"If you try to, he'll jump overboard."
[pg 210]
"And if he does, what of it?"
"If he does, there'll be a bad time ahead for you."
"There will? There's liable to be a bad time for you right now. Do you know you have no rights on this ship unless I say so? Don't you know I can put you in irons, too—that's marine law—if I feel like it?"
"I know what maritime law is. And that's the devil of it when there's a brute on the bridge. You can put me in irons if you want to, but I don't think you will."
"So?" sneered the captain. "I won't? And why not?"
"Because I'm no friendless seafarer. And also because—here's my card. Read it. It's the card of your boss, the man who can hire or fire you, or any other man or officer of this line. And I don't have to give you a reason unless it pleases me. But I'll give a reason at the right time—in your case. And the reason will leave you where you'll never again set foot on the deck of any ship of this line or of a good many other lines."
The captain had set his back to the rail and bared his teeth. Noyes, thinking he was about to spring, braced his feet and waited. Noyes himself was no angelic-looking creature at the moment. His jaw seemed to shoot forward, his eyes to contract and recede.