taking it in, and went on. "'I didn't mean it Tommy,' 'e was
snifflin'; 'so 'elp me Gawd, I didn't mean it!' "'I'll fix yer
bloody well right,' I sez, an' kept right after 'im. I cut 'im in
ribbons, that's wot I did, an' 'e a-squealin' all the time. Once
'e got 'is 'and on the knife an' tried to 'old it. 'Ad 'is fingers
around it, but I pulled it through, cuttin' to the bone. O, 'e was
a sight, I can tell yer."

A call from the mate interrupted the gory narrative, and Harrison
went aft. Mugridge sat down on the raised threshold to the galley
and went on with his knife-sharpening. I put the shovel away and
calmly sat down on the coal-box facing him. He favoured me with a
vicious stare. Still calmly, though my heart was going pitapat, I
pulled out Louis's dirk and began to whet it on the stone. I had
looked for almost any sort of explosion on the Cockney's part, but
to my surprise he did not appear aware of what I was doing. He
went on whetting his knife. So did I. And for two hours we sat
there, face to face, whet, whet, whet, till the news of it spread
abroad and half the ship's company was crowding the galley doors to
see the sight.

Encouragement and advice were freely tendered, and Jock Horner, the
quiet, self-spoken hunter who looked as though he would not harm a
mouse, advised me to leave the ribs alone and to thrust upward for
the abdomen, at the same time giving what he called the "Spanish
twist" to the blade. Leach, his bandaged arm prominently to the
fore, begged me to leave a few remnants of the cook for him; and
Wolf Larsen paused once or twice at the break of the poop to glance
curiously at what must have been to him a stirring and crawling of
the yeasty thing he knew as life.