TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor printer's errors corrected.

THE SEA BRIDE

BY

BEN AMES WILLIAMS

AUTHOR OF

ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT

G R O S S E T & D U N L A P

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Published by Arrangement with The Macmillan Company

COPYRIGHT, 1919
BY BEN AMES WILLIAMS
COPYRIGHT, 1919
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1919.

THE SEA BRIDE

I

They were to be married before the open fire, in the big living-room of the old house on the hill. Upstairs, Bess Holt was helping Faith dress. Faith sat before the old, veneered dressing table with its little mirror tilting on the curved standards, and submitted quietly and happily to Bess's ministrations. Bess was a chatterbox, and her tongue flew as nimbly as the deft fingers that arranged Faith's veil. Faith was content; her soft eyes resting on her own image in the little mirror were like the eyes of one who dreams dreams and sees visions. She scarce heard Bess at all....

Only once she turned and looked slowly about this low-ceiled old room that had been her home: the high, soft bed, with its canopy resting on the four tall posts; the frame of that canopy was split in one place; she had wound it with wire to strengthen it. How many mornings, waking pleasantly as day stole in the little windows, she had seen that twist of wire first of all as her eyes opened. She used to look at it, and dream a little, before she rose.... One window, with its white hangings, was just at the foot of the bed. The cool, salt-laden winds from the sea used to whisper in there and soothe her sleep. She had always loved the sea. Would she always love it so, when there was nothing else but the sea on every hand?... When she should have sailed away with big Noll Wing....

The high chest of drawers, the little dressing table, the delicate chairs.... These were all old and familiar friends—whom she was leaving behind her. And she loved them, loved the ugly paper on the wall, loved the old daguerreotypes above the chest of drawers, loved the crooked sampler by the never-used fireplace. Loved them....

She smiled happily and confidently. She loved them ... but she loved big Noll Wing better. She would not regret....

Below stairs, her father, Jem Kilcup, talked with Dr. Brant, the minister. They spoke of wind and weather, as men do whose lives lie near the sea. They spoke of oil, of ships, of tedious cruises when the seas were bare of whales.... The minister marked the old harpoon that stood in the corner by the fire, and Jem told how with that battered iron he had struck his last whale, a dozen years before.... A good tale. The whale fought hard, left Jem with a crushed chest that drove him from the sea. Their talk wandered everywhere save where their thoughts were; they did not speak of Faith, nor of Noll Wing. Jem could not bear to speak of his girl who was going from his arms to another's; the minister understood, and joined with him in a conspiracy of silence. Only, when Bess came whispering down to say that. Faith was ready, old Jem gripped Dr. Brant's arm and whispered harshly into the minister's ear: "Marry them tight, and marry them hard, and true, Doctor. By God...."

Dr. Brant nodded. "No fear, my friend," he said. "Faith is a woman...."

"Aye," said Jem hoarsely. "Aye; and she's made her bed. God help her."

Things began to stir in the big house. Noll Wing was in the back room with Henry Ham, who had sailed with him three voyages, and would back him in this new venture. Young Roy Kilcup had found them there.... Old Jem had a demijohn of cherry rum, thirty years unopened. He sent it in to Noll.... And Noll Wing smacked his lips over it cheerfully, and became more amiable than was his custom. Roy Kilcup caught him in this mood and took quick vantage of it. When the three came in where Jem and Dr. Brant were waiting, Roy crossed and gripped his father's arm. "I'm going," he whispered. "Cap'n Wing will take me, as ship's boy. He's promised, dad."

Old Jem nodded. His children were leaving him; he was past protesting.

"I'm ready," Roy told his father. "I'm going to pack, right after they're married." He saw Dr. Brant smile, and whispered: "Be quick as you can, sir."

The minister touched the boy's shoulder reassuringly. "Quiet, Roy," he said. "There's time...."

People were gathering in the living-room from the other parts of the house. They came by twos and threes. The men were awkward and uneasy, and strove to be jocular; the women smiled with tears in their eyes. When one woman surrenders herself to one man, all women weep. Bess Holt, alone, did not weep. She was to play the organ; she sat down upon the stool and spread her pretty, soft skirts about her, and looked back over her shoulder to where Jem stood, in the hall, at the stair foot. He was to sign to her when Faith was ready. Dr. Brant crossed and stood beside the fireplace where the logs were laid, ready for the match. Noll Wing and Henry Ham took stand with him. Ham, the mate, was a big man, and an awkward one. His high collar irked him; his perilously shaven chin moved restlessly back and forth in the effort to ease his tortured throat. He coughed sepulchrally; and a woman giggled in the stillness, and wept quietly into her handkerchief.

Cap'n Noll Wing stood easily, squarely upon his spread legs. He, too, was a big man; his chest swelled barrel-like; his arms stretched the sleeves of his black coat. Cap'n Wing was seldom seen without a cap upon his head. Some of those in that room discovered in this moment for the first time that he was bald. The tight, white skin upon his skull contrasted unpleasantly with the brown of his leather cheeks. The thick hair about his ears was tinged with gray. Across his nose and his firm cheeks, tiny veins drew lacy patterns of purple. Garnished in wedding finery, he was nevertheless a man past middle life, and no mistaking. A man almost as old as Jem Kilcup, and wedding Jem Kilcup's daughter. An old man, but a man, for all that; stout, and strong, and full of sap. He had the dignity of mastery; he had the bearing of a man accustomed to command and be obeyed. Roy Kilcup watched this man with eyes of worship.

Bess, watching over her shoulder, saw old Jem look up the stairs, then turn and nod awkwardly to her. She pressed the keys, the organ breathed, the tones swelled forth and filled the room. Still, over her shoulder, she watched the door, as did every other eye. They saw Faith appear there, by her father's side; they saw her hand drop lightly on his arm. Jem moved; his broad shoulders brushed the sides of the door. He brought his daughter in, and turned with her upon his arm toward where Noll Wing was waiting.

Faith's eyes, as she came through the door, swept the room once before they found the eyes of Cap'n Wing and rested there. That single glance had shown her Dan'l Tobey, behind the others, near the window; and the memory of Dan'l's face played before her as she moved toward where Noll waited. Poor Dan'l. She pitied him as women do pity the lover they do not love. She had been hard on Dan'l. Not her fault; but still the truth. Hard on Dan'l Tobey.... And misery dwelt upon his countenance, so that she could not forget, even while she went to meet Noll Wing before the minister.

Janie Cox dropped her handkerchief and dove for it desperately, as Faith and Jem passed where she stood. Janie's swift movement was outrageously conspicuous in that still room. Faith looked toward her, and saw poor Janie crimson with embarrassment, and smiled at her comfortingly.

When she looked forward again, she found herself at Noll Wing's side, and Dr. Brant was already speaking....

When they made their responses, Noll in his heavy voice of a master, and Faith in the level voice of a proud, sure woman, her eyes met his and promised him things unutterable. It is this speaking of eyes to eyes that is marriage; the words are of small account. Faith pledged herself to Noll Wing when she opened her eyes to him and let him look into the depths of her. A woman who loves wishes to give. Faith gave all herself in that gift of her quiet, steady eyes. Cap'n Wing, before them, found himself abashed. He was glad when the word was said, when the still room stirred to life. He kissed Faith hurriedly; he was a little afraid of her. Then the others pressed forward and separated them, and he was glad enough to be thrust back, to be able to laugh, and jest, and grip the hands of men.

The women, and some of the men, kissed Faith as she stood there, hanging on her father's arm. Her eyes flickered now and then toward Noll, her Noll Wing now. But she could not always be watching him. Too many others came to speak with her. Dan'l Tobey came; Dan'l with his round moon-face, and his freckles, and his sandy hair.... Dan'l was only a little older than herself; a chubby, strong young man.... Little more than a boy, but a man, too.... Two cruises behind him.... He was going out as second mate with Cap'n Wing, this afternoon. Faith knew Dan'l loved her. She was pleasantly sorry, and at the same time secretly glad. No woman is completely sorry that she is beloved. Faith told herself she must help Dan'l get over it, on this cruise that was to come. She must.... She decided, while she spoke to him, that she must find a wife for Dan'l. What married woman is not a matchmaker? Faith had now been a married woman for seven minutes by the tall clock a-ticking in the corner....

Dan'l gave way to others; and Bess Holt cried in dismay, "Faith, the fire was never lighted!"

It was true. In the swift moments before Faith came downstairs, no one had remembered to touch a match to the kindling under the smooth, white birch logs in the great fireplace. When Faith saw this, she felt a sudden, swift pang of disappointment at her heart. She loved a fire, an open fire, merrily blazing.... She had always dreamed of being married before this great fire in her father's home. She herself had chosen these logs, and under her eye her brother Roy had borne them into the house and laid them upon the small stuff and kindling she had prepared. She had wanted that fire to spring to life as she and Noll were married; she had thought of it as a symbol of the new life that was beginning for Noll. She was terribly disappointed....

