[pg 208]
IV
"Irons?" The pump-man's head went into the air. For a moment he stood poised on the hatch like a statue. "Irons?" His face paled and hardened and his arms stiffened; but instantaneously, as half a dozen reached out to seize him, he ducked and twisted and side-stepped, and two, who could not be avoided, he knocked swiftly out of his way. He cracked a fist into one face, then the other. There was no malice in it; they simply barred his way to freedom. He leaped from combing to combing of the open hatches. It was thirty feet to the bottom of any one of these empty tanks, and those who followed did so at creeping speed.
He was clear of the mob. A light bound and he was on the ship's rail beside the after-rigging.
The captain, leaning as far out as the chart deck would allow, shook a raging arm at Kieran. "You'll assault, you'll batter my men right and left, will you, you crazy mutineer?"
"Don't call me a mutineer, captain—I've disobeyed no order."
"You are a mutineer. I declare you one now. And you'll go into irons."
"You'll never put me in irons."
"You'll go into irons or you'll go over the side."