IV

"Irons?" The pump-man's head went into the air. For a moment he stood

poised on the hatch like a statue. "Irons?" His face paled and hardened

and his arms stiffened; but instantaneously, as half a dozen reached out

to seize him, he ducked and twisted and side-stepped, and two, who could

not be avoided, he knocked swiftly out of his way. He cracked a fist

into one face, then the other. There was no malice in it; they simply

barred his way to freedom. He leaped from combing to combing of the open

hatches. It was thirty feet to the bottom of any one of these empty

tanks, and those who followed did so at creeping speed.

He was clear of the mob. A light bound and he was on the ship's rail

beside the after-rigging.

The captain, leaning as far out as the chart deck would allow, shook a

raging arm at Kieran. "You'll assault, you'll batter my men right and

left, will you, you crazy mutineer?"

"Don't call me a mutineer, captain--I've disobeyed no order."

"You are a mutineer. I declare you one now. And you'll go into irons."

"You'll never put me in irons."

"You'll go into irons or you'll go over the side."

[Illustration: "Don't call me a mutineer, captain--I've disobeyed no

order"]

"Well, maybe I'll go over the side. But before I go, if I have to go,

I'll have a word to say. You've been trying to break my nerve from the

beginning. I know your kind that bully and starve your crew, and won't

have a man on your ship that you can't bully and starve. And so you set

your bully bosun to do me--do me to death, if he had to. And when he's

not clever enough nor able enough, you'd put me in irons--in irons here

on the high seas--out here where no law can get you!"

The first officer was now on the deck beneath the pump-man. "You'd

better come down, Kieran. It will be the safest way in the end."

"Mr. Brown, you're a good officer, and I don't want to cross you, but

you're not going to put me in irons."

The ship was rolling gently. Kieran rested one hand lightly, by way of

balance, on a stay, and kicked his shoes overboard. "A step nearer, Mr.

Brown, and I go after the shoes."

"But it's five miles to the Florida shore, Kieran, and alive with

sharks. You'd never make it. Come on now."

"No. Five miles or fifty, I'll have a try at it."

Noyes now laid a warning hand on the captain's arm. "Are you going to

insist on putting that man in irons?"

"I am. And stand clear of me, you."

"If you try to, he'll jump overboard."

"And if he does, what of it?"

"If he does, there'll be a bad time ahead for you."

"There will? There's liable to be a bad time for you right now. Do you

know you have no rights on this ship unless I say so? Don't you know I

can put you in irons, too--that's marine law--if I feel like it?"

"I know what maritime law is. And that's the devil of it when there's a

brute on the bridge. You can put me in irons if you want to, but I don't

think you will."

"So?" sneered the captain. "I won't? And why not?"

"Because I'm no friendless seafarer. And also because--here's my card.

Read it. It's the card of your boss, the man who can hire or fire you,

or any other man or officer of this line. And I don't have to give you a

reason unless it pleases me. But I'll give a reason at the right

time--in your case. And the reason will leave you where you'll never

again set foot on the deck of any ship of this line or of a good many

other lines."

The captain had set his back to the rail and bared his teeth. Noyes,

thinking he was about to spring, braced his feet and waited. Noyes

himself was no angelic-looking creature at the moment. His jaw seemed to

shoot forward, his eyes to contract and recede.

"And so that's who you are, is it? And you'd break me?"

"Break you, yes. And perhaps put you in jail before I'm done with you.

Now will you put him in irons?"

The captain did not spring. He walked to his room instead. And he gave

out no order just then; but soon the mess-boy came out and whispered to

the first officer, and the first officer said, "Kieran, you're to return

to duty," and pocketed his irons and called off the men.

It was an hour after the fight. Kieran had had time to clean up, and

now, with the passenger, he was pacing the long gangway.

"And would you have gone over the side?" the passenger had asked.

"I guess I'd had to, wouldn't I?"

"And would you have reached shore?"

"Why not? Five miles--it's not much in smooth water."

"But the sharks?"

"Sharks? Black boys in West Indian ports will dive all day among them

for coppers. Sharks and whales--writers of sea stories certainly ought

to pension them. There may have been a shark who once made a meal off a

sailor, but let you or me drop over the side, and if there's one

anywhere near, he wouldn't stop racing till he was a mile away, and if

any harmless slob of a whale ever killed a sailor, be sure he did it

through fright. But that's no matter. What does matter, though"--Kieran

halted and faced the passenger--"are the men who did go over the side,

and not within swimming distance of any pleasant sandy beach either.

'Tisn't every protesting seaman who finds the boss of the line on deck

to back him up. And, what's harder, how about the men who never had the

choice of going over the side? And think of the poor creatures who got

so that in time they didn't even want to go over the side, who might

have grown into honest, free men, but who, instead of that, learned only

to live for the day when they too would have the power to make their

inferiors stand around and cringe and whine."

They paced the length of the deck twice before Kieran spoke again.

"They wonder at the decay of our merchant marine. I wonder did they ever

stop to think of what men--seamen--think of the service? In the days of

sailing ships a man going to sea met with real danger and hardship, and

they developed courage and skill and character of some kind. What

training does he get to take the place of that now? He's a hand

nowadays, a helper, a lumper--not a sailor--on a great big hulk to which

disaster is almost impossible."

"But disasters do happen."

"They do, but what is the truth about them? Nine out of ten of them have

a disgraceful cause. But the public doesn't hear of that, because the

public doesn't go to sea--except as a saloon passenger. The public gets

its story from the steamship company's office--always, and you know what

kind of a story they put out--put out through newspapers that carry

their advertising. You know what that chief clerk or that second clerk

of yours would tell any inquiring outsider in case of a loss of life on

one of these ships. He'd lie and lie and lie and lie and think he was

serving a good cause at that, and the papers publishing the lie would

think they were serving a good cause, too--especially the constructive

organization papers, as they call themselves. Our big steamship officers

these days--outside of the navy--don't get the kind of work that keeps

men up to the mark, and not getting it they grow soft--their bodies and

their souls become flabby. Engineer officers nowadays have the work cut

out for them and they are doing good work, but the bridge officers are

no longer men of the sea--they're clerks, agents in floating hotels. And

the crew take their tone from the officers. When the commander's weak,

your whole outfit is apt to weaken, especially under a strain."

They resumed their pacing, Kieran with head high in the air, inhaling

deep breaths of the fresh salt air.

The passenger came out of a deep meditation. "Kieran, you can do a good

work for us. Is there any berth with this line you'd like to have? If

there is, say so. You can have it. You can have that head clerk's job if

you want it. And I think that after a while I could get you mine, for

I'm only there to fill a gap."