The Sea Bride Part 17

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 circ.u.mstance that counted against Brander in the eyes of James Tichel, of Mr. c.o.x, 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 superst.i.tions 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 c.o.x 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 nonent.i.ty 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.

"d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.n 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?"

"I don't like that man," Noll said. "He's too thick with Mauger for me.

Mauger'll stick a knife in me, some night.... He will, Faith."

Faith shook her head. "Don't be foolish, Noll. Mauger's not worth being afraid of."

Noll laughed mirthlessly. "I tell you, there's murder in that man," he protested. "And Brander's with him.... I've a mind...."

"It's your crib," said Faith, and played a card. "Three."

Noll mechanically took up the game; but Faith, watching, saw that his eyes were furtively alert for half an hour thereafter.

On the twenty-fifth day after the death of Mr. Ham, at about ten o'clock on a warm and lazy morning, the man at the foremast head gave tongue to the long hail of the whale-fisheries....

"Blo-o-o-o-w! Ah-h-h-h-h blo-o-o-o-o-o-w!"

The droning cry swept down through the singing rigging, swept the decks of the _Sally_, penetrated into the fo'c's'le, dropped into the cabin and brought Dan'l Tobey and Noll Wing from sleep there to the deck.

Faith was already there, sewing in her rocking chair aft by the wheel.

When Dan'l reached the deck, he saw her standing with her sewing gathered in her hands, the gold thimble gleaming on her middle finger, watching Brander. Brander was half way up the main rigging, gla.s.s leveled to the southward.

Noll Wing bellowed to the masthead man: "Where away?..." And the man swept a hand to point. Noll climbed up toward Brander, shouting to Mr.

Tobey to bring the _Sally_ around toward where the whale had been sighted. The men from the mastheads and the fo'c's'le and all about the deck jumped to their places at the boats to wait the command to lower.

Brander took the gla.s.s from his eye as Noll's weight pulled at the rigging below him, and looked down at the captain, and started to speak; then he changed his mind and waited, gla.s.s in hand, while Noll scrutinized the far horizon....

Noll saw a black speck there, and focused his gla.s.s, and stared.... He watched for a spout, watched for minutes on end. None came.... The black speck seemed to rise a little, sluggishly, with the swell.... He looked up to Brander.

"D'you make a spout?" he asked.

Brander shook his head. "No, sir."

Noll looked again, and Brander leveled his gla.s.s once more. The _Sally_ was making that way, now; the speck was almost dead ahead of them, far on the sea. Tiny bits of white were stirring over the black thing, like bits of paper in the wind.... Noll asked at last: "What do you make of it, Mr. Brander? A boat.... Or a derelict...."

"I make it a dead whale," said Brander.

"No whale," Noll argued. "Rides too high."

"It will be rotten," Brander insisted. "Swollen.... Full of putrid gas."

They watched a while longer, neither speaking. The light wind that urged them on was failing; the _Sally_ slackened her pace, bit by bit; but her own momentum and some casual drift of the surface water still sent her toward the floating speck. It bulked larger in their gla.s.ses.