immed his beard before the glass. Sheriff looked on at these
preparations with fidgeting impatience, and from without there was a
clamor of negro voices taking counsel. But the little sailor was not to
be hurried. He went through his toilet with solemn deliberation, and
then he opened the chart-house door and went out beneath the baking
sunshine of the bridge-deck beyond.

A cluster of Krooboys stood at the further end of it, cackling with
talk, and at sight of him they called their friends on the main deck
below, who began to come up as fast as they could get foot on the
ladders. They showed inclinations for a rush, but Kettle held up his
left hand for them to keep back, and they obeyed the order. They saw
that vicious revolver gripped in his right fingers, and they respected
its powers.

He addressed them with a fine fluency of language. He had a good command
of sailor's English, and also of Coast English, both of which are
specially designed for forcible comment; and he knew, moreover, scraps
from a score of native dialects, which, having Arabic for a groundwork,
are especially rich in those parts of speech-which have the highest
vituperative value. The black man is proverbially tough, and a whip,
moral or physical, which will cut the most hardened of whites to
ribbons, will leave him unmoved. An artist in words may rail at him for
an hour without making him flicker an eyelash, or a Yankee mate might
hammer him with a packing-case lid (always supposing there was no nail
in it) for a like period without jolting from him so much as a cry or a
groan. And so I think it speaks highly for Captain Kettle's powers when,
at the end of three minutes' talk, he caused many of those Krooboys to
visibly wince.

You cannot touch a Krooboy's feelings by referring insultingly to his
mother, because he has probably very dim recollections of the lady; you
can not rile him by gibing comments on his personal appearance; but
still there are ways of getting home to him, and Kettle knew the secret.
"You make fight-palaver," he said, "you steal, you take ship, you drink
cargo gin, and you think your _ju-ju_ fine _ju-ju._ But my _ju-ju_
too-plenty-much better, and I fit for show it you again if dis
steal-palaver no stop one-time."

They began to move threateningly toward him. "Very well," he said, "then
I tell you straight; you no fit to be called black boys. You bushmen.
Bah! you be bushmen."

The maddened Krooboys ran in, and the wick