"Pack up and go for'ard."

This time Wolf Larsen's command was thrillingly imperative. The
boy glowered sullenly, but refused to move.

Then came another stirring of Wolf Larsen's tremendous strength.
It was utterly unexpected, and it was over and done with between
the ticks of two seconds. He had sprung fully six feet across the
deck and driven his fist into the other's stomach. At the same
moment, as though I had been struck myself, I felt a sickening
shock in the pit of my stomach. I instance this to show the
sensitiveness of my nervous organization at the time, and how
unused I was to spectacles of brutality. The cabin-boy--and he
weighed one hundred and sixty-five at the very least--crumpled up.
His body wrapped limply about the fist like a wet rag about a
stick. He lifted into the air, described a short curve, and struck
the deck alongside the corpse on his head and shoulders, where he
lay and writhed about in agony.

"Well?" Larsen asked of me. "Have you made up your mind?"

I had glanced occasionally at the approaching schooner, and it was
now almost abreast of us and not more than a couple of hundred
yards away. It was a very trim and neat little craft. I could see
a large, black number on one of its sails, and I had seen pictures
of pilot-boats.

"What vessel is that?" I asked.

"The pilot-boat Lady Mine," Wolf Larsen answered grimly. "Got rid