; realizing that my strength was giving out. But
the fight went on, and I soon realized that his gun was soaked, or left
behind; otherwise he would have used it before this.

"I have often wondered if God and the angels watched that fight in
mid-ocean, or only hell and the devils. The nearest land to the west
must have been Cape Race, the nearest to the east the Azores, each
about five hundred miles away. I did not know the longitude; but I did
know that we had sailed due east since I was disrated, and that then we
were on the forty-seventh parallel.

"And so, in latitude forty-seven north, longitude unknown, two weakened
human brutes unable to strike a heavy and telling blow, yet animated by
a fear of death and love of life that twisted their features into
frenzied contortions (I judged mine by Macklin's), struggled feebly for
the possession of a mountaintop rising from the sea bed, on the
diminishing chance that some ship would come along to the rescue before
hunger, thirst, or a rising sea overcame them.

"I hardly know how it ended; I only knew that I found myself too weak
to breast the current, and then I gave up, and drifted. I went under
twice, I remember, and waited calmly for the end; but before the last
sinking I heard voices; then I was clutched by the hair, and as I was
dragged bodily into a boat I lost my senses. When I came to, the men
lifted me up, and I saw big Finnegan at the tiller, standing erect and
declaiming to something astern:

"'Stay there an' think it over, ye man-killin' shlave driver! Stay
there, ye devil out o' hell, an' may the min ye've killed come back to
kape ye company till yer master comes fur ye!'

"I took one look at Macklin. He was standing erect, breasting the
current with his arms folded, secure in the possession of the foothold
he had won from me. But he sent no call for help, and soon went out of
sight in the thinning fog as the boat sailed away.

"There is little more to this yarn. We never saw the other boat again,
and did not know the story they told if rescued. But among ourselves we
agreed to say nothing about the mutiny or the shooting or the
rock--only that we had struck something submerged, that the ship had
sunk, and that the captain, first mate, and three sailors had been
drowned. We were picked up in a few days, told this lie, and were not
questioned closely. Then I realized why the men had stood by me; they
wanted a shipped officer to justify the story.

"But