"Oh, Lord!" he cried."'Elp! 'Elp! Tyke 'im aw'y, carn't yer? Tyke 'im aw'y!"The hunters laughed from sheer relief.Tragedy had dwindled, the farce had begun.The sailors now crowded boldly aft, grinning and shuffling, to watch the pummelling of the hated Cockney.And even I felt a great joy surge up within me.I confess that I delighted in this beating Leach was giving to Thomas Mugridge, though it was as terrible, almost, as the one Mugridge had caused to be given to Johnson.But the expression of Wolf Larsen's face never changed.He did not change his position either, but continued to gaze down with a great curiosity.For all his pragmatic certitude, it seemed as if he watched the play and movement of life in the hope of discovering something more about it, of discerning in its maddest writhings a something which had hitherto escaped him, -- the key to its mystery, as it were, which would make all clear and plain.
But the beating! It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed in the cabin.The Cockney strove in vain to protect himself from the infuriated boy.And in vain he strove to gain the shelter of the cabin.He rolled toward it, grovelled toward it, fell toward it when he was knocked down.
But blow followed blow with bewildering rapidity.He was knocked about like a shuttlecock, until, finally, like Johnson, he was beaten and kicked as he lay helpless on the deck.And no one interfered.Leach could have killed him, but, having evidently filled the measure of his vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering and wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward.
But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day's programme.
In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other, and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by a stampede of the other four hunters for the deck.A column of thick, acrid smoke -- the kind always made by black powder -- was arising through the open companionway, and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen.The sound of blows and scuffling came to our ears.Both men were wounded, and he was thrashing them both for having disobeyed his orders and crippled themselves in advance of the hunting season.In fact, they were badly wounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded to operate upon them in a rough surgical fashion and to dress their wounds.served as assistant while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the bullets, and I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anaesthetics and with no more to uphold them than a stiff tumbler of whiskey.
Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle.
It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale-bearing which had been the cause of Johnson's beating, and from the noise we heard, and from the sight of the bruised men next day, it was patent that half the forecastle had soundly drubbed the other half.
The second dog-watch and the day were wound up by a fight between Johansen and the lean, Yankee-looking hunter, Latimer.It was caused by remarks of Latimer's concerning the noises made by the mate in his sleep, and though Johansen was whipped, he kept the steerage awake for the rest of the night while he blissfully slumbered and fought the fight over and over again.
