he was aware that the back of his head was very sore and ached, so he
put up his hand to rub it and found a lump as large as a walnut. His
right shoulder was numb and he was unable to move it, although this
would not have surprised him had he been aware that a hundred and
eighty pounds of Teutonic masculinity had landed on that shoulder with
both feet and dislocated it. As it was, the skipper wondered vaguely
if the ship's funnel had fallen over on him. His right side ached
externally, and when he sighed it ached internally. That was a broken
rib tickling his lung, for, while he was in blissful ignorance of the
reason therefor, the chronicler of this tale can serve no good purpose
by concealing the true facts in the case. Immediately upon regaining
consciousness, Herr August Carl von Staden had insisted upon returning
Michael J. Murphy's kicks with compound interest.

"Holy mackerel!" the skipper murmured. "I feel like I've been fed into
a concrete mixer. The only injury I can account for is my left
shoulder, where that supercargo shot me."

After spending another half hour in mild speculation on these
phenomena he was aware of an added impediment in breathing, so he put
his hand up to his nose and found it clogged with blood. His luxuriant
black mustache prevented an extended examination of his upper lip, but
nevertheless, something told him it was split. A hard foreign
substance lying between his right cheek and the inferior maxillary he
concluded must be the pit of an olive left over from dinner.
Subsequently, however, he discovered it was one of his own teeth. So
he swore a mighty oath and felt considerably better.

"This is certainly mutiny on the high seas and punishable by hanging,"
he soliloquized. "I wonder if Cappy Ricks would know me now;" and he