Part 8

They knew that as well as he; the statement called for no reply. Only Dan'l Tobey said: "Yes, sir.... And a man we know, and can count on."

Noll raised his big head and looked at Dan'l bleakly. "Mr. Tobey," he said, "you know the men. Who is there that measures up to our wants, d'you think?"

Dan'l started to speak; then he hesitated, changed his mind.... Said at last: "I'm senior officer here, sir. But--I've not the experience that Mr. Tichel has, for instance. Perhaps he has some one in mind."

Noll nodded. "All right, Mr. Tichel. If you have, say out."

James Tichel grinned faintly. "I have. But you'll not mind me, so no matter."

"Out with it, any fashion," Noll insisted.

"Silva, then," said Tichel. "Silva!" He looked from one of them to another. Noll's face was set in opposition; Dan'l's was neutral; Willis Cox was obviously amazed. "Silva," said old Tichel, for the third time. "He's a Portugee.... All right. But he's a good man; he knows the boat; he's worked with Mr. Ham. And he can take the boat and make a harpooner out of one or the other of two men in her...." He stopped, unused to such an outbreak. "That's my say, leastwise," he finished.

For a moment, no one spoke. Then Noll looked toward Dan'l again. "Now, Mr. Tobey," he said.

Dan'l leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "I've nothing against Silva," he said quietly. "He's a good man. The best man in the crew, I'm thinking.... But....

"The man I have in mind is Roy Kilcup. No less."

Noll's eyes widened; and old Tichel snapped: "He's never been in a boat."

"I know the boy," Dan'l insisted. "I'll undertake to teach him all he needs know in a week. He knows boats; he has guts and heart.... All he needs to know is whales...."

"Aye," said Willis Cox scornfully. "Aye, that's all. But who does know them?"

Dan'l smiled. "You might well enough ask, Mr. Cox."

Willis flushed painfully. "He's just a kid," he protested.

"You were almost three months older when you struck your first whale, if I mind right," said Dan'l pleasantly.

Big Noll Wing interrupted harshly: "That's enough. Silva and Roy. Who would you have, Mr. Cox?"

"Only one man aboard," said Willis.

"That's who.... I've no mind for conundrums."

"Brander," said Cox. "Brander!"

Noll seemed to slump a little in his chair; he smiled wearily. Dan'l Tobey thought the captain had never looked so old. His big fist on the table moved a little from side to side, then was still. In the silence, they all heard the voice of Roy Kilcup, from the deck above, crying to Faith in a trembling whisper:

"Dan'l wants to make me mate, Sis! He wants to make me mate...."

His voice was so tremulous, so obviously the voice of a boy, that every man of them save Dan'l Tobey smiled. Noll said slowly: "He's over youthful yet, Dan'l. Teach him the trade.... Happen, some day, we'll see...."

Dan'l was betrayed by anger into indiscretion. "Over youthful, that may be," he exclaimed. "But not a Portugee; and not a beach comber...."

Noll held up his big hand, silencing Dan'l. And he looked from man to man; and he said slowly, as an old man speaks: "I've no liking for Brander. He dared me to my face, t'other day. But there's this....

"He holds the crew. They like him. And he's a man; and he knows the job; and he does not know how to be afraid. Also, he has a right to the place. If we don't give it to him, he might well enough make a bit trouble for us. Leastwise, that's the seeming of it to me...."

Dan'l said harshly: "I never heard that Noll Wing feared any man."

Noll smiled. "Age brings wisdom, Dan'l. I'm learning to fear.... So...."

* * * * *

Dan'l Tobey found Brander on the fore deck, ten minutes later. Brander was smoking, with two of the men. Dan'l touched his shoulder; Brander stepped aside. The two men faced each other in the darkness for a moment; and it was as though an electric spark of hostility passed between them. Their eyes clashed....

Then Dan'l said pleasantly: "Get your traps and come aft to the cabin, Brander."

Brander chuckled softly; he tapped out his pipe in his palm and tossed the glowing ember over the rail. "Thank you, Mr. Tobey," he said. "I'm pleased to accept your kind invitation."

There was a mocking light in his eye that Dan'l, even in the dark, could see. Another man might have struck; but Dan'l was never one for blows. He turned on his heel and went aft; and Brander dropped into the fo'c's'le to collect his belongings.

XIII

Thus Brander came into the cabin. He and Willis Cox shared a small compartment off the main cabin; while Dan'l and tigerish old Tichel shared another. The four mates, Roy, Noll Wing, and Faith all lived in a space not much more than twenty-five feet square. This intimacy that could not be escaped served to intensify the clash of man and man. Brander and Dan'l Tobey became, within the week, open and avowed enemies.

They made no great show of their enmity, but each understood. Dan'l, by virtue of his position as mate, gradually gathered into his own hands the authority that old Noll Wing was letting slip; he assumed many of the small prerogatives of the captain; and he took advantage of his strength to give Brander irksome tasks, to make his work unnecessarily hard. Noll saw nothing. He had fallen into something like a stupor; he was rotting at the heart, like a great log that lies prone in the forest. He played with his authority; he had days when he liked to fancy that he was the Noll of old; but most of the time he spent in the cabin below, sleeping, or perhaps drinking, or reading the Bible and maundering over his own past sins. A wholesome interest in the Bible is a good thing for any man; but Noll's interest was not wholesome. He was morbidly absorbed in the Book; he read it and mourned to think how wicked he had been. He complained to Faith as though she were to blame for his ancient crimes.

It came to pass that he flooded Faith, little by little, with the details of his own misdemeanors. His own orgy of self-depreciation led him to decide that he was not worthy of her; he told her so; and when Faith sought to hearten him, the man--to prove his point--recited the tale of the hot blood of his youth. He told her the women he had known, so that Faith was sickened; and he begged her to forgive him, and she did. She forgave without rancor.... It was characteristic of Faith that she held no anger against Noll because he was not what she thought him. She had married him, eyes open.... He was her husband; she was his. She set herself to serve him, to protect him against himself, with all the loyalty that was in her. And more than all, she set herself to uphold Noll as the master of his ship. He must bring the _Sally_ home with bursting casks; that was Faith's creed and prayer. He must fight the good fight; he must meet his responsibility; he must be master....

She worked to this end unceasingly; and on the whole her efforts were without avail. Noll steadily degenerated.... His strength fled from him.

Faith was so concerned with Noll that she gave little heed to the hostility between Dan'l Tobey and Brander. These two fought their fight without her interference. And this struggle between them was a curious thing. On Dan'l's side, it was a constant and persistent effort to harass Brander and discredit him; on Brander's side, it was a good-natured opposition to this effort. When Dan'l gave Brander two men's work to do, Brander smiled--and did it. When Dan'l blamed Brander for what was another's fault, or no fault of any man, Brander silently and cheerfully took the blame. Now and then he looked at Dan'l with a blue flash of anger in his eyes; but for the most part he was good-humored; he seemed amused by Dan'l, nothing more.

Dan'l chose, one day, to take Brander to task at dinner in the cabin. Noll and Faith were there, and the four mates. Brander, as was his duty, came down last; he sat at the foot of the board. The _Sally_ was cruising idly, watching for a spout. Brander and Willis Cox had been on deck before dinner. There was little for either of them to do, save watch for any chance of harm, or wait for word of a whale.

When Brander came down, he caught Faith's eye from the foot of the companion ladder, and Faith nodded and said: "Good morning." Brander smiled. Dan'l looked at Faith; and he looked at Brander; and he gripped his chair to hold back a hot word that would have ruined him. Brander sat down at the foot of the table. Noll seemed scarce to know he had come, and Faith nodded to Brander to pass his plate. Brander did so, and Faith served him. The plate went back to Brander.

Dan'l said slowly: "Mr. Brander, the main hatch was not fast when I came down. Did you secure it?"

Brander looked up quickly, smiled. "No, sir," he said. "I...."

"Why not?" Dan'l demanded acidly. "Are you waiting for a squall to tear it off?"

Willis Cox said: "I had it made fast, sir. Before Mr. Brander came on deck."

Dan'l crimsoned in spite of himself; old Tichel grinned unpleasantly. Brander smiled; and Faith looked at Dan'l and waited for his word of acknowledgment. Dan'l saw her eyes.... He said to Brander: "Then, of course, you couldn't make it fast. Why didn't you say so--since it was done before you came on deck?"

Brander said soberly: "Sorry, sir." But his eyes were twinkling. What use to explain; Dan'l could not be in a worse light. And Dan'l knew it. He said hotly:

"What is so funny?..."

