a hand, too."

It is I who suppress the actual words reported by Jaffery. But, believe
me, they were enough to annoy anybody.

"She shouted down the stairway. 'Here you, Bill Figgins, come on deck
for a minute.'

"A lean, wiry, black-looking man-spawn of the Pool of London, emerged.

"'What's the matter?'

"Why did you call Petersen a ----?' she asked pleasantly and
word-perfect.

"'Cos he is one.'

"'He isn't,' said Liosha. 'He's a very nice man. And so are you. And you
both fought fine; I was looking on, and I was mad not to see the end of
it. But Mr. Andrews doesn't like fighting. So see here, if you two don't
shake hands, right now, and make friends and promise not to fight again,
I'll not speak a word to either of you for the rest of the voyage.'

"If I had tackled them like this, hefty chap that I am, they would have
consigned me to a shambles of perdition. And if any other woman had
attempted it, even our valiant Barbara, they would have told her in
perhaps polite, but anyhow forcible, terms to mind her own business. In
either case they would have resented to the depths of their simple souls
the alien interference. But with Liosha it was different. Of course sex
told. Naturally. But she was a child like themselves. She had looked on,
placidly, and had caught the flash of knives without turning a hair.
They felt that if she were drawn into a melee she would use a knife with
the best of them. I'm panning out about this, because it seems so deuced
interesting and I should like to know what you and Barbara think. Do you
remember Gulliver? For all the world it was like Glumdalclitch making
the peace between two little nine-year-old Brobdingnagians. The two men
looked at each other sheepishly. Half a dozen grinning heads appeared at
the fo'c'sle hatch. You never saw anything so funny in your life. At
last the lean Bill Figgins stuck out his hand sideways to the Dutchman,
without looking at him.

"'All right, mate.'

"And the Swede shook it heartily, and the grimy hands cried 'Bravo,
missus!' and Liosha, turning and catching sight of me just a bit abaft
the funnel beneath the bridge, for the first time, swung up the deck
towards me, as pleased as Punch."

* * * * *

Here is another extract. . . . Well, wait for a minute.

Jaffery's letters are an embarrassment of riches. If I printed them in
full they would form a picturesque handbook to the coast of the African
continent