Part 16

"Back, Mauger! Get away.... You devil! Mauger, get back.... Eh, man, get away.... By God, I'll ... I never meant the kick, man.... Let be.... My God, let be...."

She called softly: "It's Faith, Noll. It's Faith, Faith.... Not Mauger...."

He recognized her, and ran and caught her and swung her around before him and besought her to keep Mauger and his knife away. She told him, over and over: "He's not here, Noll. He's not here. It's Faith...."

He cried: "Look at his knife...." He pointed horribly. "His knife.... It's red, now.... Look at the knife. Kill him, Faith.... Drive him away...."

She held him against her breast as she would have held a child. Brander came to the door, with Willis Cox. She called to them: "Stay away.... He's mine. I'll tend him." Noll saw them, and screamed at Brander:

"There! Him! There's a knife in his sleeve...."

Brander slipped out of sight; she managed to quiet Noll for a space; but he broke out again: "Mauger! He's coming, Faith.... There...." And then, to the man he thought he saw: "Mauger! Get back, man. Let be.... God's sake...."

Then he wept whisperingly to Faith: "See his eye! Down on his cheek.... Hanging.... Make him put it back--where it belongs.... Mauger, man...."

Bit by bit she wooed him back to sanity, or the semblance of it. He was quiet when Dan'l Tobey came down; and when he saw Dan'l, Noll demanded:

"Are we making it, Dan'l? Are we near there?..."

Dan'l shook his head. "Not with this gale, sir.... We're going away...."

Noll came to his feet, cat-like. "By God, you're all cowards. I'll bring her in. I'll bring her in, I say...." He shook Faith away, went up to the deck with Dan'l at his heels. The _Sally_, riding high as whalers do, was reasonably dry; but she was fighting desperately in the gale, racking her rigging. The wind seemed to clear Noll's head; he looked about, aloft.... Bellowed an order to get sail on her....

Faith protested: "Noll, she'll never stand...."

He brushed her away with clenched fist. She took shelter in a corner by the deckhouse, ten feet from him..... And Noll Wing took the ship, and under his hand the _Sally_ did miracles....

That fight with the storm was a thing men still talk about; they say it was an inhuman and a marvelous thing. Noll stood aft, legs braced, scorning a hand hold. His voice rang through the singing wind to the remotest corner of the _Sally_, and the highest spar. Regardless of wind and sea, he crowded on sail, and brought her around to the course he wished to take, and drove her into it.... Time and time again, during that afternoon and that long night, every sane man aboard thought her very masts must be torn out of her. Three times a sail did go; but Noll would never slacken. On the after deck, he raved like a madman, but his commands were seamanly.... A miracle of seamanship, stark madness.... But madness that succeeded. The _Sally_ drove into the gale, she fought as madly as Noll himself was fighting.... And Noll, aft, screamed through the night and drove them on.

Faith never left her post, so near him. No man aboard had sleep that night. No man dared sleep, lest death find him in his dreams. Willis Cox and Tichel came to Noll more than once, beseeching.... But he drove them away. Dan'l never interfered with the captain; it seemed there was a madness on him, too. And Brander and Dan'l Tobey between them were Noll's right hand and his left, driving the men to the tasks Noll set them, holding them sternly in hand....

They could only guess how far they had come through the darkness. An hour before daylight, Dan'l stopped to gasp to Faith: "We're near there, I'm thinking. If we're not nearer the bottom...." Brander took more practical steps; he found Mauger, and set the one-eyed man well forward, and bade him watch and listen for first sign of land. Mauger nodded chucklingly; he gripped a hold on the taut lines, and set his one eye into the darkness, and tuned his ear to the storm....

The wind, by this time, was moderating; even Faith could feel a slackening of the pressure of it that had torn at her garments the night through. She was weak with fighting it; nevertheless she held her post. And the steady thrust of the gale slowly modified and gave way.... The first hints of light showed in the skies.... They caught glimpses of scudding clouds, low overhead.... But the worst was passed; and every man knew it. Noll, still standing like a colossus at his post, knew it; and he shook his fist at the skies and the sea, and he cursed the wind and dared it.... Faith could see him, dimly, in the coming light.... Head bare, eyes frantic, cheeks sunken.... An enormous, but a wasted figure of a man....

