Many of the men fell asleep, Scholar among them, exhausted by the strain of the day and evening. He dreamt that he was back again in a bunkhouse of Michigan, and came half-awake, thinking that the forest was afire, then realised where he was, in this Bedlam, and was crucified upon regret. If only he had not made that offer to stand treat! He moaned; it was an anguish to him, for he had not lived even his brief years without knowing kindliness when he met it; and these fellows, whatever their vocabularies, their moral code, their falls from it, their capacity to live up to it, had treated him kindly. He would like to begin all over again with them, to go back twelve hours in his life and theirs, and stroll towards them feeling the air again for the method of approach, outside the barrier at the end of The Saint Lawrence Shipping and Transport Company's shed. Tortured, he fell asleep again, and the next he knew was the sound of voices. Perhaps all had their dreams, or nightmares when that sound brought them from sleep proper into a state of half awake and half asleep.
"Well, wot do yer want ter see 'im for, any'ow?"
"He is here, is he? I want to see him."
"I say 'e's a-sleepin'! Any man as wants to see Scholard 'as got ter tell me wot 'e wants ter see 'im for!"
"It's none of your business—I want to see him. Is he there?"
"You tell me wot you want ter see 'im for, and I'll see if it's worth disturbin' 'im for. I'm his bleedin' secretary, I am."
Scholar came wide awake, and rose upon an elbow, to find a semi-circle of backs turned to him, Cockney's back among them; and Cockney's arm was reaching out and brushing those of his shipmates who stood near, or part brushing, part elbow-plucking, part signing to them in an endeavour to form them up between Scholar's bunk and a man in the doorway. Up sat Scholar. He had seen enough of ugly fighting during the last few hours to feel a yearning for a life, nay, an eternity, of peace; but he was in the pack, and he must not let Cockney take the chances of an encounter on his behalf. As the man in the door—and he, too, had a backing of friends—advanced upon Cockney, Scholar sat up. He had the strong resolution to, as they say out West, "make good" here; and it was a resolution that advertised itself on his face as he rose and swung forward.
"All right, Cockney!" he said. "I'm awake."
The forming segment of circle broke. Cockney looked over his shoulder.
"That's hall right. You ain't one of hus. I know 'ow ter deal wiv these fellers. We're shipmites, ain't we?"
"Do you want to speak to me?" said Scholar, looking keenly at the advancing tough.
"Oh! No! They told me a man called Scollard was aboard. I wanted to see a feller called Scollard!" This in a grumbling voice.
"O, yus! This hain't the feller, eh? No! Amhiany use? Would you like to pushmyface in, eh?"
A voice above shouted: "Come on, mate, come on! She's pushing off!" and the man who wanted to see Scollard hastened away, drawing off his forces in the doorway.
"Thought we were off already!" said Cockney.
"Thank you very much for that," said Scholar. "Only a man must look after himself of course."
"Yus, that's all right. Good luck! You ain't 'ust one of us; you don't know the ropes—not 'ere, any'ow. Good luck, mate."
He and those others who had power over their legs, climbed to the deck, Scholar accompanying them. The former jogglings must have been merely due to the casting loose of one or two hawsers. A ladder still stretched from ship to wharf. "Come on, come on there. Get ashore!" the bo'sun was shouting at its top. "You fellers had no right aboard here anyhow." The visitors hastened over the side and down the ladder, those of them who saw a policeman at the shed end (looking up with that frowning and sidewise consideration that suggests: "Now I don't know but what I should run you fellows in! You look as if there might be a charge about you!") going down with anxious precipitancy. The last reached the wharf. Two men came up, climbed aboard—the pilot and a ship's officer. The ladder was hauled away, the last hawser was cast loose, and with a tug ahead and a tug astern theS.S. Glorymoved from the wharf sideways like a great iron wall drifting away from a great stone one. The space of dirty water between, with pieces of straw, bits of wood, and such flotsam of the docks—a sodden apple or two, and a potato—rapidly widened. The lights alongshore looked pale and insignificant as the dawn spread; those in the low-browed windows of the waterfront saloons that could be espied over the leaden-hued roofs had lost their glare. Men below, those who could stand, feeling sure now that she was off, came on deck to double-shuffle and cluster on the poop, to cheer and scream, to wave their hands shorewards, as though they saw a multitude of friends there waving farewell, though really there were none.
Before the cheering was over a little unpleasantness began between Mike and Michael. In all societies, in all walks of life, there are certain statements that are considered insulting; but statements that in one stratum are considered insulting are, in another, looked upon as merely amusing; in yet another they are unheard, unknown, and so there is no opinion on them. What should a passivist, in any walk of life, do when some neighbour of his paddock discharges at him the supreme term of contempt of that special paddock? They who cheered the dock roofs turning grey in the morning, and the early stevedores, and the few late night-birds, had now something close at hand to attract their attention. Michael and Mike, on the poop now, met for the first time since Mike, in the saloon ashore, had preferred the company of his two friends to that of the "Push." And Michael, extremely fuddled, vaguely remembered that he had some grievance against Mike. Mike leant against a rail that ran athwart the ship, dividing the stretch of upper deck from the stubby semi-circle of poop. His hands were behind him, holding the rail as he leant against it. He had had a short sleep since coming aboard, and his drunkenness was stale. The ale within Michael, on the other hand, had not yet come to the height of its action.
"What," he was asking Mike, "are you a-doing wearing a seaman's cap?"
Mike turned his head from surveying the shed roofs, lightly glanced down at Michael, but did not fix him, turned his head the other way.
"A seaman's cap, I say!" Michael repeated.
Mike shook his head, as if a fly had landed on his face.
"Eh?" said Michael.
Mike looked down upon his stubby and sturdy compatriot as a Saint Bernard dog looks down on a snarling Pomeranian between its forepaws.
"Iama seaman," he replied at last.
"You're a liar!" said Michael, which in that stratum of society is no more considered, even by those who are not passivists, as a call for the mailed fist than, in another, is "Pardon me—have you verified that?"
"I'm tellin' ye," said Mike.
"Let me see your discharges then," demanded Michael.
Mike tossed his head with an air of "This man bores me," tossed it to right, and from left breast pocket drew forth a folded bundle of Board of Trade discharges, and held them up.
"Huh!" grunted Michael. "Cattleman."
"Seaman I'm tellin' ye," Mike repeated.
"What are you a-going over as a cattleman for, then?" asked Michael.
"I'm tellin' ye I have some seaman discharges among theyse."
"Well then, you're a cattleman!"
"Yes, yes, quite so. All right."
"You're a cattleman."
"Yes, yes. Have it that way, thin."
"You're a dam' cattleman."
Mike stretched his head up as does one who wears a tall collar when the collar's edge annoys his neck.
"Now, now," he said. "Now, now! You'll be after annoying me."
"A dam' cattleman," reiterated Michael, "with one shirt!"
"Quite so. Have it your own way."
"One shirt—a dirty shirt."
Mike unloosened his right hand from the taffrail that it was again gripping, threw forward his left shoulder, and then, instead of hitting, he wrung his hands, held them high, rubbed the palms together in a kind of anguish, smashed the butt of his right hand into the palm of his left, and "Michael," he said, "you're drunk. Ye'd better go below. Have a sleep, have a sleep."
"I'm not drunk!" cried Michael, and hit, smash upon Mike's breast. And then out of the crowd leapt upon him—Cockney.
"Is it a fight yer want?" asked Cockney.
Neither was so drunk that he could not hit, feint, parry; the others circled.
"Now, now," said Mike. "See! Pull them apart!" But it was too late; they had grappled.
Now people make laws, and they become the vogue; you are judged by them, willy-nilly. If you cannot box, as boxing is taught in the gymnasium, and find yourself set upon by a boxer, you will be ostracised in some walks of life if you deliver him a kick in the shins; or, should he fall, if you knuckle his wind so that he may lie there long enough for you to beat your retreat from one skilled in the "science," you will be ostracised for that; you must box him according to the rules. But in this walk of life, upon the poop of theS.S. Glory, it is a case of top dog anyhow. Mr. Smithers, on the docks, newly arrived to see the ship clear, put teeth together, looking up, and made the hissing sound through his teeth that a stoic makes when operated on without an anaesthetic. For as the two men reeled to the taffrail, and the onlookers there fell asunder to give them a full field, they were displayed to the one or two persons who looked up from the wharf front, displayed as on a high set stage, Michael with Cockney's head under his left arm, an attitude, by the way, permitted in some gymnasia, taboo in others—for there are "sets" there too. Michael was swinging a right in upon the top of Cockney's head, when suddenly he saw the taffrail and thought it would serve as well, shifted his hold, and with both hands drove Cockney's head, as if it were a turnip, against the middle rail. It was this which caused the first hiss and spasm ashore. It would have finished most men. You could have laid a finger in the indentation that the rail made in Cockney's skull; but as he took the blow, refusing to be stunned, like a tough, wild beast, he screamed, and thrust a thumb upward into Michael's eye, even while Mike, Scholar, Pierre and the Inquisitive One were hauling them asunder. Back went Cockney, flopped on the deck, and held head in hands. There! They were apart. And suddenly, over the taffrail and down the curve of the ship to the tow rope that went to the tug astern, Michael made a kind of scramble and scuttle.
There! They were apart.There! They were apart.
"Grab that man!" shouted Smithers from the dock. "He'll fall on the screws!"
Michael, upon all fours, had caught the tow rope and now swung himself down, shouting: "I've been shanghaied! I won't sail on theGlory!" He spun slightly left and right, clutching the rope, so that those who craned under the bottom rail to try to grab him, and those who looked up from the wharf, had glimpse, time about, of his ghastly face, and the eyeball protruding like the yolk of an egg. One man was now on his belly under the taffrail, stretching to grasp Michael, but he slithered slightly forward on the curve to the hull.
"Somebody hold my legs!" he shouted. It was Scholar. The Inquisitive One promptly sat down upon his feet. Mike had taken off his boots, and was saying, one leg swung over the rail: "Here, some of youse—hold my hand, will yez."
"Look up!" came a voice. It was the Man with the Hat. He had made a slip-noose on the end of a rope. It hissed down and up. On shore Smithers was shouting to the people in the tug astern: "Keep that rope taut!" for the rope to which Michael hung was falling slack. "He'll be down on the screws!" But the noose was now round Michael's waist, and in their rejoicing the "Push" laid hold of the hither end of the rope that the Man with the Hat tossed amongst them, and with a "Yo-ho!" they put as much muscle into hauling the human being aboard as if he had been a stern anchor.
"Easy, easy—for God's sake!" came a quiet voice to rear, a voice that compelled attention because of the very loudness of the others. It was Candlass; and behind him was the captain's steward, who was a good deal more than a first aid man. They secured Michael as he was dragged over the rail, and walked him forward along the narrow passage left between the sheep-pens that crowded the upper deck.
"Bring that other man here," ordered Candlass over his shoulder.
"I'm all right!" said Cockney, standing up. He put up his hand to feel his head, and laid a finger into the impression of the taffrail. Everybody seemed a little more sober after that. The docks receded. Montreal rose up behind them. Sea gulls that had come into port with other ships cried one to another overhead, and came to their poising station above the stern of theS.S. Glory.
Scholar need not indeed have worried, telling himself that he it was who started the pandemonium. Those who had accompanied him were but a few, and sooner or later they would surely have marked the absence of the others and gone ashore to share their pleasures. In the whole "Push" upon theGlory, as she churned slowly down the river, there was hardly a sober man. And virulent, not ecstatic, are the nepenthes offered, to the men who go down to the sea in ships, along the waterfront by the people ashore. Some were still in fighting key; many were in a condition that recalled to whosoever drew near them the adage to let sleeping dogs lie; many were in a kind of mad misery. Perhaps a third showed wounds, as of battle, cuts and bruises. The veering wind about the poop carried mostly swear-words, and these more obscene than blasphemous, to the captain and the pilot on the bridge. The pilot paid no heed; the captain only looked now and then over his shoulder, like one thinking: "Yes, just as usual!" instead of: "That's rather bad." He was held aloft upon the bridge as are spectators in the zoological gardens above the bear pits.
The Man with the Hat, sober and solitary, reclined on a bale of hay to leeward of the smokestack on the upper deck—the sheep deck; its whole length was crowded with sheep in pens, only narrow passage-ways being left between the packed central pens and the narrow pens along the side—these latter being protected from overmuch wind by canvas dodgers. Jack—he who spoke French—and Jack's partner sat laughing and talking alone, telling tales of adventurous lives one to the other, the glitter of those who look upon the wine while it is red still in their eyes, and as they sat nursing their knees, and colloguing, the wind plucked the frayed edges of their pants. Jack pulled his hat down upon his head with a gesture in keeping with that manner of his as of a dandy in his sphere. It is not to be imagined that he had "come down." Men do come down, of course. He was just a hard case, not beyond helping himself to shoes from a shoe-shop door, not beyond looking upon a derelict suburbanite, crossing vacant lots to his home, with unsteady steps, late at night, as a fair prey, if Johnnie was with him. In his walk of life such a way of replenishing the exchequer was considered no more inestimable that in another walk of life is a little sharp practice in business. There they sat, laughing and chatting.
Pierre had drawn apart, elbows on the rail, his shoulders suggesting that he would fain have them hide him from his fellows. He looked at the shores spreading out, onward and onward, as theGlorythreshed along and the tugs left her—a shore that Nature, and the inhabitants, make to look much like certain parts of the real and original France. There were the poplar rows, the little belfrys, the little French villages. If his knowledge of English prevented him from understanding all the obscene oaths behind him, so much the better for him and his dream of the Picardy home.
As for the Inquisitive One—he was not, of course, only inquisitive, but was thus introduced to help to distinguish him from others in first telling of the "Push"—he shuffled round among the rest, hands in pockets, jerking left shoulder forward, jerking right shoulder forward, very young, very crass, trying to keep drunk by acting drunk. If a policeman had stepped up to him he would have been sober on the instant. He was always scared of policemen, unlike men like Jack, who were merely alert to them. There were a great many others, many of whom need not be mentioned in detail, because as the voyage went on they were not considered so by Mike, and he was a man worth heeding in his own walk of life. They were just "them" or "youse"; if referred to in the singular they were "him" or "you," with an indicative jerk of a thumb, or pointing of a finger. They did not even rise to nicknames—shrimpy-looking lads who could pick pockets and knew the soup kitchens of all the Atlantic ports.
