The Golden Bough had a topgallant foc’sle, the port and starboard sides divided by a partition that reached not quite to the deck above, and which contained a connecting door.  Newman and I had stumbled into the port foc’sle the previous night, and as I sat up, I discovered that the babel of sound came from the starboard side of the partition.  I swung up into the bunk above my head, raised my eyes above the partition, and looked down.

I saw Mister Lynch, the second mate, standing in the middle of the starboard foc’sle’s floor.  He was turning to the crew with a vengeance.  His method was simple, effective, but rather ungentle.  His long arm would dart into a bunk where lay huddled a formless heap of rags.  This heap of rags, yanked bodily out of bed, would resolve itself into a limp and drunken man.  Then Mister Lynch would commence to eject life into the sodden lump, working scientifically and dispassionately, and bellowing the while ferocious oaths in the victim’s ear.

“Out on deck with you!” he would cry, shaking the limp bundle much as a dog would shake a rat.  A sharp clout on either jaw would elicit a profane protest from the patient.  The toe of his heavy boot, sharply applied where it would do the most good, would produce further evidences of life.  Then Lynch would take firm grasp of the scruff of the neck and seat of the breeches, and hurl the resurrected one through the door onto the deck, and out of range of my vision.  A waspish voice streaming blistering oaths proved that Mister Fitzgibbon was welcoming each as he emerged into daylight.  Another voice, melodiously penetrating the uproar, proved another man was watching the crew turn to.  I recognized the silky, musical voice of Yankee Swope.  “Stir them up, Mister!  Make them jump!  My ship is no hotel!” is what it said.

The second mate boosted the starboard foc’sle’s last occupant deckwards; then he paused a moment for a breathing spell.  Next, his roving eye rested upon my face blinking down at him from the top of the wall.

“Oh, ho—­so you have come to life, have you!” he addressed me.  “The Swede said you would be dead until afternoon!”

He stepped through the connecting door, into my side of the foc’sle, and looked about.  I leaped down from the upper bunk and stood before him, feeling rather sheepish at having been discovered spying.

“Where is that big jasper who came aboard with you?” he suddenly demanded of me.

“Why;—­there!” I replied promptly, indicating the bunk opposite the one in which I had slept.

Then, I became aware that Newman was not in that bunk; and a rapid survey of the foc’sle showed he was not in any bunk.  He was gone, though his sea-bag was still lying on the floor.  The bunk I thought he was in contained an occupant of very different aspect from my grim companion of the night before.

A short, spare man of some thirty years, wearing an old red flannel shirt, was stretched out upon the bare bunk-boards.  Lynch and I contemplated him in silence for a moment.