Hurricane Williams/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
THE MAN WHO ONCE WAS HANGED
IT WAS quiet on the Heraldr and the wind held. The ship went steadily southeast by east. She had squared away at sunrise.
The men who had put out in the boats were back. They had hung off through the night, waiting for the Heraldr to burn, and at dawn they had begged to be taken on board.
“You will be hanged,” they were told by a cold hard voice that spoke over the rail, without emotion, without emphasis.
Then they asked for food, water and a compass. They might as well have spoken to the wind.
There would have been as much of an answer. They moderated their request to food and water. It was as though they were not heard.
They asked for water, nothing but water. They were parched. They must have water. The fiery liquors had burned their bodies dry. They implored him to let water he put into their boats.
The half-naked man looked steadily across the sea at a far cloud-like mist on the horizon, the nearest land and one of cannibals. He said nothing.
Then again they asked to be taken on to the ship. They promised many things of their own will. He did not seem to notice them or their words, but having said that they would be hanged if they came back to the Heraldr, had nothing more to tell them.
They got on board and went to work. Some were stiff with cuts and had used the gaudy clothes off their heads for bandages. They shambled anxiously, eagerly, at duties, hopeful that he might be touched with mercy, not yet knowing who he was, from whence he came or how; but many felt that they knew why. Brundage's ghost had sent him.
Gorvhalsen had been carried up on the deck. It had been no easy work to get him there and the heavy body strained the strength of four men who were solicitously careful with him. They spoke to one another watchfully, saying: “Bear up the weight here.” “Go easy there.” One would have thought they were devoted servants; but they worked under the eyes of Williams and were still fearful.
Clobb, being powerful, had been told to bear a hand. He came, staring with sullen wonder at Williams; but Gorvhalsen, quiet in deep pain, just looking about, his great black eyes roving, said with deep-throated fierceness:
“Keep that man away—I'll kill him!”
And the broken giant would have tried to do it, but Clobb shuffled back on to the deck, still wondering. He would have understood better had he been thrown into irons, treated as dangerous; but he was seemingly ignored. When he had come to on the cabin deck, the strange naked figure, speaking from the shadows of the stern stateroom had said:
“Get on deck.”
That was all. Clobb went.
Mrs. Gorvhalsen was by the couch that had been made for her husband under the awning where he could have fresh morning air and be free from the sickening stench of the cabin, the kerosene, spilled liquors, tobacco stink and other odors unpleasant.
When she did not seem to be watching, Williams again and again looked at her; but she knew, could feel his eyes upon her and was vaguely troubled, though by nothing like fear of him. He was so tense, and had regarded her so directly and with a hungering gaze so nearly like madness that at first she had been disturbed. But that had passed, and she soon felt that there was something behind him, his manner, fierce, indifferent yet watchfully concerned with her, that could be explained.
What it might be, she never knew.
McGuire, who saw everything, saw Williams's look and wondered what it was in her that had so deeply moved his sympathy. From the first his manner toward her had unmistakably meant something.
With swift words in the cabin McGuire had told the Heraldr's story; but there had been no sympathy on Williams's face then, not even toward poor, awed, bewildered little Eve, who came timidly out with her red-rimmed eyes wide-stretched at the hard, strange, tense man who seemed to have fallen from the sky—if not, indeed, to have rushed up out of the sea.
As the door the carpenter had nailed up gave way before his blows, with Eve crying reassuringly to those within, Williams had stepped through.
They had gazed at him in astounded silence, less because of his mystery in being there than because of his presence, savage, bold, at once reassuring and alarming.
He had looked first at Mrs. Gorvhalsen and stared. One might have thought he had never seen a woman before, or that he was recognizing some one after a lapse of years, or else that he thought that he was.
He said nothing by which it could be known what his frighteningly direct eyes meant. He had hardly looked toward Eve when she came into the cabin; but it seemed that he would never cease looking at Mrs. Gorvhalsen. She could not know what his look meant, but waited quietly. He turned from her. A glance went toward the carpenter, returned to her, paused; then at last reached Gorvhalsen, lying helpless in the midst of his black beard, his cheek rolled against his fist. Again Williams stared at her, and spoke. His voice was cold, harsh. The words came like commands:
“Madam, you have nothing to fear.” That was all. They hardly knew what he meant, the words were so at variance with his fierce tone; but they were no longer uneasy.
