Black Pawl’s laughter was hollow; he cursed and swung away down the deck.
That was mid-afternoon. Till dark the men worked on the Deborah’s repairs. That night Black Pawl kept his cabin. He was drinking steadily. He sought oblivion. But the liquor would not bite, and he cursed the feeble stuff, even as he poured it down his throat. He did not sleep. Once he got up and prowled through the cabin. On the cabin table there was a scarf, a light thing that Ruth Lytton had dropped there. Black Pawl lifted it and ran it through his hands, head bowed; and his thoughts were ugly. In the end his teeth set, and he tore the thing to bits in his hands.
In the morning Red Pawl came to him. The mate said they must go ashore and hew out timbers to make a rough splint for the bowsprit. Black Pawl laughed in his face. “Aye, and ashore you’ll teach my men to be rid of me, I doubt,” he accused.
Red Pawl gave back no word, but there was a flat defiance in his eyes. The Captain waved his hand. “Go along,” he said. “I’ll send Darrin and his men as well.”
“I’m not needing them,” said Red Pawl.
“I say they go,” Black Pawl roared at him; the mate turned away without further dissent.
When the Captain went on deck a little later, he found the boats in the water alongside, ready to start for the island. The missionary and the girl were there. The missionary came to Black Pawl and said:
“I want to go and see these natives, if you’ve no objection, sir.”
“Go. Tell them about your God,” Black Pawl laughed at him. They were all going, leaving him. He felt, suddenly, very lonely; and then he thought with a fierce and ugly triumph: “But she’s not going—not the girl. She’ll be here with me.”
He saw that she was preparing to enter Dan Darrin’s boat; and he went toward her and said, with something like entreaty in his voice: “Stay aboard with me, Ruth. Will you not?”