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Show (jl '- CCTVTjiaMT y JACK LCWPON j SYNOPSIS. 18 Humphrey Van Weyden. critic and dilettante, dilet-tante, rinds himself aboard the sealing. Bchooner Ghost, Captain Wolf Larsen. bound to Japan waters. The captain makes him cabin boy "for the good of his eoul." Wolf hazea a seaman and makes It the basis for a philosophic discussion with Hump. Hump's intimacy with Wolf increases. A carnival of brutality breaks loose in the ship. Wolf proves himself the master brute. Hump is made mate on the hell-ship and proves that he has learned "to stand on his own legs." Two men desert the vessel in one of the small boats. A young woman and four men, survivors of a steamer wreck, are res cued from a small boat. The deserters are sighted, but Wolf stands away and .leaves them to drown. Maude Brewster, the rescued girl, sees the cook towed oxer-side oxer-side to give him a bath and his foot bitten off by a shark as. he Is hauled aboard. She begins to realize her danger at the hands of Wolf. Van Weyden realizes real-izes that he loves Maude. Wolf's brother. 'Death Larsen, comes on the sealing grounds in the steam sealer Macedonia, "hogs" the sea. and Wolf captures several sev-eral of his boats. The Ghost runs away in a fog. Wolf furnishes liquor to the prisoners. He attacks Maude. Van Wej'-Men Wej'-Men attempts to klil him and fails. Wolf is suddenly stricken helpless by the return of a blinding head trouble, and with all hands drunk and asleep Van Weydt-n and .Maude escape in a small boat together. CHAPTER XXIV Continued. I had had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I was wet and chilled to the marrow, till I felt more dead than alive. My body was stiff from exertion exer-tion as well as from cold, and my aching muscles gave me the severest sever-est torture whenever I used them, and 1 used them continually. And all the time we were being driven off Into the northwest, directly away from Japan toward bleak Bering sea. Maud's condition was pitiable. She sat crouched in the bottom of the boat, her lips blue, her face gray and plainly showing the pain she suffered But ever her eyes looked bravely at me. and ever her lips uttered brave words. The worst of the storm must have blown that eight, though little 1 noticed no-ticed it. I had succumbed and slept -where I sat in the stern-sheets. The mornin? of the fourth day found the wind diminished to a gentle whisper, the sea dying down ar.d the sun shining shin-ing upon us. Oh. the blessed sun! How we bathed our poor bodies In Its delicious warmth, reviving like bugs and crawling things after a storm. We smiled again, said amusing things ar.d waxed optimistic over our situation. situa-tion. Yet It was. If anything, worse than ever. Came days of storm, days and nights of storm, when the ocean menaced men-aced us with its roaring whiteness and the wind smote our struggling boat with a Titan's buffets. 'It was In such a storm, and the worst we had experienced, that what I saw I could not at first believe. Days and nlght9 of sleeplessness and anxiety had doubtless turned my head. I looked back at Maud, to Identify myself, as It were, In time and space. Again I turned my face to leeward, and again 1 saw the Jutting promontory, black .and high and naked, the raging surf that broke about Its base and beat Its front high up with spouting fountains. . the black and forbidding coast linn running toward the southeast and fringed with a tremendous scarf of white. "Maud." I said. "Maud." She turned her head and beheld the .flight. "It cannot be Alaska!" sho cried. "Alan, no," I answered, and asked, "Can you swim?" She shook her head. "Neither can I," I said. "So we rnust get ashore without swimming In some opening between the rocks through which we can drive the boat and clamber out. Hut we must be quick and sure." I spoke with a confidence she knew I did not feel, for sho looked at me with that unfaltering gaze of hers and said: "I have not thanked you yet for all you have done for me, but " She hesitated, an If In doubt how best to word her gratitude. "Well?" I said, brutally, for I wan not quite pleased with her thanking trie. . "You might help me," she nmlled. "To acknowledge your obligations before you die? Si at all. We are tint going to die. We shall hind on that Island, and we shall he snug anil nhe-llered