“And so you boxed up the crew, Captain Cary? That is a new one on me. And now you will have to turn ’em loose. How about that?”
“Not a thing to worry about, if you feel like turning to, Mr. Duff,” was the cheery assurance.
This compliment so astonished Mr. Duff that he blew his mustache like a walrus. He tried, with no great success, to push his chest out and pull his stomach in. His bleary eye brightened as he ripped out:
“Hell’s bells, young man, we’ll show ’em who runs this ship. Of course they may refuse duty and try to make you put back. Seems to me I heard some mention of a thousand dollars reward for you. It went in one ear and out the other. I never needed money bad enough to dirty my hands by crimping a fellow Yank in a foreign port. You’ll take my word for that.”
“I believe you, Mr. Duff. Then I will release the men and set the watches, if they behave themselves.”
“One moment, Captain Cary,” growled the beach-comber. “You bent a gun over my crust last night, and I’m willing to forget that, which is very handsome of me. But you insulted me professionally and I feel hurt. You called it a filthy ship. Let me tell you, I was commanding smart vessels when you were a clumsy pup. You don’t know what I have had to contend with in this blistered old scow that ought to be scrapped. The owner hollers murder when you ask him for paint. Now you back me up and I’ll make this ship so clean you can eat off her decks. You can’t tell me one bloody word about a chief officer’s job.”
“I apologize,” smiled Cary. “It was unfair of me. I snapped it out before I thought. Go to it. Between us we’ll shake the crew down.”
The swag-bellied Mr. Duff was pacified. He looked almost pleasant. His professional instincts had been not dead but dormant. Presently he trudged forward to pull the spikes from the doors of the forecastle house. The men came piling out, hungry and hostile. Mr. Duff’s fist smote the first one under the chin. The others took the hint. They were not so rampant.
On the bridge they happened to descry the figure of a very tall and broad young man with a thatch of yellow hair that shone in the sun like spun gold. In every way he was a most unusual young man. He was looking at them with steady, untroubled eyes, as if they were no more than so many noisy insects.
This was a great surprise. The young man could be none other than the dreaded Tigre Amarillo whose capture they had so gayly discussed for the fun of spending an imaginary fortune. Last night, when the boards had been mysteriously nailed on the windows, there had been frightened surmises—the man with the hammer had been ever so much bigger and more powerful than Mr. Duff—but they had later agreed that they were drunk and their vision was untrustworthy.