Noll Wing rumbled from the head of the table, where he had seemed concerned only with his food: "Let be. Let be. The thing is done. That's all that's needful, Mr. Tobey."

And Dan'l got hold of himself; he said respectfully: "Right, sir."

The matter dropped there.... A small thing; but an incident very typical of the tension which was growing in the cabin of the _Sally Sims_. Dan'l, jaundiced by his own hatred of Brander, by his disordered passion for Faith, was not good company. Save Roy, all those in the cabin avoided him. Roy was fiercely loyal to Dan'l; and he hated Brander the more because Brander had been given the mate's berth to which Roy himself had foolishly aspired. That was Dan'l's doing, that aspiration; he had taken care to tell Roy that he had proposed Roy's name. "Brander does not belong in the cabin," he told Roy. "He is rag tag and bob tail, from God knows where. If I'd been Noll Wing, you would be fourth mate to-day...."

He fed Roy's sense of wrong; for the boy might some day prove a useful tool. Dan'l was full of venom in those days; but he had not yet formed his ultimate plan.

He still loved Faith, with some faint traces of the old decency. He knew in his heart that she would never love him; yet he would never be content till he got this from her own lips. The inevitable happened one evening when a new moon's thin crescent faintly lighted the dark seas. Noll had gone early to a sodden sleep; Faith was not sleepy and went on deck. Dan'l, from his cabin, heard her go; he arose and followed her....

There was little wind; the sea was flat; the _Sally_ scarcely stirred. Dan'l told the man at the wheel to leave her and go forward; he made the wheel fast and let the _Sally_ go her own gait. Her canvas was all stowed; her yards were bare. When the man was gone, Dan'l turned to the after rail, where Faith was sitting. The man's mouth was hot and dry, and his pulse was pounding. He came to her; Faith said softly:

"Hello, Dan'l...."

Dan'l mumbled huskily.... "... Faith!" He stood beside her, and they looked out across the water, where the starlight played. Dan'l was trembling, and Faith felt the trouble in the man, as she had felt it for weeks.... She and Dan'l had been boy and girl together; she was infinitely sorry for him....

In the end, while he stood rigidly beside her, she laid her hand on his arm. "Dan'l," she said, "I wish--you would get over being so unhappy."

He looked at her through the dark; his voice was like a croak. "Unhappy ..." he repeated.

"It's not good for you, Dan'l," said Faith gently. "Unhappiness is--it's like a poison. It burns...."

"Aye?" said Dan'l. "That's true, Faith. It burns...."

"Why not forget it?" she urged. "You're actually growing thin on it, Dan'l. Your face is lined...."

Dan'l tried to laugh. "One thing," he said, "the ship's on my hands, now. Noll Wing--he's aging. He's an old man, Faith."

Faith turned her head away from him quickly; she bit her lip in the darkness. Dan'l repeated: "The _Sally's_ on my hands, Faith. I'm master--without the name of it."

She said quietly: "Noll Wing is master here, Dan'l. Never think he is not."

Dan'l turned abruptly away; he stood with his back to her. And as he stood there, the jealousy of Brander and all the rancor that was poisoning the man gave way for a moment to his tenderness for Faith. He swung back sharply, gripped her shoulders.... "Faith," he said harshly, "Noll is master. So be it. But, Faith--I may still love you. I do. Nothing on earth can stop it. It's all there is in me, Faith. You.... You.... I would worship you; he kicks you with every word, as he kicks a dog. Faith.... Faith...."

She faced him squarely. "Dan'l, you are wrong. You are wrong to tell me this--to speak so.... It is not--manly, Dan'l."

The reproach in her voice made him shrink; it fired him. He caught her, cried: "By God...." He would have swept her into his arms....

Brander said, from the top of the companion: "Mr. Tobey, shall I set a man at the wheel?... There's wind coming...."

Dan'l cursed. "Hell!" He flung loose from Faith, he whirled on Brander.... The two men faced each other tensely, Dan'l crouching with bared teeth, Brander erect.... The starlight showed a little smile on his face. Abruptly, Dan'l straightened....

"Set a man at the wheel--and be damned, Brander!" he said.

And he brushed past the fourth mate without a glance, and went below. Brander called through the darkness to a knot of men on the deck, forward. One came aft....

Faith still stood by the rail; Brander paid her no heed. The man took the wheel.... Brander leaned against the forward end of the deckhouse. After a little, Faith stirred, came to the companion to go below. At its top, she paused.

