º£ÀÇ£¨The SEA-WOLF£©
VOLUME I
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER ONE.
¡¡¡¡I SCARCELY KNOW WHERE to begin, though I sometimes facetiously place
the cause of it all to Charley Furuseth's credit. He kept a summer
cottage in Mill Valley, under the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, and never
occupied it except when he loafed through the winter months and read
Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to rest his brain. When summer came on,
he elected to sweat out a hot and dusty existence in the city and to
toil incessantly. Had it not been my custom to run up to see him every
Saturday afternoon and to stop over till Monday morning, this
particular January Monday morning would not have found me afloat on
San Francisco Bay.
¡¡¡¡Not but that I was afloat in a safe craft, for the Martinez was a
new ferry-steamer, making her fourth or fifth trip on the run
between Sausalito and San Francisco. The danger lay in the heavy fog
which blanketed the bay, and of which, as a landsman, I had little
apprehension. In fact, I remember the placid exaltation with which I
took up my position on the forward upper deck, directly beneath the
pilot-house, and allowed the mystery of the fog to lay hold of my
imagination. A fresh breeze was blowing, and for a time I was alone in
the moist obscurity; yet not alone, for I was dimly conscious of the
presence of the pilot, and of what I took to be the captain, in the
glass house above my head.
¡¡¡¡I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labor
which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and
navigation in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of
the sea. It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. The
peculiar knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many
thousands of people who knew no more of the sea and navigation than
I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote my energy to
the learning of a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a few
particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe's
place in American literature, an essay of mine, by the way, in the
current 'Atlantic.' Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I
had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the 'Atlantic,'
which was open at my very essay. And there it was again, the
division of labor, the special knowledge of the pilot and captain
which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special knowledge on
Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to San Francisco.
¡¡¡¡A red-faced man, slamming the cabin door behind him and stumping out
on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note
of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of
calling 'The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist.' The
red-faced man shot a glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around at the
fog, stumped across the deck and back (he evidently had artificial
legs), and stood still by my side, legs wide apart and with an
expression of keen enjoyment on his face. I was not wrong when I
decided that his days had been spent on the sea.
¡¡¡¡'It's nasty weather like this here that turns heads gray before
their time,' he said, with a nod toward the pilot-house.
¡¡¡¡'I had not thought there was any particular strain,' I answered. 'It
seems as simple as a-b-c. They know the direction by compass, the
distance, and the speed. I should not call it anything more than
mathematical certainty.'
¡¡¡¡'Strain!' he snorted. 'Simple as a-b-c! Mathematical certainty!'
He seemed to brace himself up and lean backward against the air as
he stared at me. 'How about this here tide that's rushin' out
through the Golden Gate?' he demanded, or bellowed, rather. 'How
fast is she ebbin'? What's the drift, eh? Listen to that, will you!
A bell-buoy, and we're atop of it! See 'em alterin' the course!'
¡¡¡¡From out of the fog came the mournful tolling of a bell, and I could
see the pilot turning the wheel with great rapidity. The bell, which
had seemed straight ahead, was now sounding from the side. Our own
whistle was blowing hoarsely, and from time to time the sound of other
whistles came to us from out of the fog.
¡¡¡¡'That's a ferryboat of some sort,' the newcomer said, indicating a
whistle off to the right. 'And there! D'ye hear that? Blown by
mouth. Some scow schooner, most likely. Better watch out, Mr.
Schooner-man. Ah, I thought so.'
¡¡¡¡The unseen ferryboat was blowing blast after blast, and the
mouth-blown horn was tooting in terror-stricken fashion.
¡¡¡¡'And now they're payin' their respects to each other and tryin' to
get clear,' the red-faced man went on, as the hurried whistling
ceased.
¡¡¡¡His face was shining, his eyes flashing with excitement, as he
translated into articulate language the speech of the horns and
sirens. 'That's a steam-siren a-goin' it over there to the left. And
you hear that fellow with a frog in his throat- a steam-schooner, as
near as I can judge, crawlin' in from the Heads against the tide.'
¡¡¡¡A shrill little whistle, piping as if gone mad, came from directly
ahead and from very near at hand. Gongs sounded on the Martinez. Our
paddlewheels stopped, their pulsing beat died away, and then they
started again. The shrill little whistle, like the chirping of a
cricket amid the cries of great beasts, shot through the fog from more
to the side and swiftly grew faint and fainter. I looked to my
companion for enlightenment.
¡¡¡¡'One of them daredevil launches,' he said. 'I almost wish we'd
sunk him, the little rip! They're the cause of more trouble. And
what good are they? Any jackass gets aboard one and thinks he can
run it, blowin' his whistle to beat the band and tellin' the rest of
the world to look out for him because he's comin' and can't look out
for himself. Because he's comin'! And you've got to look out, too.
Right of way! Common decency! They don't know the meanin' of it!'
¡¡¡¡I felt quite amused at his unwarranted choler, and while he
stumped moodily up and down I fell to dwelling upon the romance of the
fog. And romantic it certainly was- the fog, like the gray shadow of
infinite mystery, brooding over the whirling speck of earth; and
men, mere motes of light and sparkle, cursed with an insane relish for
work, riding their steeds of wood and steel through the heart of the
mystery, groping their way blindly through the unseen, and clamoring
and clanging in confident speech the while their hearts are heavy with
incertitude and fear.
¡¡¡¡The voice of my companion brought me back to myself with a laugh. I,
too, had been groping and floundering, the while I thought I rode
clear-eyed through the mystery.
¡¡¡¡'Hello! Somebody comin' our way,' he was saying. 'And d'ye hear
that? He's comin' fast. Walkin' right along. Guess he don't hear us
yet. Wind's in wrong direction.'
¡¡¡¡The fresh breeze was blowing right down upon us, and I could hear
the whistle plainly, off to one side and a little ahead.
¡¡¡¡'Ferryboat?' I asked.
¡¡¡¡He nodded, then added: 'Or he wouldn't be keepin' up such a clip.'
He gave a short chuckle. 'They're gettin' anxious up there.'
¡¡¡¡I glanced up. The captain had thrust his head and shoulders out of
the pilot-house and was staring intently into the fog, as though by
sheer force of will he could penetrate it. His face was anxious, as
was the face of my companion, who had stumped over to the rail and was
gazing with a like intentness in the direction of the invisible
danger.
¡¡¡¡Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. The fog
seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a
steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on each side like seaweed on
the snout of Leviathan. I could see the pilot-house and a
white-bearded man leaning partly out of it, on his elbows. He was clad
in a blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he was.
His quietness, under the circumstances, was terrible. He accepted
Destiny, marched hand in hand with it, and coolly measured the stroke.
As he leaned there, he ran a calm and speculative eye over us, as
though to determine the precise point of the collision, and took no
notice whatever when our pilot, white with rage, shouted, 'Now
you've done it!'
¡¡¡¡'Grab hold of something and hang on!' the red-faced man said to
me. All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the
contagion of preternatural calm. 'And listen to the women scream,'
he said grimly, almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been
through the experience before.
¡¡¡¡The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We
must have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the
strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. The Martinez
heeled over sharply, and there was a crashing and rending of timber. I
was thrown flat on the wet deck, and before I could scramble to my
feet I heard the screams of the women. This it was, I am certain,- the
most indescribable of bloodcurdling sounds,- that threw me into a
panic. I remembered the life-preservers stored in the cabin, but was
met at the door and swept backward by a wild rush of men and women.
What happened in the next few minutes I do not recollect, though I
have a clear remembrance of pulling down life-preservers from the
overhead racks while the red-faced man fastened them about the
bodies of an hysterical group of women. This memory is as distinct and
sharp as that of any picture I have seen. It is a picture, and I can
see it now- the jagged edges of the hole in the side of the cabin,
through which the gray fog swirled and eddied; the empty upholstered
seats, littered with all the evidences of sudden flight, such as
packages, hand-satchels, umbrellas, and wraps; the stout gentleman who
had been reading my essay, incased in cork and canvas, the magazine
still in his hand, and asking me with monotonous insistence if I
thought there was any danger; the red-faced man stumping gallantly
around on his artificial legs and buckling life-preservers on all
comers; and, finally, the screaming bedlam of women.
¡¡¡¡This it was, the screaming of the women, that most tried my
nerves. It must have tried, too, the nerves of the red-faced man,
for I have another picture which will never fade from my mind. The
stout gentleman is stuffing the magazine into his overcoat pocket
and looking on curiously. A tangled mass of women, with drawn, white
faces and open mouths, is shrieking like a chorus of lost souls; and
the red-faced man, his face now purplish with wrath, and with arms
extended overhead, as in the act of hurling thunderbolts, is shouting,
'Shut up! Oh, shut up!'
¡¡¡¡I remember the scene impelled me to sudden laughter, and in the next
instant I realized that I was becoming hysterical myself; for these
were women, of my own kind, like my mother and sisters, with the
fear of death upon them and unwilling to die. And I remember that
the sounds they made reminded me of the squealing of pigs under the
knife of the butcher, and I was struck with horror at the vividness of
the analogy. These women, capable of the most sublime emotions, of the
tenderest sympathies, were open-mouthed and screaming. They wanted
to live; they were helpless, like rats in a trap, and they screamed.
¡¡¡¡The horror of it drove me out on deck. I was feeling sick and
squeamish, and sat down on a bench. In a hazy way I saw and heard
men rushing and shouting as they strove to lower the boats. It was
just as I had read descriptions of such scenes in books. The tackles
jammed. Nothing worked. One boat lowered away with the plugs out,
filled with women and children and then with water, and capsized.
Another boat had been lowered by one end and still hung in the
tackle by the other end where it had been abandoned. Nothing was to be
seen of the strange steamboat which had caused the disaster, though
I heard men saying that she would undoubtedly send boats to our
assistance.
¡¡¡¡I descended to the lower deck. The Martinez was sinking fast, for
the water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were leaping
overboard. Others, in the water, were clamoring to be taken aboard
again. No one heeded them. A cry arose that we were sinking. I was
seized by the consequent panic, and went over the side in a surge of
bodies. How I went over I do not know, though I did know, and
instantly, why those in the water were so desirous of getting back
on the steamer. The water was cold- so cold that it was painful. The
pang, as I plunged into it, was as quick and sharp as that of fire. It
bit to the marrow. It was like the grip of death. I gasped with the
anguish and shock of it, filling my lungs before the life-preserver
popped me to the surface. The taste of the salt was strong in my
mouth, and I was strangling with the acrid stuff in my throat and
lungs.
¡¡¡¡But it was the cold that was most distressing. I felt that I could
survive but a few minutes. People were struggling and floundering in
the water about me. I could hear them crying out to one another. And I
heard, also, the sound of oars. Evidently the strange steamboat had
lowered its boats. As the time went by I marveled that I was still
alive. I had no sensation whatever in my lower limbs, while a chilling
numbness was wrapping about my heart and creeping into it. Small
waves, with spiteful foaming crests, continually broke over me and
into my mouth, sending me off into more strangling paroxysms.
¡¡¡¡The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing
chorus of screams in the distance and knew that the Martinez had
gone down. Later,- how much later I have no knowledge,- I came to
myself with a start of fear. I was alone, I could hear no calls or
cries- only the sound of the waves, made weirdly hollow and
reverberant by the fog. A panic in a crowd, which partakes of a sort
of community of interest, is not so terrible as a panic when one is by
oneself; and such a panic I now suffered. Whither was I drifting?
The red-faced man had said that the tide was ebbing through the Golden
Gate. Was I, then, being carried out to sea? And the life-preserver in
which I floated? was it not liable to go to pieces at any moment? I
had heard of such things being made of paper and hollow rushes,
which quickly became saturated and lost all buoyancy. I could not swim
a stroke, and I was alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a
gray primordial vastness. I confess that a madness seized me, that I
shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked, and beat the water with my
numb hands.
¡¡¡¡How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness
intervened, of which I remember no more than one remembers of troubled
and painful sleep. When I aroused, it was as after centuries of
time, and I saw, almost above me and emerging from the fog, the bow of
a vessel and three triangular sails, each shrewdly lapping the other
and filled with wind. Where the bow cut the water there was a great
foaming and gurgling, and I seemed directly in its path. I tried to
cry out, but was too exhausted. The bow plunged down, just missing
me and sending a swash of water clear over my head. Then the long
black side of the vessel began slipping past, so near that I could
have touched it with my hands. I tried to reach it, in a mad resolve
to claw into the wood with my nails; but my arms were heavy and
lifeless. Again I strove to call out, but made no sound.
¡¡¡¡The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping, as it did so, into a
hollow between the waves; and I caught a glimpse of a man standing
at a wheel, and of another man who seemed to be doing little else than
smoke a cigar. I saw the smoke issuing from his lips as he slowly
turned his head and glanced out over the water in my direction. It was
a careless, unpremeditated glance, one of those haphazard things men
do when they have no immediate call to do anything in particular,
but act because they are alive and must do something.
¡¡¡¡But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel being
swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel, and
the head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze
struck the water and casually lifted along it toward me. His face wore
an absent expression, as of deep thought, and I became afraid that
if his eyes did light upon me he would nevertheless not see me. But
his eyes did light upon me, and looked squarely into mine; and he
did see me, for he sprang to the wheel, thrusting the other man aside,
and whirled it round and round, hand over hand, at the same time
shouting orders of some sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent
to its former course and to leap almost instantly from view into the
fog.
