Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1916 — The SEA WOLF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The SEA WOLF

/| N THIS TALE' f I JACK LON- ; r DON’S SEA EX\PERIENCE IS \j§ED WITH ALL the rower og? -HIS- VIRILE.. PEN - *. ' .... - wt* '/ .•* •- A'.*’ •

The story of \ A MAN WHO j hN HIS OWN 1 Little world/ WAS A LAW -^UNTO-'HIMSELE^ ***S2 7 *~-' VS:

by JACK LONGDON

SYNOPSIS?' —l6 Humphrey Van Weyden, critic and dilettante. finds himself aboard the sealing schooner Ghost. Captain Wolf Darsen, bound to Japan waters. The captain makes him cabin boy “for the good of his soul.** The cockney cook, Mugridge. is jealous and hazes him. Wolf hazes a seaman and makes It the basis for a philosophic discussion with Hump. Cooky and Hump whet knives at each other. Hump s Intimacy with Wolf increases. A carnival of brutality breaks loose in the ship. Wolf proves himself the master brute. Hump, despite his protest, is made mate on the hell-ship and proves by his conduct In a blow that he has learned “to stand on his own legs." Two men desert the vessel In one of the small boats. A young woman and four men. survivors of a steamer wreck, are rescued from a small boat. The deserters are sighted, but Wolf stands away and leaves them to drown. Maude Brewster, the rescued girl, and Van Weyden find they know each other’s work. They talk together of a world alien to Wolf. Maude sees Mugridge towed overside in a bowline to give him a bath and his foot bitten off by a shark as he is hauled aboard. She begins to realize her danger at the hands of Wolf. Van Weyden realizes that he loves Maude. Wolfs brother, Death Larsen, cqmes on the sealing grounds in the steam sealer Macedonia and blankets Wolf's boats, so stealing his catch. Death Larsen “hogs” the sea again and Wolf captures one of his boats with Its. men. --- CHAPTER XXI—-Continued, He dropped down to the deck and rested his rifle across the rail. The bullets we had received had traveled nearly a mile, but by now we had cut that distance in half. He fired three careful shots. At the third the boatsteerer let loose his steering-oar and crumpled up In the bottom of the boat. “I guess that’ll fix them," Wolf Larsen said, rising to his feet. “I couldn’t afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a chance the boat-puller doesn’t know how to steer. In which case, the hunter cannot steer and shoot at the same time.” His reasoning was justified, for the boat rushed at once into the wind and the hunter sprang aft to take the boatsteerer’s place. There was no more shooting, though the rifles were still cracking merrily from the other boats. The hunter had managed to get the boat before the wind again, but we ran down upon it, going at least two feet to its one. A hundred yards away, I saw the boat-puller pass a rifle to the hunter. Wolf Larsen went amidships and took the coil of the throat-halyards jfrQmJ.ta j?itL . Then he peered over the rail with leveled rifle. Twice I saw the hunter let go the steering-oar with one hand, reach for his rifle, and hesitate. We were now alongside and foaming past. “Here, you!” Wolf Larsen cried suddenly to the boat-puller. “Take a turn!” At the same time he flung the coil of rope. It struck fairly, nearly knocking the man over, but he did not obey. Instead, he looked to his hunter for orders. The hunter, in turn, was in a-quandary. His rifle was between his knees, but if he let go the steer-ing-oar in order to shoot, the boat would sweep around and collide with the schooner. Also he saw Wolf Larsen’s rifle bearing upon him and knew he would be shot ere he could get his rifle into' play. “Take a turn,” he said quietly to the man. The boat-puller obeyed, taking a turn around the little forward thwart and paying the line as it jerked taut. The boat sheered out with a rush, and the hunter steadied it to a parallel course some twenty feet from the side of the Ghost. “Now get that sail down and come alongside!” Wolf Larsen ordered. Once aboard, the two prisoners hoisted in the boat and under Wolf Larsen’s direction carried the wounded boat-steerer down into the forecastle. "If our five boats do as well as you and I have done, we’ll have a pretty full crew,” Wolf Larsen said to me. “The man you shot—he is, I hope—” Maud Brewster quavered. “In the shoulder,” he answered. “Nothing serious. Mr. Van Weyden will pull him around as good as ever in three or four weeks.” » “But he won’t- pull those chaps around, from the look of it,” he added, pointing at the Macedonia’s third boat, for which I had been steering and ■which was now nearly abreast of us. “That’s Horner’s and Smoke’s work. I told them we wanted live men, not carcasses. But the joy of shooting to hit is a most compelling thing, when once you’ve learned how to shoot. Ever experienced it. Mr. Van Weyden?” I shook my head and regarded their work. It had indeed been bloody, for they had drawn off and joined our other three boats in the attack on the remaining two of the enemy. The deserted boat was in the trough of the sea, rolling drunkenly across each comber, its loose sprltsail out at right angles to it and fluttering and flapping In the wind. The hunter and boatpuller were both lying awkwardly in the bottom, but the boat-steerer lay across the gunwale*, half In and half out, his arms trailing in the water and -m-msrrimi' fromiras ¥iHr “ “Don’t look, Miss Brewster, please don’t look,” I had begged of her, and I was glad that she bad minded me and been spared the sight. “Head right into the bunch, Mr. Van Weyden,” was Wolf Larsen’B command. As ho drew nearer, the firing ceased, ■t l 2 . -- HbfiiJiißi-ate rasa*-. \7,.: - **

and we saw that the flght> was over. The remaining two boats had been captured by our five, and the seven were grouped together waiting to be picked up. “Look at that!” I cried involuntarily,, pointing to the northeast. The blot of smoke which indicated the Macedonia's position had reappeared. “Yes, I’ve been watching it,” was Wolf Larsen’s calm reply. He measured the distance away to the fogbank and for an instant paused to feel the weight of the wind on his cheek. “We’ll make it, I think; but you can depend upon it that blessed brother of mine has twigged our little game and is just a-humping for us. Ah, look at that!” The blot of smoke had suddenly grown larger, and it was very black. “I’ll beat you out, though, brother mine,” he chuckled. “I’ll beat you out, and I hope you no worse than that you rack your old engines into scrap.” —i — CHAPTER XXlL__ When we hove to, a hasty though orderly confusion reigned. The boats came aboard from every side at once. J As fast as the prisoners came over the rail they were marshaled forward into the forecastle by our hunters, while our sailors hoisted in the boats, pell-mell, dropping them anywhere upon the deck and not stopping to lash them. We were already under way, all sails set and drawing, and the sheets being slacked off for a wind abeam, as the last boat lifted clear of the water jnd swung in the tackles. There was need for haste. The Macedonia, belching the blackest of Bmoke frpm her funnel, was charging down upon us from out of the northeast. Neglecting the boats that remained to her, she had altered her course so as to anticipate ours. She was not running straight for us, but ahead of us. Our courses were converging like the sides of an angle, the vertex of which was at the edge of the fog-bank. It was there, or not at all, that the Macedonia could hope to catch us. The hope for the Ghost lay in that she should pass that point before the Macedonia arrived at It. “Better get your rifles, you fellows,” Wolf Larsen called to our hunters; and the five men lined the lee rail, guns in hand, and waited. The Macedonia was now but a mile away, the black smoke pouring from her funnel at a right angle, so madly she raced, pounding through the sea at a seventeen-knot gait—“ ‘Sky-hooting through the brine,’ ’’ as Wolf Larsen quoted while gazing at her. We were not making more than nine knots, but the fog-bank was very near. A puff of smoke broke from the Macedonia’s deck, we heard a heavy report, and a round hole took form in the stretched canvas of our mainsail. They Were shooting at us with one of the small cannon which rumor had said they carried on board. Our men. clustering amidships, waved their hats and raised a derisive cheer. Again there was a puff of smoke and a loud report, this time the cannon ball striking not more than twenty feet astern and glancing twice from sea to sea to windward ere it sank. But there was no rifle-firing for the reason that all their hunters were out in the boats or our prisoners. When the two vessels were half a mile apart, a third shot made another hole in our mainsail. Then we entered the fog. It was about us, veiling and hiding us in its dense wet gauze. The sudden transition was startling. The moment before we had been leaping through the sunshine, the clear sky above us, the sea breaking and rolling wide to the horizon, and a ship, vomiting smoke and fire and iron missiles, rushing madly upon us. And at Once, as in an instant’s leap, the sun was blotted out, there was no sky, even our mastheads were lost to vlew. and our horizon was such as tear-blind-ed eyes may see. It was weird, strangely weird. I looked at Maud Brewster and knew that she was similarly affected. Then I looked at Wolf Larsen, but there was nothing subjective about his state of consciousness. His whole concern was with the immediate, objective present:* He still held the wheel, and I felt that he was timing time, reckoning the passage of the minutes with each forward lunge and leeward roll of the Ghost. “Go for’ard and hard-a-lee without any noise,” he said to me in a low voice. “Clew up the topsails first. Set men at all the sheets. Let there be no rattling of blocks, no sound of voices. No noise, understand, no noise.” When all was ready, the word "hard-a-lee” was passed forward to me from man to man; and the Ghost heeled about on the port tack with practically no noise at all. And what little there was—the slapping of a few reef points and the creating of a sheavfe in a bloek or two —was ghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed. < We had scarcely filled away, It seemed, when the fog thinned abruptly and ure were again in the sunshine, the wide-stretching sea breaking before us to the skyline. But the ocean was

bare. No wrathful Macedonia broke its surface nor blackened the sky with her smoke. Wolf Larsen at once squared away and ran down along the rim of the fogbank. His trick was obvious. He had entered the fog to windward of the steamer, and while the steamer had blindly driven on into the fog in the chance of catching him he had come about and out of his shelter and was now running down to re-enter to leeward. Successiul in this, the old simile of the needle in the haystack would be mild indeed compared with his brother’s chance of finding him. He did not run long. Jibing the fore and main sails and setting the topsails again, we headed back into the bank. As we entered I could have sworn f saw a vague bulk emerging to windward. I looked quickly at Wolf Larsen. Already we were ourselves buried in the fog, but he nodded his head. He, too, had seen it—the Macedonia, guessing his maneuver and falling by a moment in anticipating it. There was no doubt that we had escaped unseen. “I’d give five hundred dollars, though," Wolf Larsen said, “just to be aboard the Macedonia for five minutes, listening to my brother curse.” “And now, Mr. Van Weyden,” he said to me when he had been relieved from the wheel, “we must make these newcomers welcome. Serve out plenty of whisky to the hunters and see that a few bottles slip for’ard. I’ll wager every man Jack of them is over the side tomorrow, hunting for Wolf Lar sen as contentedly as ever they hunted for Death Larsen." Wolf Larsen took the distribution of the whisky off my hands, and the bottles began to make their appearance while I worked over the fresh batch of wounded men in the forecastle. I had seen whisky drunk, but never aB these

