“They ought certainly to be kept in trim. Don’t want them to get flabby.”
“’Nother thing, they are livin’ too high,” said Stubbs. “Salt pork and hardtack is what they needs,––not beefsteak.”
“Nonsense, Stubbs. This isn’t a slave-ship. Nothing like good fodder to keep ’em in trim. They are getting just what you get at a training table, and I know what that does,––keeps you fit as a king.”
“Mebbe so. I’ll tell you what it’ull do for them,––it’ll inspire ’em to cut our bonny throats some day. The ale alone ’ud do it. Think of servin’ ale to sech as them with nothin’ to do but sit in the sun. Darned if they ain’t gettin’ to look as chubby as them babies you see in the advertisements. An’ their tempers is growin’ likewise.”
“Good fightin’ spirit, eh?”
“Yes,” drawled Stubbs, “an’ a hell of a bad thing to have on the high seas.”
“Well,” said Danbury, after a moment’s thought, “you have them up on deck to-morrow and I’ll have a talk with them.”
It was Danbury’s first opportunity to look over his mercenaries as a whole and he gave a gasp of surprise 151 at the row after row of villainous faces raised with sneering grins to his. Well in the front squatted “Bum” Jocelin, known to the water-front police for fifteen years,––six feet of threatening insolence; “Black” Morrison with two penitentiary sentences back of him; and “Splinter” Mallory, thin, leering, shifty. And yet Danbury, after he had recovered himself a bit, saw in their very ugliness the fighting spirit of the bulldog. He had not hired them for ornament but for the very lawlessness which led them rather to fight for what they wished than to work for it. Doubtless below their flannel shirts they all had hearts which beat warmly. So he met their gaze frankly and, raising one foot to a capstan, he bent forward with a smile and began. Stubbs stood by with the strained expression of a father who stands helpless watching a son do a foolish thing. On the other hand, Wilson, though he would not have done it himself, rather admired the spirit that prompted the act.
“Men,” began Danbury,––and Stubbs choked back an exclamation at his gentleness,––“men, I haven’t told you much about the errand upon which you are bound, but I feel now that you ought to know. You signed for two months and agreed to accept your orders from me. You were told there would be some scrapping–––”
“The hell we were,” broke in Splinter. Danbury, ignoring the interruption, blandly continued: