Old Aaron chuckled asthmatically. He had lost a fore tooth, and the
effect of his mirth was not reassuring. "There's a brew i' the Islands,"
he said. "More like 'twas the island brew nor the island men."
Joel, for a moment, sat very still and considered. He knew Mark Shore had
never scrupled to take strong drink when he chose; but Mark had always
been a strong man to match his drink, and conquer it. Said Joel,
therefore, after a space of thought:
"Why do you think that, Aaron? Drink was never like to carry Mark away."
Aaron squinted up at him. "Have ye sampled that island brew? 'Tis made of
pineapples, or sago, or the like outlandish stuff, I've heard. And one
sip is deviltry, and two is madness, and three is corruption. Some
stomachs are used to it; they can handle it. But a raw man...."
There was significance in the pause, and the unfinished sentence. Joel
considered the matter. There had always been, between him and Mark,
something of that sleeping enmity that so often arises between brothers.
Mark was a man swift of tongue, flashing, and full of laughter and hot
blood; a colorful man, like a splash of pigment on white canvas. Joel was
in all things his opposite, quiet, and slow of thought and speech, and
steady of gait. Mark was accustomed to jeer at him, to taunt him; and
Joel, in the slow fashion of slow men, had resented this. Nevertheless,
he cast aside prejudice now in his estimate of the situation; and he
asked old Aaron:
"Do you know there were Islanders about? Or this wild brew you speak of?"
Aaron drove home a nail, and with his punch set it flush with the soft
wood. "There was some drunken crew, shouting and screeching a mile up the
beach," he said. "Some few of them came off to us with fruit. The sober
ones. 'Twas them Mark Shore went to pandander with."
"He went to them?" Joel echoed. Aaron nodded.
"Aye. That he did."
There was a long moment of silence before Joel asked huskily: "But was it
like that he should stay with them freely?" For it is a black and
shameful thing that a captain should desert his ship. When he had asked
the question, he waited in something like fear for the carpenter's
answer.
"It comes to me," said Aaron slowly at last, "that you did not well know
your brother. Ye'd only seen him ashore. And--I'm doubting that you knew
all the circumstances of his departure from this ship."
"I know that he went ashore," said Joel. "Went ashore, and left his men,
and departed; and I know that they searched for him three weeks without a
sign."
Aaron sat back on his heels, and rubbed the smooth head of his hammer
thoughtfully against his dry old cheek. "I'm not one to speak harm," he
said. "And I've said naught, in the town. But--you have some right to
know that Mark Shore was not a sober man when he left the ship. I' truth,
he had not been sober--cold sober--for a week. And he left with a bottle
in his coat." He nodded his gray old head, eyes not on Joel, but on the
hammer in his hand. "Also, there was a pearling schooner in the lagoon,
with drunk white men aboard."
He glanced sidewise at Joel then, and saw the Captain's cheek bones
slowly whiten. Whereupon old Aaron bent swiftly to his task, half fearful
of what he had said. But when Joel spoke, it was only to say quietly:
"Asa should have told me this."
Aaron shook his head vehemently, but without looking up from his task.
"Not so," he said. "There was no need the town should chew Mark's name.
Better--" He glanced at Joel. "Better if he were thought dead. Asa's a
good man, you mind. And--he knew your father."
Joel nodded at that. "Asa meant wisest, I've no doubt," he agreed.
"But--Mark would do nothing that he was shamed of."
"Mark Shore," said Aaron thoughtfully, "did many things without shame for
which other men would have blushit."