Part 18

When Brander dropped down into the cabin and through the open door saw Faith in Dan'l's arms, he was for an instant paralyzed.... Then, as rage surged up in him, he sensed the danger above him, and dodged to one side as Silva leaped down from the deck. Silva struck against Brander's hip, his knife slitting the air. Brander was thrown headlong, and Silva flung after him. Brander rolled on his back, catching Silva in the stomach with both feet, as the other two men dropped across his body.

He had put little force into his kick at Silva, so that the man was unhurt. Brander gripped one of the men who had fallen on him, and whirled him under. At the same time, the other man attached himself to Brander's neck, his right arm about Brander's neck to choke him. Brander wedged his chin down and gripped this arm between his chin and his breast, holding it off a little from his throat. Then Silva came at him from the left side, and Brander's left hand flung out and gripped Silva's knife wrist....

Brander was past the first flush of anger; he was cool, now, as he was always cool in danger. Save Silva, the men against him were unarmed. At least, neither made any effort to use a weapon. Therefore Brander flung the one man out of his arms, and gave his attention to Silva. He was just in time. Silva had shifted the knife to his other hand. Brander grabbed for it, and the blade slid along his fingers, barely scratching them.... Then he had the hand that held it; and he dragged it down and wrenched it over, and across, and the fingers opened and the knife fell. Brander groped for it, Silva swarming over him. He got the knife, but knew he could not use it, so he threw it with the half of his arm which was free. Crushed down by the man atop him, he saw that it slid across the floor and flew into the after cabin. He thought Silva had not seen it go....

Brander had not marked Dan'l when the man came first to crouch above them. Dan'l was at Willis when Brander threw the knife. That weapon being gone, Brander turned his attention to the man who had his throat. He worked as coolly as though this man was his only antagonist; and while he held off the others with his left hand and his knees, his right went up over his shoulder and found the face of the man who choked him. This groping hand of his came down against the man's face from above. His palm rested against the cheek of his antagonist; and his fingers groped under the other's jaw bone and clenched around it, biting far into the soft flesh at the bottom of the mouth. He got a grip on this that would hold; and the man screamed, and Brander jerked him up, and over his shoulder.... The man slid helplessly tearing at Brander's clenched fingers. Brander, at this time, was sitting up, with Silva at his left, arms gripping, fists striking, and the other at the right. The man whose jaw he had came down in Brander's lap, and he brought his right knee up with all his force against the other's head and the man became a dead weight across his legs. Brander wriggled free of him, thought calmly that one of the three was gone and only two remained, and turned his attention to the others.

He had been forced to let them have their will of him for the seconds required to deal with the man who had choked him. They had him down, now, on his back on the cabin floor. One on either side.... He got a left-hand grip on the seaman; he set his right hand on Silva's arm and his fingers clenched on Silva's biceps. He flung them off a little, freeing himself, so that he might have fought to his feet....

But when he thrust these two back, thus to right and left, and started to sit up, he saw above him Dan'l. Dan'l, an insane light in his eyes, the whaling lance poised in the thrusting position. It flickered downward like a shaft of light....

Brander wrenched with all his strength at Silva; he swung Silva up and over his own body just in time to intercept the lance. It slid in between two ribs, an inch from Silva's backbone, and pierced him through to the sternum.... It struck obliquely, cut half way into the mingled cartilage and bone.... Then the soft iron of the shaft "elbowed" at right angles, and Dan'l had to twist and fight to pull it free. Silva, of course, was as dead as dead. Blood poured out of his mouth in Brander's very face.... He flung the corpse aside, rolling after it to be on his feet before Dan'l should strike again. But the remaining seaman was in his path, grappled him, held him for an instant motionless. Dan'l had had no chance to straighten the lance; he lifted it like a hoe to bring it down on Brander's back.

Then Faith called, from the door of the after cabin:

"Dan'l! Have done!"

Dan'l looked and saw her, weak, trembling, gripping the doorsill with her left hand. In her right was a revolver.

He leaped toward her, roaring; and Faith waited till he was within six feet of her, then shot him carefully through the knee. He fell on his face at her feet, howling.

