"I won't let you fall," he promised.
"Some day, maybe.... Run along, Roy."
The boy went away resentfully; a little more resentfully because Brander
had heard her refusal. He looked back from the fore rigging, and saw
Faith standing near Brander.... And for a moment he was minded to go
back and join them; but the dwindling line of the ropes above him lured
him on. He climbed, lost himself among the great bosoms of the sails,
stopped to ride a yard like a horse and exult when it pitched and
rolled.... Climbed, at last, to the masthead perch where the lookouts
stood in their hoops with their eyes sweeping the wide circle of the
seas....
And Faith and Brander were together. Save for the man at the wheel, whom
neither of them heeded, they were alone. Brander was at the after rail
when she appeared; he nodded to her, and smiled. She stood near him,
hands on the rail, looking out across the sea astern. The wind tugged at
her, played with the soft hair about her brow, whipped her cheeks to
fire....
She did not look at Brander, but Brander looked at her. The man liked
what he saw; he liked not so much the beauty of her, as the strength and
poise that lay in her face. Her broad, low brow.... Her straight, fine
nose.... Her sweetly molded lips, and rounding chin.... Strength there,
and calm, and power.... Beauty, too; more than one woman's measure of
beauty, perhaps. But above all, strength. That was what Brander saw.
It was no new thing for the man to study Faith's countenance. It was
firm-fastened in his thoughts; he could conjure it up at will, and it
appeared before him, many times, without his volition. Faith's eyes were
blue, and they were large, and Brander could never forget them. The eye
of a man or of a woman is a thing almost alive; it seems to have a soul
of its own. Stand at one side, unobserved, and watch the eyes of your
friend; you will feel that you are watching some living personality
apart from the friend you know. It is like watching a wild thing which
is hiding in the forest. The eye is so alert, so infinitely alert, so
quick to swing to right or left at any sound....
Women's eyes differ as much as women themselves. Faith's eyes were like
Faith herself; there was no fear or uncertainty in them; and there was
no coquettishness, no seduction. They were level and calm and perfectly
assured; and Brander thought that to look into them was like taking a
strong man's hand. He thought Faith as fine a thing as woman can be....
Brander made sure that Faith did not see him studying her thus;
nevertheless, Faith must have felt his scrutiny. She was conscious of an
unaccountable diffidence; and when she spoke to him at last, without
looking toward him, her voice was so low he scarcely heard at all. She
said some idle thing about the beauty of the sea....
Brander smiled. The sky was so clear, and the heavens were so blue that
sky and heaven seemed to be cousins or sisters, hands clasping at the
far horizon. He said amiably: "Always think--looking off into the blue
on a day like this is like looking deep into blue eyes.... There seems
to be a soul off there, something hidden, out of sight.... But you can
feel it looking back at you."
Faith was so surprised that she looked up at him quickly, sidewise; and
she smiled, her cheeks a little flushed. "I never felt--just that," she
said. "But--did you ever look at a hill, so far away it is just a deep
blue shape against the sky? Blue's a beautiful color to look at, I
think."
He nodded. "From my hill," he said, "I used to be able to see an island
northwest of the one where I was.... Barely see it. Just a line laid
down along the sea.... A line of blue."
She said nothing in reply to this; and he said no more. They were thus
silent for a little before Faith asked: "Tell me.... You've never had a
chance.... How did you live, there? Wasn't it lonely? Or ... were there
others?..."
He laughed. "I wasn't lonely, in the least," he explained. "The old
devil-devil doctor of the village struck up an acquaintance with me....
He knew whites; and I was the only one there at the time. He used to
come and talk to me, and say charms over my garden.... I had a little
compass on my watch chain, and I gave it to him, and the old heathen was
my slave for life. So I arranged with him to have my path taboo--you
remember I told you.... And he was the only company I ever had."
"You had a--garden?"
"Yes. Good one. I put up a house, about six feet square--big enough for
me, and no more--and I trimmed down some trees around there; and there
was a little brook, and a shallow basin in the side of the hill where
rich soil had been collecting for a good many centuries, I suppose. I
think if I had planted pebbles there, it would have grown bowlders for
me. It did grow all I wanted."
She was thoughtful for a little, looked at him once. "Why did you ever
ship as a whaler?" she asked. "You don't look like the men that ship in
the fo'c's'le."
He laughed. "I know it. Maybe because I like the sea. My home was in
sight of it; a high old farm up in Maine, five miles inland. I used to
sit out on the hill there and watch the night come up from the east and
blanket the water; and when there was a surf I could hear it; and when I
could, I went down and got acquainted with the water, swimming, or
poking around in an old dory.... It was bound to get me in the end. My
father sent me to school.... He wanted me to be a doctor. But after two
years of it, I begged off.... And he let me go."
She nodded. "I know--a little--how you feel. I've always loved the smell
of the sea at home, and the sight of it.... But...." She grimaced
harshly. "I'm getting a bit tired of salt water, all the time.... I want
to get ashore."
"Sure," Brander chuckled. "And when you've been a month ashore, you'll
be hungry for the sea again. It's like a drug; you get used to it, and
you can't do without it."