第 十六 章 · Chapter XVI

I cannot say that the position of mate carried with it anything more

joyful than that there were no more dishes to wash. I was ignorant of

the simplest duties of mate, and would have fared badly indeed, had the

sailors not sympathized with me. I knew nothing of the minutiæ of ropes

and rigging, of the trimming and setting of sails; but the sailors took

pains to put me to rights,—Louis proving an especially good teacher,—and

I had little trouble with those under me.

With the hunters it was otherwise. Familiar in varying degree with the

sea, they took me as a sort of joke. In truth, it was a joke to me, that

I, the veriest landsman, should be filling the office of mate; but to be

taken as a joke by others was a different matter. I made no complaint,

but Wolf Larsen demanded the most punctilious sea etiquette in my

case,—far more than poor Johansen had ever received; and at the expense

of several rows, threats, and much grumbling, he brought the hunters to

time. I was “Mr. Van Weyden” fore and aft, and it was only unofficially

that Wolf Larsen himself ever addressed me as “Hump.”

It was amusing. Perhaps the wind would haul a few points while we were

at dinner, and as I left the table he would say, “Mr. Van Weyden, will

you kindly put about on the port tack.” And I would go on deck, beckon

Louis to me, and learn from him what was to be done. Then, a few minutes

later, having digested his instructions and thoroughly mastered the

manœuvre, I would proceed to issue my orders. I remember an early

instance of this kind, when Wolf Larsen appeared on the scene just as I

had begun to give orders. He smoked his cigar and looked on quietly till

the thing was accomplished, and then paced aft by my side along the

weather poop.

“Hump,” he said, “I beg pardon, Mr. Van Weyden, I congratulate you. I

think you can now fire your father’s legs back into the grave to him.

You’ve discovered your own and learned to stand on them. A little

rope-work, sail-making, and experience with storms and such things, and

by the end of the voyage you could ship on any coasting schooner.”

It was during this period, between the death of Johansen and the arrival

on the sealing grounds, that I passed my pleasantest hours on the

_Ghost_. Wolf Larsen was quite considerate, the sailors helped me, and I

was no longer in irritating contact with Thomas Mugridge. And I make

free to say, as the days went by, that I found I was taking a certain

secret pride in myself. Fantastic as the situation was,—a land-lubber

second in command,—I was, nevertheless, carrying it off well; and during

that brief time I was proud of myself, and I grew to love the heave and

roll of the _Ghost_ under my feet as she wallowed north and west through

the tropic sea to the islet where we filled our water-casks.

But my happiness was not unalloyed. It was comparative, a period of less

misery slipped in between a past of great miseries and a future of great

miseries. For the _Ghost_, so far as the seamen were concerned, was a

hell-ship of the worst description. They never had a moment’s rest or

peace. Wolf Larsen treasured against them the attempt on his life and

the drubbing he had received in the forecastle; and morning, noon, and

night, and all night as well, he devoted himself to making life unlivable

for them.

He knew well the psychology of the little thing, and it was the little

things by which he kept the crew worked up to the verge of madness. I

have seen Harrison called from his bunk to put properly away a misplaced

paintbrush, and the two watches below haled from their tired sleep to

accompany him and see him do it. A little thing, truly, but when

multiplied by the thousand ingenious devices of such a mind, the mental

state of the men in the forecastle may be slightly comprehended.

Of course much grumbling went on, and little outbursts were continually

occurring. Blows were struck, and there were always two or three men

nursing injuries at the hands of the human beast who was their master.

Concerted action was impossible in face of the heavy arsenal of weapons

carried in the steerage and cabin. Leach and Johnson were the two

particular victims of Wolf Larsen’s diabolic temper, and the look of

profound melancholy which had settled on Johnson’s face and in his eyes

made my heart bleed.

With Leach it was different. There was too much of the fighting beast in

him. He seemed possessed by an insatiable fury which gave no time for

grief. His lips had become distorted into a permanent snarl, which at

mere sight of Wolf Larsen broke out in sound, horrible and menacing and,

I do believe, unconsciously. I have seen him follow Wolf Larsen about

with his eyes, like an animal its keeper, the while the animal-like snarl

sounded deep in his throat and vibrated forth between his teeth.

