good part, and was really pleased, nodding his head with direful
foreknowledge and mystery, until George Leach, the erstwhile cabin-
boy, ventured some rough pleasantry on the subject.

Now it happened that Leach was one of the sailors told off to douse
Mugridge after his game of cards with the captain. Leach had
evidently done his task with a thoroughness that Mugridge had not
forgiven, for words followed and evil names involving smirched
ancestries. Mugridge menaced with the knife he was sharpening for
me. Leach laughed and hurled more of his Telegraph Hill
Billingsgate, and before either he or I knew what had happened, his
right arm had been ripped open from elbow to wrist by a quick slash
of the knife. The cook backed away, a fiendish expression on his
face, the knife held before him in a position of defence. But
Leach took it quite calmly, though blood was spouting upon the deck
as generously as water from a fountain.

"I'm goin' to get you, Cooky," he said, "and I'll get you hard.
And I won't be in no hurry about it. You'll be without that knife
when I come for you."

So saying, he turned and walked quietly forward. Mugridge's face
was livid with fear at what he had done and at what he might expect
sooner or later from the man he had stabbed. But his demeanour
toward me was more ferocious than ever. In spite of his fear at
the reckoning he must expect to pay for what he had done, he could
see that it had been an object-lesson to me, and he became more
domineering and exultant. Also there was a lust in him, akin to
madness, which had come with sight of the blood he had drawn. He
was beginning to see red in whatever direction he looked. The