The very waters about them were quieting somewhat.... Their nerves and their muscles relaxed; they were straining their eyes to see into the dimness of the coming day....

It was Mauger, in the bows, who caught first hint of danger. He saw that they drove abruptly from long-rolling swells into quieter waters.... He stared off to windward, looking to see what had broken the force of the seas.... Saw nothing; but thought he heard a rumbling roar there.... Looked forward, where the less turbulent waters were piling ahead of them....

Looked forward, and glimpsed a line of white that lived and never died; and he turned and streamed a warning aft.... Ran, to carry the word himself.... Screaming as he ran....

Brander, amidships, heard him and shouted to Noll Wing; but Noll did not hear. The captain was intoxicated with the long battle; he was delirious with the cry of tortured nerves and starved body.... He did not hear. Mauger flashed past Brander as he ran.... The one-eyed man's screams were inarticulate now.... Too late, in any case....

Noll saw Mauger coming; and he put up his hands; and his eyes glared. He shrieked with overwhelming terror.... Mauger flung on. Then the _Sally's_ bows drove on the solid sand; Mauger sprawled; men everywhere fell headlong. Noll was thrown back against the after rail....

Mauger rolled over and over where he fell; and it chanced that his sheath knife dropped out in the fall, and touched his hand. He had it in his fingers when he scrambled to his feet, still intent on bearing his warning. He had the knife in his hand, he leaped toward the wheel.... He did not realize it was too late to swerve the _Sally_.... Toward the wheel, knife in hand, forgetting knife and Noll Wing....

To Noll's eyes, Mauger must have looked like a charging fiend; he saw the knife. He screamed again, and turned and flung himself in desperate flight but over the after rail.

He was instantly gone. Perhaps the undertow, perhaps some creature of the sea, perhaps the fates that had hung over him struck then. But those aboard the _Sally Sims_ were never to see Noll Wing, nor Noll's dead body, again.

XXVI

Dawn came abruptly; a lowering dawn, with gray and greasy clouds racing past so low they seemed to scrape and tear themselves upon the tips of the masts. No sun showed; there was no light in the sky. The dawn was evidenced only by a lessening of the blackness of the night. They could see; there was no fog, but a steady rain sprang up, and clouded objects at a little distance....

This rain had one good effect; it beat down the turbulence of the waves. Faith, from the bow, could see that they had grounded upon a sandy beach which spread like a crescent to right and left. The tips of the crescent were rocky points which sheltered the _Sally_ from the force of the seas. She was not pounding upon the sand; she lay where she had struck, heeled a little to one side.... There were breakers about her and ahead of her upon the sand; but these were not dangerous. They were caused by the reflex tumult of the waters, stirred up in this sheltered bay in sympathy with the storm outside.

That gale was dying, now. Above them the wind still raced and played with the flying clouds; but there was no pressure of it upon what little canvas the _Sally_ still flew. They were at peace....

At peace. Faith, studying the position of the _Sally_, was herself at peace. This was her first reaction to her husband's death; she was at peace. Noll was gone, Noll Wing whom she had loved and married.... Poor Noll; she pitied him; she was conscious of a still-living affection for him.... There was no hate in her; there was little sorrow.... He was gone; but life had burdened him too long. He was well rid of it, she thought.... Well rid of his tormented flesh; well rid of the terror which had pursued him....

When Noll went over the stern, Dan'l Tobey appeared from nowhere, and saw Mauger with the knife in his hand, standing paralyzed with horror. Dan'l fell upon Mauger, fists flying.... He downed the little man, dropped on him with both knees, gripped for his throat.... Then Brander, coming from the waist of the ship on Mauger's heels, caught Dan'l by the collar and jerked him to his feet. Dan'l's hands, clenched on Mauger's throat, lifted the little man a foot from the deck before they let go to grip for Brander. The men clustered aft; old Tichel's teeth bared.... In another moment, there would have been a death-battle astir upon the littered decks.

But Faith cried through the gloom: "Dan'l. Mr. Brander. Drop it. Stand away."

There was a command in her clear tones which Dan'l must have obeyed; and Brander did as she bade instinctively. The two still faced each other, heads forward, shoulders lowered.... Behind Brander, Mauger crawled to his feet, choking and fumbling at his throat. Faith said to Dan'l:

"It was not the fault of Mauger, Dan'l."

"He had a knife...."

"He fell," she said. "I saw. He fell when she struck; his knife dropped from its sheath.... He picked it up.... That was all."

"All?" Dan'l protested. "He drove Noll Wing to death."

She shook her head. "No.... Noll's own terrors. Noll was mad...."

"What was he doing aft, then? He'd no place here...."

Brander explained: "I had him forward, watching for breakers. He saw them, and yelled, and when no one heard he raced to give the word...."

Faith nodded. "Yes; he was gripping for the wheel to swing it down, even when Noll...."

Dan'l swung to Brander. "You're over quick to come between me and the men, Mr. Brander," he said harshly. "Best mend that."

"I'll not see Mauger smashed for no fault," Brander told him steadily. Dan'l took a step nearer the other.

"You'll understand, I'm master here, now."

There was battle in Brander's eyes. Men's blood was hot that morning.... But Faith stepped between. "Dan'l. Noll's gone. First thing is to get the _Sally_ free."

Dan'l still eyed Brander for a moment; then he drew back, swung away, looked around. The island they had struck was barely visible through the drifting rain.... He said: "This is not where we headed."

"You know this place?"

"No."

"Then we'll get clear as quick as may be."

He smiled sneeringly: "I'm thinking we're here to stay, Faith. Leastwise, the _Sally_...."

"The _Sally_ does not stay here," Faith told him sternly. "She floats; she fills her casks; she goes safely home to Jonathan Felt," she said. "Mark that, Dan'l. That's the way of it, and nothing else."

Dan'l said sullenly: "You're not over concerned for Noll's going."

"He's gone," said Faith. "An end to that. But the _Sally_ was his charge; she's my charge now. I mean to see her safe."

"Your charge?" Dan'l echoed. "It's in my mind that when the captain dies, the mate succeeds."

"You take his place, if I choose," Faith told him.

He met her eyes, tried to look her down. Mauger had slipped away; old Tichel, and Willis Cox, and Brander were standing by. "You take his place, if I choose," Faith repeated. And Dan'l looked from her to the faces of the officers....

There was a weakness in Dan'l's villainy; he could destroy, he could undermine trust, seduce a boy, kill honor.... But he lacked constructive ability. He had known for months that this moment must come, this moment when Noll was gone, and the ship and all the treasures aboard her should lie ready to his hand. Yet he had made no plan for this crisis; he did not know what he meant to do. Even now, by open battle he might have won, carried the day. Old Tichel was certainly for him; perhaps Willis, too. And Roy.... And many of the men.... A blow, a fight, and the day might have been his....

But Dan'l was never a hand for strife where guile might do as well; he was not by nature a man of battle. Also ... Faith was within his reach, now; Noll was gone; there was no barrier between them; he need not anger her, so long as there was a chance to win by gentler ways.... Gentler ways, guileful.... He nodded in abrupt assent.

"All right," he said. "You were Noll's wife; your interest is a fair one.... I'll work with you, Faith...."

Faith was content with that for the moment. "We'll get the _Sally_ away," she said.

Dan'l smiled. "And--how?..."

"Get out a kedge; we'll try to warp her off when the tide comes in."

He chuckled. "Oh, aye.... We'll try."

"Do," said Faith; and she turned and went below. Went below, and wept a little for pity of old Noll, and then dried her eyes and strengthened her heart for the task before her.... To bring Noll's ship safely home....

* * * * *

It was mid-tide when the _Sally_ struck; and this was in some measure fortunate, because the ebbing waters left her free of the rollers that might have driven her hard and fast upon the sand. They broke against her stern, but with no great force behind them. At the slack on the ebb, the men could wade about her bows, to their waist in the water.... They got the kedge out, astern, and carried a whale line about the capstan; and when the tide came quietly in again, they waited for the flood, then strove at the bars to warp her free....

When she did not stir, though the men strove till their veins were like to burst, some cursed despairingly; but Faith did not. Nor Dan'l. Dan'l was quiet, watching, smiling at his thoughts.... He let Faith have her way. Before the next tide, they had rigged the cutting-in tackle to give a stouter pull at the kedge; but this time the whale line parted and lashed along the decks, and more than one man was struck and bruised and cut by it....

Dan'l said then: "You see, we're here to stay. Best thing is to lower and make for the nearest port."

"Leave the ship?" Faith asked.

"Yes. What else?"

"No. We'll not leave her."

