ight, too," growled Barry, openly glaring his dislike for
Leyden. "My orders. I expect them to be carried out. You can have no
business with my ship, anyhow."

"You're not very cordial, are you?" Leyden smiled back. "I wanted to
inquire about one of my men who ran from me in Surabaya. I believe he
joined you. My skipper said a brigantine came in for an hour or so about
the time the man disappeared, and this is the only brigantine that's
been in the port in months."

Barry's keen eyes bored into Leyden so coldly and fixedly that, studied
as he was in worldly encounters, that gentleman shifted uneasily on his
feet. The _Barang's_ skipper knew well enough about that missing man,
and also where he had gone to. He knew, also, that it was not in
Surabaya that he entered the brigantine, but in far subtler manner, as a
legitimate, signed-on seaman in Batavia. There was still a patch in the
mainsail, a little more than man-high, to recall the man; somewhere near
the stockade gate the insects and ground vermin were at that moment
industriously engaged in stripping a skeleton which might have
interested Leyden. But the blunt sailor, simple and straightforward
though he was, was endowed with sufficient elementary cunning to cope
with Leyden in that worthy's present state of irritation.

"No strangers in my ship, Mr. Leyden," he said. "Try another tack.
Sorry I can't stay to talk with you; I'm busy." He mounted the gangway
without a further glance at Leyden, leaving that gentleman staring up
after him with tight lips drawn back from grinning teeth and a quivering
of the arm which was bent back to the hip pocket.

"Don't try it!" warned Rolfe, edging aside as Barry passed him.

"Shove orf, me son," added Bill Blunt and squinted along his belaying
pin straight at Leyden.

"Oh, leave the man alone!" growled Barry angrily. "You weren't put here
to start something. So long as he stays off the ship, I don't expect you
to stir him up."

"Barry, just one moment," cried Leyden, and his face had assumed a smirk
of contempt. Barry turned without replying. "I'd be thankful if you'd
tell your pirates to leave this theatrical stuff until it's called for,"
Leyden laughed. "I've been trying for five minutes to get my tobacco
pouch out of my pocket, and every time I move a finger one of your bold
desperadoes wiggles a gun at me, and the other buccaneer draws a bead on
my unoffending head with that ferocious pin."

Barry stared hard at the f