Part 7

But, amazingly, after seconds of silence, Noll Wing's grim face relaxed; he chuckled.... He laughed aloud, and clapped Brander on the shoulder. "Good man.... Good man!"

Mr. Ham called: "We'll gally the sparm...."

And Noll turned, and waved his hand. "Right," he said. "Lower away, boats...."

The lean craft struck the water, the men dropped in, the chase was on.

XI

When the boats left the _Sally_, Mr. Ham's in the lead as of right, Faith came from the after deck to where Noll stood by the rail and touched his arm. He turned and looked down at her.... He was already regretting what had happened. His recognition of Brander's courage had been the last flame of nobility from the man's soul; he was to go down, thereafter, into lower and lower depths.... He was already regretful and ashamed....

Faith touched his arm; he looked down and saw pride and happiness in her eyes; and with the curious lack of logic of the male, he was the more ashamed of what he had done because she was proud of him for it. She said softly:

"That was fine, Noll."

"Fine--hell!" he said hoarsely. "I ought to have smashed him."

Faith smiled; she shook her head.... Her hand rested on his arm; and as he turned to look after the departing boats, she leaned a little against him. He mumbled: "Fool.... That's what I was. I ought to have smashed him. Now he--every man aboard--they'll think they can pull it on me...." His big fists clenched. "By God, I'll show 'em. I'll string him up for a licking, time he gets back."

"I was--very proud," she said. "If you had struck him, I should have been ashamed."

"That's the woman of it," he jeered. "Damn it, Faith; you can't run a whaler with kisses...."

She studied his countenance. He was flushed, nervous, his lips moving.... He took off his cap to wipe his forehead; and his bald head and his gray hair and the slack muscles of his cheeks reminded her again that he was an old, an aging man.... She felt infinitely sorry for him; she patted his arm comfortingly.

He shook her off. "Yes, by God," he swore. "When he gets back, I'll tie him up and give him the rope.... Show the dog...."

Roy had come up behind them; neither had heard him. The boy cried: "That's right, sir. The man thinks he's running the _Sally_, sir. You've got to handle him."

Faith said: "Roy, be still."

He flamed at her: "You don't know what you're talking about, Sis. You're just a girl."

Noll said impatiently: "Don't have one of your rows, now. I'm sick of 'em. Roy, go down in the cabin and stay there...."

"I can't see the boats from there," the boy complained. Noll turned on him; and Roy backed away and disappeared. Noll watched the boats, dwindling into specks across the sea.... Beyond he could see, now and then, the white spouts of the whales. Once a great fluke was lazily upreared.... Faith watched beside him.

* * * * *

Whether, in the normal course of things, Noll would have carried out his threat to whip Brander cannot be known. Chance, the dark chance of the whale-fisheries, intervened.

Tragedy always hangs above a whaling vessel. This must be so when six men in a puny boat with slivers of iron and steel go out to slay a creature with the strength of six hundred men. When matters go well, they strike their whale, the harpoon makes him fast, he runs out his strength, they haul alongside and prod him with the lance, he dies.... But there are so many ways in which matters may go wrong. The sea is herself a treacherous hussy, when she consorts with the wind, and becomes drunk with his caresses. Under his touch she swells and breaks tempestuously; she writhes and flings herself about.... Her least wave can, if it chooses, smash the thin sides of a whaleboat and rob the men in it of their strength and shelter; her gentlest tussle with her consort wind can overwhelm them....

And if the sea be merciful, there remain her creatures. She is the wide, blue pasture of the whale; a touch of his flukes, a crunch of his jaw, a roll of his great bulk is enough to crush out the lives of a score of men. If he had wit to match his size, he would be invulnerable; as it is, men with their wits for weapons can strike and kill him in the waters that are his own. It is rare to encounter a fighting whale, a creature that deliberately sets itself to destroy the attacking boats; the tragedies of the whale-fisheries are more often mere incidents, slight mischances, matters of small importance to the whale....

A little, little thing and men die.

