“You’ve been on deck, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen said, the followingmorning at the breakfast-table, “How do things look?”

“Clear enough,” I answered, glancing at the sunshine which streamed downthe open companion-way. “Fair westerly breeze, with a promise ofstiffening, if Louis predicts correctly.”

He nodded his head in a pleased way. “Any signs of fog?”

“Thick banks in the north and north-west.”

He nodded his head again, evincing even greater satisfaction than before.

“What of the _Macedonia_?”

“Not sighted,” I answered.

I could have sworn his face fell at the intelligence, but why he shouldbe disappointed I could not conceive.

I was soon to learn. “Smoke ho!” came the hail from on deck, and hisface brightened.

“Good!” he exclaimed, and left the table at once to go on deck and intothe steerage, where the hunters were taking the first breakfast of theirexile.

Maud Brewster and I scarcely touched the food before us, gazing, instead,in silent anxiety at each other, and listening to Wolf Larsen’s voice,which easily penetrated the cabin through the intervening bulkhead. Hespoke at length, and his conclusion was greeted with a wild roar ofcheers. The bulkhead was too thick for us to hear what he said; butwhatever it was it affected the hunters strongly, for the cheering wasfollowed by loud exclamations and shouts of joy.

From the sounds on deck I knew that the sailors had been routed out andwere preparing to lower the boats. Maud Brewster accompanied me on deck,but I left her at the break of the poop, where she might watch the sceneand not be in it. The sailors must have learned whatever project was onhand, and the vim and snap they put into their work attested theirenthusiasm. The hunters came trooping on deck with shot-guns andammunition-boxes, and, most unusual, their rifles. The latter wererarely taken in the boats, for a seal shot at long range with a rifleinvariably sank before a boat could reach it. But each hunter this dayhad his rifle and a large supply of cartridges. I noticed they grinnedwith satisfaction whenever they looked at the _Macedonia’s_ smoke, whichwas rising higher and higher as she approached from the west.

The five boats went over the side with a rush, spread out like the ribsof a fan, and set a northerly course, as on the preceding afternoon, forus to follow. I watched for some time, curiously, but there seemednothing extraordinary about their behaviour. They lowered sails, shotseals, and hoisted sails again, and continued on their way as I hadalways seen them do. The _Macedonia_ repeated her performance ofyesterday, “hogging” the sea by dropping her line of boats in advance ofours and across our course. Fourteen boats require a considerable spreadof ocean for comfortable hunting, and when she had completely lapped ourline she continued steaming into the north-east, dropping more boats asshe went.

“What’s up?” I asked Wolf Larsen, unable longer to keep my curiosity incheck.

“Never mind what’s up,” he answered gruffly. “You won’t be a thousandyears in finding out, and in the meantime just pray for plenty of wind.”

“Oh, well, I don’t mind telling you,” he said the next moment. “I’mgoing to give that brother of mine a taste of his own medicine. Inshort, I’m going to play the hog myself, and not for one day, but for therest of the season,—if we’re in luck.”

“And if we’re not?” I queried.

“Not to be considered,” he laughed. “We simply must be in luck, or it’sall up with us.”

He had the wheel at the time, and I went forward to my hospital in theforecastle, where lay the two crippled men, Nilson and Thomas Mugridge.Nilson was as cheerful as could be expected, for his broken leg wasknitting nicely; but the Cockney was desperately melancholy, and I wasaware of a great sympathy for the unfortunate creature. And the marvelof it was that still he lived and clung to life. The brutal years hadreduced his meagre body to splintered wreckage, and yet the spark of lifewithin burned brightly as ever.

“With an artificial foot—and they make excellent ones—you will bestumping ships’ galleys to the end of time,” I assured him jovially.

But his answer was serious, nay, solemn. “I don’t know about wot yous’y, Mr. Van W’yden, but I do know I’ll never rest ’appy till I see that’ell-’ound bloody well dead. ’E cawn’t live as long as me. ’E’s got noright to live, an’ as the Good Word puts it, ‘’E shall shorely die,’ an’I s’y, ‘Amen, an’ damn soon at that.’”

When I returned on deck I found Wolf Larsen steering mainly with onehand, while with the other hand he held the marine glasses and studiedthe situation of the boats, paying particular attention to the positionof the _Macedonia_. The only change noticeable in our boats was thatthey had hauled close on the wind and were heading several points west ofnorth. Still, I could not see the expediency of the manœuvre, for thefree sea was still intercepted by the _Macedonia’s_ five weather boats,which, in turn, had hauled close on the wind. Thus they slowly divergedtoward the west, drawing farther away from the remainder of the boats intheir line. Our boats were rowing as well as sailing. Even the hunterswere pulling, and with three pairs of oars in the water they rapidlyoverhauled what I may appropriately term the enemy.

