re
incapable of joining with us in an attack on the other end of the ship.
They will fight like cornered rats to preserve their lives; but they will
not advance like tigers upon the enemy. Tom Spink is faithful but spirit-
broken. Buckwheat is hopelessly of the stupid lowly. Henry has not yet
won his spurs. On our side remain Margaret, Mr. Pike, and myself. The
rest will hold the wall of the poop and fight thereon to the death, but
they are not to be depended upon in a sortie.

At the other end of the ship--and I may as well give the roster, are: the
second mate, either to be called Mellaire or Waltham, a strong man of our
own breed but a renegade; the three gangsters, killers and jackals, Bert
Rhine, Nosey Murphy, and Kid Twist; the Maltese Cockney and Tony the
crazy Greek; Frank Fitzgibbon and Richard Giller, the survivors of the
trio of "bricklayers"; Anton Sorensen and Lars Jacobsen, stupid
Scandinavian sailor-men; Ditman Olansen, the crank-eyed Berserk; John
Hackey and Arthur Deacon, respectively hoodlum and white slaver; Shorty,
the mixed-breed clown; Guido Bombini, the Italian hound; Andy Pay and
Mulligan Jacobs, the bitter ones; the three topaz-eyed dreamers, who are
unclassifiable; Isaac Chantz, the wounded Jew; Bob, the overgrown dolt;
the feeble-minded Faun, lung-wounded; Nancy and Sundry Buyers, the two
hopeless, helpless bosuns; and, finally, the sea-lawyer, Charles Davis.

This makes twenty-seven of them against the eleven of us. But there are
men, strong in viciousness, among them. They, too, have their serfs and
bravos. Guido Bombini and Isaac Chantz are certainly bravos. And
weaklings like Sorensen, and Jacobsen, and Bob, cannot be anything else
than slaves to the men who compose the gangster clique.

I failed to tell what happened yesterday, after Mr. Pike emptied his
automatic and cleared the deck. The poop was indubitably ours, and there
was no possibility of the mutineers making a charge on us in broad
daylight. Margaret had gone below, accompanied by Wada, to see to the
security of the port and starboard doors that open from the cabin
directly on the main deck. These are still caulked and tight and
fastened on the inside, as they have been since the passage of Cape Horn
began.

Mr. Pike put one of the sail-makers at the wheel, and the steward,
relieved and starting below, was attracted to the port quarter, where the
patent log that towed astern was made fast. Margaret had returned h