Here he stooped unsteadily, picked up a piece of oily tow, and before Madden knew what he was about, drew out a match and set fire to the greasy mass.
Leonard made a jump, planted a cracking blow between Galton's eyes. The fellow went down like a tenpin and lay still. The American stamped out the blazing tow before the fire spread on the oily floor.
Just then he heard a yelling from the upper deck. Hardly knowing what to expect, he dived for the circular stairway and rushed up three steps at a jump.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SEA SERPENT
When a new crew is shipped on an old vessel, the mate's first duty is to search the sailors' dunnage for whiskey; when an old crew is shipped on a new vessel, that officer would do well to search the vessel for rum.
Madden had neglected this. While the American was in the engine room, the cockneys in the cook's galley had found intoxicants, had poured raw whiskey into their empty stomachs and the result was the quickest and most complete intoxication. When Madden regained the deck he found his crew singing, laughing, fighting, quarreling in an absurd medley.
Deschaillon roared out a French song. Two cockneys quarreled bitterly over what words he was saying. Mike Hogan jigged to the Frenchman's tune, but shouted as he danced that he was spoiling for a fight. The smell of spirits reeked over the tug as if someone had sprinkled her deck with liquor.
Madden looked with anxious eyes for Caradoc, but did not see him. Smith was probably stuck away in some hole, senseless with poison, his effort at sobriety frustrated, his moral courage shattered, his weeks of painful reform smashed.