“He’s as big as a elephant, sir,” volunteered Bill Quigley. “I seen’m face to face, sir. He almost got me when I run out of the fo’c’s’le.”
“Oh, Lord, sir!” Larry moaned. “The way he hit the house, sir. It was the call to Judgment.”
“Your theology is mixed, my man,” Captain West smiled quietly, though I could not help seeing how tired was his face and how tired were his wonderful Samurai eyes.
He turned to the mate.
“Mr. Pike, will you please go for’ard and interview this devil? Fasten him up and tie him down and I’ll take a look at him in the morning.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Pike; and Kipling’s line came to me:
“Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared?”
And as I went for’ard through the wall of darkness after Mr. Pike and Mr. Mellaire along the freezing, slender, sea-swept bridge—not a sailor dared to accompany us—other lines of “The Galley Slave” drifted through my brain, such as:
“Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped in gold—
We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold. . . ”
And: