The Sea Bride Part 39

Mauger got some whisperings of all this in the fo'c's'le. There was no effort to keep it secret from him; no effort to keep the matter secret at all. Dan'l had said openly that if the _Sally_ did not float, he was for deserting her; those might come with him who chose. Save Mauger, there were none openly against him. Tichel would stay, Willis waited on Faith's word, but the rest held off and swung neither one way nor another.

All of which Mauger, with infinite stealth, told Brander, sneaking down into the after 'tween decks at peril of his skin, night after night; and Brander, fast-ironed there, and taking his calamities very philosophically, praised the little man. "Keep your eyes open," he said.

"Bring me any word you get. Warn me in full time. And--find me a good, keen file."

Mauger fetched the file, pilfering it from the tool chest of Eph Hitch, the cooper. Brander worked patiently at his bonds, submitting without protest to his captivity.

That night of the full moon, after they had failed to float the _Sally_, Dan'l called Silva and bade him prepare two boats. "Get food and water into them," he said. "Plenty. Make them ready. Tell the rest of them to lower if they've a mind. I'm for leaving."

Silva grinned his understanding. He asked a question. Dan'l said: "I'm going down, now, to convince her. She'll come, no fear."

He went below and left Silva to prepare the boats. Old Tichel was on deck, but Willis had gone below. Tichel did not molest Silva. Discipline had evaporated on the _Sally_; it was every man for himself. Those who were for leaving ship were hotly impatient; and one boat full of men lowered and drew slowly away toward the mouth of the cove where the _Sally_ lay. There was no wind; the sea was gla.s.sy; and their oars stirred the water into sparkling showers like jewels. Kellick and Yella'

Boy and four seamen were in that boat. Five of the green hands and Tinch, the cook, caught the infection, and dumped food into another and water, and followed....

Silva got his boat overside. He had with him two men, men of his choosing who had signed as green hands but were stalwarts now. He saw that the boat was ready, then stood in her by the rail, waiting for Dan'l to come with Faith. Roy was on the after deck, where he would join them.

The men in the two boats that had already put off were lying on their oars, half a mile away, watching the _Sally_. In all their minds was the thought of the ambergris. They had no notion of leaving that behind; and they did not mean to be tricked of their share in it. Silva could see the boats idly drifting....

Mauger had slipped down to Brander with the word. "Two boats gone a'ready," he said. "Silva waiting for Dan'l Tobey, now."

"Where's Faith?" Brander asked.

"In the cabin. Mr. Tobey went to her. He've not come up, yet."

Brander considered. "Fetch a handspike," he said; and Mauger crawled on deck and returned with it, and Brander pried open the irons he had filed apart. He stood up and shook himself to ease the ache of his muscles.

"Now," he said, "let's go see...."

He climbed up on deck, Mauger at his heels, and started aft. Roy saw him coming, and Silva, from the rail, marked his movements and watched. Roy dropped into the cabin to warn Dan'l; Brander leaped to follow him.

Silva spoke to his two men, and plunged up to the deck and darted after Brander.

Brander was at the foot of the companion ladder in the cabin when Roy threw open the door of the after cabin to shout his warning; he saw, as Roy saw, Dan'l gripping Faith and struggling with her. He heard Roy's cry.... Leaped that way....

Roy was before him. Roy, grown into a man in that moment. Dan'l had told him they would leave the ship, told him nothing more. Roy hated his sister, and Dan'l knew this, and feared no trouble from the boy. But he forgot that a boy's hate is not over strong. When Roy saw Faith in Dan'l's arms, helplessly fighting against his kisses, he leaped to protect her as though there had never been harsh words between them. Roy was on Faith's side, thenceforward.

The boy gripped Dan'l from behind; and for an instant more Dan'l clung to Faith. His encircling arm tightened about her so that she thought her ribs would crack; and when he flung her away, she was breathless and sick to nausea, and she fell on the floor and lay there, retching and gasping for breath. Dan'l flung her away, and swung on Roy.

"You young fool," he swore, "I'll kill you, now."

Roy was helpless before him. Dan'l held him by the throat, his fingers sinking home, Roy beat and tore at the man helplessly for a s.p.a.ce, then his face blackened, and his eyes bulged, and Dan'l flung him away.

