“If a knot’s untied, or a seal broken—my—my friend says there’ll be no split,” Drake grated.
“Unless he goes where splittin’ is hard, save he split rocks,” M’Ginley laughed, and he drew back. “That bearin’—it needs a pile o’ lookin’ after.”
He lumbered away. Drake sat there. The man Quayle, the silent, secretive Quayle came up on deck. He walked along. He bent over Drake. He whispered something. Drake sprang to his feet. Quayle was of an age with him, taller by a head, powerfully built.
Both the captain, staring down from the bridge, and Cray, peering out of his little window, saw Drake’s fist shoot out—a blow that seemed but to glance off Quayle’s jaw. Yet Quayle fell, lay there, knocked out.
Drake walked forward. He beat on Cray’s door with his fists, crying:
“What kind of a ship’s this? What sort o’ man are you? Blabbin’—blabbin’—”
The captain, clutching the bridge rail, leaned over and bawled:
“You keep still, mister. What’s wrong with ye? One more crack like that and—”
He paused. Tomorrow, when the pilot and whoever else was waiting came aboard, he would no longer have the power, save to stand dumbly by and watch.
But now, now Cray had his door open and was talking to the enraged Drake. And Drake, calming himself by an effort, was being drawn inside. The captain wished that this strange man Cray would leave that door open. He hoped, at least, that afterward he would tell him frankly what now was going on.