Part 15

The man was slavering; there were flecks of foam upon his lips.... And Faith watched him in a curious detachment, as though he were something outside the world, below it, beyond it.... She scarce heard his words at all; she was looking at the man's naked soul.... It was so inexpressibly revolting that she had no feeling that this soul had once been wedded to hers; she could not have believed this if she had tried. This was no man, but a beast.... There could be nothing between them. She had married Noll Wing; not the body of him, nor the face of him, but the soul within the man. And this was not Noll Wing's soul she saw.... That was dead; this horrible thing had bred festeringly in the carrion....

Humanity has an immense capacity for rising to an emergency. The human heart sustains a grief that should kill; it throws this grief aside and is--save for a hidden scar--as gay as it was in the beginning. Man meets peril or death, meets them unafraid.... If he had considered these emergencies in the calm and security of his home, his hair would have crawled with terror at the thought of them. The imagination can conjure dreadful things; the heart and soul and body of man can endure catastrophes beyond imagining. There is no load too heavy for this immortally designed fabric of flesh and blood and bone to bear. There is a psychological phenomenon that might be called the duplication of personality. A soldier in battle becomes two men. One of these men is convulsed with lust for blood; he screams, he shoots, he stabs, he kills. The other is calm and serene; he watches the doings of his other self, considers them with calm mind, plans perilous combinations in the twinkling of an eye.... The soldier contains within himself a general who plans, and an army which executes the plan....

It was so with Faith. She shrank in spirit and heart before Noll's horrible outpouring; yet was she at the same time steady and undisturbed. There was a numbness upon her; a numbness that killed suffering and at the same time stimulated thought.... She was able to perceive the very depths of Noll; she looked, at the same time, into her own depths.... She heard him accuse her of foul passion for Brander; she knew, instead, that she loved Brander completely.... She had never known her love for Brander before; Noll showed it to her, dragged it out where she could see it beyond mistaking.... And even in that moment she welcomed this love; welcomed it, and saw that it was honest, and wholesome, and splendid, and clean.... She welcomed it, so that she smiled....

Her smile struck Noll like a blow in the face, stunning and sobering him. He flung out his hands.

"Come!" he commanded. "What do you say? Say something? Say...."

"What?" she asked. "What shall I say?"

"Is it true? Damn you.... Damn you.... Is it true?"

"Could I say anything you would believe?"

"No, by God! You're dirty and false as hell. You...." He struck his hands together helplessly. "Nothing," he cried. "Nothing! Nothing you can say.... Dirty as hell...."

Yet his eyes still besought her to speak; she touched the bench beside her. "Sit down, Noll," she said gently.

The man towered above her, hands upraised. His fingers twisted and writhed and clenched as though upon a soft throat that he gripped. His features worked terribly.... And then, before her eyes, a change came upon him. The tense muscles of his fury sagged; the blood ebbed from his veins, so that they flattened; the black flush faded on his cheeks.... He opened his mouth and screamed once, a vast and stricken scream of a beast in pain. It was like the scream of a frightened, anguished horse.... It rang along the length of the _Sally_, so that the men forward shrank and looked over their shoulders, and every man aboard the ship was still....

He screamed, and then his great body shrank and collapsed and tottered and fell.... He dropped upon his knees, at her feet. He flung his head in her lap, his arms about her waist, clinging as a drowning man might cling to a rock. His cap dropped off; she saw his bald old head there.... He sobbed like a child, his great shoulders twitching and heaving.... His face was pressed upon her clasped hands; she felt his tears upon her wrists, felt the slaverings of his sobbing mouth upon her fingers....

He cried softly: "Eh, Faith.... Faith.... Don't you turn against me, now. I'm old, Faith...." And again: "I'm old, Faith.... Dying, Faith.... Don't leave me.... Don't turn against me now."

She bent above him, filled with an infinite pity and sorrow. This was the wreck of her love; she no longer loved him, but her heart was filled with sorrow.... She bent forward and laid her smooth cheek against the smooth parchment of his bald old head. She loosed her hands, and drew them out from beneath his face, and laid them on his shoulders, stroking him gently.

