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AT ONCE WE MOVED ABOARD the Ghost, occupying our old staterooms
and cooking in the galley. The imprisonment of Wolf Larsen had
happened most opportunely, for what must have been the Indian
summer of this high latitude was gone, and drizzling, stormy weather
had set in. We were very comfortable; and the inadequate shears,
with the foremast suspended from them, gave a businesslike air
to the schooner and a promise of departure.
And now that we had Wolf Larsen in irons, how little did we
need it! Like his first attack, his second had been accompanied
by serious disablement. Maud made the discovery in the afternoon,
while trying to give him nourishment. He had shown signs of consciousness,
and she had spoken to him, eliciting no response. He was lying
on his left side at the time, and in evident pain. With a restless
movement he rolled his head around, clearing his left ear from
the pillow against which it had been pressed. At once he heard
and answered her, and at once she came to me.
Pressing the pillow against his left ear, I asked him if he
heard me, but he gave no sign. Removing the pillow and repeating
the question, I was answered promptly that he did.
'Do you know you are deaf in the right ear?' I asked.
'Yes,' he answered in a low, strong voice, 'and worse than
that. My whole right side is affected. It seems asleep. I cannot
move arm or leg.'
'Feigning again?' I demanded angrily.
He shook his head, his stern mouth shaping a strange, twisted
smile. It was indeed a twisted smile, for it was on the left side
only, the facial muscles of the right side moving not at all.
'That was the last stroke of the Wolf,' he said. 'I am paralyzed;
I shall never walk again. Oh, only on the right side,' he added,
as though divining the suspicious glance I flung at his left leg,
the knee of which had just then drawn up and elevated the blankets.
'It's unfortunate,' he continued. 'I'd like to have done for
you first, Hump. And I thought I had that much left in me.'
'But why?' I asked, partly in horror, partly out of curiosity.
Again his mouth framed the twisted smile, as he said:
'Oh, just to be alive, to be living and doing, to be the biggest
big of the ferment to the end- to eat you. But to die this way-'
He shrugged his shoulders, or attempted to shrug them, rather,
for the left shoulder alone moved. Like the smile, the shrug was
twisted.
'But how can you account for it?' I asked. 'Where is the seat
of trouble?'
'The brain,' he said at once. 'It was those cursed headaches
brought it on.'
'Symptoms,' I said.
He nodded his head. 'There is no accounting for it. I was never
sick in my life. Something's gone wrong with my brain. A cancer
or tumor or something of that nature- a thing that devours and
destroys. It's attacking my nerve centers, eating them up, bit
by bit, cell by cell- from the pain.'
'The motor centers, too,' I suggested.
'So it would seem. And the curse of it is that I must lie here,
conscious, mentally unimpaired, knowing that the lines are going
down, breaking bit by bit communication with the world. I cannot
see; hearing and feeling are leaving me: at this rate I shall
soon cease to speak. Yet all the time I shall be here, alive,
active, and powerless.'
'When you say you are here, I'd suggest the likelihood of the
soul,' I said.
'Bosh!' was his retort. 'It simply means that in the attack
on my brain the higher psychical centers are untouched. I can
remember, think, and reason. When that goes, I go. I am not. The
soul?'
He broke out in mocking laughter, then turned his left ear
to the pillow as a sign that he wished no further conversation.
Maud and I went about our work oppressed by the fearful fate
which had overtaken him- how fearful we were yet fully to realize.
There was the awfulness of retribution about it. Our thoughts
were deep and solemn, and we spoke to each other scarcely above
whispers.
'You might remove the handcuffs,' he said that night, as we
stood in consultation over him. 'It's dead safe. I'm a paralytic
now. The next thing to watch out for is bedsores.'
He smiled his twisted smile, and Maud, her eyes wide with horror,
was compelled to turn away her head.
'Do you know that your smile is crooked?' I asked him; for
I knew that she must attend him, and I wished to save her as much
as possible.
'Then I shall smile no more,' he said calmly. 'I thought something
was wrong. My right cheek has been numb all day. Yes, and I've
had warnings of this for the last three days, by spells: my right
side seemed going to sleep, sometimes arm or hand, sometimes leg
or foot.
'So my smile is crooked?' he queried, a short while after.
'Well, consider henceforth that I smile internally with my soul,
if you please- my soul. Consider that I am smiling now.'
And for the space of several minutes he lay there, quiet, indulging
his grotesque fancy.
The man of him was not changed. It was the old, indomitable,
terrible Wolf Larsen imprisoned somewhere within that flesh which
had once been so invincible and splendid. Now it bound him with
insentient fetters, walling his soul in darkness and silence,
blocking it from the world which to him had been a riot of action.
No more would he 'conjugate the verb to do in every mood and tense.'
