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Show toABM Ben Amls Williams j U 'fgef1 1 "V 111,11 CHAPTER XI Continued j Richard's boat was near the dead whale, moving to and fro, Richard standing high in the bow and pointing point-ing this way and that to guide Pip at the stearing oar; and Mary could see now and then a man lean overside over-side and pick something up out of the water with both hands. Mary looked around for information. Peter Pe-ter was aft; but Isaiah was here with them, his elbows on the rail, squinting at the boats yonder. Mary asked him what they were doing. "Mat's cutting a hole in the small so's he can tow her in." "I mean, what's Richard picking up?" "Oh, might be grease," he suggested. sug-gested. "You see it sometimes, where a whale's costive." Mary, looking down into Richard's boat, saw that it was half full of some strange stuff, noisome in appearance, ap-pearance, a mass of gouts and chunks and fragments deep gray in color, from which an unpleasant odor rose. The stuff was piled around the feet of the men, the whole whaleboat messed with it Peter came here beside them; and he called down to his brother: "What's all that gurry, Dick?" Richard looked up at them with calm eyes; but then his own excitement ex-citement made him grin like 8 proud, triumphant boy. He threw up his hand. "Greasy luck today, Peter. It's ambergris!" he cried. Mary remembered vaguely having hav-ing heard someone at some time speak of "ambergris." She had an obscure impression that is was valuable, valu-able, and she decided now with an amused grimace that it must be, or Richard would not have brought this boatload of ill-smelling stuff back to the Venturer. He leaped to the deck beside them, dripping with his exertions, and drunk with the hot taste of victory; and as the men swung the whaleboat aboard he spoke to Peter. "What's ambergris good for, Richard? Rich-ard? It smells awful." Richard chuckled reassuringly. "It'll get over that as soon as it dries out. They use it to make perfumes!" "Where does ambergris come from?" "I guess nobody knows just what it is. A whale gets rid of it while he's dying, just the way a trout will clean out its stomach on the hook. You'll see chunks of squid half as big as a man floating around a whale after he's fin out; and sometimes you find ambergris the same way." Mary watched him, her eyes still as woodland pools, remembering what she had seen this tall young man do a while ago. When he came toward her again, she could not face him, and like one waking she looked around, and realized for the first time that George was no longer here beside her. She saw him by the cabin skylight aft. Richard returned past her. "Got . to go get dry," he said. She followed fol-lowed him toward where George stood; and George stopped Richard, said in unstinted praise: "That's the finest thing I ever saw or heard of, Cap'n Corr." Richard flushed with pleasure; and Mary linked her arm through her husband's and held tight to it, and echoed: "Did you ever see anything any-thing so wonderful?" Richard grinned. "It was a pretty pret-ty good fight," he admitted. "It was great," George agreed. "I didn't take a full breath for ten minutes." He smiled. "If that's whaling, Cap'n Corr, I'll stick to the ministry." Richard chuckled in shy pleasure. "Shucks, most times it's like beefing beef-ing a steer. Nine whales out of ten just make a little run and then take it; and the bowheads don't even do that" "A bowhead killed Uncle Tom," Mary remembered. "Oh, sometimes they'll act bad." The business of cutting in the dead whale was pushed at top speed to beat the threat of weather. Mary watched the long spades slice through blubber and flesh and gristle as easily as hot butter. Peter, she saw, was shrewd and skilful at this business. Mary watched the whole operation, opera-tion, from the first cut into the black carcass scarred white by the sharks. The sharp blades the men used fascinated fas-cinated her. Hiram was kept busy grinding them, Tommy turning for him. She and George watched proceedings pro-ceedings together; and once when Richard stopped near them, she said: "All these spades and harpoons and lances are pretty deadly, aren't they. I should think you'd be nervous, nerv-ous, having them around." "Well, they're our tools," he reminded re-minded her. "We get used to them." And he said: "You know, Peter's the best I ever saw on the cutting stage." She thought he wished to restore Peter's stature in her eyes, and said