The Sea Bride Part 30

"That was probably Slatter, stole it. The men say so...."

"He took it forward," Faith agreed. "But he did not get it from the stores. He could not." She hesitated, her lips white; then she set them firmly. "Dan'l, fetch Roy here," she said.

Dan'l was so surprised that for an instant he did not stir. "Roy?" he repeated. "What's he...."

Faith looked to her husband. "Will you tell him to bring Roy?" she asked.

Noll asked heavily: "What's the boy.... Go along, Dan'l. Fetch him."

Dan'l got up at once, and went out, closing the door behind him. They heard him go on deck.... A minute later, he was back with Roy at his heels, and Faith saw her brother's face was white. She asked quickly:

"Roy, why did you steal a jug of whiskey from the stores?"

Roy cried, on the instant: "That's a lie."

Faith studied him. He expected accusation, questioning. Instead she nodded. "All right."

"Who says I stole whiskey?" Roy demanded.

"I," Faith told him.

"Who.... Somebody lied to you...."

"No."

Roy was near tears with bafflement. "Why.... What makes you...."

Faith asked quietly: "Don't you want to tell?"

"It's a lie, I say."

She looked to her husband; and Noll saw they were all waiting on him, and he tried to rise to the occasion. "By G.o.d, Roy.... What did you go and do that for? G.o.d's sake, can't a man have a s.h.i.+p without a pack of thieves on her? Mr. Tobey, you...." He wavered, his eyes swung helplessly to Faith. He seemed to ask her to speak for him; and she said to Dan'l:

"Take him on deck, Dan'l. Till Cap'n Wing decides...."

Roy insisted. "I tell you, I didn't...."

But Dan'l Tobey hushed him. Dan'l was getting his first glimpse of the new Faith; and he was afraid of her. He took Roy's arm, led him out and away.... Faith and Noll were left alone.

At noon that day, at Noll Wing's profane command, Roy was put in irons and locked in the after 'tween decks to stay a week on bread and water.

The boy cursed Faith to her face for that; and Faith went to her cabin, and dropped on her knees and prayed.

But she kept a steady face for the men, and in particular she kept a steady eye for Dan'l Tobey. She knew Dan'l, now.... Dan'l had warned Roy, before bringing him to the cabin. He must have warned the boy, for Roy was prepared for the accusation. He must have warned the boy, therefore he must have known what Faith would a.s.sert....

And Faith knew enough of Dan'l's ascendancy over Roy to be sure the mate had prompted her brother's theft.

She must watch Dan'l, fight him. And ... she thanked G.o.d for Brander.

There was a man, a man on her side.... She was not to fight alone.

She dreamed of Brander that night. He was battling for her, in her dream, against shadowy and unseen things. And in her dream, she thought he was her husband.

XXIII

An unrest seized Noll Wing; an unrest that was like fear. He a.s.sumed, by small degrees, the aspect of a hunted man. It was as though the death of Slatter prefigured to him what his own end would be. His nerves betrayed him; he could not bear to have any man approach him from behind, and he struck out, nervously, at Willis c.o.x one day when Willis spoke from one side, where Noll had not seen him standing.

The continual storms of the Solander irked him; the racking work of whaling, when it was necessary to run to port with each kill, fretted the flesh from his bones. They lost a whale one day, in a sudden squall that developed into a gale and swept them far to the southward; and when the weather moderated, and Dan'l Tobey started to work back to the Grounds again, Noll would have none of it.

"Set your course t'the east'ard," he commanded. "I'm fed up with the Solander. We'll hit the islands again...."

Dan'l protested that there was nowhere such whaling as the Solander offered; but Noll would not be persuaded. He resented the attempt to argue with him. "No, by G.o.d," he swore. "A pity if a man can't have his way. h.e.l.l with the Solander, Dan'l. I'm sick o' storms, and cold. Get north t'where it's warm again...."

So they did as he insisted, and ran into slack times once more. The men at first exulted in their new leisure; they were well enough content to kill a whale and loaf a week before another kill. Then they began to be impatient with inaction; discontent arose among them. They remembered the ambergris; and their talk was that they need stay out no longer, that the voyage was already a success, that they had a right to expect to head for home.

Brander, ever among them as he had promised himself he would be, worked against this discontent. He tried to hearten them; they gave him half attention, and some measure of liking.... But their sulking held and grew upon them.

There was as much ill feeling aft as forward. Roy, released from his irons long before, had not spoken to Faith since his release. He hated his sister with that hatred which sometimes arises between blood kin, and which is more violent than any other. Let lovers quarrel; let brothers clash; let son and father, or mother and daughter, or brother and sister go asunder, and there is no bitterness to equal the bitterness between them. It is as though the strength of their former affection served to intensify their hate. It is like the hatred of a woman scorned; she is able to hate the more, because she once has loved.

Roy hated Faith; and with the ingenuity of youth, he found out ways to torment her. He perceived that Faith must always love him, he perceived that her thoughts hovered over him as do the thoughts of a mother; and he took pleasure in agonizing her with his own misdeeds. He lied for the pleasure of lying; he swore roundly; and once, under Dan'l's gentle guidance, he pilfered rum and drank himself into the likeness of a beast. When Faith chided him for that, he told her with drunken good nature that she was to blame; that she had driven him to it. Faith's sense of justice was strong; she was too level of head to condemn herself; nevertheless, she was made miserable by what the boy had done.... Yet she led Noll to punish him for this theft, more sternly than before; and afterward, she had Roy sent forward to take his place among the men, and the cabin was forbidden ground to him thereafter.

Noll was wax in Faith's hands in these days. His fear, growing upon him, had shaken all the fiber out of the man. He could be swayed by Dan'l, by old Tichel, by Faith, by almost any one.... Save in a single matter. He was drinking steadily, now; and drinking more than ever before. He was never sober, never without the traces of his liquor in his eyes and his loose lips and slack muscles. And they could not sway him in this matter. He would not be denied the liquor that he craved.

Faith tried to win it away from him; she tried to strengthen the man's own will to fight the enemy that was destroying him. She tried to fan to life the ancient flame of pride.... But there was no grain of strength left in Noll for her to work on. He waved her away, and filled his gla.s.s....

She might have destroyed what liquor remained aboard the _Sally_; but she would not. That would not cure; it would only put off the end. At their first port, Noll would get what he wanted.... And there were islands all about them; he could reach land within a matter of twenty-four hours, or forty-eight, at any time. She fought to help Noll help himself; she would not do more. Noll was a man, not a baby desiring the fire which must be kept beyond its reach. He knew his enemy, and he embraced it knowingly.

Faith never felt more keenly the fact of her marriage to Noll than in those last days of his life. She never thought of herself apart from him; and when he debauched himself, she felt soiled as though she were herself degraded. Nevertheless, she clung to him with all her soul; clung to him, lived the vows she had given him.... There were other times, after that first, when she dreamed of Brander.... But she could not curb her dreams.... He was much in them; but waking, she put the man away from her. She was Noll's; Noll was hers. Inescapable....

Brander avoided her. His heart was sick; she possessed it utterly. But he gave no sign; he never relaxed the grip in which he held himself. Now and then, on deck, when Noll swore at her, or whined, or fretted, Brander had to swing away and put the thing behind him. But he did it; he was strong enough to do this; he was almost strong enough to keep his thoughts from Faith. Almost.... But not quite.... She dwelt always with him; he was sick with sorrow, and pity, and yearning for the right to cherish her.

They spoke when they had to, in cabin or on deck; but they were never alone, and they avoided each the other as they would have shunned a precipice....

Save for one day, a single day.... A day when Faith called Brander to her on the deck and spoke to him.... A single day, that would have been, but for the strength of Faith, the b.l.o.o.d.y destruction of them both.

This incident was the climax of two trains of events, extending over days.... Extending, in the one case, back to that first day when Dan'l had roused the brand of jealousy in Noll to flame. Dan'l had never let that flame die out. He fanned it constantly; and when he saw in Faith's eyes, after the matter of Roy's first theft of the whiskey, that she had guessed his part in it, he threw himself more hotly into his intrigue.

He kept at Noll's side whenever it was possible; he whispered....

He spoke openly of Brander's fondness for the men, of Brander's habit of talking with them so constantly. Faith heard him strike this vein, again and again.... He harped upon it to Noll, seeming to defend Brander at the same time that he accused.... He played upon the strain until even Faith's belief in Brander was shaken. There was always the matter of the ambergris. Brander might have ended it with a word, but he would not give Dan'l Tobey that satisfaction. He would not say, forthright, that the 'gris belonged to the _Sally_.... And Dan'l magnified this matter, and many others.... Until even Faith found it hard not to doubt the fourth mate.... She caught herself, more than once, watching him when he laughed and talked with the men. Was there need of that? Why did he do it? She could find no answer....

Noll feared Brander more and more; and Dan'l covertly taunted the captain with this fear. He roused Noll, time on time, to flagging gusts of rage; but always these pa.s.sed in words.... And Noll fell back into his lethargy of drink again. Dan'l began to fear there was not enough man left in Noll to act.... He turned his guns on Faith, accusing her as he accused Brander....

But words were light things. Noll, moved though he might be, had in his heart a trust in Faith which Dan'l found it hard to shake. He might never have shaken it, had not luck favored him.... And this luck came to pa.s.s on the day Faith sought speech with Brander.

That move, on Faith's part, was the result of an increasing peril in the fo'c's'le. The men were getting drink again.

This began one day when a fo'm'st hand came aft to take the wheel and old Tichel smelled the liquor on him, and saw that the man's feet were unsteady, and flew into one of his tigerish fits of rage.... He drove the man forward with blows and kicks; and he came aft with his teeth bared and flamed to Noll Wing, and men were sent for and questioned.