This day, the day when Brander faced Noll Wing and went unscathed, was bright and fair, with a gentle turbulent wind, and a dancing sea. It was warm upon the waters; the sun burned down upon them and its glare and its heat were reflected from them.... The skin of men's faces was scorched by it. The men, tugging at the oars in the boats, sweated and strove; the perspiration streamed down their cheeks, trickled along the straining cords of their necks, slid down their broad chests.... Their shirts clung to them wetly; they welcomed the flying spray that lashed them now and then.

The pod of whales was perhaps five miles from the _Sally_ when the boats were lowered; but the wind was favoring, and its pressure upon the sail helped them on for a space. When half the distance was covered, the oars were discarded as the boats swung around with the wind almost dead astern, and headed straight for the whales' lay. Before they reached the basking, sporting creatures, the whales sounded; and it was necessary for the men to lie upon their oars and wait for a full half hour before the first spout showed the cachalots were back from their browsing in the ocean caves below. The boats swung around and headed toward them, sails pulling....

Mr. Ham's boat was in the lead; for that is the right of the mate. The others were closely bunched behind him; and as they drew near the pod, they separated somewhat, so that each might strike a whale. Dan'l Tobey went southward, where a lone bull lay with the waves breaking over his black bulk. Willis Cox and Tichel swung to the north of the mate, into the thick of the pod.

The mate marked down his whale; a fat cow that would yield full seventy barrels. He was steering; Silva, the harpooner, stood in the bow, knee braced, ready with his irons. The men amidships prepared to bring down mast and sail at the word, and stow them safely away so that they might not hinder the battle that would come. The boat drove smoothly on.... Mr. Ham, looking north and south, saw that the others were drawing up abreast of him, so that they would strike the whales at about the same time. He thought comfortably that with a little luck they would kill two whales, or perhaps three. That each boat should kill was too much to be hoped for.

Then he gave his attention to his own prey. They slipped up on the basking cow from almost dead astern, slid alongside her; and Mr. Ham swung hard on the steering oar. The boat came into the wind; he bellowed:

"Now, Silva; give her iron."

The harpooner moved quick as light, for all the power of the thrust he put behind his stroke. He sank his first iron; snatched his second, drove it home as the whale stirred.... Threw overboard the loose line coiled forward.... The whale ran.

The sail came fluttering down, mast and all; and the four men amidships rolled it awkwardly, stowed it along the gunwale.... Silva and the mate, at the same time, were changing places in the boat. Silva, the harpooning done, would now come into his proper function as boat-steerer. It is the task of the mates to kill the whales. The boat, half smothered in canvas, with Silva and Mr. Ham passing from end to end, and the whale line already running out through the chock in the bow, was a picture of confusion thrice confounded.

In this confusion, anything was possible; anything might happen. What did happen was humiliating and ridiculous.

When Silva struck home the harpoons, he flung overboard a length of line coiled by his knee. This slack line would allow the whale to run free while the sail was coming down and he and the mate were changing places. He threw it overboard--and failed to mark that one loop of it caught on the point of one of the spare irons in the rack with the lances, at the bow. He leaped for the stern, groped past Mr. Ham amidships....

The whale was running. As Mr. Ham reached the bow, the line drew taut. That loop which had caught across the point of the harpoon was straightened like a flash.

Now a harpoon is shaped, not like an arrow, but like a slanting blade. It has a single barb; and the forward side of this barb is razor-sharp. This razor edge cuts into the blubber and flesh; then the shank of the barb grips and holds. But the edge that will cut blubber will also cut hemp....

The loop of whale line was dragged firmly back along this three-inch blade; it cut through as though a knife had done the trick, and the whale was gone with two irons and thirty fathoms of line. Mr. Ham and his boat bobbed placidly upon the water; and Mr. Ham looked, saw what had happened, and spoke sulphurously. Then looked about to see what might be done.

It was too late to think of getting fast to another whale. The pod was gallied; the great creatures were fleeing. After them went James Tichel in his boat, the spray sluicing up from her bows. Tichel was fast; the whale was running with him.... Mr. Ham looked from Tichel for the other boats. He saw Dan'l Tobey in distress. A whale had risen gently under them, opening the seams of their craft; and they were half full of water and sinking. They had cut.

