His wrath boiled through his lips chokingly. "You ..." he stammered.
"You and Brander...."
Her eyes, upon his, hardened. She said nothing; but this hardening of
her eyes was like a defiance. He flung his hands above his head. "By
God, you're shameless," he choked. "You're shameless.... A shameless
woman.... And him.... I took him out of a hell hole.... And he takes
you.... I'll break him in two with my hands."
She said nothing; he flung into an insanity of words. He cursed her
unspeakably, with every evil phrase he had learned in close to thirty
years of the sea. He accused her of unnamable things.... His face
swelled with his fury, the veins bulged upon his forehead, his eyes were
covered with a dry film. His mouth filled with saliva, that splattered
with the venom of his words.... It ran down his chin, so that he brushed
it away with the back of his hand.... He was uncontrolled, save in one
thing. Something made him hush his voice; he whispered harshly and
chokingly.... What he said could scarce have been heard in the main
cabin, six feet away from them....
The man was slavering; there were flecks of foam upon his lips.... And
Faith watched him in a curious detachment, as though he were something
outside the world, below it, beyond it.... She scarce heard his words at
all; she was looking at the man's naked soul.... It was so inexpressibly
revolting that she had no feeling that this soul had once been wedded to
hers; she could not have believed this if she had tried. This was no
man, but a beast.... There could be nothing between them. She had
married Noll Wing; not the body of him, nor the face of him, but the
soul within the man. And this was not Noll Wing's soul she saw.... That
was dead; this horrible thing had bred festeringly in the carrion....
Humanity has an immense capacity for rising to an emergency. The human
heart sustains a grief that should kill; it throws this grief aside and
is--save for a hidden scar--as gay as it was in the beginning. Man meets
peril or death, meets them unafraid.... If he had considered these
emergencies in the calm and security of his home, his hair would have
crawled with terror at the thought of them. The imagination can conjure
dreadful things; the heart and soul and body of man can endure
catastrophes beyond imagining. There is no load too heavy for this
immortally designed fabric of flesh and blood and bone to bear. There
is a psychological phenomenon that might be called the duplication of
personality. A soldier in battle becomes two men. One of these men is
convulsed with lust for blood; he screams, he shoots, he stabs, he
kills. The other is calm and serene; he watches the doings of his other
self, considers them with calm mind, plans perilous combinations in the
twinkling of an eye.... The soldier contains within himself a general
who plans, and an army which executes the plan....
It was so with Faith. She shrank in spirit and heart before Noll's
horrible outpouring; yet was she at the same time steady and
undisturbed. There was a numbness upon her; a numbness that killed
suffering and at the same time stimulated thought.... She was able to
perceive the very depths of Noll; she looked, at the same time, into her
own depths.... She heard him accuse her of foul passion for Brander; she
knew, instead, that she loved Brander completely.... She had never known
her love for Brander before; Noll showed it to her, dragged it out where
she could see it beyond mistaking.... And even in that moment she
welcomed this love; welcomed it, and saw that it was honest, and
wholesome, and splendid, and clean.... She welcomed it, so that she
smiled....
Her smile struck Noll like a blow in the face, stunning and sobering
him. He flung out his hands.
"Come!" he commanded. "What do you say? Say something? Say...."
"What?" she asked. "What shall I say?"
"Is it true? Damn you.... Damn you.... Is it true?"
"Could I say anything you would believe?"
"No, by God! You're dirty and false as hell. You...." He struck his
hands together helplessly. "Nothing," he cried. "Nothing! Nothing you
can say.... Dirty as hell...."
Yet his eyes still besought her to speak; she touched the bench beside
her. "Sit down, Noll," she said gently.
The man towered above her, hands upraised. His fingers twisted and
writhed and clenched as though upon a soft throat that he gripped. His
features worked terribly.... And then, before her eyes, a change came
upon him. The tense muscles of his fury sagged; the blood ebbed from his
veins, so that they flattened; the black flush faded on his cheeks....
He opened his mouth and screamed once, a vast and stricken scream of a
beast in pain. It was like the scream of a frightened, anguished
horse.... It rang along the length of the _Sally_, so that the men
forward shrank and looked over their shoulders, and every man aboard the
ship was still....
He screamed, and then his great body shrank and collapsed and tottered
and fell.... He dropped upon his knees, at her feet. He flung his head
in her lap, his arms about her waist, clinging as a drowning man might
cling to a rock. His cap dropped off; she saw his bald old head
there.... He sobbed like a child, his great shoulders twitching and
heaving.... His face was pressed upon her clasped hands; she felt his
tears upon her wrists, felt the slaverings of his sobbing mouth upon her
fingers....
He cried softly: "Eh, Faith.... Faith.... Don't you turn against me,
now. I'm old, Faith...." And again: "I'm old, Faith.... Dying, Faith....
Don't leave me.... Don't turn against me now."
She bent above him, filled with an infinite pity and sorrow. This was
the wreck of her love; she no longer loved him, but her heart was filled
with sorrow.... She bent forward and laid her smooth cheek against the
smooth parchment of his bald old head. She loosed her hands, and drew
them out from beneath his face, and laid them on his shoulders, stroking
him gently.
"There, Noll.... There ..." she murmured. Foolish words, meaningless,
like the comforting sounds of an inarticulate animal.... Yet he
understood. There were no words for what was in her heart; she could
only whisper: "There.... There.... There...." And gently touch his
shoulders, and his head.
"They're all against me, Faith," he told her, over and over. "All
against me. Even you...."
"No, no, Noll. There...."
"You love him.... You love him."
"No, Noll. No...." She lied, not to deceive her husband, but to comfort
him. Her eyes, above Noll's head, seemed to ask her love's pardon for
the lie. "No, Noll.... You're my husband."
His arms tightened about her waist; his great chest pressed against her
knees. "You're mine," he begged. "You're mine. Don't go away from me."
"No. Never.... Never, forever."
He raised his face from her lap at last; and she saw that it was sunken
like the countenance of one long dead. Cadaverous.... He cried, in utter
self-abasement. "Eh, Faith. I don't deserve you. I'm an old, helpless
man...."