At the same time, Brander got home a blow that silenced his last antagonist, and a great quiet settled down upon the _Sally Sims_.

XXIX

What shadows remained, Roy was able to clear away. Roy, who had hated Brander, and who had hated Faith, yet in whom lived a strain of true blood that could not but answer to these two in the end. The evil in Dan'l had been writ in his face for any man to see, when Roy found him clutching Faith; and Roy was not blind.

The boy abased himself; he was pitifully ashamed. Still hoarse from the choking Dan'l had given him, he told how he had stolen the whiskey at the man's bidding.... A little at first; a ten-gallon keg in the end.... Told how he had himself filled Brander's boat jug with the liquor, and hidden a bottle in Mauger's bunk, and lied to old Tichel in the matter. Told the whole tale, and made his peace with them, while Faith and Brander watched each other over the boy's sobbing head with eloquent eyes....

For the rest; Silva was dead, and they buried him in the sand of the beach. Mauger had a shallow knife slit along his ribs; Willis Cox had a broken jaw. The others had suffered nothing worse than bruises, save only Dan'l Tobey. Dan'l's knee was smashed and splintered, and he lay in a stupor in the cabin, Willis watching beside him.

Those who had fled to the boats came shamedly back at last; and Faith and Brander met them at the rail, and Faith spoke to them. They had done wrong, she told them; but there was a chance of wiping out the score by bending to the toil she set them. They were already sick of adventuring; they swarmed aboard like homesick boys. She and Brander told them what to do, and drove them to it....

Before that day was gone, they had half her load out of the _Sally_; and at full tide that night, with every hand tugging at a line or breasting a capstan bar, they hauled her off. She slid an inch, two inches, four.... She moved a foot, three feet.... They freed her, by sheer power of their determination that she must come free. They dragged her full ten feet before the suction of the sand beneath her keel began to slack, and ten feet more before she floated free.... Then the boats lowered, and towed her safe off shore, and anchored her there.

After that, three days to get the casks inboard again and stowed below. Three days in which Dan'l Tobey passed from suffering to delirium. Brander had tended his wound as best he could; but the bone was splintered and the flesh was shattered, and there came an hour when the flesh about the wound turned green and black. It gave off a horrible fetid odor of decay.

Brander told Faith: "He's got to lose either leg or life."

She did not ask him if he were sure; she knew him well enough, now, never to doubt him again. But Dan'l, in an interval of lucidity, had heard; and he croaked:

"Take it off, Brander. Take it off. Get the ax, man."

Brander bent over the man. "I'll do my best for you."

Dan'l grinned with the old jeer in his eyes. "Aye, I've no doubt, Mr. Brander. Go at it, man."

They had not so much as a vial of morphia to deaden the pain; but Dan'l slumped into delirium at the first stroke of the knife Brander had whetted to a razor keenness. His body twitched in the grip of Willis Cox and Loum.... Faith helped Brander tie the arteries; Roy stood by to give what aid he could....

When it was done, Faith said the _Sally_ would lie at anchor till Dan'l died or mended; and in two weeks Brander told her the man would live. She nodded.

"Then we'll go out and fill our casks," she said, "and then for home."

Brander looked at her with shining eyes. "Aye, fill our casks," he agreed, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to stick to that task till it was done. They put to sea.

Dan'l was going to live; but the man was broken. He was not to quit his bunk through the months of the homeward cruise; he was wasted by the fury of his own passions, by the shock of his crippling injury.... He had aged; there was no longer any strength in the man. So old Tichel came into his own at last; he became the titular master of the ship, and Faith was content to let him hold the reins, so long as he did as she desired. Willis Cox yielded precedence to Brander; Brander was mate. When they sighted whales, all three of them lowered, while Faith kept ship. Their work had been nearly done before Noll died; they lacked less than a dozen whales to fill. Young Roy, to his vast content, was allowed to take out a boat and kill one of that last dozen, while Brander in his boat lay watchfully by.

Came a day, when the trying out was done, that Brander went to Faith. "We're bung up," he said. "The last cask's sweating full."