I remember once, on deck, in bright day, touching him on the shoulder as

preliminary to giving an order. His back was toward me, and at the first

feel of my hand he leaped upright in the air and away from me, snarling

and turning his head as he leaped. He had for the moment mistaken me for

the man he hated.

Both he and Johnson would have killed Wolf Larsen at the slightest

opportunity, but the opportunity never came. Wolf Larsen was too wise

for that, and, besides, they had no adequate weapons. With their fists

alone they had no chance whatever. Time and again he fought it out with

Leach who fought back always, like a wildcat, tooth and nail and fist,

until stretched, exhausted or unconscious, on the deck. And he was never

averse to another encounter. All the devil that was in him challenged

the devil in Wolf Larsen. They had but to appear on deck at the same

time, when they would be at it, cursing, snarling, striking; and I have

seen Leach fling himself upon Wolf Larsen without warning or provocation.

Once he threw his heavy sheath-knife, missing Wolf Larsen’s throat by an

inch. Another time he dropped a steel marlinspike from the mizzen

crosstree. It was a difficult cast to make on a rolling ship, but the

sharp point of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through the air,

barely missed Wolf Larsen’s head as he emerged from the cabin

companion-way and drove its length two inches and over into the solid

deck-planking. Still another time, he stole into the steerage, possessed

himself of a loaded shot-gun, and was making a rush for the deck with it

when caught by Kerfoot and disarmed.

I often wondered why Wolf Larsen did not kill him and make an end of it.

But he only laughed and seemed to enjoy it. There seemed a certain spice

about it, such as men must feel who take delight in making pets of

ferocious animals.

“It gives a thrill to life,” he explained to me, “when life is carried in

one’s hand. Man is a natural gambler, and life is the biggest stake he

can lay. The greater the odds, the greater the thrill. Why should I

deny myself the joy of exciting Leach’s soul to fever-pitch? For that

matter, I do him a kindness. The greatness of sensation is mutual. He

is living more royally than any man for’ard, though he does not know it.

For he has what they have not—purpose, something to do and be done, an

all-absorbing end to strive to attain, the desire to kill me, the hope

that he may kill me. Really, Hump, he is living deep and high. I doubt

that he has ever lived so swiftly and keenly before, and I honestly envy

him, sometimes, when I see him raging at the summit of passion and

sensibility.”

“Ah, but it is cowardly, cowardly!” I cried. “You have all the

advantage.”

“Of the two of us, you and I, who is the greater coward?” he asked

seriously. “If the situation is unpleasing, you compromise with your

conscience when you make yourself a party to it. If you were really

great, really true to yourself, you would join forces with Leach and

Johnson. But you are afraid, you are afraid. You want to live. The

life that is in you cries out that it must live, no matter what the cost;

so you live ignominiously, untrue to the best you dream of, sinning

against your whole pitiful little code, and, if there were a hell,

heading your soul straight for it. Bah! I play the braver part. I do

no sin, for I am true to the promptings of the life that is in me. I am

sincere with my soul at least, and that is what you are not.”

There was a sting in what he said. Perhaps, after all, I was playing a

cowardly part. And the more I thought about it the more it appeared that

my duty to myself lay in doing what he had advised, lay in joining forces

with Johnson and Leach and working for his death. Right here, I think,

entered the austere conscience of my Puritan ancestry, impelling me

toward lurid deeds and sanctioning even murder as right conduct. I dwelt

upon the idea. It would be a most moral act to rid the world of such a

monster. Humanity would be better and happier for it, life fairer and

sweeter.

I pondered it long, lying sleepless in my bunk and reviewing in endless

procession the facts of the situation. I talked with Johnson and Leach,

during the night watches when Wolf Larsen was below. Both men had lost

hope—Johnson, because of temperamental despondency; Leach, because he had

beaten himself out in the vain struggle and was exhausted. But he caught

my hand in a passionate grip one night, saying:

“I think yer square, Mr. Van Weyden. But stay where you are and keep yer

mouth shut. Say nothin’ but saw wood. We’re dead men, I know it; but

all the same you might be able to do us a favour some time when we need

it damn bad.”

It was only next day, when Wainwright Island loomed to windward, close

abeam, that Wolf Larsen opened his mouth in prophecy. He had attacked

Johnson, been attacked by Leach, and had just finished whipping the pair

of them.

