For a moment I thought he meant to strike me, but I appeared such a miserable, dejected specimen of humanity that the fierce anger died slowly out of his eyes.
"Francisco," he called sternly, "heave this thing overboard, and be lively about it! Saints of Mercy! he smells like a butcher-boat in the tropics." Hustled, dragged, cuffed, mercilessly kicked, the fellows got me out upon the open deck at last; I caught one fleeting glimpse of the great masts, the white, gleaming planks under foot, the horrified, upturned, face of Alphonse in the little boat beneath, and then, with a heave and a curse, over I went, sprawling down from rail to river, as terrified a darky as ever made hasty departure from a man-of-war..