The Ghost has attained the southernmost point of the arc she is describing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edge away to the west and north toward some lone island, it is rumored, where she will fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season's hunt along the coast of Japan.The hunters have experimented and practised with their rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied, and the boat-pullers and steerers have made their spritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks in leather and sennit so that they will make no noise when creeping on the seals, and put their boats in apple-pie order -- to use Leach's homely phrase.
His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain all his life.Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and is afraid to venture on deck after dark.There are two or three standing quarrels in the forecastle.Louis tells me that the gossip of the sailors finds its way aft, and that two of the telltales have been badly beaten by their mates.He shakes his head dubiously over the outlook for the man Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same boat with him.Johnson has been guilty of speaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or three times with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name.Johansen he thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time the mate has called him by his proper name.But of course it is out of the question that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen.
Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, which tallies with the captain's brief description.We may expect to meet Death Larsen on the Japan coast."And look out for squalls," is Louis's prophecy, "for they hate one another like the wolf- whelps they are." Death Larsen is in command of the only sealing-steamer in the fleet, the Macedonia , which carries fourteen boats, whereas the rest of the schooners carry only six.There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and of strange raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium smuggling into the States and arms smuggling into China, to black-birding and open piracy.Yet I cannot but believe Louis, for have never yet caught him in a lie, while he has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the sealing fleets.
As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft, on this veritable hell-ship.Men fight and struggle ferociously for one another's lives.The hunters are looking for a shooting scrape at any moment between Smoke and Henderson, whose old quarrel has not healed, while Wolf Larsen says positively that he will kill the survivor of the affair, if such affair comes off.He frankly states that the position he takes is based on no moral grounds, that all the hunters could kill and eat one another so far as he is concerned, were it not that he needs them alive for the hunting.If they will only hold their hands until the season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can be settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea.I think even the hunters are appalled at his cold- bloodedness.Wicked men though they be, they are certainly very much afraid of him.
Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go about in secret dread of him.His is the courage of fear, -- a strange thing I know well of myself, -- and at any moment it may master the fear and impel him to the taking of my life.My knee is much better, though it often aches for long periods, and the stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen squeezed.Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in splendid condition.My muscles are growing harder and increasing in size.My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief.They have a parboiled appearance, are afflicted with hang-nails, while the nails are broken and discolored, and the edges of the quick seem to be assuming a fungoid sort of growth.Also, I am suffering from boils, due to the diet, most likely, for I was never afflicted in this manner before.
I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen reading the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate's sea- chest.I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to me from Ecclesiastes.
I could imagine he was speaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and his voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin, charmed and held me.He may be uneducated, but he certainly knows how to express the significance of the written word.I can hear him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrant in his voice as he read:
"I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.
"So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me.
"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the labor that I had labored to do; and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
"All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
"This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all; yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
