next. It looks to me as if it would be a good thing if you went off
there to settle up the account right now. But I'm not going to take upon
myself to be your hangman. I'm just going to give you a chance of
pegging out, and I sincerely hope you'll take it. I've brought our
friend here to be your room mate for the evening. It's just about
nightfall now, and you've got to stay with him till daybreak."

"You coward!" hissed the man. "You coward! You coward!" he screamed.

"Think so?" said Kettle gravely. "Then if that's your idea, I'll stay
here in the room, too, and take my risks. God's seen the game, and I'll
guess He'll hand over the beans fairly."

Perspiration stood in beads on all their faces. The room, the one
unclean room of the ship, was full of breathless heat, and stale with
the lees of drink. Kettle, in his spruce-white drill clothes, stood out
against the squalor and the disorder, as a mirror might upon a
coal-heap.

The Portuguese captain, with nerves smashed by his spell of debauch,
played a score of parts. First he was aggressive, asserting his rights
as a man and the ship's master, and demanding the key of the door. Then
he was warlike, till his frenzied attack earned him such a hiding that
he was glad enough to crawl back on to the mattress of his bunk. Then he
was beseeching. And then he began to be troubled with zoological
hauntings, which occupied him till the baking air cooled with the
approach of the dawn.

The smitten negro on the settee gave now and then a moan, but for the
most part did his dying with quietness. Had Kettle deliberately worked