Chapter 14

by Jack London

　　Chapter XIV

　　It has dawned upon me that I have never placed a proper valuationupon womankind. For that matter, though not amative to anyconsiderable degree so far as I have discovered, I was neveroutside the atmosphere of women until now. My mother and sisterswere always about me, and I was always trying to escape them; forthey worried me to distraction with their solicitude for my healthand with their periodic inroads on my den, when my orderlyconfusion, upon which I prided myself, was turned into worseconfusion and less order, though it looked neat enough to the eye.I never could find anything when they had departed. But now, alas,how welcome would have been the feel of their presence, the frou-frou and swish-swish of their skirts which I had so cordiallydetested! I am sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never beirritable with them again. They may dose me and doctor me morning,noon, and night, and dust and sweep and put my den to rights everyminute of the day, and I shall only lean back and survey it all andbe thankful in that I am possessed of a mother and some severalsisters.

　　All of which has set me wondering. Where are the mothers of thesetwenty and odd men on the Ghost? It strikes me as unnatural andunhealthful that men should be totally separated from women andherd through the world by themselves. Coarseness and savagery arethe inevitable results. These men about me should have wives, andsisters, and daughters; then would they be capable of softness, andtenderness, and sympathy. As it is, not one of them is married.In years and years not one of them has been in contact with a goodwoman, or within the influence, or redemption, which irresistiblyradiates from such a creature. There is no balance in their lives.Their masculinity, which in itself is of the brute, has been over-developed. The other and spiritual side of their natures has beendwarfed - atrophied, in fact.

　　They are a company of celibates, grinding harshly against oneanother and growing daily more calloused from the grinding. Itseems to me impossible sometimes that they ever had mothers. Itwould appear that they are a half-brute, half-human species, a raceapart, wherein there is no such thing as sex; that they are hatchedout by the sun like turtle eggs, or receive life in some similarand sordid fashion; and that all their days they fester inbrutality and viciousness, and in the end die as unlovely as theyhave lived.

　　Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked withJohansen last night - the first superfluous words with which he hasfavoured me since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he waseighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time hasnot been home once. He had met a townsman, a couple of yearsbefore, in some sailor boarding-house in Chile, so that he knew hismother to be still alive.

　　"She must be a pretty old woman now," he said, staring meditativelyinto the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, whowas steering a point off the course.

　　"When did you last write to her?"

　　He performed his mental arithmetic aloud. "Eighty-one; no -eighty-two, eh? no - eighty-three? Yes, eighty-three. Ten yearsago. From some little port in Madagascar. I was trading.

　　"You see," he went on, as though addressing his neglected motheracross half the girth of the earth, "each year I was going home.So what was the good to write? It was only a year. And each yearsomething happened, and I did not go. But I am mate, now, and whenI pay off at 'Frisco, maybe with five hundred dollars, I will shipmyself on a windjammer round the Horn to Liverpool, which will giveme more money; and then I will pay my passage from there home.Then she will not do any more work."

　　"But does she work? now? How old is she?"

　　"About seventy," he answered. And then, boastingly, "We work fromthe time we are born until we die, in my country. That's why welive so long. I will live to a hundred."

　　I shall never forget this conversation. The words were the last Iever heard him utter. Perhaps they were the last he did utter,too. For, going down into the cabin to turn in, I decided that itwas too stuffy to sleep below. It was a calm night. We were outof the Trades, and the Ghost was forging ahead barely a knot anhour. So I tucked a blanket and pillow under my arm and went up ondeck.

　　As I passed between Harrison and the binnacle, which was built intothe top of the cabin, I noticed that he was this time fully threepoints off. Thinking that he was asleep, and wishing him to escapereprimand or worse, I spoke to him. But he was not asleep. Hiseyes were wide and staring. He seemed greatly perturbed, unable toreply to me.

　　"What's the matter?" I asked. "Are you sick?"

　　He shook his head, and with a deep sign as of awakening, caught hisbreath.

　　"You'd better get on your course, then," I chided.

　　He put a few spokes over, and I watched the compass-card swingslowly to N.N.W. and steady itself with slight oscillations.

　　I took a fresh hold on my bedclothes and was preparing to start on,when some movement caught my eye and I looked astern to the rail.A sinewy hand, dripping with water, was clutching the rail. Asecond hand took form in the darkness beside it. I watched,fascinated. What visitant from the gloom of the deep was I tobehold? Whatever it was, I knew that it was climbing aboard by thelog-line. I saw a head, the hair wet and straight, shape itself,and then the unmistakable eyes and face of Wolf Larsen. His rightcheek was red with blood, which flowed from some wound in the head.

