Chapter 2

Asa Worthen was a small, lean, strong old man, immensely voluble. He must have been well over sixty years old; and he had grown rich by harvesting the living treasures of the sea. At thirty-four, he owned his first ship. She was old, and cranky, and no more seaworthy than a log; but she earned him more than four hundred thousand dollars, net, before he beached her on the sand below the town. She lay there still, her upper parts strong and well preserved. But her bottom was gone, and she was slowly rotting into the sand.

Asa himself had captained this old craft, until she had served her appointed time; but when she went to the sand flats, he, too, stayed ashore, to watch his ships come in. When they were in harbor, they berthed in his own dock; and from his office at the shoreward end of the pier, he could look down upon their decks, and watch the casks come out, so fat with oil, and the stores go aboard for each cruise. The cries of the men and the wheeling gulls, the rattle of the blocks and gear, and the rich smell of the oil came up to him.... The Nathan Ross was loading now; and when Joel climbed the office stairs, he found the old man at the window watching them sling great shooks of staves into her hold, and fidgeting at the lubberliness of the men who did the work.

Asa's office was worth seeing; a strange, huge room, windowed on three sides; against one wall, a whaleboat with all her gear in place; in a corner, the twisted jaw of a sixty-barrel bull, killed in the Seychelles; and Asa Worthen's big desk, with a six-foot model of his old ship atop it, between the forward windows. Beside the desk stood that contrivance known to the whalemen as a "woman's tub"; a cask, sawed chair-fashion, with a cross board for seat, and ropes so rigged that the whole might be easily and safely swung from ship to small boat or back again. Asa had taken his wife along on more than one of his early voyages ... before she died....

At Joel's step, the little man swung awkwardly away from the window, toward the door. Many years ago, a racing whale line had snarled his left leg and whipped away a gout of muscle; and this leg was now shorter than its fellow, so that Asa walked with a pegging limp. He hitched across the big room, and took Joel's arm, and led the young man to the desk.

"Sit down, Joel. Sit down," he said briskly. "I've words to say to you, my son. Sit down." Asa was smoking; and Joel took a twist of leaf from his pocket, and cut three slices, and crumbled them and stuffed them into the bowl of his black pipe. Asa watched the process, and he watched Joel, puffing without comment. There was something furtive in the scrutiny of the young man, but Joel did not mark it. When the pipe was ready, Asa passed across a match, and Joel struck it, and puffed slowly....

Asa began, abruptly, what he had to say. "Joel, the Nathan Ross will be ready for sea in five days. She's stout, her timbers are good and her tackle is strong. She's a lucky ship. The oil swims after her across the broad sea, and begs to be taken. She's my pet ship, Joel, as you know; and she's uncommon well fitted. Mark had her. Now I want you to take her."

Joel's calm eyes had met the other's while Asa was speaking; and Asa had shifted to avoid the encounter. But Joel's heart was pounding so, at the words of the older man, that he took no heed. He listened, and he waited thoughtfully until he was sure of what he wished to say. Then he asked quietly:

"Is not James Finch the mate of her? Did he not fetch her home?"

"Aye," said Asa impatiently. "He brought her home--in the top scurry of haste. There was no need of such haste; for he had still casks unfilled, and there was sparm all about him where he lay. He should have filled those last casks. 'Tis in them the profit lies." He shook his head sorrowfully. "No, Jim Finch will not do. He is a good man--under another man. But he has not the spine that stands alone. When Mark Shore was gone ... Jim had no thought but to throw the try works overside and scurry hitherward as though he feared to be out upon the seas alone."

Joel puffed thrice at his pipe. Then: "You said this morning that for three weeks he hunted Mark, up and down the Gilbert Islands."

Asa's little eyes whipped toward Joel, and away again. "Oh, aye," he said harshly. "Three weeks he hunted, when one was plenty. If Mark Shore lived, and wished to find his ship again, he'd have found her in a week. If he were dead ... there was no need of the time wasted."

"Nevertheless," said Joel quietly, "James Finch has my thanks for his search; and I'm no mind to do him a harm, or to step into his shoes."

Asa smiled grimly. "Ye're over considerate," he said. "Jim Finch was your brother's man, and a very loyal one. As long as he is another's man, he is content. But he has no want to be his own master and the master of a ship, and of men. I've askit him."

