The Sea-Wolf
How piteously brave!
Again I fell to chafing her hands and to moving her arms up and down and
about until she could thrash them herself. Then I compelled her to stand
up, and though she would have fallen had I not supported her, I forced
her to walk back and forth the several steps between the thwart and the
stern-sheets, and finally to spring up and down.
“Oh, you brave, brave woman,” I said, when I saw the life coming back
into her face. “Did you know that you were brave?”
“I never used to be,” she answered. “I was never brave till I knew you.
It is you who have made me brave.”
“Nor I, until I knew you,” I answered.
She gave me a quick look, and again I caught that dancing, tremulous
light and something more in her eyes. But it was only for the moment.
Then she smiled.
“It must have been the conditions,” she said; but I knew she was wrong,
and I wondered if she likewise knew. Then the wind came, fair and fresh,
and the boat was soon labouring through a heavy sea toward the island.
At half-past three in the afternoon we passed the south-western
promontory. Not only were we hungry, but we were now suffering from
thirst. Our lips were dry and cracked, nor could we longer moisten them
with our tongues. Then the wind slowly died down. By night it was dead
calm and I was toiling once more at the oars—but weakly, most weakly. At
two in the morning the boat’s bow touched the beach of our own inner cove
and I staggered out to make the painter fast. Maud could not stand, nor
had I strength to carry her. I fell in the sand with her, and, when I
had recovered, contented myself with putting my hands under her shoulders
and dragging her up the beach to the hut.
The next day we did no work. In fact, we slept till three in the
afternoon, or at least I did, for I awoke to find Maud cooking dinner.
Her power of recuperation was wonderful. There was something tenacious
about that lily-frail body of hers, a clutch on existence which one could
not reconcile with its patent weakness.
“You know I was travelling to Japan for my health,” she said, as we
lingered at the fire after dinner and delighted in the movelessness of
loafing. “I was not very strong. I never was. The doctors recommended
a sea voyage, and I chose the longest.”
“You little knew what you were choosing,” I laughed.
“But I shall be a different women for the experience, as well as a
stronger woman,” she answered; “and, I hope a better woman. At least I
shall understand a great deal more of life.”
Then, as the short day waned, we fell to discussing Wolf Larsen’s
blindness. It was inexplicable. And that it was grave, I instanced his
statement that he intended to stay and die on Endeavour Island. When he,
strong man that he was, loving life as he did, accepted his death, it was
plain that he was troubled by something more than mere blindness. There
had been his terrific headaches, and we were agreed that it was some sort
of brain break-down, and that in his attacks he endured pain beyond our
comprehension.
I noticed as we talked over his condition, that Maud’s sympathy went out
to him more and more; yet I could not but love her for it, so sweetly
womanly was it. Besides, there was no false sentiment about her feeling.
She was agreed that the most rigorous treatment was necessary if we were
to escape, though she recoiled at the suggestion that I might some time
be compelled to take his life to save my own—“our own,” she put it.
In the morning we had breakfast and were at work by daylight. I found a
light kedge anchor in the fore-hold, where such things were kept; and
with a deal of exertion got it on deck and into the boat. With a long
running-line coiled down in the stem, I rowed well out into our little
cove and dropped the anchor into the water. There was no wind, the tide
was high, and the schooner floated. Casting off the shore-lines, I
kedged her out by main strength (the windlass being broken), till she
rode nearly up and down to the small anchor—too small to hold her in any
breeze. So I lowered the big starboard anchor, giving plenty of slack;
and by afternoon I was at work on the windlass.
Three days I worked on that windlass. Least of all things was I a
mechanic, and in that time I accomplished what an ordinary machinist
would have done in as many hours. I had to learn my tools to begin with,
and every simple mechanical principle which such a man would have at his
finger ends I had likewise to learn. And at the end of three days I had
a windlass which worked clumsily. It never gave the satisfaction the old
windlass had given, but it worked and made my work possible.
In half a day I got the two topmasts aboard and the shears rigged and
guyed as before. And that night I slept on board and on deck beside my
work. Maud, who refused to stay alone ashore, slept in the forecastle.
Wolf Larsen had sat about, listening to my repairing the windlass and
talking with Maud and me upon indifferent subjects. No reference was
made on either side to the destruction of the shears; nor did he say
anything further about my leaving his ship alone. But still I had feared
him, blind and helpless and listening, always listening, and I never let
his strong arms get within reach of me while I worked.
On this night, sleeping under my beloved shears, I was aroused by his
footsteps on the deck. It was a starlight night, and I could see the
bulk of him dimly as he moved about. I rolled out of my blankets and
crept noiselessly after him in my stocking feet. He had armed himself
with a draw-knife from the tool-locker, and with this he prepared to cut
across the throat-halyards I had again rigged to the shears. He felt the
halyards with his hands and discovered that I had not made them fast.
This would not do for a draw-knife, so he laid hold of the running part,
hove taut, and made fast. Then he prepared to saw across with the
draw-knife.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” I said quietly.
He heard the click of my pistol and laughed.
“Hello, Hump,” he said. “I knew you were here all the time. You can’t
fool my ears.”
“That’s a lie, Wolf Larsen,” I said, just as quietly as before.
“However, I am aching for a chance to kill you, so go ahead and cut.”
“You have the chance always,” he sneered.
“Go ahead and cut,” I threatened ominously.
“I’d rather disappoint you,” he laughed, and turned on his heel and went
aft.
“Something must be done, Humphrey,” Maud said, next morning, when I had
told her of the night’s occurrence. “If he has liberty, he may do
anything. He may sink the vessel, or set fire to it. There is no
telling what he may do. We must make him a prisoner.”
“But how?” I asked, with a helpless shrug. “I dare not come within reach
of his arms, and he knows that so long as his resistance is passive I
cannot shoot him.”
“There must be some way,” she contended. “Let me think.”
“There is one way,” I said grimly.
She waited.
I picked up a seal-club.
“It won’t kill him,” I said. “And before he could recover I’d have him
bound hard and fast.”
She shook her head with a shudder. “No, not that. There must be some
less brutal way. Let us wait.”
But we did not have to wait long, and the problem solved itself. In the
morning, after several trials, I found the point of balance in the
foremast and attached my hoisting tackle a few feet above it. Maud held
the turn on the windlass and coiled down while I heaved. Had the
windlass been in order it would not have been so difficult; as it was, I
was compelled to apply all my weight and strength to every inch of the
heaving. I had to rest frequently. In truth, my spells of resting were
longer than those of working. Maud even contrived, at times when all my
efforts could not budge the windlass, to hold the turn with one hand and
with the other to throw the weight of her slim body to my assistance.
At the end of an hour the single and double blocks came together at the
top of the shears. I could hoist no more. And yet the mast was not
swung entirely inboard. The butt rested against the outside of the port
rail, while the top of the mast overhung the water far beyond the
starboard rail. My shears were too short. All my work had been for
nothing. But I no longer despaired in the old way. I was acquiring more
confidence in myself and more confidence in the possibilities of
windlasses, shears, and hoisting tackles. There was a way in which it
could be done, and it remained for me to find that way.
While I was considering the problem, Wolf Larsen came on deck. We
noticed something strange about him at once. The indecisiveness, or
feebleness, of his movements was more pronounced. His walk was actually
tottery as he came down the port side of the cabin. At the break of the
poop he reeled, raised one hand to his eyes with the familiar brushing
gesture, and fell down the steps—still on his feet—to the main deck,
across which he staggered, falling and flinging out his arms for support.
He regained his balance by the steerage companion-way and stood there
dizzily for a space, when he suddenly crumpled up and collapsed, his legs
bending under him as he sank to the deck.
“One of his attacks,” I whispered to Maud.
She nodded her head; and I could see sympathy warm in her eyes.
We went up to him, but he seemed unconscious, breathing spasmodically.
She took charge of him, lifting his head to keep the blood out of it and
despatching me to the cabin for a pillow. I also brought blankets, and
we made him comfortable. I took his pulse. It beat steadily and strong,
and was quite normal. This puzzled me. I became suspicious.
“What if he should be feigning this?” I asked, still holding his wrist.
Maud shook her head, and there was reproof in her eyes. But just then
the wrist I held leaped from my hand, and the hand clasped like a steel
trap about my wrist. I cried aloud in awful fear, a wild inarticulate
cry; and I caught one glimpse of his face, malignant and triumphant, as
his other hand compassed my body and I was drawn down to him in a
terrible grip.
My wrist was released, but his other arm, passed around my back, held
both my arms so that I could not move. His free hand went to my throat,
and in that moment I knew the bitterest foretaste of death earned by
one’s own idiocy. Why had I trusted myself within reach of those
terrible arms? I could feel other hands at my throat. They were Maud’s
hands, striving vainly to tear loose the hand that was throttling me.
She gave it up, and I heard her scream in a way that cut me to the soul,
for it was a woman’s scream of fear and heart-breaking despair. I had
heard it before, during the sinking of the _Martinez_.
My face was against his chest and I could not see, but I heard Maud turn
and run swiftly away along the deck. Everything was happening quickly.
I had not yet had a glimmering of unconsciousness, and it seemed that an
interminable period of time was lapsing before I heard her feet flying
back. And just then I felt the whole man sink under me. The breath was
leaving his lungs and his chest was collapsing under my weight. Whether
it was merely the expelled breath, or his consciousness of his growing
impotence, I know not, but his throat vibrated with a deep groan. The
hand at my throat relaxed. I breathed. It fluttered and tightened
again. But even his tremendous will could not overcome the dissolution
that assailed it. That will of his was breaking down. He was fainting.
Maud’s footsteps were very near as his hand fluttered for the last time
and my throat was released. I rolled off and over to the deck on my
back, gasping and blinking in the sunshine. Maud was pale but
composed,—my eyes had gone instantly to her face,—and she was looking at