Part 2 (1/2)
”Any of you fellows got a Bible or Prayer-book?” was the captain's next de about the companion-way
They shook their heads, and some one made a jocular reh
Wolf Larsen made the same demand of the sailors Bibles and Prayer-books seemed scarce articles, but one of the st the watch below, returning in a minute with the infored his shoulders ”Then we'll drop hi castaway has the burial service at sea by heart”
By this ti me ”You're a preacher, aren't you?” he asked
The hunters,-there were six of thearded me I was painfully aware of h went up at h that was not lessened or softened by the dead h that was as rough and harsh and frank as the sea itself; that arose out of coarse feelings and blunted sensibilities, froentleness
Wolf Larsen did not laugh, though his grey eyes lighted with a slight glint of a stepped forward quite close to him, I received my first impression of the man himself, of the man as apart from his body, and from the torrent of blasphee features and strong lines, of the square order, yet well filled out, was apparently ain, as with the body, the row of a treth that lay behind, sleeping in the deeps of his being The jaw, the chin, the brow rising to a goodly height and swelling heavily above the eyes,-these, while strong in theour or virility of spirit that lay behind and beyond and out of sight There was no sounding such a spirit, noof eon-hole with others of similar type
The eyes-and it was e and handso under a heavy brow and arched over by thick black eyebrows The eyes therey which is never twice the sas like intershot silk in sunshi+ne; which is grey, dark and light, and greenish-grey, and sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea They were eyes that uises, and that sometimes opened, at rare h it were about to fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure,-eyes that could brood with the hopeless sombreness of leaden skies; that could snap and crackle points of fire like those which sparkle frorow chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warhts, intense and , which at the same tiladness of joy and of relief and sacrifice
But to return I told him that, unhappily for the burial service, I was not a preacher, when he sharply de?”
I confess I had never had such a question asked me before, nor had I ever canvassed it I was quite taken aback, and before I could find entleman”
His lip curled in a swift sneer
”I have worked, I do work,” I cried ie and I required vindication, and at the sa the subject at all
”For your living?”
There was so so imperative and masterful about him that I was quite beside myself-”rattled,” as Furuseth would have ter child before a stern school-master
”Who feeds you?” was his next question
”I have an incoue the next instant ”All of which, you will pardonwhatsoever to do hat I wish to see you about”
But he disregarded ht so Your father You stand on dead s You've never had any of your own You couldn't walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals Let th must have stirred, swiftly and accurately, or I must have slept a moripped ht hand in his, and held it up for inspection I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers tightened, without visible effort, till I thought nity under such circule like a schoolboy Nor could I attack such a creature who had but to twistrenity I had time to notice that the pockets of the dead rin had been wrapped from view in canvas, the folds of which the sailor, Johansen, was sewing together with coarse white twine, shoving the needle through with a leather contrivance fitted on the palm of his hand
Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain
”Dead men's hands have kept it soft Good for little else than dish-washi+ng and scullion work”
”I wish to be put ashore,” I said firmly, for I now had e your delay and trouble to be worth”
He looked at me curiously Mockery shone in his eyes
”I have a counter proposition to one, and there'll be a lot of prooes for'ard to take sailor's place, and you take the cabin-boy's place, sign the articles for the cruise, twenty dollars per month and found Nohat do you say? Andof you You s, and perhaps to toddle along a bit”