Part 24 (1/2)

Perdosa let fall the knife.

”Now, get at that cable,” I commanded, still at white heat. I stood over him until he was well at work, then turned back to set tasks for the other men. Handy Solomon met me halfway.

”Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen,” said he, ”I want a word with you.”

”I have nothing to say to you,” I snapped, still excited.

”It ain't reasonable not to hear a man's say,” he advised in his most conciliatory manner, ”I'm talking for all of us.”

He paused a moment, took my silence for consent, and went ahead.

”Begging your pardon, Mr. Eagen,” said he, ”we ain't going to do any more useless work. There ain't no laziness about us, but we ain't going to be busy at nothing. All the camp work and the haulin' and cuttin' and cleanin' and the rest of it, we'll do gladly. But we ain't goin' to pound any more cable, and you can kiss the Book on that.”

”You mean to mutiny?” I asked.

He made a deprecatory gesture.

”Put us aboard s.h.i.+p, sir, and let us hear the Old Man give his orders, and you'll find no mutiny in us. But here ash.o.r.e it's different. Did the Old Man give orders to pound the cable?”

”I represent the captain,” I stammered.

He caught the evasion. ”I thought so. Well, if you got any kick on us, please, sir, go get the Old Man. If he says to our face, pound cable, why pound cable it is. Ain't that right, boys?”

They murmured something. Perdosa deliberately dropped his hammer and joined the group. My hand strayed again toward the sawed-off Colt's 45.

”I wouldn't do that,” said Handy Solomon, almost kindly. ”You couldn't kill us all. And w'at good would it do? I asks you that. I can cut down a chicken with my knife at twenty feet. You must surely see, sir, that I could have killed you too easy while you were covering Pancho there. This ain't got to be a war, Mr. Eagen, just because we don't want to work without any sense to it.”

There was more of the same sort. I had plenty of time to see my dilemma. Either I would have to abandon my attempt to keep the men busy, or I would have to invoke the authority of Captain Selover. To do the latter would be to destroy it. The master had become a stuffed figure, a bogie with which to frighten, an empty bladder that a p.r.i.c.k would collapse. With what grace I could muster, I had to give in.

”You'll have to have it your own way, I suppose,” I snapped.

Thrackles grinned, and Pulz started to say something, but Handy Solomon, with a peremptory gesture, and a black scowl, stopped him short.

”Now that's what I calls right proper and handsome!” he cried admiringly. ”We reely had no right to expect that, boys, as seamen, from our first officer! You can kiss the Book on it, that very few crews have such kind masters. Mr. Eagen has the right, and we signed to it all straight, to work us as he pleases; and w'at does he do?

Why, he up and gives us a week sh.o.r.e leave, and then he gives us light watches, and all the time our pay goes on just the same. Now that's w'at I calls right proper and handsome conduct, or the devil's a preacher, and I ventures with all respect to propose three cheers for Mr. Eagen.”

They gave them, grinning broadly. The villain stood looking at me, a sardonic gleam in the back of his eye. Then he gave a little hitch to his red head covering, and sauntered away humming between his teeth.

I stood watching him, choked with rage and indecision. The humming broke into words.

”'Oh, quarter, oh, quarter!' the jolly pirates cried.

_Blow high, blow low! What care we_?

But the quarter that we gave them was to sink them in the sea, _Down on the coast of the high Barbare-e-e_.”

”Here, you swab,” he cried to Thrackles, ”and you, Pancho! get some wood, lively! And Pulz, bring us a pail of water. Doctor, let's have duff to celebrate on.”

The men fell to work with alacrity.

XI