One thing favored them. The _Sally_, for all her clumsy lines, was staunch; and the shock when, she drove her bow upon the sand had opened never a seam. She was leaking no more than a sweet ship will. They found a cask or two of oil that had burst in the hold; and there was some confusion among the stores.... But these were small matters, easily set right....
The new moon was due on the fifth day after they struck. On the fourth, another bottle of whiskey appeared in the fo'c's'le, and two men were drunk. Dan'l had the men whipped.... Faith made no objection to this; but she watched the faces of the others.... Watched the officers, and Brander in particular, and Mauger.... Brander, since that morning of Noll's death, had avoided her more strictly.... He and Dan'l did not speak, save when they must. She saw the man was keeping a guard upon himself; and she puzzled over this. She could not know that Brander was afire with joy at the new hope that was awakening in him; afire with a vision of her.... He fought against this, held himself in check; and she saw only that he was morose and still and that he avoided her eye....
The high tides of the new moon failed to float them; and there was growling forward. Dan'l said, openly, that he believed they would never go free. The men heard; and the superstitions of the sea began to play about the fo'c's'le. There was unrest; the men felt approaching the possible liberation from ship's discipline when they abandoned the _Sally_. They remembered the ambergris beneath the cabin. There was a fortune.... They could take no oil with them; but they could take that when the time should come to leave the ship. Plenty of room in one boat for it and half a dozen men besides.... They fretted at the waiting, called it hopeless, as Dan'l did.... The barrier between officers and men was somewhat lowered; more than one of the men spoke to Brander of the ambergris. Did he claim it for his own?...
Faith, one day, heard a man talking to Brander amidships; she caught only a word or two. One of these words was "'Gris." She saw that the man was asking Brander a question; she saw that on Brander's answer, the man grinned with greed in his eyes, and turned away to whisper to two of his fellows....