He smiled. "What, then?"

"It's a week past full moon," she said. "There'll be higher tides on the new moon.... Still higher on the next full. We'll float her, one time or another."

Dan'l chuckled. "An easterly'll drive her high and dry, 'fore then."

Faith's eyes blazed. "I tell you, Dan'l, we stick with the _Sally_; and we get her safe away.... Are you afraid to stick?"

He laughed, outright, pleasantly. "Pshaw, Faith.... You know I'm not afraid." He could be likeable when he tried; she liked him, faintly, in that moment. She gripped his hand.

"Good, Dan'l. We'll manage it, in the end...."

So they settled for the waiting; and Dan'l put the men to work repairing the harm the storm had done the _Sally_. Her rigging was strained; it had parted here and there. She had lost some canvas. Willis Cox's boat had been carried away.... They rove new rigging, spread new sails, replaced Willis's boat with one of the spares.... There was work for all hands for a month, to put the _Sally_ in shape again.

One thing favored them. The _Sally_, for all her clumsy lines, was staunch; and the shock when, she drove her bow upon the sand had opened never a seam. She was leaking no more than a sweet ship will. They found a cask or two of oil that had burst in the hold; and there was some confusion among the stores.... But these were small matters, easily set right....

The new moon was due on the fifth day after they struck. On the fourth, another bottle of whiskey appeared in the fo'c's'le, and two men were drunk. Dan'l had the men whipped.... Faith made no objection to this; but she watched the faces of the others.... Watched the officers, and Brander in particular, and Mauger.... Brander, since that morning of Noll's death, had avoided her more strictly.... He and Dan'l did not speak, save when they must. She saw the man was keeping a guard upon himself; and she puzzled over this. She could not know that Brander was afire with joy at the new hope that was awakening in him; afire with a vision of her.... He fought against this, held himself in check; and she saw only that he was morose and still and that he avoided her eye....

The high tides of the new moon failed to float them; and there was growling forward. Dan'l said, openly, that he believed they would never go free. The men heard; and the superstitions of the sea began to play about the fo'c's'le. There was unrest; the men felt approaching the possible liberation from ship's discipline when they abandoned the _Sally_. They remembered the ambergris beneath the cabin. There was a fortune.... They could take no oil with them; but they could take that when the time should come to leave the ship. Plenty of room in one boat for it and half a dozen men besides.... They fretted at the waiting, called it hopeless, as Dan'l did.... The barrier between officers and men was somewhat lowered; more than one of the men spoke to Brander of the ambergris. Did he claim it for his own?...

Faith, one day, heard a man talking to Brander amidships; she caught only a word or two. One of these words was "'Gris." She saw that the man was asking Brander a question; she saw that on Brander's answer, the man grinned with greed in his eyes, and turned away to whisper to two of his fellows....

She wondered what Brander had said to him, why Brander had not silenced the man. And she watched Brander the closer, her heart sickening with a fear she would not name....

They had landed before this and explored their island.... Low and flat and no more than a mile or two in extent, it had fruit a-plenty, and a spring of good water.... But none dwelt anywhere upon it. It soon palled upon them; they stuck by the ship; and the days held clear and fine and the nights were warm, and the crescent moon above them flattened, night by night, till it was no longer a crescent, but half a circle of silver radiance that touched the beach and the trees and the sea with magic fingers....

That night, with the fall tides still a week away, Roy Kilcup came into the waist and looked aft. There was no officer in sight at the moment save old Tichel, and Roy hailed him softly.... Tichel went forward to where the boy stood; they whispered together. Then Tichel went with Roy toward the fo'c's'le....

Faith was in her cabin; Dan'l was in the main cabin; and Willis and Brander were playing cribbage near him when the outcry forward roused them. A man yelled.... They were on deck in tumbling haste; and Faith was at their heels....

Came Tichel, dragging Mauger by the collar. His right hand gripped Mauger; his left held a bottle. He shook the one-eyed man till Mauger's teeth rattled; and he brandished the bottle. "Caught the pig," he cried furiously. "Here he is. With this hid under his blanket...."

Mauger protested: "I never put it there...." Tichel cuffed him into silence. Dan'l asked sharply:

"What's that, Mr. Tichel?"

"Whiskey, Mr. Tobey. He took it forward and hid it in his bunk...."