agreeably: agree-ably: "I could sec that. He knows Just where to cut, doesn't he?" All that night the decks were a red-lighted Inferno of smoke and flame, and the smell of hot oil penetrated pene-trated every part of the ship. It would be days before the Venturer Ven-turer was spick and span again. The whale, beside the ambergris, added sixteen barrels of spermaceti and forty-odd of oil to their cargo; but '.he ambergris had captured the Imi Clnation of tvery man aboard. That single small barrel which a strong man could lift and carry away was worth thousands of dollars. dol-lars. No one could be sure exactly how much, and every man aboard was wondering. After they found the ambergris, Richard, who had till then maintained main-tained a careful dignity, as though to support his new part as Captain of the Venturer, became more expansive. ex-pansive. Mary thought his luck had given him a sense of his own powers on which now he could build. At table he was more ready to talk about himself, and about the things he had seen in his ten years of seafaring. sea-faring. When he spoke of whales and whaling, even George was interested in-terested and attentive; but sometimes, some-times, chuckling at his memories, Richard spoke of brawling days ashore. One day he related a rather gay tale of wine and women that nettled net-tled George. Leaving Richard in the outer cabin he stalked out, Mary quick on his heels. George led Mary into her own cabin and closed tee door and he said at once: "Mary, I don't like that talk! Captain Cap-tain Corr ought to mind his tongue." She hesitated, seeing how anger shook him, wondering in embarrassment embarrass-ment whether Richard could hear. Then she heard Richard go on deck. "Don't you think you're a little unreasonable, un-reasonable, George?" she pleaded. "Of course, you're a minister, and illy fc ' "I knew darned well you'd be crying!" a fine one; but Richard's fine in his way too. Don't you think there are two ways, at least, for men to live?" He said, after a moment, with that humility which a consciousness of his own one-sidedness always woke in him: "Yes, I know, Mary. But I hate his attitude toward well, toward to-ward women. The relationship between be-tween men and women isn't a game, to be played for fun. When a man does things like that, and brags about them ..." "I don't think he was bragging," she argued. "I thought he was just telling some of the foolish things he used to do." "Mary, are you trying to justify him?" "Yes, I am," she admitted. "I think by his standards Richard's a pretty fine man. Just as you are by yours. I think if you did things like that, you'd feel ashamed and degraded; de-graded; so of course you shouldn't do them. But when he did them, he didn't feel ashamed. He just thought they were fun! They were foolish, perhaps; but all young men do foolish things, don't they?" "Most of them, I suppose. That doesn't make them any less fools!" His voice was tight with rage. She protested, herself half angry now: "You surely don't expect me to be like you, stiff, and disapproving, disapprov-ing, and hardly speaking to him at all." "I don't expect you to defend him!" "Richard doesn't need defending!" defend-ing!" George said rigidly: "I expect you to remember you're my wife, Mary." She told him wearily: "Oh I do, George. You know I do." But something some-thing in her tone made him look at her with bleak eyes; and he turned without a word and went out of the cabin, closing the door harshly behind be-hind him. She dropped on her bunk, lying on her back, her eyes open, and it occurred to her after a little that she was very tired. She wondered why; and her eyes filled, and she rolled over, her head in her arms, crying quietly. When the door of the stateroom opened and then closed, she thought it was George returning return-ing to make his peace with her; and she lay still, waiting for him to speak. She felt his weight on the bunk as he sat down beside her, his hand upon her shoulder; and she turned over to look up at him and saw not George but Peter. He bent close above her so that she could not rise; and he whispered hotly: "I knew darned well you'd be crying! Blast him! If he were man's size I'd take him apart!" She shook her head from side to side on the pillow. "He's all right, Peter. I was just tired, that's all. I don't know why." She tried to sit up, put her hand against his chest to thrust him aside; but he did not move. He laughed, in a comforting fashion. "Poor little Mary! You always were a sweet kid. I was crazy about you, at home." "You were sort of mean to me, always al-ways teasing." "Sure. That's the way boys do! That's the way they show it." He said quickly: "I'd do a lot to see you happy." And he bent and kissed her. CHAPTER Xn He said hoarsely, his lips against her ear: "I could do anything, with a woman like you." He was pressing her down. She had to fight away, to fight to her feet in a sort of blind panic, to face him with blazing eyes, scrubbing scrub-bing at her lips which again now he had kissed, crying in low tight tones: "Stop it, Peter! Stop it! Get out of here!" She flung him back. He stood against the door, muttering brokenly. broken-ly. "I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. You're so sweet! I lost my head!" "Get out of here!" He said in sudden sullen wrath: "You're not fooling me, you knowl You've always been crazy about Dick! You never would look at me!" She took a quick step toward him, so angry that he recoiled; and he opened, behind him, the cabin door. She said: "If you ever come in here again, I'll . . ." He exclaimed in quick alarm; "Sh-h! Don't yell, Mary. George will hear . . ."He turned and ran up the companionway to the deck. After that whale which Richard killed had been tried out, and the decks scoured clean again, there were long lazy days when the ship and those aboard her seemed asleep. Sometimes Mary, looking up at the men on watch at the crosstrees, saw them nodding on their lofty perch. When the Venturer was on whaling ground, she carried at night only enough sail to make her handy; but now Richard was making a passage, counting on picking up enough oil to fill their casks off the coast of South America. Richard for the sake of warm weather did not yet turn southward and the sun shone fair and fine, and the winds were favoring. The watch on deck might be busy with scrimshaw, scrim-shaw, listening perhaps to one of Corkran's yarns; and the squawk of the parrot sometimes came aft. Richard, standing with Mary one day, watching Corkran and his listeners, lis-teners, said: "He's a good man, a good sailor; and a story-teller in the fo'c's'le helps keep the men contented. Someone Some-one to tell 'em stories keeps 'em amused." Mary reflected thoughtfully: "You know, Corkran's really fond of George. That's why he deserted the Sunset at Gilead, in case George needed him." "George is a fine fellow, Mary. I like him too." "The queer part is, he likes Cork-ran," Cork-ran," she said. "Corkran lived with the natives on the island and George knows it, and yet he doesn't seem to blame him." - Richard looked at her. "You know, you may not understand George yourself," he said. "He's about the bravest man I ever saw. He's pretty pret-ty small, and frail; but he's never afraid." He added: "He wants to go in one of the boats next time we strike whales." She was astonished. "Honestly? After seeing that fight the other day? He said then he'd stick to being a preacher, don't you remember?" He chuckled. "That was partly to make me feel good, and partly because he saw how impressed you were, and he was trying to please you by agreeing with you. George is a grown man, Mary, small as he is." "Will you let him go in a boat?" "Maybe." George had long since made his peace with Mary after that ugly hour in her cabin when by defending defend-ing Richard she roused his anger. He was humble and contrite and ashamed of his harsh word. Peter too came to her with apologies; and Mary guardedly forgave him, as a woman can always forgive a man for loving her; but sometimes when she looked at him suddenly she surprised a sultry hunger in his eyes that made her wary. She tried not to be left alone with him again. There were other reasons too why her nerves drew tight and tighter. She saw much low-pitched conversation conver-sation among the men forward. Even Corkran was changed. Mary, Ma-ry, when he had the wheel, sometimes some-times talked with him, puzzled by the difference In his bearing. She and George discussed it too. Mary asked Corkran straightforwardly straightfor-wardly one day why he had changed. He was, he confessed, uneasy. un-easy. "I don't like the looks of things forward," he said. "Nor the talk I hear." "What talk?" "They're saying there's a packet of pearls aboard this ship that's worth a fortune." His eyes touched hers. "You mind, pearls made trouble trou-ble enough back there at the Island, for himself and you. I don't like the pretty little things.' (TO HE CONTINUED) |