knees, his attitude that of a
man who is dazed, almost insensible. Watts had gone from the
bridge--he might have been whirled to death over the side like the
unfortunate foremast hand she had seen tossed from off the forecastle;
but Coke, whose charmed life apparently entitled him to act like a
lunatic, was actually balancing himself on top of the starboard rails
of the bridge by clinging to a stay, having climbed to that exposed
position in order to hurl oaths at the soldiers on shore. He had gone
berserk with rage. His cap had either fallen off or been torn from his
head by a bullet; his squat, powerful figure was shaking with frenzy;
he emphasized each curse with a passionate gesture of the free hand and
arm; he said among other things, and with no lack of forceful
adjectives, that if he could only come to close quarters with some of
the Portygee assassins on the island he would tear their sanguinary
livers out. It is an odd thing that men made animal by fury often use
that trope. They do really mean it. The liver is the earliest spoil
of the successful tiger.

The _Andromeda_, uncontrollable as destiny, and quite as heedless of
her human freight, swung round with the current until her bows pointed
to the islet occupied by the marksmen. All at once, Coke suspended his
flow of invectives and rushed into the chart-room, where Iris heard him
tearing lockers open and throwing their contents on the deck. To
enter, he was obliged to leap over the body of the dying man. The
action was grotesque, callous, almost inhuman; it jarred the girl's
agonized transports back into a species of spiritual calm, a mental
state akin to the fatalism often exhibited by Asiatics when death is
imminent and not to be denied. The apparent madness of the captain was
now more distressing to her than the certain loss of the ship or the
invisible missiles that clanged into white patches on the iron plates,
cut sudden holes and scars in the woodwork, or whirred through the air
with a buzzing whistle of singularly menacing sound. She began to be
afraid of remaining on the bridge; her fear was not due to the really
vital fact that it was so exposed; it arose from the purely feminine
consideration that she was sure Coke had become a raving maniac, and
she dreaded meeting him when, if ever, he reappeared.

A bullet struck the front frame of the chart-room, and several panes of
glass were shattered with a fearful din. That decided her. Coke