The smoke of the _Macedonia_ had dwindled to a dim blot on thenorth-eastern horizon. Of the steamer herself nothing was to be seen.We had been loafing along, till now, our sails shaking half the time andspilling the wind; and twice, for short periods, we had been hove to.But there was no more loafing. Sheets were trimmed, and Wolf Larsenproceeded to put the _Ghost_ through her paces. We ran past our line ofboats and bore down upon the first weather boat of the other line.

“Down that flying jib, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen commanded. “Andstand by to back over the jibs.”

I ran forward and had the downhaul of the flying jib all in and fast aswe slipped by the boat a hundred feet to leeward. The three men in itgazed at us suspiciously. They had been hogging the sea, and they knewWolf Larsen, by reputation at any rate. I noted that the hunter, a hugeScandinavian sitting in the bow, held his rifle, ready to hand, acrosshis knees. It should have been in its proper place in the rack. Whenthey came opposite our stern, Wolf Larsen greeted them with a wave of thehand, and cried:

“Come on board and have a ’gam’!”

“To gam,” among the sealing-schooners, is a substitute for the verbs “tovisit,” “to gossip.” It expresses the garrulity of the sea, and is apleasant break in the monotony of the life.

The _Ghost_ swung around into the wind, and I finished my work forward intime to run aft and lend a hand with the mainsheet.

“You will please stay on deck, Miss Brewster,” Wolf Larsen said, as hestarted forward to meet his guest. “And you too, Mr. Van Weyden.”

The boat had lowered its sail and run alongside. The hunter, goldenbearded like a sea-king, came over the rail and dropped on deck. But hishugeness could not quite overcome his apprehensiveness. Doubt anddistrust showed strongly in his face. It was a transparent face, for allof its hairy shield, and advertised instant relief when he glanced fromWolf Larsen to me, noted that there was only the pair of us, and thenglanced over his own two men who had joined him. Surely he had littlereason to be afraid. He towered like a Goliath above Wolf Larsen. Hemust have measured six feet eight or nine inches in stature, and Isubsequently learned his weight—240 pounds. And there was no fat abouthim. It was all bone and muscle.

A return of apprehension was apparent when, at the top of thecompanion-way, Wolf Larsen invited him below. But he reassured himselfwith a glance down at his host—a big man himself but dwarfed by thepropinquity of the giant. So all hesitancy vanished, and the pairdescended into the cabin. In the meantime, his two men, as was the wontof visiting sailors, had gone forward into the forecastle to do somevisiting themselves.

Suddenly, from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by allthe sounds of a furious struggle. It was the leopard and the lion, andthe lion made all the noise. Wolf Larsen was the leopard.

“You see the sacredness of our hospitality,” I said bitterly to MaudBrewster.

She nodded her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the signs ofthe same sickness at sight or sound of violent struggle from which I hadsuffered so severely during my first weeks on the _Ghost_.

“Wouldn’t it be better if you went forward, say by the steeragecompanion-way, until it is over?” I suggested.

She shook her head and gazed at me pitifully. She was not frightened,but appalled, rather, at the human animality of it.

“You will understand,” I took advantage of the opportunity to say,“whatever part I take in what is going on and what is to come, that I amcompelled to take it—if you and I are ever to get out of this scrape withour lives.”

“It is not nice—for me,” I added.

“I understand,” she said, in a weak, far-away voice, and her eyes showedme that she did understand.

The sounds from below soon died away. Then Wolf Larsen came alone ondeck. There was a slight flush under his bronze, but otherwise he boreno signs of the battle.

“Send those two men aft, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said.

I obeyed, and a minute or two later they stood before him. “Hoist inyour boat,” he said to them. “Your hunter’s decided to stay aboardawhile and doesn’t want it pounding alongside.”

“Hoist in your boat, I said,” he repeated, this time in sharper tones asthey hesitated to do his bidding.

“Who knows? you may have to sail with me for a time,” he said, quitesoftly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, as they movedslowly to comply, “and we might as well start with a friendlyunderstanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes you jump better thanthat, and you know it!”

Their movements perceptibly quickened under his coaching, and as the boatswung inboard I was sent forward to let go the jibs. Wolf Larsen, at thewheel, directed the _Ghost_ after the _Macedonia’s_ second weather boat.

