Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/350

536 "Kicking seems to be the vogue here," said the man as he rolled out, "and I've been a Princeton half-back, so I'm in it. I've been kicked out of the cabin and off the quarter-deck of my own ship—pounded into insensibility with boot-heels. Why is this?"

"Now look-a here," said a sturdy, thoughtful-eyed Englishman—he who had vociferated for oil when the watch went below—"take my advice: turn to an' be civil, an' do as yer told. You can't run the after-end of her—ye've tried it; you can't run the fo'castle—there's too many against you. Stow that guff 'bout ownin' this ship or ye'll be killed. There ain't a Dutchman aboard but what's a better man than you, and every one of us has been hammered an' kicked till we didn't know our names. 'Cause why? 'Cause it's the rule in yer blasted Yankee ships to break in the crew with handspikes. You've caught it harder, 'cause ye didn't know better than to go aft lookin' for trouble. The sooner ye find yer place an' larn yer work, the better for you."

"Thank you for the advice; I'll take it if I have to, but it's against my principles to work—especially under compulsion. My head aches, and I'm pretty hungry, otherwise I"

"Turn out!" roared a voice at the door, the command being accompanied by choice epithet and profanity. "Bear a hand."

"Who is that?" asked the man of principles. "I've heard that voice."

"Second mate," whispered the other; "don't go first," he added, mercifully, "nor last."

The first man to leave the forecastle was Lars, the Swede, who received a blow in the face that sent him reeling against the fife-rail. Then came Dennis; then Tom, the Englishman; followed by Ned, a burly German; Fred, the ordinary seaman; and David, a loose-jointed Highlander, who the day before had lost all his front teeth by the swinging blow of a heaver and had since, for obvious reasons, added no Scotch dialect to the forecastle discourse. All these escaped that big fist, the second blow, according to packet-ship ethics, being reserved for the last man out; and the last man out now was the man of rags.

But Mr. Barker had not time to deliver that blow. A dirty fist preceded its owner through the door, striking the mate between the eyes, and before the whirling points of light had ceased to dazzle his inner vision a second blow, crashing under his ear, sent him, big man that he was, nearly as far as Lars had gone. Recovering himself, with a furious oath he seized a belaying-pin from the fife-rail and sprang at his assailant. One futile blow only he dealt, and the pin was wrenched from his grasp and dropped to the deck; then with an iron-hard elbow pressing his throat, and a sinewy left arm bearing, fulcrum-like, on his backbone, he was bent over, gasping, struggling, and vainly striking, lifted from his feet, and hurled headlong to the forehatch.

"You are one of the three with whom I dealt in the cabin," said a voice above him in the darkness; "now face me alone, curse you! Get up here and fight it out."

"Mr. Pratt," called the officer, rising unsteadily. "Mr. Pratt! Come forrard, sir."

It was a black night, with a promise of dirty weather to come in the sky astern, and the ship was charging along under topgallant-sails before a half-gale of wind, against which no sounds from near the bow could easily reach the quarter-deck. Only at rare intervals did the full moon show through the dense storm clouds racing overhead, and Mr. Barker was alone on a dark deck, surrounded by fifteen men not one of whom would have prayed for him. Dazed as he was, he knew his danger—knew that all these men needed was a leader, a master-spirit, to arouse them from the submissive apathy of the foremast hand to bloody retaliation. And a leader seemed to have appeared. Lars complained bitterly as he held his bleeding face. Angry mutterings came from the others; some drew sheath-knives, some abstracted belaying-pins from the rail; and a few, Tom among them, supplied themselves with capstan-bars from the rack at the break of the topgallant forecastle.

"Mr. Pratt," bawled the demoralized officer as he backed away from his challenger; then, as though suddenly remembering, he drew a revolver from his pocket and pointed it at the man confronting him. At that moment, a lithe, springy man bounded into the group from around the corner of the forward house. Flourishing an iron belaying-pin, he yelled: "What's the matter here? Lay aft, you hounds—lay aft! Aft with you all. Mr. Barker, you here?"

"Here you are, sir—this feller here."

A momentary appearance of the moon gave the newcomer light to see the leveled pistol and the man covered by it, who seemed to be hesitating and about to look around. One bound carried him close.