CONTENTS _PART I_ CHAPTER I "THE YANKEE HELL-SHIP" 3 CHAPTER II "THE RULE OF THE BELAYING-PIN" 13 CHAPTER III "THE USE OF A SHEATH-KNIFE" 27 CHAPTER IV "BARBARISM" 37 CHAPTER V "IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT" 48 CHAPTER VI "THE FATAL RED LEAD" 59 CHAPTER VII "IN THE SECOND DOG-WATCH" 75 CHAPTER VIII "ON THE FOC'S'LE HEAD" 89 CHAPTER IX "THE GLORY OF THE STARS" 99 CHAPTER X "STUDPOKER BOB'S MALADY" 109 CHAPTER XI "THE STORMFIEND" 118 CHAPTER XII "A CALL FOR NERVE" 132 CHAPTER XIII "THE MAN WITH THE GUN" 143 _PART II_ CHAPTER I "ADRIFT" 157 CHAPTER II "THE _OCMULGEE_" 167 CHAPTER III "THE BURNING OF THE SOUTH SEAMAN" 179 CHAPTER IV "THE OPEN BOAT" 194 CHAPTER V "THE SPELL OF THE MOON" 209 CHAPTER VI "THE ATOLL" 218 CHAPTER VII "LOYOLA" 230 CHAPTER VIII "THE FIGHT ON THE SANDS" 239 CHAPTER IX "THE LYNCHING" 253 CHAPTER X "THE _BLACK ADDER_" 272 CHAPTER XI "A SEA FIGHT UNDER THE STARS" 291 CHAPTER XII "THE PLUCK OF WOMAN" 303 CHAPTER XIII "PAPEETE" 318 PART I CHAPTER I "THE YANKEE HELL-SHIP" Bucking Broncho awoke to the familiar cry of "Roll out, roll out, show a leg!" and thinking it was the call of the Round Up Boss in the early morning, he opened his eyes and sat up. The sight that met his gaze considerably astonished him, and the foc's'le, with its double row of bunks, its stuffy atmosphere, and its swinging oil-lamp, he mistook for some mining-camp shanty. Slowly his half-shut eyes took in the details of the gloomy den, into which the grey light of dawn had as yet hardly penetrated. Round him lay men in every condition of drunkenness, some prone upon the deck, others hanging half in and half out of their bunks, all apparently still in the stupors of a late carouse. Stretched upon a chest right under his bunk lay a ghastly object clothed in greasy, blood-stained rags, which but for its hoarse rattling breathing he would have taken for a corpse.