The Sea-Story Megapack: 30 Classic Nautical Works

by Jack Williamson

  “Now I have it!” I cried. “I ought to make the tackle fast at the point of balance. And what we learn of this will serve us with everything else we have to hoist aboard.”

  Once again I undid all my work by lowering the mast into the water. But I miscalculated the point of balance, so that when I heaved the top of the mast came up instead of the butt. Maud looked despair, but I laughed and said it would do just as well.

  Instructing her how to hold the turn and be ready to slack away at command, I laid hold of the mast with my hands and tried to balance it inboard across the rail. When I thought I had it I cried to her to slack away; but the spar righted, despite my efforts, and dropped back toward the water. Again I heaved it up to its old position, for I had now another idea. I remembered the watch-tackle—a small double and single block affair—and fetched it.

  While I was rigging it between the top of the spar and the opposite rail, Wolf Larsen came on the scene. We exchanged nothing more than good-mornings, and, though he could not see, he sat on the rail out of the way and followed by the sound all that I did.

  Again instructing Maud to slack away at the windlass when I gave the word, I proceeded to heave on the watch-tackle. Slowly the mast swung in until it balanced at right angles across the rail; and then I discovered to my amazement that there was no need for Maud to slack away. In fact, the very opposite was necessary. Making the watch-tackle fast, I hove on the windlass and brought in the mast, inch by inch, till its top tilted down to the deck and finally its whole length lay on the deck.

  I looked at my watch. It was twelve o’clock. My back was aching sorely, and I felt extremely tired and hungry. And there on the deck was a single stick of timber to show for a whole morning’s work. For the first time I thoroughly realized the extent of the task before us. But I was learning, I was learning. The afternoon would show far more accomplished. And it did; for we returned at one o’clock, rested and strengthened by a hearty dinner.

  In less than an hour I had the maintopmast on deck and was constructing the shears. Lashing the two topmasts together, and making allowance for their unequal length, at the point of intersection I attached the double block of the main throat-halyards. This, with the single block and the throat-halyards themselves, gave me a hoisting tackle. To prevent the butts of the masts from slipping on the deck, I nailed down thick cleats. Everything in readiness, I made a line fast to the apex of the shears and carried it directly to the windlass. I was growing to have faith in that windlass, for it gave me power beyond all expectation. As usual, Maud held the turn while I heaved. The shears rose in the air.

  Then I discovered I had forgotten guy-ropes. This necessitated my climbing the shears, which I did twice, before I finished guying it fore and aft and to either side. Twilight had set in by the time this was accomplished. Wolf Larsen, who had sat about and listened all afternoon and never opened his mouth, had taken himself off to the galley and started his supper. I felt quite stiff across the small of the back, so much so that I straightened up with an effort and with pain. I looked proudly at my work. It was beginning to show. I was wild with desire, like a child with a new toy, to hoist something with my shears.

  “I wish it weren’t so late,” I said. “I’d like to see how it works.”

  “Don’t be a glutton, Humphrey,” Maud chided me. “Remember, tomorrow is coming, and you’re so tired now that you can hardly stand.”

  “And you?” I said, with sudden solicitude. “You must be very tired. You have worked hard and nobly. I am proud of you, Maud.”

  “Not half so proud as I am of you, nor with half the reason,” she answered, looking me straight in the eyes for a moment with an expression in her own and a dancing, tremulous light which I had not seen before and which gave me a pang of quick delight, I know not why, for I did not understand it. Then she dropped her eyes, to lift them again, laughing.

  “If our friends could see us now,” she said. “Look at us. Have you ever paused for a moment to consider our appearance?”

  “Yes, I have considered yours, frequently,” I answered, puzzling over what I had seen in her eyes and puzzled by her sudden change of subject.

  “Mercy!” she cried. “And what do I look like, pray?”

