[as he grasped]
[returning ignominiously to]
[half a dozen ratlines]
[Confound Cain!]
[the dumbfounded men]
"boatswain" is abbreviated to [bo's'un] (3 times) and [bo'sun] (41 times) in this book. Because both spellings are correct they have been left unchanged.
[to bet a bottle of '14 Champagne to a Corona Corona]: the double word "Corona" is not a typographical error, but an expensive kind of cigar.
Obvious punctuation/spelling errors were corrected without note.