Part 20

“He loved Joan. I loved Joan. Every man aboard the Pownal loved the girl; but Eric more than most of us. He sought ways to please her, and when he bungled it, it was a fight with him to hide his grief. One of the greenies, when the Pownal was but a few days out, bumped against the girl in the waist of the ship at the lurch of a wave; and Eric knocked the man halfway to the fo’c’s’le scuttle with one cuff. But while the greenie was scrambling to his feet, nursing his mouth with one tooth gone, Joan flamed at Eric.

“‘Why was that?’ she demanded, her voice very steady and hot.

“‘He bumped you!’ Eric tells her.

“‘I did not complain. Only a coward hits men who cannot hit back.’

“Eric’s face crimsoned; he whirled to the man. ‘Here,’ he shouted. ‘Forget I’m the mate. Do you want the chance to get even?’

“The man stared affrightedly, then ducked down the scuttle like a rabbit, with Eric glaring after him. But when Eric turned, Joan had gone aft without another word, and he was left to grope for understanding of her.

“Scarf was the strongest, quickest man I ever saw. He was tall and powerful, and built slim and flat like a whalebone spring. He was boiling with his own strength all the time. He suffered for a vent for it; and he trod the deck on his toes like a tiger, his fists swinging, not from any lust for battle so much as from the excess of his own power and vigor.

“I’ve seen him set his hands to tackle and brush the fo’mast hands aside, and do three men’s work himself for the mere peace and joy it gave him to put forth all his strength for a space; his shoulders and back and arms would knot and swell and bulge with his efforts, and his lungs would shout with gladness at the task.

“Eric was never still. On deck, where others would lean against the rail with an eye to the ship and their thoughts somewhere off across the water, he was always moving, pacing up and down, climbing into the rigging, shifting this and stirring that, restless like a caged beast. Something drove him. He could not rest. The springs of life and energy in the man would have torn him to bits if you had held him motionless for an hour. He had to move, to act, to do; and when he buffeted the men, it was neither native cruelty nor bullying. It was but the outburst of his own impatient, restless power.

“It was a strange thing to see such a man gentling little Jem Marvel, or wooing the boy to a romp about the deck; and it was strange to see Scarf stand near Joan, watching her, and the muscles in him twitching and straining with the agony of inaction. Eric worshipped Joan; and she bewildered him. He used to plan little pleasant surprises for her, and watch her joy at them and take his reward in watching. He never spoke love to her, never so much as touched her hand unless it might be to help her along the deck when the ship was wallowing; and when the things he planned failed to delight her, a man watching him could see that his very soul was writhing.

“I said Scarf was a quick man, quick of thought and quick of deed. But where Joan was concerned, he was very dull and slow. He never could learn, try as he would, to please her; and his own impotence and his strength combined to drive him to feats which he meant for wooing, but which the girl abhorred.

“He trapped a little sea bird once, and made a tiny cage for it, and left it for her to find; and when the girl discovered it, she cried out with pity for the captive, and ran on deck with the cage and set the little creature free. Eric Scarf saw her, and she knew it was he who had done it, and pitied him.

“‘I’m really grateful,’ she said, smiling very gently at the big man. ‘But he is so unhappy in a cage.’

“Eric tried to speak, and saw one of the men by the tryworks grinning at him; so he went forward and drove the man with blows to the knight’s heads, and Joan scorned him for days thereafter.

“I’ve seen a cock pa’tridge ruffle his feathers and beat and drum with his wings, all glory and strength and vigor in his wooing; and no doubt the hen liked it. But if the pa’tridge had tried such measures in the courting of a singing thrush, he would only have frighted and dismayed her whom he sought to please. It was so with Eric. His courting would have pleased some women; Joan it but disgusted and disturbed.

“Eric Scarf and I were closer friends than you would think; and I knew the big, strong man to be as shy and as easy to take hurt as a child. But it was his way when he was hurt or shamed to strike out at the nearest, and so to those without understanding he seemed a mere bully, cruel and exultant in his strength.