Willis Cox had hold of a whale; and this one had sounded. Ham saw Willis in the bow, watching the line that went straight down from the chock into the water. This line was running out like a whip-lash, though Willis put on it all the strain it would bear without dragging the boat's bow under. It ran down and down....

Mr. Ham rowed across; and Willis called to him: "Big fellow. But he's taken one tub."

"Give him to me," Mr. Ham said.

Willis shook his head. "I'd like to handle him. Get me the line from Mr. Tobey's boat. He's mine."

Mr. Ham grinned. "All right; if you're minded to work...." He swung quickly to where Dan'l and his men floated to their waists in water, the boat under them. "Takin' a swim?" he asked, grinning.

Dan'l nodded. "Just that. You cut, I see. Why was that, now?"

Mr. Ham stopped grinning and looked angry. "Pass over your tubs," he ordered; and Dan'l's men obeyed. Mr. Ham took the fresh line to Willis....

He was no more than just in time. "The black devil's still going," Willis said. "Second tub's all but gone...."

"Bound for hell, more'n like," Mr. Ham agreed. "Hold him."

Dan'l's line was running out by this time; for Willis had worked quickly.... And still the whale went down.... Mr. Ham stood by, waiting.... The line ran out steadily; the whale showed no signs of rising. The bow of Willis's boat was held down within inches of the water by the strain he kept upon the line. One tub was emptied; he began to look anxious.... And the whale kept going down.

Mr. Ham said abruptly: "There.... Pass over your line. He'll be gone on you, first you know."

Willis looked at the smoking line.... And reluctantly, he surrendered. With no more than seconds to spare, the end of his line was made fast to the cut end of Mr. Ham's, and the whale continued to go down. He had taken all the line of two boats--and wanted more.

"He's hungry," Mr. Ham grinned, watching the running rope. "Gone down for supper, likely."

And a moment later, his eyes lighting:

"There.... Getting tired.... Or struck bottom, maybe."

They could all see that the line had slackened. The bow of Mr. Ham's boat rode at a normal level; the line hung loose. And the mate turned around and bellowed to his men:

"Haul in."

They began to take in the line, hand over hand; it fell in a wide coil amidships, overlapping the sides, spreading.... A coil that grew and grew. They worked like mad.... The only way to kill a whale is to pull up on him until your boat rides against his very flank. All the line this creature had stolen must be recovered, before he could be slain.... They toiled with racing hands....

Mr. Ham began to look anxiously over the bow, down into the blue water from which the line came up. "He's near due," he said.

It is one of the curious and fatal habits of a sounding whale to rise near the spot where he went down. It is as though the creatures followed a well-known path into the depths and up again. This is not always true; often a whale that has sounded will take it into his mind to run, will set off at a double-pace. But in most cases, the whale comes up near where he disappeared.... The men knew this. Dan'l Tobey, in his sinking boat, worked away from the neighborhood to give the mate room. So did Willis. And Mr. Ham, leaning one knee on the bow, peering down into the water, his lance ready in his hand, waited for the whale to rise....

The line came in.... The nerves of each man tautened.... Mr. Ham said, over his shoulder: "Silva, you coil t'line. Rest of you get in your oars. Hold ready...."

He heard the men obey, knew they were ready to maneuver at his command.... The whale was coming up slowly; the line was still slack, but the creature should have breached long before....

The mate thought he detected a light pull on the line; it seemed to draw backward, underneath the boat; and he said softly:

"Pull her around."

The oars dipped; the boat swung slowly on a pivot.... The line now ran straight down....

Abruptly, Mr. Ham, bending above the water, thought he saw a black bulk far down and down.... A bulk that seemed to rise.... He watched....

It was ahead of the boat; it became more plainly visible.... He waved his hand, pointing: "There ..." he said. "There...."

Deep in the water, that black bulk swiftly moved; it darted to one side, circling, rising.... Mr. Ham saw a flash of white, a huge black head, a sword-like, saw-toothed jaw.... The big man towered; he flung his left hand up and back in a tremendous gesture.

"Starn.... Oh, starn all!" he cried.

The oars bent like bows under the fierce thrust of the men as they backed water.... The boat slid back.... But not in time....