Under way, and with nothing for the time being to do, I turned myattention to the situation of the boats. The _Macedonia’s_ third weatherboat was being attacked by two of ours, the fourth by our remainingthree; and the fifth, turn about, was taking a hand in the defence of itsnearest mate. The fight had opened at long distance, and the rifles werecracking steadily. A quick, snappy sea was being kicked up by the wind,a condition which prevented fine shooting; and now and again, as we drewcloser, we could see the bullets zip-zipping from wave to wave.

The boat we were pursuing had squared away and was running before thewind to escape us, and, in the course of its flight, to take part inrepulsing our general boat attack.

Attending to sheets and tacks now left me little time to see what wastaking place, but I happened to be on the poop when Wolf Larsen orderedthe two strange sailors forward and into the forecastle. They wentsullenly, but they went. He next ordered Miss Brewster below, and smiledat the instant horror that leapt into her eyes.

“You’ll find nothing gruesome down there,” he said, “only an unhurt mansecurely made fast to the ring-bolts. Bullets are liable to come aboard,and I don’t want you killed, you know.”

Even as he spoke, a bullet was deflected by a brass-capped spoke of thewheel between his hands and screeched off through the air to windward.

“You see,” he said to her; and then to me, “Mr. Van Weyden, will you takethe wheel?”

Maud Brewster had stepped inside the companion-way so that only her headwas exposed. Wolf Larsen had procured a rifle and was throwing acartridge into the barrel. I begged her with my eyes to go below, butshe smiled and said:

“We may be feeble land-creatures without legs, but we can show CaptainLarsen that we are at least as brave as he.”

He gave her a quick look of admiration.

“I like you a hundred per cent. better for that,” he said. “Books, andbrains, and bravery. You are well-rounded, a blue-stocking fit to be thewife of a pirate chief. Ahem, we’ll discuss that later,” he smiled, as abullet struck solidly into the cabin wall.

I saw his eyes flash golden as he spoke, and I saw the terror mount inher own.

“We are braver,” I hastened to say. “At least, speaking for myself, Iknow I am braver than Captain Larsen.”

It was I who was now favoured by a quick look. He was wondering if Iwere making fun of him. I put three or four spokes over to counteract asheer toward the wind on the part of the _Ghost_, and then steadied her.Wolf Larsen was still waiting an explanation, and I pointed down to myknees.

“You will observe there,” I said, “a slight trembling. It is because Iam afraid, the flesh is afraid; and I am afraid in my mind because I donot wish to die. But my spirit masters the trembling flesh and thequalms of the mind. I am more than brave. I am courageous. Your fleshis not afraid. You are not afraid. On the one hand, it costs younothing to encounter danger; on the other hand, it even gives youdelight. You enjoy it. You may be unafraid, Mr. Larsen, but you mustgrant that the bravery is mine.”

“You’re right,” he acknowledged at once. “I never thought of it in thatway before. But is the opposite true? If you are braver than I, am Imore cowardly than you?”

We both laughed at the absurdity, and he dropped down to the deck andrested his rifle across the rail. The bullets we had received hadtravelled nearly a mile, but by now we had cut that distance in half. Hefired three careful shots. The first struck fifty feet to windward ofthe boat, the second alongside; and at the third the boat-steerer letloose his steering-oar and crumpled up in the bottom of the boat.

“I guess that’ll fix them,” Wolf Larsen said, rising to his feet. “Icouldn’t afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a chance theboat-puller doesn’t know how to steer. In which case, the hunter cannotsteer and shoot at the same time.”

His reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the windand the hunter sprang aft to take the boat-steerer’s place. There was nomore shooting, though the rifles were still cracking merrily from theother boats.

The hunter had managed to get the boat before the wind again, but we randown upon it, going at least two feet to its one. A hundred yards away,I saw the boat-puller pass a rifle to the hunter. Wolf Larsen wentamidships and took the coil of the throat-halyards from its pin. Then hepeered over the rail with levelled rifle. Twice I saw the hunter let gothe steering-oar with one hand, reach for his rifle, and hesitate. Wewere now alongside and foaming past.

“Here, you!” Wolf Larsen cried suddenly to the boat-puller. “Take aturn!”

At the same time he flung the coil of rope. It struck fairly, nearlyknocking the man over, but he did not obey. Instead, he looked to hishunter for orders. The hunter, in turn, was in a quandary. His riflewas between his knees, but if he let go the steering-oar in order toshoot, the boat would sweep around and collide with the schooner. Alsohe saw Wolf Larsen’s rifle bearing upon him and knew he would be shot erehe could get his rifle into play.

“Take a turn,” he said quietly to the man.

The boat-puller obeyed, taking a turn around the little forward thwartand paying the line as it jerked taut. The boat sheered out with a rush,and the hunter steadied it to a parallel course some twenty feet from theside of the _Ghost_.

