When Noll Wing kicked the unconscious man, and Faith slipped quietly away and went below, the life of theSally Simsfor an instant stood still. Yella' Boy and Loum, two of the boat-steerers, were lounging at the forward end of the boathouse, and saw. Dan'l Tobey, who had gripped the wheel, saw. And three or four of the men, amidships, saw. For a space they all stood still, watching, while Noll growled above his victim, and Mauger, limp and senseless, rolled slackly back and forth upon the deck with the motion of the vessel.
Then Noll looked around, and saw them all watching him with steady, hard, frightened eyes; and their silence irked him, so that he broke it with a cry of his own.
"You, Yella' Boy, sluice him off," he shouted.
Yella' Boy grinned, showed his teeth with the amiability of his dark race; and he took a canvas bucket and dropped it over the rail, and drew it up filled with brine, and flung this callously in Mauger's horribly crushed face. The water loosed the blood, washed it away in flecks and gouts.... It bared the skin, and through this skin, from many little slits and scratches like the cracks in a half-broken egg, more blood trickled, spreading moistly. The salt burned.... Mauger groaned hoarsely, slumped into unconsciousness again.
"Douse him again," Noll Wing commanded. "Thedog's shamming." He looked around, saw Dan'l at the wheel. "You, Mr. Tobey, look to him," he commanded.
Dan'l was one of those men whose hands have a knack for healing. He knew something of medicine; he had gone so far, upon a former cruise, as to trim away a man's crushed fingers after an accident of the whale fisheries had nipped them.... He hailed one of the men in the waist, now, and gave the wheel to this man, and then crossed to where Mauger lay and knelt beside him, and dabbed away the blood upon his face....
Cap'n Wing, leaning against the rail, his knuckles white with the grip he had upon it, watched Dan'l, and swayed upon his feet.... And Yella' Boy, with his bucket still half full of brine, stood by, and grinned, and waited.
Mauger came slowly back to life under Dan'l's ministrations; he groaned, and he began to twitch, and kick.... And of a sudden he cried out, like one suddenly waking from sleep. Then consciousness flooded him, and with it came the agony he was enduring, and he howled.... And then his howls grew weak and weaker till he was sobbing.... And Dan'l helped him to his feet.... He had put a rough bandage about the man's head, and from beneath this bandage, one of Mauger's eyes looked forth, blackly gleaming, wild with the torment he endured. This eye fixed its gaze upon Noll Wing....
Dan'l stepped a little nearer Noll, and said in a low voice: "His eye is gone, sir. No good. It ought to be dimmed out.... Cleared away...."
That shocked the liquor out of Noll; his face went white beneath the brown; and Mauger heard, and suddenly hescreamed again, and leveled a shaking finger at Noll Wing, and cursed him shrilly.... Dan'l whirled and bade him be silent; he signed to Yella' Boy, and the harpooner half dragged, half carried Mauger forward. But as they went, Mauger, twisting in the other's arms, shook his thin fist at Noll Wing and swore terribly.... Cursed Noll, called death down upon him, vowed that he would some day even the score....
Yella' Boy cuffed him and dragged him away.... And Dan'l watched Noll to see what the captain would say. Noll said nothing. He took off his cap and rubbed his bald head and looked for an instant like an old man; his eyes shifted furtively from Dan'l to the cursing man....
Abruptly, he turned and went aft to the stern of the ship and stood there by himself, thinking. He sought reassurance; he abused Mauger under his breath, and told himself the little man had been well served.... TheSallyfell away; he turned and cursed the new man at the wheel, and got relief from the oath he spoke. It gave him a blustering sort of courage.... He wished Dan'l Tobey would tell him he had done right.... But Dan'l had gone forward to the fo'c's'le.... Mauger was howling.... Noll thought Dan'l might be trimming away that crushed eye.... And he shuddered. He was, suddenly, immensely lonely. He wished with all his soul for support, for a word of comfort, a word of reassurance....
He went down into the cabin, thinking to speak with Henry Ham. Mr. Ham was always an apostle of violence.... But the mate was sleeping; Noll could hear him snore. So was tigerish little James Tichel....
Noll went into the after cabin, and found Faith there. Her back was turned, she was looking out of the stern windows. He wished she would look at him, but she did not. So he said, his voice thick with anger, and at the same time plaintive with hunger for a reassuring word....
"That damned rat won't try that again...."
Then Faith turned and told him: "That was a cowardly thing to do, Noll, my husband."
He had come for comfort; he was ready to humble himself; he was a prey to the instinct of wrong-doing man which bids him confess and be forgiven.... But Faith's eyes accused him.... When a man's wife turns against him.... He said, bitter with rage:
"Keep your mouth shut, child. This is not a pink tea, aboard theSally Sims. You know nothing of what's necessary to handle rough men."
Faith smiled a little wistfully. "I know it is never necessary to kick a helpless man in the face," she said.
He was so nearly mad with fury and shame and misery that he raised his great fist as though he would have struck even Faith. "Mind your own matters," he bade her harshly. "The dog struck me.... Where would the ship be if I let that go? I should have killed him...."
"Did you not?" Faith asked gently. "I thought he would be dead...."
"No; hell, no!" Noll blustered. "You can't kill a snake. He'll be poisonous as ever in a day...."
"I saw ..." said Faith; she shuddered faintly. "I—think his eye is gone."
"Eye?" Noll echoed. "What's an eye? He's luckyto live. There's skippers that would have killed him where he stood.... For what he did...."
Faith shook her head. "He's only a little man, weak, not used to sea life. You are big, and strong, Noll.... My Noll.... There was no need of kicking him."
The man flung himself, then, into an insane burst of anger at her. He hated the whole world, hated Faith most of all because she would not soothe him and tell him never to mind.... He raved at her, gripped her round shoulders and shook her, flung her away from him.... He was mad....
And Faith, steadfastly watching him, though her soul trembled, prayed in her heart that she might find the way to bring Noll back to manhood again; she endured his curses; she endured his harsh grip upon her shoulders.... She waited while he flooded her with abuse.... And at the end, when he was quiet for lack of words to say, she went to him and touched his arm.
"Noll ..." she said.
He jerked away from her. "What?"
"Noll.... Look at me...."
He obeyed, in spite of himself; and there was such depths of tenderness and sorrow in her eyes that the man's heart melted in him. "It's not Mauger I'm sorry for," she told him. "It's you, Noll.... That you should be so cowardly, Noll...."
His rage broke, then; he fell to fretting, whining.... She sat down; he slumped like a child beside her. He told her he was tired, weary.... That he was worried.... That his nerves had betrayed him.... That the drinkwas in him.... "They're all trying to stir me," he complained. "They take a joy in doing the thing wrong.... They're helpless, slithering fools.... I lost myself, Faith...."
He pleaded with her, desperately anxious to make her understand; and Faith understood from the beginning, with the full wisdom of woman, yet let him talk out all his unhappiness and remorse.... And because she loved him, her arm was about him and his great head was drawn against her breast long before he was done. She comforted him with touches of her light hands upon his head; she soothed him with murmurs that were no words at all....
The man reveled in this orgy of self-abasement. He groveled before her, until she began to be faintly contemptuous, in her heart, at his groveling. She bade him make an end of it....
"I was a coward, Faith," he cried. "You're right. I was a coward...."
"You are a man, Noll," she told him. "Stronger than other men, and not in your fists alone. That is why I love you so...."
"I know, I know," he told her. "Oh, you're a wonder, Faith...."
"You're a man. Always remember that," she said.
He got up abruptly. He started toward the main cabin; and she asked: "Where are you going, Noll?"
"Forward," he said. "I've wronged Mauger...." He was drunk with this new-found joy of abasing himself. "I'll tell the man so. I'll right things with him...."
And he added thoughtfully: "He cursed me. I don't want the man's hate. I'll right things with him...."
She smiled faintly, shook her head. "No, Noll...."
He was stubborn. "Yes. Why not? I've...."
She said thoughtfully: "Noll, you're the master of this ship. Old Jonathan Felt put her in your charge. You are responsible for her.... And that puts certain obligations on you, Noll. An obligation to be wise, and to be prudent, and to be brave...."
He came back and sat down beside her. She touched his knee. "You are like a king, aboard here, Noll. And—the king can do no wrong. I would not go to Mauger, if I were you. You made a mistake; but there is no need you should humble yourself before the men. They would not understand; they would only despise you, Noll."
He said hotly: "Let them. They're sneaking, spineless things...."
"Let them fear you; let them hate you," she told him. "But—never let them forget you are master, Noll. Don't go to Mauger...."
He had no real desire to go; he wished only to bask in her new-found sympathy. And he yielded readily enough, at last....
The matter passed abruptly. She rose; he went up on deck; theSally Simswent on her way. And for a day or two, Noll Wing, an old man, was like a boy who has repented and been forgiven; he was offensively virtuous, offensively good-natured.
Mauger returned to his duties the second day. He wore a bandage across his face; and when it was discardeda week later, the hollow socket where his eye had been was revealed. His suffering had worked a terrible change in the man; he had been morose and desperate, he was now too much given to chuckling, as though at some secret jest of his own. He went slyly about his tasks; he seemed to have a pride in his misfortune; when he saw men shrink with distaste at sight of his scarred countenance, he chuckled under his breath....
Dan'l Tobey had cut away the crushed eye-ball; the lids covered the empty socket. In the upper lid, some maimed nerve persisted in living. It twitched, now and then, in such a fashion that Mauger seemed to be winking with that deep hollow in his face....
The man had a fascination, from the beginning, for Noll Wing. The captain took an unholy joy in looking upon his handiwork; he shivered at it, as a boy shivers at a tale of ghosts.... And he felt the gleaming glance of Mauger's remaining eye like a threat. It followed him whenever they were both on deck together; if he looked toward Mauger, he was sure to catch the other watching him.
Dan'l Tobey was cheerfully philosophical about the matter. "He can see as well as ever, with what he has left," he told Noll one day. "And he ought to count himself lucky. Your boot might have mashed his head in.... And serve him right...."
"Aye," said Noll, willing to be reassured. "He's lucky to live. The dog must know that...."
And he looked forward to where Mauger lounged amidships, beside the try works, and saw the man's black eyewatching him; and Mauger caught the captain's glance, and chuckled unpleasantly, his face twisting. Noll felt a quiver of horror, far within himself....
He began, even in the fortnight after the affair, to remember Mauger's curses and threats as the man was borne away by Yella' Boy, that day. Mauger had threatened to kill him, to cut his heart away.... The meaningless cries of a delirious man, he told himself.... No doubt Mauger had forgotten them before this.
He tried, one day, the experiment of giving the one-eyed man an order. Smoking his pipe, he spilled ashes on the spotless deck; and he bellowed forward to Mauger to come aft, and when the man came, he pointed to the smudge of ashes, and:
"Clean that up," he said harshly. "Look sharp, now."
Mauger chuckled. "Aye, sir," he said respectfully, and on hands and knees at the captain's feet performed his task, looking up slyly into Noll Wing's face as he did so. The lid that closed the empty eye-socket twitched and seemed to wink....
That night, as they were preparing to sleep, Noll spoke of Mauger to Faith. "He does his work better than ever," he said.
She nodded. "Yes." And something in Noll's tone made her attentive.
"Seems cheerful, too," said Noll. He hesitated. "I reckon he's forgot his threat to stick a knife in me.... Don't you think he has?"
Faith's eyes, watching her husband, clouded; for sheread his tone. Noll Wing, strong man and brave, could not hide his secret from her....
She understood that he was deathly afraid of the one-eyed man.
TheSally Simswas in the South Atlantic on the day when Noll Wing kicked out Mauger's eye. The life of the whaler went on, day by day, as a background for the drama that was brewing. The men stood watch at the mastheads, theSallyplunged and waddled awkwardly southward; and now and then a misty spout against the wide blue of the sea halted them, and boats were lowered, and the whales were struck, and killed, and towed alongside. Held fast there by the chain that was snubbed around the fluke-chain bitt, they were hacked by the keen spades and cutting knives, the great heads were cut off, and dragged aboard, and stripped of every fleck of oily blubber; and the great bodies, while the spiral blanket strips were torn away, rolled lumberingly over and over against the bark's stout planks. Thereafter the tryworks roared, and the blubber boiled, and the black and stinking smoke of burning oil hung over the seas like a pall....