men drank it, from pannikins and mugs, and from the bottles great brimming drinks, each one of which was in itself a debauch. But they did not stop at one or two. They drank and drank, and ever the bottles slipped forward and they drank more. The steerage, where were two wounded hunters, was .a repetition of the forecastle, except that Wolf Larsen was not being cursed; and it was with a great relief that I again emerged on deck and went aft to the cabin. Supper was ready, and Wolf Larsen and Maud were waiting for me. While all his ship was getting drunk as fast as it could he remained sober. Not a drop of liquor passed his lips. He did not dare it under the circumstances, for he had only Louis and me to depend upon, and Louis was even now at the wheel. We were sailing 1 on through the fog without a lookout and without lights. That Wolf Larsen had turned the liquor loose among his men surprised me, but he evidently knew their psychology and the best method of cementing in cordiality what had begun.in bloodshed. His victory over Death Larsen seemed to have had a remarkable effect upon him. The previous evening he had reasoned himself into the blues, and I had been waiting momentarily for one of his Characteristic outbursts. Yet he discovered himself in splendid trim when I entered the cabin. He had had no headaches for weeks, his eyes were*clear blue as the sky, his bronze was beautiful with perfect health; life swelled through his veins in full and magnificent flood. While waiting for me he had engaged Maud in animated discussion. He seemed voluble, prone to speech as I had never seen him before. The discussion was on love and, as usual, his was the sheer materialistic side, and Maud s was the idealistic. For myself, beyond a word or so of suggestion or correction now and again, I took no part. He was brilliant, but so was Maud, and for some time I lost the thread of the conversation through studying her face as she talked, ft was a face that rarely displayed color, but tonight it

was flushed and vivacious. Her wit was playing keenly, and she was enjoying the tilt as much as Wolf Larsen, and he was enjoying it hugely. For some reason, though I know not why. In the argument, so utterly had I lost ft In the contemplation of one stray brown lock of Maud’s hair, he quoted from Iseult at Tintagel, where she says: Blessed am I beyond women even herein, ■ . That beyond all born women Is my sin. And perfect my transgression. As he had read pessimism into Omar, so now he read triumph, stinging triumph and exultation, into Swinburne's lines. And he read rightly, and he read well. He had hardly ceased reading when Louis put his head into the eompanionway and whispered down; “Be easy, will ye? The fog’s lifted, an’ ’tis the port light iv a steamer that’s crossin’ our bow this blessed minute." Wolf Larsen sprang on deck, and so swiftly that by the time we followed him he had pulled the steerage-slide over the drunken clamor and was on his way forward to close the forecas-tle-scuttle. The fog, though It remained, had lifted high, where It obscured the stars and made the night quite black. Directly ahead of hs I could see a bright red light and a white light, and I could hear the pulsing of a steamer’s engines. Beyond a doubt it was the Macedonia. Wolf Larsen had returned to the poop, and we stood in a silent group, watching the lights rapidly cross our bow. “Lucky for me he doesn t carry a searchlight,” Wolf Larsen said. “What if I should cry out loudly I queried in a whisper. “It would be all up,” he answered. “But have you thought upon what would immediately happen?” Before I had time to express any desire to know, he had me by the throat with his gorilla grip, and by a faint quiver of the muscles a hint, as it were —he suggested to me the twist that would surely have broken my neck. The next moment he had released me and we were gazing at the Macedonia’s lights. “What if" I “Should cry out?” Maud asked. “I like you too well to hurt you, he said softly— nay, there was a tenderness and a caress in his voice that made me wince. “But don’t do it, just the same, for I’d promptly break Mr. Van Weyden’s neck.” “Then she has my permission to cry out,” I said defiantly. "I hardly think you’ll care to sacrifice the Dean o’ American Letters the Second,” he sneered. We spoke no more, though we had become too used to one another for the silence to be awkward; and when the red light and the white disappeared we returned to the cabin to finish the interrupted supper. If ever Wolf Larsen attained the summit of living, he attained it then. From time to time I forsook my own thoughts to follow him. and I followed in amaze, mastered for the moment by his remarkable intellect, under the spell of his passion, for he was preaching the passion of revolt. It was inevitable that Milton’s Lucifer should be instanced, and the keenness with which Wolf Larsen analyzed and depicted the character was a revelation of his stifled genius. It reminded me of Taine, yet I knew the man had never heard of that brilliant though dangerous thinker. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

The Macedonia Was Now but a Mile Away.