All the Brothers Were Valiant Part 7

"Fetcher was willing; because he had the blood that gambles anything.

Quint was willing, because he was the better player. They sat down to the game, in the cabin, after supper. Poker. Cold hands. Nine of them. Winner of five to win....

"Fetcher got two, lost four, got two more. I was dealing. Card by card, face upward. I remember those hands. And my little brown girl, and the other, watching from the corner.

"The hands on the table grew, card by card. Fetcher got an ace, Quint a deuce. Fetcher a queen, Quint a seven. Fetcher a jack, Quint a six.

Fetcher a ten, Quint a ten. Only the last card to come to each. If Fetcher paired any card, he would win. His card came first. It was a seven. He was ace, queen high. Quint had deuce, six, seven, ten. He had to get a pair to win....

"I saw Quint's hand stir, beneath the table; and I glimpsed a knife in it. But before I could speak, or stir, Fetcher dropped his own hand to his trouser leg, and I knew he kept a blade there.... So I laughed, and dealt Quint's last card....

"A deuce. He had a pair, enough to win....

"He leaned back, laughing grimly; and Fetcher's knife went in beneath the left side of his jaw, where the jugular lies. Quint looked surprised, and got up out of his chair and lay down quietly across the table. I heard the bubbling of his last breath.... Then Fetcher laughed, and called his woman, and they took Quint on deck and tipped him overside. The knife had been well thrown. Fetcher had barely moved his wrist.... I was much impressed with the little man, and told my brown girl so. But she was frightened, and I comforted her."

He was silent again for a time, pressing the hot ashes in his pipe with his thumb. The water slapped the broad stern of the ship beneath them, and Joel's pipe was gurgling. There was no other sound. Little Priss, nails biting her palms, thought she would stream if the silence held an instant more....

But Mark laughed softly, and went on.

"Fetcher and I worked smoothly together," he said. "The little man was very pleasant and affable; and I met him half way. The blacks brought up the sh.e.l.ls, and we idled through the days, and played cards at night. We divided the take, each day; so our stakes ran fairly high. But luck has a way of balancing. On the day when we saw the end in sight, we were fairly even....

"Fetcher, and the blacks and I went ash.o.r.e to get fruit from the trees there. Plenty of it everywhere; and we were running short. We went into the brush together, very pleasantly; and he fell a little behind. I looked back, and his knife brushed my neck and quivered in a tree a yard beyond me. So I went back and took him in my hands. He had another knife--the little man fairly bristled with them. But it struck a rib, and before he could use it again, his neck snapped.

"So that I was alone on the schooner, with the two blacks, and Fetcher's woman, and the little brown girl.

"Fetcher's woman went ash.o.r.e to find him and never came back. And I decided it was time for me to go away from that place. The pagans were dying in me. I did not like that quiet little island any more.

"But the next morning, when I looked out beyond the lagoon, another schooner was coming in. So I was uncomfortable with Fetcher's pearls, as well as mine, in my pocket. There are some hard men in these seas, Joel; and I knew none of them would treasure me above my pearls. So I planned a story of misfortune, and I went ash.o.r.e to hide my pearls under a rock.

"The blacks had brought me ash.o.r.e. I went out of their sight to do what I had to do; and when I came back, after hiding the pearls, I saw them rowing very swiftly toward the schooner. And they looked back at me in a fearful way. I wondered why; and then four black men came down on me from behind, with knives and clubs.

"I had a very hard day, that day. They hunted me back and forth through the island--I had not even a knife with me--and I met them here and there, and suffered certain contusions and bruises and minor cuts. Also, I grew very tired of killing them. They were wiry, but they were small, and died easily. So I was glad, when from a point where they had cornered me I saw the little brown girl rowing the big boat toward me.

"She was alone. The blacks were afraid to come, I thought. But I found afterward that this was not true. They could not come; for they had tried to seize the schooner and go quickly away from that place, and the little brown girl had drilled them both. She had a knack with the rifle....

"I waded to meet the boat, and she tossed me the gun. I held them off for a little, while we drew away from the sh.o.r.e. But when we were thirty or forty yards off, I heard rifles from the other schooner, firing past us at the blacks in the bush; and the girl stopped rowing. So I turned around and saw that one of the b.a.l.l.s from the other schooner had struck her in the back. So I sat there, in the sun, drifting with the wind, and held her in my arms till she coughed and died.

"Then I went out to the other schooner and told them they were bad marksmen. They had only been pa.s.sing by, for copra; and the story I told them was a shocking one. They were much impressed, and they seemed glad to get away. But the blacks were still on sh.o.r.e, so that I could not go back for the pearls; and I worked the schooner out by myself, and shaped a course....

"I came to Tubuai, alone thus, a day before you, Joel."

IX

For a long time after Mark's story ended, the two brothers sat still in the cabin, puffing at their pipes, thinking.... Mark watched Joel, waiting for the younger man to speak. And Joel's thoughts ranged back, and picked up the tale in the beginning, and followed it through once more....

They were silent for so long that little Priss, in the cabin, drifted from waking dreams to dreams in truth. The pictures Mark's words had conjured up merged with troubled phantasies, and she twisted and cried out softly in her sleep so that Joel went in at last to be sure she was not sick. But while he stood beside her, she pa.s.sed into quiet and untroubled slumber, and he came back and sat down with Mark again.

"You brought the schooner into Tubuai?" he asked.

"Aye. Alone. Half a thousand miles. There's a task, Joel."

"And left it there?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Mark smiled grimly. "It was known there," he said quietly. "Also, the three whom I had found aboard it were known. And they had friends in Tubuai, who wondered what had come to them. I was beginning to--find their questions troublesome--when the _Nathan Ross_ came in."

"They will ask more questions now," said Joel.

"They must ask them of the schooner; and--she does not speak," Mark told him.

Joel was troubled and uncertain. "It's--a black thing," he said.

"They'll not be after me, if that distresses you," Mark promised him.

"Curiosity does not go to such lengths in these waters."

"You told no one?"

Mark laughed. "The pearls were--my own concern. You're the first I've told." He watched his brother. Joel frowned thoughtfully, shook his head.

"You plan to go back for them?" he asked.

"You and I," said Mark casually. Joel looked at him in quick surprise; and Mark laughed. "Yes," he repeated. "You and I. I am not selfish, Joel.

Besides--there are plenty for two."

Joel, for an instant, found no word; and Mark leaned quickly toward him.

He tapped Joel's knee. "We'll work up that way," he said quietly. "When we come to the island, you and I go ash.o.r.e, and get them where they're hid beneath the rock; and we come back aboard with no one any wiser....

Rich. A double handful of them, Joel...."

Joel's eyes were clouded with thought; he shook his head slowly. "What of the blacks?" he asked.

Mark laughed. "They were brought down on us by the woman who got away,"

he said. "Quint's woman. I heard as much that day, saw her among them.

But--they're gone before this."

Joel said slowly: "You are not sure of that. And--I cannot risk the ship...."

Mark asked sneeringly: "Are you afraid?"

The younger man flushed; but he said steadily: "Yes. Afraid of losing Asa Worthen's ship for him."

Mark chuckled unpleasantly. "I'm minded of what is written, here and there, in the 'Log of the House of Sh.o.r.e,'" he said, half to himself. And he quoted: "'All the brothers were valiant....' There's more to that, Joel. 'And all the sisters virtuous.' I had not known we had sisters--but it seems you're one, boy. Not valiant, by your own admission; but at least you're fairly virtuous."

Joel paid no heed to the taunt. "Asa Worthen likes care taken of his ship," he said, half to himself. "I'm thinking he would not think well of this.... He's not a man to gamble...."