“Faith and there’s no use in kicking,” replied the owner of the Heart of Ireland. “I gives in.”
“Then up on your feet!” said Blood, rising and putting the revolver in his pocket. “And up on deck with you! You’re one of the hands now, and if you ever want to see Frisco again, you’ll take my orders and take them smart. You’ll berth aft with us, but your rating is cabin boy, and your pay. Up with you!”
Ginnell went up the ladder, and the others followed.
Ginnell showed to the light of day two black eyes and the marks on his chin of the frightful uppercut that had closed the fight.
He looked like a beaten dog as Blood called the crew, in order to pick watches with Harman.
“I take the chap that’s steering,” said Blood.
“And I takes Pat Ginnell,” said Harman.
They finished the business, and dismissed the hands, who seemed to see nothing strange in the recent occurrence among the whites, and who were thronging now to the fo’c’s’le for their supper, their faces all wearing the same Chinese expression, the expression of men who know everything, of men who know nothing.
Then, having set a course for the San Lucas Islands, and while Ginnell was washing himself below, Blood, with his companion, leaned on the rail and looked at the far-away coast dying out in the dusk.