the inert body of the bosun rolled down the tarpaulined hatch and onto
the steel deck.

Noyes found himself gasping, almost as if he were in the fight himself.
Then he noted that Kieran had raised his hand and was addressing the
crew. "Holdup! You said the fight would settle it. Mind your words
now--fair play for one against you all. Fair play, I say," and they
might have scattered before this blazing, fighting pump-man in the full
lust of his power but for the carpenter, who poised a hammer to throw.
"What! you would!" yelled Kieran. A leap, a pass, and his fist smashed
into the lowering face. Over keeled the carpenter, a tall man, like a
falling spar.

"Put that man in irons!" Noyes jumped at the voice. The captain was
leaning over the rail beside him.


IV

"Irons?" The pump-man's head went into the air. For a moment he stood
poised on the hatch like a statue. "Irons?" His face paled and hardened
and his arms stiffened; but instantaneously, as half a dozen reached out
to seize him, he ducked and twisted and side-stepped, and two, who could
not be avoided, he knocked swiftly out of his way. He cracked a fist
into one face, then the other. There was no malice in it; they simply
barred his way to freedom. He leaped from combing to combing of the open
hatches. It was thirty feet to the bottom of any one of these empty
tanks, and those who followed did so at creeping speed.

He was clear of the mob. A light bound and he was on the ship's rail