The Sea Wolf, Jack London [best memoirs of all time TXT] 📗

not exactly afraid.  You are impotent.  Your conventional morality is stronger than you.  You are the slave to the opinions which have credence among the people you have known and have read about.  Their code has been drummed into your head from the time you lisped, and in spite of your philosophy, and of what I have taught you, it won’t let you kill an unarmed, unresisting man.”

“I know it,” I said hoarsely.

“And you know that I would kill an unarmed man as readily as I would smoke a cigar,” he went on.  “You know me for what I am,—my worth in the world by your standard.  You have called me snake, tiger, shark, monster, and Caliban.  And yet, you little rag puppet, you little echoing mechanism, you are unable to kill me as you would a snake or a shark, because I have hands, feet, and a body shaped somewhat like yours.  Bah! I had hoped better things of you, Hump.”

He stepped out of the companion-way and came up to me.

“Put down that gun.  I want to ask you some questions.  I haven’t had a chance to look around yet.  What place is this?  How is the Ghost lying?  How did you get wet?  Where’s Maud?—I beg your pardon, Miss Brewster—or should I say, ‘Mrs. Van Weyden’?”

I had backed away from him, almost weeping at my inability to shoot him, but not fool enough to put down the gun.  I hoped, desperately, that he might commit some hostile act, attempt to strike me or choke me; for in such way only I knew I could be stirred to shoot.

“This is Endeavour Island,” I said.

“Never heard of it,” he broke in.

“At least, that’s our name for it,” I amended.

“Our?” he queried.  “Who’s our?”

“Miss Brewster and myself.  And the Ghost is lying, as you can see for yourself, bow on to the beach.”

“There are seals here,” he said.  “They woke me up with their barking, or I’d be sleeping yet.  I heard them when I drove in last night.  They were the first warning that I was on a lee shore.  It’s a rookery, the kind of a thing I’ve hunted for years.  Thanks to my brother Death, I’ve lighted on a fortune.  It’s a mint.  What’s its bearings?”

“Haven’t the least idea,” I said.  “But you ought to know quite closely.  What were your last observations?”

He smiled inscrutably, but did not answer.

“Well, where’s all hands?” I asked.  “How does it come that you are alone?”

I was prepared for him again to set aside my question, and was surprised at the readiness of his reply.

“My brother got me inside forty-eight hours, and through no fault of mine.  Boarded me in the night with only the watch on deck.  Hunters went back on me.  He gave them a bigger lay.  Heard him offering it.  Did it right before me.  Of course the crew gave me the go-by.  That was to be expected.  All hands went over the side, and there I was, marooned on my own vessel.  It was Death’s turn, and it’s all in the family anyway.”

“But how did you lose the masts?” I asked.

“Walk over and examine those lanyards,” he said, pointing to where the mizzen-rigging should have been.

“They have been cut with a knife!” I exclaimed.

“Not quite,” he laughed.  “It was a neater job.  Look again.”

I looked.  The lanyards had been almost severed, with just enough left to hold the shrouds till some severe strain should be put upon them.

“Cooky did that,” he laughed again.  “I know, though I didn’t spot him at it.  Kind of evened up the score a bit.”

“Good for Mugridge!” I cried.

“Yes, that’s what I thought when everything went over the side.  Only I said it on the other side of my mouth.”

“But what were you doing while all this was going on?” I asked.

“My best, you may be sure, which wasn’t much under the circumstances.”

I turned to re-examine Thomas Mugridge’s work.

“I guess I’ll sit down and take the sunshine,” I heard Wolf Larsen saying.

There was a hint, just a slight hint, of physical feebleness in his voice, and it was so strange that I looked quickly at him.  His hand was sweeping nervously across his face, as though he were brushing away cobwebs.  I was puzzled.  The whole thing was so unlike the Wolf Larsen I had known.

“How are your headaches?” I asked.

“They still trouble me,” was his answer.  “I think I have one coming on now.”

He slipped down from his sitting posture till he lay on the deck.  Then he rolled over on his side, his head resting on the biceps of the under arm, the forearm shielding his eyes from the sun.  I stood regarding him wonderingly.

“Now’s your chance, Hump,” he said.

“I don’t understand,” I lied, for I thoroughly understood.

“Oh, nothing,” he added softly, as if he were drowsing; “only you’ve got me where you want me.”

“No, I haven’t,” I retorted; “for I want you a few thousand miles away from here.”

He chuckled, and thereafter spoke no more.  He did not stir as I passed by him and went down into the cabin.  I lifted the trap in the floor, but for some moments gazed dubiously into the darkness of the lazarette beneath.  I hesitated to descend.  What if his lying down were a ruse?  Pretty, indeed, to be caught there like a rat.  I crept softly up the companion-way and peeped at him.  He was lying as I had left him.  Again I went below; but before I dropped into the lazarette I took the precaution of casting down the door in advance.  At least there would be no lid to the trap.  But it was all needless.  I regained the cabin with a store of jams, sea-biscuits, canned meats, and such things,—all I could carry,—and replaced the trap-door.