Joel puffed hard at his pipe; and after a little he asked: "Sir, what think you it was that came to Mark?"

Asa looked at him sharply, then away; and his accustomed volubility fell away from him. He lifted his hands. "Ask James Finch. I've no way to tell," he said curtly.

"Have you no opinion?" Joel insisted.

The ship owner tilted his head, set finger tip to finger tip, assumed the air of one who delivers judgment. "Islanders, 'tis like," he said. "There's a many there." He looked sidewise at Joel, looked away. Joel was nodding.

"Yes, many thereabouts," he agreed. "But there would have been tracks. Were there none?"

"Mark left his boat's crew," said Asa. "Walked away along the shore. That was all."

"No tracks?"

"They saw where he'd left the sand." The ship owner shifted in his chair. "Seems like I'd heard you and Mark wa'n't too good friends, Joel. Your a'mighty worked up."

Joel looked at the little man with bleak eyes. "He was my brother."

"I've heard tell he forgot you was his, sometimes."

Joel paid no heed. "You think it was Islanders?"

Asa kicked the corner of his desk, watching his foot. "What else was there?"

"I've nothing in my mind," said Joel, and shook his head. "But it sticks in me that Mark was no man to die easy. There was a full measure of life in him."

Asa got up awkwardly, waved his hand. "We're off the course, Joel. What about the Nathan Ross? Ready for sea, come Tuesday. I'm not one to press her on any man, unwilling. Say your say, man. Do you take her? Or no?"

Joel drew slowly once more upon his pipe. "If I take her," he said, "we'll work the Gilberts first of all, and try once again for a sign of my brother Mark."

Asa jerked his head. "So you pick up any oil that comes your way, I've no objection," he agreed. "Matter of fact, that's the best thing to do. Mark may yet live." His eyes snapped up to the others. "You take her, then?"

Joel nodded slowly. "I take her, sir," he said. "With thanks to you."

Asa banged his hand jubilantly on his desk. "That's done. Now ..."

The two men sat down at Asa's big desk again; and for an hour they were busy with matters that concerned the coming cruise. When a whaleship goes to sea, she goes for a three-year cruise; and save only the items of food and water, she carries with her everything she will need for that whole time, with an ample allowance to spare. She is a department store of the seas; for she works with iron and wood, with steel and bone, with fire and water and rope and sail. All these things she must have, and many more. And the lists of a whaleship's stores are long and long, and take much checking. When they had considered these matters, Asa sent out to the pierhead to summon Jim Finch, and told the man that Joel would have the ship. Joel said to Finch slowly: "I've no mind to fight a grudge aboard my ship, sir. If you blame me for stepping into your shoes, Mr. Worthen will give you another berth."

Finch shook his head. He was a big, laughing man with soft, fat cheeks. "No, sir," he declared. "It's yours, and welcome. Your brother was a man; and you've the look of another, sir."

Joel frowned. He was uncomfortable; he had an angry feeling that Finch was too amiable. But he said no more, and Finch went back to the ship, and Asa and Joel continued with their task.

While they worked, the afternoon sun drifted down the western sky till its level rays were flame lances laid across the harbor. A fishing craft at anchor in mid-stream hoisted her sails with a creak and rattle of blocks and drifted down the channel with the tide. The wheeling gulls dropped, one by one, to the water; or they lurched off to some quiet cove to spend the night. Their harsh cries came less frequently, were less persistent. The wind had swung around, and it was fetching now from the water a cold and salty chill. There was a smell of cooking in the air, and the smoke from the Nathan Ross' galley, and the cool smell of the sea mingled with the strong odor of the oil in the casks ranked at the end of the pier.

The sun had touched the horizon when Joel at last rose to go. Asa got up with him, dropped a hand on the young man's shoulder. They passed the contrivance called a "woman's tub"; and Asa, at sight of it, seemed to be minded of something. He stopped, and checked Joel, and with eyes twinkling, pointed to the tub. "Will you be wishful to take that on the cruise, Joel?" he asked, and looked up sidewise at the younger man, and chuckled.

Joel's brown cheeks were covered with slow fire; but his voice was steady enough when he replied. "It's a kind offer, sir," he said. "I know well what store you set by that tub."

"Will you be wanting it?" Asa still insisted.

"I'll see," said Joel quietly. "I will see."