d from
the other side and washed about; another with the next roll, and still
another. The rolls were long and heavy, and I, who had once been on a
sinking ship, sensed the reason.

"'We're sinking, captain,' I said. 'That main-topgallantmast going down
that hatch has punched a hole or started a butt.'

"'Maybe you're right,' he exclaimed. 'What can we do?'

"That was too hard a question at the time for a skipper to ask of a
foremast-hand, so I said nothing, but did a lot of thinking. The
flywheel-pump was amidships at the main fife-rail. We could not go down
to it without danger from the wounded lion, the rhino, and possibly the
wolf, though, with these out of the way, we might dodge or kill the
cobras and fight off the hyena.

"As it was, we were caught. I suggested to the skipper that he go down
the mizzentopmast-backstay, dart into his cabin, and get his rifle.
Then he could pot the brutes from the forward windows. But he declined
and forbade me going. I had no business in his cabin.

"I saw that he had lost his nerve. Now, when a skipper loses his nerve,
he loses his rights; so I didn't hesitate to sing out to the mate in
the main-topmast-crosstrees to clear away downhaul-blocks,
quarter-blocks, or anything handy and heavy, and try and drop them on
the lion and the rhino, the two most dangerous of the bunch. He seemed
to be much in the same condition as the skipper, for he answered and
passed the word forward to the fellows on the fore.

"In a few minutes things began raining down onto the deck--blocks,
bulls'-eyes, and sea-boots. The bombardment raised a commotion, though
none of the brutes was hit.

"Yet the sick and sore lion responded to the extent of bounding aft and
mounting the poop. Here he came within range of us fellows up the
mizzen, and I had the disconnected mizzen-staysail halyard-block in my
hand ready for him. He gained the space abaft the house near the wheel
and stood still, lashing his tail and nosing the air as though he
smelled us up aloft.

"He was only about forty feet down; and when young I had been a good
ball-player. I leaned over and let that block go with all my strength.
It wasn't the ordinary shell-block, but a solid carving of _lignum-vitae_;
and it fetched that lion a smash on the head that must have cracked his
skull, for he sank down, then got up and wabbled, rather than walked,
forward along the alley to the poop-steps.

"There he blindly fell off the poop; and the rhin