The Sea Bride

by Ben Ames Williams

The whale Tichel struck had sounded; and just after Brander killed, it breached before his eyes, under the very bows of Tichel's boat. Brander saw the black column of its body rise up and up from the sea; it seemed to ascend endlessly.... Then toppled, and slowly fell, and struck the water so resoundingly that for a moment the whale and Tichel's boat were hidden alike. Tichel was dodging desperately to get clear; but the wallowing whale rolled toward him, over him, smothering his craft.... Brander, when the tossing and tormented water quieted, saw the bobbing heads of the men, and the boat just awash, and the gear floating all around....

The whale showed no immediate disposition to run; it was rolling in a frenzy, bending double as though to tear at its own wounds.... Brander stuck a marking waif in his own whale, drove his men to their oars, cut across to see that Tichel and the others were kept afloat by the boat, and then managed to pick up one of the floating tubs of line, to which the whale was still attached. The rest was easy enough; the whale fought its strength away, and Brander made his kill.

Willis Cox had failed to get fast; the whales he sought to attack took fright as he approached them, and his game got away with a white slash across the blubber where Long Jim's desperate cast of the harpoon had gone wild. So Willis rowed to join Brander, and picked up Tichel and his men, and took their boat and Tichel's whale which Brander had killed, in tow. Brander took the other; they worked back to the Sally. When they got back to the ship, Noll Wing clapped Brander on the shoulder and applauded him. The excitement of the sudden chase, after the weeks of idling, had put life into Noll. His cheeks were flushed; his eyes were shining; he had the look of his old self once more....

Two whales at a time is as much as any whaler cares to handle; the Sally had three. A blow of any violence would have made it impossible for them to cut in even one of the carcasses before the steady heat of the southern seas rendered them unfit; but no squall came. The luck of the Sally had turned, and turned in earnest. The men welcomed the hard work after their long idleness; they toiled at the windlass and the gangway with the heartiest will. They raised chants as they walked the blanket pieces up to the main head or slacked them down the deck to be cut and stowed in the blubber room below the main hatch. The intoxication of the toil took possession of them; they went at it singing and exultant and afire; and even Noll caught the spirit of the day from them. Youth flooded back into the man; his shoulders straightened; his chest seemed to swell before their eyes. Faith, watching him, thought he was like the man she had loved.... She was, for a time, very happy....

The fever of it got into Noll's blood; and when they killed another whale the third day after, he swore that at the next chance he would himself lower for the chase. He fed on the thought.... Faith, fearful for him, ventured to protest; her first thought was ever that on Noll's safety depended the safety of the Sally, that Noll's first duty was to bring the Sally Sims safely home again. She told Noll this; told him his place was with the ship.

"The Sally is your charge," she said. "You ought not to risk yourself.... Take chances...."

He laughed at her tempestuously. "By God," he cried, "I was never a man to send men where I was afeared to go. So let be, Faith. You coddle me like a child; and I am not a child at all. Let be."

Faith surrendered helplessly; but she hoped he would forget, would not keep his word. He might have forgotten as she hoped; he was sinking back into his old lassitude when the masthead men sighted the next whale; but Dan'l sought Noll out and said anxiously:

"Best think better of it, sir. This looks like a big whale; a hard customer."

Noll had so nearly forgotten that he asked: "Think better of what, man?"