which tallies with the captain's brief description. We may expect
to meet Death Larsen on the Japan coast. "And look out for
squalls," is Louis's prophecy, "for they hate one another like the
wolf whelps they are." Death Larsen is in command of the only
sealing steamer in the fleet, the Macedonia, which carries fourteen
boats, whereas the rest of the schooners carry only six. There is
wild talk of cannon aboard, and of strange raids and expeditions
she may make, ranging from opium smuggling into the States and arms
smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open piracy. Yet I
cannot but believe for I have never yet caught him in a lie, while
he has a cyclopaedic knowledge of sealing and the men of the
sealing fleets.

As it is forward and in the galley, so it is in the steerage and
aft, on this veritable hell-ship. Men fight and struggle
ferociously for one another's lives. The hunters are looking for a
shooting scrape at any moment between Smoke and Henderson, whose
old quarrel has not healed, while Wolf Larsen says positively that
he will kill the survivor of the affair, if such affair comes off.
He frankly states that the position he takes is based on no moral
grounds, that all the hunters could kill and eat one another so far
as he is concerned, were it not that he needs them alive for the
hunting. If they will only hold their hands until the season is
over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can he
settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and
arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. I
think even the hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness.
Wicked men though they be, they are certainly very much afraid of
him.