stiffness and pain went out of it. And he had done nothing but put
his hand upon my arm and squeeze. There had been no wrenching or
jerking. He had just closed his hand with a steady pressure. What
he might have done I did not fully realize till next day, when he
put his head into the galley, and, as a sign of renewed
friendliness, asked me how my arm was getting on.

"It might have been worse," he smiled.

I was peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. It was
fair-sized, firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it,
squeezed, and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy
streams. The pulpy remnant he dropped back into the pan and turned
away, and I had a sharp vision of how it might have fared with me
had the monster put his real strength upon me.

But the three days' rest was good in spite of it all, for it had
given my knee the very chance it needed. It felt much better, the
swelling had materially decreased, and the cap seemed descending
into its proper place. Also, the three days' rest brought the
trouble I had foreseen. It was plainly Thomas Mugridge's intention
to make me pay for those three days. He treated me vilely, cursed
me continually, and heaped his own work upon me. He even ventured
to raise his fist to me, but I was becoming animal-like myself, and
I snarled in his face so terribly that it must have frightened him
back. It is no pleasant picture I can conjure up of myself,
Humphrey Van Weyden, in that noisome ship's galley, crouched in a
corner over my task, my face raised to the face of the creature
about to strike me, my lips lifted and snarling like a dog's, my
eyes gleaming with fear and helplessness and the courage that comes