"For an instant I quavered before the fellow's hungry glare, his tiger eyes fixed on mine, the knife in his hand, the sail smothering me as it flapped in my face, while below were the black sea and half-lighted deck. Were he to strike, no trace would be left of me. I was a greenhorn, and it would be supposed I had missed my hold and fallen clear of the ship. "Bracing myself, I twisted a reefer around my wrist for better hold, determined, if he moved an inch nearer, to kick him square in the face. But at that instant a sea broke over the starboard bow, wrenching the ship fore and aft and jerking the yards as if they had been so many tent-poles. Then came a horrible shriek, and looking down I saw the Portuguese clutching wildly at the ratlines, clear the ship's side, and strike the water head-foremost. 'Man overboard!' I yelled at the top of my lungs, slid to the deck, and ran into the arms of the first mate, who had been watching us and who had seen the whole thing. "Some of the crew made a spring for the davits, I among them. But the mate shook his head. "'Ain't no use lowerin',' he said. 'Besides, he ain't worth savin'.' "That night I had to crawl over the dead man's empty berth; his pillow and quilt were just as he had left them, all tumbled and mussed, and his tin tobacco-box where he had laid it. Try as I would as I lay awake in my warm bunk and thought of him out in the sea, and my own close shave for life, I could not get rid of a certain uncanny feeling--something akin to the sensation as that of which Lemois was speaking. Only an instant's time had saved me from the same awful plunge--his last in life. I never got over the feeling until we reached port, for his berth was left untouched and his tin tobacco-box still lay beside his pillow. Even now when a sailor or fisherman pulls out an old tin box--they are all pretty much alike--or cuts a plug with a sheath knife, it gives me a shudder." "Served the brute right!" cried Louis. "Very good story, Herbert--a little exaggerated in parts, particularly where you were so absent-minded as to select the face of the gentleman for your murderous kick, but it's all right: very good story. I could freeze you all solid by an experience I had with an Apache who followed me on my way to Montmartre last week, but I won't." "Give it to us, Louis!" cried everybody in unison. "No!" "Well, why not?" I demanded. "Because he turned down the next street. I said I _could_, and I would if he'd kept on after me. Your turn, Brierley. We haven't heard from you since you kept school for crows and wild ducks and taught them how to dodge bird shot. Unhook your ear-flaps, gentlemen; the distinguished naturalist is about to relate another one of his soul-stirring adventures--pure fiction, of course, but none the less entertaining."