“He broke off short again as if his own vehemence had frightened him. Then in his strained pathetic voice (which he had never raised) he observed that it was no use talking. Anybody could see that the man was changed.
“ ‘As to that,’ said young Powell, ‘it is impossible for me to judge.’
“ ‘Good Lord!’ whispered the mate. ‘An educated, clever young fellow like you with a pair of eyes on him and some sense too! Is that how a happy man looks? Eh? Young you may be, but you aren’t a kid; and I dare you to say “Yes!” ’
“Mr. Powell did not take up the challenge. He did not know what to think of the mate’s view. Still, it seemed as if it had opened his understanding in a measure. He conceded that the captain did not look very well.
“ ‘Not very well,’ repeated the mate mournfully. ‘Do you think a man with a face like that can hope to live his life out? You haven’t knocked about long in this world yet, but you are a sailor, you have been in three or four ships, you say. Well, have you ever seen a shipmaster walking his own deck as if he did not know what he had underfoot? Have you? Dam’me if I don’t think that he forgets where he is. Of course he can be no other than a prime seaman; but it’s lucky, all the same, he has me on board. I know by this time what he wants done without being told. Do you know that I have had no order given me since we left port? Do you know that he has never once opened his lips to me unless I spoke to him first? I? His chief officer; his shipmate for full six years, with whom he had no cross word—not once in all that time. Aye. Not a cross look even. True that when I do make him speak to me, there is his dear old self, the quick eye, the kind voice. Could hardly be other to his old Franklin. But what’s the good? Eyes, voice, everything’s miles away. And for all that I take good care never to address him when the poop isn’t clear. Yes! Only we two and nothing but the sea with us. You think it would be all right; the only chief mate he ever had—Mr. Franklin here and Mr. Franklin there—when anything went wrong the first word you would hear about the decks was “Franklin!”—I am thirteen years older than he is—you would think it would be all right, wouldn’t you? Only we two on this poop on which we saw each other first—he a young master—told me that he thought I would suit him very well—we two, and thirty-one days out at sea, and it’s no good! It’s like talking to a man standing on shore. I can’t get him back. I can’t get at him. I feel sometimes as if I must shake him by the arm: “Wake up! Wake up! You are wanted, sir … !” ’
“Young Powell recognized the expression of a true sentiment, a thing so rare in this world where there are so many mutes and so many excellent reasons even at sea for an articulate man not to give himself away, that he felt something like respect for this outburst. It was not loud. The grotesque squat shape, with the knob of the head as if rammed down between the square shoulders by a blow from a club, moved vaguely in a circumscribed space limited by the two harness-casks lashed to the front rail of the poop, without gestures, hands in the pockets of the jacket, elbows pressed closely to its side; and the voice without resonance, passed from anger to dismay and back again without a single louder word in the hurried delivery, interrupted only by slight gasps for air as if the speaker were being choked by the suppressed passion of his grief.
“Mr. Powell, though moved to a certain extent, was by no means carried away. And just as he thought that it was all over, the other, fidgeting in the darkness, was heard again explosive, bewildered but not very loud in the silence of the ship and the great empty peace of the sea.
“ ‘They have done something to him! What is it? What can it be? Can’t you guess? Don’t you know?’
“ ‘Good heavens!’ Young Powell was astounded on discovering that this was an appeal addressed to him. ‘How on earth can I know?’
“ ‘You do talk to that white-faced, black-eyed … I’ve seen you talking to her more than a dozen times.’
“Young Powell, his sympathy suddenly chilled, remarked in a disdainful tone that Mrs. Anthony’s eyes were not black.
“ ‘I wish to God she had never set them on the captain, whatever colour they are,’ retorted Franklin. ‘She and that old chap with the scraped jaws who sits over her and stares down at her dead-white face with his yellow eyes—confound them! Perhaps you will tell us that his eyes are not yellow?’
“Powell, not interested in the colour of Mr. Smith’s eyes, made a vague gesture. Yellow or not yellow, it was all one to him.
“The mate murmured to himself. ‘No. He can’t know. No! No more than a baby. It would take an older head.’
“ ‘I don’t even understand what you mean,’ observed Mr. Powell coldly.
“ ‘And even the best head would be puzzled by such devil-work,’ the mate continued, muttering. ‘Well, I have heard tell of women doing for a man in one way or another when they got him fairly ashore. But to bring their devilry to sea and fasten on such a man! … It’s something I can’t understand. But I can watch. Let them look out—I say!’
“His short figure, unable to stoop, without flexibility, could not express dejection. He was very tired suddenly; he dragged his feet going off the poop. Before he left it with nearly an hour of his watch below sacrificed, he addressed himself once more
