ll fill her water-casks before proceeding to the season's hunt along
the coast of Japan. The hunters have experimented and practised with
their rifles and shotguns till they are satisfied, and the boat-pullers
and steerers have made their spritsails, bound the oars and rowlocks in
leather and sennit so that they will make no noise when creeping on the
seals, and put their boats in apple-pie order--to use Leach's homely
phrase.

His arm, by the way, has healed nicely, though the scar will remain all
his life. Thomas Mugridge lives in mortal fear of him, and is afraid to
venture on deck after dark. There are two or three standing quarrels in
the forecastle. Louis tells me that the gossip of the sailors finds its
way aft, and that two of the telltales have been badly beaten by their
mates. He shakes his head dubiously over the outlook for the man
Johnson, who is boat-puller in the same boat with him. Johnson has been
guilty of speaking his mind too freely, and has collided two or three
times with Wolf Larsen over the pronunciation of his name. Johansen he
thrashed on the amidships deck the other night, since which time the mate
has called him by his proper name. But of course it is out of the
question that Johnson should thrash Wolf Larsen.

Louis has also given me additional information about Death Larsen, which
tallies with the captain's brief description. We may expect to meet
Death Larsen on the Japan coast. "And look out for squalls," is Louis's
prophecy, "for they hate one another like the wolf whelps they are."
Death Larsen is in command of the only sealing steamer in the fleet, the
_Macedonia_, which carries fourteen boats, whereas the rest of the
schooners carry only six. There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and of
strange raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium smuggling
into the States and arms smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open
piracy. Yet I cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a
lie, while he has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the
sealing fleets.

As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and aft, on
this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle ferociously for one
another's lives. The hunters are looking for a shooting scrape at any
moment between Smoke and Henderson, whose old quarrel has not healed,
while Wolf Larsen says positively that he will kill the survivor of the
affair, if such affair comes off. He