The puffs of smoke he blew toward the porthole were like salvos of shrapnel. The situation had cleared during the hours since leaving St. Paul Island and the rookeries. Whitehouse had become genial; the grumbling voices of the crew were more or less stilled; the little skipper was in a desperate position.
Stirling sensed the general direction of the swiftly driving poacher. The cant to port, the general steadiness of the wind in the Bering, the drifting floes—all these were points by which he guided his deductions.
Siberia and the open Gulf of Anadir should be reached by noon of the day to come. This would mean little less than twelve steaming hours. The Island of St. Lawrence lay some few leagues to the northward. The Bear, provided she had not given up the pursuit, might search the shores of that island. There were two native settlements on the western coast, and these were a likely refuge for poachers and those who lived beyond the law.
There came then to Stirling's straining ears the soft sound of a piano. He set his pipe on a rack at the head of the bunk and moved stealthily toward the door. Pressing his ear to the panel of this, he listened. He heard the shuffling of the sentry's feet, and above this sound lilted a thin, pure note which could come only from a woman's throat. It rose, fell, and was raised once more into a remembered song:
"Whither, oh, splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,
Thou fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,
Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?"
Stirling breathed with deep intakes of close breath. He caught the swing of the words as if they were attuned to his own thoughts, and they steadied him in his determination to remain aboard the Pole Star and ascertain what manner of woman or girl lived in the after ship. She was related to Marr—that much was evident. He wondered if she were his wife, sister, or ward. One of the three would explain her being aboard. None would explain why she seemed to be almost a prisoner.
He listened for more music, and now and then the piano throbbed a vibrant note. At last it was still. There alone remained the swish of the waves, the creak of blocks, the sliding footfalls on the quarter-deck, to mark their passage.
The last light of day died from the surface of the waters, and the first bright star lay horizon down. It came up grandly out of the east and from the direction of Alaska, shining through the open porthole like an eye of promise. Stirling rose from the seat he had taken on the bunk and turned out the electric light. He leaned back and studied this star, finding solace and resolve in its white rays.
Daybreak, at the early hour of two bells, brought Stirling out of his dreams and into the grip of a coming dawn. He washed himself and glanced ruefully at his unshaven features, but there was no way to remedy the matter. Seamen in the Bering and Arctic often went for an entire season without shaving.
He thought of the girl and her song as he idled through the hour which followed. She had grown closer to him in some manner. It was as if there were two prisoners on one ship. Her voice had contained the vibrant note of anxiety. She had asked in a manner which he could fathom, where the tall poacher was going? She, too, was gripped by the mystery.