¡¡¡¡I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and tried with all
the power of my will to fight above the suffocating blankness and
darkness that was rising around me. A little later I heard the
stroke of oars, growing nearer and nearer, and the calls of a man.
When he was very near I heard him crying, in vexed fashion: 'Why in-
don't you sing out?'
¡¡¡¡This meant me, I thought, and then the blankness and darkness rose
over me.
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER TWO.
¡¡¡¡I SEEMED SWINGING IN A mighty rhythm through orbit vastness.
Sparkling points of light spluttered and shot past me. They were
stars, I knew, and flaring comets, that peopled my flight among the
suns. As I reached the limit of my swing and prepared to rush back
on the counter-swing, a great gong struck, and thundered and
reverberated through abysmal space. For an immeasurable period,
quiescent, lapped in the rippling of placid centuries, I enjoyed and
pondered my tremendous flight.
¡¡¡¡But a change came over the face of the dream, for a dream I told
myself it must be. My rhythm grew shorter and shorter. I was jerked
from swing to counter-swing with irritating haste. I could scarcely
catch my breath, so fiercely was I impelled through the heavens. The
gong thundered more frequently and more furiously. I grew to await
it with a nameless dread. Then it seemed as though I were being
dragged over rasping sands, white and hot in the sun. This gave
place to a sense of intolerable anguish. My skin was scorching in
the torment of fire. The gong clanged and knelled. The sparkling
points of light flashed past me in an interminable stream, as though
the whole sidereal system were dropping into the void. I gasped,
caught my breath painfully, and opened my eyes. Two men were
kneeling beside me, working over me. My mighty rhythm was the lift and
forward plunge of a ship on the sea. The terrific gong was a
frying-pan, hanging on the wall, that rattled and clattered with
each leap of the ship. The rasping, scorching sands were a man's
hard hands chafing my naked chest. I squirmed under the pain of it and
half lifted my head. My chest was raw and red, and I could see tiny
blood-globules starting through the torn and inflamed cuticle.
¡¡¡¡'That'll do, Yonson,' one of the men said. 'Carn't yer see you've
bloomin' well rubbed all the gent's skin off?'
¡¡¡¡The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type,
ceased chafing me and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who had
spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly
pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the
sound of Bow Bells with his mother's milk. A draggled muslin cap on
his head, and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim hips, proclaimed him
cook of the decidedly dirty ship's galley in which I found myself.
¡¡¡¡'An' 'ow yer feelin' now, sir?' he asked, with the subservient smirk
which comes only of generations of tip-seeking ancestors.
¡¡¡¡For reply, I twisted weakly into a sitting posture, and was helped
by Yonson to my feet. The rattle and bang of the frying-pan was
grating horribly on my nerves. I could not collect my thoughts.
Clutching the woodwork of the galley for support,- and I confess the
grease with which it was scummed put my teeth on edge,- I reached
across a hot cooking-range to the offending utensil, unhooked it,
and wedged it securely into the coal-box.
¡¡¡¡The cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my hand
a steaming mug with an ''Ere, this'll do yer good.'
¡¡¡¡It was a nauseous mess,- ship's coffee,- but the heat of it was
revivifying. Between gulps of the molten stuff I glanced down at my
raw and bleeding chest and turned to the Scandinavian.
¡¡¡¡'Thank you, Mr. Yonson,' I said; 'but don't you think your
measures were rather heroic?'
¡¡¡¡It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than
of my words, that he held up his palm for inspection. It was
remarkably calloused. I passed my hand over the horny projections, and
my teeth went on edge once more from the horrible rasping sensation
produced.
¡¡¡¡'My name is Johnson, not Yonson,' he said in very good, though slow,
English, with no more than a shade of accent to it.
¡¡¡¡There was mild protest in his pale-blue eyes, and, withal, a timid
frankness and manliness that quite won me to him.
¡¡¡¡'Thank you, Mr. Johnson,' I corrected, and reached out my hand for
his.
¡¡¡¡He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one leg
to the other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake.
¡¡¡¡'Have you any dry clothes I may put on?' I asked the cook.
¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' he answered, with cheerful alacrity. 'I'll run down
an' tyke a look over my kit, if you've no objections, sir, to
wearin' my things.'
¡¡¡¡He dived out of the galley door, or glided, rather, with a swiftness
and smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-like as
oily. In fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later to
learn, was probably the most salient expression of his personality.
¡¡¡¡'And where am I?' I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to be
one of the sailors. 'What vessel is this? And where is she bound?'
¡¡¡¡'Off the Farralones, heading about sou'west,' he answered slowly and
methodically, as though groping for his best English, and rigidly
observing the order of my queries. 'The schooner Ghost; bound
seal-hunting to Japan.'
¡¡¡¡'And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I am dressed?'
¡¡¡¡Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while he groped
in his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. 'The cap'n is Wolf
Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you
better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The mate-'
¡¡¡¡But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.
¡¡¡¡'Better sling yer 'ook out of 'ere, Yonson,' he said. 'The Old
Man'll be wantin' yer on deck, an' this ayn't no d'y to fall foul of
'im.'
¡¡¡¡Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the
cook's shoulder, favoring me with an amazingly solemn and portentous
wink, as though to emphasize his interrupted remark and the need for
me to be soft-spoken with the captain.
¡¡¡¡Hanging over the cook's arm was a loose and crumpled array of
evil-looking and sour-smelling garments.
¡¡¡¡'They was put aw'y wet, sir,' he vouchsafed explanation. 'But you'll
'ave to make them do while I dry yours out by the fire.'
¡¡¡¡Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship,
and aided by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woolen
undershirt. On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from the
harsh contact. He noticed my involuntary twitching and grimacing,
and smirked:
¡¡¡¡'I only 'ope yer don't ever 'ave to get used to such as that in this
life, 'cos you've got a bloomin' soft skin, that you 'ave, more like a
lydy's than any I know of. I was bloomin' well sure you was a
gentleman as soon as I set eyes on yer.'
¡¡¡¡I had taken a dislike to him at the first, and as he helped to dress
me this dislike increased. There was something repulsive about his
touch. I shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And between this and
the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling on the
galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air. Further,
there was the need of seeing the captain about what arrangements could
be made for getting me ashore.
¡¡¡¡A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discolored with
what I took to be ancient bloodstains, was put on me amidst a
running and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman's brogans
incased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of
pale-blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten
inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as though
the devil had there clutched for the Cockney's soul and missed the
shadow for the substance.
¡¡¡¡'And whom have I to thank for this kindness?' I asked, when I
stood completely arrayed, a tiny boy's cap on my head, and for coat
a dirty, striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my back,
and the sleeves of which reached just below my elbows.
¡¡¡¡The cook drew himself up in smugly humble fashion, a deprecating
smirk on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on the
Atlantic liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was
waiting for his tip. From my fuller knowledge of the creature I now
know that the posture was unconscious. An hereditary servility, no
doubt, was responsible.
¡¡¡¡'Mugridge, sir,' he fawned, his effeminate features running into a
greasy smile. 'Thomas Mugridge, sir, an' at yer service.'
¡¡¡¡'All right, Thomas,' I said. 'I shall not forget you- when my
clothes are dry.'
¡¡¡¡A soft light suffused his face, and his eyes glistened, as though
somewhere in the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened and
stirred with dim memories of tips received in former lives.
¡¡¡¡'Thank you, sir,' he said very gratefully and very humbly indeed.
¡¡¡¡Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and I
stepped out on deck. I was still weak from my prolonged immersion. A
puff of wind caught me, and I staggered across the moving deck to a
corner of the cabin, to which I clung for support. The schooner,
heeled over far out from the perpendicular, was bowing and plunging
into the long Pacific roll. If she were heading southwest, as
Johnson had said, the wind, then, I calculated, was blowing nearly
from the south. The fog was gone, and in its place the sun sparkled
crisply on the surface of the water. I turned to the east, where I
knew California must lie, but could see nothing save low-lying
fog-banks- the same fog, doubtless, that had brought about the
disaster to the Martinez and placed me in my present situation. To the
north, not far away, a group of naked rocks thrust above the sea, on
one of which I could distinguish a lighthouse. In the southwest, and
almost in our course, I saw the pyramidal loom of some vessel's sails.
¡¡¡¡Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my more
immediate surroundings. My first thought was that a man who had come
through a collision and rubbed shoulders with death merited more
attention than I received. Beyond a sailor at the wheel, who stared
curiously across the top of the cabin, I attracted no notice whatever.
¡¡¡¡Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amidships. There,
on a hatch, a large man was lying on his back. He was fully clothed,
though his shirt was ripped open in front. Nothing was to be seen of
his chest, however, for it was covered with a mass of black hair, in
appearance like the furry coat of a dog. His face and neck were hidden
beneath a black beard, intershot with gray, which would have been
stiff and bushy had it not been limp and draggled and dripping with
water. His eyes were closed, and he was apparently unconscious; but
his mouth was wide open, his breast heaving as though from suffocation
as he labored noisily for breath. A sailor, from time to time and
quite methodically, as a matter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket
into the ocean at the end of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and
sluiced its contents over the prostrate man.
¡¡¡¡Pacing back and forth the length of the hatchway, and savagely
chewing the end of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance had
rescued me from the sea. His height was probably five feet ten inches,
or ten and a half; but my first impression or feel of the man was
not of this, but of his strength. And yet, while he was of massive
build, with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could not characterize
his strength as massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy,
knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but
which, in him, because of his heavy build, partook more of the
enlarged gorilla order. Not that in appearance he seemed in the
least gorilla-like. What I am striving to express is this strength
itself, more as a thing apart from his physical semblance. It was a
strength we are wont to associate with things primitive, with wild
animals and the creatures we imagine our tree-dwelling prototypes to
have been- a strength savage, ferocious, alive in itself, the
essence of life in that it is the potency of motion, the elemental
stuff itself out of which the many forms of life have been molded.
¡¡¡¡Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man who
paced up and down. He was firmly planted on his legs; his feet
struck the deck squarely and with surety: every movement of a
muscle, from the heave of the shoulders to the tightening of the
lips about the cigar, was decisive and seemed to come out of a
strength that was excessive and overwhelming. In fact, though this
strength pervaded every action of his, it seemed but the advertisement
of a greater strength that lurked within, that lay dormant and no more
than stirred from time to time, but which might arouse at any
moment, terrible and compelling, like the rage of a lion or the
wrath of a storm.
¡¡¡¡The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinned
encouragingly at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in the
direction of the man who paced up and down by the hatchway. Thus I was
given to understand that he was the captain, the 'Old Man,' in the
cook's vernacular, the person whom I must interview and put to the
trouble of somehow getting me ashore. I had half started forward, to
get over with what I was certain would be a stormy quarter of an hour,
when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate person
who was lying on his back. He writhed about convulsively. The chin,
with the damp black beard, pointed higher in the air as the back
muscles stiffened and the chest swelled in an unconscious and
instinctive effort to get more air.
¡¡¡¡The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing, and
gazed down at the dying man. So fierce had this final struggle
become that the sailor paused in the act of flinging more water over
him, and stared curiously, the canvas bucket partly tilted and
dripping its contents to the deck. The dying man beat a tattoo on
the hatch with his heels, straightened out his legs, stiffened in
one great, tense effort, and rolled his head from side to side. Then
the muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, as of
profound relief, floated upward from his lips. The jaw dropped, the
upper lip lifted, and two rows of tobacco-discolored teeth appeared.
It seemed as though his features had frozen into a diabolical grin
at the world he had left and outwitted.
¡¡¡¡Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke loose
upon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lips in
a continuous stream. And they were not namby-pamby oaths, or mere
expressions of indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, and there were
many words. They crisped and crackled like electric sparks. I had
never heard anything like it in my life, nor could I have conceived it
possible. With a turn for literary expression myself, and a penchant
for forcible figures and phrases, I appreciated as no other
listener, I dare say, the peculiar vividness and strength and absolute
blasphemy of his metaphors. The cause of it all, as near as I could
make out, was that the man, who was mate, had gone on a debauch before
leaving San Francisco, and then had the poor taste to die at the
beginning of the voyage and leave Wolf Larsen short-handed.
¡¡¡¡It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends, that I
was shocked. Oaths and vile language of any sort had always been
unutterably repellent to me. I felt a wilting sensation, a sinking
at the heart, and, I might just as well say, a giddiness. To me
death had always been invested with solemnity and dignity. It had been
peaceful in its occurrence, sacred in its ceremonial. But death in its
more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I had been
unacquainted till now. As I say, while I appreciated the power of
the terrific denunciation that swept out of Wolf Larsen's mouth, I was
inexpressibly shocked. But the dead man continued to grin
unconcernedly with a sardonic humor, a cynical mockery and defiance.
He was master of the situation.
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER THREE.
¡¡¡¡WOLF LARSEN CEASED SWEARING as suddenly as he had begun. He
relighted his cigar and glanced around. His eyes chanced upon the
cook.
¡¡¡¡'Well, Cooky?' he began, with a suaveness that was cold and of the
temper of steel.
¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' the cook eagerly interpolated, with appeasing and
apologetic servility.
¡¡¡¡'Don't you think you've stretched that neck of yours just about
enough? It's unhealthy, you know. The mate's gone, so I can't afford
to lose you, too. You must be very, very careful of your health,
Cooky. Understand?'
¡¡¡¡His last word, in striking contrast with the smoothness of his
previous utterance, snapped like the lash of a whip. The cook
quailed under it.
¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' was the meek reply, as the offending head disappeared
into the galley.
¡¡¡¡At this rebuke the rest of the crew became uninterested and fell
to work at one task or another. A number of men, however, who were
lounging about a companionway between the galley and the hatch, and
who did not seem to be sailors, continued talking in low tones with
one another. These, I afterward learned, were the hunters, the men who
shot the seals, and a very superior breed to common sailor-folk.
¡¡¡¡'Johansen!' Wolf Larsen called out. A sailor stepped forward
obediently. 'Get your palm and needle and sew the beggar up. You'll
find some old canvas in the sail-locker. Make it do.'
¡¡¡¡'What'll I put on his feet, sir?' the man asked, after the customary
'Aye, aye, sir.'
¡¡¡¡'We'll see to that,' Wolf Larsen answered, and elevated his voice in
a cal of 'Cooky!'
¡¡¡¡Thomas Mugridge popped out of his galley like a jack-in-the-box.
¡¡¡¡'Go below and fill a sack with coal.'
¡¡¡¡'Any of you fellows got a Bible or prayer-book?' was the captain's
next demand, this time of the hunters lounging about the companionway.
¡¡¡¡They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular remark which I
did not catch, but which raised a general laugh.
¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen made the same demand of the sailors. Bibles and
prayer-books seemed scarce articles, but one of the men volunteered to
pursue the quest among the watch below, returning in a minute with the
information that 'they ain't none.'
¡¡¡¡The captain shrugged his shoulders. 'Then we'll drop him over
without any palavering, unless our clerical-looking castaway has the
burial service at sea by heart.'
¡¡¡¡By this time he had swung fully around and was facing me.
¡¡¡¡'You're a preacher, aren't you?' he asked.
¡¡¡¡The hunters- there were six of them- to a man turned and regarded
me. I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow. A laugh
went up at my appearance- a laugh that was not lessened or softened by
the dead man stretched and grinning on the deck before us; a laugh
that was as rough and harsh and frank as the sea itself; that arose
out of coarse feelings and blunted sensibilities, from natures that
knew neither courtesy nor gentleness.
¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen did not laugh, though his gray eyes lighted with a
slight glint of amusement; and in that moment, having stepped
forward quite close to him, I received my first impression of the
man himself- of the man as apart from his body and from the torrent of
blasphemy I had heard. The face, with large features and strong lines,
of the square order, yet well filled out, was apparently massive at
first sight; but again, as with the body, the massiveness seemed to
vanish and a conviction to grow of a tremendous and excessive mental
or spiritual strength that lay behind, sleeping, in the deeps of his
being. The jaw, the chin, the brow rising to a goodly height and
swelling heavily above the eyes- these, while strong in themselves,
unusually strong, seemed to speak an immense vigor or virility of
spirit that lay behind and beyond and out of sight. There was no
sounding such a spirit, no measuring, no determining of metes and
bounds, or neatly classifying in some pigeonhole with others of
similar type.
¡¡¡¡The eyes- and it was my destiny to know them well- were large and
handsome, wide apart, as the true artist's are wide, sheltering
under a heavy brow and arched over by thick black eyebrows. The eyes
themselves were of that baffling protean gray which is never twice the
same; which runs through many shades and colorings like intershot silk
in sunshine; which is gray, dark and light, and greenish gray, and
sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea. They were eyes that
masked the soul with a thousand guises, and that sometimes opened,
at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about
to fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure- eyes
that could brood with the hopeless somberness of leaden skies; that
could snap and crackle points of fire like those that sparkle from a
whirling sword; that could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and
yet again, that could warm and soften and be all adance with
love-lights, intense and masculine, luring and compelling, which at
the same time fascinate and dominate women till they surrender in a
gladness of joy and of relief and sacrifice.
¡¡¡¡But to return. I told him that, unhappily for the burial service,
I was not a preacher, when he sharply demanded:
¡¡¡¡'What do you do for a living?'
¡¡¡¡I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had I
ever canvassed it. I was quite taken aback, and, before I could find
myself, had sillily stammered: 'I am a gentleman.'
¡¡¡¡His lip curled in a swift sneer.
¡¡¡¡'I have worked, I do work,' I cried impetuously, as though he were
my judge and I required vindication, and at the same time very much
aware of my arrant idiocy in discussing the subject at all.
¡¡¡¡'For your living?'
¡¡¡¡There was something so imperative and masterful about him that I was
quite beside myself- 'rattled,' as Furuseth would have termed it, like
a quaking child before a stern schoolmaster.
¡¡¡¡'Who feeds you?' was his next question.
¡¡¡¡'I have an income,' I answered stoutly, and could have bitten my
tongue the next instant. 'All of which, you will pardon my
observing, has nothing whatsoever to do with what I wish to see you
about.'
¡¡¡¡But he disregarded my protest.
¡¡¡¡'Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead
men's legs. You've never had any of your own. You couldn't walk
alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for
three meals. Let me see your hand.'
¡¡¡¡His tremendous, dormant strength must have stirred swiftly and
accurately, or I must have slept a moment, for before I knew it he had
stepped two paces forward, gripped my right hand in his, and held it
up for inspection. I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers
tightened, without visible effort, till I thought mine would be
crushed. It is hard to maintain one's dignity under such
circumstances. I could not squirm or struggle like a schoolboy. Nor
could I attack such a creature, who had but to twist my arm to break
it. Nothing remained but to stand still and accept the indignity. I
had time to notice that the pockets of the dead man had been emptied
on the deck and that his body and his grin had been wrapped from
view in canvas, the folds of which the sailor Johansen was sewing
together with coarse white twine, shoving the needle through with a
leather contrivance fitted on the palm of his hand.
¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain.
¡¡¡¡'Dead men's hands have kept it soft. Good for little else than
dishwashing and scullion-work.'
¡¡¡¡'I wish to be put ashore,' I said firmly, for I now had myself in
control.
¡¡¡¡'I shall pay you whatever you judge your delay and trouble to be
worth.'
¡¡¡¡He looked at me curiously. Mockery shone in his eyes.
¡¡¡¡'I have a counter-proposition to make, and for the good of your
soul. My mate's gone, and there'll be a lot of promotion. A sailor
comes aft to take mate's place, cabin-boy goes for'ard to take
sailor's place, and you take the cabin-boy's place, sign the
articles for the cruise, twenty dollars per month and found. Now, what
do you say? And mind you, it's for your own soul's sake. It will be
the making of you. You might learn in time to stand on your own legs
and perhaps to toddle along a bit.'
¡¡¡¡But I took no notice. The sails of the vessel I had seen off to
the southwest had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same
rig as the Ghost's, though the hull itself, I could see, was
smaller. She was a pretty sight, leaping and flying toward us, and
evidently bound to pass at close range. The wind had been
momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had
disappeared. The sea had turned a dull leaden gray and grown
rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were
traveling faster and heeled farther over. Once, in a gust, the rail
dipped under the sea, and the decks on that side were for the moment
awash with water that made a couple of the hunters hastily lift
their feet.
¡¡¡¡'That vessel will soon be passing us,' I said, after a moment's
pause. 'As she is going in the opposite direction, she is very
probably bound for San Francisco.'
¡¡¡¡'Very probably,' was Wolf Larsen's answer, as he turned partly
away from me and cried out, 'Cooky! Oh, Cooky!'
¡¡¡¡The Cockney popped out of the galley.
¡¡¡¡'Where's that boy? Tell him I want him.'
¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' and Thomas Mugridge fled swiftly aft and disappeared
down another companionway near the wheel. A moment later he emerged, a
heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a glowering,
villainous countenance, trailing at his heels.
¡¡¡¡''Ere 'e, is, sir,' the cook said.
¡¡¡¡But Wolf Larsen ignored that worthy, turning at once to the
cabin-boy.
¡¡¡¡'What's your name, boy?'
¡¡¡¡'George Leach, sir,' came the sullen answer, and the boy's bearing
showed clearly that he divined the reason for which he had been
summoned.
¡¡¡¡'Not an Irish name,' the captain snapped sharply. 'O'Toole or
McCarthy would suit your mug a-sight better.
¡¡¡¡'But let that go,' he continued. 'You may have very good reasons for
forgetting your name, and I'll like you none the worse for it as
long as you toe the mark. Telegraph Hill, of course, is your port of
entry. It sticks out all over your mug. Tough as they make them and
twice as nasty. I know the kind. Well, you can make up your mind to
have it taken out of you on this craft. Understand? Who shipped you,
anyway?'
¡¡¡¡'McCready & Swanson.'
¡¡¡¡'Sir!' Wolf Larsen thundered.
¡¡¡¡'McCready & Swanson, sir,' the boy corrected, his eyes burning
with a bitter light.
¡¡¡¡'Who got the advance money?'
¡¡¡¡'They did, sir.'
¡¡¡¡'I thought as much. And devilish glad you were to let them have
it. Couldn't make yourself scarce too quick, with several gentlemen
you may have heard of looking for you.'
¡¡¡¡The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body bunched
together as though for a spring, and his face became as an
infuriated beast's as he snarled, 'It's a-'
¡¡¡¡'A what?' Wolf Larsen asked, a peculiar softness in his voice, as
though he were overwhelmingly curious to hear the unspoken word.
¡¡¡¡The boy hesitated, then mastered his temper. 'Nothin', sir. I take
it back.'
¡¡¡¡'And you have shown me I was right.' This with a gratified smile.
'How old are you?'
¡¡¡¡'Just turned sixteen, sir.'
¡¡¡¡'A lie. You'll never see eighteen again. Big for your age at that,
with muscles like a horse. Pack up your kit and go for'ard into the
fo'c's'le. You're a boat-puller now. You're promoted; see?'
¡¡¡¡Without waiting for the boy's acceptance, the captain turned to
the sailor who had just finished the gruesome task of sewing up the
body. 'Johansen, do you know anything about navigation?'
¡¡¡¡'No, sir.'
¡¡¡¡'Well, never mind; you're mate just the same. Get your traps aft
into the mate's berth.'
¡¡¡¡'Aye, aye, sir,' was the cheery response, as Johansen started
forward.
¡¡¡¡In the meantime the erstwhile cabin-boy had not moved.
¡¡¡¡'What are you waiting for?' Wolf Larsen demanded.
¡¡¡¡'I didn't sign for boat-puller, sir,' was the reply. 'I signed for
cabin-boy. An' I don't want no boat-pullin' in mine.'
¡¡¡¡'Pack up and go for'ard.'
¡¡¡¡This time Wolf Larsen's command was thrillingly imperative. The
boy glowered sullenly, but refused to move.
¡¡¡¡Then came another vague stirring of Wolf Larsen's tremendous
strength. It was utterly unexpected, and it was over and done with
between the ticks of two seconds. He had sprung fully six feet
across the deck and driven his fist into the other's stomach. At the
same moment, as though I had been struck myself, I felt a sickening
shock in the pit of my stomach. I instance this to show the
sensitiveness of my nervous organization at the time and how unused
I was to spectacles of brutality. The cabin-boy- and he weighed one
hundred and sixty-five at the very least- crumpled up. His body
wrapped limply about the fist like a wet rag about a stick. He
lifted into the air, described a short curve, and struck the deck on
his head and shoulders, where he lay and writhed about in agony.
¡¡¡¡'Well?' Larsen asked of me. 'Have you made up your mind?'
¡¡¡¡I had glanced occasionally at the approaching schooner, and it was
now almost abreast of us and not more than a couple of hundred yards
away. It was a very trim and neat little craft. I could see a large
black number on one of its sails, and I had seen pictures of
pilot-boats.
¡¡¡¡'What vessel is that?' I asked.
¡¡¡¡'The pilot-boat Lady Mine,' Wolf Larsen answered grimly. 'Got rid of
her pilots and running into San Francisco. She'll be there in five
or six hours with this wind.'
¡¡¡¡'Will you please signal it, then, so that I may be put ashore?'
¡¡¡¡'Sorry, but I've lost the signal-book overboard,' he remarked, and
the group of hunters grinned.
¡¡¡¡I debated a moment, looking him squarely in the eyes. I had seen the
frightful treatment of the cabin-boy, and knew that I should very
probably receive the same, if not worse. As I say, I debated with
myself, and then I did what I consider the bravest act of my life. I
ran to the side, waving my arms and shouting:
¡¡¡¡'Lady Mine, ahoy! Take me ashore! A thousand dollars if you take
me ashore!'
¡¡¡¡I waited, watching two men who stood by the wheel, one of them
steering. The other was lifting a megaphone to his lips. I did not
turn my head, though I expected every moment a killing blow from the
human brute behind me. At last, after what seemed centuries, unable
longer to stand the strain, I looked around. He had not moved. He
was standing in the same position, swaying easily to the roll of the
ship and lighting a fresh cigar.
¡¡¡¡'What is the matter? Anything wrong?'
¡¡¡¡This was the cry from the Lady Mine.
¡¡¡¡'Yes!' I shouted at the top of my lungs. 'Life or death! One
thousand dollars if you take me ashore!'
¡¡¡¡'Too much 'Frisco tanglefoot for the health of my crew!' Wolf Larsen
shouted after. 'This one'- indicating me with his thumb- 'fancies
sea-serpents and monkeys just now.'
¡¡¡¡The man on the Lady Mine laughed back through the megaphone. The
pilot-boat plunged past.
¡¡¡¡'Give him- for me!' came a final cry, and the two men waved their
arms in farewell.
¡¡¡¡I leaned despairingly over the rail, watching the trim little
schooner swiftly increasing the bleak sweep of ocean between us. And
she would probably be in San Francisco in five or six hours! My head
seemed bursting. There was an ache in my throat as though my heart
were up in it. A curling wave struck the side and splashed salt
spray on my lips. The wind puffed strongly, and the Ghost heeled far
over, burying her lee rail. I could hear the water rushing down upon
the deck.
¡¡¡¡When I turned around, a moment later, I saw the cabin-boy staggering
to his feet. His face was ghastly white, twitching with suppressed
pain. He looked very sick.
¡¡¡¡'Well, Leach, are you going for'ard?' Wolf Larsen asked.
¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' came the answer of a spirit cowed.
¡¡¡¡'And you?' I was asked.
¡¡¡¡'I'll give you a thousand-' I began, but was interrupted.
¡¡¡¡'Stow that! Are you going to take up your duties as cabin-boy? Or do
I have to take you in hand?'
¡¡¡¡What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, would
not help my case. I looked steadily into the cruel gray eyes. They
might have been granite for all the light and warmth of a human soul
they contained. One may see the soul stir in some men's eyes, but
his were bleak and cold and gray as the sea itself.
¡¡¡¡'Well?'
¡¡¡¡'Yes,' I said.
¡¡¡¡'Say "Yes, sir."'
¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' I corrected.
¡¡¡¡'What is your name?'
¡¡¡¡'Van Weyden, sir.'
¡¡¡¡'First name?'
¡¡¡¡'Humphrey, sir- Humphrey Van Weyden.'
¡¡¡¡'Age?'
¡¡¡¡'Thirty-five, sir.'
¡¡¡¡'That'll do. Go to the cook and learn your duties.'
¡¡¡¡And thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary
servitude to Wolf Larsen. He was stronger than I, that was all. But it
was very unreal at the time. It is no less unreal now that I look back
upon it. It will always be to me as a monstrous, inconceivable
thing, a horrible nightmare.
¡¡¡¡'Hold on; don't go yet.'
¡¡¡¡I stopped obediently in my walk toward the galley.
¡¡¡¡'Johansen, call all hands. Now that we've everything cleaned up,
we'll have the funeral and get the decks cleared of useless lumber.'
¡¡¡¡While Johansen was summoning the watch below, a couple of sailors,
under the captain's direction, laid the canvas-swathed corpse upon a
hatchcover. On each side the deck, against the rail, and bottoms up,
were lashed a number of small boats. Several men picked up the
hatch-cover with its ghastly freight, carried it to the lee side,
and rested it on the boats, the feet pointing overboard. To the feet
was attached the sack of coal which the cook had fetched.
¡¡¡¡I had always conceived a burial at sea to be a very solemn and
awe-inspiring event, but I was quickly disillusioned, by this burial
at any rate. One of the hunters, a little dark-eyed man whom his mates
called 'Smoke,' was telling stories liberally intersprinkled with
oaths and obscenities; and every minute or so the group of hunters
gave mouth to a laughter that sounded to me like a chorus of wolves.
The sailors trooped noisily aft, some of the watch below running the
sleep from their eyes, and talked in low tones together. There was
an ominous and worried expression on their faces. It was evident
that they did not like the outlook of a voyage under such a captain
and begun so inauspiciously. From time to time they stole glances at
Wolf Larsen, and I could see that they were apprehensive of the man.
¡¡¡¡He stepped up to the hatch-cover, and all caps came off. I ran my
eyes over them- twenty men all told, twenty-two, including the man
at the wheel and myself. I was pardonably curious in my survey, for it
appeared my fate to be pent up with them on this miniature floating
world for I knew not how many weeks or months. The sailors, in the
main, were English and Scandinavian, and their faces seemed of the
heavy, stolid order. The hunters, on the other hand, had stronger
and more diversified faces, with hard lines and the marks of the
free play of passions. Strange to say, and I noted it at once, Wolf
Larsen's features showed no such evil stamp. There seemed nothing
vicious in them. True, there were lines, but they were the lines of
decision and firmness. It seemed, rather, a frank and open
countenance, which frankness or openness was enhanced by the fact that
he was smooth-shaven. I could hardly believe, until the next
incident occurred, that it was the face of a man who could behave as
he had behaved to the cabin-boy.
¡¡¡¡At this moment, as he opened his mouth to speak, puff after puff
struck the schooner and pressed her side under. The wind shrieked a
wild song through the rigging. Some of the hunters glanced anxiously
aloft. The whole lee rail, where the dead man lay, was buried in the
sea, and as the schooner lifted and righted, the water swept across
the deck, wetting us above our shoe-tops. A shower of rain drove
down upon us, each drop stinging like a hailstone. As it passed,
Wolf Larsen began to speak, the bareheaded men swaying in unison to
the heave and lunge of the deck.
¡¡¡¡'I only remember one part of the service,' he said, 'and that is,
"And the body shall be cast into the sea." So cast it in.'
¡¡¡¡He ceased speaking. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed
perplexed, puzzled no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. He burst
upon them in a fury.
¡¡¡¡'Lift up that end there! What the - 's the matter with you?'
¡¡¡¡They elevated the end of the hatch-cover with pitiful haste, and,
like a dog flung overside, the dead man slid feet first into the
sea. The coal at his feet dragged him down. He was gone.
¡¡¡¡'Johansen,' Wolf Larsen said briskly to the new mate, 'keep all
hands on deck now they're here. Get in the topsails and outer jibs.
We're in for a sou'easter. Reef the jib and the mainsail, too, while
you're about it.'
¡¡¡¡In a moment the decks were in commotion, Johansen bellowing orders
and the men pulling or letting go ropes of various sorts- all
naturally confusing to a landsman such as myself. But it was the
heartlessness of it that especially struck me. The dead man was an
episode that was past, an incident that was dropped, in a canvas
covering with a sack of coal, while the ship sped along and her work
went on. Nobody had been affected. The hunters were laughing at a
fresh story of Smoke's; the men pulling and hauling, and two of them
climbing aloft; Wolf Larsen was studying the clouding sky to windward;
and the dead man, buried sordidly, and sinking down, down-
¡¡¡¡Then it was that the cruelty of the sea, its relentlessness and
awfulness, rushed upon me. Life had become cheap and tawdry, a beastly
and inarticulate thing, a soulless stirring of the ooze and slime. I
held onto the weather rail, close by the shrouds, and gazed out across
the desolate foaming waves to the low-lying fog-banks that hid San
Francisco and the California coast. Rain-squalls were driving in
between, and I could scarcely see the fog. And this strange vessel,
with its terrible men, pressed under by wind and sea and ever
leaping up and out, as for very life, was heading away into the
southwest, into the great and lonely Pacific expanse.
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER FOUR.
¡¡¡¡WHAT HAPPENED TO ME NEXT on the sealing-schooner Ghost, as I
strove to fit into my new environment, are matters of humiliation
and pain. The cook, who was called 'the doctor' by the crew, 'Tommy'
by the hunters, and 'Cooky' by Wolf Larsen, was a changed personage.
The difference worked in my status brought about a corresponding
difference in treatment from him. Servile and fawning as he had been
before, he was now as domineering and bellicose.
¡¡¡¡He absurdly insisted upon my addressing him as Mr. Mugridge, and his
behavior and carriage were insufferable as he showed me my duties.
Besides my work in the cabin, with its four small staterooms, I was
supposed to be his assistant in the galley, and my colossal
ignorance concerning such things as peeling potatoes or washing greasy
pots was a source of unending and sarcastic wonder to him. This was
part of the attitude he chose to adopt toward me; and I confess,
before the day was done, that I hated him with more lively feelings
than I had ever hated any one in my life before.
¡¡¡¡This first day was made more difficult for me from the fact that the
Ghost, under close reefs (terms such as these I did not learn till
later), was plunging through what Mr. Mugridge called an ''owlin'
sou'easter.' At half-past five, under his directions, I set the
table in the cabin, with rough-weather trays in place, and then
carried the tea and cooked food down from the galley.
¡¡¡¡'Look sharp or you'll get doused,' was Mr. Mugridge's parting
injunction as I left the galley with a big teapot in one hand and in
the hollow of the other arm several loaves of fresh-baked bread. One
of the hunters, a tall, loose-jointed chap named Henderson, was
going aft at the time from the steerage (the name the hunters
facetiously gave their amidships sleeping-quarters) to the cabin. Wolf
Larsen was on the poop, smoking his everlasting cigar.
¡¡¡¡''Ere she comes! Sling yer 'ook!' the cook cried.
¡¡¡¡I stopped, for I did not know what was coming, and saw the galley
door slide shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like a
madman for the main rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till
he was many feet higher than my head. Also, I saw a great wave,
curling and foaming, poised far above the rail. I was directly under
it. My mind did not work quickly, everything was so new and strange. I
grasped that I was in danger, but that was all. I stood still, in
trepidation. Then Wolf Larsen shouted from the poop:
¡¡¡¡'Grab hold something, you- you Hump!'
¡¡¡¡But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might
have clung, and was met by the descending wall of water. What happened
after that was very confusing. I was beneath the water, suffocating
and drowning. My feet were out from under me, and I was turning over
and over and being swept along I knew not where. Several times I
collided against hard objects, once striking my right knee a
terrible blow. Then the flood seemed suddenly to subside, and I was
breathing the good air again. I had been swept against the galley
and around the steerage companionway from the weather side into the
lee scuppers. The pain from my hurt knee was agonizing. I could not
put my weight on it, or at least I thought I could not put my weight
on it; and I felt sure the leg was broken. But the cook was after
me, shouting through the lee galley door:
¡¡¡¡''Ere, you! Don't tyke all night about it! Where's the pot? Lost
overboard? Serve you bloody well right if yer neck was broke!'
¡¡¡¡I managed to struggle to my feet. The great teapot was still in my
hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was
consuming with indignation, real or feigned.
¡¡¡¡'Gawd blime me if you ayn't a slob. Wot're you good for, anyw'y, I'd
like to know. Eh? Wot're you good for, anyw'y? Cawn't even carry a bit
of tea aft without losin' it. Now I'll 'ave to boil some more.
¡¡¡¡'An' wot're you snifflin' about?' he burst out at me with renewed
rage. ''Cos you've 'urt yer pore little leg, pore little mama's
darlin'!'
¡¡¡¡I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn and
twitching from the pain. But I called up all my resolution, set my
teeth, and hobbled back and forth from galley to cabin, and cabin to
galley, without further mishap. Two things I had acquired by my
accident: an injured kneecap that went undressed and from which I
suffered for weary months, and the name of 'Hump,' which Wolf Larsen
had called me from the poop. Thereafter, fore and aft, I was known
by no other name, until the term became a part of my thought processes
and I identified it with myself, thought of myself as Hump, as
though Hump were I and had always been I.
¡¡¡¡It was no easy task waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf
Larsen, Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to begin
with, and to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made easier
by the schooner's violent pitching and wallowing. But what struck me
most forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part of the men
whom I served. I could feel my knee through my clothes swelling up
to the size of an apple, and I was sick and faint from the pain of it.
I could catch glimpses of my face, white and ghastly, distorted with
pain, in the cabin mirror. All the men must have seen my condition,
but not one spoke or took notice of me, till I was almost grateful
to Wolf Larsen later on (I was washing the dishes) when he said:
¡¡¡¡'Don't let a little thing like that bother you. You'll get used to
such things in time. It may cripple you some, but, all the same,
you'll be learning to walk. That's what you call a paradox, isn't it?'
he added.
¡¡¡¡He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary 'Yes,
sir.'
¡¡¡¡'I suppose you know a bit about literary things? Eh? Good. I'll have
some talks with you sometime.'
¡¡¡¡And then, taking no further account of me, he turned his back and
went up on deck.
¡¡¡¡That night, when I had finished an endless amount of work, I was
sent to sleep in the steerage, where I made up a spare bunk. I was
glad to get out of the detestable presence of the cook and to be off
my feet. To my surprise, my clothes had dried on me, and there
seemed no indications of catching cold either from the last soaking or
from the prolonged soaking after the foundering of the Martinez. Under
ordinary circumstances, after all that I had undergone I should have
been a fit subject for a funeral.
¡¡¡¡But my knee was bothering me terribly. As well as I could make
out, the kneecap seemed turned up on edge in the midst of the
swelling. As I sat in my bunk examining it (the six hunters were all
in the steerage, smoking, and talking in loud voices), Henderson
took a passing glance at it.
¡¡¡¡'Looks nasty,' he commented. 'Tie a rag around it, and it'll be
all right.'
¡¡¡¡That was all. And on the land I should have been lying on the
broad of my back, with a surgeon attending me, and with strict
injunctions to do nothing but rest. But I must do these men justice.
Callous as they were to my suffering, they were equally callous to
their own when anything befell them. And this was due, I believe,
first to habit and second to the fact that they were less
sensitively organized. I really believe that a finely organized,
high-strung man would suffer twice or thrice as much as they from a
like injury.
¡¡¡¡Tired as I was, exhausted in fact, I was prevented from sleeping
by the pain in my knee. It was all I could do to keep from groaning
aloud. At home I should undoubtedly have given vent to my anguish, but
this new and elemental environment seemed to call for a savage
repression. Like the savage, the attitude of these men was stoical
in great things, childish in little things. I remember, later in the
voyage, seeing Kerfoot, another of the hunters, lose a finger by
having it smashed to a jelly; and he did not even murmur or change the
expression on his face. Yet I have seen the same man, time and
again, fly into the most outrageous passion over a trifle.
¡¡¡¡He was doing it now, vociferating, bellowing, waving his arms, and
cursing like a fiend, and all because of a disagreement with another
hunter as to whether a seal-pup knew instinctively how to swim. He
held that it did; that it could swim the moment it was born. The other
hunter, Latimer, a lean Yankee-looking fellow, with shrewd,
narrow-slitted eyes, held otherwise; held that the seal-pup was born
on the land for no other reason than that it could not swim; that
its mother was compelled to teach it to swim, as birds were
compelled to teach their nestlings how to fly.
¡¡¡¡For the most part, the remaining four hunters leaned on the table or
lay in their bunks and left the discussion to the two antagonists. But
they were supremely interested, for every little while they ardently
took sides, and sometimes all were talking at once, till their
voices surged back and forth in waves of sound like mimic
thunder-rolls in the confined space. Childish and immaterial as the
topic was, the quality of their reasoning was still more childish
and immaterial. In truth, there was very little reasoning or none at
all. Their method was one of assertion, assumption, and
denunciation. They proved that a seal-pup could swim or not swim at
birth by stating the proposition very bellicosely and then following
it up with an attack on the opposing man's judgment, common sense,
nationality, or past history. Rebuttal was similar in all respects.
I have related this in order to show the mental caliber of the men
with whom I was thrown in contact. Intellectually they were
children, inhabiting the physical bodies of men.
¡¡¡¡And they smoked, incessantly smoked, using a coarse, cheap, and
offensive-smelling tobacco. The air was thick and murky with the smoke
of it; and this, combined with the violent movement of the ship as she
struggled through the storm, would surely have made me seasick had I
been a victim to that malady. As it was, it made me quite squeamish,
though this nausea might have been due to the pain of my leg and my
exhaustion.
¡¡¡¡As I lay there thinking, I naturally dwelt upon myself and my
situation. It was unparalleled, undreamed-of, that I, Humphrey Van
Weyden, a scholar and a dilettante, if you please, in things
artistic and literary, should be lying here on a Bering Sea
seal-hunting schooner. Cabin-boy! I had never done any hard manual
labor, or scullion labor, in my life. I had lived a placid, uneventful
sedentary existence all my days- the life of a scholar and a recluse
on an assured and comfortable income. Violent life and athletic sports
had never appealed to me. I had always been a bookworm; so my
sisters and father had called me during my childhood. I had gone
camping but once in my life, and then I left the party almost at its
start and returned to the comforts and conveniences of a roof. And
here I was, with dreary and endless vistas before me of table-setting,
potato-peeling, and dishwashing. And I was not strong. The doctors had
always said that I had a remarkable constitution, but I had never
developed it or my body through exercise. My muscles were small and
soft, like a woman's, or so the doctors had said time and again in the
course of their attempts to persuade me to go in for
physical-culture fads. But I had preferred to use my head rather
than my body; and here I was, in no fit condition for the rough life
in prospect.
¡¡¡¡These are merely a few of the things that went through my mind,
and are related for the sake of vindicating in advance the weak and
helpless role I was destined to play. But I thought also of my
mother and sisters, and pictured their grief. I was among the
missing dead of the Martinez disaster, an unrecovered body. I could
see the headlines in the papers, the fellows at the University Club
and the Bibelot shaking their heads and saying, 'Poor Chap!' And I
could see Charley Furuseth, as I had said good-by to him that morning,
lounging in a dressing-gown on the be-pillowed window-couch and
delivering himself of oracular and pessimistic epigrams.
¡¡¡¡And all the while, rolling, plunging, climbing the moving
mountains and falling and wallowing in the foaming valleys, the
schooner Ghost was fighting her way farther and farther into the heart
of the Pacific- and I was on her. I could hear the wind above. It came
to my ears as a muffled roar. Now and again feet stamped overhead.
An endless creaking was going on all about me, the woodwork and the
fittings groaning and squeaking and complaining in a thousand keys.
The hunters were still arguing and roaring like some semi-human,
amphibious breed. The air was filled with oaths and indecent
expressions. I could see their faces, flushed and angry, the brutality
distorted and emphasized by the sickly yellow of the sea-lamps,
which rocked back and forth with the ship. Through the dim
smoke-haze the bunks looked like the sleeping-dens of animals in a
menagerie. Oilskins and sea-boots were hanging from the walls, and
here and there rifles and shotguns rested securely in the racks. It
was a sea-fitting for the buccaneers and pirates of bygone years. My
imagination ran riot, and still I could not sleep. And it was a
long, long night, weary and dreary and long.
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER FIVE.
¡¡¡¡BUT MY FIRST NIGHT IN the hunters' steerage was also my last. Next
day Johansen, the new mate, was routed from the cabin by Wolf Larsen
and sent into the steerage to sleep thereafter, while I took
possession of the tiny cabin state-room, which, on the first day of
the voyage, had already had two occupants. The reason for this
change was quickly learned by the hunters and became the cause of a
deal of grumbling on their part. It seemed that Johansen, in his
sleep, lived over each night the events of the day. His incessant
talking and shouting and bellowing of orders had been too much for
Wolf Larsen, who accordingly foisted the nuisance upon his hunters.
¡¡¡¡After a sleepless night, I arose, weak and in agony, to hobble
through my second day on the Ghost. Thomas Mugridge routed me out at
half-past five, much in the fashion that Bill Sykes must have routed
out his dog. But Mr. Mugridge's brutality to me was paid back in
kind and with interest. The unnecessary noise he made (I had lain
wide-eyed the whole night) must have awakened one of the hunters;
for a heavy shoe whizzed through the semidarkness, and Mr. Mugridge,
with a sharp howl of pain, humbly begged everybody's pardon. Later on,
in the galley, I noticed that his ear was bruised and swollen. It
never went entirely back to its normal shape, and was called a
'cauliflower ear' by the sailors.
¡¡¡¡The day was filled with miserable variety. I had taken my dried
clothes down from the galley the night before, and the first thing I
did was to exchange the cook's garments for them. I looked for my
purse. In addition to some small change (and I have a good memory
for such things), it had contained one hundred and eighty-five dollars
in gold and paper. The purse I found, but its contents, with the
exception of the small silver, had been abstracted. I spoke to the
cook about it, when I went on deck to take up my duties in the galley;
and though I had looked forward to a surly answer, I had not
expected the belligerent harangue that I received.
¡¡¡¡'Look 'ere, 'Ump', he began, a malicious light in his eyes and a
snarl in his throat, 'd' ye want yer nose punched? If yer think I'm
a thief, just keep it to yerself, or you'll find 'ow bloody well
mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn't gratitude for yer!
'Ere yer come, a pore mis'rable specimen of 'uman scum, an' I tykes
yer into my galley an' treats yer 'andsome, an' this is wot I get
for it. Nex' time yer can go to 'ell, say I, an' I've a good mind to
give yer what-for, anyw'y.'
¡¡¡¡So saying, he put up his fists and started for me. To my eternal
shame be it, I cowered away from the blow and ran out the galley door.
What else was I to do? Force, nothing but force, obtained on this
brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing unknown. Picture it to yourself:
a man of ordinary stature, slender of build and with weak, undeveloped
muscles, who has lived a peaceful, placid life, and is unused to
violence of any sort- what could such a man possibly do? There was
no more reason that I should stand and face these human beasts than
that I should stand and face an infuriated bull.
¡¡¡¡So I thought it out at the time, feeling the need for vindication,
and desiring to be at peace with my conscience. But this vindication
did not satisfy. Nor to this day can I permit my manhood to look
back upon those events and feel entirely exonerated. The situation was
something that really exceeded rational formulas for conduct, and
demanded more than the cold conclusions of reason. When viewed in
the light of formal logic, there is not one thing of which to be
ashamed, but, nevertheless, a shame rises within me at the
recollection, and in the pride of my manhood I feel that my manhood
has in unaccountable ways been smirched and sullied.
¡¡¡¡All of which is neither here nor there. The speed with which I ran
from the galley caused excruciating pain in my knee, and I sank down
helplessly at the break of the poop. But the Cockney had not pursued
me.
¡¡¡¡'Look at 'im run! Look at 'im run!' I could hear him crying. 'An'
with a gyme leg at that! Come on back, you pore little mama's darlin'!
I won't 'it her; no, I won't.'
¡¡¡¡I came back and went on with my work, and here the episode ended for
the time, though further developments were yet to take place. I set
the breakfast table in the cabin, and at seven o'clock waited on the
hunters and officers. The storm had evidently broken during the night,
though a huge sea was still running and a stiff wind blowing. Sail had
been made in the early watches, so that the Ghost was racing along
under everything except the two topsails and the flying jib. These
three sails, I gathered from the conversation, were to be set
immediately after breakfast. I learned, also, that Wolf Larsen was
anxious to make the most of the storm, which was driving him to the
southwest, into that portion of the sea where he expected to pick up
with the northeast trades. It was before this steady wind that he
hoped to make the major portion of the run to Japan, curving south
into the tropics and north again as he approached the coast of Asia.
¡¡¡¡After breakfast I had another unenviable experience. When I had
finished washing the dishes, I cleaned the cabin stove and carried the
ashes up on deck to empty them. Wolf Larsen and Henderson were
standing near the wheel, deep in conversation. The sailor Johnson
was steering. As I started toward the weather side, I saw him make a
sudden motion with his head, which I mistook for a token of
recognition and good morning. In reality he was attempting to warn
me to throw my ashes over the lee side. Unconscious of my blunder, I
passed by Wolf Larsen and the hunter, and flung the ashes over the
side to windward. The wind drove them back, and not only over me,
but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next instant the latter kicked
me violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not realized there could be so
much pain in a kick. I reeled away from him and leaned against the
cabin in a half-fainting condition. Everything was swimming before
my eyes, and I turned sick. The nausea overpowered me, and I managed
to crawl to the side in time to save the deck. But Wolf Larsen did not
follow me up. Brushing the ashes from his clothes, he had resumed
his conversation with Henderson. Johansen, who had seen the affair
from the break of the poop, sent a couple of sailors aft to clean up
the mess.
¡¡¡¡Later in the morning I received a surprise of a totally different
sort. Following the cook's instructions, I had gone into Wolf Larsen's
state-room to put it to rights and make the bed. Against the wall,
near the head of the bunk, was a rack filled with books. I glanced
over them, noting with astonishment such names as Shakespeare,
Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific works, too, among
which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor, Darwin, and I
remarked Bulfinch's 'Age of Fable,' Shaw's 'History of English and
American Literature,' and Johnson's 'Natural History' in two large
volumes. Then there were a number of grammars, such as Metcalf and
Reed & Kellogg; and I smiled as I saw a copy of 'The Dean's English.'
¡¡¡¡I could not reconcile these books with the man from what I had
seen of him, and I wondered if he could possibly read them. But when I
came to make the bed, I found, between the blankets, dropped
apparently as he had sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning. It was
open at 'In a Balcony,' and I noticed here and there passages
underlined in pencil. Further, letting drop the volume during a
lurch of the ship, a sheet of paper fell out. It was scrawled over
with geometrical diagrams and calculations of some sort.
¡¡¡¡It was patent that this terrible man was no ignorant clod, such as
one would inevitably suppose him to be from his exhibitions of
brutality. At once he became an enigma. One side or the other of his
nature was perfectly comprehensible, but both sides together were
bewildering. I had already remarked that his language was excellent,
marred with an occasional slight inaccuracy. Of course, in common
speech with the sailors and hunters, it sometimes fairly bristled with
errors, which was due to the vernacular itself; but in the few words
he had held with me it had been clear and correct.
¡¡¡¡This glimpse I had caught of his other side must have emboldened me,
for I resolved to speak to him about the money I had lost.
¡¡¡¡'I have been robbed,' I said to him a little later, when I found him
pacing up and down the poop alone.
¡¡¡¡'Sir,' he corrected, not harshly, but sternly.
¡¡¡¡'I have been robbed, sir,' I amended.
¡¡¡¡'How did it happen?' he asked.
¡¡¡¡Then I told him the whole circumstance: how my clothes had been left
to dry in the galley, and how, later, I was nearly beaten by the
cook when I mentioned the matter.
¡¡¡¡He smiled at my recital.
¡¡¡¡'Pickings,' he concluded; 'Cooky's pickings. And don't you think
your miserable life worth the price? Besides, consider it a lesson.
You'll learn in time how to take care of your money for yourself. I
suppose, up to now, your lawyer has done it for you, or your
business agent.'
¡¡¡¡I could feel the quiet sneer through his words, but demanded, 'How
can I get it back again?'
¡¡¡¡'That's your lookout. You haven't any lawyer or business agent
now, so you'll have to depend on yourself. When you get a dollar, hang
on to it. A man who leaves his money lying around the way you did
deserves to lose it. Besides, you have sinned. You have no right to
put temptation in the way of your fellow-creatures. You tempted Cooky,
and he fell. You have placed his immortal soul in jeopardy. By the
way, do you believe in the immortal soul?'
¡¡¡¡His lids lifted lazily as he asked the question, and it seemed
that the deeps were opening to me and that I was gazing into his soul.
But it was an illusion. Far as it might have seemed, no man has ever
seen very far into Wolf Larsen's soul, or seen it at all; of this I am
convinced. It was a very lonely soul, I was to learn, that never
unmasked, though at rare moments it played at doing so.
¡¡¡¡'I read immortality in your eyes,' I answered, dropping the 'sir'-
an experiment, for I thought the intimacy of the conversation
warranted it.
¡¡¡¡He took no notice. 'By that, I take it, you see something that is
alive, but that necessarily does not have to live forever.'
¡¡¡¡'I read more than that,' I continued boldly.
¡¡¡¡'Then you read consciousness. You read the consciousness of life
that it is alive; but still, no further away, no endlessness of life.'
¡¡¡¡How clearly he thought, and how well he expressed what he thought!
From regarding me curiously, he turned his head and glanced out over
the leaden sea to windward. A bleakness came into his eyes, and the
lines of his mouth grew severe and harsh. He was evidently in a
pessimistic mood.
¡¡¡¡'Then, to what end?' he demanded abruptly, turning back to me. 'If I
am immortal, why?'
¡¡¡¡I halted. How could I explain my idealism to this man? How could I
put into speech a something felt, a something like the strains of
music heard in sleep, a something that convinced, yet transcended
utterance?
¡¡¡¡'What do you believe, then?' I countered.
¡¡¡¡'I believe that life is a mess,' he answered promptly. 'It is like
yeast, a ferment, a thing that moves, and may move for a minute, an
hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to
move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move; the
strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat
the most and move the longest, that is all. What do you make of
those things?'
¡¡¡¡He swept his arm in an impatient gesture toward a number of the
sailors who were working on some kind of rope-stuff amidships.
¡¡¡¡'They move. So does the jellyfish move. They move in order to eat in
order that they may keep moving. There you have it. They live for
their belly's sake, and the belly is for their sake. It's a circle;
you get nowhere. Neither do they. In the end they come to a
standstill. They move no more. They are dead.'
¡¡¡¡'They have dreams,' I interrupted; 'radiant, flashing dreams- '
¡¡¡¡'Of grub,' he concluded sententiously.
¡¡¡¡'And of more- '
¡¡¡¡'Grub. Of a larger appetite and more luck in satisfying it.' His
voice sounded harsh. There was no levity in it. 'For, look you, they
dream of making lucky voyages which will bring them more money, of
becoming the masters of ships, of finding fortunes- in short, of being
in a better position for preying on their fellows, of having all night
in, good grub, and somebody else to do the dirty work. You and I are
just like them. There is no difference, except that we have eaten more
and better. I am eating them now, and you, too. But in the past you
have eaten more than I have. You have slept in soft beds, and worn
fine clothes, and eaten good meals. Who made those beds, and those
clothes, and those meals? Not you. You never made anything in your own
sweat. You live on an income which your father earned. You are like
a frigate-bird swooping down upon the boobies and robbing them of
the fish they have caught. You are one with a crowd of men who have
made what they call a government, who are masters of all the other
men, and who eat the food the other men get and would like to eat
themselves. You wear the warm clothes. They made the clothes, but they
shiver in rags and ask you, or the lawyer or business agent who
handles your money, for a job.'
¡¡¡¡'But that is beside the matter,' I cried.
¡¡¡¡'Not at all.' He was speaking rapidly now, and his eyes were
flashing. 'It is piggishness, and it is life. Of what use or sense
is an immortality of piggishness? What is the end? What is it all
about? You have made no food, yet the food you have eaten or wasted
might have saved the lives of a score of wretches who made the food,
but did not eat it. What immortal end did you serve? Or did they?
Consider yourself and me. What does your boasted immortality amount to
when your life runs foul of mine? You would like to go back to the
land, which is a favorable place for your kind of piggishness. It is a
whim of mine to keep you aboard this ship, where my piggishness
flourishes. And keep you I will. I may make or break you. You may
die today, this week, or next month. I could kill you now, with a blow
of my fist, for you are a miserable weakling. But if we are
immortal, what is the reason for this? To be piggish as you and I have
been all our lives does not seem to be just the thing for immortals to
be doing. Again, what's it all about? Why have I kept you here?'
¡¡¡¡'Because you are stronger,' I managed to blurt out.
¡¡¡¡'But why stronger?' he went on at once with his perpetual queries.
'Because I am a bigger bit of the ferment than you. Don't you see?
Don't you see?'
¡¡¡¡'But the hopelessness of it,' I protested.
¡¡¡¡'I agree with you,' he answered. 'Then why move at all, since moving
is living? Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be
no hopelessness. But- and there it is- we want to live and move,
though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the
nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it
were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this life that
is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life that is in
you is alive and wants to go on being alive forever. Bah! An
eternity of piggishness!'
¡¡¡¡He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward. He stopped at
the break of the poop and called me to him.
¡¡¡¡'By the way, how much was it that Cooky got away with?' he asked.
¡¡¡¡'One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir,' I answered.
¡¡¡¡He nodded his head. A moment later, as I started down the
companion-stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard him loudly
cursing some man amidships.
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER SIX.
¡¡¡¡BY THE FOLLOWING MORNING the storm had blown itself quite out, and
the Ghost was rolling slightly on a calm sea without a breath of wind.
Occasional light airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen patrolled
the poop constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to the northeast,
from which direction the great trade-wind must blow.
¡¡¡¡The men are all on deck and busy preparing their various boats for
the season's hunting. There are seven boats aboard, the captain's
dinghy and the six which the hunters will use. Three, a hunter, a
boat-puller, and a boat-steerer, compose a boat's crew. On board the
schooner the boat-pullers and steerers are the crew. The hunters, too,
are supposed to be in command of the watches, subject always to the
orders of Wolf Larsen.
¡¡¡¡All this, and more, I have learned. The Ghost is considered the
fastest schooner in both the San Francisco and Victoria fleets. In
fact, she was once a private yacht, and was built for speed. Her lines
and fittings, though I know nothing about such things, speak for
themselves. Johnson was telling me about her in a short chat I had
with him during yesterday's second dog-watch. He spoke most
enthusiastically, with the love for a fine craft such as some men feel
for horses. He is greatly disgusted with the outlook, and I am given
to understand that Wolf Larsen bears a very unsavory reputation
among the sealing-captains. It was the Ghost herself that lured
Johnson into signing for the voyage, but he is already beginning to
repent.
¡¡¡¡As he told me, the Ghost is an eighty-ton schooner of a remarkably
fine model. Her beam, or width, is twenty-three feet, and her length a
little over ninety feet. A lead keel of fabulous but unknown weight
makes her very stable, while she carries an immense spread of
canvas. From the deck to the truck of the maintopmast is something
over a hundred feet, while the foremast with its topmast is eight or
ten feet shorter. I am giving these details so that the size of this
little floating world which holds twenty-two men may be appreciated.
It is a very little world, a mote, a speck, and I marvel that men
should dare to venture the sea on a contrivance so small and fragile.
¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen has also a reputation for reckless carrying on of
sail. I overheard Henderson and another of the hunters, Standish, a
Californian, talking about it. Two years ago he dismasted the Ghost in
a gale in Bering Sea, whereupon the present masts were put in, which
are stronger and heavier in every way. He is said to have remarked,
when he put them in, that he preferred turning her over to losing
the sticks.
¡¡¡¡Every man aboard, with the exception of Johansen, who is rather
overcome by his promotion, seems to have an excuse for having sailed
on the Ghost. Half the men forward are deep-water sailors, and their
excuse is that they did not know anything about her or her captain.
And those who do know whisper that the hunters, while excellent shots,
were so notorious for their quarrelsome and rascally proclivities that
they could not sign on any decent schooner.
¡¡¡¡I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew. Louis he is
called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irishman, and a very
sociable fellow, prone to talk as long as he can find a listener. In
the afternoon, while the cook was below asleep and I was peeling the
everlasting potatoes, Louis dropped into the galley for a 'yarn.'
His excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk when he signed. He
assured me again and again that it was the last thing in the world
he would dream of doing in a sober moment. It seems that he has been
seal-hunting regularly each season for a dozen years, and is accounted
one of the two or three very best boat-steerers in both fleets.
¡¡¡¡'Ah, my boy,'- he shook his head ominously at me,- ''t is the
worst schooner ye could iv selected; nor were ye drunk at the time, as
was I. 'T is sealin' is the sailor's paradise- on other ships than
this. The mate was the first, but, mark me words, there'll be more
dead men before the trip is done with. Hist, now, between you an'
meself an' the stanchion there, this Wolf Larsen is a regular devil,
an' the Ghost'll be a hell-ship like she's always be'n since he had
hold iv her. Don't I know? Don't I know? Don't I remember him in
Hakodate two years gone, when he had a row an' shot four iv his men?
Wasn't I a-layin' on the Emma L., not three hundred yards away? An'
there was a man the same year he killed with a blow iv his fist.
Yes, sir, killed 'im dead- oh. His head must iv smashed like an
egg-shell. 'T is the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen- the great big
beast mentioned iv in Revelations; an' no good end will he ever come
to. But I've said nothin' to ye, mind ye; I've whispered never a word;
for old fat Louis'll live the voyage out, if the last mother's son
of yez go to the fishes.
¡¡¡¡'Wolf Larsen!' he snorted a moment later. 'Listen to the word,
will ye! Wolf- 't is what he is. He's not black-hearted, like some
men. 'T is no heart he has at all. Wolf, just wolf, 't is what he
is. D'ye wonder he's well named?'
¡¡¡¡'But if he is so well known for what he is,' I queried, 'how is it
that he can get men to ship with him?'
¡¡¡¡'An' how is it ye can get men to do anything on God's earth an'
sea?' Louis demanded with Celtic fire. 'How d' ye find me aboard if 't
wasn't that I was drunk as a pig when I put me name down? There's them
that can't sail with better men, like the hunters, an' them that don't
know, like the poor devils of wind-jammers for'ard there. But
they'll come to it, they'll come to it, an' be sorry the day they
was born. I could weep for the poor creatures, did I but forget poor
old fat Louis and the troubles before him. But 't is not a whisper
I've dropped; mind ye, not a whisper.
¡¡¡¡'Them hunters is the wicked boys,' he broke forth again, for he
suffered from a constitutional plethora of speech. 'But wait till they
get to cuttin' up iv jinks an' rowin' round. He's the boy'll fix
'em. 'T is him that'll put the fear of God in their rotten black
hearts. Look at that hunter iv mine, Horner. "Jock" Horner they call
him, so quiet-like an' easy-goin'; soft-spoken as a girl, till ye'd
think butter wouldn't melt in the mouth iv him. Didn't he kill his
boat-steerer last year? 'T was called a sad accident, but I met the
boat-puller in Yokohama, an' the straight iv it was given me. An'
there's Smoke, the black little devil- didn't the Roosians have him
for three years in the salt-mines of Siberia for poachin' on Copper
Island, which is a Roosian preserve? Shackled he was, hand an' foot,
with his mate. An' didn't they have words or a ruction of some kind?
For 't was the other fellow Smoke sent up in the buckets to the top of
the mine; an' a piece at a time he went up, a leg today, an'
tomorrow an arm, the next day the head, an' so on.'
¡¡¡¡'But you can't mean it!' I cried out, overcome with the horror of
it.
¡¡¡¡'Mean what?' he demanded, quick as a flash. ''T is nothin' I've
said. Deef I am, an' dumb, as ye should be for the sake iv your
mother; an' never once have I opened me lips but to say fine things iv
them an' him, God curse his soul! an' may he rot in purgatory ten
thousand years, an' then go down to the last an' deepest hell iv all!'
¡¡¡¡Johnson, the man who had chafed me raw when I first came aboard,
seemed the least equivocal of the men for'ard or aft. In fact, there
was nothing equivocal about him. One was struck at once by his
straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were tempered by
a modesty which might be mistaken for timidity. But timid he was
not. He seemed rather to have the courage of his convictions, the
certitude of his manhood. It was this that made him protest, at the
beginning of our acquaintance, against being called Yonson. And upon
this and him Louis passed judgment and prophecy.
¡¡¡¡''T is a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we've for'ard with
us,' he said. 'The best sailorman in the fo'c's'le. He's my
boat-puller. But it's to trouble he'll come with Wolf Larsen, as the
sparks fly upward. It's meself that knows. I can see it brewin' an'
comin' up like a storm in the sky. I've talked to him like a
brother, but it's little he sees in takin' in his lights or flyin'
false signals. He grumbles out when things don't go to suit him, an'
there'll be always some telltale carryin' word iv it aft to the
Wolf. The Wolf is strong, an' it's the way of a wolf to hate strength,
an' strength is is he'll see in Johnson- no knucklin' under, an' a
"Yes, sir; thank ye kindly, sir," for a curse or a blow. Oh, she's
a-comin'! She's a-comin'! An' God knows where I'll get another
boat-puller. What does the fool up an' say, when the Old Man calls him
Yonson, but "Me name is Johnson, sir," and' then spells it out, letter
for letter. Ye should iv seen the Old Man's face! I thought he'd let
drive at him on the spot. He didn't, but he will, an' he'll break that
squarehead's heart, or it's little I know iv the ways iv men on the
ships iv the sea.'
¡¡¡¡Thomas Mugridge is becoming unendurable. I am compelled to mister
him and to sir him with every speech. One reason for this is that Wolf
Larsen seems to have taken a fancy to him. It is an unprecedented
thing, I take it, for a captain to be chummy with the cook, but this
is certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing. Two or three times he put
his head into the galley and chaffed Mugridge good-naturedly, and
once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and chatted
with him for fully fifteen minutes. When it was over, and Mugridge was
back in the galley, he became greasily radiant and went about his work
humming Coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto.
¡¡¡¡'I always get along with the officers,' he remarked to me in a
confidential tone. 'I know the w'y, I do, to myke myself uppreci-yted.
There was my last skipper- w'y, I thought nothin' of droppin' down
in the cabin for a little chat an' a friendly glass. "Mugridge,"
says 'e to me, "Mugridge," says 'e, "you've missed yer vocytion." "an'
ow's that?" says I. "Yer should' a' been born a gentleman, an' never
'ad to work for yer livin'." God strike me dead, 'Ump, if that ayn't
wot 'e says, an' me a-sittin' there in 'is own cabin, jolly- like
an' comfortable, a-smokin' 'is cigars an' drinkin' 'is rum.'
¡¡¡¡This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction. I never heard a
voice I hated so. His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile, and
his monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I was
all in a tremble. Positively he was the most disgusting and
loathsome person I have ever met. The filth of his cooking was
indescribable; and as he cooked everything that was eaten aboard, I
was compelled to select with great circumspection what I ate, choosing
from the least dirty of his concoctions.
¡¡¡¡My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work.
The nails were discolored and black, while the skin was already
grained with dirt which even a scrubbing-brush could not remove.
Then blisters came, in a painful and never-ending procession, and I
had a great burn on my forearm, acquired by losing my balance in a
roll of the ship and pitching against the galley stove. Nor was my
knee any better. The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was still
up on edge. Hobbling about on it from morning to night was not helping
it any. What I needed was rest, if it were ever to get well.
¡¡¡¡Rest! I never before knew the meaning of the word. I had been
resting all my life and did not know it. But now could I sit still for
one half-hour and do nothing, not even think, it would be the most
pleasurable thing in the world. But it is a revelation, on the other
hand. I shall be able to appreciate the lives of the working-people
hereafter. I did not dream that work was so terrible a thing. From
half-past five in the morning till ten o'clock at night I am
everybody's slave, with not one moment to myself except such as I
can steal near the end of the second dog-watch. Let me pause for a
minute to look out over the sea sparkling in the sun, or to gaze at
a sailor going aloft to the gaff topsails or running out the bowsprit,
and I am sure to hear the hateful voice, ''Ere, you, 'Ump! No
sodgerin'! I've got my peepers on yer.'
¡¡¡¡There are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the
gossip is going around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight.
Henderson seems the best of the hunters, a slow-going fellow and
hard to rouse; but roused he must have been for Smoke had a bruised
and discolored eye and looked particularly vicious when he came into
the cabin for supper.
¡¡¡¡A cruel thing happened just before supper, indicative of the
callousness and brutishness of these men. There is one green hand in
the crew, Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered,
I imagine, by the spirit of adventure, and making his first voyage. In
the light, baffling airs, the schooner has been tacking about a
great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the
other, and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff topsail.
¡¡¡¡In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the
block through which it runs at the end of the gaff. As I understood
it, there were two ways of getting it cleared- first, by lowering
the foresail, which was comparatively easy and without danger; and,
second, by climbing out on the peak-halyards to the end of the gaff
itself, a very hazardous performance.
¡¡¡¡Johansen called out to Harrison to go out on the halyards. It was
patent to everybody that the boy was afraid. And well he might be,
eighty feet above the deck, to trust himself on those thin and jerking
ropes. Had there been a steady breeze it would not have been so bad,
but the Ghost was rolling emptily in a long sea, and with each roll
the canvas flapped and boomed and the halyards slacked and jerked
taut. They were capable of snapping a man off like a fly from a
whiplash.
¡¡¡¡Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him,
but hesitated. It was probably the first time in his life he had
been aloft. Johansen, who had caught the contagion of Wolf Larsen's
masterfulness, burst out with a volley of abuse and curses.
¡¡¡¡'That'll do, Johansen!' Wolf Larsen said brusquely. 'I'll have you
know that I do the swearing on this ship. If I need your assistance,
I'll call you in.'
¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' the mate acknowledged submissively.
¡¡¡¡In the meantime Harrison had started out on the halyards. I was
looking up from the galley door, and I could see him trembling in
every limb as with ague. He proceeded very slowly and cautiously, an
inch at a time. Outlined against the clear blue of the sky, he had the
appearance of an enormous spider crawling along the tracery of its
web.
¡¡¡¡It was a slightly uphill climb, for the foresail peaked high; and
the halyards, running through various blocks on the gaff and mast,
gave him separate holds for hands and feet. But the trouble lay in
that the wind was not strong enough or steady enough to keep the
sail full. When he was halfway out, the Ghost took a long roll to
windward and back again into the hollow between two seas. Harrison
ceased his progress and held on tightly. Eighty feet beneath I could
see the agonized strain of his muscles as he gripped for very life.
¡¡¡¡The sail emptied and the gaff swung amidships. The halyards
slackened, and, though it all happened very quickly, I could see
them sag beneath the weight of his body. Then the gaff swung to the
side with an abrupt swiftness, the great sail boomed like a cannon,
and the three rows of reef-points slatted against the canvas like a
volley of rifles. Harrison, clinging on, made the giddy rush through
the air. This rush ceased abruptly. The halyards became instantly
taut. It was the snap of the whip. His clutch was broken. One hand was
torn loose from its hold. The other lingered desperately for a moment,
and followed. His body pitched out and down, but in some way he
managed to save himself with his legs. He was hanging by them, head
downward. A quick effort brought his hands up to the halyards again;
but he was a long time regaining his former position, where he hung, a
pitiable object.
¡¡¡¡'I'll bet he has no appetite for supper,' I heard Wolf Larsen's
voice, which came to me from around the corner of the galley. 'Look at
his gills.'
¡¡¡¡In truth Harrison was very sick, as a person is seasick; and for a
long time clung to his precarious perch without attempting to move.
Johansen, however, continued violently to urge him on to the
completion of his task.
¡¡¡¡'It is a shame,' I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and
correct English. He was standing by the main rigging, a few feet
away from me. 'The boy is willing enough. He will learn if he has a
chance. But this- ' He paused a while, for the word 'murder' was his
final judgment.
¡¡¡¡'Hist, will ye!' Louis whispered to him. 'For the love iv your
mother, hold your mouth!'
¡¡¡¡But Johnson, looking on, still continued his grumbling.
¡¡¡¡'Look here,'- the hunter Standish spoke to Wolf Larsen,- 'that's
my boat-puller, and I don't want to lose him.'
¡¡¡¡'That's all right, Standish,' was the reply. 'He's your
boat-puller when you've got him in the boat, but he's my sailor when I
have him aboard, and I'll do what I well please with him.'
¡¡¡¡'But that's no reason- ' Standish began in a torrent of speech.
¡¡¡¡'That'll do; easy as she goes,' Wolf Larsen counseled back. 'I've
told you what's what, and let it stop at that. The man's mine, and
I'll make soup of him and eat it if I want to.'
¡¡¡¡There was an angry gleam in the hunter's eye, but he turned on his
heel and entered the steerage companionway, where he remained, looking
upward. All hands were on deck now, and all eyes were aloft, where a
human life was at grapples with death. The callousness of these men,
to whom industrial organization gave control of the lives of other
men, was appalling. I, who had lived out of the whirl of the world,
had never dreamed that its work was carried on in such fashion. Life
had always seemed a peculiarly sacred thing; but here it counted for
nothing, was a cipher in the arithmetic of commerce. I must say,
however, that the sailors themselves were sympathetic, as instance the
case of Johnson; but the masters (the hunters and the captain) were
heartlessly indifferent. Even the protest of Standish arose out of the
fact that he did not wish to lose his boat-puller. Had it been some
other hunter's boat-puller, he, like them, would have been no more
than amused.
¡¡¡¡But to return to Harrison. It took Johansen, insulting and
reviling the poor wretch, fully ten minutes to get him started
again. A little later he made the end of the gaff, where, astride
the spar itself, he had a better chance for holding on. He cleared the
sheet, and was free to return, slightly downhill now, along the
halyards to the mast. But he had lost his nerve. Unsafe as was his
present position, he was loath to forsake it for the more unsafe
position on the halyards.
¡¡¡¡He looked along the airy path he must traverse, and then down to the
deck. His eyes were wide and staring, and he was trembling
violently. I had never seen fear so strongly stamped upon a human
face. Johansen called vainly for him to come down. At any moment he
was liable to be snapped off the gaff, but he was helpless with
fright. Wolf Larsen, walking up and down with Smoke and in
conversation, took no more notice of him, though he cried sharply,
once, to the man at the wheel:
¡¡¡¡'You're off your course, my man! Be careful, unless you're looking
for trouble.'
¡¡¡¡'Aye, aye, sir,' the helmsman responded, putting a couple of
spokes down.
¡¡¡¡He had been guilty of running the Ghost several points off her
course, in order that what little wind there was should fill the
foresail and hold it steady. He had striven to help the unfortunate
Harrison at the risk of incurring Wolf Larsen's anger.
¡¡¡¡The time went by, and the suspense, to me, was terrible. Thomas
Mugridge, on the other hand, considered it a laughable affair, and was
continually bobbing his head out of the galley door to make jocose
remarks. How I hated him! And how my hatred for him grew and grew,
during that fearful time, to cyclopean dimensions! For the first
time in my life I experienced the desire to murder- 'saw red,' as some
of our picturesque writers phrase it. Life in general might still be
sacred, but life in the particular case of Thomas Mugridge had
become very profane indeed. I was frightened when I became conscious
that I was seeing red, and the thought flashed through my mind: Was I,
too, becoming tainted by the brutality of my environment?- I, who even
in the most flagrant crimes had denied the justice and righteousness
of capital punishment.
¡¡¡¡Fully half an hour went by, and then I saw Johnson and Louis in some
sort of altercation. It ended with Johnson flinging off Louis's
detaining arm and starting forward. He crossed the deck, sprang into
the fore rigging, and began to climb. But the quick eye of Wolf Larsen
caught him.
¡¡¡¡'Here, you, what are you up to?' he cried.
¡¡¡¡Johnson's ascent was arrested. He looked his captain in the eyes and
replied slowly:
¡¡¡¡'I am going to get that boy down.'
¡¡¡¡'You'll get down out of that rigging, and- lively about it! D'ye
hear! Get down!'
¡¡¡¡Johnson hesitated, but the long years of obedience to the masters of
ships overpowered him, and he dropped sullenly to the deck and went on
forward.
¡¡¡¡At half after five I went below to set the cabin table; but I hardly
knew what I did, for my eyes and brain were filled with the vision
of a man, white-faced and trembling, comically, like a bug, clinging
to the thrashing gaff. At six o'clock, when I served supper, going
on deck to get the food from the galley, I saw Harrison, still in
the same position. The conversation at the table was of other
things. Nobody seemed interested in the wantonly imperiled life.
But, making an extra trip to the galley a little later, I was
gladdened by the sight of Harrison staggering weakly from the
rigging to the forecastle scuttle. He had finally summoned the courage
to descend.
¡¡¡¡Before closing this incident, I must give a scrap of conversation
I had with Wolf Larsen in the cabin, while I was washing the dishes.
¡¡¡¡'You were looking squeamish this afternoon,' he began. 'What was the
matter?'
¡¡¡¡I could see that he knew what had made me possibly as sick as
Harrison, that he was trying to draw me, and I answered: 'It was
because of the brutal treatment of that boy.'
¡¡¡¡He gave a short laugh. 'Like seasickness, I suppose. Some men are
subject to it, and others are not.'
¡¡¡¡'Not so,' I objected.
¡¡¡¡'Just so,' he went on. 'The earth is as full of brutality as the sea
is full of motion. And some men are made sick by the one, and some
by the other. That's the only reason.'
¡¡¡¡'But you who make a mock of human life, don't you place any value
upon it whatever?' I demanded.
¡¡¡¡'Value? What value? He looked at me, and though his eyes were steady
and motionless, there seemed a cynical smile in them. 'What kind of
value? How do you measure it? Who values it?'
¡¡¡¡'I do,' I made answer.
¡¡¡¡'Then what is it worth to you? Another man's life, I mean. Come,
now, what is it worth?'
¡¡¡¡The value of life? How could I put a tangible value upon it? Somehow
I, who have always had expression, lacked expression when with Wolf
Larsen. I have since determined that a part of it was due to the man's
personality, but that the greater part was due to his totally
different outlook. Unlike other materialists I had met, and with
whom I had something in common to start on, I had nothing in common
with him. Perhaps, also, it was the elemental simplicity of his mind
that baffled me. He drove so directly to the core of the matter,
divesting a question always of all superfluous details, and with
such an air of finality, that I seemed to find myself struggling in
deep water with no footing under me. Value of life? How could I answer
the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had
accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism
I had never questioned. But when he challenged the truism I was
speechless.
¡¡¡¡'We were talking about this yesterday,' he said. 'I held that life
was a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might
live, and that living was merely successful piggishness. Why, if there
is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the
world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but
the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a
spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that
matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of
millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and
utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us,
we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents.
Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest.
Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand.
Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and
it's life eat life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.'
¡¡¡¡'You have read Darwin,' I said. 'But you read him misunderstandingly
when you conclude that the struggle for existence sanctions your
wanton destruction of life.'
¡¡¡¡He shrugged his shoulders. 'You know you only mean that in
relation to human life, for of the flesh and the fowl and the fish you
destroy as much as I or any other man. And human life is in no wise
different, though you feel it is and think that you reason why it
is. Why should I be parsimonious with this life which is cheap and
without value? There are more sailors than there are ships on the
sea for them, more workers than there are factories or machines for
them. Why, you who live on the land know that you house your poor
people in the slums of cities and loose famine and pestilence upon
them, and that there still remain more poor people, dying for want
of a crust of bread and a bit of meat (which is life destroyed),
than you know what to do with. Have you ever seen the London dockers
fighting like wild beasts for a chance to work?'
¡¡¡¡He started for the companion-stairs, but turned his head for a final
word. 'Do you know, the only value life has is what life puts upon
itself; and it is of course overestimated, since it is of necessity
prejudiced in its own favor. Take that man I had aloft. He held on
as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or
rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself, yes. But I do not
accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty
more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains
upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no
loss to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is
too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious
even this value was, being dead, he is unconscious that he has lost
himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds
and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a
bucket of sea-water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and
rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of
himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don't you see? And what have
you to say?'
¡¡¡¡'That you are at least consistent,' was all I could say, and I
went on washing the dishes.
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER SEVEN.
¡¡¡¡AT LAST, AFTER THREE DAYS of variable winds, we caught the northeast
trades. I came on deck, after a good night's rest in spite of my
poor knee, to find the Ghost foaming along, wing-and-wing and with
every sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern. Oh,
the wonder of the great trade-wind! All day we sailed, and all
night, and the next day, and the next, day after day, the wind
always astern and blowing steadily and strong. The schooner sailed
herself. There was no pulling and hauling on sheets and tackles, no
shifting of topsails, no work at all for the sailors to do except to
steer. At night, when the sun went down, the sheets were slackened; in
the morning, when they yielded up the damp of the dew and relaxed,
they were pulled tight again- and that was all.
¡¡¡¡Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time,
was the speed we were making; and ever out of the northeast the
brave wind blew, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty
miles between the dawns. It saddened me and gladdened me, the gait
with which we were leaving San Francisco behind and with which we were
foaming down upon the tropics. Each day grew perceptibly warmer. In
the second dog-watch the sailors came on deck, stripped, and threw
buckets of water upon one another from overside. Flying-fish were
beginning to be seen, and during the night the watch above scrambled
over the deck in pursuit of those that fell aboard. In the morning,
Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley was pleasantly areek
with the odor of their frying, while dolphin meat was served fore
and aft on such occasions as Johnson caught the blazing beauties
from the bowsprit end.
¡¡¡¡Johnson seemed to spend all his spare time there, or aloft at the
cross-trees, watching the Ghost cleaving the water under her press
of sail. There was passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he went
about in a sort of trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails,
the foaming wake, and the heave and the run of her over the liquid
mountains that were moving with us in stately procession.
¡¡¡¡The days and nights were all 'a wonder and a wild delight,' and
though I had little time from my dreary work, I stole odd moments to
gaze and gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the
world possessed. Above, the sky was stainless blue- blue as the sea
itself, which, under the forefoot, was of the color and sheen of azure
satin. All around the horizon were pale, fleecy clouds, never
changing, never moving, like a silver setting for the flawless
turquoise sky.
¡¡¡¡I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of
lying on the forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of
foam thrust aside by the Ghost's forefoot. It sounded like the
gurgling of a brook over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the
crooning song of it lured me away and out of myself till I was no
longer Hump the cabin-boy, or Van Weyden the man who had dreamed
away thirty-five years among books. But a voice behind me, the
unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with the invincible
certitude of the man and mellow with appreciation of the words he
was quoting, aroused me.
¡¡¡¡ O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light
¡¡¡¡ That holds the hot sky tame,
¡¡¡¡ And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors
¡¡¡¡ Where the scared whale flukes in flame.
¡¡¡¡ Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass,
¡¡¡¡ And her ropes are taut with the dew,
¡¡¡¡ For we're booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out
¡¡¡¡ trail,
¡¡¡¡ We're sagging south on the Long Trail- the trail that is always
¡¡¡¡ new.
¡¡¡¡'Eh, Hump? How's it strike you?' he asked, after the due pause which
words and setting demanded.
¡¡¡¡I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea
itself, and the eyes were flashing in the starshine.
¡¡¡¡'It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should show
enthusiasm,' I answered coldly.
¡¡¡¡'Why, man, it's living; it's life!' he cried.
¡¡¡¡'Which is a cheap thing and without value.' I flung his words at
him.
¡¡¡¡He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in
his voice.
¡¡¡¡'Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your head,
what a thing this life is. Of course life is valueless, except to
itself. And I can tell you that my life is pretty valuable just now-
to myself. It is beyond price, which you will acknowledge is a
terrific overrating, but which I cannot help, for it is the life
that is in me that makes the rating.'
¡¡¡¡He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the
thought that was in him, and finally went on:
¡¡¡¡'Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all
time were echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. I know
truth, divine good from evil, right from wrong. My vision is clear and
far. I could almost believe in God. But'- and his voice changed, and
the light went out of his face- 'what is this condition in which I
find myself- this joy of living, this exultation of life, this
inspiration, I may well call it? It is what comes when there is
nothing wrong with one's digestion, when his stomach is in trim, and
his appetite has an edge, and all goes well. It is the bribe for
living, the champagne of the blood, the effervescence of the
ferment, that makes some men think holy thoughts, and other men to see
God or to create him when they cannot see him. That is all- the
drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, the
babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is
alive. And- bah! Tomorrow I shall pay for it as the drunkard pays,
as the miser clutching for a pot of gold pays on waking to penury. And
I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely; cease crawling of
myself, to be all acrawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed
upon, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles, that
they may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of
fishes. Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. The
sparkle and bubble have gone out, and it is a tasteless drink.'
¡¡¡¡He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with
the weight and softness of a tiger. The Ghost plowed on her way. I
noted that the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I
listened to it the effect of Wolf Larsen's swift rush from sublime
exultation to despair slowly left me. Then some deepwater sailor, from
the waist of the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the 'Song of the
Trade-wind':
¡¡¡¡ Oh, I am the wind the seamen love-
¡¡¡¡ I am steady, and strong, and true;
¡¡¡¡ They follow my track by the clouds above,
¡¡¡¡ O'er the fathomless tropic blue.
¡¡¡¡
¡¡¡¡CHAPTER EIGHT.
¡¡¡¡SOMETIMES I THOUGHT Wolf Larsen mad, or half mad at least, what with
his strange moods and vagaries. At other times I took him for a
great man, a genius who had never arrived. And, finally, I was
convinced that he was the perfect type of the primitive man, born a
thousand years or generations too late, and an anachronism in this
culminating century of civilization. He was certainly an individualist
of the most pronounced type. Not only that, but he was very lonely.
There was no congeniality between him and the rest of the men aboard
ship; his tremendous virility and mental strength walled him apart.
They were more like children to him, even the hunters, and as children
he treated them, descending perforce to their level and playing with
them as a man plays with puppies. Or else he probed them with the
cruel hand of a vivisectionist, groping about in their mental
processes and examining their souls as though to see of what this
soul-stuff was made.
¡¡¡¡I had seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter
or that with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of
interest, pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a
curiosity almost laughable to me who stood onlooker and who
understood. Concerning his own rages, I was convinced that they were
not real, that they were sometimes experiments, but that in the main
they were the habits of a pose or attitude he had seen fit to take
toward his fellowmen. I knew, with the possible exception of the
incident of the dead mate, that I had not seen him really angry; nor
did I wish ever to see him in a genuine rage, when all the force of
him would be called into play.
¡¡¡¡While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell Thomas
Mugridge in the cabin, and at the same time complete an incident
upon which I have already touched once or twice. The twelve o'clock
dinner was over, one day, and I had just finished putting the cabin in
order, when Wolf Larsen and Thomas Mugridge descended the
companion-stairs. Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a state-room
opening off from the cabin, in the cabin itself he had never dared
to linger or to be seen, and he flitted to and fro, once or twice a
day, like a timid specter.
¡¡¡¡'So you know how to play Nap,' Wolf Larsen was saying in a pleased
sort of voice. 'I might have guessed an Englishman would know. I
learned it myself in English ships.'
¡¡¡¡Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so
pleased was he at chumming thus with the captain. The little airs he
put on, and the painful striving to assume the easy carriage of a
man born to a dignified place in life, would have been sickening had
they not been ludicrous. He quite ignored my presence, though I
credited him with being simply unable to see me. His pale, wishy-washy
eyes were swimming like lazy summer seas, though what blissful visions
they beheld were beyond my imagination.
¡¡¡¡'Get the cards, Hump,' Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took seats at
the table, 'and bring out the cigars and the whiskey you'll find in my
berth.'
¡¡¡¡I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting
broadly that there was a mystery about him- that he might be a
gentleman's son gone wrong or something or other; also, that he was
a remittance-man, and was paid to keep away from- England- 'p'yed
'an'somely, sir,' was the way he put it; 'p'yed 'an'somely to sling my
'ook an' keep slingin' it.'
¡¡¡¡I had brought the customary liquor-glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned,
shook his head, and signaled with his hands for me to bring the
tumblers. These he filled two thirds full with undiluted whiskey,-
'a gentleman's drink,' quoth Thomas Mugridge,- and they clinked
their glasses to the glorious game of Nap, lighted cigars, and fell to
shuffling and dealing the cards.
¡¡¡¡They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets.
They drank whiskey, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do not
know whether Wolf Larsen cheated,- a thing he was thoroughly capable
of doing,- but he won steadily. The cook made repeated journeys to his
bunk for money. Each time he performed the journey with greater
swagger, but he never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He
grew maudlin, familiar, could hardly see the cards or sit upright.
As a preliminary to another journey to his bunk, he hooked Wolf
Larsen's buttonhole with a greasy forefinger and vacuously
proclaimed and reiterated: 'I got money. I got money, I tell yer,
an' I'm a gentleman's son.'
¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for
glass, and, if anything, his glasses were fuller. There was no
change in him. He did not appear even amused at the other's antics.
¡¡¡¡In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a
gentleman, the cook's last money was staked on the game and lost.
Whereupon he leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen looked
curiously at him, as though about to probe and vivisect him, then
changed his mind, as from the foregone conclusion that there was
nothing there to probe.
¡¡¡¡'Hump,' he said to me, elaborately polite, 'kindly take Mr.
Mugridge's arm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling very well.
And tell Johansen to douse him with a few buckets of salt water,' he
added in a lower tone, for my ear alone.
¡¡¡¡I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning
sailors who had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was
sleepily spluttering that he was a gentleman's son. But as I descended
the companion-stairs to clear the table I heard him shriek as the
first bucket of water struck him.
¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings.
¡¡¡¡'One hundred and eighty-five dollars, even,' he said aloud. 'Just as
I thought. The beggar came aboard without a cent.'
¡¡¡¡'And what you have won is mine, sir,' I said boldly.
¡¡¡¡He favored me with a quizzical smile. 'Hump, I have studied some
grammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. "Was mine,"
you should have said, not "is mine."'
¡¡¡¡'It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics,' I answered.
¡¡¡¡It was possibly a minute before he spoke.
¡¡¡¡'D' ye know, Hump,' he said, with a slow seriousness which had in it
an indefinable strain of sadness, 'that this is the first time I
have heard the word "ethics" in the mouth of a man. You and I are
the only men on this ship who know its meaning.'
¡¡¡¡'At one time in my life,' he continued, after another pause, 'I
dreamed that I might some day talk with men who used such language,
that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had
been born, and hold conversations and mingle with men who talked about
just such things as ethics. And this is the first time I have ever
heard the word pronounced. Which is all by the way, for you are wrong.
It is a question neither of grammar nor ethics, but of fact.'
¡¡¡¡'I understand,' I said. 'The fact is that you have the money.'
¡¡¡¡His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity.
¡¡¡¡'But it's avoiding the real question,' I continued, 'which is one of
right.'
¡¡¡¡'Ah,' he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, 'I see you
still believe in such things as right and wrong.'
¡¡¡¡'But don't you- at all?' I demanded.
¡¡¡¡'Not the least bit. Might is right