all got to action, David Macdonald reaching
the top of the steps. Shrieks came from the interior of the carriage,
and from the waiting negresses. I saw three men were falling upon a
little thing like a damaged cat. I couldn't stand that, come what might
of it.

I ran hastily up the steps, hoping to be able to make them recover their
senses, a force of purely conventional emotion impelling me. It was
no business of mine; I didn't want to interfere, and I felt like a
man hastening to separate half a dozen fighting dogs too large to be
pleasant.

When I reached the top, there was a sort of undignified scuffle, and
in the end I found myself standing above a ghastly white gentleman who,
from a sitting posture, was gasping out, "I'll commit you!... I swear
I'll commit you!..." I helped him to his feet rather apologetically,
while the admiral behind me was asking insistently who the deuce I was.
The man I had picked up retreated a little, and then turned back to look
at me. The light was shining on my face, and he began to call out, "I
know him. I know him perfectly well. He's John Kemp. I'll commit him at
once. The papers are in the barouche." After that he seemed to take it
into his head that I was going to assault him again. He bolted out
of sight, and I was left facing the admiral. He stared at me
contemptuously. I was streaming with perspiration and upbraiding him for
assaulting a cripple.

The admiral said, "Oh, that's what you think? I will settle with
you presently. This is rank mutiny." I looked at Oldham, who was the
admiral's secretary. He was extremely dishevelled about his neck, much
as if a monkey had been clawing him thereabouts. Half of his roll collar
flapped on his heaving chest; his stock hung down behind like a cue.
I had seen him kneeling on the ground with his head pinned down by the
hunchback. I said loftily:

"What did you set him on a little beggar like that for? You were three
to one. What did you expect?"

The admiral swore. Oldham began to mop with a lace handkerchief at a
damaged upper lip from which a stream of blood was running; he even
seemed to be weeping a little. Finally, he vanished in at the door, very
much bent together. The undaunted David hopped in after him coolly.

The admiral said, "I know your kind. You're a treasonous dog, sir. This
is mutiny. You shall be made an example of."

All the same he must have been ashamed of himself, for presently he and
the two others went down