He brushed her away with clenched fist. She took shelter in a corner by
the deckhouse, ten feet from him..... And Noll Wing took the ship, and
under his hand the _Sally_ did miracles....
That fight with the storm was a thing men still talk about; they say it
was an inhuman and a marvelous thing. Noll stood aft, legs braced,
scorning a hand hold. His voice rang through the singing wind to the
remotest corner of the _Sally_, and the highest spar. Regardless of wind
and sea, he crowded on sail, and brought her around to the course he
wished to take, and drove her into it.... Time and time again, during
that afternoon and that long night, every sane man aboard thought her
very masts must be torn out of her. Three times a sail did go; but Noll
would never slacken. On the after deck, he raved like a madman, but his
commands were seamanly.... A miracle of seamanship, stark madness....
But madness that succeeded. The _Sally_ drove into the gale, she fought
as madly as Noll himself was fighting.... And Noll, aft, screamed
through the night and drove them on.
Faith never left her post, so near him. No man aboard had sleep that
night. No man dared sleep, lest death find him in his dreams. Willis Cox
and Tichel came to Noll more than once, beseeching.... But he drove them
away. Dan'l never interfered with the captain; it seemed there was a
madness on him, too. And Brander and Dan'l Tobey between them were
Noll's right hand and his left, driving the men to the tasks Noll set
them, holding them sternly in hand....
They could only guess how far they had come through the darkness. An
hour before daylight, Dan'l stopped to gasp to Faith: "We're near there,
I'm thinking. If we're not nearer the bottom...." Brander took more
practical steps; he found Mauger, and set the one-eyed man well forward,
and bade him watch and listen for first sign of land. Mauger nodded
chucklingly; he gripped a hold on the taut lines, and set his one eye
into the darkness, and tuned his ear to the storm....
The wind, by this time, was moderating; even Faith could feel a
slackening of the pressure of it that had torn at her garments the night
through. She was weak with fighting it; nevertheless she held her post.
And the steady thrust of the gale slowly modified and gave way.... The
first hints of light showed in the skies.... They caught glimpses of
scudding clouds, low overhead.... But the worst was passed; and every
man knew it. Noll, still standing like a colossus at his post, knew it;
and he shook his fist at the skies and the sea, and he cursed the wind
and dared it.... Faith could see him, dimly, in the coming light....
Head bare, eyes frantic, cheeks sunken.... An enormous, but a wasted
figure of a man....
The very waters about them were quieting somewhat.... Their nerves and
their muscles relaxed; they were straining their eyes to see into the
dimness of the coming day....
It was Mauger, in the bows, who caught first hint of danger. He saw that
they drove abruptly from long-rolling swells into quieter waters.... He
stared off to windward, looking to see what had broken the force of the
seas.... Saw nothing; but thought he heard a rumbling roar there....
Looked forward, where the less turbulent waters were piling ahead of
them....
Looked forward, and glimpsed a line of white that lived and never died;
and he turned and streamed a warning aft.... Ran, to carry the word
himself.... Screaming as he ran....
Brander, amidships, heard him and shouted to Noll Wing; but Noll did not
hear. The captain was intoxicated with the long battle; he was delirious
with the cry of tortured nerves and starved body.... He did not hear.
Mauger flashed past Brander as he ran.... The one-eyed man's screams
were inarticulate now.... Too late, in any case....
Noll saw Mauger coming; and he put up his hands; and his eyes glared. He
shrieked with overwhelming terror.... Mauger flung on. Then the
_Sally's_ bows drove on the solid sand; Mauger sprawled; men everywhere
fell headlong. Noll was thrown back against the after rail....
Mauger rolled over and over where he fell; and it chanced that his
sheath knife dropped out in the fall, and touched his hand. He had it in
his fingers when he scrambled to his feet, still intent on bearing his
warning. He had the knife in his hand, he leaped toward the wheel.... He
did not realize it was too late to swerve the _Sally_.... Toward the
wheel, knife in hand, forgetting knife and Noll Wing....
To Noll's eyes, Mauger must have looked like a charging fiend; he saw
the knife. He screamed again, and turned and flung himself in desperate
flight but over the after rail.
He was instantly gone. Perhaps the undertow, perhaps some creature of
the sea, perhaps the fates that had hung over him struck then. But those
aboard the _Sally Sims_ were never to see Noll Wing, nor Noll's dead
body, again.