　　He drew himself inboard with a quick effort, and arose to his feet,glancing swiftly, as he did so, at the man at the wheel, as thoughto assure himself of his identity and that there was nothing tofear from him. The sea-water was streaming from him. It madelittle audible gurgles which distracted me. As he stepped towardme I shrank back instinctively, for I saw that in his eyes whichspelled death.

　　"All right, Hump," he said in a low voice. "Where's the mate?"

　　I shook my head.

　　"Johansen!" he called softly. "Johansen!"

　　"Where is he?" he demanded of Harrison.

　　The young fellow seemed to have recovered his composure, for heanswered steadily enough, "I don't know, sir. I saw him go for'arda little while ago."

　　"So did I go for'ard. But you will observe that I didn't come backthe way I went. Can you explain it?"

　　"You must have been overboard, sir."

　　"Shall I look for him in the steerage, sir?" I asked.

　　Wolf Larsen shook his head. "You wouldn't find him, Hump. Butyou'll do. Come on. Never mind your bedding. Leave it where itis."

　　I followed at his heels. There was nothing stirring amidships.

　　"Those cursed hunters," was his comment. "Too damned fat and lazyto stand a four-hour watch."

　　But on the forecastle-head we found three sailors asleep. Heturned them over and looked at their faces. They composed thewatch on deck, and it was the ship's custom, in good weather, tolet the watch sleep with the exception of the officer, thehelmsman, and the look-out.

　　"Who's look-out?" he demanded.

　　"Me, sir," answered Holyoak, one of the deep-water sailors, aslight tremor in his voice. "I winked off just this very minute,sir. I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again."

　　"Did you hear or see anything on deck?"

　　"No, sir, I - "

　　But Wolf Larsen had turned away with a snort of disgust, leavingthe sailor rubbing his eyes with surprise at having been let of soeasily.

　　"Softly, now," Wolf Larsen warned me in a whisper, as he doubledhis body into the forecastle scuttle and prepared to descend.

　　I followed with a quaking heart. What was to happen I knew no morethan did I know what had happened. But blood had been shed, and itwas through no whim of Wolf Larsen that he had gone over the sidewith his scalp laid open. Besides, Johansen was missing.

　　It was my first descent into the forecastle, and I shall not soonforget my impression of it, caught as I stood on my feet at thebottom of the ladder. Built directly in the eyes of the schooner,it was of the shape of a triangle, along the three sides of whichstood the bunks, in double-tier, twelve of them. It was no largerthan a hall bedroom in Grub Street, and yet twelve men were herdedinto it to eat and sleep and carry on all the functions of living.My bedroom at home was not large, yet it could have contained adozen similar forecastles, and taking into consideration the heightof the ceiling, a score at least.

　　It smelled sour and musty, and by the dim light of the swingingsea-lamp I saw every bit of available wall-space hung deep withsea-boots, oilskins, and garments, clean and dirty, of varioussorts. These swung back and forth with every roll of the vessel,giving rise to a brushing sound, as of trees against a roof orwall. Somewhere a boot thumped loudly and at irregular intervalsagainst the wall; and, though it was a mild night on the sea, therewas a continual chorus of the creaking timbers and bulkheads and ofabysmal noises beneath the flooring.

　　The sleepers did not mind. There were eight of them, - the twowatches below, - and the air was thick with the warmth and odour oftheir breathing, and the ear was filled with the noise of theirsnoring and of their sighs and half-groans, tokens plain of therest of the animal-man. But were they sleeping? all of them? Orhad they been sleeping? This was evidently Wolf Larsen's quest -to find the men who appeared to be asleep and who were not asleepor who had not been asleep very recently. And he went about it ina way that reminded me of a story out of Boccaccio.

　　He took the sea-lamp from its swinging frame and handed it to me.He began at the first bunks forward on the star-board side. In thetop one lay Oofty-Oofty, a Kanaka and splendid seaman, so named byhis mates. He was asleep on his back and breathing as placidly asa woman. One arm was under his head, the other lay on top of theblankets. Wolf Larsen put thumb and forefinger to the wrist andcounted the pulse. In the midst of it the Kanaka roused. He awokeas gently as he slept. There was no movement of the body whatever.The eyes, only, moved. They flashed wide open, big and black, andstared, unblinking, into our faces. Wolf Larsen put his finger tohis lips as a sign for silence, and the eyes closed again.

　　In the lower bunk lay Louis, grossly fat and warm and sweaty,asleep unfeignedly and sleeping laboriously. While Wolf Larsenheld his wrist he stirred uneasily, bowing his body so that for amoment it rested on shoulders and heels. His lips moved, and hegave voice to this enigmatic utterance:

　　"A shilling's worth a quarter; but keep your lamps out forthruppenny-bits, or the publicans 'll shove 'em on you forsixpence."

