The Sea-Wolf

ating at the cabin table and doing nothing but discuss life, literature, and the un

warning, given during a spare half-hour on deck while Wolf La

r-currents or water-currents. You can never guess the ways iv him. 'T is just as you're thinkin' you know him an' are makin' a favorable

as vivisecting him and turning over his soul-stuff as keenly and thoroughly as it was his custom to do it to others. It may be a weakness of mine that I have an incisive way of speech, but I threw all restraint to the winds and cut and slashed until the

was too much for my fortitude. He had gripped me by the biceps with his single hand, and when that grip tightened I wilted and shrieked aloud. My feet went out fr

to the floor, feeling very faint, while he sat down, lighted a cigar, and watched me as a cat watches a mouse. As I writhed about I could see in

I could use it, while weeks went by before the last stiffness and pain went out of it. And he had done nothing but put his hand upon my arm and squeeze. There had been no wrenching or jerking. He had just close

ve been worse

, squeezed, and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy streams. The pulpy remnant he dropped back into the

eated me vilely, cursed me continually, and heaped his own work upon me. He even ventured to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming animal-like myself, and I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened him back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself, Humphrey Van Weyden, in that noisome ship's galley, crouched in a corner over my tas

, had acquired a long, lean blade. It was unusually cruel-looking, and at first I had shuddered every time I used it. The cook borrowed a stone from Johansen and proceeded to sharpen the knife. He did it with great ostentation, glancing significantly at me the while. He whetted it up and down all day long. Every odd moment he could find he had the knife and stone out and was whetting away.

ole nature protested against doing and was afraid of doing. 'Cooky's sharpening his knife for Hump,' was being whispered about among the sailors, and some of them twitted him about it. This h

irched ancestries. Mugridge menaced with the knife he was sharpening for me. Leach laughed and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill billingsgate, and before either he or I knew what had happened, his right forearm had been ripped open from elbow to wrist b

get you hard. And I won't be in no hurry about it

In spite of his fear at the reckoning he must expect to pay for what he had done, he could see that it had been an object-lesson to me, and he became more domineering and exultant. Also, there was a lust in him, akin to madness, which h

ut backward- to the amusement of the sailors and hunters, who made a point of gathering in groups to witness my exit. The strain was too great. I sometimes thought my mind would give way under it- a meet thing on this ship of madmen and brutes. Every hour, every minute, of my existence was in jeopardy. I was a human soul in distress, and yet no soul, fore or aft, betrayed sufficient sympath

me to resume my seat at the cabin table for a time and let the cook do my work. Then I spoke frankly, telling him what I was endur

afraid, eh?'

fiantly and hones

sharp knife and a cowardly Cockney, the clinging of life to life overcomes all your fond foolishness. Why, my dear fellow, you will live

It is impossible for you to diminish your principal. Immortality is a thing without beginning or end. Eternity is eternity, and though you die here and now, you will go on living somewhere else and

s living by killing him, for he is without beginning or end. He's bound to go on living, somewhere, somehow. Then boost him. Stick a knife in him and let his spirit free. As it is, it's in a nasty prison, and you'll do him only a kindne

hansen. Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged me for condensed milk and sugar. The lazaret, where such delicacies were stored, was situated beneath the cabin floor. Watching my chance, I stole five cans of the milk, and that night, when it w

m, for I was on my knees taking the ashes from the stove. When I returned from throwing them overs

y if I cared. The other mug was fixed plenty. Should 'a' seen 'im. Knife just like this.' He shot a g

me with a vicious stare. Still calmly, though my heart was going pit-a-pat, I pulled out Louis's dirk and began to whet it on the stone. I had looked for almost any sort of explosion on the Cockney's part, but, to my surprise, he did not

o thrust upward, at the same time giving what he called the 'Spanish twist' to the blade. Leach, his bandaged arm prominently to the fore, begged me to leave a few remnants of the coo

ing things that sat whetting steel upon stone, and a group of other moving things, cowardly and otherwise, that looked on. Half of them, I am sure, were anxious to

thumb. Of all situations this was the most inconceivable. I know that my own kind could not have believed it possible. I had not been called 'Sissy' Van Weyden all my days

two hours Thomas Mugridge put away

t love us, an' bloody well glad they'd be a-seein' us cuttin' our throats. Yer not 'arf bad

It was a distinct victory I had gained, and I refuse

yer none the less for it.' And, to save his face, he turned fiercel

t of the way. This was a sort of victory for Thomas Mugridge and enabled him to accept more gracefully

inish,' I heard S

mp runs the galley from now on

oke's prophecy was verified. The Cockney became more humble and slavish to me than even to Wolf Larsen. I mistered him and sirred him no longer, washed no more greasy pots, and peeled no more potatoes. I did my own work, and my own work