Wolf Larsen took the distribution of the whisky off my hands, and thebottles began to make their appearance while I worked over the freshbatch of wounded men in the forecastle. I had seen whisky drunk, such aswhisky-and-soda by the men of the clubs, but never as these men drank it,from pannikins and mugs, and from the bottles—great brimming drinks, eachone of which was in itself a debauch. But they did not stop at one ortwo. They drank and drank, and ever the bottles slipped forward and theydrank more.

Everybody drank; the wounded drank; Oofty-Oofty, who helped me, drank.Only Louis refrained, no more than cautiously wetting his lips with theliquor, though he joined in the revels with an abandon equal to that ofmost of them. It was a saturnalia. In loud voices they shouted over theday’s fighting, wrangled about details, or waxed affectionate and madefriends with the men whom they had fought. Prisoners and captorshiccoughed on one another’s shoulders, and swore mighty oaths of respectand esteem. They wept over the miseries of the past and over themiseries yet to come under the iron rule of Wolf Larsen. And all cursedhim and told terrible tales of his brutality.

It was a strange and frightful spectacle—the small, bunk-lined space, thefloor and walls leaping and lurching, the dim light, the swaying shadowslengthening and fore-shortening monstrously, the thick air heavy withsmoke and the smell of bodies and iodoform, and the inflamed faces of themen—half-men, I should call them. I noted Oofty-Oofty, holding the endof a bandage and looking upon the scene, his velvety and luminous eyesglistening in the light like a deer’s eyes, and yet I knew the barbaricdevil that lurked in his breast and belied all the softness andtenderness, almost womanly, of his face and form. And I noticed theboyish face of Harrison,—a good face once, but now a demon’s,—convulsedwith passion as he told the new-comers of the hell-ship they were in andshrieked curses upon the head of Wolf Larsen.

Wolf Larsen it was, always Wolf Larsen, enslaver and tormentor of men, amale Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that grovelled beforehim and revolted only in drunkenness and in secrecy. And was I, too, oneof his swine? I thought. And Maud Brewster? No! I ground my teeth inmy anger and determination till the man I was attending winced under myhand and Oofty-Oofty looked at me with curiosity. I felt endowed with asudden strength. What of my new-found love, I was a giant. I fearednothing. I would work my will through it all, in spite of Wolf Larsenand of my own thirty-five bookish years. All would be well. I wouldmake it well. And so, exalted, upborne by a sense of power, I turned myback on the howling inferno and climbed to the deck, where the fogdrifted ghostly through the night and the air was sweet and pure andquiet.

The steerage, where were two wounded hunters, was a repetition of theforecastle, except that Wolf Larsen was not being cursed; and it was witha great relief that I again emerged on deck and went aft to the cabin.Supper was ready, and Wolf Larsen and Maud were waiting for me.

While all his ship was getting drunk as fast as it could, he remainedsober. Not a drop of liquor passed his lips. He did not dare it underthe circumstances, for he had only Louis and me to depend upon, and Louiswas even now at the wheel. We were sailing on through the fog without alook-out and without lights. That Wolf Larsen had turned the liquorloose among his men surprised me, but he evidently knew their psychologyand the best method of cementing in cordiality, what had begun inbloodshed.

His victory over Death Larsen seemed to have had a remarkable effect uponhim. The previous evening he had reasoned himself into the blues, and Ihad been waiting momentarily for one of his characteristic outbursts.Yet nothing had occurred, and he was now in splendid trim. Possibly hissuccess in capturing so many hunters and boats had counteracted thecustomary reaction. At any rate, the blues were gone, and the bluedevils had not put in an appearance. So I thought at the time; but, ahme, little I knew him or knew that even then, perhaps, he was meditatingan outbreak more terrible than any I had seen.

As I say, he discovered himself in splendid trim when I entered thecabin. He had had no headaches for weeks, his eyes were clear blue asthe sky, his bronze was beautiful with perfect health; life swelledthrough his veins in full and magnificent flood. While waiting for me hehad engaged Maud in animated discussion. Temptation was the topic theyhad hit upon, and from the few words I heard I made out that he wascontending that temptation was temptation only when a man was seduced byit and fell.

“For look you,” he was saying, “as I see it, a man does things because ofdesire. He has many desires. He may desire to escape pain, or to enjoypleasure. But whatever he does, he does because he desires to do it.”

“But suppose he desires to do two opposite things, neither of which willpermit him to do the other?” Maud interrupted.

“The very thing I was coming to,” he said.

“And between these two desires is just where the soul of the man ismanifest,” she went on. “If it is a good soul, it will desire and do thegood action, and the contrary if it is a bad soul. It is the soul thatdecides.”

“Bosh and nonsense!” he exclaimed impatiently. “It is the desire thatdecides. Here is a man who wants to, say, get drunk. Also, he doesn’twant to get drunk. What does he do? How does he do it? He is a puppet.He is the creature of his desires, and of the two desires he obeys thestrongest one, that is all. His soul hasn’t anything to do with it. Howcan he be tempted to get drunk and refuse to get drunk? If the desire toremain sober prevails, it is because it is the strongest desire.Temptation plays no part, unless—” he paused while grasping the newthought which had come into his mind—“unless he is tempted to remainsober.

“Ha! ha!” he laughed. “What do you think of that, Mr. Van Weyden?”

“That both of you are hair-splitting,” I said. “The man’s soul is hisdesires. Or, if you will, the sum of his desires is his soul. Thereinyou are both wrong. You lay the stress upon the desire apart from thesoul, Miss Brewster lays the stress on the soul apart from the desire,and in point of fact soul and desire are the same thing.

“However,” I continued, “Miss Brewster is right in contending thattemptation is temptation whether the man yield or overcome. Fire isfanned by the wind until it leaps up fiercely. So is desire like fire.It is fanned, as by a wind, by sight of the thing desired, or by a newand luring description or comprehension of the thing desired. There liesthe temptation. It is the wind that fans the desire until it leaps up tomastery. That’s temptation. It may not fan sufficiently to make thedesire overmastering, but in so far as it fans at all, that far is ittemptation. And, as you say, it may tempt for good as well as for evil.”

I felt proud of myself as we sat down to the table. My words had beendecisive. At least they had put an end to the discussion.

But Wolf Larsen seemed voluble, prone to speech as I had never seen himbefore. It was as though he were bursting with pent energy which mustfind an outlet somehow. Almost immediately he launched into a discussionon love. As usual, his was the sheer materialistic side, and Maud’s wasthe idealistic. For myself, beyond a word or so of suggestion orcorrection now and again, I took no part.

He was brilliant, but so was Maud, and for some time I lost the thread ofthe conversation through studying her face as she talked. It was a facethat rarely displayed colour, but to-night it was flushed and vivacious.Her wit was playing keenly, and she was enjoying the tilt as much as WolfLarsen, and he was enjoying it hugely. For some reason, though I knownot why in the argument, so utterly had I lost it in the contemplation ofone stray brown lock of Maud’s hair, he quoted from Iseult at Tintagel,where she says:

“Blessed am I beyond women even herein, That beyond all born women is my sin, And perfect my transgression.”

As he had read pessimism into Omar, so now he read triumph, stingingtriumph and exultation, into Swinburne’s lines. And he read rightly, andhe read well. He had hardly ceased reading when Louis put his head intothe companion-way and whispered down:

“Be easy, will ye? The fog’s lifted, an’ ’tis the port light iv asteamer that’s crossin’ our bow this blessed minute.”

Wolf Larsen sprang on deck, and so swiftly that by the time we followedhim he had pulled the steerage-slide over the drunken clamour and was onhis way forward to close the forecastle-scuttle. The fog, though itremained, had lifted high, where it obscured the stars and made the nightquite black. Directly ahead of us I could see a bright red light and awhite light, and I could hear the pulsing of a steamer’s engines. Beyonda doubt it was the _Macedonia_.

Wolf Larsen had returned to the poop, and we stood in a silent group,watching the lights rapidly cross our bow.

“Lucky for me he doesn’t carry a searchlight,” Wolf Larsen said.

“What if I should cry out loudly?” I queried in a whisper.

“It would be all up,” he answered. “But have you thought upon what wouldimmediately happen?”

Before I had time to express any desire to know, he had me by the throatwith his gorilla grip, and by a faint quiver of the muscles—a hint, as itwere—he suggested to me the twist that would surely have broken my neck.The next moment he had released me and we were gazing at the_Macedonia’s_ lights.

“What if I should cry out?” Maud asked.

“I like you too well to hurt you,” he said softly—nay, there was atenderness and a caress in his voice that made me wince.

“But don’t do it, just the same, for I’d promptly break Mr. Van Weyden’sneck.”

“Then she has my permission to cry out,” I said defiantly.

“I hardly think you’ll care to sacrifice the Dean of American Letters theSecond,” he sneered.

