The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality.From cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion.I scarcely know where to begin.Wolf Larsen was really the cause of it.The relations among the men, strained and made tense by feuds, quarrels, and grudges, were in a state of unstable equilibrium, and evil passions flared up in flame like prairie-grass.
Thomas Mugridge is a sneak, a spy, an informer.He has been attempting to curry favor and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captain by carrying tales of the men forward.He it was, I know, that carried some of Johnson's hasty talk to Wolf Larsen.Johnson, it seems, bought a suit of oilskins from the slop-chest and found them to be of greatly inferior quality.Nor was he slow in advertising the fact.The slop-chest is a sort of miniature dry-goods store which is carried by all sealing schooners and which is stocked with articles peculiar to the needs of the sailors.
Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from his subsequent earnings on the sealing grounds; for, as it is with the hunters so it is with the boat-pullers and steerers -- in the place of wages they receive a "lay," a rate of so much per skin for every skin captured in their particular boat.
But of Johnson's grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, so that what I witnessed came with the shock of sudden surprise.I had just finished sweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf Larsen into a discussion of Hamlet, his favorite Shakespearian character, when Johansen descended the companion stairs followed by Johnson.The latter's cap came off after the custom of the sea, and he stood respectfully in the centre of the cabin, swaying heavily and uneasily to the roll of the schooner and facing the captain.
"Shut the doors and draw the slide," Wolf Larsen said to me.
As I obeyed I noticed an anxious light come into Johnson's eyes, but I did not dream of its cause.I did not dream of what was to occur until it did occur, but he knew from the very first what was coming and awaited it bravely.And in his action I found complete refutation of all Wolf Larsen's materialism.The sailor Johnson was swayed by idea, by principle, and truth, and sincerity.He was right, he knew he was right, and he was unafraid.
He would die for the right if needs be, he would be true to himself, sincere with his soul.And in this was portrayed the victory of the spirit over the flesh, the indomitability and moral grandeur of the soul that knows no restriction and rises above time and space and matter with a surety and invincibleness born of nothing else than eternity and immortality.
But to return.I noticed the anxious light in Johnson's eyes, but mistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man.The mate, Johansen, stood away several feet to the side of him, and fully three yards in front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the pivotal cabin chairs.An appreciable pause fell after I had closed the doors and drawn the slide, a pause that must have lasted fully a minute.It was broken by Wolf Larsen.
"Yonson," he began.
"My name is Johnson, sir," the sailor boldly corrected.
"Well, Johnson, then, damn you! Can you guess why I have sent for you?""Yes, and no, sir," was the slow reply."My work is done well.The mate knows that, and you know it, sir.So there cannot be any complaint.""And is that all?" Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft, and low, and purring.
"I know you have it in for me," Johnson continued with his unalterable and ponderous slowness."You do not like me.You -- You -- ""Go on," Wolf Larsen prompted."Don't be afraid of my feelings.""I am not afraid," the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising through his sunburn."If I speak not fast, it is because I have not been from the old country as long as you.You do not like me because I am too much of a man; that is why, sir.""You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean, and if you know what I mean," was Wolf Larsen's retort.
"I know English, and I know what you mean, sir," Johnson answered, his flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English language.
"Johnson," Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had gone before as introductory to the main business in hand, " understand you're not quite satisfied with those oilskins?""No, I am not.They are no good, sir."
"And you've been shooting off your mouth about them.""I say what I think, sir," the sailor answered courageously, not failing at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that "sir" be appended to each speech he made.
It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen.His big fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson.I noticed a black discoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen's eye, a mark of the thrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor.For the first time Ibegan to divine that something terrible was about to be enacted, -- what, I could not imagine.
"Do you know what happens to men who say what you've said about my slop-chest and me?" Wolf Larsen was demanding.
"I know, sir," was the answer.
"What?" Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively.