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IT DAWNED UPON ME THAT I had never placed a proper valuation
upon womankind. For that matter, though not amative to any considerable
degree, so far as I have discovered, I was never outside the atmosphere
of women until now. My mother and sisters were always about me,
and I was always trying to escape them, for they worried me to
distraction with their solicitude for my health, and with their
periodic inroads on my den, when my orderly confusion, upon which
I prided myself, was turned into worse confusion and less order,
though it looked neat enough to the eye. I never could find anything
when they had departed. But now, alas! how welcome would have
been the feel of their presence, the frou-frou and swish-swish
of their skirts, which I had so cordially detested! I am sure,
if I ever get home, that I shall never be irritable with them
again. They may dose me and doctor me morning, noon, and night,
and dust and sweep and put my den to rights every minute of the
day, and I shall only lean back and survey it all and be thankful
that I am possessed of a mother and some several sisters.
All of which has set me wondering. Where are the mothers of
these twenty and odd men on the Ghost? It strikes me as unnatural
and unhealthful that men should be totally separated from women
and herd through the world by themselves. Coarseness and savagery
are the inevitable results. These men about me should have sisters
and wives and daughters; then would they be capable of softness
and tenderness and sympathy. As it is, not one of them is married.
In years and years not one of them has been in contact with a
good woman, or within the influence, or redemption, which irresistibly
radiates from such a creature. There is no balance in their lives.
Their masculinity, which in itself is of the brute, has been overdeveloped.
The other and spiritual side of their natures has been dwarfed-
atrophied, in fact.
Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with
Johansen last night- the first superfluous words with which he
has favored me since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he
was eighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening
time has not been home once. He had met a townsman, a couple of
years before, in some sailor boarding-house in Chile, so that
he knew his mother to be still alive.
'She must be a pretty old woman now,' he said, staring meditatively
into the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison,
who was steering a point off the course.
'When did you last write to her?'
He performed his mental arithmetic aloud. 'Eighty-one; no-
eighty-two, eh? no- eighty-three? Yes, eighty-three. Ten years
ago. From some little port in Madagascar. I was trading.'
'You see,' he went on, as though addressing his neglected mother
across half the girth of the earth, 'each year I was going home.
So what was the good to write? It was only a year. And each year
something happened, and I did not go. But I am mate now, and when
I pay off at 'Frisco, maybe with five hundred dollars, I will
ship myself on a windjammer round the Horn to Liverpool, which
will give me more money; and then I will pay my passage from there
home. Then she will not do any more work.'
'But does she work? Now? How old is she?'
'About seventy,' he answered. And then, boastingly: 'We work
from the time we are born until we die, in my country. That's
why we live so long. I will live to a hundred.'
I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the
last I ever heard him utter. Perhaps they were the last he did
utter, too.
Going down into the cabin to turn in, I decided that it was
too stuffy to sleep below. It was a calm night. We were out of
the trades, and the Ghost was forging ahead barely a knot an hour.
So I tucked a blanket and pillow under my arm and went up on deck.
As I passed between Harrison and the binnacle, which was built
into the top of the cabin, I noticed that he was this time fully
three points off. Thinking that he was asleep, and wishing him
to escape reprimand or worse, I spoke to him. But he was not asleep.
His eyes were wide and staring. He seemed greatly perturbed, unable
to reply to me.
'What's the matter?' I asked. 'Are you sick?'
He shook his head, and with a deep sigh, as of awakening, caught
his breath.
'You better get on your course, then,' I chided.
He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swing
slowly to NNW and steady itself with slight oscillations.
I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start
on, when some movement caught my eye, and I looked astern to the
rail. A sinewy hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail.
A second hand took form in the darkness beside it. I watched,
fascinated. What visitant from the gloom of the deep was I to
behold? Whatever it was, I knew that it was climbing aboard by
the log-line. I saw a head, the hair wet and straight, shape itself,
and then the unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf Larsen. His right
cheek was red with blood, which flowed from some wound in the
head.
He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and rose to his
feet, glancing swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel,
as though to assure himself of his identity and that there was
nothing to fear from him. The sea-water was streaming from him.
'All right, Hump,' he said in a low voice. 'Where's the mate?'
I shook my head.
'Johansen!' he called softly. 'Johansen!'
'Where is he?' he demanded of Harrison.
The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for
he answered steadily enough:
'I don't know, sir. I saw him go for'ard a little while ago.'
'So did I go for'ard; but you will observe that I didn't come
back the way I went. Can you explain it?'
'You must have been overboard, sir.'
'Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?' I asked.
Wolf Larsen shook his head.
'You wouldn't find him, Hump. But you'll do. Come on. Never
mind your bedding. Leave it where it is.'
I followed at his heels. There was nothing stirring amidships.
'Those cursed hunters!' was his comment. 'Too fat and lazy
to stand a four-hour watch.'
But on the forecastle head we found three sailors asleep. He
turned them over and looked at their faces. They composed the
watch on deck, and it was the ship's custom, in good weather,
to let the watch sleep, with the exception of the officer, the
helmsman, and the lookout.
'Who's lookout?' he demanded.
'Me, sir,' answered Holyoak, one of the deep-water sailors,
a slight tremor in his voice. 'I winked off just this very minute,
sir. I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again.'
'Did you hear or see anything on deck?'
'No, sir; I-'
But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leaving
the sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let off
so easily.
'Softly, now,' Wolf Larsen warned me in a whisper, as he doubled
his body into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend.
I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew
no more than did I know what had happened. But blood had been
shed, and it was through no whim of Wolf Larsen's that he had
gone over the side with his scalp laid open. Besides, Johansen
was missing.