This smell of burning oil, the mark of the whaler, distressed Faith at first. It sickened her; and the soot from the fires where the scrapple of boiled blubber fed the flames settled over the ship, and penetrated even to her own immaculate cabin. She disliked the smell; but the gigantic toil of the cutting in and the roar of the tryworks hadalways a fascination for her that compensated for the smell and the soot. She rejoiced in strength, in the strong work of lusty men. To see a great carcass almost as long as theSallylying helplessly against the rail never failed to thrill her. For the men of the crew, it was all in the day's work; stinking, sweating, perilous toil. For Faith it was a tremendous spectacle. It intoxicated her; and in the same fashion it affected Noll Wing, and Dan'l Tobey, and tigerish old Tichel. When there were fish about, these men were subtly changed; their eyes shone, their chests swelled, their muscles hardened; they stamped upon the deck with stout legs, like a cavalry horse that scents the battle. They gave themselves to the toil of killing whales and harvesting the blubber as men give themselves to a debauch; and afterward, when the work was done, they were apt to surrender to a lassitude such as follows a debauch. There was keen, sensual joy in the running oil, the unctuous oil that flowed everywhere upon the decks; they dabbed their hands in it; it soaked their garments and their very skins drank it in.
Young Roy Kilcup took fire, from the beginning, at these gigantic spectacles. He wished to go out in the boats that struck the whales; but he lacked the sinews of a man, he lacked the perfect muscular control of manhood. He was still a boy, nimble as a monkey, but given to awkward gestures and leaps and motions. He could not be trusted to sit tight in a boat and handle his oar when a whale was leaping under the iron; and so he was condemned to stay on the ship.
But they could not deny him a part in the cutting in;and when that work was afoot, he was everywhere, his eyes gleaming.... He slashed at the blubber with a boarding knife; he minced it for the boiling; he descended into the blubber room and helped stow the stuff there. Faith, watching, loved his enthusiasm and his zeal....
After the matter of Mauger, things went smoothly for a space. The whales came neither too fast nor too slow; they killed one or two, at intervals of days; they cut them in; they tried them out, while the fires flared through night and day and cast red shadows on the dark faces of the men, and turned their broad, bared chests to gold. And when the blubber was boiled, they cleaned ship, and idled on their way, and raised, in due time, other whales....
Cap'n Wing chose to go west, instead of eastward past the tip of Africa and up into the Indian Ocean. So they worked their painful way around the Horn, fighting for inches day by day; and when the bleak fog did not blanket them, Faith could see gaunt mountains of rock above the northern rim of the sea. And once they passed a clipper, eastward bound. It swept up on them, a tower of tugging canvas; it came abreast, slipped past, and dwindled into a white dot upon the sea behind before night came down and hid it from their eyes. In the morning, though they had idled with no canvas pulling, through the night, the clipper was gone, and they were alone again among the mountains that came down to the sea....
So they slid out at last into the South Pacific, and struck a little north of west for the wide whaling grounds of the island-dotted South Seas. And struck their whales....
The routine of their tasks.... But during this time, a change was working in Noll Wing, which Faith, and Dan'l Tobey, and all who looked might see.
The matter of Mauger had been, in some measure, a milestone in Noll Wing's life. He had struck men before; he had maimed them. He had killed at least one man, in fair fight, when it was his life or the other's. But because in those days his pulse was strong and his heart was young, the matter had never preyed upon him. He had been able to go proudly on his way, strong in his strength, sure of himself, serene and unafraid. He was, in those days, a man.
But this was different; this was the parting of the ways. Noll had spent his great strength too swiftly. His muscles were as stout as ever; but his heart was not. Drink was gnawing at him; old age was gnawing at him; he was like an old wolf that by the might of tooth and fang has led the pack for long.... He had seen strong men fail; he knew what failure meant; and he could guess the slackening of his own great powers and prevision the end of this slackening. The wolf dreads the day when a young, strong wolf will drag him down; Noll dreaded the day when his voice and his eye and his fist should fail to master the men. He had been absolute so long, he could endure no less. He must rule, or he was done....
At times, when he felt this failing of his own strong heart, he blamed Faith for it, and fretted at her because she dragged him down. At other times, he was ashamed, he was afraid of the eyes of the men; he fled to her for comfort and for strength. He was a prey, too, to regretful memories. The matter of Mauger, for instance.... He was, for all he fought the feeling, tortured by remorse for what he had done to Mauger.
And he was dreadfully afraid of the one-eyed man.
At first, he half enjoyed this fear; it was a new sensation, and he rolled in it like a horse in clover. But as the weeks passed, it nagged at him so constantly that he became obsessed with it. Wherever he turned, he saw the one-eyed man regarding him; and this steady scrutiny of Mauger's one black eye was like a continual pin-prick. It twanged his nerves.... He tried, for a time, to find relief in blustering; he roared about the ship, bellowing his commands.... It comforted him to see men jump to obey. But from the beginning, this was not utter comfort. He was pursued by the chuckling, mirthless mirth of the one-eyed man. He thought Mauger was like a scavenger bird that waits for a sick beast to die. Mauger harassed him....
This change in Noll Wing reacted upon Faith. Because her life was so close to his, she was forced to witness the manifestations which he hid from the men; because her eyes were the eyes of a woman who loves, she saw things which the men did not see. She saw the slow loosening of the muscles of Noll's jaw; saw how his cheeks came to sag like jowls. She saw the old, proud strength in his eyes weaken and fail; she saw his eyes grow red and furtive.... Saw, too, how his whole body became overcast with a thickening, flabby garment of fat, like a net that bound his slothful limbs....
Noll's slow disintegration of soul had its effect uponFaith. She had been, when she came to theSally Simswith him, little more than a girl; she had been gay and laughing, but she had also been calm and strong. As the weeks passed, Faith was less gay; her laugh rang more seldom. But by the same token, the strength that dwelt in her seemed to increase. While Noll weakened, she grew strong....
There were days when she was very lonely; she felt that the Noll she had married was gone from her.... She was, for all her strength, a woman; and a woman is always happiest when she can lean on other strength and find comfort there.... But Noll.... Noll, by this, was not so strong of soul as she....
She was lonely with another loneliness; with the loneliness of a mother.... But Noll had told her, brutally, in the beginning, that there was no place for a babe upon theSally Sims. He overbore her, because in such a matter she could not command him. The longing was too deep in her for words. She could not lay it bare for even Noll to see....
Thus, in short, Faith was unhappy. Unhappy; yet she loved Noll, and her heart clung to him, and yearned to strengthen and support the man, yearned to bring back the valor she had loved in him.... There could never be, so long as he should live, any man but Noll for her.
Dan'l Tobey—poor Dan'l, if you will—could not understand this. Dan'l, for all his round and simple countenance, and the engaging frankness of his freckles and his hair, had an eye that could see into the heart of a man. He had understanding; he could read men's moods; hecould play upon them, guide them without their guessing at his guidance. He managed skillfully. He held the respect, even the affection of the bulk of the crew; he had the liking of all the officers save Willis Cox, who disliked him for a reason he could not put in words. He bent his efforts to hold Roy Kilcup; and Roy worshiped him. He took care to please Noll Wing, and Noll leaned upon Dan'l, and trusted him. Dan'l was the only man on the ship who always applauded whatever Noll might do; and Noll, hungry as an old man for praise, fed fat on Dan'l's applause....
Dan'l was wise; he was also crafty. He contrived, again and again, that Noll should act unworthily in Faith's eyes. To this extent he understood Faith; he understood her ideals, knew that she judged men by them, knew that when Noll fell short of these ideals, Faith must in her heart condemn him.... And he took care that Noll should fall short....
For one thing—a little matter, but at the same time a matter of vast importance—he used the fact that big Noll did not eat prettily. Noll, accustomed to the sea, having all his life been a hungry man among men, was not careful of the niceties of the table. He ate quickly; he ate loudly; he ate clumsily. Dan'l, somewhat gentler bred, understood this; and at the meals in the cabin when Noll was particularly offensive, Dan'l used to catch Faith into spirited conversation, as though to distract her attention.... He did this in such a way that it seemed to be mere loyalty to Noll; yet it served to create an atmosphere of understanding between Dan'l and Faith, and it showedhim in her eyes as a loyal servant, without hiding the fact that big Noll was a gross man.
When they were all on deck together, and Dan'l saw that burning sun or splattering rain was unpleasant to Faith, he used to remedy the matter by finding shelter for her; and in doing this he emphasized—by the doing itself—the fact that Noll had failed to think of her. How much of these things was, in the beginning, designed to win Faith from Noll it is impossible to say. Dan'l delighted in the very doing; for he loved Faith, had loved her for years, still loved her so intensely that there were hours when he could have strangled Noll with his bare hands because Noll possessed her.
Dan'l loved Faith with a passion that gripped him, soul and body; yet it was not an unholy thing. When he saw her unhappy, he wished to guard her; when he saw that she was lonely, he wished to comfort her; when he came upon her, once, at the stern, and saw that she had tears in her eyes, it called for all his strength to refrain from taking her in his arms and soothing her. He loved her, but there was nothing in his love that could have soiled her. Dan'l was, in some fashion, a figure of tragedy....
His heart burst from him, one day when they were two weeks in the South Pacific. It was a hard, bitter day; one of those days when the sea is unfriendly, when she torments a ship with thrusting billows, when she racks planks and strains rigging, when she is perverse without being dangerous. There was none of the joy of battle in enduring such a sea; there was only irksome toil. It told on Noll Wing. His temper worked under the strain. He was ondeck through the afternoon; and the climax came when Willis Cox's boat parted the lines that held its bow and fell and dangled by the stern lines, slatting against the rail of theSally, and spilling the gear into the sea. With every lurch of the sea, the boat was splintering; and before the men, driven by Dan'l and Willis, could get the boat inboard again, it was as badly smashed as if a whale's flukes had caught it square. Noll had raged while the men toiled; when the boat was stowed, he strode toward Willis Cox and spun the man around by a shoulder grip.
"Your fault, you damned, careless skunk," he accused. "You're no more fit for your job.... You're a...."
Willis Cox was little more than a boy; he had a boy's sense of justice. He was heart-broken by the accident, and he said soberly: "I'm sorry, sir. It was my fault. You're right, sir."
"Right?" Noll roared. "Of course I'm right. Do I need a shirking fourth mate to tell me when I'm right or wrong? By...." His wrath overflowed in a blow; and for all the fact that Noll was aging, his fist was stout. The blow dropped Willis like the stroke of an ax. Noll himself filled a bucket and sluiced the man, and drove him below with curses.
Afterward, the reaction sent Noll to Faith in a rage at himself, at the men, at the world, at her. Dan'l, in the main cabin, heard Noll swearing at her.... And he set his teeth and went on deck because of the thing he might do. He was still there, half an hour later, when Faith came quietly up the companion. Night had fallen by then, the sea was moderating. Faith passed him, where he stoodby the galley; and he saw her figure silhouetted against the gray gloom of the after rail. For a moment he watched her, gripping himself.... He saw her shoulders stir, as though she wept....
The man could not endure it. He was at her side in three strides.... She faced him; and he could see her eyes dark in the night as she looked at him. He stammered:
"Faith! Faith! I'm so sorry...."
She did not speak, because she could not trust her voice. She was furiously ashamed of her own weakness, of the disloyalty of her thoughts of Noll. She swallowed hard....
"He's a dog, Faith," Dan'l whispered. "Ah, Faith.... I love you. I love you. I could kill him, I love you so...."
Faith knew she must speak. She said quietly: "Dan'l.... That is not...."
He caught her hand, with an eloquent grace that was strange to see in the awkward, freckled man. He caught her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I love you, Faith," he cried....
She freed her hand, rubbed at it where his lips had pressed it. Dan'l was scarce breathing at all.... Fearful of what he had done, fearful of what she might do or say....
She said simply: "Dan'l, my friend, I love Noll Wing with all my heart."
And poor Dan'l knew, for all she spoke so simply, that there was no part of her which was his. And he backedaway from her a little, humbly, until his figure was shadowed by the deckhouse. And then he turned and went forward to the waist, and left Faith standing there.
He found Mauger in the waist, and jeered at him good-naturedly until he was himself again. Faith, after a little, went below.
Noll was asleep in his bunk above hers. He lay on his back, one bare and hairy arm hanging over the side of the bunk. He was snoring, and there was the pungent smell of rum about him.
Faith undressed and went quietly to bed.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men...." Their lives ebb and flow like the tides; there are days, or months, or years when matters move slackly, seem scarce to move at all. But always, in the end, the pulses of the days beat up and up.... A moment comes when all life is compressed in a single act, a single incident.... Thereafter the tide falls away again, but the life of man is a different thing thereafter.
