I leaned despairingly over the rail, watching the trim little schooner swiftly increasing the bleak sweep of ocean between us. And she would probably be in San Francisco in five or six hours! My head seemed bursting. There was an ache in my throat as though my heart were up in it. A curling wave struck the side and splashed salt spray on my lips. The wind puffed strongly, and the Ghost heeled far over, burying her lee rail. I could hear the water rushing down upon the deck.
When I turned around, a moment later, I saw the cabin-boy staggering to his feet. His face was ghastly white, twitching with suppressed pain. He looked very sick.
“Well, Leach, are you going for’ard?” Wolf Larsen asked.
“Yes, sir,” came the answer of a spirit cowed.
“And you?” I was asked.
“I’ll give you a thousand—” I began, but was interrupted.
“Stow that! Are you going to take up your duties as cabin-boy? Or do I have to take you in hand?”
What was I to do? To be brutally beaten, to be killed perhaps, would not help my case. I looked steadily into the cruel grey eyes. They might have been granite for all the light and warmth of a human soul they contained. One may see the soul stir in some men’s eyes, but his were bleak, and cold, and grey as the sea itself.
“Well?”
“Yes,” I said.