all things his opposite, quiet, and slow of thought and speech, and steady of gait. Mark was accustomed to jeer at him, to taunt him; and Joel, in the slow fashion of slow men, had resented this. Nevertheless, he cast aside prejudice now in his estimate of the situation; and he asked old Aaron:

“Do you know there were Islanders about? Or this wild brew you speak of?”

Aaron drove home a nail, and with his punch set it flush with the soft wood. “There was some drunken crew, shouting and screeching a mile up the beach,” he said. “Some few of them came off to us with fruit. The sober ones. ’Twas them Mark Shore went to pandander with.”

“He went to them?” Joel echoed. Aaron nodded.

“Aye. That he did.”

There was a long moment of silence before Joel asked huskily: “But was it like that he should stay with them freely?” For it is a black and shameful thing that a captain should desert his ship. When he had asked the question, he waited in something like fear for the carpenter’s answer.

“It comes to me,” said Aaron slowly at last, “that you did not well know your brother. Ye’d only seen him ashore. And—I’m doubting that you knew all the circumstances of his departure from this ship.”

“I know that he went ashore,” said Joel. “Went ashore, and left his men, and departed; and I know that they searched for him three weeks without a sign.”

Aaron sat back on his heels, and rubbed the smooth head of his hammer thoughtfully against his dry old cheek. “I’m not one to speak harm,” he said. “And I’ve said naught, in the town. But—you have some right to know that Mark Shore was not a sober man when he left the ship. I’ truth, he had not been sober—cold sober—for a week. And he left with a bottle in his coat.” He nodded his gray old head, eyes not on Joel, but on the hammer in his hand. “Also, there was a pearling schooner in the lagoon, with drunk white men aboard.”

He glanced sidewise at Joel then, and saw the Captain’s cheek bones slowly whiten. Whereupon old Aaron bent swiftly to his task, half fearful of what he had said. But when Joel spoke, it was only to say quietly:

“Asa should have told me this.”

Aaron shook his head vehemently, but without looking up from his task. “Not so,” he said. “There was no need the town should chew Mark’s name. Better—” He glanced at Joel. “Better if he were thought dead. Asa’s a good man, you mind. And—he knew your father.”

Joel nodded at that. “Asa meant wisest, I’ve no doubt,” he agreed. “But—Mark would do nothing that he was shamed of.”

“Mark Shore,” said Aaron thoughtfully, “did many things without shame for which other men would have blushit.”

Joel said curtly: “Aaron, ye’ll say no more such things as that.”

“Ye’re right,” Aaron agreed. “I should no have said it. But—’tis so.”

Joel left him and went on deck, and his eyes were troubled.... Priss was there, with Dick Morrell showing her some trick of the wheel, and they were laughing together like children. Joel felt immensely older than Priss.... Yet the difference was scarce six years.... She saw him, and left Morrell and came running to Joel’s side. “Did you sleep?” she asked. “You needed rest, Joe.”

“I rested,” he told her, smiling faintly. “I’ll be fine....”