The next day, while the storm was blowing itself out, Wolf Larsen and Icrammed anatomy and surgery and set Mugridge’s ribs. Then, when thestorm broke, Wolf Larsen cruised back and forth over that portion of theocean where we had encountered it, and somewhat more to the westward,while the boats were being repaired and new sails made and bent. Sealingschooner after sealing schooner we sighted and boarded, most of whichwere in search of lost boats, and most of which were carrying boats andcrews they had picked up and which did not belong to them. For the thickof the fleet had been to the westward of us, and the boats, scattered farand wide, had headed in mad flight for the nearest refuge.

Two of our boats, with men all safe, we took off the _Cisco_, and, toWolf Larsen’s huge delight and my own grief, he culled Smoke, with Nilsonand Leach, from the _San Diego_. So that, at the end of five days, wefound ourselves short but four men—Henderson, Holyoak, Williams, andKelly,—and were once more hunting on the flanks of the herd.

As we followed it north we began to encounter the dreaded sea-fogs. Dayafter day the boats lowered and were swallowed up almost ere they touchedthe water, while we on board pumped the horn at regular intervals andevery fifteen minutes fired the bomb gun. Boats were continually beinglost and found, it being the custom for a boat to hunt, on lay, withwhatever schooner picked it up, until such time it was recovered by itsown schooner. But Wolf Larsen, as was to be expected, being a boatshort, took possession of the first stray one and compelled its men tohunt with the _Ghost_, not permitting them to return to their ownschooner when we sighted it. I remember how he forced the hunter and histwo men below, a riffle at their breasts, when their captain passed by atbiscuit-toss and hailed us for information.

Thomas Mugridge, so strangely and pertinaciously clinging to life, wassoon limping about again and performing his double duties of cook andcabin-boy. Johnson and Leach were bullied and beaten as much as ever,and they looked for their lives to end with the end of the huntingseason; while the rest of the crew lived the lives of dogs and wereworked like dogs by their pitiless master. As for Wolf Larsen andmyself, we got along fairly well; though I could not quite rid myself ofthe idea that right conduct, for me, lay in killing him. He fascinatedme immeasurably, and I feared him immeasurably. And yet, I could notimagine him lying prone in death. There was an endurance, as ofperpetual youth, about him, which rose up and forbade the picture. Icould see him only as living always, and dominating always, fighting anddestroying, himself surviving.

One diversion of his, when we were in the midst of the herd and the seawas too rough to lower the boats, was to lower with two boat-pullers anda steerer and go out himself. He was a good shot, too, and brought manya skin aboard under what the hunters termed impossible huntingconditions. It seemed the breath of his nostrils, this carrying his lifein his hands and struggling for it against tremendous odds.

I was learning more and more seamanship; and one clear day—a thing werarely encountered now—I had the satisfaction of running and handling the_Ghost_ and picking up the boats myself. Wolf Larsen had been smittenwith one of his headaches, and I stood at the wheel from morning untilevening, sailing across the ocean after the last lee boat, and heaving toand picking it and the other five up without command or suggestion fromhim.

Gales we encountered now and again, for it was a raw and stormy region,and, in the middle of June, a typhoon most memorable to me and mostimportant because of the changes wrought through it upon my future. Wemust have been caught nearly at the centre of this circular storm, andWolf Larsen ran out of it and to the southward, first under adouble-reefed jib, and finally under bare poles. Never had I imagined sogreat a sea. The seas previously encountered were as ripples comparedwith these, which ran a half-mile from crest to crest and which upreared,I am confident, above our masthead. So great was it that Wolf Larsenhimself did not dare heave to, though he was being driven far to thesouthward and out of the seal herd.

We must have been well in the path of the trans-Pacific steamships whenthe typhoon moderated, and here, to the surprise of the hunters, we foundourselves in the midst of seals—a second herd, or sort of rear-guard,they declared, and a most unusual thing. But it was “Boats over!” theboom-boom of guns, and the pitiful slaughter through the long day.

