board. "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