As it neared the beach, Mike stepped forward, and followed by two or three of his men, stumped down to the water’s edge.
“Shure an’ what moight it bay that ye’re wantin’ here?” he demanded as the boat’s keel grated on the beach.
The steersman,—a huge, raw boned mulatto in ragged, dirty clothes and with a great livid scar on one cheek, looked the bo’sun over contemptuously and his mouth widened in a twisted smile, disclosing broken, yellow fangs.
“Whadda matter wi’ you, Pat?” he replied insolently.
Mike grew purple and his gray whiskers bristled.
“Kape a civil tongue in yer head, ye dhirty nagur!” he fairly roared. “B’the Saints, if yez is a-lookin’ fer throuble yez’ll be afther foindin’ it widout lookin’ far, ye spade-faced, mud-colored, bilge-rat!”
“Haa!” sneered the other. “Da Irish no like da vees’tor, eh? He no mek welcom’ da other fellas. Hmm! Eet look laik you have pretty good luck already. Plenty kill an’ b’il down an’ plenty ’ile mek an’ in cask. Hmm! You tink you owna dis islan’, Micky?”
Fairly bursting with rage at the man’s insolence and manner, Mike took a stride forward with doubled fists, but one of the boat’s crew rose to his feet, swung his huge oar and aimed a crashing blow at the bo’sun’s head. Mike sprang aside in the nick of time and as he did so, the men in the boat leaped ashore, significantly hitching their sheath-knives forward as they did so, and Mike, realizing the futility of resisting them unarmed, beat a hasty retreat. Shouting derisive insults at him, the mulatto boat steerer turned and signaled to his ship, and a moment later, another boat dropped to the water and came speeding shoreward.
With his men gathered about him, Mike spluttered and fumed, alternately cursing the newcomers and berating his men for a lot of cowards for allowing them to land.
“B’Saint Pathrick!” he roared. “Arre yez men or jelly-fish to sthand there an’ see yer bo’sun sassed by a slinkin’ black haythen av a half-breed Portugee? Shure an’ ain’t the foive av yez an’ mesilf a match fer thim twilve sn’akin’ rats? An’ ye wid sphades an’ irons an’ guns handy!”