me in a dead calm, just like
the one through which we were passing.

"Two weeks," he said, "is a fair time for a ship to stay in the
doldrums, and you can be sure it is quite long enough for passengers and
crew.

"Passengers and crew sometimes die of the heat, and existence under such
circumstances becomes a burden. There are stories about ships that have
been in the doldrums six or eight months at a time, but I am not
inclined to believe them; for a man to stay in this terrific heat for
that length of time would be enough to drive him crazy.

"The steamer was three days in the calm belt of the Equator before we
struck the southeast trades, and had a breeze again. I don't want to
repeat my experiences with the doldrums.

"One day I heard a curious story about an incident on board an American
ship not far from the Cape of Good Hope. She was from Calcutta, and
bound to New York, and her crew consisted of American sailors, with the
exception of two Indian coolies who had been taken on board at Calcutta
because the ship was short-handed. One of these coolies had been put,
one in the starboard and the other in the port watch, and everything had
been quiet and peaceable on board the ship until the incident I am about
to describe.

"One night the ship was sailing quietly along, and some of the men
noticed, or remembered afterwards, that when the watches were changed,
the coolie who had been relieved from duty remained on deck. Shortly
after the change of watch, the two mates of the ship were standing near
the lee rail and talking with each other, when the two coolies came
along and one of them made the remark that he was sick. This remark was
evidently a signal, for instantly one of the coolies drew a knife and
stabbed the first mate to the heart, while simultaneously the other
coolie sprang with a knife at the second officer and gave him several
stabs in the chest.

"The first mate fell dead at the stroke of the knife, but the second
mate had sufficient strength left to crawl to the companionway leading
to the captain's room, where he called out, 'Captain Clark!' 'Captain
Clark!' and then ceased to breathe.

"The captain sprang from his bunk, and rushed on deck in his
night-clothes. At the top of the companion-steps he was violently
stabbed on the head and seized by the throat; he was quite unarmed and
struck out with his fists at the face of his assailant, hoping to blind
him. The coolie continued to stab him, and t