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Aye, he was a canny brute, was Captain Swope; he knew just how to play such a crowd as we were. And I think he thoroughly enjoyed such a cat-and-mouse game. There was valorous talk in the foc'sle, and half-veiled insolence on deck. These cringing stiffs began to swank and swagger.

Think of it, my last ship I had been ordered about by the foc'sle cock. I had gone to the galley at command and fetched the watch's food. Now, scant days after, I, a fledgling able seaman, was lording it over the foc'sle of the hottest ship on the high seas, and ordering another man to go after the supper. And he went.

Nils was very near the time when he must slip his cable; he lay quiet, eyes closed, hardly breathing, and his thin, white face seemed already composed into its death mold. Holy Joe sat holding the boy's hand; his head was bowed, and I judged he was praying. The others stared miserably at the floor, or ceiling, or at each other. Aye, the taste of bitter sorrow was in the air of the port foc'sle.

It did not help young Nils. But nothing could have helped Nils. The bucko had done his work too well. Not once did the boy rally; daily and visibly his life ebbed. You must understand the callous indifference of the afterguard to realize its effect upon the foc'sle. The boy lay dying for weeks, and not once did the Captain come forward to look at him.

He can be as technical as he pleases, and the reader takes him on faith, and rollicks along with him, bewildered, possibly, but trusting and happy. And Clark Russell has not only been charming. He has been useful, too, and Foc'sle Jack owes him a debt of gratitude.

I dodged across the deck and around the starboard side of the deck house, and thus came upon the scene in a casual manner, as though I had just stepped out of my own foc'sle to see what was wrong. I mingled with my watch mates, who had turned out to a man to watch the row. Over on the port side of the deck a royal shindy seemed to be preparing.

Sorry I can't accommodate you with red-hot shot, Tom Platt; but I guess we'll come aout all right on wind 'fore we see Eastern Point." There was an incessant slapping and chatter at the bows now, varied by a solid thud and a little spout of spray that clattered down on the foc'sle.

Very unwillingly he obeyed, and then a second man told him to go below into the foc'sle, and made such a threatening gesture with a belaying-pin, that the boy, now beginning to feel alarmed, at once descended, and immediately the fore scuttle was closed and bolted from the deck.

It never occurred to me they were industriously fanning the spark of revolt, suggesting revenge to the squareheads, and tickling the rascally imagination of the stiffs with hints of golden loot. So far my rule as cock of the foc'sle had been unchallenged. All hands had accepted my will in foc'sle matters willingly enough, and I had been careful not to hector.

I didn't like the way he lorded it over the stiffs in my watch, even if the stiffs themselves did like it. I didn't like the noise he made in the starboard foc'sle, or the hard case airs he assumed. I was number one bully in my watch, and intended to remain so. No doubt I was right. As I discovered in time, Cockney had a good reason behind his blatant tongue.