Black Pawl’s face set grimly as the man charged; and he met Spiess with an open-handed blow on one cheek, and then on the other, that brought the seaman up all standing and trembling with the dizzy nausea the jarring blows induced. While he stood thus, helpless, Black Pawl struck out like the kick of a mule and Spiess went spinning and teetering across the deck till he came to the opposite rail, where he collapsed.
As Spiess lifted his head, Black Pawl laughed and said: “Bring better than your fists, next time, Spiess.”
The man muttered under his breath: “Aye, I will.” And Black Pawl nodded cheerfully, and forgot his errand in the waist and returned to the quarter again. There Red Pawl, openly rebellious, warned him:
“I tell you, keep your hands off the men of my boat, sir.”
“Fiddle!” grinned his father. “Teach your men manners, boy.” And he passed Red and joined the girl. She had watched, she was watching now, with a white, still face. Black Pawl felt a curious necessity of apologizing to her for what he had done. But he did not; for it was not the nature of the man. He challenged her instead. “One way of handling that like of man, Ruth,” he said.
She replied boldly: “A bad way, Cap’n Pawl.”
He laughed at that, and touched her under the chin, lightly. “Now, now! It serves.”
She felt that she ought to condemn him, but she could not. The spell of the man was upon her, as it was upon the others. She liked him, could not forbear liking him, no matter what he might do. There was charm in him; and there was, for all his strength and pride of strength, a weakness that appealed to the mother heart of her. She was sorry for him, without knowing why. Indeed she did not even know she was sorry for him; she only knew she liked him, whatever he might do. So in spite of herself she found she must smile at him now. He said, catching the smile: “So, that’s better.”
“You’ll find the men don’t mind,” Dan Darrin had told her one day. “They take it as a part of the game; and there never was a crew that would stick closer in trouble.”
She nodded, and murmured thoughtfully: “I can believe that men would stick with you.”