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                                      1904
                                  THE SEA-WOLF
                                 by Jack London
                        CHAPTER ONE.

  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 labor
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 labor, 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 gray 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 atop 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 ferryboat of some sort,' the newcomer 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.'
  The unseen ferryboat 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
paddlewheels 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 daredevil 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 thinks he can
run it, 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 moodily up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the
fog. And romantic it certainly was- the fog, like the gray 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 clamoring
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. Walkin' 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.
  'Ferryboat?' 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 each 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!'
  '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 screams of the women. This it was, I am certain,- the
most indescribable of bloodcurdling 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 gray 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, incased 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 that 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 clamoring 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 marveled 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. I could not swim
a stroke, and I was alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a
gray 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 a 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 to leap 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-
don't you sing out?'
  This meant me, I thought, and then the blankness and darkness rose
over me.
                        CHAPTER TWO.

  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 and
reverberated through abysmal space. For an immeasurable period,
quiescent, 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 off?'
  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 Farralones, 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, favoring 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 while 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 woolen
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 the 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 discolored with
what I took to be ancient bloodstains, was put on me amidst a
running and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman's brogans
incased 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 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 southwest, 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, not far away, a group of naked rocks thrust above the sea, on
one of which I could distinguish a lighthouse. In the southwest, 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 amidships. 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 gray, 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 labored 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 hatchway, 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 molded.
  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 person 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 quarter of an hour,
when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate person
who was lying on his back. He 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.
  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, 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-discolored 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
unutterably 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. But the dead man continued to grin
unconcernedly with a sardonic humor, a cynical mockery and defiance.
He was master of the situation.
                        CHAPTER THREE.

  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 rebuke 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 companionway between the galley and the 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
'Aye, aye, sir.'
  'We'll see to that,' Wolf Larsen answered, and elevated his voice in
a cal 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 companionway.
  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 among the watch below, returning in a minute with the
information that 'they ain't 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 gray 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. 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 vigor 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, or neatly classifying in some pigeonhole 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 gray which is never twice the
same; which runs through many shades and colorings like intershot silk
in sunshine; which is gray, dark and light, and greenish gray, 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 somberness of leaden skies; that
could snap and crackle points of fire like those that sparkle from a
whirling sword; that could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and
yet again, that could warm and soften and be all adance 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 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 schoolmaster.
  '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
dishwashing 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 southwest had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same
rig as the Ghost's, 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 gray and grown
rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were
traveling 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 companionway 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-sight better.
  'But let that go,' he 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 & Swanson.'
  'Sir!' Wolf Larsen thundered.
  'McCready & 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 devilish 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's'le. 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
body. '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.'
  'Aye, aye, 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 vague 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 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- 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 gray 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 gray 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 as 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
hatchcover. On each 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 chorus of wolves.
The sailors trooped noisily aft, some of the watch below running 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 whole 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 bareheaded 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! What the - '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 outer jibs.
We're in for a sou'easter. Reef the jib and the 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, 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 onto 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, as for very life, was heading away into the
southwest, into the great and lonely Pacific expanse.
                        CHAPTER FOUR.

  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 personage.
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.
  He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and his
behavior and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my duties.
Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small staterooms, 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. This was
part of the attitude he chose to adopt toward me; and I confess,
before 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.
  'Look sharp or you'll get doused,' was Mr. Mugridge's parting
injunction as I left the galley with a big teapot 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 amidships 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 companionway 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 teapot was still in my
hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was
consuming 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, anyw'y? 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 mama'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 kneecap 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 up
to the size of an apple, 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 sometime.'
  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 after the foundering of the Martinez. Under
ordinary circumstances, after all that I had undergone I should have
been a fit subject for a funeral.
  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 should have been lying on the
broad of my back, with a surgeon attending 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 or 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 similar in all respects.
I have related this in order to show the mental caliber of the men
with whom I was thrown in contact. Intellectually they were
children, inhabiting the physical bodies 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 seasick 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 my
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
labor, or scullion labor, 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 bookworm; 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 dishwashing. 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 in advance 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 headlines 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-by 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 bygone years. My
imagination ran riot, and still I could not sleep. And it was a
long, long night, weary and dreary and long.
                        CHAPTER FIVE.

  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 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 semidarkness, 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 yer 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 yer come, a pore mis'rable specimen of 'uman scum, an' I tykes
yer into my galley an' treats yer 'andsome, an' this is wot I get
for it. Nex' time yer can go to 'ell, say I, an' I've a good mind to
give yer what-for, anyw'y.'
  So saying, he put up his fists and started for me. To my eternal
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 mama's darlin'!
I won't 'it her; 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
southwest, into that portion of the sea where he expected to pick up
with the northeast 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 in time to save the deck. 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, Darwin, 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 and
Reed & Kellogg; 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. 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 lookout. 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 forever.'
  '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 jellyfish 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 masters 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, or 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 favorable 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 today, 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 forever. 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 man amidships.
                        CHAPTER SIX.

