Captain Owen Kettle stumped cheerfully across to the port side of the bridge and looked down. Beneath him, massed and moving, was apparently every man of his crew. The electric lamp from inside the head of the companion-way blazed full upon them, dazzling some of the group, and blinding the others with dense black shadow. With folded arms he looked down on them for a full minute, with a silent, sneering laugh, till the upturned faces, which had been quiet in expectation, began to grow clamorous again. Then he waved them to noiselessness, and spoke. The man’s words were not conciliatory. He addressed his hearers as dogs, and wished to know, in the name of the Pit, why they had dared to leave their duties and their kennel to come to sully his bridge-deck. The harangue was brief and beautifully to the point. An ordinary seaman stood out into the middle of the circle of light, and made reply: “You gall us togs, und you dreat us as togs, und we’re nod going to schtandt it no longer. This grew temants its rechts!” “Hallo!” said Kettle, “got a blooming Dutchman to speak for you? Well, you must be a hard-up crowd! See here now, if you do want to talk, have your say, and be done with it. English is the official language on this ship; understand that, and don’t waste my time.” The German seemed inclined to bluster and hold his ground, but he had no backers. “If you’re undecided,” suggested Captain Kettle, “you’ve got a nigger amongst you; why not set him on to talk? If you were men, I wouldn’t say it; but he’s as much a man as any of you, and perhaps he’ll throw in a sand-dance to enliven proceedings.” The negro, from somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd, broke into a loud guffaw, till some one kicked him on the shins, and sent him away yelping _diminuendo_ into the farther darkness. An angry growl went up from the white men at the taunt, and one of them, a whiskered quartermaster in a cardigan jacket, stepped out and spat into the circle of light. He looked round to catch the encouraging glances of his mates, and then lifted up his face towards the upper bridge. “See here, Captain Kettle, you’d better not try us too far. This isn’t a slave ship you’re commanding. It’s a common, low-down, British tramp; and the law looks after the deck-hands and all the rest of us.” “Now that’s fair speaking,” said Kettle. “I’ve a profound respect for the Merchant Shipping Act and all the rest of the laws. My lad, if you fancy you’ve anything to complain of, a sea-lawyer like you must know the remedy. Get your witnesses and go with them before the British Consul in New Orleans.” “A fat lot of good that would do,” retorted the man. “What consul ever believed an old sailor against the skipper? No, sir; we’d only get penitentiary for our pains. Besides, what we want—and what we intend to have—is an alteration in things, beginning now.”