"There, Noll.... There ..." she murmured. Foolish words, meaningless, like the comforting sounds of an inarticulate animal.... Yet he understood. There were no words for what was in her heart; she could only whisper: "There.... There.... There...." And gently touch his shoulders, and his head.

"They're all against me, Faith," he told her, over and over. "All against me. Even you...."

"No, no, Noll. There...."

"You love him.... You love him."

"No, Noll. No...." She lied, not to deceive her husband, but to comfort him. Her eyes, above Noll's head, seemed to ask her love's pardon for the lie. "No, Noll.... You're my husband."

His arms tightened about her waist; his great chest pressed against her knees. "You're mine," he begged. "You're mine. Don't go away from me."

"No. Never.... Never, forever."

He raised his face from her lap at last; and she saw that it was sunken like the countenance of one long dead. Cadaverous.... He cried, in utter self-abasement. "Eh, Faith. I don't deserve you. I'm an old, helpless man...."

She smiled at him. "I married you, Noll."

"I'm no good. They're laughing at me...."

Her eyes heartened him. "Master them. Command them. You are the master, Noll."

"I can't.... There's no strength in me...."

"It's there. Master them, Noll."

"I can't hold myself, Faith. Not even myself. I'm rotted with whiskey, and years, and strife...."

"Master yourself, Noll."

"Faith, Faith.... It's too late. I'm gone. I can't."

"You can," she said. She spoke the two words quietly; yet somehow they gave him of her strength, so that his head lifted higher, and the muscles took form beneath his slack cheeks. He stared into her eyes, as though he were drinking her soul through them; his chest swelled as though virtue were going into him. They sat thus, minutes on end.... He got to his feet. His eyes cleared, with the tempestuous and short-lived fire of age in their depths. He swore:

"By God, Faith. I will. I'll command.... Myself and them."

"You can," she said again. "You can. So--do, Noll."

He turned away from her, looking about with new eyes.... She smiled sadly; she knew him too well, now.... She was not surprised when his first act was to go to the lockfast and get his bottle, and drink.... He smacked his lips, chuckled at her.

"By God, Faith, I'll show these dogs," he cried, and flung open the door. She heard him go out and climb up to the deck.... She sat where he had left her....

Sat there, and knew her love for Brander. In those minutes while she remained where Noll had seen her last, she listened to the singing of new voices in her heart. Brander was before her, in her eyes, in her thoughts.... He possessed her, in that moment, more completely than Noll had ever done. She gave herself to him completely, without reluctance and without faintest reservation. No need to see him, no need to tell him. She knew, he must know.... She never asked whether he loved her; she had always known that. Known it without admitting the knowledge, even in her thoughts. She loved him, body and heart and soul; her eyes yearned for his, her tongue to tell him what her heart was singing, her arms to embrace him....

She got up, at last, a little wearily.... It was only a matter of minutes that she sat there, looking within herself. When she listened, now, she could hear Noll's voice, on deck, roaring in the old way.... Once she heard Brander answer him, from somewhere amidships. Again she caught the murmur of Dan'l Tobey's tones....

Brander was her love; but Noll.... Noll was her husband, she his wife. And Faith passed her hand across her eyes as though to wipe away these visions she had looked upon. Noll was her husband; her vows were his. She was his, and would be.... Nothing he could do would make her less his; he was in her keeping, his life and hers could never take diverging paths. He was her charge, to strengthen, and guide, and support; his tasks were hers, his responsibilities were her responsibilities, his burdens must rest upon her shoulders....

But she did not deceive herself. Old Noll was dead, old Noll Wing who had mastered men for year on year. That Noll was dead; the Noll who lived was a weakling. But she was a part of the living Noll; and she was no weakling. So....

Her lips set faintly. Love Brander though she did, there was no place for him in her life. Her life was Noll; her life belonged to Noll. Noll was failing; his flesh might live, but his soul was dead and his strength was gone. His tasks fell upon her.

Quite simply, in that moment, Faith promised herself that whatever happened, the _Sally Sims_ should come safe home again; that no man should ever say Noll Wing had failed in the end; that no man should ever make a jest of Noll's old renown. And if Noll could not manage these things for himself, she would....

She began, suddenly, to cry; she locked herself in her cabin and wept bitterly for hours.... But afterward, bathing her eyes, freshening herself to meet Noll's eyes, she looked into the mirror, and smiled and lifted her head. "You can do it, Faith," she told herself. "You can do it, full as well as he."

And then, more seriously: "You must, Faith Wing. You must bring the _Sally_ home."

When she stepped out into the after cabin, she saw the revolver still on the floor where Noll had left it. She picked it up to return it to its proper drawer....

But on second thought, she changed her mind, and took it and hid it in her bunk.

XXV

A curious lull settled down upon the _Sally Sims_ during the days after Noll's open accusation of Faith, and his collapse before her steady courage. There was an apathy in the air; they saw few whales, lowered for them without zeal, missed more than one that should have been killed.... There was a silence upon the ship, like the hush of listening men who wait to hear an expected call. This paralysis gripped every soul aboard--save Noll Wing alone.

Noll, in those last days, stalked his deck like a parody of the man he once had been. Faith had put a fictitious courage in the man; he thought himself once more the master, as in the past. His heels pounded the planks; his head was high; his voice roared.... But there was a tremor in his stride; there was a trembling about the poise of him; there was a cracking quaver in his voice. He was like a child who plays at being a man.... They humored him; the men and the mates seemed to enter into a conspiracy to humor him. They leaped to his bidding; they shrank from his curses as though desperate with fear.... And Noll was so delighted with all this that he was perpetually good-natured, jovial....

He was, of course, drinking heavily and steadily; but the drink seemed to hearten him and give him strength. Certainly it made him lenient; for on three occasions when the men found a bottle, forward, and befuddled themselves with it, Noll only laughed as though at a capital jest. Noll laughed.... But Faith wondered and was distressed and watched to see how the liquor was being stolen. She was disturbed and alarmed; but Noll laughed at her fears.

"A little of it never hurt a man," he told her boastfully. "Look at me, to see that. Let be, Faith. Let be."

When she protested, he overrode her; and to show his own certainty of himself, he did a thing that Noll sober would never have done. He had the rum drawn from the barrel in his storeroom and served out to the men, a ration daily.... It amused him to see the men half fuddled with it. He forced it on them; and once, while Faith watched hopelessly, he commanded a hulking Cape Verder--the biggest man in the fo'c's'le--to drink a bout with him. They took glass for glass, till the other was helpless as a log; and Noll vaunted his own prowess in the matter.

Dan'l Tobey contented himself with the progress of these matters; he no longer stuck a finger in the pie. Noll was going; that was plain to any seeing eye. The captain grew weaker every day; his skin yellowed and parched, and the lower lids of his eyes sagged down and revealed the flaming red of their inner surface. These sagging lower lids made crescent-shaped pockets which were forever filled with rheumy fluid.... Noll was an ugly thing; and his perpetual mirth, his cackling laughter were the more horrible.... He was a laughing corpse; dissolution was upon him. But he kept himself so steeped with alcohol he did not feel its pangs.

Faith could do nothing; Brander could do nothing. Between these two, no further word had passed. But there was no need. Meeting face to face on deck, the day after Noll surprised them, their eyes met in a long and steady glance.... Their eyes met and spoke; and after that there was no need of words between them. There was a pledging of vows in that glance; there was also a renunciation. Both saw, both understood.... Faith thought she knew Brander to the depths....

Neither, in that moment, knew that Dan'l Tobey was at hand; but the mate had seen, and he had understood. He saw, slipped away, held his peace, considered.

Brander was fighting for Roy, to fulfill his pledge to Faith. He had set himself to win the boy's confidence and esteem; he applied himself to this with all the strength there was in him. Yet he was careful; he did not force the issue; he did not harass Roy with his attentions.... He held off, let Roy see for himself, think.... There were days when he thought he made some progress; there were days when he thought the effort was a hopeless one. Nevertheless, he persisted....

Noll Wing's good will, in those days, extended even to Brander. He offered Brander a drink one day.... Brander refused, and Noll insisted.... And was still refused. Noll said hotly, querulously:

"Come, Brander.... Don't be stiff, man. It will warm you, do you good.... You're needing warming. You're over cold and calm."

