“DEALT HARVEY A BLOW IN THE FACE THAT KNOCKED HIM OFF HIS FEET.”
Holding him at the edge of the vessel, Haley shook him like a half drowned dog.
“Another cry out of you, and down you go!” he said. “I’d put you under now, if you hadn’t made good, up the river the other night. You get below, and don’t you let me hear a yip out of you. What’s the matter with you—crazy?”
Jack Harvey, half out of his wits with amazement, dazed from the blow, and chilled with the sting of the icy water that had wet him to the shoulders, stumbled below, without reply.
And aboard the steamer, Henry Burns turned to the captain, in dismay. Neither he nor his companions had distinguished the cry sent forth to them from the deck of the bug-eye, but they had seen a strange thing happen aboard the vessel they were watching.
“Captain,” said Henry Burns, his face flushing with indignation, “I guess what you said about rough treatment aboard those vessels is true. Why, I just saw the man at the wheel strike some one and knock him down.”
“The brute!” exclaimed the steamer’s captain. “I told you so. But it’s nothing new. It happens every day.”
“I’m sorry for the chap that got it,” remarked Henry Burns. “I hope he gets square with the captain, some day.”
And for half that night, Jack Harvey, tossing in his bunk, unable to sleep, wondered if what he had seen could have been true; wondered if his eyes had deceived him; wondered, even, if his brain was going wrong under his hard treatment.
Once he got up and roused Tom Edwards.