_ Next day, the mast-steps clear and everything in readiness, we
started to get the two topmasts aboard. The maintopmast was over
thirty feet in length, the foretopmast nearly thirty, and it was of
these that I intended making the shears. It was puzzling work.
Fastening one end of a heavy tackle to the windlass, and with the
other end fast to the butt of the foretopmast, I began to heave.
Maud held the turn on the windlass and coiled down the slack.
We were astonished at the ease with which the spar was lifted. It
was an improved crank windlass, and the purchase it gave was
enormous. Of course, what it gave us in power we paid for in
distance; as many times as it doubled my strength, that many times
was doubled the length of rope I heaved in. The tackle dragged
heavily across the rail, increasing its drag as the spar arose more
and more out of the water, and the exertion on the windlass grew
severe.
But when the butt of the topmast was level with the rail,
everything came to a standstill.
"I might have known it," I said impatiently. "Now we have to do it
all over again."
"Why not fasten the tackle part way down the mast?" Maud suggested.
"It's what I should have done at first," I answered, hugely
disgusted with myself.
Slipping off a turn, I lowered the mast back into the water and
fastened the tackle a third of the way down from the butt. In an
hour, what of this and of rests between the heaving, I had hoisted
it to the point where I could hoist no more. Eight feet of the
butt was above the rail, and I was as far away as ever from getting
the spar on board. I sat down and pondered the problem. It did
not take long. I sprang jubilantly to my feet.
"Now I have it!" I cried. "I ought to make the tackle fast at the
point of balance. And what we learn of this will serve us with
everything else we have to hoist aboard."
Once again I undid all my work by lowering the mast into the water.
But I miscalculated the point of balance, so that when I heaved the
top of the mast came up instead of the butt. Maud looked despair,
but I laughed and said it would do just as well.
Instructing her how to hold the turn and be ready to slack away at
command, I laid hold of the mast with my hands and tried to balance
it inboard across the rail. When I thought I had it I cried to her
to slack away; but the spar righted, despite my efforts, and
dropped back toward the water. Again I heaved it up to its old
position, for I had now another idea. I remembered the watch-
tackle - a small double and single block affair - and fetched it.
While I was rigging it between the top of the spar and the opposite
rail, Wolf Larsen came on the scene. We exchanged nothing more
than good-mornings, and, though he could not see, he sat on the
rail out of the way and followed by the sound all that I did.
Again instructing Maud to slack away at the windlass when I gave
the word, I proceeded to heave on the watch-tackle. Slowly the
mast swung in until it balanced at right angles across the rail;
and then I discovered to my amazement that there was no need for
Maud to slack away. In fact, the very opposite was necessary.
Making the watch-tackle fast, I hove on the windlass and brought in
the mast, inch by inch, till its top tilted down to the deck and
finally its whole length lay on the deck.
I looked at my watch. It was twelve o'clock. My back was aching
sorely, and I felt extremely tired and hungry. And there on the
deck was a single stick of timber to show for a whole morning's
work. For the first time I thoroughly realized the extent of the
task before us. But I was learning, I was learning. The afternoon
would show far more accomplished. And it did; for we returned at
one o'clock, rested and strengthened by a hearty dinner.
In less than an hour I had the maintopmast on deck and was
constructing the shears. Lashing the two topmasts together, and
making allowance for their unequal length, at the point of
intersection I attached the double block of the main throat-
halyards. This, with the single block and the throat-halyards
themselves, gave me a hoisting tackle. To prevent the butts of the
masts from slipping on the deck, I nailed down thick cleats.
Everything in readiness, I made a line fast to the apex of the
shears and carried it directly to the windlass. I was growing to
have faith in that windlass, for it gave me power beyond all
expectation. As usual, Maud held the turn while I heaved. The
shears rose in the air.
Then I discovered I had forgotten guy-ropes. This necessitated my
climbing the shears, which I did twice, before I finished guying it
fore and aft and to either side. Twilight had set in by the time
this was accomplished. Wolf Larsen, who had sat about and listened
all afternoon and never opened his mouth, had taken himself off to
the galley and started his supper. I felt quite stiff across the
small of the back, so much so that I straightened up with an effort
and with pain. I looked proudly at my work. It was beginning to
show. I was wild with desire, like a child with a new toy, to
hoist something with my shears.
"I wish it weren't so late," I said. "I'd like to see how it
works."
"Don't be a glutton, Humphrey," Maud chided me. "Remember, to-
morrow is coming, and you're so tired now that you can hardly
stand."
"And you?" I said, with sudden solicitude. "You must be very
tired. You have worked hard and nobly. I am proud of you, Maud."
"Not half so proud as I am of you, nor with half the reason," she
answered, looking me straight in the eyes for a moment with an
expression in her own and a dancing, tremulous light which I had
not seen before and which gave me a pang of quick delight, I know
not why, for I did not understand it. Then she dropped her eyes,
to lift them again, laughing.
"If our friends could see us now," she said. "Look at us. Have
you ever paused for a moment to consider our appearance?"
"Yes, I have considered yours, frequently," I answered, puzzling
over what I had seen in her eyes and puzzled by her sudden change
of subject.
"Mercy!" she cried. "And what do I look like, pray?"
"A scarecrow, I'm afraid," I replied. "Just glance at your
draggled skirts, for instance. Look at those three-cornered tears.