In that first pang, she looked helplessly about for Noll. She wanted comfort pitifully.... But Noll was laughing in the doorway, talking with old Jonathan Felt, the owner of his vessel. He had not heard, he did not see her glance. Bess Holt cried:

"Somebody light it quick. Roy Kilcup, give me a match. I'll light it myself. Don't look, Faith! Oh, what a shame...."

Roy knew how his sister had counted on that fire. "I'll bet Faith doesn't feel as though she were really married," he laughed. "Not without a fire going.... Do you, Faith? Better do it over, Dr. Brant...."

Some one said it was bad luck; a dozen voices cried the some one down. Then, while they were all talking about it, round-faced Dan'l Tobey went down on his knees and lighted the fire that was to have illumined Faith's wedding.

Faith, her hand at her throat, looked for Noll again; but he and old Jonathan had gone out to that ancient demijohn of cherry rum.... Dan'l was looking hungrily at her; hungry for thanks. She smiled at him. They were all pressing around her again....

It was little Bess Holt who set them moving, at last, down to the wharf. Bess was the stage manager that day; every one else was too busy with his or her own concerns. She whisked Faith away upstairs to change her dress, and scolded the others out of the house.... All save Jem Kilcup and Roy. Roy had packing of his own to do; he was flying at it like a terrier. Jem would stay as long as he might with Faith. Noll, and Jonathan Felt, and Noll's officers went to play host at the wedding supper on the decks of the Sally Sims....

Faith's luggage had already gone aboard. When she and Jem and Bess reached the wharf, the others were at the tables, under the boathouse, aft. They rose, and pledged Faith in lifted glasses.... Then Faith sat down beside her husband, at the head of the board, and old Jem settled morosely beside her. They ate and drank merrily.

Faith was very happy, dreamily happy. She felt the big presence of her husband at her side; and she lifted her head with pride in him, and in this ship which he commanded. He was a man.... Once or twice she marked her father's silence; and once she touched his knee with her hand lightly, in comfort.... Cap'n Wing made a speech. They called on Jem, but Jem was in no mind for chatter. They called on Faith; she rose, and smiled at them, and said how happy she was, and touched her husband's shoulder proudly....

Roy came, running, after a time.... And a little later, the tug whistled from the stream, and Cap'n Wing looked overside, and stood up, and lifted his hands.

"Friends," he said jocosely, "I'd like to take you all along. Come if you want. But—tide's in. Them as don't want to go along had best be getting ashore."

Thus it was ended; that wedding supper on the deck, in the late afternoon, while the flags floated overhead, and the gulls screamed across the refuse-dotted waters of the Harbor, and the tide whirled and eddied about the piles. Thus it was ended; their chairs scraped upon the deck; the boards that had been set upon boxes and trestles to make tables and seats were thrust aside or overturned. They swept about Faith, where she stood at her husband's side, arm linked in his, against the rail....

Old Jem kissed her first of all, kissed her roundly, crushing her to his breast; and she whispered, in his close embrace: "It's all right, dad. Don't worry.... All right.... I'll bring you home...."

He kissed her again, cutting short her promise. Kissed her, and thrust her away, and stumped ashore, and went stockily off along the wharf and out of sight, never looking back. A solitary figure; somewhat to be pitied, for all his broad shoulders and his fine old head.

The others in their turn, little Bess Holt last of all. Bess, now that her tasks were done, had her turn at tears. She wept happily in Faith's arms. Faith did not weep. She was too happy for even the happiest of tears. She patted Bess's brown head, and linked arms with the girl while Bess climbed to the wharf, and they kissed again, there....

Then every one waited, calling, laughing, crying, while the Sally Sims was torn loose from her moorings. Cap'n Wing was another man now; he was never a man to leave his ship to another, Faith thought proudly. His commands rang through the still air of late afternoon; his eye saw the hawsers cast off, saw the tug take hold....

The Sally Sims moved; she moved so slowly that at first one must watch a fixed point upon the wharf to be sure she moved at all. Roy was everywhere, afire with zeal in this new experience; his eyes were dancing. Faith stood aft, a little way from her husband, calling to those upon the wharf. The tug dragged the Sally stern first into the stream, headed her around....

Last calls, last cries.... The individual figures on the wharf's end slowly merged into one mass, a mass variegated by the black garments of the men, by the gayer fabrics which the women wore. This mass in turn, as the Sally slipped eastward toward the sea, became a dot of color against the brown casks which piled the wharf. Faith took her eyes from it to glance toward her husband; when she looked back it was hard to discover the dot again. Presently it was gone....

Men were in the rigging, now, setting the big, square sails. The wind began to tug at them. The voice of the mate, Mr. Ham, roared up to the men in profane commands. Cap'n Wing stood stockily on wide-spread legs, watching, joining his voice now and then to the uproar.

The sea, presently, opened out before them, inviting them, offering all its wide expanses to the Sally Sims' blunt bow. The Sally began to lift and tilt awkwardly. The tug had long since dropped behind; they shaped their course for where the night came up ahead of them.... They sailed steadily eastward, into the gathering gloom....

Cap'n Wing bawled: "Mr. Tobey." And Dan'l came aft to where Faith stood with her husband. He did not look at her, so that Faith was faintly disquieted. The captain pointed to the litter of planks and boxes and dishes and food where the wedding supper had been laid. Faith watched dreamily, happily.... She had loved that last gathering with her friends.... There was something sacred to her, in this moment, even in the ugly débris that remained....

But not to Cap'n Wing. He said harshly, in his voice of a master:

"Have that trash cleared up, Mr. Tobey. Sharp, now."

"Trash?" Faith was faintly unhappy at the word. Dan'l bawled to the men, and half a dozen of them came shuffling aft. She touched her husband's arm. "I'm going below, now, Noll," she whispered.

He nodded. "Get to bed," he said. "I'll be down."

He had not looked at her; he was watching Dan'l and the men. Her own eyes clouded.... Nevertheless, she turned to the cabin companion and went below.

II

For two weeks Faith had been aboard the Sally Sims, making ready the tiny quarters that were to be her home. When she came down into the cabin now, it was with a sense of familiarity. The plain table, built about the butt of the mizzenmast; the chairs; the swinging, whale-oil lamps.... These were old friends, waiting to replace those other friends she had left behind in her bedroom at home. She stood for a moment, at the foot of the cabin companion, looking about her; and she smiled faintly, her hand at her throat....

She was not lonely, not homesick, not sorry.... But her smile seemed to appeal to these inanimate surroundings to be good to her.

Then she crossed the cabin quietly, and went into the smaller compartment across the stern which was used by Cap'n Wing for his books, his instruments, his scant hours of leisure.... This ran almost entirely across the stern of the ship; but it was little more than a corridor. The captain's cabin was on the starboard side, opening off this corridor-like compartment. There was scant room, aft, aboard the Sally Sims. The four mates bunked two by two, in cabins opening off the main cabin; the mate had no room to himself. And by the same token, there was no possibility of giving Faith separate quarters. There were two bunks in the captain's cabin, one above the other. The upper had been built in, during the last two weeks. That was all....

Faith had not protested. She was content that Noll was hers; the rest did not matter. She found a measure of glory in the thought that she must endure some hardships to be at his side while her man did his work in the world. She was, after the first pangs, glad that she must make a tiny chest and a half a dozen nails serve her for wardrobe and dressing-room; she was glad that she must sleep on a thing like a shelf built into the wall, instead of her high, soft bed with the canopy at home. She was glad—glad for life—glad for Noll—glad for everything....

She began, quietly, to prepare herself for bed. And while she loosened her heavy hair, and began the long, easy brushing that kept it so glossy and smooth, her thoughts ran back over the swift, warm rapture of her awakening love for Noll. Big Noll Wing.... Her husband, now.... She, his bride....

She had always worshiped Noll, even while she was still a school girl, her skirts short, her hair in a long, thick braid. Noll was a heroic figure, a great man who appeared at intervals from the distances of ocean, and moved majestically about the little world of the town, and then was gone again. The man had had the gift of drama; his deeds held that element which lifted them above mere exploits and made them romance. When he was third mate of the old Bertha, a crazy Islander tried to knife him, and fleshed his blade in Noll Wing's shoulder, from behind. Noll had wrenched around and broken the man's neck with a twist of his hands. He had always been a hard man with his hands; a strong man, perhaps a brutal man. Faith, hearing only glorified whispers of these matters, had dreamed of the strength of him. She saw this strength not as a physical thing, but as a thing spiritual. No one man could rule other men unless he ruled them by a superior moral strength, she knew. She loved to think of Noll's strength.... Her breath had caught in ecstasy of pain, that night he first held her close against his great chest, till she thought her own ribs would crack....

Not Noll's strength alone was famous. He had been a great captain, a great man for oil. His maiden voyage as skipper of his own ship made that reputation for the man. He set sail, ran forthwith into a very sea of whales, worked night and day, and returned in three days short of three months with a cargo worth thirty-seven thousand dollars. A cargo that other men took three years to harvest from the fat fields of the sea; took three years to harvest, and then were like as not to boast of the harvesting. Oh, Noll Wing was a master hand for sperm oil; a master skipper as ever sailed the seas....

