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London, Jack

"The Sea-Wolf"


? ? ? ? Back we held, two miles and more to windward of the struggling cockleshell, when the flying jib was run down and the schooner hove to. In all that wild waste there was no refuge for Leach and Johnson save on the Ghost, and they resolutely began the windward beat. At the end of an hour and a half they were nearly alongside, standing past our stern on the last leg out, aiming to fetch us on the next leg back.


? ? ? ? 'So you've changed your mind?' I heard Wolf Larsen mutter, half to himself, half to them, as though they could hear. 'You want to come aboard, eh? Well, then, just keep a-coming. Hard up with that helm!' he commanded Oofty-Oofty, the Kanaka, who had in the meantime relieved Louis at the wheel.


? ? ? ? Command followed command. As the schooner paid off, the fore-and main-sheets were slacked away for fair wind. And before the wind we were, and leaping, when Johnson, easing his sheet at imminent peril, cut across our wake a hundred feet away. Again Wolf Larsen laughed, at the same time beckoning them with his arm to follow.


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