  “A scarecrow, I’m afraid,” I replied. “Just glance at your draggled skirts, for instance. Look at those three-cornered tears. And such a waist! It would not require a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that you have been cooking over a camp-fire, to say nothing of trying out seal-blubber. And to cap it all, that cap! And all that is the woman who wrote ‘A Kiss Endured.’”

  She made me an elaborate and stately courtesy, and said, “As for you, sir—”

  And yet, through the five minutes of banter which followed, there was a serious something underneath the fun which I could not but relate to the strange and fleeting expression I had caught in her eyes. What was it? Could it be that our eyes were speaking beyond the will of our speech? My eyes had spoken, I knew, until I had found the culprits out and silenced them. This had occurred several times. But had she seen the clamour in them and understood? And had her eyes so spoken to me? What else could that expression have meant—that dancing, tremulous light, and a something more which words could not describe. And yet it could not be. It was impossible. Besides, I was not skilled in the speech of eyes. I was only Humphrey Van Weyden, a bookish fellow who loved. And to love, and to wait and win love, that surely was glorious enough for me. And thus I thought, even as we chaffed each other’s appearance, until we arrived ashore and there were other things to think about.

  “It’s a shame, after working hard all day, that we cannot have an uninterrupted night’s sleep,” I complained, after supper.

  “But there can be no danger now? from a blind man?” she queried.

  “I shall never be able to trust him,” I averred, “and far less now that he is blind. The liability is that his part helplessness will make him more malignant than ever. I know what I shall do tomorrow, the first thing—run out a light anchor and kedge the schooner off the beach. And each night when we come ashore in the boat, Mr. Wolf Larsen will be left a prisoner on board. So this will be the last night we have to stand watch, and because of that it will go the easier.”

  We were awake early and just finishing breakfast as daylight came.

  “Oh, Humphrey!” I heard Maud cry in dismay and suddenly stop.

  I looked at her. She was gazing at the Ghost. I followed her gaze, but could see nothing unusual. She looked at me, and I looked inquiry back.

  “The shears,” she said, and her voice trembled.

  I had forgotten their existence. I looked again, but could not see them.

  “If he has—” I muttered savagely.

  She put her hand sympathetically on mine, and said, “You will have to begin over again.”

  “Oh, believe me, my anger means nothing; I could not hurt a fly,” I smiled back bitterly. “And the worst of it is, he knows it. You are right. If he has destroyed the shears, I shall do nothing except begin over again.”

  “But I’ll stand my watch on board hereafter,” I blurted out a moment later. “And if he interferes—”

  “But I dare not stay ashore all night alone,” Maud was saying when I came back to myself. “It would be so much nicer if he would be friendly with us and help us. We could all live comfortably aboard.”

  “We will,” I asserted, still savagely, for the destruction of my beloved shears had hit me hard. “That is, you and I will live aboard, friendly or not with Wolf Larsen.”

  “It’s childish,” I laughed later, “for him to do such things, and for me to grow angry over them, for that matter.”

  But my heart smote me when we climbed aboard and looked at the havoc he had done. The shears were gone altogether. The guys had been slashed right and left. The throat-halyards which I had rigged were cut across through every part. And he knew I could not splice. A thought struck me. I ran to the windlass. It would not work. He had broken it. We looked at each
other in consternation. Then I ran to the side. The masts, booms, and gaffs I had cleared were gone. He had found the lines which held them, and cast them adrift.

  Tears were in Maud’s eyes, and I do believe they were for me. I could have wept myself. Where now was our project of remasting the Ghost? He had done his work well. I sat down on the hatch-combing and rested my chin on my hands in black despair.

  “He deserves to die,” I cried out; “and God forgive me, I am not man enough to be his executioner.”

  But Maud was by my side, passing her hand soothingly through my hair as though I were a child, and saying, “There, there; it will all come right. We are in the right, and it must come right.”

  I remembered Michelet and leaned my head against her; and truly I became strong again. The blessed woman was an unfailing fount of power to me. What did it matter? Only a set-back, a delay. The tide could not have carried the masts far to seaward, and there had been no wind. It meant merely more work to find them and tow them back. And besides, it was a lesson. I knew what to expect. He might have waited and destroyed our work more effectually when we had more accomplished.

