The Sea Bride

by Ben Ames Williams

"In the cabin. Mr. Tobey went to her. He've not come up, yet."

Brander considered. "Fetch a handspike," he said; and Mauger crawled on deck and returned with it, and Brander pried open the irons he had filed apart. He stood up and shook himself to ease the ache of his muscles. "Now," he said, "let's go see...."

He climbed up on deck, Mauger at his heels, and started aft. Roy saw him coming, and Silva, from the rail, marked his movements and watched. Roy dropped into the cabin to warn Dan'l; Brander leaped to follow him. Silva spoke to his two men, and plunged up to the deck and darted after Brander.

Brander was at the foot of the companion ladder in the cabin when Roy threw open the door of the after cabin to shout his warning; he saw, as Roy saw, Dan'l gripping Faith and struggling with her. He heard Roy's cry.... Leaped that way....

Roy was before him. Roy, grown into a man in that moment. Dan'l had told him they would leave the ship, told him nothing more. Roy hated his sister, and Dan'l knew this, and feared no trouble from the boy. But he forgot that a boy's hate is not over strong. When Roy saw Faith in Dan'l's arms, helplessly fighting against his kisses, he leaped to protect her as though there had never been harsh words between them. Roy was on Faith's side, thenceforward.

The boy gripped Dan'l from behind; and for an instant more Dan'l clung to Faith. His encircling arm tightened about her so that she thought her ribs would crack; and when he flung her away, she was breathless and sick to nausea, and she fell on the floor and lay there, retching and gasping for breath. Dan'l flung her away, and swung on Roy.

"You young fool," he swore, "I'll kill you, now."

Roy was helpless before him. Dan'l held him by the throat, his fingers sinking home, Roy beat and tore at the man helplessly for a space, then his face blackened, and his eyes bulged, and Dan'l flung him away.

Brander might have helped him, but for the fact that three men dropped on him from the companion hatch and bore him smothering to the deck. The three were Silva and his allies. Silva had a knife; and Mauger had felt it, on the deck above. The one-eyed man lay there now, twisting and clutching at a hole in his side. Silva was first down on Brander; and he struck at Brander's neck as he leaped. But Brander had time to dodge to one side, so that Silva hit him on the hip and bore him down. Then the other two were upon him....

This sudden tumult in the cabin rang through the Sally. The night was still; the noise could be heard even by the boats that drifted half a mile away. Its abrupt outbreak was unsettling; it jangled taut nerves. The two remaining seamen and Long Jim, Loum, and Eph Hitch lost courage, raced for a boat, dropped it to the water and pulled off to see what was to come. Tichel, who was on deck, ran to try to stop them; but Loum struck out blindly and threw the mate off-balance for an instant that was long enough to let them get away.