....
“Fetcher, and the blacks and I went ashore to get fruit from the trees there. Plenty of it everywhere; and we were running short. We went into the brush together, very pleasantly; and he fell a little behind. I looked back, and his knife brushed my neck and quivered in a tree a yard beyond me. So I went back and took him in my hands. He had another knife—the little man fairly bristled with them. Butit struck a rib, and before he could use it again, his neck snapped.
“So that I was alone on the schooner, with the two blacks, and Fetcher’s woman, and the little brown girl.
“Fetcher’s woman went ashore to find him and never came back. And I decided it was time for me to go away from that place. The pagans were dying in me. I did not like that quiet little island any more.
“But the next morning, when I looked out beyond the lagoon, another schooner was coming in. So I was uncomfortable with Fetcher’s pearls, as well as mine, in my pocket. There are some hard men in these seas, Joel; and I knew none of them would treasure me above my pearls. So I planned a story of misfortune, and I went ashore to hide my pearls under a rock.
“The blacks had brought me ashore. I wentout of their sight to do what I had to do; and when I came back, after hiding the pearls, I saw them rowing very swiftly toward the schooner. And they looked back at me in a fearful way. I wondered why; and then four black men came down on me from behind, with knives and clubs.
“I had a very hard day, that day. They hunted me back and forth through the island—I had not even a knife with me—and I met them here and there, and suffered certain contusions and bruises and minor cuts. Also, I grew very tired of killing them. They were wiry, but they were small, and died easily. So I was glad, when from a point where they had cornered me I saw the little brown girl rowing the big boat toward me.
“She was alone. The blacks were afraid to come, I thought. But I found afterward that this was not true. They could not come; for they had tried to seize the schooner and goquickly away from that place, and the little brown girl had drilled them both. She had a knack with the rifle....
“I waded to meet the boat, and she tossed me the gun. I held them off for a little, while we drew away from the shore. But when we were thirty or forty yards off, I heard rifles from the other schooner, firing past us at the blacks in the bush; and the girl stopped rowing. So I turned around and saw that one of the balls from the other schooner had struck her in the back. So I sat there, in the sun, drifting with the wind, and held her in my arms till she coughed and died.
“Then I went out to the other schooner and told them they were bad marksmen. They had only been passing by, for copra; and the story I told them was a shocking one. They were much impressed, and they seemed glad to get away. But the blacks were still on shore, sothat I could not go back for the pearls; and I worked the schooner out by myself, and shaped a course....
“I came to Tubuai, alone thus, a day before you, Joel.”