The Sea-Story Megapack

by Jack Williamson

  “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 flashed their golden light.

  I could have shouted with joy at her control. She finished the concluding stanza without faltering and then slowly guided the conversation into less perilous channels. And all the while I sat in a half-daze, the drunken riot of the steerage breaking through the bulkhead, the man I feared and the woman I loved talking on and on. The table was not cleared. The man who had taken Mugridge’s place had evidently 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 followed in amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, under the spell of his passion, for he was preaching the passion of revolt. It was inevitable that Milton’s Lucifer should be instanced, and the keenness with which Wolf Larsen analysed and depicted the character was a revelation of his stifled genius. It reminded me of Taine, yet I knew the man had never heard of that brilliant though dangerous thinker.

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

  “The first Anarchist,” Maud laughed, rising and preparing to withdraw to her stateroom.

  “Then it is good to be an anarchist!” he cried. He, too, had risen, and he stood facing her, where she had paused at the door of her room, as he went 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 his voice, as he stood there, swaying, his bronzed face shining, his head up and dominant, and his eyes, golden and masculine, intensely masculine and insistently soft, flashing upon Maud at the door.

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

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

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

  He pulled on a pair of mittens, put on his cap, and ascended the companion-stairs, while I followed his suggestion by going to bed. For some unknown reason, prompted mysteriously, I did not undress, but lay down fully clothed. For a time I listened to the clamour in the steerage and 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 and cries died away, my eyes closed, and my consciousness sank down into the half-death of slumber.

  I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, on my feet, wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger as it might have thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the door. The cabin light was burning low. I saw Maud, my Maud, straining and struggling and crushed in the embrace of Wolf Larsen’s arms. I could see the vain beat and 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 as I sprang forward.

  I struck him with my fist, on the face, as he raised his head, but it was a puny blow. He roared in a ferocious, animal-like way, and gave me a shove with his hand. It was only a shove, a flirt of the wrist, yet so tremendous was his strength that I was hurled backward as from a catapult. I struck the door of the stateroom which had formerly been Mugridge’s, splintering and smashing the panels with the impact of my body. I struggled to my feet, with difficulty dragging myself clear of the wrecked door, unaware of any hurt whatever. I was conscious only of an overmastering rage. I think I, too, cried aloud, as I drew the knife at my hip and sprang forward a second time.

  But something had happened. They were reeling apart. I was close upon him, my knife uplifted, but I withheld the blow. I was puzzled by the strangeness of it. Maud was leaning against the wall, one hand out for support; but he was staggering, his left hand pressed against his forehead and covering his eyes, and with the right he was groping about him in a dazed sort of way. It struck against the wall, and his body seemed to express a muscular and physical relief at the contact, as though he had found his bearings, his location in space as well as something against which to lean.

  Then I saw red again. All my wrongs and humiliations flashed upon me with a dazzling brightness, all that I had suffered and others had suffered at his hands, all the enormity of the man’s very existence. I sprang upon him, blindly, insanely, and drove the knife into his shoulder. I knew, then, that it was no more than a flesh wound—I had felt the steel grate on his shoulder-blade—and I raised the knife to strike 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 was raised, and Wolf Larsen would have surely died had she not stepped between. Her arms were around me, her hair was brushing my face. My pulse rushed up in an unwonted manner, yet my rage mounted with it. She looked me bravely in the eyes.

  “For my sake,” she begged.

  “I would kill him for your sake!” I cried, trying to free my arm without hurting her.

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

  I stepped back, separating from her, and replaced the knife in its sheath. I looked at Wolf Larsen. He still pressed his left hand against his forehead. It covered his eyes. His head was bowed. He seemed to have grown limp. His body was sagging at the hips, his great shoulders were drooping and shrinking forward.

  “Van, Weyden!” he called hoarsely, and with a note of fright in his voice. “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 my sustaining grip and sank into a chair.

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

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

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

  But he shook my hand off with an irritated movement, and for a long time I stood by his side in silence. Maud was looking on, her face awed and frightened. 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’ll be all right in a little while. It’s those damn headaches, I believe. I was afraid of them. I had a feelin
g—no, I don’t know what I’m talking about. 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, “I am 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, and frightened, I imagine, for the first time in his life. It must have occurred before he received the knife-thrust, which made only a superficial wound. You must have seen what happened.”

  She shook her head. “I saw nothing. It is just as mysterious to me. He suddenly released me and staggered away. But what shall we do? What shall 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, lowered the flying jib and staysail, backed the jib over, and flattened the mainsail. Then I went below to Maud. I placed my finger on my lips for silence, and entered Wolf Larsen’s room. He was in the same position in which I had left him, and his head was rocking—almost writhing—from side to 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 rocking motion. Maud was waiting patiently for me, and I took notice, with a thrill of joy, of the queenly poise of her head and her glorious, calm eyes. 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 but the open boat.”

  “For me, you mean,” she said. “You are certainly as safe here as you have 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 a bundle whatever you wish to bring with you.”

  “And make all haste,” I added, as she turned toward her stateroom.

  The lazarette was directly beneath the cabin, and, opening the trap-door in the floor and carrying a candle with me, I dropped down and began overhauling the ship’s stores. I selected mainly from the canned goods, and by the time I was ready, willing hands were extended from above to receive 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 light adventure, this trusting ourselves in a small boat to so raw and stormy a sea, and it was imperative that we should guard ourselves against the cold and wet.

  We worked feverishly at carrying our plunder on deck and depositing it amidships, so feverishly that Maud, whose strength was hardly a positive quantity, had to give over, exhausted, and sit on the steps at the break of 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 a trick I remembered of my sister, and I knew she would soon be herself again. I knew, also, that weapons would not come in amiss, and I re-entered Wolf Larsen’s stateroom to get his rifle and shotgun. I spoke to him, but he made no answer, though his head was still rocking from 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 to enter the steerage companionway to do it. Here the hunters stored the ammunition-boxes they carried in the boats, and here, but a few feet from their noisy revels, I took possession of two boxes.

  Next, to lower a boat. Not so simple a task for one man. Having cast off 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 then the 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 proper equipment of oars, rowlocks, and sail. Water was a consideration, and I robbed every boat aboard of its breaker. As there were nine boats all told, 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 of the generous supply of other things I was taking.

  While Maud was passing me the provisions and I was storing them in the boat, a sailor came on deck from the forecastle. He stood by the weather rail for a time (we were lowering over the lee rail), and then sauntered slowly amidships, where he again paused and stood facing the wind, with his back toward us. I could hear my heart beating as I crouched low in the boat. Maud had sunk down upon the deck and was, I knew, lying motionless, her body in the shadow of the bulwark. But the man never turned, and, after stretching his arms above his head and yawning audibly, he retraced his steps to the forecastle scuttle and disappeared.

  A few minutes sufficed to finish the loading, and I lowered the boat into the water. As I helped Maud over the rail and felt her form close to mine, it was all I could do to keep from crying out, “I love you! I love you!” Truly Humphrey Van Weyden was at last in love, I thought, as her fingers clung to mine while I lowered her down to the boat. I held on to the rail with one hand and supported her weight with the other, and I was proud at the moment of the feat. It was a strength I had not possessed a few months before, on the day I said good-bye to Charley Furuseth and started for San Francisco on the illfated 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 my life, but I put out the oars and at the expense of much effort got the boat clear of the Ghost. Then I experimented with the sail. I had seen the boat-steerers and hunters set their spritsails many times, yet this was my first attempt. What took them possibly two minutes took me twenty, but in the end I succeeded in setting and trimming it, and with the 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 canvas loomed darkly in the night; her lashed wheel creaked as the rudder kicked; then sight and sound of her faded away, and we were alone on the dark sea.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Day broke, grey and chill. The boat was close-hauled on a fresh breeze and the compass indicated that we were just making the course which would bring us to Japan. Though stoutly mittened, my fingers were cold, and they pained from the grip on the steering-oar. My feet were stinging from the bite of the frost, and I hoped fervently that the sun would shine.

  Before me, in the bottom of the boat, lay Maud. She, at least, was warm, for under her and over her were thick blankets. The top one I had drawn over her face to shelter it from the night, so I could see nothing but the vague shape of her, and her light-brown hair, escaped from the covering and jewelled with moisture from the air.

  Long I looked at her, dwelling upon that one visible bit of her as only a man would who deemed it the most precious thing in the world. So insistent was my gaze that at last she stirred under the blankets, the top fold was thrown back and she smiled out on me, her eyes yet heavy with sleep.

  “Good-morning, Mr. Van Weyden,” she said. “Have you sighted land yet?”

  “No,” I answered, “but we are approaching it at a rate of six miles an hour.”

  She made a mouè of disappointment.

  “But that is equivalent to one hundred and forty-four miles in twenty
-four hours,” I added reassuringly.

  Her face brightened. “And how far have we to go?”

  “Siberia lies off there,” I said, pointing to the west. “But to the southwest, some six hundred miles, is Japan. If this wind should hold, we’ll make it in five days.”

  “And if it storms? The boat could not live?”

  She had a way of looking one in the eyes and demanding the truth, and thus she looked at me as she asked the question.

  “It would have to storm very hard,” I temporized.

  “And if it storms very hard?”

  I nodded my head. “But we may be picked up any moment by a sealing-schooner. They are plentifully distributed over this part of the ocean.”

  “Why, you are chilled through!” she cried. “Look! You are shivering. Don’t deny it; you are. And here I have been lying warm as toast.”

  “I don’t see that it would help matters if you, too, sat up and were chilled,” I laughed.

  “It will, though, when I learn to steer, which I certainly shall.”

  She sat up and began making her simple toilet. She shook down her hair, and it fell about her in a brown cloud, hiding her face and shoulders. Dear, damp brown hair! I wanted to kiss it, to ripple it through my fingers, to bury my face in it. I gazed entranced, till the boat ran into the wind and the flapping sail warned me I was not attending to my duties. Idealist and romanticist that I was and always had been in spite of my analytical nature, yet I had failed till now in grasping much of the physical characteristics of love. The love of man and woman, I had always held, was a sublimated something related to spirit, a spiritual bond that linked and drew their souls together. The bonds of the flesh had little part in my cosmos of love. But I was learning the sweet lesson for myself that the soul transmuted itself, expressed itself, through the flesh; that the sight and sense and touch of the loved one’s hair was as much breath and voice and essence of the spirit as the light that shone from the eyes and the thoughts that fell from the lips. After all, pure spirit was unknowable, a thing to be sensed and divined only; nor could it express itself in terms of itself. Jehovah was anthropomorphic because he could address himself to the Jews only in terms of their understanding; so he was conceived as in their own image, as a cloud, a pillar of fire, a tangible, physical something which the mind of the Israelites could grasp.