ng
his easy speech--"I do love a real fighting man. But your friends"--he
waved his hand toward the crew--"they must all stand that side. I want
no man between me and the rail this side, no man behind me. 'Tisn't
fair." He turned to them. "Play me fair in that. I'm giving your man the
slope of the hatch, and he's tall enough in all conscience without. So
let no man stand behind me."

The arms and torso of the pump-man, as he stood there naked to the
waist, amazed Noyes. It surprised them all. He had seemed only a
medium-sized man under the concealing dungarees. Noyes saw now that he
was a bigger man by fifteen or twenty pounds than he had had any idea
of; and were he padded with twenty pounds more, he would still be in
good condition. Not a lump anywhere; not a trace of a bulging muscle,
except that when he flexed his arm or worked his shoulders by way of
loosening them up he started little ripples that ran like mice from neck
to loins under the skin; and when, with this shoulder movement, he
combined a rapid leg motion, Noyes fancied he could trace the play of
muscle clear to his heels. His skin, too, had the unspotted gleaming
whiteness of high vitality.

"He's a reg'lar race horse--a tiger," burst out from one admirer in the
crowd.

The bosun, also stripped of his upper garments, looked all of his great
size, and, moving about, showed himself not altogether lacking in
agility. Lively, indeed, he was for his immense bulk, although, compared
to the pump-man in that, he was like a moose beside a panther. "It ain't
goin' to be so one-sided after all," whispered some one loudly, and
recalled the pump-man's leaping across the hatch that very morning. And
now, as he ducked and turned, seeming never to lack breath for easy
speech, there were others who were beginning to believe it would not be
so one-sided either.

"Speaking of wind-jammers, I remember"--the bosun had rushed past him
like a charging elephant--"hearing my old grandfather tell of seeing a
three-decker manoeuvring once. She'd come into stays about the middle of
the morning watch, he said, and maybe toward three bells in the second
dogwatch they'd have her on the other tack. A ship of the old line she
was, a terrible fighter, if only fighting was done from moorings; but
there were little devils of frigates kept sailing 'round and 'round her.
What? Why don't I stand up? Stand up, is it? Why, man, I don't see where
I've been hove-down yet. Hove-down, no, nor