Meanwhile the Blitzen, sorely hampered by calms and variable winds, crept slowly and painfully towards her destination. I was so much absorbed with the education and company of You Sing that I lost all my usual interest in the progress of the vessel, and did not even wonder when we were going to reach our next port--a speculation that had hitherto always had great charms for me. But one morning before breakfast I was dreadfully affrighted to hear a fierce altercation on deck. It had always been my ill-fortune hitherto to find myself the ultimate vicarious sacrifice in all cases of trouble, and even to this day the old feeling of dread still exists--a feeling that whatever row is going on I shall presently be made to suffer for it; and the well-remembered sensation of sinking at the pit of the stomach comes back, making me for the moment quite ill. So, trembling all over, I peered out of the pantry window on to the main deck, and saw the mate confronting three men of his watch, who, with inflamed faces and fierce gestures, were evidently threatening his life. Now, there had never before been the slightest sign of insubordination on board, the discipline seeming as near perfection as possible, and therefore this sudden outbreak was most alarming. A swift step passed the pantry door, and instantly I saw the skipper rushing forward. Without a word he plunged into the midst of the angry four, and seizing the foremost seaman by the throat and waist hurled him crashing against the bulwarks. At the same moment the mate sprang at another man, as if to serve him in the same manner; but, missing his grasp, he stumbled and fell on his knees. A stifled scream burst from my dry lips as I saw the glint of steel; the seaman attacked had drawn his knife, and as the mate fell the weapon descended with fearful force between his shoulders. I heard the ugly sound right aft, and it remains with me to-day. The skipper, however, with the agility of a porpoise, instantly flung himself on the two men, and fought as if he had the sinews of ten.
Compared with the noise of the preliminary quarrel, this life-and-death struggle was silence itself; but I could hear the laboured breathings of the combatants coming in hoarse gasps, and the cracking of the joints as the writhing bodies knotted and strained. There was a scream behind me, a rustle of skirts, and out of the cabin rushed the skipper’s wife, with flying hair and outstretched arms. But before she was halfway to the spot there was a swoop as of some huge bird past her, and the second mate, the youngest officer in the ship and the biggest man, alighted in the fray like a hungry tiger. I did not see the other watch of the crew arrive, but they were there, and fighting as fiercely as the rest.