s a day.

Aloft, the _Elsinore_ is a sad spectacle. All is confusion and disorder.
The sails, unfurled, are a slovenly mess along the yards, and many loose
ends sway dismally to every roll. The only yard that is loose is the
main-yard. It is fortunate that wind and wave are mild, else would the
iron-work carry away and the mutineers find the huge thing of steel about
their ears.

There is one thing we cannot understand. A week has passed, and the men
show no signs of being starved into submission. Repeatedly and in vain
has Mr. Pike interrogated the hands aft with us. One and all, from the
cook to Buckwheat, they swear they have no knowledge of any food for'ard,
save the small supply in the galley and the barrel of hardtack in the
forecastle. Yet it is very evident that those for'ard are not starving.
We see the smoke from the galley-stove and can only conclude that they
have food to cook.

Twice has Bert Rhine attempted a truce, but both times his white flag, as
soon as it showed above the edge of the 'midship-house, was fired upon by
Mr. Pike. The last occurrence was two days ago. It is Mr. Pike's
intention thoroughly to starve them into submission, but now he is
beginning to worry about their mysterious food supply.

Mr. Pike is not quite himself. He is obsessed, I know beyond any doubt,
with the idea of vengeance on the second mate. On divers occasions, now,
I have come unexpectedly upon him and found him muttering to himself with
grim set face, or clenching and unclenching his big square fists and
grinding his teeth. His conversation continually runs upon the
feasibility of our making a night attack for'ard, and he is perpetually
questioning Tom Spink and Louis on their ideas of where the various men
may be sleeping--the point of which always is: _Where is the second mate
likely to be sleeping_?

No later than yesterday afternoon did he give me most positive proof of
his obsession. It was four o'clock, the beginning of the first
dog-watch, and he had just relieved me. So careless have we grown, that
we now stand in broad daylight at the exposed break of the poop. Nobody
shoots at us, and, occasionally, over the top of the for'ard-house,
Shorty sticks up his head and grins or makes clownish faces at us. At
such times Mr. Pike studies Shorty's features through the telescope in an
effort to find signs of starvation. Yet he admits dolefully that Shorty
is looking fleshed-up.

But to return. Mr.