When she was gone, the first mate paced back and forth for a space, then fell to talking with the man at the wheel. They talked in undertones, as though afraid of being heard.
Next day they threw the try-works overside, brick by brick. The crew made it an occasion of rejoicing. It meant the hard and dangerous toil of the whale-fisheries was over and done with; it meant home, and money to spend, and a few weeks ashore. They shouted and sang at the business of dismantling the ovenlike structure where so many flenches of blubber had been boiled to scrapple for the oil they yielded. The men vied in hurling the bricks, to see which might throw one farthest out across the water. They shied half-bricks at the birds that still followed them from the islands they had left.
When the last brick was gone, the big pots were lowered into the holds and made secure; the chimney and the firebox were stowed away; and the broad pan which is always full of water when the pots are going, so that the deck may not be charred, was scoured and put in its place. Remained only the littered deck where the try-works had been. This they scrubbed till the deck-planking was white as a bleached bone. And they sang at the work, for the day was fine, and the wind was fair, and they were putting behind them the seas where they had toiled.
Black Pawl shouted at them, jovially abusive; and Dan Darrin lent a hand when another strong hand was needed now and then; Red Pawl scowled from the rail, and cursed them when they lagged. The old missionary and the girl watched all this, as they followed all the life of the schooner, from the quarter. To be at sea on each days was to the girl bliss and poetry and joy unspeakable. She told Dan Darrin so when he came aft. “It’s beautiful,” she cried. “So fine, and big! I don’t think I should ever tire of the sea.”
Black Pawl heard, and laughed, and called to her: “You’ll have chance enough to learn. You’ll get your fill of it before the end. We’ll not touch land from now till we make home harbor, child.”
She nodded, accepting what he said as true. And he meant it so; but as matters turned out, when Black Pawl said they would not touch land again, he was wrong.
CHAPTER III
THUS far fair weather had followed them from the island; the schooner laid the leagues of ocean behind her and plunged steadfastly along the homeward course. There was peace aboard her; the men were cheerful, and the cabin was quiet. Red Pawl said little, and what speech he held was generally with the men at the wheel, with whom he talked at times in furtive undertones; but if Black Pawl remarked this,—and the Captain’s eyes did not miss much that passed aboard his craft,—he made no sign.
The missionary was interested in Black Pawl. He had heard, on the island, certain dark stories of the man; yet he found the captain of the Deborah a good companion, intelligent, reasonably jovial, and courteous enough. He sought on two or three occasions to talk with him, but in the beginning Black Pawl had put him off, half avoiding him, it seemed, as if he were unwilling to be alone with a man of the church. The missionary was used to reading men; he said in his thoughts: “There is a trouble upon Black Pawl’s soul.” He wondered whether he might help the man, and so sought his friendship and his confidence.
He saw, after a time, that Black Pawl constantly watched Ruth Lytton without seeming to do so; it was obvious that he liked to talk to her. He saw, also, that after such talks with the girl the Captain was more often than not restless and at greater outs with the world.