ike under the pressure of his knee saved me, I am
certain. My gaze was fixed upon his face, and I see him now staring at
me with his little eyes on fire, and the knife poised ready to plunge.
This posture maybe he retained for two or three minutes; it ran into
long hours to me. Then on a sudden he threw the knife away backwards
over his shoulder, rose and went to the door, where he stood a little
staring at me intently. I continued to lie motionless. He opened the
door and passed out, on which I sprang to my feet and fled as nimbly
as my legs would carry me to the poop, where I found the chief mate.
He was a little Welshman of the name of Thomas, a brother of Ap
Thomas, the celebrated harpist, and if he be still alive and these
lines should meet his eyes, let him be pleased to know that my memory
holds him in cordial respect as the kindest officer and the smartest
seaman I ever had the fortune to be shipmates with. To him I related
what had happened.

"O--ho," cried he, "attempted murder, hey? Our friend must be taught
that we don't allow this sort of thing to happen aboard _us_."

He gave certain orders and shortly afterwards the third mate was
seized and locked up in a spare cabin just under the break of the
poop. Two powerful seamen were told off to keep him company. How much
the unfortunate man needed this sort of control I could not have
imagined but for my hearing that he was locked up and my going to the
cabin window that looked on to the quarter deck to take a peep at him
if he was visible. He saw me and bounded to the window, bringing his
leg-of-mutton fist against it with a blow that crashed the whole plate
of glass into splinters. His face was purple, his eyes half out of
their sockets. There was froth upon his lips, with such a general
distortion of features that it would be impossible to figure a more
horrible illustration of madness than his countenance. I bolted as if
the devil had been after me, catching just a glimpse of the powerful
creature wrestling in the grasp of the two seamen who were dragging
him backwards into the gloom of the cabin. Such an escape as this I
regard as distinctly more eventful, if not more romantic, than falling
overboard and being rescued when almost spent, or being picked up
after a fortnight's exposure in an open boat. My most sleep-murdering
nightmares nearly always include the phantom form of that burly,
crazed third mate kneeling upon my motionless little figure and
feel