Yet, somehow, it was impossible to offer gratitude. Mrs. Gorvhalsen felt it. She said something, but could never recall what it was. He did not appear to have heard. He turned away.
It was then Gorvhalsen, his voice broken with pain, asked wonderingly:
“Who on earth can you be?”
The answer came at once, hard-spoken, half-bitterly, with no pride:
“Williams—of the Mariana.”
He went out. They did not see him again during the night except as he passed shadow-like through the cabin, noiseless, doing they knew not what; but an atmosphere of security was about them.
That night McGuire, too, had asked questions and got something like answers for them. Williams, as little as it was, talked more that night than at any time they had ever been together.
He said the little schooner, Francis Vore, in charge of officers and some of the crew of the Mariana somehow got word of his whereabouts that must have filtered through native sources to missionaries, and had caught him off-shore.
Returning south, they had passed the Heraldr. He had seen she was aback and had gone through the port as noiselessly as he could, then kept in the schooner's wake until it seemed unlikely that he would be noticed. The empty forecastle and voices aft made him know at once what had happened. He had intended to take her over, to drive those men to their work, but when he found
Williams stopped there. Brundage had been dearer to him than any brother; their strange friendship had endured all manner of fortune and it was only more likely that he would meet with sudden death than that Brundage would go unrevenged.
“Skipper? Brundage—who was he?”
“I never asked. I know this: He had a woman in his heart and broke it to be rid of her.”
“And they gave him life?”
“They gave him death,” Williams said evenly, stressing each word.
“For life, you mean?”
“He was a convict, yes. And, McGuire”
“Yes, Skipper.”
“You go ashore to-morrow. We shall get close enough for you to make it in a boat. You'll be safe with the natives. You always are. I'm going on with the Heraldr.”
Williams turned away. He had spoken.
“Skipper—Skipper! Wait—I”
He paused without looking around.
“I don't know what you mean. I've usually done what you wanted—when I was sober. But I am of not”
At that emphatic word Williams wheeled as though challenged. McGuire's strong earnestness died away. He knew the unwisdom of beating against that overpowering will, or trying to resist it by force.
He went on:
“I'm not goin' to be put on the beach 'mong a lot of damn cannibals. They might take a notion to fatten me up.”
Williams came up to him as though to strike a blow; and he did, with words:
“I know what it is to be hanged! You don't. Better the cannibals. Every man of this crew shall swing. I'm taking them to the Francis Vore to give them up.”
“But you—you—Skipper! You give up yourself?”
“I give up the Heraldr.”
“But there are a thousand ways—” McGuire was painfully amazed.
“There is no way but mine. That woman—McGuire, I didn't know there were any left in the world like her. She is a woman and”
“You know her!”
The words leaped breathlessly.
“—carries her heart on her face.”
“Skipper, you do know her!”
“Can't drag her over these seas to give me a chance to hide and those butchers the chance to run away. Gorvhalsen”
McGuire was beside himself with excitement:
“You know her—recognized her—I saw—you looked!”
“Gorvhalsen may die. I don't care. And this crew—think I murder men one at a time. I'll let the hangman do that.”
McGuire put out his hand imploringly:
“Do you? Do you?”
“No!” It was with a tone of finality, ending the questions.
But McGuire was doubtful:
“Skipper—you—” and that was all.
He could not beat against this man's secrecy.
“I know where I'll find the schooner. I'm going after her.”
“All right. She'll be better than cannibals.”
Williams seized him by the shoulder. The grip hurt.
“You're not a fool—don't play it any more. Brundage was only a friend to you. He was more than that to me. They hanged me, McGuire. Hanged me by the neck till I was dead. That's what Brundage meant to me—and the only thing he ever asked me for was a Christian burial!”
“Aye,” said McGuire in a dazed tone with regretful memory of his many jests.
