The Mutiny of the Elsinore by Jack London
page 25 of 429 (05%)
page 25 of 429 (05%)
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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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