"Don't call me a mutineer, captain—I've disobeyed no order"
"Well, maybe I'll go over the side. But before [pg 209] I go, if I have to go, I'll have a word to say. You've been trying to break my nerve from the beginning. I know your kind that bully and starve your crew, and won't have a man on your ship that you can't bully and starve. And so you set your bully bosun to do me—do me to death, if he had to. And when he's not clever enough nor able enough, you'd put me in irons—in irons here on the high seas—out here where no law can get you!"
The first officer was now on the deck beneath the pump-man. "You'd better come down, Kieran. It will be the safest way in the end."
"Mr. Brown, you're a good officer, and I don't want to cross you, but you're not going to put me in irons."
The ship was rolling gently. Kieran rested one hand lightly, by way of balance, on a stay, and kicked his shoes overboard. "A step nearer, Mr. Brown, and I go after the shoes."
"But it's five miles to the Florida shore, Kieran, and alive with sharks. You'd never make it. Come on now."
"No. Five miles or fifty, I'll have a try at it."
Noyes now laid a warning hand on the captain's arm. "Are you going to insist on putting that man in irons?"
"I am. And stand clear of me, you."