Chapter 8

As for Salvé, during the first few days after coming home he was a happy
man. He was in love: he had received from his captain a hundred-daler
note, accompanied by a promise that as soon as he had learnt navigation
he should be third mate on board the Juno; and he heard himself admired
on all sides by his equals and associates. There was so much work to be
done, though, in discharging the cargo and getting the vessel into dock
for repairs--they had managed to get her up as far as Arendal--that it
would be Saturday evening before he could get his so longed-for
home-leave.

On the day before, as he was sitting on watch in the early morning under
the lee of the bulwark, he accidentally overheard a conversation going
on upon the slip below that set his blood on fire.

The carpenters had just come to their work, and one of them was telling
the story of old Jacob's death, and of the heroism which his
granddaughter had displayed.

"They say," he went on, "that Captain Beck is to have him buried on
Monday next, and that he is to provide for the granddaughter--the navy
lieutenant has seen to that."

The noise and the clinking of the hammers that were now at work made
Salvé lose a good deal of the conversation here.

"There is good reason for that, mind you," was the next observation he
caught, made in a somewhat lower tone, and accompanied by a doubtful
laugh. "It is not for nothing that he has been out so constantly
shooting sea-fowl about Torungen."

"Would she be a--sea-bird of that feather? Old Jacob, I should have
thought, was not the kind of man--"

"Well, perhaps not that altogether; but the first thing she did was to
come straight over here; and he has had her already taken into his own
house. I have that from the aunt. The old woman had no suspicion of
anything, but told me quite innocently that now she was to be a sort of
housekeeper with the Becks."

A slight noise above him here caused the speaker to look up. A deadly
pale young sailor was staring down at him over the ship's side with a
pair of eyes that struck him as resembling those he had once seen in the
head of a mad dog. Their owner turned away at once and crossed the deck.

"That must have been the lover!" he whispered over to the other, as he
set to work with his adze upon the pencilled plank. Shortly after he
muttered in a tone of compunction--

"If I saw that physiognomy aright, some one had better take care of
himself when he gets leave ashore."

Salvé had sprung to his feet in a fury when he heard about young Beck,
but the desire to hear more had kept him spellbound. What further had
been