Wilderness of Spring Part 59

"You wished to speak with me?"

"Cold, cold. It's the cold good morning I get from you."

"Did Judah Marsh have visions, Mr. Shawn?"

"Oh, Ben, Ben! Marsh is a tool to be used, a thing with a cutting edge in the shape of a man. And Manuel is a lump of muscle, a sort of poor engine for pulling ropes, in the shape of a man, and Dummy another, with hardly even the shape. They're all phantoms, all but you and me."

"At this moment, your thing with hardly the shape of a man is grieving like a mother over his pet that's like to die in a day or so."

"So? Well, what should that be to you?"

"Much, I find, Mr. Shawn. And I suppose no one ever found it comfortable to cease being a boy."

"Hm? Your mind's running in strange courses. Maybe it's true you've come to be something like a man. Wisha!" said Shawn, and tried to smile--"nearly as tall as me, now that's no lie." His hand came out in an abortive gesture of friends.h.i.+p, and fell to his side. "Dummy, Ben, is what I made him. I found him on your foul Boston water front, sweeping and carrying garbage in a warehouse. I sat down by him with a length of rope and showed him sailor's knots, and he grinned and took the rope and showed me he knew them too. Then, seeing he knows well what you say for all he can't speak, I told him of the new countries in the western sea, and the vision did strike fire in him--Mother of G.o.d, I saw it! Plainer, more honest than I've seen it in many a man who hath all his wits and the power of speech. And I said to him: 'Will you sail with me then?'

And he knelt in the filth of the warehouse and patted my boots. Poor lump, have I not given him vision and purpose? Could I heal his dirty monkey for him I would do it, now that's no lie. But I am not G.o.d, Ben--only G.o.d's instrument. Now take this gla.s.s. It's there, Ben, but when I try to bring the gla.s.s on it I lose it--it must be my eyes or this d.a.m.ned blaze of light--yet without the gla.s.s I see it. Why, even Ball saw it, but would have it a floating tree. A floating tree!" said Shawn with thin bitterness, and smiled, and held out the spygla.s.s.

Very far away it was, a dark smudged line at the angle of a rakish sail, miles away over a flat sea where nothing stirred--no, something did stir out there as Ben took the gla.s.s, a black triangle of fin cruising in calm perhaps a quarter-mile to starboard, but Shawn was not concerned with that, and Ben paid it no heed as he sought to bring the distant shape under the power of the lens.

Ball was right. In the gla.s.s it was quite plainly a floating tree-trunk, felled or uprooted by storm maybe a long time ago and swept here by the whims of wind and current from G.o.d knew where. A single branch stood upright at that deceiving angle; a heavier one submerged must have been overbalancing it.

Ben was remembering an April afternoon when _Artemis_ came into Boston harbor, and Faith stood beside him, and Daniel Shawn also was someone new, both admirable and good. He was remembering certain acts of kindness, of almost incredible forbearance, chess games, lessons with the s.e.xtant, jests and tall stories told in moments of relaxation during the long armed truce, and told without any overtones of madness or evil.

He was remembering above all the magic of a voice, and how the vision it generated had stirred his own spirit with all the rocketing enthusiasm of a boy and the more sober acceptance of a man--for surely, no matter what madness and evil there were in Shawn, it was still as true as sunrise that there must be new lands in the western sea, and some day those would be discovered, and one could fairly trust (as Shawn said) that all men's life on earth would be the richer for it. Remembering all this, it seemed wholly impossible to Ben that he could actually do what he now intended. He prayed for at least a little time of delay, and hesitantly said: "Mr. Shawn, it seems we've swung full about during the calm this morning. By the sun, I make it that our stem here is pointed near due south, and so----"

"And the sail is southwest by west, and when I saw it last night it was northwest, but Mother of G.o.d, Ben, I make nothing much of that. They could have made a better run in the night than we did before the wind fell away. Even if they be common men aboard her, that's possible. The great thing--ah, have you sometimes thought me mad, Ben, until now?--the great thing is, you see it too, and so you know I am not deluded. Now give me back the gla.s.s. I'll try once more if I can't find her in it."

Ben knew he must no longer delay, or he could not do the thing at all.

He said: "The marks on her side will be the letters of her name--must be mighty large to show at such a distance, I cannot quite make them out, except there are three, and then a s.p.a.ce, and then a D. The next after the D may be a Y."

