henchman, the able sailorman, battered and grizzled, branded and
galled, the servant of the sweep-head that made mastery of the sea.
I know him now. He can never again offend me. I forgive him
everything--the whiskey raw on his breath the day I came aboard at
Baltimore, his moroseness when sea and wind do not favour, his
savagery to the men, his snarl and his sneer.

On top the 'midship-house we got a ducking that makes me shiver to
recall. I had dressed too hastily properly to fasten my oilskin
about my neck, so that I was wet to the skin. We crossed the next
span of bridge through driving spray, and were well upon the top of
the for'ard-house when something adrift on the deck hit the for'ard
wall a terrific smash.

"Whatever it is, it's playing the devil," Mr. Pike yelled in my ear,
as he endeavoured to locate the thing by the dry-battery light-stick
which he carried.

The pencil of light travelled over dark water, white with foam, that
churned upon the deck.

"There it goes!" Mr. Pike cried, as the Elsinore dipped by the head
and hurtled the water for'ard.

The light went out as the three of us caught holds and crouched to a
deluge of water from overside. As we emerged, from under the
forecastle-head we heard a tremendous thumping and battering. Then,
as the bow lifted, for an instant in the pencil of light that
immediately lost it, I glimpsed a vague black object that bounded
down the inclined deck where no water was. What became of it we