powerful woman, whose tongue
afforded presumptive evidence that she had been born in the Emerald
Isle.

"We'll stop where we be, master," said one of the emigrants, with a
quiet but resolute air.

"That's right, Joe, stick up. We ain't slaves," said another.

To this last speaker Malines turned fiercely and knocked him down; then,
seizing him by the collar and dragging him to the hatchway, he thrust
him below. It may be remarked that the man thus roughly treated--
Redding by name--was a little man. Bullies usually select little men
when inclined to display their courage.

"Shame on yez," exclaimed the Irish woman, clenching her huge fist. "If
it wasn't that I'm a poor widdy woman, I'd--I'd--"

"Howld yer tongue, Mother Lynch," whispered a lively youth of about
nineteen by her side, who obviously hailed from the same country. "It's
not aggravatin' him that'll do _him_ good. Let him be, darlin', and
he'll soon blow the steam off."

"An' what does it matter to me, Teddy Malone, whether he blows the steam
off, or keeps it down till he bursts his biler? Is it a descendant o'
the royal family o' Munster as'll howld her tongue whin she sees cruelty
and injustice?"

Without paying the slightest regard to this royal personage, Malines
returned to the group of men, and repeated his order to go below; but
they did not go, and he seized a handspike with a view to enforce his
commands. He hesitated, however, on observing that the man named Joe,
after quietly buttoning his coat, was turning up his wristbands as if in
preparation for a pugilistic encounter.

"Lookee here now, Mister Malines," said Joe, with a mild, even kindly,
expression, which was the very reverse of belligerent; "I was allers a
law-abidin' man myself, and don't have no love for fightin'; but when
I'm ordered to go into a dark hole, and have the lid shut down on me an'
locked, I feels a sort of objection, d'ee see. If you lets us be, us'll
let you be. If otherwise--"

Joe stopped abruptly, grinned, and clenched his enormous fists.

Mr Malines was one of those wise men who know when they have met their
match. His knockings down and overbearing ways always stopped short at
that line where he met courage and strength equal or superior to his
own. He possessed about the average of bull-dog courage and more than
the average of physical strength, but observing that Joe was gifted with
still more of both these qualities, he lowered the handspike, an