Thus far fair weather had followed them from the island; the schooner
laid the leagues of ocean behind her and plunged steadfastly along the
homeward course. There was peace aboard her; the men were cheerful, and
the cabin was quiet. Red Pawl said little, and what speech he held was
generally with the men at the wheel, with whom he talked at times in
furtive undertones; but if Black Pawl remarked this,--and the Captain’s
eyes did not miss much that passed aboard his craft,--he made no sign.
The missionary was interested in Black Pawl. He had heard, on the
island, certain dark stories of the man; yet he found the captain of the
<i>Deborah</i> a good companion, intelligent, reasonably jovial, and
courteous enough. He sought on two or three occasions to talk with him,
but in the beginning Black Pawl had put him off, half avoiding him, it
seemed, as if he were unwilling to be alone with a man of the church.
The missionary was used to reading men; he said in his thoughts: “There
is a trouble upon Black Pawl’s soul.” He wondered whether he might help
the man, and so sought his friendship and his confidence.
He saw, after a time, that Black Pawl constantly watched Ruth Lytton
without seeming to do so; it was obvious that he liked to talk to her.
He saw, also, that after such talks with the girl the Captain was more
often than not restless and at greater outs with the world.
It was on the quarter-deck, one night when the moon was full and high,
that the missionary found Black Pawl alone. He did not thrust himself
upon the other, but took the rail across the deck and ignored the man.
Joining him there after a bit, Black Pawl said with the note of mockery
in his voice:
“Good evening, Father!”
The missionary responded good-humoredly. He had been called harsher
names in his time. Black Pawl leaned against the rail beside him.
Beneath them, the water boiling about the <i>Deborah’s</i> rudder glowed and
sparkled and flamed in the bright moonlight, like silver fire. Deep
below the surface a great fish darted diagonally past their stern and
left a streak of flame to glow an instant, and die. The moon stitched
every wave with a hem of mercury; and the valleys between the waves were
blue as the heavens. The sea tossed in its sleep, about them. Black Pawl
flung out his hand in a swift gesture, and said quietly:
“Looks dead, doesn’t it! Yet there’s not a drop of it but has its bit of
life--from an eighty-foot cachalot to a spark of fire no bigger than a
pin’s point.”
The missionary nodded. “The firmament showeth His handiwork,” he quoted.
Black Pawl laughed. “Firmament? Maybe, Father. But that’s land, not sea.
I’m a man of the sea. Blame the works of the land on your God if you’re
a mind; but there’s no God on deep waters.”
The missionary glanced up with a quickened interest.
“You’re of that belief, my friend?” he asked softly, nothing combative
in his tone.
“Aye,” replied Black Pawl. “There’s never a God on the sea. That I know,
having tried out the matter. And I even have my doubts about the land.”
“What <i>is</i> your god?” asked the missionary.
“I have no God,” answered Black Pawl; and his face was as his name.
The other shook his head. “Even a dog has his master for a god,” he
declared. “The god of some men is drink; of others, the flesh; of
others, the work of their hands. But the god of wise men is--God.”
Looking steadily at Black Pawl, he asked again: “What <i>is</i> your god, my
friend?”
The Captain laughed at that, stirring uneasily. “Spoken like a parson!”
he retorted. “By their gods ye shall damn them: is that the idea?”
The missionary was silent for a little; then he smiled, and said: “I
knew a man, once. He was an islander; and his god taught him to cut off
the heads of his enemies, and cure them in smoke, and hang them up in
his house. He was, I think, the finest man I ever knew--according to his
lights. He had forty-two heads on the roof-tree of his hut; and I have
no doubt--his own head was cut off finally--that he is clipping heads
in paradise to-day.”
“And if the elders of your church heard you say that, Father,” Black
Pawl told him, “they would cast you into outer darkness. Man, you were
sent out here to tell the heathen they must love Christ or be damned.
Were you not, now?”
“It was my friend’s faith to cut off the heads of his enemies,” said the
missionary. “It is my faith to seek to show men the beauty of my faith.
