My face was buried in the smothering folds of the threshing sail; then Newman had drawn me up until my body balanced on the yard.  A second later my feet were again on the foot rope, and my hands fastened for dear life to the jackstay.

I was conscious of using my voice then.  Aye—­but I swore!  “By heaven, he let go the port brace!” I yelled to Newman.

For answer, Newman grabbed me around the waist, just as a fork of lightning zigzagged through the sky.  For the briefest instant, the ship stood out in a bright light.  Far below us, on the deck, we saw Captain Swope standing, looking up at us.  Then blackness again.  I felt myself for a second time jerked clear of my foothold—­to immediately wrap my limbs about a wire rope.  For Newman had leaped for a backstay, as the yard swung close, and carried me with him.

For a moment we hung there, one above the other, then we commenced to slide to the deck.  Mister Lynch’s voice came booming up to us, and we saw the light of a lantern bobbing about.  A moment later we clattered off the poop, on to the main deck.

A group was bunched together in the lee of the cabin, Captain Swope, and Lynch and the tradesmen.  Lynch carried the lighted hurricane lamp that hung handy in a sheltered nook during the night.  Forward, a respectful distance, the stiffs of the watch made a vague blot in the gloom.  As, we came down the poop ladder a voice I recognized as Boston’s called to us from this last group, “He tried to get you, Big ’Un!” So I knew that the lightning flash had revealed to the watch what it had revealed to us.

“The brace was slipped,” said Newman to Lynch.

“I know,” replied the second mate, shortly.  There was contempt in his voice, and I knew, when I looked at his grim, disdainful face, that he had had no hand in the affair.  Bucko Lynch might kill a man in what he considered the line of duty, but snapping men off a yardarm was not his style.  But I also knew that he was an officer of an American ship, and would consider it his duty to back up his captain no matter what villainy the latter attempted.

Swope smiled sweetly at us.  One might think that a man, even a ship’s autocrat, when detected in an attempt at cold-blooded murder, would make some specious explanation of his act.  Not Swope.  No hypocritical contrition showed in the face the lantern lighted; rather, a cool, pitiless inhumanity that squeezed my bowels, even while rage surged within me.

We had understood that Swope was drunk for the past three days, but the smiling features showed no mark of his dissipation.  Neither did he exhibit any of the fear he had shown at Newman’s sudden appearance the other afternoon.  It was plain that Captain Swope had taken heartening counsel with himself regarding the danger he might incur from Newman’s presence on board.  Whatever was the mysterious feud between the two, Swope had the upper hand.  He rested secure in the knowledge of his power as captain, in his knowledge of Newman’s helplessness as a mere foremast hand.