, spell-bound. Under his touch the catgut gave off such strains
as could come only from the sheer genius of a gifted musician who had
suffered miserably. It was almost as if he were giving without words the
story which his lips would never tell, and into the improvised music
crept infinite pathos and somber tragedy. No one could have listened
unmoved, but the manner in which Captain Coulter was affected was
startling.

He came over with an advent like that of a maniac. The lame foot was
pounding the deck with the stressful stamp that was always his
indication of rage. He halted before us with fists clenched and his eyes
glittering. Upon Lawrence he vented an outpouring of blasphemous and
unquotable wrath.

"Throw that damned fiddle overboard," was the command with which he
capped his fierce tirade. "Don't let me hear its hell-tortured
screeching on my ship again."

For a moment Lawrence stood silent and cold in a petrifaction of anger.
Then he laid the instrument carefully on a hatch and stepped forward.
Obviously it was in his mind at that moment to kill the captain, but
after a pause he thought better of it. The odds against him were too
heavy.

"I'll stow the violin in my box, sir," he said with a voice so quiet it
was almost gentle, "but so help me God, if ever we meet after this
voyage is ended, I mean to kill you." Coulter laughed disdainfully and
strode away, but for ten minutes Lawrence sat silent, his breath coming
in deep gasps while he wrestled with the murder madness. We learned
later that the captain was one of those persons whom music frenzies, and
from that time on we did not even permit ourselves the consolation of
whistling a favorite air.

Of all the restless men in the fo'castle, Coulter most keenly watched
one John Hoak, a gigantic seaman from Liverpool, in whom he
instinctively recognized a potential ringleader of mutiny. One evening
Hoak vindicated this appraisement by defiantly and loudly playing a
music-hall tune on an accordion. A strain of it reached the bridge and
Coulter, who was on watch, ordered the offender forward. After a violent
and profane denunciation, under which the giant writhed in silent fury,
Coulter lashed out to the sailor's mouth with his clenched fist and sent
him sprawling to the deck. But lest this conduct should appear too
irresolute, he added the punishment of twenty-four hours in irons. A
fellow seaman plucked up the heroism to demand that the incident be
entered