"Have any trouble in the passageway?" I asked him, thinking he might have been a bit mixed in straightening out that gang below in the narrow space.
He gave me a look, a slanting glance from the corners of his little, screwed-up eyes, and then he turned his back upon me as if I had been bilge water, and offended his senses.
"Hey, Yellow Dog! What's the matter with you? Are you tongue-tied? Don't you know enough of ship's etiquette to answer an officer when he speaks?" I spat at him.
"I tlakee captain man—not you," he sang, in his musical voice, and he forthwith strode to the galley, where a Kanaka cook was busy with the dinner.
"You great big Yellow——" But there is no use of telling what I remarked to him as he went along that deck. As the officer in command at the moment, I was not a little offended by this high-handed way of a common Chink, more especially as I was inquiring for the welfare of his men.
The cook heard my note of temper, and refused the giant admittance to his galley's sacred precincts, whereupon Yellow Dog seized him by the scruff of the neck, and tossed him into the lee scuppers. He was about to pitch a pot of hot water on top of him, but I interposed an objection to this action in the shape of a belaying pin which, flung by my right arm under full swing, struck Yellow Dog fairly upon the skull-cap, and, bounding off, flew overboard.
The giant staggered, caught himself from falling, then he stood very straight, and gave me a look that for cold fury expressed more than I had ever dreamed possible in a Chink.
"Killee you fo' that," he hissed.
"Go on, do your killing, Yellow Dog," I snapped. "But take care you don't get something yourself—and the next time I speak to you aboard here, if you don't answer at once you'll find something else bounding off your dome that you'll remember for a long time. Now send your mess kids to that galley, and the cook will hand you out your rice and long-lick."
The men of my watch stopped work where they were, and grinned at the big Chinaman. Their contempt for the race was more than my own, and I knew I had the hearty approval of the sailors. At the same time I was sorry that the thing had happened, for the Chinamen who were already on deck passed the word along, and by the time I had finished talking the whole gang of them were standing about, with looks upon their faces that told of trouble.