The sounds of discord ebbed; and now more plaintive than irritable was the lowing of the cattle on the main and lower decks. On the upper deck sheep gave voice here and yonder, though the majority were quiet. It was as if every now and again they thought it over and gave a little bleat of "Why?" Scholar, stealing away from the diminishing group on the poop, easily, not to attract attention, went forward along the upper deck and looked at the faces of these woolly creatures with something like affection, as a man disgusted in the society in which he finds himself will welcome his dog, or a lonely woman the upturned face of a cat.
The day wore on, the lowings increasing, the cursings decreasing. The warm sun helped to stupefy farther the drink-stupefied. They had now the appearance, most of them, that comes to those who have missed sleep through some long and harassing vigil. Taunting smells of food wafted aft from the galley ventilator; but there was none for the cattlemen. They were left alone on the railed-off poop and in the cabin under it, as in a cage and a wild beast pit. The Man with the Hat, lying on his chest, a straw in his mouth, near the smoke-stack, rolled over and pulled his belt up two holes and looked round casually, wondering when something was going to happen; and then there appeared, in the narrow path to starboard between the sheepcots, John Candlass, with his air of reserve; and behind him, lurching, Rafferty, axe in hand.
There was a difference between these two cattle bosses; Candlass had come into the business—no one knows why but Candlass—and Rafferty had mounted in it, and, mounting, he had not discarded the ancient custom known as "tanking up" on the day that the ship clears the wharf. Nominally they were colleagues, but his clear eye and brain made Candlass actually the boss aboard and Rafferty, red-eyed and swollen-faced, was as lieutenant. Smithers, of the Saint Lawrence Shipping and Transport Co., Ltd., wished they might meet more mysteries like Candlass, but such mysteries were scarce, or did not come their way.
Asked of the evil smelling darkness below many insulting questions.Asked of the evil smelling darkness below many insulting questions.
Candlass, coming to the poop, poked his head down the companion-way and said sharply: "All cattlemen on deck!" Then he stood back. He seemed to pay hardly any heed to whether they came promptly or leisurely. To Rafferty's mind they did not come quickly enough, so he leapt to the companion-way and asked of the evil-smelling darkness below many insulting questions. His vocabulary put to the blush the vocabularies of all the others. Candlass glanced sideways at him, and, stepping a little more close, in a low voice, that caused Rafferty to come near to hear what was said, engaged him in conversation. Rafferty, drunk or sober, was rather proud of his job; he had climbed to the top, as may the reporter to be editor, the bank clerk to be manager, the stable mucker to be ranch foreman. But Candlass was a celebrated boss, and it was an honour for any other boss to chat with him, or to sail with him. Even Rafferty drunk did not forget that, and Rafferty only three sheets in the wind, as he was at present, was none averse to letting the men come up as they would, when all could see the terms he was on with Candlass. Not that his ways were Candlass's ways; he esteemed Candlass's control, but would not imitate—indeed could not. There was always some intimidating weapon in Rafferty's hand; but Candlass's hands generally lay negligently one within the other behind his back. One may suspect that he felt a slight pity for Rafferty rather than contempt, and would have been sorry to see him do a murder in his cups; looked upon him somewhat as Scholar, coming aft now from the sheep-cotes amidships, looked upon the large, dishevelled Mike who emerged on to the deck, scoop-cap awry on his ruffled hair, eyes puckered to the sunlight after the dusk of the cabin, licking dry lips, working dry tongue, disgustedly grunting "Ach!" over his condition and his stale feeling—referred to by callous topers as "the morning after." Candlass produced a coin and handed it, perhaps by some convention of courtesy, to Rafferty; Rafferty rejected it with a "Go ahead!" and Candlass tossed.
"Heads!" cried Rafferty.
It came down tails. Candlass pointed to Mike, and Mike made four steps of it, with a touch of swagger, to one side. Rafferty pointed to Cockney, who staggered to the other side. Candlass said, very quietly: "All right. You can pick your own men now!" for these were "straw bosses"—Mike under Candlass, Cockney under Rafferty. Neither Cockney nor Mike had a coin left, so Cockney stooped and picked up a splinter of wood, and, laying it between his two palms, held them forth.
"Sharp—blunt!" said Mike, tapping first the fingers then the wrist of the covering hand, which Cockney then lifted. The pointed end of the splinter was toward the fingers, the blunt toward the wrist. Mike looked at Scholar, but at that moment there arrived, from his patching and his sleep amidships under the steward's care, Michael, one eye under a blind, the other riveting an imploring gaze upon Mike.
"Come over, Michael," said Mike, in a tone of resignation.
"I'll have——" snapped Cockney, and out shot his hand and he pointed to Scholar.
"No, you won't!" roared Mike.
"It's his pick!" shouted Rafferty
"I don't give a curse," said Mike. "I'll——"
"You'll dowot?" Cockney interrupted.
"Can't do it, Mike," said Candlass quietly, "it's his pick."
"I'm after doin' this," persisted Mike doggedly, "for everybody's sake. I want Scholar meself, but I'm takin' Michael from him, for they've sane enough of each other. He can pick somebody else for Michael, if he's half a man, and then I'll begin afresh with Scholar. Come over here, me lad; ye're picked."
"Oh, hall right!" said Cockney, "There's somethink in that."
Rafferty, with an evil oath, demanded Scholar, and Cockney, for a moment, had the air of veering round again, then he grinned and was silent. Candlass said something that nobody caught.
"Oh, all right—go ahead!" growled Rafferty. "Let Mike have him, and you take that fellow there with the hat—and that thin fellow with the impudent eyes." This was Jack, who could quelle-heure-est-il.
Mike then picked another; Cockney looked round, and Jack's partner, of his own accord, stepped over beside Jack.
"What t'ell? O, hall right!" said Cockney.
Things went fairly smoothly thereafter, till it came to the last shamed few—at least most of them seemed shamed; only a small number appeared to look upon the lack of desire for them with unmixed levity. Apparently the sign-on had been an even one; two men were left. It was Mike's choice. Suddenly an odd cough drew everybody's attention; and there, foolish behind them, was the youth in the long coat, the spectacles, and the leggings. Mike stared at him.
"Oh, be jabbers! Come here, me lad!" he said. Some laughed; others said: "What the hell are you laughin' at the poor feller for?" Mike stepped forward and put a hand on Four Eyes' shoulder, and an arm out behind the two remaining pick-pockets who stood together, and herded them, all three, like a man driving pigs, herded them across to Cockney's side. Cockney's receding under jaw hung down, his eyes goggled under the bandage he had tied over his forehead, covering the mark of the taffrail.
"I give ye a prisent of them," said Mike. "The three of 'em." Some of his underlings grumbled. He looked slowly round at them. "Whaat?" he asked. "Would ye not prefer to be short-handed than disgraced?"
"That's hall right!" cried Cockney. "Any ole thing fer me!"
So that was all quite satisfactory.
The two bosses looked at their men, observing how some stood erect, if bleary, but how others swayed and propped themselves against taffrail or neighbour.
"I think," said Candlass, "if you have the bigger bunch, Rafferty, that I've the pull on you for the sober ones."
"Oh, indeed," answered Rafferty. "They'll be sober and sorry before we strike Liverpool." Some of the men flinched, and some showed their teeth in wry smiles; one or two, men of the order of Jack, stuck hand in jacket pocket easily, cast their heads back, and smiled secret smiles at the river.
