Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go
about in secret dread of him. His is the courage of fear,--a
strange thing I know well of myself,--and at any moment it may
master the fear and impel him to the taking of my life. My knee is
much better, though it often aches for long periods, and the
stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen squeezed.
Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in splendid
condition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing in size.
My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. They have a
parboiled appearance, are afflicted with hang-nails, while the
nails are broken and discoloured, and the edges of the quick seem
to be assuming a fungoid sort of growth. Also, I am suffering from
boils, due to the diet, most likely, for I was never afflicted in
this manner before.

I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen
reading the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one
at the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate's
sea-chest. I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he
read aloud to me from Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he was
speaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and his
voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin,
charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but he certainly knows
how to express the significance of the written word. I can hear
him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrant
in his voice as he read:


"I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of
kings and of the provinces; I gat me men singers and women singers,