“So you go ashore. That woman goes back to her own kind of people. Those men to the gallows.”
“And you, Skipper?”
“To hell if need be.”
He said it bitterly, tense, passionate, sincere, speaking from among the ruins that life had left for him. Something added to Brundage's death had deeply shaken his hard bronze-like poise, read justed the values that were left to him among the ruins. He had a mad sense, always, of what should be done and was heedless, headlong, unbreakable, merciless in carrying it out.
McGuire, left alone, meditated. He was at the cross-roads. Again and again with half self-mockery and part earnestness he felt of his neck.
There was Eve, too. It would be hopeless to try to make her understand. Long ago he had left the ways of her world. Were she other than she was, less trusting, less innocent, not so overflowingly full of faith—then, well then, being wiser, she would have kept from him as though he were marked with leprosy.
As for Williams and what he intended, McGuire knew well enough that he would not graciously and humbly restore his neck to a noose. He would get out, some way. Nothing could hold him. He seemed to have in leash a sort of elemental force that could not be thwarted or broken. He would dare anything and could not fail because he had no fear. It was as if he had brought back something of invulnerability from the other side of the gallows. He knew Death's secret and had contempt for Death.
Better to run any risks near him than safer ones elsewhere. But McGuire's devotion was deeper than a cold weighing of safety. He would willingly follow the Hurricane—it made no difference where.
In pacing about the poop that night—for McGuire under arms stood watch though not asked to do so—he looked through the skylight. Williams was standing below, a hand running along the rows of books. Now and then the hand paused, a title was more closely scrutinized. Once or twice he lifted a volume out, opened it, thrust it back—like a famished man without time to stay to the feast.
“—to her own kind of people—” sang itself like a sibylline sentence through McGuire's meditations. The cryptic truth was in that, somewhere. There, somehow, was Williams's confessional.
Said McGuire half-aloud:
“He's nothing left in the world but me an' two drunk Kanakas!”
The next morning when Gorvhalsen was on deck and Mrs. Gorvhalsen was with him and both were silent with incommunicable things between them; and Williams stood rigidly poised, his eyes going watchfully aloft and along the deck; and Eve with the weariness of youth still slept amid troubled dreams; and the two Kanakas, woebegone and shamefaced, worked in cleaning the cabin; and Old Tom and Benny, very ill, were mystified as to why they were favored by being sent to overhaul work of other men, then McGuire went up to Williams and said:
“Skipper, there isn't a boat left that'll float. I just put holes in ever' one o' them.”
Williams answered him in silence with a hard look and barely shook his head.
“Well, I know I haven't done it yet; but I'm goin' to—if you don't catch what I mean.”
Williams glared, but somehow there was no anger in his eyes. The muscles around his heavy jaw relaxed, his body straightened a little; and that was all that showed how he felt by having a friend who would not leave when dangers gathered. His answer came on the sudden hard command thrown into the waist:
“Ready about!”
Men heard and jumped. They ran from place to place, anxiously wanting to be where they were needed. Old Tom was sharply told to get those men to stations, and Old Tom came up to the dignity of mate with a bound. He detailed fellows to clear braces, haul up the crossjack, cast tacks and sheets clear of their beckets.
Williams waited. He saw they were all at their stations and stood on the windward side, his eyes aloft. With a word and gesture he gave order to the wheelman, then called:
“Helm's a lee!”
The words came back amid Old Tom's roar and the foresheet was let go, the spanker boom hauled amidships.
The Heraldr came swiftly into the wind and as the sails began to shiver, Williams called:
“Raise tacks and sheets!” and the order was answered by voice after voice.
Poised watchfully he waited; then the shout:
“Mains'il haul!”
The braces were let go, the bowlines went by the run and the great yards swung as if of themselves; and the men jumped eagerly as they braced the yards up and belayed. Then:
“Let go an' haul!” and with shouts among the men, Benny, on the forecastle, cast off the weather fore-braces and the men hauled to leeward.
And there was McGuire's answer. The Heraldr had tacked and was heading away from the cloud like plumes on the horizon.