We spoke no more, though we had become too used to one another for thesilence to be awkward; and when the red light and the white haddisappeared we returned to the cabin to finish the interrupted supper.

Again they fell to quoting, and Maud gave Dowson’s “Impenitentia Ultima.”She rendered it beautifully, but I watched not her, but Wolf Larsen. Iwas fascinated by the fascinated look he bent upon Maud. He was quiteout of himself, and I noticed the unconscious movement of his lips as heshaped word for word as fast as she uttered them. He interrupted herwhen she gave the lines:

“And her eyes should be my light while the sun went out behind me, And the viols in her voice be the last sound in my ear.”

“There are viols in your voice,” he said bluntly, and his eyes flashedtheir golden light.

I could have shouted with joy at her control. She finished theconcluding stanza without faltering and then slowly guided theconversation into less perilous channels. And all the while I sat in ahalf-daze, the drunken riot of the steerage breaking through thebulkhead, the man I feared and the woman I loved talking on and on. Thetable was not cleared. The man who had taken Mugridge’s place hadevidently joined his comrades in the forecastle.

If ever Wolf Larsen attained the summit of living, he attained it then.From time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him, and I followedin amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, under thespell of his passion, for he was preaching the passion of revolt. It wasinevitable that Milton’s Lucifer should be instanced, and the keennesswith which Wolf Larsen analysed and depicted the character was arevelation of his stifled genius. It reminded me of Taine, yet I knewthe man had never heard of that brilliant though dangerous thinker.

“He led a lost cause, and he was not afraid of God’s thunderbolts,” WolfLarsen was saying. “Hurled into hell, he was unbeaten. A third of God’sangels he had led with him, and straightway he incited man to rebelagainst God, and gained for himself and hell the major portion of all thegenerations of man. Why was he beaten out of heaven? Because he wasless brave than God? less proud? less aspiring? No! A thousand timesno! God was more powerful, as he said, Whom thunder hath made greater.But Lucifer was a free spirit. To serve was to suffocate. He preferredsuffering in freedom to all the happiness of a comfortable servility. Hedid not care to serve God. He cared to serve nothing. He was nofigure-head. He stood on his own legs. He was an individual.”

“The first Anarchist,” Maud laughed, rising and preparing to withdraw toher state-room.

“Then it is good to be an anarchist!” he cried. He, too, had risen, andhe stood facing her, where she had paused at the door of her room, as hewent on:

“‘Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy; will not drive us hence; Here we may reign secure; and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”

It was the defiant cry of a mighty spirit. The cabin still rang with hisvoice, as he stood there, swaying, his bronzed face shining, his head upand dominant, and his eyes, golden and masculine, intensely masculine andinsistently soft, flashing upon Maud at the door.

Again that unnamable and unmistakable terror was in her eyes, and shesaid, almost in a whisper, “You are Lucifer.”

The door closed and she was gone. He stood staring after her for aminute, then returned to himself and to me.

“I’ll relieve Louis at the wheel,” he said shortly, “and call upon you torelieve at midnight. Better turn in now and get some sleep.”

He pulled on a pair of mittens, put on his cap, and ascended thecompanion-stairs, while I followed his suggestion by going to bed. Forsome unknown reason, prompted mysteriously, I did not undress, but laydown fully clothed. For a time I listened to the clamour in the steerageand marvelled upon the love which had come to me; but my sleep on the_Ghost_ had become most healthful and natural, and soon the songs andcries died away, my eyes closed, and my consciousness sank down into thehalf-death of slumber.

* * * * *

I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, on myfeet, wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger as it mighthave thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the door. The cabin lightwas burning low. I saw Maud, my Maud, straining and struggling andcrushed in the embrace of Wolf Larsen’s arms. I could see the vain beatand flutter of her as she strove, pressing her face against his breast,to escape from him. All this I saw on the very instant of seeing and asI sprang forward.

I struck him with my fist, on the face, as he raised his head, but it wasa puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and gave me ashove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the wrist, yet sotremendous was his strength that I was hurled backward as from acatapult. I struck the door of the state-room which had formerly beenMugridge’s, splintering and smashing the panels with the impact of mybody. I struggled to my feet, with difficulty dragging myself clear ofthe wrecked door, unaware of any hurt whatever. I was conscious only ofan overmastering rage. I think I, too, cried aloud, as I drew the knifeat my hip and sprang forward a second time.

But something had happened. They were reeling apart. I was close uponhim, my knife uplifted, but I withheld the blow. I was puzzled by thestrangeness of it. Maud was leaning against the wall, one hand out forsupport; but he was staggering, his left hand pressed against hisforehead and covering his eyes, and with the right he was groping abouthim in a dazed sort of way. It struck against the wall, and his bodyseemed to express a muscular and physical relief at the contact, asthough he had found his bearings, his location in space as well assomething against which to lean.

Then I saw red again. All my wrongs and humiliations flashed upon mewith a dazzling brightness, all that I had suffered and others hadsuffered at his hands, all the enormity of the man’s very existence. Isprang upon him, blindly, insanely, and drove the knife into hisshoulder. I knew, then, that it was no more than a flesh wound,—I hadfelt the steel grate on his shoulder-blade,—and I raised the knife tostrike at a more vital part.

But Maud had seen my first blow, and she cried, “Don’t! Please don’t!”

I dropped my arm for a moment, and a moment only. Again the knife wasraised, and Wolf Larsen would have surely died had she not steppedbetween. Her arms were around me, her hair was brushing my face. Mypulse rushed up in an unwonted manner, yet my rage mounted with it. Shelooked me bravely in the eyes.

“For my sake,” she begged.

“I would kill him for your sake!” I cried, trying to free my arm withouthurting her.

“Hush!” she said, and laid her fingers lightly on my lips. I could havekissed them, had I dared, even then, in my rage, the touch of them was sosweet, so very sweet. “Please, please,” she pleaded, and she disarmed meby the words, as I was to discover they would ever disarm me.

I stepped back, separating from her, and replaced the knife in itssheath. I looked at Wolf Larsen. He still pressed his left hand againsthis forehead. It covered his eyes. His head was bowed. He seemed tohave grown limp. His body was sagging at the hips, his great shoulderswere drooping and shrinking forward.

“Van, Weyden!” he called hoarsely, and with a note of fright in hisvoice. “Oh, Van Weyden! where are you?”

I looked at Maud. She did not speak, but nodded her head.

“Here I am,” I answered, stepping to his side. “What is the matter?”

“Help me to a seat,” he said, in the same hoarse, frightened voice.

“I am a sick man; a very sick man, Hump,” he said, as he left mysustaining grip and sank into a chair.

His head dropped forward on the table and was buried in his hands. Fromtime to time it rocked back and forward as with pain. Once, when he halfraised it, I saw the sweat standing in heavy drops on his forehead aboutthe roots of his hair.

“I am a sick man, a very sick man,” he repeated again, and yet onceagain.

“What is the matter?” I asked, resting my hand on his shoulder. “Whatcan I do for you?”

But he shook my hand off with an irritated movement, and for a long timeI stood by his side in silence. Maud was looking on, her face awed andfrightened. What had happened to him we could not imagine.

“Hump,” he said at last, “I must get into my bunk. Lend me a hand. I’llbe all right in a little while. It’s those damn headaches, I believe. Iwas afraid of them. I had a feeling—no, I don’t know what I’m talkingabout. Help me into my bunk.”

But when I got him into his bunk he again buried his face in his hands,covering his eyes, and as I turned to go I could hear him murmuring, “Iam a sick man, a very sick man.”

Maud looked at me inquiringly as I emerged. I shook my head, saying:

“Something has happened to him. What, I don’t know. He is helpless, andfrightened, I imagine, for the first time in his life. It must haveoccurred before he received the knife-thrust, which made only asuperficial wound. You must have seen what happened.”

She shook her head. “I saw nothing. It is just as mysterious to me. Hesuddenly released me and staggered away. But what shall we do? Whatshall I do?”

“If you will wait, please, until I come back,” I answered.

I went on deck. Louis was at the wheel.

“You may go for’ard and turn in,” I said, taking it from him.

He was quick to obey, and I found myself alone on the deck of the_Ghost_. As quietly as was possible, I clewed up the topsails, loweredthe flying jib and staysail, backed the jib over, and flattened themainsail. Then I went below to Maud. I placed my finger on my lips forsilence, and entered Wolf Larsen’s room. He was in the same position inwhich I had left him, and his head was rocking—almost writhing—from sideto side.

“Anything I can do for you?” I asked.

He made no reply at first, but on my repeating the question he answered,“No, no; I’m all right. Leave me alone till morning.”

But as I turned to go I noted that his head had resumed its rockingmotion. Maud was waiting patiently for me, and I took notice, with athrill of joy, of the queenly poise of her head and her glorious, calmeyes. Calm and sure they were as her spirit itself.

