Gordon Young

“ Clobb went forward with a cutlas poised across his breast ready to slash. Men cleared their throats nervously, moved, craned necks, but stood where they were. They wanted first to see what would happen before doing anything themselves.
Clobb advanced with head drawn in and shoulders rounded. His heavy face glowered, distorting his bruised features to strike terror—as an animal shows fangs, as the savage marks himself hideously. ”

“ Their gaping faces followed his face on which they saw but could not read what was about to happen. Suspense and mystery are magicians that wait on fear. They had never seen anything so mysteriously fearful as the bronze-like figure that moved without sound and had come from they knew not where.
By the cabin door he stopped and pointed out on the deck in an unvoiced command.
His eyes did not leave them. He did not need to speak. He waited with the tense calmness of one who knows that he must and will be obeyed. They shifted from foot to foot, looked furtively from one to another, at Clobb ”

“ Brundage lay wearily, back to bulkhead, arm extended with his cutlas still in his fingers. He was covered with the blood of many wounds from head to thigh. Men, dead where they had fallen, lay about beyond his feet. Still, numbers had butchered him.
The man stooped low, peering into the blood covered face, wrinkled, still grim, dead, but that was all, otherwise unchanged. He had gone out to meet whatever there was to meet as he had gone through life, unafraid and unhumbled. ”