The man in the jersey, who had been standing like a squat effigy, moved to a rope by which this little craft was moored alongside, pressed feet to the bulwark, hung on to the rope so that the great hull of the Glory (she looked a massive thing again) loomed close and they could stretch out to the rope ladder. Rafferty above hauled in Four Eyes' trunk with great vehemence, that "poor feller" standing by like a great child watching the rough-handling of a toy. They swarmed on deck again. Candlass came aft and stood beside them.
"Stand by, men," he said. "Just wait till we get alongside here."
The ship began to move on again, towards a sound of lowing of cattle and shouting of men, and Candlass walked forward, left them, and stood chatting amidships with Rafferty. There appeared suddenly, running into their midst, swarming on deck like rats, several grimy stokers, looking for friends, it would appear, among the cattlemen. Mike eyed the little knots that drew aside.
"If you want your razor, Scholar," he said quietly, "keep your eye on these fellows. Whoever's got it up here will very likely slip it to one of his friends in the black hole, for fear of you putting a copper on them."
The Inquisitive One, standing by, heard the word "copper" and flinched.
"What you say about a copper?" he asked anxiously.
"Now then, some of you fellows," cried Candlass.
"Come on, you fellows," shouted Rafferty.
The willing ones followed them; the shirkers remained, and were not worried. Indeed all were not required—they would be in each other's way. They only went below now to knock out the divisions between the pens with a crow-bar or two, or the back of an axe, or whatever implement came handy; and as they were so employed the shore-push thrust in their gangways and swarmed up them.
A couple of men that Mike called "them toffs" were speaking to Candlass at the top of the gangway that stretched to the main deck. They paid no heed to the men who had brought the cattle across, or at least little heed. One of them, once, while talking, roved his eyes from Candlass along the deck, looked at this cattleman, looked at that, half absently; saw Scholar, seemed for a moment to be more interested in him than in the threesome chat; looked then at Mike, up and down, appeared to measure him as if he thought: "Jove! There's a big fellow!" nodded "Yes, yes," to Candlass, looked at Mike's face again with an expression faintly reminiscent of that which had showed on Smithers' face now and then when he stood beside the wicket of the little movable office in the back of the shed at Montreal as the Hard Cases trooped up to sign on. Mike bent down, lifted a board, and stepped forward to a great steer that thrust its head, and its great long horns, over the front barricade. The "toff" looked at him, alert, frowning; but all the movements of these Hard Cases seemed belligerent to strangers, and Mike might not be going to rough-handle the brute. So he merely watched, intent. Mike took the end of the board and scrubbed the steer under its chin as it raised its great head, like a cat wanting to be scratched; it turned its head round and over slowly, to have the office well done all round.