[pg 211]
"And so that's who you are, is it? And you'd break me?"
"Break you, yes. And perhaps put you in jail before I'm done with you. Now will you put him in irons?"
The captain did not spring. He walked to his room instead. And he gave out no order just then; but soon the mess-boy came out and whispered to the first officer, and the first officer said, "Kieran, you're to return to duty," and pocketed his irons and called off the men.
It was an hour after the fight. Kieran had had time to clean up, and now, with the passenger, he was pacing the long gangway.
"And would you have gone over the side?" the passenger had asked.
"I guess I'd had to, wouldn't I?"
"And would you have reached shore?"