efforts, finally. I had not much wit left in me,
but I heard the captain's voice, faintly, as though he were at a
distance, instead of bending over me.

"There's no fight in this rat," he said. "Might as well boot him off the
poop, Mister, and let him crawl into his hole. He's not dangerous, and
the ship needs him as beef."

No sooner said than done. I had obligingly saved them the trouble of
booting me very far, for I had been inching myself forward ever since the
onslaught. When the captain spoke, I was almost at the head of the
ladder to the main deck--an instant after he spoke, I was lying on the
main deck at the foot of the poop ladder, and all the stars in the
universe were dancing before my eyes.

I got dizzily to my hands and knees, and then to my feet, and staggered
forward. Captain Swope's soft voice followed me.

"Next time reef your tongue before you open your mouth!" he called.

I made my way into the foc'sle, and my watchmates grabbed me, and swabbed
and kneaded my hurts, and swore their sympathy. My injuries were not
very severe--some nasty gashes about the head and face, and innumerable
bruises upon the body. Fortunately I was in no way disabled. My bones
were intact. I was in far better case, they told me, than poor Holy Joe.
He was lying in his bunk unconscious, that very moment; he had a broken
arm, and most of his teeth were gone.

I saw at once that the men were quite wild with rage and anxiety. From
the sounds that came in the foc'sle door, I knew that the mate was hazing
his men. Aye, he was going after them in the good old way, quite as if
there had been no peaceful interlude. I did not have to see the mates'
men to know their temper; I could tell from the temper of my own watch
how the other watch felt.

It was a terrific shock to most of them, that sudden return of brutality.
Aye, just in that I saw the devilish cunning of Captain Swope. He knew
what the effect would be upon the minds of the men of slackening his
hell-ship discipline, and then, when the habit of passive endurance was
weakened, suddenly tightening the reins. He knew that then the bit would
be well nigh unendurable. Oh, Swope had calculated shrewdly; he foresaw
the effect not only of an outburst of promiscuous brutality, but of the
arrest of Newman, and the beating up of Holy Joe.

I could see the effect at a glance. The stiffs were panicky. These
valorous stiffs were glowering, really dangerous at last