Faith's eyes blazed. "I tell you, Dan'l, we stick with the _Sally_; and
we get her safe away.... Are you afraid to stick?"
He laughed, outright, pleasantly. "Pshaw, Faith.... You know I'm not
afraid." He could be likeable when he tried; she liked him, faintly, in
that moment. She gripped his hand.
"Good, Dan'l. We'll manage it, in the end...."
So they settled for the waiting; and Dan'l put the men to work repairing
the harm the storm had done the _Sally_. Her rigging was strained; it
had parted here and there. She had lost some canvas. Willis Cox's boat
had been carried away.... They rove new rigging, spread new sails,
replaced Willis's boat with one of the spares.... There was work for all
hands for a month, to put the _Sally_ in shape again.
One thing favored them. The _Sally_, for all her clumsy lines, was
staunch; and the shock when, she drove her bow upon the sand had opened
never a seam. She was leaking no more than a sweet ship will. They found
a cask or two of oil that had burst in the hold; and there was some
confusion among the stores.... But these were small matters, easily set
right....
The new moon was due on the fifth day after they struck. On the fourth,
another bottle of whiskey appeared in the fo'c's'le, and two men were
drunk. Dan'l had the men whipped.... Faith made no objection to this;
but she watched the faces of the others.... Watched the officers, and
Brander in particular, and Mauger.... Brander, since that morning of
Noll's death, had avoided her more strictly.... He and Dan'l did not
speak, save when they must. She saw the man was keeping a guard upon
himself; and she puzzled over this. She could not know that Brander was
afire with joy at the new hope that was awakening in him; afire with a
vision of her.... He fought against this, held himself in check; and she
saw only that he was morose and still and that he avoided her eye....
The high tides of the new moon failed to float them; and there was
growling forward. Dan'l said, openly, that he believed they would never
go free. The men heard; and the superstitions of the sea began to play
about the fo'c's'le. There was unrest; the men felt approaching the
possible liberation from ship's discipline when they abandoned the
_Sally_. They remembered the ambergris beneath the cabin. There was a
fortune.... They could take no oil with them; but they could take that
when the time should come to leave the ship. Plenty of room in one boat
for it and half a dozen men besides.... They fretted at the waiting,
called it hopeless, as Dan'l did.... The barrier between officers and
men was somewhat lowered; more than one of the men spoke to Brander of
the ambergris. Did he claim it for his own?...
Faith, one day, heard a man talking to Brander amidships; she caught
only a word or two. One of these words was "'Gris." She saw that the man
was asking Brander a question; she saw that on Brander's answer, the man
grinned with greed in his eyes, and turned away to whisper to two of his
fellows....
She wondered what Brander had said to him, why Brander had not silenced
the man. And she watched Brander the closer, her heart sickening with a
fear she would not name....
They had landed before this and explored their island.... Low and flat
and no more than a mile or two in extent, it had fruit a-plenty, and a
spring of good water.... But none dwelt anywhere upon it. It soon palled
upon them; they stuck by the ship; and the days held clear and fine and
the nights were warm, and the crescent moon above them flattened, night
by night, till it was no longer a crescent, but half a circle of silver
radiance that touched the beach and the trees and the sea with magic
fingers....
That night, with the fall tides still a week away, Roy Kilcup came into
the waist and looked aft. There was no officer in sight at the moment
save old Tichel, and Roy hailed him softly.... Tichel went forward to
where the boy stood; they whispered together. Then Tichel went with Roy
toward the fo'c's'le....
Faith was in her cabin; Dan'l was in the main cabin; and Willis and
Brander were playing cribbage near him when the outcry forward roused
them. A man yelled.... They were on deck in tumbling haste; and Faith
was at their heels....
Came Tichel, dragging Mauger by the collar. His right hand gripped
Mauger; his left held a bottle. He shook the one-eyed man till Mauger's
teeth rattled; and he brandished the bottle. "Caught the pig," he cried
furiously. "Here he is. With this hid under his blanket...."
Mauger protested: "I never put it there...." Tichel cuffed him into
silence. Dan'l asked sharply:
"What's that, Mr. Tichel?"
"Whiskey, Mr. Tobey. He took it forward and hid it in his bunk...."
Faith said: "Tell the whole of it, Mr. Tichel. What happened?" She
looked from Tichel to Brander. Brander was standing stiffly; she thought
his face was white. Mauger hung in Tichel's grip.
Old Tichel had given a promise to Roy; Roy had begged him not to tell
that the boy had spied. Tichel said now:
"I saw him go forra'd, with something under his coat. Never thought for
a minute; then it come to me what it might be. I took after him. Rest
of the men were on deck, sleeping.... It's hot, below, you'll mind. I
dropped down quietly. Mauger, here, was in his bunk. I routed him out,
and rummaged, and there you are, ma'am." He shook the bottle
triumphantly.