d seek to pin him there.

The black harpooner fought his way across the deck to Joel's side. He
left a trail of twisting bodies behind him. And he was grinning with a
huge delight. "Now, sar, we'll do 'em, sar," he screamed. The sweat
poured down his black cheeks; and his mouth was cut and bleeding. His
shirt was torn away from one shoulder and arm....

"Good man," said Joel, between his panting blows. "Good man!"

Across the deck, one who had run forward for a handspike swept it down on
young Dick Morrel's brown head. Morrell dodged, but the blow cracked his
shoulder and swept him to the deck. The man who had fought beside him
spraddled the prostrate body, and jerked an iron from the boat on the
davits at his back and held it like a lance, to keep all men at a
distance. A sheath knife sped, and twisted in the air, and struck him
butt first above the eye, so that he fell limply and lay still....

Mark Shore had been forced against the rail near where Jim Finch was
pinned. Big Finch was howling and weeping with fright; and a little man
of the crew with a rat's mean soul who hated Finch had found his hour. He
was leaping about the mate, lashing him mercilessly with a heavy end of
rope; and Finch screamed and twisted beneath the blows.

So swiftly had the tumult of the battle arisen that all these things had
come to pass before the harpooners asleep in the steerage could wake and
reach the deck. When they climbed the ladder, and looked about them, they
saw Morrell and his ally prostrate at one side, Joel and the cook holding
the galley door against a half dozen men; and big Mark's towering head
amidst a knot of half a dozen more. And one of the harpooners backed away
toward the waist of the ship, watchful and wary, taking no part in the
affair.

But the other ... He was a Cape Verder, black blood crossed with Spanish;
and Mark Shore had tied him to a davit, once upon a time, and lashed him
till he bled, for faults committed. He saw Mark now, and his eyes shone
greedily.

This man crouched, and crossed to a boat--his own--and chose his own
harpoon. He twisted off the wooden sheath that covered the point, and
flung it across the deck; and he poised the heavy iron in his hands, and
started slowly toward Mark, moving on tiptoe, lightly as a cat.

Mark saw him coming; and the big man shouted joyfully: "Why, Silva! Come,
you...."

He flung aside the men encircling him. One among them held the handspike
with which he ha