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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
been granite for all the light and warmth of
a human soul they contained. One may see the soul stir in some
mens eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea
itself.
"Well?"
"Yes," I said.
"Say yes, sir."
"Yes, sir," I corrected.
"What is your name?"
"Van Weyden, sir."
"First name?"
"Humphrey, sir; Humphrey Van Weyden."
"Age?"
"Thirty-five, sir."
"Thatll do. Go to the cook and learn your duties."
And thus it was that I passed into a state of involuntary servitude
to Wolf Larsen. He was stronger than I, that was all. But it was
very unreal at the time. It is no less unreal now that I look back
upon it. It will always be to me a monstrous, inconceivable thing,
a horrible nightmare.
"Hold on, dont go yet."
I stopped obediently in my walk toward the galley.
"Johansen, call all hands. Now that weve everything cleaned up,
well have the funeral and get the decks cleared of useless
lumber."
While Johansen was summoning the watch below, a couple of sailors,
under the captains direction, laid the canvas-swathed corpse upon
a hatch-cover. On either side the deck, against the rail and
bottoms up, were lashed a number of small boats. Several men
picked up the hatch-cover with its ghastly freight, carried it to
the lee side, and rested it on the boats, the feet pointing
overboard. To the feet was attached the sack of coal which the
cook had fetched.
I had always conceived a burial at sea to be a very solemn and awe-
inspiring event, but I was quickly disillusioned, by this burial at
any rate. One of the hunters, a little dark-eyed man whom his
mates called "Smoke," was telling stories, liberally intersprinkled
with oaths and obscenities; and every minute or so the group of
hunters gave mouth to a laughter that sounded to me like a wolf-
chorus or the barking of hell-hounds. The sailors trooped noisily
aft, some of the watch below rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and
talked in low tones together. There was an ominous and worried
expression on their faces. It was evident that they did not like
the outlook of a voyage under such a captain and begun so
inauspiciously. From time to time they stole glances at Wolf
Larsen, and I could see that they were apprehensive of the man.
He stepped up to the hatch-cover, and all caps came off. I ran my
eyes over them--twenty men all told; twenty-two including the man
at the wheel and myself. I was pardonably curious in my survey,
for it appeared my fate to be pent up with them on this miniature
floating world for I knew not how many weeks or months. The
sailors, in the main, were English and Scandinavian, and their
faces seemed of the heavy, stolid order. The hunters, on the other
hand, had stronger and more diversified faces, with hard lines and
the marks of the free play of passions. Strange to say, and I
noted it all once, Wolf Larsens features showed no such evil
stamp. There seemed nothing vicious in them. True, there were
lines, but they were the lines of decision and firmness. It
seemed, rather, a frank and open countenance, which frankness or
openness was enhanced by the fact that he was smooth-shaven. I
could hardly believe--until the next incident occurred--that it was
the face of a man who could behave as he had behaved to the cabin-
boy.
At this moment, as he opened his mouth to speak, puff after puff
struck the schooner and pressed her side under. The wind shrieked
a wild song through the rigging. Some of the hunters glanced
anxiously aloft. The lee rail, where the dead man lay, was buried
in the sea, and as the schooner lifted and righted the water swept
across the deck wetting us above our shoe-tops. A shower of rain
drove down upon us, each drop stinging like a hailstone. As it
passed, Wolf Larsen began to speak, the bare-headed men swaying in
unison, to the heave and lunge of the deck.
"I only remember one part of the service," he said, "and that is,
And the body shall be cast into the sea. So cast it in."
He ceased speaking. The men holding the hatch-cover seemed
perplexed, puzzled no doubt by the briefness of the ceremony. He
burst upon them in a fury.
"Lift up that end there, The Sea Wolf page 12 The Sea Wolf page 14 |