Among the most vivid memories of my life are those of the events on the_Ghost_ which occurred during the forty hours succeeding the discovery ofmy love for Maud Brewster. I, who had lived my life in quiet places,only to enter at the age of thirty-five upon a course of the mostirrational adventure I could have imagined, never had more incident andexcitement crammed into any forty hours of my experience. Nor can Iquite close my ears to a small voice of pride which tells me I did not doso badly, all things considered.

To begin with, at the midday dinner, Wolf Larsen informed the huntersthat they were to eat thenceforth in the steerage. It was anunprecedented thing on sealing-schooners, where it is the custom for thehunters to rank, unofficially as officers. He gave no reason, but hismotive was obvious enough. Horner and Smoke had been displaying agallantry toward Maud Brewster, ludicrous in itself and inoffensive toher, but to him evidently distasteful.

The announcement was received with black silence, though the other fourhunters glanced significantly at the two who had been the cause of theirbanishment. Jock Horner, quiet as was his way, gave no sign; but theblood surged darkly across Smoke’s forehead, and he half opened his mouthto speak. Wolf Larsen was watching him, waiting for him, the steelyglitter in his eyes; but Smoke closed his mouth again without having saidanything.

“Anything to say?” the other demanded aggressively.

It was a challenge, but Smoke refused to accept it.

“About what?” he asked, so innocently that Wolf Larsen was disconcerted,while the others smiled.

“Oh, nothing,” Wolf Larsen said lamely. “I just thought you might wantto register a kick.”

“About what?” asked the imperturbable Smoke.

Smoke’s mates were now smiling broadly. His captain could have killedhim, and I doubt not that blood would have flowed had not Maud Brewsterbeen present. For that matter, it was her presence which enabled. Smoketo act as he did. He was too discreet and cautious a man to incur WolfLarsen’s anger at a time when that anger could be expressed in termsstronger than words. I was in fear that a struggle might take place, buta cry from the helmsman made it easy for the situation to save itself.

“Smoke ho!” the cry came down the open companion-way.

“How’s it bear?” Wolf Larsen called up.

“Dead astern, sir.”

“Maybe it’s a Russian,” suggested Latimer.

His words brought anxiety into the faces of the other hunters. A Russiancould mean but one thing—a cruiser. The hunters, never more than roughlyaware of the position of the ship, nevertheless knew that we were closeto the boundaries of the forbidden sea, while Wolf Larsen’s record as apoacher was notorious. All eyes centred upon him.

“We’re dead safe,” he assured them with a laugh. “No salt mines thistime, Smoke. But I’ll tell you what—I’ll lay odds of five to one it’sthe _Macedonia_.”

No one accepted his offer, and he went on: “In which event, I’ll lay tento one there’s trouble breezing up.”

“No, thank you,” Latimer spoke up. “I don’t object to losing my money,but I like to get a run for it anyway. There never was a time when therewasn’t trouble when you and that brother of yours got together, and I’lllay twenty to one on that.”

A general smile followed, in which Wolf Larsen joined, and the dinnerwent on smoothly, thanks to me, for he treated me abominably the rest ofthe meal, sneering at me and patronizing me till I was all a-tremble withsuppressed rage. Yet I knew I must control myself for Maud Brewster’ssake, and I received my reward when her eyes caught mine for a fleetingsecond, and they said, as distinctly as if she spoke, “Be brave, bebrave.”

We left the table to go on deck, for a steamer was a welcome break in themonotony of the sea on which we floated, while the conviction that it wasDeath Larsen and the _Macedonia_ added to the excitement. The stiffbreeze and heavy sea which had sprung up the previous afternoon had beenmoderating all morning, so that it was now possible to lower the boatsfor an afternoon’s hunt. The hunting promised to be profitable. We hadsailed since daylight across a sea barren of seals, and were now runninginto the herd.

The smoke was still miles astern, but overhauling us rapidly, when welowered our boats. They spread out and struck a northerly course acrossthe ocean. Now and again we saw a sail lower, heard the reports of theshot-guns, and saw the sail go up again. The seals were thick, the windwas dying away; everything favoured a big catch. As we ran off to getour leeward position of the last lee boat, we found the ocean fairlycarpeted with sleeping seals. They were all about us, thicker than I hadever seen them before, in twos and threes and bunches, stretched fulllength on the surface and sleeping for all the world like so many lazyyoung dogs.

Under the approaching smoke the hull and upper-works of a steamer weregrowing larger. It was the _Macedonia_. I read her name through theglasses as she passed by scarcely a mile to starboard. Wolf Larsenlooked savagely at the vessel, while Maud Brewster was curious.

“Where is the trouble you were so sure was breezing up, Captain Larsen?”she asked gaily.

He glanced at her, a moment’s amusement softening his features.

“What did you expect? That they’d come aboard and cut our throats?”

“Something like that,” she confessed. “You understand, seal-hunters areso new and strange to me that I am quite ready to expect anything.”

He nodded his head. “Quite right, quite right. Your error is that youfailed to expect the worst.”

“Why, what can be worse than cutting our throats?” she asked, with prettynaïve surprise.

“Cutting our purses,” he answered. “Man is so made these days that hiscapacity for living is determined by the money he possesses.”

“’Who steals my purse steals trash,’” she quoted.

“Who steals my purse steals my right to live,” was the reply, “old sawsto the contrary. For he steals my bread and meat and bed, and in sodoing imperils my life. There are not enough soup-kitchens andbread-lines to go around, you know, and when men have nothing in theirpurses they usually die, and die miserably—unless they are able to filltheir purses pretty speedily.”

