The Sea-Wolf
turn startled her.
“What phrase?” she asked.
“One small woman.”
“Is it yours?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Mine. I made it.”
“Then you must have talked in your sleep,” she smiled.
The dancing, tremulous light was in her eyes. Mine, I knew, were
speaking beyond the will of my speech. I leaned toward her. Without
volition I leaned toward her, as a tree is swayed by the wind. Ah, we
were very close together in that moment. But she shook her head, as one
might shake off sleep or a dream, saying:
“I have known it all my life. It was my father’s name for my mother.”
“It is my phrase too,” I said stubbornly.
“For your mother?”
“No,” I answered, and she questioned no further, though I could have
sworn her eyes retained for some time a mocking, teasing expression.
With the foremast in, the work now went on apace. Almost before I knew
it, and without one serious hitch, I had the mainmast stepped. A
derrick-boom, rigged to the foremast, had accomplished this; and several
days more found all stays and shrouds in place, and everything set up
taut. Topsails would be a nuisance and a danger for a crew of two, so I
heaved the topmasts on deck and lashed them fast.
Several more days were consumed in finishing the sails and putting them
on. There were only three—the jib, foresail, and mainsail; and, patched,
shortened, and distorted, they were a ridiculously ill-fitting suit for
so trim a craft as the _Ghost_.
“But they’ll work!” Maud cried jubilantly. “We’ll make them work, and
trust our lives to them!”
Certainly, among my many new trades, I shone least as a sail-maker. I
could sail them better than make them, and I had no doubt of my power to
bring the schooner to some northern port of Japan. In fact, I had
crammed navigation from text-books aboard; and besides, there was Wolf
Larsen’s star-scale, so simple a device that a child could work it.
As for its inventor, beyond an increasing deafness and the movement of
the lips growing fainter and fainter, there had been little change in his
condition for a week. But on the day we finished bending the schooner’s
sails, he heard his last, and the last movement of his lips died away—but
not before I had asked him, “Are you all there?” and the lips had
answered, “Yes.”
The last line was down. Somewhere within that tomb of the flesh still
dwelt the soul of the man. Walled by the living clay, that fierce
intelligence we had known burned on; but it burned on in silence and
darkness. And it was disembodied. To that intelligence there could be
no objective knowledge of a body. It knew no body. The very world was
not. It knew only itself and the vastness and profundity of the quiet
and the dark.
CHAPTER XXXIX
The day came for our departure. There was no longer anything to detain
us on Endeavour Island. The _Ghost’s_ stumpy masts were in place, her
crazy sails bent. All my handiwork was strong, none of it beautiful; but
I knew that it would work, and I felt myself a man of power as I looked
at it.
“I did it! I did it! With my own hands I did it!” I wanted to cry
aloud.
But Maud and I had a way of voicing each other’s thoughts, and she said,
as we prepared to hoist the mainsail:
“To think, Humphrey, you did it all with your own hands?”
“But there were two other hands,” I answered. “Two small hands, and
don’t say that was a phrase, also, of your father.”
She laughed and shook her head, and held her hands up for inspection.
“I can never get them clean again,” she wailed, “nor soften the
weather-beat.”
“Then dirt and weather-beat shall be your guerdon of honour,” I said,
holding them in mine; and, spite of my resolutions, I would have kissed
the two dear hands had she not swiftly withdrawn them.
Our comradeship was becoming tremulous, I had mastered my love long and
well, but now it was mastering me. Wilfully had it disobeyed and won my
eyes to speech, and now it was winning my tongue—ay, and my lips, for
they were mad this moment to kiss the two small hands which had toiled so
faithfully and hard. And I, too, was mad. There was a cry in my being
like bugles calling me to her. And there was a wind blowing upon me
which I could not resist, swaying the very body of me till I leaned
toward her, all unconscious that I leaned. And she knew it. She could
not but know it as she swiftly drew away her hands, and yet, could not
forbear one quick searching look before she turned away her eyes.
By means of deck-tackles I had arranged to carry the halyards forward to
the windlass; and now I hoisted the mainsail, peak and throat, at the
same time. It was a clumsy way, but it did not take long, and soon the
foresail as well was up and fluttering.
“We can never get that anchor up in this narrow place, once it has left
the bottom,” I said. “We should be on the rocks first.”
“What can you do?” she asked.
“Slip it,” was my answer. “And when I do, you must do your first work on
the windlass. I shall have to run at once to the wheel, and at the same
time you must be hoisting the jib.”
This manœuvre of getting under way I had studied and worked out a score
of times; and, with the jib-halyard to the windlass, I knew Maud was
capable of hoisting that most necessary sail. A brisk wind was blowing
into the cove, and though the water was calm, rapid work was required to
get us safely out.
When I knocked the shackle-bolt loose, the chain roared out through the
hawse-hole and into the sea. I raced aft, putting the wheel up. The
_Ghost_ seemed to start into life as she heeled to the first fill of her
sails. The jib was rising. As it filled, the _Ghost’s_ bow swung off
and I had to put the wheel down a few spokes and steady her.
