reasoned, and, so
reasoning, become despairing and desperate.

After Margaret had told me to be hard I watched Tom Spink with an eagle
eye, and he must have sensed my attitude, for he carefully forebore from
overstepping, while all the time he palpitated just on the edge of
overstepping. Yes, and it was clear that Buckwheat was watching to learn
the outcome of this veiled refractoriness. For that matter, the
situation was not being missed by our keen-eyed Asiatics, and I know that
I caught Louis several times verging on the offence of offering me
advice. But he knew his place and managed to keep his tongue between his
teeth.

At last, yesterday, while I held the watch, Tom Spink was guilty of
spitting tobacco juice on the deck.

Now it must be understood that such an act is as grave an offence of the
sea as blasphemy is of the Church.

It was Margaret who came to where I was stationed by the jiggermast and
told me what had occurred; and it was she who took my rifle and relieved
me so that I could go aft.

There was the offensive spot, and there was Tom Spink, his cheek bulging
with a quid.

"Here, you, get a swab and mop that up," I commanded in my harshest
manner.

Tom Spink merely rolled his quid with his tongue and regarded me with
sneering thoughtfulness. I am sure he was no more surprised than was I
by the immediateness of what followed. My fist went out like an arrow
from a released bow, and Tom Spink staggered back, tripped against the
corner of the tarpaulin-covered sounding-machine, and sprawled on the
deck. He tried to make a fight of it, but I followed him up, giving him
no chance to set himself or recover from the surprise of my first
onslaught.

Now it so happens that not since I was a boy have I struck a person with
my naked fist, and I candidly admit that I enjoyed the trouncing I
administered to poor Tom Spink. Yes, and in the rapid play about the
deck I caught a glimpse of Margaret. She had stepped out of the shelter
of the mast and was looking on from the corner of the chart-house. Yes,
and more; she was looking on with a cool, measuring eye.

Oh, it was all very grotesque, to be sure. But then, mutiny on the high
seas in the year nineteen-thirteen is also grotesque. No lists here
between mailed knights for a lady's favour, but merely the trouncing of a
chuckle-head for spitting on the deck of a coal-carrier. Nevertheless,
the fact that my lady looked on added zest to my enterp