A peep at Wolf Larsen showed me that he had not moved.  A bright thought struck me.  I stole into his state-room and possessed myself of his revolvers.  There were no other weapons, though I thoroughly ransacked the three remaining state-rooms.  To make sure, I returned and went through the steerage and forecastle, and in the galley gathered up all the sharp meat and vegetable knives.  Then I bethought me of the great yachtsman’s knife he always carried, and I came to him and spoke to him, first softly, then loudly.  He did not move.  I bent over and took it from his pocket.  I breathed more freely.  He had no arms with which to attack me from a distance; while I, armed, could always forestall him should he attempt to grapple me with his terrible gorilla arms.

Filling a coffee-pot and frying-pan with part of my plunder, and taking some chinaware from the cabin pantry, I left Wolf Larsen lying in the sun and went ashore.

Maud was still asleep.  I blew up the embers (we had not yet arranged a winter kitchen), and quite feverishly cooked the breakfast.  Toward the end, I heard her moving about within the hut, making her toilet.  Just as all was ready and the coffee poured, the door opened and she came forth.

“It’s not fair of you,” was her greeting.  “You are usurping one of my prerogatives.  You know you I agreed that the cooking should be mine, and—”

“But just this once,” I pleaded.

“If you promise not to do it again,” she smiled.  “Unless, of course, you have grown tired of my poor efforts.”

To my delight she never once looked toward the beach, and I maintained the banter with such success all unconsciously she sipped coffee from the china cup, ate fried evaporated potatoes, and spread marmalade on her biscuit.  But it could not last.  I saw the surprise that came over her.  She had discovered the china plate from which she was eating.  She looked over the breakfast, noting detail after detail.  Then she looked at me, and her face turned slowly toward the beach.

“Humphrey!” she said.

The old unnamable terror mounted into her eyes.

“Is—he?” she quavered.

I nodded my head.

CHAPTER XXXIII

We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore.  It was an intolerable period of anxiety.  Each moment one or the other of us cast expectant glances toward the Ghost.  But he did not come.  He did not even appear on deck.

“Perhaps it is his headache,” I said.  “I left him lying on the poop.  He may lie there all night.  I think I’ll go and see.”

Maud looked entreaty at me.

“It is all right,” I assured her.  “I shall take the revolvers.  You know I collected every weapon on board.”

“But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible hands!” she objected.  And then she cried, “Oh, Humphrey, I am afraid of him!  Don’t go—please don’t go!”

She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering.  My heart was surely in my eyes for a moment.  The dear and lovely woman!  And she was so much the woman, clinging and appealing, sunshine and dew to my manhood, rooting it deeper and sending through it the sap of a new strength.  I was for putting my arm around her, as when in the midst of the seal herd; but I considered, and refrained.

“I shall not take any risks,” I said.  “I’ll merely peep over the bow and see.”

She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go.  But the space on deck where I had left him lying was vacant.  He had evidently gone below.  That night we stood alternate watches, one of us sleeping at a time; for there was no telling what Wolf Larsen might do.  He was certainly capable of anything.

The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign.

“These headaches of his, these attacks,” Maud said, on the afternoon of the fourth day; “Perhaps he is ill, very ill.  He may be dead.”

“Or dying,” was her afterthought when she had waited some time for me to speak.

“Better so,” I answered.

“But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely hour.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested.

“Yes, even perhaps,” she acknowledged.  “But we do not know.  It would be terrible if he were.  I could never forgive myself.  We must do something.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested again.

I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled a solicitude for Wolf Larsen, of all creatures.  Where was her solicitude for me, I thought,—for me whom she had been afraid to have merely peep aboard?

She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence.  And she was as direct as she was subtle.

“You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out,” she said.  “And if you want to laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness.”

I arose obediently and went down the beach.

“Do be careful,” she called after me.

I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck.  Aft I walked to the cabin companion, where I contented myself with hailing below.  Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started to ascend the stairs I cocked my revolver.  I displayed it openly during our conversation, but he took no notice of it.  He appeared the same, physically, as when last I saw him, but he was gloomy and silent.  In fact, the few words we spoke could hardly be called a conversation.  I did not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor did he ask why I had not come aboard.  His head was all right again, he said, and so, without further parley, I left him.

Maud received my report with obvious relief, and the sight of smoke which later rose in the galley put her in a more cheerful mood.  The next day, and the next, we saw the galley smoke rising, and sometimes we caught glimpses of him on the poop.  But that was all.  He made no attempt to come ashore.  This we knew, for we still maintained our night-watches.  We were waiting for him to do something, to show his hand, so to say, and his inaction puzzled and worried us.

A week of this passed by.  We had