The Sea-Wolf
the brow. And it seemed to me that his eyes were strange, not only the
expression, but the physical seeming, as though the optic nerves and
supporting muscles had suffered strain and slightly twisted the eyeballs.
All this I saw, and my brain now working rapidly, I thought a thousand
thoughts; and yet I could not pull the triggers. I lowered the gun and
stepped to the corner of the cabin, primarily to relieve the tension on
my nerves and to make a new start, and incidentally to be closer. Again
I raised the gun. He was almost at arm’s length. There was no hope for
him. I was resolved. There was no possible chance of missing him, no
matter how poor my marksmanship. And yet I wrestled with myself and
could not pull the triggers.
“Well?” he demanded impatiently.
I strove vainly to force my fingers down on the triggers, and vainly I
strove to say something.
“Why don’t you shoot?” he asked.
I cleared my throat of a huskiness which prevented speech. “Hump,” he
said slowly, “you can’t do it. You are not exactly afraid. You are
impotent. Your conventional morality is stronger than you. You are the
slave to the opinions which have credence among the people you have known
and have read about. Their code has been drummed into your head from the
time you lisped, and in spite of your philosophy, and of what I have
taught you, it won’t let you kill an unarmed, unresisting man.”
“I know it,” I said hoarsely.
“And you know that I would kill an unarmed man as readily as I would
smoke a cigar,” he went on. “You know me for what I am,—my worth in the
world by your standard. You have called me snake, tiger, shark, monster,
and Caliban. And yet, you little rag puppet, you little echoing
mechanism, you are unable to kill me as you would a snake or a shark,
because I have hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat like yours. Bah!
I had hoped better things of you, Hump.”
He stepped out of the companion-way and came up to me.
“Put down that gun. I want to ask you some questions. I haven’t had a
chance to look around yet. What place is this? How is the _Ghost_
lying? How did you get wet? Where’s Maud?—I beg your pardon, Miss
Brewster—or should I say, ‘Mrs. Van Weyden’?”
I had backed away from him, almost weeping at my inability to shoot him,
but not fool enough to put down the gun. I hoped, desperately, that he
might commit some hostile act, attempt to strike me or choke me; for in
such way only I knew I could be stirred to shoot.
“This is Endeavour Island,” I said.
“Never heard of it,” he broke in.
“At least, that’s our name for it,” I amended.
“Our?” he queried. “Who’s our?”
“Miss Brewster and myself. And the _Ghost_ is lying, as you can see for
yourself, bow on to the beach.”
“There are seals here,” he said. “They woke me up with their barking, or
I’d be sleeping yet. I heard them when I drove in last night. They were
the first warning that I was on a lee shore. It’s a rookery, the kind of
a thing I’ve hunted for years. Thanks to my brother Death, I’ve lighted
on a fortune. It’s a mint. What’s its bearings?”
“Haven’t the least idea,” I said. “But you ought to know quite closely.
What were your last observations?”
He smiled inscrutably, but did not answer.
“Well, where’s all hands?” I asked. “How does it come that you are
alone?”
I was prepared for him again to set aside my question, and was surprised
at the readiness of his reply.
“My brother got me inside forty-eight hours, and through no fault of
mine. Boarded me in the night with only the watch on deck. Hunters went
back on me. He gave them a bigger lay. Heard him offering it. Did it
right before me. Of course the crew gave me the go-by. That was to be
expected. All hands went over the side, and there I was, marooned on my
own vessel. It was Death’s turn, and it’s all in the family anyway.”
“But how did you lose the masts?” I asked.
“Walk over and examine those lanyards,” he said, pointing to where the
mizzen-rigging should have been.
“They have been cut with a knife!” I exclaimed.
“Not quite,” he laughed. “It was a neater job. Look again.”
I looked. The lanyards had been almost severed, with just enough left to
hold the shrouds till some severe strain should be put upon them.
“Cooky did that,” he laughed again. “I know, though I didn’t spot him at
it. Kind of evened up the score a bit.”
“Good for Mugridge!” I cried.
“Yes, that’s what I thought when everything went over the side. Only I
said it on the other side of my mouth.”
“But what were you doing while all this was going on?” I asked.
“My best, you may be sure, which wasn’t much under the circumstances.”
I turned to re-examine Thomas Mugridge’s work.
“I guess I’ll sit down and take the sunshine,” I heard Wolf Larsen
saying.
There was a hint, just a slight hint, of physical feebleness in his
voice, and it was so strange that I looked quickly at him. His hand was
sweeping nervously across his face, as though he were brushing away
cobwebs. I was puzzled. The whole thing was so unlike the Wolf Larsen I
had known.
“How are your headaches?” I asked.
“They still trouble me,” was his answer. “I think I have one coming on
now.”
He slipped down from his sitting posture till he lay on the deck. Then
he rolled over on his side, his head resting on the biceps of the under
arm, the forearm shielding his eyes from the sun. I stood regarding him
wonderingly.
“Now’s your chance, Hump,” he said.
“I don’t understand,” I lied, for I thoroughly understood.
