“It stings, eh, Roy?  It burns!  It runs through your veins like fire!  Doesn’t it?  It’s a hot thought.  And here’s another one to keep it company—­ You can do nothing to prevent it!  To hairy old Fitz she’ll go—­and you can’t prevent it!  Think of that, Roy!”

Newman gave no sign he heard, but the black-hearted villain on the keg knew that the big fellow’s ears were open and that his words were like stabs in a raw wound.  He talked on, and described villainies to come and villainies accomplished; the tale of his misdeeds seemed to possess him.  He gloried in them, gloated over them.  And as I listened, I realized, ignorant young whelp though I was, that this man was different from any man I had ever met or imagined.  He wasn’t human; he was a freak, a human-looking thing with a tiger’s nature.

Always he reminded me of a cat, from the very first moment I clapped eyes upon him; never did he remind me more of a cat—­or tiger—­than when he sat upon the keg and teased Newman.  He seemed to purr his content with the situation.

“I know what you are thinking, Roy,” says he.  “You are thinking that my brave and upright second mate will prevent it happening to our dear little Mary?  Am I right, eh?  Vain thought.  Our friend, Lynch, will not be here to interfere.  I have seen to that.  He grows dangerous, does Jim Lynch, so—­elimination.  Ah, I could write a treatise upon the Art of Elimination—­couldn’t I?  Angus Swope, the great eliminator!  It is my specialty, Roy.

“Neatness, thoroughness, dispatch, everything shipshape, no loose ends flying—­that’s my style, Roy.  Now there was neatness and dispatch about my running you out of Freeport when I found your presence there inconvenient.  Don’t you think there was?  Eh, you great fool?  You pulled my chestnuts out of the fire very nicely indeed.  But I was not as thorough as I should have been in that affair.  A loose end, or two, eh, Roy?  Beasley—­and yourself.  Ah—­but I improved with practice.  I left no loose end that night in Bellingham, did I?  Unless the fact that your neck didn’t stretch, as I intended, could be called a loose end.  But then—­you’ll be tucked out of sight again very soon, and this time for good and all.  I never did believe in imprisonment for life, Roy; it is such a cruel punishment.  I’m a tender-hearted man, Roy—­ho, ho, that’s rich, eh?  I told that judge, after he sentenced you, that he would have been acting more kindly had he disregarded the jury’s recommendation and hanged you out of hand.  And do you know what he told me, Roy?  He said I was right, that you deserved hanging.  Ho, ho, deserved hanging!  And he was a godly man, Roy.

“Oh, what a great fool you were!  How easily I made you play my game!  That night you had me to dinner on board your ship, in Bellingham—­you never guessed why I fished for that invitation?  Why I persuaded you to send your mates ashore that night?  Just another of Angus’ scrapes, thought you; he wants to confide in me, and ask my advice.  Angus wants my help, thought you.  So I did, Roy, so I did.