บทที่ บทที่ 7 · Chapter VII

At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the

north-east trades. I came on deck, after a good night’s rest in spite of

my poor knee, to find the _Ghost_ foaming along, wing-and-wing, and every

sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern. Oh, the wonder

of the great trade-wind! All day we sailed, and all night, and the next

day, and the next, day after day, the wind always astern and blowing

steadily and strong. The schooner sailed herself. There was no pulling

and hauling on sheets and tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work at

all for the sailors to do except to steer. At night when the sun went

down, the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up the

damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again—and that was

all.

Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, is the

speed we are making. And ever out of the north-east the brave wind

blows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty miles between the

dawns. It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait with which we are leaving

San Francisco behind and with which we are foaming down upon the tropics.

Each day grows perceptibly warmer. In the second dog-watch the sailors

come on deck, stripped, and heave buckets of water upon one another from

overside. Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, and during the night the

watch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of those that fall aboard.

In the morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley is

pleasantly areek with the odour of their frying; while dolphin meat is

served fore and aft on such occasions as Johnson catches the blazing

beauties from the bowsprit end.

Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the

crosstrees, watching the _Ghost_ cleaving the water under press of sail.

There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about in a sort of

trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the foaming wake, and

the heave and the run of her over the liquid mountains that are moving

with us in stately procession.

The days and nights are “all a wonder and a wild delight,” and though I

have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments to gaze and

gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the world possessed.

Above, the sky is stainless blue—blue as the sea itself, which under the

forefoot is of the colour and sheen of azure satin. All around the

horizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never changing, never moving, like a

silver setting for the flawless turquoise sky.

I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying on

the forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of foam thrust

aside by the _Ghost’s_ forefoot. It sounded like the gurgling of a brook

over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the crooning song of it lured

me away and out of myself till I was no longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor

Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed away thirty-five years among books.

But a voice behind me, the unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with

the invincible certitude of the man and mellow with appreciation of the

words he was quoting, aroused me.

“‘O the blazing tropic night, when the wake’s a welt of light

That holds the hot sky tame,

And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors

Where the scared whale flukes in flame.

Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass,

And her ropes are taut with the dew,

For we’re booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out trail,

We’re sagging south on the Long Trail—the trail that is always

new.’”

“Eh, Hump? How’s it strike you?” he asked, after the due pause which

words and setting demanded.

I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea itself, and

the eyes were flashing in the starshine.

“It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should show

enthusiasm,” I answered coldly.

“Why, man, it’s living! it’s life!” he cried.

“Which is a cheap thing and without value.” I flung his words at him.

He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in his

voice.

“Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your head, what

a thing this life is. Of course life is valueless, except to itself.

And I can tell you that my life is pretty valuable just now—to myself.

It is beyond price, which you will acknowledge is a terrific overrating,

but which I cannot help, for it is the life that is in me that makes the

rating.”

He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought that

was in him, and finally went on.

“Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all time

were echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. I know truth,

divine good from evil, right from wrong. My vision is clear and far. I

could almost believe in God. But,” and his voice changed and the light

went out of his face,—“what is this condition in which I find myself?

this joy of living? this exultation of life? this inspiration, I may well

call it? It is what comes when there is nothing wrong with one’s

digestion, when his stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and

all goes well. It is the bribe for living, the champagne of the blood,

the effervescence of the ferment—that makes some men think holy thoughts,

and other men to see God or to create him when they cannot see him. That

is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast,

the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is

alive. And—bah! To-morrow I shall pay for it as the drunkard pays. And

I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely, cease crawling of

myself to be all a-crawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon,

to be carrion, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles

that it may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of

fishes. Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. The

sparkle and bubble has gone out and it is a tasteless drink.”

He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with the

weight and softness of a tiger. The _Ghost_ ploughed on her way. I

noted the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I listened to

it the effect of Wolf Larsen’s swift rush from sublime exultation to

despair slowly left me. Then some deep-water sailor, from the waist of

the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the “Song of the Trade Wind”:

“Oh, I am the wind the seamen love—

I am steady, and strong, and true;

They follow my track by the clouds above,

O’er the fathomless tropic blue.

* * * * *

Through daylight and dark I follow the bark

I keep like a hound on her trail;

I’m strongest at noon, yet under the moon,

I stiffen the bunt of her sail.”