Every Man for Himself Part 30

"Yet, O Khalil," he whispered, "will I go upon that quest!"

Now, Salim Awad went north to the bitter coasts-to the sh.o.r.e of rock and gray sea-there to carry a pack from harbor to harbor of a barren land, ever seeking in trade to ease the sorrows of love. Neither sea nor land-neither naked headland nor the unfeeling white expanse-neither sunlit wind nor the sleety gale in the night-helped him to forgetfulness. But, as all the miserable know, the love of children is a vast delight: and the children of that place are blue-eyed and hungry; and it is permitted the stranger to love them.... On he went, from Lobster Tickle to Snook's Arm, from Dead Man's Cove to Righteous Harbor, trading laces and trinkets for salt fish; and on he went, sanguine, light of heart, blindly seeking that which the losers at love must seek; for Khalil Khayyat had told him that the mysterious Thing was to be found in that place.

With a jolly wind abeam-a snoring breeze from the southwest-the tight little _Bully Boy_, fore-and-after, thirty tons, Skipper Josiah Top, was footing it through the moonlight from Tutt's Tickle to the Labrador: bound down north for the first fis.h.i.+ng of that year. She was tearing through the sea-eagerly nosing the slow, black waves; and they heartily slapped her bows, broke, ran hissing down the rail, lay boiling in the broad, white wake, stretching far into the luminous mist astern. Salim Awad, the peddler, picked up at Bread-and-Water Harbor, leaned upon the rail-staring into the mist: wherein, for him, were melancholy visions of the star-eyed maid of Was.h.i.+ngton Street.... At midnight the wind veered to the east-a swift, ominous change-and rose to the pitch of half a gale, blowing cold and capriciously. It brought fog from the distant open; the night turned clammy and thick; the _Bully Boy_ found herself in a mess of dirty weather. Near dawn, being then close insh.o.r.e, off the Seven Dogs, which growled to leeward, she ran into the ice-the first of the spring floes: a field of pans, slowly drifting up the land. And when the air was gray she struck on the Devil's Finger, ripped her keel out, and filled like a sieve; and she sank in sixty seconds, as men say-every strand and splinter of her.

But first she spilled her crew upon the ice.

The men had leaped to port and starboard, fore and aft, in unthinking terror, each desperately concerned with his own life; they were now distributed upon the four pans which had been within leaping distance when the _Bully Boy_ settled: white rafts, floating on a black, slow-heaving sea; lying in a circle of murky fog; creeping sh.o.r.eward with the wind. If the wind held-and it was a true, freshening wind,-they would be blown upon the coast rocks, within a measurable time, and might walk ash.o.r.e; if it veered, the ice would drift to sea, where, ultimately, in the uttermost agony of cold and hunger, every man would yield his life. The plight was manifest, familiar to them, every one; but they were wise in weather lore: they had faith in the consistency of the wind that blew; and, in the reaction from b.e.s.t.i.a.l terror, they bandied primitive jokes from pan to pan-save the skipper, who had lost all that he had, and was helplessly downcast: caring not a whit whether he lived or died; for he had loved his schooner, the work of his hands, his heart's child, better than his life.

It chanced that Salim Awad, who loved the star-eyed daughter of Khouri, and in this land sought to ease the sorrow of his pa.s.sion-it chanced that this Salim was alone with Tommy Hand, the cook's young son-a tender lad, now upon his first voyage to the Labrador. And the boy began to whimper.

"Dad," he called to his father, disconsolate, "I wisht-I wisht-I was along o' you-on _your_ pan."

The cook came to the edge of the ice. "Does you, lad?" he asked, softly.

"Does you wisht you was along o' me, Tommy? Ah, but," he said, scratching his beard, bewildered, "you isn't."

The s.p.a.ce of black water between was short, but infinitely capacious; it was sullen and cold-intent upon its own wretchedness: indifferent to the human pain on either side. The child stared at the water, nostrils lifting, hands clinched, body quivering: thus as if at bay in the presence of an implacable terror. He turned to the open sea, vast, gray, heartless: a bitter waste-might and immensity appalling. Wistfully then to the land, upon which the scattered pack was advancing, moving in disorder, gathering as it went: bold, black coast, naked, uninhabited-but yet sure refuge: being greater than the sea, which it held confined; solid ground, unmoved by the wind, which it flung contemptuously to the sky. And from the land to his father's large, kind face.

"No, b'y," the cook repeated, "you isn't. You sees, Tommy lad," he added, brightening, as with a new idea, "you _isn't_ along o' me."

Tommy rubbed his eyes, which were now wet. "I wisht," he sobbed, his under lip writhing, "I _was_-along o' you!"