“Lucky for us on the Pownal, Scarf delighted in the whaling. There was no other task in the world so fitted to the man. So strong he was that nothing short of a whale could give him the fierce joy of battle which soothed him. He drove his men as he drove himself, and they either broke under it or became hard-bitten and enduring hands, fit to match him. His boat was always first away; and he would strike and kill one whale and then another while other officers were content with a single catch. I’ve known him to do what few attempt; to lower at night when moonlight revealed a spout, and make his kill, and tow the fish to the ship by dawn. Cap’n Tobbey never interfered with Eric, for the mate was too valuable; and when the mate’s watch was on deck, he would lower and kill without ever calling the Old Man from his cabin at all.

“I had heard of Scarf before this v’y’ge, but never watched him work before; and many a time I found myself biting my lip and holding the breath in my chest at the daring of him. In any weather short of a gale, he would lower; and once two boats were swamped in lowering before he took the third mate’s and got away--and got the whale.

“With such an officer, and decent luck, a quick voyage was sure; and so it was this time. Before we’d been out two years, the casks were filled, oil was stored in everything that would hold it, and the Old Man gave the word to fly the Blue Peter and put for home. We threw the bricks of the tryworks overboard to lighten ship that much, and struck across the South Pacific, fought our way around the Horn, and took a long slant north’ard toward Tristan.

“There was no place to store more oil if we had it, and we could not try out if we had the blubber; so, though we sighted fish now and then, we let them go--though I could see Eric was fretting at it, and wishing the ship empty again.

“For months now, Eric had been wooing Joan in his own wild, longing way; but the girl would have none of him. He must have known it, and he bridled his tongue as he could. But the word was bound to come one day; and it came at last when we were rocking in a calm, with an island two or three miles to starboard, and the sun hissing on the sea that sighed and swelled like the bosom of a sleeping woman whose dreams are troubled and disturbed.

“The ship was idle, the men squatting forward in what shade they could discover, and the rigging slatting back and forth as the Pownal rocked on the long swells. Eric had the deck, the Old Man was asleep below, and Joan and the boy, Jem, were sitting aft, the girl sewing at something she held in her lap.

“Scarf, with nothing in the world to do, fretted and paced about, his eyes never leaving her, and a worship in them that all the world could see. The afternoon droned away, the Pownal creaked and swung in the cradle of the sea, and the sun burned down endlessly. Scarf could not bear it. He strode across to where the girl sat; and she looked up at him to see what he had come for, and at the look in his eyes rose quickly to face him, her face setting hard.

“Eric must have seen; but he blundered blindly on. The words came awkwardly. He lifted no hand to touch her. ‘I love you. I love you,’ he said, in a dry, husky voice. ‘I love you. I want you to marry me.’

“Black little Jem looked up at them and, with the quick perception of the child, grinned malignantly. Joan’s face turned white beneath the soft bronze the sun and wind had given her cheeks. She could not help pitying the big man; but she could not love him.

“‘I’m sorry, Eric,’ she said. ‘I do not love you.’

“‘I love you,’ he repeated, as though it were an argument he were advancing.

“‘I’m sorry,’ she told him again. ‘I’m sorry to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. But I don’t love you.’

“His eyes were quivering and trembling like the raw flesh of a wound, but he stood impassively before her, staring down into her eyes, searching there for something he would never find. Little Jem chuckled, and the sound broke the spell upon the man. He turned rigidly away; and as it always was with him when his heart was torn, his great body clamored for action. His fingers bit at his palms.

“And then one of the boatsteerers, standing in the waist, uttered a low ejaculation; and Eric turned and saw the man was pointing toward the shore, where a misty spout was just dissolving against the dark background of the cliffs that dipped to the water there.

“It was the vent Eric wanted for the torment that was tearing him. Without a word, he leaped to his boat; and his men, well trained, came tumbling at his heels. In a minute’s time, Eric had caught up some gear that had been removed from the boats when the fishing was finished, and gave the order to lower.

“Joan came softly to him. ‘You are not going to kill that whale, are you?’ she asked. ‘We have no need for it.’

“Eric did not hear her; for the boat had split the water and was bobbing there below him, and he dropped with his men and in a moment was away. Joan, her eyes burning angrily, watched him go; and presently she brought the glass to see what was to come.

