So all hesitancy vanished, and the pair descended into the cabin.

In the meantime, his two men, as was the wont of visiting sailors, had gone forward into the forecastle to do some visiting themselves.
Suddenly, from the cabin came a great, choking bellow, followed by all the sounds of a furious struggle.

It was the leopard and the lion, and the lion made all the noise.

Wolf Larsen was the leopard.
"You see the sacredness of our hospitality," I said bitterly to Maud Brewster.
She nodded her head that she heard, and I noted in her face the signs of the same sickness at sight or sound of violent struggle from which I had suffered so severely during my first weeks on the _Ghost_.
"Wouldn't it be better if you went forward, say by the steerage companion-way, until it is over ?" I suggested.
She shook her head and gazed at me pitifully.

She was not frightened, but appalled, rather, at the human animality of it.
"You will understand," I took advantage of the opportunity to say, "whatever part I take in what is going on and what is to come, that I am compelled to take it--if you and I are ever to get out of this scrape with our lives." "It is not nice--for me," I added.
"I understand," she said, in a weak, far-away voice, and her eyes showed me that she did understand.
The sounds from below soon died away.