It was at this time that I was approached by Leach. I had just finishedtallying the skins of the last boat aboard, when he came to my side, inthe darkness, and said in a low tone:

“Can you tell me, Mr. Van Weyden, how far we are off the coast, and whatthe bearings of Yokohama are?”

My heart leaped with gladness, for I knew what he had in mind, and I gavehim the bearings—west-north-west, and five hundred miles away.

“Thank you, sir,” was all he said as he slipped back into the darkness.

Next morning No. 3 boat and Johnson and Leach were missing. Thewater-breakers and grub-boxes from all the other boats were likewisemissing, as were the beds and sea bags of the two men. Wolf Larsen wasfurious. He set sail and bore away into the west-north-west, two huntersconstantly at the mastheads and sweeping the sea with glasses, himselfpacing the deck like an angry lion. He knew too well my sympathy for therunaways to send me aloft as look-out.

The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle in ahaystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity. But he putthe _Ghost_ through her best paces so as to get between the deserters andthe land. This accomplished, he cruised back and forth across what heknew must be their course.

On the morning of the third day, shortly after eight bells, a cry thatthe boat was sighted came down from Smoke at the masthead. All handslined the rail. A snappy breeze was blowing from the west with thepromise of more wind behind it; and there, to leeward, in the troubledsilver of the rising sun, appeared and disappeared a black speck.

We squared away and ran for it. My heart was as lead. I felt myselfturning sick in anticipation; and as I looked at the gleam of triumph inWolf Larsen’s eyes, his form swam before me, and I felt almostirresistibly impelled to fling myself upon him. So unnerved was I by thethought of impending violence to Leach and Johnson that my reason musthave left me. I know that I slipped down into the steerage in a daze,and that I was just beginning the ascent to the deck, a loaded shot-gunin my hands, when I heard the startled cry:

“There’s five men in that boat!”

I supported myself in the companion-way, weak and trembling, while theobservation was being verified by the remarks of the rest of the men.Then my knees gave from under me and I sank down, myself again, butovercome by shock at knowledge of what I had so nearly done. Also, I wasvery thankful as I put the gun away and slipped back on deck.

No one had remarked my absence. The boat was near enough for us to makeout that it was larger than any sealing boat and built on differentlines. As we drew closer, the sail was taken in and the mast unstepped.Oars were shipped, and its occupants waited for us to heave to and takethem aboard.

Smoke, who had descended to the deck and was now standing by my side,began to chuckle in a significant way. I looked at him inquiringly.

“Talk of a mess!” he giggled.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded.

Again he chuckled. “Don’t you see there, in the stern-sheets, on thebottom? May I never shoot a seal again if that ain’t a woman!”

I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamations broke out on allsides. The boat contained four men, and its fifth occupant was certainlya woman. We were agog with excitement, all except Wolf Larsen, who wastoo evidently disappointed in that it was not his own boat with the twovictims of his malice.

We ran down the flying jib, hauled the jib-sheets to wind-ward and themain-sheet flat, and came up into the wind. The oars struck the water,and with a few strokes the boat was alongside. I now caught my firstfair glimpse of the woman. She was wrapped in a long ulster, for themorning was raw; and I could see nothing but her face and a mass of lightbrown hair escaping from under the seaman’s cap on her head. The eyeswere large and brown and lustrous, the mouth sweet and sensitive, and theface itself a delicate oval, though sun and exposure to briny wind hadburnt the face scarlet.

She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of ahungry out-reaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. But then, Ihad not seen a woman for a very long time. I know that I was lost in agreat wonder, almost a stupor,—this, then, was a woman?—so that I forgotmyself and my mate’s duties, and took no part in helping the new-comersaboard. For when one of the sailors lifted her into Wolf Larsen’sdownstretched arms, she looked up into our curious faces and smiledamusedly and sweetly, as only a woman can smile, and as I had seen no onesmile for so long that I had forgotten such smiles existed.

“Mr. Van Weyden!”