“The whale inshore was lying quietly, but Eric sent the boat along as though his life hung on success; he drove the men till the oars bent like whip-shafts; he drove them and he drove himself; and they ran fair upon the creature before they realized their speed. Then, at Eric’s cry, the boatsteerer in the bow leaped up and drove the harpoons home, and the boat sheered off while Eric changed places with the man.

“They had struck a cow whale, a right whale, with a calf not a week old tucked under her fin; and the little thing lay there, lifting its tiny spout against its mother’s side; its fins feebly fanning.

“A cow whale is the easiest of game; and there is no sentiment in the whaling ships. If the Pownal had been empty, she would have been counted clear gain. With the Pownal full to brimming, this that Eric was doing was mere murderous slaughter.

“When Eric saw that he was cheated of the battle he had craved, a fury seized him. He shouted hoarsely to his boatsteerer, and the man swung them in alongside the whale. The great mother had not stirred, save for a trembling shudder of her whole bulk when the irons seized upon her. The calf was fighting to escape, but the mother’s great fin pinioned it against her side, soothingly, assuringly, as though she promised it should be safe there.

“Eric lifted his lance and pierced the mother, driving home the slender steel into the great body; and he withdrew it, and prodded the vitals of the whale again and again, with a desperate energy, pouring out the fire of his own strength in his efforts.

“It was like piercing butter with a hatpin; and this dull acquiescence on the creature’s part only whetted Eric’s blind rage. When at last the great flukes lifted once, his heart leaped with the hope that at the end there might come the struggle and the opposition for which he hungered; but agony had lifted the flukes, and the bursting heart of the mother brought them gently down again, never even disturbing the little creature at her side.

“She died; a thrust killed the calf. The boat sheered out; and then the boatsteerer shouted a warning from the stern.

“Eric whirled and saw a great bull whale just emerging from the depths; and the whale headed for them furiously.

“I do not say the creature was the dead cow’s mate. It would not be strange if this was so; but it need not be asserted. I do not say the bull attacked the boat. He was badly gallied, he was running blindly.

“But whatever the explanation, he charged them; and Eric shouted triumphantly at thought that here was the adversary he had desired.

“The boatsteerer swung the boat about to meet the onrush; and Eric snatched a harpoon. They swerved out of the path of the bull. As he roared past them in a smother of foam, Eric sent the harpoon home.

“But the next instant the smashing flukes struck them, and the boat’s whole bottom was driven away. Eric chopped the line loose to save them; and in ten seconds from the appearance of the bull, they were to their necks in water, the boat beneath them.

“The bull charged on and disappeared. I lowered and went after the men in the water; and we got them aboard. Eric was reacting from his fury now; he was shamed at what he had done; and he looked back once at the body of the cow, about which sharks were already fighting, with something like apology in his eyes.

“The men were talking. ‘Did ye see the cross on the bull’s head?’ the tub oarsman asked; the steerer assented.

“‘A white scar in the blubber,’ he agreed.

“The others nodded; and Eric looked at me and said quietly: ‘The old bull was marked.’

“It was when we were all aboard again, and Eric had changed to dry garments, that Joan came up to where he stood with me. Her eyes were blazing; and little Jem, at her heels, was chuckling blackly.

“‘That was murder,’ said the girl, trembling with her own anger.

“Eric flushed, and his head bowed a little.

“‘A cow and a calf--killed uselessly!’ Joan exclaimed.

“The big man, uneasy, shy, not knowing where to turn, saw little Jem beside him; and he turned to the boy and caught the lad under his arms, and swung him high in the air. ‘Up you go!’ he cried, trying to laugh.

“He meant only to start a romp--anything to divert the girl’s searing scorn; but the malignant spirit of little Jem converted the movement into black tragedy. The child screamed indignantly, and kicked down at Eric’s upturned face with his sound foot.

“Eric was standing a yard from the rail, his back to it. The kick in his face made him lose his balance, and he staggered backward, and before I could stir, with the boy extended above his head, he had fallen overboard.

“Joan screamed; and together we leaped to the rail. I reached for a coil of rope. The two had sunk in a smother of bubbles; and in the second that we waited for Eric to fight his way to the surface again, a sinister shadow shot like fire along the ship’s side, and I saw the flicker of a silver-white belly, and heard Joan scream again.

