and recharge it afresh from the beginning.

My new employment struck Hands all of a heap; he began to see the dice
going against him, and after an obvious hesitation, he also hauled
himself heavily into the shrouds, and with the dirk in his teeth, began
slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him no end of time and groans
to haul his wounded leg behind him, and I had quietly finished my
arrangements before he was much more than a third of the way up. Then,
with a pistol in either hand, I addressed him.

"One more step, Mr. Hands," said I, "and I'll blow your brains out! Dead
men don't bite, you know," I added with a chuckle.

He stopped instantly. I could see by the working of his face that he was
trying to think, and the process was so slow and laborious that, in my
new-found security, I laughed aloud. At last, with a swallow or two, he
spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of extreme perplexity.
In order to speak he had to take the dagger from his mouth, but in all
else he remained unmoved.

"Jim," says he, "I reckon we're fouled, you and me, and we'll have to
sign articles. I'd have had you but for that there lurch, but I don't
have no luck, not I; and I reckon I'll have to strike, which comes hard,
you see, for a master mariner to a ship's younker like you, Jim."

I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as conceited as a cock
upon a wall, when, all in a breath, back went his right hand over his
shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the air; I felt a blow
and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the
mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment--I scarce can say