in the arms of her protector or
of the one who had been endangered. Had I been father or brother, the
situation would have been in nowise different. Besides, time and place
were not meet, and I wished to earn a better right to declare my love.
So once again I softly kissed her hair as I felt her receding from my
clasp.

"It was a real attack this time," I said: "another shock like the one
that made him blind. He feigned at first, and in doing so brought it
on."

Maud was already rearranging his pillow.

"No," I said, "not yet. Now that I have him helpless, helpless he shall
remain. From this day we live in the cabin. Wolf Larsen shall live in
the steerage."

I caught him under the shoulders and dragged him to the companion-way.
At my direction Maud fetched a rope. Placing this under his shoulders, I
balanced him across the threshold and lowered him down the steps to the
floor. I could not lift him directly into a bunk, but with Maud's help I
lifted first his shoulders and head, then his body, balanced him across
the edge, and rolled him into a lower bunk.

But this was not to be all. I recollected the handcuffs in his
state-room, which he preferred to use on sailors instead of the ancient
and clumsy ship irons. So, when we left him, he lay handcuffed hand and
foot. For the first time in many days I breathed freely. I felt
strangely light as I came on deck, as though a weight had been lifted off
my shoulders. I felt, also, that Maud and I had drawn more closely
together. And I wondered if she, too, felt it, as we walked along the
deck side by side to where the stalled foremast hung in the shears.

CHAPTER XXXVII

At once we moved aboard the _Ghost_, occupying our old state-rooms and
cooking in the galley. The imprisonment of Wolf Larsen had happened most
opportunely, for what must have been the Indian summer of this high
latitude was gone and drizzling stormy weather had set in. We were very
comfortable, and the inadequate shears, with the foremast suspended from
them, gave a business-like air to the schooner and a promise of
departure.

And now that we had Wolf Larsen in irons, how little did we need it!
Like his first attack, his second had been accompanied by serious
disablement. Maud made the discovery in the afternoon while trying to
give him nourishment. He had shown signs of consciousness, and she had
spoken to him, eliciting no response. He was lying on his left side at
the t