ed the exploit,
while Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the foremast, ran aft and
through the remainder like a runner on the football field. Straight aft
he held, to the poop and along the poop to the stern. So great was his
speed that as he curved past the corner of the cabin he slipped and fell.
Nilson was standing at the wheel, and the Cockney's hurtling body struck
his legs. Both went down together, but Mugridge alone arose. By some
freak of pressures, his frail body had snapped the strong man's leg like
a pipe-stem.

Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round the
decks they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing and
shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing
encouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch under
three men; but he emerged from the mass like an eel, bleeding at the
mouth, the offending shirt ripped into tatters, and sprang for the
main-rigging. Up he went, clear up, beyond the ratlines, to the very
masthead.

Half-a-dozen sailors swarmed to the crosstrees after him, where they
clustered and waited while two of their number, Oofty-Oofty and Black
(who was Latimer's boat-steerer), continued up the thin steel stays,
lifting their bodies higher and higher by means of their arms.

It was a perilous undertaking, for, at a height of over a hundred feet
from the deck, holding on by their hands, they were not in the best of
positions to protect themselves from Mugridge's feet. And Mugridge
kicked savagely, till the Kanaka, hanging on with one hand, seized the
Cockney's foot with the other. Black duplicated the performance a moment
later with the other foot. Then the three writhed together in a swaying
tangle, struggling, sliding, and falling into the arms of their mates on
the crosstrees.

The aerial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and gibbering,
his mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to deck. Wolf
Larsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under his
shoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the sea.
Forty,--fifty,--sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsen cried
"Belay!" Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, the rope tautened, and the
_Ghost_, lunging onward, jerked the cook to the surface.

It was a pitiful spectacle. Though he could not drown, and was
nine-lived in addition, he was suffering all the agonies of
half-drowning. The _Ghost_ was going very slowly