　　Then he rolled over on his side with a heavy, sobbing sigh, saying:

　　"A sixpence is a tanner, and a shilling a bob; but what a pony is Idon't know."

　　Satisfied with the honesty of his and the Kanaka's sleep, WolfLarsen passed on to the next two bunks on the starboard side,occupied top and bottom, as we saw in the light of the sea-lamp, byLeach and Johnson.

　　As Wolf Larsen bent down to the lower bunk to take Johnson's pulse,I, standing erect and holding the lamp, saw Leach's head risestealthily as he peered over the side of his bunk to see what wasgoing on. He must have divined Wolf Larsen's trick and thesureness of detection, for the light was at once dashed from myhand and the forecastle was left in darkness. He must have leaped,also, at the same instant, straight down on Wolf Larsen.

　　The first sounds were those of a conflict between a bull and awolf. I heard a great infuriated bellow go up from Wolf Larsen,and from Leach a snarling that was desperate and blood-curdling.Johnson must have joined him immediately, so that his abject andgrovelling conduct on deck for the past few days had been no morethan planned deception.

　　I was so terror-stricken by this fight in the dark that I leanedagainst the ladder, trembling and unable to ascend. And upon mewas that old sickness at the pit of the stomach, caused always bythe spectacle of physical violence. In this instance I could notsee, but I could hear the impact of the blows - the soft crushingsound made by flesh striking forcibly against flesh. Then therewas the crashing about of the entwined bodies, the labouredbreathing, the short quick gasps of sudden pain.

　　There must have been more men in the conspiracy to murder thecaptain and mate, for by the sounds I knew that Leach and Johnsonhad been quickly reinforced by some of their mates.

　　"Get a knife somebody!" Leach was shouting.

　　"Pound him on the head! Mash his brains out!" was Johnson's cry.

　　But after his first bellow, Wolf Larsen made no noise. He wasfighting grimly and silently for life. He was sore beset. Down atthe very first, he had been unable to gain his feet, and for all ofhis tremendous strength I felt that there was no hope for him.

　　The force with which they struggled was vividly impressed on me;for I was knocked down by their surging bodies and badly bruised.But in the confusion I managed to crawl into an empty lower bunkout of the way.

　　"All hands! We've got him! We've got him!" I could hear Leachcrying.

　　"Who?" demanded those who had been really asleep, and who hadwakened to they knew not what.

　　"It's the bloody mate!" was Leach's crafty answer, strained fromhim in a smothered sort of way.

　　This was greeted with whoops of joy, and from then on Wolf Larsenhad seven strong men on top of him, Louis, I believe, taking nopart in it. The forecastle was like an angry hive of bees arousedby some marauder.

　　"What ho! below there!" I heard Latimer shout down the scuttle, toocautious to descend into the inferno of passion he could hearraging beneath him in the darkness.

　　"Won't somebody get a knife? Oh, won't somebody get a knife?"Leach pleaded in the first interval of comparative silence.

　　The number of the assailants was a cause of confusion. Theyblocked their own efforts, while Wolf Larsen, with but a singlepurpose, achieved his. This was to fight his way across the floorto the ladder. Though in total darkness, I followed his progressby its sound. No man less than a giant could have done what hedid, once he had gained the foot of the ladder. Step by step, bythe might of his arms, the whole pack of men striving to drag himback and down, he drew his body up from the floor till he stooderect. And then, step by step, hand and foot, he slowly struggledup the ladder.

　　The very last of all, I saw. For Latimer, having finally gone fora lantern, held it so that its light shone down the scuttle. WolfLarsen was nearly to the top, though I could not see him. All thatwas visible was the mass of men fastened upon him. It squirmedabout, like some huge many-legged spider, and swayed back and forthto the regular roll of the vessel. And still, step by step withlong intervals between, the mass ascended. Once it tottered, aboutto fall back, but the broken hold was regained and it still wentup.

　　"Who is it?" Latimer cried.

　　In the rays of the lantern I could see his perplexed face peeringdown.

　　"Larsen," I heard a muffled voice from within the mass.

　　Latimer reached down with his free hand. I saw a hand shoot up toclasp his. Latimer pulled, and the next couple of steps were madewith a rush. Then Wolf Larsen's other hand reached up and clutchedthe edge of the scuttle. The mass swung clear of the ladder, themen still clinging to their escaping foe. They began to drop of,to be brushed off against the sharp edge of the scuttle, to beknocked off by the legs which were now kicking powerfully. Leachwas the last to go, falling sheer back from the top of the scuttleand striking on head and shoulders upon his sprawling matesbeneath. Wolf Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we were leftin darkness.