I don’t know why he didn’t shoot me dead; well, yes, I think I do. I think his wife interceded for me and I think he believed the proper punishment could only be something everlastingly shameful and as painful as possible. He had me triced up by the thumbs and flogged in the sight of the crew. I was flogged till I lost consciousness. It was two days before I could stand a watch. My only idea then was to kill him. I told him so, which was an unnecessary thing to do. He took precautions, however, such as seeing that I had no weapons, and never giving me an opportunity to attack him. Mrs. Hawkins kept to her room; I had my work to do, and that went on as though nothing had happened. No private affair, no matter how serious, relaxes the discipline of the sea. When I told Captain Hawkins that I would kill him some day he only looked at me and said: “You’re a good ship’s officer but you’re a disgrace to salt water. If you want to kill a man, the first man for you to kill is Jacob King.” I thought he meant suicide--“go drown yourself” as the contemptuous phrase of the fo’c’s’le puts it. It was years before I saw what he meant by that “If you want to kill a man, the first man for you to kill is Jacob King.” I know now just what he was driving at. I have killed Jacob King. I have killed my man. I won’t need to kill another. But that has come a long time after. A long time. Too long, maybe. When we reached Shanghai I got my discharge, of course, and a good discharge it was, for I had done my work well and Captain Hawkins, as fine a seaman as ever lived, was strictly just. I stayed ashore awhile and lived an evil life, drinking and smoking opium and consorting with thieves and ticket-of-leave men and all the riffraff of an Eastern seaport. All the while I was haunted by the remembrance of Keturah Hawkins. Drunk or sober, sane or in opium dreams, I saw her--saw her great cables of dark red hair, her white skin, her dazzling blue eyes, her delightful smile that she had smiled expressly for the benefit of the young and capable first mate of her husband’s fine ship. If I had been able to do it I would have possessed myself of her even then. I would have killed her husband, I would have killed every one aboard the _China Castle_, to have her. In opium dreams I did kill them all; I slew all Shanghai and burned the city and launched as many ships to pursue her as were launched to bring back Helen from ancient Troy. All dreams, all mad delusions! I was a fevered, burning, babbling, stupefied wretch of a sailor with no money in my pockets and nothing to fall back upon but a splendid ruggedness of body and a good discharge as first mate.