Chapter 2

by Jack London

　　Chapter II

　　I seemed swinging in a mighty rhythm through orbit vastness.Sparkling points of light spluttered and shot past me. They werestars, I knew, and flaring comets, that peopled my flight among thesuns. As I reached the limit of my swing and prepared to rush backon the counter swing, a great gong struck and thundered. For animmeasurable period, lapped in the rippling of placid centuries, Ienjoyed and pondered my tremendous flight.

　　But a change came over the face of the dream, for a dream I toldmyself it must be. My rhythm grew shorter and shorter. I wasjerked from swing to counter swing with irritating haste. I couldscarcely catch my breath, so fiercely was I impelled through theheavens. The gong thundered more frequently and more furiously. Igrew to await it with a nameless dread. Then it seemed as though Iwere being dragged over rasping sands, white and hot in the sun.This gave place to a sense of intolerable anguish. My skin wasscorching in the torment of fire. The gong clanged and knelled.The sparkling points of light flashed past me in an interminablestream, as though the whole sidereal system were dropping into thevoid. I gasped, caught my breath painfully, and opened my eyes.Two men were kneeling beside me, working over me. My mighty rhythmwas the lift and forward plunge of a ship on the sea. The terrificgong was a frying-pan, hanging on the wall, that rattled andclattered with each leap of the ship. The rasping, scorching sandswere a man's hard hands chafing my naked chest. I squirmed underthe pain of it, and half lifted my head. My chest was raw and red,and I could see tiny blood globules starting through the torn andinflamed cuticle.

　　"That'll do, Yonson," one of the men said. "Carn't yer see you'vebloomin' well rubbed all the gent's skin orf?"

　　The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type,ceased chafing me, and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man whohad spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines andweakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbedthe sound of Bow Bells with his mother's milk. A draggled muslincap on his head and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim hipsproclaimed him cook of the decidedly dirty ship's galley in which Ifound myself.

　　"An' 'ow yer feelin' now, sir?" he asked, with the subservientsmirk which comes only of generations of tip-seeking ancestors.

　　For reply, I twisted weakly into a sitting posture, and was helpedby Yonson to my feet. The rattle and bang of the frying-pan wasgrating horribly on my nerves. I could not collect my thoughts.Clutching the woodwork of the galley for support, - and I confessthe grease with which it was scummed put my teeth on edge, - Ireached across a hot cooking-range to the offending utensil,unhooked it, and wedged it securely into the coal-box.

　　The cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into myhand a steaming mug with an "'Ere, this'll do yer good." It was anauseous mess, - ship's coffee, - but the heat of it wasrevivifying. Between gulps of the molten stuff I glanced down atmy raw and bleeding chest and turned to the Scandinavian.

　　"Thank you, Mr. Yonson," I said; "but don't you think your measureswere rather heroic?"

　　It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather thanof my words, that he held up his palm for inspection. It wasremarkably calloused. I passed my hand over the horny projections,and my teeth went on edge once more from the horrible raspingsensation produced.

　　"My name is Johnson, not Yonson," he said, in very good, thoughslow, English, with no more than a shade of accent to it.

　　There was mild protest in his pale blue eyes, and withal a timidfrankness and manliness that quite won me to him.

　　"Thank you, Mr. Johnson," I corrected, and reached out my hand forhis.

　　He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one legto the other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake.

　　"Have you any dry clothes I may put on?" I asked the cook.

　　"Yes, sir," he answered, with cheerful alacrity. "I'll run downan' tyke a look over my kit, if you've no objections, sir, towearin' my things."

　　He dived out of the galley door, or glided rather, with a swiftnessand smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-likeas oily. In fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later tolearn, was probably the most salient expression of his personality.

　　"And where am I?" I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to beone of the sailors. "What vessel is this, and where is she bound?"

　　"Off the Farallones, heading about sou-west," he answered, slowlyand methodically, as though groping for his best English, andrigidly observing the order of my queries. "The schooner Ghost,bound seal-hunting to Japan."

　　"And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I am dressed."

　　Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while hegroped in his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. "The cap'nis Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name.But you better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. Themate - "

　　But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.