He came back thus, cruise after cruise, and the town watched his footsteps with pride and envy; he walked the streets with head high; he spoke harshly, in tones of command; he was, Faith thought, a man....

She remembered, this night, her first sight of him; her first remembered sight. It was when her father came home from his last voyage, his chest crushed, himself a helpless man who must lie abed long months before he might regain a measure of his ancient strength again. His ship came in, down at the wharves, at early dawn; and Faith and Roy, at home with their mother, had known nothing of the matter till big Noll Wing came up the hill, carrying Jem Kilcup in his arms as a baby is borne. Their mother opened the door, and Noll bore Jem upstairs to the bed he was to keep for so long.... And Faith and Roy, who had always seen in their father the mightiest of men, as children do, marveled at Noll Wing with wide eyes. Noll had carried their father in his arms....

Faith was eleven, then; Roy not much more than half as old. While Noll's ship remained in port, she and Roy had stolen down often to the wharves to catch a stolen sight of the great man; they had hid among the casks to watch him; they had heard with awe his thundering commands.... And then he sailed away. When he came again, Faith was thirteen; and she tagged his heels, and he bought her candy, and took her on his knee and played with her.... Those weeks of his stay were witchery to Faith. Her mother died during that time, and Noll was her comforter.... The big man could be gentle, in those days, and very kind....

He came next when Faith was sixteen; and the faint breath of bursting womanhood within her made Faith shy. When a girl passes from childhood, and feels for the first time the treasures of womanhood within herself, she guards that treasure zealously, like a secret thing. Faith was afraid of Noll; she avoided him; and when they met, her tongue was tied.... He teased her, and she writhed in helpless misery....

Nineteen at his next coming; but young Dan'l Tobey, risen to be fourth mate on that cruise with Noll, laid siege to her. She liked Dan'l; she thought he was a pleasant boy.... But when she saw Noll, now and then, she was silent before him; and Noll had no eyes to see what was in the eyes of Faith. He was, at that time, in the tower of his strength; a mighty man, with flooding pulses that drove him restlessly. He still liked children; but Faith was no longer a child. She was a woman; and Noll had never had more than casual use for women. He saw her, now and then; nothing more....

Nevertheless this seeing was enough so that Dan'l Tobey had no chance at all. Dan'l went so far as to beg her to marry him; but she shook her head.... "Wait ..." she whispered. "No. No.... Wait...."

"You mean—you will—some day?" he clamored. And she was frightened, and cried out:

"No, I don't mean anything, Dan'l. Please—don't ask me.... Wait...."

He told her, doggedly, the day he sailed away, that he would ask her again when he came home. And Faith, sure that she would never love Dan'l, was so sorry for him that she kissed him good-by; kissed him on the forehead.... The boy was blind; he read in that kiss an augury of good, and went away with heart singing. He did not know the philosophy of kisses. Let a girl permit a man to kiss her good-by—on cheek, or forehead, or ear tip, or hand, or lip, or what you will—and there's still a chance for him; but when she kisses him, sisterly, upon the forehead, the poor chap is lost and has as well make up his mind to't, Dan'l did not know, so went happily away....

Noll Wing, on that cruise, passed the great divide of life without knowing it. Till then he had been a strong man, proud in his strength, sufficient unto himself, alone without being either lonely or afraid; but when he came home, there was stirring in him for the first time a pang of loneliness.... This was the advance courier of age, come suddenly upon him.

He did not understand this; he was not even conscious of the change in him. He left his ship, and climbed the hill to his own house where his sister waited for him; and he submitted to her timid ministrations as he had never submitted before. He found it, somehow, faintly pleasant.... A woman, puttering about him.... But comfortable, just the same, he told himself. A man gets tired of men....

He had never tired of men before, never tired of himself before. Now there was something in him that was weary. He wanted comfort. He was worn with Spartan living; he was sick of rough life. He hungered for soft ways, for gentle things.... Some one to mend his socks.... Always wearing full of holes.... Some one to talk to, on ship board, besides the rough crew and the respectful officers....

This unrest was stirring in him when he went to see old Jem Kilcup, and Faith opened the door to him, and bade him come in.

He came in, tugging at his cap; and his eyes rested on her pleasantly. She was tall, as women go; but not too tall. And she was rounded, and strong, and firm. Her hair was thick, and soft; and her voice was low and full. When she bade him good evening, her voice thrummed some cord in the man. A pulse pricked faster in his throat....

He had come to see Jem; Jem was not at home. Faith told him this. In the old days, he would have turned and stamped away. Now he hesitated; then looked about for a chair, sat down. And Faith, who for the life of her could not hold still her heart when Noll Wing was near, sat in a chair that faced him, and they fell a-talking together.

He talked, as men will do, of himself. Nothing could have pleased Faith better. Nor Noll, for that matter.... He loved to talk of himself; and for an hour they sat together, while his words bore her across the seven seas, through the tumult of storm, through the bloody flurry of the fighting whale, through the tense silence of a ship where sullen men plan evil.... She trembled as she listened; not with fear for him, but with pride in him. She was already as proud of Noll as though he belonged to her.

Thus began their strange courtship. It was scarce conscious, on either side. Noll took comfort in coming to her, in talking to her, in watching her.... His pulses stirred at watching her. And Faith made herself fair for his coming, and made him welcome when he came....

She was his woman, heart and soul, from the beginning. As for Noll, he found her company increasingly pleasant. She was a better listener than a man; his tales were fresh and new to her. At the same time, knowing him better, she began to mother him in her thoughts, as women will. She began to mother him, and to guide him. Men need guiding, ever. Noll might never have known what he wanted; but Faith was no weak girl. She had the courage to reach out her hand for the thing that was dear to her; she was not ashamed of her heart....

They came together by chance one night when the moon played hide and seek with dark clouds in the sky; they met upon the street, as Faith came home with Bess Holt; and Noll walked with them to Bess's house, and then he and Faith went on together. She led him to talk of himself, as ever. When they came to her gate, some sudden impulse of unaccustomed modesty seized the man. He said hoarsely:

"But pshaw, Faith.... You must be sick of my old yarns by now...."

She was silent for a moment, there before him. Then she lifted her eyes, smiling in the moonlight, and she quoted softly and provokingly:

"'... She thank'd me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her....'"

Noll Wing was no man of little reading. He understood, and cried out hoarsely....

'Twas then, the moon providentially disappearing behind a cloud, that he caught her and held her till her ribs were like to crack, while his lips came fumbling down to find her own....

Afterward, Faith hid her eyes in shame, and scolded herself for frowardness until he reassured her; she bade him, then, pay court in due form, at her feet. He knelt before her, the big, strong man.... And her eyes filled, and she knelt with him.

It was in her heart that she was pledging herself sacredly, with this man, forevermore.

Followed the swift days of preparation; a pleasant flurry, through which Faith moved calmly, her thoughts far off. Old Jem Kilcup was wroth; he knew Noll Wing, and tried to tell Faith something of this knowledge. But she, proud and straight, would have none of it; she commanded old Jem into silence, then teased him into smiles till he consented and bade her take her man.

Roy was immensely proud of her. When it was decided that she should go away with Noll upon the Sally Sims, Roy begged to go. Begged fruitlessly, at first; for Noll Wing, having won the thing he wanted, was already beginning to wonder whether he really wanted it at all. But in the end, he consented.... Roy was to go with his sister....

Bess Holt.... Those were wild days for Bess; wild days of constant, fluttering excitement. She buzzed about Faith like a humming bird about a flower; and Faith quietly gave herself to the current of the days. She was so happy that even Dan'l Tobey could not cloud her eyes. There was one hot hour with Dan'l, when he accused, and swore, and begged. But Faith had strength in her, so that in the end she conquered him and held him.... He was silenced; only his eyes still accused her....

So.... Marriage! It was done, now. Done.... She was away, with Noll, the world and life before them.... Brave Noll; strong Noll.... She loved him so....

When he came down into the cabin, she was waiting for him. She had put on a dressing-gown, a warm and woolly thing that she and Bess had made of a heavy blanket, to protect her against the chill winds of the sea. Her braids were upon her shoulders; her hair parted evenly above her broad brow. Her eyes were steady and sweet and calm.... Noll, studying her while his heart leaped, saw where the dressing-gown parted at her throat a touch of white, a spray of broidered blossoms which Faith herself had made, with every stitch a world of hope and dreams....

He took off his cap, and his coat and vest. He wore suspenders. When Faith saw them, she shivered in spite of herself. They were such hopelessly ugly things.... She lifted her eyes from them, came closer to him. He took her roughly in his arms, and she lifted one arm and drew it around his thick neck, and drew his face down.

"Ah, Noll ..." she whispered proudly.

III

Faith Wing fitted easily into the life aboard the Sally Sims, as the whaler worked eastward before starting on the long southward slant that would bring her at last to her true hunting grounds. The mates saw her daily as a pleasant figure in the life of the cabin; the boat-steerers and the seamen and greenies caught glimpses of her, now and then, when she sat on deck with sewing, or a book, or with idle hands and thoughtful eyes. Faith, on her part, studied the men about her, and watched over Noll, and gave herself to the task of being a good wife and helpmate to him.

