"Ugh!--" he gasped--"ugh! You son of perdition--ugh! Why in thunder don't
you look where you're running--ugh!--I'll break your rascally young
neck--ugh--when I get my wind."

It was Kipping, and for the second time he had lost his mildness.

As he clutched at me fiercely, I dodged and fled. Later, when I was hauling
at his side, he seemed to have forgotten the accident; but I knew well
enough that he had not. He was not the kind that forgets accidents. His
silence troubled me. How much, I wondered, had he heard of what was going
on in the galley?



CHAPTER IV

A PIECE OF PIE


At two bells there sounded the sonorous call, "Sail ho!"

"Where away?" cried Mr. Falk.

"One point off the larboard bow."

In all the days since we had lost sight of land, we had seen but one other
sail, which had appeared only to disappear again beyond the horizon. It
seemed probable, however, that we should speak this second vessel, a brig
whose course crossed our own. Captain Whidden came on deck and assumed