Max Pemberton

“ To such had debauch and the treachery of debauch brought us. And now awakening had come, some glimmer of sense, and by sense salvation. Dazed and reeling as the engineer Dingo was, he had yet wits enough to get at the liquid oxygen and flood the ship with a breath of life. Men, who were gasping like fishes one instant, were capering like fools at a fair the next. And with their salvation came a savage, a rebellious anger against the man who had put the cup of death to their lips. ”

“ It was awful to see Black at this moment, to hear the roar which escaped him, and to look upon his face. For I should tell you that the engineer Dingo had got back sufficient sense by this time to switch on the reserve battery and to give us light; and so we stood in its warm glow to watch this fierce encounter between the maddened Captain and the cat-like mutineer. No one interfered, nor do I think that Black wished for any interference. The moaning Frenchman, whose knife glittered as the light struck upon it, became an animal again at his enemy's approach. ”

“ I heard the bones cracking as bones are cracked by a dog, and I thought that the Frenchman's arm was gone, and that it would not lift a knife again for many a long day.
This was a dreadful scene, and I would well draw the curtain upon it. If I cannot do so wholly it is because of that sense of truth which bids me tell you both the best and the worst of the pirates. I must speak of Black in his better moods and of those which reveal the darker side. We had gone down to the engine-room, remember, upon the very verge of death by suffocation. ”

“ I shut the cabin door softly, and, following the corridor, came at last to the ladder by which you reach the engine-room. Lights burned here, but seemed to be at their last gasp. A fitful current waxed and waned upon the wires; the lamps were now aglow, now almost gone, and yet they permitted me to take in the scene below at a glance, and to recognize Jack-o'-Lantern and the Frenchman they called the Leopard. The latter was poised upon the rail of the dynamo; he had a long sheath-knife in his hand, and he dared the other to come near him. ”

“ I am strong, and can always take good care of myself in a common fray—gloves or singlestick, or a bout at wrestling, I care not what it may be; but this fellow was altogether too quick for me. Ducking his head so that his forehead almost touched the ground, he made a sudden move backward, and I had lost him. ”