  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 northeast,
from which direction the great trade-wind must blow.
  The men are all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for
the season's hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the captain's
dinghy 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 most
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 unsavory 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 in 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,- ''t is the
worst schooner ye could iv selected; nor were ye drunk at the time, as
was I. 'T is 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 an' the stanchion there, this Wolf Larsen is a regular devil,
an' the Ghost'll be a hell-ship like she's always be'n 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
egg-shell. 'T is the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen- the great big
beast mentioned iv in Revelations; 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- 't is what he is. He's not black-hearted, like some
men. 'T is no heart he has at all. Wolf, just wolf, 't is 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 't
wasn'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, an' 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 't is 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 cuttin' up iv jinks an' rowin' round. He's the boy'll fix
'em. 'T is 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? 'T was 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 't was 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 today, an'
tomorrow 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. ''T is nothin' I've
said. Deef I am, an' 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, an' 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 for'ard 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
certitude of his manhood. It was this that made him protest, at the
beginning of our acquaintance, against being called Yonson. And upon
this and him Louis passed judgment and prophecy.
  ''T is a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we've for'ard with
us,' he said. 'The best sailorman in the fo'c's'le. 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, an'
there'll be always some telltale carryin' word iv it aft to the
Wolf. The Wolf is strong, an' it's the way of a wolf to hate strength,
an' strength is is he'll see in Johnson- no knucklin' under, an' 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," and' 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 an' a friendly glass. "Mugridge,"
says 'e to me, "Mugridge," says 'e, "you've missed yer vocytion." "an'
ow's that?" says 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 says, 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 with great circumspection what I ate, choosing
from the least dirty of his concoctions.
  My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work.
The nails were discolored 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 to 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 discolored 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 has 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 on the peak-halyards to the end of the gaff
itself, a very hazardous performance.
  Johansen called out to Harrison to go out on 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
whiplash.
  Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him,
but hesitated. It was probably the first time in his life he had
been aloft. 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 in
every limb as with ague. 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 slightly 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 or steady enough to keep the
sail full. When he was halfway 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 amidships. 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. 'Look at
his gills.'
  In truth Harrison was very sick, as a person is seasick; and for a
long time 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- ' He paused a while, 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 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 counseled 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 companionway, 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.'
  'Aye, aye, 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 of 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- 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 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 imperiled 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 seasickness, 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 eat 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 overestimated, since it is of necessity
prejudiced in its own favor. 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 SEVEN.

  AT LAST, AFTER THREE DAYS of variable winds, we caught the northeast
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 with
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,
was the speed we were making; and ever out of the northeast the
brave wind blew, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty
miles between the dawns. It saddened me and gladdened me, the gait
with which we were leaving San Francisco behind and with which we were
foaming down upon the tropics. Each day grew perceptibly warmer. In
the second dog-watch the sailors came on deck, stripped, and threw
buckets of water upon one another from overside. Flying-fish were
beginning to be seen, and during the night the watch above scrambled
over the deck in pursuit of those that fell aboard. In the morning,
Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley was pleasantly areek
with the odor of their frying, while dolphin meat was served fore
and aft on such occasions as Johnson caught the blazing beauties
from the bowsprit end.
  Johnson seemed to spend all his spare time there, or aloft at the
cross-trees, watching the Ghost cleaving the water under her press
of sail. There was passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he went
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 were moving with us in stately procession.
  The days and nights were all 'a wonder and a wild delight,' and
though I had little time from my dreary work, I stole odd moments to
gaze and gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the
world possessed. Above, the sky was stainless blue- blue as the sea
itself, which, under the forefoot, was of the color and sheen of azure
satin. All around the horizon were 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, or 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! Tomorrow I shall pay for it as the drunkard pays,
as the miser clutching for a pot of gold pays on waking to penury. And
I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely; cease crawling of
myself, to be all acrawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed
upon, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles, that
they 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 have 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 plowed on her way. I
noted that 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 deepwater 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.
                        CHAPTER EIGHT.

  SOMETIMES I THOUGHT Wolf Larsen mad, or half mad at least, what with
his strange moods and vagaries. At other times I took him for a
great man, a genius who had never arrived. And, finally, I was
convinced that he was 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 was certainly an individualist
of the most pronounced type. Not only that, but he was very lonely.
There was no congeniality between him and the rest of the men aboard
ship; his tremendous virility and mental strength walled him apart.
They were more like children to him, even the hunters, and as children
he treated them, descending perforce to their level and playing with
them as a man plays with puppies. Or else he probed them with the
cruel hand of a vivisectionist, groping about in their mental
processes and examining their souls as though to see of what this
soul-stuff was made.
  I had 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 was convinced that they were
not real, that they were sometimes experiments, but that in the main
they were the habits of a pose or attitude he had seen fit to take
toward his fellowmen. I knew, with the possible exception of the
incident of the dead mate, that I had not seen him really angry; nor
did I wish ever to see him in a genuine rage, when all the force of
him would be 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, like a timid specter.
  '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 whiskey 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
'an'somely, sir,' was the way he put it; 'p'yed 'an'somely to sling my
'ook an' keep slingin' it.'
  I had brought the customary liquor-glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned,
shook his head, and signaled with his hands for me to bring the
tumblers. These he filled two thirds full with undiluted whiskey,-
'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 whiskey, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do not
know whether Wolf Larsen cheated,- 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 Johansen 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 favored 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 conversations 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's 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 though 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 in 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 certitude 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
vigor 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
companionway, 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 tonight. 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 NINE.

