Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 109, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1916 — Page 3

The SEA WOLF

by JACK LONDON

SYNOPSIS. —lB— Van Weyden, critic and dilettante. finds himself aboard the sealing schooner Ghost, Captain Wolf Larsen, bound to Japan waters. The captain makes him cabin boy “for the good of his soul,” Wolf hazes a seaman and makes it the basis for a philosophic discussion with Hump. Hump's Intimacy with Wolf Increases. A carnival of brutality breaks loose «ln the ship. Wolf proves himself the master brute. Hump is made mate on the hell-ship and proves 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, sees the cook towed overside 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. Wolf’s brother. ‘Death Larsen, comes on the sealing grounds in the steam sealer Macedonia, “hogs” the sea, and Wolf captures several of his boats. The Ghost runs away in a fog. Wolf furnishes liquor to the prisoners. He attacks Maude. Van Weyden attempts to kill him and fails. Wolf Is suddenly stricken helpless by the return of a blinding head trouble, and with all hands drunk and asleep Van Weyden and Maude escape In a small boat together. CHAPTER XXlV—Continued. I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I -was wet and chilled to the marrow, till I felt more dead than alive. My body was stiff from exertion as well as from cold, and my aching muscles gave me the severest torture whenever I used them, and I used them continually. And all the time we were being driven off into the northwest, directly away from Japan toward bleak Bering sea. Maud’s condition was pitiable. She sat crouched in the bottom of the boat, her lips blue, her face gray and plainly showing the pain she suffered. But ever her eyes looked bravely at me, and ever her lips uttered brave words. The worst of the storm must have blown that night, though little I noticed it. I had succumbed and slept where I sat in the stern-sheets. The morning of the fourth day found the wind diminished to a gentle whisper, the sea dying down and the sun shining upon us. Oh, the blessed sun! How we bathed our poor bodies in its delicious warmth, reviving like bugs -and crawling things after a storm. We smiled again, said amusing things and waxed optimistic over our situation, Yet it was, if -anything, worse than ever. Came days of storm, days and nights of storm, when the ocean menaced us with its roaring whiteness, and the wind smote our struggling boat with a Titan’s buffets. It was in such a storm, and the worst we had experienced, that what I saw I could not at first believe. Days and nights of sleeplessness and anxiety had doubtless turned my head. I looked back at Maud, to identify myself, as it were, in time and space. Again I turned my face to leeward, and again I saw the jutting promontory, black and high and naked, the raging surf that broke about its base and beat its front high up with spouting fountains, the black and forbidding coast line running toward the southeast and fringed with a tremendous scarf of white. "Maud,” I said. “Maud.” She turned her head and beheld the sight. “It cannot be Alaska!" she cried. “Alas, no,” I answered, and asked, “Can you swim?" She shook her head. “Neither can I,” I said. “So we must get ashore without swimming in some opening between the rocks through which we can drive the boat and clamber out. But we must be quick—and sure." I spoke with a confidence she knew I did not feel, for she looked at me with that unfaltering gaze of hers and said: “I have not thanked you yet for all you have done for me, but —” She hesitated, as if in doubt how best to word her gratitude. “Well?” I said, brutally, for was not quite pleased with her thanking me. "You might help me,” she smiled. “To acknowledge your obligations before you die? Not at all. We are not going to die. We shall land on that island, and we shall be snug and sheltered before the day is done.” I spoke stoutly, but I did not believe a word. Nor was I prompted to lie through fear. I felt no fear, though I was sure of death in that boiling surge amongs the rocks which was rapidly growing nearer. It was impossible to claw off that shore. The wind would instantly capsize the boat; the seas would swamp it the moment it fell into the trough; and, besides, the sail, lashed to the spare oars, dragged in the sea ahead of us, as a sea-anchor. Instinctively we drew closer together in the bottom of the boat. I ifelt her mittened hand come out to mine. And thus, without speech, we waited the end. We,were not far off the line the wind made with the western ( edge of the promontory, and I watched in the hope that gome set of the current or send of the sea would drift us past before we reached the surf. . “We shall go clear," I said, with a

