"I love you, Faith; you love me, now."
"No."
He leaned very close to her. "You do not know; you're not listening to
your heart. I know more of your heart than you know, Faith...."
"No, no, no, Dan'l," she said insistently.
He flamed at her in sudden fury: "If it's not me, it's Brander.... Him
that you...."
"Brander?" she cried, in a passion. "Brander? The thief that's lying now
in the irons I put upon him? Him? Him you say I love?"
The very force of her anger should have told him the truth; but he was
so blind that it served only to rejoice him. "I knew it," he cried. "I
knew it. So you love me, Faith?..."
"Must a woman always be loving?" she demanded wearily.
"Aye, Faith. It's the nature of them.... Always to be loving.... Some
one. With you, Faith, it's me. Listen and see...."
"Dan'l," she said steadily, "what's the end of all this? What's the end
of it all? What would you have me do?"
"Love me," he told her.
"What else?"
"See the truth," he said. "Understand that the _Sally_ is lost.... Fast
aground, here, to rot her bones away.... See that it's hopeless and
wild to stick by her. We'll get out the boats. You and I and Roy and a
man or two will take one; the others may have the other craft. It's not
fifty miles to..."
"Leave the _Sally_?" she demanded.
"Yes."
"I'll not talk with you, Dan'l. I'll never do that."
"There's th' ambergris," he reminded her. "We'll take that. It will
recompense old Jonathan for his _Sally_ and her oil."
Her word was so sharp that it checked him; he was up on his feet,
bending above her, pouring out his pleadings.... But she threw him into
silence with that last word; and the red flush of passion in his face
blackened to something worse, and his tongue thickened with the heat in
him. He bent a little nearer, while her eyes met his steadily; and his
hands dropped and gripped her arms above the elbows. She came to her
feet, facing him....
"Dan'l," she said warningly.
"If you'll not go because you will, you'll go because you must," he told
her huskily and harshly. "Go because you must.... Whine at my feet afore
I'm through with you. Beg me to marry you in th' end...."
If she had been able to hold still, to hold his eyes with hers, she
might have mastered him even then; for in any match of courage against
courage, she was the stronger. But the horror of him overwhelmed her;
she tried to wrench away. The struggle of her fired him.... In a battle
of strength and strength she had no chance. He swung her against his
chest, and she flung her head back that her lips might escape him. He
laughed. His lips were dry and twitching as she fought to be away from
him; he held her for an instant, held her striving body against his own
to revel in its struggles....
He had her thus in his arms, forcing her back, crushing her, when the
door flung open and Roy Kilcup stood there. The boy cried in desperate
warning:
"Dan'l, Brander is...."
Then he comprehended that which he saw; and he screamed with the fury of
an animal, and flung himself at Dan'l, tearing at the man with his
strength of a boy.