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CHAPTER XXV
“You’ve been
on deck, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen said, the following morning at the
breakfast-table, “How do things look?” “Clear
enough,” I answered, glancing at the sunshine which streamed down the open
companion-way. “Fair westerly breeze, with a promise of stiffening, if
Louis predicts correctly.” He nodded
his head in a pleased way. “Any signs of fog?” “Thick banks
in the north and north-west.” He nodded
his head again, evincing even greater satisfaction than before. “What of the
Macedonia?” “Not
sighted,” I answered. I could have
sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he should be disappointed I
could not conceive. I was soon
to learn. “Smoke ho!” came the hail from on deck, and his face
brightened. “Good!” he
exclaimed, and left the table at once to go on deck and into the steerage,
where the hunters were taking the first breakfast of their exile. Maud
Brewster and I scarcely touched the food before us, gazing, instead, in silent
anxiety at each other, and listening to Wolf Larsen’s voice, which easily
penetrated the cabin through the intervening bulkhead. He spoke at
length, and his conclusion was greeted with a wild roar of cheers. The
bulkhead was too thick for us to hear what he said; but whatever it was it
affected the hunters strongly, for the cheering was followed by loud exclamations
and shouts of joy. From the
sounds on deck I knew that the sailors had been routed out and were preparing
to lower the boats. Maud Brewster accompanied me on deck, but I left her
at the break of the poop, where she might watch the scene and not be in
it. The sailors must have learned whatever project was on hand, and the
vim and snap they put into their work attested their enthusiasm. The
hunters came trooping on deck with shot-guns and ammunition-boxes, and, most
unusual, their rifles. The latter were rarely taken in the boats, for a
seal shot at long range with a rifle invariably sank before a boat could reach
it. But each hunter this day had his rifle and a large supply of
cartridges. I noticed they grinned with satisfaction whenever they looked
at the Macedonia’s smoke, which
was rising higher and higher as she approached from the west. The five
boats went over the side with a rush, spread out like the ribs of a fan, and
set a northerly course, as on the preceding afternoon, for us to follow.
I watched for some time, curiously, but there seemed nothing extraordinary
about their behaviour. They lowered sails, shot seals, and hoisted sails
again, and continued on their way as I had always seen them do. The Macedonia repeated her performance of
yesterday, “hogging” the sea by dropping her line of boats in advance of ours
and across our course. Fourteen boats require a considerable spread of
ocean for comfortable hunting, and when she had completely lapped our line she
continued steaming into the north-east, dropping more boats as she went. “What’s up?”
I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer to keep my curiosity in check. “Never mind
what’s up,” he answered gruffly. “You won’t be a thousand years in
finding out, and in the meantime just pray for plenty of wind.” “Oh, well, I
don’t mind telling you,” he said the next moment. “I’m going to give that
brother of mine a taste of his own medicine. In short, I’m going to play
the hog myself, and not for one day, but for the rest of the season, — if we’re
in luck.” “And if
we’re not?” I queried. “Not to be
considered,” he laughed. “We simply must be in luck, or it’s all up with
us.” He had the
wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in the forecastle, where
lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas Mugridge. Nilson was as
cheerful as could be expected, for his broken leg was knitting nicely; but the
Cockney was desperately melancholy, and I was aware of a great sympathy for the
unfortunate creature. And the marvel of it was that still he lived and
clung to life. The brutal years had reduced his meagre body to splintered
wreckage, and yet the spark of life within burned brightly as ever. “With an
artificial foot — and they make excellent ones — you will be stumping ships’
galleys to the end of time,” I assured him jovially. But his
answer was serious, nay, solemn. “I don’t know about wot you s’y, Mr. Van
W’yden, but I do know I’ll never rest ’appy till I see that ’ell-’ound bloody
well dead. ’E cawn’t live as long as me. ’E’s got no right to live,
an’ as the Good Word puts it, ‘’E shall shorely die,’ an’ I s’y, ‘Amen, an’
damn soon at that.’” When I
returned on deck I found Wolf Larsen steering mainly with one hand, while with
the other hand he held the marine glasses and studied the situation of the boats,
paying particular attention to the position of the Macedonia. The only change noticeable in our boats was
that they had hauled close on the wind and were heading several points west of
north. Still, I could not see the expediency of the manoeuvre, for the
free sea was still intercepted by the Macedonia’s
five weather boats, which, in turn, had hauled close on the wind. Thus
they slowly diverged toward the west, drawing farther away from the remainder
of the boats in their line. Our boats were rowing as well as
sailing. Even the hunters were pulling, and with three pairs of oars in
the water they rapidly overhauled what I may appropriately term the enemy. The smoke of
the Macedonia had dwindled to a
dim blot on the north-eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was
to be seen. We had been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half
the time and spilling the wind; and twice, for short periods, we had been hove
to. But there was no more loafing. Sheets were trimmed, and Wolf
Larsen proceeded to put the Ghost
through her paces. We ran past our line of boats and bore down upon the
first weather boat of the other line. “Down that
flying jib, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen commanded. “And stand by to back
over the jibs.” I ran
forward and had the downhaul of the flying jib all in and fast as we slipped by
the boat a hundred feet to leeward. The three men in it gazed at us
suspiciously. They had been hogging the sea, and they knew Wolf Larsen,
by reputation at any rate. I noted that the hunter, a huge Scandinavian
sitting in the bow, held his rifle, ready to hand, across his knees. It
should have been in its proper place in the rack. When they came opposite
our stern, Wolf Larsen greeted them with a wave of the hand, and cried: “Come on
board and have a ’gam’!” “To gam,”
among the sealing-schooners, is a substitute for the verbs “to visit,” “to
gossip.” It expresses the garrulity of the sea, and is a pleasant break
in the monotony of the life. The Ghost swung around into the wind, and I
finished my work forward in time to run aft and lend a hand with the mainsheet. “You will
please stay on deck, Miss Brewster,” Wolf Larsen said, as he started forward to
meet his guest. “And you too, Mr. Van Weyden.” The boat had
lowered its sail and run alongside. The hunter, golden bearded like a
sea-king, came over the rail and dropped on deck. But his hugeness could
not quite overcome his apprehensiveness. Doubt and distrust showed
strongly in his face. It was a transparent face, for all of its hairy shield,
and advertised instant relief when he glanced from Wolf Larsen to me, noted
that there was only the pair of us, and then glanced over his own two men who
had joined him. Surely he had little reason to be afraid. He
towered like a Goliath above Wolf Larsen. He must have measured six feet
eight or nine inches in stature, and I subsequently learned his weight — 240
pounds. And there was no fat about him. It was all bone and muscle. A return of
apprehension was apparent when, at the top of the companion-way, Wolf Larsen
invited him below. But he reassured himself with a glance down at his
host — a big man himself but dwarfed by the propinquity of the giant. So
all hesitancy vanished, and the pair descended into the cabin. In the meantime,
his two men, as was the wont of visiting sailors, had gone forward into the
forecastle to do some visiting themselves. Suddenly,
from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by all the sounds of a
furious struggle. It was the leopard and the lion, and the lion made all
the noise. Wolf Larsen was the leopard. “You see the
sacredness of our hospitality,” I said bitterly to Maud Brewster. She nodded
her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the signs of the same sickness
at sight or sound of violent struggle from which I had suffered so severely
during my first weeks on the Ghost. “Wouldn’t it
be better if you went forward, say by the steerage companion-way, until it is
over?” I suggested. She shook
her head and gazed at me pitifully. She was not frightened, but appalled,
rather, at the human animality of it. “You will
understand,” I took advantage of the opportunity to say, “whatever part I take
in what is going on and what is to come, that I am compelled to take it — if
you and I are ever to get out of this scrape with our lives.” “It is not
nice — for me,” I added. “I
understand,” she said, in a weak, far-away voice, and her eyes showed me that
she did understand. The sounds
from below soon died away. Then Wolf Larsen came alone on deck.
There was a slight flush under his bronze, but otherwise he bore no signs of
the battle. “Send those
two men aft, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said. I obeyed,
and a minute or two later they stood before him. “Hoist in your boat,” he
said to them. “Your hunter’s decided to stay aboard awhile and doesn’t
want it pounding alongside.” “Hoist in
your boat, I said,” he repeated, this time in sharper tones as they hesitated
to do his bidding. “Who knows?
you may have to sail with me for a time,” he said, quite softly, with a silken
threat that belied the softness, as they moved slowly to comply, “and we might
as well start with a friendly understanding. Lively now! Death
Larsen makes you jump better than that, and you know it!” Their
movements perceptibly quickened under his coaching, and as the boat swung
inboard I was sent forward to let go the jibs. Wolf Larsen, at the wheel,
directed the Ghost after the Macedonia’s second weather boat. Under way,
and with nothing for the time being to do, I turned my attention to the situation
of the boats. The Macedonia’s
third weather boat was being attacked by two of ours, the fourth by our
remaining three; and the fifth, turn about, was taking a hand in the defence of
its nearest mate. The fight had opened at long distance, and the rifles
were cracking steadily. A quick, snappy sea was being kicked up by the
wind, a condition which prevented fine shooting; and now and again, as we drew
closer, we could see the bullets zip-zipping from wave to wave. The boat we
were pursuing had squared away and was running before the wind to escape us,
and, in the course of its flight, to take part in repulsing our general boat
attack. Attending to
sheets and tacks now left me little time to see what was taking place, but I
happened to be on the poop when Wolf Larsen ordered the two strange sailors
forward and into the forecastle. They went sullenly, but they went.
