She came close to me and shouted:
"I'm dreadfully afraid!"
And I was not.Though the novelty had not yet worn off, the peaceful comportment of the seals had quieted my alarm.Maud was trembling.
"I'm afraid, and I'm not afraid," she chattered with shaking jaws."It's my miserable body, not I.""It's all right, it's all right," I reassured her, my arm passing instinctively and protectingly around her.
I shall never forget, in that moment, how instantly conscious became of my manhood.The primitive deeps of my nature stirred.I felt myself masculine, the protector of the weak, the fighting male.And, best of all, I felt myself the protector of my loved one.She leaned against me, so light and lily-frail, and as her trembling eased away it seemed as though I became aware of prodigious strength.I felt myself a match for the most ferocious bull in the herd, and I know, had such a bull charged upon me, that I should have met it unflinchingly and quite coolly, and I know that I should have killed it.
"I am all right, now," she said, looking up at me gratefully."Let us go on."And that the strength in me had quieted her and given her confidence, filled me with an exultant joy.The youth of the race seemed burgeoning in me, over-civilized man that I was, and I lived for myself the old hunting days and forest nights of my remote and forgotten ancestry.I had much for which to thank Wolf Larsen, was my thought as we went along the path between the jostling harems.
A quarter of a mile inland we came upon the 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.
Everything now went smoothly.I seemed to know just what to do and how to do it.Shouting, ****** 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 headed it off.Maud took an active part in the drive, and with her cries and flourishings of the broken oar was of considerable assistance.
I noticed, though, that whenever one looked tired and lagged, she let it slip past.But I 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 from sheer weakness."I think I'll sit down."I drove the little herd (a dozen strong, now, what of the escapes she had permitted) a hundred yards farther on; and by the time she joined me I had finished the slaughter and was beginning to skin.An hour later we went proudly back along the path between the harems.And twice again we came down the path burdened with skins, till thought we had enough to roof the hut.I set the sail, laid one tack out of the cove, and on the other tack made our own little inner cove.
"It's just like home-coming," Maud said, as I ran the boat ashore.
I heard her words with a responsive thrill, it was all so dearly intimate and natural, and I said:
"It seems as though I have lived this life always.The world of books and bookish folk is very vague, more like a dream memory than an actuality.
I surely have hunted and forayed and fought all the days of my life.And you, too, seem a part of it.You are -- " I was on the verge of saying, "my woman, my mate," but glibly changed it to -- "standing the hardship well."But her ear had caught the flaw.She recognized a flight that midmost broke.She gave me a quick look.
"Not that.You were saying -- ?"
"That the American Mrs.Meynell was living the life of a savage and living it quite successfully," I said easily.
"Oh," was all she replied; but I could have sworn there was a note of disappointment in her voice.
But "my woman, my mate" kept ringing in my head for the rest of the day and for many days.Yet never did it ring more loudly than that night, as I watched her draw back the blanket of moss from the coals, blow up the fire, and cook the evening meal.It must have been latent savagery stirring in me, for the old words, so bound up with the roots of the race, to grip me and thrill me.And grip and thrill they did, till I fell asleep, murmuring them to myself over and over again.