Faith nodded happily, and swung to Mr. Tichel. "Then let's for home," she said.

* * * * *

For the rest, the matter tells itself. They hauled in to the nearest island port and overhauled and recoopered the water casks, and took on wood and water for the five months' homeward way. They stocked with potatoes and vegetables. The crow's nests came down, and to'gallant masts were set to carry canvas on the passage. The gear was stripped from the whaleboats and stowed away, and two of the boats were lashed atop the boathouse, with the spares. The rigging had a touch of tar, the hull and spars took a lick of paint, the wood-work shone with scraping....

So, to sea. The first day out saw the dismantling of the tryworks; and broken bricks flew overside for half that day, all hands joining in the sport of it. Then a clean deck, and a stout northwest wind behind them, and the long easterly stretch to the Horn was begun....

That homeward cruise was a pleasant time for Faith and Brander. They were much together, speaking little, speaking not at all of themselves.... Save once, Faith said, smiling at him shyly:

"I knew you hadn't done it, even when I told them to put you in irons...."

He nodded. "I knew you knew."

They both understood; their eyes said what their lips were not yet ready to say. There was a reticence upon them. Faith, on the deck of her husband's ship, felt still the shadow of Noll Wing in her life.... Brander felt its presence. It made neither of them unhappy; they respected it. Faith was never ashamed of Noll. He had been a man.... She had loved him; she was proud that he had loved her....

Day by day they were together, on deck or below, while the winds worked for them and the stars in their courses watched over them. Through the chill of southern waters as they rounded the Cape.... Cap'n Tichel looking back at it, waved his hand in valedictory; and Faith asked: "What are you thinking, Mr. Tichel?"

"Saying good-by to old Cape Stiff there," he chuckled. "I'll not come this way again."

"Yes, you will," she told him. "You're captain of your own ship, now.... And will be, next cruise."

He shook his head. "I know when I'm well off, young lady. Old Tichel's ready to stick ashore, now...."

She left him, staring back across the dull, cold sea.... He stood there stiffly till the night came down upon the waters.

After that, they struck warmer winds, with a pleasant ocean all about, and the scud of spray sweet upon their cheeks, and the _Sally_ fat with oil beneath their feet. A happy time, when Faith and Brander, with never a word and never a touch of hand, grew close as man and woman can grow....

Never a cloud in the skies from their last kill to the day they picked up the tug that shunted them alongside their wharf at home.

* * * * *

There are many things that never get into the log. Faith had no vengeful heart toward Dan'l; the man had reaped what he sowed. With the _Sally_, Noll Wing's ship, safe home again, she was willing to forget what had passed. She told Dan'l so. Silva was dead; the others were but instruments. The matter was done....

Dan'l, possessed by a creeping apathy, nodded his thanks to her and turned away his head. The man was dying where he lay; he would not long survive.

Old Jem Kilcup was at the wharf to hug Faith against his broad chest. An older Jem than when she went away; but a glad Jem to see her home again. Jonathan Felt was with him, asking anxiously for Noll. When Faith told them Noll was gone, old Jonathan fell sorrowfully silent. The whole town would mourn Noll; he had been one of its heroes....

Faith said proudly: "He's dead, sir. But this was his fattest cruise. He never brought home better than he's sent, now."

"You're full?" asked Jonathan.

"Aye, every cask.... And more," said Faith. And told him of the ambergris. She gave Brander so much credit for that, and for other things, that Jonathan hooked his arm in that of the young man, and walked with him thus when they all went to the office to hear Cap'n Tichel make his report.

Jem sat there, listening, proud eyes on Faith, while Tichel told the story; and Faith listened, and looked now and then at Brander, where he stood in the shadows by the window. In the end, Tichel said straightforwardly that he was content with what life had brought him, that he was through with the sea. But he pointed toward Brander.

"There's a man'll beat Noll Wing's best for you," he said.

Jonathan got up, spry little old figure, and crossed to grip Brander by the hand. "You'll take out a ship o' mine?" he asked; and Brander hesitated, and his eyes crossed to meet Faith's, as though to ask permission. Faith nodded faintly; and Brander said:

"Yes, sir, if you like."

