under way, didn't the fond husbands get left astern-like in their sampan, as it might be by accident? An' wasn't it a week later that the poor little ladies was put ashore on the other side of the island, with nothin' before 'em but to walk home acrost the mountains on their weeny- teeny little straw sandals which wouldn't hang together a mile? Don't know? 'Tis the beast he is, this Wolf Larsen -- the great big beast mentioned iv in Revelation;an' no good end will he ever come to.But I've said nothin' to ye, mind ye.I've whispered never a word; for old fat Louis'll live the voyage out if the last mother's son of yez go to the fishes.""Wolf Larsen!" he snorted a moment later."Listen to the word, will ye! Wolf -- 'tis what he is.He's not black-hearted like some men.'Tis no heart he has at all.Wolf, just wolf, 'tis what he is.D'ye wonder he's well named?""But if he is so well known for what he is," I queried, "how is it that he can get men to ship with him?""An' how is it ye can get men to do anything on God's earth an' sea?"Louis demanded with Celtic fire."How d'ye find me aboard if 'twasn't that I was drunk as a pig when I put me name down? There's them that can't sail with better men, like the hunters, and them that don't know, like the poor devils of wind-jammers for'ard there.But they'll come to it, they'll come to it, an' be sorry the day they was born.I could weep for the poor creatures, did I but forget poor old fat Louis and the troubles before him.But 'tis not a whisper I've dropped, mind ye, not a whisper.""Them hunters is the wicked boys," he broke forth again, for he suffered from a constitutional plethora of speech."But wait till they get to cutting up iv jinks and rowin' 'round.He's the boy'll fix 'em.'Tis him that'll put the fear of God in their rotten black hearts.Look at that hunter iv mine, Horner.`Jock' Horner they call him, so quiet-like an' easy-goin', soft-spoken as a girl, till ye'd think butter wouldn't melt in the mouth iv him.Didn't he kill his boat-steerer last year? 'Twas called a sad accident, but I met the boat-puller in Yokohama an' the straight iv it was given me.An' there's Smoke, the black little devil -- didn't the Roosians have him for three years in the salt mines of Siberia, for poachin' on Copper Island, which is a Roosian preserve? Shackled he was, hand an' foot, with his mate.An' didn't they have words or a ruction of some kind? -- for 'twas the other fellow Smoke sent up in the buckets to the top of the mine;an' a piece at the time he went up, a leg to-day, an' to- morrow an arm, the next day the head, an' so on.""But you can't mean it!" I cried out, overcome with the horror of it.
"Mean what?" he demanded, quick as a flash."'Tis nothin' I've said.
Deef I am, and dumb, as ye should be for the sake iv your mother; an' never once have I opened me lips but to say fine things iv them an' him, God curse his soul, an' may he rot in purgatory ten thousand years, and then go down to the last an' deepest hell iv all!"Johnson, the man who had chafed me raw when I first came aboard, seemed the least equivocal of the men forward or aft.In fact, there was nothing equivocal about him.One was struck at once by his straightforwardness and manliness, which, in turn, were tempered by a modesty which might be mistaken for timidity.But timid he was not.He seemed, rather, to have the courage of his convictions, the certainty of his manhood.It was this that made him protest, at the commencement of our acquaintance, against being called Yonson.And upon this, and him, Louis passed judgment and prophecy.
"'Tis a fine chap, that squarehead Johnson we've for'ard with us," he said."The best sailorman in the fo'c'sle.He's my boat- puller.But it's to trouble he'll come with Wolf Larsen, as the sparks fly upward.It's meself that knows.I can see it brewin' an' comin' up like a storm in the sky.I've talked to him like a brother, but it's little he sees in takin'
in his lights or flyin' false signals.He grumbles out when things don't go to suit him, and there'll be always some telltale carryin' word iv it aft to the Wolf.The Wolf is strong, and it's the way of a wolf to hate strength, an' strength it is he'll see in Johnson -- no knucklin' under, and a `Yes, sir, thank ye kindly, sir,' for a curse or a blow.Oh, she's a-comin'! She's a- comin'! An' God knows where I'll get another boat-puller!
What does the fool up an' say, when the old man calls him Yonson, but `Me name is Johnson, sir,' an' then spells it out, letter for letter.Ye should iv seen the old man's face! I thought he'd let drive at him on the spot.
He didn't, but he will, an' he'll break that squarehead's heart, or it's little I know iv the ways iv men on the ships iv the sea."Thomas Mugridge is becoming unendurable.I am compelled to Mister him and to Sir him with every speech.One reason for this is that Wolf Larsen seems to have taken a fancy to him.It is an unprecedented thing, I take it, for a captain to be chummy with the cook; but this is certainly what Wolf Larsen is doing.Two or three times he put his head into the galley and chaffed Mugridge good- naturedly, and once, this afternoon, he stood by the break of the poop and chatted with him for fully fifteen minutes.
When it was over, and Mugridge was back in the galley, he became greasily radiant, and went about his work, humming coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto.