nly and cowardly, to be playing schoolboy tricks with
forks and spoons and pipes, and that sort of gear. He said it had
got to stop right now, and that was all, and the men might go
forward. And so they did.

It got worse after that, and the men watched the cook, and the
cook watched the men, as if they were trying to catch each other;
but I think everybody felt that there was something else. One
evening, at supper-time, I was on deck, and Jack came aft to
relieve the wheel while the man who was steering got his supper.
He hadn't got past the main-hatch on the lee side, when I heard a
man running in slippers that slapped on the deck, and there was a
sort of a yell and I saw the coloured cook going for Jack, with
a carving-knife in his hand. I jumped to get between them, and
Jack turned round short, and put out his hand. I was too far to
reach them, and the cook jabbed out with his knife. But the blade
didn't get anywhere near Benton. The cook seemed to be jabbing it
into the air again and again, at least four feet short of the
mark. Then he dropped his right hand, and I saw the whites of his
eyes in the dusk, and he reeled up against the pin-rail, and
caught hold of a belaying-pin with his left. I had reached him by
that time, and grabbed hold of his knife-hand and the other too,
for I thought he was going to use the pin; but Jack Benton was
standing staring stupidly at him, as if he didn't understand. But
instead, the cook was holding on because he couldn't stand, and
his teeth were chattering, and he let go of the knife, and the
point stuck into the deck.

"He's crazy!" said Jack Benton, and that was all he said; and he
went aft.

[Illustration: HE LET GO OF THE KNIFE, AND THE POINT STUCK INTO
THE DECK.]

When he was gone, the cook began to come to, and he spoke quite
low, near my ear.

"There were two of them! So help me God, there were two of them!"

I don't know why I didn't take him by the collar, and give him a
good shaking; but I didn't. I just picked up the knife and gave
it to him, and told him to go back to his galley, and not to make
a fool of himself. You see, he hadn't struck at Jack, but at
something he thought he saw, and I knew what it was, and I felt
that same thing, like a lump of ice sliding down my back, that I
felt that night when we were bending the trysail.

When the men had seen him running aft, they jumped up after him,
but they held off when they saw that I had caught him. By and by