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38 - Sea Wolf by Jack London · Sea Wolf

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  Speaker 1: Domain the Sea Wolf by Jack London, chapter thirty eight.
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  Speaker 1: I think my left side is going Wolf, Larsen wrote
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  Speaker 1: the morning after his attempt to fire the ship. The
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  Speaker 1: numbness is growing. I can hardly move my hand. You
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  Speaker 1: will have to speak louder. The last lines are going down.
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  Speaker 1: Are you in pain? I asked. I was compelled to
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  Speaker 1: repeat my question loudly before he answered not. All the time.
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  Speaker 1: The left hand stumbled slowly and painfully across the paper,
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  Speaker 1: and it was with extreme difficulty that we deciphered the scrawl.
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  Speaker 1: It was like a spirit message, such as are delivered
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  Speaker 1: at seances of spiritualists for a dollar admission. But I
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  Speaker 1: am still here, all here. They had scrawled more slowly
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  Speaker 1: and painfully than ever. The pencil dropped and we had
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  Speaker 1: to replace it. In the hand.
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  Speaker 2: When there is no pain, I have perfect peace and quiet.
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  Speaker 2: I have never thought so clearly. I can ponder life
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  Speaker 2: and death like a Hindoo. Sage and immortality, Maud queried
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  Speaker 2: loudly in the ear.
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  Speaker 1: Three times. The hand is sayed to write, but fumbled hopelessly.
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  Speaker 1: The pencil fell in vain. We tried to replace it,
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  Speaker 1: the fingers could not close on it. Then Maud pressed
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  Speaker 1: and held the fingers about the pencil with her own hand,
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  Speaker 1: and the hand wrote in large letters, and so slowly
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  Speaker 1: that the minutes ticked off to each letter, b O
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  Speaker 1: s H. It was Wolf Larsen's last word, bosh skeptical
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  Speaker 1: and invincible. To the end, the arm and hand relaxed.
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  Speaker 1: The trunk of the body moved slightly. Then there was
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  Speaker 1: no movement. Maud really the hand, the fingers spread slightly,
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  Speaker 1: falling apart of their own weight, and the pencil rolled away.
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  Speaker 1: Do you still hear? I shouted, holding the fingers and
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  Speaker 1: waiting for the single pressure which would signify yes. There
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  Speaker 1: was no response. The hand was dead. I noticed the
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  Speaker 1: lips slightly move, Maud said. I repeated the question. The
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  Speaker 1: lips moved. She placed the tips of her fingers on them. Again.
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  Speaker 1: I repeated the question, yes, Maud announced. We looked at
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  Speaker 1: each other expectantly. What good is it? I asked? What
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  Speaker 1: can we say now? Oh? Ask him? She hesitated, Ask
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  Speaker 1: him something that requires no for an answer, I suggested,
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  Speaker 1: then we will know for certainty. Are you hungry? She cried?
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  Speaker 1: The lips moved under her fingers, and she answered yes.
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  Speaker 1: Will you have some beef? Was her next query. No,
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  Speaker 1: she announced, beef tea. Yes, we will have some beef tea,
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  Speaker 1: she said, quietly, looking up at me. Until his hearing goes,
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  Speaker 1: we shall be able to communicate with him. And after
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  Speaker 1: that she looked at me queerly. I saw her lips
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  Speaker 1: trembling and the tears swimming up in her eyes. She
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  Speaker 1: swayed toward me, and I caught her in my arms.
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  Speaker 1: Oh humphrey, she sobbed. When will it all end? I
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  Speaker 1: am so tired, so tired. She buried her head on
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  Speaker 1: my shoulder, her frail form shaken with a storm of weeping.
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  Speaker 1: She was like a feather in my arms, so slender,
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  Speaker 1: so ethereal. She has broken down at last. I thought,
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  Speaker 1: what can I do without her help? But I soothed
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  Speaker 1: and comforted her till she pulled herself bravely together and
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  Speaker 1: recuperated mentally as quickly as she was wont to do physically.
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  Speaker 1: I ought to be ashamed of myself, she said, then added,
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  Speaker 1: with a whimsical smile, I adore, but I am only
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  Speaker 1: one small woman. That phrase, the one small woman, startled
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  Speaker 1: me like an electric shock. It was my own phrase,
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  Speaker 1: my pet, secret phrase, my love phrase for her. Where
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  Speaker 1: did you get that phrase? I demanded, with an abruptness
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  Speaker 1: that in turn startled her. What phrase, she asked, one
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  Speaker 1: small woman, Is it yours? She asked, yes, I answered mine,
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  Speaker 1: I made it. Then you must have talked in your sleep,
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  Speaker 1: she smiled. The dancing, tremulous light was in her eyes. Mine,
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  Speaker 1: I knew were speaking beyond the will of my speech.
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  Speaker 1: I leaned toward her without folition. I leaned toward her
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  Speaker 1: as a tree is swayed by the wind. Ah. We
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  Speaker 1: were very close together in that moment. But she shook
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  Speaker 1: her head as one might shake off sleep or a dream, saying,
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  Speaker 1: I have not it all my life. It was my
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  Speaker 1: father's name for my mother. It is my phrase too,
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  Speaker 1: I said, stubbornly, for your mother. No, I answered, and
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  Speaker 1: she questioned no further, though I could have sworn. Her
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  Speaker 1: eyes retained for some time a mocking, teasing expression with
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  Speaker 1: the foremast. Then the work now went on apace, almost
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  Speaker 1: before I knew it, and without one serious hitch. I
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  Speaker 1: had the main mast stepped, a derrick boom rigged to
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  Speaker 1: the foremast. Had accomplished this, and several days more found
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  Speaker 1: all stays and shrouds in place, and everything set up
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  Speaker 1: taut top sails would be a nuisance and a danger
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  Speaker 1: for a crew of two. So I heaved the top
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  Speaker 1: mast on deck and lashed them fast. Several more days
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  Speaker 1: were consumed in finishing this and putting them on. There
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  Speaker 1: were only three the jib, foresail and mainsail and patch
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  Speaker 1: shortened and distorted. They were a ridiculously ill fitting suit
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  Speaker 1: for so trim a craft as a ghost. But they'll work, Maud,
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  Speaker 1: cried jubilantly. We'll make them work and trust our lives
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  Speaker 1: to them. Certainly, among my many new trades, I shown
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  Speaker 1: least as a sail maker, I could sail them better
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  Speaker 1: than make them. And I had no doubt of my
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  Speaker 1: power to bring the schooner to some northern port of Japan.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, I had crammed navigation from textbooks aboard, And
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  Speaker 1: besides there was wolf Larsen's star scale, so simple a
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  Speaker 1: device that a child could work it. As for its inventor.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond an increasing deafness and the movement of his lips
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  Speaker 1: growing fainter and fainter, there had been little change in
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  Speaker 1: his condition for a week. But on the day we
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  Speaker 1: finished bending the schooner's sails, he heard his last and
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  Speaker 1: the last movement of his lips died away, but not
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  Speaker 1: before I had asked him, are you all there? And
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  Speaker 1: the lips had answered yes. The last line was down.
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  Speaker 1: Somewhere within that tomb of the flesh still dwelt the
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  Speaker 1: soul of the man, walled by the living clay. That
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  Speaker 1: fierce intelligence we had known, burned on, But it burned
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  Speaker 1: on in silence and darkness, and it was disembodied. To
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  Speaker 1: that intelligence. There could be no objective knowledge of a body.
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  Speaker 1: It knew no body, the very world was not. It
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  Speaker 1: knew only itself. And the vastness and profundity of the
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  Speaker 1: quiet and the dark end of Chapter thirty eight