"Good night, Mr. Brander," she said.

"Good night," he called pleasantly.

She went below. Dan'l, writhing in his bunk below old Tichel, who snored above him, heard her cross the cabin and go into Noll's. And the nails on his fingers bit his palms.

* * * * *

The second day after, Dan'l came down into the cabin to find Noll. "Would you mind coming on deck for a moment, sir?" he asked.

Noll was reading; he looked up resentfully. "What now, Mr. Tobey? Can't you handle the ship?"

"I want you to see a thing...." There was a hint of evil in Dan'l's tone. Faith was there, heard, wondered.... Noll looked at the mate; bestirred himself....

They went on deck together; and Dan'l pointed forward.

Brander was there, by the tryworks. Facing him, grouped about him, were four of the crew. Mauger was among them. Brander was talking; and the men were laughing at what he said. One of the men looked aft and saw Dan'l and Noll Wing watching them; and the man's face sobered instantly and he backed away from the group. Brander turned around and saw the captain. Noll called to him:

"Come aft, Mr. Brander."

Brander came, without haste, yet quickly. Noll and Dan'l waited for him in silence; they kept silent when he faced them. He met Noll Wing's sullen and angry eyes. His own were unashamed and unafraid. "What is it, sir?" he asked at last.

Noll lowered his big head like a bull. "What was your talk with the men, there?" he demanded.

Brander smiled. "The man Hatch tripped on a coil of line and fell. That minded me of a thing that happened on the _Thomas Morgan_, and I told them of it. A fat greeny caught his foot in the rigging and dove thirty feet overside into the sea.... It was a comical thing, sir. And they laughed at it."

"I do not want my mates consorting with the crew," said Noll sulkily; and there was more complaint than accusation in his voice. Brander said:

"It does no harm to be friendly with the men. Liking is as good a handle as fear, to hold them with."

Old Noll tried to beat down Brander's eyes with his own; but his own were the first to shift. He shrank, the vigor of his anger passed, he was an old man again. "Damn it, if you'd rather be forward, go there and stay," he fretted. "Do you want to go back to the fo'c's'le, man?"

Brander said respectfully: "No, sir. I'll do as you say."

"For God's sake, do," Noll whined. He turned back to the cabin, brushed Dan'l. "And you, Mr. Tobey. Don't bother me with such matters."

Dan'l looked at Brander, eyes glinting. "I thought it important, sir," he said.

Noll grunted and went below. Dan'l, with a triumphant grin at Brander, followed him. Faith was in the main cabin; she looked at the two seriously. "What was it, Noll?" she asked.

Noll shook his head fretfully; he stumped past her toward his own cabin. "The man Brander, currying favor forward," he said. "I put a bee in his bonnet."

Dan'l said: "He meant no harm, sir. I'm sure of it...."

Noll whirled on him. "Then why did you run to me?"

"So that you might set him right, and put an end to't," said Dan'l. "He's a bit too friendly with the men.... It was time he was told...."

"Oh, aye," said Noll wearily. "Come, Faith...."

The door of the after cabin shut behind them; and Dan'l, left alone, smiled at his own thoughts and was content.

XIV

There was one circumstance that counted against Brander in the eyes of James Tichel, of Mr. Cox, and of some of the crew. This was the fact that for close on a month after he was made an officer, the _Sally Sims_ sighted not one loose whale.

There were fish all about them. During the interval, they sighted three other whaling craft, and stopped to gam with them. Two of the three were cutting in when the _Sally_ sighted them; the third had just finished trying out the blubber of a ninety barrel bull. But the _Sally_ sighted not so much as a spout. And old Tichel, who had the superstitions of the sea in his blood, began to look sidewise at Brander, and whisper that he was a Jonah....

That new moon in whose light Dan'l tried to plead with Faith was another ill omen. Noll Wing, coming on deck the first night the moon appeared, saw it first over his left shoulder when Faith called to him to look. He swung his head to the left.... Saw the moon.... And old Tichel's cry was too late to stop him. Faith laughed at the second mate; Noll grumbled at him. But Tichel clung to his doubts; and Willis Cox was converted to them by the indisputable fact that the _Sally_ sighted no whales.