cotyrtiewtr <*v JACK LONDON

confidence which 1 knew deceived neither of us. “By God, we will go clear!” I cried, five minutes later. The oath left my lips in my excitement —the first, I do believe, in my ljfe, unless "trouble it," an expletive of my youth, be accounted an oath. “I beg your pardon,” I said. "You have convinced me of your sincerity,” she said, with a faint smile. “I do know, now, that we shall go clear.” I had seen a distant headland past the extreme edge of the promontory, and as we looked we could see grow the intervening coastline of what was evidently a deep cove. At the same time there broke upon our ears a continuous and mighty bellowing. It par took of the magnitude and volume of distant thunder, and it came to us directly from leeward, rising above the crash of the surf and traveling directly in the teeth of the storm. As we passed the point the whole cove burst upon our view, a half-moon of white sandy beach which broke a huge surf, and which was covered with myriads of seals. It was from them that the great bellowing went up. rookery 1" I cried. 'Now are we indeed saved. There must be men and cruisers to protect them from the seal-hunters. Possibly there is a station ashore." But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said, “Still bad, but not so bad. And now, if the gods be truly kind, we shall drift by that next headland and come upon a perfectly sheltered beach, where we may land without wetting our feet." And the gods were kind. The first and second headlands were directly in line with the southwest wind; but once around the second —and we went perilously near—we picked up the third headland, still in line with the wind and with the other two. But the cove that intervened! It penetrated deep into the land, and the tide, setting in, drifted us under the shelter of the point. Here the sea was calm, save for a heavy but smooth groundswell, and I took in the seaanchor and began to row— __ Here were no seals whatever. The boat’s stem touched the hard shingle. I sprang out, extending my hand to "Maud - . The hext mdment she was side me. As my fingers released hers, she clutched for my arm hastily. At the name moment I swayed, as about to fall, to the sand. This was the startling effect of the cessation of motion. We had been' so long upon the moving, rocking sea that the stable land'was a shock to us. We expected the beach to lift up this way and that, and the rocky walls to swing back and forth like the sides of a ship; and when we braced ourselves, automatically, for these various expected movements, their non-occurrence quite overcame, our equilibrium. “I really must sit down,” Maud said, with a nervous laugh and a dizzy gesture, and forthwith she sat down on the sand. I attended to making the boat secure and joined her. Thus we landed on Endeavor island, as we came to it, landsick from long custom of the sea. CHAPTER XXV. I boiled the water, but it was Maud who made the coffee. And how good it was! My contribution was canned beef fried with (crumbled sea biscuit and water. The breakfast was a success, and we sat about the fire much longer than enterprising explorers should have done, sipping the hot black coffee and talking over opr situation. I was confident that we should find a station in some one of the coves, for I knew that the rookeries of Bering sea were thus guarded; but Maud advanced the theory—to prepare me for disappointment, I do believe, if disappointment were to come —that we had discovered an unknown rookery. She was in very good spirits, however, and made quite merry in accepting our plight as a grave one. “If you are right,” I said, “then we must prepare to winter here. Our food will not last, but there are the seals. They go away In the fall, so I must soon begin to lay In a supply of meat. Then there will be huts to build and driftwood to gather. Also, we shall try out seal fat for lighting purposes. Altogether, we’ll have our hands full if we find the island is uninhabited. Which we shall not, I know.” But she was right. We sailed with a beam wind along the Bhore, searching the coves with our glasses And landing occasionally, without finding a sign of human life. There were no beaches on the southern shore, and by early afternoon we rounded the black promontory and completed the circumnavigation of the island. I estimated its circumference at twenty-five miles, its width varying from two tQ five mises; while my most conservative calculation placed on its beaches two hundred thousand seals. This brief description is all that Endeavor island merits. Damp and soggy where it was not sharp and rocky, buffeted by storm winds and lashed

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

by the sea, with the air continually a-tremble with the bellowing of two hundred thousand amphibians, it was a melancholy and miserable sojourning place. Maud, who had prepared me for disappointment, and who had been sprightly and vivacious all day. broke down as we landed in our own little cove. She strove bravely to hide it from me, but while I was kindling another fire I knew she was stifling her sobs in the blankets under the sail-tent. It was my turn to be cheerful, and I played the part to the best of my ability, and with such success that I brought the laughter back into her dear eyes, and song on her lips; for she sang to me before she went to an early bed. It was tne first time I had heard her sing, and I lay by the fire, listening and transported, for she was nothing if not an artist in everything she did, and her voice, though not strong, was wonderfully sweet and expressive. I slept to the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing up at the first stars I had seen in many nights and pondering the situation. Responsibility of this sort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen had been quite right. I had stood on my father’s legs. My lawyers and agents had taken care of my money for me. I had had no responsibilities at all. Then, on the Ghost I had learned to be responsible for myself. And now, for the first time in my life, 1 found myself responsible for someone else. And it was required of me that this should be the gravest of responsibilities, for she was the one woman in the world —the one small woman, as I loved to think of her. No wonder we called it Endeavor island. For two weeks we toiled at bulding a hut. Maud insisted on helping, and I could have wept over her bruised and bleeding hands. And still, I was proud of lifer because of it. There was something heroic about this gently bred woman enduring our terrible hardship and with her pit-

And Thus, Without Speech, We Awaited the End.

tance of strength bending to the tasks of a peasant woman. She gathered many of the stones which I built into the walls of the hut; also, she turned a deaf ear to my' entreaties when I begged her to desist. She compromised, however, by taking upon herself the lighter labors of cooking and gathering driftwood and moss for our winter’s supply. The hut’s walls rose without difficulty, and everything went smoothly until the problem of a roof confronted me. “Winters -used walrus skins on his hut,” I said. “There are the seals," she suggested. So next day the hunting began. I did not know how to shoot, but I proceeded to learn. And when I had expended some thirty shells for three seals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted before I acquired the ■ necessary knowledge. “We must club the seals,” I am nounced, when convinced of my poor marksmanship. “I have heard the sealers talk about clubbipg them.” “They are so pretty,” she objected. "I cannot bear to think of it being done. It is so directly brutal, you know; so different from shooting them." “That roof must go on,” I answered grimly. “Winter is almost here. It is our lives against theirs. It is unfortunate we haven’t plenty of ammunition, but I think, anyway, that they suffer less from being clubbed than from being all shot up. Besides, I shall do the clubbing." The upshot of the affair was that she accompanied me next morning. I rowed into the adjoining cove and up to the edge of the beach. There were seals all about ns in the water, and the bellowing thousands on the beach compelled us to shout at each other to make ourselves heard. “I know men club them," I - said, trying to reassure myself and gazing doubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet away, upreared on, his fore-flip-pers and regarding me intently. “But the question is. How do they club them?" “It Just comes to me," she said, “that Captain Larsen was telling me how the men raided the rookeries. They drive the seals, in small herds, a short distance inland before they killthem." • A “1 don’t care to undertake the herding of one of thbse harems," I objected. i ———- — “But there are the holluschickie,“ she said. “The nolluschickie haul out by themselves, and Doctor Jordan

says that paths are lelt between the harems, and that as long as the holtoachickie keep strictly tc th» V*<h they are unmolested by the masters of the harem." "There’s one now,” t said, pointing to a young bull in the water. “Let s watch him, and follow him if he hauls out." He swam directly to the beach and clambered out into a small opening between two harems, the masters of which made warning noises but did not attack him. We watched him travel slowly inward, threading about among the harem* along what must have been the path. - A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the holluschickie —sleek young bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gathering strength against the day when they would fight their way into the ranks of the benedicts. Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know just what to do and how to do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, and even prodding the lazy ones* I quickly cut out a score of the young bachelors from their companions. Whenever one made an attempt to break back toward the water, I headed it off. Maud took an active part in the drive, and with her cries and flourishings of the broken oar was of considerable assistance. I noticed, though, that whenever one looked tired and lagged, she let it slip past. But I noticed, also, whenever one with a show of fight, tried to break past, that her eyes glinted and showed bright, and she rapped it smartly with her club. “My, it’s exciting!” she cried, pausing from sheer weakness. “I think I’ll sit down.” I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes she had permitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she joined, me I had finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin. An hour later we went proudly back along the path between the harems. And twice again we came down the path burdened with skins, till I thought we had enough to roof the hut. I set the sail, laid one tack out of the cove, and on the other tack made our own little inner cove. “It’s just like home-coming," Maud said, as I ran the boat ashore. I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly intimate and natural, and I said: "It seems as though I have lived this life always. The world of books and bookish folk.is very vague, more like a dream memory than an actuality. I surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the days of my life. And you, too, seem a part of it. You are _- i was on the verge of saying, “my woman, my mate,' but glibly changed it to— “standing the hardship well.” But her ear had cdught the flaw. She reGOgnized a flight that midmost broke. She gave me a quick look. “Not that. You were saying—?" “That the American Mrs. Meynell was living the life of a savage and living it quite successfully," I said easily (TO BE CONTINUED.)

