All the Brothers Were Valiant Part 9

"Yes, sir," said Finch. "An extraordinary adventure, Captain Sh.o.r.e."

"I think it best the men should know nothing about it," Joel told him.

"You will please keep it to yourself."

Finch grinned. "Of course, sir. There's no need they should have any share in them."

Joel flushed angrily. "We are not going after them. I consider it dangerous, and unwise."

Over Finch's fat cheeks swept a twitching grimace of dismay. "But I thought...." He looked at Mark, and Mark was chuckling. "It's so easy, sir," he protested. "Just go, and get them.... Rich...."

Joel shook his head. "Keep silent about the matter, Finch."

Finch slowly bowed his head, and he smirked respectfully. "Very well, Captain Sh.o.r.e," he agreed. "You always know best, sir."

He turned away; and after a little Mark said softly: "You have him well trained, Joel. Like a little dog.... I wonder that you can handle men so...."

Two days later, Joel knew that either Finch or Mark had told the tale anew. Young d.i.c.k Morrell came to him with shining eyes. "Is it true, sir, that we're going after the pearls your brother hid?" he asked. "I just heard...."

Joel gripped the boy's arm. "Who told you?"

Morrell twisted free, half angry. "I--overheard it, sir. Is it true?"

"No," said Joel. "We're a whaler, and we stick to our trade."

d.i.c.k lifted both hands, in a gesture almost pleading. "But it would be so simple, sir...."

"Keep the whole matter quiet, Morrell," Joel told him. "I do not wish the men to know of it. And if you hear any further talk, report it to me."

Morrell's eyes were sulky. He said slowly: "Yes, sir." The set of his shoulders, as he stalked forward, seemed to Joel defiant....

Within the week, the whole ship knew the story. Old Aaron Burnham, repairing a bunk in the fo'c's'le, heard the men whispering the thing among themselves. "Tongues hissing like little serpents, sir," he told Joel, in the cabin that night. "All of pearls, and women, and the like.... And a shine in their eyes...."

"Thanks, Aaron," Joel said. "I'm sorry the men know...."

"Aye, they know. Be sure of that," Aaron repeated, with bobbing head.

"And they're roused by what they know. Some say you're going after the pearls, and aim to fraud them of their lay. And some say you're a mad fool that will not go...."

Joel's fist, on the table, softly clenched. "What else?" he asked.

Aaron watched him sidewise. "There was a whisper that you might be made to go...."

Priscilla saw, that night, that Joel was troubled. She and Mark were together on the cushioned seat in the after cabin, and Joel sat at his desk, over the log. Mark was telling Priss an expurgated version of some one of his adventures; and Joel, looking once or twice that way, saw the quick-caught breath in her throat, saw her tremulous interest.... And his eyes clouded, so that when Priscilla chanced to look toward him, she saw, and cried:

"Joel! What's the matter? You look so...."

He looked from one of them to the other for a s.p.a.ce; and then his eyes rested on Mark's, and he said slowly: "It's in my mind that I'd have done best to set you ash.o.r.e at Tubuai, Mark."

Mark laughed; but Priss cried hotly: "Joel! What a perfectly horrible thing to say!" Her voice had grown deeper and more resonant of late, Joel thought. It was no longer the voice of a girl, but of a woman.... Mark touched her arm.

"Don't care about him," he told her. "That's only brotherly love...."

"He oughtn't to say it."

Joel said quietly: "This is a matter you do not understand, Priscilla.

You would do well to keep silent. It is my affair."

A month before, this would have swept Priss into a fury of anger; but this night, though her eyes burned with slow resentment, she bit her lips and was still. A month ago, she would have forgotten over night. Now she would remember....

Mark got up, laughed. "He's bad company, Priss," he told her. "Come on deck with me."

She rose, readily enough; and they went out through the main cabin, and up the companionway. Joel watched them go. They left open the door into the cabin, and he heard Varde and Finch, at the table there, talking in husky whispers.... It was so, he knew, over the whole ship. Everywhere, the men were whispering.... There hung over the _Nathan Ross_ a cloud as definite as a man's hand; and every man scowled--save Mark Sh.o.r.e. Mark smiled with malicious delight at the gathering storm he had provoked....

Joel, left in the after cabin, felt terribly lonely. He wanted Priss with him, laughing, at his side. His longing for her was like a hot coal in his throat, burning there. And she had taken sides with Mark, against him.... His shoulders shook with the sudden surge of his desire to grip Mark's lean throat.... Ash.o.r.e, he would have done so. But as things were, the ship was his first charge; and a break with Mark would precipitate the thing that menaced the ship.... He could not fight Mark without risking the _Nathan Ross_; and he could not risk the _Nathan Ross_. Not even.... His head dropped for an instant in his arms, and then he got up quickly, and shook himself, and set his lips.... No man aboard must see the trouble in his heart....

He went through the main cabin, and climbed to the deck. There was some sea running, and a wind that brushed aside all smaller sounds, so that he made little noise. Thus, when he reached the top of the companion, he saw two dark figures in the shadows of the boat house, closely clasped....

He stood for an instant, white hot.... His wife, and Mark.... His little Priss, and his brother....

Then he went quietly below, and glanced at the chart, and chose a course upon it. The nearest land; he and Mark ash.o.r.e together.... His blood ran hungrily at the thought....

XI

Priscilla went on deck that night so angry with Joel that she could have killed him; and Mark played upon her as a skilled hand plays upon the harp. It was such a night as the South Seas know, warm and languorous, the wind caressing, and the salt spray stinging gently on the cheek. The moon was near the full, and it laid a path of silver on the water. This path was like the road to fairyland; and Mark told Priscilla so. He dropped into a gay little phantasy that he conceived on the moment, a story of fairies, and of dancing in the moonlight, and of a man and a woman, hand in hand....

She felt the spell he laid upon her, and struggled against it. "Tell me about the last fight, when the little brown girl was killed," she begged.

He had told her s.n.a.t.c.hes of his story here and there; but he had not, till that night, spoken of the pearls. When Priss heard of them, she swung about and lifted up her face to his, listening like a child. And Mark told the story with a tongue of gold, so that she saw it all; the lagoon, blue in the sun; and the schooner creeping in from the sea; and the hours of flight through the semi-jungle of the island, with the blacks in such hot pursuit. He told her of the times when they surrounded him, when he fought himself free.... How he got a great stone and gripped it in his hand, and how with this stone he crushed the skull of a young black with but one eye. Priss shuddered with delicious horror at the tale....

She loved best to hear of the little brown girl whom Mark had loved; and that would have told either of them, if they had stopped to consider, that she did not love Mark. Else she would have hated the other, brown or white.... And he told how the brown girl saved him, and gave her life in the saving, and how he had stopped at a little atoll on his homeward way and buried her.... She had died in his arms, smiling because she lay there....

"And the pearls?" Priss asked, when she had heard the story through. "You left them there?"

"There they are still," he told her. "Safely hid away."

"How many?" she asked. "Are they lovely?"

"Three big ones, and thirty-two of a fair size, and enough little ones and seeds to make a double handful."

"But why did you leave them there?"

"The black men were on the island. They were there, and watchful, and very angry."

"Couldn't you have kept them in your pocket?"