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diff --git a/old/1074-0.txt b/old/1074-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ddf3778 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1074-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11877 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Sea-Wolf + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: October 15, 1997 [eBook #1074] +[Most recently updated: November 24, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA-WOLF *** + + + + + THE SEA-WOLF + + + BY + JACK LONDON + + AUTHOR OF + “THE CALL OF THE WILD,” “THE FAITH OF MEN,” + ETC. + + * * * * * + + _POPULAR EDITION_. + + * * * * * + + LONDON + WILLIAM HEINEMANN + 1917 + + * * * * * + +_First published_, _November_ 1904. + +_New Impression_, _December_ 1904, _April_ 1908. + +_Popular Edition_, _July_ 1910; _New Impressions_, _March_ 1912, +_September_ 1912, _November_ 1913, _May_ 1915, _May_ 1916, _July_ 1917. + + * * * * * + + _Copyright_, _London_, _William Heinemann_, 1904 + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the +cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept a summer cottage +in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied +it except when he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and +Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer came on, he elected to sweat +out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil incessantly. Had +it not been my custom to run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and +to stop over till Monday morning, this particular January Monday morning +would not have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay. + +Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the _Martinez_ was a new +ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run between +Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy fog which +blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little +apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which I +took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly beneath the +pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my +imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in +the moist obscurity—yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the +presence of the pilot, and of what I took to be the captain, in the glass +house above my head. + +I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labour which +made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and navigation, +in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea. It was +good that men should be specialists, I mused. The peculiar knowledge of +the pilot and captain sufficed for many thousands of people who knew no +more of the sea and navigation than I knew. On the other hand, instead +of having to devote my energy to the learning of a multitude of things, I +concentrated it upon a few particular things, such as, for instance, the +analysis of Poe’s place in American literature—an essay of mine, by the +way, in the current _Atlantic_. Coming aboard, as I passed through the +cabin, I had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the +_Atlantic_, which was open at my very essay. And there it was again, the +division of labour, the special knowledge of the pilot and captain which +permitted the stout gentleman to read my special knowledge on Poe while +they carried him safely from Sausalito to San Francisco. + +A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping out on +the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note of the +topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of calling “The +Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist.” The red-faced man shot a +glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around at the fog, stumped across the +deck and back (he evidently had artificial legs), and stood still by my +side, legs wide apart, and with an expression of keen enjoyment on his +face. I was not wrong when I decided that his days had been spent on the +sea. + +“It’s nasty weather like this here that turns heads grey before their +time,” he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house. + +“I had not thought there was any particular strain,” I answered. “It +seems as simple as A, B, C. They know the direction by compass, the +distance, and the speed. I should not call it anything more than +mathematical certainty.” + +“Strain!” he snorted. “Simple as A, B, C! Mathematical certainty!” + +He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward against the air as he +stared at me. “How about this here tide that’s rushin’ out through the +Golden Gate?” he demanded, or bellowed, rather. “How fast is she ebbin’? +What’s the drift, eh? Listen to that, will you? A bell-buoy, and we’re +a-top of it! See ’em alterin’ the course!” + +From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could see +the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. The bell, which had +seemed straight ahead, was now sounding from the side. Our own whistle +was blowing hoarsely, and from time to time the sound of other whistles +came to us from out of the fog. + +“That’s a ferry-boat of some sort,” the new-comer said, indicating a +whistle off to the right. “And there! D’ye hear that? Blown by mouth. +Some scow schooner, most likely. Better watch out, Mr. Schooner-man. +Ah, I thought so. Now hell’s a poppin’ for somebody!” + +The unseen ferry-boat was blowing blast after blast, and the mouth-blown +horn was tooting in terror-stricken fashion. + +“And now they’re payin’ their respects to each other and tryin’ to get +clear,” the red-faced man went on, as the hurried whistling ceased. + +His face was shining, his eyes flashing with excitement as he translated +into articulate language the speech of the horns and sirens. “That’s a +steam-siren a-goin’ it over there to the left. And you hear that fellow +with a frog in his throat—a steam schooner as near as I can judge, +crawlin’ in from the Heads against the tide.” + +A shrill little whistle, piping as if gone mad, came from directly ahead +and from very near at hand. Gongs sounded on the _Martinez_. Our +paddle-wheels stopped, their pulsing beat died away, and then they +started again. The shrill little whistle, like the chirping of a cricket +amid the cries of great beasts, shot through the fog from more to the +side and swiftly grew faint and fainter. I looked to my companion for +enlightenment. + +“One of them dare-devil launches,” he said. “I almost wish we’d sunk +him, the little rip! They’re the cause of more trouble. And what good +are they? Any jackass gets aboard one and runs it from hell to +breakfast, blowin’ his whistle to beat the band and tellin’ the rest of +the world to look out for him, because he’s comin’ and can’t look out for +himself! Because he’s comin’! And you’ve got to look out, too! Right +of way! Common decency! They don’t know the meanin’ of it!” + +I felt quite amused at his unwarranted choler, and while he stumped +indignantly up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the fog. +And romantic it certainly was—the fog, like the grey shadow of infinite +mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and men, mere motes +of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their +steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the mystery, groping their +way blindly through the Unseen, and clamouring and clanging in confident +speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude and fear. + +The voice of my companion brought me back to myself with a laugh. I too +had been groping and floundering, the while I thought I rode clear-eyed +through the mystery. + +“Hello! somebody comin’ our way,” he was saying. “And d’ye hear that? +He’s comin’ fast. Walking right along. Guess he don’t hear us yet. +Wind’s in wrong direction.” + +The fresh breeze was blowing right down upon us, and I could hear the +whistle plainly, off to one side and a little ahead. + +“Ferry-boat?” I asked. + +He nodded, then added, “Or he wouldn’t be keepin’ up such a clip.” He +gave a short chuckle. “They’re gettin’ anxious up there.” + +I glanced up. The captain had thrust his head and shoulders out of the +pilot-house, and was staring intently into the fog as though by sheer +force of will he could penetrate it. His face was anxious, as was the +face of my companion, who had stumped over to the rail and was gazing +with a like intentness in the direction of the invisible danger. + +Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. The fog +seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a +steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on either side like seaweed on +the snout of Leviathan. I could see the pilot-house and a white-bearded +man leaning partly out of it, on his elbows. He was clad in a blue +uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he was. His quietness, +under the circumstances, was terrible. He accepted Destiny, marched hand +in hand with it, and coolly measured the stroke. As he leaned there, he +ran a calm and speculative eye over us, as though to determine the +precise point of the collision, and took no notice whatever when our +pilot, white with rage, shouted, “Now you’ve done it!” + +On looking back, I realize that the remark was too obvious to make +rejoinder necessary. + +“Grab hold of something and hang on,” the red-faced man said to me. All +his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of +preternatural calm. “And listen to the women scream,” he said +grimly—almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been through the +experience before. + +The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We must have +been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the strange steamboat +having passed beyond my line of vision. The _Martinez_ heeled over, +sharply, and there was a crashing and rending of timber. I was thrown +flat on the wet deck, and before I could scramble to my feet I heard the +scream of the women. This it was, I am certain,—the most indescribable +of blood-curdling sounds,—that threw me into a panic. I remembered the +life-preservers stored in the cabin, but was met at the door and swept +backward by a wild rush of men and women. What happened in the next few +minutes I do not recollect, though I have a clear remembrance of pulling +down life-preservers from the overhead racks, while the red-faced man +fastened them about the bodies of an hysterical group of women. This +memory is as distinct and sharp as that of any picture I have seen. It +is a picture, and I can see it now,—the jagged edges of the hole in the +side of the cabin, through which the grey fog swirled and eddied; the +empty upholstered seats, littered with all the evidences of sudden +flight, such as packages, hand satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout +gentleman who had been reading my essay, encased in cork and canvas, the +magazine still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence if I +thought there was any danger; the red-faced man, stumping gallantly +around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all comers; +and finally, the screaming bedlam of women. + +This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves. It +must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I have another +picture which will never fade from my mind. The stout gentleman is +stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket and looking on curiously. +A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white faces and open mouths, is +shrieking like a chorus of lost souls; and the red-faced man, his face +now purplish with wrath, and with arms extended overhead as in the act of +hurling thunderbolts, is shouting, “Shut up! Oh, shut up!” + +I remember the scene impelled me to sudden laughter, and in the next +instant I realized I was becoming hysterical myself; for these were women +of my own kind, like my mother and sisters, with the fear of death upon +them and unwilling to die. And I remember that the sounds they made +reminded me of the squealing of pigs under the knife of the butcher, and +I was struck with horror at the vividness of the analogy. These women, +capable of the most sublime emotions, of the tenderest sympathies, were +open-mouthed and screaming. They wanted to live, they were helpless, +like rats in a trap, and they screamed. + +The horror of it drove me out on deck. I was feeling sick and squeamish, +and sat down on a bench. In a hazy way I saw and heard men rushing and +shouting as they strove to lower the boats. It was just as I had read +descriptions of such scenes in books. The tackles jammed. Nothing +worked. One boat lowered away with the plugs out, filled with women and +children and then with water, and capsized. Another boat had been +lowered by one end, and still hung in the tackle by the other end, where +it had been abandoned. Nothing was to be seen of the strange steamboat +which had caused the disaster, though I heard men saying that she would +undoubtedly send boats to our assistance. + +I descended to the lower deck. The _Martinez_ was sinking fast, for the +water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were leaping overboard. +Others, in the water, were clamouring to be taken aboard again. No one +heeded them. A cry arose that we were sinking. I was seized by the +consequent panic, and went over the side in a surge of bodies. How I +went over I do not know, though I did know, and instantly, why those in +the water were so desirous of getting back on the steamer. The water was +cold—so cold that it was painful. The pang, as I plunged into it, was as +quick and sharp as that of fire. It bit to the marrow. It was like the +grip of death. I gasped with the anguish and shock of it, filling my +lungs before the life-preserver popped me to the surface. The taste of +the salt was strong in my mouth, and I was strangling with the acrid +stuff in my throat and lungs. + +But it was the cold that was most distressing. I felt that I could +survive but a few minutes. People were struggling and floundering in the +water about me. I could hear them crying out to one another. And I +heard, also, the sound of oars. Evidently the strange steamboat had +lowered its boats. As the time went by I marvelled that I was still +alive. I had no sensation whatever in my lower limbs, while a chilling +numbness was wrapping about my heart and creeping into it. Small waves, +with spiteful foaming crests, continually broke over me and into my +mouth, sending me off into more strangling paroxysms. + +The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing chorus +of screams in the distance, and knew that the _Martinez_ had gone down. +Later,—how much later I have no knowledge,—I came to myself with a start +of fear. I was alone. I could hear no calls or cries—only the sound of +the waves, made weirdly hollow and reverberant by the fog. A panic in a +crowd, which partakes of a sort of community of interest, is not so +terrible as a panic when one is by oneself; and such a panic I now +suffered. Whither was I drifting? The red-faced man had said that the +tide was ebbing through the Golden Gate. Was I, then, being carried out +to sea? And the life-preserver in which I floated? Was it not liable to +go to pieces at any moment? I had heard of such things being made of +paper and hollow rushes which quickly became saturated and lost all +buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, floating, +apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. I confess that a +madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked, and +beat the water with my numb hands. + +How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness intervened, of +which I remember no more than one remembers of troubled and painful +sleep. When I aroused, it was as after centuries of time; and I saw, +almost above me and emerging from the fog, the bow of a vessel, and three +triangular sails, each shrewdly lapping the other and filled with wind. +Where the bow cut the water there was a great foaming and gurgling, and I +seemed directly in its path. I tried to cry out, but was too exhausted. +The bow plunged down, just missing me and sending a swash of water clear +over my head. Then the long, black side of the vessel began slipping +past, so near that I could have touched it with my hands. I tried to +reach it, in a mad resolve to claw into the wood with my nails, but my +arms were heavy and lifeless. Again I strove to call out, but made no +sound. + +The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping, as it did so, into a hollow +between the waves; and I caught a glimpse of a man standing at the wheel, +and of another man who seemed to be doing little else than smoke a cigar. +I saw the smoke issuing from his lips as he slowly turned his head and +glanced out over the water in my direction. It was a careless, +unpremeditated glance, one of those haphazard things men do when they +have no immediate call to do anything in particular, but act because they +are alive and must do something. + +But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel being +swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel, and the +head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze struck the +water and casually lifted along it toward me. His face wore an absent +expression, as of deep thought, and I became afraid that if his eyes did +light upon me he would nevertheless not see me. But his eyes did light +upon me, and looked squarely into mine; and he did see me, for he sprang +to the wheel, thrusting the other man aside, and whirled it round and +round, hand over hand, at the same time shouting orders of some sort. +The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent to its former course and leapt +almost instantly from view into the fog. + +I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and tried with all the power +of my will to fight above the suffocating blankness and darkness that was +rising around me. A little later I heard the stroke of oars, growing +nearer and nearer, and the calls of a man. When he was very near I heard +him crying, in vexed fashion, “Why in hell don’t you sing out?” This +meant me, I thought, and then the blankness and darkness rose over me. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +I seemed swinging in a mighty rhythm through orbit vastness. Sparkling +points of light spluttered and shot past me. They were stars, I knew, +and flaring comets, that peopled my flight among the suns. As I reached +the limit of my swing and prepared to rush back on the counter swing, a +great gong struck and thundered. For an immeasurable period, lapped in +the rippling of placid centuries, I enjoyed and pondered my tremendous +flight. + +But a change came over the face of the dream, for a dream I told myself +it must be. My rhythm grew shorter and shorter. I was jerked from swing +to counter swing with irritating haste. I could scarcely catch my +breath, so fiercely was I impelled through the heavens. The gong +thundered more frequently and more furiously. I grew to await it with a +nameless dread. Then it seemed as though I were being dragged over +rasping sands, white and hot in the sun. This gave place to a sense of +intolerable anguish. My skin was scorching in the torment of fire. The +gong clanged and knelled. The sparkling points of light flashed past me +in an interminable stream, as though the whole sidereal system were +dropping into the void. I gasped, caught my breath painfully, and opened +my eyes. Two men were kneeling beside me, working over me. My mighty +rhythm was the lift and forward plunge of a ship on the sea. The +terrific gong was a frying-pan, hanging on the wall, that rattled and +clattered with each leap of the ship. The rasping, scorching sands were +a man’s hard hands chafing my naked chest. I squirmed under the pain of +it, and half lifted my head. My chest was raw and red, and I could see +tiny blood globules starting through the torn and inflamed cuticle. + +“That’ll do, Yonson,” one of the men said. “Carn’t yer see you’ve +bloomin’ well rubbed all the gent’s skin orf?” + +The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, ceased +chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who had spoken to +him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost +effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with +his mother’s milk. A draggled muslin cap on his head and a dirty +gunny-sack about his slim hips proclaimed him cook of the decidedly dirty +ship’s galley in which I found myself. + +“An’ ’ow yer feelin’ now, sir?” he asked, with the subservient smirk +which comes only of generations of tip-seeking ancestors. + +For reply, I twisted weakly into a sitting posture, and was helped by +Yonson to my feet. The rattle and bang of the frying-pan was grating +horribly on my nerves. I could not collect my thoughts. Clutching the +woodwork of the galley for support,—and I confess the grease with which +it was scummed put my teeth on edge,—I reached across a hot cooking-range +to the offending utensil, unhooked it, and wedged it securely into the +coal-box. + +The cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my hand a +steaming mug with an “’Ere, this’ll do yer good.” It was a nauseous +mess,—ship’s coffee,—but the heat of it was revivifying. Between gulps +of the molten stuff I glanced down at my raw and bleeding chest and +turned to the Scandinavian. + +“Thank you, Mr. Yonson,” I said; “but don’t you think your measures were +rather heroic?” + +It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than of my +words, that he held up his palm for inspection. It was remarkably +calloused. I passed my hand over the horny projections, and my teeth +went on edge once more from the horrible rasping sensation produced. + +“My name is Johnson, not Yonson,” he said, in very good, though slow, +English, with no more than a shade of accent to it. + +There was mild protest in his pale blue eyes, and withal a timid +frankness and manliness that quite won me to him. + +“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” I corrected, and reached out my hand for his. + +He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one leg to the +other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake. + +“Have you any dry clothes I may put on?” I asked the cook. + +“Yes, sir,” he answered, with cheerful alacrity. “I’ll run down an’ tyke +a look over my kit, if you’ve no objections, sir, to wearin’ my things.” + +He dived out of the galley door, or glided rather, with a swiftness and +smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-like as oily. +In fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later to learn, was +probably the most salient expression of his personality. + +“And where am I?” I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to be one of +the sailors. “What vessel is this, and where is she bound?” + +“Off the Farallones, heading about sou-west,” he answered, slowly and +methodically, as though groping for his best English, and rigidly +observing the order of my queries. “The schooner _Ghost_, bound +seal-hunting to Japan.” + +“And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I am dressed.” + +Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while he groped in +his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. “The cap’n is Wolf Larsen, +or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better speak +soft with him. He is mad this morning. The mate—” + +But he did not finish. The cook had glided in. + +“Better sling yer ’ook out of ’ere, Yonson,” he said. “The old man’ll be +wantin’ yer on deck, an’ this ayn’t no d’y to fall foul of ’im.” + +Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the cook’s +shoulder, favouring me with an amazingly solemn and portentous wink as +though to emphasize his interrupted remark and the need for me to be +soft-spoken with the captain. + +Hanging over the cook’s arm was a loose and crumpled array of +evil-looking and sour-smelling garments. + +“They was put aw’y wet, sir,” he vouchsafed explanation. “But you’ll +’ave to make them do till I dry yours out by the fire.” + +Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and aided +by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollen undershirt. On the +instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from the harsh contact. He +noticed my involuntary twitching and grimacing, and smirked: + +“I only ’ope yer don’t ever ’ave to get used to such as that in this +life, ’cos you’ve got a bloomin’ soft skin, that you ’ave, more like a +lydy’s than any I know of. I was bloomin’ well sure you was a gentleman +as soon as I set eyes on yer.” + +I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress me this +dislike increased. There was something repulsive about his touch. I +shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And between this and the smells +arising from various pots boiling and bubbling on the galley fire, I was +in haste to get out into the fresh air. Further, there was the need of +seeing the captain about what arrangements could be made for getting me +ashore. + +A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured with +what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a running and +apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman’s brogans encased my feet, +and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out +overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other. +The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil had there clutched for the +Cockney’s soul and missed the shadow for the substance. + +“And whom have I to thank for this kindness?” I asked, when I stood +completely arrayed, a tiny boy’s cap on my head, and for coat a dirty, +striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my back and the sleeves +of which reached just below my elbows. + +The cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating smirk +on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on the Atlantic liners +at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was waiting for his tip. +From my fuller knowledge of the creature I now know that the posture was +unconscious. An hereditary servility, no doubt, was responsible. + +“Mugridge, sir,” he fawned, his effeminate features running into a greasy +smile. “Thomas Mugridge, sir, an’ at yer service.” + +“All right, Thomas,” I said. “I shall not forget you—when my clothes are +dry.” + +A soft light suffused his face and his eyes glistened, as though +somewhere in the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened and +stirred with dim memories of tips received in former lives. + +“Thank you, sir,” he said, very gratefully and very humbly indeed. + +Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and I +stepped out on deck. I was still weak from my prolonged immersion. A +puff of wind caught me,—and I staggered across the moving deck to a +corner of the cabin, to which I clung for support. The schooner, heeled +over far out from the perpendicular, was bowing and plunging into the +long Pacific roll. If she were heading south-west as Johnson had said, +the wind, then, I calculated, was blowing nearly from the south. The fog +was gone, and in its place the sun sparkled crisply on the surface of the +water. I turned to the east, where I knew California must lie, but could +see nothing save low-lying fog-banks—the same fog, doubtless, that had +brought about the disaster to the _Martinez_ and placed me in my present +situation. To the north, and not far away, a group of naked rocks thrust +above the sea, on one of which I could distinguish a lighthouse. In the +south-west, and almost in our course, I saw the pyramidal loom of some +vessel’s sails. + +Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my more immediate +surroundings. My first thought was that a man who had come through a +collision and rubbed shoulders with death merited more attention than I +received. Beyond a sailor at the wheel who stared curiously across the +top of the cabin, I attracted no notice whatever. + +Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amid ships. There, on a +hatch, a large man was lying on his back. He was fully clothed, though +his shirt was ripped open in front. Nothing was to be seen of his chest, +however, for it was covered with a mass of black hair, in appearance like +the furry coat of a dog. His face and neck were hidden beneath a black +beard, intershot with grey, which would have been stiff and bushy had it +not been limp and draggled and dripping with water. His eyes were +closed, and he was apparently unconscious; but his mouth was wide open, +his breast, heaving as though from suffocation as he laboured noisily for +breath. A sailor, from time to time and quite methodically, as a matter +of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at the end of a rope, +hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced its contents over the prostrate +man. + +Pacing back and forth the length of the hatchways and savagely chewing +the end of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance had rescued me from +the sea. His height was probably five feet ten inches, or ten and a +half; but my first impression, or feel of the man, was not of this, but +of his strength. And yet, while he was of massive build, with broad +shoulders and deep chest, I could not characterize his strength as +massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy, knotty strength, of the +kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in him, because of his +heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order. Not that in +appearance he seemed in the least gorilla-like. What I am striving to +express is this strength itself, more as a thing apart from his physical +semblance. It was a strength we are wont to associate with things +primitive, with wild animals, and the creatures we imagine our +tree-dwelling prototypes to have been—a strength savage, ferocious, alive +in itself, the essence of life in that it is the potency of motion, the +elemental stuff itself out of which the many forms of life have been +moulded; in short, that which writhes in the body of a snake when the +head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, is dead, or which lingers in +the shapeless lump of turtle-meat and recoils and quivers from the prod +of a finger. + +Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who paced up +and down. He was firmly planted on his legs; his feet struck the deck +squarely and with surety; every movement of a muscle, from the heave of +the shoulders to the tightening of the lips about the cigar, was +decisive, and seemed to come out of a strength that was excessive and +overwhelming. In fact, though this strength pervaded every action of +his, it seemed but the advertisement of a greater strength that lurked +within, that lay dormant and no more than stirred from time to time, but +which might arouse, at any moment, terrible and compelling, like the rage +of a lion or the wrath of a storm. + +The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned encouragingly +at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in the direction of the man who +paced up and down by the hatchway. Thus I was given to understand that +he was the captain, the “Old Man,” in the cook’s vernacular, the +individual whom I must interview and put to the trouble of somehow +getting me ashore. I had half started forward, to get over with what I +was certain would be a stormy five minutes, when a more violent +suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate person who was lying on his +back. He wrenched and writhed about convulsively. The chin, with the +damp black beard, pointed higher in the air as the back muscles stiffened +and the chest swelled in an unconscious and instinctive effort to get +more air. Under the whiskers, and all unseen, I knew that the skin was +taking on a purplish hue. + +The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing and gazed +down at the dying man. So fierce had this final struggle become that the +sailor paused in the act of flinging more water over him and stared +curiously, the canvas bucket partly tilted and dripping its contents to +the deck. The dying man beat a tattoo on the hatch with his heels, +straightened out his legs, and stiffened in one great tense effort, and +rolled his head from side to side. Then the muscles relaxed, the head +stopped rolling, and a sigh, as of profound relief, floated upward from +his lips. The jaw dropped, the upper lip lifted, and two rows of +tobacco-discoloured teeth appeared. It seemed as though his features had +frozen into a diabolical grin at the world he had left and outwitted. + +Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose upon the +dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips in a continuous +stream. And they were not namby-pamby oaths, or mere expressions of +indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, and there were many words. They +crisped and crackled like electric sparks. I had never heard anything +like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it possible. With a turn +for literary expression myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and +phrases, I appreciated, as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar +vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors. The +cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, who was +mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San Francisco, and then had +the poor taste to die at the beginning of the voyage and leave Wolf +Larsen short-handed. + +It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends, that I was +shocked. Oaths and vile language of any sort had always been repellent +to me. I felt a wilting sensation, a sinking at the heart, and, I might +just as well say, a giddiness. To me, death had always been invested +with solemnity and dignity. It had been peaceful in its occurrence, +sacred in its ceremonial. But death in its more sordid and terrible +aspects was a thing with which I had been unacquainted till now. As I +say, while I appreciated the power of the terrific denunciation that +swept out of Wolf Larsen’s mouth, I was inexpressibly shocked. The +scorching torrent was enough to wither the face of the corpse. I should +not have been surprised if the wet black beard had frizzled and curled +and flared up in smoke and flame. But the dead man was unconcerned. He +continued to grin with a sardonic humour, with a cynical mockery and +defiance. He was master of the situation. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Wolf Larsen ceased swearing as suddenly as he had begun. He relighted +his cigar and glanced around. His eyes chanced upon the cook. + +“Well, Cooky?” he began, with a suaveness that was cold and of the temper +of steel. + +“Yes, sir,” the cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing and apologetic +servility. + +“Don’t you think you’ve stretched that neck of yours just about enough? +It’s unhealthy, you know. The mate’s gone, so I can’t afford to lose you +too. You must be very, very careful of your health, Cooky. Understand?” + +His last word, in striking contrast with the smoothness of his previous +utterance, snapped like the lash of a whip. The cook quailed under it. + +“Yes, sir,” was the meek reply, as the offending head disappeared into +the galley. + +At this sweeping rebuke, which the cook had only pointed, the rest of the +crew became uninterested and fell to work at one task or another. A +number of men, however, who were lounging about a companion-way between +the galley and hatch, and who did not seem to be sailors, continued +talking in low tones with one another. These, I afterward learned, were +the hunters, the men who shot the seals, and a very superior breed to +common sailor-folk. + +“Johansen!” Wolf Larsen called out. A sailor stepped forward obediently. +“Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. You’ll find some old +canvas in the sail-locker. Make it do.” + +“What’ll I put on his feet, sir?” the man asked, after the customary “Ay, +ay, sir.” + +“We’ll see to that,” Wolf Larsen answered, and elevated his voice in a +call of “Cooky!” + +Thomas Mugridge popped out of his galley like a jack-in-the-box. + +“Go below and fill a sack with coal.” + +“Any of you fellows got a Bible or Prayer-book?” was the captain’s next +demand, this time of the hunters lounging about the companion-way. + +They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which I did +not catch, but which raised a general laugh. + +Wolf Larsen made the same demand of the sailors. Bibles and Prayer-books +seemed scarce articles, but one of the men volunteered to pursue the +quest amongst the watch below, returning in a minute with the information +that there was none. + +The captain shrugged his shoulders. “Then we’ll drop him over without +any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway has the burial +service at sea by heart.” + +By this time he had swung fully around and was facing me. “You’re a +preacher, aren’t you?” he asked. + +The hunters,—there were six of them,—to a man, turned and regarded me. I +was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow. A laugh went up at my +appearance,—a laugh that was not lessened or softened by the dead man +stretched and grinning on the deck before us; a laugh that was as rough +and harsh and frank as the sea itself; that arose out of coarse feelings +and blunted sensibilities, from natures that knew neither courtesy nor +gentleness. + +Wolf Larsen did not laugh, though his grey eyes lighted with a slight +glint of amusement; and in that moment, having stepped forward quite +close to him, I received my first impression of the man himself, of the +man as apart from his body, and from the torrent of blasphemy I had heard +him spew forth. The face, with large features and strong lines, of the +square order, yet well filled out, was apparently massive at first sight; +but again, as with the body, the massiveness seemed to vanish, and a +conviction to grow of a tremendous and excessive mental or spiritual +strength that lay behind, sleeping in the deeps of his being. The jaw, +the chin, the brow rising to a goodly height and swelling heavily above +the eyes,—these, while strong in themselves, unusually strong, seemed to +speak an immense vigour or virility of spirit that lay behind and beyond +and out of sight. There was no sounding such a spirit, no measuring, no +determining of metes and bounds, nor neatly classifying in some +pigeon-hole with others of similar type. + +The eyes—and it was my destiny to know them well—were large and handsome, +wide apart as the true artist’s are wide, sheltering under a heavy brow +and arched over by thick black eyebrows. The eyes themselves were of +that baffling protean grey which is never twice the same; which runs +through many shades and colourings like intershot silk in sunshine; which +is grey, dark and light, and greenish-grey, and sometimes of the clear +azure of the deep sea. They were eyes that masked the soul with a +thousand guises, and that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed +it to rush up as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the +world on some wonderful adventure,—eyes that could brood with the +hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; that could snap and crackle points +of fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword; that could grow +chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm and soften +and be all a-dance with love-lights, intense and masculine, luring and +compelling, which at the same time fascinate and dominate women till they +surrender in a gladness of joy and of relief and sacrifice. + +But to return. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service, I was +not a preacher, when he sharply demanded: + +“What do you do for a living?” + +I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had I ever +canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and before I could find myself +had sillily stammered, “I—I am a gentleman.” + +His lip curled in a swift sneer. + +“I have worked, I do work,” I cried impetuously, as though he were my +judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much aware of +my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all. + +“For your living?” + +There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I was +quite beside myself—“rattled,” as Furuseth would have termed it, like a +quaking child before a stern school-master. + +“Who feeds you?” was his next question. + +“I have an income,” I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my tongue +the next instant. “All of which, you will pardon my observing, has +nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you about.” + +But he disregarded my protest. + +“Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead +men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t walk alone +between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals. +Let me see your hand.” + +His tremendous, dormant strength must have stirred, swiftly and +accurately, or I must have slept a moment, for before I knew it he had +stepped two paces forward, gripped my right hand in his, and held it up +for inspection. I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers tightened, +without visible effort, till I thought mine would be crushed. It is hard +to maintain one’s dignity under such circumstances. I could not squirm +or struggle like a schoolboy. Nor could I attack such a creature who had +but to twist my arm to break it. Nothing remained but to stand still and +accept the indignity. I had time to notice that the pockets of the dead +man had been emptied on the deck, and that his body and his grin had been +wrapped from view in canvas, the folds of which the sailor, Johansen, was +sewing together with coarse white twine, shoving the needle through with +a leather contrivance fitted on the palm of his hand. + +Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain. + +“Dead men’s hands have kept it soft. Good for little else than +dish-washing and scullion work.” + +“I wish to be put ashore,” I said firmly, for I now had myself in +control. “I shall pay you whatever you judge your delay and trouble to +be worth.” + +He looked at me curiously. Mockery shone in his eyes. + +“I have a counter proposition to make, and for the good of your soul. My +mate’s gone, and there’ll be a lot of promotion. A sailor comes aft to +take mate’s place, cabin-boy goes for’ard to take sailor’s place, and you +take the cabin-boy’s place, sign the articles for the cruise, twenty +dollars per month and found. Now what do you say? And mind you, it’s +for your own soul’s sake. It will be the making of you. You might learn +in time to stand on your own legs, and perhaps to toddle along a bit.” + +But I took no notice. The sails of the vessel I had seen off to the +south-west had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same +schooner-rig as the _Ghost_, though the hull itself, I could see, was +smaller. She was a pretty sight, leaping and flying toward us, and +evidently bound to pass at close range. The wind had been momentarily +increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had disappeared. The +sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown rougher, and was now tossing +foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were travelling faster, and heeled +farther over. Once, in a gust, the rail dipped under the sea, and the +decks on that side were for the moment awash with water that made a +couple of the hunters hastily lift their feet. + +“That vessel will soon be passing us,” I said, after a moment’s pause. +“As she is going in the opposite direction, she is very probably bound +for San Francisco.” + +“Very probably,” was Wolf Larsen’s answer, as he turned partly away from +me and cried out, “Cooky! Oh, Cooky!” + +The Cockney popped out of the galley. + +“Where’s that boy? Tell him I want him.” + +“Yes, sir;” and Thomas Mugridge fled swiftly aft and disappeared down +another companion-way near the wheel. A moment later he emerged, a +heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a glowering, +villainous countenance, trailing at his heels. + +“’Ere ’e is, sir,” the cook said. + +But Wolf Larsen ignored that worthy, turning at once to the cabin-boy. + +“What’s your name, boy?” + +“George Leach, sir,” came the sullen answer, and the boy’s bearing showed +clearly that he divined the reason for which he had been summoned. + +“Not an Irish name,” the captain snapped sharply. “O’Toole or McCarthy +would suit your mug a damn sight better. Unless, very likely, there’s an +Irishman in your mother’s woodpile.” + +I saw the young fellow’s hands clench at the insult, and the blood crawl +scarlet up his neck. + +“But let that go,” Wolf Larsen continued. “You may have very good +reasons for forgetting your name, and I’ll like you none the worse for it +as long as you toe the mark. Telegraph Hill, of course, is your port of +entry. It sticks out all over your mug. Tough as they make them and +twice as nasty. I know the kind. Well, you can make up your mind to +have it taken out of you on this craft. Understand? Who shipped you, +anyway?” + +“McCready and Swanson.” + +“Sir!” Wolf Larsen thundered. + +“McCready and Swanson, sir,” the boy corrected, his eyes burning with a +bitter light. + +“Who got the advance money?” + +“They did, sir.” + +“I thought as much. And damned glad you were to let them have it. +Couldn’t make yourself scarce too quick, with several gentlemen you may +have heard of looking for you.” + +The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body bunched +together as though for a spring, and his face became as an infuriated +beast’s as he snarled, “It’s a—” + +“A what?” Wolf Larsen asked, a peculiar softness in his voice, as though +he were overwhelmingly curious to hear the unspoken word. + +The boy hesitated, then mastered his temper. “Nothin’, sir. I take it +back.” + +“And you have shown me I was right.” This with a gratified smile. “How +old are you?” + +“Just turned sixteen, sir.” + +“A lie. You’ll never see eighteen again. Big for your age at that, with +muscles like a horse. Pack up your kit and go for’ard into the fo’c’sle. +You’re a boat-puller now. You’re promoted; see?” + +Without waiting for the boy’s acceptance, the captain turned to the +sailor who had just finished the gruesome task of sewing up the corpse. +“Johansen, do you know anything about navigation?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Well, never mind; you’re mate just the same. Get your traps aft into +the mate’s berth.” + +“Ay, ay, sir,” was the cheery response, as Johansen started forward. + +In the meantime the erstwhile cabin-boy had not moved. “What are you +waiting for?” Wolf Larsen demanded. + +“I didn’t sign for boat-puller, sir,” was the reply. “I signed for +cabin-boy. An’ I don’t want no boat-pullin’ in mine.” + +“Pack up and go for’ard.” + +This time Wolf Larsen’s command was thrillingly imperative. The boy +glowered sullenly, but refused to move. + +Then came another stirring of Wolf Larsen’s tremendous strength. It was +utterly unexpected, and it was over and done with between the ticks of +two seconds. He had sprung fully six feet across the deck and driven his +fist into the other’s stomach. At the same moment, as though I had been +struck myself, I felt a sickening shock in the pit of my stomach. I +instance this to show the sensitiveness of my nervous organization at the +time, and how unused I was to spectacles of brutality. The cabin-boy—and +he weighed one hundred and sixty-five at the very least—crumpled up. His +body wrapped limply about the fist like a wet rag about a stick. He +lifted into the air, described a short curve, and struck the deck +alongside the corpse on his head and shoulders, where he lay and writhed +about in agony. + +“Well?” Larsen asked of me. “Have you made up your mind?” + +I had glanced occasionally at the approaching schooner, and it was now +almost abreast of us and not more than a couple of hundred yards away. +It was a very trim and neat little craft. I could see a large, black +number on one of its sails, and I had seen pictures of pilot-boats. + +“What vessel is that?” I asked. + +“The pilot-boat _Lady Mine_,” Wolf Larsen answered grimly. “Got rid of +her pilots and running into San Francisco. She’ll be there in five or +six hours with this wind.” + +“Will you please signal it, then, so that I may be put ashore.” + +“Sorry, but I’ve lost the signal book overboard,” he remarked, and the +group of hunters grinned. + +I debated a moment, looking him squarely in the eyes. I had seen the +frightful treatment of the cabin-boy, and knew that I should very +probably receive the same, if not worse. As I say, I debated with +myself, and then I did what I consider the bravest act of my life. I ran +to the side, waving my arms and shouting: + +“_Lady Mine_ ahoy! Take me ashore! A thousand dollars if you take me +ashore!” + +I waited, watching two men who stood by the wheel, one of them steering. +The other was lifting a megaphone to his lips. I did not turn my head, +though I expected every moment a killing blow from the human brute behind +me. At last, after what seemed centuries, unable longer to stand the +strain, I looked around. He had not moved. He was standing in the same +position, swaying easily to the roll of the ship and lighting a fresh +cigar. + +“What is the matter? Anything wrong?” + +This was the cry from the _Lady Mine_. + +“Yes!” I shouted, at the top of my lungs. “Life or death! One thousand +dollars if you take me ashore!” + +“Too much ’Frisco tanglefoot for the health of my crew!” Wolf Larsen +shouted after. “This one”—indicating me with his thumb—“fancies +sea-serpents and monkeys just now!” + +The man on the _Lady Mine_ laughed back through the megaphone. The +pilot-boat plunged past. + +“Give him hell for me!” came a final cry, and the two men waved their +arms in farewell. + +I leaned despairingly over the rail, watching the trim little schooner +swiftly increasing the bleak sweep of ocean between us. And she would +probably be in San Francisco in five or six hours! My head seemed +bursting. There was an ache in my throat as though my heart were up in +it. A curling wave struck the side and splashed salt spray on my lips. +The wind puffed strongly, and the _Ghost_ heeled far over, burying her +lee rail. I could hear the water rushing down upon the deck. + +When I turned around, a moment later, I saw the cabin-boy staggering to +his feet. His face was ghastly white, twitching with suppressed pain. +He looked very sick. + +“Well, Leach, are you going for’ard?” Wolf Larsen asked. + +“Yes, sir,” came the answer of a spirit cowed. + +“And you?” I was asked. + +“I’ll give you a thousand—” I began, but was interrupted. + +“Stow that! Are you going to take up your duties as cabin-boy? Or do I +have to take you in hand?” + +What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, would not +help my case. I looked steadily into the cruel grey eyes. They might +have been granite for all the light and warmth of a human soul they +contained. One may see the soul stir in some men’s eyes, but his were +bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea itself. + +“Well?” + +“Yes,” I said. + +“Say ‘yes, sir.’” + +“Yes, sir,” I corrected. + +“What is your name?” + +“Van Weyden, sir.” + +“First name?” + +“Humphrey, sir; Humphrey Van Weyden.” + +“Age?” + +“Thirty-five, sir.” + +“That’ll do. Go to the cook and learn your duties.” + +And thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary servitude to +Wolf Larsen. He was stronger than I, that was all. But it was very +unreal at the time. It is no less unreal now that I look back upon it. +It will always be to me a monstrous, inconceivable thing, a horrible +nightmare. + +“Hold on, don’t go yet.” + +I stopped obediently in my walk toward the galley. + +“Johansen, call all hands. Now that we’ve everything cleaned up, we’ll +have the funeral and get the decks cleared of useless lumber.” + +While Johansen was summoning the watch below, a couple of sailors, under +the captain’s direction, laid the canvas-swathed corpse upon a +hatch-cover. On either side the deck, against the rail and bottoms up, +were lashed a number of small boats. Several men picked up the +hatch-cover with its ghastly freight, carried it to the lee side, and +rested it on the boats, the feet pointing overboard. To the feet was +attached the sack of coal which the cook had fetched. + +I had always conceived a burial at sea to be a very solemn and +awe-inspiring event, but I was quickly disillusioned, by this burial at +any rate. One of the hunters, a little dark-eyed man whom his mates +called “Smoke,” was telling stories, liberally intersprinkled with oaths +and obscenities; and every minute or so the group of hunters gave mouth +to a laughter that sounded to me like a wolf-chorus or the barking of +hell-hounds. The sailors trooped noisily aft, some of the watch below +rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and talked in low tones together. +There was an ominous and worried expression on their faces. It was +evident that they did not like the outlook of a voyage under such a +captain and begun so inauspiciously. From time to time they stole +glances at Wolf Larsen, and I could see that they were apprehensive of +the man. + +He stepped up to the hatch-cover, and all caps came off. I ran my eyes +over them—twenty men all told; twenty-two including the man at the wheel +and myself. I was pardonably curious in my survey, for it appeared my +fate to be pent up with them on this miniature floating world for I knew +not how many weeks or months. The sailors, in the main, were English and +Scandinavian, and their faces seemed of the heavy, stolid order. The +hunters, on the other hand, had stronger and more diversified faces, with +hard lines and the marks of the free play of passions. Strange to say, +and I noted it at once, Wolf Larsen’s features showed no such evil +stamp. There seemed nothing vicious in them. True, there were lines, +but they were the lines of decision and firmness. It seemed, rather, a +frank and open countenance, which frankness or openness was enhanced by +the fact that he was smooth-shaven. I could hardly believe—until the +next incident occurred—that it was the face of a man who could behave as +he had behaved to the cabin-boy. + +At this moment, as he opened his mouth to speak, puff after puff struck +the schooner and pressed her side under. The wind shrieked a wild song +through the rigging. Some of the hunters glanced anxiously aloft. The +lee rail, where the dead man lay, was buried in the sea, and as the +schooner lifted and righted the water swept across the deck wetting us +above our shoe-tops. A shower of rain drove down upon us, each drop +stinging like a hailstone. As it passed, Wolf Larsen began to speak, the +bare-headed men swaying in unison, to the heave and lunge of the deck. + +“I only remember one part of the service,” he said, “and that is, ‘And +the body shall be cast into the sea.’ So cast it in.” + +He ceased speaking. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed perplexed, +puzzled no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. He burst upon them in +a fury. + +“Lift up that end there, damn you! What the hell’s the matter with you?” + +They elevated the end of the hatch-cover with pitiful haste, and, like a +dog flung overside, the dead man slid feet first into the sea. The coal +at his feet dragged him down. He was gone. + +“Johansen,” Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, “keep all hands on +deck now they’re here. Get in the topsails and jibs and make a good job +of it. We’re in for a sou’-easter. Better reef the jib and mainsail +too, while you’re about it.” + +In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders and +the men pulling or letting go ropes of various sorts—all naturally +confusing to a landsman such as myself. But it was the heartlessness of +it that especially struck me. The dead man was an episode that was past, +an incident that was dropped, in a canvas covering with a sack of coal, +while the ship sped along and her work went on. Nobody had been +affected. The hunters were laughing at a fresh story of Smoke’s; the men +pulling and hauling, and two of them climbing aloft; Wolf Larsen was +studying the clouding sky to windward; and the dead man, dying obscenely, +buried sordidly, and sinking down, down— + +Then it was that the cruelty of the sea, its relentlessness and +awfulness, rushed upon me. Life had become cheap and tawdry, a beastly +and inarticulate thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and slime. I +held on to the weather rail, close by the shrouds, and gazed out across +the desolate foaming waves to the low-lying fog-banks that hid San +Francisco and the California coast. Rain-squalls were driving in +between, and I could scarcely see the fog. And this strange vessel, with +its terrible men, pressed under by wind and sea and ever leaping up and +out, was heading away into the south-west, into the great and lonely +Pacific expanse. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +What happened to me next on the sealing-schooner _Ghost_, as I strove to +fit into my new environment, are matters of humiliation and pain. The +cook, who was called “the doctor” by the crew, “Tommy” by the hunters, +and “Cooky” by Wolf Larsen, was a changed person. The difference worked +in my status brought about a corresponding difference in treatment from +him. Servile and fawning as he had been before, he was now as +domineering and bellicose. In truth, I was no longer the fine gentleman +with a skin soft as a “lydy’s,” but only an ordinary and very worthless +cabin-boy. + +He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and his +behaviour and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my duties. +Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small state-rooms, I was +supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my colossal ignorance +concerning such things as peeling potatoes or washing greasy pots was a +source of unending and sarcastic wonder to him. He refused to take into +consideration what I was, or, rather, what my life and the things I was +accustomed to had been. This was part of the attitude he chose to adopt +toward me; and I confess, ere the day was done, that I hated him with +more lively feelings than I had ever hated any one in my life before. + +This first day was made more difficult for me from the fact that the +_Ghost_, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn till +later), was plunging through what Mr. Mugridge called an “’owlin’ +sou’-easter.” At half-past five, under his directions, I set the table +in the cabin, with rough-weather trays in place, and then carried the tea +and cooked food down from the galley. In this connection I cannot +forbear relating my first experience with a boarding sea. + +“Look sharp or you’ll get doused,” was Mr. Mugridge’s parting injunction, +as I left the galley with a big tea-pot in one hand, and in the hollow of +the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked bread. One of the hunters, a +tall, loose-jointed chap named Henderson, was going aft at the time from +the steerage (the name the hunters facetiously gave their midships +sleeping quarters) to the cabin. Wolf Larsen was on the poop, smoking +his everlasting cigar. + +“’Ere she comes. Sling yer ’ook!” the cook cried. + +I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley door +slide shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like a madman for +the main rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till he was many feet +higher than my head. Also I saw a great wave, curling and foaming, +poised far above the rail. I was directly under it. My mind did not +work quickly, everything was so new and strange. I grasped that I was in +danger, but that was all. I stood still, in trepidation. Then Wolf +Larsen shouted from the poop: + +“Grab hold something, you—you Hump!” + +But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might have +clung, and was met by the descending wall of water. What happened after +that was very confusing. I was beneath the water, suffocating and +drowning. My feet were out from under me, and I was turning over and +over and being swept along I knew not where. Several times I collided +against hard objects, once striking my right knee a terrible blow. Then +the flood seemed suddenly to subside and I was breathing the good air +again. I had been swept against the galley and around the steerage +companion-way from the weather side into the lee scuppers. The pain from +my hurt knee was agonizing. I could not put my weight on it, or, at +least, I thought I could not put my weight on it; and I felt sure the leg +was broken. But the cook was after me, shouting through the lee galley +door: + +“’Ere, you! Don’t tyke all night about it! Where’s the pot? Lost +overboard? Serve you bloody well right if yer neck was broke!” + +I managed to struggle to my feet. The great tea-pot was still in my +hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was consumed +with indignation, real or feigned. + +“Gawd blime me if you ayn’t a slob. Wot ’re you good for anyw’y, I’d +like to know? Eh? Wot ’re you good for any’wy? Cawn’t even carry a bit +of tea aft without losin’ it. Now I’ll ’ave to boil some more. + +“An’ wot ’re you snifflin’ about?” he burst out at me, with renewed rage. +“’Cos you’ve ’urt yer pore little leg, pore little mamma’s darlin’.” + +I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn and +twitching from the pain. But I called up all my resolution, set my +teeth, and hobbled back and forth from galley to cabin and cabin to +galley without further mishap. Two things I had acquired by my accident: +an injured knee-cap that went undressed and from which I suffered for +weary months, and the name of “Hump,” which Wolf Larsen had called me +from the poop. Thereafter, fore and aft, I was known by no other name, +until the term became a part of my thought-processes and I identified it +with myself, thought of myself as Hump, as though Hump were I and had +always been I. + +It was no easy task, waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf Larsen, +Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to begin with, and +to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made easier by the +schooner’s violent pitching and wallowing. But what struck me most +forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part of the men whom I +served. I could feel my knee through my clothes, swelling, and swelling, +and I was sick and faint from the pain of it. I could catch glimpses of +my face, white and ghastly, distorted with pain, in the cabin mirror. +All the men must have seen my condition, but not one spoke or took notice +of me, till I was almost grateful to Wolf Larsen, later on (I was washing +the dishes), when he said: + +“Don’t let a little thing like that bother you. You’ll get used to such +things in time. It may cripple you some, but all the same you’ll be +learning to walk. + +“That’s what you call a paradox, isn’t it?” he added. + +He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary “Yes, sir.” + +“I suppose you know a bit about literary things? Eh? Good. I’ll have +some talks with you some time.” + +And then, taking no further account of me, he turned his back and went up +on deck. + +That night, when I had finished an endless amount of work, I was sent to +sleep in the steerage, where I made up a spare bunk. I was glad to get +out of the detestable presence of the cook and to be off my feet. To my +surprise, my clothes had dried on me and there seemed no indications of +catching cold, either from the last soaking or from the prolonged soaking +from the foundering of the _Martinez_. Under ordinary circumstances, +after all that I had undergone, I should have been fit for bed and a +trained nurse. + +But my knee was bothering me terribly. As well as I could make out, the +kneecap seemed turned up on edge in the midst of the swelling. As I sat +in my bunk examining it (the six hunters were all in the steerage, +smoking and talking in loud voices), Henderson took a passing glance at +it. + +“Looks nasty,” he commented. “Tie a rag around it, and it’ll be all +right.” + +That was all; and on the land I would have been lying on the broad of my +back, with a surgeon attending on me, and with strict injunctions to do +nothing but rest. But I must do these men justice. Callous as they were +to my suffering, they were equally callous to their own when anything +befell them. And this was due, I believe, first, to habit; and second, +to the fact that they were less sensitively organized. I really believe +that a finely-organized, high-strung man would suffer twice and thrice as +much as they from a like injury. + +Tired as I was,—exhausted, in fact,—I was prevented from sleeping by the +pain in my knee. It was all I could do to keep from groaning aloud. At +home I should undoubtedly have given vent to my anguish; but this new and +elemental environment seemed to call for a savage repression. Like the +savage, the attitude of these men was stoical in great things, childish +in little things. I remember, later in the voyage, seeing Kerfoot, +another of the hunters, lose a finger by having it smashed to a jelly; +and he did not even murmur or change the expression on his face. Yet I +have seen the same man, time and again, fly into the most outrageous +passion over a trifle. + +He was doing it now, vociferating, bellowing, waving his arms, and +cursing like a fiend, and all because of a disagreement with another +hunter as to whether a seal pup knew instinctively how to swim. He held +that it did, that it could swim the moment it was born. The other +hunter, Latimer, a lean, Yankee-looking fellow with shrewd, +narrow-slitted eyes, held otherwise, held that the seal pup was born on +the land for no other reason than that it could not swim, that its mother +was compelled to teach it to swim as birds were compelled to teach their +nestlings how to fly. + +For the most part, the remaining four hunters leaned on the table or lay +in their bunks and left the discussion to the two antagonists. But they +were supremely interested, for every little while they ardently took +sides, and sometimes all were talking at once, till their voices surged +back and forth in waves of sound like mimic thunder-rolls in the confined +space. Childish and immaterial as the topic was, the quality of their +reasoning was still more childish and immaterial. In truth, there was +very little reasoning or none at all. Their method was one of assertion, +assumption, and denunciation. They proved that a seal pup could swim or +not swim at birth by stating the proposition very bellicosely and then +following it up with an attack on the opposing man’s judgment, common +sense, nationality, or past history. Rebuttal was precisely similar. I +have related this in order to show the mental calibre of the men with +whom I was thrown in contact. Intellectually they were children, +inhabiting the physical forms of men. + +And they smoked, incessantly smoked, using a coarse, cheap, and +offensive-smelling tobacco. The air was thick and murky with the smoke +of it; and this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she +struggled through the storm, would surely have made me sea-sick had I +been a victim to that malady. As it was, it made me quite squeamish, +though this nausea might have been due to the pain of my leg and +exhaustion. + +As I lay there thinking, I naturally dwelt upon myself and my situation. +It was unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van Weyden, a scholar +and a dilettante, if you please, in things artistic and literary, should +be lying here on a Bering Sea seal-hunting schooner. Cabin-boy! I had +never done any hard manual labour, or scullion labour, in my life. I had +lived a placid, uneventful, sedentary existence all my days—the life of a +scholar and a recluse on an assured and comfortable income. Violent life +and athletic sports had never appealed to me. I had always been a +book-worm; so my sisters and father had called me during my childhood. I +had gone camping but once in my life, and then I left the party almost at +its start and returned to the comforts and conveniences of a roof. And +here I was, with dreary and endless vistas before me of table-setting, +potato-peeling, and dish-washing. And I was not strong. The doctors had +always said that I had a remarkable constitution, but I had never +developed it or my body through exercise. My muscles were small and +soft, like a woman’s, or so the doctors had said time and again in the +course of their attempts to persuade me to go in for physical-culture +fads. But I had preferred to use my head rather than my body; and here I +was, in no fit condition for the rough life in prospect. + +These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind, and are +related for the sake of vindicating myself in advance in the weak and +helpless _rôle_ I was destined to play. But I thought, also, of my +mother and sisters, and pictured their grief. I was among the missing +dead of the _Martinez_ disaster, an unrecovered body. I could see the +head-lines in the papers; the fellows at the University Club and the +Bibelot shaking their heads and saying, “Poor chap!” And I could see +Charley Furuseth, as I had said good-bye to him that morning, lounging in +a dressing-gown on the be-pillowed window couch and delivering himself of +oracular and pessimistic epigrams. + +And all the while, rolling, plunging, climbing the moving mountains and +falling and wallowing in the foaming valleys, the schooner _Ghost_ was +fighting her way farther and farther into the heart of the Pacific—and I +was on her. I could hear the wind above. It came to my ears as a +muffled roar. Now and again feet stamped overhead. An endless creaking +was going on all about me, the woodwork and the fittings groaning and +squeaking and complaining in a thousand keys. The hunters were still +arguing and roaring like some semi-human amphibious breed. The air was +filled with oaths and indecent expressions. I could see their faces, +flushed and angry, the brutality distorted and emphasized by the sickly +yellow of the sea-lamps which rocked back and forth with the ship. +Through the dim smoke-haze the bunks looked like the sleeping dens of +animals in a menagerie. Oilskins and sea-boots were hanging from the +walls, and here and there rifles and shotguns rested securely in the +racks. It was a sea-fitting for the buccaneers and pirates of by-gone +years. My imagination ran riot, and still I could not sleep. And it was +a long, long night, weary and dreary and long. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +But my first night in the hunters’ steerage was also my last. Next day +Johansen, the new mate, was routed from the cabin by Wolf Larsen, and +sent into the steerage to sleep thereafter, while I took possession of +the tiny cabin state-room, which, on the first day of the voyage, had +already had two occupants. The reason for this change was quickly +learned by the hunters, and became the cause of a deal of grumbling on +their part. It seemed that Johansen, in his sleep, lived over each night +the events of the day. His incessant talking and shouting and bellowing +of orders had been too much for Wolf Larsen, who had accordingly foisted +the nuisance upon his hunters. + +After a sleepless night, I arose weak and in agony, to hobble through my +second day on the _Ghost_. Thomas Mugridge routed me out at half-past +five, much in the fashion that Bill Sykes must have routed out his dog; +but Mr. Mugridge’s brutality to me was paid back in kind and with +interest. The unnecessary noise he made (I had lain wide-eyed the whole +night) must have awakened one of the hunters; for a heavy shoe whizzed +through the semi-darkness, and Mr. Mugridge, with a sharp howl of pain, +humbly begged everybody’s pardon. Later on, in the galley, I noticed +that his ear was bruised and swollen. It never went entirely back to its +normal shape, and was called a “cauliflower ear” by the sailors. + +The day was filled with miserable variety. I had taken my dried clothes +down from the galley the night before, and the first thing I did was to +exchange the cook’s garments for them. I looked for my purse. In +addition to some small change (and I have a good memory for such things), +it had contained one hundred and eighty-five dollars in gold and paper. +The purse I found, but its contents, with the exception of the small +silver, had been abstracted. I spoke to the cook about it, when I went +on deck to take up my duties in the galley, and though I had looked +forward to a surly answer, I had not expected the belligerent harangue +that I received. + +“Look ’ere, ’Ump,” he began, a malicious light in his eyes and a snarl in +his throat; “d’ye want yer nose punched? If you think I’m a thief, just +keep it to yerself, or you’ll find ’ow bloody well mistyken you are. +Strike me blind if this ayn’t gratitude for yer! ’Ere you come, a pore +mis’rable specimen of ’uman scum, an’ I tykes yer into my galley an’ +treats yer ’ansom, an’ this is wot I get for it. Nex’ time you can go to +’ell, say I, an’ I’ve a good mind to give you what-for anyw’y.” + +So saying, he put up his fists and started for me. To my shame be it, I +cowered away from the blow and ran out the galley door. What else was I +to do? Force, nothing but force, obtained on this brute-ship. Moral +suasion was a thing unknown. Picture it to yourself: a man of ordinary +stature, slender of build, and with weak, undeveloped muscles, who has +lived a peaceful, placid life, and is unused to violence of any sort—what +could such a man possibly do? There was no more reason that I should +stand and face these human beasts than that I should stand and face an +infuriated bull. + +So I thought it out at the time, feeling the need for vindication and +desiring to be at peace with my conscience. But this vindication did not +satisfy. Nor, to this day can I permit my manhood to look back upon +those events and feel entirely exonerated. The situation was something +that really exceeded rational formulas for conduct and demanded more than +the cold conclusions of reason. When viewed in the light of formal +logic, there is not one thing of which to be ashamed; but nevertheless a +shame rises within me at the recollection, and in the pride of my manhood +I feel that my manhood has in unaccountable ways been smirched and +sullied. + +All of which is neither here nor there. The speed with which I ran from +the galley caused excruciating pain in my knee, and I sank down +helplessly at the break of the poop. But the Cockney had not pursued me. + +“Look at ’im run! Look at ’im run!” I could hear him crying. “An’ with +a gyme leg at that! Come on back, you pore little mamma’s darling. I +won’t ’it yer; no, I won’t.” + +I came back and went on with my work; and here the episode ended for the +time, though further developments were yet to take place. I set the +breakfast-table in the cabin, and at seven o’clock waited on the hunters +and officers. The storm had evidently broken during the night, though a +huge sea was still running and a stiff wind blowing. Sail had been made +in the early watches, so that the _Ghost_ was racing along under +everything except the two topsails and the flying jib. These three +sails, I gathered from the conversation, were to be set immediately after +breakfast. I learned, also, that Wolf Larsen was anxious to make the +most of the storm, which was driving him to the south-west into that +portion of the sea where he expected to pick up with the north-east +trades. It was before this steady wind that he hoped to make the major +portion of the run to Japan, curving south into the tropics and north +again as he approached the coast of Asia. + +After breakfast I had another unenviable experience. When I had finished +washing the dishes, I cleaned the cabin stove and carried the ashes up on +deck to empty them. Wolf Larsen and Henderson were standing near the +wheel, deep in conversation. The sailor, Johnson, was steering. As I +started toward the weather side I saw him make a sudden motion with his +head, which I mistook for a token of recognition and good-morning. In +reality, he was attempting to warn me to throw my ashes over the lee +side. Unconscious of my blunder, I passed by Wolf Larsen and the hunter +and flung the ashes over the side to windward. The wind drove them back, +and not only over me, but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next +instant the latter kicked me, violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not +realized there could be so much pain in a kick. I reeled away from him +and leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting condition. Everything +was swimming before my eyes, and I turned sick. The nausea overpowered +me, and I managed to crawl to the side of the vessel. But Wolf Larsen +did not follow me up. Brushing the ashes from his clothes, he had +resumed his conversation with Henderson. Johansen, who had seen the +affair from the break of the poop, sent a couple of sailors aft to clean +up the mess. + +Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different sort. +Following the cook’s instructions, I had gone into Wolf Larsen’s +state-room to put it to rights and make the bed. Against the wall, near +the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. I glanced over them, +noting with astonishment such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De +Quincey. There were scientific works, too, among which were represented +men such as Tyndall, Proctor, and Darwin. Astronomy and physics were +represented, and I remarked Bulfinch’s _Age of Fable_, Shaw’s _History of +English and American Literature_, and Johnson’s _Natural History_ in two +large volumes. Then there were a number of grammars, such as Metcalf’s, +and Reed and Kellogg’s; and I smiled as I saw a copy of _The Dean’s +English_. + +I could not reconcile these books with the man from what I had seen of +him, and I wondered if he could possibly read them. But when I came to +make the bed I found, between the blankets, dropped apparently as he had +sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning, the Cambridge Edition. It was +open at “In a Balcony,” and I noticed, here and there, passages +underlined in pencil. Further, letting drop the volume during a lurch of +the ship, a sheet of paper fell out. It was scrawled over with +geometrical diagrams and calculations of some sort. + +It was patent that this terrible man was no ignorant clod, such as one +would inevitably suppose him to be from his exhibitions of brutality. At +once he became an enigma. One side or the other of his nature was +perfectly comprehensible; but both sides together were bewildering. I +had already remarked that his language was excellent, marred with an +occasional slight inaccuracy. Of course, in common speech with the +sailors and hunters, it sometimes fairly bristled with errors, which was +due to the vernacular itself; but in the few words he had held with me it +had been clear and correct. + +This glimpse I had caught of his other side must have emboldened me, for +I resolved to speak to him about the money I had lost. + +“I have been robbed,” I said to him, a little later, when I found him +pacing up and down the poop alone. + +“Sir,” he corrected, not harshly, but sternly. + +“I have been robbed, sir,” I amended. + +“How did it happen?” he asked. + +Then I told him the whole circumstance, how my clothes had been left to +dry in the galley, and how, later, I was nearly beaten by the cook when I +mentioned the matter. + +He smiled at my recital. “Pickings,” he concluded; “Cooky’s pickings. +And don’t you think your miserable life worth the price? Besides, +consider it a lesson. You’ll learn in time how to take care of your +money for yourself. I suppose, up to now, your lawyer has done it for +you, or your business agent.” + +I could feel the quiet sneer through his words, but demanded, “How can I +get it back again?” + +“That’s your look-out. You haven’t any lawyer or business agent now, so +you’ll have to depend on yourself. When you get a dollar, hang on to it. +A man who leaves his money lying around, the way you did, deserves to +lose it. Besides, you have sinned. You have no right to put temptation +in the way of your fellow-creatures. You tempted Cooky, and he fell. +You have placed his immortal soul in jeopardy. By the way, do you +believe in the immortal soul?” + +His lids lifted lazily as he asked the question, and it seemed that the +deeps were opening to me and that I was gazing into his soul. But it was +an illusion. Far as it might have seemed, no man has ever seen very far +into Wolf Larsen’s soul, or seen it at all,—of this I am convinced. It +was a very lonely soul, I was to learn, that never unmasked, though at +rare moments it played at doing so. + +“I read immortality in your eyes,” I answered, dropping the “sir,”—an +experiment, for I thought the intimacy of the conversation warranted it. + +He took no notice. “By that, I take it, you see something that is alive, +but that necessarily does not have to live for ever.” + +“I read more than that,” I continued boldly. + +“Then you read consciousness. You read the consciousness of life that it +is alive; but still no further away, no endlessness of life.” + +How clearly he thought, and how well he expressed what he thought! From +regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over the +leaden sea to windward. A bleakness came into his eyes, and the lines of +his mouth grew severe and harsh. He was evidently in a pessimistic mood. + +“Then to what end?” he demanded abruptly, turning back to me. “If I am +immortal—why?” + +I halted. How could I explain my idealism to this man? How could I put +into speech a something felt, a something like the strains of music heard +in sleep, a something that convinced yet transcended utterance? + +“What do you believe, then?” I countered. + +“I believe that life is a mess,” he answered promptly. “It is like +yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, +a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The +big eat the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat the +weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and +move the longest, that is all. What do you make of those things?” + +He swept his arm in an impatient gesture toward a number of the sailors +who were working on some kind of rope stuff amidships. + +“They move, so does the jelly-fish move. They move in order to eat in +order that they may keep moving. There you have it. They live for their +belly’s sake, and the belly is for their sake. It’s a circle; you get +nowhere. Neither do they. In the end they come to a standstill. They +move no more. They are dead.” + +“They have dreams,” I interrupted, “radiant, flashing dreams—” + +“Of grub,” he concluded sententiously. + +“And of more—” + +“Grub. Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying it.” His voice +sounded harsh. There was no levity in it. “For, look you, they dream of +making lucky voyages which will bring them more money, of becoming the +mates of ships, of finding fortunes—in short, of being in a better +position for preying on their fellows, of having all night in, good grub +and somebody else to do the dirty work. You and I are just like them. +There is no difference, except that we have eaten more and better. I am +eating them now, and you too. But in the past you have eaten more than I +have. You have slept in soft beds, and worn fine clothes, and eaten good +meals. Who made those beds? and those clothes? and those meals? Not +you. You never made anything in your own sweat. You live on an income +which your father earned. You are like a frigate bird swooping down upon +the boobies and robbing them of the fish they have caught. You are one +with a crowd of men who have made what they call a government, who are +masters of all the other men, and who eat the food the other men get and +would like to eat themselves. You wear the warm clothes. They made the +clothes, but they shiver in rags and ask you, the lawyer, or business +agent who handles your money, for a job.” + +“But that is beside the matter,” I cried. + +“Not at all.” He was speaking rapidly now, and his eyes were flashing. +“It is piggishness, and it is life. Of what use or sense is an +immortality of piggishness? What is the end? What is it all about? You +have made no food. Yet the food you have eaten or wasted might have +saved the lives of a score of wretches who made the food but did not eat +it. What immortal end did you serve? or did they? Consider yourself and +me. What does your boasted immortality amount to when your life runs +foul of mine? You would like to go back to the land, which is a +favourable place for your kind of piggishness. It is a whim of mine to +keep you aboard this ship, where my piggishness flourishes. And keep you +I will. I may make or break you. You may die to-day, this week, or next +month. I could kill you now, with a blow of my fist, for you are a +miserable weakling. But if we are immortal, what is the reason for this? +To be piggish as you and I have been all our lives does not seem to be +just the thing for immortals to be doing. Again, what’s it all about? +Why have I kept you here?—” + +“Because you are stronger,” I managed to blurt out. + +“But why stronger?” he went on at once with his perpetual queries. +“Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you? Don’t you see? +Don’t you see?” + +“But the hopelessness of it,” I protested. + +“I agree with you,” he answered. “Then why move at all, since moving is +living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be no +hopelessness. But,—and there it is,—we want to live and move, though we +have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to +live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life +would be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream +of your immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on +being alive for ever. Bah! An eternity of piggishness!” + +He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped at the +break of the poop and called me to him. + +“By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with?” he asked. + +“One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir,” I answered. + +He nodded his head. A moment later, as I started down the companion +stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly cursing some men +amidships. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +By the following morning the storm had blown itself quite out and the +_Ghost_ was rolling slightly on a calm sea without a breath of wind. +Occasional light airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen patrolled the +poop constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to the north-eastward, +from which direction the great trade-wind must blow. + +The men were all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for the +season’s hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the captain’s dingey, +and the six which the hunters will use. Three, a hunter, a boat-puller, +and a boat-steerer, compose a boat’s crew. On board the schooner the +boat-pullers and steerers are the crew. The hunters, too, are supposed +to be in command of the watches, subject, always, to the orders of Wolf +Larsen. + +All this, and more, I have learned. The _Ghost_ is considered the +fastest schooner in both the San Francisco and Victoria fleets. In fact, +she was once a private yacht, and was built for speed. Her lines and +fittings—though I know nothing about such things—speak for themselves. +Johnson was telling me about her in a short chat I had with him during +yesterday’s second dog-watch. He spoke enthusiastically, with the love +for a fine craft such as some men feel for horses. He is greatly +disgusted with the outlook, and I am given to understand that Wolf Larsen +bears a very unsavoury reputation among the sealing captains. It was the +_Ghost_ herself that lured Johnson into signing for the voyage, but he is +already beginning to repent. + +As he told me, the _Ghost_ is an eighty-ton schooner of a remarkably fine +model. Her beam, or width, is twenty-three feet, and her length a little +over ninety feet. A lead keel of fabulous but unknown weight makes her +very stable, while she carries an immense spread of canvas. From the +deck to the truck of the maintopmast is something over a hundred feet, +while the foremast with its topmast is eight or ten feet shorter. I am +giving these details so that the size of this little floating world which +holds twenty-two men may be appreciated. It is a very little world, a +mote, a speck, and I marvel that men should dare to venture the sea on a +contrivance so small and fragile. + +Wolf Larsen has, also, a reputation for reckless carrying on of sail. I +overheard Henderson and another of the hunters, Standish, a Californian, +talking about it. Two years ago he dismasted the _Ghost_ in a gale on +Bering Sea, whereupon the present masts were put in, which are stronger +and heavier in every way. He is said to have remarked, when he put them +in, that he preferred turning her over to losing the sticks. + +Every man aboard, with the exception of Johansen, who is rather overcome +by his promotion, seems to have an excuse for having sailed on the +_Ghost_. Half the men forward are deep-water sailors, and their excuse +is that they did not know anything about her or her captain. And those +who do know, whisper that the hunters, while excellent shots, were so +notorious for their quarrelsome and rascally proclivities that they could +not sign on any decent schooner. + +I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew,—Louis he is +called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a very +sociable fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a listener. In the +afternoon, while the cook was below asleep and I was peeling the +everlasting potatoes, Louis dropped into the galley for a “yarn.” His +excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk when he signed. He assured +me again and again that it was the last thing in the world he would dream +of doing in a sober moment. It seems that he has been seal-hunting +regularly each season for a dozen years, and is accounted one of the two +or three very best boat-steerers in both fleets. + +“Ah, my boy,” he shook his head ominously at me, “’tis the worst schooner +ye could iv selected, nor were ye drunk at the time as was I. ’Tis +sealin’ is the sailor’s paradise—on other ships than this. The mate was +the first, but mark me words, there’ll be more dead men before the trip +is done with. Hist, now, between you an’ meself and the stanchion there, +this Wolf Larsen is a regular devil, an’ the _Ghost’ll_ be a hell-ship +like she’s always ben since he had hold iv her. Don’t I know? Don’t I +know? Don’t I remember him in Hakodate two years gone, when he had a row +an’ shot four iv his men? Wasn’t I a-layin’ on the _Emma L._, not three +hundred yards away? An’ there was a man the same year he killed with a +blow iv his fist. Yes, sir, killed ’im dead-oh. His head must iv +smashed like an eggshell. An’ wasn’t there the Governor of Kura Island, +an’ the Chief iv Police, Japanese gentlemen, sir, an’ didn’t they come +aboard the _Ghost_ as his guests, a-bringin’ their wives along—wee an’ +pretty little bits of things like you see ’em painted on fans. An’ as he +was a-gettin’ under way, didn’t the fond husbands get left astern-like in +their sampan, as it might be by accident? An’ wasn’t it a week later +that the poor little ladies was put ashore on the other side of the +island, with nothin’ before ’em but to walk home acrost the mountains on +their weeny-teeny little straw sandals which wouldn’t hang together a +mile? Don’t I know? ’Tis the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen—the great +big beast mentioned iv in Revelation; an’ no good end will he ever come +to. But I’ve said nothin’ to ye, mind ye. I’ve whispered never a word; +for old fat Louis’ll live the voyage out if the last mother’s son of yez +go to the fishes.” + +“Wolf Larsen!” he snorted a moment later. “Listen to the word, will ye! +Wolf—’tis what he is. He’s not black-hearted like some men. ’Tis no +heart he has at all. Wolf, just wolf, ’tis what he is. D’ye wonder he’s +well named?” + +“But if he is so well-known for what he is,” I queried, “how is it that +he can get men to ship with him?” + +“An’ how is it ye can get men to do anything on God’s earth an’ sea?” +Louis demanded with Celtic fire. “How d’ye find me aboard if ’twasn’t +that I was drunk as a pig when I put me name down? There’s them that +can’t sail with better men, like the hunters, and them that don’t know, +like the poor devils of wind-jammers for’ard there. But they’ll come to +it, they’ll come to it, an’ be sorry the day they was born. I could weep +for the poor creatures, did I but forget poor old fat Louis and the +troubles before him. But ’tis not a whisper I’ve dropped, mind ye, not a +whisper.” + +“Them hunters is the wicked boys,” he broke forth again, for he suffered +from a constitutional plethora of speech. “But wait till they get to +cutting up iv jinks and rowin’ ’round. He’s the boy’ll fix ’em. ’Tis +him that’ll put the fear of God in their rotten black hearts. Look at +that hunter iv mine, Horner. ‘Jock’ Horner they call him, so quiet-like +an’ easy-goin’, soft-spoken as a girl, till ye’d think butter wouldn’t +melt in the mouth iv him. Didn’t he kill his boat-steerer last year? +’Twas called a sad accident, but I met the boat-puller in Yokohama an’ +the straight iv it was given me. An’ there’s Smoke, the black little +devil—didn’t the Roosians have him for three years in the salt mines of +Siberia, for poachin’ on Copper Island, which is a Roosian preserve? +Shackled he was, hand an’ foot, with his mate. An’ didn’t they have +words or a ruction of some kind?—for ’twas the other fellow Smoke sent up +in the buckets to the top of the mine; an’ a piece at a time he went up, +a leg to-day, an’ to-morrow an arm, the next day the head, an’ so on.” + +“But you can’t mean it!” I cried out, overcome with the horror of it. + +“Mean what!” he demanded, quick as a flash. “’Tis nothin’ I’ve said. +Deef I am, and dumb, as ye should be for the sake iv your mother; an’ +never once have I opened me lips but to say fine things iv them an’ him, +God curse his soul, an’ may he rot in purgatory ten thousand years, and +then go down to the last an’ deepest hell iv all!” + +Johnson, the man who had chafed me raw when I first came aboard, seemed +the least equivocal of the men forward or aft. In fact, there was +nothing equivocal about him. One was struck at once by his +straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were tempered by a +modesty which might be mistaken for timidity. But timid he was not. He +seemed, rather, to have the courage of his convictions, the certainty of +his manhood. It was this that made him protest, at the commencement of +our acquaintance, against being called Yonson. And upon this, and him, +Louis passed judgment and prophecy. + +“’Tis a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we’ve for’ard with us,” he +said. “The best sailorman in the fo’c’sle. He’s my boat-puller. But +it’s to trouble he’ll come with Wolf Larsen, as the sparks fly upward. +It’s meself that knows. I can see it brewin’ an’ comin’ up like a storm +in the sky. I’ve talked to him like a brother, but it’s little he sees +in takin’ in his lights or flyin’ false signals. He grumbles out when +things don’t go to suit him, and there’ll be always some tell-tale +carryin’ word iv it aft to the Wolf. The Wolf is strong, and it’s the +way of a wolf to hate strength, an’ strength it is he’ll see in +Johnson—no knucklin’ under, and a ‘Yes, sir, thank ye kindly, sir,’ for a +curse or a blow. Oh, she’s a-comin’! She’s a-comin’! An’ God knows +where I’ll get another boat-puller! What does the fool up an’ say, when +the old man calls him Yonson, but ‘Me name is Johnson, sir,’ an’ then +spells it out, letter for letter. Ye should iv seen the old man’s face! +I thought he’d let drive at him on the spot. He didn’t, but he will, an’ +he’ll break that squarehead’s heart, or it’s little I know iv the ways iv +men on the ships iv the sea.” + +Thomas Mugridge is becoming unendurable. I am compelled to Mister him +and to Sir him with every speech. One reason for this is that Wolf +Larsen seems to have taken a fancy to him. It is an unprecedented thing, +I take it, for a captain to be chummy with the cook; but this is +certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing. Two or three times he put his head +into the galley and chaffed Mugridge good-naturedly, and once, this +afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and chatted with him for +fully fifteen minutes. When it was over, and Mugridge was back in the +galley, he became greasily radiant, and went about his work, humming +coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto. + +“I always get along with the officers,” he remarked to me in a +confidential tone. “I know the w’y, I do, to myke myself uppreci-yted. +There was my last skipper—w’y I thought nothin’ of droppin’ down in the +cabin for a little chat and a friendly glass. ‘Mugridge,’ sez ’e to me, +‘Mugridge,’ sez ’e, ‘you’ve missed yer vokytion.’ ‘An’ ’ow’s that?’ sez +I. ‘Yer should ’a been born a gentleman, an’ never ’ad to work for yer +livin’.’ God strike me dead, ’Ump, if that ayn’t wot ’e sez, an’ me +a-sittin’ there in ’is own cabin, jolly-like an’ comfortable, a-smokin’ +’is cigars an’ drinkin’ ’is rum.” + +This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction. I never heard a voice I +hated so. His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile and his +monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I was all in a +tremble. Positively, he was the most disgusting and loathsome person I +have ever met. The filth of his cooking was indescribable; and, as he +cooked everything that was eaten aboard, I was compelled to select what I +ate with great circumspection, choosing from the least dirty of his +concoctions. + +My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work. The +nails were discoloured and black, while the skin was already grained with +dirt which even a scrubbing-brush could not remove. Then blisters came, +in a painful and never-ending procession, and I had a great burn on my +forearm, acquired by losing my balance in a roll of the ship and pitching +against the galley stove. Nor was my knee any better. The swelling had +not gone down, and the cap was still up on edge. Hobbling about on it +from morning till night was not helping it any. What I needed was rest, +if it were ever to get well. + +Rest! I never before knew the meaning of the word. I had been resting +all my life and did not know it. But now, could I sit still for one +half-hour and do nothing, not even think, it would be the most +pleasurable thing in the world. But it is a revelation, on the other +hand. I shall be able to appreciate the lives of the working people +hereafter. I did not dream that work was so terrible a thing. From +half-past five in the morning till ten o’clock at night I am everybody’s +slave, with not one moment to myself, except such as I can steal near the +end of the second dog-watch. Let me pause for a minute to look out over +the sea sparkling in the sun, or to gaze at a sailor going aloft to the +gaff-topsails, or running out the bowsprit, and I am sure to hear the +hateful voice, “’Ere, you, ’Ump, no sodgerin’. I’ve got my peepers on +yer.” + +There are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the gossip is +going around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight. Henderson seems +the best of the hunters, a slow-going fellow, and hard to rouse; but +roused he must have been, for Smoke had a bruised and discoloured eye, +and looked particularly vicious when he came into the cabin for supper. + +A cruel thing happened just before supper, indicative of the callousness +and brutishness of these men. There is one green hand in the crew, +Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, I imagine, by +the spirit of adventure, and making his first voyage. In the light +baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which +times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft +to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail. In some way, when Harrison was +aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of +the gaff. As I understood it, there were two ways of getting it +cleared,—first, by lowering the foresail, which was comparatively easy +and without danger; and second, by climbing out the peak-halyards to the +end of the gaff itself, an exceedingly hazardous performance. + +Johansen called out to Harrison to go out the halyards. It was patent to +everybody that the boy was afraid. And well he might be, eighty feet +above the deck, to trust himself on those thin and jerking ropes. Had +there been a steady breeze it would not have been so bad, but the _Ghost_ +was rolling emptily in a long sea, and with each roll the canvas flapped +and boomed and the halyards slacked and jerked taut. They were capable +of snapping a man off like a fly from a whip-lash. + +Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him, but +hesitated. It was probably the first time he had been aloft in his life. +Johansen, who had caught the contagion of Wolf Larsen’s masterfulness, +burst out with a volley of abuse and curses. + +“That’ll do, Johansen,” Wolf Larsen said brusquely. “I’ll have you know +that I do the swearing on this ship. If I need your assistance, I’ll +call you in.” + +“Yes, sir,” the mate acknowledged submissively. + +In the meantime Harrison had started out on the halyards. I was looking +up from the galley door, and I could see him trembling, as if with ague, +in every limb. He proceeded very slowly and cautiously, an inch at a +time. Outlined against the clear blue of the sky, he had the appearance +of an enormous spider crawling along the tracery of its web. + +It was a slight uphill climb, for the foresail peaked high; and the +halyards, running through various blocks on the gaff and mast, gave him +separate holds for hands and feet. But the trouble lay in that the wind +was not strong enough nor steady enough to keep the sail full. When he +was half-way out, the _Ghost_ took a long roll to windward and back again +into the hollow between two seas. Harrison ceased his progress and held +on tightly. Eighty feet beneath, I could see the agonized strain of his +muscles as he gripped for very life. The sail emptied and the gaff swung +amid-ships. The halyards slackened, and, though it all happened very +quickly, I could see them sag beneath the weight of his body. Then the +gaff swung to the side with an abrupt swiftness, the great sail boomed +like a cannon, and the three rows of reef-points slatted against the +canvas like a volley of rifles. Harrison, clinging on, made the giddy +rush through the air. This rush ceased abruptly. The halyards became +instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. His clutch was broken. +One hand was torn loose from its hold. The other lingered desperately +for a moment, and followed. His body pitched out and down, but in some +way he managed to save himself with his legs. He was hanging by them, +head downward. A quick effort brought his hands up to the halyards +again; but he was a long time regaining his former position, where he +hung, a pitiable object. + +“I’ll bet he has no appetite for supper,” I heard Wolf Larsen’s voice, +which came to me from around the corner of the galley. “Stand from +under, you, Johansen! Watch out! Here she comes!” + +In truth, Harrison was very sick, as a person is sea-sick; and for a long +time he clung to his precarious perch without attempting to move. +Johansen, however, continued violently to urge him on to the completion +of his task. + +“It is a shame,” I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and correct +English. He was standing by the main rigging, a few feet away from me. +“The boy is willing enough. He will learn if he has a chance. But this +is—” He paused awhile, for the word “murder” was his final judgment. + +“Hist, will ye!” Louis whispered to him, “For the love iv your mother +hold your mouth!” + +But Johnson, looking on, still continued his grumbling. + +“Look here,” the hunter Standish spoke to Wolf Larsen, “that’s my +boat-puller, and I don’t want to lose him.” + +“That’s all right, Standish,” was the reply. “He’s your boat-puller when +you’ve got him in the boat; but he’s my sailor when I have him aboard, +and I’ll do what I damn well please with him.” + +“But that’s no reason—” Standish began in a torrent of speech. + +“That’ll do, easy as she goes,” Wolf Larsen counselled back. “I’ve told +you what’s what, and let it stop at that. The man’s mine, and I’ll make +soup of him and eat it if I want to.” + +There was an angry gleam in the hunter’s eye, but he turned on his heel +and entered the steerage companion-way, where he remained, looking +upward. All hands were on deck now, and all eyes were aloft, where a +human life was at grapples with death. The callousness of these men, to +whom industrial organization gave control of the lives of other men, was +appalling. I, who had lived out of the whirl of the world, had never +dreamed that its work was carried on in such fashion. Life had always +seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, but here it counted for nothing, was a +cipher in the arithmetic of commerce. I must say, however, that the +sailors themselves were sympathetic, as instance the case of Johnson; but +the masters (the hunters and the captain) were heartlessly indifferent. +Even the protest of Standish arose out of the fact that he did not wish +to lose his boat-puller. Had it been some other hunter’s boat-puller, +he, like them, would have been no more than amused. + +But to return to Harrison. It took Johansen, insulting and reviling the +poor wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started again. A little later +he made the end of the gaff, where, astride the spar itself, he had a +better chance for holding on. He cleared the sheet, and was free to +return, slightly downhill now, along the halyards to the mast. But he +had lost his nerve. Unsafe as was his present position, he was loath to +forsake it for the more unsafe position on the halyards. + +He looked along the airy path he must traverse, and then down to the +deck. His eyes were wide and staring, and he was trembling violently. I +had never seen fear so strongly stamped upon a human face. Johansen +called vainly for him to come down. At any moment he was liable to be +snapped off the gaff, but he was helpless with fright. Wolf Larsen, +walking up and down with Smoke and in conversation, took no more notice +of him, though he cried sharply, once, to the man at the wheel: + +“You’re off your course, my man! Be careful, unless you’re looking for +trouble!” + +“Ay, ay, sir,” the helmsman responded, putting a couple of spokes down. + +He had been guilty of running the _Ghost_ several points off her course +in order that what little wind there was should fill the foresail and +hold it steady. He had striven to help the unfortunate Harrison at the +risk of incurring Wolf Larsen’s anger. + +The time went by, and the suspense, to me, was terrible. Thomas +Mugridge, on the other hand, considered it a laughable affair, and was +continually bobbing his head out the galley door to make jocose remarks. +How I hated him! And how my hatred for him grew and grew, during that +fearful time, to cyclopean dimensions. For the first time in my life I +experienced the desire to murder—“saw red,” as some of our picturesque +writers phrase it. Life in general might still be sacred, but life in +the particular case of Thomas Mugridge had become very profane indeed. I +was frightened when I became conscious that I was seeing red, and the +thought flashed through my mind: was I, too, becoming tainted by the +brutality of my environment?—I, who even in the most flagrant crimes had +denied the justice and righteousness of capital punishment? + +Fully half-an-hour went by, and then I saw Johnson and Louis in some sort +of altercation. It ended with Johnson flinging off Louis’s detaining arm +and starting forward. He crossed the deck, sprang into the fore rigging, +and began to climb. But the quick eye of Wolf Larsen caught him. + +“Here, you, what are you up to?” he cried. + +Johnson’s ascent was arrested. He looked his captain in the eyes and +replied slowly: + +“I am going to get that boy down.” + +“You’ll get down out of that rigging, and damn lively about it! D’ye +hear? Get down!” + +Johnson hesitated, but the long years of obedience to the masters of +ships overpowered him, and he dropped sullenly to the deck and went on +forward. + +At half after five I went below to set the cabin table, but I hardly knew +what I did, for my eyes and my brain were filled with the vision of a +man, white-faced and trembling, comically like a bug, clinging to the +thrashing gaff. At six o’clock, when I served supper, going on deck to +get the food from the galley, I saw Harrison, still in the same position. +The conversation at the table was of other things. Nobody seemed +interested in the wantonly imperilled life. But making an extra trip to +the galley a little later, I was gladdened by the sight of Harrison +staggering weakly from the rigging to the forecastle scuttle. He had +finally summoned the courage to descend. + +Before closing this incident, I must give a scrap of conversation I had +with Wolf Larsen in the cabin, while I was washing the dishes. + +“You were looking squeamish this afternoon,” he began. “What was the +matter?” + +I could see that he knew what had made me possibly as sick as Harrison, +that he was trying to draw me, and I answered, “It was because of the +brutal treatment of that boy.” + +He gave a short laugh. “Like sea-sickness, I suppose. Some men are +subject to it, and others are not.” + +“Not so,” I objected. + +“Just so,” he went on. “The earth is as full of brutality as the sea is +full of motion. And some men are made sick by the one, and some by the +other. That’s the only reason.” + +“But you, who make a mock of human life, don’t you place any value upon +it whatever?” I demanded. + +“Value? What value?” He looked at me, and though his eyes were steady +and motionless, there seemed a cynical smile in them. “What kind of +value? How do you measure it? Who values it?” + +“I do,” I made answer. + +“Then what is it worth to you? Another man’s life, I mean. Come now, +what is it worth?” + +The value of life? How could I put a tangible value upon it? Somehow, +I, who have always had expression, lacked expression when with Wolf +Larsen. I have since determined that a part of it was due to the man’s +personality, but that the greater part was due to his totally different +outlook. Unlike other materialists I had met and with whom I had +something in common to start on, I had nothing in common with him. +Perhaps, also, it was the elemental simplicity of his mind that baffled +me. He drove so directly to the core of the matter, divesting a question +always of all superfluous details, and with such an air of finality, that +I seemed to find myself struggling in deep water, with no footing under +me. Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the +moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was +intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned. But when he +challenged the truism I was speechless. + +“We were talking about this yesterday,” he said. “I held that life was a +ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might live, and +that living was merely successful piggishness. Why, if there is anything +in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is +only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is +demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the +fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. +In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but +find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the +unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and +populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it +is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with +a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand +lives, and it’s life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life +is left.” + +“You have read Darwin,” I said. “But you read him misunderstandingly +when you conclude that the struggle for existence sanctions your wanton +destruction of life.” + +He shrugged his shoulders. “You know you only mean that in relation to +human life, for of the flesh and the fowl and the fish you destroy as +much as I or any other man. And human life is in no wise different, +though you feel it is and think that you reason why it is. Why should I +be parsimonious with this life which is cheap and without value? There +are more sailors than there are ships on the sea for them, more workers +than there are factories or machines for them. Why, you who live on the +land know that you house your poor people in the slums of cities and +loose famine and pestilence upon them, and that there still remain more +poor people, dying for want of a crust of bread and a bit of meat (which +is life destroyed), than you know what to do with. Have you ever seen +the London dockers fighting like wild beasts for a chance to work?” + +He started for the companion stairs, but turned his head for a final +word. “Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon +itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity +prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as +if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To +you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept +his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life +demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck +like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He +was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself +only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, +being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated +himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread +out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea-water, and he does +not even know that the diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose +anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. +Don’t you see? And what have you to say?” + +“That you are at least consistent,” was all I could say, and I went on +washing the dishes. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the +north-east trades. I came on deck, after a good night’s rest in spite of +my poor knee, to find the _Ghost_ foaming along, wing-and-wing, and every +sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern. Oh, the wonder +of the great trade-wind! All day we sailed, and all night, and the next +day, and the next, day after day, the wind always astern and blowing +steadily and strong. The schooner sailed herself. There was no pulling +and hauling on sheets and tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work at +all for the sailors to do except to steer. At night when the sun went +down, the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up the +damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again—and that was +all. + +Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, is the +speed we are making. And ever out of the north-east the brave wind +blows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty miles between the +dawns. It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait with which we are leaving +San Francisco behind and with which we are foaming down upon the tropics. +Each day grows perceptibly warmer. In the second dog-watch the sailors +come on deck, stripped, and heave buckets of water upon one another from +overside. Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, and during the night the +watch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of those that fall aboard. +In the morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley is +pleasantly areek with the odour of their frying; while dolphin meat is +served fore and aft on such occasions as Johnson catches the blazing +beauties from the bowsprit end. + +Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the +crosstrees, watching the _Ghost_ cleaving the water under press of sail. +There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about in a sort of +trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the foaming wake, and +the heave and the run of her over the liquid mountains that are moving +with us in stately procession. + +The days and nights are “all a wonder and a wild delight,” and though I +have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments to gaze and +gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the world possessed. +Above, the sky is stainless blue—blue as the sea itself, which under the +forefoot is of the colour and sheen of azure satin. All around the +horizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never changing, never moving, like a +silver setting for the flawless turquoise sky. + +I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying on +the forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of foam thrust +aside by the _Ghost’s_ forefoot. It sounded like the gurgling of a brook +over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the crooning song of it lured +me away and out of myself till I was no longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor +Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed away thirty-five years among books. +But a voice behind me, the unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with +the invincible certitude of the man and mellow with appreciation of the +words he was quoting, aroused me. + + “‘O the blazing tropic night, when the wake’s a welt of light + That holds the hot sky tame, + And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors + Where the scared whale flukes in flame. + Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass, + And her ropes are taut with the dew, + For we’re booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail, + We’re sagging south on the Long Trail—the trail that is always + new.’” + +“Eh, Hump? How’s it strike you?” he asked, after the due pause which +words and setting demanded. + +I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea itself, and +the eyes were flashing in the starshine. + +“It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should show +enthusiasm,” I answered coldly. + +“Why, man, it’s living! it’s life!” he cried. + +“Which is a cheap thing and without value.” I flung his words at him. + +He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in his +voice. + +“Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your head, what +a thing this life is. Of course life is valueless, except to itself. +And I can tell you that my life is pretty valuable just now—to myself. +It is beyond price, which you will acknowledge is a terrific overrating, +but which I cannot help, for it is the life that is in me that makes the +rating.” + +He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought that +was in him, and finally went on. + +“Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all time +were echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. I know truth, +divine good from evil, right from wrong. My vision is clear and far. I +could almost believe in God. But,” and his voice changed and the light +went out of his face,—“what is this condition in which I find myself? +this joy of living? this exultation of life? this inspiration, I may well +call it? It is what comes when there is nothing wrong with one’s +digestion, when his stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and +all goes well. It is the bribe for living, the champagne of the blood, +the effervescence of the ferment—that makes some men think holy thoughts, +and other men to see God or to create him when they cannot see him. That +is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, +the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is +alive. And—bah! To-morrow I shall pay for it as the drunkard pays. And +I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely, cease crawling of +myself to be all a-crawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, +to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles +that it may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of +fishes. Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. The +sparkle and bubble has gone out and it is a tasteless drink.” + +He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with the +weight and softness of a tiger. The _Ghost_ ploughed on her way. I +noted the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I listened to +it the effect of Wolf Larsen’s swift rush from sublime exultation to +despair slowly left me. Then some deep-water sailor, from the waist of +the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the “Song of the Trade Wind”: + + “Oh, I am the wind the seamen love— + I am steady, and strong, and true; + They follow my track by the clouds above, + O’er the fathomless tropic blue. + + * * * * * + + Through daylight and dark I follow the bark + I keep like a hound on her trail; + I’m strongest at noon, yet under the moon, + I stiffen the bunt of her sail.” + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Sometimes I think Wolf Larsen mad, or half-mad at least, what of his +strange moods and vagaries. At other times I take him for a great man, a +genius who has never arrived. And, finally, I am convinced that he is +the perfect type of the primitive man, born a thousand years or +generations too late and an anachronism in this culminating century of +civilization. He is certainly an individualist of the most pronounced +type. Not only that, but he is very lonely. There is no congeniality +between him and the rest of the men aboard ship. His tremendous virility +and mental strength wall him apart. They are more like children to him, +even the hunters, and as children he treats them, descending perforce to +their level and playing with them as a man plays with puppies. Or else +he probes them with the cruel hand of a vivisectionist, groping about in +their mental processes and examining their souls as though to see of what +soul-stuff is made. + +I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter or +that, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of interest, +pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a curiosity almost +laughable to me who stood onlooker and who understood. Concerning his +own rages, I am convinced that they are not real, that they are sometimes +experiments, but that in the main they are the habits of a pose or +attitude he has seen fit to take toward his fellow-men. I know, with the +possible exception of the incident of the dead mate, that I have not seen +him really angry; nor do I wish ever to see him in a genuine rage, when +all the force of him is called into play. + +While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell Thomas +Mugridge in the cabin, and at the same time complete an incident upon +which I have already touched once or twice. The twelve o’clock dinner +was over, one day, and I had just finished putting the cabin in order, +when Wolf Larsen and Thomas Mugridge descended the companion stairs. +Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a state-room opening off from the +cabin, in the cabin itself he had never dared to linger or to be seen, +and he flitted to and fro, once or twice a day, a timid spectre. + +“So you know how to play ‘Nap,’” Wolf Larsen was saying in a pleased sort +of voice. “I might have guessed an Englishman would know. I learned it +myself in English ships.” + +Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so pleased was +he at chumming thus with the captain. The little airs he put on and the +painful striving to assume the easy carriage of a man born to a dignified +place in life would have been sickening had they not been ludicrous. He +quite ignored my presence, though I credited him with being simply unable +to see me. His pale, wishy-washy eyes were swimming like lazy summer +seas, though what blissful visions they beheld were beyond my +imagination. + +“Get the cards, Hump,” Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took seats at the +table. “And bring out the cigars and the whisky you’ll find in my +berth.” + +I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting broadly +that there was a mystery about him, that he might be a gentleman’s son +gone wrong or something or other; also, that he was a remittance man and +was paid to keep away from England—“p’yed ’ansomely, sir,” was the way he +put it; “p’yed ’ansomely to sling my ’ook an’ keep slingin’ it.” + +I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned, +shook his head, and signalled with his hands for me to bring the +tumblers. These he filled two-thirds full with undiluted whisky—“a +gentleman’s drink?” quoth Thomas Mugridge,—and they clinked their glasses +to the glorious game of “Nap,” lighted cigars, and fell to shuffling and +dealing the cards. + +They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets. They +drank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do not know +whether Wolf Larsen cheated or not,—a thing he was thoroughly capable of +doing,—but he won steadily. The cook made repeated journeys to his bunk +for money. Each time he performed the journey with greater swagger, but +he never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, +familiar, could hardly see the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to +another journey to his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen’s buttonhole with a +greasy forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, “I got money, +I got money, I tell yer, an’ I’m a gentleman’s son.” + +Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for glass, +and if anything his glasses were fuller. There was no change in him. He +did not appear even amused at the other’s antics. + +In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a gentleman, +the cook’s last money was staked on the game—and lost. Whereupon he +leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen looked curiously at +him, as though about to probe and vivisect him, then changed his mind, as +from the foregone conclusion that there was nothing there to probe. + +“Hump,” he said to me, elaborately polite, “kindly take Mr. Mugridge’s +arm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling very well.” + +“And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water,” he +added, in a lower tone for my ear alone. + +I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning sailors +who had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was sleepily +spluttering that he was a gentleman’s son. But as I descended the +companion stairs to clear the table I heard him shriek as the first +bucket of water struck him. + +Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings. + +“One hundred and eighty-five dollars even,” he said aloud. “Just as I +thought. The beggar came aboard without a cent.” + +“And what you have won is mine, sir,” I said boldly. + +He favoured me with a quizzical smile. “Hump, I have studied some +grammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. ‘Was mine,’ you +should have said, not ’is mine.’” + +“It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics,” I answered. + +It was possibly a minute before he spoke. + +“D’ye know, Hump,” he said, with a slow seriousness which had in it an +indefinable strain of sadness, “that this is the first time I have heard +the word ‘ethics’ in the mouth of a man. You and I are the only men on +this ship who know its meaning.” + +“At one time in my life,” he continued, after another pause, “I dreamed +that I might some day talk with men who used such language, that I might +lift myself out of the place in life in which I had been born, and hold +conversation and mingle with men who talked about just such things as +ethics. And this is the first time I have ever heard the word +pronounced. Which is all by the way, for you are wrong. It is a +question neither of grammar nor ethics, but of fact.” + +“I understand,” I said. “The fact is that you have the money.” + +His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. “But it is +avoiding the real question,” I continued, “which is one of right.” + +“Ah,” he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, “I see you still +believe in such things as right and wrong.” + +“But don’t you?—at all?” I demanded. + +“Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is to it. +Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that it is good +for oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak—or better yet, +it is pleasurable to be strong, because of the profits; painful to be +weak, because of the penalties. Just now the possession of this money is +a pleasurable thing. It is good for one to possess it. Being able to +possess it, I wrong myself and the life that is in me if I give it to you +and forego the pleasure of possessing it.” + +“But you wrong me by withholding it,” I objected. + +“Not at all. One man cannot wrong another man. He can only wrong +himself. As I see it, I do wrong always when I consider the interests of +others. Don’t you see? How can two particles of the yeast wrong each +other by striving to devour each other? It is their inborn heritage to +strive to devour, and to strive not to be devoured. When they depart +from this they sin.” + +“Then you don’t believe in altruism?” I asked. + +He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though he pondered it +thoughtfully. “Let me see, it means something about coöperation, doesn’t +it?” + +“Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection,” I answered +unsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary, which, like his +knowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read, self-educated man, whom no +one had directed in his studies, and who had thought much and talked +little or not at all. “An altruistic act is an act performed for the +welfare of others. It is unselfish, as opposed to an act performed for +self, which is selfish.” + +He nodded his head. “Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it in +Spencer.” + +“Spencer!” I cried. “Have you read him?” + +“Not very much,” was his confession. “I understood quite a good deal of +_First Principles_, but his _Biology_ took the wind out of my sails, and +his _Psychology_ left me butting around in the doldrums for many a day. +I honestly could not understand what he was driving at. I put it down to +mental deficiency on my part, but since then I have decided that it was +for want of preparation. I had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself +know how hard I hammered. But I did get something out of his _Data of +Ethics_. There’s where I ran across ‘altruism,’ and I remember now how +it was used.” + +I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer I +remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his ideal of +highest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the great +philosopher’s teachings, rejecting and selecting according to his needs +and desires. + +“What else did you run across?” I asked. + +His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably phrasing +thoughts which he had never before put into speech. I felt an elation of +spirit. I was groping into his soul-stuff as he made a practice of +groping in the soul-stuff of others. I was exploring virgin territory. +A strange, a terribly strange, region was unrolling itself before my +eyes. + +“In as few words as possible,” he began, “Spencer puts it something like +this: First, a man must act for his own benefit—to do this is to be moral +and good. Next, he must act for the benefit of his children. And third, +he must act for the benefit of his race.” + +“And the highest, finest, right conduct,” I interjected, “is that act +which benefits at the same time the man, his children, and his race.” + +“I wouldn’t stand for that,” he replied. “Couldn’t see the necessity for +it, nor the common sense. I cut out the race and the children. I would +sacrifice nothing for them. It’s just so much slush and sentiment, and +you must see it yourself, at least for one who does not believe in +eternal life. With immortality before me, altruism would be a paying +business proposition. I might elevate my soul to all kinds of altitudes. +But with nothing eternal before me but death, given for a brief spell +this yeasty crawling and squirming which is called life, why, it would be +immoral for me to perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrifice +that makes me lose one crawl or squirm is foolish,—and not only foolish, +for it is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose one +crawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Nor will the +eternal movelessness that is coming to me be made easier or harder by the +sacrifices or selfishnesses of the time when I was yeasty and acrawl.” + +“Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, a +hedonist.” + +“Big words,” he smiled. “But what is a hedonist?” + +He nodded agreement when I had given the definition. “And you are also,” +I continued, “a man one could not trust in the least thing where it was +possible for a selfish interest to intervene?” + +“Now you’re beginning to understand,” he said, brightening. + +“You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?” + +“That’s it.” + +“A man of whom to be always afraid—” + +“That’s the way to put it.” + +“As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?” + +“Now you know me,” he said. “And you know me as I am generally known. +Other men call me ‘Wolf.’” + +“You are a sort of monster,” I added audaciously, “a Caliban who has +pondered Setebos, and who acts as you act, in idle moments, by whim and +fancy.” + +His brow clouded at the allusion. He did not understand, and I quickly +learned that he did not know the poem. + +“I’m just reading Browning,” he confessed, “and it’s pretty tough. I +haven’t got very far along, and as it is I’ve about lost my bearings.” + +Not to be tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from his +state-room and read “Caliban” aloud. He was delighted. It was a +primitive mode of reasoning and of looking at things that he understood +thoroughly. He interrupted again and again with comment and criticism. +When I finished, he had me read it over a second time, and a third. We +fell into discussion—philosophy, science, evolution, religion. He +betrayed the inaccuracies of the self-read man, and, it must be granted, +the sureness and directness of the primitive mind. The very simplicity +of his reasoning was its strength, and his materialism was far more +compelling than the subtly complex materialism of Charley Furuseth. Not +that I—a confirmed and, as Furuseth phrased it, a temperamental +idealist—was to be compelled; but that Wolf Larsen stormed the last +strongholds of my faith with a vigour that received respect, while not +accorded conviction. + +Time passed. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. I became +restless and anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down the +companion-way, sick and angry of countenance, I prepared to go about my +duties. But Wolf Larsen cried out to him: + +“Cooky, you’ve got to hustle to-night. I’m busy with Hump, and you’ll do +the best you can without him.” + +And again the unprecedented was established. That night I sat at table +with the captain and the hunters, while Thomas Mugridge waited on us and +washed the dishes afterward—a whim, a Caliban-mood of Wolf Larsen’s, and +one I foresaw would bring me trouble. In the meantime we talked and +talked, much to the disgust of the hunters, who could not understand a +word. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Three days of rest, three blessed days of rest, are what I had with Wolf +Larsen, eating at the cabin table and doing nothing but discuss life, +literature, and the universe, the while Thomas Mugridge fumed and raged +and did my work as well as his own. + +“Watch out for squalls, is all I can say to you,” was Louis’s warning, +given during a spare half-hour on deck while Wolf Larsen was engaged in +straightening out a row among the hunters. + +“Ye can’t tell what’ll be happenin’,” Louis went on, in response to my +query for more definite information. “The man’s as contrary as air +currents or water currents. You can never guess the ways iv him. ’Tis +just as you’re thinkin’ you know him and are makin’ a favourable slant +along him, that he whirls around, dead ahead and comes howlin’ down upon +you and a-rippin’ all iv your fine-weather sails to rags.” + +So I was not altogether surprised when the squall foretold by Louis smote +me. We had been having a heated discussion,—upon life, of course,—and, +grown over-bold, I was passing stiff strictures upon Wolf Larsen and the +life of Wolf Larsen. In fact, I was vivisecting him and turning over his +soul-stuff as keenly and thoroughly as it was his custom to do it to +others. It may be a weakness of mine that I have an incisive way of +speech; but I threw all restraint to the winds and cut and slashed until +the whole man of him was snarling. The dark sun-bronze of his face went +black with wrath, his eyes were ablaze. There was no clearness or sanity +in them—nothing but the terrific rage of a madman. It was the wolf in +him that I saw, and a mad wolf at that. + +He sprang for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled myself +to brazen it out, though I was trembling inwardly; but the enormous +strength of the man was too much for my fortitude. He had gripped me by +the biceps with his single hand, and when that grip tightened I wilted +and shrieked aloud. My feet went out from under me. I simply could not +stand upright and endure the agony. The muscles refused their duty. The +pain was too great. My biceps was being crushed to a pulp. + +He seemed to recover himself, for a lucid gleam came into his eyes, and +he relaxed his hold with a short laugh that was more like a growl. I +fell to the floor, feeling very faint, while he sat down, lighted a +cigar, and watched me as a cat watches a mouse. As I writhed about I +could see in his eyes that curiosity I had so often noted, that wonder +and perplexity, that questing, that everlasting query of his as to what +it was all about. + +I finally crawled to my feet and ascended the companion stairs. Fair +weather was over, and there was nothing left but to return to the galley. +My left arm was numb, as though paralysed, and days passed before I could +use it, while weeks went by before the last stiffness and pain went out +of it. And he had done nothing but put his hand upon my arm and squeeze. +There had been no wrenching or jerking. He had just closed his hand with +a steady pressure. What he might have done I did not fully realize till +next day, when he put his head into the galley, and, as a sign of renewed +friendliness, asked me how my arm was getting on. + +“It might have been worse,” he smiled. + +I was peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. It was +fair-sized, firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it, squeezed, +and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy streams. The +pulpy remnant he dropped back into the pan and turned away, and I had a +sharp vision of how it might have fared with me had the monster put his +real strength upon me. + +But the three days’ rest was good in spite of it all, for it had given my +knee the very chance it needed. It felt much better, the swelling had +materially decreased, and the cap seemed descending into its proper +place. Also, the three days’ rest brought the trouble I had foreseen. +It was plainly Thomas Mugridge’s intention to make me pay for those three +days. He treated me vilely, cursed me continually, and heaped his own +work upon me. He even ventured to raise his fist to me, but I was +becoming animal-like myself, and I snarled in his face so terribly that +it must have frightened him back. It is no pleasant picture I can +conjure up of myself, Humphrey Van Weyden, in that noisome ship’s galley, +crouched in a corner over my task, my face raised to the face of the +creature about to strike me, my lips lifted and snarling like a dog’s, my +eyes gleaming with fear and helplessness and the courage that comes of +fear and helplessness. I do not like the picture. It reminds me too +strongly of a rat in a trap. I do not care to think of it; but it was +effective, for the threatened blow did not descend. + +Thomas Mugridge backed away, glaring as hatefully and viciously as I +glared. A pair of beasts is what we were, penned together and showing +our teeth. He was a coward, afraid to strike me because I had not +quailed sufficiently in advance; so he chose a new way to intimidate me. +There was only one galley knife that, as a knife, amounted to anything. +This, through many years of service and wear, had acquired a long, lean +blade. It was unusually cruel-looking, and at first I had shuddered +every time I used it. The cook borrowed a stone from Johansen and +proceeded to sharpen the knife. He did it with great ostentation, +glancing significantly at me the while. He whetted it up and down all +day long. Every odd moment he could find he had the knife and stone out +and was whetting away. The steel acquired a razor edge. He tried it +with the ball of his thumb or across the nail. He shaved hairs from the +back of his hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic acuteness, and +found, or feigned that he found, always, a slight inequality in its edge +somewhere. Then he would put it on the stone again and whet, whet, whet, +till I could have laughed aloud, it was so very ludicrous. + +It was also serious, for I learned that he was capable of using it, that +under all his cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like mine, that +would impel him to do the very thing his whole nature protested against +doing and was afraid of doing. “Cooky’s sharpening his knife for Hump,” +was being whispered about among the sailors, and some of them twitted him +about it. This he took in good part, and was really pleased, nodding his +head with direful foreknowledge and mystery, until George Leach, the +erstwhile cabin-boy, ventured some rough pleasantry on the subject. + +Now it happened that Leach was one of the sailors told off to douse +Mugridge after his game of cards with the captain. Leach had evidently +done his task with a thoroughness that Mugridge had not forgiven, for +words followed and evil names involving smirched ancestries. Mugridge +menaced with the knife he was sharpening for me. Leach laughed and +hurled more of his Telegraph Hill Billingsgate, and before either he or I +knew what had happened, his right arm had been ripped open from elbow to +wrist by a quick slash of the knife. The cook backed away, a fiendish +expression on his face, the knife held before him in a position of +defence. But Leach took it quite calmly, though blood was spouting upon +the deck as generously as water from a fountain. + +“I’m goin’ to get you, Cooky,” he said, “and I’ll get you hard. And I +won’t be in no hurry about it. You’ll be without that knife when I come +for you.” + +So saying, he turned and walked quietly forward. Mugridge’s face was +livid with fear at what he had done and at what he might expect sooner or +later from the man he had stabbed. But his demeanour toward me was more +ferocious than ever. In spite of his fear at the reckoning he must +expect to pay for what he had done, he could see that it had been an +object-lesson to me, and he became more domineering and exultant. Also +there was a lust in him, akin to madness, which had come with sight of +the blood he had drawn. He was beginning to see red in whatever +direction he looked. The psychology of it is sadly tangled, and yet I +could read the workings of his mind as clearly as though it were a +printed book. + +Several days went by, the _Ghost_ still foaming down the trades, and I +could swear I saw madness growing in Thomas Mugridge’s eyes. And I +confess that I became afraid, very much afraid. Whet, whet, whet, it +went all day long. The look in his eyes as he felt the keen edge and +glared at me was positively carnivorous. I was afraid to turn my +shoulder to him, and when I left the galley I went out backwards—to the +amusement of the sailors and hunters, who made a point of gathering in +groups to witness my exit. The strain was too great. I sometimes +thought my mind would give way under it—a meet thing on this ship of +madmen and brutes. Every hour, every minute of my existence was in +jeopardy. I was a human soul in distress, and yet no soul, fore or aft, +betrayed sufficient sympathy to come to my aid. At times I thought of +throwing myself on the mercy of Wolf Larsen, but the vision of the +mocking devil in his eyes that questioned life and sneered at it would +come strong upon me and compel me to refrain. At other times I seriously +contemplated suicide, and the whole force of my hopeful philosophy was +required to keep me from going over the side in the darkness of night. + +Several times Wolf Larsen tried to inveigle me into discussion, but I +gave him short answers and eluded him. Finally, he commanded me to +resume my seat at the cabin table for a time and let the cook do my work. +Then I spoke frankly, telling him what I was enduring from Thomas +Mugridge because of the three days of favouritism which had been shown +me. Wolf Larsen regarded me with smiling eyes. + +“So you’re afraid, eh?” he sneered. + +“Yes,” I said defiantly and honestly, “I am afraid.” + +“That’s the way with you fellows,” he cried, half angrily, +“sentimentalizing about your immortal souls and afraid to die. At sight +of a sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney the clinging of life to life +overcomes all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear fellow, you will live +for ever. You are a god, and God cannot be killed. Cooky cannot hurt +you. You are sure of your resurrection. What’s there to be afraid of? + +“You have eternal life before you. You are a millionaire in immortality, +and a millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose fortune is less +perishable than the stars and as lasting as space or time. It is +impossible for you to diminish your principal. Immortality is a thing +without beginning or end. Eternity is eternity, and though you die here +and now you will go on living somewhere else and hereafter. And it is +all very beautiful, this shaking off of the flesh and soaring of the +imprisoned spirit. Cooky cannot hurt you. He can only give you a boost +on the path you eternally must tread. + +“Or, if you do not wish to be boosted just yet, why not boost Cooky? +According to your ideas, he, too, must be an immortal millionaire. You +cannot bankrupt him. His paper will always circulate at par. You cannot +diminish the length of his living by killing him, for he is without +beginning or end. He’s bound to go on living, somewhere, somehow. Then +boost him. Stick a knife in him and let his spirit free. As it is, it’s +in a nasty prison, and you’ll do him only a kindness by breaking down the +door. And who knows?—it may be a very beautiful spirit that will go +soaring up into the blue from that ugly carcass. Boost him along, and +I’ll promote you to his place, and he’s getting forty-five dollars a +month.” + +It was plain that I could look for no help or mercy from Wolf Larsen. +Whatever was to be done I must do for myself; and out of the courage of +fear I evolved the plan of fighting Thomas Mugridge with his own weapons. +I borrowed a whetstone from Johansen. Louis, the boat-steerer, had +already begged me for condensed milk and sugar. The lazarette, where +such delicacies were stored, was situated beneath the cabin floor. +Watching my chance, I stole five cans of the milk, and that night, when +it was Louis’s watch on deck, I traded them with him for a dirk as lean +and cruel-looking as Thomas Mugridge’s vegetable knife. It was rusty and +dull, but I turned the grindstone while Louis gave it an edge. I slept +more soundly than usual that night. + +Next morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet, whet, +whet. I glanced warily at him, for I was on my knees taking the ashes +from the stove. When I returned from throwing them overside, he was +talking to Harrison, whose honest yokel’s face was filled with +fascination and wonder. + +“Yes,” Mugridge was saying, “an’ wot does ’is worship do but give me two +years in Reading. But blimey if I cared. The other mug was fixed +plenty. Should ’a seen ’im. Knife just like this. I stuck it in, like +into soft butter, an’ the w’y ’e squealed was better’n a tu-penny gaff.” +He shot a glance in my direction to see if I was taking it in, and went +on. “‘I didn’t mean it Tommy,’ ’e was snifflin’; ‘so ’elp me Gawd, I +didn’t mean it!’ ‘I’ll fix yer bloody well right,’ I sez, an’ kept right +after ’im. I cut ’im in ribbons, that’s wot I did, an’ ’e a-squealin’ +all the time. Once ’e got ’is ’and on the knife an’ tried to ’old it. +‘Ad ’is fingers around it, but I pulled it through, cuttin’ to the bone. +O, ’e was a sight, I can tell yer.” + +A call from the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison went +aft. Mugridge sat down on the raised threshold to the galley and went on +with his knife-sharpening. I put the shovel away and calmly sat down on +the coal-box facing him. He favoured me with a vicious stare. Still +calmly, though my heart was going pitapat, I pulled out Louis’s dirk and +began to whet it on the stone. I had looked for almost any sort of +explosion on the Cockney’s part, but to my surprise he did not appear +aware of what I was doing. He went on whetting his knife. So did I. +And for two hours we sat there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the +news of it spread abroad and half the ship’s company was crowding the +galley doors to see the sight. + +Encouragement and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the +quiet, self-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a mouse, +advised me to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward for the abdomen, +at the same time giving what he called the “Spanish twist” to the blade. +Leach, his bandaged arm prominently to the fore, begged me to leave a few +remnants of the cook for him; and Wolf Larsen paused once or twice at the +break of the poop to glance curiously at what must have been to him a +stirring and crawling of the yeasty thing he knew as life. + +And I make free to say that for the time being life assumed the same +sordid values to me. There was nothing pretty about it, nothing +divine—only two cowardly moving things that sat whetting steel upon +stone, and a group of other moving things, cowardly and otherwise, that +looked on. Half of them, I am sure, were anxious to see us shedding each +other’s blood. It would have been entertainment. And I do not think +there was one who would have interfered had we closed in a +death-struggle. + +On the other hand, the whole thing was laughable and childish. Whet, +whet, whet,—Humphrey Van Weyden sharpening his knife in a ship’s galley +and trying its edge with his thumb! Of all situations this was the most +inconceivable. I know that my own kind could not have believed it +possible. I had not been called “Sissy” Van Weyden all my days without +reason, and that “Sissy” Van Weyden should be capable of doing this thing +was a revelation to Humphrey Van Weyden, who knew not whether to be +exultant or ashamed. + +But nothing happened. At the end of two hours Thomas Mugridge put away +knife and stone and held out his hand. + +“Wot’s the good of mykin’ a ’oly show of ourselves for them mugs?” he +demanded. “They don’t love us, an’ bloody well glad they’d be a-seein’ +us cuttin’ our throats. Yer not ’arf bad, ’Ump! You’ve got spunk, as +you Yanks s’y, an’ I like yer in a w’y. So come on an’ shyke.” + +Coward that I might be, I was less a coward than he. It was a distinct +victory I had gained, and I refused to forego any of it by shaking his +detestable hand. + +“All right,” he said pridelessly, “tyke it or leave it, I’ll like yer +none the less for it.” And to save his face he turned fiercely upon the +onlookers. “Get outa my galley-doors, you bloomin’ swabs!” + +This command was reinforced by a steaming kettle of water, and at sight +of it the sailors scrambled out of the way. This was a sort of victory +for Thomas Mugridge, and enabled him to accept more gracefully the defeat +I had given him, though, of course, he was too discreet to attempt to +drive the hunters away. + +“I see Cooky’s finish,” I heard Smoke say to Horner. + +“You bet,” was the reply. “Hump runs the galley from now on, and Cooky +pulls in his horns.” + +Mugridge heard and shot a swift glance at me, but I gave no sign that the +conversation had reached me. I had not thought my victory was so +far-reaching and complete, but I resolved to let go nothing I had gained. +As the days went by, Smoke’s prophecy was verified. The Cockney became +more humble and slavish to me than even to Wolf Larsen. I mistered him +and sirred him no longer, washed no more greasy pots, and peeled no more +potatoes. I did my own work, and my own work only, and when and in what +fashion I saw fit. Also I carried the dirk in a sheath at my hip, +sailor-fashion, and maintained toward Thomas Mugridge a constant attitude +which was composed of equal parts of domineering, insult, and contempt. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +My intimacy with Wolf Larsen increases—if by intimacy may be denoted +those relations which exist between master and man, or, better yet, +between king and jester. I am to him no more than a toy, and he values +me no more than a child values a toy. My function is to amuse, and so +long as I amuse all goes well; but let him become bored, or let him have +one of his black moods come upon him, and at once I am relegated from +cabin table to galley, while, at the same time, I am fortunate to escape +with my life and a whole body. + +The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. There is not +a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not +despise. He seems consuming with the tremendous power that is in him and +that seems never to have found adequate expression in works. He is as +Lucifer would be, were that proud spirit banished to a society of +soulless, Tomlinsonian ghosts. + +This loneliness is bad enough in itself, but, to make it worse, he is +oppressed by the primal melancholy of the race. Knowing him, I review +the old Scandinavian myths with clearer understanding. The +white-skinned, fair-haired savages who created that terrible pantheon +were of the same fibre as he. The frivolity of the laughter-loving +Latins is no part of him. When he laughs it is from a humour that is +nothing else than ferocious. But he laughs rarely; he is too often sad. +And it is a sadness as deep-reaching as the roots of the race. It is the +race heritage, the sadness which has made the race sober-minded, +clean-lived and fanatically moral, and which, in this latter connection, +has culminated among the English in the Reformed Church and Mrs. Grundy. + +In point of fact, the chief vent to this primal melancholy has been +religion in its more agonizing forms. But the compensations of such +religion are denied Wolf Larsen. His brutal materialism will not permit +it. So, when his blue moods come on, nothing remains for him, but to be +devilish. Were he not so terrible a man, I could sometimes feel sorry +for him, as instance three mornings ago, when I went into his stateroom +to fill his water-bottle and came unexpectedly upon him. He did not see +me. His head was buried in his hands, and his shoulders were heaving +convulsively as with sobs. He seemed torn by some mighty grief. As I +softly withdrew I could hear him groaning, “God! God! God!” Not that +he was calling upon God; it was a mere expletive, but it came from his +soul. + +At dinner he asked the hunters for a remedy for headache, and by evening, +strong man that he was, he was half-blind and reeling about the cabin. + +“I’ve never been sick in my life, Hump,” he said, as I guided him to his +room. “Nor did I ever have a headache except the time my head was +healing after having been laid open for six inches by a capstan-bar.” + +For three days this blinding headache lasted, and he suffered as wild +animals suffer, as it seemed the way on ship to suffer, without plaint, +without sympathy, utterly alone. + +This morning, however, on entering his state-room to make the bed and put +things in order, I found him well and hard at work. Table and bunk were +littered with designs and calculations. On a large transparent sheet, +compass and square in hand, he was copying what appeared to be a scale of +some sort or other. + +“Hello, Hump,” he greeted me genially. “I’m just finishing the finishing +touches. Want to see it work?” + +“But what is it?” I asked. + +“A labour-saving device for mariners, navigation reduced to kindergarten +simplicity,” he answered gaily. “From to-day a child will be able to +navigate a ship. No more long-winded calculations. All you need is one +star in the sky on a dirty night to know instantly where you are. Look. +I place the transparent scale on this star-map, revolving the scale on +the North Pole. On the scale I’ve worked out the circles of altitude and +the lines of bearing. All I do is to put it on a star, revolve the scale +till it is opposite those figures on the map underneath, and presto! +there you are, the ship’s precise location!” + +There was a ring of triumph in his voice, and his eyes, clear blue this +morning as the sea, were sparkling with light. + +“You must be well up in mathematics,” I said. “Where did you go to +school?” + +“Never saw the inside of one, worse luck,” was the answer. “I had to dig +it out for myself.” + +“And why do you think I have made this thing?” he demanded, abruptly. +“Dreaming to leave footprints on the sands of time?” He laughed one of +his horrible mocking laughs. “Not at all. To get it patented, to make +money from it, to revel in piggishness with all night in while other men +do the work. That’s my purpose. Also, I have enjoyed working it out.” + +“The creative joy,” I murmured. + +“I guess that’s what it ought to be called. Which is another way of +expressing the joy of life in that it is alive, the triumph of movement +over matter, of the quick over the dead, the pride of the yeast because +it is yeast and crawls.” + +I threw up my hands with helpless disapproval of his inveterate +materialism and went about making the bed. He continued copying lines +and figures upon the transparent scale. It was a task requiring the +utmost nicety and precision, and I could not but admire the way he +tempered his strength to the fineness and delicacy of the need. + +When I had finished the bed, I caught myself looking at him in a +fascinated sort of way. He was certainly a handsome man—beautiful in the +masculine sense. And again, with never-failing wonder, I remarked the +total lack of viciousness, or wickedness, or sinfulness in his face. It +was the face, I am convinced, of a man who did no wrong. And by this I +do not wish to be misunderstood. What I mean is that it was the face of +a man who either did nothing contrary to the dictates of his conscience, +or who had no conscience. I am inclined to the latter way of accounting +for it. He was a magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive that he +was of the type that came into the world before the development of the +moral nature. He was not immoral, but merely unmoral. + +As I have said, in the masculine sense his was a beautiful face. +Smooth-shaven, every line was distinct, and it was cut as clear and sharp +as a cameo; while sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair skin to a +dark bronze which bespoke struggle and battle and added both to his +savagery and his beauty. The lips were full, yet possessed of the +firmness, almost harshness, which is characteristic of thin lips. The +set of his mouth, his chin, his jaw, was likewise firm or harsh, with all +the fierceness and indomitableness of the male—the nose also. It was the +nose of a being born to conquer and command. It just hinted of the eagle +beak. It might have been Grecian, it might have been Roman, only it was +a shade too massive for the one, a shade too delicate for the other. And +while the whole face was the incarnation of fierceness and strength, the +primal melancholy from which he suffered seemed to greaten the lines of +mouth and eye and brow, seemed to give a largeness and completeness which +otherwise the face would have lacked. + +And so I caught myself standing idly and studying him. I cannot say how +greatly the man had come to interest me. Who was he? What was he? How +had he happened to be? All powers seemed his, all potentialities—why, +then, was he no more than the obscure master of a seal-hunting schooner +with a reputation for frightful brutality amongst the men who hunted +seals? + +My curiosity burst from me in a flood of speech. + +“Why is it that you have not done great things in this world? With the +power that is yours you might have risen to any height. Unpossessed of +conscience or moral instinct, you might have mastered the world, broken +it to your hand. And yet here you are, at the top of your life, where +diminishing and dying begin, living an obscure and sordid existence, +hunting sea animals for the satisfaction of woman’s vanity and love of +decoration, revelling in a piggishness, to use your own words, which is +anything and everything except splendid. Why, with all that wonderful +strength, have you not done something? There was nothing to stop you, +nothing that could stop you. What was wrong? Did you lack ambition? +Did you fall under temptation? What was the matter? What was the +matter?” + +He had lifted his eyes to me at the commencement of my outburst, and +followed me complacently until I had done and stood before him breathless +and dismayed. He waited a moment, as though seeking where to begin, and +then said: + +“Hump, do you know the parable of the sower who went forth to sow? If +you will remember, some of the seed fell upon stony places, where there +was not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no +deepness of earth. And when the sun was up they were scorched, and +because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, +and the thorns sprung up and choked them.” + +“Well?” I said. + +“Well?” he queried, half petulantly. “It was not well. I was one of +those seeds.” + +He dropped his head to the scale and resumed the copying. I finished my +work and had opened the door to leave, when he spoke to me. + +“Hump, if you will look on the west coast of the map of Norway you will +see an indentation called Romsdal Fiord. I was born within a hundred +miles of that stretch of water. But I was not born Norwegian. I am a +Dane. My father and mother were Danes, and how they ever came to that +bleak bight of land on the west coast I do not know. I never heard. +Outside of that there is nothing mysterious. They were poor people and +unlettered. They came of generations of poor unlettered people—peasants +of the sea who sowed their sons on the waves as has been their custom +since time began. There is no more to tell.” + +“But there is,” I objected. “It is still obscure to me.” + +“What can I tell you?” he demanded, with a recrudescence of fierceness. +“Of the meagreness of a child’s life? of fish diet and coarse living? of +going out with the boats from the time I could crawl? of my brothers, who +went away one by one to the deep-sea farming and never came back? of +myself, unable to read or write, cabin-boy at the mature age of ten on +the coastwise, old-country ships? of the rough fare and rougher usage, +where kicks and blows were bed and breakfast and took the place of +speech, and fear and hatred and pain were my only soul-experiences? I do +not care to remember. A madness comes up in my brain even now as I think +of it. But there were coastwise skippers I would have returned and +killed when a man’s strength came to me, only the lines of my life were +cast at the time in other places. I did return, not long ago, but +unfortunately the skippers were dead, all but one, a mate in the old +days, a skipper when I met him, and when I left him a cripple who would +never walk again.” + +“But you who read Spencer and Darwin and have never seen the inside of a +school, how did you learn to read and write?” I queried. + +“In the English merchant service. Cabin-boy at twelve, ship’s boy at +fourteen, ordinary seaman at sixteen, able seaman at seventeen, and cock +of the fo’c’sle, infinite ambition and infinite loneliness, receiving +neither help nor sympathy, I did it all for myself—navigation, +mathematics, science, literature, and what not. And of what use has it +been? Master and owner of a ship at the top of my life, as you say, when +I am beginning to diminish and die. Paltry, isn’t it? And when the sun +was up I was scorched, and because I had no root I withered away.” + +“But history tells of slaves who rose to the purple,” I chided. + +“And history tells of opportunities that came to the slaves who rose to +the purple,” he answered grimly. “No man makes opportunity. All the +great men ever did was to know it when it came to them. The Corsican +knew. I have dreamed as greatly as the Corsican. I should have known +the opportunity, but it never came. The thorns sprung up and choked me. +And, Hump, I can tell you that you know more about me than any living +man, except my own brother.” + +“And what is he? And where is he?” + +“Master of the steamship _Macedonia_, seal-hunter,” was the answer. “We +will meet him most probably on the Japan coast. Men call him ‘Death’ +Larsen.” + +“Death Larsen!” I involuntarily cried. “Is he like you?” + +“Hardly. He is a lump of an animal without any head. He has all my—my—” + +“Brutishness,” I suggested. + +“Yes,—thank you for the word,—all my brutishness, but he can scarcely +read or write.” + +“And he has never philosophized on life,” I added. + +“No,” Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air of sadness. “And +he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy living it +to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening the books.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The _Ghost_ has attained the southernmost point of the arc she is +describing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edge away to +the west and north toward some lone island, it is rumoured, where she +will fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season’s hunt along +the coast of Japan. The hunters have experimented and practised with +their rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied, and the boat-pullers +and steerers have made their spritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks in +leather and sennit so that they will make no noise when creeping on the +seals, and put their boats in apple-pie order—to use Leach’s homely +phrase. + +His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain all +his life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and is afraid to +venture on deck after dark. There are two or three standing quarrels in +the forecastle. Louis tells me that the gossip of the sailors finds its +way aft, and that two of the telltales have been badly beaten by their +mates. He shakes his head dubiously over the outlook for the man +Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same boat with him. Johnson has been +guilty of speaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or three +times with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name. Johansen he +thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time the mate +has called him by his proper name. But of course it is out of the +question that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen. + +Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, which +tallies with the captain’s brief description. We may expect to meet +Death Larsen on the Japan coast. “And look out for squalls,” is Louis’s +prophecy, “for they hate one another like the wolf whelps they are.” +Death Larsen is in command of the only sealing steamer in the fleet, the +_Macedonia_, which carries fourteen boats, whereas the rest of the +schooners carry only six. There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and of +strange raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium smuggling +into the States and arms smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open +piracy. Yet I cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a +lie, while he has a cyclopædic knowledge of sealing and the men of the +sealing fleets. + +As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft, on +this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle ferociously for one +another’s lives. The hunters are looking for a shooting scrape at any +moment between Smoke and Henderson, whose old quarrel has not healed, +while Wolf Larsen says positively that he will kill the survivor of the +affair, if such affair comes off. He frankly states that the position he +takes is based on no moral grounds, that all the hunters could kill and +eat one another so far as he is concerned, were it not that he needs them +alive for the hunting. If they will only hold their hands until the +season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can +be settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and +arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. I think even +the hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness. Wicked men though they +be, they are certainly very much afraid of him. + +Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go about in +secret dread of him. His is the courage of fear,—a strange thing I know +well of myself,—and at any moment it may master the fear and impel him to +the taking of my life. My knee is much better, though it often aches for +long periods, and the stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf +Larsen squeezed. Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in +splendid condition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing in +size. My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. They have a +parboiled appearance, are afflicted with hang-nails, while the nails are +broken and discoloured, and the edges of the quick seem to be assuming a +fungoid sort of growth. Also, I am suffering from boils, due to the +diet, most likely, for I was never afflicted in this manner before. + +I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen reading +the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the +beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate’s sea-chest. I +wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to me from +Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he was speaking the thoughts of his own +mind as he read to me, and his voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully +in the confined cabin, charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but he +certainly knows how to express the significance of the written word. I +can hear him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy +vibrant in his voice as he read: + + “I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of + kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, + and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that + of all sorts. + + “So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in + Jerusalem; also my wisdom returned with me. + + “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the + labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity and + vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. + + “All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous + and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; + to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the + good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an + oath. + + “This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that + there is one event unto all; yea, also the heart of the sons of men + is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and + after that they go to the dead. + + “For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a + living dog is better than a dead lion. + + “For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not + anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them + is forgotten. + + “Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; + neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is + done under the sun.” + +“There you have it, Hump,” he said, closing the book upon his finger and +looking up at me. “The Preacher who was king over Israel in Jerusalem +thought as I think. You call me a pessimist. Is not this pessimism of +the blackest?—‘All is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ ‘There is no profit +under the sun,’ ‘There is one event unto all,’ to the fool and the wise, +the clean and the unclean, the sinner and the saint, and that event is +death, and an evil thing, he says. For the Preacher loved life, and did +not want to die, saying, ‘For a living dog is better than a dead lion.’ +He preferred the vanity and vexation to the silence and unmovableness of +the grave. And so I. To crawl is piggish; but to not crawl, to be as +the clod and rock, is loathsome to contemplate. It is loathsome to the +life that is in me, the very essence of which is movement, the power of +movement, and the consciousness of the power of movement. Life itself is +unsatisfaction, but to look ahead to death is greater unsatisfaction.” + +“You are worse off than Omar,” I said. “He, at least, after the +customary agonizing of youth, found content and made of his materialism a +joyous thing.” + +“Who was Omar?” Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more work that day, nor +the next, nor the next. + +In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubáiyát, and it was +to him like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered, possibly +two-thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece out the remainder +without difficulty. We talked for hours over single stanzas, and I found +him reading into them a wail of regret and a rebellion which, for the +life of me, I could not discover myself. Possibly I recited with a +certain joyous lilt which was my own, for—his memory was good, and at a +second rendering, very often the first, he made a quatrain his own—he +recited the same lines and invested them with an unrest and passionate +revolt that was well-nigh convincing. + +I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and was not +surprised when he hit upon the one born of an instant’s irritability, and +quite at variance with the Persian’s complacent philosophy and genial +code of life: + + “What, without asking, hither hurried _Whence_? + And, without asking, _Whither_ hurried hence! + Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine + Must drown the memory of that insolence!” + +“Great!” Wolf Larsen cried. “Great! That’s the keynote. Insolence! He +could not have used a better word.” + +In vain I objected and denied. He deluged me, overwhelmed me with +argument. + +“It’s not the nature of life to be otherwise. Life, when it knows that +it must cease living, will always rebel. It cannot help itself. The +Preacher found life and the works of life all a vanity and vexation, an +evil thing; but death, the ceasing to be able to be vain and vexed, he +found an eviler thing. Through chapter after chapter he is worried by +the one event that cometh to all alike. So Omar, so I, so you, even you, +for you rebelled against dying when Cooky sharpened a knife for you. You +were afraid to die; the life that was in you, that composes you, that is +greater than you, did not want to die. You have talked of the instinct +of immortality. I talk of the instinct of life, which is to live, and +which, when death looms near and large, masters the instinct, so called, +of immortality. It mastered it in you (you cannot deny it), because a +crazy Cockney cook sharpened a knife. + +“You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot deny it. +If I should catch you by the throat, thus,”—his hand was about my throat +and my breath was shut off,—“and began to press the life out of you thus, +and thus, your instinct of immortality will go glimmering, and your +instinct of life, which is longing for life, will flutter up, and you +will struggle to save yourself. Eh? I see the fear of death in your +eyes. You beat the air with your arms. You exert all your puny strength +to struggle to live. Your hand is clutching my arm, lightly it feels as +a butterfly resting there. Your chest is heaving, your tongue +protruding, your skin turning dark, your eyes swimming. ‘To live! To +live! To live!’ you are crying; and you are crying to live here and now, +not hereafter. You doubt your immortality, eh? Ha! ha! You are not +sure of it. You won’t chance it. This life only you are certain is +real. Ah, it is growing dark and darker. It is the darkness of death, +the ceasing to be, the ceasing to feel, the ceasing to move, that is +gathering about you, descending upon you, rising around you. Your eyes +are becoming set. They are glazing. My voice sounds faint and far. You +cannot see my face. And still you struggle in my grip. You kick with +your legs. Your body draws itself up in knots like a snake’s. Your +chest heaves and strains. To live! To live! To live—” + +I heard no more. Consciousness was blotted out by the darkness he had so +graphically described, and when I came to myself I was lying on the floor +and he was smoking a cigar and regarding me thoughtfully with that old +familiar light of curiosity in his eyes. + +“Well, have I convinced you?” he demanded. “Here take a drink of this. +I want to ask you some questions.” + +I rolled my head negatively on the floor. “Your arguments are +too—er—forcible,” I managed to articulate, at cost of great pain to my +aching throat. + +“You’ll be all right in half-an-hour,” he assured me. “And I promise I +won’t use any more physical demonstrations. Get up now. You can sit on +a chair.” + +And, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and the +Preacher was resumed. And half the night we sat up over it. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. From +cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion. I +scarcely know where to begin. Wolf Larsen was really the cause of it. +The relations among the men, strained and made tense by feuds, quarrels +and grudges, were in a state of unstable equilibrium, and evil passions +flared up in flame like prairie-grass. + +Thomas Mugridge is a sneak, a spy, an informer. He has been attempting +to curry favour and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captain +by carrying tales of the men forward. He it was, I know, that carried +some of Johnson’s hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. Johnson, it seems, bought a +suit of oilskins from the slop-chest and found them to be of greatly +inferior quality. Nor was he slow in advertising the fact. The +slop-chest is a sort of miniature dry-goods store which is carried by all +sealing schooners and which is stocked with articles peculiar to the +needs of the sailors. Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from his +subsequent earnings on the sealing grounds; for, as it is with the +hunters so it is with the boat-pullers and steerers—in the place of wages +they receive a “lay,” a rate of so much per skin for every skin captured +in their particular boat. + +But of Johnson’s grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, so that what +I witnessed came with a shock of sudden surprise. I had just finished +sweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf Larsen into a +discussion of Hamlet, his favourite Shakespearian character, when +Johansen descended the companion stairs followed by Johnson. The +latter’s cap came off after the custom of the sea, and he stood +respectfully in the centre of the cabin, swaying heavily and uneasily to +the roll of the schooner and facing the captain. + +“Shut the doors and draw the slide,” Wolf Larsen said to me. + +As I obeyed I noticed an anxious light come into Johnson’s eyes, but I +did not dream of its cause. I did not dream of what was to occur until +it did occur, but he knew from the very first what was coming and awaited +it bravely. And in his action I found complete refutation of all Wolf +Larsen’s materialism. The sailor Johnson was swayed by idea, by +principle, and truth, and sincerity. He was right, he knew he was right, +and he was unafraid. He would die for the right if needs be, he would be +true to himself, sincere with his soul. And in this was portrayed the +victory of the spirit over the flesh, the indomitability and moral +grandeur of the soul that knows no restriction and rises above time and +space and matter with a surety and invincibleness born of nothing else +than eternity and immortality. + +But to return. I noticed the anxious light in Johnson’s eyes, but +mistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man. The +mate, Johansen, stood away several feet to the side of him, and fully +three yards in front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the pivotal cabin +chairs. An appreciable pause fell after I had closed the doors and drawn +the slide, a pause that must have lasted fully a minute. It was broken +by Wolf Larsen. + +“Yonson,” he began. + +“My name is Johnson, sir,” the sailor boldly corrected. + +“Well, Johnson, then, damn you! Can you guess why I have sent for you?” + +“Yes, and no, sir,” was the slow reply. “My work is done well. The mate +knows that, and you know it, sir. So there cannot be any complaint.” + +“And is that all?” Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft, and low, and +purring. + +“I know you have it in for me,” Johnson continued with his unalterable +and ponderous slowness. “You do not like me. You—you—” + +“Go on,” Wolf Larsen prompted. “Don’t be afraid of my feelings.” + +“I am not afraid,” the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising +through his sunburn. “If I speak not fast, it is because I have not been +from the old country as long as you. You do not like me because I am too +much of a man; that is why, sir.” + +“You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean, +and if you know what I mean,” was Wolf Larsen’s retort. + +“I know English, and I know what you mean, sir,” Johnson answered, his +flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English language. + +“Johnson,” Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had gone +before as introductory to the main business in hand, “I understand you’re +not quite satisfied with those oilskins?” + +“No, I am not. They are no good, sir.” + +“And you’ve been shooting off your mouth about them.” + +“I say what I think, sir,” the sailor answered courageously, not failing +at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that “sir” be appended +to each speech he made. + +It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. His big +fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively +fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson. I noticed a black +discoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen’s eye, a mark of the +thrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor. For the +first time I began to divine that something terrible was about to be +enacted,—what, I could not imagine. + +“Do you know what happens to men who say what you’ve said about my +slop-chest and me?” Wolf Larsen was demanding. + +“I know, sir,” was the answer. + +“What?” Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively. + +“What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir.” + +“Look at him, Hump,” Wolf Larsen said to me, “look at this bit of +animated dust, this aggregation of matter that moves and breathes and +defies me and thoroughly believes itself to be compounded of something +good; that is impressed with certain human fictions such as righteousness +and honesty, and that will live up to them in spite of all personal +discomforts and menaces. What do you think of him, Hump? What do you +think of him?” + +“I think that he is a better man than you are,” I answered, impelled, +somehow, with a desire to draw upon myself a portion of the wrath I felt +was about to break upon his head. “His human fictions, as you choose to +call them, make for nobility and manhood. You have no fictions, no +dreams, no ideals. You are a pauper.” + +He nodded his head with a savage pleasantness. “Quite true, Hump, quite +true. I have no fictions that make for nobility and manhood. A living +dog is better than a dead lion, say I with the Preacher. My only +doctrine is the doctrine of expediency, and it makes for surviving. This +bit of the ferment we call ‘Johnson,’ when he is no longer a bit of the +ferment, only dust and ashes, will have no more nobility than any dust +and ashes, while I shall still be alive and roaring.” + +“Do you know what I am going to do?” he questioned. + +I shook my head. + +“Well, I am going to exercise my prerogative of roaring and show you how +fares nobility. Watch me.” + +Three yards away from Johnson he was, and sitting down. Nine feet! And +yet he left the chair in full leap, without first gaining a standing +position. He left the chair, just as he sat in it, squarely, springing +from the sitting posture like a wild animal, a tiger, and like a tiger +covered the intervening space. It was an avalanche of fury that Johnson +strove vainly to fend off. He threw one arm down to protect the stomach, +the other arm up to protect the head; but Wolf Larsen’s fist drove midway +between, on the chest, with a crushing, resounding impact. Johnson’s +breath, suddenly expelled, shot from his mouth and as suddenly checked, +with the forced, audible expiration of a man wielding an axe. He almost +fell backward, and swayed from side to side in an effort to recover his +balance. + +I cannot give the further particulars of the horrible scene that +followed. It was too revolting. It turns me sick even now when I think +of it. Johnson fought bravely enough, but he was no match for Wolf +Larsen, much less for Wolf Larsen and the mate. It was frightful. I had +not imagined a human being could endure so much and still live and +struggle on. And struggle on Johnson did. Of course there was no hope +for him, not the slightest, and he knew it as well as I, but by the +manhood that was in him he could not cease from fighting for that +manhood. + +It was too much for me to witness. I felt that I should lose my mind, +and I ran up the companion stairs to open the doors and escape on deck. +But Wolf Larsen, leaving his victim for the moment, and with one of his +tremendous springs, gained my side and flung me into the far corner of +the cabin. + +“The phenomena of life, Hump,” he girded at me. “Stay and watch it. You +may gather data on the immortality of the soul. Besides, you know, we +can’t hurt Johnson’s soul. It’s only the fleeting form we may demolish.” + +It seemed centuries—possibly it was no more than ten minutes that the +beating continued. Wolf Larsen and Johansen were all about the poor +fellow. They struck him with their fists, kicked him with their heavy +shoes, knocked him down, and dragged him to his feet to knock him down +again. His eyes were blinded so that he could not see, and the blood +running from ears and nose and mouth turned the cabin into a shambles. +And when he could no longer rise they still continued to beat and kick +him where he lay. + +“Easy, Johansen; easy as she goes,” Wolf Larsen finally said. + +But the beast in the mate was up and rampant, and Wolf Larsen was +compelled to brush him away with a back-handed sweep of the arm, gentle +enough, apparently, but which hurled Johansen back like a cork, driving +his head against the wall with a crash. He fell to the floor, half +stunned for the moment, breathing heavily and blinking his eyes in a +stupid sort of way. + +“Jerk open the doors, Hump,” I was commanded. + +I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a sack of +rubbish and hove him clear up the companion stairs, through the narrow +doorway, and out on deck. The blood from his nose gushed in a scarlet +stream over the feet of the helmsman, who was none other than Louis, his +boat-mate. But Louis took and gave a spoke and gazed imperturbably into +the binnacle. + +Not so was the conduct of George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. Fore +and aft there was nothing that could have surprised us more than his +consequent behaviour. He it was that came up on the poop without orders +and dragged Johnson forward, where he set about dressing his wounds as +well as he could and making him comfortable. Johnson, as Johnson, was +unrecognizable; and not only that, for his features, as human features at +all, were unrecognizable, so discoloured and swollen had they become in +the few minutes which had elapsed between the beginning of the beating +and the dragging forward of the body. + +But of Leach’s behaviour—By the time I had finished cleansing the cabin +he had taken care of Johnson. I had come up on deck for a breath of +fresh air and to try to get some repose for my overwrought nerves. Wolf +Larsen was smoking a cigar and examining the patent log which the _Ghost_ +usually towed astern, but which had been hauled in for some purpose. +Suddenly Leach’s voice came to my ears. It was tense and hoarse with an +overmastering rage. I turned and saw him standing just beneath the break +of the poop on the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed and +white, his eyes were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead. + +“May God damn your soul to hell, Wolf Larsen, only hell’s too good for +you, you coward, you murderer, you pig!” was his opening salutation. + +I was thunderstruck. I looked for his instant annihilation. But it was +not Wolf Larsen’s whim to annihilate him. He sauntered slowly forward to +the break of the poop, and, leaning his elbow on the corner of the cabin, +gazed down thoughtfully and curiously at the excited boy. + +And the boy indicted Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted before. +The sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the forecastle +scuttle and watched and listened. The hunters piled pell-mell out of the +steerage, but as Leach’s tirade continued I saw that there was no levity +in their faces. Even they were frightened, not at the boy’s terrible +words, but at his terrible audacity. It did not seem possible that any +living creature could thus beard Wolf Larsen in his teeth. I know for +myself that I was shocked into admiration of the boy, and I saw in him +the splendid invincibleness of immortality rising above the flesh and the +fears of the flesh, as in the prophets of old, to condemn +unrighteousness. + +And such condemnation! He haled forth Wolf Larsen’s soul naked to the +scorn of men. He rained upon it curses from God and High Heaven, and +withered it with a heat of invective that savoured of a mediæval +excommunication of the Catholic Church. He ran the gamut of +denunciation, rising to heights of wrath that were sublime and almost +Godlike, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the vilest and most +indecent abuse. + +His rage was a madness. His lips were flecked with a soapy froth, and +sometimes he choked and gurgled and became inarticulate. And through it +all, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing down, Wolf +Larsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild stirring of yeasty +life, this terrific revolt and defiance of matter that moved, perplexed +and interested him. + +Each moment I looked, and everybody looked, for him to leap upon the boy +and destroy him. But it was not his whim. His cigar went out, and he +continued to gaze silently and curiously. + +Leach had worked himself into an ecstasy of impotent rage. + +“Pig! Pig! Pig!” he was reiterating at the top of his lungs. “Why +don’t you come down and kill me, you murderer? You can do it! I ain’t +afraid! There’s no one to stop you! Damn sight better dead and outa +your reach than alive and in your clutches! Come on, you coward! Kill +me! Kill me! Kill me!” + +It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge’s erratic soul brought him into +the scene. He had been listening at the galley door, but he now came +out, ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, but obviously to see +the killing he was certain would take place. He smirked greasily up into +the face of Wolf Larsen, who seemed not to see him. But the Cockney was +unabashed, though mad, stark mad. He turned to Leach, saying: + +“Such langwidge! Shockin’!” + +Leach’s rage was no longer impotent. Here at last was something ready to +hand. And for the first time since the stabbing the Cockney had appeared +outside the galley without his knife. The words had barely left his +mouth when he was knocked down by Leach. Three times he struggled to his +feet, striving to gain the galley, and each time was knocked down. + +“Oh, Lord!” he cried. “’Elp! ’Elp! Tyke ’im aw’y, carn’t yer? Tyke +’im aw’y!” + +The hunters laughed from sheer relief. Tragedy had dwindled, the farce +had begun. The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning and shuffling, +to watch the pummelling of the hated Cockney. And even I felt a great +joy surge up within me. I confess that I delighted in this beating Leach +was giving to Thomas Mugridge, though it was as terrible, almost, as the +one Mugridge had caused to be given to Johnson. But the expression of +Wolf Larsen’s face never changed. He did not change his position either, +but continued to gaze down with a great curiosity. For all his pragmatic +certitude, it seemed as if he watched the play and movement of life in +the hope of discovering something more about it, of discerning in its +maddest writhings a something which had hitherto escaped him,—the key to +its mystery, as it were, which would make all clear and plain. + +But the beating! It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed in the +cabin. The Cockney strove in vain to protect himself from the infuriated +boy. And in vain he strove to gain the shelter of the cabin. He rolled +toward it, grovelled toward it, fell toward it when he was knocked down. +But blow followed blow with bewildering rapidity. He was knocked about +like a shuttlecock, until, finally, like Johnson, he was beaten and +kicked as he lay helpless on the deck. And no one interfered. Leach +could have killed him, but, having evidently filled the measure of his +vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering and +wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward. + +But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day’s +programme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other, +and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by a +stampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column of thick, +acrid smoke—the kind always made by black powder—was arising through the +open companion-way, and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen. The sound of +blows and scuffling came to our ears. Both men were wounded, and he was +thrashing them both for having disobeyed his orders and crippled +themselves in advance of the hunting season. In fact, they were badly +wounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded to operate upon them in +a rough surgical fashion and to dress their wounds. I served as +assistant while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the bullets, +and I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anæsthetics and +with no more to uphold them than a stiff tumbler of whisky. + +Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle. +It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale-bearing which had been +the cause of Johnson’s beating, and from the noise we heard, and from the +sight of the bruised men next day, it was patent that half the forecastle +had soundly drubbed the other half. + +The second dog-watch and the day were wound up by a fight between +Johansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. It was caused by +remarks of Latimer’s concerning the noises made by the mate in his sleep, +and though Johansen was whipped, he kept the steerage awake for the rest +of the night while he blissfully slumbered and fought the fight over and +over again. + +As for myself, I was oppressed with nightmare. The day had been like +some horrible dream. Brutality had followed brutality, and flaming +passions and cold-blooded cruelty had driven men to seek one another’s +lives, and to strive to hurt, and maim, and destroy. My nerves were +shocked. My mind itself was shocked. All my days had been passed in +comparative ignorance of the animality of man. In fact, I had known life +only in its intellectual phases. Brutality I had experienced, but it was +the brutality of the intellect—the cutting sarcasm of Charley Furuseth, +the cruel epigrams and occasional harsh witticisms of the fellows at the +Bibelot, and the nasty remarks of some of the professors during my +undergraduate days. + +That was all. But that men should wreak their anger on others by the +bruising of the flesh and the letting of blood was something strangely +and fearfully new to me. Not for nothing had I been called “Sissy” Van +Weyden, I thought, as I tossed restlessly on my bunk between one +nightmare and another. And it seemed to me that my innocence of the +realities of life had been complete indeed. I laughed bitterly to +myself, and seemed to find in Wolf Larsen’s forbidding philosophy a more +adequate explanation of life than I found in my own. + +And I was frightened when I became conscious of the trend of my thought. +The continual brutality around me was degenerative in its effect. It bid +fair to destroy for me all that was best and brightest in life. My +reason dictated that the beating Thomas Mugridge had received was an ill +thing, and yet for the life of me I could not prevent my soul joying in +it. And even while I was oppressed by the enormity of my sin,—for sin it +was,—I chuckled with an insane delight. I was no longer Humphrey Van +Weyden. I was Hump, cabin-boy on the schooner _Ghost_. Wolf Larsen was +my captain, Thomas Mugridge and the rest were my companions, and I was +receiving repeated impresses from the die which had stamped them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +For three days I did my own work and Thomas Mugridge’s too; and I flatter +myself that I did his work well. I know that it won Wolf Larsen’s +approval, while the sailors beamed with satisfaction during the brief +time my _régime_ lasted. + +“The first clean bite since I come aboard,” Harrison said to me at the +galley door, as he returned the dinner pots and pans from the forecastle. +“Somehow Tommy’s grub always tastes of grease, stale grease, and I reckon +he ain’t changed his shirt since he left ’Frisco.” + +“I know he hasn’t,” I answered. + +“And I’ll bet he sleeps in it,” Harrison added. + +“And you won’t lose,” I agreed. “The same shirt, and he hasn’t had it +off once in all this time.” + +But three days was all Wolf Larsen allowed him in which to recover from +the effects of the beating. On the fourth day, lame and sore, scarcely +able to see, so closed were his eyes, he was haled from his bunk by the +nape of the neck and set to his duty. He sniffled and wept, but Wolf +Larsen was pitiless. + +“And see that you serve no more slops,” was his parting injunction. “No +more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, or you’ll get +a tow over the side. Understand?” + +Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a short lurch +of the _Ghost_ sent him staggering. In attempting to recover himself, he +reached for the iron railing which surrounded the stove and kept the pots +from sliding off; but he missed the railing, and his hand, with his +weight behind it, landed squarely on the hot surface. There was a sizzle +and odour of burning flesh, and a sharp cry of pain. + +“Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot ’ave I done?” he wailed; sitting down in the +coal-box and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth. “W’y ’as +all this come on me? It mykes me fair sick, it does, an’ I try so ’ard +to go through life ’armless an’ ’urtin’ nobody.” + +The tears were running down his puffed and discoloured cheeks, and his +face was drawn with pain. A savage expression flitted across it. + +“Oh, ’ow I ’ate ’im! ’Ow I ’ate ’im!” he gritted out. + +“Whom?” I asked; but the poor wretch was weeping again over his +misfortunes. Less difficult it was to guess whom he hated than whom he +did not hate. For I had come to see a malignant devil in him which +impelled him to hate all the world. I sometimes thought that he hated +even himself, so grotesquely had life dealt with him, and so monstrously. +At such moments a great sympathy welled up within me, and I felt shame +that I had ever joyed in his discomfiture or pain. Life had been unfair +to him. It had played him a scurvy trick when it fashioned him into the +thing he was, and it had played him scurvy tricks ever since. What +chance had he to be anything else than he was? And as though answering +my unspoken thought, he wailed: + +“I never ’ad no chance, not ’arf a chance! ’Oo was there to send me to +school, or put tommy in my ’ungry belly, or wipe my bloody nose for me, +w’en I was a kiddy? ’Oo ever did anything for me, heh? ’Oo, I s’y?” + +“Never mind, Tommy,” I said, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder. +“Cheer up. It’ll all come right in the end. You’ve long years before +you, and you can make anything you please of yourself.” + +“It’s a lie! a bloody lie!” he shouted in my face, flinging off the hand. +“It’s a lie, and you know it. I’m already myde, an’ myde out of leavin’s +an’ scraps. It’s all right for you, ’Ump. You was born a gentleman. +You never knew wot it was to go ’ungry, to cry yerself asleep with yer +little belly gnawin’ an’ gnawin’, like a rat inside yer. It carn’t come +right. If I was President of the United Stytes to-morrer, ’ow would it +fill my belly for one time w’en I was a kiddy and it went empty? + +“’Ow could it, I s’y? I was born to sufferin’ and sorrer. I’ve had more +cruel sufferin’ than any ten men, I ’ave. I’ve been in orspital arf my +bleedin’ life. I’ve ’ad the fever in Aspinwall, in ’Avana, in New +Orleans. I near died of the scurvy and was rotten with it six months in +Barbadoes. Smallpox in ’Onolulu, two broken legs in Shanghai, pnuemonia +in Unalaska, three busted ribs an’ my insides all twisted in ’Frisco. +An’ ’ere I am now. Look at me! Look at me! My ribs kicked loose from +my back again. I’ll be coughin’ blood before eyght bells. ’Ow can it be +myde up to me, I arsk? ’Oo’s goin’ to do it? Gawd? ’Ow Gawd must ’ave +’ated me w’en ’e signed me on for a voyage in this bloomin’ world of +’is!” + +This tirade against destiny went on for an hour or more, and then he +buckled to his work, limping and groaning, and in his eyes a great hatred +for all created things. His diagnosis was correct, however, for he was +seized with occasional sicknesses, during which he vomited blood and +suffered great pain. And as he said, it seemed God hated him too much to +let him die, for he ultimately grew better and waxed more malignant than +ever. + +Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went about +his work in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, and I more than +once observed him creeping painfully aloft to a topsail, or drooping +wearily as he stood at the wheel. But, still worse, it seemed that his +spirit was broken. He was abject before Wolf Larsen and almost grovelled +to Johansen. Not so was the conduct of Leach. He went about the deck +like a tiger cub, glaring his hatred openly at Wolf Larsen and Johansen. + +“I’ll do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede,” I heard him say to Johansen +one night on deck. + +The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment some missile +struck the galley a sharp rap. There was more cursing, and a mocking +laugh, and when all was quiet I stole outside and found a heavy knife +imbedded over an inch in the solid wood. A few minutes later the mate +came fumbling about in search of it, but I returned it privily to Leach +next day. He grinned when I handed it over, yet it was a grin that +contained more sincere thanks than a multitude of the verbosities of +speech common to the members of my own class. + +Unlike any one else in the ship’s company, I now found myself with no +quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of all. The hunters possibly +no more than tolerated me, though none of them disliked me; while Smoke +and Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning and swinging day and +night in their hammocks, assured me that I was better than any hospital +nurse, and that they would not forget me at the end of the voyage when +they were paid off. (As though I stood in need of their money! I, who +could have bought them out, bag and baggage, and the schooner and its +equipment, a score of times over!) But upon me had devolved the task of +tending their wounds, and pulling them through, and I did my best by +them. + +Wolf Larsen underwent another bad attack of headache which lasted two +days. He must have suffered severely, for he called me in and obeyed my +commands like a sick child. But nothing I could do seemed to relieve +him. At my suggestion, however, he gave up smoking and drinking; though +why such a magnificent animal as he should have headaches at all puzzles +me. + +“’Tis the hand of God, I’m tellin’ you,” is the way Louis sees it. “’Tis +a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, and there’s more behind and +comin’, or else—” + +“Or else,” I prompted. + +“God is noddin’ and not doin’ his duty, though it’s me as shouldn’t say +it.” + +I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all. Not +only does Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but he has discovered a +new reason for hating me. It took me no little while to puzzle it out, +but I finally discovered that it was because I was more luckily born than +he—“gentleman born,” he put it. + +“And still no more dead men,” I twitted Louis, when Smoke and Henderson, +side by side, in friendly conversation, took their first exercise on +deck. + +Louis surveyed me with his shrewd grey eyes, and shook his head +portentously. “She’s a-comin’, I tell you, and it’ll be sheets and +halyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. I’ve had the feel +iv it this long time, and I can feel it now as plainly as I feel the +rigging iv a dark night. She’s close, she’s close.” + +“Who goes first?” I queried. + +“Not fat old Louis, I promise you,” he laughed. “For ’tis in the bones +iv me I know that come this time next year I’ll be gazin’ in the old +mother’s eyes, weary with watchin’ iv the sea for the five sons she gave +to it.” + +“Wot’s ’e been s’yin’ to yer?” Thomas Mugridge demanded a moment later. + +“That he’s going home some day to see his mother,” I answered +diplomatically. + +“I never ’ad none,” was the Cockney’s comment, as he gazed with +lustreless, hopeless eyes into mine. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +It has dawned upon me that I have never placed a proper valuation upon +womankind. For that matter, though not amative to any considerable +degree so far as I have discovered, I was never outside the atmosphere of +women until now. My mother and sisters were always about me, and I was +always trying to escape them; for they worried me to distraction with +their solicitude for my health and with their periodic inroads on my den, +when my orderly confusion, upon which I prided myself, was turned into +worse confusion and less order, though it looked neat enough to the eye. +I never could find anything when they had departed. But now, alas, how +welcome would have been the feel of their presence, the frou-frou and +swish-swish of their skirts which I had so cordially detested! I am +sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never be irritable with them +again. They may dose me and doctor me morning, noon, and night, and dust +and sweep and put my den to rights every minute of the day, and I shall +only lean back and survey it all and be thankful in that I am possessed +of a mother and some several sisters. + +All of which has set me wondering. Where are the mothers of these twenty +and odd men on the _Ghost_? It strikes me as unnatural and unhealthful +that men should be totally separated from women and herd through the +world by themselves. Coarseness and savagery are the inevitable results. +These men about me should have wives, and sisters, and daughters; then +would they be capable of softness, and tenderness, and sympathy. As it +is, not one of them is married. In years and years not one of them has +been in contact with a good woman, or within the influence, or +redemption, which irresistibly radiates from such a creature. There is +no balance in their lives. Their masculinity, which in itself is of the +brute, has been over-developed. The other and spiritual side of their +natures has been dwarfed—atrophied, in fact. + +They are a company of celibates, grinding harshly against one another and +growing daily more calloused from the grinding. It seems to me +impossible sometimes that they ever had mothers. It would appear that +they are a half-brute, half-human species, a race apart, wherein there is +no such thing as sex; that they are hatched out by the sun like turtle +eggs, or receive life in some similar and sordid fashion; and that all +their days they fester in brutality and viciousness, and in the end die +as unlovely as they have lived. + +Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with Johansen +last night—the first superfluous words with which he has favoured me +since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he was eighteen, is now +thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time has not been home once. He +had met a townsman, a couple of years before, in some sailor +boarding-house in Chile, so that he knew his mother to be still alive. + +“She must be a pretty old woman now,” he said, staring meditatively into +the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, who was +steering a point off the course. + +“When did you last write to her?” + +He performed his mental arithmetic aloud. “Eighty-one; no—eighty-two, +eh? no—eighty-three? Yes, eighty-three. Ten years ago. From some +little port in Madagascar. I was trading. + +“You see,” he went on, as though addressing his neglected mother across +half the girth of the earth, “each year I was going home. So what was +the good to write? It was only a year. And each year something +happened, and I did not go. But I am mate, now, and when I pay off at +’Frisco, maybe with five hundred dollars, I will ship myself on a +windjammer round the Horn to Liverpool, which will give me more money; +and then I will pay my passage from there home. Then she will not do any +more work.” + +“But does she work? now? How old is she?” + +“About seventy,” he answered. And then, boastingly, “We work from the +time we are born until we die, in my country. That’s why we live so +long. I will live to a hundred.” + +I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the last I ever +heard him utter. Perhaps they were the last he did utter, too. For, +going down into the cabin to turn in, I decided that it was too stuffy to +sleep below. It was a calm night. We were out of the Trades, and the +_Ghost_ was forging ahead barely a knot an hour. So I tucked a blanket +and pillow under my arm and went up on deck. + +As I passed between Harrison and the binnacle, which was built into the +top of the cabin, I noticed that he was this time fully three points off. +Thinking that he was asleep, and wishing him to escape reprimand or +worse, I spoke to him. But he was not asleep. His eyes were wide and +staring. He seemed greatly perturbed, unable to reply to me. + +“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you sick?” + +He shook his head, and with a deep sign as of awakening, caught his +breath. + +“You’d better get on your course, then,” I chided. + +He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing slowly to +N.N.W. and steady itself with slight oscillations. + +I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start on, when +some movement caught my eye and I looked astern to the rail. A sinewy +hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail. A second hand took +form in the darkness beside it. I watched, fascinated. What visitant +from the gloom of the deep was I to behold? Whatever it was, I knew that +it was climbing aboard by the log-line. I saw a head, the hair wet and +straight, shape itself, and then the unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf +Larsen. His right cheek was red with blood, which flowed from some wound +in the head. + +He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet, +glancing swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel, as though to +assure himself of his identity and that there was nothing to fear from +him. The sea-water was streaming from him. It made little audible +gurgles which distracted me. As he stepped toward me I shrank back +instinctively, for I saw that in his eyes which spelled death. + +“All right, Hump,” he said in a low voice. “Where’s the mate?” + +I shook my head. + +“Johansen!” he called softly. “Johansen!” + +“Where is he?” he demanded of Harrison. + +The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for he answered +steadily enough, “I don’t know, sir. I saw him go for’ard a little while +ago.” + +“So did I go for’ard. But you will observe that I didn’t come back the +way I went. Can you explain it?” + +“You must have been overboard, sir.” + +“Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?” I asked. + +Wolf Larsen shook his head. “You wouldn’t find him, Hump. But you’ll +do. Come on. Never mind your bedding. Leave it where it is.” + +I followed at his heels. There was nothing stirring amidships. + +“Those cursed hunters,” was his comment. “Too damned fat and lazy to +stand a four-hour watch.” + +But on the forecastle-head we found three sailors asleep. He turned them +over and looked at their faces. They composed the watch on deck, and it +was the ship’s custom, in good weather, to let the watch sleep with the +exception of the officer, the helmsman, and the look-out. + +“Who’s look-out?” he demanded. + +“Me, sir,” answered Holyoak, one of the deep-water sailors, a slight +tremor in his voice. “I winked off just this very minute, sir. I’m +sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.” + +“Did you hear or see anything on deck?” + +“No, sir, I—” + +But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leaving the +sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let off so easily. + +“Softly, now,” Wolf Larsen warned me in a whisper, as he doubled his body +into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend. + +I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew no more than +did I know what had happened. But blood had been shed, and it was +through no whim of Wolf Larsen that he had gone over the side with his +scalp laid open. Besides, Johansen was missing. + +It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not soon forget +my impression of it, caught as I stood on my feet at the bottom of the +ladder. Built directly in the eyes of the schooner, it was of the shape +of a triangle, along the three sides of which stood the bunks, in +double-tier, twelve of them. It was no larger than a hall bedroom in +Grub Street, and yet twelve men were herded into it to eat and sleep and +carry on all the functions of living. My bedroom at home was not large, +yet it could have contained a dozen similar forecastles, and taking into +consideration the height of the ceiling, a score at least. + +It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging sea-lamp +I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep with sea-boots, +oilskins, and garments, clean and dirty, of various sorts. These swung +back and forth with every roll of the vessel, giving rise to a brushing +sound, as of trees against a roof or wall. Somewhere a boot thumped +loudly and at irregular intervals against the wall; and, though it was a +mild night on the sea, there was a continual chorus of the creaking +timbers and bulkheads and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring. + +The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them,—the two watches +below,—and the air was thick with the warmth and odour of their +breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their snoring and of +their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the rest of the animal-man. +But were they sleeping? all of them? Or had they been sleeping? This +was evidently Wolf Larsen’s quest—to find the men who appeared to be +asleep and who were not asleep or who had not been asleep very recently. +And he went about it in a way that reminded me of a story out of +Boccaccio. + +He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it to me. He +began at the first bunks forward on the star-board side. In the top one +lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and splendid seaman, so named by his mates. He +was asleep on his back and breathing as placidly as a woman. One arm was +under his head, the other lay on top of the blankets. Wolf Larsen put +thumb and forefinger to the wrist and counted the pulse. In the midst of +it the Kanaka roused. He awoke as gently as he slept. There was no +movement of the body whatever. The eyes, only, moved. They flashed wide +open, big and black, and stared, unblinking, into our faces. Wolf Larsen +put his finger to his lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes closed +again. + +In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty, asleep +unfeignedly and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsen held his wrist +he stirred uneasily, bowing his body so that for a moment it rested on +shoulders and heels. His lips moved, and he gave voice to this enigmatic +utterance: + +“A shilling’s worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out for +thruppenny-bits, or the publicans ’ll shove ’em on you for sixpence.” + +Then he rolled over on his side with a heavy, sobbing sigh, saying: + +“A sixpence is a tanner, and a shilling a bob; but what a pony is I don’t +know.” + +Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka’s sleep, Wolf Larsen +passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side, occupied top and +bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, by Leach and Johnson. + +As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson’s pulse, I, +standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach’s head rise stealthily as +he peered over the side of his bunk to see what was going on. He must +have divined Wolf Larsen’s trick and the sureness of detection, for the +light was at once dashed from my hand and the forecastle was left in +darkness. He must have leaped, also, at the same instant, straight down +on Wolf Larsen. + +The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and a wolf. I +heard a great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen, and from Leach a +snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling. Johnson must have joined +him immediately, so that his abject and grovelling conduct on deck for +the past few days had been no more than planned deception. + +I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned against +the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon me was that old +sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always by the spectacle of +physical violence. In this instance I could not see, but I could hear +the impact of the blows—the soft crushing sound made by flesh striking +forcibly against flesh. Then there was the crashing about of the +entwined bodies, the laboured breathing, the short quick gasps of sudden +pain. + +There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the captain and +mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnson had been quickly +reinforced by some of their mates. + +“Get a knife somebody!” Leach was shouting. + +“Pound him on the head! Mash his brains out!” was Johnson’s cry. + +But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. He was fighting +grimly and silently for life. He was sore beset. Down at the very +first, he had been unable to gain his feet, and for all of his tremendous +strength I felt that there was no hope for him. + +The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on me; for I +was knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised. But in the +confusion I managed to crawl into an empty lower bunk out of the way. + +“All hands! We’ve got him! We’ve got him!” I could hear Leach crying. + +“Who?” demanded those who had been really asleep, and who had wakened to +they knew not what. + +“It’s the bloody mate!” was Leach’s crafty answer, strained from him in a +smothered sort of way. + +This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf Larsen had +seven strong men on top of him, Louis, I believe, taking no part in it. +The forecastle was like an angry hive of bees aroused by some marauder. + +“What ho! below there!” I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle, too +cautious to descend into the inferno of passion he could hear raging +beneath him in the darkness. + +“Won’t somebody get a knife? Oh, won’t somebody get a knife?” Leach +pleaded in the first interval of comparative silence. + +The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. They blocked +their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single purpose, achieved +his. This was to fight his way across the floor to the ladder. Though +in total darkness, I followed his progress by its sound. No man less +than a giant could have done what he did, once he had gained the foot of +the ladder. Step by step, by the might of his arms, the whole pack of +men striving to drag him back and down, he drew his body up from the +floor till he stood erect. And then, step by step, hand and foot, he +slowly struggled up the ladder. + +The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone for a +lantern, held it so that its light shone down the scuttle. Wolf Larsen +was nearly to the top, though I could not see him. All that was visible +was the mass of men fastened upon him. It squirmed about, like some huge +many-legged spider, and swayed back and forth to the regular roll of the +vessel. And still, step by step with long intervals between, the mass +ascended. Once it tottered, about to fall back, but the broken hold was +regained and it still went up. + +“Who is it?” Latimer cried. + +In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peering down. + +“Larsen,” I heard a muffled voice from within the mass. + +Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot up to clasp +his. Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps were made with a rush. +Then Wolf Larsen’s other hand reached up and clutched the edge of the +scuttle. The mass swung clear of the ladder, the men still clinging to +their escaping foe. They began to drop off, to be brushed off against +the sharp edge of the scuttle, to be knocked off by the legs which were +now kicking powerfully. Leach was the last to go, falling sheer back +from the top of the scuttle and striking on head and shoulders upon his +sprawling mates beneath. Wolf Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we +were left in darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom of the +ladder crawled to their feet. + +“Somebody strike a light, my thumb’s out of joint,” said one of the men, +Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat-steerer in Standish’s boat, in +which Harrison was puller. + +“You’ll find it knockin’ about by the bitts,” Leach said, sitting down on +the edge of the bunk in which I was concealed. + +There was a fumbling and a scratching of matches, and the sea-lamp flared +up, dim and smoky, and in its weird light bare-legged men moved about +nursing their bruises and caring for their hurts. Oofty-Oofty laid hold +of Parsons’s thumb, pulling it out stoutly and snapping it back into +place. I noticed at the same time that the Kanaka’s knuckles were laid +open clear across and to the bone. He exhibited them, exposing beautiful +white teeth in a grin as he did so, and explaining that the wounds had +come from striking Wolf Larsen in the mouth. + +“So it was you, was it, you black beggar?” belligerently demanded one +Kelly, an Irish-American and a longshoreman, making his first trip to +sea, and boat-puller for Kerfoot. + +As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and +shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty. The Kanaka leaped +backward to his bunk, to return with a second leap, flourishing a long +knife. + +“Aw, go lay down, you make me tired,” Leach interfered. He was +evidently, for all of his youth and inexperience, cock of the forecastle. +“G’wan, you Kelly. You leave Oofty alone. How in hell did he know it +was you in the dark?” + +Kelly subsided with some muttering, and the Kanaka flashed his white +teeth in a grateful smile. He was a beautiful creature, almost feminine +in the pleasing lines of his figure, and there was a softness and +dreaminess in his large eyes which seemed to contradict his well-earned +reputation for strife and action. + +“How did he get away?” Johnson asked. + +He was sitting on the side of his bunk, the whole pose of his figure +indicating utter dejection and hopelessness. He was still breathing +heavily from the exertion he had made. His shirt had been ripped +entirely from him in the struggle, and blood from a gash in the cheek was +flowing down his naked chest, marking a red path across his white thigh +and dripping to the floor. + +“Because he is the devil, as I told you before,” was Leach’s answer; and +thereat he was on his feet and raging his disappointment with tears in +his eyes. + +“And not one of you to get a knife!” was his unceasing lament. + +But the rest of the hands had a lively fear of consequences to come and +gave no heed to him. + +“How’ll he know which was which?” Kelly asked, and as he went on he +looked murderously about him—“unless one of us peaches.” + +“He’ll know as soon as ever he claps eyes on us,” Parsons replied. “One +look at you’d be enough.” + +“Tell him the deck flopped up and gouged yer teeth out iv yer jaw,” Louis +grinned. He was the only man who was not out of his bunk, and he was +jubilant in that he possessed no bruises to advertise that he had had a +hand in the night’s work. “Just wait till he gets a glimpse iv yer mugs +to-morrow, the gang iv ye,” he chuckled. + +“We’ll say we thought it was the mate,” said one. And another, “I know +what I’ll say—that I heered a row, jumped out of my bunk, got a jolly +good crack on the jaw for my pains, and sailed in myself. Couldn’t tell +who or what it was in the dark and just hit out.” + +“An’ ’twas me you hit, of course,” Kelly seconded, his face brightening +for the moment. + +Leach and Johnson took no part in the discussion, and it was plain to see +that their mates looked upon them as men for whom the worst was +inevitable, who were beyond hope and already dead. Leach stood their +fears and reproaches for some time. Then he broke out: + +“You make me tired! A nice lot of gazabas you are! If you talked less +with yer mouth and did something with yer hands, he’d a-ben done with by +now. Why couldn’t one of you, just one of you, get me a knife when I +sung out? You make me sick! A-beefin’ and bellerin’ ’round, as though +he’d kill you when he gets you! You know damn well he wont. Can’t +afford to. No shipping masters or beach-combers over here, and he wants +yer in his business, and he wants yer bad. Who’s to pull or steer or +sail ship if he loses yer? It’s me and Johnson have to face the music. +Get into yer bunks, now, and shut yer faces; I want to get some sleep.” + +“That’s all right all right,” Parsons spoke up. “Mebbe he won’t do for +us, but mark my words, hell ’ll be an ice-box to this ship from now on.” + +All the while I had been apprehensive concerning my own predicament. +What would happen to me when these men discovered my presence? I could +never fight my way out as Wolf Larsen had done. And at this moment +Latimer called down the scuttles: + +“Hump! The old man wants you!” + +“He ain’t down here!” Parsons called back. + +“Yes, he is,” I said, sliding out of the bunk and striving my hardest to +keep my voice steady and bold. + +The sailors looked at me in consternation. Fear was strong in their +faces, and the devilishness which comes of fear. + +“I’m coming!” I shouted up to Latimer. + +“No you don’t!” Kelly cried, stepping between me and the ladder, his +right hand shaped into a veritable strangler’s clutch. “You damn little +sneak! I’ll shut yer mouth!” + +“Let him go,” Leach commanded. + +“Not on yer life,” was the angry retort. + +Leach never changed his position on the edge of the bunk. “Let him go, I +say,” he repeated; but this time his voice was gritty and metallic. + +The Irishman wavered. I made to step by him, and he stood aside. When I +had gained the ladder, I turned to the circle of brutal and malignant +faces peering at me through the semi-darkness. A sudden and deep +sympathy welled up in me. I remembered the Cockney’s way of putting it. +How God must have hated them that they should be tortured so! + +“I have seen and heard nothing, believe me,” I said quietly. + +“I tell yer, he’s all right,” I could hear Leach saying as I went up the +ladder. “He don’t like the old man no more nor you or me.” + +I found Wolf Larsen in the cabin, stripped and bloody, waiting for me. +He greeted me with one of his whimsical smiles. + +“Come, get to work, Doctor. The signs are favourable for an extensive +practice this voyage. I don’t know what the _Ghost_ would have been +without you, and if I could only cherish such noble sentiments I would +tell you her master is deeply grateful.” + +I knew the run of the simple medicine-chest the _Ghost_ carried, and +while I was heating water on the cabin stove and getting the things ready +for dressing his wounds, he moved about, laughing and chatting, and +examining his hurts with a calculating eye. I had never before seen him +stripped, and the sight of his body quite took my breath away. It has +never been my weakness to exalt the flesh—far from it; but there is +enough of the artist in me to appreciate its wonder. + +I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf Larsen’s +figure, and by what I may term the terrible beauty of it. I had noted +the men in the forecastle. Powerfully muscled though some of them were, +there had been something wrong with all of them, an insufficient +development here, an undue development there, a twist or a crook that +destroyed symmetry, legs too short or too long, or too much sinew or bone +exposed, or too little. Oofty-Oofty had been the only one whose lines +were at all pleasing, while, in so far as they pleased, that far had they +been what I should call feminine. + +But Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god in his +perfectness. As he moved about or raised his arms the great muscles +leapt and moved under the satiny skin. I have forgotten to say that the +bronze ended with his face. His body, thanks to his Scandinavian stock, +was fair as the fairest woman’s. I remember his putting his hand up to +feel of the wound on his head, and my watching the biceps move like a +living thing under its white sheath. It was the biceps that had nearly +crushed out my life once, that I had seen strike so many killing blows. +I could not take my eyes from him. I stood motionless, a roll of +antiseptic cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling itself down to the +floor. + +He noticed me, and I became conscious that I was staring at him. + +“God made you well,” I said. + +“Did he?” he answered. “I have often thought so myself, and wondered +why.” + +“Purpose—” I began. + +“Utility,” he interrupted. “This body was made for use. These muscles +were made to grip, and tear, and destroy living things that get between +me and life. But have you thought of the other living things? They, +too, have muscles, of one kind and another, made to grip, and tear, and +destroy; and when they come between me and life, I out-grip them, +out-tear them, out-destroy them. Purpose does not explain that. Utility +does.” + +“It is not beautiful,” I protested. + +“Life isn’t, you mean,” he smiled. “Yet you say I was made well. Do you +see this?” + +He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes in a +clutching sort of way. Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles writhed +and bunched under the skin. + +“Feel them,” he commanded. + +They were hard as iron. And I observed, also, that his whole body had +unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that muscles were +softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, and across +the shoulders; that the arms were slightly lifted, their muscles +contracting, the fingers crooking till the hands were like talons; and +that even the eyes had changed expression and into them were coming +watchfulness and measurement and a light none other than of battle. + +“Stability, equilibrium,” he said, relaxing on the instant and sinking +his body back into repose. “Feet with which to clutch the ground, legs +to stand on and to help withstand, while with arms and hands, teeth and +nails, I struggle to kill and to be not killed. Purpose? Utility is the +better word.” + +I did not argue. I had seen the mechanism of the primitive fighting +beast, and I was as strongly impressed as if I had seen the engines of a +great battleship or Atlantic liner. + +I was surprised, considering the fierce struggle in the forecastle, at +the superficiality of his hurts, and I pride myself that I dressed them +dexterously. With the exception of several bad wounds, the rest were +merely severe bruises and lacerations. The blow which he had received +before going overboard had laid his scalp open several inches. This, +under his direction, I cleansed and sewed together, having first shaved +the edges of the wound. Then the calf of his leg was badly lacerated and +looked as though it had been mangled by a bulldog. Some sailor, he told +me, had laid hold of it by his teeth, at the beginning of the fight, and +hung on and been dragged to the top of the forecastle ladder, when he was +kicked loose. + +“By the way, Hump, as I have remarked, you are a handy man,” Wolf Larsen +began, when my work was done. “As you know, we’re short a mate. +Hereafter you shall stand watches, receive seventy-five dollars per +month, and be addressed fore and aft as Mr. Van Weyden.” + +“I—I don’t understand navigation, you know,” I gasped. + +“Not necessary at all.” + +“I really do not care to sit in the high places,” I objected. “I find +life precarious enough in my present humble situation. I have no +experience. Mediocrity, you see, has its compensations.” + +He smiled as though it were all settled. + +“I won’t be mate on this hell-ship!” I cried defiantly. + +I saw his face grow hard and the merciless glitter come into his eyes. +He walked to the door of his room, saying: + +“And now, Mr. Van Weyden, good-night.” + +“Good-night, Mr. Larsen,” I answered weakly. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +I cannot say that the position of mate carried with it anything more +joyful than that there were no more dishes to wash. I was ignorant of +the simplest duties of mate, and would have fared badly indeed, had the +sailors not sympathized with me. I knew nothing of the minutiæ of ropes +and rigging, of the trimming and setting of sails; but the sailors took +pains to put me to rights,—Louis proving an especially good teacher,—and +I had little trouble with those under me. + +With the hunters it was otherwise. Familiar in varying degree with the +sea, they took me as a sort of joke. In truth, it was a joke to me, that +I, the veriest landsman, should be filling the office of mate; but to be +taken as a joke by others was a different matter. I made no complaint, +but Wolf Larsen demanded the most punctilious sea etiquette in my +case,—far more than poor Johansen had ever received; and at the expense +of several rows, threats, and much grumbling, he brought the hunters to +time. I was “Mr. Van Weyden” fore and aft, and it was only unofficially +that Wolf Larsen himself ever addressed me as “Hump.” + +It was amusing. Perhaps the wind would haul a few points while we were +at dinner, and as I left the table he would say, “Mr. Van Weyden, will +you kindly put about on the port tack.” And I would go on deck, beckon +Louis to me, and learn from him what was to be done. Then, a few minutes +later, having digested his instructions and thoroughly mastered the +manœuvre, I would proceed to issue my orders. I remember an early +instance of this kind, when Wolf Larsen appeared on the scene just as I +had begun to give orders. He smoked his cigar and looked on quietly till +the thing was accomplished, and then paced aft by my side along the +weather poop. + +“Hump,” he said, “I beg pardon, Mr. Van Weyden, I congratulate you. I +think you can now fire your father’s legs back into the grave to him. +You’ve discovered your own and learned to stand on them. A little +rope-work, sail-making, and experience with storms and such things, and +by the end of the voyage you could ship on any coasting schooner.” + +It was during this period, between the death of Johansen and the arrival +on the sealing grounds, that I passed my pleasantest hours on the +_Ghost_. Wolf Larsen was quite considerate, the sailors helped me, and I +was no longer in irritating contact with Thomas Mugridge. And I make +free to say, as the days went by, that I found I was taking a certain +secret pride in myself. Fantastic as the situation was,—a land-lubber +second in command,—I was, nevertheless, carrying it off well; and during +that brief time I was proud of myself, and I grew to love the heave and +roll of the _Ghost_ under my feet as she wallowed north and west through +the tropic sea to the islet where we filled our water-casks. + +But my happiness was not unalloyed. It was comparative, a period of less +misery slipped in between a past of great miseries and a future of great +miseries. For the _Ghost_, so far as the seamen were concerned, was a +hell-ship of the worst description. They never had a moment’s rest or +peace. Wolf Larsen treasured against them the attempt on his life and +the drubbing he had received in the forecastle; and morning, noon, and +night, and all night as well, he devoted himself to making life unlivable +for them. + +He knew well the psychology of the little thing, and it was the little +things by which he kept the crew worked up to the verge of madness. I +have seen Harrison called from his bunk to put properly away a misplaced +paintbrush, and the two watches below haled from their tired sleep to +accompany him and see him do it. A little thing, truly, but when +multiplied by the thousand ingenious devices of such a mind, the mental +state of the men in the forecastle may be slightly comprehended. + +Of course much grumbling went on, and little outbursts were continually +occurring. Blows were struck, and there were always two or three men +nursing injuries at the hands of the human beast who was their master. +Concerted action was impossible in face of the heavy arsenal of weapons +carried in the steerage and cabin. Leach and Johnson were the two +particular victims of Wolf Larsen’s diabolic temper, and the look of +profound melancholy which had settled on Johnson’s face and in his eyes +made my heart bleed. + +With Leach it was different. There was too much of the fighting beast in +him. He seemed possessed by an insatiable fury which gave no time for +grief. His lips had become distorted into a permanent snarl, which at +mere sight of Wolf Larsen broke out in sound, horrible and menacing and, +I do believe, unconsciously. I have seen him follow Wolf Larsen about +with his eyes, like an animal its keeper, the while the animal-like snarl +sounded deep in his throat and vibrated forth between his teeth. + +I remember once, on deck, in bright day, touching him on the shoulder as +preliminary to giving an order. His back was toward me, and at the first +feel of my hand he leaped upright in the air and away from me, snarling +and turning his head as he leaped. He had for the moment mistaken me for +the man he hated. + +Both he and Johnson would have killed Wolf Larsen at the slightest +opportunity, but the opportunity never came. Wolf Larsen was too wise +for that, and, besides, they had no adequate weapons. With their fists +alone they had no chance whatever. Time and again he fought it out with +Leach who fought back always, like a wildcat, tooth and nail and fist, +until stretched, exhausted or unconscious, on the deck. And he was never +averse to another encounter. All the devil that was in him challenged +the devil in Wolf Larsen. They had but to appear on deck at the same +time, when they would be at it, cursing, snarling, striking; and I have +seen Leach fling himself upon Wolf Larsen without warning or provocation. +Once he threw his heavy sheath-knife, missing Wolf Larsen’s throat by an +inch. Another time he dropped a steel marlinspike from the mizzen +crosstree. It was a difficult cast to make on a rolling ship, but the +sharp point of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through the air, +barely missed Wolf Larsen’s head as he emerged from the cabin +companion-way and drove its length two inches and over into the solid +deck-planking. Still another time, he stole into the steerage, possessed +himself of a loaded shot-gun, and was making a rush for the deck with it +when caught by Kerfoot and disarmed. + +I often wondered why Wolf Larsen did not kill him and make an end of it. +But he only laughed and seemed to enjoy it. There seemed a certain spice +about it, such as men must feel who take delight in making pets of +ferocious animals. + +“It gives a thrill to life,” he explained to me, “when life is carried in +one’s hand. Man is a natural gambler, and life is the biggest stake he +can lay. The greater the odds, the greater the thrill. Why should I +deny myself the joy of exciting Leach’s soul to fever-pitch? For that +matter, I do him a kindness. The greatness of sensation is mutual. He +is living more royally than any man for’ard, though he does not know it. +For he has what they have not—purpose, something to do and be done, an +all-absorbing end to strive to attain, the desire to kill me, the hope +that he may kill me. Really, Hump, he is living deep and high. I doubt +that he has ever lived so swiftly and keenly before, and I honestly envy +him, sometimes, when I see him raging at the summit of passion and +sensibility.” + +“Ah, but it is cowardly, cowardly!” I cried. “You have all the +advantage.” + +“Of the two of us, you and I, who is the greater coward?” he asked +seriously. “If the situation is unpleasing, you compromise with your +conscience when you make yourself a party to it. If you were really +great, really true to yourself, you would join forces with Leach and +Johnson. But you are afraid, you are afraid. You want to live. The +life that is in you cries out that it must live, no matter what the cost; +so you live ignominiously, untrue to the best you dream of, sinning +against your whole pitiful little code, and, if there were a hell, +heading your soul straight for it. Bah! I play the braver part. I do +no sin, for I am true to the promptings of the life that is in me. I am +sincere with my soul at least, and that is what you are not.” + +There was a sting in what he said. Perhaps, after all, I was playing a +cowardly part. And the more I thought about it the more it appeared that +my duty to myself lay in doing what he had advised, lay in joining forces +with Johnson and Leach and working for his death. Right here, I think, +entered the austere conscience of my Puritan ancestry, impelling me +toward lurid deeds and sanctioning even murder as right conduct. I dwelt +upon the idea. It would be a most moral act to rid the world of such a +monster. Humanity would be better and happier for it, life fairer and +sweeter. + +I pondered it long, lying sleepless in my bunk and reviewing in endless +procession the facts of the situation. I talked with Johnson and Leach, +during the night watches when Wolf Larsen was below. Both men had lost +hope—Johnson, because of temperamental despondency; Leach, because he had +beaten himself out in the vain struggle and was exhausted. But he caught +my hand in a passionate grip one night, saying: + +“I think yer square, Mr. Van Weyden. But stay where you are and keep yer +mouth shut. Say nothin’ but saw wood. We’re dead men, I know it; but +all the same you might be able to do us a favour some time when we need +it damn bad.” + +It was only next day, when Wainwright Island loomed to windward, close +abeam, that Wolf Larsen opened his mouth in prophecy. He had attacked +Johnson, been attacked by Leach, and had just finished whipping the pair +of them. + +“Leach,” he said, “you know I’m going to kill you some time or other, +don’t you?” + +A snarl was the answer. + +“And as for you, Johnson, you’ll get so tired of life before I’m through +with you that you’ll fling yourself over the side. See if you don’t.” + +“That’s a suggestion,” he added, in an aside to me. “I’ll bet you a +month’s pay he acts upon it.” + +I had cherished a hope that his victims would find an opportunity to +escape while filling our water-barrels, but Wolf Larsen had selected his +spot well. The _Ghost_ lay half-a-mile beyond the surf-line of a lonely +beach. Here debouched a deep gorge, with precipitous, volcanic walls +which no man could scale. And here, under his direct supervision—for he +went ashore himself—Leach and Johnson filled the small casks and rolled +them down to the beach. They had no chance to make a break for liberty +in one of the boats. + +Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt. They composed one of +the boats’ crews, and their task was to ply between the schooner and the +shore, carrying a single cask each trip. Just before dinner, starting +for the beach with an empty barrel, they altered their course and bore +away to the left to round the promontory which jutted into the sea +between them and liberty. Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty +villages of the Japanese colonists and smiling valleys which penetrated +deep into the interior. Once in the fastnesses they promised, and the +two men could defy Wolf Larsen. + +I had observed Henderson and Smoke loitering about the deck all morning, +and I now learned why they were there. Procuring their rifles, they +opened fire in a leisurely manner, upon the deserters. It was a +cold-blooded exhibition of marksmanship. At first their bullets zipped +harmlessly along the surface of the water on either side the boat; but, +as the men continued to pull lustily, they struck closer and closer. + +“Now, watch me take Kelly’s right oar,” Smoke said, drawing a more +careful aim. + +I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter as he +shot. Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison’s right oar. The boat +slewed around. The two remaining oars were quickly broken. The men +tried to row with the splinters, and had them shot out of their hands. +Kelly ripped up a bottom board and began paddling, but dropped it with a +cry of pain as its splinters drove into his hands. Then they gave up, +letting the boat drift till a second boat, sent from the shore by Wolf +Larsen, took them in tow and brought them aboard. + +Late that afternoon we hove up anchor and got away. Nothing was before +us but the three or four months’ hunting on the sealing grounds. The +outlook was black indeed, and I went about my work with a heavy heart. +An almost funereal gloom seemed to have descended upon the _Ghost_. Wolf +Larsen had taken to his bunk with one of his strange, splitting +headaches. Harrison stood listlessly at the wheel, half supporting +himself by it, as though wearied by the weight of his flesh. The rest of +the men were morose and silent. I came upon Kelly crouching to the lee +of the forecastle scuttle, his head on his knees, his arms about his +head, in an attitude of unutterable despondency. + +Johnson I found lying full length on the forecastle head, staring at the +troubled churn of the forefoot, and I remembered with horror the +suggestion Wolf Larsen had made. It seemed likely to bear fruit. I +tried to break in on the man’s morbid thoughts by calling him away, but +he smiled sadly at me and refused to obey. + +Leach approached me as I returned aft. + +“I want to ask a favour, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said. “If it’s yer luck to +ever make ’Frisco once more, will you hunt up Matt McCarthy? He’s my old +man. He lives on the Hill, back of the Mayfair bakery, runnin’ a +cobbler’s shop that everybody knows, and you’ll have no trouble. Tell +him I lived to be sorry for the trouble I brought him and the things I +done, and—and just tell him ‘God bless him,’ for me.” + +I nodded my head, but said, “We’ll all win back to San Francisco, Leach, +and you’ll be with me when I go to see Matt McCarthy.” + +“I’d like to believe you,” he answered, shaking my hand, “but I can’t. +Wolf Larsen ’ll do for me, I know it; and all I can hope is, he’ll do it +quick.” + +And as he left me I was aware of the same desire at my heart. Since it +was to be done, let it be done with despatch. The general gloom had +gathered me into its folds. The worst appeared inevitable; and as I +paced the deck, hour after hour, I found myself afflicted with Wolf +Larsen’s repulsive ideas. What was it all about? Where was the grandeur +of life that it should permit such wanton destruction of human souls? It +was a cheap and sordid thing after all, this life, and the sooner over +the better. Over and done with! I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed +longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should +be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Strange to say, in spite of the general foreboding, nothing of especial +moment happened on the _Ghost_. We ran on to the north and west till we +raised the coast of Japan and picked up with the great seal herd. Coming +from no man knew where in the illimitable Pacific, it was travelling +north on its annual migration to the rookeries of Bering Sea. And north +we travelled with it, ravaging and destroying, flinging the naked +carcasses to the shark and salting down the skins so that they might +later adorn the fair shoulders of the women of the cities. + +It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman’s sake. No man ate of the +seal meat or the oil. After a good day’s killing I have seen our decks +covered with hides and bodies, slippery with fat and blood, the scuppers +running red; masts, ropes, and rails spattered with the sanguinary +colour; and the men, like butchers plying their trade, naked and red of +arm and hand, hard at work with ripping and flensing-knives, removing the +skins from the pretty sea-creatures they had killed. + +It was my task to tally the pelts as they came aboard from the boats, to +oversee the skinning and afterward the cleansing of the decks and +bringing things ship-shape again. It was not pleasant work. My soul and +my stomach revolted at it; and yet, in a way, this handling and directing +of many men was good for me. It developed what little executive ability +I possessed, and I was aware of a toughening or hardening which I was +undergoing and which could not be anything but wholesome for “Sissy” Van +Weyden. + +One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could never again +be quite the same man I had been. While my hope and faith in human life +still survived Wolf Larsen’s destructive criticism, he had nevertheless +been a cause of change in minor matters. He had opened up for me the +world of the real, of which I had known practically nothing and from +which I had always shrunk. I had learned to look more closely at life as +it was lived, to recognize that there were such things as facts in the +world, to emerge from the realm of mind and idea and to place certain +values on the concrete and objective phases of existence. + +I saw more of Wolf Larsen than ever when we had gained the grounds. For +when the weather was fair and we were in the midst of the herd, all hands +were away in the boats, and left on board were only he and I, and Thomas +Mugridge, who did not count. But there was no play about it. The six +boats, spreading out fan-wise from the schooner until the first weather +boat and the last lee boat were anywhere from ten to twenty miles apart, +cruised along a straight course over the sea till nightfall or bad +weather drove them in. It was our duty to sail the _Ghost_ well to +leeward of the last lee boat, so that all the boats should have fair wind +to run for us in case of squalls or threatening weather. + +It is no slight matter for two men, particularly when a stiff wind has +sprung up, to handle a vessel like the _Ghost_, steering, keeping +look-out for the boats, and setting or taking in sail; so it devolved +upon me to learn, and learn quickly. Steering I picked up easily, but +running aloft to the crosstrees and swinging my whole weight by my arms +when I left the ratlines and climbed still higher, was more difficult. +This, too, I learned, and quickly, for I felt somehow a wild desire to +vindicate myself in Wolf Larsen’s eyes, to prove my right to live in ways +other than of the mind. Nay, the time came when I took joy in the run of +the masthead and in the clinging on by my legs at that precarious height +while I swept the sea with glasses in search of the boats. + +I remember one beautiful day, when the boats left early and the reports +of the hunters’ guns grew dim and distant and died away as they scattered +far and wide over the sea. There was just the faintest wind from the +westward; but it breathed its last by the time we managed to get to +leeward of the last lee boat. One by one—I was at the masthead and +saw—the six boats disappeared over the bulge of the earth as they +followed the seal into the west. We lay, scarcely rolling on the placid +sea, unable to follow. Wolf Larsen was apprehensive. The barometer was +down, and the sky to the east did not please him. He studied it with +unceasing vigilance. + +“If she comes out of there,” he said, “hard and snappy, putting us to +windward of the boats, it’s likely there’ll be empty bunks in steerage +and fo’c’sle.” + +By eleven o’clock the sea had become glass. By midday, though we were +well up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening. There was no +freshness in the air. It was sultry and oppressive, reminding me of what +the old Californians term “earthquake weather.” There was something +ominous about it, and in intangible ways one was made to feel that the +worst was about to come. Slowly the whole eastern sky filled with clouds +that over-towered us like some black sierra of the infernal regions. So +clearly could one see cañon, gorge, and precipice, and the shadows that +lie therein, that one looked unconsciously for the white surf-line and +bellowing caverns where the sea charges on the land. And still we rocked +gently, and there was no wind. + +“It’s no squall,” Wolf Larsen said. “Old Mother Nature’s going to get +up on her hind legs and howl for all that’s in her, and it’ll keep us +jumping, Hump, to pull through with half our boats. You’d better run up +and loosen the topsails.” + +“But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us?” I asked, a +note of protest in my voice. + +“Why we’ve got to make the best of the first of it and run down to our +boats before our canvas is ripped out of us. After that I don’t give a +rap what happens. The sticks ’ll stand it, and you and I will have to, +though we’ve plenty cut out for us.” + +Still the calm continued. We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious meal for +me with eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the bulge of the earth, +and with that heaven-rolling mountain range of clouds moving slowly down +upon us. Wolf Larsen did not seem affected, however; though I noticed, +when we returned to the deck, a slight twitching of the nostrils, a +perceptible quickness of movement. His face was stern, the lines of it +had grown hard, and yet in his eyes—blue, clear blue this day—there was a +strange brilliancy, a bright scintillating light. It struck me that he +was joyous, in a ferocious sort of way; that he was glad there was an +impending struggle; that he was thrilled and upborne with knowledge that +one of the great moments of living, when the tide of life surges up in +flood, was upon him. + +Once, and unwitting that he did so or that I saw, he laughed aloud, +mockingly and defiantly, at the advancing storm. I see him yet standing +there like a pigmy out of the _Arabian Nights_ before the huge front of +some malignant genie. He was daring destiny, and he was unafraid. + +He walked to the galley. “Cooky, by the time you’ve finished pots and +pans you’ll be wanted on deck. Stand ready for a call.” + +“Hump,” he said, becoming cognizant of the fascinated gaze I bent upon +him, “this beats whisky and is where your Omar misses. I think he only +half lived after all.” + +The western half of the sky had by now grown murky. The sun had dimmed +and faded out of sight. It was two in the afternoon, and a ghostly +twilight, shot through by wandering purplish lights, had descended upon +us. In this purplish light Wolf Larsen’s face glowed and glowed, and to +my excited fancy he appeared encircled by a halo. We lay in the midst of +an unearthly quiet, while all about us were signs and omens of oncoming +sound and movement. The sultry heat had become unendurable. The sweat +was standing on my forehead, and I could feel it trickling down my nose. +I felt as though I should faint, and reached out to the rail for support. + +And then, just then, the faintest possible whisper of air passed by. It +was from the east, and like a whisper it came and went. The drooping +canvas was not stirred, and yet my face had felt the air and been cooled. + +“Cooky,” Wolf Larsen called in a low voice. Thomas Mugridge turned a +pitiable scared face. “Let go that foreboom tackle and pass it across, +and when she’s willing let go the sheet and come in snug with the tackle. +And if you make a mess of it, it will be the last you ever make. +Understand?” + +“Mr. Van Weyden, stand by to pass the head-sails over. Then jump for the +topsails and spread them quick as God’ll let you—the quicker you do it +the easier you’ll find it. As for Cooky, if he isn’t lively bat him +between the eyes.” + +I was aware of the compliment and pleased, in that no threat had +accompanied my instructions. We were lying head to north-west, and it +was his intention to jibe over all with the first puff. + +“We’ll have the breeze on our quarter,” he explained to me. “By the last +guns the boats were bearing away slightly to the south’ard.” + +He turned and walked aft to the wheel. I went forward and took my +station at the jibs. Another whisper of wind, and another, passed by. +The canvas flapped lazily. + +“Thank Gawd she’s not comin’ all of a bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was the +Cockney’s fervent ejaculation. + +And I was indeed thankful, for I had by this time learned enough to know, +with all our canvas spread, what disaster in such event awaited us. The +whispers of wind became puffs, the sails filled, the _Ghost_ moved. Wolf +Larsen put the wheel hard up, to port, and we began to pay off. The wind +was now dead astern, muttering and puffing stronger and stronger, and my +head-sails were pounding lustily. I did not see what went on elsewhere, +though I felt the sudden surge and heel of the schooner as the +wind-pressures changed to the jibing of the fore- and main-sails. My +hands were full with the flying-jib, jib, and staysail; and by the time +this part of my task was accomplished the _Ghost_ was leaping into the +south-west, the wind on her quarter and all her sheets to starboard. +Without pausing for breath, though my heart was beating like a +trip-hammer from my exertions, I sprang to the topsails, and before the +wind had become too strong we had them fairly set and were coiling down. +Then I went aft for orders. + +Wolf Larsen nodded approval and relinquished the wheel to me. The wind +was strengthening steadily and the sea rising. For an hour I steered, +each moment becoming more difficult. I had not the experience to steer +at the gait we were going on a quartering course. + +“Now take a run up with the glasses and raise some of the boats. We’ve +made at least ten knots, and we’re going twelve or thirteen now. The old +girl knows how to walk.” + +I contested myself with the fore crosstrees, some seventy feet above the +deck. As I searched the vacant stretch of water before me, I +comprehended thoroughly the need for haste if we were to recover any of +our men. Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea through which we were +running, I doubted that there was a boat afloat. It did not seem +possible that such frail craft could survive such stress of wind and +water. + +I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running with it; +but from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside the _Ghost_ and +apart from her, and saw the shape of her outlined sharply against the +foaming sea as she tore along instinct with life. Sometimes she would +lift and send across some great wave, burying her starboard-rail from +view, and covering her deck to the hatches with the boiling ocean. At +such moments, starting from a windward roll, I would go flying through +the air with dizzying swiftness, as though I clung to the end of a huge, +inverted pendulum, the arc of which, between the greater rolls, must have +been seventy feet or more. Once, the terror of this giddy sweep +overpowered me, and for a while I clung on, hand and foot, weak and +trembling, unable to search the sea for the missing boats or to behold +aught of the sea but that which roared beneath and strove to overwhelm +the _Ghost_. + +But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied me, and in my +quest for them I forgot myself. For an hour I saw nothing but the naked, +desolate sea. And then, where a vagrant shaft of sunlight struck the +ocean and turned its surface to wrathful silver, I caught a small black +speck thrust skyward for an instant and swallowed up. I waited +patiently. Again the tiny point of black projected itself through the +wrathful blaze a couple of points off our port-bow. I did not attempt to +shout, but communicated the news to Wolf Larsen by waving my arm. He +changed the course, and I signalled affirmation when the speck showed +dead ahead. + +It grew larger, and so swiftly that for the first time I fully +appreciated the speed of our flight. Wolf Larsen motioned for me to come +down, and when I stood beside him at the wheel gave me instructions for +heaving to. + +“Expect all hell to break loose,” he cautioned me, “but don’t mind it. +Yours is to do your own work and to have Cooky stand by the fore-sheet.” + +I managed to make my way forward, but there was little choice of sides, +for the weather-rail seemed buried as often as the lee. Having +instructed Thomas Mugridge as to what he was to do, I clambered into the +fore-rigging a few feet. The boat was now very close, and I could make +out plainly that it was lying head to wind and sea and dragging on its +mast and sail, which had been thrown overboard and made to serve as a +sea-anchor. The three men were bailing. Each rolling mountain whelmed +them from view, and I would wait with sickening anxiety, fearing that +they would never appear again. Then, and with black suddenness, the boat +would shoot clear through the foaming crest, bow pointed to the sky, and +the whole length of her bottom showing, wet and dark, till she seemed on +end. There would be a fleeting glimpse of the three men flinging water +in frantic haste, when she would topple over and fall into the yawning +valley, bow down and showing her full inside length to the stern upreared +almost directly above the bow. Each time that she reappeared was a +miracle. + +The _Ghost_ suddenly changed her course, keeping away, and it came to me +with a shock that Wolf Larsen was giving up the rescue as impossible. +Then I realized that he was preparing to heave to, and dropped to the +deck to be in readiness. We were now dead before the wind, the boat far +away and abreast of us. I felt an abrupt easing of the schooner, a loss +for the moment of all strain and pressure, coupled with a swift +acceleration of speed. She was rushing around on her heel into the wind. + +As she arrived at right angles to the sea, the full force of the wind +(from which we had hitherto run away) caught us. I was unfortunately and +ignorantly facing it. It stood up against me like a wall, filling my +lungs with air which I could not expel. And as I choked and strangled, +and as the _Ghost_ wallowed for an instant, broadside on and rolling +straight over and far into the wind, I beheld a huge sea rise far above +my head. I turned aside, caught my breath, and looked again. The wave +over-topped the _Ghost_, and I gazed sheer up and into it. A shaft of +sunlight smote the over-curl, and I caught a glimpse of translucent, +rushing green, backed by a milky smother of foam. + +Then it descended, pandemonium broke loose, everything happened at once. +I was struck a crushing, stunning blow, nowhere in particular and yet +everywhere. My hold had been broken loose, I was under water, and the +thought passed through my mind that this was the terrible thing of which +I had heard, the being swept in the trough of the sea. My body struck +and pounded as it was dashed helplessly along and turned over and over, +and when I could hold my breath no longer, I breathed the stinging salt +water into my lungs. But through it all I clung to the one idea—_I must +get the jib backed over to windward_. I had no fear of death. I had no +doubt but that I should come through somehow. And as this idea of +fulfilling Wolf Larsen’s order persisted in my dazed consciousness, I +seemed to see him standing at the wheel in the midst of the wild welter, +pitting his will against the will of the storm and defying it. + +I brought up violently against what I took to be the rail, breathed, and +breathed the sweet air again. I tried to rise, but struck my head and +was knocked back on hands and knees. By some freak of the waters I had +been swept clear under the forecastle-head and into the eyes. As I +scrambled out on all fours, I passed over the body of Thomas Mugridge, +who lay in a groaning heap. There was no time to investigate. I must +get the jib backed over. + +When I emerged on deck it seemed that the end of everything had come. On +all sides there was a rending and crashing of wood and steel and canvas. +The _Ghost_ was being wrenched and torn to fragments. The foresail and +fore-topsail, emptied of the wind by the manœuvre, and with no one to +bring in the sheet in time, were thundering into ribbons, the heavy boom +threshing and splintering from rail to rail. The air was thick with +flying wreckage, detached ropes and stays were hissing and coiling like +snakes, and down through it all crashed the gaff of the foresail. + +The spar could not have missed me by many inches, while it spurred me to +action. Perhaps the situation was not hopeless. I remembered Wolf +Larsen’s caution. He had expected all hell to break loose, and here it +was. And where was he? I caught sight of him toiling at the main-sheet, +heaving it in and flat with his tremendous muscles, the stern of the +schooner lifted high in the air and his body outlined against a white +surge of sea sweeping past. All this, and more,—a whole world of chaos +and wreck,—in possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped. + +I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but sprang to +the jib-sheet. The jib itself was beginning to slap, partially filling +and emptying with sharp reports; but with a turn of the sheet and the +application of my whole strength each time it slapped, I slowly backed +it. This I know: I did my best. I pulled till I burst open the ends of +all my fingers; and while I pulled, the flying-jib and staysail split +their cloths apart and thundered into nothingness. + +Still I pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double turn until +the next slap gave me more. Then the sheet gave with greater ease, and +Wolf Larsen was beside me, heaving in alone while I was busied taking up +the slack. + +“Make fast!” he shouted. “And come on!” + +As I followed him, I noted that in spite of rack and ruin a rough order +obtained. The _Ghost_ was hove to. She was still in working order, and +she was still working. Though the rest of her sails were gone, the jib, +backed to windward, and the mainsail hauled down flat, were themselves +holding, and holding her bow to the furious sea as well. + +I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat-tackles, +saw it lift to leeward on a big sea and not a score of feet away. And, so +nicely had he made his calculation, we drifted fairly down upon it, so +that nothing remained to do but hook the tackles to either end and hoist +it aboard. But this was not done so easily as it is written. + +In the bow was Kerfoot, Oofty-Oofty in the stern, and Kelly amidships. +As we drifted closer the boat would rise on a wave while we sank in the +trough, till almost straight above me I could see the heads of the three +men craned overside and looking down. Then, the next moment, we would +lift and soar upward while they sank far down beneath us. It seemed +incredible that the next surge should not crush the _Ghost_ down upon the +tiny eggshell. + +But, at the right moment, I passed the tackle to the Kanaka, while Wolf +Larsen did the same thing forward to Kerfoot. Both tackles were hooked +in a trice, and the three men, deftly timing the roll, made a +simultaneous leap aboard the schooner. As the _Ghost_ rolled her side +out of water, the boat was lifted snugly against her, and before the +return roll came, we had heaved it in over the side and turned it bottom +up on the deck. I noticed blood spouting from Kerfoot’s left hand. In +some way the third finger had been crushed to a pulp. But he gave no +sign of pain, and with his single right hand helped us lash the boat in +its place. + +“Stand by to let that jib over, you Oofty!” Wolf Larsen commanded, the +very second we had finished with the boat. “Kelly, come aft and slack +off the main-sheet! You, Kerfoot, go for’ard and see what’s become of +Cooky! Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut away any stray stuff on +your way!” + +And having commanded, he went aft with his peculiar tigerish leaps to the +wheel. While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the _Ghost_ slowly paid off. +This time, as we went into the trough of the sea and were swept, there +were no sails to carry away. And, halfway to the crosstrees and +flattened against the rigging by the full force of the wind so that it +would have been impossible for me to have fallen, the _Ghost_ almost on +her beam-ends and the masts parallel with the water, I looked, not down, +but at almost right angles from the perpendicular, to the deck of the +_Ghost_. But I saw, not the deck, but where the deck should have been, +for it was buried beneath a wild tumbling of water. Out of this water I +could see the two masts rising, and that was all. The _Ghost_, for the +moment, was buried beneath the sea. As she squared off more and more, +escaping from the side pressure, she righted herself and broke her deck, +like a whale’s back, through the ocean surface. + +Then we raced, and wildly, across the wild sea, the while I hung like a +fly in the crosstrees and searched for the other boats. In half-an-hour +I sighted the second one, swamped and bottom up, to which were +desperately clinging Jock Horner, fat Louis, and Johnson. This time I +remained aloft, and Wolf Larsen succeeded in heaving to without being +swept. As before, we drifted down upon it. Tackles were made fast and +lines flung to the men, who scrambled aboard like monkeys. The boat +itself was crushed and splintered against the schooner’s side as it came +inboard; but the wreck was securely lashed, for it could be patched and +made whole again. + +Once more the _Ghost_ bore away before the storm, this time so submerging +herself that for some seconds I thought she would never reappear. Even +the wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist, was covered and swept +again and again. At such moments I felt strangely alone with God, alone +with him and watching the chaos of his wrath. And then the wheel would +reappear, and Wolf Larsen’s broad shoulders, his hands gripping the +spokes and holding the schooner to the course of his will, himself an +earth-god, dominating the storm, flinging its descending waters from him +and riding it to his own ends. And oh, the marvel of it! the marvel of +it! That tiny men should live and breathe and work, and drive so frail a +contrivance of wood and cloth through so tremendous an elemental strife. + +As before, the _Ghost_ swung out of the trough, lifting her deck again +out of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. It was now +half-past five, and half-an-hour later, when the last of the day lost +itself in a dim and furious twilight, I sighted a third boat. It was +bottom up, and there was no sign of its crew. Wolf Larsen repeated his +manœuvre, holding off and then rounding up to windward and drifting down +upon it. But this time he missed by forty feet, the boat passing astern. + +“Number four boat!” Oofty-Oofty cried, his keen eyes reading its number +in the one second when it lifted clear of the foam, and upside down. + +It was Henderson’s boat and with him had been lost Holyoak and Williams, +another of the deep-water crowd. Lost they indubitably were; but the +boat remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless effort to recover +it. I had come down to the deck, and I saw Horner and Kerfoot vainly +protest against the attempt. + +“By God, I’ll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that ever blew out of +hell!” he shouted, and though we four stood with our heads together that +we might hear, his voice seemed faint and far, as though removed from us +an immense distance. + +“Mr. Van Weyden!” he cried, and I heard through the tumult as one might +hear a whisper. “Stand by that jib with Johnson and Oofty! The rest of +you tail aft to the mainsheet! Lively now! or I’ll sail you all into +Kingdom Come! Understand?” + +And when he put the wheel hard over and the _Ghost’s_ bow swung off, +there was nothing for the hunters to do but obey and make the best of a +risky chance. How great the risk I realized when I was once more buried +beneath the pounding seas and clinging for life to the pinrail at the +foot of the foremast. My fingers were torn loose, and I swept across to +the side and over the side into the sea. I could not swim, but before I +could sink I was swept back again. A strong hand gripped me, and when +the _Ghost_ finally emerged, I found that I owed my life to Johnson. I +saw him looking anxiously about him, and noted that Kelly, who had come +forward at the last moment, was missing. + +This time, having missed the boat, and not being in the same position as +in the previous instances, Wolf Larsen was compelled to resort to a +different manœuvre. Running off before the wind with everything to +starboard, he came about, and returned close-hauled on the port tack. + +“Grand!” Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came through the +attendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen’s +seamanship, but to the performance of the _Ghost_ herself. + +It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat; but Wolf Larsen +held back through the frightful turmoil as if guided by unerring +instinct. This time, though we were continually half-buried, there was +no trough in which to be swept, and we drifted squarely down upon the +upturned boat, badly smashing it as it was heaved inboard. + +Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of us—two +hunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen and I—reefed, first one and then the +other, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this short canvas, our decks +were comparatively free of water, while the _Ghost_ bobbed and ducked +amongst the combers like a cork. + +I had burst open the ends of my fingers at the very first, and during the +reefing I had worked with tears of pain running down my cheeks. And when +all was done, I gave up like a woman and rolled upon the deck in the +agony of exhaustion. + +In the meantime Thomas Mugridge, like a drowned rat, was being dragged +out from under the forecastle head where he had cravenly ensconced +himself. I saw him pulled aft to the cabin, and noted with a shock of +surprise that the galley had disappeared. A clean space of deck showed +where it had stood. + +In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well, and while +coffee was being cooked over the small stove we drank whisky and crunched +hard-tack. Never in my life had food been so welcome. And never had hot +coffee tasted so good. So violently did the _Ghost_ pitch and toss and +tumble that it was impossible for even the sailors to move about without +holding on, and several times, after a cry of “Now she takes it!” we were +heaped upon the wall of the port cabins as though it had been the deck. + +“To hell with a look-out,” I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had eaten and +drunk our fill. “There’s nothing can be done on deck. If anything’s +going to run us down we couldn’t get out of its way. Turn in, all hands, +and get some sleep.” + +The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, while +the two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being deemed +advisable to open the slide to the steerage companion-way. Wolf Larsen +and I, between us, cut off Kerfoot’s crushed finger and sewed up the +stump. Mugridge, who, during all the time he had been compelled to cook +and serve coffee and keep the fire going, had complained of internal +pains, now swore that he had a broken rib or two. On examination we +found that he had three. But his case was deferred to next day, +principally for the reason that I did not know anything about broken ribs +and would first have to read it up. + +“I don’t think it was worth it,” I said to Wolf Larsen, “a broken boat +for Kelly’s life.” + +“But Kelly didn’t amount to much,” was the reply. “Good-night.” + +After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in my +finger-ends, and with three boats missing, to say nothing of the wild +capers the _Ghost_ was cutting, I should have thought it impossible to +sleep. But my eyes must have closed the instant my head touched the +pillow, and in utter exhaustion I slept throughout the night, the while +the _Ghost_, lonely and undirected, fought her way through the storm. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The next day, while the storm was blowing itself out, Wolf Larsen and I +crammed anatomy and surgery and set Mugridge’s ribs. Then, when the +storm broke, Wolf Larsen cruised back and forth over that portion of the +ocean where we had encountered it, and somewhat more to the westward, +while the boats were being repaired and new sails made and bent. Sealing +schooner after sealing schooner we sighted and boarded, most of which +were in search of lost boats, and most of which were carrying boats and +crews they had picked up and which did not belong to them. For the thick +of the fleet had been to the westward of us, and the boats, scattered far +and wide, had headed in mad flight for the nearest refuge. + +Two of our boats, with men all safe, we took off the _Cisco_, and, to +Wolf Larsen’s huge delight and my own grief, he culled Smoke, with Nilson +and Leach, from the _San Diego_. So that, at the end of five days, we +found ourselves short but four men—Henderson, Holyoak, Williams, and +Kelly,—and were once more hunting on the flanks of the herd. + +As we followed it north we began to encounter the dreaded sea-fogs. Day +after day the boats lowered and were swallowed up almost ere they touched +the water, while we on board pumped the horn at regular intervals and +every fifteen minutes fired the bomb gun. Boats were continually being +lost and found, it being the custom for a boat to hunt, on lay, with +whatever schooner picked it up, until such time it was recovered by its +own schooner. But Wolf Larsen, as was to be expected, being a boat +short, took possession of the first stray one and compelled its men to +hunt with the _Ghost_, not permitting them to return to their own +schooner when we sighted it. I remember how he forced the hunter and his +two men below, a rifle at their breasts, when their captain passed by at +biscuit-toss and hailed us for information. + +Thomas Mugridge, so strangely and pertinaciously clinging to life, was +soon limping about again and performing his double duties of cook and +cabin-boy. Johnson and Leach were bullied and beaten as much as ever, +and they looked for their lives to end with the end of the hunting +season; while the rest of the crew lived the lives of dogs and were +worked like dogs by their pitiless master. As for Wolf Larsen and +myself, we got along fairly well; though I could not quite rid myself of +the idea that right conduct, for me, lay in killing him. He fascinated +me immeasurably, and I feared him immeasurably. And yet, I could not +imagine him lying prone in death. There was an endurance, as of +perpetual youth, about him, which rose up and forbade the picture. I +could see him only as living always, and dominating always, fighting and +destroying, himself surviving. + +One diversion of his, when we were in the midst of the herd and the sea +was too rough to lower the boats, was to lower with two boat-pullers and +a steerer and go out himself. He was a good shot, too, and brought many +a skin aboard under what the hunters termed impossible hunting +conditions. It seemed the breath of his nostrils, this carrying his life +in his hands and struggling for it against tremendous odds. + +I was learning more and more seamanship; and one clear day—a thing we +rarely encountered now—I had the satisfaction of running and handling the +_Ghost_ and picking up the boats myself. Wolf Larsen had been smitten +with one of his headaches, and I stood at the wheel from morning until +evening, sailing across the ocean after the last lee boat, and heaving to +and picking it and the other five up without command or suggestion from +him. + +Gales we encountered now and again, for it was a raw and stormy region, +and, in the middle of June, a typhoon most memorable to me and most +important because of the changes wrought through it upon my future. We +must have been caught nearly at the centre of this circular storm, and +Wolf Larsen ran out of it and to the southward, first under a +double-reefed jib, and finally under bare poles. Never had I imagined so +great a sea. The seas previously encountered were as ripples compared +with these, which ran a half-mile from crest to crest and which upreared, +I am confident, above our masthead. So great was it that Wolf Larsen +himself did not dare heave to, though he was being driven far to the +southward and out of the seal herd. + +We must have been well in the path of the trans-Pacific steamships when +the typhoon moderated, and here, to the surprise of the hunters, we found +ourselves in the midst of seals—a second herd, or sort of rear-guard, +they declared, and a most unusual thing. But it was “Boats over!” the +boom-boom of guns, and the pitiful slaughter through the long day. + +It was at this time that I was approached by Leach. I had just finished +tallying the skins of the last boat aboard, when he came to my side, in +the darkness, and said in a low tone: + +“Can you tell me, Mr. Van Weyden, how far we are off the coast, and what +the bearings of Yokohama are?” + +My heart leaped with gladness, for I knew what he had in mind, and I gave +him the bearings—west-north-west, and five hundred miles away. + +“Thank you, sir,” was all he said as he slipped back into the darkness. + +Next morning No. 3 boat and Johnson and Leach were missing. The +water-breakers and grub-boxes from all the other boats were likewise +missing, as were the beds and sea bags of the two men. Wolf Larsen was +furious. He set sail and bore away into the west-north-west, two hunters +constantly at the mastheads and sweeping the sea with glasses, himself +pacing the deck like an angry lion. He knew too well my sympathy for the +runaways to send me aloft as look-out. + +The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle in a +haystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity. But he put +the _Ghost_ through her best paces so as to get between the deserters and +the land. This accomplished, he cruised back and forth across what he +knew must be their course. + +On the morning of the third day, shortly after eight bells, a cry that +the boat was sighted came down from Smoke at the masthead. All hands +lined the rail. A snappy breeze was blowing from the west with the +promise of more wind behind it; and there, to leeward, in the troubled +silver of the rising sun, appeared and disappeared a black speck. + +We squared away and ran for it. My heart was as lead. I felt myself +turning sick in anticipation; and as I looked at the gleam of triumph in +Wolf Larsen’s eyes, his form swam before me, and I felt almost +irresistibly impelled to fling myself upon him. So unnerved was I by the +thought of impending violence to Leach and Johnson that my reason must +have left me. I know that I slipped down into the steerage in a daze, +and that I was just beginning the ascent to the deck, a loaded shot-gun +in my hands, when I heard the startled cry: + +“There’s five men in that boat!” + +I supported myself in the companion-way, weak and trembling, while the +observation was being verified by the remarks of the rest of the men. +Then my knees gave from under me and I sank down, myself again, but +overcome by shock at knowledge of what I had so nearly done. Also, I was +very thankful as I put the gun away and slipped back on deck. + +No one had remarked my absence. The boat was near enough for us to make +out that it was larger than any sealing boat and built on different +lines. As we drew closer, the sail was taken in and the mast unstepped. +Oars were shipped, and its occupants waited for us to heave to and take +them aboard. + +Smoke, who had descended to the deck and was now standing by my side, +began to chuckle in a significant way. I looked at him inquiringly. + +“Talk of a mess!” he giggled. + +“What’s wrong?” I demanded. + +Again he chuckled. “Don’t you see there, in the stern-sheets, on the +bottom? May I never shoot a seal again if that ain’t a woman!” + +I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamations broke out on all +sides. The boat contained four men, and its fifth occupant was certainly +a woman. We were agog with excitement, all except Wolf Larsen, who was +too evidently disappointed in that it was not his own boat with the two +victims of his malice. + +We ran down the flying jib, hauled the jib-sheets to wind-ward and the +main-sheet flat, and came up into the wind. The oars struck the water, +and with a few strokes the boat was alongside. I now caught my first +fair glimpse of the woman. She was wrapped in a long ulster, for the +morning was raw; and I could see nothing but her face and a mass of light +brown hair escaping from under the seaman’s cap on her head. The eyes +were large and brown and lustrous, the mouth sweet and sensitive, and the +face itself a delicate oval, though sun and exposure to briny wind had +burnt the face scarlet. + +She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a +hungry out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. But then, I +had not seen a woman for a very long time. I know that I was lost in a +great wonder, almost a stupor,—this, then, was a woman?—so that I forgot +myself and my mate’s duties, and took no part in helping the new-comers +aboard. For when one of the sailors lifted her into Wolf Larsen’s +downstretched arms, she looked up into our curious faces and smiled +amusedly and sweetly, as only a woman can smile, and as I had seen no one +smile for so long that I had forgotten such smiles existed. + +“Mr. Van Weyden!” + +Wolf Larsen’s voice brought me sharply back to myself. + +“Will you take the lady below and see to her comfort? Make up that spare +port cabin. Put Cooky to work on it. And see what you can do for that +face. It’s burned badly.” + +He turned brusquely away from us and began to question the new men. The +boat was cast adrift, though one of them called it a “bloody shame” with +Yokohama so near. + +I found myself strangely afraid of this woman I was escorting aft. Also +I was awkward. It seemed to me that I was realizing for the first time +what a delicate, fragile creature a woman is; and as I caught her arm to +help her down the companion stairs, I was startled by its smallness and +softness. Indeed, she was a slender, delicate woman as women go, but to +me she was so ethereally slender and delicate that I was quite prepared +for her arm to crumble in my grasp. All this, in frankness, to show my +first impression, after long denial of women in general and of Maud +Brewster in particular. + +“No need to go to any great trouble for me,” she protested, when I had +seated her in Wolf Larsen’s arm-chair, which I had dragged hastily from +his cabin. “The men were looking for land at any moment this morning, +and the vessel should be in by night; don’t you think so?” + +Her simple faith in the immediate future took me aback. How could I +explain to her the situation, the strange man who stalked the sea like +Destiny, all that it had taken me months to learn? But I answered +honestly: + +“If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would be +ashore in Yokohama to-morrow. But our captain is a strange man, and I +beg of you to be prepared for anything—understand?—for anything.” + +“I—I confess I hardly do understand,” she hesitated, a perturbed but not +frightened expression in her eyes. “Or is it a misconception of mine +that shipwrecked people are always shown every consideration? This is +such a little thing, you know. We are so close to land.” + +“Candidly, I do not know,” I strove to reassure her. “I wished merely to +prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come. This man, this +captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what will be his +next fantastic act.” + +I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an “Oh, I see,” and +her voice sounded weary. To think was patently an effort. She was +clearly on the verge of physical collapse. + +She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, devoting +myself to Wolf Larsen’s command, which was to make her comfortable. I +bustled about in quite housewifely fashion, procuring soothing lotions +for her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen’s private stores for a bottle of +port I knew to be there, and directing Thomas Mugridge in the preparation +of the spare state-room. + +The wind was freshening rapidly, the _Ghost_ heeling over more and more, +and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing through the +water at a lively clip. I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach and +Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, “Boat ho!” came down the open +companion-way. It was Smoke’s unmistakable voice, crying from the +masthead. I shot a glance at the woman, but she was leaning back in the +arm-chair, her eyes closed, unutterably tired. I doubted that she had +heard, and I resolved to prevent her seeing the brutality I knew would +follow the capture of the deserters. She was tired. Very good. She +should sleep. + +There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a slapping of +reef-points as the _Ghost_ shot into the wind and about on the other +tack. As she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair began to slide across +the cabin floor, and I sprang for it just in time to prevent the rescued +woman from being spilled out. + +Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepy +surprise that perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she half +stumbled, half tottered, as I led her to her cabin. Mugridge grinned +insinuatingly in my face as I shoved him out and ordered him back to his +galley work; and he won his revenge by spreading glowing reports among +the hunters as to what an excellent “lydy’s-myde” I was proving myself to +be. + +She leaned heavily against me, and I do believe that she had fallen +asleep again between the arm-chair and the state-room. This I discovered +when she nearly fell into the bunk during a sudden lurch of the schooner. +She aroused, smiled drowsily, and was off to sleep again; and asleep I +left her, under a heavy pair of sailor’s blankets, her head resting on a +pillow I had appropriated from Wolf Larsen’s bunk. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +I came on deck to find the _Ghost_ heading up close on the port tack and +cutting in to windward of a familiar spritsail close-hauled on the same +tack ahead of us. All hands were on deck, for they knew that something +was to happen when Leach and Johnson were dragged aboard. + +It was four bells. Louis came aft to relieve the wheel. There was a +dampness in the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins. + +“What are we going to have?” I asked him. + +“A healthy young slip of a gale from the breath iv it, sir,” he answered, +“with a splatter iv rain just to wet our gills an’ no more.” + +“Too bad we sighted them,” I said, as the _Ghost’s_ bow was flung off a +point by a large sea and the boat leaped for a moment past the jibs and +into our line of vision. + +Louis gave a spoke and temporized. “They’d never iv made the land, sir, +I’m thinkin’.” + +“Think not?” I queried. + +“No, sir. Did you feel that?” (A puff had caught the schooner, and he +was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out of the wind.) +“’Tis no egg-shell’ll float on this sea an hour come, an’ it’s a stroke +iv luck for them we’re here to pick ’em up.” + +Wolf Larsen strode aft from amidships, where he had been talking with the +rescued men. The cat-like springiness in his tread was a little more +pronounced than usual, and his eyes were bright and snappy. + +“Three oilers and a fourth engineer,” was his greeting. “But we’ll make +sailors out of them, or boat-pullers at any rate. Now, what of the +lady?” + +I know not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang like the cut of a +knife when he mentioned her. I thought it a certain silly fastidiousness +on my part, but it persisted in spite of me, and I merely shrugged my +shoulders in answer. + +Wolf Larsen pursed his lips in a long, quizzical whistle. + +“What’s her name, then?” he demanded. + +“I don’t know,” I replied. “She is asleep. She was very tired. In +fact, I am waiting to hear the news from you. What vessel was it?” + +“Mail steamer,” he answered shortly. “_The City of Tokio_, from ’Frisco, +bound for Yokohama. Disabled in that typhoon. Old tub. Opened up top +and bottom like a sieve. They were adrift four days. And you don’t know +who or what she is, eh?