RELICS OF ROMAN LONDON

Interesting Discoveries Made When for Any Purpose the Soil Is Dug Into at Some Depth. Roman London lies buried about eighteen feet below the level of Cheapside. In nearly all parts of the city there have been discovered tessellated pavements, Roman tombs, lamps, vases, sandals, keys, ornaments, weapons, coins and statues of the Roman gods. When, a little over a century ago, deep sections were made for the sewers in Lombard street, the lowest stratum was found to consist of tessellated pavements. Many colored dice were found lying scattered about, and above this stratum was a thick layer of wood ashes, suggesting the debris of charred wooden buildings. While building the Exchange workmen came upon a gravel-pit full of oyster shells, bones of cattle, old sandals and shattered pottery. Two pavements were dug up under the French church in Threadneedle street, and other pavements have been cut through in several parts of the city. The soil seems to have risen over Roman London at the rate of nearly a foot a century. Still further must the searcher dig to find the third London, the earlier London of the Britons. Kitten Saves Girl’s Life. Out in California a kitten saved a little twelve-year-old girl from probable death. The girl and the kitten went for a walk. After a short time the kitten returned alone and kept walking up and down in front of the -girl’s mother crying pitifully. It was trying to attract the attention of the mother, and every time it thought it succeeded it w>uld walk off and. not seeing the mother follow, would .return and cry all the harder. Finally the mother noticed the performance and decided to follow the little creature the next time it repeated the affair, as she thought it strange it should act so. The kitten led the way to the end of a recreation pier, where the child was found hanging head downward from a large spike in a pile. She had fallen from the pier and her clothing had caught on the spike. Her mother immediately rescued her, but she was barely conscious. Had she remained in that position five minutes longer she would have been dead.-—Our Dumb Animals, ....

The South has approximately 240, 000,000 acres of undeveloped land.

Churches of Morthern Armenia

WHILE the most terrible and extensive war the world has ever undergone is being waged in such wellknown regions as Belgium, France, north Italy, Macedonia and Egypt, it Is not surprising that less information should be available with regard to the theaters of the eastern campaigns, like Mesopotamia, various parts of Africa and Armenia. Few people at home know those regions, and even the names of places mentioned mean nothing to them, says Sir Martin Conway in Country Life. The destruction of Louvain and Reims, the peril still to be evaded of other Belgian and north Italian cities —these horrors are generally realized and deplored; but how many are conscious of the danger that has threatened remoter architectural treasures, some of them of an almost unique importance, and the more to be deplored because the threatened buildings have not been thoroughly studied, planned and photographed, so that if destroyed their loss would be total? A glance at any map will show that the Armenian area is divided into two main parts, a northern and a southern, by the mountain range which culminates in Ararat. About half of northern Armenia belonged to Russia before the war. The remainder of the north and all the southern part were under the misgovernance of Turkey. The great battle of Sarikamish, which attracted a momentary attention last winter, was brought about by an attempt of the Turks, based on Erzerum in their part of northern Armenia, to invade Russian Armenia. If that attack had succeeded the most precious ancient buildings of the country would have been seriously imperiled. The fates of northern and southern Armenia, though similar, have not been identical. Sometimes united under a single government they have oftener been divided; but they have passed through similar stages of civilization and gave birth to closely related schools of art. Christianity obtained ascendancy over them at a very early date and took such firm hold that all

