_Chapter Three_
The island fell away in the west. All day long, and for three days more,the ketch _Diana_ held the northeast trade off her larboard bow,close-hauled. Ben supposed that presently Shawn would turn south andprepare for another chicken-thief raid somewhere in the Leeward Islands.On the fifth day he did shift course, but not much, the unchanging windnow on the larboard beam, the _Diana's_ direction southeast.
A withdrawn, taciturn mood had come over Captain Shawn. The members ofhis ragamuffin crew, including Ben, felt it as schoolboys feel ateacher's cold in the head. For Ben there was the growing urgency ofthat secret whisper: _Something I can do...._
Ben was forced to admit that, whatever else might have happened to theyear, he had learned a little seamanship. He had acquired sea-legs evenbefore the capture of _Artemis_. He was never seasick--Shawn himselfknew green moments from time to time. Ben had learned the ropes--nomystery after all but quite simple once you agreed to use your head andaccept the buckle end of Marsh's belt as a parallel to the sarcasm ofGideon Hibbs. Marsh was acidly fair about that: as soon as Ben's handhad learned to jump for the right rope at the right instant, the beltwas no longer used.
Shawn's instruction had followed a different idiom--articulateexplanation, with continuing patience (not displayed toward anyone butBen). Somehow the Irishman conveyed: Let's forget that we seem to beenemies; let's consider this logic of navigation, the sextant, thetiller, the handling of sail, powers of wind and current and the patternof the clear stars; let's do this as though we were not afraid to turnour backs to each other, you with the knife I let you keep, and I withmine. Ben could respond to this; could not help responding.
The secret whisper continued in the dark.
Ben's body was learning too, his hands calloused and enlarged, hisshoulders thickened. Already wiry and tough, he was aware of aburgeoning strength that never reached exhaustion even in the occasionaldays of bad weather when the mainsail could stiffen and fight back likea living beast. When Ben stripped for swimming, as he had done backthere at the island to the amused horror of all aboard, he had noticed awhiplash hardness in leg and thigh, surely much greater than he hadpossessed a year ago. Ben had been startled to learn--last July, whenthe _Diana_ put in for careening at another lonely island--that not oneother man aboard could swim. So Ben, who had learned it fishlike in thewaters of the Pocumtuck River with Reuben darting around him, a littledemon of gold and ivory, frolicked alone in the surf and beyond it,amazed and delighted at the buoyancy of salt water and the untiringalmightiness of the waves. Even to Shawn it was a mystery. Manuelgiggled helplessly. Tom Ball appeared to regard it as a black art.
Once in November, during a lesson on the sextant, Shawn had happened tostretch and flex his shoulders, and Ben discovered that he was fully astall as Captain Shawn. Another time, Ben spoke with careless sharpnessto Joey Mills--the old man's garrulity could be a nuisance--and Joey haddrawn back in manifest physical fright, astonishing to Ben until heunderstood: Well, I could break him in two, couldn't I?
Manuel? One fist, and Manuel would cringe and run.
Ledyard? Maybe, just maybe. That would be a near thing.
Ball? French Jack? Well, hardly. And still, either of them might thinktwice before starting anything unarmed, or alone.
Dummy? Never, if he got a grip.
Judah Marsh? Why, knives put aside, by God, I could flatten him like abug, and wash my hands.
Shawn?...
The whisper continued in the dark.
Since leaving the island under the northeast trade, Captain Shawn hadspent most of his time in the locked cabin, or on deck in a black andscowling silence. He ordered the log cast unreasonably often; it wasplain the _Diana_ was maintaining an even speed, better than nine knots.Ben was present whenever Shawn checked his bearings, and could make hisown calculations. When his trick at the helm began at midnight on theseventh night out from the island, the _Diana_ had crossed the 18thparallel and was surely far east of the Leewards, too far if Shawnintended any business with them, and was still running blandlysoutheast. Why?...
In these wartime years, with no pressure of maritime unemployment todrive hungry men into piracy, some furtive harbors throughout theCaribbean still nourished the old trade, and at some outwardlyrespectable ports a vessel of dubious virtue could still put in todispose of this and that with few questions asked. So much had beencommon talk at Boston; Ben heard it again from the half-timid chatter ofJoey Mills. Captain Shawn might have found men in those ports to make uphis complement; he never went near one of them, all year long. JoeyMills dared to ask why, and shook his head and spat over the rail. "Tellyou why," said Joey Mills, watching Ben with squirrely courage andmaking sure no one else could hear. "He'll get more men, _he_ says, fromthe fine prize we a'n't seen yet--or if we seen it we been evermoretacking somewheres else, God almighty damn. But this here ketch, BenCory, let alone it seems she a'n't bound for nowhere, she a'n't gotnothing. Salt cod, God almighty damn. Put in at one of them places,nothing to trade, he'd be laughed at. _They'd_ give him salt cod, yah. Iallow _he_ can't bear no laughing at--now don't betray me, don't neverlet it out I said no such of a thing--you wouldn't, boy?" Before Bencould even promise, he chuckled in apology and fled, and avoided Ben fordays....
Far away ahead this midnight, over the curve of the world, stood theshoulder of Africa. Somewhere in the south--Ben gazed off idly to hisright in the murmurous dark--down there beyond the Line, the Spanish andPortuguese settlements of the southern continent. Down there too--so farthat one's thought hardly dared trouble with it--the wild coldlegendary region of the Horn, Magellan's gateway, the path to thewestern sea.
Here in the undemanding night Ben found it possible to command the earthto be not vast but small. Merely to point with the right arm toward theHorn--did not that reduce the world to a modest map that might be heldin fancy, handled, contemplated?--never mind the thousands of leagues ofopen sea where that right arm was no greater than one splash of foam.The paradox was familiar. Mr. Gideon Hibbs had touched on it at theborders of philosophy: how, if the container be greater than the thingcontained, that organ in the skull must be somehow wider than agalaxy....
The shadow coming slowly aft might be Manuel, ready to relieve Ben atthe tiller. No--too soon, and Manuel was aloft. Moonrise had begun somewhile ago at Ben's left shoulder, magnificent and calm. The shadow wasnot Manuel but Daniel Shawn, prowling the dark as he often did when, asBen supposed, he could not sleep. Ben suppressed a word of greeting. Hisarm over the tiller held firm with elastic readiness for all of the_Diana's_ whims, as Shawn himself had patiently taught him it must do.Captain Shawn stood a long time at the after rail gazing northwestward.
It could happen some night, Ben knew, out of a silence like this. Theunknowable driven brain could abruptly decide that Ben Cory must nolonger live. What is madness?... After the decision, execution--but notimmediate, perhaps. It did not seem to be Shawn's way to kill with hisown hand.
He was capable of it. Joey Mills had told Ben how, in the battle withthe _Schouven_, Shawn had boarded the sloop with the rest, two pistolsin his belt. Disdaining a cutlass after the pistols were empty, Shawnwent in howling with his short knife, and that on a tall Dutchman withlong arms--as if, Mills muttered, death was a nothing to Captain Shawn,or welcome. But Shawn wasn't for dying that day.
Quite gently Shawn asked; "All quiet, Ben?"
"Yea, quiet." Not "Yea, sir." Not "Yea, Captain." The self clinging tointegrity will snatch at trivia. But for Ben there was a kind ofupside-down shame in reflecting that anyone else aboard who omitted theformula of humility would very quickly be instructed with a rope's end.And so, Ben Cory thought, it seems Ben Cory doth care about the opinionof others, be they only the rats aboard a pirate ketch, the which wouldbe dem'd good and comical--could I be telling it to Ru before the firein Uncle John's library, and sweet Kate maybe bringing us a plate of----
"Ben, who's aloft?"
"Manuel."
"Have you chanced to l
ook aft, the last half-hour, boy?"
