"This day, I, Mark Shore, at the age of twenty-seven, was given command of the whaling bark _Nathan Ross_."
Joel read this sentence thrice. There was a bold pride in it, and a strong and reckless note which seemed to bring his brother before his very eyes. Mark had always been so, swift of tongue, and strong, and sure. Joel turned another page, came to where Mark had written:
"This day I returned from my first cruise with full casks in two years, seven months, fifteen days. I found the _Martin Wilkes_ in the dock. They report Captain John Shore lost at Vau Vau in an effort to save the ship's boy, who had fallen overboard. The boy was also lost."
There were two more pages of entries, in Mark's hand or in Joel's, before the end. When he came to the fresh page, Joel dipped his pen, and huddled his broad shoulders over the book, and slowly wrote that which had to be written.
"Wind northeast, light," he began, according to the ancient form of the sea, which makes the state of wind and weather of first and foremost import. "Wind northeast, light. This day the _Martin Wilkes_ finished a three year cruise. Found in port the _Nathan Ross_. She reports that Captain Mark Shore left the ship when she watered at the Gilbert Islands. He did not return, and could not be found. They searched three weeks. They encountered hostile islanders. No trace of Mark Shore."
When he had written thus far, he read the record to himself, his lips moving; then he sat for a space with frowning brows, thinking, thinking, wondering if there were a chance....
But in the end he cast the hope aside. If Mark lived, they would have found him, would surely have found him....
And below, as an afterthought, he added: "Joel Shore became first mate of the _Martin Wilkes_ on her cruise."
He blotted this line, and closed the book, and put it away. Then he went to the windows that looked down upon the Harbor, and stood there for a long time. His face was serene, but his eyes were faintly troubled. He did not see the things that lay outspread below him.
Yet they were worth seeing. The town was old, and it had the fragrance of age about it.
Below Joel, on the hill's slopes, among the trees, stood the square white houses of the town folk. Beyond them, the white spire of the church with its weather vane atop. Joel marked that the wind was still northeast. The vane swung fitfully in the light air. He could see the masts and yards of the ships along the waterfront. The yards of the _Nathan Ross_ were canted in mournful tribute to his brother. At the pier end beside her, he marked the ranks of casks, brown with sweating oil. Beyond, the smooth water ruffled in the wind, and dark ripple-shadows moved across its surface with each breeze. There were gulls in the air, and on the water. Such stillness lay upon the sleepy town that if his windows had been open, he might have heard the harsh cries of the birds. A man was sculling shoreward from a fishing schooner that lay at anchor off the docks; and a whaleboat crawled like a spider across the harbor toward Fairhaven on the other side.