He was a large, strong man, but I was his equal. I do not know just what part of his body I first closed my hands upon. I only know that my thick finger nails sank in, wherever I gripped. He seemed no harder than a ripe melon, and I shifted my hold, while we reeled about, again and again, until I had him by the throat; then, with all my strength, I closed my hands until my thumb and finger nails met--somewhere. Then my limited consciousness went out in a flash of light, ending in darkness; and, when I came to, I was ironed in the lazaret, my head aching badly, blood on my face; and Fred, also manacled, sitting opposite, and looking at me. I could see, even in the half light, that his eyes were red from weeping. "What's happened?" I asked, as I painfully sat up, and looked at my manacles. "Oh, you're in for it," he answered loftily, yet with a jerky, hysterical twang to his voice. "You killed the mate, and the captain thinks I've killed the second mate. He struck you down with an iron belaying pin, and held me under his gun while the steward put the irons on us both. Oh, why did you do it? What will become of me?" He began to cry. "Shut up, you whimpering ninny!" I growled. "What troubles me just now is, what kind of a man _are_ you? You can fight, but you cry over it. If I killed the mate, I expect to swing for it, but I'm not crying." "But I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't appeared," he quavered. "You encouraged me." "What's that? You'll say I encouraged you to drink next, and get shanghaied!" "You did. I never drank in my life till I met you, the other night. I never fought anybody. I never swore. I woke up last night aboard this ship, but I don't know how I got here. It must have been because you shipped." "Yes, and pulled you on board with an invisible rope! Stop that kind of talk. I want to sleep." I felt the stupor that comes of extreme physical pain; for, besides the bruise on my head, caused by the captain's belaying pin, every bone and joint ached with the exertions I had put forth in my struggle with the mate. I lay back, but Fred would not be still. He mumbled to himself and a few words that I caught indicated that he wanted a drink. Opening my eyes and looking, I beheld him brushing his knees, and squirming to the length of his tether, as though to get away from something. "Drive it off, Jim," he choked. "Kick it away. It's afraid of you." Wondering what was in his mind, yet remembering the incident of his childhood and my own late nightmares, I struck out with my heels, and firmly commanded the creature to go. It went, I suppose, for he thanked me, and subsided; then I lay back, and was almost asleep when he roused me again, this time with a shriek. "The thing!" he gasped. "The thing without legs, or arms, or head! Help me, Jim!"