'To be' was all that remained to him- to be, as he had defined
death, without movement; to will, but not to execute; to think
and reason, and in his spirit to be as alive as ever, but in the
flesh to be dead, quite dead.
And yet, though I even removed the handcuffs, we could not
adjust ourselves to his condition. Our minds revolted. To us he
was full of potentiality. We knew not to expect of him next, what
fearful thing, rising above the flesh, he might break out and
do. Our experience warranted this state of mind, and we went about
with anxiety always upon us.
I had solved the problem which had arisen through the shortness
of the shears. By means of the watch-tackle (I had made a new
one) I heaved the butt of the foremast across the rail and then
lowered it to the deck. Next, by means of the shears, I hoisted
the main-boom on board. Its forty feet of length would supply
the height necessary properly to swing the mast. By means of a
secondary tackle I had attached to the shears, I swung the boom
to a nearly perpendicular position, then lowered the butt to the
deck, where, to prevent slipping, I spiked great cleats around
it. The single block of my original shears- tackle I had attached
to the end of the boom. Thus by carrying this tackle to the windlass
I could raise and lower the end of the boom at will, the butt
always remaining stationary, and by means of guys I could swing
the boom from side to side. To the end of the boom I had likewise
rigged a hoisting-tackle, and when the whole arrangement was complete
I could not but be startled by the power and latitude it gave
me.
Of course two days' work was required for the accomplishment
of this part of my task, and it was not till the morning of the
third day that I swung the foremast from the deck and proceeded
to square its butt to fit the step. Here I was especially awkward.
I sawed and chopped and chiseled the weathered wood till it had
the appearance of having been gnawed by some gigantic mouse. But
it fitted.
'It will work- I know it will work!' I cried.
Wolf Larsen had received another stroke. He had lost his voice,
or was losing it. He had only intermittent use of it. As he phrased
it, the wires were like the stock market, now up, now down. Occasionally
the wires were up and he spoke as well as ever, though slowly
and heavily. Then speech would suddenly desert him, in the middle
of a sentence perhaps, and for hours, sometimes we would wait
for the connection to be reestablished. He complained of great
pain in his head, and it was during this period that he arranged
a system of communication against the time when speech should
leave him altogether- one pressure of the hand for 'yes,' two
for 'no.' It was well that it was arranged, for by evening his
voice had gone from him. By hand pressures, after that, he answered
our questions, and when he wished to speak he scrawled his thoughts
with his left hand, quite legibly, on a sheet of paper.
The fierce winter had now descended upon us. Gale followed
gale, with snow and sleet and rain. The seals had started on their
great southern migration, and the rookery was virtually deserted.
I worked feverishly. In spite of the bad weather, and of the wind
which especially hindered me, I was on deck from daylight till
dark, and making substantial progress.
I profited by my lesson learned through raising the shears,
and then climbed them to attach the guys. To the top of the foremast,
which was lifted conveniently from the deck, I attached the rigging,
stays, and throat-and peak-halyards. As usual, I had underrated
the amount of work involved in this portion of the task, and two
long days were necessary to complete it. And there was so much
yet to be done: the sails, for instance, had to be made over.
While I toiled at rigging the foremast, Maud sewed on the canvas,
ready always to drop everything and come to my assistance when
more hands than two were required. The canvas was heavy and hard,
and she sewed with the regular sailor's palm and the three-cornered
sail-needle. Her hands were soon sadly blistered, but she struggled
bravely on, and, in addition, did the cooking and took care of
the sick man.
'A fig for superstition,' I said on Friday morning. 'That mast
goes in today.'
Everything was ready for the attempt. Carrying the boom-tackle
to the windlass, I hoisted the mast nearly clear of the deck.
Making this tackle fast, I took to the windlass the shears-tackle
(which was connected with the end of the boom), and with a few
turns had the mast perpendicular and clear.
Maud clapped her hands the instant she was relieved from holding
the turn, crying:
'It works! It works! We'll trust our lives to it!'
Then she assumed a rueful expression.
'It's not over the hole,' she said. 'Will you have to begin
all over?'
I smiled in superior fashion, and, slacking off on one of the
boom-guys and taking in on the other, swung the mast perfectly
in the center of the deck. Still it was not over the hole. Again
the rueful expression came on her face, and again I smiled in
a superior way. Slacking away on the boom-tackle and hoisting
an equivalent amount on the shears-tackle, I brought the butt
of the mast into position directly over the hole in the deck.
Then I gave Maud careful instructions for lowering away, and went
into the hold to the step on the schooner's bottom.
I called to her, and the mast moved easily and accurately.
Straight toward the square hole of the step the square butt descended;
but as it descended it slowly twisted, so that square would not
fit into square. But I had not even a moment's indecision. Calling
to Maud to cease lowering, I went on deck and made the watch-tackle
fast to the mast with a rolling hitch. I left Maud to pull on
it while I went below. By the light of the lantern I saw the butt
twist slowly around till its sides coincided with the sides of
the step. Maud made fast and returned to the windlass. Slowly
the butt descended the several intervening inches, at the same
time slightly twisting again. Once more Maud rectified the twist
with the watch-tackle, and once more she lowered away from the
windlass. Square fitted into square. The mast was stepped.
I raised a shout, and she ran down to see. In the yellow lantern-light
we peered at what we had accomplished. We looked at each other,
and our hands felt their way and clasped. The eyes of both of
us, I think, were moist with the joy of success.
'It was done so easily, after all,' I remarked. 'All the work
was in the preparation.'
'And all the wonder in the completion,' Maud added. 'I can
scarcely bring myself to realize that that great mast is really
up and in- that you have lifted it from the water, swung it through
the air, and deposited it here where it belongs. It is a Titan's
task.'
'And they made themselves many inventions-' I began merrily,
then paused to sniff the air.
I looked hastily at the lantern. It was not smoking. Again
I sniffed.
'Something is burning,' Maud said with sudden conviction.
We sprang together for the ladder, but I raced past her to
the deck. A dense volume of smoke was pouring out of the steerage
companionway.
'The Wolf is not yet dead,' I muttered to myself as I sprang
down through the smoke.
It was so thick in the confined space that I was compelled
to feel my way; and, so potent was the spell of Wolf Larsen on
my imagination, I was quite prepared for the helpless giant to
grip my neck in a stranglehold. I hesitated, the desire to race
back and up the steps to the deck almost overpowering me. Then
I recollected Maud. The vision of her, as I had last seen her,
in the lantern-light of the schooner's hold, her brown eyes warm
and moist with joy, flashed before me, and I knew that I could
not go back.
I was choking and suffocating by the time I reached Wolf Larsen's
bunk. I reached in my hand and felt for him. He was lying motionless,
but moved slightly at the touch of my hand. I felt over and under
his blankets. There was no warmth, no sign of fire. Yet that smoke
which blinded me and made me cough and gasp must have a source.
I lost my head temporarily, and dashed frantically about the steerage.
A collision with the table partly knocked the wind from my body
and brought me to myself. I reasoned that a helpless man could
start a fire only near to where he lay.
I returned to Wolf Larsen's bunk. There I encountered Maud.
How long she had been there in that suffocating atmosphere I could
not guess.
'Go up on deck,' I commanded peremptorily.
'But, Humphrey-' she began to protest in a queer, husky voice.
'Please! please!' I shouted at her, harshly.
She drew away obediently; and then I thought, What if she cannot
find the steps? I started after her, to stop at the foot of the
companionway. Perhaps she had gone up. As I stood there, hesitant,
I heard her cry softly:
'Oh, Humphrey, I am lost!'
I found her fumbling at the wall of the after-bulkhead, and,
half leading, half carrying her, I took her up the companionway.
The pure air was like nectar. Maud was only faint and dizzy, and
I left her lying on the deck when I took my second plunge below.
The source of the smoke must be very close to Wolf Larsen:
my mind was made up to this, and I went straight to his bunk.
As I felt among his blankets, something hot fell on the back of
my hand. It burned me, and I jerked my hand away. Then I understood.
Through the cracks in the bottom of the upper bunk he had set
fire to the mattress. He still retained sufficient use of his
left arm to do this. The damp straw of the mattress, fired from
beneath and denied air, had been smoldering all the while.
As I dragged the mattress out of the bunk it seemed to disintegrate
in mid-air, at the same time bursting into flames. I beat out
the burning remnants of straw in the bulk, then made a dash for
the deck for fresh air.
Several buckets of water sufficed to put out the burning mattress
in the middle of the steerage floor; and ten minutes later, when
the smoke had fairly cleared, I allowed Maud to come below. Wolf
Larsen was unconscious, but it was a matter of minutes for the
fresh air to restore him. We were working over him, however, when
he signed for paper and pencil.
'Pray do not interrupt me,' he wrote. 'I am smiling.'
'I am still a bit of the ferment, you see,' he wrote a little
later.
'I am glad you are as small a bit as you are,' I said.
'Thank you,' he wrote. 'But just think of how much smaller
I shall be before I die.'
'And yet I am all here, Hump,' he wrote with a final flourish.
'I can think more clearly than ever in my life before. Nothing
to disturb me. Concentration is perfect. I am all here and more
than here.'
It was like a message from the night of the grave, for this
man's body had become his mausoleum. And there, in so strange
a sepulcher, his spirit fluttered and lived. It would flutter
and live till the last line of communication was broken, and after
that who was to say how much longer it might continue to flutter
and live?
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