  “Here he comes now,” she whispered.

  I glanced up. He was strolling leisurely along the poop on the port side.

  “Take no notice of him,” I whispered. “He’s coming to see how we take it. Don’t let him know that we know. We can deny him that satisfaction. Take off your shoes—that’s right—and carry them in your hand.”

  And then we played hide-and-seek with the blind man. As he came up the port side we slipped past on the starboard; and from the poop we watched him turn and start aft on our track.

  He must have known, somehow, that we were on board, for he said “Good-morning” very confidently, and waited, for the greeting to be returned. Then he strolled aft, and we slipped forward.

  “Oh, I know you’re aboard,” he called out, and I could see him listen intently after he had spoken.

  It reminded me of the great hoot-owl, listening, after its booming cry, for the stir of its frightened prey. But we did not fir, and we moved only when he moved. And so we dodged about the deck, hand in hand, like a couple of children chased by a wicked ogre, till Wolf Larsen, evidently in disgust, left the deck for the cabin. There was glee in our eyes, and suppressed titters in our mouths, as we put on our shoes and clambered over the side into the boat. And as I looked into Maud’s clear brown eyes I forgot the evil he had done, and I knew only that I loved her, and that because of her the strength was mine to win our way back to the world.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  For two days Maud and I ranged the sea and explored the beaches in search of the missing masts. But it was not till the third day that we found them, all of them, the shears included, and, of all perilous places, in the pounding surf of the grim south-western promontory. And how we worked! At the dark end of the first day we returned, exhausted, to our little cove, towing the mainmast behind us. And we had been compelled to row, in a dead calm, practically every inch of the way.

  Another day of heart-breaking and dangerous toil saw us in camp with the two topmasts to the good. The day following I was desperate, and I rafted together the foremast, the fore and main booms, and the fore and main gaffs. The wind was favourable, and I had thought to tow them back under sail, but the wind baffled, then died away, and our progress with the oars was a snail’s pace. And it was such dispiriting effort. To throw one’s whole strength and weight on the oars and to feel the boat checked in its forward lunge by the heavy drag behind, was not exactly exhilarating.

  Night began to fall, and to make matters worse, the wind sprang up ahead. Not only did all forward motion cease, but we began to drift back and out to sea. I struggled at the oars till I was played out. Poor Maud, whom I could never prevent from working to the limit of her strength, lay weakly back in the stern-sheets. I could row no more. My bruised and swollen hands could no longer close on the oar handles. My wrists and arms ached intolerably, and though I had eaten heartily of a twelve-o’clock lunch, I had worked so hard that I was faint from hunger.

  I pulled in the oars and bent forward to the line which held the tow. But Maud’s hand leaped out restrainingly to mine.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked in a strained, tense voice.

  “Cast it off,” I answered, slipping a turn of the rope.

  But her fingers closed on mine.

  “Please don’t,” she begged.

  “It is useless,” I answered. “Here is night and the wind blowing us off the land.”

  “But think, Humphrey. If we cannot sail away on the Ghost, we may remain for years on the island—for life even. If it has never been discovered all these years, it may never be discovered.”

  “You forget the boat we found on the beach,” I reminded her.

  “It was a seal-hunting boat,” she replied, “and you know perfectly well that if the men had escaped they would have been back to make their fortunes from the rookery. You know they never escaped.”

  I remained silent, undecided.

  “Besides,” she added haltingly, “it’s your idea, and I want to see you succeed.”

  Now I could harden my heart. As soon as she put it on a flattering personal basis, generosity compelled me to deny her.

  “Better years on the island than to die tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day, in the open boat. We are not prepared to brave the sea. We have no food, no water, no blankets, nothing. Why, you’d not survive the night without blankets: I know how strong you are. You are shivering now.”

  “It is only nervousness,” she answered. “I am afraid you will cast off the masts in spite of me.”

  “Oh, please, please, Humphrey, don’t!” she burst out, a moment later.

  And so it ended, with the phrase she knew had all power over me. We shivered miserably throughout the night. Now and again I fitfully slept, but the pain of the cold always aroused me. How Maud could stand it was beyond me. I was too tired to thrash my arms about and warm myself, but I found strength time and again to chafe her hands and feet to restore the circulation. And still she pleaded with me not to cast off the masts. About three in the morning she was caught by a cold cramp, and after I had rubbed her out of that she became quite numb. I was frightened. I got out the oars and made her row, though she was so weak I thought she would faint at every stroke.

  Morning broke, and we looked long in the growing light for our island. At last it showed, small and black, on the horizon, fully fifteen miles away. I scanned the sea with my glasses. Far away in the south-west I could see a dark line on the water, which grew even as I looked at it.

  “Fair wind!” I cried in a husky voice I did not recognize as my own.

  Maud tried to reply, but could not speak. Her lips were blue with cold, and she was hollow-eyed—but oh, how bravely her brown eyes looked at me! How piteously brave!

  Again I fell to chafing her hands and to moving her arms up and down and about until she could thrash them herself. Then I compelled her to stand up, and though she would have fallen had I not supported her, I forced her to walk back and forth the several steps between the thwart and the stern-sheets, and finally to spring up and down.

  “Oh, you brave, brave woman,” I said, when I saw the life coming back into her face. “Did you know that you were brave?”

  “I never used to be,” she answered. “I was never brave till I knew you. It is you who have made me brave.”

  “Nor I, until I knew you,” I answered.

  She gave me a quick look, and again I caught that dancing, tremulous light and something more in her eyes. But it was only for the moment. Then she smiled.

  “It must have been the conditions,” she said; but I knew she was wrong, and I wondered if she likewise knew. Then the wind came, fair and fresh, and the boat was soon labouring through a heavy sea toward the island. At half-past three in the afternoon we passed the south-western promontory. Not only were we hungry, but we were now suffering from thirst. Our
lips were dry and cracked, nor could we longer moisten them with our tongues. Then the wind slowly died down. By night it was dead calm and I was toiling once more at the oars—but weakly, most weakly. At two in the morning the boat’s bow touched the beach of our own inner cove and I staggered out to make the painter fast. Maud could not stand, nor had I strength to carry her. I fell in the sand with her, and, when I had recovered, contented myself with putting my hands under her shoulders and dragging her up the beach to the hut.

  The next day we did no work. In fact, we slept till three in the afternoon, or at least I did, for I awoke to find Maud cooking dinner. Her power of recuperation was wonderful. There was something tenacious about that lily-frail body of hers, a clutch on existence which one could not reconcile with its patent weakness.

  “You know I was travelling to Japan for my health,” she said, as we lingered at the fire after dinner and delighted in the movelessness of loafing. “I was not very strong. I never was. The doctors recommended a sea voyage, and I chose the longest.”

  “You little knew what you were choosing,” I laughed.

  “But I shall be a different women for the experience, as well as a stronger woman,” she answered; “and, I hope a better woman. At least I shall understand a great deal more life.”

  Then, as the short day waned, we fell to discussing Wolf Larsen’s blindness. It was inexplicable. And that it was grave, I instanced his statement that he intended to stay and die on Endeavour Island. When he, strong man that he was, loving life as he did, accepted his death, it was plain that he was troubled by something more than mere blindness. There had been his terrific headaches, and we were agreed that it was some sort of brain break-down, and that in his attacks he endured pain beyond our comprehension.

  I noticed as we talked over his condition, that Maud’s sympathy went out to him more and more; yet I could not but love her for it, so sweetly womanly was it. Besides, there was no false sentiment about her feeling. She was agreed that the most rigorous treatment was necessary if we were to escape, though she recoiled at the suggestion that I might some time be compelled to take his life to save my own—“our own,” she put it.