“Oh, nothing,” he added softly, as if he were drowsing; “only you’ve got
me where you want me.”
“No, I haven’t,” I retorted; “for I want you a few thousand miles away
from here.”
He chuckled, and thereafter spoke no more. He did not stir as I passed
by him and went down into the cabin. I lifted the trap in the floor, but
for some moments gazed dubiously into the darkness of the lazarette
beneath. I hesitated to descend. What if his lying down were a ruse?
Pretty, indeed, to be caught there like a rat. I crept softly up the
companion-way and peeped at him. He was lying as I had left him. Again
I went below; but before I dropped into the lazarette I took the
precaution of casting down the door in advance. At least there would be
no lid to the trap. But it was all needless. I regained the cabin with
a store of jams, sea-biscuits, canned meats, and such things,—all I could
carry,—and replaced the trap-door.
A peep at Wolf Larsen showed me that he had not moved. A bright thought
struck me. I stole into his state-room and possessed myself of his
revolvers. There were no other weapons, though I thoroughly ransacked
the three remaining state-rooms. To make sure, I returned and went
through the steerage and forecastle, and in the galley gathered up all
the sharp meat and vegetable knives. Then I bethought me of the great
yachtsman’s knife he always carried, and I came to him and spoke to him,
first softly, then loudly. He did not move. I bent over and took it
from his pocket. I breathed more freely. He had no arms with which to
attack me from a distance; while I, armed, could always forestall him
should he attempt to grapple me with his terrible gorilla arms.
Filling a coffee-pot and frying-pan with part of my plunder, and taking
some chinaware from the cabin pantry, I left Wolf Larsen lying in the sun
and went ashore.
Maud was still asleep. I blew up the embers (we had not yet arranged a
winter kitchen), and quite feverishly cooked the breakfast. Toward the
end, I heard her moving about within the hut, making her toilet. Just as
all was ready and the coffee poured, the door opened and she came forth.
“It’s not fair of you,” was her greeting. “You are usurping one of my
prerogatives. You know you agreed that the cooking should be mine,
and—”
“But just this once,” I pleaded.
“If you promise not to do it again,” she smiled. “Unless, of course, you
have grown tired of my poor efforts.”
To my delight she never once looked toward the beach, and I maintained
the banter with such success all unconsciously she sipped coffee from the
china cup, ate fried evaporated potatoes, and spread marmalade on her
biscuit. But it could not last. I saw the surprise that came over her.
She had discovered the china plate from which she was eating. She looked
over the breakfast, noting detail after detail. Then she looked at me,
and her face turned slowly toward the beach.
“Humphrey!” she said.
The old unnamable terror mounted into her eyes.
“Is—he?” she quavered.
I nodded my head.
CHAPTER XXXIII
We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore. It was an intolerable
period of anxiety. Each moment one or the other of us cast expectant
glances toward the _Ghost_. But he did not come. He did not even appear
on deck.
“Perhaps it is his headache,” I said. “I left him lying on the poop. He
may lie there all night. I think I’ll go and see.”
Maud looked entreaty at me.
“It is all right,” I assured her. “I shall take the revolvers. You know
I collected every weapon on board.”
“But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible hands!” she
objected. And then she cried, “Oh, Humphrey, I am afraid of him! Don’t
go—please don’t go!”
She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering.
My heart was surely in my eyes for a moment. The dear and lovely woman!
And she was so much the woman, clinging and appealing, sunshine and dew
to my manhood, rooting it deeper and sending through it the sap of a new
strength. I was for putting my arm around her, as when in the midst of
the seal herd; but I considered, and refrained.
“I shall not take any risks,” I said. “I’ll merely peep over the bow and
see.”
She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go. But the space on deck where
I had left him lying was vacant. He had evidently gone below. That
night we stood alternate watches, one of us sleeping at a time; for there
was no telling what Wolf Larsen might do. He was certainly capable of
anything.
The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign.
“These headaches of his, these attacks,” Maud said, on the afternoon of
the fourth day; “Perhaps he is ill, very ill. He may be dead.”
“Or dying,” was her afterthought when she had waited some time for me to
speak.
“Better so,” I answered.
“But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely hour.”
“Perhaps,” I suggested.
“Yes, even perhaps,” she acknowledged. “But we do not know. It would be
terrible if he were. I could never forgive myself. We must do
something.”
“Perhaps,” I suggested again.
I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled a
solicitude for Wolf Larsen, of all creatures. Where was her solicitude
for me, I thought,—for me whom she had been afraid to have merely peep
aboard?
She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence. And she was as
direct as she was subtle.
“You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out,” she said. “And if you want
to laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness.”
I arose obediently and went down the beach.
“Do be careful,” she called after me.
I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck.
Aft I walked to the cabin companion, where I contented myself with
hailing below. Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started to ascend the
stairs I cocked my revolver. I displayed it openly during our
conversation, but he took no notice of it. He appeared the same,
physically, as when last I saw him, but he was gloomy and silent. In
fact, the few words we spoke could hardly be called a conversation. I
did not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor did he ask why I had not