The Sea Bride Part 40

The boy abased himself; he was pitifully ashamed. Still hoa.r.s.e from the choking Dan'l had given him, he told how he had stolen the whiskey at the man's bidding.... A little at first; a ten-gallon keg in the end....

Told how he had himself filled Brander's boat jug with the liquor, and hidden a bottle in Mauger's bunk, and lied to old Tichel in the matter.

Told the whole tale, and made his peace with them, while Faith and Brander watched each other over the boy's sobbing head with eloquent eyes....

For the rest; Silva was dead, and they buried him in the sand of the beach. Mauger had a shallow knife slit along his ribs; Willis c.o.x had a broken jaw. The others had suffered nothing worse than bruises, save only Dan'l Tobey. Dan'l's knee was smashed and splintered, and he lay in a stupor in the cabin, Willis watching beside him.

Those who had fled to the boats came shamedly back at last; and Faith and Brander met them at the rail, and Faith spoke to them. They had done wrong, she told them; but there was a chance of wiping out the score by bending to the toil she set them. They were already sick of adventuring; they swarmed aboard like homesick boys. She and Brander told them what to do, and drove them to it....

Before that day was gone, they had half her load out of the _Sally_; and at full tide that night, with every hand tugging at a line or breasting a capstan bar, they hauled her off. She slid an inch, two inches, four.... She moved a foot, three feet.... They freed her, by sheer power of their determination that she must come free. They dragged her full ten feet before the suction of the sand beneath her keel began to slack, and ten feet more before she floated free.... Then the boats lowered, and towed her safe off sh.o.r.e, and anch.o.r.ed her there.

After that, three days to get the casks inboard again and stowed below.

Three days in which Dan'l Tobey pa.s.sed from suffering to delirium.

Brander had tended his wound as best he could; but the bone was splintered and the flesh was shattered, and there came an hour when the flesh about the wound turned green and black. It gave off a horrible fetid odor of decay.

Brander told Faith: "He's got to lose either leg or life."

She did not ask him if he were sure; she knew him well enough, now, never to doubt him again. But Dan'l, in an interval of lucidity, had heard; and he croaked:

"Take it off, Brander. Take it off. Get the ax, man."

Brander bent over the man. "I'll do my best for you."

Dan'l grinned with the old jeer in his eyes. "Aye, I've no doubt, Mr.

Brander. Go at it, man."

They had not so much as a vial of morphia to deaden the pain; but Dan'l slumped into delirium at the first stroke of the knife Brander had whetted to a razor keenness. His body twitched in the grip of Willis c.o.x and Loum.... Faith helped Brander tie the arteries; Roy stood by to give what aid he could....

When it was done, Faith said the _Sally_ would lie at anchor till Dan'l died or mended; and in two weeks Brander told her the man would live.

She nodded.

"Then we'll go out and fill our casks," she said, "and then for home."

Brander looked at her with shining eyes. "Aye, fill our casks," he agreed, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to stick to that task till it was done. They put to sea.

Dan'l was going to live; but the man was broken. He was not to quit his bunk through the months of the homeward cruise; he was wasted by the fury of his own pa.s.sions, by the shock of his crippling injury.... He had aged; there was no longer any strength in the man. So old Tichel came into his own at last; he became the t.i.tular master of the ship, and Faith was content to let him hold the reins, so long as he did as she desired. Willis c.o.x yielded precedence to Brander; Brander was mate.

When they sighted whales, all three of them lowered, while Faith kept ship. Their work had been nearly done before Noll died; they lacked less than a dozen whales to fill. Young Roy, to his vast content, was allowed to take out a boat and kill one of that last dozen, while Brander in his boat lay watchfully by.

Came a day, when the trying out was done, that Brander went to Faith.

"We're bung up," he said. "The last cask's sweating full."

Faith nodded happily, and swung to Mr. Tichel. "Then let's for home,"

she said.

For the rest, the matter tells itself. They hauled in to the nearest island port and overhauled and recoopered the water casks, and took on wood and water for the five months' homeward way. They stocked with potatoes and vegetables. The crow's nests came down, and to'gallant masts were set to carry canvas on the pa.s.sage. The gear was stripped from the whaleboats and stowed away, and two of the boats were lashed atop the boathouse, with the spares. The rigging had a touch of tar, the hull and spars took a lick of paint, the wood-work shone with sc.r.a.ping....

So, to sea. The first day out saw the dismantling of the tryworks; and broken bricks flew overside for half that day, all hands joining in the sport of it. Then a clean deck, and a stout northwest wind behind them, and the long easterly stretch to the Horn was begun....

That homeward cruise was a pleasant time for Faith and Brander. They were much together, speaking little, speaking not at all of themselves.... Save once, Faith said, smiling at him shyly:

"I knew you hadn't done it, even when I told them to put you in irons...."

He nodded. "I knew you knew."

They both understood; their eyes said what their lips were not yet ready to say. There was a reticence upon them. Faith, on the deck of her husband's ship, felt still the shadow of Noll Wing in her life....

Brander felt its presence. It made neither of them unhappy; they respected it. Faith was never ashamed of Noll. He had been a man.... She had loved him; she was proud that he had loved her....

Day by day they were together, on deck or below, while the winds worked for them and the stars in their courses watched over them. Through the chill of southern waters as they rounded the Cape.... Cap'n Tichel looking back at it, waved his hand in valedictory; and Faith asked: "What are you thinking, Mr. Tichel?"

"Saying good-by to old Cape Stiff there," he chuckled. "I'll not come this way again."

"Yes, you will," she told him. "You're captain of your own ship, now....

And will be, next cruise."

He shook his head. "I know when I'm well off, young lady. Old Tichel's ready to stick ash.o.r.e, now...."

She left him, staring back across the dull, cold sea.... He stood there stiffly till the night came down upon the waters.

After that, they struck warmer winds, with a pleasant ocean all about, and the scud of spray sweet upon their cheeks, and the _Sally_ fat with oil beneath their feet. A happy time, when Faith and Brander, with never a word and never a touch of hand, grew close as man and woman can grow....

Never a cloud in the skies from their last kill to the day they picked up the tug that shunted them alongside their wharf at home.

There are many things that never get into the log. Faith had no vengeful heart toward Dan'l; the man had reaped what he sowed. With the _Sally_, Noll Wing's ship, safe home again, she was willing to forget what had pa.s.sed. She told Dan'l so. Silva was dead; the others were but instruments. The matter was done....

Dan'l, possessed by a creeping apathy, nodded his thanks to her and turned away his head. The man was dying where he lay; he would not long survive.

Old Jem Kilcup was at the wharf to hug Faith against his broad chest. An older Jem than when she went away; but a glad Jem to see her home again.

Jonathan Felt was with him, asking anxiously for Noll. When Faith told them Noll was gone, old Jonathan fell sorrowfully silent. The whole town would mourn Noll; he had been one of its heroes....

Faith said proudly: "He's dead, sir. But this was his fattest cruise. He never brought home better than he's sent, now."

"You're full?" asked Jonathan.

"Aye, every cask.... And more," said Faith. And told him of the ambergris. She gave Brander so much credit for that, and for other things, that Jonathan hooked his arm in that of the young man, and walked with him thus when they all went to the office to hear Cap'n Tichel make his report.

Jem sat there, listening, proud eyes on Faith, while Tichel told the story; and Faith listened, and looked now and then at Brander, where he stood in the shadows by the window. In the end, Tichel said straightforwardly that he was content with what life had brought him, that he was through with the sea. But he pointed toward Brander.

"There's a man'll beat Noll Wing's best for you," he said.

Jonathan got up, spry little old figure, and crossed to grip Brander by the hand. "You'll take out a ship o' mine?" he asked; and Brander hesitated, and his eyes crossed to meet Faith's, as though to ask permission. Faith nodded faintly; and Brander said:

"Yes, sir, if you like."

"I do like," said Jonathan briskly. "I do like; so that's settled and done."