said sternly, for the first time addressing him by this
his most familiar name, "I am unable to shoot a helpless, unresisting
man. You have proved that to my satisfaction as well as yours. But I
warn you now, and not so much for your own good as for mine, that I shall
shoot you the moment you attempt a hostile act. I can shoot you now, as
I stand here; and if you are so minded, just go ahead and try to clap on
the hatch."

"Nevertheless, I forbid you, I distinctly forbid your tampering with my
ship."

"But, man!" I expostulated, "you advance the fact that it is your ship as
though it were a moral right. You have never considered moral rights in
your dealings with others. You surely do not dream that I'll consider
them in dealing with you?"

I had stepped underneath the open hatchway so that I could see him. The
lack of expression on his face, so different from when I had watched him
unseen, was enhanced by the unblinking, staring eyes. It was not a
pleasant face to look upon.

"And none so poor, not even Hump, to do him reverence," he sneered.

The sneer was wholly in his voice. His face remained expressionless as
ever.

"How do you do, Miss Brewster," he said suddenly, after a pause.

I started. She had made no noise whatever, had not even moved. Could it
be that some glimmer of vision remained to him? or that his vision was
coming back?

"How do you do, Captain Larsen," she answered. "Pray, how did you know I
was here?"

"Heard you breathing, of course. I say, Hump's improving, don't you
think so?"

"I don't know," she answered, smiling at me. "I have never seen him
otherwise."

"You should have seen him before, then."

"Wolf Larsen, in large doses," I murmured, "before and after taking."

"I want to tell you again, Hump," he said threateningly, "that you'd
better leave things alone."

"But don't you care to escape as well as we?" I asked incredulously.

"No," was his answer. "I intend dying here."

"Well, we don't," I concluded defiantly, beginning again my knocking and
hammering.

CHAPTER XXXV

Next day, the mast-steps clear and everything in readiness, we started to
get the two topmasts aboard. The maintopmast was over thirty feet in
length, the foretopmast nearly thirty, and it was of these that I
intended making the shears. It was puzzling work. Fastening one end of
a heavy tackle to the windlass, and with the other end fast to the butt
of the foretopmast, I bega