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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
half stunned for the moment, breathing heavily and
blinking his eyes in a stupid sort of way.
"Jerk open the doors,--Hump," I was commanded.
I obeyed, and the two brutes picked up the senseless man like a
sack of rubbish and hove him clear up the companion stairs, through
the narrow doorway, and out on deck. The blood from his nose
gushed in a scarlet stream over the feet of the helmsman, who was
none other than Louis, his boat-mate. But Louis took and gave a
spoke and gazed imperturbably into the binnacle.
Not so was the conduct of George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-boy.
Fore and aft there was nothing that could have surprised us more
than his consequent behaviour. He it was that came up on the poop
without orders and dragged Johnson forward, where he set about
dressing his wounds as well as he could and making him comfortable.
Johnson, as Johnson, was unrecognizable; and not only that, for his
features, as human features at all, were unrecognizable, so
discoloured and swollen had they become in the few minutes which
had elapsed between the beginning of the beating and the dragging
forward of the body.
But of Leachs behaviour-- By the time I had finished cleansing the
cabin he had taken care of Johnson. I had come up on deck for a
breath of fresh air and to try to get some repose for my
overwrought nerves. Wolf Larsen was smoking a cigar and examining
the patent log which the Ghost usually towed astern, but which had
been hauled in for some purpose. Suddenly Leachs voice came to my
ears. It was tense and hoarse with an overmastering rage. I
turned and saw him standing just beneath the break of the poop on
the port side of the galley. His face was convulsed and white, his
eyes were flashing, his clenched fists raised overhead.
"May God damn your soul to hell, Wolf Larsen, only hells too good
for you, you coward, you murderer, you pig!" was his opening
salutation.
I was thunderstruck. I looked for his instant annihilation. But
it was not Wolf Larsens whim to annihilate him. He sauntered
slowly forward to the break of the poop, and, leaning his elbow on
the corner of the cabin, gazed down thoughtfully and curiously at
the excited boy.
And the boy indicted Wolf Larsen as he had never been indicted
before. The sailors assembled in a fearful group just outside the
forecastle scuttle and watched and listened. The hunters piled
pell-mell out of the steerage, but as Leachs tirade continued I
saw that there was no levity in their faces. Even they were
frightened, not at the boys terrible words, but at his terrible
audacity. It did not seem possible that any living creature could
thus beard Wolf Larsen in his teeth. I know for myself that I was
shocked into admiration of the boy, and I saw in him the splendid
invincibleness of immortality rising above the flesh and the fears
of the flesh, as in the prophets of old, to condemn
unrighteousness.
And such condemnation! He haled forth Wolf Larsens soul naked to
the scorn of men. He rained upon it curses from God and High
Heaven, and withered it with a heat of invective that savoured of a
mediaeval excommunication of the Catholic Church. He ran the gamut
of denunciation, rising to heights of wrath that were sublime and
almost Godlike, and from sheer exhaustion sinking to the vilest and
most indecent abuse.
His rage was a madness. His lips were flecked with a soapy froth,
and sometimes he choked and gurgled and became inarticulate. And
through it all, calm and impassive, leaning on his elbow and gazing
down, Wolf Larsen seemed lost in a great curiosity. This wild
stirring of yeasty life, this terrific revolt and defiance of
matter that moved, perplexed and interested him.
Each moment I looked, and everybody looked, for him to leap upon
the boy and destroy him. But it was not his whim. His cigar went
out, and he continued to gaze silently and curiously.
Leach had worked himself into an ecstasy of impotent rage.
"Pig! Pig! Pig!" he was reiterating at the top of his lungs.
"Why dont you come down and kill me, you murderer? You can do it!
I aint afraid! Theres no one to stop you! Damn sight better
dead and outa your reach than The Sea Wolf page 46 The Sea Wolf page 48 |