WATCH Sexy Elisha Cuthbert In Action  CLICK HERE for Instant Access Elisha Cuthbert Photos |
Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
to Leach next day. He grinned when I handed it over,
yet it was a grin that contained more sincere thanks than a
multitude of the verbosities of speech common to the members of my
own class.
Unlike any one else in the ships company, I now found myself with
no quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of all. The hunters
possibly no more than tolerated me, though none of them disliked
me; while Smoke and Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning and
swinging day and night in their hammocks, assured me that I was
better than any hospital nurse, and that they would not forget me
at the end of the voyage when they were paid off. (As though I
stood in need of their money! I, who could have bought them out,
bag and baggage, and the schooner and its equipment, a score of
times over!) But upon me had devolved the task of tending their
wounds, and pulling them through, and I did my best by them.
Wolf Larsen underwent another bad attack of headache which lasted
two days. He must have suffered severely, for he called me in and
obeyed my commands like a sick child. But nothing I could do
seemed to relieve him. At my suggestion, however, he gave up
smoking and drinking; though why such a magnificent animal as he
should have headaches at all puzzles me.
"Tis the hand of God, Im tellin you," is the way Louis sees it.
"Tis a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, and theres more
behind and comin, or else--"
"Or else," I prompted.
"God is noddin and not doin his duty, though its me as shouldnt
say it."
I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all.
Not only does Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but he has
discovered a new reason for hating me. It took me no little while
to puzzle it out, but I finally discovered that it was because I
was more luckily born than he--"gentleman born," he put it.
"And still no more dead men," I twitted Louis, when Smoke and
Henderson, side by side, in friendly conversation, took their first
exercise on deck.
Louis surveyed me with his shrewd grey eyes, and shook his head
portentously. "Shes a-comin, I tell you, and itll be sheets and
halyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. Ive had
the feel iv it this long time, and I can feel it now as plainly as
I feel the rigging iv a dark night. Shes close, shes close."
"Who goes first?" I queried.
"Not fat old Louis, I promise you," he laughed. "For tis in the
bones iv me I know that come this time next year Ill be gazin in
the old mothers eyes, weary with watchin iv the sea for the five
sons she gave to it."
"Wots e been syin to yer?" Thomas Mugridge demanded a moment
later.
"That hes going home some day to see his mother," I answered
diplomatically.
"I never ad none," was the Cockneys comment, as he gazed with
lustreless, hopeless eyes into mine.
CHAPTER XIV It has dawned upon me that I have never placed a proper valuation upon womankind. For that matter, though not amative to any considerable degree so far as I have discovered, I was never outside the atmosphere of women until now. My mother and sisters were always about me, and I was always trying to escape them; for they worried me to distraction with their solicitude for my health and with their periodic inroads on my den, when my orderly confusion, upon which I prided myself, was turned into worse confusion 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 cordially detested! I am sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never be irritable with them again. They may dose me and doctor me morning, noon, and night, and dust and sweep and put my den to rights every minute of the day, and I shall only lean back and survey it all and be thankful in that I am possessed of a mother and some several sisters. All of which has set me wondering. Where are the The Sea Wolf page 50 The Sea Wolf page 52 |