"I isn't able t' swim t' you, Tommy," said the cook; "an', ah, Tommy!"

he went on, reproachfully, wagging his head, "you isn't able t' swim t'

me. I tol' you, Tommy-when I went down the Labrador las' year-I _tol'_ you t' l'arn t' swim. I tol' you, Tommy-don't you mind the time?-when you was goin' over the side o' th' ol' _Gabriel's Trumpet_, an' I had my head out o' the galley, an' 'twas a fair wind from the sou'east, an'

they was weighin' anchor up for'ard-don't you mind the day, lad?-I tol'

you, Tommy, you _must_ l'arn t' swim afore another season. Now, see what's come t' you!" still reproachfully, but with deepening tenderness.

"An' all along o' not mindin' your dad! 'Now,' says you, 'I wisht I'd been a good lad an' minded my dad.' Ah, Tommy-shame! I'm thinkin' you'll mind your dad after this."

Tommy began to bawl.

"Never you care, Tommy," said the cook. "The wind's blowin' we ash.o.r.e.

You an' me'll be saved."

"I wants t' be along o' you!" the boy sobbed.

"Ah, Tommy! _You_ isn't alone. You got the Jew."

"But I wants _you_!"

"You'll take care o' Tommy, won't you, Joe?"

Salim Awad smiled. He softly patted Tommy Hand's broad young shoulder.

"I weel have," said he, slowly, desperately struggling with the language, "look out for heem. I am not can," he added, with a little laugh, "do ver' well."

"Oh," said the cook, patronizingly, "you're able for it, Joe."

"I am can try eet," Salim answered, courteously bowing, much delighted.

"Much 'bliged."

Meantime Tommy had, of quick impulse, stripped off his jacket and boots.

He made a ball of the jacket and tossed it to his father.

"What you about, Tommy?" the cook demanded. "Is you goin' t' swim?"

Tommy answered with the boots; whereupon he ran up and down the edge of the pan, and, at last, slipped like a reluctant dog into the water, where he made a frothy, ineffectual commotion; after which he sank. When he came to the surface Salim Awad hauled him inboard.

"You isn't goin' t' try again, is you, Tommy?" the cook asked.

"No, sir."

Salim Awad began to breathe again; his eyes, too, returned to their normal size, their usual place.

"No," the cook observed. "'Tis wise not to. You isn't able for it, lad.

Now, you sees what comes o' not mindin' your dad."

The jacket and boots were tossed back. Tommy resumed the jacket.

"Tommy," said the cook, severely, "isn't you got no more sense 'n that?"

"Please, sir," Tommy whispered, "I forgot."

"Oh, _did_ you! _Did_ you forget? I'm thinkin', Tommy, I hasn't been bringin' of you up very well."

Tommy stripped himself to his rosy skin. He wrung the water out of his soggy garments and with difficulty got into them again.

"You better be jumpin' about a bit by times," the cook advised, "or you'll be cotchin' cold. An' your mamma wouldn't like _that_," he concluded, "if she ever come t' hear on it."

"Ay, sir; please, sir," said the boy.

They waited in dull patience for the wind to blow the floe against the coast.

It began to snow-a thick fall, by-and-by: the flakes fine and dry as dust. A woolly curtain shut coast and far-off sea from view. The wind, rising still, was charged with stinging frost. It veered; but it blew sufficiently true to the favorable direction: the ice still made ponderously for the sh.o.r.e, reeling in the swell.... The great pan bearing Salim Awad and Tommy Hand lagged; it was soon left behind: to leeward the figures of the skipper, the cook, the first hand, and the crew turned to shadows-dissolved in the cloud of snow. The cook's young son and the love-lorn peddler from Was.h.i.+ngton Street alone peopled a world of ice and water, all black and white: heaving, confined. They huddled, cowering from the wind, waiting-helpless, patient: themselves detached from the world of ice and water, which clamored round about, unrecognized. The spirit of each returned: the one to the Cedars of Lebanon, the other to Lobster Cove; and in each place there was a mother. In plights like this the hearts of men and children turn to distant mothers; for in all the world there is no rest serene-no rest remembered-like the first rest the spirits of men know.

When dusk began to dye the circ.u.mambient cloud, the pan of ice was close insh.o.r.e; the shape of the cliffs-a looming shadow-was vague in the snow beyond. There was no longer any roar of surf; the first of the floe, now against the coast, had smothered the breakers. A voice, coming faintly into the wind, apprised Tommy Hand that his father was ash.o.r.e.... But the pan still moved sluggishly.

Tommy Hand s.h.i.+vered.

"Ah, Tom-ee!" Salim Awad said, anxiously. "Run! Jump! You weel have-what say?-cotch seek. Ay-cotch thee seek. Eh? R-r-run, Tom-ee!"