"No. Watching the bow, so to keep the bearing you ordered."
"Then give me the helm, and take this glass"--Shawn's voice was risingcuriously--"and look well abaft, and tell me what you see at all."
"Where away?"
"God damn it," said Shawn, still rather softly, "find it yourself!" Hethrust the spyglass into Ben's hand and snatched the tiller, humming inhis teeth and not pleasantly.
Ben searched the northwestern arc, and found nothing but empty sea.Something to throw him off his guard?--he lowered the glass quickly, butShawn was not even watching him. Shawn was staring forward, head high,the moon's whiteness displaying his face, cold and suffering and proud.
"I don't find anything."
"Look again."
"I see the stars, a quiet sea, and not another thing."
"Judah!" Marsh hurried aft. "Take the glass, Mr. Marsh. See what you canfind to the northwest."
Ben stood away from them. He saw Marsh stiffen with uneasiness orbewilderment; fidget, and mutter, and rub the glass with an end of hisshirt. "Mr. Shawn, sir, my one glim a'n't too sharp."
Shawn immensely filled his lungs and slowly let the breath go. "You toomaybe?... Well--it may be gone." It might be easier, Ben thought, toendure the ache of waiting if Shawn himself would look aft again, but hewould not.
"Was it a sail, Captain?"
"It wasn't the Lamb of God walking upon the waters, Mr. Marsh. I amchanging course two points. Sou'-sou'east, d'you hear? Call that foolManuel from aloft, who wouldn't be seeing the entire Royal Navy and ithalf a mile to wind'ard. He and Dummy will make ready to haul me thetack--will you move, man?" Marsh vanished forward; Ben heard his thinsnarl crying Manuel down from the masthead. "Well, Cory?--get to themizzen, damn you!" Ready in his place--what else?--Ben presently heardMarsh's advisory shout. "Cory, Mother of God, can't _you_ speak up likea seaman?"
"Ready!"
"_Lee-oh!_" The _Diana_ answered calmly, undismayed. "Trim her!" Ben hadalready done so, handily. "Will you sheet her in, you bloody farmer? Oh,dear Mother of God, for _men_ to sail with me!..." Undismayed, the_Diana_ settled to her new course under the friendly wind. A smallmaneuver--a crew of boys could have done it in this soft landsman'sweather. Ben knew that Shawn had no cause to rave at his part in it;knew also in a moment that the crying voice climbing from the region ofthe helm was no longer concerned with him. "Speak plainer! I cannot hearyou.... Oh, but I will go alone if I must. Have I not alway gone alone?Have I not alway made mine own law--as I am directed, as I amdirected--but thou knowest I am compassed about.... Plainer! Speak_plain_!--or send me a wind and not this damned crawling breeze! Am I tomeet them in a bloody calm?... Then, most soberly and quietly: "Ben--aftwith you!"
Ben returned aft, being on duty and having perhaps no choice. "Am I totake the helm again?"
"First look, only once more. Man dear, don't you see?--it could be I'mgrowing old and foolish, but--but for all you hate me, you can't call mefool, Beneen, you can't do that."
"I never have."
"Then look once more--the way I might've been deceived--the way theDevil's minions are in the thing tonight, now that's no lie. I waitedtoo long, so I did. I cast about, while time wasted, praying for theeasier course--a fleet--men enough--seeing I could not have the supportof those who should have understood me. I prayed for the easier course,so I did, but I tell you now, Beneen, a man must never do that."
And Ben looked again, and found nothing. "It was a sail?"
"I thought so. I thought so, Ben."
"If you'll call Manuel aft, whose eyes are good as mine----"
"Manuel is it? Have I time for the witless, when--but I may have beendeceived. Not there, you say, and I'm believing you. Nothing?"
"Nothing. Sometimes, Mr. Shawn, I've been fooled at night by a whale'sspouting. The spray of him seems to hang in the air a while, and Isuppose moonlight may lend it the look of a sail." Shawn laughed alittle, his breathing slower. He seemed not annoyed that an untamed pupshould be instructing him concerning sea-born illusions. "Well, do youtake the helm again, and this'll be your bearing, steady as she goes."
"May I ask, Mr. Shawn, is this course for Martinique?"
"It seems to be gone and that's the truth, and yet I could havesworn--what? Martinique? Why, if my reckoning is right, her presentcourse maintained will bear her a very far way to the east ofMartinique."
"Nothing before us then but the South Atlantic."
"The Line, the South Atlantic, and the Horn. No more waiting. No more ofthis petty cruising about. No more--piracy. Do you hear me?"
"Less than a year ago I might have jumped at the sound of that."
"Not now?"
"You're not speaking to a boy now, Mr. Shawn."
"'Deed so, friend? When did that happen?"
"Who can ever say? It happened.... Mr. Shawn, I've asked you a dozentimes, and have been refused, and now I say again: I wish to go in thatcabin and speak with Captain Jenks."
"And I'll be telling you for maybe the hundredth time, Ben, he is notcaptain of this or any other vessel.... Ben, with all the charity I'veseen in you, can you not hear a man acknowledge his error? I said, nomore piracy. I have done wrong, almost betraying my purpose. I saynow--and this is like something you once said to me yourself--henceforthI will not lift my hand against any man except to defend my life and mypurpose. Jenks?--why, I think he can be released, and you too if it mustbe so. I shall be forced to put in at some Brazilian port for water andprovisions, and there, I think--well, we shall see. Can I say more?"
"Yes, you could, Mr. Shawn, because I'm asking you again: Why do youhold him at all? Mills says you question him continually, and he answersnothing."
"That's true." Shawn gazed steadily northward, at the open sea. "Answersnothing, and will any man hold such a silence with nothing to hide?"
"_Hide_, Mr. Shawn? Captain Jenks, hide?"
"Must I say again, he is not captain now?... Ben, did you know I spentmore than a year in that sorry city of Boston?"
"No, how should I?"
"Oh, you might've.... More than a year, seeking support for the greatestventure a man's spirit ever conceived. I was ignored, laughed at,brushed aside. I sought out the merchants, for behind all the piouscanting they've become the rulers of your Boston and I suppose you knowit. Sought 'em out one after another, and spilled my heart, the whilethey looked at my poor clothes and shuffled their feet and rememberedimportant business. I sought audience with your Governor Dudleyhimself--Mother of God, would he even admit me to the bloody presence?Queen Anne's man, body and soul.... Somehow, Ben--and mark this, I prayyou--at some time that miserable year, the story was passed about that Ihad been with John Quelch. And--why, damn their souls, so I was, for awhile. I did ship with him, being penniless and starving, and escapedhim as soon as I might. He was evil, Ben, a common pirate, it was righthe should hang. I served him briefly, I did that, having no choice, andthe rumor of it was made a cause why I should be persecuted, ignored,laughed at, brushed aside. Compassed about.... And still, didn't I askfar less than was asked by Cabot, Drake, Magellan? A trifle of support,mind you, a tiny fleet, a sound crew, a charter to explore--don't yousee any man of them might have compounded his fortune a hundred timesand written his name in history beside my own? But would they? You knowthe answer, and they shall know the whole of it too, in time.... Andsomehow, Ben--while I went from one to another wearing my heartout--somehow a few of them did finally understand a little of what I sorecklessly told concerning this venture. Certain of them began to think:Why not the venture without the man? You see? Have you ever heard ofsuch a thing as stealing a man's dreams?"
"What has this to do with Captain Jenks?"
"Surely it's plain? The man you childishly call Captain was one of thosewho began to ask themselves: What if this wild, shabby, tedious Irishmanhath glimpsed something of value after all? What if there _are_ newlands for the taking in the western sea, and why should this miserablenoisy Sligo man, this old
Shawn, why should _he_ have any part of it?...Why, I couldn't believe this of Peter Jenks myself for a longtime--never came to me that he was one of 'em, till he hired that manHanson in the room of me--and that in despite of your great-uncle."
"But----"
"Whisht, Ben! You'll be telling me your great-uncle gave me no promisehard and fast, but I know men's hearts. But for Jenks, I'd've had myway, and glory in it for Mr. Kenny as well as me, don't you doubt it. Itwasn't to be. When he took on that agent Hanson, sure my voice was plainenough, I could see how they'd been planning it all the while. You seenow, don't you? Had I not taken _Artemis_ from him, Jenks would have hernow the other side of the Horn, and Boston would never see her again.But I, Ben--why, I shall give her back the name of _Artemis_, and I'llsend her home, when she's taken us to the new country...." In thesilence Ben caught the glint of something--merely the copper farthing;at length Shawn spoke again, quietly: "True, Ben--nothing before you nowbut the Line, and the South Atlantic, and the Horn. Nothing below youbut the Atlantic. And once on a time wasn't I a boy of your age whobelieved that God was over me?" He was moving away. Ben thought he mightbe weeping, but his voice often sounded so when his eyes were dry. "Andover you, over all that breathe. Oh, but in those days I was that youngand foolish you wouldn't know the misguided thoughts that would seizehold of me and deceive, for the voices I heard then were not God'svoice, they were far other. Maybe even now I'm not certain of anything,except that I cannot die until I've looked again on the color of thewestern sea." He returned swift and silent out of the shadow and stoodclose to the helm, eyes level with Ben's; no taller than Ben. Not evenas tall, perhaps. "What now? Why did I say that, Ben? Why did I say, the_color_ of the western sea?"
Ben supposed his right hand could flash away from the tiller to hisbelt, if it must. "How could I know why you say any of the things youdo?"
"Ah? But you must sail with me, all the way. Will you not say it? Willyou be forcing me to destroy you? Then I'll be alone, Ben. These menwith us--what are they but phantoms, all of 'em? Knife 'em, they'd bleedsmoke--not blood, Ben--smoke, and drift away downwind. None aboard butyou and me, now that's no lie...."
But Ben, for sheer pity and disgust, terror and bewilderment, self-blameand homesickness and again pity, could not speak at all, and Shawn movedaway, himself like smoke, past another black shadow by the mizzen thatmust have heard all he said; at this Shawn snarled: "If the windchanges, Mr. Marsh, you needn't be calling me--I shall know it."
Under Ben's hand beautiful _Diana_ ran southward, cutting away the mileswith a timeless whisper at her bow; but during the night the wind felloff, the air growing dull, silent, and in the morning dead. The sun roseon sails become slack, bemused in idleness on a mirror sea.
* * * * *
"I wondered, in fact, that she had not long ago destroyed herself in oneof those seizures."
"They seldom do, Reuben, though often they injure themselves. She isnearly forty, that woman we saw today--I've known her bite her tongueand bruise herself, but nothing worse. As a rule they die somewhatyoung. It's as well you saw her so--the condition is not too rare andyou'll encounter it again."
"And the books?"
"Have nothing to offer but speculation and bad advice. Nothing I'vetried ever had the slightest effect.... What's that?--I mean the onethat called from back there in the pasture."
"Red-winged blackbird."
"I wish I knew 'em all, the way you do."
"Brought up with 'em in the wilderness, Amadeus. But nobody could knowthem all.... Do the books tell anything of the cause?"
"Nothing worth your notice. Speculation, most of it not based onclinical observation. And (as you suggest) without at least someknowledge of immediate causes, treatment's only a blind groping. We musttry it of course, because sometimes a guess is correct. But somehow wemust also push back along the chain of causes--widen the area oflight--somehow.... As you may or may not know, there are many goingabout in the world far madder than that poor epileptic, who is notreally mad at all but merely drops into her fit from time to time, andusually comes out of it unharmed. A fearful thing to watch, Ru--I daresay you still feel it in your stomach. But some of the forms of madnessthat don't so loudly announce themselves are much worse."
"The world may be a mad place, Amadeus, but there go the peeper frogs. Itold you they might, on such an afternoon."
"So they do. You don't suppose----?"
"If we continue to the pond, they'll stop. However, should we then squatpatient in our boots, the thing might be done--imitating boulders, youknow. We might, as it were, rock ourselves into the semblance of anatural outgrowth."
"Who now hath plumbed the depths of a contumelious paronomasia?"
"Ha!"
"That log looks more comfortable."
"If the ants on it are black, yes. If red, no."
"They look black, the few I see. Is there a difference?"
"Oh, my friend! How did you survive till I came to you?"
"Don't know."
"Yes, they're black.... By the madder ones, you mean the raving kind?Those with wild delusions?"
"Those, and others. I was thinking of the quieter sort, who are seldomcalled mad. Men and women eaten up with suspicion. So that--I thinkyou've never encountered this, but beware of it if you do--so thateverything happening within their purview must be bent to the shape ofthat suspicion; and to hear them talk you'd suppose the whole world wasallied in conspiracy against them. I'd guess that such a state of mindis begotten of a most fearful vanity. And what evil is commoner thanvanity? Of course that particular sickness of the mind is only one ofits fruits. How seldom do you find anyone who hath ever attempted tolook on his own life with something like the eye of eternity! Butwithout at least some detachment, vanity is bound to grow."
"As for example the seeming humility of proper Christians?"
"Oh, that, yes--but don't trouble thyself too much about that. It wouldseem they need it. Well, and there are those madder ones devoured byjealousy, spite, greed, and fears of a hundred kinds, mostly groundless.It's no-way true that all is vanity, but I think you may say that vanityis the source of nearly all the saddest things in human nature. Nay, Ithink our poor wench with the fits, by comparison with many respectablesouls, is quite sane."
"And so what is madness?"
"Do thou tell me, thou who gavest me once a definition of health thatserves me still."
"A--a gross exaggeration of some natural activity of the mind? 'Liliesthat fester....'"
"I'm pleased I made thee discover the Sonnets. Yes, that might serve....But the hunger for verifiable knowledge--now there's an activity of themind, natural I think, but sluggish or nonexistent in most men, and in afew like thee and me, very intense: are we then mad?"
"If such hunger for knowledge became painful or annoying to others,Amadeus, I am sure we would be called mad."
"Mm-yas--thought I'd caught thee, but (as usual) I'm caught instead. Soconsider--would you say there are _any_ activities of the mind thatwould not deserve the name of madness if sorely exaggerated?"
"Maybe none. That hunger for knowledge could become a thing _I'd_ callmadness, if the pursuit of it caused a man to neglect too many othermatters--such as sunlight and peeper frogs and Charity's pictures andthe brightness of a swallow flying."
"I'll agree. I dare say anything out of proportion may become a madness.Even generosity. Even love."
"But Amadeus, I do ever think that love is not a thing, but more like aregion where we travel. Something of that I said once to Ben. I can'tremember when it was, and he may not have understood it--I'm sure I saidit badly. Like a region, where we travel with--oh, some vision, some ofthe time. As sleep is like a region, and waking. Do I still say itbadly, Amadeus? I mean that no one can give his friend a handful ofsunlight, but may walk in it with him, and so love him."
* * * * *
After scant and haunted sleep, Ben woke to stillness where motion shou
ldhave been. Stumbling up on deck long before the beginning of theforenoon watch, he saw Shawn on the quarterdeck deep in a stillness ofhis own, ignoring Tom Ball who muttered at him, and Joey Mills who stoodby the helm but had nothing to do there, for the _Diana_ had lost allway, the sails were dead rags, and if some profound current still movedher there was nothing to tell of it in this deathlike air under a brazensun.
Ben remained forward, to avoid Shawn. Matthew Ledyard was lounging nearthe bow with nothing to do. His stare was not unfriendly; he even wishedBen a laconic good morning. Maybe he wanted to break his custom andshare a word or two out of his permanent gloom. Like Ben, in thesetropic days Ledyard had discarded shirt and jacket, wearing nothingabove his belt but a kerchief around his head to moderate the sun andhold sweat out of his eyes. His gaunt chest was darkly tanned; it hadnever seemed to Ben that the purple splash on Ledyard's face wasparticularly ugly--once you grew used to it, it was a nothing, no morethan another man's scar or mole. Unnecessarily Ledyard said: "We're infor a calm."
For several days a carrion reek had corrupted the air of the forecastle,and the murky hell-hole of the galley where French Jack prepared hisstrange offerings. Likely more barrels of the salt cod had gone bad andought to be hunted out. Mr. Ball claimed the whole dirty cargo wasspoiled and should be heaved overside, but French Jack explained thatcod smelt that way anyhow; in spite of the pride of a Boston man, Benwas inclined to agree. With no breeze to sweep the nastiness away, thestench overhung the deck also, as though the _Diana_ herself wereexhaling corruption in a mortal sickness. To come up into this from thefetid forecastle was for Ben like waking to a continuation of nightmare.He was in a mood to fume and curse at anyone--particularly at Shawn, andthat not for the large and just reasons, but simply for a certainstanding order that forbade any of the hands to sleep on deck. ForLedyard, however, Ben managed a smile and a grunt of agreement. "Hope Imay spend some of my trick aloft."
"Ay--stinks, don't it?" And Ledyard startled Ben exceedingly by adding:"Like a dead man's dream it is. A fair hope gone rotten."
Ben grew alert. Ledyard had never said anything like that to him before."Maybe it'll be as bad at the masthead. This morning I believe we couldstink out Father Neptune himself. Is no one aloft?"
"I was. Captain called me down. Seems dem'd foolish even to him to keepa lookout now--if we're becalmed so's everything else that might beabout." He glanced aft and continued, a murmur in his smallest voice:"Cory, him and Mr. Ball was just now speaking of breaking out the boatand towing her. Understand that? Take at least six men at the oars tomove her. Six men in a boat, in this sun, nothing to their bellies butp'ison stew or salt cod.... Step further away from the hatch, will you?"He lounged away to the bow, and Ben followed him as casually as hemight, noticing how, with no way on her at all, the Diana had at sometime since the wind died turned completely about, her lifeless bowpointing homeward to the north. Ben stood with the blaze of the morningsun behind him and watched the fire of it on the battlefield ofLedyard's face. "You might say, Cory, if so be he wants to kill all usmis'able scrannel hands, us buggerly rascals, that's what he'll do. Justget us out there at the oars in the sun, to tow the old bitch, that'sall it needs." His browned sturdy arms spread out along the rail,Matthew Ledyard looked much like a man crucified, his dark faceunflinching in the sun. "And I wonder would you be out there too--MisterCory? Pulling an oar? With your charmed young life, so even the tropicsun won't strike you down? Or back here on the deck belike, so to sailwith Captain Shawn when the rest of us is maybe dried up and burnt tooblack to stink? Or will you now be trundling aft to tell the Captainwhat old Ledyard said to you?"
Ben dropped his hand on the man's iron wrist. It did not move away.Ledyard's intense stare did not seem to be one of wrath, for all hiswords. "I have never carried tales to Shawn and you know it."
"Ya-ah--maybe I do know it. Maybe I wished to learn if you could ever beangered any way at all."
"I can." Ledyard's heavy brows lifted; his brown eyes in the sunsqueezed down to little fires. "I can, and since you're a-mind to speakto me at last, I'll say this: the hope was never fair, it was rotten inthe beginning, and I told him so. He lets me live because he imagines hecan change me into one like himself, no other reason. He cannot. As forme, I swallow the puky food and haul on the ropes and jump to Marsh'sorders because I wish to live, no other reason. I'm not Shawn's man."
"Whose then?"
"My own."
"That'd be the hard thing to prove in the sight of God."
"And you shall be your own man, nothing less."
"Shall I so?" Ledyard winced heavily and turned his face away from thebeating of the sun at last, but Ben tightened his grip. "How could thatbe, now? You don't know, boy, you don't know----"
"Why, I say it shall be."
"And who a devil's name are you? A boy--a----"
"Benjamin Cory, son of Joseph Cory of Deerfield, adopted son of Mr. JohnKenny of Roxbury, who owns this ketch. Look back at me!"
Ledyard did so, plainly with great effort--changed; certainly withoutwrath, perhaps even without curiosity. It seemed to Ben that what hemust say was only something that Ledyard would surely have been sayingto himself, and for a long time. "You will believe it, Matthew Ledyard,so now listen to me. She is not the old bitch. She is the ketch_Artemis_ out of Boston, and the man who's a second father to me, whomyou served well for nearly the length of my life--he had a hand indesigning her. My brother and I climbed about on her ribs when she wasa-building up the Mystic River--you were there. Since those days I haveloved her, as Kenny's vessel and mine, sir, _mine_--and you were hercarpenter, and Peter Jenks is her captain." Ledyard groaned at the soundof that name and jerked his hand away and pounded it on the rail. Benreached out quickly and tapped his purple cheek. "Look back at me, Isay! Chips--what's the name of this ketch?"
"The ketch is the _Artemis_," he said, harshly and choking on it. "Stepaway from me, Cory, or they'll notice us from the quarterdeck."
Ben did so, instinct urging him to wait, to look away, to lounge at thebow in the semblance of idleness till Ledyard's whisper came: "What willyou do?"
"Who would be with us?"
Dubiously the whisper said: "Joey Mills. But he's old and puny."
"Are you sure of him?"
"Sure enough. We--have spoke of it. But----"
"I've seen him wear a pistol sometimes. I suppose he could use it?"Ledyard grunted. "I suppose he might even bear a message from me toCaptain Jenks?"
"Oh, my God!... You mean it, don't you?"
"I will ask you to cease doubting it. Now, how many men would itrequire, to get _Artemis_ home to Boston?"
"God!... Three or four hands could do it somehow." He sounded calmer.Glancing at him again, Ben found his face no less a battlefield, evenmore perhaps, but it had grown sharp with intelligence. "On such a thingas that, Mr. Cory, you'd be obliged to play it timid, understand me?Reef in at the first hint of dirty weather, if you'll take an oldseaman's word for it. Comes fast, do you see? You remember we rode out abad one off Grenada last year, and it was all hands hop to it, and eventhen it near-about caught us. Now imagine two or three men trying to gether snug in the time we did it then! Remember you got to keep one at thehelm. All the same--all the same, sir, three or four hands could do it.That--is your intention?"
"It's my intention to try. What about Dummy?"
"Shawn's dog. Jack's another dog, a mad one."
"That's mostly show, I think. It makes others let him alone."
"Maybe, but don't trust him, Mr. Cory. He's not--with us."
"Manuel?"
"Can neither fight nor hold his tongue.... If you--if we can take careof Shawn and the others, you would release the Captain?"
"Certainly."
"Then I ... Mr. Cory, I'll beg you for your word on a--on two things, ifI may."
"What?"
"If we can do it, and if Captain Jenks is free, put in a word for me.Let him know that whatever else I did, I tried to change back to what Iwas
. Let him know I went back. Those would be the words, Mr. Cory. Sayto him, if so be I can't say it myself, say that Matthew Ledyard wentback."
"I will."
"And one other thing. If we can do it, then when we raise the Capeor--my God, better if it might be Rhode Island, but I suppose there's nohope of that--aid me, if you can, to get away in the boat. It's a thing,Mr. Cory--I've got a fear I wouldn't hang decent. Sooner drown. Would itsit fair with your conscience to help me run for it? Would you do thatmuch, if I can help you in this thing?"
Ben said: "It sticks in my conscience that hanging never mendedanything, and I will do that if I can. It'll mean deceiving CaptainJenks, helping you steal the boat, but I will do it. Matthew Ledyard,I'm eighteen, with less than a year at sea against the many that you'veserved. Can you take orders from me?"
Wonderingly, Ledyard said: "Yes, sir, I can."
"Bide the time then. It will be soon. I must speak with Mills and do oneor two other things."
Ben spoke quickly--already he heard the commotion of Dummy lurching upfrom the forecastle with his monkey, and he was dizzy with the firstfull understanding of what had taken place. _Well, damn it, I waswishing to make things happen!..._ As he moved away from Ledyard theman's whisper followed him: "Don't forget, those are the words, Mr.Cory--Matthew Ledyard went back...."
The monkey had begun to ail when the fruit gave out, after the _Diana_left the Bahamas, although she had endured other periods of poor eatingwithout harm. This morning she looked half dead in the great hairycradle of Dummy's arms. Dummy squatted with her at the foot of themainmast, crooning hopelessly. Sometimes in the last few days she hadswallowed a bit of sea biscuit if Dummy chewed the miserable stuff firstto soften it. This morning she would not, but only shivered in spite ofthe sullen heat and twisted her wise black head away from the repulsivemass. Ben on his way aft paused to consider them, aware that of the twosorrowful ape-faces, Dummy's held the greater pain. The little blackbeast was merely dying.
She had been lively and delighted with her new home after her capturefrom the _Schouven_, learning every corner of the ketch--including thegalley, where she could engage in shrieking encounters with French Jack.Since she returned continually, and never got anything there exceptmissiles and rhetoric unsuited to the tender sex, Ben deduced thatbecause of her streak of hoyden she must relish war for its own sake.Jack never once scored a hit. Best of all she loved soaring in dizzyflights all over the rigging, and hanging by her tail from thecrosstrees to contemplate the sky and the ocean and the ways of man. Shewould come quickly down out of that for Dummy if he smacked his lips,but not for anyone else--except, occasionally and with the air ofgranting a favor, for Ben.
Now it seemed likely that her airy journeys were ended. Dummy gazed upat Ben with the grieving eyes of an ape-mother, and Ben could findnothing worth saying, but touched his finger to the tiny black bullethead that paid him no heed. Dummy smiled in his loose bewildered way,and Ben moved on.
Joey Mills was scuttling down the short companion ladder. Ben wished todetain him, but Shawn had noticed Ben and called to him. Ben whisperedhastily: "I've spoke with Ledyard--he'll inform you what passed betweenus. Tell him I said he was to do so--and wipe that surprise off yourface, quick!" Ben climbed to the quarterdeck, not glancing back to seehow much Joey had understood. Shawn in this reeking glare of morninglight looked old. No wrinkle, no scar of smallpox was spared, and noneof the white dust at his temples. His hand had a fine tremor and heneeded shaving.
"Mr. Ball," he said in a voice of weariness, "go below and get yourbreakfast."
"Yea, sir--but it be'n't yet eight bells, and you'm not eat a bite sinceyesterday noontime."
Shawn spoke with ugly patience: "I said go, and will I be explaining? Iwish to speak with Cory alone."
"Yea, sir." Ball made a vague motion at his forelock, and waddled pastBen with a glance of remote dislike, muttering under his breath.
Shawn watched Ball's back out of sight. "Even he would desert me, had heanywhere to go. He was not so fat and sullen when he sailed with JohnQuelch--and escaped Quelch when I did--and listened when I told him ofthe western sea, and seemed, like you, to be understanding it. I supposetime's gone over all of us, and I alone faithful to the vision. Did Inot say they were all phantoms, all but you and me?"
"You wished to speak with me?"
"Cold, cold. It's the cold good morning I get from you."
"Did Judah Marsh have visions, Mr. Shawn?"
"Oh, Ben, Ben! Marsh is a tool to be used, a thing with a cutting edgein the shape of a man. And Manuel is a lump of muscle, a sort of poorengine for pulling ropes, in the shape of a man, and Dummy another, withhardly even the shape. They're all phantoms, all but you and me."
"At this moment, your thing with hardly the shape of a man is grievinglike a mother over his pet that's like to die in a day or so."
"So? Well, what should that be to you?"
"Much, I find, Mr. Shawn. And I suppose no one ever found it comfortableto cease being a boy."
"Hm? Your mind's running in strange courses. Maybe it's true you've cometo be something like a man. Wisha!" said Shawn, and tried tosmile--"nearly as tall as me, now that's no lie." His hand came out inan abortive gesture of friendship, and fell to his side. "Dummy, Ben, iswhat I made him. I found him on your foul Boston water front, sweepingand carrying garbage in a warehouse. I sat down by him with a length ofrope and showed him sailor's knots, and he grinned and took the rope andshowed me he knew them too. Then, seeing he knows well what you say forall he can't speak, I told him of the new countries in the western sea,and the vision did strike fire in him--Mother of God, I saw it! Plainer,more honest than I've seen it in many a man who hath all his wits andthe power of speech. And I said to him: 'Will you sail with me then?'And he knelt in the filth of the warehouse and patted my boots. Poorlump, have I not given him vision and purpose? Could I heal his dirtymonkey for him I would do it, now that's no lie. But I am not God,Ben--only God's instrument. Now take this glass. It's there, Ben, butwhen I try to bring the glass on it I lose it--it must be my eyes orthis damned blaze of light--yet without the glass I see it. Why, evenBall saw it, but would have it a floating tree. A floating tree!" saidShawn with thin bitterness, and smiled, and held out the spyglass.
Very far away it was, a dark smudged line at the angle of a rakish sail,miles away over a flat sea where nothing stirred--no, something did stirout there as Ben took the glass, a black triangle of fin cruising incalm perhaps a quarter-mile to starboard, but Shawn was not concernedwith that, and Ben paid it no heed as he sought to bring the distantshape under the power of the lens.
Ball was right. In the glass it was quite plainly a floating tree-trunk,felled or uprooted by storm maybe a long time ago and swept here by thewhims of wind and current from God knew where. A single branch stoodupright at that deceiving angle; a heavier one submerged must have beenoverbalancing it.
Ben was remembering an April afternoon when _Artemis_ came into Bostonharbor, and Faith stood beside him, and Daniel Shawn also was someonenew, both admirable and good. He was remembering certain acts ofkindness, of almost incredible forbearance, chess games, lessons withthe sextant, jests and tall stories told in moments of relaxation duringthe long armed truce, and told without any overtones of madness or evil.He was remembering above all the magic of a voice, and how the vision itgenerated had stirred his own spirit with all the rocketing enthusiasmof a boy and the more sober acceptance of a man--for surely, no matterwhat madness and evil there were in Shawn, it was still as true assunrise that there must be new lands in the western sea, and some daythose would be discovered, and one could fairly trust (as Shawn said)that all men's life on earth would be the richer for it. Remembering allthis, it seemed wholly impossible to Ben that he could actually do whathe now intended. He prayed for at least a little time of delay, andhesitantly said: "Mr. Shawn, it seems we've swung full about during thecalm this morning. By the sun, I make it that our stem here is pointednear due south, and so----"
/> "And the sail is southwest by west, and when I saw it last night it wasnorthwest, but Mother of God, Ben, I make nothing much of that. Theycould have made a better run in the night than we did before the windfell away. Even if they be common men aboard her, that's possible. Thegreat thing--ah, have you sometimes thought me mad, Ben, until now?--thegreat thing is, you see it too, and so you know I am not deluded. Nowgive me back the glass. I'll try once more if I can't find her in it."
Ben knew he must no longer delay, or he could not do the thing at all.He said: "The marks on her side will be the letters of her name--mustbe mighty large to show at such a distance, I cannot quite make themout, except there are three, and then a space, and then a D. The nextafter the D may be a Y."
"Give me the glass!" Shawn snatched it and held it to his eye, but withsuch wildly shaking hands that surely he would find nothing in it. Thesight of such weakness sickened Ben, yet at the same time gave him asense of his own power overwhelming as a wave, and of amazement that hecould ever have feared this man Shawn, or believed Shawn to be strongerthan himself.
Shawn's struggle with the spyglass was not prolonged.Something--possibly sweat on his hands--caused the glass to slip andfall to the deck with a sharp tinkle of breakage. Ben thought:_Something broke in me then, and when he dies something in me will dieand no help for it._ He would have retrieved the glass for Shawn, butShawn stooped quickly, blood suffusing his face, and leaned at the railfumbling at it aimlessly, though he must have known when a shard ofbroken glass fell from his fingers that the thing was smashed beyondsaving. "And didn't I know last night that I must meet them in a calm?And alone. I was not told I would be blind also."
"Mr. Shawn----"
"Blind!" Shawn said, and hurled the spyglass far out over the flatwater, toward the black blade that calmly cruised in its wide circuit ofthe motionless _Diana_.
"Mr. Shawn, Peter Jenks would speak for me, if I may enter the cabin.Merely the sight of me would make him speak. Does he know I am aboard?"
"What? He knows it. I told him long ago you were one of us."
"Then you told him a lie, for I have never been one of your crew andwell you know it."
"But you will be," said Shawn, not commandingly but in pleading, almostin pathos, and took hold of Ben's arm. "You will be."
Ben met the blue stare, knowing how in many ways it was truly blind, andshook his head. "I can make Jenks speak, Mr. Shawn. You wish him tospeak, do you not?"
"What? Why, he must, if only to confess the sin. It's a very great sinto steal a man's dream. I'd compel no man to die in it."
"What if he never did so, Mr. Shawn?"
Shawn let go his arm. "You question the voice that guides me?"
"Did your voice tell you of the coming of that sloop?"
"I am not God. I am not told everything."
"A sloop bearing Jan Dyckman's name, a sloop that seems now to bemoving, Mr. Shawn, in a flat calm where we find no breath of wind atall? But we might be moving presently. Will you look over there--sir?"
Shawn swung about to gaze where Ben pointed, to the northeast. There--noillusion--a faint blackish smudge was visible on the horizon, with aslight hazing in a small area of the burning sky. Shawn turned back toBen a face transfigured. "Why, there's the answer! Let it come down onus, and we'll outrun them to the ends of the earth. Can you doubt menow? What's that you were asking? Oh, Jenks, Jenks. You may not go inthe cabin, Ben, not yet. But sure he'll speak now, and I seeing to it. Aword of that sloop and he'll speak, the Devil willing, if I must cut outhis damned tongue and let it wag alone." Shawn strode down thequarterdeck laughing--not in music but with shrillness, high and thin,almost an old man's laugh. "Let it come down! D'you hear, Ben? D'youhear?--I say, if that squall comes down on us, Mother of God, we'll notreef one inch of sail, I'll hang the man that tries it. Let it comedown, we'll go about and run south for Hell or Heaven, or the westernsea, or the dark!"
When Ben reached the companion ladder Shawn had already entered thecabin. Ben heard the door crash, the rattle of the key.
Ben hurried forward, where a voice was crackling and spitting in thelifeless air. Ben had glimpsed Manuel climbing to the masthead; Marshmust have sent him up, not knowing the standing order had been revoked.Tom Ball would be still below, and French Jack serving him what passedfor breakfast. Joey Mills and Ledyard had not gone below to eat butstood together near the bow, tightly watching the black scarecrow JudahMarsh, and Dummy with his sick monkey.
Dummy had backed away from Marsh to the rail, shaking his head andmoaning. "So throw it over, d'you hear, or will I do it? You've had thedirty Jonah long enough. Wish us to stay beca'med forever? Don't makeout you can't understand me, you pig's get, you know every word I say.Throw it over!" But Dummy, who could squeeze no further away from him,began a desperate sidling down the deck, his twisted back pressedagainst the rail, the monkey whimpering at his shaggy breast.
Coming up behind, Ben said: "Stop that, Marsh!"
The man swung fast, a glare of total amazement above his smile as thoughhe did not know the voice, and doubtless he did not, since Ben had neverbefore in his life spoken in such a tone. "_You?_ I'll take care of youpresently." A long arm snaked out, snatching the monkey from Dummy'sembrace by a miniature wrist.
Marsh flung her over the side. She made no outcry; only the lightestsplash. She surfaced in the mildly rippled water, feebly beating at it,her black button of head scarcely clear of it, already near to death,unable to swim, an atom of life useless and helpless. Dummy had turnedautomatically, stunned, to watch the arc of her falling. "Now then!"said Marsh, and grabbed at the mute's arm.
The arm surged upward at the touch, a motion like brushing at afly--Dummy did not look at the man, only at the struggle in the water,too hypnotized by it even to moan or shake his bulging head. But thebrushing motion was enough to send Marsh reeling across the deck. Hefetched up squealing in the scuppers, his left leg bent under him. Hisknife was out. Ben saw his leg give way once; then he was upright,advancing slowly and with great care, the blade flat in his hand,swinging from side to side. The monkey sank out of sight. Dummy turnedthen, and saw Marsh. Head lowered, arms dangling to his ankles, he sawMarsh, and understood, and charged him in a shambling rush.
Joey Mills and Ledyard had not moved.
The monkey broke the surface once more in some last spurt of strengthand stubborn hunger for life. Ben slipped out of his trousers andtossed them to Ledyard. "Chips, mind my knife!" He was free of his shoesand climbing naked over the rail.
He gave himself time for a glance out over the still water. The blackfin was there, yes, but not too perilously near, he thought--maybe ahundred yards off, and moving away, cutting the water slowly astern ofthe _Diana_. The small commotion of the monkey's fall must have goneunnoticed, or the shark would have had her in an instant.
Ben gave himself time for one other glance, backward. Marsh had noknife. Dummy's chest was dripping blood, but the knife lay several feetaway. Dummy was over Marsh, a knee on his chest, one fearsome handclosed around his throat, and Marsh was not struggling. His neck wasprobably broken already; the black eye-patch dangled over his ear;neither eye would see anything more, and the smile was gone.
Joey Mills inside the rail was chattering. "Don't dive, Ben, for God'ssake don't! Leave me throw the brute a rope." He had one in his quicklittle hands, had made it fast to the rail.
"Don't heave it, Joey--let it down." Ben could make out the shoe-buttondots of eye. They were fixed and possibly blind. "She could never findit," Ben said. The motion of her arms had almost ceased; she could makeno progress through the water. Ben caught the rope and let himself downwithout a splash, gauged his distance from her, and struck out underwater, eyes open.
He found the black shadow of her body and emerged beside her, about toreach for her, but she had life enough yet to grab at him. He turned hishead to save his eyes. He felt the clutch of midget fingers in his hair,the scrabble of her legs at his shoulders, and he swam for his life.
&nb
sp; Ledyard's wild yell aided him. Until he caught the noise of it he hadbeen concerned only with his need to complete the act, having no time atall to be afraid. The yell brought him sharp knowledge of death, and theone more ounce of speed required to defeat it. He found and seized therope, and swung with a final burst of violence into safety. Up here inhis own element, clutching the rail with Dummy's monkey secure in hisother arm, he could look down in time to see not only the black finlancing toward him from astern but another shape of the same breed, avast gray hunger shimmering upward from the abyss, shifting to dullsilver, cutting water harmlessly at the _Diana's_ side and surgingunappeased away.
Dummy stumbled over the deck bleeding from the long gash across hisribs. He blinked in love and fear at the naked god and fell to hisknees, then forward to clasp Ben's foot and roll his forehead over it.
