tragedy, Roddy. Here, against the
glare on the Pacific, it challenged all doom, broad and unashamed.
I need hardly tell you that Grimalson, at the opening of this
harangue, had dropped his fishing-line, clutched his gaff, and
whirled about furiously. But he faced three determined men, and
Webster's loose hand played with a revolver. Twice or thrice
Grimalson essayed to interrupt; but Jarvis was a man with a prepared
speech: and, backed by Webster's free hand, he delivered it straight
out at me to the last word over Grimalson's shoulder.

"Then, as he concluded, there ensued the beastliest scene of all.
Grimalson, from facing these three slow, determined men, took a swift
turn right about and struck at me with the gaff. They clutched at
him and he faced about again, dropping the gaff, springing to the
thwart and hitting right and left. Webster sprang also to the thwart
and landed him a stunner on the point of the jaw which sent him
overboard from the rocking boat.

"Now Webster was, in ordinary life, a religious man, and a Methodist.
At sight of what he had done he ran to the boat's side, making
ineffectual grabs to recover the body, which floated for a moment or
two, with the senseless hands afloat or spread on the waters, as if
in ghastly benediction. And then, as I put up helm, as if hauled
down on a line, the trunk and head disappeared from view and a bloody
smear came up, oozing and spreading. Jarvis called out that he had
seen a shark's fin.

"I did not see it, being occupied in rounding up the boat to recover
the body: doing this, too, with my left hand, in no small pain.
For Grimalson's stroke with the gaff had lacerated my right fore-arm,
tearing away a strip of my rolled-up shirt-sleeve.

"And then. . . . My God, Roddy!--Farrell, who had roused himself up
at the scrimmage, had his mouth fastened on my arm, mad with thirst,
sucking the blood! Oh, you have to go through these things to
understand! . . . And I said I wouldn't tell. . . . I beat at him;
but it was Santa who pushed him off.

"Webster had sunk, sobbing, with his face on his hands that gripped
the gunwale. We were all mad. I held out my bleeding fore-arm to
Santa, who was tearing a bandage for it.

"'Your husband has drunk,' I said.

"'Ah, pity!' said she, softly, taking the first deft turn of the
bandage. 'Must you, too, be a beast?'

"Jarvis, meanwhile, like a man dulled to all tragedy had gone to the
boat's side and was hauli