pirit of the man and subdued the brute force
pitted against him.

"Put down that weapon!" Holy Joe repeated.

Slowly, the mate lowered his arm.

The parson turned to the squareheads; aye, he turned his back full upon
the bucko, and the latter made no move against him.

"Obey your orders, men," Holy Joe said to the sailors. "Go to your
work as he commands. I will stay with the boy."

The squareheads obeyed without question. They knew, just as all of us
knew, that their little champion was in no danger of mishandling, at
least not at that moment. They trooped aft, heavy-footed, murmuring,
but docile, and joined the stiffs at the lee braces. Holy Joe, now
alone on that deck so far as physical backing went, turned again to the
mate. But indeed he needed no physical backing; his indomitable spirit
had cowed the bucko.

"Your men will give you no further trouble, sir; they are at their
stations," said he.

It was the first time he had used the "sir." For an instant it seemed
a weakening. It gave Mister Fitzgibbon the heart to bluster.

"I ordered you aft with the rest," he began. "What d'ye mean----"

"I have other work to do this watch--as you know," interrupted the
parson. He said the words so solemnly and sternly they sounded like a
judgment; aye, and they nipped the rising courage of the mate. He
could only mumble, and stammer out,

"You--you refuse duty?"

Holy Joe was silent for an instant. All of us were silent. One could
have heard a pin drop upon the deck. Then, out of the port foc'sle, a
dreadful sound came to our ears, a low, strangled moan. It stabbed the
vitals of the most hardened of us; with my own eyes I saw the mate
tremble. Aye, in some way Holy Joe had sent a fear into the brute soul
of Fitzgibbon; in some way he had sent a fear into the brute souls of
us all, and, at least in my case, a great wonder. The pain-filled wail
of Nils, coming as it did, seemed magic-inspired to light for me a
universal truth. I felt it crudely, saw it dimly, but there it was,
dramatized before my eyes, the age-long, ceaseless battle between the
Beast in Man and the God in Man, the resistless power of service and
sacrifice. Aye, and Holy Joe's softly spoken reply to the mate's words
confirmed what I saw and felt.

"You speak of my duty, sir," said he. "I see it--and do it!"

With that he turned on his heel and walked into the foc'sle.

When he had disappeared something seemed to have gone from