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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
that!" I cried involuntarily, pointing to the north-east.
The blot of smoke which indicated the Macedonias position had
reappeared.
"Yes, Ive been watching it," was Wolf Larsens calm reply. He
measured the distance away to the fog-bank, and for an instant
paused to feel the weight of the wind on his cheek. "Well make
it, I think; but you can depend upon it that blessed brother of
mine has twigged our little game and is just a-humping for us. Ah,
look at that!"
The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black.
"Ill beat you out, though, brother mine," he chuckled. "Ill beat
you out, and I hope you no worse than that you rack your old
engines into scrap."
When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The
boats came aboard from every side at once. As fast as the
prisoners came over the rail they were marshalled forward to the
forecastle by our hunters, while our sailors hoisted in the boats,
pell-mell, dropping them anywhere upon the deck and not stopping to
lash them. We were already under way, all sails set and drawing,
and the sheets being slacked off for a wind abeam, as the last boat
lifted clear of the water and swung in the tackles.
There was need for haste. The Macedonia, belching the blackest of
smoke from her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of the
north-east. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had
altered her course so as to anticipate ours. She was not running
straight for us, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging like
the sides of an angle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the
fog-bank. It was there, or not at all, that the Macedonia could
hope to catch us. The hope for the Ghost lay in that she should
pass that point before the Macedonia arrived at it.
Wolf Larsen was steering, his eyes glistening and snapping as they
dwelt upon and leaped from detail to detail of the chase. Now he
studied the sea to windward for signs of the wind slackening or
freshening, now the Macedonia; and again, his eyes roved over every
sail, and he gave commands to slack a sheet here a trifle, to come
in on one there a trifle, till he was drawing out of the Ghost the
last bit of speed she possessed. All feuds and grudges were
forgotten, and I was surprised at the alacrity with which the men
who had so long endured his brutality sprang to execute his orders.
Strange to say, the unfortunate Johnson came into my mind as we
lifted and surged and heeled along, and I was aware of a regret
that he was not alive and present; he had so loved the Ghost and
delighted in her sailing powers.
"Better get your rifles, you fellows," Wolf Larsen called to our
hunters; and the five men lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and
waited.
The Macedonia was now but a mile away, the black smoke pouring from
her funnel at a right angle, so madly she raced, pounding through
the sea at a seventeen-knot gait--"Sky-hooting through the brine,"
as Wolf Larsen quoted while gazing at her. We were not making more
than nine knots, but the fog-bank was very near.
A puff of smoke broke from the Macedonias deck, we heard a heavy
report, and a round hole took form in the stretched canvas of our
mainsail. They were shooting at us with one of the small cannon
which rumour had said they carried on board. Our men, clustering
amidships, waved their hats and raised a derisive cheer. Again
there was a puff of smoke and a loud report, this time the cannon-
ball striking not more than twenty feet astern and glancing twice
from sea to sea to windward ere it sank.
But there was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters
were out in the boats or our prisoners. When the two vessels were
half-a-mile apart, a third shot made another hole in our mainsail.
Then we entered the fog. It was about us, veiling and hiding us in
its dense wet gauze.
The sudden transition was startling. The moment before we had been
leaping through the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea
breaking and rolling wide to the horizon, and a ship, vomiting
smoke and fire and iron The Sea Wolf page 93 The Sea Wolf page 95 |