puffing and gasping, and watched
them swim away to their boat through the clear water below.

"Ruddy Dagos," said the roughs.

"Set of blooming pirates," said Kettle.

But Dayton-Philipps seemed to view the situation from a different point.
"I'm rather thinking we are the pirates. How about those three we've got
on board? This sort of press-gang work isn't quite approved of nowadays,
is it, Skipper?"

"They no speakee English," said Kettle drily. "You might have heard me
ask that, sir, before I started to talk to that skipper to make him
begin the show. And he did begin it, and that's the great point. If ever
you've been in a police court, you'll always find the magistrate ask,
'Who began this trouble?' And when he finds out, that's the man he logs.
No, those fishermen won't kick up a bobbery when they get back to happy
Portugal again; and as for our own crowd here on board, they ain't
likely to talk when they get ashore, and have money due to them."

"Well, I suppose there's reason in that, though I should have my doubts
about the stonemason. He comes from Sierra Leone, remember, and they're
great on the rights of man there."

"Quite so," said Kettle. "I'll see the stonemason gets packed off to sea
again in a stokehold before he has a chance of stirring up the mud
ashore. When the black man gets too pampered, he has to be brought low
again with a rush, just to make him understand his place."

"I see," said Dayton-Phillips, and then he laughed.

"There's something that tickles you, sir?"

"I was thinking, Skipper, that for a man who believes he's being put in
the way of a soft thing by direct guidance from on high, you're using up
a tremendous lot of energy to make sure the Almighty's wishes don't
miscarry. But still I don't understand much about these matters myself.
And at present it occurs to me that I ought to be doing a spell at those
infernal pumps, instead of chattering here."

The three captive Portuguese were brought up on deck and were quickly
induced by the ordinary persuasive methods of the merchant service
officer to forego their sulkiness and turn-to diligently at what work
was required of them. But even with this help the heavy ship was still
considerably undermanned, and the incessant labor at the pumps fell
wearily on all hands. The Bay, true to its fickle nature, changed on
them again. The sunshine was swamped by a driving gray mist of rain; the
glass started on a steady fall; and before da