The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality. Fromcabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion. Iscarcely know where to begin. Wolf Larsen was really the cause of it.The relations among the men, strained and made tense by feuds, quarrelsand grudges, were in a state of unstable equilibrium, and evil passionsflared up in flame like prairie-grass.

Thomas Mugridge is a sneak, a spy, an informer. He has been attemptingto curry favour and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captainby carrying tales of the men forward. He it was, I know, that carriedsome of Johnson’s hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. Johnson, it seems, bought asuit of oilskins from the slop-chest and found them to be of greatlyinferior quality. Nor was he slow in advertising the fact. Theslop-chest is a sort of miniature dry-goods store which is carried by allsealing schooners and which is stocked with articles peculiar to theneeds of the sailors. Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from hissubsequent earnings on the sealing grounds; for, as it is with thehunters so it is with the boat-pullers and steerers—in the place of wagesthey receive a “lay,” a rate of so much per skin for every skin capturedin their particular boat.

But of Johnson’s grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, so that whatI witnessed came with a shock of sudden surprise. I had just finishedsweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf Larsen into adiscussion of Hamlet, his favourite Shakespearian character, whenJohansen descended the companion stairs followed by Johnson. Thelatter’s cap came off after the custom of the sea, and he stoodrespectfully in the centre of the cabin, swaying heavily and uneasily tothe roll of the schooner and facing the captain.

“Shut the doors and draw the slide,” Wolf Larsen said to me.

As I obeyed I noticed an anxious light come into Johnson’s eyes, but Idid not dream of its cause. I did not dream of what was to occur untilit did occur, but he knew from the very first what was coming and awaitedit bravely. And in his action I found complete refutation of all WolfLarsen’s materialism. The sailor Johnson was swayed by idea, byprinciple, and truth, and sincerity. He was right, he knew he was right,and he was unafraid. He would die for the right if needs be, he would betrue to himself, sincere with his soul. And in this was portrayed thevictory of the spirit over the flesh, the indomitability and moralgrandeur of the soul that knows no restriction and rises above time andspace and matter with a surety and invincibleness born of nothing elsethan eternity and immortality.

But to return. I noticed the anxious light in Johnson’s eyes, butmistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man. Themate, Johansen, stood away several feet to the side of him, and fullythree yards in front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the pivotal cabinchairs. An appreciable pause fell after I had closed the doors and drawnthe slide, a pause that must have lasted fully a minute. It was brokenby Wolf Larsen.

“Yonson,” he began.

“My name is Johnson, sir,” the sailor boldly corrected.

“Well, Johnson, then, damn you! Can you guess why I have sent for you?”

“Yes, and no, sir,” was the slow reply. “My work is done well. The mateknows that, and you know it, sir. So there cannot be any complaint.”

“And is that all?” Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft, and low, andpurring.

“I know you have it in for me,” Johnson continued with his unalterableand ponderous slowness. “You do not like me. You—you—”

“Go on,” Wolf Larsen prompted. “Don’t be afraid of my feelings.”

“I am not afraid,” the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush risingthrough his sunburn. “If I speak not fast, it is because I have not beenfrom the old country as long as you. You do not like me because I am toomuch of a man; that is why, sir.”

“You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean,and if you know what I mean,” was Wolf Larsen’s retort.

“I know English, and I know what you mean, sir,” Johnson answered, hisflush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English language.

“Johnson,” Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had gonebefore as introductory to the main business in hand, “I understand you’renot quite satisfied with those oilskins?”

“No, I am not. They are no good, sir.”

“And you’ve been shooting off your mouth about them.”

“I say what I think, sir,” the sailor answered courageously, not failingat the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that “sir” be appendedto each speech he made.

It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. His bigfists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positivelyfiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson. I noticed a blackdiscoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen’s eye, a mark of thethrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor. For thefirst time I began to divine that something terrible was about to beenacted,—what, I could not imagine.

“Do you know what happens to men who say what you’ve said about myslop-chest and me?” Wolf Larsen was demanding.

