"I always get along with the officers," he remarked to me in a confidential tone."I know the w'y, I do, to myke myself uppreciyted.There was my last skipper -- w'y I thought nothin' of droppin' down in the cabin for a little chat and a friendly glass.`Mugridge,' sez 'e to me, `Mugridge,' sez 'e, `you've missed yer vokytion.' `An' 'ow's that?' sez I.`Yer should 'a been born a gentleman, an' never 'ad to work for yer livin'.' God strike me dead, 'Ump, if that ayn't wot 'e sez, an' me a-sittin' there in 'is own cabin, jolly-like an' comfortable, a-smokin' 'is cigars an' drinkin' 'is rum."This chitter-chatter drove me to distraction.I never heard a voice I hated so.His oily, insinuating tones, his greasy smile, and his monstrous self-conceit grated on my nerves till sometimes I was all in a tremble.
Positively, he was the most disgusting and loathsome person I have ever met.The filth of his cooking was indescribable; and, as he cooked everything that was eaten aboard, I was compelled to select what I ate with great circumspection, choosing from the least dirty of his concoctions.
My hands bothered me a great deal, unused as they were to work.The nails were discolored and black, while the skin was already grained with dirt which even a scrubbing-brush could not remove.Then blisters came, in a painful and never-ending procession, and I had a great burn on my forearm, acquired by losing my balance in a roll of the ship and pitching against the galley stove.Nor was my knee any better.The swelling had not gone down, and the cap was still up on edge.Hobbling about on it from morning to night was not helping it any.What I needed was rest, if it were ever to get well.
Rest! I never before knew the meaning of the word.I had been resting all my life and did not know it.But now, could I sit still for one half-hour and do nothing, not even think, it would be the most pleasurable thing in the world.But it is a revelation, on the other hand.I shall be able to appreciate the lives of the working people hereafter.I did not dream that work was so terrible a thing.From half-past five in the morning till ten o'clock at night I am everybody's slave, with not one moment to myself, except such as I can steal near the end of the second dog-watch.Let me pause for a minute to look out over the sea sparkling in the sun, or to gaze at a sailor going aloft to the gaff-topsails, or running out the bowsprit, and I am sure to hear the hateful voice, "'Ere, you, 'Ump, no sodgerin'.
I've got my peepers on yer."
There are signs of rampant bad temper in the steerage, and the gossip is going around that Smoke and Henderson have had a fight.Henderson seems the best of the hunters, a slow-going fellow, and hard to rouse; but roused he must have been, for Smoke had a bruised and discolored eye, and looked particularly vicious when he came into the cabin for supper.
A cruel thing happened just before supper, indicative of the callousness and brutishness of these men.There is one green hand in the crew, Harrison by name, a clumsy-looking country boy, mastered, imagine, by the spirit of adventure, and ****** his first voyage.In the light baffling airs the schooner had been tacking about a great deal, at which times the sails pass from one side to the other and a man is sent aloft to shift over the fore-gaff-topsail.In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff.As I understood it, there were two ways of getting it cleared, -- first, by lowering the foresail, which was comparatively easy and without danger; and second, by climbing out the peak-halyards to the end of the gaff itself, an exceedingly hazardous performance.
Johansen called out to Harrison to go out the halyards.It was patent to everybody that the boy was afraid.And well he might be, eighty feet above the deck, to trust himself on those thin and jerking ropes.Had there been a steady breeze it would not have been so bad, but the Ghost was rolling emptily in a long sea, and with each roll the canvas flapped and boomed and the halyards slacked and jerked taut.They were capable of snapping a man off like a fly from a whip-lash.
Harrison heard the order and understood what was demanded of him, but hesitated.It was probably the first time he had been aloft in his life.
Johansen, who had caught the contagion of Wolf Larsen's masterfulness, burst out with a volley of abuse and curses.
"That'll do, Johansen," Wolf Larsen said brusquely."I'll have you know that I do the swearing on this ship.If I need your assistance, I'll call you in.""Yes, sir," the mate acknowledged submissively.
In the meantime Harrison had started out on the halyards.was looking up from the galley door, and I could see him trembling, as with ague, in every limb.He proceeded very slowly and cautiously, an inch at a time.
Outlined against the clear blue of the sky, he had the appearance of an enormous spider crawling along the tracery of its web.
It was a slight uphill climb, for the foresail peaked high; and the halyards, running through various blocks on the gaff and mast, gave him separate holds for hands and feet.But the trouble lay in that the wind was not strong enough nor steady enough to keep the sail full.When he was halfway out, the Ghost took a long roll to windward and back again into the hollow between two seas.Harrison ceased his progress and held on tightly.Eighty feet beneath, I could see the agonized strain of his muscles as he gripped for very life.The sail emptied and the gaff swung amidships.The halyards slackened, and, though it all happened very quickly, I could see them sag beneath the weight of his body.Then the gaff swung to the side with an abrupt swiftness, the great sail boomed like a cannon, and the three rows of reef-points slatted against the canvas like a volley of rifles.Harrison, clinging on, made the giddy rush through the air.This rush ceased abruptly.The halyards became instantly taut.