"Give me the gla.s.s!" Shawn s.n.a.t.c.hed it and held it to his eye, but with such wildly shaking hands that surely he would find nothing in it. The sight of such weakness sickened Ben, yet at the same time gave him a sense of his own power overwhelming as a wave, and of amazement that he could ever have feared this man Shawn, or believed Shawn to be stronger than himself.

Shawn's struggle with the spygla.s.s was not prolonged.

Something--possibly sweat on his hands--caused the gla.s.s to slip and fall to the deck with a sharp tinkle of breakage. Ben thought: _Something broke in me then, and when he dies something in me will die and no help for it._ He would have retrieved the gla.s.s for Shawn, but Shawn stooped quickly, blood suffusing his face, and leaned at the rail fumbling at it aimlessly, though he must have known when a shard of broken gla.s.s fell from his fingers that the thing was smashed beyond saving. "And didn't I know last night that I must meet them in a calm?

And alone. I was not told I would be blind also."

"Mr. Shawn----"

"Blind!" Shawn said, and hurled the spygla.s.s far out over the flat water, toward the black blade that calmly cruised in its wide circuit of the motionless _Diana_.

"Mr. Shawn, Peter Jenks would speak for me, if I may enter the cabin.

Merely the sight of me would make him speak. Does he know I am aboard?"

"What? He knows it. I told him long ago you were one of us."

"Then you told him a lie, for I have never been one of your crew and well you know it."

"But you will be," said Shawn, not commandingly but in pleading, almost in pathos, and took hold of Ben's arm. "You will be."

Ben met the blue stare, knowing how in many ways it was truly blind, and shook his head. "I can make Jenks speak, Mr. Shawn. You wish him to speak, do you not?"

"What? Why, he must, if only to confess the sin. It's a very great sin to steal a man's dream. I'd compel no man to die in it."

"What if he never did so, Mr. Shawn?"

Shawn let go his arm. "You question the voice that guides me?"

"Did your voice tell you of the coming of that sloop?"

"I am not G.o.d. I am not told everything."

"A sloop bearing Jan Dyckman's name, a sloop that seems now to be moving, Mr. Shawn, in a flat calm where we find no breath of wind at all? But we might be moving presently. Will you look over there--sir?"

Shawn swung about to gaze where Ben pointed, to the northeast. There--no illusion--a faint blackish smudge was visible on the horizon, with a slight hazing in a small area of the burning sky. Shawn turned back to Ben a face transfigured. "Why, there's the answer! Let it come down on us, and we'll outrun them to the ends of the earth. Can you doubt me now? What's that you were asking? Oh, Jenks, Jenks. You may not go in the cabin, Ben, not yet. But sure he'll speak now, and I seeing to it. A word of that sloop and he'll speak, the Devil willing, if I must cut out his d.a.m.ned tongue and let it wag alone." Shawn strode down the quarterdeck laughing--not in music but with shrillness, high and thin, almost an old man's laugh. "Let it come down! D'you hear, Ben? D'you hear?--I say, if that squall comes down on us, Mother of G.o.d, we'll not reef one inch of sail, I'll hang the man that tries it. Let it come down, we'll go about and run south for h.e.l.l or Heaven, or the western sea, or the dark!"

When Ben reached the companion ladder Shawn had already entered the cabin. Ben heard the door crash, the rattle of the key.

Ben hurried forward, where a voice was crackling and spitting in the lifeless air. Ben had glimpsed Manuel climbing to the masthead; Marsh must have sent him up, not knowing the standing order had been revoked.

Tom Ball would be still below, and French Jack serving him what pa.s.sed for breakfast. Joey Mills and Ledyard had not gone below to eat but stood together near the bow, tightly watching the black scarecrow Judah Marsh, and Dummy with his sick monkey.

Dummy had backed away from Marsh to the rail, shaking his head and moaning. "So throw it over, d'you hear, or will I do it? You've had the dirty Jonah long enough. Wish us to stay beca'med forever? Don't make out you can't understand me, you pig's get, you know every word I say.

Throw it over!" But Dummy, who could squeeze no further away from him, began a desperate sidling down the deck, his twisted back pressed against the rail, the monkey whimpering at his s.h.a.ggy breast.

Coming up behind, Ben said: "Stop that, Mars.h.!.+"

The man swung fast, a glare of total amazement above his smile as though he did not know the voice, and doubtless he did not, since Ben had never before in his life spoken in such a tone. "_You?_ I'll take care of you presently." A long arm snaked out, s.n.a.t.c.hing the monkey from Dummy's embrace by a miniature wrist.

Marsh flung her over the side. She made no outcry; only the lightest splash. She surfaced in the mildly rippled water, feebly beating at it, her black b.u.t.ton of head scarcely clear of it, already near to death, unable to swim, an atom of life useless and helpless. Dummy had turned automatically, stunned, to watch the arc of her falling. "Now then!"

said Marsh, and grabbed at the mute's arm.

The arm surged upward at the touch, a motion like brus.h.i.+ng at a fly--Dummy did not look at the man, only at the struggle in the water, too hypnotized by it even to moan or shake his bulging head. But the brus.h.i.+ng motion was enough to send Marsh reeling across the deck. He fetched up squealing in the scuppers, his left leg bent under him. His knife was out. Ben saw his leg give way once; then he was upright, advancing slowly and with great care, the blade flat in his hand, swinging from side to side. The monkey sank out of sight. Dummy turned then, and saw Marsh. Head lowered, arms dangling to his ankles, he saw Marsh, and understood, and charged him in a shambling rush.

Joey Mills and Ledyard had not moved.

The monkey broke the surface once more in some last spurt of strength and stubborn hunger for life. Ben slipped out of his trousers and tossed them to Ledyard. "Chips, mind my knife!" He was free of his shoes and climbing naked over the rail.

He gave himself time for a glance out over the still water. The black fin was there, yes, but not too perilously near, he thought--maybe a hundred yards off, and moving away, cutting the water slowly astern of the _Diana_. The small commotion of the monkey's fall must have gone unnoticed, or the shark would have had her in an instant.

Ben gave himself time for one other glance, backward. Marsh had no knife. Dummy's chest was dripping blood, but the knife lay several feet away. Dummy was over Marsh, a knee on his chest, one fearsome hand closed around his throat, and Marsh was not struggling. His neck was probably broken already; the black eye-patch dangled over his ear; neither eye would see anything more, and the smile was gone.

Joey Mills inside the rail was chattering. "Don't dive, Ben, for G.o.d's sake don't! Leave me throw the brute a rope." He had one in his quick little hands, had made it fast to the rail.

"Don't heave it, Joey--let it down." Ben could make out the shoe-b.u.t.ton dots of eye. They were fixed and possibly blind. "She could never find it," Ben said. The motion of her arms had almost ceased; she could make no progress through the water. Ben caught the rope and let himself down without a splash, gauged his distance from her, and struck out under water, eyes open.

He found the black shadow of her body and emerged beside her, about to reach for her, but she had life enough yet to grab at him. He turned his head to save his eyes. He felt the clutch of midget fingers in his hair, the scrabble of her legs at his shoulders, and he swam for his life.

Ledyard's wild yell aided him. Until he caught the noise of it he had been concerned only with his need to complete the act, having no time at all to be afraid. The yell brought him sharp knowledge of death, and the one more ounce of speed required to defeat it. He found and seized the rope, and swung with a final burst of violence into safety. Up here in his own element, clutching the rail with Dummy's monkey secure in his other arm, he could look down in time to see not only the black fin lancing toward him from astern but another shape of the same breed, a vast gray hunger s.h.i.+mmering upward from the abyss, s.h.i.+fting to dull silver, cutting water harmlessly at the _Diana's_ side and surging unappeased away.

Dummy stumbled over the deck bleeding from the long gash across his ribs. He blinked in love and fear at the naked G.o.d and fell to his knees, then forward to clasp Ben's foot and roll his forehead over it.

"Don't! I pray you, don't!--here, take her! But I fear she'll die, Dummy--I could only bring her back." Dummy reached up for her. Ledyard at Ben's elbow was muttering something about his britches. "In a moment," said Ben. "Mind the hatch, you and Joey. I don't want Jack and Ball coming up yet if we can stop them." He knew somehow without a glance that they would do as he directed. He crossed the deck to the black heap of strangely inoffensive carrion. It seemed to him--outside and apart from this incredibly violent new self of Ben Cory--that his only impulse was to discover whether he could lift that gangling weight.