down the steps, moaning piteously; and, as he was being ironed to the next stanchion, Tom recognized, by the light of the mate's lantern, the ragged violator of precedent.
"Blow me, matey, but yer hard to kill," he said, when the mate had gone. "I thought you were done for. Know me? I'm the feller that advised ye to go slow."
"Oh, yes. What happened? Why are we here? What place is this?"
"'Tween-decks. We were unkind to the mates—blast 'em—that's why we're here. I'd ha' knocked the first mate stirrer than he knocked you 'f it hadn't been for his gun."
"Was it the first mate who struck me? Oh, there'll be an accounting—my head! Oh, my head!" groaned the man. "I believe I'm injured for life."
"Ye were too reckless, old man; ye oughter ha' watched for the mate. He's a holy terror; he half-killed all hands yesterday; that's why we couldn't stand by ye better. He jumped off the fo'castle on to Dennis, an' the two o' them kicked him all round the fore-hatch. David was knocked endwise with a heaver for goin' to windward o' the skipper, an' his teeth are all gone. Lars got soaked at the wheel—that's against the law, too; and ye see him get it again to-night. Dutch Ned let go the to'gallant sheet, an' the second mate sent him twenty feet. I got it in the nose just 'fore goin' below at eight bells, for no reason on earth but 'cause I was the only man left who hadn't got soaked—besides Fred, the boy; he got clear. An' the other watch got it just as bad. We're all used up an' no good at all; but you got it hardest, 'cause ye earned it. Blow me, but ye done the second mate up brown."
"But why is it necessary, and why do you submit to it—all you men at the mercy of three?"
"Pistols, matey, the pistols. An' Yankee mates are all trained buckoes—rather fight than eat. When the fists an' boots an' belayin'-pins an' handspikes can't do the business they pull their guns—we knew that. An' then, too, mutiny's a serious thing when yer hauled up 'fore the commissioner: all the law's mostly against the sailors."
"I have been drugged, kidnapped, and twice beaten insensible; there is law against that."
"If ye can get it; but ye can't."
"I'll try—I'll try; I've read a little law."
"Yer not a sailorman, matey, I can see; what's yer trade?"
"I have none."
"Never worked?"
"No."
"Jim says you fellers just hoof it round the country, sleepin' under haystacks summer-times an' goin' to jail winters. It's better than goin' to sea. But ye talk like a man that's been educated once. What brought ye down to this—whisky?"
"Y-e-s, and knockout drops. My head is getting worse. I can't talk. How can I lie down? What fiends they are! My head—my head!"
Tom advised the suffering wretch how to dispose himself, and again considered the question of sleep. But no sleep came to him that night. The injured man began muttering to himself; and this muttering, at times intelligible, at others not, often rising to a shriek of pain, lasted until morning and kept him awake. In spite of his life of hard knocks, Tom had so far learned nothing of the alternate delirium and lucidity consequent on slight brain concussion, and supposed this to be the raving of insanity. Kind-hearted as he was, the ceaseless jargon grated on his nerves. He listened to it and the sounds of shortening sail overhead, and wished himself on deck, in the wet and cold, away from this suffering, beyond his power to understand or relieve. At daylight, nearly at the shrieking point himself, he welcomed the throwing back of the scuttle and the appearance of the first mate, who, in yellow sou'-wester and long oilskin coat, descended the ladder and stepped to the side of his victim. Mr. Pratt was a young man, well put together, with black hair and whiskers, and dull gray eyes set in a putty-colored face. It was a face that might grin, but never could smile; yet it wore, as it bent over the moaning, tossing bundle of rags and blood, an expression of mental disquiet.
"How long's he been like this?" he suddenly demanded of Tom.
"Ever since he come down, sir. If you please, sir, I'd like to be put somewhere else or turn to. I wasn't myself last night, Mr. Pratt. I'll be crazy as he is, if I stay here with him."
In answer to this, Tom received two or three kicks in the ribs; then the officer went on deck, returning in a few moments with the captain of the ship—a man who in the role of jolly sea-dog might play a part well borne out by his physique. He was the very opposite in appearance to his