Wolf Larsen’s voice brought me sharply back to myself.

“Will you take the lady below and see to her comfort? Make up that spareport cabin. Put Cooky to work on it. And see what you can do for thatface. It’s burned badly.”

He turned brusquely away from us and began to question the new men. Theboat was cast adrift, though one of them called it a “bloody shame” withYokohama so near.

I found myself strangely afraid of this woman I was escorting aft. AlsoI was awkward. It seemed to me that I was realizing for the first timewhat a delicate, fragile creature a woman is; and as I caught her arm tohelp her down the companion stairs, I was startled by its smallness andsoftness. Indeed, she was a slender, delicate woman as women go, but tome she was so ethereally slender and delicate that I was quite preparedfor her arm to crumble in my grasp. All this, in frankness, to show myfirst impression, after long denial of women in general and of MaudBrewster in particular.

“No need to go to any great trouble for me,” she protested, when I hadseated her in Wolf Larsen’s arm-chair, which I had dragged hastily fromhis cabin. “The men were looking for land at any moment this morning,and the vessel should be in by night; don’t you think so?”

Her simple faith in the immediate future took me aback. How could Iexplain to her the situation, the strange man who stalked the sea likeDestiny, all that it had taken me months to learn? But I answeredhonestly:

“If it were any other captain except ours, I should say you would beashore in Yokohama to-morrow. But our captain is a strange man, and Ibeg of you to be prepared for anything—understand?—for anything.”

“I—I confess I hardly do understand,” she hesitated, a perturbed but notfrightened expression in her eyes. “Or is it a misconception of minethat shipwrecked people are always shown every consideration? This issuch a little thing, you know. We are so close to land.”

“Candidly, I do not know,” I strove to reassure her. “I wished merely toprepare you for the worst, if the worst is to come. This man, thiscaptain, is a brute, a demon, and one can never tell what will be hisnext fantastic act.”

I was growing excited, but she interrupted me with an “Oh, I see,” andher voice sounded weary. To think was patently an effort. She wasclearly on the verge of physical collapse.

She asked no further questions, and I vouchsafed no remark, devotingmyself to Wolf Larsen’s command, which was to make her comfortable. Ibustled about in quite housewifely fashion, procuring soothing lotionsfor her sunburn, raiding Wolf Larsen’s private stores for a bottle ofport I knew to be there, and directing Thomas Mugridge in the preparationof the spare state-room.

The wind was freshening rapidly, the _Ghost_ heeling over more and more,and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing through thewater at a lively clip. I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach andJohnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, “Boat ho!” came down the opencompanion-way. It was Smoke’s unmistakable voice, crying from themasthead. I shot a glance at the woman, but she was leaning back in thearm-chair, her eyes closed, unutterably tired. I doubted that she hadheard, and I resolved to prevent her seeing the brutality I knew wouldfollow the capture of the deserters. She was tired. Very good. Sheshould sleep.

There were swift commands on deck, a stamping of feet and a slapping ofreef-points as the _Ghost_ shot into the wind and about on the othertack. As she filled away and heeled, the arm-chair began to slide acrossthe cabin floor, and I sprang for it just in time to prevent the rescuedwoman from being spilled out.

Her eyes were too heavy to suggest more than a hint of the sleepysurprise that perplexed her as she looked up at me, and she halfstumbled, half tottered, as I led her to her cabin. Mugridge grinnedinsinuatingly in my face as I shoved him out and ordered him back to hisgalley work; and he won his revenge by spreading glowing reports amongthe hunters as to what an excellent “lydy’s-myde” I was proving myself tobe.

She leaned heavily against me, and I do believe that she had fallenasleep again between the arm-chair and the state-room. This I discoveredwhen she nearly fell into the bunk during a sudden lurch of the schooner.She aroused, smiled drowsily, and was off to sleep again; and asleep Ileft her, under a heavy pair of sailor’s blankets, her head resting on apillow I had appropriated from Wolf Larsen’s bunk.