and so swiftly that by the time we followed
him he had pulled the steerage-slide over the drunken clamour and was on
his way forward to close the forecastle-scuttle. The fog, though it
remained, had lifted high, where it obscured the stars and made the night
quite black. Directly ahead of us I could see a bright red light and a
white light, and I could hear the pulsing of a steamer's engines. Beyond
a doubt it was the _Macedonia_.

Wolf Larsen had returned to the poop, and we stood in a silent group,
watching the lights rapidly cross our bow.

"Lucky for me he doesn't carry a searchlight," Wolf Larsen said.

"What if I should cry out loudly?" I queried in a whisper.

"It would be all up," he answered. "But have you thought upon what would
immediately happen?"

Before I had time to express any desire to know, he had me by the throat
with his gorilla grip, and by a faint quiver of the muscles--a hint, as
it were--he suggested to me the twist that would surely have broken my
neck. The next moment he had released me and we were gazing at the
_Macedonia's_ lights.

"What if I should cry out?" Maud asked.

"I like you too well to hurt you," he said softly--nay, there was a
tenderness and a caress in his voice that made me wince.

"But don't do it, just the same, for I'd promptly break Mr. Van Weyden's
neck."

"Then she has my permission to cry out," I said defiantly.

"I hardly think you'll care to sacrifice the Dean of American Letters the
Second," he sneered.

We spoke no more, though we had become too used to one another for the
silence to be awkward; and when the red light and the white had
disappeared we returned to the cabin to finish the interrupted supper.

Again they fell to quoting, and Maud gave Dowson's "Impenitentia Ultima."
She rendered it beautifully, but I watched not her, but Wolf Larsen. I
was fascinated by the fascinated look he bent upon Maud. He was quite
out of himself, and I noticed the unconscious movement of his lips as he
shaped word for word as fast as she uttered them. He interrupted her
when she gave the lines:

"And her eyes should be my light while the sun went out behind me,
And the viols in her voice be the last sound in my ear."

"There are viols in your voice," he said bluntly, and his eyes flashed
their golden light.

I could have shouted with joy at her control. She finished the
concluding stanza without faltering and then slowly guided the
conversation in