“Now, get that sail down and come alongside!” Wolf Larsen ordered.

He never let go his rifle, even passing down the tackles with one hand.When they were fast, bow and stern, and the two uninjured men prepared tocome aboard, the hunter picked up his rifle as if to place it in a secureposition.

“Drop it!” Wolf Larsen cried, and the hunter dropped it as though it werehot and had burned him.

Once aboard, the two prisoners hoisted in the boat and under WolfLarsen’s direction carried the wounded boat-steerer down into theforecastle.

“If our five boats do as well as you and I have done, we’ll have a prettyfull crew,” Wolf Larsen said to me.

“The man you shot—he is—I hope?” Maud Brewster quavered.

“In the shoulder,” he answered. “Nothing serious, Mr. Van Weyden willpull him around as good as ever in three or four weeks.”

“But he won’t pull those chaps around, from the look of it,” he added,pointing at the _Macedonia’s_ third boat, for which I had been steeringand which was now nearly abreast of us. “That’s Horner’s and Smoke’swork. I told them we wanted live men, not carcasses. But the joy ofshooting to hit is a most compelling thing, when once you’ve learned howto shoot. Ever experienced it, Mr. Van Weyden?”

I shook my head and regarded their work. It had indeed been bloody, forthey had drawn off and joined our other three boats in the attack on theremaining two of the enemy. The deserted boat was in the trough of thesea, rolling drunkenly across each comber, its loose spritsail out atright angles to it and fluttering and flapping in the wind. The hunterand boat-puller were both lying awkwardly in the bottom, but theboat-steerer lay across the gunwale, half in and half out, his armstrailing in the water and his head rolling from side to side.

“Don’t look, Miss Brewster, please don’t look,” I had begged of her, andI was glad that she had minded me and been spared the sight.

“Head right into the bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was Wolf Larsen’s command.

As we drew nearer, the firing ceased, and we saw that the fight was over.The remaining two boats had been captured by our five, and the seven weregrouped together, waiting to be picked up.

“Look at that!” I cried involuntarily, pointing to the north-east.

The blot of smoke which indicated the _Macedonia’s_ position hadreappeared.

“Yes, I’ve been watching it,” was Wolf Larsen’s calm reply. He measuredthe distance away to the fog-bank, and for an instant paused to feel theweight of the wind on his cheek. “We’ll make it, I think; but you candepend upon it that blessed brother of mine has twigged our little gameand is just a-humping for us. Ah, look at that!”

The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black.

“I’ll beat you out, though, brother mine,” he chuckled. “I’ll beat youout, and I hope you no worse than that you rack your old engines intoscrap.”

When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The boatscame aboard from every side at once. As fast as the prisoners came overthe rail they were marshalled forward to the forecastle by our hunters,while our sailors hoisted in the boats, pell-mell, dropping them anywhereupon the deck and not stopping to lash them. We were already under way,all sails set and drawing, and the sheets being slacked off for a windabeam, as the last boat lifted clear of the water and swung in thetackles.

There was need for haste. The _Macedonia_, belching the blackest ofsmoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of thenorth-east. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had alteredher course so as to anticipate ours. She was not running straight forus, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging like the sides of anangle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the fog-bank. It wasthere, or not at all, that the _Macedonia_ could hope to catch us. Thehope for the _Ghost_ lay in that she should pass that point before the_Macedonia_ arrived at it.

Wolf Larsen was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they dweltupon and leaped from detail to detail of the chase. Now he studied thesea to windward for signs of the wind slackening or freshening, now the_Macedonia_; and again, his eyes roved over every sail, and he gavecommands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come in on one there atrifle, till he was drawing out of the _Ghost_ the last bit of speed shepossessed. All feuds and grudges were forgotten, and I was surprised atthe alacrity with which the men who had so long endured his brutalitysprang to execute his orders. Strange to say, the unfortunate Johnsoncame into my mind as we lifted and surged and heeled along, and I wasaware of a regret that he was not alive and present; he had so loved the_Ghost_ and delighted in her sailing powers.

“Better get your rifles, you fellows,” Wolf Larsen called to our hunters;and the five men lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and waited.

The _Macedonia_ was now but a mile away, the black smoke pouring from herfunnel at a right angle, so madly she raced, pounding through the sea ata seventeen-knot gait—“’Sky-hooting through the brine,” as Wolf Larsenquoted while gazing at her. We were not making more than nine knots, butthe fog-bank was very near.

