He marked Thrackles heavily over the eye.  There was a breathless pause; and then Thrackles, Pulz, the Nigger, and Perdosa attacked at once.

They caught the master unawares, and bore him to the deck.  I dropped at once to the ratlines, and commenced my descent.  Before I had reached the deck, however, Selover was afoot again, the four hanging to him like dogs.  In a moment more he had shaken them off; and before I could intervene, he had seized a belaying pin in either hand, and was hazing them up and down the deck.

“Mutiny, would you?” he shrilled.  “You poor swabs!  Forgot who was your captain, did ye?  Well, it’s Captain Ezra Selover, and you can lay to that!  It would need about eight fathom of stuff like you to tie me down.”

He chased them forward, and he chased them aft, and every time the pins fell, blood followed.  Finally they dived like rabbits into the forecastle hatch.  Captain Selover leaned down after them.

“Now tie yourselves up,” he advised, “and then come on deck and clean up after yourselves!” He turned to me.  “Mr. Eagen, turn out the crew to clean decks.”

I descended to the forecastle, followed immediately by Handy Solomon.  The latter had taken no part in the affair.  We found the men in horrible shape, what with the bruises and cuts, and bleeding freely.

“Now you’re a nice-looking Sunday school!” observed Handy Soloman, eyeing them sardonically.  “Tackel Old Scrubs, will ye?  Well, some needs a bale of cotton to fall on ’em afore they learns anything.  Enjoyed your little diversions, mates?  And w’at do you expect to gain?  I asks you that, now.  You poor little infants!  Ain’t you never tackled him afore?  Don’t remember a little brigatine, name of the Petrel! My eye, but you are a pack of damn fools!”

To this he received no reply.  The men sullenly assisted each other.  Then they went immediately on deck and to work.

After this taste of his quality, Captain Selover enjoyed a quiet ship.  We made good time, but for a long while nothing happened.  Finally the monotony was broken by an incident.

One evening before the night winds I sat in the shadow of the extra dory on top of the deck house.  The moon was but just beyond the full, so I suppose I must have been practically invisible.  Certainly the Nigger did not know of my presence, for he came and stood within three feet of me without giving any sign.  The companion was open.  In a moment some door below was opened also, and a scrap of conversation came up to us very clearly.

“You haf dem finished?” the doctor’s voice inquired.  “So, that iss well,”—­papers rustled for a few moments.  “And the r-result—­ ah—­exactly—­it iss that exactly.  Percy, mein son, that maigs the experiment exact.  We haf the process——­”

“I don’t see, sir, quite,” replied the voice of Percy Darrow, with a tinge of excitement.  “I can follow the logic of the experiment, of course—­so can I follow the logic of a trip to the moon.  But when you come to apply it—­how do you get your re-agent?  There’s no known method——­”