her!" exclaimed Belfast with a heave
of the shoulders, "stand up, Jimmy."--"Keep away from me then," said
Wait, giving Belfast a petulant push, and reeling fetched against the
doorpost. His cheekbones glistened as though they had been varnished. He
snatched off his night-cap, wiped his perspiring face with it, flung it
on the deck. "I am coming out," he declared without stirring.

"No. You don't," said the master, curtly. Bare feet shuffled,
disapproving voices murmured all round; he went on as if he had not
heard:--"You have been skulking nearly all the passage and now you want
to come out. You think you are near enough to the pay-table now. Smell
the shore, hey?"

"I've been sick... now--better," mumbled Wait, glaring in the light.--"You
have been shamming sick," retorted Captain Allistoun with severity;
"Why..." he hesitated for less than half a second. "Why, anybody can see
that. There's nothing the matter with you, but you choose to lie-up to
please yourself--and now you shall lie-up to please me. Mr. Baker, my
orders are that this man is not to be allowed on deck to the end of the
passage."

There were exclamations of surprise, triumph, indignation. The dark
group of men swung across the light. "What for?" "Told you so..."
"Bloomin' shame..."--"We've got to say somethink about that," screeched
Donkin from the rear.--"Never mind, Jim--we will see you righted," cried
several together. An elderly seaman stepped to the front. "D'ye mean to
say, sir," he asked, ominously, "that a sick chap ain't allowed to get
well in this 'ere hooker?" Behind him Donkin whispered excitedly amongst
a staring crowd where no one spared him a glance, but Captain Allistoun
shook a forefinger at the angry bronzed face of the speaker.--"You--you
hold your tongue," he said, warningly.--"This isn't the way," clamoured
two or three younger men.--"Are we bloomin' masheens?" inquired Donkin
in a piercing tone, and dived under the elbows of the front rank.--"Soon
show 'im we ain't boys..."--"The man's a man if he is black."--"We
ain't goin' to work this bloomin' ship shorthanded if Snowball's all
right..."--"He says he is."--"Well then, strike, boys, strike!"--"That's
the bloomin' ticket." Captain Allistoun said sharply to the second mate:
"Keep quiet, Mr. Creighton," and stood composed in the tumult, listening
with profound attention to mixed growls and screeches, to every
exclamation and every curse of the sudden outbreak. Somebody slammed the