The Sea-Wolf

p thereafter, while I took possession of the tiny cabin state-room, which, on the first day of the voyage, had already had two occupants. The reason for this change was qu

of orders had been too much for Wolf Larsen, who

brutality to me was paid back in kind and with interest. The unnecessary noise he made (I had lain wide-eyed the whole night) must have awakened one of the hunters; for a heavy shoe whizzed through the semidarkness, and Mr. Mugridge

n to some small change (and I have a good memory for such things), it had contained one hundred and eighty-five dollars in gold and paper. The purse I found, but its contents, with the exception of the small silver, h

f, or you'll find 'ow bloody well mistyken you are. Strike me blind if this ayn't gratitude for yer! 'Ere yer come, a pore mis'rable specimen of 'uman scum, an' I ty

this brute-ship. Moral suasion was a thing unknown. Picture it to yourself: a man of ordinary stature, slender of build and with weak, undeveloped muscles, who has lived a peaceful, placid life, a

e events and feel entirely exonerated. The situation was something that really exceeded rational formulas for conduct, and demanded more than the cold conclusions of reason. When viewed in the light of formal logic,

rom the galley caused excruciating pain in my knee, and I sank down h

ying. 'An' with a gyme leg at that! Come on back, you po

d a stiff wind blowing. Sail had been made in the early watches, so that the Ghost was racing along under everything except the two topsails and the flying jib. These three sails, I gathered from the conversation, were to be set immediately after breakfast. I learned, also, that Wolf Larsen was anxious to make the

lity he was attempting to warn me to throw my ashes over the lee side. Unconscious of my blunder, I passed by Wolf Larsen and the hunter, and flung the ashes over the side to windward. The wind drove them back, and not only over me, but over Henderson and Wolf Larsen. The next instant the latter kicked me violently, as a cur is kicked. I had not realized there could be so much pain in a kick. I reeled away from him and leaned

ed with books. I glanced over them, noting with astonishment such names as Shakespeare, Tennyson, Poe, and De Quincey. There were scientific works, too, among which were represented men such as Tyndall, Proctor, Darwin, and I remarked Bulfinch's '

en the blankets, dropped apparently as he had sunk off to sleep, a complete Browning. It was open at 'In a Balcony,' and I noticed here and there passages underlined in pe

is nature was perfectly comprehensible, but both sides together were bewildering. I had already remarked that his language was excellent, marred with an occasional slight inaccuracy. Of course, in

de must have emboldened me, for I resolved

im a little later, when I found hi

ected, not hars

n robbed, si

it happen?

had been left to dry in the galley, and how, later, I wa

ed at my

he price? Besides, consider it a lesson. You'll learn in time how to take care of your money

hrough his words, but demanded,

n who leaves his money lying around the way you did deserves to lose it. Besides, you have sinned. You have no right to put temptation in the way of

ul. But it was an illusion. Far as it might have seemed, no man has ever seen very far into Wolf Larsen's soul, or seen it at all;

dropping the 'sir'- an experiment, for I thoug

ou see something that is alive, but that n

han that,' I co

onsciousness of life that it is alive; but st

, he turned his head and glanced out over the leaden sea to windward. A bleakness came into his

nded abruptly, turning back t

t into speech a something felt, a something like the strains of music

believe, then?

r, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease to move. The big eat the little that they may continue to move; the strong ea

toward a number of the sailors who were wo

There you have it. They live for their belly's sake, and the belly is for their sake. It's a circle; yo

I interrupted; 'radia

e concluded s

of m

ike them. There is no difference, except that we have eaten more and better. I am eating them now, and you, too. But in the past you have eaten more than I have. You have slept in soft beds, and worn fine clothes, and eaten good meals. Who made those beds, and those clothes, and those meals? Not you. You never made anything in your own sweat. You live on an income which your father earned. You are like a frigate-bir

beside the mat

mmortal end did you serve? Or did they? Consider yourself and me. What does your boasted immortality amount to when your life runs foul of mine? You would like to go back to the land, which is a favorable place for your kind of piggishness. It is a whim of mine to keep you aboard this ship, where my piggishness flourishes. And keep you I will. I may make o

stronger,' I man

erpetual queries. 'Because I am a bigger bit of th

lessness of it

to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead.

started forward. He stopped at the b

was it that Cooky got

eighty-five dollar

down the companion-stairs to lay the table for din