"Those of you that are sober," said Candlass to his gang, "come forward." And he walked away. He was taken at his word; not all followed. Half-way along the deck he turned and glanced meditatively at those who elected to call themselves drunk, and as he glanced at that little party thus it became aware of him, and was troubled, and one or two more disentangled themselves and followed him. There was a slight puckering upward of his under lip as he considered each of these, and to each he delivered a brief nod, and they knew they were marked men. Rafferty had other ways of doing it.
"Drunk and sober," he said, "get forward!" and shepherded them before him, along the passage-way between the sheep-pens on the other side. One man turned and looked at him insolently; and Rafferty, elbowing ahead, plucked his sleeve, and leaning forward, whispered in his ear, then thrust him along the deck violently.
"What did he say to you?" asked another.
"I'll tell you what I said to him," said Rafferty, "and to you," he added as if biting the words. And stepping up close he muttered something with a virulent expression. The men crowded forward, growling.
"What did he say?" they asked.
One of them—he who was the subject of Rafferty's second whispered advice—explained: "He said: 'I'll not give you a chanst to make any reports, if that's in your mind. I'll get ye alone between decks, and you'll be having an accident. Somebody will find ye had a severe fall.'"
"Come hon!" cried Cockney, for the men delayed again. "Come hon!"
"Who do you think you are?" said the man whose eye Cockney caught as he spoke.
Cockney, a mere "straw boss," had no scruples. He leapt at the man, both hands at his neck tight, crashed him to the deck and knelt violently in his stomach.
"Talkin' terme!" he said, coming erect, and the gang moved forward, while he who had fallen sat up, gasping for breath.
"Shake a leg!" ordered Rafferty, behind, and the last men, at sound of that voice, hastened forward, then delayed again, made a jam. It was Jack and Jack's partner who were the cause of that; and it was intentional on their part. Rafferty's eye sighted an end of wire rope. He lifted it and whirled it down upon the back of the last man.
"He hit me!" yelled the man.
"Get on!" said Rafferty.
A man ahead pushed Jack's partner.
"Gettin' me blimed fer this," he said. "It's you."
"Oh, you coward!" sneered Johnnie.
"Me?" And the man who had been called "coward" smashed his fist into Johnnie's face. A fierce fight followed; they reeled to and fro, falling this way and that about the sheep-pens. This was a different matter for Rafferty. He charged upon both.
"Come siperate!" he shouted, but they did not come separate. With the wire rope he flailed them till one relaxed and fell over, moaning, among the sheep. Johnnie turned, belligerent still, but crash on his knuckles came the wire rope, and he was disabled. And on went all again, sullen, and some in pain. Candlass's gang had already disappeared forward and gone down to the main deck.
"Can you work a donkey-engine?" said Candlass to Scholar.
"I might manage," answered Scholar. "Looks fairly simple, if you show me how. Hate machinery, all the same." He smiled.
The Man in the Hat looked at both so expressionless that Scholar took the lack of expression to signify contempt.
"You?" asked Candlass, elevating his brows.
"I guess," said the Man with the Hat, and strolled over to the engine.
"All right, Mike. Get busy there—get up that hay."
Rafferty's yelling gang came down to the main deck, and passed on, with more friction on the way, to the lower deck. Candlass watched it, head on side, watched it meditatively as it progressed a few yards at a time; had the faintest little snort and a pucker of the corner of his lips, as some particularly insolent one received the wire rope, for Rafferty had now cast aside all technical scruples. Cockney was in his element. Jack swung along, his handsome and evil face sneering—a sneer that Cockney averted his eyes from quickly each time that he encountered it as he played lieutenant to Rafferty. They descended somehow or other into the hold, going down like frogs. Some seemed to be kicked over. Jack's partner, Johnnie, went down the ladder with one hand thrust in his jacket as in a sling. He turned at the ladder and looked at Cockney, who stood there to see all below, went over very self-collectedly, raising his head at Cockney and then at Rafferty, something like a duck after spooning water. Candlass's gang above, looking over, opined each to each that there was going to be a hot time in that half of the "Push." They were already, though they knew it not, under the influence of their mysterious boss. Even their voices were more subdued.
"O!" said Cockney, suddenly. This was to the man in the long coat. He stood aside to let him go down with plenty of space to manage his coat-tails and the buckles of his leggings. Even Rafferty slackened his grip on the wire rope, put a steadying hand on the top of the ladder, and watched the descent with an "Aisy, me lad!" as if me lad was a valuable cow.
There was a hiss of steam, a rattle of cogged wheels; and two hooks at the end of a chain swung down. "Out below!" went the cry above. Somebody below yelled up: "All right! I'll paste you later when I see you!"—"Get on with your work!" roared Rafferty. "I see you sitting there on them bales underneath. Roll them out." Up came the bales, and down anon swung the hooks; up again came the bales. Once the hooks slipped, the bales fell, one nearly on a man. At that Candlass disappeared from the main deck, reappeared presently on the lower deck, went over the hatch-side half-way down the ladder, and stood there looking at the gang below. Rafferty made no objection. "A dirty, drunken crowd," was all he volunteered. "It would sober some of them to have a bale on their head." Candlass climbed up again after exerting his influence by merely being there, and flicking his hands together as he came to the deck, remarked: "They'll all be sober before long, and no excuse." This saying was passed round from one to another. It suggested, as those who knew Candlass of yore agreed, that Candlass had his own point of view, and that only upon a man who had full use of his faculties would he be utterly severe in case of wrong-doing. Those whom he had "marked down" felt troubled in their hearts, as do discovered truants whose names have been handed in to the Head.
"Let me have an axe up," said Candlass presently, on the main deck again, looking down at Rafferty. Rafferty glared round for his axe, forgetting where he had put it, found it, and Candlass, turning to his men, gave a jerk of his head to one of the marked youths, and pointed down at the axe.
"Do you mean that I've got to go down for it?" asked the young man.
Candlass's lips tightened for all reply, and he seemed to read the man's eye. The man hastened away to the deck below, and when he returned with the axe Candlass looked at him again thoughtfully, then pointed to the bales strewn on the deck.
"Do you mean——" began the man, and his face was insolent.
Candlass pointed to the bales again, and the man walked over to them and began to smite upon the wires, which sprang apart.
"Here, the rest of you," said Candlass sharply, "just hustle that hay all along the alleyways."
"Is that enough hay on your deck, Candlass?" came Rafferty's voice.
"That will do," Candlass replied, and then quietly, at least comparatively speaking, and certainly expeditiously, to and fro on the main deck went Candlass's men, carrying the hay. They even began to be jolly at their work, throwing the fodder each to each, and the great horned beasts strained their necks and lowed, horns meeting horns across the alleyways. The men had to arm themselves with sticks to beat back the heads, for the armfuls that were carried to the extreme ends were sorely diminished by snatchings on the way. Candlass remained by the hatch, signing with a hand when to hoist, when to steady, when to let go, for the Man with the Hat worked on at the engine, bringing up bales to Rafferty's deck.
There was a sense of famine in the crew by the time all this work was done. The cattle were fed, but not they. The drink was out of them and there was no food in them, and they went aft to their safe of a cabin and picked, snarlingly, the men who were to go for meat and bread to the galley and the baker. They crowded, still snarling, round the tub containing the tin plates, forks and spoons, and when the food arrived they swooped round it, all talking and yelling. Mike's voice boomed high.
"Yis, youse all sober up for your chewings, but youse can't sober up fer work, some of yez."