“Will you trust yourself to me for a journey of six hundred miles or so?”I asked.

“You mean—?” she asked, and I knew she had guessed aright.

“Yes, I mean just that,” I replied. “There is nothing left for us butthe open boat.”

“For me, you mean,” she said. “You are certainly as safe here as youhave been.”

“No, there is nothing left for us but the open boat,” I iterated stoutly.“Will you please dress as warmly as you can, at once, and make into abundle whatever you wish to bring with you.”

“And make all haste,” I added, as she turned toward her state-room.

The lazarette was directly beneath the cabin, and, opening the trap-doorin the floor and carrying a candle with me, I dropped down and beganoverhauling the ship’s stores. I selected mainly from the canned goods,and by the time I was ready, willing hands were extended from above toreceive what I passed up.

We worked in silence. I helped myself also to blankets, mittens,oilskins, caps, and such things, from the slop-chest. It was no lightadventure, this trusting ourselves in a small boat to so raw and stormy asea, and it was imperative that we should guard ourselves against thecold and wet.

We worked feverishly at carrying our plunder on deck and depositing itamidships, so feverishly that Maud, whose strength was hardly a positivequantity, had to give over, exhausted, and sit on the steps at the breakof the poop. This did not serve to recover her, and she lay on her back,on the hard deck, arms stretched out, and whole body relaxed. It was atrick I remembered of my sister, and I knew she would soon be herselfagain. I knew, also, that weapons would not come in amiss, and Ire-entered Wolf Larsen’s state-room to get his rifle and shot-gun. Ispoke to him, but he made no answer, though his head was still rockingfrom side to side and he was not asleep.

“Good-bye, Lucifer,” I whispered to myself as I softly closed the door.

Next to obtain was a stock of ammunition,—an easy matter, though I had toenter the steerage companion-way to do it. Here the hunters stored theammunition-boxes they carried in the boats, and here, but a few feet fromtheir noisy revels, I took possession of two boxes.

Next, to lower a boat. Not so simple a task for one man. Having castoff the lashings, I hoisted first on the forward tackle, then on the aft,till the boat cleared the rail, when I lowered away, one tackle and thenthe other, for a couple of feet, till it hung snugly, above the water,against the schooner’s side. I made certain that it contained the properequipment of oars, rowlocks, and sail. Water was a consideration, and Irobbed every boat aboard of its breaker. As there were nine boats alltold, it meant that we should have plenty of water, and ballast as well,though there was the chance that the boat would be overloaded, what ofthe generous supply of other things I was taking.

While Maud was passing me the provisions and I was storing them in theboat, a sailor came on deck from the forecastle. He stood by the weatherrail for a time (we were lowering over the lee rail), and then saunteredslowly amidships, where he again paused and stood facing the wind, withhis back toward us. I could hear my heart beating as I crouched low inthe boat. Maud had sunk down upon the deck and was, I knew, lyingmotionless, her body in the shadow of the bulwark. But the man neverturned, and, after stretching his arms above his head and yawningaudibly, he retraced his steps to the forecastle scuttle and disappeared.

A few minutes sufficed to finish the loading, and I lowered the boat intothe water. As I helped Maud over the rail and felt her form close tomine, it was all I could do to keep from crying out, “I love you! I loveyou!” Truly Humphrey Van Weyden was at last in love, I thought, as herfingers clung to mine while I lowered her down to the boat. I held on tothe rail with one hand and supported her weight with the other, and I wasproud at the moment of the feat. It was a strength I had not possessed afew months before, on the day I said good-bye to Charley Furuseth andstarted for San Francisco on the ill-fated _Martinez_.

As the boat ascended on a sea, her feet touched and I released her hands.I cast off the tackles and leaped after her. I had never rowed in mylife, but I put out the oars and at the expense of much effort got theboat clear of the _Ghost_. Then I experimented with the sail. I hadseen the boat-steerers and hunters set their spritsails many times, yetthis was my first attempt. What took them possibly two minutes took metwenty, but in the end I succeeded in setting and trimming it, and withthe steering-oar in my hands hauled on the wind.

“There lies Japan,” I remarked, “straight before us.”

“Humphrey Van Weyden,” she said, “you are a brave man.”

“Nay,” I answered, “it is you who are a brave woman.”

We turned our heads, swayed by a common impulse to see the last of the_Ghost_. Her low hull lifted and rolled to windward on a sea; her canvasloomed darkly in the night; her lashed wheel creaked as the rudderkicked; then sight and sound of her faded away, and we were alone on thedark sea.