It
occurred in German Samoa. Bill King was hailed the champion
heavyweight of the American navy. He was a big brute of a man, a
veritable gorilla, one of those hard-hitting, rough-housing
chaps, and clever with his fists as well. He picked the quarrel,
and he kicked Otoo twice and struck him once before Otoo felt it
to be necessary to fight. I don't think it lasted four minutes,
at the end of which time Bill King was the unhappy possessor of
four broken ribs, a broken fore-arm, and a dislocated
shoulder-blade. Otoo knew nothing of scientific boxing. He was
merely a man-handler, and Bill King was something like three
months in recovering from the bit of man-handling he received
that afternoon on Apia beach.
But I am running ahead of my yarn. We shared the hatch-cover
between us. We took turn and turn about, one lying flat on the
cover and resting, while the other, submerged to the neck, merely
held on with his hands. For three days and nights, spell and
spell, on the cover and in the water, we drifted over the ocean.
Toward the last I was delirious most of the time, and there were
times, too, when I heard Otoo babbling and raving in his native
tongue.
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