“But I fail to see that this steamer has any designs on your purse.”

“Wait and you will see,” he answered grimly.

We did not have long to wait. Having passed several miles beyond ourline of boats, the _Macedonia_ proceeded to lower her own. We knew shecarried fourteen boats to our five (we were one short through thedesertion of Wainwright), and she began dropping them far to leeward ofour last boat, continued dropping them athwart our course, and finisheddropping them far to windward of our first weather boat. The hunting,for us, was spoiled. There were no seals behind us, and ahead of us theline of fourteen boats, like a huge broom, swept the herd before it.

Our boats hunted across the two or three miles of water between them andthe point where the _Macedonia’s_ had been dropped, and then headed forhome. The wind had fallen to a whisper, the ocean was growing calmer andcalmer, and this, coupled with the presence of the great herd, made aperfect hunting day—one of the two or three days to be encountered in thewhole of a lucky season. An angry lot of men, boat-pullers and steerersas well as hunters, swarmed over our side. Each man felt that he hadbeen robbed; and the boats were hoisted in amid curses, which, if curseshad power, would have settled Death Larsen for all eternity—“Dead anddamned for a dozen iv eternities,” commented Louis, his eyes twinkling upat me as he rested from hauling taut the lashings of his boat.

“Listen to them, and find if it is hard to discover the most vital thingin their souls,” said Wolf Larsen. “Faith? and love? and high ideals?The good? the beautiful? the true?”

“Their innate sense of right has been violated,” Maud Brewster said,joining the conversation.

She was standing a dozen feet away, one hand resting on the main-shroudsand her body swaying gently to the slight roll of the ship. She had notraised her voice, and yet I was struck by its clear and bell-like tone.Ah, it was sweet in my ears! I scarcely dared look at her just then, forthe fear of betraying myself. A boy’s cap was perched on her head, andher hair, light brown and arranged in a loose and fluffy order thatcaught the sun, seemed an aureole about the delicate oval of her face.She was positively bewitching, and, withal, sweetly spirituelle, if notsaintly. All my old-time marvel at life returned to me at sight of thissplendid incarnation of it, and Wolf Larsen’s cold explanation of lifeand its meaning was truly ridiculous and laughable.

“A sentimentalist,” he sneered, “like Mr. Van Weyden. Those men arecursing because their desires have been outraged. That is all. Whatdesires? The desires for the good grub and soft beds ashore which ahandsome pay-day brings them—the women and the drink, the gorging and thebeastliness which so truly expresses them, the best that is in them,their highest aspirations, their ideals, if you please. The exhibitionthey make of their feelings is not a touching sight, yet it shows howdeeply they have been touched, how deeply their purses have been touched,for to lay hands on their purses is to lay hands on their souls.”

“’You hardly behave as if your purse had been touched,” she said,smilingly.

“Then it so happens that I am behaving differently, for my purse and mysoul have both been touched. At the current price of skins in the Londonmarket, and based on a fair estimate of what the afternoon’s catch wouldhave been had not the _Macedonia_ hogged it, the _Ghost_ has lost aboutfifteen hundred dollars’ worth of skins.”

“You speak so calmly—” she began.

“But I do not feel calm; I could kill the man who robbed me,” heinterrupted. “Yes, yes, I know, and that man my brother—more sentiment!Bah!”

His face underwent a sudden change. His voice was less harsh and whollysincere as he said:

“You must be happy, you sentimentalists, really and truly happy atdreaming and finding things good, and, because you find some of themgood, feeling good yourself. Now, tell me, you two, do you find megood?”

“You are good to look upon—in a way,” I qualified.

“There are in you all powers for good,” was Maud Brewster’s answer.

“There you are!” he cried at her, half angrily. “Your words are empty tome. There is nothing clear and sharp and definite about the thought youhave expressed. You cannot pick it up in your two hands and look at it.In point of fact, it is not a thought. It is a feeling, a sentiment, asomething based upon illusion and not a product of the intellect at all.”

As he went on his voice again grew soft, and a confiding note came intoit. “Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, wereblind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions.They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to reason; but in theface of them my reason tells me, wrong and most wrong, that to dream andlive illusions gives greater delight. And after all, delight is the wagefor living. Without delight, living is a worthless act. To labour atliving and be unpaid is worse than to be dead. He who delights the mostlives the most, and your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing toyou and more gratifying than are my facts to me.”

He shook his head slowly, pondering.

“I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams mustbe more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more fillingand lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for yourmoments of intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional delightis followed by no more than jaded senses which speedily recuperate. Ienvy you, I envy you.”

He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strangequizzical smiles, as he added:

“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. Myreason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like asober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too,were drunk.”

“Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a fool,”I laughed.

“Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of fools. Youhave no facts in your pocketbook.”

“Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s contribution.

“More freely, because it costs you nothing.”

“And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted.

“Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. You spend what youhaven’t got, and in return you get greater value from spending what youhaven’t got than I get from spending what I have got, and what I havesweated to get.”

“Why don’t you change the basis of your coinage, then?” she queriedteasingly.

He looked at her quickly, half-hopefully, and then said, all regretfully:“Too late. I’d like to, perhaps, but I can’t. My pocketbook is stuffedwith the old coinage, and it’s a stubborn thing. I can never bringmyself to recognize anything else as valid.”

He ceased speaking, and his gaze wandered absently past her and becamelost in the placid sea. The old primal melancholy was strong upon him.He was quivering to it. He had reasoned himself into a spell of theblues, and within few hours one could look for the devil within him to beup and stirring. I remembered Charley Furuseth, and knew this man’ssadness as the penalty which the materialist ever pays for hismaterialism.