She got up hastily, putting her hand to her forehead. Her face was covered with a cold sweat. “Nothing—nothing! I am sick. Stop—no more,” she gasped.
Mrs. Pallet, the carpenter’s wife, put her arm about her. “I’ll take her to her room, Captain?” looking at me. “There’s no cheating in her, at any rate,” as she led her out. “It’s my belief it’s the Devil’s work.”
Warrick straightened himself and drew a long breath. “Do you think it is the Devil’s work, sir?”
“God knows.”
“It is the truth, whether or no. Wylie always had a hankering for a sea life. He used to listen to my old whaling yarns twenty times over. And I’ve heard lately, Captain, that poor Joe was deep in debt when he disappeared. Some old matters, before he came aboard the Strader. He had a reason for going. But Ellen thinks him dead,—thinks him dead,” stroking his whiskers. “Would you tell her of this now, eh, Captain?” looking up.
“Yes, I would,” after a pause. “It can do no harm. But gently, Warrick, gently.”
It did do harm, however gently it was told. The next day Wylie’s wife came to me where I stood alone, near the texas. Her nose was red from crying, and her eyes angry, which made the rest of her face more hunger-nipped and pale. She touched my sleeve, and then drew off, holding her little boy by the hand.
“Captain Roberts,” she said, in a low, steady voice, “there is a woman on the boat who pretends to have seen my husband alive. If he is alive, he has deserted me. He is dead.”
“He is dead. You shall not think ill of Joe.” She was silent a moment, holding her throat with one hand. “If he is alive, he has deserted me, and—I’ll tell you, Captain Roberts, but I never meant to tell any living man. When you brought me and Joe on the boat, I hadn’t touched meat for four months. It took all I could make to keep life in the boy, and barely that. I went out scrubbing when sewing failed me. I scrubbed and whitewashed. I didn’t beg. Do you think Joe would have left me to that? and him alive? He’s dead. There’s some days I’ve went through—if Joe had been on the face of the earth he’d have come to me them days. He’s dead; he’s waiting, somewheres—”