The first weeks of the cruise were arduous ones, as they are apt to be on a whaler; for of the whole crew, more than half were green hands recruited from the gutters, the farms, the slums.... Weak men, in many cases; rotted by wrong living; slack-muscled, jangle-nerved. Weak men who must be made strong; for there is no place for weakness in a whaler's crew.

It was the task of the mates to make these weaklings into men. The greenies must learn the rigging; they must learn their duties in response to each command; they must be drilled to their parts in the boats and prepared for the hunts that were to come. Your novice at sea has never an easy time of it; he learns in a hard school, and this is apt to be especially true upon a whaler. While the methods of the officers differed according to the habit of the officer, they were never gentle.

Cap'n Wing watched over all this, took a hand here and there. And Faith, quietly in the background, saw a new Noll, saw in each of the officers a man she had never seen ashore.

Noll was the master, the commander. When his voice bellowed along the decks, even the greenest man leaped and desperately strove in his efforts to obey. Noll was the dominant man; and Faith was pleasantly afraid of him and his roaring tones.... She loved being afraid of him....

There were four officers aboard the Sally Sims. These four, with Roy—in his capacity of ship's boy—lived with Noll and Faith in the main cabin. They were Faith's family. Big Henry Ham, the mate, was a man of slow wit but quick fist; a man with a gift of stubbornness that passed for mastery. The men of his watch, and especially the men of his boat, feared him acutely. He taught them this fear in the first week of the cruise, by the simple teachings of blows. Thereafter he relaxed this chastisement, but held a clenched fist always over their cowering heads. He had what passed for a philosophy of life, to justify this. When Faith asked him, pleasantly, one day, whether it was necessary to strike the men, he told her with ponderous condescension that no other measures would suffice.

"They've no proper brains at all, ma'am," he explained. "Their brains is all in their faces; and when they don't jump at the word, your fist in their mouth jumps them. And next time, they jump without it. That's the whole thing of it, ma'am."

And he added further: "They're children, ma'am." He smiled slyly. "When you've babies of your own, you'll understand. Take the switch to 'em, ma'am, till they learn what it is. Then they'll mind without, and things'll go all smooth."

He was, after a fashion, a Pecksniffian man, this Henry Ham. Faith did not like him, but she found it hard not to respect him. He was, after all, efficient.

Dan'l Tobey, the second mate, was a man of another sort. Faith was startled and somewhat amused to find what a difference there was between Dan'l afloat and Dan'l ashore. Ashore, he was a round-faced, freckled, sandy-haired boy with no guile in him; an impetuous, somewhat helpless and inarticulate boy. Afloat, he was a man; reticent, speaking little, speaking to the point when he spoke at all.... Shrewd, reading the character of his men, playing upon them as a musician plays upon his instruments. Of the five men in his boat, not one but might have whipped him in a stand-up fight. Nevertheless, he ruled them. This one he dominated by cutting and sarcastic words that left the man abashed and helpless; that one he flattered; another he joked into quick obedience.... The fourth, a surly giant who might have proved unmanageable, he gave into the keeping of his boat-steerer, a big Islander called Yella' Boy. He taught Yella' Boy to fear the man, provoked a fight between them in which the giant was soundly whipped, and thereafter used the one against the other and kept them both in balance eternally. Dan'l had, Faith decided, more mental ability than any man aboard—short of her Noll. He ruled by his wits; and this the more surprised her because she had always thought Dan'l more than a little stupid. She watched the unfolding of the new Dan'l with keenest interest as the weeks dragged by.

James Tichel, the third mate, was a thin little old man given to occasional bursts of tigerish rage in which he was the match for any man aboard. In his second week, he took the biggest man in his boat and beat him into a helpless, clucking wreck of bruises. Thereafter, there was no need for him to strike a second time. Faith wondered whether these rages to which the little man gave way were genuine, whether he gave way because he chose to do so. In the cabin, he was distinguished for a dry and acid wit. Faith did not like him, even when she guessed the secret fear of the little man that he was passing his usefulness, that he was growing too old to serve. He told her, once, in a moment of confidence, that he had sailed as third mate for fourteen years, and once as second....

"But never as mate; nor as skipper, ma'am," he mourned.

She tried to comfort him. "You will, some day," she told him. "Every man's chance must come...."

He chuckled acridly. "Aye—but what if he's dead afore it?"

Willis Cox was fourth mate. He was a youngster; this his first cruise in the cabin. He had been promoted from the fo'c's'le by Noll Wing on Noll's last voyage. By the same token, he worshiped Noll as a demigod, with the enthusiasm of youth; and a jealousy not unlike the jealousy of women made him dislike Faith, at first, and resent her presence aboard. No one could long dislike Faith, however. In the end, he included her in his worship of Noll, and gave her all his loyalty.

Roy, in these new surroundings, flourished. He was tireless, always stirring about the ship or clambering in the rigging, drinking in new impressions like a sponge. He and Faith, as is apt to be the case between brother and sister, fought each other constantly, bickering and striving back and forth. Faith had somewhat outgrown this way of childhood; but Roy was still a boy, and Faith felt toward him at times the exasperation which a mother feels toward a child. It came to pass, in the early stages of the voyage, that Roy included Noll Wing in his warfare against Faith; and he turned to Dan'l Tobey. Between Dan'l and the boy, a strange friendship arose, so that Faith often saw them talking together, Roy chattering while Dan'l listened flatteringly. Faith, ashore, had liked Dan'l; she was a little afraid of the new man he had become, since they sailed. Nevertheless, she was pleased that Roy liked him....

All these men had been changed, in subtle ways, by their coming to sea. Faith, during the first weeks, was profoundly puzzled and interested by this transformation. There was a new strength in all of them, which she marked and admired. At the same time, there were manifestations at which she was disquieted.

Noll Wing—her Noll—had changed with the rest. He had changed not only in his every-day bearing, but in his relations with her. She was troubled, from the very beginning, by these changes; and she was troubled by her own reactions to them.

Noll, for instance, liked to come down to his cabin in his times of leisure and take off his coat and vest and open his shirt at the throat and lie down. Sometimes he took off his shoes. Usually, at such times, he went to sleep; and Faith, who sometimes read aloud to him, would stop her reading when Noll began to snore, and look at her husband, and try to convince herself he was good to look upon. She learned to know, line by line, the slack folds of his cheeks when he lay thus, utterly relaxed. The meandering of the little purple veins beneath his skin fascinated her and held her eyes. There were little, stiff hairs in his ears, and in his nostrils; and where his shirt was open at the throat she could glimpse the dark growth upon his broad chest. His suspenders pressed furrows in the soft, outer covering of flesh which padded the muscles of his shoulders. He was, by habit, a cleanly man; but he was at the same time full-fleshed and full-blooded, and there was always about him a characteristic and not necessarily unpleasant odor of clean perspiration. At times, as she sat beside him while he slept thus, Faith tried to tell herself she liked this; at times it frankly revolted her, so that she was ashamed of her own revolt....

She had worshiped the strength of Noll; she was in danger of discovering that at too close range, that strength became grossness.

The pitiless intimacies of their life together in the cabin of the Sally Sims were hard for Faith. They shared two small rooms; and Noll must be up and down at all hours of day and night, when the weather was bad, or the business of whaling engrossed him. Faith, without being vain, had that reverence and respect for herself which goes by the name of modesty. Her body was as sacred to her as her soul. The necessity that they were under of dressing and undressing in a tiny room not eight feet long was a steady torment to her....

She did not blame Noll for what unhappiness there was in these matters; she blamed herself for over-sensitiveness, and tried to teach herself to endure these things as a part of her task of sharing the rigors of Noll's daily toil. But there were times when even the nakedness of Noll's bald head revolted her.

She had been, when she married, prepared for disillusionment. Faith was not a child; she was a woman. She had the wisdom to know that no man is a heroic figure in a night shirt.... But she was not prepared to discover that Noll, who walked among men as a master, could fret at his wife like a nervous woman.

This fretful querulousness manifested itself more than once in the early stages of the voyage. For Noll was growing old, and growing old a little before his time because he had spent his life too freely. He was, at times, as querulous as a complaining old man. Because he was apt to be profane, in these moods, Faith tried to tell herself that they were the stormy outbreaks of a strong man.... But she knew better. When Noll, after they lost their second whale, growled to her:

"Damn Tichel.... The man's losing his pith. You'd think a man like him could strike a whale and not let it get away...." Faith knew this was no mere outbreak against Tichel, but an out and out whine.

She knew this, but would not admit it, even in her thoughts.

Another matter troubled her. Noll Wing was a drinker. She had always known that. It was a part of his strength, she thought, to be able to drink strong liquor as a man should. But aboard ship she found that he drank constantly, that there was always the sickly sweet smell of alcohol about him.... And at times he drank to stupefaction, and slept, log-like, while Faith lay wide-eyed and ashamed for him in the bunk below his. She was sorry; but because she trusted in Noll's strength and wisdom, she made no attempt to interfere.

