_ "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.
"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." _