“There was a shadow over the mate from the beginning of that cruise. Any man could see it; and the fo’mast hands used to watch him, and whisper among themselves. Outwardly he was the same; strong and quick and proud, alive, alert, his body uplifted with the energy it housed. He trod the decks lightly, he moved with the quick precision of an animal; and he plunged into his work in a fashion that would have worn another man to threads.
“A sprinkling of our old crew was aboard; so Eric’s story was no secret. But it was never mentioned by him or in his presence. He seemed to find a joy in his toil that allowed him to forget; and the man’s eyes brightened and his cheeks set in their old firm, fine lines as we drove southward. There is no better index to a man than the cheeks of him. Flabbiness of body or soul shows quickest there, and there all other vices and all virtues first appear. Eric’s face was neither gaunt nor round, but it had a chiseled perfection of contour that was like a song.
“There is a deal of superstition that hangs about the sea; and a whaler has her share of it, and more. But it is never allowed to interfere with the work at hand. And so if the men wished Eric off the ship, they kept their wishes to themselves; and if they were reluctant to serve in his boat, they hid this reluctance. For Eric was a quick man, quick to anger, with a quick fist to him. In his place, I should have moved tremblingly, fearful of a blow from behind during the watch on deck at night. But Eric strode fearlessly about the ship; and none laid hand to him.
“The sea is a grim thing, and inscrutable. No man can look out across its smooth bosom day and day, and remember the vast multitude of lives which go their way beneath that smiling surface, without a sense of the mystery and wonder of it all. The sea in a storm may be terrible and appalling, when its broad expanse is cut up into myriad gulleys and mountains in which the ship is lost as in a labyrinth; but to me it has always been even more terrible and menacing when it is calm. In time of storm, its fury rages without curb; the worst is with you. But when the sea is quiet, all its energies hidden, it is like the smiling mask of Fate which conceals unguessed and unpredicted blows.
“Thus, when we sailed southward over smooth and smiling seas, I fell victim to unrest that harassed me. I rose and looked abroad each day with eyes that searched eagerly for a threat of the fate that seemed impending; and even as I watched the sea, in like manner did I watch Eric Scarf, to discover if I could what it was that hung so threateningly over the man’s smiling head.
“If Eric felt any uneasiness, he gave no sign at first. He was as he had always been, confident, and quick, and strong. But the day came when a hint was given us, just as the impalpable atmospheric changes reveal through the glass the approach of storm.
“We had sighted whales more than once, and made a fair beginning on the long task ahead of us; and then one day in the South Atlantic, the boats were lowered for a pod that lay far off to southward. Eric got fast, and the third mate likewise. But the whale I had chosen as my goal took alarm, and whirled toward us, and then fled before our irons could reach him.
“There had been time, however, for us to see upon his head a dull scar, in the form of a cross, and I heard a cry from Eric’s boat, that was just getting fast, and turned to see Eric staring toward the spot where the old bull had disappeared.
“Then I remembered what the men had said about the whale which had stove Eric’s boat after the kill on the other voyage; and when we were aboard again, the cutting-in done, and the tryworks boiling and smoking, I was not surprised that Eric came to me.
“‘Mark,’ he whispered huskily, ‘was there a cross on the bull that got away?’