Crossing from Nova Scotia

. I scarcely know where to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit. In mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never occupied it except when he loafed through the winter mouths and read Nietzsche and. When summer came on, he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to toil incessantly. 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.The danger lay in the heavy fog which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little apprehension. 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.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. I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labour which made it unnecessary for Me to study fogs, winds, tides, and navigation, in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea. It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. 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. 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. there it was again, the division of labour, the special knowledge of the pilot and captain which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special knowledge on Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to San. A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of calling "The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea For The Artist." The red-faced man shot a glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around at the fog, stumped across the deck and back (he evidently had artificial legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide apart, and with an expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong when I decided that his days had been spent on the sea. "It's nasty weather like this here that turns heads grey before their time," he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house. "I had not thought there was any particular strain," I answered. They know the direction by compass, the. I should not call it anything more than. He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward against the air as he. "How about this here tide that's rushin ' out through the Golden Gate. From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. seemed straight ahead, was now sounding from the side. blowing hoarsely, and from time to time the sound of other whistles came to. "That's a ferry-boat of some sort," the new-comer said, indicating a now hell's a poppin ' for somebody. The unseen ferry-boat was blowing blast after blast, and the mouth-blown Horn was tooting in terror-stricken fashion. "and now they're payin ' their respects to each other and tryin ' to get clear," the red-faced man went on, as the hurried whistling ceased. His face was shining, his eyes flashing with excitement as he translated into articulate language the speech of the horns and sirens. "That's a steam- sirens a -goin ' it over there to the left. 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. paddle-wheels stopped, their pulsing beat died away, and then they started. 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. "One of them dare-devil launches," he said. They're the cause of more trouble. Any jackass gets aboard one and runs it from hell to breakfast, blowin ' his whistle to beat the band and tellin ' the rest of the world to look out for him, because he's comin ' and can't look out for himself. and you've got to look out, too. They don't know the meanin ' of it. I felt quite amused at his unwarranted choler, and while he stumped indignantly up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the fog. romantic it certainly was - the fog, like the grey shadow of infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth. and men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for work, riding their steeds of Wood and Steel through the heart of the mystery, groping their way blindly through the Unseen, and clamouring and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with incertitude and fear. The voice of my companion brought Me back to myself with a laugh. had been groping and floundering, the while I thought I rode clear-eyed. Somebody comin ' our way, "he was saying. The fresh breeze was blowing right down upon us, and I could hear the whistle plainly, off to one side and a little ahead. He nodded, then added, "Or he wouldn't be keepin ' up such a clip. 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. 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. seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on either side like seaweed on the snout of. I could see the pilot-house and a white-bearded man leaning. He was clad in a blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he was. 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. On looking back, I realize that the remark was too obvious to make. "Grab hold of something and hang on," the red-faced man said to Me his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of. "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. have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. sharply, and there was a crashing and rending of timber. on the wet deck, and before I could scramble to my feet I heard the scream. This it was, I am certain, the most indescribable of blood-curdling sounds, that threw Me into a panic. 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. is as distinct and sharp as that of any picture I have seen. picture, and I can see it now, the jagged edges of the hole in the side of the cabin, through which the grey fog swirled and eddied. the empty upholstered seats, littered with all the evidences of sudden flight, such as packages, hand satchels, umbrellas, and wraps. the stout gentleman who had been reading my essay, encased in cork and canvas, the magazine still in his hand, and asking Me with monotonous insistence if I thought there was any danger. the red-faced man, stumping gallantly around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all corners. and finally, the screaming. This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my nerves. must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man, for I have another picture which will never fade from my mind. the magazine into his overcoat pocket and looking on curiously. 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. I remember the scene impelled Me to sudden laughter, and in the next instant I realized I was becoming hysterical myself. for these were women of my own kind, like my mother and sisters, with the fear of death upon them. And 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. most sublime emotions, of the tenderest sympathies, were open-mouthed and. They wanted to live, they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and. The horror of it drove Me out on deck. 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. read descriptions of such scenes in books. 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. Nothing was to be seen of the strange steamboat which had caused the disaster, though I heard men saying that she would undoubtedly send. The Martinez Was Sinking Fast, for the. Numbers of the passengers were leaping overboard. Others, in the water, were clamouring to be taken aboard again. A cry arose that we were sinking. consequent panic, and went over the side in a surge of bodies. 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 pang, as I plunged into it, was as quick and. 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. People were struggling and floundering in the. I could hear them crying out to one another. Evidently the strange steamboat had lowered its. As the time went by I marvelled that I was still alive. 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. 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. I could hear no calls or cries - only the sound of the waves, made weirdly hollow and reverberant by the fog. 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. The red-faced man had said that the tide was ebbing through the. Was I, then, being carried out to sea. Was it not liable to go to pieces at any moment. heard of such things being made of paper and hollow rushes which quickly became saturated and lost all buoyancy. And I Could Not Swim A stroke. was alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. I confess that a madness seized Me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked, and beat the water with my numb hands. How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness intervened, of which I remember no more than one remembers of troubled and painful. 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 I tried to cry out, but was too exhausted. bow plunged down, just missing Me and sending a swash of water clear over my. Then the long, black side of the vessel began slipping past, so near that I could have touched it with my hands. resolve to claw into the Wood with my nails, but my arms were heavy and. Again I Strove To Call Out, but made no sound. The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping, as it did so, into a hollow between the waves. And I Caught A glimpse Of A man Standing At the Wheel, and of another man who seemed to be doing little else than smoke a cigar. saw the smoke issuing from his lips as he slowly turned his head and glanced out over the water in my direction. 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. 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 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. tangent to its former course and leapt almost instantly from view into the. I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and tried with all the power of my will to fight above the suffocating blankness and darkness that. A little later I heard the stroke of oars, growing nearer and nearer, and the calls of a man. When he was very near I heard him crying, in vexed fashion, "Why in hell don't you sing out. thought, and then the blankness and darkness rose over Me I seemed swinging in a mighty rhythm through orbit vastness. points of light spluttered and shot past Me they were stars, I knew, and flaring comets, that peopled my flight among the suns. limit of my swing and prepared to rush back on the counter swing, a great. For an immeasurable period, lapped in the rippling of placid centuries, I enjoyed and pondered my tremendous flight. But a change came over the face of the dream, for a dream I told myself. My rhythm grew shorter and shorter. counter swing with irritating haste. fiercely was I impelled through the heavens. I grew to await it with a nameless dread. Then it seemed as though I were being dragged over rasping sands, white and. This gave place to a sense of intolerable anguish. was scorching in the torment of fire. The gong clanged and knelled. sparkling points of light flashed past Me in an interminable stream, as though the whole sidereal system were dropping into the void. caught my breath painfully, and opened my eyes. Two men were kneeling beside. My mighty rhythm was the lift and forward plunge of a the terrific gong was a frying- pan-, hanging on the wall, that rattled and clattered with each leap of the ship. scorching sands were a man's hard hands chafing my naked chest. 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. "That'll do, Yonson," one of the men said. bloomin ' well rubbed all the gent's skin orf. The man addressed as yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, ceased chafing Me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who had spoken to him was clearly a cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with his. 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." 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. The rattle and bang of the frying- pan- was grating. 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- rank to the offending utensil, unhooked it, and wedged it securely into the. The Cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my hand a steaming mug with an "' Ere, this'll do yer good. ship's coffee, but the heat of it was revivifying. molten stuff I glanced down at my raw and bleeding chest and turned to the. Yonson, "I said. "but don't you think your measures. It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than of my words, that he held up his palm for inspection. 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. 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. "Yes, sir," he answered, with cheerful alacrity. tyke a look over my kit, if you've no objections, sir, to wearin ' my. 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- face as oily. fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later to learn, was probably the most salient expression of his personality." I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to be one. "What vessel is this, and where is she bound. "Off the Farallones, heading about sou- post," he answered, slowly and methodically, as though groping for his best English, and rigidly observing. "The schooner Ghost, bound seal-hunting to Japan. I must see him as soon as I am dressed. Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. "The cap'n is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. But you better speak soft with him. "Better sling yer ' ook out of ' ere, Yonson," he said. be wantin ' yer on deck, an ' this ayn't no d'y to fall foul of ' im. Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the cook's shoulder, favouring Me with an amazingly solemn and portentous wink as though to emphasize his interrupted remark and the need for Me to be soft-spoken with the captain. Hanging over the cook's arm was a loose and crumpled array of evil- looking and sour-smelling garments. "They was put aw'y wet, sir," he vouchsafed explanation. ' ave to make them do till I dry yours out by the fire. Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and aided by the Cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollen undershirt. instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from the harsh contact. 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 I was bloomin ' well sure you was a gentleman as I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress Me there was something repulsive about his touch. shrank from his hand. my flesh revolted. and between this and the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling on the galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air. Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about what arrangements could be made for getting Me ashore. A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured with what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on Me amid a running and. A pair of workman's brogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other. 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. completely arrayed, a tiny boy's cap on my head, and for coat a dirty, striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my back and the sleeves of which reached just below my elbows. The Cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating. 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. An hereditary servility, no doubt, was responsible. "Mugridge, sir," he fawned, his effeminate features running into a. "Thomas Mugridge, sir, an ' at yer service. "I shall not forget you - when my clothes. 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 I was still weak from my prolonged immersion. 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. she were heading south- post 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. far away, a group of naked rocks thrust above the sea, on one of which I In the south- post, 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. My first thought was that a man who had come through a collision and rubbed shoulders with death merited more attention than I Beyond a sailor at the wheel who stared curiously across the top of the cabin, I attracted no notice whatever. Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amid ships. 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. His face and neck were hidden beneath a black beard, intershot with grey, which would have been stiff and bushy had it not been limp and draggled and dripping with water. His eyes were closed, and he was apparently unconscious. but his mouth was wide open, his breast, heaving as though from suffocation as he laboured noisily for breath. time to time and quite methodically, as a matter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at the end of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced its contents over the prostrate man. Pacing back and forth the length of the hatchways and savagely chewing the end of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance had rescued Me from the. 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. 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. Not that in appearance he seemed in the least. What I Am striving To Express Is This Strength Itself, more as a thing apart from his physical semblance. associate with things primitive, with wild animals, and the creatures we imagine our tree-dwelling prototypes to have been - a strength savage, ferocious, alive in itself, the essence of life in that it is the potency of motion, the elemental stuff itself out of which the many forms of life have been moulded. in short, that which writhes in the body of a snake when the head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, is dead, or which lingers in the shapeless lump of turtle-meat and recoils and quivers from the prod of a such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who paced. 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. 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 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. understand that he was the captain, the "Old Man," in the cook's vernacular, the individual whom I must interview and put to the trouble of somehow. I had half started forward, to get over with what I was certain would be a stormy five minutes, when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate person who was lying on his back. wrenched and writhed about convulsively. The chin, with the damp black beard, pointed higher in the air as the back muscles stiffened and the chest swelled in an unconscious and instinctive effort to get more air. whiskers, and all unseen, I knew that the skin was taking on a purplish hue. The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing and gazed. 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. The dying man beat a tattoo on the hatch with his heels, straightened out his legs, and stiffened in one great tense effort, and rolled his head. Then the muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, as of profound relief, floated upward from his lips. the upper lip lifted, and two rows of tobacco-discoloured teeth appeared. seemed as though his features had frozen into a diabolical grin at the world. Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose upon the. Oaths rolled from his lips in a continuous. and they were not namby-pamby oaths, or mere expressions of. Each word was a blasphemy, and there were many words. crisped and crackled like electric sparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it possible. 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. 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. Oaths and vile language of any sort had always been repellent to. I felt a wilting sensation, a sinking at the heart, and, I might just as to Me, death had always been invested with solemnity. It had been peaceful in its occurrence, sacred in its. But death in its more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I had been unacquainted till now. the power of the terrific denunciation that swept out of Wolf Larsen's. The scorching torrent was enough to wither the face of the corpse. I should not have been surprised if the wet black beard had frizzled and curled and flared up in smoke and flame. the dead man was unconcerned. He continued to grin with a sardonic humour, with a cynical mockery and defiance. Wolf Larsen Ceased Swearing As suddenly As he had Begun. his cigar and glanced around. His eyes chanced upon the Cook." he began, with a suaveness that was cold and of the. "Yes, sir," the Cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing and. "Don't you think you've stretched that neck of yours just about enough. The mate's gone, so I can't afford to lose you. You must be very, very careful of your health, Cooky. His last word, in striking contrast with the smoothness of his previous utterance, snapped like the lash of a whip. "Yes, sir," was the meek reply, as the offending head disappeared into. At this sweeping rebuke, which the Cook had only pointed, the rest of the crew became uninterested and fell to work at one task or another. number of men, however, who were lounging about a companion-way between the galley and hatch, and who did not seem to be sailors, continued talking in low tones with one another. These, I afterward learned, were the hunters, the men who shot the seals, and a very superior breed to common sailor-folk. "Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. some old canvas in the sail-locker. "What'll I put on his feet, sir." the man asked, after the customary. "We'll see to that," Wolf Larsen answered, and elevated his voice in a Thomas Mugridge popped out of his galley like a jack- is other -the-box. "Go below and fill a sack with coal. "Any of you fellows got a bible or Prayer-book. demand, this time of the hunters lounging about the companion- way. They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which I did not catch, but which raised a general laugh. Wolf Larsen Made The Same Demand Of The Sailors. Prayer-books seemed scarce articles, but one of the men volunteered to pursue the quest amongst the watch below, returning in a minute with the information that there was none. The captain shrugged his shoulders. "Then we'll drop him over without any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway has the burial service at sea by heart. By this time he had swung fully around and was facing Me the hunters, there were six of them, to a man, turned and regarded. I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow. 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. Wolf Larsen Did Not Laugh, though his grey eyes lighted with a slight glint of amusement. and in that moment, having stepped forward quite close to him, I received my first impression of the man himself, of the man as apart from his body, and from the torrent of blasphemy I had heard him spew. The face, with large features and strong lines, of the square order, yet well filled out, was apparently massive at first sight. but again, as with the body, the massiveness seemed to vanish, and a conviction to grow of a tremendous and excessive mental or spiritual strength that lay behind, sleeping in the deeps of his being. The jaw, the chin, the brow rising to a goodly height and swelling heavily above the eyes, these, while strong in themselves, unusually strong, seemed to speak an immense vigour or virility of spirit that lay behind and beyond and out of sight. such a spirit, no measuring, no determining of metes and bounds, nor neatly classifying in some pigeon-hole with others of similar type. The eyes - and it was my destiny to know them well - were large and handsome, wide apart as the true artist's are wide, sheltering under a heavy brow and arched over by thick black eyebrows. that baffling protean grey which is never twice the same. which runs through many shades and colourings like intershot silk in sunshine. which is grey, dark and light, and greenish-grey, and sometimes of the clear azure of the. They were eyes that masked the soul with a thousand guises, and that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure, eyes that could brood with the hopeless sombreness of leaden skies. that could snap and crackle points of fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword. that could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm and soften and be all a -dance with love-lights, intense and masculine, luring and compelling, which at the same time fascinate and dominate women till they surrender in a gladness of joy and of. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service, I was not a preacher, when he sharply demanded:. I confess I had never had such a question asked Me before, nor had I I was quite taken aback, and before I could find myself. 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. There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I was quite beside myself - "rattled," as furuseth would have termed it, like a quaking child before a stern school- master. "I have an income," I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my tongue. "All of which, you will pardon my observing, has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you about. 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. 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. I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers tightened, without visible effort, till I thought mine would be crushed. one's dignity under such circumstances. I could not squirm or struggle like. Nor could I attack such a creature who had but to twist my arm. 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. "Dead men's hands have kept it soft. Good for little else than dish-washing and scullion work. "I wish to be put ashore," I said firmly, for I now had myself in. "I shall pay you whatever you judge your delay and trouble to be. "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. 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. and mind you, it's for your own. You might learn in time to stand on your own legs, and perhaps to toddle along a bit. The sails of the vessel I had seen off to the south- post had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same schooner-rig as the Ghost, though the hull itself, I could see, was smaller. pretty sight, leaping and flying toward us, and evidently bound to pass at the wind had been momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had disappeared. The sea had turned a dull leaden grey and grown rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. travelling faster, and heeled farther over. Once, in a gust, the rail dipped under the sea, and the decks on that side were for the moment awash with water that made a couple of the hunters hastily lift their feet. "That vessel will soon be passing us," I said, after a moment's pause. "As she is going in the opposite direction, she is very probably bound for. "Very probably," was Wolf Larsen's answer, as he turned partly away from Me and cried out, "Cooky. The Cockney Popped Out Of The Galley. "Yes, sir." And Thomas Mugridge Fled Swiftly Aft And Disappeared Down Another Companion-way Near The Wheel. A moment later he emerged, a heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a glowering, villainous. "' Ere" e is, sir, "the Cook said. But Wolf Larsen Ignored That Worthy, turning at once to the cabin- 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. would suit your mug a damn sight better. I saw the young fellow's hands clench at the insult, and the blood. "But let that go," Wolf Larsen continued. "You May have very good reasons for forgetting your name, and I'll like you none the worse for it as long as you toe the mark. Telegraph Hill, of course, is your port of entry. It sticks out all over your mug. Tough as they make them and twice as nasty. Well, you can make up your mind to have it taken out of you. "McCready and Swanson, sir," the boy corrected, his eyes burning with a. "Who got the advance money. and damned glad you were to let them have it. Couldn't make yourself scarce too quick, with several gentlemen you May have. The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. together as though for a spring, and his face became as an infuriated." 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. "and you have shown Me I was right. You'll never see eighteen again. Big for your age at that, with. Pack up your kit and go for'ard into the fo'c'sle. Without waiting for the boy's acceptance, the captain turned to the sailor who had just finished the gruesome task of sewing up the corpse. "Johansen, do you know anything about navigation. "Well, never mind. you're mate just the same. Get your traps aft into. "Ay, ay, sir," was the cheery response, as johansen started forward. In the meantime the erstwhile cabin-boy had not moved. "What are you waiting for. "I didn't sign for boat- puller, sir," was the reply. An "I don't want no boat- Pullin ' in mine. This time Wolf Larsen's command was thrillingly imperative. glowered sullenly, but refused to move. Then came another stirring of Wolf Larsen's tremendous strength. utterly unexpected, and it was over and done with between the ticks of two. He had sprung fully six feet across the deck and driven his fist. At the same moment, as though I had been struck myself, I felt a sickening shock in the pit of my stomach. to show the sensitiveness of my nervous organization at the time, and how. The cabin-boy - and he weighed one hundred and sixty-five at the very least - crumpled up. limply about the fist like a wet rag about a stick. described a short curve, and struck the deck alongside the corpse on his head and shoulders, where he lay and writhed about in agony. "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. 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. "The pilot-boat Lady Mine," Wolf Larsen answered grimly. her pilots and running into San Francisco. "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. I debated a moment, looking him squarely in the eyes. 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 waited, watching two men who stood by the wheel, one of them. The other was lifting a megaphone to his lips. head, though I expected every moment a killing blow from the human brute. At last, after what seemed centuries, unable longer to stand the. position, swaying easily to the roll of the ship and lighting a fresh cigar." This was the cry from the Lady. "Too much ' Frisco tanglefoot for the health of my crew. "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." came a final cry, and the two men waved their. I leaned despairingly over the rail, watching the trim little schooner swiftly increasing the bleak sweep of ocean between us. probably be in san Francisco in five or six hours. There was an ache in my throat as though my heart were up in it. wave struck the side and splashed salt spray on my lips. strongly, and the Ghost heeled far over, burying her lee rail. the water rushing down upon the deck. When I Turned Around, a moment later, I saw the cabin-boy staggering to. His face was ghastly white, twitching with suppressed pain. "Well, Leach, are you going for'ard. "Yes, sir," came the answer of a spirit cowed. "I'll give you a thousand -" I began, but was interrupted. Are you going to take up your duties as cabin-boy. To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, would. I looked steadily into the cruel grey eyes. have been granite for all the light and warmth of a human soul they. One May see the soul stir in some men's eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea itself. "Humphrey, sir. Humphrey Van Weyden. Go to the Cook and learn your duties. and thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary servitude to. He was stronger than I, that was all. It is no less unreal now that I look back upon it. be to Me a monstrous, inconceivable thing, a horrible nightmare. I stopped obediently in my walk toward the galley. 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 on either side the deck, against the rail and bottoms up, were. Several men picked up the hatch-cover with its ghastly freight, carried it to the lee side, and rested it on the boats. To the feet was attached the sack of coal which. 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. One of the hunters, a little dark-eyed man whom his mates called "Smoke," was telling stories, liberally intersprinkled with oaths and obscenities. and every minute or so the group of hunters gave mouth to a laughter that sounded to Me like a wolf- chorus or the barking of. The sailors trooped noisily aft, some of the watch below rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and talked in low tones together. was an ominous and worried expression on their faces. they did not like the outlook of a voyage under such a captain and begun so. 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. over them - twenty men all told. twenty-two including the man at the wheel. 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. The sailors, in the main, were English and Scandinavian, and their faces seemed of the heavy, stolid order. hunters, on the other hand, had stronger and more diversified faces, with hard lines and the marks of the free play of passions. noted it all once, Wolf Larsen's features showed no such evil stamp. True, there were lines, but they were the. It seemed, rather, a frank and open countenance, which frankness or openness was enhanced by the fact that he 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. 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. Some of the hunters glanced anxiously aloft. 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. A shower of rain drove down upon us, each drop stinging like a As it passed, Wolf Larsen began to speak, the bare-headed men swaying in unison, to the heave and lunge of the deck. "I only remember one part of the service," he said, "and that is, ' and the body shall be cast into the sea. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed perplexed, puzzled no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. "Lift up that end there, damn you. What the hell's the matter with. 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. his feet dragged him down. "Johansen," Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, "keep all hands. Get in the topsails and jibs and make a good job. Better reef the jib and mainsail too. In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders and the men pulling or letting go ropes of various sorts - all naturally. 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. hunters were laughing at a fresh story of Smoke's. the men pulling and hauling, and two of them climbing aloft. Wolf Larsen Was Studying The Clouding Sky To Windward. and the dead man, dying obscenely, buried sordidly, and sinking down, down -. Then it was that the cruelty of the sea, its relentlessness and. Life had become cheap and tawdry, a beastly and inarticulate thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and slime. 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. Rain- squalls were driving in between, and I could. and this strange vessel, with its terrible men, pressed under by wind and sea and ever leaping up and out, was heading away into the south- post, into the great and lonely Pacific expanse. 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. who was called "the doctor" by the crew, "Tommy" by the hunters, and "Cooky" by Wolf Larsen, was a changed person. brought about a corresponding difference in treatment from him. fawning as he had been before, he was now as domineering and bellicose. truth, I was no longer the fine gentleman with a skin soft as a "lydy's," but only an ordinary and very worthless cabin-boy. He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as mr. behaviour and carriage were insufferable as he showed Me my duties. my work in the cabin, with its four small state- rooms, I was supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my colossal ignorance concerning such things as peeling potatoes or washing greasy pots was a source of unending. He refused to take into consideration what I was, or, rather, what my life and the things I was accustomed to had been. This was part of the attitude he chose to adopt toward Me and I confess, ere the day was done, that I hated him with more lively feelings than I had ever hated any one in my life before. This first day was made more difficult for Me from the fact that the Ghost, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn till later). Mugridge called an "' owlin ' sou'-easter. half- pastes 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. In this connection I cannot forbear relating my first. "Look sharp or you'll get doused," was Mr. injunction, as I left the galley with a big tea- perspiration in one hand, and in the hollow of the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked bread. hunters, a tall, loose-jointed chap named Henderson, was going aft at the time from the steerage (the name the hunters facetiously gave their midships. Wolf Larsen Was On The Poop, smoking his. I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley door. 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. Also I Saw A great Wave, curling and foaming, poised far above. My mind did not work quickly, everything. I grasped that I was in danger, but that was all. Then Wolf Larsen Shouted From The Poop:. "Grab hold something, you - you Hump. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might have clung, and was met by the descending wall of water. I was beneath the water, suffocating and drowning. feet were out from under Me, and I was turning over and over and being swept. Several times I collided against hard objects, once striking my right knee a terrible blow. Then the flood seemed suddenly to subside and I was breathing the good air again. I had been swept against the galley and around the steerage companion-way from the weather side into the. The pain from my hurt knee was agonizing. 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. Don't tyke all night about it. Serve you bloody well right if yer neck was broke. The great tea- perspiration was still in my. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. "Gawd blime Me if you ayn't a slob. Wot ' re you good for anyw'y, I'd. Wot ' re you good for any'wy. Now I'll ' ave to boil some more. "' cos you've ' urt yer pore little leg, pore little mamma's darlin '. I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn and. But I Called Up All My Resolution, set my teeth, and hobbled back and forth from galley to cabin and cabin to galley without. Two things I had acquired by my accident: an injured knee-cap that went undressed and from which I suffered for weary months, and the name of "Hump," which Wolf Larsen had called Me from the poop. Thereafter, fore and aft, I was known by no other name, until the term became a part of my thought-processes and I identified it with myself, thought of myself as hump, as though Hump were I and had always been I It was no easy task, waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf Larsen, Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to begin with, and to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made easier by the schooner's. But what struck Me most forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part of the men whom I served. knee through my clothes, swelling, and swelling, and I was sick and faint. 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. It May cripple you some, but all the same you'll be learning. "That's what you call a paradox, isn't it. He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary" Yes, sir. "I suppose you know a bit about literary things. some talks with you some time. and then, taking no further account of Me, he turned his back and went. 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. out of the detestable presence of the Cook and to be off my feet. surprise, my clothes had dried on Me and there seemed no indications of catching cold, either from the last soaking or from the prolonged soaking from the foundering of the Martinez. Under ordinary circumstances, after all that I had undergone, I should have been fit for bed and a trained nurse. But my knee was bothering Me terribly. As well as I could make out, the kneecap seemed turned up on edge in the midst of the swelling. 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. "Tie a rag around it, and it'll be all. That was all. and on the land I would have been lying on the broad of my back, with a surgeon attending on Me, and with strict injunctions to do. But I must do these men justice. my suffering, they were equally callous to their own when anything befell. and this was due, I believe, first, to habit. and second, to the fact that they were less sensitively organized. organized, high-strung man would suffer twice and thrice as much as they. Tired as I was, exhausted, in fact, I was prevented from sleeping. 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. savage, the attitude of these men was stoical in great things, childish in 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. did, that it could swim the moment it was born. 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. 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. Their method was one of assertion, assumption, and. 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. show the mental calibre of the men with whom I was thrown in contact. Intellectually they were children, inhabiting the physical forms of men. and they smoked, incessantly smoked, using a coarse, cheap, and. The air was thick and murky with the smoke of it. and this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she struggled through the storm, would surely have made Me sea-sick had I been a As it was, it made Me quite squeamish, though this nausea might have been due to the pain of my leg and exhaustion. As I Lay There Thinking, I naturally dwelt upon myself and my. 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. had never done any hard manual labour, or scullion labour, in my life. lived a placid, uneventful, sedentary existence all my days - the life of a scholar and a recluse on an assured and comfortable income. athletic sports had never appealed to Me I had always been a book-worm. so my sisters and father had called Me during my childhood. 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. dreary and endless vistas before Me of table -setting, potato-peeling, and. The doctors had always said that I had a remarkable constitution, but I had never developed it or my body through. 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. But I had preferred to use my head rather than my body. and here I was, in no fit condition for the rough life in prospect. These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind, and are related for the sake of vindicating myself in advance in the weak and helpless ROLE I was destined to play. But I Thought, also, of my mother and sisters, and pictured their. I was among the missing dead of the Martinez disaster, an unrecovered. I could see the head-lines in the papers. the fellows at the University Club and the Bibelot shaking their heads and saying, "Poor chap. And I Could See Charley Furuseth, as I had said good- bye to him that morning, lounging in a dressing-gown on the be pillowed window couch and delivering himself of oracular and pessimistic epigrams. and all the while, rolling, plunging, climbing the moving mountains and falling and wallowing in the foaming valleys, the schooner Ghost was fighting her way farther and farther into the heart of the Pacific - and I I could hear the wind above. Now and again feet stamped overhead. all about Me, the woodwork and the fittings groaning and squeaking and. The hunters were still arguing and roaring like some semi-human amphibious breed. The air was filled with oaths and. 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. sea-boots were hanging from the walls, and here and there rifles and shotguns rested securely in the racks. It was a sea- fitting for the buccaneers and pirates of by- drive years. My imagination ran riot, and still. and it was a long, long night, weary and dreary and long. But my first night in the hunters ' steerage was also my last. 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. The reason for this change was quickly learned by the hunters, and became the cause of a deal of grumbling on their part. Johansen, in his sleep, lived over each night the events of the day. incessant talking and shouting and bellowing of orders had been too much for Wolf Larsen, who had accordingly foisted the nuisance upon his hunters. After a sleepless night, I arose weak and in agony, to hobble through. Thomas Mugridge Routed Me out At half- pastes 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. 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. Mugridge, with a sharp howl of pain, humbly begged. Later on, in the galley, I noticed that his ear was. 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. down from the galley the night before, and the first thing I did was to exchange the cook's garments for them. 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. I found, but its contents, with the exception of the small silver, had been. 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. keep it to yerself, or you'll find ' ow bloody well mistyken you are. Me blind if this ayn't gratitude for yer. ' Ere you come, a pore mis'rable specimen of ' uman scum, an "I tykes yer into my galley an ' treats yer ' ansom, an ' this is wot I get for it. Nex ' time you can go to ' ell, say I, an ' I've a good mind to give you what- odds anyw'y. So saying, he put up his fists and started for Me cowered away from the blow and ran out the galley door. Force, nothing but force, obtained on this brute-ship. 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. 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. But this vindication did not. 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. 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. But the Cockney had not pursued Me come on back, you pore little mamma's darling. 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. breakfast-table in the cabin, and at seven o'clock waited on the hunters and. 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. That Wolf Larsen Was Anxious To Make The Most Of The Storm, which was driving him to the south- post into that portion of the sea where he expected to pick up with the north-east trades. It was before this steady wind that he hoped to make the major portion of the run to Japan, curving south into the tropics and north again as he approached the coast of Asia. After breakfast I had another unenviable experience. finished washing the dishes, I cleaned the cabin stove and carried the ashes. Wolf Larsen And Henderson Were Standing Near The. The sailor, Johnson, was steering. 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. attempting to warn Me to throw my ashes over the lee side. blunder, I passed by Wolf Larsen and the hunter and flung the ashes over the. The wind drove them back, and not only over Me, but over. The next instant the latter kicked Me, violently. I had not realized there could be so much pain in a I reeled away from him and leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting. Everything was swimming before my eyes, and I turned sick. nausea overpowered Me, and I managed to crawl to the side of the vessel. 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. 