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The Sea Wolf: Larsen

Instant rebellion leaped into Humphrey's eyes. Before he could protest there came a sudden interruption--a clamor from the real cabin-boy, a great, husky youth who stood by. Wolf Larsen turned and crashed his fist into the boy's stomach. Crumpled like a wet rag around a stick, the lad collapsed into a heap on the deck. "Well," said Wolf Larsen, meaningly, to Humphrey, "have you made up your mind?" The spark of manhood in Humphrey died out. "Yes," he replied, weakly. "Say, 'Yes, sir!'" "Yes, sir."

And thus Humphrey passed into the servitude of Wolf Larsen, the Sea Wolf. His blinking eyes, half revealing and half concealing his terror, surveyed his master and thus appraised him: "Massive of build, like a huge gorilla; with a strength savage and ferocious; features of no evil stamp; eyes of baffling protean gray, sometimes as chill as an Arctic landscape, sometimes all aglow with love-lights--intense, masculine, and compelling--which at the same time fascinate and dominate women until they surrender in a gladness of joy and of relief and sacrifice."

His creed, the mighty will which engined Wolf Larsen, was short. "Life is a mess," he declared. "The big eat the little that they may continue to move; the strong eat the weak that they may retain their strength. The lucky eat the most and move the longest, that is all."

His company on shipboard: seamen sodden and sullen by drink, more animal than human; a group of seal-hunters, wild, reckless nomads, ignorant of an ordered world--all slaves in body and spirit to the Sea Wolf. Yet there was a gentle side to Wolf Larsen. He was no ignorant cave-man. He could discuss literature with "Hump," roll over his lips the poetic glories of Shelley and Browning, argue the sciences with amazing fluency, and be disarmingly charming at times.

As the days rolled on and murderous quarrels made the hours hideous, Humphrey's backbone gradually stiffened. He dreamed of killing the Sea Wolf. But Larsen fascinated him and, like some splendid animal, some dangerous beast, held him in a spell. He knew the world should be rid of such a monster, yet Larsen's eyes compelled obedience.