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CHAPTER IX
Three days
of rest, three blessed days of rest, are what I had with Wolf Larsen, eating at
the cabin table and doing nothing but discuss life, literature, and the
universe, the while Thomas Mugridge fumed and raged and did my work as well as
his own. “Watch out
for squalls, is all I can say to you,” was Louis’s warning, given during a
spare half-hour on deck while Wolf Larsen was engaged in straightening out a
row among the hunters. “Ye can’t
tell what’ll be happenin’,” Louis went on, in response to my query for more
definite information. “The man’s as contrary as air currents or water
currents. You can never guess the ways iv him. ’Tis just as you’re
thinkin’ you know him and are makin’ a favourable slant along him, that he
whirls around, dead ahead and comes howlin’ down upon you and a-rippin’ all iv
your fine-weather sails to rags.” So I was not
altogether surprised when the squall foretold by Louis smote me. We had
been having a heated discussion, — upon life, of course, — and, grown
over-bold, I was passing stiff strictures upon Wolf Larsen and the life of Wolf
Larsen. In fact, I was vivisecting him and turning over his soul-stuff as
keenly and thoroughly as it was his custom to do it to others. It may be
a weakness of mine that I have an incisive way of speech; but I threw all restraint
to the winds and cut and slashed until the whole man of him was snarling.
The dark sun-bronze of his face went black with wrath, his eyes were
ablaze. There was no clearness or sanity in them — nothing but the
terrific rage of a madman. It was the wolf in him that I saw, and a mad
wolf at that. He sprang
for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled myself to brazen
it out, though I was trembling inwardly; but the enormous strength of the man
was too much for my fortitude. He had gripped me by the biceps with his
single hand, and when that grip tightened I wilted and shrieked aloud. My
feet went out from under me. I simply could not stand upright and endure
the agony. The muscles refused their duty. The pain was too great.
My biceps was being crushed to a pulp. He seemed to
recover himself, for a lucid gleam came into his eyes, and he relaxed his hold
with a short laugh that was more like a growl. I fell to the floor,
feeling very faint, while he sat down, lighted a cigar, and watched me as a cat
watches a mouse. As I writhed about I could see in his eyes that
curiosity I had so often noted, that wonder and perplexity, that questing, that
everlasting query of his as to what it was all about. I finally
crawled to my feet and ascended the companion stairs. Fair weather was
over, and there was nothing left but to return to the galley. My left arm
was numb, as though paralysed, and days passed before I could use it, while
weeks went by before the last stiffness and pain went out of it. And he
had done nothing but put his hand upon my arm and squeeze. There had been
no wrenching or jerking. He had just closed his hand with a steady
pressure. What he might have done I did not fully realize till next day,
when he put his head into the galley, and, as a sign of renewed friendliness,
asked me how my arm was getting on. “It might
have been worse,” he smiled. I was
peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. It was fair-sized,
firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it, squeezed, and the potato
squirted out between his fingers in mushy streams. The pulpy remnant he
dropped back into the pan and turned away, and I had a sharp vision of how it
might have fared with me had the monster put his real strength upon me. But the
three days’ rest was good in spite of it all, for it had given my knee the very
chance it needed. It felt much better, the swelling had materially
decreased, and the cap seemed descending into its proper place. Also, the
three days’ rest brought the trouble I had foreseen. It was plainly
Thomas Mugridge’s intention to make me pay for those three days. He
treated me vilely, cursed me continually, and heaped his own work upon
me. He even ventured to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming
animal-like myself, and I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have
frightened him back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of
myself, Humphrey Van Weyden, in that noisome ship’s galley, crouched in a
corner over my task, my face raised to the face of the creature about to strike
me, my lips lifted and snarling like a dog’s, my eyes gleaming with fear and
helplessness and the courage that comes of fear and helplessness. I do
not like the picture. It reminds me too strongly of a rat in a
trap. I do not care to think of it; but it was elective, for the
threatened blow did not descend. Thomas
Mugridge backed away, glaring as hatefully and viciously as I glared. A
pair of beasts is what we were, penned together and showing our teeth. He
was a coward, afraid to strike me because I had not quailed sufficiently in
advance; so he chose a new way to intimidate me. There was only one
galley knife that, as a knife, amounted to anything. This, through many
years of service and wear, had acquired a long, lean blade. It was unusually
cruel-looking, and at first I had shuddered every time I used it. The
cook borrowed a stone from Johansen and proceeded to sharpen the knife.
He did it with great ostentation, glancing significantly at me the while.