He next ordered Miss Brewster below, and smiled at the instant horror that
leapt into her eyes. “You’ll find
nothing gruesome down there,” he said, “only an unhurt man securely made fast
to the ring-bolts. Bullets are liable to come aboard, and I don’t want
you killed, you know.” Even as he
spoke, a bullet was deflected by a brass-capped spoke of the wheel between his
hands and screeched off through the air to windward. “You see,”
he said to her; and then to me, “Mr. Van Weyden, will you take the wheel?” Maud
Brewster had stepped inside the companion-way so that only her head was
exposed. Wolf Larsen had procured a rifle and was throwing a cartridge
into the barrel. I begged her with my eyes to go below, but she smiled
and said: “We may be
feeble land-creatures without legs, but we can show Captain Larsen that we are
at least as brave as he.” He gave her
a quick look of admiration. “I like you
a hundred per cent. better for that,” he said. “Books, and brains, and
bravery. You are well-rounded, a blue-stocking fit to be the wife of a
pirate chief. Ahem, we’ll discuss that later,” he smiled, as a bullet
struck solidly into the cabin wall. I saw his
eyes flash golden as he spoke, and I saw the terror mount in her own. “We are
braver,” I hastened to say. “At least, speaking for myself, I know I am
braver than Captain Larsen.” It was I who
was now favoured by a quick look. He was wondering if I were making fun
of him. I put three or four spokes over to counteract a sheer toward the
wind on the part of the Ghost,
and then steadied her. Wolf Larsen was still waiting an explanation, and
I pointed down to my knees. “You will
observe there,” I said, “a slight trembling. It is because I am afraid,
the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my mind because I do not wish to
die. But my spirit masters the trembling flesh and the qualms of the
mind. I am more than brave. I am courageous. Your flesh is not
afraid. You are not afraid. On the one hand, it costs you nothing
to encounter danger; on the other hand, it even gives you delight. You
enjoy it. You may be unafraid, Mr. Larsen, but you must grant that the
bravery is mine.” “You’re
right,” he acknowledged at once. “I never thought of it in that way
before. But is the opposite true? If you are braver than I, am I
more cowardly than you?” We both
laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck and rested his rifle
across the rail. The bullets we had received had travelled nearly a mile,
but by now we had cut that distance in half. He fired three careful
shots. The first struck fifty feet to windward of the boat, the second
alongside; and at the third the boat-steerer let loose his steering-oar and
crumpled up in the bottom of the boat. “I guess
that’ll fix them,” Wolf Larsen said, rising to his feet. “I couldn’t
afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a chance the boat-puller doesn’t
know how to steer. In which case, the hunter cannot steer and shoot at
the same time” His
reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the wind and the
hunter sprang aft to take the boat-steerer’s place. There was no more
shooting, though the rifles were still cracking merrily from the other boats. The hunter had managed to get the boat before the wind again, but we ran down upon it, going at least two feet to its one. A hundred yards away, I saw the boat-puller pass a rifle to the hunter. Wolf Larsen went amidships and took the coil of the throat-halyards from its pin. Then he peered over the rail with levelled rifle. Twice I saw the hunter let go the steering-oar with one hand, reach for his rifle, and hesitate. We were now alongside and foaming past. "He saw Wolf Larsen's rifle bearing upon him." “Here, you!”
Wolf Larsen cried suddenly to the boat-puller. “Take a turn!” At the same
time he flung the coil of rope. It struck fairly, nearly knocking the man
over, but he did not obey. Instead, he looked to his hunter for
orders. The hunter, in turn, was in a quandary. His rifle was
between his knees, but if he let go the steering-oar in order to shoot, the
boat would sweep around and collide with the schooner. Also he saw Wolf
Larsen’s rifle bearing upon him and knew he would be shot ere he could get his
rifle into play. “Take a
turn,” he said quietly to the man. The
boat-puller obeyed, taking a turn around the little forward thwart and paying
the line as it jerked taut. The boat sheered out with a rush, and the
hunter steadied it to a parallel course some twenty feet from the side of the Ghost. “Now, get
that sail down and come alongside!” Wolf Larsen ordered. He never let
go his rifle, even passing down the tackles with one hand. When they were
fast, bow and stern, and the two uninjured men prepared to come aboard, the hunter
picked up his rifle as if to place it in a secure position. “Drop it!”
Wolf Larsen cried, and the hunter dropped it as though it were hot and had
burned him. Once aboard,
the two prisoners hoisted in the boat and under Wolf Larsen’s direction carried
the wounded boat-steerer down into the forecastle. “If our five
boats do as well as you and I have done, we’ll have a pretty full crew,” Wolf
Larsen said to me. “The man you
shot — he is — I hope?” Maud Brewster quavered. “In the
shoulder,” he answered. “Nothing serious, Mr. Van Weyden will pull him
around as good as ever in three or four weeks.” “But he
won’t pull those chaps around, from the look of it,” he added, pointing at the Macedonia’s third boat, for which I had
been steering and which was now nearly abreast of us. “That’s Horner’s
and Smoke’s work. I told them we wanted live men, not carcasses.
But the joy of shooting to hit is a most compelling thing, when once you’ve
learned how to shoot. Ever experienced it, Mr. Van Weyden?” I shook my
head and regarded their work. It had indeed been bloody, for they had
drawn off and joined our other three boats in the attack on the remaining two
of the enemy. The deserted boat was in the trough of the sea, rolling
drunkenly across each comber, its loose spritsail out at right angles to it and
fluttering and flapping in the wind. The hunter and boat-puller were both
lying awkwardly in the bottom, but the boat-steerer lay across the gunwale,
half in and half out, his arms trailing in the water and his head rolling from
side to side. “Don’t look,
Miss Brewster, please don’t look,” I had begged of her, and I was glad that she
had minded me and been spared the sight. “Head right
into the bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was Wolf Larsen’s command. As we drew
nearer, the firing ceased, and we saw that the fight was over. The
remaining two boats had been captured by our five, and the seven were grouped
together, waiting to be picked up. “Look at
that!” I cried involuntarily, pointing to the north-east. The blot of
smoke which indicated the Macedonia’s
position had reappeared. “Yes, I’ve
been watching it,” was Wolf Larsen’s calm reply. He measured the distance
away to the fog-bank, and for an instant paused to feel the weight of the wind
on his cheek. “We’ll make it, I think; but you can depend upon it that
blessed brother of mine has twigged our little game and is just a-humping for
us. Ah, look at that!” The blot of
smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black. “I’ll beat
you out, though, brother mine,” he chuckled. “I’ll beat you out, and I
hope you no worse than that you rack your old engines into scrap.” When we hove
to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The boats came aboard from
every side at once. As fast as the prisoners came over the rail they were
marshalled forward to the forecastle by our hunters, while our sailors hoisted
in the boats, pell-mell, dropping them anywhere upon the deck and not stopping
to lash them. We were already under way, all sails set and drawing, and
the sheets being slacked off for a wind abeam, as the last boat lifted clear of
the water and swung in the tackles. There was
need for haste. The Macedonia,
belching the blackest of smoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from
out of the north-east. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had
altered her course so as to anticipate ours. She was not running straight
for us, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging like the sides of an
angle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the fog-bank. It was there,
or not at all, that the Macedonia
could hope to catch us. The hope for the Ghost
lay in that she should pass that point before the Macedonia arrived at it. Wolf Larsen
was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they dwelt upon and leaped
from detail to detail of the chase. Now he studied the sea to windward
for signs of the wind slackening or freshening, now the Macedonia; and again, his eyes roved over
every sail, and he gave commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come in on
one there a trifle, till he was drawing out of the Ghost the last bit of speed she possessed. All feuds
and grudges were forgotten, and I was surprised at the alacrity with which the
men who had so long endured his brutality sprang to execute his orders.
Strange to say, the unfortunate Johnson came into my mind as we lifted and
surged and heeled along, and I was aware of a regret that he was not alive and
present; he had so loved the Ghost
and delighted in her sailing powers. “Better get
your rifles, you fellows,” Wolf Larsen called to our hunters; and the five men
lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and waited. The Macedonia was now but a mile away, the
black smoke pouring from her funnel at a right angle, so madly she raced,
pounding through the sea at a seventeen-knot gait — “’Sky-hooting through the
brine,” as Wolf Larsen quoted while gazing at her. We were not making
more than nine knots, but the fog-bank was very near. A puff of
smoke broke from the Macedonia’s
deck, we heard a heavy report, and a round hole took form in the stretched
canvas of our mainsail. They were shooting at us with one of the small
cannon which rumour had said they carried on board. Our men, clustering
amidships, waved their hats and raised a derisive cheer. Again there was
a puff of smoke and a loud report, this time the cannon-ball striking not more
than twenty feet astern and glancing twice from sea to sea to windward ere it
sank. But there
was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters were out in the boats
or our prisoners. When the two vessels were half-a-mile apart, a third
shot made another hole in our mainsail. Then we entered the fog. It
was about us, veiling and hiding us in its dense wet gauze. The sudden
transition was startling. The moment before we had been leaping through
the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea breaking and rolling wide to the
horizon, and a ship, vomiting smoke and fire and iron missiles, rushing madly
upon us. And at once, as in an instant’s leap, the sun was blotted out,
there was no sky, even our mastheads were lost to view, and our horizon was
such as tear-blinded eyes may see. The grey mist drove by us like a
rain. Every woollen filament of our garments, every hair of our heads and
faces, was jewelled with a crystal globule. The shrouds were wet with
moisture; it dripped from our rigging overhead; and on the underside of our
booms drops of water took shape in long swaying lines, which were detached and
flung to the deck in mimic showers at each surge of the schooner. I was
aware of a pent, stifled feeling. As the sounds of the ship thrusting
herself through the waves were hurled back upon us by the fog, so were one’s
thoughts. The mind recoiled from contemplation of a world beyond this wet
veil which wrapped us around. This was the world, the universe itself,
its bounds so near one felt impelled to reach out both arms and push them
back. It was impossible, that the rest could be beyond these walls of
grey. The rest was a dream, no more than the memory of a dream. It was
weird, strangely weird. I looked at Maud Brewster and knew that she was
similarly affected. Then I looked at Wolf Larsen, but there was nothing
subjective about his state of consciousness. His whole concern was with
the immediate, objective present. He still held the wheel, and I felt
that he was timing Time, reckoning the passage of the minutes with each forward
lunge and leeward roll of the Ghost. “Go for’ard
and hard alee without any noise,” he said to me in a low voice. “Clew up
the topsails first. Set men at all the sheets. Let there be no
rattling of blocks, no sound of voices. No noise, understand, no noise.” When all was
ready, the word “hard-a-lee” was passed forward to me from man to man; and the Ghost heeled about on the port tack with
practically no noise at all. And what little there was, — the slapping of
a few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a block or two, — was ghostly
under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed. We had
scarcely filled away, it seemed, when the fog thinned abruptly and we were
again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea breaking before us to the
sky-line. But the ocean was bare. No wrathful Macedonia broke its surface nor blackened
the sky with her smoke. Wolf Larsen
at once squared away and ran down along the rim of the fog-bank. His
trick was obvious. He had entered the fog to windward of the steamer, and
while the steamer had blindly driven on into the fog in the chance of catching
him, he had come about and out of his shelter and was now running down to
re-enter to leeward. Successful in this, the old simile of the needle in
the haystack would be mild indeed compared with his brother’s chance of finding
him. He did not run long. Jibing the fore- and main-sails and
setting the topsails again, we headed back into the bank. As we entered I
could have sworn I saw a vague bulk emerging to windward. I looked
quickly at Wolf Larsen. Already we were ourselves buried in the fog, but
he nodded his head. He, too, had seen it — the Macedonia, guessing his manoeuvre and failing by a moment in
anticipating it. There was no doubt that we had escaped unseen. “He can’t
keep this up,” Wolf Larsen said. “He’ll have to go back for the rest of
his boats. Send a man to the wheel, Mr. Van Weyden, keep this course for
the present, and you might as well set the watches, for we won’t do any
lingering to-night.” “I’d give
five hundred dollars, though,” he added, “just to be aboard the Macedonia for five minutes, listening to
my brother curse.” “And now,
Mr. Van Weyden,” he said to me when he had been relieved from the wheel, “we
must make these new-comers welcome. Serve out plenty of whisky to the
hunters and see that a few bottles slip for’ard. I’ll wager every man
Jack of them is over the side to-morrow, hunting for Wolf Larsen as contentedly
as ever they hunted for Death Larsen.” “But won’t
they escape as Wainwright did?” I asked. He laughed
shrewdly. “Not as long as our old hunters have anything to say about
it. I’m dividing amongst them a dollar a skin for all the skins shot by
our new hunters. At least half of their enthusiasm to-day was due to
that. Oh, no, there won’t be any escaping if they have anything to say
about it. And now you’d better get for’ard to your hospital duties.
There must be a full ward waiting for you.” |