Chapter 11

by Jack London

　　Chapter XI

　　The Ghost has attained the southernmost point of the arc she isdescribing across the Pacific, and is already beginning to edgeaway to the west and north toward some lone island, it is rumoured,where she will fill her water-casks before proceeding to theseason's hunt along the coast of Japan. The hunters haveexperimented and practised with their rifles and shotguns till theyare satisfied, and the boat-pullers and steerers have made theirspritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks in leather and sennit sothat they will make no noise when creeping on the seals, and puttheir boats in apple-pie order - to use Leach's homely phrase.

　　His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remainall his life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and isafraid to venture on deck after dark. There are two or threestanding quarrels in the forecastle. Louis tells me that thegossip of the sailors finds its way aft, and that two of thetelltales have been badly beaten by their mates. He shakes hishead dubiously over the outlook for the man Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same boat with him. Johnson has been guilty ofspeaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or three timeswith Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name. Johansen hethrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which timethe mate has called him by his proper name. But of course it isout of the question that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen.

　　Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen,which tallies with the captain's brief description. We may expectto meet Death Larsen on the Japan coast. "And look out forsqualls," is Louis's prophecy, "for they hate one another like thewolf whelps they are." Death Larsen is in command of the onlysealing steamer in the fleet, the Macedonia, which carries fourteenboats, whereas the rest of the schooners carry only six. There iswild talk of cannon aboard, and of strange raids and expeditionsshe may make, ranging from opium smuggling into the States and armssmuggling into China, to blackbirding and open piracy. Yet Icannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a lie, whilehe has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of thesealing fleets.

　　As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage andaft, on this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggleferociously for one another's lives. The hunters are looking for ashooting scrape at any moment between Smoke and Henderson, whoseold quarrel has not healed, while Wolf Larsen says positively thathe will kill the survivor of the affair, if such affair comes off.He frankly states that the position he takes is based on no moralgrounds, that all the hunters could kill and eat one another so faras he is concerned, were it not that he needs them alive for thehunting. If they will only hold their hands until the season isover, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can hesettled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard andarrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. Ithink even the hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness.Wicked men though they be, they are certainly very much afraid ofhim.

　　Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I goabout in secret dread of him. His is the courage of fear, - astrange thing I know well of myself, - and at any moment it maymaster the fear and impel him to the taking of my life. My knee ismuch better, though it often aches for long periods, and thestiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen squeezed.Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in splendidcondition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing in size.My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. They have aparboiled appearance, are afflicted with hang-nails, while thenails are broken and discoloured, and the edges of the quick seemto be assuming a fungoid sort of growth. Also, I am suffering fromboils, due to the diet, most likely, for I was never afflicted inthis manner before.

　　I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsenreading the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for oneat the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate'ssea-chest. I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and heread aloud to me from Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he wasspeaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and hisvoice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin,charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but he certainly knowshow to express the significance of the written word. I can hearhim now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrantin his voice as he read:

　　"I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure ofkings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers,and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, andthat of all sorts.

　　"So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me inJerusalem; also my wisdom returned with me.

　　"Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and onthe labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanityand vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.

　　"All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteousand to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to theunclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not;as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he thatfeareth an oath.

　　"This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, thatthere is one event unto all; yea, also the heart of the sons of menis full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, andafter that they go to the dead.

　　"For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for aliving dog is better than a dead lion.

　　"For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know notanything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory ofthem is forgotten.

　　"Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is nowperished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in anythingthat is done under the sun."

　　"There you have it, Hump," he said, closing the book upon hisfinger and looking up at me. "The Preacher who was king overIsrael in Jerusalem thought as I think. You call me a pessimist.Is not this pessimism of the blackest? - 'All is vanity andvexation of spirit,' 'There is no profit under the sun,' 'There isone event unto all,' to the fool and the wise, the clean and theunclean, the sinner and the saint, and that event is death, and anevil thing, he says. For the Preacher loved life, and did not wantto die, saying, 'For a living dog is better than a dead lion.' Hepreferred the vanity and vexation to the silence and unmovablenessof the grave. And so I. To crawl is piggish; but to not crawl, tobe as the clod and rock, is loathsome to contemplate. It isloathsome to the life that is in me, the very essence of which ismovement, the power of movement, and the consciousness of the powerof movement. Life itself is unsatisfaction, but to look ahead todeath is greater unsatisfaction."

　　"You are worse off than Omar," I said. "He, at least, after thecustomary agonizing of youth, found content and made of hismaterialism a joyous thing."

　　"Who was Omar?" Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more work that day,nor the next, nor the next.

　　In his random reading he had never chanced upon the Rubeiyet, andit was to him like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered,possibly two-thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece outthe remainder without difficulty. We talked for hours over singlestanzas, and I found him reading into them a wail of regret and arebellion which, for the life of me, I could not discover myself.Possibly I recited with a certain joyous lilt which was my own, for- his memory was good, and at a second rendering, very often thefirst, he made a quatrain his own - he recited the same lines andinvested them with an unrest and passionate revolt that was well-nigh convincing.

　　I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and wasnot surprised when he hit upon the one born of an instant'sirritability, and quite at variance with the Persian's complacentphilosophy and genial code of life:

　　"What, without asking, hither hurried whence?

　　And, without asking, whither hurried hence!

　　Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine

　　Must drown the memory of that insolence!"

　　"Great!" Wolf Larsen cried. "Great! That's the keynote.Insolence! He could not have used a better word."

　　In vain I objected and denied. He deluged me, overwhelmed me withargument.

　　"It's not the nature of life to be otherwise. Life, when it knowsthat it must cease living, will always rebel. It cannot helpitself. The Preacher found life and the works of life all a vanityand vexation, an evil thing; but death, the ceasing to be able tobe vain and vexed, he found an eviler thing. Through chapter afterchapter he is worried by the one event that cometh to all alike.So Omar, so I, so you, even you, for you rebelled against dyingwhen Cooky sharpened a knife for you. You were afraid to die; thelife that was in you, that composes you, that is greater than you,did not want to die. You have talked of the instinct ofimmortality. I talk of the instinct of life, which is to live, andwhich, when death looms near and large, masters the instinct, socalled, of immortality. It mastered it in you (you cannot denyit), because a crazy Cockney cook sharpened a knife.

　　"You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot denyit. If I should catch you by the throat, thus," - his hand wasabout my throat and my breath was shut off, - "and began to pressthe life out of you thus, and thus, your instinct of immortalitywill go glimmering, and your instinct of life, which is longing forlife, will flutter up, and you will struggle to save yourself. Eh?I see the fear of death in your eyes. You beat the air with yourarms. You exert all your puny strength to struggle to live. Yourhand is clutching my arm, lightly it feels as a butterfly restingthere. Your chest is heaving, your tongue protruding, your skinturning dark, your eyes swimming. 'To live! To live! To live!'you are crying; and you are crying to live here and now, nothereafter. You doubt your immortality, eh? Ha! ha! You are notsure of it. You won't chance it. This life only you are certainis real. Ah, it is growing dark and darker. It is the darkness ofdeath, the ceasing to be, the ceasing to feel, the ceasing to move,that is gathering about you, descending upon you, rising aroundyou. Your eyes are becoming set. They are glazing. My voicesounds faint and far. You cannot see my face. And still youstruggle in my grip. You kick with your legs. Your body drawsitself up in knots like a snake's. Your chest heaves and strains.To live! To live! To live - "

　　I heard no more. Consciousness was blotted out by the darkness hehad so graphically described, and when I came to myself I was lyingon the floor and he was smoking a cigar and regarding methoughtfully with that old familiar light of curiosity in his eyes.

　　"Well, have I convinced you?" he demanded. "Here take a drink ofthis. I want to ask you some questions."

　　I rolled my head negatively on the floor. "Your arguments are too- er - forcible," I managed to articulate, at cost of great pain tomy aching throat.

　　"You'll be all right in half-an-hour," he assured me. "And Ipromise I won't use any more physical demonstrations. Get up now.You can sit on a chair."

　　And, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and thePreacher was resumed. And half the night we sat up over it.