“The water turned crimson; and then Eric came to the surface with empty hands. He dove instantly, furiously; and I got a boat into the water. Eric broke to the surface again, his face convulsed with the anguish that tore him; and two of us grabbed him and dragged him, fighting, into the boat.

“‘Let go, let go,’ he screamed, and struck us back. ‘Let me go. I can get him.’

“He was mad; and we caught him, and he broke and dropped, sobbing, in the bottom of the boat. I saw that one of his arms was rasped raw by the shark’s rough skin.

“Joan met him like a fury when he stepped upon the deck again, and I thought she would strike him. He stood before her, drooping and crushed; and the girl caught herself. But I heard the word she said.

“‘Thrice murderer!’ she told him softly. ‘Thrice murderer! A mother and child--and now my baby! Oh curse you, curse you! May you be always accursed until you die!’

“She held him for a moment, and then turned away from the man; and Eric Scarf drooped sick and weak where he stood, until I dragged him below to tend his wounded arm.”

III

The old man paused, and stared into the fire; and when I had waited fruitlessly for another word from him, I asked:

“Is that all?”

He looked up at me quietly. “No,” he said. “No--that is not the whole of it.”

Still he did not continue, so I prompted him. “You said the whale was seen four times,” I suggested.

He nodded; and so drifted into his story again. “Aye, four times,” he agreed. “The old bull with the cross upon his skull. Four times. I’ve but told the first.”

He puffed silently for a little, shifted his great bulk in the chair, rose and crossed to the window to look down toward the harbor, and returned at last to me.

“Joan kept to her cabin much, from that day,” he said. “She kept to her cabin; and Eric Scarf did his tasks and held aloof from her. We came smoothly northward, and presently were at our pier, unloading the casks that filled our holds. Eric had slowly recovered something of the old strength and power that moved him; and though he avoided the girl, and though I could see how he suffered and what agony he was enduring, he kept a steady face to the men, and drove them as he always drove.

“Cap’n Tobbey was a quiet, stern man; but he was just. He blamed Eric for taking out the boat, but he knew the other for what it was, an accident of Fate; and when time came for the next cruise, Eric was too good a man to stay ashore. He shipped as mate, and I was second mate again.

“This time, Joan stayed behind. She had had enough of the sea for a lifetime, she told me; and from a girl, she was become a woman. Lovely as ever, her laughter as sweet and crisp as a spring wind, yet there was a depth in her that had not been there before, and at times her eyes shrank as though they gazed upon awful, tragic happenings.

“She was on the pier the day we sailed; and I saw Eric Scarf watching her with the hopeless longing in his eyes that tears at the vitals of a man.

“There was a shadow over the mate from the beginning of that cruise. Any man could see it; and the fo’mast hands used to watch him, and whisper among themselves. Outwardly he was the same; strong and quick and proud, alive, alert, his body uplifted with the energy it housed. He trod the decks lightly, he moved with the quick precision of an animal; and he plunged into his work in a fashion that would have worn another man to threads.

“A sprinkling of our old crew was aboard; so Eric’s story was no secret. But it was never mentioned by him or in his presence. He seemed to find a joy in his toil that allowed him to forget; and the man’s eyes brightened and his cheeks set in their old firm, fine lines as we drove southward. There is no better index to a man than the cheeks of him. Flabbiness of body or soul shows quickest there, and there all other vices and all virtues first appear. Eric’s face was neither gaunt nor round, but it had a chiseled perfection of contour that was like a song.

“There is a deal of superstition that hangs about the sea; and a whaler has her share of it, and more. But it is never allowed to interfere with the work at hand. And so if the men wished Eric off the ship, they kept their wishes to themselves; and if they were reluctant to serve in his boat, they hid this reluctance. For Eric was a quick man, quick to anger, with a quick fist to him. In his place, I should have moved tremblingly, fearful of a blow from behind during the watch on deck at night. But Eric strode fearlessly about the ship; and none laid hand to him.

