Quotation from: Elsinore

Written by: Jack London

I, too, by this time, was standing on the big hawser-bitts in a
position to see a man in the water who seemed deliberately swimming
away from the ship. He was a dark-skinned Mediterranean of some
sort, and his face, in a clear glimpse I caught of it, was distorted
by frenzy. His black eyes were maniacal. The line was so accurately
flung by the second mate that it fell across the man's shoulders, and
for several strokes his arms tangled in it ere he could swim clear.
This accomplished, he proceeded to scream some wild harangue and
once, as he uptossed his arms for emphasis, I saw in his hand the
blade of a long knife.