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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
slide shut with a bang. Then I saw Henderson leaping like a
madman for the main rigging, up which he shot, on the inside, till
he was many feet higher than my head. Also I saw a great wave,
curling and foaming, poised far above the rail. I was directly
under it. My mind did not work quickly, everything was so new and
strange. I grasped that I was in danger, but that was all. I
stood still, in trepidation. Then Wolf Larsen shouted from the
poop:
"Grab hold something, you--you Hump!"
But it was too late. I sprang toward the rigging, to which I might
have clung, and was met by the descending wall of water. What
happened after that was very confusing. I was beneath the water,
suffocating and drowning. My feet were out from under me, and I
was turning over and over and being swept along I knew not where.
Several times I collided against hard objects, once striking my
right knee a terrible blow. Then the flood seemed suddenly to
subside and I was breathing the good air again. I had been swept
against the galley and around the steerage companion-way from the
weather side into the lee scuppers. The pain from my hurt knee was
agonizing. I could not put my weight on it, or, at least, I
thought I could not put my weight on it; and I felt sure the leg
was broken. But the cook was after me, shouting through the lee
galley door:
"Ere, you! Dont tyke all night about it! Wheres the pot? Lost
overboard? Serve you bloody well right if yer neck was broke!"
I managed to struggle to my feet. The great tea-pot was still in
my hand. I limped to the galley and handed it to him. But he was
consumed with indignation, real or feigned.
"Gawd blime me if you aynt a slob. Wot re you good for anywy,
Id like to know? Eh? Wot re you good for anywy? Cawnt even
carry a bit of tea aft without losin it. Now Ill ave to boil
some more.
"An wot re you snifflin about?" he burst out at me, with renewed
rage. "Cos youve urt yer pore little leg, pore little mammas
darlin."
I was not sniffling, though my face might well have been drawn and
twitching from the pain. But I called up all my resolution, set my
teeth, and hobbled back and forth from galley to cabin and cabin to
galley without further mishap. Two things I had acquired by my
accident: an injured knee-cap that went undressed and from which I
suffered for weary months, and the name of "Hump," which Wolf
Larsen had called me from the poop. Thereafter, fore and aft, I
was known by no other name, until the term became a part of my
thought-processes and I identified it with myself, thought of
myself as Hump, as though Hump were I and had always been I.
It was no easy task, waiting on the cabin table, where sat Wolf
Larsen, Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to
begin with, and to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made
easier by the schooners violent pitching and wallowing. But what
struck me most forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part
of the men whom I served. I could feel my knee through my clothes,
swelling, and swelling, and I was sick and faint from the pain of
it. I could catch glimpses of my face, white and ghastly,
distorted with pain, in the cabin mirror. All the men must have
seen my condition, but not one spoke or took notice of me, till I
was almost grateful to Wolf Larsen, later on (I was washing the
dishes), when he said:
"Dont let a little thing like that bother you. Youll get used to
such things in time. It may cripple you some, but all the same
youll be learning to walk.
"Thats what you call a paradox, isnt it?" he added.
He seemed pleased when I nodded my head with the customary "Yes,
sir."
"I suppose you know a bit about literary things? Eh? Good. Ill
have some talks with you some time."
And then, taking no further account of me, he turned The Sea Wolf page 14 The Sea Wolf page 16 |