"Captain Williamson caught my motion. 'Port! port, sirrah!' he sang out sternly; '_back_ with the helm, d' ye hear!' and pulling out a pistol, he levelled it at me with one hand, while he held a second in the other. 'Land!--land!' shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it came more like a shriek than a shout--'I'll be there though a thousand mutineers----' His eye was like a wild beast's. That moment the truth glanced across me--this was the _green leaf_, no doubt, the Scotch mate talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him, as I'd seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. 'Twas no use trying to be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed, and looked him straight in the face with a smile--when his eye wavered, he slowly lowered his pistol, then _laughed_, waving his hand towards the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you'd have heard him cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and grappled his arms fast, though he'd got the furious power of a madman, and, during half-a-minute, 'twas wrestle for life with me. But the line was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on the deck, just as one of the mates, with some of the crew, were struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane, having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle-light. They looked from me to the captain. The ugly topman made a sign, as much as to say, Knock the fellow down; but the whole lot hung back before the couple of pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and others of the men, who knew from Jacobs what I was, came shoving along, evidently aware what a case we were in.