The Sea-Wolf
Of the passage from the galley to the cabin I knew nothing. It was a
sleep-walker Maud guided and supported. In fact, I was aware of nothing
till I awoke, how long after I could not imagine, in my bunk with my
boots off. It was dark. I was stiff and lame, and cried out with pain
when the bed-clothes touched my poor finger-ends.
Morning had evidently not come, so I closed my eyes and went to sleep
again. I did not know it, but I had slept the clock around and it was
night again.
Once more I woke, troubled because I could sleep no better. I struck a
match and looked at my watch. It marked midnight. And I had not left
the deck until three! I should have been puzzled had I not guessed the
solution. No wonder I was sleeping brokenly. I had slept twenty-one
hours. I listened for a while to the behaviour of the _Ghost_, to the
pounding of the seas and the muffled roar of the wind on deck, and then
turned over on my side and slept peacefully until morning.
When I arose at seven I saw no sign of Maud and concluded she was in the
galley preparing breakfast. On deck I found the _Ghost_ doing splendidly
under her patch of canvas. But in the galley, though a fire was burning
and water boiling, I found no Maud.
I discovered her in the steerage, by Wolf Larsen’s bunk. I looked at
him, the man who had been hurled down from the topmost pitch of life to
be buried alive and be worse than dead. There seemed a relaxation of his
expressionless face which was new. Maud looked at me and I understood.
“His life flickered out in the storm,” I said.
“But he still lives,” she answered, infinite faith in her voice.
“He had too great strength.”
“Yes,” she said, “but now it no longer shackles him. He is a free
spirit.”
“He is a free spirit surely,” I answered; and, taking her hand, I led her
on deck.
The storm broke that night, which is to say that it diminished as slowly
as it had arisen. After breakfast next morning, when I had hoisted Wolf
Larsen’s body on deck ready for burial, it was still blowing heavily and
a large sea was running. The deck was continually awash with the sea
which came inboard over the rail and through the scuppers. The wind
smote the schooner with a sudden gust, and she heeled over till her lee
rail was buried, the roar in her rigging rising in pitch to a shriek. We
stood in the water to our knees as I bared my head.
“I remember only one part of the service,” I said, “and that is, ‘And the
body shall be cast into the sea.’”
Maud looked at me, surprised and shocked; but the spirit of something I
had seen before was strong upon me, impelling me to give service to Wolf
Larsen as Wolf Larsen had once given service to another man. I lifted
the end of the hatch cover and the canvas-shrouded body slipped feet
first into the sea. The weight of iron dragged it down. It was gone.
“Good-bye, Lucifer, proud spirit,” Maud whispered, so low that it was
drowned by the shouting of the wind; but I saw the movement of her lips
and knew.
As we clung to the lee rail and worked our way aft, I happened to glance
to leeward. The _Ghost_, at the moment, was uptossed on a sea, and I
caught a clear view of a small steamship two or three miles away, rolling
and pitching, head on to the sea, as it steamed toward us. It was
painted black, and from the talk of the hunters of their poaching
exploits I recognized it as a United States revenue cutter. I pointed it
out to Maud and hurriedly led her aft to the safety of the poop.
I started to rush below to the flag-locker, then remembered that in
rigging the _Ghost_ I had forgotten to make provision for a
flag-halyard.
“We need no distress signal,” Maud said. “They have only to see us.”
“We are saved,” I said, soberly and solemnly. And then, in an exuberance
of joy, “I hardly know whether to be glad or not.”
I looked at her. Our eyes were not loath to meet. We leaned toward each
other, and before I knew it my arms were about her.
“Need I?” I asked.
And she answered, “There is no need, though the telling of it would be
sweet, so sweet.”
Her lips met the press of mine, and, by what strange trick of the
imagination I know not, the scene in the cabin of the _Ghost_ flashed
upon me, when she had pressed her fingers lightly on my lips and said,
“Hush, hush.”
“My woman, my one small woman,” I said, my free hand petting her shoulder
in the way all lovers know though never learn in school.
“My man,” she said, looking at me for an instant with tremulous lids
which fluttered down and veiled her eyes as she snuggled her head against
my breast with a happy little sigh.
I looked toward the cutter. It was very close. A boat was being
lowered.
“One kiss, dear love,” I whispered. “One kiss more before they come.”
“And rescue us from ourselves,” she completed, with a most adorable
smile, whimsical as I had never seen it, for it was whimsical with love.
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THE END
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