Chapter 14
FROM THE CROW'S NESTThe night passed without incident, except for one thing that we
were unable to verify. At six bells, during the darkest hour of the
night that precedes the early dawn of summer, Adams, from the
crow's-nest, called down, in a panic, that there was something
crawling on all fours on the deck below him.
Burns, on watch at the companionway, ran forward with his
revolver, and narrowly escaped being brained—Adams at that moment
flinging down a marlinespike that he had carried aloft with
him.
I heard the crash and joined Burns, and together we went over
the deck and, both houses. Everything was quiet: the crew in
various attitudes of exhausted sleep, their chests and dittybags
around them; Oleson at the wheel; and Singleton in his jail-room,
breathing
