"There is a tide in the affairs of men...." Their lives ebb and flow
like the tides; there are days, or months, or years when matters move
slackly, seem scarce to move at all. But always, in the end, the pulses
of the days beat up and up.... A moment comes when all life is
compressed in a single act, a single incident.... Thereafter the tide
falls away again, but the life of man is a different thing thereafter.
Such a tide was beating to the flood aboard the _Sally Sims_. Faith felt
it; Dan'l felt it; even Noll Wing, through the fury of his increasing
impotence, felt that matters could not long go on in this wise. Noll
felt it less than the others, because the waxing tension of his nerves
was relieved by his occasional outbursts of tempestuous rage. But Faith
could find no vent for her unhappiness; she loved Noll, and she wept for
him.... Wept for the Noll she had married, who now was dying before her
eyes.... And Dan'l suffered, perhaps, more than Faith. He suffered
because he must not seem to suffer....
The thing could not go on, Dan'l thought; he told himself, in the night
watches when he was alone on deck, that he could not long endure the
torment of his longing. Thus far he had loved Faith utterly; his
half-unconscious efforts to discredit Noll were the result of no malice
toward Noll Wing, but only of love for Faith. But the denial of his
longing for the right to care for her was poisoning him; the man's soul
was brewing venom. The honorable fibers of his being were
disintegrating; his heart was rotting in the man.
He was at the point where a little thing might have saved him; he was,
by the same token, at the point where a little thing could set him
forever upon the shameful paths of wrong.
Noll passed, at this time, into a period of sloth. He gave up, bit by
bit, the vigorous habits of his life. He had been accustomed of old to
take the deck at morning, and keep it till dusk; and when need arose in
the night, he had always been quick to leap from his bunk and spring to
the spot where his strength was demanded. He had, in the past, loved to
take his own boat after the whales that were sighted; he had continued
to do this in the early stages of this cruise, leaving Eph Hitch, the
cooper; and Tinch, the cook; and Kellick, and a spare hand or so to keep
ship with Faith and Roy Kilcup. But when they came into the South Seas,
he gave this up; and for a month on end, he did not leave the ship. The
mates struck the whales, and killed them, and cut them in, while Noll
slept heavily in his cabin.
He gave up, also, the practice of spending most of the day on deck. He
stayed below, reading a little, writing up the log, or sitting with
glazed eyes by the cabin table, a bottle in reach of his hand. He slept
much, heavily; and even when he was awake, he seemed sodden with the
sleep in which he soaked himself.
He passed, during this time, through varying moods. There were days
when he sulked and spoke little; there were days when he swore and
raged; and there were other days when he followed at Faith's heels with
a pathetic cheerfulness, like an old dog that tries to drive its stiff
legs to the bounding leaps of puppy play. He was alternately dependent
upon her and fretful at her presence....
And always, day by day, he was haunted by the sight of the one-eyed man.
He burst out, to Faith, one night; he cried:
"The man plans to knife me. I can see murder in his eye."
Faith, who pitied Mauger and had tried to comfort him, shook her head.
"He's broken," she said. "He's but the shell of a man."
"He follows me," Noll insisted. "I turned, on deck, an hour ago; and he
was just behind me, in the shadow...."
Faith, seeking to rouse the old spirit in Noll, said gently: "There was
a man who tried to stab you once. And you killed him with your hands.
Surely you need not be fearful of Mauger."
Noll brooded for a moment. "Eh, Faith," he said dolefully. "I was a hard
man, then. I've always been a hard man.... Wrong, Faith. I was always
wrong...."
"You were a master," she told him.
"By the fist. A master by the fist.... A hard man...."
He fell to mourning over his own harsh life; he gave himself to futile,
ineffectual regrets.... He told over to Faith the tale of the blows he
had struck, the oaths, the kicks.... This habit of confession was
becoming a mania with him. And when Faith tried smilingly to woo him
from this mood, he called her hard.... He told her, one day, she was
un-Christian; and he got out a Bible, and began to read.... Thereafter
the mates found him in the cabin, day by day, with the Bible spread upon
his knees, and the whiskey within reach of his hand....
