"It a chap your own size!" he yelled, and felled from behind, went
down himself.
IV
Up and down the deck the battle raged: here a scrimmage; there a single
fight; men at hand-grips; men hurling round-shot. They swayed, they
staggered about in each other's arms; they shocked, parted, came together
again. Dead men lay in the scuppers; wounded men crawled the deck;
and up and down among them the living reeled. One man, turned cur,
crouched under the bulwark with ghastly face uplifted, and met his
death, whimpering. Another, strangely quiet amid the dance of devils,
stood against the foremast, nursing a broken arm. Nobody heeded him.
They were too busy.
To Kit a sudden madness seemed to have possessed the world. The deck
danced before him. He was bumped; he was battered; he was hurled to
and fro--a twig in a torrent.
All was dreadful; all was dizzy. Strange faces with appalling eyes
rose before him; men breathing terribly flitted past. There was a smell
of blood and sweat in his nostrils; a sound of panting and blasphemies
in his ears.
This then was a battle--not much like the stories! All the same he
wished they wouldn't tread on his toes so.
Blindly the boy slashed about him.
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