before the day In done." I spoke Htfjiitly, but I did not believe be-lieve a word. Nor wan 1 prompted to lie through fear. I felt no fear, though I wan sure of death In that boiling surge among the roekn which wan rapidly growing nearer. It wnn Irn-posnlble Irn-posnlble to claw off that shore. The wind would limtiintly rnpnl.o the boat; the Rcnn would swamp It the (Moment It fell Into the trough; and, Tienlden, the sail, lashed to the spare oars, drugged In the nn ahead of un. a a a sea anchor. Iifitlrictlvely wo drew closer In-(tether In-(tether In the bottom of the boat. I felt her rtilltened hnnd come out to mine. And thus, without speech, we waited the end. We were not far off the linn the wind made with the wont-nrn wont-nrn edge of the promontory, and I tmt'hed In the hope Hint some set of the current or nerid of the sea would Jrlft. un pant before we reached the turf. "We shall go rjtir," I nald, with a confidence which I knew deceived neither of us. "By God, we will go clear!" I cried, five minutes later. The oath left my lips in my excitementthe excite-mentthe first, I do believe, In my life, unless "trouble it," an expletive of my youth, be accounted an oath. "I beg your pardon," I said. , "You have convinced me of your sincerity," she said, with a faint stnilo. "1 do know, now, that we shall go clear." I had seen a distant headland past the extreme edge of the promontory, and as we looked we could see grow the intervening coastline of what was evidently a deep cove. At the same time there broke upon our ears a continuous con-tinuous and mighty bellowing. It par took of the magnitude and volume of distant thunder, and It came to us directly from leeward, rising above the crash of the surf and traveling directly di-rectly in the teeth of the storm. As we passed the point the whole cove burst upon our view, a half-moon of white sandy beach upon which broke a huge surf, and which was covered with myriads of seals. It was from them that the great bellowing went up. "A rookery!" I cried. 'Now are we indeed saved. There must be men and cruisers to protect them from the seal hunters. Possibly there is a station sta-tion ashore." But as I studied the surf which beat upon the beach, I said. "Still bad. but not so bad. And now. If the gods be truly kind, we shall drift by that next headland and come upon a perfectly I sheltered beach, where we may land without wetting our feet." And the gods were kind. The first and second headlands were directly In line with the southwest wind; but once around the second and we went perilously near wo picked up the third headland, still In line with the wind ami with the other two. Hut the cove that Intervened! It penetrated pene-trated deep Into the land, and the tide setting In. drifted us under the the! ter of the point. Here the sea wan calm, save for a heavy but smooth groundswell. and I took In the sea-anchor sea-anchor and began to row. Hero were no seals whatever. The boat's stem touched the bard shingle I sprang out. extending my hand to Maud. The next moment she was bo-side bo-side me. As my finders released hers, she clutched for my arm hnstily. At the same moment 1 swayed, as atmut to fall to the sand. This was the startling effect of the cessation of motion. mo-tion. V.'e had been so long upon the moving, rocking sea that the stable land was a shock to us. We expected the beach to lift up this way and that, and the rocky walls to swing back and forth like the sides of a ship; and when we braced ourselves, automatically, automati-cally, for these various expected movements, their non occurrence quite overcame our equilibrium. "I really must sit down," Maud said, with a nervous laugh and a dizzy gesture, ges-ture, and forthwith she sat down on the sand. I attended to making the bonl so cure and Joined her. Thun we landed on Kndcavor Island, an wu came to It. landslck from long custom of the sea CHAPTER XXV. I boiled the water, but It wan Maud who made the coffee. Anil how good It wan! My contribution wan canned beef fried with crumbled sea biscuit and water. The breakfast wan a sue-cesn. sue-cesn. and wo Bat about the lire much longer than enterprising explorers should havo done, nipping the hot black coffee and talking over our situation. situ-ation. I wnn confident that we should find a station In some one of the coven, for I knew that tho rookeries of