At the inner end of the passage, having beaten, choked, and gouged the thief into an inert and senseless mass, the bullwhacker turned his overflowing energies against his new and too enthusiastic friend, and they rolled into the stateroom, out again, and toward the heaving pile at the upper end of the hall. Striking it in a careless, haphazard but solid manner, just as it was beginning to disintegrate into its bruised and angry units, the fighting pair acted upon it like a galvanic current on a reflex center; and forthwith the scramble became scrambled anew. Finally, by the aid of capstan-bars, boat hooks, axe handles, and cordwood, the boat's officers and crew managed to pry the mass apart and drag out one belligerent at a time. They lined them up just as Captain Newell galloped down the passage-way, dressed in a pair of trousers, reversed; one rubber boot and one red sock and a night shirt partly thrust inside the waistband of the trousers; but he was carefully and precisely hatted with a high-crowned beaver. He looked as if he were coming from a wake and going to a masquerade. Notwithstanding the very recent and exciting events he received a great amount of attention. "What-in-hell's-th'-matter?" he angrily demanded, glaring around him, a pistol upraised in one hand, the other gripping a seasoned piece of ash. "Answer-me-I-say-what-in-hell's-th'-matter-down-here?" "There was a fight," carefully explained the weary officer. "Hell's-bells-I-thought-it-was-a-prayer-meetin'!" yelped the captain. "Who-was-fightin'?" "_They_ was," answered the officer, waving both hands in all directions. "What-about?" The officer looked blank and scratched his head, carefully avoiding the twin knobs rising over one ear. "Damned if _I_ know, sir!" "Were _you_ fightin', Flynn?" demanded the captain aggressively and with raging suspicion. "Come, up with it, were you?" "No, sir; I was a-stoppin' it." "My G-d! Then don't you never dare start one!" snapped the captain, staring around. "You look like the British at N'Orleans," he told the line-up. "What was it all about? Hell's bells! It _must_ 'a' had a beginning!" "Yessir," replied the officer. "It sorta begun all at once, right after th' explosion." "What explosion?" "I dunno. I heard it, 'way up on th' hurricane deck, an' hustled right down here fast as I could run. Just as I got right over there," and he stepped forward and with his foot touched the exact spot, "that there stateroom door come bustin' out right at me. I sorta ducked to one side, an' plumb inter somebody that hit me on th' eye. I reckon th' fightin' was from then on. Excuse me, sir; but you got yore pants on upside-down--I means stern-foremost, sir." "What's my pants got to do with this disgraceful riot, or mebby mutiny?" blazed the reddening captain. He couldn't resist a downward glance over his person, and hastily slipped the red-socked foot behind its booted mate.