sprawling mates beneath. Wolf Larsen and the lantern disappeared, and we
were left in darkness.

CHAPTER XV

There was a deal of cursing and groaning as the men at the bottom of the
ladder crawled to their feet.

"Somebody strike a light, my thumb's out of joint," said one of the men,
Parsons, a swarthy, saturnine man, boat-steerer in Standish's boat, in
which Harrison was puller.

"You'll find it knockin' about by the bitts," Leach said, sitting down on
the edge of the bunk in which I was concealed.

There was a fumbling and a scratching of matches, and the sea-lamp flared
up, dim and smoky, and in its weird light bare-legged men moved about
nursing their bruises and caring for their hurts. Oofty-Oofty laid hold
of Parsons's thumb, pulling it out stoutly and snapping it back into
place. I noticed at the same time that the Kanaka's knuckles were laid
open clear across and to the bone. He exhibited them, exposing beautiful
white teeth in a grin as he did so, and explaining that the wounds had
come from striking Wolf Larsen in the mouth.

"So it was you, was it, you black beggar?" belligerently demanded one
Kelly, an Irish-American and a longshoreman, making his first trip to
sea, and boat-puller for Kerfoot.

As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and
shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty. The Kanaka leaped
backward to his bunk, to return with a second leap, flourishing a long
knife.

"Aw, go lay down, you make me tired," Leach interfered. He was
evidently, for all of his youth and inexperience, cock of the forecastle.
"G'wan, you Kelly. You leave Oofty alone. How in hell did he know it
was you in the dark?"

Kelly subsided with some muttering, and the Kanaka flashed his white
teeth in a grateful smile. He was a beautiful creature, almost feminine
in the pleasing lines of his figure, and there was a softness and
dreaminess in his large eyes which seemed to contradict his well-earned
reputation for strife and action.

"How did he get away?" Johnson asked.

He was sitting on the side of his bunk, the whole pose of his figure
indicating utter dejection and hopelessness. He was still breathing
heavily from the exertion he had made. His shirt had been ripped
entirely from him in the struggle, and blood from a gash in the cheek was
flowing down his naked chest, marking a red path across his white thigh
and dripping to the floor.

"Because he is the devil,