The _Ghost_ has attained the southernmost point of the arc she isdescribing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edge away tothe west and north toward some lone island, it is rumoured, where shewill fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season’s hunt alongthe coast of Japan. The hunters have experimented and practised withtheir rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied, and the boat-pullersand steerers have made their spritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks inleather and sennit so that they will make no noise when creeping on theseals, and put their boats in apple-pie order—to use Leach’s homelyphrase.

His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain allhis life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and is afraid toventure on deck after dark. There are two or three standing quarrels inthe forecastle. Louis tells me that the gossip of the sailors finds itsway aft, and that two of the telltales have been badly beaten by theirmates. He shakes his head dubiously over the outlook for the manJohnson, who is boat-puller in the same boat with him. Johnson has beenguilty of speaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or threetimes with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name. Johansen hethrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time the matehas called him by his proper name. But of course it is out of thequestion that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen.

Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, whichtallies with the captain’s brief description. We may expect to meetDeath Larsen on the Japan coast. “And look out for squalls,” is Louis’sprophecy, “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 theschooners carry only six. There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and ofstrange raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium smugglinginto the States and arms smuggling into China, to blackbirding and openpiracy. Yet I cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in alie, while he has a cyclopædic knowledge of sealing and the men of thesealing fleets.

As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft, onthis veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle ferociously for oneanother’s lives. The hunters are looking for a shooting scrape at anymoment between Smoke and Henderson, whose old quarrel has not healed,while Wolf Larsen says positively that he will kill the survivor of theaffair, if such affair comes off. He frankly states that the position hetakes is based on no moral grounds, that all the hunters could kill andeat one another so far as he is concerned, were it not that he needs themalive for the hunting. If they will only hold their hands until theseason is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges canhe settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard andarrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. I think eventhe hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness. Wicked men though theybe, they are certainly very much afraid of him.

Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go about insecret dread of him. His is the courage of fear,—a strange thing I knowwell of myself,—and at any moment it may master the fear and impel him tothe taking of my life. My knee is much better, though it often aches forlong periods, and the stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which WolfLarsen squeezed. Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am insplendid condition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing insize. My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. They have aparboiled appearance, are afflicted with hang-nails, while the nails arebroken and discoloured, and the edges of the quick seem to be assuming afungoid sort of growth. Also, I am suffering from boils, due to thediet, most likely, for I was never afflicted in this manner before.

I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen readingthe Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at thebeginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate’s sea-chest. Iwondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to me fromEcclesiastes. I could imagine he was speaking the thoughts of his ownmind as he read to me, and his voice, reverberating deeply and mournfullyin the confined cabin, charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but hecertainly knows how to express the significance of the written word. Ican hear him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholyvibrant 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 returned with me.

“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the labour that I had laboured 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.

“For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

“For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

“Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.”

“There you have it, Hump,” he said, closing the book upon his finger andlooking up at me. “The Preacher who was king over Israel in Jerusalemthought as I think. You call me a pessimist. Is not this pessimism ofthe blackest?—‘All is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ ‘There is no profitunder the sun,’ ‘There is one event unto all,’ to the fool and the wise,the clean and the unclean, the sinner and the saint, and that event isdeath, and an evil thing, he says. For the Preacher loved life, and didnot want to die, saying, ‘For a living dog is better than a dead lion.’He preferred the vanity and vexation to the silence and unmovableness ofthe grave. And so I. To crawl is piggish; but to not crawl, to be asthe clod and rock, is loathsome to contemplate. It is loathsome to thelife that is in me, the very essence of which is movement, the power ofmovement, and the consciousness of the power of movement. Life itself isunsatisfaction, but to look ahead to death is greater unsatisfaction.”

“You are worse off than Omar,” I said. “He, at least, after thecustomary agonizing of youth, found content and made of his materialism ajoyous thing.”

“Who was Omar?” Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more work that day, northe next, nor the next.

In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubáiyát, and it wasto him like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered, possiblytwo-thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece out the remainderwithout difficulty. We talked for hours over single stanzas, and I foundhim reading into them a wail of regret and a rebellion which, for thelife of me, I could not discover myself. Possibly I recited with acertain joyous lilt which was my own, for—his memory was good, and at asecond rendering, very often the first, he made a quatrain his own—herecited the same lines and invested them with an unrest and passionaterevolt that was well-nigh convincing.

I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and was notsurprised when he hit upon the one born of an instant’s irritability, andquite at variance with the Persian’s complacent philosophy and genialcode of life:

“What, without asking, hither hurried _Whence_? And, without asking, _Whither_ hurried hence! Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine Must drown the memory of that insolence!”

“Great!” Wolf Larsen cried. “Great! That’s the keynote. Insolence! Hecould not have used a better word.”

In vain I objected and denied. He deluged me, overwhelmed me withargument.

“It’s not the nature of life to be otherwise. Life, when it knows thatit must cease living, will always rebel. It cannot help itself. ThePreacher found life and the works of life all a vanity and vexation, anevil thing; but death, the ceasing to be able to be vain and vexed, hefound an eviler thing. Through chapter after chapter he is worried bythe one event that cometh to all alike. So Omar, so I, so you, even you,for you rebelled against dying when Cooky sharpened a knife for you. Youwere afraid to die; the life that was in you, that composes you, that isgreater than you, did not want to die. You have talked of the instinctof immortality. I talk of the instinct of life, which is to live, andwhich, when death looms near and large, masters the instinct, so called,of immortality. It mastered it in you (you cannot deny it), because acrazy Cockney cook sharpened a knife.

“You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot deny it.If I should catch you by the throat, thus,”—his hand was about my throatand my breath was shut off,—“and began to press the life out of you thus,and thus, your instinct of immortality will go glimmering, and yourinstinct of life, which is longing for life, will flutter up, and youwill struggle to save yourself. Eh? I see the fear of death in youreyes. You beat the air with your arms. You exert all your puny strengthto struggle to live. Your hand is clutching my arm, lightly it feels asa butterfly resting there. Your chest is heaving, your tongueprotruding, your skin turning dark, your eyes swimming. ‘To live! Tolive! To live!’ you are crying; and you are crying to live here and now,not hereafter. You doubt your immortality, eh? Ha! ha! You are notsure of it. You won’t chance it. This life only you are certain isreal. Ah, it is growing dark and darker. It is the darkness of death,the ceasing to be, the ceasing to feel, the ceasing to move, that isgathering about you, descending upon you, rising around you. Your eyesare becoming set. They are glazing. My voice sounds faint and far. Youcannot see my face. And still you struggle in my grip. You kick withyour legs. Your body draws itself up in knots like a snake’s. Yourchest heaves and strains. To live! To live! To live—”

I heard no more. Consciousness was blotted out by the darkness he had sographically described, and when I came to myself I was lying on the floorand he was smoking a cigar and regarding me thoughtfully with that oldfamiliar light of curiosity in his eyes.

“Well, have I convinced you?” he demanded. “Here take a drink of this.I want to ask you some questions.”

I rolled my head negatively on the floor. “Your arguments aretoo—er—forcible,” I managed to articulate, at cost of great pain to myaching throat.

“You’ll be all right in half-an-hour,” he assured me. “And I promise Iwon’t use any more physical demonstrations. Get up now. You can sit ona chair.”

And, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and thePreacher was resumed. And half the night we sat up over it.