"That's so," came Cockney's chirruping shriek. "Them that wasn't workin' jest now shouldn't git anythink ter eat."
Obscene comments on the food were voiced.
"Oh, kickin', kickin'!" said Mike. "You deserve to be given just the Board of Trade Allowance, the way youse are kickin'! Are youse aware that there's more rations there than the Board of Trade grants ye?" He turned to explain to Michael, friendly: "Them fellers whose mothers was rakin' in the ash bucket for a crust would be kickin' if they sat down to ate this day with the captain."
"Hegets enough," growled a flat-browed fellow. Mike turned his head slowly and sized up that speaker.
"Well," said he, "I suppose the captain didn't spind his life lying on his back in the parks!" He paused, and nodded his head, to let that soak in, before he added: "So as to get his freezin' job up on the bridge. Do ye begrudge him his pie, damn ye?"
"Pie! Oh pie!" cried one, and there began a great talk about "hand-outs," and "sit-downs," and "throwing the feet,"—slang of American trampdom.
"Well!" said Mike, hearing all that jargon. "I thought it was cattlemen we was. We seem to be a bunch of hoboes, back-door beggars——"
"Front-door!" shouted a sharp, pale-faced little youth. "I always go to the front-door. If it's an old woman what opens I always asks her if she would ask her mother to give something."
Mike glanced at him with the appearance of one who is sick. Michael, cheered up afresh by Mike's recent friendly acknowledgment of his presence, shouted to a man who had flung his empty plate at a rat that ran on one of the pipes: "What are you doing that for? Let the rats alone."
"What for?"
The general conversation subsided so that they might listen to this one.
"To keep them friendly. You may throw your arm out of your bunk in your sleep, and if ye're always disturbing the rats they'll lay on to your hand then. But if you pay no attention to them at any time they'll understand it was an accident."
One or two laughed derisively, but they were quickly silenced by others who wagged knowing heads. Michael, thus backed, proceeded to cite cases.
"When I was on the steamshipA-Chilesthe rats used to come up every meal time and form up behind us clean round the table." There was a laugh. "I'm tellin' ye!" said Michael. "There's no use of me going further if ye don't believe the first of it."
"What else, then?" asked the Inquisitive One. But he was beneath Michael's notice, for Michael wore a blind on his eye and was proud of it by now.
"What was the rest?" said Mike.
"I was going to tell them," answered Michael, "but I suppose they won't believe me, that the table was short for the number of rats, and they formed up behind us——" he waved a hand behind him as if there were rats there now—"four deep."
There was another laugh, but Mike did not join in. He was staring into a corner, for something there had arrested his gaze. He turned to those near him. He thought he had got used to the freaks on board, but evidently not.
"Can any of youse tell me," he asked quietly, "what's the German Emperor doing on board?"
They looked round. Over in the corner, with a heaped plate and two biscuits, gorging, was a man whose attire would have ousted him from any hotel in Regent Street or Broadway, but who was here a disgrace the other way round—shamelessly well done; a fat, cunning-looking man with lecherous eyes. It was probably his moustache that deluded Mike, for it was a little bit reminiscent, perhaps, of that other celebrated one, so handy for caricaturists.
"It's the night watchman—the night watchman," explained the Inquisitive One, who perhaps had seen him before and instituted inquiries.
"Bejabbers," said Mike, and putting down his empty cup and empty plate, he led an adjournment on deck.
There was a tensity in the "Push" that night, a sense of expectancy and foreboding, according to how they were constituted who felt it. There were minor squabbles. The lower deck gang had several to settle, and they never seemed to be settled. There was some slight friction in Candlass's gang also over the fact that, thanks to the whim of their straw-boss, they numbered three men less than the lower deck gang. Two of these three that had been made a gift of to Cockney were present when the subject was discussed, and the rising storm over that matter made several wonder where the third was—the youth in the long coat.
"Where's Four Eyes?" someone asked.
"Oh, to hell!" said several, which being interpreted means that they thought he was not worth worrying over.
Mike put his head on one side wondering, trying to remember if Four Eyes had been present in the crowd wrangling for food, but he could not remember, so he dismissed the subject. He was glad the fellow was out of his sight anyhow, and not in his gang. And as for defending himself in his action, which they now discussed, though he opened his mouth once or twice to do so, he desisted on each occasion. "Let them wrangle," his expression seemed to say. Charles, to give the Inquisitive One his name, was agitated; he had set this discussion agoing, and Mike's silence he began to feel as ominous. Mike was well aware that he had started the "grouse" about being three men short, and in an attempt to allay his forebodings, Charles now drew forth his mouth organ, and began to play. Some of the younger fry danced. One or two, who were mouth-organ experts, cocked their ears. They thought they could play every whit as well as the Inquisitive One. His rapid-fire eyes perceived this, and when he finished one tune, and these young men made a grab for the instrument, he leapt back snarling. There were shrieks of "Damn your eyes!" and "Half a mo'!" and "Give me a chance!" and "To hell with you!"
"Give us a lend of it then!"
"Half a mo'!" shrieked Charles, and broke into another tune, holding the mouth organ between the flattened palms of his hands, and putting a tremolo into the music by the adroit movement of them. The other would-be players drew back, sat down on their bunks. One of them, when the dancers added shouts to their dancing, growled: "A little less yelling like that. Let us hear the music."
"Who are you talking to?" said another, who had interspersed his dance with many whoops. It was a mistake, for the man who had ordered silence was that devilish, depravedly handsome, dandiacal person called Jack. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and rose. There was an expression at his mouth as of boredom. The youth who had "lipped" him dived out of the cabin. Jack strolled after him. One or two gave ear, listening for what sounds from outside might come through the music within. They made up their minds that nothing had happened, when suddenly there came throttling cries, and they listened anew, listened briefly, and then said: "Oh, to hell!" Jack strolled back again and looked at the two young men who had shown themselves as especial friends of the man he had been chastising out there in his own way. It was a brief but meaningful glance he gave to them; neither had any response. The music went on, with a few interludes after that fashion.
"Yes, very nice," said Mike eventually, gloomily. "Now we're going to sleep. There's a few of youse fellows is going to have a happy day to-morrow."
Some fell silent; others said: "Oh, we'll let them see!" It was growing cold on deck, and one by one the men who had been above came down into the stuffy cabin. The fellow who had "lipped" Jack crept in and retired to his bunk. Mike, backed by Michael and others, belligerently ordered the crew to strip. Several had already done so. They were not too cold; the place was reekingly hot, and for all the tendency of their oaths to be based upon naked matters, nakedness brought forth no giggling comments. The stripped men reclined in all manners of attitudes, carrying on conversations, rising on an elbow to gesticulate, hanging a leg over a bunkside in excitement—but there was none of that, no giggling at each other's nakedness. Now and then Scholar was inclined to smile, but it was a wholly humorous smile; he was thinking of what the people in the walk of life he came from would think if they were present. He was picturing his father reclining on the ottoman at home, rising up on an elbow as he discussed politics or taxation with other friends similarly at ease. Several grimly refused to strip.
"Oh, very well," said Mike. "Only I'm telling ye ye'll be lousy before we reach Liverpool, wearing yer pants day and night."
Jack and Johnnie whispered together, and then went up on deck with the air of young men going out on a "tear" for the evening. They were off to see if they could amuse themselves by discovering the lairs among the hay of one or two who had not come down to the cabin, to tickle the ears of these men with blades of hay, or to pelt them with sheep dung, or to interview their pockets, according to what seemed feasible. One or two others slipped away anon, but did not go on deck, and presently they returned tittering, vaulted into their bunks, and stretched out. There was quiet for a little while, save for the lowing of the cattle and the everlasting churn and beat of the propeller pulsing underfoot. Then came Rafferty's voice from the distance asking somebody, in the name of Saints and Devils, if he could not tie them up himself. The answer was inaudible, even to those who were wide awake, but Rafferty's voice came again:
"All of them? A lot of them! I'll come and see."
A titter again exploded from a bunk, a whispered "Shut up!" came from another. In plunged Rafferty, wire rope in hand, and roaring: "Tumble up, the lower deck"! Some of the men woke, thinking it was morning.
"Come on, you fellows!" Rafferty said, and they followed him. Mike wakened.
"I just tell you fellows right now," he said, "you can confine your letting loose of the steers in the darkness of the night to your own deck, or there'll be some slaughtering done. Mind! Now when I say a thing I mane it!"
The pacific men of the main deck thought to themselves: "Oh, Lord! There'll be a free fight with all that lower deck crowd." The men who had sleepily and subconsciously followed Rafferty came back presently; two divisions of the steers, they reported, had been loosened and were milling.
"Huh!" said Mike. "A nice night watchman that!" and rolled over.
Jack and Johnnie, after the others were asleep, stole back again, muttering something about "divvy in the morning." The morning came with awful celerity. "Tumble up, you sons of——!" and there was Rafferty in the doorway, wire rope in hand, going from bunk to bunk roaring, and coming down whack on the sleepers. One man sat up and pointed at him before he drew near.
"Now look out, Rafferty!" he warned. "I'm not on your deck. If you touch me I'll have it into you one way or another."
Rafferty glared at him, realised that the man was not on his deck, and passed on. But all were awake now. Scholar, hauling on his clothes, thought to himself: "Now we are going to have an exhibition of discipline at sea!" Then suddenly, in a top bunk amidships, up sat one of the pickpocket-faced youngsters, one of those referred to, in a bunch, as "youse" by Mike. And he piped up: "Call me in another hour, Rafferty, and fetch me me shavin' water."
Rafferty rushed at him, but the skimpy youth slipped to the deck on the far side. The boss pursued, and amid cheers and whoops they ran, like boys at tag, round and round the bunks. They grew winded. The pickpocket-faced kid paused, made feints of coming this way that way, and Rafferty, suddenly, abruptly, fled from the cabin.
"Better get out now, you," somebody said to the youngster, but he delayed, uncertain; and as he delayed there, gaining his breath, Rafferty returned with a pitchfork and charged upon him. A man in a lower bunk thrust out his leg, and Rafferty cannoned over it, dropping the pitchfork; but the wire rope was to hand. It fell from his pocket where he had thrust it on arming himself with the sharper weapon, and he grabbed it and scrambling up whirled back to the bunk of the man who had tripped him, and down came the wire rope again and again.
"Eh?" came a sharp voice, exploding in the doorway, and there was Candlass, white and very grim. "Main deck men, tumble up!" he ordered. Behind him was a middle-sized, square man with a pepsin jaw, slightly bent forward, left foot a little in advance of the right, clenched fists almost touching over his midriff. Candlass became aware of him. "That's all right," he said over his shoulder, in an easy tone, and the pugilistic person, who bunked in Candlass's cabin, and who was on board to bring over a dozen stallions penned amidships near the galley, turned away. The main deck crowd filed out, Mike delaying to watch them go, like a sergeant in command.
"You go ahead then," said Candlass to him. "I'll be after you presently."
Rafferty had his man down still, out of the bunk, on the floor—not the kid who had set the trouble going, but the man who had tripped the Mad Boss up. They were fighting for possession of the wire rope, grappling each other's throats, and it; but at last Rafferty gave up his hold upon the rope. Candlass, motionless, kept an eye upon those who seemed to be drawing on their boots with purpose. Several of the lower deck men thought it safer to go forward than to wait and see the finish here. They began to file out, past Candlass, who let them go, eyeing each carefully, and then glancing back at the bout in progress on the floor. Suddenly his hand shot out and he grabbed the throat of one passing him, instinct telling him that this thin and evil-faced young man was in too great haste. Rafferty rose then, commented: "That will keep you thoughtful for a day or two!" and spun round looking for the originator of this trouble.
"Where's that——" he began. "Oh, that's all right, Candlass; I want to see him. Get out, the rest of ye."
"Don't go!" shrieked the youth.
"Get a move on, you fellows," said Candlass. "Shake a leg lively out of that door."
Johnnie looked at Jack; Jack went white. He arranged his scarf.
"Don't go, you fellers!" screamed the youngster that Candlass had now relaxed grip upon; he tried to plunge out of the door, but the boss of the main deck had planted himself in the entrance, hands on hips, and an elbow touched either side.
"What are you going to do with him?" said Jack, and there was a slight thickness in his voice, and he canted back his head a little more than usual. His shorter partner struck an attitude much like that adopted by William a few minutes ago, he who had charge of the stallions, when he thought Candlass might require assistance.
"Eh?" snapped Rafferty. He made a movement like one in a weird dance, whirling on his heel, advancing to the door, and he sent the youth who wanted his shaving water off his feet like a skittle well hit, sent him flying the breadth of the cabin, rushed after him, and as he was clutching a bunk stanchion to save a fall, flung his arms round him, bear-hugged him, flung him again, as Jack and Johnnie ran forward, not wholly certain what to do—flung him clear through the door, by the side of which Candlass stood. There was a sound that indicated that the insolent youth's head had hit something hard out there.
"Guess that will do," said Candlass.
Jack and Johnnie, and the dazed man who had tripped Rafferty up, and one or two others who had not yet left, moved toward the door. Those in the lead showed an impulse to pass the Mad Boss with a slight parody of a seaman's roll that might have been taken for insolence. But before they came to where Candlass stood they changed their gait, all save Jack—but his gait was generally swaggering, and even he looked strained as he went out. They passed through the door with a lowering of their heads, somewhat as many people go into church. In the passage outside the perky one, blubbering, rose and shuffled forward with them.
Next morning Scholar was wakened by someone shaking his arm. It seemed that he had fallen asleep, worn out, in the midst of a babel, a mere second before the shake was given, and with a sense of distress he opened his eyes. Candlass bent over him, and in a voice so kindly that there came a lump in the throat of the new-awakened Scholar, he said: "Tumble up, young fellow. Four o'clock."
"Thank you," said Scholar, and was aware of the note in his own voice, a note as of gratitude.
Candlass, moving on, glanced back at him abruptly, and then went on again looking in bunk after bunk, top bunk, lower bunk, and wherever he saw, inert and blank, one of the men of the main deck squad he shook an elbow of the sleeper. Hauling on his boots, sitting on the edge of his bunk, Scholar looked after him, arrested. There could be no mistaking the expression of Candlass's face; it was with pity that he looked into these bunks. He shook gently, and there were grunts. He shook again, and there came a sigh, or an "Oh, hell!" and the eyes opened, and then Candlass, head bent, said: "Tumble up, Jack. Four o'clock!" or "Tumble up, Liverpool!" or Sam, or Dublin, or whatever the name might be. They woke in all sorts of ways. Some woke abruptly, and clenched a hand, prepared for attack; some quailed back and put up a hand to parry; some—great hulking fellows with the faces that we are accustomed to call brutal—looked as if they felt as did Scholar. Candlass, his task over, strolled quietly to the doorway, and his men did not keep him waiting long; they filed out and followed him in the dark tween-decks, where the lamps that hung here and there were beginning to swing, a slight roll being on the ship as she surged out of river into estuary.
The everlasting hum and whirr of the shaft went on below. Now and again one had to shorten a leg abruptly as she gave a roll. There was a new freshness in the draughts of air that scurried between the decks, and many little sounds suggested the open sea—little creakings and chirpings of wood and steel; and outside, in the dark round her, there rose faintly and fell away, a sound as of blown tissue paper. It was black above through the hatches, not yet blue. No stars showed. The atmosphere was fresh and full of little pin points of moisture. A bell struck above, and a bell responded, beat for beat, forward, and from beyond again a high piping voice was heard to declaim (it came with a slightly blown sound): "All's well!" She was forging out to sea. Away aft there was a whoop and shriek of: "Tumble up you sons of——!" There followed yells, cat-calls, loud voices. That incorrigible weasel was at it again. He sat up in his bunk, when the lower deck boss arrived, and—"Call me in another hour, Rafferty," he said, "and bring me me shaving water." He was less a cattleman than what is known in the begging fraternity of the States as a "gunsel." Half-a-dozen of his kidney together will set upon a grown man in a dark lane. Dislike of hitting a kid too hard clings to the man even in the midst of the tussle; but the kids have no qualms. They hang on like rats. It is almost impossible to tell their age. They may be anything from the mid teens to twenty-five, and they remain for many years looking simply neither boy nor man—peek-faced, cunning, slippery.
Rafferty slightly changed his tactics this morning. He stood and looked at the youth. He wagged his head at him.
"My lad," he said, "what I'll do with you is to take you into my berth, over my knee."
"No, you won't!" shouted the youth, and one or two others of the same breed added their voices to his, making a chorus.
"Tumble up, tumble up, damn ye; it's four o'clock!" said Rafferty, and then to the gunsels in general: "If you was a full-sized man and gave me that lip I would paste your face!" and he glared round at the full-sized men.
"Come on, come on!" said Cockney.
"Yah!" jeered the first gunsel.
Cockney gave that horrible jump that made his wide pants flap round his thin shanks. He had always to take people by surprise, so as to have any chance at all. Now he bowled the boy over with a flat blow on the cheek; and, not long since a gunsel himself, and very little patient with them, he leapt at the other two who were standing together waiting to see the fun, and crashed their foreheads together. There seemed less sympathy with them this morning. Harry, the crazy fellow, sat up with tousled hair and gibbered profanity at Rafferty, but Rafferty was nearly as crazy as he.
"Well, you're a grown man!" said he. "Take that!" and with a mighty quick action he flung his hand outside the cabin door, grabbed thence a pitchfork that he had left there on entering, and thrust at Harry with it. Harry put up his hand to protect himself, and the prong jabbed. He rolled over to get out of his bunk upon the other side, being in one of those amidships. The prong jabbed again—with a certain care this time, so that it was possibly not much worse than a pin-prick. He jumped in the way that some pedestrians jump from mad motorists, catching himself behind, and the men gave little laughing grunts.
"Come on, come on!" several growled, and the lower deck squad filed out, Cockney pushing his face close to the faces, one after the other, of the three weasely ones, who might be anything from sixteen to twenty-five. They seemed to understand that, and went quietly forward.
Mike had long since sobered, and was now getting better of the dry-mouth and dry-tongue feeling that had followed his drunkenness. He leant with folded arms upon the poop rail and observed how, in the estuary, where the shores rapidly receded one from the other, the lightships were all booming. A ball of steam rose from each, and anon came the shriek. There was something unreal about the whole view. Kind sunlight was upon the deck of theGlory. The precipitous bank, the higher south bank, could be seen clearly, rolling up shining, dew-wet, a glistening green; and yet the sirens kept calling. Suddenly there showed up, some distance off, two pieces of stick, erect, a short and a long one, and then a low mist rolled aside, and the two pieces of stick were disclosed as the mast tops of a schooner. Mike looked at the last lightship, and noticed how only its top was visible. The mist lay low, and in banks. Not for great steamers, like theGlory, standing high, did the sirens roar, but for the little sailing vessels and coasters under the haze. And now, day advancing, that haze began to disappear. Looking over the side he saw the green water quite clear, and something was swimming in it. Elbows on the taffrail, he glanced over his shoulder to see if there was anybody near him who would be interested, but there were only some of the "youse" about, who might reply, if he pointed out to them this otter, that so pleased him: "Well, what about it?"
The "youse" behind him broke out suddenly with: "Got any tobacco, Frenchy?"
"Feenish!" came Frenchy's voice, and Pierre strolled past. He too looked over the side, and Mike glanced at him.
"Otter, Pierre," he said. "You savvy otter?"
"Ah yes, so! What you call? Otter?"
"Yes, what they call an otter. Very good swim?"
"Yes, swim all right," and Pierre pensively watched the otter swimming away sternwards.
"How you getting on down at the galley?" asked Mike, for Pierre had been told off to sit at the galley door peeling potatoes, washing up, and so forth, on behalf of the upper deck. Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
"Not ver' good," he said.
"Who's helping you for the lower deck? Somebody helping you for the lower deck?" asked Mike.
"Two!" replied Pierre, and held up two fingers.
"Two!" said Mike, frowning, as though something was wrong.
"Not together. One man was come down with me—you know, man with hat——" and he held his hands up some distance out from his head on either side. Mike nodded. "He came down with me first day. Candlass tell me go down. Rafferty tell him. The cook talk rough. He say nozing—he just look. The cook say: 'What the hell you look at me?' and he say to cook—something I don't know. The cook run and get——" Pierre made a motion as of one who chops beef with a cleaver.
"A mate cl'aver!" said Mike, to the manner born.
"I don't know what you call. For chop—for cut meat."
"Yes, that's right. And what was the feller with the hat after doing?"
The interesting conversation had a pause of puzzlement.
"I beg your pardon," said Pierre.
Mike, too, was worried for a moment, in his anxiety to hear the tale.
"Yes, yes. What?" he said.
"Ze cook run out at zees man, but he did not jump. He stand and look. Ze cook drop his hand and put the knife with handle down."
"The cl'aver," said Mike.
"What you say? Oh, yes, clever—ver' clever, not afraid. There is nozing more for a little while, then the cook come to the door and he say: 'I have white vife in Liverpool,' and this man——" and again the gesture on either side of the head—"say: 'Come outside.'"
"He is a nigger, is he—a black fellow?"
"Black, yes. He say: 'What you mean?' This fellow only say once more: 'Come outside.' The cook stand inside door and say: 'Yah! You someting cattleman!' and zees man heet him."
"Eh?"
"Heet."
"Oh yes, quite."
Pierre showed where, jabbing his own fist under his chin.
"He go down bang! And he get up and reach for——" and again he indicated the cleaver. "But zees man with big hat have valise like me. He give it to the baker to keep for him for a shilling——"
"A valise!" said Mike. "Go on."