And such a waist! It would not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce
that you have been cooking over a camp-fire, to say nothing of
trying out seal-blubber. And to cap it all, that cap! And all
that is the woman who wrote 'A Kiss Endured.'"
She made me an elaborate and stately courtesy, and said, "As for
you, sir - "
And yet, through the five minutes of banter which followed, there
was a serious something underneath the fun which I could not but
relate to the strange and fleeting expression I had caught in her
eyes. What was it? Could it be that our eyes were speaking beyond
the will of our speech? My eyes had spoken, I knew, until I had
found the culprits out and silenced them. This had occurred
several times. But had she seen the clamour in them and
understood? And had her eyes so spoken to me? What else could
that expression have meant - that dancing, tremulous light, and a
something more which words could not describe. And yet it could
not be. It was impossible. Besides, I was not skilled in the
speech of eyes. I was only Humphrey Van Weyden, a bookish fellow
who loved. And to love, and to wait and win love, that surely was
glorious enough for me. And thus I thought, even as we chaffed
each other's appearance, until we arrived ashore and there were
other things to think about.
"It's a shame, after working hard all day, that we cannot have an
uninterrupted night's sleep," I complained, after supper.
"But there can be no danger now? from a blind man?" she queried.
"I shall never be able to trust him," I averred, "and far less now
that he is blind. The liability is that his part helplessness will
make him more malignant than ever. I know what I shall do to-
morrow, the first thing - run out a light anchor and kedge the
schooner off the beach. And each night when we come ashore in the
boat, Mr. Wolf Larsen will be left a prisoner on board. So this
will be the last night we have to stand watch, and because of that
it will go the easier."
We were awake early and just finishing breakfast as daylight came.
"Oh, Humphrey!" I heard Maud cry in dismay and suddenly stop.
I looked at her. She was gazing at the Ghost. I followed her
gaze, but could see nothing unusual. She looked at me, and I
looked inquiry back.
"The shears," she said, and her voice trembled.
I had forgotten their existence. I looked again, but could not see
them.
"If he has - " I muttered savagely.
She put her hand sympathetically on mine, and said, "You will have
to begin over again."
"Oh, believe me, my anger means nothing; I could not hurt a fly," I
smiled back bitterly. "And the worst of it is, he knows it. You
are right. If he has destroyed the shears, I shall do nothing
except begin over again."
"But I'll stand my watch on board hereafter," I blurted out a
moment later. "And if he interferes - "
"But I dare not stay ashore all night alone," Maud was saying when
I came back to myself. "It would be so much nicer if he would be
friendly with us and help us. We could all live comfortably
aboard."
"We will," I asserted, still savagely, for the destruction of my
beloved shears had hit me hard. "That is, you and I will live
aboard, friendly or not with Wolf Larsen."
"It's childish," I laughed later, "for him to do such things, and
for me to grow angry over them, for that matter."
But my heart smote me when we climbed aboard and looked at the
havoc he had done. The shears were gone altogether. The guys had
been slashed right and left. The throat-halyards which I had
rigged were cut across through every part. And he knew I could not
splice. A thought struck me. I ran to the windlass. It would not
work. He had broken it. We looked at each other in consternation.
Then I ran to the side. The masts, booms, and gaffs I had cleared
were gone. He had found the lines which held them, and cast them
adrift.
Tears were in Maud's eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I
could have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the
Ghost? He had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing
and rested my chin on my hands in black despair.
"He deserves to die," I cried out; "and God forgive me, I am not
man enough to be his executioner."
But Maud was by my side, passing her hand soothingly through my
hair as though I were a child, and saying, "There, there; it will
all come right. We are in the right, and it must come right."
I remembered Michelet and leaned my head against her; and truly I
became strong again. The blessed woman was an unfailing fount of
power to me. What did it matter? Only a set-back, a delay. The
tide could not have carried the masts far to seaward, and there had
been no wind. It meant merely more work to find them and tow them
back. And besides, it was a lesson. I knew what to expect. He
might have waited and destroyed our work more effectually when we
had more accomplished.
"Here he comes now," she whispered.
I glanced up. He was strolling leisurely along the poop on the
port side.
"Take no notice of him," I whispered. "He's coming to see how we
take it. Don't let him know that we know. We can deny him that
satisfaction. Take off your shoes - that's right - and carry them
in your hand."
And then we played hide-and-seek with the blind man. As he came up
the port side we slipped past on the starboard; and from the poop
we watched him turn and start aft on our track.
He must have known, somehow, that we were on board, for he said
"Good-morning" very confidently, and waited, for the greeting to be
returned. Then he strolled aft, and we slipped forward.
"Oh, I know you're aboard," he called out, and I could see him
listen intently after he had spoken.
It reminded me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming
cry, for the stir of its frightened prey. But we did not fir, and
we moved only when he moved. And so we dodged about the deck, hand
in hand, like a couple of children chased by a wicked ogre, till
Wolf Larsen, evidently in disgust, left the deck for the cabin.
There was glee in our eyes, and suppressed titters in our mouths,
as we put on our shoes and clambered over the side into the boat.
And as I looked into Maud's clear brown eyes I forgot the evil he
had done, and I knew only that I loved her, and that because of her
the strength was mine to win our way back to the world. _