We moved to the Ghost, lived in our old rooms and cooked in the galley. Wolf Larsen remained very sick. I spoke with him and he said, “I can't hear with my right ear; I cannot move my right arm or leg. I shall never walk again.”
He continued with a strange smile. “It is too bad. I would have like to kill you first, Hump. And I thought I had that much left in me.”
“But why?” I asked.
“Oh, to be alive, to be living and doing, to be the biggest piece of dust, to eat you. But to die this way...”
“How can you explain it?” I asked. “What is the cause of your trouble?”
“The brain,” he answered. “But there is no explaining it. I was never sick in my life. Something has gone wrong with my brain. I cannot see; hearing and feeling are leaving me; I shall soon stop speaking; yet all the time I shall be here, alive, active, and powerless.”
“When you say you are here, I would say your soul is here,” I said.
“No! It simply means that certain parts of my brain are unharmed. I can remember; I can think and reason. When that goes, I go. The soul?” He laughed loudly.
The man of him was not changed. It was the old terrible Wolf Larsen. He only existed, as he explained death, without movement.
We took the ropes from his hands and feet. But we knew not what to expect of him, what fearful thing he might do.
Three days later we had all the masts1 in place2. Wolf Larsen suffered more. He lost his voice, or he was losing it; speech would come to him and leave him, sometimes in the middle of a sentence.
During this time he invented a method of saying yes and no to us without speaking; one press of his hand for yes, two for no. It was fortunate that it was arranged, because that day his voice left him. When he wanted to speak he wrote his left hand.
Winter had arrived. In wind, rain, and snow, I worked on the rigging3 and the sails. When finally the mast was in place, Maud almost cried with joy. I said, “It was done so easily. All the work was in preparing.”
Maud suddenly looked toward the stairs. “Something is burning,” she said. Smoke came from below deck.
“The Wolf is not yet dead,” I said to myself as I ran through the smoke. I was choking by the time I arrived at Wolf Larsen's bed. He was lying motionless. I felt over and under his blankets, but there was no sign of fire.
The source of the smoke must be very close to Wolf Larsen. As I felt among his blankets, something fell on the back of my hand. It burned me, and I pulled my hand away. Then I understood. He had started a fire in the bed above him. I dragged the burning blankets from that bed and ran to the deck. Then I poured water on the bed.
Ten minutes later the smoke was gone. I allowed Maud to come below deck. Wolf Larsen wrote, “Please do not interrupt me. I am smiling. I am still a piece of the living dust, you see.”
“I am glad you are as small a piece as you are,” I said.
“Thank you,” he wrote. “But think of how much smaller I shall be before I die. And yet I am all here, Hump. I can think more clearly than ever before in my life. I am all here, and more than here.”
It was like a message from the night of the grave; this man's body had become his grave. There, his soul lived. Who could say how long it would continue to live?
Several more days were needed to prepare the Ghost to sail. Wolf Larsen changed little. On the day before we were ready to leave the island, he lost his hearing, but not before I had asked him, “Are you all there?”And the lips had answered, “Yes.”
Somewhere in that flesh lived the soul of a man, living in silence and darkness. It knew no body. It knew only itself and the quiet and the dark.
The day came for our leaving. There was nothing to keep us on Endeavor Island.
“Humphrey,” Maud said, “you did it all with your own hands.”
“But there were two other hands, two small hands,” I said, holding them in mine.
We put up the sails, and the Ghost seemed to come alive as the wind filled them. We were moving, away from the island, into safe water! The Ghost sailed toward the open sea.
Maud did not have the strength to steer the Ghost, but she cooked in the gallery, cared for Wolf Larsen, and cleaned the ship. All night I steered. Finally, I had to stop to sleep. I tied the wheel so we would not change our direction. When I went to my bed, I slept for 21 hours! When I awoke, I did not see Maud. I found her by Wolf Larsen's bed.
I looked at him, the man who had been thrown down from the top of life to the buried alive and be worse than dead. Maud looked at me and I understand.
“His life ended in the storm,” I said.
“But still, he lives,”she answered, great faith in her voice.
“He had great strength.”
“Yes,” she said. “But it no longer troubles him. He is a free soul.”
“He is a free soul surely,” I answered; and holding her hand, I led her on deck.
The storm ended that night. After breakfast the next morning, I was ready to bury Wolf Larsen. “I remember only one part of the funeral words,”I said. “And that is, ‘And the body shall be cast into the sea.’”
Maud looked at me, surprised and shocked. But the remembrance4 of something I had seen governed me, and I wanted to bury Wolf Larsen as Wolf Larsen had buried another man. The body went feet first into the sea. The weight of iron dragged it down. It was gone.
我们搬回到“魔鬼”号上，住在原来的房间里 ，在厨房里做饭。沃尔夫仍然病得很重。我跟他讲话时，他说：“我的右耳听不见了，我右手右脚都不能动弹。我再也不能走路了。”
他很奇怪地笑了笑，接着说：“真糟糕。我一开始就想杀了你，韩福。我想，现在我还是很想杀你。”
“可是，为什么？”我问。
“噢，为了能活着，为了生存和有所作为，永远做个强者，为了吃掉你。但却要这样死去……”
“你怎么搞成这样子的？”我问，“你究竟哪儿出毛病了？”
“脑子。”他答道，“我也不知道怎么回事。我从来没病过。脑子什么地方坏了，我看不见，听力和触觉也在一点点消失。很快我连话也说不出了；但我会一直在这儿，仍然活着，可以思考，却没了力气。”
“你说你在这里，我想是你的灵魂在这里。”我说。
“不对！我的意思是我脑子里某些部分还是完好的。我能回忆、思考和推理。这些要是消失了，我也完蛋了。灵魂？”他放声大笑。
他身上的男人野性丝毫没变。他还是那个可怕的老沃尔夫·莱森。他跟我谈起死亡时，一动不动地躺在那里，好像就是个躯壳而已。
我们把他手脚上的绳子解了下来。但我们不知道期望他做些什么，也不知道他会做出什么可怕的事情。
三天后，我们把所有桅杆都竖了起来。沃尔夫·莱森的疼痛越来越强烈。他几乎不能说话，或者正在丧失语言能力。有时他能说话，有时又说不出来，有时话说了一半就说不下去了。
这段时间他找到了一种代替语言的表达“是”与“不是”的方法；他用手按一下代表“是”，按两下表示“不是”。很幸运他先想出这种方法，因为，那天他就说不出话来了。他想说什么，就用左手写下来。
冬天到了。我在寒风、雨雪中修理绳索与船帆。终于，主桅架上去了，穆德高兴得差点哭了出来。我说：“这事做起来挺容易的，因为一直在进行准备工作。”
穆德突然朝船舱楼梯口望去。“什么东西烧着了。”她说。浓烟从甲板底下弥漫出来。
“那只‘狼’还没死。”我一边穿过浓烟，一边自言自语。我跑到沃尔夫·莱森床边时，几乎要窒息了。他一动不动地躺着，我把毛毯上下摸了个遍，可一点儿火星儿也没看见。
火源一定就在沃尔夫·莱森身边。我又摸了一遍他的毯子，有个东西溅到我手背上，烫着了我。我赶忙甩开手，顿时恍然大悟：他在上铺放了火。我从上铺把烧着的毯子拽了下来，奔向甲板。接着我拿水泼到床上。
十分钟后，浓烟散尽。我叫穆德到底舱来。沃尔夫写道：“请不要阻拦我，我在笑。你们看，我还是一粒飞舞着的灰尘。”
“我很高兴你真是你说的那样微不足道。”我说。
“谢谢你。”他写道，“但想想我临死前会比现在渺小得多。现在我还在这儿，韩福。有生以来，我的思绪从未如此清晰过。我在这儿，而且不止存在在这里。”
这好像是从黑暗的坟墓里传来的音讯；这个人的躯体已经成为了他的坟墓。他的灵魂还活着，活在坟墓里。有谁会知道，他的灵魂还能活多久？
我们得再准备几天才能起航。这期间，沃尔夫·莱森的病情没什么变化。在我们准备离开克难岛的前一天，他完全丧失了听觉。但那之前我问他：“你还活着吗？”他的嘴唇动了一下，意思是：“是。”
在那肉体的某个角落里依然蕴藏着这个人的灵魂，它活在冥静与黑暗之中。它不知道肉体的存在，只知道它自己活着，还感觉到寂静与黑暗。
我们终于等到要离开的这天了。再没什么能够阻止我们离开克难岛。
“韩福，”穆德说，“这一切都是你双手创造的。”
“但是还有两只手，两只小手。”我握着她的手说。
我们调整好船帆，风一涨满船帆，“魔鬼”号似乎又活了过来。船动了，正在离开小岛，驶入安全的水域！“魔鬼”号朝广阔的大海驶去。
穆德没有力量掌舵，所以她在厨房做饭、照顾沃尔夫、并打扫这艘船。我整夜把舵。终于，我挺不住了，必须要停下来睡一觉。我捆紧船轮，以确保不会改变航向。我一上床，便睡了21个钟头！醒来时，我没看到穆德。我发现她在沃尔夫·莱森的床边。
我看着他，这个人已从生命的巅峰坠落到生不如死的境地，他那样子好像是被活埋了。穆德望着我，我心中也已经明白了。
“他的生命已随暴风雨消失了。”我说。
“但是他仍然活着。”她坚定地回答道。
“他曾经力大无穷。”
“是的。”她说，“但那身力气不会再给他添麻烦了。他现在是一个自由的灵魂了。”
“他的确是一个自由的灵魂。”我回答，拉着她的手，把她领到甲板上。
风暴那天晚上停息了。第二天早饭后，我准备海葬沃尔夫·莱森。“我只记得悼词的一部分。”我说，“就是‘尸体应该投入海中。’”
穆德看着我，很是惊讶。有些回忆在我脑中萦绕，想起昔日沃尔夫·莱森如何海葬了别人，我也要照做。躯体的双脚先入水，脚上系的铁块儿拖着他往下沉。随后，沃尔夫·莱森永别了人间。
1. mast n. 桅杆
2. in place 准备好；归位
3. rigging n. 绳索
4. remembrance n. 回想，记忆