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Updated: May 16, 2025
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 Larsen's soul naked to the scorn of men.
"You may go for'ard and turn in," I said, taking it from him. He was quick to obey, and I found myself alone on the deck of the Ghost. As quietly as was possible, I clewed up the topsails, lowered the flying jib and staysail, backed the jib over, and flattened the mainsail. Then I went below to Maud. I placed my finger on my lips for silence, and entered Wolf Larsen's room.
Heretofore in the little training he had had Thompson had come up behind him, flushed the birds, and made him drop. And now Larsen, having quickly dismounted and tied his horse, came up behind him, just as Thompson had done, except that in Larsen's hand was the gun. The old-fashioned black powder of a generation ago makes a loud explosion.
The hunters, never more than roughly aware of the position of the ship, nevertheless knew that we were close to the boundaries of the forbidden sea, while Wolf Larsen's record as a poacher was notorious. All eyes centred upon him. "We're dead safe," he assured them with a laugh. "No salt mines this time, Smoke. But I'll tell you what I'll lay odds of five to one it's the Macedonia."
I was very fond of these solitary walks on moonlight nights, often going as far as the divide, from which Bolinas and the great ocean can be seen, and where Larsen's wayside inn now stands, but to-night there was a new sensation of loneliness which I had never felt before, and I longed for some one to be with me; then I began to wonder whom I would prefer for a companion, and thought of all my friends, even to old Madre Moreno, but none of them seemed to be the one to break the new and undefinable loneliness.
All this, in frankness, to show my first impression, after long denial of women in general and of Maud Brewster in particular. "No need to go to any great trouble for me," she protested, when I had seated her in Wolf Larsen's arm-chair, which I had dragged hastily from his cabin. "The men were looking for land at any moment this morning, and the vessel should be in by night; don't you think so?"
I confess that I delighted in this beating Leach was giving to Thomas Mugridge, though it was as terrible, almost, as the one Mugridge had caused to be given to Johnson. But the expression of Wolf Larsen's face never changed. He did not change his position either, but continued to gaze down with a great curiosity.
Our points of view and outlook on life at least were very alike. "For a pair of critics we agree famously," I laughed. "And as shipwright and able assistant," she laughed back. But there was little time for laughter in those days, what of our heavy work and of the awfulness of Wolf Larsen's living death. He had received another stroke. He had lost his voice, or he was losing it.
I knew not what had aroused me, but I found myself out of my bunk, on my feet, wide awake, my soul vibrating to the warning of danger as it might have thrilled to a trumpet call. I threw open the door. The cabin light was burning low. I saw Maud, my Maud, straining and struggling and crushed in the embrace of Wolf Larsen's arms.
All my old-time marvel at life returned to me at sight of this splendid incarnation of it, and Wolf Larsen's cold explanation of life and its meaning was truly ridiculous and laughable. "A sentimentalist," he sneered, "like Mr. Van Weyden. Those men are cursing because their desires have been outraged. That is all. What desires?
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