“Leach,” he said, “you know I’m going to kill you some time or other,

don’t you?”

A snarl was the answer.

“And as for you, Johnson, you’ll get so tired of life before I’m through

with you that you’ll fling yourself over the side. See if you don’t.”

“That’s a suggestion,” he added, in an aside to me. “I’ll bet you a

month’s pay he acts upon it.”

I had cherished a hope that his victims would find an opportunity to

escape while filling our water-barrels, but Wolf Larsen had selected his

spot well. The _Ghost_ lay half-a-mile beyond the surf-line of a lonely

beach. Here debouched a deep gorge, with precipitous, volcanic walls

which no man could scale. And here, under his direct supervision—for he

went ashore himself—Leach and Johnson filled the small casks and rolled

them down to the beach. They had no chance to make a break for liberty

in one of the boats.

Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt. They composed one of

the boats’ crews, and their task was to ply between the schooner and the

shore, carrying a single cask each trip. Just before dinner, starting

for the beach with an empty barrel, they altered their course and bore

away to the left to round the promontory which jutted into the sea

between them and liberty. Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty

villages of the Japanese colonists and smiling valleys which penetrated

deep into the interior. Once in the fastnesses they promised, and the

two men could defy Wolf Larsen.

I had observed Henderson and Smoke loitering about the deck all morning,

and I now learned why they were there. Procuring their rifles, they

opened fire in a leisurely manner, upon the deserters. It was a

cold-blooded exhibition of marksmanship. At first their bullets zipped

harmlessly along the surface of the water on either side the boat; but,

as the men continued to pull lustily, they struck closer and closer.

“Now, watch me take Kelly’s right oar,” Smoke said, drawing a more

careful aim.

I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter as he

shot. Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison’s right oar. The boat

slewed around. The two remaining oars were quickly broken. The men

tried to row with the splinters, and had them shot out of their hands.

Kelly ripped up a bottom board and began paddling, but dropped it with a

cry of pain as its splinters drove into his hands. Then they gave up,

letting the boat drift till a second boat, sent from the shore by Wolf

Larsen, took them in tow and brought them aboard.

Late that afternoon we hove up anchor and got away. Nothing was before

us but the three or four months’ hunting on the sealing grounds. The

outlook was black indeed, and I went about my work with a heavy heart.

An almost funereal gloom seemed to have descended upon the _Ghost_. Wolf

Larsen had taken to his bunk with one of his strange, splitting

headaches. Harrison stood listlessly at the wheel, half supporting

himself by it, as though wearied by the weight of his flesh. The rest of

the men were morose and silent. I came upon Kelly crouching to the lee

of the forecastle scuttle, his head on his knees, his arms about his

head, in an attitude of unutterable despondency.

Johnson I found lying full length on the forecastle head, staring at the

troubled churn of the forefoot, and I remembered with horror the

suggestion Wolf Larsen had made. It seemed likely to bear fruit. I

tried to break in on the man’s morbid thoughts by calling him away, but

he smiled sadly at me and refused to obey.

Leach approached me as I returned aft.

“I want to ask a favour, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said. “If it’s yer luck to

ever make ’Frisco once more, will you hunt up Matt McCarthy? He’s my old

man. He lives on the Hill, back of the Mayfair bakery, runnin’ a

cobbler’s shop that everybody knows, and you’ll have no trouble. Tell

him I lived to be sorry for the trouble I brought him and the things I

done, and—and just tell him ‘God bless him,’ for me.”

I nodded my head, but said, “We’ll all win back to San Francisco, Leach,

and you’ll be with me when I go to see Matt McCarthy.”

“I’d like to believe you,” he answered, shaking my hand, “but I can’t.

Wolf Larsen ’ll do for me, I know it; and all I can hope is, he’ll do it

quick.”

And as he left me I was aware of the same desire at my heart. Since it

was to be done, let it be done with despatch. The general gloom had

gathered me into its folds. The worst appeared inevitable; and as I

paced the deck, hour after hour, I found myself afflicted with Wolf

Larsen’s repulsive ideas. What was it all about? Where was the grandeur

of life that it should permit such wanton destruction of human souls? It

was a cheap and sordid thing after all, this life, and the sooner over

the better. Over and done with! I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed

longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should

be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion.