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The Mutiny of the Elsinore by Jack London
page 25 of 429 (05%)
house. I could not help marking the strength of Mr. Pike and Mr.
Mellaire. I had heard of the superhuman strength of madmen, but this
particular madman was as a wisp of straw in their hands. Once into
the bunk, Mr. Pike held down the struggling fool easily with one hand
while he dispatched the second mate for marlin with which to tie the
fellow's arms.

"Bughouse," Mr. Pike grinned at me. "I've seen some bughouse crews
in my time, but this one's the limit."

"What are you going to do?" I asked. "The man will bleed to death."

"And good riddance," he answered promptly. "We'll have our hands
full of him until we can lose him somehow. When he gets easy I'll
sew him up, that's all, if I have to ease him with a clout of the
jaw."

I glanced at the mate's huge paw and appreciated its anaesthetic
qualities. Out on deck again, I saw Captain West on the poop, hands
still in pockets, quite uninterested, gazing at a blue break in the
sky to the north-east. More than the mates and the maniac, more than
the drunken callousness of the men, did this quiet figure, hands in
pockets, impress upon me that I was in a different world from any I
had known.

Wada broke in upon my thoughts by telling me he had been sent to say
that Miss West was serving tea in the cabin.



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