Part 5 (2/2)
”What do you believe, then?” I countered
”I believe that life is a mess,” he answered pro that moves and may move for a minute, an hour, a year, or a hundred years, but that in the end will cease toeat the little that theyeat the weak that they th The lucky eat the est, that is all What do you s?”
He swept his aresture toward a nu on some kind of rope stuff amidshi+ps
”They move, so does the jelly-fish move TheyThere you have it They live for their belly's sake, and the belly is for their sake It's a circle; you get nowhere Neither do they In the end they come to a standstill They move no more They are dead”
”They have drea drearub,” he concluded sententiously
”And of er appetite andit” His voice sounded harsh There was no levity in it ”For, look you, they drea the fortunes-in short, of being in a better position for preying on their fellows, of having all night in, good grub and somebody else to do the dirty work You and I are just like them There is no difference, except that we have eatenthem 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 thosein your oeat You live on an incoate bird swooping down upon the boobies and robbing theht You are one with a crowd of overnment, who are masters of all the other et and would like to eat themselves You wear the wars and ask you, the lawyer, or business agent who handles your money, for a job”
”But that is beside therapidly now, and his eyes were flashi+ng ”It is piggishness, and it is life Of what use or sense is an iishness? What is the end? What is it all about? You have ht have saved the lives of a score of wretches who made the food but did not eat it What immortal end did you serve? or did they? Consider yourself and me What does your boasted immortality ao back to the land, which is a favourable place for your kind of piggishness It is a whiishness flourishes And keep you I will I may make or break you You may die to-day, this week, or next month I could kill you noith a blow ofBut if we are iish as you and I have been all our lives does not seeain, what's it all about? Why have I kept you here?-”
”Because you are stronger,” I er?” he went on at once with his perpetual queries ”Because I aer bit of the ferment than you? Don't you see? Don't you see?”
”But the hopelessness of it,” I protested
”I agree with you,” he answered ”Then whypart of the yeast there would be no hopelessness But,-and there it is,-ant to live and h 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 It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your io on being alive for ever Bah! An eternity of piggishness!”
He abruptly turned on his heel and started forward He stopped at the break of the poop and called ot aith?” he asked
”One hundred and eighty-five dollars, sir,” I answered
He nodded his head A moment later, as I started down the companion stairs to lay the table for dinner, I heard hi sothe storhtly on a calht airs were felt, however, and Wolf Larsen patrolled the poop constantly, his eyes ever searching the sea to the north-eastward, froreat trade-windtheir various boats for the season's hunting There are seven boats aboard, the captain's dingey, and the six which the hunters will use Three, a hunter, a boat-puller, and a boat-steerer, compose a boat's crew On board the schooner the boat-pullers and steerers are the crew The hunters, too, are supposed to be in command of the watches, subject, always, to the orders of Wolf Larsen
All this, and more, I have learned The Ghost is considered the fastest schooner in both the San Francisco and Victoria fleets In fact, she was once a private yacht, and was built for speed Her lines and fittings-though I know nothing about such things-speak for theyesterday's second dog-watch He spoke enthusiastically, with the love for a fine craft such as sousted with the outlook, and I aiven to understand that Wolf Larsen bears a very unsavoury reputation a captains It was the Ghost herself that lured Johnson into signing for the voyage, but he is already beginning to repent
As he told hty-ton schooner of a remarkably fine th a little over ninety feet A lead keel of fabulous but unknoeight makes her very stable, while she carries an immense spread of canvas Fro over a hundred feet, while the foreiving these details so that the size of this little floating world which holds twenty-two men may be appreciated It is a very little world, a mote, a speck, and I marvel that men should dare to venture the sea on a contrivance so sile
Wolf Larsen has, also, a reputation for reckless carrying on of sail I overheard Henderson and another of the hunters, Standish, a Californian, talking about it Two years ago he dis Sea, whereupon the present er and heavier in every way He is said to have re her over to losing the sticks
Every man aboard, with the exception of Johansen, who is rather overco sailed on the Ghost Half the men forward are deep-water sailors, and their excuse is that they did not know anything about her or her captain And those who do knohisper that the hunters, while excellent shots, were so notorious for their quarrelson on any decent schooner
I have made the acquaintance of another one of the crew,-Louis he is called, a rotund and jovial-faced Nova Scotia Irish as he can find a listener In the afternoon, while the cook was below asleep and I was peeling the everlasting potatoes, Louis dropped into the galley for a ”yarn” His excuse for being aboard was that he was drunk when he signed He assuredin the world he would drea in a sober ularly each season for a dozen years, and is accounted one of the two or three very best boat-steerers in both fleets