It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not
soon forget my impression of it, caught as I stood on my feet
at the bottom of the ladder. Built directly in the eyes of the
schooner, it was of the shape of a triangle, along the three sides
of which stood the bunks, in double tier- twelve of them. It was
no larger than a hall bedroom in Grub street, and yet twelve men
were herded into it, to eat and sleep and carry on all the functions
of living. My bedroom at home was not large, yet it could have
contained a dozen similar forecastles, and taking into consideration
the height of the ceiling, a score at least.
It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swinging
sea-lamp I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep with
sea-boots, oilskins, and garments, clean and dirty, of various
sorts. These swung back and forth with every roll of the vessel,
giving rise to a brushing sound, as of trees against a roof or
wall. Somewhere a boot thumped loudly and at irregular periods
against the wall; and, though it was a mild night on the sea,
there was a continual chorus of the creaking timbers and bulkheads,
and of abysmal noises beneath the flooring.
The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them,- the two
watches below,- and the air was thick with the warmth and odor
of their breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of their
snoring, and of their sighs and half-groans- tokens plain of the
rest of the animal-man. But were they sleeping- all of them? Or
had they been sleeping? This was evidently Wolf Larsen's quest-
to find the men who appeared to be asleep, and who were not asleep
or who had not been asleep very recently. And he went about it
in a way that reminded me of a story out of Boccaccio.
He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it
to me. He began at the first bunks forward on the starboard side.
In the top one lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and a splendid seaman,
so named by his mates. He was asleep on his back and breathing
as placidly as a woman. One arm was under his head, the other
lay on top of the blankets. Wolf Larsen put thumb and forefinger
to the wrist and counted the pulse. In the midst of it the Kanaka
roused. He awoke as gently as he slept. There was no movement
of the body whatever. Only the eyes moved. They flashed wide open,
big and black, and stared unblinking into our faces. Wolf Larsen
put his finger to his lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes
closed again.
In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty,
asleep unfeignedly, and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsen
held his wrist he stirred uneasily, bowing his body so that for
a moment it rested on shoulders and heels. His lips moved, and
he gave voice to this enigmatic utterance:
'A shilling's worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out for
thruppenny bits, or the publicans'll shove 'em on you for sixpence.'
Then he rolled over on his side with a heavy, sobbing sigh,
saying:
'A sixpence is a tanner, and a shilling a bob, but what a pony
is I don't know.'
Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka's sleep, Wolf
Larsen passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side,
occupied top and bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp,
by Leach and Johnson.
As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson's
pulse, I, standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach's head
raise stealthily as he peered over the side of his bunk to see
what was going on. He must have divined Wolf Larsen's trick and
the sureness of detection, for the light was at once dashed from
my hand and the forecastle left in darkness. He must have leaped,
also, at the same instant, straight down on Wolf Larsen.
The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and
a wolf. I heard a great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen,
and from Leach a snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling.
Johnson must have joined him immediately, so that his abject and
groveling conduct on deck for the last few days had been no more
than planned deception.
I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leaned
against the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon me
was that old sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always
by the spectacle of physical violence. In this instance I could
not see, but I could hear the impact of the blows- the soft crushing
sound made by flesh striking forcibly against flesh. Then there
was the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the labored breathing,
the short quick gasps of sudden pain.
There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder the
captain and the mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and
Johnson had been quickly reinforced.
'Get a knife, somebody!' Leach was shouting.
'Pound him on the head! Mash his brains out!' was Johnson's
cry.
But after his first bellow Wolf Larsen made no noise. He was
fighting grimly and silently for very life. Down at the very first,
he had been unable to gain his feet, and for all of his tremendous
strength I felt that there was no hope for him.
The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on
me, for I was knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised.
But in the confusion I managed to crawl into a lower bunk out
of the way.
'All hands! We've got him! We've got him!' I could hear Leach
crying.
'Who?' asked those who had been asleep.
'It's the bloody mate!' was Leach's crafty answer. The words
were strained from him in a smothered sort of way.
This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf
Larsen had seven strong men on top of him, Louis, I believe, taking
no part in it. The forecastle was like an angry hive of bees.
'What's the row there?' I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle,
too cautious to descend into the inferno.
'Won't somebody get a knife?' Leach pleaded in the first interval
of comparative silence.
The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. They
blocked their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a single
purpose, achieved his. This was to fight his way across the floor
to the ladder. Though in total darkness, I followed his progress
by its sound. No man less than a giant could have done what he
did, once he had gained the foot of the ladder. Step by step,
by the might of his arms, the whole pack of men striving to drag
him back and down, he drew his body up from the floor till he
stood erect. And then, step by step, hand and foot, he slowly
struggled up the ladder.
The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone
for a lantern, held it so that its light shone down the scuttle.
Wolf Larsen was nearly to the top, though I could not see him.
All that was visible was the mass of men fastened upon him. It
squirmed about, like some huge, many-legged spider, and swayed
back and forth to the regular roll of the vessel. And still, step
by step, with long intervals between, the mass ascended. Once
it tottered, about to fall back, but the broken hold was regained,
and it still went up.
'Who is it?' Latimer cried.
'Larsen,' I heard a muffled voice from within the mass.
Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot
up to clasp his. Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps
were made with a rush. Then Wolf Larsen's other hand reached up
and clutched the edge of the scuttle. The mass swung clear of
the ladder, the men still clinging to their escaping foe. They
began to drop off, to be brushed off against the sharp edge of
the scuttle, to be knocked off by the legs, which were now kicking
powerfully. Leach was the last to go, falling sheer back from
the top of the scuttle and striking on head and shoulders upon
his sprawling mates. Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we
were left in darkness.
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