He bent toward her suddenly, his dark eyes so close to hers that she
could see the flickering flame which played in them, and the twist of his
smile. "I wonder!" he whispered. "Oh--I wonder if you are...."
She was frightened, deliciously....
Mark had persisted, all day long, in his refusal to tell her of himself.
He had dropped a sentence now and then that brought to life in her
imagination a strange, wild picture.... But always he set a bar upon his
lips, caught back the words, refused to explain what it was he had meant
to say. When she persisted, he laughed at her and told her he only did it
to be mysterious. "Mystery is always interesting, you understand," he
explained. "And--I wish to be very interesting to you, Priss."
She looked around the after deck for Joel; but he was below in the cabin,
and she decided, abruptly, that she must go down....
They had bought chickens at Tubuai, and they had two of them, boiled, for
supper that night in the cabin. It was a feast, after the long months of
sober diet; and the presence of Mark made it something more. He was a
good talker, and without revealing anything of the months of his
disappearance, he nevertheless told them stories that held each one
breathless with interest. But after supper, he went on deck with Finch,
and Joel and Priss sat in the cabin astern for a while; and Joel wrote
up, in the ship's log, the story of his brother's return. Priss read it
over his shoulder, and afterwards she clung close to Joel. "He's a
terribly--overwhelming man, isn't he?" she whispered.
Joel looked down at her, and smiled thoughtfully. "Aye, Mark's a big
man," he agreed. "Big--in many ways. But--you'll be used to him
presently, Priss."
When she prepared to go to bed, he bade her good night and left her, and
went on deck; and Priss, in her narrow bunk in the cabin at the side of
the ship, lay wide-eyed with many thoughts stirring in her small head.
She was still awake when she heard them come down into the main cabin
together, Joel and Mark. The walls were thin; she could hear their words,
and she heard Mark ask: "Sure Priss is asleep? There are parts--not for
the pretty ears of a bride, Joel."
Priss was not asleep, but when Joel came to see, she closed her eyes, and
lay as still as still, scarce breathing. Joel bent over her softly; and
he touched her head, clumsily, with his hand, and patted it, and went
away again, closing her door behind him. She heard him tell Mark: "Aye,
she's fast asleep."
The brothers sat by Joel's desk, in the cabin across the stern; and Mark,
without preamble, told his story there. Priss, ten feet away, heard every
word; and she lay huddled beneath the blankets, eyes staring upward into
the darkness of her cabin; and as she listened, she shuddered and
trembled and shrank at the terror and wonder and ugliness of the tale he
told. No Desdemona ever listened with such half-caught breath....