  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.
'T is just as you're thinkin' you know him an' are makin' a
favorable slant along him that he whirls around, dead ahead, an' comes
howlin' down upon you an' 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 overbold, 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 became
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 lurid 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 paralyzed, 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 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 forearm 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 defense. But Leach
took it quite calmly, though his 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 demeanor 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 backward- 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 favoritism 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 forever. You are a god, and a 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, 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 lazaret, 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.' He shot a glance
in my direction to see if I was taking it in, and went on with a
gory narrative of his prowess.
  A call from the mate interrupted him, 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 favored me with a vicious stare. Still
calmly, though my heart was going pit-a-pat, 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, 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, soft-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a
mouse, advised me to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward, 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 outer my galley door, 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 TEN.

  MY INTIMACY WITH Wolf Larsen increased, if by intimacy may be
denoted those relations which exist between master and man, or, better
yet, between king and jester. I was to him no more than a toy, and
he valued me no more than a child values a toy. My function was to
amuse, and so long as I amused all went well; but let him become
bored, or let him have one of his black moods come upon him, and at
once I was relegated from cabin table to galley, while, at the same
time, I was fortunate to escape with my life and a whole body.
  The loneliness of the man was slowly being borne in upon me. There
was not a man aboard but hated or feared him, nor was there a man whom
he did not despise. He seemed consuming with the tremendous power that
was in him and that seemed never to have found adequate expression
in works. He was as Lucifer would be, were that proud spirit
banished to a society of soulless, Tomlinsonian ghosts.
  This loneliness was bad enough in itself, but, to make it worse,
he was oppressed by the primal melancholy of the race. Knowing him,
I reviewed the old Scandinavian myths with clearer understanding.
The white-skinned, fair-haired savages who created that terrible
pantheon were of the same fiber as he. The frivolity of the
laughter-loving Latins was no part of him. When he laughed it was from
a humor that was nothing else than ferocious. But he laughed rarely;
he was too often sad. And it was a sadness as deep-reaching as the
roots of the race. It was the race heritage, the sadness which had
made the race sober-minded, clean-lived, and fanatically moral.
  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 were denied Wolf Larsen. His brutal materialism would
not permit it. So, when his blue moods came on, nothing remained for
him but to be devilish. Had he not been so terrible a man, I could
sometimes have felt sorry for him, as, for instance, one morning
when I went into his state-room 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 finished the
finishing touches. Want to see it work?'
  'But what is it?' I asked.
  'A labor-saving device for mariners, navigation reduced to
kindergarten simplicity,' he answered gaily. 'From today a child
will be able to navigate a ship. No more long-winded calculations. All
you need is one star in the sky on 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 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 incline 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 to
both 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 among
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, reveling 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 beginning of my outburst and
followed me complacently until I had done and stood before him
breathless and dismayed. He waited a moment, as though seeing 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 meagerness 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 sought 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's'le; 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 ELEVEN.

  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 rumored, where
she will fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season's hunt
along the coast of Japan. The hunters have experimented and
practiced with their rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied,
and the boat-pullers and steerers have made their sprit-sails, 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, which carries fourteen boats, where 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 black-birding and open piracy. Yet I
cannot but believe Louis, for I have never yet caught him in a lie,
while he has a cyclopedic 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. Also, I am suffering from boils, due to the
diet most likely, for I was never so afflicted 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 from Ecclesiastes the passage beginning: 'I gathered me also
silver and gold.'
  '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, or 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 were 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 catch you by the throat thus,'- his hand was about my throat,
and my breath was shut off,- 'and begin 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 TWELVE.

  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. Wolf
Larsen disturbed the equilibrium, and evil passions flared up like
flame in prairie-grass.
  Thomas Mugridge was proving himself a sneak, a spy, an informer.
He attempted to curry favor 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, had 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 the shock of sudden surprise. I had just
finished sweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf Larsen
into a discussion of Hamlet, his favorite Shakespearean 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 middle 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.
  I noticed an 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 revolving 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,- 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. '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.'
  At this Larsen sprang from the sitting posture like a wild animal, a
tiger, and like a tiger covered the intervening space in 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 ax. He almost fell backward, and
swayed from side to side in an effort to recover his balance.
  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 phenomenon 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. And when Johnson 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,' Larsen 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 doors, and out on deck. Louis, his boat-mate, gave a turn of
the wheel and gazed imperturbably into the binnacle.
  Not so George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. Fore and aft there was
nothing that could have surprised us more than his consequent
behavior. 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.
  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, as the boy
hurled his imprecations recklessly full in the face of the captain,
who had 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.
  Leach went on, indicting 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 to 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 savored of a medieval
excommunication of the Catholic Church. He ran the gamut of
denunciation, rising to heights of wrath, and from sheer exhaustion
sinking to the most indecent abuse.
  Everybody looked for Larsen 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! 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, and turned to Leach, saying:
  'Such language! 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 pommeling 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 did not change,- nor
did his position. 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. And no one interfered. Leach could have
killed the Cockney, 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
program. 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 anesthetics and with no more to uphold them than a
stiff tumbler of whiskey.
  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
that 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 wound up with a fight between
Johansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. It was caused
by some 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.
                        CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  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 were 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 his missed the railing, and
his hand, with his weight behind it, landed squarely on the hot
surface.
  'Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot 'ave I done?' he wailed, sitting down in the
coalbox 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 harmless an' 'urtin' nobody.'
  The tears were running down his puffed and discolored 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 what he
was? And as though answering my unspoken thought, he wailed:
  'I never 'ad no chance, nor 'arf a chance! 'Oo was there to send
me to school, or put tommy in my 'ungry bell 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!' he shouted in my face, flinging off the hand. 'It's
a lie, an' 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 a
gnawin' an' gnawin', like a rat, inside yer. It carn't come right.
If I was President of the United Stytes to-morrer, low would it fill
my belly for one time w'en I was a kiddy an' it went empty?
  ''Ow could it, I s'y? I was born to sufferin' and' sorrer. I've
'ad 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, an' rotten with
it six months in Barbados. Smallpox in 'Onolulu, two broken legs in
Shanghai, pneumonia 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.
  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 groveled to Johansen. Not so 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 embedded 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 hundred 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 so magnificent an animal as he should have
headaches at all puzzled me.
  ''T is the hand of God, I'm tellin' you,' was the way Louis saw
it. ''T is a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, an' there's
more behind an' comin', or else-'
  'Or else,' I prompted.
  'God is noddin' an' 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 did Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but
he had 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 gray eyes and shook his head
portentously.
  'She's a-comin', I tell you, an' it'll be sheets an' halyards, stand
by all hands, when she begins to howl. I've had the feel iv it this
long time, an' I can feel it now as plainly as I feel the riggin' iv a
dark night. She's close, she's close.'
  'Who goes first?' I queried.
  'Not old fat Louis, I promise you,' he laughed. 'For 't is 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
lusterless, hopeless eyes into mine.
                        CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

  IT DAWNED UPON ME THAT I had 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 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 sisters and wives
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 overdeveloped. The other and
spiritual side of their natures has been dwarfed- atrophied, in fact.
  Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with
Johansen last night- the first superfluous words with which he has
favored 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.
  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 sigh, as of awakening, caught his
breath.
  'You better get on your course, then,' I chided.
  He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing
slowly to NNW 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 rose 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.
  '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 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 lookout.
  'Who's lookout?' 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's 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 periods 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 odor 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 starboard side. In the top one
lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and a 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. Only the eyes 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
raise 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 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 groveling
conduct on deck for the last 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 labored breathing, the
short quick gasps of sudden pain.
  There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the
captain and the mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and
Johnson had been quickly reinforced.
  '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 very life. 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 a lower bunk out of the way.
  'All hands! We've got him! We've got him!' I could hear Leach
crying.
  'Who?' asked those who had been asleep.
  'It's the bloody mate!' was Leach's crafty answer. The words were
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.
  'What's the row there?' I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle,
too cautious to descend into the inferno.
  '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.
  '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. Larsen and the lantern
disappeared, and we were left in darkness.
                        CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

  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, 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' 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. Exposing his beautiful
white teeth in a grin, he explained that the wounds had come from
striking Wolf Larsen in the mouth.
  'So it was you, was it, you black beggar?' belligerently demanded
Kelly, an Irish-American and a longshoreman making his first trip, and
puller for Kerfoot.
  As he made the demand he shoved his pugnacious face close to
Oofty-oofty. The Kanaka leaped backward to his bunk, to return with
a 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- 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
reputation for strife and action.
  'How did he get away?' said Johnson.
  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.
  '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 had a lively fear of consequences, 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 an' 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 tomorrow- 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 heared a row, jumped out of my bunk, got
a jolly good crack on the jaw for my pains, an' sailed in myself.
Couldn't tell who or what it was in the dark an' just hit out.'
  'An' 't was me you hit, of course,' Kelly seconded, his face
brightening.
  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 an' did something with yer hands, he'd 'a' be'n
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' an' bellerin' round
as though he'd kill you when he gets you! You know he won't. Can't
afford to. No shippin'-masters or beachcombers over here, an' he wants
yer in his business, an' he wants yer bad. Who's to pull or steer or
sail ship if he loses yer? It's me an' 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. 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 scuttle:
  'Hump, the Old Man wants you.'
  'He ain't down here!' said Parsons.
  '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 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 have seen and heard nothing, believe me,' I said quietly.
  'I tell yer, he's all right,' I could hear Leach say as I went up.
'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 his whimsical smile.
  'Come, get to work, doctor. The signs are favorable for an extensive
practice this voyage. I don't know what the Ghost would have been
without you, and if I could cherish such noble sentiments, I'd tell
you that 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.
  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, Oofty-Oofty had been the only one whose lines were at all
pleasing, while, in so far as they pleased, 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.
  He noticed me, and I became aware 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. Feel them,' he commanded.
  They were as 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 not to be killed.
Purpose? Utility is the 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 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 two 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.
  '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 SIXTEEN.

  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 not the sailors 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 a
specially 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 must 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 only 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 maneuver, 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 done, 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 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
landlubber 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 paint-brush, 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 marlinespike from the main-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 companionway, 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
shotgun, 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. But
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 ye're square, Mr. Van Weyden. But stay where you are an'
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 favor sometime
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 sometime 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 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 the
crew of one of the boats, and their task was to play 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 most cold-blooded exhibition of marksmanship. At first
their bullets zipped harmlessly along the surface of the water on each
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 shattered
as he shot. Henderson duplicated his feat, selecting Harrison's
right oar. The boat slued around. The two remaining oars were
quickly broken. The men tried to row with the spinters, 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 in 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 favor, 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, an' you'll have no
trouble. Tell him I lived to be sorry for the trouble I brought him
an' the things I done, an'- an' 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! Over and done
with! I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea,
with the certitude that sooner or later I should be sinking down,
down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion.
                        CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

  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
traveling north on its annual migration to the rookeries of Bering
Sea. And north we traveled 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 splattered high with the
sanguinary color; 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 shipshape 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 virtually
nothing, and from which I had always shrunk. I had learned to look
more closely at life as it is 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 fanwise 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 would have fair wind to run for us in case of squalls for
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
lookout 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 to the masthead, and in the clinging on
by my legs at that precarious height while I swept the sea with the
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 f'c's'le.'
  By eleven o'clock the sea had became 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 overtowered us like some black sierra of the
infernal regions. So clearly could one see canon, gorge, and
precipice, and the shadows that lay therein, that one looked
unconsciously for the white surf-line and bellowing caverns where
the sea charges forever 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
up 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 pygmy out of the 'Arabian Nights' before the
huge front of some malignant jinnee. He was daring destiny, and he was
unafraid.
  He walked to the galley.
  'Cooky,' I heard him say, '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 whiskey, 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, and Wolf Larsen's face glowed in the purplish
light. 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 fore-boom- 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 northwest, and it
was his intention to jibe over 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 southwest, 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 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. Might as well get some of that
head-sail off of her,' Larsen added, and turned to Mugridge: 'Cooky,
run down that flying jib and staysail, and make the downhauls good and
fast.'
  I contented 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 so 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 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 signaled 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 he 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 mountin 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
recurrent 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 overtopped 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 foretopsail, emptied of the wind by the
maneuver, and with no one to bring in the sheet in time, were
thundering into ribbons, the heavy boom thrashing 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 mainsheet, 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 jibsheet. The jib itself was beginning to slap, partly
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. Either the downhauls had
been carelessly made fast by Mugridge, or else the pins carried
away, for, while I pulled till I burst open the ends of all my
fingers, the flying jib and staysail filled and fluttered with the
wind, 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 wrack 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 each 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 mainsheet. You, Kerfoot, go for'ard and see what's
become of Cooky. Mr. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut away any
stray stuff in 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,
with the Ghost almost on her beam-ends, and the masts parallel with
the water, I looked, not down, but at 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 the boat. 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, 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 maneuver, 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.
  'No. 4 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 main-sheet! 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
pin-rail at the foot of the foremast. My fingers were torn loose,
and I was 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 maneuver. 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 among 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 whiskey and
crunched hardtack. 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
cabin as though it had been the deck.
  'To- with a lookout,' 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 companionway.
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 would 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 EIGHTEEN.

  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. Also, a new galley was being constructed out of odds and
ends of lumber from the hold. 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 that they had picked up and that 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 north, we began to encounter the dreaded sea-fogs.
Day after day the boats were lowered and swallowed up almost before
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
as 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 me, 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 center 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 transpacific 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 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-northwest 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
waterbreakers 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-northwest, 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 lookout.
  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 shotgun 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. 'It's a pretty one we've got now.'
  '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 exclamation 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 windward and
the mainsheet 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 burned the face scarlet.
  She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a
hungry outreaching 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
newcomers aboard. For when one of the sailors lifted her into Wolf
Larsen's down-stretched 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
deprivation, 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 armchair, 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 tomorrow. 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 remarks,
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 thunder-clap, 'Boat ho!' came
down the open companionway. It was Smoke's unmistakable voice,
crying from the masthead. I shot a glance at the woman, but she was
leaning back in the armchair, 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 reefpoints, as the Ghost shot into the wind and about on the
other tack. As she filled away and heeled, the armchair 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 armchair 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 NINETEEN.

  I CAME ON DECK TO FIND THE GHOST heading up close on the port tack
and cutting in to windward of a familiar sprit-sail 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 of it, sir,' he
answered, 'with a splatter of 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 turned a spoke of the wheel and temporized.
  'They'd never of 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.
''T is no eggshell'll float on this sea an hour come. An' it's a
stroke of 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 knew 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 in to 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 the 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 that he was.
'If I promise not to lay hands upon Leach and Johnson, 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.
  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, and 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 as strong as ever on his face.
  Then they were gone astern. The sprit-sail filled with the wind
suddenly, careening the frail, open craft till it seemed it would
surely capsize.
  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 tood 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 we went about on the starboard tack.
  Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling
cockleshell, when the flying jib was run down and the schooner hove
to. In all that wild waste there was no refuge for Leach and Johnson
save on the Ghost, and they resolutely began the windward beat. At the
end of an hour and a half they were 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.
  ''T is the fear of death at the hearts of 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.
  Louis looked at me shrewdly. 'Think so?' he asked.
  'Surely,' I answered. 'Don't you?'
  'I think nothing but of my own skin, these days,' was his answer.
'An' 't is with wonder I'm filled as to the workin' out of 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. 'An' it's you that asks me! 'T is not
what I mean, but what the Wolf'll mean. The Wolf, I said, the Wolf!'
  'If trouble comes, will you stand by?' asked impulsively, for he had
voiced my own fear.
  'Stand by? 'T is old fat Louis I stand by, an' trouble enough
it'll be. We're at the beginnin' of things, I'm tellin' ye, the bare
beginnin' of things.'
  'I had not thought you so great a coward,' I sneered.
  He favored 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. 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 harbor. But the
men were no longer eager as they pulled and hauled, and I heard curses
among 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 TWENTY.

  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-chest, 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 as 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 wabbling, 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 square in the eyes.
  There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, the
ears ceased wabbling, and though eyes remained 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, bowing 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.
  'It is unfortunate,' I said, '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 of 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 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 and 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
favored 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 for a
living?'
  She regarded him with amazement unconcealed.
  'I mean no offense, 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 felt that I must in some way break in and
lead the conversation into other channels.
  'Have you ever earned a dollar by your own labor?' 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.'
  '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 rememberance but stinging
sharp with homesickness.
  '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 TWENTY-ONE.

  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 or 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 messages and concoctions of the vilest order.
Conditions favored 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 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 hurling 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, was brought down to the 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 after each lift
the stern fell, and while the bow lazily climbed the next wave the
line slackened 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 a 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. The right foot was missing, amputated neatly at
the ankle!
  I looked instantly at 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 that 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,' 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
must 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,
beyond several 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 TWENTY-TWO.

  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 grim
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 ax, and kill this man?'
  She 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, or 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 before 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 "Plowman."
  '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 Ring." 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 TWENTY-THREE.

  BRAVE WINDS, BLOWING FAIR, swiftly drove the Ghost northward into
the sealherd. 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 or 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 were lowered day after
day, were swallowed up in the gray 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 gray. 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 before 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 maneuvered 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 specter.
  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 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, 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
lift and downput of his feet. He was cat-footed, 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 companionway. 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 gray and cold and harsh, they were now warm and soft and
golden, and all adance with tiny lights that dimmed and faded, or
welled up till the full orbs were flooded with a flowing radiance.
Perhaps it was to this that the golden color was due; but golden his
eyes were, enticing and masterful, at the same time luring and
compelling, and speaking a demand and clamor 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 color and the
dancing lights were gone. Cold and gray 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 skeptical, my mind
flew back to a small note in a biographical directory, 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. These 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
esthetic 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 would have
been no less than an ecstasy, I left my post at the head of the
companionway 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.
  'Sleepwalking, sunstroke- what?' he barked.
  'No; indigestion,' I retorted, and continued my walk as if nothing
untoward had occurred.
                        CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

  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 court
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 companionway.
  '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 centered 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 the 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 shotguns, and saw the sail go up again. The seals were thick,
the wind dying away; everything favored 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 and 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 out 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 of
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 fear of betraying myself. A small
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
oldtime 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 payday brings them- the women and the drink, the gorging
and the beastliness which so truly express 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 has 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 yourselves. 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 knew only 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 give greater delight. And,
after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, living
is a worthless act. To labor at living and be paid 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 most gratifying than are my
facts to me.'
  He shook his head slowly, pondering.
  '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 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 a 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 for the penalty which the materialist ever
pays for his materialism.
                        CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

  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 companionway. '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 northwest.'
  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 had 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
shotguns 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 behavior. 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
northeast, 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 cripped 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 meager body to splintered
wreckage, and yet the spark of light within burned as 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 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' d- 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
maneuver, for the free sea was 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 and 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
northeastern 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 aboard 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 main-sheet.
  '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- two hundred and forty 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
companionway. 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
companionway, 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 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 defense
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 companionway, 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 percent 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 favored by a quick look. He was wondering if
I was 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, 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, 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 traveled 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 leveled 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 before 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 out 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. Have you 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 northeast.
  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 marshaled forward into the forecastle by our
hunters, while our sailors hoisted in the boats, 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.
                        CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

  THERE WAS NEED FOR HASTE. The Macedonia, belching the blackest of
smoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of the
northeast. 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 leapt 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 rumor 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 cannonball
striking not more than twenty feet astern and glancing twice from
sea to sea to windward before 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 gray mist drove by us like a rain.
Every woolen filament of our garments, every hair of our heads and
faces, was jeweled with a crystal globule. The shrouds were wet with
moisture; it dripped from our rigging overhead; and on the under
side 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
that one felt impelled to reach out both arms and push them back. It
was impossible that the rest could be beyond these walls of gray.
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 alee,' was passed forward to
me from man to man; and the Ghost heeled about on the port tack with
virtually 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 skyline. But the ocean was bare. No wrathful
Macedonia broke its surface or 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 reenter 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 mainsails 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
maneuver and failing for 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 tonight.
  '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 newcomers 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
tomorrow, 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 today
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.'
  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 foreshortening 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
those of a deer; 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 newcomers 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
groveled 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 with 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, Larsen
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 lookout 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 has 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 as clear
blue as the sky, his bronze skin 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 stronger 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 was the
stronger 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 color, but tonight 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 knew 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 quoting when Louis put
his head into the companionway and whispered down:
  'Be easy, will ye? The fog's lifted, an' 't is 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
clamor 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 search-light,' 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 each other 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 analyzed 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 Luficer 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 figurehead. 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 clamor in the
steerage and marveled 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, straining and
struggling and crushed in the embrace of Wolf Larsen's arms. Her
face was forcibly upturned. I could see the vain beat and flutter of
her as she strove, by pressing her face against his breast, to
escape his lips. 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 that 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 for 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 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 d- 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 happened 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?'
  'Wait 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. 'Nothing is 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. '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 stateroom.
  The lazaret 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 reentered Wolf Larsen's
state-room to get his rifle and shotgun. I spoke to him, but he made
no answer, though his head was still rocking from side to side and
he was not asleep.
  Next to obtain was a stock of ammunition- an easy matter, though I
had to enter the steerage companionway 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, with 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 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-by 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 leapt 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 sprit-sails
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 TWENTY-SEVEN.

  DAY BROKE, GRAY AND CHILL. The boat was close-hauled on a fresh
breeze, and the compass indicated that it was making just the course
that would bring it 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 jeweled 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 southwest, some six hundred miles, is Japan. If this wind should
hold, we'll make it in five days.'
  '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 no 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 were 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 hairpins!'
  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 cover completely 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
stenciled brows, and its large brown eyes, clear-seeing and calm,
gloriously calm.
  Just then a puff, slightly stronger than usual, struck us. 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 forever. 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 dinnertime,' 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 gray cloud, now of gray 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 '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 said.
  Then 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 southwest and thought of the six hundred miles of
hardship before us- aye, 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 traveling toward Japan,' I answered.
'Our drift is to the southeast, or south-southeast, 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 shall not know where we are by five
hundred miles.'
  Then I begged her pardon and promised I would 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 catnaps. 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 forgot my own life in the love of
another life; and yet, such is the paradox, I never wanted so much
to live as right then when I placed 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
instant's notice.
                        CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

  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 northwest for twenty-four hours, when it fell calm,
and in the night sprang up from the southwest. This was dead in our
teeth, but I took in the sea-anchor and set sail, hauling a course
on the wind that took us in a south-southeasterly direction. It was an
even choice between this and the west-northwesterly course that 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
southwest, 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 baled without cessation. The blankets were
soaking. Everything was wet except Maud, and she, in oilskins,
rubber boots, and souwester, was dry, all but her face and hands and a
stray wisp of hair. She relieved me at the baling-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 northeast, 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 baled 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 that 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 gray 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 insects 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 away 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
northeast. 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 northwest breeze had sprung up
freshly once more; but the strange schooner lost itself on the
skyline, 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
marveling 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 that 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, as 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 northeast. 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
coastline running toward the southeast 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.
  '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, very 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 among 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 that I knew
deceived neither of us. Five minutes later I cried: 'By God! We
shall go clear!'
  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 for the first time 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
traveling 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 that 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 southwest wind; but once around the second,- and we
went perilously close,- 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 landlocked harbor, the water as 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 stem 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 if 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 Endeavor Island, as we called it, land-sick from long custom
of the sea.
                        CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

  '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, nor 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 that 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 with 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
Maud 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 soft but
unfaltering.
  'Please, please!' she said very 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
each side of the cove rose from the deep water.
  Morning broke dull and gray, 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 notebook I tore out a page, and from the ammunition-box took a
shotgun 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 far too busy 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 baling 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 crumpled
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 would 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 that had landed on Endeavor 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 shotgun 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 northeastern
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
southwestern point, the headlands and backbone diminishing regularly
until the northeastern 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 Endeavor 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 THIRTY.

  NO WONDER WE CALLED IT Endeavor 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 that 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 labors of cooking and of
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 that 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 or 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 that turned tail 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 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.
  'Look 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, nor any more than I like the idea of killing
such pretty, inoffensive creatures.'
  'Pretty!' I sniffed. 'I failed to mark anything preeminently
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
paths 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 inland, 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 each side, there were no signs of hostility. It was a rookery
that 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 would have met him
unflinchingly and cooly, and I know that I would have killed him.
  '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
bulls, living out the loneliness of their bacherlorhood 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 him 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 him 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 him 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 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 you are 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 the
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 THIRTY-ONE.

  'IT WILL SMELL,' I SAID, 'but it will keep in the heat and keep
out the rain and snow.'
  We were surveying the completed sealskin 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,' 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
boat-load 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 she declared that
she had never felt better nor 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 as hard as ever. Where she obtained this strength was a 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 that had swung around the
compass from the southeast to the northwest, and that was then blowing
directly in upon us. The beaches of the outer cove were thundering
with the surf, and even in our landlocked 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 even
on Endeavor 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 toward 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?' I said.
  '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 that had not existed before.
                        CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

  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 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), analyzing, 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 Endeavor 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 around 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. 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 shotgun, 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 lazaret 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 companionway 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 companionway, 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 my new fear was increased an hundredfold. 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 leveled the shotgun at him. Had he
moved, attempted to drop down the companionway, I know I should have
shot him. But he stood motionless and staring as before. And as I
faced him, with leveled 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 companionway 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 Endeavor 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, but did not answer.
  'Well, where are all hands?' I asked him. '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 reexamine 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
underarm, 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
lazaret 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 companionway and peeped at him. He was lying as I had left him.
Again I went below; but before I dropped into the lazaret 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 stateroom and possessed myself
of his revolvers. There were no other weapons, though I thoroughly
ransacked the three remaining staterooms. 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 coffeepot 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 simple
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 that 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 THIRTY-THREE.

  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.
  The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign.
  'These headaches of his, these attacks-' Maude 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 by 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? Besides, I myself was 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 that 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 companionway. Cautiously descending, I found the cabin
deserted. The door to his stateroom 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 trapdoor in the
floor and set it to one side. The slopchest, as well as the
provisions, was stored in the lazaret, and I took advantage of the
opportunity to lay in a stock of underclothing.
  As I emerged from the lazaret I heard sounds in Wolf Larsen's
stateroom. I crouched and listened. The doorknob 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 companionway, 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 lazaret. 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 stateroom. I saw his hand miss the doorknob
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 companionway, I
retreated, silently rolling over on top of the cabin.
  He shoved the slide part away back and rested his arms on it, his
body still in the companionway. 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, in 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- and who could 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 out 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 THIRTY-FOUR.

  '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 possibly 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 lazaret.'
  'And you know also how I crept about and avoided him,' I contended
gaily.
  'And lost your shoes.'
  'You'd hardly expect him 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 schooldays, 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 bootstraps. 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 Endeavor
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
tackle I could, if necessary, attach a second 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 humor and the power
of expression, must inevitably command the world's ear. And so it
was that she had commanded. Her sense of humor 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 leaped 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 labor.
  Her task was to hold the boat in position while I worked at the
tangle. And such a tangle- halyards, sheets, guys, downhauls, shrouds,
stays, all washed about and back and forth and through and twined
and knitted 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 restepping 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 on my
philosophy back on me for all it is worth. But don't make the
mistake of underestimating me. For your own good I warn you.'
  'Since when have you become an altruist?' I queried. 'Confess,
now, in warning me for my own good, that you are very inconsistent.'
  He ignored my sarcasm, saying, 'Suppose I clap the hatch on now? You
won't fool me as you did in the lazaret.'
  '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 THIRTY-FIVE.

  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 partway 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 mainthroat-halyards. This, with the
single block and 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 guyropes. This necessitated my
climbing the shears, which I did twice before I finished guying it
fore and aft and to each 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,
tomorrow 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 knew 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, puzzled
over what I had seen in her eyes and 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 campfire, 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 curtsy, 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 clamor 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, 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 tomorrow,
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, virtually 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 line which held them and cast it 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 setback, 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 for'ard.
  '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 THIRTY-SIX.

  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 southwestern 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, virtually every inch of the
way.
  Another day of heartbreaking 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 favorable,
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 sternsheets. 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 leapt 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 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 tonight or tomorrow 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.
  And so it ended, with the phrase she knew had all power over me.
We shivered miserably throughout the night. Now and I again I slept
fitfully, 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
southwest 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 laboring
through a heavy sea toward the island. At half-past three in the
afternoon we passed the southwestern 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 but.
  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 traveling 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 woman 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 I instanced his statement that
he intended to stay and die on Endeavor Island. There had been his
terrific headaches, and we were agreed that it was some sort of
brain breakdown, and that in his attacks he endured path 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 sometime 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 forehold, 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 stern, 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 shorelines, 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 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. Maud even contrived, at
times when all my effort 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 his arms
out for support. He regained his balance by the steerage companionway,
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 heavily
and spasmodically. Maud took charge of him, lifting his head to keep
the blood out of it, and dispatching 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, 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 leapt from my hand, and the hand clasped like
a steel trap about my own 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 bitter 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 the woman's scream of fear and heartbreaking 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 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 consciousness
of his growing impotence, I know not, but his throat vibrated with a
deep groan. The hand at my throat relaxed. I breathed. His hand
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 if 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 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 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 is 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
companionway. 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
stateroom, 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 from 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 THIRTY-SEVEN.

  AT ONCE WE MOVED ABOARD the Ghost, occupying our old staterooms
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 businesslike 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, I was 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 a strange, 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 stroke of the Wolf,' he said. 'I am paralyzed;
I shall never walk again. Oh, only on the right 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 like 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 mouth framed the twisted smile, as he said:
  'Oh, just to be alive, to be living and doing, to be the biggest big
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
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 or tumor or
something of that nature- a thing that devours and destroys. It's
attacking my nerve centers, eating them up, bit by bit, cell by
cell- from the pain.'
  'The motor centers, 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 centers are untouched. I can remember,
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 bedsores.'
  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 his spirit 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 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 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 complete 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
chiseled 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.

  Wolf Larsen had received another stroke. He had lost his voice, or
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 reestablished. 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 virtually 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
climbed them to attach the guys. To the top of the foremast, which was
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, had to be made over.
  While I toiled at rigging the foremast, Maud sewed on the 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 the three-cornered
sail-needle. Her hands were soon sadly blistered, but she struggled
bravely on, and, in addition, did the cooking and took care of the
sick man.
  'A fig for superstition,' I said on Friday morning. 'That mast
goes in today.'
  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 said. '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 center 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. Once more Maud rectified the twist with the watch-tackle, and
once more 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 companionway.
  '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
stranglehold. 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 in my hand and felt for him. 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 partly 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
companionway. 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, half carrying her, I took her up the companionway. 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
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 smoldering 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 bulk, 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 a sepulcher,
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 THIRTY-EIGHT.

  '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,' 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 Hindu
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,'- skeptical 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, 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 shall know with 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, '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 sailmaker. 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 textbooks 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 faint 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 the 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 THIRTY-NINE.

  THE DAY CAME FOR OUR DEPARTURE. There was no longer anything to
detain us on Endeavor 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 also a phrase of your father's.'
  She shook her head and laughed, 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 honor,' 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. Willfully had it disobeyed
and won my eyes to speech, and now it was winning my tongue- aye,
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,' 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 maneuver 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 cover, 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 cover. Once again about, and the Ghost headed out to open
sea. She had now caught the bosom-breathing of the ocean, and was
herself abreath 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 Endeavor Island
brightened under the sun. Even the grim southwestern 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 sad, 'Dear, dear
Endeavor 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 which 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 main-sheets,
took in on the boom-tackles, and trimmed everything for the quartering
breeze which was ours. 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 heartbroken 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. 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, 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
sorry, 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
further 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.
  I was famished, but Maud tried vainly to get me to eat. 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. In fact,
I was aware of nothing till I awoke in my bunk, with my boots off.
It was dark. I was stiff and lame, and cried out with pain when the
bedclothes 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 awoke, 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 behavior 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-by, 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 provisions 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 rested 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