I had devised an automatic jib-sheet which passed the jib across of
itself, so there was no need for Maud to attend to that; but she was
still hoisting the jib when I put the wheel hard down. It was a moment
of anxiety, for the _Ghost_ was rushing directly upon the beach, a
stone’s throw distant. But she swung obediently on her heel into the
wind. There was a great fluttering and flapping of canvas and
reef-points, most welcome to my ears, then she filled away on the other
tack.
Maud had finished her task and come aft, where she stood beside me, a
small cap perched on her wind-blown hair, her cheeks flushed from
exertion, her eyes wide and bright with the excitement, her nostrils
quivering to the rush and bite of the fresh salt air. Her brown eyes
were like a startled deer’s. There was a wild, keen look in them I had
never seen before, and her lips parted and her breath suspended as the
_Ghost_, charging upon the wall of rock at the entrance to the inner
cove, swept into the wind and filled away into safe water.
My first mate’s berth on the sealing grounds stood me in good stead, and
I cleared the inner cove and laid a long tack along the shore of the
outer cove. Once again about, and the _Ghost_ headed out to open sea.
She had now caught the bosom-breathing of the ocean, and was herself
a-breath with the rhythm of it as she smoothly mounted and slipped down
each broad-backed wave. The day had been dull and overcast, but the sun
now burst through the clouds, a welcome omen, and shone upon the curving
beach where together we had dared the lords of the harem and slain the
holluschickie. All Endeavour Island brightened under the sun. Even the
grim south-western promontory showed less grim, and here and there, where
the sea-spray wet its surface, high lights flashed and dazzled in the
sun.
“I shall always think of it with pride,” I said to Maud.
She threw her head back in a queenly way but said, “Dear, dear Endeavour
Island! I shall always love it.”
“And I,” I said quickly.
It seemed our eyes must meet in a great understanding, and yet, loath,
they struggled away and did not meet.
There was a silence I might almost call awkward, till I broke it, saying:
“See those black clouds to windward. You remember, I told you last night
the barometer was falling.”
“And the sun is gone,” she said, her eyes still fixed upon our island,
where we had proved our mastery over matter and attained to the truest
comradeship that may fall to man and woman.
“And it’s slack off the sheets for Japan!” I cried gaily. “A fair wind
and a flowing sheet, you know, or however it goes.”
Lashing the wheel I ran forward, eased the fore and mainsheets, took in
on the boom-tackles and trimmed everything for the quartering breeze
which was ours. It was a fresh breeze, very fresh, but I resolved to run
as long as I dared. Unfortunately, when running free, it is impossible
to lash the wheel, so I faced an all-night watch. Maud insisted on
relieving me, but proved that she had not the strength to steer in a
heavy sea, even if she could have gained the wisdom on such short notice.
She appeared quite heart-broken over the discovery, but recovered her
spirits by coiling down tackles and halyards and all stray ropes. Then
there were meals to be cooked in the galley, beds to make, Wolf Larsen to
be attended upon, and she finished the day with a grand house-cleaning
attack upon the cabin and steerage.
All night I steered, without relief, the wind slowly and steadily
increasing and the sea rising. At five in the morning Maud brought me
hot coffee and biscuits she had baked, and at seven a substantial and
piping hot breakfast put new life into me.
Throughout the day, and as slowly and steadily as ever, the wind
increased. It impressed one with its sullen determination to blow, and
blow harder, and keep on blowing. And still the _Ghost_ foamed along,
racing off the miles till I was certain she was making at least eleven
knots. It was too good to lose, but by nightfall I was exhausted.
Though in splendid physical trim, a thirty-six-hour trick at the wheel
was the limit of my endurance. Besides, Maud begged me to heave to, and
I knew, if the wind and sea increased at the same rate during the night,
that it would soon be impossible to heave to. So, as twilight deepened,
gladly and at the same time reluctantly, I brought the _Ghost_ up on the
wind.
But I had not reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three sails
meant for one man. While running away from the wind I had not
appreciated its force, but when we ceased to run I learned to my sorrow,
and well-nigh to my despair, how fiercely it was really blowing. The
wind balked my every effort, ripping the canvas out of my hands and in an
instant undoing what I had gained by ten minutes of severest struggle.
At eight o’clock I had succeeded only in putting the second reef into the
foresail. At eleven o’clock I was no farther along. Blood dripped from
every finger-end, while the nails were broken to the quick. From pain
and sheer exhaustion I wept in the darkness, secretly, so that Maud
should not know.
Then, in desperation, I abandoned the attempt to reef the mainsail and
resolved to try the experiment of heaving to under the close-reefed
foresail. Three hours more were required to gasket the mainsail and jib,
and at two in the morning, nearly dead, the life almost buffeted and
worked out of me, I had barely sufficient consciousness to know the
experiment was a success. The close-reefed foresail worked. The _Ghost_
clung on close to the wind and betrayed no inclination to fall off
broadside to the trough.
I was famished, but Maud tried vainly to get me to eat. I dozed with my
mouth full of food. I would fall asleep in the act of carrying food to
my mouth and waken in torment to find the act yet uncompleted. So
sleepily helpless was I that she was compelled to hold me in my chair to
prevent my being flung to the floor by the violent pitching of the
schooner.