face never changed. He did not change his position either,
but continued to gaze down with a great curiosity. For all his pragmatic
certitude, it seemed as if he watched the play and movement of life in
the hope of discovering something more about it, of discerning in its
maddest writhings a something which had hitherto escaped him,--the key to
its mystery, as it were, which would make all clear and plain.

But the beating! It was quite similar to the one I had witnessed in the
cabin. The Cockney strove in vain to protect himself from the infuriated
boy. And in vain he strove to gain the shelter of the cabin. He rolled
toward it, grovelled toward it, fell toward it when he was knocked down.
But blow followed blow with bewildering rapidity. He was knocked about
like a shuttlecock, until, finally, like Johnson, he was beaten and
kicked as he lay helpless on the deck. And no one interfered. Leach
could have killed him, but, having evidently filled the measure of his
vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering and
wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward.

But these two affairs were only the opening events of the day's
programme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other,
and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by a
stampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column of thick,
acrid smoke--the kind always made by black powder--was arising through
the open companion-way, and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen. The
sound of blows and scuffling came to our ears. Both men were wounded,
and he was thrashing them both for having disobeyed his orders and
crippled themselves in advance of the hunting season. In fact, they were
badly wounded, and, having thrashed them, he proceeded to operate upon
them in a rough surgical fashion and to dress their wounds. I served as
assistant while he probed and cleansed the passages made by the bullets,
and I saw the two men endure his crude surgery without anaesthetics and
with no more to uphold them than a stiff tumbler of whisky.

Then, in the first dog-watch, trouble came to a head in the forecastle.
It took its rise out of the tittle-tattle and tale-bearing which had been
the cause of Johnson's beating, and from the noise we heard, and from the
sight of the bruised men next day, it was patent that half the forecastle
had soundly drubbed the other half.

The second dog-watch and the day were wo