The whales led them past Easter Island for a space; and then, abruptly, they were gone. Came day on day when the men at the masthead saw no misty spout against the wide blue of the sea, no glistening black body lying awash among the waves. And the Nathan Ross, with all hands scrubbing white the decks again, bent northward, working toward that maze of tiny islands which dots the wide South Seas.
Their water was getting stale, and running somewhat low; and they needed fresh foodstuffs. Joel planned to touch at the first land that offered. Tubuai, that would be. He marked their progress on the chart.
On the evening before they would reach the island, when Joel and Priss were preparing for sleep, Priss burst out furiously, like a teapot that boils over. The storm came without warning, and—so far as Joel could see—without provocation. She was sick, she said, of the endless wastes of blue. She wanted to see land. To step on it. If she were not allowed to do so very soon, she would die.
Joel, at first, was minded to tell her they would sight land in the morning; then, with one of the blundering impulses to which husbands fall victim at such moments, he decided to wait and surprise her. So, instead of telling her, he chuckled as though at some secret jest, and tried to quiet her by patting her dark head.
She fell silent at his caress; and Joel thought she was appeased. As a matter of fact, she was hating him for having laughed at her; and her calm was ferocious. He discovered this, too late....
He had just kissed her good night. She turned her cheek to his lips; and he was faintly hurt at this. But he only said cheerfully: “There, Priss.... You’ll be all right in the morning....”
He yawned in mid-sentence, so that the last two or three words sounded as though he were trying to swallow a large and hot potato while he uttered them. Priss could stand no more of that. Positively. So she slapped his face.
He was amazed; and he stood, looking at her helplessly, while the slapped cheek grew red and red. Priss burst into tears, stamped her foot, called him names she did not mean, and as a climax, darted into her own cabin, and swung the door, and snapped the latch.
Joel did not in the least understand; and he went to his bunk at last, profoundly troubled.
An hour after they anchored, the next day, at Tubuai, a boat came out from shore and ran alongside, and Mark Shore swung across the rail, aboard the Nathan Ross.