"It's a bad occupation, and you ought to quit it.

But your wound will leave a scar, and you will not like to say that it was made by one whom you kidnapped, and undertook to carry away to his death." The captain in a long career of crime and cruelty had met with but few checks, and to experience one now from the hands of a lad was bitter beyond endurance.

The sting was all the greater because of his knowledge that the two sailors who still exchanged looks but no chuckles, were witnesses of it.

The blood falling from his left cheek stained his left shoulder and he was a gruesome sight.

He rushed in again, mad with anger.
"Worse and worse, captain," said his young opponent.