of illness and strain glistening over his bare
head and colorless face. He ground his teeth at the sudden, almost
intolerable flashes of pain that gripped him when he moved his leg.
Still he persevered, grasped at a corner of the bunk and pushed
himself upright.

If it was possible for his white face to become paler, some last
vestige of color seemed to leave it. Claggett Chew threw up an arm to
catch on something to steady himself, swayed and closed his sunken
eyes. His arm caught the lamp, which, rocking, threw jet shadows as
jagged as its light was harsh. Claggett Chew's prominent broken nose,
and the deeply grooved lines running down from it to the thin lips
under his mustache, changed the cruelty of his face into a brutal
mask. To Chris, he scarcely looked human. He was a picture of all that
was heartless and evil. But holding to the edge of his bunk, weakened
and ill though he was, the power of his will still ruled his body.

He doesn't know when he's licked, Chris thought, and not knowing--he
isn't!

Then, trying to hoist himself upright, Claggett Chew began beckoning
and appealing to Osterbridge Hawsey, and Chris shook at the momentary
possibility that some noise or word would awaken his sleeping hiding
place.

"Osterbridge! Osterbridge!" Claggett Chew cried hoarsely. "Wake up!
Hear me!--Fire take your eyes!" he muttered in his rage, "can you not
rouse? Osterbridge! Osterbridge!"

But after a slight shift in position, Osterbridge Hawsey slept on.
Claggett Chew, his face livid with pain, blood weaving down his chin
where he had bitten his lip in an attempt to stifle his groans,
managed to push himself up and totter to a chair against which he
leaned weakly, calling out again: "Plague your bones! Osterbridge! You
sot! Help me--you sleazy fashionable!"

He started across the few feet of floor separating him from his
friend, and, stooped though he was to adjust his height to the
low-ceilinged cabin, nevertheless his bulk was a terrifying sight as
he stumbled and staggered forward. His hairless head nearly scraped
the ceiling, and his shoulders were as broad across as those of two
men. His hands, white but strong and bony, twitched at the finger ends
as if they were unused to idleness without hurting, or without the
handle of his whip to grasp.

Two steps forward, Chris saw, was all Claggett Chew needed to show him
where the parakeet had gone, snatch him up, and snuff out his life as
a candleflame is pinch