—maid, wife, or widow? Well, well.” + +He shook his head in a bantering way, and regarded me with laughing eyes. + +“Are you—” I began. It was on the verge of my tongue to ask if he were +going to take the castaways into Yokohama. + +“Am I what?” he asked. + +“What do you intend doing with Leach and Johnson?” + +He shook his head. “Really, Hump, I don’t know. You see, with these +additions I’ve about all the crew I want.” + +“And they’ve about all the escaping they want,” I said. “Why not give +them a change of treatment? Take them aboard, and deal gently with them. +Whatever they have done they have been hounded into doing.” + +“By me?” + +“By you,” I answered steadily. “And I give you warning, Wolf Larsen, +that I may forget love of my own life in the desire to kill you if you go +too far in maltreating those poor wretches.” + +“Bravo!” he cried. “You do me proud, Hump! You’ve found your legs with +a vengeance. You’re quite an individual. You were unfortunate in having +your life cast in easy places, but you’re developing, and I like you the +better for it.” + +His voice and expression changed. His face was serious. “Do you believe +in promises?” he asked. “Are they sacred things?” + +“Of course,” I answered. + +“Then here’s a compact,” he went on, consummate actor. “If I promise not +to lay my hands upon Leach will you promise, in turn, not to attempt to +kill me?” + +“Oh, not that I’m afraid of you, not that I’m afraid of you,” he hastened +to add. + +I could hardly believe my ears. What was coming over the man? + +“Is it a go?” he asked impatiently. + +“A go,” I answered. + +His hand went out to mine, and as I shook it heartily I could have sworn +I saw the mocking devil shine up for a moment in his eyes. + +We strolled across the poop to the lee side. The boat was close at hand +now, and in desperate plight. Johnson was steering, Leach bailing. We +overhauled them about two feet to their one. Wolf Larsen motioned Louis +to keep off slightly, and we dashed abreast of the boat, not a score of +feet to windward. The _Ghost_ blanketed it. The spritsail flapped +emptily and the boat righted to an even keel, causing the two men swiftly +to change position. The boat lost headway, and, as we lifted on a huge +surge, toppled and fell into the trough. + +It was at this moment that Leach and Johnson looked up into the faces of +their shipmates, who lined the rail amidships. There was no greeting. +They were as dead men in their comrades’ eyes, and between them was the +gulf that parts the living and the dead. + +The next instant they were opposite the poop, where stood Wolf Larsen and +I. We were falling in the trough, they were rising on the surge. +Johnson looked at me, and I could see that his face was worn and haggard. +I waved my hand to him, and he answered the greeting, but with a wave +that was hopeless and despairing. It was as if he were saying farewell. +I did not see into the eyes of Leach, for he was looking at Wolf Larsen, +the old and implacable snarl of hatred strong as ever on his face. + +Then they were gone astern. The spritsail filled with the wind, +suddenly, careening the frail open craft till it seemed it would surely +capsize. A whitecap foamed above it and broke across in a snow-white +smother. Then the boat emerged, half swamped, Leach flinging the water +out and Johnson clinging to the steering-oar, his face white and anxious. + +Wolf Larsen barked a short laugh in my ear and strode away to the weather +side of the poop. I expected him to give orders for the _Ghost_ to heave +to, but she kept on her course and he made no sign. Louis stood +imperturbably at the wheel, but I noticed the grouped sailors forward +turning troubled faces in our direction. Still the _Ghost_ tore along, +till the boat dwindled to a speck, when Wolf Larsen’s voice rang out in +command and he went about on the starboard tack. + +Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling +cockle-shell, when the flying jib was run down and the schooner hove to. +The sealing boats are not made for windward work. Their hope lies in +keeping a weather position so that they may run before the wind for the +schooner when it breezes up. But in all that wild waste there was no +refuge for Leach and Johnson save on the _Ghost_, and they resolutely +began the windward beat. It was slow work in the heavy sea that was +running. At any moment they were liable to be overwhelmed by the hissing +combers. Time and again and countless times we watched the boat luff +into the big whitecaps, lose headway, and be flung back like a cork. + +Johnson was a splendid seaman, and he knew as much about small boats as +he did about ships. At the end of an hour and a half he was nearly +alongside, standing past our stern on the last leg out, aiming to fetch +us on the next leg back. + +“So you’ve changed your mind?” I heard Wolf Larsen mutter, half to +himself, half to them as though they could hear. “You want to come +aboard, eh? Well, then, just keep a-coming.” + +“Hard up with that helm!” he commanded Oofty-Oofty, the Kanaka, who had +in the meantime relieved Louis at the wheel. + +Command followed command. As the schooner paid off, the fore- and +main-sheets were slacked away for fair wind. And before the wind we +were, and leaping, when Johnson, easing his sheet at imminent peril, cut +across our wake a hundred feet away. Again Wolf Larsen laughed, at the +same time beckoning them with his arm to follow. It was evidently his +intention to play with them,—a lesson, I took it, in lieu of a beating, +though a dangerous lesson, for the frail craft stood in momentary danger +of being overwhelmed. + +Johnson squared away promptly and ran after us. There was nothing else +for him to do. Death stalked everywhere, and it was only a matter of +time when some one of those many huge seas would fall upon the boat, roll +over it, and pass on. + +“’Tis the fear iv death at the hearts iv them,” Louis muttered in my ear, +as I passed forward to see to taking in the flying jib and staysail. + +“Oh, he’ll heave to in a little while and pick them up,” I answered +cheerfully. “He’s bent upon giving them a lesson, that’s all.” + +Louis looked at me shrewdly. “Think so?” he asked. + +“Surely,” I answered. “Don’t you?” + +“I think nothing but iv my own skin, these days,” was his answer. “An’ +’tis with wonder I’m filled as to the workin’ out iv things. A pretty +mess that ’Frisco whisky got me into, an’ a prettier mess that woman’s +got you into aft there. Ah, it’s myself that knows ye for a blitherin’ +fool.” + +“What do you mean?” I demanded; for, having sped his shaft, he was +turning away. + +“What do I mean?” he cried. “And it’s you that asks me! ’Tis not what I +mean, but what the Wolf ’ll mean. The Wolf, I said, the Wolf!” + +“If trouble comes, will you stand by?” I asked impulsively, for he had +voiced my own fear. + +“Stand by? ’Tis old fat Louis I stand by, an’ trouble enough it’ll be. +We’re at the beginnin’ iv things, I’m tellin’ ye, the bare beginnin’ iv +things.” + +“I had not thought you so great a coward,” I sneered. + +He favoured me with a contemptuous stare. “If I raised never a hand for +that poor fool,”—pointing astern to the tiny sail,—“d’ye think I’m +hungerin’ for a broken head for a woman I never laid me eyes upon before +this day?” + +I turned scornfully away and went aft. + +“Better get in those topsails, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen said, as I +came on the poop. + +I felt relief, at least as far as the two men were concerned. It was +clear he did not wish to run too far away from them. I picked up hope at +the thought and put the order swiftly into execution. I had scarcely +opened my mouth to issue the necessary commands, when eager men were +springing to halyards and downhauls, and others were racing aloft. This +eagerness on their part was noted by Wolf Larsen with a grim smile. + +Still we increased our lead, and when the boat had dropped astern several +miles we hove to and waited. All eyes watched it coming, even Wolf +Larsen’s; but he was the only unperturbed man aboard. Louis, gazing +fixedly, betrayed a trouble in his face he was not quite able to hide. + +The boat drew closer and closer, hurling along through the seething green +like a thing alive, lifting and sending and uptossing across the +huge-backed breakers, or disappearing behind them only to rush into sight +again and shoot skyward. It seemed impossible that it could continue to +live, yet with each dizzying sweep it did achieve the impossible. A +rain-squall drove past, and out of the flying wet the boat emerged, +almost upon us. + +“Hard up, there!” Wolf Larsen shouted, himself springing to the wheel and +whirling it over. + +Again the _Ghost_ sprang away and raced before the wind, and for two +hours Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran away, hove to and +ran away, and ever astern the struggling patch of sail tossed skyward and +fell into the rushing valleys. It was a quarter of a mile away when a +thick squall of rain veiled it from view. It never emerged. The wind +blew the air clear again, but no patch of sail broke the troubled +surface. I thought I saw, for an instant, the boat’s bottom show black +in a breaking crest. At the best, that was all. For Johnson and Leach +the travail of existence had ceased. + +The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below, and no one +was speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. Each man seemed +stunned—deeply contemplative, as it were, and, not quite sure, trying to +realize just what had taken place. Wolf Larsen gave them little time for +thought. He at once put the _Ghost_ upon her course—a course which meant +the seal herd and not Yokohama harbour. But the men were no longer eager +as they pulled and hauled, and I heard curses amongst them, which left +their lips smothered and as heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was +it with the hunters. Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and they +descended into the steerage, bellowing with laughter. + +As I passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft I was approached by +the engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were +trembling. + +“Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?” he cried. + +“You have eyes, you have seen,” I answered, almost brutally, what of the +pain and fear at my own heart. + +“Your promise?” I said to Wolf Larsen. + +“I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that promise,” he +answered. “And anyway, you’ll agree I’ve not laid my hands upon them.” + +“Far from it, far from it,” he laughed a moment later. + +I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too confused. +I must have time to think, I knew. This woman, sleeping even now in the +spare cabin, was a responsibility, which I must consider, and the only +rational thought that flickered through my mind was that I must do +nothing hastily if I were to be any help to her at all. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. The young slip of a gale, +having wetted our gills, proceeded to moderate. The fourth engineer and +the three oilers, after a warm interview with Wolf Larsen, were furnished +with outfits from the slop-chests, assigned places under the hunters in +the various boats and watches on the vessel, and bundled forward into the +forecastle. They went protestingly, but their voices were not loud. +They were awed by what they had already seen of Wolf Larsen’s character, +while the tale of woe they speedily heard in the forecastle took the last +bit of rebellion out of them. + +Miss Brewster—we had learned her name from the engineer—slept on and on. +At supper I requested the hunters to lower their voices, so she was not +disturbed; and it was not till next morning that she made her appearance. +It had been my intention to have her meals served apart, but Wolf Larsen +put down his foot. Who was she that she should be too good for cabin +table and cabin society? had been his demand. + +But her coming to the table had something amusing in it. The hunters +fell silent as clams. Jock Horner and Smoke alone were unabashed, +stealing stealthy glances at her now and again, and even taking part in +the conversation. The other four men glued their eyes on their plates +and chewed steadily and with thoughtful precision, their ears moving and +wobbling, in time with their jaws, like the ears of so many animals. + +Wolf Larsen had little to say at first, doing no more than reply when he +was addressed. Not that he was abashed. Far from it. This woman was a +new type to him, a different breed from any he had ever known, and he was +curious. He studied her, his eyes rarely leaving her face unless to +follow the movements of her hands or shoulders. I studied her myself, +and though it was I who maintained the conversation, I know that I was a +bit shy, not quite self-possessed. His was the perfect poise, the +supreme confidence in self, which nothing could shake; and he was no more +timid of a woman than he was of storm and battle. + +“And when shall we arrive at Yokohama?” she asked, turning to him and +looking him squarely in the eyes. + +There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, the ears +ceased wobbling, and though eyes remained glued on plates, each man +listened greedily for the answer. + +“In four months, possibly three if the season closes early,” Wolf Larsen +said. + +She caught her breath and stammered, “I—I thought—I was given to +understand that Yokohama was only a day’s sail away. It—” Here she +paused and looked about the table at the circle of unsympathetic faces +staring hard at the plates. “It is not right,” she concluded. + +“That is a question you must settle with Mr. Van Weyden there,” he +replied, nodding to me with a mischievous twinkle. “Mr. Van Weyden is +what you may call an authority on such things as rights. Now I, who am +only a sailor, would look upon the situation somewhat differently. It +may possibly be your misfortune that you have to remain with us, but it +is certainly our good fortune.” + +He regarded her smilingly. Her eyes fell before his gaze, but she lifted +them again, and defiantly, to mine. I read the unspoken question there: +was it right? But I had decided that the part I was to play must be a +neutral one, so I did not answer. + +“What do you think?” she demanded. + +“That it is unfortunate, especially if you have any engagements falling +due in the course of the next several months. But, since you say that +you were voyaging to Japan for your health, I can assure you that it will +improve no better anywhere than aboard the _Ghost_.” + +I saw her eyes flash with indignation, and this time it was I who dropped +mine, while I felt my face flushing under her gaze. It was cowardly, but +what else could I do? + +“Mr. Van Weyden speaks with the voice of authority,” Wolf Larsen laughed. + +I nodded my head, and she, having recovered herself, waited expectantly. + +“Not that he is much to speak of now,” Wolf Larsen went on, “but he has +improved wonderfully. You should have seen him when he came on board. A +more scrawny, pitiful specimen of humanity one could hardly conceive. +Isn’t that so, Kerfoot?” + +Kerfoot, thus directly addressed, was startled into dropping his knife on +the floor, though he managed to grunt affirmation. + +“Developed himself by peeling potatoes and washing dishes. Eh, Kerfoot?” + +Again that worthy grunted. + +“Look at him now. True, he is not what you would term muscular, but +still he has muscles, which is more than he had when he came aboard. +Also, he has legs to stand on. You would not think so to look at him, +but he was quite unable to stand alone at first.” + +The hunters were snickering, but she looked at me with a sympathy in her +eyes which more than compensated for Wolf Larsen’s nastiness. In truth, +it had been so long since I had received sympathy that I was softened, +and I became then, and gladly, her willing slave. But I was angry with +Wolf Larsen. He was challenging my manhood with his slurs, challenging +the very legs he claimed to be instrumental in getting for me. + +“I may have learned to stand on my own legs,” I retorted. “But I have +yet to stamp upon others with them.” + +He looked at me insolently. “Your education is only half completed, +then,” he said dryly, and turned to her. + +“We are very hospitable upon the _Ghost_. Mr. Van Weyden has discovered +that. We do everything to make our guests feel at home, eh, Mr. Van +Weyden?” + +“Even to the peeling of potatoes and the washing of dishes,” I answered, +“to say nothing to wringing their necks out of very fellowship.” + +“I beg of you not to receive false impressions of us from Mr. Van +Weyden,” he interposed with mock anxiety. “You will observe, Miss +Brewster, that he carries a dirk in his belt, a—ahem—a most unusual thing +for a ship’s officer to do. While really very estimable, Mr. Van Weyden +is sometimes—how shall I say?—er—quarrelsome, and harsh measures are +necessary. He is quite reasonable and fair in his calm moments, and as +he is calm now he will not deny that only yesterday he threatened my +life.” + +I was well-nigh choking, and my eyes were certainly fiery. He drew +attention to me. + +“Look at him now. He can scarcely control himself in your presence. He +is not accustomed to the presence of ladies anyway. I shall have to arm +myself before I dare go on deck with him.” + +He shook his head sadly, murmuring, “Too bad, too bad,” while the hunters +burst into guffaws of laughter. + +The deep-sea voices of these men, rumbling and bellowing in the confined +space, produced a wild effect. The whole setting was wild, and for the +first time, regarding this strange woman and realizing how incongruous +she was in it, I was aware of how much a part of it I was myself. I knew +these men and their mental processes, was one of them myself, living the +seal-hunting life, eating the seal-hunting fare, thinking, largely, the +seal-hunting thoughts. There was for me no strangeness to it, to the +rough clothes, the coarse faces, the wild laughter, and the lurching +cabin walls and swaying sea-lamps. + +As I buttered a piece of bread my eyes chanced to rest upon my hand. The +knuckles were skinned and inflamed clear across, the fingers swollen, the +nails rimmed with black. I felt the mattress-like growth of beard on my +neck, knew that the sleeve of my coat was ripped, that a button was +missing from the throat of the blue shirt I wore. The dirk mentioned by +Wolf Larsen rested in its sheath on my hip. It was very natural that it +should be there,—how natural I had not imagined until now, when I looked +upon it with her eyes and knew how strange it and all that went with it +must appear to her. + +But she divined the mockery in Wolf Larsen’s words, and again favoured me +with a sympathetic glance. But there was a look of bewilderment also in +her eyes. That it was mockery made the situation more puzzling to her. + +“I may be taken off by some passing vessel, perhaps,” she suggested. + +“There will be no passing vessels, except other sealing-schooners,” Wolf +Larsen made answer. + +“I have no clothes, nothing,” she objected. “You hardly realize, sir, +that I am not a man, or that I am unaccustomed to the vagrant, careless +life which you and your men seem to lead.” + +“The sooner you get accustomed to it, the better,” he said. + +“I’ll furnish you with cloth, needles, and thread,” he added. “I hope it +will not be too dreadful a hardship for you to make yourself a dress or +two.” + +She made a wry pucker with her mouth, as though to advertise her +ignorance of dressmaking. That she was frightened and bewildered, and +that she was bravely striving to hide it, was quite plain to me. + +“I suppose you’re like Mr. Van Weyden there, accustomed to having things +done for you. Well, I think doing a few things for yourself will hardly +dislocate any joints. By the way, what do you do for a living?” + +She regarded him with amazement unconcealed. + +“I mean no offence, believe me. People eat, therefore they must procure +the wherewithal. These men here shoot seals in order to live; for the +same reason I sail this schooner; and Mr. Van Weyden, for the present at +any rate, earns his salty grub by assisting me. Now what do you do?” + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +“Do you feed yourself? Or does some one else feed you?” + +“I’m afraid some one else has fed me most of my life,” she laughed, +trying bravely to enter into the spirit of his quizzing, though I could +see a terror dawning and growing in her eyes as she watched Wolf Larsen. + +“And I suppose some one else makes your bed for you?” + +“I _have_ made beds,” she replied. + +“Very often?” + +She shook her head with mock ruefulness. + +“Do you know what they do to poor men in the States, who, like you, do +not work for their living?” + +“I am very ignorant,” she pleaded. “What do they do to the poor men who +are like me?” + +“They send them to jail. The crime of not earning a living, in their +case, is called vagrancy. If I were Mr. Van Weyden, who harps eternally +on questions of right and wrong, I’d ask, by what right do you live when +you do nothing to deserve living?” + +“But as you are not Mr. Van Weyden, I don’t have to answer, do I?” + +She beamed upon him through her terror-filled eyes, and the pathos of it +cut me to the heart. I must in some way break in and lead the +conversation into other channels. + +“Have you ever earned a dollar by your own labour?” he demanded, certain +of her answer, a triumphant vindictiveness in his voice. + +“Yes, I have,” she answered slowly, and I could have laughed aloud at his +crestfallen visage. “I remember my father giving me a dollar once, when +I was a little girl, for remaining absolutely quiet for five minutes.” + +He smiled indulgently. + +“But that was long ago,” she continued. “And you would scarcely demand a +little girl of nine to earn her own living.” + +“At present, however,” she said, after another slight pause, “I earn +about eighteen hundred dollars a year.” + +With one accord, all eyes left the plates and settled on her. A woman +who earned eighteen hundred dollars a year was worth looking at. Wolf +Larsen was undisguised in his admiration. + +“Salary, or piece-work?” he asked. + +“Piece-work,” she answered promptly. + +“Eighteen hundred,” he calculated. “That’s a hundred and fifty dollars a +month. Well, Miss Brewster, there is nothing small about the _Ghost_. +Consider yourself on salary during the time you remain with us.” + +She made no acknowledgment. She was too unused as yet to the whims of +the man to accept them with equanimity. + +“I forgot to inquire,” he went on suavely, “as to the nature of your +occupation. What commodities do you turn out? What tools and materials +do you require?” + +“Paper and ink,” she laughed. “And, oh! also a typewriter.” + +“You are Maud Brewster,” I said slowly and with certainty, almost as +though I were charging her with a crime. + +Her eyes lifted curiously to mine. “How do you know?” + +“Aren’t you?” I demanded. + +She acknowledged her identity with a nod. It was Wolf Larsen’s turn to +be puzzled. The name and its magic signified nothing to him. I was +proud that it did mean something to me, and for the first time in a weary +while I was convincingly conscious of a superiority over him. + +“I remember writing a review of a thin little volume—” I had begun +carelessly, when she interrupted me. + +“You!” she cried. “You are—” + +She was now staring at me in wide-eyed wonder. + +I nodded my identity, in turn. + +“Humphrey Van Weyden,” she concluded; then added with a sigh of relief, +and unaware that she had glanced that relief at Wolf Larsen, “I am so +glad.” + +“I remember the review,” she went on hastily, becoming aware of the +awkwardness of her remark; “that too, too flattering review.” + +“Not at all,” I denied valiantly. “You impeach my sober judgment and +make my canons of little worth. Besides, all my brother critics were +with me. Didn’t Lang include your ‘Kiss Endured’ among the four supreme +sonnets by women in the English language?” + +“But you called me the American Mrs. Meynell!” + +“Was it not true?” I demanded. + +“No, not that,” she answered. “I was hurt.” + +“We can measure the unknown only by the known,” I replied, in my finest +academic manner. “As a critic I was compelled to place you. You have +now become a yardstick yourself. Seven of your thin little volumes are +on my shelves; and there are two thicker volumes, the essays, which, you +will pardon my saying, and I know not which is flattered more, fully +equal your verse. The time is not far distant when some unknown will +arise in England and the critics will name her the English Maud +Brewster.” + +“You are very kind, I am sure,” she murmured; and the very +conventionality of her tones and words, with the host of associations it +aroused of the old life on the other side of the world, gave me a quick +thrill—rich with remembrance but stinging sharp with home-sickness. + +“And you are Maud Brewster,” I said solemnly, gazing across at her. + +“And you are Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, gazing back at me with equal +solemnity and awe. “How unusual! I don’t understand. We surely are not +to expect some wildly romantic sea-story from your sober pen.” + +“No, I am not gathering material, I assure you,” was my answer. “I have +neither aptitude nor inclination for fiction.” + +“Tell me, why have you always buried yourself in California?” she next +asked. “It has not been kind of you. We of the East have seen so very +little of you—too little, indeed, of the Dean of American Letters, the +Second.” + +I bowed to, and disclaimed, the compliment. “I nearly met you, once, in +Philadelphia, some Browning affair or other—you were to lecture, you +know. My train was four hours late.” + +And then we quite forgot where we were, leaving Wolf Larsen stranded and +silent in the midst of our flood of gossip. The hunters left the table +and went on deck, and still we talked. Wolf Larsen alone remained. +Suddenly I became aware of him, leaning back from the table and listening +curiously to our alien speech of a world he did not know. + +I broke short off in the middle of a sentence. The present, with all its +perils and anxieties, rushed upon me with stunning force. It smote Miss +Brewster likewise, a vague and nameless terror rushing into her eyes as +she regarded Wolf Larsen. + +He rose to his feet and laughed awkwardly. The sound of it was metallic. + +“Oh, don’t mind me,” he said, with a self-depreciatory wave of his hand. +“I don’t count. Go on, go on, I pray you.” + +But the gates of speech were closed, and we, too, rose from the table and +laughed awkwardly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster and me +in the conversation at table had to express itself in some fashion, and +it fell to Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had not mended his ways +nor his shirt, though the latter he contended he had changed. The +garment itself did not bear out the assertion, nor did the accumulations +of grease on stove and pot and pan attest a general cleanliness. + +“I’ve given you warning, Cooky,” Wolf Larsen said, “and now you’ve got to +take your medicine.” + +Mugridge’s face turned white under its sooty veneer, and when Wolf Larsen +called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable Cockney fled wildly +out of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck with the grinning +crew in pursuit. Few things could have been more to their liking than to +give him a tow over the side, for to the forecastle he had sent messes +and concoctions of the vilest order. Conditions favoured the +undertaking. The _Ghost_ was slipping through the water at no more than +three miles an hour, and the sea was fairly calm. But Mugridge had +little stomach for a dip in it. Possibly he had seen men towed before. +Besides, the water was frightfully cold, and his was anything but a +rugged constitution. + +As usual, the watches below and the hunters turned out for what promised +sport. Mugridge seemed to be in rabid fear of the water, and he +exhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he possessed. Cornered +in the right-angle of the poop and galley, he sprang like a cat to the +top of the cabin and ran aft. But his pursuers forestalling him, he +doubled back across the cabin, passed over the galley, and gained the +deck by means of the steerage-scuttle. Straight forward he raced, the +boat-puller Harrison at his heels and gaining on him. But Mugridge, +leaping suddenly, caught the jib-boom-lift. It happened in an instant. +Holding his weight by his arms, and in mid-air doubling his body at the +hips, he let fly with both feet. The oncoming Harrison caught the kick +squarely in the pit of the stomach, groaned involuntarily, and doubled up +and sank backward to the deck. + +Hand-clapping and roars of laughter from the hunters greeted the exploit, +while Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the foremast, ran aft and +through the remainder like a runner on the football field. Straight aft +he held, to the poop and along the poop to the stern. So great was his +speed that as he curved past the corner of the cabin he slipped and fell. +Nilson was standing at the wheel, and the Cockney’s hurtling body struck +his legs. Both went down together, but Mugridge alone arose. By some +freak of pressures, his frail body had snapped the strong man’s leg like +a pipe-stem. + +Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round the +decks they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing and +shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing +encouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch under +three men; but he emerged from the mass like an eel, bleeding at the +mouth, the offending shirt ripped into tatters, and sprang for the +main-rigging. Up he went, clear up, beyond the ratlines, to the very +masthead. + +Half-a-dozen sailors swarmed to the crosstrees after him, where they +clustered and waited while two of their number, Oofty-Oofty and Black +(who was Latimer’s boat-steerer), continued up the thin steel stays, +lifting their bodies higher and higher by means of their arms. + +It was a perilous undertaking, for, at a height of over a hundred feet +from the deck, holding on by their hands, they were not in the best of +positions to protect themselves from Mugridge’s feet. And Mugridge +kicked savagely, till the Kanaka, hanging on with one hand, seized the +Cockney’s foot with the other. Black duplicated the performance a moment +later with the other foot. Then the three writhed together in a swaying +tangle, struggling, sliding, and falling into the arms of their mates on +the crosstrees. + +The aërial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and gibbering, +his mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to deck. Wolf +Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under his +shoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the sea. +Forty,—fifty,—sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsen cried “Belay!” +Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, the rope tautened, and the _Ghost_, +lunging onward, jerked the cook to the surface. + +It was a pitiful spectacle. Though he could not drown, and was +nine-lived in addition, he was suffering all the agonies of +half-drowning. The _Ghost_ was going very slowly, and when her stern +lifted on a wave and she slipped forward she pulled the wretch to the +surface and gave him a moment in which to breathe; but between each lift +the stern fell, and while the bow lazily climbed the next wave the line +slacked and he sank beneath. + +I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered her with +a start as she stepped lightly beside me. It was her first time on deck +since she had come aboard. A dead silence greeted her appearance. + +“What is the cause of the merriment?” she asked. + +“Ask Captain Larsen,” I answered composedly and coldly, though inwardly +my blood was boiling at the thought that she should be witness to such +brutality. + +She took my advice and was turning to put it into execution, when her +eyes lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body instinct +with alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope. + +“Are you fishing?” she asked him. + +He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern, suddenly +flashed. + +“Shark ho, sir!” he cried. + +“Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!” Wolf Larsen shouted, springing +himself to the rope in advance of the quickest. + +Mugridge had heard the Kanaka’s warning cry and was screaming madly. I +could see a black fin cutting the water and making for him with greater +swiftness than he was being pulled aboard. It was an even toss whether +the shark or we would get him, and it was a matter of moments. When +Mugridge was directly beneath us, the stern descended the slope of a +passing wave, thus giving the advantage to the shark. The fin +disappeared. The belly flashed white in swift upward rush. Almost +equally swift, but not quite, was Wolf Larsen. He threw his strength +into one tremendous jerk. The Cockney’s body left the water; so did part +of the shark’s. He drew up his legs, and the man-eater seemed no more +than barely to touch one foot, sinking back into the water with a splash. +But at the moment of contact Thomas Mugridge cried out. Then he came in +like a fresh-caught fish on a line, clearing the rail generously and +striking the deck in a heap, on hands and knees, and rolling over. + +But a fountain of blood was gushing forth. The right foot was missing, +amputated neatly at the ankle. I looked instantly to Maud Brewster. Her +face was white, her eyes dilated with horror. She was gazing, not at +Thomas Mugridge, but at Wolf Larsen. And he was aware of it, for he +said, with one of his short laughs: + +“Man-play, Miss Brewster. Somewhat rougher, I warrant, than what you +have been used to, but still-man-play. The shark was not in the +reckoning. It—” + +But at this juncture, Mugridge, who had lifted his head and ascertained +the extent of his loss, floundered over on the deck and buried his teeth +in Wolf Larsen’s leg. Wolf Larsen stooped, coolly, to the Cockney, and +pressed with thumb and finger at the rear of the jaws and below the ears. +The jaws opened with reluctance, and Wolf Larsen stepped free. + +“As I was saying,” he went on, as though nothing unwonted had happened, +“the shark was not in the reckoning. It was—ahem—shall we say +Providence?” + +She gave no sign that she had heard, though the expression of her eyes +changed to one of inexpressible loathing as she started to turn away. +She no more than started, for she swayed and tottered, and reached her +hand weakly out to mine. I caught her in time to save her from falling, +and helped her to a seat on the cabin. I thought she might faint +outright, but she controlled herself. + +“Will you get a tourniquet, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen called to me. + +I hesitated. Her lips moved, and though they formed no words, she +commanded me with her eyes, plainly as speech, to go to the help of the +unfortunate man. “Please,” she managed to whisper, and I could but obey. + +By now I had developed such skill at surgery that Wolf Larsen, with a few +words of advice, left me to my task with a couple of sailors for +assistants. For his task he elected a vengeance on the shark. A heavy +swivel-hook, baited with fat salt-pork, was dropped overside; and by the +time I had compressed the severed veins and arteries, the sailors were +singing and heaving in the offending monster. I did not see it myself, +but my assistants, first one and then the other, deserted me for a few +moments to run amidships and look at what was going on. The shark, a +sixteen-footer, was hoisted up against the main-rigging. Its jaws were +pried apart to their greatest extension, and a stout stake, sharpened at +both ends, was so inserted that when the pries were removed the spread +jaws were fixed upon it. This accomplished, the hook was cut out. The +shark dropped back into the sea, helpless, yet with its full strength, +doomed—to lingering starvation—a living death less meet for it than for +the man who devised the punishment. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +I knew what it was as she came toward me. For ten minutes I had watched +her talking earnestly with the engineer, and now, with a sign for +silence, I drew her out of earshot of the helmsman. Her face was white +and set; her large eyes, larger than usual what of the purpose in them, +looked penetratingly into mine. I felt rather timid and apprehensive, +for she had come to search Humphrey Van Weyden’s soul, and Humphrey Van +Weyden had nothing of which to be particularly proud since his advent on +the _Ghost_. + +We walked to the break of the poop, where she turned and faced me. I +glanced around to see that no one was within hearing distance. + +“What is it?” I asked gently; but the expression of determination on her +face did not relax. + +“I can readily understand,” she began, “that this morning’s affair was +largely an accident; but I have been talking with Mr. Haskins. He tells +me that the day we were rescued, even while I was in the cabin, two men +were drowned, deliberately drowned—murdered.” + +There was a query in her voice, and she faced me accusingly, as though I +were guilty of the deed, or at least a party to it. + +“The information is quite correct,” I answered. “The two men were +murdered.” + +“And you permitted it!” she cried. + +“I was unable to prevent it, is a better way of phrasing it,” I replied, +still gently. + +“But you tried to prevent it?” There was an emphasis on the “tried,” and +a pleading little note in her voice. + +“Oh, but you didn’t,” she hurried on, divining my answer. “But why +didn’t you?” + +I shrugged my shoulders. “You must remember, Miss Brewster, that you are +a new inhabitant of this little world, and that you do not yet understand +the laws which operate within it. You bring with you certain fine +conceptions of humanity, manhood, conduct, and such things; but here you +will find them misconceptions. I have found it so,” I added, with an +involuntary sigh. + +She shook her head incredulously. + +“What would you advise, then?” I asked. “That I should take a knife, or +a gun, or an axe, and kill this man?” + +She half started back. + +“No, not that!” + +“Then what should I do? Kill myself?” + +“You speak in purely materialistic terms,” she objected. “There is such +a thing as moral courage, and moral courage is never without effect.” + +“Ah,” I smiled, “you advise me to kill neither him nor myself, but to let +him kill me.” I held up my hand as she was about to speak. “For moral +courage is a worthless asset on this little floating world. Leach, one +of the men who were murdered, had moral courage to an unusual degree. So +had the other man, Johnson. Not only did it not stand them in good +stead, but it destroyed them. And so with me if I should exercise what +little moral courage I may possess. + +“You must understand, Miss Brewster, and understand clearly, that this +man is a monster. He is without conscience. Nothing is sacred to him, +nothing is too terrible for him to do. It was due to his whim that I was +detained aboard in the first place. It is due to his whim that I am +still alive. I do nothing, can do nothing, because I am a slave to this +monster, as you are now a slave to him; because I desire to live, as you +will desire to live; because I cannot fight and overcome him, just as you +will not be able to fight and overcome him.” + +She waited for me to go on. + +“What remains? Mine is the role of the weak. I remain silent and suffer +ignominy, as you will remain silent and suffer ignominy. And it is well. +It is the best we can do if we wish to live. The battle is not always to +the strong. We have not the strength with which to fight this man; we +must dissimulate, and win, if win we can, by craft. If you will be +advised by me, this is what you will do. I know my position is perilous, +and I may say frankly that yours is even more perilous. We must stand +together, without appearing to do so, in secret alliance. I shall not be +able to side with you openly, and, no matter what indignities may be put +upon me, you are to remain likewise silent. We must provoke no scenes +with this man, nor cross his will. And we must keep smiling faces and be +friendly with him no matter how repulsive it may be.” + +She brushed her hand across her forehead in a puzzled way, saying, “Still +I do not understand.” + +“You must do as I say,” I interrupted authoritatively, for I saw Wolf +Larsen’s gaze wandering toward us from where he paced up and down with +Latimer amidships. “Do as I say, and ere long you will find I am right.” + +“What shall I do, then?” she asked, detecting the anxious glance I had +shot at the object of our conversation, and impressed, I flatter myself, +with the earnestness of my manner. + +“Dispense with all the moral courage you can,” I said briskly. “Don’t +arouse this man’s animosity. Be quite friendly with him, talk with him, +discuss literature and art with him—he is fond of such things. You will +find him an interested listener and no fool. And for your own sake try +to avoid witnessing, as much as you can, the brutalities of the ship. It +will make it easier for you to act your part.” + +“I am to lie,” she said in steady, rebellious tones, “by speech and +action to lie.” + +Wolf Larsen had separated from Latimer and was coming toward us. I was +desperate. + +“Please, please understand me,” I said hurriedly, lowering my voice. +“All your experience of men and things is worthless here. You must begin +over again. I know,—I can see it—you have, among other ways, been used +to managing people with your eyes, letting your moral courage speak out +through them, as it were. You have already managed me with your eyes, +commanded me with them. But don’t try it on Wolf Larsen. You could as +easily control a lion, while he would make a mock of you. He would—I +have always been proud of the fact that I discovered him,” I said, +turning the conversation as Wolf Larsen stepped on the poop and joined +us. “The editors were afraid of him and the publishers would have none +of him. But I knew, and his genius and my judgment were vindicated when +he made that magnificent hit with his ‘Forge.’” + +“And it was a newspaper poem,” she said glibly. + +“It did happen to see the light in a newspaper,” I replied, “but not +because the magazine editors had been denied a glimpse at it.” + +“We were talking of Harris,” I said to Wolf Larsen. + +“Oh, yes,” he acknowledged. “I remember the ‘Forge.’ Filled with pretty +sentiments and an almighty faith in human illusions. By the way, Mr. Van +Weyden, you’d better look in on Cooky. He’s complaining and restless.” + +Thus was I bluntly dismissed from the poop, only to find Mugridge +sleeping soundly from the morphine I had given him. I made no haste to +return on deck, and when I did I was gratified to see Miss Brewster in +animated conversation with Wolf Larsen. As I say, the sight gratified +me. She was following my advice. And yet I was conscious of a slight +shock or hurt in that she was able to do the thing I had begged her to do +and which she had notably disliked. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Brave winds, blowing fair, swiftly drove the _Ghost_ northward into the +seal herd. We encountered it well up to the forty-fourth parallel, in a +raw and stormy sea across which the wind harried the fog-banks in eternal +flight. For days at a time we could never see the sun nor take an +observation; then the wind would sweep the face of the ocean clean, the +waves would ripple and flash, and we would learn where we were. A day of +clear weather might follow, or three days or four, and then the fog would +settle down upon us, seemingly thicker than ever. + +The hunting was perilous; yet the boats, lowered day after day, were +swallowed up in the grey obscurity, and were seen no more till nightfall, +and often not till long after, when they would creep in like sea-wraiths, +one by one, out of the grey. Wainwright—the hunter whom Wolf Larsen had +stolen with boat and men—took advantage of the veiled sea and escaped. +He disappeared one morning in the encircling fog with his two men, and we +never saw them again, though it was not many days when we learned that +they had passed from schooner to schooner until they finally regained +their own. + +This was the thing I had set my mind upon doing, but the opportunity +never offered. It was not in the mate’s province to go out in the boats, +and though I manœuvred cunningly for it, Wolf Larsen never granted me the +privilege. Had he done so, I should have managed somehow to carry Miss +Brewster away with me. As it was, the situation was approaching a stage +which I was afraid to consider. I involuntarily shunned the thought of +it, and yet the thought continually arose in my mind like a haunting +spectre. + +I had read sea-romances in my time, wherein figured, as a matter of +course, the lone woman in the midst of a shipload of men; but I learned, +now, that I had never comprehended the deeper significance of such a +situation—the thing the writers harped upon and exploited so thoroughly. +And here it was, now, and I was face to face with it. That it should be +as vital as possible, it required no more than that the woman should be +Maud Brewster, who now charmed me in person as she had long charmed me +through her work. + +No one more out of environment could be imagined. She was a delicate, +ethereal creature, swaying and willowy, light and graceful of movement. +It never seemed to me that she walked, or, at least, walked after the +ordinary manner of mortals. Hers was an extreme lithesomeness, and she +moved with a certain indefinable airiness, approaching one as down might +float or as a bird on noiseless wings. + +She was like a bit of Dresden china, and I was continually impressed with +what I may call her fragility. As at the time I caught her arm when +helping her below, so at any time I was quite prepared, should stress or +rough handling befall her, to see her crumble away. I have never seen +body and spirit in such perfect accord. Describe her verse, as the +critics have described it, as sublimated and spiritual, and you have +described her body. It seemed to partake of her soul, to have analogous +attributes, and to link it to life with the slenderest of chains. +Indeed, she trod the earth lightly, and in her constitution there was +little of the robust clay. + +She was in striking contrast to Wolf Larsen. Each was nothing that the +other was, everything that the other was not. I noted them walking the +deck together one morning, and I likened them to the extreme ends of the +human ladder of evolution—the one the culmination of all savagery, the +other the finished product of the finest civilization. True, Wolf Larsen +possessed intellect to an unusual degree, but it was directed solely to +the exercise of his savage instincts and made him but the more formidable +a savage. He was splendidly muscled, a heavy man, and though he strode +with the certitude and directness of the physical man, there was nothing +heavy about his stride. The jungle and the wilderness lurked in the +uplift and downput of his feet. He was cat-footed, and lithe, and +strong, always strong. I likened him to some great tiger, a beast of +prowess and prey. He looked it, and the piercing glitter that arose at +times in his eyes was the same piercing glitter I had observed in the +eyes of caged leopards and other preying creatures of the wild. + +But this day, as I noted them pacing up and down, I saw that it was she +who terminated the walk. They came up to where I was standing by the +entrance to the companion-way. Though she betrayed it by no outward +sign, I felt, somehow, that she was greatly perturbed. She made some +idle remark, looking at me, and laughed lightly enough; but I saw her +eyes return to his, involuntarily, as though fascinated; then they fell, +but not swiftly enough to veil the rush of terror that filled them. + +It was in his eyes that I saw the cause of her perturbation. Ordinarily +grey and cold and harsh, they were now warm and soft and golden, and all +a-dance with tiny lights that dimmed and faded, or welled up till the +full orbs were flooded with a glowing radiance. Perhaps it was to this +that the golden colour was due; but golden his eyes were, enticing and +masterful, at the same time luring and compelling, and speaking a demand +and clamour of the blood which no woman, much less Maud Brewster, could +misunderstand. + +Her own terror rushed upon me, and in that moment of fear—the most +terrible fear a man can experience—I knew that in inexpressible ways she +was dear to me. The knowledge that I loved her rushed upon me with the +terror, and with both emotions gripping at my heart and causing my blood +at the same time to chill and to leap riotously, I felt myself drawn by a +power without me and beyond me, and found my eyes returning against my +will to gaze into the eyes of Wolf Larsen. But he had recovered himself. +The golden colour and the dancing lights were gone. Cold and grey and +glittering they were as he bowed brusquely and turned away. + +“I am afraid,” she whispered, with a shiver. “I am so afraid.” + +I, too, was afraid, and what of my discovery of how much she meant to me +my mind was in a turmoil; but, I succeeded in answering quite calmly: + +“All will come right, Miss Brewster. Trust me, it will come right.” + +She answered with a grateful little smile that sent my heart pounding, +and started to descend the companion-stairs. + +For a long while I remained standing where she had left me. There was +imperative need to adjust myself, to consider the significance of the +changed aspect of things. It had come, at last, love had come, when I +least expected it and under the most forbidding conditions. Of course, +my philosophy had always recognized the inevitableness of the love-call +sooner or later; but long years of bookish silence had made me +inattentive and unprepared. + +And now it had come! Maud Brewster! My memory flashed back to that +first thin little volume on my desk, and I saw before me, as though in +the concrete, the row of thin little volumes on my library shelf. How I +had welcomed each of them! Each year one had come from the press, and to +me each was the advent of the year. They had voiced a kindred intellect +and spirit, and as such I had received them into a camaraderie of the +mind; but now their place was in my heart. + +My heart? A revulsion of feeling came over me. I seemed to stand +outside myself and to look at myself incredulously. Maud Brewster! +Humphrey Van Weyden, “the cold-blooded fish,” the “emotionless monster,” +the “analytical demon,” of Charley Furuseth’s christening, in love! And +then, without rhyme or reason, all sceptical, my mind flew back to a +small biographical note in the red-bound _Who’s Who_, and I said to +myself, “She was born in Cambridge, and she is twenty-seven years old.” +And then I said, “Twenty-seven years old and still free and fancy free?” +But how did I know she was fancy free? And the pang of new-born jealousy +put all incredulity to flight. There was no doubt about it. I was +jealous; therefore I loved. And the woman I loved was Maud Brewster. + +I, Humphrey Van Weyden, was in love! And again the doubt assailed me. +Not that I was afraid of it, however, or reluctant to meet it. On the +contrary, idealist that I was to the most pronounced degree, my +philosophy had always recognized and guerdoned love as the greatest thing +in the world, the aim and the summit of being, the most exquisite pitch +of joy and happiness to which life could thrill, the thing of all things +to be hailed and welcomed and taken into the heart. But now that it had +come I could not believe. I could not be so fortunate. It was too good, +too good to be true. Symons’s lines came into my head: + + “I wandered all these years among + A world of women, seeking you.” + +And then I had ceased seeking. It was not for me, this greatest thing in +the world, I had decided. Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, an +“emotionless monster,” a strange bookish creature, capable of pleasuring +in sensations only of the mind. And though I had been surrounded by +women all my days, my appreciation of them had been æsthetic and nothing +more. I had actually, at times, considered myself outside the pale, a +monkish fellow denied the eternal or the passing passions I saw and +understood so well in others. And now it had come! Undreamed of and +unheralded, it had come. In what could have been no less than an +ecstasy, I left my post at the head of the companion-way and started +along the deck, murmuring to myself those beautiful lines of Mrs. +Browning: + + “I lived with visions for my company + Instead of men and women years ago, + And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know + A sweeter music than they played to me.” + +But the sweeter music was playing in my ears, and I was blind and +oblivious to all about me. The sharp voice of Wolf Larsen aroused me. + +“What the hell are you up to?” he was demanding. + +I had strayed forward where the sailors were painting, and I came to +myself to find my advancing foot on the verge of overturning a paint-pot. + +“Sleep-walking, sunstroke,—what?” he barked. + +“No; indigestion,” I retorted, and continued my walk as if nothing +untoward had occurred. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Among the most vivid memories of my life are those of the events on the +_Ghost_ which occurred during the forty hours succeeding the discovery of +my love for Maud Brewster. I, who had lived my life in quiet places, +only to enter at the age of thirty-five upon a course of the most +irrational adventure I could have imagined, never had more incident and +excitement crammed into any forty hours of my experience. Nor can I +quite close my ears to a small voice of pride which tells me I did not do +so badly, all things considered. + +To begin with, at the midday dinner, Wolf Larsen informed the hunters +that they were to eat thenceforth in the steerage. It was an +unprecedented thing on sealing-schooners, where it is the custom for the +hunters to rank, unofficially as officers. He gave no reason, but his +motive was obvious enough. Horner and Smoke had been displaying a +gallantry toward Maud Brewster, ludicrous in itself and inoffensive to +her, but to him evidently distasteful. + +The announcement was received with black silence, though the other four +hunters glanced significantly at the two who had been the cause of their +banishment. Jock Horner, quiet as was his way, gave no sign; but the +blood surged darkly across Smoke’s forehead, and he half opened his mouth +to speak. Wolf Larsen was watching him, waiting for him, the steely +glitter in his eyes; but Smoke closed his mouth again without having said +anything. + +“Anything to say?” the other demanded aggressively. + +It was a challenge, but Smoke refused to accept it. + +“About what?” he asked, so innocently that Wolf Larsen was disconcerted, +while the others smiled. + +“Oh, nothing,” Wolf Larsen said lamely. “I just thought you might want +to register a kick.” + +“About what?” asked the imperturbable Smoke. + +Smoke’s mates were now smiling broadly. His captain could have killed +him, and I doubt not that blood would have flowed had not Maud Brewster +been present. For that matter, it was her presence which enabled Smoke +to act as he did. He was too discreet and cautious a man to incur Wolf +Larsen’s anger at a time when that anger could be expressed in terms +stronger than words. I was in fear that a struggle might take place, but +a cry from the helmsman made it easy for the situation to save itself. + +“Smoke ho!” the cry came down the open companion-way. + +“How’s it bear?” Wolf Larsen called up. + +“Dead astern, sir.” + +“Maybe it’s a Russian,” suggested Latimer. + +His words brought anxiety into the faces of the other hunters. A Russian +could mean but one thing—a cruiser. The hunters, never more than roughly +aware of the position of the ship, nevertheless knew that we were close +to the boundaries of the forbidden sea, while Wolf Larsen’s record as a +poacher was notorious. All eyes centred upon him. + +“We’re dead safe,” he assured them with a laugh. “No salt mines this +time, Smoke. But I’ll tell you what—I’ll lay odds of five to one it’s +the _Macedonia_.” + +No one accepted his offer, and he went on: “In which event, I’ll lay ten +to one there’s trouble breezing up.” + +“No, thank you,” Latimer spoke up. “I don’t object to losing my money, +but I like to get a run for it anyway. There never was a time when there +wasn’t trouble when you and that brother of yours got together, and I’ll +lay twenty to one on that.” + +A general smile followed, in which Wolf Larsen joined, and the dinner +went on smoothly, thanks to me, for he treated me abominably the rest of +the meal, sneering at me and patronizing me till I was all a-tremble with +suppressed rage. Yet I knew I must control myself for Maud Brewster’s +sake, and I received my reward when her eyes caught mine for a fleeting +second, and they said, as distinctly as if she spoke, “Be brave, be +brave.” + +We left the table to go on deck, for a steamer was a welcome break in the +monotony of the sea on which we floated, while the conviction that it was +Death Larsen and the _Macedonia_ added to the excitement. The stiff +breeze and heavy sea which had sprung up the previous afternoon had been +moderating all morning, so that it was now possible to lower the boats +for an afternoon’s hunt. The hunting promised to be profitable. We had +sailed since daylight across a sea barren of seals, and were now running +into the herd. + +The smoke was still miles astern, but overhauling us rapidly, when we +lowered our boats. They spread out and struck a northerly course across +the ocean. Now and again we saw a sail lower, heard the reports of the +shot-guns, and saw the sail go up again. The seals were thick, the wind +was dying away; everything favoured a big catch. As we ran off to get +our leeward position of the last lee boat, we found the ocean fairly +carpeted with sleeping seals. They were all about us, thicker than I had +ever seen them before, in twos and threes and bunches, stretched full +length on the surface and sleeping for all the world like so many lazy +young dogs. + +Under the approaching smoke the hull and upper-works of a steamer were +growing larger. It was the _Macedonia_. I read her name through the +glasses as she passed by scarcely a mile to starboard. Wolf Larsen +looked savagely at the vessel, while Maud Brewster was curious. + +“Where is the trouble you were so sure was breezing up, Captain Larsen?” +she asked gaily. + +He glanced at her, a moment’s amusement softening his features. + +“What did you expect? That they’d come aboard and cut our throats?” + +“Something like that,” she confessed. “You understand, seal-hunters are +so new and strange to me that I am quite ready to expect anything.” + +He nodded his head. “Quite right, quite right. Your error is that you +failed to expect the worst.” + +“Why, what can be worse than cutting our throats?” she asked, with pretty +naïve surprise. + +“Cutting our purses,” he answered. “Man is so made these days that his +capacity for living is determined by the money he possesses.” + +“’Who steals my purse steals trash,’” she quoted. + +“Who steals my purse steals my right to live,” was the reply, “old saws +to the contrary. For he steals my bread and meat and bed, and in so +doing imperils my life. There are not enough soup-kitchens and +bread-lines to go around, you know, and when men have nothing in their +purses they usually die, and die miserably—unless they are able to fill +their purses pretty speedily.” + +“But I fail to see that this steamer has any designs on your purse.” + +“Wait and you will see,” he answered grimly. + +We did not have long to wait. Having passed several miles beyond our +line of boats, the _Macedonia_ proceeded to lower her own. We knew she +carried fourteen boats to our five (we were one short through the +desertion of Wainwright), and she began dropping them far to leeward of +our last boat, continued dropping them athwart our course, and finished +dropping them far to windward of our first weather boat. The hunting, +for us, was spoiled. There were no seals behind us, and ahead of us the +line of fourteen boats, like a huge broom, swept the herd before it. + +Our boats hunted across the two or three miles of water between them and +the point where the _Macedonia’s_ had been dropped, and then headed for +home. The wind had fallen to a whisper, the ocean was growing calmer and +calmer, and this, coupled with the presence of the great herd, made a +perfect hunting day—one of the two or three days to be encountered in the +whole of a lucky season. An angry lot of men, boat-pullers and steerers +as well as hunters, swarmed over our side. Each man felt that he had +been robbed; and the boats were hoisted in amid curses, which, if curses +had power, would have settled Death Larsen for all eternity—“Dead and +damned for a dozen iv eternities,” commented Louis, his eyes twinkling up +at me as he rested from hauling taut the lashings of his boat. + +“Listen to them, and find if it is hard to discover the most vital thing +in their souls,” said Wolf Larsen. “Faith? and love? and high ideals? +The good? the beautiful? the true?” + +“Their innate sense of right has been violated,” Maud Brewster said, +joining the conversation. + +She was standing a dozen feet away, one hand resting on the main-shrouds +and her body swaying gently to the slight roll of the ship. She had not +raised her voice, and yet I was struck by its clear and bell-like tone. +Ah, it was sweet in my ears! I scarcely dared look at her just then, for +the fear of betraying myself. A boy’s cap was perched on her head, and +her hair, light brown and arranged in a loose and fluffy order that +caught the sun, seemed an aureole about the delicate oval of her face. +She was positively bewitching, and, withal, sweetly spirituelle, if not +saintly. All my old-time marvel at life returned to me at sight of this +splendid incarnation of it, and Wolf Larsen’s cold explanation of life +and its meaning was truly ridiculous and laughable. + +“A sentimentalist,” he sneered, “like Mr. Van Weyden. Those men are +cursing because their desires have been outraged. That is all. What +desires? The desires for the good grub and soft beds ashore which a +handsome pay-day brings them—the women and the drink, the gorging and the +beastliness which so truly expresses them, the best that is in them, +their highest aspirations, their ideals, if you please. The exhibition +they make of their feelings is not a touching sight, yet it shows how +deeply they have been touched, how deeply their purses have been touched, +for to lay hands on their purses is to lay hands on their souls.” + +“’You hardly behave as if your purse had been touched,” she said, +smilingly. + +“Then it so happens that I am behaving differently, for my purse and my +soul have both been touched. At the current price of skins in the London +market, and based on a fair estimate of what the afternoon’s catch would +have been had not the _Macedonia_ hogged it, the _Ghost_ has lost about +fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of skins.” + +“You speak so calmly—” she began. + +“But I do not feel calm; I could kill the man who robbed me,” he +interrupted. “Yes, yes, I know, and that man my brother—more sentiment! +Bah!” + +His face underwent a sudden change. His voice was less harsh and wholly +sincere as he said: + +“You must be happy, you sentimentalists, really and truly happy at +dreaming and finding things good, and, because you find some of them +good, feeling good yourself. Now, tell me, you two, do you find me +good?” + +“You are good to look upon—in a way,” I qualified. + +“There are in you all powers for good,” was Maud Brewster’s answer. + +“There you are!” he cried at her, half angrily. “Your words are empty to +me. There is nothing clear and sharp and definite about the thought you +have expressed. You cannot pick it up in your two hands and look at it. +In point of fact, it is not a thought. It is a feeling, a sentiment, a +something based upon illusion and not a product of the intellect at all.” + +As he went on his voice again grew soft, and a confiding note came into +it. “Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, were +blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions. +They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to reason; but in the +face of them my reason tells me, wrong and most wrong, that to dream and +live illusions gives greater delight. And after all, delight is the wage +for living. Without delight, living is a worthless act. To labour at +living and be unpaid is worse than to be dead. He who delights the most +lives the most, and your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to +you and more gratifying than are my facts to me.” + +He shook his head slowly, pondering. + +“I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams must +be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more filling +and lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for your +moments of intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional delight +is followed by no more than jaded senses which speedily recuperate. I +envy you, I envy you.” + +He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange +quizzical smiles, as he added: + +“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. My +reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a +sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, +were drunk.” + +“Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a fool,” +I laughed. + +“Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of fools. You +have no facts in your pocketbook.” + +“Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s contribution. + +“More freely, because it costs you nothing.” + +“And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted. + +“Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. You spend what you +haven’t got, and in return you get greater value from spending what you +haven’t got than I get from spending what I have got, and what I have +sweated to get.” + +“Why don’t you change the basis of your coinage, then?” she queried +teasingly. + +He looked at her quickly, half-hopefully, and then said, all regretfully: +“Too late. I’d like to, perhaps, but I can’t. My pocketbook is stuffed +with the old coinage, and it’s a stubborn thing. I can never bring +myself to recognize anything else as valid.” + +He ceased speaking, and his gaze wandered absently past her and became +lost in the placid sea. The old primal melancholy was strong upon him. +He was quivering to it. He had reasoned himself into a spell of the +blues, and within few hours one could look for the devil within him to be +up and stirring. I remembered Charley Furuseth, and knew this man’s +sadness as the penalty which the materialist ever pays for his +materialism. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +“You’ve been on deck, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen said, the following +morning at the breakfast-table, “How do things look?” + +“Clear enough,” I answered, glancing at the sunshine which streamed down +the open companion-way. “Fair westerly breeze, with a promise of +stiffening, if Louis predicts correctly.” + +He nodded his head in a pleased way. “Any signs of fog?” + +“Thick banks in the north and north-west.” + +He nodded his head again, evincing even greater satisfaction than before. + +“What of the _Macedonia_?” + +“Not sighted,” I answered. + +I could have sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he should +be disappointed I could not conceive. + +I was soon to learn. “Smoke ho!” came the hail from on deck, and his +face brightened. + +“Good!” he exclaimed, and left the table at once to go on deck and into +the steerage, where the hunters were taking the first breakfast of their +exile. + +Maud Brewster and I scarcely touched the food before us, gazing, instead, +in silent anxiety at each other, and listening to Wolf Larsen’s voice, +which easily penetrated the cabin through the intervening bulkhead. He +spoke at length, and his conclusion was greeted with a wild roar of +cheers. The bulkhead was too thick for us to hear what he said; but +whatever it was it affected the hunters strongly, for the cheering was +followed by loud exclamations and shouts of joy. + +From the sounds on deck I knew that the sailors had been routed out and +were preparing to lower the boats. Maud Brewster accompanied me on deck, +but I left her at the break of the poop, where she might watch the scene +and not be in it. The sailors must have learned whatever project was on +hand, and the vim and snap they put into their work attested their +enthusiasm. The hunters came trooping on deck with shot-guns and +ammunition-boxes, and, most unusual, their rifles. The latter were +rarely taken in the boats, for a seal shot at long range with a rifle +invariably sank before a boat could reach it. But each hunter this day +had his rifle and a large supply of cartridges. I noticed they grinned +with satisfaction whenever they looked at the _Macedonia’s_ smoke, which +was rising higher and higher as she approached from the west. + +The five boats went over the side with a rush, spread out like the ribs +of a fan, and set a northerly course, as on the preceding afternoon, for +us to follow. I watched for some time, curiously, but there seemed +nothing extraordinary about their behaviour. They lowered sails, shot +seals, and hoisted sails again, and continued on their way as I had +always seen them do. The _Macedonia_ repeated her performance of +yesterday, “hogging” the sea by dropping her line of boats in advance of +ours and across our course. Fourteen boats require a considerable spread +of ocean for comfortable hunting, and when she had completely lapped our +line she continued steaming into the north-east, dropping more boats as +she went. + +“What’s up?” I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer to keep my curiosity in +check. + +“Never mind what’s up,” he answered gruffly. “You won’t be a thousand +years in finding out, and in the meantime just pray for plenty of wind.” + +“Oh, well, I don’t mind telling you,” he said the next moment. “I’m +going to give that brother of mine a taste of his own medicine. In +short, I’m going to play the hog myself, and not for one day, but for the +rest of the season,—if we’re in luck.” + +“And if we’re not?” I queried. + +“Not to be considered,” he laughed. “We simply must be in luck, or it’s +all up with us.” + +He had the wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in the +forecastle, where lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas Mugridge. +Nilson was as cheerful as could be expected, for his broken leg was +knitting nicely; but the Cockney was desperately melancholy, and I was +aware of a great sympathy for the unfortunate creature. And the marvel +of it was that still he lived and clung to life. The brutal years had +reduced his meagre body to splintered wreckage, and yet the spark of life +within burned brightly as ever. + +“With an artificial foot—and they make excellent ones—you will be +stumping ships’ galleys to the end of time,” I assured him jovially. + +But his answer was serious, nay, solemn. “I don’t know about wot you +s’y, Mr. Van W’yden, but I do know I’ll never rest ’appy till I see that +’ell-’ound bloody well dead. ’E cawn’t live as long as me. ’E’s got no +right to live, an’ as the Good Word puts it, ‘’E shall shorely die,’ an’ +I s’y, ‘Amen, an’ damn soon at that.’” + +When I returned on deck I found Wolf Larsen steering mainly with one +hand, while with the other hand he held the marine glasses and studied +the situation of the boats, paying particular attention to the position +of the _Macedonia_. The only change noticeable in our boats was that +they had hauled close on the wind and were heading several points west of +north. Still, I could not see the expediency of the manœuvre, for the +free sea was still intercepted by the _Macedonia’s_ five weather boats, +which, in turn, had hauled close on the wind. Thus they slowly diverged +toward the west, drawing farther away from the remainder of the boats in +their line. Our boats were rowing as well as sailing. Even the hunters +were pulling, and with three pairs of oars in the water they rapidly +overhauled what I may appropriately term the enemy. + +The smoke of the _Macedonia_ had dwindled to a dim blot on the +north-eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was to be seen. +We had been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half the time and +spilling the wind; and twice, for short periods, we had been hove to. +But there was no more loafing. Sheets were trimmed, and Wolf Larsen +proceeded to put the _Ghost_ through her paces. We ran past our line of +boats and bore down upon the first weather boat of the other line. + +“Down that flying jib, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen commanded. “And +stand by to back over the jibs.” + +I ran forward and had the downhaul of the flying jib all in and fast as +we slipped by the boat a hundred feet to leeward. The three men in it +gazed at us suspiciously. They had been hogging the sea, and they knew +Wolf Larsen, by reputation at any rate. I noted that the hunter, a huge +Scandinavian sitting in the bow, held his rifle, ready to hand, across +his knees. It should have been in its proper place in the rack. When +they came opposite our stern, Wolf Larsen greeted them with a wave of the +hand, and cried: + +“Come on board and have a ’gam’!” + +“To gam,” among the sealing-schooners, is a substitute for the verbs “to +visit,” “to gossip.” It expresses the garrulity of the sea, and is a +pleasant break in the monotony of the life. + +The _Ghost_ swung around into the wind, and I finished my work forward in +time to run aft and lend a hand with the mainsheet. + +“You will please stay on deck, Miss Brewster,” Wolf Larsen said, as he +started forward to meet his guest. “And you too, Mr. Van Weyden.” + +The boat had lowered its sail and run alongside. The hunter, golden +bearded like a sea-king, came over the rail and dropped on deck. But his +hugeness could not quite overcome his apprehensiveness. Doubt and +distrust showed strongly in his face. It was a transparent face, for all +of its hairy shield, and advertised instant relief when he glanced from +Wolf Larsen to me, noted that there was only the pair of us, and then +glanced over his own two men who had joined him. Surely he had little +reason to be afraid. He towered like a Goliath above Wolf Larsen. He +must have measured six feet eight or nine inches in stature, and I +subsequently learned his weight—240 pounds. And there was no fat about +him. It was all bone and muscle. + +A return of apprehension was apparent when, at the top of the +companion-way, Wolf Larsen invited him below. But he reassured himself +with a glance down at his host—a big man himself but dwarfed by the +propinquity of the giant. So all hesitancy vanished, and the pair +descended into the cabin. In the meantime, his two men, as was the wont +of visiting sailors, had gone forward into the forecastle to do some +visiting themselves. + +Suddenly, from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by all +the sounds of a furious struggle. It was the leopard and the lion, and +the lion made all the noise. Wolf Larsen was the leopard. + +“You see the sacredness of our hospitality,” I said bitterly to Maud +Brewster. + +She nodded her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the signs of +the same sickness at sight or sound of violent struggle from which I had +suffered so severely during my first weeks on the _Ghost_. + +“Wouldn’t it be better if you went forward, say by the steerage +companion-way, until it is over?” I suggested. + +She shook her head and gazed at me pitifully. She was not frightened, +but appalled, rather, at the human animality of it. + +“You will understand,” I took advantage of the opportunity to say, +“whatever part I take in what is going on and what is to come, that I am +compelled to take it—if you and I are ever to get out of this scrape with +our lives.” + +“It is not nice—for me,” I added. + +“I understand,” she said, in a weak, far-away voice, and her eyes showed +me that she did understand. + +The sounds from below soon died away. Then Wolf Larsen came alone on +deck. There was a slight flush under his bronze, but otherwise he bore +no signs of the battle. + +“Send those two men aft, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said. + +I obeyed, and a minute or two later they stood before him. “Hoist in +your boat,” he said to them. “Your hunter’s decided to stay aboard +awhile and doesn’t want it pounding alongside.” + +“Hoist in your boat, I said,” he repeated, this time in sharper tones as +they hesitated to do his bidding. + +“Who knows? you may have to sail with me for a time,” he said, quite +softly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, as they moved +slowly to comply, “and we might as well start with a friendly +understanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes you jump better than +that, and you know it!” + +Their movements perceptibly quickened under his coaching, and as the boat +swung inboard I was sent forward to let go the jibs. Wolf Larsen, at the +wheel, directed the _Ghost_ after the _Macedonia’s_ second weather boat. + +Under way, and with nothing for the time being to do, I turned my +attention to the situation of the boats. The _Macedonia’s_ third weather +boat was being attacked by two of ours, the fourth by our remaining +three; and the fifth, turn about, was taking a hand in the defence of its +nearest mate. The fight had opened at long distance, and the rifles were +cracking steadily. A quick, snappy sea was being kicked up by the wind, +a condition which prevented fine shooting; and now and again, as we drew +closer, we could see the bullets zip-zipping from wave to wave. + +The boat we were pursuing had squared away and was running before the +wind to escape us, and, in the course of its flight, to take part in +repulsing our general boat attack. + +Attending to sheets and tacks now left me little time to see what was +taking place, but I happened to be on the poop when Wolf Larsen ordered +the two strange sailors forward and into the forecastle. They went +sullenly, but they went. He next ordered Miss Brewster below, and smiled +at the instant horror that leapt into her eyes. + +“You’ll find nothing gruesome down there,” he said, “only an unhurt man +securely made fast to the ring-bolts. Bullets are liable to come aboard, +and I don’t want you killed, you know.” + +Even as he spoke, a bullet was deflected by a brass-capped spoke of the +wheel between his hands and screeched off through the air to windward. + +“You see,” he said to her; and then to me, “Mr. Van Weyden, will you take +the wheel?” + +Maud Brewster had stepped inside the companion-way so that only her head +was exposed. Wolf Larsen had procured a rifle and was throwing a +cartridge into the barrel. I begged her with my eyes to go below, but +she smiled and said: + +“We may be feeble land-creatures without legs, but we can show Captain +Larsen that we are at least as brave as he.” + +He gave her a quick look of admiration. + +“I like you a hundred per cent. better for that,” he said. “Books, and +brains, and bravery. You are well-rounded, a blue-stocking fit to be the +wife of a pirate chief. Ahem, we’ll discuss that later,” he smiled, as a +bullet struck solidly into the cabin wall. + +I saw his eyes flash golden as he spoke, and I saw the terror mount in +her own. + +“We are braver,” I hastened to say. “At least, speaking for myself, I +know I am braver than Captain Larsen.” + +It was I who was now favoured by a quick look. He was wondering if I +were making fun of him. I put three or four spokes over to counteract a +sheer toward the wind on the part of the _Ghost_, and then steadied her. +Wolf Larsen was still waiting an explanation, and I pointed down to my +knees. + +“You will observe there,” I said, “a slight trembling. It is because I +am afraid, the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my mind because I do +not wish to die. But my spirit masters the trembling flesh and the +qualms of the mind. I am more than brave. I am courageous. Your flesh +is not afraid. You are not afraid. On the one hand, it costs you +nothing to encounter danger; on the other hand, it even gives you +delight. You enjoy it. You may be unafraid, Mr. Larsen, but you must +grant that the bravery is mine.” + +“You’re right,” he acknowledged at once. “I never thought of it in that +way before. But is the opposite true? If you are braver than I, am I +more cowardly than you?” + +We both laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck and +rested his rifle across the rail. The bullets we had received had +travelled nearly a mile, but by now we had cut that distance in half. He +fired three careful shots. The first struck fifty feet to windward of +the boat, the second alongside; and at the third the boat-steerer let +loose his steering-oar and crumpled up in the bottom of the boat. + +“I guess that’ll fix them,” Wolf Larsen said, rising to his feet. “I +couldn’t afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a chance the +boat-puller doesn’t know how to steer. In which case, the hunter cannot +steer and shoot at the same time.” + +His reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the wind +and the hunter sprang aft to take the boat-steerer’s place. There was no +more shooting, though the rifles were still cracking merrily from the +other boats. + +The hunter had managed to get the boat before the wind again, but we ran +down upon it, going at least two feet to its one. A hundred yards away, +I saw the boat-puller pass a rifle to the hunter. Wolf Larsen went +amidships and took the coil of the throat-halyards from its pin. Then he +peered over the rail with levelled rifle. Twice I saw the hunter let go +the steering-oar with one hand, reach for his rifle, and hesitate. We +were now alongside and foaming past. + +“Here, you!” Wolf Larsen cried suddenly to the boat-puller. “Take a +turn!” + +At the same time he flung the coil of rope. It struck fairly, nearly +knocking the man over, but he did not obey. Instead, he looked to his +hunter for orders. The hunter, in turn, was in a quandary. His rifle +was between his knees, but if he let go the steering-oar in order to +shoot, the boat would sweep around and collide with the schooner. Also +he saw Wolf Larsen’s rifle bearing upon him and knew he would be shot ere +he could get his rifle into play. + +“Take a turn,” he said quietly to the man. + +The boat-puller obeyed, taking a turn around the little forward thwart +and paying the line as it jerked taut. The boat sheered out with a rush, +and the hunter steadied it to a parallel course some twenty feet from the +side of the _Ghost_. + +“Now, get that sail down and come alongside!” Wolf Larsen ordered. + +He never let go his rifle, even passing down the tackles with one hand. +When they were fast, bow and stern, and the two uninjured men prepared to +come aboard, the hunter picked up his rifle as if to place it in a secure +position. + +“Drop it!” Wolf Larsen cried, and the hunter dropped it as though it were +hot and had burned him. + +Once aboard, the two prisoners hoisted in the boat and under Wolf +Larsen’s direction carried the wounded boat-steerer down into the +forecastle. + +“If our five boats do as well as you and I have done, we’ll have a pretty +full crew,” Wolf Larsen said to me. + +“The man you shot—he is—I hope?” Maud Brewster quavered. + +“In the shoulder,” he answered. “Nothing serious, Mr. Van Weyden will +pull him around as good as ever in three or four weeks.” + +“But he won’t pull those chaps around, from the look of it,” he added, +pointing at the _Macedonia’s_ third boat, for which I had been steering +and which was now nearly abreast of us. “That’s Horner’s and Smoke’s +work. I told them we wanted live men, not carcasses. But the joy of +shooting to hit is a most compelling thing, when once you’ve learned how +to shoot. Ever experienced it, Mr. Van Weyden?” + +I shook my head and regarded their work. It had indeed been bloody, for +they had drawn off and joined our other three boats in the attack on the +remaining two of the enemy. The deserted boat was in the trough of the +sea, rolling drunkenly across each comber, its loose spritsail out at +right angles to it and fluttering and flapping in the wind. The hunter +and boat-puller were both lying awkwardly in the bottom, but the +boat-steerer lay across the gunwale, half in and half out, his arms +trailing in the water and his head rolling from side to side. + +“Don’t look, Miss Brewster, please don’t look,” I had begged of her, and +I was glad that she had minded me and been spared the sight. + +“Head right into the bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was Wolf Larsen’s command. + +As we drew nearer, the firing ceased, and we saw that the fight was over. +The remaining two boats had been captured by our five, and the seven were +grouped together, waiting to be picked up. + +“Look at that!” I cried involuntarily, pointing to the north-east. + +The blot of smoke which indicated the _Macedonia’s_ position had +reappeared. + +“Yes, I’ve been watching it,” was Wolf Larsen’s calm reply. He measured +the distance away to the fog-bank, and for an instant paused to feel the +weight of the wind on his cheek. “We’ll make it, I think; but you can +depend upon it that blessed brother of mine has twigged our little game +and is just a-humping for us. Ah, look at that!” + +The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black. + +“I’ll beat you out, though, brother mine,” he chuckled. “I’ll beat you +out, and I hope you no worse than that you rack your old engines into +scrap.” + +When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The boats +came aboard from every side at once. As fast as the prisoners came over +the rail they were marshalled forward to the forecastle by our hunters, +while our sailors hoisted in the boats, pell-mell, dropping them anywhere +upon the deck and not stopping to lash them. We were already under way, +all sails set and drawing, and the sheets being slacked off for a wind +abeam, as the last boat lifted clear of the water and swung in the +tackles. + +There was need for haste. The _Macedonia_, belching the blackest of +smoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of the +north-east. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had altered +her course so as to anticipate ours. She was not running straight for +us, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging like the sides of an +angle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the fog-bank. It was +there, or not at all, that the _Macedonia_ could hope to catch us. The +hope for the _Ghost_ lay in that she should pass that point before the +_Macedonia_ arrived at it. + +Wolf Larsen was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they dwelt +upon and leaped from detail to detail of the chase. Now he studied the +sea to windward for signs of the wind slackening or freshening, now the +_Macedonia_; and again, his eyes roved over every sail, and he gave +commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come in on one there a +trifle, till he was drawing out of the _Ghost_ the last bit of speed she +possessed. All feuds and grudges were forgotten, and I was surprised at +the alacrity with which the men who had so long endured his brutality +sprang to execute his orders. Strange to say, the unfortunate Johnson +came into my mind as we lifted and surged and heeled along, and I was +aware of a regret that he was not alive and present; he had so loved the +_Ghost_ and delighted in her sailing powers. + +“Better get your rifles, you fellows,” Wolf Larsen called to our hunters; +and the five men lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and waited. + +The _Macedonia_ was now but a mile away, the black smoke pouring from her +funnel at a right angle, so madly she raced, pounding through the sea at +a seventeen-knot gait—“’Sky-hooting through the brine,” as Wolf Larsen +quoted while gazing at her. We were not making more than nine knots, but +the fog-bank was very near. + +A puff of smoke broke from the _Macedonia’s_ deck, we heard a heavy +report, and a round hole took form in the stretched canvas of our +mainsail. They were shooting at us with one of the small cannon which +rumour had said they carried on board. Our men, clustering amidships, +waved their hats and raised a derisive cheer. Again there was a puff of +smoke and a loud report, this time the cannon-ball striking not more than +twenty feet astern and glancing twice from sea to sea to windward ere it +sank. + +But there was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters were +out in the boats or our prisoners. When the two vessels were half-a-mile +apart, a third shot made another hole in our mainsail. Then we entered +the fog. It was about us, veiling and hiding us in its dense wet gauze. + +The sudden transition was startling. The moment before we had been +leaping through the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea breaking +and rolling wide to the horizon, and a ship, vomiting smoke and fire and +iron missiles, rushing madly upon us. And at once, as in an instant’s +leap, the sun was blotted out, there was no sky, even our mastheads were +lost to view, and our horizon was such as tear-blinded eyes may see. The +grey mist drove by us like a rain. Every woollen filament of our +garments, every hair of our heads and faces, was jewelled with a crystal +globule. The shrouds were wet with moisture; it dripped from our rigging +overhead; and on the underside of our booms drops of water took shape in +long swaying lines, which were detached and flung to the deck in mimic +showers at each surge of the schooner. I was aware of a pent, stifled +feeling. As the sounds of the ship thrusting herself through the waves +were hurled back upon us by the fog, so were one’s thoughts. The mind +recoiled from contemplation of a world beyond this wet veil which wrapped +us around. This was the world, the universe itself, its bounds so near +one felt impelled to reach out both arms and push them back. It was +impossible, that the rest could be beyond these walls of grey. The rest +was a dream, no more than the memory of a dream. + +It was weird, strangely weird. I looked at Maud Brewster and knew that +she was similarly affected. Then I looked at Wolf Larsen, but there was +nothing subjective about his state of consciousness. His whole concern +was with the immediate, objective present. He still held the wheel, and +I felt that he was timing Time, reckoning the passage of the minutes with +each forward lunge and leeward roll of the _Ghost_. + +“Go for’ard and hard alee without any noise,” he said to me in a low +voice. “Clew up the topsails first. Set men at all the sheets. Let +there be no rattling of blocks, no sound of voices. No noise, +understand, no noise.” + +When all was ready, the word “hard-a-lee” was passed forward to me from +man to man; and the _Ghost_ heeled about on the port tack with +practically no noise at all. And what little there was,—the slapping of +a few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a block or two,—was +ghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed. + +We had scarcely filled away, it seemed, when the fog thinned abruptly and +we were again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea breaking before us +to the sky-line. But the ocean was bare. No wrathful _Macedonia_ broke +its surface nor blackened the sky with her smoke. + +Wolf Larsen at once squared away and ran down along the rim of the +fog-bank. His trick was obvious. He had entered the fog to windward of +the steamer, and while the steamer had blindly driven on into the fog in +the chance of catching him, he had come about and out of his shelter and +was now running down to re-enter to leeward. Successful in this, the old +simile of the needle in the haystack would be mild indeed compared with +his brother’s chance of finding him. He did not run long. Jibing the +fore- and main-sails and setting the topsails again, we headed back into +the bank. As we entered I could have sworn I saw a vague bulk emerging +to windward. I looked quickly at Wolf Larsen. Already we were ourselves +buried in the fog, but he nodded his head. He, too, had seen it—the +_Macedonia_, guessing his manœuvre and failing by a moment in +anticipating it. There was no doubt that we had escaped unseen. + +“He can’t keep this up,” Wolf Larsen said. “He’ll have to go back for +the rest of his boats. Send a man to the wheel, Mr. Van Weyden, keep +this course for the present, and you might as well set the watches, for +we won’t do any lingering to-night.” + +“I’d give five hundred dollars, though,” he added, “just to be aboard the +_Macedonia_ for five minutes, listening to my brother curse.” + +“And now, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said to me when he had been relieved from +the wheel, “we must make these new-comers welcome. Serve out plenty of +whisky to the hunters and see that a few bottles slip for’ard. I’ll +wager every man Jack of them is over the side to-morrow, hunting for Wolf +Larsen as contentedly as ever they hunted for Death Larsen.” + +“But won’t they escape as Wainwright did?” I asked. + +He laughed shrewdly. “Not as long as our old hunters have anything to +say about it. I’m dividing amongst them a dollar a skin for all the +skins shot by our new hunters. At least half of their enthusiasm to-day +was due to that. Oh, no, there won’t be any escaping if they have +anything to say about it. And now you’d better get for’ard to your +hospital duties. There must be a full ward waiting for you.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Wolf Larsen took the distribution of the whisky off my hands, and the +bottles began to make their appearance while I worked over the fresh +batch of wounded men in the forecastle. I had seen whisky drunk, such as +whisky-and-soda by the men of the clubs, but never as these men drank it, +from pannikins and mugs, and from the bottles—great brimming drinks, each +one of which was in itself a debauch. But they did not stop at one or +two. They drank and drank, and ever the bottles slipped forward and they +drank more. + +Everybody drank; the wounded drank; Oofty-Oofty, who helped me, drank. +Only Louis refrained, no more than cautiously wetting his lips with the +liquor, though he joined in the revels with an abandon equal to that of +most of them. It was a saturnalia. In loud voices they shouted over the +day’s fighting, wrangled about details, or waxed affectionate and made +friends with the men whom they had fought. Prisoners and captors +hiccoughed on one another’s shoulders, and swore mighty oaths of respect +and esteem. They wept over the miseries of the past and over the +miseries yet to come under the iron rule of Wolf Larsen. And all cursed +him and told terrible tales of his brutality. + +It was a strange and frightful spectacle—the small, bunk-lined space, the +floor and walls leaping and lurching, the dim light, the swaying shadows +lengthening and fore-shortening monstrously, the thick air heavy with +smoke and the smell of bodies and iodoform, and the inflamed faces of the +men—half-men, I should call them. I noted Oofty-Oofty, holding the end +of a bandage and looking upon the scene, his velvety and luminous eyes +glistening in the light like a deer’s eyes, and yet I knew the barbaric +devil that lurked in his breast and belied all the softness and +tenderness, almost womanly, of his face and form. And I noticed the +boyish face of Harrison,—a good face once, but now a demon’s,—convulsed +with passion as he told the new-comers of the hell-ship they were in and +shrieked curses upon the head of Wolf Larsen. + +Wolf Larsen it was, always Wolf Larsen, enslaver and tormentor of men, a +male Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that grovelled before +him and revolted only in drunkenness and in secrecy. And was I, too, one +of his swine? I thought. And Maud Brewster? No! I ground my teeth in +my anger and determination till the man I was attending winced under my +hand and Oofty-Oofty looked at me with curiosity. I felt endowed with a +sudden strength. What of my new-found love, I was a giant. I feared +nothing. I would work my will through it all, in spite of Wolf Larsen +and of my own thirty-five bookish years. All would be well. I would +make it well. And so, exalted, upborne by a sense of power, I turned my +back on the howling inferno and climbed to the deck, where the fog +drifted ghostly through the night and the air was sweet and pure and +quiet. + +The steerage, where were two wounded hunters, was a repetition of the +forecastle, except that Wolf Larsen was not being cursed; and it was with +a great relief that I again emerged on deck and went aft to the cabin. +Supper was ready, and Wolf Larsen and Maud were waiting for me. + +While all his ship was getting drunk as fast as it could, he remained +sober. Not a drop of liquor passed his lips. He did not dare it under +the circumstances, for he had only Louis and me to depend upon, and Louis +was even now at the wheel. We were sailing on through the fog without a +look-out and without lights. That Wolf Larsen had turned the liquor +loose among his men surprised me, but he evidently knew their psychology +and the best method of cementing in cordiality, what had begun in +bloodshed. + +His victory over Death Larsen seemed to have had a remarkable effect upon +him. The previous evening he had reasoned himself into the blues, and I +had been waiting momentarily for one of his characteristic outbursts. +Yet nothing had occurred, and he was now in splendid trim. Possibly his +success in capturing so many hunters and boats had counteracted the +customary reaction. At any rate, the blues were gone, and the blue +devils had not put in an appearance. So I thought at the time; but, ah +me, little I knew him or knew that even then, perhaps, he was meditating +an outbreak more terrible than any I had seen. + +As I say, he discovered himself in splendid trim when I entered the +cabin. He had had no headaches for weeks, his eyes were clear blue as +the sky, his bronze was beautiful with perfect health; life swelled +through his veins in full and magnificent flood. While waiting for me he +had engaged Maud in animated discussion. Temptation was the topic they +had hit upon, and from the few words I heard I made out that he was +contending that temptation was temptation only when a man was seduced by +it and fell. + +“For look you,” he was saying, “as I see it, a man does things because of +desire. He has many desires. He may desire to escape pain, or to enjoy +pleasure. But whatever he does, he does because he desires to do it.” + +“But suppose he desires to do two opposite things, neither of which will +permit him to do the other?” Maud interrupted. + +“The very thing I was coming to,” he said. + +“And between these two desires is just where the soul of the man is +manifest,” she went on. “If it is a good soul, it will desire and do the +good action, and the contrary if it is a bad soul. It is the soul that +decides.” + +“Bosh and nonsense!” he exclaimed impatiently. “It is the desire that +decides. Here is a man who wants to, say, get drunk. Also, he doesn’t +want to get drunk. What does he do? How does he do it? He is a puppet. +He is the creature of his desires, and of the two desires he obeys the +strongest one, that is all. His soul hasn’t anything to do with it. How +can he be tempted to get drunk and refuse to get drunk? If the desire to +remain sober prevails, it is because it is the strongest desire. +Temptation plays no part, unless—” he paused while grasping the new +thought which had come into his mind—“unless he is tempted to remain +sober. + +“Ha! ha!” he laughed. “What do you think of that, Mr. Van Weyden?” + +“That both of you are hair-splitting,” I said. “The man’s soul is his +desires. Or, if you will, the sum of his desires is his soul. Therein +you are both wrong. You lay the stress upon the desire apart from the +soul, Miss Brewster lays the stress on the soul apart from the desire, +and in point of fact soul and desire are the same thing. + +“However,” I continued, “Miss Brewster is right in contending that +temptation is temptation whether the man yield or overcome. Fire is +fanned by the wind until it leaps up fiercely. So is desire like fire. +It is fanned, as by a wind, by sight of the thing desired, or by a new +and luring description or comprehension of the thing desired. There lies +the temptation. It is the wind that fans the desire until it leaps up to +mastery. That’s temptation. It may not fan sufficiently to make the +desire overmastering, but in so far as it fans at all, that far is it +temptation. And, as you say, it may tempt for good as well as for evil.” + +I felt proud of myself as we sat down to the table. My words had been +decisive. At least they had put an end to the discussion. + +But Wolf Larsen seemed voluble, prone to speech as I had never seen him +before. It was as though he were bursting with pent energy which must +find an outlet somehow. Almost immediately he launched into a discussion +on love. As usual, his was the sheer materialistic side, and Maud’s was +the idealistic. For myself, beyond a word or so of suggestion or +correction now and again, I took no part. + +He was brilliant, but so was Maud, and for some time I lost the thread of +the conversation through studying her face as she talked. It was a face +that rarely displayed colour, but to-night it was flushed and vivacious. +Her wit was playing keenly, and she was enjoying the tilt as much as Wolf +Larsen, and he was enjoying it hugely. For some reason, though I know +not why in the argument, so utterly had I lost it in the contemplation of +one stray brown lock of Maud’s hair, he quoted from Iseult at Tintagel, +where she says: + + “Blessed am I beyond women even herein, + That beyond all born women is my sin, + And perfect my transgression.” + +As he had read pessimism into Omar, so now he read triumph, stinging +triumph and exultation, into Swinburne’s lines. And he read rightly, and +he read well. He had hardly ceased reading when Louis put his head into +the companion-way and whispered down: + +“Be easy, will ye? The fog’s lifted, an’ ’tis the port light iv a +steamer that’s crossin’ our bow this blessed minute.” + +Wolf Larsen sprang on deck, and so swiftly that by the time we followed +him he had pulled the steerage-slide over the drunken clamour and was on +his way forward to close the forecastle-scuttle. The fog, though it +remained, had lifted high, where it obscured the stars and made the night +quite black. Directly ahead of us I could see a bright red light and a +white light, and I could hear the pulsing of a steamer’s engines. Beyond +a doubt it was the _Macedonia_. + +Wolf Larsen had returned to the poop, and we stood in a silent group, +watching the lights rapidly cross our bow. + +“Lucky for me he doesn’t carry a searchlight,” Wolf Larsen said. + +“What if I should cry out loudly?” I queried in a whisper. + +“It would be all up,” he answered. “But have you thought upon what would +immediately happen?” + +Before I had time to express any desire to know, he had me by the throat +with his gorilla grip, and by a faint quiver of the muscles—a hint, as it +were—he suggested to me the twist that would surely have broken my neck. +The next moment he had released me and we were gazing at the +_Macedonia’s_ lights. + +“What if I should cry out?” Maud asked. + +“I like you too well to hurt you,” he said softly—nay, there was a +tenderness and a caress in his voice that made me wince. + +“But don’t do it, just the same, for I’d promptly break Mr. Van Weyden’s +neck.” + +“Then she has my permission to cry out,” I said defiantly. + +“I hardly think you’ll care to sacrifice the Dean of American Letters the +Second,” he sneered. + +We spoke no more, though we had become too used to one another for the +silence to be awkward; and when the red light and the white had +disappeared we returned to the cabin to finish the interrupted supper. + +Again they fell to quoting, and Maud gave Dowson’s “Impenitentia Ultima.” +She rendered it beautifully, but I watched not her, but Wolf Larsen. I +was fascinated by the fascinated look he bent upon Maud. He was quite +out of himself, and I noticed the unconscious movement of his lips as he +shaped word for word as fast as she uttered them. He interrupted her +when she gave the lines: + + “And her eyes should be my light while the sun went out behind me, + And the viols in her voice be the last sound in my ear.” + +“There are viols in your voice,” he said bluntly, and his eyes flashed +their golden light. + +I could have shouted with joy at her control. She finished the +concluding stanza without faltering and then slowly guided the +conversation into less perilous channels. And all the while I sat in a +half-daze, the drunken riot of the steerage breaking through the +bulkhead, the man I feared and the woman I loved talking on and on. The +table was not cleared. The man who had taken Mugridge’s place had +evidently joined his comrades in the forecastle. + +If ever Wolf Larsen attained the summit of living, he attained it then. +From time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him, and I followed +in amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, under the +spell of his passion, for he was preaching the passion of revolt. It was +inevitable that Milton’s Lucifer should be instanced, and the keenness +with which Wolf Larsen analysed and depicted the character was a +revelation of his stifled genius. It reminded me of Taine, yet I knew +the man had never heard of that brilliant though dangerous thinker. + +“He led a lost cause, and he was not afraid of God’s thunderbolts,” Wolf +Larsen was saying. “Hurled into hell, he was unbeaten. A third of God’s +angels he had led with him, and straightway he incited man to rebel +against God, and gained for himself and hell the major portion of all the +generations of man. Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he was +less brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times +no! God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater. +But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate. He preferred +suffering in freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable servility. He +did not care to serve God. He cared to serve nothing. He was no +figure-head. He stood on his own legs. He was an individual.” + +“The first Anarchist,” Maud laughed, rising and preparing to withdraw to +her state-room. + +“Then it is good to be an anarchist!” he cried. He, too, had risen, and +he stood facing her, where she had paused at the door of her room, as he +went on: + + “‘Here at least + We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built + Here for his envy; will not drive us hence; + Here we may reign secure; and in my choice + To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: + Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” + +It was the defiant cry of a mighty spirit. The cabin still rang with his +voice, as he stood there, swaying, his bronzed face shining, his head up +and dominant, and his eyes, golden and masculine, intensely masculine and +insistently soft, flashing upon Maud at the door. + +Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and she +said, almost in a whisper, “You are Lucifer.” + +The door closed and she was gone. He stood staring after her for a +minute, then returned to himself and to me. + +“I’ll relieve Louis at the wheel,” he said shortly, “and call upon you to +relieve at midnight. Better turn in now and get some sleep.” + +He pulled on a pair of mittens, put on his cap, and ascended the +companion-stairs, while I followed his suggestion by going to bed. For +some unknown reason, prompted mysteriously, I did not undress, but lay +down fully clothed. For a time I listened to the clamour in the steerage +and marvelled upon the love which had come to me; but my sleep on the +_Ghost_ had become most healthful and natural, and soon the songs and +cries died away, my eyes closed, and my consciousness sank down into the +half-death of slumber. + + * * * * * + +I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, on my +feet, wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger as it might +have thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the door. The cabin light +was burning low. I saw Maud, my Maud, straining and struggling and +crushed in the embrace of Wolf Larsen’s arms. I could see the vain beat +and flutter of her as she strove, pressing her face against his breast, +to escape from him. All this I saw on the very instant of seeing and as +I sprang forward. + +I struck him with my fist, on the face, as he raised his head, but it was +a puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and gave me a +shove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the wrist, yet so +tremendous was his strength that I was hurled backward as from a +catapult. I struck the door of the state-room which had formerly been +Mugridge’s, splintering and smashing the panels with the impact of my +body. I struggled to my feet, with difficulty dragging myself clear of +the wrecked door, unaware of any hurt whatever. I was conscious only of +an overmastering rage. I think I, too, cried aloud, as I drew the knife +at my hip and sprang forward a second time. + +But something had happened. They were reeling apart. I was close upon +him, my knife uplifted, but I withheld the blow. I was puzzled by the +strangeness of it. Maud was leaning against the wall, one hand out for +support; but he was staggering, his left hand pressed against his +forehead and covering his eyes, and with the right he was groping about +him in a dazed sort of way. It struck against the wall, and his body +seemed to express a muscular and physical relief at the contact, as +though he had found his bearings, his location in space as well as +something against which to lean. + +Then I saw red again. All my wrongs and humiliations flashed upon me +with a dazzling brightness, all that I had suffered and others had +suffered at his hands, all the enormity of the man’s very existence. I +sprang upon him, blindly, insanely, and drove the knife into his +shoulder. I knew, then, that it was no more than a flesh wound,—I had +felt the steel grate on his shoulder-blade,—and I raised the knife to +strike at a more vital part. + +But Maud had seen my first blow, and she cried, “Don’t! Please don’t!” + +I dropped my arm for a moment, and a moment only. Again the knife was +raised, and Wolf Larsen would have surely died had she not stepped +between. Her arms were around me, her hair was brushing my face. My +pulse rushed up in an unwonted manner, yet my rage mounted with it. She +looked me bravely in the eyes. + +“For my sake,” she begged. + +“I would kill him for your sake!” I cried, trying to free my arm without +hurting her. + +“Hush!” she said, and laid her fingers lightly on my lips. I could have +kissed them, had I dared, even then, in my rage, the touch of them was so +sweet, so very sweet. “Please, please,” she pleaded, and she disarmed me +by the words, as I was to discover they would ever disarm me. + +I stepped back, separating from her, and replaced the knife in its +sheath. I looked at Wolf Larsen. He still pressed his left hand against +his forehead. It covered his eyes. His head was bowed. He seemed to +have grown limp. His body was sagging at the hips, his great shoulders +were drooping and shrinking forward. + +“Van Weyden!” he called hoarsely, and with a note of fright in his +voice. “Oh, Van Weyden! where are you?” + +I looked at Maud. She did not speak, but nodded her head. + +“Here I am,” I answered, stepping to his side. “What is the matter?” + +“Help me to a seat,” he said, in the same hoarse, frightened voice. + +“I am a sick man; a very sick man, Hump,” he said, as he left my +sustaining grip and sank into a chair. + +His head dropped forward on the table and was buried in his hands. From +time to time it rocked back and forward as with pain. Once, when he half +raised it, I saw the sweat standing in heavy drops on his forehead about +the roots of his hair. + +“I am a sick man, a very sick man,” he repeated again, and yet once +again. + +“What is the matter?” I asked, resting my hand on his shoulder. “What +can I do for you?” + +But he shook my hand off with an irritated movement, and for a long time +I stood by his side in silence. Maud was looking on, her face awed and +frightened. What had happened to him we could not imagine. + +“Hump,” he said at last, “I must get into my bunk. Lend me a hand. I’ll +be all right in a little while. It’s those damn headaches, I believe. I +was afraid of them. I had a feeling—no, I don’t know what I’m talking +about. Help me into my bunk.” + +But when I got him into his bunk he again buried his face in his hands, +covering his eyes, and as I turned to go I could hear him murmuring, “I +am a sick man, a very sick man.” + +Maud looked at me inquiringly as I emerged. I shook my head, saying: + +“Something has happened to him. What, I don’t know. He is helpless, and +frightened, I imagine, for the first time in his life. It must have +occurred before he received the knife-thrust, which made only a +superficial wound. You must have seen what happened.” + +She shook her head. “I saw nothing. It is just as mysterious to me. He +suddenly released me and staggered away. But what shall we do? What +shall I do?” + +“If you will wait, please, until I come back,” I answered. + +I went on deck. Louis was at the wheel. + +“You may go for’ard and turn in,” I said, taking it from him. + +He was quick to obey, and I found myself alone on the deck of the +_Ghost_. As quietly as was possible, I clewed up the topsails, lowered +the flying jib and staysail, backed the jib over, and flattened the +mainsail. Then I went below to Maud. I placed my finger on my lips for +silence, and entered Wolf Larsen’s room. He was in the same position in +which I had left him, and his head was rocking—almost writhing—from side +to side. + +“Anything I can do for you?” I asked. + +He made no reply at first, but on my repeating the question he answered, +“No, no; I’m all right. Leave me alone till morning.” + +But as I turned to go I noted that his head had resumed its rocking +motion. Maud was waiting patiently for me, and I took notice, with a +thrill of joy, of the queenly poise of her head and her glorious, calm +eyes. Calm and sure they were as her spirit itself. + +“Will you trust yourself to me for a journey of six hundred miles or so?” +I asked. + +“You mean—?” she asked, and I knew she had guessed aright. + +“Yes, I mean just that,” I replied. “There is nothing left for us but +the open boat.” + +“For me, you mean,” she said. “You are certainly as safe here as you +have been.” + +“No, there is nothing left for us but the open boat,” I iterated stoutly. +“Will you please dress as warmly as you can, at once, and make into a +bundle whatever you wish to bring with you.” + +“And make all haste,” I added, as she turned toward her state-room. + +The lazarette was directly beneath the cabin, and, opening the trap-door +in the floor and carrying a candle with me, I dropped down and began +overhauling the ship’s stores. I selected mainly from the canned goods, +and by the time I was ready, willing hands were extended from above to +receive what I passed up. + +We worked in silence. I helped myself also to blankets, mittens, +oilskins, caps, and such things, from the slop-chest. It was no light +adventure, this trusting ourselves in a small boat to so raw and stormy a +sea, and it was imperative that we should guard ourselves against the +cold and wet. + +We worked feverishly at carrying our plunder on deck and depositing it +amidships, so feverishly that Maud, whose strength was hardly a positive +quantity, had to give over, exhausted, and sit on the steps at the break +of the poop. This did not serve to recover her, and she lay on her back, +on the hard deck, arms stretched out, and whole body relaxed. It was a +trick I remembered of my sister, and I knew she would soon be herself +again. I knew, also, that weapons would not come in amiss, and I +re-entered Wolf Larsen’s state-room to get his rifle and shot-gun. I +spoke to him, but he made no answer, though his head was still rocking +from side to side and he was not asleep. + +“Good-bye, Lucifer,” I whispered to myself as I softly closed the door. + +Next to obtain was a stock of ammunition,—an easy matter, though I had to +enter the steerage companion-way to do it. Here the hunters stored the +ammunition-boxes they carried in the boats, and here, but a few feet from +their noisy revels, I took possession of two boxes. + +Next, to lower a boat. Not so simple a task for one man. Having cast +off the lashings, I hoisted first on the forward tackle, then on the aft, +till the boat cleared the rail, when I lowered away, one tackle and then +the other, for a couple of feet, till it hung snugly, above the water, +against the schooner’s side. I made certain that it contained the proper +equipment of oars, rowlocks, and sail. Water was a consideration, and I +robbed every boat aboard of its breaker. As there were nine boats all +told, it meant that we should have plenty of water, and ballast as well, +though there was the chance that the boat would be overloaded, what of +the generous supply of other things I was taking. + +While Maud was passing me the provisions and I was storing them in the +boat, a sailor came on deck from the forecastle. He stood by the weather +rail for a time (we were lowering over the lee rail), and then sauntered +slowly amidships, where he again paused and stood facing the wind, with +his back toward us. I could hear my heart beating as I crouched low in +the boat. Maud had sunk down upon the deck and was, I knew, lying +motionless, her body in the shadow of the bulwark. But the man never +turned, and, after stretching his arms above his head and yawning +audibly, he retraced his steps to the forecastle scuttle and disappeared. + +A few minutes sufficed to finish the loading, and I lowered the boat into +the water. As I helped Maud over the rail and felt her form close to +mine, it was all I could do to keep from crying out, “I love you! I love +you!” Truly Humphrey Van Weyden was at last in love, I thought, as her +fingers clung to mine while I lowered her down to the boat. I held on to +the rail with one hand and supported her weight with the other, and I was +proud at the moment of the feat. It was a strength I had not possessed a +few months before, on the day I said good-bye to Charley Furuseth and +started for San Francisco on the ill-fated _Martinez_. + +As the boat ascended on a sea, her feet touched and I released her hands. +I cast off the tackles and leaped after her. I had never rowed in my +life, but I put out the oars and at the expense of much effort got the +boat clear of the _Ghost_. Then I experimented with the sail. I had +seen the boat-steerers and hunters set their spritsails many times, yet +this was my first attempt. What took them possibly two minutes took me +twenty, but in the end I succeeded in setting and trimming it, and with +the steering-oar in my hands hauled on the wind. + +“There lies Japan,” I remarked, “straight before us.” + +“Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, “you are a brave man.” + +“Nay,” I answered, “it is you who are a brave woman.” + +We turned our heads, swayed by a common impulse to see the last of the +_Ghost_. Her low hull lifted and rolled to windward on a sea; her canvas +loomed darkly in the night; her lashed wheel creaked as the rudder +kicked; then sight and sound of her faded away, and we were alone on the +dark sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +Day broke, grey and chill. The boat was close-hauled on a fresh breeze +and the compass indicated that we were just making the course which would +bring us to Japan. Though stoutly mittened, my fingers were cold, and +they pained from the grip on the steering-oar. My feet were stinging +from the bite of the frost, and I hoped fervently that the sun would +shine. + +Before me, in the bottom of the boat, lay Maud. She, at least, was warm, +for under her and over her were thick blankets. The top one I had drawn +over her face to shelter it from the night, so I could see nothing but +the vague shape of her, and her light-brown hair, escaped from the +covering and jewelled with moisture from the air. + +Long I looked at her, dwelling upon that one visible bit of her as only a +man would who deemed it the most precious thing in the world. So +insistent was my gaze that at last she stirred under the blankets, the +top fold was thrown back and she smiled out on me, her eyes yet heavy +with sleep. + +“Good-morning, Mr. Van Weyden,” she said. “Have you sighted land yet?” + +“No,” I answered, “but we are approaching it at a rate of six miles an +hour.” + +She made a _moue_ of disappointment. + +“But that is equivalent to one hundred and forty-four miles in +twenty-four hours,” I added reassuringly. + +Her face brightened. “And how far have we to go?” + +“Siberia lies off there,” I said, pointing to the west. “But to the +south-west, some six hundred miles, is Japan. If this wind should hold, +we’ll make it in five days.” + +“And if it storms? The boat could not live?” + +She had a way of looking one in the eyes and demanding the truth, and +thus she looked at me as she asked the question. + +“It would have to storm very hard,” I temporized. + +“And if it storms very hard?” + +I nodded my head. “But we may be picked up any moment by a +sealing-schooner. They are plentifully distributed over this part of the +ocean.” + +“Why, you are chilled through!” she cried. “Look! You are shivering. +Don’t deny it; you are. And here I have been lying warm as toast.” + +“I don’t see that it would help matters if you, too, sat up and were +chilled,” I laughed. + +“It will, though, when I learn to steer, which I certainly shall.” + +She sat up and began making her simple toilet. She shook down her hair, +and it fell about her in a brown cloud, hiding her face and shoulders. +Dear, damp brown hair! I wanted to kiss it, to ripple it through my +fingers, to bury my face in it. I gazed entranced, till the boat ran +into the wind and the flapping sail warned me I was not attending to my +duties. Idealist and romanticist that I was and always had been in spite +of my analytical nature, yet I had failed till now in grasping much of +the physical characteristics of love. The love of man and woman, I had +always held, was a sublimated something related to spirit, a spiritual +bond that linked and drew their souls together. The bonds of the flesh +had little part in my cosmos of love. But I was learning the sweet +lesson for myself that the soul transmuted itself, expressed itself, +through the flesh; that the sight and sense and touch of the loved one’s +hair was as much breath and voice and essence of the spirit as the light +that shone from the eyes and the thoughts that fell from the lips. After +all, pure spirit was unknowable, a thing to be sensed and divined only; +nor could it express itself in terms of itself. Jehovah was +anthropomorphic because he could address himself to the Jews only in +terms of their understanding; so he was conceived as in their own image, +as a cloud, a pillar of fire, a tangible, physical something which the +mind of the Israelites could grasp. + +And so I gazed upon Maud’s light-brown hair, and loved it, and learned +more of love than all the poets and singers had taught me with all their +songs and sonnets. She flung it back with a sudden adroit movement, and +her face emerged, smiling. + +“Why don’t women wear their hair down always?” I asked. “It is so much +more beautiful.” + +“If it didn’t tangle so dreadfully,” she laughed. “There! I’ve lost one +of my precious hair-pins!” + +I neglected the boat and had the sail spilling the wind again and again, +such was my delight in following her every movement as she searched +through the blankets for the pin. I was surprised, and joyfully, that +she was so much the woman, and the display of each trait and mannerism +that was characteristically feminine gave me keener joy. For I had been +elevating her too highly in my concepts of her, removing her too far from +the plane of the human, and too far from me. I had been making of her a +creature goddess-like and unapproachable. So I hailed with delight the +little traits that proclaimed her only woman after all, such as the toss +of the head which flung back the cloud of hair, and the search for the +pin. She was woman, my kind, on my plane, and the delightful intimacy of +kind, of man and woman, was possible, as well as the reverence and awe in +which I knew I should always hold her. + +She found the pin with an adorable little cry, and I turned my attention +more fully to my steering. I proceeded to experiment, lashing and +wedging the steering-oar until the boat held on fairly well by the wind +without my assistance. Occasionally it came up too close, or fell off +too freely; but it always recovered itself and in the main behaved +satisfactorily. + +“And now we shall have breakfast,” I said. “But first you must be more +warmly clad.” + +I got out a heavy shirt, new from the slop-chest and made from blanket +goods. I knew the kind, so thick and so close of texture that it could +resist the rain and not be soaked through after hours of wetting. When +she had slipped this on over her head, I exchanged the boy’s cap she wore +for a man’s cap, large enough to cover her hair, and, when the flap was +turned down, to completely cover her neck and ears. The effect was +charming. Her face was of the sort that cannot but look well under all +circumstances. Nothing could destroy its exquisite oval, its well-nigh +classic lines, its delicately stencilled brows, its large brown eyes, +clear-seeing and calm, gloriously calm. + +A puff, slightly stronger than usual, struck us just then. The boat was +caught as it obliquely crossed the crest of a wave. It went over +suddenly, burying its gunwale level with the sea and shipping a bucketful +or so of water. I was opening a can of tongue at the moment, and I +sprang to the sheet and cast it off just in time. The sail flapped and +fluttered, and the boat paid off. A few minutes of regulating sufficed +to put it on its course again, when I returned to the preparation of +breakfast. + +“It does very well, it seems, though I am not versed in things nautical,” +she said, nodding her head with grave approval at my steering +contrivance. + +“But it will serve only when we are sailing by the wind,” I explained. +“When running more freely, with the wind astern abeam, or on the quarter, +it will be necessary for me to steer.” + +“I must say I don’t understand your technicalities,” she said, “but I do +your conclusion, and I don’t like it. You cannot steer night and day and +for ever. So I shall expect, after breakfast, to receive my first +lesson. And then you shall lie down and sleep. We’ll stand watches just +as they do on ships.” + +“I don’t see how I am to teach you,” I made protest. “I am just learning +for myself. You little thought when you trusted yourself to me that I +had had no experience whatever with small boats. This is the first time +I have ever been in one.” + +“Then we’ll learn together, sir. And since you’ve had a night’s start +you shall teach me what you have learned. And now, breakfast. My! this +air does give one an appetite!” + +“No coffee,” I said regretfully, passing her buttered sea-biscuits and a +slice of canned tongue. “And there will be no tea, no soups, nothing +hot, till we have made land somewhere, somehow.” + +After the simple breakfast, capped with a cup of cold water, Maud took +her lesson in steering. In teaching her I learned quite a deal myself, +though I was applying the knowledge already acquired by sailing the +_Ghost_ and by watching the boat-steerers sail the small boats. She was +an apt pupil, and soon learned to keep the course, to luff in the puffs +and to cast off the sheet in an emergency. + +Having grown tired, apparently, of the task, she relinquished the oar to +me. I had folded up the blankets, but she now proceeded to spread them +out on the bottom. When all was arranged snugly, she said: + +“Now, sir, to bed. And you shall sleep until luncheon. Till +dinner-time,” she corrected, remembering the arrangement on the _Ghost_. + +What could I do? She insisted, and said, “Please, please,” whereupon I +turned the oar over to her and obeyed. I experienced a positive sensuous +delight as I crawled into the bed she had made with her hands. The calm +and control which were so much a part of her seemed to have been +communicated to the blankets, so that I was aware of a soft dreaminess +and content, and of an oval face and brown eyes framed in a fisherman’s +cap and tossing against a background now of grey cloud, now of grey sea, +and then I was aware that I had been asleep. + +I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock. I had slept seven hours! And +she had been steering seven hours! When I took the steering-oar I had +first to unbend her cramped fingers. Her modicum of strength had been +exhausted, and she was unable even to move from her position. I was +compelled to let go the sheet while I helped her to the nest of blankets +and chafed her hands and arms. + +“I am so tired,” she said, with a quick intake of the breath and a sigh, +drooping her head wearily. + +But she straightened it the next moment. “Now don’t scold, don’t you +dare scold,” she cried with mock defiance. + +“I hope my face does not appear angry,” I answered seriously; “for I +assure you I am not in the least angry.” + +“N-no,” she considered. “It looks only reproachful.” + +“Then it is an honest face, for it looks what I feel. You were not fair +to yourself, nor to me. How can I ever trust you again?” + +She looked penitent. “I’ll be good,” she said, as a naughty child might +say it. “I promise—” + +“To obey as a sailor would obey his captain?” + +“Yes,” she answered. “It was stupid of me, I know.” + +“Then you must promise something else,” I ventured. + +“Readily.” + +“That you will not say, ‘Please, please,’ too often; for when you do you +are sure to override my authority.” + +She laughed with amused appreciation. She, too, had noticed the power of +the repeated “please.” + +“It is a good word—” I began. + +“But I must not overwork it,” she broke in. + +But she laughed weakly, and her head drooped again. I left the oar long +enough to tuck the blankets about her feet and to pull a single fold +across her face. Alas! she was not strong. I looked with misgiving +toward the south-west and thought of the six hundred miles of hardship +before us—ay, if it were no worse than hardship. On this sea a storm +might blow up at any moment and destroy us. And yet I was unafraid. I +was without confidence in the future, extremely doubtful, and yet I felt +no underlying fear. It must come right, it must come right, I repeated +to myself, over and over again. + +The wind freshened in the afternoon, raising a stiffer sea and trying the +boat and me severely. But the supply of food and the nine breakers of +water enabled the boat to stand up to the sea and wind, and I held on as +long as I dared. Then I removed the sprit, tightly hauling down the peak +of the sail, and we raced along under what sailors call a leg-of-mutton. + +Late in the afternoon I sighted a steamer’s smoke on the horizon to +leeward, and I knew it either for a Russian cruiser, or, more likely, the +_Macedonia_ still seeking the _Ghost_. The sun had not shone all day, +and it had been bitter cold. As night drew on, the clouds darkened and +the wind freshened, so that when Maud and I ate supper it was with our +mittens on and with me still steering and eating morsels between puffs. + +By the time it was dark, wind and sea had become too strong for the boat, +and I reluctantly took in the sail and set about making a drag or +sea-anchor. I had learned of the device from the talk of the hunters, +and it was a simple thing to manufacture. Furling the sail and lashing +it securely about the mast, boom, sprit, and two pairs of spare oars, I +threw it overboard. A line connected it with the bow, and as it floated +low in the water, practically unexposed to the wind, it drifted less +rapidly than the boat. In consequence it held the boat bow on to the sea +and wind—the safest position in which to escape being swamped when the +sea is breaking into whitecaps. + +“And now?” Maud asked cheerfully, when the task was accomplished and I +pulled on my mittens. + +“And now we are no longer travelling toward Japan,” I answered. “Our +drift is to the south-east, or south-south-east, at the rate of at least +two miles an hour.” + +“That will be only twenty-four miles,” she urged, “if the wind remains +high all night.” + +“Yes, and only one hundred and forty miles if it continues for three days +and nights.” + +“But it won’t continue,” she said with easy confidence. “It will turn +around and blow fair.” + +“The sea is the great faithless one.” + +“But the wind!” she retorted. “I have heard you grow eloquent over the +brave trade-wind.” + +“I wish I had thought to bring Wolf Larsen’s chronometer and sextant,” I +said, still gloomily. “Sailing one direction, drifting another +direction, to say nothing of the set of the current in some third +direction, makes a resultant which dead reckoning can never calculate. +Before long we won’t know where we are by five hundred miles.” + +Then I begged her pardon and promised I should not be disheartened any +more. At her solicitation I let her take the watch till midnight,—it was +then nine o’clock, but I wrapped her in blankets and put an oilskin about +her before I lay down. I slept only cat-naps. The boat was leaping and +pounding as it fell over the crests, I could hear the seas rushing past, +and spray was continually being thrown aboard. And still, it was not a +bad night, I mused—nothing to the nights I had been through on the +_Ghost_; nothing, perhaps, to the nights we should go through in this +cockle-shell. Its planking was three-quarters of an inch thick. Between +us and the bottom of the sea was less than an inch of wood. + +And yet, I aver it, and I aver it again, I was unafraid. The death which +Wolf Larsen and even Thomas Mugridge had made me fear, I no longer +feared. The coming of Maud Brewster into my life seemed to have +transformed me. After all, I thought, it is better and finer to love +than to be loved, if it makes something in life so worth while that one +is not loath to die for it. I forget my own life in the love of another +life; and yet, such is the paradox, I never wanted so much to live as +right now when I place the least value upon my own life. I never had so +much reason for living, was my concluding thought; and after that, until +I dozed, I contented myself with trying to pierce the darkness to where I +knew Maud crouched low in the stern-sheets, watchful of the foaming sea +and ready to call me on an instant’s notice. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +There is no need of going into an extended recital of our suffering in +the small boat during the many days we were driven and drifted, here and +there, willy-nilly, across the ocean. The high wind blew from the +north-west for twenty-four hours, when it fell calm, and in the night +sprang up from the south-west. This was dead in our teeth, but I took in +the sea-anchor and set sail, hauling a course on the wind which took us +in a south-south-easterly direction. It was an even choice between this +and the west-north-westerly course which the wind permitted; but the warm +airs of the south fanned my desire for a warmer sea and swayed my +decision. + +In three hours—it was midnight, I well remember, and as dark as I had +ever seen it on the sea—the wind, still blowing out of the south-west, +rose furiously, and once again I was compelled to set the sea-anchor. + +Day broke and found me wan-eyed and the ocean lashed white, the boat +pitching, almost on end, to its drag. We were in imminent danger of +being swamped by the whitecaps. As it was, spray and spume came aboard +in such quantities that I bailed without cessation. The blankets were +soaking. Everything was wet except Maud, and she, in oilskins, rubber +boots, and sou’wester, was dry, all but her face and hands and a stray +wisp of hair. She relieved me at the bailing-hole from time to time, and +bravely she threw out the water and faced the storm. All things are +relative. It was no more than a stiff blow, but to us, fighting for life +in our frail craft, it was indeed a storm. + +Cold and cheerless, the wind beating on our faces, the white seas roaring +by, we struggled through the day. Night came, but neither of us slept. +Day came, and still the wind beat on our faces and the white seas roared +past. By the second night Maud was falling asleep from exhaustion. I +covered her with oilskins and a tarpaulin. She was comparatively dry, +but she was numb with the cold. I feared greatly that she might die in +the night; but day broke, cold and cheerless, with the same clouded sky +and beating wind and roaring seas. + +I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I was wet and chilled to the +marrow, till I felt more dead than alive. My body was stiff from +exertion as well as from cold, and my aching muscles gave me the severest +torture whenever I used them, and I used them continually. And all the +time we were being driven off into the north-east, directly away from +Japan and toward bleak Bering Sea. + +And still we lived, and the boat lived, and the wind blew unabated. In +fact, toward nightfall of the third day it increased a trifle and +something more. The boat’s bow plunged under a crest, and we came +through quarter-full of water. I bailed like a madman. The liability of +shipping another such sea was enormously increased by the water that +weighed the boat down and robbed it of its buoyancy. And another such +sea meant the end. When I had the boat empty again I was forced to take +away the tarpaulin which covered Maud, in order that I might lash it down +across the bow. It was well I did, for it covered the boat fully a third +of the way aft, and three times, in the next several hours, it flung off +the bulk of the down-rushing water when the bow shoved under the seas. + +Maud’s condition was pitiable. She sat crouched in the bottom of the +boat, her lips blue, her face grey and plainly showing the pain she +suffered. But ever her eyes looked bravely at me, and ever her lips +uttered brave words. + +The worst of the storm must have blown that night, though little I +noticed it. I had succumbed and slept where I sat in the stern-sheets. +The morning of the fourth day found the wind diminished to a gentle +whisper, the sea dying down and the sun shining upon us. Oh, the blessed +sun! How we bathed our poor bodies in its delicious warmth, reviving +like bugs and crawling things after a storm. We smiled again, said +amusing things, and waxed optimistic over our situation. Yet it was, if +anything, worse than ever. We were farther from Japan than the night we +left the _Ghost_. Nor could I more than roughly guess our latitude and +longitude. At a calculation of a two-mile drift per hour, during the +seventy and odd hours of the storm, we had been driven at least one +hundred and fifty miles to the north-east. But was such calculated drift +correct? For all I knew, it might have been four miles per hour instead +of two. In which case we were another hundred and fifty miles to the +bad. + +Where we were I did not know, though there was quite a likelihood that we +were in the vicinity of the _Ghost_. There were seals about us, and I +was prepared to sight a sealing-schooner at any time. We did sight one, +in the afternoon, when the north-west breeze had sprung up freshly once +more. But the strange schooner lost itself on the sky-line and we alone +occupied the circle of the sea. + +Came days of fog, when even Maud’s spirit drooped and there were no merry +words upon her lips; days of calm, when we floated on the lonely +immensity of sea, oppressed by its greatness and yet marvelling at the +miracle of tiny life, for we still lived and struggled to live; days of +sleet and wind and snow-squalls, when nothing could keep us warm; or days +of drizzling rain, when we filled our water-breakers from the drip of the +wet sail. + +And ever I loved Maud with an increasing love. She was so many-sided, so +many-mooded—“protean-mooded” I called her. But I called her this, and +other and dearer things, in my thoughts only. Though the declaration of +my love urged and trembled on my tongue a thousand times, I knew that it +was no time for such a declaration. If for no other reason, it was no +time, when one was protecting and trying to save a woman, to ask that +woman for her love. Delicate as was the situation, not alone in this but +in other ways, I flattered myself that I was able to deal delicately with +it; and also I flattered myself that by look or sign I gave no +advertisement of the love I felt for her. We were like good comrades, +and we grew better comrades as the days went by. + +One thing about her which surprised me was her lack of timidity and fear. +The terrible sea, the frail boat, the storms, the suffering, the +strangeness and isolation of the situation,—all that should have +frightened a robust woman,—seemed to make no impression upon her who had +known life only in its most sheltered and consummately artificial +aspects, and who was herself all fire and dew and mist, sublimated +spirit, all that was soft and tender and clinging in woman. And yet I am +wrong. She _was_ timid and afraid, but she possessed courage. The flesh +and the qualms of the flesh she was heir to, but the flesh bore heavily +only on the flesh. And she was spirit, first and always spirit, +etherealized essence of life, calm as her calm eyes, and sure of +permanence in the changing order of the universe. + +Came days of storm, days and nights of storm, when the ocean menaced us +with its roaring whiteness, and the wind smote our struggling boat with a +Titan’s buffets. And ever we were flung off, farther and farther, to the +north-east. It was in such a storm, and the worst that we had +experienced, that I cast a weary glance to leeward, not in quest of +anything, but more from the weariness of facing the elemental strife, and +in mute appeal, almost, to the wrathful powers to cease and let us be. +What I saw I could not at first believe. Days and nights of +sleeplessness and anxiety had doubtless turned my head. I looked back at +Maud, to identify myself, as it were, in time and space. The sight of +her dear wet cheeks, her flying hair, and her brave brown eyes convinced +me that my vision was still healthy. Again I turned my face to leeward, +and again I saw the jutting promontory, black and high and naked, the +raging surf that broke about its base and beat its front high up with +spouting fountains, the black and forbidding coast-line running toward the +south-east and fringed with a tremendous scarf of white. + +“Maud,” I said. “Maud.” + +She turned her head and beheld the sight. + +“It cannot be Alaska!” she cried. + +“Alas, no,” I answered, and asked, “Can you swim?” + +She shook her head. + +“Neither can I,” I said. “So we must get ashore without swimming, in +some opening between the rocks through which we can drive the boat and +clamber out. But we must be quick, most quick—and sure.” + +I spoke with a confidence she knew I did not feel, for she looked at me +with that unfaltering gaze of hers and said: + +“I have not thanked you yet for all you have done for me but—” + +She hesitated, as if in doubt how best to word her gratitude. + +“Well?” I said, brutally, for I was not quite pleased with her thanking +me. + +“You might help me,” she smiled. + +“To acknowledge your obligations before you die? Not at all. We are not +going to die. We shall land on that island, and we shall be snug and +sheltered before the day is done.” + +I spoke stoutly, but I did not believe a word. Nor was I prompted to lie +through fear. I felt no fear, though I was sure of death in that boiling +surge amongst the rocks which was rapidly growing nearer. It was +impossible to hoist sail and claw off that shore. The wind would +instantly capsize the boat; the seas would swamp it the moment it fell +into the trough; and, besides, the sail, lashed to the spare oars, +dragged in the sea ahead of us. + +As I say, I was not afraid to meet my own death, there, a few hundred +yards to leeward; but I was appalled at the thought that Maud must die. +My cursed imagination saw her beaten and mangled against the rocks, and +it was too terrible. I strove to compel myself to think we would make +the landing safely, and so I spoke, not what I believed, but what I +preferred to believe. + +I recoiled before contemplation of that frightful death, and for a moment +I entertained the wild idea of seizing Maud in my arms and leaping +overboard. Then I resolved to wait, and at the last moment, when we +entered on the final stretch, to take her in my arms and proclaim my +love, and, with her in my embrace, to make the desperate struggle and +die. + +Instinctively we drew closer together in the bottom of the boat. I felt +her mittened hand come out to mine. And thus, without speech, we waited +the end. We were not far off the line the wind made with the western +edge of the promontory, and I watched in the hope that some set of the +current or send of the sea would drift us past before we reached the +surf. + +“We shall go clear,” I said, with a confidence which I knew deceived +neither of us. + +“By God, we _will_ go clear!” I cried, five minutes later. + +The oath left my lips in my excitement—the first, I do believe, in my +life, unless “trouble it,” an expletive of my youth, be accounted an +oath. + +“I beg your pardon,” I said. + +“You have convinced me of your sincerity,” she said, with a faint smile. +“I do know, now, that we shall go clear.” + +I had seen a distant headland past the extreme edge of the promontory, +and as we looked we could see grow the intervening coastline of what was +evidently a deep cove. At the same time there broke upon our ears a +continuous and mighty bellowing. It partook of the magnitude and volume +of distant thunder, and it came to us directly from leeward, rising above +the crash of the surf and travelling directly in the teeth of the storm. +As we passed the point the whole cove burst upon our view, a half-moon of +white sandy beach upon which broke a huge surf, and which was covered +with myriads of seals. It was from them that the great bellowing went +up. + +“A rookery!” I cried. “Now are we indeed saved. There must be men and +cruisers to protect them from the seal-hunters. Possibly there is a +station ashore.” + +But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said, “Still bad, +but not so bad. And now, if the gods be truly kind, we shall drift by +that next headland and come upon a perfectly sheltered beach, where we +may land without wetting our feet.” + +And the gods were kind. The first and second headlands were directly in +line with the south-west wind; but once around the second,—and we went +perilously near,—we picked up the third headland, still in line with the +wind and with the other two. But the cove that intervened! It +penetrated deep into the land, and the tide, setting in, drifted us under +the shelter of the point. Here the sea was calm, save for a heavy but +smooth ground-swell, and I took in the sea-anchor and began to row. From +the point the shore curved away, more and more to the south and west, +until at last it disclosed a cove within the cove, a little land-locked +harbour, the water level as a pond, broken only by tiny ripples where +vagrant breaths and wisps of the storm hurtled down from over the +frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred feet inshore. + +Here were no seals whatever. The boat’s stern touched the hard shingle. +I sprang out, extending my hand to Maud. The next moment she was beside +me. As my fingers released hers, she clutched for my arm hastily. At +the same moment I swayed, as about to fall to the sand. This was the +startling effect of the cessation of motion. We had been so long upon +the moving, rocking sea that the stable land was a shock to us. We +expected the beach to lift up this way and that, and the rocky walls to +swing back and forth like the sides of a ship; and when we braced +ourselves, automatically, for these various expected movements, their +non-occurrence quite overcame our equilibrium. + +“I really must sit down,” Maud said, with a nervous laugh and a dizzy +gesture, and forthwith she sat down on the sand. + +I attended to making the boat secure and joined her. Thus we landed on +Endeavour Island, as we came to it, land-sick from long custom of the +sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +“Fool!” I cried aloud in my vexation. + +I had unloaded the boat and carried its contents high up on the beach, +where I had set about making a camp. There was driftwood, though not +much, on the beach, and the sight of a coffee tin I had taken from the +_Ghost’s_ larder had given me the idea of a fire. + +“Blithering idiot!” I was continuing. + +But Maud said, “Tut, tut,” in gentle reproval, and then asked why I was a +blithering idiot. + +“No matches,” I groaned. “Not a match did I bring. And now we shall +have no hot coffee, soup, tea, or anything!” + +“Wasn’t it—er—Crusoe who rubbed sticks together?” she drawled. + +“But I have read the personal narratives of a score of shipwrecked men +who tried, and tried in vain,” I answered. “I remember Winters, a +newspaper fellow with an Alaskan and Siberian reputation. Met him at the +Bibelot once, and he was telling us how he attempted to make a fire with +a couple of sticks. It was most amusing. He told it inimitably, but it +was the story of a failure. I remember his conclusion, his black eyes +flashing as he said, ‘Gentlemen, the South Sea Islander may do it, the +Malay may do it, but take my word it’s beyond the white man.’” + +“Oh, well, we’ve managed so far without it,” she said cheerfully. “And +there’s no reason why we cannot still manage without it.” + +“But think of the coffee!” I cried. “It’s good coffee, too, I know. I +took it from Larsen’s private stores. And look at that good wood.” + +I confess, I wanted the coffee badly; and I learned, not long afterward, +that the berry was likewise a little weakness of Maud’s. Besides, we had +been so long on a cold diet that we were numb inside as well as out. +Anything warm would have been most gratifying. But I complained no more +and set about making a tent of the sail for Maud. + +I had looked upon it as a simple task, what of the oars, mast, boom, and +sprit, to say nothing of plenty of lines. But as I was without +experience, and as every detail was an experiment and every successful +detail an invention, the day was well gone before her shelter was an +accomplished fact. And then, that night, it rained, and she was flooded +out and driven back into the boat. + +The next morning I dug a shallow ditch around the tent, and, an hour +later, a sudden gust of wind, whipping over the rocky wall behind us, +picked up the tent and smashed it down on the sand thirty yards away. + +Maud laughed at my crestfallen expression, and I said, “As soon as the +wind abates I intend going in the boat to explore the island. There must +be a station somewhere, and men. And ships must visit the station. Some +Government must protect all these seals. But I wish to have you +comfortable before I start.” + +“I should like to go with you,” was all she said. + +“It would be better if you remained. You have had enough of hardship. +It is a miracle that you have survived. And it won’t be comfortable in +the boat rowing and sailing in this rainy weather. What you need is +rest, and I should like you to remain and get it.” + +Something suspiciously akin to moistness dimmed her beautiful eyes before +she dropped them and partly turned away her head. + +“I should prefer going with you,” she said in a low voice, in which there +was just a hint of appeal. + +“I might be able to help you a—” her voice broke,—“a little. And if +anything should happen to you, think of me left here alone.” + +“Oh, I intend being very careful,” I answered. “And I shall not go so +far but what I can get back before night. Yes, all said and done, I +think it vastly better for you to remain, and sleep, and rest and do +nothing.” + +She turned and looked me in the eyes. Her gaze was unfaltering, but +soft. + +“Please, please,” she said, oh, so softly. + +I stiffened myself to refuse, and shook my head. Still she waited and +looked at me. I tried to word my refusal, but wavered. I saw the glad +light spring into her eyes and knew that I had lost. It was impossible +to say no after that. + +The wind died down in the afternoon, and we were prepared to start the +following morning. There was no way of penetrating the island from our +cove, for the walls rose perpendicularly from the beach, and, on either +side of the cove, rose from the deep water. + +Morning broke dull and grey, but calm, and I was awake early and had the +boat in readiness. + +“Fool! Imbecile! Yahoo!” I shouted, when I thought it was meet to +arouse Maud; but this time I shouted in merriment as I danced about the +beach, bareheaded, in mock despair. + +Her head appeared under the flap of the sail. + +“What now?” she asked sleepily, and, withal, curiously. + +“Coffee!” I cried. “What do you say to a cup of coffee? hot coffee? +piping hot?” + +“My!” she murmured, “you startled me, and you are cruel. Here I have +been composing my soul to do without it, and here you are vexing me with +your vain suggestions.” + +“Watch me,” I said. + +From under clefts among the rocks I gathered a few dry sticks and chips. +These I whittled into shavings or split into kindling. From my note-book +I tore out a page, and from the ammunition box took a shot-gun shell. +Removing the wads from the latter with my knife, I emptied the powder on +a flat rock. Next I pried the primer, or cap, from the shell, and laid +it on the rock, in the midst of the scattered powder. All was ready. +Maud still watched from the tent. Holding the paper in my left hand, I +smashed down upon the cap with a rock held in my right. There was a puff +of white smoke, a burst of flame, and the rough edge of the paper was +alight. + +Maud clapped her hands gleefully. “Prometheus!” she cried. + +But I was too occupied to acknowledge her delight. The feeble flame must +be cherished tenderly if it were to gather strength and live. I fed it, +shaving by shaving, and sliver by sliver, till at last it was snapping +and crackling as it laid hold of the smaller chips and sticks. To be +cast away on an island had not entered into my calculations, so we were +without a kettle or cooking utensils of any sort; but I made shift with +the tin used for bailing the boat, and later, as we consumed our supply +of canned goods, we accumulated quite an imposing array of cooking +vessels. + +I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And how good it +was! My contribution was canned beef fried with crumbled sea-biscuit and +water. The breakfast was a success, and we sat about the fire much +longer than enterprising explorers should have done, sipping the hot +black coffee and talking over our situation. + +I was confident that we should find a station in some one of the coves, +for I knew that the rookeries of Bering Sea were thus guarded; but Maud +advanced the theory—to prepare me for disappointment, I do believe, if +disappointment were to come—that we had discovered an unknown rookery. +She was in very good spirits, however, and made quite merry in accepting +our plight as a grave one. + +“If you are right,” I said, “then we must prepare to winter here. Our +food will not last, but there are the seals. They go away in the fall, +so I must soon begin to lay in a supply of meat. Then there will be huts +to build and driftwood to gather. Also we shall try out seal fat for +lighting purposes. Altogether, we’ll have our hands full if we find the +island uninhabited. Which we shall not, I know.” + +But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the shore, searching +the coves with our glasses and landing occasionally, without finding a +sign of human life. Yet we learned that we were not the first who had +landed on Endeavour Island. High up on the beach of the second cove from +ours, we discovered the splintered wreck of a boat—a sealer’s boat, for +the rowlocks were bound in sennit, a gun-rack was on the starboard side +of the bow, and in white letters was faintly visible _Gazelle_ No. 2. +The boat had lain there for a long time, for it was half filled with +sand, and the splintered wood had that weather-worn appearance due to +long exposure to the elements. In the stern-sheets I found a rusty +ten-gauge shot-gun and a sailor’s sheath-knife broken short across and so +rusted as to be almost unrecognizable. + +“They got away,” I said cheerfully; but I felt a sinking at the heart and +seemed to divine the presence of bleached bones somewhere on that beach. + +I did not wish Maud’s spirits to be dampened by such a find, so I turned +seaward again with our boat and skirted the north-eastern point of the +island. There were no beaches on the southern shore, and by early +afternoon we rounded the black promontory and completed the +circumnavigation of the island. I estimated its circumference at +twenty-five miles, its width as varying from two to five miles; while my +most conservative calculation placed on its beaches two hundred thousand +seals. The island was highest at its extreme south-western point, the +headlands and backbone diminishing regularly until the north-eastern +portion was only a few feet above the sea. With the exception of our +little cove, the other beaches sloped gently back for a distance of +half-a-mile or so, into what I might call rocky meadows, with here and +there patches of moss and tundra grass. Here the seals hauled out, and +the old bulls guarded their harems, while the young bulls hauled out by +themselves. + +This brief description is all that Endeavour Island merits. Damp and +soggy where it was not sharp and rocky, buffeted by storm winds and +lashed by the sea, with the air continually a-tremble with the bellowing +of two hundred thousand amphibians, it was a melancholy and miserable +sojourning-place. Maud, who had prepared me for disappointment, and who +had been sprightly and vivacious all day, broke down as we landed in our +own little cove. She strove bravely to hide it from me, but while I was +kindling another fire I knew she was stifling her sobs in the blankets +under the sail-tent. + +It was my turn to be cheerful, and I played the part to the best of my +ability, and with such success that I brought the laughter back into her +dear eyes and song on her lips; for she sang to me before she went to an +early bed. It was the first time I had heard her sing, and I lay by the +fire, listening and transported, for she was nothing if not an artist in +everything she did, and her voice, though not strong, was wonderfully +sweet and expressive. + +I still slept in the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing up at +the first stars I had seen in many nights and pondering the situation. +Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen had been +quite right. I had stood on my father’s legs. My lawyers and agents had +taken care of my money for me. I had had no responsibilities at all. +Then, on the _Ghost_ I had learned to be responsible for myself. And +now, for the first time in my life, I found myself responsible for some +one else. And it was required of me that this should be the gravest of +responsibilities, for she was the one woman in the world—the one small +woman, as I loved to think of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +No wonder we called it Endeavour Island. For two weeks we toiled at +building a hut. Maud insisted on helping, and I could have wept over her +bruised and bleeding hands. And still, I was proud of her because of it. +There was something heroic about this gently-bred woman enduring our +terrible hardship and with her pittance of strength bending to the tasks +of a peasant woman. She gathered many of the stones which I built into +the walls of the hut; also, she turned a deaf ear to my entreaties when I +begged her to desist. She compromised, however, by taking upon herself +the lighter labours of cooking and gathering driftwood and moss for our +winter’s supply. + +The hut’s walls rose without difficulty, and everything went smoothly +until the problem of the roof confronted me. Of what use the four walls +without a roof? And of what could a roof be made? There were the spare +oars, very true. They would serve as roof-beams; but with what was I to +cover them? Moss would never do. Tundra grass was impracticable. We +needed the sail for the boat, and the tarpaulin had begun to leak. + +“Winters used walrus skins on his hut,” I said. + +“There are the seals,” she suggested. + +So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, but I +proceeded to learn. And when I had expended some thirty shells for three +seals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted before I acquired +the necessary knowledge. I had used eight shells for lighting fires +before I hit upon the device of banking the embers with wet moss, and +there remained not over a hundred shells in the box. + +“We must club the seals,” I announced, when convinced of my poor +marksmanship. “I have heard the sealers talk about clubbing them.” + +“They are so pretty,” she objected. “I cannot bear to think of it being +done. It is so directly brutal, you know; so different from shooting +them.” + +“That roof must go on,” I answered grimly. “Winter is almost here. It +is our lives against theirs. It is unfortunate we haven’t plenty of +ammunition, but I think, anyway, that they suffer less from being clubbed +than from being all shot up. Besides, I shall do the clubbing.” + +“That’s just it,” she began eagerly, and broke off in sudden confusion. + +“Of course,” I began, “if you prefer—” + +“But what shall I be doing?” she interrupted, with that softness I knew +full well to be insistence. + +“Gathering firewood and cooking dinner,” I answered lightly. + +She shook her head. “It is too dangerous for you to attempt alone.” + +“I know, I know,” she waived my protest. “I am only a weak woman, but +just my small assistance may enable you to escape disaster.” + +“But the clubbing?” I suggested. + +“Of course, you will do that. I shall probably scream. I’ll look away +when—” + +“The danger is most serious,” I laughed. + +“I shall use my judgment when to look and when not to look,” she replied +with a grand air. + +The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. I +rowed into the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. There +were seals all about us in the water, and the bellowing thousands on the +beach compelled us to shout at each other to make ourselves heard. + +“I know men club them,” I said, trying to reassure myself, and gazing +doubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet away, upreared on his +fore-flippers and regarding me intently. “But the question is, How do +they club them?” + +“Let us gather tundra grass and thatch the roof,” Maud said. + +She was as frightened as I at the prospect, and we had reason to be +gazing at close range at the gleaming teeth and dog-like mouths. + +“I always thought they were afraid of men,” I said. + +“How do I know they are not afraid?” I queried a moment later, after +having rowed a few more strokes along the beach. “Perhaps, if I were to +step boldly ashore, they would cut for it, and I could not catch up with +one.” And still I hesitated. + +“I heard of a man, once, who invaded the nesting grounds of wild geese,” +Maud said. “They killed him.” + +“The geese?” + +“Yes, the geese. My brother told me about it when I was a little girl.” + +“But I know men club them,” I persisted. + +“I think the tundra grass will make just as good a roof,” she said. + +Far from her intention, her words were maddening me, driving me on. I +could not play the coward before her eyes. “Here goes,” I said, backing +water with one oar and running the bow ashore. + +I stepped out and advanced valiantly upon a long-maned bull in the midst +of his wives. I was armed with the regular club with which the +boat-pullers killed the wounded seals gaffed aboard by the hunters. It +was only a foot and a half long, and in my superb ignorance I never +dreamed that the club used ashore when raiding the rookeries measured +four to five feet. The cows lumbered out of my way, and the distance +between me and the bull decreased. He raised himself on his flippers +with an angry movement. We were a dozen feet apart. Still I advanced +steadily, looking for him to turn tail at any moment and run. + +At six feet the panicky thought rushed into my mind, What if he will not +run? Why, then I shall club him, came the answer. In my fear I had +forgotten that I was there to get the bull instead of to make him run. +And just then he gave a snort and a snarl and rushed at me. His eyes +were blazing, his mouth was wide open; the teeth gleamed cruelly white. +Without shame, I confess that it was I who turned and footed it. He ran +awkwardly, but he ran well. He was but two paces behind when I tumbled +into the boat, and as I shoved off with an oar his teeth crunched down +upon the blade. The stout wood was crushed like an egg-shell. Maud and +I were astounded. A moment later he had dived under the boat, seized the +keel in his mouth, and was shaking the boat violently. + +“My!” said Maud. “Let’s go back.” + +I shook my head. “I can do what other men have done, and I know that +other men have clubbed seals. But I think I’ll leave the bulls alone +next time.” + +“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said. + +“Now don’t say, ‘Please, please,’” I cried, half angrily, I do believe. + +She made no reply, and I knew my tone must have hurt her. + +“I beg your pardon,” I said, or shouted, rather, in order to make myself +heard above the roar of the rookery. “If you say so, I’ll turn and go +back; but honestly, I’d rather stay.” + +“Now don’t say that this is what you get for bringing a woman along,” she +said. She smiled at me whimsically, gloriously, and I knew there was no +need for forgiveness. + +I rowed a couple of hundred feet along the beach so as to recover my +nerves, and then stepped ashore again. + +“Do be cautious,” she called after me. + +I nodded my head and proceeded to make a flank attack on the nearest +harem. All went well until I aimed a blow at an outlying cow's head and +fell short. She snorted and tried to scramble away. I ran in close and +struck another blow, hitting the shoulder instead of the head. + +“Watch out!” I heard Maud scream. + +In my excitement I had not been taking notice of other things, and I +looked up to see the lord of the harem charging down upon me. Again I +fled to the boat, hotly pursued; but this time Maud made no suggestion of +turning back. + +“It would be better, I imagine, if you let harems alone and devoted your +attention to lonely and inoffensive-looking seals,” was what she said. +“I think I have read something about them. Dr. Jordan’s book, I believe. +They are the young bulls, not old enough to have harems of their own. He +called them the holluschickie, or something like that. It seems to me if +we find where they haul out—” + +“It seems to me that your fighting instinct is aroused,” I laughed. + +She flushed quickly and prettily. “I’ll admit I don’t like defeat any +more than you do, or any more than I like the idea of killing such +pretty, inoffensive creatures.” + +“Pretty!” I sniffed. “I failed to mark anything pre-eminently pretty +about those foamy-mouthed beasts that raced me.” + +“Your point of view,” she laughed. “You lacked perspective. Now if you +did not have to get so close to the subject—” + +“The very thing!” I cried. “What I need is a longer club. And there’s +that broken oar ready to hand.” + +“It just comes to me,” she said, “that Captain Larsen was telling me how +the men raided the rookeries. They drive the seals, in small herds, a +short distance inland before they kill them.” + +“I don’t care to undertake the herding of one of those harems,” I +objected. + +“But there are the holluschickie,” she said. “The holluschickie haul out +by themselves, and Dr. Jordan says that paths are left between the +harems, and that as long as the holluschickie keep strictly to the path +they are unmolested by the masters of the harem.” + +“There’s one now,” I said, pointing to a young bull in the water. “Let’s +watch him, and follow him if he hauls out.” + +He swam directly to the beach and clambered out into a small opening +between two harems, the masters of which made warning noises but did not +attack him. We watched him travel slowly inward, threading about among +the harems along what must have been the path. + +“Here goes,” I said, stepping out; but I confess my heart was in my mouth +as I thought of going through the heart of that monstrous herd. + +“It would be wise to make the boat fast,” Maud said. + +She had stepped out beside me, and I regarded her with wonderment. + +She nodded her head determinedly. “Yes, I’m going with you, so you may +as well secure the boat and arm me with a club.” + +“Let’s go back,” I said dejectedly. “I think tundra grass, will do, +after all.” + +“You know it won’t,” was her reply. “Shall I lead?” + +With a shrug of the shoulders, but with the warmest admiration and pride +at heart for this woman, I equipped her with the broken oar and took +another for myself. It was with nervous trepidation that we made the +first few rods of the journey. Once Maud screamed in terror as a cow +thrust an inquisitive nose toward her foot, and several times I quickened +my pace for the same reason. But, beyond warning coughs from either +side, there were no signs of hostility. It was a rookery which had never +been raided by the hunters, and in consequence the seals were +mild-tempered and at the same time unafraid. + +In the very heart of the herd the din was terrific. It was almost +dizzying in its effect. I paused and smiled reassuringly at Maud, for I +had recovered my equanimity sooner than she. I could see that she was +still badly frightened. She came close to me and shouted: + +“I’m dreadfully afraid!” + +And I was not. Though the novelty had not yet worn off, the peaceful +comportment of the seals had quieted my alarm. Maud was trembling. + +“I’m afraid, and I’m not afraid,” she chattered with shaking jaws. “It’s +my miserable body, not I.” + +“It’s all right, it’s all right,” I reassured her, my arm passing +instinctively and protectingly around her. + +I shall never forget, in that moment, how instantly conscious I became of +my manhood. The primitive deeps of my nature stirred. I felt myself +masculine, the protector of the weak, the fighting male. And, best of +all, I felt myself the protector of my loved one. She leaned against me, +so light and lily-frail, and as her trembling eased away it seemed as +though I became aware of prodigious strength. I felt myself a match for +the most ferocious bull in the herd, and I know, had such a bull charged +upon me, that I should have met it unflinchingly and quite coolly, and I +know that I should have killed it. + +“I am all right now,” she said, looking up at me gratefully. “Let us go +on.” + +And that the strength in me had quieted her and given her confidence, +filled me with an exultant joy. The youth of the race seemed burgeoning +in me, over-civilized man that I was, and I lived for myself the old +hunting days and forest nights of my remote and forgotten ancestry. I +had much for which to thank Wolf Larsen, was my thought as we went along +the path between the jostling harems. + +A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the holluschickie—sleek young +bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gathering +strength against the day when they would fight their way into the ranks +of the Benedicts. + +Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know just what to do and how +to do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, and even +prodding the lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score of the young bachelors +from their companions. Whenever one made an attempt to break back toward +the water, I headed it off. Maud took an active part in the drive, and +with her cries and flourishings of the broken oar was of considerable +assistance. I noticed, though, that whenever one looked tired and +lagged, she let it slip past. But I noticed, also, whenever one, with a +show of fight, tried to break past, that her eyes glinted and showed +bright, and she rapped it smartly with her club. + +“My, it’s exciting!” she cried, pausing from sheer weakness. “I think +I’ll sit down.” + +I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes she had +permitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she joined me I +had finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin. An hour later we +went proudly back along the path between the harems. And twice again we +came down the path burdened with skins, till I thought we had enough to +roof the hut. I set the sail, laid one tack out of the cove, and on the +other tack made our own little inner cove. + +“It’s just like home-coming,” Maud said, as I ran the boat ashore. + +I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly intimate +and natural, and I said: + +“It seems as though I have lived this life always. The world of books +and bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than an +actuality. I surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the days of +my life. And you, too, seem a part of it. You are—” I was on the verge +of saying, “my woman, my mate,” but glibly changed it to—“standing the +hardship well.” + +But her ear had caught the flaw. She recognized a flight that midmost +broke. She gave me a quick look. + +“Not that. You were saying—?” + +“That the American Mrs. Meynell was living the life of a savage and +living it quite successfully,” I said easily. + +“Oh,” was all she replied; but I could have sworn there was a note of +disappointment in her voice. + +But “my woman, my mate” kept ringing in my head for the rest of the day +and for many days. Yet never did it ring more loudly than that night, as +I watched her draw back the blanket of moss from the coals, blow up the +fire, and cook the evening meal. It must have been latent savagery +stirring in me, for the old words, so bound up with the roots of the +race, to grip me and thrill me. And grip and thrill they did, till I +fell asleep, murmuring them to myself over and over again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +“It will smell,” I said, “but it will keep in the heat and keep out the +rain and snow.” + +We were surveying the completed seal-skin roof. + +“It is clumsy, but it will serve the purpose, and that is the main +thing,” I went on, yearning for her praise. + +And she clapped her hands and declared that she was hugely pleased. + +“But it is dark in here,” she said the next moment, her shoulders +shrinking with a little involuntary shiver. + +“You might have suggested a window when the walls were going up,” I said. +“It was for you, and you should have seen the need of a window.” + +“But I never do see the obvious, you know,” she laughed back. “And +besides, you can knock a hole in the wall at any time.” + +“Quite true; I had not thought of it,” I replied, wagging my head sagely. +“But have you thought of ordering the window-glass? Just call up the +firm,—Red, 4451, I think it is,—and tell them what size and kind of glass +you wish.” + +“That means—” she began. + +“No window.” + +It was a dark and evil-appearing thing, that hut, not fit for aught +better than swine in a civilized land; but for us, who had known the +misery of the open boat, it was a snug little habitation. Following the +housewarming, which was accomplished by means of seal-oil and a wick made +from cotton calking, came the hunting for our winter’s meat and the +building of the second hut. It was a simple affair, now, to go forth in +the morning and return by noon with a boatload of seals. And then, while +I worked at building the hut, Maud tried out the oil from the blubber and +kept a slow fire under the frames of meat. I had heard of jerking beef +on the plains, and our seal-meat, cut in thin strips and hung in the +smoke, cured excellently. + +The second hut was easier to erect, for I built it against the first, and +only three walls were required. But it was work, hard work, all of it. +Maud and I worked from dawn till dark, to the limit of our strength, so +that when night came we crawled stiffly to bed and slept the animal-like +sleep of exhaustion. And yet Maud declared that she had never felt better +or stronger in her life. I knew this was true of myself, but hers was +such a lily strength that I feared she would break down. Often and +often, her last-reserve force gone, I have seen her stretched flat on her +back on the sand in the way she had of resting and recuperating. And +then she would be up on her feet and toiling hard as ever. Where she +obtained this strength was the marvel to me. + +“Think of the long rest this winter,” was her reply to my remonstrances. +“Why, we’ll be clamorous for something to do.” + +We held a housewarming in my hut the night it was roofed. It was the end +of the third day of a fierce storm which had swung around the compass +from the south-east to the north-west, and which was then blowing +directly in upon us. The beaches of the outer cove were thundering with +the surf, and even in our land-locked inner cove a respectable sea was +breaking. No high backbone of island sheltered us from the wind, and it +whistled and bellowed about the hut till at times I feared for the +strength of the walls. The skin roof, stretched tightly as a drumhead, I +had thought, sagged and bellied with every gust; and innumerable +interstices in the walls, not so tightly stuffed with moss as Maud had +supposed, disclosed themselves. Yet the seal-oil burned brightly and we +were warm and comfortable. + +It was a pleasant evening indeed, and we voted that as a social function +on Endeavour Island it had not yet been eclipsed. Our minds were at +ease. Not only had we resigned ourselves to the bitter winter, but we +were prepared for it. The seals could depart on their mysterious journey +into the south at any time, now, for all we cared; and the storms held no +terror for us. Not only were we sure of being dry and warm and sheltered +from the wind, but we had the softest and most luxurious mattresses that +could be made from moss. This had been Maud’s idea, and she had herself +jealously gathered all the moss. This was to be my first night on the +mattress, and I knew I should sleep the sweeter because she had made it. + +As she rose to go she turned to me with the whimsical way she had, and +said: + +“Something is going to happen—is happening, for that matter. I feel it. +Something is coming here, to us. It is coming now. I don’t know what, +but it is coming.” + +“Good or bad?” I asked. + +She shook her head. “I don’t know, but it is there, somewhere.” + +She pointed in the direction of the sea and wind. + +“It’s a lee shore,” I laughed, “and I am sure I’d rather be here than +arriving, a night like this.” + +“You are not frightened?” I asked, as I stepped to open the door for her. + +Her eyes looked bravely into mine. + +“And you feel well? perfectly well?” + +“Never better,” was her answer. + +We talked a little longer before she went. + +“Good-night, Maud,” I said. + +“Good-night, Humphrey,” she said. + +This use of our given names had come about quite as a matter of course, +and was as unpremeditated as it was natural. In that moment I could have +put my arms around her and drawn her to me. I should certainly have done +so out in that world to which we belonged. As it was, the situation +stopped there in the only way it could; but I was left alone in my little +hut, glowing warmly through and through with a pleasant satisfaction; and +I knew that a tie, or a tacit something, existed between us which had not +existed before. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +I awoke, oppressed by a mysterious sensation. There seemed something +missing in my environment. But the mystery and oppressiveness vanished +after the first few seconds of waking, when I identified the missing +something as the wind. I had fallen asleep in that state of nerve +tension with which one meets the continuous shock of sound or movement, +and I had awakened, still tense, bracing myself to meet the pressure of +something which no longer bore upon me. + +It was the first night I had spent under cover in several months, and I +lay luxuriously for some minutes under my blankets (for once not wet with +fog or spray), analysing, first, the effect produced upon me by the +cessation of the wind, and next, the joy which was mine from resting on +the mattress made by Maud’s hands. When I had dressed and opened the +door, I heard the waves still lapping on the beach, garrulously attesting +the fury of the night. It was a clear day, and the sun was shining. I +had slept late, and I stepped outside with sudden energy, bent upon +making up lost time as befitted a dweller on Endeavour Island. + +And when outside, I stopped short. I believed my eyes without question, +and yet I was for the moment stunned by what they disclosed to me. +There, on the beach, not fifty feet away, bow on, dismasted, was a +black-hulled vessel. Masts and booms, tangled with shrouds, sheets, and +rent canvas, were rubbing gently alongside. I could have rubbed my eyes +as I looked. There was the home-made galley we had built, the familiar +break of the poop, the low yacht-cabin scarcely rising above the rail. +It was the _Ghost_. + +What freak of fortune had brought it here—here of all spots? what chance +of chances? I looked at the bleak, inaccessible wall at my back and knew +the profundity of despair. Escape was hopeless, out of the question. I +thought of Maud, asleep there in the hut we had reared; I remembered her +“Good-night, Humphrey”; “my woman, my mate,” went ringing through my +brain, but now, alas, it was a knell that sounded. Then everything went +black before my eyes. + +Possibly it was the fraction of a second, but I had no knowledge of how +long an interval had lapsed before I was myself again. There lay the +_Ghost_, bow on to the beach, her splintered bowsprit projecting over the +sand, her tangled spars rubbing against her side to the lift of the +crooning waves. Something must be done, must be done. + +It came upon me suddenly, as strange, that nothing moved aboard. Wearied +from the night of struggle and wreck, all hands were yet asleep, I +thought. My next thought was that Maud and I might yet escape. If we +could take to the boat and make round the point before any one awoke? I +would call her and start. My hand was lifted at her door to knock, when +I recollected the smallness of the island. We could never hide ourselves +upon it. There was nothing for us but the wide raw ocean. I thought of +our snug little huts, our supplies of meat and oil and moss and firewood, +and I knew that we could never survive the wintry sea and the great +storms which were to come. + +So I stood, with hesitant knuckle, without her door. It was impossible, +impossible. A wild thought of rushing in and killing her as she slept +rose in my mind. And then, in a flash, the better solution came to me. +All hands were asleep. Why not creep aboard the _Ghost_,—well I knew the +way to Wolf Larsen’s bunk,—and kill him in his sleep? After that—well, +we would see. But with him dead there was time and space in which to +prepare to do other things; and besides, whatever new situation arose, it +could not possibly be worse than the present one. + +My knife was at my hip. I returned to my hut for the shot-gun, made sure +it was loaded, and went down to the _Ghost_. With some difficulty, and +at the expense of a wetting to the waist, I climbed aboard. The +forecastle scuttle was open. I paused to listen for the breathing of the +men, but there was no breathing. I almost gasped as the thought came to +me: What if the _Ghost_ is deserted? I listened more closely. There was +no sound. I cautiously descended the ladder. The place had the empty +and musty feel and smell usual to a dwelling no longer inhabited. +Everywhere was a thick litter of discarded and ragged garments, old +sea-boots, leaky oilskins—all the worthless forecastle dunnage of a long +voyage. + +Abandoned hastily, was my conclusion, as I ascended to the deck. Hope +was alive again in my breast, and I looked about me with greater +coolness. I noted that the boats were missing. The steerage told the +same tale as the forecastle. The hunters had packed their belongings +with similar haste. The _Ghost_ was deserted. It was Maud’s and mine. +I thought of the ship’s stores and the lazarette beneath the cabin, and +the idea came to me of surprising Maud with something nice for breakfast. + +The reaction from my fear, and the knowledge that the terrible deed I had +come to do was no longer necessary, made me boyish and eager. I went up +the steerage companion-way two steps at a time, with nothing distinct in +my mind except joy and the hope that Maud would sleep on until the +surprise breakfast was quite ready for her. As I rounded the galley, a +new satisfaction was mine at thought of all the splendid cooking utensils +inside. I sprang up the break of the poop, and saw—Wolf Larsen. What of +my impetus and the stunning surprise, I clattered three or four steps +along the deck before I could stop myself. He was standing in the +companion-way, only his head and shoulders visible, staring straight at +me. His arms were resting on the half-open slide. He made no movement +whatever—simply stood there, staring at me. + +I began to tremble. The old stomach sickness clutched me. I put one +hand on the edge of the house to steady myself. My lips seemed suddenly +dry and I moistened them against the need of speech. Nor did I for an +instant take my eyes off him. Neither of us spoke. There was something +ominous in his silence, his immobility. All my old fear of him returned +and by my new fear was increased an hundred-fold. And still we stood, the +pair of us, staring at each other. + +I was aware of the demand for action, and, my old helplessness strong +upon me, I was waiting for him to take the initiative. Then, as the +moments went by, it came to me that the situation was analogous to the +one in which I had approached the long-maned bull, my intention of +clubbing obscured by fear until it became a desire to make him run. So +it was at last impressed upon me that I was there, not to have Wolf +Larsen take the initiative, but to take it myself. + +I cocked both barrels and levelled the shot-gun at him. Had he moved, +attempted to drop down the companion-way, I know I would have shot him. +But he stood motionless and staring as before. And as I faced him, with +levelled gun shaking in my hands, I had time to note the worn and haggard +appearance of his face. It was as if some strong anxiety had wasted it. +The cheeks were sunken, and there was a wearied, puckered expression on +the brow. And it seemed to me that his eyes were strange, not only the +expression, but the physical seeming, as though the optic nerves and +supporting muscles had suffered strain and slightly twisted the eyeballs. + +All this I saw, and my brain now working rapidly, I thought a thousand +thoughts; and yet I could not pull the triggers. I lowered the gun and +stepped to the corner of the cabin, primarily to relieve the tension on +my nerves and to make a new start, and incidentally to be closer. Again +I raised the gun. He was almost at arm’s length. There was no hope for +him. I was resolved. There was no possible chance of missing him, no +matter how poor my marksmanship. And yet I wrestled with myself and +could not pull the triggers. + +“Well?” he demanded impatiently. + +I strove vainly to force my fingers down on the triggers, and vainly I +strove to say something. + +“Why don’t you shoot?” he asked. + +I cleared my throat of a huskiness which prevented speech. “Hump,” he +said slowly, “you can’t do it. You are not exactly afraid. You are +impotent. Your conventional morality is stronger than you. You are the +slave to the opinions which have credence among the people you have known +and have read about. Their code has been drummed into your head from the +time you lisped, and in spite of your philosophy, and of what I have +taught you, it won’t let you kill an unarmed, unresisting man.” + +“I know it,” I said hoarsely. + +“And you know that I would kill an unarmed man as readily as I would +smoke a cigar,” he went on. “You know me for what I am,—my worth in the +world by your standard. You have called me snake, tiger, shark, monster, +and Caliban. And yet, you little rag puppet, you little echoing +mechanism, you are unable to kill me as you would a snake or a shark, +because I have hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat like yours. Bah! +I had hoped better things of you, Hump.” + +He stepped out of the companion-way and came up to me. + +“Put down that gun. I want to ask you some questions. I haven’t had a +chance to look around yet. What place is this? How is the _Ghost_ +lying? How did you get wet? Where’s Maud?—I beg your pardon, Miss +Brewster—or should I say, ‘Mrs. Van Weyden’?” + +I had backed away from him, almost weeping at my inability to shoot him, +but not fool enough to put down the gun. I hoped, desperately, that he +might commit some hostile act, attempt to strike me or choke me; for in +such way only I knew I could be stirred to shoot. + +“This is Endeavour Island,” I said. + +“Never heard of it,” he broke in. + +“At least, that’s our name for it,” I amended. + +“Our?” he queried. “Who’s our?” + +“Miss Brewster and myself. And the _Ghost_ is lying, as you can see for +yourself, bow on to the beach.” + +“There are seals here,” he said. “They woke me up with their barking, or +I’d be sleeping yet. I heard them when I drove in last night. They were +the first warning that I was on a lee shore. It’s a rookery, the kind of +a thing I’ve hunted for years. Thanks to my brother Death, I’ve lighted +on a fortune. It’s a mint. What’s its bearings?” + +“Haven’t the least idea,” I said. “But you ought to know quite closely. +What were your last observations?” + +He smiled inscrutably, but did not answer. + +“Well, where’s all hands?” I asked. “How does it come that you are +alone?” + +I was prepared for him again to set aside my question, and was surprised +at the readiness of his reply. + +“My brother got me inside forty-eight hours, and through no fault of +mine. Boarded me in the night with only the watch on deck. Hunters went +back on me. He gave them a bigger lay. Heard him offering it. Did it +right before me. Of course the crew gave me the go-by. That was to be +expected. All hands went over the side, and there I was, marooned on my +own vessel. It was Death’s turn, and it’s all in the family anyway.” + +“But how did you lose the masts?” I asked. + +“Walk over and examine those lanyards,” he said, pointing to where the +mizzen-rigging should have been. + +“They have been cut with a knife!” I exclaimed. + +“Not quite,” he laughed. “It was a neater job. Look again.” + +I looked. The lanyards had been almost severed, with just enough left to +hold the shrouds till some severe strain should be put upon them. + +“Cooky did that,” he laughed again. “I know, though I didn’t spot him at +it. Kind of evened up the score a bit.” + +“Good for Mugridge!” I cried. + +“Yes, that’s what I thought when everything went over the side. Only I +said it on the other side of my mouth.” + +“But what were you doing while all this was going on?” I asked. + +“My best, you may be sure, which wasn’t much under the circumstances.” + +I turned to re-examine Thomas Mugridge’s work. + +“I guess I’ll sit down and take the sunshine,” I heard Wolf Larsen +saying. + +There was a hint, just a slight hint, of physical feebleness in his +voice, and it was so strange that I looked quickly at him. His hand was +sweeping nervously across his face, as though he were brushing away +cobwebs. I was puzzled. The whole thing was so unlike the Wolf Larsen I +had known. + +“How are your headaches?” I asked. + +“They still trouble me,” was his answer. “I think I have one coming on +now.” + +He slipped down from his sitting posture till he lay on the deck. Then +he rolled over on his side, his head resting on the biceps of the under +arm, the forearm shielding his eyes from the sun. I stood regarding him +wonderingly. + +“Now’s your chance, Hump,” he said. + +“I don’t understand,” I lied, for I thoroughly understood. + +“Oh, nothing,” he added softly, as if he were drowsing; “only you’ve got +me where you want me.” + +“No, I haven’t,” I retorted; “for I want you a few thousand miles away +from here.” + +He chuckled, and thereafter spoke no more. He did not stir as I passed +by him and went down into the cabin. I lifted the trap in the floor, but +for some moments gazed dubiously into the darkness of the lazarette +beneath. I hesitated to descend. What if his lying down were a ruse? +Pretty, indeed, to be caught there like a rat. I crept softly up the +companion-way and peeped at him. He was lying as I had left him. Again +I went below; but before I dropped into the lazarette I took the +precaution of casting down the door in advance. At least there would be +no lid to the trap. But it was all needless. I regained the cabin with +a store of jams, sea-biscuits, canned meats, and such things,—all I could +carry,—and replaced the trap-door. + +A peep at Wolf Larsen showed me that he had not moved. A bright thought +struck me. I stole into his state-room and possessed myself of his +revolvers. There were no other weapons, though I thoroughly ransacked +the three remaining state-rooms. To make sure, I returned and went +through the steerage and forecastle, and in the galley gathered up all +the sharp meat and vegetable knives. Then I bethought me of the great +yachtsman’s knife he always carried, and I came to him and spoke to him, +first softly, then loudly. He did not move. I bent over and took it +from his pocket. I breathed more freely. He had no arms with which to +attack me from a distance; while I, armed, could always forestall him +should he attempt to grapple me with his terrible gorilla arms. + +Filling a coffee-pot and frying-pan with part of my plunder, and taking +some chinaware from the cabin pantry, I left Wolf Larsen lying in the sun +and went ashore. + +Maud was still asleep. I blew up the embers (we had not yet arranged a +winter kitchen), and quite feverishly cooked the breakfast. Toward the +end, I heard her moving about within the hut, making her toilet. Just as +all was ready and the coffee poured, the door opened and she came forth. + +“It’s not fair of you,” was her greeting. “You are usurping one of my +prerogatives. You know you agreed that the cooking should be mine, +and—” + +“But just this once,” I pleaded. + +“If you promise not to do it again,” she smiled. “Unless, of course, you +have grown tired of my poor efforts.” + +To my delight she never once looked toward the beach, and I maintained +the banter with such success all unconsciously she sipped coffee from the +china cup, ate fried evaporated potatoes, and spread marmalade on her +biscuit. But it could not last. I saw the surprise that came over her. +She had discovered the china plate from which she was eating. She looked +over the breakfast, noting detail after detail. Then she looked at me, +and her face turned slowly toward the beach. + +“Humphrey!” she said. + +The old unnamable terror mounted into her eyes. + +“Is—he?” she quavered. + +I nodded my head. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore. It was an intolerable +period of anxiety. Each moment one or the other of us cast expectant +glances toward the _Ghost_. But he did not come. He did not even appear +on deck. + +“Perhaps it is his headache,” I said. “I left him lying on the poop. He +may lie there all night. I think I’ll go and see.” + +Maud looked entreaty at me. + +“It is all right,” I assured her. “I shall take the revolvers. You know +I collected every weapon on board.” + +“But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible hands!” she +objected. And then she cried, “Oh, Humphrey, I am afraid of him! Don’t +go—please don’t go!” + +She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering. +My heart was surely in my eyes for a moment. The dear and lovely woman! +And she was so much the woman, clinging and appealing, sunshine and dew +to my manhood, rooting it deeper and sending through it the sap of a new +strength. I was for putting my arm around her, as when in the midst of +the seal herd; but I considered, and refrained. + +“I shall not take any risks,” I said. “I’ll merely peep over the bow and +see.” + +She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go. But the space on deck where +I had left him lying was vacant. He had evidently gone below. That +night we stood alternate watches, one of us sleeping at a time; for there +was no telling what Wolf Larsen might do. He was certainly capable of +anything. + +The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign. + +“These headaches of his, these attacks,” Maud said, on the afternoon of +the fourth day; “Perhaps he is ill, very ill. He may be dead.” + +“Or dying,” was her afterthought when she had waited some time for me to +speak. + +“Better so,” I answered. + +“But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely hour.” + +“Perhaps,” I suggested. + +“Yes, even perhaps,” she acknowledged. “But we do not know. It would be +terrible if he were. I could never forgive myself. We must do +something.” + +“Perhaps,” I suggested again. + +I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled a +solicitude for Wolf Larsen, of all creatures. Where was her solicitude +for me, I thought,—for me whom she had been afraid to have merely peep +aboard? + +She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence. And she was as +direct as she was subtle. + +“You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out,” she said. “And if you want +to laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness.” + +I arose obediently and went down the beach. + +“Do be careful,” she called after me. + +I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck. +Aft I walked to the cabin companion, where I contented myself with +hailing below. Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started to ascend the +stairs I cocked my revolver. I displayed it openly during our +conversation, but he took no notice of it. He appeared the same, +physically, as when last I saw him, but he was gloomy and silent. In +fact, the few words we spoke could hardly be called a conversation. I +did not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor did he ask why I had not +come aboard. His head was all right again, he said, and so, without +further parley, I left him. + +Maud received my report with obvious relief, and the sight of smoke which +later rose in the galley put her in a more cheerful mood. The next day, +and the next, we saw the galley smoke rising, and sometimes we caught +glimpses of him on the poop. But that was all. He made no attempt to +come ashore. This we knew, for we still maintained our night-watches. +We were waiting for him to do something, to show his hand, so to say, and +his inaction puzzled and worried us. + +A week of this passed by. We had no other interest than Wolf Larsen, and +his presence weighed us down with an apprehension which prevented us from +doing any of the little things we had planned. + +But at the end of the week the smoke ceased rising from the galley, and +he no longer showed himself on the poop. I could see Maud’s solicitude +again growing, though she timidly—and even proudly, I think—forbore a +repetition of her request. After all, what censure could be put upon +her? She was divinely altruistic, and she was a woman. Besides, I was +myself aware of hurt at thought of this man whom I had tried to kill, +dying alone with his fellow-creatures so near. He was right. The code +of my group was stronger than I. The fact that he had hands, feet, and a +body shaped somewhat like mine, constituted a claim which I could not +ignore. + +So I did not wait a second time for Maud to send me. I discovered that +we stood in need of condensed milk and marmalade, and announced that I +was going aboard. I could see that she wavered. She even went so far as +to murmur that they were non-essentials and that my trip after them might +be inexpedient. And as she had followed the trend of my silence, she now +followed the trend of my speech, and she knew that I was going aboard, +not because of condensed milk and marmalade, but because of her and of +her anxiety, which she knew she had failed to hide. + +I took off my shoes when I gained the forecastle head, and went +noiselessly aft in my stocking feet. Nor did I call this time from the +top of the companion-way. Cautiously descending, I found the cabin +deserted. The door to his state-room was closed. At first I thought of +knocking, then I remembered my ostensible errand and resolved to carry it +out. Carefully avoiding noise, I lifted the trap-door in the floor and +set it to one side. The slop-chest, as well as the provisions, was +stored in the lazarette, and I took advantage of the opportunity to lay +in a stock of underclothing. + +As I emerged from the lazarette I heard sounds in Wolf Larsen’s +state-room. I crouched and listened. The door-knob rattled. Furtively, +instinctively, I slunk back behind the table and drew and cocked my +revolver. The door swung open and he came forth. Never had I seen so +profound a despair as that which I saw on his face,—the face of Wolf +Larsen the fighter, the strong man, the indomitable one. For all the +world like a woman wringing her hands, he raised his clenched fists and +groaned. One fist unclosed, and the open palm swept across his eyes as +though brushing away cobwebs. + +“God! God!” he groaned, and the clenched fists were raised again to the +infinite despair with which his throat vibrated. + +It was horrible. I was trembling all over, and I could feel the shivers +running up and down my spine and the sweat standing out on my forehead. +Surely there can be little in this world more awful than the spectacle of +a strong man in the moment when he is utterly weak and broken. + +But Wolf Larsen regained control of himself by an exertion of his +remarkable will. And it was exertion. His whole frame shook with the +struggle. He resembled a man on the verge of a fit. His face strove to +compose itself, writhing and twisting in the effort till he broke down +again. Once more the clenched fists went upward and he groaned. He +caught his breath once or twice and sobbed. Then he was successful. I +could have thought him the old Wolf Larsen, and yet there was in his +movements a vague suggestion of weakness and indecision. He started for +the companion-way, and stepped forward quite as I had been accustomed to +see him do; and yet again, in his very walk, there seemed that suggestion +of weakness and indecision. + +I was now concerned with fear for myself. The open trap lay directly in +his path, and his discovery of it would lead instantly to his discovery +of me. I was angry with myself for being caught in so cowardly a +position, crouching on the floor. There was yet time. I rose swiftly to +my feet, and, I know, quite unconsciously assumed a defiant attitude. He +took no notice of me. Nor did he notice the open trap. Before I could +grasp the situation, or act, he had walked right into the trap. One foot +was descending into the opening, while the other foot was just on the +verge of beginning the uplift. But when the descending foot missed the +solid flooring and felt vacancy beneath, it was the old Wolf Larsen and +the tiger muscles that made the falling body spring across the opening, +even as it fell, so that he struck on his chest and stomach, with arms +outstretched, on the floor of the opposite side. The next instant he had +drawn up his legs and rolled clear. But he rolled into my marmalade and +underclothes and against the trap-door. + +The expression on his face was one of complete comprehension. But before +I could guess what he had comprehended, he had dropped the trap-door into +place, closing the lazarette. Then I understood. He thought he had me +inside. Also, he was blind, blind as a bat. I watched him, breathing +carefully so that he should not hear me. He stepped quickly to his +state-room. I saw his hand miss the door-knob by an inch, quickly fumble +for it, and find it. This was my chance. I tiptoed across the cabin and +to the top of the stairs. He came back, dragging a heavy sea-chest, +which he deposited on top of the trap. Not content with this he fetched +a second chest and placed it on top of the first. Then he gathered up +the marmalade and underclothes and put them on the table. When he +started up the companion-way, I retreated, silently rolling over on top +of the cabin. + +He shoved the slide part way back and rested his arms on it, his body +still in the companion-way. His attitude was of one looking forward the +length of the schooner, or staring, rather, for his eyes were fixed and +unblinking. I was only five feet away and directly in what should have +been his line of vision. It was uncanny. I felt myself a ghost, what of +my invisibility. I waved my hand back and forth, of course without +effect; but when the moving shadow fell across his face I saw at once +that he was susceptible to the impression. His face became more +expectant and tense as he tried to analyze and identify the impression. +He knew that he had responded to something from without, that his +sensibility had been touched by a changing something in his environment; +but what it was he could not discover. I ceased waving my hand, so that +the shadow remained stationary. He slowly moved his head back and forth +under it and turned from side to side, now in the sunshine, now in the +shade, feeling the shadow, as it were, testing it by sensation. + +I, too, was busy, trying to reason out how he was aware of the existence +of so intangible a thing as a shadow. If it were his eyeballs only that +were affected, or if his optic nerve were not wholly destroyed, the +explanation was simple. If otherwise, then the only conclusion I could +reach was that the sensitive skin recognized the difference of +temperature between shade and sunshine. Or, perhaps,—who can tell?—it +was that fabled sixth sense which conveyed to him the loom and feel of an +object close at hand. + +Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck and +started forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which surprised +me. And still there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind in his +walk. I knew it now for what it was. + +To my amused chagrin, he discovered my shoes on the forecastle head and +brought them back with him into the galley. I watched him build the fire +and set about cooking food for himself; then I stole into the cabin for +my marmalade and underclothes, slipped back past the galley, and climbed +down to the beach to deliver my barefoot report. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +“It’s too bad the _Ghost_ has lost her masts. Why we could sail away in +her. Don’t you think we could, Humphrey?” + +I sprang excitedly to my feet. + +“I wonder, I wonder,” I repeated, pacing up and down. + +Maud’s eyes were shining with anticipation as they followed me. She had +such faith in me! And the thought of it was so much added power. I +remembered Michelet’s “To man, woman is as the earth was to her legendary +son; he has but to fall down and kiss her breast and he is strong again.” +For the first time I knew the wonderful truth of his words. Why, I was +living them. Maud was all this to me, an unfailing source of strength +and courage. I had but to look at her, or think of her, and be strong +again. + +“It can be done, it can be done,” I was thinking and asserting aloud. +“What men have done, I can do; and if they have never done this before, +still I can do it.” + +“What? for goodness’ sake,” Maud demanded. “Do be merciful. What is it +you can do?” + +“We can do it,” I amended. “Why, nothing else than put the masts back +into the _Ghost_ and sail away.” + +“Humphrey!” she exclaimed. + +And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already a fact +accomplished. + +“But how is it possible to be done?” she asked. + +“I don’t know,” was my answer. “I know only that I am capable of doing +anything these days.” + +I smiled proudly at her—too proudly, for she dropped her eyes and was for +the moment silent. + +“But there is Captain Larsen,” she objected. + +“Blind and helpless,” I answered promptly, waving him aside as a straw. + +“But those terrible hands of his! You know how he leaped across the +opening of the lazarette.” + +“And you know also how I crept about and avoided him,” I contended gaily. + +“And lost your shoes.” + +“You’d hardly expect them to avoid Wolf Larsen without my feet inside of +them.” + +We both laughed, and then went seriously to work constructing the plan +whereby we were to step the masts of the _Ghost_ and return to the world. +I remembered hazily the physics of my school days, while the last few +months had given me practical experience with mechanical purchases. I +must say, though, when we walked down to the _Ghost_ to inspect more +closely the task before us, that the sight of the great masts lying in +the water almost disheartened me. Where were we to begin? If there had +been one mast standing, something high up to which to fasten blocks and +tackles! But there was nothing. It reminded me of the problem of +lifting oneself by one’s boot-straps. I understood the mechanics of +levers; but where was I to get a fulcrum? + +There was the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now the +butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly +calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, +larger in diameter, and weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds. +Where was I to begin? Maud stood silently by my side, while I evolved in +my mind the contrivance known among sailors as “shears.” But, though +known to sailors, I invented it there on Endeavour Island. By crossing +and lashing the ends of two spars, and then elevating them in the air +like an inverted “V,” I could get a point above the deck to which to make +fast my hoisting tackle. To this hoisting tackle I could, if necessary, +attach a second hoisting tackle. And then there was the windlass! + +Maud saw that I had achieved a solution, and her eyes warmed +sympathetically. + +“What are you going to do?” she asked. + +“Clear that raffle,” I answered, pointing to the tangled wreckage +overside. + +Ah, the decisiveness, the very sound of the words, was good in my ears. +“Clear that raffle!” Imagine so salty a phrase on the lips of the +Humphrey Van Weyden of a few months gone! + +There must have been a touch of the melodramatic in my pose and voice, +for Maud smiled. Her appreciation of the ridiculous was keen, and in all +things she unerringly saw and felt, where it existed, the touch of sham, +the overshading, the overtone. It was this which had given poise and +penetration to her own work and made her of worth to the world. The +serious critic, with the sense of humour and the power of expression, +must inevitably command the world’s ear. And so it was that she had +commanded. Her sense of humour was really the artist’s instinct for +proportion. + +“I’m sure I’ve heard it before, somewhere, in books,” she murmured +gleefully. + +I had an instinct for proportion myself, and I collapsed forthwith, +descending from the dominant pose of a master of matter to a state of +humble confusion which was, to say the least, very miserable. + +Her hand leapt out at once to mine. + +“I’m so sorry,” she said. + +“No need to be,” I gulped. “It does me good. There’s too much of the +schoolboy in me. All of which is neither here nor there. What we’ve got +to do is actually and literally to clear that raffle. If you’ll come +with me in the boat, we’ll get to work and straighten things out.” + +“‘When the topmen clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their +teeth,’” she quoted at me; and for the rest of the afternoon we made +merry over our labour. + +Her task was to hold the boat in position while I worked at the tangle. +And such a tangle—halyards, sheets, guys, down-hauls, shrouds, stays, all +washed about and back and forth and through, and twined and knotted by +the sea. I cut no more than was necessary, and what with passing the +long ropes under and around the booms and masts, of unreeving the +halyards and sheets, of coiling down in the boat and uncoiling in order +to pass through another knot in the bight, I was soon wet to the skin. + +The sails did require some cutting, and the canvas, heavy with water, +tried my strength severely; but I succeeded before nightfall in getting +it all spread out on the beach to dry. We were both very tired when we +knocked off for supper, and we had done good work, too, though to the eye +it appeared insignificant. + +Next morning, with Maud as able assistant, I went into the hold of the +_Ghost_ to clear the steps of the mast-butts. We had no more than begun +work when the sound of my knocking and hammering brought Wolf Larsen. + +“Hello below!” he cried down the open hatch. + +The sound of his voice made Maud quickly draw close to me, as for +protection, and she rested one hand on my arm while we parleyed. + +“Hello on deck,” I replied. “Good-morning to you.” + +“What are you doing down there?” he demanded. “Trying to scuttle my ship +for me?” + +“Quite the opposite; I’m repairing her,” was my answer. + +“But what in thunder are you repairing?” There was puzzlement in his +voice. + +“Why, I’m getting everything ready for re-stepping the masts,” I replied +easily, as though it were the simplest project imaginable. + +“It seems as though you’re standing on your own legs at last, Hump,” we +heard him say; and then for some time he was silent. + +“But I say, Hump,” he called down. “You can’t do it.” + +“Oh, yes, I can,” I retorted. “I’m doing it now.” + +“But this is my vessel, my particular property. What if I forbid you?” + +“You forget,” I replied. “You are no longer the biggest bit of the +ferment. You were, once, and able to eat me, as you were pleased to +phrase it; but there has been a diminishing, and I am now able to eat +you. The yeast has grown stale.” + +He gave a short, disagreeable laugh. “I see you’re working my philosophy +back on me for all it is worth. But don’t make the mistake of +under-estimating me. For your own good I warn you.” + +“Since when have you become a philanthropist?” I queried. “Confess, now, +in warning me for my own good, that you are very consistent.” + +He ignored my sarcasm, saying, “Suppose I clap the hatch on, now? You +won’t fool me as you did in the lazarette.” + +“Wolf Larsen,” I said sternly, for the first time addressing him by this +his most familiar name, “I am unable to shoot a helpless, unresisting +man. You have proved that to my satisfaction as well as yours. But I +warn you now, and not so much for your own good as for mine, that I shall +shoot you the moment you attempt a hostile act. I can shoot you now, as +I stand here; and if you are so minded, just go ahead and try to clap on +the hatch.” + +“Nevertheless, I forbid you, I distinctly forbid your tampering with my +ship.” + +“But, man!” I expostulated, “you advance the fact that it is your ship as +though it were a moral right. You have never considered moral rights in +your dealings with others. You surely do not dream that I’ll consider +them in dealing with you?” + +I had stepped underneath the open hatchway so that I could see him. The +lack of expression on his face, so different from when I had watched him +unseen, was enhanced by the unblinking, staring eyes. It was not a +pleasant face to look upon. + +“And none so poor, not even Hump, to do him reverence,” he sneered. + +The sneer was wholly in his voice. His face remained expressionless as +ever. + +“How do you do, Miss Brewster,” he said suddenly, after a pause. + +I started. She had made no noise whatever, had not even moved. Could it +be that some glimmer of vision remained to him? or that his vision was +coming back? + +“How do you do, Captain Larsen,” she answered. “Pray, how did you know I +was here?” + +“Heard you breathing, of course. I say, Hump’s improving, don’t you +think so?” + +“I don’t know,” she answered, smiling at me. “I have never seen him +otherwise.” + +“You should have seen him before, then.” + +“Wolf Larsen, in large doses,” I murmured, “before and after taking.” + +“I want to tell you again, Hump,” he said threateningly, “that you’d +better leave things alone.” + +“But don’t you care to escape as well as we?” I asked incredulously. + +“No,” was his answer. “I intend dying here.” + +“Well, we don’t,” I concluded defiantly, beginning again my knocking and +hammering. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Next day, the mast-steps clear and everything in readiness, we started to +get the two topmasts aboard. The maintopmast was over thirty feet in +length, the foretopmast nearly thirty, and it was of these that I +intended making the shears. It was puzzling work. Fastening one end of +a heavy tackle to the windlass, and with the other end fast to the butt +of the foretopmast, I began to heave. Maud held the turn on the windlass +and coiled down the slack. + +We were astonished at the ease with which the spar was lifted. It was an +improved crank windlass, and the purchase it gave was enormous. Of +course, what it gave us in power we paid for in distance; as many times +as it doubled my strength, that many times was doubled the length of rope +I heaved in. The tackle dragged heavily across the rail, increasing its +drag as the spar arose more and more out of the water, and the exertion +on the windlass grew severe. + +But when the butt of the topmast was level with the rail, everything came +to a standstill. + +“I might have known it,” I said impatiently. “Now we have to do it all +over again.” + +“Why not fasten the tackle part way down the mast?” Maud suggested. + +“It’s what I should have done at first,” I answered, hugely disgusted +with myself. + +Slipping off a turn, I lowered the mast back into the water and fastened +the tackle a third of the way down from the butt. In an hour, what of +this and of rests between the heaving, I had hoisted it to the point +where I could hoist no more. Eight feet of the butt was above the rail, +and I was as far away as ever from getting the spar on board. I sat down +and pondered the problem. It did not take long. I sprang jubilantly to +my feet. + +“Now I have it!” I cried. “I ought to make the tackle fast at the point +of balance. And what we learn of this will serve us with everything else +we have to hoist aboard.” + +Once again I undid all my work by lowering the mast into the water. But +I miscalculated the point of balance, so that when I heaved the top of +the mast came up instead of the butt. Maud looked despair, but I laughed +and said it would do just as well. + +Instructing her how to hold the turn and be ready to slack away at +command, I laid hold of the mast with my hands and tried to balance it +inboard across the rail. When I thought I had it I cried to her to slack +away; but the spar righted, despite my efforts, and dropped back toward +the water. Again I heaved it up to its old position, for I had now +another idea. I remembered the watch-tackle—a small double and single +block affair—and fetched it. + +While I was rigging it between the top of the spar and the opposite rail, +Wolf Larsen came on the scene. We exchanged nothing more than +good-mornings, and, though he could not see, he sat on the rail out of +the way and followed by the sound all that I did. + +Again instructing Maud to slack away at the windlass when I gave the +word, I proceeded to heave on the watch-tackle. Slowly the mast swung in +until it balanced at right angles across the rail; and then I discovered +to my amazement that there was no need for Maud to slack away. In fact, +the very opposite was necessary. Making the watch-tackle fast, I hove on +the windlass and brought in the mast, inch by inch, till its top tilted +down to the deck and finally its whole length lay on the deck. + +I looked at my watch. It was twelve o’clock. My back was aching sorely, +and I felt extremely tired and hungry. And there on the deck was a +single stick of timber to show for a whole morning’s work. For the first +time I thoroughly realized the extent of the task before us. But I was +learning, I was learning. The afternoon would show far more +accomplished. And it did; for we returned at one o’clock, rested and +strengthened by a hearty dinner. + +In less than an hour I had the maintopmast on deck and was constructing +the shears. Lashing the two topmasts together, and making allowance for +their unequal length, at the point of intersection I attached the double +block of the main throat-halyards. This, with the single block and the +throat-halyards themselves, gave me a hoisting tackle. To prevent the +butts of the masts from slipping on the deck, I nailed down thick cleats. +Everything in readiness, I made a line fast to the apex of the shears and +carried it directly to the windlass. I was growing to have faith in that +windlass, for it gave me power beyond all expectation. As usual, Maud +held the turn while I heaved. The shears rose in the air. + +Then I discovered I had forgotten guy-ropes. This necessitated my +climbing the shears, which I did twice, before I finished guying it fore +and aft and to either side. Twilight had set in by the time this was +accomplished. Wolf Larsen, who had sat about and listened all afternoon +and never opened his mouth, had taken himself off to the galley and +started his supper. I felt quite stiff across the small of the back, so +much so that I straightened up with an effort and with pain. I looked +proudly at my work. It was beginning to show. I was wild with desire, +like a child with a new toy, to hoist something with my shears. + +“I wish it weren’t so late,” I said. “I’d like to see how it works.” + +“Don’t be a glutton, Humphrey,” Maud chided me. “Remember, to-morrow is +coming, and you’re so tired now that you can hardly stand.” + +“And you?” I said, with sudden solicitude. “You must be very tired. You +have worked hard and nobly. I am proud of you, Maud.” + +“Not half so proud as I am of you, nor with half the reason,” she +answered, looking me straight in the eyes for a moment with an expression +in her own and a dancing, tremulous light which I had not seen before and +which gave me a pang of quick delight, I know not why, for I did not +understand it. Then she dropped her eyes, to lift them again, laughing. + +“If our friends could see us now,” she said. “Look at us. Have you ever +paused for a moment to consider our appearance?” + +“Yes, I have considered yours, frequently,” I answered, puzzling over +what I had seen in her eyes and puzzled by her sudden change of subject. + +“Mercy!” she cried. “And what do I look like, pray?” + +“A scarecrow, I’m afraid,” I replied. “Just glance at your draggled +skirts, for instance. Look at those three-cornered tears. And such a +waist! It would not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that you have +been cooking over a camp-fire, to say nothing of trying out seal-blubber. +And to cap it all, that cap! And all that is the woman who wrote ‘A Kiss +Endured.’” + +She made me an elaborate and stately courtesy, and said, “As for you, +sir—” + +And yet, through the five minutes of banter which followed, there was a +serious something underneath the fun which I could not but relate to the +strange and fleeting expression I had caught in her eyes. What was it? +Could it be that our eyes were speaking beyond the will of our speech? +My eyes had spoken, I knew, until I had found the culprits out and +silenced them. This had occurred several times. But had she seen the +clamour in them and understood? And had her eyes so spoken to me? What +else could that expression have meant—that dancing, tremulous light, and +a something more which words could not describe. And yet it could not +be. It was impossible. Besides, I was not skilled in the speech of +eyes. I was only Humphrey Van Weyden, a bookish fellow who loved. And +to love, and to wait and win love, that surely was glorious enough for +me. And thus I thought, even as we chaffed each other’s appearance, +until we arrived ashore and there were other things to think about. + +“It’s a shame, after working hard all day, that we cannot have an +uninterrupted night’s sleep,” I complained, after supper. + +“But there can be no danger now? from a blind man?” she queried. + +“I shall never be able to trust him,” I averred, “and far less now that +he is blind. The liability is that his part helplessness will make him +more malignant than ever. I know what I shall do to-morrow, the first +thing—run out a light anchor and kedge the schooner off the beach. And +each night when we come ashore in the boat, Mr. Wolf Larsen will be left +a prisoner on board. So this will be the last night we have to stand +watch, and because of that it will go the easier.” + +We were awake early and just finishing breakfast as daylight came. + +“Oh, Humphrey!” I heard Maud cry in dismay and suddenly stop. + +I looked at her. She was gazing at the _Ghost_. I followed her gaze, +but could see nothing unusual. She looked at me, and I looked inquiry +back. + +“The shears,” she said, and her voice trembled. + +I had forgotten their existence. I looked again, but could not see them. + +“If he has—” I muttered savagely. + +She put her hand sympathetically on mine, and said, “You will have to +begin over again.” + +“Oh, believe me, my anger means nothing; I could not hurt a fly,” I +smiled back bitterly. “And the worst of it is, he knows it. You are +right. If he has destroyed the shears, I shall do nothing except begin +over again.” + +“But I’ll stand my watch on board hereafter,” I blurted out a moment +later. “And if he interferes—” + +“But I dare not stay ashore all night alone,” Maud was saying when I came +back to myself. “It would be so much nicer if he would be friendly with +us and help us. We could all live comfortably aboard.” + +“We will,” I asserted, still savagely, for the destruction of my beloved +shears had hit me hard. “That is, you and I will live aboard, friendly +or not with Wolf Larsen.” + +“It’s childish,” I laughed later, “for him to do such things, and for me +to grow angry over them, for that matter.” + +But my heart smote me when we climbed aboard and looked at the havoc he +had done. The shears were gone altogether. The guys had been slashed +right and left. The throat-halyards which I had rigged were cut across +through every part. And he knew I could not splice. A thought struck +me. I ran to the windlass. It would not work. He had broken it. We +looked at each other in consternation. Then I ran to the side. The +masts, booms, and gaffs I had cleared were gone. He had found the lines +which held them, and cast them adrift. + +Tears were in Maud’s eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I could +have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the _Ghost_? +He had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing and rested my +chin on my hands in black despair. + +“He deserves to die,” I cried out; “and God forgive me, I am not man +enough to be his executioner.” + +But Maud was by my side, passing her hand soothingly through my hair as +though I were a child, and saying, “There, there; it will all come right. +We are in the right, and it must come right.” + +I remembered Michelet and leaned my head against her; and truly I became +strong again. The blessed woman was an unfailing fount of power to me. +What did it matter? Only a set-back, a delay. The tide could not have +carried the masts far to seaward, and there had been no wind. It meant +merely more work to find them and tow them back. And besides, it was a +lesson. I knew what to expect. He might have waited and destroyed our +work more effectually when we had more accomplished. + +“Here he comes now,” she whispered. + +I glanced up. He was strolling leisurely along the poop on the port +side. + +“Take no notice of him,” I whispered. “He’s coming to see how we take +it. Don’t let him know that we know. We can deny him that satisfaction. +Take off your shoes—that’s right—and carry them in your hand.” + +And then we played hide-and-seek with the blind man. As he came up the +port side we slipped past on the starboard; and from the poop we watched +him turn and start aft on our track. + +He must have known, somehow, that we were on board, for he said +“Good-morning” very confidently, and waited for the greeting to be +returned. Then he strolled aft, and we slipped forward. + +“Oh, I know you’re aboard,” he called out, and I could see him listen +intently after he had spoken. + +It reminded me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming cry, +for the stir of its frightened prey. But we did not stir, and we moved +only when he moved. And so we dodged about the deck, hand in hand, like +a couple of children chased by a wicked ogre, till Wolf Larsen, evidently +in disgust, left the deck for the cabin. There was glee in our eyes, and +suppressed titters in our mouths, as we put on our shoes and clambered +over the side into the boat. And as I looked into Maud’s clear brown +eyes I forgot the evil he had done, and I knew only that I loved her, and +that because of her the strength was mine to win our way back to the +world. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +For two days Maud and I ranged the sea and explored the beaches in search +of the missing masts. But it was not till the third day that we found +them, all of them, the shears included, and, of all perilous places, in +the pounding surf of the grim south-western promontory. And how we +worked! At the dark end of the first day we returned, exhausted, to our +little cove, towing the mainmast behind us. And we had been compelled to +row, in a dead calm, practically every inch of the way. + +Another day of heart-breaking and dangerous toil saw us in camp with the +two topmasts to the good. The day following I was desperate, and I +rafted together the foremast, the fore and main booms, and the fore and +main gaffs. The wind was favourable, and I had thought to tow them back +under sail, but the wind baffled, then died away, and our progress with +the oars was a snail’s pace. And it was such dispiriting effort. To +throw one’s whole strength and weight on the oars and to feel the boat +checked in its forward lunge by the heavy drag behind, was not exactly +exhilarating. + +Night began to fall, and to make matters worse, the wind sprang up ahead. +Not only did all forward motion cease, but we began to drift back and out +to sea. I struggled at the oars till I was played out. Poor Maud, whom +I could never prevent from working to the limit of her strength, lay +weakly back in the stern-sheets. I could row no more. My bruised and +swollen hands could no longer close on the oar handles. My wrists and +arms ached intolerably, and though I had eaten heartily of a +twelve-o’clock lunch, I had worked so hard that I was faint from hunger. + +I pulled in the oars and bent forward to the line which held the tow. +But Maud’s hand leaped out restrainingly to mine. + +“What are you going to do?” she asked in a strained, tense voice. + +“Cast it off,” I answered, slipping a turn of the rope. + +But her fingers closed on mine. + +“Please don’t,” she begged. + +“It is useless,” I answered. “Here is night and the wind blowing us off +the land.” + +“But think, Humphrey. If we cannot sail away on the _Ghost_, we may +remain for years on the island—for life even. If it has never been +discovered all these years, it may never be discovered.” + +“You forget the boat we found on the beach,” I reminded her. + +“It was a seal-hunting boat,” she replied, “and you know perfectly well +that if the men had escaped they would have been back to make their +fortunes from the rookery. You know they never escaped.” + +I remained silent, undecided. + +“Besides,” she added haltingly, “it’s your idea, and I want to see you +succeed.” + +Now I could harden my heart. As soon as she put it on a flattering +personal basis, generosity compelled me to deny her. + +“Better years on the island than to die to-night, or to-morrow, or the +next day, in the open boat. We are not prepared to brave the sea. We +have no food, no water, no blankets, nothing. Why, you’d not survive the +night without blankets: I know how strong you are. You are shivering +now.” + +“It is only nervousness,” she answered. “I am afraid you will cast off +the masts in spite of me.” + +“Oh, please, please, Humphrey, don’t!” she burst out, a moment later. + +And so it ended, with the phrase she knew had all power over me. We +shivered miserably throughout the night. Now and again I fitfully slept, +but the pain of the cold always aroused me. How Maud could stand it was +beyond me. I was too tired to thrash my arms about and warm myself, but +I found strength time and again to chafe her hands and feet to restore +the circulation. And still she pleaded with me not to cast off the +masts. About three in the morning she was caught by a cold cramp, and +after I had rubbed her out of that she became quite numb. I was +frightened. I got out the oars and made her row, though she was so weak +I thought she would faint at every stroke. + +Morning broke, and we looked long in the growing light for our island. +At last it showed, small and black, on the horizon, fully fifteen miles +away. I scanned the sea with my glasses. Far away in the south-west I +could see a dark line on the water, which grew even as I looked at it. + +“Fair wind!” I cried in a husky voice I did not recognize as my own. + +Maud tried to reply, but could not speak. Her lips were blue with cold, +and she was hollow-eyed—but oh, how bravely her brown eyes looked at me! +How piteously brave! + +Again I fell to chafing her hands and to moving her arms up and down and +about until she could thrash them herself. Then I compelled her to stand +up, and though she would have fallen had I not supported her, I forced +her to walk back and forth the several steps between the thwart and the +stern-sheets, and finally to spring up and down. + +“Oh, you brave, brave woman,” I said, when I saw the life coming back +into her face. “Did you know that you were brave?” + +“I never used to be,” she answered. “I was never brave till I knew you. +It is you who have made me brave.” + +“Nor I, until I knew you,” I answered. + +She gave me a quick look, and again I caught that dancing, tremulous +light and something more in her eyes. But it was only for the moment. +Then she smiled. + +“It must have been the conditions,” she said; but I knew she was wrong, +and I wondered if she likewise knew. Then the wind came, fair and fresh, +and the boat was soon labouring through a heavy sea toward the island. +At half-past three in the afternoon we passed the south-western +promontory. Not only were we hungry, but we were now suffering from +thirst. Our lips were dry and cracked, nor could we longer moisten them +with our tongues. Then the wind slowly died down. By night it was dead +calm and I was toiling once more at the oars—but weakly, most weakly. At +two in the morning the boat’s bow touched the beach of our own inner cove +and I staggered out to make the painter fast. Maud could not stand, nor +had I strength to carry her. I fell in the sand with her, and, when I +had recovered, contented myself with putting my hands under her shoulders +and dragging her up the beach to the hut. + +The next day we did no work. In fact, we slept till three in the +afternoon, or at least I did, for I awoke to find Maud cooking dinner. +Her power of recuperation was wonderful. There was something tenacious +about that lily-frail body of hers, a clutch on existence which one could +not reconcile with its patent weakness. + +“You know I was travelling to Japan for my health,” she said, as we +lingered at the fire after dinner and delighted in the movelessness of +loafing. “I was not very strong. I never was. The doctors recommended +a sea voyage, and I chose the longest.” + +“You little knew what you were choosing,” I laughed. + +“But I shall be a different women for the experience, as well as a +stronger woman,” she answered; “and, I hope a better woman. At least I +shall understand a great deal more of life.” + +Then, as the short day waned, we fell to discussing Wolf Larsen’s +blindness. It was inexplicable. And that it was grave, I instanced his +statement that he intended to stay and die on Endeavour Island. When he, +strong man that he was, loving life as he did, accepted his death, it was +plain that he was troubled by something more than mere blindness. There +had been his terrific headaches, and we were agreed that it was some sort +of brain break-down, and that in his attacks he endured pain beyond our +comprehension. + +I noticed as we talked over his condition, that Maud’s sympathy went out +to him more and more; yet I could not but love her for it, so sweetly +womanly was it. Besides, there was no false sentiment about her feeling. +She was agreed that the most rigorous treatment was necessary if we were +to escape, though she recoiled at the suggestion that I might some time +be compelled to take his life to save my own—“our own,” she put it. + +In the morning we had breakfast and were at work by daylight. I found a +light kedge anchor in the fore-hold, where such things were kept; and +with a deal of exertion got it on deck and into the boat. With a long +running-line coiled down in the stem, I rowed well out into our little +cove and dropped the anchor into the water. There was no wind, the tide +was high, and the schooner floated. Casting off the shore-lines, I +kedged her out by main strength (the windlass being broken), till she +rode nearly up and down to the small anchor—too small to hold her in any +breeze. So I lowered the big starboard anchor, giving plenty of slack; +and by afternoon I was at work on the windlass. + +Three days I worked on that windlass. Least of all things was I a +mechanic, and in that time I accomplished what an ordinary machinist +would have done in as many hours. I had to learn my tools to begin with, +and every simple mechanical principle which such a man would have at his +finger ends I had likewise to learn. And at the end of three days I had +a windlass which worked clumsily. It never gave the satisfaction the old +windlass had given, but it worked and made my work possible. + +In half a day I got the two topmasts aboard and the shears rigged and +guyed as before. And that night I slept on board and on deck beside my +work. Maud, who refused to stay alone ashore, slept in the forecastle. +Wolf Larsen had sat about, listening to my repairing the windlass and +talking with Maud and me upon indifferent subjects. No reference was +made on either side to the destruction of the shears; nor did he say +anything further about my leaving his ship alone. But still I had feared +him, blind and helpless and listening, always listening, and I never let +his strong arms get within reach of me while I worked. + +On this night, sleeping under my beloved shears, I was aroused by his +footsteps on the deck. It was a starlight night, and I could see the +bulk of him dimly as he moved about. I rolled out of my blankets and +crept noiselessly after him in my stocking feet. He had armed himself +with a draw-knife from the tool-locker, and with this he prepared to cut +across the throat-halyards I had again rigged to the shears. He felt the +halyards with his hands and discovered that I had not made them fast. +This would not do for a draw-knife, so he laid hold of the running part, +hove taut, and made fast. Then he prepared to saw across with the +draw-knife. + +“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” I said quietly. + +He heard the click of my pistol and laughed. + +“Hello, Hump,” he said. “I knew you were here all the time. You can’t +fool my ears.” + +“That’s a lie, Wolf Larsen,” I said, just as quietly as before. +“However, I am aching for a chance to kill you, so go ahead and cut.” + +“You have the chance always,” he sneered. + +“Go ahead and cut,” I threatened ominously. + +“I’d rather disappoint you,” he laughed, and turned on his heel and went +aft. + +“Something must be done, Humphrey,” Maud said, next morning, when I had +told her of the night’s occurrence. “If he has liberty, he may do +anything. He may sink the vessel, or set fire to it. There is no +telling what he may do. We must make him a prisoner.” + +“But how?” I asked, with a helpless shrug. “I dare not come within reach +of his arms, and he knows that so long as his resistance is passive I +cannot shoot him.” + +“There must be some way,” she contended. “Let me think.” + +“There is one way,” I said grimly. + +She waited. + +I picked up a seal-club. + +“It won’t kill him,” I said. “And before he could recover I’d have him +bound hard and fast.” + +She shook her head with a shudder. “No, not that. There must be some +less brutal way. Let us wait.” + +But we did not have to wait long, and the problem solved itself. In the +morning, after several trials, I found the point of balance in the +foremast and attached my hoisting tackle a few feet above it. Maud held +the turn on the windlass and coiled down while I heaved. Had the +windlass been in order it would not have been so difficult; as it was, I +was compelled to apply all my weight and strength to every inch of the +heaving. I had to rest frequently. In truth, my spells of resting were +longer than those of working. Maud even contrived, at times when all my +efforts could not budge the windlass, to hold the turn with one hand and +with the other to throw the weight of her slim body to my assistance. + +At the end of an hour the single and double blocks came together at the +top of the shears. I could hoist no more. And yet the mast was not +swung entirely inboard. The butt rested against the outside of the port +rail, while the top of the mast overhung the water far beyond the +starboard rail. My shears were too short. All my work had been for +nothing. But I no longer despaired in the old way. I was acquiring more +confidence in myself and more confidence in the possibilities of +windlasses, shears, and hoisting tackles. There was a way in which it +could be done, and it remained for me to find that way. + +While I was considering the problem, Wolf Larsen came on deck. We +noticed something strange about him at once. The indecisiveness, or +feebleness, of his movements was more pronounced. His walk was actually +tottery as he came down the port side of the cabin. At the break of the +poop he reeled, raised one hand to his eyes with the familiar brushing +gesture, and fell down the steps—still on his feet—to the main deck, +across which he staggered, falling and flinging out his arms for support. +He regained his balance by the steerage companion-way and stood there +dizzily for a space, when he suddenly crumpled up and collapsed, his legs +bending under him as he sank to the deck. + +“One of his attacks,” I whispered to Maud. + +She nodded her head; and I could see sympathy warm in her eyes. + +We went up to him, but he seemed unconscious, breathing spasmodically. +She took charge of him, lifting his head to keep the blood out of it and +despatching me to the cabin for a pillow. I also brought blankets, and +we made him comfortable. I took his pulse. It beat steadily and strong, +and was quite normal. This puzzled me. I became suspicious. + +“What if he should be feigning this?” I asked, still holding his wrist. + +Maud shook her head, and there was reproof in her eyes. But just then +the wrist I held leaped from my hand, and the hand clasped like a steel +trap about my wrist. I cried aloud in awful fear, a wild inarticulate +cry; and I caught one glimpse of his face, malignant and triumphant, as +his other hand compassed my body and I was drawn down to him in a +terrible grip. + +My wrist was released, but his other arm, passed around my back, held +both my arms so that I could not move. His free hand went to my throat, +and in that moment I knew the bitterest foretaste of death earned by +one’s own idiocy. Why had I trusted myself within reach of those +terrible arms? I could feel other hands at my throat. They were Maud’s +hands, striving vainly to tear loose the hand that was throttling me. +She gave it up, and I heard her scream in a way that cut me to the soul, +for it was a woman’s scream of fear and heart-breaking despair. I had +heard it before, during the sinking of the _Martinez_. + +My face was against his chest and I could not see, but I heard Maud turn +and run swiftly away along the deck. Everything was happening quickly. +I had not yet had a glimmering of unconsciousness, and it seemed that an +interminable period of time was lapsing before I heard her feet flying +back. And just then I felt the whole man sink under me. The breath was +leaving his lungs and his chest was collapsing under my weight. Whether +it was merely the expelled breath, or his consciousness of his growing +impotence, I know not, but his throat vibrated with a deep groan. The +hand at my throat relaxed. I breathed. It fluttered and tightened +again. But even his tremendous will could not overcome the dissolution +that assailed it. That will of his was breaking down. He was fainting. + +Maud’s footsteps were very near as his hand fluttered for the last time +and my throat was released. I rolled off and over to the deck on my +back, gasping and blinking in the sunshine. Maud was pale but +composed,—my eyes had gone instantly to her face,—and she was looking at +me with mingled alarm and relief. A heavy seal-club in her hand caught +my eyes, and at that moment she followed my gaze down to it. The club +dropped from her hand as though it had suddenly stung her, and at the +same moment my heart surged with a great joy. Truly she was my woman, my +mate-woman, fighting with me and for me as the mate of a caveman would +have fought, all the primitive in her aroused, forgetful of her culture, +hard under the softening civilization of the only life she had ever +known. + +“Dear woman!” I cried, scrambling to my feet. + +The next moment she was in my arms, weeping convulsively on my shoulder +while I clasped her close. I looked down at the brown glory of her hair, +glinting gems in the sunshine far more precious to me than those in the +treasure-chests of kings. And I bent my head and kissed her hair softly, +so softly that she did not know. + +Then sober thought came to me. After all, she was only a woman, crying +her relief, now that the danger was past, in the arms of her protector or +of the one who had been endangered. Had I been father or brother, the +situation would have been in nowise different. Besides, time and place +were not meet, and I wished to earn a better right to declare my love. +So once again I softly kissed her hair as I felt her receding from my +clasp. + +“It was a real attack this time,” I said: “another shock like the one +that made him blind. He feigned at first, and in doing so brought it +on.” + +Maud was already rearranging his pillow. + +“No,” I said, “not yet. Now that I have him helpless, helpless he shall +remain. From this day we live in the cabin. Wolf Larsen shall live in +the steerage.” + +I caught him under the shoulders and dragged him to the companion-way. +At my direction Maud fetched a rope. Placing this under his shoulders, I +balanced him across the threshold and lowered him down the steps to the +floor. I could not lift him directly into a bunk, but with Maud’s help I +lifted first his shoulders and head, then his body, balanced him across +the edge, and rolled him into a lower bunk. + +But this was not to be all. I recollected the handcuffs in his +state-room, which he preferred to use on sailors instead of the ancient +and clumsy ship irons. So, when we left him, he lay handcuffed hand and +foot. For the first time in many days I breathed freely. I felt +strangely light as I came on deck, as though a weight had been lifted off +my shoulders. I felt, also, that Maud and I had drawn more closely +together. And I wondered if she, too, felt it, as we walked along the +deck side by side to where the stalled foremast hung in the shears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +At once we moved aboard the _Ghost_, occupying our old state-rooms and +cooking in the galley. The imprisonment of Wolf Larsen had happened most +opportunely, for what must have been the Indian summer of this high +latitude was gone and drizzling stormy weather had set in. We were very +comfortable, and the inadequate shears, with the foremast suspended from +them, gave a business-like air to the schooner and a promise of +departure. + +And now that we had Wolf Larsen in irons, how little did we need it! +Like his first attack, his second had been accompanied by serious +disablement. Maud made the discovery in the afternoon while trying to +give him nourishment. He had shown signs of consciousness, and she had +spoken to him, eliciting no response. He was lying on his left side at +the time, and in evident pain. With a restless movement he rolled his +head around, clearing his left ear from the pillow against which it had +been pressed. At once he heard and answered her, and at once she came to +me. + +Pressing the pillow against his left ear, I asked him if he heard me, but +he gave no sign. Removing the pillow and, repeating the question he +answered promptly that he did. + +“Do you know you are deaf in the right ear?” I asked. + +“Yes,” he answered in a low, strong voice, “and worse than that. My +whole right side is affected. It seems asleep. I cannot move arm or +leg.” + +“Feigning again?” I demanded angrily. + +He shook his head, his stern mouth shaping the strangest, twisted smile. +It was indeed a twisted smile, for it was on the left side only, the +facial muscles of the right side moving not at all. + +“That was the last play of the Wolf,” he said. “I am paralysed. I shall +never walk again. Oh, only on the other side,” he added, as though +divining the suspicious glance I flung at his left leg, the knee of which +had just then drawn up, and elevated the blankets. + +“It’s unfortunate,” he continued. “I’d liked to have done for you first, +Hump. And I thought I had that much left in me.” + +“But why?” I asked; partly in horror, partly out of curiosity. + +Again his stern mouth framed the twisted smile, as he said: + +“Oh, just to be alive, to be living and doing, to be the biggest bit of +the ferment to the end, to eat you. But to die this way.” + +He shrugged his shoulders, or attempted to shrug them, rather, for the +left shoulder alone moved. Like the smile, the shrug was twisted. + +“But how can you account for it?” I asked. “Where is the seat of your +trouble?” + +“The brain,” he said at once. “It was those cursed headaches brought it +on.” + +“Symptoms,” I said. + +He nodded his head. “There is no accounting for it. I was never sick in +my life. Something’s gone wrong with my brain. A cancer, a tumour, or +something of that nature,—a thing that devours and destroys. It’s +attacking my nerve-centres, eating them up, bit by bit, cell by cell—from +the pain.” + +“The motor-centres, too,” I suggested. + +“So it would seem; and the curse of it is that I must lie here, +conscious, mentally unimpaired, knowing that the lines are going down, +breaking bit by bit communication with the world. I cannot see, hearing +and feeling are leaving me, at this rate I shall soon cease to speak; yet +all the time I shall be here, alive, active, and powerless.” + +“When you say _you_ are here, I’d suggest the likelihood of the soul,” I +said. + +“Bosh!” was his retort. “It simply means that in the attack on my brain +the higher psychical centres are untouched. I can remember, I can think +and reason. When that goes, I go. I am not. The soul?” + +He broke out in mocking laughter, then turned his left ear to the pillow +as a sign that he wished no further conversation. + +Maud and I went about our work oppressed by the fearful fate which had +overtaken him,—how fearful we were yet fully to realize. There was the +awfulness of retribution about it. Our thoughts were deep and solemn, +and we spoke to each other scarcely above whispers. + +“You might remove the handcuffs,” he said that night, as we stood in +consultation over him. “It’s dead safe. I’m a paralytic now. The next +thing to watch out for is bed sores.” + +He smiled his twisted smile, and Maud, her eyes wide with horror, was +compelled to turn away her head. + +“Do you know that your smile is crooked?” I asked him; for I knew that +she must attend him, and I wished to save her as much as possible. + +“Then I shall smile no more,” he said calmly. “I thought something was +wrong. My right cheek has been numb all day. Yes, and I’ve had warnings +of this for the last three days; by spells, my right side seemed going to +sleep, sometimes arm or hand, sometimes leg or foot.” + +“So my smile is crooked?” he queried a short while after. “Well, +consider henceforth that I smile internally, with my soul, if you please, +my soul. Consider that I am smiling now.” + +And for the space of several minutes he lay there, quiet, indulging his +grotesque fancy. + +The man of him was not changed. It was the old, indomitable, terrible +Wolf Larsen, imprisoned somewhere within that flesh which had once been +so invincible and splendid. Now it bound him with insentient fetters, +walling his soul in darkness and silence, blocking it from the world +which to him had been a riot of action. No more would he conjugate the +verb “to do in every mood and tense.” “To be” was all that remained to +him—to be, as he had defined death, without movement; to will, but not to +execute; to think and reason and in the spirit of him to be as alive as +ever, but in the flesh to be dead, quite dead. + +And yet, though I even removed the handcuffs, we could not adjust +ourselves to his condition. Our minds revolted. To us he was full of +potentiality. We knew not what to expect of him next, what fearful +thing, rising above the flesh, he might break out and do. Our experience +warranted this state of mind, and we went about our work with anxiety +always upon us. + +I had solved the problem which had arisen through the shortness of the +shears. By means of the watch-tackle (I had made a new one), I heaved +the butt of the foremast across the rail and then lowered it to the deck. +Next, by means of the shears, I hoisted the main boom on board. Its +forty feet of length would supply the height necessary properly to swing +the mast. By means of a secondary tackle I had attached to the shears, I +swung the boom to a nearly perpendicular position, then lowered the butt +to the deck, where, to prevent slipping, I spiked great cleats around it. +The single block of my original shears-tackle I had attached to the end +of the boom. Thus, by carrying this tackle to the windlass, I could +raise and lower the end of the boom at will, the butt always remaining +stationary, and, by means of guys, I could swing the boom from side to +side. To the end of the boom I had likewise rigged a hoisting tackle; +and when the whole arrangement was completed I could not but be startled +by the power and latitude it gave me. + +Of course, two days’ work was required for the accomplishment of this +part of my task, and it was not till the morning of the third day that I +swung the foremast from the deck and proceeded to square its butt to fit +the step. Here I was especially awkward. I sawed and chopped and +chiselled the weathered wood till it had the appearance of having been +gnawed by some gigantic mouse. But it fitted. + +“It will work, I know it will work,” I cried. + +“Do you know Dr. Jordan’s final test of truth?” Maud asked. + +I shook my head and paused in the act of dislodging the shavings which +had drifted down my neck. + +“Can we make it work? Can we trust our lives to it? is the test.” + +“He is a favourite of yours,” I said. + +“When I dismantled my old Pantheon and cast out Napoleon and Cæsar and +their fellows, I straightway erected a new Pantheon,” she answered +gravely, “and the first I installed was Dr. Jordan.” + +“A modern hero.” + +“And a greater because modern,” she added. “How can the Old World heroes +compare with ours?” + +I shook my head. We were too much alike in many things for argument. +Our points of view and outlook on life at least were very alike. + +“For a pair of critics we agree famously,” I laughed. + +“And as shipwright and able assistant,” she laughed back. + +But there was little time for laughter in those days, what of our heavy +work and of the awfulness of Wolf Larsen’s living death. + +He had received another stroke. He had lost his voice, or he was losing +it. He had only intermittent use of it. As he phrased it, the wires +were like the stock market, now up, now down. Occasionally the wires +were up and he spoke as well as ever, though slowly and heavily. Then +speech would suddenly desert him, in the middle of a sentence perhaps, +and for hours, sometimes, we would wait for the connection to be +re-established. He complained of great pain in his head, and it was +during this period that he arranged a system of communication against the +time when speech should leave him altogether—one pressure of the hand for +“yes,” two for “no.” It was well that it was arranged, for by evening +his voice had gone from him. By hand pressures, after that, he answered +our questions, and when he wished to speak he scrawled his thoughts with +his left hand, quite legibly, on a sheet of paper. + +The fierce winter had now descended upon us. Gale followed gale, with +snow and sleet and rain. The seals had started on their great southern +migration, and the rookery was practically deserted. I worked +feverishly. In spite of the bad weather, and of the wind which +especially hindered me, I was on deck from daylight till dark and making +substantial progress. + +I profited by my lesson learned through raising the shears and then +climbing them to attach the guys. To the top of the foremast, which was +just lifted conveniently from the deck, I attached the rigging, stays and +throat and peak halyards. As usual, I had underrated the amount of work +involved in this portion of the task, and two long days were necessary to +complete it. And there was so much yet to be done—the sails, for +instance, which practically had to be made over. + +While I toiled at rigging the foremast, Maud sewed on canvas, ready +always to drop everything and come to my assistance when more hands than +two were required. The canvas was heavy and hard, and she sewed with the +regular sailor’s palm and three-cornered sail-needle. Her hands were +soon sadly blistered, but she struggled bravely on, and in addition doing +the cooking and taking care of the sick man. + +“A fig for superstition,” I said on Friday morning. “That mast goes in +to-day.” + +Everything was ready for the attempt. Carrying the boom-tackle to the +windlass, I hoisted the mast nearly clear of the deck. Making this +tackle fast, I took to the windlass the shears-tackle (which was +connected with the end of the boom), and with a few turns had the mast +perpendicular and clear. + +Maud clapped her hands the instant she was relieved from holding the +turn, crying: + +“It works! It works! We’ll trust our lives to it!” + +Then she assumed a rueful expression. + +“It’s not over the hole,” she add. “Will you have to begin all over?” + +I smiled in superior fashion, and, slacking off on one of the boom-guys +and taking in on the other, swung the mast perfectly in the centre of the +deck. Still it was not over the hole. Again the rueful expression came +on her face, and again I smiled in a superior way. Slacking away on the +boom-tackle and hoisting an equivalent amount on the shears-tackle, I +brought the butt of the mast into position directly over the hole in the +deck. Then I gave Maud careful instructions for lowering away and went +into the hold to the step on the schooner’s bottom. + +I called to her, and the mast moved easily and accurately. Straight +toward the square hole of the step the square butt descended; but as it +descended it slowly twisted so that square would not fit into square. +But I had not even a moment’s indecision. Calling to Maud to cease +lowering, I went on deck and made the watch-tackle fast to the mast with +a rolling hitch. I left Maud to pull on it while I went below. By the +light of the lantern I saw the butt twist slowly around till its sides +coincided with the sides of the step. Maud made fast and returned to the +windlass. Slowly the butt descended the several intervening inches, at +the same time slightly twisting again. Again Maud rectified the twist +with the watch-tackle, and again she lowered away from the windlass. +Square fitted into square. The mast was stepped. + +I raised a shout, and she ran down to see. In the yellow lantern light +we peered at what we had accomplished. We looked at each other, and our +hands felt their way and clasped. The eyes of both of us, I think, were +moist with the joy of success. + +“It was done so easily after all,” I remarked. “All the work was in the +preparation.” + +“And all the wonder in the completion,” Maud added. “I can scarcely +bring myself to realize that that great mast is really up and in; that +you have lifted it from the water, swung it through the air, and +deposited it here where it belongs. It is a Titan’s task.” + +“And they made themselves many inventions,” I began merrily, then paused +to sniff the air. + +I looked hastily at the lantern. It was not smoking. Again I sniffed. + +“Something is burning,” Maud said, with sudden conviction. + +We sprang together for the ladder, but I raced past her to the deck. A +dense volume of smoke was pouring out of the steerage companion-way. + +“The Wolf is not yet dead,” I muttered to myself as I sprang down through +the smoke. + +It was so thick in the confined space that I was compelled to feel my +way; and so potent was the spell of Wolf Larsen on my imagination, I was +quite prepared for the helpless giant to grip my neck in a strangle hold. +I hesitated, the desire to race back and up the steps to the deck almost +overpowering me. Then I recollected Maud. The vision of her, as I had +last seen her, in the lantern light of the schooner’s hold, her brown +eyes warm and moist with joy, flashed before me, and I knew that I could +not go back. + +I was choking and suffocating by the time I reached Wolf Larsen’s bunk. +I reached my hand and felt for his. He was lying motionless, but moved +slightly at the touch of my hand. I felt over and under his blankets. +There was no warmth, no sign of fire. Yet that smoke which blinded me +and made me cough and gasp must have a source. I lost my head +temporarily and dashed frantically about the steerage. A collision with +the table partially knocked the wind from my body and brought me to +myself. I reasoned that a helpless man could start a fire only near to +where he lay. + +I returned to Wolf Larsen’s bunk. There I encountered Maud. How long +she had been there in that suffocating atmosphere I could not guess. + +“Go up on deck!” I commanded peremptorily. + +“But, Humphrey—” she began to protest in a queer, husky voice. + +“Please! please!” I shouted at her harshly. + +She drew away obediently, and then I thought, What if she cannot find the +steps? I started after her, to stop at the foot of the companion-way. +Perhaps she had gone up. As I stood there, hesitant, I heard her cry +softly: + +“Oh, Humphrey, I am lost.” + +I found her fumbling at the wall of the after bulkhead, and, half leading +her, half carrying her, I took her up the companion-way. The pure air +was like nectar. Maud was only faint and dizzy, and I left her lying on +the deck when I took my second plunge below. + +The source of the smoke must be very close to Wolf Larsen—my mind was +made up to this, and I went straight to his bunk. As I felt about among +his blankets, something hot fell on the back of my hand. It burned me, +and I jerked my hand away. Then I understood. Through the cracks in the +bottom of the upper bunk he had set fire to the mattress. He still +retained sufficient use of his left arm to do this. The damp straw of +the mattress, fired from beneath and denied air, had been smouldering all +the while. + +As I dragged the mattress out of the bunk it seemed to disintegrate in +mid-air, at the same time bursting into flames. I beat out the burning +remnants of straw in the bunk, then made a dash for the deck for fresh +air. + +Several buckets of water sufficed to put out the burning mattress in the +middle of the steerage floor; and ten minutes later, when the smoke had +fairly cleared, I allowed Maud to come below. Wolf Larsen was +unconscious, but it was a matter of minutes for the fresh air to restore +him. We were working over him, however, when he signed for paper and +pencil. + +“Pray do not interrupt me,” he wrote. “I am smiling.” + +“I am still a bit of the ferment, you see,” he wrote a little later. + +“I am glad you are as small a bit as you are,” I said. + +“Thank you,” he wrote. “But just think of how much smaller I shall be +before I die.” + +“And yet I am all here, Hump,” he wrote with a final flourish. “I can +think more clearly than ever in my life before. Nothing to disturb me. +Concentration is perfect. I am all here and more than here.” + +It was like a message from the night of the grave; for this man’s body +had become his mausoleum. And there, in so strange sepulchre, his spirit +fluttered and lived. It would flutter and live till the last line of +communication was broken, and after that who was to say how much longer +it might continue to flutter and live? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +“I think my left side is going,” Wolf Larsen wrote, the morning after his +attempt to fire the ship. “The numbness is growing. I can hardly move +my hand. You will have to speak louder. The last lines are going down.” + +“Are you in pain?” I asked. + +I was compelled to repeat my question loudly before he answered: + +“Not all the time.” + +The left hand stumbled slowly and painfully across the paper, and it was +with extreme difficulty that we deciphered the scrawl. It was like a +“spirit message,” such as are delivered at séances of spiritualists for a +dollar admission. + +“But I am still here, all here,” the hand scrawled more slowly and +painfully than ever. + +The pencil dropped, and we had to replace it in the hand. + +“When there is no pain I have perfect peace and quiet. I have never +thought so clearly. I can ponder life and death like a Hindoo sage.” + +“And immortality?” Maud queried loudly in the ear. + +Three times the hand essayed to write but fumbled hopelessly. The pencil +fell. In vain we tried to replace it. The fingers could not close on +it. Then Maud pressed and held the fingers about the pencil with her own +hand and the hand wrote, in large letters, and so slowly that the minutes +ticked off to each letter: + +“B-O-S-H.” + +It was Wolf Larsen’s last word, “bosh,” sceptical and invincible to the +end. The arm and hand relaxed. The trunk of the body moved slightly. +Then there was no movement. Maud released the hand. The fingers spread +slightly, falling apart of their own weight, and the pencil rolled away. + +“Do you still hear?” I shouted, holding the fingers and waiting for the +single pressure which would signify “Yes.” There was no response. The +hand was dead. + +“I noticed the lips slightly move,” Maud said. + +I repeated the question. The lips moved. She placed the tips of her +fingers on them. Again I repeated the question. “Yes,” Maud announced. +We looked at each other expectantly. + +“What good is it?” I asked. “What can we say now?” + +“Oh, ask him—” + +She hesitated. + +“Ask him something that requires no for an answer,” I suggested. “Then +we will know for certainty.” + +“Are you hungry?” she cried. + +The lips moved under her fingers, and she answered, “Yes.” + +“Will you have some beef?” was her next query. + +“No,” she announced. + +“Beef-tea?” + +“Yes, he will have some beef-tea,” she said, quietly, looking up at me. +“Until his hearing goes we shall be able to communicate with him. And +after that—” + +She looked at me queerly. I saw her lips trembling and the tears +swimming up in her eyes. She swayed toward me and I caught her in my +arms. + +“Oh, Humphrey,” she sobbed, “when will it all end? I am so tired, so +tired.” + +She buried her head on my shoulder, her frail form shaken with a storm of +weeping. She was like a feather in my arms, so slender, so ethereal. +“She has broken down at last,” I thought. “What can I do without her +help?” + +But I soothed and comforted her, till she pulled herself bravely together +and recuperated mentally as quickly as she was wont to do physically. + +“I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she said. Then added, with the +whimsical smile I adored, “but I am only one, small woman.” + +That phrase, the “one small woman,” startled me like an electric shock. +It was my own phrase, my pet, secret phrase, my love phrase for her. + +“Where did you get that phrase?” I demanded, with an abruptness that in +turn startled her. + +“What phrase?” she asked. + +“One small woman.” + +“Is it yours?” she asked. + +“Yes,” I answered. “Mine. I made it.” + +“Then you must have talked in your sleep,” she smiled. + +The dancing, tremulous light was in her eyes. Mine, I knew, were +speaking beyond the will of my speech. I leaned toward her. Without +volition I leaned toward her, as a tree is swayed by the wind. Ah, we +were very close together in that moment. But she shook her head, as one +might shake off sleep or a dream, saying: + +“I have known it all my life. It was my father’s name for my mother.” + +“It is my phrase too,” I said stubbornly. + +“For your mother?” + +“No,” I answered, and she questioned no further, though I could have +sworn her eyes retained for some time a mocking, teasing expression. + +With the foremast in, the work now went on apace. Almost before I knew +it, and without one serious hitch, I had the mainmast stepped. A +derrick-boom, rigged to the foremast, had accomplished this; and several +days more found all stays and shrouds in place, and everything set up +taut. Topsails would be a nuisance and a danger for a crew of two, so I +heaved the topmasts on deck and lashed them fast. + +Several more days were consumed in finishing the sails and putting them +on. There were only three—the jib, foresail, and mainsail; and, patched, +shortened, and distorted, they were a ridiculously ill-fitting suit for +so trim a craft as the _Ghost_. + +“But they’ll work!” Maud cried jubilantly. “We’ll make them work, and +trust our lives to them!” + +Certainly, among my many new trades, I shone least as a sail-maker. I +could sail them better than make them, and I had no doubt of my power to +bring the schooner to some northern port of Japan. In fact, I had +crammed navigation from text-books aboard; and besides, there was Wolf +Larsen’s star-scale, so simple a device that a child could work it. + +As for its inventor, beyond an increasing deafness and the movement of +the lips growing fainter and fainter, there had been little change in his +condition for a week. But on the day we finished bending the schooner’s +sails, he heard his last, and the last movement of his lips died away—but +not before I had asked him, “Are you all there?” and the lips had +answered, “Yes.” + +The last line was down. Somewhere within that tomb of the flesh still +dwelt the soul of the man. Walled by the living clay, that fierce +intelligence we had known burned on; but it burned on in silence and +darkness. And it was disembodied. To that intelligence there could be +no objective knowledge of a body. It knew no body. The very world was +not. It knew only itself and the vastness and profundity of the quiet +and the dark. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +The day came for our departure. There was no longer anything to detain +us on Endeavour Island. The _Ghost’s_ stumpy masts were in place, her +crazy sails bent. All my handiwork was strong, none of it beautiful; but +I knew that it would work, and I felt myself a man of power as I looked +at it. + +“I did it! I did it! With my own hands I did it!” I wanted to cry +aloud. + +But Maud and I had a way of voicing each other’s thoughts, and she said, +as we prepared to hoist the mainsail: + +“To think, Humphrey, you did it all with your own hands?” + +“But there were two other hands,” I answered. “Two small hands, and +don’t say that was a phrase, also, of your father.” + +She laughed and shook her head, and held her hands up for inspection. + +“I can never get them clean again,” she wailed, “nor soften the +weather-beat.” + +“Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour,” I said, +holding them in mine; and, spite of my resolutions, I would have kissed +the two dear hands had she not swiftly withdrawn them. + +Our comradeship was becoming tremulous, I had mastered my love long and +well, but now it was mastering me. Wilfully had it disobeyed and won my +eyes to speech, and now it was winning my tongue—ay, and my lips, for +they were mad this moment to kiss the two small hands which had toiled so +faithfully and hard. And I, too, was mad. There was a cry in my being +like bugles calling me to her. And there was a wind blowing upon me +which I could not resist, swaying the very body of me till I leaned +toward her, all unconscious that I leaned. And she knew it. She could +not but know it as she swiftly drew away her hands, and yet, could not +forbear one quick searching look before she turned away her eyes. + +By means of deck-tackles I had arranged to carry the halyards forward to +the windlass; and now I hoisted the mainsail, peak and throat, at the +same time. It was a clumsy way, but it did not take long, and soon the +foresail as well was up and fluttering. + +“We can never get that anchor up in this narrow place, once it has left +the bottom,” I said. “We should be on the rocks first.” + +“What can you do?” she asked. + +“Slip it,” was my answer. “And when I do, you must do your first work on +the windlass. I shall have to run at once to the wheel, and at the same +time you must be hoisting the jib.” + +This manœuvre of getting under way I had studied and worked out a score +of times; and, with the jib-halyard to the windlass, I knew Maud was +capable of hoisting that most necessary sail. A brisk wind was blowing +into the cove, and though the water was calm, rapid work was required to +get us safely out. + +When I knocked the shackle-bolt loose, the chain roared out through the +hawse-hole and into the sea. I raced aft, putting the wheel up. The +_Ghost_ seemed to start into life as she heeled to the first fill of her +sails. The jib was rising. As it filled, the _Ghost’s_ bow swung off +and I had to put the wheel down a few spokes and steady her. + +I had devised an automatic jib-sheet which passed the jib across of +itself, so there was no need for Maud to attend to that; but she was +still hoisting the jib when I put the wheel hard down. It was a moment +of anxiety, for the _Ghost_ was rushing directly upon the beach, a +stone’s throw distant. But she swung obediently on her heel into the +wind. There was a great fluttering and flapping of canvas and +reef-points, most welcome to my ears, then she filled away on the other +tack. + +Maud had finished her task and come aft, where she stood beside me, a +small cap perched on her wind-blown hair, her cheeks flushed from +exertion, her eyes wide and bright with the excitement, her nostrils +quivering to the rush and bite of the fresh salt air. Her brown eyes +were like a startled deer’s. There was a wild, keen look in them I had +never seen before, and her lips parted and her breath suspended as the +_Ghost_, charging upon the wall of rock at the entrance to the inner +cove, swept into the wind and filled away into safe water. + +My first mate’s berth on the sealing grounds stood me in good stead, and +I cleared the inner cove and laid a long tack along the shore of the +outer cove. Once again about, and the _Ghost_ headed out to open sea. +She had now caught the bosom-breathing of the ocean, and was herself +a-breath with the rhythm of it as she smoothly mounted and slipped down +each broad-backed wave. The day had been dull and overcast, but the sun +now burst through the clouds, a welcome omen, and shone upon the curving +beach where together we had dared the lords of the harem and slain the +holluschickie. All Endeavour Island brightened under the sun. Even the +grim south-western promontory showed less grim, and here and there, where +the sea-spray wet its surface, high lights flashed and dazzled in the +sun. + +“I shall always think of it with pride,” I said to Maud. + +She threw her head back in a queenly way but said, “Dear, dear Endeavour +Island! I shall always love it.” + +“And I,” I said quickly. + +It seemed our eyes must meet in a great understanding, and yet, loath, +they struggled away and did not meet. + +There was a silence I might almost call awkward, till I broke it, saying: + +“See those black clouds to windward. You remember, I told you last night +the barometer was falling.” + +“And the sun is gone,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon our island, +where we had proved our mastery over matter and attained to the truest +comradeship that may fall to man and woman. + +“And it’s slack off the sheets for Japan!” I cried gaily. “A fair wind +and a flowing sheet, you know, or however it goes.” + +Lashing the wheel I ran forward, eased the fore and mainsheets, took in +on the boom-tackles and trimmed everything for the quartering breeze +which was ours. It was a fresh breeze, very fresh, but I resolved to run +as long as I dared. Unfortunately, when running free, it is impossible +to lash the wheel, so I faced an all-night watch. Maud insisted on +relieving me, but proved that she had not the strength to steer in a +heavy sea, even if she could have gained the wisdom on such short notice. +She appeared quite heart-broken over the discovery, but recovered her +spirits by coiling down tackles and halyards and all stray ropes. Then +there were meals to be cooked in the galley, beds to make, Wolf Larsen to +be attended upon, and she finished the day with a grand house-cleaning +attack upon the cabin and steerage. + +All night I steered, without relief, the wind slowly and steadily +increasing and the sea rising. At five in the morning Maud brought me +hot coffee and biscuits she had baked, and at seven a substantial and +piping hot breakfast put new life into me. + +Throughout the day, and as slowly and steadily as ever, the wind +increased. It impressed one with its sullen determination to blow, and +blow harder, and keep on blowing. And still the _Ghost_ foamed along, +racing off the miles till I was certain she was making at least eleven +knots. It was too good to lose, but by nightfall I was exhausted. +Though in splendid physical trim, a thirty-six-hour trick at the wheel +was the limit of my endurance. Besides, Maud begged me to heave to, and +I knew, if the wind and sea increased at the same rate during the night, +that it would soon be impossible to heave to. So, as twilight deepened, +gladly and at the same time reluctantly, I brought the _Ghost_ up on the +wind. + +But I had not reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three sails +meant for one man. While running away from the wind I had not +appreciated its force, but when we ceased to run I learned to my sorrow, +and well-nigh to my despair, how fiercely it was really blowing. The +wind balked my every effort, ripping the canvas out of my hands and in an +instant undoing what I had gained by ten minutes of severest struggle. +At eight o’clock I had succeeded only in putting the second reef into the +foresail. At eleven o’clock I was no farther along. Blood dripped from +every finger-end, while the nails were broken to the quick. From pain +and sheer exhaustion I wept in the darkness, secretly, so that Maud +should not know. + +Then, in desperation, I abandoned the attempt to reef the mainsail and +resolved to try the experiment of heaving to under the close-reefed +foresail. Three hours more were required to gasket the mainsail and jib, +and at two in the morning, nearly dead, the life almost buffeted and +worked out of me, I had barely sufficient consciousness to know the +experiment was a success. The close-reefed foresail worked. The _Ghost_ +clung on close to the wind and betrayed no inclination to fall off +broadside to the trough. + +I was famished, but Maud tried vainly to get me to eat. I dozed with my +mouth full of food. I would fall asleep in the act of carrying food to +my mouth and waken in torment to find the act yet uncompleted. So +sleepily helpless was I that she was compelled to hold me in my chair to +prevent my being flung to the floor by the violent pitching of the +schooner. + +Of the passage from the galley to the cabin I knew nothing. It was a +sleep-walker Maud guided and supported. In fact, I was aware of nothing +till I awoke, how long after I could not imagine, in my bunk with my +boots off. It was dark. I was stiff and lame, and cried out with pain +when the bed-clothes touched my poor finger-ends. + +Morning had evidently not come, so I closed my eyes and went to sleep +again. I did not know it, but I had slept the clock around and it was +night again. + +Once more I woke, troubled because I could sleep no better. I struck a +match and looked at my watch. It marked midnight. And I had not left +the deck until three! I should have been puzzled had I not guessed the +solution. No wonder I was sleeping brokenly. I had slept twenty-one +hours. I listened for a while to the behaviour of the _Ghost_, to the +pounding of the seas and the muffled roar of the wind on deck, and then +turned over on my side and slept peacefully until morning. + +When I arose at seven I saw no sign of Maud and concluded she was in the +galley preparing breakfast. On deck I found the _Ghost_ doing splendidly +under her patch of canvas. But in the galley, though a fire was burning +and water boiling, I found no Maud. + +I discovered her in the steerage, by Wolf Larsen’s bunk. I looked at +him, the man who had been hurled down from the topmost pitch of life to +be buried alive and be worse than dead. There seemed a relaxation of his +expressionless face which was new. Maud looked at me and I understood. + +“His life flickered out in the storm,” I said. + +“But he still lives,” she answered, infinite faith in her voice. + +“He had too great strength.” + +“Yes,” she said, “but now it no longer shackles him. He is a free +spirit.” + +“He is a free spirit surely,” I answered; and, taking her hand, I led her +on deck. + +The storm broke that night, which is to say that it diminished as slowly +as it had arisen. After breakfast next morning, when I had hoisted Wolf +Larsen’s body on deck ready for burial, it was still blowing heavily and +a large sea was running. The deck was continually awash with the sea +which came inboard over the rail and through the scuppers. The wind +smote the schooner with a sudden gust, and she heeled over till her lee +rail was buried, the roar in her rigging rising in pitch to a shriek. We +stood in the water to our knees as I bared my head. + +“I remember only one part of the service,” I said, “and that is, ‘And the +body shall be cast into the sea.’” + +Maud looked at me, surprised and shocked; but the spirit of something I +had seen before was strong upon me, impelling me to give service to Wolf +Larsen as Wolf Larsen had once given service to another man. I lifted +the end of the hatch cover and the canvas-shrouded body slipped feet +first into the sea. The weight of iron dragged it down. It was gone. + +“Good-bye, Lucifer, proud spirit,” Maud whispered, so low that it was +drowned by the shouting of the wind; but I saw the movement of her lips +and knew. + +As we clung to the lee rail and worked our way aft, I happened to glance +to leeward. The _Ghost_, at the moment, was uptossed on a sea, and I +caught a clear view of a small steamship two or three miles away, rolling +and pitching, head on to the sea, as it steamed toward us. It was +painted black, and from the talk of the hunters of their poaching +exploits I recognized it as a United States revenue cutter. I pointed it +out to Maud and hurriedly led her aft to the safety of the poop. + +I started to rush below to the flag-locker, then remembered that in +rigging the _Ghost_ I had forgotten to make provision for a +flag-halyard. + +“We need no distress signal,” Maud said. “They have only to see us.” + +“We are saved,” I said, soberly and solemnly. And then, in an exuberance +of joy, “I hardly know whether to be glad or not.” + +I looked at her. Our eyes were not loath to meet. We leaned toward each +other, and before I knew it my arms were about her. + +“Need I?” I asked. + +And she answered, “There is no need, though the telling of it would be +sweet, so sweet.” + +Her lips met the press of mine, and, by what strange trick of the +imagination I know not, the scene in the cabin of the _Ghost_ flashed +upon me, when she had pressed her fingers lightly on my lips and said, +“Hush, hush.” + +“My woman, my one small woman,” I said, my free hand petting her shoulder +in the way all lovers know though never learn in school. + +“My man,” she said, looking at me for an instant with tremulous lids +which fluttered down and veiled her eyes as she snuggled her head against +my breast with a happy little sigh. + +I looked toward the cutter. It was very close. A boat was being +lowered. + +“One kiss, dear love,” I whispered. “One kiss more before they come.” + +“And rescue us from ourselves,” she completed, with a most adorable +smile, whimsical as I had never seen it, for it was whimsical with love. + + * * * * * + + THE END + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, + BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E. 1, AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA-WOLF *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Sea-Wolf</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Jack London</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: October 15, 1997 [eBook #1074]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 24, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA-WOLF ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Sea-Wolf</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Jack London</h2> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">author of</span><br/> +“<span class="smcap">the call of the wild</span>,” “<span +class="smcap">the faith of men</span>,”<br/> +<span class="smcap">etc.</span> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>POPULAR EDITION</i>. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +LONDON<br/> +WILLIAM HEINEMANN<br/> +1917 +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>First published</i>, <i>November</i> 1904. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>New Impression</i>, <i>December</i> 1904, <i>April</i> 1908. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Popular Edition</i>, <i>July</i> 1910; <i>New Impressions</i>, <i>March</i> +1912, <i>September</i> 1912, <i>November</i> 1913, <i>May</i> 1915, <i>May</i> +1916, <i>July</i> 1917. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Copyright</i>, <i>London</i>, <i>William Heinemann</i>, 1904 +</p> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XXXVI.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">CHAPTER XXXVII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">CHAPTER XXXIX.</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p> +I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause +of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept a summer cottage in Mill +Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when +he loafed through the winter months and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest +his brain. When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty +existence in the city and to toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to run +up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to stop over till Monday morning, +this particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat on San +Francisco Bay. +</p> + +<p> +Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the <i>Martinez</i> was a new +ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run between Sausalito and +San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of +which, as a landsman, I had little apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid +exaltation with which I took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly +beneath the pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my +imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in the +moist obscurity—yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the presence +of the pilot, and of what I took to be the captain, in the glass house above my +head. +</p> + +<p> +I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labour which made +it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and navigation, in order to +visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea. It was good that men should +be specialists, I mused. The peculiar knowledge of the pilot and captain +sufficed for many thousands of people who knew no more of the sea and +navigation than I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote my +energy to the learning of a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a few +particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe’s place in +American literature—an essay of mine, by the way, in the current +<i>Atlantic</i>. Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I had noticed +with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the <i>Atlantic</i>, which was open +at my very essay. And there it was again, the division of labour, the special +knowledge of the pilot and captain which permitted the stout gentleman to read +my special knowledge on Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to San +Francisco. +</p> + +<p> +A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping out on the +deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note of the topic for +use in a projected essay which I had thought of calling “The Necessity +for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist.” The red-faced man shot a glance up +at the pilot-house, gazed around at the fog, stumped across the deck and back +(he evidently had artificial legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide +apart, and with an expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong +when I decided that his days had been spent on the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nasty weather like this here that turns heads grey before +their time,” he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house. +</p> + +<p> +“I had not thought there was any particular strain,” I answered. +“It seems as simple as A, B, C. They know the direction by compass, the +distance, and the speed. I should not call it anything more than mathematical +certainty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Strain!” he snorted. “Simple as A, B, C! Mathematical +certainty!” +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward against the air as he stared at +me. “How about this here tide that’s rushin’ out through the +Golden Gate?” he demanded, or bellowed, rather. “How fast is she +ebbin’? What’s the drift, eh? Listen to that, will you? A +bell-buoy, and we’re a-top of it! See ’em alterin’ the +course!” +</p> + +<p> +From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could see the +pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. The bell, which had seemed +straight ahead, was now sounding from the side. Our own whistle was blowing +hoarsely, and from time to time the sound of other whistles came to us from out +of the fog. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a ferry-boat of some sort,” the new-comer said, +indicating a whistle off to the right. “And there! D’ye hear that? +Blown by mouth. Some scow schooner, most likely. Better watch out, Mr. +Schooner-man. Ah, I thought so. Now hell’s a poppin’ for +somebody!” +</p> + +<p> +The unseen ferry-boat was blowing blast after blast, and the mouth-blown horn +was tooting in terror-stricken fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“And now they’re payin’ their respects to each other and +tryin’ to get clear,” the red-faced man went on, as the hurried +whistling ceased. +</p> + +<p> +His face was shining, his eyes flashing with excitement as he translated into +articulate language the speech of the horns and sirens. “That’s a +steam-siren a-goin’ it over there to the left. And you hear that fellow +with a frog in his throat—a steam schooner as near as I can judge, +crawlin’ in from the Heads against the tide.” +</p> + +<p> +A shrill little whistle, piping as if gone mad, came from directly ahead and +from very near at hand. Gongs sounded on the <i>Martinez</i>. Our paddle-wheels +stopped, their pulsing beat died away, and then they started again. The shrill +little whistle, like the chirping of a cricket amid the cries of great beasts, +shot through the fog from more to the side and swiftly grew faint and fainter. +I looked to my companion for enlightenment. +</p> + +<p> +“One of them dare-devil launches,” he said. “I almost wish +we’d sunk him, the little rip! They’re the cause of more trouble. +And what good are they? Any jackass gets aboard one and runs it from hell to +breakfast, blowin’ his whistle to beat the band and tellin’ the +rest of the world to look out for him, because he’s comin’ and +can’t look out for himself! Because he’s comin’! And +you’ve got to look out, too! Right of way! Common decency! They +don’t know the meanin’ of it!” +</p> + +<p> +I felt quite amused at his unwarranted choler, and while he stumped indignantly +up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the fog. And romantic it +certainly was—the fog, like the grey shadow of infinite mystery, brooding +over the whirling speck of earth; and men, mere motes of light and sparkle, +cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their steeds of wood and steel +through the heart of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the Unseen, +and clamouring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are +heavy with incertitude and fear. +</p> + +<p> +The voice of my companion brought me back to myself with a laugh. I too had +been groping and floundering, the while I thought I rode clear-eyed through the +mystery. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello! somebody comin’ our way,” he was saying. “And +d’ye hear that? He’s comin’ fast. Walking right along. Guess +he don’t hear us yet. Wind’s in wrong direction.” +</p> + +<p> +The fresh breeze was blowing right down upon us, and I could hear the whistle +plainly, off to one side and a little ahead. +</p> + +<p> +“Ferry-boat?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded, then added, “Or he wouldn’t be keepin’ up such a +clip.” He gave a short chuckle. “They’re gettin’ +anxious up there.” +</p> + +<p> +I glanced up. The captain had thrust his head and shoulders out of the +pilot-house, and was staring intently into the fog as though by sheer force of +will he could penetrate it. His face was anxious, as was the face of my +companion, who had stumped over to the rail and was gazing with a like +intentness in the direction of the invisible danger. +</p> + +<p> +Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. The fog seemed to +break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a steamboat emerged, +trailing fog-wreaths on either side like seaweed on the snout of Leviathan. I +could see the pilot-house and a white-bearded man leaning partly out of it, on +his elbows. He was clad in a blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and +quiet he was. His quietness, under the circumstances, was terrible. He accepted +Destiny, marched hand in hand with it, and coolly measured the stroke. As he +leaned there, he ran a calm and speculative eye over us, as though to determine +the precise point of the collision, and took no notice whatever when our pilot, +white with rage, shouted, “Now you’ve done it!” +</p> + +<p> +On looking back, I realize that the remark was too obvious to make rejoinder +necessary. +</p> + +<p> +“Grab hold of something and hang on,” the red-faced man said to me. +All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of +preternatural calm. “And listen to the women scream,” he said +grimly—almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been through the +experience before. +</p> + +<p> +The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We must have been +struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the strange steamboat having +passed beyond my line of vision. The <i>Martinez</i> heeled over, sharply, and +there was a crashing and rending of timber. I was thrown flat on the wet deck, +and before I could scramble to my feet I heard the scream of the women. This it +was, I am certain,—the most indescribable of blood-curdling +sounds,—that threw me into a panic. I remembered the life-preservers +stored in the cabin, but was met at the door and swept backward by a wild rush +of men and women. What happened in the next few minutes I do not recollect, +though I have a clear remembrance of pulling down life-preservers from the +overhead racks, while the red-faced man fastened them about the bodies of an +hysterical group of women. This memory is as distinct and sharp as that of any +picture I have seen. It is a picture, and I can see it now,—the jagged +edges of the hole in the side of the cabin, through which the grey fog swirled +and eddied; the empty upholstered seats, littered with all the evidences of +sudden flight, such as packages, hand satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout +gentleman who had been reading my essay, encased in cork and canvas, the +magazine still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence if I +thought there was any danger; the red-faced man, stumping gallantly around on +his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all comers; and finally, +the screaming bedlam of women. +</p> + +<p> +This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves. It must +have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I have another picture +which will never fade from my mind. The stout gentleman is stuffing the +magazine into his overcoat pocket and looking on curiously. A tangled mass of +women, with drawn, white faces and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of +lost souls; and the red-faced man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with +arms extended overhead as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is shouting, +“Shut up! Oh, shut up!” +</p> + +<p> +I remember the scene impelled me to sudden laughter, and in the next instant I +realized I was becoming hysterical myself; for these were women of my own kind, +like my mother and sisters, with the fear of death upon them and unwilling to +die. And I remember that the sounds they made reminded me of the squealing of +pigs under the knife of the butcher, and I was struck with horror at the +vividness of the analogy. These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, of +the tenderest sympathies, were open-mouthed and screaming. They wanted to live, +they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and they screamed. +</p> + +<p> +The horror of it drove me out on deck. I was feeling sick and squeamish, and +sat down on a bench. In a hazy way I saw and heard men rushing and shouting as +they strove to lower the boats. It was just as I had read descriptions of such +scenes in books. The tackles jammed. Nothing worked. One boat lowered away with +the plugs out, filled with women and children and then with water, and +capsized. Another boat had been lowered by one end, and still hung in the +tackle by the other end, where it had been abandoned. Nothing was to be seen of +the strange steamboat which had caused the disaster, though I heard men saying +that she would undoubtedly send boats to our assistance. +</p> + +<p> +I descended to the lower deck. The <i>Martinez</i> was sinking fast, for the +water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were leaping overboard. Others, +in the water, were clamouring to be taken aboard again. No one heeded them. A +cry arose that we were sinking. I was seized by the consequent panic, and went +over the side in a surge of bodies. How I went over I do not know, though I did +know, and instantly, why those in the water were so desirous of getting back on +the steamer. The water was cold—so cold that it was painful. The pang, as +I plunged into it, was as quick and sharp as that of fire. It bit to the +marrow. It was like the grip of death. I gasped with the anguish and shock of +it, filling my lungs before the life-preserver popped me to the surface. The +taste of the salt was strong in my mouth, and I was strangling with the acrid +stuff in my throat and lungs. +</p> + +<p> +But it was the cold that was most distressing. I felt that I could survive but +a few minutes. People were struggling and floundering in the water about me. I +could hear them crying out to one another. And I heard, also, the sound of +oars. Evidently the strange steamboat had lowered its boats. As the time went +by I marvelled that I was still alive. I had no sensation whatever in my lower +limbs, while a chilling numbness was wrapping about my heart and creeping into +it. Small waves, with spiteful foaming crests, continually broke over me and +into my mouth, sending me off into more strangling paroxysms. +</p> + +<p> +The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing chorus of +screams in the distance, and knew that the <i>Martinez</i> had gone down. +Later,—how much later I have no knowledge,—I came to myself with a +start of fear. I was alone. I could hear no calls or cries—only the sound +of the waves, made weirdly hollow and reverberant by the fog. A panic in a +crowd, which partakes of a sort of community of interest, is not so terrible as +a panic when one is by oneself; and such a panic I now suffered. Whither was I +drifting? The red-faced man had said that the tide was ebbing through the +Golden Gate. Was I, then, being carried out to sea? And the life-preserver in +which I floated? Was it not liable to go to pieces at any moment? I had heard +of such things being made of paper and hollow rushes which quickly became +saturated and lost all buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was +alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. I +confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had +shrieked, and beat the water with my numb hands. +</p> + +<p> +How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness intervened, of which +I remember no more than one remembers of troubled and painful sleep. When I +aroused, it was as after centuries of time; and I saw, almost above me and +emerging from the fog, the bow of a vessel, and three triangular sails, each +shrewdly lapping the other and filled with wind. Where the bow cut the water +there was a great foaming and gurgling, and I seemed directly in its path. I +tried to cry out, but was too exhausted. The bow plunged down, just missing me +and sending a swash of water clear over my head. Then the long, black side of +the vessel began slipping past, so near that I could have touched it with my +hands. I tried to reach it, in a mad resolve to claw into the wood with my +nails, but my arms were heavy and lifeless. Again I strove to call out, but +made no sound. +</p> + +<p> +The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping, as it did so, into a hollow between +the waves; and I caught a glimpse of a man standing at the wheel, and of +another man who seemed to be doing little else than smoke a cigar. I saw the +smoke issuing from his lips as he slowly turned his head and glanced out over +the water in my direction. It was a careless, unpremeditated glance, one of +those haphazard things men do when they have no immediate call to do anything +in particular, but act because they are alive and must do something. +</p> + +<p> +But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel being swallowed +up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel, and the head of the +other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze struck the water and casually +lifted along it toward me. His face wore an absent expression, as of deep +thought, and I became afraid that if his eyes did light upon me he would +nevertheless not see me. But his eyes did light upon me, and looked squarely +into mine; and he did see me, for he sprang to the wheel, thrusting the other +man aside, and whirled it round and round, hand over hand, at the same time +shouting orders of some sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent to its +former course and leapt almost instantly from view into the fog. +</p> + +<p> +I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and tried with all the power of my +will to fight above the suffocating blankness and darkness that was rising +around me. A little later I heard the stroke of oars, growing nearer and +nearer, and the calls of a man. When he was very near I heard him crying, in +vexed fashion, “Why in hell don’t you sing out?” This meant +me, I thought, and then the blankness and darkness rose over me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p> +I seemed swinging in a mighty rhythm through orbit vastness. Sparkling points +of light spluttered and shot past me. They were stars, I knew, and flaring +comets, that peopled my flight among the suns. As I reached the limit of my +swing and prepared to rush back on the counter swing, a great gong struck and +thundered. For an immeasurable period, lapped in the rippling of placid +centuries, I enjoyed and pondered my tremendous flight. +</p> + +<p> +But a change came over the face of the dream, for a dream I told myself it must +be. My rhythm grew shorter and shorter. I was jerked from swing to counter +swing with irritating haste. I could scarcely catch my breath, so fiercely was +I impelled through the heavens. The gong thundered more frequently and more +furiously. I grew to await it with a nameless dread. Then it seemed as though I +were being dragged over rasping sands, white and hot in the sun. This gave +place to a sense of intolerable anguish. My skin was scorching in the torment +of fire. The gong clanged and knelled. The sparkling points of light flashed +past me in an interminable stream, as though the whole sidereal system were +dropping into the void. I gasped, caught my breath painfully, and opened my +eyes. Two men were kneeling beside me, working over me. My mighty rhythm was +the lift and forward plunge of a ship on the sea. The terrific gong was a +frying-pan, hanging on the wall, that rattled and clattered with each leap of +the ship. The rasping, scorching sands were a man’s hard hands chafing my +naked chest. I squirmed under the pain of it, and half lifted my head. My chest +was raw and red, and I could see tiny blood globules starting through the torn +and inflamed cuticle. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do, Yonson,” one of the men said. +“Carn’t yer see you’ve bloomin’ well rubbed all the +gent’s skin orf?” +</p> + +<p> +The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, ceased +chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who had spoken to him was +clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost effeminate, +face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with his mother’s +milk. A draggled muslin cap on his head and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim +hips proclaimed him cook of the decidedly dirty ship’s galley in which I +found myself. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ ’ow yer feelin’ now, sir?” he asked, with +the subservient smirk which comes only of generations of tip-seeking ancestors. +</p> + +<p> +For reply, I twisted weakly into a sitting posture, and was helped by Yonson to +my feet. The rattle and bang of the frying-pan was grating horribly on my +nerves. I could not collect my thoughts. Clutching the woodwork of the galley +for support,—and I confess the grease with which it was scummed put my +teeth on edge,—I reached across a hot cooking-range to the offending +utensil, unhooked it, and wedged it securely into the coal-box. +</p> + +<p> +The cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my hand a steaming +mug with an “’Ere, this’ll do yer good.” It was a +nauseous mess,—ship’s coffee,—but the heat of it was +revivifying. Between gulps of the molten stuff I glanced down at my raw and +bleeding chest and turned to the Scandinavian. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mr. Yonson,” I said; “but don’t you think +your measures were rather heroic?” +</p> + +<p> +It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than of my words, +that he held up his palm for inspection. It was remarkably calloused. I passed +my hand over the horny projections, and my teeth went on edge once more from +the horrible rasping sensation produced. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Johnson, not Yonson,” he said, in very good, though +slow, English, with no more than a shade of accent to it. +</p> + +<p> +There was mild protest in his pale blue eyes, and withal a timid frankness and +manliness that quite won me to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” I corrected, and reached out my hand for +his. +</p> + +<p> +He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one leg to the +other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any dry clothes I may put on?” I asked the cook. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” he answered, with cheerful alacrity. “I’ll +run down an’ tyke a look over my kit, if you’ve no objections, sir, +to wearin’ my things.” +</p> + +<p> +He dived out of the galley door, or glided rather, with a swiftness and +smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-like as oily. In +fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later to learn, was probably the +most salient expression of his personality. +</p> + +<p> +“And where am I?” I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to be +one of the sailors. “What vessel is this, and where is she bound?” +</p> + +<p> +“Off the Farallones, heading about sou-west,” he answered, slowly +and methodically, as though groping for his best English, and rigidly observing +the order of my queries. “The schooner <i>Ghost</i>, bound seal-hunting +to Japan.” +</p> + +<p> +“And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I am dressed.” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while he groped in his +vocabulary and framed a complete answer. “The cap’n is Wolf Larsen, +or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better speak soft +with him. He is mad this morning. The mate—” +</p> + +<p> +But he did not finish. The cook had glided in. +</p> + +<p> +“Better sling yer ’ook out of ’ere, Yonson,” he said. +“The old man’ll be wantin’ yer on deck, an’ this +ayn’t no d’y to fall foul of ’im.” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the cook’s +shoulder, favouring me with an amazingly solemn and portentous wink as though +to emphasize his interrupted remark and the need for me to be soft-spoken with +the captain. +</p> + +<p> +Hanging over the cook’s arm was a loose and crumpled array of +evil-looking and sour-smelling garments. +</p> + +<p> +“They was put aw’y wet, sir,” he vouchsafed explanation. +“But you’ll ’ave to make them do till I dry yours out by the +fire.” +</p> + +<p> +Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and aided by +the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollen undershirt. On the instant my +flesh was creeping and crawling from the harsh contact. He noticed my +involuntary twitching and grimacing, and smirked: +</p> + +<p> +“I only ’ope yer don’t ever ’ave to get used to such as +that in this life, ’cos you’ve got a bloomin’ soft skin, that +you ’ave, more like a lydy’s than any I know of. I was +bloomin’ well sure you was a gentleman as soon as I set eyes on +yer.” +</p> + +<p> +I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress me this +dislike increased. There was something repulsive about his touch. I shrank from +his hand; my flesh revolted. And between this and the smells arising from +various pots boiling and bubbling on the galley fire, I was in haste to get out +into the fresh air. Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about +what arrangements could be made for getting me ashore. +</p> + +<p> +A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured with what I +took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a running and apologetic +fire of comment. A pair of workman’s brogans encased my feet, and for +trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg +of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg +looked as though the devil had there clutched for the Cockney’s soul and +missed the shadow for the substance. +</p> + +<p> +“And whom have I to thank for this kindness?” I asked, when I stood +completely arrayed, a tiny boy’s cap on my head, and for coat a dirty, +striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my back and the sleeves of +which reached just below my elbows. +</p> + +<p> +The cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating smirk on his +face. Out of my experience with stewards on the Atlantic liners at the end of +the voyage, I could have sworn he was waiting for his tip. From my fuller +knowledge of the creature I now know that the posture was unconscious. An +hereditary servility, no doubt, was responsible. +</p> + +<p> +“Mugridge, sir,” he fawned, his effeminate features running into a +greasy smile. “Thomas Mugridge, sir, an’ at yer service.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, Thomas,” I said. “I shall not forget +you—when my clothes are dry.” +</p> + +<p> +A soft light suffused his face and his eyes glistened, as though somewhere in +the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened and stirred with dim +memories of tips received in former lives. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir,” he said, very gratefully and very humbly indeed. +</p> + +<p> +Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and I stepped out +on deck. I was still weak from my prolonged immersion. A puff of wind caught +me,—and I staggered across the moving deck to a corner of the cabin, to +which I clung for support. The schooner, heeled over far out from the +perpendicular, was bowing and plunging into the long Pacific roll. If she were +heading south-west as Johnson had said, the wind, then, I calculated, was +blowing nearly from the south. The fog was gone, and in its place the sun +sparkled crisply on the surface of the water. I turned to the east, where I +knew California must lie, but could see nothing save low-lying +fog-banks—the same fog, doubtless, that had brought about the disaster to +the <i>Martinez</i> and placed me in my present situation. To the north, and +not far away, a group of naked rocks thrust above the sea, on one of which I +could distinguish a lighthouse. In the south-west, and almost in our course, I +saw the pyramidal loom of some vessel’s sails. +</p> + +<p> +Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my more immediate +surroundings. My first thought was that a man who had come through a collision +and rubbed shoulders with death merited more attention than I received. Beyond +a sailor at the wheel who stared curiously across the top of the cabin, I +attracted no notice whatever. +</p> + +<p> +Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amid ships. There, on a hatch, +a large man was lying on his back. He was fully clothed, though his shirt was +ripped open in front. Nothing was to be seen of his chest, however, for it was +covered with a mass of black hair, in appearance like the furry coat of a dog. +His face and neck were hidden beneath a black beard, intershot with grey, which +would have been stiff and bushy had it not been limp and draggled and dripping +with water. His eyes were closed, and he was apparently unconscious; but his +mouth was wide open, his breast, heaving as though from suffocation as he +laboured noisily for breath. A sailor, from time to time and quite +methodically, as a matter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at +the end of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced its contents over +the prostrate man. +</p> + +<p> +Pacing back and forth the length of the hatchways and savagely chewing the end +of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance had rescued me from the sea. His +height was probably five feet ten inches, or ten and a half; but my first +impression, or feel of the man, was not of this, but of his strength. And yet, +while he was of massive build, with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could not +characterize his strength as massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy, +knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in +him, because of his heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order. +Not that in appearance he seemed in the least gorilla-like. What I am striving +to express is this strength itself, more as a thing apart from his physical +semblance. It was a strength we are wont to associate with things primitive, +with wild animals, and the creatures we imagine our tree-dwelling prototypes to +have been—a strength savage, ferocious, alive in itself, the essence of +life in that it is the potency of motion, the elemental stuff itself out of +which the many forms of life have been moulded; in short, that which writhes in +the body of a snake when the head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, is +dead, or which lingers in the shapeless lump of turtle-meat and recoils and +quivers from the prod of a finger. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who paced up and +down. He was firmly planted on his legs; his feet struck the deck squarely and +with surety; every movement of a muscle, from the heave of the shoulders to the +tightening of the lips about the cigar, was decisive, and seemed to come out of +a strength that was excessive and overwhelming. In fact, though this strength +pervaded every action of his, it seemed but the advertisement of a greater +strength that lurked within, that lay dormant and no more than stirred from +time to time, but which might arouse, at any moment, terrible and compelling, +like the rage of a lion or the wrath of a storm. +</p> + +<p> +The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned encouragingly at me, +at the same time jerking his thumb in the direction of the man who paced up and +down by the hatchway. Thus I was given to understand that he was the captain, +the “Old Man,” in the cook’s vernacular, the individual whom +I must interview and put to the trouble of somehow getting me ashore. I had +half started forward, to get over with what I was certain would be a stormy +five minutes, when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate +person who was lying on his back. He wrenched and writhed about convulsively. +The chin, with the damp black beard, pointed higher in the air as the back +muscles stiffened and the chest swelled in an unconscious and instinctive +effort to get more air. Under the whiskers, and all unseen, I knew that the +skin was taking on a purplish hue. +</p> + +<p> +The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing and gazed down at +the dying man. So fierce had this final struggle become that the sailor paused +in the act of flinging more water over him and stared curiously, the canvas +bucket partly tilted and dripping its contents to the deck. The dying man beat +a tattoo on the hatch with his heels, straightened out his legs, and stiffened +in one great tense effort, and rolled his head from side to side. Then the +muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, as of profound relief, +floated upward from his lips. The jaw dropped, the upper lip lifted, and two +rows of tobacco-discoloured teeth appeared. It seemed as though his features +had frozen into a diabolical grin at the world he had left and outwitted. +</p> + +<p> +Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose upon the dead +man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips in a continuous stream. And +they were not namby-pamby oaths, or mere expressions of indecency. Each word +was a blasphemy, and there were many words. They crisped and crackled like +electric sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I +have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression myself, and a +penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated, as no other listener, +I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his +metaphors. The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, +who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San Francisco, and then had +the poor taste to die at the beginning of the voyage and leave Wolf Larsen +short-handed. +</p> + +<p> +It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends, that I was shocked. +Oaths and vile language of any sort had always been repellent to me. I felt a +wilting sensation, a sinking at the heart, and, I might just as well say, a +giddiness. To me, death had always been invested with solemnity and dignity. It +had been peaceful in its occurrence, sacred in its ceremonial. But death in its +more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I had been unacquainted +till now. As I say, while I appreciated the power of the terrific denunciation +that swept out of Wolf Larsen’s mouth, I was inexpressibly shocked. The +scorching torrent was enough to wither the face of the corpse. I should not +have been surprised if the wet black beard had frizzled and curled and flared +up in smoke and flame. But the dead man was unconcerned. He continued to grin +with a sardonic humour, with a cynical mockery and defiance. He was master of +the situation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen ceased swearing as suddenly as he had begun. He relighted his cigar +and glanced around. His eyes chanced upon the cook. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Cooky?” he began, with a suaveness that was cold and of the +temper of steel. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” the cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing and +apologetic servility. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think you’ve stretched that neck of yours just +about enough? It’s unhealthy, you know. The mate’s gone, so I +can’t afford to lose you too. You must be very, very careful of your +health, Cooky. Understand?” +</p> + +<p> +His last word, in striking contrast with the smoothness of his previous +utterance, snapped like the lash of a whip. The cook quailed under it. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” was the meek reply, as the offending head disappeared +into the galley. +</p> + +<p> +At this sweeping rebuke, which the cook had only pointed, the rest of the crew +became uninterested and fell to work at one task or another. A number of men, +however, who were lounging about a companion-way between the galley and hatch, +and who did not seem to be sailors, continued talking in low tones with one +another. These, I afterward learned, were the hunters, the men who shot the +seals, and a very superior breed to common sailor-folk. +</p> + +<p> +“Johansen!” Wolf Larsen called out. A sailor stepped forward +obediently. “Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. You’ll +find some old canvas in the sail-locker. Make it do.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’ll I put on his feet, sir?” the man asked, after the +customary “Ay, ay, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll see to that,” Wolf Larsen answered, and elevated his +voice in a call of “Cooky!” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge popped out of his galley like a jack-in-the-box. +</p> + +<p> +“Go below and fill a sack with coal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any of you fellows got a Bible or Prayer-book?” was the +captain’s next demand, this time of the hunters lounging about the +companion-way. +</p> + +<p> +They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which I did not +catch, but which raised a general laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen made the same demand of the sailors. Bibles and Prayer-books seemed +scarce articles, but one of the men volunteered to pursue the quest amongst the +watch below, returning in a minute with the information that there was none. +</p> + +<p> +The captain shrugged his shoulders. “Then we’ll drop him over +without any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway has the burial +service at sea by heart.” +</p> + +<p> +By this time he had swung fully around and was facing me. “You’re a +preacher, aren’t you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +The hunters,—there were six of them,—to a man, turned and regarded +me. I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow. A laugh went up at my +appearance,—a laugh that was not lessened or softened by the dead man +stretched and grinning on the deck before us; a laugh that was as rough and +harsh and frank as the sea itself; that arose out of coarse feelings and +blunted sensibilities, from natures that knew neither courtesy nor gentleness. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen did not laugh, though his grey eyes lighted with a slight glint of +amusement; and in that moment, having stepped forward quite close to him, I +received my first impression of the man himself, of the man as apart from his +body, and from the torrent of blasphemy I had heard him spew forth. The face, +with large features and strong lines, of the square order, yet well filled out, +was apparently massive at first sight; but again, as with the body, the +massiveness seemed to vanish, and a conviction to grow of a tremendous and +excessive mental or spiritual strength that lay behind, sleeping in the deeps +of his being. The jaw, the chin, the brow rising to a goodly height and +swelling heavily above the eyes,—these, while strong in themselves, +unusually strong, seemed to speak an immense vigour or virility of spirit that +lay behind and beyond and out of sight. There was no sounding such a spirit, no +measuring, no determining of metes and bounds, nor neatly classifying in some +pigeon-hole with others of similar type. +</p> + +<p> +The eyes—and it was my destiny to know them well—were large and +handsome, wide apart as the true artist’s are wide, sheltering under a +heavy brow and arched over by thick black eyebrows. The eyes themselves were of +that baffling protean grey which is never twice the same; which runs through +many shades and colourings like intershot silk in sunshine; which is grey, dark +and light, and greenish-grey, and sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea. +They were eyes that masked the soul with a thousand guises, and that sometimes +opened, at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about to +fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure,—eyes that +could brood with the hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; that could snap and +crackle points of fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword; that +could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm and +soften and be all a-dance with love-lights, intense and masculine, luring and +compelling, which at the same time fascinate and dominate women till they +surrender in a gladness of joy and of relief and sacrifice. +</p> + +<p> +But to return. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service, I was not a +preacher, when he sharply demanded: +</p> + +<p> +“What do you do for a living?” +</p> + +<p> +I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had I ever +canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and before I could find myself had +sillily stammered, “I—I am a gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +His lip curled in a swift sneer. +</p> + +<p> +“I have worked, I do work,” I cried impetuously, as though he were +my judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much aware of my +arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all. +</p> + +<p> +“For your living?” +</p> + +<p> +There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I was quite +beside myself—“rattled,” as Furuseth would have termed it, +like a quaking child before a stern school-master. +</p> + +<p> +“Who feeds you?” was his next question. +</p> + +<p> +“I have an income,” I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my +tongue the next instant. “All of which, you will pardon my observing, has +nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you about.” +</p> + +<p> +But he disregarded my protest. +</p> + +<p> +“Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead +men’s legs. You’ve never had any of your own. You couldn’t +walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three +meals. Let me see your hand.” +</p> + +<p> +His tremendous, dormant strength must have stirred, swiftly and accurately, or +I must have slept a moment, for before I knew it he had stepped two paces +forward, gripped my right hand in his, and held it up for inspection. I tried +to withdraw it, but his fingers tightened, without visible effort, till I +thought mine would be crushed. It is hard to maintain one’s dignity under +such circumstances. I could not squirm or struggle like a schoolboy. Nor could +I attack such a creature who had but to twist my arm to break it. Nothing +remained but to stand still and accept the indignity. I had time to notice that +the pockets of the dead man had been emptied on the deck, and that his body and +his grin had been wrapped from view in canvas, the folds of which the sailor, +Johansen, was sewing together with coarse white twine, shoving the needle +through with a leather contrivance fitted on the palm of his hand. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain. +</p> + +<p> +“Dead men’s hands have kept it soft. Good for little else than +dish-washing and scullion work.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish to be put ashore,” I said firmly, for I now had myself in +control. “I shall pay you whatever you judge your delay and trouble to be +worth.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at me curiously. Mockery shone in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a counter proposition to make, and for the good of your soul. My +mate’s gone, and there’ll be a lot of promotion. A sailor comes aft +to take mate’s place, cabin-boy goes for’ard to take sailor’s +place, and you take the cabin-boy’s place, sign the articles for the +cruise, twenty dollars per month and found. Now what do you say? And mind you, +it’s for your own soul’s sake. It will be the making of you. You +might learn in time to stand on your own legs, and perhaps to toddle along a +bit.” +</p> + +<p> +But I took no notice. The sails of the vessel I had seen off to the south-west +had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same schooner-rig as the +<i>Ghost</i>, though the hull itself, I could see, was smaller. She was a +pretty sight, leaping and flying toward us, and evidently bound to pass at +close range. The wind had been momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few +angry gleams, had disappeared. The sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown +rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were travelling +faster, and heeled farther over. Once, in a gust, the rail dipped under the +sea, and the decks on that side were for the moment awash with water that made +a couple of the hunters hastily lift their feet. +</p> + +<p> +“That vessel will soon be passing us,” I said, after a +moment’s pause. “As she is going in the opposite direction, she is +very probably bound for San Francisco.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very probably,” was Wolf Larsen’s answer, as he turned +partly away from me and cried out, “Cooky! Oh, Cooky!” +</p> + +<p> +The Cockney popped out of the galley. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s that boy? Tell him I want him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir;” and Thomas Mugridge fled swiftly aft and disappeared +down another companion-way near the wheel. A moment later he emerged, a +heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a glowering, villainous +countenance, trailing at his heels. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere ’e is, sir,” the cook said. +</p> + +<p> +But Wolf Larsen ignored that worthy, turning at once to the cabin-boy. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s your name, boy?” +</p> + +<p> +“George Leach, sir,” came the sullen answer, and the boy’s +bearing showed clearly that he divined the reason for which he had been +summoned. +</p> + +<p> +“Not an Irish name,” the captain snapped sharply. +“O’Toole or McCarthy would suit your mug a damn sight better. +Unless, very likely, there’s an Irishman in your mother’s +woodpile.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw the young fellow’s hands clench at the insult, and the blood crawl +scarlet up his neck. +</p> + +<p> +“But let that go,” Wolf Larsen continued. “You may have very +good reasons for forgetting your name, and I’ll like you none the worse +for it as long as you toe the mark. Telegraph Hill, of course, is your port of +entry. It sticks out all over your mug. Tough as they make them and twice as +nasty. I know the kind. Well, you can make up your mind to have it taken out of +you on this craft. Understand? Who shipped you, anyway?” +</p> + +<p> +“McCready and Swanson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir!” Wolf Larsen thundered. +</p> + +<p> +“McCready and Swanson, sir,” the boy corrected, his eyes burning +with a bitter light. +</p> + +<p> +“Who got the advance money?” +</p> + +<p> +“They did, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought as much. And damned glad you were to let them have it. +Couldn’t make yourself scarce too quick, with several gentlemen you may +have heard of looking for you.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body bunched together +as though for a spring, and his face became as an infuriated beast’s as +he snarled, “It’s a—” +</p> + +<p> +“A what?” Wolf Larsen asked, a peculiar softness in his voice, as +though he were overwhelmingly curious to hear the unspoken word. +</p> + +<p> +The boy hesitated, then mastered his temper. “Nothin’, sir. I take +it back.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you have shown me I was right.” This with a gratified smile. +“How old are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just turned sixteen, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“A lie. You’ll never see eighteen again. Big for your age at that, +with muscles like a horse. Pack up your kit and go for’ard into the +fo’c’sle. You’re a boat-puller now. You’re promoted; +see?” +</p> + +<p> +Without waiting for the boy’s acceptance, the captain turned to the +sailor who had just finished the gruesome task of sewing up the corpse. +“Johansen, do you know anything about navigation?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, never mind; you’re mate just the same. Get your traps aft +into the mate’s berth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, sir,” was the cheery response, as Johansen started +forward. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime the erstwhile cabin-boy had not moved. “What are you +waiting for?” Wolf Larsen demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t sign for boat-puller, sir,” was the reply. “I +signed for cabin-boy. An’ I don’t want no boat-pullin’ in +mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pack up and go for’ard.” +</p> + +<p> +This time Wolf Larsen’s command was thrillingly imperative. The boy +glowered sullenly, but refused to move. +</p> + +<p> +Then came another stirring of Wolf Larsen’s tremendous strength. It was +utterly unexpected, and it was over and done with between the ticks of two +seconds. He had sprung fully six feet across the deck and driven his fist into +the other’s stomach. At the same moment, as though I had been struck +myself, I felt a sickening shock in the pit of my stomach. I instance this to +show the sensitiveness of my nervous organization at the time, and how unused I +was to spectacles of brutality. The cabin-boy—and he weighed one hundred +and sixty-five at the very least—crumpled up. His body wrapped limply +about the fist like a wet rag about a stick. He lifted into the air, described +a short curve, and struck the deck alongside the corpse on his head and +shoulders, where he lay and writhed about in agony. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” Larsen asked of me. “Have you made up your +mind?” +</p> + +<p> +I had glanced occasionally at the approaching schooner, and it was now almost +abreast of us and not more than a couple of hundred yards away. It was a very +trim and neat little craft. I could see a large, black number on one of its +sails, and I had seen pictures of pilot-boats. +</p> + +<p> +“What vessel is that?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The pilot-boat <i>Lady Mine</i>,” Wolf Larsen answered grimly. +“Got rid of her pilots and running into San Francisco. She’ll be +there in five or six hours with this wind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you please signal it, then, so that I may be put ashore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry, but I’ve lost the signal book overboard,” he +remarked, and the group of hunters grinned. +</p> + +<p> +I debated a moment, looking him squarely in the eyes. I had seen the frightful +treatment of the cabin-boy, and knew that I should very probably receive the +same, if not worse. As I say, I debated with myself, and then I did what I +consider the bravest act of my life. I ran to the side, waving my arms and +shouting: +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Lady Mine</i> ahoy! Take me ashore! A thousand dollars if you take me +ashore!” +</p> + +<p> +I waited, watching two men who stood by the wheel, one of them steering. The +other was lifting a megaphone to his lips. I did not turn my head, though I +expected every moment a killing blow from the human brute behind me. At last, +after what seemed centuries, unable longer to stand the strain, I looked +around. He had not moved. He was standing in the same position, swaying easily +to the roll of the ship and lighting a fresh cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter? Anything wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +This was the cry from the <i>Lady Mine</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” I shouted, at the top of my lungs. “Life or death! One +thousand dollars if you take me ashore!” +</p> + +<p> +“Too much ’Frisco tanglefoot for the health of my crew!” Wolf +Larsen shouted after. “This one”—indicating me with his +thumb—“fancies sea-serpents and monkeys just now!” +</p> + +<p> +The man on the <i>Lady Mine</i> laughed back through the megaphone. The +pilot-boat plunged past. +</p> + +<p> +“Give him hell for me!” came a final cry, and the two men waved +their arms in farewell. +</p> + +<p> +I leaned despairingly over the rail, watching the trim little schooner swiftly +increasing the bleak sweep of ocean between us. And she would probably be in +San Francisco in five or six hours! My head seemed bursting. There was an ache +in my throat as though my heart were up in it. A curling wave struck the side +and splashed salt spray on my lips. The wind puffed strongly, and the +<i>Ghost</i> heeled far over, burying her lee rail. I could hear the water +rushing down upon the deck. +</p> + +<p> +When I turned around, a moment later, I saw the cabin-boy staggering to his +feet. His face was ghastly white, twitching with suppressed pain. He looked +very sick. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Leach, are you going for’ard?” Wolf Larsen asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” came the answer of a spirit cowed. +</p> + +<p> +“And you?” I was asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you a thousand—” I began, but was +interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Stow that! Are you going to take up your duties as cabin-boy? Or do I +have to take you in hand?” +</p> + +<p> +What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, would not help +my case. I looked steadily into the cruel grey eyes. They might have been +granite for all the light and warmth of a human soul they contained. One may +see the soul stir in some men’s eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and +grey as the sea itself. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Say ‘yes, sir.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” I corrected. +</p> + +<p> +“What is your name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Van Weyden, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“First name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Humphrey, sir; Humphrey Van Weyden.” +</p> + +<p> +“Age?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thirty-five, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do. Go to the cook and learn your duties.” +</p> + +<p> +And thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary servitude to Wolf +Larsen. He was stronger than I, that was all. But it was very unreal at the +time. It is no less unreal now that I look back upon it. It will always be to +me a monstrous, inconceivable thing, a horrible nightmare. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold on, don’t go yet.” +</p> + +<p> +I stopped obediently in my walk toward the galley. +</p> + +<p> +“Johansen, call all hands. Now that we’ve everything cleaned up, +we’ll have the funeral and get the decks cleared of useless +lumber.” +</p> + +<p> +While Johansen was summoning the watch below, a couple of sailors, under the +captain’s direction, laid the canvas-swathed corpse upon a hatch-cover. +On either side the deck, against the rail and bottoms up, were lashed a number +of small boats. Several men picked up the hatch-cover with its ghastly freight, +carried it to the lee side, and rested it on the boats, the feet pointing +overboard. To the feet was attached the sack of coal which the cook had +fetched. +</p> + +<p> +I had always conceived a burial at sea to be a very solemn and awe-inspiring +event, but I was quickly disillusioned, by this burial at any rate. One of the +hunters, a little dark-eyed man whom his mates called “Smoke,” was +telling stories, liberally intersprinkled with oaths and obscenities; and every +minute or so the group of hunters gave mouth to a laughter that sounded to me +like a wolf-chorus or the barking of hell-hounds. The sailors trooped noisily +aft, some of the watch below rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and talked in +low tones together. There was an ominous and worried expression on their faces. +It was evident that they did not like the outlook of a voyage under such a +captain and begun so inauspiciously. From time to time they stole glances at +Wolf Larsen, and I could see that they were apprehensive of the man. +</p> + +<p> +He stepped up to the hatch-cover, and all caps came off. I ran my eyes over +them—twenty men all told; twenty-two including the man at the wheel and +myself. I was pardonably curious in my survey, for it appeared my fate to be +pent up with them on this miniature floating world for I knew not how many +weeks or months. The sailors, in the main, were English and Scandinavian, and +their faces seemed of the heavy, stolid order. The hunters, on the other hand, +had stronger and more diversified faces, with hard lines and the marks of the +free play of passions. Strange to say, and I noted it at once, Wolf +Larsen’s features showed no such evil stamp. There seemed nothing vicious +in them. True, there were lines, but they were the lines of decision and +firmness. It seemed, rather, a frank and open countenance, which frankness or +openness was enhanced by the fact that he was smooth-shaven. I could hardly +believe—until the next incident occurred—that it was the face of a +man who could behave as he had behaved to the cabin-boy. +</p> + +<p> +At this moment, as he opened his mouth to speak, puff after puff struck the +schooner and pressed her side under. The wind shrieked a wild song through the +rigging. Some of the hunters glanced anxiously aloft. The lee rail, where the +dead man lay, was buried in the sea, and as the schooner lifted and righted the +water swept across the deck wetting us above our shoe-tops. A shower of rain +drove down upon us, each drop stinging like a hailstone. As it passed, Wolf +Larsen began to speak, the bare-headed men swaying in unison, to the heave and +lunge of the deck. +</p> + +<p> +“I only remember one part of the service,” he said, “and that +is, ‘And the body shall be cast into the sea.’ So cast it +in.” +</p> + +<p> +He ceased speaking. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed perplexed, puzzled +no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. He burst upon them in a fury. +</p> + +<p> +“Lift up that end there, damn you! What the hell’s the matter with +you?” +</p> + +<p> +They elevated the end of the hatch-cover with pitiful haste, and, like a dog +flung overside, the dead man slid feet first into the sea. The coal at his feet +dragged him down. He was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Johansen,” Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, “keep +all hands on deck now they’re here. Get in the topsails and jibs and make +a good job of it. We’re in for a sou’-easter. Better reef the jib +and mainsail too, while you’re about it.” +</p> + +<p> +In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders and the men +pulling or letting go ropes of various sorts—all naturally confusing to a +landsman such as myself. But it was the heartlessness of it that especially +struck me. The dead man was an episode that was past, an incident that was +dropped, in a canvas covering with a sack of coal, while the ship sped along +and her work went on. Nobody had been affected. The hunters were laughing at a +fresh story of Smoke’s; the men pulling and hauling, and two of them +climbing aloft; Wolf Larsen was studying the clouding sky to windward; and the +dead man, dying obscenely, buried sordidly, and sinking down, down— +</p> + +<p> +Then it was that the cruelty of the sea, its relentlessness and awfulness, +rushed upon me. Life had become cheap and tawdry, a beastly and inarticulate +thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and slime. I held on to the weather +rail, close by the shrouds, and gazed out across the desolate foaming waves to +the low-lying fog-banks that hid San Francisco and the California coast. +Rain-squalls were driving in between, and I could scarcely see the fog. And +this strange vessel, with its terrible men, pressed under by wind and sea and +ever leaping up and out, was heading away into the south-west, into the great +and lonely Pacific expanse. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p> +What happened to me next on the sealing-schooner <i>Ghost</i>, as I strove to +fit into my new environment, are matters of humiliation and pain. The cook, who +was called “the doctor” by the crew, “Tommy” by the +hunters, and “Cooky” by Wolf Larsen, was a changed person. The +difference worked in my status brought about a corresponding difference in +treatment from him. Servile and fawning as he had been before, he was now as +domineering and bellicose. In truth, I was no longer the fine gentleman with a +skin soft as a “lydy’s,” but only an ordinary and very +worthless cabin-boy. +</p> + +<p> +He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and his behaviour +and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my duties. Besides my work in +the cabin, with its four small state-rooms, I was supposed to be his assistant +in the galley, and my colossal ignorance concerning such things as peeling +potatoes or washing greasy pots was a source of unending and sarcastic wonder +to him. He refused to take into consideration what I was, or, rather, what my +life and the things I was accustomed to had been. This was part of the attitude +he chose to adopt toward me; and I confess, ere the day was done, that I hated +him with more lively feelings than I had ever hated any one in my life before. +</p> + +<p> +This first day was made more difficult for me from the fact that the +<i>Ghost</i>, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn till +later), was plunging through what Mr. Mugridge called an +“’owlin’ sou’-easter.” At half-past five, under +his directions, I set the table in the cabin, with rough-weather trays in +place, and then carried the tea and cooked food down from the galley. In this +connection I cannot forbear relating my first experience with a boarding sea. +</p> + +<p> +“Look sharp or you’ll get doused,” was Mr. Mugridge’s +parting injunction, as I left the galley with a big tea-pot in one hand, and in +the hollow of the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked bread. One of the +hunters, a tall, loose-jointed chap named Henderson, was going aft at the time +from the steerage (the name the hunters facetiously gave their midships +sleeping quarters) to the cabin. Wolf Larsen was on the poop, smoking his +everlasting cigar. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere she comes. Sling yer ’ook!” the cook cried. +</p> + +<p> +I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley door slide +shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like a madman for the main +rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till he was many feet higher than my +head. Also I saw a great wave, curling and foaming, poised far above the rail. +I was directly under it. My mind did not work quickly, everything was so new +and strange. I grasped that I was in danger, but that was all. I stood still, +in trepidation. Then Wolf Larsen shouted from the poop: +</p> + +<p> +“Grab hold something, you—you Hump!” +</p> + +<p> +But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might have clung, +and was met by the descending wall of water. What happened after that was very +confusing. I was beneath the water, suffocating and drowning. My feet were out +from under me, and I was turning over and over and being swept along I knew not +where. Several times I collided against hard objects, once striking my right +knee a terrible blow. Then the flood seemed suddenly to subside and I was +breathing the good air again. I had been swept against the galley and around +the steerage companion-way from the weather side into the lee scuppers. The +pain from my hurt knee was agonizing. I could not put my weight on it, or, at +least, I thought I could not put my weight on it; and I felt sure the leg was +broken. But the cook was after me, shouting through the lee galley door: +</p> + +<p> +“’Ere, you! Don’t tyke all night about it! Where’s the +pot? Lost overboard? Serve you bloody well right if yer neck was broke!” +</p> + +<p> +I managed to struggle to my feet. The great tea-pot was still in my hand. I +limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was consumed with +indignation, real or feigned. +</p> + +<p> +“Gawd blime me if you ayn’t a slob. Wot ’re you good for +anyw’y, I’d like to know? Eh? Wot ’re you good for +any’wy? Cawn’t even carry a bit of tea aft without losin’ it. +Now I’ll ’ave to boil some more. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ wot ’re you snifflin’ about?” he burst out +at me, with renewed rage. “’Cos you’ve ’urt yer pore +little leg, pore little mamma’s darlin’.” +</p> + +<p> +I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn and twitching +from the pain. But I called up all my resolution, set my teeth, and hobbled +back and forth from galley to cabin and cabin to galley without further mishap. +Two things I had acquired by my accident: an injured knee-cap that went +undressed and from which I suffered for weary months, and the name of +“Hump,” which Wolf Larsen had called me from the poop. Thereafter, +fore and aft, I was known by no other name, until the term became a part of my +thought-processes and I identified it with myself, thought of myself as Hump, +as though Hump were I and had always been I. +</p> + +<p> +It was no easy task, waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf Larsen, +Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to begin with, and to move +around, as I was compelled to, was not made easier by the schooner’s +violent pitching and wallowing. But what struck me most forcibly was the total +lack of sympathy on the part of the men whom I served. I could feel my knee +through my clothes, swelling, and swelling, and I was sick and faint from the +pain of it. I could catch glimpses of my face, white and ghastly, distorted +with pain, in the cabin mirror. All the men must have seen my condition, but +not one spoke or took notice of me, till I was almost grateful to Wolf Larsen, +later on (I was washing the dishes), when he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t let a little thing like that bother you. You’ll get +used to such things in time. It may cripple you some, but all the same +you’ll be learning to walk. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what you call a paradox, isn’t it?” he added. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary “Yes, +sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you know a bit about literary things? Eh? Good. I’ll +have some talks with you some time.” +</p> + +<p> +And then, taking no further account of me, he turned his back and went up on +deck. +</p> + +<p> +That night, when I had finished an endless amount of work, I was sent to sleep +in the steerage, where I made up a spare bunk. I was glad to get out of the +detestable presence of the cook and to be off my feet. To my surprise, my +clothes had dried on me and there seemed no indications of catching cold, +either from the last soaking or from the prolonged soaking from the foundering +of the <i>Martinez</i>. Under ordinary circumstances, after all that I had +undergone, I should have been fit for bed and a trained nurse. +</p> + +<p> +But my knee was bothering me terribly. As well as I could make out, the kneecap +seemed turned up on edge in the midst of the swelling. As I sat in my bunk +examining it (the six hunters were all in the steerage, smoking and talking in +loud voices), Henderson took a passing glance at it. +</p> + +<p> +“Looks nasty,” he commented. “Tie a rag around it, and +it’ll be all right.” +</p> + +<p> +That was all; and on the land I would have been lying on the broad of my back, +with a surgeon attending on me, and with strict injunctions to do nothing but +rest. But I must do these men justice. Callous as they were to my suffering, +they were equally callous to their own when anything befell them. And this was +due, I believe, first, to habit; and second, to the fact that they were less +sensitively organized. I really believe that a finely-organized, high-strung +man would suffer twice and thrice as much as they from a like injury. +</p> + +<p> +Tired as I was,—exhausted, in fact,—I was prevented from sleeping +by the pain in my knee. It was all I could do to keep from groaning aloud. At +home I should undoubtedly have given vent to my anguish; but this new and +elemental environment seemed to call for a savage repression. Like the savage, +the attitude of these men was stoical in great things, childish in little +things. I remember, later in the voyage, seeing Kerfoot, another of the +hunters, lose a finger by having it smashed to a jelly; and he did not even +murmur or change the expression on his face. Yet I have seen the same man, time +and again, fly into the most outrageous passion over a trifle. +</p> + +<p> +He was doing it now, vociferating, bellowing, waving his arms, and cursing like +a fiend, and all because of a disagreement with another hunter as to whether a +seal pup knew instinctively how to swim. He held that it did, that it could +swim the moment it was born. The other hunter, Latimer, a lean, Yankee-looking +fellow with shrewd, narrow-slitted eyes, held otherwise, held that the seal pup +was born on the land for no other reason than that it could not swim, that its +mother was compelled to teach it to swim as birds were compelled to teach their +nestlings how to fly. +</p> + +<p> +For the most part, the remaining four hunters leaned on the table or lay in +their bunks and left the discussion to the two antagonists. But they were +supremely interested, for every little while they ardently took sides, and +sometimes all were talking at once, till their voices surged back and forth in +waves of sound like mimic thunder-rolls in the confined space. Childish and +immaterial as the topic was, the quality of their reasoning was still more +childish and immaterial. In truth, there was very little reasoning or none at +all. Their method was one of assertion, assumption, and denunciation. They +proved that a seal pup could swim or not swim at birth by stating the +proposition very bellicosely and then following it up with an attack on the +opposing man’s judgment, common sense, nationality, or past history. +Rebuttal was precisely similar. I have related this in order to show the mental +calibre of the men with whom I was thrown in contact. Intellectually they were +children, inhabiting the physical forms of men. +</p> + +<p> +And they smoked, incessantly smoked, using a coarse, cheap, and +offensive-smelling tobacco. The air was thick and murky with the smoke of it; +and this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she struggled +through the storm, would surely have made me sea-sick had I been a victim to +that malady. As it was, it made me quite squeamish, though this nausea might +have been due to the pain of my leg and exhaustion. +</p> + +<p> +As I lay there thinking, I naturally dwelt upon myself and my situation. It was +unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van Weyden, a scholar and a +dilettante, if you please, in things artistic and literary, should be lying +here on a Bering Sea seal-hunting schooner. Cabin-boy! I had never done any +hard manual labour, or scullion labour, in my life. I had lived a placid, +uneventful, sedentary existence all my days—the life of a scholar and a +recluse on an assured and comfortable income. Violent life and athletic sports +had never appealed to me. I had always been a book-worm; so my sisters and +father had called me during my childhood. I had gone camping but once in my +life, and then I left the party almost at its start and returned to the +comforts and conveniences of a roof. And here I was, with dreary and endless +vistas before me of table-setting, potato-peeling, and dish-washing. And I was +not strong. The doctors had always said that I had a remarkable constitution, +but I had never developed it or my body through exercise. My muscles were small +and soft, like a woman’s, or so the doctors had said time and again in +the course of their attempts to persuade me to go in for physical-culture fads. +But I had preferred to use my head rather than my body; and here I was, in no +fit condition for the rough life in prospect. +</p> + +<p> +These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind, and are related +for the sake of vindicating myself in advance in the weak and helpless +<i>rôle</i> I was destined to play. But I thought, also, of my mother and +sisters, and pictured their grief. I was among the missing dead of the +<i>Martinez</i> disaster, an unrecovered body. I could see the head-lines in +the papers; the fellows at the University Club and the Bibelot shaking their +heads and saying, “Poor chap!” And I could see Charley Furuseth, as +I had said good-bye to him that morning, lounging in a dressing-gown on the +be-pillowed window couch and delivering himself of oracular and pessimistic +epigrams. +</p> + +<p> +And all the while, rolling, plunging, climbing the moving mountains and falling +and wallowing in the foaming valleys, the schooner <i>Ghost</i> was fighting +her way farther and farther into the heart of the Pacific—and I was on +her. I could hear the wind above. It came to my ears as a muffled roar. Now and +again feet stamped overhead. An endless creaking was going on all about me, the +woodwork and the fittings groaning and squeaking and complaining in a thousand +keys. The hunters were still arguing and roaring like some semi-human +amphibious breed. The air was filled with oaths and indecent expressions. I +could see their faces, flushed and angry, the brutality distorted and +emphasized by the sickly yellow of the sea-lamps which rocked back and forth +with the ship. Through the dim smoke-haze the bunks looked like the sleeping +dens of animals in a menagerie. Oilskins and sea-boots were hanging from the +walls, and here and there rifles and shotguns rested securely in the racks. It +was a sea-fitting for the buccaneers and pirates of by-gone years. My +imagination ran riot, and still I could not sleep. And it was a long, long +night, weary and dreary and long. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p> +But my first night in the hunters’ steerage was also my last. Next day +Johansen, the new mate, was routed from the cabin by Wolf Larsen, and sent into +the steerage to sleep thereafter, while I took possession of the tiny cabin +state-room, which, on the first day of the voyage, had already had two +occupants. The reason for this change was quickly learned by the hunters, and +became the cause of a deal of grumbling on their part. It seemed that Johansen, +in his sleep, lived over each night the events of the day. His incessant +talking and shouting and bellowing of orders had been too much for Wolf Larsen, +who had accordingly foisted the nuisance upon his hunters. +</p> + +<p> +After a sleepless night, I arose weak and in agony, to hobble through my second +day on the <i>Ghost</i>. Thomas Mugridge routed me out at half-past five, much +in the fashion that Bill Sykes must have routed out his dog; but Mr. +Mugridge’s brutality to me was paid back in kind and with interest. The +unnecessary noise he made (I had lain wide-eyed the whole night) must have +awakened one of the hunters; for a heavy shoe whizzed through the +semi-darkness, and Mr. Mugridge, with a sharp howl of pain, humbly begged +everybody’s pardon. Later on, in the galley, I noticed that his ear was +bruised and swollen. It never went entirely back to its normal shape, and was +called a “cauliflower ear” by the sailors. +</p> + +<p> +The day was filled with miserable variety. I had taken my dried clothes down +from the galley the night before, and the first thing I did was to exchange the +cook’s garments for them. I looked for my purse. In addition to some +small change (and I have a good memory for such things), it had contained one +hundred and eighty-five dollars in gold and paper. The purse I found, but its +contents, with the exception of the small silver, had been abstracted. I spoke +to the cook about it, when I went on deck to take up my duties in the galley, +and though I had looked forward to a surly answer, I had not expected the +belligerent harangue that I received. +</p> + +<p> +“Look ’ere, ’Ump,” he began, a malicious light in his +eyes and a snarl in his throat; “d’ye want yer nose punched? If you +think I’m a thief, just keep it to yerself, or you’ll find +’ow bloody well mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn’t +gratitude for yer! ’Ere you come, a pore mis’rable specimen of +’uman scum, an’ I tykes yer into my galley an’ treats yer +’ansom, an’ this is wot I get for it. Nex’ time you can go to +’ell, say I, an’ I’ve a good mind to give you what-for +anyw’y.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, he put up his fists and started for me. To my shame be it, I cowered +away from the blow and ran out the galley door. What else was I to do? Force, +nothing but force, obtained on this brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing +unknown. Picture it to yourself: a man of ordinary stature, slender of build, +and with weak, undeveloped muscles, who has lived a peaceful, placid life, and +is unused to violence of any sort—what could such a man possibly do? +There was no more reason that I should stand and face these human beasts than +that I should stand and face an infuriated bull. +</p> + +<p> +So I thought it out at the time, feeling the need for vindication and desiring +to be at peace with my conscience. But this vindication did not satisfy. Nor, +to this day can I permit my manhood to look back upon those events and feel +entirely exonerated. The situation was something that really exceeded rational +formulas for conduct and demanded more than the cold conclusions of reason. +When viewed in the light of formal logic, there is not one thing of which to be +ashamed; but nevertheless a shame rises within me at the recollection, and in +the pride of my manhood I feel that my manhood has in unaccountable ways been +smirched and sullied. +</p> + +<p> +All of which is neither here nor there. The speed with which I ran from the +galley caused excruciating pain in my knee, and I sank down helplessly at the +break of the poop. But the Cockney had not pursued me. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at ’im run! Look at ’im run!” I could hear him +crying. “An’ with a gyme leg at that! Come on back, you pore little +mamma’s darling. I won’t ’it yer; no, I won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +I came back and went on with my work; and here the episode ended for the time, +though further developments were yet to take place. I set the breakfast-table +in the cabin, and at seven o’clock waited on the hunters and officers. +The storm had evidently broken during the night, though a huge sea was still +running and a stiff wind blowing. Sail had been made in the early watches, so +that the <i>Ghost</i> was racing along under everything except the two topsails +and the flying jib. These three sails, I gathered from the conversation, were +to be set immediately after breakfast. I learned, also, that Wolf Larsen was +anxious to make the most of the storm, which was driving him to the south-west +into that portion of the sea where he expected to pick up with the north-east +trades. It was before this steady wind that he hoped to make the major portion +of the run to Japan, curving south into the tropics and north again as he +approached the coast of Asia. +</p> + +<p> +After breakfast I had another unenviable experience. When I had finished +washing the dishes, I cleaned the cabin stove and carried the ashes up on deck +to empty them. Wolf Larsen and Henderson were standing near the wheel, deep in +conversation. The sailor, Johnson, was steering. As I started toward the +weather side I saw him make a sudden motion with his head, which I mistook for +a token of recognition and good-morning. In reality, he was attempting to warn +me to throw my ashes over the lee side. Unconscious of my blunder, I passed by +Wolf Larsen and the hunter and flung the ashes over the side to windward. The +wind drove them back, and not only over me, but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. +The next instant the latter kicked me, violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not +realized there could be so much pain in a kick. I reeled away from him and +leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting condition. Everything was swimming +before my eyes, and I turned sick. The nausea overpowered me, and I managed to +crawl to the side of the vessel. But Wolf Larsen did not follow me up. Brushing +the ashes from his clothes, he had resumed his conversation with Henderson. +Johansen, who had seen the affair from the break of the poop, sent a couple of +sailors aft to clean up the mess. +</p> + +<p> +Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different sort. +Following the cook’s instructions, I had gone into Wolf Larsen’s +state-room to put it to rights and make the bed. Against the wall, near the +head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. I glanced over them, noting +with astonishment such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. +There were scientific works, too, among which were represented men such as +Tyndall, Proctor, and Darwin. Astronomy and physics were represented, and I +remarked Bulfinch’s <i>Age of Fable</i>, Shaw’s <i>History of +English and American Literature</i>, and Johnson’s <i>Natural History</i> +in two large volumes. Then there were a number of grammars, such as +Metcalf’s, and Reed and Kellogg’s; and I smiled as I saw a copy of +<i>The Dean’s English</i>. +</p> + +<p> +I could not reconcile these books with the man from what I had seen of him, and +I wondered if he could possibly read them. But when I came to make the bed I +found, between the blankets, dropped apparently as he had sunk off to sleep, a +complete Browning, the Cambridge Edition. It was open at “In a +Balcony,” and I noticed, here and there, passages underlined in pencil. +Further, letting drop the volume during a lurch of the ship, a sheet of paper +fell out. It was scrawled over with geometrical diagrams and calculations of +some sort. +</p> + +<p> +It was patent that this terrible man was no ignorant clod, such as one would +inevitably suppose him to be from his exhibitions of brutality. At once he +became an enigma. One side or the other of his nature was perfectly +comprehensible; but both sides together were bewildering. I had already +remarked that his language was excellent, marred with an occasional slight +inaccuracy. Of course, in common speech with the sailors and hunters, it +sometimes fairly bristled with errors, which was due to the vernacular itself; +but in the few words he had held with me it had been clear and correct. +</p> + +<p> +This glimpse I had caught of his other side must have emboldened me, for I +resolved to speak to him about the money I had lost. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been robbed,” I said to him, a little later, when I found +him pacing up and down the poop alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” he corrected, not harshly, but sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been robbed, sir,” I amended. +</p> + +<p> +“How did it happen?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Then I told him the whole circumstance, how my clothes had been left to dry in +the galley, and how, later, I was nearly beaten by the cook when I mentioned +the matter. +</p> + +<p> +He smiled at my recital. “Pickings,” he concluded; +“Cooky’s pickings. And don’t you think your miserable life +worth the price? Besides, consider it a lesson. You’ll learn in time how +to take care of your money for yourself. I suppose, up to now, your lawyer has +done it for you, or your business agent.” +</p> + +<p> +I could feel the quiet sneer through his words, but demanded, “How can I +get it back again?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s your look-out. You haven’t any lawyer or business +agent now, so you’ll have to depend on yourself. When you get a dollar, +hang on to it. A man who leaves his money lying around, the way you did, +deserves to lose it. Besides, you have sinned. You have no right to put +temptation in the way of your fellow-creatures. You tempted Cooky, and he fell. +You have placed his immortal soul in jeopardy. By the way, do you believe in +the immortal soul?” +</p> + +<p> +His lids lifted lazily as he asked the question, and it seemed that the deeps +were opening to me and that I was gazing into his soul. But it was an illusion. +Far as it might have seemed, no man has ever seen very far into Wolf +Larsen’s soul, or seen it at all,—of this I am convinced. It was a +very lonely soul, I was to learn, that never unmasked, though at rare moments +it played at doing so. +</p> + +<p> +“I read immortality in your eyes,” I answered, dropping the +“sir,”—an experiment, for I thought the intimacy of the +conversation warranted it. +</p> + +<p> +He took no notice. “By that, I take it, you see something that is alive, +but that necessarily does not have to live for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“I read more than that,” I continued boldly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you read consciousness. You read the consciousness of life that it +is alive; but still no further away, no endlessness of life.” +</p> + +<p> +How clearly he thought, and how well he expressed what he thought! From +regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over the leaden sea +to windward. A bleakness came into his eyes, and the lines of his mouth grew +severe and harsh. He was evidently in a pessimistic mood. +</p> + +<p> +“Then to what end?” he demanded abruptly, turning back to me. +“If I am immortal—why?” +</p> + +<p> +I halted. How could I explain my idealism to this man? How could I put into +speech a something felt, a something like the strains of music heard in sleep, +a something that convinced yet transcended utterance? +</p> + +<p> +“What do you believe, then?” I countered. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe that life is a mess,” he answered promptly. “It is +like yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a +year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat +the little that they may continue to move, the strong eat the weak that they +may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is +all. What do you make of those things?” +</p> + +<p> +He swept his arm in an impatient gesture toward a number of the sailors who +were working on some kind of rope stuff amidships. +</p> + +<p> +“They move, so does the jelly-fish move. They move in order to eat in +order that they may keep moving. There you have it. They live for their +belly’s sake, and the belly is for their sake. It’s a circle; you +get nowhere. Neither do they. In the end they come to a standstill. They move +no more. They are dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“They have dreams,” I interrupted, “radiant, flashing +dreams—” +</p> + +<p> +“Of grub,” he concluded sententiously. +</p> + +<p> +“And of more—” +</p> + +<p> +“Grub. Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying it.” His +voice sounded harsh. There was no levity in it. “For, look you, they +dream of making lucky voyages which will bring them more money, of becoming the +mates of ships, of finding fortunes—in short, of being in a better +position for preying on their fellows, of having all night in, good grub and +somebody else to do the dirty work. You and I are just like them. There is no +difference, except that we have eaten more and better. I am eating them now, +and you too. But in the past you have eaten more than I have. You have slept in +soft beds, and worn fine clothes, and eaten good meals. Who made those beds? +and those clothes? and those meals? Not you. You never made anything in your +own sweat. You live on an income which your father earned. You are like a +frigate bird swooping down upon the boobies and robbing them of the fish they +have caught. You are one with a crowd of men who have made what they call a +government, who are masters of all the other men, and who eat the food the +other men get and would like to eat themselves. You wear the warm clothes. They +made the clothes, but they shiver in rags and ask you, the lawyer, or business +agent who handles your money, for a job.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is beside the matter,” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all.” He was speaking rapidly now, and his eyes were +flashing. “It is piggishness, and it is life. Of what use or sense is an +immortality of piggishness? What is the end? What is it all about? You have +made no food. Yet the food you have eaten or wasted might have saved the lives +of a score of wretches who made the food but did not eat it. What immortal end +did you serve? or did they? Consider yourself and me. What does your boasted +immortality amount to when your life runs foul of mine? You would like to go +back to the land, which is a favourable place for your kind of piggishness. It +is a whim of mine to keep you aboard this ship, where my piggishness +flourishes. And keep you I will. I may make or break you. You may die to-day, +this week, or next month. I could kill you now, with a blow of my fist, for you +are a miserable weakling. But if we are immortal, what is the reason for this? +To be piggish as you and I have been all our lives does not seem to be just the +thing for immortals to be doing. Again, what’s it all about? Why have I +kept you here?—” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are stronger,” I managed to blurt out. +</p> + +<p> +“But why stronger?” he went on at once with his perpetual queries. +“Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you? Don’t you see? +Don’t you see?” +</p> + +<p> +“But the hopelessness of it,” I protested. +</p> + +<p> +“I agree with you,” he answered. “Then why move at all, since +moving is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be no +hopelessness. But,—and there it is,—we want to live and move, +though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life +to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would +be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your +immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive +for ever. Bah! An eternity of piggishness!” +</p> + +<p> +He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped at the break of +the poop and called me to him. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head. A moment later, as I started down the companion stairs to +lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly cursing some men amidships. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p> +By the following morning the storm had blown itself quite out and the +<i>Ghost</i> was rolling slightly on a calm sea without a breath of wind. +Occasional light airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen patrolled the poop +constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to the north-eastward, from which +direction the great trade-wind must blow. +</p> + +<p> +The men were all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for the +season’s hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the captain’s +dingey, and the six which the hunters will use. Three, a hunter, a boat-puller, +and a boat-steerer, compose a boat’s crew. On board the schooner the +boat-pullers and steerers are the crew. The hunters, too, are supposed to be in +command of the watches, subject, always, to the orders of Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +All this, and more, I have learned. The <i>Ghost</i> is considered the fastest +schooner in both the San Francisco and Victoria fleets. In fact, she was once a +private yacht, and was built for speed. Her lines and fittings—though I +know nothing about such things—speak for themselves. Johnson was telling +me about her in a short chat I had with him during yesterday’s second +dog-watch. He spoke enthusiastically, with the love for a fine craft such as +some men feel for horses. He is greatly disgusted with the outlook, and I am +given to understand that Wolf Larsen bears a very unsavoury reputation among +the sealing captains. It was the <i>Ghost</i> herself that lured Johnson into +signing for the voyage, but he is already beginning to repent. +</p> + +<p> +As he told me, the <i>Ghost</i> is an eighty-ton schooner of a remarkably fine +model. Her beam, or width, is twenty-three feet, and her length a little over +ninety feet. A lead keel of fabulous but unknown weight makes her very stable, +while she carries an immense spread of canvas. From the deck to the truck of +the maintopmast is something over a hundred feet, while the foremast with its +topmast is eight or ten feet shorter. I am giving these details so that the +size of this little floating world which holds twenty-two men may be +appreciated. It is a very little world, a mote, a speck, and I marvel that men +should dare to venture the sea on a contrivance so small and fragile. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen has, also, a reputation for reckless carrying on of sail. I +overheard Henderson and another of the hunters, Standish, a Californian, +talking about it. Two years ago he dismasted the <i>Ghost</i> in a gale on +Bering Sea, whereupon the present masts were put in, which are stronger and +heavier in every way. He is said to have remarked, when he put them in, that he +preferred turning her over to losing the sticks. +</p> + +<p> +Every man aboard, with the exception of Johansen, who is rather overcome by his +promotion, seems to have an excuse for having sailed on the <i>Ghost</i>. Half +the men forward are deep-water sailors, and their excuse is that they did not +know anything about her or her captain. And those who do know, whisper that the +hunters, while excellent shots, were so notorious for their quarrelsome and +rascally proclivities that they could not sign on any decent schooner. +</p> + +<p> +I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew,—Louis he is +called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a very sociable +fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a listener. In the afternoon, +while the cook was below asleep and I was peeling the everlasting potatoes, +Louis dropped into the galley for a “yarn.” His excuse for being +aboard was that he was drunk when he signed. He assured me again and again that +it was the last thing in the world he would dream of doing in a sober moment. +It seems that he has been seal-hunting regularly each season for a dozen years, +and is accounted one of the two or three very best boat-steerers in both +fleets. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my boy,” he shook his head ominously at me, “’tis +the worst schooner ye could iv selected, nor were ye drunk at the time as was +I. ’Tis sealin’ is the sailor’s paradise—on other ships +than this. The mate was the first, but mark me words, there’ll be more +dead men before the trip is done with. Hist, now, between you an’ meself +and the stanchion there, this Wolf Larsen is a regular devil, an’ the +<i>Ghost’ll</i> be a hell-ship like she’s always ben since he had +hold iv her. Don’t I know? Don’t I know? Don’t I remember him +in Hakodate two years gone, when he had a row an’ shot four iv his men? +Wasn’t I a-layin’ on the <i>Emma L.</i>, not three hundred yards +away? An’ there was a man the same year he killed with a blow iv his +fist. Yes, sir, killed ’im dead-oh. His head must iv smashed like an +eggshell. An’ wasn’t there the Governor of Kura Island, an’ +the Chief iv Police, Japanese gentlemen, sir, an’ didn’t they come +aboard the <i>Ghost</i> as his guests, a-bringin’ their wives +along—wee an’ pretty little bits of things like you see ’em +painted on fans. An’ as he was a-gettin’ under way, didn’t +the fond husbands get left astern-like in their sampan, as it might be by +accident? An’ wasn’t it a week later that the poor little ladies +was put ashore on the other side of the island, with nothin’ before +’em but to walk home acrost the mountains on their weeny-teeny little +straw sandals which wouldn’t hang together a mile? Don’t I know? +’Tis the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen—the great big beast +mentioned iv in Revelation; an’ no good end will he ever come to. But +I’ve said nothin’ to ye, mind ye. I’ve whispered never a +word; for old fat Louis’ll live the voyage out if the last mother’s +son of yez go to the fishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wolf Larsen!” he snorted a moment later. “Listen to the +word, will ye! Wolf—’tis what he is. He’s not black-hearted +like some men. ’Tis no heart he has at all. Wolf, just wolf, ’tis +what he is. D’ye wonder he’s well named?” +</p> + +<p> +“But if he is so well-known for what he is,” I queried, “how +is it that he can get men to ship with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“An’ how is it ye can get men to do anything on God’s earth +an’ sea?” Louis demanded with Celtic fire. “How d’ye +find me aboard if ’twasn’t that I was drunk as a pig when I put me +name down? There’s them that can’t sail with better men, like the +hunters, and them that don’t know, like the poor devils of wind-jammers +for’ard there. But they’ll come to it, they’ll come to it, +an’ be sorry the day they was born. I could weep for the poor creatures, +did I but forget poor old fat Louis and the troubles before him. But ’tis +not a whisper I’ve dropped, mind ye, not a whisper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Them hunters is the wicked boys,” he broke forth again, for he +suffered from a constitutional plethora of speech. “But wait till they +get to cutting up iv jinks and rowin’ ’round. He’s the +boy’ll fix ’em. ’Tis him that’ll put the fear of God in +their rotten black hearts. Look at that hunter iv mine, Horner. +‘Jock’ Horner they call him, so quiet-like an’ +easy-goin’, soft-spoken as a girl, till ye’d think butter +wouldn’t melt in the mouth iv him. Didn’t he kill his boat-steerer +last year? ’Twas called a sad accident, but I met the boat-puller in +Yokohama an’ the straight iv it was given me. An’ there’s +Smoke, the black little devil—didn’t the Roosians have him for +three years in the salt mines of Siberia, for poachin’ on Copper Island, +which is a Roosian preserve? Shackled he was, hand an’ foot, with his +mate. An’ didn’t they have words or a ruction of some +kind?—for ’twas the other fellow Smoke sent up in the buckets to +the top of the mine; an’ a piece at a time he went up, a leg to-day, +an’ to-morrow an arm, the next day the head, an’ so on.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you can’t mean it!” I cried out, overcome with the +horror of it. +</p> + +<p> +“Mean what!” he demanded, quick as a flash. “’Tis +nothin’ I’ve said. Deef I am, and dumb, as ye should be for the +sake iv your mother; an’ never once have I opened me lips but to say fine +things iv them an’ him, God curse his soul, an’ may he rot in +purgatory ten thousand years, and then go down to the last an’ deepest +hell iv all!” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson, the man who had chafed me raw when I first came aboard, seemed the +least equivocal of the men forward or aft. In fact, there was nothing equivocal +about him. One was struck at once by his straightforwardness and manliness, +which, in turn, were tempered by a modesty which might be mistaken for +timidity. But timid he was not. He seemed, rather, to have the courage of his +convictions, the certainty of his manhood. It was this that made him protest, +at the commencement of our acquaintance, against being called Yonson. And upon +this, and him, Louis passed judgment and prophecy. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we’ve +for’ard with us,” he said. “The best sailorman in the +fo’c’sle. He’s my boat-puller. But it’s to trouble +he’ll come with Wolf Larsen, as the sparks fly upward. It’s meself +that knows. I can see it brewin’ an’ comin’ up like a storm +in the sky. I’ve talked to him like a brother, but it’s little he +sees in takin’ in his lights or flyin’ false signals. He grumbles +out when things don’t go to suit him, and there’ll be always some +tell-tale carryin’ word iv it aft to the Wolf. The Wolf is strong, and +it’s the way of a wolf to hate strength, an’ strength it is +he’ll see in Johnson—no knucklin’ under, and a ‘Yes, +sir, thank ye kindly, sir,’ for a curse or a blow. Oh, she’s +a-comin’! She’s a-comin’! An’ God knows where +I’ll get another boat-puller! What does the fool up an’ say, when +the old man calls him Yonson, but ‘Me name is Johnson, sir,’ +an’ then spells it out, letter for letter. Ye should iv seen the old +man’s face! I thought he’d let drive at him on the spot. He +didn’t, but he will, an’ he’ll break that squarehead’s +heart, or it’s little I know iv the ways iv men on the ships iv the +sea.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge is becoming unendurable. I am compelled to Mister him and to +Sir him with every speech. One reason for this is that Wolf Larsen seems to +have taken a fancy to him. It is an unprecedented thing, I take it, for a +captain to be chummy with the cook; but this is certainly what Wolf Larsen is +doing. Two or three times he put his head into the galley and chaffed Mugridge +good-naturedly, and once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and +chatted with him for fully fifteen minutes. When it was over, and Mugridge was +back in the galley, he became greasily radiant, and went about his work, +humming coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto. +</p> + +<p> +“I always get along with the officers,” he remarked to me in a +confidential tone. “I know the w’y, I do, to myke myself +uppreci-yted. There was my last skipper—w’y I thought nothin’ +of droppin’ down in the cabin for a little chat and a friendly glass. +‘Mugridge,’ sez ’e to me, ‘Mugridge,’ sez +’e, ‘you’ve missed yer vokytion.’ ‘An’ +’ow’s that?’ sez I. ‘Yer should ’a been born a +gentleman, an’ never ’ad to work for yer livin’.’ God +strike me dead, ’Ump, if that ayn’t wot ’e sez, an’ me +a-sittin’ there in ’is own cabin, jolly-like an’ comfortable, +a-smokin’ ’is cigars an’ drinkin’ ’is rum.” +</p> + +<p> +This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction. I never heard a voice I hated so. +His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile and his monstrous self-conceit +grated on my nerves till sometimes I was all in a tremble. Positively, he was +the most disgusting and loathsome person I have ever met. The filth of his +cooking was indescribable; and, as he cooked everything that was eaten aboard, +I was compelled to select what I ate with great circumspection, choosing from +the least dirty of his concoctions. +</p> + +<p> +My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work. The nails were +discoloured and black, while the skin was already grained with dirt which even +a scrubbing-brush could not remove. Then blisters came, in a painful and +never-ending procession, and I had a great burn on my forearm, acquired by +losing my balance in a roll of the ship and pitching against the galley stove. +Nor was my knee any better. The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was +still up on edge. Hobbling about on it from morning till night was not helping +it any. What I needed was rest, if it were ever to get well. +</p> + +<p> +Rest! I never before knew the meaning of the word. I had been resting all my +life and did not know it. But now, could I sit still for one half-hour and do +nothing, not even think, it would be the most pleasurable thing in the world. +But it is a revelation, on the other hand. I shall be able to appreciate the +lives of the working people hereafter. I did not dream that work was so +terrible a thing. From half-past five in the morning till ten o’clock at +night I am everybody’s slave, with not one moment to myself, except such +as I can steal near the end of the second dog-watch. Let me pause for a minute +to look out over the sea sparkling in the sun, or to gaze at a sailor going +aloft to the gaff-topsails, or running out the bowsprit, and I am sure to hear +the hateful voice, “’Ere, you, ’Ump, no sodgerin’. +I’ve got my peepers on yer.” +</p> + +<p> +There are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the gossip is going +around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight. Henderson seems the best of +the hunters, a slow-going fellow, and hard to rouse; but roused he must have +been, for Smoke had a bruised and discoloured eye, and looked particularly +vicious when he came into the cabin for supper. +</p> + +<p> +A cruel thing happened just before supper, indicative of the callousness and +brutishness of these men. There is one green hand in the crew, Harrison by +name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, I imagine, by the spirit of +adventure, and making his first voyage. In the light baffling airs the schooner +had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one +side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail. +In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through +which it runs at the end of the gaff. As I understood it, there were two ways +of getting it cleared,—first, by lowering the foresail, which was +comparatively easy and without danger; and second, by climbing out the +peak-halyards to the end of the gaff itself, an exceedingly hazardous +performance. +</p> + +<p> +Johansen called out to Harrison to go out the halyards. It was patent to +everybody that the boy was afraid. And well he might be, eighty feet above the +deck, to trust himself on those thin and jerking ropes. Had there been a steady +breeze it would not have been so bad, but the <i>Ghost</i> was rolling emptily +in a long sea, and with each roll the canvas flapped and boomed and the +halyards slacked and jerked taut. They were capable of snapping a man off like +a fly from a whip-lash. +</p> + +<p> +Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him, but +hesitated. It was probably the first time he had been aloft in his life. +Johansen, who had caught the contagion of Wolf Larsen’s masterfulness, +burst out with a volley of abuse and curses. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do, Johansen,” Wolf Larsen said brusquely. +“I’ll have you know that I do the swearing on this ship. If I need +your assistance, I’ll call you in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” the mate acknowledged submissively. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime Harrison had started out on the halyards. I was looking up from +the galley door, and I could see him trembling, as if with ague, in every limb. +He proceeded very slowly and cautiously, an inch at a time. Outlined against +the clear blue of the sky, he had the appearance of an enormous spider crawling +along the tracery of its web. +</p> + +<p> +It was a slight uphill climb, for the foresail peaked high; and the halyards, +running through various blocks on the gaff and mast, gave him separate holds +for hands and feet. But the trouble lay in that the wind was not strong enough +nor steady enough to keep the sail full. When he was half-way out, the +<i>Ghost</i> took a long roll to windward and back again into the hollow +between two seas. Harrison ceased his progress and held on tightly. Eighty feet +beneath, I could see the agonized strain of his muscles as he gripped for very +life. The sail emptied and the gaff swung amid-ships. The halyards slackened, +and, though it all happened very quickly, I could see them sag beneath the +weight of his body. Then the gaff swung to the side with an abrupt swiftness, +the great sail boomed like a cannon, and the three rows of reef-points slatted +against the canvas like a volley of rifles. Harrison, clinging on, made the +giddy rush through the air. This rush ceased abruptly. The halyards became +instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. His clutch was broken. One hand +was torn loose from its hold. The other lingered desperately for a moment, and +followed. His body pitched out and down, but in some way he managed to save +himself with his legs. He was hanging by them, head downward. A quick effort +brought his hands up to the halyards again; but he was a long time regaining +his former position, where he hung, a pitiable object. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll bet he has no appetite for supper,” I heard Wolf +Larsen’s voice, which came to me from around the corner of the galley. +“Stand from under, you, Johansen! Watch out! Here she comes!” +</p> + +<p> +In truth, Harrison was very sick, as a person is sea-sick; and for a long time +he clung to his precarious perch without attempting to move. Johansen, however, +continued violently to urge him on to the completion of his task. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a shame,” I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and +correct English. He was standing by the main rigging, a few feet away from me. +“The boy is willing enough. He will learn if he has a chance. But this +is—” He paused awhile, for the word “murder” was his +final judgment. +</p> + +<p> +“Hist, will ye!” Louis whispered to him, “For the love iv +your mother hold your mouth!” +</p> + +<p> +But Johnson, looking on, still continued his grumbling. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here,” the hunter Standish spoke to Wolf Larsen, +“that’s my boat-puller, and I don’t want to lose him.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, Standish,” was the reply. +“He’s your boat-puller when you’ve got him in the boat; but +he’s my sailor when I have him aboard, and I’ll do what I damn well +please with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that’s no reason—” Standish began in a torrent of +speech. +</p> + +<p> +“That’ll do, easy as she goes,” Wolf Larsen counselled back. +“I’ve told you what’s what, and let it stop at that. The +man’s mine, and I’ll make soup of him and eat it if I want +to.” +</p> + +<p> +There was an angry gleam in the hunter’s eye, but he turned on his heel +and entered the steerage companion-way, where he remained, looking upward. All +hands were on deck now, and all eyes were aloft, where a human life was at +grapples with death. The callousness of these men, to whom industrial +organization gave control of the lives of other men, was appalling. I, who had +lived out of the whirl of the world, had never dreamed that its work was +carried on in such fashion. Life had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, +but here it counted for nothing, was a cipher in the arithmetic of commerce. I +must say, however, that the sailors themselves were sympathetic, as instance +the case of Johnson; but the masters (the hunters and the captain) were +heartlessly indifferent. Even the protest of Standish arose out of the fact +that he did not wish to lose his boat-puller. Had it been some other +hunter’s boat-puller, he, like them, would have been no more than amused. +</p> + +<p> +But to return to Harrison. It took Johansen, insulting and reviling the poor +wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started again. A little later he made the +end of the gaff, where, astride the spar itself, he had a better chance for +holding on. He cleared the sheet, and was free to return, slightly downhill +now, along the halyards to the mast. But he had lost his nerve. Unsafe as was +his present position, he was loath to forsake it for the more unsafe position +on the halyards. +</p> + +<p> +He looked along the airy path he must traverse, and then down to the deck. His +eyes were wide and staring, and he was trembling violently. I had never seen +fear so strongly stamped upon a human face. Johansen called vainly for him to +come down. At any moment he was liable to be snapped off the gaff, but he was +helpless with fright. Wolf Larsen, walking up and down with Smoke and in +conversation, took no more notice of him, though he cried sharply, once, to the +man at the wheel: +</p> + +<p> +“You’re off your course, my man! Be careful, unless you’re +looking for trouble!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, sir,” the helmsman responded, putting a couple of spokes +down. +</p> + +<p> +He had been guilty of running the <i>Ghost</i> several points off her course in +order that what little wind there was should fill the foresail and hold it +steady. He had striven to help the unfortunate Harrison at the risk of +incurring Wolf Larsen’s anger. +</p> + +<p> +The time went by, and the suspense, to me, was terrible. Thomas Mugridge, on +the other hand, considered it a laughable affair, and was continually bobbing +his head out the galley door to make jocose remarks. How I hated him! And how +my hatred for him grew and grew, during that fearful time, to cyclopean +dimensions. For the first time in my life I experienced the desire to +murder—“saw red,” as some of our picturesque writers phrase +it. Life in general might still be sacred, but life in the particular case of +Thomas Mugridge had become very profane indeed. I was frightened when I became +conscious that I was seeing red, and the thought flashed through my mind: was +I, too, becoming tainted by the brutality of my environment?—I, who even +in the most flagrant crimes had denied the justice and righteousness of capital +punishment? +</p> + +<p> +Fully half-an-hour went by, and then I saw Johnson and Louis in some sort of +altercation. It ended with Johnson flinging off Louis’s detaining arm and +starting forward. He crossed the deck, sprang into the fore rigging, and began +to climb. But the quick eye of Wolf Larsen caught him. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, you, what are you up to?” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson’s ascent was arrested. He looked his captain in the eyes and +replied slowly: +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to get that boy down.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll get down out of that rigging, and damn lively about it! +D’ye hear? Get down!” +</p> + +<p> +Johnson hesitated, but the long years of obedience to the masters of ships +overpowered him, and he dropped sullenly to the deck and went on forward. +</p> + +<p> +At half after five I went below to set the cabin table, but I hardly knew what +I did, for my eyes and my brain were filled with the vision of a man, +white-faced and trembling, comically like a bug, clinging to the thrashing +gaff. At six o’clock, when I served supper, going on deck to get the food +from the galley, I saw Harrison, still in the same position. The conversation +at the table was of other things. Nobody seemed interested in the wantonly +imperilled life. But making an extra trip to the galley a little later, I was +gladdened by the sight of Harrison staggering weakly from the rigging to the +forecastle scuttle. He had finally summoned the courage to descend. +</p> + +<p> +Before closing this incident, I must give a scrap of conversation I had with +Wolf Larsen in the cabin, while I was washing the dishes. +</p> + +<p> +“You were looking squeamish this afternoon,” he began. “What +was the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +I could see that he knew what had made me possibly as sick as Harrison, that he +was trying to draw me, and I answered, “It was because of the brutal +treatment of that boy.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a short laugh. “Like sea-sickness, I suppose. Some men are +subject to it, and others are not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so,” I objected. +</p> + +<p> +“Just so,” he went on. “The earth is as full of brutality as +the sea is full of motion. And some men are made sick by the one, and some by +the other. That’s the only reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you, who make a mock of human life, don’t you place any value +upon it whatever?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Value? What value?” He looked at me, and though his eyes were +steady and motionless, there seemed a cynical smile in them. “What kind +of value? How do you measure it? Who values it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” I made answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Then what is it worth to you? Another man’s life, I mean. Come +now, what is it worth?” +</p> + +<p> +The value of life? How could I put a tangible value upon it? Somehow, I, who +have always had expression, lacked expression when with Wolf Larsen. I have +since determined that a part of it was due to the man’s personality, but +that the greater part was due to his totally different outlook. Unlike other +materialists I had met and with whom I had something in common to start on, I +had nothing in common with him. Perhaps, also, it was the elemental simplicity +of his mind that baffled me. He drove so directly to the core of the matter, +divesting a question always of all superfluous details, and with such an air of +finality, that I seemed to find myself struggling in deep water, with no +footing under me. Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of +the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was +intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned. But when he +challenged the truism I was speechless. +</p> + +<p> +“We were talking about this yesterday,” he said. “I held that +life was a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might live, +and that living was merely successful piggishness. Why, if there is anything in +supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is only so +much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is demanding to be +born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions +of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the +possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and +utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could +become the fathers of nations and populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no +value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature +spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a +thousand lives, and it’s life eats life till the strongest and most +piggish life is left.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have read Darwin,” I said. “But you read him +misunderstandingly when you conclude that the struggle for existence sanctions +your wanton destruction of life.” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders. “You know you only mean that in relation to +human life, for of the flesh and the fowl and the fish you destroy as much as I +or any other man. And human life is in no wise different, though you feel it is +and think that you reason why it is. Why should I be parsimonious with this +life which is cheap and without value? There are more sailors than there are +ships on the sea for them, more workers than there are factories or machines +for them. Why, you who live on the land know that you house your poor people in +the slums of cities and loose famine and pestilence upon them, and that there +still remain more poor people, dying for want of a crust of bread and a bit of +meat (which is life destroyed), than you know what to do with. Have you ever +seen the London dockers fighting like wild beasts for a chance to work?” +</p> + +<p> +He started for the companion stairs, but turned his head for a final word. +“Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And +it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity prejudiced in its own +favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a +treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? +Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is +plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains +upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the +world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself +only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being +dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond +diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be +washed away by a bucket of sea-water, and he does not even know that the +diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of +himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don’t you see? And what have you +to say?” +</p> + +<p> +“That you are at least consistent,” was all I could say, and I went +on washing the dishes. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p> +At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the north-east +trades. I came on deck, after a good night’s rest in spite of my poor +knee, to find the <i>Ghost</i> foaming along, wing-and-wing, and every sail +drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern. Oh, the wonder of the +great trade-wind! All day we sailed, and all night, and the next day, and the +next, day after day, the wind always astern and blowing steadily and strong. +The schooner sailed herself. There was no pulling and hauling on sheets and +tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work at all for the sailors to do except +to steer. At night when the sun went down, the sheets were slackened; in the +morning, when they yielded up the damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled +tight again—and that was all. +</p> + +<p> +Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, is the speed +we are making. And ever out of the north-east the brave wind blows, driving us +on our course two hundred and fifty miles between the dawns. It saddens me and +gladdens me, the gait with which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with +which we are foaming down upon the tropics. Each day grows perceptibly warmer. +In the second dog-watch the sailors come on deck, stripped, and heave buckets +of water upon one another from overside. Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, +and during the night the watch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of +those that fall aboard. In the morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the +galley is pleasantly areek with the odour of their frying; while dolphin meat +is served fore and aft on such occasions as Johnson catches the blazing +beauties from the bowsprit end. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the crosstrees, +watching the <i>Ghost</i> cleaving the water under press of sail. There is +passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about in a sort of trance, gazing +in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the foaming wake, and the heave and the run +of her over the liquid mountains that are moving with us in stately procession. +</p> + +<p> +The days and nights are “all a wonder and a wild delight,” and +though I have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments to gaze and +gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the world possessed. Above, +the sky is stainless blue—blue as the sea itself, which under the +forefoot is of the colour and sheen of azure satin. All around the horizon are +pale, fleecy clouds, never changing, never moving, like a silver setting for +the flawless turquoise sky. +</p> + +<p> +I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying on the +forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of foam thrust aside by +the <i>Ghost’s</i> forefoot. It sounded like the gurgling of a brook over +mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the crooning song of it lured me away and +out of myself till I was no longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man +who had dreamed away thirty-five years among books. But a voice behind me, the +unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with the invincible certitude of the +man and mellow with appreciation of the words he was quoting, aroused me. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘O the blazing tropic night, when the wake’s a welt of +light<br/> +That holds the hot sky tame,<br/> +And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors<br/> +Where the scared whale flukes in flame.<br/> +Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass,<br/> +And her ropes are taut with the dew,<br/> +For we’re booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out +trail,<br/> +We’re sagging south on the Long Trail—the trail that is always +new.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, Hump? How’s it strike you?” he asked, after the due +pause which words and setting demanded. +</p> + +<p> +I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea itself, and the +eyes were flashing in the starshine. +</p> + +<p> +“It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should show +enthusiasm,” I answered coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, man, it’s living! it’s life!” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Which is a cheap thing and without value.” I flung his words at +him. +</p> + +<p> +He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your head, what +a thing this life is. Of course life is valueless, except to itself. And I can +tell you that my life is pretty valuable just now—to myself. It is beyond +price, which you will acknowledge is a terrific overrating, but which I cannot +help, for it is the life that is in me that makes the rating.” +</p> + +<p> +He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought that was in +him, and finally went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all time +were echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. I know truth, divine +good from evil, right from wrong. My vision is clear and far. I could almost +believe in God. But,” and his voice changed and the light went out of his +face,—“what is this condition in which I find myself? this joy of +living? this exultation of life? this inspiration, I may well call it? It is +what comes when there is nothing wrong with one’s digestion, when his +stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and all goes well. It is the +bribe for living, the champagne of the blood, the effervescence of the +ferment—that makes some men think holy thoughts, and other men to see God +or to create him when they cannot see him. That is all, the drunkenness of +life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is +insane with consciousness that it is alive. And—bah! To-morrow I shall +pay for it as the drunkard pays. And I shall know that I must die, at sea most +likely, cease crawling of myself to be all a-crawl with the corruption of the +sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and movement +of my muscles that it may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the +guts of fishes. Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. The sparkle +and bubble has gone out and it is a tasteless drink.” +</p> + +<p> +He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with the weight +and softness of a tiger. The <i>Ghost</i> ploughed on her way. I noted the +gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I listened to it the effect of +Wolf Larsen’s swift rush from sublime exultation to despair slowly left +me. Then some deep-water sailor, from the waist of the ship, lifted a rich +tenor voice in the “Song of the Trade Wind”: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh, I am the wind the seamen love—<br/> +I am steady, and strong, and true;<br/> +They follow my track by the clouds above,<br/> +O’er the fathomless tropic blue. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Through daylight and dark I follow the bark<br/> +I keep like a hound on her trail;<br/> +I’m strongest at noon, yet under the moon,<br/> +I stiffen the bunt of her sail.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p> +Sometimes I think Wolf Larsen mad, or half-mad at least, what of his strange +moods and vagaries. At other times I take him for a great man, a genius who has +never arrived. And, finally, I am convinced that he is the perfect type of the +primitive man, born a thousand years or generations too late and an anachronism +in this culminating century of civilization. He is certainly an individualist +of the most pronounced type. Not only that, but he is very lonely. There is no +congeniality between him and the rest of the men aboard ship. His tremendous +virility and mental strength wall him apart. They are more like children to +him, even the hunters, and as children he treats them, descending perforce to +their level and playing with them as a man plays with puppies. Or else he +probes them with the cruel hand of a vivisectionist, groping about in their +mental processes and examining their souls as though to see of what soul-stuff +is made. +</p> + +<p> +I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter or that, with +cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of interest, pondering their +actions or replies or petty rages with a curiosity almost laughable to me who +stood onlooker and who understood. Concerning his own rages, I am convinced +that they are not real, that they are sometimes experiments, but that in the +main they are the habits of a pose or attitude he has seen fit to take toward +his fellow-men. I know, with the possible exception of the incident of the dead +mate, that I have not seen him really angry; nor do I wish ever to see him in a +genuine rage, when all the force of him is called into play. +</p> + +<p> +While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell Thomas Mugridge in +the cabin, and at the same time complete an incident upon which I have already +touched once or twice. The twelve o’clock dinner was over, one day, and I +had just finished putting the cabin in order, when Wolf Larsen and Thomas +Mugridge descended the companion stairs. Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a +state-room opening off from the cabin, in the cabin itself he had never dared +to linger or to be seen, and he flitted to and fro, once or twice a day, a +timid spectre. +</p> + +<p> +“So you know how to play ‘Nap,’” Wolf Larsen was saying +in a pleased sort of voice. “I might have guessed an Englishman would +know. I learned it myself in English ships.” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so pleased was he at +chumming thus with the captain. The little airs he put on and the painful +striving to assume the easy carriage of a man born to a dignified place in life +would have been sickening had they not been ludicrous. He quite ignored my +presence, though I credited him with being simply unable to see me. His pale, +wishy-washy eyes were swimming like lazy summer seas, though what blissful +visions they beheld were beyond my imagination. +</p> + +<p> +“Get the cards, Hump,” Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took seats at +the table. “And bring out the cigars and the whisky you’ll find in +my berth.” +</p> + +<p> +I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting broadly that +there was a mystery about him, that he might be a gentleman’s son gone +wrong or something or other; also, that he was a remittance man and was paid to +keep away from England—“p’yed ’ansomely, sir,” +was the way he put it; “p’yed ’ansomely to sling my +’ook an’ keep slingin’ it.” +</p> + +<p> +I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned, shook his +head, and signalled with his hands for me to bring the tumblers. These he +filled two-thirds full with undiluted whisky—“a gentleman’s +drink?” quoth Thomas Mugridge,—and they clinked their glasses to +the glorious game of “Nap,” lighted cigars, and fell to shuffling +and dealing the cards. +</p> + +<p> +They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets. They drank +whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do not know whether Wolf +Larsen cheated or not,—a thing he was thoroughly capable of +doing,—but he won steadily. The cook made repeated journeys to his bunk +for money. Each time he performed the journey with greater swagger, but he +never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, +could hardly see the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey +to his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen’s buttonhole with a greasy forefinger +and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, “I got money, I got money, I +tell yer, an’ I’m a gentleman’s son.” +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for glass, and if +anything his glasses were fuller. There was no change in him. He did not appear +even amused at the other’s antics. +</p> + +<p> +In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a gentleman, the +cook’s last money was staked on the game—and lost. Whereupon he +leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen looked curiously at him, as +though about to probe and vivisect him, then changed his mind, as from the +foregone conclusion that there was nothing there to probe. +</p> + +<p> +“Hump,” he said to me, elaborately polite, “kindly take Mr. +Mugridge’s arm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling very +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water,” +he added, in a lower tone for my ear alone. +</p> + +<p> +I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning sailors who +had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was sleepily spluttering that +he was a gentleman’s son. But as I descended the companion stairs to +clear the table I heard him shriek as the first bucket of water struck him. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings. +</p> + +<p> +“One hundred and eighty-five dollars even,” he said aloud. +“Just as I thought. The beggar came aboard without a cent.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what you have won is mine, sir,” I said boldly. +</p> + +<p> +He favoured me with a quizzical smile. “Hump, I have studied some grammar +in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. ‘Was mine,’ you +should have said, not ’is mine.’” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +It was possibly a minute before he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye know, Hump,” he said, with a slow seriousness which had +in it an indefinable strain of sadness, “that this is the first time I +have heard the word ‘ethics’ in the mouth of a man. You and I are +the only men on this ship who know its meaning.” +</p> + +<p> +“At one time in my life,” he continued, after another pause, +“I dreamed that I might some day talk with men who used such language, +that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had been born, and +hold conversation and mingle with men who talked about just such things as +ethics. And this is the first time I have ever heard the word pronounced. Which +is all by the way, for you are wrong. It is a question neither of grammar nor +ethics, but of fact.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” I said. “The fact is that you have the +money.” +</p> + +<p> +His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. “But it is +avoiding the real question,” I continued, “which is one of +right.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, “I see you +still believe in such things as right and wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you?—at all?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is to it. +Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that it is good for +oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak—or better yet, it +is pleasurable to be strong, because of the profits; painful to be weak, +because of the penalties. Just now the possession of this money is a +pleasurable thing. It is good for one to possess it. Being able to possess it, +I wrong myself and the life that is in me if I give it to you and forego the +pleasure of possessing it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you wrong me by withholding it,” I objected. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. One man cannot wrong another man. He can only wrong himself. +As I see it, I do wrong always when I consider the interests of others. +Don’t you see? How can two particles of the yeast wrong each other by +striving to devour each other? It is their inborn heritage to strive to devour, +and to strive not to be devoured. When they depart from this they sin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t believe in altruism?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though he pondered it +thoughtfully. “Let me see, it means something about coöperation, +doesn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection,” I +answered unsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary, which, like +his knowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read, self-educated man, whom no +one had directed in his studies, and who had thought much and talked little or +not at all. “An altruistic act is an act performed for the welfare of +others. It is unselfish, as opposed to an act performed for self, which is +selfish.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head. “Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it in +Spencer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Spencer!” I cried. “Have you read him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not very much,” was his confession. “I understood quite a +good deal of <i>First Principles</i>, but his <i>Biology</i> took the wind out +of my sails, and his <i>Psychology</i> left me butting around in the doldrums +for many a day. I honestly could not understand what he was driving at. I put +it down to mental deficiency on my part, but since then I have decided that it +was for want of preparation. I had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself +know how hard I hammered. But I did get something out of his <i>Data of +Ethics</i>. There’s where I ran across ‘altruism,’ and I +remember now how it was used.” +</p> + +<p> +I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer I remembered +enough to know that altruism was imperative to his ideal of highest conduct. +Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the great philosopher’s teachings, +rejecting and selecting according to his needs and desires. +</p> + +<p> +“What else did you run across?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably phrasing thoughts +which he had never before put into speech. I felt an elation of spirit. I was +groping into his soul-stuff as he made a practice of groping in the soul-stuff +of others. I was exploring virgin territory. A strange, a terribly strange, +region was unrolling itself before my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“In as few words as possible,” he began, “Spencer puts it +something like this: First, a man must act for his own benefit—to do this +is to be moral and good. Next, he must act for the benefit of his children. And +third, he must act for the benefit of his race.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the highest, finest, right conduct,” I interjected, “is +that act which benefits at the same time the man, his children, and his +race.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t stand for that,” he replied. +“Couldn’t see the necessity for it, nor the common sense. I cut out +the race and the children. I would sacrifice nothing for them. It’s just +so much slush and sentiment, and you must see it yourself, at least for one who +does not believe in eternal life. With immortality before me, altruism would be +a paying business proposition. I might elevate my soul to all kinds of +altitudes. But with nothing eternal before me but death, given for a brief +spell this yeasty crawling and squirming which is called life, why, it would be +immoral for me to perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrifice that +makes me lose one crawl or squirm is foolish,—and not only foolish, for +it is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose one crawl or +squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Nor will the eternal +movelessness that is coming to me be made easier or harder by the sacrifices or +selfishnesses of the time when I was yeasty and acrawl.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, a +hedonist.” +</p> + +<p> +“Big words,” he smiled. “But what is a hedonist?” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded agreement when I had given the definition. “And you are +also,” I continued, “a man one could not trust in the least thing +where it was possible for a selfish interest to intervene?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you’re beginning to understand,” he said, brightening. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it.” +</p> + +<p> +“A man of whom to be always afraid—” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way to put it.” +</p> + +<p> +“As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you know me,” he said. “And you know me as I am +generally known. Other men call me ‘Wolf.’” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a sort of monster,” I added audaciously, “a Caliban +who has pondered Setebos, and who acts as you act, in idle moments, by whim and +fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +His brow clouded at the allusion. He did not understand, and I quickly learned +that he did not know the poem. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m just reading Browning,” he confessed, “and +it’s pretty tough. I haven’t got very far along, and as it is +I’ve about lost my bearings.” +</p> + +<p> +Not to be tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from his state-room and +read “Caliban” aloud. He was delighted. It was a primitive mode of +reasoning and of looking at things that he understood thoroughly. He +interrupted again and again with comment and criticism. When I finished, he had +me read it over a second time, and a third. We fell into +discussion—philosophy, science, evolution, religion. He betrayed the +inaccuracies of the self-read man, and, it must be granted, the sureness and +directness of the primitive mind. The very simplicity of his reasoning was its +strength, and his materialism was far more compelling than the subtly complex +materialism of Charley Furuseth. Not that I—a confirmed and, as Furuseth +phrased it, a temperamental idealist—was to be compelled; but that Wolf +Larsen stormed the last strongholds of my faith with a vigour that received +respect, while not accorded conviction. +</p> + +<p> +Time passed. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. I became restless and +anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down the companion-way, sick and angry +of countenance, I prepared to go about my duties. But Wolf Larsen cried out to +him: +</p> + +<p> +“Cooky, you’ve got to hustle to-night. I’m busy with Hump, +and you’ll do the best you can without him.” +</p> + +<p> +And again the unprecedented was established. That night I sat at table with the +captain and the hunters, while Thomas Mugridge waited on us and washed the +dishes afterward—a whim, a Caliban-mood of Wolf Larsen’s, and one I +foresaw would bring me trouble. In the meantime we talked and talked, much to +the disgust of the hunters, who could not understand a word. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p> +Three days of rest, three blessed days of rest, are what I had with Wolf +Larsen, eating at the cabin table and doing nothing but discuss life, +literature, and the universe, the while Thomas Mugridge fumed and raged and did +my work as well as his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Watch out for squalls, is all I can say to you,” was Louis’s +warning, given during a spare half-hour on deck while Wolf Larsen was engaged +in straightening out a row among the hunters. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye can’t tell what’ll be happenin’,” Louis went +on, in response to my query for more definite information. “The +man’s as contrary as air currents or water currents. You can never guess +the ways iv him. ’Tis just as you’re thinkin’ you know him +and are makin’ a favourable slant along him, that he whirls around, dead +ahead and comes howlin’ down upon you and a-rippin’ all iv your +fine-weather sails to rags.” +</p> + +<p> +So I was not altogether surprised when the squall foretold by Louis smote me. +We had been having a heated discussion,—upon life, of course,—and, +grown over-bold, I was passing stiff strictures upon Wolf Larsen and the life +of Wolf Larsen. In fact, I was vivisecting him and turning over his soul-stuff +as keenly and thoroughly as it was his custom to do it to others. It may be a +weakness of mine that I have an incisive way of speech; but I threw all +restraint to the winds and cut and slashed until the whole man of him was +snarling. The dark sun-bronze of his face went black with wrath, his eyes were +ablaze. There was no clearness or sanity in them—nothing but the terrific +rage of a madman. It was the wolf in him that I saw, and a mad wolf at that. +</p> + +<p> +He sprang for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled myself to +brazen it out, though I was trembling inwardly; but the enormous strength of +the man was too much for my fortitude. He had gripped me by the biceps with his +single hand, and when that grip tightened I wilted and shrieked aloud. My feet +went out from under me. I simply could not stand upright and endure the agony. +The muscles refused their duty. The pain was too great. My biceps was being +crushed to a pulp. +</p> + +<p> +He seemed to recover himself, for a lucid gleam came into his eyes, and he +relaxed his hold with a short laugh that was more like a growl. I fell to the +floor, feeling very faint, while he sat down, lighted a cigar, and watched me +as a cat watches a mouse. As I writhed about I could see in his eyes that +curiosity I had so often noted, that wonder and perplexity, that questing, that +everlasting query of his as to what it was all about. +</p> + +<p> +I finally crawled to my feet and ascended the companion stairs. Fair weather +was over, and there was nothing left but to return to the galley. My left arm +was numb, as though paralysed, and days passed before I could use it, while +weeks went by before the last stiffness and pain went out of it. And he had +done nothing but put his hand upon my arm and squeeze. There had been no +wrenching or jerking. He had just closed his hand with a steady pressure. What +he might have done I did not fully realize till next day, when he put his head +into the galley, and, as a sign of renewed friendliness, asked me how my arm +was getting on. +</p> + +<p> +“It might have been worse,” he smiled. +</p> + +<p> +I was peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. It was fair-sized, firm, +and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it, squeezed, and the potato squirted out +between his fingers in mushy streams. The pulpy remnant he dropped back into +the pan and turned away, and I had a sharp vision of how it might have fared +with me had the monster put his real strength upon me. +</p> + +<p> +But the three days’ rest was good in spite of it all, for it had given my +knee the very chance it needed. It felt much better, the swelling had +materially decreased, and the cap seemed descending into its proper place. +Also, the three days’ rest brought the trouble I had foreseen. It was +plainly Thomas Mugridge’s intention to make me pay for those three days. +He treated me vilely, cursed me continually, and heaped his own work upon me. +He even ventured to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming animal-like +myself, and I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened him +back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself, Humphrey Van +Weyden, in that noisome ship’s galley, crouched in a corner over my task, +my face raised to the face of the creature about to strike me, my lips lifted +and snarling like a dog’s, my eyes gleaming with fear and helplessness +and the courage that comes of fear and helplessness. I do not like the picture. +It reminds me too strongly of a rat in a trap. I do not care to think of it; +but it was effective, for the threatened blow did not descend. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge backed away, glaring as hatefully and viciously as I glared. A +pair of beasts is what we were, penned together and showing our teeth. He was a +coward, afraid to strike me because I had not quailed sufficiently in advance; +so he chose a new way to intimidate me. There was only one galley knife that, +as a knife, amounted to anything. This, through many years of service and wear, +had acquired a long, lean blade. It was unusually cruel-looking, and at first I +had shuddered every time I used it. The cook borrowed a stone from Johansen and +proceeded to sharpen the knife. He did it with great ostentation, glancing +significantly at me the while. He whetted it up and down all day long. Every +odd moment he could find he had the knife and stone out and was whetting away. +The steel acquired a razor edge. He tried it with the ball of his thumb or +across the nail. He shaved hairs from the back of his hand, glanced along the +edge with microscopic acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a +slight inequality in its edge somewhere. Then he would put it on the stone +again and whet, whet, whet, till I could have laughed aloud, it was so very +ludicrous. +</p> + +<p> +It was also serious, for I learned that he was capable of using it, that under +all his cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like mine, that would impel +him to do the very thing his whole nature protested against doing and was +afraid of doing. “Cooky’s sharpening his knife for Hump,” was +being whispered about among the sailors, and some of them twitted him about it. +This he took in good part, and was really pleased, nodding his head with +direful foreknowledge and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy, +ventured some rough pleasantry on the subject. +</p> + +<p> +Now it happened that Leach was one of the sailors told off to douse Mugridge +after his game of cards with the captain. Leach had evidently done his task +with a thoroughness that Mugridge had not forgiven, for words followed and evil +names involving smirched ancestries. Mugridge menaced with the knife he was +sharpening for me. Leach laughed and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill +Billingsgate, and before either he or I knew what had happened, his right arm +had been ripped open from elbow to wrist by a quick slash of the knife. The +cook backed away, a fiendish expression on his face, the knife held before him +in a position of defence. But Leach took it quite calmly, though blood was +spouting upon the deck as generously as water from a fountain. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m goin’ to get you, Cooky,” he said, “and +I’ll get you hard. And I won’t be in no hurry about it. +You’ll be without that knife when I come for you.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, he turned and walked quietly forward. Mugridge’s face was +livid with fear at what he had done and at what he might expect sooner or later +from the man he had stabbed. But his demeanour toward me was more ferocious +than ever. In spite of his fear at the reckoning he must expect to pay for what +he had done, he could see that it had been an object-lesson to me, and he +became more domineering and exultant. Also there was a lust in him, akin to +madness, which had come with sight of the blood he had drawn. He was beginning +to see red in whatever direction he looked. The psychology of it is sadly +tangled, and yet I could read the workings of his mind as clearly as though it +were a printed book. +</p> + +<p> +Several days went by, the <i>Ghost</i> still foaming down the trades, and I +could swear I saw madness growing in Thomas Mugridge’s eyes. And I +confess that I became afraid, very much afraid. Whet, whet, whet, it went all +day long. The look in his eyes as he felt the keen edge and glared at me was +positively carnivorous. I was afraid to turn my shoulder to him, and when I +left the galley I went out backwards—to the amusement of the sailors and +hunters, who made a point of gathering in groups to witness my exit. The strain +was too great. I sometimes thought my mind would give way under it—a meet +thing on this ship of madmen and brutes. Every hour, every minute of my +existence was in jeopardy. I was a human soul in distress, and yet no soul, +fore or aft, betrayed sufficient sympathy to come to my aid. At times I thought +of throwing myself on the mercy of Wolf Larsen, but the vision of the mocking +devil in his eyes that questioned life and sneered at it would come strong upon +me and compel me to refrain. At other times I seriously contemplated suicide, +and the whole force of my hopeful philosophy was required to keep me from going +over the side in the darkness of night. +</p> + +<p> +Several times Wolf Larsen tried to inveigle me into discussion, but I gave him +short answers and eluded him. Finally, he commanded me to resume my seat at the +cabin table for a time and let the cook do my work. Then I spoke frankly, +telling him what I was enduring from Thomas Mugridge because of the three days +of favouritism which had been shown me. Wolf Larsen regarded me with smiling +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’re afraid, eh?” he sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said defiantly and honestly, “I am afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way with you fellows,” he cried, half angrily, +“sentimentalizing about your immortal souls and afraid to die. At sight +of a sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney the clinging of life to life overcomes +all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear fellow, you will live for ever. You are +a god, and God cannot be killed. Cooky cannot hurt you. You are sure of your +resurrection. What’s there to be afraid of? +</p> + +<p> +“You have eternal life before you. You are a millionaire in immortality, +and a millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose fortune is less +perishable than the stars and as lasting as space or time. It is impossible for +you to diminish your principal. Immortality is a thing without beginning or +end. Eternity is eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on +living somewhere else and hereafter. And it is all very beautiful, this shaking +off of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned spirit. Cooky cannot hurt you. +He can only give you a boost on the path you eternally must tread. +</p> + +<p> +“Or, if you do not wish to be boosted just yet, why not boost Cooky? +According to your ideas, he, too, must be an immortal millionaire. You cannot +bankrupt him. His paper will always circulate at par. You cannot diminish the +length of his living by killing him, for he is without beginning or end. +He’s bound to go on living, somewhere, somehow. Then boost him. Stick a +knife in him and let his spirit free. As it is, it’s in a nasty prison, +and you’ll do him only a kindness by breaking down the door. And who +knows?—it may be a very beautiful spirit that will go soaring up into the +blue from that ugly carcass. Boost him along, and I’ll promote you to his +place, and he’s getting forty-five dollars a month.” +</p> + +<p> +It was plain that I could look for no help or mercy from Wolf Larsen. Whatever +was to be done I must do for myself; and out of the courage of fear I evolved +the plan of fighting Thomas Mugridge with his own weapons. I borrowed a +whetstone from Johansen. Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged me for +condensed milk and sugar. The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was +situated beneath the cabin floor. Watching my chance, I stole five cans of the +milk, and that night, when it was Louis’s watch on deck, I traded them +with him for a dirk as lean and cruel-looking as Thomas Mugridge’s +vegetable knife. It was rusty and dull, but I turned the grindstone while Louis +gave it an edge. I slept more soundly than usual that night. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet, whet, whet. I +glanced warily at him, for I was on my knees taking the ashes from the stove. +When I returned from throwing them overside, he was talking to Harrison, whose +honest yokel’s face was filled with fascination and wonder. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Mugridge was saying, “an’ wot does ’is +worship do but give me two years in Reading. But blimey if I cared. The other +mug was fixed plenty. Should ’a seen ’im. Knife just like this. I +stuck it in, like into soft butter, an’ the w’y ’e squealed +was better’n a tu-penny gaff.” He shot a glance in my direction to +see if I was taking it in, and went on. “‘I didn’t mean it +Tommy,’ ’e was snifflin’; ‘so ’elp me Gawd, I +didn’t mean it!’ ‘I’ll fix yer bloody well +right,’ I sez, an’ kept right after ’im. I cut ’im in +ribbons, that’s wot I did, an’ ’e a-squealin’ all the +time. Once ’e got ’is ’and on the knife an’ tried to +’old it. ‘Ad ’is fingers around it, but I pulled it through, +cuttin’ to the bone. O, ’e was a sight, I can tell yer.” +</p> + +<p> +A call from the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison went aft. +Mugridge sat down on the raised threshold to the galley and went on with his +knife-sharpening. I put the shovel away and calmly sat down on the coal-box +facing him. He favoured me with a vicious stare. Still calmly, though my heart +was going pitapat, I pulled out Louis’s dirk and began to whet it on the +stone. I had looked for almost any sort of explosion on the Cockney’s +part, but to my surprise he did not appear aware of what I was doing. He went +on whetting his knife. So did I. And for two hours we sat there, face to face, +whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread abroad and half the ship’s +company was crowding the galley doors to see the sight. +</p> + +<p> +Encouragement and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the quiet, +self-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a mouse, advised me +to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward for the abdomen, at the same time +giving what he called the “Spanish twist” to the blade. Leach, his +bandaged arm prominently to the fore, begged me to leave a few remnants of the +cook for him; and Wolf Larsen paused once or twice at the break of the poop to +glance curiously at what must have been to him a stirring and crawling of the +yeasty thing he knew as life. +</p> + +<p> +And I make free to say that for the time being life assumed the same sordid +values to me. There was nothing pretty about it, nothing divine—only two +cowardly moving things that sat whetting steel upon stone, and a group of other +moving things, cowardly and otherwise, that looked on. Half of them, I am sure, +were anxious to see us shedding each other’s blood. It would have been +entertainment. And I do not think there was one who would have interfered had +we closed in a death-struggle. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, the whole thing was laughable and childish. Whet, whet, +whet,—Humphrey Van Weyden sharpening his knife in a ship’s galley +and trying its edge with his thumb! Of all situations this was the most +inconceivable. I know that my own kind could not have believed it possible. I +had not been called “Sissy” Van Weyden all my days without reason, +and that “Sissy” Van Weyden should be capable of doing this thing +was a revelation to Humphrey Van Weyden, who knew not whether to be exultant or +ashamed. +</p> + +<p> +But nothing happened. At the end of two hours Thomas Mugridge put away knife +and stone and held out his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’s the good of mykin’ a ’oly show of ourselves for +them mugs?” he demanded. “They don’t love us, an’ +bloody well glad they’d be a-seein’ us cuttin’ our throats. +Yer not ’arf bad, ’Ump! You’ve got spunk, as you Yanks +s’y, an’ I like yer in a w’y. So come on an’ +shyke.” +</p> + +<p> +Coward that I might be, I was less a coward than he. It was a distinct victory +I had gained, and I refused to forego any of it by shaking his detestable hand. +</p> + +<p> +“All right,” he said pridelessly, “tyke it or leave it, +I’ll like yer none the less for it.” And to save his face he turned +fiercely upon the onlookers. “Get outa my galley-doors, you +bloomin’ swabs!” +</p> + +<p> +This command was reinforced by a steaming kettle of water, and at sight of it +the sailors scrambled out of the way. This was a sort of victory for Thomas +Mugridge, and enabled him to accept more gracefully the defeat I had given him, +though, of course, he was too discreet to attempt to drive the hunters away. +</p> + +<p> +“I see Cooky’s finish,” I heard Smoke say to Horner. +</p> + +<p> +“You bet,” was the reply. “Hump runs the galley from now on, +and Cooky pulls in his horns.” +</p> + +<p> +Mugridge heard and shot a swift glance at me, but I gave no sign that the +conversation had reached me. I had not thought my victory was so far-reaching +and complete, but I resolved to let go nothing I had gained. As the days went +by, Smoke’s prophecy was verified. The Cockney became more humble and +slavish to me than even to Wolf Larsen. I mistered him and sirred him no +longer, washed no more greasy pots, and peeled no more potatoes. I did my own +work, and my own work only, and when and in what fashion I saw fit. Also I +carried the dirk in a sheath at my hip, sailor-fashion, and maintained toward +Thomas Mugridge a constant attitude which was composed of equal parts of +domineering, insult, and contempt. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p> +My intimacy with Wolf Larsen increases—if by intimacy may be denoted +those relations which exist between master and man, or, better yet, between +king and jester. I am to him no more than a toy, and he values me no more than +a child values a toy. My function is to amuse, and so long as I amuse all goes +well; but let him become bored, or let him have one of his black moods come +upon him, and at once I am relegated from cabin table to galley, while, at the +same time, I am fortunate to escape with my life and a whole body. +</p> + +<p> +The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. There is not a man +aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not despise. He +seems consuming with the tremendous power that is in him and that seems never +to have found adequate expression in works. He is as Lucifer would be, were +that proud spirit banished to a society of soulless, Tomlinsonian ghosts. +</p> + +<p> +This loneliness is bad enough in itself, but, to make it worse, he is oppressed +by the primal melancholy of the race. Knowing him, I review the old +Scandinavian myths with clearer understanding. The white-skinned, fair-haired +savages who created that terrible pantheon were of the same fibre as he. The +frivolity of the laughter-loving Latins is no part of him. When he laughs it is +from a humour that is nothing else than ferocious. But he laughs rarely; he is +too often sad. And it is a sadness as deep-reaching as the roots of the race. +It is the race heritage, the sadness which has made the race sober-minded, +clean-lived and fanatically moral, and which, in this latter connection, has +culminated among the English in the Reformed Church and Mrs. Grundy. +</p> + +<p> +In point of fact, the chief vent to this primal melancholy has been religion in +its more agonizing forms. But the compensations of such religion are denied +Wolf Larsen. His brutal materialism will not permit it. So, when his blue moods +come on, nothing remains for him, but to be devilish. Were he not so terrible a +man, I could sometimes feel sorry for him, as instance three mornings ago, when +I went into his stateroom to fill his water-bottle and came unexpectedly upon +him. He did not see me. His head was buried in his hands, and his shoulders +were heaving convulsively as with sobs. He seemed torn by some mighty grief. As +I softly withdrew I could hear him groaning, “God! God! God!” Not +that he was calling upon God; it was a mere expletive, but it came from his +soul. +</p> + +<p> +At dinner he asked the hunters for a remedy for headache, and by evening, +strong man that he was, he was half-blind and reeling about the cabin. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never been sick in my life, Hump,” he said, as I guided +him to his room. “Nor did I ever have a headache except the time my head +was healing after having been laid open for six inches by a capstan-bar.” +</p> + +<p> +For three days this blinding headache lasted, and he suffered as wild animals +suffer, as it seemed the way on ship to suffer, without plaint, without +sympathy, utterly alone. +</p> + +<p> +This morning, however, on entering his state-room to make the bed and put +things in order, I found him well and hard at work. Table and bunk were +littered with designs and calculations. On a large transparent sheet, compass +and square in hand, he was copying what appeared to be a scale of some sort or +other. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Hump,” he greeted me genially. “I’m just +finishing the finishing touches. Want to see it work?” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is it?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“A labour-saving device for mariners, navigation reduced to kindergarten +simplicity,” he answered gaily. “From to-day a child will be able +to navigate a ship. No more long-winded calculations. All you need is one star +in the sky on a dirty night to know instantly where you are. Look. I place the +transparent scale on this star-map, revolving the scale on the North Pole. On +the scale I’ve worked out the circles of altitude and the lines of +bearing. All I do is to put it on a star, revolve the scale till it is opposite +those figures on the map underneath, and presto! there you are, the +ship’s precise location!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a ring of triumph in his voice, and his eyes, clear blue this morning +as the sea, were sparkling with light. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be well up in mathematics,” I said. “Where did you +go to school?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never saw the inside of one, worse luck,” was the answer. “I +had to dig it out for myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why do you think I have made this thing?” he demanded, +abruptly. “Dreaming to leave footprints on the sands of time?” He +laughed one of his horrible mocking laughs. “Not at all. To get it +patented, to make money from it, to revel in piggishness with all night in +while other men do the work. That’s my purpose. Also, I have enjoyed +working it out.” +</p> + +<p> +“The creative joy,” I murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess that’s what it ought to be called. Which is another way of +expressing the joy of life in that it is alive, the triumph of movement over +matter, of the quick over the dead, the pride of the yeast because it is yeast +and crawls.” +</p> + +<p> +I threw up my hands with helpless disapproval of his inveterate materialism and +went about making the bed. He continued copying lines and figures upon the +transparent scale. It was a task requiring the utmost nicety and precision, and +I could not but admire the way he tempered his strength to the fineness and +delicacy of the need. +</p> + +<p> +When I had finished the bed, I caught myself looking at him in a fascinated +sort of way. He was certainly a handsome man—beautiful in the masculine +sense. And again, with never-failing wonder, I remarked the total lack of +viciousness, or wickedness, or sinfulness in his face. It was the face, I am +convinced, of a man who did no wrong. And by this I do not wish to be +misunderstood. What I mean is that it was the face of a man who either did +nothing contrary to the dictates of his conscience, or who had no conscience. I +am inclined to the latter way of accounting for it. He was a magnificent +atavism, a man so purely primitive that he was of the type that came into the +world before the development of the moral nature. He was not immoral, but +merely unmoral. +</p> + +<p> +As I have said, in the masculine sense his was a beautiful face. Smooth-shaven, +every line was distinct, and it was cut as clear and sharp as a cameo; while +sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair skin to a dark bronze which bespoke +struggle and battle and added both to his savagery and his beauty. The lips +were full, yet possessed of the firmness, almost harshness, which is +characteristic of thin lips. The set of his mouth, his chin, his jaw, was +likewise firm or harsh, with all the fierceness and indomitableness of the +male—the nose also. It was the nose of a being born to conquer and +command. It just hinted of the eagle beak. It might have been Grecian, it might +have been Roman, only it was a shade too massive for the one, a shade too +delicate for the other. And while the whole face was the incarnation of +fierceness and strength, the primal melancholy from which he suffered seemed to +greaten the lines of mouth and eye and brow, seemed to give a largeness and +completeness which otherwise the face would have lacked. +</p> + +<p> +And so I caught myself standing idly and studying him. I cannot say how greatly +the man had come to interest me. Who was he? What was he? How had he happened +to be? All powers seemed his, all potentialities—why, then, was he no +more than the obscure master of a seal-hunting schooner with a reputation for +frightful brutality amongst the men who hunted seals? +</p> + +<p> +My curiosity burst from me in a flood of speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Why is it that you have not done great things in this world? With the +power that is yours you might have risen to any height. Unpossessed of +conscience or moral instinct, you might have mastered the world, broken it to +your hand. And yet here you are, at the top of your life, where diminishing and +dying begin, living an obscure and sordid existence, hunting sea animals for +the satisfaction of woman’s vanity and love of decoration, revelling in a +piggishness, to use your own words, which is anything and everything except +splendid. Why, with all that wonderful strength, have you not done something? +There was nothing to stop you, nothing that could stop you. What was wrong? Did +you lack ambition? Did you fall under temptation? What was the matter? What was +the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +He had lifted his eyes to me at the commencement of my outburst, and followed +me complacently until I had done and stood before him breathless and dismayed. +He waited a moment, as though seeking where to begin, and then said: +</p> + +<p> +“Hump, do you know the parable of the sower who went forth to sow? If you +will remember, some of the seed fell upon stony places, where there was not +much earth, and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth. +And when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they +withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he queried, half petulantly. “It was not well. I was +one of those seeds.” +</p> + +<p> +He dropped his head to the scale and resumed the copying. I finished my work +and had opened the door to leave, when he spoke to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Hump, if you will look on the west coast of the map of Norway you will +see an indentation called Romsdal Fiord. I was born within a hundred miles of +that stretch of water. But I was not born Norwegian. I am a Dane. My father and +mother were Danes, and how they ever came to that bleak bight of land on the +west coast I do not know. I never heard. Outside of that there is nothing +mysterious. They were poor people and unlettered. They came of generations of +poor unlettered people—peasants of the sea who sowed their sons on the +waves as has been their custom since time began. There is no more to +tell.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there is,” I objected. “It is still obscure to +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What can I tell you?” he demanded, with a recrudescence of +fierceness. “Of the meagreness of a child’s life? of fish diet and +coarse living? of going out with the boats from the time I could crawl? of my +brothers, who went away one by one to the deep-sea farming and never came back? +of myself, unable to read or write, cabin-boy at the mature age of ten on the +coastwise, old-country ships? of the rough fare and rougher usage, where kicks +and blows were bed and breakfast and took the place of speech, and fear and +hatred and pain were my only soul-experiences? I do not care to remember. A +madness comes up in my brain even now as I think of it. But there were +coastwise skippers I would have returned and killed when a man’s strength +came to me, only the lines of my life were cast at the time in other places. I +did return, not long ago, but unfortunately the skippers were dead, all but +one, a mate in the old days, a skipper when I met him, and when I left him a +cripple who would never walk again.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you who read Spencer and Darwin and have never seen the inside of a +school, how did you learn to read and write?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“In the English merchant service. Cabin-boy at twelve, ship’s boy +at fourteen, ordinary seaman at sixteen, able seaman at seventeen, and cock of +the fo’c’sle, infinite ambition and infinite loneliness, receiving +neither help nor sympathy, I did it all for myself—navigation, +mathematics, science, literature, and what not. And of what use has it been? +Master and owner of a ship at the top of my life, as you say, when I am +beginning to diminish and die. Paltry, isn’t it? And when the sun was up +I was scorched, and because I had no root I withered away.” +</p> + +<p> +“But history tells of slaves who rose to the purple,” I chided. +</p> + +<p> +“And history tells of opportunities that came to the slaves who rose to +the purple,” he answered grimly. “No man makes opportunity. All the +great men ever did was to know it when it came to them. The Corsican knew. I +have dreamed as greatly as the Corsican. I should have known the opportunity, +but it never came. The thorns sprung up and choked me. And, Hump, I can tell +you that you know more about me than any living man, except my own +brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what is he? And where is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Master of the steamship <i>Macedonia</i>, seal-hunter,” was the +answer. “We will meet him most probably on the Japan coast. Men call him +‘Death’ Larsen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Death Larsen!” I involuntarily cried. “Is he like +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hardly. He is a lump of an animal without any head. He has all +my—my—” +</p> + +<p> +“Brutishness,” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,—thank you for the word,—all my brutishness, but he can +scarcely read or write.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he has never philosophized on life,” I added. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air of sadness. +“And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy living +it to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening the books.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p> +The <i>Ghost</i> has attained the southernmost point of the arc she is +describing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edge away to the +west and north toward some lone island, it is rumoured, where she will fill her +water-casks before proceeding to the season’s hunt along the coast of +Japan. The hunters have experimented and practised with their rifles and +shotguns till they are satisfied, and the boat-pullers and steerers have made +their spritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks in leather and sennit so that +they will make no noise when creeping on the seals, and put their boats in +apple-pie order—to use Leach’s homely phrase. +</p> + +<p> +His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain all his +life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and is afraid to venture on +deck after dark. There are two or three standing quarrels in the forecastle. +Louis tells me that the gossip of the sailors finds its way aft, and that two +of the telltales have been badly beaten by their mates. He shakes his head +dubiously over the outlook for the man Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same +boat with him. Johnson has been guilty of speaking his mind too freely, and has +collided two or three times with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his +name. Johansen he thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which +time the mate has called him by his proper name. But of course it is out of the +question that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, which +tallies with the captain’s brief description. We may expect to meet Death +Larsen on the Japan coast. “And look out for squalls,” is +Louis’s prophecy, “for they hate one another like the wolf whelps +they are.” Death Larsen is in command of the only sealing steamer in the +fleet, the <i>Macedonia</i>, which carries fourteen boats, whereas the rest of +the schooners carry only six. There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and of +strange raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium smuggling into +the States and arms smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open piracy. Yet +I cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a lie, while he has a +cyclopædic knowledge of sealing and the men of the sealing fleets. +</p> + +<p> +As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft, on this +veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle ferociously for one another’s +lives. The hunters are looking for a shooting scrape at any moment between +Smoke and Henderson, whose old quarrel has not healed, while Wolf Larsen says +positively that he will kill the survivor of the affair, if such affair comes +off. He frankly states that the position he takes is based on no moral grounds, +that all the hunters could kill and eat one another so far as he is concerned, +were it not that he needs them alive for the hunting. If they will only hold +their hands until the season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when +all grudges can be settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors +overboard and arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. I +think even the hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness. Wicked men though +they be, they are certainly very much afraid of him. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go about in secret +dread of him. His is the courage of fear,—a strange thing I know well of +myself,—and at any moment it may master the fear and impel him to the +taking of my life. My knee is much better, though it often aches for long +periods, and the stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen +squeezed. Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in splendid +condition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing in size. My hands, +however, are a spectacle for grief. They have a parboiled appearance, are +afflicted with hang-nails, while the nails are broken and discoloured, and the +edges of the quick seem to be assuming a fungoid sort of growth. Also, I am +suffering from boils, due to the diet, most likely, for I was never afflicted +in this manner before. +</p> + +<p> +I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen reading the +Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the beginning of the +voyage, had been found in the dead mate’s sea-chest. I wondered what Wolf +Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to me from Ecclesiastes. I could +imagine he was speaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and his +voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin, charmed and +held me. He may be uneducated, but he certainly knows how to express the +significance of the written word. I can hear him now, as I shall always hear +him, the primal melancholy vibrant in his voice as he read: +</p> + +<blockquote><p> +“I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings +and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights +of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. +</p> + +<p> +“So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in +Jerusalem; also my wisdom returned with me. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the +labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity and vexation of +spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and to +the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that +sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; +and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. +</p> + +<p> +“This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there +is one event unto all; yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, +and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the +dead. +</p> + +<p> +“For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living +dog is better than a dead lion. +</p> + +<p> +“For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, +neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +“Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; +neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under +the sun.” + +</p> </blockquote> + +<p> +“There you have it, Hump,” he said, closing the book upon his +finger and looking up at me. “The Preacher who was king over Israel in +Jerusalem thought as I think. You call me a pessimist. Is not this pessimism of +the blackest?—‘All is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ +‘There is no profit under the sun,’ ‘There is one event unto +all,’ to the fool and the wise, the clean and the unclean, the sinner and +the saint, and that event is death, and an evil thing, he says. For the +Preacher loved life, and did not want to die, saying, ‘For a living dog +is better than a dead lion.’ He preferred the vanity and vexation to the +silence and unmovableness of the grave. And so I. To crawl is piggish; but to +not crawl, to be as the clod and rock, is loathsome to contemplate. It is +loathsome to the life that is in me, the very essence of which is movement, the +power of movement, and the consciousness of the power of movement. Life itself +is unsatisfaction, but to look ahead to death is greater unsatisfaction.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are worse off than Omar,” I said. “He, at least, after +the customary agonizing of youth, found content and made of his materialism a +joyous thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was Omar?” Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more work that day, +nor the next, nor the next. +</p> + +<p> +In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubáiyát, and it was to him +like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered, possibly two-thirds of the +quatrains, and I managed to piece out the remainder without difficulty. We +talked for hours over single stanzas, and I found him reading into them a wail +of regret and a rebellion which, for the life of me, I could not discover +myself. Possibly I recited with a certain joyous lilt which was my own, +for—his memory was good, and at a second rendering, very often the first, +he made a quatrain his own—he recited the same lines and invested them +with an unrest and passionate revolt that was well-nigh convincing. +</p> + +<p> +I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and was not surprised +when he hit upon the one born of an instant’s irritability, and quite at +variance with the Persian’s complacent philosophy and genial code of +life: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“What, without asking, hither hurried <i>Whence</i>?<br/> +And, without asking, <i>Whither</i> hurried hence!<br/> +Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine<br/> +Must drown the memory of that insolence!” +</p> + +<p> +“Great!” Wolf Larsen cried. “Great! That’s the keynote. +Insolence! He could not have used a better word.” +</p> + +<p> +In vain I objected and denied. He deluged me, overwhelmed me with argument. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not the nature of life to be otherwise. Life, when it knows +that it must cease living, will always rebel. It cannot help itself. The +Preacher found life and the works of life all a vanity and vexation, an evil +thing; but death, the ceasing to be able to be vain and vexed, he found an +eviler thing. Through chapter after chapter he is worried by the one event that +cometh to all alike. So Omar, so I, so you, even you, for you rebelled against +dying when Cooky sharpened a knife for you. You were afraid to die; the life +that was in you, that composes you, that is greater than you, did not want to +die. You have talked of the instinct of immortality. I talk of the instinct of +life, which is to live, and which, when death looms near and large, masters the +instinct, so called, of immortality. It mastered it in you (you cannot deny +it), because a crazy Cockney cook sharpened a knife. +</p> + +<p> +“You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot deny it. If +I should catch you by the throat, thus,”—his hand was about my +throat and my breath was shut off,—“and began to press the life out +of you thus, and thus, your instinct of immortality will go glimmering, and +your instinct of life, which is longing for life, will flutter up, and you will +struggle to save yourself. Eh? I see the fear of death in your eyes. You beat +the air with your arms. You exert all your puny strength to struggle to live. +Your hand is clutching my arm, lightly it feels as a butterfly resting there. +Your chest is heaving, your tongue protruding, your skin turning dark, your +eyes swimming. ‘To live! To live! To live!’ you are crying; and you +are crying to live here and now, not hereafter. You doubt your immortality, eh? +Ha! ha! You are not sure of it. You won’t chance it. This life only you +are certain is real. Ah, it is growing dark and darker. It is the darkness of +death, the ceasing to be, the ceasing to feel, the ceasing to move, that is +gathering about you, descending upon you, rising around you. Your eyes are +becoming set. They are glazing. My voice sounds faint and far. You cannot see +my face. And still you struggle in my grip. You kick with your legs. Your body +draws itself up in knots like a snake’s. Your chest heaves and strains. +To live! To live! To live—” +</p> + +<p> +I heard no more. Consciousness was blotted out by the darkness he had so +graphically described, and when I came to myself I was lying on the floor and +he was smoking a cigar and regarding me thoughtfully with that old familiar +light of curiosity in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, have I convinced you?” he demanded. “Here take a drink +of this. I want to ask you some questions.” +</p> + +<p> +I rolled my head negatively on the floor. “Your arguments are +too—er—forcible,” I managed to articulate, at cost of great +pain to my aching throat. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be all right in half-an-hour,” he assured me. +“And I promise I won’t use any more physical demonstrations. Get up +now. You can sit on a chair.” +</p> + +<p> +And, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and the Preacher +was resumed. And half the night we sat up over it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p> +The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. From cabin +to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion. I scarcely know +where to begin. Wolf Larsen was really the cause of it. The relations among the +men, strained and made tense by feuds, quarrels and grudges, were in a state of +unstable equilibrium, and evil passions flared up in flame like prairie-grass. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge is a sneak, a spy, an informer. He has been attempting to curry +favour and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captain by carrying +tales of the men forward. He it was, I know, that carried some of +Johnson’s hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. Johnson, it seems, bought a suit of +oilskins from the slop-chest and found them to be of greatly inferior quality. +Nor was he slow in advertising the fact. The slop-chest is a sort of miniature +dry-goods store which is carried by all sealing schooners and which is stocked +with articles peculiar to the needs of the sailors. Whatever a sailor purchases +is taken from his subsequent earnings on the sealing grounds; for, as it is +with the hunters so it is with the boat-pullers and steerers—in the place +of wages they receive a “lay,” a rate of so much per skin for every +skin captured in their particular boat. +</p> + +<p> +But of Johnson’s grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, so that what +I witnessed came with a shock of sudden surprise. I had just finished sweeping +the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf Larsen into a discussion of Hamlet, +his favourite Shakespearian character, when Johansen descended the companion +stairs followed by Johnson. The latter’s cap came off after the custom of +the sea, and he stood respectfully in the centre of the cabin, swaying heavily +and uneasily to the roll of the schooner and facing the captain. +</p> + +<p> +“Shut the doors and draw the slide,” Wolf Larsen said to me. +</p> + +<p> +As I obeyed I noticed an anxious light come into Johnson’s eyes, but I +did not dream of its cause. I did not dream of what was to occur until it did +occur, but he knew from the very first what was coming and awaited it bravely. +And in his action I found complete refutation of all Wolf Larsen’s +materialism. The sailor Johnson was swayed by idea, by principle, and truth, +and sincerity. He was right, he knew he was right, and he was unafraid. He +would die for the right if needs be, he would be true to himself, sincere with +his soul. And in this was portrayed the victory of the spirit over the flesh, +the indomitability and moral grandeur of the soul that knows no restriction and +rises above time and space and matter with a surety and invincibleness born of +nothing else than eternity and immortality. +</p> + +<p> +But to return. I noticed the anxious light in Johnson’s eyes, but mistook +it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man. The mate, Johansen, +stood away several feet to the side of him, and fully three yards in front of +him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the pivotal cabin chairs. An appreciable pause +fell after I had closed the doors and drawn the slide, a pause that must have +lasted fully a minute. It was broken by Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +“Yonson,” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Johnson, sir,” the sailor boldly corrected. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Johnson, then, damn you! Can you guess why I have sent for +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and no, sir,” was the slow reply. “My work is done +well. The mate knows that, and you know it, sir. So there cannot be any +complaint.” +</p> + +<p> +“And is that all?” Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft, and low, +and purring. +</p> + +<p> +“I know you have it in for me,” Johnson continued with his +unalterable and ponderous slowness. “You do not like me. +You—you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on,” Wolf Larsen prompted. “Don’t be afraid of my +feelings.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not afraid,” the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising +through his sunburn. “If I speak not fast, it is because I have not been +from the old country as long as you. You do not like me because I am too much +of a man; that is why, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean, +and if you know what I mean,” was Wolf Larsen’s retort. +</p> + +<p> +“I know English, and I know what you mean, sir,” Johnson answered, +his flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English language. +</p> + +<p> +“Johnson,” Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had +gone before as introductory to the main business in hand, “I understand +you’re not quite satisfied with those oilskins?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am not. They are no good, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ve been shooting off your mouth about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say what I think, sir,” the sailor answered courageously, not +failing at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that +“sir” be appended to each speech he made. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. His big fists were +clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively fiendish, so malignantly +did he look at Johnson. I noticed a black discoloration, still faintly visible, +under Johansen’s eye, a mark of the thrashing he had received a few +nights before from the sailor. For the first time I began to divine that +something terrible was about to be enacted,—what, I could not imagine. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what happens to men who say what you’ve said about my +slop-chest and me?” Wolf Larsen was demanding. +</p> + +<p> +“I know, sir,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively. +</p> + +<p> +“What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at him, Hump,” Wolf Larsen said to me, “look at this +bit of animated dust, this aggregation of matter that moves and breathes and +defies me and thoroughly believes itself to be compounded of something good; +that is impressed with certain human fictions such as righteousness and +honesty, and that will live up to them in spite of all personal discomforts and +menaces. What do you think of him, Hump? What do you think of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think that he is a better man than you are,” I answered, +impelled, somehow, with a desire to draw upon myself a portion of the wrath I +felt was about to break upon his head. “His human fictions, as you choose +to call them, make for nobility and manhood. You have no fictions, no dreams, +no ideals. You are a pauper.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head with a savage pleasantness. “Quite true, Hump, quite +true. I have no fictions that make for nobility and manhood. A living dog is +better than a dead lion, say I with the Preacher. My only doctrine is the +doctrine of expediency, and it makes for surviving. This bit of the ferment we +call ‘Johnson,’ when he is no longer a bit of the ferment, only +dust and ashes, will have no more nobility than any dust and ashes, while I +shall still be alive and roaring.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what I am going to do?” he questioned. +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I am going to exercise my prerogative of roaring and show you how +fares nobility. Watch me.” +</p> + +<p> +Three yards away from Johnson he was, and sitting down. Nine feet! And yet he +left the chair in full leap, without first gaining a standing position. He left +the chair, just as he sat in it, squarely, springing from the sitting posture +like a wild animal, a tiger, and like a tiger covered the intervening space. It +was an avalanche of fury that Johnson strove vainly to fend off. He threw one +arm down to protect the stomach, the other arm up to protect the head; but Wolf +Larsen’s fist drove midway between, on the chest, with a crushing, +resounding impact. Johnson’s breath, suddenly expelled, shot from his +mouth and as suddenly checked, with the forced, audible expiration of a man +wielding an axe. He almost fell backward, and swayed from side to side in an +effort to recover his balance. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot give the further particulars of the horrible scene that followed. It +was too revolting. It turns me sick even now when I think of it. Johnson fought +bravely enough, but he was no match for Wolf Larsen, much less for Wolf Larsen +and the mate. It was frightful. I had not imagined a human being could endure +so much and still live and struggle on. And struggle on Johnson did. Of course +there was no hope for him, not the slightest, and he knew it as well as I, but +by the manhood that was in him he could not cease from fighting for that +manhood. +</p> + +<p> +It was too much for me to witness. I felt that I should lose my mind, and I ran +up the companion stairs to open the doors and escape on deck. But Wolf Larsen, +leaving his victim for the moment, and with one of his tremendous springs, +gained my side and flung me into the far corner of the cabin. +</p> + +<p> +“The phenomena of life, Hump,” he girded at me. “Stay and +watch it. You may gather data on the immortality of the soul. Besides, you +know, we can’t hurt Johnson’s soul. It’s only the fleeting +form we may demolish.” +</p> + +<p> +It seemed centuries—possibly it was no more than ten minutes that the +beating continued. Wolf Larsen and Johansen were all about the poor fellow. +They struck him with their fists, kicked him with their heavy shoes, knocked +him down, and dragged him to his feet to knock him down again. His eyes were +blinded so that he could not see, and the blood running from ears and nose and +mouth turned the cabin into a shambles. And when he could no longer rise they +still continued to beat and kick him where he lay. +</p> + +<p> +“Easy, Johansen; easy as she goes,” Wolf Larsen finally said. +</p> + +<p> +But the beast in the mate was up and rampant, and Wolf Larsen was compelled to +brush him away with a back-handed sweep of the arm, gentle enough, apparently, +but which hurled Johansen back like a cork, driving his head against the wall +with a crash. He fell to the floor, half stunned for the moment, breathing +heavily and blinking his eyes in a stupid sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +“Jerk open the doors, Hump,” I was commanded. +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a sack of rubbish +and hove him clear up the companion stairs, through the narrow doorway, and out +on deck. The blood from his nose gushed in a scarlet stream over the feet of +the helmsman, who was none other than Louis, his boat-mate. But Louis took and +gave a spoke and gazed imperturbably into the binnacle. +</p> + +<p> +Not so was the conduct of George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. Fore and aft +there was nothing that could have surprised us more than his consequent +behaviour. He it was that came up on the poop without orders and dragged +Johnson forward, where he set about dressing his wounds as well as he could and +making him comfortable. Johnson, as Johnson, was unrecognizable; and not only +that, for his features, as human features at all, were unrecognizable, so +discoloured and swollen had they become in the few minutes which had elapsed +between the beginning of the beating and the dragging forward of the body. +</p> + +<p> +But of Leach’s behaviour—By the time I had finished cleansing the +cabin he had taken care of Johnson. I had come up on deck for a breath of fresh +air and to try to get some repose for my overwrought nerves. Wolf Larsen was +smoking a cigar and examining the patent log which the <i>Ghost</i> usually +towed astern, but which had been hauled in for some purpose. Suddenly +Leach’s voice came to my ears. It was tense and hoarse with an +overmastering rage. I turned and saw him standing just beneath the break of the +poop on the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed and white, his eyes +were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead. +</p> + +<p> +“May God damn your soul to hell, Wolf Larsen, only hell’s too good +for you, you coward, you murderer, you pig!” was his opening salutation. +</p> + +<p> +I was thunderstruck. I looked for his instant annihilation. But it was not Wolf +Larsen’s whim to annihilate him. He sauntered slowly forward to the break +of the poop, and, leaning his elbow on the corner of the cabin, gazed down +thoughtfully and curiously at the excited boy. +</p> + +<p> +And the boy indicted Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted before. The +sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the forecastle scuttle and +watched and listened. The hunters piled pell-mell out of the steerage, but as +Leach’s tirade continued I saw that there was no levity in their faces. +Even they were frightened, not at the boy’s terrible words, but at his +terrible audacity. It did not seem possible that any living creature could thus +beard Wolf Larsen in his teeth. I know for myself that I was shocked into +admiration of the boy, and I saw in him the splendid invincibleness of +immortality rising above the flesh and the fears of the flesh, as in the +prophets of old, to condemn unrighteousness. +</p> + +<p> +And such condemnation! He haled forth Wolf Larsen’s soul naked to the +scorn of men. He rained upon it curses from God and High Heaven, and withered +it with a heat of invective that savoured of a mediæval excommunication of the +Catholic Church. He ran the gamut of denunciation, rising to heights of wrath +that were sublime and almost Godlike, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the +vilest and most indecent abuse. +</p> + +<p> +His rage was a madness. His lips were flecked with a soapy froth, and sometimes +he choked and gurgled and became inarticulate. And through it all, calm and +impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing down, Wolf Larsen seemed lost in a +great curiosity. This wild stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and +defiance of matter that moved, perplexed and interested him. +</p> + +<p> +Each moment I looked, and everybody looked, for him to leap upon the boy and +destroy him. But it was not his whim. His cigar went out, and he continued to +gaze silently and curiously. +</p> + +<p> +Leach had worked himself into an ecstasy of impotent rage. +</p> + +<p> +“Pig! Pig! Pig!” he was reiterating at the top of his lungs. +“Why don’t you come down and kill me, you murderer? You can do it! +I ain’t afraid! There’s no one to stop you! Damn sight better dead +and outa your reach than alive and in your clutches! Come on, you coward! Kill +me! Kill me! Kill me!” +</p> + +<p> +It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge’s erratic soul brought him into +the scene. He had been listening at the galley door, but he now came out, +ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, but obviously to see the killing +he was certain would take place. He smirked greasily up into the face of Wolf +Larsen, who seemed not to see him. But the Cockney was unabashed, though mad, +stark mad. He turned to Leach, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Such langwidge! Shockin’!” +</p> + +<p> +Leach’s rage was no longer impotent. Here at last was something ready to +hand. And for the first time since the stabbing the Cockney had appeared +outside the galley without his knife. The words had barely left his mouth when +he was knocked down by Leach. Three times he struggled to his feet, striving to +gain the galley, and each time was knocked down. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lord!” he cried. “’Elp! ’Elp! Tyke ’im +aw’y, carn’t yer? Tyke ’im aw’y!” +</p> + +<p> +The hunters laughed from sheer relief. Tragedy had dwindled, the farce had +begun. The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning and shuffling, to watch the +pummelling of the hated Cockney. And even I felt a great joy surge up within +me. I confess that I delighted in this beating Leach was giving to Thomas +Mugridge, though it was as terrible, almost, as the one Mugridge had caused to +be given to Johnson. But the expression of Wolf Larsen’s face never +changed. He did not change his position either, but continued to gaze down with +a great curiosity. For all his pragmatic certitude, it seemed as if he watched +the play and movement of life in the hope of discovering something more about +it, of discerning in its maddest writhings a something which had hitherto +escaped him,—the key to its mystery, as it were, which would make all +clear and plain. +</p> + +<p> +But the beating! It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed in the cabin. +The Cockney strove in vain to protect himself from the infuriated boy. And in +vain he strove to gain the shelter of the cabin. He rolled toward it, grovelled +toward it, fell toward it when he was knocked down. But blow followed blow with +bewildering rapidity. He was knocked about like a shuttlecock, until, finally, +like Johnson, he was beaten and kicked as he lay helpless on the deck. And no +one interfered. Leach could have killed him, but, having evidently filled the +measure of his vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was +whimpering and wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward. +</p> + +<p> +But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day’s +programme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other, and a +fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by a stampede of the +other four hunters for the deck. A column of thick, acrid smoke—the kind +always made by black powder—was arising through the open companion-way, +and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen. The sound of blows and scuffling came +to our ears. Both men were wounded, and he was thrashing them both for having +disobeyed his orders and crippled themselves in advance of the hunting season. +In fact, they were badly wounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded to +operate upon them in a rough surgical fashion and to dress their wounds. I +served as assistant while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the +bullets, and I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anæsthetics and +with no more to uphold them than a stiff tumbler of whisky. +</p> + +<p> +Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle. It took +its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale-bearing which had been the cause of +Johnson’s beating, and from the noise we heard, and from the sight of the +bruised men next day, it was patent that half the forecastle had soundly +drubbed the other half. +</p> + +<p> +The second dog-watch and the day were wound up by a fight between Johansen and +the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. It was caused by remarks of +Latimer’s concerning the noises made by the mate in his sleep, and though +Johansen was whipped, he kept the steerage awake for the rest of the night +while he blissfully slumbered and fought the fight over and over again. +</p> + +<p> +As for myself, I was oppressed with nightmare. The day had been like some +horrible dream. Brutality had followed brutality, and flaming passions and +cold-blooded cruelty had driven men to seek one another’s lives, and to +strive to hurt, and maim, and destroy. My nerves were shocked. My mind itself +was shocked. All my days had been passed in comparative ignorance of the +animality of man. In fact, I had known life only in its intellectual phases. +Brutality I had experienced, but it was the brutality of the +intellect—the cutting sarcasm of Charley Furuseth, the cruel epigrams and +occasional harsh witticisms of the fellows at the Bibelot, and the nasty +remarks of some of the professors during my undergraduate days. +</p> + +<p> +That was all. But that men should wreak their anger on others by the bruising +of the flesh and the letting of blood was something strangely and fearfully new +to me. Not for nothing had I been called “Sissy” Van Weyden, I +thought, as I tossed restlessly on my bunk between one nightmare and another. +And it seemed to me that my innocence of the realities of life had been +complete indeed. I laughed bitterly to myself, and seemed to find in Wolf +Larsen’s forbidding philosophy a more adequate explanation of life than I +found in my own. +</p> + +<p> +And I was frightened when I became conscious of the trend of my thought. The +continual brutality around me was degenerative in its effect. It bid fair to +destroy for me all that was best and brightest in life. My reason dictated that +the beating Thomas Mugridge had received was an ill thing, and yet for the life +of me I could not prevent my soul joying in it. And even while I was oppressed +by the enormity of my sin,—for sin it was,—I chuckled with an +insane delight. I was no longer Humphrey Van Weyden. I was Hump, cabin-boy on +the schooner <i>Ghost</i>. Wolf Larsen was my captain, Thomas Mugridge and the +rest were my companions, and I was receiving repeated impresses from the die +which had stamped them all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p> +For three days I did my own work and Thomas Mugridge’s too; and I flatter +myself that I did his work well. I know that it won Wolf Larsen’s +approval, while the sailors beamed with satisfaction during the brief time my +<i>régime</i> lasted. +</p> + +<p> +“The first clean bite since I come aboard,” Harrison said to me at +the galley door, as he returned the dinner pots and pans from the forecastle. +“Somehow Tommy’s grub always tastes of grease, stale grease, and I +reckon he ain’t changed his shirt since he left ’Frisco.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know he hasn’t,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll bet he sleeps in it,” Harrison added. +</p> + +<p> +“And you won’t lose,” I agreed. “The same shirt, and he +hasn’t had it off once in all this time.” +</p> + +<p> +But three days was all Wolf Larsen allowed him in which to recover from the +effects of the beating. On the fourth day, lame and sore, scarcely able to see, +so closed were his eyes, he was haled from his bunk by the nape of the neck and +set to his duty. He sniffled and wept, but Wolf Larsen was pitiless. +</p> + +<p> +“And see that you serve no more slops,” was his parting injunction. +“No more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, or +you’ll get a tow over the side. Understand?” +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a short lurch of +the <i>Ghost</i> sent him staggering. In attempting to recover himself, he +reached for the iron railing which surrounded the stove and kept the pots from +sliding off; but he missed the railing, and his hand, with his weight behind +it, landed squarely on the hot surface. There was a sizzle and odour of burning +flesh, and a sharp cry of pain. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot ’ave I done?” he wailed; sitting down in +the coal-box and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth. +“W’y ’as all this come on me? It mykes me fair sick, it does, +an’ I try so ’ard to go through life ’armless an’ +’urtin’ nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +The tears were running down his puffed and discoloured cheeks, and his face was +drawn with pain. A savage expression flitted across it. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’ow I ’ate ’im! ’Ow I ’ate +’im!” he gritted out. +</p> + +<p> +“Whom?” I asked; but the poor wretch was weeping again over his +misfortunes. Less difficult it was to guess whom he hated than whom he did not +hate. For I had come to see a malignant devil in him which impelled him to hate +all the world. I sometimes thought that he hated even himself, so grotesquely +had life dealt with him, and so monstrously. At such moments a great sympathy +welled up within me, and I felt shame that I had ever joyed in his discomfiture +or pain. Life had been unfair to him. It had played him a scurvy trick when it +fashioned him into the thing he was, and it had played him scurvy tricks ever +since. What chance had he to be anything else than he was? And as though +answering my unspoken thought, he wailed: +</p> + +<p> +“I never ’ad no chance, not ’arf a chance! ’Oo was +there to send me to school, or put tommy in my ’ungry belly, or wipe my +bloody nose for me, w’en I was a kiddy? ’Oo ever did anything for +me, heh? ’Oo, I s’y?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Tommy,” I said, placing a soothing hand on his +shoulder. “Cheer up. It’ll all come right in the end. You’ve +long years before you, and you can make anything you please of yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a lie! a bloody lie!” he shouted in my face, flinging +off the hand. “It’s a lie, and you know it. I’m already myde, +an’ myde out of leavin’s an’ scraps. It’s all right for +you, ’Ump. You was born a gentleman. You never knew wot it was to go +’ungry, to cry yerself asleep with yer little belly gnawin’ +an’ gnawin’, like a rat inside yer. It carn’t come right. If +I was President of the United Stytes to-morrer, ’ow would it fill my +belly for one time w’en I was a kiddy and it went empty? +</p> + +<p> +“’Ow could it, I s’y? I was born to sufferin’ and +sorrer. I’ve had more cruel sufferin’ than any ten men, I +’ave. I’ve been in orspital arf my bleedin’ life. I’ve +’ad the fever in Aspinwall, in ’Avana, in New Orleans. I near died +of the scurvy and was rotten with it six months in Barbadoes. Smallpox in +’Onolulu, two broken legs in Shanghai, pnuemonia in Unalaska, three +busted ribs an’ my insides all twisted in ’Frisco. An’ +’ere I am now. Look at me! Look at me! My ribs kicked loose from my back +again. I’ll be coughin’ blood before eyght bells. ’Ow can it +be myde up to me, I arsk? ’Oo’s goin’ to do it? Gawd? +’Ow Gawd must ’ave ’ated me w’en ’e signed me on +for a voyage in this bloomin’ world of ’is!” +</p> + +<p> +This tirade against destiny went on for an hour or more, and then he buckled to +his work, limping and groaning, and in his eyes a great hatred for all created +things. His diagnosis was correct, however, for he was seized with occasional +sicknesses, during which he vomited blood and suffered great pain. And as he +said, it seemed God hated him too much to let him die, for he ultimately grew +better and waxed more malignant than ever. +</p> + +<p> +Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went about his work +in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, and I more than once observed +him creeping painfully aloft to a topsail, or drooping wearily as he stood at +the wheel. But, still worse, it seemed that his spirit was broken. He was +abject before Wolf Larsen and almost grovelled to Johansen. Not so was the +conduct of Leach. He went about the deck like a tiger cub, glaring his hatred +openly at Wolf Larsen and Johansen. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede,” I heard him say +to Johansen one night on deck. +</p> + +<p> +The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment some missile struck +the galley a sharp rap. There was more cursing, and a mocking laugh, and when +all was quiet I stole outside and found a heavy knife imbedded over an inch in +the solid wood. A few minutes later the mate came fumbling about in search of +it, but I returned it privily to Leach next day. He grinned when I handed it +over, yet it was a grin that contained more sincere thanks than a multitude of +the verbosities of speech common to the members of my own class. +</p> + +<p> +Unlike any one else in the ship’s company, I now found myself with no +quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of all. The hunters possibly no +more than tolerated me, though none of them disliked me; while Smoke and +Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning and swinging day and night in their +hammocks, assured me that I was better than any hospital nurse, and that they +would not forget me at the end of the voyage when they were paid off. (As +though I stood in need of their money! I, who could have bought them out, bag +and baggage, and the schooner and its equipment, a score of times over!) But +upon me had devolved the task of tending their wounds, and pulling them +through, and I did my best by them. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen underwent another bad attack of headache which lasted two days. He +must have suffered severely, for he called me in and obeyed my commands like a +sick child. But nothing I could do seemed to relieve him. At my suggestion, +however, he gave up smoking and drinking; though why such a magnificent animal +as he should have headaches at all puzzles me. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis the hand of God, I’m tellin’ you,” is the +way Louis sees it. “’Tis a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, +and there’s more behind and comin’, or else—” +</p> + +<p> +“Or else,” I prompted. +</p> + +<p> +“God is noddin’ and not doin’ his duty, though it’s me +as shouldn’t say it.” +</p> + +<p> +I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all. Not only does +Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but he has discovered a new reason for +hating me. It took me no little while to puzzle it out, but I finally +discovered that it was because I was more luckily born than +he—“gentleman born,” he put it. +</p> + +<p> +“And still no more dead men,” I twitted Louis, when Smoke and +Henderson, side by side, in friendly conversation, took their first exercise on +deck. +</p> + +<p> +Louis surveyed me with his shrewd grey eyes, and shook his head portentously. +“She’s a-comin’, I tell you, and it’ll be sheets and +halyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. I’ve had the feel +iv it this long time, and I can feel it now as plainly as I feel the rigging iv +a dark night. She’s close, she’s close.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who goes first?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Not fat old Louis, I promise you,” he laughed. “For +’tis in the bones iv me I know that come this time next year I’ll +be gazin’ in the old mother’s eyes, weary with watchin’ iv +the sea for the five sons she gave to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’s ’e been s’yin’ to yer?” Thomas +Mugridge demanded a moment later. +</p> + +<p> +“That he’s going home some day to see his mother,” I answered +diplomatically. +</p> + +<p> +“I never ’ad none,” was the Cockney’s comment, as he +gazed with lustreless, hopeless eyes into mine. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p> +It has dawned upon me that I have never placed a proper valuation upon +womankind. For that matter, though not amative to any considerable degree so +far as I have discovered, I was never outside the atmosphere of women until +now. My mother and sisters were always about me, and I was always trying to +escape them; for they worried me to distraction with their solicitude for my +health and with their periodic inroads on my den, when my orderly confusion, +upon which I prided myself, was turned into worse confusion and less order, +though it looked neat enough to the eye. I never could find anything when they +had departed. But now, alas, how welcome would have been the feel of their +presence, the frou-frou and swish-swish of their skirts which I had so +cordially detested! I am sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never be +irritable with them again. They may dose me and doctor me morning, noon, and +night, and dust and sweep and put my den to rights every minute of the day, and +I shall only lean back and survey it all and be thankful in that I am possessed +of a mother and some several sisters. +</p> + +<p> +All of which has set me wondering. Where are the mothers of these twenty and +odd men on the <i>Ghost</i>? It strikes me as unnatural and unhealthful that +men should be totally separated from women and herd through the world by +themselves. Coarseness and savagery are the inevitable results. These men about +me should have wives, and sisters, and daughters; then would they be capable of +softness, and tenderness, and sympathy. As it is, not one of them is married. +In years and years not one of them has been in contact with a good woman, or +within the influence, or redemption, which irresistibly radiates from such a +creature. There is no balance in their lives. Their masculinity, which in +itself is of the brute, has been over-developed. The other and spiritual side +of their natures has been dwarfed—atrophied, in fact. +</p> + +<p> +They are a company of celibates, grinding harshly against one another and +growing daily more calloused from the grinding. It seems to me impossible +sometimes that they ever had mothers. It would appear that they are a +half-brute, half-human species, a race apart, wherein there is no such thing as +sex; that they are hatched out by the sun like turtle eggs, or receive life in +some similar and sordid fashion; and that all their days they fester in +brutality and viciousness, and in the end die as unlovely as they have lived. +</p> + +<p> +Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with Johansen last +night—the first superfluous words with which he has favoured me since the +voyage began. He left Sweden when he was eighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in +all the intervening time has not been home once. He had met a townsman, a +couple of years before, in some sailor boarding-house in Chile, so that he knew +his mother to be still alive. +</p> + +<p> +“She must be a pretty old woman now,” he said, staring meditatively +into the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, who was steering +a point off the course. +</p> + +<p> +“When did you last write to her?” +</p> + +<p> +He performed his mental arithmetic aloud. “Eighty-one; +no—eighty-two, eh? no—eighty-three? Yes, eighty-three. Ten years +ago. From some little port in Madagascar. I was trading. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” he went on, as though addressing his neglected mother +across half the girth of the earth, “each year I was going home. So what +was the good to write? It was only a year. And each year something happened, +and I did not go. But I am mate, now, and when I pay off at ’Frisco, +maybe with five hundred dollars, I will ship myself on a windjammer round the +Horn to Liverpool, which will give me more money; and then I will pay my +passage from there home. Then she will not do any more work.” +</p> + +<p> +“But does she work? now? How old is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“About seventy,” he answered. And then, boastingly, “We work +from the time we are born until we die, in my country. That’s why we live +so long. I will live to a hundred.” +</p> + +<p> +I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the last I ever heard +him utter. Perhaps they were the last he did utter, too. For, going down into +the cabin to turn in, I decided that it was too stuffy to sleep below. It was a +calm night. We were out of the Trades, and the <i>Ghost</i> was forging ahead +barely a knot an hour. So I tucked a blanket and pillow under my arm and went +up on deck. +</p> + +<p> +As I passed between Harrison and the binnacle, which was built into the top of +the cabin, I noticed that he was this time fully three points off. Thinking +that he was asleep, and wishing him to escape reprimand or worse, I spoke to +him. But he was not asleep. His eyes were wide and staring. He seemed greatly +perturbed, unable to reply to me. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you sick?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, and with a deep sign as of awakening, caught his breath. +</p> + +<p> +“You’d better get on your course, then,” I chided. +</p> + +<p> +He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing slowly to N.N.W. +and steady itself with slight oscillations. +</p> + +<p> +I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start on, when some +movement caught my eye and I looked astern to the rail. A sinewy hand, dripping +with water, was clutching the rail. A second hand took form in the darkness +beside it. I watched, fascinated. What visitant from the gloom of the deep was +I to behold? Whatever it was, I knew that it was climbing aboard by the +log-line. I saw a head, the hair wet and straight, shape itself, and then the +unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf Larsen. His right cheek was red with blood, +which flowed from some wound in the head. +</p> + +<p> +He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet, glancing +swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel, as though to assure himself of +his identity and that there was nothing to fear from him. The sea-water was +streaming from him. It made little audible gurgles which distracted me. As he +stepped toward me I shrank back instinctively, for I saw that in his eyes which +spelled death. +</p> + +<p> +“All right, Hump,” he said in a low voice. “Where’s the +mate?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. +</p> + +<p> +“Johansen!” he called softly. “Johansen!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is he?” he demanded of Harrison. +</p> + +<p> +The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for he answered +steadily enough, “I don’t know, sir. I saw him go for’ard a +little while ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“So did I go for’ard. But you will observe that I didn’t come +back the way I went. Can you explain it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must have been overboard, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen shook his head. “You wouldn’t find him, Hump. But +you’ll do. Come on. Never mind your bedding. Leave it where it is.” +</p> + +<p> +I followed at his heels. There was nothing stirring amidships. +</p> + +<p> +“Those cursed hunters,” was his comment. “Too damned fat and +lazy to stand a four-hour watch.” +</p> + +<p> +But on the forecastle-head we found three sailors asleep. He turned them over +and looked at their faces. They composed the watch on deck, and it was the +ship’s custom, in good weather, to let the watch sleep with the exception +of the officer, the helmsman, and the look-out. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s look-out?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Me, sir,” answered Holyoak, one of the deep-water sailors, a +slight tremor in his voice. “I winked off just this very minute, sir. +I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you hear or see anything on deck?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir, I—” +</p> + +<p> +But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leaving the sailor +rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let off so easily. +</p> + +<p> +“Softly, now,” Wolf Larsen warned me in a whisper, as he doubled +his body into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend. +</p> + +<p> +I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew no more than did I +know what had happened. But blood had been shed, and it was through no whim of +Wolf Larsen that he had gone over the side with his scalp laid open. Besides, +Johansen was missing. +</p> + +<p> +It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not soon forget my +impression of it, caught as I stood on my feet at the bottom of the ladder. +Built directly in the eyes of the schooner, it was of the shape of a triangle, +along the three sides of which stood the bunks, in double-tier, twelve of them. +It was no larger than a hall bedroom in Grub Street, and yet twelve men were +herded into it to eat and sleep and carry on all the functions of living. My +bedroom at home was not large, yet it could have contained a dozen similar +forecastles, and taking into consideration the height of the ceiling, a score +at least. +</p> + +<p> +It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging sea-lamp I saw +every bit of available wall-space hung deep with sea-boots, oilskins, and +garments, clean and dirty, of various sorts. These swung back and forth with +every roll of the vessel, giving rise to a brushing sound, as of trees against +a roof or wall. Somewhere a boot thumped loudly and at irregular intervals +against the wall; and, though it was a mild night on the sea, there was a +continual chorus of the creaking timbers and bulkheads and of abysmal noises +beneath the flooring. +</p> + +<p> +The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them,—the two watches +below,—and the air was thick with the warmth and odour of their +breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their snoring and of their +sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the rest of the animal-man. But were +they sleeping? all of them? Or had they been sleeping? This was evidently Wolf +Larsen’s quest—to find the men who appeared to be asleep and who +were not asleep or who had not been asleep very recently. And he went about it +in a way that reminded me of a story out of Boccaccio. +</p> + +<p> +He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it to me. He began at +the first bunks forward on the star-board side. In the top one lay Oofty-Oofty, +a Kanaka and splendid seaman, so named by his mates. He was asleep on his back +and breathing as placidly as a woman. One arm was under his head, the other lay +on top of the blankets. Wolf Larsen put thumb and forefinger to the wrist and +counted the pulse. In the midst of it the Kanaka roused. He awoke as gently as +he slept. There was no movement of the body whatever. The eyes, only, moved. +They flashed wide open, big and black, and stared, unblinking, into our faces. +Wolf Larsen put his finger to his lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes +closed again. +</p> + +<p> +In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty, asleep +unfeignedly and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsen held his wrist he +stirred uneasily, bowing his body so that for a moment it rested on shoulders +and heels. His lips moved, and he gave voice to this enigmatic utterance: +</p> + +<p> +“A shilling’s worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out for +thruppenny-bits, or the publicans ’ll shove ’em on you for +sixpence.” +</p> + +<p> +Then he rolled over on his side with a heavy, sobbing sigh, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“A sixpence is a tanner, and a shilling a bob; but what a pony is I +don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka’s sleep, Wolf Larsen +passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side, occupied top and bottom, +as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, by Leach and Johnson. +</p> + +<p> +As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson’s pulse, I, +standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach’s head rise stealthily as +he peered over the side of his bunk to see what was going on. He must have +divined Wolf Larsen’s trick and the sureness of detection, for the light +was at once dashed from my hand and the forecastle was left in darkness. He +must have leaped, also, at the same instant, straight down on Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and a wolf. I heard a +great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen, and from Leach a snarling that +was desperate and blood-curdling. Johnson must have joined him immediately, so +that his abject and grovelling conduct on deck for the past few days had been +no more than planned deception. +</p> + +<p> +I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned against the +ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon me was that old sickness at +the pit of the stomach, caused always by the spectacle of physical violence. In +this instance I could not see, but I could hear the impact of the +blows—the soft crushing sound made by flesh striking forcibly against +flesh. Then there was the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the laboured +breathing, the short quick gasps of sudden pain. +</p> + +<p> +There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the captain and mate, +for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnson had been quickly reinforced by +some of their mates. +</p> + +<p> +“Get a knife somebody!” Leach was shouting. +</p> + +<p> +“Pound him on the head! Mash his brains out!” was Johnson’s +cry. +</p> + +<p> +But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. He was fighting grimly +and silently for life. He was sore beset. Down at the very first, he had been +unable to gain his feet, and for all of his tremendous strength I felt that +there was no hope for him. +</p> + +<p> +The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on me; for I was +knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised. But in the confusion I +managed to crawl into an empty lower bunk out of the way. +</p> + +<p> +“All hands! We’ve got him! We’ve got him!” I could hear +Leach crying. +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” demanded those who had been really asleep, and who had +wakened to they knew not what. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the bloody mate!” was Leach’s crafty answer, +strained from him in a smothered sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf Larsen had seven +strong men on top of him, Louis, I believe, taking no part in it. The +forecastle was like an angry hive of bees aroused by some marauder. +</p> + +<p> +“What ho! below there!” I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle, too +cautious to descend into the inferno of passion he could hear raging beneath +him in the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t somebody get a knife? Oh, won’t somebody get a +knife?” Leach pleaded in the first interval of comparative silence. +</p> + +<p> +The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. They blocked their own +efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single purpose, achieved his. This was +to fight his way across the floor to the ladder. Though in total darkness, I +followed his progress by its sound. No man less than a giant could have done +what he did, once he had gained the foot of the ladder. Step by step, by the +might of his arms, the whole pack of men striving to drag him back and down, he +drew his body up from the floor till he stood erect. And then, step by step, +hand and foot, he slowly struggled up the ladder. +</p> + +<p> +The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone for a lantern, +held it so that its light shone down the scuttle. Wolf Larsen was nearly to the +top, though I could not see him. All that was visible was the mass of men +fastened upon him. It squirmed about, like some huge many-legged spider, and +swayed back and forth to the regular roll of the vessel. And still, step by +step with long intervals between, the mass ascended. Once it tottered, about to +fall back, but the broken hold was regained and it still went up. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it?” Latimer cried. +</p> + +<p> +In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peering down. +</p> + +<p> +“Larsen,” I heard a muffled voice from within the mass. +</p> + +<p> +Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot up to clasp his. +Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps were made with a rush. Then Wolf +Larsen’s other hand reached up and clutched the edge of the scuttle. The +mass swung clear of the ladder, the men still clinging to their escaping foe. +They began to drop off, to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the +scuttle, to be knocked off by the legs which were now kicking powerfully. Leach +was the last to go, falling sheer back from the top of the scuttle and striking +on head and shoulders upon his sprawling mates beneath. Wolf Larsen and the +lantern disappeared, and we were left in darkness. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p> +There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom of the ladder +crawled to their feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Somebody strike a light, my thumb’s out of joint,” said one +of the men, Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat-steerer in Standish’s +boat, in which Harrison was puller. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find it knockin’ about by the bitts,” Leach +said, sitting down on the edge of the bunk in which I was concealed. +</p> + +<p> +There was a fumbling and a scratching of matches, and the sea-lamp flared up, +dim and smoky, and in its weird light bare-legged men moved about nursing their +bruises and caring for their hurts. Oofty-Oofty laid hold of Parsons’s +thumb, pulling it out stoutly and snapping it back into place. I noticed at the +same time that the Kanaka’s knuckles were laid open clear across and to +the bone. He exhibited them, exposing beautiful white teeth in a grin as he did +so, and explaining that the wounds had come from striking Wolf Larsen in the +mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“So it was you, was it, you black beggar?” belligerently demanded +one Kelly, an Irish-American and a longshoreman, making his first trip to sea, +and boat-puller for Kerfoot. +</p> + +<p> +As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shoved his +pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty. The Kanaka leaped backward to his bunk, +to return with a second leap, flourishing a long knife. +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, go lay down, you make me tired,” Leach interfered. He was +evidently, for all of his youth and inexperience, cock of the forecastle. +“G’wan, you Kelly. You leave Oofty alone. How in hell did he know +it was you in the dark?” +</p> + +<p> +Kelly subsided with some muttering, and the Kanaka flashed his white teeth in a +grateful smile. He was a beautiful creature, almost feminine in the pleasing +lines of his figure, and there was a softness and dreaminess in his large eyes +which seemed to contradict his well-earned reputation for strife and action. +</p> + +<p> +“How did he get away?” Johnson asked. +</p> + +<p> +He was sitting on the side of his bunk, the whole pose of his figure indicating +utter dejection and hopelessness. He was still breathing heavily from the +exertion he had made. His shirt had been ripped entirely from him in the +struggle, and blood from a gash in the cheek was flowing down his naked chest, +marking a red path across his white thigh and dripping to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“Because he is the devil, as I told you before,” was Leach’s +answer; and thereat he was on his feet and raging his disappointment with tears +in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“And not one of you to get a knife!” was his unceasing lament. +</p> + +<p> +But the rest of the hands had a lively fear of consequences to come and gave no +heed to him. +</p> + +<p> +“How’ll he know which was which?” Kelly asked, and as he went +on he looked murderously about him—“unless one of us +peaches.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll know as soon as ever he claps eyes on us,” Parsons +replied. “One look at you’d be enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell him the deck flopped up and gouged yer teeth out iv yer jaw,” +Louis grinned. He was the only man who was not out of his bunk, and he was +jubilant in that he possessed no bruises to advertise that he had had a hand in +the night’s work. “Just wait till he gets a glimpse iv yer mugs +to-morrow, the gang iv ye,” he chuckled. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll say we thought it was the mate,” said one. And +another, “I know what I’ll say—that I heered a row, jumped +out of my bunk, got a jolly good crack on the jaw for my pains, and sailed in +myself. Couldn’t tell who or what it was in the dark and just hit +out.” +</p> + +<p> +“An’ ’twas me you hit, of course,” Kelly seconded, his +face brightening for the moment. +</p> + +<p> +Leach and Johnson took no part in the discussion, and it was plain to see that +their mates looked upon them as men for whom the worst was inevitable, who were +beyond hope and already dead. Leach stood their fears and reproaches for some +time. Then he broke out: +</p> + +<p> +“You make me tired! A nice lot of gazabas you are! If you talked less +with yer mouth and did something with yer hands, he’d a-ben done with by +now. Why couldn’t one of you, just one of you, get me a knife when I sung +out? You make me sick! A-beefin’ and bellerin’ ’round, as +though he’d kill you when he gets you! You know damn well he wont. +Can’t afford to. No shipping masters or beach-combers over here, and he +wants yer in his business, and he wants yer bad. Who’s to pull or steer +or sail ship if he loses yer? It’s me and Johnson have to face the music. +Get into yer bunks, now, and shut yer faces; I want to get some sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right all right,” Parsons spoke up. “Mebbe +he won’t do for us, but mark my words, hell ’ll be an ice-box to +this ship from now on.” +</p> + +<p> +All the while I had been apprehensive concerning my own predicament. What would +happen to me when these men discovered my presence? I could never fight my way +out as Wolf Larsen had done. And at this moment Latimer called down the +scuttles: +</p> + +<p> +“Hump! The old man wants you!” +</p> + +<p> +“He ain’t down here!” Parsons called back. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he is,” I said, sliding out of the bunk and striving my +hardest to keep my voice steady and bold. +</p> + +<p> +The sailors looked at me in consternation. Fear was strong in their faces, and +the devilishness which comes of fear. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m coming!” I shouted up to Latimer. +</p> + +<p> +“No you don’t!” Kelly cried, stepping between me and the +ladder, his right hand shaped into a veritable strangler’s clutch. +“You damn little sneak! I’ll shut yer mouth!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him go,” Leach commanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Not on yer life,” was the angry retort. +</p> + +<p> +Leach never changed his position on the edge of the bunk. “Let him go, I +say,” he repeated; but this time his voice was gritty and metallic. +</p> + +<p> +The Irishman wavered. I made to step by him, and he stood aside. When I had +gained the ladder, I turned to the circle of brutal and malignant faces peering +at me through the semi-darkness. A sudden and deep sympathy welled up in me. I +remembered the Cockney’s way of putting it. How God must have hated them +that they should be tortured so! +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen and heard nothing, believe me,” I said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell yer, he’s all right,” I could hear Leach saying as I +went up the ladder. “He don’t like the old man no more nor you or +me.” +</p> + +<p> +I found Wolf Larsen in the cabin, stripped and bloody, waiting for me. He +greeted me with one of his whimsical smiles. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, get to work, Doctor. The signs are favourable for an extensive +practice this voyage. I don’t know what the <i>Ghost</i> would have been +without you, and if I could only cherish such noble sentiments I would tell you +her master is deeply grateful.” +</p> + +<p> +I knew the run of the simple medicine-chest the <i>Ghost</i> carried, and while +I was heating water on the cabin stove and getting the things ready for +dressing his wounds, he moved about, laughing and chatting, and examining his +hurts with a calculating eye. I had never before seen him stripped, and the +sight of his body quite took my breath away. It has never been my weakness to +exalt the flesh—far from it; but there is enough of the artist in me to +appreciate its wonder. +</p> + +<p> +I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf Larsen’s +figure, and by what I may term the terrible beauty of it. I had noted the men +in the forecastle. Powerfully muscled though some of them were, there had been +something wrong with all of them, an insufficient development here, an undue +development there, a twist or a crook that destroyed symmetry, legs too short +or too long, or too much sinew or bone exposed, or too little. Oofty-Oofty had +been the only one whose lines were at all pleasing, while, in so far as they +pleased, that far had they been what I should call feminine. +</p> + +<p> +But Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god in his +perfectness. As he moved about or raised his arms the great muscles leapt and +moved under the satiny skin. I have forgotten to say that the bronze ended with +his face. His body, thanks to his Scandinavian stock, was fair as the fairest +woman’s. I remember his putting his hand up to feel of the wound on his +head, and my watching the biceps move like a living thing under its white +sheath. It was the biceps that had nearly crushed out my life once, that I had +seen strike so many killing blows. I could not take my eyes from him. I stood +motionless, a roll of antiseptic cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling +itself down to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +He noticed me, and I became conscious that I was staring at him. +</p> + +<p> +“God made you well,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Did he?” he answered. “I have often thought so myself, and +wondered why.” +</p> + +<p> +“Purpose—” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“Utility,” he interrupted. “This body was made for use. These +muscles were made to grip, and tear, and destroy living things that get between +me and life. But have you thought of the other living things? They, too, have +muscles, of one kind and another, made to grip, and tear, and destroy; and when +they come between me and life, I out-grip them, out-tear them, out-destroy +them. Purpose does not explain that. Utility does.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not beautiful,” I protested. +</p> + +<p> +“Life isn’t, you mean,” he smiled. “Yet you say I was +made well. Do you see this?” +</p> + +<p> +He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes in a +clutching sort of way. Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles writhed and +bunched under the skin. +</p> + +<p> +“Feel them,” he commanded. +</p> + +<p> +They were hard as iron. And I observed, also, that his whole body had +unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that muscles were softly +crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, and across the shoulders; +that the arms were slightly lifted, their muscles contracting, the fingers +crooking till the hands were like talons; and that even the eyes had changed +expression and into them were coming watchfulness and measurement and a light +none other than of battle. +</p> + +<p> +“Stability, equilibrium,” he said, relaxing on the instant and +sinking his body back into repose. “Feet with which to clutch the ground, +legs to stand on and to help withstand, while with arms and hands, teeth and +nails, I struggle to kill and to be not killed. Purpose? Utility is the better +word.” +</p> + +<p> +I did not argue. I had seen the mechanism of the primitive fighting beast, and +I was as strongly impressed as if I had seen the engines of a great battleship +or Atlantic liner. +</p> + +<p> +I was surprised, considering the fierce struggle in the forecastle, at the +superficiality of his hurts, and I pride myself that I dressed them +dexterously. With the exception of several bad wounds, the rest were merely +severe bruises and lacerations. The blow which he had received before going +overboard had laid his scalp open several inches. This, under his direction, I +cleansed and sewed together, having first shaved the edges of the wound. Then +the calf of his leg was badly lacerated and looked as though it had been +mangled by a bulldog. Some sailor, he told me, had laid hold of it by his +teeth, at the beginning of the fight, and hung on and been dragged to the top +of the forecastle ladder, when he was kicked loose. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Hump, as I have remarked, you are a handy man,” Wolf +Larsen began, when my work was done. “As you know, we’re short a +mate. Hereafter you shall stand watches, receive seventy-five dollars per +month, and be addressed fore and aft as Mr. Van Weyden.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I don’t understand navigation, you know,” I gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“Not necessary at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I really do not care to sit in the high places,” I objected. +“I find life precarious enough in my present humble situation. I have no +experience. Mediocrity, you see, has its compensations.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled as though it were all settled. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t be mate on this hell-ship!” I cried defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +I saw his face grow hard and the merciless glitter come into his eyes. He +walked to the door of his room, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“And now, Mr. Van Weyden, good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Mr. Larsen,” I answered weakly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p> +I cannot say that the position of mate carried with it anything more joyful +than that there were no more dishes to wash. I was ignorant of the simplest +duties of mate, and would have fared badly indeed, had the sailors not +sympathized with me. I knew nothing of the minutiæ of ropes and rigging, of the +trimming and setting of sails; but the sailors took pains to put me to +rights,—Louis proving an especially good teacher,—and I had little +trouble with those under me. +</p> + +<p> +With the hunters it was otherwise. Familiar in varying degree with the sea, +they took me as a sort of joke. In truth, it was a joke to me, that I, the +veriest landsman, should be filling the office of mate; but to be taken as a +joke by others was a different matter. I made no complaint, but Wolf Larsen +demanded the most punctilious sea etiquette in my case,—far more than +poor Johansen had ever received; and at the expense of several rows, threats, +and much grumbling, he brought the hunters to time. I was “Mr. Van +Weyden” fore and aft, and it was only unofficially that Wolf Larsen +himself ever addressed me as “Hump.” +</p> + +<p> +It was amusing. Perhaps the wind would haul a few points while we were at +dinner, and as I left the table he would say, “Mr. Van Weyden, will you +kindly put about on the port tack.” And I would go on deck, beckon Louis +to me, and learn from him what was to be done. Then, a few minutes later, +having digested his instructions and thoroughly mastered the manœuvre, I would +proceed to issue my orders. I remember an early instance of this kind, when +Wolf Larsen appeared on the scene just as I had begun to give orders. He smoked +his cigar and looked on quietly till the thing was accomplished, and then paced +aft by my side along the weather poop. +</p> + +<p> +“Hump,” he said, “I beg pardon, Mr. Van Weyden, I +congratulate you. I think you can now fire your father’s legs back into +the grave to him. You’ve discovered your own and learned to stand on +them. A little rope-work, sail-making, and experience with storms and such +things, and by the end of the voyage you could ship on any coasting +schooner.” +</p> + +<p> +It was during this period, between the death of Johansen and the arrival on the +sealing grounds, that I passed my pleasantest hours on the <i>Ghost</i>. Wolf +Larsen was quite considerate, the sailors helped me, and I was no longer in +irritating contact with Thomas Mugridge. And I make free to say, as the days +went by, that I found I was taking a certain secret pride in myself. Fantastic +as the situation was,—a land-lubber second in command,—I was, +nevertheless, carrying it off well; and during that brief time I was proud of +myself, and I grew to love the heave and roll of the <i>Ghost</i> under my feet +as she wallowed north and west through the tropic sea to the islet where we +filled our water-casks. +</p> + +<p> +But my happiness was not unalloyed. It was comparative, a period of less misery +slipped in between a past of great miseries and a future of great miseries. For +the <i>Ghost</i>, so far as the seamen were concerned, was a hell-ship of the +worst description. They never had a moment’s rest or peace. Wolf Larsen +treasured against them the attempt on his life and the drubbing he had received +in the forecastle; and morning, noon, and night, and all night as well, he +devoted himself to making life unlivable for them. +</p> + +<p> +He knew well the psychology of the little thing, and it was the little things +by which he kept the crew worked up to the verge of madness. I have seen +Harrison called from his bunk to put properly away a misplaced paintbrush, and +the two watches below haled from their tired sleep to accompany him and see him +do it. A little thing, truly, but when multiplied by the thousand ingenious +devices of such a mind, the mental state of the men in the forecastle may be +slightly comprehended. +</p> + +<p> +Of course much grumbling went on, and little outbursts were continually +occurring. Blows were struck, and there were always two or three men nursing +injuries at the hands of the human beast who was their master. Concerted action +was impossible in face of the heavy arsenal of weapons carried in the steerage +and cabin. Leach and Johnson were the two particular victims of Wolf +Larsen’s diabolic temper, and the look of profound melancholy which had +settled on Johnson’s face and in his eyes made my heart bleed. +</p> + +<p> +With Leach it was different. There was too much of the fighting beast in him. +He seemed possessed by an insatiable fury which gave no time for grief. His +lips had become distorted into a permanent snarl, which at mere sight of Wolf +Larsen broke out in sound, horrible and menacing and, I do believe, +unconsciously. I have seen him follow Wolf Larsen about with his eyes, like an +animal its keeper, the while the animal-like snarl sounded deep in his throat +and vibrated forth between his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +I remember once, on deck, in bright day, touching him on the shoulder as +preliminary to giving an order. His back was toward me, and at the first feel +of my hand he leaped upright in the air and away from me, snarling and turning +his head as he leaped. He had for the moment mistaken me for the man he hated. +</p> + +<p> +Both he and Johnson would have killed Wolf Larsen at the slightest opportunity, +but the opportunity never came. Wolf Larsen was too wise for that, and, +besides, they had no adequate weapons. With their fists alone they had no +chance whatever. Time and again he fought it out with Leach who fought back +always, like a wildcat, tooth and nail and fist, until stretched, exhausted or +unconscious, on the deck. And he was never averse to another encounter. All the +devil that was in him challenged the devil in Wolf Larsen. They had but to +appear on deck at the same time, when they would be at it, cursing, snarling, +striking; and I have seen Leach fling himself upon Wolf Larsen without warning +or provocation. Once he threw his heavy sheath-knife, missing Wolf +Larsen’s throat by an inch. Another time he dropped a steel marlinspike +from the mizzen crosstree. It was a difficult cast to make on a rolling ship, +but the sharp point of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through the air, +barely missed Wolf Larsen’s head as he emerged from the cabin +companion-way and drove its length two inches and over into the solid +deck-planking. Still another time, he stole into the steerage, possessed +himself of a loaded shot-gun, and was making a rush for the deck with it when +caught by Kerfoot and disarmed. +</p> + +<p> +I often wondered why Wolf Larsen did not kill him and make an end of it. But he +only laughed and seemed to enjoy it. There seemed a certain spice about it, +such as men must feel who take delight in making pets of ferocious animals. +</p> + +<p> +“It gives a thrill to life,” he explained to me, “when life +is carried in one’s hand. Man is a natural gambler, and life is the +biggest stake he can lay. The greater the odds, the greater the thrill. Why +should I deny myself the joy of exciting Leach’s soul to fever-pitch? For +that matter, I do him a kindness. The greatness of sensation is mutual. He is +living more royally than any man for’ard, though he does not know it. For +he has what they have not—purpose, something to do and be done, an +all-absorbing end to strive to attain, the desire to kill me, the hope that he +may kill me. Really, Hump, he is living deep and high. I doubt that he has ever +lived so swiftly and keenly before, and I honestly envy him, sometimes, when I +see him raging at the summit of passion and sensibility.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but it is cowardly, cowardly!” I cried. “You have all +the advantage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of the two of us, you and I, who is the greater coward?” he asked +seriously. “If the situation is unpleasing, you compromise with your +conscience when you make yourself a party to it. If you were really great, +really true to yourself, you would join forces with Leach and Johnson. But you +are afraid, you are afraid. You want to live. The life that is in you cries out +that it must live, no matter what the cost; so you live ignominiously, untrue +to the best you dream of, sinning against your whole pitiful little code, and, +if there were a hell, heading your soul straight for it. Bah! I play the braver +part. I do no sin, for I am true to the promptings of the life that is in me. I +am sincere with my soul at least, and that is what you are not.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a sting in what he said. Perhaps, after all, I was playing a cowardly +part. And the more I thought about it the more it appeared that my duty to +myself lay in doing what he had advised, lay in joining forces with Johnson and +Leach and working for his death. Right here, I think, entered the austere +conscience of my Puritan ancestry, impelling me toward lurid deeds and +sanctioning even murder as right conduct. I dwelt upon the idea. It would be a +most moral act to rid the world of such a monster. Humanity would be better and +happier for it, life fairer and sweeter. +</p> + +<p> +I pondered it long, lying sleepless in my bunk and reviewing in endless +procession the facts of the situation. I talked with Johnson and Leach, during +the night watches when Wolf Larsen was below. Both men had lost +hope—Johnson, because of temperamental despondency; Leach, because he had +beaten himself out in the vain struggle and was exhausted. But he caught my +hand in a passionate grip one night, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“I think yer square, Mr. Van Weyden. But stay where you are and keep yer +mouth shut. Say nothin’ but saw wood. We’re dead men, I know it; +but all the same you might be able to do us a favour some time when we need it +damn bad.” +</p> + +<p> +It was only next day, when Wainwright Island loomed to windward, close abeam, +that Wolf Larsen opened his mouth in prophecy. He had attacked Johnson, been +attacked by Leach, and had just finished whipping the pair of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Leach,” he said, “you know I’m going to kill you some +time or other, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +A snarl was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“And as for you, Johnson, you’ll get so tired of life before +I’m through with you that you’ll fling yourself over the side. See +if you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a suggestion,” he added, in an aside to me. +“I’ll bet you a month’s pay he acts upon it.” +</p> + +<p> +I had cherished a hope that his victims would find an opportunity to escape +while filling our water-barrels, but Wolf Larsen had selected his spot well. +The <i>Ghost</i> lay half-a-mile beyond the surf-line of a lonely beach. Here +debouched a deep gorge, with precipitous, volcanic walls which no man could +scale. And here, under his direct supervision—for he went ashore +himself—Leach and Johnson filled the small casks and rolled them down to +the beach. They had no chance to make a break for liberty in one of the boats. +</p> + +<p> +Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt. They composed one of the +boats’ crews, and their task was to ply between the schooner and the +shore, carrying a single cask each trip. Just before dinner, starting for the +beach with an empty barrel, they altered their course and bore away to the left +to round the promontory which jutted into the sea between them and liberty. +Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty villages of the Japanese colonists and +smiling valleys which penetrated deep into the interior. Once in the fastnesses +they promised, and the two men could defy Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +I had observed Henderson and Smoke loitering about the deck all morning, and I +now learned why they were there. Procuring their rifles, they opened fire in a +leisurely manner, upon the deserters. It was a cold-blooded exhibition of +marksmanship. At first their bullets zipped harmlessly along the surface of the +water on either side the boat; but, as the men continued to pull lustily, they +struck closer and closer. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, watch me take Kelly’s right oar,” Smoke said, drawing a +more careful aim. +</p> + +<p> +I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter as he shot. +Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison’s right oar. The boat slewed +around. The two remaining oars were quickly broken. The men tried to row with +the splinters, and had them shot out of their hands. Kelly ripped up a bottom +board and began paddling, but dropped it with a cry of pain as its splinters +drove into his hands. Then they gave up, letting the boat drift till a second +boat, sent from the shore by Wolf Larsen, took them in tow and brought them +aboard. +</p> + +<p> +Late that afternoon we hove up anchor and got away. Nothing was before us but +the three or four months’ hunting on the sealing grounds. The outlook was +black indeed, and I went about my work with a heavy heart. An almost funereal +gloom seemed to have descended upon the <i>Ghost</i>. Wolf Larsen had taken to +his bunk with one of his strange, splitting headaches. Harrison stood +listlessly at the wheel, half supporting himself by it, as though wearied by +the weight of his flesh. The rest of the men were morose and silent. I came +upon Kelly crouching to the lee of the forecastle scuttle, his head on his +knees, his arms about his head, in an attitude of unutterable despondency. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson I found lying full length on the forecastle head, staring at the +troubled churn of the forefoot, and I remembered with horror the suggestion +Wolf Larsen had made. It seemed likely to bear fruit. I tried to break in on +the man’s morbid thoughts by calling him away, but he smiled sadly at me +and refused to obey. +</p> + +<p> +Leach approached me as I returned aft. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to ask a favour, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said. “If +it’s yer luck to ever make ’Frisco once more, will you hunt up Matt +McCarthy? He’s my old man. He lives on the Hill, back of the Mayfair +bakery, runnin’ a cobbler’s shop that everybody knows, and +you’ll have no trouble. Tell him I lived to be sorry for the trouble I +brought him and the things I done, and—and just tell him ‘God bless +him,’ for me.” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded my head, but said, “We’ll all win back to San Francisco, +Leach, and you’ll be with me when I go to see Matt McCarthy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d like to believe you,” he answered, shaking my hand, +“but I can’t. Wolf Larsen ’ll do for me, I know it; and all I +can hope is, he’ll do it quick.” +</p> + +<p> +And as he left me I was aware of the same desire at my heart. Since it was to +be done, let it be done with despatch. The general gloom had gathered me into +its folds. The worst appeared inevitable; and as I paced the deck, hour after +hour, I found myself afflicted with Wolf Larsen’s repulsive ideas. What +was it all about? Where was the grandeur of life that it should permit such +wanton destruction of human souls? It was a cheap and sordid thing after all, +this life, and the sooner over the better. Over and done with! I, too, leaned +upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner +or later I should be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its +oblivion. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p> +Strange to say, in spite of the general foreboding, nothing of especial moment +happened on the <i>Ghost</i>. We ran on to the north and west till we raised +the coast of Japan and picked up with the great seal herd. Coming from no man +knew where in the illimitable Pacific, it was travelling north on its annual +migration to the rookeries of Bering Sea. And north we travelled with it, +ravaging and destroying, flinging the naked carcasses to the shark and salting +down the skins so that they might later adorn the fair shoulders of the women +of the cities. +</p> + +<p> +It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman’s sake. No man ate of the seal +meat or the oil. After a good day’s killing I have seen our decks covered +with hides and bodies, slippery with fat and blood, the scuppers running red; +masts, ropes, and rails spattered with the sanguinary colour; and the men, like +butchers plying their trade, naked and red of arm and hand, hard at work with +ripping and flensing-knives, removing the skins from the pretty sea-creatures +they had killed. +</p> + +<p> +It was my task to tally the pelts as they came aboard from the boats, to +oversee the skinning and afterward the cleansing of the decks and bringing +things ship-shape again. It was not pleasant work. My soul and my stomach +revolted at it; and yet, in a way, this handling and directing of many men was +good for me. It developed what little executive ability I possessed, and I was +aware of a toughening or hardening which I was undergoing and which could not +be anything but wholesome for “Sissy” Van Weyden. +</p> + +<p> +One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could never again be +quite the same man I had been. While my hope and faith in human life still +survived Wolf Larsen’s destructive criticism, he had nevertheless been a +cause of change in minor matters. He had opened up for me the world of the +real, of which I had known practically nothing and from which I had always +shrunk. I had learned to look more closely at life as it was lived, to +recognize that there were such things as facts in the world, to emerge from the +realm of mind and idea and to place certain values on the concrete and +objective phases of existence. +</p> + +<p> +I saw more of Wolf Larsen than ever when we had gained the grounds. For when +the weather was fair and we were in the midst of the herd, all hands were away +in the boats, and left on board were only he and I, and Thomas Mugridge, who +did not count. But there was no play about it. The six boats, spreading out +fan-wise from the schooner until the first weather boat and the last lee boat +were anywhere from ten to twenty miles apart, cruised along a straight course +over the sea till nightfall or bad weather drove them in. It was our duty to +sail the <i>Ghost</i> well to leeward of the last lee boat, so that all the +boats should have fair wind to run for us in case of squalls or threatening +weather. +</p> + +<p> +It is no slight matter for two men, particularly when a stiff wind has sprung +up, to handle a vessel like the <i>Ghost</i>, steering, keeping look-out for +the boats, and setting or taking in sail; so it devolved upon me to learn, and +learn quickly. Steering I picked up easily, but running aloft to the crosstrees +and swinging my whole weight by my arms when I left the ratlines and climbed +still higher, was more difficult. This, too, I learned, and quickly, for I felt +somehow a wild desire to vindicate myself in Wolf Larsen’s eyes, to prove +my right to live in ways other than of the mind. Nay, the time came when I took +joy in the run of the masthead and in the clinging on by my legs at that +precarious height while I swept the sea with glasses in search of the boats. +</p> + +<p> +I remember one beautiful day, when the boats left early and the reports of the +hunters’ guns grew dim and distant and died away as they scattered far +and wide over the sea. There was just the faintest wind from the westward; but +it breathed its last by the time we managed to get to leeward of the last lee +boat. One by one—I was at the masthead and saw—the six boats +disappeared over the bulge of the earth as they followed the seal into the +west. We lay, scarcely rolling on the placid sea, unable to follow. Wolf Larsen +was apprehensive. The barometer was down, and the sky to the east did not +please him. He studied it with unceasing vigilance. +</p> + +<p> +“If she comes out of there,” he said, “hard and snappy, +putting us to windward of the boats, it’s likely there’ll be empty +bunks in steerage and fo’c’sle.” +</p> + +<p> +By eleven o’clock the sea had become glass. By midday, though we were +well up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening. There was no +freshness in the air. It was sultry and oppressive, reminding me of what the +old Californians term “earthquake weather.” There was something +ominous about it, and in intangible ways one was made to feel that the worst +was about to come. Slowly the whole eastern sky filled with clouds that +over-towered us like some black sierra of the infernal regions. So clearly +could one see cañon, gorge, and precipice, and the shadows that lie +therein, that one looked unconsciously for the white surf-line and bellowing +caverns where the sea charges on the land. And still we rocked gently, and +there was no wind. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no squall,” Wolf Larsen said. “Old Mother +Nature’s going to get up on her hind legs and howl for all that’s +in her, and it’ll keep us jumping, Hump, to pull through with half our +boats. You’d better run up and loosen the topsails.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us?” I +asked, a note of protest in my voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Why we’ve got to make the best of the first of it and run down to +our boats before our canvas is ripped out of us. After that I don’t give +a rap what happens. The sticks ’ll stand it, and you and I will have to, +though we’ve plenty cut out for us.” +</p> + +<p> +Still the calm continued. We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious meal for me with +eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the bulge of the earth, and with that +heaven-rolling mountain range of clouds moving slowly down upon us. Wolf Larsen +did not seem affected, however; though I noticed, when we returned to the deck, +a slight twitching of the nostrils, a perceptible quickness of movement. His +face was stern, the lines of it had grown hard, and yet in his eyes—blue, +clear blue this day—there was a strange brilliancy, a bright +scintillating light. It struck me that he was joyous, in a ferocious sort of +way; that he was glad there was an impending struggle; that he was thrilled and +upborne with knowledge that one of the great moments of living, when the tide +of life surges up in flood, was upon him. +</p> + +<p> +Once, and unwitting that he did so or that I saw, he laughed aloud, mockingly +and defiantly, at the advancing storm. I see him yet standing there like a +pigmy out of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> before the huge front of some malignant +genie. He was daring destiny, and he was unafraid. +</p> + +<p> +He walked to the galley. “Cooky, by the time you’ve finished pots +and pans you’ll be wanted on deck. Stand ready for a call.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hump,” he said, becoming cognizant of the fascinated gaze I bent +upon him, “this beats whisky and is where your Omar misses. I think he +only half lived after all.” +</p> + +<p> +The western half of the sky had by now grown murky. The sun had dimmed and +faded out of sight. It was two in the afternoon, and a ghostly twilight, shot +through by wandering purplish lights, had descended upon us. In this purplish +light Wolf Larsen’s face glowed and glowed, and to my excited fancy he +appeared encircled by a halo. We lay in the midst of an unearthly quiet, while +all about us were signs and omens of oncoming sound and movement. The sultry +heat had become unendurable. The sweat was standing on my forehead, and I could +feel it trickling down my nose. I felt as though I should faint, and reached +out to the rail for support. +</p> + +<p> +And then, just then, the faintest possible whisper of air passed by. It was +from the east, and like a whisper it came and went. The drooping canvas was not +stirred, and yet my face had felt the air and been cooled. +</p> + +<p> +“Cooky,” Wolf Larsen called in a low voice. Thomas Mugridge turned +a pitiable scared face. “Let go that foreboom tackle and pass it across, +and when she’s willing let go the sheet and come in snug with the tackle. +And if you make a mess of it, it will be the last you ever make. +Understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Van Weyden, stand by to pass the head-sails over. Then jump for the +topsails and spread them quick as God’ll let you—the quicker you do +it the easier you’ll find it. As for Cooky, if he isn’t lively bat +him between the eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +I was aware of the compliment and pleased, in that no threat had accompanied my +instructions. We were lying head to north-west, and it was his intention to +jibe over all with the first puff. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll have the breeze on our quarter,” he explained to me. +“By the last guns the boats were bearing away slightly to the +south’ard.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned and walked aft to the wheel. I went forward and took my station at +the jibs. Another whisper of wind, and another, passed by. The canvas flapped +lazily. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Gawd she’s not comin’ all of a bunch, Mr. Van +Weyden,” was the Cockney’s fervent ejaculation. +</p> + +<p> +And I was indeed thankful, for I had by this time learned enough to know, with +all our canvas spread, what disaster in such event awaited us. The whispers of +wind became puffs, the sails filled, the <i>Ghost</i> moved. Wolf Larsen put +the wheel hard up, to port, and we began to pay off. The wind was now dead +astern, muttering and puffing stronger and stronger, and my head-sails were +pounding lustily. I did not see what went on elsewhere, though I felt the +sudden surge and heel of the schooner as the wind-pressures changed to the +jibing of the fore- and main-sails. My hands were full with the flying-jib, +jib, and staysail; and by the time this part of my task was accomplished the +<i>Ghost</i> was leaping into the south-west, the wind on her quarter and all +her sheets to starboard. Without pausing for breath, though my heart was +beating like a trip-hammer from my exertions, I sprang to the topsails, and +before the wind had become too strong we had them fairly set and were coiling +down. Then I went aft for orders. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen nodded approval and relinquished the wheel to me. The wind was +strengthening steadily and the sea rising. For an hour I steered, each moment +becoming more difficult. I had not the experience to steer at the gait we were +going on a quartering course. +</p> + +<p> +“Now take a run up with the glasses and raise some of the boats. +We’ve made at least ten knots, and we’re going twelve or thirteen +now. The old girl knows how to walk.” +</p> + +<p> +I contested myself with the fore crosstrees, some seventy feet above the deck. +As I searched the vacant stretch of water before me, I comprehended thoroughly +the need for haste if we were to recover any of our men. Indeed, as I gazed at +the heavy sea through which we were running, I doubted that there was a boat +afloat. It did not seem possible that such frail craft could survive such +stress of wind and water. +</p> + +<p> +I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running with it; but +from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside the <i>Ghost</i> and apart +from her, and saw the shape of her outlined sharply against the foaming sea as +she tore along instinct with life. Sometimes she would lift and send across +some great wave, burying her starboard-rail from view, and covering her deck to +the hatches with the boiling ocean. At such moments, starting from a windward +roll, I would go flying through the air with dizzying swiftness, as though I +clung to the end of a huge, inverted pendulum, the arc of which, between the +greater rolls, must have been seventy feet or more. Once, the terror of this +giddy sweep overpowered me, and for a while I clung on, hand and foot, weak and +trembling, unable to search the sea for the missing boats or to behold aught of +the sea but that which roared beneath and strove to overwhelm the <i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied me, and in my quest for +them I forgot myself. For an hour I saw nothing but the naked, desolate sea. +And then, where a vagrant shaft of sunlight struck the ocean and turned its +surface to wrathful silver, I caught a small black speck thrust skyward for an +instant and swallowed up. I waited patiently. Again the tiny point of black +projected itself through the wrathful blaze a couple of points off our +port-bow. I did not attempt to shout, but communicated the news to Wolf Larsen +by waving my arm. He changed the course, and I signalled affirmation when the +speck showed dead ahead. +</p> + +<p> +It grew larger, and so swiftly that for the first time I fully appreciated the +speed of our flight. Wolf Larsen motioned for me to come down, and when I stood +beside him at the wheel gave me instructions for heaving to. +</p> + +<p> +“Expect all hell to break loose,” he cautioned me, “but +don’t mind it. Yours is to do your own work and to have Cooky stand by +the fore-sheet.” +</p> + +<p> +I managed to make my way forward, but there was little choice of sides, for the +weather-rail seemed buried as often as the lee. Having instructed Thomas +Mugridge as to what he was to do, I clambered into the fore-rigging a few feet. +The boat was now very close, and I could make out plainly that it was lying +head to wind and sea and dragging on its mast and sail, which had been thrown +overboard and made to serve as a sea-anchor. The three men were bailing. Each +rolling mountain whelmed them from view, and I would wait with sickening +anxiety, fearing that they would never appear again. Then, and with black +suddenness, the boat would shoot clear through the foaming crest, bow pointed +to the sky, and the whole length of her bottom showing, wet and dark, till she +seemed on end. There would be a fleeting glimpse of the three men flinging +water in frantic haste, when she would topple over and fall into the yawning +valley, bow down and showing her full inside length to the stern upreared +almost directly above the bow. Each time that she reappeared was a miracle. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Ghost</i> suddenly changed her course, keeping away, and it came to me +with a shock that Wolf Larsen was giving up the rescue as impossible. Then I +realized that he was preparing to heave to, and dropped to the deck to be in +readiness. We were now dead before the wind, the boat far away and abreast of +us. I felt an abrupt easing of the schooner, a loss for the moment of all +strain and pressure, coupled with a swift acceleration of speed. She was +rushing around on her heel into the wind. +</p> + +<p> +As she arrived at right angles to the sea, the full force of the wind (from +which we had hitherto run away) caught us. I was unfortunately and ignorantly +facing it. It stood up against me like a wall, filling my lungs with air which +I could not expel. And as I choked and strangled, and as the <i>Ghost</i> +wallowed for an instant, broadside on and rolling straight over and far into +the wind, I beheld a huge sea rise far above my head. I turned aside, caught my +breath, and looked again. The wave over-topped the <i>Ghost</i>, and I gazed +sheer up and into it. A shaft of sunlight smote the over-curl, and I caught a +glimpse of translucent, rushing green, backed by a milky smother of foam. +</p> + +<p> +Then it descended, pandemonium broke loose, everything happened at once. I was +struck a crushing, stunning blow, nowhere in particular and yet everywhere. My +hold had been broken loose, I was under water, and the thought passed through +my mind that this was the terrible thing of which I had heard, the being swept +in the trough of the sea. My body struck and pounded as it was dashed +helplessly along and turned over and over, and when I could hold my breath no +longer, I breathed the stinging salt water into my lungs. But through it all I +clung to the one idea—<i>I must get the jib backed over to windward</i>. +I had no fear of death. I had no doubt but that I should come through somehow. +And as this idea of fulfilling Wolf Larsen’s order persisted in my dazed +consciousness, I seemed to see him standing at the wheel in the midst of the +wild welter, pitting his will against the will of the storm and defying it. +</p> + +<p> +I brought up violently against what I took to be the rail, breathed, and +breathed the sweet air again. I tried to rise, but struck my head and was +knocked back on hands and knees. By some freak of the waters I had been swept +clear under the forecastle-head and into the eyes. As I scrambled out on all +fours, I passed over the body of Thomas Mugridge, who lay in a groaning heap. +There was no time to investigate. I must get the jib backed over. +</p> + +<p> +When I emerged on deck it seemed that the end of everything had come. On all +sides there was a rending and crashing of wood and steel and canvas. The +<i>Ghost</i> was being wrenched and torn to fragments. The foresail and +fore-topsail, emptied of the wind by the manœuvre, and with no one to bring in +the sheet in time, were thundering into ribbons, the heavy boom threshing and +splintering from rail to rail. The air was thick with flying wreckage, detached +ropes and stays were hissing and coiling like snakes, and down through it all +crashed the gaff of the foresail. +</p> + +<p> +The spar could not have missed me by many inches, while it spurred me to +action. Perhaps the situation was not hopeless. I remembered Wolf +Larsen’s caution. He had expected all hell to break loose, and here it +was. And where was he? I caught sight of him toiling at the main-sheet, heaving +it in and flat with his tremendous muscles, the stern of the schooner lifted +high in the air and his body outlined against a white surge of sea sweeping +past. All this, and more,—a whole world of chaos and wreck,—in +possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped. +</p> + +<p> +I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but sprang to the +jib-sheet. The jib itself was beginning to slap, partially filling and emptying +with sharp reports; but with a turn of the sheet and the application of my +whole strength each time it slapped, I slowly backed it. This I know: I did my +best. I pulled till I burst open the ends of all my fingers; and while I +pulled, the flying-jib and staysail split their cloths apart and thundered into +nothingness. +</p> + +<p> +Still I pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double turn until the +next slap gave me more. Then the sheet gave with greater ease, and Wolf Larsen +was beside me, heaving in alone while I was busied taking up the slack. +</p> + +<p> +“Make fast!” he shouted. “And come on!” +</p> + +<p> +As I followed him, I noted that in spite of rack and ruin a rough order +obtained. The <i>Ghost</i> was hove to. She was still in working order, and she +was still working. Though the rest of her sails were gone, the jib, backed to +windward, and the mainsail hauled down flat, were themselves holding, and +holding her bow to the furious sea as well. +</p> + +<p> +I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat-tackles, saw it +lift to leeward on a big sea and not a score of feet away. And, so nicely had he +made his calculation, we drifted fairly down upon it, so that nothing remained +to do but hook the tackles to either end and hoist it aboard. But this was not +done so easily as it is written. +</p> + +<p> +In the bow was Kerfoot, Oofty-Oofty in the stern, and Kelly amidships. As we +drifted closer the boat would rise on a wave while we sank in the trough, till +almost straight above me I could see the heads of the three men craned overside +and looking down. Then, the next moment, we would lift and soar upward while +they sank far down beneath us. It seemed incredible that the next surge should +not crush the <i>Ghost</i> down upon the tiny eggshell. +</p> + +<p> +But, at the right moment, I passed the tackle to the Kanaka, while Wolf Larsen +did the same thing forward to Kerfoot. Both tackles were hooked in a trice, and +the three men, deftly timing the roll, made a simultaneous leap aboard the +schooner. As the <i>Ghost</i> rolled her side out of water, the boat was lifted +snugly against her, and before the return roll came, we had heaved it in over +the side and turned it bottom up on the deck. I noticed blood spouting from +Kerfoot’s left hand. In some way the third finger had been crushed to a +pulp. But he gave no sign of pain, and with his single right hand helped us +lash the boat in its place. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand by to let that jib over, you Oofty!” Wolf Larsen commanded, +the very second we had finished with the boat. “Kelly, come aft and slack +off the main-sheet! You, Kerfoot, go for’ard and see what’s become +of Cooky! Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut away any stray stuff on your +way!” +</p> + +<p> +And having commanded, he went aft with his peculiar tigerish leaps to the +wheel. While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the <i>Ghost</i> slowly paid off. +This time, as we went into the trough of the sea and were swept, there were no +sails to carry away. And, halfway to the crosstrees and flattened against the +rigging by the full force of the wind so that it would have been impossible for +me to have fallen, the <i>Ghost</i> almost on her beam-ends and the masts +parallel with the water, I looked, not down, but at almost right angles from +the perpendicular, to the deck of the <i>Ghost</i>. But I saw, not the deck, +but where the deck should have been, for it was buried beneath a wild tumbling +of water. Out of this water I could see the two masts rising, and that was all. +The <i>Ghost</i>, for the moment, was buried beneath the sea. As she squared +off more and more, escaping from the side pressure, she righted herself and +broke her deck, like a whale’s back, through the ocean surface. +</p> + +<p> +Then we raced, and wildly, across the wild sea, the while I hung like a fly in +the crosstrees and searched for the other boats. In half-an-hour I sighted the +second one, swamped and bottom up, to which were desperately clinging Jock +Horner, fat Louis, and Johnson. This time I remained aloft, and Wolf Larsen +succeeded in heaving to without being swept. As before, we drifted down upon +it. Tackles were made fast and lines flung to the men, who scrambled aboard +like monkeys. The boat itself was crushed and splintered against the +schooner’s side as it came inboard; but the wreck was securely lashed, +for it could be patched and made whole again. +</p> + +<p> +Once more the <i>Ghost</i> bore away before the storm, this time so submerging +herself that for some seconds I thought she would never reappear. Even the +wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist, was covered and swept again and +again. At such moments I felt strangely alone with God, alone with him and +watching the chaos of his wrath. And then the wheel would reappear, and Wolf +Larsen’s broad shoulders, his hands gripping the spokes and holding the +schooner to the course of his will, himself an earth-god, dominating the storm, +flinging its descending waters from him and riding it to his own ends. And oh, +the marvel of it! the marvel of it! That tiny men should live and breathe and +work, and drive so frail a contrivance of wood and cloth through so tremendous +an elemental strife. +</p> + +<p> +As before, the <i>Ghost</i> swung out of the trough, lifting her deck again out +of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. It was now half-past five, and +half-an-hour later, when the last of the day lost itself in a dim and furious +twilight, I sighted a third boat. It was bottom up, and there was no sign of +its crew. Wolf Larsen repeated his manœuvre, holding off and then rounding up +to windward and drifting down upon it. But this time he missed by forty feet, +the boat passing astern. +</p> + +<p> +“Number four boat!” Oofty-Oofty cried, his keen eyes reading its +number in the one second when it lifted clear of the foam, and upside down. +</p> + +<p> +It was Henderson’s boat and with him had been lost Holyoak and Williams, +another of the deep-water crowd. Lost they indubitably were; but the boat +remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless effort to recover it. I had +come down to the deck, and I saw Horner and Kerfoot vainly protest against the +attempt. +</p> + +<p> +“By God, I’ll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that ever blew +out of hell!” he shouted, and though we four stood with our heads +together that we might hear, his voice seemed faint and far, as though removed +from us an immense distance. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Van Weyden!” he cried, and I heard through the tumult as one +might hear a whisper. “Stand by that jib with Johnson and Oofty! The rest +of you tail aft to the mainsheet! Lively now! or I’ll sail you all into +Kingdom Come! Understand?” +</p> + +<p> +And when he put the wheel hard over and the <i>Ghost’s</i> bow swung off, +there was nothing for the hunters to do but obey and make the best of a risky +chance. How great the risk I realized when I was once more buried beneath the +pounding seas and clinging for life to the pinrail at the foot of the foremast. +My fingers were torn loose, and I swept across to the side and over the side +into the sea. I could not swim, but before I could sink I was swept back again. +A strong hand gripped me, and when the <i>Ghost</i> finally emerged, I found +that I owed my life to Johnson. I saw him looking anxiously about him, and +noted that Kelly, who had come forward at the last moment, was missing. +</p> + +<p> +This time, having missed the boat, and not being in the same position as in the +previous instances, Wolf Larsen was compelled to resort to a different +manœuvre. Running off before the wind with everything to starboard, he came +about, and returned close-hauled on the port tack. +</p> + +<p> +“Grand!” Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came through +the attendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen’s +seamanship, but to the performance of the <i>Ghost</i> herself. +</p> + +<p> +It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat; but Wolf Larsen held +back through the frightful turmoil as if guided by unerring instinct. This +time, though we were continually half-buried, there was no trough in which to +be swept, and we drifted squarely down upon the upturned boat, badly smashing +it as it was heaved inboard. +</p> + +<p> +Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of us—two +hunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen and I—reefed, first one and then the +other, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this short canvas, our decks were +comparatively free of water, while the <i>Ghost</i> bobbed and ducked amongst +the combers like a cork. +</p> + +<p> +I had burst open the ends of my fingers at the very first, and during the +reefing I had worked with tears of pain running down my cheeks. And when all +was done, I gave up like a woman and rolled upon the deck in the agony of +exhaustion. +</p> + +<p> +In the meantime Thomas Mugridge, like a drowned rat, was being dragged out from +under the forecastle head where he had cravenly ensconced himself. I saw him +pulled aft to the cabin, and noted with a shock of surprise that the galley had +disappeared. A clean space of deck showed where it had stood. +</p> + +<p> +In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well, and while coffee was +being cooked over the small stove we drank whisky and crunched hard-tack. Never +in my life had food been so welcome. And never had hot coffee tasted so good. +So violently did the <i>Ghost</i> pitch and toss and tumble that it was +impossible for even the sailors to move about without holding on, and several +times, after a cry of “Now she takes it!” we were heaped upon the +wall of the port cabins as though it had been the deck. +</p> + +<p> +“To hell with a look-out,” I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had +eaten and drunk our fill. “There’s nothing can be done on deck. If +anything’s going to run us down we couldn’t get out of its way. +Turn in, all hands, and get some sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, while the +two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being deemed advisable to +open the slide to the steerage companion-way. Wolf Larsen and I, between us, +cut off Kerfoot’s crushed finger and sewed up the stump. Mugridge, who, +during all the time he had been compelled to cook and serve coffee and keep the +fire going, had complained of internal pains, now swore that he had a broken +rib or two. On examination we found that he had three. But his case was +deferred to next day, principally for the reason that I did not know anything +about broken ribs and would first have to read it up. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it was worth it,” I said to Wolf Larsen, +“a broken boat for Kelly’s life.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Kelly didn’t amount to much,” was the reply. +“Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in my finger-ends, and +with three boats missing, to say nothing of the wild capers the <i>Ghost</i> +was cutting, I should have thought it impossible to sleep. But my eyes must +have closed the instant my head touched the pillow, and in utter exhaustion I +slept throughout the night, the while the <i>Ghost</i>, lonely and undirected, +fought her way through the storm. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p> +The next day, while the storm was blowing itself out, Wolf Larsen and I crammed +anatomy and surgery and set Mugridge’s ribs. Then, when the storm broke, +Wolf Larsen cruised back and forth over that portion of the ocean where we had +encountered it, and somewhat more to the westward, while the boats were being +repaired and new sails made and bent. Sealing schooner after sealing schooner +we sighted and boarded, most of which were in search of lost boats, and most of +which were carrying boats and crews they had picked up and which did not belong +to them. For the thick of the fleet had been to the westward of us, and the +boats, scattered far and wide, had headed in mad flight for the nearest refuge. +</p> + +<p> +Two of our boats, with men all safe, we took off the <i>Cisco</i>, and, to Wolf +Larsen’s huge delight and my own grief, he culled Smoke, with Nilson and +Leach, from the <i>San Diego</i>. So that, at the end of five days, we found +ourselves short but four men—Henderson, Holyoak, Williams, and +Kelly,—and were once more hunting on the flanks of the herd. +</p> + +<p> +As we followed it north we began to encounter the dreaded sea-fogs. Day after +day the boats lowered and were swallowed up almost ere they touched the water, +while we on board pumped the horn at regular intervals and every fifteen +minutes fired the bomb gun. Boats were continually being lost and found, it +being the custom for a boat to hunt, on lay, with whatever schooner picked it +up, until such time it was recovered by its own schooner. But Wolf Larsen, as +was to be expected, being a boat short, took possession of the first stray one +and compelled its men to hunt with the <i>Ghost</i>, not permitting them to +return to their own schooner when we sighted it. I remember how he forced the +hunter and his two men below, a rifle at their breasts, when their captain +passed by at biscuit-toss and hailed us for information. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge, so strangely and pertinaciously clinging to life, was soon +limping about again and performing his double duties of cook and cabin-boy. +Johnson and Leach were bullied and beaten as much as ever, and they looked for +their lives to end with the end of the hunting season; while the rest of the +crew lived the lives of dogs and were worked like dogs by their pitiless +master. As for Wolf Larsen and myself, we got along fairly well; though I could +not quite rid myself of the idea that right conduct, for me, lay in killing +him. He fascinated me immeasurably, and I feared him immeasurably. And yet, I +could not imagine him lying prone in death. There was an endurance, as of +perpetual youth, about him, which rose up and forbade the picture. I could see +him only as living always, and dominating always, fighting and destroying, +himself surviving. +</p> + +<p> +One diversion of his, when we were in the midst of the herd and the sea was too +rough to lower the boats, was to lower with two boat-pullers and a steerer and +go out himself. He was a good shot, too, and brought many a skin aboard under +what the hunters termed impossible hunting conditions. It seemed the breath of +his nostrils, this carrying his life in his hands and struggling for it against +tremendous odds. +</p> + +<p> +I was learning more and more seamanship; and one clear day—a thing we +rarely encountered now—I had the satisfaction of running and handling the +<i>Ghost</i> and picking up the boats myself. Wolf Larsen had been smitten with +one of his headaches, and I stood at the wheel from morning until evening, +sailing across the ocean after the last lee boat, and heaving to and picking it +and the other five up without command or suggestion from him. +</p> + +<p> +Gales we encountered now and again, for it was a raw and stormy region, and, in +the middle of June, a typhoon most memorable to me and most important because +of the changes wrought through it upon my future. We must have been caught +nearly at the centre of this circular storm, and Wolf Larsen ran out of it and +to the southward, first under a double-reefed jib, and finally under bare +poles. Never had I imagined so great a sea. The seas previously encountered +were as ripples compared with these, which ran a half-mile from crest to crest +and which upreared, I am confident, above our masthead. So great was it that +Wolf Larsen himself did not dare heave to, though he was being driven far to +the southward and out of the seal herd. +</p> + +<p> +We must have been well in the path of the trans-Pacific steamships when the +typhoon moderated, and here, to the surprise of the hunters, we found ourselves +in the midst of seals—a second herd, or sort of rear-guard, they +declared, and a most unusual thing. But it was “Boats over!” the +boom-boom of guns, and the pitiful slaughter through the long day. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this time that I was approached by Leach. I had just finished +tallying the skins of the last boat aboard, when he came to my side, in the +darkness, and said in a low tone: +</p> + +<p> +“Can you tell me, Mr. Van Weyden, how far we are off the coast, and what +the bearings of Yokohama are?” +</p> + +<p> +My heart leaped with gladness, for I knew what he had in mind, and I gave him +the bearings—west-north-west, and five hundred miles away. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir,” was all he said as he slipped back into the +darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning No. 3 boat and Johnson and Leach were missing. The water-breakers +and grub-boxes from all the other boats were likewise missing, as were the beds +and sea bags of the two men. Wolf Larsen was furious. He set sail and bore away +into the west-north-west, two hunters constantly at the mastheads and sweeping +the sea with glasses, himself pacing the deck like an angry lion. He knew too +well my sympathy for the runaways to send me aloft as look-out. +</p> + +<p> +The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle in a +haystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity. But he put the +<i>Ghost</i> through her best paces so as to get between the deserters and the +land. This accomplished, he cruised back and forth across what he knew must be +their course. +</p> + +<p> +On the morning of the third day, shortly after eight bells, a cry that the boat +was sighted came down from Smoke at the masthead. All hands lined the rail. A +snappy breeze was blowing from the west with the promise of more wind behind +it; and there, to leeward, in the troubled silver of the rising sun, appeared +and disappeared a black speck. +</p> + +<p> +We squared away and ran for it. My heart was as lead. I felt myself turning +sick in anticipation; and as I looked at the gleam of triumph in Wolf +Larsen’s eyes, his form swam before me, and I felt almost irresistibly +impelled to fling myself upon him. So unnerved was I by the thought of +impending violence to Leach and Johnson that my reason must have left me. I +know that I slipped down into the steerage in a daze, and that I was just +beginning the ascent to the deck, a loaded shot-gun in my hands, when I heard +the startled cry: +</p> + +<p> +“There’s five men in that boat!” +</p> + +<p> +I supported myself in the companion-way, weak and trembling, while the +observation was being verified by the remarks of the rest of the men. Then my +knees gave from under me and I sank down, myself again, but overcome by shock +at knowledge of what I had so nearly done. Also, I was very thankful as I put +the gun away and slipped back on deck. +</p> + +<p> +No one had remarked my absence. The boat was near enough for us to make out +that it was larger than any sealing boat and built on different lines. As we +drew closer, the sail was taken in and the mast unstepped. Oars were shipped, +and its occupants waited for us to heave to and take them aboard. +</p> + +<p> +Smoke, who had descended to the deck and was now standing by my side, began to +chuckle in a significant way. I looked at him inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +“Talk of a mess!” he giggled. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s wrong?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +Again he chuckled. “Don’t you see there, in the stern-sheets, on +the bottom? May I never shoot a seal again if that ain’t a woman!” +</p> + +<p> +I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamations broke out on all sides. +The boat contained four men, and its fifth occupant was certainly a woman. We +were agog with excitement, all except Wolf Larsen, who was too evidently +disappointed in that it was not his own boat with the two victims of his +malice. +</p> + +<p> +We ran down the flying jib, hauled the jib-sheets to wind-ward and the +main-sheet flat, and came up into the wind. The oars struck the water, and with +a few strokes the boat was alongside. I now caught my first fair glimpse of the +woman. She was wrapped in a long ulster, for the morning was raw; and I could +see nothing but her face and a mass of light brown hair escaping from under the +seaman’s cap on her head. The eyes were large and brown and lustrous, the +mouth sweet and sensitive, and the face itself a delicate oval, though sun and +exposure to briny wind had burnt the face scarlet. +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a hungry +out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. But then, I had not seen +a woman for a very long time. I know that I was lost in a great wonder, almost +a stupor,—this, then, was a woman?—so that I forgot myself and my +mate’s duties, and took no part in helping the new-comers aboard. For +when one of the sailors lifted her into Wolf Larsen’s downstretched arms, +she looked up into our curious faces and smiled amusedly and sweetly, as only a +woman can smile, and as I had seen no one smile for so long that I had +forgotten such smiles existed. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Van Weyden!” +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen’s voice brought me sharply back to myself. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you take the lady below and see to her comfort? Make up that spare +port cabin. Put Cooky to work on it. And see what you can do for that face. +It’s burned badly.” +</p> + +<p> +He turned brusquely away from us and began to question the new men. The boat +was cast adrift, though one of them called it a “bloody shame” with +Yokohama so near. +</p> + +<p> +I found myself strangely afraid of this woman I was escorting aft. Also I was +awkward. It seemed to me that I was realizing for the first time what a +delicate, fragile creature a woman is; and as I caught her arm to help her down +the companion stairs, I was startled by its smallness and softness. Indeed, she +was a slender, delicate woman as women go, but to me she was so ethereally +slender and delicate that I was quite prepared for her arm to crumble in my +grasp. All this, in frankness, to show my first impression, after long denial +of women in general and of Maud Brewster in particular. +</p> + +<p> +“No need to go to any great trouble for me,” she protested, when I +had seated her in Wolf Larsen’s arm-chair, which I had dragged hastily +from his cabin. “The men were looking for land at any moment this +morning, and the vessel should be in by night; don’t you think so?” +</p> + +<p> +Her simple faith in the immediate future took me aback. How could I explain to +her the situation, the strange man who stalked the sea like Destiny, all that +it had taken me months to learn? But I answered honestly: +</p> + +<p> +“If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would be +ashore in Yokohama to-morrow. But our captain is a strange man, and I beg of +you to be prepared for anything—understand?—for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“I—I confess I hardly do understand,” she hesitated, a +perturbed but not frightened expression in her eyes. “Or is it a +misconception of mine that shipwrecked people are always shown every +consideration? This is such a little thing, you know. We are so close to +land.” +</p> + +<p> +“Candidly, I do not know,” I strove to reassure her. “I +wished merely to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come. This man, +this captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what will be his next +fantastic act.” +</p> + +<p> +I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an “Oh, I see,” +and her voice sounded weary. To think was patently an effort. She was clearly +on the verge of physical collapse. +</p> + +<p> +She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, devoting myself to +Wolf Larsen’s command, which was to make her comfortable. I bustled about +in quite housewifely fashion, procuring soothing lotions for her sunburn, +raiding Wolf Larsen’s private stores for a bottle of port I knew to be +there, and directing Thomas Mugridge in the preparation of the spare +state-room. +</p> + +<p> +The wind was freshening rapidly, the <i>Ghost</i> heeling over more and more, +and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing through the water at a +lively clip. I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach and Johnson, when +suddenly, like a thunderclap, “Boat ho!” came down the open +companion-way. It was Smoke’s unmistakable voice, crying from the +masthead. I shot a glance at the woman, but she was leaning back in the +arm-chair, her eyes closed, unutterably tired. I doubted that she had heard, +and I resolved to prevent her seeing the brutality I knew would follow the +capture of the deserters. She was tired. Very good. She should sleep. +</p> + +<p> +There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a slapping of +reef-points as the <i>Ghost</i> shot into the wind and about on the other tack. +As she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair began to slide across the cabin +floor, and I sprang for it just in time to prevent the rescued woman from being +spilled out. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepy surprise that +perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she half stumbled, half tottered, as +I led her to her cabin. Mugridge grinned insinuatingly in my face as I shoved +him out and ordered him back to his galley work; and he won his revenge by +spreading glowing reports among the hunters as to what an excellent +“lydy’s-myde” I was proving myself to be. +</p> + +<p> +She leaned heavily against me, and I do believe that she had fallen asleep +again between the arm-chair and the state-room. This I discovered when she +nearly fell into the bunk during a sudden lurch of the schooner. She aroused, +smiled drowsily, and was off to sleep again; and asleep I left her, under a +heavy pair of sailor’s blankets, her head resting on a pillow I had +appropriated from Wolf Larsen’s bunk. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<p> +I came on deck to find the <i>Ghost</i> heading up close on the port tack and +cutting in to windward of a familiar spritsail close-hauled on the same tack +ahead of us. All hands were on deck, for they knew that something was to happen +when Leach and Johnson were dragged aboard. +</p> + +<p> +It was four bells. Louis came aft to relieve the wheel. There was a dampness in +the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins. +</p> + +<p> +“What are we going to have?” I asked him. +</p> + +<p> +“A healthy young slip of a gale from the breath iv it, sir,” he +answered, “with a splatter iv rain just to wet our gills an’ no +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too bad we sighted them,” I said, as the <i>Ghost’s</i> bow +was flung off a point by a large sea and the boat leaped for a moment past the +jibs and into our line of vision. +</p> + +<p> +Louis gave a spoke and temporized. “They’d never iv made the land, +sir, I’m thinkin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Think not?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. Did you feel that?” (A puff had caught the schooner, and +he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out of the wind.) +“’Tis no egg-shell’ll float on this sea an hour come, +an’ it’s a stroke iv luck for them we’re here to pick +’em up.” +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen strode aft from amidships, where he had been talking with the +rescued men. The cat-like springiness in his tread was a little more pronounced +than usual, and his eyes were bright and snappy. +</p> + +<p> +“Three oilers and a fourth engineer,” was his greeting. “But +we’ll make sailors out of them, or boat-pullers at any rate. Now, what of +the lady?” +</p> + +<p> +I know not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang like the cut of a knife +when he mentioned her. I thought it a certain silly fastidiousness on my part, +but it persisted in spite of me, and I merely shrugged my shoulders in answer. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen pursed his lips in a long, quizzical whistle. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s her name, then?” he demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” I replied. “She is asleep. She was very +tired. In fact, I am waiting to hear the news from you. What vessel was +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mail steamer,” he answered shortly. “<i>The City of +Tokio</i>, from ’Frisco, bound for Yokohama. Disabled in that typhoon. +Old tub. Opened up top and bottom like a sieve. They were adrift four days. And +you don’t know who or what she is, eh?—maid, wife, or widow? Well, +well.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head in a bantering way, and regarded me with laughing eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you—” I began. It was on the verge of my tongue to ask +if he were going to take the castaways into Yokohama. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I what?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you intend doing with Leach and Johnson?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. “Really, Hump, I don’t know. You see, with these +additions I’ve about all the crew I want.” +</p> + +<p> +“And they’ve about all the escaping they want,” I said. +“Why not give them a change of treatment? Take them aboard, and deal +gently with them. Whatever they have done they have been hounded into +doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“By me?” +</p> + +<p> +“By you,” I answered steadily. “And I give you warning, Wolf +Larsen, that I may forget love of my own life in the desire to kill you if you +go too far in maltreating those poor wretches.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” he cried. “You do me proud, Hump! You’ve found +your legs with a vengeance. You’re quite an individual. You were +unfortunate in having your life cast in easy places, but you’re +developing, and I like you the better for it.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice and expression changed. His face was serious. “Do you believe +in promises?” he asked. “Are they sacred things?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Then here’s a compact,” he went on, consummate actor. +“If I promise not to lay my hands upon Leach will you promise, in turn, +not to attempt to kill me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not that I’m afraid of you, not that I’m afraid of +you,” he hastened to add. +</p> + +<p> +I could hardly believe my ears. What was coming over the man? +</p> + +<p> +“Is it a go?” he asked impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“A go,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +His hand went out to mine, and as I shook it heartily I could have sworn I saw +the mocking devil shine up for a moment in his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +We strolled across the poop to the lee side. The boat was close at hand now, +and in desperate plight. Johnson was steering, Leach bailing. We overhauled +them about two feet to their one. Wolf Larsen motioned Louis to keep off +slightly, and we dashed abreast of the boat, not a score of feet to windward. +The <i>Ghost</i> blanketed it. The spritsail flapped emptily and the boat +righted to an even keel, causing the two men swiftly to change position. The +boat lost headway, and, as we lifted on a huge surge, toppled and fell into the +trough. +</p> + +<p> +It was at this moment that Leach and Johnson looked up into the faces of their +shipmates, who lined the rail amidships. There was no greeting. They were as +dead men in their comrades’ eyes, and between them was the gulf that +parts the living and the dead. +</p> + +<p> +The next instant they were opposite the poop, where stood Wolf Larsen and I. We +were falling in the trough, they were rising on the surge. Johnson looked at +me, and I could see that his face was worn and haggard. I waved my hand to him, +and he answered the greeting, but with a wave that was hopeless and despairing. +It was as if he were saying farewell. I did not see into the eyes of Leach, for +he was looking at Wolf Larsen, the old and implacable snarl of hatred strong as +ever on his face. +</p> + +<p> +Then they were gone astern. The spritsail filled with the wind, suddenly, +careening the frail open craft till it seemed it would surely capsize. A +whitecap foamed above it and broke across in a snow-white smother. Then the +boat emerged, half swamped, Leach flinging the water out and Johnson clinging +to the steering-oar, his face white and anxious. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen barked a short laugh in my ear and strode away to the weather side +of the poop. I expected him to give orders for the <i>Ghost</i> to heave to, +but she kept on her course and he made no sign. Louis stood imperturbably at +the wheel, but I noticed the grouped sailors forward turning troubled faces in +our direction. Still the <i>Ghost</i> tore along, till the boat dwindled to a +speck, when Wolf Larsen’s voice rang out in command and he went about on +the starboard tack. +</p> + +<p> +Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling cockle-shell, +when the flying jib was run down and the schooner hove to. The sealing boats +are not made for windward work. Their hope lies in keeping a weather position +so that they may run before the wind for the schooner when it breezes up. But +in all that wild waste there was no refuge for Leach and Johnson save on the +<i>Ghost</i>, and they resolutely began the windward beat. It was slow work in +the heavy sea that was running. At any moment they were liable to be +overwhelmed by the hissing combers. Time and again and countless times we +watched the boat luff into the big whitecaps, lose headway, and be flung back +like a cork. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson was a splendid seaman, and he knew as much about small boats as he did +about ships. At the end of an hour and a half he was nearly alongside, standing +past our stern on the last leg out, aiming to fetch us on the next leg back. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’ve changed your mind?” I heard Wolf Larsen mutter, +half to himself, half to them as though they could hear. “You want to +come aboard, eh? Well, then, just keep a-coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hard up with that helm!” he commanded Oofty-Oofty, the Kanaka, who +had in the meantime relieved Louis at the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +Command followed command. As the schooner paid off, the fore- and main-sheets +were slacked away for fair wind. And before the wind we were, and leaping, when +Johnson, easing his sheet at imminent peril, cut across our wake a hundred feet +away. Again Wolf Larsen laughed, at the same time beckoning them with his arm +to follow. It was evidently his intention to play with them,—a lesson, I +took it, in lieu of a beating, though a dangerous lesson, for the frail craft +stood in momentary danger of being overwhelmed. +</p> + +<p> +Johnson squared away promptly and ran after us. There was nothing else for him +to do. Death stalked everywhere, and it was only a matter of time when some one +of those many huge seas would fall upon the boat, roll over it, and pass on. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis the fear iv death at the hearts iv them,” Louis +muttered in my ear, as I passed forward to see to taking in the flying jib and +staysail. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’ll heave to in a little while and pick them up,” I +answered cheerfully. “He’s bent upon giving them a lesson, +that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +Louis looked at me shrewdly. “Think so?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” I answered. “Don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think nothing but iv my own skin, these days,” was his answer. +“An’ ’tis with wonder I’m filled as to the +workin’ out iv things. A pretty mess that ’Frisco whisky got me +into, an’ a prettier mess that woman’s got you into aft there. Ah, +it’s myself that knows ye for a blitherin’ fool.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” I demanded; for, having sped his shaft, he was +turning away. +</p> + +<p> +“What do I mean?” he cried. “And it’s you that asks me! +’Tis not what I mean, but what the Wolf ’ll mean. The Wolf, I said, +the Wolf!” +</p> + +<p> +“If trouble comes, will you stand by?” I asked impulsively, for he +had voiced my own fear. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand by? ’Tis old fat Louis I stand by, an’ trouble enough +it’ll be. We’re at the beginnin’ iv things, I’m +tellin’ ye, the bare beginnin’ iv things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had not thought you so great a coward,” I sneered. +</p> + +<p> +He favoured me with a contemptuous stare. “If I raised never a hand for +that poor fool,”—pointing astern to the tiny +sail,—“d’ye think I’m hungerin’ for a broken head +for a woman I never laid me eyes upon before this day?” +</p> + +<p> +I turned scornfully away and went aft. +</p> + +<p> +“Better get in those topsails, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen said, +as I came on the poop. +</p> + +<p> +I felt relief, at least as far as the two men were concerned. It was clear he +did not wish to run too far away from them. I picked up hope at the thought and +put the order swiftly into execution. I had scarcely opened my mouth to issue +the necessary commands, when eager men were springing to halyards and +downhauls, and others were racing aloft. This eagerness on their part was noted +by Wolf Larsen with a grim smile. +</p> + +<p> +Still we increased our lead, and when the boat had dropped astern several miles +we hove to and waited. All eyes watched it coming, even Wolf Larsen’s; +but he was the only unperturbed man aboard. Louis, gazing fixedly, betrayed a +trouble in his face he was not quite able to hide. +</p> + +<p> +The boat drew closer and closer, hurling along through the seething green like +a thing alive, lifting and sending and uptossing across the huge-backed +breakers, or disappearing behind them only to rush into sight again and shoot +skyward. It seemed impossible that it could continue to live, yet with each +dizzying sweep it did achieve the impossible. A rain-squall drove past, and out +of the flying wet the boat emerged, almost upon us. +</p> + +<p> +“Hard up, there!” Wolf Larsen shouted, himself springing to the +wheel and whirling it over. +</p> + +<p> +Again the <i>Ghost</i> sprang away and raced before the wind, and for two hours +Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran away, hove to and ran away, +and ever astern the struggling patch of sail tossed skyward and fell into the +rushing valleys. It was a quarter of a mile away when a thick squall of rain +veiled it from view. It never emerged. The wind blew the air clear again, but +no patch of sail broke the troubled surface. I thought I saw, for an instant, +the boat’s bottom show black in a breaking crest. At the best, that was +all. For Johnson and Leach the travail of existence had ceased. +</p> + +<p> +The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below, and no one was +speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. Each man seemed +stunned—deeply contemplative, as it were, and, not quite sure, trying to +realize just what had taken place. Wolf Larsen gave them little time for +thought. He at once put the <i>Ghost</i> upon her course—a course which +meant the seal herd and not Yokohama harbour. But the men were no longer eager +as they pulled and hauled, and I heard curses amongst them, which left their +lips smothered and as heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was it with the +hunters. Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and they descended into the +steerage, bellowing with laughter. +</p> + +<p> +As I passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft I was approached by the +engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“You have eyes, you have seen,” I answered, almost brutally, what +of the pain and fear at my own heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Your promise?” I said to Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +“I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that +promise,” he answered. “And anyway, you’ll agree I’ve +not laid my hands upon them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Far from it, far from it,” he laughed a moment later. +</p> + +<p> +I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too confused. I must +have time to think, I knew. This woman, sleeping even now in the spare cabin, +was a responsibility, which I must consider, and the only rational thought that +flickered through my mind was that I must do nothing hastily if I were to be +any help to her at all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<p> +The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. The young slip of a gale, having +wetted our gills, proceeded to moderate. The fourth engineer and the three +oilers, after a warm interview with Wolf Larsen, were furnished with outfits +from the slop-chests, assigned places under the hunters in the various boats +and watches on the vessel, and bundled forward into the forecastle. They went +protestingly, but their voices were not loud. They were awed by what they had +already seen of Wolf Larsen’s character, while the tale of woe they +speedily heard in the forecastle took the last bit of rebellion out of them. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Brewster—we had learned her name from the engineer—slept on +and on. At supper I requested the hunters to lower their voices, so she was not +disturbed; and it was not till next morning that she made her appearance. It +had been my intention to have her meals served apart, but Wolf Larsen put down +his foot. Who was she that she should be too good for cabin table and cabin +society? had been his demand. +</p> + +<p> +But her coming to the table had something amusing in it. The hunters fell +silent as clams. Jock Horner and Smoke alone were unabashed, stealing stealthy +glances at her now and again, and even taking part in the conversation. The +other four men glued their eyes on their plates and chewed steadily and with +thoughtful precision, their ears moving and wobbling, in time with their jaws, +like the ears of so many animals. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen had little to say at first, doing no more than reply when he was +addressed. Not that he was abashed. Far from it. This woman was a new type to +him, a different breed from any he had ever known, and he was curious. He +studied her, his eyes rarely leaving her face unless to follow the movements of +her hands or shoulders. I studied her myself, and though it was I who +maintained the conversation, I know that I was a bit shy, not quite +self-possessed. His was the perfect poise, the supreme confidence in self, +which nothing could shake; and he was no more timid of a woman than he was of +storm and battle. +</p> + +<p> +“And when shall we arrive at Yokohama?” she asked, turning to him +and looking him squarely in the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, the ears ceased +wobbling, and though eyes remained glued on plates, each man listened greedily +for the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“In four months, possibly three if the season closes early,” Wolf +Larsen said. +</p> + +<p> +She caught her breath and stammered, “I—I thought—I was given +to understand that Yokohama was only a day’s sail away. It—” +Here she paused and looked about the table at the circle of unsympathetic faces +staring hard at the plates. “It is not right,” she concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“That is a question you must settle with Mr. Van Weyden there,” he +replied, nodding to me with a mischievous twinkle. “Mr. Van Weyden is +what you may call an authority on such things as rights. Now I, who am only a +sailor, would look upon the situation somewhat differently. It may possibly be +your misfortune that you have to remain with us, but it is certainly our good +fortune.” +</p> + +<p> +He regarded her smilingly. Her eyes fell before his gaze, but she lifted them +again, and defiantly, to mine. I read the unspoken question there: was it +right? But I had decided that the part I was to play must be a neutral one, so +I did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think?” she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“That it is unfortunate, especially if you have any engagements falling +due in the course of the next several months. But, since you say that you were +voyaging to Japan for your health, I can assure you that it will improve no +better anywhere than aboard the <i>Ghost</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +I saw her eyes flash with indignation, and this time it was I who dropped mine, +while I felt my face flushing under her gaze. It was cowardly, but what else +could I do? +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Van Weyden speaks with the voice of authority,” Wolf Larsen +laughed. +</p> + +<p> +I nodded my head, and she, having recovered herself, waited expectantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not that he is much to speak of now,” Wolf Larsen went on, +“but he has improved wonderfully. You should have seen him when he came +on board. A more scrawny, pitiful specimen of humanity one could hardly +conceive. Isn’t that so, Kerfoot?” +</p> + +<p> +Kerfoot, thus directly addressed, was startled into dropping his knife on the +floor, though he managed to grunt affirmation. +</p> + +<p> +“Developed himself by peeling potatoes and washing dishes. Eh, +Kerfoot?” +</p> + +<p> +Again that worthy grunted. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at him now. True, he is not what you would term muscular, but still +he has muscles, which is more than he had when he came aboard. Also, he has +legs to stand on. You would not think so to look at him, but he was quite +unable to stand alone at first.” +</p> + +<p> +The hunters were snickering, but she looked at me with a sympathy in her eyes +which more than compensated for Wolf Larsen’s nastiness. In truth, it had +been so long since I had received sympathy that I was softened, and I became +then, and gladly, her willing slave. But I was angry with Wolf Larsen. He was +challenging my manhood with his slurs, challenging the very legs he claimed to +be instrumental in getting for me. +</p> + +<p> +“I may have learned to stand on my own legs,” I retorted. +“But I have yet to stamp upon others with them.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at me insolently. “Your education is only half completed, +then,” he said dryly, and turned to her. +</p> + +<p> +“We are very hospitable upon the <i>Ghost</i>. Mr. Van Weyden has +discovered that. We do everything to make our guests feel at home, eh, Mr. Van +Weyden?” +</p> + +<p> +“Even to the peeling of potatoes and the washing of dishes,” I +answered, “to say nothing to wringing their necks out of very +fellowship.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg of you not to receive false impressions of us from Mr. Van +Weyden,” he interposed with mock anxiety. “You will observe, Miss +Brewster, that he carries a dirk in his belt, a—ahem—a most unusual +thing for a ship’s officer to do. While really very estimable, Mr. Van +Weyden is sometimes—how shall I say?—er—quarrelsome, and +harsh measures are necessary. He is quite reasonable and fair in his calm +moments, and as he is calm now he will not deny that only yesterday he +threatened my life.” +</p> + +<p> +I was well-nigh choking, and my eyes were certainly fiery. He drew attention to +me. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at him now. He can scarcely control himself in your presence. He is +not accustomed to the presence of ladies anyway. I shall have to arm myself +before I dare go on deck with him.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head sadly, murmuring, “Too bad, too bad,” while the +hunters burst into guffaws of laughter. +</p> + +<p> +The deep-sea voices of these men, rumbling and bellowing in the confined space, +produced a wild effect. The whole setting was wild, and for the first time, +regarding this strange woman and realizing how incongruous she was in it, I was +aware of how much a part of it I was myself. I knew these men and their mental +processes, was one of them myself, living the seal-hunting life, eating the +seal-hunting fare, thinking, largely, the seal-hunting thoughts. There was for +me no strangeness to it, to the rough clothes, the coarse faces, the wild +laughter, and the lurching cabin walls and swaying sea-lamps. +</p> + +<p> +As I buttered a piece of bread my eyes chanced to rest upon my hand. The +knuckles were skinned and inflamed clear across, the fingers swollen, the nails +rimmed with black. I felt the mattress-like growth of beard on my neck, knew +that the sleeve of my coat was ripped, that a button was missing from the +throat of the blue shirt I wore. The dirk mentioned by Wolf Larsen rested in +its sheath on my hip. It was very natural that it should be there,—how +natural I had not imagined until now, when I looked upon it with her eyes and +knew how strange it and all that went with it must appear to her. +</p> + +<p> +But she divined the mockery in Wolf Larsen’s words, and again favoured me +with a sympathetic glance. But there was a look of bewilderment also in her +eyes. That it was mockery made the situation more puzzling to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I may be taken off by some passing vessel, perhaps,” she +suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“There will be no passing vessels, except other sealing-schooners,” +Wolf Larsen made answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I have no clothes, nothing,” she objected. “You hardly +realize, sir, that I am not a man, or that I am unaccustomed to the vagrant, +careless life which you and your men seem to lead.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sooner you get accustomed to it, the better,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll furnish you with cloth, needles, and thread,” he added. +“I hope it will not be too dreadful a hardship for you to make yourself a +dress or two.” +</p> + +<p> +She made a wry pucker with her mouth, as though to advertise her ignorance of +dressmaking. That she was frightened and bewildered, and that she was bravely +striving to hide it, was quite plain to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’re like Mr. Van Weyden there, accustomed to having +things done for you. Well, I think doing a few things for yourself will hardly +dislocate any joints. By the way, what do you do for a living?” +</p> + +<p> +She regarded him with amazement unconcealed. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean no offence, believe me. People eat, therefore they must procure +the wherewithal. These men here shoot seals in order to live; for the same +reason I sail this schooner; and Mr. Van Weyden, for the present at any rate, +earns his salty grub by assisting me. Now what do you do?” +</p> + +<p> +She shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you feed yourself? Or does some one else feed you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid some one else has fed me most of my life,” she +laughed, trying bravely to enter into the spirit of his quizzing, though I +could see a terror dawning and growing in her eyes as she watched Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +“And I suppose some one else makes your bed for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>have</i> made beds,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Very often?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head with mock ruefulness. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know what they do to poor men in the States, who, like you, do +not work for their living?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very ignorant,” she pleaded. “What do they do to the +poor men who are like me?” +</p> + +<p> +“They send them to jail. The crime of not earning a living, in their +case, is called vagrancy. If I were Mr. Van Weyden, who harps eternally on +questions of right and wrong, I’d ask, by what right do you live when you +do nothing to deserve living?” +</p> + +<p> +“But as you are not Mr. Van Weyden, I don’t have to answer, do +I?” +</p> + +<p> +She beamed upon him through her terror-filled eyes, and the pathos of it cut me +to the heart. I must in some way break in and lead the conversation into other +channels. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever earned a dollar by your own labour?” he demanded, +certain of her answer, a triumphant vindictiveness in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have,” she answered slowly, and I could have laughed aloud +at his crestfallen visage. “I remember my father giving me a dollar once, +when I was a little girl, for remaining absolutely quiet for five +minutes.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled indulgently. +</p> + +<p> +“But that was long ago,” she continued. “And you would +scarcely demand a little girl of nine to earn her own living.” +</p> + +<p> +“At present, however,” she said, after another slight pause, +“I earn about eighteen hundred dollars a year.” +</p> + +<p> +With one accord, all eyes left the plates and settled on her. A woman who +earned eighteen hundred dollars a year was worth looking at. Wolf Larsen was +undisguised in his admiration. +</p> + +<p> +“Salary, or piece-work?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Piece-work,” she answered promptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Eighteen hundred,” he calculated. “That’s a hundred +and fifty dollars a month. Well, Miss Brewster, there is nothing small about +the <i>Ghost</i>. Consider yourself on salary during the time you remain with +us.” +</p> + +<p> +She made no acknowledgment. She was too unused as yet to the whims of the man +to accept them with equanimity. +</p> + +<p> +“I forgot to inquire,” he went on suavely, “as to the nature +of your occupation. What commodities do you turn out? What tools and materials +do you require?” +</p> + +<p> +“Paper and ink,” she laughed. “And, oh! also a +typewriter.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are Maud Brewster,” I said slowly and with certainty, almost +as though I were charging her with a crime. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes lifted curiously to mine. “How do you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +She acknowledged her identity with a nod. It was Wolf Larsen’s turn to be +puzzled. The name and its magic signified nothing to him. I was proud that it +did mean something to me, and for the first time in a weary while I was +convincingly conscious of a superiority over him. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember writing a review of a thin little volume—” I had +begun carelessly, when she interrupted me. +</p> + +<p> +“You!” she cried. “You are—” +</p> + +<p> +She was now staring at me in wide-eyed wonder. +</p> + +<p> +I nodded my identity, in turn. +</p> + +<p> +“Humphrey Van Weyden,” she concluded; then added with a sigh of +relief, and unaware that she had glanced that relief at Wolf Larsen, “I +am so glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember the review,” she went on hastily, becoming aware of the +awkwardness of her remark; “that too, too flattering review.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” I denied valiantly. “You impeach my sober +judgment and make my canons of little worth. Besides, all my brother critics +were with me. Didn’t Lang include your ‘Kiss Endured’ among +the four supreme sonnets by women in the English language?” +</p> + +<p> +“But you called me the American Mrs. Meynell!” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it not true?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not that,” she answered. “I was hurt.” +</p> + +<p> +“We can measure the unknown only by the known,” I replied, in my +finest academic manner. “As a critic I was compelled to place you. You +have now become a yardstick yourself. Seven of your thin little volumes are on +my shelves; and there are two thicker volumes, the essays, which, you will +pardon my saying, and I know not which is flattered more, fully equal your +verse. The time is not far distant when some unknown will arise in England and +the critics will name her the English Maud Brewster.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very kind, I am sure,” she murmured; and the very +conventionality of her tones and words, with the host of associations it +aroused of the old life on the other side of the world, gave me a quick +thrill—rich with remembrance but stinging sharp with home-sickness. +</p> + +<p> +“And you are Maud Brewster,” I said solemnly, gazing across at her. +</p> + +<p> +“And you are Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, gazing back at me with +equal solemnity and awe. “How unusual! I don’t understand. We +surely are not to expect some wildly romantic sea-story from your sober +pen.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am not gathering material, I assure you,” was my answer. +“I have neither aptitude nor inclination for fiction.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, why have you always buried yourself in California?” she +next asked. “It has not been kind of you. We of the East have seen so +very little of you—too little, indeed, of the Dean of American Letters, +the Second.” +</p> + +<p> +I bowed to, and disclaimed, the compliment. “I nearly met you, once, in +Philadelphia, some Browning affair or other—you were to lecture, you +know. My train was four hours late.” +</p> + +<p> +And then we quite forgot where we were, leaving Wolf Larsen stranded and silent +in the midst of our flood of gossip. The hunters left the table and went on +deck, and still we talked. Wolf Larsen alone remained. Suddenly I became aware +of him, leaning back from the table and listening curiously to our alien speech +of a world he did not know. +</p> + +<p> +I broke short off in the middle of a sentence. The present, with all its perils +and anxieties, rushed upon me with stunning force. It smote Miss Brewster +likewise, a vague and nameless terror rushing into her eyes as she regarded +Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +He rose to his feet and laughed awkwardly. The sound of it was metallic. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, don’t mind me,” he said, with a self-depreciatory wave +of his hand. “I don’t count. Go on, go on, I pray you.” +</p> + +<p> +But the gates of speech were closed, and we, too, rose from the table and +laughed awkwardly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<p> +The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster and me in the +conversation at table had to express itself in some fashion, and it fell to +Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had not mended his ways nor his shirt, +though the latter he contended he had changed. The garment itself did not bear +out the assertion, nor did the accumulations of grease on stove and pot and pan +attest a general cleanliness. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve given you warning, Cooky,” Wolf Larsen said, “and +now you’ve got to take your medicine.” +</p> + +<p> +Mugridge’s face turned white under its sooty veneer, and when Wolf Larsen +called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable Cockney fled wildly out of +the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck with the grinning crew in +pursuit. Few things could have been more to their liking than to give him a tow +over the side, for to the forecastle he had sent messes and concoctions of the +vilest order. Conditions favoured the undertaking. The <i>Ghost</i> was +slipping through the water at no more than three miles an hour, and the sea was +fairly calm. But Mugridge had little stomach for a dip in it. Possibly he had +seen men towed before. Besides, the water was frightfully cold, and his was +anything but a rugged constitution. +</p> + +<p> +As usual, the watches below and the hunters turned out for what promised sport. +Mugridge seemed to be in rabid fear of the water, and he exhibited a nimbleness +and speed we did not dream he possessed. Cornered in the right-angle of the +poop and galley, he sprang like a cat to the top of the cabin and ran aft. But +his pursuers forestalling him, he doubled back across the cabin, passed over +the galley, and gained the deck by means of the steerage-scuttle. Straight +forward he raced, the boat-puller Harrison at his heels and gaining on him. But +Mugridge, leaping suddenly, caught the jib-boom-lift. It happened in an +instant. Holding his weight by his arms, and in mid-air doubling his body at +the hips, he let fly with both feet. The oncoming Harrison caught the kick +squarely in the pit of the stomach, groaned involuntarily, and doubled up and +sank backward to the deck. +</p> + +<p> +Hand-clapping and roars of laughter from the hunters greeted the exploit, while +Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the foremast, ran aft and through the +remainder like a runner on the football field. Straight aft he held, to the +poop and along the poop to the stern. So great was his speed that as he curved +past the corner of the cabin he slipped and fell. Nilson was standing at the +wheel, and the Cockney’s hurtling body struck his legs. Both went down +together, but Mugridge alone arose. By some freak of pressures, his frail body +had snapped the strong man’s leg like a pipe-stem. +</p> + +<p> +Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round the decks +they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing and shouting +directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing encouragement and +laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch under three men; but he emerged +from the mass like an eel, bleeding at the mouth, the offending shirt ripped +into tatters, and sprang for the main-rigging. Up he went, clear up, beyond the +ratlines, to the very masthead. +</p> + +<p> +Half-a-dozen sailors swarmed to the crosstrees after him, where they clustered +and waited while two of their number, Oofty-Oofty and Black (who was +Latimer’s boat-steerer), continued up the thin steel stays, lifting their +bodies higher and higher by means of their arms. +</p> + +<p> +It was a perilous undertaking, for, at a height of over a hundred feet from the +deck, holding on by their hands, they were not in the best of positions to +protect themselves from Mugridge’s feet. And Mugridge kicked savagely, +till the Kanaka, hanging on with one hand, seized the Cockney’s foot with +the other. Black duplicated the performance a moment later with the other foot. +Then the three writhed together in a swaying tangle, struggling, sliding, and +falling into the arms of their mates on the crosstrees. +</p> + +<p> +The aërial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and gibbering, his +mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to deck. Wolf Larsen rove a +bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under his shoulders. Then he was +carried aft and flung into the sea. Forty,—fifty,—sixty feet of +line ran out, when Wolf Larsen cried “Belay!” Oofty-Oofty took a +turn on a bitt, the rope tautened, and the <i>Ghost</i>, lunging onward, jerked +the cook to the surface. +</p> + +<p> +It was a pitiful spectacle. Though he could not drown, and was nine-lived in +addition, he was suffering all the agonies of half-drowning. The <i>Ghost</i> +was going very slowly, and when her stern lifted on a wave and she slipped +forward she pulled the wretch to the surface and gave him a moment in which to +breathe; but between each lift the stern fell, and while the bow lazily climbed +the next wave the line slacked and he sank beneath. +</p> + +<p> +I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered her with a +start as she stepped lightly beside me. It was her first time on deck since she +had come aboard. A dead silence greeted her appearance. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the cause of the merriment?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask Captain Larsen,” I answered composedly and coldly, though +inwardly my blood was boiling at the thought that she should be witness to such +brutality. +</p> + +<p> +She took my advice and was turning to put it into execution, when her eyes +lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body instinct with +alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you fishing?” she asked him. +</p> + +<p> +He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern, suddenly flashed. +</p> + +<p> +“Shark ho, sir!” he cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!” Wolf Larsen shouted, +springing himself to the rope in advance of the quickest. +</p> + +<p> +Mugridge had heard the Kanaka’s warning cry and was screaming madly. I +could see a black fin cutting the water and making for him with greater +swiftness than he was being pulled aboard. It was an even toss whether the +shark or we would get him, and it was a matter of moments. When Mugridge was +directly beneath us, the stern descended the slope of a passing wave, thus +giving the advantage to the shark. The fin disappeared. The belly flashed white +in swift upward rush. Almost equally swift, but not quite, was Wolf Larsen. He +threw his strength into one tremendous jerk. The Cockney’s body left the +water; so did part of the shark’s. He drew up his legs, and the man-eater +seemed no more than barely to touch one foot, sinking back into the water with +a splash. But at the moment of contact Thomas Mugridge cried out. Then he came +in like a fresh-caught fish on a line, clearing the rail generously and +striking the deck in a heap, on hands and knees, and rolling over. +</p> + +<p> +But a fountain of blood was gushing forth. The right foot was missing, +amputated neatly at the ankle. I looked instantly to Maud Brewster. Her face +was white, her eyes dilated with horror. She was gazing, not at Thomas +Mugridge, but at Wolf Larsen. And he was aware of it, for he said, with one of +his short laughs: +</p> + +<p> +“Man-play, Miss Brewster. Somewhat rougher, I warrant, than what you have +been used to, but still-man-play. The shark was not in the reckoning. +It—” +</p> + +<p> +But at this juncture, Mugridge, who had lifted his head and ascertained the +extent of his loss, floundered over on the deck and buried his teeth in Wolf +Larsen’s leg. Wolf Larsen stooped, coolly, to the Cockney, and pressed +with thumb and finger at the rear of the jaws and below the ears. The jaws +opened with reluctance, and Wolf Larsen stepped free. +</p> + +<p> +“As I was saying,” he went on, as though nothing unwonted had +happened, “the shark was not in the reckoning. It +was—ahem—shall we say Providence?” +</p> + +<p> +She gave no sign that she had heard, though the expression of her eyes changed +to one of inexpressible loathing as she started to turn away. She no more than +started, for she swayed and tottered, and reached her hand weakly out to mine. +I caught her in time to save her from falling, and helped her to a seat on the +cabin. I thought she might faint outright, but she controlled herself. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you get a tourniquet, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen called to +me. +</p> + +<p> +I hesitated. Her lips moved, and though they formed no words, she commanded me +with her eyes, plainly as speech, to go to the help of the unfortunate man. +“Please,” she managed to whisper, and I could but obey. +</p> + +<p> +By now I had developed such skill at surgery that Wolf Larsen, with a few words +of advice, left me to my task with a couple of sailors for assistants. For his +task he elected a vengeance on the shark. A heavy swivel-hook, baited with fat +salt-pork, was dropped overside; and by the time I had compressed the severed +veins and arteries, the sailors were singing and heaving in the offending +monster. I did not see it myself, but my assistants, first one and then the +other, deserted me for a few moments to run amidships and look at what was +going on. The shark, a sixteen-footer, was hoisted up against the main-rigging. +Its jaws were pried apart to their greatest extension, and a stout stake, +sharpened at both ends, was so inserted that when the pries were removed the +spread jaws were fixed upon it. This accomplished, the hook was cut out. The +shark dropped back into the sea, helpless, yet with its full strength, +doomed—to lingering starvation—a living death less meet for it than +for the man who devised the punishment. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<p> +I knew what it was as she came toward me. For ten minutes I had watched her +talking earnestly with the engineer, and now, with a sign for silence, I drew +her out of earshot of the helmsman. Her face was white and set; her large eyes, +larger than usual what of the purpose in them, looked penetratingly into mine. +I felt rather timid and apprehensive, for she had come to search Humphrey Van +Weyden’s soul, and Humphrey Van Weyden had nothing of which to be +particularly proud since his advent on the <i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +We walked to the break of the poop, where she turned and faced me. I glanced +around to see that no one was within hearing distance. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” I asked gently; but the expression of determination +on her face did not relax. +</p> + +<p> +“I can readily understand,” she began, “that this +morning’s affair was largely an accident; but I have been talking with +Mr. Haskins. He tells me that the day we were rescued, even while I was in the +cabin, two men were drowned, deliberately drowned—murdered.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a query in her voice, and she faced me accusingly, as though I were +guilty of the deed, or at least a party to it. +</p> + +<p> +“The information is quite correct,” I answered. “The two men +were murdered.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you permitted it!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“I was unable to prevent it, is a better way of phrasing it,” I +replied, still gently. +</p> + +<p> +“But you tried to prevent it?” There was an emphasis on the +“tried,” and a pleading little note in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but you didn’t,” she hurried on, divining my answer. +“But why didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +I shrugged my shoulders. “You must remember, Miss Brewster, that you are +a new inhabitant of this little world, and that you do not yet understand the +laws which operate within it. You bring with you certain fine conceptions of +humanity, manhood, conduct, and such things; but here you will find them +misconceptions. I have found it so,” I added, with an involuntary sigh. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head incredulously. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you advise, then?” I asked. “That I should take a +knife, or a gun, or an axe, and kill this man?” +</p> + +<p> +She half started back. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what should I do? Kill myself?” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak in purely materialistic terms,” she objected. +“There is such a thing as moral courage, and moral courage is never +without effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” I smiled, “you advise me to kill neither him nor +myself, but to let him kill me.” I held up my hand as she was about to +speak. “For moral courage is a worthless asset on this little floating +world. Leach, one of the men who were murdered, had moral courage to an unusual +degree. So had the other man, Johnson. Not only did it not stand them in good +stead, but it destroyed them. And so with me if I should exercise what little +moral courage I may possess. +</p> + +<p> +“You must understand, Miss Brewster, and understand clearly, that this +man is a monster. He is without conscience. Nothing is sacred to him, nothing +is too terrible for him to do. It was due to his whim that I was detained +aboard in the first place. It is due to his whim that I am still alive. I do +nothing, can do nothing, because I am a slave to this monster, as you are now a +slave to him; because I desire to live, as you will desire to live; because I +cannot fight and overcome him, just as you will not be able to fight and +overcome him.” +</p> + +<p> +She waited for me to go on. +</p> + +<p> +“What remains? Mine is the role of the weak. I remain silent and suffer +ignominy, as you will remain silent and suffer ignominy. And it is well. It is +the best we can do if we wish to live. The battle is not always to the strong. +We have not the strength with which to fight this man; we must dissimulate, and +win, if win we can, by craft. If you will be advised by me, this is what you +will do. I know my position is perilous, and I may say frankly that yours is +even more perilous. We must stand together, without appearing to do so, in +secret alliance. I shall not be able to side with you openly, and, no matter +what indignities may be put upon me, you are to remain likewise silent. We must +provoke no scenes with this man, nor cross his will. And we must keep smiling +faces and be friendly with him no matter how repulsive it may be.” +</p> + +<p> +She brushed her hand across her forehead in a puzzled way, saying, “Still +I do not understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must do as I say,” I interrupted authoritatively, for I saw +Wolf Larsen’s gaze wandering toward us from where he paced up and down +with Latimer amidships. “Do as I say, and ere long you will find I am +right.” +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I do, then?” she asked, detecting the anxious glance I +had shot at the object of our conversation, and impressed, I flatter myself, +with the earnestness of my manner. +</p> + +<p> +“Dispense with all the moral courage you can,” I said briskly. +“Don’t arouse this man’s animosity. Be quite friendly with +him, talk with him, discuss literature and art with him—he is fond of +such things. You will find him an interested listener and no fool. And for your +own sake try to avoid witnessing, as much as you can, the brutalities of the +ship. It will make it easier for you to act your part.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am to lie,” she said in steady, rebellious tones, “by +speech and action to lie.” +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen had separated from Latimer and was coming toward us. I was +desperate. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, please understand me,” I said hurriedly, lowering my +voice. “All your experience of men and things is worthless here. You must +begin over again. I know,—I can see it—you have, among other ways, +been used to managing people with your eyes, letting your moral courage speak +out through them, as it were. You have already managed me with your eyes, +commanded me with them. But don’t try it on Wolf Larsen. You could as +easily control a lion, while he would make a mock of you. He would—I have +always been proud of the fact that I discovered him,” I said, turning the +conversation as Wolf Larsen stepped on the poop and joined us. “The +editors were afraid of him and the publishers would have none of him. But I +knew, and his genius and my judgment were vindicated when he made that +magnificent hit with his ‘Forge.’” +</p> + +<p> +“And it was a newspaper poem,” she said glibly. +</p> + +<p> +“It did happen to see the light in a newspaper,” I replied, +“but not because the magazine editors had been denied a glimpse at +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“We were talking of Harris,” I said to Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” he acknowledged. “I remember the +‘Forge.’ Filled with pretty sentiments and an almighty faith in +human illusions. By the way, Mr. Van Weyden, you’d better look in on +Cooky. He’s complaining and restless.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus was I bluntly dismissed from the poop, only to find Mugridge sleeping +soundly from the morphine I had given him. I made no haste to return on deck, +and when I did I was gratified to see Miss Brewster in animated conversation +with Wolf Larsen. As I say, the sight gratified me. She was following my +advice. And yet I was conscious of a slight shock or hurt in that she was able +to do the thing I had begged her to do and which she had notably disliked. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<p> +Brave winds, blowing fair, swiftly drove the <i>Ghost</i> northward into the +seal herd. We encountered it well up to the forty-fourth parallel, in a raw and +stormy sea across which the wind harried the fog-banks in eternal flight. For +days at a time we could never see the sun nor take an observation; then the +wind would sweep the face of the ocean clean, the waves would ripple and flash, +and we would learn where we were. A day of clear weather might follow, or three +days or four, and then the fog would settle down upon us, seemingly thicker +than ever. +</p> + +<p> +The hunting was perilous; yet the boats, lowered day after day, were swallowed +up in the grey obscurity, and were seen no more till nightfall, and often not +till long after, when they would creep in like sea-wraiths, one by one, out of +the grey. Wainwright—the hunter whom Wolf Larsen had stolen with boat and +men—took advantage of the veiled sea and escaped. He disappeared one +morning in the encircling fog with his two men, and we never saw them again, +though it was not many days when we learned that they had passed from schooner +to schooner until they finally regained their own. +</p> + +<p> +This was the thing I had set my mind upon doing, but the opportunity never +offered. It was not in the mate’s province to go out in the boats, and +though I manœuvred cunningly for it, Wolf Larsen never granted me the +privilege. Had he done so, I should have managed somehow to carry Miss Brewster +away with me. As it was, the situation was approaching a stage which I was +afraid to consider. I involuntarily shunned the thought of it, and yet the +thought continually arose in my mind like a haunting spectre. +</p> + +<p> +I had read sea-romances in my time, wherein figured, as a matter of course, the +lone woman in the midst of a shipload of men; but I learned, now, that I had +never comprehended the deeper significance of such a situation—the thing +the writers harped upon and exploited so thoroughly. And here it was, now, and +I was face to face with it. That it should be as vital as possible, it required +no more than that the woman should be Maud Brewster, who now charmed me in +person as she had long charmed me through her work. +</p> + +<p> +No one more out of environment could be imagined. She was a delicate, ethereal +creature, swaying and willowy, light and graceful of movement. It never seemed +to me that she walked, or, at least, walked after the ordinary manner of +mortals. Hers was an extreme lithesomeness, and she moved with a certain +indefinable airiness, approaching one as down might float or as a bird on +noiseless wings. +</p> + +<p> +She was like a bit of Dresden china, and I was continually impressed with what +I may call her fragility. As at the time I caught her arm when helping her +below, so at any time I was quite prepared, should stress or rough handling +befall her, to see her crumble away. I have never seen body and spirit in such +perfect accord. Describe her verse, as the critics have described it, as +sublimated and spiritual, and you have described her body. It seemed to partake +of her soul, to have analogous attributes, and to link it to life with the +slenderest of chains. Indeed, she trod the earth lightly, and in her +constitution there was little of the robust clay. +</p> + +<p> +She was in striking contrast to Wolf Larsen. Each was nothing that the other +was, everything that the other was not. I noted them walking the deck together +one morning, and I likened them to the extreme ends of the human ladder of +evolution—the one the culmination of all savagery, the other the finished +product of the finest civilization. True, Wolf Larsen possessed intellect to an +unusual degree, but it was directed solely to the exercise of his savage +instincts and made him but the more formidable a savage. He was splendidly +muscled, a heavy man, and though he strode with the certitude and directness of +the physical man, there was nothing heavy about his stride. The jungle and the +wilderness lurked in the uplift and downput of his feet. He was cat-footed, and +lithe, and strong, always strong. I likened him to some great tiger, a beast of +prowess and prey. He looked it, and the piercing glitter that arose at times in +his eyes was the same piercing glitter I had observed in the eyes of caged +leopards and other preying creatures of the wild. +</p> + +<p> +But this day, as I noted them pacing up and down, I saw that it was she who +terminated the walk. They came up to where I was standing by the entrance to +the companion-way. Though she betrayed it by no outward sign, I felt, somehow, +that she was greatly perturbed. She made some idle remark, looking at me, and +laughed lightly enough; but I saw her eyes return to his, involuntarily, as +though fascinated; then they fell, but not swiftly enough to veil the rush of +terror that filled them. +</p> + +<p> +It was in his eyes that I saw the cause of her perturbation. Ordinarily grey +and cold and harsh, they were now warm and soft and golden, and all a-dance +with tiny lights that dimmed and faded, or welled up till the full orbs were +flooded with a glowing radiance. Perhaps it was to this that the golden colour +was due; but golden his eyes were, enticing and masterful, at the same time +luring and compelling, and speaking a demand and clamour of the blood which no +woman, much less Maud Brewster, could misunderstand. +</p> + +<p> +Her own terror rushed upon me, and in that moment of fear—the most +terrible fear a man can experience—I knew that in inexpressible ways she +was dear to me. The knowledge that I loved her rushed upon me with the terror, +and with both emotions gripping at my heart and causing my blood at the same +time to chill and to leap riotously, I felt myself drawn by a power without me +and beyond me, and found my eyes returning against my will to gaze into the +eyes of Wolf Larsen. But he had recovered himself. The golden colour and the +dancing lights were gone. Cold and grey and glittering they were as he bowed +brusquely and turned away. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid,” she whispered, with a shiver. “I am so +afraid.” +</p> + +<p> +I, too, was afraid, and what of my discovery of how much she meant to me my +mind was in a turmoil; but, I succeeded in answering quite calmly: +</p> + +<p> +“All will come right, Miss Brewster. Trust me, it will come right.” +</p> + +<p> +She answered with a grateful little smile that sent my heart pounding, and +started to descend the companion-stairs. +</p> + +<p> +For a long while I remained standing where she had left me. There was +imperative need to adjust myself, to consider the significance of the changed +aspect of things. It had come, at last, love had come, when I least expected it +and under the most forbidding conditions. Of course, my philosophy had always +recognized the inevitableness of the love-call sooner or later; but long years +of bookish silence had made me inattentive and unprepared. +</p> + +<p> +And now it had come! Maud Brewster! My memory flashed back to that first thin +little volume on my desk, and I saw before me, as though in the concrete, the +row of thin little volumes on my library shelf. How I had welcomed each of +them! Each year one had come from the press, and to me each was the advent of +the year. They had voiced a kindred intellect and spirit, and as such I had +received them into a camaraderie of the mind; but now their place was in my +heart. +</p> + +<p> +My heart? A revulsion of feeling came over me. I seemed to stand outside myself +and to look at myself incredulously. Maud Brewster! Humphrey Van Weyden, +“the cold-blooded fish,” the “emotionless monster,” the +“analytical demon,” of Charley Furuseth’s christening, in +love! And then, without rhyme or reason, all sceptical, my mind flew back to a +small biographical note in the red-bound <i>Who’s Who</i>, and I said to +myself, “She was born in Cambridge, and she is twenty-seven years +old.” And then I said, “Twenty-seven years old and still free and +fancy free?” But how did I know she was fancy free? And the pang of +new-born jealousy put all incredulity to flight. There was no doubt about it. I +was jealous; therefore I loved. And the woman I loved was Maud Brewster. +</p> + +<p> +I, Humphrey Van Weyden, was in love! And again the doubt assailed me. Not that +I was afraid of it, however, or reluctant to meet it. On the contrary, idealist +that I was to the most pronounced degree, my philosophy had always recognized +and guerdoned love as the greatest thing in the world, the aim and the summit +of being, the most exquisite pitch of joy and happiness to which life could +thrill, the thing of all things to be hailed and welcomed and taken into the +heart. But now that it had come I could not believe. I could not be so +fortunate. It was too good, too good to be true. Symons’s lines came into +my head: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I wandered all these years among<br/> +A world of women, seeking you.” +</p> + +<p> +And then I had ceased seeking. It was not for me, this greatest thing in the +world, I had decided. Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, an “emotionless +monster,” a strange bookish creature, capable of pleasuring in sensations +only of the mind. And though I had been surrounded by women all my days, my +appreciation of them had been æsthetic and nothing more. I had actually, at +times, considered myself outside the pale, a monkish fellow denied the eternal +or the passing passions I saw and understood so well in others. And now it had +come! Undreamed of and unheralded, it had come. In what could have been no less +than an ecstasy, I left my post at the head of the companion-way and started +along the deck, murmuring to myself those beautiful lines of Mrs. Browning: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“I lived with visions for my company<br/> +Instead of men and women years ago,<br/> +And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know<br/> +A sweeter music than they played to me.” +</p> + +<p> +But the sweeter music was playing in my ears, and I was blind and oblivious to +all about me. The sharp voice of Wolf Larsen aroused me. +</p> + +<p> +“What the hell are you up to?” he was demanding. +</p> + +<p> +I had strayed forward where the sailors were painting, and I came to myself to +find my advancing foot on the verge of overturning a paint-pot. +</p> + +<p> +“Sleep-walking, sunstroke,—what?” he barked. +</p> + +<p> +“No; indigestion,” I retorted, and continued my walk as if nothing +untoward had occurred. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<p> +Among the most vivid memories of my life are those of the events on the +<i>Ghost</i> which occurred during the forty hours succeeding the discovery of +my love for Maud Brewster. I, who had lived my life in quiet places, only to +enter at the age of thirty-five upon a course of the most irrational adventure +I could have imagined, never had more incident and excitement crammed into any +forty hours of my experience. Nor can I quite close my ears to a small voice of +pride which tells me I did not do so badly, all things considered. +</p> + +<p> +To begin with, at the midday dinner, Wolf Larsen informed the hunters that they +were to eat thenceforth in the steerage. It was an unprecedented thing on +sealing-schooners, where it is the custom for the hunters to rank, unofficially +as officers. He gave no reason, but his motive was obvious enough. Horner and +Smoke had been displaying a gallantry toward Maud Brewster, ludicrous in itself +and inoffensive to her, but to him evidently distasteful. +</p> + +<p> +The announcement was received with black silence, though the other four hunters +glanced significantly at the two who had been the cause of their banishment. +Jock Horner, quiet as was his way, gave no sign; but the blood surged darkly +across Smoke’s forehead, and he half opened his mouth to speak. Wolf +Larsen was watching him, waiting for him, the steely glitter in his eyes; but +Smoke closed his mouth again without having said anything. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything to say?” the other demanded aggressively. +</p> + +<p> +It was a challenge, but Smoke refused to accept it. +</p> + +<p> +“About what?” he asked, so innocently that Wolf Larsen was +disconcerted, while the others smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing,” Wolf Larsen said lamely. “I just thought you +might want to register a kick.” +</p> + +<p> +“About what?” asked the imperturbable Smoke. +</p> + +<p> +Smoke’s mates were now smiling broadly. His captain could have killed +him, and I doubt not that blood would have flowed had not Maud Brewster been +present. For that matter, it was her presence which enabled Smoke to act as he +did. He was too discreet and cautious a man to incur Wolf Larsen’s anger +at a time when that anger could be expressed in terms stronger than words. I +was in fear that a struggle might take place, but a cry from the helmsman made +it easy for the situation to save itself. +</p> + +<p> +“Smoke ho!” the cry came down the open companion-way. +</p> + +<p> +“How’s it bear?” Wolf Larsen called up. +</p> + +<p> +“Dead astern, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe it’s a Russian,” suggested Latimer. +</p> + +<p> +His words brought anxiety into the faces of the other hunters. A Russian could +mean but one thing—a cruiser. The hunters, never more than roughly aware +of the position of the ship, nevertheless knew that we were close to the +boundaries of the forbidden sea, while Wolf Larsen’s record as a poacher +was notorious. All eyes centred upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re dead safe,” he assured them with a laugh. “No +salt mines this time, Smoke. But I’ll tell you what—I’ll lay +odds of five to one it’s the <i>Macedonia</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +No one accepted his offer, and he went on: “In which event, I’ll +lay ten to one there’s trouble breezing up.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you,” Latimer spoke up. “I don’t object to +losing my money, but I like to get a run for it anyway. There never was a time +when there wasn’t trouble when you and that brother of yours got +together, and I’ll lay twenty to one on that.” +</p> + +<p> +A general smile followed, in which Wolf Larsen joined, and the dinner went on +smoothly, thanks to me, for he treated me abominably the rest of the meal, +sneering at me and patronizing me till I was all a-tremble with suppressed +rage. Yet I knew I must control myself for Maud Brewster’s sake, and I +received my reward when her eyes caught mine for a fleeting second, and they +said, as distinctly as if she spoke, “Be brave, be brave.” +</p> + +<p> +We left the table to go on deck, for a steamer was a welcome break in the +monotony of the sea on which we floated, while the conviction that it was Death +Larsen and the <i>Macedonia</i> added to the excitement. The stiff breeze and +heavy sea which had sprung up the previous afternoon had been moderating all +morning, so that it was now possible to lower the boats for an +afternoon’s hunt. The hunting promised to be profitable. We had sailed +since daylight across a sea barren of seals, and were now running into the +herd. +</p> + +<p> +The smoke was still miles astern, but overhauling us rapidly, when we lowered +our boats. They spread out and struck a northerly course across the ocean. Now +and again we saw a sail lower, heard the reports of the shot-guns, and saw the +sail go up again. The seals were thick, the wind was dying away; everything +favoured a big catch. As we ran off to get our leeward position of the last lee +boat, we found the ocean fairly carpeted with sleeping seals. They were all +about us, thicker than I had ever seen them before, in twos and threes and +bunches, stretched full length on the surface and sleeping for all the world +like so many lazy young dogs. +</p> + +<p> +Under the approaching smoke the hull and upper-works of a steamer were growing +larger. It was the <i>Macedonia</i>. I read her name through the glasses as she +passed by scarcely a mile to starboard. Wolf Larsen looked savagely at the +vessel, while Maud Brewster was curious. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the trouble you were so sure was breezing up, Captain +Larsen?” she asked gaily. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at her, a moment’s amusement softening his features. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you expect? That they’d come aboard and cut our +throats?” +</p> + +<p> +“Something like that,” she confessed. “You understand, +seal-hunters are so new and strange to me that I am quite ready to expect +anything.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head. “Quite right, quite right. Your error is that you +failed to expect the worst.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what can be worse than cutting our throats?” she asked, with +pretty naïve surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Cutting our purses,” he answered. “Man is so made these days +that his capacity for living is determined by the money he possesses.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Who steals my purse steals trash,’” she quoted. +</p> + +<p> +“Who steals my purse steals my right to live,” was the reply, +“old saws to the contrary. For he steals my bread and meat and bed, and +in so doing imperils my life. There are not enough soup-kitchens and +bread-lines to go around, you know, and when men have nothing in their purses +they usually die, and die miserably—unless they are able to fill their +purses pretty speedily.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I fail to see that this steamer has any designs on your +purse.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait and you will see,” he answered grimly. +</p> + +<p> +We did not have long to wait. Having passed several miles beyond our line of +boats, the <i>Macedonia</i> proceeded to lower her own. We knew she carried +fourteen boats to our five (we were one short through the desertion of +Wainwright), and she began dropping them far to leeward of our last boat, +continued dropping them athwart our course, and finished dropping them far to +windward of our first weather boat. The hunting, for us, was spoiled. There +were no seals behind us, and ahead of us the line of fourteen boats, like a +huge broom, swept the herd before it. +</p> + +<p> +Our boats hunted across the two or three miles of water between them and the +point where the <i>Macedonia’s</i> had been dropped, and then headed for +home. The wind had fallen to a whisper, the ocean was growing calmer and +calmer, and this, coupled with the presence of the great herd, made a perfect +hunting day—one of the two or three days to be encountered in the whole +of a lucky season. An angry lot of men, boat-pullers and steerers as well as +hunters, swarmed over our side. Each man felt that he had been robbed; and the +boats were hoisted in amid curses, which, if curses had power, would have +settled Death Larsen for all eternity—“Dead and damned for a dozen +iv eternities,” commented Louis, his eyes twinkling up at me as he rested +from hauling taut the lashings of his boat. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to them, and find if it is hard to discover the most vital thing +in their souls,” said Wolf Larsen. “Faith? and love? and high +ideals? The good? the beautiful? the true?” +</p> + +<p> +“Their innate sense of right has been violated,” Maud Brewster +said, joining the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +She was standing a dozen feet away, one hand resting on the main-shrouds and +her body swaying gently to the slight roll of the ship. She had not raised her +voice, and yet I was struck by its clear and bell-like tone. Ah, it was sweet +in my ears! I scarcely dared look at her just then, for the fear of betraying +myself. A boy’s cap was perched on her head, and her hair, light brown +and arranged in a loose and fluffy order that caught the sun, seemed an aureole +about the delicate oval of her face. She was positively bewitching, and, +withal, sweetly spirituelle, if not saintly. All my old-time marvel at life +returned to me at sight of this splendid incarnation of it, and Wolf +Larsen’s cold explanation of life and its meaning was truly ridiculous +and laughable. +</p> + +<p> +“A sentimentalist,” he sneered, “like Mr. Van Weyden. Those +men are cursing because their desires have been outraged. That is all. What +desires? The desires for the good grub and soft beds ashore which a handsome +pay-day brings them—the women and the drink, the gorging and the +beastliness which so truly expresses them, the best that is in them, their +highest aspirations, their ideals, if you please. The exhibition they make of +their feelings is not a touching sight, yet it shows how deeply they have been +touched, how deeply their purses have been touched, for to lay hands on their +purses is to lay hands on their souls.” +</p> + +<p> +“’You hardly behave as if your purse had been touched,” she +said, smilingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it so happens that I am behaving differently, for my purse and my +soul have both been touched. At the current price of skins in the London +market, and based on a fair estimate of what the afternoon’s catch would +have been had not the <i>Macedonia</i> hogged it, the <i>Ghost</i> has lost +about fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of skins.” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak so calmly—” she began. +</p> + +<p> +“But I do not feel calm; I could kill the man who robbed me,” he +interrupted. “Yes, yes, I know, and that man my brother—more +sentiment! Bah!” +</p> + +<p> +His face underwent a sudden change. His voice was less harsh and wholly sincere +as he said: +</p> + +<p> +“You must be happy, you sentimentalists, really and truly happy at +dreaming and finding things good, and, because you find some of them good, +feeling good yourself. Now, tell me, you two, do you find me good?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are good to look upon—in a way,” I qualified. +</p> + +<p> +“There are in you all powers for good,” was Maud Brewster’s +answer. +</p> + +<p> +“There you are!” he cried at her, half angrily. “Your words +are empty to me. There is nothing clear and sharp and definite about the +thought you have expressed. You cannot pick it up in your two hands and look at +it. In point of fact, it is not a thought. It is a feeling, a sentiment, a +something based upon illusion and not a product of the intellect at all.” +</p> + +<p> +As he went on his voice again grew soft, and a confiding note came into it. +“Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, were blind to +the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions. They’re wrong, +all wrong, of course, and contrary to reason; but in the face of them my reason +tells me, wrong and most wrong, that to dream and live illusions gives greater +delight. And after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, living +is a worthless act. To labour at living and be unpaid is worse than to be dead. +He who delights the most lives the most, and your dreams and unrealities are +less disturbing to you and more gratifying than are my facts to me.” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head slowly, pondering. +</p> + +<p> +“I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams must +be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more filling and +lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for your moments of +intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional delight is followed by no +more than jaded senses which speedily recuperate. I envy you, I envy +you.” +</p> + +<p> +He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical +smiles, as he added: +</p> + +<p> +“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. +My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a sober +man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, were +drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a +fool,” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of +fools. You have no facts in your pocketbook.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s +contribution. +</p> + +<p> +“More freely, because it costs you nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted. +</p> + +<p> +“Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. You spend +what you haven’t got, and in return you get greater value from spending +what you haven’t got than I get from spending what I have got, and what I +have sweated to get.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you change the basis of your coinage, then?” she +queried teasingly. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her quickly, half-hopefully, and then said, all regretfully: +“Too late. I’d like to, perhaps, but I can’t. My pocketbook +is stuffed with the old coinage, and it’s a stubborn thing. I can never +bring myself to recognize anything else as valid.” +</p> + +<p> +He ceased speaking, and his gaze wandered absently past her and became lost in +the placid sea. The old primal melancholy was strong upon him. He was quivering +to it. He had reasoned himself into a spell of the blues, and within few hours +one could look for the devil within him to be up and stirring. I remembered +Charley Furuseth, and knew this man’s sadness as the penalty which the +materialist ever pays for his materialism. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<p> +“You’ve been on deck, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen said, the +following morning at the breakfast-table, “How do things look?” +</p> + +<p> +“Clear enough,” I answered, glancing at the sunshine which streamed +down the open companion-way. “Fair westerly breeze, with a promise of +stiffening, if Louis predicts correctly.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head in a pleased way. “Any signs of fog?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thick banks in the north and north-west.” +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head again, evincing even greater satisfaction than before. +</p> + +<p> +“What of the <i>Macedonia</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not sighted,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +I could have sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he should be +disappointed I could not conceive. +</p> + +<p> +I was soon to learn. “Smoke ho!” came the hail from on deck, and +his face brightened. +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” he exclaimed, and left the table at once to go on deck and +into the steerage, where the hunters were taking the first breakfast of their +exile. +</p> + +<p> +Maud Brewster and I scarcely touched the food before us, gazing, instead, in +silent anxiety at each other, and listening to Wolf Larsen’s voice, which +easily penetrated the cabin through the intervening bulkhead. He spoke at +length, and his conclusion was greeted with a wild roar of cheers. The bulkhead +was too thick for us to hear what he said; but whatever it was it affected the +hunters strongly, for the cheering was followed by loud exclamations and shouts +of joy. +</p> + +<p> +From the sounds on deck I knew that the sailors had been routed out and were +preparing to lower the boats. Maud Brewster accompanied me on deck, but I left +her at the break of the poop, where she might watch the scene and not be in it. +The sailors must have learned whatever project was on hand, and the vim and +snap they put into their work attested their enthusiasm. The hunters came +trooping on deck with shot-guns and ammunition-boxes, and, most unusual, their +rifles. The latter were rarely taken in the boats, for a seal shot at long +range with a rifle invariably sank before a boat could reach it. But each +hunter this day had his rifle and a large supply of cartridges. I noticed they +grinned with satisfaction whenever they looked at the <i>Macedonia’s</i> +smoke, which was rising higher and higher as she approached from the west. +</p> + +<p> +The five boats went over the side with a rush, spread out like the ribs of a +fan, and set a northerly course, as on the preceding afternoon, for us to +follow. I watched for some time, curiously, but there seemed nothing +extraordinary about their behaviour. They lowered sails, shot seals, and +hoisted sails again, and continued on their way as I had always seen them do. +The <i>Macedonia</i> repeated her performance of yesterday, +“hogging” the sea by dropping her line of boats in advance of ours +and across our course. Fourteen boats require a considerable spread of ocean +for comfortable hunting, and when she had completely lapped our line she +continued steaming into the north-east, dropping more boats as she went. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up?” I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer to keep my +curiosity in check. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind what’s up,” he answered gruffly. “You +won’t be a thousand years in finding out, and in the meantime just pray +for plenty of wind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, I don’t mind telling you,” he said the next +moment. “I’m going to give that brother of mine a taste of his own +medicine. In short, I’m going to play the hog myself, and not for one +day, but for the rest of the season,—if we’re in luck.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if we’re not?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“Not to be considered,” he laughed. “We simply must be in +luck, or it’s all up with us.” +</p> + +<p> +He had the wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in the +forecastle, where lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas Mugridge. Nilson +was as cheerful as could be expected, for his broken leg was knitting nicely; +but the Cockney was desperately melancholy, and I was aware of a great sympathy +for the unfortunate creature. And the marvel of it was that still he lived and +clung to life. The brutal years had reduced his meagre body to splintered +wreckage, and yet the spark of life within burned brightly as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“With an artificial foot—and they make excellent ones—you +will be stumping ships’ galleys to the end of time,” I assured him +jovially. +</p> + +<p> +But his answer was serious, nay, solemn. “I don’t know about wot +you s’y, Mr. Van W’yden, but I do know I’ll never rest +’appy till I see that ’ell-’ound bloody well dead. ’E +cawn’t live as long as me. ’E’s got no right to live, +an’ as the Good Word puts it, ‘’E shall shorely die,’ +an’ I s’y, ‘Amen, an’ damn soon at that.’” +</p> + +<p> +When I returned on deck I found Wolf Larsen steering mainly with one hand, +while with the other hand he held the marine glasses and studied the situation +of the boats, paying particular attention to the position of the +<i>Macedonia</i>. The only change noticeable in our boats was that they had +hauled close on the wind and were heading several points west of north. Still, +I could not see the expediency of the manœuvre, for the free sea was still +intercepted by the <i>Macedonia’s</i> five weather boats, which, in turn, +had hauled close on the wind. Thus they slowly diverged toward the west, +drawing farther away from the remainder of the boats in their line. Our boats +were rowing as well as sailing. Even the hunters were pulling, and with three +pairs of oars in the water they rapidly overhauled what I may appropriately +term the enemy. +</p> + +<p> +The smoke of the <i>Macedonia</i> had dwindled to a dim blot on the +north-eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was to be seen. We had +been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half the time and spilling the +wind; and twice, for short periods, we had been hove to. But there was no more +loafing. Sheets were trimmed, and Wolf Larsen proceeded to put the <i>Ghost</i> +through her paces. We ran past our line of boats and bore down upon the first +weather boat of the other line. +</p> + +<p> +“Down that flying jib, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen commanded. +“And stand by to back over the jibs.” +</p> + +<p> +I ran forward and had the downhaul of the flying jib all in and fast as we +slipped by the boat a hundred feet to leeward. The three men in it gazed at us +suspiciously. They had been hogging the sea, and they knew Wolf Larsen, by +reputation at any rate. I noted that the hunter, a huge Scandinavian sitting in +the bow, held his rifle, ready to hand, across his knees. It should have been +in its proper place in the rack. When they came opposite our stern, Wolf Larsen +greeted them with a wave of the hand, and cried: +</p> + +<p> +“Come on board and have a ’gam’!” +</p> + +<p> +“To gam,” among the sealing-schooners, is a substitute for the +verbs “to visit,” “to gossip.” It expresses the +garrulity of the sea, and is a pleasant break in the monotony of the life. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Ghost</i> swung around into the wind, and I finished my work forward in +time to run aft and lend a hand with the mainsheet. +</p> + +<p> +“You will please stay on deck, Miss Brewster,” Wolf Larsen said, as +he started forward to meet his guest. “And you too, Mr. Van +Weyden.” +</p> + +<p> +The boat had lowered its sail and run alongside. The hunter, golden bearded +like a sea-king, came over the rail and dropped on deck. But his hugeness could +not quite overcome his apprehensiveness. Doubt and distrust showed strongly in +his face. It was a transparent face, for all of its hairy shield, and +advertised instant relief when he glanced from Wolf Larsen to me, noted that +there was only the pair of us, and then glanced over his own two men who had +joined him. Surely he had little reason to be afraid. He towered like a Goliath +above Wolf Larsen. He must have measured six feet eight or nine inches in +stature, and I subsequently learned his weight—240 pounds. And there was +no fat about him. It was all bone and muscle. +</p> + +<p> +A return of apprehension was apparent when, at the top of the companion-way, +Wolf Larsen invited him below. But he reassured himself with a glance down at +his host—a big man himself but dwarfed by the propinquity of the giant. +So all hesitancy vanished, and the pair descended into the cabin. In the +meantime, his two men, as was the wont of visiting sailors, had gone forward +into the forecastle to do some visiting themselves. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by all the +sounds of a furious struggle. It was the leopard and the lion, and the lion +made all the noise. Wolf Larsen was the leopard. +</p> + +<p> +“You see the sacredness of our hospitality,” I said bitterly to +Maud Brewster. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the signs of the +same sickness at sight or sound of violent struggle from which I had suffered +so severely during my first weeks on the <i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Wouldn’t it be better if you went forward, say by the steerage +companion-way, until it is over?” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head and gazed at me pitifully. She was not frightened, but +appalled, rather, at the human animality of it. +</p> + +<p> +“You will understand,” I took advantage of the opportunity to say, +“whatever part I take in what is going on and what is to come, that I am +compelled to take it—if you and I are ever to get out of this scrape with +our lives.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not nice—for me,” I added. +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” she said, in a weak, far-away voice, and her eyes +showed me that she did understand. +</p> + +<p> +The sounds from below soon died away. Then Wolf Larsen came alone on deck. +There was a slight flush under his bronze, but otherwise he bore no signs of +the battle. +</p> + +<p> +“Send those two men aft, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed, and a minute or two later they stood before him. “Hoist in your +boat,” he said to them. “Your hunter’s decided to stay aboard +awhile and doesn’t want it pounding alongside.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hoist in your boat, I said,” he repeated, this time in sharper +tones as they hesitated to do his bidding. +</p> + +<p> +“Who knows? you may have to sail with me for a time,” he said, +quite softly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, as they moved +slowly to comply, “and we might as well start with a friendly +understanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes you jump better than that, and +you know it!” +</p> + +<p> +Their movements perceptibly quickened under his coaching, and as the boat swung +inboard I was sent forward to let go the jibs. Wolf Larsen, at the wheel, +directed the <i>Ghost</i> after the <i>Macedonia’s</i> second weather +boat. +</p> + +<p> +Under way, and with nothing for the time being to do, I turned my attention to +the situation of the boats. The <i>Macedonia’s</i> third weather boat was +being attacked by two of ours, the fourth by our remaining three; and the +fifth, turn about, was taking a hand in the defence of its nearest mate. The +fight had opened at long distance, and the rifles were cracking steadily. A +quick, snappy sea was being kicked up by the wind, a condition which prevented +fine shooting; and now and again, as we drew closer, we could see the bullets +zip-zipping from wave to wave. +</p> + +<p> +The boat we were pursuing had squared away and was running before the wind to +escape us, and, in the course of its flight, to take part in repulsing our +general boat attack. +</p> + +<p> +Attending to sheets and tacks now left me little time to see what was taking +place, but I happened to be on the poop when Wolf Larsen ordered the two +strange sailors forward and into the forecastle. They went sullenly, but they +went. He next ordered Miss Brewster below, and smiled at the instant horror +that leapt into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find nothing gruesome down there,” he said, +“only an unhurt man securely made fast to the ring-bolts. Bullets are +liable to come aboard, and I don’t want you killed, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Even as he spoke, a bullet was deflected by a brass-capped spoke of the wheel +between his hands and screeched off through the air to windward. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” he said to her; and then to me, “Mr. Van Weyden, +will you take the wheel?” +</p> + +<p> +Maud Brewster had stepped inside the companion-way so that only her head was +exposed. Wolf Larsen had procured a rifle and was throwing a cartridge into the +barrel. I begged her with my eyes to go below, but she smiled and said: +</p> + +<p> +“We may be feeble land-creatures without legs, but we can show Captain +Larsen that we are at least as brave as he.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave her a quick look of admiration. +</p> + +<p> +“I like you a hundred per cent. better for that,” he said. +“Books, and brains, and bravery. You are well-rounded, a blue-stocking +fit to be the wife of a pirate chief. Ahem, we’ll discuss that +later,” he smiled, as a bullet struck solidly into the cabin wall. +</p> + +<p> +I saw his eyes flash golden as he spoke, and I saw the terror mount in her own. +</p> + +<p> +“We are braver,” I hastened to say. “At least, speaking for +myself, I know I am braver than Captain Larsen.” +</p> + +<p> +It was I who was now favoured by a quick look. He was wondering if I were +making fun of him. I put three or four spokes over to counteract a sheer toward +the wind on the part of the <i>Ghost</i>, and then steadied her. Wolf Larsen +was still waiting an explanation, and I pointed down to my knees. +</p> + +<p> +“You will observe there,” I said, “a slight trembling. It is +because I am afraid, the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my mind because I +do not wish to die. But my spirit masters the trembling flesh and the qualms of +the mind. I am more than brave. I am courageous. Your flesh is not afraid. You +are not afraid. On the one hand, it costs you nothing to encounter danger; on +the other hand, it even gives you delight. You enjoy it. You may be unafraid, +Mr. Larsen, but you must grant that the bravery is mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re right,” he acknowledged at once. “I never +thought of it in that way before. But is the opposite true? If you are braver +than I, am I more cowardly than you?” +</p> + +<p> +We both laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck and rested +his rifle across the rail. The bullets we had received had travelled nearly a +mile, but by now we had cut that distance in half. He fired three careful +shots. The first struck fifty feet to windward of the boat, the second +alongside; and at the third the boat-steerer let loose his steering-oar and +crumpled up in the bottom of the boat. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess that’ll fix them,” Wolf Larsen said, rising to his +feet. “I couldn’t afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a +chance the boat-puller doesn’t know how to steer. In which case, the +hunter cannot steer and shoot at the same time.” +</p> + +<p> +His reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the wind and the +hunter sprang aft to take the boat-steerer’s place. There was no more +shooting, though the rifles were still cracking merrily from the other boats. +</p> + +<p> +The hunter had managed to get the boat before the wind again, but we ran down +upon it, going at least two feet to its one. A hundred yards away, I saw the +boat-puller pass a rifle to the hunter. Wolf Larsen went amidships and took the +coil of the throat-halyards from its pin. Then he peered over the rail with +levelled rifle. Twice I saw the hunter let go the steering-oar with one hand, +reach for his rifle, and hesitate. We were now alongside and foaming past. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, you!” Wolf Larsen cried suddenly to the boat-puller. +“Take a turn!” +</p> + +<p> +At the same time he flung the coil of rope. It struck fairly, nearly knocking +the man over, but he did not obey. Instead, he looked to his hunter for orders. +The hunter, in turn, was in a quandary. His rifle was between his knees, but if +he let go the steering-oar in order to shoot, the boat would sweep around and +collide with the schooner. Also he saw Wolf Larsen’s rifle bearing upon +him and knew he would be shot ere he could get his rifle into play. +</p> + +<p> +“Take a turn,” he said quietly to the man. +</p> + +<p> +The boat-puller obeyed, taking a turn around the little forward thwart and +paying the line as it jerked taut. The boat sheered out with a rush, and the +hunter steadied it to a parallel course some twenty feet from the side of the +<i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, get that sail down and come alongside!” Wolf Larsen ordered. +</p> + +<p> +He never let go his rifle, even passing down the tackles with one hand. When +they were fast, bow and stern, and the two uninjured men prepared to come +aboard, the hunter picked up his rifle as if to place it in a secure position. +</p> + +<p> +“Drop it!” Wolf Larsen cried, and the hunter dropped it as though +it were hot and had burned him. +</p> + +<p> +Once aboard, the two prisoners hoisted in the boat and under Wolf +Larsen’s direction carried the wounded boat-steerer down into the +forecastle. +</p> + +<p> +“If our five boats do as well as you and I have done, we’ll have a +pretty full crew,” Wolf Larsen said to me. +</p> + +<p> +“The man you shot—he is—I hope?” Maud Brewster +quavered. +</p> + +<p> +“In the shoulder,” he answered. “Nothing serious, Mr. Van +Weyden will pull him around as good as ever in three or four weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he won’t pull those chaps around, from the look of it,” +he added, pointing at the <i>Macedonia’s</i> third boat, for which I had +been steering and which was now nearly abreast of us. “That’s +Horner’s and Smoke’s work. I told them we wanted live men, not +carcasses. But the joy of shooting to hit is a most compelling thing, when once +you’ve learned how to shoot. Ever experienced it, Mr. Van Weyden?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head and regarded their work. It had indeed been bloody, for they +had drawn off and joined our other three boats in the attack on the remaining +two of the enemy. The deserted boat was in the trough of the sea, rolling +drunkenly across each comber, its loose spritsail out at right angles to it and +fluttering and flapping in the wind. The hunter and boat-puller were both lying +awkwardly in the bottom, but the boat-steerer lay across the gunwale, half in +and half out, his arms trailing in the water and his head rolling from side to +side. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t look, Miss Brewster, please don’t look,” I had +begged of her, and I was glad that she had minded me and been spared the sight. +</p> + +<p> +“Head right into the bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was Wolf +Larsen’s command. +</p> + +<p> +As we drew nearer, the firing ceased, and we saw that the fight was over. The +remaining two boats had been captured by our five, and the seven were grouped +together, waiting to be picked up. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at that!” I cried involuntarily, pointing to the north-east. +</p> + +<p> +The blot of smoke which indicated the <i>Macedonia’s</i> position had +reappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’ve been watching it,” was Wolf Larsen’s calm +reply. He measured the distance away to the fog-bank, and for an instant paused +to feel the weight of the wind on his cheek. “We’ll make it, I +think; but you can depend upon it that blessed brother of mine has twigged our +little game and is just a-humping for us. Ah, look at that!” +</p> + +<p> +The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll beat you out, though, brother mine,” he chuckled. +“I’ll beat you out, and I hope you no worse than that you rack your +old engines into scrap.” +</p> + +<p> +When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The boats came +aboard from every side at once. As fast as the prisoners came over the rail +they were marshalled forward to the forecastle by our hunters, while our +sailors hoisted in the boats, pell-mell, dropping them anywhere upon the deck +and not stopping to lash them. We were already under way, all sails set and +drawing, and the sheets being slacked off for a wind abeam, as the last boat +lifted clear of the water and swung in the tackles. +</p> + +<p> +There was need for haste. The <i>Macedonia</i>, belching the blackest of smoke +from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of the north-east. +Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had altered her course so as to +anticipate ours. She was not running straight for us, but ahead of us. Our +courses were converging like the sides of an angle, the vertex of which was at +the edge of the fog-bank. It was there, or not at all, that the +<i>Macedonia</i> could hope to catch us. The hope for the <i>Ghost</i> lay in +that she should pass that point before the <i>Macedonia</i> arrived at it. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they dwelt upon +and leaped from detail to detail of the chase. Now he studied the sea to +windward for signs of the wind slackening or freshening, now the +<i>Macedonia</i>; and again, his eyes roved over every sail, and he gave +commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come in on one there a trifle, till +he was drawing out of the <i>Ghost</i> the last bit of speed she possessed. All +feuds and grudges were forgotten, and I was surprised at the alacrity with +which the men who had so long endured his brutality sprang to execute his +orders. Strange to say, the unfortunate Johnson came into my mind as we lifted +and surged and heeled along, and I was aware of a regret that he was not alive +and present; he had so loved the <i>Ghost</i> and delighted in her sailing +powers. +</p> + +<p> +“Better get your rifles, you fellows,” Wolf Larsen called to our +hunters; and the five men lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and waited. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Macedonia</i> was now but a mile away, the black smoke pouring from her +funnel at a right angle, so madly she raced, pounding through the sea at a +seventeen-knot gait—“’Sky-hooting through the brine,” +as Wolf Larsen quoted while gazing at her. We were not making more than nine +knots, but the fog-bank was very near. +</p> + +<p> +A puff of smoke broke from the <i>Macedonia’s</i> deck, we heard a heavy +report, and a round hole took form in the stretched canvas of our mainsail. +They were shooting at us with one of the small cannon which rumour had said +they carried on board. Our men, clustering amidships, waved their hats and +raised a derisive cheer. Again there was a puff of smoke and a loud report, +this time the cannon-ball striking not more than twenty feet astern and +glancing twice from sea to sea to windward ere it sank. +</p> + +<p> +But there was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters were out in +the boats or our prisoners. When the two vessels were half-a-mile apart, a +third shot made another hole in our mainsail. Then we entered the fog. It was +about us, veiling and hiding us in its dense wet gauze. +</p> + +<p> +The sudden transition was startling. The moment before we had been leaping +through the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea breaking and rolling wide +to the horizon, and a ship, vomiting smoke and fire and iron missiles, rushing +madly upon us. And at once, as in an instant’s leap, the sun was blotted +out, there was no sky, even our mastheads were lost to view, and our horizon +was such as tear-blinded eyes may see. The grey mist drove by us like a rain. +Every woollen filament of our garments, every hair of our heads and faces, was +jewelled with a crystal globule. The shrouds were wet with moisture; it dripped +from our rigging overhead; and on the underside of our booms drops of water +took shape in long swaying lines, which were detached and flung to the deck in +mimic showers at each surge of the schooner. I was aware of a pent, stifled +feeling. As the sounds of the ship thrusting herself through the waves were +hurled back upon us by the fog, so were one’s thoughts. The mind recoiled +from contemplation of a world beyond this wet veil which wrapped us around. +This was the world, the universe itself, its bounds so near one felt impelled +to reach out both arms and push them back. It was impossible, that the rest +could be beyond these walls of grey. The rest was a dream, no more than the +memory of a dream. +</p> + +<p> +It was weird, strangely weird. I looked at Maud Brewster and knew that she was +similarly affected. Then I looked at Wolf Larsen, but there was nothing +subjective about his state of consciousness. His whole concern was with the +immediate, objective present. He still held the wheel, and I felt that he was +timing Time, reckoning the passage of the minutes with each forward lunge and +leeward roll of the <i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“Go for’ard and hard alee without any noise,” he said to me +in a low voice. “Clew up the topsails first. Set men at all the sheets. +Let there be no rattling of blocks, no sound of voices. No noise, understand, +no noise.” +</p> + +<p> +When all was ready, the word “hard-a-lee” was passed forward to me +from man to man; and the <i>Ghost</i> heeled about on the port tack with +practically no noise at all. And what little there was,—the slapping of a +few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a block or two,—was +ghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed. +</p> + +<p> +We had scarcely filled away, it seemed, when the fog thinned abruptly and we +were again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea breaking before us to the +sky-line. But the ocean was bare. No wrathful <i>Macedonia</i> broke its +surface nor blackened the sky with her smoke. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen at once squared away and ran down along the rim of the fog-bank. +His trick was obvious. He had entered the fog to windward of the steamer, and +while the steamer had blindly driven on into the fog in the chance of catching +him, he had come about and out of his shelter and was now running down to +re-enter to leeward. Successful in this, the old simile of the needle in the +haystack would be mild indeed compared with his brother’s chance of +finding him. He did not run long. Jibing the fore- and main-sails and setting +the topsails again, we headed back into the bank. As we entered I could have +sworn I saw a vague bulk emerging to windward. I looked quickly at Wolf Larsen. +Already we were ourselves buried in the fog, but he nodded his head. He, too, +had seen it—the <i>Macedonia</i>, guessing his manœuvre and failing by a +moment in anticipating it. There was no doubt that we had escaped unseen. +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t keep this up,” Wolf Larsen said. “He’ll +have to go back for the rest of his boats. Send a man to the wheel, Mr. Van +Weyden, keep this course for the present, and you might as well set the +watches, for we won’t do any lingering to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d give five hundred dollars, though,” he added, +“just to be aboard the <i>Macedonia</i> for five minutes, listening to my +brother curse.” +</p> + +<p> +“And now, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said to me when he had been relieved +from the wheel, “we must make these new-comers welcome. Serve out plenty +of whisky to the hunters and see that a few bottles slip for’ard. +I’ll wager every man Jack of them is over the side to-morrow, hunting for +Wolf Larsen as contentedly as ever they hunted for Death Larsen.” +</p> + +<p> +“But won’t they escape as Wainwright did?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He laughed shrewdly. “Not as long as our old hunters have anything to say +about it. I’m dividing amongst them a dollar a skin for all the skins +shot by our new hunters. At least half of their enthusiasm to-day was due to +that. Oh, no, there won’t be any escaping if they have anything to say +about it. And now you’d better get for’ard to your hospital duties. +There must be a full ward waiting for you.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen took the distribution of the whisky off my hands, and the bottles +began to make their appearance while I worked over the fresh batch of wounded +men in the forecastle. I had seen whisky drunk, such as whisky-and-soda by the +men of the clubs, but never as these men drank it, from pannikins and mugs, and +from the bottles—great brimming drinks, each one of which was in itself a +debauch. But they did not stop at one or two. They drank and drank, and ever +the bottles slipped forward and they drank more. +</p> + +<p> +Everybody drank; the wounded drank; Oofty-Oofty, who helped me, drank. Only +Louis refrained, no more than cautiously wetting his lips with the liquor, +though he joined in the revels with an abandon equal to that of most of them. +It was a saturnalia. In loud voices they shouted over the day’s fighting, +wrangled about details, or waxed affectionate and made friends with the men +whom they had fought. Prisoners and captors hiccoughed on one another’s +shoulders, and swore mighty oaths of respect and esteem. They wept over the +miseries of the past and over the miseries yet to come under the iron rule of +Wolf Larsen. And all cursed him and told terrible tales of his brutality. +</p> + +<p> +It was a strange and frightful spectacle—the small, bunk-lined space, the +floor and walls leaping and lurching, the dim light, the swaying shadows +lengthening and fore-shortening monstrously, the thick air heavy with smoke and +the smell of bodies and iodoform, and the inflamed faces of the +men—half-men, I should call them. I noted Oofty-Oofty, holding the end of +a bandage and looking upon the scene, his velvety and luminous eyes glistening +in the light like a deer’s eyes, and yet I knew the barbaric devil that +lurked in his breast and belied all the softness and tenderness, almost +womanly, of his face and form. And I noticed the boyish face of +Harrison,—a good face once, but now a demon’s,—convulsed with +passion as he told the new-comers of the hell-ship they were in and shrieked +curses upon the head of Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen it was, always Wolf Larsen, enslaver and tormentor of men, a male +Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that grovelled before him and +revolted only in drunkenness and in secrecy. And was I, too, one of his swine? +I thought. And Maud Brewster? No! I ground my teeth in my anger and +determination till the man I was attending winced under my hand and Oofty-Oofty +looked at me with curiosity. I felt endowed with a sudden strength. What of my +new-found love, I was a giant. I feared nothing. I would work my will through +it all, in spite of Wolf Larsen and of my own thirty-five bookish years. All +would be well. I would make it well. And so, exalted, upborne by a sense of +power, I turned my back on the howling inferno and climbed to the deck, where +the fog drifted ghostly through the night and the air was sweet and pure and +quiet. +</p> + +<p> +The steerage, where were two wounded hunters, was a repetition of the +forecastle, except that Wolf Larsen was not being cursed; and it was with a +great relief that I again emerged on deck and went aft to the cabin. Supper was +ready, and Wolf Larsen and Maud were waiting for me. +</p> + +<p> +While all his ship was getting drunk as fast as it could, he remained sober. +Not a drop of liquor passed his lips. He did not dare it under the +circumstances, for he had only Louis and me to depend upon, and Louis was even +now at the wheel. We were sailing on through the fog without a look-out and +without lights. That Wolf Larsen had turned the liquor loose among his men +surprised me, but he evidently knew their psychology and the best method of +cementing in cordiality, what had begun in bloodshed. +</p> + +<p> +His victory over Death Larsen seemed to have had a remarkable effect upon him. +The previous evening he had reasoned himself into the blues, and I had been +waiting momentarily for one of his characteristic outbursts. Yet nothing had +occurred, and he was now in splendid trim. Possibly his success in capturing so +many hunters and boats had counteracted the customary reaction. At any rate, +the blues were gone, and the blue devils had not put in an appearance. So I +thought at the time; but, ah me, little I knew him or knew that even then, +perhaps, he was meditating an outbreak more terrible than any I had seen. +</p> + +<p> +As I say, he discovered himself in splendid trim when I entered the cabin. He +had had no headaches for weeks, his eyes were clear blue as the sky, his bronze +was beautiful with perfect health; life swelled through his veins in full and +magnificent flood. While waiting for me he had engaged Maud in animated +discussion. Temptation was the topic they had hit upon, and from the few words +I heard I made out that he was contending that temptation was temptation only +when a man was seduced by it and fell. +</p> + +<p> +“For look you,” he was saying, “as I see it, a man does +things because of desire. He has many desires. He may desire to escape pain, or +to enjoy pleasure. But whatever he does, he does because he desires to do +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But suppose he desires to do two opposite things, neither of which will +permit him to do the other?” Maud interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“The very thing I was coming to,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“And between these two desires is just where the soul of the man is +manifest,” she went on. “If it is a good soul, it will desire and +do the good action, and the contrary if it is a bad soul. It is the soul that +decides.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bosh and nonsense!” he exclaimed impatiently. “It is the +desire that decides. Here is a man who wants to, say, get drunk. Also, he +doesn’t want to get drunk. What does he do? How does he do it? He is a +puppet. He is the creature of his desires, and of the two desires he obeys the +strongest one, that is all. His soul hasn’t anything to do with it. How +can he be tempted to get drunk and refuse to get drunk? If the desire to remain +sober prevails, it is because it is the strongest desire. Temptation plays no +part, unless—” he paused while grasping the new thought which had +come into his mind—“unless he is tempted to remain sober. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha!” he laughed. “What do you think of that, Mr. Van +Weyden?” +</p> + +<p> +“That both of you are hair-splitting,” I said. “The +man’s soul is his desires. Or, if you will, the sum of his desires is his +soul. Therein you are both wrong. You lay the stress upon the desire apart from +the soul, Miss Brewster lays the stress on the soul apart from the desire, and +in point of fact soul and desire are the same thing. +</p> + +<p> +“However,” I continued, “Miss Brewster is right in contending +that temptation is temptation whether the man yield or overcome. Fire is fanned +by the wind until it leaps up fiercely. So is desire like fire. It is fanned, +as by a wind, by sight of the thing desired, or by a new and luring description +or comprehension of the thing desired. There lies the temptation. It is the +wind that fans the desire until it leaps up to mastery. That’s +temptation. It may not fan sufficiently to make the desire overmastering, but +in so far as it fans at all, that far is it temptation. And, as you say, it may +tempt for good as well as for evil.” +</p> + +<p> +I felt proud of myself as we sat down to the table. My words had been decisive. +At least they had put an end to the discussion. +</p> + +<p> +But Wolf Larsen seemed voluble, prone to speech as I had never seen him before. +It was as though he were bursting with pent energy which must find an outlet +somehow. Almost immediately he launched into a discussion on love. As usual, +his was the sheer materialistic side, and Maud’s was the idealistic. For +myself, beyond a word or so of suggestion or correction now and again, I took +no part. +</p> + +<p> +He was brilliant, but so was Maud, and for some time I lost the thread of the +conversation through studying her face as she talked. It was a face that rarely +displayed colour, but to-night it was flushed and vivacious. Her wit was +playing keenly, and she was enjoying the tilt as much as Wolf Larsen, and he +was enjoying it hugely. For some reason, though I know not why in the argument, +so utterly had I lost it in the contemplation of one stray brown lock of +Maud’s hair, he quoted from Iseult at Tintagel, where she says: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Blessed am I beyond women even herein,<br/> +That beyond all born women is my sin,<br/> +And perfect my transgression.” +</p> + +<p> +As he had read pessimism into Omar, so now he read triumph, stinging triumph +and exultation, into Swinburne’s lines. And he read rightly, and he read +well. He had hardly ceased reading when Louis put his head into the +companion-way and whispered down: +</p> + +<p> +“Be easy, will ye? The fog’s lifted, an’ ’tis the port +light iv a steamer that’s crossin’ our bow this blessed +minute.” +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen sprang on deck, and so swiftly that by the time we followed him he +had pulled the steerage-slide over the drunken clamour and was on his way +forward to close the forecastle-scuttle. The fog, though it remained, had +lifted high, where it obscured the stars and made the night quite black. +Directly ahead of us I could see a bright red light and a white light, and I +could hear the pulsing of a steamer’s engines. Beyond a doubt it was the +<i>Macedonia</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Wolf Larsen had returned to the poop, and we stood in a silent group, watching +the lights rapidly cross our bow. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucky for me he doesn’t carry a searchlight,” Wolf Larsen +said. +</p> + +<p> +“What if I should cry out loudly?” I queried in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be all up,” he answered. “But have you thought upon +what would immediately happen?” +</p> + +<p> +Before I had time to express any desire to know, he had me by the throat with +his gorilla grip, and by a faint quiver of the muscles—a hint, as it +were—he suggested to me the twist that would surely have broken my neck. +The next moment he had released me and we were gazing at the +<i>Macedonia’s</i> lights. +</p> + +<p> +“What if I should cry out?” Maud asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I like you too well to hurt you,” he said softly—nay, there +was a tenderness and a caress in his voice that made me wince. +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t do it, just the same, for I’d promptly break Mr. +Van Weyden’s neck.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then she has my permission to cry out,” I said defiantly. +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly think you’ll care to sacrifice the Dean of American +Letters the Second,” he sneered. +</p> + +<p> +We spoke no more, though we had become too used to one another for the silence +to be awkward; and when the red light and the white had disappeared we returned +to the cabin to finish the interrupted supper. +</p> + +<p> +Again they fell to quoting, and Maud gave Dowson’s “Impenitentia +Ultima.” She rendered it beautifully, but I watched not her, but Wolf +Larsen. I was fascinated by the fascinated look he bent upon Maud. He was quite +out of himself, and I noticed the unconscious movement of his lips as he shaped +word for word as fast as she uttered them. He interrupted her when she gave the +lines: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And her eyes should be my light while the sun went out behind me,<br/> +And the viols in her voice be the last sound in my ear.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are viols in your voice,” he said bluntly, and his eyes +flashed their golden light. +</p> + +<p> +I could have shouted with joy at her control. She finished the concluding +stanza without faltering and then slowly guided the conversation into less +perilous channels. And all the while I sat in a half-daze, the drunken riot of +the steerage breaking through the bulkhead, the man I feared and the woman I +loved talking on and on. The table was not cleared. The man who had taken +Mugridge’s place had evidently joined his comrades in the forecastle. +</p> + +<p> +If ever Wolf Larsen attained the summit of living, he attained it then. From +time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him, and I followed in amaze, +mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, under the spell of his +passion, for he was preaching the passion of revolt. It was inevitable that +Milton’s Lucifer should be instanced, and the keenness with which Wolf +Larsen analysed and depicted the character was a revelation of his stifled +genius. It reminded me of Taine, yet I knew the man had never heard of that +brilliant though dangerous thinker. +</p> + +<p> +“He led a lost cause, and he was not afraid of God’s +thunderbolts,” Wolf Larsen was saying. “Hurled into hell, he was +unbeaten. A third of God’s angels he had led with him, and straightway he +incited man to rebel against God, and gained for himself and hell the major +portion of all the generations of man. Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because +he was less brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times no! +God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater. But Lucifer +was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate. He preferred suffering in freedom +to all the happiness of a comfortable servility. He did not care to serve God. +He cared to serve nothing. He was no figure-head. He stood on his own legs. He +was an individual.” +</p> + +<p> +“The first Anarchist,” Maud laughed, rising and preparing to +withdraw to her state-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is good to be an anarchist!” he cried. He, too, had risen, +and he stood facing her, where she had paused at the door of her room, as he +went on: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘Here at least<br/> +We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built<br/> +Here for his envy; will not drive us hence;<br/> +Here we may reign secure; and in my choice<br/> +To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:<br/> +Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +It was the defiant cry of a mighty spirit. The cabin still rang with his voice, +as he stood there, swaying, his bronzed face shining, his head up and dominant, +and his eyes, golden and masculine, intensely masculine and insistently soft, +flashing upon Maud at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and she said, +almost in a whisper, “You are Lucifer.” +</p> + +<p> +The door closed and she was gone. He stood staring after her for a minute, then +returned to himself and to me. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll relieve Louis at the wheel,” he said shortly, +“and call upon you to relieve at midnight. Better turn in now and get +some sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +He pulled on a pair of mittens, put on his cap, and ascended the +companion-stairs, while I followed his suggestion by going to bed. For some +unknown reason, prompted mysteriously, I did not undress, but lay down fully +clothed. For a time I listened to the clamour in the steerage and marvelled +upon the love which had come to me; but my sleep on the <i>Ghost</i> had become +most healthful and natural, and soon the songs and cries died away, my eyes +closed, and my consciousness sank down into the half-death of slumber. +</p> + +<p> +I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, on my feet, +wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger as it might have +thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the door. The cabin light was burning +low. I saw Maud, my Maud, straining and struggling and crushed in the embrace +of Wolf Larsen’s arms. I could see the vain beat and flutter of her as +she strove, pressing her face against his breast, to escape from him. All this +I saw on the very instant of seeing and as I sprang forward. +</p> + +<p> +I struck him with my fist, on the face, as he raised his head, but it was a +puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and gave me a shove with +his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the wrist, yet so tremendous was his +strength that I was hurled backward as from a catapult. I struck the door of +the state-room which had formerly been Mugridge’s, splintering and +smashing the panels with the impact of my body. I struggled to my feet, with +difficulty dragging myself clear of the wrecked door, unaware of any hurt +whatever. I was conscious only of an overmastering rage. I think I, too, cried +aloud, as I drew the knife at my hip and sprang forward a second time. +</p> + +<p> +But something had happened. They were reeling apart. I was close upon him, my +knife uplifted, but I withheld the blow. I was puzzled by the strangeness of +it. Maud was leaning against the wall, one hand out for support; but he was +staggering, his left hand pressed against his forehead and covering his eyes, +and with the right he was groping about him in a dazed sort of way. It struck +against the wall, and his body seemed to express a muscular and physical relief +at the contact, as though he had found his bearings, his location in space as +well as something against which to lean. +</p> + +<p> +Then I saw red again. All my wrongs and humiliations flashed upon me with a +dazzling brightness, all that I had suffered and others had suffered at his +hands, all the enormity of the man’s very existence. I sprang upon him, +blindly, insanely, and drove the knife into his shoulder. I knew, then, that it +was no more than a flesh wound,—I had felt the steel grate on his +shoulder-blade,—and I raised the knife to strike at a more vital part. +</p> + +<p> +But Maud had seen my first blow, and she cried, “Don’t! Please +don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +I dropped my arm for a moment, and a moment only. Again the knife was raised, +and Wolf Larsen would have surely died had she not stepped between. Her arms +were around me, her hair was brushing my face. My pulse rushed up in an +unwonted manner, yet my rage mounted with it. She looked me bravely in the +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“For my sake,” she begged. +</p> + +<p> +“I would kill him for your sake!” I cried, trying to free my arm +without hurting her. +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” she said, and laid her fingers lightly on my lips. I could +have kissed them, had I dared, even then, in my rage, the touch of them was so +sweet, so very sweet. “Please, please,” she pleaded, and she +disarmed me by the words, as I was to discover they would ever disarm me. +</p> + +<p> +I stepped back, separating from her, and replaced the knife in its sheath. I +looked at Wolf Larsen. He still pressed his left hand against his forehead. It +covered his eyes. His head was bowed. He seemed to have grown limp. His body +was sagging at the hips, his great shoulders were drooping and shrinking +forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Van Weyden!” he called hoarsely, and with a note of fright in his +voice. “Oh, Van Weyden! where are you?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at Maud. She did not speak, but nodded her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Here I am,” I answered, stepping to his side. “What is the +matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Help me to a seat,” he said, in the same hoarse, frightened voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a sick man; a very sick man, Hump,” he said, as he left my +sustaining grip and sank into a chair. +</p> + +<p> +His head dropped forward on the table and was buried in his hands. From time to +time it rocked back and forward as with pain. Once, when he half raised it, I +saw the sweat standing in heavy drops on his forehead about the roots of his +hair. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a sick man, a very sick man,” he repeated again, and yet once +again. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” I asked, resting my hand on his shoulder. +“What can I do for you?” +</p> + +<p> +But he shook my hand off with an irritated movement, and for a long time I +stood by his side in silence. Maud was looking on, her face awed and +frightened. What had happened to him we could not imagine. +</p> + +<p> +“Hump,” he said at last, “I must get into my bunk. Lend me a +hand. I’ll be all right in a little while. It’s those damn +headaches, I believe. I was afraid of them. I had a feeling—no, I +don’t know what I’m talking about. Help me into my bunk.” +</p> + +<p> +But when I got him into his bunk he again buried his face in his hands, +covering his eyes, and as I turned to go I could hear him murmuring, “I +am a sick man, a very sick man.” +</p> + +<p> +Maud looked at me inquiringly as I emerged. I shook my head, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“Something has happened to him. What, I don’t know. He is helpless, +and frightened, I imagine, for the first time in his life. It must have +occurred before he received the knife-thrust, which made only a superficial +wound. You must have seen what happened.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. “I saw nothing. It is just as mysterious to me. He +suddenly released me and staggered away. But what shall we do? What shall I +do?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will wait, please, until I come back,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +I went on deck. Louis was at the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +“You may go for’ard and turn in,” I said, taking it from him. +</p> + +<p> +He was quick to obey, and I found myself alone on the deck of the <i>Ghost</i>. +As quietly as was possible, I clewed up the topsails, lowered the flying jib +and staysail, backed the jib over, and flattened the mainsail. Then I went +below to Maud. I placed my finger on my lips for silence, and entered Wolf +Larsen’s room. He was in the same position in which I had left him, and +his head was rocking—almost writhing—from side to side. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything I can do for you?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +He made no reply at first, but on my repeating the question he answered, +“No, no; I’m all right. Leave me alone till morning.” +</p> + +<p> +But as I turned to go I noted that his head had resumed its rocking motion. +Maud was waiting patiently for me, and I took notice, with a thrill of joy, of +the queenly poise of her head and her glorious, calm eyes. Calm and sure they +were as her spirit itself. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you trust yourself to me for a journey of six hundred miles or +so?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean—?” she asked, and I knew she had guessed aright. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I mean just that,” I replied. “There is nothing left +for us but the open boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“For me, you mean,” she said. “You are certainly as safe here +as you have been.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, there is nothing left for us but the open boat,” I iterated +stoutly. “Will you please dress as warmly as you can, at once, and make +into a bundle whatever you wish to bring with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And make all haste,” I added, as she turned toward her state-room. +</p> + +<p> +The lazarette was directly beneath the cabin, and, opening the trap-door in the +floor and carrying a candle with me, I dropped down and began overhauling the +ship’s stores. I selected mainly from the canned goods, and by the time I +was ready, willing hands were extended from above to receive what I passed up. +</p> + +<p> +We worked in silence. I helped myself also to blankets, mittens, oilskins, +caps, and such things, from the slop-chest. It was no light adventure, this +trusting ourselves in a small boat to so raw and stormy a sea, and it was +imperative that we should guard ourselves against the cold and wet. +</p> + +<p> +We worked feverishly at carrying our plunder on deck and depositing it +amidships, so feverishly that Maud, whose strength was hardly a positive +quantity, had to give over, exhausted, and sit on the steps at the break of the +poop. This did not serve to recover her, and she lay on her back, on the hard +deck, arms stretched out, and whole body relaxed. It was a trick I remembered +of my sister, and I knew she would soon be herself again. I knew, also, that +weapons would not come in amiss, and I re-entered Wolf Larsen’s +state-room to get his rifle and shot-gun. I spoke to him, but he made no +answer, though his head was still rocking from side to side and he was not +asleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Lucifer,” I whispered to myself as I softly closed the +door. +</p> + +<p> +Next to obtain was a stock of ammunition,—an easy matter, though I had to +enter the steerage companion-way to do it. Here the hunters stored the +ammunition-boxes they carried in the boats, and here, but a few feet from their +noisy revels, I took possession of two boxes. +</p> + +<p> +Next, to lower a boat. Not so simple a task for one man. Having cast off the +lashings, I hoisted first on the forward tackle, then on the aft, till the boat +cleared the rail, when I lowered away, one tackle and then the other, for a +couple of feet, till it hung snugly, above the water, against the +schooner’s side. I made certain that it contained the proper equipment of +oars, rowlocks, and sail. Water was a consideration, and I robbed every boat +aboard of its breaker. As there were nine boats all told, it meant that we +should have plenty of water, and ballast as well, though there was the chance +that the boat would be overloaded, what of the generous supply of other things +I was taking. +</p> + +<p> +While Maud was passing me the provisions and I was storing them in the boat, a +sailor came on deck from the forecastle. He stood by the weather rail for a +time (we were lowering over the lee rail), and then sauntered slowly amidships, +where he again paused and stood facing the wind, with his back toward us. I +could hear my heart beating as I crouched low in the boat. Maud had sunk down +upon the deck and was, I knew, lying motionless, her body in the shadow of the +bulwark. But the man never turned, and, after stretching his arms above his +head and yawning audibly, he retraced his steps to the forecastle scuttle and +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes sufficed to finish the loading, and I lowered the boat into the +water. As I helped Maud over the rail and felt her form close to mine, it was +all I could do to keep from crying out, “I love you! I love you!” +Truly Humphrey Van Weyden was at last in love, I thought, as her fingers clung +to mine while I lowered her down to the boat. I held on to the rail with one +hand and supported her weight with the other, and I was proud at the moment of +the feat. It was a strength I had not possessed a few months before, on the day +I said good-bye to Charley Furuseth and started for San Francisco on the +ill-fated <i>Martinez</i>. +</p> + +<p> +As the boat ascended on a sea, her feet touched and I released her hands. I +cast off the tackles and leaped after her. I had never rowed in my life, but I +put out the oars and at the expense of much effort got the boat clear of the +<i>Ghost</i>. Then I experimented with the sail. I had seen the boat-steerers +and hunters set their spritsails many times, yet this was my first attempt. +What took them possibly two minutes took me twenty, but in the end I succeeded +in setting and trimming it, and with the steering-oar in my hands hauled on the +wind. +</p> + +<p> +“There lies Japan,” I remarked, “straight before us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, “you are a brave man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay,” I answered, “it is you who are a brave woman.” +</p> + +<p> +We turned our heads, swayed by a common impulse to see the last of the +<i>Ghost</i>. Her low hull lifted and rolled to windward on a sea; her canvas +loomed darkly in the night; her lashed wheel creaked as the rudder kicked; then +sight and sound of her faded away, and we were alone on the dark sea. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<p> +Day broke, grey and chill. The boat was close-hauled on a fresh breeze and the +compass indicated that we were just making the course which would bring us to +Japan. Though stoutly mittened, my fingers were cold, and they pained from the +grip on the steering-oar. My feet were stinging from the bite of the frost, and +I hoped fervently that the sun would shine. +</p> + +<p> +Before me, in the bottom of the boat, lay Maud. She, at least, was warm, for +under her and over her were thick blankets. The top one I had drawn over her +face to shelter it from the night, so I could see nothing but the vague shape +of her, and her light-brown hair, escaped from the covering and jewelled with +moisture from the air. +</p> + +<p> +Long I looked at her, dwelling upon that one visible bit of her as only a man +would who deemed it the most precious thing in the world. So insistent was my +gaze that at last she stirred under the blankets, the top fold was thrown back +and she smiled out on me, her eyes yet heavy with sleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, Mr. Van Weyden,” she said. “Have you sighted +land yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I answered, “but we are approaching it at a rate of six +miles an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +She made a <i>moue</i> of disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“But that is equivalent to one hundred and forty-four miles in +twenty-four hours,” I added reassuringly. +</p> + +<p> +Her face brightened. “And how far have we to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Siberia lies off there,” I said, pointing to the west. “But +to the south-west, some six hundred miles, is Japan. If this wind should hold, +we’ll make it in five days.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if it storms? The boat could not live?” +</p> + +<p> +She had a way of looking one in the eyes and demanding the truth, and thus she +looked at me as she asked the question. +</p> + +<p> +“It would have to storm very hard,” I temporized. +</p> + +<p> +“And if it storms very hard?” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded my head. “But we may be picked up any moment by a +sealing-schooner. They are plentifully distributed over this part of the +ocean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you are chilled through!” she cried. “Look! You are +shivering. Don’t deny it; you are. And here I have been lying warm as +toast.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that it would help matters if you, too, sat up and +were chilled,” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“It will, though, when I learn to steer, which I certainly shall.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat up and began making her simple toilet. She shook down her hair, and it +fell about her in a brown cloud, hiding her face and shoulders. Dear, damp +brown hair! I wanted to kiss it, to ripple it through my fingers, to bury my +face in it. I gazed entranced, till the boat ran into the wind and the flapping +sail warned me I was not attending to my duties. Idealist and romanticist that +I was and always had been in spite of my analytical nature, yet I had failed +till now in grasping much of the physical characteristics of love. The love of +man and woman, I had always held, was a sublimated something related to spirit, +a spiritual bond that linked and drew their souls together. The bonds of the +flesh had little part in my cosmos of love. But I was learning the sweet lesson +for myself that the soul transmuted itself, expressed itself, through the +flesh; that the sight and sense and touch of the loved one’s hair was as +much breath and voice and essence of the spirit as the light that shone from +the eyes and the thoughts that fell from the lips. After all, pure spirit was +unknowable, a thing to be sensed and divined only; nor could it express itself +in terms of itself. Jehovah was anthropomorphic because he could address +himself to the Jews only in terms of their understanding; so he was conceived +as in their own image, as a cloud, a pillar of fire, a tangible, physical +something which the mind of the Israelites could grasp. +</p> + +<p> +And so I gazed upon Maud’s light-brown hair, and loved it, and learned +more of love than all the poets and singers had taught me with all their songs +and sonnets. She flung it back with a sudden adroit movement, and her face +emerged, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t women wear their hair down always?” I asked. +“It is so much more beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it didn’t tangle so dreadfully,” she laughed. +“There! I’ve lost one of my precious hair-pins!” +</p> + +<p> +I neglected the boat and had the sail spilling the wind again and again, such +was my delight in following her every movement as she searched through the +blankets for the pin. I was surprised, and joyfully, that she was so much the +woman, and the display of each trait and mannerism that was characteristically +feminine gave me keener joy. For I had been elevating her too highly in my +concepts of her, removing her too far from the plane of the human, and too far +from me. I had been making of her a creature goddess-like and unapproachable. +So I hailed with delight the little traits that proclaimed her only woman after +all, such as the toss of the head which flung back the cloud of hair, and the +search for the pin. She was woman, my kind, on my plane, and the delightful +intimacy of kind, of man and woman, was possible, as well as the reverence and +awe in which I knew I should always hold her. +</p> + +<p> +She found the pin with an adorable little cry, and I turned my attention more +fully to my steering. I proceeded to experiment, lashing and wedging the +steering-oar until the boat held on fairly well by the wind without my +assistance. Occasionally it came up too close, or fell off too freely; but it +always recovered itself and in the main behaved satisfactorily. +</p> + +<p> +“And now we shall have breakfast,” I said. “But first you +must be more warmly clad.” +</p> + +<p> +I got out a heavy shirt, new from the slop-chest and made from blanket goods. I +knew the kind, so thick and so close of texture that it could resist the rain +and not be soaked through after hours of wetting. When she had slipped this on +over her head, I exchanged the boy’s cap she wore for a man’s cap, +large enough to cover her hair, and, when the flap was turned down, to +completely cover her neck and ears. The effect was charming. Her face was of +the sort that cannot but look well under all circumstances. Nothing could +destroy its exquisite oval, its well-nigh classic lines, its delicately +stencilled brows, its large brown eyes, clear-seeing and calm, gloriously calm. +</p> + +<p> +A puff, slightly stronger than usual, struck us just then. The boat was caught +as it obliquely crossed the crest of a wave. It went over suddenly, burying its +gunwale level with the sea and shipping a bucketful or so of water. I was +opening a can of tongue at the moment, and I sprang to the sheet and cast it +off just in time. The sail flapped and fluttered, and the boat paid off. A few +minutes of regulating sufficed to put it on its course again, when I returned +to the preparation of breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +“It does very well, it seems, though I am not versed in things +nautical,” she said, nodding her head with grave approval at my steering +contrivance. +</p> + +<p> +“But it will serve only when we are sailing by the wind,” I +explained. “When running more freely, with the wind astern abeam, or on +the quarter, it will be necessary for me to steer.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must say I don’t understand your technicalities,” she +said, “but I do your conclusion, and I don’t like it. You cannot +steer night and day and for ever. So I shall expect, after breakfast, to +receive my first lesson. And then you shall lie down and sleep. We’ll +stand watches just as they do on ships.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see how I am to teach you,” I made protest. “I +am just learning for myself. You little thought when you trusted yourself to me +that I had had no experience whatever with small boats. This is the first time +I have ever been in one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ll learn together, sir. And since you’ve had a +night’s start you shall teach me what you have learned. And now, +breakfast. My! this air does give one an appetite!” +</p> + +<p> +“No coffee,” I said regretfully, passing her buttered sea-biscuits +and a slice of canned tongue. “And there will be no tea, no soups, +nothing hot, till we have made land somewhere, somehow.” +</p> + +<p> +After the simple breakfast, capped with a cup of cold water, Maud took her +lesson in steering. In teaching her I learned quite a deal myself, though I was +applying the knowledge already acquired by sailing the <i>Ghost</i> and by +watching the boat-steerers sail the small boats. She was an apt pupil, and soon +learned to keep the course, to luff in the puffs and to cast off the sheet in +an emergency. +</p> + +<p> +Having grown tired, apparently, of the task, she relinquished the oar to me. I +had folded up the blankets, but she now proceeded to spread them out on the +bottom. When all was arranged snugly, she said: +</p> + +<p> +“Now, sir, to bed. And you shall sleep until luncheon. Till +dinner-time,” she corrected, remembering the arrangement on the +<i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +What could I do? She insisted, and said, “Please, please,” +whereupon I turned the oar over to her and obeyed. I experienced a positive +sensuous delight as I crawled into the bed she had made with her hands. The +calm and control which were so much a part of her seemed to have been +communicated to the blankets, so that I was aware of a soft dreaminess and +content, and of an oval face and brown eyes framed in a fisherman’s cap +and tossing against a background now of grey cloud, now of grey sea, and then I +was aware that I had been asleep. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock. I had slept seven hours! And +she had been steering seven hours! When I took the steering-oar I had first to +unbend her cramped fingers. Her modicum of strength had been exhausted, and she +was unable even to move from her position. I was compelled to let go the sheet +while I helped her to the nest of blankets and chafed her hands and arms. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so tired,” she said, with a quick intake of the breath and a +sigh, drooping her head wearily. +</p> + +<p> +But she straightened it the next moment. “Now don’t scold, +don’t you dare scold,” she cried with mock defiance. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope my face does not appear angry,” I answered seriously; +“for I assure you I am not in the least angry.” +</p> + +<p> +“N-no,” she considered. “It looks only reproachful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is an honest face, for it looks what I feel. You were not fair +to yourself, nor to me. How can I ever trust you again?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked penitent. “I’ll be good,” she said, as a naughty +child might say it. “I promise—” +</p> + +<p> +“To obey as a sailor would obey his captain?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she answered. “It was stupid of me, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you must promise something else,” I ventured. +</p> + +<p> +“Readily.” +</p> + +<p> +“That you will not say, ‘Please, please,’ too often; for when +you do you are sure to override my authority.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed with amused appreciation. She, too, had noticed the power of the +repeated “please.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a good word—” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“But I must not overwork it,” she broke in. +</p> + +<p> +But she laughed weakly, and her head drooped again. I left the oar long enough +to tuck the blankets about her feet and to pull a single fold across her face. +Alas! she was not strong. I looked with misgiving toward the south-west and +thought of the six hundred miles of hardship before us—ay, if it were no +worse than hardship. On this sea a storm might blow up at any moment and +destroy us. And yet I was unafraid. I was without confidence in the future, +extremely doubtful, and yet I felt no underlying fear. It must come right, it +must come right, I repeated to myself, over and over again. +</p> + +<p> +The wind freshened in the afternoon, raising a stiffer sea and trying the boat +and me severely. But the supply of food and the nine breakers of water enabled +the boat to stand up to the sea and wind, and I held on as long as I dared. +Then I removed the sprit, tightly hauling down the peak of the sail, and we +raced along under what sailors call a leg-of-mutton. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the afternoon I sighted a steamer’s smoke on the horizon to +leeward, and I knew it either for a Russian cruiser, or, more likely, the +<i>Macedonia</i> still seeking the <i>Ghost</i>. The sun had not shone all day, +and it had been bitter cold. As night drew on, the clouds darkened and the wind +freshened, so that when Maud and I ate supper it was with our mittens on and +with me still steering and eating morsels between puffs. +</p> + +<p> +By the time it was dark, wind and sea had become too strong for the boat, and I +reluctantly took in the sail and set about making a drag or sea-anchor. I had +learned of the device from the talk of the hunters, and it was a simple thing +to manufacture. Furling the sail and lashing it securely about the mast, boom, +sprit, and two pairs of spare oars, I threw it overboard. A line connected it +with the bow, and as it floated low in the water, practically unexposed to the +wind, it drifted less rapidly than the boat. In consequence it held the boat +bow on to the sea and wind—the safest position in which to escape being +swamped when the sea is breaking into whitecaps. +</p> + +<p> +“And now?” Maud asked cheerfully, when the task was accomplished +and I pulled on my mittens. +</p> + +<p> +“And now we are no longer travelling toward Japan,” I answered. +“Our drift is to the south-east, or south-south-east, at the rate of at +least two miles an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will be only twenty-four miles,” she urged, “if the +wind remains high all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and only one hundred and forty miles if it continues for three days +and nights.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it won’t continue,” she said with easy confidence. +“It will turn around and blow fair.” +</p> + +<p> +“The sea is the great faithless one.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the wind!” she retorted. “I have heard you grow eloquent +over the brave trade-wind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I had thought to bring Wolf Larsen’s chronometer and +sextant,” I said, still gloomily. “Sailing one direction, drifting +another direction, to say nothing of the set of the current in some third +direction, makes a resultant which dead reckoning can never calculate. Before +long we won’t know where we are by five hundred miles.” +</p> + +<p> +Then I begged her pardon and promised I should not be disheartened any more. At +her solicitation I let her take the watch till midnight,—it was then nine +o’clock, but I wrapped her in blankets and put an oilskin about her +before I lay down. I slept only cat-naps. The boat was leaping and pounding as +it fell over the crests, I could hear the seas rushing past, and spray was +continually being thrown aboard. And still, it was not a bad night, I +mused—nothing to the nights I had been through on the <i>Ghost</i>; +nothing, perhaps, to the nights we should go through in this cockle-shell. Its +planking was three-quarters of an inch thick. Between us and the bottom of the +sea was less than an inch of wood. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, I aver it, and I aver it again, I was unafraid. The death which Wolf +Larsen and even Thomas Mugridge had made me fear, I no longer feared. The +coming of Maud Brewster into my life seemed to have transformed me. After all, +I thought, it is better and finer to love than to be loved, if it makes +something in life so worth while that one is not loath to die for it. I forget +my own life in the love of another life; and yet, such is the paradox, I never +wanted so much to live as right now when I place the least value upon my own +life. I never had so much reason for living, was my concluding thought; and +after that, until I dozed, I contented myself with trying to pierce the +darkness to where I knew Maud crouched low in the stern-sheets, watchful of the +foaming sea and ready to call me on an instant’s notice. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +There is no need of going into an extended recital of our suffering in the +small boat during the many days we were driven and drifted, here and there, +willy-nilly, across the ocean. The high wind blew from the north-west for +twenty-four hours, when it fell calm, and in the night sprang up from the +south-west. This was dead in our teeth, but I took in the sea-anchor and set +sail, hauling a course on the wind which took us in a south-south-easterly +direction. It was an even choice between this and the west-north-westerly +course which the wind permitted; but the warm airs of the south fanned my +desire for a warmer sea and swayed my decision. +</p> + +<p> +In three hours—it was midnight, I well remember, and as dark as I had +ever seen it on the sea—the wind, still blowing out of the south-west, +rose furiously, and once again I was compelled to set the sea-anchor. +</p> + +<p> +Day broke and found me wan-eyed and the ocean lashed white, the boat pitching, +almost on end, to its drag. We were in imminent danger of being swamped by the +whitecaps. As it was, spray and spume came aboard in such quantities that I +bailed without cessation. The blankets were soaking. Everything was wet except +Maud, and she, in oilskins, rubber boots, and sou’wester, was dry, all +but her face and hands and a stray wisp of hair. She relieved me at the +bailing-hole from time to time, and bravely she threw out the water and faced +the storm. All things are relative. It was no more than a stiff blow, but to +us, fighting for life in our frail craft, it was indeed a storm. +</p> + +<p> +Cold and cheerless, the wind beating on our faces, the white seas roaring by, +we struggled through the day. Night came, but neither of us slept. Day came, +and still the wind beat on our faces and the white seas roared past. By the +second night Maud was falling asleep from exhaustion. I covered her with +oilskins and a tarpaulin. She was comparatively dry, but she was numb with the +cold. I feared greatly that she might die in the night; but day broke, cold and +cheerless, with the same clouded sky and beating wind and roaring seas. +</p> + +<p> +I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I was wet and chilled to the marrow, +till I felt more dead than alive. My body was stiff from exertion as well as +from cold, and my aching muscles gave me the severest torture whenever I used +them, and I used them continually. And all the time we were being driven off +into the north-east, directly away from Japan and toward bleak Bering Sea. +</p> + +<p> +And still we lived, and the boat lived, and the wind blew unabated. In fact, +toward nightfall of the third day it increased a trifle and something more. The +boat’s bow plunged under a crest, and we came through quarter-full of +water. I bailed like a madman. The liability of shipping another such sea was +enormously increased by the water that weighed the boat down and robbed it of +its buoyancy. And another such sea meant the end. When I had the boat empty +again I was forced to take away the tarpaulin which covered Maud, in order that +I might lash it down across the bow. It was well I did, for it covered the boat +fully a third of the way aft, and three times, in the next several hours, it +flung off the bulk of the down-rushing water when the bow shoved under the +seas. +</p> + +<p> +Maud’s condition was pitiable. She sat crouched in the bottom of the +boat, her lips blue, her face grey and plainly showing the pain she suffered. +But ever her eyes looked bravely at me, and ever her lips uttered brave words. +</p> + +<p> +The worst of the storm must have blown that night, though little I noticed it. +I had succumbed and slept where I sat in the stern-sheets. The morning of the +fourth day found the wind diminished to a gentle whisper, the sea dying down +and the sun shining upon us. Oh, the blessed sun! How we bathed our poor bodies +in its delicious warmth, reviving like bugs and crawling things after a storm. +We smiled again, said amusing things, and waxed optimistic over our situation. +Yet it was, if anything, worse than ever. We were farther from Japan than the +night we left the <i>Ghost</i>. Nor could I more than roughly guess our +latitude and longitude. At a calculation of a two-mile drift per hour, during +the seventy and odd hours of the storm, we had been driven at least one hundred +and fifty miles to the north-east. But was such calculated drift correct? For +all I knew, it might have been four miles per hour instead of two. In which +case we were another hundred and fifty miles to the bad. +</p> + +<p> +Where we were I did not know, though there was quite a likelihood that we were +in the vicinity of the <i>Ghost</i>. There were seals about us, and I was +prepared to sight a sealing-schooner at any time. We did sight one, in the +afternoon, when the north-west breeze had sprung up freshly once more. But the +strange schooner lost itself on the sky-line and we alone occupied the circle +of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +Came days of fog, when even Maud’s spirit drooped and there were no merry +words upon her lips; days of calm, when we floated on the lonely immensity of +sea, oppressed by its greatness and yet marvelling at the miracle of tiny life, +for we still lived and struggled to live; days of sleet and wind and +snow-squalls, when nothing could keep us warm; or days of drizzling rain, when +we filled our water-breakers from the drip of the wet sail. +</p> + +<p> +And ever I loved Maud with an increasing love. She was so many-sided, so +many-mooded—“protean-mooded” I called her. But I called her +this, and other and dearer things, in my thoughts only. Though the declaration +of my love urged and trembled on my tongue a thousand times, I knew that it was +no time for such a declaration. If for no other reason, it was no time, when +one was protecting and trying to save a woman, to ask that woman for her love. +Delicate as was the situation, not alone in this but in other ways, I flattered +myself that I was able to deal delicately with it; and also I flattered myself +that by look or sign I gave no advertisement of the love I felt for her. We +were like good comrades, and we grew better comrades as the days went by. +</p> + +<p> +One thing about her which surprised me was her lack of timidity and fear. The +terrible sea, the frail boat, the storms, the suffering, the strangeness and +isolation of the situation,—all that should have frightened a robust +woman,—seemed to make no impression upon her who had known life only in +its most sheltered and consummately artificial aspects, and who was herself all +fire and dew and mist, sublimated spirit, all that was soft and tender and +clinging in woman. And yet I am wrong. She <i>was</i> timid and afraid, but she +possessed courage. The flesh and the qualms of the flesh she was heir to, but +the flesh bore heavily only on the flesh. And she was spirit, first and always +spirit, etherealized essence of life, calm as her calm eyes, and sure of +permanence in the changing order of the universe. +</p> + +<p> +Came days of storm, days and nights of storm, when the ocean menaced us with +its roaring whiteness, and the wind smote our struggling boat with a +Titan’s buffets. And ever we were flung off, farther and farther, to the +north-east. It was in such a storm, and the worst that we had experienced, that +I cast a weary glance to leeward, not in quest of anything, but more from the +weariness of facing the elemental strife, and in mute appeal, almost, to the +wrathful powers to cease and let us be. What I saw I could not at first +believe. Days and nights of sleeplessness and anxiety had doubtless turned my +head. I looked back at Maud, to identify myself, as it were, in time and space. +The sight of her dear wet cheeks, her flying hair, and her brave brown eyes +convinced me that my vision was still healthy. Again I turned my face to +leeward, and again I saw the jutting promontory, black and high and naked, the +raging surf that broke about its base and beat its front high up with spouting +fountains, the black and forbidding coast-line running toward the south-east and +fringed with a tremendous scarf of white. +</p> + +<p> +“Maud,” I said. “Maud.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned her head and beheld the sight. +</p> + +<p> +“It cannot be Alaska!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Alas, no,” I answered, and asked, “Can you swim?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither can I,” I said. “So we must get ashore without +swimming, in some opening between the rocks through which we can drive the boat +and clamber out. But we must be quick, most quick—and sure.” +</p> + +<p> +I spoke with a confidence she knew I did not feel, for she looked at me with +that unfaltering gaze of hers and said: +</p> + +<p> +“I have not thanked you yet for all you have done for me +but—” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated, as if in doubt how best to word her gratitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” I said, brutally, for I was not quite pleased with her +thanking me. +</p> + +<p> +“You might help me,” she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“To acknowledge your obligations before you die? Not at all. We are not +going to die. We shall land on that island, and we shall be snug and sheltered +before the day is done.” +</p> + +<p> +I spoke stoutly, but I did not believe a word. Nor was I prompted to lie +through fear. I felt no fear, though I was sure of death in that boiling surge +amongst the rocks which was rapidly growing nearer. It was impossible to hoist +sail and claw off that shore. The wind would instantly capsize the boat; the +seas would swamp it the moment it fell into the trough; and, besides, the sail, +lashed to the spare oars, dragged in the sea ahead of us. +</p> + +<p> +As I say, I was not afraid to meet my own death, there, a few hundred yards to +leeward; but I was appalled at the thought that Maud must die. My cursed +imagination saw her beaten and mangled against the rocks, and it was too +terrible. I strove to compel myself to think we would make the landing safely, +and so I spoke, not what I believed, but what I preferred to believe. +</p> + +<p> +I recoiled before contemplation of that frightful death, and for a moment I +entertained the wild idea of seizing Maud in my arms and leaping overboard. +Then I resolved to wait, and at the last moment, when we entered on the final +stretch, to take her in my arms and proclaim my love, and, with her in my +embrace, to make the desperate struggle and die. +</p> + +<p> +Instinctively we drew closer together in the bottom of the boat. I felt her +mittened hand come out to mine. And thus, without speech, we waited the end. We +were not far off the line the wind made with the western edge of the +promontory, and I watched in the hope that some set of the current or send of +the sea would drift us past before we reached the surf. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall go clear,” I said, with a confidence which I knew +deceived neither of us. +</p> + +<p> +“By God, we <i>will</i> go clear!” I cried, five minutes later. +</p> + +<p> +The oath left my lips in my excitement—the first, I do believe, in my +life, unless “trouble it,” an expletive of my youth, be accounted +an oath. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“You have convinced me of your sincerity,” she said, with a faint +smile. “I do know, now, that we shall go clear.” +</p> + +<p> +I had seen a distant headland past the extreme edge of the promontory, and as +we looked we could see grow the intervening coastline of what was evidently a +deep cove. At the same time there broke upon our ears a continuous and mighty +bellowing. It partook of the magnitude and volume of distant thunder, and it +came to us directly from leeward, rising above the crash of the surf and +travelling directly in the teeth of the storm. As we passed the point the whole +cove burst upon our view, a half-moon of white sandy beach upon which broke a +huge surf, and which was covered with myriads of seals. It was from them that +the great bellowing went up. +</p> + +<p> +“A rookery!” I cried. “Now are we indeed saved. There must be +men and cruisers to protect them from the seal-hunters. Possibly there is a +station ashore.” +</p> + +<p> +But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said, “Still bad, +but not so bad. And now, if the gods be truly kind, we shall drift by that next +headland and come upon a perfectly sheltered beach, where we may land without +wetting our feet.” +</p> + +<p> +And the gods were kind. The first and second headlands were directly in line +with the south-west wind; but once around the second,—and we went +perilously near,—we picked up the third headland, still in line with the +wind and with the other two. But the cove that intervened! It penetrated deep +into the land, and the tide, setting in, drifted us under the shelter of the +point. Here the sea was calm, save for a heavy but smooth ground-swell, and I +took in the sea-anchor and began to row. From the point the shore curved away, +more and more to the south and west, until at last it disclosed a cove within +the cove, a little land-locked harbour, the water level as a pond, broken only +by tiny ripples where vagrant breaths and wisps of the storm hurtled down from +over the frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred feet inshore. +</p> + +<p> +Here were no seals whatever. The boat’s stern touched the hard shingle. I +sprang out, extending my hand to Maud. The next moment she was beside me. As my +fingers released hers, she clutched for my arm hastily. At the same moment I +swayed, as about to fall to the sand. This was the startling effect of the +cessation of motion. We had been so long upon the moving, rocking sea that the +stable land was a shock to us. We expected the beach to lift up this way and +that, and the rocky walls to swing back and forth like the sides of a ship; and +when we braced ourselves, automatically, for these various expected movements, +their non-occurrence quite overcame our equilibrium. +</p> + +<p> +“I really must sit down,” Maud said, with a nervous laugh and a +dizzy gesture, and forthwith she sat down on the sand. +</p> + +<p> +I attended to making the boat secure and joined her. Thus we landed on +Endeavour Island, as we came to it, land-sick from long custom of the sea. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + +<p> +“Fool!” I cried aloud in my vexation. +</p> + +<p> +I had unloaded the boat and carried its contents high up on the beach, where I +had set about making a camp. There was driftwood, though not much, on the +beach, and the sight of a coffee tin I had taken from the <i>Ghost’s</i> +larder had given me the idea of a fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Blithering idiot!” I was continuing. +</p> + +<p> +But Maud said, “Tut, tut,” in gentle reproval, and then asked why I +was a blithering idiot. +</p> + +<p> +“No matches,” I groaned. “Not a match did I bring. And now we +shall have no hot coffee, soup, tea, or anything!” +</p> + +<p> +“Wasn’t it—er—Crusoe who rubbed sticks together?” +she drawled. +</p> + +<p> +“But I have read the personal narratives of a score of shipwrecked men +who tried, and tried in vain,” I answered. “I remember Winters, a +newspaper fellow with an Alaskan and Siberian reputation. Met him at the +Bibelot once, and he was telling us how he attempted to make a fire with a +couple of sticks. It was most amusing. He told it inimitably, but it was the +story of a failure. I remember his conclusion, his black eyes flashing as he +said, ‘Gentlemen, the South Sea Islander may do it, the Malay may do it, +but take my word it’s beyond the white man.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, we’ve managed so far without it,” she said +cheerfully. “And there’s no reason why we cannot still manage +without it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But think of the coffee!” I cried. “It’s good coffee, +too, I know. I took it from Larsen’s private stores. And look at that +good wood.” +</p> + +<p> +I confess, I wanted the coffee badly; and I learned, not long afterward, that +the berry was likewise a little weakness of Maud’s. Besides, we had been +so long on a cold diet that we were numb inside as well as out. Anything warm +would have been most gratifying. But I complained no more and set about making +a tent of the sail for Maud. +</p> + +<p> +I had looked upon it as a simple task, what of the oars, mast, boom, and sprit, +to say nothing of plenty of lines. But as I was without experience, and as +every detail was an experiment and every successful detail an invention, the +day was well gone before her shelter was an accomplished fact. And then, that +night, it rained, and she was flooded out and driven back into the boat. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning I dug a shallow ditch around the tent, and, an hour later, a +sudden gust of wind, whipping over the rocky wall behind us, picked up the tent +and smashed it down on the sand thirty yards away. +</p> + +<p> +Maud laughed at my crestfallen expression, and I said, “As soon as the +wind abates I intend going in the boat to explore the island. There must be a +station somewhere, and men. And ships must visit the station. Some Government +must protect all these seals. But I wish to have you comfortable before I +start.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to go with you,” was all she said. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be better if you remained. You have had enough of hardship. It +is a miracle that you have survived. And it won’t be comfortable in the +boat rowing and sailing in this rainy weather. What you need is rest, and I +should like you to remain and get it.” +</p> + +<p> +Something suspiciously akin to moistness dimmed her beautiful eyes before she +dropped them and partly turned away her head. +</p> + +<p> +“I should prefer going with you,” she said in a low voice, in which +there was just a hint of appeal. +</p> + +<p> +“I might be able to help you a—” her voice +broke,—“a little. And if anything should happen to you, think of me +left here alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I intend being very careful,” I answered. “And I shall +not go so far but what I can get back before night. Yes, all said and done, I +think it vastly better for you to remain, and sleep, and rest and do +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned and looked me in the eyes. Her gaze was unfaltering, but soft. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, please,” she said, oh, so softly. +</p> + +<p> +I stiffened myself to refuse, and shook my head. Still she waited and looked at +me. I tried to word my refusal, but wavered. I saw the glad light spring into +her eyes and knew that I had lost. It was impossible to say no after that. +</p> + +<p> +The wind died down in the afternoon, and we were prepared to start the +following morning. There was no way of penetrating the island from our cove, +for the walls rose perpendicularly from the beach, and, on either side of the +cove, rose from the deep water. +</p> + +<p> +Morning broke dull and grey, but calm, and I was awake early and had the boat +in readiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Fool! Imbecile! Yahoo!” I shouted, when I thought it was meet to +arouse Maud; but this time I shouted in merriment as I danced about the beach, +bareheaded, in mock despair. +</p> + +<p> +Her head appeared under the flap of the sail. +</p> + +<p> +“What now?” she asked sleepily, and, withal, curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Coffee!” I cried. “What do you say to a cup of coffee? hot +coffee? piping hot?” +</p> + +<p> +“My!” she murmured, “you startled me, and you are cruel. Here +I have been composing my soul to do without it, and here you are vexing me with +your vain suggestions.” +</p> + +<p> +“Watch me,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +From under clefts among the rocks I gathered a few dry sticks and chips. These +I whittled into shavings or split into kindling. From my note-book I tore out a +page, and from the ammunition box took a shot-gun shell. Removing the wads from +the latter with my knife, I emptied the powder on a flat rock. Next I pried the +primer, or cap, from the shell, and laid it on the rock, in the midst of the +scattered powder. All was ready. Maud still watched from the tent. Holding the +paper in my left hand, I smashed down upon the cap with a rock held in my +right. There was a puff of white smoke, a burst of flame, and the rough edge of +the paper was alight. +</p> + +<p> +Maud clapped her hands gleefully. “Prometheus!” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +But I was too occupied to acknowledge her delight. The feeble flame must be +cherished tenderly if it were to gather strength and live. I fed it, shaving by +shaving, and sliver by sliver, till at last it was snapping and crackling as it +laid hold of the smaller chips and sticks. To be cast away on an island had not +entered into my calculations, so we were without a kettle or cooking utensils +of any sort; but I made shift with the tin used for bailing the boat, and +later, as we consumed our supply of canned goods, we accumulated quite an +imposing array of cooking vessels. +</p> + +<p> +I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And how good it was! +My contribution was canned beef fried with crumbled sea-biscuit and water. The +breakfast was a success, and we sat about the fire much longer than +enterprising explorers should have done, sipping the hot black coffee and +talking over our situation. +</p> + +<p> +I was confident that we should find a station in some one of the coves, for I +knew that the rookeries of Bering Sea were thus guarded; but Maud advanced the +theory—to prepare me for disappointment, I do believe, if disappointment +were to come—that we had discovered an unknown rookery. She was in very +good spirits, however, and made quite merry in accepting our plight as a grave +one. +</p> + +<p> +“If you are right,” I said, “then we must prepare to winter +here. Our food will not last, but there are the seals. They go away in the +fall, so I must soon begin to lay in a supply of meat. Then there will be huts +to build and driftwood to gather. Also we shall try out seal fat for lighting +purposes. Altogether, we’ll have our hands full if we find the island +uninhabited. Which we shall not, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the shore, searching the +coves with our glasses and landing occasionally, without finding a sign of +human life. Yet we learned that we were not the first who had landed on +Endeavour Island. High up on the beach of the second cove from ours, we +discovered the splintered wreck of a boat—a sealer’s boat, for the +rowlocks were bound in sennit, a gun-rack was on the starboard side of the bow, +and in white letters was faintly visible <i>Gazelle</i> No. 2. The boat had +lain there for a long time, for it was half filled with sand, and the +splintered wood had that weather-worn appearance due to long exposure to the +elements. In the stern-sheets I found a rusty ten-gauge shot-gun and a +sailor’s sheath-knife broken short across and so rusted as to be almost +unrecognizable. +</p> + +<p> +“They got away,” I said cheerfully; but I felt a sinking at the +heart and seemed to divine the presence of bleached bones somewhere on that +beach. +</p> + +<p> +I did not wish Maud’s spirits to be dampened by such a find, so I turned +seaward again with our boat and skirted the north-eastern point of the island. +There were no beaches on the southern shore, and by early afternoon we rounded +the black promontory and completed the circumnavigation of the island. I +estimated its circumference at twenty-five miles, its width as varying from two +to five miles; while my most conservative calculation placed on its beaches two +hundred thousand seals. The island was highest at its extreme south-western +point, the headlands and backbone diminishing regularly until the north-eastern +portion was only a few feet above the sea. With the exception of our little +cove, the other beaches sloped gently back for a distance of half-a-mile or so, +into what I might call rocky meadows, with here and there patches of moss and +tundra grass. Here the seals hauled out, and the old bulls guarded their +harems, while the young bulls hauled out by themselves. +</p> + +<p> +This brief description is all that Endeavour Island merits. Damp and soggy +where it was not sharp and rocky, buffeted by storm winds and lashed by the +sea, with the air continually a-tremble with the bellowing of two hundred +thousand amphibians, it was a melancholy and miserable sojourning-place. Maud, +who had prepared me for disappointment, and who had been sprightly and +vivacious all day, broke down as we landed in our own little cove. She strove +bravely to hide it from me, but while I was kindling another fire I knew she +was stifling her sobs in the blankets under the sail-tent. +</p> + +<p> +It was my turn to be cheerful, and I played the part to the best of my ability, +and with such success that I brought the laughter back into her dear eyes and +song on her lips; for she sang to me before she went to an early bed. It was +the first time I had heard her sing, and I lay by the fire, listening and +transported, for she was nothing if not an artist in everything she did, and +her voice, though not strong, was wonderfully sweet and expressive. +</p> + +<p> +I still slept in the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing up at the +first stars I had seen in many nights and pondering the situation. +Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen had been quite +right. I had stood on my father’s legs. My lawyers and agents had taken +care of my money for me. I had had no responsibilities at all. Then, on the +<i>Ghost</i> I had learned to be responsible for myself. And now, for the first +time in my life, I found myself responsible for some one else. And it was +required of me that this should be the gravest of responsibilities, for she was +the one woman in the world—the one small woman, as I loved to think of +her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + +<p> +No wonder we called it Endeavour Island. For two weeks we toiled at building a +hut. Maud insisted on helping, and I could have wept over her bruised and +bleeding hands. And still, I was proud of her because of it. There was +something heroic about this gently-bred woman enduring our terrible hardship +and with her pittance of strength bending to the tasks of a peasant woman. She +gathered many of the stones which I built into the walls of the hut; also, she +turned a deaf ear to my entreaties when I begged her to desist. She +compromised, however, by taking upon herself the lighter labours of cooking and +gathering driftwood and moss for our winter’s supply. +</p> + +<p> +The hut’s walls rose without difficulty, and everything went smoothly +until the problem of the roof confronted me. Of what use the four walls without +a roof? And of what could a roof be made? There were the spare oars, very true. +They would serve as roof-beams; but with what was I to cover them? Moss would +never do. Tundra grass was impracticable. We needed the sail for the boat, and +the tarpaulin had begun to leak. +</p> + +<p> +“Winters used walrus skins on his hut,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“There are the seals,” she suggested. +</p> + +<p> +So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, but I proceeded to +learn. And when I had expended some thirty shells for three seals, I decided +that the ammunition would be exhausted before I acquired the necessary +knowledge. I had used eight shells for lighting fires before I hit upon the +device of banking the embers with wet moss, and there remained not over a +hundred shells in the box. +</p> + +<p> +“We must club the seals,” I announced, when convinced of my poor +marksmanship. “I have heard the sealers talk about clubbing them.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are so pretty,” she objected. “I cannot bear to think +of it being done. It is so directly brutal, you know; so different from +shooting them.” +</p> + +<p> +“That roof must go on,” I answered grimly. “Winter is almost +here. It is our lives against theirs. It is unfortunate we haven’t plenty +of ammunition, but I think, anyway, that they suffer less from being clubbed +than from being all shot up. Besides, I shall do the clubbing.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just it,” she began eagerly, and broke off in sudden +confusion. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” I began, “if you prefer—” +</p> + +<p> +“But what shall I be doing?” she interrupted, with that softness I +knew full well to be insistence. +</p> + +<p> +“Gathering firewood and cooking dinner,” I answered lightly. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. “It is too dangerous for you to attempt alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know, I know,” she waived my protest. “I am only a weak +woman, but just my small assistance may enable you to escape disaster.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the clubbing?” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, you will do that. I shall probably scream. I’ll look +away when—” +</p> + +<p> +“The danger is most serious,” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall use my judgment when to look and when not to look,” she +replied with a grand air. +</p> + +<p> +The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. I rowed into +the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. There were seals all about +us in the water, and the bellowing thousands on the beach compelled us to shout +at each other to make ourselves heard. +</p> + +<p> +“I know men club them,” I said, trying to reassure myself, and +gazing doubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet away, upreared on his +fore-flippers and regarding me intently. “But the question is, How do +they club them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us gather tundra grass and thatch the roof,” Maud said. +</p> + +<p> +She was as frightened as I at the prospect, and we had reason to be gazing at +close range at the gleaming teeth and dog-like mouths. +</p> + +<p> +“I always thought they were afraid of men,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“How do I know they are not afraid?” I queried a moment later, +after having rowed a few more strokes along the beach. “Perhaps, if I +were to step boldly ashore, they would cut for it, and I could not catch up +with one.” And still I hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard of a man, once, who invaded the nesting grounds of wild +geese,” Maud said. “They killed him.” +</p> + +<p> +“The geese?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, the geese. My brother told me about it when I was a little +girl.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I know men club them,” I persisted. +</p> + +<p> +“I think the tundra grass will make just as good a roof,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Far from her intention, her words were maddening me, driving me on. I could not +play the coward before her eyes. “Here goes,” I said, backing water +with one oar and running the bow ashore. +</p> + +<p> +I stepped out and advanced valiantly upon a long-maned bull in the midst of his +wives. I was armed with the regular club with which the boat-pullers killed the +wounded seals gaffed aboard by the hunters. It was only a foot and a half long, +and in my superb ignorance I never dreamed that the club used ashore when +raiding the rookeries measured four to five feet. The cows lumbered out of my +way, and the distance between me and the bull decreased. He raised himself on +his flippers with an angry movement. We were a dozen feet apart. Still I +advanced steadily, looking for him to turn tail at any moment and run. +</p> + +<p> +At six feet the panicky thought rushed into my mind, What if he will not run? +Why, then I shall club him, came the answer. In my fear I had forgotten that I +was there to get the bull instead of to make him run. And just then he gave a +snort and a snarl and rushed at me. His eyes were blazing, his mouth was wide +open; the teeth gleamed cruelly white. Without shame, I confess that it was I +who turned and footed it. He ran awkwardly, but he ran well. He was but two +paces behind when I tumbled into the boat, and as I shoved off with an oar his +teeth crunched down upon the blade. The stout wood was crushed like an +egg-shell. Maud and I were astounded. A moment later he had dived under the +boat, seized the keel in his mouth, and was shaking the boat violently. +</p> + +<p> +“My!” said Maud. “Let’s go back.” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. “I can do what other men have done, and I know that +other men have clubbed seals. But I think I’ll leave the bulls alone next +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t say, ‘Please, please,’” I cried, half +angrily, I do believe. +</p> + +<p> +She made no reply, and I knew my tone must have hurt her. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” I said, or shouted, rather, in order to make +myself heard above the roar of the rookery. “If you say so, I’ll +turn and go back; but honestly, I’d rather stay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t say that this is what you get for bringing a woman +along,” she said. She smiled at me whimsically, gloriously, and I knew +there was no need for forgiveness. +</p> + +<p> +I rowed a couple of hundred feet along the beach so as to recover my nerves, +and then stepped ashore again. +</p> + +<p> +“Do be cautious,” she called after me. +</p> + +<p> +I nodded my head and proceeded to make a flank attack on the nearest harem. All +went well until I aimed a blow at an outlying cow's head and fell short. She +snorted and tried to scramble away. I ran in close and struck another blow, +hitting the shoulder instead of the head. +</p> + +<p> +“Watch out!” I heard Maud scream. +</p> + +<p> +In my excitement I had not been taking notice of other things, and I looked up +to see the lord of the harem charging down upon me. Again I fled to the boat, +hotly pursued; but this time Maud made no suggestion of turning back. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be better, I imagine, if you let harems alone and devoted your +attention to lonely and inoffensive-looking seals,” was what she said. +“I think I have read something about them. Dr. Jordan’s book, I +believe. They are the young bulls, not old enough to have harems of their own. +He called them the holluschickie, or something like that. It seems to me if we +find where they haul out—” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me that your fighting instinct is aroused,” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +She flushed quickly and prettily. “I’ll admit I don’t like +defeat any more than you do, or any more than I like the idea of killing such +pretty, inoffensive creatures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty!” I sniffed. “I failed to mark anything pre-eminently +pretty about those foamy-mouthed beasts that raced me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your point of view,” she laughed. “You lacked perspective. +Now if you did not have to get so close to the subject—” +</p> + +<p> +“The very thing!” I cried. “What I need is a longer club. And +there’s that broken oar ready to hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“It just comes to me,” she said, “that Captain Larsen was +telling me how the men raided the rookeries. They drive the seals, in small +herds, a short distance inland before they kill them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care to undertake the herding of one of those +harems,” I objected. +</p> + +<p> +“But there are the holluschickie,” she said. “The +holluschickie haul out by themselves, and Dr. Jordan says that paths are left +between the harems, and that as long as the holluschickie keep strictly to the +path they are unmolested by the masters of the harem.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s one now,” I said, pointing to a young bull in the +water. “Let’s watch him, and follow him if he hauls out.” +</p> + +<p> +He swam directly to the beach and clambered out into a small opening between +two harems, the masters of which made warning noises but did not attack him. We +watched him travel slowly inward, threading about among the harems along what +must have been the path. +</p> + +<p> +“Here goes,” I said, stepping out; but I confess my heart was in my +mouth as I thought of going through the heart of that monstrous herd. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be wise to make the boat fast,” Maud said. +</p> + +<p> +She had stepped out beside me, and I regarded her with wonderment. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head determinedly. “Yes, I’m going with you, so you +may as well secure the boat and arm me with a club.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go back,” I said dejectedly. “I think tundra +grass, will do, after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know it won’t,” was her reply. “Shall I +lead?” +</p> + +<p> +With a shrug of the shoulders, but with the warmest admiration and pride at +heart for this woman, I equipped her with the broken oar and took another for +myself. It was with nervous trepidation that we made the first few rods of the +journey. Once Maud screamed in terror as a cow thrust an inquisitive nose +toward her foot, and several times I quickened my pace for the same reason. +But, beyond warning coughs from either side, there were no signs of hostility. +It was a rookery which had never been raided by the hunters, and in consequence +the seals were mild-tempered and at the same time unafraid. +</p> + +<p> +In the very heart of the herd the din was terrific. It was almost dizzying in +its effect. I paused and smiled reassuringly at Maud, for I had recovered my +equanimity sooner than she. I could see that she was still badly frightened. +She came close to me and shouted: +</p> + +<p> +“I’m dreadfully afraid!” +</p> + +<p> +And I was not. Though the novelty had not yet worn off, the peaceful +comportment of the seals had quieted my alarm. Maud was trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid, and I’m not afraid,” she chattered with +shaking jaws. “It’s my miserable body, not I.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, it’s all right,” I reassured her, my +arm passing instinctively and protectingly around her. +</p> + +<p> +I shall never forget, in that moment, how instantly conscious I became of my +manhood. The primitive deeps of my nature stirred. I felt myself masculine, the +protector of the weak, the fighting male. And, best of all, I felt myself the +protector of my loved one. She leaned against me, so light and lily-frail, and +as her trembling eased away it seemed as though I became aware of prodigious +strength. I felt myself a match for the most ferocious bull in the herd, and I +know, had such a bull charged upon me, that I should have met it unflinchingly +and quite coolly, and I know that I should have killed it. +</p> + +<p> +“I am all right now,” she said, looking up at me gratefully. +“Let us go on.” +</p> + +<p> +And that the strength in me had quieted her and given her confidence, filled me +with an exultant joy. The youth of the race seemed burgeoning in me, +over-civilized man that I was, and I lived for myself the old hunting days and +forest nights of my remote and forgotten ancestry. I had much for which to +thank Wolf Larsen, was my thought as we went along the path between the +jostling harems. +</p> + +<p> +A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the holluschickie—sleek young +bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gathering strength +against the day when they would fight their way into the ranks of the +Benedicts. +</p> + +<p> +Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know just what to do and how to do +it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, and even prodding the +lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score of the young bachelors from their +companions. Whenever one made an attempt to break back toward the water, I +headed it off. Maud took an active part in the drive, and with her cries and +flourishings of the broken oar was of considerable assistance. I noticed, +though, that whenever one looked tired and lagged, she let it slip past. But I +noticed, also, whenever one, with a show of fight, tried to break past, that +her eyes glinted and showed bright, and she rapped it smartly with her club. +</p> + +<p> +“My, it’s exciting!” she cried, pausing from sheer weakness. +“I think I’ll sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes she had +permitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she joined me I had +finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin. An hour later we went proudly +back along the path between the harems. And twice again we came down the path +burdened with skins, till I thought we had enough to roof the hut. I set the +sail, laid one tack out of the cove, and on the other tack made our own little +inner cove. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s just like home-coming,” Maud said, as I ran the boat +ashore. +</p> + +<p> +I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly intimate and +natural, and I said: +</p> + +<p> +“It seems as though I have lived this life always. The world of books and +bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than an actuality. I +surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the days of my life. And you, +too, seem a part of it. You are—” I was on the verge of saying, +“my woman, my mate,” but glibly changed it to—“standing +the hardship well.” +</p> + +<p> +But her ear had caught the flaw. She recognized a flight that midmost broke. +She gave me a quick look. +</p> + +<p> +“Not that. You were saying—?” +</p> + +<p> +“That the American Mrs. Meynell was living the life of a savage and +living it quite successfully,” I said easily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” was all she replied; but I could have sworn there was a note +of disappointment in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +But “my woman, my mate” kept ringing in my head for the rest of the +day and for many days. Yet never did it ring more loudly than that night, as I +watched her draw back the blanket of moss from the coals, blow up the fire, and +cook the evening meal. It must have been latent savagery stirring in me, for +the old words, so bound up with the roots of the race, to grip me and thrill +me. And grip and thrill they did, till I fell asleep, murmuring them to myself +over and over again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + +<p> +“It will smell,” I said, “but it will keep in the heat and +keep out the rain and snow.” +</p> + +<p> +We were surveying the completed seal-skin roof. +</p> + +<p> +“It is clumsy, but it will serve the purpose, and that is the main +thing,” I went on, yearning for her praise. +</p> + +<p> +And she clapped her hands and declared that she was hugely pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“But it is dark in here,” she said the next moment, her shoulders +shrinking with a little involuntary shiver. +</p> + +<p> +“You might have suggested a window when the walls were going up,” I +said. “It was for you, and you should have seen the need of a +window.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I never do see the obvious, you know,” she laughed back. +“And besides, you can knock a hole in the wall at any time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite true; I had not thought of it,” I replied, wagging my head +sagely. “But have you thought of ordering the window-glass? Just call up +the firm,—Red, 4451, I think it is,—and tell them what size and +kind of glass you wish.” +</p> + +<p> +“That means—” she began. +</p> + +<p> +“No window.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a dark and evil-appearing thing, that hut, not fit for aught better than +swine in a civilized land; but for us, who had known the misery of the open +boat, it was a snug little habitation. Following the housewarming, which was +accomplished by means of seal-oil and a wick made from cotton calking, came the +hunting for our winter’s meat and the building of the second hut. It was +a simple affair, now, to go forth in the morning and return by noon with a +boatload of seals. And then, while I worked at building the hut, Maud tried out +the oil from the blubber and kept a slow fire under the frames of meat. I had +heard of jerking beef on the plains, and our seal-meat, cut in thin strips and +hung in the smoke, cured excellently. +</p> + +<p> +The second hut was easier to erect, for I built it against the first, and only +three walls were required. But it was work, hard work, all of it. Maud and I +worked from dawn till dark, to the limit of our strength, so that when night +came we crawled stiffly to bed and slept the animal-like sleep of exhaustion. +And yet Maud declared that she had never felt better or stronger in her life. I +knew this was true of myself, but hers was such a lily strength that I feared +she would break down. Often and often, her last-reserve force gone, I have seen +her stretched flat on her back on the sand in the way she had of resting and +recuperating. And then she would be up on her feet and toiling hard as ever. +Where she obtained this strength was the marvel to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Think of the long rest this winter,” was her reply to my +remonstrances. “Why, we’ll be clamorous for something to do.” +</p> + +<p> +We held a housewarming in my hut the night it was roofed. It was the end of the +third day of a fierce storm which had swung around the compass from the +south-east to the north-west, and which was then blowing directly in upon us. +The beaches of the outer cove were thundering with the surf, and even in our +land-locked inner cove a respectable sea was breaking. No high backbone of +island sheltered us from the wind, and it whistled and bellowed about the hut +till at times I feared for the strength of the walls. The skin roof, stretched +tightly as a drumhead, I had thought, sagged and bellied with every gust; and +innumerable interstices in the walls, not so tightly stuffed with moss as Maud +had supposed, disclosed themselves. Yet the seal-oil burned brightly and we +were warm and comfortable. +</p> + +<p> +It was a pleasant evening indeed, and we voted that as a social function on +Endeavour Island it had not yet been eclipsed. Our minds were at ease. Not only +had we resigned ourselves to the bitter winter, but we were prepared for it. +The seals could depart on their mysterious journey into the south at any time, +now, for all we cared; and the storms held no terror for us. Not only were we +sure of being dry and warm and sheltered from the wind, but we had the softest +and most luxurious mattresses that could be made from moss. This had been +Maud’s idea, and she had herself jealously gathered all the moss. This +was to be my first night on the mattress, and I knew I should sleep the sweeter +because she had made it. +</p> + +<p> +As she rose to go she turned to me with the whimsical way she had, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“Something is going to happen—is happening, for that matter. I feel +it. Something is coming here, to us. It is coming now. I don’t know what, +but it is coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good or bad?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. “I don’t know, but it is there, +somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +She pointed in the direction of the sea and wind. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a lee shore,” I laughed, “and I am sure I’d +rather be here than arriving, a night like this.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not frightened?” I asked, as I stepped to open the door +for her. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes looked bravely into mine. +</p> + +<p> +“And you feel well? perfectly well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never better,” was her answer. +</p> + +<p> +We talked a little longer before she went. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Maud,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Humphrey,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +This use of our given names had come about quite as a matter of course, and was +as unpremeditated as it was natural. In that moment I could have put my arms +around her and drawn her to me. I should certainly have done so out in that +world to which we belonged. As it was, the situation stopped there in the only +way it could; but I was left alone in my little hut, glowing warmly through and +through with a pleasant satisfaction; and I knew that a tie, or a tacit +something, existed between us which had not existed before. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + +<p> +I awoke, oppressed by a mysterious sensation. There seemed something missing in +my environment. But the mystery and oppressiveness vanished after the first few +seconds of waking, when I identified the missing something as the wind. I had +fallen asleep in that state of nerve tension with which one meets the +continuous shock of sound or movement, and I had awakened, still tense, bracing +myself to meet the pressure of something which no longer bore upon me. +</p> + +<p> +It was the first night I had spent under cover in several months, and I lay +luxuriously for some minutes under my blankets (for once not wet with fog or +spray), analysing, first, the effect produced upon me by the cessation of the +wind, and next, the joy which was mine from resting on the mattress made by +Maud’s hands. When I had dressed and opened the door, I heard the waves +still lapping on the beach, garrulously attesting the fury of the night. It was +a clear day, and the sun was shining. I had slept late, and I stepped outside +with sudden energy, bent upon making up lost time as befitted a dweller on +Endeavour Island. +</p> + +<p> +And when outside, I stopped short. I believed my eyes without question, and yet +I was for the moment stunned by what they disclosed to me. There, on the beach, +not fifty feet away, bow on, dismasted, was a black-hulled vessel. Masts and +booms, tangled with shrouds, sheets, and rent canvas, were rubbing gently +alongside. I could have rubbed my eyes as I looked. There was the home-made +galley we had built, the familiar break of the poop, the low yacht-cabin +scarcely rising above the rail. It was the <i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +What freak of fortune had brought it here—here of all spots? what chance +of chances? I looked at the bleak, inaccessible wall at my back and knew the +profundity of despair. Escape was hopeless, out of the question. I thought of +Maud, asleep there in the hut we had reared; I remembered her +“Good-night, Humphrey”; “my woman, my mate,” went +ringing through my brain, but now, alas, it was a knell that sounded. Then +everything went black before my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Possibly it was the fraction of a second, but I had no knowledge of how long an +interval had lapsed before I was myself again. There lay the <i>Ghost</i>, bow +on to the beach, her splintered bowsprit projecting over the sand, her tangled +spars rubbing against her side to the lift of the crooning waves. Something +must be done, must be done. +</p> + +<p> +It came upon me suddenly, as strange, that nothing moved aboard. Wearied from +the night of struggle and wreck, all hands were yet asleep, I thought. My next +thought was that Maud and I might yet escape. If we could take to the boat and +make round the point before any one awoke? I would call her and start. My hand +was lifted at her door to knock, when I recollected the smallness of the +island. We could never hide ourselves upon it. There was nothing for us but the +wide raw ocean. I thought of our snug little huts, our supplies of meat and oil +and moss and firewood, and I knew that we could never survive the wintry sea +and the great storms which were to come. +</p> + +<p> +So I stood, with hesitant knuckle, without her door. It was impossible, +impossible. A wild thought of rushing in and killing her as she slept rose in +my mind. And then, in a flash, the better solution came to me. All hands were +asleep. Why not creep aboard the <i>Ghost</i>,—well I knew the way to +Wolf Larsen’s bunk,—and kill him in his sleep? After +that—well, we would see. But with him dead there was time and space in +which to prepare to do other things; and besides, whatever new situation arose, +it could not possibly be worse than the present one. +</p> + +<p> +My knife was at my hip. I returned to my hut for the shot-gun, made sure it was +loaded, and went down to the <i>Ghost</i>. With some difficulty, and at the +expense of a wetting to the waist, I climbed aboard. The forecastle scuttle was +open. I paused to listen for the breathing of the men, but there was no +breathing. I almost gasped as the thought came to me: What if the <i>Ghost</i> +is deserted? I listened more closely. There was no sound. I cautiously +descended the ladder. The place had the empty and musty feel and smell usual to +a dwelling no longer inhabited. Everywhere was a thick litter of discarded and +ragged garments, old sea-boots, leaky oilskins—all the worthless +forecastle dunnage of a long voyage. +</p> + +<p> +Abandoned hastily, was my conclusion, as I ascended to the deck. Hope was alive +again in my breast, and I looked about me with greater coolness. I noted that +the boats were missing. The steerage told the same tale as the forecastle. The +hunters had packed their belongings with similar haste. The <i>Ghost</i> was +deserted. It was Maud’s and mine. I thought of the ship’s stores +and the lazarette beneath the cabin, and the idea came to me of surprising Maud +with something nice for breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +The reaction from my fear, and the knowledge that the terrible deed I had come +to do was no longer necessary, made me boyish and eager. I went up the steerage +companion-way two steps at a time, with nothing distinct in my mind except joy +and the hope that Maud would sleep on until the surprise breakfast was quite +ready for her. As I rounded the galley, a new satisfaction was mine at thought +of all the splendid cooking utensils inside. I sprang up the break of the poop, +and saw—Wolf Larsen. What of my impetus and the stunning surprise, I +clattered three or four steps along the deck before I could stop myself. He was +standing in the companion-way, only his head and shoulders visible, staring +straight at me. His arms were resting on the half-open slide. He made no +movement whatever—simply stood there, staring at me. +</p> + +<p> +I began to tremble. The old stomach sickness clutched me. I put one hand on the +edge of the house to steady myself. My lips seemed suddenly dry and I moistened +them against the need of speech. Nor did I for an instant take my eyes off him. +Neither of us spoke. There was something ominous in his silence, his +immobility. All my old fear of him returned and my new fear was increased an +hundred-fold. And still we stood, the pair of us, staring at each other. +</p> + +<p> +I was aware of the demand for action, and, my old helplessness strong upon me, +I was waiting for him to take the initiative. Then, as the moments went by, it +came to me that the situation was analogous to the one in which I had +approached the long-maned bull, my intention of clubbing obscured by fear until +it became a desire to make him run. So it was at last impressed upon me that I +was there, not to have Wolf Larsen take the initiative, but to take it myself. +</p> + +<p> +I cocked both barrels and levelled the shot-gun at him. Had he moved, attempted +to drop down the companion-way, I know I would have shot him. But he stood +motionless and staring as before. And as I faced him, with levelled gun shaking +in my hands, I had time to note the worn and haggard appearance of his face. It +was as if some strong anxiety had wasted it. The cheeks were sunken, and there +was a wearied, puckered expression on the brow. And it seemed to me that his +eyes were strange, not only the expression, but the physical seeming, as though +the optic nerves and supporting muscles had suffered strain and slightly +twisted the eyeballs. +</p> + +<p> +All this I saw, and my brain now working rapidly, I thought a thousand +thoughts; and yet I could not pull the triggers. I lowered the gun and stepped +to the corner of the cabin, primarily to relieve the tension on my nerves and +to make a new start, and incidentally to be closer. Again I raised the gun. He +was almost at arm’s length. There was no hope for him. I was resolved. +There was no possible chance of missing him, no matter how poor my +marksmanship. And yet I wrestled with myself and could not pull the triggers. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” he demanded impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +I strove vainly to force my fingers down on the triggers, and vainly I strove +to say something. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you shoot?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +I cleared my throat of a huskiness which prevented speech. “Hump,” +he said slowly, “you can’t do it. You are not exactly afraid. You +are impotent. Your conventional morality is stronger than you. You are the +slave to the opinions which have credence among the people you have known and +have read about. Their code has been drummed into your head from the time you +lisped, and in spite of your philosophy, and of what I have taught you, it +won’t let you kill an unarmed, unresisting man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” I said hoarsely. +</p> + +<p> +“And you know that I would kill an unarmed man as readily as I would +smoke a cigar,” he went on. “You know me for what I am,—my +worth in the world by your standard. You have called me snake, tiger, shark, +monster, and Caliban. And yet, you little rag puppet, you little echoing +mechanism, you are unable to kill me as you would a snake or a shark, because I +have hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat like yours. Bah! I had hoped +better things of you, Hump.” +</p> + +<p> +He stepped out of the companion-way and came up to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Put down that gun. I want to ask you some questions. I haven’t had +a chance to look around yet. What place is this? How is the <i>Ghost</i> lying? +How did you get wet? Where’s Maud?—I beg your pardon, Miss +Brewster—or should I say, ‘Mrs. Van Weyden’?” +</p> + +<p> +I had backed away from him, almost weeping at my inability to shoot him, but +not fool enough to put down the gun. I hoped, desperately, that he might commit +some hostile act, attempt to strike me or choke me; for in such way only I knew +I could be stirred to shoot. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Endeavour Island,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Never heard of it,” he broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“At least, that’s our name for it,” I amended. +</p> + +<p> +“Our?” he queried. “Who’s our?” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Brewster and myself. And the <i>Ghost</i> is lying, as you can see +for yourself, bow on to the beach.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are seals here,” he said. “They woke me up with their +barking, or I’d be sleeping yet. I heard them when I drove in last night. +They were the first warning that I was on a lee shore. It’s a rookery, +the kind of a thing I’ve hunted for years. Thanks to my brother Death, +I’ve lighted on a fortune. It’s a mint. What’s its +bearings?” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t the least idea,” I said. “But you ought to +know quite closely. What were your last observations?” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled inscrutably, but did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, where’s all hands?” I asked. “How does it come +that you are alone?” +</p> + +<p> +I was prepared for him again to set aside my question, and was surprised at the +readiness of his reply. +</p> + +<p> +“My brother got me inside forty-eight hours, and through no fault of +mine. Boarded me in the night with only the watch on deck. Hunters went back on +me. He gave them a bigger lay. Heard him offering it. Did it right before me. +Of course the crew gave me the go-by. That was to be expected. All hands went +over the side, and there I was, marooned on my own vessel. It was Death’s +turn, and it’s all in the family anyway.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how did you lose the masts?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Walk over and examine those lanyards,” he said, pointing to where +the mizzen-rigging should have been. +</p> + +<p> +“They have been cut with a knife!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite,” he laughed. “It was a neater job. Look +again.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked. The lanyards had been almost severed, with just enough left to hold +the shrouds till some severe strain should be put upon them. +</p> + +<p> +“Cooky did that,” he laughed again. “I know, though I +didn’t spot him at it. Kind of evened up the score a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good for Mugridge!” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s what I thought when everything went over the side. +Only I said it on the other side of my mouth.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what were you doing while all this was going on?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“My best, you may be sure, which wasn’t much under the +circumstances.” +</p> + +<p> +I turned to re-examine Thomas Mugridge’s work. +</p> + +<p> +“I guess I’ll sit down and take the sunshine,” I heard Wolf +Larsen saying. +</p> + +<p> +There was a hint, just a slight hint, of physical feebleness in his voice, and +it was so strange that I looked quickly at him. His hand was sweeping nervously +across his face, as though he were brushing away cobwebs. I was puzzled. The +whole thing was so unlike the Wolf Larsen I had known. +</p> + +<p> +“How are your headaches?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“They still trouble me,” was his answer. “I think I have one +coming on now.” +</p> + +<p> +He slipped down from his sitting posture till he lay on the deck. Then he +rolled over on his side, his head resting on the biceps of the under arm, the +forearm shielding his eyes from the sun. I stood regarding him wonderingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Now’s your chance, Hump,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” I lied, for I thoroughly understood. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing,” he added softly, as if he were drowsing; “only +you’ve got me where you want me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I haven’t,” I retorted; “for I want you a few +thousand miles away from here.” +</p> + +<p> +He chuckled, and thereafter spoke no more. He did not stir as I passed by him +and went down into the cabin. I lifted the trap in the floor, but for some +moments gazed dubiously into the darkness of the lazarette beneath. I hesitated +to descend. What if his lying down were a ruse? Pretty, indeed, to be caught +there like a rat. I crept softly up the companion-way and peeped at him. He was +lying as I had left him. Again I went below; but before I dropped into the +lazarette I took the precaution of casting down the door in advance. At least +there would be no lid to the trap. But it was all needless. I regained the +cabin with a store of jams, sea-biscuits, canned meats, and such +things,—all I could carry,—and replaced the trap-door. +</p> + +<p> +A peep at Wolf Larsen showed me that he had not moved. A bright thought struck +me. I stole into his state-room and possessed myself of his revolvers. There +were no other weapons, though I thoroughly ransacked the three remaining +state-rooms. To make sure, I returned and went through the steerage and +forecastle, and in the galley gathered up all the sharp meat and vegetable +knives. Then I bethought me of the great yachtsman’s knife he always +carried, and I came to him and spoke to him, first softly, then loudly. He did +not move. I bent over and took it from his pocket. I breathed more freely. He +had no arms with which to attack me from a distance; while I, armed, could +always forestall him should he attempt to grapple me with his terrible gorilla +arms. +</p> + +<p> +Filling a coffee-pot and frying-pan with part of my plunder, and taking some +chinaware from the cabin pantry, I left Wolf Larsen lying in the sun and went +ashore. +</p> + +<p> +Maud was still asleep. I blew up the embers (we had not yet arranged a winter +kitchen), and quite feverishly cooked the breakfast. Toward the end, I heard +her moving about within the hut, making her toilet. Just as all was ready and +the coffee poured, the door opened and she came forth. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not fair of you,” was her greeting. “You are +usurping one of my prerogatives. You know you agreed that the cooking should +be mine, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“But just this once,” I pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“If you promise not to do it again,” she smiled. “Unless, of +course, you have grown tired of my poor efforts.” +</p> + +<p> +To my delight she never once looked toward the beach, and I maintained the +banter with such success all unconsciously she sipped coffee from the china +cup, ate fried evaporated potatoes, and spread marmalade on her biscuit. But it +could not last. I saw the surprise that came over her. She had discovered the +china plate from which she was eating. She looked over the breakfast, noting +detail after detail. Then she looked at me, and her face turned slowly toward +the beach. +</p> + +<p> +“Humphrey!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The old unnamable terror mounted into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Is—he?” she quavered. +</p> + +<p> +I nodded my head. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + +<p> +We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore. It was an intolerable period +of anxiety. Each moment one or the other of us cast expectant glances toward +the <i>Ghost</i>. But he did not come. He did not even appear on deck. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps it is his headache,” I said. “I left him lying on +the poop. He may lie there all night. I think I’ll go and see.” +</p> + +<p> +Maud looked entreaty at me. +</p> + +<p> +“It is all right,” I assured her. “I shall take the +revolvers. You know I collected every weapon on board.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible hands!” +she objected. And then she cried, “Oh, Humphrey, I am afraid of him! +Don’t go—please don’t go!” +</p> + +<p> +She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering. My heart +was surely in my eyes for a moment. The dear and lovely woman! And she was so +much the woman, clinging and appealing, sunshine and dew to my manhood, rooting +it deeper and sending through it the sap of a new strength. I was for putting +my arm around her, as when in the midst of the seal herd; but I considered, and +refrained. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not take any risks,” I said. “I’ll merely peep +over the bow and see.” +</p> + +<p> +She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go. But the space on deck where I had +left him lying was vacant. He had evidently gone below. That night we stood +alternate watches, one of us sleeping at a time; for there was no telling what +Wolf Larsen might do. He was certainly capable of anything. +</p> + +<p> +The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign. +</p> + +<p> +“These headaches of his, these attacks,” Maud said, on the +afternoon of the fourth day; “Perhaps he is ill, very ill. He may be +dead.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or dying,” was her afterthought when she had waited some time for +me to speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Better so,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +“But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, even perhaps,” she acknowledged. “But we do not know. +It would be terrible if he were. I could never forgive myself. We must do +something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” I suggested again. +</p> + +<p> +I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled a solicitude for +Wolf Larsen, of all creatures. Where was her solicitude for me, I +thought,—for me whom she had been afraid to have merely peep aboard? +</p> + +<p> +She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence. And she was as direct +as she was subtle. +</p> + +<p> +“You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out,” she said. “And +if you want to laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness.” +</p> + +<p> +I arose obediently and went down the beach. +</p> + +<p> +“Do be careful,” she called after me. +</p> + +<p> +I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck. Aft I +walked to the cabin companion, where I contented myself with hailing below. +Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started to ascend the stairs I cocked my +revolver. I displayed it openly during our conversation, but he took no notice +of it. He appeared the same, physically, as when last I saw him, but he was +gloomy and silent. In fact, the few words we spoke could hardly be called a +conversation. I did not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor did he ask why +I had not come aboard. His head was all right again, he said, and so, without +further parley, I left him. +</p> + +<p> +Maud received my report with obvious relief, and the sight of smoke which later +rose in the galley put her in a more cheerful mood. The next day, and the next, +we saw the galley smoke rising, and sometimes we caught glimpses of him on the +poop. But that was all. He made no attempt to come ashore. This we knew, for we +still maintained our night-watches. We were waiting for him to do something, to +show his hand, so to say, and his inaction puzzled and worried us. +</p> + +<p> +A week of this passed by. We had no other interest than Wolf Larsen, and his +presence weighed us down with an apprehension which prevented us from doing any +of the little things we had planned. +</p> + +<p> +But at the end of the week the smoke ceased rising from the galley, and he no +longer showed himself on the poop. I could see Maud’s solicitude again +growing, though she timidly—and even proudly, I think—forbore a +repetition of her request. After all, what censure could be put upon her? She +was divinely altruistic, and she was a woman. Besides, I was myself aware of +hurt at thought of this man whom I had tried to kill, dying alone with his +fellow-creatures so near. He was right. The code of my group was stronger than +I. The fact that he had hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat like mine, +constituted a claim which I could not ignore. +</p> + +<p> +So I did not wait a second time for Maud to send me. I discovered that we stood +in need of condensed milk and marmalade, and announced that I was going aboard. +I could see that she wavered. She even went so far as to murmur that they were +non-essentials and that my trip after them might be inexpedient. And as she had +followed the trend of my silence, she now followed the trend of my speech, and +she knew that I was going aboard, not because of condensed milk and marmalade, +but because of her and of her anxiety, which she knew she had failed to hide. +</p> + +<p> +I took off my shoes when I gained the forecastle head, and went noiselessly aft +in my stocking feet. Nor did I call this time from the top of the +companion-way. Cautiously descending, I found the cabin deserted. The door to +his state-room was closed. At first I thought of knocking, then I remembered my +ostensible errand and resolved to carry it out. Carefully avoiding noise, I +lifted the trap-door in the floor and set it to one side. The slop-chest, as +well as the provisions, was stored in the lazarette, and I took advantage of +the opportunity to lay in a stock of underclothing. +</p> + +<p> +As I emerged from the lazarette I heard sounds in Wolf Larsen’s +state-room. I crouched and listened. The door-knob rattled. Furtively, +instinctively, I slunk back behind the table and drew and cocked my revolver. +The door swung open and he came forth. Never had I seen so profound a despair +as that which I saw on his face,—the face of Wolf Larsen the fighter, the +strong man, the indomitable one. For all the world like a woman wringing her +hands, he raised his clenched fists and groaned. One fist unclosed, and the +open palm swept across his eyes as though brushing away cobwebs. +</p> + +<p> +“God! God!” he groaned, and the clenched fists were raised again to +the infinite despair with which his throat vibrated. +</p> + +<p> +It was horrible. I was trembling all over, and I could feel the shivers running +up and down my spine and the sweat standing out on my forehead. Surely there +can be little in this world more awful than the spectacle of a strong man in +the moment when he is utterly weak and broken. +</p> + +<p> +But Wolf Larsen regained control of himself by an exertion of his remarkable +will. And it was exertion. His whole frame shook with the struggle. He +resembled a man on the verge of a fit. His face strove to compose itself, +writhing and twisting in the effort till he broke down again. Once more the +clenched fists went upward and he groaned. He caught his breath once or twice +and sobbed. Then he was successful. I could have thought him the old Wolf +Larsen, and yet there was in his movements a vague suggestion of weakness and +indecision. He started for the companion-way, and stepped forward quite as I +had been accustomed to see him do; and yet again, in his very walk, there +seemed that suggestion of weakness and indecision. +</p> + +<p> +I was now concerned with fear for myself. The open trap lay directly in his +path, and his discovery of it would lead instantly to his discovery of me. I +was angry with myself for being caught in so cowardly a position, crouching on +the floor. There was yet time. I rose swiftly to my feet, and, I know, quite +unconsciously assumed a defiant attitude. He took no notice of me. Nor did he +notice the open trap. Before I could grasp the situation, or act, he had walked +right into the trap. One foot was descending into the opening, while the other +foot was just on the verge of beginning the uplift. But when the descending +foot missed the solid flooring and felt vacancy beneath, it was the old Wolf +Larsen and the tiger muscles that made the falling body spring across the +opening, even as it fell, so that he struck on his chest and stomach, with arms +outstretched, on the floor of the opposite side. The next instant he had drawn +up his legs and rolled clear. But he rolled into my marmalade and underclothes +and against the trap-door. +</p> + +<p> +The expression on his face was one of complete comprehension. But before I +could guess what he had comprehended, he had dropped the trap-door into place, +closing the lazarette. Then I understood. He thought he had me inside. Also, he +was blind, blind as a bat. I watched him, breathing carefully so that he should +not hear me. He stepped quickly to his state-room. I saw his hand miss the +door-knob by an inch, quickly fumble for it, and find it. This was my chance. I +tiptoed across the cabin and to the top of the stairs. He came back, dragging a +heavy sea-chest, which he deposited on top of the trap. Not content with this +he fetched a second chest and placed it on top of the first. Then he gathered +up the marmalade and underclothes and put them on the table. When he started up +the companion-way, I retreated, silently rolling over on top of the cabin. +</p> + +<p> +He shoved the slide part way back and rested his arms on it, his body still in +the companion-way. His attitude was of one looking forward the length of the +schooner, or staring, rather, for his eyes were fixed and unblinking. I was +only five feet away and directly in what should have been his line of vision. +It was uncanny. I felt myself a ghost, what of my invisibility. I waved my hand +back and forth, of course without effect; but when the moving shadow fell +across his face I saw at once that he was susceptible to the impression. His +face became more expectant and tense as he tried to analyze and identify the +impression. He knew that he had responded to something from without, that his +sensibility had been touched by a changing something in his environment; but +what it was he could not discover. I ceased waving my hand, so that the shadow +remained stationary. He slowly moved his head back and forth under it and +turned from side to side, now in the sunshine, now in the shade, feeling the +shadow, as it were, testing it by sensation. +</p> + +<p> +I, too, was busy, trying to reason out how he was aware of the existence of so +intangible a thing as a shadow. If it were his eyeballs only that were +affected, or if his optic nerve were not wholly destroyed, the explanation was +simple. If otherwise, then the only conclusion I could reach was that the +sensitive skin recognized the difference of temperature between shade and +sunshine. Or, perhaps,—who can tell?—it was that fabled sixth sense +which conveyed to him the loom and feel of an object close at hand. +</p> + +<p> +Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck and started +forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which surprised me. And still +there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind in his walk. I knew it now +for what it was. +</p> + +<p> +To my amused chagrin, he discovered my shoes on the forecastle head and brought +them back with him into the galley. I watched him build the fire and set about +cooking food for himself; then I stole into the cabin for my marmalade and +underclothes, slipped back past the galley, and climbed down to the beach to +deliver my barefoot report. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + +<p> +“It’s too bad the <i>Ghost</i> has lost her masts. Why we could +sail away in her. Don’t you think we could, Humphrey?” +</p> + +<p> +I sprang excitedly to my feet. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder, I wonder,” I repeated, pacing up and down. +</p> + +<p> +Maud’s eyes were shining with anticipation as they followed me. She had +such faith in me! And the thought of it was so much added power. I remembered +Michelet’s “To man, woman is as the earth was to her legendary son; +he has but to fall down and kiss her breast and he is strong again.” For +the first time I knew the wonderful truth of his words. Why, I was living them. +Maud was all this to me, an unfailing source of strength and courage. I had +but to look at her, or think of her, and be strong again. +</p> + +<p> +“It can be done, it can be done,” I was thinking and asserting +aloud. “What men have done, I can do; and if they have never done this +before, still I can do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What? for goodness’ sake,” Maud demanded. “Do be +merciful. What is it you can do?” +</p> + +<p> +“We can do it,” I amended. “Why, nothing else than put the +masts back into the <i>Ghost</i> and sail away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Humphrey!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already a fact accomplished. +</p> + +<p> +“But how is it possible to be done?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” was my answer. “I know only that I am +capable of doing anything these days.” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled proudly at her—too proudly, for she dropped her eyes and was for +the moment silent. +</p> + +<p> +“But there is Captain Larsen,” she objected. +</p> + +<p> +“Blind and helpless,” I answered promptly, waving him aside as a +straw. +</p> + +<p> +“But those terrible hands of his! You know how he leaped across the +opening of the lazarette.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you know also how I crept about and avoided him,” I contended +gaily. +</p> + +<p> +“And lost your shoes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d hardly expect them to avoid Wolf Larsen without my feet +inside of them.” +</p> + +<p> +We both laughed, and then went seriously to work constructing the plan whereby +we were to step the masts of the <i>Ghost</i> and return to the world. I +remembered hazily the physics of my school days, while the last few months had +given me practical experience with mechanical purchases. I must say, though, +when we walked down to the <i>Ghost</i> to inspect more closely the task before +us, that the sight of the great masts lying in the water almost disheartened +me. Where were we to begin? If there had been one mast standing, something high +up to which to fasten blocks and tackles! But there was nothing. It reminded me +of the problem of lifting oneself by one’s boot-straps. I understood the +mechanics of levers; but where was I to get a fulcrum? +</p> + +<p> +There was the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now the butt, +still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly calculated, at least +three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, larger in diameter, and +weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds. Where was I to begin? Maud stood +silently by my side, while I evolved in my mind the contrivance known among +sailors as “shears.” But, though known to sailors, I invented it +there on Endeavour Island. By crossing and lashing the ends of two spars, and +then elevating them in the air like an inverted “V,” I could get a +point above the deck to which to make fast my hoisting tackle. To this hoisting +tackle I could, if necessary, attach a second hoisting tackle. And then there +was the windlass! +</p> + +<p> +Maud saw that I had achieved a solution, and her eyes warmed sympathetically. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Clear that raffle,” I answered, pointing to the tangled wreckage +overside. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, the decisiveness, the very sound of the words, was good in my ears. +“Clear that raffle!” Imagine so salty a phrase on the lips of the +Humphrey Van Weyden of a few months gone! +</p> + +<p> +There must have been a touch of the melodramatic in my pose and voice, for Maud +smiled. Her appreciation of the ridiculous was keen, and in all things she +unerringly saw and felt, where it existed, the touch of sham, the overshading, +the overtone. It was this which had given poise and penetration to her own work +and made her of worth to the world. The serious critic, with the sense of +humour and the power of expression, must inevitably command the world’s +ear. And so it was that she had commanded. Her sense of humour was really the +artist’s instinct for proportion. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I’ve heard it before, somewhere, in books,” +she murmured gleefully. +</p> + +<p> +I had an instinct for proportion myself, and I collapsed forthwith, descending +from the dominant pose of a master of matter to a state of humble confusion +which was, to say the least, very miserable. +</p> + +<p> +Her hand leapt out at once to mine. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so sorry,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“No need to be,” I gulped. “It does me good. There’s +too much of the schoolboy in me. All of which is neither here nor there. What +we’ve got to do is actually and literally to clear that raffle. If +you’ll come with me in the boat, we’ll get to work and straighten +things out.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘When the topmen clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their +teeth,’” she quoted at me; and for the rest of the afternoon we +made merry over our labour. +</p> + +<p> +Her task was to hold the boat in position while I worked at the tangle. And +such a tangle—halyards, sheets, guys, down-hauls, shrouds, stays, all +washed about and back and forth and through, and twined and knotted by the sea. +I cut no more than was necessary, and what with passing the long ropes under +and around the booms and masts, of unreeving the halyards and sheets, of +coiling down in the boat and uncoiling in order to pass through another knot in +the bight, I was soon wet to the skin. +</p> + +<p> +The sails did require some cutting, and the canvas, heavy with water, tried my +strength severely; but I succeeded before nightfall in getting it all spread +out on the beach to dry. We were both very tired when we knocked off for +supper, and we had done good work, too, though to the eye it appeared +insignificant. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, with Maud as able assistant, I went into the hold of the +<i>Ghost</i> to clear the steps of the mast-butts. We had no more than begun +work when the sound of my knocking and hammering brought Wolf Larsen. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello below!” he cried down the open hatch. +</p> + +<p> +The sound of his voice made Maud quickly draw close to me, as for protection, +and she rested one hand on my arm while we parleyed. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello on deck,” I replied. “Good-morning to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing down there?” he demanded. “Trying to +scuttle my ship for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite the opposite; I’m repairing her,” was my answer. +</p> + +<p> +“But what in thunder are you repairing?” There was puzzlement in +his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I’m getting everything ready for re-stepping the +masts,” I replied easily, as though it were the simplest project +imaginable. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems as though you’re standing on your own legs at last, +Hump,” we heard him say; and then for some time he was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“But I say, Hump,” he called down. “You can’t do +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I can,” I retorted. “I’m doing it now.” +</p> + +<p> +“But this is my vessel, my particular property. What if I forbid +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget,” I replied. “You are no longer the biggest bit +of the ferment. You were, once, and able to eat me, as you were pleased to +phrase it; but there has been a diminishing, and I am now able to eat you. The +yeast has grown stale.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave a short, disagreeable laugh. “I see you’re working my +philosophy back on me for all it is worth. But don’t make the mistake of +under-estimating me. For your own good I warn you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since when have you become a philanthropist?” I queried. +“Confess, now, in warning me for my own good, that you are very +consistent.” +</p> + +<p> +He ignored my sarcasm, saying, “Suppose I clap the hatch on, now? You +won’t fool me as you did in the lazarette.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wolf Larsen,” I said sternly, for the first time addressing him by +this his most familiar name, “I am unable to shoot a helpless, +unresisting man. You have proved that to my satisfaction as well as yours. But +I warn you now, and not so much for your own good as for mine, that I shall +shoot you the moment you attempt a hostile act. I can shoot you now, as I stand +here; and if you are so minded, just go ahead and try to clap on the +hatch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nevertheless, I forbid you, I distinctly forbid your tampering with my +ship.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, man!” I expostulated, “you advance the fact that it is +your ship as though it were a moral right. You have never considered moral +rights in your dealings with others. You surely do not dream that I’ll +consider them in dealing with you?” +</p> + +<p> +I had stepped underneath the open hatchway so that I could see him. The lack of +expression on his face, so different from when I had watched him unseen, was +enhanced by the unblinking, staring eyes. It was not a pleasant face to look +upon. +</p> + +<p> +“And none so poor, not even Hump, to do him reverence,” he sneered. +</p> + +<p> +The sneer was wholly in his voice. His face remained expressionless as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do, Miss Brewster,” he said suddenly, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +I started. She had made no noise whatever, had not even moved. Could it be that +some glimmer of vision remained to him? or that his vision was coming back? +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do, Captain Larsen,” she answered. “Pray, how did +you know I was here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Heard you breathing, of course. I say, Hump’s improving, +don’t you think so?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she answered, smiling at me. “I have +never seen him otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +“You should have seen him before, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wolf Larsen, in large doses,” I murmured, “before and after +taking.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to tell you again, Hump,” he said threateningly, +“that you’d better leave things alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you care to escape as well as we?” I asked +incredulously. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” was his answer. “I intend dying here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we don’t,” I concluded defiantly, beginning again my +knocking and hammering. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + +<p> +Next day, the mast-steps clear and everything in readiness, we started to get +the two topmasts aboard. The maintopmast was over thirty feet in length, the +foretopmast nearly thirty, and it was of these that I intended making the +shears. It was puzzling work. Fastening one end of a heavy tackle to the +windlass, and with the other end fast to the butt of the foretopmast, I began +to heave. Maud held the turn on the windlass and coiled down the slack. +</p> + +<p> +We were astonished at the ease with which the spar was lifted. It was an +improved crank windlass, and the purchase it gave was enormous. Of course, what +it gave us in power we paid for in distance; as many times as it doubled my +strength, that many times was doubled the length of rope I heaved in. The +tackle dragged heavily across the rail, increasing its drag as the spar arose +more and more out of the water, and the exertion on the windlass grew severe. +</p> + +<p> +But when the butt of the topmast was level with the rail, everything came to a +standstill. +</p> + +<p> +“I might have known it,” I said impatiently. “Now we have to +do it all over again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not fasten the tackle part way down the mast?” Maud suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s what I should have done at first,” I answered, hugely +disgusted with myself. +</p> + +<p> +Slipping off a turn, I lowered the mast back into the water and fastened the +tackle a third of the way down from the butt. In an hour, what of this and of +rests between the heaving, I had hoisted it to the point where I could hoist no +more. Eight feet of the butt was above the rail, and I was as far away as ever +from getting the spar on board. I sat down and pondered the problem. It did not +take long. I sprang jubilantly to my feet. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I have it!” I cried. “I ought to make the tackle fast at +the point of balance. And what we learn of this will serve us with everything +else we have to hoist aboard.” +</p> + +<p> +Once again I undid all my work by lowering the mast into the water. But I +miscalculated the point of balance, so that when I heaved the top of the mast +came up instead of the butt. Maud looked despair, but I laughed and said it +would do just as well. +</p> + +<p> +Instructing her how to hold the turn and be ready to slack away at command, I +laid hold of the mast with my hands and tried to balance it inboard across the +rail. When I thought I had it I cried to her to slack away; but the spar +righted, despite my efforts, and dropped back toward the water. Again I heaved +it up to its old position, for I had now another idea. I remembered the +watch-tackle—a small double and single block affair—and fetched it. +</p> + +<p> +While I was rigging it between the top of the spar and the opposite rail, Wolf +Larsen came on the scene. We exchanged nothing more than good-mornings, and, +though he could not see, he sat on the rail out of the way and followed by the +sound all that I did. +</p> + +<p> +Again instructing Maud to slack away at the windlass when I gave the word, I +proceeded to heave on the watch-tackle. Slowly the mast swung in until it +balanced at right angles across the rail; and then I discovered to my amazement +that there was no need for Maud to slack away. In fact, the very opposite was +necessary. Making the watch-tackle fast, I hove on the windlass and brought in +the mast, inch by inch, till its top tilted down to the deck and finally its +whole length lay on the deck. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at my watch. It was twelve o’clock. My back was aching sorely, +and I felt extremely tired and hungry. And there on the deck was a single stick +of timber to show for a whole morning’s work. For the first time I +thoroughly realized the extent of the task before us. But I was learning, I was +learning. The afternoon would show far more accomplished. And it did; for we +returned at one o’clock, rested and strengthened by a hearty dinner. +</p> + +<p> +In less than an hour I had the maintopmast on deck and was constructing the +shears. Lashing the two topmasts together, and making allowance for their +unequal length, at the point of intersection I attached the double block of the +main throat-halyards. This, with the single block and the throat-halyards +themselves, gave me a hoisting tackle. To prevent the butts of the masts from +slipping on the deck, I nailed down thick cleats. Everything in readiness, I +made a line fast to the apex of the shears and carried it directly to the +windlass. I was growing to have faith in that windlass, for it gave me power +beyond all expectation. As usual, Maud held the turn while I heaved. The shears +rose in the air. +</p> + +<p> +Then I discovered I had forgotten guy-ropes. This necessitated my climbing the +shears, which I did twice, before I finished guying it fore and aft and to +either side. Twilight had set in by the time this was accomplished. Wolf +Larsen, who had sat about and listened all afternoon and never opened his +mouth, had taken himself off to the galley and started his supper. I felt quite +stiff across the small of the back, so much so that I straightened up with an +effort and with pain. I looked proudly at my work. It was beginning to show. I +was wild with desire, like a child with a new toy, to hoist something with my +shears. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish it weren’t so late,” I said. “I’d like to +see how it works.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be a glutton, Humphrey,” Maud chided me. +“Remember, to-morrow is coming, and you’re so tired now that you +can hardly stand.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you?” I said, with sudden solicitude. “You must be very +tired. You have worked hard and nobly. I am proud of you, Maud.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not half so proud as I am of you, nor with half the reason,” she +answered, looking me straight in the eyes for a moment with an expression in +her own and a dancing, tremulous light which I had not seen before and which +gave me a pang of quick delight, I know not why, for I did not understand it. +Then she dropped her eyes, to lift them again, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“If our friends could see us now,” she said. “Look at us. +Have you ever paused for a moment to consider our appearance?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have considered yours, frequently,” I answered, puzzling +over what I had seen in her eyes and puzzled by her sudden change of subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy!” she cried. “And what do I look like, pray?” +</p> + +<p> +“A scarecrow, I’m afraid,” I replied. “Just glance at +your draggled skirts, for instance. Look at those three-cornered tears. And +such a waist! It would not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that you have +been cooking over a camp-fire, to say nothing of trying out seal-blubber. And +to cap it all, that cap! And all that is the woman who wrote ‘A Kiss +Endured.’” +</p> + +<p> +She made me an elaborate and stately courtesy, and said, “As for you, +sir—” +</p> + +<p> +And yet, through the five minutes of banter which followed, there was a serious +something underneath the fun which I could not but relate to the strange and +fleeting expression I had caught in her eyes. What was it? Could it be that our +eyes were speaking beyond the will of our speech? My eyes had spoken, I knew, +until I had found the culprits out and silenced them. This had occurred several +times. But had she seen the clamour in them and understood? And had her eyes so +spoken to me? What else could that expression have meant—that dancing, +tremulous light, and a something more which words could not describe. And yet +it could not be. It was impossible. Besides, I was not skilled in the speech of +eyes. I was only Humphrey Van Weyden, a bookish fellow who loved. And to love, +and to wait and win love, that surely was glorious enough for me. And thus I +thought, even as we chaffed each other’s appearance, until we arrived +ashore and there were other things to think about. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a shame, after working hard all day, that we cannot have an +uninterrupted night’s sleep,” I complained, after supper. +</p> + +<p> +“But there can be no danger now? from a blind man?” she queried. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never be able to trust him,” I averred, “and far +less now that he is blind. The liability is that his part helplessness will +make him more malignant than ever. I know what I shall do to-morrow, the first +thing—run out a light anchor and kedge the schooner off the beach. And +each night when we come ashore in the boat, Mr. Wolf Larsen will be left a +prisoner on board. So this will be the last night we have to stand watch, and +because of that it will go the easier.” +</p> + +<p> +We were awake early and just finishing breakfast as daylight came. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Humphrey!” I heard Maud cry in dismay and suddenly stop. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her. She was gazing at the <i>Ghost</i>. I followed her gaze, but +could see nothing unusual. She looked at me, and I looked inquiry back. +</p> + +<p> +“The shears,” she said, and her voice trembled. +</p> + +<p> +I had forgotten their existence. I looked again, but could not see them. +</p> + +<p> +“If he has—” I muttered savagely. +</p> + +<p> +She put her hand sympathetically on mine, and said, “You will have to +begin over again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, believe me, my anger means nothing; I could not hurt a fly,” I +smiled back bitterly. “And the worst of it is, he knows it. You are +right. If he has destroyed the shears, I shall do nothing except begin over +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I’ll stand my watch on board hereafter,” I blurted out a +moment later. “And if he interferes—” +</p> + +<p> +“But I dare not stay ashore all night alone,” Maud was saying when +I came back to myself. “It would be so much nicer if he would be friendly +with us and help us. We could all live comfortably aboard.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will,” I asserted, still savagely, for the destruction of my +beloved shears had hit me hard. “That is, you and I will live aboard, +friendly or not with Wolf Larsen.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s childish,” I laughed later, “for him to do such +things, and for me to grow angry over them, for that matter.” +</p> + +<p> +But my heart smote me when we climbed aboard and looked at the havoc he had +done. The shears were gone altogether. The guys had been slashed right and +left. The throat-halyards which I had rigged were cut across through every +part. And he knew I could not splice. A thought struck me. I ran to the +windlass. It would not work. He had broken it. We looked at each other in +consternation. Then I ran to the side. The masts, booms, and gaffs I had +cleared were gone. He had found the lines which held them, and cast them +adrift. +</p> + +<p> +Tears were in Maud’s eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I could +have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the <i>Ghost</i>? He +had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing and rested my chin on +my hands in black despair. +</p> + +<p> +“He deserves to die,” I cried out; “and God forgive me, I am +not man enough to be his executioner.” +</p> + +<p> +But Maud was by my side, passing her hand soothingly through my hair as though +I were a child, and saying, “There, there; it will all come right. We are +in the right, and it must come right.” +</p> + +<p> +I remembered Michelet and leaned my head against her; and truly I became strong +again. The blessed woman was an unfailing fount of power to me. What did it +matter? Only a set-back, a delay. The tide could not have carried the masts far +to seaward, and there had been no wind. It meant merely more work to find them +and tow them back. And besides, it was a lesson. I knew what to expect. He +might have waited and destroyed our work more effectually when we had more +accomplished. +</p> + +<p> +“Here he comes now,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +I glanced up. He was strolling leisurely along the poop on the port side. +</p> + +<p> +“Take no notice of him,” I whispered. “He’s coming to +see how we take it. Don’t let him know that we know. We can deny him that +satisfaction. Take off your shoes—that’s right—and carry them +in your hand.” +</p> + +<p> +And then we played hide-and-seek with the blind man. As he came up the port +side we slipped past on the starboard; and from the poop we watched him turn +and start aft on our track. +</p> + +<p> +He must have known, somehow, that we were on board, for he said +“Good-morning” very confidently, and waited for the greeting to be +returned. Then he strolled aft, and we slipped forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I know you’re aboard,” he called out, and I could see +him listen intently after he had spoken. +</p> + +<p> +It reminded me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming cry, for the +stir of its frightened prey. But we did not stir, and we moved only when he +moved. And so we dodged about the deck, hand in hand, like a couple of children +chased by a wicked ogre, till Wolf Larsen, evidently in disgust, left the deck +for the cabin. There was glee in our eyes, and suppressed titters in our +mouths, as we put on our shoes and clambered over the side into the boat. And +as I looked into Maud’s clear brown eyes I forgot the evil he had done, +and I knew only that I loved her, and that because of her the strength was mine +to win our way back to the world. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> + +<p> +For two days Maud and I ranged the sea and explored the beaches in search of +the missing masts. But it was not till the third day that we found them, all of +them, the shears included, and, of all perilous places, in the pounding surf of +the grim south-western promontory. And how we worked! At the dark end of the +first day we returned, exhausted, to our little cove, towing the mainmast +behind us. And we had been compelled to row, in a dead calm, practically every +inch of the way. +</p> + +<p> +Another day of heart-breaking and dangerous toil saw us in camp with the two +topmasts to the good. The day following I was desperate, and I rafted together +the foremast, the fore and main booms, and the fore and main gaffs. The wind +was favourable, and I had thought to tow them back under sail, but the wind +baffled, then died away, and our progress with the oars was a snail’s +pace. And it was such dispiriting effort. To throw one’s whole strength +and weight on the oars and to feel the boat checked in its forward lunge by the +heavy drag behind, was not exactly exhilarating. +</p> + +<p> +Night began to fall, and to make matters worse, the wind sprang up ahead. Not +only did all forward motion cease, but we began to drift back and out to sea. I +struggled at the oars till I was played out. Poor Maud, whom I could never +prevent from working to the limit of her strength, lay weakly back in the +stern-sheets. I could row no more. My bruised and swollen hands could no longer +close on the oar handles. My wrists and arms ached intolerably, and though I +had eaten heartily of a twelve-o’clock lunch, I had worked so hard that I +was faint from hunger. +</p> + +<p> +I pulled in the oars and bent forward to the line which held the tow. But +Maud’s hand leaped out restrainingly to mine. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you going to do?” she asked in a strained, tense voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Cast it off,” I answered, slipping a turn of the rope. +</p> + +<p> +But her fingers closed on mine. +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t,” she begged. +</p> + +<p> +“It is useless,” I answered. “Here is night and the wind +blowing us off the land.” +</p> + +<p> +“But think, Humphrey. If we cannot sail away on the <i>Ghost</i>, we may +remain for years on the island—for life even. If it has never been +discovered all these years, it may never be discovered.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget the boat we found on the beach,” I reminded her. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a seal-hunting boat,” she replied, “and you know +perfectly well that if the men had escaped they would have been back to make +their fortunes from the rookery. You know they never escaped.” +</p> + +<p> +I remained silent, undecided. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” she added haltingly, “it’s your idea, and I +want to see you succeed.” +</p> + +<p> +Now I could harden my heart. As soon as she put it on a flattering personal +basis, generosity compelled me to deny her. +</p> + +<p> +“Better years on the island than to die to-night, or to-morrow, or the +next day, in the open boat. We are not prepared to brave the sea. We have no +food, no water, no blankets, nothing. Why, you’d not survive the night +without blankets: I know how strong you are. You are shivering now.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is only nervousness,” she answered. “I am afraid you will +cast off the masts in spite of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please, please, Humphrey, don’t!” she burst out, a +moment later. +</p> + +<p> +And so it ended, with the phrase she knew had all power over me. We shivered +miserably throughout the night. Now and again I fitfully slept, but the pain of +the cold always aroused me. How Maud could stand it was beyond me. I was too +tired to thrash my arms about and warm myself, but I found strength time and +again to chafe her hands and feet to restore the circulation. And still she +pleaded with me not to cast off the masts. About three in the morning she was +caught by a cold cramp, and after I had rubbed her out of that she became quite +numb. I was frightened. I got out the oars and made her row, though she was so +weak I thought she would faint at every stroke. +</p> + +<p> +Morning broke, and we looked long in the growing light for our island. At last +it showed, small and black, on the horizon, fully fifteen miles away. I scanned +the sea with my glasses. Far away in the south-west I could see a dark line on +the water, which grew even as I looked at it. +</p> + +<p> +“Fair wind!” I cried in a husky voice I did not recognize as my +own. +</p> + +<p> +Maud tried to reply, but could not speak. Her lips were blue with cold, and she +was hollow-eyed—but oh, how bravely her brown eyes looked at me! How +piteously brave! +</p> + +<p> +Again I fell to chafing her hands and to moving her arms up and down and about +until she could thrash them herself. Then I compelled her to stand up, and +though she would have fallen had I not supported her, I forced her to walk back +and forth the several steps between the thwart and the stern-sheets, and +finally to spring up and down. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you brave, brave woman,” I said, when I saw the life coming +back into her face. “Did you know that you were brave?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never used to be,” she answered. “I was never brave till I +knew you. It is you who have made me brave.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I, until I knew you,” I answered. +</p> + +<p> +She gave me a quick look, and again I caught that dancing, tremulous light and +something more in her eyes. But it was only for the moment. Then she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“It must have been the conditions,” she said; but I knew she was +wrong, and I wondered if she likewise knew. Then the wind came, fair and fresh, +and the boat was soon labouring through a heavy sea toward the island. At +half-past three in the afternoon we passed the south-western promontory. Not +only were we hungry, but we were now suffering from thirst. Our lips were dry +and cracked, nor could we longer moisten them with our tongues. Then the wind +slowly died down. By night it was dead calm and I was toiling once more at the +oars—but weakly, most weakly. At two in the morning the boat’s bow +touched the beach of our own inner cove and I staggered out to make the painter +fast. Maud could not stand, nor had I strength to carry her. I fell in the sand +with her, and, when I had recovered, contented myself with putting my hands +under her shoulders and dragging her up the beach to the hut. +</p> + +<p> +The next day we did no work. In fact, we slept till three in the afternoon, or +at least I did, for I awoke to find Maud cooking dinner. Her power of +recuperation was wonderful. There was something tenacious about that lily-frail +body of hers, a clutch on existence which one could not reconcile with its +patent weakness. +</p> + +<p> +“You know I was travelling to Japan for my health,” she said, as we +lingered at the fire after dinner and delighted in the movelessness of loafing. +“I was not very strong. I never was. The doctors recommended a sea +voyage, and I chose the longest.” +</p> + +<p> +“You little knew what you were choosing,” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“But I shall be a different women for the experience, as well as a +stronger woman,” she answered; “and, I hope a better woman. At +least I shall understand a great deal more of life.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, as the short day waned, we fell to discussing Wolf Larsen’s +blindness. It was inexplicable. And that it was grave, I instanced his +statement that he intended to stay and die on Endeavour Island. When he, strong +man that he was, loving life as he did, accepted his death, it was plain that +he was troubled by something more than mere blindness. There had been his +terrific headaches, and we were agreed that it was some sort of brain +break-down, and that in his attacks he endured pain beyond our comprehension. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed as we talked over his condition, that Maud’s sympathy went out +to him more and more; yet I could not but love her for it, so sweetly womanly +was it. Besides, there was no false sentiment about her feeling. She was agreed +that the most rigorous treatment was necessary if we were to escape, though she +recoiled at the suggestion that I might some time be compelled to take his life +to save my own—“our own,” she put it. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning we had breakfast and were at work by daylight. I found a light +kedge anchor in the fore-hold, where such things were kept; and with a deal of +exertion got it on deck and into the boat. With a long running-line coiled down +in the stem, I rowed well out into our little cove and dropped the anchor into +the water. There was no wind, the tide was high, and the schooner floated. +Casting off the shore-lines, I kedged her out by main strength (the windlass +being broken), till she rode nearly up and down to the small anchor—too +small to hold her in any breeze. So I lowered the big starboard anchor, giving +plenty of slack; and by afternoon I was at work on the windlass. +</p> + +<p> +Three days I worked on that windlass. Least of all things was I a mechanic, and +in that time I accomplished what an ordinary machinist would have done in as +many hours. I had to learn my tools to begin with, and every simple mechanical +principle which such a man would have at his finger ends I had likewise to +learn. And at the end of three days I had a windlass which worked clumsily. It +never gave the satisfaction the old windlass had given, but it worked and made +my work possible. +</p> + +<p> +In half a day I got the two topmasts aboard and the shears rigged and guyed as +before. And that night I slept on board and on deck beside my work. Maud, who +refused to stay alone ashore, slept in the forecastle. Wolf Larsen had sat +about, listening to my repairing the windlass and talking with Maud and me upon +indifferent subjects. No reference was made on either side to the destruction +of the shears; nor did he say anything further about my leaving his ship alone. +But still I had feared him, blind and helpless and listening, always listening, +and I never let his strong arms get within reach of me while I worked. +</p> + +<p> +On this night, sleeping under my beloved shears, I was aroused by his footsteps +on the deck. It was a starlight night, and I could see the bulk of him dimly as +he moved about. I rolled out of my blankets and crept noiselessly after him in +my stocking feet. He had armed himself with a draw-knife from the tool-locker, +and with this he prepared to cut across the throat-halyards I had again rigged +to the shears. He felt the halyards with his hands and discovered that I had +not made them fast. This would not do for a draw-knife, so he laid hold of the +running part, hove taut, and made fast. Then he prepared to saw across with the +draw-knife. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” I said quietly. +</p> + +<p> +He heard the click of my pistol and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, Hump,” he said. “I knew you were here all the time. +You can’t fool my ears.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a lie, Wolf Larsen,” I said, just as quietly as +before. “However, I am aching for a chance to kill you, so go ahead and +cut.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have the chance always,” he sneered. +</p> + +<p> +“Go ahead and cut,” I threatened ominously. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather disappoint you,” he laughed, and turned on his +heel and went aft. +</p> + +<p> +“Something must be done, Humphrey,” Maud said, next morning, when I +had told her of the night’s occurrence. “If he has liberty, he may +do anything. He may sink the vessel, or set fire to it. There is no telling +what he may do. We must make him a prisoner.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how?” I asked, with a helpless shrug. “I dare not come +within reach of his arms, and he knows that so long as his resistance is +passive I cannot shoot him.” +</p> + +<p> +“There must be some way,” she contended. “Let me +think.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is one way,” I said grimly. +</p> + +<p> +She waited. +</p> + +<p> +I picked up a seal-club. +</p> + +<p> +“It won’t kill him,” I said. “And before he could +recover I’d have him bound hard and fast.” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head with a shudder. “No, not that. There must be some less +brutal way. Let us wait.” +</p> + +<p> +But we did not have to wait long, and the problem solved itself. In the +morning, after several trials, I found the point of balance in the foremast and +attached my hoisting tackle a few feet above it. Maud held the turn on the +windlass and coiled down while I heaved. Had the windlass been in order it +would not have been so difficult; as it was, I was compelled to apply all my +weight and strength to every inch of the heaving. I had to rest frequently. In +truth, my spells of resting were longer than those of working. Maud even +contrived, at times when all my efforts could not budge the windlass, to hold +the turn with one hand and with the other to throw the weight of her slim body +to my assistance. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of an hour the single and double blocks came together at the top of +the shears. I could hoist no more. And yet the mast was not swung entirely +inboard. The butt rested against the outside of the port rail, while the top of +the mast overhung the water far beyond the starboard rail. My shears were too +short. All my work had been for nothing. But I no longer despaired in the old +way. I was acquiring more confidence in myself and more confidence in the +possibilities of windlasses, shears, and hoisting tackles. There was a way in +which it could be done, and it remained for me to find that way. +</p> + +<p> +While I was considering the problem, Wolf Larsen came on deck. We noticed +something strange about him at once. The indecisiveness, or feebleness, of his +movements was more pronounced. His walk was actually tottery as he came down +the port side of the cabin. At the break of the poop he reeled, raised one hand +to his eyes with the familiar brushing gesture, and fell down the +steps—still on his feet—to the main deck, across which he +staggered, falling and flinging out his arms for support. He regained his +balance by the steerage companion-way and stood there dizzily for a space, when +he suddenly crumpled up and collapsed, his legs bending under him as he sank to +the deck. +</p> + +<p> +“One of his attacks,” I whispered to Maud. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded her head; and I could see sympathy warm in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +We went up to him, but he seemed unconscious, breathing spasmodically. She took +charge of him, lifting his head to keep the blood out of it and despatching me +to the cabin for a pillow. I also brought blankets, and we made him +comfortable. I took his pulse. It beat steadily and strong, and was quite +normal. This puzzled me. I became suspicious. +</p> + +<p> +“What if he should be feigning this?” I asked, still holding his +wrist. +</p> + +<p> +Maud shook her head, and there was reproof in her eyes. But just then the wrist +I held leaped from my hand, and the hand clasped like a steel trap about my +wrist. I cried aloud in awful fear, a wild inarticulate cry; and I caught one +glimpse of his face, malignant and triumphant, as his other hand compassed my +body and I was drawn down to him in a terrible grip. +</p> + +<p> +My wrist was released, but his other arm, passed around my back, held both my +arms so that I could not move. His free hand went to my throat, and in that +moment I knew the bitterest foretaste of death earned by one’s own +idiocy. Why had I trusted myself within reach of those terrible arms? I could +feel other hands at my throat. They were Maud’s hands, striving vainly to +tear loose the hand that was throttling me. She gave it up, and I heard her +scream in a way that cut me to the soul, for it was a woman’s scream of +fear and heart-breaking despair. I had heard it before, during the sinking of +the <i>Martinez</i>. +</p> + +<p> +My face was against his chest and I could not see, but I heard Maud turn and +run swiftly away along the deck. Everything was happening quickly. I had not +yet had a glimmering of unconsciousness, and it seemed that an interminable +period of time was lapsing before I heard her feet flying back. And just then I +felt the whole man sink under me. The breath was leaving his lungs and his +chest was collapsing under my weight. Whether it was merely the expelled +breath, or his consciousness of his growing impotence, I know not, but his +throat vibrated with a deep groan. The hand at my throat relaxed. I breathed. +It fluttered and tightened again. But even his tremendous will could not +overcome the dissolution that assailed it. That will of his was breaking down. +He was fainting. +</p> + +<p> +Maud’s footsteps were very near as his hand fluttered for the last time +and my throat was released. I rolled off and over to the deck on my back, +gasping and blinking in the sunshine. Maud was pale but composed,—my eyes +had gone instantly to her face,—and she was looking at me with mingled +alarm and relief. A heavy seal-club in her hand caught my eyes, and at that +moment she followed my gaze down to it. The club dropped from her hand as +though it had suddenly stung her, and at the same moment my heart surged with a +great joy. Truly she was my woman, my mate-woman, fighting with me and for me +as the mate of a caveman would have fought, all the primitive in her aroused, +forgetful of her culture, hard under the softening civilization of the only +life she had ever known. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear woman!” I cried, scrambling to my feet. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment she was in my arms, weeping convulsively on my shoulder while I +clasped her close. I looked down at the brown glory of her hair, glinting gems +in the sunshine far more precious to me than those in the treasure-chests of +kings. And I bent my head and kissed her hair softly, so softly that she did +not know. +</p> + +<p> +Then sober thought came to me. After all, she was only a woman, crying her +relief, now that the danger was past, in the arms of her protector or of the +one who had been endangered. Had I been father or brother, the situation would +have been in nowise different. Besides, time and place were not meet, and I +wished to earn a better right to declare my love. So once again I softly kissed +her hair as I felt her receding from my clasp. +</p> + +<p> +“It was a real attack this time,” I said: “another shock like +the one that made him blind. He feigned at first, and in doing so brought it +on.” +</p> + +<p> +Maud was already rearranging his pillow. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I said, “not yet. Now that I have him helpless, +helpless he shall remain. From this day we live in the cabin. Wolf Larsen shall +live in the steerage.” +</p> + +<p> +I caught him under the shoulders and dragged him to the companion-way. At my +direction Maud fetched a rope. Placing this under his shoulders, I balanced him +across the threshold and lowered him down the steps to the floor. I could not +lift him directly into a bunk, but with Maud’s help I lifted first his +shoulders and head, then his body, balanced him across the edge, and rolled him +into a lower bunk. +</p> + +<p> +But this was not to be all. I recollected the handcuffs in his state-room, +which he preferred to use on sailors instead of the ancient and clumsy ship +irons. So, when we left him, he lay handcuffed hand and foot. For the first +time in many days I breathed freely. I felt strangely light as I came on deck, +as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt, also, that Maud +and I had drawn more closely together. And I wondered if she, too, felt it, as +we walked along the deck side by side to where the stalled foremast hung in the +shears. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> + +<p> +At once we moved aboard the <i>Ghost</i>, occupying our old state-rooms and +cooking in the galley. The imprisonment of Wolf Larsen had happened most +opportunely, for what must have been the Indian summer of this high latitude +was gone and drizzling stormy weather had set in. We were very comfortable, and +the inadequate shears, with the foremast suspended from them, gave a +business-like air to the schooner and a promise of departure. +</p> + +<p> +And now that we had Wolf Larsen in irons, how little did we need it! Like his +first attack, his second had been accompanied by serious disablement. Maud made +the discovery in the afternoon while trying to give him nourishment. He had +shown signs of consciousness, and she had spoken to him, eliciting no response. +He was lying on his left side at the time, and in evident pain. With a restless +movement he rolled his head around, clearing his left ear from the pillow +against which it had been pressed. At once he heard and answered her, and at +once she came to me. +</p> + +<p> +Pressing the pillow against his left ear, I asked him if he heard me, but he +gave no sign. Removing the pillow and, repeating the question he answered +promptly that he did. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know you are deaf in the right ear?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he answered in a low, strong voice, “and worse than +that. My whole right side is affected. It seems asleep. I cannot move arm or +leg.” +</p> + +<p> +“Feigning again?” I demanded angrily. +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head, his stern mouth shaping the strangest, twisted smile. It was +indeed a twisted smile, for it was on the left side only, the facial muscles of +the right side moving not at all. +</p> + +<p> +“That was the last play of the Wolf,” he said. “I am +paralysed. I shall never walk again. Oh, only on the other side,” he +added, as though divining the suspicious glance I flung at his left leg, the +knee of which had just then drawn up, and elevated the blankets. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s unfortunate,” he continued. “I’d liked to +have done for you first, Hump. And I thought I had that much left in me.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why?” I asked; partly in horror, partly out of curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +Again his stern mouth framed the twisted smile, as he said: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, just to be alive, to be living and doing, to be the biggest bit of +the ferment to the end, to eat you. But to die this way.” +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged his shoulders, or attempted to shrug them, rather, for the left +shoulder alone moved. Like the smile, the shrug was twisted. +</p> + +<p> +“But how can you account for it?” I asked. “Where is the seat +of your trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“The brain,” he said at once. “It was those cursed headaches +brought it on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Symptoms,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded his head. “There is no accounting for it. I was never sick in +my life. Something’s gone wrong with my brain. A cancer, a tumour, or +something of that nature,—a thing that devours and destroys. It’s +attacking my nerve-centres, eating them up, bit by bit, cell by cell—from +the pain.” +</p> + +<p> +“The motor-centres, too,” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“So it would seem; and the curse of it is that I must lie here, +conscious, mentally unimpaired, knowing that the lines are going down, breaking +bit by bit communication with the world. I cannot see, hearing and feeling are +leaving me, at this rate I shall soon cease to speak; yet all the time I shall +be here, alive, active, and powerless.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you say <i>you</i> are here, I’d suggest the likelihood of +the soul,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Bosh!” was his retort. “It simply means that in the attack +on my brain the higher psychical centres are untouched. I can remember, I can +think and reason. When that goes, I go. I am not. The soul?” +</p> + +<p> +He broke out in mocking laughter, then turned his left ear to the pillow as a +sign that he wished no further conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Maud and I went about our work oppressed by the fearful fate which had +overtaken him,—how fearful we were yet fully to realize. There was the +awfulness of retribution about it. Our thoughts were deep and solemn, and we +spoke to each other scarcely above whispers. +</p> + +<p> +“You might remove the handcuffs,” he said that night, as we stood +in consultation over him. “It’s dead safe. I’m a paralytic +now. The next thing to watch out for is bed sores.” +</p> + +<p> +He smiled his twisted smile, and Maud, her eyes wide with horror, was compelled +to turn away her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know that your smile is crooked?” I asked him; for I knew +that she must attend him, and I wished to save her as much as possible. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I shall smile no more,” he said calmly. “I thought +something was wrong. My right cheek has been numb all day. Yes, and I’ve +had warnings of this for the last three days; by spells, my right side seemed +going to sleep, sometimes arm or hand, sometimes leg or foot.” +</p> + +<p> +“So my smile is crooked?” he queried a short while after. +“Well, consider henceforth that I smile internally, with my soul, if you +please, my soul. Consider that I am smiling now.” +</p> + +<p> +And for the space of several minutes he lay there, quiet, indulging his +grotesque fancy. +</p> + +<p> +The man of him was not changed. It was the old, indomitable, terrible Wolf +Larsen, imprisoned somewhere within that flesh which had once been so +invincible and splendid. Now it bound him with insentient fetters, walling his +soul in darkness and silence, blocking it from the world which to him had been +a riot of action. No more would he conjugate the verb “to do in every +mood and tense.” “To be” was all that remained to +him—to be, as he had defined death, without movement; to will, but not to +execute; to think and reason and in the spirit of him to be as alive as ever, +but in the flesh to be dead, quite dead. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, though I even removed the handcuffs, we could not adjust ourselves to +his condition. Our minds revolted. To us he was full of potentiality. We knew +not what to expect of him next, what fearful thing, rising above the flesh, he +might break out and do. Our experience warranted this state of mind, and we +went about our work with anxiety always upon us. +</p> + +<p> +I had solved the problem which had arisen through the shortness of the shears. +By means of the watch-tackle (I had made a new one), I heaved the butt of the +foremast across the rail and then lowered it to the deck. Next, by means of the +shears, I hoisted the main boom on board. Its forty feet of length would supply +the height necessary properly to swing the mast. By means of a secondary tackle +I had attached to the shears, I swung the boom to a nearly perpendicular +position, then lowered the butt to the deck, where, to prevent slipping, I +spiked great cleats around it. The single block of my original shears-tackle I +had attached to the end of the boom. Thus, by carrying this tackle to the +windlass, I could raise and lower the end of the boom at will, the butt always +remaining stationary, and, by means of guys, I could swing the boom from side +to side. To the end of the boom I had likewise rigged a hoisting tackle; and +when the whole arrangement was completed I could not but be startled by the +power and latitude it gave me. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, two days’ work was required for the accomplishment of this +part of my task, and it was not till the morning of the third day that I swung +the foremast from the deck and proceeded to square its butt to fit the step. +Here I was especially awkward. I sawed and chopped and chiselled the weathered +wood till it had the appearance of having been gnawed by some gigantic mouse. +But it fitted. +</p> + +<p> +“It will work, I know it will work,” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know Dr. Jordan’s final test of truth?” Maud asked. +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head and paused in the act of dislodging the shavings which had +drifted down my neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Can we make it work? Can we trust our lives to it? is the test.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a favourite of yours,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“When I dismantled my old Pantheon and cast out Napoleon and Cæsar and +their fellows, I straightway erected a new Pantheon,” she answered +gravely, “and the first I installed was Dr. Jordan.” +</p> + +<p> +“A modern hero.” +</p> + +<p> +“And a greater because modern,” she added. “How can the Old +World heroes compare with ours?” +</p> + +<p> +I shook my head. We were too much alike in many things for argument. Our points +of view and outlook on life at least were very alike. +</p> + +<p> +“For a pair of critics we agree famously,” I laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“And as shipwright and able assistant,” she laughed back. +</p> + +<p> +But there was little time for laughter in those days, what of our heavy work +and of the awfulness of Wolf Larsen’s living death. +</p> + +<p> +He had received another stroke. He had lost his voice, or he was losing it. He +had only intermittent use of it. As he phrased it, the wires were like the +stock market, now up, now down. Occasionally the wires were up and he spoke as +well as ever, though slowly and heavily. Then speech would suddenly desert him, +in the middle of a sentence perhaps, and for hours, sometimes, we would wait +for the connection to be re-established. He complained of great pain in his +head, and it was during this period that he arranged a system of communication +against the time when speech should leave him altogether—one pressure of +the hand for “yes,” two for “no.” It was well that it +was arranged, for by evening his voice had gone from him. By hand pressures, +after that, he answered our questions, and when he wished to speak he scrawled +his thoughts with his left hand, quite legibly, on a sheet of paper. +</p> + +<p> +The fierce winter had now descended upon us. Gale followed gale, with snow and +sleet and rain. The seals had started on their great southern migration, and +the rookery was practically deserted. I worked feverishly. In spite of the bad +weather, and of the wind which especially hindered me, I was on deck from +daylight till dark and making substantial progress. +</p> + +<p> +I profited by my lesson learned through raising the shears and then climbing +them to attach the guys. To the top of the foremast, which was just lifted +conveniently from the deck, I attached the rigging, stays and throat and peak +halyards. As usual, I had underrated the amount of work involved in this +portion of the task, and two long days were necessary to complete it. And there +was so much yet to be done—the sails, for instance, which practically had +to be made over. +</p> + +<p> +While I toiled at rigging the foremast, Maud sewed on canvas, ready always to +drop everything and come to my assistance when more hands than two were +required. The canvas was heavy and hard, and she sewed with the regular +sailor’s palm and three-cornered sail-needle. Her hands were soon sadly +blistered, but she struggled bravely on, and in addition doing the cooking and +taking care of the sick man. +</p> + +<p> +“A fig for superstition,” I said on Friday morning. “That +mast goes in to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Everything was ready for the attempt. Carrying the boom-tackle to the windlass, +I hoisted the mast nearly clear of the deck. Making this tackle fast, I took to +the windlass the shears-tackle (which was connected with the end of the boom), +and with a few turns had the mast perpendicular and clear. +</p> + +<p> +Maud clapped her hands the instant she was relieved from holding the turn, +crying: +</p> + +<p> +“It works! It works! We’ll trust our lives to it!” +</p> + +<p> +Then she assumed a rueful expression. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not over the hole,” she add. “Will you have to +begin all over?” +</p> + +<p> +I smiled in superior fashion, and, slacking off on one of the boom-guys and +taking in on the other, swung the mast perfectly in the centre of the deck. +Still it was not over the hole. Again the rueful expression came on her face, +and again I smiled in a superior way. Slacking away on the boom-tackle and +hoisting an equivalent amount on the shears-tackle, I brought the butt of the +mast into position directly over the hole in the deck. Then I gave Maud careful +instructions for lowering away and went into the hold to the step on the +schooner’s bottom. +</p> + +<p> +I called to her, and the mast moved easily and accurately. Straight toward the +square hole of the step the square butt descended; but as it descended it +slowly twisted so that square would not fit into square. But I had not even a +moment’s indecision. Calling to Maud to cease lowering, I went on deck +and made the watch-tackle fast to the mast with a rolling hitch. I left Maud to +pull on it while I went below. By the light of the lantern I saw the butt twist +slowly around till its sides coincided with the sides of the step. Maud made +fast and returned to the windlass. Slowly the butt descended the several +intervening inches, at the same time slightly twisting again. Again Maud +rectified the twist with the watch-tackle, and again she lowered away from the +windlass. Square fitted into square. The mast was stepped. +</p> + +<p> +I raised a shout, and she ran down to see. In the yellow lantern light we +peered at what we had accomplished. We looked at each other, and our hands felt +their way and clasped. The eyes of both of us, I think, were moist with the joy +of success. +</p> + +<p> +“It was done so easily after all,” I remarked. “All the work +was in the preparation.” +</p> + +<p> +“And all the wonder in the completion,” Maud added. “I can +scarcely bring myself to realize that that great mast is really up and in; that +you have lifted it from the water, swung it through the air, and deposited it +here where it belongs. It is a Titan’s task.” +</p> + +<p> +“And they made themselves many inventions,” I began merrily, then +paused to sniff the air. +</p> + +<p> +I looked hastily at the lantern. It was not smoking. Again I sniffed. +</p> + +<p> +“Something is burning,” Maud said, with sudden conviction. +</p> + +<p> +We sprang together for the ladder, but I raced past her to the deck. A dense +volume of smoke was pouring out of the steerage companion-way. +</p> + +<p> +“The Wolf is not yet dead,” I muttered to myself as I sprang down +through the smoke. +</p> + +<p> +It was so thick in the confined space that I was compelled to feel my way; and +so potent was the spell of Wolf Larsen on my imagination, I was quite prepared +for the helpless giant to grip my neck in a strangle hold. I hesitated, the +desire to race back and up the steps to the deck almost overpowering me. Then I +recollected Maud. The vision of her, as I had last seen her, in the lantern +light of the schooner’s hold, her brown eyes warm and moist with joy, +flashed before me, and I knew that I could not go back. +</p> + +<p> +I was choking and suffocating by the time I reached Wolf Larsen’s bunk. I +reached my hand and felt for his. He was lying motionless, but moved slightly +at the touch of my hand. I felt over and under his blankets. There was no +warmth, no sign of fire. Yet that smoke which blinded me and made me cough and +gasp must have a source. I lost my head temporarily and dashed frantically +about the steerage. A collision with the table partially knocked the wind from +my body and brought me to myself. I reasoned that a helpless man could start a +fire only near to where he lay. +</p> + +<p> +I returned to Wolf Larsen’s bunk. There I encountered Maud. How long she +had been there in that suffocating atmosphere I could not guess. +</p> + +<p> +“Go up on deck!” I commanded peremptorily. +</p> + +<p> +“But, Humphrey—” she began to protest in a queer, husky +voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Please! please!” I shouted at her harshly. +</p> + +<p> +She drew away obediently, and then I thought, What if she cannot find the +steps? I started after her, to stop at the foot of the companion-way. Perhaps +she had gone up. As I stood there, hesitant, I heard her cry softly: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Humphrey, I am lost.” +</p> + +<p> +I found her fumbling at the wall of the after bulkhead, and, half leading her, +half carrying her, I took her up the companion-way. The pure air was like +nectar. Maud was only faint and dizzy, and I left her lying on the deck when I +took my second plunge below. +</p> + +<p> +The source of the smoke must be very close to Wolf Larsen—my mind was +made up to this, and I went straight to his bunk. As I felt about among his +blankets, something hot fell on the back of my hand. It burned me, and I jerked +my hand away. Then I understood. Through the cracks in the bottom of the upper +bunk he had set fire to the mattress. He still retained sufficient use of his +left arm to do this. The damp straw of the mattress, fired from beneath and +denied air, had been smouldering all the while. +</p> + +<p> +As I dragged the mattress out of the bunk it seemed to disintegrate in mid-air, +at the same time bursting into flames. I beat out the burning remnants of straw +in the bunk, then made a dash for the deck for fresh air. +</p> + +<p> +Several buckets of water sufficed to put out the burning mattress in the middle +of the steerage floor; and ten minutes later, when the smoke had fairly +cleared, I allowed Maud to come below. Wolf Larsen was unconscious, but it was +a matter of minutes for the fresh air to restore him. We were working over him, +however, when he signed for paper and pencil. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray do not interrupt me,” he wrote. “I am smiling.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am still a bit of the ferment, you see,” he wrote a little +later. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad you are as small a bit as you are,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” he wrote. “But just think of how much smaller I +shall be before I die.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet I am all here, Hump,” he wrote with a final flourish. +“I can think more clearly than ever in my life before. Nothing to disturb +me. Concentration is perfect. I am all here and more than here.” +</p> + +<p> +It was like a message from the night of the grave; for this man’s body +had become his mausoleum. And there, in so strange sepulchre, his spirit +fluttered and lived. It would flutter and live till the last line of +communication was broken, and after that who was to say how much longer it +might continue to flutter and live? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> + +<p> +“I think my left side is going,” Wolf Larsen wrote, the morning +after his attempt to fire the ship. “The numbness is growing. I can +hardly move my hand. You will have to speak louder. The last lines are going +down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you in pain?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +I was compelled to repeat my question loudly before he answered: +</p> + +<p> +“Not all the time.” +</p> + +<p> +The left hand stumbled slowly and painfully across the paper, and it was with +extreme difficulty that we deciphered the scrawl. It was like a “spirit +message,” such as are delivered at séances of spiritualists for a +dollar admission. +</p> + +<p> +“But I am still here, all here,” the hand scrawled more slowly and +painfully than ever. +</p> + +<p> +The pencil dropped, and we had to replace it in the hand. +</p> + +<p> +“When there is no pain I have perfect peace and quiet. I have never +thought so clearly. I can ponder life and death like a Hindoo sage.” +</p> + +<p> +“And immortality?” Maud queried loudly in the ear. +</p> + +<p> +Three times the hand essayed to write but fumbled hopelessly. The pencil fell. +In vain we tried to replace it. The fingers could not close on it. Then Maud +pressed and held the fingers about the pencil with her own hand and the hand +wrote, in large letters, and so slowly that the minutes ticked off to each +letter: +</p> + +<p> +“B-O-S-H.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Wolf Larsen’s last word, “bosh,” sceptical and +invincible to the end. The arm and hand relaxed. The trunk of the body moved +slightly. Then there was no movement. Maud released the hand. The fingers +spread slightly, falling apart of their own weight, and the pencil rolled away. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you still hear?” I shouted, holding the fingers and waiting for +the single pressure which would signify “Yes.” There was no +response. The hand was dead. +</p> + +<p> +“I noticed the lips slightly move,” Maud said. +</p> + +<p> +I repeated the question. The lips moved. She placed the tips of her fingers on +them. Again I repeated the question. “Yes,” Maud announced. We +looked at each other expectantly. +</p> + +<p> +“What good is it?” I asked. “What can we say now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ask him—” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask him something that requires no for an answer,” I suggested. +“Then we will know for certainty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you hungry?” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +The lips moved under her fingers, and she answered, “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you have some beef?” was her next query. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she announced. +</p> + +<p> +“Beef-tea?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he will have some beef-tea,” she said, quietly, looking up at +me. “Until his hearing goes we shall be able to communicate with him. And +after that—” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me queerly. I saw her lips trembling and the tears swimming up in +her eyes. She swayed toward me and I caught her in my arms. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Humphrey,” she sobbed, “when will it all end? I am so +tired, so tired.” +</p> + +<p> +She buried her head on my shoulder, her frail form shaken with a storm of +weeping. She was like a feather in my arms, so slender, so ethereal. “She +has broken down at last,” I thought. “What can I do without her +help?” +</p> + +<p> +But I soothed and comforted her, till she pulled herself bravely together and +recuperated mentally as quickly as she was wont to do physically. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she said. Then added, with the +whimsical smile I adored, “but I am only one, small woman.” +</p> + +<p> +That phrase, the “one small woman,” startled me like an electric +shock. It was my own phrase, my pet, secret phrase, my love phrase for her. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get that phrase?” I demanded, with an abruptness +that in turn startled her. +</p> + +<p> +“What phrase?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“One small woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it yours?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I answered. “Mine. I made it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you must have talked in your sleep,” she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +The dancing, tremulous light was in her eyes. Mine, I knew, were speaking +beyond the will of my speech. I leaned toward her. Without volition I leaned +toward her, as a tree is swayed by the wind. Ah, we were very close together in +that moment. But she shook her head, as one might shake off sleep or a dream, +saying: +</p> + +<p> +“I have known it all my life. It was my father’s name for my +mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is my phrase too,” I said stubbornly. +</p> + +<p> +“For your mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I answered, and she questioned no further, though I could +have sworn her eyes retained for some time a mocking, teasing expression. +</p> + +<p> +With the foremast in, the work now went on apace. Almost before I knew it, and +without one serious hitch, I had the mainmast stepped. A derrick-boom, rigged +to the foremast, had accomplished this; and several days more found all stays +and shrouds in place, and everything set up taut. Topsails would be a nuisance +and a danger for a crew of two, so I heaved the topmasts on deck and lashed +them fast. +</p> + +<p> +Several more days were consumed in finishing the sails and putting them on. +There were only three—the jib, foresail, and mainsail; and, patched, +shortened, and distorted, they were a ridiculously ill-fitting suit for so trim +a craft as the <i>Ghost</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“But they’ll work!” Maud cried jubilantly. “We’ll +make them work, and trust our lives to them!” +</p> + +<p> +Certainly, among my many new trades, I shone least as a sail-maker. I could +sail them better than make them, and I had no doubt of my power to bring the +schooner to some northern port of Japan. In fact, I had crammed navigation from +text-books aboard; and besides, there was Wolf Larsen’s star-scale, so +simple a device that a child could work it. +</p> + +<p> +As for its inventor, beyond an increasing deafness and the movement of the lips +growing fainter and fainter, there had been little change in his condition for +a week. But on the day we finished bending the schooner’s sails, he heard +his last, and the last movement of his lips died away—but not before I +had asked him, “Are you all there?” and the lips had answered, +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +The last line was down. Somewhere within that tomb of the flesh still dwelt the +soul of the man. Walled by the living clay, that fierce intelligence we had +known burned on; but it burned on in silence and darkness. And it was +disembodied. To that intelligence there could be no objective knowledge of a +body. It knew no body. The very world was not. It knew only itself and the +vastness and profundity of the quiet and the dark. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> + +<p> +The day came for our departure. There was no longer anything to detain us on +Endeavour Island. The <i>Ghost’s</i> stumpy masts were in place, her +crazy sails bent. All my handiwork was strong, none of it beautiful; but I knew +that it would work, and I felt myself a man of power as I looked at it. +</p> + +<p> +“I did it! I did it! With my own hands I did it!” I wanted to cry +aloud. +</p> + +<p> +But Maud and I had a way of voicing each other’s thoughts, and she said, +as we prepared to hoist the mainsail: +</p> + +<p> +“To think, Humphrey, you did it all with your own hands?” +</p> + +<p> +“But there were two other hands,” I answered. “Two small +hands, and don’t say that was a phrase, also, of your father.” +</p> + +<p> +She laughed and shook her head, and held her hands up for inspection. +</p> + +<p> +“I can never get them clean again,” she wailed, “nor soften +the weather-beat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour,” I +said, holding them in mine; and, spite of my resolutions, I would have kissed +the two dear hands had she not swiftly withdrawn them. +</p> + +<p> +Our comradeship was becoming tremulous, I had mastered my love long and well, +but now it was mastering me. Wilfully had it disobeyed and won my eyes to +speech, and now it was winning my tongue—ay, and my lips, for they were +mad this moment to kiss the two small hands which had toiled so faithfully and +hard. And I, too, was mad. There was a cry in my being like bugles calling me +to her. And there was a wind blowing upon me which I could not resist, swaying +the very body of me till I leaned toward her, all unconscious that I leaned. +And she knew it. She could not but know it as she swiftly drew away her hands, +and yet, could not forbear one quick searching look before she turned away her +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +By means of deck-tackles I had arranged to carry the halyards forward to the +windlass; and now I hoisted the mainsail, peak and throat, at the same time. It +was a clumsy way, but it did not take long, and soon the foresail as well was +up and fluttering. +</p> + +<p> +“We can never get that anchor up in this narrow place, once it has left +the bottom,” I said. “We should be on the rocks first.” +</p> + +<p> +“What can you do?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Slip it,” was my answer. “And when I do, you must do your +first work on the windlass. I shall have to run at once to the wheel, and at +the same time you must be hoisting the jib.” +</p> + +<p> +This manœuvre of getting under way I had studied and worked out a score of +times; and, with the jib-halyard to the windlass, I knew Maud was capable of +hoisting that most necessary sail. A brisk wind was blowing into the cove, and +though the water was calm, rapid work was required to get us safely out. +</p> + +<p> +When I knocked the shackle-bolt loose, the chain roared out through the +hawse-hole and into the sea. I raced aft, putting the wheel up. The +<i>Ghost</i> seemed to start into life as she heeled to the first fill of her +sails. The jib was rising. As it filled, the <i>Ghost’s</i> bow swung off +and I had to put the wheel down a few spokes and steady her. +</p> + +<p> +I had devised an automatic jib-sheet which passed the jib across of itself, so +there was no need for Maud to attend to that; but she was still hoisting the +jib when I put the wheel hard down. It was a moment of anxiety, for the +<i>Ghost</i> was rushing directly upon the beach, a stone’s throw +distant. But she swung obediently on her heel into the wind. There was a great +fluttering and flapping of canvas and reef-points, most welcome to my ears, +then she filled away on the other tack. +</p> + +<p> +Maud had finished her task and come aft, where she stood beside me, a small cap +perched on her wind-blown hair, her cheeks flushed from exertion, her eyes wide +and bright with the excitement, her nostrils quivering to the rush and bite of +the fresh salt air. Her brown eyes were like a startled deer’s. There was +a wild, keen look in them I had never seen before, and her lips parted and her +breath suspended as the <i>Ghost</i>, charging upon the wall of rock at the +entrance to the inner cove, swept into the wind and filled away into safe +water. +</p> + +<p> +My first mate’s berth on the sealing grounds stood me in good stead, and +I cleared the inner cove and laid a long tack along the shore of the outer +cove. Once again about, and the <i>Ghost</i> headed out to open sea. She had +now caught the bosom-breathing of the ocean, and was herself a-breath with the +rhythm of it as she smoothly mounted and slipped down each broad-backed wave. +The day had been dull and overcast, but the sun now burst through the clouds, a +welcome omen, and shone upon the curving beach where together we had dared the +lords of the harem and slain the holluschickie. All Endeavour Island brightened +under the sun. Even the grim south-western promontory showed less grim, and +here and there, where the sea-spray wet its surface, high lights flashed and +dazzled in the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall always think of it with pride,” I said to Maud. +</p> + +<p> +She threw her head back in a queenly way but said, “Dear, dear Endeavour +Island! I shall always love it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I,” I said quickly. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed our eyes must meet in a great understanding, and yet, loath, they +struggled away and did not meet. +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence I might almost call awkward, till I broke it, saying: +</p> + +<p> +“See those black clouds to windward. You remember, I told you last night +the barometer was falling.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the sun is gone,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon our +island, where we had proved our mastery over matter and attained to the truest +comradeship that may fall to man and woman. +</p> + +<p> +“And it’s slack off the sheets for Japan!” I cried gaily. +“A fair wind and a flowing sheet, you know, or however it goes.” +</p> + +<p> +Lashing the wheel I ran forward, eased the fore and mainsheets, took in on the +boom-tackles and trimmed everything for the quartering breeze which was ours. +It was a fresh breeze, very fresh, but I resolved to run as long as I dared. +Unfortunately, when running free, it is impossible to lash the wheel, so I +faced an all-night watch. Maud insisted on relieving me, but proved that she +had not the strength to steer in a heavy sea, even if she could have gained the +wisdom on such short notice. She appeared quite heart-broken over the +discovery, but recovered her spirits by coiling down tackles and halyards and +all stray ropes. Then there were meals to be cooked in the galley, beds to +make, Wolf Larsen to be attended upon, and she finished the day with a grand +house-cleaning attack upon the cabin and steerage. +</p> + +<p> +All night I steered, without relief, the wind slowly and steadily increasing +and the sea rising. At five in the morning Maud brought me hot coffee and +biscuits she had baked, and at seven a substantial and piping hot breakfast put +new life into me. +</p> + +<p> +Throughout the day, and as slowly and steadily as ever, the wind increased. It +impressed one with its sullen determination to blow, and blow harder, and keep +on blowing. And still the <i>Ghost</i> foamed along, racing off the miles till +I was certain she was making at least eleven knots. It was too good to lose, +but by nightfall I was exhausted. Though in splendid physical trim, a +thirty-six-hour trick at the wheel was the limit of my endurance. Besides, Maud +begged me to heave to, and I knew, if the wind and sea increased at the same +rate during the night, that it would soon be impossible to heave to. So, as +twilight deepened, gladly and at the same time reluctantly, I brought the +<i>Ghost</i> up on the wind. +</p> + +<p> +But I had not reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three sails meant +for one man. While running away from the wind I had not appreciated its force, +but when we ceased to run I learned to my sorrow, and well-nigh to my despair, +how fiercely it was really blowing. The wind balked my every effort, ripping +the canvas out of my hands and in an instant undoing what I had gained by ten +minutes of severest struggle. At eight o’clock I had succeeded only in +putting the second reef into the foresail. At eleven o’clock I was no +farther along. Blood dripped from every finger-end, while the nails were broken +to the quick. From pain and sheer exhaustion I wept in the darkness, secretly, +so that Maud should not know. +</p> + +<p> +Then, in desperation, I abandoned the attempt to reef the mainsail and resolved +to try the experiment of heaving to under the close-reefed foresail. Three +hours more were required to gasket the mainsail and jib, and at two in the +morning, nearly dead, the life almost buffeted and worked out of me, I had +barely sufficient consciousness to know the experiment was a success. The +close-reefed foresail worked. The <i>Ghost</i> clung on close to the wind and +betrayed no inclination to fall off broadside to the trough. +</p> + +<p> +I was famished, but Maud tried vainly to get me to eat. I dozed with my mouth +full of food. I would fall asleep in the act of carrying food to my mouth and +waken in torment to find the act yet uncompleted. So sleepily helpless was I +that she was compelled to hold me in my chair to prevent my being flung to the +floor by the violent pitching of the schooner. +</p> + +<p> +Of the passage from the galley to the cabin I knew nothing. It was a +sleep-walker Maud guided and supported. In fact, I was aware of nothing till I +awoke, how long after I could not imagine, in my bunk with my boots off. It was +dark. I was stiff and lame, and cried out with pain when the bed-clothes +touched my poor finger-ends. +</p> + +<p> +Morning had evidently not come, so I closed my eyes and went to sleep again. I +did not know it, but I had slept the clock around and it was night again. +</p> + +<p> +Once more I woke, troubled because I could sleep no better. I struck a match +and looked at my watch. It marked midnight. And I had not left the deck until +three! I should have been puzzled had I not guessed the solution. No wonder I +was sleeping brokenly. I had slept twenty-one hours. I listened for a while to +the behaviour of the <i>Ghost</i>, to the pounding of the seas and the muffled +roar of the wind on deck, and then turned over on my side and slept peacefully +until morning. +</p> + +<p> +When I arose at seven I saw no sign of Maud and concluded she was in the galley +preparing breakfast. On deck I found the <i>Ghost</i> doing splendidly under +her patch of canvas. But in the galley, though a fire was burning and water +boiling, I found no Maud. +</p> + +<p> +I discovered her in the steerage, by Wolf Larsen’s bunk. I looked at him, +the man who had been hurled down from the topmost pitch of life to be buried +alive and be worse than dead. There seemed a relaxation of his expressionless +face which was new. Maud looked at me and I understood. +</p> + +<p> +“His life flickered out in the storm,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“But he still lives,” she answered, infinite faith in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“He had too great strength.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, “but now it no longer shackles him. He is a +free spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a free spirit surely,” I answered; and, taking her hand, I +led her on deck. +</p> + +<p> +The storm broke that night, which is to say that it diminished as slowly as it +had arisen. After breakfast next morning, when I had hoisted Wolf +Larsen’s body on deck ready for burial, it was still blowing heavily and +a large sea was running. The deck was continually awash with the sea which came +inboard over the rail and through the scuppers. The wind smote the schooner +with a sudden gust, and she heeled over till her lee rail was buried, the roar +in her rigging rising in pitch to a shriek. We stood in the water to our knees +as I bared my head. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember only one part of the service,” I said, “and that +is, ‘And the body shall be cast into the sea.’” +</p> + +<p> +Maud looked at me, surprised and shocked; but the spirit of something I had +seen before was strong upon me, impelling me to give service to Wolf Larsen as +Wolf Larsen had once given service to another man. I lifted the end of the +hatch cover and the canvas-shrouded body slipped feet first into the sea. The +weight of iron dragged it down. It was gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye, Lucifer, proud spirit,” Maud whispered, so low that it +was drowned by the shouting of the wind; but I saw the movement of her lips and +knew. +</p> + +<p> +As we clung to the lee rail and worked our way aft, I happened to glance to +leeward. The <i>Ghost</i>, at the moment, was uptossed on a sea, and I caught a +clear view of a small steamship two or three miles away, rolling and pitching, +head on to the sea, as it steamed toward us. It was painted black, and from the +talk of the hunters of their poaching exploits I recognized it as a United +States revenue cutter. I pointed it out to Maud and hurriedly led her aft to +the safety of the poop. +</p> + +<p> +I started to rush below to the flag-locker, then remembered that in rigging the +<i>Ghost</i> I had forgotten to make provision for a flag-halyard. +</p> + +<p> +“We need no distress signal,” Maud said. “They have only to +see us.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are saved,” I said, soberly and solemnly. And then, in an +exuberance of joy, “I hardly know whether to be glad or not.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her. Our eyes were not loath to meet. We leaned toward each other, +and before I knew it my arms were about her. +</p> + +<p> +“Need I?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +And she answered, “There is no need, though the telling of it would be +sweet, so sweet.” +</p> + +<p> +Her lips met the press of mine, and, by what strange trick of the imagination I +know not, the scene in the cabin of the <i>Ghost</i> flashed upon me, when she +had pressed her fingers lightly on my lips and said, “Hush, hush.” +</p> + +<p> +“My woman, my one small woman,” I said, my free hand petting her +shoulder in the way all lovers know though never learn in school. +</p> + +<p> +“My man,” she said, looking at me for an instant with tremulous +lids which fluttered down and veiled her eyes as she snuggled her head against +my breast with a happy little sigh. +</p> + +<p> +I looked toward the cutter. It was very close. A boat was being lowered. +</p> + +<p> +“One kiss, dear love,” I whispered. “One kiss more before +they come.” +</p> + +<p> +“And rescue us from ourselves,” she completed, with a most adorable +smile, whimsical as I had never seen it, for it was whimsical with love. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">the end</span> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay & Sons</span>, +<span class="smcap">Limited</span>,<br/> +<span class="smcap">Brunswick St.</span>, <span class="smcap">Stamford +St.</span>, <span class="smcap">s.e.</span> 1, <span class="smcap">and +Bungay</span>, <span class="smcap">Suffolk</span> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEA-WOLF ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Sea Wolf + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: October, 1997 [EBook #1074] +[This file was first posted on October 15, 1997] +[Most recently updated: June 28, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE SEA WOLF *** + + + + +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +The Sea Wolf + + + + +CHAPTER I + + + +I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously +place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit. He kept a +summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, +and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter +mouths and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When +summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence +in the city and to toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to +run up to see him every Saturday afternoon and to stop over till +Monday morning, this particular January Monday morning would not +have found me afloat on San Francisco Bay. + +Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the Martinez was a +new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run +between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy +fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had +little apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation +with which I took up my position on the forward upper deck, +directly beneath the pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the +fog to lay hold of my imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and +for a time I was alone in the moist obscurity--yet not alone, for I +was dimly conscious of the presence of the pilot, and of what I +took to be the captain, in the glass house above my head. + +I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labour +which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and +navigation, in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of +the sea. It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. The +peculiar knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many +thousands of people who knew no more of the sea and navigation than +I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote my energy +to the learning of a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a +few particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe's +place in American literature--an essay of mine, by the way, in the +current Atlantic. Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I +had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the +Atlantic, which was open at my very essay. And there it was again, +the division of labour, the special knowledge of the pilot and +captain which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special +knowledge on Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to +San Francisco. + +A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping +out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental +note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought +of calling "The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist." +The red-faced man shot a glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around +at the fog, stumped across the deck and back (he evidently had +artificial legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide apart, and +with an expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong +when I decided that his days had been spent on the sea. + +"It's nasty weather like this here that turns heads grey before +their time," he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house. + +"I had not thought there was any particular strain," I answered. +"It seems as simple as A, B, C. They know the direction by +compass, the distance, and the speed. I should not call it +anything more than mathematical certainty." + +"Strain!" he snorted. "Simple as A, B, C! Mathematical +certainty!" + +He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward against the air as +he stared at me. "How about this here tide that's rushin' out +through the Golden Gate?" he demanded, or bellowed, rather. "How +fast is she ebbin'? What's the drift, eh? Listen to that, will +you? A bell-buoy, and we're a-top of it! See 'em alterin' the +course!" + +From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I +could see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. The +bell, which had seemed straight ahead, was now sounding from the +side. Our own whistle was blowing hoarsely, and from time to time +the sound of other whistles came to us from out of the fog. + +"That's a ferry-boat of some sort," the new-comer said, indicating +a whistle off to the right. "And there! D'ye hear that? Blown by +mouth. Some scow schooner, most likely. Better watch out, Mr. +Schooner-man. Ah, I thought so. Now hell's a poppin' for +somebody!" + +The unseen ferry-boat was blowing blast after blast, and the mouth- +blown horn was tooting in terror-stricken fashion. + +"And now they're payin' their respects to each other and tryin' to +get clear," the red-faced man went on, as the hurried whistling +ceased. + +His face was shining, his eyes flashing with excitement as he +translated into articulate language the speech of the horns and +sirens. "That's a steam-siren a-goin' it over there to the left. +And you hear that fellow with a frog in his throat--a steam +schooner as near as I can judge, crawlin' in from the Heads against +the tide." + +A shrill little whistle, piping as if gone mad, came from directly +ahead and from very near at hand. Gongs sounded on the Martinez. +Our paddle-wheels stopped, their pulsing beat died away, and then +they started again. The shrill little whistle, like the chirping +of a cricket amid the cries of great beasts, shot through the fog +from more to the side and swiftly grew faint and fainter. I looked +to my companion for enlightenment. + +"One of them dare-devil launches," he said. "I almost wish we'd +sunk him, the little rip! They're the cause of more trouble. And +what good are they? Any jackass gets aboard one and runs it from +hell to breakfast, blowin' his whistle to beat the band and tellin' +the rest of the world to look out for him, because he's comin' and +can't look out for himself! Because he's comin'! And you've got +to look out, too! Right of way! Common decency! They don't know +the meanin' of it!" + +I felt quite amused at his unwarranted choler, and while he stumped +indignantly up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the +fog. And romantic it certainly was--the fog, like the grey shadow +of infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and +men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish +for work, riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart +of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the Unseen, and +clamouring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts +are heavy with incertitude and fear. + +The voice of my companion brought me back to myself with a laugh. +I too had been groping and floundering, the while I thought I rode +clear-eyed through the mystery. + +"Hello! somebody comin' our way," he was saying. "And d'ye hear +that? He's comin' fast. Walking right along. Guess he don't hear +us yet. Wind's in wrong direction." + +The fresh breeze was blowing right down upon us, and I could hear +the whistle plainly, off to one side and a little ahead. + +"Ferry-boat?" I asked. + +He nodded, then added, "Or he wouldn't be keepin' up such a clip." +He gave a short chuckle. "They're gettin' anxious up there." + +I glanced up. The captain had thrust his head and shoulders out of +the pilot-house, and was staring intently into the fog as though by +sheer force of will he could penetrate it. His face was anxious, +as was the face of my companion, who had stumped over to the rail +and was gazing with a like intentness in the direction of the +invisible danger. + +Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. The fog +seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a +steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on either side like seaweed +on the snout of Leviathan. I could see the pilot-house and a +white-bearded man leaning partly out of it, on his elbows. He was +clad in a blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he +was. His quietness, under the circumstances, was terrible. He +accepted Destiny, marched hand in hand with it, and coolly measured +the stroke. As he leaned there, he ran a calm and speculative eye +over us, as though to determine the precise point of the collision, +and took no notice whatever when our pilot, white with rage, +shouted, "Now you've done it!" + +On looking back, I realize that the remark was too obvious to make +rejoinder necessary. + +"Grab hold of something and hang on," the red-faced man said to me. +All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the +contagion of preternatural calm. "And listen to the women scream," +he said grimly--almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been +through the experience before. + +The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We +must have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the +strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. The +Martinez heeled over, sharply, and there was a crashing and rending +of timber. I was thrown flat on the wet deck, and before I could +scramble to my feet I heard the scream of the women. This it was, +I am certain,--the most indescribable of blood-curdling sounds,-- +that threw me into a panic. I remembered the life-preservers +stored in the cabin, but was met at the door and swept backward by +a wild rush of men and women. What happened in the next few +minutes I do not recollect, though I have a clear remembrance of +pulling down life-preservers from the overhead racks, while the +red-faced man fastened them about the bodies of an hysterical group +of women. This memory is as distinct and sharp as that of any +picture I have seen. It is a picture, and I can see it now,--the +jagged edges of the hole in the side of the cabin, through which +the grey fog swirled and eddied; the empty upholstered seats, +littered with all the evidences of sudden flight, such as packages, +hand satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout gentleman who had +been reading my essay, encased in cork and canvas, the magazine +still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence if I +thought there was any danger; the red-faced man, stumping gallantly +around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all +corners; and finally, the screaming bedlam of women. + +This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves. +It must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I +have another picture which will never fade from my mind. The stout +gentleman is stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket and +looking on curiously. A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white +faces and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls; +and the red-faced man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with +arms extended overhead as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is +shouting, "Shut up! Oh, shut up!" + +I remember the scene impelled me to sudden laughter, and in the +next instant I realized I was becoming hysterical myself; for these +were women of my own kind, like my mother and sisters, with the +fear of death upon them and unwilling to die. And I remember that +the sounds they made reminded me of the squealing of pigs under the +knife of the butcher, and I was struck with horror at the vividness +of the analogy. These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, +of the tenderest sympathies, were open-mouthed and screaming. They +wanted to live, they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and they +screamed. + +The horror of it drove me out on deck. I was feeling sick and +squeamish, and sat down on a bench. In a hazy way I saw and heard +men rushing and shouting as they strove to lower the boats. It was +just as I had read descriptions of such scenes in books. The +tackles jammed. Nothing worked. One boat lowered away with the +plugs out, filled with women and children and then with water, and +capsized. Another boat had been lowered by one end, and still hung +in the tackle by the other end, where it had been abandoned. +Nothing was to be seen of the strange steamboat which had caused +the disaster, though I heard men saying that she would undoubtedly +send boats to our assistance. + +I descended to the lower deck. The Martinez was sinking fast, for +the water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were leaping +overboard. Others, in the water, were clamouring to be taken +aboard again. No one heeded them. A cry arose that we were +sinking. I was seized by the consequent panic, and went over the +side in a surge of bodies. How I went over I do not know, though I +did know, and instantly, why those in the water were so desirous of +getting back on the steamer. The water was cold--so cold that it +was painful. The pang, as I plunged into it, was as quick and +sharp as that of fire. It bit to the marrow. It was like the grip +of death. I gasped with the anguish and shock of it, filling my +lungs before the life-preserver popped me to the surface. The +taste of the salt was strong in my mouth, and I was strangling with +the acrid stuff in my throat and lungs. + +But it was the cold that was most distressing. I felt that I could +survive but a few minutes. People were struggling and floundering +in the water about me. I could hear them crying out to one +another. And I heard, also, the sound of oars. Evidently the +strange steamboat had lowered its boats. As the time went by I +marvelled that I was still alive. I had no sensation whatever in +my lower limbs, while a chilling numbness was wrapping about my +heart and creeping into it. Small waves, with spiteful foaming +crests, continually broke over me and into my mouth, sending me off +into more strangling paroxysms. + +The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing +chorus of screams in the distance, and knew that the Martinez had +gone down. Later,--how much later I have no knowledge,--I came to +myself with a start of fear. I was alone. I could hear no calls +or cries--only the sound of the waves, made weirdly hollow and +reverberant by the fog. A panic in a crowd, which partakes of a +sort of community of interest, is not so terrible as a panic when +one is by oneself; and such a panic I now suffered. Whither was I +drifting? The red-faced man had said that the tide was ebbing +through the Golden Gate. Was I, then, being carried out to sea? +And the life-preserver in which I floated? Was it not liable to go +to pieces at any moment? I had heard of such things being made of +paper and hollow rushes which quickly became saturated and lost all +buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, +floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. +I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the +women had shrieked, and beat the water with my numb hands. + +How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness +intervened, of which I remember no more than one remembers of +troubled and painful sleep. When I aroused, it was as after +centuries of time; and I saw, almost above me and emerging from the +fog, the bow of a vessel, and three triangular sails, each shrewdly +lapping the other and filled with wind. Where the bow cut the +water there was a great foaming and gurgling, and I seemed directly +in its path. I tried to cry out, but was too exhausted. The bow +plunged down, just missing me and sending a swash of water clear +over my head. Then the long, black side of the vessel began +slipping past, so near that I could have touched it with my hands. +I tried to reach it, in a mad resolve to claw into the wood with my +nails, but my arms were heavy and lifeless. Again I strove to call +out, but made no sound. + +The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping, as it did so, into a +hollow between the waves; and I caught a glimpse of a man standing +at the wheel, and of another man who seemed to be doing little else +than smoke a cigar. I saw the smoke issuing from his lips as he +slowly turned his head and glanced out over the water in my +direction. It was a careless, unpremeditated glance, one of those +haphazard things men do when they have no immediate call to do +anything in particular, but act because they are alive and must do +something. + +But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel +being swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the +wheel, and the head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as +his gaze struck the water and casually lifted along it toward me. +His face wore an absent expression, as of deep thought, and I +became afraid that if his eyes did light upon me he would +nevertheless not see me. But his eyes did light upon me, and +looked squarely into mine; and he did see me, for he sprang to the +wheel, thrusting the other man aside, and whirled it round and +round, hand over hand, at the same time shouting orders of some +sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent to its former +course and leapt almost instantly from view into the fog. + +I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and tried with all the +power of my will to fight above the suffocating blankness and +darkness that was rising around me. A little later I heard the +stroke of oars, growing nearer and nearer, and the calls of a man. +When he was very near I heard him crying, in vexed fashion, "Why in +hell don't you sing out?" This meant me, I thought, and then the +blankness and darkness rose over me. + + + +CHAPTER II + + + +I seemed swinging in a mighty rhythm through orbit vastness. +Sparkling points of light spluttered and shot past me. They were +stars, I knew, and flaring comets, that peopled my flight among the +suns. As I reached the limit of my swing and prepared to rush back +on the counter swing, a great gong struck and thundered. For an +immeasurable period, lapped in the rippling of placid centuries, I +enjoyed and pondered my tremendous flight. + +But a change came over the face of the dream, for a dream I told +myself it must be. My rhythm grew shorter and shorter. I was +jerked from swing to counter swing with irritating haste. I could +scarcely catch my breath, so fiercely was I impelled through the +heavens. The gong thundered more frequently and more furiously. I +grew to await it with a nameless dread. Then it seemed as though I +were being dragged over rasping sands, white and hot in the sun. +This gave place to a sense of intolerable anguish. My skin was +scorching in the torment of fire. The gong clanged and knelled. +The sparkling points of light flashed past me in an interminable +stream, as though the whole sidereal system were dropping into the +void. I gasped, caught my breath painfully, and opened my eyes. +Two men were kneeling beside me, working over me. My mighty rhythm +was the lift and forward plunge of a ship on the sea. The terrific +gong was a frying-pan, hanging on the wall, that rattled and +clattered with each leap of the ship. The rasping, scorching sands +were a man's hard hands chafing my naked chest. I squirmed under +the pain of it, and half lifted my head. My chest was raw and red, +and I could see tiny blood globules starting through the torn and +inflamed cuticle. + +"That'll do, Yonson," one of the men said. "Carn't yer see you've +bloomin' well rubbed all the gent's skin orf?" + +The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, +ceased chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who +had spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and +weakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed +the sound of Bow Bells with his mother's milk. A draggled muslin +cap on his head and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim hips +proclaimed him cook of the decidedly dirty ship's galley in which I +found myself. + +"An' 'ow yer feelin' now, sir?" he asked, with the subservient +smirk which comes only of generations of tip-seeking ancestors. + +For reply, I twisted weakly into a sitting posture, and was helped +by Yonson to my feet. The rattle and bang of the frying-pan was +grating horribly on my nerves. I could not collect my thoughts. +Clutching the woodwork of the galley for support,--and I confess +the grease with which it was scummed put my teeth on edge,--I +reached across a hot cooking-range to the offending utensil, +unhooked it, and wedged it securely into the coal-box. + +The cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my +hand a steaming mug with an "'Ere, this'll do yer good." It was a +nauseous mess,--ship's coffee,--but the heat of it was revivifying. +Between gulps of the molten stuff I glanced down at my raw and +bleeding chest and turned to the Scandinavian. + +"Thank you, Mr. Yonson," I said; "but don't you think your measures +were rather heroic?" + +It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than +of my words, that he held up his palm for inspection. It was +remarkably calloused. I passed my hand over the horny projections, +and my teeth went on edge once more from the horrible rasping +sensation produced. + +"My name is Johnson, not Yonson," he said, in very good, though +slow, English, with no more than a shade of accent to it. + +There was mild protest in his pale blue eyes, and withal a timid +frankness and manliness that quite won me to him. + +"Thank you, Mr. Johnson," I corrected, and reached out my hand for +his. + +He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one leg +to the other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake. + +"Have you any dry clothes I may put on?" I asked the cook. + +"Yes, sir," he answered, with cheerful alacrity. "I'll run down +an' tyke a look over my kit, if you've no objections, sir, to +wearin' my things." + +He dived out of the galley door, or glided rather, with a swiftness +and smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-like +as oily. In fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later to +learn, was probably the most salient expression of his personality. + +"And where am I?" I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to be +one of the sailors. "What vessel is this, and where is she bound?" + +"Off the Farallones, heading about sou-west," he answered, slowly +and methodically, as though groping for his best English, and +rigidly observing the order of my queries. "The schooner Ghost, +bound seal-hunting to Japan." + +"And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I am dressed." + +Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while he +groped in his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. "The cap'n +is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name. +But you better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The +mate--" + +But he did not finish. The cook had glided in. + +"Better sling yer 'ook out of 'ere, Yonson," he said. "The old +man'll be wantin' yer on deck, an' this ayn't no d'y to fall foul +of 'im." + +Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the +cook's shoulder, favouring me with an amazingly solemn and +portentous wink as though to emphasize his interrupted remark and +the need for me to be soft-spoken with the captain. + +Hanging over the cook's arm was a loose and crumpled array of evil- +looking and sour-smelling garments. + +"They was put aw'y wet, sir," he vouchsafed explanation. "But +you'll 'ave to make them do till I dry yours out by the fire." + +Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and +aided by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollen +undershirt. On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from +the harsh contact. He noticed my involuntary twitching and +grimacing, and smirked: + +"I only 'ope yer don't ever 'ave to get used to such as that in +this life, 'cos you've got a bloomin' soft skin, that you 'ave, +more like a lydy's than any I know of. I was bloomin' well sure +you was a gentleman as soon as I set eyes on yer." + +I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress me +this dislike increased. There was something repulsive about his +touch. I shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And between +this and the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling +on the galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air. +Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about what +arrangements could be made for getting me ashore. + +A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured +with what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a +running and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman's +brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a +pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully +ten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as +though the devil had there clutched for the Cockney's soul and +missed the shadow for the substance. + +"And whom have I to thank for this kindness?" I asked, when I stood +completely arrayed, a tiny boy's cap on my head, and for coat a +dirty, striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my back +and the sleeves of which reached just below my elbows. + +The cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating +smirk on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on the +Atlantic liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was +waiting for his tip. From my fuller knowledge of the creature I +now know that the posture was unconscious. An hereditary +servility, no doubt, was responsible. + +"Mugridge, sir," he fawned, his effeminate features running into a +greasy smile. "Thomas Mugridge, sir, an' at yer service." + +"All right, Thomas," I said. "I shall not forget you--when my +clothes are dry." + +A soft light suffused his face and his eyes glistened, as though +somewhere in the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened and +stirred with dim memories of tips received in former lives. + +"Thank you, sir," he said, very gratefully and very humbly indeed. + +Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and I +stepped out on deck. I was still weak from my prolonged immersion. +A puff of wind caught me,--and I staggered across the moving deck +to a corner of the cabin, to which I clung for support. The +schooner, heeled over far out from the perpendicular, was bowing +and plunging into the long Pacific roll. If she were heading +south-west as Johnson had said, the wind, then, I calculated, was +blowing nearly from the south. The fog was gone, and in its place +the sun sparkled crisply on the surface of the water, I turned to +the east, where I knew California must lie, but could see nothing +save low-lying fog-banks--the same fog, doubtless, that had brought +about the disaster to the Martinez and placed me in my present +situation. To the north, and not far away, a group of naked rocks +thrust above the sea, on one of which I could distinguish a +lighthouse. In the south-west, and almost in our course, I saw the +pyramidal loom of some vessel's sails. + +Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my more +immediate surroundings. My first thought was that a man who had +come through a collision and rubbed shoulders with death merited +more attention than I received. Beyond a sailor at the wheel who +stared curiously across the top of the cabin, I attracted no notice +whatever. + +Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amid ships. +There, on a hatch, a large man was lying on his back. He was fully +clothed, though his shirt was ripped open in front. Nothing was to +be seen of his chest, however, for it was covered with a mass of +black hair, in appearance like the furry coat of a dog. His face +and neck were hidden beneath a black beard, intershot with grey, +which would have been stiff and bushy had it not been limp and +draggled and dripping with water. His eyes were closed, and he was +apparently unconscious; but his mouth was wide open, his breast, +heaving as though from suffocation as he laboured noisily for +breath. A sailor, from time to time and quite methodically, as a +matter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at the +end of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced its +contents over the prostrate man. + +Pacing back and forth the length of the hatchways and savagely +chewing the end of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance had +rescued me from the sea. His height was probably five feet ten +inches, or ten and a half; but my first impression, or feel of the +man, was not of this, but of his strength. And yet, while he was +of massive build, with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could not +characterize his strength as massive. It was what might be termed +a sinewy, knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry +men, but which, in him, because of his heavy build, partook more of +the enlarged gorilla order. Not that in appearance he seemed in +the least gorilla-like. What I am striving to express is this +strength itself, more as a thing apart from his physical semblance. +It was a strength we are wont to associate with things primitive, +with wild animals, and the creatures we imagine our tree-dwelling +prototypes to have been--a strength savage, ferocious, alive in +itself, the essence of life in that it is the potency of motion, +the elemental stuff itself out of which the many forms of life have +been moulded; in short, that which writhes in the body of a snake +when the head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, is dead, or +which lingers in the shapeless lump of turtle-meat and recoils and +quivers from the prod of a finger. + +Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who +paced up and down. He was firmly planted on his legs; his feet +struck the deck squarely and with surety; every movement of a +muscle, from the heave of the shoulders to the tightening of the +lips about the cigar, was decisive, and seemed to come out of a +strength that was excessive and overwhelming. In fact, though this +strength pervaded every action of his, it seemed but the +advertisement of a greater strength that lurked within, that lay +dormant and no more than stirred from time to time, but which might +arouse, at any moment, terrible and compelling, like the rage of a +lion or the wrath of a storm. + +The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned +encouragingly at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in the +direction of the man who paced up and down by the hatchway. Thus I +was given to understand that he was the captain, the "Old Man," in +the cook's vernacular, the individual whom I must interview and put +to the trouble of somehow getting me ashore. I had half started +forward, to get over with what I was certain would be a stormy five +minutes, when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the +unfortunate person who was lying on his back. He wrenched and +writhed about convulsively. The chin, with the damp black beard, +pointed higher in the air as the back muscles stiffened and the +chest swelled in an unconscious and instinctive effort to get more +air. Under the whiskers, and all unseen, I knew that the skin was +taking on a purplish hue. + +The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing and +gazed down at the dying man. So fierce had this final struggle +become that the sailor paused in the act of flinging more water +over him and stared curiously, the canvas bucket partly tilted and +dripping its contents to the deck. The dying man beat a tattoo on +the hatch with his heels, straightened out his legs, and stiffened +in one great tense effort, and rolled his head from side to side. +Then the muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, as +of profound relief, floated upward from his lips. The jaw dropped, +the upper lip lifted, and two rows of tobacco-discoloured teeth +appeared. It seemed as though his features had frozen into a +diabolical grin at the world he had left and outwitted. + +Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose +upon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips +in a continuous stream. And they were not namby-pamby oaths, or +mere expressions of indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, and +there were many words. They crisped and crackled like electric +sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I +have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression +myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I +appreciated, as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar +vividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors. +The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man, +who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San Francisco, +and then had the poor taste to die at the beginning of the voyage +and leave Wolf Larsen short-handed. + +It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends, that I +was shocked. Oaths and vile language of any sort had always been +repellent to me. I felt a wilting sensation, a sinking at the +heart, and, I might just as well say, a giddiness. To me, death +had always been invested with solemnity and dignity. It had been +peaceful in its occurrence, sacred in its ceremonial. But death in +its more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I had +been unacquainted till now. As I say, while I appreciated the +power of the terrific denunciation that swept out of Wolf Larsen's +mouth, I was inexpressibly shocked. The scorching torrent was +enough to wither the face of the corpse. I should not have been +surprised if the wet black beard had frizzled and curled and flared +up in smoke and flame. But the dead man was unconcerned. He +continued to grin with a sardonic humour, with a cynical mockery +and defiance. He was master of the situation. + + + +CHAPTER III + + + +Wolf Larsen ceased swearing as suddenly as he had begun. He +relighted his cigar and glanced around. His eyes chanced upon the +cook. + +"Well, Cooky?" he began, with a suaveness that was cold and of the +temper of steel. + +"Yes, sir," the cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing and +apologetic servility. + +"Don't you think you've stretched that neck of yours just about +enough? It's unhealthy, you know. The mate's gone, so I can't +afford to lose you too. You must be very, very careful of your +health, Cooky. Understand?" + +His last word, in striking contrast with the smoothness of his +previous utterance, snapped like the lash of a whip. The cook +quailed under it. + +"Yes, sir," was the meek reply, as the offending head disappeared +into the galley. + +At this sweeping rebuke, which the cook had only pointed, the rest +of the crew became uninterested and fell to work at one task or +another. A number of men, however, who were lounging about a +companion-way between the galley and hatch, and who did not seem to +be sailors, continued talking in low tones with one another. +These, I afterward learned, were the hunters, the men who shot the +seals, and a very superior breed to common sailor-folk. + +"Johansen!" Wolf Larsen called out. A sailor stepped forward +obediently. "Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. +You'll find some old canvas in the sail-locker. Make it do." + +"What'll I put on his feet, sir?" the man asked, after the +customary "Ay, ay, sir." + +"We'll see to that," Wolf Larsen answered, and elevated his voice +in a call of "Cooky!" + +Thomas Mugridge popped out of his galley like a jack-in-the-box. + +"Go below and fill a sack with coal." + +"Any of you fellows got a Bible or Prayer-book?" was the captain's +next demand, this time of the hunters lounging about the companion- +way. + +They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which I +did not catch, but which raised a general laugh. + +Wolf Larsen made the same demand of the sailors. Bibles and +Prayer-books seemed scarce articles, but one of the men volunteered +to pursue the quest amongst the watch below, returning in a minute +with the information that there was none. + +The captain shrugged his shoulders. "Then we'll drop him over +without any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway has +the burial service at sea by heart." + +By this time he had swung fully around and was facing me. "You're +a preacher, aren't you?" he asked. + +The hunters,--there were six of them,--to a man, turned and +regarded me. I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow. +A laugh went up at my appearance,--a laugh that was not lessened or +softened by the dead man stretched and grinning on the deck before +us; a laugh that was as rough and harsh and frank as the sea +itself; that arose out of coarse feelings and blunted +sensibilities, from natures that knew neither courtesy nor +gentleness. + +Wolf Larsen did not laugh, though his grey eyes lighted with a +slight glint of amusement; and in that moment, having stepped +forward quite close to him, I received my first impression of the +man himself, of the man as apart from his body, and from the +torrent of blasphemy I had heard him spew forth. The face, with +large features and strong lines, of the square order, yet well +filled out, was apparently massive at first sight; but again, as +with the body, the massiveness seemed to vanish, and a conviction +to grow of a tremendous and excessive mental or spiritual strength +that lay behind, sleeping in the deeps of his being. The jaw, the +chin, the brow rising to a goodly height and swelling heavily above +the eyes,--these, while strong in themselves, unusually strong, +seemed to speak an immense vigour or virility of spirit that lay +behind and beyond and out of sight. There was no sounding such a +spirit, no measuring, no determining of metes and bounds, nor +neatly classifying in some pigeon-hole with others of similar type. + +The eyes--and it was my destiny to know them well--were large and +handsome, wide apart as the true artist's are wide, sheltering +under a heavy brow and arched over by thick black eyebrows. The +eyes themselves were of that baffling protean grey which is never +twice the same; which runs through many shades and colourings like +intershot silk in sunshine; which is grey, dark and light, and +greenish-grey, and sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea. +They were eyes that masked the soul with a thousand guises, and +that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up +as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the world on +some wonderful adventure,--eyes that could brood with the hopeless +sombreness of leaden skies; that could snap and crackle points of +fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword; that could +grow chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm +and soften and be all a-dance with love-lights, intense and +masculine, luring and compelling, which at the same time fascinate +and dominate women till they surrender in a gladness of joy and of +relief and sacrifice. + +But to return. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service, +I was not a preacher, when he sharply demanded: + +"What do you do for a living?" + +I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had +I ever canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and before I could +find myself had sillily stammered, "I--I am a gentleman." + +His lip curled in a swift sneer. + +"I have worked, I do work," I cried impetuously, as though he were +my judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much +aware of my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all. + +"For your living?" + +There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I +was quite beside myself--"rattled," as Furuseth would have termed +it, like a quaking child before a stern school-master. + +"Who feeds you?" was his next question. + +"I have an income," I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my +tongue the next instant. "All of which, you will pardon my +observing, has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you +about." + +But he disregarded my protest. + +"Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on +dead men's legs. You've never had any of your own. You couldn't +walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly +for three meals. Let me see your hand." + +His tremendous, dormant strength must have stirred, swiftly and +accurately, or I must have slept a moment, for before I knew it he +had stepped two paces forward, gripped my right hand in his, and +held it up for inspection. I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers +tightened, without visible effort, till I thought mine would be +crushed. It is hard to maintain one's dignity under such +circumstances. I could not squirm or struggle like a schoolboy. +Nor could I attack such a creature who had but to twist my arm to +break it. Nothing remained but to stand still and accept the +indignity. I had time to notice that the pockets of the dead man +had been emptied on the deck, and that his body and his grin had +been wrapped from view in canvas, the folds of which the sailor, +Johansen, was sewing together with coarse white twine, shoving the +needle through with a leather contrivance fitted on the palm of his +hand. + +Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain. + +"Dead men's hands have kept it soft. Good for little else than +dish-washing and scullion work." + +"I wish to be put ashore," I said firmly, for I now had myself in +control. "I shall pay you whatever you judge your delay and +trouble to be worth." + +He looked at me curiously. Mockery shone in his eyes. + +"I have a counter proposition to make, and for the good of your +soul. My mate's gone, and there'll be a lot of promotion. A +sailor comes aft to take mate's place, cabin-boy goes for'ard to +take sailor's place, and you take the cabin-boy's place, sign the +articles for the cruise, twenty dollars per month and found. Now +what do you say? And mind you, it's for your own soul's sake. It +will be the making of you. You might learn in time to stand on +your own legs, and perhaps to toddle along a bit." + +But I took no notice. The sails of the vessel I had seen off to +the south-west had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same +schooner-rig as the Ghost, though the hull itself, I could see, was +smaller. She was a pretty sight, leaping and flying toward us, and +evidently bound to pass at close range. The wind had been +momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had +disappeared. The sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown +rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were +travelling faster, and heeled farther over. Once, in a gust, the +rail dipped under the sea, and the decks on that side were for the +moment awash with water that made a couple of the hunters hastily +lift their feet. + +"That vessel will soon be passing us," I said, after a moment's +pause. "As she is going in the opposite direction, she is very +probably bound for San Francisco." + +"Very probably," was Wolf Larsen's answer, as he turned partly away +from me and cried out, "Cooky! Oh, Cooky!" + +The Cockney popped out of the galley. + +"Where's that boy? Tell him I want him." + +"Yes, sir;" and Thomas Mugridge fled swiftly aft and disappeared +down another companion-way near the wheel. A moment later he +emerged, a heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a +glowering, villainous countenance, trailing at his heels. + +"'Ere 'e is, sir," the cook said. + +But Wolf Larsen ignored that worthy, turning at once to the cabin- +boy. + +"What's your name, boy? + +"George Leach, sir," came the sullen answer, and the boy's bearing +showed clearly that he divined the reason for which he had been +summoned. + +"Not an Irish name," the captain snapped sharply. "O'Toole or +McCarthy would suit your mug a damn sight better. Unless, very +likely, there's an Irishman in your mother's woodpile." + +I saw the young fellow's hands clench at the insult, and the blood +crawl scarlet up his neck. + +"But let that go," Wolf Larsen continued. "You may have very good +reasons for forgetting your name, and I'll like you none the worse +for it as long as you toe the mark. Telegraph Hill, of course, is +your port of entry. It sticks out all over your mug. Tough as +they make them and twice as nasty. I know the kind. Well, you can +make up your mind to have it taken out of you on this craft. +Understand? Who shipped you, anyway?" + +"McCready and Swanson." + +"Sir!" Wolf Larsen thundered. + +"McCready and Swanson, sir," the boy corrected, his eyes burning +with a bitter light. + +"Who got the advance money?" + +"They did, sir." + +"I thought as much. And damned glad you were to let them have it. +Couldn't make yourself scarce too quick, with several gentlemen you +may have heard of looking for you." + +The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body +bunched together as though for a spring, and his face became as an +infuriated beast's as he snarled, "It's a--" + +"A what?" Wolf Larsen asked, a peculiar softness in his voice, as +though he were overwhelmingly curious to hear the unspoken word. + +The boy hesitated, then mastered his temper. "Nothin', sir. I +take it back." + +"And you have shown me I was right." This with a gratified smile. +"How old are you?" + +"Just turned sixteen, sir," + +"A lie. You'll never see eighteen again. Big for your age at +that, with muscles like a horse. Pack up your kit and go for'ard +into the fo'c'sle. You're a boat-puller now. You're promoted; +see?" + +Without waiting for the boy's acceptance, the captain turned to the +sailor who had just finished the gruesome task of sewing up the +corpse. "Johansen, do you know anything about navigation?" + +"No, sir," + +"Well, never mind; you're mate just the same. Get your traps aft +into the mate's berth." + +"Ay, ay, sir," was the cheery response, as Johansen started +forward. + +In the meantime the erstwhile cabin-boy had not moved. "What are +you waiting for?" Wolf Larsen demanded. + +"I didn't sign for boat-puller, sir," was the reply. "I signed for +cabin-boy. An' I don't want no boat-pullin' in mine." + +"Pack up and go for'ard." + +This time Wolf Larsen's command was thrillingly imperative. The +boy glowered sullenly, but refused to move. + +Then came another stirring of Wolf Larsen's tremendous strength. +It was utterly unexpected, and it was over and done with between +the ticks of two seconds. He had sprung fully six feet across the +deck and driven his fist into the other's stomach. At the same +moment, as though I had been struck myself, I felt a sickening +shock in the pit of my stomach. I instance this to show the +sensitiveness of my nervous organization at the time, and how +unused I was to spectacles of brutality. The cabin-boy--and he +weighed one hundred and sixty-five at the very least--crumpled up. +His body wrapped limply about the fist like a wet rag about a +stick. He lifted into the air, described a short curve, and struck +the deck alongside the corpse on his head and shoulders, where he +lay and writhed about in agony. + +"Well?" Larsen asked of me. "Have you made up your mind?" + +I had glanced occasionally at the approaching schooner, and it was +now almost abreast of us and not more than a couple of hundred +yards away. It was a very trim and neat little craft. I could see +a large, black number on one of its sails, and I had seen pictures +of pilot-boats. + +"What vessel is that?" I asked. + +"The pilot-boat Lady Mine," Wolf Larsen answered grimly. "Got rid +of her pilots and running into San Francisco. She'll be there in +five or six hours with this wind." + +"Will you please signal it, then, so that I may be put ashore." + +"Sorry, but I've lost the signal book overboard," he remarked, and +the group of hunters grinned. + +I debated a moment, looking him squarely in the eyes. I had seen +the frightful treatment of the cabin-boy, and knew that I should +very probably receive the same, if not worse. As I say, I debated +with myself, and then I did what I consider the bravest act of my +life. I ran to the side, waving my arms and shouting: + +"Lady Mine ahoy! Take me ashore! A thousand dollars if you take +me ashore!" + +I waited, watching two men who stood by the wheel, one of them +steering. The other was lifting a megaphone to his lips. I did +not turn my head, though I expected every moment a killing blow +from the human brute behind me. At last, after what seemed +centuries, unable longer to stand the strain, I looked around. He +had not moved. He was standing in the same position, swaying +easily to the roll of the ship and lighting a fresh cigar. + +"What is the matter? Anything wrong?" + +This was the cry from the Lady Mine. + +"Yes!" I shouted, at the top of my lungs. "Life or death! One +thousand dollars if you take me ashore!" + +"Too much 'Frisco tanglefoot for the health of my crew!" Wolf +Larsen shouted after. "This one"--indicating me with his thumb-- +"fancies sea-serpents and monkeys just now!" + +The man on the Lady Mine laughed back through the megaphone. The +pilot-boat plunged past. + +"Give him hell for me!" came a final cry, and the two men waved +their arms in farewell. + +I leaned despairingly over the rail, watching the trim little +schooner swiftly increasing the bleak sweep of ocean between us. +And she would probably be in San Francisco in five or six hours! +My head seemed bursting. There was an ache in my throat as though +my heart were up in it. A curling wave struck the side and +splashed salt spray on my lips. The wind puffed strongly, and the +Ghost heeled far over, burying her lee rail. I could hear the +water rushing down upon the deck. + +When I turned around, a moment later, I saw the cabin-boy +staggering to his feet. His face was ghastly white, twitching with +suppressed pain. He looked very sick. + +"Well, Leach, are you going for'ard?" Wolf Larsen asked. + +"Yes, sir," came the answer of a spirit cowed. + +"And you?" I was asked. + +"I'll give you a thousand--" I began, but was interrupted. + +"Stow that! Are you going to take up your duties as cabin-boy? Or +do I have to take you in hand?" + +What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, +would not help my case. I looked steadily into the cruel grey +eyes. They might have been granite for all the light and warmth of +a human soul they contained. One may see the soul stir in some +men's eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea +itself. + +"Well?" + +"Yes," I said. + +"Say 'yes, sir.'" + +"Yes, sir," I corrected. + +"What is your name?" + +"Van Weyden, sir." + +"First name?" + +"Humphrey, sir; Humphrey Van Weyden." + +"Age?" + +"Thirty-five, sir." + +"That'll do. Go to the cook and learn your duties." + +And thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary servitude +to Wolf Larsen. He was stronger than I, that was all. But it was +very unreal at the time. It is no less unreal now that I look back +upon it. It will always be to me a monstrous, inconceivable thing, +a horrible nightmare. + +"Hold on, don't go yet." + +I stopped obediently in my walk toward the galley. + +"Johansen, call all hands. Now that we've everything cleaned up, +we'll have the funeral and get the decks cleared of useless +lumber." + +While Johansen was summoning the watch below, a couple of sailors, +under the captain's direction, laid the canvas-swathed corpse upon +a hatch-cover. On either side the deck, against the rail and +bottoms up, were lashed a number of small boats. Several men +picked up the hatch-cover with its ghastly freight, carried it to +the lee side, and rested it on the boats, the feet pointing +overboard. To the feet was attached the sack of coal which the +cook had fetched. + +I had always conceived a burial at sea to be a very solemn and awe- +inspiring event, but I was quickly disillusioned, by this burial at +any rate. One of the hunters, a little dark-eyed man whom his +mates called "Smoke," was telling stories, liberally intersprinkled +with oaths and obscenities; and every minute or so the group of +hunters gave mouth to a laughter that sounded to me like a wolf- +chorus or the barking of hell-hounds. The sailors trooped noisily +aft, some of the watch below rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and +talked in low tones together. There was an ominous and worried +expression on their faces. It was evident that they did not like +the outlook of a voyage under such a captain and begun so +inauspiciously. From time to time they stole glances at Wolf +Larsen, and I could see that they were apprehensive of the man. + +He stepped up to the hatch-cover, and all caps came off. I ran my +eyes over them--twenty men all told; twenty-two including the man +at the wheel and myself. I was pardonably curious in my survey, +for it appeared my fate to be pent up with them on this miniature +floating world for I knew not how many weeks or months. The +sailors, in the main, were English and Scandinavian, and their +faces seemed of the heavy, stolid order. The hunters, on the other +hand, had stronger and more diversified faces, with hard lines and +the marks of the free play of passions. Strange to say, and I +noted it all once, Wolf Larsen's features showed no such evil +stamp. There seemed nothing vicious in them. True, there were +lines, but they were the lines of decision and firmness. It +seemed, rather, a frank and open countenance, which frankness or +openness was enhanced by the fact that he was smooth-shaven. I +could hardly believe--until the next incident occurred--that it was +the face of a man who could behave as he had behaved to the cabin- +boy. + +At this moment, as he opened his mouth to speak, puff after puff +struck the schooner and pressed her side under. The wind shrieked +a wild song through the rigging. Some of the hunters glanced +anxiously aloft. The lee rail, where the dead man lay, was buried +in the sea, and as the schooner lifted and righted the water swept +across the deck wetting us above our shoe-tops. A shower of rain +drove down upon us, each drop stinging like a hailstone. As it +passed, Wolf Larsen began to speak, the bare-headed men swaying in +unison, to the heave and lunge of the deck. + +"I only remember one part of the service," he said, "and that is, +'And the body shall be cast into the sea.' So cast it in." + +He ceased speaking. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed +perplexed, puzzled no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. He +burst upon them in a fury. + +"Lift up that end there, damn you! What the hell's the matter with +you?" + +They elevated the end of the hatch-cover with pitiful haste, and, +like a dog flung overside, the dead man slid feet first into the +sea. The coal at his feet dragged him down. He was gone. + +"Johansen," Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, "keep all +hands on deck now they're here. Get in the topsails and jibs and +make a good job of it. We're in for a sou'-easter. Better reef +the jib and mainsail too, while you're about it." + +In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders +and the men pulling or letting go ropes of various sorts--all +naturally confusing to a landsman such as myself. But it was the +heartlessness of it that especially struck me. The dead man was an +episode that was past, an incident that was dropped, in a canvas +covering with a sack of coal, while the ship sped along and her +work went on. Nobody had been affected. The hunters were laughing +at a fresh story of Smoke's; the men pulling and hauling, and two +of them climbing aloft; Wolf Larsen was studying the clouding sky +to windward; and the dead man, dying obscenely, buried sordidly, +and sinking down, down-- + +Then it was that the cruelty of the sea, its relentlessness and +awfulness, rushed upon me. Life had become cheap and tawdry, a +beastly and inarticulate thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and +slime. I held on to the weather rail, close by the shrouds, and +gazed out across the desolate foaming waves to the low-lying fog- +banks that hid San Francisco and the California coast. Rain- +squalls were driving in between, and I could scarcely see the fog. +And this strange vessel, with its terrible men, pressed under by +wind and sea and ever leaping up and out, was heading away into the +south-west, into the great and lonely Pacific expanse. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + + +What happened to me next on the sealing-schooner Ghost, as I strove +to fit into my new environment, are matters of humiliation and +pain. The cook, who was called "the doctor" by the crew, "Tommy" +by the hunters, and "Cooky" by Wolf Larsen, was a changed person. +The difference worked in my status brought about a corresponding +difference in treatment from him. Servile and fawning as he had +been before, he was now as domineering and bellicose. In truth, I +was no longer the fine gentleman with a skin soft as a "lydy's," +but only an ordinary and very worthless cabin-boy. + +He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and +his behaviour and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my +duties. Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small state- +rooms, I was supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my +colossal ignorance concerning such things as peeling potatoes or +washing greasy pots was a source of unending and sarcastic wonder +to him. He refused to take into consideration what I was, or, +rather, what my life and the things I was accustomed to had been. +This was part of the attitude he chose to adopt toward me; and I +confess, ere the day was done, that I hated him with more lively +feelings than I had ever hated any one in my life before. + +This first day was made more difficult for me from the fact that +the Ghost, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn +till later), was plunging through what Mr. Mugridge called an +"'owlin' sou'-easter." At half-past five, under his directions, I +set the table in the cabin, with rough-weather trays in place, and +then carried the tea and cooked food down from the galley. In this +connection I cannot forbear relating my first experience with a +boarding sea. + +"Look sharp or you'll get doused," was Mr. Mugridge's parting +injunction, as I left the galley with a big tea-pot in one hand, +and in the hollow of the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked +bread. One of the hunters, a tall, loose-jointed chap named +Henderson, was going aft at the time from the steerage (the name +the hunters facetiously gave their midships sleeping quarters) to +the cabin. Wolf Larsen was on the poop, smoking his everlasting +cigar. + +"'Ere she comes. Sling yer 'ook!" the cook cried. + +I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley +door slide shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like a +madman for the main rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till +he was many feet higher than my head. Also I saw a great wave, +curling and foaming, poised far above the rail. I was directly +under it. My mind did not work quickly, everything was so new and +strange. I grasped that I was in danger, but that was all. I +stood still, in trepidation. Then Wolf Larsen shouted from the +poop: + +"Grab hold something, you--you Hump!" + +But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might +have clung, and was met by the descending wall of water. What +happened after that was very confusing. I was beneath the water, +suffocating and drowning. My feet were out from under me, and I +was turning over and over and being swept along I knew not where. +Several times I collided against hard objects, once striking my +right knee a terrible blow. Then the flood seemed suddenly to +subside and I was breathing the good air again. I had been swept +against the galley and around the steerage companion-way from the +weather side into the lee scuppers. The pain from my hurt knee was +agonizing. I could not put my weight on it, or, at least, I +thought I could not put my weight on it; and I felt sure the leg +was broken. But the cook was after me, shouting through the lee +galley door: + +"'Ere, you! Don't tyke all night about it! Where's the pot? Lost +overboard? Serve you bloody well right if yer neck was broke!" + +I managed to struggle to my feet. The great tea-pot was still in +my hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was +consumed with indignation, real or feigned. + +"Gawd blime me if you ayn't a slob. Wot 're you good for anyw'y, +I'd like to know? Eh? Wot 're you good for any'wy? Cawn't even +carry a bit of tea aft without losin' it. Now I'll 'ave to boil +some more. + +"An' wot 're you snifflin' about?" he burst out at me, with renewed +rage. "'Cos you've 'urt yer pore little leg, pore little mamma's +darlin'." + +I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn and +twitching from the pain. But I called up all my resolution, set my +teeth, and hobbled back and forth from galley to cabin and cabin to +galley without further mishap. Two things I had acquired by my +accident: an injured knee-cap that went undressed and from which I +suffered for weary months, and the name of "Hump," which Wolf +Larsen had called me from the poop. Thereafter, fore and aft, I +was known by no other name, until the term became a part of my +thought-processes and I identified it with myself, thought of +myself as Hump, as though Hump were I and had always been I. + +It was no easy task, waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf +Larsen, Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to +begin with, and to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made +easier by the schooner's violent pitching and wallowing. But what +struck me most forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part +of the men whom I served. I could feel my knee through my clothes, +swelling, and swelling, and I was sick and faint from the pain of +it. I could catch glimpses of my face, white and ghastly, +distorted with pain, in the cabin mirror. All the men must have +seen my condition, but not one spoke or took notice of me, till I +was almost grateful to Wolf Larsen, later on (I was washing the +dishes), when he said: + +"Don't let a little thing like that bother you. You'll get used to +such things in time. It may cripple you some, but all the same +you'll be learning to walk. + +"That's what you call a paradox, isn't it?" he added. + +He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary "Yes, +sir." + +"I suppose you know a bit about literary things? Eh? Good. I'll +have some talks with you some time." + +And then, taking no further account of me, he turned his back and +went up on deck. + +That night, when I had finished an endless amount of work, I was +sent to sleep in the steerage, where I made up a spare bunk. I was +glad to get out of the detestable presence of the cook and to be +off my feet. To my surprise, my clothes had dried on me and there +seemed no indications of catching cold, either from the last +soaking or from the prolonged soaking from the foundering of the +Martinez. Under ordinary circumstances, after all that I had +undergone, I should have been fit for bed and a trained nurse. + +But my knee was bothering me terribly. As well as I could make +out, the kneecap seemed turned up on edge in the midst of the +swelling. As I sat in my bunk examining it (the six hunters were +all in the steerage, smoking and talking in loud voices), Henderson +took a passing glance at it. + +"Looks nasty," he commented. "Tie a rag around it, and it'll be +all right." + +That was all; and on the land I would have been lying on the broad +of my back, with a surgeon attending on me, and with strict +injunctions to do nothing but rest. But I must do these men +justice. Callous as they were to my suffering, they were equally +callous to their own when anything befell them. And this was due, +I believe, first, to habit; and second, to the fact that they were +less sensitively organized. I really believe that a finely- +organized, high-strung man would suffer twice and thrice as much as +they from a like injury. + +Tired as I was,--exhausted, in fact,--I was prevented from sleeping +by the pain in my knee. It was all I could do to keep from +groaning aloud. At home I should undoubtedly have given vent to my +anguish; but this new and elemental environment seemed to call for +a savage repression. Like the savage, the attitude of these men +was stoical in great things, childish in little things. I +remember, later in the voyage, seeing Kerfoot, another of the +hunters, lose a finger by having it smashed to a jelly; and he did +not even murmur or change the expression on his face. Yet I have +seen the same man, time and again, fly into the most outrageous +passion over a trifle. + +He was doing it now, vociferating, bellowing, waving his arms, and +cursing like a fiend, and all because of a disagreement with +another hunter as to whether a seal pup knew instinctively how to +swim. He held that it did, that it could swim the moment it was +born. The other hunter, Latimer, a lean, Yankee-looking fellow +with shrewd, narrow-slitted eyes, held otherwise, held that the +seal pup was born on the land for no other reason than that it +could not swim, that its mother was compelled to teach it to swim +as birds were compelled to teach their nestlings how to fly. + +For the most part, the remaining four hunters leaned on the table +or lay in their bunks and left the discussion to the two +antagonists. But they were supremely interested, for every little +while they ardently took sides, and sometimes all were talking at +once, till their voices surged back and forth in waves of sound +like mimic thunder-rolls in the confined space. Childish and +immaterial as the topic was, the quality of their reasoning was +still more childish and immaterial. In truth, there was very +little reasoning or none at all. Their method was one of +assertion, assumption, and denunciation. They proved that a seal +pup could swim or not swim at birth by stating the proposition very +bellicosely and then following it up with an attack on the opposing +man's judgment, common sense, nationality, or past history. +Rebuttal was precisely similar. I have related this in order to +show the mental calibre of the men with whom I was thrown in +contact. Intellectually they were children, inhabiting the +physical forms of men. + +And they smoked, incessantly smoked, using a coarse, cheap, and +offensive-smelling tobacco. The air was thick and murky with the +smoke of it; and this, combined with the violent movement of the +ship as she struggled through the storm, would surely have made me +sea-sick had I been a victim to that malady. As it was, it made me +quite squeamish, though this nausea might have been due to the pain +of my leg and exhaustion. + +As I lay there thinking, I naturally dwelt upon myself and my +situation. It was unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van +Weyden, a scholar and a dilettante, if you please, in things +artistic and literary, should be lying here on a Bering Sea seal- +hunting schooner. Cabin-boy! I had never done any hard manual +labour, or scullion labour, in my life. I had lived a placid, +uneventful, sedentary existence all my days--the life of a scholar +and a recluse on an assured and comfortable income. Violent life +and athletic sports had never appealed to me. I had always been a +book-worm; so my sisters and father had called me during my +childhood. I had gone camping but once in my life, and then I left +the party almost at its start and returned to the comforts and +conveniences of a roof. And here I was, with dreary and endless +vistas before me of table-setting, potato-peeling, and dish- +washing. And I was not strong. The doctors had always said that I +had a remarkable constitution, but I had never developed it or my +body through exercise. My muscles were small and soft, like a +woman's, or so the doctors had said time and again in the course of +their attempts to persuade me to go in for physical-culture fads. +But I had preferred to use my head rather than my body; and here I +was, in no fit condition for the rough life in prospect. + +These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind, and +are related for the sake of vindicating myself in advance in the +weak and helpless role I was destined to play. But I thought, +also, of my mother and sisters, and pictured their grief. I was +among the missing dead of the Martinez disaster, an unrecovered +body. I could see the head-lines in the papers; the fellows at the +University Club and the Bibelot shaking their heads and saying, +"Poor chap!" And I could see Charley Furuseth, as I had said good- +bye to him that morning, lounging in a dressing-gown on the be- +pillowed window couch and delivering himself of oracular and +pessimistic epigrams. + +And all the while, rolling, plunging, climbing the moving mountains +and falling and wallowing in the foaming valleys, the schooner +Ghost was fighting her way farther and farther into the heart of +the Pacific--and I was on her. I could hear the wind above. It +came to my ears as a muffled roar. Now and again feet stamped +overhead. An endless creaking was going on all about me, the +woodwork and the fittings groaning and squeaking and complaining in +a thousand keys. The hunters were still arguing and roaring like +some semi-human amphibious breed. The air was filled with oaths +and indecent expressions. I could see their faces, flushed and +angry, the brutality distorted and emphasized by the sickly yellow +of the sea-lamps which rocked back and forth with the ship. +Through the dim smoke-haze the bunks looked like the sleeping dens +of animals in a menagerie. Oilskins and sea-boots were hanging +from the walls, and here and there rifles and shotguns rested +securely in the racks. It was a sea-fitting for the buccaneers and +pirates of by-gone years. My imagination ran riot, and still I +could not sleep. And it was a long, long night, weary and dreary +and long. + + + +CHAPTER V + + + +But my first night in the hunters' steerage was also my last. Next +day Johansen, the new mate, was routed from the cabin by Wolf +Larsen, and sent into the steerage to sleep thereafter, while I +took possession of the tiny cabin state-room, which, on the first +day of the voyage, had already had two occupants. The reason for +this change was quickly learned by the hunters, and became the +cause of a deal of grumbling on their part. It seemed that +Johansen, in his sleep, lived over each night the events of the +day. His incessant talking and shouting and bellowing of orders +had been too much for Wolf Larsen, who had accordingly foisted the +nuisance upon his hunters. + +After a sleepless night, I arose weak and in agony, to hobble +through my second day on the Ghost. Thomas Mugridge routed me out +at half-past five, much in the fashion that Bill Sykes must have +routed out his dog; but Mr. Mugridge's brutality to me was paid +back in kind and with interest. The unnecessary noise he made (I +had lain wide-eyed the whole night) must have awakened one of the +hunters; for a heavy shoe whizzed through the semi-darkness, and +Mr. Mugridge, with a sharp howl of pain, humbly begged everybody's +pardon. Later on, in the galley, I noticed that his ear was +bruised and swollen. It never went entirely back to its normal +shape, and was called a "cauliflower ear" by the sailors. + +The day was filled with miserable variety. I had taken my dried +clothes down from the galley the night before, and the first thing +I did was to exchange the cook's garments for them. I looked for +my purse. In addition to some small change (and I have a good +memory for such things), it had contained one hundred and eighty- +five dollars in gold and paper. The purse I found, but its +contents, with the exception of the small silver, had been +abstracted. I spoke to the cook about it, when I went on deck to +take up my duties in the galley, and though I had looked forward to +a surly answer, I had not expected the belligerent harangue that I +received. + +"Look 'ere, 'Ump," he began, a malicious light in his eyes and a +snarl in his throat; "d'ye want yer nose punched? If you think I'm +a thief, just keep it to yerself, or you'll find 'ow bloody well +mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn't gratitude for yer! +'Ere you come, a pore mis'rable specimen of 'uman scum, an' I tykes +yer into my galley an' treats yer 'ansom, an' this is wot I get for +it. Nex' time you can go to 'ell, say I, an' I've a good mind to +give you what-for anyw'y." + +So saying, he put up his fists and started for me. To my shame be +it, I cowered away from the blow and ran out the galley door. What +else was I to do? Force, nothing but force, obtained on this +brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing unknown. Picture it to +yourself: a man of ordinary stature, slender of build, and with +weak, undeveloped muscles, who has lived a peaceful, placid life, +and is unused to violence of any sort--what could such a man +possibly do? There was no more reason that I should stand and face +these human beasts than that I should stand and face an infuriated +bull. + +So I thought it out at the time, feeling the need for vindication +and desiring to be at peace with my conscience. But this +vindication did not satisfy. Nor, to this day can I permit my +manhood to look back upon those events and feel entirely +exonerated. The situation was something that really exceeded +rational formulas for conduct and demanded more than the cold +conclusions of reason. When viewed in the light of formal logic, +there is not one thing of which to be ashamed; but nevertheless a +shame rises within me at the recollection, and in the pride of my +manhood I feel that my manhood has in unaccountable ways been +smirched and sullied. + +All of which is neither here nor there. The speed with which I ran +from the galley caused excruciating pain in my knee, and I sank +down helplessly at the break of the poop. But the Cockney had not +pursued me. + +"Look at 'im run! Look at 'im run!" I could hear him crying. "An' +with a gyme leg at that! Come on back, you pore little mamma's +darling. I won't 'it yer; no, I won't." + +I came back and went on with my work; and here the episode ended +for the time, though further developments were yet to take place. +I set the breakfast-table in the cabin, and at seven o'clock waited +on the hunters and officers. The storm had evidently broken during +the night, though a huge sea was still running and a stiff wind +blowing. Sail had been made in the early watches, so that the +Ghost was racing along under everything except the two topsails and +the flying jib. These three sails, I gathered from the +conversation, were to be set immediately after breakfast. I +learned, also, that Wolf Larsen was anxious to make the most of the +storm, which was driving him to the south-west into that portion of +the sea where he expected to pick up with the north-east trades. +It was before this steady wind that he hoped to make the major +portion of the run to Japan, curving south into the tropics and +north again as he approached the coast of Asia. + +After breakfast I had another unenviable experience. When I had +finished washing the dishes, I cleaned the cabin stove and carried +the ashes up on deck to empty them. Wolf Larsen and Henderson were +standing near the wheel, deep in conversation. The sailor, +Johnson, was steering. As I started toward the weather side I saw +him make a sudden motion with his head, which I mistook for a token +of recognition and good-morning. In reality, he was attempting to +warn me to throw my ashes over the lee side. Unconscious of my +blunder, I passed by Wolf Larsen and the hunter and flung the ashes +over the side to windward. The wind drove them back, and not only +over me, but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next instant the +latter kicked me, violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not +realized there could be so much pain in a kick. I reeled away from +him and leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting condition. +Everything was swimming before my eyes, and I turned sick. The +nausea overpowered me, and I managed to crawl to the side of the +vessel. But Wolf Larsen did not follow me up. Brushing the ashes +from his clothes, he had resumed his conversation with Henderson. +Johansen, who had seen the affair from the break of the poop, sent +a couple of sailors aft to clean up the mess. + +Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different +sort. Following the cook's instructions, I had gone into Wolf +Larsen's state-room to put it to rights and make the bed. Against +the wall, near the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. +I glanced over them, noting with astonishment such names as +Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific +works, too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, +Proctor, and Darwin. Astronomy and physics were represented, and I +remarked Bulfinch's Age of Fable, Shaw's History of English and +American Literature, and Johnson's Natural History in two large +volumes. Then there were a number of grammars, such as Metcalf's, +and Reed and Kellogg's; and I smiled as I saw a copy of The Dean's +English. + +I could not reconcile these books with the man from what I had seen +of him, and I wondered if he could possibly read them. But when I +came to make the bed I found, between the blankets, dropped +apparently as he had sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning, the +Cambridge Edition. It was open at "In a Balcony," and I noticed, +here and there, passages underlined in pencil. Further, letting +drop the volume during a lurch of the ship, a sheet of paper fell +out. It was scrawled over with geometrical diagrams and +calculations of some sort. + +It was patent that this terrible man was no ignorant clod, such as +one would inevitably suppose him to be from his exhibitions of +brutality. At once he became an enigma. One side or the other of +his nature was perfectly comprehensible; but both sides together +were bewildering. I had already remarked that his language was +excellent, marred with an occasional slight inaccuracy. Of course, +in common speech with the sailors and hunters, it sometimes fairly +bristled with errors, which was due to the vernacular itself; but +in the few words he had held with me it had been clear and correct. + +This glimpse I had caught of his other side must have emboldened +me, for I resolved to speak to him about the money I had lost. + +"I have been robbed," I said to him, a little later, when I found +him pacing up and down the poop alone. + +"Sir," he corrected, not harshly, but sternly. + +"I have been robbed, sir," I amended. + +"How did it happen?" he asked. + +Then I told him the whole circumstance, how my clothes had been +left to dry in the galley, and how, later, I was nearly beaten by +the cook when I mentioned the matter. + +He smiled at my recital. "Pickings," he concluded; "Cooky's +pickings. And don't you think your miserable life worth the price? +Besides, consider it a lesson. You'll learn in time how to take +care of your money for yourself. I suppose, up to now, your lawyer +has done it for you, or your business agent." + +I could feel the quiet sneer through his words, but demanded, "How +can I get it back again?" + +"That's your look-out. You haven't any lawyer or business agent +now, so you'll have to depend on yourself. When you get a dollar, +hang on to it. A man who leaves his money lying around, the way +you did, deserves to lose it. Besides, you have sinned. You have +no right to put temptation in the way of your fellow-creatures. +You tempted Cooky, and he fell. You have placed his immortal soul +in jeopardy. By the way, do you believe in the immortal soul?" + +His lids lifted lazily as he asked the question, and it seemed that +the deeps were opening to me and that I was gazing into his soul. +But it was an illusion. Far as it might have seemed, no man has +ever seen very far into Wolf Larsen's soul, or seen it at all,--of +this I am convinced. It was a very lonely soul, I was to learn, +that never unmasked, though at rare moments it played at doing so. + +"I read immortality in your eyes," I answered, dropping the "sir,"- +-an experiment, for I thought the intimacy of the conversation +warranted it. + +He took no notice. "By that, I take it, you see something that is +alive, but that necessarily does not have to live for ever." + +"I read more than that," I continued boldly. + +"Then you read consciousness. You read the consciousness of life +that it is alive; but still no further away, no endlessness of +life." + +How clearly he thought, and how well he expressed what he thought! +From regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out +over the leaden sea to windward. A bleakness came into his eyes, +and the lines of his mouth grew severe and harsh. He was evidently +in a pessimistic mood. + +"Then to what end?" he demanded abruptly, turning back to me. "If +I am immortal--why?" + +I halted. How could I explain my idealism to this man? How could +I put into speech a something felt, a something like the strains of +music heard in sleep, a something that convinced yet transcended +utterance? + +"What do you believe, then?" I countered. + +"I believe that life is a mess," he answered promptly. "It is like +yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move for a minute, an +hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to +move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move, the +strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky +eat the most and move the longest, that is all. What do you make +of those things?" + +He swept his am in an impatient gesture toward a number of the +sailors who were working on some kind of rope stuff amidships. + +"They move, so does the jelly-fish move. They move in order to eat +in order that they may keep moving. There you have it. They live +for their belly's sake, and the belly is for their sake. It's a +circle; you get nowhere. Neither do they. In the end they come to +a standstill. They move no more. They are dead." + +"They have dreams," I interrupted, "radiant, flashing dreams--" + +"Of grub," he concluded sententiously. + +"And of more--" + +"Grub. Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying it." His +voice sounded harsh. There was no levity in it. "For, look you, +they dream of making lucky voyages which will bring them more +money, of becoming the mates of ships, of finding fortunes--in +short, of being in a better position for preying on their fellows, +of having all night in, good grub and somebody else to do the dirty +work. You and I are just like them. There is no difference, +except that we have eaten more and better. I am eating them now, +and you too. But in the past you have eaten more than I have. You +have slept in soft beds, and worn fine clothes, and eaten good +meals. Who made those beds? and those clothes? and those meals? +Not you. You never made anything in your own sweat. You live on +an income which your father earned. You are like a frigate bird +swooping down upon the boobies and robbing them of the fish they +have caught. You are one with a crowd of men who have made what +they call a government, who are masters of all the other men, and +who eat the food the other men get and would like to eat +themselves. You wear the warm clothes. They made the clothes, but +they shiver in rags and ask you, the lawyer, or business agent who +handles your money, for a job." + +"But that is beside the matter," I cried. + +"Not at all." He was speaking rapidly now, and his eyes were +flashing. "It is piggishness, and it is life. Of what use or +sense is an immortality of piggishness? What is the end? What is +it all about? You have made no food. Yet the food you have eaten +or wasted might have saved the lives of a score of wretches who +made the food but did not eat it. What immortal end did you serve? +or did they? Consider yourself and me. What does your boasted +immortality amount to when your life runs foul of mine? You would +like to go back to the land, which is a favourable place for your +kind of piggishness. It is a whim of mine to keep you aboard this +ship, where my piggishness flourishes. And keep you I will. I may +make or break you. You may die to-day, this week, or next month. +I could kill you now, with a blow of my fist, for you are a +miserable weakling. But if we are immortal, what is the reason for +this? To be piggish as you and I have been all our lives does not +seem to be just the thing for immortals to be doing. Again, what's +it all about? Why have I kept you here?--" + +"Because you are stronger," I managed to blurt out. + +"But why stronger?" he went on at once with his perpetual queries. +"Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you? Don't you see? +Don't you see?" + +"But the hopelessness of it," I protested. + +"I agree with you," he answered. "Then why move at all, since +moving is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there +would be no hopelessness. But,--and there it is,--we want to live +and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it +is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. +If it were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this +life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life +that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive for ever. +Bah! An eternity of piggishness!" + +He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped at +the break of the poop and called me to him. + +"By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with?" he asked. + +"One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir," I answered. + +He nodded his head. A moment later, as I started down the +companion stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly +curing some men amidships. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + + +By the following morning the storm had blown itself quite out and +the Ghost was rolling slightly on a calm sea without a breath of +wind. Occasional light airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen +patrolled the poop constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to +the north-eastward, from which direction the great trade-wind must +blow. + +The men were all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for +the season's hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the captain's +dingey, and the six which the hunters will use. Three, a hunter, a +boat-puller, and a boat-steerer, compose a boat's crew. On board +the schooner the boat-pullers and steerers are the crew. The +hunters, too, are supposed to be in command of the watches, +subject, always, to the orders of Wolf Larsen. + +All this, and more, I have learned. The Ghost is considered the +fastest schooner in both the San Francisco and Victoria fleets. In +fact, she was once a private yacht, and was built for speed. Her +lines and fittings--though I know nothing about such things--speak +for themselves. Johnson was telling me about her in a short chat I +had with him during yesterday's second dog-watch. He spoke +enthusiastically, with the love for a fine craft such as some men +feel for horses. He is greatly disgusted with the outlook, and I +am given to understand that Wolf Larsen bears a very unsavoury +reputation among the sealing captains. It was the Ghost herself +that lured Johnson into signing for the voyage, but he is already +beginning to repent. + +As he told me, the Ghost is an eighty-ton schooner of a remarkably +fine model. Her beam, or width, is twenty-three feet, and her +length a little over ninety feet. A lead keel of fabulous but +unknown weight makes her very stable, while she carries an immense +spread of canvas. From the deck to the truck of the maintopmast is +something over a hundred feet, while the foremast with its topmast +is eight or ten feet shorter. I am giving these details so that +the size of this little floating world which holds twenty-two men +may be appreciated. It is a very little world, a mote, a speck, +and I marvel that men should dare to venture the sea on a +contrivance so small and fragile. + +Wolf Larsen has, also, a reputation for reckless carrying on of +sail. I overheard Henderson and another of the hunters, Standish, +a Californian, talking about it. Two years ago he dismasted the +Ghost in a gale on Bering Sea, whereupon the present masts were put +in, which are stronger and heavier in every way. He is said to +have remarked, when he put them in, that he preferred turning her +over to losing the sticks. + +Every man aboard, with the exception of Johansen, who is rather +overcome by his promotion, seems to have an excuse for having +sailed on the Ghost. Half the men forward are deep-water sailors, +and their excuse is that they did not know anything about her or +her captain. And those who do know, whisper that the hunters, +while excellent shots, were so notorious for their quarrelsome and +rascally proclivities that they could not sign on any decent +schooner. + +I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew,--Louis he +is called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a +very sociable fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a +listener. In the afternoon, while the cook was below asleep and I +was peeling the everlasting potatoes, Louis dropped into the galley +for a "yarn." His excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk +when he signed. He assured me again and again that it was the last +thing in the world he would dream of doing in a sober moment. It +seems that he has been seal-hunting regularly each season for a +dozen years, and is accounted one of the two or three very best +boat-steerers in both fleets. + +"Ah, my boy," he shook his head ominously at me, "'tis the worst +schooner ye could iv selected, nor were ye drunk at the time as was +I. 'Tis sealin' is the sailor's paradise--on other ships than +this. The mate was the first, but mark me words, there'll be more +dead men before the trip is done with. Hist, now, between you an' +meself and the stanchion there, this Wolf Larsen is a regular +devil, an' the Ghost'll be a hell-ship like she's always ben since +he had hold iv her. Don't I know? Don't I know? Don't I remember +him in Hakodate two years gone, when he had a row an' shot four iv +his men? Wasn't I a-layin' on the Emma L., not three hundred yards +away? An' there was a man the same year he killed with a blow iv +his fist. Yes, sir, killed 'im dead-oh. His head must iv smashed +like an eggshell. An' wasn't there the Governor of Kura Island, +an' the Chief iv Police, Japanese gentlemen, sir, an' didn't they +come aboard the Ghost as his guests, a-bringin' their wives along-- +wee an' pretty little bits of things like you see 'em painted on +fans. An' as he was a-gettin' under way, didn't the fond husbands +get left astern-like in their sampan, as it might be by accident? +An' wasn't it a week later that the poor little ladies was put +ashore on the other side of the island, with nothin' before 'em but +to walk home acrost the mountains on their weeny-teeny little straw +sandals which wouldn't hang together a mile? Don't I know? 'Tis +the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen--the great big beast mentioned iv +in Revelation; an' no good end will he ever come to. But I've said +nothin' to ye, mind ye. I've whispered never a word; for old fat +Louis'll live the voyage out if the last mother's son of yez go to +the fishes." + +"Wolf Larsen!" he snorted a moment later. "Listen to the word, +will ye! Wolf--'tis what he is. He's not black-hearted like some +men. 'Tis no heart he has at all. Wolf, just wolf, 'tis what he +is. D'ye wonder he's well named?" + +"But if he is so well-known for what he is," I queried, "how is it +that he can get men to ship with him?" + +"An' how is it ye can get men to do anything on God's earth an' +sea?" Louis demanded with Celtic fire. "How d'ye find me aboard if +'twasn't that I was drunk as a pig when I put me name down? +There's them that can't sail with better men, like the hunters, and +them that don't know, like the poor devils of wind-jammers for'ard +there. But they'll come to it, they'll come to it, an' be sorry +the day they was born. I could weep for the poor creatures, did I +but forget poor old fat Louis and the troubles before him. But +'tis not a whisper I've dropped, mind ye, not a whisper." + +"Them hunters is the wicked boys," he broke forth again, for he +suffered from a constitutional plethora of speech. "But wait till +they get to cutting up iv jinks and rowin' 'round. He's the boy'll +fix 'em. 'Tis him that'll put the fear of God in their rotten +black hearts. Look at that hunter iv mine, Horner. 'Jock' Horner +they call him, so quiet-like an' easy-goin', soft-spoken as a girl, +till ye'd think butter wouldn't melt in the mouth iv him. Didn't +he kill his boat-steerer last year? 'Twas called a sad accident, +but I met the boat-puller in Yokohama an' the straight iv it was +given me. An' there's Smoke, the black little devil--didn't the +Roosians have him for three years in the salt mines of Siberia, for +poachin' on Copper Island, which is a Roosian preserve? Shackled +he was, hand an' foot, with his mate. An' didn't they have words +or a ruction of some kind?--for 'twas the other fellow Smoke sent +up in the buckets to the top of the mine; an' a piece at a time he +went up, a leg to-day, an' to-morrow an arm, the next day the head, +an' so on." + +"But you can't mean it!" I cried out, overcome with the horror of +it. + +"Mean what!" he demanded, quick as a flash. "'Tis nothin' I've +said. Deef I am, and dumb, as ye should be for the sake iv your +mother; an' never once have I opened me lips but to say fine things +iv them an' him, God curse his soul, an' may he rot in purgatory +ten thousand years, and then go down to the last an' deepest hell +iv all!" + +Johnson, the man who had chafed me raw when I first came aboard, +seemed the least equivocal of the men forward or aft. In fact, +there was nothing equivocal about him. One was struck at once by +his straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were +tempered by a modesty which might be mistaken for timidity. But +timid he was not. He seemed, rather, to have the courage of his +convictions, the certainty of his manhood. It was this that made +him protest, at the commencement of our acquaintance, against being +called Yonson. And upon this, and him, Louis passed judgment and +prophecy. + +"'Tis a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we've for'ard with us," +he said. "The best sailorman in the fo'c'sle. He's my boat- +puller. But it's to trouble he'll come with Wolf Larsen, as the +sparks fly upward. It's meself that knows. I can see it brewin' +an' comin' up like a storm in the sky. I've talked to him like a +brother, but it's little he sees in takin' in his lights or flyin' +false signals. He grumbles out when things don't go to suit him, +and there'll be always some tell-tale carryin' word iv it aft to +the Wolf. The Wolf is strong, and it's the way of a wolf to hate +strength, an' strength it is he'll see in Johnson--no knucklin' +under, and a 'Yes, sir, thank ye kindly, sir,' for a curse or a +blow. Oh, she's a-comin'! She's a-comin'! An' God knows where +I'll get another boat-puller! What does the fool up an' say, when +the old man calls him Yonson, but 'Me name is Johnson, sir,' an' +then spells it out, letter for letter. Ye should iv seen the old +man's face! I thought he'd let drive at him on the spot. He +didn't, but he will, an' he'll break that squarehead's heart, or +it's little I know iv the ways iv men on the ships iv the sea." + +Thomas Mugridge is becoming unendurable. I am compelled to Mister +him and to Sir him with every speech. One reason for this is that +Wolf Larsen seems to have taken a fancy to him. It is an +unprecedented thing, I take it, for a captain to be chummy with the +cook; but this is certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing. Two or +three times he put his head into the galley and chaffed Mugridge +good-naturedly, and once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of +the poop and chatted with him for fully fifteen minutes. When it +was over, and Mugridge was back in the galley, he became greasily +radiant, and went about his work, humming coster songs in a nerve- +racking and discordant falsetto. + +"I always get along with the officers," he remarked to me in a +confidential tone. "I know the w'y, I do, to myke myself uppreci- +yted. There was my last skipper--w'y I thought nothin' of droppin' +down in the cabin for a little chat and a friendly glass. +'Mugridge,' sez 'e to me, 'Mugridge,' sez 'e, 'you've missed yer +vokytion.' 'An' 'ow's that?' sez I. 'Yer should 'a been born a +gentleman, an' never 'ad to work for yer livin'.' God strike me +dead, 'Ump, if that ayn't wot 'e sez, an' me a-sittin' there in 'is +own cabin, jolly-like an' comfortable, a-smokin' 'is cigars an' +drinkin' 'is rum." + +This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction. I never heard a +voice I hated so. His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile +and his monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I +was all in a tremble. Positively, he was the most disgusting and +loathsome person I have ever met. The filth of his cooking was +indescribable; and, as he cooked everything that was eaten aboard, +I was compelled to select what I ate with great circumspection, +choosing from the least dirty of his concoctions. + +My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work. +The nails were discoloured and black, while the skin was already +grained with dirt which even a scrubbing-brush could not remove. +Then blisters came, in a painful and never-ending procession, and I +had a great burn on my forearm, acquired by losing my balance in a +roll of the ship and pitching against the galley stove. Nor was my +knee any better. The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was +still up on edge. Hobbling about on it from morning till night was +not helping it any. What I needed was rest, if it were ever to get +well. + +Rest! I never before knew the meaning of the word. I had been +resting all my life and did not know it. But now, could I sit +still for one half-hour and do nothing, not even think, it would be +the most pleasurable thing in the world. But it is a revelation, +on the other hand. I shall be able to appreciate the lives of the +working people hereafter. I did not dream that work was so +terrible a thing. From half-past five in the morning till ten +o'clock at night I am everybody's slave, with not one moment to +myself, except such as I can steal near the end of the second dog- +watch. Let me pause for a minute to look out over the sea +sparkling in the sun, or to gaze at a sailor going aloft to the +gaff-topsails, or running out the bowsprit, and I am sure to hear +the hateful voice, "'Ere, you, 'Ump, no sodgerin'. I've got my +peepers on yer." + +There are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the +gossip is going around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight. +Henderson seems the best of the hunters, a slow-going fellow, and +hard to rouse; but roused he must have been, for Smoke had a +bruised and discoloured eye, and looked particularly vicious when +he came into the cabin for supper. + +A cruel thing happened just before supper, indicative of the +callousness and brutishness of these men. There is one green hand +in the crew, Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, +mastered, I imagine, by the spirit of adventure, and making his +first voyage. In the light baffling airs the schooner had been +tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one +side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore- +gaff-topsail. In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet +jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff. +As I understood it, there were two ways of getting it cleared,-- +first, by lowering the foresail, which was comparatively easy and +without danger; and second, by climbing out the peak-halyards to +the end of the gaff itself, an exceedingly hazardous performance. + +Johansen called out to Harrison to go out the halyards. It was +patent to everybody that the boy was afraid. And well he might be, +eighty feet above the deck, to trust himself on those thin and +jerking ropes. Had there been a steady breeze it would not have +been so bad, but the Ghost was rolling emptily in a long sea, and +with each roll the canvas flapped and boomed and the halyards +slacked and jerked taut. They were capable of snapping a man off +like a fly from a whip-lash. + +Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him, +but hesitated. It was probably the first time he had been aloft in +his life. Johansen, who had caught the contagion of Wolf Larsen's +masterfulness, burst out with a volley of abuse and curses. + +"That'll do, Johansen," Wolf Larsen said brusquely. "I'll have you +know that I do the swearing on this ship. If I need your +assistance, I'll call you in." + +"Yes, sir," the mate acknowledged submissively. + +In the meantime Harrison had started out on the halyards. I was +looking up from the galley door, and I could see him trembling, as +if with ague, in every limb. He proceeded very slowly and +cautiously, an inch at a time. Outlined against the clear blue of +the sky, he had the appearance of an enormous spider crawling along +the tracery of its web. + +It was a slight uphill climb, for the foresail peaked high; and the +halyards, running through various blocks on the gaff and mast, gave +him separate holds for hands and feet. But the trouble lay in that +the wind was not strong enough nor steady enough to keep the sail +full. When he was half-way out, the Ghost took a long roll to +windward and back again into the hollow between two seas. Harrison +ceased his progress and held on tightly. Eighty feet beneath, I +could see the agonized strain of his muscles as he gripped for very +life. The sail emptied and the gaff swung amid-ships. The +halyards slackened, and, though it all happened very quickly, I +could see them sag beneath the weight of his body. Then the gag +swung to the side with an abrupt swiftness, the great sail boomed +like a cannon, and the three rows of reef-points slatted against +the canvas like a volley of rifles. Harrison, clinging on, made +the giddy rush through the air. This rush ceased abruptly. The +halyards became instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. His +clutch was broken. One hand was torn loose from its hold. The +other lingered desperately for a moment, and followed. His body +pitched out and down, but in some way he managed to save himself +with his legs. He was hanging by them, head downward. A quick +effort brought his hands up to the halyards again; but he was a +long time regaining his former position, where he hung, a pitiable +object. + +"I'll bet he has no appetite for supper," I heard Wolf Larsen's +voice, which came to me from around the corner of the galley. +"Stand from under, you, Johansen! Watch out! Here she comes!" + +In truth, Harrison was very sick, as a person is sea-sick; and for +a long time he clung to his precarious perch without attempting to +move. Johansen, however, continued violently to urge him on to the +completion of his task. + +"It is a shame," I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and +correct English. He was standing by the main rigging, a few feet +away from me. "The boy is willing enough. He will learn if he has +a chance. But this is--" He paused awhile, for the word "murder" +was his final judgment. + +"Hist, will ye!" Louis whispered to him, "For the love iv your +mother hold your mouth!" + +But Johnson, looking on, still continued his grumbling. + +"Look here," the hunter Standish spoke to Wolf Larsen, "that's my +boat-puller, and I don't want to lose him." + +"That's all right, Standish," was the reply. "He's your boat- +puller when you've got him in the boat; but he's my sailor when I +have him aboard, and I'll do what I damn well please with him." + +"But that's no reason--" Standish began in a torrent of speech. + +"That'll do, easy as she goes," Wolf Larsen counselled back. "I've +told you what's what, and let it stop at that. The man's mine, and +I'll make soup of him and eat it if I want to." + +There was an angry gleam in the hunter's eye, but he turned on his +heel and entered the steerage companion-way, where he remained, +looking upward. All hands were on deck now, and all eyes were +aloft, where a human life was at grapples with death. The +callousness of these men, to whom industrial organization gave +control of the lives of other men, was appalling. I, who had lived +out of the whirl of the world, had never dreamed that its work was +carried on in such fashion. Life had always seemed a peculiarly +sacred thing, but here it counted for nothing, was a cipher in the +arithmetic of commerce. I must say, however, that the sailors +themselves were sympathetic, as instance the case of Johnson; but +the masters (the hunters and the captain) were heartlessly +indifferent. Even the protest of Standish arose out of the fact +that he did not wish to lose his boat-puller. Had it been some +other hunter's boat-puller, he, like them, would have been no more +than amused. + +But to return to Harrison. It took Johansen, insulting and +reviling the poor wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started +again. A little later he made the end of the gaff, where, astride +the spar itself, he had a better chance for holding on. He cleared +the sheet, and was free to return, slightly downhill now, along the +halyards to the mast. But he had lost his nerve. Unsafe as was +his present position, he was loath to forsake it for the more +unsafe position on the halyards. + +He looked along the airy path he must traverse, and then down to +the deck. His eyes were wide and staring, and he was trembling +violently. I had never seen fear so strongly stamped upon a human +face. Johansen called vainly for him to come down. At any moment +he was liable to be snapped off the gaff, but he was helpless with +fright. Wolf Larsen, walking up and down with Smoke and in +conversation, took no more notice of him, though he cried sharply, +once, to the man at the wheel: + +"You're off your course, my man! Be careful, unless you're looking +for trouble!" + +"Ay, ay, sir," the helmsman responded, putting a couple of spokes +down. + +He had been guilty of running the Ghost several points off her +course in order that what little wind there was should fill the +foresail and hold it steady. He had striven to help the +unfortunate Harrison at the risk of incurring Wolf Larsen's anger. + +The time went by, and the suspense, to me, was terrible. Thomas +Mugridge, on the other hand, considered it a laughable affair, and +was continually bobbing his head out the galley door to make jocose +remarks. How I hated him! And how my hatred for him grew and +grew, during that fearful time, to cyclopean dimensions. For the +first time in my life I experienced the desire to murder--"saw +red," as some of our picturesque writers phrase it. Life in +general might still be sacred, but life in the particular case of +Thomas Mugridge had become very profane indeed. I was frightened +when I became conscious that I was seeing red, and the thought +flashed through my mind: was I, too, becoming tainted by the +brutality of my environment?--I, who even in the most flagrant +crimes had denied the justice and righteousness of capital +punishment? + +Fully half-an-hour went by, and then I saw Johnson and Louis in +some sort of altercation. It ended with Johnson flinging off +Louis's detaining arm and starting forward. He crossed the deck, +sprang into the fore rigging, and began to climb. But the quick +eye of Wolf Larsen caught him. + +"Here, you, what are you up to?" he cried. + +Johnson's ascent was arrested. He looked his captain in the eyes +and replied slowly: + +"I am going to get that boy down." + +"You'll get down out of that rigging, and damn lively about it! +D'ye hear? Get down!" + +Johnson hesitated, but the long years of obedience to the masters +of ships overpowered him, and he dropped sullenly to the deck and +went on forward. + +At half after five I went below to set the cabin table, but I +hardly knew what I did, for my eyes and my brain were filled with +the vision of a man, white-faced and trembling, comically like a +bug, clinging to the thrashing gaff. At six o'clock, when I served +supper, going on deck to get the food from the galley, I saw +Harrison, still in the same position. The conversation at the +table was of other things. Nobody seemed interested in the +wantonly imperilled life. But making an extra trip to the galley a +little later, I was gladdened by the sight of Harrison staggering +weakly from the rigging to the forecastle scuttle. He had finally +summoned the courage to descend. + +Before closing this incident, I must give a scrap of conversation I +had with Wolf Larsen in the cabin, while I was washing the dishes. + +"You were looking squeamish this afternoon," he began. "What was +the matter?" + +I could see that he knew what had made me possibly as sick as +Harrison, that he was trying to draw me, and I answered, "It was +because of the brutal treatment of that boy." + +He gave a short laugh. "Like sea-sickness, I suppose. Some men +are subject to it, and others are not." + +"Not so," I objected. + +"Just so," he went on. "The earth is as full of brutality as the +sea is full of motion. And some men are made sick by the one, and +some by the other. That's the only reason." + +"But you, who make a mock of human life, don't you place any value +upon it whatever?" I demanded. + +"Value? What value?" He looked at me, and though his eyes were +steady and motionless, there seemed a cynical smile in them. "What +kind of value? How do you measure it? Who values it?" + +"I do," I made answer. + +"Then what is it worth to you? Another man's life, I mean. Come +now, what is it worth?" + +The value of life? How could I put a tangible value upon it? +Somehow, I, who have always had expression, lacked expression when +with Wolf Larsen. I have since determined that a part of it was +due to the man's personality, but that the greater part was due to +his totally different outlook. Unlike other materialists I had met +and with whom I had something in common to start on, I had nothing +in common with him. Perhaps, also, it was the elemental simplicity +of his mind that baffled me. He drove so directly to the core of +the matter, divesting a question always of all superfluous details, +and with such an air of finality, that I seemed to find myself +struggling in deep water, with no footing under me. Value of life? +How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The +sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was +intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned. But +when he challenged the truism I was speechless. + +"We were talking about this yesterday," he said. "I held that life +was a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might +live, and that living was merely successful piggishness. Why, if +there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing +in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much +air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. +Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of +eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the +possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and +opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn +life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and +populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap +things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature +spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one +life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the +strongest and most piggish life is left." + +"You have read Darwin," I said. "But you read him +misunderstandingly when you conclude that the struggle for +existence sanctions your wanton destruction of life." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "You know you only mean that in +relation to human life, for of the flesh and the fowl and the fish +you destroy as much as I or any other man. And human life is in no +wise different, though you feel it is and think that you reason why +it is. Why should I be parsimonious with this life which is cheap +and without value? There are more sailors than there are ships on +the sea for them, more workers than there are factories or machines +for them. Why, you who live on the land know that you house your +poor people in the slums of cities and loose famine and pestilence +upon them, and that there still remain more poor people, dying for +want of a crust of bread and a bit of meat (which is life +destroyed), than you know what to do with. Have you ever seen the +London dockers fighting like wild beasts for a chance to work?" + +He started for the companion stairs, but turned his head for a +final word. "Do you know the only value life has is what life puts +upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it is of +necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. +He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond +diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? +Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates +himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he +fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the +comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He was worth +nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself only +was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, +being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone +rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are +gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea- +water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and rubies are +gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he +loses the knowledge of loss. Don't you see? And what have you to +say?" + +"That you are at least consistent," was all I could say, and I went +on washing the dishes. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + + +At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the +north-east trades. I came on deck, after a good night's rest in +spite of my poor knee, to find the Ghost foaming along, wing-and- +wing, and every sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze +astern. Oh, the wonder of the great trade-wind! All day we +sailed, and all night, and the next day, and the next, day after +day, the wind always astern and blowing steadily and strong. The +schooner sailed herself. There was no pulling and hauling on +sheets and tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work at all for the +sailors to do except to steer. At night when the sun went down, +the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up the +damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again--and that +was all. + +Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, +is the speed we are making. And ever out of the north-east the +brave wind blows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty +miles between the dawns. It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait +with which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with which we +are foaming down upon the tropics. Each day grows perceptibly +warmer. In the second dog-watch the sailors come on deck, +stripped, and heave buckets of water upon one another from +overside. Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, and during the +night the watch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of those +that fall aboard. In the morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly +bribed, the galley is pleasantly areek with the odour of their +frying; while dolphin meat is served fore and aft on such occasions +as Johnson catches the blazing beauties from the bowsprit end. + +Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the +crosstrees, watching the Ghost cleaving the water under press of +sail. There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about +in a sort of trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the +foaming wake, and the heave and the run of her over the liquid +mountains that are moving with us in stately procession. + +The days and nights are "all a wonder and a wild delight," and +though I have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments +to gaze and gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the +world possessed. Above, the sky is stainless blue--blue as the sea +itself, which under the forefoot is of the colour and sheen of +azure satin. All around the horizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never +changing, never moving, like a silver setting for the flawless +turquoise sky. + +I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying +on the forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of +foam thrust aside by the Ghost's forefoot. It sounded like the +gurgling of a brook over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the +crooning song of it lured me away and out of myself till I was no +longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed +away thirty-five years among books. But a voice behind me, the +unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with the invincible +certitude of the man and mellow with appreciation of the words he +was quoting, aroused me. + + +"'O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light +That holds the hot sky tame, +And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors +Where the scared whale flukes in flame. +Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass, +And her ropes are taut with the dew, +For we're booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out +trail, +We're sagging south on the Long Trail--the trail that is always +new.'" + + +"Eh, Hump? How's it strike you?" he asked, after the due pause +which words and setting demanded. + +I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea +itself, and the eyes were flashing in the starshine. + +"It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should +show enthusiasm," I answered coldly. + +"Why, man, it's living! it's life!" he cried. + +"Which is a cheap thing and without value." I flung his words at +him. + +He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in +his voice. + +"Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your +head, what a thing this life is. Of course life is valueless, +except to itself. And I can tell you that my life is pretty +valuable just now--to myself. It is beyond price, which you will +acknowledge is a terrific overrating, but which I cannot help, for +it is the life that is in me that makes the rating." + +He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought +that was in him, and finally went on. + +"Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all +time were echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. I +know truth, divine good from evil, right from wrong. My vision is +clear and far. I could almost believe in God. But," and his voice +changed and the light went out of his face,--"what is this +condition in which I find myself? this joy of living? this +exultation of life? this inspiration, I may well call it? It is +what comes when there is nothing wrong with one's digestion, when +his stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and all goes +well. It is the bribe for living, the champagne of the blood, the +effervescence of the ferment--that makes some men think holy +thoughts, and other men to see God or to create him when they +cannot see him. That is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring +and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane +with consciousness that it is alive. And--bah! To-morrow I shall +pay for it as the drunkard pays. And I shall know that I must die, +at sea most likely, cease crawling of myself to be all a-crawl with +the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield +up all the strength and movement of my muscles that it may become +strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of fishes. +Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. The sparkle +and bubble has gone out and it is a tasteless drink." + +He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with +the weight and softness of a tiger. The Ghost ploughed on her way. +I noted the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I +listened to it the effect of Wolf Larsen's swift rush from sublime +exultation to despair slowly left me. Then some deep-water sailor, +from the waist of the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the "Song +of the Trade Wind": + + +"Oh, I am the wind the seamen love-- +I am steady, and strong, and true; +They follow my track by the clouds above, +O'er the fathomless tropic blue. + +* * * * * + +Through daylight and dark I follow the bark +I keep like a hound on her trail; +I'm strongest at noon, yet under the moon, +I stiffen the bunt of her sail." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + + +Sometimes I think Wolf Larsen mad, or half-mad at least, what of +his strange moods and vagaries. At other times I take him for a +great man, a genius who has never arrived. And, finally, I am +convinced that he is the perfect type of the primitive man, born a +thousand years or generations too late and an anachronism in this +culminating century of civilization. He is certainly an +individualist of the most pronounced type. Not only that, but he +is very lonely. There is no congeniality between him and the rest +of the men aboard ship. His tremendous virility and mental +strength wall him apart. They are more like children to him, even +the hunters, and as children he treats them, descending perforce to +their level and playing with them as a man plays with puppies. Or +else he probes them with the cruel hand of a vivisectionist, +groping about in their mental processes and examining their souls +as though to see of what soul-stuff is made. + +I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter +or that, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of +interest, pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a +curiosity almost laughable to me who stood onlooker and who +understood. Concerning his own rages, I am convinced that they are +not real, that they are sometimes experiments, but that in the main +they are the habits of a pose or attitude he has seen fit to take +toward his fellow-men. I know, with the possible exception of the +incident of the dead mate, that I have not seen him really angry; +nor do I wish ever to see him in a genuine rage, when all the force +of him is called into play. + +While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell Thomas +Mugridge in the cabin, and at the same time complete an incident +upon which I have already touched once or twice. The twelve +o'clock dinner was over, one day, and I had just finished putting +the cabin in order, when Wolf Larsen and Thomas Mugridge descended +the companion stairs. Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a state- +room opening off from the cabin, in the cabin itself he had never +dared to linger or to be seen, and he flitted to and fro, once or +twice a day, a timid spectre. + +"So you know how to play 'Nap,'" Wolf Larsen was saying in a +pleased sort of voice. "I might have guessed an Englishman would +know. I learned it myself in English ships." + +Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so +pleased was he at chumming thus with the captain. The little airs +he put on and the painful striving to assume the easy carriage of a +man born to a dignified place in life would have been sickening had +they not been ludicrous. He quite ignored my presence, though I +credited him with being simply unable to see me. His pale, wishy- +washy eyes were swimming like lazy summer seas, though what +blissful visions they beheld were beyond my imagination. + +"Get the cards, Hump," Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took seats at +the table. "And bring out the cigars and the whisky you'll find in +my berth." + +I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting +broadly that there was a mystery about him, that he might be a +gentleman's son gone wrong or something or other; also, that he was +a remittance man and was paid to keep away from England--"p'yed +'ansomely, sir," was the way he put it; "p'yed 'ansomely to sling +my 'ook an' keep slingin' it." + +I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen +frowned, shook his head, and signalled with his hands for me to +bring the tumblers. These he filled two-thirds full with undiluted +whisky--"a gentleman's drink?" quoth Thomas Mugridge,--and they +clinked their glasses to the glorious game of "Nap," lighted +cigars, and fell to shuffling and dealing the cards. + +They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets. +They drank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do +not know whether Wolf Larsen cheated or not,--a thing he was +thoroughly capable of doing,--but he won steadily. The cook made +repeated journeys to his bunk for money. Each time he performed +the journey with greater swagger, but he never brought more than a +few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly see +the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey to +his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen's buttonhole with a greasy +forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, "I got money, I +got money, I tell yer, an' I'm a gentleman's son." + +Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for +glass, and if anything his glasses were fuller. There was no +change in him. He did not appear even amused at the other's +antics. + +In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a +gentleman, the cook's last money was staked on the game--and lost. +Whereupon he leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen +looked curiously at him, as though about to probe and vivisect him, +then changed his mind, as from the foregone conclusion that there +was nothing there to probe. + +"Hump," he said to me, elaborately polite, "kindly take Mr. +Mugridge's arm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling very +well." + +"And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water," +he added, in a lower tone for my ear alone. + +I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning +sailors who had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was +sleepily spluttering that he was a gentleman's son. But as I +descended the companion stairs to clear the table I heard him +shriek as the first bucket of water struck him. + +Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings. + +"One hundred and eighty-five dollars even," he said aloud. "Just +as I thought. "The beggar came aboard without a cent." + +"And what you have won is mine, sir," I said boldly. + +He favoured me with a quizzical smile. "Hump, I have studied some +grammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. 'Was +mine,' you should have said, not 'is mine.'" + +"It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics," I answered. + +It was possibly a minute before he spoke. + +"D'ye know, Hump," he said, with a slow seriousness which had in it +an indefinable strain of sadness, "that this is the first time I +have heard the word 'ethics' in the mouth of a man. You and I are +the only men on this ship who know its meaning." + +"At one time in my life," he continued, after another pause, "I +dreamed that I might some day talk with men who used such language, +that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had +been born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who talked +about just such things as ethics. And this is the first time I +have ever heard the word pronounced. Which is all by the way, for +you are wrong. It is a question neither of grammar nor ethics, but +of fact." + +"I understand," I said. "The fact is that you have the money." + +His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. "But +it is avoiding the real question," I continued, "which is one of +right." + +"Ah," he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, "I see you still +believe in such things as right and wrong." + +"But don't you?--at all?" I demanded. + +"Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is to +it. Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that it +is good for oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak-- +or better yet, it is pleasurable to be strong, because of the +profits; painful to be weak, because of the penalties. Just now +the possession of this money is a pleasurable thing. It is good +for one to possess it. Being able to possess it, I wrong myself +and the life that is in me if I give it to you and forego the +pleasure of possessing it." + +"But you wrong me by withholding it," I objected. + +"Not at all. One man cannot wrong another man. He can only wrong +himself. As I see it, I do wrong always when I consider the +interests of others. Don't you see? How can two particles of the +yeast wrong each other by striving to devour each other? It is +their inborn heritage to strive to devour, and to strive not to be +devoured. When they depart from this they sin." + +"Then you don't believe in altruism?" I asked. + +He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though he +pondered it thoughtfully. "Let me see, it means something about +cooperation, doesn't it?" + +"Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection," I +answered unsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary, +which, like his knowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read, +self-educated man, whom no one had directed in his studies, and who +had thought much and talked little or not at all. "An altruistic +act is an act performed for the welfare of others. It is +unselfish, as opposed to an act performed for self, which is +selfish." + +He nodded his head. "Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it +in Spencer." + +"Spencer!" I cried. "Have you read him?" + +"Not very much," was his confession. "I understood quite a good +deal of First Principles, but his Biology took the wind out of my +sails, and his Psychology left me butting around in the doldrums +for many a day. I honestly could not understand what he was +driving at. I put it down to mental deficiency on my part, but +since then I have decided that it was for want of preparation. I +had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself know how hard I +hammered. But I did get something out of his Data of Ethics. +There's where I ran across 'altruism,' and I remember now how it +was used." + +I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer +I remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his +ideal of highest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the +great philosopher's teachings, rejecting and selecting according to +his needs and desires. + +"What else did you run across?" I asked. + +His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably +phrasing thoughts which he had never before put into speech. I +felt an elation of spirit. I was groping into his soul-stuff as he +made a practice of groping in the soul-stuff of others. I was +exploring virgin territory. A strange, a terribly strange, region +was unrolling itself before my eyes. + +"In as few words as possible," he began, "Spencer puts it something +like this: First, a man must act for his own benefit--to do this +is to be moral and good. Next, he must act for the benefit of his +children. And third, he must act for the benefit of his race." + +"And the highest, finest, right conduct," I interjected, "is that +act which benefits at the same time the man, his children, and his +race." + +"I wouldn't stand for that," he replied. "Couldn't see the +necessity for it, nor the common sense. I cut out the race and the +children. I would sacrifice nothing for them. It's just so much +slush and sentiment, and you must see it yourself, at least for one +who does not believe in eternal life. With immortality before me, +altruism would be a paying business proposition. I might elevate +my soul to all kinds of altitudes. But with nothing eternal before +me but death, given for a brief spell this yeasty crawling and +squirming which is called life, why, it would be immoral for me to +perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrifice that makes me +lose one crawl or squirm is foolish,--and not only foolish, for it +is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose one +crawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Nor +will the eternal movelessness that is coming to me be made easier +or harder by the sacrifices or selfishnesses of the time when I was +yeasty and acrawl." + +"Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, a +hedonist." + +"Big words," he smiled. "But what is a hedonist?" + +He nodded agreement when I had given the definition. "And you are +also," I continued, "a man one could not trust in the least thing +where it was possible for a selfish interest to intervene?" + +"Now you're beginning to understand," he said, brightening. + +"You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?" + +"That's it." + +"A man of whom to be always afraid--" + +"That's the way to put it." + +"As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?" + +"Now you know me," he said. "And you know me as I am generally +known. Other men call me 'Wolf.'" + +"You are a sort of monster," I added audaciously, "a Caliban who +has pondered Setebos, and who acts as you act, in idle moments, by +whim and fancy." + +His brow clouded at the allusion. He did not understand, and I +quickly learned that he did not know the poem. + +"I'm just reading Browning," he confessed, "and it's pretty tough. +I haven't got very far along, and as it is I've about lost my +bearings." + +Not to be tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from his +state-room and read "Caliban" aloud. He was delighted. It was a +primitive mode of reasoning and of looking at things that he +understood thoroughly. He interrupted again and again with comment +and criticism. When I finished, he had me read it over a second +time, and a third. We fell into discussion--philosophy, science, +evolution, religion. He betrayed the inaccuracies of the self-read +man, and, it must be granted, the sureness and directness of the +primitive mind. The very simplicity of his reasoning was its +strength, and his materialism was far more compelling than the +subtly complex materialism of Charley Furuseth. Not that I--a +confirmed and, as Furuseth phrased it, a temperamental idealist-- +was to be compelled; but that Wolf Larsen stormed the last +strongholds of my faith with a vigour that received respect, while +not accorded conviction. + +Time passed. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. I became +restless and anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down the +companion-way, sick and angry of countenance, I prepared to go +about my duties. But Wolf Larsen cried out to him: + +"Cooky, you've got to hustle to-night. I'm busy with Hump, and +you'll do the best you can without him." + +And again the unprecedented was established. That night I sat at +table with the captain and the hunters, while Thomas Mugridge +waited on us and washed the dishes afterward--a whim, a Caliban- +mood of Wolf Larsen's, and one I foresaw would bring me trouble. +In the meantime we talked and talked, much to the disgust of the +hunters, who could not understand a word. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + + +Three days of rest, three blessed days of rest, are what I had with +Wolf Larsen, eating at the cabin table and doing nothing but +discuss life, literature, and the universe, the while Thomas +Mugridge fumed and raged and did my work as well as his own. + +"Watch out for squalls, is all I can say to you," was Louis's +warning, given during a spare half-hour on deck while Wolf Larsen +was engaged in straightening out a row among the hunters. + +"Ye can't tell what'll be happenin'," Louis went on, in response to +my query for more definite information. "The man's as contrary as +air currents or water currents. You can never guess the ways iv +him. 'Tis just as you're thinkin' you know him and are makin' a +favourable slant along him, that he whirls around, dead ahead and +comes howlin' down upon you and a-rippin' all iv your fine-weather +sails to rags." + +So I was not altogether surprised when the squall foretold by Louis +smote me. We had been having a heated discussion,--upon life, of +course,--and, grown over-bold, I was passing stiff strictures upon +Wolf Larsen and the life of Wolf Larsen. In fact, I was +vivisecting him and turning over his soul-stuff as keenly and +thoroughly as it was his custom to do it to others. It may be a +weakness of mine that I have an incisive way of speech; but I threw +all restraint to the winds and cut and slashed until the whole man +of him was snarling. The dark sun-bronze of his face went black +with wrath, his eyes were ablaze. There was no clearness or sanity +in them--nothing but the terrific rage of a madman. It was the +wolf in him that I saw, and a mad wolf at that. + +He sprang for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled +myself to brazen it out, though I was trembling inwardly; but the +enormous strength of the man was too much for my fortitude. He had +gripped me by the biceps with his single hand, and when that grip +tightened I wilted and shrieked aloud. My feet went out from under +me. I simply could not stand upright and endure the agony. The +muscles refused their duty. The pain was too great. My biceps was +being crushed to a pulp. + +He seemed to recover himself, for a lucid gleam came into his eyes, +and he relaxed his hold with a short laugh that was more like a +growl. I fell to the floor, feeling very faint, while he sat down, +lighted a cigar, and watched me as a cat watches a mouse. As I +writhed about I could see in his eyes that curiosity I had so often +noted, that wonder and perplexity, that questing, that everlasting +query of his as to what it was all about. + +I finally crawled to my feet and ascended the companion stairs. +Fair weather was over, and there was nothing left but to return to +the galley. My left arm was numb, as though paralysed, and days +passed before I could use it, while weeks went by before the last +stiffness and pain went out of it. And he had done nothing but put +his hand upon my arm and squeeze. There had been no wrenching or +jerking. He had just closed his hand with a steady pressure. What +he might have done I did not fully realize till next day, when he +put his head into the galley, and, as a sign of renewed +friendliness, asked me how my arm was getting on. + +"It might have been worse," he smiled. + +I was peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. It was +fair-sized, firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it, +squeezed, and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy +streams. The pulpy remnant he dropped back into the pan and turned +away, and I had a sharp vision of how it might have fared with me +had the monster put his real strength upon me. + +But the three days' rest was good in spite of it all, for it had +given my knee the very chance it needed. It felt much better, the +swelling had materially decreased, and the cap seemed descending +into its proper place. Also, the three days' rest brought the +trouble I had foreseen. It was plainly Thomas Mugridge's intention +to make me pay for those three days. He treated me vilely, cursed +me continually, and heaped his own work upon me. He even ventured +to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming animal-like myself, and +I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened him +back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself, +Humphrey Van Weyden, in that noisome ship's galley, crouched in a +corner over my task, my face raised to the face of the creature +about to strike me, my lips lifted and snarling like a dog's, my +eyes gleaming with fear and helplessness and the courage that comes +of fear and helplessness. I do not like the picture. It reminds +me too strongly of a rat in a trap. I do not care to think of it; +but it was elective, for the threatened blow did not descend. + +Thomas Mugridge backed away, glaring as hatefully and viciously as +I glared. A pair of beasts is what we were, penned together and +showing our teeth. He was a coward, afraid to strike me because I +had not quailed sufficiently in advance; so he chose a new way to +intimidate me. There was only one galley knife that, as a knife, +amounted to anything. This, through many years of service and +wear, had acquired a long, lean blade. It was unusually cruel- +looking, and at first I had shuddered every time I used it. The +cook borrowed a stone from Johansen and proceeded to sharpen the +knife. He did it with great ostentation, glancing significantly at +me the while. He whetted it up and down all day long. Every odd +moment he could find he had the knife and stone out and was +whetting away. The steel acquired a razor edge. He tried it with +the ball of his thumb or across the nail. He shaved hairs from the +back of his hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic +acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a slight +inequality in its edge somewhere. Then he would put it on the +stone again and whet, whet, whet, till I could have laughed aloud, +it was so very ludicrous. + +It was also serious, for I learned that he was capable of using it, +that under all his cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like +mine, that would impel him to do the very thing his whole nature +protested against doing and was afraid of doing. "Cooky's +sharpening his knife for Hump," was being whispered about among the +sailors, and some of them twitted him about it. This he took in +good part, and was really pleased, nodding his head with direful +foreknowledge and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin- +boy, ventured some rough pleasantry on the subject. + +Now it happened that Leach was one of the sailors told off to douse +Mugridge after his game of cards with the captain. Leach had +evidently done his task with a thoroughness that Mugridge had not +forgiven, for words followed and evil names involving smirched +ancestries. Mugridge menaced with the knife he was sharpening for +me. Leach laughed and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill +Billingsgate, and before either he or I knew what had happened, his +right arm had been ripped open from elbow to wrist by a quick slash +of the knife. The cook backed away, a fiendish expression on his +face, the knife held before him in a position of defence. But +Leach took it quite calmly, though blood was spouting upon the deck +as generously as water from a fountain. + +"I'm goin' to get you, Cooky," he said, "and I'll get you hard. +And I won't be in no hurry about it. You'll be without that knife +when I come for you." + +So saying, he turned and walked quietly forward. Mugridge's face +was livid with fear at what he had done and at what he might expect +sooner or later from the man he had stabbed. But his demeanour +toward me was more ferocious than ever. In spite of his fear at +the reckoning he must expect to pay for what he had done, he could +see that it had been an object-lesson to me, and he became more +domineering and exultant. Also there was a lust in him, akin to +madness, which had come with sight of the blood he had drawn. He +was beginning to see red in whatever direction he looked. The +psychology of it is sadly tangled, and yet I could read the +workings of his mind as clearly as though it were a printed book. + +Several days went by, the Ghost still foaming down the trades, and +I could swear I saw madness growing in Thomas Mugridge's eyes. And +I confess that I became afraid, very much afraid. Whet, whet, +whet, it went all day long. The look in his eyes as he felt the +keen edge and glared at me was positively carnivorous. I was +afraid to turn my shoulder to him, and when I left the galley I +went out backwards--to the amusement of the sailors and hunters, +who made a point of gathering in groups to witness my exit. The +strain was too great. I sometimes thought my mind would give way +under it--a meet thing on this ship of madmen and brutes. Every +hour, every minute of my existence was in jeopardy. I was a human +soul in distress, and yet no soul, fore or aft, betrayed sufficient +sympathy to come to my aid. At times I thought of throwing myself +on the mercy of Wolf Larsen, but the vision of the mocking devil in +his eyes that questioned life and sneered at it would come strong +upon me and compel me to refrain. At other times I seriously +contemplated suicide, and the whole force of my hopeful philosophy +was required to keep me from going over the side in the darkness of +night. + +Several times Wolf Larsen tried to inveigle me into discussion, but +I gave him short answers and eluded him. Finally, he commanded me +to resume my seat at the cabin table for a time and let the cook do +my work. Then I spoke frankly, telling him what I was enduring +from Thomas Mugridge because of the three days of favouritism which +had been shown me. Wolf Larsen regarded me with smiling eyes. + +"So you're afraid, eh?" he sneered. + +"Yes," I said defiantly and honestly, "I am afraid." + +"That's the way with you fellows," he cried, half angrily, +"sentimentalizing about your immortal souls and afraid to die. At +sight of a sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney the clinging of life +to life overcomes all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear fellow, +you will live for ever. You are a god, and God cannot be killed. +Cooky cannot hurt you. You are sure of your resurrection. What's +there to be afraid of? + +"You have eternal life before you. You are a millionaire in +immortality, and a millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose +fortune is less perishable than the stars and as lasting as space +or time. It is impossible for you to diminish your principal. +Immortality is a thing without beginning or end. Eternity is +eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on living +somewhere else and hereafter. And it is all very beautiful, this +shaking off of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned spirit. +Cooky cannot hurt you. He can only give you a boost on the path +you eternally must tread. + +"Or, if you do not wish to be boosted just yet, why not boost +Cooky? According to your ideas, he, too, must be an immortal +millionaire. You cannot bankrupt him. His paper will always +circulate at par. You cannot diminish the length of his living by +killing him, for he is without beginning or end. He's bound to go +on living, somewhere, somehow. Then boost him. Stick a knife in +him and let his spirit free. As it is, it's in a nasty prison, and +you'll do him only a kindness by breaking down the door. And who +knows?--it may be a very beautiful spirit that will go soaring up +into the blue from that ugly carcass. Boost him along, and I'll +promote you to his place, and he's getting forty-five dollars a +month." + +It was plain that I could look for no help or mercy from Wolf +Larsen. Whatever was to be done I must do for myself; and out of +the courage of fear I evolved the plan of fighting Thomas Mugridge +with his own weapons. I borrowed a whetstone from Johansen. +Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged me for condensed milk +and sugar. The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was +situated beneath the cabin floor. Watching my chance, I stole five +cans of the milk, and that night, when it was Louis's watch on +deck, I traded them with him for a dirk as lean and cruel-looking +as Thomas Mugridge's vegetable knife. It was rusty and dull, but I +turned the grindstone while Louis gave it an edge. I slept more +soundly than usual that night. + +Next morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet, +whet, whet. I glanced warily at him, for I was on my knees taking +the ashes from the stove. When I returned from throwing them +overside, he was talking to Harrison, whose honest yokel's face was +filled with fascination and wonder. + +"Yes," Mugridge was saying, "an' wot does 'is worship do but give +me two years in Reading. But blimey if I cared. The other mug was +fixed plenty. Should 'a seen 'im. Knife just like this. I stuck +it in, like into soft butter, an' the w'y 'e squealed was better'n +a tu-penny gaff." He shot a glance in my direction to see if I was +taking it in, and went on. "'I didn't mean it Tommy,' 'e was +snifflin'; 'so 'elp me Gawd, I didn't mean it!' "'I'll fix yer +bloody well right,' I sez, an' kept right after 'im. I cut 'im in +ribbons, that's wot I did, an' 'e a-squealin' all the time. Once +'e got 'is 'and on the knife an' tried to 'old it. 'Ad 'is fingers +around it, but I pulled it through, cuttin' to the bone. O, 'e was +a sight, I can tell yer." + +A call from the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison +went aft. Mugridge sat down on the raised threshold to the galley +and went on with his knife-sharpening. I put the shovel away and +calmly sat down on the coal-box facing him. He favoured me with a +vicious stare. Still calmly, though my heart was going pitapat, I +pulled out Louis's dirk and began to whet it on the stone. I had +looked for almost any sort of explosion on the Cockney's part, but +to my surprise he did not appear aware of what I was doing. He +went on whetting his knife. So did I. And for two hours we sat +there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread +abroad and half the ship's company was crowding the galley doors to +see the sight. + +Encouragement and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the +quiet, self-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a +mouse, advised me to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward for +the abdomen, at the same time giving what he called the "Spanish +twist" to the blade. Leach, his bandaged arm prominently to the +fore, begged me to leave a few remnants of the cook for him; and +Wolf Larsen paused once or twice at the break of the poop to glance +curiously at what must have been to him a stirring and crawling of +the yeasty thing he knew as life. + +And I make free to say that for the time being life assumed the +same sordid values to me. There was nothing pretty about it, +nothing divine--only two cowardly moving things that sat whetting +steel upon stone, and a group of other moving things, cowardly and +otherwise, that looked on. Half of them, I am sure, were anxious +to see us shedding each other's blood. It would have been +entertainment. And I do not think there was one who would have +interfered had we closed in a death-struggle. + +On the other hand, the whole thing was laughable and childish. +Whet, whet, whet,--Humphrey Van Weyden sharpening his knife in a +ship's galley and trying its edge with his thumb! Of all +situations this was the most inconceivable. I know that my own +kind could not have believed it possible. I had not been called +"Sissy" Van Weyden all my days without reason, and that "Sissy" Van +Weyden should be capable of doing this thing was a revelation to +Humphrey Van Weyden, who knew not whether to be exultant or +ashamed. + +But nothing happened. At the end of two hours Thomas Mugridge put +away knife and stone and held out his hand. + +"Wot's the good of mykin' a 'oly show of ourselves for them mugs?" +he demanded. "They don't love us, an' bloody well glad they'd be +a-seein' us cuttin' our throats. Yer not 'arf bad, 'Ump! You've +got spunk, as you Yanks s'y, an' I like yer in a w'y. So come on +an' shyke." + +Coward that I might be, I was less a coward than he. It was a +distinct victory I had gained, and I refused to forego any of it by +shaking his detestable hand. + +"All right," he said pridelessly, "tyke it or leave it, I'll like +yer none the less for it." And to save his face he turned fiercely +upon the onlookers. "Get outa my galley-doors, you bloomin' +swabs!" + +This command was reinforced by a steaming kettle of water, and at +sight of it the sailors scrambled out of the way. This was a sort +of victory for Thomas Mugridge, and enabled him to accept more +gracefully the defeat I had given him, though, of course, he was +too discreet to attempt to drive the hunters away. + +"I see Cooky's finish," I heard Smoke say to Horner. + +"You bet," was the reply. "Hump runs the galley from now on, and +Cooky pulls in his horns." + +Mugridge heard and shot a swift glance at me, but I gave no sign +that the conversation had reached me. I had not thought my victory +was so far-reaching and complete, but I resolved to let go nothing +I had gained. As the days went by, Smoke's prophecy was verified. +The Cockney became more humble and slavish to me than even to Wolf +Larsen. I mistered him and sirred him no longer, washed no more +greasy pots, and peeled no more potatoes. I did my own work, and +my own work only, and when and in what fashion I saw fit. Also I +carried the dirk in a sheath at my hip, sailor-fashion, and +maintained toward Thomas Mugridge a constant attitude which was +composed of equal parts of domineering, insult, and contempt. + + + +CHAPTER X + + + +My intimacy with Wolf Larsen increases--if by intimacy may be +denoted those relations which exist between master and man, or, +better yet, between king and jester. I am to him no more than a +toy, and he values me no more than a child values a toy. My +function is to amuse, and so long as I amuse all goes well; but let +him become bored, or let him have one of his black moods come upon +him, and at once I am relegated from cabin table to galley, while, +at the same time, I am fortunate to escape with my life and a whole +body. + +The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. There +is not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom +he does not despise. He seems consuming with the tremendous power +that is in him and that seems never to have found adequate +expression in works. He is as Lucifer would be, were that proud +spirit banished to a society of soulless, Tomlinsonian ghosts. + +This loneliness is bad enough in itself, but, to make it worse, he +is oppressed by the primal melancholy of the race. Knowing him, I +review the old Scandinavian myths with clearer understanding. The +white-skinned, fair-haired savages who created that terrible +pantheon were of the same fibre as he. The frivolity of the +laughter-loving Latins is no part of him. When he laughs it is +from a humour that is nothing else than ferocious. But he laughs +rarely; he is too often sad. And it is a sadness as deep-reaching +as the roots of the race. It is the race heritage, the sadness +which has made the race sober-minded, clean-lived and fanatically +moral, and which, in this latter connection, has culminated among +the English in the Reformed Church and Mrs. Grundy. + +In point of fact, the chief vent to this primal melancholy has been +religion in its more agonizing forms. But the compensations of +such religion are denied Wolf Larsen. His brutal materialism will +not permit it. So, when his blue moods come on, nothing remains +for him, but to be devilish. Were he not so terrible a man, I +could sometimes feel sorry for him, as instance three mornings ago, +when I went into his stateroom to fill his water-bottle and came +unexpectedly upon him. He did not see me. His head was buried in +his hands, and his shoulders were heaving convulsively as with +sobs. He seemed torn by some mighty grief. As I softly withdrew I +could hear him groaning, "God! God! God!" Not that he was +calling upon God; it was a mere expletive, but it came from his +soul. + +At dinner he asked the hunters for a remedy for headache, and by +evening, strong man that he was, he was half-blind and reeling +about the cabin. + +"I've never been sick in my life, Hump," he said, as I guided him +to his room. "Nor did I ever have a headache except the time my +head was healing after having been laid open for six inches by a +capstan-bar." + +For three days this blinding headache lasted, and he suffered as +wild animals suffer, as it seemed the way on ship to suffer, +without plaint, without sympathy, utterly alone. + +This morning, however, on entering his state-room to make the bed +and put things in order, I found him well and hard at work. Table +and bunk were littered with designs and calculations. On a large +transparent sheet, compass and square in hand, he was copying what +appeared to be a scale of some sort or other. + +"Hello, Hump," he greeted me genially. "I'm just finishing the +finishing touches. Want to see it work?" + +"But what is it?" I asked. + +"A labour-saving device for mariners, navigation reduced to +kindergarten simplicity," he answered gaily. "From to-day a child +will be able to navigate a ship. No more long-winded calculations. +All you need is one star in the sky on a dirty night to know +instantly where you are. Look. I place the transparent scale on +this star-map, revolving the scale on the North Pole. On the scale +I've worked out the circles of altitude and the lines of bearing. +All I do is to put it on a star, revolve the scale till it is +opposite those figures on the map underneath, and presto! there you +are, the ship's precise location!" + +There was a ring of triumph in his voice, and his eyes, clear blue +this morning as the sea, were sparkling with light. + +"You must be well up in mathematics," I said. "Where did you go to +school?" + +"Never saw the inside of one, worse luck," was the answer. "I had +to dig it out for myself." + +"And why do you think I have made this thing?" he demanded, +abruptly. "Dreaming to leave footprints on the sands of time?" He +laughed one of his horrible mocking laughs. "Not at all. To get +it patented, to make money from it, to revel in piggishness with +all night in while other men do the work. That's my purpose. +Also, I have enjoyed working it out." + +"The creative joy," I murmured. + +"I guess that's what it ought to be called. Which is another way +of expressing the joy of life in that it is alive, the triumph of +movement over matter, of the quick over the dead, the pride of the +yeast because it is yeast and crawls." + +I threw up my hands with helpless disapproval of his inveterate +materialism and went about making the bed. He continued copying +lines and figures upon the transparent scale. It was a task +requiring the utmost nicety and precision, and I could not but +admire the way he tempered his strength to the fineness and +delicacy of the need. + +When I had finished the bed, I caught myself looking at him in a +fascinated sort of way. He was certainly a handsome man--beautiful +in the masculine sense. And again, with never-failing wonder, I +remarked the total lack of viciousness, or wickedness, or +sinfulness in his face. It was the face, I am convinced, of a man +who did no wrong. And by this I do not wish to be misunderstood. +What I mean is that it was the face of a man who either did nothing +contrary to the dictates of his conscience, or who had no +conscience. I am inclined to the latter way of accounting for it. +He was a magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive that he was +of the type that came into the world before the development of the +moral nature. He was not immoral, but merely unmoral. + +As I have said, in the masculine sense his was a beautiful face. +Smooth-shaven, every line was distinct, and it was cut as clear and +sharp as a cameo; while sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair +skin to a dark bronze which bespoke struggle and battle and added +both to his savagery and his beauty. The lips were full, yet +possessed of the firmness, almost harshness, which is +characteristic of thin lips. The set of his mouth, his chin, his +jaw, was likewise firm or harsh, with all the fierceness and +indomitableness of the male--the nose also. It was the nose of a +being born to conquer and command. It just hinted of the eagle +beak. It might have been Grecian, it might have been Roman, only +it was a shade too massive for the one, a shade too delicate for +the other. And while the whole face was the incarnation of +fierceness and strength, the primal melancholy from which he +suffered seemed to greaten the lines of mouth and eye and brow, +seemed to give a largeness and completeness which otherwise the +face would have lacked. + +And so I caught myself standing idly and studying him. I cannot +say how greatly the man had come to interest me. Who was he? What +was he? How had he happened to be? All powers seemed his, all +potentialities--why, then, was he no more than the obscure master +of a seal-hunting schooner with a reputation for frightful +brutality amongst the men who hunted seals? + +My curiosity burst from me in a flood of speech. + +"Why is it that you have not done great things in this world? With +the power that is yours you might have risen to any height. +Unpossessed of conscience or moral instinct, you might have +mastered the world, broken it to your hand. And yet here you are, +at the top of your life, where diminishing and dying begin, living +an obscure and sordid existence, hunting sea animals for the +satisfaction of woman's vanity and love of decoration, revelling in +a piggishness, to use your own words, which is anything and +everything except splendid. Why, with all that wonderful strength, +have you not done something? There was nothing to stop you, +nothing that could stop you. What was wrong? Did you lack +ambition? Did you fall under temptation? What was the matter? +What was the matter?" + +He had lifted his eyes to me at the commencement of my outburst, +and followed me complacently until I had done and stood before him +breathless and dismayed. He waited a moment, as though seeking +where to begin, and then said: + +"Hump, do you know the parable of the sower who went forth to sow? +If you will remember, some of the seed fell upon stony places, +where there was not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up +because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up +they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered +away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and +choked them." + +"Well?" I said. + +"Well?" he queried, half petulantly. "It was not well. I was one +of those seeds." + +He dropped his head to the scale and resumed the copying. I +finished my work and had opened the door to leave, when he spoke to +me. + +"Hump, if you will look on the west coast of the map of Norway you +will see an indentation called Romsdal Fiord. I was born within a +hundred miles of that stretch of water. But I was not born +Norwegian. I am a Dane. My father and mother were Danes, and how +they ever came to that bleak bight of land on the west coast I do +not know. I never heard. Outside of that there is nothing +mysterious. They were poor people and unlettered. They came of +generations of poor unlettered people--peasants of the sea who +sowed their sons on the waves as has been their custom since time +began. There is no more to tell." + +"But there is," I objected. "It is still obscure to me." + +"What can I tell you?" he demanded, with a recrudescence of +fierceness. "Of the meagreness of a child's life? of fish diet and +coarse living? of going out with the boats from the time I could +crawl? of my brothers, who went away one by one to the deep-sea +farming and never came back? of myself, unable to read or write, +cabin-boy at the mature age of ten on the coastwise, old-country +ships? of the rough fare and rougher usage, where kicks and blows +were bed and breakfast and took the place of speech, and fear and +hatred and pain were my only soul-experiences? I do not care to +remember. A madness comes up in my brain even now as I think of +it. But there were coastwise skippers I would have returned and +killed when a man's strength came to me, only the lines of my life +were cast at the time in other places. I did return, not long ago, +but unfortunately the skippers were dead, all but one, a mate in +the old days, a skipper when I met him, and when I left him a +cripple who would never walk again." + +"But you who read Spencer and Darwin and have never seen the inside +of a school, how did you learn to read and write?" I queried. + +"In the English merchant service. Cabin-boy at twelve, ship's boy +at fourteen, ordinary seamen at sixteen, able seaman at seventeen, +and cock of the fo'c'sle, infinite ambition and infinite +loneliness, receiving neither help nor sympathy, I did it all for +myself--navigation, mathematics, science, literature, and what not. +And of what use has it been? Master and owner of a ship at the top +of my life, as you say, when I am beginning to diminish and die. +Paltry, isn't it? And when the sun was up I was scorched, and +because I had no root I withered away." + +"But history tells of slaves who rose to the purple," I chided. + +"And history tells of opportunities that came to the slaves who +rose to the purple," he answered grimly. "No man makes +opportunity. All the great men ever did was to know it when it +came to them. The Corsican knew. I have dreamed as greatly as the +Corsican. I should have known the opportunity, but it never came. +The thorns sprung up and choked me. And, Hump, I can tell you that +you know more about me than any living man, except my own brother." + +"And what is he? And where is he?" + +"Master of the steamship Macedonia, seal-hunter," was the answer. +"We will meet him most probably on the Japan coast. Men call him +'Death' Larsen." + +"Death Larsen!" I involuntarily cried. "Is he like you?" + +"Hardly. He is a lump of an animal without any head. He has all +my--my--" + +"Brutishness," I suggested. + +"Yes,--thank you for the word,--all my brutishness, but he can +scarcely read or write." + +"And he has never philosophized on life," I added. + +"No," Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air of sadness. +"And he is all the happier for leaving life alone. He is too busy +living it to think about it. My mistake was in ever opening the +books." + + + +CHAPTER XI + + + +The Ghost has attained the southernmost point of the arc she is +describing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edge +away to the west and north toward some lone island, it is rumoured, +where she will fill her water-casks before proceeding to the +season's hunt along the coast of Japan. The hunters have +experimented and practised with their rifles and shotguns till they +are satisfied, and the boat-pullers and steerers have made their +spritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks in leather and sennit so +that they will make no noise when creeping on the seals, and put +their boats in apple-pie order--to use Leach's homely phrase. + +His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain +all his life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and is +afraid to venture on deck after dark. There are two or three +standing quarrels in the forecastle. Louis tells me that the +gossip of the sailors finds its way aft, and that two of the +telltales have been badly beaten by their mates. He shakes his +head dubiously over the outlook for the man Johnson, who is boat- +puller in the same boat with him. Johnson has been guilty of +speaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or three times +with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name. Johansen he +thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time +the mate has called him by his proper name. But of course it is +out of the question that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen. + +Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, +which tallies with the captain's brief description. We may expect +to meet Death Larsen on the Japan coast. "And look out for +squalls," is Louis's prophecy, "for they hate one another like the +wolf whelps they are." Death Larsen is in command of the only +sealing steamer in the fleet, the Macedonia, which carries fourteen +boats, whereas the rest of the schooners carry only six. There is +wild talk of cannon aboard, and of strange raids and expeditions +she may make, ranging from opium smuggling into the States and arms +smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open piracy. Yet I +cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a lie, while +he has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the +sealing fleets. + +As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and +aft, on this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle +ferociously for one another's lives. The hunters are looking for a +shooting scrape at any moment between Smoke and Henderson, whose +old quarrel has not healed, while Wolf Larsen says positively that +he will kill the survivor of the affair, if such affair comes off. +He frankly states that the position he takes is based on no moral +grounds, that all the hunters could kill and eat one another so far +as he is concerned, were it not that he needs them alive for the +hunting. If they will only hold their hands until the season is +over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can he +settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and +arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. I +think even the hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness. +Wicked men though they be, they are certainly very much afraid of +him. + +Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go +about in secret dread of him. His is the courage of fear,--a +strange thing I know well of myself,--and at any moment it may +master the fear and impel him to the taking of my life. My knee is +much better, though it often aches for long periods, and the +stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen squeezed. +Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in splendid +condition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing in size. +My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. They have a +parboiled appearance, are afflicted with hang-nails, while the +nails are broken and discoloured, and the edges of the quick seem +to be assuming a fungoid sort of growth. Also, I am suffering from +boils, due to the diet, most likely, for I was never afflicted in +this manner before. + +I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen +reading the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one +at the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate's +sea-chest. I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he +read aloud to me from Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he was +speaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and his +voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin, +charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but he certainly knows +how to express the significance of the written word. I can hear +him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrant +in his voice as he read: + + +"I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of +kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, +and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and +that of all sorts. + +"So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in +Jerusalem; also my wisdom returned with me. + +"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on +the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity +and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. + +"All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous +and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the +unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; +as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that +feareth an oath. + +"This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that +there is one event unto all; yea, also the heart of the sons of men +is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and +after that they go to the dead. + +"For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a +living dog is better than a dead lion. + +"For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not +anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of +them is forgotten. + +"Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now +perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything +that is done under the sun." + + +"There you have it, Hump," he said, closing the book upon his +finger and looking up at me. "The Preacher who was king over +Israel in Jerusalem thought as I think. You call me a pessimist. +Is not this pessimism of the blackest?--'All is vanity and vexation +of spirit,' 'There is no profit under the sun,' 'There is one event +unto all,' to the fool and the wise, the clean and the unclean, the +sinner and the saint, and that event is death, and an evil thing, +he says. For the Preacher loved life, and did not want to die, +saying, 'For a living dog is better than a dead lion.' He +preferred the vanity and vexation to the silence and unmovableness +of the grave. And so I. To crawl is piggish; but to not crawl, to +be as the clod and rock, is loathsome to contemplate. It is +loathsome to the life that is in me, the very essence of which is +movement, the power of movement, and the consciousness of the power +of movement. Life itself is unsatisfaction, but to look ahead to +death is greater unsatisfaction." + +"You are worse off than Omar," I said. "He, at least, after the +customary agonizing of youth, found content and made of his +materialism a joyous thing." + +"Who was Omar?" Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more work that day, +nor the next, nor the next. + +In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubaiyat, and +it was to him like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered, +possibly two-thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece out +the remainder without difficulty. We talked for hours over single +stanzas, and I found him reading into them a wail of regret and a +rebellion which, for the life of me, I could not discover myself. +Possibly I recited with a certain joyous lilt which was my own, +for--his memory was good, and at a second rendering, very often the +first, he made a quatrain his own--he recited the same lines and +invested them with an unrest and passionate revolt that was well- +nigh convincing. + +I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and was +not surprised when he hit upon the one born of an instant's +irritability, and quite at variance with the Persian's complacent +philosophy and genial code of life: + + +"What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? +And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! +Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine +Must drown the memory of that insolence!" + + +"Great!" Wolf Larsen cried. "Great! That's the keynote. +Insolence! He could not have used a better word." + +In vain I objected and denied. He deluged me, overwhelmed me with +argument. + +"It's not the nature of life to be otherwise. Life, when it knows +that it must cease living, will always rebel. It cannot help +itself. The Preacher found life and the works of life all a vanity +and vexation, an evil thing; but death, the ceasing to be able to +be vain and vexed, he found an eviler thing. Through chapter after +chapter he is worried by the one event that cometh to all alike. +So Omar, so I, so you, even you, for you rebelled against dying +when Cooky sharpened a knife for you. You were afraid to die; the +life that was in you, that composes you, that is greater than you, +did not want to die. You have talked of the instinct of +immortality. I talk of the instinct of life, which is to live, and +which, when death looms near and large, masters the instinct, so +called, of immortality. It mastered it in you (you cannot deny +it), because a crazy Cockney cook sharpened a knife. + +"You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot deny +it. If I should catch you by the throat, thus,"--his hand was +about my throat and my breath was shut off,--"and began to press +the life out of you thus, and thus, your instinct of immortality +will go glimmering, and your instinct of life, which is longing for +life, will flutter up, and you will struggle to save yourself. Eh? +I see the fear of death in your eyes. You beat the air with your +arms. You exert all your puny strength to struggle to live. Your +hand is clutching my arm, lightly it feels as a butterfly resting +there. Your chest is heaving, your tongue protruding, your skin +turning dark, your eyes swimming. 'To live! To live! To live!' +you are crying; and you are crying to live here and now, not +hereafter. You doubt your immortality, eh? Ha! ha! You are not +sure of it. You won't chance it. This life only you are certain +is real. Ah, it is growing dark and darker. It is the darkness of +death, the ceasing to be, the ceasing to feel, the ceasing to move, +that is gathering about you, descending upon you, rising around +you. Your eyes are becoming set. They are glazing. My voice +sounds faint and far. You cannot see my face. And still you +struggle in my grip. You kick with your legs. Your body draws +itself up in knots like a snake's. Your chest heaves and strains. +To live! To live! To live--" + +I heard no more. Consciousness was blotted out by the darkness he +had so graphically described, and when I came to myself I was lying +on the floor and he was smoking a cigar and regarding me +thoughtfully with that old familiar light of curiosity in his eyes. + +"Well, have I convinced you?" he demanded. "Here take a drink of +this. I want to ask you some questions." + +I rolled my head negatively on the floor. "Your arguments are too- +-er--forcible," I managed to articulate, at cost of great pain to +my aching throat. + +"You'll be all right in half-an-hour," he assured me. "And I +promise I won't use any more physical demonstrations. Get up now. +You can sit on a chair." + +And, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and the +Preacher was resumed. And half the night we sat up over it. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + + +The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. +From cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a +contagion. I scarcely know where to begin. Wolf Larsen was really +the cause of it. The relations among the men, strained and made +tense by feuds, quarrels and grudges, were in a state of unstable +equilibrium, and evil passions flared up in flame like prairie- +grass. + +Thomas Mugridge is a sneak, a spy, an informer. He has been +attempting to curry favour and reinstate himself in the good graces +of the captain by carrying tales of the men forward. He it was, I +know, that carried some of Johnson's hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. +Johnson, it seems, bought a suit of oilskins from the slop-chest +and found them to be of greatly inferior quality. Nor was he slow +in advertising the fact. The slop-chest is a sort of miniature +dry-goods store which is carried by all sealing schooners and which +is stocked with articles peculiar to the needs of the sailors. +Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from his subsequent earnings +on the sealing grounds; for, as it is with the hunters so it is +with the boat-pullers and steerers--in the place of wages they +receive a "lay," a rate of so much per skin for every skin captured +in their particular boat. + +But of Johnson's grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, so +that what I witnessed came with a shock of sudden surprise. I had +just finished sweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf +Larsen into a discussion of Hamlet, his favourite Shakespearian +character, when Johansen descended the companion stairs followed by +Johnson. The latter's cap came off after the custom of the sea, +and he stood respectfully in the centre of the cabin, swaying +heavily and uneasily to the roll of the schooner and facing the +captain. + +"Shut the doors and draw the slide," Wolf Larsen said to me. + +As I obeyed I noticed an anxious light come into Johnson's eyes, +but I did not dream of its cause. I did not dream of what was to +occur until it did occur, but he knew from the very first what was +coming and awaited it bravely. And in his action I found complete +refutation of all Wolf Larsen's materialism. The sailor Johnson +was swayed by idea, by principle, and truth, and sincerity. He was +right, he knew he was right, and he was unafraid. He would die for +the right if needs be, he would be true to himself, sincere with +his soul. And in this was portrayed the victory of the spirit over +the flesh, the indomitability and moral grandeur of the soul that +knows no restriction and rises above time and space and matter with +a surety and invincibleness born of nothing else than eternity and +immortality. + +But to return. I noticed the anxious light in Johnson's eyes, but +mistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man. +The mate, Johansen, stood away several feet to the side of him, and +fully three yards in front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the +pivotal cabin chairs. An appreciable pause fell after I had closed +the doors and drawn the slide, a pause that must have lasted fully +a minute. It was broken by Wolf Larsen. + +"Yonson," he began. + +"My name is Johnson, sir," the sailor boldly corrected. + +"Well, Johnson, then, damn you! Can you guess why I have sent for +you?" + +"Yes, and no, sir," was the slow reply. "My work is done well. +The mate knows that, and you know it, sir. So there cannot be any +complaint." + +"And is that all?" Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft, and low, +and purring. + +"I know you have it in for me," Johnson continued with his +unalterable and ponderous slowness. "You do not like me. You-- +you--" + +"Go on," Wolf Larsen prompted. "Don't be afraid of my feelings." + +"I am not afraid," the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising +through his sunburn. "If I speak not fast, it is because I have +not been from the old country as long as you. You do not like me +because I am too much of a man; that is why, sir." + +"You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you +mean, and if you know what I mean," was Wolf Larsen's retort. + +"I know English, and I know what you mean, sir," Johnson answered, +his flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English +language. + +"Johnson," Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had +gone before as introductory to the main business in hand, "I +understand you're not quite satisfied with those oilskins?" + +"No, I am not. They are no good, sir." + +"And you've been shooting off your mouth about them." + +"I say what I think, sir," the sailor answered courageously, not +failing at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that +"sir" be appended to each speech he made. + +It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. His +big fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was +positively fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson. I +noticed a black discoloration, still faintly visible, under +Johansen's eye, a mark of the thrashing he had received a few +nights before from the sailor. For the first time I began to +divine that something terrible was about to be enacted,--what, I +could not imagine. + +"Do you know what happens to men who say what you've said about my +slop-chest and me?" Wolf Larsen was demanding. + +"I know, sir," was the answer. + +"What?" Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively. + +"What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir." + +"Look at him, Hump," Wolf Larsen said to me, "look at this bit of +animated dust, this aggregation of matter that moves and breathes +and defies me and thoroughly believes itself to be compounded of +something good; that is impressed with certain human fictions such +as righteousness and honesty, and that will live up to them in +spite of all personal discomforts and menaces. What do you think +of him, Hump? What do you think of him?" + +"I think that he is a better man than you are," I answered, +impelled, somehow, with a desire to draw upon myself a portion of +the wrath I felt was about to break upon his head. "His human +fictions, as you choose to call them, make for nobility and +manhood. You have no fictions, no dreams, no ideals. You are a +pauper." + +He nodded his head with a savage pleasantness. "Quite true, Hump, +quite true. I have no fictions that make for nobility and manhood. +A living dog is better than a dead lion, say I with the Preacher. +My only doctrine is the doctrine of expediency, and it makes for +surviving. This bit of the ferment we call 'Johnson,' when he is +no longer a bit of the ferment, only dust and ashes, will have no +more nobility than any dust and ashes, while I shall still be alive +and roaring." + +"Do you know what I am going to do?" he questioned. + +I shook my head. + +"Well, I am going to exercise my prerogative of roaring and show +you how fares nobility. Watch me." + +Three yards away from Johnson he was, and sitting down. Nine feet! +And yet he left the chair in full leap, without first gaining a +standing position. He left the chair, just as he sat in it, +squarely, springing from the sitting posture like a wild animal, a +tiger, and like a tiger covered the intervening space. It was an +avalanche of fury that Johnson strove vainly to fend off. He threw +one arm down to protect the stomach, the other arm up to protect +the head; but Wolf Larsen's fist drove midway between, on the +chest, with a crushing, resounding impact. Johnson's breath, +suddenly expelled, shot from his mouth and as suddenly checked, +with the forced, audible expiration of a man wielding an axe. He +almost fell backward, and swayed from side to side in an effort to +recover his balance. + +I cannot give the further particulars of the horrible scene that +followed. It was too revolting. It turns me sick even now when I +think of it. Johnson fought bravely enough, but he was no match +for Wolf Larsen, much less for Wolf Larsen and the mate. It was +frightful. I had not imagined a human being could endure so much +and still live and struggle on. And struggle on Johnson did. Of +course there was no hope for him, not the slightest, and he knew it +as well as I, but by the manhood that was in him he could not cease +from fighting for that manhood. + +It was too much for me to witness. I felt that I should lose my +mind, and I ran up the companion stairs to open the doors and +escape on deck. But Wolf Larsen, leaving his victim for the +moment, and with one of his tremendous springs, gained my side and +flung me into the far corner of the cabin. + +"The phenomena of life, Hump," he girded at me. "Stay and watch +it. You may gather data on the immortality of the soul. Besides, +you know, we can't hurt Johnson's soul. It's only the fleeting +form we may demolish." + +It seemed centuries--possibly it was no more than ten minutes that +the beating continued. Wolf Larsen and Johansen were all about the +poor fellow. They struck him with their fists, kicked him with +their heavy shoes, knocked him down, and dragged him to his feet to +knock him down again. His eyes were blinded so that he could not +set, and the blood running from ears and nose and mouth turned the +cabin into a shambles. And when he could no longer rise they still +continued to beat and kick him where he lay. + +"Easy, Johansen; easy as she goes," Wolf Larsen finally said. + +But the beast in the mate was up and rampant, and Wolf Larsen was +compelled to brush him away with a back-handed sweep of the arm, +gentle enough, apparently, but which hurled Johansen back like a +cork, driving his head against the wall with a crash. He fell to +the floor, half stunned for the moment, breathing heavily and +blinking his eyes in a stupid sort of way. + +"Jerk open the doors,--Hump," I was commanded. + +I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a +sack of rubbish and hove him clear up the companion stairs, through +the narrow doorway, and out on deck. The blood from his nose +gushed in a scarlet stream over the feet of the helmsman, who was +none other than Louis, his boat-mate. But Louis took and gave a +spoke and gazed imperturbably into the binnacle. + +Not so was the conduct of George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. +Fore and aft there was nothing that could have surprised us more +than his consequent behaviour. He it was that came up on the poop +without orders and dragged Johnson forward, where he set about +dressing his wounds as well as he could and making him comfortable. +Johnson, as Johnson, was unrecognizable; and not only that, for his +features, as human features at all, were unrecognizable, so +discoloured and swollen had they become in the few minutes which +had elapsed between the beginning of the beating and the dragging +forward of the body. + +But of Leach's behaviour-- By the time I had finished cleansing the +cabin he had taken care of Johnson. I had come up on deck for a +breath of fresh air and to try to get some repose for my +overwrought nerves. Wolf Larsen was smoking a cigar and examining +the patent log which the Ghost usually towed astern, but which had +been hauled in for some purpose. Suddenly Leach's voice came to my +ears. It was tense and hoarse with an overmastering rage. I +turned and saw him standing just beneath the break of the poop on +the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed and white, his +eyes were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead. + +"May God damn your soul to hell, Wolf Larsen, only hell's too good +for you, you coward, you murderer, you pig!" was his opening +salutation. + +I was thunderstruck. I looked for his instant annihilation. But +it was not Wolf Larsen's whim to annihilate him. He sauntered +slowly forward to the break of the poop, and, leaning his elbow on +the corner of the cabin, gazed down thoughtfully and curiously at +the excited boy. + +And the boy indicted Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted +before. The sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the +forecastle scuttle and watched and listened. The hunters piled +pell-mell out of the steerage, but as Leach's tirade continued I +saw that there was no levity in their faces. Even they were +frightened, not at the boy's terrible words, but at his terrible +audacity. It did not seem possible that any living creature could +thus beard Wolf Larsen in his teeth. I know for myself that I was +shocked into admiration of the boy, and I saw in him the splendid +invincibleness of immortality rising above the flesh and the fears +of the flesh, as in the prophets of old, to condemn +unrighteousness. + +And such condemnation! He haled forth Wolf Larsen's soul naked to +the scorn of men. He rained upon it curses from God and High +Heaven, and withered it with a heat of invective that savoured of a +mediaeval excommunication of the Catholic Church. He ran the gamut +of denunciation, rising to heights of wrath that were sublime and +almost Godlike, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the vilest and +most indecent abuse. + +His rage was a madness. His lips were flecked with a soapy froth, +and sometimes he choked and gurgled and became inarticulate. And +through it all, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing +down, Wolf Larsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild +stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and defiance of +matter that moved, perplexed and interested him. + +Each moment I looked, and everybody looked, for him to leap upon +the boy and destroy him. But it was not his whim. His cigar went +out, and he continued to gaze silently and curiously. + +Leach had worked himself into an ecstasy of impotent rage. + +"Pig! Pig! Pig!" he was reiterating at the top of his lungs. +"Why don't you come down and kill me, you murderer? You can do it! +I ain't afraid! There's no one to stop you! Damn sight better +dead and outa your reach than alive and in your clutches! Come on, +you coward! Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!" + +It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge's erratic soul brought +him into the scene. He had been listening at the galley door, but +he now came out, ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, but +obviously to see the killing he was certain would take place. He +smirked greasily up into the face of Wolf Larsen, who seemed not to +see him. But the Cockney was unabashed, though mad, stark mad. He +turned to Leach, saying: + +"Such langwidge! Shockin'!" + +Leach's rage was no longer impotent. Here at last was something +ready to hand. And for the first time since the stabbing the +Cockney had appeared outside the galley without his knife. The +words had barely left his mouth when he was knocked down by Leach. +Three times he struggled to his feet, striving to gain the galley, +and each time was knocked down. + +"Oh, Lord!" he cried. "'Elp! 'Elp! Tyke 'im aw'y, carn't yer? +Tyke 'im aw'y!" + +The hunters laughed from sheer relief. Tragedy had dwindled, the +farce had begun. The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning and +shuffling, to watch the pummelling of the hated Cockney. And even +I felt a great joy surge up within me. I confess that I delighted +in this beating Leach was giving to Thomas Mugridge, though it was +as terrible, almost, as the one Mugridge had caused to be given to +Johnson. But the expression of Wolf Larsen's face never changed. +He did not change his position either, but continued to gaze down +with a great curiosity. For all his pragmatic certitude, it seemed +as if he watched the play and movement of life in the hope of +discovering something more about it, of discerning in its maddest +writhings a something which had hitherto escaped him,--the key to +its mystery, as it were, which would make all clear and plain. + +But the beating! It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed +in the cabin. The Cockney strove in vain to protect himself from +the infuriated boy. And in vain he strove to gain the shelter of +the cabin. He rolled toward it, grovelled toward it, fell toward +it when he was knocked down. But blow followed blow with +bewildering rapidity. He was knocked about like a shuttlecock, +until, finally, like Johnson, he was beaten and kicked as he lay +helpless on the deck. And no one interfered. Leach could have +killed him, but, having evidently filled the measure of his +vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering +and wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward. + +But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day's +programme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each +other, and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed +by a stampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column of +thick, acrid smoke--the kind always made by black powder--was +arising through the open companion-way, and down through it leaped +Wolf Larsen. The sound of blows and scuffling came to our ears. +Both men were wounded, and he was thrashing them both for having +disobeyed his orders and crippled themselves in advance of the +hunting season. In fact, they were badly wounded, and, having +thrashed them, he proceeded to operate upon them in a rough +surgical fashion and to dress their wounds. I served as assistant +while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the bullets, and +I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anaesthetics and +with no more to uphold them than a stiff tumbler of whisky. + +Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the +forecastle. It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale- +bearing which had been the cause of Johnson's beating, and from the +noise we heard, and from the sight of the bruised men next day, it +was patent that half the forecastle had soundly drubbed the other +half. + +The second dog-watch and the day were wound up by a fight between +Johansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. It was +caused by remarks of Latimer's concerning the noises made by the +mate in his sleep, and though Johansen was whipped, he kept the +steerage awake for the rest of the night while he blissfully +slumbered and fought the fight over and over again. + +As for myself, I was oppressed with nightmare. The day had been +like some horrible dream. Brutality had followed brutality, and +flaming passions and cold-blooded cruelty had driven men to seek +one another's lives, and to strive to hurt, and maim, and destroy. +My nerves were shocked. My mind itself was shocked. All my days +had been passed in comparative ignorance of the animality of man. +In fact, I had known life only in its intellectual phases. +Brutality I had experienced, but it was the brutality of the +intellect--the cutting sarcasm of Charley Furuseth, the cruel +epigrams and occasional harsh witticisms of the fellows at the +Bibelot, and the nasty remarks of some of the professors during my +undergraduate days. + +That was all. But that men should wreak their anger on others by +the bruising of the flesh and the letting of blood was something +strangely and fearfully new to me. Not for nothing had I been +called "Sissy" Van Weyden, I thought, as I tossed restlessly on my +bunk between one nightmare and another. And it seemed to me that +my innocence of the realities of life had been complete indeed. I +laughed bitterly to myself, and seemed to find in Wolf Larsen's +forbidding philosophy a more adequate explanation of life than I +found in my own. + +And I was frightened when I became conscious of the trend of my +thought. The continual brutality around me was degenerative in its +effect. It bid fair to destroy for me all that was best and +brightest in life. My reason dictated that the beating Thomas +Mugridge had received was an ill thing, and yet for the life of me +I could not prevent my soul joying in it. And even while I was +oppressed by the enormity of my sin,--for sin it was,--I chuckled +with an insane delight. I was no longer Humphrey Van Weyden. I +was Hump, cabin-boy on the schooner Ghost. Wolf Larsen was my +captain, Thomas Mugridge and the rest were my companions, and I was +receiving repeated impresses from the die which had stamped them +all. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + + +For three days I did my own work and Thomas Mugridge's too; and I +flatter myself that I did his work well. I know that it won Wolf +Larsen's approval, while the sailors beamed with satisfaction +during the brief time my regime lasted. + +"The first clean bite since I come aboard," Harrison said to me at +the galley door, as he returned the dinner pots and pans from the +forecastle. "Somehow Tommy's grub always tastes of grease, stale +grease, and I reckon he ain't changed his shirt since he left +'Frisco." + +"I know he hasn't," I answered. + +"And I'll bet he sleeps in it," Harrison added. + +"And you won't lose," I agreed. "The same shirt, and he hasn't had +it off once in all this time." + +But three days was all Wolf Larsen allowed him in which to recover +from the effects of the beating. On the fourth day, lame and sore, +scarcely able to see, so closed were his eyes, he was haled from +his bunk by the nape of the neck and set to his duty. He sniffled +and wept, but Wolf Larsen was pitiless. + +"And see that you serve no more slops," was his parting injunction. +"No more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, or +you'll get a tow over the side. Understand?" + +Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a short +lurch of the Ghost sent him staggering. In attempting to recover +himself, he reached for the iron railing which surrounded the stove +and kept the pots from sliding off; but he missed the railing, and +his hand, with his weight behind it, landed squarely on the hot +surface. There was a sizzle and odour of burning flesh, and a +sharp cry of pain. + +"Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot 'ave I done?" he wailed; sitting down in the +coal-box and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth. "W'y +'as all this come on me? It mykes me fair sick, it does, an' I try +so 'ard to go through life 'armless an' 'urtin' nobody." + +The tears were running down his puffed and discoloured cheeks, and +his face was drawn with pain. A savage expression flitted across +it. + +"Oh, 'ow I 'ate 'im! 'Ow I 'ate 'im!" he gritted out. + +"Whom?" I asked; but the poor wretch was weeping again over his +misfortunes. Less difficult it was to guess whom he hated than +whom he did not hate. For I had come to see a malignant devil in +him which impelled him to hate all the world. I sometimes thought +that he hated even himself, so grotesquely had life dealt with him, +and so monstrously. At such moments a great sympathy welled up +within me, and I felt shame that I had ever joyed in his +discomfiture or pain. Life had been unfair to him. It had played +him a scurvy trick when it fashioned him into the thing he was, and +it had played him scurvy tricks ever since. What chance had he to +be anything else than he was? And as though answering my unspoken +thought, he wailed: + +"I never 'ad no chance, not 'arf a chance! 'Oo was there to send +me to school, or put tommy in my 'ungry belly, or wipe my bloody +nose for me, w'en I was a kiddy? 'Oo ever did anything for me, +heh? 'Oo, I s'y?" + +"Never mind, Tommy," I said, placing a soothing hand on his +shoulder. "Cheer up. It'll all come right in the end. You've +long years before you, and you can make anything you please of +yourself." + +"It's a lie! a bloody lie!" he shouted in my face, flinging off the +hand. "It's a lie, and you know it. I'm already myde, an' myde +out of leavin's an' scraps. It's all right for you, 'Ump. You was +born a gentleman. You never knew wot it was to go 'ungry, to cry +yerself asleep with yer little belly gnawin' an' gnawin', like a +rat inside yer. It carn't come right. If I was President of the +United Stytes to-morrer, 'ow would it fill my belly for one time +w'en I was a kiddy and it went empty? + +"'Ow could it, I s'y? I was born to sufferin' and sorrer. I've +had more cruel sufferin' than any ten men, I 'ave. I've been in +orspital arf my bleedin' life. I've 'ad the fever in Aspinwall, in +'Avana, in New Orleans. I near died of the scurvy and was rotten +with it six months in Barbadoes. Smallpox in 'Onolulu, two broken +legs in Shanghai, pnuemonia in Unalaska, three busted ribs an' my +insides all twisted in 'Frisco. An' 'ere I am now. Look at me! +Look at me! My ribs kicked loose from my back again. I'll be +coughin' blood before eyght bells. 'Ow can it be myde up to me, I +arsk? 'Oo's goin' to do it? Gawd? 'Ow Gawd must 'ave 'ated me +w'en 'e signed me on for a voyage in this bloomin' world of 'is!" + +This tirade against destiny went on for an hour or more, and then +he buckled to his work, limping and groaning, and in his eyes a +great hatred for all created things. His diagnosis was correct, +however, for he was seized with occasional sicknesses, during which +he vomited blood and suffered great pain. And as he said, it +seemed God hated him too much to let him die, for he ultimately +grew better and waxed more malignant than ever. + +Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went +about his work in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, and +I more than once observed him creeping painfully aloft to a +topsail, or drooping wearily as he stood at the wheel. But, still +worse, it seemed that his spirit was broken. He was abject before +Wolf Larsen and almost grovelled to Johansen. Not so was the +conduct of Leach. He went about the deck like a tiger cub, glaring +his hatred openly at Wolf Larsen and Johansen. + +"I'll do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede," I heard him say to +Johansen one night on deck. + +The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment some +missile struck the galley a sharp rap. There was more cursing, and +a mocking laugh, and when all was quiet I stole outside and found a +heavy knife imbedded over an inch in the solid wood. A few minutes +later the mate came fumbling about in search of it, but I returned +it privily to Leach next day. He grinned when I handed it over, +yet it was a grin that contained more sincere thanks than a +multitude of the verbosities of speech common to the members of my +own class. + +Unlike any one else in the ship's company, I now found myself with +no quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of all. The hunters +possibly no more than tolerated me, though none of them disliked +me; while Smoke and Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning and +swinging day and night in their hammocks, assured me that I was +better than any hospital nurse, and that they would not forget me +at the end of the voyage when they were paid off. (As though I +stood in need of their money! I, who could have bought them out, +bag and baggage, and the schooner and its equipment, a score of +times over!) But upon me had devolved the task of tending their +wounds, and pulling them through, and I did my best by them. + +Wolf Larsen underwent another bad attack of headache which lasted +two days. He must have suffered severely, for he called me in and +obeyed my commands like a sick child. But nothing I could do +seemed to relieve him. At my suggestion, however, he gave up +smoking and drinking; though why such a magnificent animal as he +should have headaches at all puzzles me. + +"'Tis the hand of God, I'm tellin' you," is the way Louis sees it. +"'Tis a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, and there's more +behind and comin', or else--" + +"Or else," I prompted. + +"God is noddin' and not doin' his duty, though it's me as shouldn't +say it." + +I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all. +Not only does Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but he has +discovered a new reason for hating me. It took me no little while +to puzzle it out, but I finally discovered that it was because I +was more luckily born than he--"gentleman born," he put it. + +"And still no more dead men," I twitted Louis, when Smoke and +Henderson, side by side, in friendly conversation, took their first +exercise on deck. + +Louis surveyed me with his shrewd grey eyes, and shook his head +portentously. "She's a-comin', I tell you, and it'll be sheets and +halyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. I've had +the feel iv it this long time, and I can feel it now as plainly as +I feel the rigging iv a dark night. She's close, she's close." + +"Who goes first?" I queried. + +"Not fat old Louis, I promise you," he laughed. "For 'tis in the +bones iv me I know that come this time next year I'll be gazin' in +the old mother's eyes, weary with watchin' iv the sea for the five +sons she gave to it." + +"Wot's 'e been s'yin' to yer?" Thomas Mugridge demanded a moment +later. + +"That he's going home some day to see his mother," I answered +diplomatically. + +"I never 'ad none," was the Cockney's comment, as he gazed with +lustreless, hopeless eyes into mine. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + + +It has dawned upon me that I have never placed a proper valuation +upon womankind. For that matter, though not amative to any +considerable degree so far as I have discovered, I was never +outside the atmosphere of women until now. My mother and sisters +were always about me, and I was always trying to escape them; for +they worried me to distraction with their solicitude for my health +and with their periodic inroads on my den, when my orderly +confusion, upon which I prided myself, was turned into worse +confusion and less order, though it looked neat enough to the eye. +I never could find anything when they had departed. But now, alas, +how welcome would have been the feel of their presence, the frou- +frou and swish-swish of their skirts which I had so cordially +detested! I am sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never be +irritable with them again. They may dose me and doctor me morning, +noon, and night, and dust and sweep and put my den to rights every +minute of the day, and I shall only lean back and survey it all and +be thankful in that I am possessed of a mother and some several +sisters. + +All of which has set me wondering. Where are the mothers of these +twenty and odd men on the Ghost? It strikes me as unnatural and +unhealthful that men should be totally separated from women and +herd through the world by themselves. Coarseness and savagery are +the inevitable results. These men about me should have wives, and +sisters, and daughters; then would they be capable of softness, and +tenderness, and sympathy. As it is, not one of them is married. +In years and years not one of them has been in contact with a good +woman, or within the influence, or redemption, which irresistibly +radiates from such a creature. There is no balance in their lives. +Their masculinity, which in itself is of the brute, has been over- +developed. The other and spiritual side of their natures has been +dwarfed--atrophied, in fact. + +They are a company of celibates, grinding harshly against one +another and growing daily more calloused from the grinding. It +seems to me impossible sometimes that they ever had mothers. It +would appear that they are a half-brute, half-human species, a race +apart, wherein there is no such thing as sex; that they are hatched +out by the sun like turtle eggs, or receive life in some similar +and sordid fashion; and that all their days they fester in +brutality and viciousness, and in the end die as unlovely as they +have lived. + +Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with +Johansen last night--the first superfluous words with which he has +favoured me since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he was +eighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time has +not been home once. He had met a townsman, a couple of years +before, in some sailor boarding-house in Chile, so that he knew his +mother to be still alive. + +"She must be a pretty old woman now," he said, staring meditatively +into the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, who +was steering a point off the course. + +"When did you last write to her?" + +He performed his mental arithmetic aloud. "Eighty-one; no--eighty- +two, eh? no--eighty-three? Yes, eighty-three. Ten years ago. +From some little port in Madagascar. I was trading. + +"You see," he went on, as though addressing his neglected mother +across half the girth of the earth, "each year I was going home. +So what was the good to write? It was only a year. And each year +something happened, and I did not go. But I am mate, now, and when +I pay off at 'Frisco, maybe with five hundred dollars, I will ship +myself on a windjammer round the Horn to Liverpool, which will give +me more money; and then I will pay my passage from there home. +Then she will not do any more work." + +"But does she work? now? How old is she?" + +"About seventy," he answered. And then, boastingly, "We work from +the time we are born until we die, in my country. That's why we +live so long. I will live to a hundred." + +I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the last I +ever heard him utter. Perhaps they were the last he did utter, +too. For, going down into the cabin to turn in, I decided that it +was too stuffy to sleep below. It was a calm night. We were out +of the Trades, and the Ghost was forging ahead barely a knot an +hour. So I tucked a blanket and pillow under my arm and went up on +deck. + +As I passed between Harrison and the binnacle, which was built into +the top of the cabin, I noticed that he was this time fully three +points off. Thinking that he was asleep, and wishing him to escape +reprimand or worse, I spoke to him. But he was not asleep. His +eyes were wide and staring. He seemed greatly perturbed, unable to +reply to me. + +"What's the matter?" I asked. "Are you sick?" + +He shook his head, and with a deep sign as of awakening, caught his +breath. + +"You'd better get on your course, then," I chided. + +He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing +slowly to N.N.W. and steady itself with slight oscillations. + +I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start on, +when some movement caught my eye and I looked astern to the rail. +A sinewy hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail. A +second hand took form in the darkness beside it. I watched, +fascinated. What visitant from the gloom of the deep was I to +behold? Whatever it was, I knew that it was climbing aboard by the +log-line. I saw a head, the hair wet and straight, shape itself, +and then the unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf Larsen. His right +cheek was red with blood, which flowed from some wound in the head. + +He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet, +glancing swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel, as though +to assure himself of his identity and that there was nothing to +fear from him. The sea-water was streaming from him. It made +little audible gurgles which distracted me. As he stepped toward +me I shrank back instinctively, for I saw that in his eyes which +spelled death. + +"All right, Hump," he said in a low voice. "Where's the mate?" + +I shook my head. + +"Johansen!" he called softly. "Johansen!" + +"Where is he?" he demanded of Harrison. + +The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for he +answered steadily enough, "I don't know, sir. I saw him go for'ard +a little while ago." + +"So did I go for'ard. But you will observe that I didn't come back +the way I went. Can you explain it?" + +"You must have been overboard, sir." + +"Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?" I asked. + +Wolf Larsen shook his head. "You wouldn't find him, Hump. But +you'll do. Come on. Never mind your bedding. Leave it where it +is." + +I followed at his heels. There was nothing stirring amidships. + +"Those cursed hunters," was his comment. "Too damned fat and lazy +to stand a four-hour watch." + +But on the forecastle-head we found three sailors asleep. He +turned them over and looked at their faces. They composed the +watch on deck, and it was the ship's custom, in good weather, to +let the watch sleep with the exception of the officer, the +helmsman, and the look-out. + +"Who's look-out?" he demanded. + +"Me, sir," answered Holyoak, one of the deep-water sailors, a +slight tremor in his voice. "I winked off just this very minute, +sir. I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again." + +"Did you hear or see anything on deck?" + +"No, sir, I--" + +But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leaving +the sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let of so +easily. + +"Softly, now," Wolf Larsen warned me in a whisper, as he doubled +his body into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend. + +I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew no more +than did I know what had happened. But blood had been shed, and it +was through no whim of Wolf Larsen that he had gone over the side +with his scalp laid open. Besides, Johansen was missing. + +It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not soon +forget my impression of it, caught as I stood on my feet at the +bottom of the ladder. Built directly in the eyes of the schooner, +it was of the shape of a triangle, along the three sides of which +stood the bunks, in double-tier, twelve of them. It was no larger +than a hall bedroom in Grub Street, and yet twelve men were herded +into it to eat and sleep and carry on all the functions of living. +My bedroom at home was not large, yet it could have contained a +dozen similar forecastles, and taking into consideration the height +of the ceiling, a score at least. + +It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging +sea-lamp I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep with +sea-boots, oilskins, and garments, clean and dirty, of various +sorts. These swung back and forth with every roll of the vessel, +giving rise to a brushing sound, as of trees against a roof or +wall. Somewhere a boot thumped loudly and at irregular intervals +against the wall; and, though it was a mild night on the sea, there +was a continual chorus of the creaking timbers and bulkheads and of +abysmal noises beneath the flooring. + +The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them,--the two +watches below,--and the air was thick with the warmth and odour of +their breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their +snoring and of their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the +rest of the animal-man. But were they sleeping? all of them? Or +had they been sleeping? This was evidently Wolf Larsen's quest--to +find the men who appeared to be asleep and who were not asleep or +who had not been asleep very recently. And he went about it in a +way that reminded me of a story out of Boccaccio. + +He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it to me. +He began at the first bunks forward on the star-board side. In the +top one lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and splendid seaman, so named by +his mates. He was asleep on his back and breathing as placidly as +a woman. One arm was under his head, the other lay on top of the +blankets. Wolf Larsen put thumb and forefinger to the wrist and +counted the pulse. In the midst of it the Kanaka roused. He awoke +as gently as he slept. There was no movement of the body whatever. +The eyes, only, moved. They flashed wide open, big and black, and +stared, unblinking, into our faces. Wolf Larsen put his finger to +his lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes closed again. + +In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty, +asleep unfeignedly and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsen +held his wrist he stirred uneasily, bowing his body so that for a +moment it rested on shoulders and heels. His lips moved, and he +gave voice to this enigmatic utterance: + +"A shilling's worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out for +thruppenny-bits, or the publicans 'll shove 'em on you for +sixpence." + +Then he rolled over on his side with a heavy, sobbing sigh, saying: + +"A sixpence is a tanner, and a shilling a bob; but what a pony is I +don't know." + +Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka's sleep, Wolf +Larsen passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side, +occupied top and bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, by +Leach and Johnson. + +As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson's pulse, +I, standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach's head rise +stealthily as he peered over the side of his bunk to see what was +going on. He must have divined Wolf Larsen's trick and the +sureness of detection, for the light was at once dashed from my +hand and the forecastle was left in darkness. He must have leaped, +also, at the same instant, straight down on Wolf Larsen. + +The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and a +wolf. I heard a great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen, +and from Leach a snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling. +Johnson must have joined him immediately, so that his abject and +grovelling conduct on deck for the past few days had been no more +than planned deception. + +I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned +against the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon me +was that old sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always by +the spectacle of physical violence. In this instance I could not +see, but I could hear the impact of the blows--the soft crushing +sound made by flesh striking forcibly against flesh. Then there +was the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the laboured +breathing, the short quick gasps of sudden pain. + +There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the +captain and mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnson +had been quickly reinforced by some of their mates. + +"Get a knife somebody!" Leach was shouting. + +"Pound him on the head! Mash his brains out!" was Johnson's cry. + +But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. He was +fighting grimly and silently for life. He was sore beset. Down at +the very first, he had been unable to gain his feet, and for all of +his tremendous strength I felt that there was no hope for him. + +The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on me; +for I was knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised. +But in the confusion I managed to crawl into an empty lower bunk +out of the way. + +"All hands! We've got him! We've got him!" I could hear Leach +crying. + +"Who?" demanded those who had been really asleep, and who had +wakened to they knew not what. + +"It's the bloody mate!" was Leach's crafty answer, strained from +him in a smothered sort of way. + +This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf Larsen +had seven strong men on top of him, Louis, I believe, taking no +part in it. The forecastle was like an angry hive of bees aroused +by some marauder. + +"What ho! below there!" I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle, too +cautious to descend into the inferno of passion he could hear +raging beneath him in the darkness. + +"Won't somebody get a knife? Oh, won't somebody get a knife?" +Leach pleaded in the first interval of comparative silence. + +The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. They +blocked their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single +purpose, achieved his. This was to fight his way across the floor +to the ladder. Though in total darkness, I followed his progress +by its sound. No man less than a giant could have done what he +did, once he had gained the foot of the ladder. Step by step, by +the might of his arms, the whole pack of men striving to drag him +back and down, he drew his body up from the floor till he stood +erect. And then, step by step, hand and foot, he slowly struggled +up the ladder. + +The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone for +a lantern, held it so that its light shone down the scuttle. Wolf +Larsen was nearly to the top, though I could not see him. All that +was visible was the mass of men fastened upon him. It squirmed +about, like some huge many-legged spider, and swayed back and forth +to the regular roll of the vessel. And still, step by step with +long intervals between, the mass ascended. Once it tottered, about +to fall back, but the broken hold was regained and it still went +up. + +"Who is it?" Latimer cried. + +In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peering +down. + +"Larsen," I heard a muffled voice from within the mass. + +Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot up to +clasp his. Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps were made +with a rush. Then Wolf Larsen's other hand reached up and clutched +the edge of the scuttle. The mass swung clear of the ladder, the +men still clinging to their escaping foe. They began to drop of, +to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the scuttle, to be +knocked off by the legs which were now kicking powerfully. Leach +was the last to go, falling sheer back from the top of the scuttle +and striking on head and shoulders upon his sprawling mates +beneath. Wolf Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we were left +in darkness. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + + +There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom +of the ladder crawled to their feet. + +"Somebody strike a light, my thumb's out of joint," said one of the +men, Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat-steerer in Standish's +boat, in which Harrison was puller. + +"You'll find it knockin' about by the bitts," Leach said, sitting +down on the edge of the bunk in which I was concealed. + +There was a fumbling and a scratching of matches, and the sea-lamp +flared up, dim and smoky, and in its weird light bare-legged men +moved about nursing their bruises and caring for their hurts. +Oofty-Oofty laid hold of Parsons's thumb, pulling it out stoutly +and snapping it back into place. I noticed at the same time that +the Kanaka's knuckles were laid open clear across and to the bone. +He exhibited them, exposing beautiful white teeth in a grin as he +did so, and explaining that the wounds had come from striking Wolf +Larsen in the mouth. + +"So it was you, was it, you black beggar?" belligerently demanded +one Kelly, an Irish-American and a longshoreman, making his first +trip to sea, and boat-puller for Kerfoot. + +As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and +shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty. The Kanaka leaped +backward to his bunk, to return with a second leap, flourishing a +long knife. + +"Aw, go lay down, you make me tired," Leach interfered. He was +evidently, for all of his youth and inexperience, cock of the +forecastle. "G'wan, you Kelly. You leave Oofty alone. How in +hell did he know it was you in the dark?" + +Kelly subsided with some muttering, and the Kanaka flashed his +white teeth in a grateful smile. He was a beautiful creature, +almost feminine in the pleasing lines of his figure, and there was +a softness and dreaminess in his large eyes which seemed to +contradict his well-earned reputation for strife and action. + +"How did he get away?" Johnson asked. + +He was sitting on the side of his bunk, the whole pose of his +figure indicating utter dejection and hopelessness. He was still +breathing heavily from the exertion he had made. His shirt had +been ripped entirely from him in the struggle, and blood from a +gash in the cheek was flowing down his naked chest, marking a red +path across his white thigh and dripping to the floor. + +"Because he is the devil, as I told you before," was Leach's +answer; and thereat he was on his feet and raging his +disappointment with tears in his eyes. + +"And not one of you to get a knife!" was his unceasing lament. + +But the rest of the hands had a lively fear of consequences to come +and gave no heed to him. + +"How'll he know which was which?" Kelly asked, and as he went on he +looked murderously about him--"unless one of us peaches." + +"He'll know as soon as ever he claps eyes on us," Parsons replied. +"One look at you'd be enough." + +"Tell him the deck flopped up and gouged yer teeth out iv yer jaw," +Louis grinned. He was the only man who was not out of his bunk, +and he was jubilant in that he possessed no bruises to advertise +that he had had a hand in the night's work. "Just wait till he +gets a glimpse iv yer mugs to-morrow, the gang iv ye," he chuckled. + +"We'll say we thought it was the mate," said one. And another, "I +know what I'll say--that I heered a row, jumped out of my bunk, got +a jolly good crack on the jaw for my pains, and sailed in myself. +Couldn't tell who or what it was in the dark and just hit out." + +"An' 'twas me you hit, of course," Kelly seconded, his face +brightening for the moment. + +Leach and Johnson took no part in the discussion, and it was plain +to see that their mates looked upon them as men for whom the worst +was inevitable, who were beyond hope and already dead. Leach stood +their fears and reproaches for some time. Then he broke out: + +"You make me tired! A nice lot of gazabas you are! If you talked +less with yer mouth and did something with yer hands, he'd a-ben +done with by now. Why couldn't one of you, just one of you, get me +a knife when I sung out? You make me sick! A-beefin' and +bellerin' 'round, as though he'd kill you when he gets you! You +know damn well he wont. Can't afford to. No shipping masters or +beach-combers over here, and he wants yer in his business, and he +wants yer bad. Who's to pull or steer or sail ship if he loses +yer? It's me and Johnson have to face the music. Get into yer +bunks, now, and shut yer faces; I want to get some sleep." + +"That's all right all right," Parsons spoke up. "Mebbe he won't do +for us, but mark my words, hell 'll be an ice-box to this ship from +now on." + +All the while I had been apprehensive concerning my own +predicament. What would happen to me when these men discovered my +presence? I could never fight my way out as Wolf Larsen had done. +And at this moment Latimer called down the scuttles: + +"Hump! The old man wants you!" + +"He ain't down here!" Parsons called back. + +"Yes, he is," I said, sliding out of the bunk and striving my +hardest to keep my voice steady and bold. + +The sailors looked at me in consternation. Fear was strong in +their faces, and the devilishness which comes of fear. + +"I'm coming!" I shouted up to Latimer. + +"No you don't!" Kelly cried, stepping between me and the ladder, +his right hand shaped into a veritable strangler's clutch. "You +damn little sneak! I'll shut yer mouth!" + +"Let him go," Leach commanded. + +"Not on yer life," was the angry retort. + +Leach never changed his position on the edge of the bunk. "Let him +go, I say," he repeated; but this time his voice was gritty and +metallic. + +The Irishman wavered. I made to step by him, and he stood aside. +When I had gained the ladder, I turned to the circle of brutal and +malignant faces peering at me through the semi-darkness. A sudden +and deep sympathy welled up in me. I remembered the Cockney's way +of putting it. How God must have hated them that they should be +tortured so! + +"I have seen and heard nothing, believe me," I said quietly. + +"I tell yer, he's all right," I could hear Leach saying as I went +up the ladder. "He don't like the old man no more nor you or me." + +I found Wolf Larsen in the cabin, stripped and bloody, waiting for +me. He greeted me with one of his whimsical smiles. + +"Come, get to work, Doctor. The signs are favourable for an +extensive practice this voyage. I don't know what the Ghost would +have been without you, and if I could only cherish such noble +sentiments I would tell you her master is deeply grateful." + +I knew the run of the simple medicine-chest the Ghost carried, and +while I was heating water on the cabin stove and getting the things +ready for dressing his wounds, he moved about, laughing and +chatting, and examining his hurts with a calculating eye. I had +never before seen him stripped, and the sight of his body quite +took my breath away. It has never been my weakness to exalt the +flesh--far from it; but there is enough of the artist in me to +appreciate its wonder. + +I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf +Larsen's figure, and by what I may term the terrible beauty of it. +I had noted the men in the forecastle. Powerfully muscled though +some of them were, there had been something wrong with all of them, +an insufficient development here, an undue development there, a +twist or a crook that destroyed symmetry, legs too short or too +long, or too much sinew or bone exposed, or too little. Oofty- +Oofty had been the only one whose lines were at all pleasing, +while, in so far as they pleased, that far had they been what I +should call feminine. + +But Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god +in his perfectness. As he moved about or raised his arms the great +muscles leapt and moved under the satiny skin. I have forgotten to +say that the bronze ended with his face. His body, thanks to his +Scandinavian stock, was fair as the fairest woman's. I remember +his putting his hand up to feel of the wound on his head, and my +watching the biceps move like a living thing under its white +sheath. It was the biceps that had nearly crushed out my life +once, that I had seen strike so many killing blows. I could not +take my eyes from him. I stood motionless, a roll of antiseptic +cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling itself down to the floor. + +He noticed me, and I became conscious that I was staring at him. + +"God made you well," I said. + +"Did he?" he answered. "I have often thought so myself, and +wondered why." + +"Purpose--" I began. + +"Utility," he interrupted. "This body was made for use. These +muscles were made to grip, and tear, and destroy living things that +get between me and life. But have you thought of the other living +things? They, too, have muscles, of one kind and another, made to +grip, and tear, and destroy; and when they come between me and +life, I out-grip them, out-tear them, out-destroy them. Purpose +does not explain that. Utility does." + +"It is not beautiful," I protested. + +"Life isn't, you mean," he smiled. "Yet you say I was made well. +Do you see this?" + +He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes +in a clutching sort of way. Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles +writhed and bunched under the skin. + +"Feel them," he commanded. + +They were hard as iron. And I observed, also, that his whole body +had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that +muscles were softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the +back, and across the shoulders; that the arms were slightly lifted, +their muscles contracting, the fingers crooking till the hands were +like talons; and that even the eyes had changed expression and into +them were coming watchfulness and measurement and a light none +other than of battle. + +"Stability, equilibrium," he said, relaxing on the instant and +sinking his body back into repose. "Feet with which to clutch the +ground, legs to stand on and to help withstand, while with arms and +hands, teeth and nails, I struggle to kill and to be not killed. +Purpose? Utility is the better word." + +I did not argue. I had seen the mechanism of the primitive +fighting beast, and I was as strongly impressed as if I had seen +the engines of a great battleship or Atlantic liner. + +I was surprised, considering the fierce struggle in the forecastle, +at the superficiality of his hurts, and I pride myself that I +dressed them dexterously. With the exception of several bad +wounds, the rest were merely severe bruises and lacerations. The +blow which he had received before going overboard had laid his +scalp open several inches. This, under his direction, I cleansed +and sewed together, having first shaved the edges of the wound. +Then the calf of his leg was badly lacerated and looked as though +it had been mangled by a bulldog. Some sailor, he told me, had +laid hold of it by his teeth, at the beginning of the fight, and +hung on and been dragged to the top of the forecastle ladder, when +he was kicked loose. + +"By the way, Hump, as I have remarked, you are a handy man," Wolf +Larsen began, when my work was done. "As you know, we're short a +mate. Hereafter you shall stand watches, receive seventy-five +dollars per month, and be addressed fore and aft as Mr. Van +Weyden." + +"I--I don't understand navigation, you know," I gasped. + +"Not necessary at all." + +"I really do not care to sit in the high places," I objected. "I +find life precarious enough in my present humble situation. I have +no experience. Mediocrity, you see, has its compensations." + +He smiled as though it were all settled. + +"I won't be mate on this hell-ship!" I cried defiantly. + +I saw his face grow hard and the merciless glitter come into his +eyes. He walked to the door of his room, saying: + +"And now, Mr. Van Weyden, good-night." + +"Good-night, Mr. Larsen," I answered weakly. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + + +I cannot say that the position of mate carried with it anything +more joyful than that there were no more dishes to wash. I was +ignorant of the simplest duties of mate, and would have fared badly +indeed, had the sailors not sympathized with me. I knew nothing of +the minutiae of ropes and rigging, of the trimming and setting of +sails; but the sailors took pains to put me to rights,--Louis +proving an especially good teacher,--and I had little trouble with +those under me. + +With the hunters it was otherwise. Familiar in varying degree with +the sea, they took me as a sort of joke. In truth, it was a joke +to me, that I, the veriest landsman, should be filling the office +of mate; but to be taken as a joke by others was a different +matter. I made no complaint, but Wolf Larsen demanded the most +punctilious sea etiquette in my case,--far more than poor Johansen +had ever received; and at the expense of several rows, threats, and +much grumbling, he brought the hunters to time. I was "Mr. Van +Weyden" fore and aft, and it was only unofficially that Wolf Larsen +himself ever addressed me as "Hump." + +It was amusing. Perhaps the wind would haul a few points while we +were at dinner, and as I left the table he would say, "Mr. Van +Weyden, will you kindly put about on the port tack." And I would +go on deck, beckon Louis to me, and learn from him what was to be +done. Then, a few minutes later, having digested his instructions +and thoroughly mastered the manoeuvre, I would proceed to issue my +orders. I remember an early instance of this kind, when Wolf +Larsen appeared on the scene just as I had begun to give orders. +He smoked his cigar and looked on quietly till the thing was +accomplished, and then paced aft by my side along the weather poop. + +"Hump," he said, "I beg pardon, Mr. Van Weyden, I congratulate you. +I think you can now fire your father's legs back into the grave to +him. You've discovered your own and learned to stand on them. A +little rope-work, sail-making, and experience with storms and such +things, and by the end of the voyage you could ship on any coasting +schooner." + +It was during this period, between the death of Johansen and the +arrival on the sealing grounds, that I passed my pleasantest hours +on the Ghost. Wolf Larsen was quite considerate, the sailors +helped me, and I was no longer in irritating contact with Thomas +Mugridge. And I make free to say, as the days went by, that I +found I was taking a certain secret pride in myself. Fantastic as +the situation was,--a land-lubber second in command,--I was, +nevertheless, carrying it off well; and during that brief time I +was proud of myself, and I grew to love the heave and roll of the +Ghost under my feet as she wallowed north and west through the +tropic sea to the islet where we filled our water-casks. + +But my happiness was not unalloyed. It was comparative, a period +of less misery slipped in between a past of great miseries and a +future of great miseries. For the Ghost, so far as the seamen were +concerned, was a hell-ship of the worst description. They never +had a moment's rest or peace. Wolf Larsen treasured against them +the attempt on his life and the drubbing he had received in the +forecastle; and morning, noon, and night, and all night as well, he +devoted himself to making life unlivable for them. + +He knew well the psychology of the little thing, and it was the +little things by which he kept the crew worked up to the verge of +madness. I have seen Harrison called from his bunk to put properly +away a misplaced paintbrush, and the two watches below haled from +their tired sleep to accompany him and see him do it. A little +thing, truly, but when multiplied by the thousand ingenious devices +of such a mind, the mental state of the men in the forecastle may +be slightly comprehended. + +Of course much grumbling went on, and little outbursts were +continually occurring. Blows were struck, and there were always +two or three men nursing injuries at the hands of the human beast +who was their master. Concerted action was impossible in face of +the heavy arsenal of weapons carried in the steerage and cabin. +Leach and Johnson were the two particular victims of Wolf Larsen's +diabolic temper, and the look of profound melancholy which had +settled on Johnson's face and in his eyes made my heart bleed. + +With Leach it was different. There was too much of the fighting +beast in him. He seemed possessed by an insatiable fury which gave +no time for grief. His lips had become distorted into a permanent +snarl, which at mere sight of Wolf Larsen broke out in sound, +horrible and menacing and, I do believe, unconsciously. I have +seen him follow Wolf Larsen about with his eyes, like an animal its +keeper, the while the animal-like snarl sounded deep in his throat +and vibrated forth between his teeth. + +I remember once, on deck, in bright day, touching him on the +shoulder as preliminary to giving an order. His back was toward +me, and at the first feel of my hand he leaped upright in the air +and away from me, snarling and turning his head as he leaped. He +had for the moment mistaken me for the man he hated. + +Both he and Johnson would have killed Wolf Larsen at the slightest +opportunity, but the opportunity never came. Wolf Larsen was too +wise for that, and, besides, they had no adequate weapons. With +their fists alone they had no chance whatever. Time and again he +fought it out with Leach who fought back always, like a wildcat, +tooth and nail and fist, until stretched, exhausted or unconscious, +on the deck. And he was never averse to another encounter. All +the devil that was in him challenged the devil in Wolf Larsen. +They had but to appear on deck at the same time, when they would be +at it, cursing, snarling, striking; and I have seen Leach fling +himself upon Wolf Larsen without warning or provocation. Once he +threw his heavy sheath-knife, missing Wolf Larsen's throat by an +inch. Another time he dropped a steel marlinspike from the mizzen +crosstree. It was a difficult cast to make on a rolling ship, but +the sharp point of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through +the air, barely missed Wolf Larsen's head as he emerged from the +cabin companion-way and drove its length two inches and over into +the solid deck-planking. Still another time, he stole into the +steerage, possessed himself of a loaded shot-gun, and was making a +rush for the deck with it when caught by Kerfoot and disarmed. + +I often wondered why Wolf Larsen did not kill him and make an end +of it. But he only laughed and seemed to enjoy it. There seemed a +certain spice about it, such as men must feel who take delight in +making pets of ferocious animals. + +"It gives a thrill to life," he explained to me, "when life is +carried in one's hand. Man is a natural gambler, and life is the +biggest stake he can lay. The greater the odds, the greater the +thrill. Why should I deny myself the joy of exciting Leach's soul +to fever-pitch? For that matter, I do him a kindness. The +greatness of sensation is mutual. He is living more royally than +any man for'ard, though he does not know it. For he has what they +have not--purpose, something to do and be done, an all-absorbing +end to strive to attain, the desire to kill me, the hope that he +may kill me. Really, Hump, he is living deep and high. I doubt +that he has ever lived so swiftly and keenly before, and I honestly +envy him, sometimes, when I see him raging at the summit of passion +and sensibility." + +"Ah, but it is cowardly, cowardly!" I cried. "You have all the +advantage." + +"Of the two of us, you and I, who is the greater coward?" he asked +seriously. "If the situation is unpleasing, you compromise with +your conscience when you make yourself a party to it. If you were +really great, really true to yourself, you would join forces with +Leach and Johnson. But you are afraid, you are afraid. You want +to live. The life that is in you cries out that it must live, no +matter what the cost; so you live ignominiously, untrue to the best +you dream of, sinning against your whole pitiful little code, and, +if there were a hell, heading your soul straight for it. Bah! I +play the braver part. I do no sin, for I am true to the promptings +of the life that is in me. I am sincere with my soul at least, and +that is what you are not." + +There was a sting in what he said. Perhaps, after all, I was +playing a cowardly part. And the more I thought about it the more +it appeared that my duty to myself lay in doing what he had +advised, lay in joining forces with Johnson and Leach and working +for his death. Right here, I think, entered the austere conscience +of my Puritan ancestry, impelling me toward lurid deeds and +sanctioning even murder as right conduct. I dwelt upon the idea. +It would be a most moral act to rid the world of such a monster. +Humanity would be better and happier for it, life fairer and +sweeter. + +I pondered it long, lying sleepless in my bunk and reviewing in +endless procession the facts of the situation. I talked with +Johnson and Leach, during the night watches when Wolf Larsen was +below. Both men had lost hope--Johnson, because of temperamental +despondency; Leach, because he had beaten himself out in the vain +struggle and was exhausted. But he caught my hand in a passionate +grip one night, saying: + +"I think yer square, Mr. Van Weyden. But stay where you are and +keep yer mouth shut. Say nothin' but saw wood. We're dead men, I +know it; but all the same you might be able to do us a favour some +time when we need it damn bad." + +It was only next day, when Wainwright Island loomed to windward, +close abeam, that Wolf Larsen opened his mouth in prophecy. He had +attacked Johnson, been attacked by Leach, and had just finished +whipping the pair of them. + +"Leach," he said, "you know I'm going to kill you some time or +other, don't you?" + +A snarl was the answer. + +"And as for you, Johnson, you'll get so tired of life before I'm +through with you that you'll fling yourself over the side. See if +you don't." + +"That's a suggestion," he added, in an aside to me. "I'll bet you +a month's pay he acts upon it." + +I had cherished a hope that his victims would find an opportunity +to escape while filling our water-barrels, but Wolf Larsen had +selected his spot well. The Ghost lay half-a-mile beyond the surf- +line of a lonely beach. Here debauched a deep gorge, with +precipitous, volcanic walls which no man could scale. And here, +under his direct supervision--for he went ashore himself--Leach and +Johnson filled the small casks and rolled them down to the beach. +They had no chance to make a break for liberty in one of the boats. + +Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt. They composed +one of the boats' crews, and their task was to ply between the +schooner and the shore, carrying a single cask each trip. Just +before dinner, starting for the beach with an empty barrel, they +altered their course and bore away to the left to round the +promontory which jutted into the sea between them and liberty. +Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty villages of the Japanese +colonists and smiling valleys which penetrated deep into the +interior. Once in the fastnesses they promised, and the two men +could defy Wolf Larsen. + +I had observed Henderson and Smoke loitering about the deck all +morning, and I now learned why they were there. Procuring their +rifles, they opened fire in a leisurely manner, upon the deserters. +It was a cold-blooded exhibition of marksmanship. At first their +bullets zipped harmlessly along the surface of the water on either +side the boat; but, as the men continued to pull lustily, they +struck closer and closer. + +"Now, watch me take Kelly's right oar," Smoke said, drawing a more +careful aim. + +I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter +as he shot. Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison's right +oar. The boat slewed around. The two remaining oars were quickly +broken. The men tried to row with the splinters, and had them shot +out of their hands. Kelly ripped up a bottom board and began +paddling, but dropped it with a cry of pain as its splinters drove +into his hands. Then they gave up, letting the boat drift till a +second boat, sent from the shore by Wolf Larsen, took them in tow +and brought them aboard. + +Late that afternoon we hove up anchor and got away. Nothing was +before us but the three or four months' hunting on the sealing +grounds. The outlook was black indeed, and I went about my work +with a heavy heart. An almost funereal gloom seemed to have +descended upon the Ghost. Wolf Larsen had taken to his bunk with +one of his strange, splitting headaches. Harrison stood listlessly +at the wheel, half supporting himself by it, as though wearied by +the weight of his flesh. The rest of the men were morose and +silent. I came upon Kelly crouching to the lee of the forecastle +scuttle, his head on his knees, his arms about his head, in an +attitude of unutterable despondency. + +Johnson I found lying full length on the forecastle head, staring +at the troubled churn of the forefoot, and I remembered with horror +the suggestion Wolf Larsen had made. It seemed likely to bear +fruit. I tried to break in on the man's morbid thoughts by calling +him away, but he smiled sadly at me and refused to obey. + +Leach approached me as I returned aft. + +"I want to ask a favour, Mr. Van Weyden," he said. "If it's yer +luck to ever make 'Frisco once more, will you hunt up Matt +McCarthy? He's my old man. He lives on the Hill, back of the +Mayfair bakery, runnin' a cobbler's shop that everybody knows, and +you'll have no trouble. Tell him I lived to be sorry for the +trouble I brought him and the things I done, and--and just tell him +'God bless him,' for me." + +I nodded my head, but said, "We'll all win back to San Francisco, +Leach, and you'll be with me when I go to see Matt McCarthy." + +"I'd like to believe you," he answered, shaking my hand, "but I +can't. Wolf Larsen 'll do for me, I know it; and all I can hope +is, he'll do it quick." + +And as he left me I was aware of the same desire at my heart. +Since it was to be done, let it be done with despatch. The general +gloom had gathered me into its folds. The worst appeared +inevitable; and as I paced the deck, hour after hour, I found +myself afflicted with Wolf Larsen's repulsive ideas. What was it +all about? Where was the grandeur of life that it should permit +such wanton destruction of human souls? It was a cheap and sordid +thing after all, this life, and the sooner over the better. Over +and done with! I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly +into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should be +sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + + +Strange to say, in spite of the general foreboding, nothing of +especial moment happened on the Ghost. We ran on to the north and +west till we raised the coast of Japan and picked up with the great +seal herd. Coming from no man knew where in the illimitable +Pacific, it was travelling north on its annual migration to the +rookeries of Bering Sea. And north we travelled with it, ravaging +and destroying, flinging the naked carcasses to the shark and +salting down the skins so that they might later adorn the fair +shoulders of the women of the cities. + +It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman's sake. No man ate of +the seal meat or the oil. After a good day's killing I have seen +our decks covered with hides and bodies, slippery with fat and +blood, the scuppers running red; masts, ropes, and rails spattered +with the sanguinary colour; and the men, like butchers plying their +trade, naked and red of arm and hand, hard at work with ripping and +flensing-knives, removing the skins from the pretty sea-creatures +they had killed. + +It was my task to tally the pelts as they came aboard from the +boats, to oversee the skinning and afterward the cleansing of the +decks and bringing things ship-shape again. It was not pleasant +work. My soul and my stomach revolted at it; and yet, in a way, +this handling and directing of many men was good for me. It +developed what little executive ability I possessed, and I was +aware of a toughening or hardening which I was undergoing and which +could not be anything but wholesome for "Sissy" Van Weyden. + +One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could never +again be quite the same man I had been. While my hope and faith in +human life still survived Wolf Larsen's destructive criticism, he +had nevertheless been a cause of change in minor matters. He had +opened up for me the world of the real, of which I had known +practically nothing and from which I had always shrunk. I had +learned to look more closely at life as it was lived, to recognize +that there were such things as facts in the world, to emerge from +the realm of mind and idea and to place certain values on the +concrete and objective phases of existence. + +I saw more of Wolf Larsen than ever when we had gained the grounds. +For when the weather was fair and we were in the midst of the herd, +all hands were away in the boats, and left on board were only he +and I, and Thomas Mugridge, who did not count. But there was no +play about it. The six boats, spreading out fan-wise from the +schooner until the first weather boat and the last lee boat were +anywhere from ten to twenty miles apart, cruised along a straight +course over the sea till nightfall or bad weather drove them in. +It was our duty to sail the Ghost well to leeward of the last lee +boat, so that all the boats should have fair wind to run for us in +case of squalls or threatening weather. + +It is no slight matter for two men, particularly when a stiff wind +has sprung up, to handle a vessel like the Ghost, steering, keeping +look-out for the boats, and setting or taking in sail; so it +devolved upon me to learn, and learn quickly. Steering I picked up +easily, but running aloft to the crosstrees and swinging my whole +weight by my arms when I left the ratlines and climbed still +higher, was more difficult. This, too, I learned, and quickly, for +I felt somehow a wild desire to vindicate myself in Wolf Larsen's +eyes, to prove my right to live in ways other than of the mind. +Nay, the time came when I took joy in the run of the masthead and +in the clinging on by my legs at that precarious height while I +swept the sea with glasses in search of the boats. + +I remember one beautiful day, when the boats left early and the +reports of the hunters' guns grew dim and distant and died away as +they scattered far and wide over the sea. There was just the +faintest wind from the westward; but it breathed its last by the +time we managed to get to leeward of the last lee boat. One by +one--I was at the masthead and saw--the six boats disappeared over +the bulge of the earth as they followed the seal into the west. We +lay, scarcely rolling on the placid sea, unable to follow. Wolf +Larsen was apprehensive. The barometer was down, and the sky to +the east did not please him. He studied it with unceasing +vigilance. + +"If she comes out of there," he said, "hard and snappy, putting us +to windward of the boats, it's likely there'll be empty bunks in +steerage and fo'c'sle." + +By eleven o'clock the sea had become glass. By midday, though we +were well up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening. +There was no freshness in the air. It was sultry and oppressive, +reminding me of what the old Californians term "earthquake +weather." There was something ominous about it, and in intangible +ways one was made to feel that the worst was about to come. Slowly +the whole eastern sky filled with clouds that over-towered us like +some black sierra of the infernal regions. So clearly could one +see canon, gorge, and precipice, and the shadows that lie therein, +that one looked unconsciously for the white surf-line and bellowing +caverns where the sea charges on the land. And still we rocked +gently, and there was no wind. + +"It's no square" Wolf Larsen said. "Old Mother Nature's going to +get up on her hind legs and howl for all that's in her, and it'll +keep us jumping, Hump, to pull through with half our boats. You'd +better run up and loosen the topsails." + +"But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us?" I +asked, a note of protest in my voice. + +"Why we've got to make the best of the first of it and run down to +our boats before our canvas is ripped out of us. After that I +don't give a rap what happens. The sticks 'll stand it, and you +and I will have to, though we've plenty cut out for us." + +Still the calm continued. We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious +meal for me with eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the +bulge of the earth, and with that heaven-rolling mountain range of +clouds moving slowly down upon us. Wolf Larsen did not seem +affected, however; though I noticed, when we returned to the deck, +a slight twitching of the nostrils, a perceptible quickness of +movement. His face was stern, the lines of it had grown hard, and +yet in his eyes--blue, clear blue this day--there was a strange +brilliancy, a bright scintillating light. It struck me that he was +joyous, in a ferocious sort of way; that he was glad there was an +impending struggle; that he was thrilled and upborne with knowledge +that one of the great moments of living, when the tide of life +surges up in flood, was upon him. + +Once, and unwitting that he did so or that I saw, he laughed aloud, +mockingly and defiantly, at the advancing storm. I see him yet +standing there like a pigmy out of the Arabian Nights before the +huge front of some malignant genie. He was daring destiny, and he +was unafraid. + +He walked to the galley. "Cooky, by the time you've finished pots +and pans you'll be wanted on deck. Stand ready for a call." + +"Hump," he said, becoming cognizant of the fascinated gaze I bent +upon him, "this beats whisky and is where your Omar misses. I +think he only half lived after all." + +The western half of the sky had by now grown murky. The sun had +dimmed and faded out of sight. It was two in the afternoon, and a +ghostly twilight, shot through by wandering purplish lights, had +descended upon us. In this purplish light Wolf Larsen's face +glowed and glowed, and to my excited fancy he appeared encircled by +a halo. We lay in the midst of an unearthly quiet, while all about +us were signs and omens of oncoming sound and movement. The sultry +heat had become unendurable. The sweat was standing on my +forehead, and I could feel it trickling down my nose. I felt as +though I should faint, and reached out to the rail for support. + +And then, just then, the faintest possible whisper of air passed +by. It was from the east, and like a whisper it came and went. +The drooping canvas was not stirred, and yet my face had felt the +air and been cooled. + +"Cooky," Wolf Larsen called in a low voice. Thomas Mugridge turned +a pitiable scared face. "Let go that foreboom tackle and pass it +across, and when she's willing let go the sheet and come in snug +with the tackle. And if you make a mess of it, it will be the last +you ever make. Understand?" + +"Mr. Van Weyden, stand by to pass the head-sails over. Then jump +for the topsails and spread them quick as God'll let you--the +quicker you do it the easier you'll find it. As for Cooky, if he +isn't lively bat him between the eyes." + +I was aware of the compliment and pleased, in that no threat had +accompanied my instructions. We were lying head to north-west, and +it was his intention to jibe over all with the first puff. + +"We'll have the breeze on our quarter," he explained to me. "By +the last guns the boats were bearing away slightly to the +south'ard." + +He turned and walked aft to the wheel. I went forward and took my +station at the jibs. Another whisper of wind, and another, passed +by. The canvas flapped lazily. + +"Thank Gawd she's not comin' all of a bunch, Mr. Van Weyden," was +the Cockney's fervent ejaculation. + +And I was indeed thankful, for I had by this time learned enough to +know, with all our canvas spread, what disaster in such event +awaited us. The whispers of wind became puffs, the sails filled, +the Ghost moved. Wolf Larsen put the wheel hard up, to port, and +we began to pay off. The wind was now dead astern, muttering and +puffing stronger and stronger, and my head-sails were pounding +lustily. I did not see what went on elsewhere, though I felt the +sudden surge and heel of the schooner as the wind-pressures changed +to the jibing of the fore- and main-sails. My hands were full with +the flying-jib, jib, and staysail; and by the time this part of my +task was accomplished the Ghost was leaping into the south-west, +the wind on her quarter and all her sheets to starboard. Without +pausing for breath, though my heart was beating like a trip-hammer +from my exertions, I sprang to the topsails, and before the wind +had become too strong we had them fairly set and were coiling down. +Then I went aft for orders. + +Wolf Larsen nodded approval and relinquished the wheel to me. The +wind was strengthening steadily and the sea rising. For an hour I +steered, each moment becoming more difficult. I had not the +experience to steer at the gait we were going on a quartering +course. + +"Now take a run up with the glasses and raise some of the boats. +We've made at least ten knots, and we're going twelve or thirteen +now. The old girl knows how to walk." + +I contested myself with the fore crosstrees, some seventy feet +above the deck. As I searched the vacant stretch of water before +me, I comprehended thoroughly the need for haste if we were to +recover any of our men. Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea +through which we were running, I doubted that there was a boat +afloat. It did not seem possible that such frail craft could +survive such stress of wind and water. + +I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running +with it; but from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside +the Ghost and apart from her, and saw the shape of her outlined +sharply against the foaming sea as she tore along instinct with +life. Sometimes she would lift and send across some great wave, +burying her starboard-rail from view, and covering her deck to the +hatches with the boiling ocean. At such moments, starting from a +windward roll, I would go flying through the air with dizzying +swiftness, as though I clung to the end of a huge, inverted +pendulum, the arc of which, between the greater rolls, must have +been seventy feet or more. Once, the terror of this giddy sweep +overpowered me, and for a while I clung on, hand and foot, weak and +trembling, unable to search the sea for the missing boats or to +behold aught of the sea but that which roared beneath and strove to +overwhelm the Ghost. + +But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied me, and in +my quest for them I forgot myself. For an hour I saw nothing but +the naked, desolate sea. And then, where a vagrant shaft of +sunlight struck the ocean and turned its surface to wrathful +silver, I caught a small black speck thrust skyward for an instant +and swallowed up. I waited patiently. Again the tiny point of +black projected itself through the wrathful blaze a couple of +points off our port-bow. I did not attempt to shout, but +communicated the news to Wolf Larsen by waving my arm. He changed +the course, and I signalled affirmation when the speck showed dead +ahead. + +It grew larger, and so swiftly that for the first time I fully +appreciated the speed of our flight. Wolf Larsen motioned for me +to come down, and when I stood beside him at the wheel gave me +instructions for heaving to. + +"Expect all hell to break loose," he cautioned me, "but don't mind +it. Yours is to do your own work and to have Cooky stand by the +fore-sheet." + +I managed to make my way forward, but there was little choice of +sides, for the weather-rail seemed buried as often as the lee. +Having instructed Thomas Mugridge as to what he was to do, I +clambered into the fore-rigging a few feet. The boat was now very +close, and I could make out plainly that it was lying head to wind +and sea and dragging on its mast and sail, which had been thrown +overboard and made to serve as a sea-anchor. The three men were +bailing. Each rolling mountain whelmed them from view, and I would +wait with sickening anxiety, fearing that they would never appear +again. Then, and with black suddenness, the boat would shoot clear +through the foaming crest, bow pointed to the sky, and the whole +length of her bottom showing, wet and dark, till she seemed on end. +There would be a fleeting glimpse of the three men flinging water +in frantic haste, when she would topple over and fall into the +yawning valley, bow down and showing her full inside length to the +stern upreared almost directly above the bow. Each time that she +reappeared was a miracle. + +The Ghost suddenly changed her course, keeping away, and it came to +me with a shock that Wolf Larsen was giving up the rescue as +impossible. Then I realized that he was preparing to heave to, and +dropped to the deck to be in readiness. We were now dead before +the wind, the boat far away and abreast of us. I felt an abrupt +easing of the schooner, a loss for the moment of all strain and +pressure, coupled with a swift acceleration of speed. She was +rushing around on her heel into the wind. + +As she arrived at right angles to the sea, the full force of the +wind (from which we had hitherto run away) caught us. I was +unfortunately and ignorantly facing it. It stood up against me +like a wall, filling my lungs with air which I could not expel. +And as I choked and strangled, and as the Ghost wallowed for an +instant, broadside on and rolling straight over and far into the +wind, I beheld a huge sea rise far above my head. I turned aside, +caught my breath, and looked again. The wave over-topped the +Ghost, and I gazed sheer up and into it. A shaft of sunlight smote +the over-curl, and I caught a glimpse of translucent, rushing +green, backed by a milky smother of foam. + +Then it descended, pandemonium broke loose, everything happened at +once. I was struck a crushing, stunning blow, nowhere in +particular and yet everywhere. My hold had been broken loose, I +was under water, and the thought passed through my mind that this +was the terrible thing of which I had heard, the being swept in the +trough of the sea. My body struck and pounded as it was dashed +helplessly along and turned over and over, and when I could hold my +breath no longer, I breathed the stinging salt water into my lungs. +But through it all I clung to the one idea--I MUST GET THE JIB +BACKED OVER TO WINDWARD. I had no fear of death. I had no doubt +but that I should come through somehow. And as this idea of +fulfilling Wolf Larsen's order persisted in my dazed consciousness, +I seemed to see him standing at the wheel in the midst of the wild +welter, pitting his will against the will of the storm and defying +it. + +I brought up violently against what I took to be the rail, +breathed, and breathed the sweet air again. I tried to rise, but +struck my head and was knocked back on hands and knees. By some +freak of the waters I had been swept clear under the forecastle- +head and into the eyes. As I scrambled out on all fours, I passed +over the body of Thomas Mugridge, who lay in a groaning heap. +There was no time to investigate. I must get the jib backed over. + +When I emerged on deck it seemed that the end of everything had +come. On all sides there was a rending and crashing of wood and +steel and canvas. The Ghost was being wrenched and torn to +fragments. The foresail and fore-topsail, emptied of the wind by +the manoeuvre, and with no one to bring in the sheet in time, were +thundering into ribbons, the heavy boom threshing and splintering +from rail to rail. The air was thick with flying wreckage, +detached ropes and stays were hissing and coiling like snakes, and +down through it all crashed the gaff of the foresail. + +The spar could not have missed me by many inches, while it spurred +me to action. Perhaps the situation was not hopeless. I +remembered Wolf Larsen's caution. He had expected all hell to +break loose, and here it was. And where was he? I caught sight of +him toiling at the main-sheet, heaving it in and flat with his +tremendous muscles, the stern of the schooner lifted high in the +air and his body outlined against a white surge of sea sweeping +past. All this, and more,--a whole world of chaos and wreck,--in +possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped. + +I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but sprang +to the jib-sheet. The jib itself was beginning to slap, partially +filling and emptying with sharp reports; but with a turn of the +sheet and the application of my whole strength each time it +slapped, I slowly backed it. This I know: I did my best. I +pulled till I burst open the ends of all my fingers; and while I +pulled, the flying-jib and staysail split their cloths apart and +thundered into nothingness. + +Still I pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double turn +until the next slap gave me more. Then the sheet gave with greater +ease, and Wolf Larsen was beside me, heaving in alone while I was +busied taking up the slack. + +"Make fast!" he shouted. "And come on!" + +As I followed him, I noted that in spite of rack and ruin a rough +order obtained. The Ghost was hove to. She was still in working +order, and she was still working. Though the rest of her sails +were gone, the jib, backed to windward, and the mainsail hauled +down flat, were themselves holding, and holding her bow to the +furious sea as well. + +I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat- +tackles, saw it lift to leeward on a big sea an not a score of feet +away. And, so nicely had he made his calculation, we drifted +fairly down upon it, so that nothing remained to do but hook the +tackles to either end and hoist it aboard. But this was not done +so easily as it is written. + +In the bow was Kerfoot, Oofty-Oofty in the stern, and Kelly +amidships. As we drifted closer the boat would rise on a wave +while we sank in the trough, till almost straight above me I could +see the heads of the three men craned overside and looking down. +Then, the next moment, we would lift and soar upward while they +sank far down beneath us. It seemed incredible that the next surge +should not crush the Ghost down upon the tiny eggshell. + +But, at the right moment, I passed the tackle to the Kanaka, while +Wolf Larsen did the same thing forward to Kerfoot. Both tackles +were hooked in a trice, and the three men, deftly timing the roll, +made a simultaneous leap aboard the schooner. As the Ghost rolled +her side out of water, the boat was lifted snugly against her, and +before the return roll came, we had heaved it in over the side and +turned it bottom up on the deck. I noticed blood spouting from +Kerfoot's left hand. In some way the third finger had been crushed +to a pulp. But he gave no sign of pain, and with his single right +hand helped us lash the boat in its place. + +"Stand by to let that jib over, you Oofty!" Wolf Larsen commanded, +the very second we had finished with the boat. "Kelly, come aft +and slack off the main-sheet! You, Kerfoot, go for'ard and see +what's become of Cooky! Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut +away any stray stuff on your way!" + +And having commanded, he went aft with his peculiar tigerish leaps +to the wheel. While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the Ghost slowly +paid off. This time, as we went into the trough of the sea and +were swept, there were no sails to carry away. And, halfway to the +crosstrees and flattened against the rigging by the full force of +the wind so that it would have been impossible for me to have +fallen, the Ghost almost on her beam-ends and the masts parallel +with the water, I looked, not down, but at almost right angles from +the perpendicular, to the deck of the Ghost. But I saw, not the +deck, but where the deck should have been, for it was buried +beneath a wild tumbling of water. Out of this water I could see +the two masts rising, and that was all. The Ghost, for the moment, +was buried beneath the sea. As she squared off more and more, +escaping from the side pressure, she righted herself and broke her +deck, like a whale's back, through the ocean surface. + +Then we raced, and wildly, across the wild sea, the while I hung +like a fly in the crosstrees and searched for the other boats. In +half-an-hour I sighted the second one, swamped and bottom up, to +which were desperately clinging Jock Horner, fat Louis, and +Johnson. This time I remained aloft, and Wolf Larsen succeeded in +heaving to without being swept. As before, we drifted down upon +it. Tackles were made fast and lines flung to the men, who +scrambled aboard like monkeys. The boat itself was crushed and +splintered against the schooner's side as it came inboard; but the +wreck was securely lashed, for it could be patched and made whole +again. + +Once more the Ghost bore away before the storm, this time so +submerging herself that for some seconds I thought she would never +reappear. Even the wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist, was +covered and swept again and again. At such moments I felt +strangely alone with God, alone with him and watching the chaos of +his wrath. And then the wheel would reappear, and Wolf Larsen's +broad shoulders, his hands gripping the spokes and holding the +schooner to the course of his will, himself an earth-god, +dominating the storm, flinging its descending waters from him and +riding it to his own ends. And oh, the marvel of it! the marvel of +it! That tiny men should live and breathe and work, and drive so +frail a contrivance of wood and cloth through so tremendous an +elemental strife. + +As before, the Ghost swung out of the trough, lifting her deck +again out of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. It was +now half-past five, and half-an-hour later, when the last of the +day lost itself in a dim and furious twilight, I sighted a third +boat. It was bottom up, and there was no sign of its crew. Wolf +Larsen repeated his manoeuvre, holding off and then rounding up to +windward and drifting down upon it. But this time he missed by +forty feet, the boat passing astern. + +"Number four boat!" Oofty-Oofty cried, his keen eyes reading its +number in the one second when it lifted clear of the foam, and +upside down. + +It was Henderson's boat and with him had been lost Holyoak and +Williams, another of the deep-water crowd. Lost they indubitably +were; but the boat remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless +effort to recover it. I had come down to the deck, and I saw +Horner and Kerfoot vainly protest against the attempt. + +"By God, I'll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that ever blew +out of hell!" he shouted, and though we four stood with our heads +together that we might hear, his voice seemed faint and far, as +though removed from us an immense distance. + +"Mr. Van Weyden!" he cried, and I heard through the tumult as one +might hear a whisper. "Stand by that jib with Johnson and Oofty! +The rest of you tail aft to the mainsheet! Lively now! or I'll +sail you all into Kingdom Come! Understand?" + +And when he put the wheel hard over and the Ghost's bow swung off, +there was nothing for the hunters to do but obey and make the best +of a risky chance. How great the risk I realized when I was once +more buried beneath the pounding seas and clinging for life to the +pinrail at the foot of the foremast. My fingers were torn loose, +and I swept across to the side and over the side into the sea. I +could not swim, but before I could sink I was swept back again. A +strong hand gripped me, and when the Ghost finally emerged, I found +that I owed my life to Johnson. I saw him looking anxiously about +him, and noted that Kelly, who had come forward at the last moment, +was missing. + +This time, having missed the boat, and not being in the same +position as in the previous instances, Wolf Larsen was compelled to +resort to a different manoeuvre. Running off before the wind with +everything to starboard, he came about, and returned close-hauled +on the port tack. + +"Grand!" Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came through +the attendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen's +seamanship, but to the performance of the Ghost herself. + +It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat; but Wolf +Larsen held back through the frightful turmoil as if guided by +unerring instinct. This time, though we were continually half- +buried, there was no trough in which to be swept, and we drifted +squarely down upon the upturned boat, badly smashing it as it was +heaved inboard. + +Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of us--two +hunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen and I--reefed, first one and +then the other, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this short +canvas, our decks were comparatively free of water, while the Ghost +bobbed and ducked amongst the combers like a cork. + +I had burst open the ends of my fingers at the very first, and +during the reefing I had worked with tears of pain running down my +cheeks. And when all was done, I gave up like a woman and rolled +upon the deck in the agony of exhaustion. + +In the meantime Thomas Mugridge, like a drowned rat, was being +dragged out from under the forecastle head where he had cravenly +ensconced himself. I saw him pulled aft to the cabin, and noted +with a shock of surprise that the galley had disappeared. A clean +space of deck showed where it had stood. + +In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well, and +while coffee was being cooked over the small stove we drank whisky +and crunched hard-tack. Never in my life had food been so welcome. +And never had hot coffee tasted so good. So violently did the +Ghost, pitch and toss and tumble that it was impossible for even +the sailors to move about without holding on, and several times, +after a cry of "Now she takes it!" we were heaped upon the wall of +the port cabins as though it had been the deck. + +"To hell with a look-out," I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had +eaten and drunk our fill. "There's nothing can be done on deck. +If anything's going to run us down we couldn't get out of its way. +Turn in, all hands, and get some sleep." + +The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, +while the two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being +deemed advisable to open the slide to the steerage companion-way. +Wolf Larsen and I, between us, cut off Kerfoot's crushed finger and +sewed up the stump. Mugridge, who, during all the time he had been +compelled to cook and serve coffee and keep the fire going, had +complained of internal pains, now swore that he had a broken rib or +two. On examination we found that he had three. But his case was +deferred to next day, principally for the reason that I did not +know anything about broken ribs and would first have to read it up. + +"I don't think it was worth it," I said to Wolf Larsen, "a broken +boat for Kelly's life." + +"But Kelly didn't amount to much," was the reply. "Good-night." + +After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in my +finger-ends, and with three boats missing, to say nothing of the +wild capers the Ghost was cutting, I should have thought it +impossible to sleep. But my eyes must have closed the instant my +head touched the pillow, and in utter exhaustion I slept throughout +the night, the while the Ghost, lonely and undirected, fought her +way through the storm. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + + +The next day, while the storm was blowing itself out, Wolf Larsen +and I crammed anatomy and surgery and set Mugridge's ribs. Then, +when the storm broke, Wolf Larsen cruised back and forth over that +portion of the ocean where we had encountered it, and somewhat more +to the westward, while the boats were being repaired and new sails +made and bent. Sealing schooner after sealing schooner we sighted +and boarded, most of which were in search of lost boats, and most +of which were carrying boats and crews they had picked up and which +did not belong to them. For the thick of the fleet had been to the +westward of us, and the boats, scattered far and wide, had headed +in mad flight for the nearest refuge. + +Two of our boats, with men all safe, we took off the Cisco, and, to +Wolf Larsen's huge delight and my own grief, he culled Smoke, with +Nilson and Leach, from the San Diego. So that, at the end of five +days, we found ourselves short but four men--Henderson, Holyoak, +Williams, and Kelly,--and were once more hunting on the flanks of +the herd. + +As we followed it north we began to encounter the dreaded sea-fogs. +Day after day the boats lowered and were swallowed up almost ere +they touched the water, while we on board pumped the horn at +regular intervals and every fifteen minutes fired the bomb gun. +Boats were continually being lost and found, it being the custom +for a boat to hunt, on lay, with whatever schooner picked it up, +until such time it was recovered by its own schooner. But Wolf +Larsen, as was to be expected, being a boat short, took possession +of the first stray one and compelled its men to hunt with the +Ghost, not permitting them to return to their own schooner when we +sighted it. I remember how he forced the hunter and his two men +below, a riffle at their breasts, when their captain passed by at +biscuit-toss and hailed us for information. + +Thomas Mugridge, so strangely and pertinaciously clinging to life, +was soon limping about again and performing his double duties of +cook and cabin-boy. Johnson and Leach were bullied and beaten as +much as ever, and they looked for their lives to end with the end +of the hunting season; while the rest of the crew lived the lives +of dogs and were worked like dogs by their pitiless master. As for +Wolf Larsen and myself, we got along fairly well; though I could +not quite rid myself of the idea that right conduct, for me, lay in +killing him. He fascinated me immeasurably, and I feared him +immeasurably. And yet, I could not imagine him lying prone in +death. There was an endurance, as of perpetual youth, about him, +which rose up and forbade the picture. I could see him only as +living always, and dominating always, fighting and destroying, +himself surviving. + +One diversion of his, when we were in the midst of the herd and the +sea was too rough to lower the boats, was to lower with two boat- +pullers and a steerer and go out himself. He was a good shot, too, +and brought many a skin aboard under what the hunters termed +impossible hunting conditions. It seemed the breath of his +nostrils, this carrying his life in his hands and struggling for it +against tremendous odds. + +I was learning more and more seamanship; and one clear day--a thing +we rarely encountered now--I had the satisfaction of running and +handling the Ghost and picking up the boats myself. Wolf Larsen +had been smitten with one of his headaches, and I stood at the +wheel from morning until evening, sailing across the ocean after +the last lee boat, and heaving to and picking it and the other five +up without command or suggestion from him. + +Gales we encountered now and again, for it was a raw and stormy +region, and, in the middle of June, a typhoon most memorable to me +and most important because of the changes wrought through it upon +my future. We must have been caught nearly at the centre of this +circular storm, and Wolf Larsen ran out of it and to the southward, +first under a double-reefed jib, and finally under bare poles. +Never had I imagined so great a sea. The seas previously +encountered were as ripples compared with these, which ran a half- +mile from crest to crest and which upreared, I am confident, above +our masthead. So great was it that Wolf Larsen himself did not +dare heave to, though he was being driven far to the southward and +out of the seal herd. + +We must have been well in the path of the trans-Pacific steamships +when the typhoon moderated, and here, to the surprise of the +hunters, we found ourselves in the midst of seals--a second herd, +or sort of rear-guard, they declared, and a most unusual thing. +But it was "Boats over!" the boom-boom of guns, and the pitiful +slaughter through the long day. + +It was at this time that I was approached by Leach. I had just +finished tallying the skins of the last boat aboard, when he came +to my side, in the darkness, and said in a low tone: + +"Can you tell me, Mr. Van Weyden, how far we are off the coast, and +what the bearings of Yokohama are?" + +My heart leaped with gladness, for I knew what he had in mind, and +I gave him the bearings--west-north-west, and five hundred miles +away. + +"Thank you, sir," was all he said as he slipped back into the +darkness. + +Next morning No. 3 boat and Johnson and Leach were missing. The +water-breakers and grub-boxes from all the other boats were +likewise missing, as were the beds and sea bags of the two men. +Wolf Larsen was furious. He set sail and bore away into the west- +north-west, two hunters constantly at the mastheads and sweeping +the sea with glasses, himself pacing the deck like an angry lion. +He knew too well my sympathy for the runaways to send me aloft as +look-out. + +The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle +in a haystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity. +But he put the Ghost through her best paces so as to get between +the deserters and the land. This accomplished, he cruised back and +forth across what he knew must be their course. + +On the morning of the third day, shortly after eight bells, a cry +that the boat was sighted came down from Smoke at the masthead. +All hands lined the rail. A snappy breeze was blowing from the +west with the promise of more wind behind it; and there, to +leeward, in the troubled silver of the rising sun, appeared and +disappeared a black speck. + +We squared away and ran for it. My heart was as lead. I felt +myself turning sick in anticipation; and as I looked at the gleam +of triumph in Wolf Larsen's eyes, his form swam before me, and I +felt almost irresistibly impelled to fling myself upon him. So +unnerved was I by the thought of impending violence to Leach and +Johnson that my reason must have left me. I know that I slipped +down into the steerage in a daze, and that I was just beginning the +ascent to the deck, a loaded shot-gun in my hands, when I heard the +startled cry: + +"There's five men in that boat!" + +I supported myself in the companion-way, weak and trembling, while +the observation was being verified by the remarks of the rest of +the men. Then my knees gave from under me and I sank down, myself +again, but overcome by shock at knowledge of what I had so nearly +done. Also, I was very thankful as I put the gun away and slipped +back on deck. + +No one had remarked my absence. The boat was near enough for us to +make out that it was larger than any sealing boat and built on +different lines. As we drew closer, the sail was taken in and the +mast unstepped. Oars were shipped, and its occupants waited for us +to heave to and take them aboard. + +Smoke, who had descended to the deck and was now standing by my +side, began to chuckle in a significant way. I looked at him +inquiringly. + +"Talk of a mess!" he giggled. + +"What's wrong?" I demanded. + +Again he chuckled. "Don't you see there, in the stern-sheets, on +the bottom? May I never shoot a seal again if that ain't a woman!" + +I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamations broke out on +all sides. The boat contained four men, and its fifth occupant was +certainly a woman. We were agog with excitement, all except Wolf +Larsen, who was too evidently disappointed in that it was not his +own boat with the two victims of his malice. + +We ran down the flying jib, hauled the jib-sheets to wind-ward and +the main-sheet flat, and came up into the wind. The oars struck +the water, and with a few strokes the boat was alongside. I now +caught my first fair glimpse of the woman. She was wrapped in a +long ulster, for the morning was raw; and I could see nothing but +her face and a mass of light brown hair escaping from under the +seaman's cap on her head. The eyes were large and brown and +lustrous, the mouth sweet and sensitive, and the face itself a +delicate oval, though sun and exposure to briny wind had burnt the +face scarlet. + +She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a +hungry out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. But +then, I had not seen a woman for a very long time. I know that I +was lost in a great wonder, almost a stupor,--this, then, was a +woman?--so that I forgot myself and my mate's duties, and took no +part in helping the new-comers aboard. For when one of the sailors +lifted her into Wolf Larsen's downstretched arms, she looked up +into our curious faces and smiled amusedly and sweetly, as only a +woman can smile, and as I had seen no one smile for so long that I +had forgotten such smiles existed. + +"Mr. Van Weyden!" + +Wolf Larsen's voice brought me sharply back to myself. + +"Will you take the lady below and see to her comfort? Make up that +spare port cabin. Put Cooky to work on it. And see what you can +do for that face. It's burned badly." + +He turned brusquely away from us and began to question the new men. +The boat was cast adrift, though one of them called it a "bloody +shame" with Yokohama so near. + +I found myself strangely afraid of this woman I was escorting aft. +Also I was awkward. It seemed to me that I was realizing for the +first time what a delicate, fragile creature a woman is; and as I +caught her arm to help her down the companion stairs, I was +startled by its smallness and softness. Indeed, she was a slender, +delicate woman as women go, but to me she was so ethereally slender +and delicate that I was quite prepared for her arm to crumble in my +grasp. All this, in frankness, to show my first impression, after +long denial of women in general and of Maud Brewster in particular. + +"No need to go to any great trouble for me," she protested, when I +had seated her in Wolf Larsen's arm-chair, which I had dragged +hastily from his cabin. "The men were looking for land at any +moment this morning, and the vessel should be in by night; don't +you think so?" + +Her simple faith in the immediate future took me aback. How could +I explain to her the situation, the strange man who stalked the sea +like Destiny, all that it had taken me months to learn? But I +answered honestly: + +"If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would +be ashore in Yokohama to-morrow. But our captain is a strange man, +and I beg of you to be prepared for anything--understand?--for +anything." + +"I--I confess I hardly do understand," she hesitated, a perturbed +but not frightened expression in her eyes. "Or is it a +misconception of mine that shipwrecked people are always shown +every consideration? This is such a little thing, you know. We +are so close to land." + +"Candidly, I do not know," I strove to reassure her. "I wished +merely to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come. This +man, this captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what +will be his next fantastic act." + +I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an "Oh, I see," +and her voice sounded weary. To think was patently an effort. She +was clearly on the verge of physical collapse. + +She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, +devoting myself to Wolf Larsen's command, which was to make her +comfortable. I bustled about in quite housewifely fashion, +procuring soothing lotions for her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen's +private stores for a bottle of port I knew to be there, and +directing Thomas Mugridge in the preparation of the spare state- +room. + +The wind was freshening rapidly, the Ghost heeling over more and +more, and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing +through the water at a lively clip. I had quite forgotten the +existence of Leach and Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, +"Boat ho!" came down the open companion-way. It was Smoke's +unmistakable voice, crying from the masthead. I shot a glance at +the woman, but she was leaning back in the arm-chair, her eyes +closed, unutterably tired. I doubted that she had heard, and I +resolved to prevent her seeing the brutality I knew would follow +the capture of the deserters. She was tired. Very good. She +should sleep. + +There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a +slapping of reef-points as the Ghost shot into the wind and about +on the other tack. As she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair +began to slide across the cabin floor, and I sprang for it just in +time to prevent the rescued woman from being spilled out. + +Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepy +surprise that perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she half +stumbled, half tottered, as I led her to her cabin. Mugridge +grinned insinuatingly in my face as I shoved him out and ordered +him back to his galley work; and he won his revenge by spreading +glowing reports among the hunters as to what an excellent "lydy's- +myde" I was proving myself to be. + +She leaned heavily against me, and I do believe that she had fallen +asleep again between the arm-chair and the state-room. This I +discovered when she nearly fell into the bunk during a sudden lurch +of the schooner. She aroused, smiled drowsily, and was off to +sleep again; and asleep I left her, under a heavy pair of sailor's +blankets, her head resting on a pillow I had appropriated from Wolf +Larsen's bunk. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + + +I came on deck to find the Ghost heading up close on the port tack +and cutting in to windward of a familiar spritsail close-hauled on +the same tack ahead of us. All hands were on deck, for they knew +that something was to happen when Leach and Johnson were dragged +aboard. + +It was four bells. Louis came aft to relieve the wheel. There was +a dampness in the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins. + +"What are we going to have?" I asked him. + +"A healthy young slip of a gale from the breath iv it, sir," he +answered, "with a splatter iv rain just to wet our gills an' no +more." + +"Too bad we sighted them," I said, as the Ghost's bow was flung off +a point by a large sea and the boat leaped for a moment past the +jibs and into our line of vision. + +Louis gave a spoke and temporized. "They'd never iv made the land, +sir, I'm thinkin'." + +"Think not?" I queried. + +"No, sir. Did you feel that?" (A puff had caught the schooner, +and he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out of +the wind.) "'Tis no egg-shell'll float on this sea an hour come, +an' it's a stroke iv luck for them we're here to pick 'em up." + +Wolf Larsen strode aft from amidships, where he had been talking +with the rescued men. The cat-like springiness in his tread was a +little more pronounced than usual, and his eyes were bright and +snappy. + +"Three oilers and a fourth engineer," was his greeting. "But we'll +make sailors out of them, or boat-pullers at any rate. Now, what +of the lady?" + +I know not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang like the cut of +a knife when he mentioned her. I thought it a certain silly +fastidiousness on my part, but it persisted in spite of me, and I +merely shrugged my shoulders in answer. + +Wolf Larsen pursed his lips in a long, quizzical whistle. + +"What's her name, then?" he demanded. + +"I don't know," I replied. "She is asleep. She was very tired. +In fact, I am waiting to hear the news from you. What vessel was +it?" + +"Mail steamer," he answered shortly. "The City of Tokio, from +'Frisco, bound for Yokohama. Disabled in that typhoon. Old tub. +Opened up top and bottom like a sieve. They were adrift four days. +And you don't know who or what she is, eh?--maid, wife, or widow? +Well, well." + +He shook his head in a bantering way, and regarded me with laughing +eyes. + +"Are you--" I began. It was on the verge of my tongue to ask if he +were going to take the castaways into Yokohama. + +"Am I what?" he asked. + +"What do you intend doing with Leach and Johnson?" + +He shook his head. "Really, Hump, I don't know. You see, with +these additions I've about all the crew I want." + +"And they've about all the escaping they want," I said. "Why not +give them a change of treatment? Take them aboard, and deal gently +with them. Whatever they have done they have been hounded into +doing." + +"By me?" + +"By you," I answered steadily. "And I give you warning, Wolf +Larsen, that I may forget love of my own life in the desire to kill +you if you go too far in maltreating those poor wretches." + +"Bravo!" he cried. "You do me proud, Hump! You've found your legs +with a vengeance. You're quite an individual. You were +unfortunate in having your life cast in easy places, but you're +developing, and I like you the better for it." + +His voice and expression changed. His face was serious. "Do you +believe in promises?" he asked. "Are they sacred things?" + +"Of course," I answered. + +"Then here's a compact," he went on, consummate actor. "If I +promise not to lay my hands upon Leach will you promise, in turn, +not to attempt to kill me?" + +"Oh, not that I'm afraid of you, not that I'm afraid of you," he +hastened to add. + +I could hardly believe my ears. What was coming over the man? + +"Is it a go?" he asked impatiently. + +"A go," I answered. + +His hand went out to mine, and as I shook it heartily I could have +sworn I saw the mocking devil shine up for a moment in his eyes. + +We strolled across the poop to the lee side. The boat was close at +hand now, and in desperate plight. Johnson was steering, Leach +bailing. We overhauled them about two feet to their one. Wolf +Larsen motioned Louis to keep off slightly, and we dashed abreast +of the boat, not a score of feet to windward. The Ghost blanketed +it. The spritsail flapped emptily and the boat righted to an even +keel, causing the two men swiftly to change position. The boat +lost headway, and, as we lifted on a huge surge, toppled and fell +into the trough. + +It was at this moment that Leach and Johnson looked up into the +faces of their shipmates, who lined the rail amidships. There was +no greeting. They were as dead men in their comrades' eyes, and +between them was the gulf that parts the living and the dead. + +The next instant they were opposite the poop, where stood Wolf +Larsen and I. We were falling in the trough, they were rising on +the surge. Johnson looked at me, and I could see that his face was +worn and haggard. I waved my hand to him, and he answered the +greeting, but with a wave that was hopeless and despairing. It was +as if he were saying farewell. I did not see into the eyes of +Leach, for he was looking at Wolf Larsen, the old and implacable +snarl of hatred strong as ever on his face. + +Then they were gone astern. The spritsail filled with the wind, +suddenly, careening the frail open craft till it seemed it would +surely capsize. A whitecap foamed above it and broke across in a +snow-white smother. Then the boat emerged, half swamped, Leach +flinging the water out and Johnson clinging to the steering-oar, +his face white and anxious. + +Wolf Larsen barked a short laugh in my ear and strode away to the +weather side of the poop. I expected him to give orders for the +Ghost to heave to, but she kept on her course and he made no sign. +Louis stood imperturbably at the wheel, but I noticed the grouped +sailors forward turning troubled faces in our direction. Still the +Ghost tore along, till the boat dwindled to a speck, when Wolf +Larsen's voice rang out in command and he went about on the +starboard tack. + +Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling +cockle-shell, when the flying jib was run down and the schooner +hove to. The sealing boats are not made for windward work. Their +hope lies in keeping a weather position so that they may run before +the wind for the schooner when it breezes up. But in all that wild +waste there was no refuge for Leach and Johnson save on the Ghost, +and they resolutely began the windward beat. It was slow work in +the heavy sea that was running. At any moment they were liable to +be overwhelmed by the hissing combers. Time and again and +countless times we watched the boat luff into the big whitecaps, +lose headway, and be flung back like a cork. + +Johnson was a splendid seaman, and he knew as much about small +boats as he did about ships. At the end of an hour and a half he +was nearly alongside, standing past our stern on the last leg out, +aiming to fetch us on the next leg back. + +"So you've changed your mind?" I heard Wolf Larsen mutter, half to +himself, half to them as though they could hear. "You want to come +aboard, eh? Well, then, just keep a-coming." + +"Hard up with that helm!" he commanded Oofty-Oofty, the Kanaka, who +had in the meantime relieved Louis at the wheel. + +Command followed command. As the schooner paid off, the fore- and +main-sheets were slacked away for fair wind. And before the wind +we were, and leaping, when Johnson, easing his sheet at imminent +peril, cut across our wake a hundred feet away. Again Wolf Larsen +laughed, at the same time beckoning them with his arm to follow. +It was evidently his intention to play with them,--a lesson, I took +it, in lieu of a beating, though a dangerous lesson, for the frail +craft stood in momentary danger of being overwhelmed. + +Johnson squared away promptly and ran after us. There was nothing +else for him to do. Death stalked everywhere, and it was only a +matter of time when some one of those many huge seas would fall +upon the boat, roll over it, and pass on. + +"'Tis the fear iv death at the hearts iv them," Louis muttered in +my ear, as I passed forward to see to taking in the flying jib and +staysail. + +"Oh, he'll heave to in a little while and pick them up," I answered +cheerfully. "He's bent upon giving them a lesson, that's all." + +Louis looked at me shrewdly. "Think so?" he asked. + +"Surely," I answered. "Don't you?" + +"I think nothing but iv my own skin, these days," was his answer. +"An' 'tis with wonder I'm filled as to the workin' out iv things. +A pretty mess that 'Frisco whisky got me into, an' a prettier mess +that woman's got you into aft there. Ah, it's myself that knows ye +for a blitherin' fool." + +"What do you mean?" I demanded; for, having sped his shaft, he was +turning away. + +"What do I mean?" he cried. "And it's you that asks me! 'Tis not +what I mean, but what the Wolf 'll mean. The Wolf, I said, the +Wolf!" + +"If trouble comes, will you stand by?" I asked impulsively, for he +had voiced my own fear. + +"Stand by? 'Tis old fat Louis I stand by, an' trouble enough it'll +be. We're at the beginnin' iv things, I'm tellin' ye, the bare +beginnin' iv things." + +"I had not thought you so great a coward," I sneered. + +He favoured me with a contemptuous stare. "If I raised never a +hand for that poor fool,"--pointing astern to the tiny sail,--"d'ye +think I'm hungerin' for a broken head for a woman I never laid me +eyes upon before this day?" + +I turned scornfully away and went aft. + +"Better get in those topsails, Mr. Van Weyden," Wolf Larsen said, +as I came on the poop. + +I felt relief, at least as far as the two men were concerned. It +was clear he did not wish to run too far away from them. I picked +up hope at the thought and put the order swiftly into execution. I +had scarcely opened my mouth to issue the necessary commands, when +eager men were springing to halyards and downhauls, and others were +racing aloft. This eagerness on their part was noted by Wolf +Larsen with a grim smile. + +Still we increased our lead, and when the boat had dropped astern +several miles we hove to and waited. All eyes watched it coming, +even Wolf Larsen's; but he was the only unperturbed man aboard. +Louis, gazing fixedly, betrayed a trouble in his face he was not +quite able to hide. + +The boat drew closer and closer, hurling along through the seething +green like a thing alive, lifting and sending and uptossing across +the huge-backed breakers, or disappearing behind them only to rush +into sight again and shoot skyward. It seemed impossible that it +could continue to live, yet with each dizzying sweep it did achieve +the impossible. A rain-squall drove past, and out of the flying +wet the boat emerged, almost upon us. + +"Hard up, there!" Wolf Larsen shouted, himself springing to the +wheel and whirling it over. + +Again the Ghost sprang away and raced before the wind, and for two +hours Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran away, hove +to and ran away, and ever astern the struggling patch of sail +tossed skyward and fell into the rushing valleys. It was a quarter +of a mile away when a thick squall of rain veiled it from view. It +never emerged. The wind blew the air clear again, but no patch of +sail broke the troubled surface. I thought I saw, for an instant, +the boat's bottom show black in a breaking crest. At the best, +that was all. For Johnson and Leach the travail of existence had +ceased. + +The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below, and no +one was speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. Each man +seemed stunned--deeply contemplative, as it were, and, not quite +sure, trying to realize just what had taken place. Wolf Larsen +gave them little time for thought. He at once put the Ghost upon +her course--a course which meant the seal herd and not Yokohama +harbour. But the men were no longer eager as they pulled and +hauled, and I heard curses amongst them, which left their lips +smothered and as heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was it +with the hunters. Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and +they descended into the steerage, bellowing with laughter. + +As I passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft I was approached +by the engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were +trembling. + +"Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?" he cried. + +"You have eyes, you have seen," I answered, almost brutally, what +of the pain and fear at my own heart. + +"Your promise?" I said to Wolf Larsen. + +"I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that +promise," he answered. "And anyway, you'll agree I've not laid my +hands upon them." + +"Far from it, far from it," he laughed a moment later. + +I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too +confused. I must have time to think, I knew. This woman, sleeping +even now in the spare cabin, was a responsibility, which I must +consider, and the only rational thought that flickered through my +mind was that I must do nothing hastily if I were to be any help to +her at all. + + + +CHAPTER XX + + + +The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. The young slip of a +gale, having wetted our gills, proceeded to moderate. The fourth +engineer and the three oilers, after a warm interview with Wolf +Larsen, were furnished with outfits from the slop-chests, assigned +places under the hunters in the various boats and watches on the +vessel, and bundled forward into the forecastle. They went +protestingly, but their voices were not loud. They were awed by +what they had already seen of Wolf Larsen's character, while the +tale of woe they speedily heard in the forecastle took the last bit +of rebellion out of them. + +Miss Brewster--we had learned her name from the engineer--slept on +and on. At supper I requested the hunters to lower their voices, +so she was not disturbed; and it was not till next morning that she +made her appearance. It had been my intention to have her meals +served apart, but Wolf Larsen put down his foot. Who was she that +she should be too good for cabin table and cabin society? had been +his demand. + +But her coming to the table had something amusing in it. The +hunters fell silent as clams. Jock Horner and Smoke alone were +unabashed, stealing stealthy glances at her now and again, and even +taking part in the conversation. The other four men glued their +eyes on their plates and chewed steadily and with thoughtful +precision, their ears moving and wobbling, in time with their jaws, +like the ears of so many animals. + +Wolf Larsen had little to say at first, doing no more than reply +when he was addressed. Not that he was abashed. Far from it. +This woman was a new type to him, a different breed from any he had +ever known, and he was curious. He studied her, his eyes rarely +leaving her face unless to follow the movements of her hands or +shoulders. I studied her myself, and though it was I who +maintained the conversation, I know that I was a bit shy, not quite +self-possessed. His was the perfect poise, the supreme confidence +in self, which nothing could shake; and he was no more timid of a +woman than he was of storm and battle. + +"And when shall we arrive at Yokohama?" she asked, turning to him +and looking him squarely in the eyes. + +There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, the +ears ceased wobbling, and though eyes remained glued on plates, +each man listened greedily for the answer. + +"In four months, possibly three if the season closes early," Wolf +Larsen said. + +She caught her breath and stammered, "I--I thought--I was given to +understand that Yokohama was only a day's sail away. It--" Here +she paused and looked about the table at the circle of +unsympathetic faces staring hard at the plates. "It is not right," +she concluded. + +"That is a question you must settle with Mr. Van Weyden there," he +replied, nodding to me with a mischievous twinkle. "Mr. Van Weyden +is what you may call an authority on such things as rights. Now I, +who am only a sailor, would look upon the situation somewhat +differently. It may possibly be your misfortune that you have to +remain with us, but it is certainly our good fortune." + +He regarded her smilingly. Her eyes fell before his gaze, but she +lifted them again, and defiantly, to mine. I read the unspoken +question there: was it right? But I had decided that the part I +was to play must be a neutral one, so I did not answer. + +"What do you think?" she demanded. + +"That it is unfortunate, especially if you have any engagements +falling due in the course of the next several months. But, since +you say that you were voyaging to Japan for your health, I can +assure you that it will improve no better anywhere than aboard the +Ghost." + +I saw her eyes flash with indignation, and this time it was I who +dropped mine, while I felt my face flushing under her gaze. It was +cowardly, but what else could I do? + +"Mr. Van Weyden speaks with the voice of authority," Wolf Larsen +laughed. + +I nodded my head, and she, having recovered herself, waited +expectantly. + +"Not that he is much to speak of now," Wolf Larsen went on, "but he +has improved wonderfully. You should have seen him when he came on +board. A more scrawny, pitiful specimen of humanity one could +hardly conceive. Isn't that so, Kerfoot?" + +Kerfoot, thus directly addressed, was startled into dropping his +knife on the floor, though he managed to grunt affirmation. + +"Developed himself by peeling potatoes and washing dishes. Eh, +Kerfoot?" + +Again that worthy grunted. + +"Look at him now. True, he is not what you would term muscular, +but still he has muscles, which is more than he had when he came +aboard. Also, he has legs to stand on. You would not think so to +look at him, but he was quite unable to stand alone at first." + +The hunters were snickering, but she looked at me with a sympathy +in her eyes which more than compensated for Wolf Larsen's +nastiness. In truth, it had been so long since I had received +sympathy that I was softened, and I became then, and gladly, her +willing slave. But I was angry with Wolf Larsen. He was +challenging my manhood with his slurs, challenging the very legs he +claimed to be instrumental in getting for me. + +"I may have learned to stand on my own legs," I retorted. "But I +have yet to stamp upon others with them." + +He looked at me insolently. "Your education is only half +completed, then," he said dryly, and turned to her. + +"We are very hospitable upon the Ghost. Mr. Van Weyden has +discovered that. We do everything to make our guests feel at home, +eh, Mr. Van Weyden?" + +"Even to the peeling of potatoes and the washing of dishes," I +answered, "to say nothing to wringing their necks out of very +fellowship." + +"I beg of you not to receive false impressions of us from Mr. Van +Weyden," he interposed with mock anxiety. "You will observe, Miss +Brewster, that he carries a dirk in his belt, a--ahem--a most +unusual thing for a ship's officer to do. While really very +estimable, Mr. Van Weyden is sometimes--how shall I say?--er-- +quarrelsome, and harsh measures are necessary. He is quite +reasonable and fair in his calm moments, and as he is calm now he +will not deny that only yesterday he threatened my life." + +I was well-nigh choking, and my eyes were certainly fiery. He drew +attention to me. + +"Look at him now. He can scarcely control himself in your +presence. He is not accustomed to the presence of ladies anyway. +I shall have to arm myself before I dare go on deck with him." + +He shook his head sadly, murmuring, "Too bad, too bad," while the +hunters burst into guffaws of laughter. + +The deep-sea voices of these men, rumbling and bellowing in the +confined space, produced a wild effect. The whole setting was +wild, and for the first time, regarding this strange woman and +realizing how incongruous she was in it, I was aware of how much a +part of it I was myself. I knew these men and their mental +processes, was one of them myself, living the seal-hunting life, +eating the seal-hunting fare, thinking, largely, the seal-hunting +thoughts. There was for me no strangeness to it, to the rough +clothes, the coarse faces, the wild laughter, and the lurching +cabin walls and swaying sea-lamps. + +As I buttered a piece of bread my eyes chanced to rest upon my +hand. The knuckles were skinned and inflamed clear across, the +fingers swollen, the nails rimmed with black. I felt the mattress- +like growth of beard on my neck, knew that the sleeve of my coat +was ripped, that a button was missing from the throat of the blue +shirt I wore. The dirk mentioned by Wolf Larsen rested in its +sheath on my hip. It was very natural that it should be there,-- +how natural I had not imagined until now, when I looked upon it +with her eyes and knew how strange it and all that went with it +must appear to her. + +But she divined the mockery in Wolf Larsen's words, and again +favoured me with a sympathetic glance. But there was a look of +bewilderment also in her eyes. That it was mockery made the +situation more puzzling to her. + +"I may be taken off by some passing vessel, perhaps," she +suggested. + +"There will be no passing vessels, except other sealing-schooners," +Wolf Larsen made answer. + +"I have no clothes, nothing," she objected. "You hardly realize, +sir, that I am not a man, or that I am unaccustomed to the vagrant, +careless life which you and your men seem to lead." + +"The sooner you get accustomed to it, the better," he said. + +"I'll furnish you with cloth, needles, and thread," he added. "I +hope it will not be too dreadful a hardship for you to make +yourself a dress or two." + +She made a wry pucker with her mouth, as though to advertise her +ignorance of dressmaking. That she was frightened and bewildered, +and that she was bravely striving to hide it, was quite plain to +me. + +"I suppose you're like Mr. Van Weyden there, accustomed to having +things done for you. Well, I think doing a few things for yourself +will hardly dislocate any joints. By the way, what do you do for a +living?" + +She regarded him with amazement unconcealed. + +"I mean no offence, believe me. People eat, therefore they must +procure the wherewithal. These men here shoot seals in order to +live; for the same reason I sail this schooner; and Mr. Van Weyden, +for the present at any rate, earns his salty grub by assisting me. +Now what do you do?" + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +"Do you feed yourself? Or does some one else feed you?" + +"I'm afraid some one else has fed me most of my life," she laughed, +trying bravely to enter into the spirit of his quizzing, though I +could see a terror dawning and growing in her eyes as she watched +Wolf Larsen. + +"And I suppose some one else makes your bed for you?" + +"I HAVE made beds," she replied. + +"Very often?" + +She shook her head with mock ruefulness. + +"Do you know what they do to poor men in the States, who, like you, +do not work for their living?" + +"I am very ignorant," she pleaded. "What do they do to the poor +men who are like me?" + +"They send them to jail. The crime of not earning a living, in +their case, is called vagrancy. If I were Mr. Van Weyden, who +harps eternally on questions of right and wrong, I'd ask, by what +right do you live when you do nothing to deserve living?" + +"But as you are not Mr. Van Weyden, I don't have to answer, do I?" + +She beamed upon him through her terror-filled eyes, and the pathos +of it cut me to the heart. I must in some way break in and lead +the conversation into other channels. + +"Have you ever earned a dollar by your own labour?" he demanded, +certain of her answer, a triumphant vindictiveness in his voice. + +"Yes, I have," she answered slowly, and I could have laughed aloud +at his crestfallen visage. "I remember my father giving me a +dollar once, when I was a little girl, for remaining absolutely +quiet for five minutes." + +He smiled indulgently. + +"But that was long ago," she continued. "And you would scarcely +demand a little girl of nine to earn her own living." + +"At present, however," she said, after another slight pause, "I +earn about eighteen hundred dollars a year." + +With one accord, all eyes left the plates and settled on her. A +woman who earned eighteen hundred dollars a year was worth looking +at. Wolf Larsen was undisguised in his admiration. + +"Salary, or piece-work?" he asked. + +"Piece-work," she answered promptly. + +"Eighteen hundred," he calculated. "That's a hundred and fifty +dollars a month. Well, Miss Brewster, there is nothing small about +the Ghost. Consider yourself on salary during the time you remain +with us." + +She made no acknowledgment. She was too unused as yet to the whims +of the man to accept them with equanimity. + +"I forgot to inquire," he went on suavely, "as to the nature of +your occupation. What commodities do you turn out? What tools and +materials do you require?" + +"Paper and ink," she laughed. "And, oh! also a typewriter." + +"You are Maud Brewster," I said slowly and with certainty, almost +as though I were charging her with a crime. + +Her eyes lifted curiously to mine. "How do you know?" + +"Aren't you?" I demanded. + +She acknowledged her identity with a nod. It was Wolf Larsen's +turn to be puzzled. The name and its magic signified nothing to +him. I was proud that it did mean something to me, and for the +first time in a weary while I was convincingly conscious of a +superiority over him. + +"I remember writing a review of a thin little volume--" I had begun +carelessly, when she interrupted me. + +"You!" she cried. "You are--" + +She was now staring at me in wide-eyed wonder. + +I nodded my identity, in turn. + +"Humphrey Van Weyden," she concluded; then added with a sigh of +relief, and unaware that she had glanced that relief at Wolf +Larsen, "I am so glad." + +"I remember the review," she went on hastily, becoming aware of the +awkwardness of her remark; "that too, too flattering review." + +"Not at all," I denied valiantly. "You impeach my sober judgment +and make my canons of little worth. Besides, all my brother +critics were with me. Didn't Lang include your 'Kiss Endured' +among the four supreme sonnets by women in the English language?" + +"But you called me the American Mrs. Meynell!" + +"Was it not true?" I demanded. + +"No, not that," she answered. "I was hurt." + +"We can measure the unknown only by the known," I replied, in my +finest academic manner. "As a critic I was compelled to place you. +You have now become a yardstick yourself. Seven of your thin +little volumes are on my shelves; and there are two thicker +volumes, the essays, which, you will pardon my saying, and I know +not which is flattered more, fully equal your verse. The time is +not far distant when some unknown will arise in England and the +critics will name her the English Maud Brewster." + +"You are very kind, I am sure," she murmured; and the very +conventionality of her tones and words, with the host of +associations it aroused of the old life on the other side of the +world, gave me a quick thrill--rich with remembrance but stinging +sharp with home-sickness. + +"And you are Maud Brewster," I said solemnly, gazing across at her. + +"And you are Humphrey Van Weyden," she said, gazing back at me with +equal solemnity and awe. "How unusual! I don't understand. We +surely are not to expect some wildly romantic sea-story from your +sober pen." + +"No, I am not gathering material, I assure you," was my answer. "I +have neither aptitude nor inclination for fiction." + +"Tell me, why have you always buried yourself in California?" she +next asked. "It has not been kind of you. We of the East have +seen to very little of you--too little, indeed, of the Dean of +American Letters, the Second." + +I bowed to, and disclaimed, the compliment. "I nearly met you, +once, in Philadelphia, some Browning affair or other--you were to +lecture, you know. My train was four hours late." + +And then we quite forgot where we were, leaving Wolf Larsen +stranded and silent in the midst of our flood of gossip. The +hunters left the table and went on deck, and still we talked. Wolf +Larsen alone remained. Suddenly I became aware of him, leaning +back from the table and listening curiously to our alien speech of +a world he did not know. + +I broke short off in the middle of a sentence. The present, with +all its perils and anxieties, rushed upon me with stunning force. +It smote Miss Brewster likewise, a vague and nameless terror +rushing into her eyes as she regarded Wolf Larsen. + +He rose to his feet and laughed awkwardly. The sound of it was +metallic. + +"Oh, don't mind me," he said, with a self-depreciatory wave of his +hand. "I don't count. Go on, go on, I pray you." + +But the gates of speech were closed, and we, too, rose from the +table and laughed awkwardly. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + + +The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster +and me in the conversation at table had to express itself in some +fashion, and it fell to Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had +not mended his ways nor his shirt, though the latter he contended +he had changed. The garment itself did not bear out the assertion, +nor did the accumulations of grease on stove and pot and pan attest +a general cleanliness. + +"I've given you warning, Cooky," Wolf Larsen said, "and now you've +got to take your medicine." + +Mugridge's face turned white under its sooty veneer, and when Wolf +Larsen called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable Cockney +fled wildly out of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck +with the grinning crew in pursuit. Few things could have been more +to their liking than to give him a tow over the side, for to the +forecastle he had sent messes and concoctions of the vilest order. +Conditions favoured the undertaking. The Ghost was slipping +through the water at no more than three miles an hour, and the sea +was fairly calm. But Mugridge had little stomach for a dip in it. +Possibly he had seen men towed before. Besides, the water was +frightfully cold, and his was anything but a rugged constitution. + +As usual, the watches below and the hunters turned out for what +promised sport. Mugridge seemed to be in rabid fear of the water, +and he exhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he +possessed. Cornered in the right-angle of the poop and galley, he +sprang like a cat to the top of the cabin and ran aft. But his +pursuers forestalling him, he doubled back across the cabin, passed +over the galley, and gained the deck by means of the steerage- +scuttle. Straight forward he raced, the boat-puller Harrison at +his heels and gaining on him. But Mugridge, leaping suddenly, +caught the jib-boom-lift. It happened in an instant. Holding his +weight by his arms, and in mid-air doubling his body at the hips, +he let fly with both feet. The oncoming Harrison caught the kick +squarely in the pit of the stomach, groaned involuntarily, and +doubled up and sank backward to the deck. + +Hand-clapping and roars of laughter from the hunters greeted the +exploit, while Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the +foremast, ran aft and through the remainder like a runner on the +football field. Straight aft he held, to the poop and along the +poop to the stern. So great was his speed that as he curved past +the corner of the cabin he slipped and fell. Nilson was standing +at the wheel, and the Cockney's hurtling body struck his legs. +Both went down together, but Mugridge alone arose. By some freak +of pressures, his frail body had snapped the strong man's leg like +a pipe-stem. + +Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round +the decks they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing +and shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing +encouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch +under three men; but he emerged from the mass like an eel, bleeding +at the mouth, the offending shirt ripped into tatters, and sprang +for the main-rigging. Up he went, clear up, beyond the ratlines, +to the very masthead. + +Half-a-dozen sailors swarmed to the crosstrees after him, where +they clustered and waited while two of their number, Oofty-Oofty +and Black (who was Latimer's boat-steerer), continued up the thin +steel stays, lifting their bodies higher and higher by means of +their arms. + +It was a perilous undertaking, for, at a height of over a hundred +feet from the deck, holding on by their hands, they were not in the +best of positions to protect themselves from Mugridge's feet. And +Mugridge kicked savagely, till the Kanaka, hanging on with one +hand, seized the Cockney's foot with the other. Black duplicated +the performance a moment later with the other foot. Then the three +writhed together in a swaying tangle, struggling, sliding, and +falling into the arms of their mates on the crosstrees. + +The aerial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and +gibbering, his mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to +deck. Wolf Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it +under his shoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the +sea. Forty,--fifty,--sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsen +cried "Belay!" Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, the rope +tautened, and the Ghost, lunging onward, jerked the cook to the +surface. + +It was a pitiful spectacle. Though he could not drown, and was +nine-lived in addition, he was suffering all the agonies of half- +drowning. The Ghost was going very slowly, and when her stern +lifted on a wave and she slipped forward she pulled the wretch to +the surface and gave him a moment in which to breathe; but between +each lift the stern fell, and while the bow lazily climbed the next +wave the line slacked and he sank beneath. + +I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered +her with a start as she stepped lightly beside me. It was her +first time on deck since she had come aboard. A dead silence +greeted her appearance. + +"What is the cause of the merriment?" she asked. + +"Ask Captain Larsen," I answered composedly and coldly, though +inwardly my blood was boiling at the thought that she should be +witness to such brutality. + +She took my advice and was turning to put it into execution, when +her eyes lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body +instinct with alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope. + +"Are you fishing?" she asked him. + +He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern, +suddenly flashed. + +"Shark ho, sir!" he cried. + +"Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!" Wolf Larsen shouted, +springing himself to the rope in advance of the quickest. + +Mugridge had heard the Kanaka's warning cry and was screaming +madly. I could see a black fin cutting the water and making for +him with greater swiftness than he was being pulled aboard. It was +an even toss whether the shark or we would get him, and it was a +matter of moments. When Mugridge was directly beneath us, the +stern descended the slope of a passing wave, thus giving the +advantage to the shark. The fin disappeared. The belly flashed +white in swift upward rush. Almost equally swift, but not quite, +was Wolf Larsen. He threw his strength into one tremendous jerk. +The Cockney's body left the water; so did part of the shark's. He +drew up his legs, and the man-eater seemed no more than barely to +touch one foot, sinking back into the water with a splash. But at +the moment of contact Thomas Mugridge cried out. Then he came in +like a fresh-caught fish on a line, clearing the rail generously +and striking the deck in a heap, on hands and knees, and rolling +over. + +But a fountain of blood was gushing forth. The right foot was +missing, amputated neatly at the ankle. I looked instantly to Maud +Brewster. Her face was white, her eyes dilated with horror. She +was gazing, not at Thomas Mugridge, but at Wolf Larsen. And he was +aware of it, for he said, with one of his short laughs: + +"Man-play, Miss Brewster. Somewhat rougher, I warrant, than what +you have been used to, but still-man-play. The shark was not in +the reckoning. It--" + +But at this juncture, Mugridge, who had lifted his head and +ascertained the extent of his loss, floundered over on the deck and +buried his teeth in Wolf Larsen's leg. Wolf Larsen stooped, +coolly, to the Cockney, and pressed with thumb and finger at the +rear of the jaws and below the ears. The jaws opened with +reluctance, and Wolf Larsen stepped free. + +"As I was saying," he went on, as though nothing unwonted had +happened, "the shark was not in the reckoning. It was--ahem--shall +we say Providence?" + +She gave no sign that she had heard, though the expression of her +eyes changed to one of inexpressible loathing as she started to +turn away. She no more than started, for she swayed and tottered, +and reached her hand weakly out to mine. I caught her in time to +save her from falling, and helped her to a seat on the cabin. I +thought she might faint outright, but she controlled herself. + +"Will you get a tourniquet, Mr. Van Weyden," Wolf Larsen called to +me. + +I hesitated. Her lips moved, and though they formed no words, she +commanded me with her eyes, plainly as speech, to go to the help of +the unfortunate man. "Please," she managed to whisper, and I could +but obey. + +By now I had developed such skill at surgery that Wolf Larsen, with +a few words of advice, left me to my task with a couple of sailors +for assistants. For his task he elected a vengeance on the shark. +A heavy swivel-hook, baited with fat salt-pork, was dropped +overside; and by the time I had compressed the severed veins and +arteries, the sailors were singing and heaving in the offending +monster. I did not see it myself, but my assistants, first one and +then the other, deserted me for a few moments to run amidships and +look at what was going on. The shark, a sixteen-footer, was +hoisted up against the main-rigging. Its jaws were pried apart to +their greatest extension, and a stout stake, sharpened at both +ends, was so inserted that when the pries were removed the spread +jaws were fixed upon it. This accomplished, the hook was cut out. +The shark dropped back into the sea, helpless, yet with its full +strength, doomed--to lingering starvation--a living death less meet +for it than for the man who devised the punishment. + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + + +I knew what it was as she came toward me. For ten minutes I had +watched her talking earnestly with the engineer, and now, with a +sign for silence, I drew her out of earshot of the helmsman. Her +face was white and set; her large eyes, larger than usual what of +the purpose in them, looked penetratingly into mine. I felt rather +timid and apprehensive, for she had come to search Humphrey Van +Weyden's soul, and Humphrey Van Weyden had nothing of which to be +particularly proud since his advent on the Ghost. + +We walked to the break of the poop, where she turned and faced me. +I glanced around to see that no one was within hearing distance. + +"What is it?" I asked gently; but the expression of determination +on her face did not relax. + +"I can readily understand," she began, "that this morning's affair +was largely an accident; but I have been talking with Mr. Haskins. +He tells me that the day we were rescued, even while I was in the +cabin, two men were drowned, deliberately drowned--murdered." + +There was a query in her voice, and she faced me accusingly, as +though I were guilty of the deed, or at least a party to it. + +"The information is quite correct," I answered. "The two men were +murdered." + +"And you permitted it!" she cried. + +"I was unable to prevent it, is a better way of phrasing it," I +replied, still gently. + +"But you tried to prevent it?" There was an emphasis on the +"tried," and a pleading little note in her voice. + +"Oh, but you didn't," she hurried on, divining my answer. "But why +didn't you?" + +I shrugged my shoulders. "You must remember, Miss Brewster, that +you are a new inhabitant of this little world, and that you do not +yet understand the laws which operate within it. You bring with +you certain fine conceptions of humanity, manhood, conduct, and +such things; but here you will find them misconceptions. I have +found it so," I added, with an involuntary sigh. + +She shook her head incredulously. + +"What would you advise, then?" I asked. "That I should take a +knife, or a gun, or an axe, and kill this man?" + +She half started back. + +"No, not that!" + +"Then what should I do? Kill myself?" + +"You speak in purely materialistic terms," she objected. "There is +such a thing as moral courage, and moral courage is never without +effect." + +"Ah," I smiled, "you advise me to kill neither him nor myself, but +to let him kill me." I held up my hand as she was about to speak. +"For moral courage is a worthless asset on this little floating +world. Leach, one of the men who were murdered, had moral courage +to an unusual degree. So had the other man, Johnson. Not only did +it not stand them in good stead, but it destroyed them. And so +with me if I should exercise what little moral courage I may +possess. + +"You must understand, Miss Brewster, and understand clearly, that +this man is a monster. He is without conscience. Nothing is +sacred to him, nothing is too terrible for him to do. It was due +to his whim that I was detained aboard in the first place. It is +due to his whim that I am still alive. I do nothing, can do +nothing, because I am a slave to this monster, as you are now a +slave to him; because I desire to live, as you will desire to live; +because I cannot fight and overcome him, just as you will not be +able to fight and overcome him." + +She waited for me to go on. + +"What remains? Mine is the role of the weak. I remain silent and +suffer ignominy, as you will remain silent and suffer ignominy. +And it is well. It is the best we can do if we wish to live. The +battle is not always to the strong. We have not the strength with +which to fight this man; we must dissimulate, and win, if win we +can, by craft. If you will be advised by me, this is what you will +do. I know my position is perilous, and I may say frankly that +yours is even more perilous. We must stand together, without +appearing to do so, in secret alliance. I shall not be able to +side with you openly, and, no matter what indignities may be put +upon me, you are to remain likewise silent. We must provoke no +scenes with this man, nor cross his will. And we must keep smiling +faces and be friendly with him no matter how repulsive it may be." + +She brushed her hand across her forehead in a puzzled way, saying, +"Still I do not understand." + +"You must do as I say," I interrupted authoritatively, for I saw +Wolf Larsen's gaze wandering toward us from where he paced up and +down with Latimer amidships. "Do as I say, and ere long you will +find I am right." + +"What shall I do, then?" she asked, detecting the anxious glance I +had shot at the object of our conversation, and impressed, I +flatter myself, with the earnestness of my manner. + +"Dispense with all the moral courage you can," I said briskly. +"Don't arouse this man's animosity. Be quite friendly with him, +talk with him, discuss literature and art with him--he is fond of +such things. You will find him an interested listener and no fool. +And for your own sake try to avoid witnessing, as much as you can, +the brutalities of the ship. It will make it easier for you to act +your part." + +"I am to lie," she said in steady, rebellious tones, "by speech and +action to lie." + +Wolf Larsen had separated from Latimer and was coming toward us. I +was desperate. + +"Please, please understand me," I said hurriedly, lowering my +voice. "All your experience of men and things is worthless here. +You must begin over again. I know,--I can see it--you have, among +other ways, been used to managing people with your eyes, letting +your moral courage speak out through them, as it were. You have +already managed me with your eyes, commanded me with them. But +don't try it on Wolf Larsen. You could as easily control a lion, +while he would make a mock of you. He would--I have always been +proud of the fact that I discovered him," I said, turning the +conversation as Wolf Larsen stepped on the poop and joined us. +"The editors were afraid of him and the publishers would have none +of him. But I knew, and his genius and my judgment were vindicated +when he made that magnificent hit with his 'Forge.'" + +"And it was a newspaper poem," she said glibly. + +"It did happen to see the light in a newspaper," I replied, "but +not because the magazine editors had been denied a glimpse at it." + +"We were talking of Harris," I said to Wolf Larsen. + +"Oh, yes," he acknowledged. "I remember the 'Forge.' Filled with +pretty sentiments and an almighty faith in human illusions. By the +way, Mr. Van Weyden, you'd better look in on Cooky. He's +complaining and restless." + +Thus was I bluntly dismissed from the poop, only to find Mugridge +sleeping soundly from the morphine I had given him. I made no +haste to return on deck, and when I did I was gratified to see Miss +Brewster in animated conversation with Wolf Larsen. As I say, the +sight gratified me. She was following my advice. And yet I was +conscious of a slight shock or hurt in that she was able to do the +thing I had begged her to do and which she had notably disliked. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + + +Brave winds, blowing fair, swiftly drove the Ghost northward into +the seal herd. We encountered it well up to the forty-fourth +parallel, in a raw and stormy sea across which the wind harried the +fog-banks in eternal flight. For days at a time we could never see +the sun nor take an observation; then the wind would sweep the face +of the ocean clean, the waves would ripple and flash, and we would +learn where we were. A day of clear weather might follow, or three +days or four, and then the fog would settle down upon us, seemingly +thicker than ever. + +The hunting was perilous; yet the boats, lowered day after day, +were swallowed up in the grey obscurity, and were seen no more till +nightfall, and often not till long after, when they would creep in +like sea-wraiths, one by one, out of the grey. Wainwright--the +hunter whom Wolf Larsen had stolen with boat and men--took +advantage of the veiled sea and escaped. He disappeared one +morning in the encircling fog with his two men, and we never saw +them again, though it was not many days when we learned that they +had passed from schooner to schooner until they finally regained +their own. + +This was the thing I had set my mind upon doing, but the +opportunity never offered. It was not in the mate's province to go +out in the boats, and though I manoeuvred cunningly for it, Wolf +Larsen never granted me the privilege. Had he done so, I should +have managed somehow to carry Miss Brewster away with me. As it +was, the situation was approaching a stage which I was afraid to +consider. I involuntarily shunned the thought of it, and yet the +thought continually arose in my mind like a haunting spectre. + +I had read sea-romances in my time, wherein figured, as a matter of +course, the lone woman in the midst of a shipload of men; but I +learned, now, that I had never comprehended the deeper significance +of such a situation--the thing the writers harped upon and +exploited so thoroughly. And here it was, now, and I was face to +face with it. That it should be as vital as possible, it required +no more than that the woman should be Maud Brewster, who now +charmed me in person as she had long charmed me through her work. + +No one more out of environment could be imagined. She was a +delicate, ethereal creature, swaying and willowy, light and +graceful of movement. It never seemed to me that she walked, or, +at least, walked after the ordinary manner of mortals. Hers was an +extreme lithesomeness, and she moved with a certain indefinable +airiness, approaching one as down might float or as a bird on +noiseless wings. + +She was like a bit of Dresden china, and I was continually +impressed with what I may call her fragility. As at the time I +caught her arm when helping her below, so at any time I was quite +prepared, should stress or rough handling befall her, to see her +crumble away. I have never seen body and spirit in such perfect +accord. Describe her verse, as the critics have described it, as +sublimated and spiritual, and you have described her body. It +seemed to partake of her soul, to have analogous attributes, and to +link it to life with the slenderest of chains. Indeed, she trod +the earth lightly, and in her constitution there was little of the +robust clay. + +She was in striking contrast to Wolf Larsen. Each was nothing that +the other was, everything that the other was not. I noted them +walking the deck together one morning, and I likened them to the +extreme ends of the human ladder of evolution--the one the +culmination of all savagery, the other the finished product of the +finest civilization. True, Wolf Larsen possessed intellect to an +unusual degree, but it was directed solely to the exercise of his +savage instincts and made him but the more formidable a savage. He +was splendidly muscled, a heavy man, and though he strode with the +certitude and directness of the physical man, there was nothing +heavy about his stride. The jungle and the wilderness lurked in +the uplift and downput of his feet. He was cat-footed, and lithe, +and strong, always strong. I likened him to some great tiger, a +beast of prowess and prey. He looked it, and the piercing glitter +that arose at times in his eyes was the same piercing glitter I had +observed in the eyes of caged leopards and other preying creatures +of the wild. + +But this day, as I noted them pacing up and down, I saw that it was +she who terminated the walk. They came up to where I was standing +by the entrance to the companion-way. Though she betrayed it by no +outward sign, I felt, somehow, that she was greatly perturbed. She +made some idle remark, looking at me, and laughed lightly enough; +but I saw her eyes return to his, involuntarily, as though +fascinated; then they fell, but not swiftly enough to veil the rush +of terror that filled them. + +It was in his eyes that I saw the cause of her perturbation. +Ordinarily grey and cold and harsh, they were now warm and soft and +golden, and all a-dance with tiny lights that dimmed and faded, or +welled up till the full orbs were flooded with a glowing radiance. +Perhaps it was to this that the golden colour was due; but golden +his eyes were, enticing and masterful, at the same time luring and +compelling, and speaking a demand and clamour of the blood which no +woman, much less Maud Brewster, could misunderstand. + +Her own terror rushed upon me, and in that moment of fear--the most +terrible fear a man can experience--I knew that in inexpressible +ways she was dear to me. The knowledge that I loved her rushed +upon me with the terror, and with both emotions gripping at my +heart and causing my blood at the same time to chill and to leap +riotously, I felt myself drawn by a power without me and beyond me, +and found my eyes returning against my will to gaze into the eyes +of Wolf Larsen. But he had recovered himself. The golden colour +and the dancing lights were gone. Cold and grey and glittering +they were as he bowed brusquely and turned away. + +"I am afraid," she whispered, with a shiver. "I am so afraid." + +I, too, was afraid, and what of my discovery of how much she meant +to me my mind was in a turmoil; but, I succeeded in answering quite +calmly: + +"All will come right, Miss Brewster. Trust me, it will come +right." + +She answered with a grateful little smile that sent my heart +pounding, and started to descend the companion-stairs. + +For a long while I remained standing where she had left me. There +was imperative need to adjust myself, to consider the significance +of the changed aspect of things. It had come, at last, love had +come, when I least expected it and under the most forbidding +conditions. Of course, my philosophy had always recognized the +inevitableness of the love-call sooner or later; but long years of +bookish silence had made me inattentive and unprepared. + +And now it had come! Maud Brewster! My memory flashed back to +that first thin little volume on my desk, and I saw before me, as +though in the concrete, the row of thin little volumes on my +library shelf. How I had welcomed each of them! Each year one had +come from the press, and to me each was the advent of the year. +They had voiced a kindred intellect and spirit, and as such I had +received them into a camaraderie of the mind; but now their place +was in my heart. + +My heart? A revulsion of feeling came over me. I seemed to stand +outside myself and to look at myself incredulously. Maud Brewster! +Humphrey Van Weyden, "the cold-blooded fish," the "emotionless +monster," the "analytical demon," of Charley Furuseth's +christening, in love! And then, without rhyme or reason, all +sceptical, my mind flew back to a small biographical note in the +red-bound Who's Who, and I said to myself, "She was born in +Cambridge, and she is twenty-seven years old." And then I said, +"Twenty-seven years old and still free and fancy free?" But how +did I know she was fancy free? And the pang of new-born jealousy +put all incredulity to flight. There was no doubt about it. I was +jealous; therefore I loved. And the woman I loved was Maud +Brewster. + +I, Humphrey Van Weyden, was in love! And again the doubt assailed +me. Not that I was afraid of it, however, or reluctant to meet it. +On the contrary, idealist that I was to the most pronounced degree, +my philosophy had always recognized and guerdoned love as the +greatest thing in the world, the aim and the summit of being, the +most exquisite pitch of joy and happiness to which life could +thrill, the thing of all things to be hailed and welcomed and taken +into the heart. But now that it had come I could not believe. I +could not be so fortunate. It was too good, too good to be true. +Symons's lines came into my head: + + +"I wandered all these years among +A world of women, seeking you." + + +And then I had ceased seeking. It was not for me, this greatest +thing in the world, I had decided. Furuseth was right; I was +abnormal, an "emotionless monster," a strange bookish creature, +capable of pleasuring in sensations only of the mind. And though I +had been surrounded by women all my days, my appreciation of them +had been aesthetic and nothing more. I had actually, at times, +considered myself outside the pale, a monkish fellow denied the +eternal or the passing passions I saw and understood so well in +others. And now it had come! Undreamed of and unheralded, it had +come. In what could have been no less than an ecstasy, I left my +post at the head of the companion-way and started along the deck, +murmuring to myself those beautiful lines of Mrs. Browning: + + +"I lived with visions for my company +Instead of men and women years ago, +And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know +A sweeter music than they played to me." + + +But the sweeter music was playing in my ears, and I was blind and +oblivious to all about me. The sharp voice of Wolf Larsen aroused +me. + +"What the hell are you up to?" he was demanding. + +I had strayed forward where the sailors were painting, and I came +to myself to find my advancing foot on the verge of overturning a +paint-pot. + +"Sleep-walking, sunstroke,--what?" he barked. + +"No; indigestion," I retorted, and continued my walk as if nothing +untoward had occurred. + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + + +Among the most vivid memories of my life are those of the events on +the Ghost which occurred during the forty hours succeeding the +discovery of my love for Maud Brewster. I, who had lived my life +in quiet places, only to enter at the age of thirty-five upon a +course of the most irrational adventure I could have imagined, +never had more incident and excitement crammed into any forty hours +of my experience. Nor can I quite close my ears to a small voice +of pride which tells me I did not do so badly, all things +considered. + +To begin with, at the midday dinner, Wolf Larsen informed the +hunters that they were to eat thenceforth in the steerage. It was +an unprecedented thing on sealing-schooners, where it is the custom +for the hunters to rank, unofficially as officers. He gave no +reason, but his motive was obvious enough. Horner and Smoke had +been displaying a gallantry toward Maud Brewster, ludicrous in +itself and inoffensive to her, but to him evidently distasteful. + +The announcement was received with black silence, though the other +four hunters glanced significantly at the two who had been the +cause of their banishment. Jock Horner, quiet as was his way, gave +no sign; but the blood surged darkly across Smoke's forehead, and +he half opened his mouth to speak. Wolf Larsen was watching him, +waiting for him, the steely glitter in his eyes; but Smoke closed +his mouth again without having said anything. + +"Anything to say?" the other demanded aggressively. + +It was a challenge, but Smoke refused to accept it. + +"About what?" he asked, so innocently that Wolf Larsen was +disconcerted, while the others smiled. + +"Oh, nothing," Wolf Larsen said lamely. "I just thought you might +want to register a kick." + +"About what?" asked the imperturbable Smoke. + +Smoke's mates were now smiling broadly. His captain could have +killed him, and I doubt not that blood would have flowed had not +Maud Brewster been present. For that matter, it was her presence +which enabled. Smoke to act as he did. He was too discreet and +cautious a man to incur Wolf Larsen's anger at a time when that +anger could be expressed in terms stronger than words. I was in +fear that a struggle might take place, but a cry from the helmsman +made it easy for the situation to save itself. + +"Smoke ho!" the cry came down the open companion-way. + +"How's it bear?" Wolf Larsen called up. + +"Dead astern, sir." + +"Maybe it's a Russian," suggested Latimer. + +His words brought anxiety into the faces of the other hunters. A +Russian could mean but one thing--a cruiser. The hunters, never +more than roughly aware of the position of the ship, nevertheless +knew that we were close to the boundaries of the forbidden sea, +while Wolf Larsen's record as a poacher was notorious. All eyes +centred upon him. + +"We're dead safe," he assured them with a laugh. "No salt mines +this time, Smoke. But I'll tell you what--I'll lay odds of five to +one it's the Macedonia." + +No one accepted his offer, and he went on: "In which event, I'll +lay ten to one there's trouble breezing up." + +"No, thank you," Latimer spoke up. "I don't object to losing my +money, but I like to get a run for it anyway. There never was a +time when there wasn't trouble when you and that brother of yours +got together, and I'll lay twenty to one on that." + +A general smile followed, in which Wolf Larsen joined, and the +dinner went on smoothly, thanks to me, for he treated me abominably +the rest of the meal, sneering at me and patronizing me till I was +all a-tremble with suppressed rage. Yet I knew I must control +myself for Maud Brewster's sake, and I received my reward when her +eyes caught mine for a fleeting second, and they said, as +distinctly as if she spoke, "Be brave, be brave." + +We left the table to go on deck, for a steamer was a welcome break +in the monotony of the sea on which we floated, while the +conviction that it was Death Larsen and the Macedonia added to the +excitement. The stiff breeze and heavy sea which had sprung up the +previous afternoon had been moderating all morning, so that it was +now possible to lower the boats for an afternoon's hunt. The +hunting promised to be profitable. We had sailed since daylight +across a sea barren of seals, and were now running into the herd. + +The smoke was still miles astern, but overhauling us rapidly, when +we lowered our boats. They spread out and struck a northerly +course across the ocean. Now and again we saw a sail lower, heard +the reports of the shot-guns, and saw the sail go up again. The +seals were thick, the wind was dying away; everything favoured a +big catch. As we ran off to get our leeward position of the last +lee boat, we found the ocean fairly carpeted with sleeping seals. +They were all about us, thicker than I had ever seen them before, +in twos and threes and bunches, stretched full length on the +surface and sleeping for all the world like so many lazy young +dogs. + +Under the approaching smoke the hull and upper-works of a steamer +were growing larger. It was the Macedonia. I read her name +through the glasses as she passed by scarcely a mile to starboard. +Wolf Larsen looked savagely at the vessel, while Maud Brewster was +curious. + +"Where is the trouble you were so sure was breezing up, Captain +Larsen?" she asked gaily. + +He glanced at her, a moment's amusement softening his features. + +"What did you expect? That they'd come aboard and cut our +throats?" + +"Something like that," she confessed. "You understand, seal- +hunters are so new and strange to me that I am quite ready to +expect anything." + +He nodded his head. "Quite right, quite right. Your error is that +you failed to expect the worst." + +"Why, what can be worse than cutting our throats?" she asked, with +pretty naive surprise. + +"Cutting our purses," he answered. "Man is so made these days that +his capacity for living is determined by the money he possesses." + +"'Who steals my purse steals trash,'" she quoted. + +"Who steals my purse steals my right to live," was the reply, "old +saws to the contrary. For he steals my bread and meat and bed, and +in so doing imperils my life. There are not enough soup-kitchens +and bread-lines to go around, you know, and when men have nothing +in their purses they usually die, and die miserably--unless they +are able to fill their purses pretty speedily." + +"But I fail to see that this steamer has any designs on your +purse." + +"Wait and you will see," he answered grimly. + +We did not have long to wait. Having passed several miles beyond +our line of boats, the Macedonia proceeded to lower her own. We +knew she carried fourteen boats to our five (we were one short +through the desertion of Wainwright), and she began dropping them +far to leeward of our last boat, continued dropping them athwart +our course, and finished dropping them far to windward of our first +weather boat. The hunting, for us, was spoiled. There were no +seals behind us, and ahead of us the line of fourteen boats, like a +huge broom, swept the herd before it. + +Our boats hunted across the two or three miles of water between +them and the point where the Macedonia's had been dropped, and then +headed for home. The wind had fallen to a whisper, the ocean was +growing calmer and calmer, and this, coupled with the presence of +the great herd, made a perfect hunting day--one of the two or three +days to be encountered in the whole of a lucky season. An angry +lot of men, boat-pullers and steerers as well as hunters, swarmed +over our side. Each man felt that he had been robbed; and the +boats were hoisted in amid curses, which, if curses had power, +would have settled Death Larsen for all eternity--"Dead and damned +for a dozen iv eternities," commented Louis, his eyes twinkling up +at me as he rested from hauling taut the lashings of his boat. + +"Listen to them, and find if it is hard to discover the most vital +thing in their souls," said Wolf Larsen. "Faith? and love? and +high ideals? The good? the beautiful? the true?" + +"Their innate sense of right has been violated," Maud Brewster +said, joining the conversation. + +She was standing a dozen feet away, one hand resting on the main- +shrouds and her body swaying gently to the slight roll of the ship. +She had not raised her voice, and yet I was struck by its clear and +bell-like tone. Ah, it was sweet in my ears! I scarcely dared +look at her just then, for the fear of betraying myself. A boy's +cap was perched on her head, and her hair, light brown and arranged +in a loose and fluffy order that caught the sun, seemed an aureole +about the delicate oval of her face. She was positively +bewitching, and, withal, sweetly spirituelle, if not saintly. All +my old-time marvel at life returned to me at sight of this splendid +incarnation of it, and Wolf Larsen's cold explanation of life and +its meaning was truly ridiculous and laughable. + +"A sentimentalist," he sneered, "like Mr. Van Weyden. Those men +are cursing because their desires have been outraged. That is all. +What desires? The desires for the good grub and soft beds ashore +which a handsome pay-day brings them--the women and the drink, the +gorging and the beastliness which so truly expresses them, the best +that is in them, their highest aspirations, their ideals, if you +please. The exhibition they make of their feelings is not a +touching sight, yet it shows how deeply they have been touched, how +deeply their purses have been touched, for to lay hands on their +purses is to lay hands on their souls." + +"'You hardly behave as if your purse had been touched," she said, +smilingly. + +"Then it so happens that I am behaving differently, for my purse +and my soul have both been touched. At the current price of skins +in the London market, and based on a fair estimate of what the +afternoon's catch would have been had not the Macedonia hogged it, +the Ghost has lost about fifteen hundred dollars' worth of skins." + +"You speak so calmly--" she began. + +"But I do not feel calm; I could kill the man who robbed me," he +interrupted. "Yes, yes, I know, and that man my brother--more +sentiment! Bah!" + +His face underwent a sudden change. His voice was less harsh and +wholly sincere as he said: + +"You must be happy, you sentimentalists, really and truly happy at +dreaming and finding things good, and, because you find some of +them good, feeling good yourself. Now, tell me, you two, do you +find me good?" + +"You are good to look upon--in a way," I qualified. + +"There are in you all powers for good," was Maud Brewster's answer. + +"There you are!" he cried at her, half angrily. "Your words are +empty to me. There is nothing clear and sharp and definite about +the thought you have expressed. You cannot pick it up in your two +hands and look at it. In point of fact, it is not a thought. It +is a feeling, a sentiment, a something based upon illusion and not +a product of the intellect at all." + +As he went on his voice again grew soft, and a confiding note came +into it. "Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, +too, were blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and +illusions. They're wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to +reason; but in the face of them my reason tells me, wrong and most +wrong, that to dream and live illusions gives greater delight. And +after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, living +is a worthless act. To labour at living and be unpaid is worse +than to be dead. He who delights the most lives the most, and your +dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to you and more +gratifying than are my facts to me." + +He shook his head slowly, pondering. + +"I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. +Dreams must be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight +is more filling and lasting than intellectual delight; and, +besides, you pay for your moments of intellectual delight by having +the blues. Emotional delight is followed by no more than jaded +senses which speedily recuperate. I envy you, I envy you." + +He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange +quizzical smiles, as he added: + +"It's from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. +My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am +like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, +wishing he, too, were drunk." + +"Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a +fool," I laughed. + +"Quite so," he said. "You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of fools. +You have no facts in your pocketbook." + +"Yet we spend as freely as you," was Maud Brewster's contribution. + +"More freely, because it costs you nothing." + +"And because we draw upon eternity," she retorted. + +"Whether you do or think you do, it's the same thing. You spend +what you haven't got, and in return you get greater value from +spending what you haven't got than I get from spending what I have +got, and what I have sweated to get." + +"Why don't you change the basis of your coinage, then?" she queried +teasingly. + +He looked at her quickly, half-hopefully, and then said, all +regretfully: "Too late. I'd like to, perhaps, but I can't. My +pocketbook is stuffed with the old coinage, and it's a stubborn +thing. I can never bring myself to recognize anything else as +valid." + +He ceased speaking, and his gaze wandered absently past her and +became lost in the placid sea. The old primal melancholy was +strong upon him. He was quivering to it. He had reasoned himself +into a spell of the blues, and within few hours one could look for +the devil within him to be up and stirring. I remembered Charley +Furuseth, and knew this man's sadness as the penalty which the +materialist ever pays for his materialism. + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + + +"You've been on deck, Mr. Van Weyden," Wolf Larsen said, the +following morning at the breakfast-table, "How do things look?" + +"Clear enough," I answered, glancing at the sunshine which streamed +down the open companion-way. "Fair westerly breeze, with a promise +of stiffening, if Louis predicts correctly." + +He nodded his head in a pleased way. "Any signs of fog?" + +"Thick banks in the north and north-west." + +He nodded his head again, evincing even greater satisfaction than +before. + +"What of the Macedonia?" + +"Not sighted," I answered. + +I could have sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he +should be disappointed I could not conceive. + +I was soon to learn. "Smoke ho!" came the hail from on deck, and +his face brightened. + +"Good!" he exclaimed, and left the table at once to go on deck and +into the steerage, where the hunters were taking the first +breakfast of their exile. + +Maud Brewster and I scarcely touched the food before us, gazing, +instead, in silent anxiety at each other, and listening to Wolf +Larsen's voice, which easily penetrated the cabin through the +intervening bulkhead. He spoke at length, and his conclusion was +greeted with a wild roar of cheers. The bulkhead was too thick for +us to hear what he said; but whatever it was it affected the +hunters strongly, for the cheering was followed by loud +exclamations and shouts of joy. + +From the sounds on deck I knew that the sailors had been routed out +and were preparing to lower the boats. Maud Brewster accompanied +me on deck, but I left her at the break of the poop, where she +might watch the scene and not be in it. The sailors must have +learned whatever project was on hand, and the vim and snap they put +into their work attested their enthusiasm. The hunters came +trooping on deck with shot-guns and ammunition-boxes, and, most +unusual, their rifles. The latter were rarely taken in the boats, +for a seal shot at long range with a rifle invariably sank before a +boat could reach it. But each hunter this day had his rifle and a +large supply of cartridges. I noticed they grinned with +satisfaction whenever they looked at the Macedonia's smoke, which +was rising higher and higher as she approached from the west. + +The five boats went over the side with a rush, spread out like the +ribs of a fan, and set a northerly course, as on the preceding +afternoon, for us to follow. I watched for some time, curiously, +but there seemed nothing extraordinary about their behaviour. They +lowered sails, shot seals, and hoisted sails again, and continued +on their way as I had always seen them do. The Macedonia repeated +her performance of yesterday, "hogging" the sea by dropping her +line of boats in advance of ours and across our course. Fourteen +boats require a considerable spread of ocean for comfortable +hunting, and when she had completely lapped our line she continued +steaming into the north-east, dropping more boats as she went. + +"What's up?" I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer to keep my +curiosity in check. + +"Never mind what's up," he answered gruffly. "You won't be a +thousand years in finding out, and in the meantime just pray for +plenty of wind." + +"Oh, well, I don't mind telling you," he said the next moment. +"I'm going to give that brother of mine a taste of his own +medicine. In short, I'm going to play the hog myself, and not for +one day, but for the rest of the season,--if we're in luck." + +"And if we're not?" I queried. + +"Not to be considered," he laughed. "We simply must be in luck, or +it's all up with us." + +He had the wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in +the forecastle, where lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas +Mugridge. Nilson was as cheerful as could be expected, for his +broken leg was knitting nicely; but the Cockney was desperately +melancholy, and I was aware of a great sympathy for the unfortunate +creature. And the marvel of it was that still he lived and clung +to life. The brutal years had reduced his meagre body to +splintered wreckage, and yet the spark of life within burned +brightly as ever. + +"With an artificial foot--and they make excellent ones--you will be +stumping ships' galleys to the end of time," I assured him +jovially. + +But his answer was serious, nay, solemn. "I don't know about wot +you s'y, Mr. Van W'yden, but I do know I'll never rest 'appy till I +see that 'ell-'ound bloody well dead. 'E cawn't live as long as +me. 'E's got no right to live, an' as the Good Word puts it, ''E +shall shorely die,' an' I s'y, 'Amen, an' damn soon at that.'" + +When I returned on deck I found Wolf Larsen steering mainly with +one hand, while with the other hand he held the marine glasses and +studied the situation of the boats, paying particular attention to +the position of the Macedonia. The only change noticeable in our +boats was that they had hauled close on the wind and were heading +several points west of north. Still, I could not see the +expediency of the manoeuvre, for the free sea was still intercepted +by the Macedonia's five weather boats, which, in turn, had hauled +close on the wind. Thus they slowly diverged toward the west, +drawing farther away from the remainder of the boats in their line. +Our boats were rowing as well as sailing. Even the hunters were +pulling, and with three pairs of oars in the water they rapidly +overhauled what I may appropriately term the enemy. + +The smoke of the Macedonia had dwindled to a dim blot on the north- +eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was to be seen. +We had been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half the +time and spilling the wind; and twice, for short periods, we had +been hove to. But there was no more loafing. Sheets were trimmed, +and Wolf Larsen proceeded to put the Ghost through her paces. We +ran past our line of boats and bore down upon the first weather +boat of the other line. + +"Down that flying jib, Mr. Van Weyden," Wolf Larsen commanded. +"And stand by to back over the jibs." + +I ran forward and had the downhaul of the flying jib all in and +fast as we slipped by the boat a hundred feet to leeward. The +three men in it gazed at us suspiciously. They had been hogging +the sea, and they knew Wolf Larsen, by reputation at any rate. I +noted that the hunter, a huge Scandinavian sitting in the bow, held +his rifle, ready to hand, across his knees. It should have been in +its proper place in the rack. When they came opposite our stern, +Wolf Larsen greeted them with a wave of the hand, and cried: + +"Come on board and have a 'gam'!" + +"To gam," among the sealing-schooners, is a substitute for the +verbs "to visit," "to gossip." It expresses the garrulity of the +sea, and is a pleasant break in the monotony of the life. + +The Ghost swung around into the wind, and I finished my work +forward in time to run aft and lend a hand with the mainsheet. + +"You will please stay on deck, Miss Brewster," Wolf Larsen said, as +he started forward to meet his guest. "And you too, Mr. Van +Weyden." + +The boat had lowered its sail and run alongside. The hunter, +golden bearded like a sea-king, came over the rail and dropped on +deck. But his hugeness could not quite overcome his +apprehensiveness. Doubt and distrust showed strongly in his face. +It was a transparent face, for all of its hairy shield, and +advertised instant relief when he glanced from Wolf Larsen to me, +noted that there was only the pair of us, and then glanced over his +own two men who had joined him. Surely he had little reason to be +afraid. He towered like a Goliath above Wolf Larsen. He must have +measured six feet eight or nine inches in stature, and I +subsequently learned his weight--240 pounds. And there was no fat +about him. It was all bone and muscle. + +A return of apprehension was apparent when, at the top of the +companion-way, Wolf Larsen invited him below. But he reassured +himself with a glance down at his host--a big man himself but +dwarfed by the propinquity of the giant. So all hesitancy +vanished, and the pair descended into the cabin. In the meantime, +his two men, as was the wont of visiting sailors, had gone forward +into the forecastle to do some visiting themselves. + +Suddenly, from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by +all the sounds of a furious struggle. It was the leopard and the +lion, and the lion made all the noise. Wolf Larsen was the +leopard. + +"You see the sacredness of our hospitality," I said bitterly to +Maud Brewster. + +She nodded her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the +signs of the same sickness at sight or sound of violent struggle +from which I had suffered so severely during my first weeks on the +Ghost. + +"Wouldn't it be better if you went forward, say by the steerage +companion-way, until it is over?" I suggested. + +She shook her head and gazed at me pitifully. She was not +frightened, but appalled, rather, at the human animality of it. + +"You will understand," I took advantage of the opportunity to say, +"whatever part I take in what is going on and what is to come, that +I am compelled to take it--if you and I are ever to get out of this +scrape with our lives." + +"It is not nice--for me," I added. + +"I understand," she said, in a weak, far-away voice, and her eyes +showed me that she did understand. + +The sounds from below soon died away. Then Wolf Larsen came alone +on deck. There was a slight flush under his bronze, but otherwise +he bore no signs of the battle. + +"Send those two men aft, Mr. Van Weyden," he said. + +I obeyed, and a minute or two later they stood before him. "Hoist +in your boat," he said to them. "Your hunter's decided to stay +aboard awhile and doesn't want it pounding alongside." + +"Hoist in your boat, I said," he repeated, this time in sharper +tones as they hesitated to do his bidding. + +"Who knows? you may have to sail with me for a time," he said, +quite softly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, as +they moved slowly to comply, "and we might as well start with a +friendly understanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes you jump +better than that, and you know it!" + +Their movements perceptibly quickened under his coaching, and as +the boat swung inboard I was sent forward to let go the jibs. Wolf +Larsen, at the wheel, directed the Ghost after the Macedonia's +second weather boat. + +Under way, and with nothing for the time being to do, I turned my +attention to the situation of the boats. The Macedonia's third +weather boat was being attacked by two of ours, the fourth by our +remaining three; and the fifth, turn about, was taking a hand in +the defence of its nearest mate. The fight had opened at long +distance, and the rifles were cracking steadily. A quick, snappy +sea was being kicked up by the wind, a condition which prevented +fine shooting; and now and again, as we drew closer, we could see +the bullets zip-zipping from wave to wave. + +The boat we were pursuing had squared away and was running before +the wind to escape us, and, in the course of its flight, to take +part in repulsing our general boat attack. + +Attending to sheets and tacks now left me little time to see what +was taking place, but I happened to be on the poop when Wolf Larsen +ordered the two strange sailors forward and into the forecastle. +They went sullenly, but they went. He next ordered Miss Brewster +below, and smiled at the instant horror that leapt into her eyes. + +"You'll find nothing gruesome down there," he said, "only an unhurt +man securely made fast to the ring-bolts. Bullets are liable to +come aboard, and I don't want you killed, you know." + +Even as he spoke, a bullet was deflected by a brass-capped spoke of +the wheel between his hands and screeched off through the air to +windward. + +"You see," he said to her; and then to me, "Mr. Van Weyden, will +you take the wheel?" + +Maud Brewster had stepped inside the companion-way so that only her +head was exposed. Wolf Larsen had procured a rifle and was +throwing a cartridge into the barrel. I begged her with my eyes to +go below, but she smiled and said: + +"We may be feeble land-creatures without legs, but we can show +Captain Larsen that we are at least as brave as he." + +He gave her a quick look of admiration. + +"I like you a hundred per cent. better for that," he said. "Books, +and brains, and bravery. You are well-rounded, a blue-stocking fit +to be the wife of a pirate chief. Ahem, we'll discuss that later," +he smiled, as a bullet struck solidly into the cabin wall. + +I saw his eyes flash golden as he spoke, and I saw the terror mount +in her own. + +"We are braver," I hastened to say. "At least, speaking for +myself, I know I am braver than Captain Larsen." + +It was I who was now favoured by a quick look. He was wondering if +I were making fun of him. I put three or four spokes over to +counteract a sheer toward the wind on the part of the Ghost, and +then steadied her. Wolf Larsen was still waiting an explanation, +and I pointed down to my knees. + +"You will observe there," I said, "a slight trembling. It is +because I am afraid, the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my +mind because I do not wish to die. But my spirit masters the +trembling flesh and the qualms of the mind. I am more than brave. +I am courageous. Your flesh is not afraid. You are not afraid. +On the one hand, it costs you nothing to encounter danger; on the +other hand, it even gives you delight. You enjoy it. You may be +unafraid, Mr. Larsen, but you must grant that the bravery is mine." + +"You're right," he acknowledged at once. "I never thought of it in +that way before. But is the opposite true? If you are braver than +I, am I more cowardly than you?" + +We both laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck +and rested his rifle across the rail. The bullets we had received +had travelled nearly a mile, but by now we had cut that distance in +half. He fired three careful shots. The first struck fifty feet +to windward of the boat, the second alongside; and at the third the +boat-steerer let loose his steering-oar and crumpled up in the +bottom of the boat. + +"I guess that'll fix them," Wolf Larsen said, rising to his feet. +"I couldn't afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a chance +the boat-puller doesn't know how to steer. In which case, the +hunter cannot steer and shoot at the same time" + +His reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the +wind and the hunter sprang aft to take the boat-steerer's place. +There was no more shooting, though the rifles were still cracking +merrily from the other boats. + +The hunter had managed to get the boat before the wind again, but +we ran down upon it, going at least two feet to its one. A hundred +yards away, I saw the boat-puller pass a rifle to the hunter. Wolf +Larsen went amidships and took the coil of the throat-halyards from +its pin. Then he peered over the rail with levelled rifle. Twice +I saw the hunter let go the steering-oar with one hand, reach for +his rifle, and hesitate. We were now alongside and foaming past. + +"Here, you!" Wolf Larsen cried suddenly to the boat-puller. "Take +a turn!" + +At the same time he flung the coil of rope. It struck fairly, +nearly knocking the man over, but he did not obey. Instead, he +looked to his hunter for orders. The hunter, in turn, was in a +quandary. His rifle was between his knees, but if he let go the +steering-oar in order to shoot, the boat would sweep around and +collide with the schooner. Also he saw Wolf Larsen's rifle bearing +upon him and knew he would be shot ere he could get his rifle into +play. + +"Take a turn," he said quietly to the man. + +The boat-puller obeyed, taking a turn around the little forward +thwart and paying the line as it jerked taut. The boat sheered out +with a rush, and the hunter steadied it to a parallel course some +twenty feet from the side of the Ghost. + +"Now, get that sail down and come alongside!" Wolf Larsen ordered. + +He never let go his rifle, even passing down the tackles with one +hand. When they were fast, bow and stern, and the two uninjured +men prepared to come aboard, the hunter picked up his rifle as if +to place it in a secure position. + +"Drop it!" Wolf Larsen cried, and the hunter dropped it as though +it were hot and had burned him. + +Once aboard, the two prisoners hoisted in the boat and under Wolf +Larsen's direction carried the wounded boat-steerer down into the +forecastle. + +"If our five boats do as well as you and I have done, we'll have a +pretty full crew," Wolf Larsen said to me. + +"The man you shot--he is--I hope?" Maud Brewster quavered. + +"In the shoulder," he answered. "Nothing serious, Mr. Van Weyden +will pull him around as good as ever in three or four weeks." + +"But he won't pull those chaps around, from the look of it," he +added, pointing at the Macedonia's third boat, for which I had been +steering and which was now nearly abreast of us. "That's Horner's +and Smoke's work. I told them we wanted live men, not carcasses. +But the joy of shooting to hit is a most compelling thing, when +once you've learned how to shoot. Ever experienced it, Mr. Van +Weyden?" + +I shook my head and regarded their work. It had indeed been +bloody, for they had drawn off and joined our other three boats in +the attack on the remaining two of the enemy. The deserted boat +was in the trough of the sea, rolling drunkenly across each comber, +its loose spritsail out at right angles to it and fluttering and +flapping in the wind. The hunter and boat-puller were both lying +awkwardly in the bottom, but the boat-steerer lay across the +gunwale, half in and half out, his arms trailing in the water and +his head rolling from side to side. + +"Don't look, Miss Brewster, please don't look," I had begged of +her, and I was glad that she had minded me and been spared the +sight. + +"Head right into the bunch, Mr. Van Weyden," was Wolf Larsen's +command. + +As we drew nearer, the firing ceased, and we saw that the fight was +over. The remaining two boats had been captured by our five, and +the seven were grouped together, waiting to be picked up. + +"Look at that!" I cried involuntarily, pointing to the north-east. + +The blot of smoke which indicated the Macedonia's position had +reappeared. + +"Yes, I've been watching it," was Wolf Larsen's calm reply. He +measured the distance away to the fog-bank, and for an instant +paused to feel the weight of the wind on his cheek. "We'll make +it, I think; but you can depend upon it that blessed brother of +mine has twigged our little game and is just a-humping for us. Ah, +look at that!" + +The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black. + +"I'll beat you out, though, brother mine," he chuckled. "I'll beat +you out, and I hope you no worse than that you rack your old +engines into scrap." + +When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The +boats came aboard from every side at once. As fast as the +prisoners came over the rail they were marshalled forward to the +forecastle by our hunters, while our sailors hoisted in the boats, +pell-mell, dropping them anywhere upon the deck and not stopping to +lash them. We were already under way, all sails set and drawing, +and the sheets being slacked off for a wind abeam, as the last boat +lifted clear of the water and swung in the tackles. + +There was need for haste. The Macedonia, belching the blackest of +smoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of the +north-east. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had +altered her course so as to anticipate ours. She was not running +straight for us, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging like +the sides of an angle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the +fog-bank. It was there, or not at all, that the Macedonia could +hope to catch us. The hope for the Ghost lay in that she should +pass that point before the Macedonia arrived at it. + +Wolf Larsen was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they +dwelt upon and leaped from detail to detail of the chase. Now he +studied the sea to windward for signs of the wind slackening or +freshening, now the Macedonia; and again, his eyes roved over every +sail, and he gave commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come +in on one there a trifle, till he was drawing out of the Ghost the +last bit of speed she possessed. All feuds and grudges were +forgotten, and I was surprised at the alacrity with which the men +who had so long endured his brutality sprang to execute his orders. +Strange to say, the unfortunate Johnson came into my mind as we +lifted and surged and heeled along, and I was aware of a regret +that he was not alive and present; he had so loved the Ghost and +delighted in her sailing powers. + +"Better get your rifles, you fellows," Wolf Larsen called to our +hunters; and the five men lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and +waited. + +The Macedonia was now but a mile away, the black smoke pouring from +her funnel at a right angle, so madly she raced, pounding through +the sea at a seventeen-knot gait--"'Sky-hooting through the brine," +as Wolf Larsen quoted while gazing at her. We were not making more +than nine knots, but the fog-bank was very near. + +A puff of smoke broke from the Macedonia's deck, we heard a heavy +report, and a round hole took form in the stretched canvas of our +mainsail. They were shooting at us with one of the small cannon +which rumour had said they carried on board. Our men, clustering +amidships, waved their hats and raised a derisive cheer. Again +there was a puff of smoke and a loud report, this time the cannon- +ball striking not more than twenty feet astern and glancing twice +from sea to sea to windward ere it sank. + +But there was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters +were out in the boats or our prisoners. When the two vessels were +half-a-mile apart, a third shot made another hole in our mainsail. +Then we entered the fog. It was about us, veiling and hiding us in +its dense wet gauze. + +The sudden transition was startling. The moment before we had been +leaping through the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea +breaking and rolling wide to the horizon, and a ship, vomiting +smoke and fire and iron missiles, rushing madly upon us. And at +once, as in an instant's leap, the sun was blotted out, there was +no sky, even our mastheads were lost to view, and our horizon was +such as tear-blinded eyes may see. The grey mist drove by us like +a rain. Every woollen filament of our garments, every hair of our +heads and faces, was jewelled with a crystal globule. The shrouds +were wet with moisture; it dripped from our rigging overhead; and +on the underside of our booms drops of water took shape in long +swaying lines, which were detached and flung to the deck in mimic +showers at each surge of the schooner. I was aware of a pent, +stifled feeling. As the sounds of the ship thrusting herself +through the waves were hurled back upon us by the fog, so were +one's thoughts. The mind recoiled from contemplation of a world +beyond this wet veil which wrapped us around. This was the world, +the universe itself, its bounds so near one felt impelled to reach +out both arms and push them back. It was impossible, that the rest +could be beyond these walls of grey. The rest was a dream, no more +than the memory of a dream. + +It was weird, strangely weird. I looked at Maud Brewster and knew +that she was similarly affected. Then I looked at Wolf Larsen, but +there was nothing subjective about his state of consciousness. His +whole concern was with the immediate, objective present. He still +held the wheel, and I felt that he was timing Time, reckoning the +passage of the minutes with each forward lunge and leeward roll of +the Ghost. + +"Go for'ard and hard alee without any noise," he said to me in a +low voice. "Clew up the topsails first. Set men at all the +sheets. Let there be no rattling of blocks, no sound of voices. +No noise, understand, no noise." + +When all was ready, the word "hard-a-lee" was passed forward to me +from man to man; and the Ghost heeled about on the port tack with +practically no noise at all. And what little there was,--the +slapping of a few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a +block or two,--was ghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which +we were swathed. + +We had scarcely filled away, it seemed, when the fog thinned +abruptly and we were again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea +breaking before us to the sky-line. But the ocean was bare. No +wrathful Macedonia broke its surface nor blackened the sky with her +smoke. + +Wolf Larsen at once squared away and ran down along the rim of the +fog-bank. His trick was obvious. He had entered the fog to +windward of the steamer, and while the steamer had blindly driven +on into the fog in the chance of catching him, he had come about +and out of his shelter and was now running down to re-enter to +leeward. Successful in this, the old simile of the needle in the +haystack would be mild indeed compared with his brother's chance of +finding him. He did not run long. Jibing the fore- and main-sails +and setting the topsails again, we headed back into the bank. As +we entered I could have sworn I saw a vague bulk emerging to +windward. I looked quickly at Wolf Larsen. Already we were +ourselves buried in the fog, but he nodded his head. He, too, had +seen it--the Macedonia, guessing his manoeuvre and failing by a +moment in anticipating it. There was no doubt that we had escaped +unseen. + +"He can't keep this up," Wolf Larsen said. "He'll have to go back +for the rest of his boats. Send a man to the wheel, Mr. Van +Weyden, keep this course for the present, and you might as well set +the watches, for we won't do any lingering to-night." + +"I'd give five hundred dollars, though," he added, "just to be +aboard the Macedonia for five minutes, listening to my brother +curse." + +"And now, Mr. Van Weyden," he said to me when he had been relieved +from the wheel, "we must make these new-comers welcome. Serve out +plenty of whisky to the hunters and see that a few bottles slip +for'ard. I'll wager every man Jack of them is over the side to- +morrow, hunting for Wolf Larsen as contentedly as ever they hunted +for Death Larsen." + +"But won't they escape as Wainwright did?" I asked. + +He laughed shrewdly. "Not as long as our old hunters have anything +to say about it. I'm dividing amongst them a dollar a skin for all +the skins shot by our new hunters. At least half of their +enthusiasm to-day was due to that. Oh, no, there won't be any +escaping if they have anything to say about it. And now you'd +better get for'ard to your hospital duties. There must be a full +ward waiting for you." + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + +Wolf Larsen took the distribution of the whisky off my hands, and +the bottles began to make their appearance while I worked over the +fresh batch of wounded men in the forecastle. I had seen whisky +drunk, such as whisky-and-soda by the men of the clubs, but never +as these men drank it, from pannikins and mugs, and from the +bottles--great brimming drinks, each one of which was in itself a +debauch. But they did not stop at one or two. They drank and +drank, and ever the bottles slipped forward and they drank more. + +Everybody drank; the wounded drank; Oofty-Oofty, who helped me, +drank. Only Louis refrained, no more than cautiously wetting his +lips with the liquor, though he joined in the revels with an +abandon equal to that of most of them. It was a saturnalia. In +loud voices they shouted over the day's fighting, wrangled about +details, or waxed affectionate and made friends with the men whom +they had fought. Prisoners and captors hiccoughed on one another's +shoulders, and swore mighty oaths of respect and esteem. They wept +over the miseries of the past and over the miseries yet to come +under the iron rule of Wolf Larsen. And all cursed him and told +terrible tales of his brutality. + +It was a strange and frightful spectacle--the small, bunk-lined +space, the floor and walls leaping and lurching, the dim light, the +swaying shadows lengthening and fore-shortening monstrously, the +thick air heavy with smoke and the smell of bodies and iodoform, +and the inflamed faces of the men--half-men, I should call them. I +noted Oofty-Oofty, holding the end of a bandage and looking upon +the scene, his velvety and luminous eyes glistening in the light +like a deer's eyes, and yet I knew the barbaric devil that lurked +in his breast and belied all the softness and tenderness, almost +womanly, of his face and form. And I noticed the boyish face of +Harrison,--a good face once, but now a demon's,--convulsed with +passion as he told the new-comers of the hell-ship they were in and +shrieked curses upon the head of Wolf Larsen. + +Wolf Larsen it was, always Wolf Larsen, enslaver and tormentor of +men, a male Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that +grovelled before him and revolted only in drunkenness and in +secrecy. And was I, too, one of his swine? I thought. And Maud +Brewster? No! I ground my teeth in my anger and determination +till the man I was attending winced under my hand and Oofty-Oofty +looked at me with curiosity. I felt endowed with a sudden +strength. What of my new-found love, I was a giant. I feared +nothing. I would work my will through it all, in spite of Wolf +Larsen and of my own thirty-five bookish years. All would be well. +I would make it well. And so, exalted, upborne by a sense of +power, I turned my back on the howling inferno and climbed to the +deck, where the fog drifted ghostly through the night and the air +was sweet and pure and quiet. + +The steerage, where were two wounded hunters, was a repetition of +the forecastle, except that Wolf Larsen was not being cursed; and +it was with a great relief that I again emerged on deck and went +aft to the cabin. Supper was ready, and Wolf Larsen and Maud were +waiting for me. + +While all his ship was getting drunk as fast as it could, he +remained sober. Not a drop of liquor passed his lips. He did not +dare it under the circumstances, for he had only Louis and me to +depend upon, and Louis was even now at the wheel. We were sailing +on through the fog without a look-out and without lights. That +Wolf Larsen had turned the liquor loose among his men surprised me, +but he evidently knew their psychology and the best method of +cementing in cordiality, what had begun in bloodshed. + +His victory over Death Larsen seemed to have had a remarkable +effect upon him. The previous evening he had reasoned himself into +the blues, and I had been waiting momentarily for one of his +characteristic outbursts. Yet nothing had occurred, and he was now +in splendid trim. Possibly his success in capturing so many +hunters and boats had counteracted the customary reaction. At any +rate, the blues were gone, and the blue devils had not put in an +appearance. So I thought at the time; but, ah me, little I knew +him or knew that even then, perhaps, he was meditating an outbreak +more terrible than any I had seen. + +As I say, he discovered himself in splendid trim when I entered the +cabin. He had had no headaches for weeks, his eyes were clear blue +as the sky, his bronze was beautiful with perfect health; life +swelled through his veins in full and magnificent flood. While +waiting for me he had engaged Maud in animated discussion. +Temptation was the topic they had hit upon, and from the few words +I heard I made out that he was contending that temptation was +temptation only when a man was seduced by it and fell. + +"For look you," he was saying, "as I see it, a man does things +because of desire. He has many desires. He may desire to escape +pain, or to enjoy pleasure. But whatever he does, he does because +he desires to do it." + +"But suppose he desires to do two opposite things, neither of which +will permit him to do the other?" Maud interrupted. + +"The very thing I was coming to," he said. + +"And between these two desires is just where the soul of the man is +manifest," she went on. "If it is a good soul, it will desire and +do the good action, and the contrary if it is a bad soul. It is +the soul that decides." + +"Bosh and nonsense!" he exclaimed impatiently. "It is the desire +that decides. Here is a man who wants to, say, get drunk. Also, +he doesn't want to get drunk. What does he do? How does he do it? +He is a puppet. He is the creature of his desires, and of the two +desires he obeys the strongest one, that is all. His soul hasn't +anything to do with it. How can he be tempted to get drunk and +refuse to get drunk? If the desire to remain sober prevails, it is +because it is the strongest desire. Temptation plays no part, +unless--" he paused while grasping the new thought which had come +into his mind--"unless he is tempted to remain sober. + +"Ha! ha!" he laughed. "What do you think of that, Mr. Van Weyden?" + +"That both of you are hair-splitting," I said. "The man's soul is +his desires. Or, if you will, the sum of his desires is his soul. +Therein you are both wrong. You lay the stress upon the desire +apart from the soul, Miss Brewster lays the stress on the soul +apart from the desire, and in point of fact soul and desire are the +same thing. + +"However," I continued, "Miss Brewster is right in contending that +temptation is temptation whether the man yield or overcome. Fire +is fanned by the wind until it leaps up fiercely. So is desire +like fire. It is fanned, as by a wind, by sight of the thing +desired, or by a new and luring description or comprehension of the +thing desired. There lies the temptation. It is the wind that +fans the desire until it leaps up to mastery. That's temptation. +It may not fan sufficiently to make the desire overmastering, but +in so far as it fans at all, that far is it temptation. And, as +you say, it may tempt for good as well as for evil." + +I felt proud of myself as we sat down to the table. My words had +been decisive. At least they had put an end to the discussion. + +But Wolf Larsen seemed voluble, prone to speech as I had never seen +him before. It was as though he were bursting with pent energy +which must find an outlet somehow. Almost immediately he launched +into a discussion on love. As usual, his was the sheer +materialistic side, and Maud's was the idealistic. For myself, +beyond a word or so of suggestion or correction now and again, I +took no part. + +He was brilliant, but so was Maud, and for some time I lost the +thread of the conversation through studying her face as she talked. +It was a face that rarely displayed colour, but to-night it was +flushed and vivacious. Her wit was playing keenly, and she was +enjoying the tilt as much as Wolf Larsen, and he was enjoying it +hugely. For some reason, though I know not why in the argument, so +utterly had I lost it in the contemplation of one stray brown lock +of Maud's hair, he quoted from Iseult at Tintagel, where she says: + + +"Blessed am I beyond women even herein, +That beyond all born women is my sin, +And perfect my transgression." + + +As he had read pessimism into Omar, so now he read triumph, +stinging triumph and exultation, into Swinburne's lines. And he +read rightly, and he read well. He had hardly ceased reading when +Louis put his head into the companion-way and whispered down: + +"Be easy, will ye? The fog's lifted, an' 'tis the port light iv a +steamer that's crossin' our bow this blessed minute." + +Wolf Larsen sprang on deck, and so swiftly that by the time we +followed him he had pulled the steerage-slide over the drunken +clamour and was on his way forward to close the forecastle-scuttle. +The fog, though it remained, had lifted high, where it obscured the +stars and made the night quite black. Directly ahead of us I could +see a bright red light and a white light, and I could hear the +pulsing of a steamer's engines. Beyond a doubt it was the +Macedonia. + +Wolf Larsen had returned to the poop, and we stood in a silent +group, watching the lights rapidly cross our bow. + +"Lucky for me he doesn't carry a searchlight," Wolf Larsen said. + +"What if I should cry out loudly?" I queried in a whisper. + +"It would be all up," he answered. "But have you thought upon what +would immediately happen?" + +Before I had time to express any desire to know, he had me by the +throat with his gorilla grip, and by a faint quiver of the muscles- +-a hint, as it were--he suggested to me the twist that would surely +have broken my neck. The next moment he had released me and we +were gazing at the Macedonia's lights. + +"What if I should cry out?" Maud asked. + +"I like you too well to hurt you," he said softly--nay, there was a +tenderness and a caress in his voice that made me wince. + +"But don't do it, just the same, for I'd promptly break Mr. Van +Weyden's neck." + +"Then she has my permission to cry out," I said defiantly. + +"I hardly think you'll care to sacrifice the Dean of American +Letters the Second," he sneered. + +We spoke no more, though we had become too used to one another for +the silence to be awkward; and when the red light and the white had +disappeared we returned to the cabin to finish the interrupted +supper. + +Again they fell to quoting, and Maud gave Dowson's "Impenitentia +Ultima." She rendered it beautifully, but I watched not her, but +Wolf Larsen. I was fascinated by the fascinated look he bent upon +Maud. He was quite out of himself, and I noticed the unconscious +movement of his lips as he shaped word for word as fast as she +uttered them. He interrupted her when she gave the lines: + + +"And her eyes should be my light while the sun went out behind me, +And the viols in her voice be the last sound in my ear." + + +"There are viols in your voice," he said bluntly, and his eyes +flashed their golden light. + +I could have shouted with joy at her control. She finished the +concluding stanza without faltering and then slowly guided the +conversation into less perilous channels. And all the while I sat +in a half-daze, the drunken riot of the steerage breaking through +the bulkhead, the man I feared and the woman I loved talking on and +on. The table was not cleared. The man who had taken Mugridge's +place had evidently joined his comrades in the forecastle. + +If ever Wolf Larsen attained the summit of living, he attained it +then. From time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him, +and I followed in amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable +intellect, under the spell of his passion, for he was preaching the +passion of revolt. It was inevitable that Milton's Lucifer should +be instanced, and the keenness with which Wolf Larsen analysed and +depicted the character was a revelation of his stifled genius. It +reminded me of Taine, yet I knew the man had never heard of that +brilliant though dangerous thinker. + +"He led a lost cause, and he was not afraid of God's thunderbolts," +Wolf Larsen was saying. "Hurled into hell, he was unbeaten. A +third of God's angels he had led with him, and straightway he +incited man to rebel against God, and gained for himself and hell +the major portion of all the generations of man. Why was he beaten +out of heaven? Because he was less brave than God? less proud? +less aspiring? No! A thousand times no! God was more powerful, +as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater. But Lucifer was a free +spirit. To serve was to suffocate. He preferred suffering in +freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable servility. He did +not care to serve God. He cared to serve nothing. He was no +figure-head. He stood on his own legs. He was an individual." + +"The first Anarchist," Maud laughed, rising and preparing to +withdraw to her state-room. + +"Then it is good to be an anarchist!" he cried. He, too, had +risen, and he stood facing her, where she had paused at the door of +her room, as he went on: + + +"'Here at least +We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built +Here for his envy; will not drive us hence; +Here we may reign secure; and in my choice +To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: +Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." + + +It was the defiant cry of a mighty spirit. The cabin still rang +with his voice, as he stood there, swaying, his bronzed face +shining, his head up and dominant, and his eyes, golden and +masculine, intensely masculine and insistently soft, flashing upon +Maud at the door. + +Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and +she said, almost in a whisper, "You are Lucifer." + +The door closed and she was gone. He stood staring after her for a +minute, then returned to himself and to me. + +"I'll relieve Louis at the wheel," he said shortly, "and call upon +you to relieve at midnight. Better turn in now and get some +sleep." + +He pulled on a pair of mittens, put on his cap, and ascended the +companion-stairs, while I followed his suggestion by going to bed. +For some unknown reason, prompted mysteriously, I did not undress, +but lay down fully clothed. For a time I listened to the clamour +in the steerage and marvelled upon the love which had come to me; +but my sleep on the Ghost had become most healthful and natural, +and soon the songs and cries died away, my eyes closed, and my +consciousness sank down into the half-death of slumber. + + +I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, +on my feet, wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger +as it might have thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the +door. The cabin light was burning low. I saw Maud, my Maud, +straining and struggling and crushed in the embrace of Wolf +Larsen's arms. I could see the vain beat and flutter of her as she +strove, pressing her face against his breast, to escape from him. +All this I saw on the very instant of seeing and as I sprang +forward. + +I struck him with my fist, on the face, as he raised his head, but +it was a puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and +gave me a shove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the +wrist, yet so tremendous was his strength that I was hurled +backward as from a catapult. I struck the door of the state-room +which had formerly been Mugridge's, splintering and smashing the +panels with the impact of my body. I struggled to my feet, with +difficulty dragging myself clear of the wrecked door, unaware of +any hurt whatever. I was conscious only of an overmastering rage. +I think I, too, cried aloud, as I drew the knife at my hip and +sprang forward a second time. + +But something had happened. They were reeling apart. I was close +upon him, my knife uplifted, but I withheld the blow. I was +puzzled by the strangeness of it. Maud was leaning against the +wall, one hand out for support; but he was staggering, his left +hand pressed against his forehead and covering his eyes, and with +the right he was groping about him in a dazed sort of way. It +struck against the wall, and his body seemed to express a muscular +and physical relief at the contact, as though he had found his +bearings, his location in space as well as something against which +to lean. + +Then I saw red again. All my wrongs and humiliations flashed upon +me with a dazzling brightness, all that I had suffered and others +had suffered at his hands, all the enormity of the man's very +existence. I sprang upon him, blindly, insanely, and drove the +knife into his shoulder. I knew, then, that it was no more than a +flesh wound,--I had felt the steel grate on his shoulder-blade,-- +and I raised the knife to strike at a more vital part. + +But Maud had seen my first blow, and she cried, "Don't! Please +don't!" + +I dropped my arm for a moment, and a moment only. Again the knife +was raised, and Wolf Larsen would have surely died had she not +stepped between. Her arms were around me, her hair was brushing my +face. My pulse rushed up in an unwonted manner, yet my rage +mounted with it. She looked me bravely in the eyes. + +"For my sake," she begged. + +"I would kill him for your sake!" I cried, trying to free my arm +without hurting her. + +"Hush!" she said, and laid her fingers lightly on my lips. I could +have kissed them, had I dared, even then, in my rage, the touch of +them was so sweet, so very sweet. "Please, please," she pleaded, +and she disarmed me by the words, as I was to discover they would +ever disarm me. + +I stepped back, separating from her, and replaced the knife in its +sheath. I looked at Wolf Larsen. He still pressed his left hand +against his forehead. It covered his eyes. His head was bowed. +He seemed to have grown limp. His body was sagging at the hips, +his great shoulders were drooping and shrinking forward. + +"Van, Weyden!" he called hoarsely, and with a note of fright in his +voice. "Oh, Van Weyden! where are you?" + +I looked at Maud. She did not speak, but nodded her head. + +"Here I am," I answered, stepping to his side. "What is the +matter?" + +"Help me to a seat," he said, in the same hoarse, frightened voice. + +"I am a sick man; a very sick man, Hump," he said, as he left my +sustaining grip and sank into a chair. + +His head dropped forward on the table and was buried in his hands. +From time to time it rocked back and forward as with pain. Once, +when he half raised it, I saw the sweat standing in heavy drops on +his forehead about the roots of his hair. + +"I am a sick man, a very sick man," he repeated again, and yet once +again. + +"What is the matter?" I asked, resting my hand on his shoulder. +"What can I do for you?" + +But he shook my hand off with an irritated movement, and for a long +time I stood by his side in silence. Maud was looking on, her face +awed and frightened. What had happened to him we could not +imagine. + +"Hump," he said at last, "I must get into my bunk. Lend me a hand. +I'll be all right in a little while. It's those damn headaches, I +believe. I was afraid of them. I had a feeling--no, I don't know +what I'm talking about. Help me into my bunk." + +But when I got him into his bunk he again buried his face in his +hands, covering his eyes, and as I turned to go I could hear him +murmuring, "I am a sick man, a very sick man." + +Maud looked at me inquiringly as I emerged. I shook my head, +saying: + +"Something has happened to him. What, I don't know. He is +helpless, and frightened, I imagine, for the first time in his +life. It must have occurred before he received the knife-thrust, +which made only a superficial wound. You must have seen what +happened." + +She shook her head. "I saw nothing. It is just as mysterious to +me. He suddenly released me and staggered away. But what shall we +do? What shall I do?" + +"If you will wait, please, until I come back," I answered. + +I went on deck. Louis was at the wheel. + +"You may go for'ard and turn in," I said, taking it from him. + +He was quick to obey, and I found myself alone on the deck of the +Ghost. As quietly as was possible, I clewed up the topsails, +lowered the flying jib and staysail, backed the jib over, and +flattened the mainsail. Then I went below to Maud. I placed my +finger on my lips for silence, and entered Wolf Larsen's room. He +was in the same position in which I had left him, and his head was +rocking--almost writhing--from side to side. + +"Anything I can do for you?" I asked. + +He made no reply at first, but on my repeating the question he +answered, "No, no; I'm all right. Leave me alone till morning." + +But as I turned to go I noted that his head had resumed its rocking +motion. Maud was waiting patiently for me, and I took notice, with +a thrill of joy, of the queenly poise of her head and her glorious, +calm eyes. Calm and sure they were as her spirit itself. + +"Will you trust yourself to me for a journey of six hundred miles +or so?" I asked. + +"You mean--?" she asked, and I knew she had guessed aright. + +"Yes, I mean just that," I replied. "There is nothing left for us +but the open boat." + +"For me, you mean," she said. "You are certainly as safe here as +you have been." + +"No, there is nothing left for us but the open boat," I iterated +stoutly. "Will you please dress as warmly as you can, at once, and +make into a bundle whatever you wish to bring with you." + +"And make all haste," I added, as she turned toward her state-room. + +The lazarette was directly beneath the cabin, and, opening the +trap-door in the floor and carrying a candle with me, I dropped +down and began overhauling the ship's stores. I selected mainly +from the canned goods, and by the time I was ready, willing hands +were extended from above to receive what I passed up. + +We worked in silence. I helped myself also to blankets, mittens, +oilskins, caps, and such things, from the slop-chest. It was no +light adventure, this trusting ourselves in a small boat to so raw +and stormy a sea, and it was imperative that we should guard +ourselves against the cold and wet. + +We worked feverishly at carrying our plunder on deck and depositing +it amidships, so feverishly that Maud, whose strength was hardly a +positive quantity, had to give over, exhausted, and sit on the +steps at the break of the poop. This did not serve to recover her, +and she lay on her back, on the hard deck, arms stretched out, and +whole body relaxed. It was a trick I remembered of my sister, and +I knew she would soon be herself again. I knew, also, that weapons +would not come in amiss, and I re-entered Wolf Larsen's state-room +to get his rifle and shot-gun. I spoke to him, but he made no +answer, though his head was still rocking from side to side and he +was not asleep. + +"Good-bye, Lucifer," I whispered to myself as I softly closed the +door. + +Next to obtain was a stock of ammunition,--an easy matter, though I +had to enter the steerage companion-way to do it. Here the hunters +stored the ammunition-boxes they carried in the boats, and here, +but a few feet from their noisy revels, I took possession of two +boxes. + +Next, to lower a boat. Not so simple a task for one man. Having +cast off the lashings, I hoisted first on the forward tackle, then +on the aft, till the boat cleared the rail, when I lowered away, +one tackle and then the other, for a couple of feet, till it hung +snugly, above the water, against the schooner's side. I made +certain that it contained the proper equipment of oars, rowlocks, +and sail. Water was a consideration, and I robbed every boat +aboard of its breaker. As there were nine boats all told, it meant +that we should have plenty of water, and ballast as well, though +there was the chance that the boat would be overloaded, what of the +generous supply of other things I was taking. + +While Maud was passing me the provisions and I was storing them in +the boat, a sailor came on deck from the forecastle. He stood by +the weather rail for a time (we were lowering over the lee rail), +and then sauntered slowly amidships, where he again paused and +stood facing the wind, with his back toward us. I could hear my +heart beating as I crouched low in the boat. Maud had sunk down +upon the deck and was, I knew, lying motionless, her body in the +shadow of the bulwark. But the man never turned, and, after +stretching his arms above his head and yawning audibly, he retraced +his steps to the forecastle scuttle and disappeared. + +A few minutes sufficed to finish the loading, and I lowered the +boat into the water. As I helped Maud over the rail and felt her +form close to mine, it was all I could do to keep from crying out, +"I love you! I love you!" Truly Humphrey Van Weyden was at last +in love, I thought, as her fingers clung to mine while I lowered +her down to the boat. I held on to the rail with one hand and +supported her weight with the other, and I was proud at the moment +of the feat. It was a strength I had not possessed a few months +before, on the day I said good-bye to Charley Furuseth and started +for San Francisco on the ill-fated Martinez. + +As the boat ascended on a sea, her feet touched and I released her +hands. I cast off the tackles and leaped after her. I had never +rowed in my life, but I put out the oars and at the expense of much +effort got the boat clear of the Ghost. Then I experimented with +the sail. I had seen the boat-steerers and hunters set their +spritsails many times, yet this was my first attempt. What took +them possibly two minutes took me twenty, but in the end I +succeeded in setting and trimming it, and with the steering-oar in +my hands hauled on the wind. + +"There lies Japan," I remarked, "straight before us." + +"Humphrey Van Weyden," she said, "you are a brave man." + +"Nay," I answered, "it is you who are a brave woman." + +We turned our heads, swayed by a common impulse to see the last of +the Ghost. Her low hull lifted and rolled to windward on a sea; +her canvas loomed darkly in the night; her lashed wheel creaked as +the rudder kicked; then sight and sound of her faded away, and we +were alone on the dark sea. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + + +Day broke, grey and chill. The boat was close-hauled on a fresh +breeze and the compass indicated that we were just making the +course which would bring us to Japan. Though stoutly mittened, my +fingers were cold, and they pained from the grip on the steering- +oar. My feet were stinging from the bite of the frost, and I hoped +fervently that the sun would shine. + +Before me, in the bottom of the boat, lay Maud. She, at least, was +warm, for under her and over her were thick blankets. The top one +I had drawn over her face to shelter it from the night, so I could +see nothing but the vague shape of her, and her light-brown hair, +escaped from the covering and jewelled with moisture from the air. + +Long I looked at her, dwelling upon that one visible bit of her as +only a man would who deemed it the most precious thing in the +world. So insistent was my gaze that at last she stirred under the +blankets, the top fold was thrown back and she smiled out on me, +her eyes yet heavy with sleep. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Van Weyden," she said. "Have you sighted land +yet?" + +"No," I answered, "but we are approaching it at a rate of six miles +an hour." + +She made a moue of disappointment. + +"But that is equivalent to one hundred and forty-four miles in +twenty-four hours," I added reassuringly. + +Her face brightened. "And how far have we to go?" + +"Siberia lies off there," I said, pointing to the west. "But to +the south-west, some six hundred miles, is Japan. If this wind +should hold, we'll make it in five days." + +"And if it storms? The boat could not live?" + +She had a way of looking one in the eyes and demanding the truth, +and thus she looked at me as she asked the question. + +"It would have to storm very hard," I temporized. + +"And if it storms very hard?" + +I nodded my head. "But we may be picked up any moment by a +sealing-schooner. They are plentifully distributed over this part +of the ocean." + +"Why, you are chilled through!" she cried. "Look! You are +shivering. Don't deny it; you are. And here I have been lying +warm as toast." + +"I don't see that it would help matters if you, too, sat up and +were chilled," I laughed. + +"It will, though, when I learn to steer, which I certainly shall." + +She sat up and began making her simple toilet. She shook down her +hair, and it fell about her in a brown cloud, hiding her face and +shoulders. Dear, damp brown hair! I wanted to kiss it, to ripple +it through my fingers, to bury my face in it. I gazed entranced, +till the boat ran into the wind and the flapping sail warned me I +was not attending to my duties. Idealist and romanticist that I +was and always had been in spite of my analytical nature, yet I had +failed till now in grasping much of the physical characteristics of +love. The love of man and woman, I had always held, was a +sublimated something related to spirit, a spiritual bond that +linked and drew their souls together. The bonds of the flesh had +little part in my cosmos of love. But I was learning the sweet +lesson for myself that the soul transmuted itself, expressed +itself, through the flesh; that the sight and sense and touch of +the loved one's hair was as much breath and voice and essence of +the spirit as the light that shone from the eyes and the thoughts +that fell from the lips. After all, pure spirit was unknowable, a +thing to be sensed and divined only; nor could it express itself in +terms of itself. Jehovah was anthropomorphic because he could +address himself to the Jews only in terms of their understanding; +so he was conceived as in their own image, as a cloud, a pillar of +fire, a tangible, physical something which the mind of the +Israelites could grasp. + +And so I gazed upon Maud's light-brown hair, and loved it, and +learned more of love than all the poets and singers had taught me +with all their songs and sonnets. She flung it back with a sudden +adroit movement, and her face emerged, smiling. + +"Why don't women wear their hair down always?" I asked. "It is so +much more beautiful." + +"If it didn't tangle so dreadfully," she laughed. "There! I've +lost one of my precious hair-pins!" + +I neglected the boat and had the sail spilling the wind again and +again, such was my delight in following her every movement as she +searched through the blankets for the pin. I was surprised, and +joyfully, that she was so much the woman, and the display of each +trait and mannerism that was characteristically feminine gave me +keener joy. For I had been elevating her too highly in my concepts +of her, removing her too far from the plane of the human, and too +far from me. I had been making of her a creature goddess-like and +unapproachable. So I hailed with delight the little traits that +proclaimed her only woman after all, such as the toss of the head +which flung back the cloud of hair, and the search for the pin. +She was woman, my kind, on my plane, and the delightful intimacy of +kind, of man and woman, was possible, as well as the reverence and +awe in which I knew I should always hold her. + +She found the pin with an adorable little cry, and I turned my +attention more fully to my steering. I proceeded to experiment, +lashing and wedging the steering-oar until the boat held on fairly +well by the wind without my assistance. Occasionally it came up +too close, or fell off too freely; but it always recovered itself +and in the main behaved satisfactorily. + +"And now we shall have breakfast," I said. "But first you must be +more warmly clad." + +I got out a heavy shirt, new from the slop-chest and made from +blanket goods. I knew the kind, so thick and so close of texture +that it could resist the rain and not be soaked through after hours +of wetting. When she had slipped this on over her head, I +exchanged the boy's cap she wore for a man's cap, large enough to +cover her hair, and, when the flap was turned down, to completely +cover her neck and ears. The effect was charming. Her face was of +the sort that cannot but look well under all circumstances. +Nothing could destroy its exquisite oval, its well-nigh classic +lines, its delicately stencilled brows, its large brown eyes, +clear-seeing and calm, gloriously calm. + +A puff, slightly stronger than usual, struck us just then. The +boat was caught as it obliquely crossed the crest of a wave. It +went over suddenly, burying its gunwale level with the sea and +shipping a bucketful or so of water. I was opening a can of tongue +at the moment, and I sprang to the sheet and cast it off just in +time. The sail flapped and fluttered, and the boat paid off. A +few minutes of regulating sufficed to put it on its course again, +when I returned to the preparation of breakfast. + +"It does very well, it seems, though I am not versed in things +nautical," she said, nodding her head with grave approval at my +steering contrivance. + +"But it will serve only when we are sailing by the wind," I +explained. "When running more freely, with the wind astern abeam, +or on the quarter, it will be necessary for me to steer." + +"I must say I don't understand your technicalities," she said, "but +I do your conclusion, and I don't like it. You cannot steer night +and day and for ever. So I shall expect, after breakfast, to +receive my first lesson. And then you shall lie down and sleep. +We'll stand watches just as they do on ships." + +"I don't see how I am to teach you," I made protest. "I am just +learning for myself. You little thought when you trusted yourself +to me that I had had no experience whatever with small boats. This +is the first time I have ever been in one." + +"Then we'll learn together, sir. And since you've had a night's +start you shall teach me what you have learned. And now, +breakfast. My! this air does give one an appetite!" + +"No coffee," I said regretfully, passing her buttered sea-biscuits +and a slice of canned tongue. "And there will be no tea, no soups, +nothing hot, till we have made land somewhere, somehow." + +After the simple breakfast, capped with a cup of cold water, Maud +took her lesson in steering. In teaching her I learned quite a +deal myself, though I was applying the knowledge already acquired +by sailing the Ghost and by watching the boat-steerers sail the +small boats. She was an apt pupil, and soon learned to keep the +course, to luff in the puffs and to cast off the sheet in an +emergency. + +Having grown tired, apparently, of the task, she relinquished the +oar to me. I had folded up the blankets, but she now proceeded to +spread them out on the bottom. When all was arranged snugly, she +said: + +"Now, sir, to bed. And you shall sleep until luncheon. Till +dinner-time," she corrected, remembering the arrangement on the +Ghost. + +What could I do? She insisted, and said, "Please, please," +whereupon I turned the oar over to her and obeyed. I experienced a +positive sensuous delight as I crawled into the bed she had made +with her hands. The calm and control which were so much a part of +her seemed to have been communicated to the blankets, so that I was +aware of a soft dreaminess and content, and of an oval face and +brown eyes framed in a fisherman's cap and tossing against a +background now of grey cloud, now of grey sea, and then I was aware +that I had been asleep. + +I looked at my watch. It was one o'clock. I had slept seven +hours! And she had been steering seven hours! When I took the +steering-oar I had first to unbend her cramped fingers. Her +modicum of strength had been exhausted, and she was unable even to +move from her position. I was compelled to let go the sheet while +I helped her to the nest of blankets and chafed her hands and arms. + +"I am so tired," she said, with a quick intake of the breath and a +sigh, drooping her head wearily. + +But she straightened it the next moment. "Now don't scold, don't +you dare scold," she cried with mock defiance. + +"I hope my face does not appear angry," I answered seriously; "for +I assure you I am not in the least angry." + +"N-no," she considered. "It looks only reproachful." + +"Then it is an honest face, for it looks what I feel. You were not +fair to yourself, nor to me. How can I ever trust you again?" + +She looked penitent. "I'll be good," she said, as a naughty child +might say it. "I promise--" + +"To obey as a sailor would obey his captain?" + +"Yes," she answered. "It was stupid of me, I know." + +"Then you must promise something else," I ventured. + +"Readily." + +"That you will not say, 'Please, please,' too often; for when you +do you are sure to override my authority." + +She laughed with amused appreciation. She, too, had noticed the +power of the repeated "please." + +"It is a good word--" I began. + +"But I must not overwork it," she broke in. + +But she laughed weakly, and her head drooped again. I left the oar +long enough to tuck the blankets about her feet and to pull a +single fold across her face. Alas! she was not strong. I looked +with misgiving toward the south-west and thought of the six hundred +miles of hardship before us--ay, if it were no worse than hardship. +On this sea a storm might blow up at any moment and destroy us. +And yet I was unafraid. I was without confidence in the future, +extremely doubtful, and yet I felt no underlying fear. It must +come right, it must come right, I repeated to myself, over and over +again. + +The wind freshened in the afternoon, raising a stiffer sea and +trying the boat and me severely. But the supply of food and the +nine breakers of water enabled the boat to stand up to the sea and +wind, and I held on as long as I dared. Then I removed the sprit, +tightly hauling down the peak of the sail, and we raced along under +what sailors call a leg-of-mutton. + +Late in the afternoon I sighted a steamer's smoke on the horizon to +leeward, and I knew it either for a Russian cruiser, or, more +likely, the Macedonia still seeking the Ghost. The sun had not +shone all day, and it had been bitter cold. As night drew on, the +clouds darkened and the wind freshened, so that when Maud and I ate +supper it was with our mittens on and with me still steering and +eating morsels between puffs. + +By the time it was dark, wind and sea had become too strong for the +boat, and I reluctantly took in the sail and set about making a +drag or sea-anchor. I had learned of the device from the talk of +the hunters, and it was a simple thing to manufacture. Furling the +sail and lashing it securely about the mast, boom, sprit, and two +pairs of spare oars, I threw it overboard. A line connected it +with the bow, and as it floated low in the water, practically +unexposed to the wind, it drifted less rapidly than the boat. In +consequence it held the boat bow on to the sea and wind--the safest +position in which to escape being swamped when the sea is breaking +into whitecaps. + +"And now?" Maud asked cheerfully, when the task was accomplished +and I pulled on my mittens. + +"And now we are no longer travelling toward Japan," I answered. +"Our drift is to the south-east, or south-south-east, at the rate +of at least two miles an hour." + +"That will be only twenty-four miles," she urged, "if the wind +remains high all night." + +"Yes, and only one hundred and forty miles if it continues for +three days and nights." + +"But it won't continue," she said with easy confidence. "It will +turn around and blow fair." + +"The sea is the great faithless one." + +"But the wind!" she retorted. "I have heard you grow eloquent over +the brave trade-wind." + +"I wish I had thought to bring Wolf Larsen's chronometer and +sextant," I said, still gloomily. "Sailing one direction, drifting +another direction, to say nothing of the set of the current in some +third direction, makes a resultant which dead reckoning can never +calculate. Before long we won't know where we are by five hundred +miles." + +Then I begged her pardon and promised I should not be disheartened +any more. At her solicitation I let her take the watch till +midnight,--it was then nine o'clock, but I wrapped her in blankets +and put an oilskin about her before I lay down. I slept only cat- +naps. The boat was leaping and pounding as it fell over the +crests, I could hear the seas rushing past, and spray was +continually being thrown aboard. And still, it was not a bad +night, I mused--nothing to the nights I had been through on the +Ghost; nothing, perhaps, to the nights we should go through in this +cockle-shell. Its planking was three-quarters of an inch thick. +Between us and the bottom of the sea was less than an inch of wood. + +And yet, I aver it, and I aver it again, I was unafraid. The death +which Wolf Larsen and even Thomas Mugridge had made me fear, I no +longer feared. The coming of Maud Brewster into my life seemed to +have transformed me. After all, I thought, it is better and finer +to love than to be loved, if it makes something in life so worth +while that one is not loath to die for it. I forget my own life in +the love of another life; and yet, such is the paradox, I never +wanted so much to live as right now when I place the least value +upon my own life. I never had so much reason for living, was my +concluding thought; and after that, until I dozed, I contented +myself with trying to pierce the darkness to where I knew Maud +crouched low in the stern-sheets, watchful of the foaming sea and +ready to call me on an instant's notice. + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + + +There is no need of going into an extended recital of our suffering +in the small boat during the many days we were driven and drifted, +here and there, willy-nilly, across the ocean. The high wind blew +from the north-west for twenty-four hours, when it fell calm, and +in the night sprang up from the south-west. This was dead in our +teeth, but I took in the sea-anchor and set sail, hauling a course +on the wind which took us in a south-south-easterly direction. It +was an even choice between this and the west-north-westerly course +which the wind permitted; but the warm airs of the south fanned my +desire for a warmer sea and swayed my decision. + +In three hours--it was midnight, I well remember, and as dark as I +had ever seen it on the sea--the wind, still blowing out of the +south-west, rose furiously, and once again I was compelled to set +the sea-anchor. + +Day broke and found me wan-eyed and the ocean lashed white, the +boat pitching, almost on end, to its drag. We were in imminent +danger of being swamped by the whitecaps. As it was, spray and +spume came aboard in such quantities that I bailed without +cessation. The blankets were soaking. Everything was wet except +Maud, and she, in oilskins, rubber boots, and sou'wester, was dry, +all but her face and hands and a stray wisp of hair. She relieved +me at the bailing-hole from time to time, and bravely she threw out +the water and faced the storm. All things are relative. It was no +more than a stiff blow, but to us, fighting for life in our frail +craft, it was indeed a storm. + +Cold and cheerless, the wind beating on our faces, the white seas +roaring by, we struggled through the day. Night came, but neither +of us slept. Day came, and still the wind beat on our faces and +the white seas roared past. By the second night Maud was falling +asleep from exhaustion. I covered her with oilskins and a +tarpaulin. She was comparatively dry, but she was numb with the +cold. I feared greatly that she might die in the night; but day +broke, cold and cheerless, with the same clouded sky and beating +wind and roaring seas. + +I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I was wet and chilled to +the marrow, till I felt more dead than alive. My body was stiff +from exertion as well as from cold, and my aching muscles gave me +the severest torture whenever I used them, and I used them +continually. And all the time we were being driven off into the +north-east, directly away from Japan and toward bleak Bering Sea. + +And still we lived, and the boat lived, and the wind blew unabated. +In fact, toward nightfall of the third day it increased a trifle +and something more. The boat's bow plunged under a crest, and we +came through quarter-full of water. I bailed like a madman. The +liability of shipping another such sea was enormously increased by +the water that weighed the boat down and robbed it of its buoyancy. +And another such sea meant the end. When I had the boat empty +again I was forced to take away the tarpaulin which covered Maud, +in order that I might lash it down across the bow. It was well I +did, for it covered the boat fully a third of the way aft, and +three times, in the next several hours, it flung off the bulk of +the down-rushing water when the bow shoved under the seas. + +Maud's condition was pitiable. She sat crouched in the bottom of +the boat, her lips blue, her face grey and plainly showing the pain +she suffered. But ever her eyes looked bravely at me, and ever her +lips uttered brave words. + +The worst of the storm must have blown that night, though little I +noticed it. I had succumbed and slept where I sat in the stern- +sheets. The morning of the fourth day found the wind diminished to +a gentle whisper, the sea dying down and the sun shining upon us. +Oh, the blessed sun! How we bathed our poor bodies in its +delicious warmth, reviving like bugs and crawling things after a +storm. We smiled again, said amusing things, and waxed optimistic +over our situation. Yet it was, if anything, worse than ever. We +were farther from Japan than the night we left the Ghost. Nor +could I more than roughly guess our latitude and longitude. At a +calculation of a two-mile drift per hour, during the seventy and +odd hours of the storm, we had been driven at least one hundred and +fifty miles to the north-east. But was such calculated drift +correct? For all I knew, it might have been four miles per hour +instead of two. In which case we were another hundred and fifty +miles to the bad. + +Where we were I did not know, though there was quite a likelihood +that we were in the vicinity of the Ghost. There were seals about +us, and I was prepared to sight a sealing-schooner at any time. We +did sight one, in the afternoon, when the north-west breeze had +sprung up freshly once more. But the strange schooner lost itself +on the sky-line and we alone occupied the circle of the sea. + +Came days of fog, when even Maud's spirit drooped and there were no +merry words upon her lips; days of calm, when we floated on the +lonely immensity of sea, oppressed by its greatness and yet +marvelling at the miracle of tiny life, for we still lived and +struggled to live; days of sleet and wind and snow-squalls, when +nothing could keep us warm; or days of drizzling rain, when we +filled our water-breakers from the drip of the wet sail. + +And ever I loved Maud with an increasing love. She was so many- +sided, so many-mooded--"protean-mooded" I called her. But I called +her this, and other and dearer things, in my thoughts only. Though +the declaration of my love urged and trembled on my tongue a +thousand times, I knew that it was no time for such a declaration. +If for no other reason, it was no time, when one was protecting and +trying to save a woman, to ask that woman for her love. Delicate +as was the situation, not alone in this but in other ways, I +flattered myself that I was able to deal delicately with it; and +also I flattered myself that by look or sign I gave no +advertisement of the love I felt for her. We were like good +comrades, and we grew better comrades as the days went by. + +One thing about her which surprised me was her lack of timidity and +fear. The terrible sea, the frail boat, the storms, the suffering, +the strangeness and isolation of the situation,--all that should +have frightened a robust woman,--seemed to make no impression upon +her who had known life only in its most sheltered and consummately +artificial aspects, and who was herself all fire and dew and mist, +sublimated spirit, all that was soft and tender and clinging in +woman. And yet I am wrong. She WAS timid and afraid, but she +possessed courage. The flesh and the qualms of the flesh she was +heir to, but the flesh bore heavily only on the flesh. And she was +spirit, first and always spirit, etherealized essence of life, calm +as her calm eyes, and sure of permanence in the changing order of +the universe. + +Came days of storm, days and nights of storm, when the ocean +menaced us with its roaring whiteness, and the wind smote our +struggling boat with a Titan's buffets. And ever we were flung +off, farther and farther, to the north-east. It was in such a +storm, and the worst that we had experienced, that I cast a weary +glance to leeward, not in quest of anything, but more from the +weariness of facing the elemental strife, and in mute appeal, +almost, to the wrathful powers to cease and let us be. What I saw +I could not at first believe. Days and nights of sleeplessness and +anxiety had doubtless turned my head. I looked back at Maud, to +identify myself, as it were, in time and space. The sight of her +dear wet cheeks, her flying hair, and her brave brown eyes +convinced me that my vision was still healthy. Again I turned my +face to leeward, and again I saw the jutting promontory, black and +high and naked, the raging surf that broke about its base and beat +its front high up with spouting fountains, the black and forbidden +coast-line running toward the south-east and fringed with a +tremendous scarf of white. + +"Maud," I said. "Maud." + +She turned her head and beheld the sight. + +"It cannot be Alaska!" she cried. + +"Alas, no," I answered, and asked, "Can you swim?" + +She shook her head. + +"Neither can I," I said. "So we must get ashore without swimming, +in some opening between the rocks through which we can drive the +boat and clamber out. But we must be quick, most quick--and sure." + +I spoke with a confidence she knew I did not feel, for she looked +at me with that unfaltering gaze of hers and said: + +"I have not thanked you yet for all you have done for me but--" + +She hesitated, as if in doubt how best to word her gratitude. + +"Well?" I said, brutally, for I was not quite pleased with her +thanking me. + +"You might help me," she smiled. + +"To acknowledge your obligations before you die? Not at all. We +are not going to die. We shall land on that island, and we shall +be snug and sheltered before the day is done." + +I spoke stoutly, but I did not believe a word. Nor was I prompted +to lie through fear. I felt no fear, though I was sure of death in +that boiling surge amongst the rocks which was rapidly growing +nearer. It was impossible to hoist sail and claw off that shore. +The wind would instantly capsize the boat; the seas would swamp it +the moment it fell into the trough; and, besides, the sail, lashed +to the spare oars, dragged in the sea ahead of us. + +As I say, I was not afraid to meet my own death, there, a few +hundred yards to leeward; but I was appalled at the thought that +Maud must die. My cursed imagination saw her beaten and mangled +against the rocks, and it was too terrible. I strove to compel +myself to think we would make the landing safely, and so I spoke, +not what I believed, but what I preferred to believe. + +I recoiled before contemplation of that frightful death, and for a +moment I entertained the wild idea of seizing Maud in my arms and +leaping overboard. Then I resolved to wait, and at the last +moment, when we entered on the final stretch, to take her in my +arms and proclaim my love, and, with her in my embrace, to make the +desperate struggle and die. + +Instinctively we drew closer together in the bottom of the boat. I +felt her mittened hand come out to mine. And thus, without speech, +we waited the end. We were not far off the line the wind made with +the western edge of the promontory, and I watched in the hope that +some set of the current or send of the sea would drift us past +before we reached the surf. + +"We shall go clear," I said, with a confidence which I knew +deceived neither of us. + +"By God, we WILL go clear!" I cried, five minutes later. + +The oath left my lips in my excitement--the first, I do believe, in +my life, unless "trouble it," an expletive of my youth, be +accounted an oath. + +"I beg your pardon," I said. + +"You have convinced me of your sincerity," she said, with a faint +smile. "I do know, now, that we shall go clear." + +I had seen a distant headland past the extreme edge of the +promontory, and as we looked we could see grow the intervening +coastline of what was evidently a deep cove. At the same time +there broke upon our ears a continuous and mighty bellowing. It +partook of the magnitude and volume of distant thunder, and it came +to us directly from leeward, rising above the crash of the surf and +travelling directly in the teeth of the storm. As we passed the +point the whole cove burst upon our view, a half-moon of white +sandy beach upon which broke a huge surf, and which was covered +with myriads of seals. It was from them that the great bellowing +went up. + +"A rookery!" I cried. "Now are we indeed saved. There must be men +and cruisers to protect them from the seal-hunters. Possibly there +is a station ashore." + +But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said, "Still +bad, but not so bad. And now, if the gods be truly kind, we shall +drift by that next headland and come upon a perfectly sheltered +beach, where we may land without wetting our feet." + +And the gods were kind. The first and second headlands were +directly in line with the south-west wind; but once around the +second,--and we went perilously near,--we picked up the third +headland, still in line with the wind and with the other two. But +the cove that intervened! It penetrated deep into the land, and +the tide, setting in, drifted us under the shelter of the point. +Here the sea was calm, save for a heavy but smooth ground-swell, +and I took in the sea-anchor and began to row. From the point the +shore curved away, more and more to the south and west, until at +last it disclosed a cove within the cove, a little land-locked +harbour, the water level as a pond, broken only by tiny ripples +where vagrant breaths and wisps of the storm hurtled down from over +the frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred feet +inshore. + +Here were no seals whatever. The boat's stern touched the hard +shingle. I sprang out, extending my hand to Maud. The next moment +she was beside me. As my fingers released hers, she clutched for +my arm hastily. At the same moment I swayed, as about to fall to +the sand. This was the startling effect of the cessation of +motion. We had been so long upon the moving, rocking sea that the +stable land was a shock to us. We expected the beach to lift up +this way and that, and the rocky walls to swing back and forth like +the sides of a ship; and when we braced ourselves, automatically, +for these various expected movements, their non-occurrence quite +overcame our equilibrium. + +"I really must sit down," Maud said, with a nervous laugh and a +dizzy gesture, and forthwith she sat down on the sand. + +I attended to making the boat secure and joined her. Thus we +landed on Endeavour Island, as we came to it, land-sick from long +custom of the sea. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + + +"Fool!" I cried aloud in my vexation. + +I had unloaded the boat and carried its contents high up on the +beach, where I had set about making a camp. There was driftwood, +though not much, on the beach, and the sight of a coffee tin I had +taken from the Ghost's larder had given me the idea of a fire. + +"Blithering idiot!" I was continuing. + +But Maud said, "Tut, tut," in gentle reproval, and then asked why I +was a blithering idiot. + +"No matches," I groaned. "Not a match did I bring. And now we +shall have no hot coffee, soup, tea, or anything!" + +"Wasn't it--er--Crusoe who rubbed sticks together?" she drawled. + +"But I have read the personal narratives of a score of shipwrecked +men who tried, and tried in vain," I answered. "I remember +Winters, a newspaper fellow with an Alaskan and Siberian +reputation. Met him at the Bibelot once, and he was telling us how +he attempted to make a fire with a couple of sticks. It was most +amusing. He told it inimitably, but it was the story of a failure. +I remember his conclusion, his black eyes flashing as he said, +'Gentlemen, the South Sea Islander may do it, the Malay may do it, +but take my word it's beyond the white man.'" + +"Oh, well, we've managed so far without it," she said cheerfully. +"And there's no reason why we cannot still manage without it." + +"But think of the coffee!" I cried. "It's good coffee, too, I +know. I took it from Larsen's private stores. And look at that +good wood." + +I confess, I wanted the coffee badly; and I learned, not long +afterward, that the berry was likewise a little weakness of Maud's. +Besides, we had been so long on a cold diet that we were numb +inside as well as out. Anything warm would have been most +gratifying. But I complained no more and set about making a tent +of the sail for Maud. + +I had looked upon it as a simple task, what of the oars, mast, +boom, and sprit, to say nothing of plenty of lines. But as I was +without experience, and as every detail was an experiment and every +successful detail an invention, the day was well gone before her +shelter was an accomplished fact. And then, that night, it rained, +and she was flooded out and driven back into the boat. + +The next morning I dug a shallow ditch around the tent, and, an +hour later, a sudden gust of wind, whipping over the rocky wall +behind us, picked up the tent and smashed it down on the sand +thirty yards away. + +Maud laughed at my crestfallen expression, and I said, "As soon as +the wind abates I intend going in the boat to explore the island. +There must be a station somewhere, and men. And ships must visit +the station. Some Government must protect all these seals. But I +wish to have you comfortable before I start." + +"I should like to go with you," was all she said. + +"It would be better if you remained. You have had enough of +hardship. It is a miracle that you have survived. And it won't be +comfortable in the boat rowing and sailing in this rainy weather. +What you need is rest, and I should like you to remain and get it." + +Something suspiciously akin to moistness dimmed her beautiful eyes +before she dropped them and partly turned away her head. + +"I should prefer going with you," she said in a low voice, in which +there was just a hint of appeal. + +"I might be able to help you a--" her voice broke,--"a little. And +if anything should happen to you, think of me left here alone." + +"Oh, I intend being very careful," I answered. "And I shall not go +so far but what I can get back before night. Yes, all said and +done, I think it vastly better for you to remain, and sleep, and +rest and do nothing." + +She turned and looked me in the eyes. Her gaze was unfaltering, +but soft. + +"Please, please," she said, oh, so softly. + +I stiffened myself to refuse, and shook my head. Still she waited +and looked at me. I tried to word my refusal, but wavered. I saw +the glad light spring into her eyes and knew that I had lost. It +was impossible to say no after that. + +The wind died down in the afternoon, and we were prepared to start +the following morning. There was no way of penetrating the island +from our cove, for the walls rose perpendicularly from the beach, +and, on either side of the cove, rose from the deep water. + +Morning broke dull and grey, but calm, and I was awake early and +had the boat in readiness. + +"Fool! Imbecile! Yahoo!" I shouted, when I thought it was meet to +arouse Maud; but this time I shouted in merriment as I danced about +the beach, bareheaded, in mock despair. + +Her head appeared under the flap of the sail. + +"What now?" she asked sleepily, and, withal, curiously. + +"Coffee!" I cried. "What do you say to a cup of coffee? hot +coffee? piping hot?" + +"My!" she murmured, "you startled me, and you are cruel. Here I +have been composing my soul to do without it, and here you are +vexing me with your vain suggestions." + +"Watch me," I said. + +From under clefts among the rocks I gathered a few dry sticks and +chips. These I whittled into shavings or split into kindling. +From my note-book I tore out a page, and from the ammunition box +took a shot-gun shell. Removing the wads from the latter with my +knife, I emptied the powder on a flat rock. Next I pried the +primer, or cap, from the shell, and laid it on the rock, in the +midst of the scattered powder. All was ready. Maud still watched +from the tent. Holding the paper in my lelf hand, I smashed down +upon the cap with a rock held in my right. There was a puff of +white smoke, a burst of flame, and the rough edge of the paper was +alight. + +Maud clapped her hands gleefully. "Prometheus!" she cried. + +But I was too occupied to acknowledge her delight. The feeble +flame must be cherished tenderly if it were to gather strength and +live. I fed it, shaving by shaving, and sliver by sliver, till at +last it was snapping and crackling as it laid hold of the smaller +chips and sticks. To be cast away on an island had not entered +into my calculations, so we were without a kettle or cooking +utensils of any sort; but I made shift with the tin used for +bailing the boat, and later, as we consumed our supply of canned +goods, we accumulated quite an imposing array of cooking vessels. + +I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And how +good it was! My contribution was canned beef fried with crumbled +sea-biscuit and water. The breakfast was a success, and we sat +about the fire much longer than enterprising explorers should have +done, sipping the hot black coffee and talking over our situation. + +I was confident that we should find a station in some one of the +coves, for I knew that the rookeries of Bering Sea were thus +guarded; but Maud advanced the theory--to prepare me for +disappointment, I do believe, if disappointment were to come--that +we had discovered an unknown rookery. She was in very good +spirits, however, and made quite merry in accepting our plight as a +grave one. + +"If you are right," I said, "then we must prepare to winter here. +Our food will not last, but there are the seals. They go away in +the fall, so I must soon begin to lay in a supply of meat. Then +there will be huts to build and driftwood to gather. Also we shall +try out seal fat for lighting purposes. Altogether, we'll have our +hands full if we find the island uninhabited. Which we shall not, +I know." + +But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the shore, +searching the coves with our glasses and landing occasionally, +without finding a sign of human life. Yet we learned that we were +not the first who had landed on Endeavour Island. High up on the +beach of the second cove from ours, we discovered the splintered +wreck of a boat--a sealer's boat, for the rowlocks were bound in +sennit, a gun-rack was on the starboard side of the bow, and in +white letters was faintly visible Gazelle No. 2. The boat had lain +there for a long time, for it was half filled with sand, and the +splintered wood had that weather-worn appearance due to long +exposure to the elements. In the stern-sheets I found a rusty ten- +gauge shot-gun and a sailor's sheath-knife broken short across and +so rusted as to be almost unrecognizable. + +"They got away," I said cheerfully; but I felt a sinking at the +heart and seemed to divine the presence of bleached bones somewhere +on that beach. + +I did not wish Maud's spirits to be dampened by such a find, so I +turned seaward again with our boat and skirted the north-eastern +point of the island. There were no beaches on the southern shore, +and by early afternoon we rounded the black promontory and +completed the circumnavigation of the island. I estimated its +circumference at twenty-five miles, its width as varying from two +to five miles; while my most conservative calculation placed on its +beaches two hundred thousand seals. The island was highest at its +extreme south-western point, the headlands and backbone diminishing +regularly until the north-eastern portion was only a few feet above +the sea. With the exception of our little cove, the other beaches +sloped gently back for a distance of half-a-mile or so, into what I +might call rocky meadows, with here and there patches of moss and +tundra grass. Here the seals hauled out, and the old bulls guarded +their harems, while the young bulls hauled out by themselves. + +This brief description is all that Endeavour Island merits. Damp +and soggy where it was not sharp and rocky, buffeted by storm winds +and lashed by the sea, with the air continually a-tremble with the +bellowing of two hundred thousand amphibians, it was a melancholy +and miserable sojourning-place. Maud, who had prepared me for +disappointment, and who had been sprightly and vivacious all day, +broke down as we landed in our own little cove. She strove bravely +to hide it from me, but while I was kindling another fire I knew +she was stifling her sobs in the blankets under the sail-tent. + +It was my turn to be cheerful, and I played the part to the best of +my ability, and with such success that I brought the laughter back +into her dear eyes and song on her lips; for she sang to me before +she went to an early bed. It was the first time I had heard her +sing, and I lay by the fire, listening and transported, for she was +nothing if not an artist in everything she did, and her voice, +though not strong, was wonderfully sweet and expressive. + +I still slept in the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing +up at the first stars I had seen in many nights and pondering the +situation. Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. +Wolf Larsen had been quite right. I had stood on my father's legs. +My lawyers and agents had taken care of my money for me. I had had +no responsibilities at all. Then, on the Ghost I had learned to be +responsible for myself. And now, for the first time in my life, I +found myself responsible for some one else. And it was required of +me that this should be the gravest of responsibilities, for she was +the one woman in the world--the one small woman, as I loved to +think of her. + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + + +No wonder we called it Endeavour Island. For two weeks we toiled +at building a hut. Maud insisted on helping, and I could have wept +over her bruised and bleeding hands. And still, I was proud of her +because of it. There was something heroic about this gently-bred +woman enduring our terrible hardship and with her pittance of +strength bending to the tasks of a peasant woman. She gathered +many of the stones which I built into the walls of the hut; also, +she turned a deaf ear to my entreaties when I begged her to desist. +She compromised, however, by taking upon herself the lighter +labours of cooking and gathering driftwood and moss for our +winter's supply. + +The hut's walls rose without difficulty, and everything went +smoothly until the problem of the roof confronted me. Of what use +the four walls without a roof? And of what could a roof be made? +There were the spare oars, very true. They would serve as roof- +beams; but with what was I to cover them? Moss would never do. +Tundra grass was impracticable. We needed the sail for the boat, +and the tarpaulin had begun to leak. + +"Winters used walrus skins on his hut," I said. + +"There are the seals," she suggested. + +So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, but I +proceeded to learn. And when I had expended some thirty shells for +three seals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted +before I acquired the necessary knowledge. I had used eight shells +for lighting fires before I hit upon the device of banking the +embers with wet moss, and there remained not over a hundred shells +in the box. + +"We must club the seals," I announced, when convinced of my poor +marksmanship. "I have heard the sealers talk about clubbing them." + +"They are so pretty," she objected. "I cannot bear to think of it +being done. It is so directly brutal, you know; so different from +shooting them." + +"That roof must go on," I answered grimly. "Winter is almost here. +It is our lives against theirs. It is unfortunate we haven't +plenty of ammunition, but I think, anyway, that they suffer less +from being clubbed than from being all shot up. Besides, I shall +do the clubbing." + +"That's just it," she began eagerly, and broke off in sudden +confusion. + +"Of course," I began, "if you prefer--" + +"But what shall I be doing?" she interrupted, with that softness I +knew full well to be insistence. + +"Gathering firewood and cooking dinner," I answered lightly. + +She shook her head. "It is too dangerous for you to attempt +alone." + +"I know, I know," she waived my protest. "I am only a weak woman, +but just my small assistance may enable you to escape disaster." + +"But the clubbing?" I suggested. + +"Of course, you will do that. I shall probably scream. I'll look +away when--" + +"The danger is most serious," I laughed. + +"I shall use my judgment when to look and when not to look," she +replied with a grand air. + +The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. +I rowed into the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. +There were seals all about us in the water, and the bellowing +thousands on the beach compelled us to shout at each other to make +ourselves heard. + +"I know men club them," I said, trying to reassure myself, and +gazing doubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet away, upreared +on his fore-flippers and regarding me intently. "But the question +is, How do they club them?" + +"Let us gather tundra grass and thatch the roof," Maud said. + +She was as frightened as I at the prospect, and we had reason to be +gazing at close range at the gleaming teeth and dog-like mouths. + +"I always thought they were afraid of men," I said. + +"How do I know they are not afraid?" I queried a moment later, +after having rowed a few more strokes along the beach. "Perhaps, +if I were to step boldly ashore, they would cut for it, and I could +not catch up with one." And still I hesitated. + +"I heard of a man, once, who invaded the nesting grounds of wild +geese," Maud said. "They killed him." + +"The geese?" + +"Yes, the geese. My brother told me about it when I was a little +girl." + +"But I know men club them," I persisted. + +"I think the tundra grass will make just as good a roof," she said. + +Far from her intention, her words were maddening me, driving me on. +I could not play the coward before her eyes. "Here goes," I said, +backing water with one oar and running the bow ashore. + +I stepped out and advanced valiantly upon a long-maned bull in the +midst of his wives. I was armed with the regular club with which +the boat-pullers killed the wounded seals gaffed aboard by the +hunters. It was only a foot and a half long, and in my superb +ignorance I never dreamed that the club used ashore when raiding +the rookeries measured four to five feet. The cows lumbered out of +my way, and the distance between me and the bull decreased. He +raised himself on his flippers with an angry movement. We were a +dozen feet apart. Still I advanced steadily, looking for him to +turn tail at any moment and run. + +At six feet the panicky thought rushed into my mind, What if he +will not run? Why, then I shall club him, came the answer. In my +fear I had forgotten that I was there to get the bull instead of to +make him run. And just then he gave a snort and a snarl and rushed +at me. His eyes were blazing, his mouth was wide open; the teeth +gleamed cruelly white. Without shame, I confess that it was I who +turned and footed it. He ran awkwardly, but he ran well. He was +but two paces behind when I tumbled into the boat, and as I shoved +off with an oar his teeth crunched down upon the blade. The stout +wood was crushed like an egg-shell. Maud and I were astounded. A +moment later he had dived under the boat, seized the keel in his +mouth, and was shaking the boat violently. + +"My!" said Maud. "Let's go back." + +I shook my head. "I can do what other men have done, and I know +that other men have clubbed seals. But I think I'll leave the +bulls alone next time." + +"I wish you wouldn't," she said. + +"Now don't say, 'Please, please,'" I cried, half angrily, I do +believe. + +She made no reply, and I knew my tone must have hurt her. + +"I beg your pardon," I said, or shouted, rather, in order to make +myself heard above the roar of the rookery. "If you say so, I'll +turn and go back; but honestly, I'd rather stay." + +"Now don't say that this is what you get for bringing a woman +along," she said. She smiled at me whimsically, gloriously, and I +knew there was no need for forgiveness. + +I rowed a couple of hundred feet along the beach so as to recover +my nerves, and then stepped ashore again. + +"Do be cautious," she called after me. + +I nodded my head and proceeded to make a flank attack on the +nearest harem. All went well until I aimed a blow at an outlying +cowls head and fell short. She snorted and tried to scramble away. +I ran in close and struck another blow, hitting the shoulder +instead of the head. + +"Watch out!" I heard Maud scream. + +In my excitement I had not been taking notice of other things, and +I looked up to see the lord of the harem charging down upon me. +Again I fled to the boat, hotly pursued; but this time Maud made no +suggestion of turning back. + +"It would be better, I imagine, if you let harems alone and devoted +your attention to lonely and inoffensive-looking seals," was what +she said. "I think I have read something about them. Dr. Jordan's +book, I believe. They are the young bulls, not old enough to have +harems of their own. He called them the holluschickie, or +something like that. It seems to me if we find where they haul +out--" + +"It seems to me that your fighting instinct is aroused," I laughed. + +She flushed quickly and prettily. "I'll admit I don't like defeat +any more than you do, or any more than I like the idea of killing +such pretty, inoffensive creatures." + +"Pretty!" I sniffed. "I failed to mark anything pre-eminently +pretty about those foamy-mouthed beasts that raced me." + +"Your point of view," she laughed. "You lacked perspective. Now +if you did not have to get so close to the subject--" + +"The very thing!" I cried. "What I need is a longer club. And +there's that broken oar ready to hand." + +"It just comes to me," she said, "that Captain Larsen was telling +me how the men raided the rookeries. They drive the seals, in +small herds, a short distance inland before they kill them." + +"I don't care to undertake the herding of one of those harems," I +objected. + +"But there are the holluschickie," she said. "The holluschickie +haul out by themselves, and Dr. Jordan says that paths are left +between the harems, and that as long as the holluschickie keep +strictly to the path they are unmolested by the masters of the +harem." + +"There's one now," I said, pointing to a young bull in the water. +"Let's watch him, and follow him if he hauls out." + +He swam directly to the beach and clambered out into a small +opening between two harems, the masters of which made warning +noises but did not attack him. We watched him travel slowly +inward, threading about among the harems along what must have been +the path. + +"Here goes," I said, stepping out; but I confess my heart was in my +mouth as I thought of going through the heart of that monstrous +herd. + +"It would be wise to make the boat fast," Maud said. + +She had stepped out beside me, and I regarded her with wonderment. + +She nodded her head determinedly. "Yes, I'm going with you, so you +may as well secure the boat and arm me with a club." + +"Let's go back," I said dejectedly. "I think tundra grass, will +do, after all." + +"You know it won't," was her reply. "Shall I lead?" + +With a shrug of the shoulders, but with the warmest admiration and +pride at heart for this woman, I equipped her with the broken oar +and took another for myself. It was with nervous trepidation that +we made the first few rods of the journey. Once Maud screamed in +terror as a cow thrust an inquisitive nose toward her foot, and +several times I quickened my pace for the same reason. But, beyond +warning coughs from either side, there were no signs of hostility. +It was a rookery which had never been raided by the hunters, and in +consequence the seals were mild-tempered and at the same time +unafraid. + +In the very heart of the herd the din was terrific. It was almost +dizzying in its effect. I paused and smiled reassuringly at Maud, +for I had recovered my equanimity sooner than she. I could see +that she was still badly frightened. She came close to me and +shouted: + +"I'm dreadfully afraid!" + +And I was not. Though the novelty had not yet worn off, the +peaceful comportment of the seals had quieted my alarm. Maud was +trembling. + +"I'm afraid, and I'm not afraid," she chattered with shaking jaws. +"It's my miserable body, not I." + +"It's all right, it's all right," I reassured her, my arm passing +instinctively and protectingly around her. + +I shall never forget, in that moment, how instantly conscious I +became of my manhood. The primitive deeps of my nature stirred. I +felt myself masculine, the protector of the weak, the fighting +male. And, best of all, I felt myself the protector of my loved +one. She leaned against me, so light and lily-frail, and as her +trembling eased away it seemed as though I became aware of +prodigious strength. I felt myself a match for the most ferocious +bull in the herd, and I know, had such a bull charged upon me, that +I should have met it unflinchingly and quite coolly, and I know +that I should have killed it. + +"I am all right now," she said, looking up at me gratefully. "Let +us go on." + +And that the strength in me had quieted her and given her +confidence, filled me with an exultant joy. The youth of the race +seemed burgeoning in me, over-civilized man that I was, and I lived +for myself the old hunting days and forest nights of my remote and +forgotten ancestry. I had much for which to thank Wolf Larsen, was +my thought as we went along the path between the jostling harems. + +A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the holluschickie--sleek +young bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and +gathering strength against the day when they would fight their way +into the ranks of the Benedicts. + +Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know just what to do and +how to do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, +and even prodding the lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score of the +young bachelors from their companions. Whenever one made an +attempt to break back toward the water, I headed it off. Maud took +an active part in the drive, and with her cries and flourishings of +the broken oar was of considerable assistance. I noticed, though, +that whenever one looked tired and lagged, she let it slip past. +But I noticed, also, whenever one, with a show of fight, tried to +break past, that her eyes glinted and showed bright, and she rapped +it smartly with her club. + +"My, it's exciting!" she cried, pausing from sheer weakness. "I +think I'll sit down." + +I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes +she had permitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she +joined me I had finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin. +An hour later we went proudly back along the path between the +harems. And twice again we came down the path burdened with skins, +till I thought we had enough to roof the hut. I set the sail, laid +one tack out of the cove, and on the other tack made our own little +inner cove. + +"It's just like home-coming," Maud said, as I ran the boat ashore. + +I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly +intimate and natural, and I said: + +"It seems as though I have lived this life always. The world of +books and bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than +an actuality. I surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the +days of my life. And you, too, seem a part of it. You are--" I +was on the verge of saying, "my woman, my mate," but glibly changed +it to--"standing the hardship well." + +But her ear had caught the flaw. She recognized a flight that +midmost broke. She gave me a quick look. + +"Not that. You were saying--?" + +"That the American Mrs. Meynell was living the life of a savage and +living it quite successfully," I said easily. + +"Oh," was all she replied; but I could have sworn there was a note +of disappointment in her voice. + +But "my woman, my mate" kept ringing in my head for the rest of the +day and for many days. Yet never did it ring more loudly than that +night, as I watched her draw back the blanket of moss from the +coals, blow up the fire, and cook the evening meal. It must have +been latent savagery stirring in me, for the old words, so bound up +with the roots of the race, to grip me and thrill me. And grip and +thrill they did, till I fell asleep, murmuring them to myself over +and over again. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + + +"It will smell," I said, "but it will keep in the heat and keep out +the rain and snow." + +We were surveying the completed seal-skin roof. + +"It is clumsy, but it will serve the purpose, and that is the main +thing," I went on, yearning for her praise. + +And she clapped her hands and declared that she was hugely pleased. + +"But it is dark in here," she said the next moment, her shoulders +shrinking with a little involuntary shiver. + +"You might have suggested a window when the walls were going up," I +said. "It was for you, and you should have seen the need of a +window." + +"But I never do see the obvious, you know," she laughed back. "And +besides, you can knock a hole in the wall at any time.' + +"Quite true; I had not thought of it," I replied, wagging my head +sagely. "But have you thought of ordering the window-glass? Just +call up the firm,--Red, 4451, I think it is,--and tell them what +size and kind of glass you wish." + +"That means--" she began. + +"No window." + +It was a dark and evil-appearing thing, that hut, not fit for aught +better than swine in a civilized land; but for us, who had known +the misery of the open boat, it was a snug little habitation. +Following the housewarming, which was accomplished by means of +seal-oil and a wick made from cotton calking, came the hunting for +our winter's meat and the building of the second hut. It was a +simple affair, now, to go forth in the morning and return by noon +with a boatload of seals. And then, while I worked at building the +hut, Maud tried out the oil from the blubber and kept a slow fire +under the frames of meat. I had heard of jerking beef on the +plains, and our seal-meat, cut in thin strips and hung in the +smoke, cured excellently. + +The second hut was easier to erect, for I built it against the +first, and only three walls were required. But it was work, hard +work, all of it. Maud and I worked from dawn till dark, to the +limit of our strength, so that when night came we crawled stiffly +to bed and slept the animal-like sleep exhaustion. And yet Maud +declared that she had never felt better or stronger in her life. I +knew this was true of myself, but hers was such a lily strength +that I feared she would break down. Often and often, her last- +reserve force gone, I have seen her stretched flat on her back on +the sand in the way she had of resting and recuperating. And then +she would be up on her feet and toiling hard as ever. Where she +obtained this strength was the marvel to me. + +"Think of the long rest this winter," was her reply to my +remonstrances. "Why, we'll be clamorous for something to do." + +We held a housewarming in my hut the night it was roofed. It was +the end of the third day of a fierce storm which had swung around +the compass from the south-east to the north-west, and which was +then blowing directly in upon us. The beaches of the outer cove +were thundering with the surf, and even in our land-locked inner +cove a respectable sea was breaking. No high backbone of island +sheltered us from the wind, and it whistled and bellowed about the +hut till at times I feared for the strength of the walls. The skin +roof, stretched tightly as a drumhead, I had thought, sagged and +bellied with every gust; and innumerable interstices in the walls, +not so tightly stuffed with moss as Maud had supposed, disclosed +themselves. Yet the seal-oil burned brightly and we were warm and +comfortable. + +It was a pleasant evening indeed, and we voted that as a social +function on Endeavour Island it had not yet been eclipsed. Our +minds were at ease. Not only had we resigned ourselves to the +bitter winter, but we were prepared for it. The seals could depart +on their mysterious journey into the south at any time, now, for +all we cared; and the storms held no terror for us. Not only were +we sure of being dry and warm and sheltered from the wind, but we +had the softest and most luxurious mattresses that could be made +from moss. This had been Maud's idea, and she had herself +jealously gathered all the moss. This was to be my first night on +the mattress, and I knew I should sleep the sweeter because she had +made it. + +As she rose to go she turned to me with the whimsical way she had, +and said: + +"Something is going to happen--is happening, for that matter. I +feel it. Something is coming here, to us. It is coming now. I +don't know what, but it is coming." + +"Good or bad?" I asked. + +She shook her head. "I don't know, but it is there, somewhere." + +She pointed in the direction of the sea and wind. + +"It's a lee shore," I laughed, "and I am sure I'd rather be here +than arriving, a night like this." + +"You are not frightened?" I asked, as I stepped to open the door +for her. + +Her eyes looked bravely into mine. + +"And you feel well? perfectly well?" + +"Never better," was her answer. + +We talked a little longer before she went. + +"Good-night, Maud," I said. + +"Good-night, Humphrey," she said. + +This use of our given names had come about quite as a matter of +course, and was as unpremeditated as it was natural. In that +moment I could have put my arms around her and drawn her to me. I +should certainly have done so out in that world to which we +belonged. As it was, the situation stopped there in the only way +it could; but I was left alone in my little but, glowing warmly +through and through with a pleasant satisfaction; and I knew that a +tie, or a tacit something, existed between us which had not existed +before. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + + +I awoke, oppressed by a mysterious sensation. There seemed +something missing in my environment. But the mystery and +oppressiveness vanished after the first few seconds of waking, when +I identified the missing something as the wind. I had fallen +asleep in that state of nerve tension with which one meets the +continuous shock of sound or movement, and I had awakened, still +tense, bracing myself to meet the pressure of something which no +longer bore upon me. + +It was the first night I had spent under cover in several months, +and I lay luxuriously for some minutes under my blankets (for once +not wet with fog or spray), analysing, first, the effect produced +upon me by the cessation of the wind, and next, the joy which was +mine from resting on the mattress made by Maud's hands. When I had +dressed and opened the door, I heard the waves still lapping on the +beach, garrulously attesting the fury of the night. It was a clear +day, and the sun was shining. I had slept late, and I stepped +outside with sudden energy, bent upon making up lost time as +befitted a dweller on Endeavour Island. + +And when outside, I stopped short. I believed my eyes without +question, and yet I was for the moment stunned by what they +disclosed to me. There, on the beach, not fifty feet away, bow on, +dismasted, was a black-hulled vessel. Masts and booms, tangled +with shrouds, sheets, and rent canvas, were rubbing gently +alongside. I could have rubbed my eyes as I looked. There was the +home-made galley we had built, the familiar break of the poop, the +low yacht-cabin scarcely rising above the rail. It was the Ghost. + +What freak of fortune had brought it here--here of all spots? what +chance of chances? I looked at the bleak, inaccessible wall at my +back and know the profundity of despair. Escape was hopeless, out +of the question. I thought of Maud, asleep there in the hut we had +reared; I remembered her "Good-night, Humphrey"; "my woman, my +mate," went ringing through my brain, but now, alas, it was a knell +that sounded. Then everything went black before my eyes. + +Possibly it was the fraction of a second, but I had no knowledge of +how long an interval had lapsed before I was myself again. There +lay the Ghost, bow on to the beach, her splintered bowsprit +projecting over the sand, her tangled spars rubbing against her +side to the lift of the crooning waves. Something must be done, +must be done. + +It came upon me suddenly, as strange, that nothing moved aboard. +Wearied from the night of struggle and wreck, all hands were yet +asleep, I thought. My next thought was that Maud and I might yet +escape. If we could take to the boat and make round the point +before any one awoke? I would call her and start. My hand was +lifted at her door to knock, when I recollected the smallness of +the island. We could never hide ourselves upon it. There was +nothing for us but the wide raw ocean. I thought of our snug +little huts, our supplies of meat and oil and moss and firewood, +and I knew that we could never survive the wintry sea and the great +storms which were to come. + +So I stood, with hesitant knuckle, without her door. It was +impossible, impossible. A wild thought of rushing in and killing +her as she slept rose in my mind. And then, in a flash, the better +solution came to me. All hands were asleep. Why not creep aboard +the Ghost,--well I knew the way to Wolf Larsen's bunk,--and kill +him in his sleep? After that--well, we would see. But with him +dead there was time and space in which to prepare to do other +things; and besides, whatever new situation arose, it could not +possibly be worse than the present one. + +My knife was at my hip. I returned to my hut for the shot-gun, +made sure it was loaded, and went down to the Ghost. With some +difficulty, and at the expense of a wetting to the waist, I climbed +aboard. The forecastle scuttle was open. I paused to listen for +the breathing of the men, but there was no breathing. I almost +gasped as the thought came to me: What if the Ghost is deserted? +I listened more closely. There was no sound. I cautiously +descended the ladder. The place had the empty and musty feel and +smell usual to a dwelling no longer inhabited. Everywhere was a +thick litter of discarded and ragged garments, old sea-boots, leaky +oilskins--all the worthless forecastle dunnage of a long voyage. + +Abandoned hastily, was my conclusion, as I ascended to the deck. +Hope was alive again in my breast, and I looked about me with +greater coolness. I noted that the boats were missing. The +steerage told the same tale as the forecastle. The hunters had +packed their belongings with similar haste. The Ghost was +deserted. It was Maud's and mine. I thought of the ship's stores +and the lazarette beneath the cabin, and the idea came to me of +surprising Maud with something nice for breakfast. + +The reaction from my fear, and the knowledge that the terrible deed +I had come to do was no longer necessary, made me boyish and eager. +I went up the steerage companion-way two steps at a time, with +nothing distinct in my mind except joy and the hope that Maud would +sleep on until the surprise breakfast was quite ready for her. As +I rounded the galley, a new satisfaction was mine at thought of all +the splendid cooking utensils inside. I sprang up the break of the +poop, and saw--Wolf Larsen. What of my impetus and the stunning +surprise, I clattered three or four steps along the deck before I +could stop myself. He was standing in the companion-way, only his +head and shoulders visible, staring straight at me. His arms were +resting on the half-open slide. He made no movement whatever-- +simply stood there, staring at me. + +I began to tremble. The old stomach sickness clutched me. I put +one hand on the edge of the house to steady myself. My lips seemed +suddenly dry and I moistened them against the need of speech. Nor +did I for an instant take my eyes off him. Neither of us spoke. +There was something ominous in his silence, his immobility. All my +old fear of him returned and by new fear was increased an hundred- +fold. And still we stood, the pair of us, staring at each other. + +I was aware of the demand for action, and, my old helplessness +strong upon me, I was waiting for him to take the initiative. +Then, as the moments went by, it came to me that the situation was +analogous to the one in which I had approached the long-maned bull, +my intention of clubbing obscured by fear until it became a desire +to make him run. So it was at last impressed upon me that I was +there, not to have Wolf Larsen take the initiative, but to take it +myself. + +I cocked both barrels and levelled the shot-gun at him. Had he +moved, attempted to drop down the companion-way, I know I would +have shot him. But he stood motionless and staring as before. And +as I faced him, with levelled gun shaking in my hands, I had time +to note the worn and haggard appearance of his face. It was as if +some strong anxiety had wasted it. The cheeks were sunken, and +there was a wearied, puckered expression on the brow. And it +seemed to me that his eyes were strange, not only the expression, +but the physical seeming, as though the optic nerves and supporting +muscles had suffered strain and slightly twisted the eyeballs. + +All this I saw, and my brain now working rapidly, I thought a +thousand thoughts; and yet I could not pull the triggers. I +lowered the gun and stepped to the corner of the cabin, primarily +to relieve the tension on my nerves and to make a new start, and +incidentally to be closer. Again I raised the gun. He was almost +at arm's length. There was no hope for him. I was resolved. +There was no possible chance of missing him, no matter how poor my +marksmanship. And yet I wrestled with myself and could not pull +the triggers. + +"Well?" he demanded impatiently. + +I strove vainly to force my fingers down on the triggers, and +vainly I strove to say something. + +"Why don't you shoot?" he asked. + +I cleared my throat of a huskiness which prevented speech. "Hump," +he said slowly, "you can't do it. You are not exactly afraid. You +are impotent. Your conventional morality is stronger than you. +You are the slave to the opinions which have credence among the +people you have known and have read about. Their code has been +drummed into your head from the time you lisped, and in spite of +your philosophy, and of what I have taught you, it won't let you +kill an unarmed, unresisting man." + +"I know it," I said hoarsely. + +"And you know that I would kill an unarmed man as readily as I +would smoke a cigar," he went on. "You know me for what I am,--my +worth in the world by your standard. You have called me snake, +tiger, shark, monster, and Caliban. And yet, you little rag +puppet, you little echoing mechanism, you are unable to kill me as +you would a snake or a shark, because I have hands, feet, and a +body shaped somewhat like yours. Bah! I had hoped better things of +you, Hump." + +He stepped out of the companion-way and came up to me. + +"Put down that gun. I want to ask you some questions. I haven't +had a chance to look around yet. What place is this? How is the +Ghost lying? How did you get wet? Where's Maud?--I beg your +pardon, Miss Brewster--or should I say, 'Mrs. Van Weyden'?" + +I had backed away from him, almost weeping at my inability to shoot +him, but not fool enough to put down the gun. I hoped, +desperately, that he might commit some hostile act, attempt to +strike me or choke me; for in such way only I knew I could be +stirred to shoot. + +"This is Endeavour Island," I said. + +"Never heard of it," he broke in. + +"At least, that's our name for it," I amended. + +"Our?" he queried. "Who's our?" + +"Miss Brewster and myself. And the Ghost is lying, as you can see +for yourself, bow on to the beach." + +"There are seals here," he said. "They woke me up with their +barking, or I'd be sleeping yet. I heard them when I drove in last +night. They were the first warning that I was on a lee shore. +It's a rookery, the kind of a thing I've hunted for years. Thanks +to my brother Death, I've lighted on a fortune. It's a mint. +What's its bearings?" + +"Haven't the least idea," I said. "But you ought to know quite +closely. What were your last observations?" + +He smiled inscrutably, but did not answer. + +"Well, where's all hands?" I asked. "How does it come that you are +alone?" + +I was prepared for him again to set aside my question, and was +surprised at the readiness of his reply. + +"My brother got me inside forty-eight hours, and through no fault +of mine. Boarded me in the night with only the watch on deck. +Hunters went back on me. He gave them a bigger lay. Heard him +offering it. Did it right before me. Of course the crew gave me +the go-by. That was to be expected. All hands went over the side, +and there I was, marooned on my own vessel. It was Death's turn, +and it's all in the family anyway." + +"But how did you lose the masts?" I asked. + +"Walk over and examine those lanyards," he said, pointing to where +the mizzen-rigging should have been. + +"They have been cut with a knife!" I exclaimed. + +"Not quite," he laughed. "It was a neater job. Look again." + +I looked. The lanyards had been almost severed, with just enough +left to hold the shrouds till some severe strain should be put upon +them + +"Cooky did that," he laughed again. "I know, though I didn't spot +him at it. Kind of evened up the score a bit." + +"Good for Mugridge!" I cried. + +"Yes, that's what I thought when everything went over the side. +Only I said it on the other side of my mouth." + +"But what were you doing while all this was going on?" I asked. + +"My best, you may be sure, which wasn't much under the +circumstances." + +I turned to re-examine Thomas Mugridge's work. + +"I guess I'll sit down and take the sunshine," I heard Wolf Larsen +saying. + +There was a hint, just a slight hint, of physical feebleness in his +voice, and it was so strange that I looked quickly at him. His +hand was sweeping nervously across his face, as though he were +brushing away cobwebs. I was puzzled. The whole thing was so +unlike the Wolf Larsen I had known. + +"How are your headaches?" I asked. + +"They still trouble me," was his answer. "I think I have one +coming on now." + +He slipped down from his sitting posture till he lay on the deck. +Then he rolled over on his side, his head resting on the biceps of +the under arm, the forearm shielding his eyes from the sun. I +stood regarding him wonderingly. + +"Now's your chance, Hump," he said. + +"I don't understand," I lied, for I thoroughly understood. + +"Oh, nothing," he added softly, as if he were drowsing; "only +you've got me where you want me." + +"No, I haven't," I retorted; "for I want you a few thousand miles +away from here." + +He chuckled, and thereafter spoke no more. He did not stir as I +passed by him and went down into the cabin. I lifted the trap in +the floor, but for some moments gazed dubiously into the darkness +of the lazarette beneath. I hesitated to descend. What if his +lying down were a ruse? Pretty, indeed, to be caught there like a +rat. I crept softly up the companion-way and peeped at him. He +was lying as I had left him. Again I went below; but before I +dropped into the lazarette I took the precaution of casting down +the door in advance. At least there would be no lid to the trap. +But it was all needless. I regained the cabin with a store of +jams, sea-biscuits, canned meats, and such things,--all I could +carry,--and replaced the trap-door. + +A peep at Wolf Larsen showed me that he had not moved. A bright +thought struck me. I stole into his state-room and possessed +myself of his revolvers. There were no other weapons, though I +thoroughly ransacked the three remaining state-rooms. To make +sure, I returned and went through the steerage and forecastle, and +in the galley gathered up all the sharp meat and vegetable knives. +Then I bethought me of the great yachtsman's knife he always +carried, and I came to him and spoke to him, first softly, then +loudly. He did not move. I bent over and took it from his pocket. +I breathed more freely. He had no arms with which to attack me +from a distance; while I, armed, could always forestall him should +he attempt to grapple me with his terrible gorilla arms. + +Filling a coffee-pot and frying-pan with part of my plunder, and +taking some chinaware from the cabin pantry, I left Wolf Larsen +lying in the sun and went ashore. + +Maud was still asleep. I blew up the embers (we had not yet +arranged a winter kitchen), and quite feverishly cooked the +breakfast. Toward the end, I heard her moving about within the +hut, making her toilet. Just as all was ready and the coffee +poured, the door opened and she came forth. + +"It's not fair of you," was her greeting. "You are usurping one of +my prerogatives. You know you I agreed that the cooking should be +mine, and--" + +"But just this once," I pleaded. + +"If you promise not to do it again," she smiled. "Unless, of +course, you have grown tired of my poor efforts." + +To my delight she never once looked toward the beach, and I +maintained the banter with such success all unconsciously she +sipped coffee from the china cup, ate fried evaporated potatoes, +and spread marmalade on her biscuit. But it could not last. I saw +the surprise that came over her. She had discovered the china +plate from which she was eating. She looked over the breakfast, +noting detail after detail. Then she looked at me, and her face +turned slowly toward the beach. + +"Humphrey!" she said. + +The old unnamable terror mounted into her eyes. + +"Is--he?" she quavered. + +I nodded my head. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIIII + + + +We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore. It was an +intolerable period of anxiety. Each moment one or the other of us +cast expectant glances toward the Ghost. But he did not come. He +did not even appear on deck. + +"Perhaps it is his headache," I said. "I left him lying on the +poop. He may lie there all night. I think I'll go and see." + +Maud looked entreaty at me. + +"It is all right," I assured her. "I shall take the revolvers. +You know I collected every weapon on board." + +"But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible hands!" +she objected. And then she cried, "Oh, Humphrey, I am afraid of +him! Don't go--please don't go!" + +She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse +fluttering. My heart was surely in my eyes for a moment. The dear +and lovely woman! And she was so much the woman, clinging and +appealing, sunshine and dew to my manhood, rooting it deeper and +sending through it the sap of a new strength. I was for putting my +arm around her, as when in the midst of the seal herd; but I +considered, and refrained. + +"I shall not take any risks," I said. "I'll merely peep over the +bow and see." + +She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go. But the space on deck +where I had left him lying was vacant. He had evidently gone +below. That night we stood alternate watches, one of us sleeping +at a time; for there was no telling what Wolf Larsen might do. He +was certainly capable of anything. + +The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign. + +"These headaches of his, these attacks," Maud said, on the +afternoon of the fourth day; "Perhaps he is ill, very ill. He may +be dead." + +"Or dying," was her afterthought when she had waited some time for +me to speak. + +"Better so," I answered. + +"But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely hour." + +"Perhaps," I suggested. + +"Yes, even perhaps," she acknowledged. "But we do not know. It +would be terrible if he were. I could never forgive myself. We +must do something." + +"Perhaps," I suggested again. + +I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled a +solicitude for Wolf Larsen, of all creatures. Where was her +solicitude for me, I thought,--for me whom she had been afraid to +have merely peep aboard? + +She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence. And she +was as direct as she was subtle. + +"You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out," she said. "And if +you want to laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness." + +I arose obediently and went down the beach. + +"Do be careful," she called after me. + +I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the +deck. Aft I walked to the cabin companion, where I contented +myself with hailing below. Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started +to ascend the stairs I cocked my revolver. I displayed it openly +during our conversation, but he took no notice of it. He appeared +the same, physically, as when last I saw him, but he was gloomy and +silent. In fact, the few words we spoke could hardly be called a +conversation. I did not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor +did he ask why I had not come aboard. His head was all right +again, he said, and so, without further parley, I left him. + +Maud received my report with obvious relief, and the sight of smoke +which later rose in the galley put her in a more cheerful mood. +The next day, and the next, we saw the galley smoke rising, and +sometimes we caught glimpses of him on the poop. But that was all. +He made no attempt to come ashore. This we knew, for we still +maintained our night-watches. We were waiting for him to do +something, to show his hand, so to say, and his inaction puzzled +and worried us. + +A week of this passed by. We had no other interest than Wolf +Larsen, and his presence weighed us down with an apprehension which +prevented us from doing any of the little things we had planned. + +But at the end of the week the smoke ceased rising from the galley, +and he no longer showed himself on the poop. I could see Maud's +solicitude again growing, though she timidly--and even proudly, I +think--forbore a repetition of her request. After all, what +censure could be put upon her? She was divinely altruistic, and +she was a woman. Besides, I was myself aware of hurt at thought of +this man whom I had tried to kill, dying alone with his fellow- +creatures so near. He was right. The code of my group was +stronger than I. The fact that he had hands, feet, and a body +shaped somewhat like mine, constituted a claim which I could not +ignore. + +So I did not wait a second time for Maud to send me. I discovered +that we stood in need of condensed milk and marmalade, and +announced that I was going aboard. I could see that she wavered. +She even went so far as to murmur that they were non-essentials and +that my trip after them might be inexpedient. And as she had +followed the trend of my silence, she now followed the trend of my +speech, and she knew that I was going aboard, not because of +condensed milk and marmalade, but because of her and of her +anxiety, which she knew she had failed to hide. + +I took off my shoes when I gained the forecastle head, and went +noiselessly aft in my stocking feet. Nor did I call this time from +the top of the companion-way. Cautiously descending, I found the +cabin deserted. The door to his state-room was closed. At first I +thought of knocking, then I remembered my ostensible errand and +resolved to carry it out. Carefully avoiding noise, I lifted the +trap-door in the floor and set it to one side. The slop-chest, as +well as the provisions, was stored in the lazarette, and I took +advantage of the opportunity to lay in a stock of underclothing. + +As I emerged from the lazarette I heard sounds in Wolf Larsen's +state-room. I crouched and listened. The door-knob rattled. +Furtively, instinctively, I slunk back behind the table and drew +and cocked my revolver. The door swung open and he came forth. +Never had I seen so profound a despair as that which I saw on his +face,--the face of Wolf Larsen the fighter, the strong man, the +indomitable one. For all the world like a woman wringing her +hands, he raised his clenched fists and groaned. One fist +unclosed, and the open palm swept across his eyes as though +brushing away cobwebs. + +"God! God!" he groaned, and the clenched fists were raised again +to the infinite despair with which his throat vibrated. + +It was horrible. I was trembling all over, and I could feel the +shivers running up and down my spine and the sweat standing out on +my forehead. Surely there can be little in this world more awful +than the spectacle of a strong man in the moment when he is utterly +weak and broken. + +But Wolf Larsen regained control of himself by an exertion of his +remarkable will. And it was exertion. His whole frame shook with +the struggle. He resembled a man on the verge of a fit. His face +strove to compose itself, writhing and twisting in the effort till +he broke down again. Once more the clenched fists went upward and +he groaned. He caught his breath once or twice and sobbed. Then +he was successful. I could have thought him the old Wolf Larsen, +and yet there was in his movements a vague suggestion of weakness +and indecision. He started for the companion-way, and stepped +forward quite as I had been accustomed to see him do; and yet +again, in his very walk, there seemed that suggestion of weakness +and indecision. + +I was now concerned with fear for myself. The open trap lay +directly in his path, and his discovery of it would lead instantly +to his discovery of me. I was angry with myself for being caught +in so cowardly a position, crouching on the floor. There was yet +time. I rose swiftly to my feet, and, I know, quite unconsciously +assumed a defiant attitude. He took no notice of me. Nor did he +notice the open trap. Before I could grasp the situation, or act, +he had walked right into the trap. One foot was descending into +the opening, while the other foot was just on the verge of +beginning the uplift. But when the descending foot missed the +solid flooring and felt vacancy beneath, it was the old Wolf Larsen +and the tiger muscles that made the falling body spring across the +opening, even as it fell, so that he struck on his chest and +stomach, with arms outstretched, on the floor of the opposite side. +The next instant he had drawn up his legs and rolled clear. But he +rolled into my marmalade and underclothes and against the trap- +door. + +The expression on his face was one of complete comprehension. But +before I could guess what he had comprehended, he had dropped the +trap-door into place, closing the lazarette. Then I understood. +He thought he had me inside. Also, he was blind, blind as a bat. +I watched him, breathing carefully so that he should not hear me. +He stepped quickly to his state-room. I saw his hand miss the +door-knob by an inch, quickly fumble for it, and find it. This was +my chance. I tiptoed across the cabin and to the top of the +stairs. He came back, dragging a heavy sea-chest, which he +deposited on top of the trap. Not content with this he fetched a +second chest and placed it on top of the first. Then he gathered +up the marmalade and underclothes and put them on the table. When +he started up the companion-way, I retreated, silently rolling over +on top of the cabin. + +He shoved the slide part way back and rested his arms on it, his +body still in the companion-way. His attitude was of one looking +forward the length of the schooner, or staring, rather, for his +eyes were fixed and unblinking. I was only five feet away and +directly in what should have been his line of vision. It was +uncanny. I felt myself a ghost, what of my invisibility. I waved +my hand back and forth, of course without effect; but when the +moving shadow fell across his face I saw at once that he was +susceptible to the impression. His face became more expectant and +tense as he tried to analyze and identify the impression. He knew +that he had responded to something from without, that his +sensibility had been touched by a changing something in his +environment; but what it was he could not discover. I ceased +waving my hand, so that the shadow remained stationary. He slowly +moved his head back and forth under it and turned from side to +side, now in the sunshine, now in the shade, feeling the shadow, as +it were, testing it by sensation. + +I, too, was busy, trying to reason out how he was aware of the +existence of so intangible a thing as a shadow. If it were his +eyeballs only that were affected, or if his optic nerve were not +wholly destroyed, the explanation was simple. If otherwise, then +the only conclusion I could reach was that the sensitive skin +recognized the difference of temperature between shade and +sunshine. Or, perhaps,--who can tell?--it was that fabled sixth +sense which conveyed to him the loom and feel of an object close at +hand. + +Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck +and started forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which +surprised me. And still there was that hint of the feebleness of +the blind in his walk. I knew it now for what it was. + +To my amused chagrin, he discovered my shoes on the forecastle head +and brought them back with him into the galley. I watched him +build the fire and set about cooking food for himself; then I stole +into the cabin for my marmalade and underclothes, slipped back past +the galley, and climbed down to the beach to deliver my barefoot +report. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + + +"It's too bad the Ghost has lost her masts. Why we could sail away +in her. Don't you think we could, Humphrey?" + +I sprang excitedly to my feet. + +"I wonder, I wonder," I repeated, pacing up and down. + +Maud's eyes were shining with anticipation as they followed me. +She had such faith in me! And the thought of it was so much added +power. I remembered Michelet's "To man, woman is as the earth was +to her legendary son; he has but to fall down and kiss her breast +and he is strong again." For the first time I knew the wonderful +truth of his words. Why, I was living them. Maud was all this to +me, an unfailing, source of strength and courage. I had but to +look at her, or think of her, and be strong again. + +"It can be done, it can be done," I was thinking and asserting +aloud. "What men have done, I can do; and if they have never done +this before, still I can do it." + +"What? for goodness' sake," Maud demanded. "Do be merciful. What +is it you can do?" + +"We can do it," I amended. "Why, nothing else than put the masts +back into the Ghost and sail away." + +"Humphrey!" she exclaimed. + +And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already a fact +accomplished. + +"But how is it possible to be done?" she asked. + +"I don't know," was my answer. "I know only that I am capable of +doing anything these days." + +I smiled proudly at her--too proudly, for she dropped her eyes and +was for the moment silent. + +"But there is Captain Larsen," she objected. + +"Blind and helpless," I answered promptly, waving him aside as a +straw. + +"But those terrible hands of his! You know how he leaped across +the opening of the lazarette." + +"And you know also how I crept about and avoided him," I contended +gaily. + +"And lost your shoes." + +"You'd hardly expect them to avoid Wolf Larsen without my feet +inside of them." + +We both laughed, and then went seriously to work constructing the +plan whereby we were to step the masts of the Ghost and return to +the world. I remembered hazily the physics of my school days, +while the last few months had given me practical experience with +mechanical purchases. I must say, though, when we walked down to +the Ghost to inspect more closely the task before us, that the +sight of the great masts lying in the water almost disheartened me. +Where were we to begin? If there had been one mast standing, +something high up to which to fasten blocks and tackles! But there +was nothing. It reminded me of the problem of lifting oneself by +one's boot-straps. I understood the mechanics of levers; but where +was I to get a fulcrum? + +There was the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now +the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly +calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the +foremast, larger in diameter, and weighing surely thirty-five +hundred pounds. Where was I to begin? Maud stood silently by my +side, while I evolved in my mind the contrivance known among +sailors as "shears." But, though known to sailors, I invented it +there on Endeavour Island. By crossing and lashing the ends of two +spars, and then elevating them in the air like an inverted "V," I +could get a point above the deck to which to make fast my hoisting +tackle. To this hoisting tackle I could, if necessary, attach a +second hoisting tackle. And then there was the windlass! + +Maud saw that I had achieved a solution, and her eyes warmed +sympathetically. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked. + +"Clear that raffle," I answered, pointing to the tangled wreckage +overside. + +Ah, the decisiveness, the very sound of the words, was good in my +ears. "Clear that raffle!" Imagine so salty a phrase on the lips +of the Humphrey Van Weyden of a few months gone! + +There must have been a touch of the melodramatic in my pose and +voice, for Maud smiled. Her appreciation of the ridiculous was +keen, and in all things she unerringly saw and felt, where it +existed, the touch of sham, the overshading, the overtone. It was +this which had given poise and penetration to her own work and made +her of worth to the world. The serious critic, with the sense of +humour and the power of expression, must inevitably command the +world's ear. And so it was that she had commanded. Her sense of +humour was really the artist's instinct for proportion. + +"I'm sure I've heard it before, somewhere, in books," she murmured +gleefully. + +I had an instinct for proportion myself, and I collapsed forthwith, +descending from the dominant pose of a master of matter to a state +of humble confusion which was, to say the least, very miserable. + +Her hand leapt out at once to mine. + +"I'm so sorry," she said. + +"No need to be," I gulped. "It does me good. There's too much of +the schoolboy in me. All of which is neither here nor there. What +we've got to do is actually and literally to clear that raffle. If +you'll come with me in the boat, we'll get to work and straighten +things out." + +"'When the topmen clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their +teeth,'" she quoted at me; and for the rest of the afternoon we +made merry over our labour. + +Her task was to hold the boat in position while I worked at the +tangle. And such a tangle--halyards, sheets, guys, down-hauls, +shrouds, stays, all washed about and back and forth and through, +and twined and knotted by the sea. I cut no more than was +necessary, and what with passing the long ropes under and around +the booms and masts, of unreeving the halyards and sheets, of +coiling down in the boat and uncoiling in order to pass through +another knot in the bight, I was soon wet to the skin. + +The sails did require some cutting, and the canvas, heavy with +water, tried my strength severely; but I succeeded before nightfall +in getting it all spread out on the beach to dry. We were both +very tired when we knocked off for supper, and we had done good +work, too, though to the eye it appeared insignificant. + +Next morning, with Maud as able assistant, I went into the hold of +the Ghost to clear the steps of the mast-butts. We had no more +than begun work when the sound of my knocking and hammering brought +Wolf Larsen. + +"Hello below!" he cried down the open hatch. + +The sound of his voice made Maud quickly draw close to me, as for +protection, and she rested one hand on my arm while we parleyed. + +"Hello on deck," I replied. "Good-morning to you." + +"What are you doing down there?" he demanded. "Trying to scuttle +my ship for me?" + +"Quite the opposite; I'm repairing her," was my answer. + +"But what in thunder are you repairing?" There was puzzlement in +his voice. + +"Why, I'm getting everything ready for re-stepping the masts," I +replied easily, as though it were the simplest project imaginable. + +"It seems as though you're standing on your own legs at last, +Hump," we heard him say; and then for some time he was silent. + +"But I say, Hump," he called down. "You can't do it." + +"Oh, yes, I can," I retorted. "I'm doing it now." + +"But this is my vessel, my particular property. What if I forbid +you?" + +"You forget," I replied. "You are no longer the biggest bit of the +ferment. You were, once, and able to eat me, as you were pleased +to phrase it; but there has been a diminishing, and I am now able +to eat you. The yeast has grown stale." + +He gave a short, disagreeable laugh. "I see you're working my +philosophy back on me for all it is worth. But don't make the +mistake of under-estimating me. For your own good I warn you." + +"Since when have you become a philanthropist?" I queried. +"Confess, now, in warning me for my own good, that you are very +consistent." + +He ignored my sarcasm, saying, "Suppose I clap the hatch on, now? +You won't fool me as you did in the lazarette." + +"Wolf Larsen," I said sternly, for the first time addressing him by +this his most familiar name, "I am unable to shoot a helpless, +unresisting man. You have proved that to my satisfaction as well +as yours. But I warn you now, and not so much for your own good as +for mine, that I shall shoot you the moment you attempt a hostile +act. I can shoot you now, as I stand here; and if you are so +minded, just go ahead and try to clap on the hatch." + +"Nevertheless, I forbid you, I distinctly forbid your tampering +with my ship." + +"But, man!" I expostulated, "you advance the fact that it is your +ship as though it were a moral right. You have never considered +moral rights in your dealings with others. You surely do not dream +that I'll consider them in dealing with you?" + +I had stepped underneath the open hatchway so that I could see him. +The lack of expression on his face, so different from when I had +watched him unseen, was enhanced by the unblinking, staring eyes. +It was not a pleasant face to look upon. + +"And none so poor, not even Hump, to do him reverence," he sneered. + +The sneer was wholly in his voice. His face remained +expressionless as ever. + +"How do you do, Miss Brewster," he said suddenly, after a pause. + +I started. She had made no noise whatever, had not even moved. +Could it be that some glimmer of vision remained to him? or that +his vision was coming back? + +"How do you do, Captain Larsen," she answered. "Pray, how did you +know I was here?" + +"Heard you breathing, of course. I say, Hump's improving, don't +you think so?" + +"I don't know," she answered, smiling at me. "I have never seen +him otherwise." + +"You should have seen him before, then." + +"Wolf Larsen, in large doses," I murmured, "before and after +taking." + +"I want to tell you again, Hump," he said threateningly, "that +you'd better leave things alone." + +"But don't you care to escape as well as we?" I asked +incredulously. + +"No," was his answer. "I intend dying here." + +"Well, we don't," I concluded defiantly, beginning again my +knocking and hammering. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + + +Next day, the mast-steps clear and everything in readiness, we +started to get the two topmasts aboard. The maintopmast was over +thirty feet in length, the foretopmast nearly thirty, and it was of +these that I intended making the shears. It was puzzling work. +Fastening one end of a heavy tackle to the windlass, and with the +other end fast to the butt of the foretopmast, I began to heave. +Maud held the turn on the windlass and coiled down the slack. + +We were astonished at the ease with which the spar was lifted. It +was an improved crank windlass, and the purchase it gave was +enormous. Of course, what it gave us in power we paid for in +distance; as many times as it doubled my strength, that many times +was doubled the length of rope I heaved in. The tackle dragged +heavily across the rail, increasing its drag as the spar arose more +and more out of the water, and the exertion on the windlass grew +severe. + +But when the butt of the topmast was level with the rail, +everything came to a standstill. + +"I might have known it," I said impatiently. "Now we have to do it +all over again." + +"Why not fasten the tackle part way down the mast?" Maud suggested. + +"It's what I should have done at first," I answered, hugely +disgusted with myself. + +Slipping off a turn, I lowered the mast back into the water and +fastened the tackle a third of the way down from the butt. In an +hour, what of this and of rests between the heaving, I had hoisted +it to the point where I could hoist no more. Eight feet of the +butt was above the rail, and I was as far away as ever from getting +the spar on board. I sat down and pondered the problem. It did +not take long. I sprang jubilantly to my feet. + +"Now I have it!" I cried. "I ought to make the tackle fast at the +point of balance. And what we learn of this will serve us with +everything else we have to hoist aboard." + +Once again I undid all my work by lowering the mast into the water. +But I miscalculated the point of balance, so that when I heaved the +top of the mast came up instead of the butt. Maud looked despair, +but I laughed and said it would do just as well. + +Instructing her how to hold the turn and be ready to slack away at +command, I laid hold of the mast with my hands and tried to balance +it inboard across the rail. When I thought I had it I cried to her +to slack away; but the spar righted, despite my efforts, and +dropped back toward the water. Again I heaved it up to its old +position, for I had now another idea. I remembered the watch- +tackle--a small double and single block affair--and fetched it. + +While I was rigging it between the top of the spar and the opposite +rail, Wolf Larsen came on the scene. We exchanged nothing more +than good-mornings, and, though he could not see, he sat on the +rail out of the way and followed by the sound all that I did. + +Again instructing Maud to slack away at the windlass when I gave +the word, I proceeded to heave on the watch-tackle. Slowly the +mast swung in until it balanced at right angles across the rail; +and then I discovered to my amazement that there was no need for +Maud to slack away. In fact, the very opposite was necessary. +Making the watch-tackle fast, I hove on the windlass and brought in +the mast, inch by inch, till its top tilted down to the deck and +finally its whole length lay on the deck. + +I looked at my watch. It was twelve o'clock. My back was aching +sorely, and I felt extremely tired and hungry. And there on the +deck was a single stick of timber to show for a whole morning's +work. For the first time I thoroughly realized the extent of the +task before us. But I was learning, I was learning. The afternoon +would show far more accomplished. And it did; for we returned at +one o'clock, rested and strengthened by a hearty dinner. + +In less than an hour I had the maintopmast on deck and was +constructing the shears. Lashing the two topmasts together, and +making allowance for their unequal length, at the point of +intersection I attached the double block of the main throat- +halyards. This, with the single block and the throat-halyards +themselves, gave me a hoisting tackle. To prevent the butts of the +masts from slipping on the deck, I nailed down thick cleats. +Everything in readiness, I made a line fast to the apex of the +shears and carried it directly to the windlass. I was growing to +have faith in that windlass, for it gave me power beyond all +expectation. As usual, Maud held the turn while I heaved. The +shears rose in the air. + +Then I discovered I had forgotten guy-ropes. This necessitated my +climbing the shears, which I did twice, before I finished guying it +fore and aft and to either side. Twilight had set in by the time +this was accomplished. Wolf Larsen, who had sat about and listened +all afternoon and never opened his mouth, had taken himself off to +the galley and started his supper. I felt quite stiff across the +small of the back, so much so that I straightened up with an effort +and with pain. I looked proudly at my work. It was beginning to +show. I was wild with desire, like a child with a new toy, to +hoist something with my shears. + +"I wish it weren't so late," I said. "I'd like to see how it +works." + +"Don't be a glutton, Humphrey," Maud chided me. "Remember, to- +morrow is coming, and you're so tired now that you can hardly +stand." + +"And you?" I said, with sudden solicitude. "You must be very +tired. You have worked hard and nobly. I am proud of you, Maud." + +"Not half so proud as I am of you, nor with half the reason," she +answered, looking me straight in the eyes for a moment with an +expression in her own and a dancing, tremulous light which I had +not seen before and which gave me a pang of quick delight, I know +not why, for I did not understand it. Then she dropped her eyes, +to lift them again, laughing. + +"If our friends could see us now," she said. "Look at us. Have +you ever paused for a moment to consider our appearance?" + +"Yes, I have considered yours, frequently," I answered, puzzling +over what I had seen in her eyes and puzzled by her sudden change +of subject. + +"Mercy!" she cried. "And what do I look like, pray?" + +"A scarecrow, I'm afraid," I replied. "Just glance at your +draggled skirts, for instance. Look at those three-cornered tears. +And such a waist! It would not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce +that you have been cooking over a camp-fire, to say nothing of +trying out seal-blubber. And to cap it all, that cap! And all +that is the woman who wrote 'A Kiss Endured.'" + +She made me an elaborate and stately courtesy, and said, "As for +you, sir--" + +And yet, through the five minutes of banter which followed, there +was a serious something underneath the fun which I could not but +relate to the strange and fleeting expression I had caught in her +eyes. What was it? Could it be that our eyes were speaking beyond +the will of our speech? My eyes had spoken, I knew, until I had +found the culprits out and silenced them. This had occurred +several times. But had she seen the clamour in them and +understood? And had her eyes so spoken to me? What else could +that expression have meant--that dancing, tremulous light, and a +something more which words could not describe. And yet it could +not be. It was impossible. Besides, I was not skilled in the +speech of eyes. I was only Humphrey Van Weyden, a bookish fellow +who loved. And to love, and to wait and win love, that surely was +glorious enough for me. And thus I thought, even as we chaffed +each other's appearance, until we arrived ashore and there were +other things to think about. + +"It's a shame, after working hard all day, that we cannot have an +uninterrupted night's sleep," I complained, after supper. + +"But there can be no danger now? from a blind man?" she queried. + +"I shall never be able to trust him," I averred, "and far less now +that he is blind. The liability is that his part helplessness will +make him more malignant than ever. I know what I shall do to- +morrow, the first thing--run out a light anchor and kedge the +schooner off the beach. And each night when we come ashore in the +boat, Mr. Wolf Larsen will be left a prisoner on board. So this +will be the last night we have to stand watch, and because of that +it will go the easier." + +We were awake early and just finishing breakfast as daylight came. + +"Oh, Humphrey!" I heard Maud cry in dismay and suddenly stop. + +I looked at her. She was gazing at the Ghost. I followed her +gaze, but could see nothing unusual. She looked at me, and I +looked inquiry back. + +"The shears," she said, and her voice trembled. + +I had forgotten their existence. I looked again, but could not see +them. + +"If he has--" I muttered savagely. + +She put her hand sympathetically on mine, and said, "You will have +to begin over again." + +"Oh, believe me, my anger means nothing; I could not hurt a fly," I +smiled back bitterly. "And the worst of it is, he knows it. You +are right. If he has destroyed the shears, I shall do nothing +except begin over again." + +"But I'll stand my watch on board hereafter," I blurted out a +moment later. "And if he interferes--" + +"But I dare not stay ashore all night alone," Maud was saying when +I came back to myself. "It would be so much nicer if he would be +friendly with us and help us. We could all live comfortably +aboard." + +"We will," I asserted, still savagely, for the destruction of my +beloved shears had hit me hard. "That is, you and I will live +aboard, friendly or not with Wolf Larsen." + +"It's childish," I laughed later, "for him to do such things, and +for me to grow angry over them, for that matter." + +But my heart smote me when we climbed aboard and looked at the +havoc he had done. The shears were gone altogether. The guys had +been slashed right and left. The throat-halyards which I had +rigged were cut across through every part. And he knew I could not +splice. A thought struck me. I ran to the windlass. It would not +work. He had broken it. We looked at each other in consternation. +Then I ran to the side. The masts, booms, and gaffs I had cleared +were gone. He had found the lines which held them, and cast them +adrift. + +Tears were in Maud's eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I +could have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the +Ghost? He had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing +and rested my chin on my hands in black despair. + +"He deserves to die," I cried out; "and God forgive me, I am not +man enough to be his executioner." + +But Maud was by my side, passing her hand soothingly through my +hair as though I were a child, and saying, "There, there; it will +all come right. We are in the right, and it must come right." + +I remembered Michelet and leaned my head against her; and truly I +became strong again. The blessed woman was an unfailing fount of +power to me. What did it matter? Only a set-back, a delay. The +tide could not have carried the masts far to seaward, and there had +been no wind. It meant merely more work to find them and tow them +back. And besides, it was a lesson. I knew what to expect. He +might have waited and destroyed our work more effectually when we +had more accomplished. + +"Here he comes now," she whispered. + +I glanced up. He was strolling leisurely along the poop on the +port side. + +"Take no notice of him," I whispered. "He's coming to see how we +take it. Don't let him know that we know. We can deny him that +satisfaction. Take off your shoes--that's right--and carry them in +your hand." + +And then we played hide-and-seek with the blind man. As he came up +the port side we slipped past on the starboard; and from the poop +we watched him turn and start aft on our track. + +He must have known, somehow, that we were on board, for he said +"Good-morning" very confidently, and waited, for the greeting to be +returned. Then he strolled aft, and we slipped forward. + +"Oh, I know you're aboard," he called out, and I could see him +listen intently after he had spoken. + +It reminded me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming +cry, for the stir of its frightened prey. But we did not fir, and +we moved only when he moved. And so we dodged about the deck, hand +in hand, like a couple of children chased by a wicked ogre, till +Wolf Larsen, evidently in disgust, left the deck for the cabin. +There was glee in our eyes, and suppressed titters in our mouths, +as we put on our shoes and clambered over the side into the boat. +And as I looked into Maud's clear brown eyes I forgot the evil he +had done, and I knew only that I loved her, and that because of her +the strength was mine to win our way back to the world. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + + +For two days Maud and I ranged the sea and explored the beaches in +search of the missing masts. But it was not till the third day +that we found them, all of them, the shears included, and, of all +perilous places, in the pounding surf of the grim south-western +promontory. And how we worked! At the dark end of the first day +we returned, exhausted, to our little cove, towing the mainmast +behind us. And we had been compelled to row, in a dead calm, +practically every inch of the way. + +Another day of heart-breaking and dangerous toil saw us in camp +with the two topmasts to the good. The day following I was +desperate, and I rafted together the foremast, the fore and main +booms, and the fore and main gaffs. The wind was favourable, and I +had thought to tow them back under sail, but the wind baffled, then +died away, and our progress with the oars was a snail's pace. And +it was such dispiriting effort. To throw one's whole strength and +weight on the oars and to feel the boat checked in its forward +lunge by the heavy drag behind, was not exactly exhilarating. + +Night began to fall, and to make matters worse, the wind sprang up +ahead. Not only did all forward motion cease, but we began to +drift back and out to sea. I struggled at the oars till I was +played out. Poor Maud, whom I could never prevent from working to +the limit of her strength, lay weakly back in the stern-sheets. I +could row no more. My bruised and swollen hands could no longer +close on the oar handles. My wrists and arms ached intolerably, +and though I had eaten heartily of a twelve-o'clock lunch, I had +worked so hard that I was faint from hunger. + +I pulled in the oars and bent forward to the line which held the +tow. But Maud's hand leaped out restrainingly to mine. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked in a strained, tense voice. + +"Cast it off," I answered, slipping a turn of the rope. + +But her fingers closed on mine. + +"Please don't," she begged. + +"It is useless," I answered. "Here is night and the wind blowing +us off the land." + +"But think, Humphrey. If we cannot sail away on the Ghost, we may +remain for years on the island--for life even. If it has never +been discovered all these years, it may never be discovered." + +"You forget the boat we found on the beach," I reminded her. + +"It was a seal-hunting boat," she replied, "and you know perfectly +well that if the men had escaped they would have been back to make +their fortunes from the rookery. You know they never escaped." + +I remained silent, undecided. + +"Besides," she added haltingly, "it's your idea, and I want to see +you succeed." + +Now I could harden my heart. As soon as she put it on a flattering +personal basis, generosity compelled me to deny her. + +"Better years on the island than to die to-night, or to-morrow, or +the next day, in the open boat. We are not prepared to brave the +sea. We have no food, no water, no blankets, nothing. Why, you'd +not survive the night without blankets: I know how strong you are. +You are shivering now." + +"It is only nervousness," she answered. "I am afraid you will cast +off the masts in spite of me." + +"Oh, please, please, Humphrey, don't!" she burst out, a moment +later. + +And so it ended, with the phrase she knew had all power over me. +We shivered miserably throughout the night. Now and again I +fitfully slept, but the pain of the cold always aroused me. How +Maud could stand it was beyond me. I was too tired to thrash my +arms about and warm myself, but I found strength time and again to +chafe her hands and feet to restore the circulation. And still she +pleaded with me not to cast off the masts. About three in the +morning she was caught by a cold cramp, and after I had rubbed her +out of that she became quite numb. I was frightened. I got out +the oars and made her row, though she was so weak I thought she +would faint at every stroke. + +Morning broke, and we looked long in the growing light for our +island. At last it showed, small and black, on the horizon, fully +fifteen miles away. I scanned the sea with my glasses. Far away +in the south-west I could see a dark line on the water, which grew +even as I looked at it. + +"Fair wind!" I cried in a husky voice I did not recognize as my +own. + +Maud tried to reply, but could not speak. Her lips were blue with +cold, and she was hollow-eyed--but oh, how bravely her brown eyes +looked at me! How piteously brave! + +Again I fell to chafing her hands and to moving her arms up and +down and about until she could thrash them herself. Then I +compelled her to stand up, and though she would have fallen had I +not supported her, I forced her to walk back and forth the several +steps between the thwart and the stern-sheets, and finally to +spring up and down. + +"Oh, you brave, brave woman," I said, when I saw the life coming +back into her face. "Did you know that you were brave?" + +"I never used to be," she answered. "I was never brave till I knew +you. It is you who have made me brave." + +"Nor I, until I knew you," I answered. + +She gave me a quick look, and again I caught that dancing, +tremulous light and something more in her eyes. But it was only +for the moment. Then she smiled. + +"It must have been the conditions," she said; but I knew she was +wrong, and I wondered if she likewise knew. Then the wind came, +fair and fresh, and the boat was soon labouring through a heavy sea +toward the island. At half-past three in the afternoon we passed +the south-western promontory. Not only were we hungry, but we were +now suffering from thirst. Our lips were dry and cracked, nor +could we longer moisten them with our tongues. Then the wind +slowly died down. By night it was dead calm and I was toiling once +more at the oars--but weakly, most weakly. At two in the morning +the boat's bow touched the beach of our own inner cove and I +staggered out to make the painter fast. Maud could not stand, nor +had I strength to carry her. I fell in the sand with her, and, +when I had recovered, contented myself with putting my hands under +her shoulders and dragging her up the beach to the hut. + +The next day we did no work. In fact, we slept till three in the +afternoon, or at least I did, for I awoke to find Maud cooking +dinner. Her power of recuperation was wonderful. There was +something tenacious about that lily-frail body of hers, a clutch on +existence which one could not reconcile with its patent weakness. + +"You know I was travelling to Japan for my health," she said, as we +lingered at the fire after dinner and delighted in the movelessness +of loafing. "I was not very strong. I never was. The doctors +recommended a sea voyage, and I chose the longest." + +"You little knew what you were choosing," I laughed. + +"But I shall be a different women for the experience, as well as a +stronger woman," she answered; "and, I hope a better woman. At +least I shall understand a great deal more life." + +Then, as the short day waned, we fell to discussing Wolf Larsen's +blindness. It was inexplicable. And that it was grave, I +instanced his statement that he intended to stay and die on +Endeavour Island. When he, strong man that he was, loving life as +he did, accepted his death, it was plain that he was troubled by +something more than mere blindness. There had been his terrific +headaches, and we were agreed that it was some sort of brain break- +down, and that in his attacks he endured pain beyond our +comprehension. + +I noticed as we talked over his condition, that Maud's sympathy +went out to him more and more; yet I could not but love her for it, +so sweetly womanly was it. Besides, there was no false sentiment +about her feeling. She was agreed that the most rigorous treatment +was necessary if we were to escape, though she recoiled at the +suggestion that I might some time be compelled to take his life to +save my own--"our own," she put it. + +In the morning we had breakfast and were at work by daylight. I +found a light kedge anchor in the fore-hold, where such things were +kept; and with a deal of exertion got it on deck and into the boat. +With a long running-line coiled down in the stem, I rowed well out +into our little cove and dropped the anchor into the water. There +was no wind, the tide was high, and the schooner floated. Casting +off the shore-lines, I kedged her out by main strength (the +windlass being broken), till she rode nearly up and down to the +small anchor--too small to hold her in any breeze. So I lowered +the big starboard anchor, giving plenty of slack; and by afternoon +I was at work on the windlass. + +Three days I worked on that windlass. Least of all things was I a +mechanic, and in that time I accomplished what an ordinary +machinist would have done in as many hours. I had to learn my +tools to begin with, and every simple mechanical principle which +such a man would have at his finger ends I had likewise to learn. +And at the end of three days I had a windlass which worked +clumsily. It never gave the satisfaction the old windlass had +given, but it worked and made my work possible. + +In half a day I got the two topmasts aboard and the shears rigged +and guyed as before. And that night I slept on board and on deck +beside my work. Maud, who refused to stay alone ashore, slept in +the forecastle. Wolf Larsen had sat about, listening to my +repairing the windlass and talking with Maud and me upon +indifferent subjects. No reference was made on either side to the +destruction of the shears; nor did he say anything further about my +leaving his ship alone. But still I had feared him, blind and +helpless and listening, always listening, and I never let his +strong arms get within reach of me while I worked. + +On this night, sleeping under my beloved shears, I was aroused by +his footsteps on the deck. It was a starlight night, and I could +see the bulk of him dimly as he moved about. I rolled out of my +blankets and crept noiselessly after him in my stocking feet. He +had armed himself with a draw-knife from the tool-locker, and with +this he prepared to cut across the throat-halyards I had again +rigged to the shears. He felt the halyards with his hands and +discovered that I had not made them fast. This would not do for a +draw-knife, so he laid hold of the running part, hove taut, and +made fast. Then he prepared to saw across with the draw-knife. + +"I wouldn't, if I were you," I said quietly. + +He heard the click of my pistol and laughed. + +"Hello, Hump," he said. "I knew you were here all the time. You +can't fool my ears." + +"That's a lie, Wolf Larsen," I said, just as quietly as before. +"However, I am aching for a chance to kill you, so go ahead and +cut." + +"You have the chance always," he sneered. + +"Go ahead and cut," I threatened ominously. + +"I'd rather disappoint you," he laughed, and turned on his heel and +went aft. + +"Something must be done, Humphrey," Maud said, next morning, when I +had told her of the night's occurrence. "If he has liberty, he may +do anything. He may sink the vessel, or set fire to it. There is +no telling what he may do. We must make him a prisoner." + +"But how?" I asked, with a helpless shrug. "I dare not come within +reach of his arms, and he knows that so long as his resistance is +passive I cannot shoot him." + +"There must be some way," she contended. "Let me think." + +"There is one way," I said grimly. + +She waited. + +I picked up a seal-club. + +"It won't kill him," I said. "And before he could recover I'd have +him bound hard and fast." + +She shook her head with a shudder. "No, not that. There must be +some less brutal way. Let us wait." + +But we did not have to wait long, and the problem solved itself. +In the morning, after several trials, I found the point of balance +in the foremast and attached my hoisting tackle a few feet above +it. Maud held the turn on the windlass and coiled down while I +heaved. Had the windlass been in order it would not have been so +difficult; as it was, I was compelled to apply all my weight and +strength to every inch of the heaving. I had to rest frequently. +In truth, my spells of resting were longer than those of working. +Maud even contrived, at times when all my efforts could not budge +the windlass, to hold the turn with one hand and with the other to +throw the weight of her slim body to my assistance. + +At the end of an hour the single and double blocks came together at +the top of the shears. I could hoist no more. And yet the mast +was not swung entirely inboard. The butt rested against the +outside of the port rail, while the top of the mast overhung the +water far beyond the starboard rail. My shears were too short. +All my work had been for nothing. But I no longer despaired in the +old way. I was acquiring more confidence in myself and more +confidence in the possibilities of windlasses, shears, and hoisting +tackles. There was a way in which it could be done, and it +remained for me to find that way. + +While I was considering the problem, Wolf Larsen came on deck. We +noticed something strange about him at once. The indecisiveness, +or feebleness, of his movements was more pronounced. His walk was +actually tottery as he came down the port side of the cabin. At +the break of the poop he reeled, raised one hand to his eyes with +the familiar brushing gesture, and fell down the steps--still on +his feet--to the main deck, across which he staggered, falling and +flinging out his arms for support. He regained his balance by the +steerage companion-way and stood there dizzily for a space, when he +suddenly crumpled up and collapsed, his legs bending under him as +he sank to the deck. + +"One of his attacks," I whispered to Maud. + +She nodded her head; and I could see sympathy warm in eyes. + +We went up to him, but he seemed unconscious, breathing +spasmodically. She took charge of him, lifting his head to keep +the blood out of it and despatching me to the cabin for a pillow. +I also brought blankets, and we made him comfortable. I took his +pulse. It beat steadily and strong, and was quite normal. This +puzzled me. I became suspicious. + +"What if he should be feigning this?" I asked, still holding his +wrist. + +Maud shook her head, and there was reproof in her eyes. But just +then the wrist I held leaped from my hand, and the hand clasped +like a steel trap about my wrist. I cried aloud in awful fear, a +wild inarticulate cry; and I caught one glimpse of his face, +malignant and triumphant, as his other hand compassed my body and I +was drawn down to him in a terrible grip. + +My wrist was released, but his other arm, passed around my back, +held both my arms so that I could not move. His free hand went to +my throat, and in that moment I knew the bitterest foretaste of +death earned by one's own idiocy. Why had I trusted myself within +reach of those terrible arms? I could feel other hands at my +throat. They were Maud's hands, striving vainly to tear loose the +hand that was throttling me. She gave it up, and I heard her +scream in a way that cut me to the soul, for it was a woman's +scream of fear and heart-breaking despair. I had heard it before, +during the sinking of the Martinez. + +My face was against his chest and I could not see, but I heard Maud +turn and run swiftly away along the deck. Everything was happening +quickly. I had not yet had a glimmering of unconsciousness, and it +seemed that an interminable period of time was lapsing before I +heard her feet flying back. And just then I felt the whole man +sink under me. The breath was leaving his lungs and his chest was +collapsing under my weight. Whether it was merely the expelled +breath, or his consciousness of his growing impotence, I know not, +but his throat vibrated with a deep groan. The hand at my throat +relaxed. I breathed. It fluttered and tightened again. But even +his tremendous will could not overcome the dissolution that +assailed it. That will of his was breaking down. He was fainting. + +Maud's footsteps were very near as his hand fluttered for the last +time and my throat was released. I rolled off and over to the deck +on my back, gasping and blinking in the sunshine. Maud was pale +but composed,--my eyes had gone instantly to her face,--and she was +looking at me with mingled alarm and relief. A heavy seal-club in +her hand caught my eyes, and at that moment she followed my gaze +down to it. The club dropped from her hand as though it had +suddenly stung her, and at the same moment my heart surged with a +great joy. Truly she was my woman, my mate-woman, fighting with me +and for me as the mate of a caveman would have fought, all the +primitive in her aroused, forgetful of her culture, hard under the +softening civilization of the only life she had ever known. + +"Dear woman!" I cried, scrambling to my feet. + +The next moment she was in my arms, weeping convulsively on my +shoulder while I clasped her close. I looked down at the brown +glory of her hair, glinting gems in the sunshine far more precious +to me than those in the treasure-chests of kings. And I bent my +head and kissed her hair softly, so softly that she did not know. + +Then sober thought came to me. After all, she was only a woman, +crying her relief, now that the danger was past, in the arms of her +protector or of the one who had been endangered. Had I been father +or brother, the situation would have been in nowise different. +Besides, time and place were not meet, and I wished to earn a +better right to declare my love. So once again I softly kissed her +hair as I felt her receding from my clasp. + +"It was a real attack this time," I said: "another shock like the +one that made him blind. He feigned at first, and in doing so +brought it on." + +Maud was already rearranging his pillow. + +"No," I said, "not yet. Now that I have him helpless, helpless he +shall remain. From this day we live in the cabin. Wolf Larsen +shall live in the steerage." + +I caught him under the shoulders and dragged him to the companion- +way. At my direction Maud fetched a rope. Placing this under his +shoulders, I balanced him across the threshold and lowered him down +the steps to the floor. I could not lift him directly into a bunk, +but with Maud's help I lifted first his shoulders and head, then +his body, balanced him across the edge, and rolled him into a lower +bunk. + +But this was not to be all. I recollected the handcuffs in his +state-room, which he preferred to use on sailors instead of the +ancient and clumsy ship irons. So, when we left him, he lay +handcuffed hand and foot. For the first time in many days I +breathed freely. I felt strangely light as I came on deck, as +though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt, also, +that Maud and I had drawn more closely together. And I wondered if +she, too, felt it, as we walked along the deck side by side to +where the stalled foremast hung in the shears. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + + +At once we moved aboard the Ghost, occupying our old state-rooms +and cooking in the galley. The imprisonment of Wolf Larsen had +happened most opportunely, for what must have been the Indian +summer of this high latitude was gone and drizzling stormy weather +had set in. We were very comfortable, and the inadequate shears, +with the foremast suspended from them, gave a business-like air to +the schooner and a promise of departure. + +And now that we had Wolf Larsen in irons, how little did we need +it! Like his first attack, his second had been accompanied by +serious disablement. Maud made the discovery in the afternoon +while trying to give him nourishment. He had shown signs of +consciousness, and she had spoken to him, eliciting no response. +He was lying on his left side at the time, and in evident pain. +With a restless movement he rolled his head around, clearing his +left ear from the pillow against which it had been pressed. At +once he heard and answered her, and at once she came to me. + +Pressing the pillow against his left ear, I asked him if he heard +me, but he gave no sign. Removing the pillow and, repeating the +question he answered promptly that he did. + +"Do you know you are deaf in the right ear?" I asked. + +"Yes," he answered in a low, strong voice, "and worse than that. +My whole right side is affected. It seems asleep. I cannot move +arm or leg." + +"Feigning again?" I demanded angrily. + +He shook his head, his stern mouth shaping the strangest, twisted +smile. It was indeed a twisted smile, for it was on the left side +only, the facial muscles of the right side moving not at all. + +"That was the last play of the Wolf," he said. "I am paralysed. I +shall never walk again. Oh, only on the other side," he added, as +though divining the suspicious glance I flung at his left leg, the +knee of which had just then drawn up, and elevated the blankets. + +"It's unfortunate," he continued. "I'd liked to have done for you +first, Hump. And I thought I had that much left in me." + +"But why?" I asked; partly in horror, partly out of curiosity. + +Again his stern mouth framed the twisted smile, as he said: + +"Oh, just to be alive, to be living and doing, to be the biggest +bit of the ferment to the end, to eat you. But to die this way." + +He shrugged his shoulders, or attempted to shrug them, rather, for +the left shoulder alone moved. Like the smile, the shrug was +twisted. + +"But how can you account for it?" I asked. "Where is the seat of +your trouble?" + +"The brain," he said at once. "It was those cursed headaches +brought it on." + +"Symptoms," I said. + +He nodded his head. "There is no accounting for it. I was never +sick in my life. Something's gone wrong with my brain. A cancer, +a tumour, or something of that nature,--a thing that devours and +destroys. It's attacking my nerve-centres, eating them up, bit by +bit, cell by cell--from the pain." + +"The motor-centres, too," I suggested. + +"So it would seem; and the curse of it is that I must lie here, +conscious, mentally unimpaired, knowing that the lines are going +down, breaking bit by bit communication with the world. I cannot +see, hearing and feeling are leaving me, at this rate I shall soon +cease to speak; yet all the time I shall be here, alive, active, +and powerless." + +"When you say YOU are here, I'd suggest the likelihood of the +soul," I said. + +"Bosh!" was his retort. "It simply means that in the attack on my +brain the higher psychical centres are untouched. I can remember, +I can think and reason. When that goes, I go. I am not. The +soul?" + +He broke out in mocking laughter, then turned his left ear to the +pillow as a sign that he wished no further conversation. + +Maud and I went about our work oppressed by the fearful fate which +had overtaken him,--how fearful we were yet fully to realize. +There was the awfulness of retribution about it. Our thoughts were +deep and solemn, and we spoke to each other scarcely above +whispers. + +"You might remove the handcuffs," he said that night, as we stood +in consultation over him. "It's dead safe. I'm a paralytic now. +The next thing to watch out for is bed sores." + +He smiled his twisted smile, and Maud, her eyes wide with horror, +was compelled to turn away her head. + +"Do you know that your smile is crooked?" I asked him; for I knew +that she must attend him, and I wished to save her as much as +possible. + +"Then I shall smile no more," he said calmly. "I thought something +was wrong. My right cheek has been numb all day. Yes, and I've +had warnings of this for the last three days; by spells, my right +side seemed going to sleep, sometimes arm or hand, sometimes leg or +foot." + +"So my smile is crooked?" he queried a short while after. "Well, +consider henceforth that I smile internally, with my soul, if you +please, my soul. Consider that I am smiling now." + +And for the space of several minutes he lay there, quiet, indulging +his grotesque fancy. + +The man of him was not changed. It was the old, indomitable, +terrible Wolf Larsen, imprisoned somewhere within that flesh which +had once been so invincible and splendid. Now it bound him with +insentient fetters, walling his soul in darkness and silence, +blocking it from the world which to him had been a riot of action. +No more would he conjugate the verb "to do in every mood and +tense." "To be" was all that remained to him--to be, as he had +defined death, without movement; to will, but not to execute; to +think and reason and in the spirit of him to be as alive as ever, +but in the flesh to be dead, quite dead. + +And yet, though I even removed the handcuffs, we could not adjust +ourselves to his condition. Our minds revolted. To us he was full +of potentiality. We knew not what to expect of him next, what +fearful thing, rising above the flesh, he might break out and do. +Our experience warranted this state of mind, and we went about our +work with anxiety always upon us. + +I had solved the problem which had arisen through the shortness of +the shears. By means of the watch-tackle (I had made a new one), I +heaved the butt of the foremast across the rail and then lowered it +to the deck. Next, by means of the shears, I hoisted the main boom +on board. Its forty feet of length would supply the height +necessary properly to swing the mast. By means of a secondary +tackle I had attached to the shears, I swung the boom to a nearly +perpendicular position, then lowered the butt to the deck, where, +to prevent slipping, I spiked great cleats around it. The single +block of my original shears-tackle I had attached to the end of the +boom. Thus, by carrying this tackle to the windlass, I could raise +and lower the end of the boom at will, the butt always remaining +stationary, and, by means of guys, I could swing the boom from side +to side. To the end of the boom I had likewise rigged a hoisting +tackle; and when the whole arrangement was completed I could not +but be startled by the power and latitude it gave me. + +Of course, two days' work was required for the accomplishment of +this part of my task, and it was not till the morning of the third +day that I swung the foremast from the deck and proceeded to square +its butt to fit the step. Here I was especially awkward. I sawed +and chopped and chiselled the weathered wood till it had the +appearance of having been gnawed by some gigantic mouse. But it +fitted. + +"It will work, I know it will work," I cried. + +"Do you know Dr. Jordan's final test of truth?" Maud asked. + +I shook my head and paused in the act of dislodging the shavings +which had drifted down my neck. + +"Can we make it work? Can we trust our lives to it? is the test." + +"He is a favourite of yours," I said. + +"When I dismantled my old Pantheon and cast out Napoleon and Caesar +and their fellows, I straightway erected a new Pantheon," she +answered gravely, "and the first I installed as Dr. Jordan." + +"A modern hero." + +"And a greater because modern," she added. "How can the Old World +heroes compare with ours?" + +I shook my head. We were too much alike in many things for +argument. Our points of view and outlook on life at least were +very alike. + +"For a pair of critics we agree famously," I laughed. + +"And as shipwright and able assistant," she laughed back. + +But there was little time for laughter in those days, what of our +heavy work and of the awfulness of Wolf Larsen's living death. + +He had received another stroke. He had lost his voice, or he was +losing it. He had only intermittent use of it. As he phrased it, +the wires were like the stock market, now up, now down. +Occasionally the wires were up and he spoke as well as ever, though +slowly and heavily. Then speech would suddenly desert him, in the +middle of a sentence perhaps, and for hours, sometimes, we would +wait for the connection to be re-established. He complained of +great pain in his head, and it was during this period that he +arranged a system of communication against the time when speech +should leave him altogether--one pressure of the hand for "yes," +two for "no." It was well that it was arranged, for by evening his +voice had gone from him. By hand pressures, after that, he +answered our questions, and when he wished to speak he scrawled his +thoughts with his left hand, quite legibly, on a sheet of paper. + +The fierce winter had now descended upon us. Gale followed gale, +with snow and sleet and rain. The seals had started on their great +southern migration, and the rookery was practically deserted. I +worked feverishly. In spite of the bad weather, and of the wind +which especially hindered me, I was on deck from daylight till dark +and making substantial progress. + +I profited by my lesson learned through raising the shears and then +climbing them to attach the guys. To the top of the foremast, +which was just lifted conveniently from the deck, I attached the +rigging, stays and throat and peak halyards. As usual, I had +underrated the amount of work involved in this portion of the task, +and two long days were necessary to complete it. And there was so +much yet to be done--the sails, for instance, which practically had +to be made over. + +While I toiled at rigging the foremast, Maud sewed on canvas, ready +always to drop everything and come to my assistance when more hands +than two were required. The canvas was heavy and hard, and she +sewed with the regular sailor's palm and three-cornered sail- +needle. Her hands were soon sadly blistered, but she struggled +bravely on, and in addition doing the cooking and taking care of +the sick man. + +"A fig for superstition," I said on Friday morning. "That mast +goes in to-day.' + +Everything was ready for the attempt. Carrying the boom-tackle to +the windlass, I hoisted the mast nearly clear of the deck. Making +this tackle fast, I took to the windlass the shears-tackle (which +was connected with the end of the boom), and with a few turns had +the mast perpendicular and clear. + +Maud clapped her hands the instant she was relieved from holding +the turn, crying: + +"It works! It works! We'll trust our lives to it!" + +Then she assumed a rueful expression. + +"It's not over the hole," she add. "Will you have to begin all +over?" + +I smiled in superior fashion, and, slacking off on one of the boom- +guys and taking in on the other, swung the mast perfectly in the +centre of the deck. Still it was not over the hole. Again the +rueful expression came on her face, and again I smiled in a +superior way. Slacking away on the boom-tackle and hoisting an +equivalent amount on the shears-tackle, I brought the butt of the +mast into position directly over the hole in the deck. Then I gave +Maud careful instructions for lowering away and went into the hold +to the step on the schooner's bottom. + +I called to her, and the mast moved easily and accurately. +Straight toward the square hole of the step the square butt +descended; but as it descended it slowly twisted so that square +would not fit into square. But I had not even a moment's +indecision. Calling to Maud to cease lowering, I went on deck and +made the watch-tackle fast to the mast with a rolling hitch. I +left Maud to pull on it while I went below. By the light of the +lantern I saw the butt twist slowly around till its sides coincided +with the sides of the step. Maud made fast and returned to the +windlass. Slowly the butt descended the several intervening +inches, at the same time slightly twisting again. Again Maud +rectified the twist with the watch-tackle, and again she lowered +away from the windlass. Square fitted into square. The mast was +stepped. + +I raised a shout, and she ran down to see. In the yellow lantern +light we peered at what we had accomplished. We looked at each +other, and our hands felt their way and clasped. The eyes of both +of us, I think, were moist with the joy of success. + +"It was done so easily after all," I remarked. "All the work was +in the preparation." + +"And all the wonder in the completion," Maud added. "I can +scarcely bring myself to realize that that great mast is really up +and in; that you have lifted it from the water, swung it through +the air, and deposited it here where it belongs. It is a Titan's +task." + +"And they made themselves many inventions," I began merrily, then +paused to sniff the air. + +I looked hastily at the lantern. It was not smoking. Again I +sniffed. + +"Something is burning," Maud said, with sudden conviction. + +We sprang together for the ladder, but I raced past her to the +deck. A dense volume of smoke was pouring out of the steerage +companion-way. + +"The Wolf is not yet dead," I muttered to myself as I sprang down +through the smoke. + +It was so thick in the confined space that I was compelled to feel +my way; and so potent was the spell of Wolf Larsen on my +imagination, I was quite prepared for the helpless giant to grip my +neck in a strangle hold. I hesitated, the desire to race back and +up the steps to the deck almost overpowering me. Then I +recollected Maud. The vision of her, as I had last seen her, in +the lantern light of the schooner's hold, her brown eyes warm and +moist with joy, flashed before me, and I knew that I could not go +back. + +I was choking and suffocating by the time I reached Wolf Larsen's +bunk. I reached my hand and felt for his. He was lying +motionless, but moved slightly at the touch of my hand. I felt +over and under his blankets. There was no warmth, no sign of fire. +Yet that smoke which blinded me and made me cough and gasp must +have a source. I lost my head temporarily and dashed frantically +about the steerage. A collision with the table partially knocked +the wind from my body and brought me to myself. I reasoned that a +helpless man could start a fire only near to where he lay. + +I returned to Wolf Larsen's bunk. There I encountered Maud. How +long she had been there in that suffocating atmosphere I could not +guess. + +"Go up on deck!" I commanded peremptorily. + +"But, Humphrey--" she began to protest in a queer, husky voice. + +"Please! please!" I shouted at her harshly. + +She drew away obediently, and then I thought, What if she cannot +find the steps? I started after her, to stop at the foot of the +companion-way. Perhaps she had gone up. As I stood there, +hesitant, I heard her cry softly: + +"Oh, Humphrey, I am lost." + +I found her fumbling at the wall of the after bulkhead, and, half +leading her, half carrying her, I took her up the companion-way. +The pure air was like nectar. Maud was only faint and dizzy, and I +left her lying on the deck when I took my second plunge below. + +The source of the smoke must be very close to Wolf Larsen--my mind +was made up to this, and I went straight to his bunk. As I felt +about among his blankets, something hot fell on the back of my +hand. It burned me, and I jerked my hand away. Then I understood. +Through the cracks in the bottom of the upper bunk he had set fire +to the mattress. He still retained sufficient use of his left arm +to do this. The damp straw of the mattress, fired from beneath and +denied air, had been smouldering all the while. + +As I dragged the mattress out of the bunk it seemed to disintegrate +in mid-air, at the same time bursting into flames. I beat out the +burning remnants of straw in the bunk, then made a dash for the +deck for fresh air. + +Several buckets of water sufficed to put out the burning mattress +in the middle of the steerage floor; and ten minutes later, when +the smoke had fairly cleared, I allowed Maud to come below. Wolf +Larsen was unconscious, but it was a matter of minutes for the +fresh air to restore him. We were working over him, however, when +he signed for paper and pencil. + +"Pray do not interrupt me," he wrote. "I am smiling." + +"I am still a bit of the ferment, you see," he wrote a little +later. + +"I am glad you are as small a bit as you are," I said. + +"Thank you," he wrote. "But just think of how much smaller I shall +be before I die." + +"And yet I am all here, Hump," he wrote with a final flourish. "I +can think more clearly than ever in my life before. Nothing to +disturb me. Concentration is perfect. I am all here and more than +here." + +It was like a message from the night of the grave; for this man's +body had become his mausoleum. And there, in so strange sepulchre, +his spirit fluttered and lived. It would flutter and live till the +last line of communication was broken, and after that who was to +say how much longer it might continue to flutter and live? + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + + +"I think my left side is going," Wolf Larsen wrote, the morning +after his attempt to fire the ship. "The numbness is growing. I +can hardly move my hand. You will have to speak louder. The last +lines are going down." + +"Are you in pain?" I asked. + +I was compelled to repeat my question loudly before he answered: + +"Not all the time." + +The left hand stumbled slowly and painfully across the paper, and +it was with extreme difficulty that we deciphered the scrawl. It +was like a "spirit message," such as are delivered at seances of +spiritualists for a dollar admission. + +"But I am still here, all here," the hand scrawled more slowly and +painfully than ever. + +The pencil dropped, and we had to replace it in the hand. + +"When there is no pain I have perfect peace and quiet. I have +never thought so clearly. I can ponder life and death like a +Hindoo sage." + +"And immortality?" Maud queried loudly in the ear. + +Three times the hand essayed to write but fumbled hopelessly. The +pencil fell. In vain we tried to replace it. The fingers could +not close on it. Then Maud pressed and held the fingers about the +pencil with her own hand and the hand wrote, in large letters, and +so slowly that the minutes ticked off to each letter: + +"B-O-S-H." + +It was Wolf Larsen's last word, "bosh," sceptical and invincible to +the end. The arm and hand relaxed. The trunk of the body moved +slightly. Then there was no movement. Maud released the hand. +The fingers spread slightly, falling apart of their own weight, and +the pencil rolled away. + +"Do you still hear?" I shouted, holding the fingers and waiting for +the single pressure which would signify "Yes." There was no +response. The hand was dead. + +"I noticed the lips slightly move," Maud said. + +I repeated the question. The lips moved. She placed the tips of +her fingers on them. Again I repeated the question. "Yes," Maud +announced. We looked at each other expectantly. + +"What good is it?" I asked. "What can we say now?" + +"Oh, ask him--" + +She hesitated. + +"Ask him something that requires no for an answer," I suggested. +"Then we will know for certainty." + +"Are you hungry?" she cried. + +The lips moved under her fingers, and she answered, "Yes." + +"Will you have some beef?" was her next query. + +"No," she announced. + +"Beef-tea?" + +"Yes, he will have some beef-tea," she said, quietly, looking up at +me. "Until his hearing goes we shall be able to communicate with +him. And after that--" + +She looked at me queerly. I saw her lips trembling and the tears +swimming up in her eyes. She swayed toward me and I caught her in +my arms. + +"Oh, Humphrey," she sobbed, "when will it all end? I am so tired, +so tired." + +She buried her head on my shoulder, her frail form shaken with a +storm of weeping. She was like a feather in my arms, so slender, +so ethereal. "She has broken down at last," I thought. "What can +I do without her help?" + +But I soothed and comforted her, till she pulled herself bravely +together and recuperated mentally as quickly as she was wont to do +physically. + +"I ought to be ashamed of myself," she said. Then added, with the +whimsical smile I adored, "but I am only one, small woman." + +That phrase, the "one small woman," startled me like an electric +shock. It was my own phrase, my pet, secret phrase, my love phrase +for her. + +"Where did you get that phrase?" I demanded, with an abruptness +that in turn startled her. + +"What phrase?" she asked. + +"One small woman." + +"Is it yours?" she asked. + +"Yes," I answered. "Mine. I made it." + +"Then you must have talked in your sleep," she smiled. + +The dancing, tremulous light was in her eyes. Mine, I knew, were +speaking beyond the will of my speech. I leaned toward her. +Without volition I leaned toward her, as a tree is swayed by the +wind. Ah, we were very close together in that moment. But she +shook her head, as one might shake off sleep or a dream, saying: + +"I have known it all my life. It was my father's name for my +mother." + +"It is my phrase too," I said stubbornly. + +"For your mother?" + +"No," I answered, and she questioned no further, though I could +have sworn her eyes retained for some time a mocking, teasing +expression. + +With the foremast in, the work now went on apace. Almost before I +knew it, and without one serious hitch, I had the mainmast stepped. +A derrick-boom, rigged to the foremast, had accomplished this; and +several days more found all stays and shrouds in place, and +everything set up taut. Topsails would be a nuisance and a danger +for a crew of two, so I heaved the topmasts on deck and lashed them +fast. + +Several more days were consumed in finishing the sails and putting +them on. There were only three--the jib, foresail, and mainsail; +and, patched, shortened, and distorted, they were a ridiculously +ill-fitting suit for so trim a craft as the Ghost. + +"But they'll work!" Maud cried jubilantly. "We'll make them work, +and trust our lives to them!" + +Certainly, among my many new trades, I shone least as a sail-maker. +I could sail them better than make them, and I had no doubt of my +power to bring the schooner to some northern port of Japan. In +fact, I had crammed navigation from text-books aboard; and besides, +there was Wolf Larsen's star-scale, so simple a device that a child +could work it. + +As for its inventor, beyond an increasing deafness and the movement +of the lips growing fainter and fainter, there had been little +change in his condition for a week. But on the day we finished +bending the schooner's sails, he heard his last, and the last +movement of his lips died away--but not before I had asked him, +"Are you all there?" and the lips had answered, "Yes." + +The last line was down. Somewhere within that tomb of the flesh +still dwelt the soul of the man. Walled by the living clay, that +fierce intelligence we had known burned on; but it burned on in +silence and darkness. And it was disembodied. To that +intelligence there could be no objective knowledge of a body. It +knew no body. The very world was not. It knew only itself and the +vastness and profundity of the quiet and the dark. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + + +The day came for our departure. There was no longer anything to +detain us on Endeavour Island. The Ghost's stumpy masts were in +place, her crazy sails bent. All my handiwork was strong, none of +it beautiful; but I knew that it would work, and I felt myself a +man of power as I looked at it. + +"I did it! I did it! With my own hands I did it!" I wanted to cry +aloud. + +But Maud and I had a way of voicing each other's thoughts, and she +said, as we prepared to hoist the mainsail: + +"To think, Humphrey, you did it all with your own hands?" + +"But there were two other hands," I answered. "Two small hands, +and don't say that was a phrase, also, of your father." + +She laughed and shook her head, and held her hands up for +inspection. + +"I can never get them clean again," she wailed, "nor soften the +weather-beat." + +"Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour," I +said, holding them in mine; and, spite of my resolutions, I would +have kissed the two dear hands had she not swiftly withdrawn them. + +Our comradeship was becoming tremulous, I had mastered my love long +and well, but now it was mastering me. Wilfully had it disobeyed +and won my eyes to speech, and now it was winning my tongue--ay, +and my lips, for they were mad this moment to kiss the two small +hands which had toiled so faithfully and hard. And I, too, was +mad. There was a cry in my being like bugles calling me to her. +And there was a wind blowing upon me which I could not resist, +swaying the very body of me till I leaned toward her, all +unconscious that I leaned. And she knew it. She could not but +know it as she swiftly drew away her hands, and yet, could not +forbear one quick searching look before she turned away her eyes. + +By means of deck-tackles I had arranged to carry the halyards +forward to the windlass; and now I hoisted the mainsail, peak and +throat, at the same time. It was a clumsy way, but it did not take +long, and soon the foresail as well was up and fluttering. + +"We can never get that anchor up in this narrow place, once it has +left the bottom," I said. "We should be on the rocks first." + +"What can you do?" she asked. + +"Slip it," was my answer. "And when I do, you must do your first +work on the windlass. I shall have to run at once to the wheel, +and at the same time you must be hoisting the jib." + +This manoeuvre of getting under way I had studied and worked out a +score of times; and, with the jib-halyard to the windlass, I knew +Maud was capable of hoisting that most necessary sail. A brisk +wind was blowing into the cove, and though the water was calm, +rapid work was required to get us safely out. + +When I knocked the shackle-bolt loose, the chain roared out through +the hawse-hole and into the sea. I raced aft, putting the wheel +up. The Ghost seemed to start into life as she heeled to the first +fill of her sails. The jib was rising. As it filled, the Ghost's +bow swung off and I had to put the wheel down a few spokes and +steady her. + +I had devised an automatic jib-sheet which passed the jib across of +itself, so there was no need for Maud to attend to that; but she +was still hoisting the jib when I put the wheel hard down. It was +a moment of anxiety, for the Ghost was rushing directly upon the +beach, a stone's throw distant. But she swung obediently on her +heel into the wind. There was a great fluttering and flapping of +canvas and reef-points, most welcome to my ears, then she filled +away on the other tack. + +Maud had finished her task and come aft, where she stood beside me, +a small cap perched on her wind-blown hair, her cheeks flushed from +exertion, her eyes wide and bright with the excitement, her +nostrils quivering to the rush and bite of the fresh salt air. Her +brown eyes were like a startled deer's. There was a wild, keen +look in them I had never seen before, and her lips parted and her +breath suspended as the Ghost, charging upon the wall of rock at +the entrance to the inner cove, swept into the wind and filled away +into safe water. + +My first mate's berth on the sealing grounds stood me in good +stead, and I cleared the inner cove and laid a long tack along the +shore of the outer cove. Once again about, and the Ghost headed +out to open sea. She had now caught the bosom-breathing of the +ocean, and was herself a-breath with the rhythm of it as she +smoothly mounted and slipped down each broad-backed wave. The day +had been dull and overcast, but the sun now burst through the +clouds, a welcome omen, and shone upon the curving beach where +together we had dared the lords of the harem and slain the +holluschickie. All Endeavour Island brightened under the sun. +Even the grim south-western promontory showed less grim, and here +and there, where the sea-spray wet its surface, high lights flashed +and dazzled in the sun. + +"I shall always think of it with pride," I said to Maud. + +She threw her head back in a queenly way but said, "Dear, dear +Endeavour Island! I shall always love it." + +"And I," I said quickly. + +It seemed our eyes must meet in a great understanding, and yet, +loath, they struggled away and did not meet. + +There was a silence I might almost call awkward, till I broke it, +saying: + +"See those black clouds to windward. You remember, I told you last +night the barometer was falling." + +"And the sun is gone," she said, her eyes still fixed upon our +island, where we had proved our mastery over matter and attained to +the truest comradeship that may fall to man and woman. + +"And it's slack off the sheets for Japan!" I cried gaily. "A fair +wind and a flowing sheet, you know, or however it goes." + +Lashing the wheel I ran forward, eased the fore and mainsheets, +took in on the boom-tackles and trimmed everything for the +quartering breeze which was ours. It was a fresh breeze, very +fresh, but I resolved to run as long as I dared. Unfortunately, +when running free, it is impossible to lash the wheel, so I faced +an all-night watch. Maud insisted on relieving me, but proved that +she had not the strength to steer in a heavy sea, even if she could +have gained the wisdom on such short notice. She appeared quite +heart-broken over the discovery, but recovered her spirits by +coiling down tackles and halyards and all stray ropes. Then there +were meals to be cooked in the galley, beds to make, Wolf Larsen to +be attended upon, and she finished the day with a grand house- +cleaning attack upon the cabin and steerage. + +All night I steered, without relief, the wind slowly and steadily +increasing and the sea rising. At five in the morning Maud brought +me hot coffee and biscuits she had baked, and at seven a +substantial and piping hot breakfast put new lift into me. + +Throughout the day, and as slowly and steadily as ever, the wind +increased. It impressed one with its sullen determination to blow, +and blow harder, and keep on blowing. And still the Ghost foamed +along, racing off the miles till I was certain she was making at +least eleven knots. It was too good to lose, but by nightfall I +was exhausted. Though in splendid physical trim, a thirty-six-hour +trick at the wheel was the limit of my endurance. Besides, Maud +begged me to heave to, and I knew, if the wind and sea increased at +the same rate during the night, that it would soon be impossible to +heave to. So, as twilight deepened, gladly and at the same time +reluctantly, I brought the Ghost up on the wind. + +But I had not reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three +sails meant for one man. While running away from the wind I had +not appreciated its force, but when we ceased to run I learned to +my sorrow, and well-nigh to my despair, how fiercely it was really +blowing. The wind balked my every effort, ripping the canvas out +of my hands and in an instant undoing what I had gained by ten +minutes of severest struggle. At eight o'clock I had succeeded +only in putting the second reef into the foresail. At eleven +o'clock I was no farther along. Blood dripped from every finger- +end, while the nails were broken to the quick. From pain and sheer +exhaustion I wept in the darkness, secretly, so that Maud should +not know. + +Then, in desperation, I abandoned the attempt to reef the mainsail +and resolved to try the experiment of heaving to under the close- +reefed foresail. Three hours more were required to gasket the +mainsail and jib, and at two in the morning, nearly dead, the life +almost buffeted and worked out of me, I had barely sufficient +consciousness to know the experiment was a success. The close- +reefed foresail worked. The Ghost clung on close to the wind and +betrayed no inclination to fall off broadside to the trough. + +I was famished, but Maud tried vainly to get me to eat. I dozed +with my mouth full of food. I would fall asleep in the act of +carrying food to my mouth and waken in torment to find the act yet +uncompleted. So sleepily helpless was I that she was compelled to +hold me in my chair to prevent my being flung to the floor by the +violent pitching of the schooner. + +Of the passage from the galley to the cabin I knew nothing. It was +a sleep-walker Maud guided and supported. In fact, I was aware of +nothing till I awoke, how long after I could not imagine, in my +bunk with my boots off. It was dark. I was stiff and lame, and +cried out with pain when the bed-clothes touched my poor finger- +ends. + +Morning had evidently not come, so I closed my eyes and went to +sleep again. I did not know it, but I had slept the clock around +and it was night again. + +Once more I woke, troubled because I could sleep no better. I +struck a match and looked at my watch. It marked midnight. And I +had not left the deck until three! I should have been puzzled had +I not guessed the solution. No wonder I was sleeping brokenly. I +had slept twenty-one hours. I listened for a while to the +behaviour of the Ghost, to the pounding of the seas and the muffled +roar of the wind on deck, and then turned over on my ride and slept +peacefully until morning. + +When I arose at seven I saw no sign of Maud and concluded she was +in the galley preparing breakfast. On deck I found the Ghost doing +splendidly under her patch of canvas. But in the galley, though a +fire was burning and water boiling, I found no Maud. + +I discovered her in the steerage, by Wolf Larsen's bunk. I looked +at him, the man who had been hurled down from the topmost pitch of +life to be buried alive and be worse than dead. There seemed a +relaxation of his expressionless face which was new. Maud looked +at me and I understood. + +"His life flickered out in the storm," I said. + +"But he still lives," she answered, infinite faith in her voice. + +"He had too great strength." + +"Yes," she said, "but now it no longer shackles him. He is a free +spirit." + +"He is a free spirit surely," I answered; and, taking her hand, I +led her on deck. + +The storm broke that night, which is to say that it diminished as +slowly as it had arisen. After breakfast next morning, when I had +hoisted Wolf Larsen's body on deck ready for burial, it was still +blowing heavily and a large sea was running. The deck was +continually awash with the sea which came inboard over the rail and +through the scuppers. The wind smote the schooner with a sudden +gust, and she heeled over till her lee rail was buried, the roar in +her rigging rising in pitch to a shriek. We stood in the water to +our knees as I bared my head. + +"I remember only one part of the service," I said, "and that is, +'And the body shall be cast into the sea.'" + +Maud looked at me, surprised and shocked; but the spirit of +something I had seen before was strong upon me, impelling me to +give service to Wolf Larsen as Wolf Larsen had once given service +to another man. I lifted the end of the hatch cover and the +canvas-shrouded body slipped feet first into the sea. The weight +of iron dragged it down. It was gone. + +"Good-bye, Lucifer, proud spirit," Maud whispered, so low that it +was drowned by the shouting of the wind; but I saw the movement of +her lips and knew. + +As we clung to the lee rail and worked our way aft, I happened to +glance to leeward. The Ghost, at the moment, was uptossed on a +sea, and I caught a clear view of a small steamship two or three +miles away, rolling and pitching, head on to the sea, as it steamed +toward us. It was painted black, and from the talk of the hunters +of their poaching exploits I recognized it as a United States +revenue cutter. I pointed it out to Maud and hurriedly led her aft +to the safety of the poop. + +I started to rush below to the flag-locker, then remembered that in +rigging the Ghost. I had forgotten to make provision for a flag- +halyard. + +"We need no distress signal," Maud said. "They have only to see +us." + +"We are saved," I said, soberly and solemnly. And then, in an +exuberance of joy, "I hardly know whether to be glad or not." + +I looked at her. Our eyes were not loath to meet. We leaned +toward each other, and before I knew it my arms were about her. + +"Need I?" I asked. + +And she answered, "There is no need, though the telling of it would +be sweet, so sweet." + +Her lips met the press of mine, and, by what strange trick of the +imagination I know not, the scene in the cabin of the Ghost flashed +upon me, when she had pressed her fingers lightly on my lips and +said, "Hush, hush." + +"My woman, my one small woman," I said, my free hand petting her +shoulder in the way all lovers know though never learn in school. + +"My man," she said, looking at me for an instant with tremulous +lids which fluttered down and veiled her eyes as she snuggled her +head against my breast with a happy little sigh. + +I looked toward the cutter. It was very close. A boat was being +lowered. + +"One kiss, dear love," I whispered. "One kiss more before they +come." + +"And rescue us from ourselves," she completed, with a most adorable +smile, whimsical as I had never seen it, for it was whimsical with +love. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE SEA WOLF *** + +This file should be named cwolf10.txt or cwolf10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, cwolf11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cwolf10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/old/cwolf10.zip b/old/old/cwolf10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1755167 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/cwolf10.zip diff --git a/old/old/cwolf10h.htm b/old/old/cwolf10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e4bf3c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/cwolf10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10343 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Sea Wolf</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The Sea Wolf, by Jack London</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sea Wolf, by Jack London +(#11 in our series by Jack London) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Sea Wolf + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: October, 1997 [EBook #1074] +[This file was first posted on October 15, 1997] +[Most recently updated: June 28, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>The Sea Wolf</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place +the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth’s credit. He kept +a summer cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, +and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter mouths +and read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer +came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city +and to toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to run up to +see him every Saturday afternoon and to stop over till Monday morning, +this particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat +on San Francisco Bay.</p> +<p>Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the <i>Martinez</i> +was a new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run +between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy +fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little +apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which +I took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly beneath the +pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my imagination. +A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in the moist +obscurity—yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the presence +of the pilot, and of what I took to be the captain, in the glass house +above my head.</p> +<p>I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labour +which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and navigation, +in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea. +It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. The peculiar +knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many thousands of people +who knew no more of the sea and navigation than I knew. On the +other hand, instead of having to devote my energy to the learning of +a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a few particular things, +such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe’s place in American +literature—an essay of mine, by the way, in the current <i>Atlantic</i>. +Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I had noticed with greedy +eyes a stout gentleman reading the <i>Atlantic</i>, which was open at +my very essay. And there it was again, the division of labour, +the special knowledge of the pilot and captain which permitted the stout +gentleman to read my special knowledge on Poe while they carried him +safely from Sausalito to San Francisco.</p> +<p>A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping +out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental +note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of +calling “The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist.” +The red-faced man shot a glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around +at the fog, stumped across the deck and back (he evidently had artificial +legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide apart, and with an expression +of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong when I decided +that his days had been spent on the sea.</p> +<p>“It’s nasty weather like this here that turns heads grey +before their time,” he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house.</p> +<p>“I had not thought there was any particular strain,” +I answered. “It seems as simple as A, B, C. They know +the direction by compass, the distance, and the speed. I should +not call it anything more than mathematical certainty.”</p> +<p>“Strain!” he snorted. “Simple as A, B, C! +Mathematical certainty!”</p> +<p>He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward against the air as +he stared at me. “How about this here tide that’s +rushin’ out through the Golden Gate?” he demanded, or bellowed, +rather. “How fast is she ebbin’? What’s +the drift, eh? Listen to that, will you? A bell-buoy, and +we’re a-top of it! See ’em alterin’ the course!”</p> +<p>From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could +see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. The bell, +which had seemed straight ahead, was now sounding from the side. +Our own whistle was blowing hoarsely, and from time to time the sound +of other whistles came to us from out of the fog.</p> +<p>“That’s a ferry-boat of some sort,” the new-comer +said, indicating a whistle off to the right. “And there! +D’ye hear that? Blown by mouth. Some scow schooner, +most likely. Better watch out, Mr. Schooner-man. Ah, I thought +so. Now hell’s a poppin’ for somebody!”</p> +<p>The unseen ferry-boat was blowing blast after blast, and the mouth-blown +horn was tooting in terror-stricken fashion.</p> +<p>“And now they’re payin’ their respects to each +other and tryin’ to get clear,” the red-faced man went on, +as the hurried whistling ceased.</p> +<p>His face was shining, his eyes flashing with excitement as he translated +into articulate language the speech of the horns and sirens. “That’s +a steam-siren a-goin’ it over there to the left. And you +hear that fellow with a frog in his throat—a steam schooner as +near as I can judge, crawlin’ in from the Heads against the tide.”</p> +<p>A shrill little whistle, piping as if gone mad, came from directly +ahead and from very near at hand. Gongs sounded on the <i>Martinez</i>. +Our paddle-wheels stopped, their pulsing beat died away, and then they +started again. The shrill little whistle, like the chirping of +a cricket amid the cries of great beasts, shot through the fog from +more to the side and swiftly grew faint and fainter. I looked +to my companion for enlightenment.</p> +<p>“One of them dare-devil launches,” he said. “I +almost wish we’d sunk him, the little rip! They’re +the cause of more trouble. And what good are they? Any jackass +gets aboard one and runs it from hell to breakfast, blowin’ his +whistle to beat the band and tellin’ the rest of the world to +look out for him, because he’s comin’ and can’t look +out for himself! Because he’s comin’! And you’ve +got to look out, too! Right of way! Common decency! +They don’t know the meanin’ of it!”</p> +<p>I felt quite amused at his unwarranted choler, and while he stumped +indignantly up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the fog. +And romantic it certainly was—the fog, like the grey shadow of +infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and men, +mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, +riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the mystery, +groping their way blindly through the Unseen, and clamouring and clanging +in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude +and fear.</p> +<p>The voice of my companion brought me back to myself with a laugh. +I too had been groping and floundering, the while I thought I rode clear-eyed +through the mystery.</p> +<p>“Hello! somebody comin’ our way,” he was saying. +“And d’ye hear that? He’s comin’ fast. +Walking right along. Guess he don’t hear us yet. Wind’s +in wrong direction.”</p> +<p>The fresh breeze was blowing right down upon us, and I could hear +the whistle plainly, off to one side and a little ahead.</p> +<p>“Ferry-boat?” I asked.</p> +<p>He nodded, then added, “Or he wouldn’t be keepin’ +up such a clip.” He gave a short chuckle. “They’re +gettin’ anxious up there.”</p> +<p>I glanced up. The captain had thrust his head and shoulders +out of the pilot-house, and was staring intently into the fog as though +by sheer force of will he could penetrate it. His face was anxious, +as was the face of my companion, who had stumped over to the rail and +was gazing with a like intentness in the direction of the invisible +danger.</p> +<p>Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. +The fog seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow +of a steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on either side like seaweed +on the snout of Leviathan. I could see the pilot-house and a white-bearded +man leaning partly out of it, on his elbows. He was clad in a +blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he was. +His quietness, under the circumstances, was terrible. He accepted +Destiny, marched hand in hand with it, and coolly measured the stroke. +As he leaned there, he ran a calm and speculative eye over us, as though +to determine the precise point of the collision, and took no notice +whatever when our pilot, white with rage, shouted, “Now you’ve +done it!”</p> +<p>On looking back, I realize that the remark was too obvious to make +rejoinder necessary.</p> +<p>“Grab hold of something and hang on,” the red-faced man +said to me. All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught +the contagion of preternatural calm. “And listen to the +women scream,” he said grimly—almost bitterly, I thought, +as though he had been through the experience before.</p> +<p>The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. +We must have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the +strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. The +<i>Martinez</i> heeled over, sharply, and there was a crashing and rending +of timber. I was thrown flat on the wet deck, and before I could +scramble to my feet I heard the scream of the women. This it was, +I am certain,—the most indescribable of blood-curdling sounds,—that +threw me into a panic. I remembered the life-preservers stored +in the cabin, but was met at the door and swept backward by a wild rush +of men and women. What happened in the next few minutes I do not +recollect, though I have a clear remembrance of pulling down life-preservers +from the overhead racks, while the red-faced man fastened them about +the bodies of an hysterical group of women. This memory is as +distinct and sharp as that of any picture I have seen. It is a +picture, and I can see it now,—the jagged edges of the hole in +the side of the cabin, through which the grey fog swirled and eddied; +the empty upholstered seats, littered with all the evidences of sudden +flight, such as packages, hand satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout +gentleman who had been reading my essay, encased in cork and canvas, +the magazine still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence +if I thought there was any danger; the red-faced man, stumping gallantly +around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all corners; +and finally, the screaming bedlam of women.</p> +<p>This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves. +It must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I have +another picture which will never fade from my mind. The stout +gentleman is stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket and looking +on curiously. A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white faces +and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls; and the red-faced +man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with arms extended overhead +as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is shouting, “Shut up! +Oh, shut up!”</p> +<p>I remember the scene impelled me to sudden laughter, and in the next +instant I realized I was becoming hysterical myself; for these were +women of my own kind, like my mother and sisters, with the fear of death +upon them and unwilling to die. And I remember that the sounds +they made reminded me of the squealing of pigs under the knife of the +butcher, and I was struck with horror at the vividness of the analogy. +These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, of the tenderest +sympathies, were open-mouthed and screaming. They wanted to live, +they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and they screamed.</p> +<p>The horror of it drove me out on deck. I was feeling sick and +squeamish, and sat down on a bench. In a hazy way I saw and heard +men rushing and shouting as they strove to lower the boats. It +was just as I had read descriptions of such scenes in books. The +tackles jammed. Nothing worked. One boat lowered away with +the plugs out, filled with women and children and then with water, and +capsized. Another boat had been lowered by one end, and still +hung in the tackle by the other end, where it had been abandoned. +Nothing was to be seen of the strange steamboat which had caused the +disaster, though I heard men saying that she would undoubtedly send +boats to our assistance.</p> +<p>I descended to the lower deck. The <i>Martinez</i> was sinking +fast, for the water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were +leaping overboard. Others, in the water, were clamouring to be +taken aboard again. No one heeded them. A cry arose that +we were sinking. I was seized by the consequent panic, and went +over the side in a surge of bodies. How I went over I do not know, +though I did know, and instantly, why those in the water were so desirous +of getting back on the steamer. The water was cold—so cold +that it was painful. The pang, as I plunged into it, was as quick +and sharp as that of fire. It bit to the marrow. It was +like the grip of death. I gasped with the anguish and shock of +it, filling my lungs before the life-preserver popped me to the surface. +The taste of the salt was strong in my mouth, and I was strangling with +the acrid stuff in my throat and lungs.</p> +<p>But it was the cold that was most distressing. I felt that +I could survive but a few minutes. People were struggling and +floundering in the water about me. I could hear them crying out +to one another. And I heard, also, the sound of oars. Evidently +the strange steamboat had lowered its boats. As the time went +by I marvelled that I was still alive. I had no sensation whatever +in my lower limbs, while a chilling numbness was wrapping about my heart +and creeping into it. Small waves, with spiteful foaming crests, +continually broke over me and into my mouth, sending me off into more +strangling paroxysms.</p> +<p>The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing +chorus of screams in the distance, and knew that the <i>Martinez</i> +had gone down. Later,—how much later I have no knowledge,—I +came to myself with a start of fear. I was alone. I could +hear no calls or cries—only the sound of the waves, made weirdly +hollow and reverberant by the fog. A panic in a crowd, which partakes +of a sort of community of interest, is not so terrible as a panic when +one is by oneself; and such a panic I now suffered. Whither was +I drifting? The red-faced man had said that the tide was ebbing +through the Golden Gate. Was I, then, being carried out to sea? +And the life-preserver in which I floated? Was it not liable to +go to pieces at any moment? I had heard of such things being made +of paper and hollow rushes which quickly became saturated and lost all +buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, +floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. +I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women +had shrieked, and beat the water with my numb hands.</p> +<p>How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness intervened, +of which I remember no more than one remembers of troubled and painful +sleep. When I aroused, it was as after centuries of time; and +I saw, almost above me and emerging from the fog, the bow of a vessel, +and three triangular sails, each shrewdly lapping the other and filled +with wind. Where the bow cut the water there was a great foaming +and gurgling, and I seemed directly in its path. I tried to cry +out, but was too exhausted. The bow plunged down, just missing +me and sending a swash of water clear over my head. Then the long, +black side of the vessel began slipping past, so near that I could have +touched it with my hands. I tried to reach it, in a mad resolve +to claw into the wood with my nails, but my arms were heavy and lifeless. +Again I strove to call out, but made no sound.</p> +<p>The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping, as it did so, into a hollow +between the waves; and I caught a glimpse of a man standing at the wheel, +and of another man who seemed to be doing little else than smoke a cigar. +I saw the smoke issuing from his lips as he slowly turned his head and +glanced out over the water in my direction. It was a careless, +unpremeditated glance, one of those haphazard things men do when they +have no immediate call to do anything in particular, but act because +they are alive and must do something.</p> +<p>But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel +being swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel, +and the head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze struck +the water and casually lifted along it toward me. His face wore +an absent expression, as of deep thought, and I became afraid that if +his eyes did light upon me he would nevertheless not see me. But +his eyes did light upon me, and looked squarely into mine; and he did +see me, for he sprang to the wheel, thrusting the other man aside, and +whirled it round and round, hand over hand, at the same time shouting +orders of some sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent +to its former course and leapt almost instantly from view into the fog.</p> +<p>I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and tried with all the +power of my will to fight above the suffocating blankness and darkness +that was rising around me. A little later I heard the stroke of +oars, growing nearer and nearer, and the calls of a man. When +he was very near I heard him crying, in vexed fashion, “Why in +hell don’t you sing out?” This meant me, I thought, +and then the blankness and darkness rose over me.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I seemed swinging in a mighty rhythm through orbit vastness. +Sparkling points of light spluttered and shot past me. They were +stars, I knew, and flaring comets, that peopled my flight among the +suns. As I reached the limit of my swing and prepared to rush +back on the counter swing, a great gong struck and thundered. +For an immeasurable period, lapped in the rippling of placid centuries, +I enjoyed and pondered my tremendous flight.</p> +<p>But a change came over the face of the dream, for a dream I told +myself it must be. My rhythm grew shorter and shorter. I +was jerked from swing to counter swing with irritating haste. +I could scarcely catch my breath, so fiercely was I impelled through +the heavens. The gong thundered more frequently and more furiously. +I grew to await it with a nameless dread. Then it seemed as though +I were being dragged over rasping sands, white and hot in the sun. +This gave place to a sense of intolerable anguish. My skin was +scorching in the torment of fire. The gong clanged and knelled. +The sparkling points of light flashed past me in an interminable stream, +as though the whole sidereal system were dropping into the void. +I gasped, caught my breath painfully, and opened my eyes. Two +men were kneeling beside me, working over me. My mighty rhythm +was the lift and forward plunge of a ship on the sea. The terrific +gong was a frying-pan, hanging on the wall, that rattled and clattered +with each leap of the ship. The rasping, scorching sands were +a man’s hard hands chafing my naked chest. I squirmed under +the pain of it, and half lifted my head. My chest was raw and +red, and I could see tiny blood globules starting through the torn and +inflamed cuticle.</p> +<p>“That’ll do, Yonson,” one of the men said. +“Carn’t yer see you’ve bloomin’ well rubbed +all the gent’s skin orf?”</p> +<p>The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, +ceased chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who +had spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly +pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound +of Bow Bells with his mother’s milk. A draggled muslin cap +on his head and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim hips proclaimed him +cook of the decidedly dirty ship’s galley in which I found myself.</p> +<p>“An’ ’ow yer feelin’ now, sir?” he +asked, with the subservient smirk which comes only of generations of +tip-seeking ancestors.</p> +<p>For reply, I twisted weakly into a sitting posture, and was helped +by Yonson to my feet. The rattle and bang of the frying-pan was +grating horribly on my nerves. I could not collect my thoughts. +Clutching the woodwork of the galley for support,—and I confess +the grease with which it was scummed put my teeth on edge,—I reached +across a hot cooking-range to the offending utensil, unhooked it, and +wedged it securely into the coal-box.</p> +<p>The cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my hand +a steaming mug with an “’Ere, this’ll do yer good.” +It was a nauseous mess,—ship’s coffee,—but the heat +of it was revivifying. Between gulps of the molten stuff I glanced +down at my raw and bleeding chest and turned to the Scandinavian.</p> +<p>“Thank you, Mr. Yonson,” I said; “but don’t +you think your measures were rather heroic?”</p> +<p>It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than +of my words, that he held up his palm for inspection. It was remarkably +calloused. I passed my hand over the horny projections, and my +teeth went on edge once more from the horrible rasping sensation produced.</p> +<p>“My name is Johnson, not Yonson,” he said, in very good, +though slow, English, with no more than a shade of accent to it.</p> +<p>There was mild protest in his pale blue eyes, and withal a timid +frankness and manliness that quite won me to him.</p> +<p>“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” I corrected, and reached out +my hand for his.</p> +<p>He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one leg +to the other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake.</p> +<p>“Have you any dry clothes I may put on?” I asked the +cook.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” he answered, with cheerful alacrity. +“I’ll run down an’ tyke a look over my kit, if you’ve +no objections, sir, to wearin’ my things.”</p> +<p>He dived out of the galley door, or glided rather, with a swiftness +and smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-like +as oily. In fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later +to learn, was probably the most salient expression of his personality.</p> +<p>“And where am I?” I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, +to be one of the sailors. “What vessel is this, and where +is she bound?”</p> +<p>“Off the Farallones, heading about sou-west,” he answered, +slowly and methodically, as though groping for his best English, and +rigidly observing the order of my queries. “The schooner +<i>Ghost</i>, bound seal-hunting to Japan.”</p> +<p>“And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I +am dressed.”</p> +<p>Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while +he groped in his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. “The +cap’n is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard +his other name. But you better speak soft with him. He is +mad this morning. The mate—”</p> +<p>But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.</p> +<p>“Better sling yer ’ook out of ’ere, Yonson,” +he said. “The old man’ll be wantin’ yer on deck, +an’ this ayn’t no d’y to fall foul of ’im.”</p> +<p>Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the +cook’s shoulder, favouring me with an amazingly solemn and portentous +wink as though to emphasize his interrupted remark and the need for +me to be soft-spoken with the captain.</p> +<p>Hanging over the cook’s arm was a loose and crumpled array +of evil-looking and sour-smelling garments.</p> +<p>“They was put aw’y wet, sir,” he vouchsafed explanation. +“But you’ll ’ave to make them do till I dry yours +out by the fire.”</p> +<p>Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and +aided by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollen undershirt. +On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from the harsh contact. +He noticed my involuntary twitching and grimacing, and smirked:</p> +<p>“I only ’ope yer don’t ever ’ave to get used +to such as that in this life, ’cos you’ve got a bloomin’ +soft skin, that you ’ave, more like a lydy’s than any I +know of. I was bloomin’ well sure you was a gentleman as +soon as I set eyes on yer.”</p> +<p>I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress +me this dislike increased. There was something repulsive about +his touch. I shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And +between this and the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling +on the galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air. +Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about what arrangements +could be made for getting me ashore.</p> +<p>A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured +with what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a running +and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman’s brogans +encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale +blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter +than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil +had there clutched for the Cockney’s soul and missed the shadow +for the substance.</p> +<p>“And whom have I to thank for this kindness?” I asked, +when I stood completely arrayed, a tiny boy’s cap on my head, +and for coat a dirty, striped cotton jacket which ended at the small +of my back and the sleeves of which reached just below my elbows.</p> +<p>The cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating +smirk on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on the Atlantic +liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was waiting for +his tip. From my fuller knowledge of the creature I now know that +the posture was unconscious. An hereditary servility, no doubt, +was responsible.</p> +<p>“Mugridge, sir,” he fawned, his effeminate features running +into a greasy smile. “Thomas Mugridge, sir, an’ at +yer service.”</p> +<p>“All right, Thomas,” I said. “I shall not +forget you—when my clothes are dry.”</p> +<p>A soft light suffused his face and his eyes glistened, as though +somewhere in the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened and +stirred with dim memories of tips received in former lives.</p> +<p>“Thank you, sir,” he said, very gratefully and very humbly +indeed.</p> +<p>Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and +I stepped out on deck. I was still weak from my prolonged immersion. +A puff of wind caught me,—and I staggered across the moving deck +to a corner of the cabin, to which I clung for support. The schooner, +heeled over far out from the perpendicular, was bowing and plunging +into the long Pacific roll. If she were heading south-west as +Johnson had said, the wind, then, I calculated, was blowing nearly from +the south. The fog was gone, and in its place the sun sparkled +crisply on the surface of the water, I turned to the east, where I knew +California must lie, but could see nothing save low-lying fog-banks—the +same fog, doubtless, that had brought about the disaster to the <i>Martinez</i> +and placed me in my present situation. To the north, and not far +away, a group of naked rocks thrust above the sea, on one of which I +could distinguish a lighthouse. In the south-west, and almost +in our course, I saw the pyramidal loom of some vessel’s sails.</p> +<p>Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my more immediate +surroundings. My first thought was that a man who had come through +a collision and rubbed shoulders with death merited more attention than +I received. Beyond a sailor at the wheel who stared curiously +across the top of the cabin, I attracted no notice whatever.</p> +<p>Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amid ships. +There, on a hatch, a large man was lying on his back. He was fully +clothed, though his shirt was ripped open in front. Nothing was +to be seen of his chest, however, for it was covered with a mass of +black hair, in appearance like the furry coat of a dog. His face +and neck were hidden beneath a black beard, intershot with grey, which +would have been stiff and bushy had it not been limp and draggled and +dripping with water. His eyes were closed, and he was apparently +unconscious; but his mouth was wide open, his breast, heaving as though +from suffocation as he laboured noisily for breath. A sailor, +from time to time and quite methodically, as a matter of routine, dropped +a canvas bucket into the ocean at the end of a rope, hauled it in hand +under hand, and sluiced its contents over the prostrate man.</p> +<p>Pacing back and forth the length of the hatchways and savagely chewing +the end of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance had rescued me from +the sea. His height was probably five feet ten inches, or ten +and a half; but my first impression, or feel of the man, was not of +this, but of his strength. And yet, while he was of massive build, +with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could not characterize his strength +as massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy, knotty strength, +of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in him, because +of his heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order. +Not that in appearance he seemed in the least gorilla-like. What +I am striving to express is this strength itself, more as a thing apart +from his physical semblance. It was a strength we are wont to +associate with things primitive, with wild animals, and the creatures +we imagine our tree-dwelling prototypes to have been—a strength +savage, ferocious, alive in itself, the essence of life in that it is +the potency of motion, the elemental stuff itself out of which the many +forms of life have been moulded; in short, that which writhes in the +body of a snake when the head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, +is dead, or which lingers in the shapeless lump of turtle-meat and recoils +and quivers from the prod of a finger.</p> +<p>Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who +paced up and down. He was firmly planted on his legs; his feet +struck the deck squarely and with surety; every movement of a muscle, +from the heave of the shoulders to the tightening of the lips about +the cigar, was decisive, and seemed to come out of a strength that was +excessive and overwhelming. In fact, though this strength pervaded +every action of his, it seemed but the advertisement of a greater strength +that lurked within, that lay dormant and no more than stirred from time +to time, but which might arouse, at any moment, terrible and compelling, +like the rage of a lion or the wrath of a storm.</p> +<p>The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned encouragingly +at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in the direction of the man +who paced up and down by the hatchway. Thus I was given to understand +that he was the captain, the “Old Man,” in the cook’s +vernacular, the individual whom I must interview and put to the trouble +of somehow getting me ashore. I had half started forward, to get +over with what I was certain would be a stormy five minutes, when a +more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate person who +was lying on his back. He wrenched and writhed about convulsively. +The chin, with the damp black beard, pointed higher in the air as the +back muscles stiffened and the chest swelled in an unconscious and instinctive +effort to get more air. Under the whiskers, and all unseen, I +knew that the skin was taking on a purplish hue.</p> +<p>The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing and +gazed down at the dying man. So fierce had this final struggle +become that the sailor paused in the act of flinging more water over +him and stared curiously, the canvas bucket partly tilted and dripping +its contents to the deck. The dying man beat a tattoo on the hatch +with his heels, straightened out his legs, and stiffened in one great +tense effort, and rolled his head from side to side. Then the +muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, as of profound +relief, floated upward from his lips. The jaw dropped, the upper +lip lifted, and two rows of tobacco-discoloured teeth appeared. +It seemed as though his features had frozen into a diabolical grin at +the world he had left and outwitted.</p> +<p>Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose +upon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips +in a continuous stream. And they were not namby-pamby oaths, or +mere expressions of indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, and +there were many words. They crisped and crackled like electric +sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could +I have conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expression +myself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated, +as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength +and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors. The cause of it all, +as near as I could make out, was that the man, who was mate, had gone +on a debauch before leaving San Francisco, and then had the poor taste +to die at the beginning of the voyage and leave Wolf Larsen short-handed.</p> +<p>It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends, that I +was shocked. Oaths and vile language of any sort had always been +repellent to me. I felt a wilting sensation, a sinking at the +heart, and, I might just as well say, a giddiness. To me, death +had always been invested with solemnity and dignity. It had been +peaceful in its occurrence, sacred in its ceremonial. But death +in its more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I had +been unacquainted till now. As I say, while I appreciated the +power of the terrific denunciation that swept out of Wolf Larsen’s +mouth, I was inexpressibly shocked. The scorching torrent was +enough to wither the face of the corpse. I should not have been +surprised if the wet black beard had frizzled and curled and flared +up in smoke and flame. But the dead man was unconcerned. +He continued to grin with a sardonic humour, with a cynical mockery +and defiance. He was master of the situation.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Wolf Larsen ceased swearing as suddenly as he had begun. He +relighted his cigar and glanced around. His eyes chanced upon +the cook.</p> +<p>“Well, Cooky?” he began, with a suaveness that was cold +and of the temper of steel.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” the cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing +and apologetic servility.</p> +<p>“Don’t you think you’ve stretched that neck of +yours just about enough? It’s unhealthy, you know. +The mate’s gone, so I can’t afford to lose you too. +You must be very, very careful of your health, Cooky. Understand?”</p> +<p>His last word, in striking contrast with the smoothness of his previous +utterance, snapped like the lash of a whip. The cook quailed under +it.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” was the meek reply, as the offending head +disappeared into the galley.</p> +<p>At this sweeping rebuke, which the cook had only pointed, the rest +of the crew became uninterested and fell to work at one task or another. +A number of men, however, who were lounging about a companion-way between +the galley and hatch, and who did not seem to be sailors, continued +talking in low tones with one another. These, I afterward learned, +were the hunters, the men who shot the seals, and a very superior breed +to common sailor-folk.</p> +<p>“Johansen!” Wolf Larsen called out. A sailor stepped +forward obediently. “Get your palm and needle and sew the +beggar up. You’ll find some old canvas in the sail-locker. +Make it do.”</p> +<p>“What’ll I put on his feet, sir?” the man asked, +after the customary “Ay, ay, sir.”</p> +<p>“We’ll see to that,” Wolf Larsen answered, and +elevated his voice in a call of “Cooky!”</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge popped out of his galley like a jack-in-the-box.</p> +<p>“Go below and fill a sack with coal.”</p> +<p>“Any of you fellows got a Bible or Prayer-book?” was +the captain’s next demand, this time of the hunters lounging about +the companion-way.</p> +<p>They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which +I did not catch, but which raised a general laugh.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen made the same demand of the sailors. Bibles and +Prayer-books seemed scarce articles, but one of the men volunteered +to pursue the quest amongst the watch below, returning in a minute with +the information that there was none.</p> +<p>The captain shrugged his shoulders. “Then we’ll +drop him over without any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway +has the burial service at sea by heart.”</p> +<p>By this time he had swung fully around and was facing me. “You’re +a preacher, aren’t you?” he asked.</p> +<p>The hunters,—there were six of them,—to a man, turned +and regarded me. I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow. +A laugh went up at my appearance,—a laugh that was not lessened +or softened by the dead man stretched and grinning on the deck before +us; a laugh that was as rough and harsh and frank as the sea itself; +that arose out of coarse feelings and blunted sensibilities, from natures +that knew neither courtesy nor gentleness.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen did not laugh, though his grey eyes lighted with a slight +glint of amusement; and in that moment, having stepped forward quite +close to him, I received my first impression of the man himself, of +the man as apart from his body, and from the torrent of blasphemy I +had heard him spew forth. The face, with large features and strong +lines, of the square order, yet well filled out, was apparently massive +at first sight; but again, as with the body, the massiveness seemed +to vanish, and a conviction to grow of a tremendous and excessive mental +or spiritual strength that lay behind, sleeping in the deeps of his +being. The jaw, the chin, the brow rising to a goodly height and +swelling heavily above the eyes,—these, while strong in themselves, +unusually strong, seemed to speak an immense vigour or virility of spirit +that lay behind and beyond and out of sight. There was no sounding +such a spirit, no measuring, no determining of metes and bounds, nor +neatly classifying in some pigeon-hole with others of similar type.</p> +<p>The eyes—and it was my destiny to know them well—were +large and handsome, wide apart as the true artist’s are wide, +sheltering under a heavy brow and arched over by thick black eyebrows. +The eyes themselves were of that baffling protean grey which is never +twice the same; which runs through many shades and colourings like intershot +silk in sunshine; which is grey, dark and light, and greenish-grey, +and sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea. They were eyes +that masked the soul with a thousand guises, and that sometimes opened, +at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about to +fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure,—eyes +that could brood with the hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; that +could snap and crackle points of fire like those which sparkle from +a whirling sword; that could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and +yet again, that could warm and soften and be all a-dance with love-lights, +intense and masculine, luring and compelling, which at the same time +fascinate and dominate women till they surrender in a gladness of joy +and of relief and sacrifice.</p> +<p>But to return. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service, +I was not a preacher, when he sharply demanded:</p> +<p>“What do you do for a living?”</p> +<p>I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had +I ever canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and before I could +find myself had sillily stammered, “I—I am a gentleman.”</p> +<p>His lip curled in a swift sneer.</p> +<p>“I have worked, I do work,” I cried impetuously, as though +he were my judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very +much aware of my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all.</p> +<p>“For your living?”</p> +<p>There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I +was quite beside myself—“rattled,” as Furuseth would +have termed it, like a quaking child before a stern school-master.</p> +<p>“Who feeds you?” was his next question.</p> +<p>“I have an income,” I answered stoutly, and could have +bitten my tongue the next instant. “All of which, you will +pardon my observing, has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to +see you about.”</p> +<p>But he disregarded my protest.</p> +<p>“Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. +You stand on dead men’s legs. You’ve never had any +of your own. You couldn’t walk alone between two sunrises +and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals. Let me see +your hand.”</p> +<p>His tremendous, dormant strength must have stirred, swiftly and accurately, +or I must have slept a moment, for before I knew it he had stepped two +paces forward, gripped my right hand in his, and held it up for inspection. +I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers tightened, without visible effort, +till I thought mine would be crushed. It is hard to maintain one’s +dignity under such circumstances. I could not squirm or struggle +like a schoolboy. Nor could I attack such a creature who had but +to twist my arm to break it. Nothing remained but to stand still +and accept the indignity. I had time to notice that the pockets +of the dead man had been emptied on the deck, and that his body and +his grin had been wrapped from view in canvas, the folds of which the +sailor, Johansen, was sewing together with coarse white twine, shoving +the needle through with a leather contrivance fitted on the palm of +his hand.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain.</p> +<p>“Dead men’s hands have kept it soft. Good for little +else than dish-washing and scullion work.”</p> +<p>“I wish to be put ashore,” I said firmly, for I now had +myself in control. “I shall pay you whatever you judge your +delay and trouble to be worth.”</p> +<p>He looked at me curiously. Mockery shone in his eyes.</p> +<p>“I have a counter proposition to make, and for the good of +your soul. My mate’s gone, and there’ll be a lot of +promotion. A sailor comes aft to take mate’s place, cabin-boy +goes for’ard to take sailor’s place, and you take the cabin-boy’s +place, sign the articles for the cruise, twenty dollars per month and +found. Now what do you say? And mind you, it’s for +your own soul’s sake. It will be the making of you. +You might learn in time to stand on your own legs, and perhaps to toddle +along a bit.”</p> +<p>But I took no notice. The sails of the vessel I had seen off +to the south-west had grown larger and plainer. They were of the +same schooner-rig as the <i>Ghost</i>, though the hull itself, I could +see, was smaller. She was a pretty sight, leaping and flying toward +us, and evidently bound to pass at close range. The wind had been +momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had disappeared. +The sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown rougher, and was now +tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were travelling faster, +and heeled farther over. Once, in a gust, the rail dipped under +the sea, and the decks on that side were for the moment awash with water +that made a couple of the hunters hastily lift their feet.</p> +<p>“That vessel will soon be passing us,” I said, after +a moment’s pause. “As she is going in the opposite +direction, she is very probably bound for San Francisco.”</p> +<p>“Very probably,” was Wolf Larsen’s answer, as he +turned partly away from me and cried out, “Cooky! Oh, Cooky!”</p> +<p>The Cockney popped out of the galley.</p> +<p>“Where’s that boy? Tell him I want him.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir;” and Thomas Mugridge fled swiftly aft and +disappeared down another companion-way near the wheel. A moment +later he emerged, a heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, +with a glowering, villainous countenance, trailing at his heels.</p> +<p>“’Ere ’e is, sir,” the cook said.</p> +<p>But Wolf Larsen ignored that worthy, turning at once to the cabin-boy.</p> +<p>“What’s your name, boy?</p> +<p>“George Leach, sir,” came the sullen answer, and the +boy’s bearing showed clearly that he divined the reason for which +he had been summoned.</p> +<p>“Not an Irish name,” the captain snapped sharply. +“O’Toole or McCarthy would suit your mug a damn sight better. +Unless, very likely, there’s an Irishman in your mother’s +woodpile.”</p> +<p>I saw the young fellow’s hands clench at the insult, and the +blood crawl scarlet up his neck.</p> +<p>“But let that go,” Wolf Larsen continued. “You +may have very good reasons for forgetting your name, and I’ll +like you none the worse for it as long as you toe the mark. Telegraph +Hill, of course, is your port of entry. It sticks out all over +your mug. Tough as they make them and twice as nasty. I +know the kind. Well, you can make up your mind to have it taken +out of you on this craft. Understand? Who shipped you, anyway?”</p> +<p>“McCready and Swanson.”</p> +<p>“Sir!” Wolf Larsen thundered.</p> +<p>“McCready and Swanson, sir,” the boy corrected, his eyes +burning with a bitter light.</p> +<p>“Who got the advance money?”</p> +<p>“They did, sir.”</p> +<p>“I thought as much. And damned glad you were to let them +have it. Couldn’t make yourself scarce too quick, with several +gentlemen you may have heard of looking for you.”</p> +<p>The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body +bunched together as though for a spring, and his face became as an infuriated +beast’s as he snarled, “It’s a—”</p> +<p>“A what?” Wolf Larsen asked, a peculiar softness in his +voice, as though he were overwhelmingly curious to hear the unspoken +word.</p> +<p>The boy hesitated, then mastered his temper. “Nothin’, +sir. I take it back.”</p> +<p>“And you have shown me I was right.” This with +a gratified smile. “How old are you?”</p> +<p>“Just turned sixteen, sir,”</p> +<p>“A lie. You’ll never see eighteen again. +Big for your age at that, with muscles like a horse. Pack up your +kit and go for’ard into the fo’c’sle. You’re +a boat-puller now. You’re promoted; see?”</p> +<p>Without waiting for the boy’s acceptance, the captain turned +to the sailor who had just finished the gruesome task of sewing up the +corpse. “Johansen, do you know anything about navigation?”</p> +<p>“No, sir,”</p> +<p>“Well, never mind; you’re mate just the same. Get +your traps aft into the mate’s berth.”</p> +<p>“Ay, ay, sir,” was the cheery response, as Johansen started +forward.</p> +<p>In the meantime the erstwhile cabin-boy had not moved. “What +are you waiting for?” Wolf Larsen demanded.</p> +<p>“I didn’t sign for boat-puller, sir,” was the reply. +“I signed for cabin-boy. An’ I don’t want no +boat-pullin’ in mine.”</p> +<p>“Pack up and go for’ard.”</p> +<p>This time Wolf Larsen’s command was thrillingly imperative. +The boy glowered sullenly, but refused to move.</p> +<p>Then came another stirring of Wolf Larsen’s tremendous strength. +It was utterly unexpected, and it was over and done with between the +ticks of two seconds. He had sprung fully six feet across the +deck and driven his fist into the other’s stomach. At the +same moment, as though I had been struck myself, I felt a sickening +shock in the pit of my stomach. I instance this to show the sensitiveness +of my nervous organization at the time, and how unused I was to spectacles +of brutality. The cabin-boy—and he weighed one hundred and +sixty-five at the very least—crumpled up. His body wrapped +limply about the fist like a wet rag about a stick. He lifted +into the air, described a short curve, and struck the deck alongside +the corpse on his head and shoulders, where he lay and writhed about +in agony.</p> +<p>“Well?” Larsen asked of me. “Have you made +up your mind?”</p> +<p>I had glanced occasionally at the approaching schooner, and it was +now almost abreast of us and not more than a couple of hundred yards +away. It was a very trim and neat little craft. I could +see a large, black number on one of its sails, and I had seen pictures +of pilot-boats.</p> +<p>“What vessel is that?” I asked.</p> +<p>“The pilot-boat <i>Lady Mine</i>,” Wolf Larsen answered +grimly. “Got rid of her pilots and running into San Francisco. +She’ll be there in five or six hours with this wind.”</p> +<p>“Will you please signal it, then, so that I may be put ashore.”</p> +<p>“Sorry, but I’ve lost the signal book overboard,” +he remarked, and the group of hunters grinned.</p> +<p>I debated a moment, looking him squarely in the eyes. I had +seen the frightful treatment of the cabin-boy, and knew that I should +very probably receive the same, if not worse. As I say, I debated +with myself, and then I did what I consider the bravest act of my life. +I ran to the side, waving my arms and shouting:</p> +<p>“<i>Lady Mine</i> ahoy! Take me ashore! A thousand +dollars if you take me ashore!”</p> +<p>I waited, watching two men who stood by the wheel, one of them steering. +The other was lifting a megaphone to his lips. I did not turn +my head, though I expected every moment a killing blow from the human +brute behind me. At last, after what seemed centuries, unable +longer to stand the strain, I looked around. He had not moved. +He was standing in the same position, swaying easily to the roll of +the ship and lighting a fresh cigar.</p> +<p>“What is the matter? Anything wrong?”</p> +<p>This was the cry from the <i>Lady Mine.</i></p> +<p>“Yes!” I shouted, at the top of my lungs. “Life +or death! One thousand dollars if you take me ashore!”</p> +<p>“Too much ’Frisco tanglefoot for the health of my crew!” +Wolf Larsen shouted after. “This one”—indicating +me with his thumb—“fancies sea-serpents and monkeys just +now!”</p> +<p>The man on the <i>Lady Mine</i> laughed back through the megaphone. +The pilot-boat plunged past.</p> +<p>“Give him hell for me!” came a final cry, and the two +men waved their arms in farewell.</p> +<p>I leaned despairingly over the rail, watching the trim little schooner +swiftly increasing the bleak sweep of ocean between us. And she +would probably be in San Francisco in five or six hours! My head +seemed bursting. There was an ache in my throat as though my heart +were up in it. A curling wave struck the side and splashed salt +spray on my lips. The wind puffed strongly, and the <i>Ghost</i> +heeled far over, burying her lee rail. I could hear the water +rushing down upon the deck.</p> +<p>When I turned around, a moment later, I saw the cabin-boy staggering +to his feet. His face was ghastly white, twitching with suppressed +pain. He looked very sick.</p> +<p>“Well, Leach, are you going for’ard?” Wolf Larsen +asked.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” came the answer of a spirit cowed.</p> +<p>“And you?” I was asked.</p> +<p>“I’ll give you a thousand—” I began, but +was interrupted.</p> +<p>“Stow that! Are you going to take up your duties as cabin-boy? +Or do I have to take you in hand?”</p> +<p>What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, +would not help my case. I looked steadily into the cruel grey +eyes. They might have been granite for all the light and warmth +of a human soul they contained. One may see the soul stir in some +men’s eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea +itself.</p> +<p>“Well?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” I said.</p> +<p>“Say ‘yes, sir.’”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” I corrected.</p> +<p>“What is your name?”</p> +<p>“Van Weyden, sir.”</p> +<p>“First name?”</p> +<p>“Humphrey, sir; Humphrey Van Weyden.”</p> +<p>“Age?”</p> +<p>“Thirty-five, sir.”</p> +<p>“That’ll do. Go to the cook and learn your duties.”</p> +<p>And thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary servitude +to Wolf Larsen. He was stronger than I, that was all. But +it was very unreal at the time. It is no less unreal now that +I look back upon it. It will always be to me a monstrous, inconceivable +thing, a horrible nightmare.</p> +<p>“Hold on, don’t go yet.”</p> +<p>I stopped obediently in my walk toward the galley.</p> +<p>“Johansen, call all hands. Now that we’ve everything +cleaned up, we’ll have the funeral and get the decks cleared of +useless lumber.”</p> +<p>While Johansen was summoning the watch below, a couple of sailors, +under the captain’s direction, laid the canvas-swathed corpse +upon a hatch-cover. On either side the deck, against the rail +and bottoms up, were lashed a number of small boats. Several men +picked up the hatch-cover with its ghastly freight, carried it to the +lee side, and rested it on the boats, the feet pointing overboard. +To the feet was attached the sack of coal which the cook had fetched.</p> +<p>I had always conceived a burial at sea to be a very solemn and awe-inspiring +event, but I was quickly disillusioned, by this burial at any rate. +One of the hunters, a little dark-eyed man whom his mates called “Smoke,” +was telling stories, liberally intersprinkled with oaths and obscenities; +and every minute or so the group of hunters gave mouth to a laughter +that sounded to me like a wolf-chorus or the barking of hell-hounds. +The sailors trooped noisily aft, some of the watch below rubbing the +sleep from their eyes, and talked in low tones together. There +was an ominous and worried expression on their faces. It was evident +that they did not like the outlook of a voyage under such a captain +and begun so inauspiciously. From time to time they stole glances +at Wolf Larsen, and I could see that they were apprehensive of the man.</p> +<p>He stepped up to the hatch-cover, and all caps came off. I +ran my eyes over them—twenty men all told; twenty-two including +the man at the wheel and myself. I was pardonably curious in my +survey, for it appeared my fate to be pent up with them on this miniature +floating world for I knew not how many weeks or months. The sailors, +in the main, were English and Scandinavian, and their faces seemed of +the heavy, stolid order. The hunters, on the other hand, had stronger +and more diversified faces, with hard lines and the marks of the free +play of passions. Strange to say, and I noted it all once, Wolf +Larsen’s features showed no such evil stamp. There seemed +nothing vicious in them. True, there were lines, but they were +the lines of decision and firmness. It seemed, rather, a frank +and open countenance, which frankness or openness was enhanced by the +fact that he was smooth-shaven. I could hardly believe—until +the next incident occurred—that it was the face of a man who could +behave as he had behaved to the cabin-boy.</p> +<p>At this moment, as he opened his mouth to speak, puff after puff +struck the schooner and pressed her side under. The wind shrieked +a wild song through the rigging. Some of the hunters glanced anxiously +aloft. The lee rail, where the dead man lay, was buried in the +sea, and as the schooner lifted and righted the water swept across the +deck wetting us above our shoe-tops. A shower of rain drove down +upon us, each drop stinging like a hailstone. As it passed, Wolf +Larsen began to speak, the bare-headed men swaying in unison, to the +heave and lunge of the deck.</p> +<p>“I only remember one part of the service,” he said, “and +that is, ‘And the body shall be cast into the sea.’ +So cast it in.”</p> +<p>He ceased speaking. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed +perplexed, puzzled no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. +He burst upon them in a fury.</p> +<p>“Lift up that end there, damn you! What the hell’s +the matter with you?”</p> +<p>They elevated the end of the hatch-cover with pitiful haste, and, +like a dog flung overside, the dead man slid feet first into the sea. +The coal at his feet dragged him down. He was gone.</p> +<p>“Johansen,” Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, +“keep all hands on deck now they’re here. Get in the +topsails and jibs and make a good job of it. We’re in for +a sou’-easter. Better reef the jib and mainsail too, while +you’re about it.”</p> +<p>In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders +and the men pulling or letting go ropes of various sorts—all naturally +confusing to a landsman such as myself. But it was the heartlessness +of it that especially struck me. The dead man was an episode that +was past, an incident that was dropped, in a canvas covering with a +sack of coal, while the ship sped along and her work went on. +Nobody had been affected. The hunters were laughing at a fresh +story of Smoke’s; the men pulling and hauling, and two of them +climbing aloft; Wolf Larsen was studying the clouding sky to windward; +and the dead man, dying obscenely, buried sordidly, and sinking down, +down—</p> +<p>Then it was that the cruelty of the sea, its relentlessness and awfulness, +rushed upon me. Life had become cheap and tawdry, a beastly and +inarticulate thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and slime. +I held on to the weather rail, close by the shrouds, and gazed out across +the desolate foaming waves to the low-lying fog-banks that hid San Francisco +and the California coast. Rain-squalls were driving in between, +and I could scarcely see the fog. And this strange vessel, with +its terrible men, pressed under by wind and sea and ever leaping up +and out, was heading away into the south-west, into the great and lonely +Pacific expanse.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>What happened to me next on the sealing-schooner <i>Ghost</i>, as +I strove to fit into my new environment, are matters of humiliation +and pain. The cook, who was called “the doctor” by +the crew, “Tommy” by the hunters, and “Cooky” +by Wolf Larsen, was a changed person. The difference worked in +my status brought about a corresponding difference in treatment from +him. Servile and fawning as he had been before, he was now as +domineering and bellicose. In truth, I was no longer the fine +gentleman with a skin soft as a “lydy’s,” but only +an ordinary and very worthless cabin-boy.</p> +<p>He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and +his behaviour and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my duties. +Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small state-rooms, I was +supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my colossal ignorance +concerning such things as peeling potatoes or washing greasy pots was +a source of unending and sarcastic wonder to him. He refused to +take into consideration what I was, or, rather, what my life and the +things I was accustomed to had been. This was part of the attitude +he chose to adopt toward me; and I confess, ere the day was done, that +I hated him with more lively feelings than I had ever hated any one +in my life before.</p> +<p>This first day was made more difficult for me from the fact that +the <i>Ghost</i>, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn +till later), was plunging through what Mr. Mugridge called an “’owlin’ +sou’-easter.” At half-past five, under his directions, +I set the table in the cabin, with rough-weather trays in place, and +then carried the tea and cooked food down from the galley. In +this connection I cannot forbear relating my first experience with a +boarding sea.</p> +<p>“Look sharp or you’ll get doused,” was Mr. Mugridge’s +parting injunction, as I left the galley with a big tea-pot in one hand, +and in the hollow of the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked bread. +One of the hunters, a tall, loose-jointed chap named Henderson, was +going aft at the time from the steerage (the name the hunters facetiously +gave their midships sleeping quarters) to the cabin. Wolf Larsen +was on the poop, smoking his everlasting cigar.</p> +<p>“’Ere she comes. Sling yer ’ook!” the +cook cried.</p> +<p>I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley +door slide shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like +a madman for the main rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till +he was many feet higher than my head. Also I saw a great wave, +curling and foaming, poised far above the rail. I was directly +under it. My mind did not work quickly, everything was so new +and strange. I grasped that I was in danger, but that was all. +I stood still, in trepidation. Then Wolf Larsen shouted from the +poop:</p> +<p>“Grab hold something, you—you Hump!”</p> +<p>But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which +I might have clung, and was met by the descending wall of water. +What happened after that was very confusing. I was beneath the +water, suffocating and drowning. My feet were out from under me, +and I was turning over and over and being swept along I knew not where. +Several times I collided against hard objects, once striking my right +knee a terrible blow. Then the flood seemed suddenly to subside +and I was breathing the good air again. I had been swept against +the galley and around the steerage companion-way from the weather side +into the lee scuppers. The pain from my hurt knee was agonizing. +I could not put my weight on it, or, at least, I thought I could not +put my weight on it; and I felt sure the leg was broken. But the +cook was after me, shouting through the lee galley door:</p> +<p>“’Ere, you! Don’t tyke all night about it! +Where’s the pot? Lost overboard? Serve you bloody +well right if yer neck was broke!”</p> +<p>I managed to struggle to my feet. The great tea-pot was still +in my hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. +But he was consumed with indignation, real or feigned.</p> +<p>“Gawd blime me if you ayn’t a slob. Wot ’re +you good for anyw’y, I’d like to know? Eh? Wot +’re you good for any’wy? Cawn’t even carry a +bit of tea aft without losin’ it. Now I’ll ’ave +to boil some more.</p> +<p>“An’ wot ’re you snifflin’ about?” +he burst out at me, with renewed rage. “’Cos you’ve +’urt yer pore little leg, pore little mamma’s darlin’.”</p> +<p>I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn and +twitching from the pain. But I called up all my resolution, set +my teeth, and hobbled back and forth from galley to cabin and cabin +to galley without further mishap. Two things I had acquired by +my accident: an injured knee-cap that went undressed and from which +I suffered for weary months, and the name of “Hump,” which +Wolf Larsen had called me from the poop. Thereafter, fore and +aft, I was known by no other name, until the term became a part of my +thought-processes and I identified it with myself, thought of myself +as Hump, as though Hump were I and had always been I.</p> +<p>It was no easy task, waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf Larsen, +Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to begin with, +and to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made easier by the +schooner’s violent pitching and wallowing. But what struck +me most forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part of the men +whom I served. I could feel my knee through my clothes, swelling, +and swelling, and I was sick and faint from the pain of it. I +could catch glimpses of my face, white and ghastly, distorted with pain, +in the cabin mirror. All the men must have seen my condition, +but not one spoke or took notice of me, till I was almost grateful to +Wolf Larsen, later on (I was washing the dishes), when he said:</p> +<p>“Don’t let a little thing like that bother you. +You’ll get used to such things in time. It may cripple you +some, but all the same you’ll be learning to walk.</p> +<p>“That’s what you call a paradox, isn’t it?” +he added.</p> +<p>He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary “Yes, +sir.”</p> +<p>“I suppose you know a bit about literary things? Eh? +Good. I’ll have some talks with you some time.”</p> +<p>And then, taking no further account of me, he turned his back and +went up on deck.</p> +<p>That night, when I had finished an endless amount of work, I was +sent to sleep in the steerage, where I made up a spare bunk. I +was glad to get out of the detestable presence of the cook and to be +off my feet. To my surprise, my clothes had dried on me and there +seemed no indications of catching cold, either from the last soaking +or from the prolonged soaking from the foundering of the <i>Martinez</i>. +Under ordinary circumstances, after all that I had undergone, I should +have been fit for bed and a trained nurse.</p> +<p>But my knee was bothering me terribly. As well as I could make +out, the kneecap seemed turned up on edge in the midst of the swelling. +As I sat in my bunk examining it (the six hunters were all in the steerage, +smoking and talking in loud voices), Henderson took a passing glance +at it.</p> +<p>“Looks nasty,” he commented. “Tie a rag around +it, and it’ll be all right.”</p> +<p>That was all; and on the land I would have been lying on the broad +of my back, with a surgeon attending on me, and with strict injunctions +to do nothing but rest. But I must do these men justice. +Callous as they were to my suffering, they were equally callous to their +own when anything befell them. And this was due, I believe, first, +to habit; and second, to the fact that they were less sensitively organized. +I really believe that a finely-organized, high-strung man would suffer +twice and thrice as much as they from a like injury.</p> +<p>Tired as I was,—exhausted, in fact,—I was prevented from +sleeping by the pain in my knee. It was all I could do to keep +from groaning aloud. At home I should undoubtedly have given vent +to my anguish; but this new and elemental environment seemed to call +for a savage repression. Like the savage, the attitude of these +men was stoical in great things, childish in little things. I +remember, later in the voyage, seeing Kerfoot, another of the hunters, +lose a finger by having it smashed to a jelly; and he did not even murmur +or change the expression on his face. Yet I have seen the same +man, time and again, fly into the most outrageous passion over a trifle.</p> +<p>He was doing it now, vociferating, bellowing, waving his arms, and +cursing like a fiend, and all because of a disagreement with another +hunter as to whether a seal pup knew instinctively how to swim. +He held that it did, that it could swim the moment it was born. +The other hunter, Latimer, a lean, Yankee-looking fellow with shrewd, +narrow-slitted eyes, held otherwise, held that the seal pup was born +on the land for no other reason than that it could not swim, that its +mother was compelled to teach it to swim as birds were compelled to +teach their nestlings how to fly.</p> +<p>For the most part, the remaining four hunters leaned on the table +or lay in their bunks and left the discussion to the two antagonists. +But they were supremely interested, for every little while they ardently +took sides, and sometimes all were talking at once, till their voices +surged back and forth in waves of sound like mimic thunder-rolls in +the confined space. Childish and immaterial as the topic was, +the quality of their reasoning was still more childish and immaterial. +In truth, there was very little reasoning or none at all. Their +method was one of assertion, assumption, and denunciation. They +proved that a seal pup could swim or not swim at birth by stating the +proposition very bellicosely and then following it up with an attack +on the opposing man’s judgment, common sense, nationality, or +past history. Rebuttal was precisely similar. I have related +this in order to show the mental calibre of the men with whom I was +thrown in contact. Intellectually they were children, inhabiting +the physical forms of men.</p> +<p>And they smoked, incessantly smoked, using a coarse, cheap, and offensive-smelling +tobacco. The air was thick and murky with the smoke of it; and +this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she struggled +through the storm, would surely have made me sea-sick had I been a victim +to that malady. As it was, it made me quite squeamish, though +this nausea might have been due to the pain of my leg and exhaustion.</p> +<p>As I lay there thinking, I naturally dwelt upon myself and my situation. +It was unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van Weyden, a scholar +and a dilettante, if you please, in things artistic and literary, should +be lying here on a Bering Sea seal-hunting schooner. Cabin-boy! +I had never done any hard manual labour, or scullion labour, in my life. +I had lived a placid, uneventful, sedentary existence all my days—the +life of a scholar and a recluse on an assured and comfortable income. +Violent life and athletic sports had never appealed to me. I had +always been a book-worm; so my sisters and father had called me during +my childhood. I had gone camping but once in my life, and then +I left the party almost at its start and returned to the comforts and +conveniences of a roof. And here I was, with dreary and endless +vistas before me of table-setting, potato-peeling, and dish-washing. +And I was not strong. The doctors had always said that I had a +remarkable constitution, but I had never developed it or my body through +exercise. My muscles were small and soft, like a woman’s, +or so the doctors had said time and again in the course of their attempts +to persuade me to go in for physical-culture fads. But I had preferred +to use my head rather than my body; and here I was, in no fit condition +for the rough life in prospect.</p> +<p>These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind, and +are related for the sake of vindicating myself in advance in the weak +and helpless <i>rôle</i> I was destined to play. But I thought, +also, of my mother and sisters, and pictured their grief. I was +among the missing dead of the <i>Martinez</i> disaster, an unrecovered +body. I could see the head-lines in the papers; the fellows at +the University Club and the Bibelot shaking their heads and saying, +“Poor chap!” And I could see Charley Furuseth, as +I had said good-bye to him that morning, lounging in a dressing-gown +on the be-pillowed window couch and delivering himself of oracular and +pessimistic epigrams.</p> +<p>And all the while, rolling, plunging, climbing the moving mountains +and falling and wallowing in the foaming valleys, the schooner <i>Ghost</i> +was fighting her way farther and farther into the heart of the Pacific—and +I was on her. I could hear the wind above. It came to my +ears as a muffled roar. Now and again feet stamped overhead. +An endless creaking was going on all about me, the woodwork and the +fittings groaning and squeaking and complaining in a thousand keys. +The hunters were still arguing and roaring like some semi-human amphibious +breed. The air was filled with oaths and indecent expressions. +I could see their faces, flushed and angry, the brutality distorted +and emphasized by the sickly yellow of the sea-lamps which rocked back +and forth with the ship. Through the dim smoke-haze the bunks +looked like the sleeping dens of animals in a menagerie. Oilskins +and sea-boots were hanging from the walls, and here and there rifles +and shotguns rested securely in the racks. It was a sea-fitting +for the buccaneers and pirates of by-gone years. My imagination +ran riot, and still I could not sleep. And it was a long, long +night, weary and dreary and long.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>But my first night in the hunters’ steerage was also my last. +Next day Johansen, the new mate, was routed from the cabin by Wolf Larsen, +and sent into the steerage to sleep thereafter, while I took possession +of the tiny cabin state-room, which, on the first day of the voyage, +had already had two occupants. The reason for this change was +quickly learned by the hunters, and became the cause of a deal of grumbling +on their part. It seemed that Johansen, in his sleep, lived over +each night the events of the day. His incessant talking and shouting +and bellowing of orders had been too much for Wolf Larsen, who had accordingly +foisted the nuisance upon his hunters.</p> +<p>After a sleepless night, I arose weak and in agony, to hobble through +my second day on the <i>Ghost</i>. Thomas Mugridge routed me out +at half-past five, much in the fashion that Bill Sykes must have routed +out his dog; but Mr. Mugridge’s brutality to me was paid back +in kind and with interest. The unnecessary noise he made (I had +lain wide-eyed the whole night) must have awakened one of the hunters; +for a heavy shoe whizzed through the semi-darkness, and Mr. Mugridge, +with a sharp howl of pain, humbly begged everybody’s pardon. +Later on, in the galley, I noticed that his ear was bruised and swollen. +It never went entirely back to its normal shape, and was called a “cauliflower +ear” by the sailors.</p> +<p>The day was filled with miserable variety. I had taken my dried +clothes down from the galley the night before, and the first thing I +did was to exchange the cook’s garments for them. I looked +for my purse. In addition to some small change (and I have a good +memory for such things), it had contained one hundred and eighty-five +dollars in gold and paper. The purse I found, but its contents, +with the exception of the small silver, had been abstracted. I +spoke to the cook about it, when I went on deck to take up my duties +in the galley, and though I had looked forward to a surly answer, I +had not expected the belligerent harangue that I received.</p> +<p>“Look ’ere, ’Ump,” he began, a malicious +light in his eyes and a snarl in his throat; “d’ye want +yer nose punched? If you think I’m a thief, just keep it +to yerself, or you’ll find ’ow bloody well mistyken you +are. Strike me blind if this ayn’t gratitude for yer! +’Ere you come, a pore mis’rable specimen of ’uman +scum, an’ I tykes yer into my galley an’ treats yer ’ansom, +an’ this is wot I get for it. Nex’ time you can go +to ’ell, say I, an’ I’ve a good mind to give you what-for +anyw’y.”</p> +<p>So saying, he put up his fists and started for me. To my shame +be it, I cowered away from the blow and ran out the galley door. +What else was I to do? Force, nothing but force, obtained on this +brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing unknown. Picture it +to yourself: a man of ordinary stature, slender of build, and with weak, +undeveloped muscles, who has lived a peaceful, placid life, and is unused +to violence of any sort—what could such a man possibly do? +There was no more reason that I should stand and face these human beasts +than that I should stand and face an infuriated bull.</p> +<p>So I thought it out at the time, feeling the need for vindication +and desiring to be at peace with my conscience. But this vindication +did not satisfy. Nor, to this day can I permit my manhood to look +back upon those events and feel entirely exonerated. The situation +was something that really exceeded rational formulas for conduct and +demanded more than the cold conclusions of reason. When viewed +in the light of formal logic, there is not one thing of which to be +ashamed; but nevertheless a shame rises within me at the recollection, +and in the pride of my manhood I feel that my manhood has in unaccountable +ways been smirched and sullied.</p> +<p>All of which is neither here nor there. The speed with which +I ran from the galley caused excruciating pain in my knee, and I sank +down helplessly at the break of the poop. But the Cockney had +not pursued me.</p> +<p>“Look at ’im run! Look at ’im run!” +I could hear him crying. “An’ with a gyme leg at that! +Come on back, you pore little mamma’s darling. I won’t +’it yer; no, I won’t.”</p> +<p>I came back and went on with my work; and here the episode ended +for the time, though further developments were yet to take place. +I set the breakfast-table in the cabin, and at seven o’clock waited +on the hunters and officers. The storm had evidently broken during +the night, though a huge sea was still running and a stiff wind blowing. +Sail had been made in the early watches, so that the <i>Ghost</i> was +racing along under everything except the two topsails and the flying +jib. These three sails, I gathered from the conversation, were +to be set immediately after breakfast. I learned, also, that Wolf +Larsen was anxious to make the most of the storm, which was driving +him to the south-west into that portion of the sea where he expected +to pick up with the north-east trades. It was before this steady +wind that he hoped to make the major portion of the run to Japan, curving +south into the tropics and north again as he approached the coast of +Asia.</p> +<p>After breakfast I had another unenviable experience. When I +had finished washing the dishes, I cleaned the cabin stove and carried +the ashes up on deck to empty them. Wolf Larsen and Henderson +were standing near the wheel, deep in conversation. The sailor, +Johnson, was steering. As I started toward the weather side I +saw him make a sudden motion with his head, which I mistook for a token +of recognition and good-morning. In reality, he was attempting +to warn me to throw my ashes over the lee side. Unconscious of +my blunder, I passed by Wolf Larsen and the hunter and flung the ashes +over the side to windward. The wind drove them back, and not only +over me, but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next instant +the latter kicked me, violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not +realized there could be so much pain in a kick. I reeled away +from him and leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting condition. +Everything was swimming before my eyes, and I turned sick. The +nausea overpowered me, and I managed to crawl to the side of the vessel. +But Wolf Larsen did not follow me up. Brushing the ashes from +his clothes, he had resumed his conversation with Henderson. Johansen, +who had seen the affair from the break of the poop, sent a couple of +sailors aft to clean up the mess.</p> +<p>Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different +sort. Following the cook’s instructions, I had gone into +Wolf Larsen’s state-room to put it to rights and make the bed. +Against the wall, near the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with +books. I glanced over them, noting with astonishment such names +as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific +works, too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor, +and Darwin. Astronomy and physics were represented, and I remarked +Bulfinch’s <i>Age of Fable</i>, Shaw’s <i>History of English +and</i> <i>American Literature</i>, and Johnson’s <i>Natural History</i> +in two large volumes. Then there were a number of grammars, such +as Metcalf’s, and Reed and Kellogg’s; and I smiled as I +saw a copy of <i>The Dean’s English.</i></p> +<p>I could not reconcile these books with the man from what I had seen +of him, and I wondered if he could possibly read them. But when +I came to make the bed I found, between the blankets, dropped apparently +as he had sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning, the Cambridge Edition. +It was open at “In a Balcony,” and I noticed, here and there, +passages underlined in pencil. Further, letting drop the volume +during a lurch of the ship, a sheet of paper fell out. It was +scrawled over with geometrical diagrams and calculations of some sort.</p> +<p>It was patent that this terrible man was no ignorant clod, such as +one would inevitably suppose him to be from his exhibitions of brutality. +At once he became an enigma. One side or the other of his nature +was perfectly comprehensible; but both sides together were bewildering. +I had already remarked that his language was excellent, marred with +an occasional slight inaccuracy. Of course, in common speech with +the sailors and hunters, it sometimes fairly bristled with errors, which +was due to the vernacular itself; but in the few words he had held with +me it had been clear and correct.</p> +<p>This glimpse I had caught of his other side must have emboldened +me, for I resolved to speak to him about the money I had lost.</p> +<p>“I have been robbed,” I said to him, a little later, +when I found him pacing up and down the poop alone.</p> +<p>“Sir,” he corrected, not harshly, but sternly.</p> +<p>“I have been robbed, sir,” I amended.</p> +<p>“How did it happen?” he asked.</p> +<p>Then I told him the whole circumstance, how my clothes had been left +to dry in the galley, and how, later, I was nearly beaten by the cook +when I mentioned the matter.</p> +<p>He smiled at my recital. “Pickings,” he concluded; +“Cooky’s pickings. And don’t you think your +miserable life worth the price? Besides, consider it a lesson. +You’ll learn in time how to take care of your money for yourself. +I suppose, up to now, your lawyer has done it for you, or your business +agent.”</p> +<p>I could feel the quiet sneer through his words, but demanded, “How +can I get it back again?”</p> +<p>“That’s your look-out. You haven’t any lawyer +or business agent now, so you’ll have to depend on yourself. +When you get a dollar, hang on to it. A man who leaves his money +lying around, the way you did, deserves to lose it. Besides, you +have sinned. You have no right to put temptation in the way of +your fellow-creatures. You tempted Cooky, and he fell. You +have placed his immortal soul in jeopardy. By the way, do you +believe in the immortal soul?”</p> +<p>His lids lifted lazily as he asked the question, and it seemed that +the deeps were opening to me and that I was gazing into his soul. +But it was an illusion. Far as it might have seemed, no man has +ever seen very far into Wolf Larsen’s soul, or seen it at all,—of +this I am convinced. It was a very lonely soul, I was to learn, +that never unmasked, though at rare moments it played at doing so.</p> +<p>“I read immortality in your eyes,” I answered, dropping +the “sir,”—an experiment, for I thought the intimacy +of the conversation warranted it.</p> +<p>He took no notice. “By that, I take it, you see something +that is alive, but that necessarily does not have to live for ever.”</p> +<p>“I read more than that,” I continued boldly.</p> +<p>“Then you read consciousness. You read the consciousness +of life that it is alive; but still no further away, no endlessness +of life.”</p> +<p>How clearly he thought, and how well he expressed what he thought! +From regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over +the leaden sea to windward. A bleakness came into his eyes, and +the lines of his mouth grew severe and harsh. He was evidently +in a pessimistic mood.</p> +<p>“Then to what end?” he demanded abruptly, turning back +to me. “If I am immortal—why?”</p> +<p>I halted. How could I explain my idealism to this man? +How could I put into speech a something felt, a something like the strains +of music heard in sleep, a something that convinced yet transcended +utterance?</p> +<p>“What do you believe, then?” I countered.</p> +<p>“I believe that life is a mess,” he answered promptly. +“It is like yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves and may move +for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end +will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue +to move, the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. +The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all. What +do you make of those things?”</p> +<p>He swept his am in an impatient gesture toward a number of the sailors +who were working on some kind of rope stuff amidships.</p> +<p>“They move, so does the jelly-fish move. They move in +order to eat in order that they may keep moving. There you have +it. They live for their belly’s sake, and the belly is for +their sake. It’s a circle; you get nowhere. Neither +do they. In the end they come to a standstill. They move +no more. They are dead.”</p> +<p>“They have dreams,” I interrupted, “radiant, flashing +dreams—”</p> +<p>“Of grub,” he concluded sententiously.</p> +<p>“And of more—”</p> +<p>“Grub. Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying +it.” His voice sounded harsh. There was no levity +in it. “For, look you, they dream of making lucky voyages +which will bring them more money, of becoming the mates of ships, of +finding fortunes—in short, of being in a better position for preying +on their fellows, of having all night in, good grub and somebody else +to do the dirty work. You and I are just like them. There +is no difference, except that we have eaten more and better. I +am eating them now, and you too. But in the past you have eaten +more than I have. You have slept in soft beds, and worn fine clothes, +and eaten good meals. Who made those beds? and those clothes? +and those meals? Not you. You never made anything in your +own sweat. You live on an income which your father earned. +You are like a frigate bird swooping down upon the boobies and robbing +them of the fish they have caught. You are one with a crowd of +men who have made what they call a government, who are masters of all +the other men, and who eat the food the other men get and would like +to eat themselves. You wear the warm clothes. They made +the clothes, but they shiver in rags and ask you, the lawyer, or business +agent who handles your money, for a job.”</p> +<p>“But that is beside the matter,” I cried.</p> +<p>“Not at all.” He was speaking rapidly now, and +his eyes were flashing. “It is piggishness, and it is life. +Of what use or sense is an immortality of piggishness? What is +the end? What is it all about? You have made no food. +Yet the food you have eaten or wasted might have saved the lives of +a score of wretches who made the food but did not eat it. What +immortal end did you serve? or did they? Consider yourself and +me. What does your boasted immortality amount to when your life +runs foul of mine? You would like to go back to the land, which +is a favourable place for your kind of piggishness. It is a whim +of mine to keep you aboard this ship, where my piggishness flourishes. +And keep you I will. I may make or break you. You may die +to-day, this week, or next month. I could kill you now, with a +blow of my fist, for you are a miserable weakling. But if we are +immortal, what is the reason for this? To be piggish as you and +I have been all our lives does not seem to be just the thing for immortals +to be doing. Again, what’s it all about? Why have +I kept you here?—”</p> +<p>“Because you are stronger,” I managed to blurt out.</p> +<p>“But why stronger?” he went on at once with his perpetual +queries. “Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than +you? Don’t you see? Don’t you see?”</p> +<p>“But the hopelessness of it,” I protested.</p> +<p>“I agree with you,” he answered. “Then why +move at all, since moving is living? Without moving and being +part of the yeast there would be no hopelessness. But,—and +there it is,—we want to live and move, though we have no reason +to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, +to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would +be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream +of your immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants +to go on being alive for ever. Bah! An eternity of piggishness!”</p> +<p>He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped +at the break of the poop and called me to him.</p> +<p>“By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with?” +he asked.</p> +<p>“One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir,” I answered.</p> +<p>He nodded his head. A moment later, as I started down the companion +stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly curing some men +amidships.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>By the following morning the storm had blown itself quite out and +the <i>Ghost</i> was rolling slightly on a calm sea without a breath +of wind. Occasional light airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen +patrolled the poop constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to the +north-eastward, from which direction the great trade-wind must blow.</p> +<p>The men were all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for +the season’s hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the +captain’s dingey, and the six which the hunters will use. +Three, a hunter, a boat-puller, and a boat-steerer, compose a boat’s +crew. On board the schooner the boat-pullers and steerers are +the crew. The hunters, too, are supposed to be in command of the +watches, subject, always, to the orders of Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>All this, and more, I have learned. The <i>Ghost</i> is considered +the fastest schooner in both the San Francisco and Victoria fleets. +In fact, she was once a private yacht, and was built for speed. +Her lines and fittings—though I know nothing about such things—speak +for themselves. Johnson was telling me about her in a short chat +I had with him during yesterday’s second dog-watch. He spoke +enthusiastically, with the love for a fine craft such as some men feel +for horses. He is greatly disgusted with the outlook, and I am +given to understand that Wolf Larsen bears a very unsavoury reputation +among the sealing captains. It was the <i>Ghost</i> herself that +lured Johnson into signing for the voyage, but he is already beginning +to repent.</p> +<p>As he told me, the <i>Ghost</i> is an eighty-ton schooner of a remarkably +fine model. Her beam, or width, is twenty-three feet, and her +length a little over ninety feet. A lead keel of fabulous but +unknown weight makes her very stable, while she carries an immense spread +of canvas. From the deck to the truck of the maintopmast is something +over a hundred feet, while the foremast with its topmast is eight or +ten feet shorter. I am giving these details so that the size of +this little floating world which holds twenty-two men may be appreciated. +It is a very little world, a mote, a speck, and I marvel that men should +dare to venture the sea on a contrivance so small and fragile.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen has, also, a reputation for reckless carrying on of sail. +I overheard Henderson and another of the hunters, Standish, a Californian, +talking about it. Two years ago he dismasted the <i>Ghost</i> +in a gale on Bering Sea, whereupon the present masts were put in, which +are stronger and heavier in every way. He is said to have remarked, +when he put them in, that he preferred turning her over to losing the +sticks.</p> +<p>Every man aboard, with the exception of Johansen, who is rather overcome +by his promotion, seems to have an excuse for having sailed on the <i>Ghost</i>. +Half the men forward are deep-water sailors, and their excuse is that +they did not know anything about her or her captain. And those +who do know, whisper that the hunters, while excellent shots, were so +notorious for their quarrelsome and rascally proclivities that they +could not sign on any decent schooner.</p> +<p>I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew,—Louis +he is called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a +very sociable fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a listener. +In the afternoon, while the cook was below asleep and I was peeling +the everlasting potatoes, Louis dropped into the galley for a “yarn.” +His excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk when he signed. +He assured me again and again that it was the last thing in the world +he would dream of doing in a sober moment. It seems that he has +been seal-hunting regularly each season for a dozen years, and is accounted +one of the two or three very best boat-steerers in both fleets.</p> +<p>“Ah, my boy,” he shook his head ominously at me, “’tis +the worst schooner ye could iv selected, nor were ye drunk at the time +as was I. ’Tis sealin’ is the sailor’s paradise—on +other ships than this. The mate was the first, but mark me words, +there’ll be more dead men before the trip is done with. +Hist, now, between you an’ meself and the stanchion there, this +Wolf Larsen is a regular devil, an’ the <i>Ghost’ll</i> +be a hell-ship like she’s always ben since he had hold iv her. +Don’t I know? Don’t I know? Don’t I remember +him in Hakodate two years gone, when he had a row an’ shot four +iv his men? Wasn’t I a-layin’ on the <i>Emma L</i>., +not three hundred yards away? An’ there was a man the same +year he killed with a blow iv his fist. Yes, sir, killed ’im +dead-oh. His head must iv smashed like an eggshell. An’ +wasn’t there the Governor of Kura Island, an’ the Chief +iv Police, Japanese gentlemen, sir, an’ didn’t they come +aboard the <i>Ghost</i> as his guests, a-bringin’ their wives +along—wee an’ pretty little bits of things like you see +’em painted on fans. An’ as he was a-gettin’ +under way, didn’t the fond husbands get left astern-like in their +sampan, as it might be by accident? An’ wasn’t it +a week later that the poor little ladies was put ashore on the other +side of the island, with nothin’ before ’em but to walk +home acrost the mountains on their weeny-teeny little straw sandals +which wouldn’t hang together a mile? Don’t I know? +’Tis the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen—the great big beast +mentioned iv in Revelation; an’ no good end will he ever come +to. But I’ve said nothin’ to ye, mind ye. I’ve +whispered never a word; for old fat Louis’ll live the voyage out +if the last mother’s son of yez go to the fishes.”</p> +<p>“Wolf Larsen!” he snorted a moment later. “Listen +to the word, will ye! Wolf—’tis what he is. +He’s not black-hearted like some men. ’Tis no heart +he has at all. Wolf, just wolf, ’tis what he is. D’ye +wonder he’s well named?”</p> +<p>“But if he is so well-known for what he is,” I queried, +“how is it that he can get men to ship with him?”</p> +<p>“An’ how is it ye can get men to do anything on God’s +earth an’ sea?” Louis demanded with Celtic fire. “How +d’ye find me aboard if ’twasn’t that I was drunk as +a pig when I put me name down? There’s them that can’t +sail with better men, like the hunters, and them that don’t know, +like the poor devils of wind-jammers for’ard there. But +they’ll come to it, they’ll come to it, an’ be sorry +the day they was born. I could weep for the poor creatures, did +I but forget poor old fat Louis and the troubles before him. But +’tis not a whisper I’ve dropped, mind ye, not a whisper.”</p> +<p>“Them hunters is the wicked boys,” he broke forth again, +for he suffered from a constitutional plethora of speech. “But +wait till they get to cutting up iv jinks and rowin’ ’round. +He’s the boy’ll fix ’em. ’Tis him that’ll +put the fear of God in their rotten black hearts. Look at that +hunter iv mine, Horner. ‘Jock’ Horner they call him, +so quiet-like an’ easy-goin’, soft-spoken as a girl, till +ye’d think butter wouldn’t melt in the mouth iv him. +Didn’t he kill his boat-steerer last year? ’Twas called +a sad accident, but I met the boat-puller in Yokohama an’ the +straight iv it was given me. An’ there’s Smoke, the +black little devil—didn’t the Roosians have him for three +years in the salt mines of Siberia, for poachin’ on Copper Island, +which is a Roosian preserve? Shackled he was, hand an’ foot, +with his mate. An’ didn’t they have words or a ruction +of some kind?—for ’twas the other fellow Smoke sent up in +the buckets to the top of the mine; an’ a piece at a time he went +up, a leg to-day, an’ to-morrow an arm, the next day the head, +an’ so on.”</p> +<p>“But you can’t mean it!” I cried out, overcome +with the horror of it.</p> +<p>“Mean what!” he demanded, quick as a flash. “’Tis +nothin’ I’ve said. Deef I am, and dumb, as ye should +be for the sake iv your mother; an’ never once have I opened me +lips but to say fine things iv them an’ him, God curse his soul, +an’ may he rot in purgatory ten thousand years, and then go down +to the last an’ deepest hell iv all!”</p> +<p>Johnson, the man who had chafed me raw when I first came aboard, +seemed the least equivocal of the men forward or aft. In fact, +there was nothing equivocal about him. One was struck at once +by his straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were tempered +by a modesty which might be mistaken for timidity. But timid he +was not. He seemed, rather, to have the courage of his convictions, +the certainty of his manhood. It was this that made him protest, +at the commencement of our acquaintance, against being called Yonson. +And upon this, and him, Louis passed judgment and prophecy.</p> +<p>“’Tis a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we’ve +for’ard with us,” he said. “The best sailorman +in the fo’c’sle. He’s my boat-puller. +But it’s to trouble he’ll come with Wolf Larsen, as the +sparks fly upward. It’s meself that knows. I can see +it brewin’ an’ comin’ up like a storm in the sky. +I’ve talked to him like a brother, but it’s little he sees +in takin’ in his lights or flyin’ false signals. He +grumbles out when things don’t go to suit him, and there’ll +be always some tell-tale carryin’ word iv it aft to the Wolf. +The Wolf is strong, and it’s the way of a wolf to hate strength, +an’ strength it is he’ll see in Johnson—no knucklin’ +under, and a ‘Yes, sir, thank ye kindly, sir,’ for a curse +or a blow. Oh, she’s a-comin’! She’s a-comin’! +An’ God knows where I’ll get another boat-puller! +What does the fool up an’ say, when the old man calls him Yonson, +but ‘Me name is Johnson, sir,’ an’ then spells it +out, letter for letter. Ye should iv seen the old man’s +face! I thought he’d let drive at him on the spot. +He didn’t, but he will, an’ he’ll break that squarehead’s +heart, or it’s little I know iv the ways iv men on the ships iv +the sea.”</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge is becoming unendurable. I am compelled to +Mister him and to Sir him with every speech. One reason for this +is that Wolf Larsen seems to have taken a fancy to him. It is +an unprecedented thing, I take it, for a captain to be chummy with the +cook; but this is certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing. Two or +three times he put his head into the galley and chaffed Mugridge good-naturedly, +and once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and chatted +with him for fully fifteen minutes. When it was over, and Mugridge +was back in the galley, he became greasily radiant, and went about his +work, humming coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto.</p> +<p>“I always get along with the officers,” he remarked to +me in a confidential tone. “I know the w’y, I do, +to myke myself uppreci-yted. There was my last skipper—w’y +I thought nothin’ of droppin’ down in the cabin for a little +chat and a friendly glass. ‘Mugridge,’ sez ’e +to me, ‘Mugridge,’ sez ’e, ‘you’ve missed +yer vokytion.’ ‘An’ ’ow’s that?’ +sez I. ‘Yer should ’a been born a gentleman, an’ +never ’ad to work for yer livin’.’ God strike +me dead, ’Ump, if that ayn’t wot ’e sez, an’ +me a-sittin’ there in ’is own cabin, jolly-like an’ +comfortable, a-smokin’ ’is cigars an’ drinkin’ +’is rum.”</p> +<p>This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction. I never heard +a voice I hated so. His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile +and his monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I +was all in a tremble. Positively, he was the most disgusting and +loathsome person I have ever met. The filth of his cooking was +indescribable; and, as he cooked everything that was eaten aboard, I +was compelled to select what I ate with great circumspection, choosing +from the least dirty of his concoctions.</p> +<p>My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work. +The nails were discoloured and black, while the skin was already grained +with dirt which even a scrubbing-brush could not remove. Then +blisters came, in a painful and never-ending procession, and I had a +great burn on my forearm, acquired by losing my balance in a roll of +the ship and pitching against the galley stove. Nor was my knee +any better. The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was still +up on edge. Hobbling about on it from morning till night was not +helping it any. What I needed was rest, if it were ever to get +well.</p> +<p>Rest! I never before knew the meaning of the word. I +had been resting all my life and did not know it. But now, could +I sit still for one half-hour and do nothing, not even think, it would +be the most pleasurable thing in the world. But it is a revelation, +on the other hand. I shall be able to appreciate the lives of +the working people hereafter. I did not dream that work was so +terrible a thing. From half-past five in the morning till ten +o’clock at night I am everybody’s slave, with not one moment +to myself, except such as I can steal near the end of the second dog-watch. +Let me pause for a minute to look out over the sea sparkling in the +sun, or to gaze at a sailor going aloft to the gaff-topsails, or running +out the bowsprit, and I am sure to hear the hateful voice, “’Ere, +you, ’Ump, no sodgerin’. I’ve got my peepers +on yer.”</p> +<p>There are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the gossip +is going around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight. Henderson +seems the best of the hunters, a slow-going fellow, and hard to rouse; +but roused he must have been, for Smoke had a bruised and discoloured +eye, and looked particularly vicious when he came into the cabin for +supper.</p> +<p>A cruel thing happened just before supper, indicative of the callousness +and brutishness of these men. There is one green hand in the crew, +Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, I imagine, +by the spirit of adventure, and making his first voyage. In the +light baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, +at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is +sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail. In some way, when +Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs +at the end of the gaff. As I understood it, there were two ways +of getting it cleared,—first, by lowering the foresail, which +was comparatively easy and without danger; and second, by climbing out +the peak-halyards to the end of the gaff itself, an exceedingly hazardous +performance.</p> +<p>Johansen called out to Harrison to go out the halyards. It +was patent to everybody that the boy was afraid. And well he might +be, eighty feet above the deck, to trust himself on those thin and jerking +ropes. Had there been a steady breeze it would not have been so +bad, but the <i>Ghost</i> was rolling emptily in a long sea, and with +each roll the canvas flapped and boomed and the halyards slacked and +jerked taut. They were capable of snapping a man off like a fly +from a whip-lash.</p> +<p>Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him, +but hesitated. It was probably the first time he had been aloft +in his life. Johansen, who had caught the contagion of Wolf Larsen’s +masterfulness, burst out with a volley of abuse and curses.</p> +<p>“That’ll do, Johansen,” Wolf Larsen said brusquely. +“I’ll have you know that I do the swearing on this ship. +If I need your assistance, I’ll call you in.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” the mate acknowledged submissively.</p> +<p>In the meantime Harrison had started out on the halyards. I +was looking up from the galley door, and I could see him trembling, +as if with ague, in every limb. He proceeded very slowly and cautiously, +an inch at a time. Outlined against the clear blue of the sky, +he had the appearance of an enormous spider crawling along the tracery +of its web.</p> +<p>It was a slight uphill climb, for the foresail peaked high; and the +halyards, running through various blocks on the gaff and mast, gave +him separate holds for hands and feet. But the trouble lay in +that the wind was not strong enough nor steady enough to keep the sail +full. When he was half-way out, the <i>Ghost</i> took a long roll +to windward and back again into the hollow between two seas. Harrison +ceased his progress and held on tightly. Eighty feet beneath, +I could see the agonized strain of his muscles as he gripped for very +life. The sail emptied and the gaff swung amid-ships. The +halyards slackened, and, though it all happened very quickly, I could +see them sag beneath the weight of his body. Then the gag swung +to the side with an abrupt swiftness, the great sail boomed like a cannon, +and the three rows of reef-points slatted against the canvas like a +volley of rifles. Harrison, clinging on, made the giddy rush through +the air. This rush ceased abruptly. The halyards became +instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. His clutch +was broken. One hand was torn loose from its hold. The other +lingered desperately for a moment, and followed. His body pitched +out and down, but in some way he managed to save himself with his legs. +He was hanging by them, head downward. A quick effort brought +his hands up to the halyards again; but he was a long time regaining +his former position, where he hung, a pitiable object.</p> +<p>“I’ll bet he has no appetite for supper,” I heard +Wolf Larsen’s voice, which came to me from around the corner of +the galley. “Stand from under, you, Johansen! Watch +out! Here she comes!”</p> +<p>In truth, Harrison was very sick, as a person is sea-sick; and for +a long time he clung to his precarious perch without attempting to move. +Johansen, however, continued violently to urge him on to the completion +of his task.</p> +<p>“It is a shame,” I heard Johnson growling in painfully +slow and correct English. He was standing by the main rigging, +a few feet away from me. “The boy is willing enough. +He will learn if he has a chance. But this is—” +He paused awhile, for the word “murder” was his final judgment.</p> +<p>“Hist, will ye!” Louis whispered to him, “For the +love iv your mother hold your mouth!”</p> +<p>But Johnson, looking on, still continued his grumbling.</p> +<p>“Look here,” the hunter Standish spoke to Wolf Larsen, +“that’s my boat-puller, and I don’t want to lose him.”</p> +<p>“That’s all right, Standish,” was the reply. +“He’s your boat-puller when you’ve got him in the +boat; but he’s my sailor when I have him aboard, and I’ll +do what I damn well please with him.”</p> +<p>“But that’s no reason—” Standish began in +a torrent of speech.</p> +<p>“That’ll do, easy as she goes,” Wolf Larsen counselled +back. “I’ve told you what’s what, and let it +stop at that. The man’s mine, and I’ll make soup of +him and eat it if I want to.”</p> +<p>There was an angry gleam in the hunter’s eye, but he turned +on his heel and entered the steerage companion-way, where he remained, +looking upward. All hands were on deck now, and all eyes were +aloft, where a human life was at grapples with death. The callousness +of these men, to whom industrial organization gave control of the lives +of other men, was appalling. I, who had lived out of the whirl +of the world, had never dreamed that its work was carried on in such +fashion. Life had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, but +here it counted for nothing, was a cipher in the arithmetic of commerce. +I must say, however, that the sailors themselves were sympathetic, as +instance the case of Johnson; but the masters (the hunters and the captain) +were heartlessly indifferent. Even the protest of Standish arose +out of the fact that he did not wish to lose his boat-puller. +Had it been some other hunter’s boat-puller, he, like them, would +have been no more than amused.</p> +<p>But to return to Harrison. It took Johansen, insulting and +reviling the poor wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started again. +A little later he made the end of the gaff, where, astride the spar +itself, he had a better chance for holding on. He cleared the +sheet, and was free to return, slightly downhill now, along the halyards +to the mast. But he had lost his nerve. Unsafe as was his +present position, he was loath to forsake it for the more unsafe position +on the halyards.</p> +<p>He looked along the airy path he must traverse, and then down to +the deck. His eyes were wide and staring, and he was trembling +violently. I had never seen fear so strongly stamped upon a human +face. Johansen called vainly for him to come down. At any +moment he was liable to be snapped off the gaff, but he was helpless +with fright. Wolf Larsen, walking up and down with Smoke and in +conversation, took no more notice of him, though he cried sharply, once, +to the man at the wheel:</p> +<p>“You’re off your course, my man! Be careful, unless +you’re looking for trouble!”</p> +<p>“Ay, ay, sir,” the helmsman responded, putting a couple +of spokes down.</p> +<p>He had been guilty of running the <i>Ghost</i> several points off +her course in order that what little wind there was should fill the +foresail and hold it steady. He had striven to help the unfortunate +Harrison at the risk of incurring Wolf Larsen’s anger.</p> +<p>The time went by, and the suspense, to me, was terrible. Thomas +Mugridge, on the other hand, considered it a laughable affair, and was +continually bobbing his head out the galley door to make jocose remarks. +How I hated him! And how my hatred for him grew and grew, during +that fearful time, to cyclopean dimensions. For the first time +in my life I experienced the desire to murder—“saw red,” +as some of our picturesque writers phrase it. Life in general +might still be sacred, but life in the particular case of Thomas Mugridge +had become very profane indeed. I was frightened when I became +conscious that I was seeing red, and the thought flashed through my +mind: was I, too, becoming tainted by the brutality of my environment?—I, +who even in the most flagrant crimes had denied the justice and righteousness +of capital punishment?</p> +<p>Fully half-an-hour went by, and then I saw Johnson and Louis in some +sort of altercation. It ended with Johnson flinging off Louis’s +detaining arm and starting forward. He crossed the deck, sprang +into the fore rigging, and began to climb. But the quick eye of +Wolf Larsen caught him.</p> +<p>“Here, you, what are you up to?” he cried.</p> +<p>Johnson’s ascent was arrested. He looked his captain +in the eyes and replied slowly:</p> +<p>“I am going to get that boy down.”</p> +<p>“You’ll get down out of that rigging, and damn lively +about it! D’ye hear? Get down!”</p> +<p>Johnson hesitated, but the long years of obedience to the masters +of ships overpowered him, and he dropped sullenly to the deck and went +on forward.</p> +<p>At half after five I went below to set the cabin table, but I hardly +knew what I did, for my eyes and my brain were filled with the vision +of a man, white-faced and trembling, comically like a bug, clinging +to the thrashing gaff. At six o’clock, when I served supper, +going on deck to get the food from the galley, I saw Harrison, still +in the same position. The conversation at the table was of other +things. Nobody seemed interested in the wantonly imperilled life. +But making an extra trip to the galley a little later, I was gladdened +by the sight of Harrison staggering weakly from the rigging to the forecastle +scuttle. He had finally summoned the courage to descend.</p> +<p>Before closing this incident, I must give a scrap of conversation +I had with Wolf Larsen in the cabin, while I was washing the dishes.</p> +<p>“You were looking squeamish this afternoon,” he began. +“What was the matter?”</p> +<p>I could see that he knew what had made me possibly as sick as Harrison, +that he was trying to draw me, and I answered, “It was because +of the brutal treatment of that boy.”</p> +<p>He gave a short laugh. “Like sea-sickness, I suppose. +Some men are subject to it, and others are not.”</p> +<p>“Not so,” I objected.</p> +<p>“Just so,” he went on. “The earth is as full +of brutality as the sea is full of motion. And some men are made +sick by the one, and some by the other. That’s the only +reason.”</p> +<p>“But you, who make a mock of human life, don’t you place +any value upon it whatever?” I demanded.</p> +<p>“Value? What value?” He looked at me, and +though his eyes were steady and motionless, there seemed a cynical smile +in them. “What kind of value? How do you measure it? +Who values it?”</p> +<p>“I do,” I made answer.</p> +<p>“Then what is it worth to you? Another man’s life, +I mean. Come now, what is it worth?”</p> +<p>The value of life? How could I put a tangible value upon it? +Somehow, I, who have always had expression, lacked expression when with +Wolf Larsen. I have since determined that a part of it was due +to the man’s personality, but that the greater part was due to +his totally different outlook. Unlike other materialists I had +met and with whom I had something in common to start on, I had nothing +in common with him. Perhaps, also, it was the elemental simplicity +of his mind that baffled me. He drove so directly to the core +of the matter, divesting a question always of all superfluous details, +and with such an air of finality, that I seemed to find myself struggling +in deep water, with no footing under me. Value of life? +How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The +sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically +valuable was a truism I had never questioned. But when he challenged +the truism I was speechless.</p> +<p>“We were talking about this yesterday,” he said. +“I held that life was a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured +life that it might live, and that living was merely successful piggishness. +Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest +thing in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, +so much air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. +Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of +eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins +are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find +time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn +life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate +continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap +things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature +spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one +life, she sows a thousand lives, and it’s life eats life till +the strongest and most piggish life is left.”</p> +<p>“You have read Darwin,” I said. “But you +read him misunderstandingly when you conclude that the struggle for +existence sanctions your wanton destruction of life.”</p> +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. “You know you only mean that +in relation to human life, for of the flesh and the fowl and the fish +you destroy as much as I or any other man. And human life is in +no wise different, though you feel it is and think that you reason why +it is. Why should I be parsimonious with this life which is cheap +and without value? There are more sailors than there are ships +on the sea for them, more workers than there are factories or machines +for them. Why, you who live on the land know that you house your +poor people in the slums of cities and loose famine and pestilence upon +them, and that there still remain more poor people, dying for want of +a crust of bread and a bit of meat (which is life destroyed), than you +know what to do with. Have you ever seen the London dockers fighting +like wild beasts for a chance to work?”</p> +<p>He started for the companion stairs, but turned his head for a final +word. “Do you know the only value life has is what life +puts upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it +is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I +had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure +beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? +Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his +estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more +life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains +upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss +to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply +is too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how +fictitious even this value was, being dead he is unconscious that he +has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. +Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away +by a bucket of sea-water, and he does not even know that the diamonds +and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss +of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don’t you see? +And what have you to say?”</p> +<p>“That you are at least consistent,” was all I could say, +and I went on washing the dishes.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the north-east +trades. I came on deck, after a good night’s rest in spite +of my poor knee, to find the <i>Ghost</i> foaming along, wing-and-wing, +and every sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern. +Oh, the wonder of the great trade-wind! All day we sailed, and +all night, and the next day, and the next, day after day, the wind always +astern and blowing steadily and strong. The schooner sailed herself. +There was no pulling and hauling on sheets and tackles, no shifting +of topsails, no work at all for the sailors to do except to steer. +At night when the sun went down, the sheets were slackened; in the morning, +when they yielded up the damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled +tight again—and that was all.</p> +<p>Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, +is the speed we are making. And ever out of the north-east the +brave wind blows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty miles +between the dawns. It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait with +which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with which we are foaming +down upon the tropics. Each day grows perceptibly warmer. +In the second dog-watch the sailors come on deck, stripped, and heave +buckets of water upon one another from overside. Flying-fish are +beginning to be seen, and during the night the watch above scrambles +over the deck in pursuit of those that fall aboard. In the morning, +Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley is pleasantly areek with +the odour of their frying; while dolphin meat is served fore and aft +on such occasions as Johnson catches the blazing beauties from the bowsprit +end.</p> +<p>Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the crosstrees, +watching the <i>Ghost</i> cleaving the water under press of sail. +There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about in a sort +of trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the foaming wake, +and the heave and the run of her over the liquid mountains that are +moving with us in stately procession.</p> +<p>The days and nights are “all a wonder and a wild delight,” +and though I have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments +to gaze and gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the world +possessed. Above, the sky is stainless blue—blue as the +sea itself, which under the forefoot is of the colour and sheen of azure +satin. All around the horizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never changing, +never moving, like a silver setting for the flawless turquoise sky.</p> +<p>I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying +on the forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of foam +thrust aside by the <i>Ghost’s</i> forefoot. It sounded +like the gurgling of a brook over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and +the crooning song of it lured me away and out of myself till I was no +longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed away +thirty-five years among books. But a voice behind me, the unmistakable +voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with the invincible certitude of the man +and mellow with appreciation of the words he was quoting, aroused me.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“‘O the blazing tropic night, when the wake’s a +welt of light<br />That holds the hot sky tame,<br />And the steady +forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors<br />Where the scared +whale flukes in flame.<br />Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear +lass,<br />And her ropes are taut with the dew,<br />For we’re +booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,<br />We’re +sagging south on the Long Trail—the trail that is always new.’”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Eh, Hump? How’s it strike you?” he asked, +after the due pause which words and setting demanded.</p> +<p>I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea +itself, and the eyes were flashing in the starshine.</p> +<p>“It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should +show enthusiasm,” I answered coldly.</p> +<p>“Why, man, it’s living! it’s life!” he cried.</p> +<p>“Which is a cheap thing and without value.” I flung +his words at him.</p> +<p>He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in +his voice.</p> +<p>“Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your +head, what a thing this life is. Of course life is valueless, +except to itself. And I can tell you that my life is pretty valuable +just now—to myself. It is beyond price, which you will acknowledge +is a terrific overrating, but which I cannot help, for it is the life +that is in me that makes the rating.”</p> +<p>He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought +that was in him, and finally went on.</p> +<p>“Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as +if all time were echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. +I know truth, divine good from evil, right from wrong. My vision +is clear and far. I could almost believe in God. But,” +and his voice changed and the light went out of his face,—“what +is this condition in which I find myself? this joy of living? this exultation +of life? this inspiration, I may well call it? It is what comes +when there is nothing wrong with one’s digestion, when his stomach +is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and all goes well. It +is the bribe for living, the champagne of the blood, the effervescence +of the ferment—that makes some men think holy thoughts, and other +men to see God or to create him when they cannot see him. That +is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, +the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is +alive. And—bah! To-morrow I shall pay for it as the +drunkard pays. And I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely, +cease crawling of myself to be all a-crawl with the corruption of the +sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and +movement of my muscles that it may become strength and movement in fin +and scale and the guts of fishes. Bah! And bah! again. +The champagne is already flat. The sparkle and bubble has gone +out and it is a tasteless drink.”</p> +<p>He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with +the weight and softness of a tiger. The <i>Ghost</i> ploughed +on her way. I noted the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, +and as I listened to it the effect of Wolf Larsen’s swift rush +from sublime exultation to despair slowly left me. Then some deep-water +sailor, from the waist of the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the +“Song of the Trade Wind”:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Oh, I am the wind the seamen love—<br />I am steady, +and strong, and true;<br />They follow my track by the clouds above,<br />O’er +the fathomless tropic blue.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Through daylight and dark I follow the bark<br />I keep like a hound +on her trail;<br />I’m strongest at noon, yet under the moon,<br />I +stiffen the bunt of her sail.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Sometimes I think Wolf Larsen mad, or half-mad at least, what of +his strange moods and vagaries. At other times I take him for +a great man, a genius who has never arrived. And, finally, I am +convinced that he is the perfect type of the primitive man, born a thousand +years or generations too late and an anachronism in this culminating +century of civilization. He is certainly an individualist of the +most pronounced type. Not only that, but he is very lonely. +There is no congeniality between him and the rest of the men aboard +ship. His tremendous virility and mental strength wall him apart. +They are more like children to him, even the hunters, and as children +he treats them, descending perforce to their level and playing with +them as a man plays with puppies. Or else he probes them with +the cruel hand of a vivisectionist, groping about in their mental processes +and examining their souls as though to see of what soul-stuff is made.</p> +<p>I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter +or that, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of interest, +pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a curiosity almost +laughable to me who stood onlooker and who understood. Concerning +his own rages, I am convinced that they are not real, that they are +sometimes experiments, but that in the main they are the habits of a +pose or attitude he has seen fit to take toward his fellow-men. +I know, with the possible exception of the incident of the dead mate, +that I have not seen him really angry; nor do I wish ever to see him +in a genuine rage, when all the force of him is called into play.</p> +<p>While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell Thomas +Mugridge in the cabin, and at the same time complete an incident upon +which I have already touched once or twice. The twelve o’clock +dinner was over, one day, and I had just finished putting the cabin +in order, when Wolf Larsen and Thomas Mugridge descended the companion +stairs. Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a state-room opening +off from the cabin, in the cabin itself he had never dared to linger +or to be seen, and he flitted to and fro, once or twice a day, a timid +spectre.</p> +<p>“So you know how to play ‘Nap,’” Wolf Larsen +was saying in a pleased sort of voice. “I might have guessed +an Englishman would know. I learned it myself in English ships.”</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so pleased +was he at chumming thus with the captain. The little airs he put +on and the painful striving to assume the easy carriage of a man born +to a dignified place in life would have been sickening had they not +been ludicrous. He quite ignored my presence, though I credited +him with being simply unable to see me. His pale, wishy-washy +eyes were swimming like lazy summer seas, though what blissful visions +they beheld were beyond my imagination.</p> +<p>“Get the cards, Hump,” Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took +seats at the table. “And bring out the cigars and the whisky +you’ll find in my berth.”</p> +<p>I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting +broadly that there was a mystery about him, that he might be a gentleman’s +son gone wrong or something or other; also, that he was a remittance +man and was paid to keep away from England—“p’yed +’ansomely, sir,” was the way he put it; “p’yed +’ansomely to sling my ’ook an’ keep slingin’ +it.”</p> +<p>I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned, +shook his head, and signalled with his hands for me to bring the tumblers. +These he filled two-thirds full with undiluted whisky—“a +gentleman’s drink?” quoth Thomas Mugridge,—and they +clinked their glasses to the glorious game of “Nap,” lighted +cigars, and fell to shuffling and dealing the cards.</p> +<p>They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets. +They drank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do +not know whether Wolf Larsen cheated or not,—a thing he was thoroughly +capable of doing,—but he won steadily. The cook made repeated +journeys to his bunk for money. Each time he performed the journey +with greater swagger, but he never brought more than a few dollars at +a time. He grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly see the cards +or sit upright. As a preliminary to another journey to his bunk, +he hooked Wolf Larsen’s buttonhole with a greasy forefinger and +vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, “I got money, I got money, +I tell yer, an’ I’m a gentleman’s son.”</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for glass, +and if anything his glasses were fuller. There was no change in +him. He did not appear even amused at the other’s antics.</p> +<p>In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a gentleman, +the cook’s last money was staked on the game—and lost. +Whereupon he leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen +looked curiously at him, as though about to probe and vivisect him, +then changed his mind, as from the foregone conclusion that there was +nothing there to probe.</p> +<p>“Hump,” he said to me, elaborately polite, “kindly +take Mr. Mugridge’s arm and help him up on deck. He is not +feeling very well.”</p> +<p>“And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water,” +he added, in a lower tone for my ear alone.</p> +<p>I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning +sailors who had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was +sleepily spluttering that he was a gentleman’s son. But +as I descended the companion stairs to clear the table I heard him shriek +as the first bucket of water struck him.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings.</p> +<p>“One hundred and eighty-five dollars even,” he said aloud. +“Just as I thought. “The beggar came aboard without +a cent.”</p> +<p>“And what you have won is mine, sir,” I said boldly.</p> +<p>He favoured me with a quizzical smile. “Hump, I have +studied some grammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. +‘Was mine,’ you should have said, not ’is mine.’”</p> +<p>“It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics,” I +answered.</p> +<p>It was possibly a minute before he spoke.</p> +<p>“D’ye know, Hump,” he said, with a slow seriousness +which had in it an indefinable strain of sadness, “that this is +the first time I have heard the word ‘ethics’ in the mouth +of a man. You and I are the only men on this ship who know its +meaning.”</p> +<p>“At one time in my life,” he continued, after another +pause, “I dreamed that I might some day talk with men who used +such language, that I might lift myself out of the place in life in +which I had been born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who +talked about just such things as ethics. And this is the first +time I have ever heard the word pronounced. Which is all by the +way, for you are wrong. It is a question neither of grammar nor +ethics, but of fact.”</p> +<p>“I understand,” I said. “The fact is that +you have the money.”</p> +<p>His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. +“But it is avoiding the real question,” I continued, “which +is one of right.”</p> +<p>“Ah,” he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, “I +see you still believe in such things as right and wrong.”</p> +<p>“But don’t you?—at all?” I demanded.</p> +<p>“Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there +is to it. Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of +saying that it is good for oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself +to be weak—or better yet, it is pleasurable to be strong, because +of the profits; painful to be weak, because of the penalties. +Just now the possession of this money is a pleasurable thing. +It is good for one to possess it. Being able to possess it, I +wrong myself and the life that is in me if I give it to you and forego +the pleasure of possessing it.”</p> +<p>“But you wrong me by withholding it,” I objected.</p> +<p>“Not at all. One man cannot wrong another man. +He can only wrong himself. As I see it, I do wrong always when +I consider the interests of others. Don’t you see? +How can two particles of the yeast wrong each other by striving to devour +each other? It is their inborn heritage to strive to devour, and +to strive not to be devoured. When they depart from this they +sin.”</p> +<p>“Then you don’t believe in altruism?” I asked.</p> +<p>He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though he pondered +it thoughtfully. “Let me see, it means something about coöperation, +doesn’t it?”</p> +<p>“Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection,” +I answered unsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary, +which, like his knowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read, self-educated +man, whom no one had directed in his studies, and who had thought much +and talked little or not at all. “An altruistic act is an +act performed for the welfare of others. It is unselfish, as opposed +to an act performed for self, which is selfish.”</p> +<p>He nodded his head. “Oh, yes, I remember it now. +I ran across it in Spencer.”</p> +<p>“Spencer!” I cried. “Have you read him?”</p> +<p>“Not very much,” was his confession. “I understood +quite a good deal of <i>First Principles</i>, but his <i>Biology</i> +took the wind out of my sails, and his <i>Psychology</i> left me butting +around in the doldrums for many a day. I honestly could not understand +what he was driving at. I put it down to mental deficiency on +my part, but since then I have decided that it was for want of preparation. +I had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myself know how hard I +hammered. But I did get something out of his <i>Data of Ethics</i>. +There’s where I ran across ‘altruism,’ and I remember +now how it was used.”</p> +<p>I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer +I remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his ideal +of highest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the great +philosopher’s teachings, rejecting and selecting according to +his needs and desires.</p> +<p>“What else did you run across?” I asked.</p> +<p>His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably phrasing +thoughts which he had never before put into speech. I felt an +elation of spirit. I was groping into his soul-stuff as he made +a practice of groping in the soul-stuff of others. I was exploring +virgin territory. A strange, a terribly strange, region was unrolling +itself before my eyes.</p> +<p>“In as few words as possible,” he began, “Spencer +puts it something like this: First, a man must act for his own benefit—to +do this is to be moral and good. Next, he must act for the benefit +of his children. And third, he must act for the benefit of his +race.”</p> +<p>“And the highest, finest, right conduct,” I interjected, +“is that act which benefits at the same time the man, his children, +and his race.”</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t stand for that,” he replied. +“Couldn’t see the necessity for it, nor the common sense. +I cut out the race and the children. I would sacrifice nothing +for them. It’s just so much slush and sentiment, and you +must see it yourself, at least for one who does not believe in eternal +life. With immortality before me, altruism would be a paying business +proposition. I might elevate my soul to all kinds of altitudes. +But with nothing eternal before me but death, given for a brief spell +this yeasty crawling and squirming which is called life, why, it would +be immoral for me to perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any +sacrifice that makes me lose one crawl or squirm is foolish,—and +not only foolish, for it is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. +I must not lose one crawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the +ferment. Nor will the eternal movelessness that is coming to me +be made easier or harder by the sacrifices or selfishnesses of the time +when I was yeasty and acrawl.”</p> +<p>“Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, +a hedonist.”</p> +<p>“Big words,” he smiled. “But what is a hedonist?”</p> +<p>He nodded agreement when I had given the definition. “And +you are also,” I continued, “a man one could not trust in +the least thing where it was possible for a selfish interest to intervene?”</p> +<p>“Now you’re beginning to understand,” he said, +brightening.</p> +<p>“You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?”</p> +<p>“That’s it.”</p> +<p>“A man of whom to be always afraid—”</p> +<p>“That’s the way to put it.”</p> +<p>“As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?”</p> +<p>“Now you know me,” he said. “And you know +me as I am generally known. Other men call me ‘Wolf.’”</p> +<p>“You are a sort of monster,” I added audaciously, “a +Caliban who has pondered Setebos, and who acts as you act, in idle moments, +by whim and fancy.”</p> +<p>His brow clouded at the allusion. He did not understand, and +I quickly learned that he did not know the poem.</p> +<p>“I’m just reading Browning,” he confessed, “and +it’s pretty tough. I haven’t got very far along, and +as it is I’ve about lost my bearings.”</p> +<p>Not to be tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from his +state-room and read “Caliban” aloud. He was delighted. +It was a primitive mode of reasoning and of looking at things that he +understood thoroughly. He interrupted again and again with comment +and criticism. When I finished, he had me read it over a second +time, and a third. We fell into discussion—philosophy, science, +evolution, religion. He betrayed the inaccuracies of the self-read +man, and, it must be granted, the sureness and directness of the primitive +mind. The very simplicity of his reasoning was its strength, and +his materialism was far more compelling than the subtly complex materialism +of Charley Furuseth. Not that I—a confirmed and, as Furuseth +phrased it, a temperamental idealist—was to be compelled; but +that Wolf Larsen stormed the last strongholds of my faith with a vigour +that received respect, while not accorded conviction.</p> +<p>Time passed. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. +I became restless and anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down +the companion-way, sick and angry of countenance, I prepared to go about +my duties. But Wolf Larsen cried out to him:</p> +<p>“Cooky, you’ve got to hustle to-night. I’m +busy with Hump, and you’ll do the best you can without him.”</p> +<p>And again the unprecedented was established. That night I sat +at table with the captain and the hunters, while Thomas Mugridge waited +on us and washed the dishes afterward—a whim, a Caliban-mood of +Wolf Larsen’s, and one I foresaw would bring me trouble. +In the meantime we talked and talked, much to the disgust of the hunters, +who could not understand a word.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Three days of rest, three blessed days of rest, are what I had with +Wolf Larsen, eating at the cabin table and doing nothing but discuss +life, literature, and the universe, the while Thomas Mugridge fumed +and raged and did my work as well as his own.</p> +<p>“Watch out for squalls, is all I can say to you,” was +Louis’s warning, given during a spare half-hour on deck while +Wolf Larsen was engaged in straightening out a row among the hunters.</p> +<p>“Ye can’t tell what’ll be happenin’,” +Louis went on, in response to my query for more definite information. +“The man’s as contrary as air currents or water currents. +You can never guess the ways iv him. ’Tis just as you’re +thinkin’ you know him and are makin’ a favourable slant +along him, that he whirls around, dead ahead and comes howlin’ +down upon you and a-rippin’ all iv your fine-weather sails to +rags.”</p> +<p>So I was not altogether surprised when the squall foretold by Louis +smote me. We had been having a heated discussion,—upon life, +of course,—and, grown over-bold, I was passing stiff strictures +upon Wolf Larsen and the life of Wolf Larsen. In fact, I was vivisecting +him and turning over his soul-stuff as keenly and thoroughly as it was +his custom to do it to others. It may be a weakness of mine that +I have an incisive way of speech; but I threw all restraint to the winds +and cut and slashed until the whole man of him was snarling. The +dark sun-bronze of his face went black with wrath, his eyes were ablaze. +There was no clearness or sanity in them—nothing but the terrific +rage of a madman. It was the wolf in him that I saw, and a mad +wolf at that.</p> +<p>He sprang for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled +myself to brazen it out, though I was trembling inwardly; but the enormous +strength of the man was too much for my fortitude. He had gripped +me by the biceps with his single hand, and when that grip tightened +I wilted and shrieked aloud. My feet went out from under me. +I simply could not stand upright and endure the agony. The muscles +refused their duty. The pain was too great. My biceps was +being crushed to a pulp.</p> +<p>He seemed to recover himself, for a lucid gleam came into his eyes, +and he relaxed his hold with a short laugh that was more like a growl. +I fell to the floor, feeling very faint, while he sat down, lighted +a cigar, and watched me as a cat watches a mouse. As I writhed +about I could see in his eyes that curiosity I had so often noted, that +wonder and perplexity, that questing, that everlasting query of his +as to what it was all about.</p> +<p>I finally crawled to my feet and ascended the companion stairs. +Fair weather was over, and there was nothing left but to return to the +galley. My left arm was numb, as though paralysed, and days passed +before I could use it, while weeks went by before the last stiffness +and pain went out of it. And he had done nothing but put his hand +upon my arm and squeeze. There had been no wrenching or jerking. +He had just closed his hand with a steady pressure. What he might +have done I did not fully realize till next day, when he put his head +into the galley, and, as a sign of renewed friendliness, asked me how +my arm was getting on.</p> +<p>“It might have been worse,” he smiled.</p> +<p>I was peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. +It was fair-sized, firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon +it, squeezed, and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy +streams. The pulpy remnant he dropped back into the pan and turned +away, and I had a sharp vision of how it might have fared with me had +the monster put his real strength upon me.</p> +<p>But the three days’ rest was good in spite of it all, for it +had given my knee the very chance it needed. It felt much better, +the swelling had materially decreased, and the cap seemed descending +into its proper place. Also, the three days’ rest brought +the trouble I had foreseen. It was plainly Thomas Mugridge’s +intention to make me pay for those three days. He treated me vilely, +cursed me continually, and heaped his own work upon me. He even +ventured to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming animal-like myself, +and I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened him +back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself, Humphrey +Van Weyden, in that noisome ship’s galley, crouched in a corner +over my task, my face raised to the face of the creature about to strike +me, my lips lifted and snarling like a dog’s, my eyes gleaming +with fear and helplessness and the courage that comes of fear and helplessness. +I do not like the picture. It reminds me too strongly of a rat +in a trap. I do not care to think of it; but it was elective, +for the threatened blow did not descend.</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge backed away, glaring as hatefully and viciously as +I glared. A pair of beasts is what we were, penned together and +showing our teeth. He was a coward, afraid to strike me because +I had not quailed sufficiently in advance; so he chose a new way to +intimidate me. There was only one galley knife that, as a knife, +amounted to anything. This, through many years of service and +wear, had acquired a long, lean blade. It was unusually cruel-looking, +and at first I had shuddered every time I used it. The cook borrowed +a stone from Johansen and proceeded to sharpen the knife. He did +it with great ostentation, glancing significantly at me the while. +He whetted it up and down all day long. Every odd moment he could +find he had the knife and stone out and was whetting away. The +steel acquired a razor edge. He tried it with the ball of his +thumb or across the nail. He shaved hairs from the back of his +hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic acuteness, and found, +or feigned that he found, always, a slight inequality in its edge somewhere. +Then he would put it on the stone again and whet, whet, whet, till I +could have laughed aloud, it was so very ludicrous.</p> +<p>It was also serious, for I learned that he was capable of using it, +that under all his cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like +mine, that would impel him to do the very thing his whole nature protested +against doing and was afraid of doing. “Cooky’s sharpening +his knife for Hump,” was being whispered about among the sailors, +and some of them twitted him about it. This he took in good part, +and was really pleased, nodding his head with direful foreknowledge +and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy, ventured some +rough pleasantry on the subject.</p> +<p>Now it happened that Leach was one of the sailors told off to douse +Mugridge after his game of cards with the captain. Leach had evidently +done his task with a thoroughness that Mugridge had not forgiven, for +words followed and evil names involving smirched ancestries. Mugridge +menaced with the knife he was sharpening for me. Leach laughed +and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill Billingsgate, and before either +he or I knew what had happened, his right arm had been ripped open from +elbow to wrist by a quick slash of the knife. The cook backed +away, a fiendish expression on his face, the knife held before him in +a position of defence. But Leach took it quite calmly, though +blood was spouting upon the deck as generously as water from a fountain.</p> +<p>“I’m goin’ to get you, Cooky,” he said, “and +I’ll get you hard. And I won’t be in no hurry about +it. You’ll be without that knife when I come for you.”</p> +<p>So saying, he turned and walked quietly forward. Mugridge’s +face was livid with fear at what he had done and at what he might expect +sooner or later from the man he had stabbed. But his demeanour +toward me was more ferocious than ever. In spite of his fear at +the reckoning he must expect to pay for what he had done, he could see +that it had been an object-lesson to me, and he became more domineering +and exultant. Also there was a lust in him, akin to madness, which +had come with sight of the blood he had drawn. He was beginning +to see red in whatever direction he looked. The psychology of +it is sadly tangled, and yet I could read the workings of his mind as +clearly as though it were a printed book.</p> +<p>Several days went by, the <i>Ghost</i> still foaming down the trades, +and I could swear I saw madness growing in Thomas Mugridge’s eyes. +And I confess that I became afraid, very much afraid. Whet, whet, +whet, it went all day long. The look in his eyes as he felt the +keen edge and glared at me was positively carnivorous. I was afraid +to turn my shoulder to him, and when I left the galley I went out backwards—to +the amusement of the sailors and hunters, who made a point of gathering +in groups to witness my exit. The strain was too great. +I sometimes thought my mind would give way under it—a meet thing +on this ship of madmen and brutes. Every hour, every minute of +my existence was in jeopardy. I was a human soul in distress, +and yet no soul, fore or aft, betrayed sufficient sympathy to come to +my aid. At times I thought of throwing myself on the mercy of +Wolf Larsen, but the vision of the mocking devil in his eyes that questioned +life and sneered at it would come strong upon me and compel me to refrain. +At other times I seriously contemplated suicide, and the whole force +of my hopeful philosophy was required to keep me from going over the +side in the darkness of night.</p> +<p>Several times Wolf Larsen tried to inveigle me into discussion, but +I gave him short answers and eluded him. Finally, he commanded +me to resume my seat at the cabin table for a time and let the cook +do my work. Then I spoke frankly, telling him what I was enduring +from Thomas Mugridge because of the three days of favouritism which +had been shown me. Wolf Larsen regarded me with smiling eyes.</p> +<p>“So you’re afraid, eh?” he sneered.</p> +<p>“Yes,” I said defiantly and honestly, “I am afraid.”</p> +<p>“That’s the way with you fellows,” he cried, half +angrily, “sentimentalizing about your immortal souls and afraid +to die. At sight of a sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney the clinging +of life to life overcomes all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear +fellow, you will live for ever. You are a god, and God cannot +be killed. Cooky cannot hurt you. You are sure of your resurrection. +What’s there to be afraid of?</p> +<p>“You have eternal life before you. You are a millionaire +in immortality, and a millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose +fortune is less perishable than the stars and as lasting as space or +time. It is impossible for you to diminish your principal. +Immortality is a thing without beginning or end. Eternity is eternity, +and though you die here and now you will go on living somewhere else +and hereafter. And it is all very beautiful, this shaking off +of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned spirit. Cooky cannot +hurt you. He can only give you a boost on the path you eternally +must tread.</p> +<p>“Or, if you do not wish to be boosted just yet, why not boost +Cooky? According to your ideas, he, too, must be an immortal millionaire. +You cannot bankrupt him. His paper will always circulate at par. +You cannot diminish the length of his living by killing him, for he +is without beginning or end. He’s bound to go on living, +somewhere, somehow. Then boost him. Stick a knife in him +and let his spirit free. As it is, it’s in a nasty prison, +and you’ll do him only a kindness by breaking down the door. +And who knows?—it may be a very beautiful spirit that will go +soaring up into the blue from that ugly carcass. Boost him along, +and I’ll promote you to his place, and he’s getting forty-five +dollars a month.”</p> +<p>It was plain that I could look for no help or mercy from Wolf Larsen. +Whatever was to be done I must do for myself; and out of the courage +of fear I evolved the plan of fighting Thomas Mugridge with his own +weapons. I borrowed a whetstone from Johansen. Louis, the +boat-steerer, had already begged me for condensed milk and sugar. +The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was situated beneath +the cabin floor. Watching my chance, I stole five cans of the +milk, and that night, when it was Louis’s watch on deck, I traded +them with him for a dirk as lean and cruel-looking as Thomas Mugridge’s +vegetable knife. It was rusty and dull, but I turned the grindstone +while Louis gave it an edge. I slept more soundly than usual that +night.</p> +<p>Next morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet, whet, +whet. I glanced warily at him, for I was on my knees taking the +ashes from the stove. When I returned from throwing them overside, +he was talking to Harrison, whose honest yokel’s face was filled +with fascination and wonder.</p> +<p>“Yes,” Mugridge was saying, “an’ wot does +’is worship do but give me two years in Reading. But blimey +if I cared. The other mug was fixed plenty. Should ’a +seen ’im. Knife just like this. I stuck it in, like +into soft butter, an’ the w’y ’e squealed was better’n +a tu-penny gaff.” He shot a glance in my direction to see +if I was taking it in, and went on. “‘I didn’t +mean it Tommy,’ ’e was snifflin’; ‘so ’elp +me Gawd, I didn’t mean it!’ “‘I’ll +fix yer bloody well right,’ I sez, an’ kept right after +’im. I cut ’im in ribbons, that’s wot I did, +an’ ’e a-squealin’ all the time. Once ’e +got ’is ’and on the knife an’ tried to ’old +it. ‘Ad ’is fingers around it, but I pulled it through, +cuttin’ to the bone. O, ’e was a sight, I can tell +yer.”</p> +<p>A call from the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison +went aft. Mugridge sat down on the raised threshold to the galley +and went on with his knife-sharpening. I put the shovel away and +calmly sat down on the coal-box facing him. He favoured me with +a vicious stare. Still calmly, though my heart was going pitapat, +I pulled out Louis’s dirk and began to whet it on the stone. +I had looked for almost any sort of explosion on the Cockney’s +part, but to my surprise he did not appear aware of what I was doing. +He went on whetting his knife. So did I. And for two hours +we sat there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread +abroad and half the ship’s company was crowding the galley doors +to see the sight.</p> +<p>Encouragement and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the +quiet, self-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a mouse, +advised me to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward for the abdomen, +at the same time giving what he called the “Spanish twist” +to the blade. Leach, his bandaged arm prominently to the fore, +begged me to leave a few remnants of the cook for him; and Wolf Larsen +paused once or twice at the break of the poop to glance curiously at +what must have been to him a stirring and crawling of the yeasty thing +he knew as life.</p> +<p>And I make free to say that for the time being life assumed the same +sordid values to me. There was nothing pretty about it, nothing +divine—only two cowardly moving things that sat whetting steel +upon stone, and a group of other moving things, cowardly and otherwise, +that looked on. Half of them, I am sure, were anxious to see us +shedding each other’s blood. It would have been entertainment. +And I do not think there was one who would have interfered had we closed +in a death-struggle.</p> +<p>On the other hand, the whole thing was laughable and childish. +Whet, whet, whet,—Humphrey Van Weyden sharpening his knife in +a ship’s galley and trying its edge with his thumb! Of all +situations this was the most inconceivable. I know that my own +kind could not have believed it possible. I had not been called +“Sissy” Van Weyden all my days without reason, and that +“Sissy” Van Weyden should be capable of doing this thing +was a revelation to Humphrey Van Weyden, who knew not whether to be +exultant or ashamed.</p> +<p>But nothing happened. At the end of two hours Thomas Mugridge +put away knife and stone and held out his hand.</p> +<p>“Wot’s the good of mykin’ a ’oly show of +ourselves for them mugs?” he demanded. “They don’t +love us, an’ bloody well glad they’d be a-seein’ us +cuttin’ our throats. Yer not ’arf bad, ’Ump! +You’ve got spunk, as you Yanks s’y, an’ I like yer +in a w’y. So come on an’ shyke.”</p> +<p>Coward that I might be, I was less a coward than he. It was +a distinct victory I had gained, and I refused to forego any of it by +shaking his detestable hand.</p> +<p>“All right,” he said pridelessly, “tyke it or leave +it, I’ll like yer none the less for it.” And to save +his face he turned fiercely upon the onlookers. “Get outa +my galley-doors, you bloomin’ swabs!”</p> +<p>This command was reinforced by a steaming kettle of water, and at +sight of it the sailors scrambled out of the way. This was a sort +of victory for Thomas Mugridge, and enabled him to accept more gracefully +the defeat I had given him, though, of course, he was too discreet to +attempt to drive the hunters away.</p> +<p>“I see Cooky’s finish,” I heard Smoke say to Horner.</p> +<p>“You bet,” was the reply. “Hump runs the +galley from now on, and Cooky pulls in his horns.”</p> +<p>Mugridge heard and shot a swift glance at me, but I gave no sign +that the conversation had reached me. I had not thought my victory +was so far-reaching and complete, but I resolved to let go nothing I +had gained. As the days went by, Smoke’s prophecy was verified. +The Cockney became more humble and slavish to me than even to Wolf Larsen. +I mistered him and sirred him no longer, washed no more greasy pots, +and peeled no more potatoes. I did my own work, and my own work +only, and when and in what fashion I saw fit. Also I carried the +dirk in a sheath at my hip, sailor-fashion, and maintained toward Thomas +Mugridge a constant attitude which was composed of equal parts of domineering, +insult, and contempt.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>My intimacy with Wolf Larsen increases—if by intimacy may be +denoted those relations which exist between master and man, or, better +yet, between king and jester. I am to him no more than a toy, +and he values me no more than a child values a toy. My function +is to amuse, and so long as I amuse all goes well; but let him become +bored, or let him have one of his black moods come upon him, and at +once I am relegated from cabin table to galley, while, at the same time, +I am fortunate to escape with my life and a whole body.</p> +<p>The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon me. +There is not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man +whom he does not despise. He seems consuming with the tremendous +power that is in him and that seems never to have found adequate expression +in works. He is as Lucifer would be, were that proud spirit banished +to a society of soulless, Tomlinsonian ghosts.</p> +<p>This loneliness is bad enough in itself, but, to make it worse, he +is oppressed by the primal melancholy of the race. Knowing him, +I review the old Scandinavian myths with clearer understanding. +The white-skinned, fair-haired savages who created that terrible pantheon +were of the same fibre as he. The frivolity of the laughter-loving +Latins is no part of him. When he laughs it is from a humour that +is nothing else than ferocious. But he laughs rarely; he is too +often sad. And it is a sadness as deep-reaching as the roots of +the race. It is the race heritage, the sadness which has made +the race sober-minded, clean-lived and fanatically moral, and which, +in this latter connection, has culminated among the English in the Reformed +Church and Mrs. Grundy.</p> +<p>In point of fact, the chief vent to this primal melancholy has been +religion in its more agonizing forms. But the compensations of +such religion are denied Wolf Larsen. His brutal materialism will +not permit it. So, when his blue moods come on, nothing remains +for him, but to be devilish. Were he not so terrible a man, I +could sometimes feel sorry for him, as instance three mornings ago, +when I went into his stateroom to fill his water-bottle and came unexpectedly +upon him. He did not see me. His head was buried in his +hands, and his shoulders were heaving convulsively as with sobs. +He seemed torn by some mighty grief. As I softly withdrew I could +hear him groaning, “God! God! God!” Not +that he was calling upon God; it was a mere expletive, but it came from +his soul.</p> +<p>At dinner he asked the hunters for a remedy for headache, and by +evening, strong man that he was, he was half-blind and reeling about +the cabin.</p> +<p>“I’ve never been sick in my life, Hump,” he said, +as I guided him to his room. “Nor did I ever have a headache +except the time my head was healing after having been laid open for +six inches by a capstan-bar.”</p> +<p>For three days this blinding headache lasted, and he suffered as +wild animals suffer, as it seemed the way on ship to suffer, without +plaint, without sympathy, utterly alone.</p> +<p>This morning, however, on entering his state-room to make the bed +and put things in order, I found him well and hard at work. Table +and bunk were littered with designs and calculations. On a large +transparent sheet, compass and square in hand, he was copying what appeared +to be a scale of some sort or other.</p> +<p>“Hello, Hump,” he greeted me genially. “I’m +just finishing the finishing touches. Want to see it work?”</p> +<p>“But what is it?” I asked.</p> +<p>“A labour-saving device for mariners, navigation reduced to +kindergarten simplicity,” he answered gaily. “From +to-day a child will be able to navigate a ship. No more long-winded +calculations. All you need is one star in the sky on a dirty night +to know instantly where you are. Look. I place the transparent +scale on this star-map, revolving the scale on the North Pole. +On the scale I’ve worked out the circles of altitude and the lines +of bearing. All I do is to put it on a star, revolve the scale +till it is opposite those figures on the map underneath, and presto! +there you are, the ship’s precise location!”</p> +<p>There was a ring of triumph in his voice, and his eyes, clear blue +this morning as the sea, were sparkling with light.</p> +<p>“You must be well up in mathematics,” I said. “Where +did you go to school?”</p> +<p>“Never saw the inside of one, worse luck,” was the answer. +“I had to dig it out for myself.”</p> +<p>“And why do you think I have made this thing?” he demanded, +abruptly. “Dreaming to leave footprints on the sands of +time?” He laughed one of his horrible mocking laughs. +“Not at all. To get it patented, to make money from it, +to revel in piggishness with all night in while other men do the work. +That’s my purpose. Also, I have enjoyed working it out.”</p> +<p>“The creative joy,” I murmured.</p> +<p>“I guess that’s what it ought to be called. Which +is another way of expressing the joy of life in that it is alive, the +triumph of movement over matter, of the quick over the dead, the pride +of the yeast because it is yeast and crawls.”</p> +<p>I threw up my hands with helpless disapproval of his inveterate materialism +and went about making the bed. He continued copying lines and +figures upon the transparent scale. It was a task requiring the +utmost nicety and precision, and I could not but admire the way he tempered +his strength to the fineness and delicacy of the need.</p> +<p>When I had finished the bed, I caught myself looking at him in a +fascinated sort of way. He was certainly a handsome man—beautiful +in the masculine sense. And again, with never-failing wonder, +I remarked the total lack of viciousness, or wickedness, or sinfulness +in his face. It was the face, I am convinced, of a man who did +no wrong. And by this I do not wish to be misunderstood. +What I mean is that it was the face of a man who either did nothing +contrary to the dictates of his conscience, or who had no conscience. +I am inclined to the latter way of accounting for it. He was a +magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive that he was of the type +that came into the world before the development of the moral nature. +He was not immoral, but merely unmoral.</p> +<p>As I have said, in the masculine sense his was a beautiful face. +Smooth-shaven, every line was distinct, and it was cut as clear and +sharp as a cameo; while sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair skin +to a dark bronze which bespoke struggle and battle and added both to +his savagery and his beauty. The lips were full, yet possessed +of the firmness, almost harshness, which is characteristic of thin lips. +The set of his mouth, his chin, his jaw, was likewise firm or harsh, +with all the fierceness and indomitableness of the male—the nose +also. It was the nose of a being born to conquer and command. +It just hinted of the eagle beak. It might have been Grecian, +it might have been Roman, only it was a shade too massive for the one, +a shade too delicate for the other. And while the whole face was +the incarnation of fierceness and strength, the primal melancholy from +which he suffered seemed to greaten the lines of mouth and eye and brow, +seemed to give a largeness and completeness which otherwise the face +would have lacked.</p> +<p>And so I caught myself standing idly and studying him. I cannot +say how greatly the man had come to interest me. Who was he? +What was he? How had he happened to be? All powers seemed +his, all potentialities—why, then, was he no more than the obscure +master of a seal-hunting schooner with a reputation for frightful brutality +amongst the men who hunted seals?</p> +<p>My curiosity burst from me in a flood of speech.</p> +<p>“Why is it that you have not done great things in this world? +With the power that is yours you might have risen to any height. +Unpossessed of conscience or moral instinct, you might have mastered +the world, broken it to your hand. And yet here you are, at the +top of your life, where diminishing and dying begin, living an obscure +and sordid existence, hunting sea animals for the satisfaction of woman’s +vanity and love of decoration, revelling in a piggishness, to use your +own words, which is anything and everything except splendid. Why, +with all that wonderful strength, have you not done something? +There was nothing to stop you, nothing that could stop you. What +was wrong? Did you lack ambition? Did you fall under temptation? +What was the matter? What was the matter?”</p> +<p>He had lifted his eyes to me at the commencement of my outburst, +and followed me complacently until I had done and stood before him breathless +and dismayed. He waited a moment, as though seeking where to begin, +and then said:</p> +<p>“Hump, do you know the parable of the sower who went forth +to sow? If you will remember, some of the seed fell upon stony +places, where there was not much earth, and forthwith they sprung up +because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up +they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. +And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung up and choked them.”</p> +<p>“Well?” I said.</p> +<p>“Well?” he queried, half petulantly. “It +was not well. I was one of those seeds.”</p> +<p>He dropped his head to the scale and resumed the copying. I +finished my work and had opened the door to leave, when he spoke to +me.</p> +<p>“Hump, if you will look on the west coast of the map of Norway +you will see an indentation called Romsdal Fiord. I was born within +a hundred miles of that stretch of water. But I was not born Norwegian. +I am a Dane. My father and mother were Danes, and how they ever +came to that bleak bight of land on the west coast I do not know. +I never heard. Outside of that there is nothing mysterious. +They were poor people and unlettered. They came of generations +of poor unlettered people—peasants of the sea who sowed their +sons on the waves as has been their custom since time began. There +is no more to tell.”</p> +<p>“But there is,” I objected. “It is still +obscure to me.”</p> +<p>“What can I tell you?” he demanded, with a recrudescence +of fierceness. “Of the meagreness of a child’s life? +of fish diet and coarse living? of going out with the boats from the +time I could crawl? of my brothers, who went away one by one to the +deep-sea farming and never came back? of myself, unable to read or write, +cabin-boy at the mature age of ten on the coastwise, old-country ships? +of the rough fare and rougher usage, where kicks and blows were bed +and breakfast and took the place of speech, and fear and hatred and +pain were my only soul-experiences? I do not care to remember. +A madness comes up in my brain even now as I think of it. But +there were coastwise skippers I would have returned and killed when +a man’s strength came to me, only the lines of my life were cast +at the time in other places. I did return, not long ago, but unfortunately +the skippers were dead, all but one, a mate in the old days, a skipper +when I met him, and when I left him a cripple who would never walk again.”</p> +<p>“But you who read Spencer and Darwin and have never seen the +inside of a school, how did you learn to read and write?” I queried.</p> +<p>“In the English merchant service. Cabin-boy at twelve, +ship’s boy at fourteen, ordinary seamen at sixteen, able seaman +at seventeen, and cock of the fo’c’sle, infinite ambition +and infinite loneliness, receiving neither help nor sympathy, I did +it all for myself—navigation, mathematics, science, literature, +and what not. And of what use has it been? Master and owner +of a ship at the top of my life, as you say, when I am beginning to +diminish and die. Paltry, isn’t it? And when the sun +was up I was scorched, and because I had no root I withered away.”</p> +<p>“But history tells of slaves who rose to the purple,” +I chided.</p> +<p>“And history tells of opportunities that came to the slaves +who rose to the purple,” he answered grimly. “No man +makes opportunity. All the great men ever did was to know it when +it came to them. The Corsican knew. I have dreamed as greatly +as the Corsican. I should have known the opportunity, but it never +came. The thorns sprung up and choked me. And, Hump, I can +tell you that you know more about me than any living man, except my +own brother.”</p> +<p>“And what is he? And where is he?”</p> +<p>“Master of the steamship <i>Macedonia</i>, seal-hunter,” +was the answer. “We will meet him most probably on the Japan +coast. Men call him ‘Death’ Larsen.”</p> +<p>“Death Larsen!” I involuntarily cried. “Is +he like you?”</p> +<p>“Hardly. He is a lump of an animal without any head. +He has all my—my—”</p> +<p>“Brutishness,” I suggested.</p> +<p>“Yes,—thank you for the word,—all my brutishness, +but he can scarcely read or write.”</p> +<p>“And he has never philosophized on life,” I added.</p> +<p>“No,” Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air +of sadness. “And he is all the happier for leaving life +alone. He is too busy living it to think about it. My mistake +was in ever opening the books.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The <i>Ghost</i> has attained the southernmost point of the arc she +is describing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edge away +to the west and north toward some lone island, it is rumoured, where +she will fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season’s +hunt along the coast of Japan. The hunters have experimented and +practised with their rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied, and +the boat-pullers and steerers have made their spritsails, bound the +oars and rowlocks in leather and sennit so that they will make no noise +when creeping on the seals, and put their boats in apple-pie order—to +use Leach’s homely phrase.</p> +<p>His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain +all his life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and +is afraid to venture on deck after dark. There are two or three +standing quarrels in the forecastle. Louis tells me that the gossip +of the sailors finds its way aft, and that two of the telltales have +been badly beaten by their mates. He shakes his head dubiously +over the outlook for the man Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same +boat with him. Johnson has been guilty of speaking his mind too +freely, and has collided two or three times with Wolf Larsen over the +pronunciation of his name. Johansen he thrashed on the amidships +deck the other night, since which time the mate has called him by his +proper name. But of course it is out of the question that Johnson +should thrash Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, +which tallies with the captain’s brief description. We may +expect to meet Death Larsen on the Japan coast. “And look +out for squalls,” is Louis’s prophecy, “for they hate +one another like the wolf whelps they are.” Death Larsen +is in command of the only sealing steamer in the fleet, the <i>Macedonia</i>, +which carries fourteen boats, whereas the rest of the schooners carry +only six. There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and of strange +raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium smuggling into +the States and arms smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open piracy. +Yet I cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a lie, while +he has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the sealing +fleets.</p> +<p>As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and +aft, on this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle ferociously +for one another’s lives. The hunters are looking for a shooting +scrape at any moment between Smoke and Henderson, whose old quarrel +has not healed, while Wolf Larsen says positively that he will kill +the survivor of the affair, if such affair comes off. He frankly +states that the position he takes is based on no moral grounds, that +all the hunters could kill and eat one another so far as he is concerned, +were it not that he needs them alive for the hunting. If they +will only hold their hands until the season is over, he promises them +a royal carnival, when all grudges can he settled and the survivors +may toss the non-survivors overboard and arrange a story as to how the +missing men were lost at sea. I think even the hunters are appalled +at his cold-bloodedness. Wicked men though they be, they are certainly +very much afraid of him.</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go about +in secret dread of him. His is the courage of fear,—a strange +thing I know well of myself,—and at any moment it may master the +fear and impel him to the taking of my life. My knee is much better, +though it often aches for long periods, and the stiffness is gradually +leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen squeezed. Otherwise I am in +splendid condition, feel that I am in splendid condition. My muscles +are growing harder and increasing in size. My hands, however, +are a spectacle for grief. They have a parboiled appearance, are +afflicted with hang-nails, while the nails are broken and discoloured, +and the edges of the quick seem to be assuming a fungoid sort of growth. +Also, I am suffering from boils, due to the diet, most likely, for I +was never afflicted in this manner before.</p> +<p>I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen reading +the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the beginning +of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate’s sea-chest. +I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to +me from Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he was speaking the thoughts +of his own mind as he read to me, and his voice, reverberating deeply +and mournfully in the confined cabin, charmed and held me. He +may be uneducated, but he certainly knows how to express the significance +of the written word. I can hear him now, as I shall always hear +him, the primal melancholy vibrant in his voice as he read:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure +of kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, +and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that +of all sorts.</p> +<p>“So I was great, and increased more than all that were before +me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom returned with me.</p> +<p>“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and +on the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity +and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.</p> +<p>“All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous +and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; +to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the +good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an +oath.</p> +<p>“This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, +that there is one event unto all; yea, also the heart of the sons of +men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, +and after that they go to the dead.</p> +<p>“For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; +for a living dog is better than a dead lion.</p> +<p>“For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know +not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of +them is forgotten.</p> +<p>“Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now +perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything +that is done under the sun.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“There you have it, Hump,” he said, closing the book +upon his finger and looking up at me. “The Preacher who +was king over Israel in Jerusalem thought as I think. You call +me a pessimist. Is not this pessimism of the blackest?—‘All +is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ ‘There is no profit under +the sun,’ ‘There is one event unto all,’ to the fool +and the wise, the clean and the unclean, the sinner and the saint, and +that event is death, and an evil thing, he says. For the Preacher +loved life, and did not want to die, saying, ‘For a living dog +is better than a dead lion.’ He preferred the vanity and +vexation to the silence and unmovableness of the grave. And so +I. To crawl is piggish; but to not crawl, to be as the clod and +rock, is loathsome to contemplate. It is loathsome to the life +that is in me, the very essence of which is movement, the power of movement, +and the consciousness of the power of movement. Life itself is +unsatisfaction, but to look ahead to death is greater unsatisfaction.”</p> +<p>“You are worse off than Omar,” I said. “He, +at least, after the customary agonizing of youth, found content and +made of his materialism a joyous thing.”</p> +<p>“Who was Omar?” Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more +work that day, nor the next, nor the next.</p> +<p>In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubáiyát, +and it was to him like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered, +possibly two-thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece out the +remainder without difficulty. We talked for hours over single +stanzas, and I found him reading into them a wail of regret and a rebellion +which, for the life of me, I could not discover myself. Possibly +I recited with a certain joyous lilt which was my own, for—his +memory was good, and at a second rendering, very often the first, he +made a quatrain his own—he recited the same lines and invested +them with an unrest and passionate revolt that was well-nigh convincing.</p> +<p>I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and was +not surprised when he hit upon the one born of an instant’s irritability, +and quite at variance with the Persian’s complacent philosophy +and genial code of life:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“What, without asking, hither hurried <i>Whence?<br /></i>And, +without asking, <i>Whither</i> hurried hence!<br />Oh, many a Cup of +this forbidden Wine<br />Must drown the memory of that insolence!”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Great!” Wolf Larsen cried. “Great! +That’s the keynote. Insolence! He could not have used +a better word.”</p> +<p>In vain I objected and denied. He deluged me, overwhelmed me +with argument.</p> +<p>“It’s not the nature of life to be otherwise. Life, +when it knows that it must cease living, will always rebel. It +cannot help itself. The Preacher found life and the works of life +all a vanity and vexation, an evil thing; but death, the ceasing to +be able to be vain and vexed, he found an eviler thing. Through +chapter after chapter he is worried by the one event that cometh to +all alike. So Omar, so I, so you, even you, for you rebelled against +dying when Cooky sharpened a knife for you. You were afraid to +die; the life that was in you, that composes you, that is greater than +you, did not want to die. You have talked of the instinct of immortality. +I talk of the instinct of life, which is to live, and which, when death +looms near and large, masters the instinct, so called, of immortality. +It mastered it in you (you cannot deny it), because a crazy Cockney +cook sharpened a knife.</p> +<p>“You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. +You cannot deny it. If I should catch you by the throat, thus,”—his +hand was about my throat and my breath was shut off,—“and +began to press the life out of you thus, and thus, your instinct of +immortality will go glimmering, and your instinct of life, which is +longing for life, will flutter up, and you will struggle to save yourself. +Eh? I see the fear of death in your eyes. You beat the air +with your arms. You exert all your puny strength to struggle to +live. Your hand is clutching my arm, lightly it feels as a butterfly +resting there. Your chest is heaving, your tongue protruding, +your skin turning dark, your eyes swimming. ‘To live! +To live! To live!’ you are crying; and you are crying to +live here and now, not hereafter. You doubt your immortality, +eh? Ha! ha! You are not sure of it. You won’t +chance it. This life only you are certain is real. Ah, it +is growing dark and darker. It is the darkness of death, the ceasing +to be, the ceasing to feel, the ceasing to move, that is gathering about +you, descending upon you, rising around you. Your eyes are becoming +set. They are glazing. My voice sounds faint and far. +You cannot see my face. And still you struggle in my grip. +You kick with your legs. Your body draws itself up in knots like +a snake’s. Your chest heaves and strains. To live! +To live! To live—”</p> +<p>I heard no more. Consciousness was blotted out by the darkness +he had so graphically described, and when I came to myself I was lying +on the floor and he was smoking a cigar and regarding me thoughtfully +with that old familiar light of curiosity in his eyes.</p> +<p>“Well, have I convinced you?” he demanded. “Here +take a drink of this. I want to ask you some questions.”</p> +<p>I rolled my head negatively on the floor. “Your arguments +are too—er—forcible,” I managed to articulate, at +cost of great pain to my aching throat.</p> +<p>“You’ll be all right in half-an-hour,” he assured +me. “And I promise I won’t use any more physical demonstrations. +Get up now. You can sit on a chair.”</p> +<p>And, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and the +Preacher was resumed. And half the night we sat up over it.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. +From cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion. +I scarcely know where to begin. Wolf Larsen was really the cause +of it. The relations among the men, strained and made tense by +feuds, quarrels and grudges, were in a state of unstable equilibrium, +and evil passions flared up in flame like prairie-grass.</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge is a sneak, a spy, an informer. He has been +attempting to curry favour and reinstate himself in the good graces +of the captain by carrying tales of the men forward. He it was, +I know, that carried some of Johnson’s hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. +Johnson, it seems, bought a suit of oilskins from the slop-chest and +found them to be of greatly inferior quality. Nor was he slow +in advertising the fact. The slop-chest is a sort of miniature +dry-goods store which is carried by all sealing schooners and which +is stocked with articles peculiar to the needs of the sailors. +Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from his subsequent earnings on +the sealing grounds; for, as it is with the hunters so it is with the +boat-pullers and steerers—in the place of wages they receive a +“lay,” a rate of so much per skin for every skin captured +in their particular boat.</p> +<p>But of Johnson’s grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, +so that what I witnessed came with a shock of sudden surprise. +I had just finished sweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf +Larsen into a discussion of Hamlet, his favourite Shakespearian character, +when Johansen descended the companion stairs followed by Johnson. +The latter’s cap came off after the custom of the sea, and he +stood respectfully in the centre of the cabin, swaying heavily and uneasily +to the roll of the schooner and facing the captain.</p> +<p>“Shut the doors and draw the slide,” Wolf Larsen said +to me.</p> +<p>As I obeyed I noticed an anxious light come into Johnson’s +eyes, but I did not dream of its cause. I did not dream of what +was to occur until it did occur, but he knew from the very first what +was coming and awaited it bravely. And in his action I found complete +refutation of all Wolf Larsen’s materialism. The sailor +Johnson was swayed by idea, by principle, and truth, and sincerity. +He was right, he knew he was right, and he was unafraid. He would +die for the right if needs be, he would be true to himself, sincere +with his soul. And in this was portrayed the victory of the spirit +over the flesh, the indomitability and moral grandeur of the soul that +knows no restriction and rises above time and space and matter with +a surety and invincibleness born of nothing else than eternity and immortality.</p> +<p>But to return. I noticed the anxious light in Johnson’s +eyes, but mistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the +man. The mate, Johansen, stood away several feet to the side of +him, and fully three yards in front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of +the pivotal cabin chairs. An appreciable pause fell after I had +closed the doors and drawn the slide, a pause that must have lasted +fully a minute. It was broken by Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>“Yonson,” he began.</p> +<p>“My name is Johnson, sir,” the sailor boldly corrected.</p> +<p>“Well, Johnson, then, damn you! Can you guess why I have +sent for you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, and no, sir,” was the slow reply. “My +work is done well. The mate knows that, and you know it, sir. +So there cannot be any complaint.”</p> +<p>“And is that all?” Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft, +and low, and purring.</p> +<p>“I know you have it in for me,” Johnson continued with +his unalterable and ponderous slowness. “You do not like +me. You—you—”</p> +<p>“Go on,” Wolf Larsen prompted. “Don’t +be afraid of my feelings.”</p> +<p>“I am not afraid,” the sailor retorted, a slight angry +flush rising through his sunburn. “If I speak not fast, +it is because I have not been from the old country as long as you. +You do not like me because I am too much of a man; that is why, sir.”</p> +<p>“You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is +what you mean, and if you know what I mean,” was Wolf Larsen’s +retort.</p> +<p>“I know English, and I know what you mean, sir,” Johnson +answered, his flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English +language.</p> +<p>“Johnson,” Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing +all that had gone before as introductory to the main business in hand, +“I understand you’re not quite satisfied with those oilskins?”</p> +<p>“No, I am not. They are no good, sir.”</p> +<p>“And you’ve been shooting off your mouth about them.”</p> +<p>“I say what I think, sir,” the sailor answered courageously, +not failing at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that “sir” +be appended to each speech he made.</p> +<p>It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. +His big fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively +fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson. I noticed a black +discoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen’s eye, a +mark of the thrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor. +For the first time I began to divine that something terrible was about +to be enacted,—what, I could not imagine.</p> +<p>“Do you know what happens to men who say what you’ve +said about my slop-chest and me?” Wolf Larsen was demanding.</p> +<p>“I know, sir,” was the answer.</p> +<p>“What?” Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively.</p> +<p>“What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir.”</p> +<p>“Look at him, Hump,” Wolf Larsen said to me, “look +at this bit of animated dust, this aggregation of matter that moves +and breathes and defies me and thoroughly believes itself to be compounded +of something good; that is impressed with certain human fictions such +as righteousness and honesty, and that will live up to them in spite +of all personal discomforts and menaces. What do you think of +him, Hump? What do you think of him?”</p> +<p>“I think that he is a better man than you are,” I answered, +impelled, somehow, with a desire to draw upon myself a portion of the +wrath I felt was about to break upon his head. “His human +fictions, as you choose to call them, make for nobility and manhood. +You have no fictions, no dreams, no ideals. You are a pauper.”</p> +<p>He nodded his head with a savage pleasantness. “Quite +true, Hump, quite true. I have no fictions that make for nobility +and manhood. A living dog is better than a dead lion, say I with +the Preacher. My only doctrine is the doctrine of expediency, +and it makes for surviving. This bit of the ferment we call ‘Johnson,’ +when he is no longer a bit of the ferment, only dust and ashes, will +have no more nobility than any dust and ashes, while I shall still be +alive and roaring.”</p> +<p>“Do you know what I am going to do?” he questioned.</p> +<p>I shook my head.</p> +<p>“Well, I am going to exercise my prerogative of roaring and +show you how fares nobility. Watch me.”</p> +<p>Three yards away from Johnson he was, and sitting down. Nine +feet! And yet he left the chair in full leap, without first gaining +a standing position. He left the chair, just as he sat in it, +squarely, springing from the sitting posture like a wild animal, a tiger, +and like a tiger covered the intervening space. It was an avalanche +of fury that Johnson strove vainly to fend off. He threw one arm +down to protect the stomach, the other arm up to protect the head; but +Wolf Larsen’s fist drove midway between, on the chest, with a +crushing, resounding impact. Johnson’s breath, suddenly +expelled, shot from his mouth and as suddenly checked, with the forced, +audible expiration of a man wielding an axe. He almost fell backward, +and swayed from side to side in an effort to recover his balance.</p> +<p>I cannot give the further particulars of the horrible scene that +followed. It was too revolting. It turns me sick even now +when I think of it. Johnson fought bravely enough, but he was +no match for Wolf Larsen, much less for Wolf Larsen and the mate. +It was frightful. I had not imagined a human being could endure +so much and still live and struggle on. And struggle on Johnson +did. Of course there was no hope for him, not the slightest, and +he knew it as well as I, but by the manhood that was in him he could +not cease from fighting for that manhood.</p> +<p>It was too much for me to witness. I felt that I should lose +my mind, and I ran up the companion stairs to open the doors and escape +on deck. But Wolf Larsen, leaving his victim for the moment, and +with one of his tremendous springs, gained my side and flung me into +the far corner of the cabin.</p> +<p>“The phenomena of life, Hump,” he girded at me. +“Stay and watch it. You may gather data on the immortality +of the soul. Besides, you know, we can’t hurt Johnson’s +soul. It’s only the fleeting form we may demolish.”</p> +<p>It seemed centuries—possibly it was no more than ten minutes +that the beating continued. Wolf Larsen and Johansen were all +about the poor fellow. They struck him with their fists, kicked +him with their heavy shoes, knocked him down, and dragged him to his +feet to knock him down again. His eyes were blinded so that he +could not set, and the blood running from ears and nose and mouth turned +the cabin into a shambles. And when he could no longer rise they +still continued to beat and kick him where he lay.</p> +<p>“Easy, Johansen; easy as she goes,” Wolf Larsen finally +said.</p> +<p>But the beast in the mate was up and rampant, and Wolf Larsen was +compelled to brush him away with a back-handed sweep of the arm, gentle +enough, apparently, but which hurled Johansen back like a cork, driving +his head against the wall with a crash. He fell to the floor, +half stunned for the moment, breathing heavily and blinking his eyes +in a stupid sort of way.</p> +<p>“Jerk open the doors,—Hump,” I was commanded.</p> +<p>I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a sack +of rubbish and hove him clear up the companion stairs, through the narrow +doorway, and out on deck. The blood from his nose gushed in a +scarlet stream over the feet of the helmsman, who was none other than +Louis, his boat-mate. But Louis took and gave a spoke and gazed +imperturbably into the binnacle.</p> +<p>Not so was the conduct of George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. +Fore and aft there was nothing that could have surprised us more than +his consequent behaviour. He it was that came up on the poop without +orders and dragged Johnson forward, where he set about dressing his +wounds as well as he could and making him comfortable. Johnson, +as Johnson, was unrecognizable; and not only that, for his features, +as human features at all, were unrecognizable, so discoloured and swollen +had they become in the few minutes which had elapsed between the beginning +of the beating and the dragging forward of the body.</p> +<p>But of Leach’s behaviour— By the time I had finished +cleansing the cabin he had taken care of Johnson. I had come up +on deck for a breath of fresh air and to try to get some repose for +my overwrought nerves. Wolf Larsen was smoking a cigar and examining +the patent log which the <i>Ghost</i> usually towed astern, but which +had been hauled in for some purpose. Suddenly Leach’s voice +came to my ears. It was tense and hoarse with an overmastering +rage. I turned and saw him standing just beneath the break of +the poop on the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed +and white, his eyes were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead.</p> +<p>“May God damn your soul to hell, Wolf Larsen, only hell’s +too good for you, you coward, you murderer, you pig!” was his +opening salutation.</p> +<p>I was thunderstruck. I looked for his instant annihilation. +But it was not Wolf Larsen’s whim to annihilate him. He +sauntered slowly forward to the break of the poop, and, leaning his +elbow on the corner of the cabin, gazed down thoughtfully and curiously +at the excited boy.</p> +<p>And the boy indicted Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted before. +The sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the forecastle +scuttle and watched and listened. The hunters piled pell-mell +out of the steerage, but as Leach’s tirade continued I saw that +there was no levity in their faces. Even they were frightened, +not at the boy’s terrible words, but at his terrible audacity. +It did not seem possible that any living creature could thus beard Wolf +Larsen in his teeth. I know for myself that I was shocked into +admiration of the boy, and I saw in him the splendid invincibleness +of immortality rising above the flesh and the fears of the flesh, as +in the prophets of old, to condemn unrighteousness.</p> +<p>And such condemnation! He haled forth Wolf Larsen’s soul +naked to the scorn of men. He rained upon it curses from God and +High Heaven, and withered it with a heat of invective that savoured +of a mediaeval excommunication of the Catholic Church. He ran +the gamut of denunciation, rising to heights of wrath that were sublime +and almost Godlike, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the vilest +and most indecent abuse.</p> +<p>His rage was a madness. His lips were flecked with a soapy +froth, and sometimes he choked and gurgled and became inarticulate. +And through it all, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing +down, Wolf Larsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild +stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and defiance of matter +that moved, perplexed and interested him.</p> +<p>Each moment I looked, and everybody looked, for him to leap upon +the boy and destroy him. But it was not his whim. His cigar +went out, and he continued to gaze silently and curiously.</p> +<p>Leach had worked himself into an ecstasy of impotent rage.</p> +<p>“Pig! Pig! Pig!” he was reiterating at the +top of his lungs. “Why don’t you come down and kill +me, you murderer? You can do it! I ain’t afraid! +There’s no one to stop you! Damn sight better dead and outa +your reach than alive and in your clutches! Come on, you coward! +Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!”</p> +<p>It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge’s erratic soul brought +him into the scene. He had been listening at the galley door, +but he now came out, ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, +but obviously to see the killing he was certain would take place. +He smirked greasily up into the face of Wolf Larsen, who seemed not +to see him. But the Cockney was unabashed, though mad, stark mad. +He turned to Leach, saying:</p> +<p>“Such langwidge! Shockin’!”</p> +<p>Leach’s rage was no longer impotent. Here at last was +something ready to hand. And for the first time since the stabbing +the Cockney had appeared outside the galley without his knife. +The words had barely left his mouth when he was knocked down by Leach. +Three times he struggled to his feet, striving to gain the galley, and +each time was knocked down.</p> +<p>“Oh, Lord!” he cried. “’Elp! +’Elp! Tyke ’im aw’y, carn’t yer? +Tyke ’im aw’y!”</p> +<p>The hunters laughed from sheer relief. Tragedy had dwindled, +the farce had begun. The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning +and shuffling, to watch the pummelling of the hated Cockney. And +even I felt a great joy surge up within me. I confess that I delighted +in this beating Leach was giving to Thomas Mugridge, though it was as +terrible, almost, as the one Mugridge had caused to be given to Johnson. +But the expression of Wolf Larsen’s face never changed. +He did not change his position either, but continued to gaze down with +a great curiosity. For all his pragmatic certitude, it seemed +as if he watched the play and movement of life in the hope of discovering +something more about it, of discerning in its maddest writhings a something +which had hitherto escaped him,—the key to its mystery, as it +were, which would make all clear and plain.</p> +<p>But the beating! It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed +in the cabin. The Cockney strove in vain to protect himself from +the infuriated boy. And in vain he strove to gain the shelter +of the cabin. He rolled toward it, grovelled toward it, fell toward +it when he was knocked down. But blow followed blow with bewildering +rapidity. He was knocked about like a shuttlecock, until, finally, +like Johnson, he was beaten and kicked as he lay helpless on the deck. +And no one interfered. Leach could have killed him, but, having +evidently filled the measure of his vengeance, he drew away from his +prostrate foe, who was whimpering and wailing in a puppyish sort of +way, and walked forward.</p> +<p>But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day’s +programme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each +other, and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed +by a stampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column +of thick, acrid smoke—the kind always made by black powder—was +arising through the open companion-way, and down through it leaped Wolf +Larsen. The sound of blows and scuffling came to our ears. +Both men were wounded, and he was thrashing them both for having disobeyed +his orders and crippled themselves in advance of the hunting season. +In fact, they were badly wounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded +to operate upon them in a rough surgical fashion and to dress their +wounds. I served as assistant while he probed and cleansed the +passages made by the bullets, and I saw the two men endure his crude +surgery without anaesthetics and with no more to uphold them than a +stiff tumbler of whisky.</p> +<p>Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle. +It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale-bearing which had +been the cause of Johnson’s beating, and from the noise we heard, +and from the sight of the bruised men next day, it was patent that half +the forecastle had soundly drubbed the other half.</p> +<p>The second dog-watch and the day were wound up by a fight between +Johansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. It was +caused by remarks of Latimer’s concerning the noises made by the +mate in his sleep, and though Johansen was whipped, he kept the steerage +awake for the rest of the night while he blissfully slumbered and fought +the fight over and over again.</p> +<p>As for myself, I was oppressed with nightmare. The day had +been like some horrible dream. Brutality had followed brutality, +and flaming passions and cold-blooded cruelty had driven men to seek +one another’s lives, and to strive to hurt, and maim, and destroy. +My nerves were shocked. My mind itself was shocked. All +my days had been passed in comparative ignorance of the animality of +man. In fact, I had known life only in its intellectual phases. +Brutality I had experienced, but it was the brutality of the intellect—the +cutting sarcasm of Charley Furuseth, the cruel epigrams and occasional +harsh witticisms of the fellows at the Bibelot, and the nasty remarks +of some of the professors during my undergraduate days.</p> +<p>That was all. But that men should wreak their anger on others +by the bruising of the flesh and the letting of blood was something +strangely and fearfully new to me. Not for nothing had I been +called “Sissy” Van Weyden, I thought, as I tossed restlessly +on my bunk between one nightmare and another. And it seemed to +me that my innocence of the realities of life had been complete indeed. +I laughed bitterly to myself, and seemed to find in Wolf Larsen’s +forbidding philosophy a more adequate explanation of life than I found +in my own.</p> +<p>And I was frightened when I became conscious of the trend of my thought. +The continual brutality around me was degenerative in its effect. +It bid fair to destroy for me all that was best and brightest in life. +My reason dictated that the beating Thomas Mugridge had received was +an ill thing, and yet for the life of me I could not prevent my soul +joying in it. And even while I was oppressed by the enormity of +my sin,—for sin it was,—I chuckled with an insane delight. +I was no longer Humphrey Van Weyden. I was Hump, cabin-boy on +the schooner <i>Ghost</i>. Wolf Larsen was my captain, Thomas +Mugridge and the rest were my companions, and I was receiving repeated +impresses from the die which had stamped them all.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>For three days I did my own work and Thomas Mugridge’s too; +and I flatter myself that I did his work well. I know that it +won Wolf Larsen’s approval, while the sailors beamed with satisfaction +during the brief time my <i>régime</i> lasted.</p> +<p>“The first clean bite since I come aboard,” Harrison +said to me at the galley door, as he returned the dinner pots and pans +from the forecastle. “Somehow Tommy’s grub always +tastes of grease, stale grease, and I reckon he ain’t changed +his shirt since he left ’Frisco.”</p> +<p>“I know he hasn’t,” I answered.</p> +<p>“And I’ll bet he sleeps in it,” Harrison added.</p> +<p>“And you won’t lose,” I agreed. “The +same shirt, and he hasn’t had it off once in all this time.”</p> +<p>But three days was all Wolf Larsen allowed him in which to recover +from the effects of the beating. On the fourth day, lame and sore, +scarcely able to see, so closed were his eyes, he was haled from his +bunk by the nape of the neck and set to his duty. He sniffled +and wept, but Wolf Larsen was pitiless.</p> +<p>“And see that you serve no more slops,” was his parting +injunction. “No more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean +shirt occasionally, or you’ll get a tow over the side. Understand?”</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a short +lurch of the <i>Ghost</i> sent him staggering. In attempting to +recover himself, he reached for the iron railing which surrounded the +stove and kept the pots from sliding off; but he missed the railing, +and his hand, with his weight behind it, landed squarely on the hot +surface. There was a sizzle and odour of burning flesh, and a +sharp cry of pain.</p> +<p>“Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot ’ave I done?” he wailed; sitting +down in the coal-box and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth. +“W’y ’as all this come on me? It mykes me fair +sick, it does, an’ I try so ’ard to go through life ’armless +an’ ’urtin’ nobody.”</p> +<p>The tears were running down his puffed and discoloured cheeks, and +his face was drawn with pain. A savage expression flitted across +it.</p> +<p>“Oh, ’ow I ’ate ’im! ’Ow I ’ate +’im!” he gritted out.</p> +<p>“Whom?” I asked; but the poor wretch was weeping again +over his misfortunes. Less difficult it was to guess whom he hated +than whom he did not hate. For I had come to see a malignant devil +in him which impelled him to hate all the world. I sometimes thought +that he hated even himself, so grotesquely had life dealt with him, +and so monstrously. At such moments a great sympathy welled up +within me, and I felt shame that I had ever joyed in his discomfiture +or pain. Life had been unfair to him. It had played him +a scurvy trick when it fashioned him into the thing he was, and it had +played him scurvy tricks ever since. What chance had he to be +anything else than he was? And as though answering my unspoken +thought, he wailed:</p> +<p>“I never ’ad no chance, not ’arf a chance! +’Oo was there to send me to school, or put tommy in my ’ungry +belly, or wipe my bloody nose for me, w’en I was a kiddy? +’Oo ever did anything for me, heh? ’Oo, I s’y?”</p> +<p>“Never mind, Tommy,” I said, placing a soothing hand +on his shoulder. “Cheer up. It’ll all come right +in the end. You’ve long years before you, and you can make +anything you please of yourself.”</p> +<p>“It’s a lie! a bloody lie!” he shouted in my face, +flinging off the hand. “It’s a lie, and you know it. +I’m already myde, an’ myde out of leavin’s an’ +scraps. It’s all right for you, ’Ump. You was +born a gentleman. You never knew wot it was to go ’ungry, +to cry yerself asleep with yer little belly gnawin’ an’ +gnawin’, like a rat inside yer. It carn’t come right. +If I was President of the United Stytes to-morrer, ’ow would it +fill my belly for one time w’en I was a kiddy and it went empty?</p> +<p>“’Ow could it, I s’y? I was born to sufferin’ +and sorrer. I’ve had more cruel sufferin’ than any +ten men, I ’ave. I’ve been in orspital arf my bleedin’ +life. I’ve ’ad the fever in Aspinwall, in ’Avana, +in New Orleans. I near died of the scurvy and was rotten with +it six months in Barbadoes. Smallpox in ’Onolulu, two broken +legs in Shanghai, pnuemonia in Unalaska, three busted ribs an’ +my insides all twisted in ’Frisco. An’ ’ere +I am now. Look at me! Look at me! My ribs kicked loose +from my back again. I’ll be coughin’ blood before +eyght bells. ’Ow can it be myde up to me, I arsk? +’Oo’s goin’ to do it? Gawd? ’Ow +Gawd must ’ave ’ated me w’en ’e signed me on +for a voyage in this bloomin’ world of ’is!”</p> +<p>This tirade against destiny went on for an hour or more, and then +he buckled to his work, limping and groaning, and in his eyes a great +hatred for all created things. His diagnosis was correct, however, +for he was seized with occasional sicknesses, during which he vomited +blood and suffered great pain. And as he said, it seemed God hated +him too much to let him die, for he ultimately grew better and waxed +more malignant than ever.</p> +<p>Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went +about his work in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, +and I more than once observed him creeping painfully aloft to a topsail, +or drooping wearily as he stood at the wheel. But, still worse, +it seemed that his spirit was broken. He was abject before Wolf +Larsen and almost grovelled to Johansen. Not so was the conduct +of Leach. He went about the deck like a tiger cub, glaring his +hatred openly at Wolf Larsen and Johansen.</p> +<p>“I’ll do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede,” I +heard him say to Johansen one night on deck.</p> +<p>The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment some missile +struck the galley a sharp rap. There was more cursing, and a mocking +laugh, and when all was quiet I stole outside and found a heavy knife +imbedded over an inch in the solid wood. A few minutes later the +mate came fumbling about in search of it, but I returned it privily +to Leach next day. He grinned when I handed it over, yet it was +a grin that contained more sincere thanks than a multitude of the verbosities +of speech common to the members of my own class.</p> +<p>Unlike any one else in the ship’s company, I now found myself +with no quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of all. The +hunters possibly no more than tolerated me, though none of them disliked +me; while Smoke and Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning and +swinging day and night in their hammocks, assured me that I was better +than any hospital nurse, and that they would not forget me at the end +of the voyage when they were paid off. (As though I stood in need +of their money! I, who could have bought them out, bag and baggage, +and the schooner and its equipment, a score of times over!) But +upon me had devolved the task of tending their wounds, and pulling them +through, and I did my best by them.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen underwent another bad attack of headache which lasted +two days. He must have suffered severely, for he called me in +and obeyed my commands like a sick child. But nothing I could +do seemed to relieve him. At my suggestion, however, he gave up +smoking and drinking; though why such a magnificent animal as he should +have headaches at all puzzles me.</p> +<p>“’Tis the hand of God, I’m tellin’ you,” +is the way Louis sees it. “’Tis a visitation for his +black-hearted deeds, and there’s more behind and comin’, +or else—”</p> +<p>“Or else,” I prompted.</p> +<p>“God is noddin’ and not doin’ his duty, though +it’s me as shouldn’t say it.”</p> +<p>I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all. +Not only does Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but he has discovered +a new reason for hating me. It took me no little while to puzzle +it out, but I finally discovered that it was because I was more luckily +born than he—“gentleman born,” he put it.</p> +<p>“And still no more dead men,” I twitted Louis, when Smoke +and Henderson, side by side, in friendly conversation, took their first +exercise on deck.</p> +<p>Louis surveyed me with his shrewd grey eyes, and shook his head portentously. +“She’s a-comin’, I tell you, and it’ll be sheets +and halyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. I’ve +had the feel iv it this long time, and I can feel it now as plainly +as I feel the rigging iv a dark night. She’s close, she’s +close.”</p> +<p>“Who goes first?” I queried.</p> +<p>“Not fat old Louis, I promise you,” he laughed. +“For ’tis in the bones iv me I know that come this time +next year I’ll be gazin’ in the old mother’s eyes, +weary with watchin’ iv the sea for the five sons she gave to it.”</p> +<p>“Wot’s ’e been s’yin’ to yer?” +Thomas Mugridge demanded a moment later.</p> +<p>“That he’s going home some day to see his mother,” +I answered diplomatically.</p> +<p>“I never ’ad none,” was the Cockney’s comment, +as he gazed with lustreless, hopeless eyes into mine.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It has dawned upon me that I have never placed a proper valuation +upon womankind. For that matter, though not amative to any considerable +degree so far as I have discovered, I was never outside the atmosphere +of women until now. My mother and sisters were always about me, +and I was always trying to escape them; for they worried me to distraction +with their solicitude for my health and with their periodic inroads +on my den, when my orderly confusion, upon which I prided myself, was +turned into worse confusion and less order, though it looked neat enough +to the eye. I never could find anything when they had departed. +But now, alas, how welcome would have been the feel of their presence, +the frou-frou and swish-swish of their skirts which I had so cordially +detested! I am sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never be +irritable with them again. They may dose me and doctor me morning, +noon, and night, and dust and sweep and put my den to rights every minute +of the day, and I shall only lean back and survey it all and be thankful +in that I am possessed of a mother and some several sisters.</p> +<p>All of which has set me wondering. Where are the mothers of +these twenty and odd men on the <i>Ghost</i>? It strikes me as +unnatural and unhealthful that men should be totally separated from +women and herd through the world by themselves. Coarseness and +savagery are the inevitable results. These men about me should +have wives, and sisters, and daughters; then would they be capable of +softness, and tenderness, and sympathy. As it is, not one of them +is married. In years and years not one of them has been in contact +with a good woman, or within the influence, or redemption, which irresistibly +radiates from such a creature. There is no balance in their lives. +Their masculinity, which in itself is of the brute, has been over-developed. +The other and spiritual side of their natures has been dwarfed—atrophied, +in fact.</p> +<p>They are a company of celibates, grinding harshly against one another +and growing daily more calloused from the grinding. It seems to +me impossible sometimes that they ever had mothers. It would appear +that they are a half-brute, half-human species, a race apart, wherein +there is no such thing as sex; that they are hatched out by the sun +like turtle eggs, or receive life in some similar and sordid fashion; +and that all their days they fester in brutality and viciousness, and +in the end die as unlovely as they have lived.</p> +<p>Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with Johansen +last night—the first superfluous words with which he has favoured +me since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he was eighteen, +is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time has not been home +once. He had met a townsman, a couple of years before, in some +sailor boarding-house in Chile, so that he knew his mother to be still +alive.</p> +<p>“She must be a pretty old woman now,” he said, staring +meditatively into the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, +who was steering a point off the course.</p> +<p>“When did you last write to her?”</p> +<p>He performed his mental arithmetic aloud. “Eighty-one; +no—eighty-two, eh? no—eighty-three? Yes, eighty-three. +Ten years ago. From some little port in Madagascar. I was +trading.</p> +<p>“You see,” he went on, as though addressing his neglected +mother across half the girth of the earth, “each year I was going +home. So what was the good to write? It was only a year. +And each year something happened, and I did not go. But I am mate, +now, and when I pay off at ’Frisco, maybe with five hundred dollars, +I will ship myself on a windjammer round the Horn to Liverpool, which +will give me more money; and then I will pay my passage from there home. +Then she will not do any more work.”</p> +<p>“But does she work? now? How old is she?”</p> +<p>“About seventy,” he answered. And then, boastingly, +“We work from the time we are born until we die, in my country. +That’s why we live so long. I will live to a hundred.”</p> +<p>I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the +last I ever heard him utter. Perhaps they were the last he did +utter, too. For, going down into the cabin to turn in, I decided +that it was too stuffy to sleep below. It was a calm night. +We were out of the Trades, and the <i>Ghost</i> was forging ahead barely +a knot an hour. So I tucked a blanket and pillow under my arm +and went up on deck.</p> +<p>As I passed between Harrison and the binnacle, which was built into +the top of the cabin, I noticed that he was this time fully three points +off. Thinking that he was asleep, and wishing him to escape reprimand +or worse, I spoke to him. But he was not asleep. His eyes +were wide and staring. He seemed greatly perturbed, unable to +reply to me.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are +you sick?”</p> +<p>He shook his head, and with a deep sign as of awakening, caught his +breath.</p> +<p>“You’d better get on your course, then,” I chided.</p> +<p>He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing slowly +to N.N.W. and steady itself with slight oscillations.</p> +<p>I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start on, +when some movement caught my eye and I looked astern to the rail. +A sinewy hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail. A +second hand took form in the darkness beside it. I watched, fascinated. +What visitant from the gloom of the deep was I to behold? Whatever +it was, I knew that it was climbing aboard by the log-line. I +saw a head, the hair wet and straight, shape itself, and then the unmistakable +eyes and face of Wolf Larsen. His right cheek was red with blood, +which flowed from some wound in the head.</p> +<p>He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet, +glancing swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel, as though to +assure himself of his identity and that there was nothing to fear from +him. The sea-water was streaming from him. It made little +audible gurgles which distracted me. As he stepped toward me I +shrank back instinctively, for I saw that in his eyes which spelled +death.</p> +<p>“All right, Hump,” he said in a low voice. “Where’s +the mate?”</p> +<p>I shook my head.</p> +<p>“Johansen!” he called softly. “Johansen!”</p> +<p>“Where is he?” he demanded of Harrison.</p> +<p>The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for he answered +steadily enough, “I don’t know, sir. I saw him go +for’ard a little while ago.”</p> +<p>“So did I go for’ard. But you will observe that +I didn’t come back the way I went. Can you explain it?”</p> +<p>“You must have been overboard, sir.”</p> +<p>“Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?” I asked.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen shook his head. “You wouldn’t find +him, Hump. But you’ll do. Come on. Never mind +your bedding. Leave it where it is.”</p> +<p>I followed at his heels. There was nothing stirring amidships.</p> +<p>“Those cursed hunters,” was his comment. “Too +damned fat and lazy to stand a four-hour watch.”</p> +<p>But on the forecastle-head we found three sailors asleep. He +turned them over and looked at their faces. They composed the +watch on deck, and it was the ship’s custom, in good weather, +to let the watch sleep with the exception of the officer, the helmsman, +and the look-out.</p> +<p>“Who’s look-out?” he demanded.</p> +<p>“Me, sir,” answered Holyoak, one of the deep-water sailors, +a slight tremor in his voice. “I winked off just this very +minute, sir. I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen +again.”</p> +<p>“Did you hear or see anything on deck?”</p> +<p>“No, sir, I—”</p> +<p>But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leaving +the sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let of so easily.</p> +<p>“Softly, now,” Wolf Larsen warned me in a whisper, as +he doubled his body into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend.</p> +<p>I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew +no more than did I know what had happened. But blood had been +shed, and it was through no whim of Wolf Larsen that he had gone over +the side with his scalp laid open. Besides, Johansen was missing.</p> +<p>It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not soon +forget my impression of it, caught as I stood on my feet at the bottom +of the ladder. Built directly in the eyes of the schooner, it +was of the shape of a triangle, along the three sides of which stood +the bunks, in double-tier, twelve of them. It was no larger than +a hall bedroom in Grub Street, and yet twelve men were herded into it +to eat and sleep and carry on all the functions of living. My +bedroom at home was not large, yet it could have contained a dozen similar +forecastles, and taking into consideration the height of the ceiling, +a score at least.</p> +<p>It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging sea-lamp +I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep with sea-boots, oilskins, +and garments, clean and dirty, of various sorts. These swung back +and forth with every roll of the vessel, giving rise to a brushing sound, +as of trees against a roof or wall. Somewhere a boot thumped loudly +and at irregular intervals against the wall; and, though it was a mild +night on the sea, there was a continual chorus of the creaking timbers +and bulkheads and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring.</p> +<p>The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them,—the +two watches below,—and the air was thick with the warmth and odour +of their breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their snoring +and of their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the rest of the +animal-man. But were they sleeping? all of them? Or had +they been sleeping? This was evidently Wolf Larsen’s quest—to +find the men who appeared to be asleep and who were not asleep or who +had not been asleep very recently. And he went about it in a way +that reminded me of a story out of Boccaccio.</p> +<p>He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it to me. +He began at the first bunks forward on the star-board side. In +the top one lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and splendid seaman, so named +by his mates. He was asleep on his back and breathing as placidly +as a woman. One arm was under his head, the other lay on top of +the blankets. Wolf Larsen put thumb and forefinger to the wrist +and counted the pulse. In the midst of it the Kanaka roused. +He awoke as gently as he slept. There was no movement of the body +whatever. The eyes, only, moved. They flashed wide open, +big and black, and stared, unblinking, into our faces. Wolf Larsen +put his finger to his lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes closed +again.</p> +<p>In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty, asleep +unfeignedly and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsen held his +wrist he stirred uneasily, bowing his body so that for a moment it rested +on shoulders and heels. His lips moved, and he gave voice to this +enigmatic utterance:</p> +<p>“A shilling’s worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out +for thruppenny-bits, or the publicans ’ll shove ’em on you +for sixpence.”</p> +<p>Then he rolled over on his side with a heavy, sobbing sigh, saying:</p> +<p>“A sixpence is a tanner, and a shilling a bob; but what a pony +is I don’t know.”</p> +<p>Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka’s sleep, Wolf +Larsen passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side, occupied +top and bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, by Leach and +Johnson.</p> +<p>As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson’s +pulse, I, standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach’s head +rise stealthily as he peered over the side of his bunk to see what was +going on. He must have divined Wolf Larsen’s trick and the +sureness of detection, for the light was at once dashed from my hand +and the forecastle was left in darkness. He must have leaped, +also, at the same instant, straight down on Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and a wolf. +I heard a great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen, and from Leach +a snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling. Johnson must +have joined him immediately, so that his abject and grovelling conduct +on deck for the past few days had been no more than planned deception.</p> +<p>I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned +against the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon me +was that old sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always by the +spectacle of physical violence. In this instance I could not see, +but I could hear the impact of the blows—the soft crushing sound +made by flesh striking forcibly against flesh. Then there was +the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the laboured breathing, the +short quick gasps of sudden pain.</p> +<p>There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the captain +and mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnson had been quickly +reinforced by some of their mates.</p> +<p>“Get a knife somebody!” Leach was shouting.</p> +<p>“Pound him on the head! Mash his brains out!” was +Johnson’s cry.</p> +<p>But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. He was +fighting grimly and silently for life. He was sore beset. +Down at the very first, he had been unable to gain his feet, and for +all of his tremendous strength I felt that there was no hope for him.</p> +<p>The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on me; +for I was knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised. +But in the confusion I managed to crawl into an empty lower bunk out +of the way.</p> +<p>“All hands! We’ve got him! We’ve got +him!” I could hear Leach crying.</p> +<p>“Who?” demanded those who had been really asleep, and +who had wakened to they knew not what.</p> +<p>“It’s the bloody mate!” was Leach’s crafty +answer, strained from him in a smothered sort of way.</p> +<p>This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf Larsen +had seven strong men on top of him, Louis, I believe, taking no part +in it. The forecastle was like an angry hive of bees aroused by +some marauder.</p> +<p>“What ho! below there!” I heard Latimer shout down the +scuttle, too cautious to descend into the inferno of passion he could +hear raging beneath him in the darkness.</p> +<p>“Won’t somebody get a knife? Oh, won’t somebody +get a knife?” Leach pleaded in the first interval of comparative +silence.</p> +<p>The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. They +blocked their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single purpose, +achieved his. This was to fight his way across the floor to the +ladder. Though in total darkness, I followed his progress by its +sound. No man less than a giant could have done what he did, once +he had gained the foot of the ladder. Step by step, by the might +of his arms, the whole pack of men striving to drag him back and down, +he drew his body up from the floor till he stood erect. And then, +step by step, hand and foot, he slowly struggled up the ladder.</p> +<p>The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone +for a lantern, held it so that its light shone down the scuttle. +Wolf Larsen was nearly to the top, though I could not see him. +All that was visible was the mass of men fastened upon him. It +squirmed about, like some huge many-legged spider, and swayed back and +forth to the regular roll of the vessel. And still, step by step +with long intervals between, the mass ascended. Once it tottered, +about to fall back, but the broken hold was regained and it still went +up.</p> +<p>“Who is it?” Latimer cried.</p> +<p>In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peering +down.</p> +<p>“Larsen,” I heard a muffled voice from within the mass.</p> +<p>Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot +up to clasp his. Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps +were made with a rush. Then Wolf Larsen’s other hand reached +up and clutched the edge of the scuttle. The mass swung clear +of the ladder, the men still clinging to their escaping foe. They +began to drop of, to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the scuttle, +to be knocked off by the legs which were now kicking powerfully. +Leach was the last to go, falling sheer back from the top of the scuttle +and striking on head and shoulders upon his sprawling mates beneath. +Wolf Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we were left in darkness.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom +of the ladder crawled to their feet.</p> +<p>“Somebody strike a light, my thumb’s out of joint,” +said one of the men, Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat-steerer +in Standish’s boat, in which Harrison was puller.</p> +<p>“You’ll find it knockin’ about by the bitts,” +Leach said, sitting down on the edge of the bunk in which I was concealed.</p> +<p>There was a fumbling and a scratching of matches, and the sea-lamp +flared up, dim and smoky, and in its weird light bare-legged men moved +about nursing their bruises and caring for their hurts. Oofty-Oofty +laid hold of Parsons’s thumb, pulling it out stoutly and snapping +it back into place. I noticed at the same time that the Kanaka’s +knuckles were laid open clear across and to the bone. He exhibited +them, exposing beautiful white teeth in a grin as he did so, and explaining +that the wounds had come from striking Wolf Larsen in the mouth.</p> +<p>“So it was you, was it, you black beggar?” belligerently +demanded one Kelly, an Irish-American and a longshoreman, making his +first trip to sea, and boat-puller for Kerfoot.</p> +<p>As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and +shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty. The Kanaka leaped +backward to his bunk, to return with a second leap, flourishing a long +knife.</p> +<p>“Aw, go lay down, you make me tired,” Leach interfered. +He was evidently, for all of his youth and inexperience, cock of the +forecastle. “G’wan, you Kelly. You leave Oofty +alone. How in hell did he know it was you in the dark?”</p> +<p>Kelly subsided with some muttering, and the Kanaka flashed his white +teeth in a grateful smile. He was a beautiful creature, almost +feminine in the pleasing lines of his figure, and there was a softness +and dreaminess in his large eyes which seemed to contradict his well-earned +reputation for strife and action.</p> +<p>“How did he get away?” Johnson asked.</p> +<p>He was sitting on the side of his bunk, the whole pose of his figure +indicating utter dejection and hopelessness. He was still breathing +heavily from the exertion he had made. His shirt had been ripped +entirely from him in the struggle, and blood from a gash in the cheek +was flowing down his naked chest, marking a red path across his white +thigh and dripping to the floor.</p> +<p>“Because he is the devil, as I told you before,” was +Leach’s answer; and thereat he was on his feet and raging his +disappointment with tears in his eyes.</p> +<p>“And not one of you to get a knife!” was his unceasing +lament.</p> +<p>But the rest of the hands had a lively fear of consequences to come +and gave no heed to him.</p> +<p>“How’ll he know which was which?” Kelly asked, +and as he went on he looked murderously about him—“unless +one of us peaches.”</p> +<p>“He’ll know as soon as ever he claps eyes on us,” +Parsons replied. “One look at you’d be enough.”</p> +<p>“Tell him the deck flopped up and gouged yer teeth out iv yer +jaw,” Louis grinned. He was the only man who was not out +of his bunk, and he was jubilant in that he possessed no bruises to +advertise that he had had a hand in the night’s work. “Just +wait till he gets a glimpse iv yer mugs to-morrow, the gang iv ye,” +he chuckled.</p> +<p>“We’ll say we thought it was the mate,” said one. +And another, “I know what I’ll say—that I heered a +row, jumped out of my bunk, got a jolly good crack on the jaw for my +pains, and sailed in myself. Couldn’t tell who or what it +was in the dark and just hit out.”</p> +<p>“An’ ’twas me you hit, of course,” Kelly +seconded, his face brightening for the moment.</p> +<p>Leach and Johnson took no part in the discussion, and it was plain +to see that their mates looked upon them as men for whom the worst was +inevitable, who were beyond hope and already dead. Leach stood +their fears and reproaches for some time. Then he broke out:</p> +<p>“You make me tired! A nice lot of gazabas you are! +If you talked less with yer mouth and did something with yer hands, +he’d a-ben done with by now. Why couldn’t one of you, +just one of you, get me a knife when I sung out? You make me sick! +A-beefin’ and bellerin’ ’round, as though he’d +kill you when he gets you! You know damn well he wont. Can’t +afford to. No shipping masters or beach-combers over here, and +he wants yer in his business, and he wants yer bad. Who’s +to pull or steer or sail ship if he loses yer? It’s me and +Johnson have to face the music. Get into yer bunks, now, and shut +yer faces; I want to get some sleep.”</p> +<p>“That’s all right all right,” Parsons spoke up. +“Mebbe he won’t do for us, but mark my words, hell ’ll +be an ice-box to this ship from now on.”</p> +<p>All the while I had been apprehensive concerning my own predicament. +What would happen to me when these men discovered my presence? +I could never fight my way out as Wolf Larsen had done. And at +this moment Latimer called down the scuttles:</p> +<p>“Hump! The old man wants you!”</p> +<p>“He ain’t down here!” Parsons called back.</p> +<p>“Yes, he is,” I said, sliding out of the bunk and striving +my hardest to keep my voice steady and bold.</p> +<p>The sailors looked at me in consternation. Fear was strong +in their faces, and the devilishness which comes of fear.</p> +<p>“I’m coming!” I shouted up to Latimer.</p> +<p>“No you don’t!” Kelly cried, stepping between me +and the ladder, his right hand shaped into a veritable strangler’s +clutch. “You damn little sneak! I’ll shut yer +mouth!”</p> +<p>“Let him go,” Leach commanded.</p> +<p>“Not on yer life,” was the angry retort.</p> +<p>Leach never changed his position on the edge of the bunk. “Let +him go, I say,” he repeated; but this time his voice was gritty +and metallic.</p> +<p>The Irishman wavered. I made to step by him, and he stood aside. +When I had gained the ladder, I turned to the circle of brutal and malignant +faces peering at me through the semi-darkness. A sudden and deep +sympathy welled up in me. I remembered the Cockney’s way +of putting it. How God must have hated them that they should be +tortured so!</p> +<p>“I have seen and heard nothing, believe me,” I said quietly.</p> +<p>“I tell yer, he’s all right,” I could hear Leach +saying as I went up the ladder. “He don’t like the +old man no more nor you or me.”</p> +<p>I found Wolf Larsen in the cabin, stripped and bloody, waiting for +me. He greeted me with one of his whimsical smiles.</p> +<p>“Come, get to work, Doctor. The signs are favourable +for an extensive practice this voyage. I don’t know what +the <i>Ghost</i> would have been without you, and if I could only cherish +such noble sentiments I would tell you her master is deeply grateful.”</p> +<p>I knew the run of the simple medicine-chest the <i>Ghost</i> carried, +and while I was heating water on the cabin stove and getting the things +ready for dressing his wounds, he moved about, laughing and chatting, +and examining his hurts with a calculating eye. I had never before +seen him stripped, and the sight of his body quite took my breath away. +It has never been my weakness to exalt the flesh—far from it; +but there is enough of the artist in me to appreciate its wonder.</p> +<p>I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf Larsen’s +figure, and by what I may term the terrible beauty of it. I had +noted the men in the forecastle. Powerfully muscled though some +of them were, there had been something wrong with all of them, an insufficient +development here, an undue development there, a twist or a crook that +destroyed symmetry, legs too short or too long, or too much sinew or +bone exposed, or too little. Oofty-Oofty had been the only one +whose lines were at all pleasing, while, in so far as they pleased, +that far had they been what I should call feminine.</p> +<p>But Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god +in his perfectness. As he moved about or raised his arms the great +muscles leapt and moved under the satiny skin. I have forgotten +to say that the bronze ended with his face. His body, thanks to +his Scandinavian stock, was fair as the fairest woman’s. +I remember his putting his hand up to feel of the wound on his head, +and my watching the biceps move like a living thing under its white +sheath. It was the biceps that had nearly crushed out my life +once, that I had seen strike so many killing blows. I could not +take my eyes from him. I stood motionless, a roll of antiseptic +cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling itself down to the floor.</p> +<p>He noticed me, and I became conscious that I was staring at him.</p> +<p>“God made you well,” I said.</p> +<p>“Did he?” he answered. “I have often thought +so myself, and wondered why.”</p> +<p>“Purpose—” I began.</p> +<p>“Utility,” he interrupted. “This body was +made for use. These muscles were made to grip, and tear, and destroy +living things that get between me and life. But have you thought +of the other living things? They, too, have muscles, of one kind +and another, made to grip, and tear, and destroy; and when they come +between me and life, I out-grip them, out-tear them, out-destroy them. +Purpose does not explain that. Utility does.”</p> +<p>“It is not beautiful,” I protested.</p> +<p>“Life isn’t, you mean,” he smiled. “Yet +you say I was made well. Do you see this?”</p> +<p>He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes +in a clutching sort of way. Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles +writhed and bunched under the skin.</p> +<p>“Feel them,” he commanded.</p> +<p>They were hard as iron. And I observed, also, that his whole +body had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that +muscles were softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, +and across the shoulders; that the arms were slightly lifted, their +muscles contracting, the fingers crooking till the hands were like talons; +and that even the eyes had changed expression and into them were coming +watchfulness and measurement and a light none other than of battle.</p> +<p>“Stability, equilibrium,” he said, relaxing on the instant +and sinking his body back into repose. “Feet with which +to clutch the ground, legs to stand on and to help withstand, while +with arms and hands, teeth and nails, I struggle to kill and to be not +killed. Purpose? Utility is the better word.”</p> +<p>I did not argue. I had seen the mechanism of the primitive +fighting beast, and I was as strongly impressed as if I had seen the +engines of a great battleship or Atlantic liner.</p> +<p>I was surprised, considering the fierce struggle in the forecastle, +at the superficiality of his hurts, and I pride myself that I dressed +them dexterously. With the exception of several bad wounds, the +rest were merely severe bruises and lacerations. The blow which +he had received before going overboard had laid his scalp open several +inches. This, under his direction, I cleansed and sewed together, +having first shaved the edges of the wound. Then the calf of his +leg was badly lacerated and looked as though it had been mangled by +a bulldog. Some sailor, he told me, had laid hold of it by his +teeth, at the beginning of the fight, and hung on and been dragged to +the top of the forecastle ladder, when he was kicked loose.</p> +<p>“By the way, Hump, as I have remarked, you are a handy man,” +Wolf Larsen began, when my work was done. “As you know, +we’re short a mate. Hereafter you shall stand watches, receive +seventy-five dollars per month, and be addressed fore and aft as Mr. +Van Weyden.”</p> +<p>“I—I don’t understand navigation, you know,” +I gasped.</p> +<p>“Not necessary at all.”</p> +<p>“I really do not care to sit in the high places,” I objected. +“I find life precarious enough in my present humble situation. +I have no experience. Mediocrity, you see, has its compensations.”</p> +<p>He smiled as though it were all settled.</p> +<p>“I won’t be mate on this hell-ship!” I cried defiantly.</p> +<p>I saw his face grow hard and the merciless glitter come into his +eyes. He walked to the door of his room, saying:</p> +<p>“And now, Mr. Van Weyden, good-night.”</p> +<p>“Good-night, Mr. Larsen,” I answered weakly.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I cannot say that the position of mate carried with it anything more +joyful than that there were no more dishes to wash. I was ignorant +of the simplest duties of mate, and would have fared badly indeed, had +the sailors not sympathized with me. I knew nothing of the minutiae +of ropes and rigging, of the trimming and setting of sails; but the +sailors took pains to put me to rights,—Louis proving an especially +good teacher,—and I had little trouble with those under me.</p> +<p>With the hunters it was otherwise. Familiar in varying degree +with the sea, they took me as a sort of joke. In truth, it was +a joke to me, that I, the veriest landsman, should be filling the office +of mate; but to be taken as a joke by others was a different matter. +I made no complaint, but Wolf Larsen demanded the most punctilious sea +etiquette in my case,—far more than poor Johansen had ever received; +and at the expense of several rows, threats, and much grumbling, he +brought the hunters to time. I was “Mr. Van Weyden” +fore and aft, and it was only unofficially that Wolf Larsen himself +ever addressed me as “Hump.”</p> +<p>It was amusing. Perhaps the wind would haul a few points while +we were at dinner, and as I left the table he would say, “Mr. +Van Weyden, will you kindly put about on the port tack.” +And I would go on deck, beckon Louis to me, and learn from him what +was to be done. Then, a few minutes later, having digested his +instructions and thoroughly mastered the manoeuvre, I would proceed +to issue my orders. I remember an early instance of this kind, +when Wolf Larsen appeared on the scene just as I had begun to give orders. +He smoked his cigar and looked on quietly till the thing was accomplished, +and then paced aft by my side along the weather poop.</p> +<p>“Hump,” he said, “I beg pardon, Mr. Van Weyden, +I congratulate you. I think you can now fire your father’s +legs back into the grave to him. You’ve discovered your +own and learned to stand on them. A little rope-work, sail-making, +and experience with storms and such things, and by the end of the voyage +you could ship on any coasting schooner.”</p> +<p>It was during this period, between the death of Johansen and the +arrival on the sealing grounds, that I passed my pleasantest hours on +the <i>Ghost</i>. Wolf Larsen was quite considerate, the sailors +helped me, and I was no longer in irritating contact with Thomas Mugridge. +And I make free to say, as the days went by, that I found I was taking +a certain secret pride in myself. Fantastic as the situation was,—a +land-lubber second in command,—I was, nevertheless, carrying it +off well; and during that brief time I was proud of myself, and I grew +to love the heave and roll of the <i>Ghost</i> under my feet as she +wallowed north and west through the tropic sea to the islet where we +filled our water-casks.</p> +<p>But my happiness was not unalloyed. It was comparative, a period +of less misery slipped in between a past of great miseries and a future +of great miseries. For the <i>Ghost</i>, so far as the seamen +were concerned, was a hell-ship of the worst description. They +never had a moment’s rest or peace. Wolf Larsen treasured +against them the attempt on his life and the drubbing he had received +in the forecastle; and morning, noon, and night, and all night as well, +he devoted himself to making life unlivable for them.</p> +<p>He knew well the psychology of the little thing, and it was the little +things by which he kept the crew worked up to the verge of madness. +I have seen Harrison called from his bunk to put properly away a misplaced +paintbrush, and the two watches below haled from their tired sleep to +accompany him and see him do it. A little thing, truly, but when +multiplied by the thousand ingenious devices of such a mind, the mental +state of the men in the forecastle may be slightly comprehended.</p> +<p>Of course much grumbling went on, and little outbursts were continually +occurring. Blows were struck, and there were always two or three +men nursing injuries at the hands of the human beast who was their master. +Concerted action was impossible in face of the heavy arsenal of weapons +carried in the steerage and cabin. Leach and Johnson were the +two particular victims of Wolf Larsen’s diabolic temper, and the +look of profound melancholy which had settled on Johnson’s face +and in his eyes made my heart bleed.</p> +<p>With Leach it was different. There was too much of the fighting +beast in him. He seemed possessed by an insatiable fury which +gave no time for grief. His lips had become distorted into a permanent +snarl, which at mere sight of Wolf Larsen broke out in sound, horrible +and menacing and, I do believe, unconsciously. I have seen him +follow Wolf Larsen about with his eyes, like an animal its keeper, the +while the animal-like snarl sounded deep in his throat and vibrated +forth between his teeth.</p> +<p>I remember once, on deck, in bright day, touching him on the shoulder +as preliminary to giving an order. His back was toward me, and +at the first feel of my hand he leaped upright in the air and away from +me, snarling and turning his head as he leaped. He had for the +moment mistaken me for the man he hated.</p> +<p>Both he and Johnson would have killed Wolf Larsen at the slightest +opportunity, but the opportunity never came. Wolf Larsen was too +wise for that, and, besides, they had no adequate weapons. With +their fists alone they had no chance whatever. Time and again +he fought it out with Leach who fought back always, like a wildcat, +tooth and nail and fist, until stretched, exhausted or unconscious, +on the deck. And he was never averse to another encounter. +All the devil that was in him challenged the devil in Wolf Larsen. +They had but to appear on deck at the same time, when they would be +at it, cursing, snarling, striking; and I have seen Leach fling himself +upon Wolf Larsen without warning or provocation. Once he threw +his heavy sheath-knife, missing Wolf Larsen’s throat by an inch. +Another time he dropped a steel marlinspike from the mizzen crosstree. +It was a difficult cast to make on a rolling ship, but the sharp point +of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through the air, barely missed +Wolf Larsen’s head as he emerged from the cabin companion-way +and drove its length two inches and over into the solid deck-planking. +Still another time, he stole into the steerage, possessed himself of +a loaded shot-gun, and was making a rush for the deck with it when caught +by Kerfoot and disarmed.</p> +<p>I often wondered why Wolf Larsen did not kill him and make an end +of it. But he only laughed and seemed to enjoy it. There +seemed a certain spice about it, such as men must feel who take delight +in making pets of ferocious animals.</p> +<p>“It gives a thrill to life,” he explained to me, “when +life is carried in one’s hand. Man is a natural gambler, +and life is the biggest stake he can lay. The greater the odds, +the greater the thrill. Why should I deny myself the joy of exciting +Leach’s soul to fever-pitch? For that matter, I do him a +kindness. The greatness of sensation is mutual. He is living +more royally than any man for’ard, though he does not know it. +For he has what they have not—purpose, something to do and be +done, an all-absorbing end to strive to attain, the desire to kill me, +the hope that he may kill me. Really, Hump, he is living deep +and high. I doubt that he has ever lived so swiftly and keenly +before, and I honestly envy him, sometimes, when I see him raging at +the summit of passion and sensibility.”</p> +<p>“Ah, but it is cowardly, cowardly!” I cried. “You +have all the advantage.”</p> +<p>“Of the two of us, you and I, who is the greater coward?” +he asked seriously. “If the situation is unpleasing, you +compromise with your conscience when you make yourself a party to it. +If you were really great, really true to yourself, you would join forces +with Leach and Johnson. But you are afraid, you are afraid. +You want to live. The life that is in you cries out that it must +live, no matter what the cost; so you live ignominiously, untrue to +the best you dream of, sinning against your whole pitiful little code, +and, if there were a hell, heading your soul straight for it. +Bah! I play the braver part. I do no sin, for I am true +to the promptings of the life that is in me. I am sincere with +my soul at least, and that is what you are not.”</p> +<p>There was a sting in what he said. Perhaps, after all, I was +playing a cowardly part. And the more I thought about it the more +it appeared that my duty to myself lay in doing what he had advised, +lay in joining forces with Johnson and Leach and working for his death. +Right here, I think, entered the austere conscience of my Puritan ancestry, +impelling me toward lurid deeds and sanctioning even murder as right +conduct. I dwelt upon the idea. It would be a most moral +act to rid the world of such a monster. Humanity would be better +and happier for it, life fairer and sweeter.</p> +<p>I pondered it long, lying sleepless in my bunk and reviewing in endless +procession the facts of the situation. I talked with Johnson and +Leach, during the night watches when Wolf Larsen was below. Both +men had lost hope—Johnson, because of temperamental despondency; +Leach, because he had beaten himself out in the vain struggle and was +exhausted. But he caught my hand in a passionate grip one night, +saying:</p> +<p>“I think yer square, Mr. Van Weyden. But stay where you +are and keep yer mouth shut. Say nothin’ but saw wood. +We’re dead men, I know it; but all the same you might be able +to do us a favour some time when we need it damn bad.”</p> +<p>It was only next day, when Wainwright Island loomed to windward, +close abeam, that Wolf Larsen opened his mouth in prophecy. He +had attacked Johnson, been attacked by Leach, and had just finished +whipping the pair of them.</p> +<p>“Leach,” he said, “you know I’m going to +kill you some time or other, don’t you?”</p> +<p>A snarl was the answer.</p> +<p>“And as for you, Johnson, you’ll get so tired of life +before I’m through with you that you’ll fling yourself over +the side. See if you don’t.”</p> +<p>“That’s a suggestion,” he added, in an aside to +me. “I’ll bet you a month’s pay he acts upon +it.”</p> +<p>I had cherished a hope that his victims would find an opportunity +to escape while filling our water-barrels, but Wolf Larsen had selected +his spot well. The <i>Ghost</i> lay half-a-mile beyond the surf-line +of a lonely beach. Here debauched a deep gorge, with precipitous, +volcanic walls which no man could scale. And here, under his direct +supervision—for he went ashore himself—Leach and Johnson +filled the small casks and rolled them down to the beach. They +had no chance to make a break for liberty in one of the boats.</p> +<p>Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt. They composed +one of the boats’ crews, and their task was to ply between the +schooner and the shore, carrying a single cask each trip. Just +before dinner, starting for the beach with an empty barrel, they altered +their course and bore away to the left to round the promontory which +jutted into the sea between them and liberty. Beyond its foaming +base lay the pretty villages of the Japanese colonists and smiling valleys +which penetrated deep into the interior. Once in the fastnesses +they promised, and the two men could defy Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>I had observed Henderson and Smoke loitering about the deck all morning, +and I now learned why they were there. Procuring their rifles, +they opened fire in a leisurely manner, upon the deserters. It +was a cold-blooded exhibition of marksmanship. At first their +bullets zipped harmlessly along the surface of the water on either side +the boat; but, as the men continued to pull lustily, they struck closer +and closer.</p> +<p>“Now, watch me take Kelly’s right oar,” Smoke said, +drawing a more careful aim.</p> +<p>I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter +as he shot. Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison’s +right oar. The boat slewed around. The two remaining oars +were quickly broken. The men tried to row with the splinters, +and had them shot out of their hands. Kelly ripped up a bottom +board and began paddling, but dropped it with a cry of pain as its splinters +drove into his hands. Then they gave up, letting the boat drift +till a second boat, sent from the shore by Wolf Larsen, took them in +tow and brought them aboard.</p> +<p>Late that afternoon we hove up anchor and got away. Nothing +was before us but the three or four months’ hunting on the sealing +grounds. The outlook was black indeed, and I went about my work +with a heavy heart. An almost funereal gloom seemed to have descended +upon the <i>Ghost</i>. Wolf Larsen had taken to his bunk with +one of his strange, splitting headaches. Harrison stood listlessly +at the wheel, half supporting himself by it, as though wearied by the +weight of his flesh. The rest of the men were morose and silent. +I came upon Kelly crouching to the lee of the forecastle scuttle, his +head on his knees, his arms about his head, in an attitude of unutterable +despondency.</p> +<p>Johnson I found lying full length on the forecastle head, staring +at the troubled churn of the forefoot, and I remembered with horror +the suggestion Wolf Larsen had made. It seemed likely to bear +fruit. I tried to break in on the man’s morbid thoughts +by calling him away, but he smiled sadly at me and refused to obey.</p> +<p>Leach approached me as I returned aft.</p> +<p>“I want to ask a favour, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said. +“If it’s yer luck to ever make ’Frisco once more, +will you hunt up Matt McCarthy? He’s my old man. He +lives on the Hill, back of the Mayfair bakery, runnin’ a cobbler’s +shop that everybody knows, and you’ll have no trouble. Tell +him I lived to be sorry for the trouble I brought him and the things +I done, and—and just tell him ‘God bless him,’ for +me.”</p> +<p>I nodded my head, but said, “We’ll all win back to San +Francisco, Leach, and you’ll be with me when I go to see Matt +McCarthy.”</p> +<p>“I’d like to believe you,” he answered, shaking +my hand, “but I can’t. Wolf Larsen ’ll do for +me, I know it; and all I can hope is, he’ll do it quick.”</p> +<p>And as he left me I was aware of the same desire at my heart. +Since it was to be done, let it be done with despatch. The general +gloom had gathered me into its folds. The worst appeared inevitable; +and as I paced the deck, hour after hour, I found myself afflicted with +Wolf Larsen’s repulsive ideas. What was it all about? +Where was the grandeur of life that it should permit such wanton destruction +of human souls? It was a cheap and sordid thing after all, this +life, and the sooner over the better. Over and done with! +I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with +the certainty that sooner or later I should be sinking down, down, through +the cool green depths of its oblivion.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Strange to say, in spite of the general foreboding, nothing of especial +moment happened on the <i>Ghost</i>. We ran on to the north and +west till we raised the coast of Japan and picked up with the great +seal herd. Coming from no man knew where in the illimitable Pacific, +it was travelling north on its annual migration to the rookeries of +Bering Sea. And north we travelled with it, ravaging and destroying, +flinging the naked carcasses to the shark and salting down the skins +so that they might later adorn the fair shoulders of the women of the +cities.</p> +<p>It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman’s sake. No +man ate of the seal meat or the oil. After a good day’s +killing I have seen our decks covered with hides and bodies, slippery +with fat and blood, the scuppers running red; masts, ropes, and rails +spattered with the sanguinary colour; and the men, like butchers plying +their trade, naked and red of arm and hand, hard at work with ripping +and flensing-knives, removing the skins from the pretty sea-creatures +they had killed.</p> +<p>It was my task to tally the pelts as they came aboard from the boats, +to oversee the skinning and afterward the cleansing of the decks and +bringing things ship-shape again. It was not pleasant work. +My soul and my stomach revolted at it; and yet, in a way, this handling +and directing of many men was good for me. It developed what little +executive ability I possessed, and I was aware of a toughening or hardening +which I was undergoing and which could not be anything but wholesome +for “Sissy” Van Weyden.</p> +<p>One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could never +again be quite the same man I had been. While my hope and faith +in human life still survived Wolf Larsen’s destructive criticism, +he had nevertheless been a cause of change in minor matters. He +had opened up for me the world of the real, of which I had known practically +nothing and from which I had always shrunk. I had learned to look +more closely at life as it was lived, to recognize that there were such +things as facts in the world, to emerge from the realm of mind and idea +and to place certain values on the concrete and objective phases of +existence.</p> +<p>I saw more of Wolf Larsen than ever when we had gained the grounds. +For when the weather was fair and we were in the midst of the herd, +all hands were away in the boats, and left on board were only he and +I, and Thomas Mugridge, who did not count. But there was no play +about it. The six boats, spreading out fan-wise from the schooner +until the first weather boat and the last lee boat were anywhere from +ten to twenty miles apart, cruised along a straight course over the +sea till nightfall or bad weather drove them in. It was our duty +to sail the <i>Ghost</i> well to leeward of the last lee boat, so that +all the boats should have fair wind to run for us in case of squalls +or threatening weather.</p> +<p>It is no slight matter for two men, particularly when a stiff wind +has sprung up, to handle a vessel like the <i>Ghost</i>, steering, keeping +look-out for the boats, and setting or taking in sail; so it devolved +upon me to learn, and learn quickly. Steering I picked up easily, +but running aloft to the crosstrees and swinging my whole weight by +my arms when I left the ratlines and climbed still higher, was more +difficult. This, too, I learned, and quickly, for I felt somehow +a wild desire to vindicate myself in Wolf Larsen’s eyes, to prove +my right to live in ways other than of the mind. Nay, the time +came when I took joy in the run of the masthead and in the clinging +on by my legs at that precarious height while I swept the sea with glasses +in search of the boats.</p> +<p>I remember one beautiful day, when the boats left early and the reports +of the hunters’ guns grew dim and distant and died away as they +scattered far and wide over the sea. There was just the faintest +wind from the westward; but it breathed its last by the time we managed +to get to leeward of the last lee boat. One by one—I was +at the masthead and saw—the six boats disappeared over the bulge +of the earth as they followed the seal into the west. We lay, +scarcely rolling on the placid sea, unable to follow. Wolf Larsen +was apprehensive. The barometer was down, and the sky to the east +did not please him. He studied it with unceasing vigilance.</p> +<p>“If she comes out of there,” he said, “hard and +snappy, putting us to windward of the boats, it’s likely there’ll +be empty bunks in steerage and fo’c’sle.”</p> +<p>By eleven o’clock the sea had become glass. By midday, +though we were well up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening. +There was no freshness in the air. It was sultry and oppressive, +reminding me of what the old Californians term “earthquake weather.” +There was something ominous about it, and in intangible ways one was +made to feel that the worst was about to come. Slowly the whole +eastern sky filled with clouds that over-towered us like some black +sierra of the infernal regions. So clearly could one see cañon, +gorge, and precipice, and the shadows that lie therein, that one looked +unconsciously for the white surf-line and bellowing caverns where the +sea charges on the land. And still we rocked gently, and there +was no wind.</p> +<p>“It’s no square” Wolf Larsen said. “Old +Mother Nature’s going to get up on her hind legs and howl for +all that’s in her, and it’ll keep us jumping, Hump, to pull +through with half our boats. You’d better run up and loosen +the topsails.”</p> +<p>“But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us?” +I asked, a note of protest in my voice.</p> +<p>“Why we’ve got to make the best of the first of it and +run down to our boats before our canvas is ripped out of us. After +that I don’t give a rap what happens. The sticks ’ll +stand it, and you and I will have to, though we’ve plenty cut +out for us.”</p> +<p>Still the calm continued. We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious +meal for me with eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the bulge +of the earth, and with that heaven-rolling mountain range of clouds +moving slowly down upon us. Wolf Larsen did not seem affected, +however; though I noticed, when we returned to the deck, a slight twitching +of the nostrils, a perceptible quickness of movement. His face +was stern, the lines of it had grown hard, and yet in his eyes—blue, +clear blue this day—there was a strange brilliancy, a bright scintillating +light. It struck me that he was joyous, in a ferocious sort of +way; that he was glad there was an impending struggle; that he was thrilled +and upborne with knowledge that one of the great moments of living, +when the tide of life surges up in flood, was upon him.</p> +<p>Once, and unwitting that he did so or that I saw, he laughed aloud, +mockingly and defiantly, at the advancing storm. I see him yet +standing there like a pigmy out of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> before +the huge front of some malignant genie. He was daring destiny, +and he was unafraid.</p> +<p>He walked to the galley. “Cooky, by the time you’ve +finished pots and pans you’ll be wanted on deck. Stand ready +for a call.”</p> +<p>“Hump,” he said, becoming cognizant of the fascinated +gaze I bent upon him, “this beats whisky and is where your Omar +misses. I think he only half lived after all.”</p> +<p>The western half of the sky had by now grown murky. The sun +had dimmed and faded out of sight. It was two in the afternoon, +and a ghostly twilight, shot through by wandering purplish lights, had +descended upon us. In this purplish light Wolf Larsen’s +face glowed and glowed, and to my excited fancy he appeared encircled +by a halo. We lay in the midst of an unearthly quiet, while all +about us were signs and omens of oncoming sound and movement. +The sultry heat had become unendurable. The sweat was standing +on my forehead, and I could feel it trickling down my nose. I +felt as though I should faint, and reached out to the rail for support.</p> +<p>And then, just then, the faintest possible whisper of air passed +by. It was from the east, and like a whisper it came and went. +The drooping canvas was not stirred, and yet my face had felt the air +and been cooled.</p> +<p>“Cooky,” Wolf Larsen called in a low voice. Thomas +Mugridge turned a pitiable scared face. “Let go that foreboom +tackle and pass it across, and when she’s willing let go the sheet +and come in snug with the tackle. And if you make a mess of it, +it will be the last you ever make. Understand?”</p> +<p>“Mr. Van Weyden, stand by to pass the head-sails over. +Then jump for the topsails and spread them quick as God’ll let +you—the quicker you do it the easier you’ll find it. +As for Cooky, if he isn’t lively bat him between the eyes.”</p> +<p>I was aware of the compliment and pleased, in that no threat had +accompanied my instructions. We were lying head to north-west, +and it was his intention to jibe over all with the first puff.</p> +<p>“We’ll have the breeze on our quarter,” he explained +to me. “By the last guns the boats were bearing away slightly +to the south’ard.”</p> +<p>He turned and walked aft to the wheel. I went forward and took +my station at the jibs. Another whisper of wind, and another, +passed by. The canvas flapped lazily.</p> +<p>“Thank Gawd she’s not comin’ all of a bunch, Mr. +Van Weyden,” was the Cockney’s fervent ejaculation.</p> +<p>And I was indeed thankful, for I had by this time learned enough +to know, with all our canvas spread, what disaster in such event awaited +us. The whispers of wind became puffs, the sails filled, the <i>Ghost</i> +moved. Wolf Larsen put the wheel hard up, to port, and we began +to pay off. The wind was now dead astern, muttering and puffing +stronger and stronger, and my head-sails were pounding lustily. +I did not see what went on elsewhere, though I felt the sudden surge +and heel of the schooner as the wind-pressures changed to the jibing +of the fore- and main-sails. My hands were full with the flying-jib, +jib, and staysail; and by the time this part of my task was accomplished +the <i>Ghost</i> was leaping into the south-west, the wind on her quarter +and all her sheets to starboard. Without pausing for breath, though +my heart was beating like a trip-hammer from my exertions, I sprang +to the topsails, and before the wind had become too strong we had them +fairly set and were coiling down. Then I went aft for orders.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen nodded approval and relinquished the wheel to me. +The wind was strengthening steadily and the sea rising. For an +hour I steered, each moment becoming more difficult. I had not +the experience to steer at the gait we were going on a quartering course.</p> +<p>“Now take a run up with the glasses and raise some of the boats. +We’ve made at least ten knots, and we’re going twelve or +thirteen now. The old girl knows how to walk.”</p> +<p>I contested myself with the fore crosstrees, some seventy feet above +the deck. As I searched the vacant stretch of water before me, +I comprehended thoroughly the need for haste if we were to recover any +of our men. Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea through which +we were running, I doubted that there was a boat afloat. It did +not seem possible that such frail craft could survive such stress of +wind and water.</p> +<p>I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running +with it; but from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside the +<i>Ghost</i> and apart from her, and saw the shape of her outlined sharply +against the foaming sea as she tore along instinct with life. +Sometimes she would lift and send across some great wave, burying her +starboard-rail from view, and covering her deck to the hatches with +the boiling ocean. At such moments, starting from a windward roll, +I would go flying through the air with dizzying swiftness, as though +I clung to the end of a huge, inverted pendulum, the arc of which, between +the greater rolls, must have been seventy feet or more. Once, +the terror of this giddy sweep overpowered me, and for a while I clung +on, hand and foot, weak and trembling, unable to search the sea for +the missing boats or to behold aught of the sea but that which roared +beneath and strove to overwhelm the <i>Ghost</i>.</p> +<p>But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied me, and in +my quest for them I forgot myself. For an hour I saw nothing but +the naked, desolate sea. And then, where a vagrant shaft of sunlight +struck the ocean and turned its surface to wrathful silver, I caught +a small black speck thrust skyward for an instant and swallowed up. +I waited patiently. Again the tiny point of black projected itself +through the wrathful blaze a couple of points off our port-bow. +I did not attempt to shout, but communicated the news to Wolf Larsen +by waving my arm. He changed the course, and I signalled affirmation +when the speck showed dead ahead.</p> +<p>It grew larger, and so swiftly that for the first time I fully appreciated +the speed of our flight. Wolf Larsen motioned for me to come down, +and when I stood beside him at the wheel gave me instructions for heaving +to.</p> +<p>“Expect all hell to break loose,” he cautioned me, “but +don’t mind it. Yours is to do your own work and to have +Cooky stand by the fore-sheet.”</p> +<p>I managed to make my way forward, but there was little choice of +sides, for the weather-rail seemed buried as often as the lee. +Having instructed Thomas Mugridge as to what he was to do, I clambered +into the fore-rigging a few feet. The boat was now very close, +and I could make out plainly that it was lying head to wind and sea +and dragging on its mast and sail, which had been thrown overboard and +made to serve as a sea-anchor. The three men were bailing. +Each rolling mountain whelmed them from view, and I would wait with +sickening anxiety, fearing that they would never appear again. +Then, and with black suddenness, the boat would shoot clear through +the foaming crest, bow pointed to the sky, and the whole length of her +bottom showing, wet and dark, till she seemed on end. There would +be a fleeting glimpse of the three men flinging water in frantic haste, +when she would topple over and fall into the yawning valley, bow down +and showing her full inside length to the stern upreared almost directly +above the bow. Each time that she reappeared was a miracle.</p> +<p>The <i>Ghost</i> suddenly changed her course, keeping away, and it +came to me with a shock that Wolf Larsen was giving up the rescue as +impossible. Then I realized that he was preparing to heave to, +and dropped to the deck to be in readiness. We were now dead before +the wind, the boat far away and abreast of us. I felt an abrupt +easing of the schooner, a loss for the moment of all strain and pressure, +coupled with a swift acceleration of speed. She was rushing around +on her heel into the wind.</p> +<p>As she arrived at right angles to the sea, the full force of the +wind (from which we had hitherto run away) caught us. I was unfortunately +and ignorantly facing it. It stood up against me like a wall, +filling my lungs with air which I could not expel. And as I choked +and strangled, and as the <i>Ghost</i> wallowed for an instant, broadside +on and rolling straight over and far into the wind, I beheld a huge +sea rise far above my head. I turned aside, caught my breath, +and looked again. The wave over-topped the <i>Ghost</i>, and I +gazed sheer up and into it. A shaft of sunlight smote the over-curl, +and I caught a glimpse of translucent, rushing green, backed by a milky +smother of foam.</p> +<p>Then it descended, pandemonium broke loose, everything happened at +once. I was struck a crushing, stunning blow, nowhere in particular +and yet everywhere. My hold had been broken loose, I was under +water, and the thought passed through my mind that this was the terrible +thing of which I had heard, the being swept in the trough of the sea. +My body struck and pounded as it was dashed helplessly along and turned +over and over, and when I could hold my breath no longer, I breathed +the stinging salt water into my lungs. But through it all I clung +to the one idea—<i>I must get the jib</i> <i>backed over to windward</i>. +I had no fear of death. I had no doubt but that I should come +through somehow. And as this idea of fulfilling Wolf Larsen’s +order persisted in my dazed consciousness, I seemed to see him standing +at the wheel in the midst of the wild welter, pitting his will against +the will of the storm and defying it.</p> +<p>I brought up violently against what I took to be the rail, breathed, +and breathed the sweet air again. I tried to rise, but struck +my head and was knocked back on hands and knees. By some freak +of the waters I had been swept clear under the forecastle-head and into +the eyes. As I scrambled out on all fours, I passed over the body +of Thomas Mugridge, who lay in a groaning heap. There was no time +to investigate. I must get the jib backed over.</p> +<p>When I emerged on deck it seemed that the end of everything had come. +On all sides there was a rending and crashing of wood and steel and +canvas. The <i>Ghost</i> was being wrenched and torn to fragments. +The foresail and fore-topsail, emptied of the wind by the manoeuvre, +and with no one to bring in the sheet in time, were thundering into +ribbons, the heavy boom threshing and splintering from rail to rail. +The air was thick with flying wreckage, detached ropes and stays were +hissing and coiling like snakes, and down through it all crashed the +gaff of the foresail.</p> +<p>The spar could not have missed me by many inches, while it spurred +me to action. Perhaps the situation was not hopeless. I +remembered Wolf Larsen’s caution. He had expected all hell +to break loose, and here it was. And where was he? I caught +sight of him toiling at the main-sheet, heaving it in and flat with +his tremendous muscles, the stern of the schooner lifted high in the +air and his body outlined against a white surge of sea sweeping past. +All this, and more,—a whole world of chaos and wreck,—in +possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped.</p> +<p>I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but sprang +to the jib-sheet. The jib itself was beginning to slap, partially +filling and emptying with sharp reports; but with a turn of the sheet +and the application of my whole strength each time it slapped, I slowly +backed it. This I know: I did my best. I pulled till I burst +open the ends of all my fingers; and while I pulled, the flying-jib +and staysail split their cloths apart and thundered into nothingness.</p> +<p>Still I pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double turn +until the next slap gave me more. Then the sheet gave with greater +ease, and Wolf Larsen was beside me, heaving in alone while I was busied +taking up the slack.</p> +<p>“Make fast!” he shouted. “And come on!”</p> +<p>As I followed him, I noted that in spite of rack and ruin a rough +order obtained. The <i>Ghost</i> was hove to. She was still +in working order, and she was still working. Though the rest of +her sails were gone, the jib, backed to windward, and the mainsail hauled +down flat, were themselves holding, and holding her bow to the furious +sea as well.</p> +<p>I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat-tackles, +saw it lift to leeward on a big sea an not a score of feet away. +And, so nicely had he made his calculation, we drifted fairly down upon +it, so that nothing remained to do but hook the tackles to either end +and hoist it aboard. But this was not done so easily as it is +written.</p> +<p>In the bow was Kerfoot, Oofty-Oofty in the stern, and Kelly amidships. +As we drifted closer the boat would rise on a wave while we sank in +the trough, till almost straight above me I could see the heads of the +three men craned overside and looking down. Then, the next moment, +we would lift and soar upward while they sank far down beneath us. +It seemed incredible that the next surge should not crush the <i>Ghost</i> +down upon the tiny eggshell.</p> +<p>But, at the right moment, I passed the tackle to the Kanaka, while +Wolf Larsen did the same thing forward to Kerfoot. Both tackles +were hooked in a trice, and the three men, deftly timing the roll, made +a simultaneous leap aboard the schooner. As the <i>Ghost</i> rolled +her side out of water, the boat was lifted snugly against her, and before +the return roll came, we had heaved it in over the side and turned it +bottom up on the deck. I noticed blood spouting from Kerfoot’s +left hand. In some way the third finger had been crushed to a +pulp. But he gave no sign of pain, and with his single right hand +helped us lash the boat in its place.</p> +<p>“Stand by to let that jib over, you Oofty!” Wolf Larsen +commanded, the very second we had finished with the boat. “Kelly, +come aft and slack off the main-sheet! You, Kerfoot, go for’ard +and see what’s become of Cooky! Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft +again, and cut away any stray stuff on your way!”</p> +<p>And having commanded, he went aft with his peculiar tigerish leaps +to the wheel. While I toiled up the fore-shrouds the <i>Ghost</i> +slowly paid off. This time, as we went into the trough of the +sea and were swept, there were no sails to carry away. And, halfway +to the crosstrees and flattened against the rigging by the full force +of the wind so that it would have been impossible for me to have fallen, +the <i>Ghost</i> almost on her beam-ends and the masts parallel with +the water, I looked, not down, but at almost right angles from the perpendicular, +to the deck of the <i>Ghost</i>. But I saw, not the deck, but +where the deck should have been, for it was buried beneath a wild tumbling +of water. Out of this water I could see the two masts rising, +and that was all. The <i>Ghost</i>, for the moment, was buried +beneath the sea. As she squared off more and more, escaping from +the side pressure, she righted herself and broke her deck, like a whale’s +back, through the ocean surface.</p> +<p>Then we raced, and wildly, across the wild sea, the while I hung +like a fly in the crosstrees and searched for the other boats. +In half-an-hour I sighted the second one, swamped and bottom up, to +which were desperately clinging Jock Horner, fat Louis, and Johnson. +This time I remained aloft, and Wolf Larsen succeeded in heaving to +without being swept. As before, we drifted down upon it. +Tackles were made fast and lines flung to the men, who scrambled aboard +like monkeys. The boat itself was crushed and splintered against +the schooner’s side as it came inboard; but the wreck was securely +lashed, for it could be patched and made whole again.</p> +<p>Once more the <i>Ghost</i> bore away before the storm, this time +so submerging herself that for some seconds I thought she would never +reappear. Even the wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist, +was covered and swept again and again. At such moments I felt +strangely alone with God, alone with him and watching the chaos of his +wrath. And then the wheel would reappear, and Wolf Larsen’s +broad shoulders, his hands gripping the spokes and holding the schooner +to the course of his will, himself an earth-god, dominating the storm, +flinging its descending waters from him and riding it to his own ends. +And oh, the marvel of it! the marvel of it! That tiny men should +live and breathe and work, and drive so frail a contrivance of wood +and cloth through so tremendous an elemental strife.</p> +<p>As before, the <i>Ghost</i> swung out of the trough, lifting her +deck again out of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. +It was now half-past five, and half-an-hour later, when the last of +the day lost itself in a dim and furious twilight, I sighted a third +boat. It was bottom up, and there was no sign of its crew. +Wolf Larsen repeated his manoeuvre, holding off and then rounding up +to windward and drifting down upon it. But this time he missed +by forty feet, the boat passing astern.</p> +<p>“Number four boat!” Oofty-Oofty cried, his keen eyes +reading its number in the one second when it lifted clear of the foam, +and upside down.</p> +<p>It was Henderson’s boat and with him had been lost Holyoak +and Williams, another of the deep-water crowd. Lost they indubitably +were; but the boat remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless +effort to recover it. I had come down to the deck, and I saw Horner +and Kerfoot vainly protest against the attempt.</p> +<p>“By God, I’ll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that +ever blew out of hell!” he shouted, and though we four stood with +our heads together that we might hear, his voice seemed faint and far, +as though removed from us an immense distance.</p> +<p>“Mr. Van Weyden!” he cried, and I heard through the tumult +as one might hear a whisper. “Stand by that jib with Johnson +and Oofty! The rest of you tail aft to the mainsheet! Lively +now! or I’ll sail you all into Kingdom Come! Understand?”</p> +<p>And when he put the wheel hard over and the <i>Ghost’s</i> +bow swung off, there was nothing for the hunters to do but obey and +make the best of a risky chance. How great the risk I realized +when I was once more buried beneath the pounding seas and clinging for +life to the pinrail at the foot of the foremast. My fingers were +torn loose, and I swept across to the side and over the side into the +sea. I could not swim, but before I could sink I was swept back +again. A strong hand gripped me, and when the <i>Ghost</i> finally +emerged, I found that I owed my life to Johnson. I saw him looking +anxiously about him, and noted that Kelly, who had come forward at the +last moment, was missing.</p> +<p>This time, having missed the boat, and not being in the same position +as in the previous instances, Wolf Larsen was compelled to resort to +a different manoeuvre. Running off before the wind with everything +to starboard, he came about, and returned close-hauled on the port tack.</p> +<p>“Grand!” Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully +came through the attendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf +Larsen’s seamanship, but to the performance of the <i>Ghost</i> +herself.</p> +<p>It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat; but Wolf Larsen +held back through the frightful turmoil as if guided by unerring instinct. +This time, though we were continually half-buried, there was no trough +in which to be swept, and we drifted squarely down upon the upturned +boat, badly smashing it as it was heaved inboard.</p> +<p>Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of us—two +hunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen and I—reefed, first one and +then the other, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this short +canvas, our decks were comparatively free of water, while the <i>Ghost</i> +bobbed and ducked amongst the combers like a cork.</p> +<p>I had burst open the ends of my fingers at the very first, and during +the reefing I had worked with tears of pain running down my cheeks. +And when all was done, I gave up like a woman and rolled upon the deck +in the agony of exhaustion.</p> +<p>In the meantime Thomas Mugridge, like a drowned rat, was being dragged +out from under the forecastle head where he had cravenly ensconced himself. +I saw him pulled aft to the cabin, and noted with a shock of surprise +that the galley had disappeared. A clean space of deck showed +where it had stood.</p> +<p>In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well, and while +coffee was being cooked over the small stove we drank whisky and crunched +hard-tack. Never in my life had food been so welcome. And +never had hot coffee tasted so good. So violently did the <i>Ghost</i>, +pitch and toss and tumble that it was impossible for even the sailors +to move about without holding on, and several times, after a cry of +“Now she takes it!” we were heaped upon the wall of the +port cabins as though it had been the deck.</p> +<p>“To hell with a look-out,” I heard Wolf Larsen say when +we had eaten and drunk our fill. “There’s nothing +can be done on deck. If anything’s going to run us down +we couldn’t get out of its way. Turn in, all hands, and +get some sleep.”</p> +<p>The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, +while the two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being deemed +advisable to open the slide to the steerage companion-way. Wolf +Larsen and I, between us, cut off Kerfoot’s crushed finger and +sewed up the stump. Mugridge, who, during all the time he had +been compelled to cook and serve coffee and keep the fire going, had +complained of internal pains, now swore that he had a broken rib or +two. On examination we found that he had three. But his +case was deferred to next day, principally for the reason that I did +not know anything about broken ribs and would first have to read it +up.</p> +<p>“I don’t think it was worth it,” I said to Wolf +Larsen, “a broken boat for Kelly’s life.”</p> +<p>“But Kelly didn’t amount to much,” was the reply. +“Good-night.”</p> +<p>After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in my finger-ends, +and with three boats missing, to say nothing of the wild capers the +<i>Ghost</i> was cutting, I should have thought it impossible to sleep. +But my eyes must have closed the instant my head touched the pillow, +and in utter exhaustion I slept throughout the night, the while the +<i>Ghost</i>, lonely and undirected, fought her way through the storm.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The next day, while the storm was blowing itself out, Wolf Larsen +and I crammed anatomy and surgery and set Mugridge’s ribs. +Then, when the storm broke, Wolf Larsen cruised back and forth over +that portion of the ocean where we had encountered it, and somewhat +more to the westward, while the boats were being repaired and new sails +made and bent. Sealing schooner after sealing schooner we sighted +and boarded, most of which were in search of lost boats, and most of +which were carrying boats and crews they had picked up and which did +not belong to them. For the thick of the fleet had been to the +westward of us, and the boats, scattered far and wide, had headed in +mad flight for the nearest refuge.</p> +<p>Two of our boats, with men all safe, we took off the <i>Cisco</i>, +and, to Wolf Larsen’s huge delight and my own grief, he culled +Smoke, with Nilson and Leach, from the <i>San Diego</i>. So that, +at the end of five days, we found ourselves short but four men—Henderson, +Holyoak, Williams, and Kelly,—and were once more hunting on the +flanks of the herd.</p> +<p>As we followed it north we began to encounter the dreaded sea-fogs. +Day after day the boats lowered and were swallowed up almost ere they +touched the water, while we on board pumped the horn at regular intervals +and every fifteen minutes fired the bomb gun. Boats were continually +being lost and found, it being the custom for a boat to hunt, on lay, +with whatever schooner picked it up, until such time it was recovered +by its own schooner. But Wolf Larsen, as was to be expected, being +a boat short, took possession of the first stray one and compelled its +men to hunt with the <i>Ghost</i>, not permitting them to return to +their own schooner when we sighted it. I remember how he forced +the hunter and his two men below, a riffle at their breasts, when their +captain passed by at biscuit-toss and hailed us for information.</p> +<p>Thomas Mugridge, so strangely and pertinaciously clinging to life, +was soon limping about again and performing his double duties of cook +and cabin-boy. Johnson and Leach were bullied and beaten as much +as ever, and they looked for their lives to end with the end of the +hunting season; while the rest of the crew lived the lives of dogs and +were worked like dogs by their pitiless master. As for Wolf Larsen +and myself, we got along fairly well; though I could not quite rid myself +of the idea that right conduct, for me, lay in killing him. He +fascinated me immeasurably, and I feared him immeasurably. And +yet, I could not imagine him lying prone in death. There was an +endurance, as of perpetual youth, about him, which rose up and forbade +the picture. I could see him only as living always, and dominating +always, fighting and destroying, himself surviving.</p> +<p>One diversion of his, when we were in the midst of the herd and the +sea was too rough to lower the boats, was to lower with two boat-pullers +and a steerer and go out himself. He was a good shot, too, and +brought many a skin aboard under what the hunters termed impossible +hunting conditions. It seemed the breath of his nostrils, this +carrying his life in his hands and struggling for it against tremendous +odds.</p> +<p>I was learning more and more seamanship; and one clear day—a +thing we rarely encountered now—I had the satisfaction of running +and handling the <i>Ghost</i> and picking up the boats myself. +Wolf Larsen had been smitten with one of his headaches, and I stood +at the wheel from morning until evening, sailing across the ocean after +the last lee boat, and heaving to and picking it and the other five +up without command or suggestion from him.</p> +<p>Gales we encountered now and again, for it was a raw and stormy region, +and, in the middle of June, a typhoon most memorable to me and most +important because of the changes wrought through it upon my future. +We must have been caught nearly at the centre of this circular storm, +and Wolf Larsen ran out of it and to the southward, first under a double-reefed +jib, and finally under bare poles. Never had I imagined so great +a sea. The seas previously encountered were as ripples compared +with these, which ran a half-mile from crest to crest and which upreared, +I am confident, above our masthead. So great was it that Wolf +Larsen himself did not dare heave to, though he was being driven far +to the southward and out of the seal herd.</p> +<p>We must have been well in the path of the trans-Pacific steamships +when the typhoon moderated, and here, to the surprise of the hunters, +we found ourselves in the midst of seals—a second herd, or sort +of rear-guard, they declared, and a most unusual thing. But it +was “Boats over!” the boom-boom of guns, and the pitiful +slaughter through the long day.</p> +<p>It was at this time that I was approached by Leach. I had just +finished tallying the skins of the last boat aboard, when he came to +my side, in the darkness, and said in a low tone:</p> +<p>“Can you tell me, Mr. Van Weyden, how far we are off the coast, +and what the bearings of Yokohama are?”</p> +<p>My heart leaped with gladness, for I knew what he had in mind, and +I gave him the bearings—west-north-west, and five hundred miles +away.</p> +<p>“Thank you, sir,” was all he said as he slipped back +into the darkness.</p> +<p>Next morning No. 3 boat and Johnson and Leach were missing. +The water-breakers and grub-boxes from all the other boats were likewise +missing, as were the beds and sea bags of the two men. Wolf Larsen +was furious. He set sail and bore away into the west-north-west, +two hunters constantly at the mastheads and sweeping the sea with glasses, +himself pacing the deck like an angry lion. He knew too well my +sympathy for the runaways to send me aloft as look-out.</p> +<p>The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle +in a haystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity. +But he put the <i>Ghost</i> through her best paces so as to get between +the deserters and the land. This accomplished, he cruised back +and forth across what he knew must be their course.</p> +<p>On the morning of the third day, shortly after eight bells, a cry +that the boat was sighted came down from Smoke at the masthead. +All hands lined the rail. A snappy breeze was blowing from the +west with the promise of more wind behind it; and there, to leeward, +in the troubled silver of the rising sun, appeared and disappeared a +black speck.</p> +<p>We squared away and ran for it. My heart was as lead. +I felt myself turning sick in anticipation; and as I looked at the gleam +of triumph in Wolf Larsen’s eyes, his form swam before me, and +I felt almost irresistibly impelled to fling myself upon him. +So unnerved was I by the thought of impending violence to Leach and +Johnson that my reason must have left me. I know that I slipped +down into the steerage in a daze, and that I was just beginning the +ascent to the deck, a loaded shot-gun in my hands, when I heard the +startled cry:</p> +<p>“There’s five men in that boat!”</p> +<p>I supported myself in the companion-way, weak and trembling, while +the observation was being verified by the remarks of the rest of the +men. Then my knees gave from under me and I sank down, myself +again, but overcome by shock at knowledge of what I had so nearly done. +Also, I was very thankful as I put the gun away and slipped back on +deck.</p> +<p>No one had remarked my absence. The boat was near enough for +us to make out that it was larger than any sealing boat and built on +different lines. As we drew closer, the sail was taken in and +the mast unstepped. Oars were shipped, and its occupants waited +for us to heave to and take them aboard.</p> +<p>Smoke, who had descended to the deck and was now standing by my side, +began to chuckle in a significant way. I looked at him inquiringly.</p> +<p>“Talk of a mess!” he giggled.</p> +<p>“What’s wrong?” I demanded.</p> +<p>Again he chuckled. “Don’t you see there, in the +stern-sheets, on the bottom? May I never shoot a seal again if +that ain’t a woman!”</p> +<p>I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamations broke out on +all sides. The boat contained four men, and its fifth occupant +was certainly a woman. We were agog with excitement, all except +Wolf Larsen, who was too evidently disappointed in that it was not his +own boat with the two victims of his malice.</p> +<p>We ran down the flying jib, hauled the jib-sheets to wind-ward and +the main-sheet flat, and came up into the wind. The oars struck +the water, and with a few strokes the boat was alongside. I now +caught my first fair glimpse of the woman. She was wrapped in +a long ulster, for the morning was raw; and I could see nothing but +her face and a mass of light brown hair escaping from under the seaman’s +cap on her head. The eyes were large and brown and lustrous, the +mouth sweet and sensitive, and the face itself a delicate oval, though +sun and exposure to briny wind had burnt the face scarlet.</p> +<p>She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware +of a hungry out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. +But then, I had not seen a woman for a very long time. I know +that I was lost in a great wonder, almost a stupor,—this, then, +was a woman?—so that I forgot myself and my mate’s duties, +and took no part in helping the new-comers aboard. For when one +of the sailors lifted her into Wolf Larsen’s downstretched arms, +she looked up into our curious faces and smiled amusedly and sweetly, +as only a woman can smile, and as I had seen no one smile for so long +that I had forgotten such smiles existed.</p> +<p>“Mr. Van Weyden!”</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen’s voice brought me sharply back to myself.</p> +<p>“Will you take the lady below and see to her comfort? +Make up that spare port cabin. Put Cooky to work on it. +And see what you can do for that face. It’s burned badly.”</p> +<p>He turned brusquely away from us and began to question the new men. +The boat was cast adrift, though one of them called it a “bloody +shame” with Yokohama so near.</p> +<p>I found myself strangely afraid of this woman I was escorting aft. +Also I was awkward. It seemed to me that I was realizing for the +first time what a delicate, fragile creature a woman is; and as I caught +her arm to help her down the companion stairs, I was startled by its +smallness and softness. Indeed, she was a slender, delicate woman +as women go, but to me she was so ethereally slender and delicate that +I was quite prepared for her arm to crumble in my grasp. All this, +in frankness, to show my first impression, after long denial of women +in general and of Maud Brewster in particular.</p> +<p>“No need to go to any great trouble for me,” she protested, +when I had seated her in Wolf Larsen’s arm-chair, which I had +dragged hastily from his cabin. “The men were looking for +land at any moment this morning, and the vessel should be in by night; +don’t you think so?”</p> +<p>Her simple faith in the immediate future took me aback. How +could I explain to her the situation, the strange man who stalked the +sea like Destiny, all that it had taken me months to learn? But +I answered honestly:</p> +<p>“If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you +would be ashore in Yokohama to-morrow. But our captain is a strange +man, and I beg of you to be prepared for anything—understand?—for +anything.”</p> +<p>“I—I confess I hardly do understand,” she hesitated, +a perturbed but not frightened expression in her eyes. “Or +is it a misconception of mine that shipwrecked people are always shown +every consideration? This is such a little thing, you know. +We are so close to land.”</p> +<p>“Candidly, I do not know,” I strove to reassure her. +“I wished merely to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is +to come. This man, this captain, is a brute, a demon, and one +can never tell what will be his next fantastic act.”</p> +<p>I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an “Oh, +I see,” and her voice sounded weary. To think was patently +an effort. She was clearly on the verge of physical collapse.</p> +<p>She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, devoting +myself to Wolf Larsen’s command, which was to make her comfortable. +I bustled about in quite housewifely fashion, procuring soothing lotions +for her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen’s private stores for a bottle +of port I knew to be there, and directing Thomas Mugridge in the preparation +of the spare state-room.</p> +<p>The wind was freshening rapidly, the <i>Ghost</i> heeling over more +and more, and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing through +the water at a lively clip. I had quite forgotten the existence +of Leach and Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, “Boat +ho!” came down the open companion-way. It was Smoke’s +unmistakable voice, crying from the masthead. I shot a glance +at the woman, but she was leaning back in the arm-chair, her eyes closed, +unutterably tired. I doubted that she had heard, and I resolved +to prevent her seeing the brutality I knew would follow the capture +of the deserters. She was tired. Very good. She should +sleep.</p> +<p>There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a slapping +of reef-points as the <i>Ghost</i> shot into the wind and about on the +other tack. As she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair began +to slide across the cabin floor, and I sprang for it just in time to +prevent the rescued woman from being spilled out.</p> +<p>Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepy +surprise that perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she half stumbled, +half tottered, as I led her to her cabin. Mugridge grinned insinuatingly +in my face as I shoved him out and ordered him back to his galley work; +and he won his revenge by spreading glowing reports among the hunters +as to what an excellent “lydy’s-myde” I was proving +myself to be.</p> +<p>She leaned heavily against me, and I do believe that she had fallen +asleep again between the arm-chair and the state-room. This I +discovered when she nearly fell into the bunk during a sudden lurch +of the schooner. She aroused, smiled drowsily, and was off to +sleep again; and asleep I left her, under a heavy pair of sailor’s +blankets, her head resting on a pillow I had appropriated from Wolf +Larsen’s bunk.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I came on deck to find the <i>Ghost</i> heading up close on the port +tack and cutting in to windward of a familiar spritsail close-hauled +on the same tack ahead of us. All hands were on deck, for they +knew that something was to happen when Leach and Johnson were dragged +aboard.</p> +<p>It was four bells. Louis came aft to relieve the wheel. +There was a dampness in the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins.</p> +<p>“What are we going to have?” I asked him.</p> +<p>“A healthy young slip of a gale from the breath iv it, sir,” +he answered, “with a splatter iv rain just to wet our gills an’ +no more.”</p> +<p>“Too bad we sighted them,” I said, as the <i>Ghost’s</i> +bow was flung off a point by a large sea and the boat leaped for a moment +past the jibs and into our line of vision.</p> +<p>Louis gave a spoke and temporized. “They’d never +iv made the land, sir, I’m thinkin’.”</p> +<p>“Think not?” I queried.</p> +<p>“No, sir. Did you feel that?” (A puff had +caught the schooner, and he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to +keep her out of the wind.) “’Tis no egg-shell’ll +float on this sea an hour come, an’ it’s a stroke iv luck +for them we’re here to pick ’em up.”</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen strode aft from amidships, where he had been talking +with the rescued men. The cat-like springiness in his tread was +a little more pronounced than usual, and his eyes were bright and snappy.</p> +<p>“Three oilers and a fourth engineer,” was his greeting. +“But we’ll make sailors out of them, or boat-pullers at +any rate. Now, what of the lady?”</p> +<p>I know not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang like the cut +of a knife when he mentioned her. I thought it a certain silly +fastidiousness on my part, but it persisted in spite of me, and I merely +shrugged my shoulders in answer.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen pursed his lips in a long, quizzical whistle.</p> +<p>“What’s her name, then?” he demanded.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” I replied. “She is +asleep. She was very tired. In fact, I am waiting to hear +the news from you. What vessel was it?”</p> +<p>“Mail steamer,” he answered shortly. “<i>The +City of Tokio</i>, from ’Frisco, bound for Yokohama. Disabled +in that typhoon. Old tub. Opened up top and bottom like +a sieve. They were adrift four days. And you don’t +know who or what she is, eh?—maid, wife, or widow? Well, +well.”</p> +<p>He shook his head in a bantering way, and regarded me with laughing +eyes.</p> +<p>“Are you—” I began. It was on the verge of +my tongue to ask if he were going to take the castaways into Yokohama.</p> +<p>“Am I what?” he asked.</p> +<p>“What do you intend doing with Leach and Johnson?”</p> +<p>He shook his head. “Really, Hump, I don’t know. +You see, with these additions I’ve about all the crew I want.”</p> +<p>“And they’ve about all the escaping they want,” +I said. “Why not give them a change of treatment? +Take them aboard, and deal gently with them. Whatever they have +done they have been hounded into doing.”</p> +<p>“By me?”</p> +<p>“By you,” I answered steadily. “And I give +you warning, Wolf Larsen, that I may forget love of my own life in the +desire to kill you if you go too far in maltreating those poor wretches.”</p> +<p>“Bravo!” he cried. “You do me proud, Hump! +You’ve found your legs with a vengeance. You’re quite +an individual. You were unfortunate in having your life cast in +easy places, but you’re developing, and I like you the better +for it.”</p> +<p>His voice and expression changed. His face was serious. +“Do you believe in promises?” he asked. “Are +they sacred things?”</p> +<p>“Of course,” I answered.</p> +<p>“Then here’s a compact,” he went on, consummate +actor. “If I promise not to lay my hands upon Leach will +you promise, in turn, not to attempt to kill me?”</p> +<p>“Oh, not that I’m afraid of you, not that I’m afraid +of you,” he hastened to add.</p> +<p>I could hardly believe my ears. What was coming over the man?</p> +<p>“Is it a go?” he asked impatiently.</p> +<p>“A go,” I answered.</p> +<p>His hand went out to mine, and as I shook it heartily I could have +sworn I saw the mocking devil shine up for a moment in his eyes.</p> +<p>We strolled across the poop to the lee side. The boat was close +at hand now, and in desperate plight. Johnson was steering, Leach +bailing. We overhauled them about two feet to their one. +Wolf Larsen motioned Louis to keep off slightly, and we dashed abreast +of the boat, not a score of feet to windward. The <i>Ghost</i> +blanketed it. The spritsail flapped emptily and the boat righted +to an even keel, causing the two men swiftly to change position. +The boat lost headway, and, as we lifted on a huge surge, toppled and +fell into the trough.</p> +<p>It was at this moment that Leach and Johnson looked up into the faces +of their shipmates, who lined the rail amidships. There was no +greeting. They were as dead men in their comrades’ eyes, +and between them was the gulf that parts the living and the dead.</p> +<p>The next instant they were opposite the poop, where stood Wolf Larsen +and I. We were falling in the trough, they were rising on the +surge. Johnson looked at me, and I could see that his face was +worn and haggard. I waved my hand to him, and he answered the +greeting, but with a wave that was hopeless and despairing. It +was as if he were saying farewell. I did not see into the eyes +of Leach, for he was looking at Wolf Larsen, the old and implacable +snarl of hatred strong as ever on his face.</p> +<p>Then they were gone astern. The spritsail filled with the wind, +suddenly, careening the frail open craft till it seemed it would surely +capsize. A whitecap foamed above it and broke across in a snow-white +smother. Then the boat emerged, half swamped, Leach flinging the +water out and Johnson clinging to the steering-oar, his face white and +anxious.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen barked a short laugh in my ear and strode away to the +weather side of the poop. I expected him to give orders for the +<i>Ghost</i> to heave to, but she kept on her course and he made no +sign. Louis stood imperturbably at the wheel, but I noticed the +grouped sailors forward turning troubled faces in our direction. +Still the <i>Ghost</i> tore along, till the boat dwindled to a speck, +when Wolf Larsen’s voice rang out in command and he went about +on the starboard tack.</p> +<p>Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling cockle-shell, +when the flying jib was run down and the schooner hove to. The +sealing boats are not made for windward work. Their hope lies +in keeping a weather position so that they may run before the wind for +the schooner when it breezes up. But in all that wild waste there +was no refuge for Leach and Johnson save on the <i>Ghost</i>, and they +resolutely began the windward beat. It was slow work in the heavy +sea that was running. At any moment they were liable to be overwhelmed +by the hissing combers. Time and again and countless times we +watched the boat luff into the big whitecaps, lose headway, and be flung +back like a cork.</p> +<p>Johnson was a splendid seaman, and he knew as much about small boats +as he did about ships. At the end of an hour and a half he was +nearly alongside, standing past our stern on the last leg out, aiming +to fetch us on the next leg back.</p> +<p>“So you’ve changed your mind?” I heard Wolf Larsen +mutter, half to himself, half to them as though they could hear. +“You want to come aboard, eh? Well, then, just keep a-coming.”</p> +<p>“Hard up with that helm!” he commanded Oofty-Oofty, the +Kanaka, who had in the meantime relieved Louis at the wheel.</p> +<p>Command followed command. As the schooner paid off, the fore- +and main-sheets were slacked away for fair wind. And before the +wind we were, and leaping, when Johnson, easing his sheet at imminent +peril, cut across our wake a hundred feet away. Again Wolf Larsen +laughed, at the same time beckoning them with his arm to follow. +It was evidently his intention to play with them,—a lesson, I +took it, in lieu of a beating, though a dangerous lesson, for the frail +craft stood in momentary danger of being overwhelmed.</p> +<p>Johnson squared away promptly and ran after us. There was nothing +else for him to do. Death stalked everywhere, and it was only +a matter of time when some one of those many huge seas would fall upon +the boat, roll over it, and pass on.</p> +<p>“’Tis the fear iv death at the hearts iv them,” +Louis muttered in my ear, as I passed forward to see to taking in the +flying jib and staysail.</p> +<p>“Oh, he’ll heave to in a little while and pick them up,” +I answered cheerfully. “He’s bent upon giving them +a lesson, that’s all.”</p> +<p>Louis looked at me shrewdly. “Think so?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Surely,” I answered. “Don’t you?”</p> +<p>“I think nothing but iv my own skin, these days,” was +his answer. “An’ ’tis with wonder I’m +filled as to the workin’ out iv things. A pretty mess that +’Frisco whisky got me into, an’ a prettier mess that woman’s +got you into aft there. Ah, it’s myself that knows ye for +a blitherin’ fool.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” I demanded; for, having sped his +shaft, he was turning away.</p> +<p>“What do I mean?” he cried. “And it’s +you that asks me! ’Tis not what I mean, but what the Wolf +’ll mean. The Wolf, I said, the Wolf!”</p> +<p>“If trouble comes, will you stand by?” I asked impulsively, +for he had voiced my own fear.</p> +<p>“Stand by? ’Tis old fat Louis I stand by, an’ +trouble enough it’ll be. We’re at the beginnin’ +iv things, I’m tellin’ ye, the bare beginnin’ iv things.”</p> +<p>“I had not thought you so great a coward,” I sneered.</p> +<p>He favoured me with a contemptuous stare. “If I raised +never a hand for that poor fool,”—pointing astern to the +tiny sail,—“d’ye think I’m hungerin’ for +a broken head for a woman I never laid me eyes upon before this day?”</p> +<p>I turned scornfully away and went aft.</p> +<p>“Better get in those topsails, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf +Larsen said, as I came on the poop.</p> +<p>I felt relief, at least as far as the two men were concerned. +It was clear he did not wish to run too far away from them. I +picked up hope at the thought and put the order swiftly into execution. +I had scarcely opened my mouth to issue the necessary commands, when +eager men were springing to halyards and downhauls, and others were +racing aloft. This eagerness on their part was noted by Wolf Larsen +with a grim smile.</p> +<p>Still we increased our lead, and when the boat had dropped astern +several miles we hove to and waited. All eyes watched it coming, +even Wolf Larsen’s; but he was the only unperturbed man aboard. +Louis, gazing fixedly, betrayed a trouble in his face he was not quite +able to hide.</p> +<p>The boat drew closer and closer, hurling along through the seething +green like a thing alive, lifting and sending and uptossing across the +huge-backed breakers, or disappearing behind them only to rush into +sight again and shoot skyward. It seemed impossible that it could +continue to live, yet with each dizzying sweep it did achieve the impossible. +A rain-squall drove past, and out of the flying wet the boat emerged, +almost upon us.</p> +<p>“Hard up, there!” Wolf Larsen shouted, himself springing +to the wheel and whirling it over.</p> +<p>Again the <i>Ghost</i> sprang away and raced before the wind, and +for two hours Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran +away, hove to and ran away, and ever astern the struggling patch of +sail tossed skyward and fell into the rushing valleys. It was +a quarter of a mile away when a thick squall of rain veiled it from +view. It never emerged. The wind blew the air clear again, +but no patch of sail broke the troubled surface. I thought I saw, +for an instant, the boat’s bottom show black in a breaking crest. +At the best, that was all. For Johnson and Leach the travail of +existence had ceased.</p> +<p>The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below, +and no one was speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. +Each man seemed stunned—deeply contemplative, as it were, and, +not quite sure, trying to realize just what had taken place. Wolf +Larsen gave them little time for thought. He at once put the <i>Ghost</i> +upon her course—a course which meant the seal herd and not Yokohama +harbour. But the men were no longer eager as they pulled and hauled, +and I heard curses amongst them, which left their lips smothered and +as heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was it with the hunters. +Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and they descended into the +steerage, bellowing with laughter.</p> +<p>As I passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft I was approached +by the engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were +trembling.</p> +<p>“Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?” he cried.</p> +<p>“You have eyes, you have seen,” I answered, almost brutally, +what of the pain and fear at my own heart.</p> +<p>“Your promise?” I said to Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>“I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that +promise,” he answered. “And anyway, you’ll agree +I’ve not laid my hands upon them.”</p> +<p>“Far from it, far from it,” he laughed a moment later.</p> +<p>I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too +confused. I must have time to think, I knew. This woman, +sleeping even now in the spare cabin, was a responsibility, which I +must consider, and the only rational thought that flickered through +my mind was that I must do nothing hastily if I were to be any help +to her at all.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. The young slip +of a gale, having wetted our gills, proceeded to moderate. The +fourth engineer and the three oilers, after a warm interview with Wolf +Larsen, were furnished with outfits from the slop-chests, assigned places +under the hunters in the various boats and watches on the vessel, and +bundled forward into the forecastle. They went protestingly, but +their voices were not loud. They were awed by what they had already +seen of Wolf Larsen’s character, while the tale of woe they speedily +heard in the forecastle took the last bit of rebellion out of them.</p> +<p>Miss Brewster—we had learned her name from the engineer—slept +on and on. At supper I requested the hunters to lower their voices, +so she was not disturbed; and it was not till next morning that she +made her appearance. It had been my intention to have her meals +served apart, but Wolf Larsen put down his foot. Who was she that +she should be too good for cabin table and cabin society? had been his +demand.</p> +<p>But her coming to the table had something amusing in it. The +hunters fell silent as clams. Jock Horner and Smoke alone were +unabashed, stealing stealthy glances at her now and again, and even +taking part in the conversation. The other four men glued their +eyes on their plates and chewed steadily and with thoughtful precision, +their ears moving and wobbling, in time with their jaws, like the ears +of so many animals.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen had little to say at first, doing no more than reply +when he was addressed. Not that he was abashed. Far from +it. This woman was a new type to him, a different breed from any +he had ever known, and he was curious. He studied her, his eyes +rarely leaving her face unless to follow the movements of her hands +or shoulders. I studied her myself, and though it was I who maintained +the conversation, I know that I was a bit shy, not quite self-possessed. +His was the perfect poise, the supreme confidence in self, which nothing +could shake; and he was no more timid of a woman than he was of storm +and battle.</p> +<p>“And when shall we arrive at Yokohama?” she asked, turning +to him and looking him squarely in the eyes.</p> +<p>There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, +the ears ceased wobbling, and though eyes remained glued on plates, +each man listened greedily for the answer.</p> +<p>“In four months, possibly three if the season closes early,” +Wolf Larsen said.</p> +<p>She caught her breath and stammered, “I—I thought—I +was given to understand that Yokohama was only a day’s sail away. +It—” Here she paused and looked about the table at +the circle of unsympathetic faces staring hard at the plates. +“It is not right,” she concluded.</p> +<p>“That is a question you must settle with Mr. Van Weyden there,” +he replied, nodding to me with a mischievous twinkle. “Mr. +Van Weyden is what you may call an authority on such things as rights. +Now I, who am only a sailor, would look upon the situation somewhat +differently. It may possibly be your misfortune that you have +to remain with us, but it is certainly our good fortune.”</p> +<p>He regarded her smilingly. Her eyes fell before his gaze, but +she lifted them again, and defiantly, to mine. I read the unspoken +question there: was it right? But I had decided that the part +I was to play must be a neutral one, so I did not answer.</p> +<p>“What do you think?” she demanded.</p> +<p>“That it is unfortunate, especially if you have any engagements +falling due in the course of the next several months. But, since +you say that you were voyaging to Japan for your health, I can assure +you that it will improve no better anywhere than aboard the <i>Ghost</i>.”</p> +<p>I saw her eyes flash with indignation, and this time it was I who +dropped mine, while I felt my face flushing under her gaze. It +was cowardly, but what else could I do?</p> +<p>“Mr. Van Weyden speaks with the voice of authority,” +Wolf Larsen laughed.</p> +<p>I nodded my head, and she, having recovered herself, waited expectantly.</p> +<p>“Not that he is much to speak of now,” Wolf Larsen went +on, “but he has improved wonderfully. You should have seen +him when he came on board. A more scrawny, pitiful specimen of +humanity one could hardly conceive. Isn’t that so, Kerfoot?”</p> +<p>Kerfoot, thus directly addressed, was startled into dropping his +knife on the floor, though he managed to grunt affirmation.</p> +<p>“Developed himself by peeling potatoes and washing dishes. +Eh, Kerfoot?”</p> +<p>Again that worthy grunted.</p> +<p>“Look at him now. True, he is not what you would term +muscular, but still he has muscles, which is more than he had when he +came aboard. Also, he has legs to stand on. You would not +think so to look at him, but he was quite unable to stand alone at first.”</p> +<p>The hunters were snickering, but she looked at me with a sympathy +in her eyes which more than compensated for Wolf Larsen’s nastiness. +In truth, it had been so long since I had received sympathy that I was +softened, and I became then, and gladly, her willing slave. But +I was angry with Wolf Larsen. He was challenging my manhood with +his slurs, challenging the very legs he claimed to be instrumental in +getting for me.</p> +<p>“I may have learned to stand on my own legs,” I retorted. +“But I have yet to stamp upon others with them.”</p> +<p>He looked at me insolently. “Your education is only half +completed, then,” he said dryly, and turned to her.</p> +<p>“We are very hospitable upon the <i>Ghost</i>. Mr. Van +Weyden has discovered that. We do everything to make our guests +feel at home, eh, Mr. Van Weyden?”</p> +<p>“Even to the peeling of potatoes and the washing of dishes,” +I answered, “to say nothing to wringing their necks out of very +fellowship.”</p> +<p>“I beg of you not to receive false impressions of us from Mr. +Van Weyden,” he interposed with mock anxiety. “You +will observe, Miss Brewster, that he carries a dirk in his belt, a—ahem—a +most unusual thing for a ship’s officer to do. While really +very estimable, Mr. Van Weyden is sometimes—how shall I say?—er—quarrelsome, +and harsh measures are necessary. He is quite reasonable and fair +in his calm moments, and as he is calm now he will not deny that only +yesterday he threatened my life.”</p> +<p>I was well-nigh choking, and my eyes were certainly fiery. +He drew attention to me.</p> +<p>“Look at him now. He can scarcely control himself in +your presence. He is not accustomed to the presence of ladies +anyway. I shall have to arm myself before I dare go on deck with +him.”</p> +<p>He shook his head sadly, murmuring, “Too bad, too bad,” +while the hunters burst into guffaws of laughter.</p> +<p>The deep-sea voices of these men, rumbling and bellowing in the confined +space, produced a wild effect. The whole setting was wild, and +for the first time, regarding this strange woman and realizing how incongruous +she was in it, I was aware of how much a part of it I was myself. +I knew these men and their mental processes, was one of them myself, +living the seal-hunting life, eating the seal-hunting fare, thinking, +largely, the seal-hunting thoughts. There was for me no strangeness +to it, to the rough clothes, the coarse faces, the wild laughter, and +the lurching cabin walls and swaying sea-lamps.</p> +<p>As I buttered a piece of bread my eyes chanced to rest upon my hand. +The knuckles were skinned and inflamed clear across, the fingers swollen, +the nails rimmed with black. I felt the mattress-like growth of +beard on my neck, knew that the sleeve of my coat was ripped, that a +button was missing from the throat of the blue shirt I wore. The +dirk mentioned by Wolf Larsen rested in its sheath on my hip. +It was very natural that it should be there,—how natural I had +not imagined until now, when I looked upon it with her eyes and knew +how strange it and all that went with it must appear to her.</p> +<p>But she divined the mockery in Wolf Larsen’s words, and again +favoured me with a sympathetic glance. But there was a look of +bewilderment also in her eyes. That it was mockery made the situation +more puzzling to her.</p> +<p>“I may be taken off by some passing vessel, perhaps,” +she suggested.</p> +<p>“There will be no passing vessels, except other sealing-schooners,” +Wolf Larsen made answer.</p> +<p>“I have no clothes, nothing,” she objected. “You +hardly realize, sir, that I am not a man, or that I am unaccustomed +to the vagrant, careless life which you and your men seem to lead.”</p> +<p>“The sooner you get accustomed to it, the better,” he +said.</p> +<p>“I’ll furnish you with cloth, needles, and thread,” +he added. “I hope it will not be too dreadful a hardship +for you to make yourself a dress or two.”</p> +<p>She made a wry pucker with her mouth, as though to advertise her +ignorance of dressmaking. That she was frightened and bewildered, +and that she was bravely striving to hide it, was quite plain to me.</p> +<p>“I suppose you’re like Mr. Van Weyden there, accustomed +to having things done for you. Well, I think doing a few things +for yourself will hardly dislocate any joints. By the way, what +do you do for a living?”</p> +<p>She regarded him with amazement unconcealed.</p> +<p>“I mean no offence, believe me. People eat, therefore +they must procure the wherewithal. These men here shoot seals +in order to live; for the same reason I sail this schooner; and Mr. +Van Weyden, for the present at any rate, earns his salty grub by assisting +me. Now what do you do?”</p> +<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> +<p>“Do you feed yourself? Or does some one else feed you?”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid some one else has fed me most of my life,” +she laughed, trying bravely to enter into the spirit of his quizzing, +though I could see a terror dawning and growing in her eyes as she watched +Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>“And I suppose some one else makes your bed for you?”</p> +<p>“I <i>have</i> made beds,” she replied.</p> +<p>“Very often?”</p> +<p>She shook her head with mock ruefulness.</p> +<p>“Do you know what they do to poor men in the States, who, like +you, do not work for their living?”</p> +<p>“I am very ignorant,” she pleaded. “What +do they do to the poor men who are like me?”</p> +<p>“They send them to jail. The crime of not earning a living, +in their case, is called vagrancy. If I were Mr. Van Weyden, who +harps eternally on questions of right and wrong, I’d ask, by what +right do you live when you do nothing to deserve living?”</p> +<p>“But as you are not Mr. Van Weyden, I don’t have to answer, +do I?”</p> +<p>She beamed upon him through her terror-filled eyes, and the pathos +of it cut me to the heart. I must in some way break in and lead +the conversation into other channels.</p> +<p>“Have you ever earned a dollar by your own labour?” he +demanded, certain of her answer, a triumphant vindictiveness in his +voice.</p> +<p>“Yes, I have,” she answered slowly, and I could have +laughed aloud at his crestfallen visage. “I remember my +father giving me a dollar once, when I was a little girl, for remaining +absolutely quiet for five minutes.”</p> +<p>He smiled indulgently.</p> +<p>“But that was long ago,” she continued. “And +you would scarcely demand a little girl of nine to earn her own living.”</p> +<p>“At present, however,” she said, after another slight +pause, “I earn about eighteen hundred dollars a year.”</p> +<p>With one accord, all eyes left the plates and settled on her. +A woman who earned eighteen hundred dollars a year was worth looking +at. Wolf Larsen was undisguised in his admiration.</p> +<p>“Salary, or piece-work?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Piece-work,” she answered promptly.</p> +<p>“Eighteen hundred,” he calculated. “That’s +a hundred and fifty dollars a month. Well, Miss Brewster, there +is nothing small about the <i>Ghost</i>. Consider yourself on +salary during the time you remain with us.”</p> +<p>She made no acknowledgment. She was too unused as yet to the +whims of the man to accept them with equanimity.</p> +<p>“I forgot to inquire,” he went on suavely, “as +to the nature of your occupation. What commodities do you turn +out? What tools and materials do you require?”</p> +<p>“Paper and ink,” she laughed. “And, oh! also +a typewriter.”</p> +<p>“You are Maud Brewster,” I said slowly and with certainty, +almost as though I were charging her with a crime.</p> +<p>Her eyes lifted curiously to mine. “How do you know?”</p> +<p>“Aren’t you?” I demanded.</p> +<p>She acknowledged her identity with a nod. It was Wolf Larsen’s +turn to be puzzled. The name and its magic signified nothing to +him. I was proud that it did mean something to me, and for the +first time in a weary while I was convincingly conscious of a superiority +over him.</p> +<p>“I remember writing a review of a thin little volume—” +I had begun carelessly, when she interrupted me.</p> +<p>“You!” she cried. “You are—”</p> +<p>She was now staring at me in wide-eyed wonder.</p> +<p>I nodded my identity, in turn.</p> +<p>“Humphrey Van Weyden,” she concluded; then added with +a sigh of relief, and unaware that she had glanced that relief at Wolf +Larsen, “I am so glad.”</p> +<p>“I remember the review,” she went on hastily, becoming +aware of the awkwardness of her remark; “that too, too flattering +review.”</p> +<p>“Not at all,” I denied valiantly. “You impeach +my sober judgment and make my canons of little worth. Besides, +all my brother critics were with me. Didn’t Lang include +your ‘Kiss Endured’ among the four supreme sonnets by women +in the English language?”</p> +<p>“But you called me the American Mrs. Meynell!”</p> +<p>“Was it not true?” I demanded.</p> +<p>“No, not that,” she answered. “I was hurt.”</p> +<p>“We can measure the unknown only by the known,” I replied, +in my finest academic manner. “As a critic I was compelled +to place you. You have now become a yardstick yourself. +Seven of your thin little volumes are on my shelves; and there are two +thicker volumes, the essays, which, you will pardon my saying, and I +know not which is flattered more, fully equal your verse. The +time is not far distant when some unknown will arise in England and +the critics will name her the English Maud Brewster.”</p> +<p>“You are very kind, I am sure,” she murmured; and the +very conventionality of her tones and words, with the host of associations +it aroused of the old life on the other side of the world, gave me a +quick thrill—rich with remembrance but stinging sharp with home-sickness.</p> +<p>“And you are Maud Brewster,” I said solemnly, gazing +across at her.</p> +<p>“And you are Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, gazing back +at me with equal solemnity and awe. “How unusual! +I don’t understand. We surely are not to expect some wildly +romantic sea-story from your sober pen.”</p> +<p>“No, I am not gathering material, I assure you,” was +my answer. “I have neither aptitude nor inclination for +fiction.”</p> +<p>“Tell me, why have you always buried yourself in California?” +she next asked. “It has not been kind of you. We of +the East have seen to very little of you—too little, indeed, of +the Dean of American Letters, the Second.”</p> +<p>I bowed to, and disclaimed, the compliment. “I nearly +met you, once, in Philadelphia, some Browning affair or other—you +were to lecture, you know. My train was four hours late.”</p> +<p>And then we quite forgot where we were, leaving Wolf Larsen stranded +and silent in the midst of our flood of gossip. The hunters left +the table and went on deck, and still we talked. Wolf Larsen alone +remained. Suddenly I became aware of him, leaning back from the +table and listening curiously to our alien speech of a world he did +not know.</p> +<p>I broke short off in the middle of a sentence. The present, +with all its perils and anxieties, rushed upon me with stunning force. +It smote Miss Brewster likewise, a vague and nameless terror rushing +into her eyes as she regarded Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>He rose to his feet and laughed awkwardly. The sound of it +was metallic.</p> +<p>“Oh, don’t mind me,” he said, with a self-depreciatory +wave of his hand. “I don’t count. Go on, go +on, I pray you.”</p> +<p>But the gates of speech were closed, and we, too, rose from the table +and laughed awkwardly.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster +and me in the conversation at table had to express itself in some fashion, +and it fell to Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had not mended +his ways nor his shirt, though the latter he contended he had changed. +The garment itself did not bear out the assertion, nor did the accumulations +of grease on stove and pot and pan attest a general cleanliness.</p> +<p>“I’ve given you warning, Cooky,” Wolf Larsen said, +“and now you’ve got to take your medicine.”</p> +<p>Mugridge’s face turned white under its sooty veneer, and when +Wolf Larsen called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable Cockney +fled wildly out of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck with +the grinning crew in pursuit. Few things could have been more +to their liking than to give him a tow over the side, for to the forecastle +he had sent messes and concoctions of the vilest order. Conditions +favoured the undertaking. The <i>Ghost</i> was slipping through +the water at no more than three miles an hour, and the sea was fairly +calm. But Mugridge had little stomach for a dip in it. Possibly +he had seen men towed before. Besides, the water was frightfully +cold, and his was anything but a rugged constitution.</p> +<p>As usual, the watches below and the hunters turned out for what promised +sport. Mugridge seemed to be in rabid fear of the water, and he +exhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he possessed. +Cornered in the right-angle of the poop and galley, he sprang like a +cat to the top of the cabin and ran aft. But his pursuers forestalling +him, he doubled back across the cabin, passed over the galley, and gained +the deck by means of the steerage-scuttle. Straight forward he +raced, the boat-puller Harrison at his heels and gaining on him. +But Mugridge, leaping suddenly, caught the jib-boom-lift. It happened +in an instant. Holding his weight by his arms, and in mid-air +doubling his body at the hips, he let fly with both feet. The +oncoming Harrison caught the kick squarely in the pit of the stomach, +groaned involuntarily, and doubled up and sank backward to the deck.</p> +<p>Hand-clapping and roars of laughter from the hunters greeted the +exploit, while Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the foremast, +ran aft and through the remainder like a runner on the football field. +Straight aft he held, to the poop and along the poop to the stern. +So great was his speed that as he curved past the corner of the cabin +he slipped and fell. Nilson was standing at the wheel, and the +Cockney’s hurtling body struck his legs. Both went down +together, but Mugridge alone arose. By some freak of pressures, +his frail body had snapped the strong man’s leg like a pipe-stem.</p> +<p>Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and +round the decks they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing +and shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing encouragement +and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch under three +men; but he emerged from the mass like an eel, bleeding at the mouth, +the offending shirt ripped into tatters, and sprang for the main-rigging. +Up he went, clear up, beyond the ratlines, to the very masthead.</p> +<p>Half-a-dozen sailors swarmed to the crosstrees after him, where they +clustered and waited while two of their number, Oofty-Oofty and Black +(who was Latimer’s boat-steerer), continued up the thin steel +stays, lifting their bodies higher and higher by means of their arms.</p> +<p>It was a perilous undertaking, for, at a height of over a hundred +feet from the deck, holding on by their hands, they were not in the +best of positions to protect themselves from Mugridge’s feet. +And Mugridge kicked savagely, till the Kanaka, hanging on with one hand, +seized the Cockney’s foot with the other. Black duplicated +the performance a moment later with the other foot. Then the three +writhed together in a swaying tangle, struggling, sliding, and falling +into the arms of their mates on the crosstrees.</p> +<p>The aërial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and +gibbering, his mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to deck. +Wolf Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under his +shoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the sea. +Forty,—fifty,—sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsen +cried “Belay!” Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, +the rope tautened, and the <i>Ghost</i>, lunging onward, jerked the +cook to the surface.</p> +<p>It was a pitiful spectacle. Though he could not drown, and +was nine-lived in addition, he was suffering all the agonies of half-drowning. +The <i>Ghost</i> was going very slowly, and when her stern lifted on +a wave and she slipped forward she pulled the wretch to the surface +and gave him a moment in which to breathe; but between each lift the +stern fell, and while the bow lazily climbed the next wave the line +slacked and he sank beneath.</p> +<p>I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered +her with a start as she stepped lightly beside me. It was her +first time on deck since she had come aboard. A dead silence greeted +her appearance.</p> +<p>“What is the cause of the merriment?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Ask Captain Larsen,” I answered composedly and coldly, +though inwardly my blood was boiling at the thought that she should +be witness to such brutality.</p> +<p>She took my advice and was turning to put it into execution, when +her eyes lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body instinct +with alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope.</p> +<p>“Are you fishing?” she asked him.</p> +<p>He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern, +suddenly flashed.</p> +<p>“Shark ho, sir!” he cried.</p> +<p>“Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!” Wolf +Larsen shouted, springing himself to the rope in advance of the quickest.</p> +<p>Mugridge had heard the Kanaka’s warning cry and was screaming +madly. I could see a black fin cutting the water and making for +him with greater swiftness than he was being pulled aboard. It +was an even toss whether the shark or we would get him, and it was a +matter of moments. When Mugridge was directly beneath us, the +stern descended the slope of a passing wave, thus giving the advantage +to the shark. The fin disappeared. The belly flashed white +in swift upward rush. Almost equally swift, but not quite, was +Wolf Larsen. He threw his strength into one tremendous jerk. +The Cockney’s body left the water; so did part of the shark’s. +He drew up his legs, and the man-eater seemed no more than barely to +touch one foot, sinking back into the water with a splash. But +at the moment of contact Thomas Mugridge cried out. Then he came +in like a fresh-caught fish on a line, clearing the rail generously +and striking the deck in a heap, on hands and knees, and rolling over.</p> +<p>But a fountain of blood was gushing forth. The right foot was +missing, amputated neatly at the ankle. I looked instantly to +Maud Brewster. Her face was white, her eyes dilated with horror. +She was gazing, not at Thomas Mugridge, but at Wolf Larsen. And +he was aware of it, for he said, with one of his short laughs:</p> +<p>“Man-play, Miss Brewster. Somewhat rougher, I warrant, +than what you have been used to, but still-man-play. The shark +was not in the reckoning. It—”</p> +<p>But at this juncture, Mugridge, who had lifted his head and ascertained +the extent of his loss, floundered over on the deck and buried his teeth +in Wolf Larsen’s leg. Wolf Larsen stooped, coolly, to the +Cockney, and pressed with thumb and finger at the rear of the jaws and +below the ears. The jaws opened with reluctance, and Wolf Larsen +stepped free.</p> +<p>“As I was saying,” he went on, as though nothing unwonted +had happened, “the shark was not in the reckoning. It was—ahem—shall +we say Providence?”</p> +<p>She gave no sign that she had heard, though the expression of her +eyes changed to one of inexpressible loathing as she started to turn +away. She no more than started, for she swayed and tottered, and +reached her hand weakly out to mine. I caught her in time to save +her from falling, and helped her to a seat on the cabin. I thought +she might faint outright, but she controlled herself.</p> +<p>“Will you get a tourniquet, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen +called to me.</p> +<p>I hesitated. Her lips moved, and though they formed no words, +she commanded me with her eyes, plainly as speech, to go to the help +of the unfortunate man. “Please,” she managed to whisper, +and I could but obey.</p> +<p>By now I had developed such skill at surgery that Wolf Larsen, with +a few words of advice, left me to my task with a couple of sailors for +assistants. For his task he elected a vengeance on the shark. +A heavy swivel-hook, baited with fat salt-pork, was dropped overside; +and by the time I had compressed the severed veins and arteries, the +sailors were singing and heaving in the offending monster. I did +not see it myself, but my assistants, first one and then the other, +deserted me for a few moments to run amidships and look at what was +going on. The shark, a sixteen-footer, was hoisted up against +the main-rigging. Its jaws were pried apart to their greatest +extension, and a stout stake, sharpened at both ends, was so inserted +that when the pries were removed the spread jaws were fixed upon it. +This accomplished, the hook was cut out. The shark dropped back +into the sea, helpless, yet with its full strength, doomed—to +lingering starvation—a living death less meet for it than for +the man who devised the punishment.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I knew what it was as she came toward me. For ten minutes I +had watched her talking earnestly with the engineer, and now, with a +sign for silence, I drew her out of earshot of the helmsman. Her +face was white and set; her large eyes, larger than usual what of the +purpose in them, looked penetratingly into mine. I felt rather +timid and apprehensive, for she had come to search Humphrey Van Weyden’s +soul, and Humphrey Van Weyden had nothing of which to be particularly +proud since his advent on the <i>Ghost.</i></p> +<p>We walked to the break of the poop, where she turned and faced me. +I glanced around to see that no one was within hearing distance.</p> +<p>“What is it?” I asked gently; but the expression of determination +on her face did not relax.</p> +<p>“I can readily understand,” she began, “that this +morning’s affair was largely an accident; but I have been talking +with Mr. Haskins. He tells me that the day we were rescued, even +while I was in the cabin, two men were drowned, deliberately drowned—murdered.”</p> +<p>There was a query in her voice, and she faced me accusingly, as though +I were guilty of the deed, or at least a party to it.</p> +<p>“The information is quite correct,” I answered. +“The two men were murdered.”</p> +<p>“And you permitted it!” she cried.</p> +<p>“I was unable to prevent it, is a better way of phrasing it,” +I replied, still gently.</p> +<p>“But you tried to prevent it?” There was an emphasis +on the “tried,” and a pleading little note in her voice.</p> +<p>“Oh, but you didn’t,” she hurried on, divining +my answer. “But why didn’t you?”</p> +<p>I shrugged my shoulders. “You must remember, Miss Brewster, +that you are a new inhabitant of this little world, and that you do +not yet understand the laws which operate within it. You bring +with you certain fine conceptions of humanity, manhood, conduct, and +such things; but here you will find them misconceptions. I have +found it so,” I added, with an involuntary sigh.</p> +<p>She shook her head incredulously.</p> +<p>“What would you advise, then?” I asked. “That +I should take a knife, or a gun, or an axe, and kill this man?”</p> +<p>She half started back.</p> +<p>“No, not that!”</p> +<p>“Then what should I do? Kill myself?”</p> +<p>“You speak in purely materialistic terms,” she objected. +“There is such a thing as moral courage, and moral courage is +never without effect.”</p> +<p>“Ah,” I smiled, “you advise me to kill neither +him nor myself, but to let him kill me.” I held up my hand +as she was about to speak. “For moral courage is a worthless +asset on this little floating world. Leach, one of the men who +were murdered, had moral courage to an unusual degree. So had +the other man, Johnson. Not only did it not stand them in good +stead, but it destroyed them. And so with me if I should exercise +what little moral courage I may possess.</p> +<p>“You must understand, Miss Brewster, and understand clearly, +that this man is a monster. He is without conscience. Nothing +is sacred to him, nothing is too terrible for him to do. It was +due to his whim that I was detained aboard in the first place. +It is due to his whim that I am still alive. I do nothing, can +do nothing, because I am a slave to this monster, as you are now a slave +to him; because I desire to live, as you will desire to live; because +I cannot fight and overcome him, just as you will not be able to fight +and overcome him.”</p> +<p>She waited for me to go on.</p> +<p>“What remains? Mine is the role of the weak. I +remain silent and suffer ignominy, as you will remain silent and suffer +ignominy. And it is well. It is the best we can do if we +wish to live. The battle is not always to the strong. We +have not the strength with which to fight this man; we must dissimulate, +and win, if win we can, by craft. If you will be advised by me, +this is what you will do. I know my position is perilous, and +I may say frankly that yours is even more perilous. We must stand +together, without appearing to do so, in secret alliance. I shall +not be able to side with you openly, and, no matter what indignities +may be put upon me, you are to remain likewise silent. We must +provoke no scenes with this man, nor cross his will. And we must +keep smiling faces and be friendly with him no matter how repulsive +it may be.”</p> +<p>She brushed her hand across her forehead in a puzzled way, saying, +“Still I do not understand.”</p> +<p>“You must do as I say,” I interrupted authoritatively, +for I saw Wolf Larsen’s gaze wandering toward us from where he +paced up and down with Latimer amidships. “Do as I say, +and ere long you will find I am right.”</p> +<p>“What shall I do, then?” she asked, detecting the anxious +glance I had shot at the object of our conversation, and impressed, +I flatter myself, with the earnestness of my manner.</p> +<p>“Dispense with all the moral courage you can,” I said +briskly. “Don’t arouse this man’s animosity. +Be quite friendly with him, talk with him, discuss literature and art +with him—he is fond of such things. You will find him an +interested listener and no fool. And for your own sake try to +avoid witnessing, as much as you can, the brutalities of the ship. +It will make it easier for you to act your part.”</p> +<p>“I am to lie,” she said in steady, rebellious tones, +“by speech and action to lie.”</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen had separated from Latimer and was coming toward us. +I was desperate.</p> +<p>“Please, please understand me,” I said hurriedly, lowering +my voice. “All your experience of men and things is worthless +here. You must begin over again. I know,—I can see +it—you have, among other ways, been used to managing people with +your eyes, letting your moral courage speak out through them, as it +were. You have already managed me with your eyes, commanded me +with them. But don’t try it on Wolf Larsen. You could +as easily control a lion, while he would make a mock of you. He +would—I have always been proud of the fact that I discovered him,” +I said, turning the conversation as Wolf Larsen stepped on the poop +and joined us. “The editors were afraid of him and the publishers +would have none of him. But I knew, and his genius and my judgment +were vindicated when he made that magnificent hit with his ‘Forge.’”</p> +<p>“And it was a newspaper poem,” she said glibly.</p> +<p>“It did happen to see the light in a newspaper,” I replied, +“but not because the magazine editors had been denied a glimpse +at it.”</p> +<p>“We were talking of Harris,” I said to Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>“Oh, yes,” he acknowledged. “I remember the +‘Forge.’ Filled with pretty sentiments and an almighty +faith in human illusions. By the way, Mr. Van Weyden, you’d +better look in on Cooky. He’s complaining and restless.”</p> +<p>Thus was I bluntly dismissed from the poop, only to find Mugridge +sleeping soundly from the morphine I had given him. I made no +haste to return on deck, and when I did I was gratified to see Miss +Brewster in animated conversation with Wolf Larsen. As I say, +the sight gratified me. She was following my advice. And +yet I was conscious of a slight shock or hurt in that she was able to +do the thing I had begged her to do and which she had notably disliked.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Brave winds, blowing fair, swiftly drove the <i>Ghost</i> northward +into the seal herd. We encountered it well up to the forty-fourth +parallel, in a raw and stormy sea across which the wind harried the +fog-banks in eternal flight. For days at a time we could never +see the sun nor take an observation; then the wind would sweep the face +of the ocean clean, the waves would ripple and flash, and we would learn +where we were. A day of clear weather might follow, or three days +or four, and then the fog would settle down upon us, seemingly thicker +than ever.</p> +<p>The hunting was perilous; yet the boats, lowered day after day, were +swallowed up in the grey obscurity, and were seen no more till nightfall, +and often not till long after, when they would creep in like sea-wraiths, +one by one, out of the grey. Wainwright—the hunter whom +Wolf Larsen had stolen with boat and men—took advantage of the +veiled sea and escaped. He disappeared one morning in the encircling +fog with his two men, and we never saw them again, though it was not +many days when we learned that they had passed from schooner to schooner +until they finally regained their own.</p> +<p>This was the thing I had set my mind upon doing, but the opportunity +never offered. It was not in the mate’s province to go out +in the boats, and though I manoeuvred cunningly for it, Wolf Larsen +never granted me the privilege. Had he done so, I should have +managed somehow to carry Miss Brewster away with me. As it was, +the situation was approaching a stage which I was afraid to consider. +I involuntarily shunned the thought of it, and yet the thought continually +arose in my mind like a haunting spectre.</p> +<p>I had read sea-romances in my time, wherein figured, as a matter +of course, the lone woman in the midst of a shipload of men; but I learned, +now, that I had never comprehended the deeper significance of such a +situation—the thing the writers harped upon and exploited so thoroughly. +And here it was, now, and I was face to face with it. That it +should be as vital as possible, it required no more than that the woman +should be Maud Brewster, who now charmed me in person as she had long +charmed me through her work.</p> +<p>No one more out of environment could be imagined. She was a +delicate, ethereal creature, swaying and willowy, light and graceful +of movement. It never seemed to me that she walked, or, at least, +walked after the ordinary manner of mortals. Hers was an extreme +lithesomeness, and she moved with a certain indefinable airiness, approaching +one as down might float or as a bird on noiseless wings.</p> +<p>She was like a bit of Dresden china, and I was continually impressed +with what I may call her fragility. As at the time I caught her +arm when helping her below, so at any time I was quite prepared, should +stress or rough handling befall her, to see her crumble away. +I have never seen body and spirit in such perfect accord. Describe +her verse, as the critics have described it, as sublimated and spiritual, +and you have described her body. It seemed to partake of her soul, +to have analogous attributes, and to link it to life with the slenderest +of chains. Indeed, she trod the earth lightly, and in her constitution +there was little of the robust clay.</p> +<p>She was in striking contrast to Wolf Larsen. Each was nothing +that the other was, everything that the other was not. I noted +them walking the deck together one morning, and I likened them to the +extreme ends of the human ladder of evolution—the one the culmination +of all savagery, the other the finished product of the finest civilization. +True, Wolf Larsen possessed intellect to an unusual degree, but it was +directed solely to the exercise of his savage instincts and made him +but the more formidable a savage. He was splendidly muscled, a +heavy man, and though he strode with the certitude and directness of +the physical man, there was nothing heavy about his stride. The +jungle and the wilderness lurked in the uplift and downput of his feet. +He was cat-footed, and lithe, and strong, always strong. I likened +him to some great tiger, a beast of prowess and prey. He looked +it, and the piercing glitter that arose at times in his eyes was the +same piercing glitter I had observed in the eyes of caged leopards and +other preying creatures of the wild.</p> +<p>But this day, as I noted them pacing up and down, I saw that it was +she who terminated the walk. They came up to where I was standing +by the entrance to the companion-way. Though she betrayed it by +no outward sign, I felt, somehow, that she was greatly perturbed. +She made some idle remark, looking at me, and laughed lightly enough; +but I saw her eyes return to his, involuntarily, as though fascinated; +then they fell, but not swiftly enough to veil the rush of terror that +filled them.</p> +<p>It was in his eyes that I saw the cause of her perturbation. +Ordinarily grey and cold and harsh, they were now warm and soft and +golden, and all a-dance with tiny lights that dimmed and faded, or welled +up till the full orbs were flooded with a glowing radiance. Perhaps +it was to this that the golden colour was due; but golden his eyes were, +enticing and masterful, at the same time luring and compelling, and +speaking a demand and clamour of the blood which no woman, much less +Maud Brewster, could misunderstand.</p> +<p>Her own terror rushed upon me, and in that moment of fear—the +most terrible fear a man can experience—I knew that in inexpressible +ways she was dear to me. The knowledge that I loved her rushed +upon me with the terror, and with both emotions gripping at my heart +and causing my blood at the same time to chill and to leap riotously, +I felt myself drawn by a power without me and beyond me, and found my +eyes returning against my will to gaze into the eyes of Wolf Larsen. +But he had recovered himself. The golden colour and the dancing +lights were gone. Cold and grey and glittering they were as he +bowed brusquely and turned away.</p> +<p>“I am afraid,” she whispered, with a shiver. “I +am so afraid.”</p> +<p>I, too, was afraid, and what of my discovery of how much she meant +to me my mind was in a turmoil; but, I succeeded in answering quite +calmly:</p> +<p>“All will come right, Miss Brewster. Trust me, it will +come right.”</p> +<p>She answered with a grateful little smile that sent my heart pounding, +and started to descend the companion-stairs.</p> +<p>For a long while I remained standing where she had left me. +There was imperative need to adjust myself, to consider the significance +of the changed aspect of things. It had come, at last, love had +come, when I least expected it and under the most forbidding conditions. +Of course, my philosophy had always recognized the inevitableness of +the love-call sooner or later; but long years of bookish silence had +made me inattentive and unprepared.</p> +<p>And now it had come! Maud Brewster! My memory flashed +back to that first thin little volume on my desk, and I saw before me, +as though in the concrete, the row of thin little volumes on my library +shelf. How I had welcomed each of them! Each year one had +come from the press, and to me each was the advent of the year. +They had voiced a kindred intellect and spirit, and as such I had received +them into a camaraderie of the mind; but now their place was in my heart.</p> +<p>My heart? A revulsion of feeling came over me. I seemed +to stand outside myself and to look at myself incredulously. Maud +Brewster! Humphrey Van Weyden, “the cold-blooded fish,” +the “emotionless monster,” the “analytical demon,” +of Charley Furuseth’s christening, in love! And then, without +rhyme or reason, all sceptical, my mind flew back to a small biographical +note in the red-bound <i>Who’s Who</i>, and I said to myself, +“She was born in Cambridge, and she is twenty-seven years old.” +And then I said, “Twenty-seven years old and still free and fancy +free?” But how did I know she was fancy free? And +the pang of new-born jealousy put all incredulity to flight. There +was no doubt about it. I was jealous; therefore I loved. +And the woman I loved was Maud Brewster.</p> +<p>I, Humphrey Van Weyden, was in love! And again the doubt assailed +me. Not that I was afraid of it, however, or reluctant to meet +it. On the contrary, idealist that I was to the most pronounced +degree, my philosophy had always recognized and guerdoned love as the +greatest thing in the world, the aim and the summit of being, the most +exquisite pitch of joy and happiness to which life could thrill, the +thing of all things to be hailed and welcomed and taken into the heart. +But now that it had come I could not believe. I could not be so +fortunate. It was too good, too good to be true. Symons’s +lines came into my head:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“I wandered all these years among<br />A world of women, seeking +you.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And then I had ceased seeking. It was not for me, this greatest +thing in the world, I had decided. Furuseth was right; I was abnormal, +an “emotionless monster,” a strange bookish creature, capable +of pleasuring in sensations only of the mind. And though I had +been surrounded by women all my days, my appreciation of them had been +aesthetic and nothing more. I had actually, at times, considered +myself outside the pale, a monkish fellow denied the eternal or the +passing passions I saw and understood so well in others. And now +it had come! Undreamed of and unheralded, it had come. In +what could have been no less than an ecstasy, I left my post at the +head of the companion-way and started along the deck, murmuring to myself +those beautiful lines of Mrs. Browning:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“I lived with visions for my company<br />Instead of men and +women years ago,<br />And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know<br />A +sweeter music than they played to me.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But the sweeter music was playing in my ears, and I was blind and +oblivious to all about me. The sharp voice of Wolf Larsen aroused +me.</p> +<p>“What the hell are you up to?” he was demanding.</p> +<p>I had strayed forward where the sailors were painting, and I came +to myself to find my advancing foot on the verge of overturning a paint-pot.</p> +<p>“Sleep-walking, sunstroke,—what?” he barked.</p> +<p>“No; indigestion,” I retorted, and continued my walk +as if nothing untoward had occurred.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Among the most vivid memories of my life are those of the events +on the <i>Ghost</i> which occurred during the forty hours succeeding +the discovery of my love for Maud Brewster. I, who had lived my +life in quiet places, only to enter at the age of thirty-five upon a +course of the most irrational adventure I could have imagined, never +had more incident and excitement crammed into any forty hours of my +experience. Nor can I quite close my ears to a small voice of +pride which tells me I did not do so badly, all things considered.</p> +<p>To begin with, at the midday dinner, Wolf Larsen informed the hunters +that they were to eat thenceforth in the steerage. It was an unprecedented +thing on sealing-schooners, where it is the custom for the hunters to +rank, unofficially as officers. He gave no reason, but his motive +was obvious enough. Horner and Smoke had been displaying a gallantry +toward Maud Brewster, ludicrous in itself and inoffensive to her, but +to him evidently distasteful.</p> +<p>The announcement was received with black silence, though the other +four hunters glanced significantly at the two who had been the cause +of their banishment. Jock Horner, quiet as was his way, gave no +sign; but the blood surged darkly across Smoke’s forehead, and +he half opened his mouth to speak. Wolf Larsen was watching him, +waiting for him, the steely glitter in his eyes; but Smoke closed his +mouth again without having said anything.</p> +<p>“Anything to say?” the other demanded aggressively.</p> +<p>It was a challenge, but Smoke refused to accept it.</p> +<p>“About what?” he asked, so innocently that Wolf Larsen +was disconcerted, while the others smiled.</p> +<p>“Oh, nothing,” Wolf Larsen said lamely. “I +just thought you might want to register a kick.”</p> +<p>“About what?” asked the imperturbable Smoke.</p> +<p>Smoke’s mates were now smiling broadly. His captain could +have killed him, and I doubt not that blood would have flowed had not +Maud Brewster been present. For that matter, it was her presence +which enabled. Smoke to act as he did. He was too discreet +and cautious a man to incur Wolf Larsen’s anger at a time when +that anger could be expressed in terms stronger than words. I +was in fear that a struggle might take place, but a cry from the helmsman +made it easy for the situation to save itself.</p> +<p>“Smoke ho!” the cry came down the open companion-way.</p> +<p>“How’s it bear?” Wolf Larsen called up.</p> +<p>“Dead astern, sir.”</p> +<p>“Maybe it’s a Russian,” suggested Latimer.</p> +<p>His words brought anxiety into the faces of the other hunters. +A Russian could mean but one thing—a cruiser. The hunters, +never more than roughly aware of the position of the ship, nevertheless +knew that we were close to the boundaries of the forbidden sea, while +Wolf Larsen’s record as a poacher was notorious. All eyes +centred upon him.</p> +<p>“We’re dead safe,” he assured them with a laugh. +“No salt mines this time, Smoke. But I’ll tell you +what—I’ll lay odds of five to one it’s the <i>Macedonia</i>.”</p> +<p>No one accepted his offer, and he went on: “In which event, +I’ll lay ten to one there’s trouble breezing up.”</p> +<p>“No, thank you,” Latimer spoke up. “I don’t +object to losing my money, but I like to get a run for it anyway. +There never was a time when there wasn’t trouble when you and +that brother of yours got together, and I’ll lay twenty to one +on that.”</p> +<p>A general smile followed, in which Wolf Larsen joined, and the dinner +went on smoothly, thanks to me, for he treated me abominably the rest +of the meal, sneering at me and patronizing me till I was all a-tremble +with suppressed rage. Yet I knew I must control myself for Maud +Brewster’s sake, and I received my reward when her eyes caught +mine for a fleeting second, and they said, as distinctly as if she spoke, +“Be brave, be brave.”</p> +<p>We left the table to go on deck, for a steamer was a welcome break +in the monotony of the sea on which we floated, while the conviction +that it was Death Larsen and the <i>Macedonia</i> added to the excitement. +The stiff breeze and heavy sea which had sprung up the previous afternoon +had been moderating all morning, so that it was now possible to lower +the boats for an afternoon’s hunt. The hunting promised +to be profitable. We had sailed since daylight across a sea barren +of seals, and were now running into the herd.</p> +<p>The smoke was still miles astern, but overhauling us rapidly, when +we lowered our boats. They spread out and struck a northerly course +across the ocean. Now and again we saw a sail lower, heard the +reports of the shot-guns, and saw the sail go up again. The seals +were thick, the wind was dying away; everything favoured a big catch. +As we ran off to get our leeward position of the last lee boat, we found +the ocean fairly carpeted with sleeping seals. They were all about +us, thicker than I had ever seen them before, in twos and threes and +bunches, stretched full length on the surface and sleeping for all the +world like so many lazy young dogs.</p> +<p>Under the approaching smoke the hull and upper-works of a steamer +were growing larger. It was the <i>Macedonia</i>. I read +her name through the glasses as she passed by scarcely a mile to starboard. +Wolf Larsen looked savagely at the vessel, while Maud Brewster was curious.</p> +<p>“Where is the trouble you were so sure was breezing up, Captain +Larsen?” she asked gaily.</p> +<p>He glanced at her, a moment’s amusement softening his features.</p> +<p>“What did you expect? That they’d come aboard and +cut our throats?”</p> +<p>“Something like that,” she confessed. “You +understand, seal-hunters are so new and strange to me that I am quite +ready to expect anything.”</p> +<p>He nodded his head. “Quite right, quite right. +Your error is that you failed to expect the worst.”</p> +<p>“Why, what can be worse than cutting our throats?” she +asked, with pretty naive surprise.</p> +<p>“Cutting our purses,” he answered. “Man is +so made these days that his capacity for living is determined by the +money he possesses.”</p> +<p>“’Who steals my purse steals trash,’” she +quoted.</p> +<p>“Who steals my purse steals my right to live,” was the +reply, “old saws to the contrary. For he steals my bread +and meat and bed, and in so doing imperils my life. There are +not enough soup-kitchens and bread-lines to go around, you know, and +when men have nothing in their purses they usually die, and die miserably—unless +they are able to fill their purses pretty speedily.”</p> +<p>“But I fail to see that this steamer has any designs on your +purse.”</p> +<p>“Wait and you will see,” he answered grimly.</p> +<p>We did not have long to wait. Having passed several miles beyond +our line of boats, the <i>Macedonia</i> proceeded to lower her own. +We knew she carried fourteen boats to our five (we were one short through +the desertion of Wainwright), and she began dropping them far to leeward +of our last boat, continued dropping them athwart our course, and finished +dropping them far to windward of our first weather boat. The hunting, +for us, was spoiled. There were no seals behind us, and ahead +of us the line of fourteen boats, like a huge broom, swept the herd +before it.</p> +<p>Our boats hunted across the two or three miles of water between them +and the point where the <i>Macedonia’s</i> had been dropped, and +then headed for home. The wind had fallen to a whisper, the ocean +was growing calmer and calmer, and this, coupled with the presence of +the great herd, made a perfect hunting day—one of the two or three +days to be encountered in the whole of a lucky season. An angry +lot of men, boat-pullers and steerers as well as hunters, swarmed over +our side. Each man felt that he had been robbed; and the boats +were hoisted in amid curses, which, if curses had power, would have +settled Death Larsen for all eternity—“Dead and damned for +a dozen iv eternities,” commented Louis, his eyes twinkling up +at me as he rested from hauling taut the lashings of his boat.</p> +<p>“Listen to them, and find if it is hard to discover the most +vital thing in their souls,” said Wolf Larsen. “Faith? +and love? and high ideals? The good? the beautiful? the true?”</p> +<p>“Their innate sense of right has been violated,” Maud +Brewster said, joining the conversation.</p> +<p>She was standing a dozen feet away, one hand resting on the main-shrouds +and her body swaying gently to the slight roll of the ship. She +had not raised her voice, and yet I was struck by its clear and bell-like +tone. Ah, it was sweet in my ears! I scarcely dared look +at her just then, for the fear of betraying myself. A boy’s +cap was perched on her head, and her hair, light brown and arranged +in a loose and fluffy order that caught the sun, seemed an aureole about +the delicate oval of her face. She was positively bewitching, +and, withal, sweetly spirituelle, if not saintly. All my old-time +marvel at life returned to me at sight of this splendid incarnation +of it, and Wolf Larsen’s cold explanation of life and its meaning +was truly ridiculous and laughable.</p> +<p>“A sentimentalist,” he sneered, “like Mr. Van Weyden. +Those men are cursing because their desires have been outraged. +That is all. What desires? The desires for the good grub +and soft beds ashore which a handsome pay-day brings them—the +women and the drink, the gorging and the beastliness which so truly +expresses them, the best that is in them, their highest aspirations, +their ideals, if you please. The exhibition they make of their +feelings is not a touching sight, yet it shows how deeply they have +been touched, how deeply their purses have been touched, for to lay +hands on their purses is to lay hands on their souls.”</p> +<p>“’You hardly behave as if your purse had been touched,” +she said, smilingly.</p> +<p>“Then it so happens that I am behaving differently, for my +purse and my soul have both been touched. At the current price +of skins in the London market, and based on a fair estimate of what +the afternoon’s catch would have been had not the <i>Macedonia</i> +hogged it, the <i>Ghost</i> has lost about fifteen hundred dollars’ +worth of skins.”</p> +<p>“You speak so calmly—” she began.</p> +<p>“But I do not feel calm; I could kill the man who robbed me,” +he interrupted. “Yes, yes, I know, and that man my brother—more +sentiment! Bah!”</p> +<p>His face underwent a sudden change. His voice was less harsh +and wholly sincere as he said:</p> +<p>“You must be happy, you sentimentalists, really and truly happy +at dreaming and finding things good, and, because you find some of them +good, feeling good yourself. Now, tell me, you two, do you find +me good?”</p> +<p>“You are good to look upon—in a way,” I qualified.</p> +<p>“There are in you all powers for good,” was Maud Brewster’s +answer.</p> +<p>“There you are!” he cried at her, half angrily. +“Your words are empty to me. There is nothing clear and +sharp and definite about the thought you have expressed. You cannot +pick it up in your two hands and look at it. In point of fact, +it is not a thought. It is a feeling, a sentiment, a something +based upon illusion and not a product of the intellect at all.”</p> +<p>As he went on his voice again grew soft, and a confiding note came +into it. “Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing +that I, too, were blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies +and illusions. They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and +contrary to reason; but in the face of them my reason tells me, wrong +and most wrong, that to dream and live illusions gives greater delight. +And after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, +living is a worthless act. To labour at living and be unpaid is +worse than to be dead. He who delights the most lives the most, +and your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to you and more +gratifying than are my facts to me.”</p> +<p>He shook his head slowly, pondering.</p> +<p>“I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. +Dreams must be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight +is more filling and lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, +you pay for your moments of intellectual delight by having the blues. +Emotional delight is followed by no more than jaded senses which speedily +recuperate. I envy you, I envy you.”</p> +<p>He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange +quizzical smiles, as he added:</p> +<p>“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not +from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual +product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, +greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.”</p> +<p>“Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, +were a fool,” I laughed.</p> +<p>“Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, +bankrupt pair of fools. You have no facts in your pocketbook.”</p> +<p>“Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s +contribution.</p> +<p>“More freely, because it costs you nothing.”</p> +<p>“And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted.</p> +<p>“Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. +You spend what you haven’t got, and in return you get greater +value from spending what you haven’t got than I get from spending +what I have got, and what I have sweated to get.”</p> +<p>“Why don’t you change the basis of your coinage, then?” +she queried teasingly.</p> +<p>He looked at her quickly, half-hopefully, and then said, all regretfully: +“Too late. I’d like to, perhaps, but I can’t. +My pocketbook is stuffed with the old coinage, and it’s a stubborn +thing. I can never bring myself to recognize anything else as +valid.”</p> +<p>He ceased speaking, and his gaze wandered absently past her and became +lost in the placid sea. The old primal melancholy was strong upon +him. He was quivering to it. He had reasoned himself into +a spell of the blues, and within few hours one could look for the devil +within him to be up and stirring. I remembered Charley Furuseth, +and knew this man’s sadness as the penalty which the materialist +ever pays for his materialism.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“You’ve been on deck, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen +said, the following morning at the breakfast-table, “How do things +look?”</p> +<p>“Clear enough,” I answered, glancing at the sunshine +which streamed down the open companion-way. “Fair westerly +breeze, with a promise of stiffening, if Louis predicts correctly.”</p> +<p>He nodded his head in a pleased way. “Any signs of fog?”</p> +<p>“Thick banks in the north and north-west.”</p> +<p>He nodded his head again, evincing even greater satisfaction than +before.</p> +<p>“What of the <i>Macedonia</i>?”</p> +<p>“Not sighted,” I answered.</p> +<p>I could have sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he +should be disappointed I could not conceive.</p> +<p>I was soon to learn. “Smoke ho!” came the hail +from on deck, and his face brightened.</p> +<p>“Good!” he exclaimed, and left the table at once to go +on deck and into the steerage, where the hunters were taking the first +breakfast of their exile.</p> +<p>Maud Brewster and I scarcely touched the food before us, gazing, +instead, in silent anxiety at each other, and listening to Wolf Larsen’s +voice, which easily penetrated the cabin through the intervening bulkhead. +He spoke at length, and his conclusion was greeted with a wild roar +of cheers. The bulkhead was too thick for us to hear what he said; +but whatever it was it affected the hunters strongly, for the cheering +was followed by loud exclamations and shouts of joy.</p> +<p>From the sounds on deck I knew that the sailors had been routed out +and were preparing to lower the boats. Maud Brewster accompanied +me on deck, but I left her at the break of the poop, where she might +watch the scene and not be in it. The sailors must have learned +whatever project was on hand, and the vim and snap they put into their +work attested their enthusiasm. The hunters came trooping on deck +with shot-guns and ammunition-boxes, and, most unusual, their rifles. +The latter were rarely taken in the boats, for a seal shot at long range +with a rifle invariably sank before a boat could reach it. But +each hunter this day had his rifle and a large supply of cartridges. +I noticed they grinned with satisfaction whenever they looked at the +<i>Macedonia’s</i> smoke, which was rising higher and higher as +she approached from the west.</p> +<p>The five boats went over the side with a rush, spread out like the +ribs of a fan, and set a northerly course, as on the preceding afternoon, +for us to follow. I watched for some time, curiously, but there +seemed nothing extraordinary about their behaviour. They lowered +sails, shot seals, and hoisted sails again, and continued on their way +as I had always seen them do. The <i>Macedonia</i> repeated her +performance of yesterday, “hogging” the sea by dropping +her line of boats in advance of ours and across our course. Fourteen +boats require a considerable spread of ocean for comfortable hunting, +and when she had completely lapped our line she continued steaming into +the north-east, dropping more boats as she went.</p> +<p>“What’s up?” I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer +to keep my curiosity in check.</p> +<p>“Never mind what’s up,” he answered gruffly. +“You won’t be a thousand years in finding out, and in the +meantime just pray for plenty of wind.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, I don’t mind telling you,” he said the +next moment. “I’m going to give that brother of mine +a taste of his own medicine. In short, I’m going to play +the hog myself, and not for one day, but for the rest of the season,—if +we’re in luck.”</p> +<p>“And if we’re not?” I queried.</p> +<p>“Not to be considered,” he laughed. “We simply +must be in luck, or it’s all up with us.”</p> +<p>He had the wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in +the forecastle, where lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas Mugridge. +Nilson was as cheerful as could be expected, for his broken leg was +knitting nicely; but the Cockney was desperately melancholy, and I was +aware of a great sympathy for the unfortunate creature. And the +marvel of it was that still he lived and clung to life. The brutal +years had reduced his meagre body to splintered wreckage, and yet the +spark of life within burned brightly as ever.</p> +<p>“With an artificial foot—and they make excellent ones—you +will be stumping ships’ galleys to the end of time,” I assured +him jovially.</p> +<p>But his answer was serious, nay, solemn. “I don’t +know about wot you s’y, Mr. Van W’yden, but I do know I’ll +never rest ’appy till I see that ’ell-’ound bloody +well dead. ’E cawn’t live as long as me. ’E’s +got no right to live, an’ as the Good Word puts it, ‘’E +shall shorely die,’ an’ I s’y, ‘Amen, an’ +damn soon at that.’”</p> +<p>When I returned on deck I found Wolf Larsen steering mainly with +one hand, while with the other hand he held the marine glasses and studied +the situation of the boats, paying particular attention to the position +of the <i>Macedonia</i>. The only change noticeable in our boats +was that they had hauled close on the wind and were heading several +points west of north. Still, I could not see the expediency of +the manoeuvre, for the free sea was still intercepted by the <i>Macedonia’s</i> +five weather boats, which, in turn, had hauled close on the wind. +Thus they slowly diverged toward the west, drawing farther away from +the remainder of the boats in their line. Our boats were rowing +as well as sailing. Even the hunters were pulling, and with three +pairs of oars in the water they rapidly overhauled what I may appropriately +term the enemy.</p> +<p>The smoke of the <i>Macedonia</i> had dwindled to a dim blot on the +north-eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was to be +seen. We had been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half +the time and spilling the wind; and twice, for short periods, we had +been hove to. But there was no more loafing. Sheets were +trimmed, and Wolf Larsen proceeded to put the <i>Ghost</i> through her +paces. We ran past our line of boats and bore down upon the first +weather boat of the other line.</p> +<p>“Down that flying jib, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen commanded. +“And stand by to back over the jibs.”</p> +<p>I ran forward and had the downhaul of the flying jib all in and fast +as we slipped by the boat a hundred feet to leeward. The three +men in it gazed at us suspiciously. They had been hogging the +sea, and they knew Wolf Larsen, by reputation at any rate. I noted +that the hunter, a huge Scandinavian sitting in the bow, held his rifle, +ready to hand, across his knees. It should have been in its proper +place in the rack. When they came opposite our stern, Wolf Larsen +greeted them with a wave of the hand, and cried:</p> +<p>“Come on board and have a ’gam’!”</p> +<p>“To gam,” among the sealing-schooners, is a substitute +for the verbs “to visit,” “to gossip.” +It expresses the garrulity of the sea, and is a pleasant break in the +monotony of the life.</p> +<p>The <i>Ghost</i> swung around into the wind, and I finished my work +forward in time to run aft and lend a hand with the mainsheet.</p> +<p>“You will please stay on deck, Miss Brewster,” Wolf Larsen +said, as he started forward to meet his guest. “And you +too, Mr. Van Weyden.”</p> +<p>The boat had lowered its sail and run alongside. The hunter, +golden bearded like a sea-king, came over the rail and dropped on deck. +But his hugeness could not quite overcome his apprehensiveness. +Doubt and distrust showed strongly in his face. It was a transparent +face, for all of its hairy shield, and advertised instant relief when +he glanced from Wolf Larsen to me, noted that there was only the pair +of us, and then glanced over his own two men who had joined him. +Surely he had little reason to be afraid. He towered like a Goliath +above Wolf Larsen. He must have measured six feet eight or nine +inches in stature, and I subsequently learned his weight—240 pounds. +And there was no fat about him. It was all bone and muscle.</p> +<p>A return of apprehension was apparent when, at the top of the companion-way, +Wolf Larsen invited him below. But he reassured himself with a +glance down at his host—a big man himself but dwarfed by the propinquity +of the giant. So all hesitancy vanished, and the pair descended +into the cabin. In the meantime, his two men, as was the wont +of visiting sailors, had gone forward into the forecastle to do some +visiting themselves.</p> +<p>Suddenly, from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by +all the sounds of a furious struggle. It was the leopard and the +lion, and the lion made all the noise. Wolf Larsen was the leopard.</p> +<p>“You see the sacredness of our hospitality,” I said bitterly +to Maud Brewster.</p> +<p>She nodded her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the signs +of the same sickness at sight or sound of violent struggle from which +I had suffered so severely during my first weeks on the <i>Ghost.</i></p> +<p>“Wouldn’t it be better if you went forward, say by the +steerage companion-way, until it is over?” I suggested.</p> +<p>She shook her head and gazed at me pitifully. She was not frightened, +but appalled, rather, at the human animality of it.</p> +<p>“You will understand,” I took advantage of the opportunity +to say, “whatever part I take in what is going on and what is +to come, that I am compelled to take it—if you and I are ever +to get out of this scrape with our lives.”</p> +<p>“It is not nice—for me,” I added.</p> +<p>“I understand,” she said, in a weak, far-away voice, +and her eyes showed me that she did understand.</p> +<p>The sounds from below soon died away. Then Wolf Larsen came +alone on deck. There was a slight flush under his bronze, but +otherwise he bore no signs of the battle.</p> +<p>“Send those two men aft, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said.</p> +<p>I obeyed, and a minute or two later they stood before him. +“Hoist in your boat,” he said to them. “Your +hunter’s decided to stay aboard awhile and doesn’t want +it pounding alongside.”</p> +<p>“Hoist in your boat, I said,” he repeated, this time +in sharper tones as they hesitated to do his bidding.</p> +<p>“Who knows? you may have to sail with me for a time,” +he said, quite softly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, +as they moved slowly to comply, “and we might as well start with +a friendly understanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes +you jump better than that, and you know it!”</p> +<p>Their movements perceptibly quickened under his coaching, and as +the boat swung inboard I was sent forward to let go the jibs. +Wolf Larsen, at the wheel, directed the <i>Ghost</i> after the <i>Macedonia’s</i> +second weather boat.</p> +<p>Under way, and with nothing for the time being to do, I turned my +attention to the situation of the boats. The <i>Macedonia’s</i> +third weather boat was being attacked by two of ours, the fourth by +our remaining three; and the fifth, turn about, was taking a hand in +the defence of its nearest mate. The fight had opened at long +distance, and the rifles were cracking steadily. A quick, snappy +sea was being kicked up by the wind, a condition which prevented fine +shooting; and now and again, as we drew closer, we could see the bullets +zip-zipping from wave to wave.</p> +<p>The boat we were pursuing had squared away and was running before +the wind to escape us, and, in the course of its flight, to take part +in repulsing our general boat attack.</p> +<p>Attending to sheets and tacks now left me little time to see what +was taking place, but I happened to be on the poop when Wolf Larsen +ordered the two strange sailors forward and into the forecastle. +They went sullenly, but they went. He next ordered Miss Brewster +below, and smiled at the instant horror that leapt into her eyes.</p> +<p>“You’ll find nothing gruesome down there,” he said, +“only an unhurt man securely made fast to the ring-bolts. +Bullets are liable to come aboard, and I don’t want you killed, +you know.”</p> +<p>Even as he spoke, a bullet was deflected by a brass-capped spoke +of the wheel between his hands and screeched off through the air to +windward.</p> +<p>“You see,” he said to her; and then to me, “Mr. +Van Weyden, will you take the wheel?”</p> +<p>Maud Brewster had stepped inside the companion-way so that only her +head was exposed. Wolf Larsen had procured a rifle and was throwing +a cartridge into the barrel. I begged her with my eyes to go below, +but she smiled and said:</p> +<p>“We may be feeble land-creatures without legs, but we can show +Captain Larsen that we are at least as brave as he.”</p> +<p>He gave her a quick look of admiration.</p> +<p>“I like you a hundred per cent. better for that,” he +said. “Books, and brains, and bravery. You are well-rounded, +a blue-stocking fit to be the wife of a pirate chief. Ahem, we’ll +discuss that later,” he smiled, as a bullet struck solidly into +the cabin wall.</p> +<p>I saw his eyes flash golden as he spoke, and I saw the terror mount +in her own.</p> +<p>“We are braver,” I hastened to say. “At least, +speaking for myself, I know I am braver than Captain Larsen.”</p> +<p>It was I who was now favoured by a quick look. He was wondering +if I were making fun of him. I put three or four spokes over to +counteract a sheer toward the wind on the part of the <i>Ghost</i>, +and then steadied her. Wolf Larsen was still waiting an explanation, +and I pointed down to my knees.</p> +<p>“You will observe there,” I said, “a slight trembling. +It is because I am afraid, the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my +mind because I do not wish to die. But my spirit masters the trembling +flesh and the qualms of the mind. I am more than brave. +I am courageous. Your flesh is not afraid. You are not afraid. +On the one hand, it costs you nothing to encounter danger; on the other +hand, it even gives you delight. You enjoy it. You may be +unafraid, Mr. Larsen, but you must grant that the bravery is mine.”</p> +<p>“You’re right,” he acknowledged at once. +“I never thought of it in that way before. But is the opposite +true? If you are braver than I, am I more cowardly than you?”</p> +<p>We both laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck +and rested his rifle across the rail. The bullets we had received +had travelled nearly a mile, but by now we had cut that distance in +half. He fired three careful shots. The first struck fifty +feet to windward of the boat, the second alongside; and at the third +the boat-steerer let loose his steering-oar and crumpled up in the bottom +of the boat.</p> +<p>“I guess that’ll fix them,” Wolf Larsen said, rising +to his feet. “I couldn’t afford to let the hunter +have it, and there is a chance the boat-puller doesn’t know how +to steer. In which case, the hunter cannot steer and shoot at +the same time”</p> +<p>His reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the +wind and the hunter sprang aft to take the boat-steerer’s place. +There was no more shooting, though the rifles were still cracking merrily +from the other boats.</p> +<p>The hunter had managed to get the boat before the wind again, but +we ran down upon it, going at least two feet to its one. A hundred +yards away, I saw the boat-puller pass a rifle to the hunter. +Wolf Larsen went amidships and took the coil of the throat-halyards +from its pin. Then he peered over the rail with levelled rifle. +Twice I saw the hunter let go the steering-oar with one hand, reach +for his rifle, and hesitate. We were now alongside and foaming +past.</p> +<p>“Here, you!” Wolf Larsen cried suddenly to the boat-puller. +“Take a turn!”</p> +<p>At the same time he flung the coil of rope. It struck fairly, +nearly knocking the man over, but he did not obey. Instead, he +looked to his hunter for orders. The hunter, in turn, was in a +quandary. His rifle was between his knees, but if he let go the +steering-oar in order to shoot, the boat would sweep around and collide +with the schooner. Also he saw Wolf Larsen’s rifle bearing +upon him and knew he would be shot ere he could get his rifle into play.</p> +<p>“Take a turn,” he said quietly to the man.</p> +<p>The boat-puller obeyed, taking a turn around the little forward thwart +and paying the line as it jerked taut. The boat sheered out with +a rush, and the hunter steadied it to a parallel course some twenty +feet from the side of the <i>Ghost.</i></p> +<p>“Now, get that sail down and come alongside!” Wolf Larsen +ordered.</p> +<p>He never let go his rifle, even passing down the tackles with one +hand. When they were fast, bow and stern, and the two uninjured +men prepared to come aboard, the hunter picked up his rifle as if to +place it in a secure position.</p> +<p>“Drop it!” Wolf Larsen cried, and the hunter dropped +it as though it were hot and had burned him.</p> +<p>Once aboard, the two prisoners hoisted in the boat and under Wolf +Larsen’s direction carried the wounded boat-steerer down into +the forecastle.</p> +<p>“If our five boats do as well as you and I have done, we’ll +have a pretty full crew,” Wolf Larsen said to me.</p> +<p>“The man you shot—he is—I hope?” Maud Brewster +quavered.</p> +<p>“In the shoulder,” he answered. “Nothing +serious, Mr. Van Weyden will pull him around as good as ever in three +or four weeks.”</p> +<p>“But he won’t pull those chaps around, from the look +of it,” he added, pointing at the <i>Macedonia’s</i> third +boat, for which I had been steering and which was now nearly abreast +of us. “That’s Horner’s and Smoke’s work. +I told them we wanted live men, not carcasses. But the joy of +shooting to hit is a most compelling thing, when once you’ve learned +how to shoot. Ever experienced it, Mr. Van Weyden?”</p> +<p>I shook my head and regarded their work. It had indeed been +bloody, for they had drawn off and joined our other three boats in the +attack on the remaining two of the enemy. The deserted boat was +in the trough of the sea, rolling drunkenly across each comber, its +loose spritsail out at right angles to it and fluttering and flapping +in the wind. The hunter and boat-puller were both lying awkwardly +in the bottom, but the boat-steerer lay across the gunwale, half in +and half out, his arms trailing in the water and his head rolling from +side to side.</p> +<p>“Don’t look, Miss Brewster, please don’t look,” +I had begged of her, and I was glad that she had minded me and been +spared the sight.</p> +<p>“Head right into the bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was Wolf +Larsen’s command.</p> +<p>As we drew nearer, the firing ceased, and we saw that the fight was +over. The remaining two boats had been captured by our five, and +the seven were grouped together, waiting to be picked up.</p> +<p>“Look at that!” I cried involuntarily, pointing to the +north-east.</p> +<p>The blot of smoke which indicated the <i>Macedonia’s</i> position +had reappeared.</p> +<p>“Yes, I’ve been watching it,” was Wolf Larsen’s +calm reply. He measured the distance away to the fog-bank, and +for an instant paused to feel the weight of the wind on his cheek. +“We’ll make it, I think; but you can depend upon it that +blessed brother of mine has twigged our little game and is just a-humping +for us. Ah, look at that!”</p> +<p>The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black.</p> +<p>“I’ll beat you out, though, brother mine,” he chuckled. +“I’ll beat you out, and I hope you no worse than that you +rack your old engines into scrap.”</p> +<p>When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. +The boats came aboard from every side at once. As fast as the +prisoners came over the rail they were marshalled forward to the forecastle +by our hunters, while our sailors hoisted in the boats, pell-mell, dropping +them anywhere upon the deck and not stopping to lash them. We +were already under way, all sails set and drawing, and the sheets being +slacked off for a wind abeam, as the last boat lifted clear of the water +and swung in the tackles.</p> +<p>There was need for haste. The <i>Macedonia</i>, belching the +blackest of smoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out +of the north-east. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, +she had altered her course so as to anticipate ours. She was not +running straight for us, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging +like the sides of an angle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the +fog-bank. It was there, or not at all, that the <i>Macedonia</i> +could hope to catch us. The hope for the <i>Ghost</i> lay in that +she should pass that point before the <i>Macedonia</i> arrived at it.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they +dwelt upon and leaped from detail to detail of the chase. Now +he studied the sea to windward for signs of the wind slackening or freshening, +now the <i>Macedonia</i>; and again, his eyes roved over every sail, +and he gave commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come in on one +there a trifle, till he was drawing out of the <i>Ghost</i> the last +bit of speed she possessed. All feuds and grudges were forgotten, +and I was surprised at the alacrity with which the men who had so long +endured his brutality sprang to execute his orders. Strange to +say, the unfortunate Johnson came into my mind as we lifted and surged +and heeled along, and I was aware of a regret that he was not alive +and present; he had so loved the <i>Ghost</i> and delighted in her sailing +powers.</p> +<p>“Better get your rifles, you fellows,” Wolf Larsen called +to our hunters; and the five men lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and +waited.</p> +<p>The <i>Macedonia</i> was now but a mile away, the black smoke pouring +from her funnel at a right angle, so madly she raced, pounding through +the sea at a seventeen-knot gait—“’Sky-hooting through +the brine,” as Wolf Larsen quoted while gazing at her. We +were not making more than nine knots, but the fog-bank was very near.</p> +<p>A puff of smoke broke from the <i>Macedonia’s</i> deck, we +heard a heavy report, and a round hole took form in the stretched canvas +of our mainsail. They were shooting at us with one of the small +cannon which rumour had said they carried on board. Our men, clustering +amidships, waved their hats and raised a derisive cheer. Again +there was a puff of smoke and a loud report, this time the cannon-ball +striking not more than twenty feet astern and glancing twice from sea +to sea to windward ere it sank.</p> +<p>But there was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters +were out in the boats or our prisoners. When the two vessels were +half-a-mile apart, a third shot made another hole in our mainsail. +Then we entered the fog. It was about us, veiling and hiding us +in its dense wet gauze.</p> +<p>The sudden transition was startling. The moment before we had +been leaping through the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea breaking +and rolling wide to the horizon, and a ship, vomiting smoke and fire +and iron missiles, rushing madly upon us. And at once, as in an +instant’s leap, the sun was blotted out, there was no sky, even +our mastheads were lost to view, and our horizon was such as tear-blinded +eyes may see. The grey mist drove by us like a rain. Every +woollen filament of our garments, every hair of our heads and faces, +was jewelled with a crystal globule. The shrouds were wet with +moisture; it dripped from our rigging overhead; and on the underside +of our booms drops of water took shape in long swaying lines, which +were detached and flung to the deck in mimic showers at each surge of +the schooner. I was aware of a pent, stifled feeling. As +the sounds of the ship thrusting herself through the waves were hurled +back upon us by the fog, so were one’s thoughts. The mind +recoiled from contemplation of a world beyond this wet veil which wrapped +us around. This was the world, the universe itself, its bounds +so near one felt impelled to reach out both arms and push them back. +It was impossible, that the rest could be beyond these walls of grey. +The rest was a dream, no more than the memory of a dream.</p> +<p>It was weird, strangely weird. I looked at Maud Brewster and +knew that she was similarly affected. Then I looked at Wolf Larsen, +but there was nothing subjective about his state of consciousness. +His whole concern was with the immediate, objective present. He +still held the wheel, and I felt that he was timing Time, reckoning +the passage of the minutes with each forward lunge and leeward roll +of the <i>Ghost.</i></p> +<p>“Go for’ard and hard alee without any noise,” he +said to me in a low voice. “Clew up the topsails first. +Set men at all the sheets. Let there be no rattling of blocks, +no sound of voices. No noise, understand, no noise.”</p> +<p>When all was ready, the word “hard-a-lee” was passed +forward to me from man to man; and the <i>Ghost</i> heeled about on +the port tack with practically no noise at all. And what little +there was,—the slapping of a few reef-points and the creaking +of a sheave in a block or two,—was ghostly under the hollow echoing +pall in which we were swathed.</p> +<p>We had scarcely filled away, it seemed, when the fog thinned abruptly +and we were again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea breaking +before us to the sky-line. But the ocean was bare. No wrathful +<i>Macedonia</i> broke its surface nor blackened the sky with her smoke.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen at once squared away and ran down along the rim of the +fog-bank. His trick was obvious. He had entered the fog +to windward of the steamer, and while the steamer had blindly driven +on into the fog in the chance of catching him, he had come about and +out of his shelter and was now running down to re-enter to leeward. +Successful in this, the old simile of the needle in the haystack would +be mild indeed compared with his brother’s chance of finding him. +He did not run long. Jibing the fore- and main-sails and setting +the topsails again, we headed back into the bank. As we entered +I could have sworn I saw a vague bulk emerging to windward. I +looked quickly at Wolf Larsen. Already we were ourselves buried +in the fog, but he nodded his head. He, too, had seen it—the +<i>Macedonia</i>, guessing his manoeuvre and failing by a moment in +anticipating it. There was no doubt that we had escaped unseen.</p> +<p>“He can’t keep this up,” Wolf Larsen said. +“He’ll have to go back for the rest of his boats. +Send a man to the wheel, Mr. Van Weyden, keep this course for the present, +and you might as well set the watches, for we won’t do any lingering +to-night.”</p> +<p>“I’d give five hundred dollars, though,” he added, +“just to be aboard the <i>Macedonia</i> for five minutes, listening +to my brother curse.”</p> +<p>“And now, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said to me when he had +been relieved from the wheel, “we must make these new-comers welcome. +Serve out plenty of whisky to the hunters and see that a few bottles +slip for’ard. I’ll wager every man Jack of them is +over the side to-morrow, hunting for Wolf Larsen as contentedly as ever +they hunted for Death Larsen.”</p> +<p>“But won’t they escape as Wainwright did?” I asked.</p> +<p>He laughed shrewdly. “Not as long as our old hunters +have anything to say about it. I’m dividing amongst them +a dollar a skin for all the skins shot by our new hunters. At +least half of their enthusiasm to-day was due to that. Oh, no, +there won’t be any escaping if they have anything to say about +it. And now you’d better get for’ard to your hospital +duties. There must be a full ward waiting for you.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Wolf Larsen took the distribution of the whisky off my hands, and +the bottles began to make their appearance while I worked over the fresh +batch of wounded men in the forecastle. I had seen whisky drunk, +such as whisky-and-soda by the men of the clubs, but never as these +men drank it, from pannikins and mugs, and from the bottles—great +brimming drinks, each one of which was in itself a debauch. But +they did not stop at one or two. They drank and drank, and ever +the bottles slipped forward and they drank more.</p> +<p>Everybody drank; the wounded drank; Oofty-Oofty, who helped me, drank. +Only Louis refrained, no more than cautiously wetting his lips with +the liquor, though he joined in the revels with an abandon equal to +that of most of them. It was a saturnalia. In loud voices +they shouted over the day’s fighting, wrangled about details, +or waxed affectionate and made friends with the men whom they had fought. +Prisoners and captors hiccoughed on one another’s shoulders, and +swore mighty oaths of respect and esteem. They wept over the miseries +of the past and over the miseries yet to come under the iron rule of +Wolf Larsen. And all cursed him and told terrible tales of his +brutality.</p> +<p>It was a strange and frightful spectacle—the small, bunk-lined +space, the floor and walls leaping and lurching, the dim light, the +swaying shadows lengthening and fore-shortening monstrously, the thick +air heavy with smoke and the smell of bodies and iodoform, and the inflamed +faces of the men—half-men, I should call them. I noted Oofty-Oofty, +holding the end of a bandage and looking upon the scene, his velvety +and luminous eyes glistening in the light like a deer’s eyes, +and yet I knew the barbaric devil that lurked in his breast and belied +all the softness and tenderness, almost womanly, of his face and form. +And I noticed the boyish face of Harrison,—a good face once, but +now a demon’s,—convulsed with passion as he told the new-comers +of the hell-ship they were in and shrieked curses upon the head of Wolf +Larsen.</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen it was, always Wolf Larsen, enslaver and tormentor of +men, a male Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that grovelled +before him and revolted only in drunkenness and in secrecy. And +was I, too, one of his swine? I thought. And Maud Brewster? +No! I ground my teeth in my anger and determination till the man +I was attending winced under my hand and Oofty-Oofty looked at me with +curiosity. I felt endowed with a sudden strength. What of +my new-found love, I was a giant. I feared nothing. I would +work my will through it all, in spite of Wolf Larsen and of my own thirty-five +bookish years. All would be well. I would make it well. +And so, exalted, upborne by a sense of power, I turned my back on the +howling inferno and climbed to the deck, where the fog drifted ghostly +through the night and the air was sweet and pure and quiet.</p> +<p>The steerage, where were two wounded hunters, was a repetition of +the forecastle, except that Wolf Larsen was not being cursed; and it +was with a great relief that I again emerged on deck and went aft to +the cabin. Supper was ready, and Wolf Larsen and Maud were waiting +for me.</p> +<p>While all his ship was getting drunk as fast as it could, he remained +sober. Not a drop of liquor passed his lips. He did not +dare it under the circumstances, for he had only Louis and me to depend +upon, and Louis was even now at the wheel. We were sailing on +through the fog without a look-out and without lights. That Wolf +Larsen had turned the liquor loose among his men surprised me, but he +evidently knew their psychology and the best method of cementing in +cordiality, what had begun in bloodshed.</p> +<p>His victory over Death Larsen seemed to have had a remarkable effect +upon him. The previous evening he had reasoned himself into the +blues, and I had been waiting momentarily for one of his characteristic +outbursts. Yet nothing had occurred, and he was now in splendid +trim. Possibly his success in capturing so many hunters and boats +had counteracted the customary reaction. At any rate, the blues +were gone, and the blue devils had not put in an appearance. So +I thought at the time; but, ah me, little I knew him or knew that even +then, perhaps, he was meditating an outbreak more terrible than any +I had seen.</p> +<p>As I say, he discovered himself in splendid trim when I entered the +cabin. He had had no headaches for weeks, his eyes were clear +blue as the sky, his bronze was beautiful with perfect health; life +swelled through his veins in full and magnificent flood. While +waiting for me he had engaged Maud in animated discussion. Temptation +was the topic they had hit upon, and from the few words I heard I made +out that he was contending that temptation was temptation only when +a man was seduced by it and fell.</p> +<p>“For look you,” he was saying, “as I see it, a +man does things because of desire. He has many desires. +He may desire to escape pain, or to enjoy pleasure. But whatever +he does, he does because he desires to do it.”</p> +<p>“But suppose he desires to do two opposite things, neither +of which will permit him to do the other?” Maud interrupted.</p> +<p>“The very thing I was coming to,” he said.</p> +<p>“And between these two desires is just where the soul of the +man is manifest,” she went on. “If it is a good soul, +it will desire and do the good action, and the contrary if it is a bad +soul. It is the soul that decides.”</p> +<p>“Bosh and nonsense!” he exclaimed impatiently. +“It is the desire that decides. Here is a man who wants +to, say, get drunk. Also, he doesn’t want to get drunk. +What does he do? How does he do it? He is a puppet. +He is the creature of his desires, and of the two desires he obeys the +strongest one, that is all. His soul hasn’t anything to +do with it. How can he be tempted to get drunk and refuse to get +drunk? If the desire to remain sober prevails, it is because it +is the strongest desire. Temptation plays no part, unless—” +he paused while grasping the new thought which had come into his mind—“unless +he is tempted to remain sober.</p> +<p>“Ha! ha!” he laughed. “What do you think +of that, Mr. Van Weyden?”</p> +<p>“That both of you are hair-splitting,” I said. +“The man’s soul is his desires. Or, if you will, the +sum of his desires is his soul. Therein you are both wrong. +You lay the stress upon the desire apart from the soul, Miss Brewster +lays the stress on the soul apart from the desire, and in point of fact +soul and desire are the same thing.</p> +<p>“However,” I continued, “Miss Brewster is right +in contending that temptation is temptation whether the man yield or +overcome. Fire is fanned by the wind until it leaps up fiercely. +So is desire like fire. It is fanned, as by a wind, by sight of +the thing desired, or by a new and luring description or comprehension +of the thing desired. There lies the temptation. It is the +wind that fans the desire until it leaps up to mastery. That’s +temptation. It may not fan sufficiently to make the desire overmastering, +but in so far as it fans at all, that far is it temptation. And, +as you say, it may tempt for good as well as for evil.”</p> +<p>I felt proud of myself as we sat down to the table. My words +had been decisive. At least they had put an end to the discussion.</p> +<p>But Wolf Larsen seemed voluble, prone to speech as I had never seen +him before. It was as though he were bursting with pent energy +which must find an outlet somehow. Almost immediately he launched +into a discussion on love. As usual, his was the sheer materialistic +side, and Maud’s was the idealistic. For myself, beyond +a word or so of suggestion or correction now and again, I took no part.</p> +<p>He was brilliant, but so was Maud, and for some time I lost the thread +of the conversation through studying her face as she talked. It +was a face that rarely displayed colour, but to-night it was flushed +and vivacious. Her wit was playing keenly, and she was enjoying +the tilt as much as Wolf Larsen, and he was enjoying it hugely. +For some reason, though I know not why in the argument, so utterly had +I lost it in the contemplation of one stray brown lock of Maud’s +hair, he quoted from Iseult at Tintagel, where she says:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“Blessed am I beyond women even herein,<br />That beyond all +born women is my sin,<br />And perfect my transgression.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>As he had read pessimism into Omar, so now he read triumph, stinging +triumph and exultation, into Swinburne’s lines. And he read +rightly, and he read well. He had hardly ceased reading when Louis +put his head into the companion-way and whispered down:</p> +<p>“Be easy, will ye? The fog’s lifted, an’ +’tis the port light iv a steamer that’s crossin’ our +bow this blessed minute.”</p> +<p>Wolf Larsen sprang on deck, and so swiftly that by the time we followed +him he had pulled the steerage-slide over the drunken clamour and was +on his way forward to close the forecastle-scuttle. The fog, though +it remained, had lifted high, where it obscured the stars and made the +night quite black. Directly ahead of us I could see a bright red +light and a white light, and I could hear the pulsing of a steamer’s +engines. Beyond a doubt it was the <i>Macedonia.</i></p> +<p>Wolf Larsen had returned to the poop, and we stood in a silent group, +watching the lights rapidly cross our bow.</p> +<p>“Lucky for me he doesn’t carry a searchlight,” +Wolf Larsen said.</p> +<p>“What if I should cry out loudly?” I queried in a whisper.</p> +<p>“It would be all up,” he answered. “But have +you thought upon what would immediately happen?”</p> +<p>Before I had time to express any desire to know, he had me by the +throat with his gorilla grip, and by a faint quiver of the muscles—a +hint, as it were—he suggested to me the twist that would surely +have broken my neck. The next moment he had released me and we +were gazing at the <i>Macedonia’s</i> lights.</p> +<p>“What if I should cry out?” Maud asked.</p> +<p>“I like you too well to hurt you,” he said softly—nay, +there was a tenderness and a caress in his voice that made me wince.</p> +<p>“But don’t do it, just the same, for I’d promptly +break Mr. Van Weyden’s neck.”</p> +<p>“Then she has my permission to cry out,” I said defiantly.</p> +<p>“I hardly think you’ll care to sacrifice the Dean of +American Letters the Second,” he sneered.</p> +<p>We spoke no more, though we had become too used to one another for +the silence to be awkward; and when the red light and the white had +disappeared we returned to the cabin to finish the interrupted supper.</p> +<p>Again they fell to quoting, and Maud gave Dowson’s “Impenitentia +Ultima.” She rendered it beautifully, but I watched not +her, but Wolf Larsen. I was fascinated by the fascinated look +he bent upon Maud. He was quite out of himself, and I noticed +the unconscious movement of his lips as he shaped word for word as fast +as she uttered them. He interrupted her when she gave the lines:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“And her eyes should be my light while the sun went out behind +me,<br />And the viols in her voice be the last sound in my ear.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“There are viols in your voice,” he said bluntly, and +his eyes flashed their golden light.</p> +<p>I could have shouted with joy at her control. She finished +the concluding stanza without faltering and then slowly guided the conversation +into less perilous channels. And all the while I sat in a half-daze, +the drunken riot of the steerage breaking through the bulkhead, the +man I feared and the woman I loved talking on and on. The table +was not cleared. The man who had taken Mugridge’s place +had evidently joined his comrades in the forecastle.</p> +<p>If ever Wolf Larsen attained the summit of living, he attained it +then. From time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him, +and I followed in amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, +under the spell of his passion, for he was preaching the passion of +revolt. It was inevitable that Milton’s Lucifer should be +instanced, and the keenness with which Wolf Larsen analysed and depicted +the character was a revelation of his stifled genius. It reminded +me of Taine, yet I knew the man had never heard of that brilliant though +dangerous thinker.</p> +<p>“He led a lost cause, and he was not afraid of God’s +thunderbolts,” Wolf Larsen was saying. “Hurled into +hell, he was unbeaten. A third of God’s angels he had led +with him, and straightway he incited man to rebel against God, and gained +for himself and hell the major portion of all the generations of man. +Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he was less brave than +God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times no! +God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater. +But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate. +He preferred suffering in freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable +servility. He did not care to serve God. He cared to serve +nothing. He was no figure-head. He stood on his own legs. +He was an individual.”</p> +<p>“The first Anarchist,” Maud laughed, rising and preparing +to withdraw to her state-room.</p> +<p>“Then it is good to be an anarchist!” he cried. +He, too, had risen, and he stood facing her, where she had paused at +the door of her room, as he went on:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>“‘Here at least<br />We shall be free; the Almighty hath +not built<br />Here for his envy; will not drive us hence;<br />Here +we may reign secure; and in my choice<br />To reign is worth ambition, +though in hell:<br />Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It was the defiant cry of a mighty spirit. The cabin still +rang with his voice, as he stood there, swaying, his bronzed face shining, +his head up and dominant, and his eyes, golden and masculine, intensely +masculine and insistently soft, flashing upon Maud at the door.</p> +<p>Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and +she said, almost in a whisper, “You are Lucifer.”</p> +<p>The door closed and she was gone. He stood staring after her +for a minute, then returned to himself and to me.</p> +<p>“I’ll relieve Louis at the wheel,” he said shortly, +“and call upon you to relieve at midnight. Better turn in +now and get some sleep.”</p> +<p>He pulled on a pair of mittens, put on his cap, and ascended the +companion-stairs, while I followed his suggestion by going to bed. +For some unknown reason, prompted mysteriously, I did not undress, but +lay down fully clothed. For a time I listened to the clamour in +the steerage and marvelled upon the love which had come to me; but my +sleep on the <i>Ghost</i> had become most healthful and natural, and +soon the songs and cries died away, my eyes closed, and my consciousness +sank down into the half-death of slumber.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, +on my feet, wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger as +it might have thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the door. +The cabin light was burning low. I saw Maud, my Maud, straining +and struggling and crushed in the embrace of Wolf Larsen’s arms. +I could see the vain beat and flutter of her as she strove, pressing +her face against his breast, to escape from him. All this I saw +on the very instant of seeing and as I sprang forward.</p> +<p>I struck him with my fist, on the face, as he raised his head, but +it was a puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, +and gave me a shove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt +of the wrist, yet so tremendous was his strength that I was hurled backward +as from a catapult. I struck the door of the state-room which +had formerly been Mugridge’s, splintering and smashing the panels +with the impact of my body. I struggled to my feet, with difficulty +dragging myself clear of the wrecked door, unaware of any hurt whatever. +I was conscious only of an overmastering rage. I think I, too, +cried aloud, as I drew the knife at my hip and sprang forward a second +time.</p> +<p>But something had happened. They were reeling apart. +I was close upon him, my knife uplifted, but I withheld the blow. +I was puzzled by the strangeness of it. Maud was leaning against +the wall, one hand out for support; but he was staggering, his left +hand pressed against his forehead and covering his eyes, and with the +right he was groping about him in a dazed sort of way. It struck +against the wall, and his body seemed to express a muscular and physical +relief at the contact, as though he had found his bearings, his location +in space as well as something against which to lean.</p> +<p>Then I saw red again. All my wrongs and humiliations flashed +upon me with a dazzling brightness, all that I had suffered and others +had suffered at his hands, all the enormity of the man’s very +existence. I sprang upon him, blindly, insanely, and drove the +knife into his shoulder. I knew, then, that it was no more than +a flesh wound,—I had felt the steel grate on his shoulder-blade,—and +I raised the knife to strike at a more vital part.</p> +<p>But Maud had seen my first blow, and she cried, “Don’t! +Please don’t!”</p> +<p>I dropped my arm for a moment, and a moment only. Again the +knife was raised, and Wolf Larsen would have surely died had she not +stepped between. Her arms were around me, her hair was brushing +my face. My pulse rushed up in an unwonted manner, yet my rage +mounted with it. She looked me bravely in the eyes.</p> +<p>“For my sake,” she begged.</p> +<p>“I would kill him for your sake!” I cried, trying to +free my arm without hurting her.</p> +<p>“Hush!” she said, and laid her fingers lightly on my +lips. I could have kissed them, had I dared, even then, in my +rage, the touch of them was so sweet, so very sweet. “Please, +please,” she pleaded, and she disarmed me by the words, as I was +to discover they would ever disarm me.</p> +<p>I stepped back, separating from her, and replaced the knife in its +sheath. I looked at Wolf Larsen. He still pressed his left +hand against his forehead. It covered his eyes. His head +was bowed. He seemed to have grown limp. His body was sagging +at the hips, his great shoulders were drooping and shrinking forward.</p> +<p>“Van, Weyden!” he called hoarsely, and with a note of +fright in his voice. “Oh, Van Weyden! where are you?”</p> +<p>I looked at Maud. She did not speak, but nodded her head.</p> +<p>“Here I am,” I answered, stepping to his side. +“What is the matter?”</p> +<p>“Help me to a seat,” he said, in the same hoarse, frightened +voice.</p> +<p>“I am a sick man; a very sick man, Hump,” he said, as +he left my sustaining grip and sank into a chair.</p> +<p>His head dropped forward on the table and was buried in his hands. +From time to time it rocked back and forward as with pain. Once, +when he half raised it, I saw the sweat standing in heavy drops on his +forehead about the roots of his hair.</p> +<p>“I am a sick man, a very sick man,” he repeated again, +and yet once again.</p> +<p>“What is the matter?” I asked, resting my hand on his +shoulder. “What can I do for you?”</p> +<p>But he shook my hand off with an irritated movement, and for a long +time I stood by his side in silence. Maud was looking on, her +face awed and frightened. What had happened to him we could not +imagine.</p> +<p>“Hump,” he said at last, “I must get into my bunk. +Lend me a hand. I’ll be all right in a little while. +It’s those damn headaches, I believe. I was afraid of them. +I had a feeling—no, I don’t know what I’m talking +about. Help me into my bunk.”</p> +<p>But when I got him into his bunk he again buried his face in his +hands, covering his eyes, and as I turned to go I could hear him murmuring, +“I am a sick man, a very sick man.”</p> +<p>Maud looked at me inquiringly as I emerged. I shook my head, +saying:</p> +<p>“Something has happened to him. What, I don’t know. +He is helpless, and frightened, I imagine, for the first time in his +life. It must have occurred before he received the knife-thrust, +which made only a superficial wound. You must have seen what happened.”</p> +<p>She shook her head. “I saw nothing. It is just +as mysterious to me. He suddenly released me and staggered away. +But what shall we do? What shall I do?”</p> +<p>“If you will wait, please, until I come back,” I answered.</p> +<p>I went on deck. Louis was at the wheel.</p> +<p>“You may go for’ard and turn in,” I said, taking +it from him.</p> +<p>He was quick to obey, and I found myself alone on the deck of the +<i>Ghost</i>. As quietly as was possible, I clewed up the topsails, +lowered the flying jib and staysail, backed the jib over, and flattened +the mainsail. Then I went below to Maud. I placed my finger +on my lips for silence, and entered Wolf Larsen’s room. +He was in the same position in which I had left him, and his head was +rocking—almost writhing—from side to side.</p> +<p>“Anything I can do for you?” I asked.</p> +<p>He made no reply at first, but on my repeating the question he answered, +“No, no; I’m all right. Leave me alone till morning.”</p> +<p>But as I turned to go I noted that his head had resumed its rocking +motion. Maud was waiting patiently for me, and I took notice, +with a thrill of joy, of the queenly poise of her head and her glorious, +calm eyes. Calm and sure they were as her spirit itself.</p> +<p>“Will you trust yourself to me for a journey of six hundred +miles or so?” I asked.</p> +<p>“You mean—?” she asked, and I knew she had guessed +aright.</p> +<p>“Yes, I mean just that,” I replied. “There +is nothing left for us but the open boat.”</p> +<p>“For me, you mean,” she said. “You are certainly +as safe here as you have been.”</p> +<p>“No, there is nothing left for us but the open boat,” +I iterated stoutly. “Will you please dress as warmly as +you can, at once, and make into a bundle whatever you wish to bring +with you.”</p> +<p>“And make all haste,” I added, as she turned toward her +state-room.</p> +<p>The lazarette was directly beneath the cabin, and, opening the trap-door +in the floor and carrying a candle with me, I dropped down and began +overhauling the ship’s stores. I selected mainly from the +canned goods, and by the time I was ready, willing hands were extended +from above to receive what I passed up.</p> +<p>We worked in silence. I helped myself also to blankets, mittens, +oilskins, caps, and such things, from the slop-chest. It was no +light adventure, this trusting ourselves in a small boat to so raw and +stormy a sea, and it was imperative that we should guard ourselves against +the cold and wet.</p> +<p>We worked feverishly at carrying our plunder on deck and depositing +it amidships, so feverishly that Maud, whose strength was hardly a positive +quantity, had to give over, exhausted, and sit on the steps at the break +of the poop. This did not serve to recover her, and she lay on +her back, on the hard deck, arms stretched out, and whole body relaxed. +It was a trick I remembered of my sister, and I knew she would soon +be herself again. I knew, also, that weapons would not come in +amiss, and I re-entered Wolf Larsen’s state-room to get his rifle +and shot-gun. I spoke to him, but he made no answer, though his +head was still rocking from side to side and he was not asleep.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, Lucifer,” I whispered to myself as I softly +closed the door.</p> +<p>Next to obtain was a stock of ammunition,—an easy matter, though +I had to enter the steerage companion-way to do it. Here the hunters +stored the ammunition-boxes they carried in the boats, and here, but +a few feet from their noisy revels, I took possession of two boxes.</p> +<p>Next, to lower a boat. Not so simple a task for one man. +Having cast off the lashings, I hoisted first on the forward tackle, +then on the aft, till the boat cleared the rail, when I lowered away, +one tackle and then the other, for a couple of feet, till it hung snugly, +above the water, against the schooner’s side. I made certain +that it contained the proper equipment of oars, rowlocks, and sail. +Water was a consideration, and I robbed every boat aboard of its breaker. +As there were nine boats all told, it meant that we should have plenty +of water, and ballast as well, though there was the chance that the +boat would be overloaded, what of the generous supply of other things +I was taking.</p> +<p>While Maud was passing me the provisions and I was storing them in +the boat, a sailor came on deck from the forecastle. He stood +by the weather rail for a time (we were lowering over the lee rail), +and then sauntered slowly amidships, where he again paused and stood +facing the wind, with his back toward us. I could hear my heart +beating as I crouched low in the boat. Maud had sunk down upon +the deck and was, I knew, lying motionless, her body in the shadow of +the bulwark. But the man never turned, and, after stretching his +arms above his head and yawning audibly, he retraced his steps to the +forecastle scuttle and disappeared.</p> +<p>A few minutes sufficed to finish the loading, and I lowered the boat +into the water. As I helped Maud over the rail and felt her form +close to mine, it was all I could do to keep from crying out, “I +love you! I love you!” Truly Humphrey Van Weyden was +at last in love, I thought, as her fingers clung to mine while I lowered +her down to the boat. I held on to the rail with one hand and +supported her weight with the other, and I was proud at the moment of +the feat. It was a strength I had not possessed a few months before, +on the day I said good-bye to Charley Furuseth and started for San Francisco +on the ill-fated <i>Martinez.</i></p> +<p>As the boat ascended on a sea, her feet touched and I released her +hands. I cast off the tackles and leaped after her. I had +never rowed in my life, but I put out the oars and at the expense of +much effort got the boat clear of the <i>Ghost</i>. Then I experimented +with the sail. I had seen the boat-steerers and hunters set their +spritsails many times, yet this was my first attempt. What took +them possibly two minutes took me twenty, but in the end I succeeded +in setting and trimming it, and with the steering-oar in my hands hauled +on the wind.</p> +<p>“There lies Japan,” I remarked, “straight before +us.”</p> +<p>“Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, “you are a brave +man.”</p> +<p>“Nay,” I answered, “it is you who are a brave woman.”</p> +<p>We turned our heads, swayed by a common impulse to see the last of +the <i>Ghost</i>. Her low hull lifted and rolled to windward on +a sea; her canvas loomed darkly in the night; her lashed wheel creaked +as the rudder kicked; then sight and sound of her faded away, and we +were alone on the dark sea.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Day broke, grey and chill. The boat was close-hauled on a fresh +breeze and the compass indicated that we were just making the course +which would bring us to Japan. Though stoutly mittened, my fingers +were cold, and they pained from the grip on the steering-oar. +My feet were stinging from the bite of the frost, and I hoped fervently +that the sun would shine.</p> +<p>Before me, in the bottom of the boat, lay Maud. She, at least, +was warm, for under her and over her were thick blankets. The +top one I had drawn over her face to shelter it from the night, so I +could see nothing but the vague shape of her, and her light-brown hair, +escaped from the covering and jewelled with moisture from the air.</p> +<p>Long I looked at her, dwelling upon that one visible bit of her as +only a man would who deemed it the most precious thing in the world. +So insistent was my gaze that at last she stirred under the blankets, +the top fold was thrown back and she smiled out on me, her eyes yet +heavy with sleep.</p> +<p>“Good-morning, Mr. Van Weyden,” she said. “Have +you sighted land yet?”</p> +<p>“No,” I answered, “but we are approaching it at +a rate of six miles an hour.”</p> +<p>She made a <i>mouè</i> of disappointment.</p> +<p>“But that is equivalent to one hundred and forty-four miles +in twenty-four hours,” I added reassuringly.</p> +<p>Her face brightened. “And how far have we to go?”</p> +<p>“Siberia lies off there,” I said, pointing to the west. +“But to the south-west, some six hundred miles, is Japan. +If this wind should hold, we’ll make it in five days.”</p> +<p>“And if it storms? The boat could not live?”</p> +<p>She had a way of looking one in the eyes and demanding the truth, +and thus she looked at me as she asked the question.</p> +<p>“It would have to storm very hard,” I temporized.</p> +<p>“And if it storms very hard?”</p> +<p>I nodded my head. “But we may be picked up any moment +by a sealing-schooner. They are plentifully distributed over this +part of the ocean.”</p> +<p>“Why, you are chilled through!” she cried. “Look! +You are shivering. Don’t deny it; you are. And here +I have been lying warm as toast.”</p> +<p>“I don’t see that it would help matters if you, too, +sat up and were chilled,” I laughed.</p> +<p>“It will, though, when I learn to steer, which I certainly +shall.”</p> +<p>She sat up and began making her simple toilet. She shook down +her hair, and it fell about her in a brown cloud, hiding her face and +shoulders. Dear, damp brown hair! I wanted to kiss it, to +ripple it through my fingers, to bury my face in it. I gazed entranced, +till the boat ran into the wind and the flapping sail warned me I was +not attending to my duties. Idealist and romanticist that I was +and always had been in spite of my analytical nature, yet I had failed +till now in grasping much of the physical characteristics of love. +The love of man and woman, I had always held, was a sublimated something +related to spirit, a spiritual bond that linked and drew their souls +together. The bonds of the flesh had little part in my cosmos +of love. But I was learning the sweet lesson for myself that the +soul transmuted itself, expressed itself, through the flesh; that the +sight and sense and touch of the loved one’s hair was as much +breath and voice and essence of the spirit as the light that shone from +the eyes and the thoughts that fell from the lips. After all, +pure spirit was unknowable, a thing to be sensed and divined only; nor +could it express itself in terms of itself. Jehovah was anthropomorphic +because he could address himself to the Jews only in terms of their +understanding; so he was conceived as in their own image, as a cloud, +a pillar of fire, a tangible, physical something which the mind of the +Israelites could grasp.</p> +<p>And so I gazed upon Maud’s light-brown hair, and loved it, +and learned more of love than all the poets and singers had taught me +with all their songs and sonnets. She flung it back with a sudden +adroit movement, and her face emerged, smiling.</p> +<p>“Why don’t women wear their hair down always?” +I asked. “It is so much more beautiful.”</p> +<p>“If it didn’t tangle so dreadfully,” she laughed. +“There! I’ve lost one of my precious hair-pins!”</p> +<p>I neglected the boat and had the sail spilling the wind again and +again, such was my delight in following her every movement as she searched +through the blankets for the pin. I was surprised, and joyfully, +that she was so much the woman, and the display of each trait and mannerism +that was characteristically feminine gave me keener joy. For I +had been elevating her too highly in my concepts of her, removing her +too far from the plane of the human, and too far from me. I had +been making of her a creature goddess-like and unapproachable. +So I hailed with delight the little traits that proclaimed her only +woman after all, such as the toss of the head which flung back the cloud +of hair, and the search for the pin. She was woman, my kind, on +my plane, and the delightful intimacy of kind, of man and woman, was +possible, as well as the reverence and awe in which I knew I should +always hold her.</p> +<p>She found the pin with an adorable little cry, and I turned my attention +more fully to my steering. I proceeded to experiment, lashing +and wedging the steering-oar until the boat held on fairly well by the +wind without my assistance. Occasionally it came up too close, +or fell off too freely; but it always recovered itself and in the main +behaved satisfactorily.</p> +<p>“And now we shall have breakfast,” I said. “But +first you must be more warmly clad.”</p> +<p>I got out a heavy shirt, new from the slop-chest and made from blanket +goods. I knew the kind, so thick and so close of texture that +it could resist the rain and not be soaked through after hours of wetting. +When she had slipped this on over her head, I exchanged the boy’s +cap she wore for a man’s cap, large enough to cover her hair, +and, when the flap was turned down, to completely cover her neck and +ears. The effect was charming. Her face was of the sort +that cannot but look well under all circumstances. Nothing could +destroy its exquisite oval, its well-nigh classic lines, its delicately +stencilled brows, its large brown eyes, clear-seeing and calm, gloriously +calm.</p> +<p>A puff, slightly stronger than usual, struck us just then. +The boat was caught as it obliquely crossed the crest of a wave. +It went over suddenly, burying its gunwale level with the sea and shipping +a bucketful or so of water. I was opening a can of tongue at the +moment, and I sprang to the sheet and cast it off just in time. +The sail flapped and fluttered, and the boat paid off. A few minutes +of regulating sufficed to put it on its course again, when I returned +to the preparation of breakfast.</p> +<p>“It does very well, it seems, though I am not versed in things +nautical,” she said, nodding her head with grave approval at my +steering contrivance.</p> +<p>“But it will serve only when we are sailing by the wind,” +I explained. “When running more freely, with the wind astern +abeam, or on the quarter, it will be necessary for me to steer.”</p> +<p>“I must say I don’t understand your technicalities,” +she said, “but I do your conclusion, and I don’t like it. +You cannot steer night and day and for ever. So I shall expect, +after breakfast, to receive my first lesson. And then you shall +lie down and sleep. We’ll stand watches just as they do +on ships.”</p> +<p>“I don’t see how I am to teach you,” I made protest. +“I am just learning for myself. You little thought when +you trusted yourself to me that I had had no experience whatever with +small boats. This is the first time I have ever been in one.”</p> +<p>“Then we’ll learn together, sir. And since you’ve +had a night’s start you shall teach me what you have learned. +And now, breakfast. My! this air does give one an appetite!”</p> +<p>“No coffee,” I said regretfully, passing her buttered +sea-biscuits and a slice of canned tongue. “And there will +be no tea, no soups, nothing hot, till we have made land somewhere, +somehow.”</p> +<p>After the simple breakfast, capped with a cup of cold water, Maud +took her lesson in steering. In teaching her I learned quite a +deal myself, though I was applying the knowledge already acquired by +sailing the <i>Ghost</i> and by watching the boat-steerers sail the +small boats. She was an apt pupil, and soon learned to keep the +course, to luff in the puffs and to cast off the sheet in an emergency.</p> +<p>Having grown tired, apparently, of the task, she relinquished the +oar to me. I had folded up the blankets, but she now proceeded +to spread them out on the bottom. When all was arranged snugly, +she said:</p> +<p>“Now, sir, to bed. And you shall sleep until luncheon. +Till dinner-time,” she corrected, remembering the arrangement +on the <i>Ghost.</i></p> +<p>What could I do? She insisted, and said, “Please, please,” +whereupon I turned the oar over to her and obeyed. I experienced +a positive sensuous delight as I crawled into the bed she had made with +her hands. The calm and control which were so much a part of her +seemed to have been communicated to the blankets, so that I was aware +of a soft dreaminess and content, and of an oval face and brown eyes +framed in a fisherman’s cap and tossing against a background now +of grey cloud, now of grey sea, and then I was aware that I had been +asleep.</p> +<p>I looked at my watch. It was one o’clock. I had +slept seven hours! And she had been steering seven hours! +When I took the steering-oar I had first to unbend her cramped fingers. +Her modicum of strength had been exhausted, and she was unable even +to move from her position. I was compelled to let go the sheet +while I helped her to the nest of blankets and chafed her hands and +arms.</p> +<p>“I am so tired,” she said, with a quick intake of the +breath and a sigh, drooping her head wearily.</p> +<p>But she straightened it the next moment. “Now don’t +scold, don’t you dare scold,” she cried with mock defiance.</p> +<p>“I hope my face does not appear angry,” I answered seriously; +“for I assure you I am not in the least angry.”</p> +<p>“N-no,” she considered. “It looks only reproachful.”</p> +<p>“Then it is an honest face, for it looks what I feel. +You were not fair to yourself, nor to me. How can I ever trust +you again?”</p> +<p>She looked penitent. “I’ll be good,” she +said, as a naughty child might say it. “I promise—”</p> +<p>“To obey as a sailor would obey his captain?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” she answered. “It was stupid of me, +I know.”</p> +<p>“Then you must promise something else,” I ventured.</p> +<p>“Readily.”</p> +<p>“That you will not say, ‘Please, please,’ too often; +for when you do you are sure to override my authority.”</p> +<p>She laughed with amused appreciation. She, too, had noticed +the power of the repeated “please.”</p> +<p>“It is a good word—” I began.</p> +<p>“But I must not overwork it,” she broke in.</p> +<p>But she laughed weakly, and her head drooped again. I left +the oar long enough to tuck the blankets about her feet and to pull +a single fold across her face. Alas! she was not strong. +I looked with misgiving toward the south-west and thought of the six +hundred miles of hardship before us—ay, if it were no worse than +hardship. On this sea a storm might blow up at any moment and +destroy us. And yet I was unafraid. I was without confidence +in the future, extremely doubtful, and yet I felt no underlying fear. +It must come right, it must come right, I repeated to myself, over and +over again.</p> +<p>The wind freshened in the afternoon, raising a stiffer sea and trying +the boat and me severely. But the supply of food and the nine +breakers of water enabled the boat to stand up to the sea and wind, +and I held on as long as I dared. Then I removed the sprit, tightly +hauling down the peak of the sail, and we raced along under what sailors +call a leg-of-mutton.</p> +<p>Late in the afternoon I sighted a steamer’s smoke on the horizon +to leeward, and I knew it either for a Russian cruiser, or, more likely, +the <i>Macedonia</i> still seeking the <i>Ghost</i>. The sun had +not shone all day, and it had been bitter cold. As night drew +on, the clouds darkened and the wind freshened, so that when Maud and +I ate supper it was with our mittens on and with me still steering and +eating morsels between puffs.</p> +<p>By the time it was dark, wind and sea had become too strong for the +boat, and I reluctantly took in the sail and set about making a drag +or sea-anchor. I had learned of the device from the talk of the +hunters, and it was a simple thing to manufacture. Furling the +sail and lashing it securely about the mast, boom, sprit, and two pairs +of spare oars, I threw it overboard. A line connected it with +the bow, and as it floated low in the water, practically unexposed to +the wind, it drifted less rapidly than the boat. In consequence +it held the boat bow on to the sea and wind—the safest position +in which to escape being swamped when the sea is breaking into whitecaps.</p> +<p>“And now?” Maud asked cheerfully, when the task was accomplished +and I pulled on my mittens.</p> +<p>“And now we are no longer travelling toward Japan,” I +answered. “Our drift is to the south-east, or south-south-east, +at the rate of at least two miles an hour.”</p> +<p>“That will be only twenty-four miles,” she urged, “if +the wind remains high all night.”</p> +<p>“Yes, and only one hundred and forty miles if it continues +for three days and nights.”</p> +<p>“But it won’t continue,” she said with easy confidence. +“It will turn around and blow fair.”</p> +<p>“The sea is the great faithless one.”</p> +<p>“But the wind!” she retorted. “I have heard +you grow eloquent over the brave trade-wind.”</p> +<p>“I wish I had thought to bring Wolf Larsen’s chronometer +and sextant,” I said, still gloomily. “Sailing one +direction, drifting another direction, to say nothing of the set of +the current in some third direction, makes a resultant which dead reckoning +can never calculate. Before long we won’t know where we +are by five hundred miles.”</p> +<p>Then I begged her pardon and promised I should not be disheartened +any more. At her solicitation I let her take the watch till midnight,—it +was then nine o’clock, but I wrapped her in blankets and put an +oilskin about her before I lay down. I slept only cat-naps. +The boat was leaping and pounding as it fell over the crests, I could +hear the seas rushing past, and spray was continually being thrown aboard. +And still, it was not a bad night, I mused—nothing to the nights +I had been through on the <i>Ghost</i>; nothing, perhaps, to the nights +we should go through in this cockle-shell. Its planking was three-quarters +of an inch thick. Between us and the bottom of the sea was less +than an inch of wood.</p> +<p>And yet, I aver it, and I aver it again, I was unafraid. The +death which Wolf Larsen and even Thomas Mugridge had made me fear, I +no longer feared. The coming of Maud Brewster into my life seemed +to have transformed me. After all, I thought, it is better and +finer to love than to be loved, if it makes something in life so worth +while that one is not loath to die for it. I forget my own life +in the love of another life; and yet, such is the paradox, I never wanted +so much to live as right now when I place the least value upon my own +life. I never had so much reason for living, was my concluding +thought; and after that, until I dozed, I contented myself with trying +to pierce the darkness to where I knew Maud crouched low in the stern-sheets, +watchful of the foaming sea and ready to call me on an instant’s +notice.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>There is no need of going into an extended recital of our suffering +in the small boat during the many days we were driven and drifted, here +and there, willy-nilly, across the ocean. The high wind blew from +the north-west for twenty-four hours, when it fell calm, and in the +night sprang up from the south-west. This was dead in our teeth, +but I took in the sea-anchor and set sail, hauling a course on the wind +which took us in a south-south-easterly direction. It was an even +choice between this and the west-north-westerly course which the wind +permitted; but the warm airs of the south fanned my desire for a warmer +sea and swayed my decision.</p> +<p>In three hours—it was midnight, I well remember, and as dark +as I had ever seen it on the sea—the wind, still blowing out of +the south-west, rose furiously, and once again I was compelled to set +the sea-anchor.</p> +<p>Day broke and found me wan-eyed and the ocean lashed white, the boat +pitching, almost on end, to its drag. We were in imminent danger +of being swamped by the whitecaps. As it was, spray and spume +came aboard in such quantities that I bailed without cessation. +The blankets were soaking. Everything was wet except Maud, and +she, in oilskins, rubber boots, and sou’wester, was dry, all but +her face and hands and a stray wisp of hair. She relieved me at +the bailing-hole from time to time, and bravely she threw out the water +and faced the storm. All things are relative. It was no +more than a stiff blow, but to us, fighting for life in our frail craft, +it was indeed a storm.</p> +<p>Cold and cheerless, the wind beating on our faces, the white seas +roaring by, we struggled through the day. Night came, but neither +of us slept. Day came, and still the wind beat on our faces and +the white seas roared past. By the second night Maud was falling +asleep from exhaustion. I covered her with oilskins and a tarpaulin. +She was comparatively dry, but she was numb with the cold. I feared +greatly that she might die in the night; but day broke, cold and cheerless, +with the same clouded sky and beating wind and roaring seas.</p> +<p>I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I was wet and chilled +to the marrow, till I felt more dead than alive. My body was stiff +from exertion as well as from cold, and my aching muscles gave me the +severest torture whenever I used them, and I used them continually. +And all the time we were being driven off into the north-east, directly +away from Japan and toward bleak Bering Sea.</p> +<p>And still we lived, and the boat lived, and the wind blew unabated. +In fact, toward nightfall of the third day it increased a trifle and +something more. The boat’s bow plunged under a crest, and +we came through quarter-full of water. I bailed like a madman. +The liability of shipping another such sea was enormously increased +by the water that weighed the boat down and robbed it of its buoyancy. +And another such sea meant the end. When I had the boat empty +again I was forced to take away the tarpaulin which covered Maud, in +order that I might lash it down across the bow. It was well I +did, for it covered the boat fully a third of the way aft, and three +times, in the next several hours, it flung off the bulk of the down-rushing +water when the bow shoved under the seas.</p> +<p>Maud’s condition was pitiable. She sat crouched in the +bottom of the boat, her lips blue, her face grey and plainly showing +the pain she suffered. But ever her eyes looked bravely at me, +and ever her lips uttered brave words.</p> +<p>The worst of the storm must have blown that night, though little +I noticed it. I had succumbed and slept where I sat in the stern-sheets. +The morning of the fourth day found the wind diminished to a gentle +whisper, the sea dying down and the sun shining upon us. Oh, the +blessed sun! How we bathed our poor bodies in its delicious warmth, +reviving like bugs and crawling things after a storm. We smiled +again, said amusing things, and waxed optimistic over our situation. +Yet it was, if anything, worse than ever. We were farther from +Japan than the night we left the <i>Ghost</i>. Nor could I more +than roughly guess our latitude and longitude. At a calculation +of a two-mile drift per hour, during the seventy and odd hours of the +storm, we had been driven at least one hundred and fifty miles to the +north-east. But was such calculated drift correct? For all +I knew, it might have been four miles per hour instead of two. +In which case we were another hundred and fifty miles to the bad.</p> +<p>Where we were I did not know, though there was quite a likelihood +that we were in the vicinity of the <i>Ghost</i>. There were seals +about us, and I was prepared to sight a sealing-schooner at any time. +We did sight one, in the afternoon, when the north-west breeze had sprung +up freshly once more. But the strange schooner lost itself on +the sky-line and we alone occupied the circle of the sea.</p> +<p>Came days of fog, when even Maud’s spirit drooped and there +were no merry words upon her lips; days of calm, when we floated on +the lonely immensity of sea, oppressed by its greatness and yet marvelling +at the miracle of tiny life, for we still lived and struggled to live; +days of sleet and wind and snow-squalls, when nothing could keep us +warm; or days of drizzling rain, when we filled our water-breakers from +the drip of the wet sail.</p> +<p>And ever I loved Maud with an increasing love. She was so many-sided, +so many-mooded—“protean-mooded” I called her. +But I called her this, and other and dearer things, in my thoughts only. +Though the declaration of my love urged and trembled on my tongue a +thousand times, I knew that it was no time for such a declaration. +If for no other reason, it was no time, when one was protecting and +trying to save a woman, to ask that woman for her love. Delicate +as was the situation, not alone in this but in other ways, I flattered +myself that I was able to deal delicately with it; and also I flattered +myself that by look or sign I gave no advertisement of the love I felt +for her. We were like good comrades, and we grew better comrades +as the days went by.</p> +<p>One thing about her which surprised me was her lack of timidity and +fear. The terrible sea, the frail boat, the storms, the suffering, +the strangeness and isolation of the situation,—all that should +have frightened a robust woman,—seemed to make no impression upon +her who had known life only in its most sheltered and consummately artificial +aspects, and who was herself all fire and dew and mist, sublimated spirit, +all that was soft and tender and clinging in woman. And yet I +am wrong. She <i>was</i> timid and afraid, but she possessed courage. +The flesh and the qualms of the flesh she was heir to, but the flesh +bore heavily only on the flesh. And she was spirit, first and +always spirit, etherealized essence of life, calm as her calm eyes, +and sure of permanence in the changing order of the universe.</p> +<p>Came days of storm, days and nights of storm, when the ocean menaced +us with its roaring whiteness, and the wind smote our struggling boat +with a Titan’s buffets. And ever we were flung off, farther +and farther, to the north-east. It was in such a storm, and the +worst that we had experienced, that I cast a weary glance to leeward, +not in quest of anything, but more from the weariness of facing the +elemental strife, and in mute appeal, almost, to the wrathful powers +to cease and let us be. What I saw I could not at first believe. +Days and nights of sleeplessness and anxiety had doubtless turned my +head. I looked back at Maud, to identify myself, as it were, in +time and space. The sight of her dear wet cheeks, her flying hair, +and her brave brown eyes convinced me that my vision was still healthy. +Again I turned my face to leeward, and again I saw the jutting promontory, +black and high and naked, the raging surf that broke about its base +and beat its front high up with spouting fountains, the black and forbidden +coast-line running toward the south-east and fringed with a tremendous +scarf of white.</p> +<p>“Maud,” I said. “Maud.”</p> +<p>She turned her head and beheld the sight.</p> +<p>“It cannot be Alaska!” she cried.</p> +<p>“Alas, no,” I answered, and asked, “Can you swim?”</p> +<p>She shook her head.</p> +<p>“Neither can I,” I said. “So we must get +ashore without swimming, in some opening between the rocks through which +we can drive the boat and clamber out. But we must be quick, most +quick—and sure.”</p> +<p>I spoke with a confidence she knew I did not feel, for she looked +at me with that unfaltering gaze of hers and said:</p> +<p>“I have not thanked you yet for all you have done for me but—”</p> +<p>She hesitated, as if in doubt how best to word her gratitude.</p> +<p>“Well?” I said, brutally, for I was not quite pleased +with her thanking me.</p> +<p>“You might help me,” she smiled.</p> +<p>“To acknowledge your obligations before you die? Not +at all. We are not going to die. We shall land on that island, +and we shall be snug and sheltered before the day is done.”</p> +<p>I spoke stoutly, but I did not believe a word. Nor was I prompted +to lie through fear. I felt no fear, though I was sure of death +in that boiling surge amongst the rocks which was rapidly growing nearer. +It was impossible to hoist sail and claw off that shore. The wind +would instantly capsize the boat; the seas would swamp it the moment +it fell into the trough; and, besides, the sail, lashed to the spare +oars, dragged in the sea ahead of us.</p> +<p>As I say, I was not afraid to meet my own death, there, a few hundred +yards to leeward; but I was appalled at the thought that Maud must die. +My cursed imagination saw her beaten and mangled against the rocks, +and it was too terrible. I strove to compel myself to think we +would make the landing safely, and so I spoke, not what I believed, +but what I preferred to believe.</p> +<p>I recoiled before contemplation of that frightful death, and for +a moment I entertained the wild idea of seizing Maud in my arms and +leaping overboard. Then I resolved to wait, and at the last moment, +when we entered on the final stretch, to take her in my arms and proclaim +my love, and, with her in my embrace, to make the desperate struggle +and die.</p> +<p>Instinctively we drew closer together in the bottom of the boat. +I felt her mittened hand come out to mine. And thus, without speech, +we waited the end. We were not far off the line the wind made +with the western edge of the promontory, and I watched in the hope that +some set of the current or send of the sea would drift us past before +we reached the surf.</p> +<p>“We shall go clear,” I said, with a confidence which +I knew deceived neither of us.</p> +<p>“By God, we <i>will</i> go clear!” I cried, five minutes +later.</p> +<p>The oath left my lips in my excitement—the first, I do believe, +in my life, unless “trouble it,” an expletive of my youth, +be accounted an oath.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” I said.</p> +<p>“You have convinced me of your sincerity,” she said, +with a faint smile. “I do know, now, that we shall go clear.”</p> +<p>I had seen a distant headland past the extreme edge of the promontory, +and as we looked we could see grow the intervening coastline of what +was evidently a deep cove. At the same time there broke upon our +ears a continuous and mighty bellowing. It partook of the magnitude +and volume of distant thunder, and it came to us directly from leeward, +rising above the crash of the surf and travelling directly in the teeth +of the storm. As we passed the point the whole cove burst upon +our view, a half-moon of white sandy beach upon which broke a huge surf, +and which was covered with myriads of seals. It was from them +that the great bellowing went up.</p> +<p>“A rookery!” I cried. “Now are we indeed +saved. There must be men and cruisers to protect them from the +seal-hunters. Possibly there is a station ashore.”</p> +<p>But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said, “Still +bad, but not so bad. And now, if the gods be truly kind, we shall +drift by that next headland and come upon a perfectly sheltered beach, +where we may land without wetting our feet.”</p> +<p>And the gods were kind. The first and second headlands were +directly in line with the south-west wind; but once around the second,—and +we went perilously near,—we picked up the third headland, still +in line with the wind and with the other two. But the cove that +intervened! It penetrated deep into the land, and the tide, setting +in, drifted us under the shelter of the point. Here the sea was +calm, save for a heavy but smooth ground-swell, and I took in the sea-anchor +and began to row. From the point the shore curved away, more and +more to the south and west, until at last it disclosed a cove within +the cove, a little land-locked harbour, the water level as a pond, broken +only by tiny ripples where vagrant breaths and wisps of the storm hurtled +down from over the frowning wall of rock that backed the beach a hundred +feet inshore.</p> +<p>Here were no seals whatever. The boat’s stern touched +the hard shingle. I sprang out, extending my hand to Maud. +The next moment she was beside me. As my fingers released hers, +she clutched for my arm hastily. At the same moment I swayed, +as about to fall to the sand. This was the startling effect of +the cessation of motion. We had been so long upon the moving, +rocking sea that the stable land was a shock to us. We expected +the beach to lift up this way and that, and the rocky walls to swing +back and forth like the sides of a ship; and when we braced ourselves, +automatically, for these various expected movements, their non-occurrence +quite overcame our equilibrium.</p> +<p>“I really must sit down,” Maud said, with a nervous laugh +and a dizzy gesture, and forthwith she sat down on the sand.</p> +<p>I attended to making the boat secure and joined her. Thus we +landed on Endeavour Island, as we came to it, land-sick from long custom +of the sea.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“Fool!” I cried aloud in my vexation.</p> +<p>I had unloaded the boat and carried its contents high up on the beach, +where I had set about making a camp. There was driftwood, though +not much, on the beach, and the sight of a coffee tin I had taken from +the <i>Ghost’s</i> larder had given me the idea of a fire.</p> +<p>“Blithering idiot!” I was continuing.</p> +<p>But Maud said, “Tut, tut,” in gentle reproval, and then +asked why I was a blithering idiot.</p> +<p>“No matches,” I groaned. “Not a match did +I bring. And now we shall have no hot coffee, soup, tea, or anything!”</p> +<p>“Wasn’t it—er—Crusoe who rubbed sticks together?” +she drawled.</p> +<p>“But I have read the personal narratives of a score of shipwrecked +men who tried, and tried in vain,” I answered. “I +remember Winters, a newspaper fellow with an Alaskan and Siberian reputation. +Met him at the Bibelot once, and he was telling us how he attempted +to make a fire with a couple of sticks. It was most amusing. +He told it inimitably, but it was the story of a failure. I remember +his conclusion, his black eyes flashing as he said, ‘Gentlemen, +the South Sea Islander may do it, the Malay may do it, but take my word +it’s beyond the white man.’”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, we’ve managed so far without it,” she +said cheerfully. “And there’s no reason why we cannot +still manage without it.”</p> +<p>“But think of the coffee!” I cried. “It’s +good coffee, too, I know. I took it from Larsen’s private +stores. And look at that good wood.”</p> +<p>I confess, I wanted the coffee badly; and I learned, not long afterward, +that the berry was likewise a little weakness of Maud’s. +Besides, we had been so long on a cold diet that we were numb inside +as well as out. Anything warm would have been most gratifying. +But I complained no more and set about making a tent of the sail for +Maud.</p> +<p>I had looked upon it as a simple task, what of the oars, mast, boom, +and sprit, to say nothing of plenty of lines. But as I was without +experience, and as every detail was an experiment and every successful +detail an invention, the day was well gone before her shelter was an +accomplished fact. And then, that night, it rained, and she was +flooded out and driven back into the boat.</p> +<p>The next morning I dug a shallow ditch around the tent, and, an hour +later, a sudden gust of wind, whipping over the rocky wall behind us, +picked up the tent and smashed it down on the sand thirty yards away.</p> +<p>Maud laughed at my crestfallen expression, and I said, “As +soon as the wind abates I intend going in the boat to explore the island. +There must be a station somewhere, and men. And ships must visit +the station. Some Government must protect all these seals. +But I wish to have you comfortable before I start.”</p> +<p>“I should like to go with you,” was all she said.</p> +<p>“It would be better if you remained. You have had enough +of hardship. It is a miracle that you have survived. And +it won’t be comfortable in the boat rowing and sailing in this +rainy weather. What you need is rest, and I should like you to +remain and get it.”</p> +<p>Something suspiciously akin to moistness dimmed her beautiful eyes +before she dropped them and partly turned away her head.</p> +<p>“I should prefer going with you,” she said in a low voice, +in which there was just a hint of appeal.</p> +<p>“I might be able to help you a—” her voice broke,—“a +little. And if anything should happen to you, think of me left +here alone.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I intend being very careful,” I answered. +“And I shall not go so far but what I can get back before night. +Yes, all said and done, I think it vastly better for you to remain, +and sleep, and rest and do nothing.”</p> +<p>She turned and looked me in the eyes. Her gaze was unfaltering, +but soft.</p> +<p>“Please, please,” she said, oh, so softly.</p> +<p>I stiffened myself to refuse, and shook my head. Still she +waited and looked at me. I tried to word my refusal, but wavered. +I saw the glad light spring into her eyes and knew that I had lost. +It was impossible to say no after that.</p> +<p>The wind died down in the afternoon, and we were prepared to start +the following morning. There was no way of penetrating the island +from our cove, for the walls rose perpendicularly from the beach, and, +on either side of the cove, rose from the deep water.</p> +<p>Morning broke dull and grey, but calm, and I was awake early and +had the boat in readiness.</p> +<p>“Fool! Imbecile! Yahoo!” I shouted, when +I thought it was meet to arouse Maud; but this time I shouted in merriment +as I danced about the beach, bareheaded, in mock despair.</p> +<p>Her head appeared under the flap of the sail.</p> +<p>“What now?” she asked sleepily, and, withal, curiously.</p> +<p>“Coffee!” I cried. “What do you say to a +cup of coffee? hot coffee? piping hot?”</p> +<p>“My!” she murmured, “you startled me, and you are +cruel. Here I have been composing my soul to do without it, and +here you are vexing me with your vain suggestions.”</p> +<p>“Watch me,” I said.</p> +<p>From under clefts among the rocks I gathered a few dry sticks and +chips. These I whittled into shavings or split into kindling. +From my note-book I tore out a page, and from the ammunition box took +a shot-gun shell. Removing the wads from the latter with my knife, +I emptied the powder on a flat rock. Next I pried the primer, +or cap, from the shell, and laid it on the rock, in the midst of the +scattered powder. All was ready. Maud still watched from +the tent. Holding the paper in my lelf hand, I smashed down upon +the cap with a rock held in my right. There was a puff of white +smoke, a burst of flame, and the rough edge of the paper was alight.</p> +<p>Maud clapped her hands gleefully. “Prometheus!” +she cried.</p> +<p>But I was too occupied to acknowledge her delight. The feeble +flame must be cherished tenderly if it were to gather strength and live. +I fed it, shaving by shaving, and sliver by sliver, till at last it +was snapping and crackling as it laid hold of the smaller chips and +sticks. To be cast away on an island had not entered into my calculations, +so we were without a kettle or cooking utensils of any sort; but I made +shift with the tin used for bailing the boat, and later, as we consumed +our supply of canned goods, we accumulated quite an imposing array of +cooking vessels.</p> +<p>I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And +how good it was! My contribution was canned beef fried with crumbled +sea-biscuit and water. The breakfast was a success, and we sat +about the fire much longer than enterprising explorers should have done, +sipping the hot black coffee and talking over our situation.</p> +<p>I was confident that we should find a station in some one of the +coves, for I knew that the rookeries of Bering Sea were thus guarded; +but Maud advanced the theory—to prepare me for disappointment, +I do believe, if disappointment were to come—that we had discovered +an unknown rookery. She was in very good spirits, however, and +made quite merry in accepting our plight as a grave one.</p> +<p>“If you are right,” I said, “then we must prepare +to winter here. Our food will not last, but there are the seals. +They go away in the fall, so I must soon begin to lay in a supply of +meat. Then there will be huts to build and driftwood to gather. +Also we shall try out seal fat for lighting purposes. Altogether, +we’ll have our hands full if we find the island uninhabited. +Which we shall not, I know.”</p> +<p>But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the shore, +searching the coves with our glasses and landing occasionally, without +finding a sign of human life. Yet we learned that we were not +the first who had landed on Endeavour Island. High up on the beach +of the second cove from ours, we discovered the splintered wreck of +a boat—a sealer’s boat, for the rowlocks were bound in sennit, +a gun-rack was on the starboard side of the bow, and in white letters +was faintly visible <i>Gazelle</i> No. 2. The boat had lain there +for a long time, for it was half filled with sand, and the splintered +wood had that weather-worn appearance due to long exposure to the elements. +In the stern-sheets I found a rusty ten-gauge shot-gun and a sailor’s +sheath-knife broken short across and so rusted as to be almost unrecognizable.</p> +<p>“They got away,” I said cheerfully; but I felt a sinking +at the heart and seemed to divine the presence of bleached bones somewhere +on that beach.</p> +<p>I did not wish Maud’s spirits to be dampened by such a find, +so I turned seaward again with our boat and skirted the north-eastern +point of the island. There were no beaches on the southern shore, +and by early afternoon we rounded the black promontory and completed +the circumnavigation of the island. I estimated its circumference +at twenty-five miles, its width as varying from two to five miles; while +my most conservative calculation placed on its beaches two hundred thousand +seals. The island was highest at its extreme south-western point, +the headlands and backbone diminishing regularly until the north-eastern +portion was only a few feet above the sea. With the exception +of our little cove, the other beaches sloped gently back for a distance +of half-a-mile or so, into what I might call rocky meadows, with here +and there patches of moss and tundra grass. Here the seals hauled +out, and the old bulls guarded their harems, while the young bulls hauled +out by themselves.</p> +<p>This brief description is all that Endeavour Island merits. +Damp and soggy where it was not sharp and rocky, buffeted by storm winds +and lashed by the sea, with the air continually a-tremble with the bellowing +of two hundred thousand amphibians, it was a melancholy and miserable +sojourning-place. Maud, who had prepared me for disappointment, +and who had been sprightly and vivacious all day, broke down as we landed +in our own little cove. She strove bravely to hide it from me, +but while I was kindling another fire I knew she was stifling her sobs +in the blankets under the sail-tent.</p> +<p>It was my turn to be cheerful, and I played the part to the best +of my ability, and with such success that I brought the laughter back +into her dear eyes and song on her lips; for she sang to me before she +went to an early bed. It was the first time I had heard her sing, +and I lay by the fire, listening and transported, for she was nothing +if not an artist in everything she did, and her voice, though not strong, +was wonderfully sweet and expressive.</p> +<p>I still slept in the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing +up at the first stars I had seen in many nights and pondering the situation. +Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen +had been quite right. I had stood on my father’s legs. +My lawyers and agents had taken care of my money for me. I had +had no responsibilities at all. Then, on the <i>Ghost</i> I had +learned to be responsible for myself. And now, for the first time +in my life, I found myself responsible for some one else. And +it was required of me that this should be the gravest of responsibilities, +for she was the one woman in the world—the one small woman, as +I loved to think of her.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>No wonder we called it Endeavour Island. For two weeks we toiled +at building a hut. Maud insisted on helping, and I could have +wept over her bruised and bleeding hands. And still, I was proud +of her because of it. There was something heroic about this gently-bred +woman enduring our terrible hardship and with her pittance of strength +bending to the tasks of a peasant woman. She gathered many of +the stones which I built into the walls of the hut; also, she turned +a deaf ear to my entreaties when I begged her to desist. She compromised, +however, by taking upon herself the lighter labours of cooking and gathering +driftwood and moss for our winter’s supply.</p> +<p>The hut’s walls rose without difficulty, and everything went +smoothly until the problem of the roof confronted me. Of what +use the four walls without a roof? And of what could a roof be +made? There were the spare oars, very true. They would serve +as roof-beams; but with what was I to cover them? Moss would never +do. Tundra grass was impracticable. We needed the sail for +the boat, and the tarpaulin had begun to leak.</p> +<p>“Winters used walrus skins on his hut,” I said.</p> +<p>“There are the seals,” she suggested.</p> +<p>So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, +but I proceeded to learn. And when I had expended some thirty +shells for three seals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted +before I acquired the necessary knowledge. I had used eight shells +for lighting fires before I hit upon the device of banking the embers +with wet moss, and there remained not over a hundred shells in the box.</p> +<p>“We must club the seals,” I announced, when convinced +of my poor marksmanship. “I have heard the sealers talk +about clubbing them.”</p> +<p>“They are so pretty,” she objected. “I cannot +bear to think of it being done. It is so directly brutal, you +know; so different from shooting them.”</p> +<p>“That roof must go on,” I answered grimly. “Winter +is almost here. It is our lives against theirs. It is unfortunate +we haven’t plenty of ammunition, but I think, anyway, that they +suffer less from being clubbed than from being all shot up. Besides, +I shall do the clubbing.”</p> +<p>“That’s just it,” she began eagerly, and broke +off in sudden confusion.</p> +<p>“Of course,” I began, “if you prefer—”</p> +<p>“But what shall I be doing?” she interrupted, with that +softness I knew full well to be insistence.</p> +<p>“Gathering firewood and cooking dinner,” I answered lightly.</p> +<p>She shook her head. “It is too dangerous for you to attempt +alone.”</p> +<p>“I know, I know,” she waived my protest. “I +am only a weak woman, but just my small assistance may enable you to +escape disaster.”</p> +<p>“But the clubbing?” I suggested.</p> +<p>“Of course, you will do that. I shall probably scream. +I’ll look away when—”</p> +<p>“The danger is most serious,” I laughed.</p> +<p>“I shall use my judgment when to look and when not to look,” +she replied with a grand air.</p> +<p>The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. +I rowed into the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. +There were seals all about us in the water, and the bellowing thousands +on the beach compelled us to shout at each other to make ourselves heard.</p> +<p>“I know men club them,” I said, trying to reassure myself, +and gazing doubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet away, upreared +on his fore-flippers and regarding me intently. “But the +question is, How do they club them?”</p> +<p>“Let us gather tundra grass and thatch the roof,” Maud +said.</p> +<p>She was as frightened as I at the prospect, and we had reason to +be gazing at close range at the gleaming teeth and dog-like mouths.</p> +<p>“I always thought they were afraid of men,” I said.</p> +<p>“How do I know they are not afraid?” I queried a moment +later, after having rowed a few more strokes along the beach. +“Perhaps, if I were to step boldly ashore, they would cut for +it, and I could not catch up with one.” And still I hesitated.</p> +<p>“I heard of a man, once, who invaded the nesting grounds of +wild geese,” Maud said. “They killed him.”</p> +<p>“The geese?”</p> +<p>“Yes, the geese. My brother told me about it when I was +a little girl.”</p> +<p>“But I know men club them,” I persisted.</p> +<p>“I think the tundra grass will make just as good a roof,” +she said.</p> +<p>Far from her intention, her words were maddening me, driving me on. +I could not play the coward before her eyes. “Here goes,” +I said, backing water with one oar and running the bow ashore.</p> +<p>I stepped out and advanced valiantly upon a long-maned bull in the +midst of his wives. I was armed with the regular club with which +the boat-pullers killed the wounded seals gaffed aboard by the hunters. +It was only a foot and a half long, and in my superb ignorance I never +dreamed that the club used ashore when raiding the rookeries measured +four to five feet. The cows lumbered out of my way, and the distance +between me and the bull decreased. He raised himself on his flippers +with an angry movement. We were a dozen feet apart. Still +I advanced steadily, looking for him to turn tail at any moment and +run.</p> +<p>At six feet the panicky thought rushed into my mind, What if he will +not run? Why, then I shall club him, came the answer. In +my fear I had forgotten that I was there to get the bull instead of +to make him run. And just then he gave a snort and a snarl and +rushed at me. His eyes were blazing, his mouth was wide open; +the teeth gleamed cruelly white. Without shame, I confess that +it was I who turned and footed it. He ran awkwardly, but he ran +well. He was but two paces behind when I tumbled into the boat, +and as I shoved off with an oar his teeth crunched down upon the blade. +The stout wood was crushed like an egg-shell. Maud and I were +astounded. A moment later he had dived under the boat, seized +the keel in his mouth, and was shaking the boat violently.</p> +<p>“My!” said Maud. “Let’s go back.”</p> +<p>I shook my head. “I can do what other men have done, +and I know that other men have clubbed seals. But I think I’ll +leave the bulls alone next time.”</p> +<p>“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said.</p> +<p>“Now don’t say, ‘Please, please,’” +I cried, half angrily, I do believe.</p> +<p>She made no reply, and I knew my tone must have hurt her.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” I said, or shouted, rather, in order +to make myself heard above the roar of the rookery. “If +you say so, I’ll turn and go back; but honestly, I’d rather +stay.”</p> +<p>“Now don’t say that this is what you get for bringing +a woman along,” she said. She smiled at me whimsically, +gloriously, and I knew there was no need for forgiveness.</p> +<p>I rowed a couple of hundred feet along the beach so as to recover +my nerves, and then stepped ashore again.</p> +<p>“Do be cautious,” she called after me.</p> +<p>I nodded my head and proceeded to make a flank attack on the nearest +harem. All went well until I aimed a blow at an outlying cowls +head and fell short. She snorted and tried to scramble away. +I ran in close and struck another blow, hitting the shoulder instead +of the head.</p> +<p>“Watch out!” I heard Maud scream.</p> +<p>In my excitement I had not been taking notice of other things, and +I looked up to see the lord of the harem charging down upon me. +Again I fled to the boat, hotly pursued; but this time Maud made no +suggestion of turning back.</p> +<p>“It would be better, I imagine, if you let harems alone and +devoted your attention to lonely and inoffensive-looking seals,” +was what she said. “I think I have read something about +them. Dr. Jordan’s book, I believe. They are the young +bulls, not old enough to have harems of their own. He called them +the holluschickie, or something like that. It seems to me if we +find where they haul out—”</p> +<p>“It seems to me that your fighting instinct is aroused,” +I laughed.</p> +<p>She flushed quickly and prettily. “I’ll admit I +don’t like defeat any more than you do, or any more than I like +the idea of killing such pretty, inoffensive creatures.”</p> +<p>“Pretty!” I sniffed. “I failed to mark anything +pre-eminently pretty about those foamy-mouthed beasts that raced me.”</p> +<p>“Your point of view,” she laughed. “You lacked +perspective. Now if you did not have to get so close to the subject—”</p> +<p>“The very thing!” I cried. “What I need is +a longer club. And there’s that broken oar ready to hand.”</p> +<p>“It just comes to me,” she said, “that Captain +Larsen was telling me how the men raided the rookeries. They drive +the seals, in small herds, a short distance inland before they kill +them.”</p> +<p>“I don’t care to undertake the herding of one of those +harems,” I objected.</p> +<p>“But there are the holluschickie,” she said. “The +holluschickie haul out by themselves, and Dr. Jordan says that paths +are left between the harems, and that as long as the holluschickie keep +strictly to the path they are unmolested by the masters of the harem.”</p> +<p>“There’s one now,” I said, pointing to a young +bull in the water. “Let’s watch him, and follow him +if he hauls out.”</p> +<p>He swam directly to the beach and clambered out into a small opening +between two harems, the masters of which made warning noises but did +not attack him. We watched him travel slowly inward, threading +about among the harems along what must have been the path.</p> +<p>“Here goes,” I said, stepping out; but I confess my heart +was in my mouth as I thought of going through the heart of that monstrous +herd.</p> +<p>“It would be wise to make the boat fast,” Maud said.</p> +<p>She had stepped out beside me, and I regarded her with wonderment.</p> +<p>She nodded her head determinedly. “Yes, I’m going +with you, so you may as well secure the boat and arm me with a club.”</p> +<p>“Let’s go back,” I said dejectedly. “I +think tundra grass, will do, after all.”</p> +<p>“You know it won’t,” was her reply. “Shall +I lead?”</p> +<p>With a shrug of the shoulders, but with the warmest admiration and +pride at heart for this woman, I equipped her with the broken oar and +took another for myself. It was with nervous trepidation that +we made the first few rods of the journey. Once Maud screamed +in terror as a cow thrust an inquisitive nose toward her foot, and several +times I quickened my pace for the same reason. But, beyond warning +coughs from either side, there were no signs of hostility. It +was a rookery which had never been raided by the hunters, and in consequence +the seals were mild-tempered and at the same time unafraid.</p> +<p>In the very heart of the herd the din was terrific. It was +almost dizzying in its effect. I paused and smiled reassuringly +at Maud, for I had recovered my equanimity sooner than she. I +could see that she was still badly frightened. She came close +to me and shouted:</p> +<p>“I’m dreadfully afraid!”</p> +<p>And I was not. Though the novelty had not yet worn off, the +peaceful comportment of the seals had quieted my alarm. Maud was +trembling.</p> +<p>“I’m afraid, and I’m not afraid,” she chattered +with shaking jaws. “It’s my miserable body, not I.”</p> +<p>“It’s all right, it’s all right,” I reassured +her, my arm passing instinctively and protectingly around her.</p> +<p>I shall never forget, in that moment, how instantly conscious I became +of my manhood. The primitive deeps of my nature stirred. +I felt myself masculine, the protector of the weak, the fighting male. +And, best of all, I felt myself the protector of my loved one. +She leaned against me, so light and lily-frail, and as her trembling +eased away it seemed as though I became aware of prodigious strength. +I felt myself a match for the most ferocious bull in the herd, and I +know, had such a bull charged upon me, that I should have met it unflinchingly +and quite coolly, and I know that I should have killed it.</p> +<p>“I am all right now,” she said, looking up at me gratefully. +“Let us go on.”</p> +<p>And that the strength in me had quieted her and given her confidence, +filled me with an exultant joy. The youth of the race seemed burgeoning +in me, over-civilized man that I was, and I lived for myself the old +hunting days and forest nights of my remote and forgotten ancestry. +I had much for which to thank Wolf Larsen, was my thought as we went +along the path between the jostling harems.</p> +<p>A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the holluschickie—sleek +young bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gathering +strength against the day when they would fight their way into the ranks +of the Benedicts.</p> +<p>Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know just what to +do and how to do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with +my club, and even prodding the lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score +of the young bachelors from their companions. Whenever one made +an attempt to break back toward the water, I headed it off. Maud +took an active part in the drive, and with her cries and flourishings +of the broken oar was of considerable assistance. I noticed, though, +that whenever one looked tired and lagged, she let it slip past. +But I noticed, also, whenever one, with a show of fight, tried to break +past, that her eyes glinted and showed bright, and she rapped it smartly +with her club.</p> +<p>“My, it’s exciting!” she cried, pausing from sheer +weakness. “I think I’ll sit down.”</p> +<p>I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes +she had permitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she joined +me I had finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin. An +hour later we went proudly back along the path between the harems. +And twice again we came down the path burdened with skins, till I thought +we had enough to roof the hut. I set the sail, laid one tack out +of the cove, and on the other tack made our own little inner cove.</p> +<p>“It’s just like home-coming,” Maud said, as I ran +the boat ashore.</p> +<p>I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly +intimate and natural, and I said:</p> +<p>“It seems as though I have lived this life always. The +world of books and bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory +than an actuality. I surely have hunted and forayed and fought +all the days of my life. And you, too, seem a part of it. +You are—” I was on the verge of saying, “my +woman, my mate,” but glibly changed it to—“standing +the hardship well.”</p> +<p>But her ear had caught the flaw. She recognized a flight that +midmost broke. She gave me a quick look.</p> +<p>“Not that. You were saying—?”</p> +<p>“That the American Mrs. Meynell was living the life of a savage +and living it quite successfully,” I said easily.</p> +<p>“Oh,” was all she replied; but I could have sworn there +was a note of disappointment in her voice.</p> +<p>But “my woman, my mate” kept ringing in my head for the +rest of the day and for many days. Yet never did it ring more +loudly than that night, as I watched her draw back the blanket of moss +from the coals, blow up the fire, and cook the evening meal. It +must have been latent savagery stirring in me, for the old words, so +bound up with the roots of the race, to grip me and thrill me. +And grip and thrill they did, till I fell asleep, murmuring them to +myself over and over again.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“It will smell,” I said, “but it will keep in the +heat and keep out the rain and snow.”</p> +<p>We were surveying the completed seal-skin roof.</p> +<p>“It is clumsy, but it will serve the purpose, and that is the +main thing,” I went on, yearning for her praise.</p> +<p>And she clapped her hands and declared that she was hugely pleased.</p> +<p>“But it is dark in here,” she said the next moment, her +shoulders shrinking with a little involuntary shiver.</p> +<p>“You might have suggested a window when the walls were going +up,” I said. “It was for you, and you should have +seen the need of a window.”</p> +<p>“But I never do see the obvious, you know,” she laughed +back. “And besides, you can knock a hole in the wall at +any time.’</p> +<p>“Quite true; I had not thought of it,” I replied, wagging +my head sagely. “But have you thought of ordering the window-glass? +Just call up the firm,—Red, 4451, I think it is,—and tell +them what size and kind of glass you wish.”</p> +<p>“That means—” she began.</p> +<p>“No window.”</p> +<p>It was a dark and evil-appearing thing, that hut, not fit for aught +better than swine in a civilized land; but for us, who had known the +misery of the open boat, it was a snug little habitation. Following +the housewarming, which was accomplished by means of seal-oil and a +wick made from cotton calking, came the hunting for our winter’s +meat and the building of the second hut. It was a simple affair, +now, to go forth in the morning and return by noon with a boatload of +seals. And then, while I worked at building the hut, Maud tried +out the oil from the blubber and kept a slow fire under the frames of +meat. I had heard of jerking beef on the plains, and our seal-meat, +cut in thin strips and hung in the smoke, cured excellently.</p> +<p>The second hut was easier to erect, for I built it against the first, +and only three walls were required. But it was work, hard work, +all of it. Maud and I worked from dawn till dark, to the limit +of our strength, so that when night came we crawled stiffly to bed and +slept the animal-like sleep exhaustion. And yet Maud declared +that she had never felt better or stronger in her life. I knew +this was true of myself, but hers was such a lily strength that I feared +she would break down. Often and often, her last-reserve force +gone, I have seen her stretched flat on her back on the sand in the +way she had of resting and recuperating. And then she would be +up on her feet and toiling hard as ever. Where she obtained this +strength was the marvel to me.</p> +<p>“Think of the long rest this winter,” was her reply to +my remonstrances. “Why, we’ll be clamorous for something +to do.”</p> +<p>We held a housewarming in my hut the night it was roofed. It +was the end of the third day of a fierce storm which had swung around +the compass from the south-east to the north-west, and which was then +blowing directly in upon us. The beaches of the outer cove were +thundering with the surf, and even in our land-locked inner cove a respectable +sea was breaking. No high backbone of island sheltered us from +the wind, and it whistled and bellowed about the hut till at times I +feared for the strength of the walls. The skin roof, stretched +tightly as a drumhead, I had thought, sagged and bellied with every +gust; and innumerable interstices in the walls, not so tightly stuffed +with moss as Maud had supposed, disclosed themselves. Yet the +seal-oil burned brightly and we were warm and comfortable.</p> +<p>It was a pleasant evening indeed, and we voted that as a social function +on Endeavour Island it had not yet been eclipsed. Our minds were +at ease. Not only had we resigned ourselves to the bitter winter, +but we were prepared for it. The seals could depart on their mysterious +journey into the south at any time, now, for all we cared; and the storms +held no terror for us. Not only were we sure of being dry and +warm and sheltered from the wind, but we had the softest and most luxurious +mattresses that could be made from moss. This had been Maud’s +idea, and she had herself jealously gathered all the moss. This +was to be my first night on the mattress, and I knew I should sleep +the sweeter because she had made it.</p> +<p>As she rose to go she turned to me with the whimsical way she had, +and said:</p> +<p>“Something is going to happen—is happening, for that +matter. I feel it. Something is coming here, to us. +It is coming now. I don’t know what, but it is coming.”</p> +<p>“Good or bad?” I asked.</p> +<p>She shook her head. “I don’t know, but it is there, +somewhere.”</p> +<p>She pointed in the direction of the sea and wind.</p> +<p>“It’s a lee shore,” I laughed, “and I am +sure I’d rather be here than arriving, a night like this.”</p> +<p>“You are not frightened?” I asked, as I stepped to open +the door for her.</p> +<p>Her eyes looked bravely into mine.</p> +<p>“And you feel well? perfectly well?”</p> +<p>“Never better,” was her answer.</p> +<p>We talked a little longer before she went.</p> +<p>“Good-night, Maud,” I said.</p> +<p>“Good-night, Humphrey,” she said.</p> +<p>This use of our given names had come about quite as a matter of course, +and was as unpremeditated as it was natural. In that moment I +could have put my arms around her and drawn her to me. I should +certainly have done so out in that world to which we belonged. +As it was, the situation stopped there in the only way it could; but +I was left alone in my little but, glowing warmly through and through +with a pleasant satisfaction; and I knew that a tie, or a tacit something, +existed between us which had not existed before.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I awoke, oppressed by a mysterious sensation. There seemed +something missing in my environment. But the mystery and oppressiveness +vanished after the first few seconds of waking, when I identified the +missing something as the wind. I had fallen asleep in that state +of nerve tension with which one meets the continuous shock of sound +or movement, and I had awakened, still tense, bracing myself to meet +the pressure of something which no longer bore upon me.</p> +<p>It was the first night I had spent under cover in several months, +and I lay luxuriously for some minutes under my blankets (for once not +wet with fog or spray), analysing, first, the effect produced upon me +by the cessation of the wind, and next, the joy which was mine from +resting on the mattress made by Maud’s hands. When I had +dressed and opened the door, I heard the waves still lapping on the +beach, garrulously attesting the fury of the night. It was a clear +day, and the sun was shining. I had slept late, and I stepped +outside with sudden energy, bent upon making up lost time as befitted +a dweller on Endeavour Island.</p> +<p>And when outside, I stopped short. I believed my eyes without +question, and yet I was for the moment stunned by what they disclosed +to me. There, on the beach, not fifty feet away, bow on, dismasted, +was a black-hulled vessel. Masts and booms, tangled with shrouds, +sheets, and rent canvas, were rubbing gently alongside. I could +have rubbed my eyes as I looked. There was the home-made galley +we had built, the familiar break of the poop, the low yacht-cabin scarcely +rising above the rail. It was the <i>Ghost.</i></p> +<p>What freak of fortune had brought it here—here of all spots? +what chance of chances? I looked at the bleak, inaccessible wall +at my back and know the profundity of despair. Escape was hopeless, +out of the question. I thought of Maud, asleep there in the hut +we had reared; I remembered her “Good-night, Humphrey”; +“my woman, my mate,” went ringing through my brain, but +now, alas, it was a knell that sounded. Then everything went black +before my eyes.</p> +<p>Possibly it was the fraction of a second, but I had no knowledge +of how long an interval had lapsed before I was myself again. +There lay the <i>Ghost</i>, bow on to the beach, her splintered bowsprit +projecting over the sand, her tangled spars rubbing against her side +to the lift of the crooning waves. Something must be done, must +be done.</p> +<p>It came upon me suddenly, as strange, that nothing moved aboard. +Wearied from the night of struggle and wreck, all hands were yet asleep, +I thought. My next thought was that Maud and I might yet escape. +If we could take to the boat and make round the point before any one +awoke? I would call her and start. My hand was lifted at +her door to knock, when I recollected the smallness of the island. +We could never hide ourselves upon it. There was nothing for us +but the wide raw ocean. I thought of our snug little huts, our +supplies of meat and oil and moss and firewood, and I knew that we could +never survive the wintry sea and the great storms which were to come.</p> +<p>So I stood, with hesitant knuckle, without her door. It was +impossible, impossible. A wild thought of rushing in and killing +her as she slept rose in my mind. And then, in a flash, the better +solution came to me. All hands were asleep. Why not creep +aboard the <i>Ghost</i>,—well I knew the way to Wolf Larsen’s +bunk,—and kill him in his sleep? After that—well, +we would see. But with him dead there was time and space in which +to prepare to do other things; and besides, whatever new situation arose, +it could not possibly be worse than the present one.</p> +<p>My knife was at my hip. I returned to my hut for the shot-gun, +made sure it was loaded, and went down to the <i>Ghost</i>. With +some difficulty, and at the expense of a wetting to the waist, I climbed +aboard. The forecastle scuttle was open. I paused to listen +for the breathing of the men, but there was no breathing. I almost +gasped as the thought came to me: What if the <i>Ghost</i> is deserted? +I listened more closely. There was no sound. I cautiously +descended the ladder. The place had the empty and musty feel and +smell usual to a dwelling no longer inhabited. Everywhere was +a thick litter of discarded and ragged garments, old sea-boots, leaky +oilskins—all the worthless forecastle dunnage of a long voyage.</p> +<p>Abandoned hastily, was my conclusion, as I ascended to the deck. +Hope was alive again in my breast, and I looked about me with greater +coolness. I noted that the boats were missing. The steerage +told the same tale as the forecastle. The hunters had packed their +belongings with similar haste. The <i>Ghost</i> was deserted. +It was Maud’s and mine. I thought of the ship’s stores +and the lazarette beneath the cabin, and the idea came to me of surprising +Maud with something nice for breakfast.</p> +<p>The reaction from my fear, and the knowledge that the terrible deed +I had come to do was no longer necessary, made me boyish and eager. +I went up the steerage companion-way two steps at a time, with nothing +distinct in my mind except joy and the hope that Maud would sleep on +until the surprise breakfast was quite ready for her. As I rounded +the galley, a new satisfaction was mine at thought of all the splendid +cooking utensils inside. I sprang up the break of the poop, and +saw—Wolf Larsen. What of my impetus and the stunning surprise, +I clattered three or four steps along the deck before I could stop myself. +He was standing in the companion-way, only his head and shoulders visible, +staring straight at me. His arms were resting on the half-open +slide. He made no movement whatever—simply stood there, +staring at me.</p> +<p>I began to tremble. The old stomach sickness clutched me. +I put one hand on the edge of the house to steady myself. My lips +seemed suddenly dry and I moistened them against the need of speech. +Nor did I for an instant take my eyes off him. Neither of us spoke. +There was something ominous in his silence, his immobility. All +my old fear of him returned and by new fear was increased an hundred-fold. +And still we stood, the pair of us, staring at each other.</p> +<p>I was aware of the demand for action, and, my old helplessness strong +upon me, I was waiting for him to take the initiative. Then, as +the moments went by, it came to me that the situation was analogous +to the one in which I had approached the long-maned bull, my intention +of clubbing obscured by fear until it became a desire to make him run. +So it was at last impressed upon me that I was there, not to have Wolf +Larsen take the initiative, but to take it myself.</p> +<p>I cocked both barrels and levelled the shot-gun at him. Had +he moved, attempted to drop down the companion-way, I know I would have +shot him. But he stood motionless and staring as before. +And as I faced him, with levelled gun shaking in my hands, I had time +to note the worn and haggard appearance of his face. It was as +if some strong anxiety had wasted it. The cheeks were sunken, +and there was a wearied, puckered expression on the brow. And +it seemed to me that his eyes were strange, not only the expression, +but the physical seeming, as though the optic nerves and supporting +muscles had suffered strain and slightly twisted the eyeballs.</p> +<p>All this I saw, and my brain now working rapidly, I thought a thousand +thoughts; and yet I could not pull the triggers. I lowered the +gun and stepped to the corner of the cabin, primarily to relieve the +tension on my nerves and to make a new start, and incidentally to be +closer. Again I raised the gun. He was almost at arm’s +length. There was no hope for him. I was resolved. +There was no possible chance of missing him, no matter how poor my marksmanship. +And yet I wrestled with myself and could not pull the triggers.</p> +<p>“Well?” he demanded impatiently.</p> +<p>I strove vainly to force my fingers down on the triggers, and vainly +I strove to say something.</p> +<p>“Why don’t you shoot?” he asked.</p> +<p>I cleared my throat of a huskiness which prevented speech. +“Hump,” he said slowly, “you can’t do it. +You are not exactly afraid. You are impotent. Your conventional +morality is stronger than you. You are the slave to the opinions +which have credence among the people you have known and have read about. +Their code has been drummed into your head from the time you lisped, +and in spite of your philosophy, and of what I have taught you, it won’t +let you kill an unarmed, unresisting man.”</p> +<p>“I know it,” I said hoarsely.</p> +<p>“And you know that I would kill an unarmed man as readily as +I would smoke a cigar,” he went on. “You know me for +what I am,—my worth in the world by your standard. You have +called me snake, tiger, shark, monster, and Caliban. And yet, +you little rag puppet, you little echoing mechanism, you are unable +to kill me as you would a snake or a shark, because I have hands, feet, +and a body shaped somewhat like yours. Bah! I had hoped better +things of you, Hump.”</p> +<p>He stepped out of the companion-way and came up to me.</p> +<p>“Put down that gun. I want to ask you some questions. +I haven’t had a chance to look around yet. What place is +this? How is the <i>Ghost</i> lying? How did you get wet? +Where’s Maud?—I beg your pardon, Miss Brewster—or +should I say, ‘Mrs. Van Weyden’?”</p> +<p>I had backed away from him, almost weeping at my inability to shoot +him, but not fool enough to put down the gun. I hoped, desperately, +that he might commit some hostile act, attempt to strike me or choke +me; for in such way only I knew I could be stirred to shoot.</p> +<p>“This is Endeavour Island,” I said.</p> +<p>“Never heard of it,” he broke in.</p> +<p>“At least, that’s our name for it,” I amended.</p> +<p>“Our?” he queried. “Who’s our?”</p> +<p>“Miss Brewster and myself. And the <i>Ghost</i> is lying, +as you can see for yourself, bow on to the beach.”</p> +<p>“There are seals here,” he said. “They woke +me up with their barking, or I’d be sleeping yet. I heard +them when I drove in last night. They were the first warning that +I was on a lee shore. It’s a rookery, the kind of a thing +I’ve hunted for years. Thanks to my brother Death, I’ve +lighted on a fortune. It’s a mint. What’s its +bearings?”</p> +<p>“Haven’t the least idea,” I said. “But +you ought to know quite closely. What were your last observations?”</p> +<p>He smiled inscrutably, but did not answer.</p> +<p>“Well, where’s all hands?” I asked. “How +does it come that you are alone?”</p> +<p>I was prepared for him again to set aside my question, and was surprised +at the readiness of his reply.</p> +<p>“My brother got me inside forty-eight hours, and through no +fault of mine. Boarded me in the night with only the watch on +deck. Hunters went back on me. He gave them a bigger lay. +Heard him offering it. Did it right before me. Of course +the crew gave me the go-by. That was to be expected. All +hands went over the side, and there I was, marooned on my own vessel. +It was Death’s turn, and it’s all in the family anyway.”</p> +<p>“But how did you lose the masts?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Walk over and examine those lanyards,” he said, pointing +to where the mizzen-rigging should have been.</p> +<p>“They have been cut with a knife!” I exclaimed.</p> +<p>“Not quite,” he laughed. “It was a neater +job. Look again.”</p> +<p>I looked. The lanyards had been almost severed, with just enough +left to hold the shrouds till some severe strain should be put upon +them</p> +<p>“Cooky did that,” he laughed again. “I know, +though I didn’t spot him at it. Kind of evened up the score +a bit.”</p> +<p>“Good for Mugridge!” I cried.</p> +<p>“Yes, that’s what I thought when everything went over +the side. Only I said it on the other side of my mouth.”</p> +<p>“But what were you doing while all this was going on?” +I asked.</p> +<p>“My best, you may be sure, which wasn’t much under the +circumstances.”</p> +<p>I turned to re-examine Thomas Mugridge’s work.</p> +<p>“I guess I’ll sit down and take the sunshine,” +I heard Wolf Larsen saying.</p> +<p>There was a hint, just a slight hint, of physical feebleness in his +voice, and it was so strange that I looked quickly at him. His +hand was sweeping nervously across his face, as though he were brushing +away cobwebs. I was puzzled. The whole thing was so unlike +the Wolf Larsen I had known.</p> +<p>“How are your headaches?” I asked.</p> +<p>“They still trouble me,” was his answer. “I +think I have one coming on now.”</p> +<p>He slipped down from his sitting posture till he lay on the deck. +Then he rolled over on his side, his head resting on the biceps of the +under arm, the forearm shielding his eyes from the sun. I stood +regarding him wonderingly.</p> +<p>“Now’s your chance, Hump,” he said.</p> +<p>“I don’t understand,” I lied, for I thoroughly +understood.</p> +<p>“Oh, nothing,” he added softly, as if he were drowsing; +“only you’ve got me where you want me.”</p> +<p>“No, I haven’t,” I retorted; “for I want +you a few thousand miles away from here.”</p> +<p>He chuckled, and thereafter spoke no more. He did not stir +as I passed by him and went down into the cabin. I lifted the +trap in the floor, but for some moments gazed dubiously into the darkness +of the lazarette beneath. I hesitated to descend. What if +his lying down were a ruse? Pretty, indeed, to be caught there +like a rat. I crept softly up the companion-way and peeped at +him. He was lying as I had left him. Again I went below; +but before I dropped into the lazarette I took the precaution of casting +down the door in advance. At least there would be no lid to the +trap. But it was all needless. I regained the cabin with +a store of jams, sea-biscuits, canned meats, and such things,—all +I could carry,—and replaced the trap-door.</p> +<p>A peep at Wolf Larsen showed me that he had not moved. A bright +thought struck me. I stole into his state-room and possessed myself +of his revolvers. There were no other weapons, though I thoroughly +ransacked the three remaining state-rooms. To make sure, I returned +and went through the steerage and forecastle, and in the galley gathered +up all the sharp meat and vegetable knives. Then I bethought me +of the great yachtsman’s knife he always carried, and I came to +him and spoke to him, first softly, then loudly. He did not move. +I bent over and took it from his pocket. I breathed more freely. +He had no arms with which to attack me from a distance; while I, armed, +could always forestall him should he attempt to grapple me with his +terrible gorilla arms.</p> +<p>Filling a coffee-pot and frying-pan with part of my plunder, and +taking some chinaware from the cabin pantry, I left Wolf Larsen lying +in the sun and went ashore.</p> +<p>Maud was still asleep. I blew up the embers (we had not yet +arranged a winter kitchen), and quite feverishly cooked the breakfast. +Toward the end, I heard her moving about within the hut, making her +toilet. Just as all was ready and the coffee poured, the door +opened and she came forth.</p> +<p>“It’s not fair of you,” was her greeting. +“You are usurping one of my prerogatives. You know you I +agreed that the cooking should be mine, and—”</p> +<p>“But just this once,” I pleaded.</p> +<p>“If you promise not to do it again,” she smiled. +“Unless, of course, you have grown tired of my poor efforts.”</p> +<p>To my delight she never once looked toward the beach, and I maintained +the banter with such success all unconsciously she sipped coffee from +the china cup, ate fried evaporated potatoes, and spread marmalade on +her biscuit. But it could not last. I saw the surprise that +came over her. She had discovered the china plate from which she +was eating. She looked over the breakfast, noting detail after +detail. Then she looked at me, and her face turned slowly toward +the beach.</p> +<p>“Humphrey!” she said.</p> +<p>The old unnamable terror mounted into her eyes.</p> +<p>“Is—he?” she quavered.</p> +<p>I nodded my head.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore. It was an +intolerable period of anxiety. Each moment one or the other of +us cast expectant glances toward the <i>Ghost</i>. But he did +not come. He did not even appear on deck.</p> +<p>“Perhaps it is his headache,” I said. “I +left him lying on the poop. He may lie there all night. +I think I’ll go and see.”</p> +<p>Maud looked entreaty at me.</p> +<p>“It is all right,” I assured her. “I shall +take the revolvers. You know I collected every weapon on board.”</p> +<p>“But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible +hands!” she objected. And then she cried, “Oh, Humphrey, +I am afraid of him! Don’t go—please don’t go!”</p> +<p>She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering. +My heart was surely in my eyes for a moment. The dear and lovely +woman! And she was so much the woman, clinging and appealing, +sunshine and dew to my manhood, rooting it deeper and sending through +it the sap of a new strength. I was for putting my arm around +her, as when in the midst of the seal herd; but I considered, and refrained.</p> +<p>“I shall not take any risks,” I said. “I’ll +merely peep over the bow and see.”</p> +<p>She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go. But the space +on deck where I had left him lying was vacant. He had evidently +gone below. That night we stood alternate watches, one of us sleeping +at a time; for there was no telling what Wolf Larsen might do. +He was certainly capable of anything.</p> +<p>The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign.</p> +<p>“These headaches of his, these attacks,” Maud said, on +the afternoon of the fourth day; “Perhaps he is ill, very ill. +He may be dead.”</p> +<p>“Or dying,” was her afterthought when she had waited +some time for me to speak.</p> +<p>“Better so,” I answered.</p> +<p>“But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely +hour.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps,” I suggested.</p> +<p>“Yes, even perhaps,” she acknowledged. “But +we do not know. It would be terrible if he were. I could +never forgive myself. We must do something.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps,” I suggested again.</p> +<p>I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled a +solicitude for Wolf Larsen, of all creatures. Where was her solicitude +for me, I thought,—for me whom she had been afraid to have merely +peep aboard?</p> +<p>She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence. And +she was as direct as she was subtle.</p> +<p>“You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out,” she said. +“And if you want to laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness.”</p> +<p>I arose obediently and went down the beach.</p> +<p>“Do be careful,” she called after me.</p> +<p>I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck. +Aft I walked to the cabin companion, where I contented myself with hailing +below. Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started to ascend the stairs +I cocked my revolver. I displayed it openly during our conversation, +but he took no notice of it. He appeared the same, physically, +as when last I saw him, but he was gloomy and silent. In fact, +the few words we spoke could hardly be called a conversation. +I did not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor did he ask why I had +not come aboard. His head was all right again, he said, and so, +without further parley, I left him.</p> +<p>Maud received my report with obvious relief, and the sight of smoke +which later rose in the galley put her in a more cheerful mood. +The next day, and the next, we saw the galley smoke rising, and sometimes +we caught glimpses of him on the poop. But that was all. +He made no attempt to come ashore. This we knew, for we still +maintained our night-watches. We were waiting for him to do something, +to show his hand, so to say, and his inaction puzzled and worried us.</p> +<p>A week of this passed by. We had no other interest than Wolf +Larsen, and his presence weighed us down with an apprehension which +prevented us from doing any of the little things we had planned.</p> +<p>But at the end of the week the smoke ceased rising from the galley, +and he no longer showed himself on the poop. I could see Maud’s +solicitude again growing, though she timidly—and even proudly, +I think—forbore a repetition of her request. After all, +what censure could be put upon her? She was divinely altruistic, +and she was a woman. Besides, I was myself aware of hurt at thought +of this man whom I had tried to kill, dying alone with his fellow-creatures +so near. He was right. The code of my group was stronger +than I. The fact that he had hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat +like mine, constituted a claim which I could not ignore.</p> +<p>So I did not wait a second time for Maud to send me. I discovered +that we stood in need of condensed milk and marmalade, and announced +that I was going aboard. I could see that she wavered. She +even went so far as to murmur that they were non-essentials and that +my trip after them might be inexpedient. And as she had followed +the trend of my silence, she now followed the trend of my speech, and +she knew that I was going aboard, not because of condensed milk and +marmalade, but because of her and of her anxiety, which she knew she +had failed to hide.</p> +<p>I took off my shoes when I gained the forecastle head, and went noiselessly +aft in my stocking feet. Nor did I call this time from the top +of the companion-way. Cautiously descending, I found the cabin +deserted. The door to his state-room was closed. At first +I thought of knocking, then I remembered my ostensible errand and resolved +to carry it out. Carefully avoiding noise, I lifted the trap-door +in the floor and set it to one side. The slop-chest, as well as +the provisions, was stored in the lazarette, and I took advantage of +the opportunity to lay in a stock of underclothing.</p> +<p>As I emerged from the lazarette I heard sounds in Wolf Larsen’s +state-room. I crouched and listened. The door-knob rattled. +Furtively, instinctively, I slunk back behind the table and drew and +cocked my revolver. The door swung open and he came forth. +Never had I seen so profound a despair as that which I saw on his face,—the +face of Wolf Larsen the fighter, the strong man, the indomitable one. +For all the world like a woman wringing her hands, he raised his clenched +fists and groaned. One fist unclosed, and the open palm swept +across his eyes as though brushing away cobwebs.</p> +<p>“God! God!” he groaned, and the clenched fists +were raised again to the infinite despair with which his throat vibrated.</p> +<p>It was horrible. I was trembling all over, and I could feel +the shivers running up and down my spine and the sweat standing out +on my forehead. Surely there can be little in this world more +awful than the spectacle of a strong man in the moment when he is utterly +weak and broken.</p> +<p>But Wolf Larsen regained control of himself by an exertion of his +remarkable will. And it was exertion. His whole frame shook +with the struggle. He resembled a man on the verge of a fit. +His face strove to compose itself, writhing and twisting in the effort +till he broke down again. Once more the clenched fists went upward +and he groaned. He caught his breath once or twice and sobbed. +Then he was successful. I could have thought him the old Wolf +Larsen, and yet there was in his movements a vague suggestion of weakness +and indecision. He started for the companion-way, and stepped +forward quite as I had been accustomed to see him do; and yet again, +in his very walk, there seemed that suggestion of weakness and indecision.</p> +<p>I was now concerned with fear for myself. The open trap lay +directly in his path, and his discovery of it would lead instantly to +his discovery of me. I was angry with myself for being caught +in so cowardly a position, crouching on the floor. There was yet +time. I rose swiftly to my feet, and, I know, quite unconsciously +assumed a defiant attitude. He took no notice of me. Nor +did he notice the open trap. Before I could grasp the situation, +or act, he had walked right into the trap. One foot was descending +into the opening, while the other foot was just on the verge of beginning +the uplift. But when the descending foot missed the solid flooring +and felt vacancy beneath, it was the old Wolf Larsen and the tiger muscles +that made the falling body spring across the opening, even as it fell, +so that he struck on his chest and stomach, with arms outstretched, +on the floor of the opposite side. The next instant he had drawn +up his legs and rolled clear. But he rolled into my marmalade +and underclothes and against the trap-door.</p> +<p>The expression on his face was one of complete comprehension. +But before I could guess what he had comprehended, he had dropped the +trap-door into place, closing the lazarette. Then I understood. +He thought he had me inside. Also, he was blind, blind as a bat. +I watched him, breathing carefully so that he should not hear me. +He stepped quickly to his state-room. I saw his hand miss the +door-knob by an inch, quickly fumble for it, and find it. This +was my chance. I tiptoed across the cabin and to the top of the +stairs. He came back, dragging a heavy sea-chest, which he deposited +on top of the trap. Not content with this he fetched a second +chest and placed it on top of the first. Then he gathered up the +marmalade and underclothes and put them on the table. When he +started up the companion-way, I retreated, silently rolling over on +top of the cabin.</p> +<p>He shoved the slide part way back and rested his arms on it, his +body still in the companion-way. His attitude was of one looking +forward the length of the schooner, or staring, rather, for his eyes +were fixed and unblinking. I was only five feet away and directly +in what should have been his line of vision. It was uncanny. +I felt myself a ghost, what of my invisibility. I waved my hand +back and forth, of course without effect; but when the moving shadow +fell across his face I saw at once that he was susceptible to the impression. +His face became more expectant and tense as he tried to analyze and +identify the impression. He knew that he had responded to something +from without, that his sensibility had been touched by a changing something +in his environment; but what it was he could not discover. I ceased +waving my hand, so that the shadow remained stationary. He slowly +moved his head back and forth under it and turned from side to side, +now in the sunshine, now in the shade, feeling the shadow, as it were, +testing it by sensation.</p> +<p>I, too, was busy, trying to reason out how he was aware of the existence +of so intangible a thing as a shadow. If it were his eyeballs +only that were affected, or if his optic nerve were not wholly destroyed, +the explanation was simple. If otherwise, then the only conclusion +I could reach was that the sensitive skin recognized the difference +of temperature between shade and sunshine. Or, perhaps,—who +can tell?—it was that fabled sixth sense which conveyed to him +the loom and feel of an object close at hand.</p> +<p>Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck +and started forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which surprised +me. And still there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind +in his walk. I knew it now for what it was.</p> +<p>To my amused chagrin, he discovered my shoes on the forecastle head +and brought them back with him into the galley. I watched him +build the fire and set about cooking food for himself; then I stole +into the cabin for my marmalade and underclothes, slipped back past +the galley, and climbed down to the beach to deliver my barefoot report.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“It’s too bad the <i>Ghost</i> has lost her masts. +Why we could sail away in her. Don’t you think we could, +Humphrey?”</p> +<p>I sprang excitedly to my feet.</p> +<p>“I wonder, I wonder,” I repeated, pacing up and down.</p> +<p>Maud’s eyes were shining with anticipation as they followed +me. She had such faith in me! And the thought of it was +so much added power. I remembered Michelet’s “To man, +woman is as the earth was to her legendary son; he has but to fall down +and kiss her breast and he is strong again.” For the first +time I knew the wonderful truth of his words. Why, I was living +them. Maud was all this to me, an unfailing, source of strength +and courage. I had but to look at her, or think of her, and be +strong again.</p> +<p>“It can be done, it can be done,” I was thinking and +asserting aloud. “What men have done, I can do; and if they +have never done this before, still I can do it.”</p> +<p>“What? for goodness’ sake,” Maud demanded. +“Do be merciful. What is it you can do?”</p> +<p>“We can do it,” I amended. “Why, nothing +else than put the masts back into the <i>Ghost</i> and sail away.”</p> +<p>“Humphrey!” she exclaimed.</p> +<p>And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already a fact +accomplished.</p> +<p>“But how is it possible to be done?” she asked.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” was my answer. “I know +only that I am capable of doing anything these days.”</p> +<p>I smiled proudly at her—too proudly, for she dropped her eyes +and was for the moment silent.</p> +<p>“But there is Captain Larsen,” she objected.</p> +<p>“Blind and helpless,” I answered promptly, waving him +aside as a straw.</p> +<p>“But those terrible hands of his! You know how he leaped +across the opening of the lazarette.”</p> +<p>“And you know also how I crept about and avoided him,” +I contended gaily.</p> +<p>“And lost your shoes.”</p> +<p>“You’d hardly expect them to avoid Wolf Larsen without +my feet inside of them.”</p> +<p>We both laughed, and then went seriously to work constructing the +plan whereby we were to step the masts of the <i>Ghost</i> and return +to the world. I remembered hazily the physics of my school days, +while the last few months had given me practical experience with mechanical +purchases. I must say, though, when we walked down to the <i>Ghost</i> +to inspect more closely the task before us, that the sight of the great +masts lying in the water almost disheartened me. Where were we +to begin? If there had been one mast standing, something high +up to which to fasten blocks and tackles! But there was nothing. +It reminded me of the problem of lifting oneself by one’s boot-straps. +I understood the mechanics of levers; but where was I to get a fulcrum?</p> +<p>There was the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now +the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly calculated, +at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, larger +in diameter, and weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds. Where +was I to begin? Maud stood silently by my side, while I evolved +in my mind the contrivance known among sailors as “shears.” +But, though known to sailors, I invented it there on Endeavour Island. +By crossing and lashing the ends of two spars, and then elevating them +in the air like an inverted “V,” I could get a point above +the deck to which to make fast my hoisting tackle. To this hoisting +tackle I could, if necessary, attach a second hoisting tackle. +And then there was the windlass!</p> +<p>Maud saw that I had achieved a solution, and her eyes warmed sympathetically.</p> +<p>“What are you going to do?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Clear that raffle,” I answered, pointing to the tangled +wreckage overside.</p> +<p>Ah, the decisiveness, the very sound of the words, was good in my +ears. “Clear that raffle!” Imagine so salty +a phrase on the lips of the Humphrey Van Weyden of a few months gone!</p> +<p>There must have been a touch of the melodramatic in my pose and voice, +for Maud smiled. Her appreciation of the ridiculous was keen, +and in all things she unerringly saw and felt, where it existed, the +touch of sham, the overshading, the overtone. It was this which +had given poise and penetration to her own work and made her of worth +to the world. The serious critic, with the sense of humour and +the power of expression, must inevitably command the world’s ear. +And so it was that she had commanded. Her sense of humour was +really the artist’s instinct for proportion.</p> +<p>“I’m sure I’ve heard it before, somewhere, in books,” +she murmured gleefully.</p> +<p>I had an instinct for proportion myself, and I collapsed forthwith, +descending from the dominant pose of a master of matter to a state of +humble confusion which was, to say the least, very miserable.</p> +<p>Her hand leapt out at once to mine.</p> +<p>“I’m so sorry,” she said.</p> +<p>“No need to be,” I gulped. “It does me good. +There’s too much of the schoolboy in me. All of which is +neither here nor there. What we’ve got to do is actually +and literally to clear that raffle. If you’ll come with +me in the boat, we’ll get to work and straighten things out.”</p> +<p>“‘When the topmen clear the raffle with their clasp-knives +in their teeth,’” she quoted at me; and for the rest of +the afternoon we made merry over our labour.</p> +<p>Her task was to hold the boat in position while I worked at the tangle. +And such a tangle—halyards, sheets, guys, down-hauls, shrouds, +stays, all washed about and back and forth and through, and twined and +knotted by the sea. I cut no more than was necessary, and what +with passing the long ropes under and around the booms and masts, of +unreeving the halyards and sheets, of coiling down in the boat and uncoiling +in order to pass through another knot in the bight, I was soon wet to +the skin.</p> +<p>The sails did require some cutting, and the canvas, heavy with water, +tried my strength severely; but I succeeded before nightfall in getting +it all spread out on the beach to dry. We were both very tired +when we knocked off for supper, and we had done good work, too, though +to the eye it appeared insignificant.</p> +<p>Next morning, with Maud as able assistant, I went into the hold of +the <i>Ghost</i> to clear the steps of the mast-butts. We had +no more than begun work when the sound of my knocking and hammering +brought Wolf Larsen.</p> +<p>“Hello below!” he cried down the open hatch.</p> +<p>The sound of his voice made Maud quickly draw close to me, as for +protection, and she rested one hand on my arm while we parleyed.</p> +<p>“Hello on deck,” I replied. “Good-morning +to you.”</p> +<p>“What are you doing down there?” he demanded. “Trying +to scuttle my ship for me?”</p> +<p>“Quite the opposite; I’m repairing her,” was my +answer.</p> +<p>“But what in thunder are you repairing?” There +was puzzlement in his voice.</p> +<p>“Why, I’m getting everything ready for re-stepping the +masts,” I replied easily, as though it were the simplest project +imaginable.</p> +<p>“It seems as though you’re standing on your own legs +at last, Hump,” we heard him say; and then for some time he was +silent.</p> +<p>“But I say, Hump,” he called down. “You can’t +do it.”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes, I can,” I retorted. “I’m +doing it now.”</p> +<p>“But this is my vessel, my particular property. What +if I forbid you?”</p> +<p>“You forget,” I replied. “You are no longer +the biggest bit of the ferment. You were, once, and able to eat +me, as you were pleased to phrase it; but there has been a diminishing, +and I am now able to eat you. The yeast has grown stale.”</p> +<p>He gave a short, disagreeable laugh. “I see you’re +working my philosophy back on me for all it is worth. But don’t +make the mistake of under-estimating me. For your own good I warn +you.”</p> +<p>“Since when have you become a philanthropist?” I queried. +“Confess, now, in warning me for my own good, that you are very +consistent.”</p> +<p>He ignored my sarcasm, saying, “Suppose I clap the hatch on, +now? You won’t fool me as you did in the lazarette.”</p> +<p>“Wolf Larsen,” I said sternly, for the first time addressing +him by this his most familiar name, “I am unable to shoot a helpless, +unresisting man. You have proved that to my satisfaction as well +as yours. But I warn you now, and not so much for your own good +as for mine, that I shall shoot you the moment you attempt a hostile +act. I can shoot you now, as I stand here; and if you are so minded, +just go ahead and try to clap on the hatch.”</p> +<p>“Nevertheless, I forbid you, I distinctly forbid your tampering +with my ship.”</p> +<p>“But, man!” I expostulated, “you advance the fact +that it is your ship as though it were a moral right. You have +never considered moral rights in your dealings with others. You +surely do not dream that I’ll consider them in dealing with you?”</p> +<p>I had stepped underneath the open hatchway so that I could see him. +The lack of expression on his face, so different from when I had watched +him unseen, was enhanced by the unblinking, staring eyes. It was +not a pleasant face to look upon.</p> +<p>“And none so poor, not even Hump, to do him reverence,” +he sneered.</p> +<p>The sneer was wholly in his voice. His face remained expressionless +as ever.</p> +<p>“How do you do, Miss Brewster,” he said suddenly, after +a pause.</p> +<p>I started. She had made no noise whatever, had not even moved. +Could it be that some glimmer of vision remained to him? or that his +vision was coming back?</p> +<p>“How do you do, Captain Larsen,” she answered. +“Pray, how did you know I was here?”</p> +<p>“Heard you breathing, of course. I say, Hump’s +improving, don’t you think so?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” she answered, smiling at me. +“I have never seen him otherwise.”</p> +<p>“You should have seen him before, then.”</p> +<p>“Wolf Larsen, in large doses,” I murmured, “before +and after taking.”</p> +<p>“I want to tell you again, Hump,” he said threateningly, +“that you’d better leave things alone.”</p> +<p>“But don’t you care to escape as well as we?” I +asked incredulously.</p> +<p>“No,” was his answer. “I intend dying here.”</p> +<p>“Well, we don’t,” I concluded defiantly, beginning +again my knocking and hammering.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Next day, the mast-steps clear and everything in readiness, we started +to get the two topmasts aboard. The maintopmast was over thirty +feet in length, the foretopmast nearly thirty, and it was of these that +I intended making the shears. It was puzzling work. Fastening +one end of a heavy tackle to the windlass, and with the other end fast +to the butt of the foretopmast, I began to heave. Maud held the +turn on the windlass and coiled down the slack.</p> +<p>We were astonished at the ease with which the spar was lifted. +It was an improved crank windlass, and the purchase it gave was enormous. +Of course, what it gave us in power we paid for in distance; as many +times as it doubled my strength, that many times was doubled the length +of rope I heaved in. The tackle dragged heavily across the rail, +increasing its drag as the spar arose more and more out of the water, +and the exertion on the windlass grew severe.</p> +<p>But when the butt of the topmast was level with the rail, everything +came to a standstill.</p> +<p>“I might have known it,” I said impatiently. “Now +we have to do it all over again.”</p> +<p>“Why not fasten the tackle part way down the mast?” Maud +suggested.</p> +<p>“It’s what I should have done at first,” I answered, +hugely disgusted with myself.</p> +<p>Slipping off a turn, I lowered the mast back into the water and fastened +the tackle a third of the way down from the butt. In an hour, +what of this and of rests between the heaving, I had hoisted it to the +point where I could hoist no more. Eight feet of the butt was +above the rail, and I was as far away as ever from getting the spar +on board. I sat down and pondered the problem. It did not +take long. I sprang jubilantly to my feet.</p> +<p>“Now I have it!” I cried. “I ought to make +the tackle fast at the point of balance. And what we learn of +this will serve us with everything else we have to hoist aboard.”</p> +<p>Once again I undid all my work by lowering the mast into the water. +But I miscalculated the point of balance, so that when I heaved the +top of the mast came up instead of the butt. Maud looked despair, +but I laughed and said it would do just as well.</p> +<p>Instructing her how to hold the turn and be ready to slack away at +command, I laid hold of the mast with my hands and tried to balance +it inboard across the rail. When I thought I had it I cried to +her to slack away; but the spar righted, despite my efforts, and dropped +back toward the water. Again I heaved it up to its old position, +for I had now another idea. I remembered the watch-tackle—a +small double and single block affair—and fetched it.</p> +<p>While I was rigging it between the top of the spar and the opposite +rail, Wolf Larsen came on the scene. We exchanged nothing more +than good-mornings, and, though he could not see, he sat on the rail +out of the way and followed by the sound all that I did.</p> +<p>Again instructing Maud to slack away at the windlass when I gave +the word, I proceeded to heave on the watch-tackle. Slowly the +mast swung in until it balanced at right angles across the rail; and +then I discovered to my amazement that there was no need for Maud to +slack away. In fact, the very opposite was necessary. Making +the watch-tackle fast, I hove on the windlass and brought in the mast, +inch by inch, till its top tilted down to the deck and finally its whole +length lay on the deck.</p> +<p>I looked at my watch. It was twelve o’clock. My +back was aching sorely, and I felt extremely tired and hungry. +And there on the deck was a single stick of timber to show for a whole +morning’s work. For the first time I thoroughly realized +the extent of the task before us. But I was learning, I was learning. +The afternoon would show far more accomplished. And it did; for +we returned at one o’clock, rested and strengthened by a hearty +dinner.</p> +<p>In less than an hour I had the maintopmast on deck and was constructing +the shears. Lashing the two topmasts together, and making allowance +for their unequal length, at the point of intersection I attached the +double block of the main throat-halyards. This, with the single +block and the throat-halyards themselves, gave me a hoisting tackle. +To prevent the butts of the masts from slipping on the deck, I nailed +down thick cleats. Everything in readiness, I made a line fast +to the apex of the shears and carried it directly to the windlass. +I was growing to have faith in that windlass, for it gave me power beyond +all expectation. As usual, Maud held the turn while I heaved. +The shears rose in the air.</p> +<p>Then I discovered I had forgotten guy-ropes. This necessitated +my climbing the shears, which I did twice, before I finished guying +it fore and aft and to either side. Twilight had set in by the +time this was accomplished. Wolf Larsen, who had sat about and +listened all afternoon and never opened his mouth, had taken himself +off to the galley and started his supper. I felt quite stiff across +the small of the back, so much so that I straightened up with an effort +and with pain. I looked proudly at my work. It was beginning +to show. I was wild with desire, like a child with a new toy, +to hoist something with my shears.</p> +<p>“I wish it weren’t so late,” I said. “I’d +like to see how it works.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be a glutton, Humphrey,” Maud chided me. +“Remember, to-morrow is coming, and you’re so tired now +that you can hardly stand.”</p> +<p>“And you?” I said, with sudden solicitude. “You +must be very tired. You have worked hard and nobly. I am +proud of you, Maud.”</p> +<p>“Not half so proud as I am of you, nor with half the reason,” +she answered, looking me straight in the eyes for a moment with an expression +in her own and a dancing, tremulous light which I had not seen before +and which gave me a pang of quick delight, I know not why, for I did +not understand it. Then she dropped her eyes, to lift them again, +laughing.</p> +<p>“If our friends could see us now,” she said. “Look +at us. Have you ever paused for a moment to consider our appearance?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I have considered yours, frequently,” I answered, +puzzling over what I had seen in her eyes and puzzled by her sudden +change of subject.</p> +<p>“Mercy!” she cried. “And what do I look like, +pray?”</p> +<p>“A scarecrow, I’m afraid,” I replied. “Just +glance at your draggled skirts, for instance. Look at those three-cornered +tears. And such a waist! It would not require a Sherlock +Holmes to deduce that you have been cooking over a camp-fire, to say +nothing of trying out seal-blubber. And to cap it all, that cap! +And all that is the woman who wrote ‘A Kiss Endured.’”</p> +<p>She made me an elaborate and stately courtesy, and said, “As +for you, sir—”</p> +<p>And yet, through the five minutes of banter which followed, there +was a serious something underneath the fun which I could not but relate +to the strange and fleeting expression I had caught in her eyes. +What was it? Could it be that our eyes were speaking beyond the +will of our speech? My eyes had spoken, I knew, until I had found +the culprits out and silenced them. This had occurred several +times. But had she seen the clamour in them and understood? +And had her eyes so spoken to me? What else could that expression +have meant—that dancing, tremulous light, and a something more +which words could not describe. And yet it could not be. +It was impossible. Besides, I was not skilled in the speech of +eyes. I was only Humphrey Van Weyden, a bookish fellow who loved. +And to love, and to wait and win love, that surely was glorious enough +for me. And thus I thought, even as we chaffed each other’s +appearance, until we arrived ashore and there were other things to think +about.</p> +<p>“It’s a shame, after working hard all day, that we cannot +have an uninterrupted night’s sleep,” I complained, after +supper.</p> +<p>“But there can be no danger now? from a blind man?” she +queried.</p> +<p>“I shall never be able to trust him,” I averred, “and +far less now that he is blind. The liability is that his part +helplessness will make him more malignant than ever. I know what +I shall do to-morrow, the first thing—run out a light anchor and +kedge the schooner off the beach. And each night when we come +ashore in the boat, Mr. Wolf Larsen will be left a prisoner on board. +So this will be the last night we have to stand watch, and because of +that it will go the easier.”</p> +<p>We were awake early and just finishing breakfast as daylight came.</p> +<p>“Oh, Humphrey!” I heard Maud cry in dismay and suddenly +stop.</p> +<p>I looked at her. She was gazing at the <i>Ghost</i>. +I followed her gaze, but could see nothing unusual. She looked +at me, and I looked inquiry back.</p> +<p>“The shears,” she said, and her voice trembled.</p> +<p>I had forgotten their existence. I looked again, but could +not see them.</p> +<p>“If he has—” I muttered savagely.</p> +<p>She put her hand sympathetically on mine, and said, “You will +have to begin over again.”</p> +<p>“Oh, believe me, my anger means nothing; I could not hurt a +fly,” I smiled back bitterly. “And the worst of it +is, he knows it. You are right. If he has destroyed the +shears, I shall do nothing except begin over again.”</p> +<p>“But I’ll stand my watch on board hereafter,” I +blurted out a moment later. “And if he interferes—”</p> +<p>“But I dare not stay ashore all night alone,” Maud was +saying when I came back to myself. “It would be so much +nicer if he would be friendly with us and help us. We could all +live comfortably aboard.”</p> +<p>“We will,” I asserted, still savagely, for the destruction +of my beloved shears had hit me hard. “That is, you and +I will live aboard, friendly or not with Wolf Larsen.”</p> +<p>“It’s childish,” I laughed later, “for him +to do such things, and for me to grow angry over them, for that matter.”</p> +<p>But my heart smote me when we climbed aboard and looked at the havoc +he had done. The shears were gone altogether. The guys had +been slashed right and left. The throat-halyards which I had rigged +were cut across through every part. And he knew I could not splice. +A thought struck me. I ran to the windlass. It would not +work. He had broken it. We looked at each other in consternation. +Then I ran to the side. The masts, booms, and gaffs I had cleared +were gone. He had found the lines which held them, and cast them +adrift.</p> +<p>Tears were in Maud’s eyes, and I do believe they were for me. +I could have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting +the <i>Ghost</i>? He had done his work well. I sat down +on the hatch-combing and rested my chin on my hands in black despair.</p> +<p>“He deserves to die,” I cried out; “and God forgive +me, I am not man enough to be his executioner.”</p> +<p>But Maud was by my side, passing her hand soothingly through my hair +as though I were a child, and saying, “There, there; it will all +come right. We are in the right, and it must come right.”</p> +<p>I remembered Michelet and leaned my head against her; and truly I +became strong again. The blessed woman was an unfailing fount +of power to me. What did it matter? Only a set-back, a delay. +The tide could not have carried the masts far to seaward, and there +had been no wind. It meant merely more work to find them and tow +them back. And besides, it was a lesson. I knew what to +expect. He might have waited and destroyed our work more effectually +when we had more accomplished.</p> +<p>“Here he comes now,” she whispered.</p> +<p>I glanced up. He was strolling leisurely along the poop on +the port side.</p> +<p>“Take no notice of him,” I whispered. “He’s +coming to see how we take it. Don’t let him know that we +know. We can deny him that satisfaction. Take off your shoes—that’s +right—and carry them in your hand.”</p> +<p>And then we played hide-and-seek with the blind man. As he +came up the port side we slipped past on the starboard; and from the +poop we watched him turn and start aft on our track.</p> +<p>He must have known, somehow, that we were on board, for he said “Good-morning” +very confidently, and waited, for the greeting to be returned. +Then he strolled aft, and we slipped forward.</p> +<p>“Oh, I know you’re aboard,” he called out, and +I could see him listen intently after he had spoken.</p> +<p>It reminded me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming +cry, for the stir of its frightened prey. But we did not fir, +and we moved only when he moved. And so we dodged about the deck, +hand in hand, like a couple of children chased by a wicked ogre, till +Wolf Larsen, evidently in disgust, left the deck for the cabin. +There was glee in our eyes, and suppressed titters in our mouths, as +we put on our shoes and clambered over the side into the boat. +And as I looked into Maud’s clear brown eyes I forgot the evil +he had done, and I knew only that I loved her, and that because of her +the strength was mine to win our way back to the world.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>For two days Maud and I ranged the sea and explored the beaches in +search of the missing masts. But it was not till the third day +that we found them, all of them, the shears included, and, of all perilous +places, in the pounding surf of the grim south-western promontory. +And how we worked! At the dark end of the first day we returned, +exhausted, to our little cove, towing the mainmast behind us. +And we had been compelled to row, in a dead calm, practically every +inch of the way.</p> +<p>Another day of heart-breaking and dangerous toil saw us in camp with +the two topmasts to the good. The day following I was desperate, +and I rafted together the foremast, the fore and main booms, and the +fore and main gaffs. The wind was favourable, and I had thought +to tow them back under sail, but the wind baffled, then died away, and +our progress with the oars was a snail’s pace. And it was +such dispiriting effort. To throw one’s whole strength and +weight on the oars and to feel the boat checked in its forward lunge +by the heavy drag behind, was not exactly exhilarating.</p> +<p>Night began to fall, and to make matters worse, the wind sprang up +ahead. Not only did all forward motion cease, but we began to +drift back and out to sea. I struggled at the oars till I was +played out. Poor Maud, whom I could never prevent from working +to the limit of her strength, lay weakly back in the stern-sheets. +I could row no more. My bruised and swollen hands could no longer +close on the oar handles. My wrists and arms ached intolerably, +and though I had eaten heartily of a twelve-o’clock lunch, I had +worked so hard that I was faint from hunger.</p> +<p>I pulled in the oars and bent forward to the line which held the +tow. But Maud’s hand leaped out restrainingly to mine.</p> +<p>“What are you going to do?” she asked in a strained, +tense voice.</p> +<p>“Cast it off,” I answered, slipping a turn of the rope.</p> +<p>But her fingers closed on mine.</p> +<p>“Please don’t,” she begged.</p> +<p>“It is useless,” I answered. “Here is night +and the wind blowing us off the land.”</p> +<p>“But think, Humphrey. If we cannot sail away on the <i>Ghost</i>, +we may remain for years on the island—for life even. If +it has never been discovered all these years, it may never be discovered.”</p> +<p>“You forget the boat we found on the beach,” I reminded +her.</p> +<p>“It was a seal-hunting boat,” she replied, “and +you know perfectly well that if the men had escaped they would have +been back to make their fortunes from the rookery. You know they +never escaped.”</p> +<p>I remained silent, undecided.</p> +<p>“Besides,” she added haltingly, “it’s your +idea, and I want to see you succeed.”</p> +<p>Now I could harden my heart. As soon as she put it on a flattering +personal basis, generosity compelled me to deny her.</p> +<p>“Better years on the island than to die to-night, or to-morrow, +or the next day, in the open boat. We are not prepared to brave +the sea. We have no food, no water, no blankets, nothing. +Why, you’d not survive the night without blankets: I know how +strong you are. You are shivering now.”</p> +<p>“It is only nervousness,” she answered. “I +am afraid you will cast off the masts in spite of me.”</p> +<p>“Oh, please, please, Humphrey, don’t!” she burst +out, a moment later.</p> +<p>And so it ended, with the phrase she knew had all power over me. +We shivered miserably throughout the night. Now and again I fitfully +slept, but the pain of the cold always aroused me. How Maud could +stand it was beyond me. I was too tired to thrash my arms about +and warm myself, but I found strength time and again to chafe her hands +and feet to restore the circulation. And still she pleaded with +me not to cast off the masts. About three in the morning she was +caught by a cold cramp, and after I had rubbed her out of that she became +quite numb. I was frightened. I got out the oars and made +her row, though she was so weak I thought she would faint at every stroke.</p> +<p>Morning broke, and we looked long in the growing light for our island. +At last it showed, small and black, on the horizon, fully fifteen miles +away. I scanned the sea with my glasses. Far away in the +south-west I could see a dark line on the water, which grew even as +I looked at it.</p> +<p>“Fair wind!” I cried in a husky voice I did not recognize +as my own.</p> +<p>Maud tried to reply, but could not speak. Her lips were blue +with cold, and she was hollow-eyed—but oh, how bravely her brown +eyes looked at me! How piteously brave!</p> +<p>Again I fell to chafing her hands and to moving her arms up and down +and about until she could thrash them herself. Then I compelled +her to stand up, and though she would have fallen had I not supported +her, I forced her to walk back and forth the several steps between the +thwart and the stern-sheets, and finally to spring up and down.</p> +<p>“Oh, you brave, brave woman,” I said, when I saw the +life coming back into her face. “Did you know that you were +brave?”</p> +<p>“I never used to be,” she answered. “I was +never brave till I knew you. It is you who have made me brave.”</p> +<p>“Nor I, until I knew you,” I answered.</p> +<p>She gave me a quick look, and again I caught that dancing, tremulous +light and something more in her eyes. But it was only for the +moment. Then she smiled.</p> +<p>“It must have been the conditions,” she said; but I knew +she was wrong, and I wondered if she likewise knew. Then the wind +came, fair and fresh, and the boat was soon labouring through a heavy +sea toward the island. At half-past three in the afternoon we +passed the south-western promontory. Not only were we hungry, +but we were now suffering from thirst. Our lips were dry and cracked, +nor could we longer moisten them with our tongues. Then the wind +slowly died down. By night it was dead calm and I was toiling +once more at the oars—but weakly, most weakly. At two in +the morning the boat’s bow touched the beach of our own inner +cove and I staggered out to make the painter fast. Maud could +not stand, nor had I strength to carry her. I fell in the sand +with her, and, when I had recovered, contented myself with putting my +hands under her shoulders and dragging her up the beach to the hut.</p> +<p>The next day we did no work. In fact, we slept till three in +the afternoon, or at least I did, for I awoke to find Maud cooking dinner. +Her power of recuperation was wonderful. There was something tenacious +about that lily-frail body of hers, a clutch on existence which one +could not reconcile with its patent weakness.</p> +<p>“You know I was travelling to Japan for my health,” she +said, as we lingered at the fire after dinner and delighted in the movelessness +of loafing. “I was not very strong. I never was. +The doctors recommended a sea voyage, and I chose the longest.”</p> +<p>“You little knew what you were choosing,” I laughed.</p> +<p>“But I shall be a different women for the experience, as well +as a stronger woman,” she answered; “and, I hope a better +woman. At least I shall understand a great deal more life.”</p> +<p>Then, as the short day waned, we fell to discussing Wolf Larsen’s +blindness. It was inexplicable. And that it was grave, I +instanced his statement that he intended to stay and die on Endeavour +Island. When he, strong man that he was, loving life as he did, +accepted his death, it was plain that he was troubled by something more +than mere blindness. There had been his terrific headaches, and +we were agreed that it was some sort of brain break-down, and that in +his attacks he endured pain beyond our comprehension.</p> +<p>I noticed as we talked over his condition, that Maud’s sympathy +went out to him more and more; yet I could not but love her for it, +so sweetly womanly was it. Besides, there was no false sentiment +about her feeling. She was agreed that the most rigorous treatment +was necessary if we were to escape, though she recoiled at the suggestion +that I might some time be compelled to take his life to save my own—“our +own,” she put it.</p> +<p>In the morning we had breakfast and were at work by daylight. +I found a light kedge anchor in the fore-hold, where such things were +kept; and with a deal of exertion got it on deck and into the boat. +With a long running-line coiled down in the stem, I rowed well out into +our little cove and dropped the anchor into the water. There was +no wind, the tide was high, and the schooner floated. Casting +off the shore-lines, I kedged her out by main strength (the windlass +being broken), till she rode nearly up and down to the small anchor—too +small to hold her in any breeze. So I lowered the big starboard +anchor, giving plenty of slack; and by afternoon I was at work on the +windlass.</p> +<p>Three days I worked on that windlass. Least of all things was +I a mechanic, and in that time I accomplished what an ordinary machinist +would have done in as many hours. I had to learn my tools to begin +with, and every simple mechanical principle which such a man would have +at his finger ends I had likewise to learn. And at the end of +three days I had a windlass which worked clumsily. It never gave +the satisfaction the old windlass had given, but it worked and made +my work possible.</p> +<p>In half a day I got the two topmasts aboard and the shears rigged +and guyed as before. And that night I slept on board and on deck +beside my work. Maud, who refused to stay alone ashore, slept +in the forecastle. Wolf Larsen had sat about, listening to my +repairing the windlass and talking with Maud and me upon indifferent +subjects. No reference was made on either side to the destruction +of the shears; nor did he say anything further about my leaving his +ship alone. But still I had feared him, blind and helpless and +listening, always listening, and I never let his strong arms get within +reach of me while I worked.</p> +<p>On this night, sleeping under my beloved shears, I was aroused by +his footsteps on the deck. It was a starlight night, and I could +see the bulk of him dimly as he moved about. I rolled out of my +blankets and crept noiselessly after him in my stocking feet. +He had armed himself with a draw-knife from the tool-locker, and with +this he prepared to cut across the throat-halyards I had again rigged +to the shears. He felt the halyards with his hands and discovered +that I had not made them fast. This would not do for a draw-knife, +so he laid hold of the running part, hove taut, and made fast. +Then he prepared to saw across with the draw-knife.</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” I said quietly.</p> +<p>He heard the click of my pistol and laughed.</p> +<p>“Hello, Hump,” he said. “I knew you were +here all the time. You can’t fool my ears.”</p> +<p>“That’s a lie, Wolf Larsen,” I said, just as quietly +as before. “However, I am aching for a chance to kill you, +so go ahead and cut.”</p> +<p>“You have the chance always,” he sneered.</p> +<p>“Go ahead and cut,” I threatened ominously.</p> +<p>“I’d rather disappoint you,” he laughed, and turned +on his heel and went aft.</p> +<p>“Something must be done, Humphrey,” Maud said, next morning, +when I had told her of the night’s occurrence. “If +he has liberty, he may do anything. He may sink the vessel, or +set fire to it. There is no telling what he may do. We must +make him a prisoner.”</p> +<p>“But how?” I asked, with a helpless shrug. “I +dare not come within reach of his arms, and he knows that so long as +his resistance is passive I cannot shoot him.”</p> +<p>“There must be some way,” she contended. “Let +me think.”</p> +<p>“There is one way,” I said grimly.</p> +<p>She waited.</p> +<p>I picked up a seal-club.</p> +<p>“It won’t kill him,” I said. “And before +he could recover I’d have him bound hard and fast.”</p> +<p>She shook her head with a shudder. “No, not that. +There must be some less brutal way. Let us wait.”</p> +<p>But we did not have to wait long, and the problem solved itself. +In the morning, after several trials, I found the point of balance in +the foremast and attached my hoisting tackle a few feet above it. +Maud held the turn on the windlass and coiled down while I heaved. +Had the windlass been in order it would not have been so difficult; +as it was, I was compelled to apply all my weight and strength to every +inch of the heaving. I had to rest frequently. In truth, +my spells of resting were longer than those of working. Maud even +contrived, at times when all my efforts could not budge the windlass, +to hold the turn with one hand and with the other to throw the weight +of her slim body to my assistance.</p> +<p>At the end of an hour the single and double blocks came together +at the top of the shears. I could hoist no more. And yet +the mast was not swung entirely inboard. The butt rested against +the outside of the port rail, while the top of the mast overhung the +water far beyond the starboard rail. My shears were too short. +All my work had been for nothing. But I no longer despaired in +the old way. I was acquiring more confidence in myself and more +confidence in the possibilities of windlasses, shears, and hoisting +tackles. There was a way in which it could be done, and it remained +for me to find that way.</p> +<p>While I was considering the problem, Wolf Larsen came on deck. +We noticed something strange about him at once. The indecisiveness, +or feebleness, of his movements was more pronounced. His walk +was actually tottery as he came down the port side of the cabin. +At the break of the poop he reeled, raised one hand to his eyes with +the familiar brushing gesture, and fell down the steps—still on +his feet—to the main deck, across which he staggered, falling +and flinging out his arms for support. He regained his balance +by the steerage companion-way and stood there dizzily for a space, when +he suddenly crumpled up and collapsed, his legs bending under him as +he sank to the deck.</p> +<p>“One of his attacks,” I whispered to Maud.</p> +<p>She nodded her head; and I could see sympathy warm in eyes.</p> +<p>We went up to him, but he seemed unconscious, breathing spasmodically. +She took charge of him, lifting his head to keep the blood out of it +and despatching me to the cabin for a pillow. I also brought blankets, +and we made him comfortable. I took his pulse. It beat steadily +and strong, and was quite normal. This puzzled me. I became +suspicious.</p> +<p>“What if he should be feigning this?” I asked, still +holding his wrist.</p> +<p>Maud shook her head, and there was reproof in her eyes. But +just then the wrist I held leaped from my hand, and the hand clasped +like a steel trap about my wrist. I cried aloud in awful fear, +a wild inarticulate cry; and I caught one glimpse of his face, malignant +and triumphant, as his other hand compassed my body and I was drawn +down to him in a terrible grip.</p> +<p>My wrist was released, but his other arm, passed around my back, +held both my arms so that I could not move. His free hand went +to my throat, and in that moment I knew the bitterest foretaste of death +earned by one’s own idiocy. Why had I trusted myself within +reach of those terrible arms? I could feel other hands at my throat. +They were Maud’s hands, striving vainly to tear loose the hand +that was throttling me. She gave it up, and I heard her scream +in a way that cut me to the soul, for it was a woman’s scream +of fear and heart-breaking despair. I had heard it before, during +the sinking of the <i>Martinez.</i></p> +<p>My face was against his chest and I could not see, but I heard Maud +turn and run swiftly away along the deck. Everything was happening +quickly. I had not yet had a glimmering of unconsciousness, and +it seemed that an interminable period of time was lapsing before I heard +her feet flying back. And just then I felt the whole man sink +under me. The breath was leaving his lungs and his chest was collapsing +under my weight. Whether it was merely the expelled breath, or +his consciousness of his growing impotence, I know not, but his throat +vibrated with a deep groan. The hand at my throat relaxed. +I breathed. It fluttered and tightened again. But even his +tremendous will could not overcome the dissolution that assailed it. +That will of his was breaking down. He was fainting.</p> +<p>Maud’s footsteps were very near as his hand fluttered for the +last time and my throat was released. I rolled off and over to +the deck on my back, gasping and blinking in the sunshine. Maud +was pale but composed,—my eyes had gone instantly to her face,—and +she was looking at me with mingled alarm and relief. A heavy seal-club +in her hand caught my eyes, and at that moment she followed my gaze +down to it. The club dropped from her hand as though it had suddenly +stung her, and at the same moment my heart surged with a great joy. +Truly she was my woman, my mate-woman, fighting with me and for me as +the mate of a caveman would have fought, all the primitive in her aroused, +forgetful of her culture, hard under the softening civilization of the +only life she had ever known.</p> +<p>“Dear woman!” I cried, scrambling to my feet.</p> +<p>The next moment she was in my arms, weeping convulsively on my shoulder +while I clasped her close. I looked down at the brown glory of +her hair, glinting gems in the sunshine far more precious to me than +those in the treasure-chests of kings. And I bent my head and +kissed her hair softly, so softly that she did not know.</p> +<p>Then sober thought came to me. After all, she was only a woman, +crying her relief, now that the danger was past, in the arms of her +protector or of the one who had been endangered. Had I been father +or brother, the situation would have been in nowise different. +Besides, time and place were not meet, and I wished to earn a better +right to declare my love. So once again I softly kissed her hair +as I felt her receding from my clasp.</p> +<p>“It was a real attack this time,” I said: “another +shock like the one that made him blind. He feigned at first, and +in doing so brought it on.”</p> +<p>Maud was already rearranging his pillow.</p> +<p>“No,” I said, “not yet. Now that I have him +helpless, helpless he shall remain. From this day we live in the +cabin. Wolf Larsen shall live in the steerage.”</p> +<p>I caught him under the shoulders and dragged him to the companion-way. +At my direction Maud fetched a rope. Placing this under his shoulders, +I balanced him across the threshold and lowered him down the steps to +the floor. I could not lift him directly into a bunk, but with +Maud’s help I lifted first his shoulders and head, then his body, +balanced him across the edge, and rolled him into a lower bunk.</p> +<p>But this was not to be all. I recollected the handcuffs in +his state-room, which he preferred to use on sailors instead of the +ancient and clumsy ship irons. So, when we left him, he lay handcuffed +hand and foot. For the first time in many days I breathed freely. +I felt strangely light as I came on deck, as though a weight had been +lifted off my shoulders. I felt, also, that Maud and I had drawn +more closely together. And I wondered if she, too, felt it, as +we walked along the deck side by side to where the stalled foremast +hung in the shears.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>At once we moved aboard the <i>Ghost</i>, occupying our old state-rooms +and cooking in the galley. The imprisonment of Wolf Larsen had +happened most opportunely, for what must have been the Indian summer +of this high latitude was gone and drizzling stormy weather had set +in. We were very comfortable, and the inadequate shears, with +the foremast suspended from them, gave a business-like air to the schooner +and a promise of departure.</p> +<p>And now that we had Wolf Larsen in irons, how little did we need +it! Like his first attack, his second had been accompanied by +serious disablement. Maud made the discovery in the afternoon +while trying to give him nourishment. He had shown signs of consciousness, +and she had spoken to him, eliciting no response. He was lying +on his left side at the time, and in evident pain. With a restless +movement he rolled his head around, clearing his left ear from the pillow +against which it had been pressed. At once he heard and answered +her, and at once she came to me.</p> +<p>Pressing the pillow against his left ear, I asked him if he heard +me, but he gave no sign. Removing the pillow and, repeating the +question he answered promptly that he did.</p> +<p>“Do you know you are deaf in the right ear?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he answered in a low, strong voice, “and +worse than that. My whole right side is affected. It seems +asleep. I cannot move arm or leg.”</p> +<p>“Feigning again?” I demanded angrily.</p> +<p>He shook his head, his stern mouth shaping the strangest, twisted +smile. It was indeed a twisted smile, for it was on the left side +only, the facial muscles of the right side moving not at all.</p> +<p>“That was the last play of the Wolf,” he said. +“I am paralysed. I shall never walk again. Oh, only +on the other side,” he added, as though divining the suspicious +glance I flung at his left leg, the knee of which had just then drawn +up, and elevated the blankets.</p> +<p>“It’s unfortunate,” he continued. “I’d +liked to have done for you first, Hump. And I thought I had that +much left in me.”</p> +<p>“But why?” I asked; partly in horror, partly out of curiosity.</p> +<p>Again his stern mouth framed the twisted smile, as he said:</p> +<p>“Oh, just to be alive, to be living and doing, to be the biggest +bit of the ferment to the end, to eat you. But to die this way.”</p> +<p>He shrugged his shoulders, or attempted to shrug them, rather, for +the left shoulder alone moved. Like the smile, the shrug was twisted.</p> +<p>“But how can you account for it?” I asked. “Where +is the seat of your trouble?”</p> +<p>“The brain,” he said at once. “It was those +cursed headaches brought it on.”</p> +<p>“Symptoms,” I said.</p> +<p>He nodded his head. “There is no accounting for it. +I was never sick in my life. Something’s gone wrong with +my brain. A cancer, a tumour, or something of that nature,—a +thing that devours and destroys. It’s attacking my nerve-centres, +eating them up, bit by bit, cell by cell—from the pain.”</p> +<p>“The motor-centres, too,” I suggested.</p> +<p>“So it would seem; and the curse of it is that I must lie here, +conscious, mentally unimpaired, knowing that the lines are going down, +breaking bit by bit communication with the world. I cannot see, +hearing and feeling are leaving me, at this rate I shall soon cease +to speak; yet all the time I shall be here, alive, active, and powerless.”</p> +<p>“When you say <i>you</i> are here, I’d suggest the likelihood +of the soul,” I said.</p> +<p>“Bosh!” was his retort. “It simply means +that in the attack on my brain the higher psychical centres are untouched. +I can remember, I can think and reason. When that goes, I go. +I am not. The soul?”</p> +<p>He broke out in mocking laughter, then turned his left ear to the +pillow as a sign that he wished no further conversation.</p> +<p>Maud and I went about our work oppressed by the fearful fate which +had overtaken him,—how fearful we were yet fully to realize. +There was the awfulness of retribution about it. Our thoughts +were deep and solemn, and we spoke to each other scarcely above whispers.</p> +<p>“You might remove the handcuffs,” he said that night, +as we stood in consultation over him. “It’s dead safe. +I’m a paralytic now. The next thing to watch out for is +bed sores.”</p> +<p>He smiled his twisted smile, and Maud, her eyes wide with horror, +was compelled to turn away her head.</p> +<p>“Do you know that your smile is crooked?” I asked him; +for I knew that she must attend him, and I wished to save her as much +as possible.</p> +<p>“Then I shall smile no more,” he said calmly. “I +thought something was wrong. My right cheek has been numb all +day. Yes, and I’ve had warnings of this for the last three +days; by spells, my right side seemed going to sleep, sometimes arm +or hand, sometimes leg or foot.”</p> +<p>“So my smile is crooked?” he queried a short while after. +“Well, consider henceforth that I smile internally, with my soul, +if you please, my soul. Consider that I am smiling now.”</p> +<p>And for the space of several minutes he lay there, quiet, indulging +his grotesque fancy.</p> +<p>The man of him was not changed. It was the old, indomitable, +terrible Wolf Larsen, imprisoned somewhere within that flesh which had +once been so invincible and splendid. Now it bound him with insentient +fetters, walling his soul in darkness and silence, blocking it from +the world which to him had been a riot of action. No more would +he conjugate the verb “to do in every mood and tense.” +“To be” was all that remained to him—to be, as he +had defined death, without movement; to will, but not to execute; to +think and reason and in the spirit of him to be as alive as ever, but +in the flesh to be dead, quite dead.</p> +<p>And yet, though I even removed the handcuffs, we could not adjust +ourselves to his condition. Our minds revolted. To us he +was full of potentiality. We knew not what to expect of him next, +what fearful thing, rising above the flesh, he might break out and do. +Our experience warranted this state of mind, and we went about our work +with anxiety always upon us.</p> +<p>I had solved the problem which had arisen through the shortness of +the shears. By means of the watch-tackle (I had made a new one), +I heaved the butt of the foremast across the rail and then lowered it +to the deck. Next, by means of the shears, I hoisted the main +boom on board. Its forty feet of length would supply the height +necessary properly to swing the mast. By means of a secondary +tackle I had attached to the shears, I swung the boom to a nearly perpendicular +position, then lowered the butt to the deck, where, to prevent slipping, +I spiked great cleats around it. The single block of my original +shears-tackle I had attached to the end of the boom. Thus, by +carrying this tackle to the windlass, I could raise and lower the end +of the boom at will, the butt always remaining stationary, and, by means +of guys, I could swing the boom from side to side. To the end +of the boom I had likewise rigged a hoisting tackle; and when the whole +arrangement was completed I could not but be startled by the power and +latitude it gave me.</p> +<p>Of course, two days’ work was required for the accomplishment +of this part of my task, and it was not till the morning of the third +day that I swung the foremast from the deck and proceeded to square +its butt to fit the step. Here I was especially awkward. +I sawed and chopped and chiselled the weathered wood till it had the +appearance of having been gnawed by some gigantic mouse. But it +fitted.</p> +<p>“It will work, I know it will work,” I cried.</p> +<p>“Do you know Dr. Jordan’s final test of truth?” +Maud asked.</p> +<p>I shook my head and paused in the act of dislodging the shavings +which had drifted down my neck.</p> +<p>“Can we make it work? Can we trust our lives to it? is +the test.”</p> +<p>“He is a favourite of yours,” I said.</p> +<p>“When I dismantled my old Pantheon and cast out Napoleon and +Caesar and their fellows, I straightway erected a new Pantheon,” +she answered gravely, “and the first I installed as Dr. Jordan.”</p> +<p>“A modern hero.”</p> +<p>“And a greater because modern,” she added. “How +can the Old World heroes compare with ours?”</p> +<p>I shook my head. We were too much alike in many things for +argument. Our points of view and outlook on life at least were +very alike.</p> +<p>“For a pair of critics we agree famously,” I laughed.</p> +<p>“And as shipwright and able assistant,” she laughed back.</p> +<p>But there was little time for laughter in those days, what of our +heavy work and of the awfulness of Wolf Larsen’s living death.</p> +<p>He had received another stroke. He had lost his voice, or he +was losing it. He had only intermittent use of it. As he +phrased it, the wires were like the stock market, now up, now down. +Occasionally the wires were up and he spoke as well as ever, though +slowly and heavily. Then speech would suddenly desert him, in +the middle of a sentence perhaps, and for hours, sometimes, we would +wait for the connection to be re-established. He complained of +great pain in his head, and it was during this period that he arranged +a system of communication against the time when speech should leave +him altogether—one pressure of the hand for “yes,” +two for “no.” It was well that it was arranged, for +by evening his voice had gone from him. By hand pressures, after +that, he answered our questions, and when he wished to speak he scrawled +his thoughts with his left hand, quite legibly, on a sheet of paper.</p> +<p>The fierce winter had now descended upon us. Gale followed +gale, with snow and sleet and rain. The seals had started on their +great southern migration, and the rookery was practically deserted. +I worked feverishly. In spite of the bad weather, and of the wind +which especially hindered me, I was on deck from daylight till dark +and making substantial progress.</p> +<p>I profited by my lesson learned through raising the shears and then +climbing them to attach the guys. To the top of the foremast, +which was just lifted conveniently from the deck, I attached the rigging, +stays and throat and peak halyards. As usual, I had underrated +the amount of work involved in this portion of the task, and two long +days were necessary to complete it. And there was so much yet +to be done—the sails, for instance, which practically had to be +made over.</p> +<p>While I toiled at rigging the foremast, Maud sewed on canvas, ready +always to drop everything and come to my assistance when more hands +than two were required. The canvas was heavy and hard, and she +sewed with the regular sailor’s palm and three-cornered sail-needle. +Her hands were soon sadly blistered, but she struggled bravely on, and +in addition doing the cooking and taking care of the sick man.</p> +<p>“A fig for superstition,” I said on Friday morning. +“That mast goes in to-day.’</p> +<p>Everything was ready for the attempt. Carrying the boom-tackle +to the windlass, I hoisted the mast nearly clear of the deck. +Making this tackle fast, I took to the windlass the shears-tackle (which +was connected with the end of the boom), and with a few turns had the +mast perpendicular and clear.</p> +<p>Maud clapped her hands the instant she was relieved from holding +the turn, crying:</p> +<p>“It works! It works! We’ll trust our lives +to it!”</p> +<p>Then she assumed a rueful expression.</p> +<p>“It’s not over the hole,” she add. “Will +you have to begin all over?”</p> +<p>I smiled in superior fashion, and, slacking off on one of the boom-guys +and taking in on the other, swung the mast perfectly in the centre of +the deck. Still it was not over the hole. Again the rueful +expression came on her face, and again I smiled in a superior way. +Slacking away on the boom-tackle and hoisting an equivalent amount on +the shears-tackle, I brought the butt of the mast into position directly +over the hole in the deck. Then I gave Maud careful instructions +for lowering away and went into the hold to the step on the schooner’s +bottom.</p> +<p>I called to her, and the mast moved easily and accurately. +Straight toward the square hole of the step the square butt descended; +but as it descended it slowly twisted so that square would not fit into +square. But I had not even a moment’s indecision. +Calling to Maud to cease lowering, I went on deck and made the watch-tackle +fast to the mast with a rolling hitch. I left Maud to pull on +it while I went below. By the light of the lantern I saw the butt +twist slowly around till its sides coincided with the sides of the step. +Maud made fast and returned to the windlass. Slowly the butt descended +the several intervening inches, at the same time slightly twisting again. +Again Maud rectified the twist with the watch-tackle, and again she +lowered away from the windlass. Square fitted into square. +The mast was stepped.</p> +<p>I raised a shout, and she ran down to see. In the yellow lantern +light we peered at what we had accomplished. We looked at each +other, and our hands felt their way and clasped. The eyes of both +of us, I think, were moist with the joy of success.</p> +<p>“It was done so easily after all,” I remarked. +“All the work was in the preparation.”</p> +<p>“And all the wonder in the completion,” Maud added. +“I can scarcely bring myself to realize that that great mast is +really up and in; that you have lifted it from the water, swung it through +the air, and deposited it here where it belongs. It is a Titan’s +task.”</p> +<p>“And they made themselves many inventions,” I began merrily, +then paused to sniff the air.</p> +<p>I looked hastily at the lantern. It was not smoking. +Again I sniffed.</p> +<p>“Something is burning,” Maud said, with sudden conviction.</p> +<p>We sprang together for the ladder, but I raced past her to the deck. +A dense volume of smoke was pouring out of the steerage companion-way.</p> +<p>“The Wolf is not yet dead,” I muttered to myself as I +sprang down through the smoke.</p> +<p>It was so thick in the confined space that I was compelled to feel +my way; and so potent was the spell of Wolf Larsen on my imagination, +I was quite prepared for the helpless giant to grip my neck in a strangle +hold. I hesitated, the desire to race back and up the steps to +the deck almost overpowering me. Then I recollected Maud. +The vision of her, as I had last seen her, in the lantern light of the +schooner’s hold, her brown eyes warm and moist with joy, flashed +before me, and I knew that I could not go back.</p> +<p>I was choking and suffocating by the time I reached Wolf Larsen’s +bunk. I reached my hand and felt for his. He was lying motionless, +but moved slightly at the touch of my hand. I felt over and under +his blankets. There was no warmth, no sign of fire. Yet +that smoke which blinded me and made me cough and gasp must have a source. +I lost my head temporarily and dashed frantically about the steerage. +A collision with the table partially knocked the wind from my body and +brought me to myself. I reasoned that a helpless man could start +a fire only near to where he lay.</p> +<p>I returned to Wolf Larsen’s bunk. There I encountered +Maud. How long she had been there in that suffocating atmosphere +I could not guess.</p> +<p>“Go up on deck!” I commanded peremptorily.</p> +<p>“But, Humphrey—” she began to protest in a queer, +husky voice.</p> +<p>“Please! please!” I shouted at her harshly.</p> +<p>She drew away obediently, and then I thought, What if she cannot +find the steps? I started after her, to stop at the foot of the +companion-way. Perhaps she had gone up. As I stood there, +hesitant, I heard her cry softly:</p> +<p>“Oh, Humphrey, I am lost.”</p> +<p>I found her fumbling at the wall of the after bulkhead, and, half +leading her, half carrying her, I took her up the companion-way. +The pure air was like nectar. Maud was only faint and dizzy, and +I left her lying on the deck when I took my second plunge below.</p> +<p>The source of the smoke must be very close to Wolf Larsen—my +mind was made up to this, and I went straight to his bunk. As +I felt about among his blankets, something hot fell on the back of my +hand. It burned me, and I jerked my hand away. Then I understood. +Through the cracks in the bottom of the upper bunk he had set fire to +the mattress. He still retained sufficient use of his left arm +to do this. The damp straw of the mattress, fired from beneath +and denied air, had been smouldering all the while.</p> +<p>As I dragged the mattress out of the bunk it seemed to disintegrate +in mid-air, at the same time bursting into flames. I beat out +the burning remnants of straw in the bunk, then made a dash for the +deck for fresh air.</p> +<p>Several buckets of water sufficed to put out the burning mattress +in the middle of the steerage floor; and ten minutes later, when the +smoke had fairly cleared, I allowed Maud to come below. Wolf Larsen +was unconscious, but it was a matter of minutes for the fresh air to +restore him. We were working over him, however, when he signed +for paper and pencil.</p> +<p>“Pray do not interrupt me,” he wrote. “I +am smiling.”</p> +<p>“I am still a bit of the ferment, you see,” he wrote +a little later.</p> +<p>“I am glad you are as small a bit as you are,” I said.</p> +<p>“Thank you,” he wrote. “But just think of +how much smaller I shall be before I die.”</p> +<p>“And yet I am all here, Hump,” he wrote with a final +flourish. “I can think more clearly than ever in my life +before. Nothing to disturb me. Concentration is perfect. +I am all here and more than here.”</p> +<p>It was like a message from the night of the grave; for this man’s +body had become his mausoleum. And there, in so strange sepulchre, +his spirit fluttered and lived. It would flutter and live till +the last line of communication was broken, and after that who was to +say how much longer it might continue to flutter and live?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>“I think my left side is going,” Wolf Larsen wrote, the +morning after his attempt to fire the ship. “The numbness +is growing. I can hardly move my hand. You will have to +speak louder. The last lines are going down.”</p> +<p>“Are you in pain?” I asked.</p> +<p>I was compelled to repeat my question loudly before he answered:</p> +<p>“Not all the time.”</p> +<p>The left hand stumbled slowly and painfully across the paper, and +it was with extreme difficulty that we deciphered the scrawl. +It was like a “spirit message,” such as are delivered at +séances of spiritualists for a dollar admission.</p> +<p>“But I am still here, all here,” the hand scrawled more +slowly and painfully than ever.</p> +<p>The pencil dropped, and we had to replace it in the hand.</p> +<p>“When there is no pain I have perfect peace and quiet. +I have never thought so clearly. I can ponder life and death like +a Hindoo sage.”</p> +<p>“And immortality?” Maud queried loudly in the ear.</p> +<p>Three times the hand essayed to write but fumbled hopelessly. +The pencil fell. In vain we tried to replace it. The fingers +could not close on it. Then Maud pressed and held the fingers +about the pencil with her own hand and the hand wrote, in large letters, +and so slowly that the minutes ticked off to each letter:</p> +<p>“B-O-S-H.”</p> +<p>It was Wolf Larsen’s last word, “bosh,” sceptical +and invincible to the end. The arm and hand relaxed. The +trunk of the body moved slightly. Then there was no movement. +Maud released the hand. The fingers spread slightly, falling apart +of their own weight, and the pencil rolled away.</p> +<p>“Do you still hear?” I shouted, holding the fingers and +waiting for the single pressure which would signify “Yes.” +There was no response. The hand was dead.</p> +<p>“I noticed the lips slightly move,” Maud said.</p> +<p>I repeated the question. The lips moved. She placed the +tips of her fingers on them. Again I repeated the question. +“Yes,” Maud announced. We looked at each other expectantly.</p> +<p>“What good is it?” I asked. “What can we +say now?”</p> +<p>“Oh, ask him—”</p> +<p>She hesitated.</p> +<p>“Ask him something that requires no for an answer,” I +suggested. “Then we will know for certainty.”</p> +<p>“Are you hungry?” she cried.</p> +<p>The lips moved under her fingers, and she answered, “Yes.”</p> +<p>“Will you have some beef?” was her next query.</p> +<p>“No,” she announced.</p> +<p>“Beef-tea?”</p> +<p>“Yes, he will have some beef-tea,” she said, quietly, +looking up at me. “Until his hearing goes we shall be able +to communicate with him. And after that—”</p> +<p>She looked at me queerly. I saw her lips trembling and the +tears swimming up in her eyes. She swayed toward me and I caught +her in my arms.</p> +<p>“Oh, Humphrey,” she sobbed, “when will it all end? +I am so tired, so tired.”</p> +<p>She buried her head on my shoulder, her frail form shaken with a +storm of weeping. She was like a feather in my arms, so slender, +so ethereal. “She has broken down at last,” I thought. +“What can I do without her help?”</p> +<p>But I soothed and comforted her, till she pulled herself bravely +together and recuperated mentally as quickly as she was wont to do physically.</p> +<p>“I ought to be ashamed of myself,” she said. Then +added, with the whimsical smile I adored, “but I am only one, +small woman.”</p> +<p>That phrase, the “one small woman,” startled me like +an electric shock. It was my own phrase, my pet, secret phrase, +my love phrase for her.</p> +<p>“Where did you get that phrase?” I demanded, with an +abruptness that in turn startled her.</p> +<p>“What phrase?” she asked.</p> +<p>“One small woman.”</p> +<p>“Is it yours?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Yes,” I answered. “Mine. I made it.”</p> +<p>“Then you must have talked in your sleep,” she smiled.</p> +<p>The dancing, tremulous light was in her eyes. Mine, I knew, +were speaking beyond the will of my speech. I leaned toward her. +Without volition I leaned toward her, as a tree is swayed by the wind. +Ah, we were very close together in that moment. But she shook +her head, as one might shake off sleep or a dream, saying:</p> +<p>“I have known it all my life. It was my father’s +name for my mother.”</p> +<p>“It is my phrase too,” I said stubbornly.</p> +<p>“For your mother?”</p> +<p>“No,” I answered, and she questioned no further, though +I could have sworn her eyes retained for some time a mocking, teasing +expression.</p> +<p>With the foremast in, the work now went on apace. Almost before +I knew it, and without one serious hitch, I had the mainmast stepped. +A derrick-boom, rigged to the foremast, had accomplished this; and several +days more found all stays and shrouds in place, and everything set up +taut. Topsails would be a nuisance and a danger for a crew of +two, so I heaved the topmasts on deck and lashed them fast.</p> +<p>Several more days were consumed in finishing the sails and putting +them on. There were only three—the jib, foresail, and mainsail; +and, patched, shortened, and distorted, they were a ridiculously ill-fitting +suit for so trim a craft as the <i>Ghost.</i></p> +<p>“But they’ll work!” Maud cried jubilantly. +“We’ll make them work, and trust our lives to them!”</p> +<p>Certainly, among my many new trades, I shone least as a sail-maker. +I could sail them better than make them, and I had no doubt of my power +to bring the schooner to some northern port of Japan. In fact, +I had crammed navigation from text-books aboard; and besides, there +was Wolf Larsen’s star-scale, so simple a device that a child +could work it.</p> +<p>As for its inventor, beyond an increasing deafness and the movement +of the lips growing fainter and fainter, there had been little change +in his condition for a week. But on the day we finished bending +the schooner’s sails, he heard his last, and the last movement +of his lips died away—but not before I had asked him, “Are +you all there?” and the lips had answered, “Yes.”</p> +<p>The last line was down. Somewhere within that tomb of the flesh +still dwelt the soul of the man. Walled by the living clay, that +fierce intelligence we had known burned on; but it burned on in silence +and darkness. And it was disembodied. To that intelligence +there could be no objective knowledge of a body. It knew no body. +The very world was not. It knew only itself and the vastness and +profundity of the quiet and the dark.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The day came for our departure. There was no longer anything +to detain us on Endeavour Island. The <i>Ghost’s</i> stumpy +masts were in place, her crazy sails bent. All my handiwork was +strong, none of it beautiful; but I knew that it would work, and I felt +myself a man of power as I looked at it.</p> +<p>“I did it! I did it! With my own hands I did it!” +I wanted to cry aloud.</p> +<p>But Maud and I had a way of voicing each other’s thoughts, +and she said, as we prepared to hoist the mainsail:</p> +<p>“To think, Humphrey, you did it all with your own hands?”</p> +<p>“But there were two other hands,” I answered. “Two +small hands, and don’t say that was a phrase, also, of your father.”</p> +<p>She laughed and shook her head, and held her hands up for inspection.</p> +<p>“I can never get them clean again,” she wailed, “nor +soften the weather-beat.”</p> +<p>“Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour,” +I said, holding them in mine; and, spite of my resolutions, I would +have kissed the two dear hands had she not swiftly withdrawn them.</p> +<p>Our comradeship was becoming tremulous, I had mastered my love long +and well, but now it was mastering me. Wilfully had it disobeyed +and won my eyes to speech, and now it was winning my tongue—ay, +and my lips, for they were mad this moment to kiss the two small hands +which had toiled so faithfully and hard. And I, too, was mad. +There was a cry in my being like bugles calling me to her. And +there was a wind blowing upon me which I could not resist, swaying the +very body of me till I leaned toward her, all unconscious that I leaned. +And she knew it. She could not but know it as she swiftly drew +away her hands, and yet, could not forbear one quick searching look +before she turned away her eyes.</p> +<p>By means of deck-tackles I had arranged to carry the halyards forward +to the windlass; and now I hoisted the mainsail, peak and throat, at +the same time. It was a clumsy way, but it did not take long, +and soon the foresail as well was up and fluttering.</p> +<p>“We can never get that anchor up in this narrow place, once +it has left the bottom,” I said. “We should be on +the rocks first.”</p> +<p>“What can you do?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Slip it,” was my answer. “And when I do, +you must do your first work on the windlass. I shall have to run +at once to the wheel, and at the same time you must be hoisting the +jib.”</p> +<p>This manoeuvre of getting under way I had studied and worked out +a score of times; and, with the jib-halyard to the windlass, I knew +Maud was capable of hoisting that most necessary sail. A brisk +wind was blowing into the cove, and though the water was calm, rapid +work was required to get us safely out.</p> +<p>When I knocked the shackle-bolt loose, the chain roared out through +the hawse-hole and into the sea. I raced aft, putting the wheel +up. The <i>Ghost</i> seemed to start into life as she heeled to +the first fill of her sails. The jib was rising. As it filled, +the <i>Ghost’s</i> bow swung off and I had to put the wheel down +a few spokes and steady her.</p> +<p>I had devised an automatic jib-sheet which passed the jib across +of itself, so there was no need for Maud to attend to that; but she +was still hoisting the jib when I put the wheel hard down. It +was a moment of anxiety, for the <i>Ghost</i> was rushing directly upon +the beach, a stone’s throw distant. But she swung obediently +on her heel into the wind. There was a great fluttering and flapping +of canvas and reef-points, most welcome to my ears, then she filled +away on the other tack.</p> +<p>Maud had finished her task and come aft, where she stood beside me, +a small cap perched on her wind-blown hair, her cheeks flushed from +exertion, her eyes wide and bright with the excitement, her nostrils +quivering to the rush and bite of the fresh salt air. Her brown +eyes were like a startled deer’s. There was a wild, keen +look in them I had never seen before, and her lips parted and her breath +suspended as the <i>Ghost</i>, charging upon the wall of rock at the +entrance to the inner cove, swept into the wind and filled away into +safe water.</p> +<p>My first mate’s berth on the sealing grounds stood me in good +stead, and I cleared the inner cove and laid a long tack along the shore +of the outer cove. Once again about, and the <i>Ghost</i> headed +out to open sea. She had now caught the bosom-breathing of the +ocean, and was herself a-breath with the rhythm of it as she smoothly +mounted and slipped down each broad-backed wave. The day had been +dull and overcast, but the sun now burst through the clouds, a welcome +omen, and shone upon the curving beach where together we had dared the +lords of the harem and slain the holluschickie. All Endeavour +Island brightened under the sun. Even the grim south-western promontory +showed less grim, and here and there, where the sea-spray wet its surface, +high lights flashed and dazzled in the sun.</p> +<p>“I shall always think of it with pride,” I said to Maud.</p> +<p>She threw her head back in a queenly way but said, “Dear, dear +Endeavour Island! I shall always love it.”</p> +<p>“And I,” I said quickly.</p> +<p>It seemed our eyes must meet in a great understanding, and yet, loath, +they struggled away and did not meet.</p> +<p>There was a silence I might almost call awkward, till I broke it, +saying:</p> +<p>“See those black clouds to windward. You remember, I +told you last night the barometer was falling.”</p> +<p>“And the sun is gone,” she said, her eyes still fixed +upon our island, where we had proved our mastery over matter and attained +to the truest comradeship that may fall to man and woman.</p> +<p>“And it’s slack off the sheets for Japan!” I cried +gaily. “A fair wind and a flowing sheet, you know, or however +it goes.”</p> +<p>Lashing the wheel I ran forward, eased the fore and mainsheets, took +in on the boom-tackles and trimmed everything for the quartering breeze +which was ours. It was a fresh breeze, very fresh, but I resolved +to run as long as I dared. Unfortunately, when running free, it +is impossible to lash the wheel, so I faced an all-night watch. +Maud insisted on relieving me, but proved that she had not the strength +to steer in a heavy sea, even if she could have gained the wisdom on +such short notice. She appeared quite heart-broken over the discovery, +but recovered her spirits by coiling down tackles and halyards and all +stray ropes. Then there were meals to be cooked in the galley, +beds to make, Wolf Larsen to be attended upon, and she finished the +day with a grand house-cleaning attack upon the cabin and steerage.</p> +<p>All night I steered, without relief, the wind slowly and steadily +increasing and the sea rising. At five in the morning Maud brought +me hot coffee and biscuits she had baked, and at seven a substantial +and piping hot breakfast put new lift into me.</p> +<p>Throughout the day, and as slowly and steadily as ever, the wind +increased. It impressed one with its sullen determination to blow, +and blow harder, and keep on blowing. And still the <i>Ghost</i> +foamed along, racing off the miles till I was certain she was making +at least eleven knots. It was too good to lose, but by nightfall +I was exhausted. Though in splendid physical trim, a thirty-six-hour +trick at the wheel was the limit of my endurance. Besides, Maud +begged me to heave to, and I knew, if the wind and sea increased at +the same rate during the night, that it would soon be impossible to +heave to. So, as twilight deepened, gladly and at the same time +reluctantly, I brought the <i>Ghost</i> up on the wind.</p> +<p>But I had not reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three +sails meant for one man. While running away from the wind I had +not appreciated its force, but when we ceased to run I learned to my +sorrow, and well-nigh to my despair, how fiercely it was really blowing. +The wind balked my every effort, ripping the canvas out of my hands +and in an instant undoing what I had gained by ten minutes of severest +struggle. At eight o’clock I had succeeded only in putting +the second reef into the foresail. At eleven o’clock I was +no farther along. Blood dripped from every finger-end, while the +nails were broken to the quick. From pain and sheer exhaustion +I wept in the darkness, secretly, so that Maud should not know.</p> +<p>Then, in desperation, I abandoned the attempt to reef the mainsail +and resolved to try the experiment of heaving to under the close-reefed +foresail. Three hours more were required to gasket the mainsail +and jib, and at two in the morning, nearly dead, the life almost buffeted +and worked out of me, I had barely sufficient consciousness to know +the experiment was a success. The close-reefed foresail worked. +The <i>Ghost</i> clung on close to the wind and betrayed no inclination +to fall off broadside to the trough.</p> +<p>I was famished, but Maud tried vainly to get me to eat. I dozed +with my mouth full of food. I would fall asleep in the act of +carrying food to my mouth and waken in torment to find the act yet uncompleted. +So sleepily helpless was I that she was compelled to hold me in my chair +to prevent my being flung to the floor by the violent pitching of the +schooner.</p> +<p>Of the passage from the galley to the cabin I knew nothing. +It was a sleep-walker Maud guided and supported. In fact, I was +aware of nothing till I awoke, how long after I could not imagine, in +my bunk with my boots off. It was dark. I was stiff and +lame, and cried out with pain when the bed-clothes touched my poor finger-ends.</p> +<p>Morning had evidently not come, so I closed my eyes and went to sleep +again. I did not know it, but I had slept the clock around and +it was night again.</p> +<p>Once more I woke, troubled because I could sleep no better. +I struck a match and looked at my watch. It marked midnight. +And I had not left the deck until three! I should have been puzzled +had I not guessed the solution. No wonder I was sleeping brokenly. +I had slept twenty-one hours. I listened for a while to the behaviour +of the <i>Ghost</i>, to the pounding of the seas and the muffled roar +of the wind on deck, and then turned over on my ride and slept peacefully +until morning.</p> +<p>When I arose at seven I saw no sign of Maud and concluded she was +in the galley preparing breakfast. On deck I found the <i>Ghost</i> +doing splendidly under her patch of canvas. But in the galley, +though a fire was burning and water boiling, I found no Maud.</p> +<p>I discovered her in the steerage, by Wolf Larsen’s bunk. +I looked at him, the man who had been hurled down from the topmost pitch +of life to be buried alive and be worse than dead. There seemed +a relaxation of his expressionless face which was new. Maud looked +at me and I understood.</p> +<p>“His life flickered out in the storm,” I said.</p> +<p>“But he still lives,” she answered, infinite faith in +her voice.</p> +<p>“He had too great strength.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” she said, “but now it no longer shackles +him. He is a free spirit.”</p> +<p>“He is a free spirit surely,” I answered; and, taking +her hand, I led her on deck.</p> +<p>The storm broke that night, which is to say that it diminished as +slowly as it had arisen. After breakfast next morning, when I +had hoisted Wolf Larsen’s body on deck ready for burial, it was +still blowing heavily and a large sea was running. The deck was +continually awash with the sea which came inboard over the rail and +through the scuppers. The wind smote the schooner with a sudden +gust, and she heeled over till her lee rail was buried, the roar in +her rigging rising in pitch to a shriek. We stood in the water +to our knees as I bared my head.</p> +<p>“I remember only one part of the service,” I said, “and +that is, ‘And the body shall be cast into the sea.’”</p> +<p>Maud looked at me, surprised and shocked; but the spirit of something +I had seen before was strong upon me, impelling me to give service to +Wolf Larsen as Wolf Larsen had once given service to another man. +I lifted the end of the hatch cover and the canvas-shrouded body slipped +feet first into the sea. The weight of iron dragged it down. +It was gone.</p> +<p>“Good-bye, Lucifer, proud spirit,” Maud whispered, so +low that it was drowned by the shouting of the wind; but I saw the movement +of her lips and knew.</p> +<p>As we clung to the lee rail and worked our way aft, I happened to +glance to leeward. The <i>Ghost</i>, at the moment, was uptossed +on a sea, and I caught a clear view of a small steamship two or three +miles away, rolling and pitching, head on to the sea, as it steamed +toward us. It was painted black, and from the talk of the hunters +of their poaching exploits I recognized it as a United States revenue +cutter. I pointed it out to Maud and hurriedly led her aft to +the safety of the poop.</p> +<p>I started to rush below to the flag-locker, then remembered that +in rigging the <i>Ghost</i>. I had forgotten to make provision +for a flag-halyard.</p> +<p>“We need no distress signal,” Maud said. “They +have only to see us.”</p> +<p>“We are saved,” I said, soberly and solemnly. And +then, in an exuberance of joy, “I hardly know whether to be glad +or not.”</p> +<p>I looked at her. Our eyes were not loath to meet. We +leaned toward each other, and before I knew it my arms were about her.</p> +<p>“Need I?” I asked.</p> +<p>And she answered, “There is no need, though the telling of +it would be sweet, so sweet.”</p> +<p>Her lips met the press of mine, and, by what strange trick of the +imagination I know not, the scene in the cabin of the <i>Ghost</i> flashed +upon me, when she had pressed her fingers lightly on my lips and said, +“Hush, hush.”</p> +<p>“My woman, my one small woman,” I said, my free hand +petting her shoulder in the way all lovers know though never learn in +school.</p> +<p>“My man,” she said, looking at me for an instant with +tremulous lids which fluttered down and veiled her eyes as she snuggled +her head against my breast with a happy little sigh.</p> +<p>I looked toward the cutter. It was very close. A boat +was being lowered.</p> +<p>“One kiss, dear love,” I whispered. “One +kiss more before they come.”</p> +<p>“And rescue us from ourselves,” she completed, with a +most adorable smile, whimsical as I had never seen it, for it was whimsical +with love.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE SEA WOLF ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named cwolf10h.htm or cwolf10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, cwolf11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cwolf10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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