Such a tide was beating to the flood aboard theSally Sims. Faith felt it; Dan'l felt it; even Noll Wing, through the fury of his increasing impotence, felt that matters could not long go on in this wise. Noll felt it less than the others, because the waxing tension of his nerves was relieved by his occasional outbursts of tempestuous rage. But Faith could find no vent for her unhappiness; she loved Noll, and she wept for him.... Wept for the Noll she had married, who now was dying before her eyes.... And Dan'l suffered, perhaps, more than Faith. He suffered because he must not seem to suffer....
The thing could not go on, Dan'l thought; he told himself, in the night watches when he was alone on deck, that he could not long endure the torment of his longing. Thus far he had loved Faith utterly; his half-unconscious efforts to discredit Noll were the result of no malice toward Noll Wing, but only of love for Faith. But the denial ofhis longing for the right to care for her was poisoning him; the man's soul was brewing venom. The honorable fibers of his being were disintegrating; his heart was rotting in the man.
He was at the point where a little thing might have saved him; he was, by the same token, at the point where a little thing could set him forever upon the shameful paths of wrong.
Noll passed, at this time, into a period of sloth. He gave up, bit by bit, the vigorous habits of his life. He had been accustomed of old to take the deck at morning, and keep it till dusk; and when need arose in the night, he had always been quick to leap from his bunk and spring to the spot where his strength was demanded. He had, in the past, loved to take his own boat after the whales that were sighted; he had continued to do this in the early stages of this cruise, leaving Eph Hitch, the cooper; and Tinch, the cook; and Kellick, and a spare hand or so to keep ship with Faith and Roy Kilcup. But when they came into the South Seas, he gave this up; and for a month on end, he did not leave the ship. The mates struck the whales, and killed them, and cut them in, while Noll slept heavily in his cabin.
He gave up, also, the practice of spending most of the day on deck. He stayed below, reading a little, writing up the log, or sitting with glazed eyes by the cabin table, a bottle in reach of his hand. He slept much, heavily; and even when he was awake, he seemed sodden with the sleep in which he soaked himself.
He passed, during this time, through varying moods.There were days when he sulked and spoke little; there were days when he swore and raged; and there were other days when he followed at Faith's heels with a pathetic cheerfulness, like an old dog that tries to drive its stiff legs to the bounding leaps of puppy play. He was alternately dependent upon her and fretful at her presence....
And always, day by day, he was haunted by the sight of the one-eyed man. He burst out, to Faith, one night; he cried:
"The man plans to knife me. I can see murder in his eye."
Faith, who pitied Mauger and had tried to comfort him, shook her head. "He's broken," she said. "He's but the shell of a man."
"He follows me," Noll insisted. "I turned, on deck, an hour ago; and he was just behind me, in the shadow...."
Faith, seeking to rouse the old spirit in Noll, said gently: "There was a man who tried to stab you once. And you killed him with your hands. Surely you need not be fearful of Mauger."
Noll brooded for a moment. "Eh, Faith," he said dolefully. "I was a hard man, then. I've always been a hard man.... Wrong, Faith. I was always wrong...."
"You were a master," she told him.
"By the fist. A master by the fist.... A hard man...."
He fell to mourning over his own harsh life; he gave himself to futile, ineffectual regrets.... He told over to Faith the tale of the blows he had struck, the oaths, thekicks.... This habit of confession was becoming a mania with him. And when Faith tried smilingly to woo him from this mood, he called her hard.... He told her, one day, she was un-Christian; and he got out a Bible, and began to read.... Thereafter the mates found him in the cabin, day by day, with the Bible spread upon his knees, and the whiskey within reach of his hand....
The disintegration of the master had its inevitable effect upon the crew; they saw, they grinned with their tongues in their cheeks; they winked slyly behind Noll's back. One day Noll called a man and bade him scrub away a stain of oil upon the deck. The man went slackly at the task. The captain said: "Come, sharp there...." And the man grinned and spat over the side and asked impudently:
"What's hurry?"
Noll started to explain; but Henry Ham had heard, and the mate's fist caught the man in the deep ribs, and the man made haste, thereafter. Ham explained respectfully to the captain:
"You can't talk to 'em, sir. Fist does it. Fist and boot. You know that, well's me."
Noll shook his head dolefully. "I've been a hard man in the past, Mr. Ham," he admitted. "But I'll not strike a man again...."
And the mate, who could not understand, chuckled uneasily as though it were all a jest. "I will, for you, sir," he said.
If Dan'l Tobey had been mate, and so minded, he could have kept the crew alert and keen; but Dan'l had his owntroubles, and he did not greatly care what came to Noll and Noll's ship. So, Noll's hand slackening, the men were left to Mr. Ham; and the mate, while fit for his job, was not fit for Noll's. Matters went from bad to worse....
This growing slackness culminated in tragedy. Where matters of life and death are a part of every day, safety lies in discipline; and discipline was lax on theSally Sims. On a day when the skies were ugly and the wind was freshening, they sighted a lone bull whale, and the mate and Willis Cox lowered for him while the ship worked upwind toward where the creature lay. The boats, rowing, distanced the bark; the mate struck the whale, and the creature fluked the boat so that its planks opened and it sank till it was barely awash, and dipped the men in water to their necks. Silva, the mate's harpooner, cut the line and let the whale run free; and a moment later, Willis Cox's boat got fast when Loum pitchpoled his great harpoon over thirty feet of water as the whale went down....
The big bull began to run headlong, and the men in Willis's boat balanced on the sides for a "Nantucket Sleigh-ride." The whale ran straightaway, so tirelessly they could not haul up on the line.... The weather thickened behind them and hid theSallyas she stopped to pick up the mate and his wrecked boat. Then a squall struck, and night came swiftly down....
When Willis saw it was hopeless to think of killing the whale, he cut. It was then full dark, and blowing. Some rain fell, but the flying spume that the wind clipped fromthe wave tops kept the boat a quarter full of sea water, no matter how desperately they bailed. Toward midnight, the thirsty men wished to drink.
A whaleboat is always provisioned against the emergency of being cast adrift. Biscuits and water are stored in the lantern keg, with matches and whatever else may be needful. The water is replenished now and then, that it may be fresh....