　　"Better sling yer 'ook out of 'ere, Yonson," he said. "The oldman'll be wantin' yer on deck, an' this ayn't no d'y to fall foulof 'im."

　　Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over thecook's shoulder, favouring me with an amazingly solemn andportentous wink as though to emphasize his interrupted remark andthe need for me to be soft-spoken with the captain.

　　Hanging over the cook's arm was a loose and crumpled array of evil-looking and sour-smelling garments.

　　"They was put aw'y wet, sir," he vouchsafed explanation. "Butyou'll 'ave to make them do till I dry yours out by the fire."

　　Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, andaided by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollenundershirt. On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling fromthe harsh contact. He noticed my involuntary twitching andgrimacing, and smirked:

　　"I only 'ope yer don't ever 'ave to get used to such as that inthis life, 'cos you've got a bloomin' soft skin, that you 'ave,more like a lydy's than any I know of. I was bloomin' well sureyou was a gentleman as soon as I set eyes on yer."

　　I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress methis dislike increased. There was something repulsive about histouch. I shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And betweenthis and the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubblingon the galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air.Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about whatarrangements could be made for getting me ashore.

　　A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discolouredwith what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid arunning and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman'sbrogans encased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with apair of pale blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fullyten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked asthough the devil had there clutched for the Cockney's soul andmissed the shadow for the substance.

　　"And whom have I to thank for this kindness?" I asked, when I stoodcompletely arrayed, a tiny boy's cap on my head, and for coat adirty, striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my backand the sleeves of which reached just below my elbows.

　　The cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecatingsmirk on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on theAtlantic liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he waswaiting for his tip. From my fuller knowledge of the creature Inow know that the posture was unconscious. An hereditaryservility, no doubt, was responsible.

　　"Mugridge, sir," he fawned, his effeminate features running into agreasy smile. "Thomas Mugridge, sir, an' at yer service."

　　"All right, Thomas," I said. "I shall not forget you - when myclothes are dry."

　　A soft light suffused his face and his eyes glistened, as thoughsomewhere in the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened andstirred with dim memories of tips received in former lives.

　　"Thank you, sir," he said, very gratefully and very humbly indeed.

　　Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and Istepped out on deck. I was still weak from my prolonged immersion.A puff of wind caught me, - and I staggered across the moving deckto a corner of the cabin, to which I clung for support. Theschooner, heeled over far out from the perpendicular, was bowingand plunging into the long Pacific roll. If she were headingsouth-west as Johnson had said, the wind, then, I calculated, wasblowing nearly from the south. The fog was gone, and in its placethe sun sparkled crisply on the surface of the water, I turned tothe east, where I knew California must lie, but could see nothingsave low-lying fog-banks - the same fog, doubtless, that hadbrought about the disaster to the Martinez and placed me in mypresent situation. To the north, and not far away, a group ofnaked rocks thrust above the sea, on one of which I coulddistinguish a lighthouse. In the south-west, and almost in ourcourse, I saw the pyramidal loom of some vessel's sails.

　　Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my moreimmediate surroundings. My first thought was that a man who hadcome through a collision and rubbed shoulders with death meritedmore attention than I received. Beyond a sailor at the wheel whostared curiously across the top of the cabin, I attracted no noticewhatever.

　　Everybody seemed interested in what was going on amid ships.There, on a hatch, a large man was lying on his back. He was fullyclothed, though his shirt was ripped open in front. Nothing was tobe seen of his chest, however, for it was covered with a mass ofblack hair, in appearance like the furry coat of a dog. His faceand neck were hidden beneath a black beard, intershot with grey,which would have been stiff and bushy had it not been limp anddraggled and dripping with water. His eyes were closed, and he wasapparently unconscious; but his mouth was wide open, his breast,heaving as though from suffocation as he laboured noisily forbreath. A sailor, from time to time and quite methodically, as amatter of routine, dropped a canvas bucket into the ocean at theend of a rope, hauled it in hand under hand, and sluiced itscontents over the prostrate man.

