Dan'l got up, choking for breath, his chin down on his chest. There was blood on him; his shirt was torn; his hair was wild. The mild, round face of the man was distorted by wrinkles of passion. His lip was bruised by a blow, and it puffed out in a surly, drunken way.... He stood there, tottering, looking with blinking eyes at the heap of men fighting at one side of the cabin.... Brander was in that heap somewhere. It was still less than thirty seconds since Dan'l had smashed Willis's jaw. Dan'l stepped unsteadily toward the heap of men and peered down at them and laid hands on them to pull them away.... They were too closely intertwined.... He backed off and looked around for a weapon. In a corner of the cabin he saw something that might serve.... The head of a killing lance.... A bar of metal three or four feet long, flattened at one end like the blade of a putty knife, and ground to the keenest edge.... In the whale-fisheries, it would be mounted on a staff; but there was no staff in it now. He picked the thing up, and balanced it in his hands, and walked gingerly back toward the striving knot of men. * * * * * When Brander dropped down into the cabin and through the open door saw Faith in Dan'l's arms, he was for an instant paralyzed.... Then, as rage surged up in him, he sensed the danger above him, and dodged to one side as Silva leaped down from the deck. Silva struck against Brander's hip, his knife slitting the air. Brander was thrown headlong, and Silva flung after him. Brander rolled on his back, catching Silva in the stomach with both feet, as the other two men dropped across his body. He had put little force into his kick at Silva, so that the man was unhurt. Brander gripped one of the men who had fallen on him, and whirled him under. At the same time, the other man attached himself to Brander's neck, his right arm about Brander's neck to choke him. Brander wedged his chin down and gripped this arm between his chin and his breast, holding it off a little from his throat. Then Silva came at him from the left side, and Brander's left hand flung out and gripped Silva's knife wrist....