Willis Cox, and the men in his boat, saw the long, narrow under jaw of the cachalot--a dozen feet long, with the curving teeth of a tiger set along it--slide up from the water, above the bow of the boat. The bow lifted as the whale's upper jaw, toothless, rose under it.... The creature was on its back, biting.... The boat rolled sidewise, the men were tumbling out....

But that narrow jaw sheared down resistlessly. Through the stout sides of the boat, crumpling and splintering ribs and planking.... Through the boat.... And clamped shut as the jaws closed across the thick body of the mate.... They saw the mate's body swell as a toy balloon swells under a child's foot.... Then horribly it relaxed and fell away and was lost in a smother of bloody foam....

* * * * *

Loum, Willis's boat-steerer, swung them alongside the rolling whale. It was Brander who caught a loop of the loose line; and while the creature lay quietly, apparently content with what it had done, they hauled close, and Willis--the boy's face was white, but his hand was steady--drove home his lance, and drew it forth, and plunged it in, again and yet again....

The whale seemed to have exhausted its strength. Having killed, it died easily enough. Spout crimsoned, flukes beat in a last flurry, then the great black bulk was still....

They picked up the men who had been spilled from the mate's boat. Not a man hurt, of them all, save only Mr. Ham.

Him they never found; no part of him. The sea took him. No doubt, Faith thought that night, he would have wished his rough life thus to end.

XII

Mr. Ham was dead and gone. Faith was surprised to find, in the next few days, how much she missed him. The mate had been harsh, brutal to the men, ready with his fist.... Yet somehow she found in her heart a deep affection for the man. He was so amiably stupid, so stupidly good of heart. His philosophy of life had been the philosophy of blows; he believed men, like children, were best ruled for their own good by the heavy hand of a master. And he acted on that belief, with the best will in the world. But there had never been any malice in his blows; he frowned and glared and struck from principle; he was at heart a simple man, and a gentle one.... Not the stuff of a leader; never the man to take command of a masterless ship. Nevertheless, a man of a certain rude and simple strength of soul....

Faith was sorry he was gone; she felt they could have better spared another man.... Almost any other, save Noll Wing.

She did not at once perceive the true nature of the change which Mr. Ham's death must bring about aboard the _Sally_. In the balancing of man and man which had made for a precarious stability there, Mr. Ham had taken a passive, but nevertheless important part. Now he was gone; the balance was disturbed. But neither Faith nor the others at once perceived this; none of them saw that Dan'l Tobey as second mate, and Dan'l Tobey as first mate, with only a step between him and the command, were very different matters.... Not even Dan'l, in the beginning....

They were all too busy, for one thing; there were the whales to be cut in--for James Tichel had killed and towed his booty back to the _Sally_ an hour after Mr. Ham died. Tichel's whale, and the one that had killed Mr. Ham, would give the whole ship work for days; feverish work, hard and engrossing. Cap'n Wing, who had leaned upon Mr. Ham in the past, perforce took charge of this work, and the strain of it wearied him. He no longer had the abounding vitality which it demanded.... It wearied him; and what with the death of the mate, and the rush of this work and his own weariness, he altogether forgot his threat to have the man, Brander, whipped in the rigging. He forgot Brander, tried to drive the men at their tasks, and eventually gave up in a stormy outbreak of impatience and left the matter in the hands of Dan'l Tobey.

Dan'l went about the business of cutting in and boiling the blubber in a deep abstraction; he was considering the problem raised by the death of Mr. Ham, which none of the others--save, perhaps, Faith--had yet perceived.

This problem was simple; yet it had possibilities of trouble. Mr. Ham was gone; Dan'l automatically became first officer; old James Tichel ranked as second, Willis as third.... But the place of fourth mate was left empty.... It would have to be filled. The _Sally_ could not go on about her business with one boat's crew forever idle. There would have to be a new officer.

Dan'l was troubled by the problem, for the obvious reason that Brander was the only man aboard with an officer's training; that Brander was the obvious choice. Dan'l did not want Brander in the cabin; he had seen too much in Faith's eyes that night when she heard Brander sing by the capstan.... He had eyes to see, and he had seen. And there was boiling in Dan'l a storm of hatred for Brander. He was filled with a rancor unspeakable....

