He was facing aft toward the main shrouds, when suddenly he started, his eyes seemed to bulge from his head, and he dropped his serving mallet, while at the same time there was a bump behind me on the deck, and Frenchy gasped, "Ma foi! Look, Felix!"
I turned quickly and there on the white deck below the main rigging was a big black greasy splotch of tar, and Joe's tar pot rolling into the scupper.
The silence that followed was painful. Mr. Zerk came forward from the weather quarterbitt where he was smoking his after dinner pipe, and Joe dropped down the Jacob's ladder to the deck under a fire of insulting profanity from the mate. Whipping off his dungaree jacket, he started to swab up the defiling tar before it could soak well into the deck planks.
Scouse, whom Frenchy saw unhitch the lanyard of the pot as he worked above Joe, went on with his tarring without batting an eye. Trouble was on foot, however, in the port watch.
We went below at eight bells, four o'clock in the afternoon, but Joe remained on deck to remove the last vestiges of tar, and Scouse entered the fo'c'sle, speaking to no one. The trick played on Joe was so contemptible that, so far as the common feeling went, Scouse had placed himself beyond the pale, and no man cared to break the ice by addressing him. That big Scouse felt this was certain, and the fact that it hurt at least attested a few remaining embers of decent feeling.
The first dog watch that day was unusually quiet, all hands mending and reading and wondering what the outcome would be when Joe got the tar cleaned up on deck. At five bells Joe returned to the fo'c'sle with the supper, a kid of salt pork and cabbage. Martin, who had busied himself in the galley, brought in a pan of "dandy funk," a baked mass of hard tack and molasses, a great delicacy with us and only possible at rare intervals when Chow would permit us to take up the space in his galley range. However, the dandy funk went begging. Joe was sullen and refused to touch it. Scouse ignored it, and so did everyone else with the exception of Martin, who for once enjoyed a complete meal of our favorite dessert. Conversation during supper was strained to the breaking point, and we were all glad to be away as soon as possible and get out on deck.
The second dog watch went by without incident, as we were rushed about the braces, sweating up for the night, trimming yards, and laboring at the bilge pumps. It was clear, but with no moon, and at eight bells we went forward to the square under the fo'c'sle head. The starboard watch were called aft by the second mate, to some task of horsing up this yard or that, and everything was propitious for the coming battle. Blood alone could wipe out the feud between Scouse and Joe.