Brander shook his head, smiling. "Thanks; no, sir."

"Damn it, man," Noll complained. "Are you too proud to drink with the skipper?"

Brander refused again; and Noll's brows gathered suspiciously. "Why not?"

"My wish, sir,"

"Ye've a grudge against me. I remember.... You stick with Mauger...."

"No, sir."

Noll flung out his hand. "Be off. Your sour face is too ugly for me to look at. Mauger's none so particular.... He'll drink with me."

It was true; Mauger had more than once accepted drink from Noll. Noll, at these times, watched the one-eyed man furtively, almost appealingly. It was as though he sought to placate him and make a friend of him. Mauger had a weak head; he was not one to stand much liquor. It dizzied him; and this amused Noll.... This day, after Brander had refused him, Noll sent for Mauger and made the one-eyed man tipsy, and laughed at the jest of it.

Then, one day, this state of affairs came abruptly to an end. Noll went down into the storeroom to fill his bottle; and the spigot on the whiskey barrel gasped and failed. The whiskey was gone.

Now Noll had given of the rum to the crew; he had exhausted that. But the whiskey he kept jealously. He knew there should be more.... Much more than this.... Gallons, at the least.... He turned the handle of the spigot again, tipped the barrel, unable to understand.... His bottle was half full.... But no more came....

He frowned, puzzled his heavy head, tried to understand.... He came stumbling up out of the storeroom at last, with the half-filled bottle in his hand.... And the man's face was white. He sought Faith, held the bottle out to her.

"I say ..." he stammered. "It's gone.... Gone, by God...."

Faith asked sharply: "What is it, Noll?"

"The whiskey's gone."

Faith cried: "Thank God!"

He stared at her thickly. "Eh? You had a hand in it.... You've stole it away...."

"No."

He looked at her and knew she spoke the truth. He shook his head.... "Some hound ..." he whispered. "They've stole it...."

She questioned him; he had the shrewdness which occasionally characterizes the alcoholic. He had kept some count of the whiskey used during the cruise; he had himself handled the barrel two weeks before. It was then a quarter full. The thefts that had appeared in the fo'c's'le could not account for the rest. There was still a considerable amount that had been stolen, that had not yet appeared. "It's aboard here, by God," he swore at last. "They've got it hid away. You, Faith...."

She shook her head. He said placatingly: "No, you'd not do that trick. Not rob an old man.... I've got to have it, Faith...." His eyes suddenly flickered with panic. "It's life, Faith. Life. I've got to have it, I say...."

He was right, she knew. There must still be a hidden store of the liquor aboard the _Sally_.... To be doled out to the men by the thief in his own good time.... And Faith knew enough of such matters to understand that Noll, without the ration of alcohol to which he was accustomed, would suffer torment, would be like a madman.... The stuff must be found....

Noll was already trembling at the prospect of deprivation; he hugged to his breast the scant store that remained to him.... And of a sudden, as though afraid even this would be stolen, he tipped the bottle to his lips. He gulped greedily.... Before Faith could interfere, the last of it was gone....

That fierce draught put some strength and courage back into him; he stamped his feet. "I'll make them give it up, by God," he swore. "Watch...."

He started for the deck; and Faith, afraid for him, followed quietly behind. Passing through the main cabin, he roared to the officers who were asleep in their bunks: "On deck, all hands.... On deck, all hands...." They leaped out to obey him, not knowing what to expect. He reached the deck, still bellowing: "On deck, all. On deck, every man of you...." Brander was amidships; and he called: "Rout out the dogs, Mr. Brander. Fetch them aft."

The men came; they tumbled up from the fo'c's'le; they slid down from the mastheads.... Harpooners, mates, under officers grouped themselves by the captain; the crew faced him in a huddled group. He cursed them, man by man, for thieving dogs. "Now," he swore at last. "Now some one o' you has got the stuff hid away. Out with it; or I'll cut the heart out of you."

He paused, looking about him with flickering, reddened eyes. No man stirred, but Dan'l Tobey asked:

"What's wrong, Cap'n Wing?"