lierlng sea were thun guarded; hut Maud advanced ad-vanced the theory to prepare me for disappointment. I do believe. If disappointment dis-appointment were to come that we had discovered an unknown rookery. Sho wan In very good splrlln, however, how-ever, and made tulte merry In accept lug our plight an n grave one. "If you are right," I said, "then we munt prepare to winter hero. Our food will not hint, but there are tho nealn. They go away In tho full, so 1 muHt soon begin to lay In a supply of meat. Then there will be huts to build and drift wood to gather. Also, we shall try out Real fat for lighting purposes. Altogether, we'll havo our hauiln full If we hud the Inland In uninhabited. un-inhabited. Which we shall not, I k now." lint she wan right. Wo nailed with a henm wind along tho shorn, searching search-ing din coven with our gliiswes and landing oeennloiinlly. without finding a nlgn of human life. There with no benchen on the southern shore, anil by early afternoon we rounded the black promontory and completed the circumnavigation cir-cumnavigation of thn Inland. I null-mated null-mated lln circumference at twenty live miles, lln width varying from two to five Milieu; while my moot ronnerva-live ronnerva-live rnli'tilnl Ion plnced on lln benches two hundred thousand Benin. Thin brief description In all that Kn deavor Inland merlin. Dntnp and nog gy where It wnn not shnrp and rocky, buffeted by s lor tn winds nnd lanlind by the sea, with the air continually a-tremble with the bellowing of two j hundred thousand amphibians. It was a melancholy and miserable sojourning sojourn-ing place. Maud, who had prepared me for disappointment," and who had been sprightly and vivacious all day. broke down as we landed In our own little cove. She strove bravely to hide it from me, but while I was kindling another fire I knew she was stifling her sobs in the blankets under the sail-tent. It was my turn to be cheerful, and j I played the part to the best of my i ability, and with such success that I i brought the laughter back Into her dear eyes and song on her lips; for she sang to me before she went to an early bed. It was the first time I had heard her sing, and I lay by the fire, listening and transported, for she was nothing If not an artist in everything she did, and her voice, though not strong, was wonderfully sweet and expressive. ex-pressive. I slept In the boat, and I lay awake long that night, gazing up at the first stars I had Been In many nights and pondering the situation. Responsibility Responsibil-ity of this Bort was a new thing to me. Wolf Larsen had been quite right. I had stood on my father's legs. My lawyers and agents had taken care of my money for me. I had had no responsibilities at all. Than, on the Ghost I had learned to be responsible for myself. And now, for the first time in my life, I found myself responsible re-sponsible for someone else. And It was required of me that this should be tho gravest of responsibilities, for she was the one woman In the world the one small woman, as 1 loved to think of her. No wonder we called It Endeavor island. For two weeks we tolled at bulding a hut. Maud Insisted on helping, help-ing, and I could have wept over her bruised and bleeding hands. And still. I was proud of her because of It There was something heroic about this gently bred woman enduring our terrible hardship, and with her plt- irtfe & f i! And Thus, Without Speech, Wo Awaited Await-ed the End. tanre of strength bending to the tasks of a peasant woman. She gathered many of the stones which I built Into the walls of the hut; also, she turned a d'-af ear to my entreaties when I h'gged her to desist. She compromised, compro-mised, however, by taking upon her self the lighter labors of cooking and gathering driftwood and moss for our winter's supply. The hut's walls rose without difficulty, diffi-culty, and everything went smoothly until the problem of a roof confronted mo. "Winters used walrus skins on bin hut." I said. "Thuru aro the seals," shosuggeHt-cd.' shosuggeHt-cd.' So next day the hunting begnn. 1 did not know how to shoot, but I proceeded pro-ceeded to learn. And when 1 had expended ex-pended some thirty shells for three seals, I decided that the ammunition would be exhausted before I acquired the necessary knowledge. "Wo must club the seals," I announced, an-nounced, when convinced of my poor marknmnnshlp. "I have heard the sealers talk about clubbing them." "They aro no pretty," sho objected. "1 cannot bear to think of It being done. It In so directly brutal, you know; so different from shooting them. "That roof must go on." I answered grimly. "Winter In almost here. It Is our liven against theirs. It In unfortunate un-fortunate we haven't plenty of ammunition, am-munition, but I think, nnywnv.' that they surfer lesn from being clubbed than from being all shot up. ileslden, I hIiiiH do the clubbing." Tho upHhnt of the nffalr wan that she accompanied mo next morning. I rowed Into tho adjoining cove anil up to the edge of the beach. Thero were Benin all about un In the wat"'r, and the bellowing thouiuindn tin tho beach compelled tis to shout nl each other to make ourselven hoard, "I know men club them," 1 said, trying to reassure myself and gazing doubtfully at a large bull, not thirty feet nway. upreared on his fore lllp-pern lllp-pern and regarding me Intently. "Hut tho question Is, How do they club them 7" "It Just comen to me," nhe said, ''that Captain I.arnen wan telling nn how the men rnldnil the rookeries. They drive tho nealn. In small beriln, n, short dlnlnncn Inland before they kill them." "I don't earn to undertake tho herding herd-ing of one of those, harenin,'' I object ob-ject ei. "Hut there nro tho hollunclitekle," nhe mild. "Thn nollunchtckln haul out ' by ll'et'jpelvon, and liootor Jordan says that paths are left betwtn tho harems, and that as long as the hoi-luschlckle hoi-luschlckle keep strictly to the path they are unmolested by the masters of the harem." "There's one now," i said, pointing to a young bull In the water. "Let' watch him. and follow blm if he haul out." He swam directly to the beach and clambered out into a small opening between two harems, the masters ol which made warning noises but. did not attack him. We watched him travel slowly inward, threading about among the harems along what must have been the path. A quarter of a mile Inland we came upon tho holluschickie sleek young bulls, living out the loneliness of their bachelorhood and gathering strength against the day when they would fight their way into the ranks of the benedicts. bene-dicts. Everything now went smoothly. I seemed to know Just what to do and how to do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, and even prodding the lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score of the young bachelors from their companions. Whenever one made an attempt to break back toward the water, I beaded bead-ed it off. Maud took an active part in the drive, and with her cries and flourlshings of the broken oar was of considerable assistance. I noticed, though, that whenever one looked tired and lagged, she let it slip past But 1 noticed, also, whenever one with a show of fight, tried to break past, that her eyes glinted and showed bright, and she rapped it smartly with her club. "My. it's exciting!" she cried, pausing paus-ing from sheer wtakness. "I think Ml sit down." I drove the llttla herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes sho had permitted) a hundred yards farther far-ther on; and by the time she Joined mo I had finished the slaughter and was begintilng'to skin. An hour later we went proudly back along the path between tho harems. And twice again wo came down the path burdened with skins, till I thought wo had enough to roof tho hut. I set the sail, laid ono tack out of tho cove, and on the other tack made our own little Inner In-ner cove. "It's Just Ilk home-coming." Maud said, as I ran the boat ashoro. I heard her words with a responsive thrill. It was all so dearly Intimate and natural, and I said: "It Bcetus as though 1 have lived this life always. Tho world of books and bookish folk is very vague, more Ilko a dream memory than an actuality. actual-ity. 1 surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the days of my life. And you, too, seem a rart of IL You arc" I was on tho v. rgo of saying, "my woman, my mate," but glibly changed 11 to "standing tho hardship well." Hut her ear had caught tho flaw. She recognized a Might that midmost broke. She gave mo a quick look. "Nut that. You were saving?" ' That tho American Mrs. Moynell was living the life of a savage and living It quite successfully," I said easily. (TO lif. CONTIN'l'Kn I |