That is all- the drunkenness of life, the stirring and crawling of the yeast, the babbling of the life that is insane with consciousness that it is alive. And- bah! Tomorrow I shall pay for it as the drunkard pays, as the miser clutching for a pot of gold pays on waking to penury. And I shall know that I must die, at sea most likely; cease crawling of myself, to be all acrawl with the corruption of the sea; to be fed upon, to yield up all the strength and movement of my muscles, that they may become strength and movement in fin and scale and the guts of fishes. Bah! And bah! again. The champagne is already flat. The sparkle and bubble have gone out, and it is a tasteless drink.'
? ? ? ? He left me as suddenly as he had come, springing to the deck with the weight and softness of a tiger. The Ghost plowed on her way. I noted that the gurgling forefoot was very like a snore, and as I listened to it the effect of Wolf Larsen's swift rush from sublime exultation to despair slowly left me. Then some deepwater sailor, from the waist of the ship, lifted a rich tenor voice in the 'Song of the Trade-wind':
Oh, I am the wind the seamen love-
I am steady, and strong, and true;
They follow my track by the clouds above,
O'er the fathomless tropic blue.
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