Gordon Young

“ Eve laughed shyly too, with her face timidly toward McGuire.
Gorvhalsen, momentarily deflected from his talk on sharks—he frankly gestured toward the book that Eve had tumbled from her chair to indicate the freshness of his learning—whipped back to the theme and went on. He thought that in former ages sharks must have been as big as whales; and he wondered why in the process of evolution size tended to diminish in the most formidable animals, strong and ferocious enough to resist attacks and, apparently, be the ones that would most surely preserve their species and even increase their size. ”

“ McGuire said nothing. There was no need to speak. Gorvhalsen did not pause for an answer:
“Maybe he has his visions, though. Who can tell? But look at me—look at me—a big antediluvian brute. Does anybody expect me to get into the same suit of morals that fits that young pious fool with no more blood in his veins than's in a carrot? He's afraid of his own shadow. I hate a weak man—and a strong woman. I hate cripples, cowards, priests and sick people. ”

“ Childlike faith makes worthy hypocrites, sometimes. Men who may have no scruples against being evil are often not cruel; and often, too, they have become ennobled by trying to live up to the good thought of them. Her illusions about him, so frankly aglow in the light eyes, were a part of her beauty, like the cool blue gown with lace-like work of darker violets, like the warm cheeks and brightly blonde hair; and it would have been as cruel to destroy the illusions as to scar the cheek or tear the hair. ”

“ The sharp unclean odors of many sweating bodies together filled the warm sultry box-like deck-house.
“Jake! Come on deck.”
Low-voiced, Brundage replied:
“Go turn in. I don't want a drink.”
“Drink! I've nothin' to drink–smell my breath—not a drop.” With a whispering wail, a protest against self-folly, “I've been a fool!”
“Yes,” Brundage said impersonally, unenlightened but not doubting. ”

“ A feverish blush came under McGuire's dark burned skin. Eve, shading her eyes from a lamp's glare, smiled beneath her two hands. She was very excited.
The noise of the near riot on deck came down-to them through the raised skylights.
“Stay here,” said Gorvhalsen, hurrying out, ever eager to be near trouble.
McGuire started to follow, but Eve laid a hand on his arm.
“Uncle David once frightened a young man until he drank water with a dash of camphor in it. He thought it was liquor and it made him stagger—Uncle David had told him it was gin. ”

“ Some of them really tried to kill the “yellow bellies,” and beat them, knocked them, kicked them; not so much because of real hatred as because Chinamen are merely Chinamen and have no legitimate protest if white men feel like bruising and breaking them.
Besides, the crew had been hazed and strained until it was murderous and looked for pegs to hang grievances on. They had enough of both.
Every man, for instance, in the forecastle blasted Gorvhalsen with an unreasoning grudge for having urged McGuire to go over the side and narrowly miss being eaten by a shark. ”

“ Gorvhalsen and I adopted her twenty years ago. A pretty pert little thing. Even then she knew she was beautiful. We couldn't keep her with us—paid other people to educate her. A bad job they made of it. McGuire, two men have blown their brains out on her door-step.” He said it with horrible casualness. “An Italian tenor tried to kill her—that's why she's on the Heraldr—to get away from him. She's cold as a piece of frozen meat”—McGuire shuddered—“but loves to have men mad over her. It's a disease. Beautiful, isn't she?” ”

“ She felt that he was modest as the bravest and best men always are, and he looked at her steadily and believed with all the honesty of his inner nature that she was a vision which would soon pass from before his eyes and be seen no more ”

“ He did not ignore Ward any more than he ignored the steward, but scarcely thought one was more important than the other; and probably he would have hesitated in deciding which was the more valuable: the steward, likely as not, since it was doubtful if Gorvhalsen would have put up with drunkenness in his duties.
“Well,” said McGuire to Brundage in telling it, “I thought somebody'd give me a bottle an' say good-by. But what you get in this world you have to pay for; an', Jake, you pay most for what you don't get. ”

“ It seemed nearly to crush the shoulder.
“You are all right,” he said approvingly. “Let us have a drink and go on deck. It's getting late. We'll go and say something to excite Matt Ward.”
Gorvhalsen strode across the room and returned with a glass and bottle of gin, placing them in McGuire's hands; then turned to the buffet to pour himself a tumbler of raw brandy. The fumes of the open bottle came up to McGuire's face with the over powering thrill of fresh blood to a tiger. He trembled from fingers to knees.
Eve stirred slightly but did not awaken. Her feet were drawn up into the chair ”

“ He said that he had such a headache that he was going to bed. Uncle David tells him that men do not have headaches. Sometimes I think Robert is afraid of Uncle David. I've scolded him, but it does no good. There are times when I almost don't like Uncle David myself—though I do love him. He is a wonderful man.”
McGuire affirmed that he was. ”

“ Ward turned abruptly on his heel and stamped off, going on deck where he started in to make things lively. A better man, or captain, than he would have been driven to drink, probably to murder; or if really an excellent fellow, perhaps to suicide.
Gorvhalsen was overpowering ”