"And as for you, Johnson, you'll get so tired of life before I'm through with you that you'll fling yourself over the side.See if you don't.""That's a suggestion," he added, in an aside to me."I'll bet you a month's pay he acts upon it."I had cherished a hope that his victims would find an opportunity to escape while filling our water-barrels, but Wolf Larsen had selected his spot well.The Ghost lay half a mile beyond the surf-line of a lonely beach.Here debouched a deep gorge, with precipitous, volcanic walls which no man could scale.And here, under his direct supervision, -- for he went ashore himself, -- Leach and Johnson filled the small casks and rolled them down to the beach.They had no chance to make a break for liberty in one of the boats.
Harrison and Kelly, however, made such an attempt.They composed one of the boat's crews, and their task was to ply between the schooner and the shore, carrying a single cask each trip.Just before dinner, starting for the beach with an empty barrel, they altered their course and bore away to the left to round the promontory which jutted into the sea between them and liberty.Beyond its foaming base lay the pretty villages of the Japanese colonists, and smiling valleys which penetrated deep into the interior.Once in the fastnesses they promised, and the two men could defy Wolf Larsen.
I had observed Henderson and Smoke loitering about the deck all morning, and I now learned why they were there.Procuring their rifles, they opened fire in a leisurely manner upon the deserters.It was a cold-blooded exhibition of marksmanship.At first their bullets zipped harmlessly along the surface of the water on either side the boat; but, as the men continued to pull lustily, they struck closer and closer.
"Now watch me take Kelly's right oar," Smoke said, drawing a more careful aim.
I was looking through the glasses, and I saw the oar-blade shatter as he shot.Henderson duplicated it, selecting Harrison's right oar.The boat slewed around.The two remaining oars were quickly broken.The men tried to row with the splinters, and had them shot out of their hands.Kelly ripped up a bottom board and began paddling, but dropped it with a cry of pain as its splinters drove into his hands.Then they gave up, letting the boat drift till a second boat, sent from the shore by Wolf Larsen, took them in tow and brought them aboard.
Late that afternoon we hove up anchor and got away.Nothing was before us but the three or four months' hunting on the sealing grounds.The outlook was black indeed, and I went about my work with a heavy heart.An almost funereal gloom seemed to have descended upon the Ghost.Wolf Larsen had taken to his bunk with one of his strange, splitting headaches.Harrison stood listlessly at the wheel, half- supporting himself by it, as though wearied by the weight of his flesh.The rest of the men were morose and silent.I came upon Kelly crouching to the lee of the forecastle scuttle, his head on his knees, his arms about his head, in an attitude of unutterable despondency.
Johnson I found lying full length on the forecastle head, staring at the troubled churn of the forefoot, and I remembered with horror the suggestion Wolf Larsen had made.It seemed likely to bear fruit.I tried to break in on the man's morbid thoughts by calling him away, but he smiled sadly at me and refused to obey.
Leach approached me as I returned aft.
"I want to ask a favor, Mr.Van Weyden," he said."If it's yer luck to ever make 'Frisco once more, will you hunt up Matt McCarthy? He's my old man.He lives on the Hill, back of the Mayfair bakery, runnin' a cobbler's shop that everybody knows, and you'll have no trouble.Tell him I lived to be sorry for the trouble I brought him and the things I done, and --and just tell him `God bless him,' for me."I nodded my head, but said, "We'll all win back to San Francisco, Leach, and you'll be with me when I go to see Matt McCarthy.""I'd like to believe you," he answered, shaking my hand, "but can't.
Wolf Larsen'll do for me, I know it; and all I can hope is he'll do it quick."And as he left me I was aware of the same desire at my heart.Since it was to be done, let it be done with despatch.The general gloom had gathered me into its folds.The worst appeared inevitable; and as I paced the deck, hour after hour, I found myself afflicted with Wolf Larsen's repulsive ideas.What was it all about? Where was the grandeur of life that it should permit such wanton destruction of human souls? It was a cheap and sordid thing after all, this life, and the sooner over the better.
Over and done with! I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion.