Brander might have helped him, but for the fact that three men dropped on him from the companion hatch and bore him smothering to the deck. The three were Silva and his allies. Silva had a knife; and Mauger had felt it, on the deck above. The one-eyed man lay there now, twisting and clutching at a hole in his side. Silva was first down on Brander; and he struck at Brander's neck as he leaped. But Brander had time to dodge to one side, so that Silva hit him on the hip and bore him down. Then the other two were upon him....

This sudden tumult in the cabin rang through the _Sally_. The night was still; the noise could be heard even by the boats that drifted half a mile away. Its abrupt outbreak was unsettling; it jangled taut nerves.

The two remaining seamen and Long Jim, Loum, and Eph Hitch lost courage, raced for a boat, dropped it to the water and pulled off to see what was to come. Tichel, who was on deck, ran to try to stop them; but Loum struck out blindly and threw the mate off-balance for an instant that was long enough to let them get away.

The desertion of these last men left on the _Sally_ only the four officers, Roy, Mauger, Silva, and Silva's two men. Faith was still helpless, so was Roy, and Mauger had dragged himself upright against the bulwarks and stripped up his shirt to investigate his wound. It was bleeding profusely, but he found he could breathe without difficulty, and told himself shrewdly that he would come out all right.

Of men able to fight aboard the _Sally_, there were left Dan'l, Silva, and the two seamen on one side, against Brander and Tichel and c.o.x. The att.i.tude of Tichel and c.o.x was in some sort uncertain. But the problem was quickly settled....

Dan'l, dropping Faith and flinging Roy aside, had charged into the main cabin to finish Brander; but Brander was so inextricably involved in his struggle with his three antagonists that Dan'l got no immediate chance at him. He was shifting around the twisting tangle of men, watching, when Willis came out of his cabin in a single leap.... Willis had been asleep; he was in shirt and trousers, his belt tight-girthed. He stared stupidly, not understanding.

Dan'l, balked of his chance at Brander, took Willis for fair game. If he thought at all, it was to remember that Willis was loyal to Faith. He attacked before Willis was fully awake, and bore the other man back into the cabin from which Willis had come. He bent Willis against the bunks so that for an instant it seemed the man's back would snap; but desperation gave Willis the strength to fling himself away.... They whirled into the cabin, still fighting. Dan'l was drunk with his own rage by now.... He had thrown himself into a debauch of battle; and he proved, this night, that he could fight when he chose....

He rocked Willis at last with a left-hand blow in the ribs, so that the younger man dropped his arms to hug his bruised body; and Dan'l drove home his fist to the other's jaw. The blow smacked loudly; and Willis went down without a sound, his jaw broken....

If old Tichel had come down the companion ladder a minute sooner, he might have saved Willis; and he and Willis between them might have overcome Dan'l. But he was too late for that; he was in time to see Willis fall; and before he could speak, Dan'l Tobey had attacked him.

Dan'l was pure maniac now; he did not stop to ask whether Tichel were friend or foe. And Tichel, old man though he was, was never one to refuse a battle. He met Dan'l's charge with the tigerish venom that characterized him in his rages; he leaped and was fairly in the air when Dan'l struck him. But Dan'l's greater weight and the impetus of his charge were too much for old Tichel. In the flash of a second, Dan'l had him by the throat, down, banging his head against the floor till the skin of his scalp was crushed and the blood flowed, and Tichel at last lay still....

Dan'l got up, choking for breath, his chin down on his chest. There was blood on him; his shirt was torn; his hair was wild. The mild, round face of the man was distorted by wrinkles of pa.s.sion. His lip was bruised by a blow, and it puffed out in a surly, drunken way.... He stood there, tottering, looking with blinking eyes at the heap of men fighting at one side of the cabin.... Brander was in that heap somewhere. It was still less than thirty seconds since Dan'l had smashed Willis's jaw. Dan'l stepped unsteadily toward the heap of men and peered down at them and laid hands on them to pull them away.... They were too closely intertwined....

He backed off and looked around for a weapon. In a corner of the cabin he saw something that might serve.... The head of a killing lance.... A bar of metal three or four feet long, flattened at one end like the blade of a putty knife, and ground to the keenest edge.... In the whale-fisheries, it would be mounted on a staff; but there was no staff in it now. He picked the thing up, and balanced it in his hands, and walked gingerly back toward the striving knot of men.

