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_ Three days of rest, three blessed days of rest, are what I had with
Wolf Larsen, eating at the cabin table and doing nothing but
discuss life, literature, and the universe, the while Thomas
Mugridge fumed and raged and did my work as well as his own.
"Watch out for squalls, is all I can say to you," was Louis's
warning, given during a spare half-hour on deck while Wolf Larsen
was engaged in straightening out a row among the hunters.
"Ye can't tell what'll be happenin'," Louis went on, in response to
my query for more definite information. "The man's as contrary as
air currents or water currents. You can never guess the ways iv
him. 'Tis just as you're thinkin' you know him and are makin' a
favourable slant along him, that he whirls around, dead ahead and
comes howlin' down upon you and a-rippin' all iv your fine-weather
sails to rags."
So I was not altogether surprised when the squall foretold by Louis
smote me. We had been having a heated discussion, - upon life, of
course, - and, grown over-bold, I was passing stiff strictures upon
Wolf Larsen and the life of Wolf Larsen. In fact, I was
vivisecting him and turning over his soul-stuff as keenly and
thoroughly as it was his custom to do it to others. It may be a
weakness of mine that I have an incisive way of speech; but I threw
all restraint to the winds and cut and slashed until the whole man
of him was snarling. The dark sun-bronze of his face went black
with wrath, his eyes were ablaze. There was no clearness or sanity
in them - nothing but the terrific rage of a madman. It was the
wolf in him that I saw, and a mad wolf at that.
He sprang for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled
myself to brazen it out, though I was trembling inwardly; but the
enormous strength of the man was too much for my fortitude. He had
gripped me by the biceps with his single hand, and when that grip
tightened I wilted and shrieked aloud. My feet went out from under
me. I simply could not stand upright and endure the agony. The
muscles refused their duty. The pain was too great. My biceps was
being crushed to a pulp.
He seemed to recover himself, for a lucid gleam came into his eyes,
and he relaxed his hold with a short laugh that was more like a
growl. I fell to the floor, feeling very faint, while he sat down,
lighted a cigar, and watched me as a cat watches a mouse. As I
writhed about I could see in his eyes that curiosity I had so often
noted, that wonder and perplexity, that questing, that everlasting
query of his as to what it was all about.
I finally crawled to my feet and ascended the companion stairs.
Fair weather was over, and there was nothing left but to return to
the galley. My left arm was numb, as though paralysed, and days
passed before I could use it, while weeks went by before the last
stiffness and pain went out of it. And he had done nothing but put
his hand upon my arm and squeeze. There had been no wrenching or
jerking. He had just closed his hand with a steady pressure. What
he might have done I did not fully realize till next day, when he
put his head into the galley, and, as a sign of renewed
friendliness, asked me how my arm was getting on.
"It might have been worse," he smiled.
I was peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. It was
fair-sized, firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it,
squeezed, and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy
streams. The pulpy remnant he dropped back into the pan and turned
away, and I had a sharp vision of how it might have fared with me
had the monster put his real strength upon me.
But the three days' rest was good in spite of it all, for it had
given my knee the very chance it needed. It felt much better, the
swelling had materially decreased, and the cap seemed descending
into its proper place. Also, the three days' rest brought the
trouble I had foreseen. It was plainly Thomas Mugridge's intention
to make me pay for those three days. He treated me vilely, cursed
me continually, and heaped his own work upon me. He even ventured
to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming animal-like myself, and
I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened him
back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself,
Humphrey Van Weyden, in that noisome ship's galley, crouched in a
corner over my task, my face raised to the face of the creature
about to strike me, my lips lifted and snarling like a dog's, my
eyes gleaming with fear and helplessness and the courage that comes
of fear and helplessness. I do not like the picture. It reminds
me too strongly of a rat in a trap. I do not care to think of it;
but it was elective, for the threatened blow did not descend.
Thomas Mugridge backed away, glaring as hatefully and viciously as
I glared. A pair of beasts is what we were, penned together and
showing our teeth. He was a coward, afraid to strike me because I
had not quailed sufficiently in advance; so he chose a new way to
intimidate me. There was only one galley knife that, as a knife,
amounted to anything. This, through many years of service and
wear, had acquired a long, lean blade. It was unusually cruel-
looking, and at first I had shuddered every time I used it. The
cook borrowed a stone from Johansen and proceeded to sharpen the
knife. He did it with great ostentation, glancing significantly at
me the while. He whetted it up and down all day long. Every odd
moment he could find he had the knife and stone out and was
whetting away. The steel acquired a razor edge. He tried it with
the ball of his thumb or across the nail. He shaved hairs from the
back of his hand, glanced along the edge with microscopic
acuteness, and found, or feigned that he found, always, a slight
inequality in its edge somewhere. Then he would put it on the
stone again and whet, whet, whet, till I could have laughed aloud,
it was so very ludicrous.