A puff of smoke broke from the _Macedonia’s_ deck, we heard a heavyreport, and a round hole took form in the stretched canvas of ourmainsail. They were shooting at us with one of the small cannon whichrumour had said they carried on board. Our men, clustering amidships,waved their hats and raised a derisive cheer. Again there was a puff ofsmoke and a loud report, this time the cannon-ball striking not more thantwenty feet astern and glancing twice from sea to sea to windward ere itsank.

But there was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters wereout in the boats or our prisoners. When the two vessels were half-a-mileapart, a third shot made another hole in our mainsail. Then we enteredthe fog. It was about us, veiling and hiding us in its dense wet gauze.

The sudden transition was startling. The moment before we had beenleaping through the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea breakingand rolling wide to the horizon, and a ship, vomiting smoke and fire andiron missiles, rushing madly upon us. And at once, as in an instant’sleap, the sun was blotted out, there was no sky, even our mastheads werelost to view, and our horizon was such as tear-blinded eyes may see. Thegrey mist drove by us like a rain. Every woollen filament of ourgarments, every hair of our heads and faces, was jewelled with a crystalglobule. The shrouds were wet with moisture; it dripped from our riggingoverhead; and on the underside of our booms drops of water took shape inlong swaying lines, which were detached and flung to the deck in mimicshowers at each surge of the schooner. I was aware of a pent, stifledfeeling. As the sounds of the ship thrusting herself through the waveswere hurled back upon us by the fog, so were one’s thoughts. The mindrecoiled from contemplation of a world beyond this wet veil which wrappedus around. This was the world, the universe itself, its bounds so nearone felt impelled to reach out both arms and push them back. It wasimpossible, that the rest could be beyond these walls of grey. The restwas a dream, no more than the memory of a dream.

It was weird, strangely weird. I looked at Maud Brewster and knew thatshe was similarly affected. Then I looked at Wolf Larsen, but there wasnothing subjective about his state of consciousness. His whole concernwas with the immediate, objective present. He still held the wheel, andI felt that he was timing Time, reckoning the passage of the minutes witheach forward lunge and leeward roll of the _Ghost_.

“Go for’ard and hard alee without any noise,” he said to me in a lowvoice. “Clew up the topsails first. Set men at all the sheets. Letthere be no rattling of blocks, no sound of voices. No noise,understand, no noise.”

When all was ready, the word “hard-a-lee” was passed forward to me fromman to man; and the _Ghost_ heeled about on the port tack withpractically no noise at all. And what little there was,—the slapping ofa few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a block or two,—wasghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed.

We had scarcely filled away, it seemed, when the fog thinned abruptly andwe were again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea breaking before usto the sky-line. But the ocean was bare. No wrathful _Macedonia_ brokeits surface nor blackened the sky with her smoke.

Wolf Larsen at once squared away and ran down along the rim of thefog-bank. His trick was obvious. He had entered the fog to windward ofthe steamer, and while the steamer had blindly driven on into the fog inthe chance of catching him, he had come about and out of his shelter andwas now running down to re-enter to leeward. Successful in this, the oldsimile of the needle in the haystack would be mild indeed compared withhis brother’s chance of finding him. He did not run long. Jibing thefore- and main-sails and setting the topsails again, we headed back intothe bank. As we entered I could have sworn I saw a vague bulk emergingto windward. I looked quickly at Wolf Larsen. Already we were ourselvesburied in the fog, but he nodded his head. He, too, had seen it—the_Macedonia_, guessing his manœuvre and failing by a moment inanticipating it. There was no doubt that we had escaped unseen.

“He can’t keep this up,” Wolf Larsen said. “He’ll have to go back forthe rest of his boats. Send a man to the wheel, Mr. Van Weyden, keepthis course for the present, and you might as well set the watches, forwe won’t do any lingering to-night.”

“I’d give five hundred dollars, though,” he added, “just to be aboard the_Macedonia_ for five minutes, listening to my brother curse.”

“And now, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said to me when he had been relieved fromthe wheel, “we must make these new-comers welcome. Serve out plenty ofwhisky to the hunters and see that a few bottles slip for’ard. I’llwager every man Jack of them is over the side to-morrow, hunting for WolfLarsen as contentedly as ever they hunted for Death Larsen.”

“But won’t they escape as Wainwright did?” I asked.

He laughed shrewdly. “Not as long as our old hunters have anything tosay about it. I’m dividing amongst them a dollar a skin for all theskins shot by our new hunters. At least half of their enthusiasm to-daywas due to that. Oh, no, there won’t be any escaping if they haveanything to say about it. And now you’d better get for’ard to yourhospital duties. There must be a full ward waiting for you.”