“I know, sir,” was the answer.

“What?” Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively.

“What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir.”

“Look at him, Hump,” Wolf Larsen said to me, “look at this bit ofanimated dust, this aggregation of matter that moves and breathes anddefies me and thoroughly believes itself to be compounded of somethinggood; that is impressed with certain human fictions such as righteousnessand honesty, and that will live up to them in spite of all personaldiscomforts and menaces. What do you think of him, Hump? What do youthink of him?”

“I think that he is a better man than you are,” I answered, impelled,somehow, with a desire to draw upon myself a portion of the wrath I feltwas about to break upon his head. “His human fictions, as you choose tocall them, make for nobility and manhood. You have no fictions, nodreams, no ideals. You are a pauper.”

He nodded his head with a savage pleasantness. “Quite true, Hump, quitetrue. I have no fictions that make for nobility and manhood. A livingdog is better than a dead lion, say I with the Preacher. My onlydoctrine is the doctrine of expediency, and it makes for surviving. Thisbit of the ferment we call ‘Johnson,’ when he is no longer a bit of theferment, only dust and ashes, will have no more nobility than any dustand ashes, while I shall still be alive and roaring.”

“Do you know what I am going to do?” he questioned.

I shook my head.

“Well, I am going to exercise my prerogative of roaring and show you howfares nobility. Watch me.”

Three yards away from Johnson he was, and sitting down. Nine feet! Andyet he left the chair in full leap, without first gaining a standingposition. He left the chair, just as he sat in it, squarely, springingfrom the sitting posture like a wild animal, a tiger, and like a tigercovered the intervening space. It was an avalanche of fury that Johnsonstrove vainly to fend off. He threw one arm down to protect the stomach,the other arm up to protect the head; but Wolf Larsen’s fist drove midwaybetween, on the chest, with a crushing, resounding impact. Johnson’sbreath, suddenly expelled, shot from his mouth and as suddenly checked,with the forced, audible expiration of a man wielding an axe. He almostfell backward, and swayed from side to side in an effort to recover hisbalance.

I cannot give the further particulars of the horrible scene thatfollowed. It was too revolting. It turns me sick even now when I thinkof it. Johnson fought bravely enough, but he was no match for WolfLarsen, much less for Wolf Larsen and the mate. It was frightful. I hadnot imagined a human being could endure so much and still live andstruggle on. And struggle on Johnson did. Of course there was no hopefor him, not the slightest, and he knew it as well as I, but by themanhood that was in him he could not cease from fighting for thatmanhood.

It was too much for me to witness. I felt that I should lose my mind,and I ran up the companion stairs to open the doors and escape on deck.But Wolf Larsen, leaving his victim for the moment, and with one of histremendous springs, gained my side and flung me into the far corner ofthe cabin.

“The phenomena of life, Hump,” he girded at me. “Stay and watch it. Youmay gather data on the immortality of the soul. Besides, you know, wecan’t hurt Johnson’s soul. It’s only the fleeting form we may demolish.”

It seemed centuries—possibly it was no more than ten minutes that thebeating continued. Wolf Larsen and Johansen were all about the poorfellow. They struck him with their fists, kicked him with their heavyshoes, knocked him down, and dragged him to his feet to knock him downagain. His eyes were blinded so that he could not see, and the bloodrunning from ears and nose and mouth turned the cabin into a shambles.And when he could no longer rise they still continued to beat and kickhim where he lay.

“Easy, Johansen; easy as she goes,” Wolf Larsen finally said.

But the beast in the mate was up and rampant, and Wolf Larsen wascompelled to brush him away with a back-handed sweep of the arm, gentleenough, apparently, but which hurled Johansen back like a cork, drivinghis head against the wall with a crash. He fell to the floor, halfstunned for the moment, breathing heavily and blinking his eyes in astupid sort of way.

“Jerk open the doors,—Hump,” I was commanded.

