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The Sea Wolf
CHAPTER XXI
The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster and
me in the conversation at table had to express itself in some fashion,
and it fell to Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had not mended
his ways nor his shirt, though the latter he contended he had changed.
The garment itself did not bear out the assertion, nor did the
accumulations of grease on stove and pot and pan attest a general
cleanliness.
"I've given you warning, Cooky," Wolf Larsen said, "and now you've got
to take your medicine."
Mugridge's face turned white under its sooty veneer, and when Wolf
Larsen called for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable Cockney
fled wildly out of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck
with the grinning crew in pursuit. Few things could have been more to
their liking than to give him a tow over the side, for to the
forecastle he had sent messes and concoctions of the vilest order.
Conditions favoured the undertaking. The Ghost was slipping through
the water at no more than three miles an hour, and the sea was fairly
calm. But Mugridge had little stomach for a dip in it. Possibly he
had seen men towed before. Besides, the water was frightfully cold,
and his was anything but a rugged constitution.
As usual, the watches below and the hunters turned out for what
promised sport. Mugridge seemed to be in rabid fear of the water, and
he exhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he possessed.
Cornered in the right-angle of the poop and galley, he sprang like a
cat to the top of the cabin and ran aft. But his pursuers
forestalling him, he doubled back across the cabin, passed over the
galley, and gained the deck by means of the steerage- scuttle.
Straight forward he raced, the boat-puller Harrison at his heels and
gaining on him. But Mugridge, leaping suddenly, caught the
jib-boom-lift. It happened in an instant. Holding his weight by his
arms, and in mid-air doubling his body at the hips, he let fly with
both feet. The oncoming Harrison caught the kick squarely in the pit
of the stomach, groaned involuntarily, and doubled up and sank
backward to the deck.
Hand-clapping and roars of laughter from the hunters greeted the
exploit, while Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the foremast,
ran aft and through the remainder like a runner on the football field.
Straight aft he held, to the poop and along the poop to the stern. So
great was his speed that as he curved past the corner of the cabin he
slipped and fell. Nilson was standing at the wheel, and the Cockney's
hurtling body struck his legs. Both went down together, but Mugridge
alone arose. By some freak of pressures, his frail body had snapped
the strong man's leg like a pipe-stem.
Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round
the decks they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing
and shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing
encouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch
under three men; but he emerged from the mass like an eel, bleeding at
the mouth, the offending shirt ripped into tatters, and sprang for the
main-rigging. Up he went, clear up, beyond the ratlines, to the very
masthead.
Half-a-dozen sailors swarmed to the crosstrees after him, where they
clustered and waited while two of their number, Oofty-Oofty and Black
(who was Latimer's boat-steerer), continued up the thin steel stays,
lifting their bodies higher and higher by means of their arms.
It was a perilous undertaking, for, at a height of over a hundred feet
from the deck, holding on by their hands, they were not in the best of
positions to protect themselves from Mugridge's feet. And Mugridge
kicked savagely, till the Kanaka, hanging on with one hand, seized the
Cockney's foot with the other. Black duplicated the performance a
moment later with the other foot. Then the three writhed together in
a swaying tangle, struggling, sliding, and falling into the arms of
their mates on the crosstrees.
The aerial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and
gibbering, his mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to
deck. Wolf Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it
under his shoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the sea.
Forty,--fifty,--sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsen cried
"Belay!" Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, the rope tautened, and
the Ghost, lunging onward, jerked the cook to the surface.
It was a pitiful spectacle. Though he could not drown, and was
nine-lived in addition, he was suffering all the agonies of half-
drowning. The Ghost was going very slowly, and when her stern lifted
on a wave and she slipped forward she pulled the wretch to the surface
and gave him a moment in which to breathe; but between each lift the
stern fell, and while the bow lazily climbed the next wave the line
slacked and he sank beneath.
I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered her
with a start as she stepped lightly beside me. It was her first time
on deck since she had come aboard. A dead silence greeted her
appearance.
"What is the cause of the merriment?" she asked.
"Ask Captain Larsen," I answered composedly and coldly, though
inwardly my blood was boiling at the thought that she should be
witness to such brutality.
She took my advice and was turning to put it into execution, when her
eyes lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body instinct
with alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope.
"Are you fishing?" she asked him.
He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern,
suddenly flashed.
"Shark ho, sir!" he cried.
"Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!" Wolf Larsen shouted,
springing himself to the rope in advance of the quickest.
Mugridge had heard the Kanaka's warning cry and was screaming madly.
I could see a black fin cutting the water and making for him with
greater swiftness than he was being pulled aboard. It was an even
toss whether the shark or we would get him, and it was a matter of
moments. When Mugridge was directly beneath us, the stern descended
the slope of a passing wave, thus giving the advantage to the shark.
The fin disappeared. The belly flashed white in swift upward rush.
Almost equally swift, but not quite, was Wolf Larsen. He threw his
strength into one tremendous jerk. The Cockney's body left the water;
so did part of the shark's. He drew up his legs, and the man-eater
seemed no more than barely to touch one foot, sinking back into the
water with a splash. But at the moment of contact Thomas Mugridge
cried out. Then he came in like a fresh-caught fish on a line,
clearing the rail generously and striking the deck in a heap, on hands
and knees, and rolling over.
But a fountain of blood was gushing forth. The right foot was
missing, amputated neatly at the ankle. I looked instantly to Maud
Brewster. Her face was white, her eyes dilated with horror. She was
gazing, not at Thomas Mugridge, but at Wolf Larsen. And he was aware
of it, for he said, with one of his short laughs:
"Man-play, Miss Brewster. Somewhat rougher, I warrant, than what you
have been used to, but still-man-play. The shark was not in the
reckoning. It--"
But at this juncture, Mugridge, who had lifted his head and
ascertained the extent of his loss, floundered over on the deck and
buried his teeth in Wolf Larsen's leg. Wolf Larsen stooped, coolly,
to the Cockney, and pressed with thumb and finger at the rear of the
jaws and below the ears. The jaws opened with reluctance, and Wolf
Larsen stepped free.
"As I was saying," he went on, as though nothing unwonted had
happened, "the shark was not in the reckoning. It was--ahem--shall we
say Providence?"
She gave no sign that she had heard, though the expression of her eyes
changed to one of inexpressible loathing as she started to turn away.
She no more than started, for she swayed and tottered, and reached her
hand weakly out to mine. I caught her in time to save her from
falling, and helped her to a seat on the cabin. I thought she might
faint outright, but she controlled herself.
"Will you get a tourniquet, Mr. Van Weyden," Wolf Larsen called to me.
I hesitated. Her lips moved, and though they formed no words, she
commanded me with her eyes, plainly as speech, to go to the help of
the unfortunate man. "Please," she managed to whisper, and I could
but obey.
By now I had developed such skill at surgery that Wolf Larsen, with a
few words of advice, left me to my task with a couple of sailors for
assistants. For his task he elected a vengeance on the shark. A heavy
swivel-hook, baited with fat salt-pork, was dropped overside; and by
the time I had compressed the severed veins and arteries, the sailors
were singing and heaving in the offending monster. I did not see it
myself, but my assistants, first one and then the other, deserted me
for a few moments to run amidships and look at what was going on. The
shark, a sixteen-footer, was hoisted up against the main-rigging. Its
jaws were pried apart to their greatest extension, and a stout stake,
sharpened at both ends, was so inserted that when the pries were
removed the spread jaws were fixed upon it. This accomplished, the
hook was cut out. The shark dropped back into the sea, helpless, yet
with its full strength, doomed--to lingering starvation--a living
death less meet for it than for the man who devised the punishment.