“It’s too bad the _Ghost_ has lost her masts. Why we could sail away inher. Don’t you think we could, Humphrey?”

I sprang excitedly to my feet.

“I wonder, I wonder,” I repeated, pacing up and down.

Maud’s eyes were shining with anticipation as they followed me. She hadsuch faith in me! And the thought of it was so much added power. Iremembered Michelet’s “To man, woman is as the earth was to her legendaryson; he has but to fall down and kiss her breast and he is strong again.”For the first time I knew the wonderful truth of his words. Why, I wasliving them. Maud was all this to me, an unfailing, source of strengthand courage. I had but to look at her, or think of her, and be strongagain.

“It can be done, it can be done,” I was thinking and asserting aloud.“What men have done, I can do; and if they have never done this before,still I can do it.”

“What? for goodness’ sake,” Maud demanded. “Do be merciful. What is ityou can do?”

“We can do it,” I amended. “Why, nothing else than put the masts backinto the _Ghost_ and sail away.”

“Humphrey!” she exclaimed.

And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already a factaccomplished.

“But how is it possible to be done?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” was my answer. “I know only that I am capable of doinganything these days.”

I smiled proudly at her—too proudly, for she dropped her eyes and was forthe moment silent.

“But there is Captain Larsen,” she objected.

“Blind and helpless,” I answered promptly, waving him aside as a straw.

“But those terrible hands of his! You know how he leaped across theopening of the lazarette.”

“And you know also how I crept about and avoided him,” I contended gaily.

“And lost your shoes.”

“You’d hardly expect them to avoid Wolf Larsen without my feet inside ofthem.”

We both laughed, and then went seriously to work constructing the planwhereby we were to step the masts of the _Ghost_ and return to the world.I remembered hazily the physics of my school days, while the last fewmonths had given me practical experience with mechanical purchases. Imust say, though, when we walked down to the _Ghost_ to inspect moreclosely the task before us, that the sight of the great masts lying inthe water almost disheartened me. Where were we to begin? If there hadbeen one mast standing, something high up to which to fasten blocks andtackles! But there was nothing. It reminded me of the problem oflifting oneself by one’s boot-straps. I understood the mechanics oflevers; but where was I to get a fulcrum?

There was the mainmast, fifteen inches in diameter at what was now thebutt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughlycalculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast,larger in diameter, and weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds.Where was I to begin? Maud stood silently by my side, while I evolved inmy mind the contrivance known among sailors as “shears.” But, thoughknown to sailors, I invented it there on Endeavour Island. By crossingand lashing the ends of two spars, and then elevating them in the airlike an inverted “V,” I could get a point above the deck to which to makefast my hoisting tackle. To this hoisting tackle I could, if necessary,attach a second hoisting tackle. And then there was the windlass!

Maud saw that I had achieved a solution, and her eyes warmedsympathetically.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Clear that raffle,” I answered, pointing to the tangled wreckageoverside.

Ah, the decisiveness, the very sound of the words, was good in my ears.“Clear that raffle!” Imagine so salty a phrase on the lips of theHumphrey Van Weyden of a few months gone!

There must have been a touch of the melodramatic in my pose and voice,for Maud smiled. Her appreciation of the ridiculous was keen, and in allthings she unerringly saw and felt, where it existed, the touch of sham,the overshading, the overtone. It was this which had given poise andpenetration to her own work and made her of worth to the world. Theserious critic, with the sense of humour and the power of expression,must inevitably command the world’s ear. And so it was that she hadcommanded. Her sense of humour was really the artist’s instinct forproportion.

“I’m sure I’ve heard it before, somewhere, in books,” she murmuredgleefully.

I had an instinct for proportion myself, and I collapsed forthwith,descending from the dominant pose of a master of matter to a state ofhumble confusion which was, to say the least, very miserable.

Her hand leapt out at once to mine.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“No need to be,” I gulped. “It does me good. There’s too much of theschoolboy in me. All of which is neither here nor there. What we’ve gotto do is actually and literally to clear that raffle. If you’ll comewith me in the boat, we’ll get to work and straighten things out.”

“‘When the topmen clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in theirteeth,’” she quoted at me; and for the rest of the afternoon we mademerry over our labour.

Her task was to hold the boat in position while I worked at the tangle.And such a tangle—halyards, sheets, guys, down-hauls, shrouds, stays, allwashed about and back and forth and through, and twined and knotted bythe sea. I cut no more than was necessary, and what with passing thelong ropes under and around the booms and masts, of unreeving thehalyards and sheets, of coiling down in the boat and uncoiling in orderto pass through another knot in the bight, I was soon wet to the skin.

The sails did require some cutting, and the canvas, heavy with water,tried my strength severely; but I succeeded before nightfall in gettingit all spread out on the beach to dry. We were both very tired when weknocked off for supper, and we had done good work, too, though to the eyeit appeared insignificant.

Next morning, with Maud as able assistant, I went into the hold of the_Ghost_ to clear the steps of the mast-butts. We had no more than begunwork when the sound of my knocking and hammering brought Wolf Larsen.

“Hello below!” he cried down the open hatch.

The sound of his voice made Maud quickly draw close to me, as forprotection, and she rested one hand on my arm while we parleyed.

“Hello on deck,” I replied. “Good-morning to you.”

“What are you doing down there?” he demanded. “Trying to scuttle my shipfor me?”

“Quite the opposite; I’m repairing her,” was my answer.

“But what in thunder are you repairing?” There was puzzlement in hisvoice.

“Why, I’m getting everything ready for re-stepping the masts,” I repliedeasily, as though it were the simplest project imaginable.

“It seems as though you’re standing on your own legs at last, Hump,” weheard him say; and then for some time he was silent.

“But I say, Hump,” he called down. “You can’t do it.”

“Oh, yes, I can,” I retorted. “I’m doing it now.”

“But this is my vessel, my particular property. What if I forbid you?”

“You forget,” I replied. “You are no longer the biggest bit of theferment. You were, once, and able to eat me, as you were pleased tophrase it; but there has been a diminishing, and I am now able to eatyou. The yeast has grown stale.”

He gave a short, disagreeable laugh. “I see you’re working my philosophyback on me for all it is worth. But don’t make the mistake ofunder-estimating me. For your own good I warn you.”

“Since when have you become a philanthropist?” I queried. “Confess, now,in warning me for my own good, that you are very consistent.”

He ignored my sarcasm, saying, “Suppose I clap the hatch on, now? Youwon’t fool me as you did in the lazarette.”

“Wolf Larsen,” I said sternly, for the first time addressing him by thishis most familiar name, “I am unable to shoot a helpless, unresistingman. You have proved that to my satisfaction as well as yours. But Iwarn you now, and not so much for your own good as for mine, that I shallshoot you the moment you attempt a hostile act. I can shoot you now, asI stand here; and if you are so minded, just go ahead and try to clap onthe hatch.”

“Nevertheless, I forbid you, I distinctly forbid your tampering with myship.”

“But, man!” I expostulated, “you advance the fact that it is your ship asthough it were a moral right. You have never considered moral rights inyour dealings with others. You surely do not dream that I’ll considerthem in dealing with you?”

I had stepped underneath the open hatchway so that I could see him. Thelack of expression on his face, so different from when I had watched himunseen, was enhanced by the unblinking, staring eyes. It was not apleasant face to look upon.

“And none so poor, not even Hump, to do him reverence,” he sneered.

The sneer was wholly in his voice. His face remained expressionless asever.

“How do you do, Miss Brewster,” he said suddenly, after a pause.

I started. She had made no noise whatever, had not even moved. Could itbe that some glimmer of vision remained to him? or that his vision wascoming back?

“How do you do, Captain Larsen,” she answered. “Pray, how did you know Iwas here?”

“Heard you breathing, of course. I say, Hump’s improving, don’t youthink so?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, smiling at me. “I have never seen himotherwise.”

“You should have seen him before, then.”

“Wolf Larsen, in large doses,” I murmured, “before and after taking.”

“I want to tell you again, Hump,” he said threateningly, “that you’dbetter leave things alone.”

“But don’t you care to escape as well as we?” I asked incredulously.

“No,” was his answer. “I intend dying here.”

“Well, we don’t,” I concluded defiantly, beginning again my knocking andhammering.