It was also serious, for I learned that he was capable of using it,
that under all his cowardice there was a courage of cowardice, like
mine, that would impel him to do the very thing his whole nature
protested against doing and was afraid of doing. "Cooky's
sharpening his knife for Hump," was being whispered about among the
sailors, and some of them twitted him about it. This he took in
good part, and was really pleased, nodding his head with direful
foreknowledge and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-
boy, ventured some rough pleasantry on the subject.
Now it happened that Leach was one of the sailors told off to douse
Mugridge after his game of cards with the captain. Leach had
evidently done his task with a thoroughness that Mugridge had not
forgiven, for words followed and evil names involving smirched
ancestries. Mugridge menaced with the knife he was sharpening for
me. Leach laughed and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill
Billingsgate, and before either he or I knew what had happened, his
right arm had been ripped open from elbow to wrist by a quick slash
of the knife. The cook backed away, a fiendish expression on his
face, the knife held before him in a position of defence. But
Leach took it quite calmly, though blood was spouting upon the deck
as generously as water from a fountain.
"I'm goin' to get you, Cooky," he said, "and I'll get you hard.
And I won't be in no hurry about it. You'll be without that knife
when I come for you."
So saying, he turned and walked quietly forward. Mugridge's face
was livid with fear at what he had done and at what he might expect
sooner or later from the man he had stabbed. But his demeanour
toward me was more ferocious than ever. In spite of his fear at
the reckoning he must expect to pay for what he had done, he could
see that it had been an object-lesson to me, and he became more
domineering and exultant. Also there was a lust in him, akin to
madness, which had come with sight of the blood he had drawn. He
was beginning to see red in whatever direction he looked. The
psychology of it is sadly tangled, and yet I could read the
workings of his mind as clearly as though it were a printed book.
Several days went by, the Ghost still foaming down the trades, and
I could swear I saw madness growing in Thomas Mugridge's eyes. And
I confess that I became afraid, very much afraid. Whet, whet,
whet, it went all day long. The look in his eyes as he felt the
keen edge and glared at me was positively carnivorous. I was
afraid to turn my shoulder to him, and when I left the galley I
went out backwards - to the amusement of the sailors and hunters,
who made a point of gathering in groups to witness my exit. The
strain was too great. I sometimes thought my mind would give way
under it - a meet thing on this ship of madmen and brutes. Every
hour, every minute of my existence was in jeopardy. I was a human
soul in distress, and yet no soul, fore or aft, betrayed sufficient
sympathy to come to my aid. At times I thought of throwing myself
on the mercy of Wolf Larsen, but the vision of the mocking devil in
his eyes that questioned life and sneered at it would come strong
upon me and compel me to refrain. At other times I seriously
contemplated suicide, and the whole force of my hopeful philosophy
was required to keep me from going over the side in the darkness of
night.
Several times Wolf Larsen tried to inveigle me into discussion, but
I gave him short answers and eluded him. Finally, he commanded me
to resume my seat at the cabin table for a time and let the cook do
my work. Then I spoke frankly, telling him what I was enduring
from Thomas Mugridge because of the three days of favouritism which
had been shown me. Wolf Larsen regarded me with smiling eyes.
"So you're afraid, eh?" he sneered.
"Yes," I said defiantly and honestly, "I am afraid."
"That's the way with you fellows," he cried, half angrily,
"sentimentalizing about your immortal souls and afraid to die. At
sight of a sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney the clinging of life
to life overcomes all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear fellow,
you will live for ever. You are a god, and God cannot be killed.
Cooky cannot hurt you. You are sure of your resurrection. What's
there to be afraid of?
"You have eternal life before you. You are a millionaire in
immortality, and a millionaire whose fortune cannot be lost, whose
fortune is less perishable than the stars and as lasting as space
or time. It is impossible for you to diminish your principal.
Immortality is a thing without beginning or end. Eternity is
eternity, and though you die here and now you will go on living
somewhere else and hereafter. And it is all very beautiful, this
shaking off of the flesh and soaring of the imprisoned spirit.
Cooky cannot hurt you. He can only give you a boost on the path
you eternally must tread.
"Or, if you do not wish to be boosted just yet, why not boost
Cooky? According to your ideas, he, too, must be an immortal
millionaire. You cannot bankrupt him. His paper will always
circulate at par. You cannot diminish the length of his living by
killing him, for he is without beginning or end. He's bound to go
on living, somewhere, somehow. Then boost him. Stick a knife in
him and let his spirit free. As it is, it's in a nasty prison, and
you'll do him only a kindness by breaking down the door. And who
knows? - it may be a very beautiful spirit that will go soaring up
into the blue from that ugly carcass. Boost him along, and I'll
promote you to his place, and he's getting forty-five dollars a
month."
It was plain that I could look for no help or mercy from Wolf
Larsen. Whatever was to be done I must do for myself; and out of
the courage of fear I evolved the plan of fighting Thomas Mugridge
with his own weapons. I borrowed a whetstone from Johansen.
Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged me for condensed milk
and sugar. The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was
situated beneath the cabin floor. Watching my chance, I stole five
cans of the milk, and that night, when it was Louis's watch on
deck, I traded them with him for a dirk as lean and cruel-looking
as Thomas Mugridge's vegetable knife. It was rusty and dull, but I
turned the grindstone while Louis gave it an edge. I slept more
soundly than usual that night.
Next morning, after breakfast, Thomas Mugridge began his whet,
whet, whet. I glanced warily at him, for I was on my knees taking
the ashes from the stove. When I returned from throwing them
overside, he was talking to Harrison, whose honest yokel's face was
filled with fascination and wonder.
"Yes," Mugridge was saying, "an' wot does 'is worship do but give
me two years in Reading. But blimey if I cared. The other mug was
fixed plenty. Should 'a seen 'im. Knife just like this. I stuck
it in, like into soft butter, an' the w'y 'e squealed was better'n
a tu-penny gaff." He shot a glance in my direction to see if I was
taking it in, and went on. "'I didn't mean it Tommy,' 'e was
snifflin'; 'so 'elp me Gawd, I didn't mean it!' "'I'll fix yer
bloody well right,' I sez, an' kept right after 'im. I cut 'im in
ribbons, that's wot I did, an' 'e a-squealin' all the time. Once
'e got 'is 'and on the knife an' tried to 'old it. 'Ad 'is fingers
around it, but I pulled it through, cuttin' to the bone. O, 'e was
a sight, I can tell yer."
A call from the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison
went aft. Mugridge sat down on the raised threshold to the galley
and went on with his knife-sharpening. I put the shovel away and
calmly sat down on the coal-box facing him. He favoured me with a
vicious stare. Still calmly, though my heart was going pitapat, I
pulled out Louis's dirk and began to whet it on the stone. I had
looked for almost any sort of explosion on the Cockney's part, but
to my surprise he did not appear aware of what I was doing. He
went on whetting his knife. So did I. And for two hours we sat
there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread
abroad and half the ship's company was crowding the galley doors to
see the sight.
Encouragement and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the
quiet, self-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a
mouse, advised me to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward for
the abdomen, at the same time giving what he called the "Spanish
twist" to the blade. Leach, his bandaged arm prominently to the
fore, begged me to leave a few remnants of the cook for him; and
Wolf Larsen paused once or twice at the break of the poop to glance
curiously at what must have been to him a stirring and crawling of
the yeasty thing he knew as life.
And I make free to say that for the time being life assumed the
same sordid values to me. There was nothing pretty about it,
nothing divine - only two cowardly moving things that sat whetting
steel upon stone, and a group of other moving things, cowardly and
otherwise, that looked on. Half of them, I am sure, were anxious
to see us shedding each other's blood. It would have been
entertainment. And I do not think there was one who would have
interfered had we closed in a death-struggle.
On the other hand, the whole thing was laughable and childish.
Whet, whet, whet, - Humphrey Van Weyden sharpening his knife in a
ship's galley and trying its edge with his thumb! Of all
situations this was the most inconceivable. I know that my own
kind could not have believed it possible. I had not been called
"Sissy" Van Weyden all my days without reason, and that "Sissy" Van
Weyden should be capable of doing this thing was a revelation to
Humphrey Van Weyden, who knew not whether to be exultant or
ashamed.
But nothing happened. At the end of two hours Thomas Mugridge put
away knife and stone and held out his hand.
"Wot's the good of mykin' a 'oly show of ourselves for them mugs?"
he demanded. "They don't love us, an' bloody well glad they'd be
a-seein' us cuttin' our throats. Yer not 'arf bad, 'Ump! You've
got spunk, as you Yanks s'y, an' I like yer in a w'y. So come on
an' shyke."
Coward that I might be, I was less a coward than he. It was a
distinct victory I had gained, and I refused to forego any of it by
shaking his detestable hand.
"All right," he said pridelessly, "tyke it or leave it, I'll like
yer none the less for it." And to save his face he turned fiercely
upon the onlookers. "Get outa my galley-doors, you bloomin'
swabs!"
This command was reinforced by a steaming kettle of water, and at
sight of it the sailors scrambled out of the way. This was a sort
of victory for Thomas Mugridge, and enabled him to accept more
gracefully the defeat I had given him, though, of course, he was
too discreet to attempt to drive the hunters away.
"I see Cooky's finish," I heard Smoke say to Horner.
"You bet," was the reply. "Hump runs the galley from now on, and
Cooky pulls in his horns."
Mugridge heard and shot a swift glance at me, but I gave no sign
that the conversation had reached me. I had not thought my victory
was so far-reaching and complete, but I resolved to let go nothing
I had gained. As the days went by, Smoke's prophecy was verified.
The Cockney became more humble and slavish to me than even to Wolf
Larsen. I mistered him and sirred him no longer, washed no more
greasy pots, and peeled no more potatoes. I did my own work, and
my own work only, and when and in what fashion I saw fit. Also I
carried the dirk in a sheath at my hip, sailor-fashion, and
maintained toward Thomas Mugridge a constant attitude which was
composed of equal parts of domineering, insult, and contempt. _
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