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I CAME ON DECK TO FIND THE GHOST heading up close on the port
tack and cutting in to windward of a familiar sprit-sail close-hauled
on the same tack ahead of us. All hands were on deck, for they
knew that something was to happen when Leach and Johnson were
dragged aboard.
It was four bells. Louis came aft to relieve the wheel. There
was a dampness in the air, and I noticed he had on his oilskins.
'What are we going to have?' I asked him.
'A healthy young slip of a gale from the breath of it, sir,'
he answered, 'with a splatter of rain just to wet our gills an'
no more.'
'Too bad we sighted them,' I said, as the Ghost's bow was flung
off a point by a large sea, and the boat leaped for a moment past
the jibs and into our line of vision.
Louis turned a spoke of the wheel and temporized.
'They'd never of made the land, sir, I'm thinkin'.'
'Think not?' I queried.
'No, sir. Did you feel that?' A puff had caught the schooner,
and he was forced to put the wheel up rapidly to keep her out
of the wind. ''T is no eggshell'll float on this sea an hour come.
An' it's a stroke of luck for them we're here to pick 'em up.'
Wolf Larsen strode aft from amidships, where he had been talking
with the rescued men. The cat-like springiness in his tread was
a little more pronounced than usual, and his eyes were bright
and snappy.
'Three oilers and a fourth engineer,' was his greeting. 'But
we'll make sailors out of them, or boat-pullers, at any rate.
Now, what of the lady?'
I knew not why, but I was aware of a twinge or pang, like the
cut of a knife, when he mentioned her. I thought it a certain
silly fastidiousness on my part, but it persisted in spite of
me, and I merely shrugged my shoulders in answer.
Wolf Larsen pursed his lips in a long quizzical whistle.
'What's her name, then?' he demanded.
'I don't know,' I replied. 'She is asleep. She was very tired.
In fact, I am waiting to hear the news from you. What vessel was
it?'
'Mail-steamer,' he answered shortly. 'The City of Tokio, from
'Frisco, bound for Yokohama. Disabled in that typhoon. Old tub.
Opened up top and bottom like a sieve. They were adrift four days.
And you don't know who or what she is, eh- maid, wife, or widow?
Well, well.'
He shook his head in a bantering way and regarded me with laughing
eyes.
'Are you- ' I began. It was on the verge of my tongue to ask
if he were going to take the castaways in to Yokohama.
'Am I what?' he asked.
'What do you intend doing with Leach and Johnson?'
He shook his head.
'Really, Hump, I don't know. You see, with these additions
I've about all the crew I want.'
'And they've about all the escaping they want,' I said. 'Why
not give them a change of treatment? Take them aboard and deal
gently with them. Whatever they have done, they have been hounded
into doing.'
'By me?'
'By you,' I answered steadily. 'And I give you warning, Wolf
Larsen, that I may forget the love of my own life in the desire
to kill you if you go too far in maltreating those poor wretches.'
'Bravo!' he cried. 'You do me proud, Hump! You've found your
legs with a vengeance. You're quite an individual. You were unfortunate
in having your life cast in easy places, but you're developing,
and I like you the better for it.'
His voice and expression changed. His face was serious. 'Do
you believe in promises?' he asked. 'Are they sacred things?'
'Of course,' I answered.
'Then here's a compact,' he went on, consummate actor that
he was. 'If I promise not to lay hands upon Leach and Johnson,
will you promise, in turn, not to attempt to kill me? Oh, not
that I'm afraid of you, not that I'm afraid of you,' he hastened
to add.
I could hardly believe my ears. What was coming over the man?
'Is it a go?' he asked impatiently.
'A go,' I answered.
His hand went out to mine, and as I shook it heartily I could
have sworn I saw the mocking devil shine up for a moment in his
eyes.
We strolled across the poop to the lee side. The boat was close
at hand now and in desperate plight. Johnson was steering, Leach
bailing. We overhauled them about two feet to their one. Wolf
Larsen motioned Louis to keep off slightly, and we dashed abreast
of the boat not a score of feet to windward.
It was at this moment that Leach and Johnson looked up into
the faces of their shipmates who lined the rail amidships. There
was no greeting. They were as dead men in their comrades' eyes,
and between them was the gulf that parts the living and the dead.
The next instant they were opposite the poop, where stood Wolf
Larsen and I. We were falling in the trough, and they were rising
on the surge. Johnson looked at me, and I could see that his face
was worn and haggard. I waved my hand to him, and he answered
the greeting, but with a wave that was hopeless and despairing.
It was as if he were saying farewell. I did not see into the eyes
of Leach, for he was looking at Wolf Larsen, the old and implacable
snarl of hatred as strong as ever on his face.
Then they were gone astern. The sprit-sail filled with the
wind suddenly, careening the frail, open craft till it seemed
it would surely capsize.
Wolf Larsen barked a short laugh in my ear and strode away
to the weather side of the poop. I expected him to give orders
for the Ghost to heave to, but she kept on her course and he made
no sign. Louis tood imperturbably at the wheel, but I noticed
the grouped sailors forward turning troubled faces in our direction.
Still the Ghost tore along till the boat dwindled to a speck,
when Wolf Larsen's voice rang out in command, and we went about
on the starboard tack.
Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling
cockleshell, when the flying jib was run down and the schooner
hove to. In all that wild waste there was no refuge for Leach
and Johnson save on the Ghost, and they resolutely began the windward
beat. At the end of an hour and a half they were nearly alongside,
standing past our stern on the last leg out, aiming to fetch us
on the next leg back.
'So you've changed your mind?' I heard Wolf Larsen mutter,
half to himself, half to them, as though they could hear. 'You
want to come aboard, eh? Well, then, just keep a-coming. Hard
up with that helm!' he commanded Oofty-Oofty, the Kanaka, who
had in the meantime relieved Louis at the wheel.
Command followed command. As the schooner paid off, the fore-and
main-sheets were slacked away for fair wind. And before the wind
we were, and leaping, when Johnson, easing his sheet at imminent
peril, cut across our wake a hundred feet away. Again Wolf Larsen
laughed, at the same time beckoning them with his arm to follow.
It was evidently his intention to play with them- a lesson, I
took it, in lieu of a beating, though a dangerous lesson, for
the frail craft stood in momentary danger of being overwhelmed.
''T is the fear of death at the hearts of them,' Louis muttered
in my ear as I passed forward to see to taking in the flying jib
and staysail.
'Oh, he'll heave to in a little while and pick them up,' I
answered cheerfully.
Louis looked at me shrewdly. 'Think so?' he asked.
'Surely,' I answered. 'Don't you?'
'I think nothing but of my own skin, these days,' was his answer.
'An' 't is with wonder I'm filled as to the workin' out of things.
A pretty mess that 'Frisco whisky got me into, an' a prettier
mess that woman's got you into aft there. Ah, it's myself that
knows ye for a blitherin' fool.'
'What do you mean?' I demanded; for, having sped his shaft,
he was turning away.
'What do I mean?' he cried. 'An' it's you that asks me! 'T
is not what I mean, but what the Wolf'll mean. The Wolf, I said,
the Wolf!'
'If trouble comes, will you stand by?' asked impulsively, for
he had voiced my own fear.
'Stand by? 'T is old fat Louis I stand by, an' trouble enough
it'll be. We're at the beginnin' of things, I'm tellin' ye, the
bare beginnin' of things.'
'I had not thought you so great a coward,' I sneered.
He favored me with a contemptuous stare.
'If I raised never a hand for that poor fool,'- pointing astern
to the tiny sail,- 'd' ye think I'm hungerin' for a broken head
for a woman I never laid me eyes upon before this day?'
I turned scornfully away and went aft.
'Better get in those topsails, Mr. Van Weyden,' Wolf Larsen
said, as I came on the poop.
I felt relief, at least as far as the two men were concerned.
I had scarcely opened my mouth to issue the necessary commands,
when eager men were springing to halyards and downhauls, and others
were racing aloft. This eagerness on their part was noted by Wolf
Larsen with a grim smile.
Still we increased our lead, and when the boat had dropped
astern several miles we hove to and waited. All eyes watched it
coming, even Wolf Larsen's; but he was the only unperturbed man
aboard. Louis, gazing fixedly, betrayed a trouble in his face
he was not quite able to hide.
The boat drew closer and closer, hurling along through the
seething green like a thing alive, lifting and sending and uptossing
across the huge-backed breakers, or disappearing behind them only
to rush into sight again and shoot skyward. It seemed impossible
that it could continue to live, yet with each dizzying sweep it
did achieve the impossible. A rain-squall drove past, and out
of the flying wet the boat emerged, almost upon us.
'Hard up, there!' Wolf Larsen shouted, himself springing to
the wheel and whirling it over.
Again the Ghost sprang away and raced before the wind, and
for two hours Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran
away, hove to and ran away; and ever astern the struggling patch
of sail tossed skyward and fell into the rushing valleys. It was
a quarter of a mile away when a thick squall of rain veiled it
from view. It never emerged. The wind blew the air clear again,
but no patch of sail broke the troubled surface. I thought I saw,
for an instant, the boat's bottom show black in a breaking crest.
At the best, that was all. For Johnson and Leach the travail of
existence had ceased.
The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below,
and no one was speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. Each
man seemed stunned- deeply contemplative, as it were, and, not
quite sure, trying to realize just what had taken place. Wolf
Larsen gave them little time for thought. He at once put the Ghost
upon her course- a course which meant the seal-herd and not Yokohama
harbor. But the men were no longer eager as they pulled and hauled,
and I heard curses among them which left their lips smothered
and as heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was it with the
hunters. Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and they descended
into the steerage bellowing with laughter.
As I passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft, I was approached
by the engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were
trembling.
'Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?' he cried.
'You have eyes; you have seen,' I answered almost brutally,
what of the pain and fear at my own heart.
'Your promise?' I said to Wolf Larsen.
'I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that
promise,' he answered. 'And, anyway, you'll agree I've not laid
my hands upon them. Far from it, far from it,' he laughed a moment
later.
I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too
confused. I must have time to think, I knew. This woman, sleeping
even now in the spare cabin, was a responsibility which I must
consider, and the only rational thought that flickered through
my mind was that I must do nothing hastily if I were to be any
help to her at all.
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