The Sea-Wolf
of ocean for comfortable hunting, and when she had completely lapped our
line she continued steaming into the north-east, dropping more boats as
she went.
“What’s up?” I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer to keep my curiosity in
check.
“Never mind what’s up,” he answered gruffly. “You won’t be a thousand
years in finding out, and in the meantime just pray for plenty of wind.”
“Oh, well, I don’t mind telling you,” he said the next moment. “I’m
going to give that brother of mine a taste of his own medicine. In
short, I’m going to play the hog myself, and not for one day, but for the
rest of the season,—if we’re in luck.”
“And if we’re not?” I queried.
“Not to be considered,” he laughed. “We simply must be in luck, or it’s
all up with us.”
He had the wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in the
forecastle, where lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas Mugridge.
Nilson was as cheerful as could be expected, for his broken leg was
knitting nicely; but the Cockney was desperately melancholy, and I was
aware of a great sympathy for the unfortunate creature. And the marvel
of it was that still he lived and clung to life. The brutal years had
reduced his meagre body to splintered wreckage, and yet the spark of life
within burned brightly as ever.
“With an artificial foot—and they make excellent ones—you will be
stumping ships’ galleys to the end of time,” I assured him jovially.
But his answer was serious, nay, solemn. “I don’t know about wot you
s’y, Mr. Van W’yden, but I do know I’ll never rest ’appy till I see that
’ell-’ound bloody well dead. ’E cawn’t live as long as me. ’E’s got no
right to live, an’ as the Good Word puts it, ‘’E shall shorely die,’ an’
I s’y, ‘Amen, an’ damn soon at that.’”
When I returned on deck I found Wolf Larsen steering mainly with one
hand, while with the other hand he held the marine glasses and studied
the situation of the boats, paying particular attention to the position
of the _Macedonia_. The only change noticeable in our boats was that
they had hauled close on the wind and were heading several points west of
north. Still, I could not see the expediency of the manœuvre, for the
free sea was still intercepted by the _Macedonia’s_ five weather boats,
which, in turn, had hauled close on the wind. Thus they slowly diverged
toward the west, drawing farther away from the remainder of the boats in
their line. Our boats were rowing as well as sailing. Even the hunters
were pulling, and with three pairs of oars in the water they rapidly
overhauled what I may appropriately term the enemy.
The smoke of the _Macedonia_ had dwindled to a dim blot on the
north-eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was to be seen.
We had been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half the time and
spilling the wind; and twice, for short periods, we had been hove to.
But there was no more loafing. Sheets were trimmed, and Wolf Larsen
proceeded to put the _Ghost_ through her paces. We ran past our line of
boats and bore down upon the first weather boat of the other line.
“Down that flying jib, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen commanded. “And
stand by to back over the jibs.”
I ran forward and had the downhaul of the flying jib all in and fast as
we slipped by the boat a hundred feet to leeward. The three men in it
gazed at us suspiciously. They had been hogging the sea, and they knew
Wolf Larsen, by reputation at any rate. I noted that the hunter, a huge
Scandinavian sitting in the bow, held his rifle, ready to hand, across
his knees. It should have been in its proper place in the rack. When
they came opposite our stern, Wolf Larsen greeted them with a wave of the
hand, and cried:
“Come on board and have a ’gam’!”
“To gam,” among the sealing-schooners, is a substitute for the verbs “to
visit,” “to gossip.” It expresses the garrulity of the sea, and is a
pleasant break in the monotony of the life.
The _Ghost_ swung around into the wind, and I finished my work forward in
time to run aft and lend a hand with the mainsheet.
“You will please stay on deck, Miss Brewster,” Wolf Larsen said, as he
started forward to meet his guest. “And you too, Mr. Van Weyden.”
The boat had lowered its sail and run alongside. The hunter, golden
bearded like a sea-king, came over the rail and dropped on deck. But his
hugeness could not quite overcome his apprehensiveness. Doubt and
distrust showed strongly in his face. It was a transparent face, for all
of its hairy shield, and advertised instant relief when he glanced from
Wolf Larsen to me, noted that there was only the pair of us, and then
glanced over his own two men who had joined him. Surely he had little
reason to be afraid. He towered like a Goliath above Wolf Larsen. He
must have measured six feet eight or nine inches in stature, and I
subsequently learned his weight—240 pounds. And there was no fat about
him. It was all bone and muscle.
A return of apprehension was apparent when, at the top of the
companion-way, Wolf Larsen invited him below. But he reassured himself
with a glance down at his host—a big man himself but dwarfed by the
propinquity of the giant. So all hesitancy vanished, and the pair
descended into the cabin. In the meantime, his two men, as was the wont
of visiting sailors, had gone forward into the forecastle to do some
visiting themselves.
Suddenly, from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by all
the sounds of a furious struggle. It was the leopard and the lion, and
the lion made all the noise. Wolf Larsen was the leopard.
“You see the sacredness of our hospitality,” I said bitterly to Maud
Brewster.
She nodded her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the signs of
the same sickness at sight or sound of violent struggle from which I had
suffered so severely during my first weeks on the _Ghost_.
“Wouldn’t it be better if you went forward, say by the steerage
companion-way, until it is over?” I suggested.
She shook her head and gazed at me pitifully. She was not frightened,
but appalled, rather, at the human animality of it.
“You will understand,” I took advantage of the opportunity to say,
“whatever part I take in what is going on and what is to come, that I am
compelled to take it—if you and I are ever to get out of this scrape with
our lives.”
“It is not nice—for me,” I added.
“I understand,” she said, in a weak, far-away voice, and her eyes showed
me that she did understand.
The sounds from below soon died away. Then Wolf Larsen came alone on
deck. There was a slight flush under his bronze, but otherwise he bore
no signs of the battle.
“Send those two men aft, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said.
I obeyed, and a minute or two later they stood before him. “Hoist in
your boat,” he said to them. “Your hunter’s decided to stay aboard
awhile and doesn’t want it pounding alongside.”
“Hoist in your boat, I said,” he repeated, this time in sharper tones as
they hesitated to do his bidding.
“Who knows? you may have to sail with me for a time,” he said, quite
softly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, as they moved
slowly to comply, “and we might as well start with a friendly
understanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes you jump better than
that, and you know it!”
Their movements perceptibly quickened under his coaching, and as the boat
swung inboard I was sent forward to let go the jibs. Wolf Larsen, at the
wheel, directed the _Ghost_ after the _Macedonia’s_ second weather boat.
Under way, and with nothing for the time being to do, I turned my
attention to the situation of the boats. The _Macedonia’s_ third weather
boat was being attacked by two of ours, the fourth by our remaining
three; and the fifth, turn about, was taking a hand in the defence of its
nearest mate. The fight had opened at long distance, and the rifles were
cracking steadily. A quick, snappy sea was being kicked up by the wind,
a condition which prevented fine shooting; and now and again, as we drew
closer, we could see the bullets zip-zipping from wave to wave.
The boat we were pursuing had squared away and was running before the
wind to escape us, and, in the course of its flight, to take part in
repulsing our general boat attack.
Attending to sheets and tacks now left me little time to see what was
taking place, but I happened to be on the poop when Wolf Larsen ordered
the two strange sailors forward and into the forecastle. They went
sullenly, but they went. He next ordered Miss Brewster below, and smiled
at the instant horror that leapt into her eyes.
“You’ll find nothing gruesome down there,” he said, “only an unhurt man
securely made fast to the ring-bolts. Bullets are liable to come aboard,
and I don’t want you killed, you know.”
Even as he spoke, a bullet was deflected by a brass-capped spoke of the
wheel between his hands and screeched off through the air to windward.
“You see,” he said to her; and then to me, “Mr. Van Weyden, will you take
the wheel?”
Maud Brewster had stepped inside the companion-way so that only her head
was exposed. Wolf Larsen had procured a rifle and was throwing a
cartridge into the barrel. I begged her with my eyes to go below, but
she smiled and said:
“We may be feeble land-creatures without legs, but we can show Captain
Larsen that we are at least as brave as he.”
He gave her a quick look of admiration.
“I like you a hundred per cent. better for that,” he said. “Books, and
brains, and bravery. You are well-rounded, a blue-stocking fit to be the
wife of a pirate chief. Ahem, we’ll discuss that later,” he smiled, as a
bullet struck solidly into the cabin wall.
I saw his eyes flash golden as he spoke, and I saw the terror mount in
her own.
“We are braver,” I hastened to say. “At least, speaking for myself, I
know I am braver than Captain Larsen.”
It was I who was now favoured by a quick look. He was wondering if I
were making fun of him. I put three or four spokes over to counteract a
sheer toward the wind on the part of the _Ghost_, and then steadied her.
Wolf Larsen was still waiting an explanation, and I pointed down to my
knees.
“You will observe there,” I said, “a slight trembling. It is because I
am afraid, the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my mind because I do
not wish to die. But my spirit masters the trembling flesh and the
qualms of the mind. I am more than brave. I am courageous. Your flesh
is not afraid. You are not afraid. On the one hand, it costs you
nothing to encounter danger; on the other hand, it even gives you
delight. You enjoy it. You may be unafraid, Mr. Larsen, but you must
grant that the bravery is mine.”
“You’re right,” he acknowledged at once. “I never thought of it in that
way before. But is the opposite true? If you are braver than I, am I
more cowardly than you?”
We both laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck and
rested his rifle across the rail. The bullets we had received had
travelled nearly a mile, but by now we had cut that distance in half. He
fired three careful shots. The first struck fifty feet to windward of
the boat, the second alongside; and at the third the boat-steerer let
loose his steering-oar and crumpled up in the bottom of the boat.
“I guess that’ll fix them,” Wolf Larsen said, rising to his feet. “I
couldn’t afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a chance the
boat-puller doesn’t know how to steer. In which case, the hunter cannot
steer and shoot at the same time.”
His reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the wind
and the hunter sprang aft to take the boat-steerer’s place. There was no
more shooting, though the rifles were still cracking merrily from the
other boats.