ack coat
which reached to his knees. On his head was a skull cap with a long
tassel hanging down from its top, and in his mouth was a handsome
meerschaum pipe, which hung down by its stem to the middle of his breast.
His beard was long and just turning gray, and his eyebrows were heavy and
prominent.

I stood staring at the figure, and I must say I never saw a more
brutal expression upon a man's face. His large mouth and thick lips
appeared to wear a sneering smile, while his eyes twinkled with
undisguised amusement. His nose was large and flat like a Hottentot's,
and while I gazed at him in astonishment, he raised it in the air and
gave forth a snort which apparently meant that he was well satisfied
with the way affairs were being carried on aboard the ship and he was
consequently amused.

"Here! you man; what the deuce are you doing aboard here?" I asked as I
advanced to the break of the poop and stared down at him. He gave another
snort, and looked at me with undisguised contempt, but disdained to
answer and turned away, going to the lee rail and expectorating over the
side. Then he came slowly back across the main deck, while my spleen rose
at his superior indifference. I have always been a man of the people, and
have fought my way along to whatever position I have held on the
comprehensive rule of give and take. Nothing is so offensive to me as the
assumption of superiority when backed solely by a man's own conception of
his value. Therefore it was in no pleasant tone that I addressed the
stranger on his return to the deck beneath me.

"My fine cock," said I, "if you haven't a tongue, you probably have ears,
and if you don't want them to feel like the grate-bars of the galley
stove, you'll do well to sing out when I speak. Can you rise to that?"

The man looked me squarely in the eyes, and I never saw such a fiendish
expression come into a human face as that which gathered in his. "You
infernal, impudent--" he began; and here for a moment followed a string
of foul oaths from the man's lips, while he passed his hand behind his
back and drew forth a long knife. Then without a moment's further
hesitation he sprang up the steps to the poop.

The fiendishness of the attack took me off my guard, for I was not
prepared for such a serious fracas during the first half hour in command
of the deck; but I saw there was little time to lose. There were no
belaying-pins handy, so the thing for me was to get in as close as
p