At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught thenorth-east trades. I came on deck, after a good night’s rest in spite ofmy poor knee, to find the _Ghost_ foaming along, wing-and-wing, and everysail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze astern. Oh, the wonderof the great trade-wind! All day we sailed, and all night, and the nextday, and the next, day after day, the wind always astern and blowingsteadily and strong. The schooner sailed herself. There was no pullingand hauling on sheets and tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work atall for the sailors to do except to steer. At night when the sun wentdown, the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up thedamp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again—and that wasall.

Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time, is thespeed we are making. And ever out of the north-east the brave windblows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty miles between thedawns. It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait with which we are leavingSan Francisco behind and with which we are foaming down upon the tropics.Each day grows perceptibly warmer. In the second dog-watch the sailorscome on deck, stripped, and heave buckets of water upon one another fromoverside. Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, and during the night thewatch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of those that fall aboard.In the morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly bribed, the galley ispleasantly areek with the odour of their frying; while dolphin meat isserved fore and aft on such occasions as Johnson catches the blazingbeauties from the bowsprit end.

Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at thecrosstrees, watching the _Ghost_ cleaving the water under press of sail.There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about in a sort oftrance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the foaming wake, andthe heave and the run of her over the liquid mountains that are movingwith us in stately procession.

The days and nights are “all a wonder and a wild delight,” and though Ihave little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments to gaze andgaze 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 theforefoot is of the colour and sheen of azure satin. All around thehorizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never changing, never moving, like asilver setting for the flawless turquoise sky.

I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying onthe forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of foam thrustaside by the _Ghost’s_ forefoot. It sounded like the gurgling of a brookover mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the crooning song of it luredme away and out of myself till I was no longer Hump the cabin-boy, norVan Weyden, the man who had dreamed away thirty-five years among books.But a voice behind me, the unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong withthe invincible certitude of the man and mellow with appreciation of thewords 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 whichwords and setting demanded.

I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea itself, andthe eyes were flashing in the starshine.

“It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should showenthusiasm,” 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 hisvoice.

“Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your head, whata 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 therating.”

He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought thatwas in him, and finally went on.

“Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all timewere 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. Icould almost believe in God. But,” and his voice changed and the lightwent 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 wellcall it? It is what comes when there is nothing wrong with one’sdigestion, when his stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, andall 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. Thatis all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast,the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it isalive. And—bah! To-morrow I shall pay for it as the drunkard pays. AndI shall know that I must die, at sea most likely, cease crawling ofmyself 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 musclesthat it may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts offishes. Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. Thesparkle 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 theweight and softness of a tiger. The _Ghost_ ploughed on her way. Inoted the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I listened toit the effect of Wolf Larsen’s swift rush from sublime exultation todespair slowly left me. Then some deep-water sailor, from the waist ofthe 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.”