the floods of Islam have not been able to overwhelm it. Long before the tenth century every center of population in the country had its churches and its monasteries, built in a markedly local style of architecture of great merit. Numbers of these monuments have been destroyed, but the ruins of many (and a few still complete) survive, those of chief importance in northern Armenia being at the deserted medieval capital, Ani, and the existing ecclesiastical capital, Edgmlatsin. In the case of any group of works of art of a single school it is always most interesting to approach a study of them in chronological order. Lack of space renders that method here impossible. Let us therefore at once turn to one of the best examples of the developed Armenian type of church—the tenth century cathedral of’Ani. It lies, pathetically abandoned, in a bare space in the midst of the ruined city. Nothing could be plainer than its simple oblong form; ho external apse, no protruding transepts, no advancing porches or other embellishments. It was, indeed, once crowned in the midst by a small cylindrical dome covered by a pointed roof, but only a fragment of the dome survives. The external arcading descends directly from Sassanian Persia. Architecture Is Original. Other elements in the composition are derived from Syria, Mesopotamia and Constantinople, but are originally combined. The curious pairs of deep niches at the end and'aMo of the church correspond to masses of masonry within, which form the apse and Its side chapels, for the interior is far more complicated in plan than the rectangular exterior would suggest It to, however, the general aspect of the

interior that is the most remarkable . feature. At a first glance it looks like the inside of & Gothic church. The pointed vault and arches, the recessed piers resembling clustered columns in effect —these and other details have an extraordinarily Gothic aspect, so that it is, at first hard to realize that Gothic architecture had not appeared in its most rudimentary form when the Cathedral of Ani was built. The most cursory Inspection reveals the excellence of the masonry, the good taste and restraint of the carved decoration, the fine proportion of parts. We are in presence of a work of architectural art, the product of no immature school, but of one fully equipped with a formed and finished style, which is not that of the Byzantine nor of any other school, but belongs entirely to Armenia and Georgia. Unfortunately, the churches of Armenia have not only suffered from neglect and war, but many of them have been shattered by earthquakes, so that of the multitude that once existed few are now even as well preserved as this of Ani. Near to It, within the walls of 'the same city, is the scarcely less beautiful Church of St. Gregory, the dome of which is still in large part standing, but the porch, with massive columns added to it in the Saracenic style in the thirteenth century, has mainly fallen away. The delicately sculptured arcading round the exterior of this dhurch might stand comparison with similar decorative work in any. Byzantine building, though the style of it is pure Armenian at Its best. Not far away is a chapel dedicated to the same saint—a polygonal edifice surmounted by a circular dome with pointed roof. This was probably a royal mausoleum, and the type, simplified and tolamized, continued to be erected in different parts of Armenia down to the close of the middle age. Churches at Edgmlatsin. At Edgmlatsin are several ancient churches still in use. Such, for instance, is the venerated cathedral, the seat .of the important functionary, the Katholikos, reverenced by all At-

ST. RIPSIME, EDGMIATSIN

menians. - The core of the building is of great antiquity and the fabric of the walls of the central mass may date back to the seventh century, but the old is so hidden by additions, porches, chapels and so forth, that little of antiquity is suggested by the exterior. Far more interesting to the lover of art 4s the church of St. Ripsime in the same town. Its aspect Is injured by the porch which, in characteristically seventeenth century style, has been patched on at one end. The Armenians of that date had a strange passion for building such porches and almost every church still in use has had one added on to it. With that exception and a restored dome the rest of the main fabric is old, if not dating back as far as the year 618 when the church Is known to have been rebuilt. The high gabled projections with their deep pairs of niches can scarcely be earlier than the tenth century. More authentically ancient is the church called Shoghakath in the same city; It was built to the fifth decade of the seventh century. The massive western porch, wide as the whole nave, is surmounted by the usual bell tower and both are remarkable works authentically dated 1693. The uninatructed eye would have guessed them rather of the twelfth century! Ani and Edgmlatsin might be expected, as capitals, to possess ecclesiastical buildings of importance; no doubt churches, convents and memorial chapels were more numerous in them than elsewhere. But every center of population, even though small, had its church, and all these churches, so far as we can now attain knowledge of them, appear to have been built to the same style with the same good tasta and the same finish of detail.