|
'IT'S TOO BAD THE GHOST HAS LOST her masts. Why, we could sail
away in her. Don't you think we could, Humphrey?'
I sprang excitedly to my feet.
'I wonder- I wonder,' I repeated, pacing up and down.
Maud's eyes were shining with anticipation as they followed
me. She had such faith in me! And the thought of it was so much
added power. I remembered Michelet's: 'To man, woman is as the
earth was to her legendary son; he has but to fall down and kiss
her breast and he is strong again.' For the first time I knew
the wonderful truth of his words. Why, I was living them. Maud
was all this to me, an unfailing source of strength and courage.
I had but to look at her, or think of her, and be strong again.
'It can be done- it can be done,' I was thinking and asserting
aloud. 'What men have done I can do, and if they have never done
this before, still I can do it.'
'What, for goodness' sake?' Maud demanded. 'Do be merciful.
What is it you can do?'
'We can do it,' I amended. 'Why, nothing else than put the
masts back into the Ghost and sail away.'
'Humphrey!' she exclaimed.
And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already
a fact accomplished.
'But how is it possibly to be done?' she asked.
'I don't know,' was my answer. 'I know only that I am capable
of doing anything these days.'
I smiled proudly at her- too proudly, for she dropped her eyes
and was for the moment silent.
'But there is Captain Larsen,' she objected.
'Blind and helpless,' I answered promptly, waving him aside
as a straw.
'But those terrible hands of his! You know how he leaped across
the opening of the lazaret.'
'And you know also how I crept about and avoided him,' I contended
gaily.
'And lost your shoes.'
'You'd hardly expect him to avoid Wolf Larsen without my feet
inside of them.'
We both laughed, and then went seriously to work constructing
the plan whereby we were to step the masts of the Ghost and return
to the world. I remembered hazily the physics of my schooldays,
while the last few months had given me practical experience with
mechanical purchases. I must say, though, when we walked down
to the Ghost to inspect more closely the task before us, that
the sight of the great masts lying in the water almost disheartened
me. Where were we to begin? If there had been one mast standing,
something high up to which to fasten blocks and tackles! But there
was nothing. It reminded me of the problem of lifting oneself
by one's bootstraps. I understood the mechanics of levers; but
where was I to get a fulcrum?
There was the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what
was now the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing,
I roughly calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then
came the foremast, larger in diameter and weighing surely thirty-five
hundred pounds. Where was I to begin? Maud stood silently by my
side while I evolved in my mind the contrivance known among sailors
as 'shears.' But, though known to sailors, I invented it there
on Endeavor Island. By crossing and lashing the ends of two spars
and then elevating them in the air like an inverted V, I could
get a point above the deck to which to make fast my hoisting-tackle.
To this tackle I could, if necessary, attach a second tackle.
And then there was the windlass!
Maud saw that I had achieved a solution, and her eyes warmed
sympathetically.
'What are you going to do?' she asked.
'Clear that raffle,' I answered, pointing to the tangled wreckage
overside.
Ah, the decisiveness, the very sound of the words, was good
in my ears. 'Clear that raffle!' Imagine so salty a phrase on
the lips of the Humphrey Van Weyden of a few months gone!
There must have been a touch of the melodramatic in my pose
and voice, for Maud smiled. Her appreciation of the ridiculous
was keen, and in all things she unerringly saw and felt, where
it existed, the touch of sham, the overshading, the overtone.
It was this which had given poise and penetration to her own work
and made her of worth to the world. The serious critic, with the
sense of humor and the power of expression, must inevitably command
the world's ear. And so it was that she had commanded. Her sense
of humor was really the artist's instinct for proportion.
'I'm sure I've heard it before, somewhere, in books,' she murmured
gleefully.
I had an instinct for proportion myself, and I collapsed forthwith,
descending from the dominant pose of a master of matter to a state
of humble confusion which was, to say the least, very miserable.
Her hand leaped out at once to mine.
'I'm so sorry,' she said.
'No need to be,' I gulped. 'It does me good. There's too much
of the schoolboy in me. All of which is neither here nor there.
What we've got to do is actually and literally to clear that raffle.
If you'll come with me in the boat, we'll get to work and straighten
things out.'
'"When the topmen clear the raffle with their clasp-knives
in their teeth,"' she quoted at me; and for the rest of the
afternoon we made merry over our labor.
