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Updated: June 23, 2025
He looked, Rainey thought, like a blind Berserker, restrained only by his affliction. "You left me blind on the floe, Bill Simms!" he roared. "Blind, in a drivin' blizzard with the ice breakin' up! If I didn't have use for yore carcass I'd twist yore head from yore scaly body like I'd pull up a carrot." Lund's fingers opened and closed convulsively.
No open reference was made to the desertion of Lund on the floe. But Rainey knew that it rankled in Lund's mind. The five, Peggy Simms, her father, Carlsen, Lund and Rainey, ostensibly messed together, but Rainey's duties generally kept him on deck until Carlsen had sufficiently completed his own meal to relieve him. By that time the girl and the captain had left the table.
Back, an' this time you don't slip me!" Jim Lund's face was purple-red with rage, great veins standing out upon it so swollen that it seemed they must surely burst and discharge their congested contents. Out of the purpling flesh his scarlet hair curled in diabolical effect. His teeth gleamed through his beard, strong, yellow, far apart.
One of the men tackling his legs dropped senseless from the buffet he got on the side of his skull, and Lund's kick sent him scudding across the deck, limp, out of the fight that could not last much longer. All this came as Rainey, still dazed, helped himself by the skylight toward the companion, going as fast as he could to get his gun. If he did not hurry he was certain they would kill Lund.
The two dropped from Lund's relaxed arms like sacks, and he stepped over them, alert, poised on the balls of his feet, letting out a shout of triumph, while he looked about him for his next adversary. The bedrock on which they fought was slippery where ice had formed in the crevices. Two seamen tackled Hansen.
For the time being, the safety of the Karluk and the successful carrying out of the purpose of the trip took all of Lund's attention and energy. Twice he had been thwarted by the weather from gleaning his golden harvest, and it began to look as if the third attempt might be no more fortunate. "The Karluk's stout," he said once, "but she ain't built for the Arctic.
Ice was all about them, fields formed of vast blocks of frozen water divided by broad lanes through which the Karluk slowly made her way, a maze of ice, always threatening, calling for all of Lund's skill while he fumed at every barrier, every change of the weather that grew steadily colder.
Rainey managed to shake his head and, with Lund's boughlike arm for support, got to his feet, winded, shaken, aching from his pounding and the crash against the whale. "Good man!" cried Lund, thwacking him on the shoulder and holding him up as Rainey nearly collapsed under the friendly accolade.
"There is nothing earthly about that thing, sir. Macquarrie's house is a long piece from the shore, and Lund's is hidden by the woods. See; look there, sir, for the love of Heaven!" and the stout sailor trembled like a child as the light, describing a sharp curve, rose ten or twelve feet higher into the air, where it seemed to oscillate violently for a few seconds, and then to be at rest.
Hands clutched for him and fists fell, a man was tugging at each knee of his legs, set far apart, sturdy as the masts themselves. Lund's arm came up, lifting a hunter clean from the deck, shook him off somehow, and crashed down.
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