As they passed before us they favoured Mr. Pike with the same indifferent, keen glances they gave me.
“What’s your name—you?” Mr. Pike barked at the first of the trio, evidently a hybrid Irish-Jew. Jewish his nose unmistakably was. Equally unmistakable was the Irish of his eyes, and jaw, and upper lip.
The three had immediately stopped, and, though they did not look directly at one another, they seemed to be holding a silent conference. Another of the trio, in whose veins ran God alone knows what Semitic, Babylonish and Latin strains, gave a warning signal. Oh, nothing so crass as a wink or a nod. I almost doubted that I had intercepted it, and yet I knew he had communicated a warning to his fellows. More a shade of expression that had crossed his eyes, or a glint in them of sudden light—or whatever it was, it carried the message.
“Murphy,” the other answered the mate.
“Sir!” Mr. Pike snarled at him.
Murphy shrugged his shoulders in token that he did not understand. It was the poise of the man, of the three of them, the cool poise that impressed me.
“When you address any officer on this ship you’ll say ‘sir,’” Mr. Pike explained, his voice as harsh as his face was forbidding. “Did you get that?”
“Yes . . . sir,” Murphy drawled with deliberate slowness. “I gotcha.”
“Sir!” Mr. Pike roared.
“Sir,” Murphy answered, so softly and carelessly that it irritated the mate to further bullyragging.