The disintegration of the master had its inevitable effect upon the
crew; they saw, they grinned with their tongues in their cheeks; they
winked slyly behind Noll's back. One day Noll called a man and bade him
scrub away a stain of oil upon the deck. The man went slackly at the
task. The captain said: "Come, sharp there...." And the man grinned and
spat over the side and asked impudently:
"What's hurry?"
Noll started to explain; but Henry Ham had heard, and the mate's fist
caught the man in the deep ribs, and the man made haste, thereafter. Ham
explained respectfully to the captain:
"You can't talk to 'em, sir. Fist does it. Fist and boot. You know that,
well's me."
Noll shook his head dolefully. "I've been a hard man in the past, Mr.
Ham," he admitted. "But I'll not strike a man again...."
And the mate, who could not understand, chuckled uneasily as though it
were all a jest. "I will, for you, sir," he said.
If Dan'l Tobey had been mate, and so minded, he could have kept the crew
alert and keen; but Dan'l had his own troubles, and he did not greatly
care what came to Noll and Noll's ship. So, Noll's hand slackening, the
men were left to Mr. Ham; and the mate, while fit for his job, was not
fit for Noll's. Matters went from bad to worse....
This growing slackness culminated in tragedy. Where matters of life and
death are a part of every day, safety lies in discipline; and discipline
was lax on the _Sally Sims_. On a day when the skies were ugly and the
wind was freshening, they sighted a lone bull whale, and the mate and
Willis Cox lowered for him while the ship worked upwind toward where the
creature lay. The boats, rowing, distanced the bark; the mate struck the
whale, and the creature fluked the boat so that its planks opened and it
sank till it was barely awash, and dipped the men in water to their
necks. Silva, the mate's harpooner, cut the line and let the whale run
free; and a moment later, Willis Cox's boat got fast when Loum
pitchpoled his great harpoon over thirty feet of water as the whale went
down....
The big bull began to run headlong, and the men in Willis's boat
balanced on the sides for a "Nantucket Sleigh-ride." The whale ran
straightaway, so tirelessly they could not haul up on the line.... The
weather thickened behind them and hid the _Sally_ as she stopped to pick
up the mate and his wrecked boat. Then a squall struck, and night came
swiftly down....
When Willis saw it was hopeless to think of killing the whale, he cut.
It was then full dark, and blowing. Some rain fell, but the flying spume
that the wind clipped from the wave tops kept the boat a quarter full
of sea water, no matter how desperately they bailed. Toward midnight,
the thirsty men wished to drink.
A whaleboat is always provisioned against the emergency of being cast
adrift. Biscuits and water are stored in the lantern keg, with matches
and whatever else may be needful. The water is replenished now and then,
that it may be fresh....
When Willis opened the lantern keg, he found the water half gone, and so
brackish it was unfit to drink. A condition directly to be attributed to
the weakening of discipline aboard the _Sally_.... A serious matter, as
they knew all too well when the next day dawned bright and hot, with the
bark nowhere to be seen. Their thirst increased tormentingly; and on the
third day, when the searching _Sally_ found them, two men were dead in
the boat, and the other four were in little better case....
Willis had worked his boat toward an island northeast of the position
where he lost the _Sally_; Dan'l Tobey had guessed what Willis would do,
and had persuaded Noll to cruise that way. When they picked up the half
dead men, Noll decided to touch at the island for food and fresh water;
and they raised it in mid-morning of the second day.
They had seen other lands since the cruise began. But these other lands
had been rocky and inhospitable.... The harsh tops, for the most part,
of mountains that rose from the sea's depths to break the surface of the
sea. Men dwelt on them, clinging like goats in the crannies of the
rocks.... But they were not inviting. This island was different. When
Faith, coming on deck at the cry, saw it blue-green against the horizon,
she caught her breath at the beauty of it; and while the _Sally_ worked
closer, she watched with wide eyes and leaping pulses. She felt,
vaguely, that it was the portal of a new world; it was lovely, inviting,
pleasant.... She was suddenly sick of the harsh salt of the sea, sick of
the stinking ship.... She wanted soft earth beneath her feet, trees
above her head, flowers within reach of her hand....
This island was fair and smiling; it seemed to promise her all the
things she most desired.... She sought Noll Wing.
"Are you going ashore, Noll?" she asked.
He was in one of his slothful moods, half asleep in the after cabin; and
he shook his great head. "No.... Mates will get what we need. We'll be
away by night."