Chapter Chapter 25 · 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 manœuvre, 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.

“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 manœuvre 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.”