Noll told him, told them all, profanely. Somewhere there was hidden a store of whiskey; he meant to have it. If the thief gave it up, so much the better. He would get off with a rope's ending. If he persisted in silence, he would die.... Noll vowed that by all the oaths he knew.

The men stirred; they looked at their neighbors.... And then their eyes fastened on the captain, with a curious intentness. They licked their lips; and Faith thought they were enjoying this spectacle of Noll's weak rage.... She thought they were like dogs of a pack, with hungry eyes, watching the futile anger of a dying man.... She was afraid of them for an instant; then she was afraid of no man in the world.... She stood by Noll Wing's side, proud and level-eyed.

When Noll got no answer, his cackling fury waxed. He swore every man of them should be tied up and flogged unless the guilty spoke. They scowled at that; and one of them said sullenly:

"It's no man forra'd a-doing this, sir.... Look aft, at them that had the chance."

The word seemed to focus the sullen hate among the men; they growled like beasts, and surged a step forward. Brander, from the captain's side, moved toward them and lashed at him who had spoken with a swift fist, so that the man fell and lay still as a log. Brander looked down at the still man, faced the others. "Be silent," he said quietly. "Unless you've a word to say to the captain about what he wants. And get back.... Back into the waist; and stay...."

They gave back before him; and Dan'l said softly from Brander's back: "They mind you well, Mr. Brander. You've a rare control of them." The words were innocent enough, but the tone was accusation. Brander faced the mate, and Dan'l grinned malignantly....

Noll passed abruptly from threats to pleadings; he tried to cloak his pleading under a mask of fellowship; he spoke to the men as to friends, beseeching them to yield what he wanted. They remained silent; and his mask fell off, and he abased himself before them with his words, so that old Tichel and Willis Cox were sickened, and Dan'l was pleased. Brander made no sign; he stood loyally at the captain's side; and Faith was on Noll's other hand....

She was studying the faces of the men and of the officers, seeking for a shadow of guilt. The men were sullen; but there was no shame in their eyes. There was nothing furtive--save in the countenance of Mauger. The one-eyed man had ever a furtive look; the twitching of his closed eye irresistibly suggested a malignant wink. Faith watched him; she saw his eyes were fixed on Brander.... In spite of herself, a cold pang of doubt touched her.... Mauger had reason to hate Noll Wing.... Had he?...

She put the thought away, to study Dan'l Tobey. But Dan'l, though he was obviously content with matters, had no trace of guilt or fear in his demeanor. He was perfectly assured, almost triumphant. Faith thought he could not appear so if he were the thief.... Not Dan'l; not Willis Cox, nor Tichel.... Not Brander; she would not have it so....

Yet she could not keep her eyes away from Mauger's leering, chuckling, furtive countenance.

Abruptly, she touched Noll's arm. The captain was near a collapse.... He was pleading helplessly, so that some of the men were beginning to grin. Faith touched his arm; she said quietly:

"Noll, do not beg. You are master."

He caught himself together with a terrific effort.... He turned and stumbled away down into the cabin, Faith after him. Dan'l came down a little later, respectful.... "Why not put into port somewhere, sir?" he suggested. "Get what you want...."

Noll clutched at that desperately.... "Aye, quick, Mr. Tobey. What's nearest?"

Dan'l named the nearest island where they were like to find a trading post; Noll nodded. "Put for it, Dan'l. All sail on. For God's sake, quickly, man!"

Ten minutes later, the _Sally_ heeled to a new tack.... And Noll, with Faith, below in the cabin, bit at his nails, and tried to hold himself, and stifle the appetite that was tearing him. His passion and pleading had burned out the effects of the drink he had taken; his body agonized for more....

By nightfall, Noll was shaking with an ague. He would not sleep that night. And toward dawn, a brewing gale caught the _Sally_....

She fought that storm till noon, giving way before it; and in the cabin Noll passed from tremors to paroxysms of fright. He gnawed at his own flesh; and hallucinations began to prey upon him. Faith fought him, bade him lie down, tried to soothe him. She knew the danger of his enforced abstinence; she gave him a draught that should have compelled sleep; but after an hour he woke with a scream, and clutched at her shoulders with fingers that bit the flesh, and flung her away from him, and cowered in the most distant corner, hands before him, shrieking: