Now, Jerry Hovey was a very big man, and he had thrashed men of larger bulk than Harrigan. But there was something about the Irishman's thickness of shoulder and length of arm that gave him pause. So first of all Jerry grew very thoughtful indeed, and then his habitual smile returned. Nevertheless, Harrigan did not forget those gray, alert eyes. The bos'n went on in a gentler voice: "I was tryin' you out, Harrigan. I'll lay to it that the cap'n has the wrong idea about you. But will you tell me why he's ridin' you?" "Sure. It's Black McTee. Before the _Mary Rogers_ went down, McTee was tryin' to break me. I guess he's asked this White Henshaw to try a hand. What have they got lined up for me?" "You're to scrub down the bridge an' while your hands are still soft you go down to the fireroom an' pass coal. It'll tear your hands off, that work." Harrigan was gray, but he answered. "That's an old story. McTee worked me like that all the time." "An' you didn't break?" gasped Hovey. Harrigan grinned, but his smile stopped when he noticed a certain calculation in the face of the bos'n. "Mate," said Hovey, "I guess you're about ripe for something I'm goin' to say to you one of these days. Now go up to the bridge an' scrub it down." With the prospect of the long torture before him once more, Harrigan in a daze picked up the bucket of suds to which he was pointed and went with his brush toward the bridge. Through the mist which enveloped his brain broke wild thoughts--to steal upon McTee at the first meeting and hurl his hated body overboard. Yet even in his bewildered condition he realized what such an act would mean. Murder on land is bad enough, but murder at sea is doubly damned by the law. It was in the power of White Henshaw to hang him up to the mast. Revolving these dismal prospects with downward head, he climbed from the waist of the ship to the cabin promenade, and there a voice hailed him, and he turned to see Kate Malone approaching. She was all in white--cap, canvas shoes, silk shirt absurdly lose at the throat, and linen coat with the sleeves turned far back so that her hands would not be enveloped. The duck trousers were also taken up several reefs. "Good morning," she said, and held out her hand. He watched her smile wistfully, and then made a little gesture with his own hands, one burdened with the scrubbing brush and the other with the bucket. "What does it mean?" "Hell," said Harrigan. "Explain." "It's McTee again, damn his eyes!" "Do you mean to say they've started to treat you as they did on the _Mary Rogers_? The scrubbing and then the work in the fireroom?" "Right." She stamped her foot in impotent fury. "What manner of man is he, Dan? He's not all brute; why does he treat you like this?" The Irishman smiled. She cried with increasing anger: "What can I do?" "Make your skin yellow an' your hair gray an' walk with no spring in your step. He wants to break me now because of you."