“The sea is a grim thing, and inscrutable. No man can look out across its smooth bosom day and day, and remember the vast multitude of lives which go their way beneath that smiling surface, without a sense of mystery and wonder of it all. The sea in a storm may be terrible and appalling, when its broad expanse is cut up into myriad gulleys and mountains in which the ship is lost as in a labyrinth; but to me it has always been even more terrible and menacing when it is calm. In time of storm, its fury rages without curb; the worst is with you. But when the sea is quiet, all its energies hidden, it is like the smiling mask of Fate which conceals unguessed and unpredicted blows.

“Thus, when we sailed southward over smooth and smiling seas, I fell victim to an unrest that harassed me. I rose and looked abroad each day with eyes that searched eagerly for a threat of the fate that seemed impending; and even as I watched the sea, in like manner did I watch Eric Scarf, to discover if I could what it was that hung so threateningly over the man’s smiling head.

“If Eric felt any uneasiness, he gave at first no sign. He was as he had always been, confident, and quick, and strong. But the day came when a hint was given us, just as the impalpable atmospheric changes reveal through the glass the approach of storm.

“We had sighted whales more than once, and made a fair beginning on the long task ahead of us; and then one day in the South Atlantic, the boats were lowered for a pod that lay far off to southward. Eric got fast, and the third mate likewise. But the whale I had chosen as my goal took alarm, and whirled toward us, and then fled before our irons could reach him.

“There had been time, however, for us to see upon his head a dull scar, in the form of a cross, and I heard a cry from Eric’s boat, that was just getting fast, and turned to see Eric staring toward the spot where the old bull had disappeared.

“Then I remembered what the men had said about the whale which had stove Eric’s boat after the kill on the other voyage; and when we were aboard again, the cutting-in done, and the tryworks boiling and smoking, I was not surprised that Eric came to me.

“‘Mark,’ he whispered huskily, ‘was there a cross on the bull that got away?’

“I nodded. ‘On his head,’ I said. ‘An old scar, gouged into the blubber.’

“I saw his jaw set hard. ‘It can’t be!’ he exclaimed, half to himself. I said nothing; and he looked at me a moment later, with an agony of doubt in his eyes.

“‘Well, what of it, Eric?’ I asked, knowing, but thinking that to talk might ease the man.

“‘It was a scarred bull stove my boat--that day,’ he told me.

“‘Every old bull has his scars,’ I said easily.

“‘Aye--but--this was the same, Mark!’

“‘What matter?’

“He flushed and stammered like a child. ‘Her curse is on me,’ he declared. ‘The old bull is going to wait for me!’

“‘He’ll suffer by it,’ I laughed. ‘He’s a fat old duke, too.’

“Eric looked forward where the men were working, and looked aft, and then out across the sea; and then he looked at me at last with an appeal in his eyes. ‘Are you calling me “murderer” as she did, Mark?’ he asked.

“I shook my head. ‘She’s but a girl,’ I told him. ‘There was no need of killing the cow. But what matter for that? And the other--was no one’s blame.’

“His hand gripped my arm till I winced. ‘You mean it?’ he begged, hungrily.

“I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Forget it all,’ I urged. ‘No harm will come.’

“‘It is not that I’m afraid,’ he told me swiftly; and I saw that I had roused him as I hoped to do.

“‘Sure of that?’ I asked.

“His eyes flamed. ‘I fear nothing,--except myself,’ he exclaimed. ‘But I hear her word always; and I cannot bear it, Mark.’

“Before more could be said, Cap’n Tobbey came toward us; and Eric laughed as though at some jest of mine. His laughter was not a pleasant thing to hear, and I would have wished to reassure the man. But thereafter he gave me no further opportunity.

“I could see the thing was on his mind through the days that followed. He could not forget it; and he took to standing watch at the masthead when there was no need. I asked him once why he did this.

“‘To get the scarred bull, Mark,’ he told me. ‘That will end it.’

“‘You’ll never see him again!’

“He shook his head, and smiled grimly. ‘No fear,’ he said. ‘He’s about us.’

“And Eric was right; for the day we were finishing the trying out, the scarred bull was sighted again, this time so near the ship that his mark could be discerned through the glass as he rose to spout. Eric was aloft; and he tumbled down the rigging like a madman, and lowered; but there was a fog, and in the fog the bull was lost for that time.