When he was awakened once from a faint by a cough close in his ear, the wolf moved lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its weakness. It was funny, but he was not amused. Nor was he even afraid. He was too far gone for that. But his mind was for the moment clear, and he lay and considered. The ship was no more than four miles away. He could see it quite clearly, when he rubbed his eyes, and he could see the white sail of a small boat cutting the water of the shining sea. But he could never crawl those miles. He knew that, and was very calm in the knowledge. He knew that he could not crawl half a mile. And yet he wanted to live. It was unreasonable that he should die after all he had suffered. He refused to die.
Without movement he lay on his back, and he could hear slowly drawing nearer and nearer the breath of the sick wolf. It drew closer, ever closer, through a long time, and he did not move. It was at his ear. The dry tongue rubbed like sandpaper against his cheek. His hands shot out---or at least he wished them to shoot out. The fingers closed on empty air. The man was too weak to do any quick movements.
The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's patience was no less terrible. For half a day he lay still, fighting off unconsciousness（神志不清） and waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him and upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes he dreamed long dreams; but ever through it all, waking and dreaming, he waited for the breath and the tongue.
He did not hear the breath, and he woke slowly from some dream to the feel of the tongue along his hand. He waited. The teeth pressed softly; the pressure increased; the wolf putting its last strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for which he had waited so long. But the man had waited long, and the hand closed on the jaw. Slowly, while the wolf struggled weakly, two hands grasped it. Five minutes later the whole weight of the man's body was on top of the wolf. The hands had not enough strength to kill the wolf, but the face of the man was pressed close to the throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man was full of hair. At the end of half an hour the wolf died. Later the man rolled over on his back and slept.
There were some members of a scientific expedition on the shaleship Bedford. From the deck they noticed a strange object on the shore. It was moving down the beach toward the water. They were unable to see what it was, and, being scientific men, they climbed into the whaleboat along side and went on land to see. And they saw something that was alive but which could hardly be called a man. It was blind, unconscious. It moved slowly along the ground like some large worm. It would not move much but it wouldn't stop and went ahead perhaps a score feet an hour.
Three weeks afterwards the man lay in a bed on the whaleship Bedford, and with tears streaming down his bony cheeks told who he was and what he had gone through.