The Sea Bride Part 10

Brander sat amids.h.i.+ps, his bundle at his feet, lending a hand now and then on the oar of the man who faced him. Once he looked toward Faith; she met his eyes.... Neither spoke, neither smiled.... The island was receding behind them; Brander turned to watch it. They drew alongside the _Sally_.

Dan'l Tobey was at the rail to receive them. The mate stood in the tossing boat and lifted Faith easily to Dan'l at the rail; he swung her aboard. Mr. Ham followed; then Brander; then the men. The mate saw to the unloading of the boat, saw it safely stowed. Then turned to Brander, "Come and see the Old Man," he said.

Dan'l Tobey heard. "He's asleep," he told Mr. Ham. "Who is this?"

The mate said: "He wants to s.h.i.+p. Says he was on the _Thomas Morgan_."

Dan'l looked at Brander. Mr. Ham added: "The captain's wife found him in the bush."

Dan'l drawled: "Beach comber.... Eh?"

Brander said respectfully: "No, sir. I lived on the hill, there.... The highest one. You can make out my place with the gla.s.s...."

"He was third mate on the _Thomas Morgan_," said Mr. Ham.

"We don't need an officer," Dan'l suggested. Brander sensed the fact that Dan'l disliked him; he wondered at it.

"I'm asking to s.h.i.+p as a seaman, sir," he said.

Mr. Ham looked at Dan'l. "Best speak to the captain?" he asked.

"Oh, set him ash.o.r.e," Dan'l suggested. "He's a troublemaker. Too wise for the fo'c's'le...." He looked to Brander insolently. "Can't you see he's a man of education, Mr. Ham? What would he want to s.h.i.+p before the mast for?"

Mr. Ham looked puzzled. "How about it?" he asked Brander sharply.

Brander smiled.

"I did it, in the beginning, for sport," he said. "Now I'm doing it to get home. If you need a man.... If not, I'll go ash.o.r.e...."

Faith, standing by, said quietly: "s.h.i.+p him, Mr. Ham." Her words were not a request; they were a command. Dan'l looked at her swiftly, shrewdly. Mr. Ham obeyed, with the instant instinct of obedience to that tone....

It was not till days later that Faith wondered why she had spoken; wondered why she had ventured to command.... And wondered why Mr. Ham obeyed.... It gave her, somehow, a sense of power.... He had obeyed her, as he would have obeyed Noll, her husband....

At the moment, however, having spoken, she went below.... She went quickly, a little confused. She found Noll asleep, as Dan'l had said; and she did not wake him. The _Sally_ got to sea.... The island fell into the sea behind them. Before it was fully gone, Faith, with the captain's gla.s.s, had searched that highest hill from the windows of the after cabin; she discerned a little clearing, a rude hut.... Brander's home....

She watched it for a s.p.a.ce; then put the gla.s.s aside with thoughtful eyes.

Brander's coming, in ways that could hardly be defined, eased the tension aboard the _Sally_. When the man went forward to stow his belongings in the fo'c's'le, he found the men surly.... Quarrelsome....

They looked at him sidewise.... They covertly inspected him....

The men of a whaler's crew are a polyglot lot, picked up from the gutters and the depths. There were good men aboard the _Sally_, strong men, who knew their work.... Some of them had served Noll Wing before; some had made more than one voyage on the s.h.i.+ps of old Jonathan Felt.

There was loyalty in these men, and a pride in their tasks.... But there were others who were slack; and there were others who were evil.... The green hands had been made over into able seamen, according to a whaler's standard; and some of them had become men in the process, and some had become something less than men. Yet they all knew their work, and did it....

But they were, when Brander came among them, surly and ugly. In the days that followed, tending strictly to his own work, he nevertheless found time to study them.... A man with a tongue naturally gay, and a smile that inspired friends.h.i.+p, he began to jest with them.... And little by little, they responded.... Their surliness pa.s.sed....

The officers felt the change. Willis c.o.x, still half sick from the ordeal that had killed two of his men, took Brander into his boat.

Brander was only a year or two older than Willis, but he was vastly more mature.... He knew men, and he knew the work of the s.h.i.+p; and Willis liked him. He let Brander have his way with the other men, and his liking for the newcomer led him to speak of it in the cabin, at supper one night. "He's a good man," he said. "The men like him."

Dan'l Tobey said pleasantly: "He's after your berth, Will. Best watch him."

Willis said honestly: "He knows more about the work than I do. I don't blame him. But--he keeps where he belongs...."

"He will ... till he sees his chance," Dan'l agreed. "Don't let him get away from you."

Old James Tichel grinned malignantly. "Nor don't let him get in my way, Mr. c.o.x," he said, showing his teeth. "I do not like the cut of him."

The mate looked at Cap'n Noll Wing; but Noll was eating, he seemed not to have heard. Faith, at her husband's side, said nothing. So Mr. Ham kept out of the discussion. Only he wondered--he was not a discerning man--why Dan'l disliked the newcomer. Brander seemed to Mr. Ham to be a lucky find; they had needed a man, they had found a first-rater. That was his view of the matter.

Brander's coming had worked like a leaven among the men. That was patent to every one.... But this was not necessarily a good thing. A dominant man in the fo'c's'le is, if the man be evil, a dangerous matter. The officers rule their men by virtue of the fact that the men are not united. Union among the men against the officers breeds mutiny.... Dan'l said as much, now.

"He'll get the men after him like sheep," he said angrily. "Then--look out."

"We can handle that," said Mr. Ham.

Dan'l grinned. "Aye, that's what is always said--till it is too late to handle them. The man ought to have been left on the beach, where he belonged."

Faith said quietly: "I spoke for him. It seems to me he does his work."

Dan'l looked up quickly, a retort on his lips; but he remembered himself in time. "I'm wrong," he said frankly. "Brander is a good man. No doubt the whole matter will turn out all right...."

Cap'n Wing, finis.h.i.+ng his dinner, said fretfully: "There's too much talk of this man. I'm sick of it. Keep an eye on him, Mr. Ham. If he looks sidewise, clip him. But don't talk so much...."

The mate nodded seriously. "I'll watch him, sir."

Dan'l said: "I've no right to talk against him, sir. No doubt he's all right."

Noll shook his great head like a horse that is hara.s.sed by a fly. "I tell you I want no more words about him, Mr. Tobey. Be still." He got up and stalked into his cabin. Faith followed him. The officers, one by one, went on deck. Willis, there, came to Dan'l.

"You really think he means trouble, Mr. Tobey?"

Dan'l smiled. "If he were in my boat, I'd keep an eye peeled," he said.

Young Willis c.o.x set his jaw. "By G.o.d, I will that," he swore.

Dan'l pointed forward; and Willis looked and saw Brander talking with Mauger, the one-eyed man, by the lee rail. "Mark that," said Dan'l.

"They're a chummy pair, those two."

Willis frowned. "That's queer, too," he said. "Mauger--he's not much of a man. Why should Brander take up with him, anyhow?"

Dan'l smiled, sidewise. "Does Mauger--Is Mauger the captain's man?" he asked.

"No. Hates him like death and h.e.l.l."

"And Brander plays up to him...."

"Because Mauger hates the Old Man. Is that it?" Willis asked anxiously.

"I'm saying no word," protested Dan'l Tobey. "See for yourself, Will."