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I pondered it long, lying sleepless in my bunk and reviewing in endless procession the facts of the situation. I talked with Johnson and Leach, during the night watches when Wolf Larsen was below. Both men had lost hope Johnson, because of temperamental despondency; Leach, because he had beaten himself out in the vain struggle and was exhausted.
The wind drove them back, and not only over me, but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next instant the latter kicked me, violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not realized there could be so much pain in a kick. I reeled away from him and leaned against the cabin in a half-fainting condition. Everything was swimming before my eyes, and I turned sick.
If any one had looked at Larsen's face he would have seen the exultation there, for now his chance had come the very chance he had been looking for. It's a courtesy one handler sometimes extends another who is absent from the spot, to go in and flush his dog's birds. "I'll handle this covey for Mr. Swygert," said Larsen to the judges, his voice smooth and plausible, on his face a smile.
"Hoist in your boat, I said," he repeated, this time in sharper tones as they hesitated to do his bidding. "Who knows? you may have to sail with me for a time," he said, quite softly, with a silken threat that belied the softness, as they moved slowly to comply, "and we might as well start with a friendly understanding. Lively now! Death Larsen makes you jump better than that, and you know it!"
I was a human soul in distress, and yet no soul, fore or aft, betrayed sufficient sympathy to come to my aid. At times I thought of throwing myself on the mercy of Wolf Larsen, but the vision of the mocking devil in his eyes that questioned life and sneered at it would come strong upon me and compel me to refrain.
Three days of rest, three blessed days of rest, are what I had with Wolf Larsen, eating at the cabin table and doing nothing but discuss life, literature, and the universe, the while Thomas Mugridge fumed and raged and did my work as well as his own.
"Yes, now they're on you!" said Jeppe, as one announcing disaster. "You've all been trifling with the new spirit of the times. This would have been something for Bjerregrav to see him with his compassion for the poor!" "Let the tailor rest in peace in his grave," said Wooden-leg Larsen, in a conciliatory tone. "You mustn't blame him for the angry masses that exist to-day.
Some anxiety had been felt owing to the absence of news of the Antarctic, and the Argentine Government had sent the Uruguay to the South to search for the expedition. But what in the world had become of Captain Larsen and the Antarctic? This was the question the others asked themselves.
The "Great Power" took cover behind a pile and worked away. Then there was nothing for it but to shoot him down before he had attained his object. A charge of shot in the legs, if nothing more, and he would at least be rendered harmless. The district judge was at his wits' end; but Wooden-leg Larsen was already on the way home to fetch his gun.
When the rivermen drew back, he took his position atop the disputed clump of piles, his shotgun across his knees. The driving crew retreated ashore. Larsen was plainly uncertain. "I tell you, boys," said he, "I'll get back to town. You wait." "Guess I'll go along," suggested Bob, determined to miss no phase of this new species of warfare.
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