We waited all day for Wolf Larsen to come ashore. It was an intolerableperiod of anxiety. Each moment one or the other of us cast expectantglances toward the _Ghost_. But he did not come. He did not even appearon deck.

“Perhaps it is his headache,” I said. “I left him lying on the poop. Hemay lie there all night. I think I’ll go and see.”

Maud looked entreaty at me.

“It is all right,” I assured her. “I shall take the revolvers. You knowI collected every weapon on board.”

“But there are his arms, his hands, his terrible, terrible hands!” sheobjected. And then she cried, “Oh, Humphrey, I am afraid of him! Don’tgo—please don’t go!”

She rested her hand appealingly on mine, and sent my pulse fluttering.My heart was surely in my eyes for a moment. The dear and lovely woman!And she was so much the woman, clinging and appealing, sunshine and dewto my manhood, rooting it deeper and sending through it the sap of a newstrength. I was for putting my arm around her, as when in the midst ofthe seal herd; but I considered, and refrained.

“I shall not take any risks,” I said. “I’ll merely peep over the bow andsee.”

She pressed my hand earnestly and let me go. But the space on deck whereI had left him lying was vacant. He had evidently gone below. Thatnight we stood alternate watches, one of us sleeping at a time; for therewas no telling what Wolf Larsen might do. He was certainly capable ofanything.

The next day we waited, and the next, and still he made no sign.

“These headaches of his, these attacks,” Maud said, on the afternoon ofthe fourth day; “Perhaps he is ill, very ill. He may be dead.”

“Or dying,” was her afterthought when she had waited some time for me tospeak.

“Better so,” I answered.

“But think, Humphrey, a fellow-creature in his last lonely hour.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested.

“Yes, even perhaps,” she acknowledged. “But we do not know. It would beterrible if he were. I could never forgive myself. We must dosomething.”

“Perhaps,” I suggested again.

I waited, smiling inwardly at the woman of her which compelled asolicitude for Wolf Larsen, of all creatures. Where was her solicitudefor me, I thought,—for me whom she had been afraid to have merely peepaboard?

She was too subtle not to follow the trend of my silence. And she was asdirect as she was subtle.

“You must go aboard, Humphrey, and find out,” she said. “And if you wantto laugh at me, you have my consent and forgiveness.”

I arose obediently and went down the beach.

“Do be careful,” she called after me.

I waved my arm from the forecastle head and dropped down to the deck.Aft I walked to the cabin companion, where I contented myself withhailing below. Wolf Larsen answered, and as he started to ascend thestairs I cocked my revolver. I displayed it openly during ourconversation, but he took no notice of it. He appeared the same,physically, as when last I saw him, but he was gloomy and silent. Infact, the few words we spoke could hardly be called a conversation. Idid not inquire why he had not been ashore, nor did he ask why I had notcome aboard. His head was all right again, he said, and so, withoutfurther parley, I left him.

Maud received my report with obvious relief, and the sight of smoke whichlater rose in the galley put her in a more cheerful mood. The next day,and the next, we saw the galley smoke rising, and sometimes we caughtglimpses of him on the poop. But that was all. He made no attempt tocome ashore. This we knew, for we still maintained our night-watches.We were waiting for him to do something, to show his hand, so to say, andhis inaction puzzled and worried us.

A week of this passed by. We had no other interest than Wolf Larsen, andhis presence weighed us down with an apprehension which prevented us fromdoing any of the little things we had planned.

But at the end of the week the smoke ceased rising from the galley, andhe no longer showed himself on the poop. I could see Maud’s solicitudeagain growing, though she timidly—and even proudly, I think—forbore arepetition of her request. After all, what censure could be put uponher? She was divinely altruistic, and she was a woman. Besides, I wasmyself aware of hurt at thought of this man whom I had tried to kill,dying alone with his fellow-creatures so near. He was right. The codeof my group was stronger than I. The fact that he had hands, feet, and abody shaped somewhat like mine, constituted a claim which I could notignore.

So I did not wait a second time for Maud to send me. I discovered thatwe stood in need of condensed milk and marmalade, and announced that Iwas going aboard. I could see that she wavered. She even went so far asto murmur that they were non-essentials and that my trip after them mightbe inexpedient. And as she had followed the trend of my silence, she nowfollowed the trend of my speech, and she knew that I was going aboard,not because of condensed milk and marmalade, but because of her and ofher anxiety, which she knew she had failed to hide.

I took off my shoes when I gained the forecastle head, and wentnoiselessly aft in my stocking feet. Nor did I call this time from thetop of the companion-way. Cautiously descending, I found the cabindeserted. The door to his state-room was closed. At first I thought ofknocking, then I remembered my ostensible errand and resolved to carry itout. Carefully avoiding noise, I lifted the trap-door in the floor andset it to one side. The slop-chest, as well as the provisions, wasstored in the lazarette, and I took advantage of the opportunity to layin a stock of underclothing.

As I emerged from the lazarette I heard sounds in Wolf Larsen’sstate-room. I crouched and listened. The door-knob rattled. Furtively,instinctively, I slunk back behind the table and drew and cocked myrevolver. The door swung open and he came forth. Never had I seen soprofound a despair as that which I saw on his face,—the face of WolfLarsen the fighter, the strong man, the indomitable one. For all theworld like a woman wringing her hands, he raised his clenched fists andgroaned. One fist unclosed, and the open palm swept across his eyes asthough brushing away cobwebs.

“God! God!” he groaned, and the clenched fists were raised again to theinfinite despair with which his throat vibrated.

It was horrible. I was trembling all over, and I could feel the shiversrunning up and down my spine and the sweat standing out on my forehead.Surely there can be little in this world more awful than the spectacle ofa strong man in the moment when he is utterly weak and broken.

But Wolf Larsen regained control of himself by an exertion of hisremarkable will. And it was exertion. His whole frame shook with thestruggle. He resembled a man on the verge of a fit. His face strove tocompose itself, writhing and twisting in the effort till he broke downagain. Once more the clenched fists went upward and he groaned. Hecaught his breath once or twice and sobbed. Then he was successful. Icould have thought him the old Wolf Larsen, and yet there was in hismovements a vague suggestion of weakness and indecision. He started forthe companion-way, and stepped forward quite as I had been accustomed tosee him do; and yet again, in his very walk, there seemed that suggestionof weakness and indecision.

I was now concerned with fear for myself. The open trap lay directly inhis path, and his discovery of it would lead instantly to his discoveryof me. I was angry with myself for being caught in so cowardly aposition, crouching on the floor. There was yet time. I rose swiftly tomy feet, and, I know, quite unconsciously assumed a defiant attitude. Hetook no notice of me. Nor did he notice the open trap. Before I couldgrasp the situation, or act, he had walked right into the trap. One footwas descending into the opening, while the other foot was just on theverge of beginning the uplift. But when the descending foot missed thesolid flooring and felt vacancy beneath, it was the old Wolf Larsen andthe tiger muscles that made the falling body spring across the opening,even as it fell, so that he struck on his chest and stomach, with armsoutstretched, on the floor of the opposite side. The next instant he haddrawn up his legs and rolled clear. But he rolled into my marmalade andunderclothes and against the trap-door.

The expression on his face was one of complete comprehension. But beforeI could guess what he had comprehended, he had dropped the trap-door intoplace, closing the lazarette. Then I understood. He thought he had meinside. Also, he was blind, blind as a bat. I watched him, breathingcarefully so that he should not hear me. He stepped quickly to hisstate-room. I saw his hand miss the door-knob by an inch, quickly fumblefor it, and find it. This was my chance. I tiptoed across the cabin andto the top of the stairs. He came back, dragging a heavy sea-chest,which he deposited on top of the trap. Not content with this he fetcheda second chest and placed it on top of the first. Then he gathered upthe marmalade and underclothes and put them on the table. When hestarted up the companion-way, I retreated, silently rolling over on topof the cabin.

He shoved the slide part way back and rested his arms on it, his bodystill in the companion-way. His attitude was of one looking forward thelength of the schooner, or staring, rather, for his eyes were fixed andunblinking. I was only five feet away and directly in what should havebeen his line of vision. It was uncanny. I felt myself a ghost, what ofmy invisibility. I waved my hand back and forth, of course withouteffect; but when the moving shadow fell across his face I saw at oncethat he was susceptible to the impression. His face became moreexpectant and tense as he tried to analyze and identify the impression.He knew that he had responded to something from without, that hissensibility had been touched by a changing something in his environment;but what it was he could not discover. I ceased waving my hand, so thatthe shadow remained stationary. He slowly moved his head back and forthunder it and turned from side to side, now in the sunshine, now in theshade, feeling the shadow, as it were, testing it by sensation.

I, too, was busy, trying to reason out how he was aware of the existenceof so intangible a thing as a shadow. If it were his eyeballs only thatwere affected, or if his optic nerve were not wholly destroyed, theexplanation was simple. If otherwise, then the only conclusion I couldreach was that the sensitive skin recognized the difference oftemperature between shade and sunshine. Or, perhaps,—who can tell?—itwas that fabled sixth sense which conveyed to him the loom and feel of anobject close at hand.

Giving over his attempt to determine the shadow, he stepped on deck andstarted forward, walking with a swiftness and confidence which surprisedme. And still there was that hint of the feebleness of the blind in hiswalk. I knew it now for what it was.

To my amused chagrin, he discovered my shoes on the forecastle head andbrought them back with him into the galley. I watched him build the fireand set about cooking food for himself; then I stole into the cabin formy marmalade and underclothes, slipped back past the galley, and climbeddown to the beach to deliver my barefoot report.