I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a sack ofrubbish and hove him clear up the companion stairs, through the narrowdoorway, and out on deck. The blood from his nose gushed in a scarletstream over the feet of the helmsman, who was none other than Louis, hisboat-mate. But Louis took and gave a spoke and gazed imperturbably intothe binnacle.

Not so was the conduct of George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy. Foreand aft there was nothing that could have surprised us more than hisconsequent behaviour. He it was that came up on the poop without ordersand dragged Johnson forward, where he set about dressing his wounds aswell as he could and making him comfortable. Johnson, as Johnson, wasunrecognizable; and not only that, for his features, as human features atall, were unrecognizable, so discoloured and swollen had they become inthe few minutes which had elapsed between the beginning of the beatingand the dragging forward of the body.

But of Leach’s behaviour—By the time I had finished cleansing the cabinhe had taken care of Johnson. I had come up on deck for a breath offresh air and to try to get some repose for my overwrought nerves. WolfLarsen was smoking a cigar and examining the patent log which the _Ghost_usually towed astern, but which had been hauled in for some purpose.Suddenly Leach’s voice came to my ears. It was tense and hoarse with anovermastering rage. I turned and saw him standing just beneath the breakof the poop on the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed andwhite, his eyes were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead.

“May God damn your soul to hell, Wolf Larsen, only hell’s too good foryou, you coward, you murderer, you pig!” was his opening salutation.

I was thunderstruck. I looked for his instant annihilation. But it wasnot Wolf Larsen’s whim to annihilate him. He sauntered slowly forward tothe break of the poop, and, leaning his elbow on the corner of the cabin,gazed down thoughtfully and curiously at the excited boy.

And the boy indicted Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted before.The sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the forecastlescuttle and watched and listened. The hunters piled pell-mell out of thesteerage, but as Leach’s tirade continued I saw that there was no levityin their faces. Even they were frightened, not at the boy’s terriblewords, but at his terrible audacity. It did not seem possible that anyliving creature could thus beard Wolf Larsen in his teeth. I know formyself that I was shocked into admiration of the boy, and I saw in himthe splendid invincibleness of immortality rising above the flesh and thefears of the flesh, as in the prophets of old, to condemnunrighteousness.

And such condemnation! He haled forth Wolf Larsen’s soul naked to thescorn of men. He rained upon it curses from God and High Heaven, andwithered it with a heat of invective that savoured of a mediævalexcommunication of the Catholic Church. He ran the gamut ofdenunciation, rising to heights of wrath that were sublime and almostGodlike, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the vilest and mostindecent abuse.

His rage was a madness. His lips were flecked with a soapy froth, andsometimes he choked and gurgled and became inarticulate. And through itall, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing down, WolfLarsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild stirring of yeastylife, this terrific revolt and defiance of matter that moved, perplexedand interested him.

Each moment I looked, and everybody looked, for him to leap upon the boyand destroy him. But it was not his whim. His cigar went out, and hecontinued to gaze silently and curiously.

Leach had worked himself into an ecstasy of impotent rage.

“Pig! Pig! Pig!” he was reiterating at the top of his lungs. “Whydon’t you come down and kill me, you murderer? You can do it! I ain’tafraid! There’s no one to stop you! Damn sight better dead and outayour reach than alive and in your clutches! Come on, you coward! Killme! Kill me! Kill me!”

It was at this stage that Thomas Mugridge’s erratic soul brought him intothe scene. He had been listening at the galley door, but he now cameout, ostensibly to fling some scraps over the side, but obviously to seethe killing he was certain would take place. He smirked greasily up intothe face of Wolf Larsen, who seemed not to see him. But the Cockney wasunabashed, though mad, stark mad. He turned to Leach, saying:

“Such langwidge! Shockin’!”

Leach’s rage was no longer impotent. Here at last was something ready tohand. And for the first time since the stabbing the Cockney had appearedoutside the galley without his knife. The words had barely left hismouth when he was knocked down by Leach. Three times he struggled to hisfeet, striving to gain the galley, and each time was knocked down.

“Oh, Lord!” he cried. “’Elp! ’Elp! Tyke ’im aw’y, carn’t yer? Tyke’im aw’y!”

The hunters laughed from sheer relief. Tragedy had dwindled, the farcehad begun. The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning and shuffling,to watch the pummelling of the hated Cockney. And even I felt a greatjoy surge up within me. I confess that I delighted in this beating Leachwas giving to Thomas Mugridge, though it was as terrible, almost, as theone Mugridge had caused to be given to Johnson. But the expression ofWolf Larsen’s face never changed. He did not change his position either,but continued to gaze down with a great curiosity. For all his pragmaticcertitude, it seemed as if he watched the play and movement of life inthe hope of discovering something more about it, of discerning in itsmaddest writhings a something which had hitherto escaped him,—the key toits mystery, as it were, which would make all clear and plain.

But the beating! It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed in thecabin. The Cockney strove in vain to protect himself from the infuriatedboy. And in vain he strove to gain the shelter of the cabin. He rolledtoward it, grovelled toward it, fell toward it when he was knocked down.But blow followed blow with bewildering rapidity. He was knocked aboutlike a shuttlecock, until, finally, like Johnson, he was beaten andkicked as he lay helpless on the deck. And no one interfered. Leachcould have killed him, but, having evidently filled the measure of hisvengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering andwailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward.

But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day’sprogramme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other,and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by astampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column of thick,acrid smoke—the kind always made by black powder—was arising through theopen companion-way, and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen. The sound ofblows and scuffling came to our ears. Both men were wounded, and he wasthrashing them both for having disobeyed his orders and crippledthemselves in advance of the hunting season. In fact, they were badlywounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded to operate upon them ina rough surgical fashion and to dress their wounds. I served asassistant while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the bullets,and I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anæsthetics andwith no more to uphold them than a stiff tumbler of whisky.

Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle.It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale-bearing which had beenthe cause of Johnson’s beating, and from the noise we heard, and from thesight of the bruised men next day, it was patent that half the forecastlehad soundly drubbed the other half.

The second dog-watch and the day were wound up by a fight betweenJohansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer. It was caused byremarks of Latimer’s concerning the noises made by the mate in his sleep,and though Johansen was whipped, he kept the steerage awake for the restof the night while he blissfully slumbered and fought the fight over andover again.

As for myself, I was oppressed with nightmare. The day had been likesome horrible dream. Brutality had followed brutality, and flamingpassions and cold-blooded cruelty had driven men to seek one another’slives, and to strive to hurt, and maim, and destroy. My nerves wereshocked. My mind itself was shocked. All my days had been passed incomparative ignorance of the animality of man. In fact, I had known lifeonly in its intellectual phases. Brutality I had experienced, but it wasthe brutality of the intellect—the cutting sarcasm of Charley Furuseth,the cruel epigrams and occasional harsh witticisms of the fellows at theBibelot, and the nasty remarks of some of the professors during myundergraduate days.

That was all. But that men should wreak their anger on others by thebruising of the flesh and the letting of blood was something strangelyand fearfully new to me. Not for nothing had I been called “Sissy” VanWeyden, I thought, as I tossed restlessly on my bunk between onenightmare and another. And it seemed to me that my innocence of therealities of life had been complete indeed. I laughed bitterly tomyself, and seemed to find in Wolf Larsen’s forbidding philosophy a moreadequate explanation of life than I found in my own.

And I was frightened when I became conscious of the trend of my thought.The continual brutality around me was degenerative in its effect. It bidfair to destroy for me all that was best and brightest in life. Myreason dictated that the beating Thomas Mugridge had received was an illthing, and yet for the life of me I could not prevent my soul joying init. And even while I was oppressed by the enormity of my sin,—for sin itwas,—I chuckled with an insane delight. I was no longer Humphrey VanWeyden. I was Hump, cabin-boy on the schooner _Ghost_. Wolf Larsen wasmy captain, Thomas Mugridge and the rest were my companions, and I wasreceiving repeated impresses from the die which had stamped them all.