Her task was to hold the boat in position while I worked at
the tangle. And such a tangle- halyards, sheets, guys, downhauls,
shrouds, stays, all washed about and back and forth and through
and twined and knitted by the sea. I cut no more than was necessary,
and what with passing the long ropes under and around the booms
and masts, of unreeving the halyards and sheets, of coiling down
in the boat and uncoiling in order to pass through another knot
in the bight, I was soon wet to the skin.
The sails did require some cutting, and the canvas, heavy with
water, tried my strength severely; but I succeeded before nightfall
in getting it all spread out on the beach to dry. We were both
very tired when we knocked off for supper, and we had done good
work, too, though to the eye it appeared insignificant.
Next morning, with Maud as able assistant, I went into the
hold of the Ghost to clear the steps of the mast-butts. We had
no more than begun work when the sound of my knocking and hammering
brought Wolf Larsen.
'Hello, below!' he cried down the open hatch.
The sound of his voice made Maud quickly draw close to me,
as for protection, and she rested one hand on my arm while we
parleyed.
'Hello, on deck!' I replied. 'Good morning to you.'
'What are you doing down there?' he demanded. 'Trying to scuttle
my ship for me?'
'Quite the opposite; I'm repairing her,' was my answer.
'But what in thunder are you repairing?' There was puzzlement
in his voice.
'Why, I'm getting everything ready for restepping the masts,'
I replied easily, as though it were the simplest project imaginable.
'It seems as though you're standing on your own legs at last,
Hump,' we heard him say; and then for some time he was silent.
'But I say, Hump,' he called down, 'you can't do it.'
'Oh, yes, I can,' I retorted. 'I'm doing it now.'
'But this is my vessel, my particular property. What if I forbid
you?'
'You forget,' I replied. 'You are no longer the biggest bit
of the ferment. You were once, and able to eat me, as you were
pleased to phrase it; but there has been a diminishing, and I
am now able to eat you. The yeast has grown stale.'
He gave a short, disagreeable laugh. 'I see you're working
on my philosophy back on me for all it is worth. But don't make
the mistake of underestimating me. For your own good I warn you.'
'Since when have you become an altruist?' I queried. 'Confess,
now, in warning me for my own good, that you are very inconsistent.'
He ignored my sarcasm, saying, 'Suppose I clap the hatch on
now? You won't fool me as you did in the lazaret.'
'Wolf Larsen,' I said sternly, for the first time addressing
him by this his most familiar name, 'I am unable to shoot a helpless,
unresisting man. You have proved that to my satisfaction as well
as yours. But I warn you now, and not so much for your own good
as for mine, that I shall shoot you the moment you attempt a hostile
act. I can shoot you now, as I stand here; and if you are so minded,
just go ahead and try to clap on the hatch.'
'Nevertheless I forbid you; I distinctly forbid your tampering
with my ship.'
'But, man!' I expostulated. 'You advance the fact that it is
your ship as though it were a moral right. You have never considered
moral rights in your dealings with others. You surely do not dream
that I'll consider them in dealing with you?'
I had stepped underneath the open hatchway so that I could
see him. The lack of expression on his face, so different from
when I had watched him unseen, was enhanced by the unblinking,
staring eyes. It was not a pleasant face to look upon.
'And none so poor, not even Hump, to do him reverence,' he
sneered.
The sneer was wholly in his voice. His face remained expressionless
as ever.
'How do you do, Miss Brewster?' he said suddenly, after a pause.
I started. She had made no noise whatever, had not even moved.
Could it be that some glimmer of vision remained to him? Or that
his vision was coming back?
'How do you do, Captain Larsen?' she answered. 'Pray how did
you know I was here?'
'Heard you breathing, of course. I say, Hump's improving; don't
you think so?'
'I don't know,' she answered, smiling at me. 'I have never
seen him otherwise.'
'You should have seen him before, then.'
'Wolf Larsen in large doses,' I murmured, 'before and after
taking.'
'I want to tell you again, Hump,' he said threateningly, 'that
you'd better leave things alone.'
'But don't you care to escape as well as we?' I asked incredulously.
'No,' was his answer. 'I intend dying here.'
'Well, we don't,' I concluded defiantly, beginning again my
knocking and hammering.
|
