The last twenty-four hours have witnessed a carnival of brutality.

From cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion.

I scarcely know where to begin.

Wolf Larsen was really the cause of it.
The relations among the men, strained and made tense by feuds, quarrels and grudges, were in a state of unstable equilibrium, and evil passions flared up in flame like prairie-grass.
Thomas Mugridge is a sneak, a spy, an informer.

He has been attempting to curry favour and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captain by carrying tales of the men forward.