"Don't! I pray you, don't!--here, take her! But I fear she'll die,Dummy--I could only bring her back." Dummy reached up for her. Ledyardat Ben's elbow was muttering something about his britches. "In amoment," said Ben. "Mind the hatch, you and Joey. I don't want Jack andBall coming up yet if we can stop them." He knew somehow without aglance that they would do as he directed. He crossed the deck to theblack heap of strangely inoffensive carrion. It seemed to him--outsideand apart from this incredibly violent new self of Ben Cory--that hisonly impulse was to discover whether he could lift that gangling weight.He could, and with astonishing ease. A limp stick, nothing more, a stickwith hanging legs and spiritless head and a bad smell. Needlessly hecrossed with it back to the starboard side. "The fish will be hungry,"he said, and heaved it over. He gripped the rail with both hands, andwatched.
They were hungry. Ben watched, thinking not of Jan Dyckman nor ofjustice nor of the long year ending; thinking only that quiet mustpresently arrive when this was over, and that in his home country itwould be spring. The young apple tree by the kitchen garden--might thatbe in bloom this morning, and Reuben there to see it? The water brieflyboiled in muddy red, and sent its diminishing ripples to infinity, andwas still.
Ledyard was tugging at his hand, which could now release its grip on therail, and urgently shoving something into it--the handle of Ben's knife."Look to yourself--he's coming!"
Daniel Shawn was framed in the cabin doorway, blankly staring. He couldcertainly see them all--Joey and Ledyard now by the open forward hatch,Dummy squatting in the shadow of the mainmast cherishing his dyingcompanion, Ben naked at the rail, the knife his father gave himunsheathed and brilliant in the sun. Shawn closed the cabin door andcame a step away from it. He remembered; drew out the key from under hisshirt and turned his back on all of them, carefully locking the cabin.Then he was advancing, astonishment giving way to some partialunderstanding, savage and cold. He glanced aloft.
Ben did so too, having almost forgotten Manuel. Manuel was frozen at themasthead, gazing down. Manuel must have seen it all. Ben guessed thatnot even a roar from Shawn would bring him down at this moment, and Benwas aware of having laughed.
"Well?" Shawn came forward another step or two. "Well? What's thisdisorder, and thou naked and shameless?"
"Why," said Ben, "this is the garment and shield I wore when I came intothe world, as they say, and one day I'll die wearing it, maybe nottoday. It's my intention to live a long while, after this ketch isreturned to Mr. John Kenny of Roxbury."
"Mutiny," said Shawn quietly. His head canted to one side, a dangersign. He had stood so, without a word, when the body of CorneliusBarentsz was cut in quarters and tossed to the sharks. Then as now, thecopper farthing had appeared in his left hand, twisting and sparkling.It caught the sun this morning, sending lances of sharp light at Ben'seyes, and Ben turned his knife until it shot the same small cruelmessages to Shawn, who winced and briefly turned his face away."_Judah!_"
"He can't run any more of your errands. He's sharks' meat, five minutespast. Don't be calling the others and disturbing their breakfast."
"This from you.... Ben, you shall have part of your wish. You shall goin the cabin, immediate. I order you to go there, and here is the key."He took it from under his shirt and tossed it across the deck.
Ben made no motion for it, watching its fall with the corner of his eye."Joey," he said, "take that key and open the cabin. Tell Captain Jenksthat if fortune favors me I'll come to him presently with the key to hisleg irons. Tell him, Joey, I am hoping to redeem a year of my life thatin folly and weakness I threw away. Tell him that, and return here atonce to me."
The key had fallen near to Ben. Joey Mills did not need to pass close toShawn in order to retrieve it. Small, old and terrified, he was sidlingfor it when Shawn bellowed: "Joey Mills, do you take orders from abare-naked child and not from your captain?"
Mills leaped and fluttered like a hurt sparrow. But he had the key, andscuttled to larboard, intending a quick rush aft along by the larboardrail as far from Shawn as he could get. Shawn was wearing no pistols,only his short knife. Ben said: "He won't harm you, Joey. His businessis with me, not with you. If he tries to stop you, Ledyard and I willboth help you."
"Dummy!" Shawn called that name not in command but in pleading. But evenas he spoke, Dummy sobbed once, wetly and loudly, and shambled away upto the bow. Ben glimpsed the monkey's head flopping limp, and thespidery arms. She must have died, and Dummy must have known themoment--yet up there at the bow Dummy was still trying to support herhead and make it live.
"Shawn, you spoke of these men as phantoms. Only some of them are that.I think your Judah Marsh was a phantom, and so likely he made a thinmeal for the fish. Mills there is a man, and Matthew Ledyard, and Dummy.Men are creatures you've never understood, never. I can see that now.Myself, I begin, just a little, to understand them.... Joey has openedthe cabin. Needn't trouble to look behind you. Take my word for it, andnow give me that other key."
Shawn did not look behind him. He drew his own knife, slowly, withoutthreat, and leaned his back against the mainmast. "Compassed about....Ben--why, why? Why must it be so?... And if I do not give you that otherkey?"
"Then I must take it."
"With that knife. You'll use that knife against the man who would havegiven you the key to a whole new world."
"Yes."
"Were we not to go there together, Ben?"
"Certainly I dreamed that once myself, before Jan Dyckman was founddying in a dirty alley. And afterwards too, until I learned why he hadto lie there."
"Did I not give you the vision?"
"Yes."
"And see it strike fire in you?"
"Yes."
"As I never saw it in any other.... Have I not been kind?"
"Yes."
"Forbearing too? Forgiving a thousand things I'd never take from anyother man?"
"Yes."
"But you will use the knife. Have we not spoke together a thousand timeslike friends? Haven't I made you laugh?"
"Yes."
"But you will use it.... Why?"
"Shawn, do you think I could walk into Heaven across the flesh of JanDyckman? Dyckman and others--how many? The men of the _Schouven_--howmany, Shawn? And how many more, before we ever saw the new lands?"
"Does it matter? The vision is greater than the man."
"Nay, I think not, but even let that be so if you wish. But if youfollow the vision through blood and deceit, in mad denial of what yoursenses tell you, then you lose it. Maybe the vision is there yet, butyou're mired down in your own folly. You're lost.... Shawn, you're trulycompassed about, as you say." Ben raised his voice, knowing that in thiswindless air it must reach into the open cabin, if Jenks was in anycondition to hear it. "Mills and Ledyard and Dummy are with me. Manuelwon't fight for you. If Jack or Tom Ball would come on deck, they mustpass my friends there at the hatch. I don't wish to fight you, Shawn,nor to harm you. We were friends. I know what you gave me and I valueit. But you're lost. You're mired, and I will not go down with you. Nowhear the alternatives. If you----"
"I see," said Shawn, perhaps to himself. "I see you will not go with me,the w
ay I should have known it all the while."
"Shawn"--Ben understood that he himself was pleading--"Shawn, there arethose who love me, or there were. My life is more to them than ever itwas to you. You never knew me. You never saw me. You saw the image of afollower, and that you may have loved, but me you never saw. Nowthen--my life is all I own. I'm naked in every way. And if you'd takethat from me I'll fight you to the last breath, and I'll win. Now hearthe alternatives. Throw your knife away and give me that other key.Then, sir, I will not release Captain Jenks until he gives me his wordthat he will take you unharmed to Boston."
"To man's justice!" said Shawn, and laughed. "No hearing. The short gaspon the tricing line and all vision dead!"
"Men know little enough about justice, that's true. And so I'll give youanother alternative. If you will yield, I'll even set you free in a boatwhen we raise the Cape--as you could have done for me a year ago when Itold you plain I'd have no part of your venture."
