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AMONG THE MOST VIVID memories of my life are those of the events
on the Ghost which occurred during the forty hours succeeding
the discovery of my love for Maud Brewster. I, who had lived my
life in quiet places, only to enter at the age of thirty-five
upon a court of the most irrational adventure I could have imagined,
never had more incident and excitement crammed into any forty
hours of my experience. Nor can I quite close my ears to a small
voice of pride which tells me I did not do so badly, all things
considered.
To begin with, at the midday dinner Wolf Larsen informed the
hunters that they were to eat thenceforth in the steerage. It
was an unprecedented thing on sealing-schooners, where it is the
custom for the hunters to rank unofficially as officers. He gave
no reason, but his motive was obvious enough. Horner and Smoke
had been displaying a gallantry toward Maud Brewster, ludicrous
in itself and inoffensive to her, but to him evidently distasteful.
The announcement was received with black silence, though the
other four hunters glanced significantly at the two who had been
the cause of their banishment. Jock Horner, quiet as was his way,
gave no sign; but the blood surged darkly across Smoke's forehead,
and he half opened his mouth to speak. Wolf Larsen was watching
him, waiting for him, the steely glitter in his eyes; but Smoke
closed his mouth again without having said anything.
'Anything to say?' the other demanded aggressively.
It was a challenge, but Smoke refused to accept it.
'About what?' he asked so innocently that Wolf Larsen was disconcerted,
while the others smiled.
'Oh, nothing,' Wolf Larsen said lamely. 'I just thought you
might want to register a kick.'
'About what?' asked the imperturbable Smoke.
Smoke's mates were now smiling broadly. His captain could have
killed him, and I doubt not that blood would have flowed had not
Maud Brewster been present. For that matter, it was her presence
which enabled Smoke to act as he did. He was too discreet and
cautious a man to incur Wolf Larsen's anger at a time when that
anger could be expressed in terms stronger than words. I was in
fear that a struggle might take place, but a cry from the helmsman
made it easy for the situation to save itself.
'Smoke ho!' the cry came down the open companionway.
'How's it bear?' Wolf Larsen called up.
'Dead astern, sir!'
'Maybe it's a Russian,' suggested Latimer.
His words brought anxiety into the faces of the other hunters.
A Russian could mean but one thing- a cruiser. The hunters, never
more than roughly aware of the position of the ship, nevertheless
knew that we were close to the boundaries of the forbidden sea,
while Wolf Larsen's record as a poacher was notorious. All eyes
centered upon him.
'We're dead safe,' he assured them with a laugh. 'No salt-mines
this time, Smoke. But I'll tell you what- I'll lay odds of five
to one it's the Macedonia.'
No one accepted his offer, and he went on: 'In which event
I'll lay ten to one there's trouble breezing up.'
'No, thank you,' Latimer spoke up. 'I don't object to losing
my money, but I like to get a run for it, anyway. There never
was a time when there wasn't trouble when you and that brother
of yours got together, and I'll lay twenty to one on that.'
A general smile followed, in which Wolf Larsen joined, and
the dinner went on smoothly, thanks to me, for he treated me abominably
the rest of the meal, sneering at me and patronizing me till I
was all a-tremble with suppressed rage. Yet I knew I must control
myself for Maud Brewster's sake, and I received my reward when
her eyes caught mine for a fleeting second, and they said as distinctly
as if she spoke, 'Be brave, be brave!'
We left the table to go on deck, for a steamer was a welcome
break in the monotony of the sea on which we floated, while the
conviction that it was 'Death' Larsen and the Macedonia added
to the excitement. The stiff breeze and heavy sea which had sprung
up the previous afternoon had been moderating all the morning,
so that it was now possible to lower the boats for an afternoon's
hunt. The hunting promised to be profitable. We had sailed since
daylight across a sea barren of seals and were now running into
the herd.
The smoke was still miles astern, but overhauling us rapidly,
when we lowered our boats. They spread out and struck a northerly
course across the ocean. Now and again we saw a sail lower, heard
the reports of the shotguns, and saw the sail go up again. The
seals were thick, the wind dying away; everything favored a big
catch. As we ran off to get our leeward position of the last lee
boat, we found the ocean fairly carpeted with sleeping seals.
They were all about us, thicker than I had ever seen them before,
in twos and threes and bunches, stretched full-length on the surface,
and sleeping for all the world like so many lazy young dogs.
Under the approaching smoke the hull and upper works of a steamer
were growing larger and larger. It was the Macedonia. I read her
name through the glasses as she passed by scarcely a mile to starboard.
Wolf Larsen looked savagely at the vessel, while Maud Brewster
was curious.
'Where is the trouble you were so sure was breezing up, Captain
Larsen?' she asked gaily.
He glanced at her, a moment's amusement softening his features.
'What did you expect? That they'd come aboard and cut out throats?'
'Something like that,' she confessed. 'You understand, seal-hunters
are so new and strange to me that I am quite ready to expect anything.'
He nodded his head.
'Quite right, quite right. Your error is that you failed to
expect the worst.'
'Why, what can be worse than cutting our throats?' she asked,
with pretty, naive surprise.
'Cutting our purses,' he answered. 'Man is so made these days
that his capacity for living is determined by the money he possesses.'
'"Who steals my purse steals trash,"' she quoted.
'Who steals my purse steals my right to live,' was the reply,
'old saws to the contrary. For he steals my bread and meat and
bed, and in so doing imperils my life. There are not enough soup-kitchens
and bread-lines to go around, you know, and when men have nothing
in their purses they usually die, and die miserably- unless they
are able to fill their purses pretty speedily.'
'But I fail to see that this steamer has any designs on your
purse.'
'Wait and you will see,' he answered grimly.