He whetted it up and down all day long. Every odd moment he could find he
had the knife and stone out and was whetting away. The steel acquired a
razor edge. He tried it with the ball of his thumb or across the
nail. He shaved hairs from the back of his hand, glanced along the edge
with microscopic acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a
slight inequality in its edge somewhere. Then he would put it on the
stone again and whet, whet, whet, till I could have laughed aloud, it was so
very ludicrous. It was also
serious, for I learned that he was capable of using it, that under all his
cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like mine, that would impel him to
do the very thing his whole nature protested against doing and was afraid of
doing. “Cooky’s sharpening his knife for Hump,” was being whispered about
among the sailors, and some of them twitted him about it. This he took in
good part, and was really pleased, nodding his head with direful foreknowledge
and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy, ventured some rough
pleasantry on the subject. Now it
happened that Leach was one of the sailors told off to douse Mugridge after his
game of cards with the captain. Leach had evidently done his task with a
thoroughness that Mugridge had not forgiven, for words followed and evil names
involving smirched ancestries. Mugridge menaced with the knife he was
sharpening for me. Leach laughed and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill
Billingsgate, and before either he or I knew what had happened, his right arm
had been ripped open from elbow to wrist by a quick slash of the knife.
The cook backed away, a fiendish expression on his face, the knife held before
him in a position of defence. But Leach took it quite calmly, though
blood was spouting upon the deck as generously as water from a fountain. “I’m goin’
to get you, Cooky,” he said, “and I’ll get you hard. And I won’t be in no
hurry about it. You’ll be without that knife when I come for you.” So saying,
he turned and walked quietly forward. Mugridge’s face was livid with fear
at what he had done and at what he might expect sooner or later from the man he
had stabbed. But his demeanour toward me was more ferocious than
ever. In spite of his fear at the reckoning he must expect to pay for
what he had done, he could see that it had been an object-lesson to me, and he
became more domineering and exultant. Also there was a lust in him, akin
to madness, which had come with sight of the blood he had drawn. He was
beginning to see red in whatever direction he looked. The psychology of
it is sadly tangled, and yet I could read the workings of his mind as clearly
as though it were a printed book. Several days
went by, the Ghost still foaming
down the trades, and I could swear I saw madness growing in Thomas Mugridge’s
eyes. And I confess that I became afraid, very much afraid. Whet,
whet, whet, it went all day long. The look in his eyes as he felt the
keen edge and glared at me was positively carnivorous. I was afraid to
turn my shoulder to him, and when I left the galley I went out backwards — to
the amusement of the sailors and hunters, who made a point of gathering in
groups to witness my exit. The strain was too great. I sometimes
thought my mind would give way under it — a meet thing on this ship of madmen
and brutes. Every hour, every minute of my existence was in
jeopardy. I was a human soul in distress, and yet no soul, fore or aft,
betrayed sufficient sympathy to come to my aid. At times I thought of
throwing myself on the mercy of Wolf Larsen, but the vision of the mocking
devil in his eyes that questioned life and sneered at it would come strong upon
me and compel me to refrain. At other times I seriously contemplated
suicide, and the whole force of my hopeful philosophy was required to keep me
from going over the side in the darkness of night. Several
times Wolf Larsen tried to inveigle me into discussion, but I gave him short
answers and eluded him. Finally, he commanded me to resume my seat at the
cabin table for a time and let the cook do my work. Then I spoke frankly,
telling him what I was enduring from Thomas Mugridge because of the three days
of favouritism which had been shown me. Wolf Larsen regarded me with
smiling eyes. “So you’re
afraid, eh?” he sneered. “Yes,” I
said defiantly and honestly, “I am afraid.” “That’s the
way with you fellows,” he cried, half angrily, “sentimentalizing about your
immortal souls and afraid to die. At sight of a sharp knife and a
cowardly Cockney the clinging of life to life overcomes all your fond
foolishness. Why, my dear fellow, you will live for ever. You are a
god, and God cannot be killed. Cooky cannot hurt you. You are sure
of your resurrection. What’s there to be afraid of? “You have
eternal life before you. You are a millionaire in immortality, and a
millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose fortune is less perishable than
the stars and as lasting as space or time. It is impossible for you to
diminish your principal. Immortality is a thing without beginning or
end. Eternity is eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on
living somewhere else and hereafter. And it is all very beautiful, this
shaking off of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned spirit. Cooky
cannot hurt you. He can only give you a boost on the path you eternally
must tread. “Or, if you
do not wish to be boosted just yet, why not boost Cooky? According to
your ideas, he, too, must be an immortal millionaire. You cannot bankrupt
him. His paper will always circulate at par. You cannot diminish
the length of his living by killing him, for he is without beginning or
end. He’s bound to go on living, somewhere, somehow. Then boost
him. Stick a knife in him and let his spirit free. As it is, it’s
in a nasty prison, and you’ll do him only a kindness by breaking down the
door. And who knows? — it may be a very beautiful spirit that will go
soaring up into the blue from that ugly carcass. Boost him along, and
I’ll promote you to his place, and he’s getting forty-five dollars a month.” It was plain
that I could look for no help or mercy from Wolf Larsen. Whatever was to
be done I must do for myself; and out of the courage of fear I evolved the plan
of fighting Thomas Mugridge with his own weapons. I borrowed a whetstone
from Johansen. Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged me for
condensed milk and sugar. The lazarette, where such delicacies were
stored, was situated beneath the cabin floor. Watching my chance, I stole
five cans of the milk, and that night, when it was Louis’s watch on deck, I
traded them with him for a dirk as lean and cruel-looking as Thomas Mugridge’s
vegetable knife. It was rusty and dull, but I turned the grindstone while
Louis gave it an edge. I slept more soundly than usual that night. Next
morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet, whet, whet. I
glanced warily at him, for I was on my knees taking the ashes from the
stove. When I returned from throwing them overside, he was talking to
Harrison, whose honest yokel’s face was filled with fascination and wonder. “Yes,”
Mugridge was saying, “an’ wot does ’is worship do but give me two years in
Reading. But blimey if I cared. The other mug was fixed
plenty. Should ’a seen ’im. Knife just like this. I stuck it
in, like into soft butter, an’ the w’y ’e squealed was better’n a tu-penny
gaff.” He shot a glance in my direction to see if I was taking it in, and
went on. “‘I didn’t mean it Tommy,’ ’e was snifflin’; ‘so ’elp me Gawd, I
didn’t mean it!’ “‘I’ll fix yer bloody well right,’ I sez, an’ kept right
after ’im. I cut ’im in ribbons, that’s wot I did, an’ ’e a-squealin’ all
the time. Once ’e got ’is ’and on the knife an’ tried to ’old it.
‘Ad ’is fingers around it, but I pulled it through, cuttin’ to the bone.
O, ’e was a sight, I can tell yer.” A call from
the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison went aft. Mugridge
sat down on the raised threshold to the galley and went on with his
knife-sharpening. I put the shovel away and calmly sat down on the
coal-box facing him. He favoured me with a vicious stare. Still
calmly, though my heart was going pitapat, I pulled out Louis’s dirk and began
to whet it on the stone. I had looked for almost any sort of explosion on
the Cockney’s part, but to my surprise he did not appear aware of what I was
doing. He went on whetting his knife. So did I. And for two
hours we sat there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread
abroad and half the ship’s company was crowding the galley doors to see the
sight. Encouragement
and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the quiet, self-spoken hunter
who looked as though he would not harm a mouse, advised me to leave the ribs
alone and to thrust upward for the abdomen, at the same time giving what he
called the “Spanish twist” to the blade. Leach, his bandaged arm
prominently to the fore, begged me to leave a few remnants of the cook for him;
and Wolf Larsen paused once or twice at the break of the poop to glance
curiously at what must have been to him a stirring and crawling of the yeasty
thing he knew as life. And I make
free to say that for the time being life assumed the same sordid values to
me. There was nothing pretty about it, nothing divine — only two cowardly
moving things that sat whetting steel upon stone, and a group of other moving
things, cowardly and otherwise, that looked on. Half of them, I am sure,
were anxious to see us shedding each other’s blood. It would have been
entertainment. And I do not think there was one who would have interfered
had we closed in a death-struggle. On the other
hand, the whole thing was laughable and childish. Whet, whet, whet, —
Humphrey Van Weyden sharpening his knife in a ship’s galley and trying its edge
with his thumb! Of all situations this was the most inconceivable.
I know that my own kind could not have believed it possible. I had not
been called “Sissy” Van Weyden all my days without reason, and that “Sissy” Van
Weyden should be capable of doing this thing was a revelation to Humphrey Van
Weyden, who knew not whether to be exultant or ashamed. But nothing
happened. At the end of two hours Thomas Mugridge put away knife and
stone and held out his hand. “Wot’s the
good of mykin’ a ’oly show of ourselves for them mugs?” he demanded.
“They don’t love us, an’ bloody well glad they’d be a-seein’ us cuttin’ our
throats. Yer not ’arf bad, ’Ump! You’ve got spunk, as you Yanks
s’y, an’ I like yer in a w’y. So come on an’ shyke.” Coward that
I might be, I was less a coward than he. It was a distinct victory I had
gained, and I refused to forego any of it by shaking his detestable hand. “All right,”
he said pridelessly, “tyke it or leave it, I’ll like yer none the less for
it.” And to save his face he turned fiercely upon the onlookers.
“Get outa my galley-doors, you bloomin’ swabs!” This command
was reinforced by a steaming kettle of water, and at sight of it the sailors
scrambled out of the way. This was a sort of victory for Thomas Mugridge,
and enabled him to accept more gracefully the defeat I had given him, though,
of course, he was too discreet to attempt to drive the hunters away. “I see
Cooky’s finish,” I heard Smoke say to Horner. “You bet,”
was the reply. “Hump runs the galley from now on, and Cooky pulls in his
horns.” Mugridge
heard and shot a swift glance at me, but I gave no sign that the conversation
had reached me. I had not thought my victory was so far-reaching and
complete, but I resolved to let go nothing I had gained. As the days went
by, Smoke’s prophecy was verified. The Cockney became more humble and slavish
to me than even to Wolf Larsen. I mistered him and sirred him no longer,
washed no more greasy pots, and peeled no more potatoes. I did my own
work, and my own work only, and when and in what fashion I saw fit. Also
I carried the dirk in a sheath at my hip, sailor-fashion, and maintained toward
Thomas Mugridge a constant attitude which was composed of equal parts of
domineering, insult, and contempt. |