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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
sneak! Ill shut yer mouth!"
"Let him go," Leach commanded.
"Not on yer life," was the angry retort.
Leach never changed his position on the edge of the bunk. "Let him
go, I say," he repeated; but this time his voice was gritty and
metallic.
The Irishman wavered. I made to step by him, and he stood aside.
When I had gained the ladder, I turned to the circle of brutal and
malignant faces peering at me through the semi-darkness. A sudden
and deep sympathy welled up in me. I remembered the Cockneys way
of putting it. How God must have hated them that they should be
tortured so!
"I have seen and heard nothing, believe me," I said quietly.
"I tell yer, hes all right," I could hear Leach saying as I went
up the ladder. "He dont like the old man no more nor you or me."
I found Wolf Larsen in the cabin, stripped and bloody, waiting for
me. He greeted me with one of his whimsical smiles.
"Come, get to work, Doctor. The signs are favourable for an
extensive practice this voyage. I dont know what the Ghost would
have been without you, and if I could only cherish such noble
sentiments I would tell you her master is deeply grateful."
I knew the run of the simple medicine-chest the Ghost carried, and
while I was heating water on the cabin stove and getting the things
ready for dressing his wounds, he moved about, laughing and
chatting, and examining his hurts with a calculating eye. I had
never before seen him stripped, and the sight of his body quite
took my breath away. It has never been my weakness to exalt the
flesh--far from it; but there is enough of the artist in me to
appreciate its wonder.
I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf
Larsens figure, and by what I may term the terrible beauty of it.
I had noted the men in the forecastle. Powerfully muscled though
some of them were, there had been something wrong with all of them,
an insufficient development here, an undue development there, a
twist or a crook that destroyed symmetry, legs too short or too
long, or too much sinew or bone exposed, or too little. Oofty-
Oofty had been the only one whose lines were at all pleasing,
while, in so far as they pleased, that far had they been what I
should call feminine.
But Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god
in his perfectness. As he moved about or raised his arms the great
muscles leapt and moved under the satiny skin. I have forgotten to
say that the bronze ended with his face. His body, thanks to his
Scandinavian stock, was fair as the fairest womans. I remember
his putting his hand up to feel of the wound on his head, and my
watching the biceps move like a living thing under its white
sheath. It was the biceps that had nearly crushed out my life
once, that I had seen strike so many killing blows. I could not
take my eyes from him. I stood motionless, a roll of antiseptic
cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling itself down to the floor.
He noticed me, and I became conscious that I was staring at him.
"God made you well," I said.
"Did he?" he answered. "I have often thought so myself, and
wondered why."
"Purpose--" I began.
"Utility," he interrupted. "This body was made for use. These
muscles were made to grip, and tear, and destroy living things that
get between me and life. But have you thought of the other living
things? They, too, have muscles, of one kind and another, made to
grip, and tear, and destroy; and when they come between me and
life, I out-grip them, out-tear them, out-destroy them. Purpose
does not explain that. Utility does."
"It is not beautiful," I protested.
"Life isnt, you mean," he smiled. "Yet you say I was made well.
Do you see this?"
He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes
in a clutching sort of way. Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles
writhed and bunched under the skin.
"Feel them," he commanded.
They were hard as iron. And I observed, also, that his whole body
had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that
muscles The Sea Wolf page 56 The Sea Wolf page 58 |