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The belly flashed white in swift upward rush. Almost equally swift, but not quite, was Wolf Larsen. He threw his strength into one tremendous jerk. The Cockney's body left the water; so did part of the shark's. He drew up his legs, and the man-eater seemed no more than barely to touch one foot, sinking back into the water with a splash. But at the moment of contact Thomas Mugridge cried out.
From time to time they stole glances at Wolf Larsen, and I could see that they were apprehensive of the man. He stepped up to the hatch-cover, and all caps came off. I ran my eyes over them twenty men all told; twenty-two including the man at the wheel and myself.
Two things I had acquired by my accident: an injured knee-cap that went undressed and from which I suffered for weary months, and the name of "Hump," which Wolf Larsen had called me from the poop.
He must have measured six feet eight or nine inches in stature, and I subsequently learned his weight 240 pounds. And there was no fat about him. It was all bone and muscle. A return of apprehension was apparent when, at the top of the companion-way, Wolf Larsen invited him below. But he reassured himself with a glance down at his host a big man himself but dwarfed by the propinquity of the giant.
Out there, they 'll tell you how the mine caved in, and how Thornton Fairchild, who had worked it, together with his two men, Harry Harkins, a Cornishman, and 'Sissie' Larsen, a Swede, left town late one night for Cripple Creek and that they never came back. That's the story they 'll tell you. Agree with it.
We ate dinner, a hurried and anxious meal for me with eighteen men abroad on the sea and beyond the bulge of the earth, and with that heaven-rolling mountain range of clouds moving slowly down upon us. Wolf Larsen did not seem affected, however; though I noticed, when we returned to the deck, a slight twitching of the nostrils, a perceptible quickness of movement.
The fourth engineer and the three oilers, after a warm interview with Wolf Larsen, were furnished with outfits from the slop-chests, assigned places under the hunters in the various boats and watches on the vessel, and bundled forward into the forecastle. They went protestingly, but their voices were not loud.
"He's right, Larsen, and you're wrong," Buck Mason said. "She had us buffaloed, and he pulled us clear. Steady, boys. They ain't no harm done to Sally!" "Oh, Buck, is that the sort of a friend of mine you are?" "I'm sorry, Sally." Sinclair gave this argument only a small part of his attention.
And I felt as proud of my conception as if it were already a fact accomplished. "But how is it possible to be done?" she asked. "I don't know," was my answer. "I know only that I am capable of doing anything these days." I smiled proudly at her too proudly, for she dropped her eyes and was for the moment silent. "But there is Captain Larsen," she objected.
There was no doubt that we had escaped unseen. "He can't keep this up," Wolf Larsen said. "He'll have to go back for the rest of his boats. Send a man to the wheel, Mr. Van Weyden, keep this course for the present, and you might as well set the watches, for we won't do any lingering to-night."
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