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. were scientific works, too, among which were represented men such as astronomy and physics were represented, and I remarked Bulfinch's AGE OF FABLE, Shaw's HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE, and Johnson's NATURAL HISTORY in two large volumes. were a number of grammars, such as metcalf's, and Reed and Kellogg's. And I Smiled As I Saw A copy Of THE DEAN'S ENGLISH. I could not reconcile these books with the man from what I had seen of him, and I wondered if he could possibly read them. the bed I found, between the blankets, dropped apparently as he had sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning, the Cambridge Edition. 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. It was scrawled over with geometrical diagrams and. 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. One side or the other of his nature was perfectly comprehensible. but both sides together were bewildering. remarked that his language was excellent, marred with an occasional slight. 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. 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. 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 and don't you think your miserable life worth the price. in time how to take care of your money for yourself. your lawyer has done it for you, or your business agent. I could feel the quiet sneer through his words, but demanded, "How can. You haven't any lawyer or business agent now, so. When you get a dollar, hang on to it. man who leaves his money lying around, the way you did, deserves to lose it. You have no right to put temptation in the way of. You tempted Cooky, and he fell. 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. 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. very lonely soul, I was to learn, that never unmasked, though at rare. "I read immortality in your eyes," I answered, dropping the "sir," - an experiment, for I thought the intimacy of the conversation warranted it. "By that, I take it, you see something that is alive, but that necessarily does not have to live for ever. "I read more than that," I continued boldly. 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. regarding Me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over the leaden. A bleakness came into his eyes, and the lines of his mouth. How could I explain my idealism to this man. into speech a something felt, a something like the strains of music heard in sleep, a something that convinced yet transcended utterance. "I believe that life is a mess," he answered promptly. 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. 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. What do you make of those things. He swept his am in an impatient gesture toward a number of the sailors who were working on some kind of rope stuff amidships. "They move, so does the jelly-fish move. order that they May keep moving. belly's sake, and the belly is for their sake. In the end they come to a standstill. "They have dreams," I interrupted, "radiant, flashing dreams -". Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying it. "For, look you, they dream of making lucky voyages which will bring them more money, of becoming the mates of ships, of finding fortunes - in short, of being in a better position for preying on their fellows, of having all night in, good grub and somebody. You and I are just like them. difference, except that we have eaten more and better. But in the past you have eaten more than I have. in soft beds, and worn fine clothes, and eaten good meals. You live on an income which your father earned. like a frigate bird swooping down upon the boobies and robbing them of the. 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. They made the clothes, but they shiver in rags and ask you, the lawyer, or business agent who handles your money, for a job. "But that is beside the matter," I cried." He was speaking rapidly now, and his eyes were flashing. 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. immortality amount to when your life runs foul of mine. back to the land, which is a favourable place for your kind of piggishness. It is a whim of mine to keep you aboard this ship, where my piggishness. to-day, this week, or next month. I could kill you now, with a blow of my fist, for you are a miserable weakling. But if we are immortal, what is the. 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. Why have I kept you here. "Because you are stronger," I managed to blurt out." he went on at once with his perpetual queries. "Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you. "Then why move at all, since moving is. Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be No. 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 it is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive. He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. break of the poop and called Me to him. "By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with. "One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir," I answered. A moment later, as I started down the companion stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly curing some men. By the following morning the storm had blown itself quite out and the Ghost was rolling slightly on a calm sea without a breath of wind. Occasional light airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen patrolled the poop constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to the north-eastward, from which direction the great trade-wind must blow. The men were all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for the. There are seven boats aboard, the captain's dingey, and the six which the hunters will use. Three, a hunter, a boat- puller, and a boat-steerer, compose a boat's crew. On board the schooner the boat-pullers and steerers are the crew. The hunters, too, are supposed to be in command of the watches, subject, always, to the orders of Wolf Larsen. All this, and more, I have learned. The Ghost Is Considered The Fastest Schooner In both The San Francisco And Victoria Fleets. once a private yacht, and was built for speed. Though I Know Nothing About Such Things - speak for themselves. telling Me about her in a short chat I had with him during yesterday's. He spoke enthusiastically, with the love for a fine craft such as some men feel for horses. He is greatly disgusted with the outlook, and I am given to understand that Wolf Larsen bears a very unsavoury reputation among the sealing captains. It was the Ghost herself that lured Johnson into signing for the voyage, but he is already beginning to repent. As he told Me, the Ghost is an eighty- tone schooner of a remarkably fine. Her beam, or width, is twenty-three feet, and her length a little. A lead keel of fabulous but unknown weight makes her very stable, while she carries an immense spread of canvas. truck of the maintopmast is something over a hundred feet, while the foremast with its topmast is eight or ten feet shorter. details so that the size of this little floating world which holds twenty-two men May be appreciated. speck, and I marvel that men should dare to venture the sea on a contrivance. Wolf Larsen Has, also, a reputation for reckless carrying on of sail. Overheard Henderson And Another Of The Hunters, Standish, a californian. Two years ago he dismasted the Ghost in a gale on Bering Sea, whereupon the present masts were put in, which are stronger and heavier. 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. Half the men forward are deep- tent sailors, and their excuse is that they did not know anything about her or her captain. whisper that the hunters, while excellent shots, were so notorious for their quarrelsome and rascally proclivities that they could not sign on any decent. 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. 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. 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. "Ah, my boy," he shook his head ominously at Me, "' tis the worst schooner ye could the iv selected, nor were ye drunk at the time as was I sealin ' is the sailor's paradise - on other ships than this. the first, but mark Me words, there'll be more dead men before the trip is. Hist, now, between you an ' meself and the stanchion there, this Wolf Larsen is a regular devil, an ' the Ghost'll be a hell-ship like she's always ben since he had hold of the iv her. remember him in hakodate two years gone, when he had a row an ' shot four iv., not three hundred yards away. there was a man the same year he killed with a blow of the iv his fist. His head must the iv smashed like an eggshell. there the Governor of Kura Island, an ' the Chief the iv Police, Japanese gentlemen, sir, an ' didn't they come aboard the Ghost as his guests, a -bringin ' their wives along - wee an ' pretty little bits of things like you. An "as he was a -gettin ' under way, didn't the fond husbands get left astern- face in their sampan, as it might be by accident. An ' wasn't it a week later that the poor little ladies was put ashore on the other side of the island, with nothin ' before ' em but to walk home acrost the mountains on their weeny-teeny little straw sandals which wouldn't hang. ' Tis the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen - the great big beast mentioned iv in revelation. an ' no good end will he ever. for old fat Louis'll live the voyage out if the last mother's son of yez go. He's not black-hearted like some men. Wolf, just wolf, ' tis what he is. "But if he is so well-known for what he is," I queried, "how is it that he can get men to ship with him. "An ' how is it ye can get men to do anything on God's earth an ' sea. Louis demanded with Celtic fire. "How d'ye find Me aboard if ' twasn't that I was drunk as a pig when I put Me name down. There's them that can't sail with better men, like the hunters, and them that don't know, like the poor devils of wind-jammers for'ard there. But they'll come to it, they'll come to it, an ' be sorry the day they was born. I could weep for the poor creatures, did I but forget poor old fat Louis and the troubles before him. But ' tis not a whisper I've dropped, mind ye, not a whisper. "Them hunters is the wicked boys," he broke forth again, for he suffered from a constitutional plethora of speech. "But wait till they get to cutting up the iv jinks and rowin ' ' round. that'll put the fear of God in their rotten black hearts. "Jock ' Horner they call him, so quiet- face an" easy-goin ', soft-spoken as a girl, till ye'd think butter wouldn't melt in didn't he kill his boat-steerer last year. sad accident, but I met the boat- puller in yokohama an ' the straight the iv it. 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. An ' didn't they have words or a ruction of some kind. for ' twas the other fellow Smoke sent up in the buckets to the top of the mine. an "a piece at a time he went up, a leg to-day, an ' to-morrow an arm, the next day the head, an ' so on." I cried out, overcome with the horror of it. Deef I am, and dumb, as ye should be for the sake of the iv your mother. an ' never once have I opened Me lips but to say fine things of the iv them an ' him, God curse his soul, an "May he rot in purgatory ten thousand years, and then go down to the last an ' deepest hell the iv all. Johnson, the man who had chafed Me raw when I first came aboard, seemed the least equivocal of the men forward or aft. One was struck at once by his straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were tempered by a modesty which might be courage of his convictions, the certainty of his manhood. made him protest, at the commencement of our acquaintance, against being. and upon this, and him, Louis passed judgment and prophecy. "' Tis a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we've for'ard with us," he. "The best sailorman in the fo'c'sle. trouble he'll come with Wolf Larsen, as the sparks fly upward. I can see it brewin "an ' comin ' up like a storm in the sky. talked to him like a brother, but it's little he sees in takin ' in his. He grumbles out when things don't go to suit him, and there'll be always some tell- pulley block carryin ' word the iv it aft to the. The Wolf Is Strong, and it's the way of a wolf to hate strength, an ' strength it is he'll see in Johnson - no knucklin ' under, and a ' Yes, sir, thank ye kindly, sir, ' for a curse or a blow. An ' God knows where I'll get another boat- puller. fool up an ' say, when the old man calls him Yonson, but ' Me name is Johnson, sir, "an ' then spells it out, letter for letter. I thought he'd let drive at him on the spot. 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. and to Sir him with every speech. One reason for this is that Wolf Larsen seems to have taken a fancy to him. for a captain to be chummy with the Cook. but this is certainly what Wolf. 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. 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. "I always get along with the officers," he remarked to Me in a. "I know the w'y, I do, to myke myself uppreci- yted. There was my last skipper - w'y I thought nothin ' of droppin ' down in the cabin for a little chat and a friendly glass. ' Mugridge, ' sez "e, ' you've missed yer vokytion. ' Yer should ' a been born a gentleman, an "never ' ad to work for yer livin '. God strike Me dead, ' Ump, if that ayn't wot ' e sez, an "Me a -sittin ' there in ' is own cabin, jolly- face an ' comfortable, a -smokin ' ' is cigars an '. This chitter-chatter drove Me to distraction. His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile and his monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I was all in a tremble. Positively, he was the most disgusting and loathsome person I have ever met. The filth of his cooking was indescribable. and, as he cooked everything that was eaten aboard, I was compelled to select what I ate with great circumspection, choosing from the least dirty of his concoctions. My hands bothered Me a great deal, unused as they were to work. nails were discoloured and black, while the skin was already grained with dirt which even a scrubbing-brush could not remove. 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. Nor was my knee any better. The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was still up on edge. Hobbling about on it from morning till night was not helping it any. What I Needed Was Rest, if it were ever to get. I never before knew the meaning of the word. 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. But it is a revelation, on the other hand. able to appreciate the lives of the working people hereafter. dream that work was so terrible a thing. From half- pastes 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. there are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the gossip is going around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight. the best of the hunters, a slow-going fellow, and hard to rouse. but roused he must have been, for Smoke had a bruised and discoloured eye, and looked particularly vicious when he came into the cabin for supper. A cruel thing happened just before supper, indicative of the callousness and brutishness of these men. There is one green hand in the crew, Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, I imagine, by the spirit of adventure, and making his first voyage. baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore- gaff-topsail. In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff. understood it, there were two ways of getting it cleared, first, by lowering the foresail, which was comparatively easy and without danger. and second, by climbing out the peak-halyards to the end of the gaff itself, an. Johansen called out to Harrison to go out the halyards. 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. 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. snapping a man off like a fly from a whip-lash. Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him, but. It was probably the first time he had been aloft in his life. Johansen, who had caught the contagion of Wolf Larsen's masterfulness, burst out with a volley of abuse and curses. "That'll do, Johansen," Wolf Larsen said brusquely. That I Do The Swearing On This Ship. "Yes, sir," the mate acknowledged submissively. In the meantime Harrison had started out on the halyards. up from the galley door, and I could see him trembling, as if with ague, in He proceeded very slowly and cautiously, an inch at a time. Outlined against the clear blue of the sky, he had the appearance of an enormous spider crawling along the tracery of its web. It was a slight uphill climb, for the foresail peaked high. and the halyards, running through various blocks on the gaff and mast, gave him separate holds for hands and feet. But the trouble lay in that the wind was not strong enough nor steady enough to keep the sail full. half-way out, the Ghost took a long roll to windward and back again into the. Harrison ceased his progress and held on tightly. Eighty feet beneath, I could see the agonized strain of his muscles as he the sail emptied and the gaff swung amid-ships. halyards slackened, and, though it all happened very quickly, I could see them sag beneath the weight of his body. Then the gag swung to the side with an abrupt swiftness, the great sail boomed like a Cannon, and the three rows of reef-points slatted against the canvas like a volley of rifles. clinging on, made the giddy rush through the air. The halyards became instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. One hand was torn loose from its hold. desperately for a moment, and followed. His body pitched out and down, but in some way he managed to save himself with his legs. A quick effort brought his hands up to the halyards again. but he was a long time regaining his former position, where he hung."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. In truth, Harrison was very sick, as a person is sea-sick. and for a long time he clung to his precarious perch without attempting to move. Johansen, however, continued violently to urge him on to the completion of. "It is a shame," I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and correct. He was standing by the main rigging, a few feet away from Me paused awhile, for the word "murder" was his final judgment." Louis whispered to him, "For the love the iv your mother. 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. when you've got him in the boat. but he's my sailor when I have him aboard, and I'll do what I damn well please with him. "But that's no reason -" Standish began in a torrent of speech. "That'll do, easy as she goes," Wolf Larsen counselled back. you what's what, and let it stop at that. The man's mine, and I'll make soup. There was an angry gleam in the hunter's eye, but he turned on his heel and entered the steerage companion-way, where he remained, looking upward. All hands were on deck now, and all eyes were aloft, where a human life was. The callousness of these men, to whom industrial organization gave control of the lives of other men, was appalling. had lived out of the whirl of the world, had never dreamed that its work was. Life had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, but here it counted for nothing, was a cipher in the arithmetic of. I must say, however, that the sailors themselves were sympathetic, as instance the case of Johnson. but the masters (the hunters and the. Even the protest of Standish arose out of the fact that he did not wish to lose his boat- puller. some other hunter's boat- puller, he, like them, would have been no more than. It took Johansen, insulting and reviling the poor wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started again. made the end of the gaff, where, astride the spar itself, he had a better. He cleared the sheet, and was free to return, slightly downhill now, along the halyards to the mast. 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. His eyes were wide and staring, and he was trembling violently. never seen fear so strongly stamped upon a human face. vainly for him to come down. At any moment he was liable to he 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. "Ay, ay, sir," the helmsman responded, putting a couple of spokes down. He had been guilty of running the Ghost several points off her course in order that what little wind there was should fill the foresail and hold. He had striven to help the unfortunate Harrison at the risk of. The time went by, and the suspense, to Me, was terrible. Mugridge, on the other hand, considered it a laughable affair, and was continually bobbing his head out the galley door to make jocose remarks. and how my hatred for him grew and grew, during that fearful. For the first time in my life I experienced the desire to murder - "saw red," as some of our picturesque writers phrase. Life in general might still be sacred, but life in the particular case of Thomas Mugridge had become very profane indeed. 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. who even in the most flagrant crimes had denied the justice and. Fully half- AN -hour went by, and then I saw Johnson and Louis in some. It ended with Johnson flinging off Louis's detaining. He crossed the deck, sprang into the fore rigging. But the quick eye of Wolf Larsen caught him. "Here, you, what are you up to. He looked his captain in the eyes and. "I am going to get that boy down. "You'll get down out of that rigging, and damn lively about it. 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. At half after five I went below to set the cabin table, but I hardly knew what I did, for my eyes and my brain were filled with the vision of a man, white-faced and trembling, comically like a bug, clinging to the. 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. conversation at the table was of other things. 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. 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. 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. subject to it, and others are not. "The earth is as full of brutality as the sea is. and some men are made sick by the one, and some by the. "But you, who make a mock of human life, don't you place any value upon." He looked at Me, and though his eyes were steady and motionless, there seemed a cynical smile in them. How could I put a tangible value upon it. 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. other materialists I had met and with whom I had something in common to start on, I had nothing in common with him. elemental simplicity of his mind that baffled Me 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 I answer the question on the spur of the moment. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I But when he challenged the truism I was speechless. "We were talking about this yesterday," he said. a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might live, and that living was merely successful piggishness. supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. much water, so much earth, so much air. but the life that is demanding to be look at the fish and their. For that matter, look at you and Me 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. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left. "You have read Darwin," I said. "But you read him misunderstandingly when you conclude that the struggle for existence sanctions your wanton. "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. Why should I be parsimonious with this life which is. 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. ever seen the London dockers fighting like wild beasts for a chance to. He started for the companion stairs, but turned his head for a final. "Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself. it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity prejudiced in its. Take that man I had aloft. thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. But I Do Not Accept His Estimate. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have. He was worth nothing to the world. 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. alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. 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. lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. and what have you to say. "That you are at least consistent," was all I could say, and I went on. At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the. I came on deck, after a good night's rest in spite of my poor knee, to find the Ghost foaming along, wing- Andes wing, and every sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern. 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. There was no pulling and hauling on sheets and tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work at all for the sailors. At night when the sun went down, the sheets were slackened. in the morning, when they yielded up the damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again - and that was all. Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, is. and ever out of the north-east the brave wind blows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty miles between the. It saddens Me and gladdens Me, the gait with which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with which we are foaming down upon the tropics. In the second dog-watch the sailors come on deck, stripped, and heave buckets of water upon one another from overside. Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, and during the night the watch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of those that fall aboard. morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley is pleasantly areek with the odour of their frying. while dolphin meat is served fore and aft on such occasions as Johnson catches the blazing beauties from the bowsprit. Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the crosstrees, watching the Ghost cleaving the water under press of sail. is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about in a sort of trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the foaming wake, and the heave and the run of her over the liquid mountains that are moving with us in stately. The days and nights are "all a wonder and a wild delight," and though I have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments to gaze and gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the world possessed. the sky is stainless blue - blue as the sea itself, which under the forefoot is of the colour and sheen of azure satin. All around the horizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never changing, never moving, like a silver setting for the. 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. It sounded like the gurgling of a brook over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the crooning song of it lured Me away and out of myself till I was no longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed away thirty-five years among books. 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. "' 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. 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." he asked, after the due pause which. 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. "Which is a cheap thing and without value. He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in his. "Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your head. Of course life is valueless, except to itself. And I Can Tell You That My Life Is Pretty Valuable Just Now - to myself. 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. 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. divine good from evil, right from wrong. But, "and his voice changed and the light went out of his face," what is this condition in which I find myself. this inspiration, I May well call it. 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. 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. life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is alive. pay for it as the drunkard pays. And I Shall Know That I Must Die, at sea most likely, cease crawling of myself to be all a -crawl with the corruption of the sea. to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles that it May become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of fishes. The sparkle and bubble has gone out and it is a tasteless drink. He left Me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with the. The Ghost Ploughed On Her Way. 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. Then some deep- tent sailor, from the waist of the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the "Song of the Trade Wind":. "Oh, I am the wind the seamen love - I am steady, and strong, and true. They follow my track by the clouds above, O'er the fathomless tropic blue. Through daylight and dark I follow the bark I keep like a hound on her trail. I'm strongest at noon, yet under the moon, I stiffen the bunt of her. Sometimes I Think Wolf Larsen Mad, or half-mad at least, what of his. At other times I take him for a great man, a genius who has never arrived. and, finally, I am convinced that he is the perfect type of the primitive man, born a thousand years or generations too late and an anachronism in this culminating century of civilization. certainly an individualist of the most pronounced type. There is no congeniality between him and the rest of the. His tremendous virility and mental strength wall him apart. They are more like children to him, even the hunters, and as children he treats them, descending perforce to their level and playing with them as a or else he probes them with the cruel hand of a vivisectionist, groping about in their mental processes and examining their souls as though to see of what soul-stuff is made. I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter or that, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of interest, pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a curiosity almost laughable to Me who stood onlooker and who understood. rages, I am convinced that they are not real, that they are sometimes experiments, but that in the main they are the habits of a pose or attitude he has seen fit to take toward his fellow- exchanges. exception of the incident of the dead mate, that I have not seen him really angry. nor do I wish ever to see him in a genuine rage, when all the force. 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. had a cubby-hole of a state- room opening off from the cabin, in the cabin itself he had never dared to linger or to be seen, and he flitted to and fro, once or twice a day, a timid spectre. "So you know how to play ' Nap, '" Wolf Larsen was saying in a pleased. "I might have guessed an Englishman would know. 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. quite ignored my presence, though I credited him with being simply unable to. 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. "and bring out the cigars and the whisky you'll find in my berth. I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting broadly that there was a mystery about him, that he might be a gentleman's son gone wrong or something or other. also, that he was a remittance man and was paid to keep away from England - "p'yed ' ansomely, sir," was the way he put it. "p'yed ' ansomely to sling my ' ook an ' keep slingin ' it. I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned, shook his head, and signalled with his hands for Me to bring the tumblers. These he filled two-thirds full with undiluted whisky - "a gentleman's." Quoth Thomas Mugridge, and they clinked their glasses to the glorious game of "Nap," lighted cigars, and fell to shuffling and dealing. They increased the amounts of the bets. drank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. Wolf Larsen Cheated Or Not, a thing he was thoroughly capable of doing. 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. hardly see the cards or sit upright. 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. Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for glass, and if anything his glasses were fuller. 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. 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. "Hump," he said to Me, elaborately polite, "kindly take Mr. arm and help him up on deck. "and tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water," he added, in a lower tone for my ear alone. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning sailors who had been told off for the purpose. spluttering that he was a gentleman's son. stairs to clear the table I heard him shriek as the first bucket of water. Wolf Larsen Was Counting His Winnings. "One hundred and eighty-five dollars even," he said aloud. "The beggar came aboard without a cent. "and what you have won is mine, sir," I said boldly. "Hump, I have studied some grammar in my time, and I think your tenses. ' 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. "At one time in my life," he continued, after another pause, "I dreamed that I might some day talk with men who used such language, that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had been born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who talked about just such things as and this is the first time I have ever heard the word pronounced. Which is all by the way, for you are wrong. grammar nor ethics, but of fact. "The fact is that you have the money. 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. Might is right, and that is all there is to it. 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. Just now the possession of this money is a it, I wrong myself and the life that is in Me if I give it to you and forego. "But you wrong Me by withholding it," I objected. One man cannot wrong another man. As I See It, I do wrong always when I consider the interests of. How can two particles of the yeast wrong each other. devour, and to strive not to be devoured. When they depart from this they. "Then you don't believe in altruism. He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though he pondered. "Let Me see, it means something about cooperation, doesn't. "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. "An altruistic Act is an Act performed for the welfare of. It is unselfish, as opposed to an Act performed for self, which is. "Not very much," was his confession. 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. could not understand what he was driving at deficiency on my part, but since then I have decided that it was for want of. Only Spencer and myself know how hard I But I did get something out of his DATA OF ETHICS. ran across ' altruism, ' and I remember now how it was used. I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. remembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his ideal of. 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. His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably phrasing thoughts which he had never before put into speech. I was groping into his soul-stuff as he made a practice of groping. 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 next, he must Act for the benefit of his children. 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. for it, nor the common sense. I cut out the race and the children. 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. 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. I must not lose one crawl or squirm if I am to get the. 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 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. "As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark. "and you know Me as I am generally known. "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. 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. haven't got very far along, and as it is I've about lost my bearings. Not to he tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from his state-room and read "Caliban" aloud. mode of reasoning and of looking at things that he understood thoroughly. interrupted again and again with comment and criticism. had Me read it over a second time, and a third. the self-read man, and, it must be granted, the sureness and directness of. The very simplicity of his reasoning was its strength, and his materialism was far more compelling than the subtly complex. Not that I - a confirmed and, as furuseth phrased it, a temperamental idealist - was to be compelled. but that Wolf Larsen stormed the last strongholds of my faith with a vigour that received respect, while not accorded conviction. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. restless and anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down the companion-way, sick and angry of countenance, I prepared to go about my. But Wolf Larsen cried out to him:. "Cooky, you've got to hustle to-night. I'm busy with Hump, and you'll do the best you can without him. and again the unprecedented was established. 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. 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. happenin ', "Louis went on, in response to my query for more definite. "The man's as contrary as air currents or water currents. can never guess the ways the iv him. ' Tis just as you're thinkin ' you know him and are makin "a favourable slant along him, that he whirls around, dead ahead and comes howlin ' down upon you and a -rippin ' all the iv your fine-weather. So I Was Not Altogether Surprised When The Squall Foretold By Louis. We had been having a heated discussion, upon life, of course, and, grown over-bold, I was passing stiff strictures upon Wolf Larsen and. 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. The Dark To sun- bronze Of His Face Went Black With Wrath, his. There was no clearness or sanity in them - nothing but the. It was the wolf in him that I saw, and a mad wolf. He sprang for Me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. 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 pain was too great. My biceps was being crushed to a pulp. He seemed to recover himself, for a lucid gleam came into his eyes, and he relaxed his hold with a short laugh that was more like a growl. the floor, feeling very faint, while he sat down, lighted a cigar, and. 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. weather was over, and there was nothing left but to return to the galley. left arm was numb, as though paralysed, and days passed before I could use it, while weeks went by before the last stiffness and pain went out of it. and he had done nothing but put his hand upon my arm and squeeze. He had just closed his hand with a steady. 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. He picked one up from the pan. fair-sized, firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it, squeezed, and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy streams. remnant he dropped back into the pan and turned away, and I had a sharp vision of how it might have fared with Me had the monster put his real. 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. Plainly Thomas Mugridge's Intention To Make Me pay For Those Three Days. 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- face myself, and I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened. 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. It reminds Me too strongly of a rat in a trap. but it was elective, for the threatened blow did not descend. Thomas Mugridge Backed Away, glaring as hatefully and viciously as I A pair of beasts is what we were, penned together and showing our. 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 only one galley knife that, as a knife, amounted to anything. many years of service and wear, had acquired a long, lean blade. 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. 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. He tried it with the ball of his thumb or across the nail. 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. 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. 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. his task with a thoroughness that Mugridge had not forgiven, for words followed and evil names involving smirched ancestries. the knife he was sharpening for Me leach laughed and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill Billingsgate, and before either he or I knew what had happened, his right arm had been ripped open from elbow to wrist by a quick. The Cook backed away, a fiendish expression on his face, the knife held before him in a position of defence. calmly, though blood was spouting upon the deck as generously as water from. "I'm goin ' to get you, Cooky," he said, "and I'll get you hard. You'll be without that knife when I come for. So saying, he turned and walked quietly forward. livid with fear at what he had done and at what he might expect sooner or later from the man he had stabbed. But his demeanour toward Me was more. 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. 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. 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. That I Became Afraid, very much afraid. Whet, whet, whet, it went all day. The look in his eyes as he felt the keen edge and glared at Me was. I was afraid to turn my shoulder to him, and when I left the galley I went out backwards - to the amusement of the sailors and hunters, who made a point of gathering in groups to witness my exit. I sometimes thought my mind would give way under it - a meet thing on this ship of madmen and brutes. I was a human soul in distress, and yet no soul, fore or aft, betrayed sufficient sympathy to come to my aid. 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. 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. seat at the cabin table for a time and let the Cook do my work. frankly, telling him what I was enduring from Thomas Mugridge because of the three days of favouritism which had been shown Me. "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. sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney the clinging of life to life overcomes. Why, my dear fellow, you will live for ever. are a god, and God cannot be killed. "You have eternal life before you. immortality, and a millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose fortune is less perishable than the stars and as lasting as space or time. impossible for you to diminish your principal. Eternity is eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on living somewhere else and hereafter. beautiful, this shaking off of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned. He can only give you a boost on the path you. "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. His paper will always circulate at par. diminish the length of his living by killing him, for he is without. Stick a knife in him and let his spirit free. prison, and you'll do him only a kindness by breaking down the door. - 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. Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged Me for condensed milk and sugar. The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was situated beneath the cabin floor. 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. It was rusty and dull, but I turned the grindstone while Louis gave it an edge. I slept more soundly than usual that. Next morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet, whet. I glanced warily at him, for I was on my knees taking the ashes from. 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 the other mug was fixed plenty. butter, an ' the w'y ' e squealed was better'n a tu- are foam gaff. glance in my direction to see if I was taking it in, and went on. mean it Tommy, ' ' e was snifflin '. "so ' elp Me gawd, I didn't mean it. "' I'll fix yer bloody well right," I sez, an ' kept right after ' the them. "them in ribbons, that's wot I did, an '" e a -squealin ' all the time. got "is ' and on the knife an ' tried to ' old it. but I pulled it through, cuttin ' to the bone. A call from the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison went. Mugridge sat down on the raised threshold to the galley and went on. I put the shovel away and calmly sat down on the. though my heart was going pitapat, I pulled out Louis's dirk and began to. 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. and for two hours we sat there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread abroad and half the ship's company was crowding the galley doors to see the sight. Encouragement and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the quiet, self-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a mouse, advised Me to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward for the abdomen, at the same time giving what he called the "Spanish twist" to the blade. 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. 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. of them, I am sure, were anxious to see us shedding each other's blood. 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, 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. 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. 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. "They don't love us, an ' bloody well glad they'd be a -seein ' us. Yer not ' arf bad, ' Ump. You've got spunk, as you Yanks. Coward that I might be, I was less a coward than he victory I had gained, and I refused to forego any of it by shaking his. "All right," he said pridelessly, "tyke it or leave it, I'll like yer." and to save his face he turned fiercely upon the. "Get outa my galley-doors, you bloomin ' swabs. This command was reinforced by a steaming kettle of water, and at sight of it the sailors scrambled out of the way. This was a sort of victory for Thomas Mugridge, and enabled him to accept more gracefully the defeat I had given him, though, of course, he was too discreet to attempt to drive the. "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. Mugridge heard and shot a swift glance at Me, but I gave no sign that. I had not thought my victory was so far-reaching and complete, but I resolved to let go nothing I had gained. the days went by, Smoke's prophecy was verified. humble and slavish to Me than even to Wolf Larsen. him no longer, washed no more greasy pots, and peeled no more potatoes. did my own work, and my own work only, and when and in what fashion I saw. 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. My intimacy with Wolf Larsen increases - if by intimacy May be denoted those relations which exist between master and man, or, better yet, between. I am to him no more than a toy, and he values Me no more. My function is to amuse, and so long as I amuse all goes well. but let him become bored, or let him have one of his black moods come upon him, and at once I am relegated from cabin table to galley, while, at the same time, I am fortunate to escape with my life and a whole. The loneliness of the man is slowly being borne in upon Me not a man aboard but hates or fears him, nor is there a man whom he does not. He seems consuming with the tremendous power that is in him and that seems never to have found adequate expression in works. Lucifer would be, were that proud spirit banished to a society of soulless. This loneliness is bad enough in itself, but, to make it worse, he is oppressed by the primal melancholy of the race. Old Scandinavian Myths With Clearer Understanding. fair-haired savages who created that terrible pantheon were of the same. The frivolity of the laughter-loving Latins is no part of him. When he laughs it is from a humour that is nothing else than ferocious. he laughs rarely. he is too often sad. It is the race heritage, the sadness which has made the race sober-minded, clean-lived and fanatically moral, and which, in this latter connection, has culminated among the English in the Reformed. 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. His brutal materialism will not permit it. his blue moods come on, nothing remains for him, but to be devilish. not so terrible a man, I could sometimes feel sorry for him, as instance three mornings ago, when I went into his stateroom to fill his water-bottle and came unexpectedly upon him. his hands, and his shoulders were heaving convulsively as with sobs. seemed torn by some mighty grief. As I Softly Withdrew I Could Hear Him." 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. "I've never been sick in my life, Hump," he said, as I guided him to. "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. 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. littered with designs and calculations. compass and square in hand, he was copying what appeared to be a scale of. "A labour-saving device for mariners, navigation reduced to. one star in the sky on a dirty night to know instantly where you are. I place the transparent scale on this star-map, revolving the scale on the. On the scale I've worked out the circles of altitude and the. All I Do Is To Put It On A star, revolve the scale till it is opposite those figures on the map underneath, and presto. There 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. "Never saw the inside of one, worse luck," was the answer. "and why do you think I have made this thing. "Dreaming to leave footprints on the sands of time. To get it patented, to make money from it, to revel in piggishness with all night in while other men do the work. Also, I have enjoyed working it out. "I guess that's what it ought to be called. 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. I threw up my hands with helpless disapproval of his inveterate materialism and went about making the bed. 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 He was certainly a handsome man - beautiful in the. and again, with never-failing wonder, I remarked the total lack of viciousness, or wickedness, or sinfulness in his face. face, I am convinced, of a man who did no wrong. 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. I am inclined to the latter way of accounting for it. 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. As I Have Said, in the masculine sense his was a beautiful face. Smooth-shaven, every line was distinct, and it was cut as clear and sharp as a cameo. while sea and sun had tanned the naturally fair skin to a dark bronze which bespoke struggle and battle and added both to his savagery and. 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. It just hinted of the eagle beak. 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. and so I caught myself standing idly and studying him. greatly the man had come to interest Me all powers seemed his, all potentialities - why, then, was he no more than the obscure master of a seal-hunting schooner with a reputation for frightful brutality amongst the men who hunted seals. My curiosity burst from Me in a flood of speech. "Why is it that you have not done great things in this world. power that is yours you might have risen to any height. conscience or moral instinct, you might have mastered the world, broken it. and yet here you are, at the top of your life, where diminishing and dying begin, living an obscure and sordid existence, hunting sea animals for the satisfaction of woman's vanity and love of decoration, revelling in a piggishness, to use your own words, which is anything and. Why, with all that wonderful strength, have you. There was nothing to stop you, nothing that could stop. Did you fall under temptation. He had lifted his eyes to Me at the commencement of my outburst, and followed Me complacently until I had done and stood before him breathless. He waited a moment, as though seeking where to begin, and then. "Hump, do you know the parable of the sower who went forth to sow. 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. and when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had No. and some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprung. He dropped his head to the scale and resumed the copying. 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. But I Was Not Born Norwegian. father and mother were Danes, and how they ever came to that bleak bight of land on the west coast I do not know. They were poor people and unlettered. generations of poor unlettered people - peasants of the sea who sowed their sons on the waves as has been their custom since time began. of fish diet and coarse living. going out with the boats from the time I could crawl. went away one by one to the deep-sea farming and never came back. unable to read or write, cabin-boy at the mature age of ten on the. 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. A madness comes up in my brain even now as I think of it. there were coastwise skippers I would have returned and killed when a man's strength came to Me, only the lines of my life were cast at the time in 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. Cabin-boy at twelve, ship's boy at fourteen, ordinary seamen at sixteen, able seaman at seventeen, and cock of the fo'c'sle, infinite ambition and infinite loneliness, receiving neither help nor sympathy, I did it all for myself - navigation, mathematics, science, literature, and what not. and of what use has it been. owner of a ship at the top of my life, as you say, when I am beginning to. 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. men ever did was to know it when it came to them. I should have known the opportunity, but. 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. "Master of the steamship Macedonia, seal-hunter," was the answer. will meet him most probably on the Japan coast. He is a lump of an animal without any head. "Yes, thank you for the word, all my brutishness, but he can. "and he has never philosophized on life," I added. "No," Wolf Larsen answered, with an indescribable air of sadness. he is all the happier for leaving life alone. My mistake was in ever opening the books. The Ghost Has Attained The Southernmost Point Of The Arc She Is Describing Across The Pacific, and is already beginning to edge away to the west and north toward some lone island, it is rumoured, where she will fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season's hunt along the coast of. The hunters have experimented and practised with their rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied, and the boat-pullers and steerers have made their spritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks in leather and sennit so that they will make no noise when creeping on the seals, and put their boats in apple-pie order - to use Leach's homely phrase. His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain all. Thomas Mugridge Lives In mortal Fear Of Him, and is afraid to. There are two or three standing quarrels in the. 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. 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. Johansen he thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time the mate has called him by his proper. But of course it is out of the question that Johnson should thrash. Louis has also given Me additional information about Death Larsen, which tallies with the captain's brief description. 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. Larsen is in command of the only sealing steamer in the fleet, the Macedonia, which carries fourteen boats, whereas the rest of the schooners. There is wild talk of Cannon aboard, and of strange raids and expeditions she May make, ranging from opium smuggling into the States and arms smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open piracy. but believe for I have never yet caught him in a lie, while he has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the sealing fleets. As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft. Men fight and struggle ferociously for one. 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. 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. they will only hold their hands until the season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can he settled and the survivors May toss the non-survivors overboard and arrange a story as to how the missing men. I think even the hunters are appalled at his. Wicked men though they be, they are certainly very much. Thomas Mugridge Is Cur- face In his Subjection To Me, while I go about. 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. My knee is much better, though it often aches for long periods, and the stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf. Otherwise I Am in splendid Condition, feel that I am in my muscles are growing harder and increasing in size. hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. are afflicted with hang-nails, while the nails are broken and discoloured, and the edges of the quick seem to be assuming a fungoid sort of growth. Also, I am suffering from boils, due to the diet, most likely, for I was never afflicted in this manner before. I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen reading the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate's sea-chest. Wolf Larsen Could Get From It, and he read aloud to Me from Ecclesiastes. 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. He May be uneducated, but he certainly knows how to express the significance of the written word. I can hear him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrant in his voice as he read:. "I gathered Me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. I gat Me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. "So I was great, and increased more than all that were before Me in jerusalem. also my wisdom returned with Me. "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the labour that I had laboured to do. and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. "All things come alike to all. there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked. to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean. to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not. as is the good, so is the sinner. and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. "This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all. yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they. "For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope. for a living dog is better than a dead lion. "For the living know that they shall die. but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward. for the memory of them is. "Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished. neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under. "There you have it, Hump," he said, closing the book upon his finger. "The Preacher who was King over Israel in jerusalem. - ' 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. For the Preacher loved life, and did not want to die, saying, ' For a living dog is better than a dead lion. vanity and vexation to the silence and unmovableness of the grave. To crawl is piggish. but to not crawl, to be as the clod and rock, is. It is loathsome to the life that is in Me, the very essence of which is movement, the power of movement, and the. to look ahead to death is greater unsatisfaction. "You are worse off than Omar," I said. customary agonizing of youth, found content and made of his materialism a." Wolf Larsen Asked, and I did no more work that day, nor the next, nor the next. In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubeiyet, and it was to him like a great find of treasure. two-thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece out the remainder. 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. Possibly I recited with a certain joyous lilt which was my own, for - his memory was good, and at a second rendering, very often the first, he made a quatrain his own - he recited the same lines and invested them with an unrest and passionate revolt that was well- nigh. 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 "What, without asking, hither hurried WHENCE. Oh, many a cup of this forbidden Wine Must drown the. could not have used a better word. "It's not the nature of life to be otherwise. it must cease living, will always rebel. 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. Through chapter after chapter he is worried by the one event that. So Omar, so I, so you, even you, for you rebelled against dying when Cooky sharpened a knife for you. the life that was in you, that composes you, that is greater than you, did. You have talked of the instinct of immortality. the instinct of life, which is to live, and which, when death looms near and large, masters the instinct, so called, of immortality. you (you cannot deny it), because a crazy Cockney Cook sharpened a knife. "You are afraid of him now. If I Should Catch You By The Throat, thus, "- his hand was about my throat and my breath was shut off," and began to press the life out of you thus, and thus, your instinct of immortality will go glimmering, and your instinct of life, which is longing for life, will flutter up, and you will struggle. I see the fear of death in your eyes. You exert all your puny strength to struggle to live. 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.' you are crying. and you are crying to live here and now, not hereafter. This life only you are. death, the ceasing to be, the ceasing to feel, the ceasing to move, that is gathering about you, descending upon you, rising around you. My voice sounds faint and far. and still you struggle in my grip. You kick with your legs. Your body draws itself up in knots like a snake's. 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. 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 won't use any more physical demonstrations. and, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and the. and half the night we sat up over it. The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion. Wolf Larsen Was Really The Cause Of It. Among The Men, strained and made tense by feuds, quarrels and grudges, were in a state of unstable equilibrium, and evil passions flared up in flame. Thomas Mugridge Is A sneak, a spy, an informer. to curry favour and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captain by carrying tales of the men forward. He it was, I know, that carried some of Johnson's hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. oilskins from the slop-chest and found them to be of greatly inferior. Nor was he slow in advertising the fact. of miniature dry-goods store which is carried by all sealing schooners and which is stocked with articles peculiar to the needs of the sailors. Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from his subsequent earnings on the sealing grounds. for, as it is with the hunters so it is with the boat-pullers and steerers - in the place of wages they receive a "lay," a rate of so much per skin for every skin captured in their particular boat. But of Johnson's grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, so that what I witnessed came with a shock of sudden surprise. sweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf Larsen into a discussion of Hamlet, his favourite Shakespearian character, when Johansen descended the companion stairs followed by Johnson. The latter's cap came off after the custom of the sea, and he stood respectfully in the centre of the cabin, swaying heavily and uneasily to the roll of the schooner and facing the. "Shut the doors and draw the slide," Wolf Larsen said to Me As I obeyed I noticed an anxious light come into Johnson's eyes, but I did not dream of its cause. I did not dream of what was to occur until it did occur, but he knew from the very first what was coming and awaited it. and in his action I found complete refutation of all Wolf Larsen's. The sailor Johnson was swayed by idea, by principle, and truth. He was right, he knew he was right, and he was unafraid. would die for the right if needs be, he would be true to himself, sincere. and in this was portrayed the victory of the spirit over the flesh, the indomitability and moral grandeur of the soul that knows no restriction and rises above time and space and matter with a surety and invincibleness born of nothing else than eternity and immortality. I noticed the anxious light in johnson's eyes, but mistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man. Johansen, stood away several feet to the side of him, and fully three yards in front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the pivotal cabin chairs. appreciable pause fell after I had closed the doors and drawn the slide, a pause that must have lasted fully a minute. "My name is Johnson, sir," the sailor boldly corrected. "Well, Johnson, then, damn you. Can you guess why I have sent for you. "Yes, and no, sir," was the slow reply. knows that, and you know it, sir." Wolf Larsen Queried, his voice soft, and low, and. "I know you have it in for Me," Johnson continued with his unalterable. "I am not afraid," the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising. "If I speak not fast, it is because I have not been from the old country as long as you. You do not like Me because I am too much of a man. that is why, sir. "You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean, and if you know what I mean," was Wolf Larsen's retort. "I know English, and I know what you mean, sir," Johnson answered, his flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English language. "Johnson," Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had gone before as introductory to the main business in hand, "I understand you're not quite satisfied with those oilskins. "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 it was at this moment that I chanced to glance at johansen. fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively fiendish. 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. "Do you know what happens to men who say what you've said about my. "I know, sir," was the answer." Wolf Larsen Demanded, sharply and imperatively. "What you and the mate there are going to do to Me, sir. "Look at him, Hump," Wolf Larsen said to Me, "look at this bit of animated dust, this aggregation of matter that moves and breathes and defies Me and thoroughly believes itself to be compounded of something good. that is impressed with certain human fictions such as righteousness and honesty, and that will live up to them in spite of all personal discomforts and. What do you think of him, Hump. "I think that he is a better man than you are," I answered, impelled, somehow, with a desire to draw upon myself a portion of the wrath I felt was about to break upon his head. "His human fictions, as you choose to call them, make for nobility and manhood. He nodded his head with a savage pleasantness. I have no fictions that make for nobility and manhood. better than a dead lion, say I with the Preacher. doctrine of expediency, and it makes for surviving. we call "Johnson, ' when he is no longer a bit of the ferment, only dust and ashes, will have no more nobility than any dust and ashes, while I shall. "Well, I am going to exercise my prerogative of roaring and show you. Three yards away from Johnson he was, and sitting down. yet he left the chair in full leap, without first gaining a standing. He left the chair, just as he sat in it, squarely, springing from the sitting posture like a wild animal, a tiger, and like a tiger covered. It was an avalanche of fury that Johnson strove. 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. expelled, shot from his mouth and as suddenly checked, with the forced, audible expiration of a man wielding an axe. swayed from side to side in an effort to recover his balance. I cannot give the further particulars of the horrible scene that. It turns Me sick even now when I think of. Johnson fought bravely enough, but he was no match for Wolf Larsen, much less for Wolf Larsen and the mate. human being could endure so much and still live and struggle on. 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. 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. "The phenomena of life, Hump," he girded at Me May gather data on the immortality of the soul. It's only the fleeting form we May demolish. It seemed centuries - possibly it was no more than ten minutes that the. Wolf Larsen And Johansen Were All About The Poor Fellow. They struck him with their fists, kicked him with their heavy shoes, knocked him down, and dragged him to his feet to knock him down again. blinded so that he could not set, and the blood running from ears and nose and mouth turned the cabin into a shambles. and when he could no longer rise they still continued to beat and kick him where he lay. "Easy, Johansen. easy as she goes, "Wolf Larsen finally said. But the beast in the mate was up and rampant, and Wolf Larsen was compelled to brush him away with a back-handed sweep of the arm, gentle enough, apparently, but which hurled Johansen back like a cork, driving his head against the wall with a crash. He fell to the floor, half stunned for the moment, breathing heavily and blinking his eyes in a stupid sort of way. "Jerk open the doors, Hump," I was commanded. I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a sack of rubbish and hove him clear up the companion stairs, through the narrow. The blood from his nose gushed in a scarlet stream over the feet of the helmsman, who was none other than Louis, his boat- mat. But Louis Took And Gave A spoke And Gazed Imperturbably Into The Binnacle. Not so was the conduct of George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. and aft there was nothing that could have surprised us more than his. 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. unrecognizable. and not only that, for his features, as human features at all, were unrecognizable, so discoloured and swollen had they become in the few minutes which had elapsed between the beginning of the beating and the. But of Leach's behaviour - By the time I had finished cleansing the cabin he had taken care of Johnson. I had come up on deck for a breath of fresh air and to try to get some repose for my overwrought nerves. 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. I turned and saw him standing just beneath the break of the poop on the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed and white, his eyes were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead. "May God damn your soul to hell, Wolf Larsen, only hell's too good for you, you coward, you murderer, you pig. I looked for his instant annihilation. Not Wolf Larsen's Whim To Annihilate Him. break of the poop, and, leaning his elbow on the corner of the cabin, gazed down thoughtfully and curiously at the excited boy. and the boy indicted Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted before. The sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the forecastle scuttle. The hunters piled pell-mell out of the steerage, but as leach's tirade continued I saw that there was no levity in their. Even they were frightened, not at the boy's terrible words, but at it did not seem possible that any living creature could thus beard Wolf Larsen in his teeth. I know for myself that I was shocked into admiration of the boy, and I saw in him the splendid invincibleness of immortality rising above the flesh and the fears of the flesh, as in the prophets of old, to condemn unrighteousness. He haled forth Wolf Larsen's soul naked to the. He rained upon it curses from God and High Heaven, and withered it with a heat of invective that savoured of a mediaeval. rising to heights of wrath that were sublime and almost Godlike, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the vilest and most indecent abuse. His lips were flecked with a soapy froth, and sometimes he choked and gurgled and became inarticulate. calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing down, Wolf Larsen seemed. This wild stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and defiance of matter that moved, perplexed and interested him. Each moment I looked, and everybody looked, for him to leap upon the. 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." he was reiterating at the top of his lungs. you come down and kill Me, you murderer. Damn sight better dead and outa your reach than. It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge's erratic soul brought him. 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. face of Wolf Larsen, who seemed not to see him. unabashed, though mad, stark mad. Leach's rage was no longer impotent. Here at last was something ready. 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. The hunters laughed from sheer relief. Tragedy had dwindled, the farce. The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning and shuffling, to watch the pummelling of the hated Cockney. and even I felt a great joy surge. 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. But the expression of Wolf Larsen's face. He did not change his position either, but continued to gaze. For all his pragmatic certitude, it seemed as if he watched the play and movement of life in the hope of discovering something more about it, of discerning in its maddest writhings a something which had hitherto escaped him, the key to its mystery, as it were, which would make all clear and plain. It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed in the. The Cockney Strove In vain To Protect Himself From The Infuriated. and in vain he strove to gain the shelter of the cabin. toward it, grovelled toward it, fell toward it when he was knocked down. blow followed blow with bewildering rapidity. shuttlecock, until, finally, like Johnson, he was beaten and kicked as he him, but, having evidently filled the measure of his vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering and wailing in a puppyish sort of. But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day's. 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. 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. In fact, they were badly wounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded to operate upon them in a rough surgical fashion. I served as assistant while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the bullets, and I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anaesthetics and with no more to uphold them than a then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle. It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale- bearing which had been the cause of Johnson's beating, and from the noise we heard, and from the sight of the bruised men next day, it was patent that half the forecastle had soundly drubbed the other half. The second dog-watch and the day were wound up by a fight between Johansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. 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. As for myself, I was oppressed with nightmare. The day had been like. Brutality had followed brutality, and flaming passions and cold-blooded cruelty had driven men to seek one another's lives, and to strive to hurt, and maim, and destroy. All my days had been passed in comparative ignorance of. In fact, I had known life only in its intellectual. Brutality I Had Experienced, but it was the brutality of the intellect - the cutting sarcasm of Charley Furuseth, the cruel epigrams and occasional harsh witticisms of the fellows at the Bibelot, and the nasty remarks of some of the professors during my undergraduate days. But that men should wreak their anger on others by the bruising of the flesh and the letting of blood was something strangely and. Not for nothing had I been called "Sissy" Van Weyden, I thought, as I tossed restlessly on my bunk between one nightmare and. and it seemed to Me that my innocence of the realities of life had. I laughed bitterly to myself, and seemed to find in wolf Larsen's forbidding philosophy a more adequate explanation of life than. And I Was Frightened When I Became Conscious Of The Trend Of My. The Continual Brutality Around Me was Degenerative In its Effect. It bid fair to destroy for Me all that was best and brightest in life. reason dictated that the beating Thomas Mugridge had received was an ill thing, and yet for the life of Me I could not prevent my soul joying in it. and even while I was oppressed by the enormity of my sin, for sin it was. I was no longer Humphrey Van Weyden. Was Hump, cabin-boy on the schooner Ghost. Thomas Mugridge And The Rest Were My Companions, and I was receiving repeated impresses from the die which had stamped them all. 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. "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. "and I'll bet he sleeps in it," Harrison added. "and you won't lose," I agreed. "The same shirt, and he hasn't had it off once in all this time. But three days was all Wolf Larsen allowed him in which to recover from. 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. "and see that you serve no more slops," was his parting injunction. more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, or you'll get a Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a short lurch of the Ghost sent him staggering. reached for the iron railing which surrounded the stove and kept the pots from sliding off. but he missed the railing, and his hand, with his weight behind it, landed squarely on the hot surface. There was a sizzle and odour of burning flesh, and a sharp cry of pain. "Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot ' ave I done. coal-box and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth. It mykes Me fair sick, it does, an "I try so ' ard to go through life ' armless an '" urtin ' nobody. The tears were running down his puffed and discoloured cheeks, and his face was drawn with pain." I asked. but the poor wretch was weeping again over his. Less difficult it was to guess whom he hated than whom he did. For I Had Come To See A malignant Devil In him Which Impelled Him. I sometimes thought that he hated even himself, so grotesquely had life dealt with him, and so monstrously. great sympathy welled up within Me, and I felt shame that I had ever joyed. Life had been unfair to 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. and as though answering my unspoken thought, he wailed:. "I never ' ad no chance, not ' arf a chance. school, or put tommy in my ' ungry belly, or wipe my bloody nose for Me, w'en. ' Oo ever did anything for Me, heh. "Never mind, Tommy," I said, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder. It'll all come right in the end. You've long years before you, and you can make anything you please of yourself." he shouted in my face, flinging off the. It's all right for you, ' Ump. You never knew wot it was to go ' ungry, to cry yerself asleep with yer little belly gnawin ' an "gnawin ', like a rat inside yer. If I Was President Of The United Stytes To-morrer, ' ow would it fill my belly for one time w'en I was a kiddy and it went empty. I was born to sufferin ' and sorrer. cruel sufferin ' than any ten men, I ' ave. I've ' ad the fever in aspinwall, in ' Avana, in new Orleans. near died of the scurvy and was rotten with it six months in barbadoes. Smallpox in ' Onolulu, two broken legs in shanghai, pnuemonia in unalaska, three busted ribs an ' my insides all twisted in ' Frisco. My ribs kicked loose from my back again. coughin ' blood before eyght bells. ' 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. His diagnosis was correct, however, for he was seized with occasional sicknesses, during which he vomited blood and. and as he said, it seemed God hated him too much to let him die, for he ultimately grew better and waxed more malignant than ever. Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went about his work in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, and I more than once observed him creeping painfully aloft to a topsail, or drooping wearily. But, still worse, it seemed that his spirit was. He was abject before Wolf Larsen and almost grovelled to Johansen. Not so was the conduct of Leach. He went about the deck like a tiger cub, glaring his hatred openly at wolf Larsen and Johansen. "I'll do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede," I heard him say to. The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment some missile struck the galley a sharp rap. There was more cursing, and a mocking laugh, and when all was quiet I stole outside and found a heavy knife imbedded over. A few minutes later the mate came fumbling about in search of it, but I returned it privily to Leach next day. 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. 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. 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. (As though I stood in need of their money. them out, bag and baggage, and the schooner and its equipment, a score of.) 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. He must have suffered severely, for he called Me in and obeyed my. But nothing I could do seemed to relieve him. my suggestion, however, he gave up smoking and drinking. though why such a magnificent animal as he should have headaches at all puzzles Me. "' Tis the hand of God, I'm tellin ' you," is the way Louis sees it. "' Tis a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, and there's more behind and. "God is noddin ' and not doin ' his duty, though it's Me as shouldn't say. I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all. only does Thomas Mugridge continue to hate Me, but he has discovered a new. 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 -."and still no more dead men," I twitted Louis, when Smoke and Henderson, side by side, in friendly conversation, took their first exercise. Louis surveyed Me with his shrewd grey eyes, and shook his head. "She's a -comin ', I tell you, and it'll be sheets and halyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. I've had the feel iv it this long time, and I can feel it now as plainly as I feel the rigging iv a dark night. "Not fat old Louis, I promise you," he laughed. iv Me I know that come this time next year I'll be gazin "in the old mother's eyes, weary with watchin ' the iv the sea for the five sons she gave to." Thomas Mugridge Demanded A moment Later. "That he's going home some day to see his mother," I answered. "I never ' ad none," was the Cockney's comment, as he gazed with lustreless, hopeless eyes into mine. It has dawned upon Me that I have never placed a proper valuation upon. 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. 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. 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. I am sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never be they May dose Me and doctor Me morning, noon, and night, and dust and sweep and put my den to rights every minute of the day, and I shall only lean back and survey it all and be thankful in that I am possessed of a mother and some several sisters. All of which has set Me wondering. Where are the mothers of these twenty and odd men on the Ghost. that men should be totally separated from women and herd through the world. Coarseness and savagery are the inevitable results. about Me should have wives, and sisters, and daughters. then would they be capable of softness, and tenderness, and sympathy. In years and years not one of them has been in contact with a good woman, or within the influence, or redemption, which irresistibly. masculinity, which in itself is of the brute, has been over- developed. other and spiritual side of their natures has been dwarfed - atrophied, in they are a company of celibates, grinding harshly against one another and growing daily more calloused from the grinding. impossible sometimes that they ever had mothers. are a half- Brutus, half-human species, a race apart, wherein there is no such thing as sex. that they are hatched out by the sun like turtle eggs, or receive life in some similar and sordid fashion. and that all their days they fester in brutality and viciousness, and in the end die as unlovely as rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with Johansen last night - the first superfluous words with which he has favoured Me since. He left Sweden when he was eighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time has not been home once. 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. From some little port in madagascar. see, "he went on, as though addressing his neglected mother across half the girth of the earth," each year I was going home. and each year something happened, and I did not. 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. Then she will not do any more work. and then, boastingly, "We work from the time we are born until we die, in my country. I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the last I ever. Perhaps they were the last he did utter, too. For, going down into the cabin to turn in, I decided that it was too. We were out of the Trades, and the Ghost was forging ahead barely a knot an hour. 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 His eyes were wide and staring. seemed greatly perturbed, unable to reply to Me He shook his head, and with a deep sign as of awakening, caught his. "You'd better get on your course, then," I chided. He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing slowly. 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. hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail. gloom of the deep was I to behold. Whatever it was, TO I knew that it was climbing aboard by the log- Lina. I saw a head, the hair wet and straight, shape itself, and then the unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf Larsen. right cheek was red with blood, which flowed from some wound in the head. He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet, glancing swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel, as though to assure himself of his identity and that there was nothing to fear from him. sea- tent was streaming from him. It made little audible gurgles which. As he stepped toward Me I shrank back instinctively, for I saw that in his eyes which spelled death. "All right, Hump," he said in a low voice. 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. But you will observe that I didn't come back the. "You must have been overboard, sir. "Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir. Wolf Larsen Shook His Head. "You wouldn't find him, Hump. There was nothing stirring amidships. "Those cursed hunters," was his comment. "Too damned fat and lazy to. But on the forecastle-head we found three sailors asleep. them over and looked at their faces. They composed the watch on deck, and it was the ship's custom, in good weather, to let the watch sleep with the exception of the officer, the helmsman, and the look-out. "Me, sir," answered Holyoak, one of the deep- tent sailors, a slight. "I winked off just this very minute, sir. "Did you hear or see anything on deck. But Wolf Larsen Had Turned Away With A snort Of Disgust, leaving the sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let of so easily. "Softly, now," Wolf Larsen warned Me in a whisper, as he doubled his body into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend. What was to happen I knew no more than did I know what had happened. But blood had been shed, and it was through no whim of Wolf Larsen that he had gone over the side with his scalp laid open. 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. 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 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. 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- lamps I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep with sea-boots, oilskins, and garments, clean and dirty, of various sorts. and forth with every roll of the vessel, giving rise to a brushing sound, as somewhere a boot thumped loudly and at irregular intervals against the wall. and, though it was a mild night on the sea, there was a continual chorus of the creaking timbers and bulkheads and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring. The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them, the two watches below, and the air was thick with the warmth and odour of their breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their snoring and of their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of the rest of the animal- polygons. 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. way that reminded Me of a story out of Boccaccio. He took the sea- lamps from its swinging frame and handed it to Me began at the first bunks forward on the star-board side. Oofty-Oofty, a kanaka and splendid seaman, so named by his mates. asleep on his back and breathing as placidly as a woman. his head, the other lay on top of the blankets. Wolf Larsen Put Thumb And Forefinger To The Wrist And Counted The Pulse. There was no movement of the body. 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. While Wolf Larsen Held His Wrist He stirred Uneasily, bowing his body so that for a moment it rested on. His lips moved, and he gave voice to this enigmatic. "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 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- lamps, by Leach and Johnson. As wolf Larsen Bent Down To The Lower Bunk To Take Johnson's Pulse, I, standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach's head rise stealthily as he peered over the side of his bunk to see what was going on. divined Wolf Larsen's trick and the sureness of detection, for the light was at once dashed from my hand and the forecastle was left in darkness. 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. heard a great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen, and from Leach a snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling. Johnson must have joined him immediately, so that his abject and grovelling conduct on deck for the past few days had been no more than planned deception. I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned against the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. and upon Me was that old sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always by the spectacle of. In this instance I could not see, but I could hear the impact of the blows - the soft crushing sound made by flesh striking. Then there was the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the laboured breathing, the short quick gasps of sudden pain. There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the captain and mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnson had been quickly. But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. grimly and silently for life. 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. But in the confusion I managed to crawl into an empty lower." demanded those who had been really asleep, and who had wakened." Was Leach's Crafty Answer, strained from him in 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. forecastle was like an angry hive of bees aroused by some marauder." I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle, too cautious to descend into the inferno of passion he could hear raging beneath. pleaded in the first interval of comparative silence. The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single purpose, achieved. This was to fight his way across the floor to the ladder. total darkness, I followed his progress by its sound. giant could have done what he did, once he had gained the foot of the. 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. and then, step by step, hand and foot, he slowly struggled. 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. 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. still, step by step with long intervals between, the mass ascended. tottered, about to fall back, but the broken hold was regained and it still. In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peering down. "Larsen," I heard a muffled voice from within the mass. Latimer reached down with his free hand. 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. The mass swung clear of the ladder, the men still clinging to their. They began to drop of, to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the scuttle, to be knocked off by the legs which were now kicking. Leach was the last to go, falling sheer back from the top of the scuttle and striking on head and shoulders upon his sprawling mates beneath. Wolf Larsen And The Lantern Disappeared, and we were left in darkness. There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom of the ladder crawled to their feet. "Somebody strike a light, my thumb's out of joint," said one of the men, Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat-steerer in standish's boat, in. "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- lamps flared up, dim and smoky, and in its weird light bare-legged men moved about nursing their bruises and caring for their hurts. Parsons's thumb, pulling it out stoutly and snapping it back into place. noticed at the same time that the Kanaka's knuckles were laid open clear. He exhibited them, exposing beautiful white teeth in a grin as he did so, and explaining that the wounds had come from striking. "So it was you, was it, you black beggar. Kelly, an Irish-American and a longshoreman, making his first trip to sea, and boat- puller for Kerfoot. As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty. to his bunk, to return with a second leap, flourishing a long knife. "Aw, go lay down, you make Me tired," Leach interfered. evidently, for all of his youth and inexperience, cock of the forecastle. How in hell did he know it was you. Kelly subsided with some muttering, and the Kanaka flashed his white. He was a beautiful creature, almost feminine in the pleasing lines of his figure, and there was a softness and dreaminess in his large eyes which seemed to contradict his well-earned reputation for. He was sitting on the side of his bunk, the whole pose of his figure indicating utter dejection and hopelessness. from the exertion he had made. His shirt had been ripped entirely from him in the struggle, and blood from a gash in the cheek was flowing down his naked chest, marking a red path across his white thigh and dripping to the. "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. "and not one of you to get a knife. But the rest of the hands had a lively fear of consequences to come and. "How'll he know which was which. looked murderously about him - "unless one of us peaches. "He'll know as soon as ever he claps eyes on us," Parsons replied. "Tell him the deck flopped up and gouged yer teeth out the iv yer jaw,". 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. "Just wait till he gets a glimpse of the iv yer mugs. "We'll say we thought it was the mate," said one. and another, "I know what I'll say - that I heered a row, jumped out of my bunk, got a jolly good crack on the jaw for my pains, and sailed in couldn't tell who or what it was in the dark and just hit out. "An ' ' twas Me you hit, of course," Kelly seconded, his face brightening. 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. and reproaches for some time. A nice lot of gazabas you are. with yer mouth and did something with yer hands, he'd a- Ben done with by. Why couldn't one of you, just one of you, get Me a knife when I sung. A -beefin ' and bellerin ' ' round, as though he'd kill. You know damn well he wont. shipping masters or beach-combers over here, and he wants yer in his business, and he wants yer bad. Who's to pull or steer or sail ship if he it's Me and Johnson have to face the music. now, and shut yer faces. I want to get some sleep. "That's all right all right," Parsons spoke up. us, but mark my words, hell ' ll be an ice-box to this ship from now on. All the while I had been apprehensive concerning my own predicament. What would happen to Me when these men discovered my presence. fight my way out as wolf Larsen had done. and at this moment Latimer called. The old man wants you. "Yes, he is," I said, sliding out of the bunk and striving my hardest to keep my voice steady and bold. faces, and the devilishness which comes of fear." Kelly cried, stepping between Me and the ladder, his right hand shaped into a veritable strangler's clutch. "Not on yer life," was the angry retort. Leach never changed his position on the edge of the bunk. I say, "he repeated. but this time his voice was gritty and metallic. I made to step by him, and he stood aside. 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. I remembered the Cockney's way of putting it. hated them that they should be tortured so. "I have seen and heard nothing, believe Me," I said quietly. "I tell yer, he's all right," I could hear Leach saying as I went up. "He don't like the old man no more nor you or Me I found Wolf Larsen in the cabin, stripped and bloody, waiting for Me He greeted Me with one of his whimsical smiles. The signs are favourable for an extensive. I don't know what the Ghost would have been without you, and if I could only cherish such noble sentiments I would tell you her. 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. been my weakness to exalt the flesh - far from it. but there is enough of the artist in Me to appreciate its wonder. I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf Larsen's figure, and by what I May term the terrible beauty of it. Powerfully muscled though some of them were, there had been something wrong with all of them, an insufficient development here, an undue development there, a twist or a crook that destroyed symmetry, legs too short or too long, or too much sinew or bone exposed, or too little. Oofty- Oofty Had Been The Only One Whose Lines Were At all Pleasing, while, in so far as they pleased, that far had they been what I should call. But Wolf Larsen Was The Man-type, the masculine, and almost a god in 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. 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. It was the biceps that had nearly crushed out my life once, that I had seen strike so many killing blows. I stood motionless, a roll of antiseptic cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling itself down to the floor. He noticed Me, and I became conscious that I was staring at him. "God made you well," I said. "I have often thought so myself, and wondered. "This body was made for use. were made to grip, and tear, and destroy living things that get between Me but have you thought of the other living things. muscles, of one kind and another, made to grip, and tear, and destroy. and when they come between Me and life, I out-grip them, out-tear them. Purpose does not explain that. "Life isn't, you mean," he smiled. "Yet you say I was made well. He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes in knots and ridges and mounds of muscles writhed and. And I Observed, also, that his whole body had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert. that muscles were softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, and across the shoulders. that the arms were slightly lifted, their muscles contracting, the fingers crooking till the hands were like talons. and that even the eyes had changed expression and into them were coming watchfulness and measurement and a light none other than of battle. "Stability, equilibrium," he said, relaxing on the instant and sinking his body back into repose. "Feet with which to clutch the ground, legs to stand on and to help withstand, while with arms and hands, teeth and nails, I struggle to kill and to be not killed. 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 I was surprised, considering the fierce struggle in the forecastle, at the superficiality of his hurts, and I pride myself that I dressed them. With the exception of several bad wounds, the rest were merely. The blow which he had received before going overboard had laid his scalp open several inches. I cleansed and sewed together, having first shaved the edges of the wound. Then the calf of his leg was badly lacerated and looked as though it had. Some sailor, he told Me, had laid hold of it by his teeth, at the beginning of the fight, and hung on and been dragged to the top of the forecastle ladder, when he was kicked loose. "By the way, Hump, as I have remarked, you are a handy man," Wolf Larsen began, when my work was done. Hereafter you shall stand watches, receive seventy-five dollars per month, and be addressed fore and aft as mr. "I - I don't understand navigation, you know," I gasped. "I really do not care to sit in the high places," I objected. life precarious enough in my present humble situation. Mediocrity, you see, has its compensations. He smiled as though it were all settled. "I won't be mate on this hell-ship. I saw his face grow hard and the merciless glitter come into his eyes. He walked to the door of his room, saying:. I cannot say that the position of mate carried with it anything more joyful than that there were no more dishes to wash. simplest duties of mate, and would have fared badly indeed, had the sailors. I knew nothing of the minutiae of ropes and rigging, of the trimming and setting of sails. but the sailors took pains to put Me to rights, Louis proving an especially good teacher, and I had little trouble with those under Me with the hunters it was otherwise. Familiar in varying degree with the sea, they took Me as a sort of joke. the veriest landsman, should be filling the office of mate. but to be taken as a joke by others was a different matter. Larsen demanded the most punctilious sea etiquette in my case, far more than poor Johansen had ever received. and at the expense of several rows, threats, and much grumbling, he brought the hunters to time. Weyden "fore and aft, and it was only unofficially that Wolf Larsen himself. Perhaps the wind would haul a few points while we were at dinner, and as I left the table he would say, "Mr. 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. having digested his instructions and thoroughly mastered the manoeuvre, I I remember an early instance of this kind, when Wolf Larsen appeared on the scene just as I had begun to give orders. He smoked his cigar and looked on quietly till the thing was accomplished, and then paced aft by my side along the weather poop. think you can now fire your father's legs back into the grave to him. discovered your own and learned to stand on them. 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. Wolf Larsen Was Quite Considerate, the sailors helped Me, and I was no longer in irritating contact with Thomas Mugridge. say, as the days went by, that I found I was taking a certain secret pride. Fantastic as the situation was, a land-lubber second in command, I was, nevertheless, carrying it off well. and during that brief time I was proud of myself, and I grew to love the heave and roll of the Ghost under my feet as she wallowed north and west through the tropic sea to the islet where we filled our water-casks. But my happiness was not unalloyed. less misery slipped in between a past of great miseries and a future of. 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. Seen Harrison Called From His Bunk To Put Properly Away A misplaced Paintbrush, and the two watches below haled from their tired sleep to accompany him and see him do it. A little thing, truly, but when multiplied by the thousand ingenious devices of such a mind, the mental state of the men in the forecastle May be slightly comprehended. Of course much grumbling went on, and little outbursts were continually. Blows were struck, and there were always two or three men nursing injuries at the hands of the human beast who was their master. action was impossible in face of the heavy arsenal of weapons carried in the. 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. There was too much of the fighting beast. He seemed possessed by an insatiable fury which gave no time for. 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. I have seen him follow Wolf Larsen about with his eyes, like an animal its keeper, the while the animal- face 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. 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. He had for the moment mistaken Me for the man. 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. 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. All the devil that was in him challenged the devil in 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. heavy sheath-knife, missing Wolf Larsen's throat by an inch. dropped a Steel marlinspike from the mizzen crosstree. cast to make on a rolling ship, but the sharp point of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through the air, barely missed Wolf Larsen's head as he emerged from the cabin companion-way and drove its length two inches and over into the solid deck-planking. Still another time, he stole into the steerage, possessed himself of a loaded shot-gun, and was making a rush for the deck with it when caught by Kerfoot and disarmed. I often wondered why Wolf Larsen did not kill him and make an end of. But he only laughed and seemed to enjoy it. about it, such as men must feel who take delight in making pets of ferocious. "It gives a thrill to life," he explained to Me, "when life is carried. Man is a natural gambler, and life is the biggest stake he the greater the odds, the greater the thrill. myself the joy of exciting Leach's soul to fever-pitch. royally than any man for'ard, though he does not know it. 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. "Of the two of us, you and I, who is the greater coward. "If the situation is unpleasing, you compromise with your conscience when you make yourself a party to it. really true to yourself, you would join forces with Leach and Johnson. you are afraid, you are afraid. 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. and that is what you are not. There was a sting in what he said. Perhaps, after all, I was playing a 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. the austere conscience of my Puritan ancestry, impelling Me toward lurid deeds and sanctioning even murder as right conduct. It would be a most moral Act to rid the world of such a monster. would be better and happier for it, life fairer and sweeter. I pondered it long, lying sleepless in my bunk and reviewing in endless procession the facts of the situation. I talked with Johnson and Leach, during the night watches when Wolf Larsen was below. Both men had lost hope - Johnson, because of temperamental despondency. Leach, because he had beaten himself out in the vain struggle and was exhausted. hand in a passionate grip one night, saying:. But stay where you are and keep. Say nothin ' but saw Wood. We're dead men, I know it. but all the same you might be able to do us a favour some time when we need it damn. It was only next day, when Wainwright Island loomed to windward, close abeam, that Wolf Larsen opened his mouth in prophecy. Johnson, been attacked by Leach, and had just finished whipping the pair of. "Leach," he said, "you know I'm going to kill you some time or other." 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. 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. The Ghost Lay To half-A- mile Beyond The Surf- Line Of A lonely. Here debauched a deep gorge, with precipitous, volcanic walls which. and here, under his direct supervision - for he went ashore himself - Leach and Johnson filled the small casks and rolled them. They had no chance to make a break for liberty in one of. Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt. the boats ' crews, and their task was to ply between the schooner and the shore, carrying a single cask each trip. Just before dinner, starting for the beach with an empty barrel, they altered their course and bore away to the left to round the promontory which jutted into the sea between them and. Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty villages of the Japanese colonists and smiling valleys which penetrated deep into the interior. 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. opened fire in a leisurely manner, upon the deserters. At first their bullets zipped harmlessly along the surface of the water on either side the boat. but, as the men continued to pull lustily, they struck closer and closer. "Now, watch Me take Kelly's right oar," Smoke said, drawing a more. I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter as henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison's right oar. The two remaining oars were quickly broken. row with the splinters, and had them shot out of their hands. 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. us but the three or four months ' hunting on the sealing grounds. was black indeed, and I went about my work with a heavy heart. funereal gloom seemed to have descended upon the Ghost. taken to his bunk with one of his strange, splitting headaches. 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. I came upon Kelly crouching to the lee of the forecastle scuttle, his head on his knees, his arms about his head, in an attitude of. 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. break in on the man's morbid thoughts by calling him away, but he smiled. ever make ' Frisco once more, will you hunt up Matt McCarthy. He lives on the Hill, back of the Mayfair bakery, runnin ' a cobbler's shop that everybody knows, and you'll have no trouble. be sorry for the trouble I brought him and the things I done, and - and just tell him ' God bless him, ' for Me I nodded my head, but said, "We'll all win back to San Francisco, Leach, and you'll be with Me when I go to see Matt McCarthy. "I'd like to believe you," he answered, shaking my hand, "but I can't. Wolf Larsen ' ll do for Me, I know it. and all I can hope is, he'll do it. and as he left Me I was aware of the same desire at my heart. was to be done, let it be done with despatch. The general gloom had gathered. The worst appeared inevitable. and as I paced the deck, hour after hour, I found myself afflicted with Wolf Larsen's repulsive. Where was the grandeur of life that it should permit such wanton destruction of human souls. thing after all, this life, and the sooner over the better. I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion. Strange to say, in spite of the general foreboding, nothing of especial. We ran on to the north and west till we raised the coast of Japan and picked up with the great seal herd. man knew where in the illimitable Pacific, it was travelling north on its annual migration to the rookeries of Bering Sea. 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. It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman's sake. After a good day's killing I have seen our decks covered with hides and bodies, slippery with fat and blood, the scuppers running red. masts, ropes, and rails spattered with the sanguinary colour. and the men, like butchers plying their trade, naked and red of arm and hand, hard at work with ripping and flensing-knives, removing the skins from the pretty sea-creatures they had killed. It was my task to tally the pelts as they came aboard from the boats, to oversee the skinning and afterward the cleansing of the decks and bringing things ship-shape again. 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. One thing I was beginning to feel, and that was that I could never again be quite the same man I had been. While my hope and faith in human life still survived Wolf Larsen's destructive criticism, he had nevertheless been a cause of change in minor matters. He had opened up for Me the world of the real, of which I had known practically nothing and from which I had. I had learned to look more closely at life as it was lived, to recognize that there were such things as facts in the world, to emerge from the realm of mind and idea and to place certain values on the concrete. I saw more of Wolf Larsen than ever when we had gained the grounds. 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. spreading out fan-wise from the schooner until the first weather boat and the last lee boat were anywhere from ten to twenty miles apart, cruised along a straight course over the sea till nightfall or bad weather drove. It was our duty to sail the Ghost well to leeward of the last lee boat, so that all the boats should have fair wind to run for us in case of. It is no slight matter for two men, particularly when a stiff wind has sprung up, to handle a vessel like the Ghost, steering, keeping look-out for the boats, and setting or taking in sail. so it devolved upon Me to learn. 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. quickly, for I felt somehow a wild desire to vindicate myself in wolf Larsen's eyes, to prove my right to live in ways other than of the mind. Nay, the time came when I took joy in the run of the masthead and in the clinging on by my legs at that precarious height while I swept the sea with. 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. 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. We lay, scarcely rolling on the placid sea, unable to follow. The barometer was down, and the sky to the east did. "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. By eleven o'clock the sea had become glass. well up in the northerly latitudes, the heat was sickening. It was sultry and oppressive, reminding Me of what the old Californians term "earthquake weather. about it, and in intangible ways one was made to feel that the worst was. Slowly the whole eastern sky filled with clouds that over-towered us like some black sierra of the infernal regions. could one see canon, gorge, and precipice, and the shadows that lie therein, that one looked unconsciously for the white to surf- Lina and bellowing caverns where the sea charges on the land. and still we rocked gently, and there was. "Old Mother Nature's going to get up on her hind legs and howl for all that's in her, and it'll keep us jumping, Hump, to pull through with half our boats. You'd better run up and loosen. "But if it is going to howl, and there are only two of us. "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. The sticks ' ll stand it, and you and I will have to, though. 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. Wolf Larsen Did Not Seem Affected, however. Though I Noticed, when we returned to the deck, a slight twitching of the nostrils, a perceptible. 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. 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. Once, and unwitting that he did so or that I saw, he laughed aloud, mockingly and defiantly, at the advancing storm. there like a pigmy out of the ARABIAN NIGHTS before the huge front of some. He was daring destiny, and he was unafraid. "Cooky, by the time you've finished pots and pans you'll be wanted on. "Hump," he said, becoming cognizant of the fascinated gaze I bent upon him, "this beats whisky and is where your Omar misses. The western half of the sky had by now grown murky. It was two in the afternoon, and a ghostly twilight, shot through by wandering purplish lights, had descended upon us. purplish light Wolf Larsen's face glowed and glowed, and to my excited fancy. We lay in the midst of an unearthly quiet, while all about us were signs and omens of oncoming sound and movement. sultry heat had become unendurable. The sweat was standing on my forehead, and I could feel it trickling down my nose. and reached out to the rail for support. and then, just then, the faintest possible whisper of air passed by. was from the east, and like a whisper it came and went. was not stirred, and yet my face had felt the air and been cooled. "Cooky," Wolf Larsen called in a low voice. Thomas Mugridge Turned A pitiable Scared Face. "Let go that foreboom tackle and pass it across, and when she's willing let go the sheet and come in snug with the tackle. it, it will be the last you ever make. Van Weyden, stand by to pass the head-sails over. the topsails and spread them quick as god'll let you - the quicker you do it. As for Cooky, if he isn't lively bat him between. I was aware of the compliment and pleased, in that no threat had. We were lying head to north- post, and it was his intention to jibe over all with the first puff. "We'll have the breeze on our quarter," he explained to Me last guns the boats were bearing away slightly to the south'ard. He turned and walked aft to the wheel. Another whisper of wind, and another, passed by. "Thank Gawd she's not comin ' all of a bunch, Mr. 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. Larsen put the wheel hard up, to port, and we began to pay off. 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. were full with the flying-jib, jib, and staysail. and by the time this part of my task was accomplished the Ghost was leaping into the south- post, the wind on her quarter and all her sheets to starboard. 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 was Strengthening Steadily And The Sea Rising. 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. made at least ten knots, and we're going twelve or thirteen now. I contested myself with the fore crosstrees, some seventy feet above. 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. Indeed, as I gazed at the heavy sea through which we were running, I doubted that there was a boat afloat. It did not seem possible that such frail craft could survive such stress of wind and water. I could not feel the full force of the wind, for we were running with it. but from my lofty perch I looked down as though outside the Ghost and apart from her, and saw the shape of her outlined sharply against the foaming sea as she tore along instinct with life. and send across some great wave, burying her starboard-rail from view, and covering her deck to the hatches with the boiling ocean. 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. Once, the terror of this giddy sweep overpowered Me, and for a while I clung on, hand and foot, weak and trembling, unable to search the sea for the missing boats or to behold aught of the sea but that which roared beneath and strove to overwhelm the Ghost. But the thought of the men in the midst of it steadied Me, and in my quest for them I forgot myself. For an hour I saw nothing but the naked. 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. the tiny point of black projected itself through the wrathful blaze a couple of points off our port-bow. I did not attempt to shout, but communicated the news to Wolf Larsen by waving my arm. He changed the course, and I signalled affirmation when the speck showed dead ahead. It grew larger, and so swiftly that for the first time I fully appreciated the speed of our flight. Wolf Larsen Motioned For Me to Come Down, and when I stood beside him at the wheel gave Me instructions for. "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. Thomas Mugridge As to What He was To Do, I clambered into the fore-rigging a 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. Each rolling mountain whelmed them from view, and I would wait with sickening anxiety, fearing that they would never appear again. 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. 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. realized that he was preparing to heave to, and dropped to the deck to be in we were now dead before the wind, the boat far away and abreast. 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. 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. 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. aside, caught my breath, and looked again. The wave over-topped the Ghost, and I gazed sheer up and into it. A shaft of sunlight smote the over-curl, and I caught a glimpse of translucent, rushing green, backed by a milky. Then it descended, pandemonium broke loose, everything happened at I was struck a crushing, stunning blow, nowhere in particular and yet. 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. 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. But through it all I clung to the one idea - I MUST GET THE JIB. 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. 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. on all fours, I passed over the body of Thomas Mugridge, who lay in a I must get the jib backed. 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. fore-topsail, emptied of the wind by the manoeuvre, and with no one to bring in the sheet in time, were thundering into ribbons, the heavy boom threshing and splintering from rail to rail. The air was thick with flying wreckage, detached ropes and stays were hissing and coiling like snakes, and down through it all crashed the gaff of the foresail. The spar could not have missed Me by many inches, while it spurred Me perhaps the situation was not hopeless. He had expected all hell to break loose, and here it was. I caught sight of him toiling at the main-sheet, heaving it in and flat with his tremendous muscles, the stern of the schooner lifted high in the air and his body outlined against a white surge of sea sweeping. All this, and more, a whole world of chaos and wreck, in possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped. I did not stop to see what had become of the small boat, but sprang to. The jib itself was beginning to slap, partially filling and emptying with sharp reports. but with a turn of the sheet and the application of my whole strength each time it slapped, I slowly backed it. I pulled till I burst open the ends of all my fingers. and while I pulled, the flying-jib and staysail split their cloths apart and thundered into nothingness. Still I Pulled, holding what I gained each time with a double turn until the next slap gave Me more. Then the sheet gave with greater ease, and Wolf Larsen was beside Me, heaving in alone while I was busied taking up the. As I Followed Him, I noted that in spite of rack and ruin a rough order. She was still in working order, and she was. Though the rest of her sails were gone, the jib, backed to windward, and the mainsail hauled down flat, were themselves holding, and holding her bow to the furious sea as well. I looked for the boat, and, while Wolf Larsen cleared the boat- tackles, saw it lift to leeward on a big sea an not a score of feet away. and, so nicely had he made his calculation, we drifted fairly down upon it, so that nothing remained to do but hook the tackles to either end and hoist. 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. 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. trice, and the three men, deftly timing the roll, made a simultaneous leap. 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. spouting from Kerfoot's left hand. In some way the third finger had been. 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. very second we had finished with the boat. "Kelly, come aft and slack off. You, Kerfoot, go for'ard and see what's become of Cooky. Van Weyden, run aloft again, and cut away any stray stuff on your way. and having commanded, he went aft with his peculiar tigerish leaps to. 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. and, halfway to the crosstrees and flattened against the rigging by the full force of the wind so that it would have been impossible for Me to have fallen, the Ghost almost on her beam-ends and the masts parallel with the water, I looked, not down, but at almost right angles from the perpendicular, to the deck of the Ghost. deck, but where the deck should have been, for it was buried beneath a wild. Out of this water I could see the two masts rising, and. The Ghost, for the moment, was buried beneath the sea. 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. sighted the second one, swamped and bottom up, to which were desperately clinging Jock Horner, fat Louis, and Johnson. And Wolf Larsen Succeeded In heaving To Without Being Swept. Tackles were made fast and lines flung to the men, who. 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. wheel, quite a deal higher than the waist, was covered and swept again and. At such moments I felt strangely alone with God, alone with him and watching the chaos of his wrath. and then the wheel would reappear, and Wolf Larsen's broad shoulders, his hands gripping the spokes and holding the schooner to the course of his will, himself an earth- yr, dominating the storm, flinging its descending waters from him and riding it to his own. That tiny men should live and breathe and work, and drive so frail a contrivance of Wood and cloth. As before, the Ghost swung out of the trough, lifting her deck again out of the sea, and dashed before the howling blast. 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. Wolf Larsen Repeated His Manoeuvre, holding off and then rounding up to windward and drifting down upon it. missed by forty feet, the boat passing astern." 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- tent crowd. Lost they indubitably were. but the boat remained, and Wolf Larsen made one more reckless effort to recover. I had come down to the deck, and I saw Horner and Kerfoot vainly protest. "By God, I'll not be robbed of my boat by any storm that ever blew out." 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." he cried, and I heard through the tumult as one might. "Stand by that jib with Johnson and Oofty. Or I'll Sail You All Into Kingdom. 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 how great the risk I realized when I was once more buried beneath the pounding seas and clinging for life to the pinrail at the foot. My fingers were torn loose, and I swept across to the side and over the side into the sea. I could not swim, but before I could sink I A strong hand gripped Me, and when the Ghost finally emerged, I found that I owed my life to Johnson. about him, and noted that Kelly, who had come forward at the last moment. 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 running off before the wind with everything to starboard, he came about, and returned close-hauled on the port tack." Johnson shouted in my ear, as we successfully came through the attendant deluge, and I knew he referred, not to Wolf Larsen's seamanship, but to the performance of the Ghost herself. It was now so dark that there was no sign of the boat. But Wolf Larsen Held Back Through The Frightful Turmoil As if Guided By Unerring Instinct. This time, though we were continually half- buried, there was no trough in which to be swept, and we drifted squarely down upon the upturned boat, badly smashing it as it was heaved inboard. Two hours of terrible work followed, in which all hands of us - two hunters, three sailors, Wolf Larsen and I - reefed, first one and then the other, the jib and mainsail. Hove to under this short canvas, our decks were comparatively free of water, while the Ghost bobbed and ducked amongst the. 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. all was done, I gave up like a woman and rolled upon the deck in the agony. 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. A clean space of deck showed where it had stood. In the cabin I found all hands assembled, sailors as well, and while coffee was being cooked over the small stove we drank whisky and crunched. Never in my life had food been so welcome. 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. upon the wall of the port cabins as though it had been the deck. "To hell with a look-out," I heard Wolf Larsen say when we had eaten. "There's nothing can be done on deck. going to run us down we couldn't get out of its way. The sailors slipped forward, setting the side-lights as they went, while the two hunters remained to sleep in the cabin, it not being deemed advisable to open the slide to the steerage companion-way. 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. "But Kelly didn't amount to much," was the reply. After all that had passed, suffering intolerable anguish in my finger-ends, and with three boats missing, to say nothing of the wild capers the Ghost was cutting, I should have thought it impossible to sleep. 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. The next day, while the storm was blowing itself out, Wolf Larsen and I crammed anatomy and surgery and set Mugridge's ribs. 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. after sealing schooner we sighted and boarded, most of which were in search of lost boats, and most of which were carrying boats and crews they had picked up and which did not belong to them. For the thick of the fleet had been to the westward of us, and the boats, scattered far and wide, had headed in mad flight for the nearest refuge. Two of our boats, with men all safe, we took off the Cisco, and, to Wolf Larsen's huge delight and my own grief, he culled Smoke, with Nilson and Leach, from the San Diego. So that, at the end of five days, we found ourselves short but four men - Henderson, Holyoak, Williams, and Kelly, and were once more hunting on the flanks of the herd. As we followed it north we began to encounter the dreaded sea-fogs. after day the boats lowered and were swallowed up almost ere they touched the water, while we on board pumped the Horn at regular intervals and every fifteen minutes fired the bomb gun. Boats were continually being lost and found, it being the custom for a boat to hunt, on lay, with whatever schooner picked it up, until such time it was recovered by its own schooner. But Wolf Larsen, as was to be expected, being a boat short, took possession of the first stray one and compelled its men to hunt with the Ghost, not permitting them to return to their own schooner when we sighted it. remember how he forced the hunter and his two men below, a riffle at their breasts, when their captain passed by at biscuit-toss and hailed us for. Thomas Mugridge, so strangely and pertinaciously clinging to life, was soon limping about again and performing his double duties of Cook and. 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. As for Wolf Larsen and myself, we got along fairly well. Though I Could Not Quite Rid Myself Of The Idea That Right Conduct. He fascinated Me immeasurably, and I feared him. and yet, I could not imagine him lying prone in death. was an endurance, as of perpetual youth, about him, which rose up and. 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 He was a good shot, too, and brought many a skin aboard under what the hunters termed impossible hunting conditions. 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. have been caught nearly at the centre of this circular storm, and Wolf Larsen ran out of it and to the southward, first under a double-reefed jib, and finally under bare poles. Never had I imagined so great a sea. 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. So great was it that Wolf Larsen himself did not dare heave to, though he was being driven far to the southward and out of the seal herd. We must have been well in the path of the trans-Pacific steamships when the typhoon moderated, and here, to the surprise of the hunters, we found ourselves in the midst of seals - a second herd, or sort of rear-guard, they declared, and a most unusual thing. of guns, and the pitiful slaughter through the long day. It was at this time that I was approached by Leach. tallying the skins of the last boat aboard, when he came to my side, in the darkness, and said in a low tone:. Van Weyden, how far we are off the coast, and what the bearings of Yokohama are. My heart leaped with gladness, for I knew what he had in mind, and I gave him the bearings - west-north- post, and five hundred miles away. "Thank you, sir," was all he said as he slipped back into the darkness. 3 boat and Johnson and Leach were missing. water-breakers and grub-boxes from all the other boats were likewise missing, as were the beds and sea bags of the two men. He set sail and bore away into the west- north- post, two hunters constantly at the mastheads and sweeping the sea with glasses, himself pacing the deck like an angry lion. He knew too well my sympathy for the runaways to send Me aloft as look-out. The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity. Ghost through her best paces so as to get between the deserters and the. This accomplished, he cruised back and forth across what he knew must. 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. 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. 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. impending violence to Leach and Johnson that my reason must have left Me know that I slipped down into the steerage in a daze, and that I was just beginning the ascent to the deck, a loaded shot-gun in my hands, when I. "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. 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. As I Put The Gun Away And Slipped Back On Deck. 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. 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."Don't you see there, in the stern-sheets, on the. May I Never Shoot A seal Again If That Ain't A woman. I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamations broke out on all. The boat contained four men, and its fifth occupant was certainly a 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. We ran down the flying jib, hauled the jib-sheets to wind-ward and the main-sheet flat, and came up into the wind. The oars struck the water, and with a few strokes the boat was alongside. She was wrapped in a long ulster, for the morning was raw. And I Could See Nothing But Her Face And A mass Of Light Brown Hair Escaping From Under The Seaman's Cap On Her Head. The eyes were large and Brown and lustrous, the mouth sweet and sensitive, and the face itself a delicate oval, though sun and exposure to briny wind had burnt the face. She seemed to Me like a being from another world. hungry out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. 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. myself and my mate's duties, and took no part in helping the new-comers. For when one of the sailors lifted her into Wolf Larsen's downstretched arms, she looked up into our curious faces and smiled amusedly and sweetly, as only a woman can smile, and as I had seen no one smile for so long that I had forgotten such smiles existed." Wolf Larsen's Voice Brought Me sharply Back To. "Will you take the lady below and see to her comfort. and see what you can do for that. He turned brusquely away from us and began to question the new men. boat was cast adrift, though one of them called it a "bloody shame" with. I found myself strangely afraid of this woman I was escorting aft. 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. All this, in frankness, to show my first impression, after long denial of women in general and of Maud Brewster in particular. "No need to go to any great trouble for Me," she protested, when I had seated her in wolf Larsen's arm-chair, which I had dragged hastily from his. "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. explain to her the situation, the strange man who stalked the sea like Destiny, all that it had taken Me months to learn. "If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would be but our captain is a strange man, and I beg of you to be prepared for anything - understand. "I - I confess I hardly do understand," she hesitated, a perturbed but not frightened expression in her eyes. that shipwrecked people are always shown every consideration. "Candidly, I do not know," I strove to reassure her. to prepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come. captain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what will be his next. I was growing excited, but she interrupted Me with an "Oh, I see," and. She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, devoting myself to Wolf Larsen's command, which was to make her comfortable. 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. 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. I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach and Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, "Boat ho it was Smoke's unmistakable voice, crying from the masthead. I shot a glance at the woman, but she was leaning back in the arm-chair, her. I doubted that she had heard, and I resolved to prevent her seeing the brutality I knew would follow the capture of the. There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a slapping of reef-points as the Ghost shot into the wind and about on the other tack. she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair began to slide across the cabin floor, and I sprang for it just in time to prevent the rescued woman from. 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. my face as I shoved him out and ordered him back to his galley work. and he won his revenge by spreading glowing reports among the hunters as to what an excellent "lydy's- myde" I was proving myself to be she leaned heavily against Me, and I do believe that she had fallen asleep again between the arm-chair and the state-room. 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. I came on deck to find the Ghost heading up close on the port tack and cutting in to windward of a familiar spritsail close-hauled on the same tack. All hands were on deck, for they knew that something was to happen when Leach and Johnson were dragged aboard. Louis came aft to relieve the wheel. dampness in the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins. "A healthy young slip of a gale from the breath of the iv it, sir," he answered, "with a splatter of the iv rain just to wet our gills an ' no more. "Too bad we sighted them," I said, as the Ghost's bow was flung off a point by a large sea and the boat leaped for a moment past the jibs and into. Louis gave a spoke and temporized. "They'd never the iv made the land, sir." (A puff had caught the schooner, and he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out of the wind. no egg-shell'll float on this sea an hour come, an ' it's a stroke of the iv luck. Wolf Larsen Strode Aft From Amidships, where he had been talking with. The cat- face 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. sailors out of them, or boat-pullers at any rate. I know not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang like the cut of a my part, but it persisted in spite of Me, and I merely shrugged my shoulders. Wolf Larsen Pursed His Lips In a long, quizzical whistle. I am waiting to hear the news from you. "The City of Tokio, from ' Frisco. They were adrift four days. and you don't know who or. He shook his head in a bantering way, and regarded Me with laughing. It was on the verge of my tongue to ask if he were going to take the castaways into Yokohama. "What do you intend doing with Leach and Johnson. Additions I've About All The Crew I Want. "and they've about all the escaping they want," I said. Take them aboard, and deal gently with them. Whatever they have done they have been hounded into doing. "and I give you warning, Wolf Larsen, that I May forget love of my own life in the desire to kill you if you go too far in maltreating those poor wretches. You've found your legs with. You were unfortunate in having your life cast in easy places, but you're developing, and I like you the better. His voice and expression changed. "Then here's a compact," he went on, consummate actor. not to lay my hands upon Leach will you promise, in turn, not to attempt to." "Oh, not that I'm afraid of you, not that I'm afraid of you," he what was coming over the man. 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. Johnson was steering, Leach bailing. overhauled them about two feet to their one. keep off slightly, and we dashed abreast of the boat, not a score of feet to. The spritsail flapped emptily and the boat righted to an even keel, causing the two men swiftly to change position. boat lost headway, and, as we lifted on a huge surge, toppled and fell into. It was at this moment that Leach and Johnson looked up into the faces of their shipmates, who lined the rail amidships. 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. We were falling in the trough, they were rising on the surge. looked at Me, and I could see that his face was worn and haggard. hand to him, and he answered the greeting, but with a wave that was hopeless. I did not see into the eyes of Leach, for he was looking at wolf Larsen, the old and implacable snarl of hatred strong as ever on his face. Then they were gone astern. The spritsail filled with the wind, suddenly, careening the frail open craft till it seemed it would surely. A whitecap foamed above it and broke across in a snow-white. Then the boat emerged, half swamped, Leach flinging the water out and Johnson clinging to the steering- OAR, his face white and anxious. Wolf Larsen Barked A short Laugh In my Ear And Strode Away To The. I expected him to give orders for the Ghost to heave to, but she kept on her course and he made no sign. imperturbably at the wheel, but I noticed the grouped sailors forward turning troubled faces in our direction. Still the Ghost tore along, till the boat dwindled to a speck, when Wolf Larsen's voice rang out in command and he went about on the starboard tack. Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling cockle-shell, when the flying jib was run down and the schooner hove to. sealing boats are not made for windward work. weather position so that they May run before the wind for the schooner when. But in all that wild waste there was no refuge for Leach and Johnson save on the Ghost, and they resolutely began the windward beat. was slow work in the heavy sea that was running. liable to be overwhelmed by the hissing combers. countless times we watched the boat luff into the big whitecaps, lose headway, and be flung back like a cork. Johnson was a splendid seaman, and he knew as much about small boats as At the end of an hour and a half he was nearly alongside, standing past our stern on the last leg out, aiming to fetch us." I heard Wolf Larsen mutter, half to himself, half to them as though they could hear. Well, then, just keep a -coming." he commanded Oofty-Oofty, the Kanaka, who had in the meantime relieved Louis at the wheel. 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. 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. Johnson squared away promptly and ran after us. Death stalked everywhere, and it was only a matter of time when some one of those many huge seas would fall upon the boat, roll over. "' Tis the fear iv death at the hearts of the iv them," Louis muttered in my ear, as I passed forward to see to taking in the flying jib and staysail. "Oh, he'll heave to in a little while and pick them up," I answered. "He's bent upon giving them a lesson, that's all. "I>