olt'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 prick
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 shore 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

THE CORROSIVE

That evening I smoked in a splendid isolation while the men whispered
apart. I had no