That is all the difference.”
“Your God believes in advertising?”
“Yes,” said the other; and he smiled again.
Black Pawl laughed. “That’s worth hearing,” he declared. “It’s sense.
Most of your cloth tell us to be humble, to be meek and lowly, like
cattle. Why is goodness humble, Father? Why is virtue shy, and vice a
braggart?”
“Just what do you mean, Cap’n Pawl?” the missionary asked. “I am
interested.”
“A man boasts of drink, of women, of a blow that is struck; but he does
not boast of what you call a good deed. He advertises his crimes; he
hides his virtues. Why?”
“Such a man does wrong,” said the missionary. “He might better boast of
his good deeds. Christ said: ‘I am the son of God.’ No mightier boast
was ever uttered.”
“Was it true?” Black Pawl asked, sharply.
“All men are God’s sons--just as all men are God,” the missionary
explained.
The Captain nodded thoughtfully. “Then why not let it go at that?” he
asked. “Why all this talk of heaven? Be good, and you will twingle the
heavenly harps; be bad, and you will roast in hell. That’s the way to
convert a coward; but it’s only a challenge to a strong man.”
“Do you believe in the unpardonable sin?” the other countered.
Black Pawl’s eyes clouded. “Yes,” he confessed.
“Ah!” the missionary murmured half to himself. “I have been wondering
why you were unhappy.”
The Captain’s face hardened at that. “The unhappy man is a coward,” he
parried.
“Then <i>you</i> are a coward, my friend.”
“I am unhappy?”
“I think you are the most unhappy man I have ever known.”
Black Pawl moved abruptly; he took six steps away and six steps back,
then leaned against the rail again, unsmiling. And at last he lifted his
head and dropped his hand on the missionary’s shoulder. “Father,” he
said, “if your faith is worth anything, it must be practical. It must
solve the problems of this world. Am I right?”
“Yes, my friend.”
The captain of the <i>Deborah</i> nodded. “I am going to tell you a story of
myself,” he said. “Let your God write the answer to the riddle, if he
can.”
The missionary inclined his head. “Tell, if you wish to tell,” he said.
“Listen, then,” Black Pawl bade the missionary. “You and I are poured in
different molds, Father. But in one matter men are much alike. Did you
ever love a woman?”
“Yes.”
Black Pawl was gazing off across the purple night; it was almost as if
the other were not there.
“I loved a woman,” he went on. “I--loved her. There was always an
overflowing measure of life in me, perhaps. I poured it out on her. And
she loved me as fully. She was tall and fair, and quiet as deep waters,
Father. And she was very beautiful to look upon. Still--others thought
her cold; she was not cold to me. There was a flame before us, and when
we stepped into that flame hand in hand, we burned like welding metals.
Burned, yet were not consumed! And we were welded like the metals, flesh
and flesh, and soul and soul. We were no longer two people in those
days; we were one. When others were about, we were like others,
bantering, laughing, at ease--for each of us knew. But when we were
alone, we were a living fire. Sometimes, seeing man and wife since then,
I wonder if they are as we were. I wonder if behind the calm countenance
of their open daily life there is such a passionate devotion as that
which welded us two.
“I say it welded us, Father. For by your God, she loved as much as I.
She had a fashion of taking my cheeks in her hands, pinching them,
pulling my face to meet hers, and shaking me to and fro as she did
so.... Not even a woman could pretend like that. I say she loved me as
I loved her.
“In the beginning, I say, this was so. She came one cruise with me, and
the boy Red Pawl was born in a black storm not a hundred miles from
here. I was doctor and nurse to her then, Father. She was brave. Aye!
She lay in my arms throughout the torment, smiling up at me between the
agonies. She was wiser than I in such matters, and she had brought a
book that told what I must do, so that when the time came I was able to
tend her--and the boy. I was clumsy; and I fumbled; but--the thing was
done. It was a sacrament, Father. You see, I believed in your God in
those days. It was a holy sacrament. I thought she was like your Christ,
giving her flesh and her blood for this baby that was our world. She was
holy to me. You say your faith is spiritual; but I say the true faith is
physical. There is nothing so holy as the body, Father; for the holiest
thing in the world is birth. If it were not holy, it would be
unspeakably terrible. If there is a God, then the bringing of one body
from another body is God’s work, and man’s work, and there is nothing
so important in the world, and nothing so holy as this thing.
“The boy was born. We called him Dan. That is my name, you understand.
But there cannot be two Dan Pawls; so he is <i>Red</i>, and I am <i>Black</i>, and
there are few men whose memory runs to the contrary. He throve aboard
the ship; and he was walking when we came home again.
“After that she would come no more to sea. She stayed at home next
voyage, with the boy. And I tell you our love was as much a living thing
while we were ten thousand miles apart as when we were each in the
other’s arms. And when I came home again, she was waiting for me.
“I was six months at home that time. The boy was past four when I came
away; and his mother said he must come along and learn to know his
father. To know me! So he came, and slept in my cabin, and learned the
ship. He was stout for his age, even then; and before we turned for home
that time, he was grown almost beyond his mother’s knowledge. I told
him: ‘She will not know you.’ And he laughed with me at that, and we
planned to have him slip ashore and find her out, and fling himself upon
her to see the tears of surprise that would spring into her eyes.
“All the long way home we planned that matter between us, you
understand. And the boy’s eyes would light, and my heart leaped to see
him. And when the land lifted out of the sea ahead of us, we took our
stand, we two, and watched for hours before we could sight the wharves
where I told him she would be.
“I knew our coming would be signaled; she would know we were in the bay.
So my glass searched the wharf, and the boy at my side clamored: ‘Where
is she, Daddy? Where is she, Daddy? Let me see.’ And he took the glass
from me and leveled it and looked. I could not tell him she was not
there. So I pointed out a woman’s figure, against a pile of oilbrown
casks, and told him that was his mother. And he screamed his greeting to
her across a solid mile of water. And I was straining my eyes for her
coming along the wharf!”
For a moment Black Pawl paused. When he went on, there was no tremor in
his voice. “We made fast,” he said, “and still she had not come. And I
saw by the way the others looked at me that something was amiss. I
forgot the boy, in wondering; and I dared not question them, and the
black fear shut down and clamped my heart. I forgot the boy; and before
I knew, he was ashore, and had run to hug that woman I had shown him,
and call her mother. And she put him away, and cried. So I thought my
wife was dead.
“Even then I did not ask; and no one told me. I thought this was
sympathy; I know, now, that it was because they were afraid. It was my
brother who told me, in the end. He was not such a man as I am--smaller,
and never over-strong. And when he told me, I struck him down, and he
did not walk straight again during the two years more that he lived. Was
that sin, that I did, in striking him?”
The pulse of the sea stirred the schooner’s deck beneath them; their
white wake foamed with silver fire. The moon moved serenely across the
purple arch of the sky. The rigging overhead hummed beneath the
thrumming fingers of the wind. The missionary looked out across the
water, and then up into the eyes of Black Pawl, and beheld the deeps of
agony there.
“Did your brother condemn you for that blow?” he asked gently.
“No.”
“Then no man can do what he refused to do.”
Black Pawl laughed sneeringly. “All right! Hear what he told me. Eight
months after I was gone, our daughter was born to her. And six months
after that, she and the child were away to sea with another man. Fleeing
in the night secretly!”
He was still, on the word--still for so long that the missionary thought
the story was ended. But before he could find words, the Captain spoke
again.
“There is more,” he said. “Will you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“We got away quickly on another cruise, my son and I. And another after
that, and another. And after the third returning, they told me at home
that the man with whom she had fled had come back alone. He said she had
left him as she had left me. He was gone before I returned. But I knew
that some day I would come upon him.
“Red Pawl was full-grown by then--big for his years. He was cabin-boy,
one cruise; and fourth mate on the next; and mate the cruise after. It
was his first cruise as mate that we found the man.”
There was a cold intensity in Black Pawl’s tone, and he asked again as
if in challenge: “Will you hear?”
“Yes.”
“Ill luck had pursued that man,” Black Pawl went on evenly now. “They
said his ship was a death-ship. Men died easily upon it; and it was hard
for that vessel to find whales. Also it was hard for him to persuade men
to ship with him. His officers were unlucky; and to be unlucky in the
whale-fisheries is to die. He was driven to fight the whales himself.
And it was thus, in the end, that he came into my hands.
My son’s boat picked him up one day. He had lowered for a whale, and got
fast; and the fish ran with him till he was lost from his ship; and then
he was forced to cut. Thereafter thirst fell upon that boat. Because he
was strong, and because that was the breed of the man, he kept more than
his fair measure of the water in the lantern-keg. So when Red Pawl found
him drifting under the sun, only this man was left alive in the boat.
There was another, dead, with him--his boat-steerer. He had thrown the
others overside.
“The man was insane with thirst when Red found him. But he wouldn’t have
known the boy, in any case; and Red didn’t know him. He brought him back
to the schooner; and we took him into my cabin to nurse him back to
life, and I knew him--there.
“When he was sane, he knew me; but he said nothing, hoping I did not
know. And I said nothing until he was himself again, strong and well. In
due time, one day, he wished to leave the cabin and go on deck. So I
knew it was time for that which I meant to do.
“We tied this man, my son and I. We tied him in the bunk, and gagged
him, I had told Red who he was, and Red wanted to slit his throat; but I
would not do that. Red lacks imagination. I told him so.
“We tied him in his bunk, and gagged him. I told him then that I knew
him; and I told him what I meant to do. It was in my mind to let him lie
there without food or water till he died before my eyes. I believed
then, and I still believe, that to do this would have been to show too
much mercy.
“But when I told him what I meant to do, he made signs that he wished to
speak; and I took away the gag from his mouth. He was a man of a certain
rat-like courage, Father. He taunted me to my teeth; and he told me,
among other things, that when he was tired of the woman I had loved, he
had given her into the hands of an evil crew I knew of, and the child
with her, and he said they had died unspeakably.
“That he spoke truth was plain in the man’s eye. I knew why he told me.
It was to move me to give him the mercy of quick death; but I would not.
Then he called me coward, and said that I would not face him as a man.
So I laughed and told him he should have his wish to face me. He said he
was weak. That was true. And I was hungry to feel his strong flesh break
in my hands. I considered what we might do.
“What we did was this, Father: I turned the schooner toward an island of
which I knew--a place where no humans lived. There we stayed a length of
time, till the man was well; and there, when the time was ripe, we
fought.
“I killed him. He was stronger than I; and he battered me badly before I
could close with him. Then I broke his right arm between my hands, so
that he screamed; and after that I beat him with my fists, and when he
fell, Red Pawl lifted him, and held him, and I beat him to death with my
bare hands. The fight lasted from morning until halfway to noon. It was
a good fight until I broke his arm; after that--He died on his feet, Red
Pawl’s arms supporting him. And when he was dead, we left him there; and
when the schooner made out of that anchorage, sir, the birds were
already a heap of white upon him, where he lay.”
Black Pawl stopped, with that; and for a long time neither man spoke. At
last, uneasy at the silence, Black Pawl laughed to hide his unrest.
“So, Father,” he said at last, “what has your God to say to that?”
“Have you ever found trace of your wife, Black Pawl?” the missionary
asked.
“I found those men to whom he gave her. They denied the tale. But Red
Pawl and I killed three of them, and broke the other two.”
The missionary made no comment; and Black Pawl asked again: “What will
your God say to that, Father?”
Then the man of the church looked up at the other and said gently: “I am
sorry for you, Dan Pawl.”
The Captain sneered. “Don’t waste sorrow on me. I’ve no regrets.”
“It is not because of the past that I am sorry for you,” replied the
missionary. “It is because of that which must surely come.”