Removing the hat and loosing the black and red tie from around his neck, I blew out the light, and left him to determine a battle for the survival of the fittest.
CHAPTER XXII
Shore Leave—The Web-Toed Sailor—The Missionary Ship
I was wondering whether to go ashore to look for the crew, when I heard the second mate's voice saying: "Easy on your port oars. Give away hard on your starboard." As they came alongside the gangway I could see Riley and the Russian-Finn asleep in the bow of the cat-boat. Dago Joe was missing, and the others had had about all the rum they could stand. I gave the second mate orders to leave Riley and the Russian-Finn in the boat, as it was dangerous to try to get them on board while they were so drunk. Swanson spoke up, saying: "To Hell with you, we do what we damned please."
I was rather upset by this remark coming from the big Swede. I should have thought that he would have had enough of fighting on the trip south. Evidently the booze was working on him and he was intending revenge. I stepped over to the pin-rail and pulled out a wooden belaying-pin. Booze or no booze, I was going to make this brute respect me if I had to resort to old-time methods. Running down the gangway, I ordered all that could walk up to get there damned quick and pointed to Swanson, saying: "You will be the first to leave the boat." As the ship swung with the outgoing current, the moon revealed the expression of hatred on Swanson's face. The high cheek bones, the knitted viking-brows, the large cruel mouth, showing the irregular and vicious-looking tusks, the eyes no longer blue, whose pupils were so enlarged that the color had disappeared,—all this gave him just the look of a wild animal at bay.
Swanson jumped from the stern-sheets to the center of the boat, shouting: "Shove her off and we will go ashore again, and you may go to Hell." As he reached for the boat hook to shove her off or to use it on me if it should come handy, I did not wait for him to decide. Jumping into the boat, I knocked him down and ordered the others aboard.
Whether my sudden irruption amongst them with the belaying-pin was a counter-irritant for the booze they had within them or not I don't know. But the boat was cleared in two minutes, leaving Swanson, Riley and the Finn lying in the bottom. The second mate, although trying with a thick tongue to proclaim his innocence of having had even a glass of ale, was making heavy weather of it while going up the gangway. I reached for the water dipper and poured the salt, but warm, sea water over Swanson. After a few applications of this stimulating treatment he arose to his feet saying, "I tank I go on board now." I followed him up the gangway and forward to his bunk to make sure there would be no tricking from this brute. I remembered the cowardly kick on my forehead and resolved if there was any kicking to be done I would do it.
Walking aft, I heard splashing as if some one was overboard. On reaching the gangway I discovered that the Finn was missing from the boat. Ahead of the cat-boat lay a raft of lumber, and on the outside of it I could plainly see bubbles coming up, and wondered if this could not be the action of a vegetable gas.
But to my horror the Russian's head popped out of the water, and with it came a blood-curdling scream as he writhed about in his death struggles. Instead of making for the raft, he was fanning and kicking the water away from it.