arried officers skilled in
the crude arts of getting the utmost out of it. And since the lingua
franca of the sea, the tongue which has meaning for Swedish
carpenters, Finn sail-makers, and Greek fo'c's'le hands alike, is not
German, orders aboard the Villingen were given and understood in
English.

"A hand com' aft here!"

It was the mate's voice from the poop, robust and peremptory. Conroy,
one of the two Englishmen in the port watch, laid down the bucket he
was carrying and moved aft in obedience to the summons. As he trod
into the slip of light by the galley door he was visible as a fair
youth, long-limbed and slender, clad in a serge shirt, with dungaree
trousers rolled up to the knees, and girt with a belt which carried
the usual sheath-knife. His pleasant face had a hint of uncertainty;
it was conciliatory and amiable; he was an able seaman of the kind
which is manufactured by a boarding-master short of men out of a
runaway apprentice. The others, glancing after him while they
continued their work, saw him suddenly clear by the galley door,
then dim again as he stepped beyond it. He passed out of sight
towards the lee poop ladder.

The silent, hurried sailors pressed on with their work, while the big
barque purred through the water to the drone of wind thrusting in the
canvas. The brooms were abaft of the galley when the outcry began
which caused them to look apprehensively towards the poop without
ceasing their business of washing down. First it was an oath in
explosive German, the tongue which puts a cutting-edge on profanity;
then the mate's roar:

"Is dat vat I tell you, you verfluchter fool? Vat? Vat? You don't
understand ven I speak? I show you vat----"

The men who looked up were on the wrong side of the deck to make out
what was happening, for the chart-house screened the drama from
them. But they knew too well the meaning of that instantaneous
silence which cut the words off. It was the mate biting in his breath
as he struck. They heard the smack of the fist's impact and Conroy's
faint, angry cry as he failed to guard it; then the mate again, bull-
mouthed, lustful for cruelty: "Vat--you lift up your arm to me! You
dog!" More blows, a rain of them, and then a noise as though Conroy
had fallen or been knocked down. And after that a thud and a scream.

The men looked at one another, and nods passed among them. "He kicked
him when he was down on the deck," the whisper went. The other
Englishman in