When Brander dropped down into the cabin and through the open door saw Faith in Dan'l's arms, he was for an instant paralyzed.... Then, as rage surged up in him, he sensed the danger above him, and dodged to one side as Silva leaped down from the deck. Silva struck against Brander's hip, his knife slitting the air. Brander was thrown headlong, and Silva flung after him. Brander rolled on his back, catching Silva in the stomach with both feet, as the other two men dropped across his body.

He had put little force into his kick at Silva, so that the man was unhurt. Brander gripped one of the men who had fallen on him, and whirled him under. At the same time, the other man attached himself to Brander's neck, his right arm about Brander's neck to choke him. Brander wedged his chin down and gripped this arm between his chin and his breast, holding it off a little from his throat. Then Silva came at him from the left side, and Brander's left hand flung out and gripped Silva's knife wrist....

Brander was past the first flush of anger; he was cool, now, as he was always cool in danger. Save Silva, the men against him were unarmed. At least, neither made any effort to use a weapon. Therefore Brander flung the one man out of his arms, and gave his attention to Silva. He was just in time. Silva had shifted the knife to his other hand. Brander grabbed for it, and the blade slid along his fingers, barely scratching them.... Then he had the hand that held it; and he dragged it down and wrenched it over, and across, and the fingers opened and the knife fell.

Brander groped for it, Silva swarming over him. He got the knife, but knew he could not use it, so he threw it with the half of his arm which was free. Crushed down by the man atop him, he saw that it slid across the floor and flew into the after cabin. He thought Silva had not seen it go....

Brander had not marked Dan'l when the man came first to crouch above them. Dan'l was at Willis when Brander threw the knife. That weapon being gone, Brander turned his attention to the man who had his throat.

He worked as coolly as though this man was his only antagonist; and while he held off the others with his left hand and his knees, his right went up over his shoulder and found the face of the man who choked him.

This groping hand of his came down against the man's face from above.

His palm rested against the cheek of his antagonist; and his fingers groped under the other's jaw bone and clenched around it, biting far into the soft flesh at the bottom of the mouth. He got a grip on this that would hold; and the man screamed, and Brander jerked him up, and over his shoulder.... The man slid helplessly tearing at Brander's clenched fingers. Brander, at this time, was sitting up, with Silva at his left, arms gripping, fists striking, and the other at the right. The man whose jaw he had came down in Brander's lap, and he brought his right knee up with all his force against the other's head and the man became a dead weight across his legs. Brander wriggled free of him, thought calmly that one of the three was gone and only two remained, and turned his attention to the others.

He had been forced to let them have their will of him for the seconds required to deal with the man who had choked him. They had him down, now, on his back on the cabin floor. One on either side.... He got a left-hand grip on the seaman; he set his right hand on Silva's arm and his fingers clenched on Silva's biceps. He flung them off a little, freeing himself, so that he might have fought to his feet....

But when he thrust these two back, thus to right and left, and started to sit up, he saw above him Dan'l. Dan'l, an insane light in his eyes, the whaling lance poised in the thrusting position. It flickered downward like a shaft of light....

Brander wrenched with all his strength at Silva; he swung Silva up and over his own body just in time to intercept the lance. It slid in between two ribs, an inch from Silva's backbone, and pierced him through to the sternum.... It struck obliquely, cut half way into the mingled cartilage and bone.... Then the soft iron of the shaft "elbowed" at right angles, and Dan'l had to twist and fight to pull it free. Silva, of course, was as dead as dead. Blood poured out of his mouth in Brander's very face.... He flung the corpse aside, rolling after it to be on his feet before Dan'l should strike again. But the remaining seaman was in his path, grappled him, held him for an instant motionless. Dan'l had had no chance to straighten the lance; he lifted it like a hoe to bring it down on Brander's back.

Then Faith called, from the door of the after cabin:

"Dan'l! Have done!"

Dan'l looked and saw her, weak, trembling, gripping the doorsill with her left hand. In her right was a revolver.

He leaped toward her, roaring; and Faith waited till he was within six feet of her, then shot him carefully through the knee. He fell on his face at her feet, howling.

At the same time, Brander got home a blow that silenced his last antagonist, and a great quiet settled down upon the _Sally Sims_.

XXIX

What shadows remained, Roy was able to clear away. Roy, who had hated Brander, and who had hated Faith, yet in whom lived a strain of true blood that could not but answer to these two in the end. The evil in Dan'l had been writ in his face for any man to see, when Roy found him clutching Faith; and Roy was not blind.