"Well, Gib," replied the engineer, "I may be crazy, but I ain't no fool, and if there's a dead whale around the ship, I can come pretty near smellin' it. I tell you, Gib, that Tabu-Tabu nigger had a look in his eye for all the world like a cur dog lickin' a bone. I ain't takin' no chances. My old man used to say: 'Bart, whatever you do, allers have an anchor out to windward.'" "By the left hind leg of the Great Sacred Bull," snapped Captain Scraggs, "if you ain't enough to precipitate war." "War," replied McGuffey, "is my long suit--particularly war with native niggers. I just naturally crave to punch the ear of anything darker than a Portugee. Remember how I cleaned out the police department of Panama?" "Mount the guns if you're goin' to, Mac. If not, for the love of the Lord don't be demoralizin' the crew with this talk of war. All I ask is that you set the guns up after I've finished my business here with Tabu-Tabu. He's been on a war vessel, and knows what guns are, and if he saw you mountin' them it might break up our friendly relations. He'll think we don't trust him." "Well, we don't," replied McGuffey doggedly. "Well, we do," snapped Captain Scraggs. There is always something connected with the use of that pronoun of kings which eats like a canker at the heart of men of the McGuffey breed. That officer now spat on the deck, in defiance of the rules of his superior officers, and glared at Captain Scraggs. "Speak for yourself, you miserable little wart," he roared. "If you include me on that cannibal's visitin' list, and go to contradictin' me agin, I'll----" "Mac," interrupted Mr. Gibney angrily, "control yourself. It's agin the rules to have rag-chewin' and backbitin' on the _Maggie II_. Remember our motto: 'All for one and one for all'----" "Here comes that sneakin' bushy-headed murderer back to the vessel," interrupted McGuffey. "I wonder what devilment he's up to now." Mr. McGuffey was partly right, for in a few minutes Tabu-Tabu came alongside, climbed aboard, and salaamed. Mr. Gibney, fearful of McGuffey's inability to control his antipathy for the race, beckoned Captain Scraggs and Tabu-Tabu to follow him down into the cabin. Meanwhile, McGuffey contented himself by parading backward and forward across the fo'castle head with a Mauser rifle in the hollow of his arm and his person fairly bristling with pistols and cutlasses. Whenever one of the flotilla of canoes hove to at a respectful distance, showed signs of crossing an imaginary deadline drawn by McGuffey, he would point his rifle at them and swear horribly. He scowled at Tabu-Tabu when that individual finally emerged from the conference with Mr. Gibney and Scraggs and went over the side to his waiting canoe. "Well, what's in the wind this time?" inquired McGuffey.