“What are you doing down there?” he demanded. “Trying to scuttle my ship for me?”

“Quite the opposite; I’m repairing her,” was my answer.

“But what in thunder are you repairing?” There was puzzlement in his voice.

“Why, I’m getting everything ready for re-stepping the masts,” I replied easily, as though it were the simplest project imaginable.

“It seems as though you’re standing on your own legs at last, Hump,” we heard him say; and then for some time he was silent.

“But I say, Hump,” he called down. “You can’t do it.”

“Oh, yes, I can,” I retorted. “I’m doing it now.”

“But this is my vessel, my particular property. What if I forbid you?”

“You forget,” I replied. “You are no longer the biggest bit of the ferment. You were, once, and able to eat me, as you were pleased to phrase it; but there has been a diminishing, and I am now able to eat you. The yeast has grown stale.”

He gave a short, disagreeable laugh. “I see you’re working my philosophy back on me for all it is worth. But don’t make the mistake of under-estimating me. For your own good I warn you.”

“Since when have you become a philanthropist?” I queried. “Confess, now, in warning me for my own good, that you are very consistent.”

He ignored my sarcasm, saying, “Suppose I clap the hatch on, now? You won’t fool me as you did in the lazarette.”

“Wolf Larsen,” I 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?”