We did not have long to wait. Having passed several miles beyond
our line of boats, the Macedonia proceeded to lower her own. We
knew she carried fourteen boats to our five (we were one-short
through the desertion of Wainwright), and she began dropping them
far to leeward of our last boat, continued dropping them athwart
our course, and finished dropping them far to windward of our
first weather boat. The hunting, for us, was spoiled. There were
no seals behind us, and ahead of us the line of fourteen boats,
like a huge broom, swept the herd before it.
Our boats hunted across the two or three miles of water between
them and the point where the Macedonia's had been dropped, and
then headed for home. The wind had fallen to a whisper, the ocean
was growing calmer and calmer, and this, coupled with the presence
of the great herd, made a perfect hunting-day- one of the two
or three days to be encountered in the whole of a lucky season.
An angry lot of men, boat-pullers and steerers as well as hunters,
swarmed over our side. Each man felt that he had been robbed,
and the boats were hoisted in amid curses, which, if curses had
power, would have settled Death Larsen for all eternity- 'Dead
and damned for a dozen of eternities,' commented Louis, his eyes
twinkling up at me as he rested from hauling taut the lashings
of his boat.
'Listen to them, and find if it is hard to discover the most
vital thing in their souls,' said Wolf Larsen. 'Faith, and love,
and high ideals? The good, the beautiful, the true?'
'Their innate sense of right has been violated,' Maud Brewster
said, joining the conversation.
She was standing a dozen feet away, one hand resting on the
main-shrouds and her body swaying gently to the slight roll of
the ship. She had not raised her voice, and yet I was struck by
its clear and bell-like tone. Ah, it was sweet in my ears! I scarcely
dared look at her just then, for fear of betraying myself. A small
boy's cap was perched on her head, and her hair, light brown and
arranged in a loose and fluffy order that caught the sun, seemed
an aureole about the delicate oval of her face. She was positively
bewitching, and, withal, sweetly spirituelle, if not saintly.
All my oldtime marvel at life returned to me at sight of this
splendid incarnation of it, and Wolf Larsen's cold explanation
of life and its meaning was truly ridiculous and laughable.
'A sentimentalist,' he sneered, 'like Mr. Van Weyden. Those
men are cursing because their desires have been outraged. That
is all. What desires? The desires for the good grub and soft beds
ashore which a handsome payday brings them- the women and the
drink, the gorging and the beastliness which so truly express
them, the best that is in them, their highest aspirations, their
ideals, if you please. The exhibition they make of their feelings
is not a touching sight, yet it shows how deeply they have been
touched, how deeply their purses have been touched; for to lay
hands on their purses is to lay hands on their souls.'
'You hardly behave as if your purse had been touched,' she
said smilingly.
'Then it so happens that I am behaving differently, for my
purse and my soul have both been touched. At the current price
of skins in the London market, and based on a fair estimate of
what the afternoon's catch would have been had not the Macedonia
hogged it, the Ghost has lost about fifteen hundred dollars' worth
of skins.'
'You speak so calmly- ' she began.
'But I do not feel calm; I could kill the man who has robbed
me,' he interrupted. 'Yes, yes, I know, and that man my brother-
more sentiment! Bah!'
His face underwent a sudden change. His voice was less harsh
and wholly sincere as he said:
'You must be happy, you sentimentalists, really and truly happy
at dreaming and finding things good, and, because you find some
of them good, feeling good yourselves. Now, tell me, you two,
do you find me good?'
'You are good to look upon- in a way,' I qualified.
'There are in you all powers for good,' was Maud Brewster's
answer.
'There you are!' he cried at her, half angrily. 'Your words
are empty to me. There is nothing clear and sharp and definite
about the thought you have expressed. You cannot pick it up in
your two hands and look at it. In point of fact, it is not a thought.
It is a feeling, a sentiment, a something based upon illusion,
and not a product of the intellect at all.'
As he went on, his voice again grew soft, and a confiding note
came into it. 'Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that
I, too, were blind to the facts of life and knew only its fancies
and illusions. They're wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary
to reason, but in the face of them my reason tells me, wrong and
most wrong, that to dream and live illusions give greater delight.
And, after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight,
living is a worthless act. To labor at living and be paid is worse
than to be dead. He who delights the most, lives the most, and
your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to you and most
gratifying than are my facts to me.'
He shook his head slowly, pondering.
'I often doubt the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams must be
more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more filling
and lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for
your moments of intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional
delight is followed by no more than jaded senses, which speedily
recuperate. I envy you, I envy you.' He stopped abruptly, and
then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical smiles, as
he added: 'It's from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not
from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual
product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and,
greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.'
'Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too,
were a fool,' I laughed.
'Quite so,' he said. 'You are blessed, bankrupt pair of fools.
You have no facts in your pocketbook.'
'Yet we spend as freely as you,' was Maud Brewster's contribution.
'More freely, because it costs you nothing.'
'And because we draw upon eternity,' she retorted.
'Whether you do or think you do, it's the same thing. You spend
what you haven't got, and in return you get greater value from
spending what you haven't got than I get from spending what I
have got and what I have sweated to get.'
'Why don't you change the basis of your coinage, then?' she
queried teasingly.
He looked at her quickly, half hopefully, and then said, all
regretfully: 'Too late. I'd like to, perhaps, but I can't. My
pocketbook is stuffed with the old coinage, and it's a stubborn
thing. I can never bring myself to recognize anything else as
valid.'
He ceased speaking, and his gaze wandered absently past her
and became lost in the placid sea. The old primal melancholy was
strong upon him. He was quivering to it. He had reasoned himself
into a spell of the blues, and within a few hours one could look
for the devil within him to be up and stirring. I remembered Charley
Furuseth, and knew this man's sadness for the penalty which the
materialist ever pays for his materialism.
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