the grub?" the steward asked me afterwards.

This question he has asked me every day since the first day Mr. Pike
began cudgelling his brains over it. I wonder, had I asked Mulligan
Jacobs the question, if he would have told me? At any rate, in court at
Valparaiso that question will be answered. In the meantime I suppose I
shall submit to having the steward ask me it daily.

"It is murder and mutiny on the high seas," I told them this morning,
when they came aft in a body to complain about the destruction of the
boats and to demand my intentions.

And as I looked down upon the poor wretches from the break of the poop,
standing there in the high place, the vision of my kind down all its mad,
violent, and masterful past was strong upon me. Already, since our
departure from Baltimore, three other men, masters, had occupied this
high place and gone their way--the Samurai, Mr. Pike, and Mr. Mellaire. I
stood here, fourth, no seaman, merely a master by the blood of my
ancestors; and the work of the _Elsinore_ in the world went on.

Bert Rhine, his head and face swathed in bandages, stood there beneath
me, and I felt for him a tingle of respect. He, too, in a subterranean,
ghetto way was master over his rats. Nosey Murphy and Kid Twist stood
shoulder to shoulder with their stricken gangster leader. It was his
will, because of his terrible injury, to get in to land and doctors as
quickly as possible. He preferred taking his chance in court against the
chance of losing his life, or, perhaps, his eyesight.

The crew was divided against itself; and Isaac Chantz, the Jew, his
wounded shoulder with a hunch to it, seemed to lead the revolt against
the gangsters. His wound was enough to convict him in any court, and
well he knew it. Beside him, and at his shoulders, clustered the Maltese
Cockney, Andy Fay, Arthur Deacon, Frank Fitzgibbon, Richard Giller, and
John Hackey.

In another group, still allegiant to the gangsters, were men such as
Shorty, Sorensen, Lars Jacobsen, and Larry. Charles Davis was
prominently in the gangster group. A fourth group was composed of Sundry
Buyers, Nancy, and Tony the Greek. This group was distinctly neutral.
And, finally, unaffiliated, quite by himself, stood Mulligan
Jacobs--listening, I fancy, to far echoes of ancient wrongs, and feeling,
I doubt not, the bite of the iron-hot hooks in his brain.

"What are you going to do with us, sir?" Isaac Chantz demanded of me, in
defiance to