When Willis opened the lantern keg, he found the water half gone, and so brackish it was unfit to drink. A condition directly to be attributed to the weakening of discipline aboard theSally.... A serious matter, as they knew all too well when the next day dawned bright and hot, with the bark nowhere to be seen. Their thirst increased tormentingly; and on the third day, when the searchingSallyfound them, two men were dead in the boat, and the other four were in little better case....
Willis had worked his boat toward an island northeast of the position where he lost theSally; Dan'l Tobey had guessed what Willis would do, and had persuaded Noll to cruise that way. When they picked up the half dead men, Noll decided to touch at the island for food and fresh water; and they raised it in mid-morning of the second day.
They had seen other lands since the cruise began. But these other lands had been rocky and inhospitable.... The harsh tops, for the most part, of mountains that rose from the sea's depths to break the surface of the sea. Men dwelt on them, clinging like goats in the crannies of the rocks.... But they were not inviting. This islandwas different. When Faith, coming on deck at the cry, saw it blue-green against the horizon, she caught her breath at the beauty of it; and while theSallyworked closer, she watched with wide eyes and leaping pulses. She felt, vaguely, that it was the portal of a new world; it was lovely, inviting, pleasant.... She was suddenly sick of the harsh salt of the sea, sick of the stinking ship.... She wanted soft earth beneath her feet, trees above her head, flowers within reach of her hand....
This island was fair and smiling; it seemed to promise her all the things she most desired.... She sought Noll Wing.
"Are you going ashore, Noll?" she asked.
He was in one of his slothful moods, half asleep in the after cabin; and he shook his great head. "No.... Mates will get what we need. We'll be away by night."
She hesitated. "I—want to go ashore," she said. "Won't you go with me?"
"You can go," he agreed, readily enough. "Nobody there but some niggers—and maybe a few whites, on the beach. Nothing to see...."
"There's land," she told him, smiling. "And trees, and flowers.... Do come."
"You go along. I'm—tired, to-day."
"I'd like it so much more if you came with me."
He frowned at her, impatient at her insistence. "Stop the talk," he told her harshly. "I'm not going. Go if you want to. But be still about it, let a man rest.... I'm tired, Faith.... I'm getting old...."
"You ought to look after getting the stuff for the ship," she reminded him. "After all—you are responsible for her...."
"Mr. Ham will do that, better than me," he said. "Go along."
She went out, reluctantly, and sought the mate. His boat and James Tichel's were to go ashore, leaving Dan'l in charge of the ship. He grinned cheerfully at Faith's request, and bade his men rig a stool to lower her into the boat. Faith protested, laughingly. "I can jump down, as well as a man," she said; and he nodded assent and forgot her.
She was in his boat when they put off presently; she sat astern, while Mr. Ham stood above her, his legs spread to steady himself against the movement of the boat, his weight on the long steering oar that he always preferred to the tiller. TheSallyhad dropped anchor a mile off shore, and canoes were already spinning out to her. The island spread before them, green and sparkling in the sun; and the white beach shone like silver.... It was more than a coral island; there were two hills, a mile or so inland; and the white-washed huts of a considerable village shone against the trees. The canoes met them, whirled about them; the black folk shouted and clamored and stared.... Mr. Ham waved to them, talked to them in a queer and outlandish mixture of tongues, bade them go on to theSally.... "Mr. Tobey'll buy what they've got," he told Faith, as the whaleboat drove ahead for the shore.
James Tichel's boat was well astern of them, dragging a raft of floating casks which would be filled with waterand towed out to theSally. He was still far from shore when they drove up on the beach; and the men jumped out into the shallow water and dragged the boat higher, so that Faith, picking her way over the thwarts, could step ashore dry shod from the bow. Her feet left scarce a mark upon the hard, white sand.
Mr. Ham said to her: "You come up to the trees; you can be cool there while we're at our business."
But Faith shook her head. "I'm going to take a walk," she said. "I want to get into the woods. How long will you be here?"
He hesitated dubiously. "Guess it's all right if you do," he decided. "The niggers are friendly.... Most of 'em talk English, in a way. Go ahead."
"How long have I?" Faith asked again. He said they would be ashore an hour, perhaps more. "No matter, anyway," he told her. "Stay long as you like. Do you want I should send a man with you?"
Faith told him she was not afraid; he grinned. She turned southward along the beach, away from the huddled village. The smooth sand was so firm it jarred her feet, and she moved up into the shade of the trees, and followed them for a space, eyes probing into the tangle beyond them, lips smiling, every sense drinking in the smells of the land.... When she came, presently, to a well-marked path that led into the jungle-like undergrowth, she hesitated, then turned in.
Within twenty steps, the trees closed about her, shutting away all sight of the sea. For a little longer she could hear the long rollers pounding on the beach; then thatsound, too, became indistinct and dim.... It was drowned in the thousand tiny noises of the brush about her. Bird-notes, crackling of twigs, stirring of furry things. Once a little creature of a sort she had never seen before, yet not unlike the familiar and universal rabbit, hopped out of her path in a flurry of excitement.
She heard, presently, another sound ahead of her; a sound of running, falling water; and when she pressed on eagerly, she came out upon the bank of a clear stream that dropped in bright cascades from one deep, cool pool to another. She guessed this stream must come down between the hills she had seen from the ship.... It was all the things she had unwittingly longed for during the months aboard theSally. It was cool, and clear, and gay, and chuckling; the sea was always so turbulent and harsh. She followed the path that ran up the northern bank of the stream, and each new pool seemed more inviting than the last.... She wanted to wade into them, to feel the water on her shoulders and her throat and her arms.... Her smooth skin had revolted endlessly against the bite of the salt water in which she bathed aboard theSally; it yearned for this cool, crystal flood....
She put aside this desire. The path she was following was a well-beaten trail. People must use it. They might come this way at any time.... She wished, wistfully, that she might be sure no one would come.... And so wishing, she pressed on, each new pool among the rocks wooing her afresh, and urging her to its cool embrace....
She heard, in the wood ahead of her, an increasing clamor of falling water, and guessed there might be a cascade there of larger proportions than she had yet seen. The path left the stream for a little, winding to round a tangle of thicker underbrush; and she hurried around this tangle, her eyes hungry to see the tumbling water she could hear....
Hurrying thus, she came out suddenly upon the lip of the pool.... Broad, and dark, and deep; its upper end walled by a sheet of plunging water that fell in a mirror-like veil and churned the pool to misty foam. Her eyes drank deep; they swung around the pool.... And then, she caught her breath, and shrank back a little, and pressed her hand to her throat....