"I do like," said Jonathan briskly. "I do like; so that's settled and done."

Afterward, Tichel and Willis went back to the ship. Jem, with Faith on his arm, were to go up the hill to Faith's old home. They stopped outside Jonathan's door to say good-by to Brander for a little while. Faith was free of the load of responsibility that she had taken on her shoulders; she had put Noll Wing's ship behind her. She looked up at him with eyes that offered everything.

Brander said quietly: "I've much to say to you that's never been said. Will you let me come to your home this night for the saying?"

Faith looked up at her father, looked to Brander again, and smiled,

"Do come," she said.

THE END

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ZANE GREY'S NOVELS

THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS

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THE RAINBOW TRAIL

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DESERT GOLD

The story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the gold which two prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine.

RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon authority ruled. The prosecution of Jane Withersteen is the theme of the story.

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN

This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of deep canons and giant pines."

THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT

A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons--Well, that's the problem of this great story.

THE SHORT STOP

The young hero, tiring of his factory grind, starts out to win fame and fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty ought to win.

BETTY ZANE

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THE LONE STAR RANGER

After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw along the Texas border. In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds a young girl held prisoner, and in attempting to rescue her, brings down upon himself the wrath of her captors and henceforth is hunted on one side by honest men, on the other by outlaws.

THE BORDER LEGION

Joan Randle, in a spirit of anger, sent Jim Cleve out to a lawless Western mining camp to prove his mettle. Then realizing that she loved him--she followed him out. On her way, she is captured by a bandit band, and trouble begins when she shoots Kells, the leader--and nurses him to health again. Here enters another, romance--when Joan, disguised as an outlaw, observes Jim, in the throes of dissipation. A gold strike, a thrilling robbery--gambling and gun play carry you along breathlessly.

THE LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS. By Helen Cody Wetmore and Zane Grey

The life story of Colonel William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill," as told by his sister and Zane Grey. It begins with his boyhood in Iowa and his first encounter with an Indian. We see "Bill" as a pony express rider, then near Fort Sumter as Chief of the Scouts, and later engaged in the most dangerous Indian campaigns. There is also a very interesting account of the travels of "The Wild West" Show. No character in public life makes a stronger appeal to the imagination of America than "Buffalo Bill," whose daring and bravery made him famous.

STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER

MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers.

Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and onward.

LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.

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THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.

"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.

FRECKLES. Illustrated.

Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated.

The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.

AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors.

The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.

THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated.

A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and humor.

THE NOVELS OF MARY ROBERTS RINEHART

DANGEROUS DAYS.

A brilliant story of married life. A romance of fine purpose and stirring appeal.

THE AMAZING INTERLUDE. Illustrations by The Kinneys.

The story of a great love which cannot be pictured--an interlude--amazing, romantic.

LOVE STORIES.

This book is exactly what its title indicates, a collection of love affairs--sparkling with humor, tenderness and sweetness.

"K." Illustrated.

K. LeMoyne, famous surgeon, goes to live in a little town where beautiful Sidney Page lives. She is in training to become a nurse. The joys and troubles of their young love are told with keen and sympathetic appreciation.

THE MAN IN LOWER TEN. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

An absorbing detective story woven around the mysterious death of the "Man in Lower Ten."

WHEN A MAN MARRIES. Illustrated by Harrison Fisher and Mayo Bunker.

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THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE. Illustrated by Lester Ralph.

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THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS. (Photoplay Edition.)

Harmony Wells, studying in Vienna to be a great violinist, suddenly realizes that her money is almost gone. She meets a young ambitious doctor who offers her chivalry and sympathy, and together with world-worn Dr. Anna and Jimmie, the waif, they share their love and slender means.

BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS

SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.

No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader was Seventeen.

PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant.

This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a finished, exquisite work.

PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.

Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness that have ever been written.

THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.

Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a fine girl turns Bibbs' life from failure to success.

THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece.

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THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.