r. This rush ceased abruptly. The halyards became
instantly taut. It was the snap of the whip. His clutch was broken.
One hand was torn loose from its hold. The other lingered desperately
for a moment, and followed. His body pitched out and down, but in some
way he managed to save himself with his legs. He was hanging by them,
head downward. A quick effort brought his hands up to the halyards
again; but he was a long time regaining his former position, where he
hung, a pitiable object.

"I'll bet he has no appetite for supper," I heard Wolf Larsen's voice,
which came to me from around the corner of the galley. "Stand from
under, you, Johansen! Watch out! Here she comes!"

In truth, Harrison was very sick, as a person is sea-sick; and for a long
time he clung to his precarious perch without attempting to move.
Johansen, however, continued violently to urge him on to the completion
of his task.

"It is a shame," I heard Johnson growling in painfully slow and correct
English. He was standing by the main rigging, a few feet away from me.
"The boy is willing enough. He will learn if he has a chance. But this
is--" He paused awhile, for the word "murder" was his final judgment.

"Hist, will ye!" Louis whispered to him, "For the love iv your mother
hold your mouth!"

But Johnson, looking on, still continued his grumbling.

"Look here," the hunter Standish spoke to Wolf Larsen, "that's my
boat-puller, and I don't want to lose him."

"That's all right, Standish," was the reply. "He's your boat-puller when
you've got him in the boat; but he's my sailor when I have him aboard,
and I'll do what I damn well please with him."

"But that's no reason--" Standish began in a torrent of speech.

"That'll do, easy as she goes," Wolf Larsen counselled back. "I've told
you what's what, and let it stop at that. The man's mine, and I'll make
soup of him and eat it if I want to."

There was an angry gleam in the hunter's eye, but he turned on his heel
and entered the steerage companion-way, where he remained, looking
upward. All hands were on deck now, and all eyes were aloft, where a
human life was at grapples with death. The callousness of these men, to
whom industrial organization gave control of the lives of other men, was
appalling. I, who had lived out of the whirl of the world, had never
dreamed that its work was carried on in such fashion. Life had always
seemed a peculiarly sacred thing, but here it cou