She had expected that marriage would shatter some of her illusions; and when her expectations were fulfilled and far exceeded, she thrust her unhappiness loyally behind her, and clung the closer to big Noll, striving to lend her strength to him.

More than once, when Noll fretted at her while others were about, she saw Dan'l Tobey's eyes upon her; and at such times she took care to look serene and proud. Dan'l must not so much as guess it, if Noll should ever make her unhappy....

But.... Noll make her unhappy? The very thought was absurd. He was her Noll; she was his. When they were wedded, she had given herself to him, and taken him as a part of herself, utterly and without reservation.

He might fail her high expectations in little things; she might fail him. But for all that, they were one, one body and soul so long as they both should live.

She was as loyal to him, even in her thoughts, as to herself. For this was Faith; she was Noll's forever.

She thought that what she felt was hidden; but Dan'l Tobey had eyes to see. And now and then, when in crafty ways he led big Noll to act unworthily before her, he watched for the shadow that crossed her face, and smiled in his own sly soul.

IV

There was, in Dan'l Tobey's boat, a little man named Mauger. It was he whom Dan'l ruled by a superior tongue, deriding the man and scorching him with jests that made Mauger crimson with shame for himself. Mauger was a greenie; he was a product of the worst conditions of the city. He was little and shrunken and thin, and his shoulders curled forward as though to hug and shelter his weak chest. Nevertheless, there was a rat-like spirit in the man, and a rat-like gleam in his black little eyes. He was one of those men who inspire dislike, even when they strive to win the liking of their fellows. The very fo'c's'le baited him.

It was through Mauger that the first open clash between Cap'n Wing and Faith, his wife, was brought to pass; and the thing happened in this wise.

Dan'l Tobey knew how to handle Mauger; and he kept the little man in a continual ferment of helpless anger. When they were off in the boats after a whale, or merely for the sake of boat drill, Dan'l gave all his attention to Mauger, who rowed tub oar in Dan'l's boat.

"Now if you'll not mind, Mauger," he would say, "just put your strength into the stroke there. Just a trifle of it. Gently, you understand, for we must not break the oars. But lean to it, Mauger. Lean to it, little man."

And Mauger strove till the veins stood out upon his narrow forehead, and his black little eyes gleamed.... And within him boiled and boiled a vast revolt, a hatred of Dan'l. Again and again, he was on the point of an open outbreak; he cursed between his teeth, and slavered, and thought of the bliss of sinking his nails in Dan'l's smooth throat.... The wrath in the man gathered like a tempest....

But always Dan'l pricked the bubble of this wrath with some sly word that left Mauger helpless and bewildered....

He set the man to scrub the decks, amidships, one day after an eighty barrel bull whale had been tried out. There were other men at work, scrubbing; but Dan'l gave all his attention to Mauger. He leaned against the rail, and smiled cheerfully at the little man, and spoke caustically....

"—not used to the scrub brush, Mauger. That's plain to see. But you'll learn its little ways.... Give you time...."

And.... "Lend a little weight to it on the thrust, little man. Put your pith into it...."

And.... "Here's a spot, here by my foot, that needs attention.... Come.... No, yonder.... No, beyond that again.... So...."

Or.... "See, now, how the Portugee there scrubs...." And when Mauger looked toward the Portugee, Dan'l rasped: "Come.... Don't be looking up from your tasks, little man. Attention, there...."

This continued until Mauger, fretted and tormented and wild with the fury of a helpless thing, was minded to rise and fling himself at Dan'l's round, freckled face.... And in that final moment before the outbreak must surely have come, Dan'l said pleasantly:

"So.... That is nicely. Go below now, Mauger, and rest. Ye've worked well...."

And the kindliness of his tone robbed Mauger of all wrath, so that the little man crept forward, and down to his bunk, and fairly sobbed there with rage, and nerves, and general bewilderment.

Dan'l was the man's master, fair....

This was one side of the matter; Cap'n Noll Wing was on the other side.

Noll Wing had been harassed by the difficulties of the early weeks of the cruise. It seemed to the man that the whole world combined to torment him. He was, for one thing, a compound of rasping nerves; the slightest mishap on the Sally Sims preyed on his mind; the least slackness on the part of the mates, the least error by the men sent him into a futile storm of anger....

Even toward Faith, he blew hot, blew cold.... There were times when he felt the steadfast love she gave him was like a burden hung about his neck; and he wished he might cast it off, and wished he had never married her, and wished ... a thousand things. These were the days when the old strength of the man reasserted itself, when he held his head high, and would have defied the world.... But there were other hours, when he was spiritually bowed by the burdens of his task; and in these hours it seemed to him Faith was his only reliance, his only support. He leaned upon her as a man leans upon a staff. She was now a nagging burden, now a peaceful haven of rest to which he could retreat from all the world....

If he felt thus toward Faith, whom, in his way, the man did love, how much more unstable was his attitude toward the men about him. In his relations with them, he alternated between storming anger and querulous complaint. Once, when they were hauling up to the mainhead a blanket strip of blubber from a small cow whale, the tackle gave and let the whole strip snap down like a smothering blanket of rubber.... The old Noll Wing would have leaped into the resulting tangle and brought order out of it with half a dozen sharp commands, with a curt blow.... This time, he stood aft by the boat house and nagged at the mate, and cried:

"Mr. Ham, will you please get that mess straightened out? In God's name, why can't you men do things the right way? You...." He flung up his hands like a hysterical woman. "By God, I wish I'd stayed ashore...."

And he turned and went aft and sulkily down into the cabin, to fret at Faith, while Mr. Ham and Dan'l Tobey brought order out of chaos, and Dan'l smiled faintly at his own thoughts.

Now it is a truth which every soldier knows, that a commanding officer must command. When he begins to entreat, or to scold like a woman, or to give any other indication of cracking nerves, the men under him conspire maliciously to torment him, in the hope of provoking new outbreaks. It is instinctive with them; they do it as naturally as small boys torment a helpless dog. And it was so on the Sally Sims. The more frequently Noll Wing forgot that he was master, the more persistently the men harassed him.

His officers saw the change in Noll, and tried to hide it or deny it as their natures prompted. The mate, Mr. Ham, developed an unsuspected loyalty, covering his chief's errors by his own strength; and young Willis Cox backed him nobly. Dan'l Tobey, likewise, was always quick to take hold of matters when they slipped from the captain's fingers; but he did it a little ostentatiously.... Noll himself did not perceive this ostentation; but the men saw, and understood. It was as though Dan'l whispered over his shoulder to them:

"See! The old man's failing. I have to handle you for him...."

Once or twice Dan'l bungled some task in a fashion that provoked these outbreaks; and whether or not this was mere chance, Faith was always about on these occasions. For example, at dinner one day in the cabin, Dan'l looked mournfully at the salt beef that was set before him, and then began to eat it with such a look of resignation on his countenance that Noll demanded: "What's wrong with the beef, Mr. Tobey?"

Dan'l said pleasantly: "Nothing, sir. Nothing at all. It's very good fare, and almighty well cooked, I'd say."

Now it was not well cooked. Tinch, the cook, had been hurried, or careless.... The junk he had brought down to the cabin was half raw, a nauseous mass.... And Dan'l knew it, and so did Noll Wing. But Noll might have taken no notice but for Dan'l, and Dan'l's tone....

As it was, he was forced to take notice. And so he bellowed for Tinch, and when the cook came running, Noll lifted the platter and flung it, with its greasy contents, at the man's head, roaring profanely....

Faith was at the table; she said nothing. But when Noll looked at her, and saw the disappointment in her eyes—disappointment in him—he wished to justify himself; and so complained: "Damned shame.... A man can't get decent food out of that rascal.... If I wasn't a fool, Faith, I'd have stayed ashore...."

Faith thought she would have respected him more if, having given way to his anger, he had stuck to his guns, instead of seeking thus weakly to placate her. And Dan'l Tobey watched Faith, and was well content with himself.

It was Dan'l, in the end, who brought Mauger and Cap'n Wing together; and if matters went beyond what he had intended, that was because chance favored him.

It was a day when Mauger took a turn at the awkward steering apparatus of the Sally Sims. The Sally's wheel was so arranged that when it was twirled, it moved to and fro across the deck, dragging the tiller with it. To steer was a trick that required learning; and in any sea, the tiller bucked, and the wheel fought the steersman in eccentric and amazing fashion. This antiquated arrangement was one of the curses of many ships of the whaling fleet.... Mauger had never been able to get the trick of it....

Dan'l's watch came on deck and Mauger took the wheel at a moment when Cap'n Wing was below. Faith was with him. Dan'l knew the captain would be entering the log, writing up his records of the cruise, reading.... He also knew that if Noll Wing followed his custom, he would presently come on deck. And he knew—he himself had had a hand in this—that Noll had been drinking, that day, more than usual.

That Faith came up with Noll, a little later, was chance; no more. Dan'l had not counted on it.

Mauger, then, was at the wheel. Dan'l leaned against the deckhouse behind Mauger, and devoted himself amicably to the task of instructing the man. His tone remained, throughout, even and calm; but there was a bite in it which seared the very skin of Mauger's back.

