The Sea-Wolf
evidently joined his comrades in the forecastle.
If ever Wolf Larsen attained the summit of living, he attained it then.
From time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him, and I followed
in amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, under the
spell of his passion, for he was preaching the passion of revolt. It was
inevitable that Milton’s Lucifer should be instanced, and the keenness
with which Wolf Larsen analysed and depicted the character was a
revelation of his stifled genius. It reminded me of Taine, yet I knew
the man had never heard of that brilliant though dangerous thinker.
“He led a lost cause, and he was not afraid of God’s thunderbolts,” Wolf
Larsen was saying. “Hurled into hell, he was unbeaten. A third of God’s
angels he had led with him, and straightway he incited man to rebel
against God, and gained for himself and hell the major portion of all the
generations of man. Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he was
less brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand times
no! God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater.
But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate. He preferred
suffering in freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable servility. He
did not care to serve God. He cared to serve nothing. He was no
figure-head. He stood on his own legs. He was an individual.”
“The first Anarchist,” Maud laughed, rising and preparing to withdraw to
her state-room.
“Then it is good to be an anarchist!” he cried. He, too, had risen, and
he stood facing her, where she had paused at the door of her room, as he
went on:
“‘Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy; will not drive us hence;
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”
It was the defiant cry of a mighty spirit. The cabin still rang with his
voice, as he stood there, swaying, his bronzed face shining, his head up
and dominant, and his eyes, golden and masculine, intensely masculine and
insistently soft, flashing upon Maud at the door.
Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and she
said, almost in a whisper, “You are Lucifer.”
The door closed and she was gone. He stood staring after her for a
minute, then returned to himself and to me.
“I’ll relieve Louis at the wheel,” he said shortly, “and call upon you to
relieve at midnight. Better turn in now and get some sleep.”
He pulled on a pair of mittens, put on his cap, and ascended the
companion-stairs, while I followed his suggestion by going to bed. For
some unknown reason, prompted mysteriously, I did not undress, but lay
down fully clothed. For a time I listened to the clamour in the steerage
and marvelled upon the love which had come to me; but my sleep on the
_Ghost_ had become most healthful and natural, and soon the songs and
cries died away, my eyes closed, and my consciousness sank down into the
half-death of slumber.
* * * * *
I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, on my
feet, wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger as it might
have thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the door. The cabin light
was burning low. I saw Maud, my Maud, straining and struggling and
crushed in the embrace of Wolf Larsen’s arms. I could see the vain beat
and flutter of her as she strove, pressing her face against his breast,
to escape from him. All this I saw on the very instant of seeing and as
I sprang forward.
I struck him with my fist, on the face, as he raised his head, but it was
a puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and gave me a
shove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the wrist, yet so
tremendous was his strength that I was hurled backward as from a
catapult. I struck the door of the state-room which had formerly been
Mugridge’s, splintering and smashing the panels with the impact of my
body. I struggled to my feet, with difficulty dragging myself clear of
the wrecked door, unaware of any hurt whatever. I was conscious only of
an overmastering rage. I think I, too, cried aloud, as I drew the knife
at my hip and sprang forward a second time.
But something had happened. They were reeling apart. I was close upon
him, my knife uplifted, but I withheld the blow. I was puzzled by the
strangeness of it. Maud was leaning against the wall, one hand out for
support; but he was staggering, his left hand pressed against his
forehead and covering his eyes, and with the right he was groping about
him in a dazed sort of way. It struck against the wall, and his body
seemed to express a muscular and physical relief at the contact, as
though he had found his bearings, his location in space as well as
something against which to lean.
Then I saw red again. All my wrongs and humiliations flashed upon me
with a dazzling brightness, all that I had suffered and others had
suffered at his hands, all the enormity of the man’s very existence. I
sprang upon him, blindly, insanely, and drove the knife into his
shoulder. I knew, then, that it was no more than a flesh wound,—I had
felt the steel grate on his shoulder-blade,—and I raised the knife to
strike at a more vital part.
But Maud had seen my first blow, and she cried, “Don’t! Please don’t!”
I dropped my arm for a moment, and a moment only. Again the knife was
raised, and Wolf Larsen would have surely died had she not stepped
between. Her arms were around me, her hair was brushing my face. My
pulse rushed up in an unwonted manner, yet my rage mounted with it. She
looked me bravely in the eyes.
“For my sake,” she begged.
“I would kill him for your sake!” I cried, trying to free my arm without
hurting her.
“Hush!” she said, and laid her fingers lightly on my lips. I could have
kissed them, had I dared, even then, in my rage, the touch of them was so
sweet, so very sweet. “Please, please,” she pleaded, and she disarmed me
by the words, as I was to discover they would ever disarm me.
I stepped back, separating from her, and replaced the knife in its
sheath. I looked at Wolf Larsen. He still pressed his left hand against
his forehead. It covered his eyes. His head was bowed. He seemed to
have grown limp. His body was sagging at the hips, his great shoulders
were drooping and shrinking forward.
“Van Weyden!” he called hoarsely, and with a note of fright in his
voice. “Oh, Van Weyden! where are you?”
I looked at Maud. She did not speak, but nodded her head.
“Here I am,” I answered, stepping to his side. “What is the matter?”
“Help me to a seat,” he said, in the same hoarse, frightened voice.
“I am a sick man; a very sick man, Hump,” he said, as he left my
sustaining grip and sank into a chair.
His head dropped forward on the table and was buried in his hands. From
time to time it rocked back and forward as with pain. Once, when he half
raised it, I saw the sweat standing in heavy drops on his forehead about
the roots of his hair.
“I am a sick man, a very sick man,” he repeated again, and yet once
again.
“What is the matter?” I asked, resting my hand on his shoulder. “What
can I do for you?”
But he shook my hand off with an irritated movement, and for a long time
I stood by his side in silence. Maud was looking on, her face awed and
frightened. What had happened to him we could not imagine.
“Hump,” he said at last, “I must get into my bunk. Lend me a hand. I’ll
be all right in a little while. It’s those damn headaches, I believe. I
was afraid of them. I had a feeling—no, I don’t know what I’m talking
about. Help me into my bunk.”
But when I got him into his bunk he again buried his face in his hands,
covering his eyes, and as I turned to go I could hear him murmuring, “I
am a sick man, a very sick man.”
Maud looked at me inquiringly as I emerged. I shook my head, saying:
“Something has happened to him. What, I don’t know. He is helpless, and
frightened, I imagine, for the first time in his life. It must have
occurred before he received the knife-thrust, which made only a
superficial wound. You must have seen what happened.”
She shook her head. “I saw nothing. It is just as mysterious to me. He
suddenly released me and staggered away. But what shall we do? What
shall I do?”
“If you will wait, please, until I come back,” I answered.
I went on deck. Louis was at the wheel.
“You may go for’ard and turn in,” I said, taking it from him.
He was quick to obey, and I found myself alone on the deck of the
_Ghost_. As quietly as was possible, I clewed up the topsails, lowered
the flying jib and staysail, backed the jib over, and flattened the
mainsail. Then I went below to Maud. I placed my finger on my lips for
silence, and entered Wolf Larsen’s room. He was in the same position in
which I had left him, and his head was rocking—almost writhing—from side
to side.
“Anything I can do for you?” I asked.
He made no reply at first, but on my repeating the question he answered,
“No, no; I’m all right. Leave me alone till morning.”
But as I turned to go I noted that his head had resumed its rocking
motion. Maud was waiting patiently for me, and I took notice, with a
thrill of joy, of the queenly poise of her head and her glorious, calm
eyes. Calm and sure they were as her spirit itself.
“Will you trust yourself to me for a journey of six hundred miles or so?”
I asked.
“You mean—?” she asked, and I knew she had guessed aright.
“Yes, I mean just that,” I replied. “There is nothing left for us but
the open boat.”
“For me, you mean,” she said. “You are certainly as safe here as you
have been.”
“No, there is nothing left for us but the open boat,” I iterated stoutly.
“Will you please dress as warmly as you can, at once, and make into a
bundle whatever you wish to bring with you.”
“And make all haste,” I added, as she turned toward her state-room.
The lazarette was directly beneath the cabin, and, opening the trap-door
in the floor and carrying a candle with me, I dropped down and began
overhauling the ship’s stores. I selected mainly from the canned goods,
and by the time I was ready, willing hands were extended from above to
receive what I passed up.
We worked in silence. I helped myself also to blankets, mittens,
oilskins, caps, and such things, from the slop-chest. It was no light
adventure, this trusting ourselves in a small boat to so raw and stormy a
sea, and it was imperative that we should guard ourselves against the
cold and wet.
We worked feverishly at carrying our plunder on deck and depositing it
amidships, so feverishly that Maud, whose strength was hardly a positive
quantity, had to give over, exhausted, and sit on the steps at the break
of the poop. This did not serve to recover her, and she lay on her back,
on the hard deck, arms stretched out, and whole body relaxed. It was a
trick I remembered of my sister, and I knew she would soon be herself
again. I knew, also, that weapons would not come in amiss, and I
re-entered Wolf Larsen’s state-room to get his rifle and shot-gun. I
spoke to him, but he made no answer, though his head was still rocking
from side to side and he was not asleep.
“Good-bye, Lucifer,” I whispered to myself as I softly closed the door.
Next to obtain was a stock of ammunition,—an easy matter, though I had to
enter the steerage companion-way to do it. Here the hunters stored the
ammunition-boxes they carried in the boats, and here, but a few feet from
their noisy revels, I took possession of two boxes.
Next, to lower a boat. Not so simple a task for one man. Having cast