Once again Hastings felt the rasp of steel, and closed to the combat in a manner worthy of his opponent’s saner moments. “If you mean to imply—”
Before his slow speech was past his lips, Widmer interrupted him, changing his expression so facilely that Hastings felt again that sense of losing all touch with the blade that maneuvered for his weakness: “I beg you to pardon me. I was excited. Of course I imply nothing. Nothing that you would be guilty of.”
And Hastings, quicker of hand than of brain, tried again to follow that baffling change of front. He was gaining experience in that other school of fence, and was not so easily evaded now.
Throughout the meal he studied Widmer cautiously. Thin mouth, cold eyes, an outward politeness itself threatening by the suggestion of what lay behind it. He had known the man’s reputation of old; the ever-present apprehension of the cabin boy, the servility of the mate, the silence of the crew, all went to bear it out.
Yes, each knew; and each knew, unconfessed, that the other knew. All night the thought haunted Hastings. He recalled numerous half-spoken sentences fraught with scarcely concealed meaning, and others, outspoken and direct, that made no pretense of concealment. He had come back to the sea to forget that he ever had loved, but, after all, he could not forget. He even doubted if the girl had forgotten. Such dreams as they had dreamed together do not vanish overnight. He saw her on the porch of the old house, by the slim, white pillars. He remembered her in the garden sweet with honeysuckle. On the wharf, by the church door, here, there, everywhere, among the familiar scenes of the old town, she appeared in the eyes of his memory. Then like a dark cloud came the memory of a certain night—and the strange laughter, the locked door, and the words he had heard her say.
At noon next day Widmer was gay. He laughed and joked, and seemed unaware of Hastings’ silence. At night he gave himself up again to a politeness elaborate and artificial. But through it all Hastings felt a certain threatening undertone. And Widmer, taking no chances, gave secret orders, quite as if he had not fathomed Hastings and found him shallow to the lead.
The sun set in a blaze of fire, shooting great beams of light far into the heavens, and the moon rose in a pale halo. A junk in the offing tossed on the long swell that rolled away into the distance, and the WVinnemere, her braces rattling as they ran, leaned easily before the wind that swept the gray sea. The sky changed from blue to scarlet, from scarlet to flaming gold, and from gold, as the night set in, to sea green and steel blue. The ship’s lanterns twinkled in the dusk; the stars came out thickly overhead; and presently, as the moon climbed above the horizon, its wan light thinly illuminated the decks of the ship and the towering structure of masts and spars and canvas and cordage.
Late at night, when all was quiet, Hastings crept out of his berth. For a time he could hear only the straining of ropes, the creaking of blocks, and the whisper of the sea. Then he heard the sound of some one sobbing. Then the sound changed to that low laugh.
That laugh! He had half expected, half feared, to hear it. He felt within himself the sharp palpitation stimulated by quick, intense emotion, that for want of a better name we call leaping of the heart. With a quick motion he started forward in the darkness, but his feet struck something soft. It was the little cabin boy, asleep on a folded blanket. Uttering a cry, the lad scrambled to his feet and fled up the companionway.
For a moment there was silence, heavy and suspicious, then, out of the dark, came Widmer’s calm challenge. “What does this mean?”