"You'll understand," said Dan'l cheerfully, "you are not rolling a hoop in your home gutter, Mauger. You're too impetuous in your ways.... Be gentle with her...."

This when, the Sally Sims having fallen off her set course, Mauger brought her so far up into the wind that her sails flapped on the yards. Dan'l chided him.

"Not so strenuous, Mauger. A little turn, a spoke or two.... You overswing your mark, little man. Stick her nose into it, and keep it there...."

The worst of it was, from Mauger's point of view, that he was trying quite desperately to hold the Sally's blunt bows where they belonged. But there was a sea; the rollers pounded her high sides with an overwhelming impact, and the awkward wheel put a constant strain on his none-too-adequate arms and shoulders. When the Sally swung off, and he fought her back to her course, she was sure to swing too far the other way; when he tried to ease her up to it, a following sea was sure to catch him and thrust him still farther off the way he should go....

He fought the wheel as though it were a live thing, and the sweat burst out on him, and his arms and shoulders ached; and all the time, Dan'l at his back flogged him with gentle jeers, and seared him with caustic words....

The rat-like little man had the temper of a rat. Dan'l knew this; he was careful never to push Mauger too far. So, this afternoon, he brought the man, little by little, to the boiling point, and held him there as delicately in the balance as a chemist's scales.... With a word, he might at any time have driven Mauger mad with fury; with a word he could have reduced the helpless little man to smothering sobs.

He had Mauger thus trembling and wild when Noll Wing came on deck, Faith at his side. Dan'l looked at them shrewdly; he saw that Noll's face was flushed, and that Noll's eyes were hot and angry. And—behind the back of Mauger at the wheel—he nodded toward the little man, and caught Noll's eyes, and raised his shoulders hopelessly, smiling.... It was as if he said:

"See what a hash the little man is making of his simple job. Is he not a hopeless thing?"

Noll caught Dan'l's glance; and while Mauger still quivered with the memory of Dan'l's last word, Noll looked at the compass, and cuffed Mauger on the ear and growled at him:

"Get her on her course, you gutter dog...."

Which was just enough to fill to overflowing Mauger's cup of wrath. The little man abandoned the wheel.... Dan'l caught it before the Sally could fall away ... and Mauger sprang headlong, face black with wrath, at Cap'n Wing.

He was scarce a third Noll's size; but the fury of his attack was such that for a moment Noll was staggered. Then the captain's fist swung home, and the little man whirled in the air, and fell crushingly on head and right shoulder, and rolled on the slanting deck like a bundle of soiled old clothes.... Rolled and lay still....

Cap'n Noll Wing, big Noll, whom Faith loved, bellowed and leaped after the little man. He was red with fury that Mauger had attacked him, red with rage that Mauger had, for an instant, thrust him back. He swung his heavy boot and drove it square into the face of the unconscious man. Faith saw....

The toe of the captain's boot struck Mauger in the right eye-socket, as he lay on his side. At the blow, for an instant, the man's eye literally splashed out, bulging, on his temple....

Some women would have screamed; some would have flung themselves upon Noll to drag him back. Faith did neither of these things. She stood for an instant, her lips white.... Her sorrow and pity were not for Mauger, who had suffered the blow.... They were for Noll, her Noll, her husband whom she loved and wished to respect.... Sorrow and pity for Noll, who had done this thing....

She turned quickly and went down into her cabin....

Noll came down, minutes later, after she had heard the feet of running men, the voices of men upon the deck. He came down, found her in the cabin which served as his office. She was standing, looking out one of the windows in the stern....

He said thickly: "That damned rat won't try that on me again...."

She turned, and her eyes held his. "That was a cowardly thing to do, Noll, my husband," she said.

V

When Noll Wing kicked the unconscious man, and Faith slipped quietly away and went below, the life of the Sally Sims for an instant stood still. Yella' Boy and Loum, two of the boat-steerers, were lounging at the forward end of the boathouse, and saw. Dan'l Tobey, who had gripped the wheel, saw. And three or four of the men, amidships, saw. For a space they all stood still, watching, while Noll growled above his victim, and Mauger, limp and senseless, rolled slackly back and forth upon the deck with the motion of the vessel.

Then Noll looked around, and saw them all watching him with steady, hard, frightened eyes; and their silence irked him, so that he broke it with a cry of his own.

"You, Yella' Boy, sluice him off," he shouted.

Yella' Boy grinned, showed his teeth with the amiability of his dark race; and he took a canvas bucket and dropped it over the rail, and drew it up filled with brine, and flung this callously in Mauger's horribly crushed face. The water loosed the blood, washed it away in flecks and gouts.... It bared the skin, and through this skin, from many little slits and scratches like the cracks in a half-broken egg, more blood trickled, spreading moistly. The salt burned.... Mauger groaned hoarsely, slumped into unconsciousness again.

"Douse him again," Noll Wing commanded. "The dog's shamming." He looked around, saw Dan'l at the wheel. "You, Mr. Tobey, look to him," he commanded.

Dan'l was one of those men whose hands have a knack for healing. He knew something of medicine; he had gone so far, upon a former cruise, as to trim away a man's crushed fingers after an accident of the whale fisheries had nipped them.... He hailed one of the men in the waist, now, and gave the wheel to this man, and then crossed to where Mauger lay and knelt beside him, and dabbed away the blood upon his face....

Cap'n Wing, leaning against the rail, his knuckles white with the grip he had upon it, watched Dan'l, and swayed upon his feet.... And Yella' Boy, with his bucket still half full of brine, stood by, and grinned, and waited.

Mauger came slowly back to life under Dan'l's ministrations; he groaned, and he began to twitch, and kick.... And of a sudden he cried out, like one suddenly waking from sleep. Then consciousness flooded him, and with it came the agony he was enduring, and he howled.... And then his howls grew weak and weaker till he was sobbing.... And Dan'l helped him to his feet.... He had put a rough bandage about the man's head, and from beneath this bandage, one of Mauger's eyes looked forth, blackly gleaming, wild with the torment he endured. This eye fixed its gaze upon Noll Wing....

Dan'l stepped a little nearer Noll, and said in a low voice: "His eye is gone, sir. No good. It ought to be dimmed out.... Cleared away...."

That shocked the liquor out of Noll; his face went white beneath the brown; and Mauger heard, and suddenly he screamed again, and leveled a shaking finger at Noll Wing, and cursed him shrilly.... Dan'l whirled and bade him be silent; he signed to Yella' Boy, and the harpooner half dragged, half carried Mauger forward. But as they went, Mauger, twisting in the other's arms, shook his thin fist at Noll Wing and swore terribly.... Cursed Noll, called death down upon him, vowed that he would some day even the score....

Yella' Boy cuffed him and dragged him away.... And Dan'l watched Noll to see what the captain would say. Noll said nothing. He took off his cap and rubbed his bald head and looked for an instant like an old man; his eyes shifted furtively from Dan'l to the cursing man....

Abruptly, he turned and went aft to the stern of the ship and stood there by himself, thinking. He sought reassurance; he abused Mauger under his breath, and told himself the little man had been well served.... The Sally fell away; he turned and cursed the new man at the wheel, and got relief from the oath he spoke. It gave him a blustering sort of courage.... He wished Dan'l Tobey would tell him he had done right.... But Dan'l had gone forward to the fo'c's'le.... Mauger was howling.... Noll thought Dan'l might be trimming away that crushed eye.... And he shuddered. He was, suddenly, immensely lonely. He wished with all his soul for support, for a word of comfort, a word of reassurance....

He went down into the cabin, thinking to speak with Henry Ham. Mr. Ham was always an apostle of violence.... But the mate was sleeping; Noll could hear him snore. So was tigerish little James Tichel....

Noll went into the after cabin, and found Faith there. Her back was turned, she was looking out of the stern windows. He wished she would look at him, but she did not. So he said, his voice thick with anger, and at the same time plaintive with hunger for a reassuring word....

"That damned rat won't try that again...."

Then Faith turned and told him: "That was a cowardly thing to do, Noll, my husband."

He had come for comfort; he was ready to humble himself; he was a prey to the instinct of wrong-doing man which bids him confess and be forgiven.... But Faith's eyes accused him.... When a man's wife turns against him.... He said, bitter with rage:

"Keep your mouth shut, child. This is not a pink tea, aboard the Sally Sims. You know nothing of what's necessary to handle rough men."

Faith smiled a little wistfully. "I know it is never necessary to kick a helpless man in the face," she said.

He was so nearly mad with fury and shame and misery that he raised his great fist as though he would have struck even Faith. "Mind your own matters," he bade her harshly. "The dog struck me.... Where would the ship be if I let that go? I should have killed him...."

"Did you not?" Faith asked gently. "I thought he would be dead...."

"No; hell, no!" Noll blustered. "You can't kill a snake. He'll be poisonous as ever in a day...."

"I saw ..." said Faith; she shuddered faintly. "I—think his eye is gone."

"Eye?" Noll echoed. "What's an eye? He's lucky to live. There's skippers that would have killed him where he stood.... For what he did...."

Faith shook her head. "He's only a little man, weak, not used to sea life. You are big, and strong, Noll.... My Noll.... There was no need of kicking him."

The man flung himself, then, into an insane burst of anger at her. He hated the whole world, hated Faith most of all because she would not soothe him and tell him never to mind.... He raved at her, gripped her round shoulders and shook her, flung her away from him.... He was mad....

And Faith, steadfastly watching him, though her soul trembled, prayed in her heart that she might find the way to bring Noll back to manhood again; she endured his curses; she endured his harsh grip upon her shoulders.... She waited while he flooded her with abuse.... And at the end, when he was quiet for lack of words to say, she went to him and touched his arm.

"Noll ..." she said.

He jerked away from her. "What?"

"Noll.... Look at me...."

He obeyed, in spite of himself; and there was such depths of tenderness and sorrow in her eyes that the man's heart melted in him. "It's not Mauger I'm sorry for," she told him. "It's you, Noll.... That you should be so cowardly, Noll...."

His rage broke, then; he fell to fretting, whining.... She sat down; he slumped like a child beside her. He told her he was tired, weary.... That he was worried.... That his nerves had betrayed him.... That the drink was in him.... "They're all trying to stir me," he complained. "They take a joy in doing the thing wrong.... They're helpless, slithering fools.... I lost myself, Faith...."

He pleaded with her, desperately anxious to make her understand; and Faith understood from the beginning, with the full wisdom of woman, yet let him talk out all his unhappiness and remorse.... And because she loved him, her arm was about him and his great head was drawn against her breast long before he was done. She comforted him with touches of her light hands upon his head; she soothed him with murmurs that were no words at all....

The man reveled in this orgy of self-abasement. He groveled before her, until she began to be faintly contemptuous, in her heart, at his groveling. She bade him make an end of it....

"I was a coward, Faith," he cried. "You're right. I was a coward...."

"You are a man, Noll," she told him. "Stronger than other men, and not in your fists alone. That is why I love you so...."

"I know, I know," he told her. "Oh, you're a wonder, Faith...."

"You're a man. Always remember that," she said.

He got up abruptly. He started toward the main cabin; and she asked: "Where are you going, Noll?"

"Forward," he said. "I've wronged Mauger...." He was drunk with this new-found joy of abasing himself. "I'll tell the man so. I'll right things with him...."

And he added thoughtfully: "He cursed me. I don't want the man's hate. I'll right things with him...."

She smiled faintly, shook her head. "No, Noll...."

He was stubborn. "Yes. Why not? I've...."

She said thoughtfully: "Noll, you're the master of this ship. Old Jonathan Felt put her in your charge. You are responsible for her.... And that puts certain obligations on you, Noll. An obligation to be wise, and to be prudent, and to be brave...."

He came back and sat down beside her. She touched his knee. "You are like a king, aboard here, Noll. And—the king can do no wrong. I would not go to Mauger, if I were you. You made a mistake; but there is no need you should humble yourself before the men. They would not understand; they would only despise you, Noll."

He said hotly: "Let them. They're sneaking, spineless things...."

"Let them fear you; let them hate you," she told him. "But—never let them forget you are master, Noll. Don't go to Mauger...."

He had no real desire to go; he wished only to bask in her new-found sympathy. And he yielded readily enough, at last....

The matter passed abruptly. She rose; he went up on deck; the Sally Sims went on her way. And for a day or two, Noll Wing, an old man, was like a boy who has repented and been forgiven; he was offensively virtuous, offensively good-natured.

Mauger returned to his duties the second day. He wore a bandage across his face; and when it was discarded a week later, the hollow socket where his eye had been was revealed. His suffering had worked a terrible change in the man; he had been morose and desperate, he was now too much given to chuckling, as though at some secret jest of his own. He went slyly about his tasks; he seemed to have a pride in his misfortune; when he saw men shrink with distaste at sight of his scarred countenance, he chuckled under his breath....

Dan'l Tobey had cut away the crushed eye-ball; the lids covered the empty socket. In the upper lid, some maimed nerve persisted in living. It twitched, now and then, in such a fashion that Mauger seemed to be winking with that deep hollow in his face....

The man had a fascination, from the beginning, for Noll Wing. The captain took an unholy joy in looking upon his handiwork; he shivered at it, as a boy shivers at a tale of ghosts.... And he felt the gleaming glance of Mauger's remaining eye like a threat. It followed him whenever they were both on deck together; if he looked toward Mauger, he was sure to catch the other watching him.

Dan'l Tobey was cheerfully philosophical about the matter. "He can see as well as ever, with what he has left," he told Noll one day. "And he ought to count himself lucky. Your boot might have mashed his head in.... And serve him right...."

"Aye," said Noll, willing to be reassured. "He's lucky to live. The dog must know that...."

And he looked forward to where Mauger lounged amidships, beside the try works, and saw the man's black eye watching him; and Mauger caught the captain's glance, and chuckled unpleasantly, his face twisting. Noll felt a quiver of horror, far within himself....

He began, even in the fortnight after the affair, to remember Mauger's curses and threats as the man was borne away by Yella' Boy, that day. Mauger had threatened to kill him, to cut his heart away.... The meaningless cries of a delirious man, he told himself.... No doubt Mauger had forgotten them before this.

He tried, one day, the experiment of giving the one-eyed man an order. Smoking his pipe, he spilled ashes on the spotless deck; and he bellowed forward to Mauger to come aft, and when the man came, he pointed to the smudge of ashes, and:

"Clean that up," he said harshly. "Look sharp, now."

Mauger chuckled. "Aye, sir," he said respectfully, and on hands and knees at the captain's feet performed his task, looking up slyly into Noll Wing's face as he did so. The lid that closed the empty eye-socket twitched and seemed to wink....

That night, as they were preparing to sleep, Noll spoke of Mauger to Faith. "He does his work better than ever," he said.

She nodded. "Yes." And something in Noll's tone made her attentive.

"Seems cheerful, too," said Noll. He hesitated. "I reckon he's forgot his threat to stick a knife in me.... Don't you think he has?"

Faith's eyes, watching her husband, clouded; for she read his tone. Noll Wing, strong man and brave, could not hide his secret from her....

She understood that he was deathly afraid of the one-eyed man.

VI

The Sally Sims was in the South Atlantic on the day when Noll Wing kicked out Mauger's eye. The life of the whaler went on, day by day, as a background for the drama that was brewing. The men stood watch at the mastheads, the Sally plunged and waddled awkwardly southward; and now and then a misty spout against the wide blue of the sea halted them, and boats were lowered, and the whales were struck, and killed, and towed alongside. Held fast there by the chain that was snubbed around the fluke-chain bitt, they were hacked by the keen spades and cutting knives, the great heads were cut off, and dragged aboard, and stripped of every fleck of oily blubber; and the great bodies, while the spiral blanket strips were torn away, rolled lumberingly over and over against the bark's stout planks. Thereafter the tryworks roared, and the blubber boiled, and the black and stinking smoke of burning oil hung over the seas like a pall....

This smell of burning oil, the mark of the whaler, distressed Faith at first. It sickened her; and the soot from the fires where the scrapple of boiled blubber fed the flames settled over the ship, and penetrated even to her own immaculate cabin. She disliked the smell; but the gigantic toil of the cutting in and the roar of the tryworks had always a fascination for her that compensated for the smell and the soot. She rejoiced in strength, in the strong work of lusty men. To see a great carcass almost as long as the Sally lying helplessly against the rail never failed to thrill her. For the men of the crew, it was all in the day's work; stinking, sweating, perilous toil. For Faith it was a tremendous spectacle. It intoxicated her; and in the same fashion it affected Noll Wing, and Dan'l Tobey, and tigerish old Tichel. When there were fish about, these men were subtly changed; their eyes shone, their chests swelled, their muscles hardened; they stamped upon the deck with stout legs, like a cavalry horse that scents the battle. They gave themselves to the toil of killing whales and harvesting the blubber as men give themselves to a debauch; and afterward, when the work was done, they were apt to surrender to a lassitude such as follows a debauch. There was keen, sensual joy in the running oil, the unctuous oil that flowed everywhere upon the decks; they dabbed their hands in it; it soaked their garments and their very skins drank it in.

Young Roy Kilcup took fire, from the beginning, at these gigantic spectacles. He wished to go out in the boats that struck the whales; but he lacked the sinews of a man, he lacked the perfect muscular control of manhood. He was still a boy, nimble as a monkey, but given to awkward gestures and leaps and motions. He could not be trusted to sit tight in a boat and handle his oar when a whale was leaping under the iron; and so he was condemned to stay on the ship.

But they could not deny him a part in the cutting in; and when that work was afoot, he was everywhere, his eyes gleaming.... He slashed at the blubber with a boarding knife; he minced it for the boiling; he descended into the blubber room and helped stow the stuff there. Faith, watching, loved his enthusiasm and his zeal....

After the matter of Mauger, things went smoothly for a space. The whales came neither too fast nor too slow; they killed one or two, at intervals of days; they cut them in; they tried them out, while the fires flared through night and day and cast red shadows on the dark faces of the men, and turned their broad, bared chests to gold. And when the blubber was boiled, they cleaned ship, and idled on their way, and raised, in due time, other whales....

Cap'n Wing chose to go west, instead of eastward past the tip of Africa and up into the Indian Ocean. So they worked their painful way around the Horn, fighting for inches day by day; and when the bleak fog did not blanket them, Faith could see gaunt mountains of rock above the northern rim of the sea. And once they passed a clipper, eastward bound. It swept up on them, a tower of tugging canvas; it came abreast, slipped past, and dwindled into a white dot upon the sea behind before night came down and hid it from their eyes. In the morning, though they had idled with no canvas pulling, through the night, the clipper was gone, and they were alone again among the mountains that came down to the sea....

So they slid out at last into the South Pacific, and struck a little north of west for the wide whaling grounds of the island-dotted South Seas. And struck their whales....

The routine of their tasks.... But during this time, a change was working in Noll Wing, which Faith, and Dan'l Tobey, and all who looked might see.

The matter of Mauger had been, in some measure, a milestone in Noll Wing's life. He had struck men before; he had maimed them. He had killed at least one man, in fair fight, when it was his life or the other's. But because in those days his pulse was strong and his heart was young, the matter had never preyed upon him. He had been able to go proudly on his way, strong in his strength, sure of himself, serene and unafraid. He was, in those days, a man.

But this was different; this was the parting of the ways. Noll had spent his great strength too swiftly. His muscles were as stout as ever; but his heart was not. Drink was gnawing at him; old age was gnawing at him; he was like an old wolf that by the might of tooth and fang has led the pack for long.... He had seen strong men fail; he knew what failure meant; and he could guess the slackening of his own great powers and prevision the end of this slackening. The wolf dreads the day when a young, strong wolf will drag him down; Noll dreaded the day when his voice and his eye and his fist should fail to master the men. He had been absolute so long, he could endure no less. He must rule, or he was done....

At times, when he felt this failing of his own strong heart, he blamed Faith for it, and fretted at her because she dragged him down. At other times, he was ashamed, he was afraid of the eyes of the men; he fled to her for comfort and for strength. He was a prey, too, to regretful memories. The matter of Mauger, for instance.... He was, for all he fought the feeling, tortured by remorse for what he had done to Mauger.

And he was dreadfully afraid of the one-eyed man.

At first, he half enjoyed this fear; it was a new sensation, and he rolled in it like a horse in clover. But as the weeks passed, it nagged at him so constantly that he became obsessed with it. Wherever he turned, he saw the one-eyed man regarding him; and this steady scrutiny of Mauger's one black eye was like a continual pin-prick. It twanged his nerves.... He tried, for a time, to find relief in blustering; he roared about the ship, bellowing his commands.... It comforted him to see men jump to obey. But from the beginning, this was not utter comfort. He was pursued by the chuckling, mirthless mirth of the one-eyed man. He thought Mauger was like a scavenger bird that waits for a sick beast to die. Mauger harassed him....

This change in Noll Wing reacted upon Faith. Because her life was so close to his, she was forced to witness the manifestations which he hid from the men; because her eyes were the eyes of a woman who loves, she saw things which the men did not see. She saw the slow loosening of the muscles of Noll's jaw; saw how his cheeks came to sag like jowls. She saw the old, proud strength in his eyes weaken and fail; she saw his eyes grow red and furtive.... Saw, too, how his whole body became overcast with a thickening, flabby garment of fat, like a net that bound his slothful limbs....

Noll's slow disintegration of soul had its effect upon Faith. She had been, when she came to the Sally Sims with him, little more than a girl; she had been gay and laughing, but she had also been calm and strong. As the weeks passed, Faith was less gay; her laugh rang more seldom. But by the same token, the strength that dwelt in her seemed to increase. While Noll weakened, she grew strong....

There were days when she was very lonely; she felt that the Noll she had married was gone from her.... She was, for all her strength, a woman; and a woman is always happiest when she can lean on other strength and find comfort there.... But Noll.... Noll, by this, was not so strong of soul as she....

She was lonely with another loneliness; with the loneliness of a mother.... But Noll had told her, brutally, in the beginning, that there was no place for a babe upon the Sally Sims. He overbore her, because in such a matter she could not command him. The longing was too deep in her for words. She could not lay it bare for even Noll to see....

Thus, in short, Faith was unhappy. Unhappy; yet she loved Noll, and her heart clung to him, and yearned to strengthen and support the man, yearned to bring back the valor she had loved in him.... There could never be, so long as he should live, any man but Noll for her.

Dan'l Tobey—poor Dan'l, if you will—could not understand this. Dan'l, for all his round and simple countenance, and the engaging frankness of his freckles and his hair, had an eye that could see into the heart of a man. He had understanding; he could read men's moods; he could play upon them, guide them without their guessing at his guidance. He managed skillfully. He held the respect, even the affection of the bulk of the crew; he had the liking of all the officers save Willis Cox, who disliked him for a reason he could not put in words. He bent his efforts to hold Roy Kilcup; and Roy worshiped him. He took care to please Noll Wing, and Noll leaned upon Dan'l, and trusted him. Dan'l was the only man on the ship who always applauded whatever Noll might do; and Noll, hungry as an old man for praise, fed fat on Dan'l's applause....

Dan'l was wise; he was also crafty. He contrived, again and again, that Noll should act unworthily in Faith's eyes. To this extent he understood Faith; he understood her ideals, knew that she judged men by them, knew that when Noll fell short of these ideals, Faith must in her heart condemn him.... And he took care that Noll should fall short....

For one thing—a little matter, but at the same time a matter of vast importance—he used the fact that big Noll did not eat prettily. Noll, accustomed to the sea, having all his life been a hungry man among men, was not careful of the niceties of the table. He ate quickly; he ate loudly; he ate clumsily. Dan'l, somewhat gentler bred, understood this; and at the meals in the cabin when Noll was particularly offensive, Dan'l used to catch Faith into spirited conversation, as though to distract her attention.... He did this in such a way that it seemed to be mere loyalty to Noll; yet it served to create an atmosphere of understanding between Dan'l and Faith, and it showed him in her eyes as a loyal servant, without hiding the fact that big Noll was a gross man.

When they were all on deck together, and Dan'l saw that burning sun or splattering rain was unpleasant to Faith, he used to remedy the matter by finding shelter for her; and in doing this he emphasized—by the doing itself—the fact that Noll had failed to think of her. How much of these things was, in the beginning, designed to win Faith from Noll it is impossible to say. Dan'l delighted in the very doing; for he loved Faith, had loved her for years, still loved her so intensely that there were hours when he could have strangled Noll with his bare hands because Noll possessed her.

Dan'l loved Faith with a passion that gripped him, soul and body; yet it was not an unholy thing. When he saw her unhappy, he wished to guard her; when he saw that she was lonely, he wished to comfort her; when he came upon her, once, at the stern, and saw that she had tears in her eyes, it called for all his strength to refrain from taking her in his arms and soothing her. He loved her, but there was nothing in his love that could have soiled her. Dan'l was, in some fashion, a figure of tragedy....

His heart burst from him, one day when they were two weeks in the South Pacific. It was a hard, bitter day; one of those days when the sea is unfriendly, when she torments a ship with thrusting billows, when she racks planks and strains rigging, when she is perverse without being dangerous. There was none of the joy of battle in enduring such a sea; there was only irksome toil. It told on Noll Wing. His temper worked under the strain. He was on deck through the afternoon; and the climax came when Willis Cox's boat parted the lines that held its bow and fell and dangled by the stern lines, slatting against the rail of the Sally, and spilling the gear into the sea. With every lurch of the sea, the boat was splintering; and before the men, driven by Dan'l and Willis, could get the boat inboard again, it was as badly smashed as if a whale's flukes had caught it square. Noll had raged while the men toiled; when the boat was stowed, he strode toward Willis Cox and spun the man around by a shoulder grip.

"Your fault, you damned, careless skunk," he accused. "You're no more fit for your job.... You're a...."

Willis Cox was little more than a boy; he had a boy's sense of justice. He was heart-broken by the accident, and he said soberly: "I'm sorry, sir. It was my fault. You're right, sir."

"Right?" Noll roared. "Of course I'm right. Do I need a shirking fourth mate to tell me when I'm right or wrong? By...." His wrath overflowed in a blow; and for all the fact that Noll was aging, his fist was stout. The blow dropped Willis like the stroke of an ax. Noll himself filled a bucket and sluiced the man, and drove him below with curses.

Afterward, the reaction sent Noll to Faith in a rage at himself, at the men, at the world, at her. Dan'l, in the main cabin, heard Noll swearing at her.... And he set his teeth and went on deck because of the thing he might do. He was still there, half an hour later, when Faith came quietly up the companion. Night had fallen by then, the sea was moderating. Faith passed him, where he stood by the galley; and he saw her figure silhouetted against the gray gloom of the after rail. For a moment he watched her, gripping himself.... He saw her shoulders stir, as though she wept....

The man could not endure it. He was at her side in three strides.... She faced him; and he could see her eyes dark in the night as she looked at him. He stammered: