“What have they done?” asked Trench.
“Done!—why, they have kicked and bitten like wildcats, and I doubt not have come over here to see what they can steal. In my opinion a thief deserves keel-hauling at the very least.”
Master Trench’s mouth expanded into a very broad smile as he looked round the group of men. “D’ye hear that, lads, what Master Swinton thinks ought to be done to thieves?”
The men broke into a loud laugh, for even the most obtuse among them could not fail to perceive the humour of the skipper’s look and question.
“You have nothing more to do wi’ the matter, Trench, than any one else has,” returned Swinton. “I claim these lads as my prisoners, and I’ll do with them what I please. No man is master now. Might is right on this island!”
The words had scarcely been uttered when Big Swinton felt his right shoulder grasped as if in a vice, and next moment he was flung violently to the ground, while Paul Burns stood over him with a huge piece of wood in his hand, and a half-stern, half-smiling look on his countenance.
The men were taken completely by surprise, for Paul had, up to this time, shown such a gentle unwarlike spirit that the crew had come to regard him as “a soft lump of a fellow.”
“Big Swinton,” he said, in the mildest of voices, “as you have laid down the law that ‘might is right,’ you cannot, of course, object to my acting on it. In virtue of that law, I claim these prisoners as mine, so you may get up and go about your business. You see, lads,” he added, turning to the men, while Swinton rose and retired, “though I have no wish to domineer over you or to usurp authority. I have a right to claim that my voice shall be heard and my reasons weighed. As Swinton truly remarked, no man is master now, but as he followed this remark by making himself master, and laying down a law for us, I thought it might be complimentary to him just to act, for once, under his law, and show him how well it works! Now, let me have a word with you.
“It is evident that the land over there is peopled with savages who, probably, never saw white men before. If we treat these young fellows kindly, and send them away with gifts in their hands, we shall, no doubt, make friends of the savages. If we treat them ill, or kill them, their relations will come over, mayhap in swarms, and drive us into the sea. I drop the Swinton law of might being right, and ask you who are now the law-makers—which is it to be—kindness or cruelty?”
“Kindness!” shouted by far the greater number of the audience, for even bad men are ready enough to see and admit the beauty of truth and justice when they are not themselves unpleasantly affected by these principles.