________________________________________________
_ At last, after three days of variable winds, we have caught the
north-east trades. I came on deck, after a good night's rest in
spite of my poor knee, to find the Ghost foaming along, wing-and-
wing, and every sail drawing except the jibs, with a fresh breeze
astern. Oh, the wonder of the great trade-wind! All day we
sailed, and all night, and the next day, and the next, day after
day, the wind always astern and blowing steadily and strong. The
schooner sailed herself. There was no pulling and hauling on
sheets and tackles, no shifting of topsails, no work at all for the
sailors to do except to steer. At night when the sun went down,
the sheets were slackened; in the morning, when they yielded up the
damp of the dew and relaxed, they were pulled tight again - and
that was all.
Ten knots, twelve knots, eleven knots, varying from time to time,
is the speed we are making. And ever out of the north-east the
brave wind blows, driving us on our course two hundred and fifty
miles between the dawns. It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait
with which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with which we
are foaming down upon the tropics. Each day grows perceptibly
warmer. In the second dog-watch the sailors come on deck,
stripped, and heave buckets of water upon one another from
overside. Flying-fish are beginning to be seen, and during the
night the watch above scrambles over the deck in pursuit of those
that fall aboard. In the morning, Thomas Mugridge being duly
bribed, the galley is pleasantly areek with the odour of their
frying; while dolphin meat is served fore and aft on such occasions
as Johnson catches the blazing beauties from the bowsprit end.
Johnson seems to spend all his spare time there or aloft at the
crosstrees, watching the Ghost cleaving the water under press of
sail. There is passion, adoration, in his eyes, and he goes about
in a sort of trance, gazing in ecstasy at the swelling sails, the
foaming wake, and the heave and the run of her over the liquid
mountains that are moving with us in stately procession.
The days and nights are "all a wonder and a wild delight," and
though I have little time from my dreary work, I steal odd moments
to gaze and gaze at the unending glory of what I never dreamed the
world possessed. Above, the sky is stainless blue - blue as the
sea itself, which under the forefoot is of the colour and sheen of
azure satin. All around the horizon are pale, fleecy clouds, never
changing, never moving, like a silver setting for the flawless
turquoise sky.
I do not forget one night, when I should have been asleep, of lying
on the forecastle-head and gazing down at the spectral ripple of
foam thrust aside by the Ghost's forefoot. It sounded like the
gurgling of a brook over mossy stones in some quiet dell, and the
crooning song of it lured me away and out of myself till I was no
longer Hump the cabin-boy, nor Van Weyden, the man who had dreamed
away thirty-five years among books. But a voice behind me, the
unmistakable voice of Wolf Larsen, strong with the invincible
certitude of the man and mellow with appreciation of the words he
was quoting, aroused me.
"'O the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light
That holds the hot sky tame,
And the steady forefoot snores through the planet-powdered floors
Where the scared whale flukes in flame.
Her plates are scarred by the sun, dear lass,
And her ropes are taut with the dew,
For we're booming down on the old trail, our own trail, the out
trail,
We're sagging south on the Long Trail - the trail that is always
new.'"
"Eh, Hump? How's it strike you?" he asked, after the due pause
which words and setting demanded.
I looked into his face. It was aglow with light, as the sea
itself, and the eyes were flashing in the starshine.
"It strikes me as remarkable, to say the least, that you should
show enthusiasm," I answered coldly.
"Why, man, it's living! it's life!" he cried.
"Which is a cheap thing and without value." I flung his words at
him.
He laughed, and it was the first time I had heard honest mirth in
his voice.
"Ah, I cannot get you to understand, cannot drive it into your
head, what a thing this life is. Of course life is valueless,
except to itself. And I can tell you that my life is pretty
valuable just now - to myself. It is beyond price, which you will
acknowledge is a terrific overrating, but which I cannot help, for
it is the life that is in me that makes the rating."
He appeared waiting for the words with which to express the thought
that was in him, and finally went on.
"Do you know, I am filled with a strange uplift; I feel as if all
time were echoing through me, as though all powers were mine. I
know truth, divine good from evil, right from wrong. My vision is
clear and far. I could almost believe in God. But," and his voice
changed and the light went out of his face, - "what is this
condition in which I find myself? this joy of living? this
exultation of life? this inspiration, I may well call it? It is
what comes when there is nothing wrong with one's digestion, when
his stomach is in trim and his appetite has an edge, and all goes
well. It is the bribe for living, the champagne of the blood, the
effervescence of the ferment - that makes some men think holy
thoughts, and other men to see God or to create him when they
cannot see him. That is all, the drunkenness of life, the stirring
and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane
with consciousness that it is alive. And - bah! To-morrow I shall
pay for it as the drunkard pays. And I shall know that I must die,
at sea most likely, cease crawling of myself to be all a-crawl with
the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, to be carrion, to yield
up all the strength and movement of my muscles that it may become
strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of fishes.
Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. The sparkle
and bubble has gone out and it is a tasteless drink."
He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with
the weight and softness of a tiger. The Ghost ploughed on her way.
I noted the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I
listened to it the effect of Wolf Larsen's swift rush from sublime
exultation to despair slowly left me. Then some deep-water sailor,
from the waist of the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the "Song
of the Trade Wind":
"Oh, I am the wind the seamen love -
I am steady, and strong, and true;
They follow my track by the clouds above,
O'er the fathomless tropic blue.
* * * * *
Through daylight and dark I follow the bark
I keep like a hound on her trail;
I'm strongest at noon, yet under the moon,
I stiffen the bunt of her sail." _
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