　　Pacing back and forth the length of the hatchways and savagelychewing the end of a cigar, was the man whose casual glance hadrescued me from the sea. His height was probably five feet teninches, or ten and a half; but my first impression, or feel of theman, was not of this, but of his strength. And yet, while he wasof massive build, with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could notcharacterize his strength as massive. It was what might be termeda sinewy, knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wirymen, but which, in him, because of his heavy build, partook more ofthe enlarged gorilla order. Not that in appearance he seemed inthe least gorilla-like. What I am striving to express is thisstrength itself, more as a thing apart from his physical semblance.It was a strength we are wont to associate with things primitive,with wild animals, and the creatures we imagine our tree-dwellingprototypes to have been - a strength savage, ferocious, alive initself, the essence of life in that it is the potency of motion,the elemental stuff itself out of which the many forms of life havebeen moulded; in short, that which writhes in the body of a snakewhen the head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, is dead, orwhich lingers in the shapeless lump of turtle-meat and recoils andquivers from the prod of a finger.

　　Such was the impression of strength I gathered from this man whopaced up and down. He was firmly planted on his legs; his feetstruck the deck squarely and with surety; every movement of amuscle, from the heave of the shoulders to the tightening of thelips about the cigar, was decisive, and seemed to come out of astrength that was excessive and overwhelming. In fact, though thisstrength pervaded every action of his, it seemed but theadvertisement of a greater strength that lurked within, that laydormant and no more than stirred from time to time, but which mightarouse, at any moment, terrible and compelling, like the rage of alion or the wrath of a storm.

　　The cook stuck his head out of the galley door and grinnedencouragingly at me, at the same time jerking his thumb in thedirection of the man who paced up and down by the hatchway. Thus Iwas given to understand that he was the captain, the "Old Man," inthe cook's vernacular, the individual whom I must interview and putto the trouble of somehow getting me ashore. I had half startedforward, to get over with what I was certain would be a stormy fiveminutes, when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized theunfortunate person who was lying on his back. He wrenched andwrithed about convulsively. The chin, with the damp black beard,pointed higher in the air as the back muscles stiffened and thechest swelled in an unconscious and instinctive effort to get moreair. Under the whiskers, and all unseen, I knew that the skin wastaking on a purplish hue.

　　The captain, or Wolf Larsen, as men called him, ceased pacing andgazed down at the dying man. So fierce had this final strugglebecome that the sailor paused in the act of flinging more waterover him and stared curiously, the canvas bucket partly tilted anddripping its contents to the deck. The dying man beat a tattoo onthe hatch with his heels, straightened out his legs, and stiffenedin one great tense effort, and rolled his head from side to side.Then the muscles relaxed, the head stopped rolling, and a sigh, asof profound relief, floated upward from his lips. The jaw dropped,the upper lip lifted, and two rows of tobacco-discoloured teethappeared. It seemed as though his features had frozen into adiabolical grin at the world he had left and outwitted.

　　Then a most surprising thing occurred. The captain broke looseupon the dead man like a thunderclap. Oaths rolled from his lipsin a continuous stream. And they were not namby-pamby oaths, ormere expressions of indecency. Each word was a blasphemy, andthere were many words. They crisped and crackled like electricsparks. I had never heard anything like it in my life, nor could Ihave conceived it possible. With a turn for literary expressionmyself, and a penchant for forcible figures and phrases, Iappreciated, as no other listener, I dare say, the peculiarvividness and strength and absolute blasphemy of his metaphors.The cause of it all, as near as I could make out, was that the man,who was mate, had gone on a debauch before leaving San Francisco,and then had the poor taste to die at the beginning of the voyageand leave Wolf Larsen short-handed.

　　It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends, that Iwas shocked. Oaths and vile language of any sort had always beenrepellent to me. I felt a wilting sensation, a sinking at theheart, and, I might just as well say, a giddiness. To me, deathhad always been invested with solemnity and dignity. It had beenpeaceful in its occurrence, sacred in its ceremonial. But death inits more sordid and terrible aspects was a thing with which I hadbeen unacquainted till now. As I say, while I appreciated thepower of the terrific denunciation that swept out of Wolf Larsen'smouth, I was inexpressibly shocked. The scorching torrent wasenough to wither the face of the corpse. I should not have beensurprised if the wet black beard had frizzled and curled and flaredup in smoke and flame. But the dead man was unconcerned. Hecontinued to grin with a sardonic humour, with a cynical mockeryand defiance. He was master of the situation.