"Well, I hardly know how the trouble started. It was partly due to our losing our knives, for a sailor without a knife is like a mechanic without tools. It put us all in a bad humor; we had to untie with our fingers rackings, whippings, and stops which ordinarily we would have cut. And one day, when the passenger had his apparatus on the poop, a fierce squall hit us, and soon developed into a gale that demanded the taking in of canvas. There was no time to lift those heavy tanks and flasks down below, so, while we hauled on downhauls, clewlines, and buntlines, the passenger remained by his property, watching and guarding it. "We had trouble at once from the lack of our knives, for the coils of all halyards had been stopped up clear of the deck, and we had to untie these while the three bullies of the after-guard yelled at us. Seas began boarding us, too, and that made matters worse. But finally we got the two royals, the gafftopsail, and the flying jib down, and the courses clewed up; but while the latter was being done, I and two of the small fry went aloft to furl, my job being the fore royal. I furled it, and had started down, when I looked below, and saw the whole crowd on deck fighting the two mates, with the helmsman running forward to join the row, leaving the skipper at the wheel. "I slid down by the royal backstay, for while I had no great fellow-feeling for the officers, still, they were my countrymen, and I had no desire to take part in mutiny. Before I reached the deck, however, the fight was over, as far the mates were concerned. They were running aft, for their guns, I suppose, while all but Pango Sam lay stretched out on the deck, and he met me at the rail with murder in his eyes, knowing instinctively, I suppose, that I was not on his side. "As I jumped to the deck and reached for a belaying pin, he grabbed me. I was utterly helpless in the grasp of that giant. He roared inarticulately, and frothed at the mouth as he lifted me at full length over his head, to dash me to the deck. "But, as I told you, I merely slid down, to paralyze my crazy bone on hard ice--ice, remember, in the tropics. When I picked myself up Pango Sam was still standing, but dead and stiff, his feet frozen in the ice that covered the deck. Then I saw our passenger flat on his back. He never recovered his reason. His last intelligent speech was given as he fell to the deck, which was about a second or so after I fell myself. While at the wheel, a few days later, I heard the skipper quote it to the mate. It was: 'God have mercy upon my soul!' After that he uttered nothing but gibberish." Behind us the sound of footsteps came to our ears: but before we could turn, or arise, a voice, fervent and agonized, repeated: "God have mercy upon my soul!" And Old Bill launched headlong between us, and lay unconscious on the floor at the foot of the easel. "Another spell," said my neighbor. "It was coming to him, I guess. Help me lift him to your couch."