Upon a rock, not fifty feet from her, his back half turned as he poised to dive, there stood a man. A white man, for all the skin of his whole body was golden-brown from long exposure to the open air.... He poised there like some wood god.... Faith had a strange feeling that she had blundered into a secret temple of the woods; that this was the temple's deity. She smiled faintly at her own fancy; smiled....
God has made nothing more beautiful than the human body, whether it be man's or woman's. Faith thought, in the instant that she watched, that this bronzed man of the woods was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.... She had no sense of shame in watching him; she had only joy in the sheer beauty of him, golden-brown against the green. And when, even as she first saw him, he leaped and swung, smooth and straight, high through the air, and turned with arms like arrows to pierce the bosom of the pool, she gasped a little, as one gasps on coming suddenlyout upon a mountain top, with the world outspread below.... Then he was gone, with scarce a sound.... She saw for an instant the golden flash of him in the pool's depths....
His brown head broke the water, far across the way.... And he shook back his hair, and passed his hands across his face to clear his eyes.... His eyes opened....
His eyes opened, and he saw her standing there....
There were seconds on end that they remained thus, each held by the other's gaze. Faith could not, for her life, have stirred. The spell of the place was upon her. The man, for all his astonishment, was the first to find his tongue. He called softly across the water:
"Good morning, woman...."
His voice was so gentle, and at the same time so gay, that Faith was not alarmed. She smiled....
"It's after noon," she said. "Good afternoon—man!"
When Faith answered him, the man's face broke in smiles; he told her laughingly: "If you're so familiar with the habits of the sun, you must be a real woman, and not a dream at all.... I'm awake.... I am, am I not?"
"I should think you would be," said Faith. "That water must be cold enough to wake any one...."
He shook his head. "No, indeed. Just pleasantly cool. Dip your hand in it...."
Something led her to obey him; she bent by the pool's sandy brink and dabbled her fingers, while the man, a hundred feet away at the very foot of the waterfall, held his place with the effortless ease of an accustomed swimmer, and watched her. "Wasn't I right?" he challenged.
She nodded. "It's delicious...."
He said quickly: "You being here means that a ship is in, of course."
"Yes."
"What ship?"
"TheSally Sims—whaler...."
"TheSally! I know theSally," the man cried. "Is Noll Wing still captain?..."
"Of course."
His eyes were thoughtful. "I'm in luck, woman," he said. "Listen. Will you do a thing for me?"
"What do you want me to do?"
"I've a sort of a home, up on the hill above us here.... Observatory.... I've been waiting four months for a ship to come along, keeping a lookout from the top there.... Missed theSally, somehow.... Must have come up after I came down...."
"We made the island a little before noon," she said.
He chuckled. "Ah, I was in my boudoir then.... I want to ship on theSally. Does she need men?"
Her eyes clouded thoughtfully. "I—think so," she said. "They lost two, three days ago."
"What was it?" he asked quickly. "Fighting whale...."
She shook, her head. "Boat got lost ... and they were short of water. The jug wasn't fresh filled."
The man whistled softly. "That doesn't sound like one of Noll Wing's boats," he said. "Noll is a stickler on those things...."
Faith bowed her head, tracing a pattern in the sand with her forefinger. She said nothing. The man asked: "How long before they sail?"
"They're going to wait for me," she said.
His eyes lighted, and he chuckled. "Good. Now, listen.... If you'll be so kind as to turn your back.... You see, I've been running wild here for the past few months, and my clothes are all up at my place. I'll trot up there and get them and come back here.... Get a few things that I don't want to leave.... Will you turn your back?..." She had done so, and she heard thewater stir as he raced for the shore and landed. "I'm going, now," he called.
"How long will you be?" she asked.
"Not over an hour," he told her. "About an hour."
"I'm afraid some one may come along this path.... Will they?... Should I hide from them?..."
He laughed. "Bless you, this is my private path; it's officially taboo to the natives, by special arrangement with the old witch doctor effect that runs their affairs. There won't be a soul along.... I'll be back in an hour...."
"I'll wait," she agreed softly. There was a light of mischief in her eyes. Still standing with her face down stream, she heard his bare feet pad the earth of the path for a moment before the sound was lost in the laughing of the waterfall.... A moment later, his shout: "I'm gone."
She sat down quickly on the sand, smiling to herself, sure of what she wished to do. She slipped off her shoes and her stockings with quick fingers; and she gathered her skirts high about her thighs and stepped with one foot and then another into the pleasant waters of the pool. They rippled around her ankles; she went deeper.... The waters played above her knees, while she balanced precariously in the swirling current and gathered her skirts high....
The water was soothing as Heaven itself, after the salt.... But she was not satisfied.... Merely wading.... She stood for a little, listening, gathering courage, striving to pierce the shadows of the bush about her with her eyes.... These first months of her marriage had driven a measure of her youth out of Faith; they had been sober days, and days more sober still were yet to come. But for this hour, a gay irresponsibility flooded her; she waded ashore, singing under her breath.... She began swiftly to loosen her skirt at the waist....
When the man came trotting down the trail at last, shouting ahead to her as he came, Faith was sitting demurely upon the sand, clothed and in her right mind.... She was trying to appear unconscious of the fact that around the back of her neck, and her pink little ears, wet tendrils of hair were curling.... When he came in sight, she rose gravely to meet him; and he looked at her with quick, keen eyes, and laughed.... She turned red as a flame....
"I don't blame you," he said. "It's a beautiful pool...."
She wanted to be angry with him; but she could not.... His laughter was infectious; she smiled at him. "I—couldn't resist it," she said....
She was studying the man. He wore, now, the accustomed garments of a seaman, the clothes which the men aboard theSallywore. Harsh and awkward garments; yet they could not hide the graceful strength of the man. He was not so big as Noll, she thought; not quite as big as even Dan'l Tobey.... Yet there was such symmetry in his limbs and the breadth of his shoulders that he seemed a well-bulked man. His cheeks were lean and brown, andhis lips met with a pleasant firmness.... A man naturally gay, she thought; yet with strength in him....
They started down the path toward the sea together. He carried a cloth-wrapped bundle, swinging in his hand. She looked at him sidewise; asked: "Who are you? How do you come to be here?"
"My name's Brander," he said. "I was third mate on theThomas Morgan."
She tried to remember a whaler by that name. "New Bedford?" she asked.
"No.... Nantucketer."
Faith looked at him curiously. "But—what happened? Was she lost?..."
Brander's face was sober; he hesitated. "No, not lost," he said. He did not seem minded to go on; and Faith asked again:
"What happened?"
He laughed uneasily. "I left them," he said, and again seemed to wish to let the matter rest. But Faith would not.
"Is there any reason, why you should not tell me all about it?" she asked.
"No."
"Then tell me, please...."
He threw up his free hand in a gesture of surrender. "All right," he said....
They were following the narrow path down the stream's side toward the sea. Faith was ahead, Brander on her heels. After a moment, he went on....
"A man named Marks was the skipper of theThomas Morgan. I shipped aboard her as a seaman. I'd hadone cruise before.... Not with him. I shipped with him.... And I found out, within two days, that I'd made a mistake.
"Not that they were hard on me. I knew my job, after a fashion; and ... they let me alone. But the men had a tough time of it. It was a tough ship, through and through. Marks; and his mate.... Mate's name was Trant, and I'd not like to meet that man on a dark night. There was murder in him.... The sheer love of it.... He was the sort of man that will catch a shark just for the fun of spiking the creature's jaws and turning him loose again.... I was in Taku once.... Saw a little China boy catch a dragon fly and tie a twig to its tail and let it go. The twig overbalanced the dragon fly—It went straight up into the air, fast as it could wing.... May be going yet.... That was the sort of trick Trant would have liked.
"Not that he ever actually killed a man on this cruise. Better if he had, for the men. But he didn't.
"A big fellow. Heavy fisted; but he wasn't satisfied with the fist. The boot for him...."
They were climbing a little knoll in the path; he fell silent while they climbed; and Faith thought of Noll Wing and Mauger....
"Well," said Brander. "Well, you know how things drag along.... We dragged along.... Then, one day, we touched.... We'd gone around into the Japan Sea. Marks and Trant walked up to the second mate and took him, between them, into a boat, and took him ashore.... They came back without him. He was a man as big asTrant, but he had crossed Trant, more than once.... Trant had a face that was cut to ribbons when he came back aboard; but the other man did not come back at all. I never knew what the particular quarrel was....
"They shoved the third mate up to the second, and put me in as third. I said to myself: 'All right.... But don't go to sleep, Brander.' And I didn't. It didn't pay.... I couldn't."
He waved his hand as though to dismiss what followed with a word.... Nevertheless, he went on:
"There was a man in my boat.... He was called 'Lead-Foot' by every one, because he was a slow-moving man. He was not good for much. He was very much afraid of every one. Especially Trant. He was bigger than Trant, so Trant took a certain satisfaction from abusing him. I decided to interfere with this. I told this big coward who was in my boat to keep out of Trant's way; and I told Trant, jokingly, one day, to leave my men alone. He was huffed at that; growled at me." Brander chuckled. "So I swelled up my chest like a fighting cock and told him to keep hands off. Oh, I threw a great bluff, I can tell you. But Trant was not a coward. He waited his time; and I knew he was waiting....
"And while he waited, he talked to the captain; and I could see them both whispering together. They whispered about me. They did not like to have me about; and once Marks threatened to put me back in the fo'c's'le; but he changed his mind.
"So matters were till we came past an island to the north of here, forty or fifty miles. We made that islandat dusk, and worked nearer it after darkness had fallen. It came on cloudy and dark....
"I met Trant on the deck; and I said to him: 'Do we go ashore here?' He grinned at me with his teeth and bade me wait till morning and see. And that was enough for me. I knew what was coming. I thought I would hurry it a little; but luck hurried it for me, in a way that worked out very well.
"This lead-footed man was at the wheel. When the anchor went down, he started forward and brushed against Trant. Trant may have meant it to be so. Anyway, Trant knocked the lead-foot flying, and went after him with the boot, jumping, as lumbermen do. There happened to be a belaying pin handy. So I took it and cracked Trant, and he dropped in mid-leap.... Then Marks jumped me; and I managed to wriggle out from under him, and he fell and banged his head. And he lay still; but Trant was up, by then, and at me.
"The lead-footed man was yelling in my ear. I told him to go overboard and swim for it; and he did. And just then Trant got in the way of the belaying pin again, and this time he did not seem to want to get up.
"There was some confusion, you understand. I did not stay to straighten things out. I went over, after Lead-Foot.... He could swim like a porpoise. He was ahead of me, but half way in he met a shark, and came clamoring back to me to be saved. So I got out of his way for fear he would drag us both under, and then I kicked at the shark, and it went about its business, and we swam on.... They were too busy sluicing the Old Man and Trantto come after us in a boat.... They could have knocked us in the head with an oar.... But they didn't....
"However, Lead-Foot took the shark so seriously that he swam too fast. Or something of the sort.... Anyway, he keeled when we touched sand, and I felt him and found that he was dead with heart failure or the like. I didn't stop to work over him. I could hear Trant bellowing. He had come to life; and a boat was racing after me.
"So I went into the bush and stayed there till theThomas Morgantook herself off. After that, not liking the island, which was low and marshy, I borrowed a native canoe and came over here.... And I've been here, since."
They were within sound of the rollers on the beach when he finished. Faith was silent for a little; then she asked: "Were there other white men here? Why didn't you stay at the village?"
"There was too much society there," said Brander, grinning amiably. "I'm a solitary man, by nature. So I went up into the hills. Besides, I could watch for ships, there.... I'd no notion of staying here indefinitely, you understand...."
Faith was filling out the gaps in his narrative from her own understanding of the life aboard a whaler. She could guess what Brander must have endured; she thought he had done well to come through it and still smile.... She thought he was a man....
They could see the surf, through the thinning bush, when he said: "You haven't told me how you happen to be aboard theSally Sims...."
Faith had almost forgotten, herself. She remembered, and something like a chill of sorrow struck down upon her. But: "I am Noll Wing's wife," she said.
They came out, abruptly, into the white glare of the beach, Mr. Ham's boat was drawn up, a quarter-mile away. Brander looked toward it, looked at Faith.
"Ah," he said quietly. "Then yonder is your husband's boat, waiting.... Noll Wing is an able skipper...."
Faith said nothing. They went on, side by side, toward Mr. Ham.