"Answer the captain!" Mr. Pike snarled at him.

Oh, it was murder, sheer murder, that leapt into the gangster's eyes
for the instant, in acknowledgment of the snarl. Then he replied to
Captain West:

"I didn't wait to see, sir. But it's one whale of a devil."

"He's as big as a elephant, sir," volunteered Bill Quigley. "I
seen'm face to face, sir. He almost got me when I run out of the
fo'c's'le."

"Oh, Lord, sir!" Larry moaned. "The way he hit the house, sir. It
was the call to Judgment."

"Your theology is mixed, my man," Captain West smiled quietly, though
I could not help seeing how tired was his face and how tired were his
wonderful Samurai eyes.

He turned to the mate.

"Mr. Pike, will you please go for'ard and interview this devil?
Fasten him up and tie him down and I'll take a look at him in the
morning."

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Pike; and Kipling's line came to me:


"Woman, Man, or God or Devil, was there anything we feared?"