"He jump inside baker's cabin, and he say: 'Partner, you give me my valise dam' quick!' He grab it from inside and bring out one revolver. Ze cook run past me and say: 'Where he go?' I say nozing—I am too excite. And zees man——" again he showed the breadth of hat—"there he is, throw down valise, and he say to the cook: 'You drop that,' he say. 'You get in galley.' And he follow the cook, and baker follow him. Ze baker do not like ze cook. All day ze cook shout at him: 'Baker, damn you, ze oven is hot. Baker, damn you, what about your bread? Baker, damn you, I'll put dis dough overboard if you do not come!' And zees man say to cook: 'You dance,' he say. 'You dance, you God-damn nigger! You tell your white vife you menshion about just now, you tell her I make you dance when you go home,' and ze baker laugh—and zen jump back where ze cook not see him laugh, for he is a small man with a cough, and ze cook is very large and ugly."
"And did he dance?" asked Mike.
"He try to dance!" Pierre shook his head. "No, not good. He kneel down, and ze man go away. By and by he look out and he say to me—he shake his fist at me—he say: 'By God, I report that man to Captain!' he say. 'You understand?' I say: 'Yes.' He shake his two fist at me and say again: 'By God, I report that man to Captain!' I say: 'Yes!'"
"You stay down?" asked Mike.
Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, not nice." He waved a hand in one direction. "But up here," he waved a hand in the other direction, "not nice." It was Scylla and Charybdis for Pierre all right.
"Ye're doing all the paylings yerself then now?" asked Mike.
"I beg your pardon?"
"All alone down there now—you?"
"No. Anozer man come down. Ze cook say to Meestair Rafferty, when he come past: 'I want anozer man. I give zat ozer man ze sack. He no good.'——"
"The hell he did!"
"Yes, he do. And Rafferty bring down anozer man."
"Has he got a gun too, do you think?" asked Mike.
"What you say? No, no. Coat and spectacles."
"Do ye mane to tell me," said Mike, disgusted, "that ye would sit on the one side of a galley door payling spuds, and that sitting forninst ye on the other?"
This was beyond Pierre, but a sudden stampede behind announced that grub was being brought aft.
"So long just now," said Mike, and plunged down after the crowd; and Pierre, who in a menial capacity had helped to prepare this meal, went down again to the galley door from his airing, to take what food the cook would have ready for him. He gathered that Mike had some contempt for his occupation down there, but in so far as the society went, it was—as he had phrased it—not nice there, not nice here. But the quality, as well as the quantity, of the food doled out to him in return for his services at the galley door, was greatly different from that which was scrimmaged for in the cattlemen's cabin, gristly hash and a biscuit, and a tin-cupful of soup. Pierre, down there forward, ate as well as the captain—had mashed potatoes, a little piece of fish, well cooked Irish stew, a hunk of pie; and, if they had paid no heed to the fierce expletives volleyed upon them, the two galley slaves received a cup of coffee later, with: "Here—here's a cup of coffee for you, you poor devils." Pierre and Four Eyes are not the only people who have chosen the fleshpots of Egypt on such terms.
An air of belligerence still hung about the boat, thick as the smell of the cattle. The twelve stallions, ranged amidships, bickered like the men. The alleyway before them was narrow; they could stretch their necks all the way across it, and they were everlastingly doing so—not in the friendly way of the long-horned steers that stretched out merely to draw attention to themselves lest somebody might have food for them, but stretched out crankily, even at their mildest, and at their worst, devilishly. When one did so thrust out its head the ears were always laid back, the teeth showing, the eyes rolled white, glinting round to see what the neighbour was up to. Out would come that neighbour's head like a darting snake, and snap would go the teeth left and right. Out came the next head, and so on along the line—till every horse was snapping left and right save the end ones, that had only to keep alert inwards. Thus were they with each other, and when human beings came along each tried to take a piece out of the passer by; and when he succeeded in running the gauntlet, tried to take a piece out of its neighbour for having wished to share the human being's head.
Most of the men attempted the "Whoa now! Steady boy!" method, not only for their own sakes, but for those who were to handle the horses later. The night watchman used to go past them on hands and knees. Scholar saw him do so once, and immediately gave up his practice of going on to the upper deck, and passing over them so, and descending again; gave up even descending to the lower deck and running the gauntlet of the men there (which was not quite as bad as that of the stallions, for not all were unfriendly) when coming and going. Now, when he had occasion to go forward alone, he always did so by way of the horses, the direct way, and passed them slowly. Each one of them seemed to be possessed of a devil. Cockney had an ear torn off—and the temper of the stallions was not improved thereby. That fellow was a marvel. He got the bandage off the dent of the taffrail on the third day, and that afternoon he had his head bound up afresh because of his torn ear. He expressed no opinion about these stallions, he voiced no threat, not even to the steward who bandaged him, fresh from the accident; but after the steward had done with him, and he had brought the odour of iodoform into our midst and been decently sympathised with, he stole away armed with a cudgel. Those who saw him slip it up under his jacket said nothing. He swung with flapping trousers, a vigorous bag of bones, along the alley where the stallions challenged all comers. Out came the head of stallion one at his approach, and crash went the cudgel on its nose. That brought out the head and neck of the second, brought out the craning necks of all of them; and Cockney flailed his way along the line, flailed up and down, and flailed his way back again, and returned to the cattlemen's den and sat down upon the bunk's edge, with the spreading stain of a fresh hemorrhage upon the bandage. Men looked at the head between those thin hands.
Flailed his way along the line.Flailed his way along the line.
"Your ear's a-bleedin' again," said one.
"Never mind me hear," he answered. "I give them socks."
But another man eventually advised him to go back to the steward and have his ear re-dressed. The stallions were not improved by this treatment. It was impossible now to "stay with" any one of them, hanging on to its upper lip and stroking the forehead, whether it would or not, and crooning: "Whoa there! Steady boy!" They raised their heads high, and launched downwards. Later on, Cockney, back again from the doctoring, put his hand to his head and said: "I tell you this 'urts, it does!" suddenly rose and went out again; and once more some men guessed what manner of errand he went upon, but said nothing. William saw him at his flailing this time.
"What are you doing?" he said, charging upon him. "I'd give you the same if you hadn't got enough already."
"Wot for?" asked Cockney, and as he thrust forward his face his eyes danced and blazed feverishly, like the eyes of one at bay, under the white bandage.
"For hitting them," replied William.
"Bit off my hear, didn't they?" said Cockney.
"You leave them alone," William advised.
"You keep 'em from bitin' off people's 'eads, then. They're your stallions, ain't they?"
"You leave them alone."
Cockney fired one word at William, his eyes as if a lamp was reflected in them. William wrestled inwardly, clenched his hands at his side, and Cockney moved on. William turned back from him, letting the matter rest there in consideration of Cockney's state; but he did not look where he was going, still had a lingering inclination to punch Cockney anyhow, and had his head turned so that Cockney could see that thought in his eye. The end stallion flung its head up and down, with a sidewise swing, loose necked, and William got the blow full on the side of his face and head, and went down.
"Yah!" jeered Cockney, as William dragged himself up on one palm, clapping the flat of his other hand to his temple, and he returned by way of the upper deck (for he was at the far end of the stallion row) with a dancing step, to narrate to those in the cattlemen's quarters what had befallen. And they were quietly satisfied, for William was no favourite. They all remembered how he had come to their door one morning, and stood behind Candlass in the attitude of a prize-fighter being photographed for the posters.