The men on a whaling vessel have an interest in the cruise. They are not paid for the work they do, for the time they spend.... They are paid according to the earnings of the vessel. Their salary, or wage, is called a "lay." This ranges from the captain's lay down to that of the greeny. The captain's is a twelfth; or at least this was Noll Wing's lay. The greenies on the _Sally Sims_ were on a hundred and seventy-fifth lay. Which, being interpreted, means that out of every twelve barrels of oil which the _Sally_ brought home, one belonged to the captain; and out of every hundred and seventy-five, one belonged to each of the green hands. The captain got one in twelve, the mate one in eighteen; the second mate got one in twenty-eight, and so the shares ran down the scale. The lays were so arranged that out of every hundred and seventy-five barrels, some fifty-five went to the officers and crew, while the remainder went to the owner to pay the expenses of the voyage and give him his profits.... Three per cent., or six, or a hundred, as the luck of the cruise might decide.... The crew were sure of their money, such as it was, before the owner got his; for it was the custom of old Jonathan Felt to pay off his men at the current price of oil before figuring his own profit or loss.

The effect of this arrangement was to give the mates and the men an incentive to harder effort. The effect was to make them acutely interested in the success of the cruise. And by the same token, the ill luck which now beset the _Sally_ tended to fret their tempers and set them growling about their tasks....

Some blamed Brander; some blamed Noll Wing; some blamed their luck....

Brander felt the strain as much as any of them. He was, in addition, an untried man; he had not yet had his chance to strike a whale, and that is the final test of a whaler's officers. When he was taken into the cabin and given a boat, he was forced to be content with the poorest material aboard. That is the fourth mate's luck. He had Mauger, the one-eyed man; he had Loum as his harpooner; and he had to fill out his crew three others who were weak hands at the oars and slack at every task.

He set himself to whipping this crew into shape; and in the luckless days when the _Sally_ idled with double watches at the mastheads, he used to take his boat off and push the men to their work, training steadily, fighting to put pith into them. He was not a man given to the use of his fists; neither had his tongue the acid bite of Dan'l Tobey's. But he had a way of railing at the men good-naturedly, abusing them with a smile, that made them laugh and tug the harder at their oars; he won from them more than they had ever given before.... And he inspired in them a distinct loyalty which gave birth, in time, to a pride in their boat which pleased Brander, and promised well.

Mauger, in particular, was Brander's shadow and slave. The one-eyed man, who had been turned into a chuckling and harmless nonentity by the captain's blow and kick, found Brander kindly. And he repaid this kindliness with a devotion that was marked by every man aboard.... This devotion was marked, above all, by Noll Wing. And Noll, in whom fear of the one-eyed man was growing like a cancer, dreaded Brander all the more because of it.

Noll and Faith were playing cribbage in the after cabin one night; and the door into the main cabin was open. Faith sat on the seat across the stern, and Noll was in a chair, his back to the door, his knees supporting the board they used as a table. Brander came down from the deck with word that one of the men had cut himself with his clasp knife; he wanted to go to the medicine chest in the after cabin for materials to care for the wound. The sea was turbulent; the _Sally_ was rocking on it; the rigging was creaking and the timbers of the old craft groaned aloud. This tumult drowned the noise of Brander's footsteps as he came down the ladder and across the main cabin. When he appeared in the doorway behind Noll, Faith saw him. Noll neither saw nor heard till Brander said quietly:

"Sorry to bother you, sir...."

Noll, whose nerves were shaky, whirled up from his chair; the board slid from his knees, the cards were spilled.... His face was ghastly with fright; and when he saw Brander, this fright turned to rage.

"Damn you, Brander," he cried. "Don't you sneak up on me like that again...."

Brander said respectfully: "I'm sorry. I should have...."

"What do you want?" Noll barked. "Get out of here. Get out of my sight. Don't stand there gawping...."

"I want to get some...."

"I don't give a damn what you want," Noll cried. "Get up on deck, where you belong. Sharp...."

Brander stood his ground. "One of my men has cut his hand," he said. "I want some stuff to fix it up."

Noll wavered.... He threw up his hands. "All right. Get what you want.... I can't get rid of you any other way. But don't come sneaking up behind me again. I don't like it, Mr. Brander."

Brander made no reply; he crossed to the medicine chest and found what he needed. Faith had picked up the fallen board, the cards.... She said quietly: "Sit down, Noll. We'll deal that hand over again...."

Big Noll sat down, watching Brander sidewise. When Brander was gone, Faith asked: "Why were you startled?"