Faith said: "Tell the whole of it, Mr. Tichel. What happened?" She looked from Tichel to Brander. Brander was standing stiffly; she thought his face was white. Mauger hung in Tichel's grip.

Old Tichel had given a promise to Roy; Roy had begged him not to tell that the boy had spied. Tichel said now:

"I saw him go forra'd, with something under his coat. Never thought for a minute; then it come to me what it might be. I took after him. Rest of the men were on deck, sleeping.... It's hot, below, you'll mind. I dropped down quietly. Mauger, here, was in his bunk. I routed him out, and rummaged, and there you are, ma'am." He shook the bottle triumphantly.

Faith asked the one-eyed man: "Where did you get it, Mauger?"

"Never knowed it was there," Mauger swore. "Honest t'the Lord, ma'am...."

Tichel slapped his face stunningly.... Faith said: "No more of that, Mr. Tichel. Dan'l, what do you think?"

Dan'l lifted his hand, with a glance at Brander. "Why--nothing! Somebody's been doing it; him as well as another."

"Willis," Faith asked. "What's your notion?"

"I guess Mauger done it."

"Brander?"

Brander lifted his head and met her eyes. "Other men have found whiskey in their bunks without knowing how it got there," he said. "I believe Mauger."

Old Tichel snarled: "I'm saying I saw him take it aft." He dropped Mauger and took a fierce step toward Brander. "Ye think I'd lie?"

"I think you're mistaken," Brander said evenly. Tichel leaped at him; Brander gripped the other's arms at the elbow, held him. Faith, said sharply:

"Enough of that. We'll end this thing, to-night. Mr. Tobey, get lanterns, lights, search the ship till you find the rest of this stuff." She took the whiskey bottle, opened it, and poured its contents over the rail. "Search it out," she said. "Be about it."

Save Dan'l Tobey, the officers stood stock still, as though not understanding. Dan'l acted as quickly as though he had expected the order. He sent Silva, the harpooner, to get the fo'm'st hands together forward and keep them there under his eye. He sent Tichel and Yella' Boy into the main hold; Willis and Long Jim into the after 'tween decks. Brander and Eph Hitch were to search the cabin and the captain's storeroom; and Faith went down with them to give them the keys.... Loum, Kellick, and Tinch, the cook, were put to rummaging about the after deck and amidships....

There was no need of lights upon the deck itself; the moon bathed the _Sally_ in its rays, and one might have read by them without undue effort. Below, the whale-oil lanterns went to and fro.... Brander and Hitch made short work of their task; and they came on deck with Faith. Dan'l sent Brander to rummage through the steerage where the harpooners slept; and at Faith's suggestion, Hitch and Loum went aloft to the mastheads to make sure there was no secret cache there.... They were an hour or more at their search of the _Sally_; and at the end of that time they were no wiser than they were before. Faith had gone below before the end; she came on deck as Tichel and Yella' Boy reported nothing found below. She asked Dan'l:

"Have you found anything?"

"No."

"Where have you looked?"

Dan'l said: "Everywhere aboard her, Faith. The stuff's well hidden, sure...."

Faith said quietly: "If it's not on the _Sally_, it's near her. Search the boats, Mr. Tobey."

Dan'l nodded. "But it'd not be in them," he said. "That's sure enough."

"It's nowhere else, you say. Try...."

Willis Cox and Brander turned toward where their boats hung by the rail; and Faith called quietly: "Willis, Mr. Brander. Let Mr. Tobey do the searching."

Willis stopped readily enough; Brander--forewarned, perhaps, by some instinctive fear--hesitated; she spoke to him again. "Mr. Brander."

He stood still where he was. Dan'l was looking through his own boat at the moment. He passed to old Tichel's; to that of Willis Cox. Brander's came last. He flashed his lantern in it as he had in the others, studied it from bow to stern, opened the stern locker beneath the cuddy boards....

There was a jug there; a jug that in the other boats had contained water. He pulled the stopper and smelled....

"By God, Faith, it's here!" he cried.

XXVII

The closer the bond between man and man, or between man and woman, the easier it is to embroil them, one with another. It is hard for an outsider to provoke a quarrel between strangers, or between casual acquaintances; but it is not hard for a crafty man to make dissension between friends; and almost any one may, if he chooses, bring about discord between lovers. And this is a strange and a contradictory thing.