In dark astonishment, Shawn appeared to be considering that a while. Hisgaze wandered over the deck. Certainly he would be understanding theopen cabin behind him, and whatever Mills and Ledyard were doing at thehatch--Ben could not turn his head to look--and Dummy up there at thebow, shut away in a private world of grief. "Your friend Peter Jenkswould never be consenting to such a thing at all."
"He would. His first duty is to Mr. Kenny and to the _Artemis_. To carryout that duty he must be free of the leg irons. If I say he cannot befree until he gives me his word to let you go, he will give it, and hewill keep his word."
"He will not. I know his kind."
"You know nothing of him. You see all men, including me, through yourfog of ambition and vanity--and visions.... Well, a thirdalternative--nay, I can't put that in words."
"To turn this knife against myself?" Shawn's eyes were all black. Thecopper farthing had been put away. He was shifting lightly from one footto the other. Ben caught some blurred noise from the forwardcompanionway, but could not turn to look. "I might even do it, Beneen,now that's no lie--if so be the voyage is ended, and wouldn't it be thelightest demand your tender heart has made of me? But Mother of God, Iwonder a little what you can do with the pretty ketch, and I not here.Will you look to the northeast?"
Ben did so, a glance not so long as a heartbeat, taking in all thatpart of the horizon. The faint smudge had grown to a rolling wall ofblack, far away, maybe not so far. No least breath stirred here aboardor over the near waters still ardent under the sun, but the pressure ofstorm ached in Ben's eardrums, and over yonder, where the advancingshadow fell, the water, no longer beaten gold, wavered in a troubleddarkness. So much Ben discovered in less than a heartbeat, and Shawnchose that moment to leap for him.
The knife was up and aiming for Ben's heart--flashing, perilous enough,intending death, but not shrewdly held as Judah Marsh would have heldit, in the flat of the hand, circling and slicing.
To Ben the man's action seemed almost slow; clumsy, weary. He was ablewith amazing ease to catch the wrist of Shawn's right hand and force itaway. His own was seized in the same moment, the blade only inches fromShawn's corded throat. Then indeed a slowness settled over them, a longstraining, a silent tension like that of the nearing squall--it mustbreak sometime, maybe not for a long while. Ben became a fightingmachine, the power in his left arm sufficient to hold destruction away,the power in his right sufficient to maintain the ultimate threat,but--because of the quivering effort in Shawn's bent arm and because ofa tortured reluctance in himself--he was not quite able to fulfill thethreat, not quite able to drive the point the two or three inches moredown into the soft pulsing spot in Shawn's neck where the life coulddrain away.
Locked so and waiting, Ben heard commotion break loose behind him. Ayell, a shot, a tramp of loud struggling feet, a shrill hollow squealthat could only be French Jack's war cry, and then a different kind ofyell from him--higher and thinner, maybe a scream of pain. Ben thoughthe heard some strangled cursing in Ledyard's voice. No way to learnabout it. Nothing to do but hold the fighting machine to its coldpurpose until it should win through or take a knife in the back.
It seemed to Ben that he knew, before it happened, everything that Shawnwould try to do. Shawn shifted his feet, seeking to bring his boot downon Ben's bare foot. The foot was not there, and Shawn nearly lost hisbalance, regaining it with a groan of stormy breath--but Ben could stillbreathe deeply, evenly. After that, he knew, Shawn would not dare to tryraising a knee to foul him. _I am a little taller after all...._
In chill calculation, the fighting machine forced Shawn aft by gradualsteps. Behind Ben the noise went on, a thrashing and a snarling. Two menmust be rolling about all over the forward deck--which two? Not JoeyMills--surely Mills could do nothing with bare hands against Jack or TomBall. It ought to be possible to turn about in this hideous embrace, atleast long enough to see----
Ben jerked his right arm backward, hoping to throw Shawn off balance orat least to turn him.
It turned him, but in the swirling and writhing readjustment Shawn'sknife found Ben's forehead and drew a hot line downward. Ben heaved atit long enough to save his eye. It returned, for that instantinexorable, gouging Ben's cheek in a lingering kiss of fury to the edgeof the jaw. Then Ben's left hand could drive it away, and Shawn was downon his knees and his face was turning brilliant red. _But that's myblood on him._ Shawn was staring upward. "The color," he said. He wasstaring directly into Ben's eyes. "The color of the western sea." Andhis knife clattered on the deck.
Yet he was up on his feet once more, still pressing Ben's knife away,even forcing it downward a little, and the motionless deadlockcontinued. Weaponless and gasping, knowing defeat, Shawn would notyield. "It's over," Ben said. "Can't you understand?" He would notyield.
Ben's left eye clouded with blood from his forehead. The right eye coulddiscover all things in brilliant detail. A small gray heap by the openhatch--Joey Mills, shot in the forehead. Up near the bow, Ledyard andTom Ball in a tangle of tom clothes and flailing arms; Ledyard had himby the ears, beating his round head against the planks, and Ledyard'smarred face was a great gash of grin. Nearer, a redheaded thing crawledaft inch by inch, holding a pistol, trailing a leg broken between kneeand ankle. This thing should have been creeping and suffering insunlight, but in the sky beyond it a blackness had done away with thesun, while over Ben's head had begun a dubious mutter of troubledcanvas.
And only three or four feet away--Dummy, his head swaying from side toside on the blunt neck, moaning, unable to advance, or understand, ortake part. Ben could understand that somehow. Dummy had two gods now,and the gods were destroying one another, and the world had fallen tobits while he clutched dead love in his tremendous arms.
Ben could not understand how there should again be huge noise behindhim, now that he was facing forward and could see them all with his oneunclouded eye, the living and the dead. Manuel? Never. The noise wasmetallic, a crashing jangle, and the repeated thud of some heavy objectstriking on the deck. He yelled: "God damn you, Shawn, give over!" Shawnmight not have heard that. Shawn was staring fixedly over Ben'sshoulder. Except for the grip on Ben's right wrist he was certainlyrelaxing, weakening fast. It was possible to swing him around again, andlook aft, and understand.
With shackled ankles the giant could move in a horrible and carefulhopping, the chain jerking behind him. He carried in his hand thethree-foot plank that he had torn loose from the floor nails and all.His broad face was one whitened granite calm. Clear of the cabindoorway, he swayed for a time without support, observing--the wrathfulsky, the full spread of sail fitfully trembling and stammering under thefirst warning gusts, the human deeds completed and not completed. Hislittle blue eyes brilliant with all the pure cold of northern ice, heraised the plank, and balanced it, and hurled it.
But French Jack rolled his crawling body just clear of it, and leveledhis pistol with some care. It crashed in the same moment that Jenksflung himself forward, and Jenks struck the deck still a yard or twofrom his enemy, blood seeping from his
leg above the iron band. Jenkscould crawl too. They would meet in a moment. The thunder of the shothad galvanized Shawn into a last effort, and Ben could watch no more,but he knew that the other thunder following was not from any humansource.
That was in the sails, a roar of stricken canvas above a deck gone mad.Out of the torn sky the northeast wind with a booming outrage of rainfell upon _Artemis_, slapping her over on her beam ends. The twistedknots of human warfare rolled tight against the larboard rail, inchesaway from a suddenly boiling sea.
Pressed down in that inferno, his face cold, and still, and streamingwith the flood of rain, Shawn forced Ben upward away from him, until hisright hand could join his left in grasping Ben's right hand. Shawn wastrying to speak above the uproar; Ben could not hear him. Ben felt theagonized living shudder of _Artemis_ as a thing within himself, and thenhe saw, not believing it, that his knife had gone down, its blade hiddenin the green cloth, buried to the hilt. Ben could not know, then or inall his life, whether Shawn's own hands had drawn the blade in uponhimself, or whether this had been done by the wrenching struggle of_Artemis_ in her extremity, or whether Ben's own right hand had sent itdown and so blotted out in one motion all the hope and the madness, thecruelty, the blindness and the radiant visions, and the pain.