No one spoke of this necessity for choosing another officer until the last bit of blubber from the two whales had been boiled; the last drop of oil stowed in the casks; the last fleck of soot scoured from the decks. Then it was old Tichel who opened the matter. It was at dinner in the cabin that he spoke. Cap'n Wing was there, and Faith, and Dan'l, and Roy. Willis Cox was on deck; Mr. Ham's chair was vacant. Old Tichel looked at it, and he looked at Noll Wing, and he said:

"Who's to set there, cap'n?" He pointed toward the empty chair as he spoke. It was at Cap'n Wing's right hand, where Mr. Ham had been accustomed to sit. Dan'l Tobey had not yet preëmpted it. Dan'l was always a discreet man.

Cap'n Wing looked across at Tichel. "Mr. Tobey, o' course," he said.

Tichel nodded. "Natural. I mean--who's goin' to be the new officer? Or don't you figure to hev one?"

Noll had been drinking that day; he was befuddled; his brain was thick. He waved one of his big hands from side to side as though to brush Tichel away. "Leave it to me," he said harshly. "I don't call for any pointers, Mr. Tichel. Leave it to me...."

James Tichel nodded again; he got up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and went on deck.... Dan'l and Roy, Faith and Noll Wing, were left together. Dan'l wondered whether it was time for him to speak; he studied Noll's lowered countenance, decided to hold his tongue.... He followed Tichel to the deck.

Noll said nothing of the matter all that day. At night, when they were going to bed, Faith asked him: "Who have you decided to promote to be an officer, Noll?"

He said harshly: "You heard what I told Tichel? Leave it to me."

"Of course," she agreed. "I just wanted to know. Of course...." She hesitated, seemed about to speak, then held her peace. Brander was the only man aboard who had the training; Noll must see that, give him time.

Faith wanted to see Brander in the cabin. She admitted this to herself, quite frankly; she did not even ask whether there was anything shameful in this desire of hers. She knew there was not.... The girl had come to have an almost reverential regard for the welfare of the _Sally_; for the prosperity of the cruise. It was her husband's charge; the responsibility lay on him. She wanted matters to go well; she wanted Noll to keep unstained his ancient record.... Brander, she knew, would help him. Brander was a man, an able officer, skillful and courageous; a good man to have at one's back in any battle.... She was beginning to see that Noll would need a friend before this cruise was done; she wanted Brander on Noll's side.

It may be that there was mingled with this desire a wish that Brander might have the place that was due him; but there was nothing in her thoughts of the man that Noll might not have known.

She watched Noll, next day; and more than once she caught him watching where Brander aided with some routine task, or talked with the men. There was trouble in Noll's eyes; and because she had come to understand her husband very fully, Faith could guess this trouble. Noll was torn between respect for Brander, and fear of him....

Brander, that day of Mr. Ham's death, had faced Noll unafraid; Noll knew he was no coward. But by the same token, he had sworn to have Brander whipped, and had not done so. He recognized the strength and courage in the man; and at the same time he hated Brander as we hate those we have wronged. Brander was not afraid of Noll; and for that reason, if for no other, Noll was afraid of Brander. In the old days, when he walked in his strength, Noll Wing had feared no man, had asked no man's fear. His own fist had sufficed him. But now, when his heart was growing old in his breast, he was the lone wolf.... He must inspire fear, or be himself afraid.... He was afraid of Brander.

Afraid of Brander.... But Noll was no fool. No man who is a fool can long master other men as Noll had mastered them. He set himself to consider the matter of Brander, and decide what was to be done.

That night, when dark had fallen, and the _Sally Sims_ was idling on a slowly stirring sea, Noll called the mates into the cabin. Faith and Roy were on deck together; and Roy, with a boy's curiosity, stole to the top of the cabin companion to listen to what passed. Faith paid him little attention; she was astern, watching the phosphorescent sparks that glowed and vanished in the disturbed water on the _Sally's_ wake. The whaler was scarce moving at all; there was no foam on the water behind her; but the little swirls and eddies were outlined in fire....

Noll looked around the table at the other mates; and he said heavily:

"We've got to have a new officer."