“I don't like that kind of talk,” she said; “I am not used to it, and I don't know how to take it. Believe me,” she said with a half laugh, “it's all wasted. I never could love a man. I'm not made for men.”
“No,” said Wilbur, “nor for other women either.”
Wilbur fell silent. In that instant he had a distinct vision of Moran's life and character, shunning men and shunned of women, a strange, lonely creature, solitary as the ocean whereon she lived, beautiful after her fashion; as yet without sex, proud, untamed, splendid in her savage, primal independence--a thing untouched and unsullied by civilization. She seemed to him some Bradamante, some mythical Brunhilde, some Valkyrie of the legends, born out of season, lost and unfamiliar in this end-of-the-century time. Her purity was the purity of primeval glaciers. He could easily see how to such a girl the love of a man would appear only in the light of a humiliation--a degradation. And yet she COULD love, else how had HE been able to love her? Wilbur found himself--even at that moment--wondering how the thing could be done--wondering to just what note the untouched cords would vibrate. Just how she should be awakened one morning to find that she--Moran, sea-rover, virgin unconquered, without law, without land, without sex--was, after all, a woman.
“By God, mate!” she exclaimed of a sudden. “The barrels are keeping us up--the empty barrels in the hold. Hoh! we'll make land yet.”
It was true. The empty hogsheads, destined for the storage of oil, had been forced up by the influx of the water to the roof of the hold, and were acting as so many buoys--the schooner could sink no lower. An hour later, the quarterdeck all awash, her bow thrown high into the air, listing horribly to starboard, the “Bertha Millner” took ground on the shore of Magdalena Bay at about the turn of the tide.
Moran swung herself over the side, hip deep in the water, and, wading ashore with a line, made fast to the huge skull of a whale half buried in the sand at that point.
Wilbur followed. The schooner had grounded upon the southern horn of the bay and lay easily on a spit of sand. They could not examine the nature of the leak until low water the next morning.